I have the 5th Edition of this book, but, this can only be better I hope.

It is a very personal review of the states and what they have to offer and as opposed to other books that are just boring and incomprehensible listings of attractions and dining and lodging .
I actually went to some of the dining and hidden attraction recommendations from this book and it didn't fail me. All those places were certainly what the book said they would be or maybe more than that.

The only drawback i can see is that there wasnt any mention of good campgrounds that car-campers could easily refer to. But for that, you can look up "the best in tent camping".

Good Luck with your trips. I know mine was a great success.

If you love hiking and live in the Columbia Gorge area (or plan to pass through) this is a nice guide to have. I learned of hiking trails I didn't know existed and the Gorge seems to have plenty of them. Each hike is listed with a general description, the distance of the trail, how much traffic of people to expect there, the best season to go, the elevation gain and maximum elevation. A map is shown and directions to the hike are given along with detailed description of the hike. Many black and white photographs show views from the various hikes. My one disappointment with this book is that the Deschutes River trail that is branched off directly from the Columbia River Gorge is not mentioned in this book, because it is east of The Dalles; this book only mentions the trails from Portland to The Dalles.

The book "Ice Runway" details the highlights of a private pilots flying career on the West coast of Canada. If you are a pilot, or hope to become one, and plan to do any mountain flying at all, then this is the real life adventure book for you! Roy gives us the real-life wisdom and highlights of his 20 years of flying the west coast mountains. An engineer by profession, a rock climber by choice, Roy details how he mixed his love for flying, with his love for climbing by landing on many of the major glaciers and high mountain lakes in BC. Roy pushed his super cub to the limits, and when that wasn't enough he (and a few close friends) rebuild a super cub to go even higher and farther. And yes, he lived to write the book! Roy is a one of a kind, old , bold pilot.

This big thick tome is written by a renowned local outdoor writer and offers a huge amount of information about British Columbia and is a good companion for those who will be spending a lot of time in the area. It's obvious the author is well traveled as his descriptions are spot on. This great detail has a downside. If you're traveling to a place using this book it's often difficult to extract the highlights.

I've read a lot of reviews that compare the various guidebooks, but as each has a different niche this sometimes isn't fair, as in the case of this book, which excells in recreational coverage while only briefly covering places to stay and eat. Each chapter ends with a shortlist of places to stay and restaurants. These are condensed from another book in the series (so the Introduction says) and so in my opinion lose their usefulness as cutting corners has obviously come in front of continuing with author Christie's expert voice.

While the general information in this book is excellent and comprehensive, many things have changed since it was written, such as Forest Service campgrounds being free and the advent of the internet (no websites listed).

Joe takes his experience, local knowledge, some lore, as well as the technical "Sailing Directions" to put together an excellent feeling for what life along the Inside Passage is like. Transient, wet, varied, moving. Joe spent his young adulthood transitting this area from Seattle to the fishing grounds in Southeast and beyond. The book gives a good account on the differences in life between Alaska (fishing, logging, etc) and Seattle. This book is a good introduction to the Inside Passage, life on a fishboat, being away from loved ones, and the risks encountered at sea.

Enjoy cruising mostly inland waters that present more dangers than one imagines. This is a view from the cabin of a working boat, but translates very well to cruisers and sightseers who are planning a trip up the Inside.

This book is essential reading for a balanced understanding of Pacific Northwest Catholic missionary history. The subject of the book, Fr. Charles Pandosy, O.M.I. is a hero, a true pioneer and a witness to many of the events that shaped the present Pacific Northwest experience. The author provides good translations of early letters and documents related to the subject of his study. Although the footnotes are disorganized, the reflections upon the meaning of Father Pandosy's missionary life are apt. Father Pandosy was a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate of the first generation of his missionary congregation and of the first magnitude. French by birth, he loved God, the Native Peoples with whom he worked, music and singing. Kowrach conveys all the elements of this complex and interesting person. As very little is written about Father Pandosy, Kowrach breaks new ground with this effort.

A fairly comprehensive guide to Southwest BC. I've been doing some weekend road trips from Seattle and this guidebook has been a tremendous help. The maps are easy to follow and the route descriptions have been accurate so far. My only complaint is that the majority of rides are under 12 miles (though many rides can be combined to make longer days). Still, there is a good variety of rides including ones for less advanced riders. For riders living in the area or heading up for a vacation/road trip this guide should prove a good investment.

This book is a bit of an oddity. Mt. Rainer is such a presence, both on the horizon and in the coffee table book market, in the Northwest, that it's surprising that the writing in this book, treating a very large but so far as I know otherwise untouched topic, the early ascents of the mountain, is so unpolished. The original text was published some forty years ago, though, and writing styles have changed somewhat. I found the first chapter especially difficult, where you have to read pretty closely to keep track of which apocryphal climb is being discussed. I would have liked a bit more authorial opinion on how much validity to give the accounts of the pre-Stevens climbs. Dee Molenauer gives credence to the account of the two climbers guided by Saluskin, and it would be nice to hear Haines' opinions.

The book is laid out pretty strictly chronologically, which makes it a little difficult to follow the different threads of narrative: the story of the establishment of the national park, and the stories of the formation and collapse of the various climbing clubs, appear and disappear through the book.

The book is heavily footnoted, and the footnotes are pretty strange. Sometimes they contain information that really belongs in the text, other times they are the bibliographic references that you'd expect, other times, they are just odd. In some places, Indian guides' words are printed in their native language, and the English translation is saved for the footnote. In another place, a passage involving an uncomfortable bivouac around Camp Misery is footnoted with a passage from The Bible.

