Book: Hiking Rocky Mountain National Park: The Essential Guide

Hiking Rocky Mountain National Park: The Essential Guide is your guide to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Overview

Hiking Rocky Mountain National Park: The Essential Guide was written to help you have the most amazing wilderness experience possible in one of America's most beautiful national parks. It informs you about what to expect, how to prepare and what to know in order to stay safe while also respecting this fragile environment.

Content

Whether you are looking for a gentle stroll with young children or planning to push your limits, this hiking book has it all. It guides you on 75 of the most amazing hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. It takes a unique approach and organizes the hikes by difficulty level rather than by geographical location. It begins with the easiest hike and progresses to the most difficult. The hikes are divided into four levels of difficulty which are color coded making the sections easy to find: Accessible, Easy, Moderate and Strenuous.

Features

There are nearly 100 pages of preparatory information to bring you up to speed on everything you should know before venturing into the mountains. Topics covered include:

• What to pack
• What to wear
• Encountering wildlife
• What to do if you are lost
• Understanding mountain weather
• And much more...

Enjoy 80 custom-made topographical maps that clearly mark the trail and identify waypoints you will encounter along the way. These maps are designed to be easily be readable even by those with colorblindness.

Each hike has a series of easily identifiable waypoints to help you know that you are on-track, along with distance measurements from the trail head and the elevation of that waypoint.

Most hikes in the book are accompanied by an elevation profile graph. This is like a cut-away of the terrain so that you can visually see the ups and downs you can expect along the way.

All of the trails were re-measured using some of the latest tools, resulting in some of the most accurate trail measurements to-date.

Throughout the book you will find beautiful full-color photos and every hike has at least one photo to give you a sense of what to expect.

The text describing where to go and what to look for is conversational, as if the author himself were guiding you on your journey.

Reference Material

At the back you'll find definitions of mountain terms you may not know, as well as a complete index so you can readily find what you are looking for. There is also a quick reference chart with statistics on every destination and hike covered in the book.

Other Info

Here are a few key facts about the book itself:

• 512 pages
• Sewn binding for durability
• Rounded corners to avoid damage in the pack
• Beautiful 150gsm art gloss paper
• Forest Stewardship Council's seal, confirming that the paper comes from renewable sources and that eco-friendly inks are used.
• Size: 8.5" x 5.5" x 1.25"

The Author

Erik Stensland has spent the last 21 years living at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. He has hiked to every hidden corner of this park at all times of day and night in his pursuit of dramatic photos. In preparing this book, he re-hiked every trail in the book taking copious notes to ensure you have the most accurate and up-to-date information possible.

Awards

In the publishing industry, the most prestigious award for a small publisher is a Benjamin Franklin Award. These are given out each year by the Independent Book Publishers Association. This year they had 1,700 entries. Hiking Rocky Mountain National Park: The Essential Guide was selected as the best travel book of the year, winning the gold award in the travel category. It was also in the top three books in the sports and recreation category.