Having used this book to take just over half of the hikes it discusses, I highly recommend it to someone new to Colorado. I'm in the military, and my wife and I have only 2-3 years in each duty location. So, when I saw this book, I bought it and have used it extensively so far. I have only a couple of minor points to make about it, however. The author never reveals how she "grades" her hikes, and I strenuously disagree with 3 of the grades she doled out to particular hikes. The Pitkin Lake hike (near Vail) is by no means an "easy" hike--at best it's a high-moderate to low-strenuous! Also, the Rock Creek (also near Vail) hike is by no means one of the 40 best hikes Colorado has to offer. In fact, I'm baffled when trying to think why she might've included it in her book. Finally, the Three Island Lakes hike (near Steamboat Springs) is by no means a strenuous hike. At worst, it's a moderate. Still, the book has led me to THE most spectacular scenery I've ever seen, and I credit the author for that. I do wish she revealed the time of year she took these hikes, in addition to other hikes she took before coming to her conclusions. However, I will always be grateful to her for providing me and my wife with a valuable tool for finding some of the most beautiful places on Earth. I certainly don't regret buying the book, and in fact, I've given it as a gift many times. I've bought 2 copies for myself, having worn the first copy out in just two years. Another note: buy the binder edition. It has removable pages for taking the portion of the book that deals with the hike you want to take, avoiding your having to pack the entire tome around with you. Just slide the two or three applicable pages into the plastic cover (included with the binder edition), and off you go!

The book covers 40 hikes spread throughout the state. However, 15 of these are in Rocky Mountain National Park, and 12 near Aspen and Vail. This only leaves a sprinkling of hikes in a few other areas. That said, this is a wonderfully done, gorgeous book that you can get in a binder (more $) or paperback.

The binder allows you to remove pages to take on your hike (with an included transparent page cover). I like the binder because it gives the book a "coffee table book" feeling and the pages open flat.

The book is chock full of color pictures and tidbits on everything from critters and flowers to historical information, making it an interesting read. If you want to give someone a feeling for Colorado (I used to live there), this is the book to get them excited. The trails are mostly moderate in difficulty and length - just right for a 1/2 to full day's hiking. The trail descriptions and trailhead locations are excellently detailed.

This book is an excellent guide for hiking in Colorado. First, it has excellent pictures to give the reader an idea of the scenery. Then, it provides directions on how to get to the different parks. Also, it provides maps to the hiking trails and a lot of other useful information on whether dogs are allowed, whether the hike is suitable for family outing, whether there is a fee, phone numbers one can call, etc. The quality of the paper is astonishing. It also provides small paragraphs on bear etiquette, lions etiquette, etc. It provides information on the flaura and fauna expected to be seen on each hike. Very informative, very interesting and very useful book.

Harvey Butchart is of course the God of Grand Canyon hiking and this guide is essential for any serious backcountry canyon hiker. While hiking down to the river in Cottonwood Canyon, I was sent on a scary, exposure-filled detour by this guide. On returning home, I compared it to my old editions of the book and found that this reprint mistakenly drops an entire crucial line of text in the Cottonwood Canyon section, so beware.

Harvey Butchart is one of the greatest Grand Canyon hikers and his books are classics. But don't rely on them as your primary guide. They make great supplemental guides if you already have Annerino's Sierra Club guide.

Of course, Harvey includes routes you won't find in any other book, since he pioneered them. If you are a serious Canyon hiker, your library is incomplete without Harvey.

Butchart's book is the only reference to about half the routes talked about in the book! Having hiked several of the routes in the book, ive found the descriptions to give just enough information to get you going in the right direction without taking away the adventure of it all by telling you every detail that you will experience. A must for Canyon hikers.

As a former bookstore manager and 40-year resident of Colorado, I was curious about this book and spent a good deal of time browsing through it. The premise for the book does seem fairly compelling. John Fielder has traveled extensively throughout the state and is therefore in a good position to give advice to others about where to go, what to do, etc. However, after looking through the book, I discovered many flaws that may make it undesirable to buy.

