I just took this book to Yellowstone and found it indispensible! We quickly gave up using the official park guides to the various geyser basins and relied on this book to tell us all about the different geysers and their histories. The book is packed with information about the history of Yellowstone. It even has a flora and fauna guide! Included are lists of suggested sights to see, hikes to take, driving distances, road maps (but no topo maps), discussions about how geysers work, the Yellowstone caldera, the 1988 fires, where to stay, etc. The book is printed on nice paper and the photos are in full color. This is really an indispensible book to bring along on your next visit to Yellowstone!

Janet Chapple's Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler's Companion To The National Park (together with its companion website www.yellowstonetreasure.com) is the quintessential guide to the oldest national park in America. The second largest national park (after Death Valley), it is also the most varied park in the continental United States. This impressive and comprehensive guide showcases all the places of interest to be found along Yellowstone's 350 miles of park roads. Information is provided on the geological and historical background of the area, including geyser basins, wildlife-viewing spots, waterfalls, and unique vistas. The supplemental website provides practical advice on trip planning, descriptions of the seasons, and up-to-date information on hot springs, striped mountains, and even alpine windflowers. If you are planning a visit, then begin with a careful reading of Yellowstone Treasures and checking out its remarkable and "user friendly" website.

This is a handy and detailed guide to Yellowstone with descriptions of the Park's features arranged by the five main roadway entrances: West, South, East, Northeast, and North, plus the Bechler Region.

For each approach there is a full color map with icons symbolizing the main attractions, facilities, trails and so forth. The guide then takes you mile by fraction of mile with a description of the historical, geological and natural features you will encounter. There is also a historical chronology, a discussion of the wildlife, an chapter on the 1998 fires, and a lot of useful travel phone numbers and tips.

The inset maps, pictures, and sidebar stories are wonderfully presented-- when you look at this book you will be drooling to visit the Park! It is beautiful, and the solid fund of information makes it a good buy at only twenty bucks. The geologic explanations are particularly neat.

This is a guide that will suit educated visitors (and daydream wanderers) who have want to know the story behind the major and minor sights. You may need a more tourist oriented guide if you want detailed info on in-park and near-park lodgings and places to eat. Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park by Lee H. Whittlesey would make a fine counterpart to Yellowstone Treasures.

Very useful simple guide. I use this along with Best Easy Day Hikes to plan my hikes Oct 2002 - see curiouscat.com/travels for photos from the hikes shown in the book.

Small and light (great for backpackers) cheap (great for everyone) and best of all, it gives what the title says. A great day-hiking guide for the park, offering some of the lore and background history of the Tetons, information concerning the park's geology, biotic communities, native wildlife and weather conditions. You'll never find a book on the subject that gives you more (or even close to as much) for such a low price. Can't be beat--a must for anyone planning a trip to the Grand Tetons.

Imagine piling into the car with 4 kids, luggage and 3 dogs for your next vacation and not having any idea as to what you can do with the dogs once you get there. That was us last summer, heading off to Jackson Hole, and had it not been for this book which was refered to us by another friend, we would have never taken our dogs with us. It explains where good areas our to take your dogs, what to expect if you run into wildlife...bears etc. We never did, but we were prepared thanks to this book. The author did a wonderful job of reasearching all the valuable information in this book. Becuase of the information in this book, the whole family, from the kids tro the pets had a great time. If you are planning a trip to the Jackson Hole area with your pet, this is a MUST read before, and during your trip!!!

Does your dog dislike being left alone? More importantly, do you have a hard time leaving your dog, even for world-class travel destinations? Whether you are a would-be traveler to Jackson Hole Wyoming, or a local with a dog, this book will help and inspire you. "Doggy Doings" is, as the title says, a complete reference of information you will find nowhere else. There are chapters that will give you specific and immediately useful information such as where you can go hiking with your dog. For some reason, I particularly enjoyed the chapters with more "surprising" information: chapters that offered the kind of tidbits you like to think you never will need -- such as what to do if you and your dog encounter large wild animals -- bears or moose. The chapter on dealing with any type of emergency made for suspenseful reading. In all likelihood, most of us never will encounter those situations: the majority of the book deals with all the pleasures that you and your dog hope to find and can expect to find in one of the most beautiful spots on earth. This book, like the area it describes and helps you to access, is truly one of a kind. I highly recommend it and wish there were one like it for every area of the country. I liked how the book took into acount and reached for a true community of people, environment and animals. You will both enjoy and use this book.

Sometimes the hardest part of getting to Beartooth-Absaroka lakes is finding the trailhead. Great detail is given by Pat Marcuson in traveling this incredible area. After 50/60 trips into this wilderness I wouldn't be without this book! I met Pat several times in the late seventies and his knowledge of this area is quite remarkable and reflected in this book.

I've been there and the few lakes I've experienced we're exactly as described in the book. You can't value the information here! Great job.