There is a lot of quite interesting information in here. Over the course of the book, we see climbs evolving from two-week expeditions into the unknown to comfortable travel along well-maintained roads up to the trailhead, followed by a predictable (often guided) ascent to a summit increasingly littered with artifacts of previous ascents.

The story of the "first ascent" of Stevens and Van Trump is well known, of course, including the fact that they had to take refuge in a summit steam cave to survive the night. But I had no idea that overnighting on the summit was a normal part of the climb for decades after.

Another aspect that emerges is the glaring difference between the physical fitness of everyday people then and now. The folks who climb Mt. Rainier these days are athletes. RMI and the park climbing rangers emphasize the difficulty and the need to work long and hard to get into first-class shape before attempting the climb. But the climbers of a century ago were apparently just everyday folks. There was an early climb by a group of newspaper reporters, there were climbs by doctors, and soldiers, and there is no indication that people spent six months at the gym working on the stairmaster to prepare for their climb, they just hiked in there, slogging up much more altitude than today's climber with much heavier and poorer quality gear. Imagine a climber of today hauling firewood up to Camp Muir! You're left with the impression that in a world without elevators and cars and power lawnmowers, climbing a 14,411 foot mountain isn't a tremendous feat of athleticism, it's just a slightly eccentric pursuit for people with some free time and a taste for adventure.

I enjoyed the book immensely, on balance. If you're interested in climbing Mt. Rainier, or have already climbed it, this is a book that will greatly enrich your experience.

Good photographs, but these alone are not adequate to allow identification of many of the species described. Since most distinguishing characteristics of related species are described in terms of "less than" or "more than" the species photographed, and since you often can't see those characters in the photograph, it is often difficult to use this field guide to distinguish between related species. The key is only to the family level

REVIEWED BY PHILIP GOLD http://www.washtimes.com/books/

The Congressional Research Service, part of the Library of Congress, is filled with people who do fine work. Among the best is Louis Fisher, legal scholar and CRS senior specialist in Separation of Powers. Mr. Fisher combines a plain, effective style with a mature analytic sense. The result has been over three decades of books and studies that - blessings upon the taxpayer - actually inform and affect the real world. "Nazi Saboteurs on Trial," which Mr. Fisher intends as a prelude to his definitive history of American military tribunals, is only the latest example.
This short, meticulously researched monograph assesses one of the stranger legal escapades of World War II. The facts of the case are not in question. What matters is how the military and civilian court systems performed, the interaction of the executive and judicial branches, and whether that episode should or could serve as precedent for the trial of terrorists and other "unlawful combatants" by military means.
Mr. Fisher's answer: While such types do not and should not enjoy automatic access to the U.S. civilian court system and its protections, the use of military tribunals raises questions that cannot and should not be ignored.
The facts of the case are these.
In the 1941 "Sebold Affair," the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the help of William Sebold, a German turned American counterspy, rolled up over 30 Nazi agents. Adolf Hitler, perturbed, demanded that English-speaking saboteurs be dispatched to America, there to smash factories and railroads and Jewish-owned department stores, spread panic, and generally make themselves a nuisance. German intelligence, the Abwehr, didn't think much of the idea, but deemed it prudent to keep the Fuhrer happy.
So they went out and recruited the original Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight: eight Germans who had lived in the United States (two of them naturalized citizens), but had returned to Germany in the '30s for various reasons. None was the brightest tree in the forest; group cohesion and mutual trust might be described as negative, at best. Still, the eight were given a few weeks' training, then toted aboard two submarines.
In June, 1942, one group landed in New Jersey, the other in Florida. They came ashore in German uniforms, which would give them combatant status in case of immediate capture. They then changed into civvies, buried their tradecraft, and walked off with not much more than their ample moneybelts and orders to win one for the Fuhrer.
They were apprehended quickly, mostly because one of their number, George Dasch, called the FBI to let them know they'd arrived. Perhaps none of the men intended actually to commit any sabotage. None did. But that didn't keep six of them from the electric chair that August, and two others from life sentences.
Justice, such as it was, came swiftly and questionably. President Franklin Roosevelt, taking a grim special interest in the case, determined to try them by secret military tribunal. He appointed the members and decreed himself the sole reviewing authority. Further, the tribunal would not be a standard court martial, governed by the Articles of War and other legislation. It would be an ad hoc commission, governed by the "laws of war" (a nebulous category) and empowered to make such procedural changes as it deemed expedient.
Among them: Although civilian and military courts could not impose the death penalty for actual acts of sabotage, this tribunal could, and did, for acts that were never committed, and may never have been intended.
Clearly, this setup raised numerous questions regarding the separation of powers, military jurisdiction in time of war, and of fundamental fairness. One of the defense attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court, which effectually evaded the issue until after the executions, then issued its opinion in Ex Parte Quirin - a document that did nothing for the luster of the Court, then or since.
In essence, concludes Mr. Fisher, the Supreme Court functioned as "an arm of the executive." It reaffirmed that enemy combatants have no constitutional right of access to civilian courts; that the two citizens had forfeited their citizenship by taking up arms; and that when they took off their uniforms, they became "illegal combatants" who could have been shot out of hand, but who were graciously afforded a trial.
Finally, the Court held that it could not assess the trial itself, since that was secret.
In sum, a mixed set of precedents, ranging from common sense to dereliction of duty. And the question arises - will we be able to learn from the affair to make the handling and disposition of terrorists and other "illegal combatants" both more effective and more just?
Or will we be fortunate even to do as well?