Brian Patton and Bart RobinsonCanadian Rockies Trail Guide

This 9th edition, published in 2011, is maybe a bit out of date, and the pictures are black and white. You can get later editions with more current information, and color photos, but you will pay more. Some of the trails described in this edition may have deteriorated or been hidden by weather, river floods, plant growth...the usual ravages of time and nature. But the mountains and valleys and cascades are still there, and this book will guide you to the wonders, with good advice, quiet courtesy, and good humor.Although I am about the same age as one of the authors, Brian Patton, I am now disabled by back pain, and will not be hiking these trails. Long ago, Brian was a close friend, and we walked other paths, in Utah. I browse through these pages, reading about places I have never been, and never will be. I enjoy the hikes in my mind's eye, and I feel his spirit through the words. The many thousands of miles he has walked through the mountains have left him as humble and easy-going and comfortable as he was as a young man. I miss my old friend.

No question, one of the best book regarding hiking in the Canadian Rockies. I bought this book and planned a trip to Banff, Jasper and Yoho. It was very successful. I wrote down 35 trails before the trip and finished 32 of them. I don't think I missed much. There are a lot of longer back pack trails in the book and I did not have time to explore, the moderate and easy ones are all spot on. I looked through a lot of hiking books in a book store in Banff, nothing compare to this one. If you plan to go to the Canadian Rockies, buy this book! You won't regret.

I contemplated giving this book 3 stars but I felt that would be unfair. My partner and I are making our first visit to the Canadian Rockies this summer. Being an obsessive vacation planner, I devour any and all resources I can find to settle on a detailed itinerary. When I received this book, I went from being beyond excited for all the gorgeous hikes we would embark on to beyond overwhelmed with how I would ever decide which hikes were must-dos with a limited amount of time. This is my biggest dilemma with this guide. It is a fantastic source for detailed trail descriptions. Hundreds of trail descriptions. It is a pretty lousy source for helping you decide which trails are really the stand-outs. I'm well aware that you can hop online and get an unlimited number of opinions regarding what's not to miss. That's all well and good but I would rather have the opinion of Brian Patton and Bart Robinson, two guys that have hiked it all. What they have penned is an invaluable resource for the traveler that has already decided which trails they are going hike. For that, it deserves four stars. If like me you are attempting to plan a trip to a destination you have never been before, I would look elsewhere (at least to begin with). My suggestion is The Best Day Hikes in the Canadian Rockies by Tim Jensen. I don't regret purchasing this book but given that this was the first guide I purchased for the area, I was completely overwhelmed. If the authors happen to read this, for future editions of this book please give us a top 20 or some type of rating system. We want your opinions!

If you are going to the Canadian Rockies to hike, this book is absolutely essential. It contains everything from leisurely short walks to 4-6 day treks, with every bit of information you need to plan your trip. I especially appreciate knowing what trails are frequently closed due to animal activity, because then I can plan something alternate for that day if necessary. There are two things you need for a trip to the Rockies--The Moon Guide and this book.

Excellent guide to hiking in the Canadian Rockies. Very helpful and informative. Compare to Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies; another great guidebook. Ideally consult both.

So helpfull for one week trip in the rockies, we were able to choose the hike we wanted thanks to the specific details for each hike the book was providing.

A detailed description and standard reference guide for the Canadian Rockies, but I did not find it very helpful as a vacationer looking for a single-reference best guide to recreational hikes. The Canadian Rockies cover a lot of territory, so you can spend a lot of time driving to a trail head, which eats into hiking time, so hike selection is critical. We needed a guide that suggested the best hikes in the area, but this guide lacks easy-to-use ratings in terms of difficulty and scenery, which makes hike selections difficult. While the trail descriptions were good in terms of elevation gains and distances, I would also prefer more detailed maps so I don;t need to bring a topo map.I do think this is a great reference for residents of -- and frequent visitors to -- the Canadian Rockies, but less helpful for vacationing families with limited time trying to find the best area hikes.

Great book.Very informative and I used it to plan a detailed trip to the Canadian Rockies.Recommended.

Le livre est en très bonne condition,et répond tout à fait à mes attentes

This is the latest iteration of a trail guide that I have used for decades. I already have this latest edition but I wanted another copy for back-up and for lending out. As stated in the headline, this book deals with the trails in the national parks. For mountain trails outside the parks, other excellent guidebooks are available. This book includes some trails not described in previous editions and is therefore the most complete. There are more trails here than most people will ever hike, varying from easy to difficult, and of varying lengths, so that there is material here for everyone.

We spent 3 full weeks hill walking in the Canadian Rockies based on this guide book. The distance and time given in the descriptions were accurate and we could plan our walks safe in the knowledge that we wouldn't unexpectedly get stuck up a mountain at the end of the day. What we most appreciated was the fact that no walk was deemed too short by the authors to be included in this book, this meant that we had the choice to go on very short low level walks when the weather was bad without having to resort to buying a second guide book or dropping into the tourist office.

I love this guidebook. I had borrowed an older version from someone else and finally decided to just buy it myself. What I really like is that for each trail, it tells you distances for relevant markers at the outset. So when hiking, even though I don't have a pedometer, I can gauge how far I've gone based on the landmarks the book gives you. Each trail also has several paragraphs expanding on those distances/markers and sometimes some history. Would recommend if you do a lot of hiking in the Rockies and like a lot of details like I do.

Great book - has the kind of detail that is really helpful for pre-planning a trip and without any space wasted on waffle