Great Sedona Hikes: Third Edition

This is a very solid book. I have hiked several ranges in North America and always use some sort of reference book. Especially nice were directions to the trailhead. There were also suggestions of alternate parking areas if the parking lot was full. The descriptions and rankings were spot on. The beginning of the book groups the hikes by several different criteria (alphabetically, level of difficulty, by features, etc.). Additionally, the area map let's you see hikes by areas of Sedona. However, the map is a little hard to read.The only criticism I have about this book is that while the trail descriptions are good, there is no mention of the several other offshoots you will see when hiking a specific trail. The trails throw you some options that make you questions whether the turn you come upon is the turn that is mentioned in the book or is that farther down the trail. Some of this criticism probably should go to the Parks Service who, instead of showing you all trails, has signs that just show you what they think are the major trails. We took several wrong turns on two separate hikes.We also used another book (written by Greg Stevenson) which we also found valuable. It showed details on the parking areas a little better (and also indicated the number of parking spaces, which we thought was somewhat important) but did not have as many trails as this Bohan and Butler book.If you visiting Sedona for a short period of time (3-5 days), the Stevenson book will suffice. However, if you are in Sedona for more than 5 days or plan on returning again, I would recommend Great Sedona Hikes.

What a great book! Ordered this for our 4 day trip to Sedona and it proved invaluable! In fact, this was the ONLY guide book we used (then used Tripadvisor and friends advice for food). Went on a "girls" trip to do some adventure and hiking. I loved that this book sorted the hikes by favorites, vortexes, difficulty level and length. There was also a picture of each trail highlight (although in black and white) and a good summary of what you were going to see on each hike. This helped us pick our hike each day depending on how we were feeling and what area we were in. That was extremely helpful. The perfect and detailed directions to each trailhead were a must as there are so many roads, both paved and dirt, in Sedona. Tips on the parking situation at each also helped and there is a little intro at the beginning that familiarizes you with the "Y" intersection and what parking passes you need.PS….I would have given this 5 stars except for one thing. The "unmarked trail" that the authors say allows you to complete the Bell Rock loop quickly disappeared about .25 miles in. It has either washed away or overgrown since the last publish date, but this happens in the desert. Because it was getting dark, we turned back to the main trail.

We did three hikes in this book the week I bought it (kindle edition) and the electronic version is really good with the advantage of being able to zoom in on the trail maps and the added feature of being able to enter notes per page reference. Trail description is good and the book layout is easy to follow. The only gripe I have so far is the author neglecting to mention the smaller details such as limited parking on trail heads. For example, Soldier's trail only has 14 parking slots and if you come in past 10:00 in the morning the lot is full, to make matters worse there are no other available parking in the immediate surround. We had to come back two days later to attempt the hike again and even then we still have to wait for 20 minutes before a slot opened up. Over all good book and easily earns my recommendation.

Very informative book and it helped us be able to easily change our hiking itenerary around when the Slide Fire of 2014 closed or effected many trails on the north side of sedona. The maps in the front of the book (master area map with trailhead markers) could be improved - I was able to figure them out but my wife struggled with them. The type was small and not to scale, but that was my only complaint. The book saves you a Tom of time from trying to find info in the Internet and is worth the money if you are planning a visit. Ps - we hiked with two kids ages 8 and 10 so the book helped to identify age appropriate trails for our family.

This was a solid book. It covers a LOT of hikes with good info. It would be a perfect if the maps were a little higher quality. But what it lacks in visual clarity it makes up for in its good information and expansive coverage of many different areas of Sedona. We even took it along on our hikes.

I'm planning a one week trip to Sedona and wanted to include a few hikes -- this book fills the bill. I also purchased a map from Amazon at the same time.I purchased the 3rd edition because it had more hikes than the 2nd edition (which has more hikes than the 1st).The route descriptions are good and this book will get used during my vacation.

I found this book very helpful in planning our 1 week hiking trip to Sedona. Each trail was explained well with directions to the trail head and a brief description of each hike. I particularly liked the listing of the top hikes so I knew the best place to start. Sedona is wonderful and this book helps get the most of it (from a hiking perspective).As a bonus, I e-mailed the author a question about one of the trails and he responded quickly. I was even invited out for their group hike for the day. Great fun!