Wow. If you are looking for the tell all book for flyfishing Wyoming....you found it. To say that this book is comprehensive does not do it true justice. It covers every single stretch of water worth throwing a line into. In addition, it gives seasonal water informaiton including flows, hatches, and species. If you live in the west, or if you dream of fishing there, this book is a MUST OWN. I think to fish Wyoming without reading it would be a waste of your time.

This is not only the best fly fishing guide to Wyoming. Retallic has written one of the best fly fishing guides ever. Of particular excellence is his description of Yellowstone.

great book. very informative. Easy reading. All the info you will need to plan your trip.

This is more than a guidebook; it is an enticing narrative into a remote and spectacular wilderness land. Lee Mercer and Ralph Maughan lead you into the untraveled nooks and crannies of the Yellowstone Ecosystem with grace and respect for this most magnificant of landscapes. This is the best written, most informative, and most readable guidebook I've ever encountered. The photo quality makes the reader salivate for a chance to encounter this spectacular wilderness land in the first person. This book has something for everyone---from short day hikes to two week backpacking trips. Tips and suggstions abound, as the authors describe river crossings, grizzly country etiquette, trip planning, and off-trail segments in painstaking detail. The hikes in this guide book offers both the experienced and novice backcountry adventurer everything they've ever dreamed of, without the crowds found in Grand Teton National Park, Glacier, or the Wind Rivers. Once you start reading this, your first response is: I want to go hiking here! I read the book from cover to cover, and that is something I've never experienced before with any other guide book. This is a "must have" guide book to the last great place in the lower 48 states---big, rugged, wild,and utterly spectacular. Best of all, your solitude is assured. Buy a copy of this book, and prepare to be amazed!

Lonely Planet's new book about Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons is a lively, well-written and comprehensive guide to the best place on earth. It's accessible and authoritative, in the typical LP manner. Throw it in your rucksack or in the glovebox - it's worth it's weight in gold.

Our family just returned from Yellowstone and Grand Teton and this book was an integral part of our trip. You'll find the maps are very accurate and informative. Everything you need to know about Yellowstone is in this book- from Campgrounds to places to raft, eat, hike, wildlife view and lounge. DO NOT LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THIS BOOK!

After I heard Caroline Marwitz speak on Wyoming Public Radio about her book, Naming the Winds, I had to buy a copy. You see, so many talented writers such as Gretel Erlich visit Wyoming, and are so taken and inspired by its stark, demanding beauty, that they end up staying a while and writing their best work as a result. And for this, all of us sensitive readers in Wyoming are very, very grateful. No surprise to me that Wyoming has this effect on people, as I have lived here nearly all my life.

However, with this latest quiet ode to Wyoming--and I fear that it will remain all too quiet without people far more influential than I shouting its virtues from the mountaintops--a Wyoming writer, someone raised here through her youth and early adulthood, has captured the true full naturalist's experience of this state.

Marwitz interweaves the narrative of a talentedly sensitive girl's apprenticeship on "The Prairie", as she calls it, with the fascinating story of her relationship with a mentor in the form of a much older woman willing to share her amazing background and a subsequently thrilling outlook on life. Though nonfiction, this book has a clear storyline, with direction, plot, climax, and a wonderful conclusion. That said, I would do a serious disservice to Naming the Winds if I didn't say that the strength of this book is the honest, non-high-fallootin', lyrical poetry used to describe the natural environment of the high plains. No other word but 'poetry' fits for many of the chapters of this great work.

The author's bio says that Marwitz is working on a second nonfiction work, as well as finishing a novel, Chameleon Man. I just wanted to say that she has at least one devoted reader and fan for all her future work in Thermopolis--one who is spreading the word every chance I get.

Plainly put: Anyone who thrives on naturalist works by western writers such as the late Edward Abbey, William Kittredge, and Terry Tempest Williams, will enjoy discovering this newest talented writer.

Naming the Winds is a small gem of a book that will be recommended by word of mouth, from one friend to another. It is organized by the seasons (mid-summer, late autumn, winter, deep winter, etc.) and by the winds that the author named as a child (Thunder Hoof wind, Silk Wind, Grass Comb Wind, etc.) Like many of us who grew up before computers and the internet, she roamed the wild, left-alone land behind her family's house in Laramie, Wyoming, and came to know the flowers, sagebrush, prairie dogs, and yucca as friends. Though I don't live in Wyoming, where it is set, I can identify with the author's sadness when the land she grew up on is bulldozed for streets and houses. She tells stories about an elderly woman who befriended her, who also loved to roam the land, and the "apprenticeship" she had with the elderly woman as she learned about the plants and flowers and skies of southern Wyoming. It's a quick read, but you'll want to take your time, as the author is a poet with images and colors. It'll make you want to go back to where you grew up and see if your favorite wild places are still there. I would recommend men buy this book for their wives, and women buy it for their mothers. I certainly am.

This is book 2 in the Wagon's West series.

The wagon train is now heading into new territory for them. They are on the way to Oregon and are leaving Independence, MO behind. They are also now being led by Whip Holt. They are traveling through Nebraska and continuing westward.

