This isn’t really about hiking. After keeping my mouth shut for 20 years, I have to make a public service announcement.
This is not a cheeky opinion. I’ve seen well-informed people cringe at the name of this guy. Michael Kelsey writes amazing desert hiking guides. No kidding, I wonder how many people have died using them. If this guy hasn’t killed anyone I’d be surprised.
The biggest tragedy is that one can find such books on the shelves of National Park Service stores. That would infer that the guides are appropriate for “family outing” hikes. The best I can say is that the NPS is obscenely irresponsible.
say something positive? MK breaks down the walks no one else knows about. It’s a small consolation if you’re not coming back to tell about it. Oh, one more positive. When we got caught in a flash flood (see “Hiking and Exploring the Paria River”) it wasn’t his fault. Act of God was responsible.
Here are some general weaknesses with his books:
1) Walk at a speed of 4-5 miles per hour on all terrains (and it doesn’t tell you that). Nobody can do that. Everything is a highway for this guy. His books aren’t very descriptive (IMHO) because he goes too fast to see anything. So that’s great, because allowing enough time and water for hikes as he describes them gets you halfway there. DOUBLE ALL THE ALLOWED TIMES IN YOUR BOOKS of him!
2) Write the descriptions of the trails in kilometers. It’s really hard to convert linear measurements when you’re crazy about dehydration and heat stroke, because you’ve underestimated the difficulty of a hike. Let this sink in, WRITE US WILDERNESS HIKE IN METRIC DISTANCES. Nice! So, at best, it’s just overkill.
Just one experience my wife and I had using one of your hiking guides (“Hiking and Exploring Utah’s San Rafael Swell”). (By the way, we are very good hikers, but not Supermensch). One of her “excursions” was swimming and snorkeling. We can’t swim. Truly one of the miracles in our lives happened on the day in question. My wife and I should have died that day, 100% sure.
At the beginning of the “hike” narrative in the book, Kelsey says to measure a nearby river to see if it’s safe to walk through the canyon. The measurement was “safe”. Oh, by the way, she said, “You might want to put inner tubes in the kids.” Guess what. the children would have been dead. No miracle could have saved them. So we thought we’d play it safe and grab inner tubes.
So, I’m floating down the lazy river on my stomach, my wife on her butt, on inner tubes. We’re just waiting until, for sure, there will be enough bench to walk on. I guess we were thinking it wasn’t quite a hike yet, but it was smooth.
We tried dozens of this excellent companion’s hikes, allowing double the time and water for the hike, and making sure the “measure” was safe for the hike.
Keep in mind that the place we were at is the kind of place where you might not run into anyone for years. The population per square mile is zero. We often walked through the Utah desert without seeing anything alive except rattlesnakes and bighorn sheep. If you’re familiar with the San Rafael Swell, you know what I mean.
THE MIRACLE: As we float la, la, la, I hear a little whistle. Now let’s go fast. Suddenly, two guys are standing above us on huge rocks with wings on their backs, yelling “Don’t go that way!” It was a waterfall, we would have died, me going head first. I certainly believe that the aid materialized from our need.
Conscientious book writer said nothing about navigating waterfalls on the hike. We wouldn’t have tried it. We can’t swim. The angels had a good book by another author. They had ski poles and an extra raft for their gear. We had backpacks and inner tubes.
I’m going to make it short now. Well, they saved our lives by pulling us out with ski poles just before we went over the falls. I still spent the rest of the “hike” underwater hanging from my inner tube, being sucked into eddies, fun stuff like that. There were many more waterfalls, many torrential rapids.
My wife, who can’t swim at all, went crazy having to do rock dives. She did not know which method of death to choose.
Well, we made it, and I just had hypothermia. Our guardian angels’ river trip was ruined watching over us. At least they knew what awaited them.
Oh, by the way, there is a second part of the walk. We don’t try. It was rated as more difficult with some minor log obstacles. I can imagine. The part we did supposedly had no obstacles. I have had several of the Fine Fellows books, all in the trash now.
Steve Allen’s guides are pretty realistic (most importantly) for hiking in Utah (University of Utah Press).
My sister gave me a great book that highlights hiking in the Superstition Wilderness near Phoenix, Arizona. It’s by Jack Carlson and Elizabeth Stewart (Clear Creek Publishing).
If a person is interested in hiking in Oregon, I highly recommend William L. Sullivan’s guides. Explore the state in 5 books, regionally. He is also a good photographer (Navillus Press).
Here is a website that I enjoy: www.americantrails.org. Just enter the state where it says “Select a state” and you’re good to go! There is talk of bicycling as well as hiking. There are trails of all lengths on the site, up to thousands of miles long. Well, you don’t have to go all the way, or do it all at once. For long-distance trails (multi-day, state, week) don’t click on a state.
Here’s what I do: I go to http://www.nps.gov/nts/ and click on “National Trails System Map” (there’s also a “Visit the Trails” format). Then there are 3 map formats available. I use “Adobe Acrobat PDF”. Now you have the trail you’re interested in, and the American Trails site can direct you to a printed guide by putting the trail name in your “Search Our Website” area and pressing GO.
