Guide to California Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails (FunTreks Guidebooks)

Amazing how helpful this is for planning trips.

As an off-road newbie, this is the perfect starter guide to get you going. The trail descriptions are helpful and give you a general idea of what to expect. It's not a comprehensive examination of each trial in fine detail, but it gives you enough info to feel confident in exploring. The color ratings of trail difficulty seem to be accurate, although as the author states, different drivers with different skill sets and vehicles may find some trails harder or easier.The color photos are great and the maps well drawn. They are not detailed enough to be a single source of navigation, however as long as you stick to the trails as shown, finding your way around will not be a problem. It is helpful to have a GPS and a detailed hardcopy topographical map and/or road map as well anytime you head off-road, just as a general safety measure.While this book is a good overview, I would highly recommend looking up the current status of any trails you're thinking of visiting, as road closures do happen. There are a number of excellent on-line trail guides that will supplement this book.

This is a great guide to top trails of California. I like that the author combined the previous two books into one. It covers the best trails for all levels of 4x4 capability and is thorough. Closed trails have been removed.I am not a fan of the spiral bound pages. They will likely rip out more easily. The trade-off is that the book lays flat on your truck/car seat to any page. Also, while this version has nice color trail maps, the maps no longer highlight the changes of terrain difficulty along a particular trail (from easy to moderate to easy for example). That was a nice feature of the previous edition.Overall, this still is a great book and well worth the price.

I like the color code of the difficulty of roads..Green - easy, Red - difficult etc... Also, each trail has the type of vehicle required when travel. Ie: Jeep, truck. quads..etcs. Easy to read and gives me confident to use when trails are travelled. Also, I like the maps that contains hiking trail. I love hiking so this books gives hints on maps to hiking trails.

Good information but a section of the book from page 168 to 184 seems to be missing, then a duplicate of the section is found later in the copy I received. Just my luck I was interested in those trails in Section 5/6 that are missing......

I haven't used it on trails yet but already have a pretty good idea what to expect from this guide. Plenty of other useful content included in it as well.

I am having an of road trailer being built, and I will use this beautiful guide to get on the back roads. That being said I can’t say anymore then it is beautifully put together!

This is the Bible of off road guides.Wells does an excellent job of describing and rating the trails.If you are planning a trip to any area that he has a guide for, get one. The book is very useful for planning and also as a mile by mile guide while actually on a trail.He rates trails by difficulty and also notes his favorites for scenery. Using those two criterion, I have planned two trips with great success.I own and have used five of his guide books - Moab, Colorado North and Central, California and Arizona.Highly recommended.

I have a couple of these guides for various regions, and they are all superb. Colourful, detailed, easy to read and follow. The information is factual and relevant, without being overbearing. It is the only guide that you will ever need.