Hiking Idaho

I used this to figure out a doable backpack trip with kids. It gives details on how ot get ot the trailhead, park, elevation changes along the trail, distance, times of year to go, good map, and a head's up on permits/ fees/ whether fires are alowed, etc. We had a sucessful trip and plan to use this book for any additional trip to new places. I would've not known where to go without this book. Has tons of trails for day or overnight hikes, loops, out & back, and overnight stays.

Great book for planning hikes, it's truly a must have with the "seet Spots" serie for anybody planning some hiking in Idaho. Information is accurate but you always need to prepare it using other tools (google earth, topo) and other.

The trail descriptions are great. The maps are great. The depth is great.BUT, there are two things this book is missing that any good hiking book has. Each and every trail description in this book has a 'quick glance' section which lists a quick description, general location, maps, special attractions, difficulty, season and contacts for more information - BUT not trail LENGTH or an estimated time to complete! You have to read the entire description to find the length and probably won't find an estimate of the time required. Sure, this is OK if your friend recommended hike 'X' and you want to look it up. But, it is terrible if you are looking for a hike of, say, 6 miles that you can complete in 3 hours. It's just not readily available - you'd have to read the whole book! Even better, many guides have an index of sorts where you can see this information (and the availablity of backcountry campsites) for all trails at a glance, then go to the specific trail(s) that interest you. This is what this otherwise great guide is missing. I returned mine and picked up 'Trails of Western Idaho' by Margaret Fuller instead - which does contain this information. Ms. Fuller's book is older (1992 vs. 1995 for this Falcon Guide), but not terribly so. She has some newer revisions for her other quides and I'm hoping this one will be reviced soon as well!