San Francisco Bay Area: A Comprehensive Hiking Guide [Large Print]

Like all other Afoot and Afield guides I own, this one is excellent and very useful. The Bay area is so large and wonderful that a truly comprehensive guide would take 10 volumes, but this book does a great job at summarizing the main hiking areas, and I found it very useful when I stayed in the area for a few months. I did not find most of the text too useful, given that it largely describes directions which can be easily inferred from the map. But the brief highlight description of each trail is very useful to decide where to go, and equally useful are indications of difficulty and length of each trail. Take into account that if you are in good shape and you hike without many stops, the hike duration indicated in the book are likely an overestimate of how long it will take you to complete a trip. Most trips categorized as "difficult" are actually easy, but they are just long. What I really LOVE about this book, however, are the maps. A large map of the whole Bay area is subdivided into smaller zones, and the book reports a more detailed map for each zone. Then the zone map clearly indicates the location of each hike, and finally you will find one very detailed and very reliable map for each hike. These maps are really well done, and there is pretty much no way you can get lost using them. Highly recommended!

Wilderness Press has a series of books on the SF Bay Area hiking trails (two of which are written by Weintraub): East Bay Trails, South Bay Trails, North Bay Trails, and Peninsula Trails. Those books are excellent and obviously have the kind of complete and detailed coverage that a single book of the same size cannot offer for the same vast area. But if you wish to buy only a single book on hiking in the SF Bay Area, this one is the best I've seen. It discusses hiking opportunities from Santa Rosa in the north to just outside Santa Cruz in the south. It discusses more hikes than any other book (except the Foghorn one, which however offers no maps). It has excellent maps, along with detailed directions, the attractions of each hike, the best season for the hike, and so on. Unlike those in some other books, the maps included cover more than just the hikes discussed, so in essence it leads you to many more trails than those listed in the book. It also mentions (though does not have the space to discuss in detail) some of the flora and fauna you might notice on the hike, and offers some photos. If you don't get separate books on each area, this is almost certainly the one to get.

The newest title in the outstanding "Afoot & Afield" series from Wilderness Press, Afoot & Afield San Francisco Bay Area by David Weintraub features no less than 102 memorable hiking trips around the greater Bay Area ranging from a 1.5-mile stroll through Golden Gate Park, to rigorous10-mile treks. From M. St. Helena (near Caistoga) the tallest summit in the North Bay (4339 feet), to the Sonoma coast's Kortum trial skirting the Pacific ocean, to the waterfalls of the eastern Santa Cruz mountains near San Jose, to the Peninsula's Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, this is the ideal guide for hikers, dog walkers, bikers, backbackers, and outdoor enthusiasts. An invaluable, "user friendly" guide to personally exploring the coast, canyons, and ridges around the San Pablo and San Francisco bays and beyond, Afoot & Afield San Francisco Bay Area is the ideal and enthusiastically recommended planner for day trips, weekend excursions, or holiday outings.

Great guide to the bay area. If you want just one book for a hiking guide to the bay area this is the one to buy. Truly up to date and will probably surprise most bay area outdoor enthusiasts with the comprehensive hiking coverage of the area. Even after living here for more than a decade I found new reasons to visit parks that had faded in memory. This guy has truly walked these trails. When you see the accuracy of the trail descriptions, the abundance of information on wildflowers and the choice morsels of local lore you know you are walking with a guide whose heart is in his boots. Another great guide book from this author.

I've had this book for three weeks and appreciate that it covers the whole Bay Area (we live in the east bay). We love to hike with our two children and to keep them enthusiastic it's important that we know where we're going and can talk the experience up and keep the kids excited. By having so many great hikes drawn from the Bay Area's best, Afoot & Afield keeps us from spending our time figuring out the itinerary (and losing the kid's to other pursuits). The kids actually enjoy getting involved comparing hikes and helping us choose. Weintraub's specialized guides are great also (east bay, north bay etc.), but the beauty of this book is that it pulls you toward other areas of the bay that you might overlook. In truth, nowhere in the bay area is too far for day hiking if you know where to go. This book has expanded our horizons and we have our sights on several hikes we would not have otherwise considered.