Backcountry Adventures Utah

This is a great reference for any outdoors enthusiast. It contains tons of useful information and beautiful pictures. After buying one for my father I had to get one for myself!

Here is the situation, you want to do some exploring and follow a certain dirt track and need to know the condition of it, length, and what you can expect for scenery, also, can your pick-up right from the factory handle the trail? You swing into the "Poison Raven" shop and ask the senior manager, you have socks older than this kid but it's this or nothing, and you ask for info; Is the scenery worth it? " Yaahh, its awesome back there, Rad." IS the trail passable , are there washes with mud or water in them, can a stock short bed make the trail, is there alot of scramble, boulder moving, or is it a trail an 'old man' of 40 can handle in an Escalade? The answers are " Yaahh, its Rad. most is lame, but some is gnarly, no prob in your hummer dude, rock on and git er dun" When you leave the manager turns to an employee and says, " Oh, Wait, was that old dude talking about the Yellow Cat or Hell's Backbone?...oh, dude, I screwed that up big time..." and they laugh and you end up screwed...big time.. Instead of that scenario buy this book and stop only for gas, water and a shovel, and "git er dun" on your own. Even if you only have a stock SUV you will love this book, it will open up more areas to you than you will believe, even in places you think you already know. Having explored canyon country in Utah for many years we bought this book and then went out and followed every track we always had wondered about. It is not perfect in every way, but it gives you a great idea of what to expect, take the time to read the entire route description and then go out and follow one and see how things line up.This will also get you in line with how the authors are thinking and writing, understanding that things here change day by day, and year to year, but a trail that is a Difficulty 2 or 3 won't become a 6 and a scenery rating of a 10 doesn't become a 4 either. Keep in mind this guide can not tell you it rained like hell yesterday and the washes are a foot of mud, or that there is bad trail damage from the ijits that went through ahead of you and tore hell outta the crossings and kept on going. But , that said, it will tell you how long you will be in a wash, how many washes there are to cross, how many rivers or creeks, and gives a rough idea of the scenery you can expect and most importantly to us, the difficulty of the trail. At 4 times the going price I'd still buy these gudies, they are a fantastic shortcut to exploring, and also takes the worry out of wondering where a track ends up, and if it does connect to another track how bad is that one? Bottom line also-- this is NOT the beaches on D-Day----you don't HAVE to keep going, we can go back and call it a day. Many of the trails that we decided from their rating were too much for our truck or suv we planned on hiking on foot, or mtn bike, without the guide we probably wouldn't have ever turned off onto these trails to begin with. Worth every penny and then some.

I've got a lot of Utah guides but this one is the best by far. Very good maps at different scales. Trail diagrams with loads of point of interest. Detailed trail logs with turn by turn directions, scenic ratings, difficulty ratings. A great historical section about the people and places of Utah. This one has it all. We leave in one week!!

Backcountry Adventures are the best guides of their kind out there. Odometer references, descriptive text, and (especially) GPS coordinates make these easy and foolproof to use. The map and index for the respective areas, Southeast, Central, etc., make planning your route easy as the different routes are color coded with their page numbers referenced. Good sampling of human interest content also, giving some history, flora and fauna, and geology information. My only criticism is that these guides should be spiral bound, and pages removable. This would allow the book to lie flat and pages and/or sections could be removed to make it more concise for use on a motorcycle or bicycle. These guides are the size of a mid sized phone book and are too big and heavy for anything but automotive use.

We have used this throughout central and southwest Utah. It's great for finding that little known unimproved road you've heard about, or planning your trip, and most importantly for knowing just what you are getting into when you go through that cattle gate that leads away from the beaten bath. The trail ratings are accurate, the instructions clear, it lets you know whether there is a way back out, or if you need to be looking for a turnaround, and unlike the dude at the gas station, doesn't forget that you might need 18 inch clearance or a winch on this one. I recommend it highly, it can make the difference between an exciting adventure and a frightening ordeal