If you are looking for a book that gives you true "insider" information on places to go, you'll likely be disappointed. Fielder left out many of the lesser-known scenic locations and generally only included the better-known places. I'm guessing that he did this because he doesn't want a flood of people rushing to these more pristine, less-crowded areas -- perhaps the book should be called "The Best of Colorado (that Fielder wants you to know about)."

If Fielder did intentionally leave out some of the more pristine places for conservation purposes, it makes one wonder why Fielder wrote this book in the first place. Fielder proudly claims to be one of Colorado's most ardent conservationists, and it is therefore a little perplexing why Fielder would write a guide book. He undoubtedly knows that more traffic to Colorado's scenic areas will lead to more desecration of the environment, regardless of how environmentally-conscious the visitors are. I would be interested to know how Fielder explains this apparent paradox.

One other problem with this book is its accuracy (or lack thereof). While other authors of guidebooks tend to spend much of their time writing and preparing guidebooks, Fielder spends most of his time taking photos. He did not appear to have time to check the accuracy of all the info he provided. For instance, in one case he stated that there were no roads leading into a canyon in southern Colorado. And while there may not have been any roads the last time Fielder visited it (10...20 years ago?), there is - for better or for worse - a road there now. This is just one of many errors that are rather inexcusable in a guide book.

One final problem I had with this book is the writing style. Before you purchase this book, keep in mind that Fielder is a photographer, NOT a writer. And, to be quite blunt, this is a very poorly written book. The photos in it are nice, as Fielder is one of Colorado's better nature photographers. But if you're looking for a well-written, well-organized, easy-to-follow guide book, I'd recommend that you look elsewhere. You might try the tried-and-trusted "Colorado Guide" or "Best of Colorado." Or, better yet, just buy a good map and discover Colorado on your own. Just about anywhere you go in Colorado is beautiful, and it's hard to really call one place "better" than another.

I have a very large collection of travel books, books on Colorado and scenic books- and this book rates way up there- it is DEFINITELY one of my favorites!

I didn't even know about it until I saw it at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. I knew right away that I had to get it. I have not been able to put it down ever since I got it.

This is a very large book- It is a huge beautiful book with 450+ pages. There are TONS of photos- practically on every page- in bright and vivid color.

The pictures in this book are absolutely gorgeous. Not only are there many, many scenic photos, but also pictures and descriptions of restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts, historical places, national monuments, national parks, state parks and MUCH more. John Fielder lists hiking trails in every area- and rates them easy, moderate or difficult.

For example, on the section about Colorado Springs and vicinity (Castle Rock, CO Springs, Manitou Springs, Cripple Creek, and Canon City), here are SOME of the things that are mentioned (pictures as well as decriptions):

Daniel's Park, Castlewood Canyon State Park,The Old Stone Church Restaurant, Gabriel's restaurant, The Augustine Grill, Maxwell House bed and breakfast, shopping (Prime Outlets at Castle Rock) History of the area, special events (Colorado Renaissance Festival), scenic drives (Rampart Range Road),
CO Springs: The Broadmoor Hotel, Garden of the Gods, Seven Falls, Glen Eyrie Castle, 4 wheel-drive trails, hiking, cycling and mountain biking trails, museums, and etc...
{This book is so extensive that I can't list them all}.

Manitou Springs: Pikes Peak Cog Railway, North Pole/ Santa's Workshop, Cave of the Winds, Miramont Castle, Mineral Springs, Pikes Peak Toll Road, Briarhurst Manor, Craftwood Inn, Red Crags Bed & Breakfast Inn, etc....

