Best Summit Hikes in Colorado: The Only Guide You'll Ever Need-50 Classic Routes and 90+ Summits

Description

Colorado has 53 14ers, more than 600 13ers, and hundreds of other peaks that can be reached without special equipment or expertise. Numerous guides dryly catalog these trails, but Best Summit Hikes in Colorado stands out from them all. Author James Dziezynski has meticulously selected 80+ of the state's absolute best peaks in more than 50 superlative hikes, and his opinionated narrative brings each route to life. Each summit is included because of a notable feature--whether it's the site of a ghost mine or airplane wreckage, has thundering waterfalls or colorful floral meadows, is the best summit for spotting wildlife or bringing out-of-town friends, or is very accessible. Some peaks offer unique opportunities, such as a trailhead accessible only via a steam-powered railroad. Several summits are described in no other publication. Covering all Colorado's major mountain ranges, including the well-known Sangre De Cristo, Gore, Sawatch, Indian Peaks, and Maroon Bell wilderness areas to the lesser-known Grenadiers, Medicine Bow, and Outer San Juan peaks, this distinctive guide makes it easy to select exactly the right hike for the right day, the right mood, and the right companions.

Boulder-based author James Dziezynski is a mountaineer and explorer who has scaled more than 600 Colorado summits. He has climbed in the Arctic, Greenland, the jungles of several Caribbean islands, Mexico, the American and Canadian Rockies, and just about every US state. His work has appeared in Outside, Backpacker, Hooked on the Outdoors, Women's Adventure, Boulder Weekly, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Gamefaqs.com, and Mountain Biking, among other publications.

"The new edition of Best Summit Hikes in Colorado details non-technical scrambles up 14ers in every Colorado Mountain Range. Each route Dziezynski selected sets itself apart with notable features including: the site of a ghost town, a waterfall, an airplane wreck, a great meadow for wildflowers or wildlife spotting." --Boulder Weekly, October 2012 "This great book covers some of Colorado's unsung hikes. I appreciate the lively detail and stories about natural and human history. I'd even read it sitting in my armchair!" —Susan LeFever, former director, Sierra Club Rocky Mountain Chapter "There is so much of Colorado that is still wild and lonely, and James Dziezynski takes you there in this book. And because he has spent so much time figures these trips out from a logistical standpoint, it's an easy guidebook to follow." —Doug Schnitzsahn, editor-in-chief, Elevation Outdoors