Hiking and Exploring the Paria Rive: Including: the Story of John D. Lee, Lee's Ferry, the Mormon Wagon Road to Arizona, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre Paperback – Import, 17 May 2017

This book is obviously a labor of love for the author, Michael R. Kelsey. Its 448 pages are packed with contemporary and historical photos, maps, histories and anecdotes, and invaluable information about the locations described as well as information about BLM, National Park Service, State Park, and other sources of information.The book is produced in teeny tiny type, with lines closely spaced, making reading somewhat difficult. Mr. Kelsey also adopts a "unique" stype of spelling and punctuation.The book would benefit tremendously from having a table of contents and index. The closest thing to a table of contents is an overview map, "Reference--Index Map of Hikes" on page 19, and an Index to Topographic Maps on page 15. However, it's well worth your while to familiarize yourself with the contents.

This is more than just a hiking guide book, it's a compendium of information about the area. It's true, the same complaints about font-size and layout are still present in this 6th edition. The same, somewhat rambling, opinionated writing style is still there. However, I'm willing to forgive those lapses for the richness of information contained in this book. If you are the type of person that just wants a "cliff notes" version of the areas covered by this book, its likely best you seek information elsewhere as trying to figure out locations to go to becomes an exercise in separating the wheat from the stories . If you are the type of person that appreciates the rich (oral) history behind the places you're going through, then this is the book to get. I haven't seen guidebooks in the area cover so much minutiae, to wit, the books include some information (some petroglyph sites) the BLM, for some reason, did not want published.So there, despite some "faults," I'm willing to give this the full five-star rating strictly based on the amount of information and local color in its pages.

The guide book is packed with practical and detailed info about the area. very helpful to a stranger like me for exploring in the area. highly recommended! especially if you want to do some hiking off the beaten paths. The fonts used in the book are somewhat unconventional, take me a little time to get used to it.

This book is packed full of all kinds of information. It seems to thoroughly cover the area. But it is tiny print covering every inch of the page and in my opinion poorly organized. I'm also coming from the perspective of an ADHD brain and a person who doesn't process informational text well. The information seems to just run on and on and for me its impossible to break it down. No paragraph break with titles like "directions", "what you'll see" "how to find the trail head". The information is there but all packed into what feels like a run on sentence. I'm sure a person with a different brain would get more from this book. Fantastic color photos though!

Yes the print is small but the content is LARGE. Trails, maps, history, geology, photos...Great to learn about an area we have driven past many times. High grade paper and printing at a very reasonable price with lots of content.