The book Arizona by Scott Thybony and Fred Hirschman is excellent in both its reading and photograhy. Both participants of this book have really captured the true essence of Arizona. My students were unfamiliar with all of the wonderful places and attractions our state had to offer them. Arizona history has in fact become a wonderful learning experience for my students, and this book has been a helpful tool in showing them how beautiful our state truly is.

Author Scott Thybony shares with readers his fascination with and love of the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Burntwater is a loosely joined series of descriptions of Thybony's travels to various locations within this sparsely populated region: the Grand Canyon, back country on the Navajo Reservation, the Goosenecks region of the San Juan River, northern New Mexico, and others. Scott's wandering narrative describes his experiences in each place, often involving travel companions or new found acquaintances and sometimes just himself. One moving chapter describes how he nearly died from dehydration in the Grand Canyon while hiking to the site of his brother's death in an airplane/helicopter collision.

This is a wonderful book filled with gentle descriptions of sometimes physically harsh locations and circumstances. Scott describes but does not judge and, unlike so many other authors, refrains from directing readers to specific emotions or thoughts. Those he leaves up to you. You can easily read this book's 117 pages in a single sitting, but the invitation to this marvelous part of the Southwest may result in a literary and even physical journey of discovery that can last a lifetime.

I am a Colorado Plateau freak, I must confess. As this book so excellently shows, every nook, every niche of that region is festooned with some new, arresting wonder, or so it seems.

Canyon Country Parklands is first remarkable for its photography. I have seldom seen the essence of this beautiful region captured so well. Indeed, many of the photos catch that magical light that seems to leap from the rock walls themselves. Even those parks long photographed, such as Zion National Park, attain a new height in beauty through the pictures in this book. A magnificent effort!!

The text is very readable and captures much of the magic of this region as well. I especially recommend the sections on Plateau wildlife and on the High Plateaus. The maps are also useful in reconnoitering one's position in this never-ending tableau of light and rock. You will enjoy this book to hilt, and its reasonable price makes it a remarkable bargain.

The Medicine Bow Mountain Range is in southeastern Wyoming, and this book gives a very good chronological history of this area. The authors begin with the earliest known evidence of man inhabiting this area, then move on to talk about how the Indians,fur trappers and mountain men influenced this part of the west. William Ashley paved the way for the Overland Trail, Jim Bridger helped to explore this region and John Fremont mapped this part of the west. Chapters on the logging, mining and grazing industries are also very interesting. The railroad had a major fundamental part in the development of this area. The authors also talk about the Medicine Bow National Forest and how till this day, it is still trying to be a land for multiple use. I really enjoyed this book, there is a lot of history here.

For the reader looking for information on the history of wildfire, their cultural impacts, and the state of modern wildfire suppression tactics, this book is a must. Not only is the text highly readable but the photographs should be enlarged and placed in a coffee-table size book. They are absolutely georgous. This is a timely book given the increasing frequency of wildfires in the west and southwest. Scott Thybony is a first rate writer and when his highly readable style is coupled with the photographs in this book it is a must have for any reader remotely interested in the topic.

This is a good sightseeing guide that should help anyone who is interested in traveling the Rocky Mountain States by car.

Arranged by state, the book highlights different attractions in each area. It also suggests driving loops, designed to hi-light the highlights while traveling a circular route along major highways. This is certainly designed well for someone who is unfamiliar with the area and wants a travel itinerary laid out with suggested sights and attractions.

Accommodations or restraints are not listed, so one would have to look to another guide or the internet for those. This book can get you started with your destinations, however.

I bought this book expecting a sort of National Geographic pictorial - and therefore a lot of landscape shots of the Rockies. I was dissapointed.

Though the book is well put together and the photographs are decent, this is not a good book to get if you're looking for photographic examples of the rockies.

If you're looking for the story behind the rockies, 5 stars. If you're looking for pictures, 3 stars (at most).

What a dissapointment this book turned out to be. One would think the "ultimate" guide to hiking would contain detailed trail descriptions and suggested itineraries. The second sentence in the book says it all, "...provides basic information..."

This book provides very little in the way of interesting land marks and "must sees" for a trip to the Grand Canyon.

