East Bay Trails: Outdoor Adventures in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties

There isn't a lot in this book that cannot be found from the internet, or from doing your own research into various east bay trails or parks. For instance, all the East Bay Regional Parks covered in this book can be found at the EBRPD website. Every EBRPD trail map can be downloaded from the website (the trail maps are more detailed than the ones in this book), and all the pertinent cultural and geographical information can be read at their website. However, the point of this book is that all that research has been done for you. You can pick up this book and get good ideas for simple hikes and much of the pertinent information without having to spend time doing all that work yourself. If this book were $50, then maybe I'd think twice, but for under $20, I have used this book many times to get general ideas of areas/parks/trails to hike. I usually supplement this book with a better trail map, but having information about much of the east bay in one concise book is very nice. PROS: -simple guide, with breakdown of distance, approximate time, and a decent trail map -nice range of east bay trails/parks covered -good descriptions of the hikes, with more than just factual "data" type information. -takes the hard work out of reseraching various EBRPD parks or other east bay parks and planning out routes, etc. CONS: -trail maps are just ok. No distances are given on the maps, and lacks a lot of detail. -no elevation profiles. In today's age of GPS and topo software out there, I almost expect books nowadays to have elevation profiles, or at least the amount of elevation gain. -more of a "general idea" guide than a specific trail guide/map.

I like it. Clear descriptions. A few pages per trail. Not too long, not too short. Gives you lots of options for various types of trails. Like the maps and the layout. Highly recommended.

I'm really enjoying this book. I've been hiking in the east bay for long enough that I was in something of a rut and this book is really breaking me out of it. It has good coverage of the area, with one or two good trails per park instead of concentrating in any given area. The hikes are mostly loops, and the distances and difficulty measurements are more realistic than some of these books where the author seems to be trying to show how tough they are. The trail descriptions are actually interesting and there are nice maps, again unlike most hiking books.

I'm glad I picked this up. It got me motivated to get out and enjoy the stunning beauty of the East Bay. The book has only a general description of the plant and animal life you would expect to see, so if you're into that you may want to bring an Audubon guide along for more detail. I only wish he was more descriptive about the steepness of some of these trails!