Hiking from Here to WOW: North Cascades (Wow Guides) Paperback – April 26, 2007

The book is with beautiful color photos for each hike which nicely complements with short, energetic, passionate, funny, useful and opinionated descriptions. Vital info for each hike is neatly organized and there is a good description of getting to trail head although there are no GPS coordinates or elevation profile graphs. Maps for hikes are very basic and you WILL need Green Trail maps along with this book (each hike description contains Green Trail map# that you will need). The binding is fragile and pages are too glossy/slippery for a hiking book so I don't think it can take rough use on trail. The book has an "hike at glance" table which can help you to choose an hike for your preferred length and elevation gain however book is missing a central detail list of content so to actually locate an hike you will need to go to other page. One other thing missing is table for best hikes to do for a given month. For Cascades this is very important and should be included in "at glance" table hopefully in next edition.If you really want to get your money's worth, I suggest you buy or borrow from Library another book  Don't Waste Your Time in the North Cascades: An Opinionated Hiking Guide to Help You Get the Most from This Magnificent Wilderness . Both of these book are written by same authors, published by same publishers and have almost exact same content (and I mean word-by-word same) for common hikes between two books with exception that the later one contains all hikes organized by 4 ratings (Premier, Outstanding, Worthwile, Don't do) and also the later doesn't have color photos. This is extremely useful for hikers like me because I don't get to go to Cascades very often and want to make best use of my time by picking the best possible hikes. So having this ratings from author I don't have to ask other less experienced hikers about what I should be choosing when choice is so vast.So for me, the best thing is combination of this WOW book and a list of hikes sorted by rating from "Don't waste your time..." book (pg 5-9). I really hope author includes this ratings in next edition of WOW book in "at glance" table.Having said all that, I believe this is probably the one book you should buy if you are going to buy one for Cascades. And if you are going to do only two hikes in Cascades it should be Skyline Divide and Ptarmigan Ridge!

I had viewed the Copeland's previous incarnation of this book (Don't Waste Your Time in the North Cascade) and jotted down their list of "Premier" and "Outstanding" hikes. I wish they had retained that breakdown in this version of their otherwise perfect guide book, because not the trails are equal in terms of views/vistas. They're all beautiful, that's for sure, and I've never gone wrong with any of the hikes favored in this book. The trail descriptions and driving directions are accurate, the photos are wonderful, and their assessment of the scenic beauty of these hikes is spot-on. The only caveats I notice are that their degree of difficulty rating (easy, moderate, challenging) is relative to that of a fit hiker. Some of the "easy" rated trails like Heather Pass/Maple Pass actually have moderate steepness and less-than-fit hikers may be huffing it up a supposedly "easy" trail. And their estimated times for hiking are based also upon a fit hiker who hikes at least 2 to 2.5 mph. Other than recognizing those factors in your calculation, the Copeland's Wow Guide is the absolute definitive book on hiking the North Cascades. Highly, highly recommended!

Lovely book for planning your trip, with good color pictures, clear maps (although no topographical types) and descriptions of trails that help you visualize the scenery and make you want to set out immediately. I recommend it highly. However, carry photocopies of the relevant pages rather than the book itself in your pack, as it's a bit heavy for its size. Also beware of the designation "easy" for a trail. Maybe for super-fit trail goats with rock-solid ankles and indestructible knees, the Lake Ann trail (as an example) is "easy", but for us normal folks it would be better described as manageable but a workout, perhaps a 3.5 or 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is a paved level path, and 5 is almost a climb and leaves you utterly exhausted at the end of the day. I suggest you buy this book for planning ahead, but cross-reference with (and perhaps choose to carry with you) Craig Romano's Day Hiking North Cascades, which has more realistic descriptions of the effort involved, as well as topo maps and altitude profiles of the trails.

We’re planning our hiking trips right now! Great descriptions and directions. This book was recommended to me and I’m recommending it to you

For the areas that it covers, it is a good guide. Unfortunately, by its definition, the North Cascades stop at Highway 2 and do not cover any trails south of it. It would have been nice if it did extend at least to Interstate 80.Since the author's intention is to present the "wow" hikes in the covered area, obviously not all of the trails or hikes are covered. This summer I managed to find several hikes that should have been included (my "wow" factor), but I guess that is not a reasonable expectation. Of course, it would be nice to have an exhaustive guide to all of he trails and hikes in the area.

The Copeland's previous book about hiking in the North Cascades [Don't Waste Your Time in the North Cascades] has been out of print for some time. The title was a bit standoffish at first until you got into the swing of what Kathy and Craig Copeland were trying to do. That's why I'm happy to see their current book, Hiking From Here to WOW [in the] North Cascades. It takes all the great characteristics of Don't Waste Your Time and adds to them with beautiful color photos, serviceable maps, and a fresh perspective on Cascade hiking that is wanting in the competition. The book is published by Wilderness Press, a company long known and loved by hikers for their immensely usable hiking guides. This is a hiking guide that belongs on every hiker's shelf or in their daypack.