This is the story of their struggles against the British & Russian forces trying to keep them for making the trip as well and the environment and Native Americans.

This book is one of the 6th printing from back in the late 70's. If you are interested in the settlement of the American West this is one series that you need to revisit.

This is a book I keep reading again and again. It just is a terrific read. If you're interested in the history of early America, then this is THE series for you!

On analogy with another field of human pleasure, we can say that the brain is the most important piece of angling equipment we own. Some fishermen are of very little brain, others of massive. NOTES FROM AN OLD FLY BOOK issues from the latter species.
Let us first admire the sheer balls of the man. To commit yet another book of reflections on fishing! I mean, really Hedda, people don't do such things. They don't unless they can leap over that toppling pile next to your chair and bring something new to the party.

While it's easy to poke fun at earnest people (such as write about angling, there's no denying that Wickstrom is in large company with this book. I'm happy to report that he fits right in, while occupying his own unique niche.
That niche might be labeled "Sentimental Intelligence." Of course, sentiment is much maligned these days. Like any human faculty, it can, exercised in excess, produce a pretty loathsome babble, on and off the page. The current sentimental tsunami, Political Correctness, having swept clean our few remaining beaches of reasonable discrimination into a very mere pudding, only now recedes. Wickstrom bravely stands up in the undertow and dares to write with serious sentiment about his beloved avocation. Good on him, sez I!

Wickstrom's sentimentality directs itself primrily to the past, often the very distant past. He properly reveres the past and much of what he writes could be called history, in the best sense. That is, he mines the past for significance, for the odd shy fact no one else has noticed, the contribution of someone hitherto unknown or neglected.
More important, to my mind, he mines his own wide and thoughtful experience for those feelings we've all had but have mostly set aside in the press of daily affairs. Wickstrom boldly tells us about his past in order to bring life to our own. He evokes his personal history, not to parade its value or to wallow in regret for snows past, but to revel in celebration: again and again he creates history that illuminates the now, that offers his readers a chance to understand and celebrate their own feelings through their sympathy with his.

One last word: about the technical accomplishment of this fine book. Wickstrom manages with grace and vigor to create that most elusive quality of ggod writing: a sense in the reader that nothing but this writer's concerns matters very much. He does this in the time-honored way of the grat wriiters: he lays bare his own intense concern and bids us follow him. So indeed we do.
But this laying bare doesn't just happaen. There's laying bare and then there's laying bare. Wickstrom does the second kind, and skillfully. He makes sentences and paragraphs that display their content in shapes, frames, of clear, simple beauty. The best example I can give is this: I had thought to conclude this review with a quotation, a sentence or two lifted from the book that would both demonstrate the quality of his prose and neatly conclude this encomium. But I can't find a sentence or two that will consent to be so lifted. Everything's of a piece, each thought sliding effortlessly into the next. Effortlessly for us, of course, not for him. We know that effortlessness, how truly hard it is, how valuable when someone masters it, and how necessary that we love and celebrate it as Wickstrom loves and celebrates his new and ancient art of fishing with an angle.

Gordon Wickstrom is a WWII Navy veteran, a graduate of Standord with a Ph.D., a college professor, and a serious student of Shakespeare. For the past sixty years, when asked about his occupation, he said he was a fisherman and a teacher, in that order. With the publication of this book he can truthfully include author, a good author, to the list.
This is a elegant book about fly-fishing and so much more. Wickstrom has spent sixty years fishing in his native Colorado streams and rivers as well as legendary rivers in Ireland and the fabled chalk streams in southern England. During that time he has not only studied the intricacies of the sport but thought about it's connection to literature, music, Shakespeare, friends, family and other things that matter. Drawing upon his storehouse of knowledge and experiences he has written this small, remarkable account of anglers and their calling that is destined to become a classic. The book contains stories, essays, poems, biblical passages, and a song to explain who fihermen (and women) are and why they do what they do. Indeed, it is an attempt to understand WHY anglers do what they do rather than simply what they do.
In numerous short essays he suggests that given the "...vast, detailed, and powerful..." expanse of literature and its impact on anglers, that perhaps fishing is really the material expression of the literature. Thus, it could be that literature came first and then the angler. In his elegant, understated, sometimes humorous manner he summarizes such literature and how it has affected the sport in general and himself in particular. This is an interesting thesis that will give the reader pause. The story of his affliction common to the most serious anglers, the never-ending accumulation of rods, reels, lures, and other "essential" tackle, and how he came to realize that really the most important item was his 1937 Chevy Coupe, is a delight. The essay on the catch-and-release program now in vogue is a thoughtful treatment of the subject, both pro and con, and will give the novice and serious angler alike pause for reflection. Interspersed throughout the book are short stories about the history and characteristics of legendary flies that a surely found in many an anglers Fly Book.
This book will speak to the heart and soul of any reader remotely interested in the fly fishing phenomenon, literature, music, family, friends and a host of other things that matter in life. I am usually skeptical about the need for another book on fishing but this is a worthy exception.