Cripple Creek: Gold Camp Road, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, hiking trails, Imperial Casino Hotel, Bronco Billy's Sports Bar and Casino, Mueller Ranch State Park, The Old Homestead House Museum, Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad, Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine, Restaurants, Double Eagle Hotel and Casino,

Here are some areas that are covered in this book:

**Denver and Vicinity- Gateway to the Rockies
-Denver, Boulder, Idaho Springs, Central City, and Black Hawk, Georgetown

**Colorado Springs and vicinity- Pikes Peak Country
-Castle Rock, CO Springs, Manitou Springs, Cripple Creek, Canon City

**The I-70 Corridor- Ski Country to Canyon Country
-Silverthorne and Dillon, Breckenridge and Frisco, Vail, Beaver Creek, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, Delta

**Northwestern Colorado: Northern Front Range to Dinosaur National Monument
-Fort Collins and Greeley, Estes Park, Grand Lake, Winter Park, Walden, Steamboat Springs, Craig, Meeker, and Dinosaur National Monument

**Central Colorado: Heart of the Rockies
-Fairplay, Leadville, Buena Vista and Salida, Aspen, Basalt, Carbondale, Redstone and Marble, Crested Butte, Gunnison and Montrose

**Southern Colorado- I-25 to the Eastern San Juan Mountains
- Westcliffe, Walsenburg and La Veta, Alamosa, Monte Vista, Del Norte, South Fork, Pagosa Springs, Creede, Lake City

**Southwestern Colorado- The San Juan Mountains and Anasazi Country
-Durango, Silverton, Ouray, Ridgway, Telluride, Dolores, Cortez

**Eastern Plains- The Prarie Grasslands
-Fort Morgam, Sterling, Trinidad, La Junta, Springfield

I HIGHLY recommend this book! It is a BEAUTIFUL book- with very extensive information. You will not be disappointed!

Number one Colorado getaway guide. Colorado has much to offer in the way of scenic day outings as well as weekend jaunts therefore, it's somtimes difficult to choose a new place to explore, especially if you are limited on time. Fielder manages to highlight Colorado's most interesting and beautiful places and presents them to you by region. Great, to-the-point summaries and terrific photos. No book is better whether you reside in the Rocky Mountain state or you're simply visiting and taking it all in in a mere week or two.

My ex-girlfriend gave me this book to read because it takes place in her home town (Fort Collins, Colorado) and she found it interesting for that reason. I suppose if you cmoe from Fort Collins or a similar college town you might like it, but it's not the most intriguing book ever written.

A psychologist has a lot of patients as well as a wife and son who give him problems but he never seems to connect with anyone. The epileptic son of a Holocaust survivor has some nice moments but he's largely a victim. The horrid professor provides some nice moments with the psychologist as he hates her, but it doesn't sustain the novel, since the reader also hates her.

For the most part everyone in this book is too affluent, too white, too WASPish. Even though the main character is supposed to be Jewish he's so assimilated that you wonder why it's even mentioned. His parents are the most interesting characters in the book because they seem to have escaped from a Philip Roth novel, but somehow they just aren't that true. Everything that they do is ethnic stereotype. They are there to be loud, pushy and whine about how the psychologist isn't going to raise his kid Jewish or even get a bris for the kid. (if the author knew any yiddish they would complain that the protagonist was shtupping a shiksa, but thankfully it seems that Mr. Schwartz has not read those particular issues of Mad magazine.) They come in, they leave and we get back to the hopeless whiners. They don't feel real, but compared to the real characters, they are a bit of a relief.

This is a great book for people who like literature about "everyday people", the upper middle class who just wants to get by and be normal. My taste runs more to the bizarre, the interesting and the unique and I could not relate to people who's only goal is to be normal or well liked (this is also why I cheer when Willy Loman dies at the end of Death of a Salesman)

The characters in this book are confused. The characters in this book are confused. And they are embarrassed by their Jewish parents.
Too bad the characters in this book aren't very exciting. These characters make the Thirtysomething gang seem fun by comparison.
Still maybe his next book will be better.

