Hiking North Carolina, 2nd: A Guide to Nearly 500 of North Carolina's Greatest Hiking Trails (State Hiking Guides Series)

This review is for the Kindle eBook.This is an amazing book and I purchased it to help me plan future camping/hiking trips in North Carolina. I have gone on 3 trips since purchasing the book, and have 3 more planned. The book has provides a good level of detail on all of the trails I have looked at; this includes elevation, some history, and trail difficulty. The trail difficult is fairly accurate, but I am an active individual so maintain a level of skepticism based on your current fitness level.The book also provides additional resources to find more information about particular trails, which includes the best place to get the most detailed/updated map. Furthermore, the book is divided into 3 regions and then into trail systems to help users navigate the large amount of trail information.The issues with the Kindle version is the maps provided. From what I can see, the maps look to be pretty good; however, they are nearly useless (from being very small and blurry). If buying the Kindle version do not expect the maps to be helpful. Another issue navigating through the trails is difficult on a Kindle but by no means impossible. Finally, I have that the guide is not completely updated. I have found a few trails that are not covered or only mentioned briefly. The author does provide a site to go for updated trail information, but nothing is available expect purchasing another book.Overall, I really like this book for planning and as a resource. I would rate the book a 4.5 because the maps is the only use, but hardly an issue.

I returned this ebook 15 minutes after purchase as I could not make out the details in any of the maps. I tried both Amazon Cloud Reader and the Kindle app on my PC and neither offered an obvious way to zoom. I did not try it on my Kindle device as the screen would be too small for viewing maps even if I could make the image full-screen.I did skim parts of the book and the section on Raleigh area trails is really good and accurately covers some hiking trails that are hard to find.The book seems nice, but it is a shame the digital version does not hold up. To be clear, I think this is a failing on Amazon's part - they need to fix their software.As a final note, I am impressed with how easy Amazon makes it to return ebooks (you have 7 days) and so I can't complain too much and will reinvest the refund money back into a print copy.

This was a good book for a general description of several trails in North Carolina, but didn't give many details. I think I was looking for something that would give me enough information to pick one trail out of them all to visit, but the brief descriptions didn't give me enough to go on. If you already know which trail you want to trek and it is one of the trails covered in the book, you're pretty well set. You will, however, need another map to know exactly how to get to that particular trail...the book has a map with a general location but no specific driving information.

I bought this book to bring with me to the Boone/ Blowing Rock mountains this summer for our family reunion. It was an invaluable source for mapping out an itinerary for our very diverse group--eager youngsters of 5, teenagers, hearty hikers, and us old folk. There was something for everyone. Of greatest value were a.) descriptions of how to find the trail-head, b.) designation of 'difficulty'; and c.) descriptions of particular unique features of the trails. I hope to enjoy this book for years to come.

I love that this is diverse, but the trail descriptions are lacking, at best, and leave out some great detail.

I have used this product already. Great tool if you like hiking in the back country. I hiked the Linville Gorge area in Nc. What a great hiking area. This book was very informative of this area and explains the hike difficulty with good detail. I recommend this product to any hiker.

Excellent compilation of great trails in North Carolina that should appeal to a wide audience. Read and enjoy the selection.

Lots and lots of good hikes listed here, with good maps. Only problem is that the book is a little old, and so some of the info is a little outdated. For instance, you can now traverse the top of Stone Mountain (again), though the books says you can't.