Backpacker Life List: The 50 Ultimate Hiking Adventures

This bland overview of world-renowned trails and parks may help beginning hikers narrow down their vacation options, but it serves as more of a checklist than anything else. Each of the 50 sites gets a two-page spread, featuring the place's name and location (e.g.,""Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado""), a headlining phrase summing up the place (e.g.,""Stand tall among the calm and wild of Colorado""), a brief essay describing what hikers may find on the trail, and a few suggested itineraries. Between each entry, the editors leave two blank, lined pages, which they call a""field journal,"" accompanied by a sidebar explaining the necessary permits and travel directions. The editors also include a list of suggested guidebooks for each park, guidebooks that one assumes will provide the enticing details that they leave out. With its spiral binding and paperback cover, this book should serve hikers who are bent on racking up miles and checking off visits to hiking meccas from the Adirondack Mountains to Zion National Park--others may be better off looking elsewhere.