Best Loop Hikes: Colorado

 

Product Description

This book covers many short hikes, mostly in the Front Range area.

Review

This book is does not provide an accurate sample of the best hikes in Colorado scattered across the state. 31/60 hikes are along the Front Range. While this is great if you live in Denver and want a Denver specific guidebook, this book is advertized as pointing out the best hikes in Colorado, not the best hikes around Denver (and even then many of the hikes are hardly “the best”). It doesn’t appear that the authors are even familiar with most of the state and were in a hurry to choose the hikes for the book.

Here’s an example. In contrast to the Front Range, there are only six hikes in the mighty San Juan Mountains. Not one even gets close to timberline! Only one of them is over 5.5 miles and the rest are short jaunts. There is nothing wrong with a short hike as being one of the best, but to include almost nothing in the San Juans that is more than a couple hours and never gets close to timberline and have the nerve to call it the “best” the range has to offer should be a crime.

The above was only one example. Entire huge swaths of spectacular areas of Colorado are completely eliminated. There is nothing at all mentioned in places like the Sangre de Christos or Dinosaur National Monument. In the entire section of Colorado (a huge portion of the state) west of Steamboat Springs and north of I-70 there is only one hike featured.

As mentioned, this book does have some good hikes mentioned and is good for Front Range residents, but the book should not be advertized as covering the “best” hikes in Colorado. It is more focused on only one area in Colorado rather than the whole state.