Land of the Canyons: A Photographer's Guide to Utah and Arizona, 2nd Edition

I've used a bit of the book and found it to be accurate. I'm glad I have it in my library!

I bought this book for a 15 day vacation in the Southwest. All of the places I visited were mentioned in the book. I like to hike and I'm an amateur photographer, so I used the book along with the "50 Best Hikes Short Hikes in Utah's National Parks". I would definitely recommend this book for anyone visiting the area. The pictures are in b & w, but great. I got lots of tips out of the book and used it extensively. My slot canyon pictures measure up to the picture on the front cover, in fact I got some really cool pictures there. For photographers - my best pictures are from the switchback going in the east entrance of Zion, Angels Landing at Zion, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley and the slot canyons.

I bought this book prior to my 21 day vacation to the Southwest. With few exceptions, I taylored my entire trip around the suggested places mentioned in this book, and visited most of them. The majority of suggestions are off the beaten path and a little aventurous, which I prefer. The author pays a lot of attention to photographic concerns, which helps immensly if you are a photographer, but you need not be to benefit from this book. I found the directions to be very accurate, although route finding skills were still necessary for some of the more remote hikes, such as The Wave, in the Paria Wilderness Area. This book is perfect for getting ideas of places to visit, including numerous slot canyons, and then following up with some additional info from the internet. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone visiting the Southwest, who wants to visit places you've only seen in photography magazines. You won't be disappointed!

I had already been visiting the West for 3 times and I've got a lot of information about this area, but this guide was really very usefull to organise my last summer trip and I discovered this time several fascinating nature spots (like Coyote Buttes / The Wave !) that lots of tourists miss (even if they are very close to them) if they have only got classical touristic guides.This excellent guide gives you detailled information about how to find theese fabulous sites, how long you need to hike (without backpacking), what moment of the day is the best to take pictures, what is the opinion of the author about each site, where you can find more information... So, I've been hiking (not too hardly...) in a lot of theese sites and I can promise you that following the advices of this guide will really improve a lot your next trip in the West (North Arizona and South Utah), even if taking artistic pictures is not very important for you! Pictures in this book are black and white so I rate this guide 4 stars (comparatively to guides with color pictures), but for people who don't care about color pictures and prefer very good information, I can rate it 5 stars without a doubt.I sincerely hope that Laurent Martres will soon write new guides about other areas of the West of United States.