I read this book two years ago, and think about the characters still...like people I knew. The story was that believable to me. Steven Schwartz drew me in to this story, and I took my time reading because I didn't want it to end!

this book was confusing and very not meaningfull i thought that page lambert did a bad job.

Very good reading, with excellent comments on the Grand Canyon, the experiences of rafting the river and essays on how the canyon touches people in different ways. I have just completed an 8 day trip of over 280 miles in the canyon and experienced every emotion and awe-inspiring moment described in the book. The photographs are worth the purchase price alone. A must read before and after taking a trip down the wonderous Colorado in the Grand Canyon

Writing Down the River grabs your heart and broadens your understanding of the power of the western landscape. The photographs are amazing in themselves; the essays stunning.

Sybil Downing, award winning author of Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange

While this is not among the best books written by this author, it comes a close second. Kat is largely away from home in this book so her interactions with her family, best friend and boyfriend are not as frequent in this book as in most others. For me, it is the interactions among these characters that are a major strength of the books in this series - along with the usually terrific plotting. But, the plotting was a bit lacklustre in this outing and not as compelling as other books in the series. Nevertheless, this is still a good read from reliable story teller.

I usually have an idea of who the culprit is in mystery stories. In Honky Tonk Kat I had not a clue. There were so many different suspects I just could not pick one person to focas my attention on. The part I enjoyed most about this book was the flashbacks. Overall this was a very gripping mystery. The only reason why I didn't get a whole full five stars was because some of the family history part was very hard to keep straight. But, overall a very good mystery and worth taking a look at. Even if you are not intrested in country music. A fun read!

This was my first Karen Kijewski book, and I really enjoyed it. Fun, realistic characters - and you are kept wondering who the culprit is. It makes me want to read more of her books. If you're looking for something to change your life, this isn't it. It's just fun to read.

Since my youth, I know the existence of Janet Dailey, but I never wanted to try her books. And some years ago, when I heard about the plagiarism she made on Nora Roberts books (and Nora's one of my favorites), I was disgusted.

But the worlds keep moving, and then, ILLUSIONS came to my hands and I started to read it. And believe me, I loved this book. I couldn't believe that it was plagiarism, and later I knew it wasn't. Janet has a very nice sense of humor, she made up adorable characters on this book and a very nice plot that kept me reading during the whole night. It's the kind of book that sometimes it's not so interesting but that is never boring. I loved this book and I'd highly recommend it for fans of this genre. Janet is a very good writer.

This book started out with a cast of interesting characters, however, early on you could figure out who Delaney would end up with. Jared, Lucas, and Riley all interested in Delaney, lots of side characters that were quirky (her dad, Toby, Susan, Delaney's staff, Rina, the lawyer). It was a fun summer read, went quickly, and had a plot instead of girl meets guy who she doesn't like but who likes her, etc., etc.

I thought it was very good. I was kind of surprised about the end but it was good regardless.

I have read all of Janet Dailey's and this is the best one yet.

This is a fairly entertaining book that established Clarke as "the inventor of the communications satellite."

Islands In The Sky is certainly not on par with such later Clarke masterpieces as 2001 or Rendezvous With Rama, nor is it intended to be. This very, very early Clarke novel is just about the only work in his entire canon that seems to have been written with the teen audience in mind. The protagonist is of the "coming of age" age that is commonly featured in such stories, and Clarke uses this to narrarate the story in a slightly condescending, naive tone that is appropriate for such a character. It's quite different for Clarke, who usually writes in such a philosophical, poetic style. It reminds a lot of Robert A. Heinlein's many excellent juvenile novels. As such, this book, while far from being Clarke's best work, this book serves as an excellent introduction to Arthur C. Clarke's incomparable canon, or to the wonderful world of science fiction.

My first sci-fi book. Embedded in my memory. Bought by a parent at a rummage sale some time around the early 70's. Lost it. Now I've ordered it for my 8-year old son (who reads more than I do).