This is the best guide to hiking the Grand Canyon for beginning to intermediate hikers. I've hiked rim to rim 4 times, and carried this book each time. There are topographic map inserts of the Grand Canyon (like the background on the cover), with trails labled on them. Also, there are altitude profile maps of the trials showing the steepness of the trails and pointing out the campgrounds, water, and resthouses. This is very useful for trip planning, unless you are an all out jock. The single most important detail in planning a safe trip in the Grand Canyon is looking at the distance and altitude travled per day. Pages and pages on eating and drinking and staying cool will not help. Eat, and drink, and do not walk between the hours of 12 and 5 pm. Also, if you stay in a campground below the rim, the leader on the permit will receive a free video from the Park Service, which outlines, in great melodramatic detail, what to pack, and how to prevent illness and injurys.

The pictures are beautiful and in full color. They will help you identify flora and fauna along the way. All necessary contact numbers are listed. Also, proceeds of this book go to the Grand Canyon Association.

Unlike other Grand Canyon hiking books (Hiking the Grand Caynon a Sierra Club Totebook) this books focus is only on hiking, and doesn't take up page after page with information about the rims or river guides. Also, unlike almost all other Grand Canyon hiking books this book can be added to your pack without adding too much additional weight. Usually I carry this book,with my topo maps, and my Grand Canyon Association trail guides tucked inside, between the small of my back and my pack, I can reach back and access it easily whenever I want to look something up on the trail.

The guide provides a wealth of general information for first-time, and repeat hikers of the Grand Canyon, as well as covering in detail the most popular hiking trails. The text is accompanied by excellent, high-quality trail maps, elevation diagrams, and beautiful color photos.

I bought the book after hiking the canyon for the first time as a souvenier of the trip and to help me plan my next hike. You can use the book to show your friends or family, "This is what I'm going to do", or document what you did.

If you've never hiked the Grand Canyon, this is the book to inform you of what to expect, help you make your hiking plans, and to build your enthusiasm and excitement for the trip!

The book is only 68 pages long, but is packed with useful information. Well worth the price!

jes

The preface to this book is both profound and beautiful. The remainder of the book is a boring list of words that I found useless. I have to admit that the first 10 pages provided value that exceeds the price of the book. If you are western writer this book may hold some value.

I was expecting a thesaurus of Old West words and phrases. It was a treat to discover that this book is far more. It came into being because Scott Thybony worked through writer's blocks by collecting words.

What a surprise to discover in the Introduction that Gustave Flaubert (of Madame Bovary fame) would sit for long periods of time, head braced in his hands, as he mentally searched for the perfect word to begin his stories. "It can happen to the most careful writers -- especially the careful ones." Knowing that writer's blocks happens to all writers does not make it any easier when facing a blank paper wall.

Wrapping up the Introduction Thybony writes, "...but remember Flaubert. He demanded a perfect fit for something inherently loose-jointed."

Then you get to the meat of the word feast.

Thybony is a very accomplished, easy to read author. He overcame blocks as he "...paid attention to the color and texture of language." Whenever he interviewed someone, he listened for the words that grounded the location to the scene or "threw sparks" that brought the American West to life. The words are section headers with the shades of meanings listed below making it easy to find what you are looking for. However, this book is not a compendium of disconnected words. There are beautiful etchings within each of the sections: Land, Sky, Water, Fire, Life, Seasons, and People that give you the feeling of history and poetry.

I am including a few quotations from Scott Thybony's book to show the poetic prose and sound advice: "...the blank page in front of me wasn't due to a lack of vocabulary but a loss of motion." Always expand the horizon and possibility of your words because "language needs room to breathe, and it has plenty of it here." My favorite: "Also, the nature of writing tends to encourage cannibalism. Writers consume the words of their own kind and sometimes swallow them without chewing."

This is a wonderful book. Start anywhere and read for a few minutes; it is funny, charming, educational, and inspirational. It is a 92 page treasure and worth every single star.

I suppose Scott Thybony's Havasu Trail Guide told me most of what I needed to know. However, it was very poorly organized. It read like a term paper that was thrown together the night before it was due. Rather than have clear sections such as history, geology, Native Americans, and the trail itself, Mr. Thybony drifts aimlessly back and forth between topics. After I finally finished the book, I still did not feel like the trail had been completely explained. I had to skim back through the book and piece together his information about the trail.

In short, I do not feel confident about my understanding of the Havasu Canyon Trail after reading Scott Thybony's guide.