Oswald, Michael Joseph. The Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks. Stone Road Press, 2023.
Reason read: I am very excited about this Early Review pick from LibraryThing. I love to hike. I want to travel around the country and see every national park. I’ll be sure to take this book with me.
First impressions after cracking open The Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks:
- Beautiful color photographs in full page.
- The copyright is amusing.
- Easily organized by regions: East, North, South, Southwest (because it deserves its own chapter), West, Alaska, and Remote Islands.
- Good to know the average distance of hikes is 5.8 miles (almost my favorite distance).
- Maps are generated from USGS National Map data.
- Terrain, elevation, trailheads, parking information – including parking spots (?!), and shuttle service information is included where applicable.
- Elevation information is sourced from Google Earth.
- Trail map legend is easy to understand.
- Time zone information.
- Inclusion of national monuments on historical sites.
- No index so if you heard of a place but have no idea what state or even region it is in, you are out of luck and will have to scan the entire book only to find it might not be there.
- Excited to try the online trail location map!
I have a question, though. Oswald makes a list of the best dayhiking parks? What makes them the best? What criteria did he use to come up with that specific list?
As an aside, my spellchecker did not like “dayhiker” as one word.
Author fact: Oswald is a hiking fanatic.
Book trivia: Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks includes 198 trail maps. You couldn’t find two more to make it an even 200? Just kidding! 198 is plenty!
~*LunaSea*~ 