Numerous beautiful photos. Somewhat short as far as the text and descriptions are concerned, but overall a good guide for exploring. This book won't be a "travel video" for those who don't want to go exploring. It gives you enough to want to drive the backroads and see everything for yourself.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience the thrill of finding those lesser-known, out-of-the way, and ultimately unforgettable scenic areas of Colorado. Illustrated with magnificent photographs, this is a guide intended to put you on the right track toward creating a unique adventure of your own. Unlike other travel books, this is not a step-by-step slog through all the tourist traps in Colorado. The best part about this book is that it captures the character of a given area, gives you enough information to pique your curiosity, helps you find your way there, and leaves the rest of the exploration up to you.

In addition to maps, illustrations, and a general guide about each area, the book also contains many "Colorado Sketches", brief vignettes about historical characters and events which are not only entertaining to read, but help capture the flavor of the history and culture that make up this great state of ours.

Overall, it's not only a great guide, but a good read as well. Buy one for your coffee table, and another to keep in your glove box!

Well written and easy to follow. We used the guide during our trips to the hidden places in Colorado and found it to be easy to follow without being overly explicit with too many details. Lived in Colorado for several years and this was our weekend guide when we wanted to get away from the front range crowds.

While filled with approach and route info, this book is less than I'd hoped for or expected. The maps are printed at such a small scale that you almost need a magnifying glass to read them, I found the route numbering system and many of the extremely detailed route descriptions confusing even on climbs I'd already done (does anyone really have a sense of what 0.1 mi is?), and few of the photos are really of much help - better captions would certainly help. Many of the routes I'd expected to see described weren't mentioned at all even though the book is pretty hefty, partly because of a lot of duplication of material. I've found the accuracy of the driving distances to various waypoints to vary considerably - sometimes they're right on, other times they're long by up to 10%. And I think they've misclassified several of the climbs, though partly this is due to a confusion over whether they're using the Colorado standard for 3rd and 4th Class climbs or the California standard.

I could also say I found the closing essay on guide books in general both puzzling and annoying. The authors write as if their's is the first book (or webpage) in this area ever revealed to the world when it's not; the essay only highlights the fact that they ignore all who have gone before.

The book is not a total waste of money, but I'll probably stick with my 1st ed Garratt & Martin and/or Rosebrough (for the San Juans) as my primary sources even if they're not the most up-to-date books out there. Perhaps a later edition will be better than this 3 - 3 1/2 star effort.

Colorado's Thirteeners: From Hikes To Climbs is a superbly presented, full-color guidebook to Colorado's highest mountains in the 13,800 to 13,999 feet range. Presented for the edification of outdoor enthusiasts, Colorado's Thirteeners includes 59 major peaks in six of Colorado's mountain ranges (Front Range, Tenmile-Mosquito Range, Sawatch Range, Sangre de Cristo Range, Elk Range, San Juan Range); 202 routes to the major peaks (71 routes on 71 additional peaks); 96 trailheads with detailed driving directions; twenty-two different approaches to the remote peaks; distance, elevation gain, difficulty scale, and effort ratings for each route; thirty-three full-color, annotated topographic maps; more than sixty full-color, annotated photographs; and three comprehensive tables of Colorado's highest peaks. If you are planning an outdoor vacation of hiking, climbing, and camping in the mountain country of Colorado, begin your planning with Gerry and Jennifer Roach's Colorado's Thirteeners!

This is the best book I have seen on Colorado 13ers. It lists at least 2 routes per mountain with a few exeptions. He tells the difficulty of each route and from that I can know if that mountain or route suits me. There are lots of coler pictures of the mountains and topo maps of each mountain showing the route up each peak. The routes are coler coded so you can see what class the routes are. It also gives a unofficial name to many of the unnamed peaks. The back of the book has 3 lists of all mounttains in colorado above 13,000 feet which also includes every point that reaches above 14,000 feet. This book with a 14er guide will tell you how to climb colorado's centenials.