Sierra Grand Traverse: An Epic Route Across the Range of Light (The Mountaineer Books)

Worth it for the pictures alone, so inspiring. Great info for the trails. Great guide book.

These authors ripped off someone else's work and repackaged it. They clear do not understand the intention behind Roper's High Route, nor do they respect it. Very disappointing.

There is an old guard that wants to protect what they think they found in the Sierra. The torch will pass. As a fan of Secor, Skurka, and Roper. This continues the exploration for those of us looking to tie together the high sierra in new ways.

Having already been on the first two legs I look forward to exploring others further south. I’ve been on parts of Roper’s Sierra high route and fully subscribe to his off trail paradigm. More recently Skurka has extended this further South. There’s not going to be hordes of over laden neophytes lining up at the Tuolumne grill preparing to “do” this as a JMT alternative. As a guide to new possibilities this book is very inspiring, and I’m mystified by the hate mail it’s generating!

It truly is disappointing that John and Monica Chapman decided to write this book to profit off of the Sierra High Route, originally designed and described by Roper. By publishing detailed route tracks and GPX files, they're explicitly going against the ethos of Roper and most of the community, which advocates for hikers themselves to identify their own varied routes through the Sierra crest without publishing their route files and maps. The Chapmans risk turning the SHR into just another JMT, potentially ruining the very experience that they themselves enjoyed. As one commenter wrote, this book should have never been written.

This guidebook is a really nice size and the design/layout of it is gorgeous. The full-color photos throughout the book are really stunning-much better than most guidebooks. The trail is broken into helpful segments and legs and provides the distance, elevation gain/loss, and approximate time it takes to complete each leg (as well as a lot of other information). If you're an experienced backpacker/hiker looking for an exciting new route, this book is for you.

I am truly sorry to see this exploitation of what I am sure was a wonderful adventure. The backcountry can in fact support more people, but concentrating them on a single defined path is not the way to do it. It robs the hiker of the joy of exploration and discovery and it invites the creation of multiple worn tracks where there has only been trackless land. It violates the very core concept of Leave No Trace Principles, and is a primary reason why many of advocate introduction of LNT Principle No 8: Be Thoughtful and Respectful with what you Say and Write about the Backcountry.We would have thought that the experience with the Roper Route - which is now in large measure a collection of established use trails where once there was trackless terrain - would have driven this home. One thoughtless person actually took it upon themself not only to map it but to publish precise GPX tracks, establishing it as a permanent artifact and robbing it of the last bit of its greatest value, the adventure of exploration and discovery.And so it is with this book: it could have been a guide and inspiration to the adventure of exploration and discovery the authors enjoyed, a great gift to the rest of us. Instead, the authors keep the real treasure, that process, all to themselves, and leave us with a mere set of instructions on how to duplicate the walk, sure, but robbing us of the real gold: the experience of finding it. They had a wonderful opportunity to teach how to fish: instead they have created just another bucket list entry.

This book is beautifully designed and clearly written. It gives invaluable information on off-trail backcountry routes with detailed maps and wonderful photos. This is a huge improvement on Ropers book and includes routes that start well south of the traditional JMT. This updated book on cross country travel in the Sierras is a fantastic resource and is way overdue.