A Cool Book For the Trail Rats in the Crowd
Top Trails Yosemite: Must Do Hikes for Everyone
This book is divided into seven chapters: one for each region of the park. Each chapter lists 5 to 8 hikes ranging in distance from the 1/2 mile walk at Bridalveil Falls to a 33 mile excursion among the High Sierra Camps. Obviously, some of these trails are more suitable for backpacking, a feature that distinguishes this book from others in the ‘Top Trails’ series. All the great hikes are included. Readers will find route descriptions for Half Dome, the Tuolomne Grove of Sequoias (my favorite grove in the park), Clouds Rest, Hetch Hetchy Resevoir, Glacier Point, and many more. In all, there are 45 trails and routes described here.
What makes this book so good are the standard features found in other ‘Top Trails’ guides and the expert commentary of Schaffer. Each chapter begins with an overview of the region, a trails summary page listing distance, difficulty, and some highlights of the trails, followed by detailed trail descriptions and carefully drawn maps. Schaffer is one of the top cartographers in the west and his maps are second to none. But in addition to these standard features, Schaffer also offers an extended commentary on the geology, geography, and plant and animal communities found in the park. His theory that Yosemite Valley’s rock walls were formed by faulting and vertical fracture planes, not solely by glaciers, is explained in these pages, along with the evidence for it, so that non-specialists can easily understand what they observe as they hike. This sort of expert commentary adds immeasurably to the joy of hiking. That is why I strongly recommend this book by Schaffer. It can enhance any vacation to Yosemite.”
I think I’m going to have to add another book to my library. Nice review Fritz.
For over 30 years now I've enjoyed hiking, backpacking, fishing, photographing and exploring Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. 
August 14th, 2008 10:17
I own approx. 30 books covering Yosemite and Jeffrey Schaffer’s books are definetely worth a read. Above mentioned book should help to get you started to see more of Yosemite than just the Valley. I also recommend Jeffrey Schaffer’s book “Yosemite National Park” (also published by Wilderness Press) who gives you a bit more background info on history, geology and nature in Yosemite. The trail description of both books are very similar (sometimes word by word).
Another good book with hikes in Yosemite is Marc J. Soares’ “100 Hikes in YNP”. It has pretty good trail descriptions and decent maps as well.
Although I generally don’t like the Lonely Planet guides their “Yosemite National Park”-book is not too bad either and it’s a good help to for the “first timers” who’ve never been to Yosemite before. The LP guide has only a selected number of hikes.
If you are looking for the definitive guide on Yosemite’s most popular look no further and get a copy of Rick Deutsch’s “One Best Hike: Yosemite’s Half Dome” (published by Wilderness Press). His book will help you to prepare for this demanding hike and you will have all your questions covered. Rick knows a ton of stuff about Yosemite and he’s more than happy to answer his reader’s question.
My personal favourite about Yosemite is “Off The Wall - Death In Yosemite” by M.Ghiglieri and “Butch” Farabee. Their book is a thrilling account covering virtually every death that has occurred in Yosemite since it’s “discovery” in 1849.
Cheers from Hamburg, Germany!
August 14th, 2008 20:58
I’ve been contacted regarding the “discovery date” of Yosemite being 1851. When I mentioned 1849 I was referring to William Penn Abrams as mentioned here: http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/abrams_diary.html - however as you can read in the article there might been been “visitors” in Yosemite as early as 1833. Most books refer to the Mariposa Battalion and their entrance to the valley in 1851. Imho there is no exact discovery date of Yosemite. But I leave it up to you fellow readers….