Grand Canyon National Park Guide
New Lonely Planet Book Covers South and North Rims, Hiking, Rafting
Latest edition of Lonely Planet guidebook to the Grand Canyon National Park also covers Kids & Pets, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Sedona, Route 66 and Grand Canyon Skywalk.
This second edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to the Grand Canyon National Park is one of a handsome small series of National Park guidebooks published in April 2008. The original book was published in March 2004 but this new edition has been completely updated, and the authors have hiked 130 miles of trails and spent 700 hours in the Grand Canyon National Park researching this new 280-page book.
America's National Park system is something the United States can be rightly proud of, and it helps protect some of the most beautiful places on the planet. Perhaps none is more stunning than the Grand Canyon, and the visitor could spend 700 hours visiting it and still not see and do everything the area has to offer.
To help visitors make the most of their time, it would be hard to better this series of Lonely Planet National Park guides. They are small in size and yet, at about 300 pages each, fully comprehensive. The covers are striking, begging the reader to pick them up, and the Grand Canyon guide opens with 16 pages of colour photos and a map. It ends with more maps and a special index of 53 hikes covered in the book.
Hiking, rafting trips on the Colorado River, biking, horseback riding, skiing, fishing and swimming are among the activities covered, but this isn't one of those guides that are only for the gung-ho traveler. It's for everyone, and a special chapter covers traveling with pets and with children (or both).
The family travel chapter includes an example of one of the book's nice features – the boxes that profile real people. Many guidebook series have become very formulaic, but Lonely Planet have worked against that – not just in this series but in others too – and have included profiles of, and interviews with, people who live in or really know the region. In this Grand Canyon guidebook readers meet river guide Matt Fahey, and Volunteer-in-the-Park (or VIP) Al Astorga.
In the Kids & Pets chapter they also meet the Zinkula family from Iowa, who drove 1500 miles to the North Rim and whose four children describe their reactions to the magnificent canyon, including the by-chance way they got to attend a Hopi Dance.
As well as the Grand Canyon National Park itself (and the book would be worth buying if it covered that alone), the guide also takes in possible side trips the traveler might want to make, to Flagstaff, Sedona, Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam and bits of Route 66. It's also bang up-to-date with information about the new Grand Canyon Skywalk – and not afraid to comment on the high pricing and also the possible environmental impact of further development planned here.
As well as all the practical information – temperature, rainfall, where to stay, where to eat, opening times, prices – the guide has good and long sections on Grand Canyon wildlife, the canyon's history and the Native American people, and the various ways you can volunteer and not only do your bit to help the National Park but have a really cool time too! It's an excellent book.
The Lonely Planet Guide to the Grand Canyon National Park, 2nd edition, was published in April 2008 at $19.99 in the USA and £12.99 in the UK.
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Other guides in the National Parks series are:
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For further details visit the Lonely Planet website
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Read more about the Grand Canyon Skywalk
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