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Hiking New Jersey: A Guide to 50 of the Garden State's Greatest Hiking Adventures (State Hiking Guides Series) ReviewThis fine collection of hikes in New Jersey covers a fair sampling of outdoor treasures from all over the state. I purchased both the hard copy and the Kindle versions, and this Review discusses first the book and then using the guide in the Kindle version.
The hard copy version is a classic hiking guide, produced on good paper with colored covers and well bound. The extract provided on the "Look Inside" feature here on Amazon is a fair representation of the description of each hike: details of length and difficulty, directions to trail head, other users, dogs allowed, a simple map, and historical or environmental items of interest. There is a very useful discussion of hiking in the state generally, a suggestion to purchase more detailed maps, especially from the New York New Jersey Trail Conference (see first Comment), checklists of items to carry, a short but good bibliography, and a list of additional sources of information, primarily online.
The only criticism that occurs to me is that there is no GPS data for any of the hikes, but that data is not essential to the occasional hiker. On balance, this is a five star hiking and walking guide for New Jersey.
As an experiment, I purchased both the hard copy and downloaded the Kindle version, in the latter case to a Kindle 2, the Kindle PC and the Kindle iPhone app. I was particularly interested in how the Kindle version would work in practice. (I confess I've loved using paper guide books for over 40 years, and this version is perfectly acceptable for trail purposes; about a pound in weight, easy to carry and use even in wet weather (encased in a Ziplock bag), wide margins for writing, easily Xeroxable for even less weight, in short the classic hiker's approach.)
The Kindle version of the text is generally identical to the hard copy except that formatting is simplified in the Kindle version - double columns and inserts in the hard copy are converted to a single column text in the Kindle version. One troubling difference: a number of capital letters appear in lower case in the Kindle version, suggesting that there may be other typographical errors. My sampling proof reading didn't turn up any, but my sample was only 5% of the trail descriptions.
I used the guidebook on two hikes carrying my Kindle, and things went pretty well -- the text was perfectly visible but it is not possible to blow up the maps or the charts in the same way you can the text, the Kindle is a quarter the weight of the book, but costs 15 times as much and is pretty fragile. Ziplock pages protected it perfectly without affecting visibility or using the toggle or the keys -- however, protecting it from dings and dongs in the field is problematic -- my heavy duty carrying case brought the weight up to about the same weight as the book.
I considered taking the Kindle version on a third hike loaded onto a small HP computer, about 20 the cost of the book, and easily three times the weight including protective covering. The Kindle software is free and although there is less functionality on the PC than on the Kindle, the speed, the color pictures, back lighting and clearer text make this a real option to carrying the Kindle -- but ...
The Kindle app on the iPhone was an absolute triumph. The colored pictures appeared in full color; the text was crisp and easily readable, the ebook is stored on the iPhone so that it could be read even when there was no service (because of looming rock walls or high power lines), the maps were easily scalable using the pinch and pull features, making it easy to figure out small details of complex trail connections, and there is no additional weight - as a lone hiker by preference, I always carry a cell phone for security.
In addition, there are an enormous number of other apps for the iPhone that enhance the hiking experience: a compass, a fairly good GPS co-ordinator, a follow the crumbs back track, a flashlight, a notebook, Google Books and more to the point Google maps, and I'm sure many additional apps that I'll discover over time.
One small nuisance: I always carry a Xerox copy of my trail descriptions in addition to any maps and guide books. I've discovered a fairly cumbersome way of getting that bit of redundant security: make a screen shot of the page from the PC version of the guidebook, store that on my computer, then print the image. A better techie can undoubtedly describe how to do that step by step, and my son has offered to do so for me as a Christmas present. (I'll post the steps in a Comment in due course.)
In any event, much as I love hard copy guide books, my iPhone version is a real contender. I'll carry hard copy and iPhone versions for a few more hikes but my guess is that I'm already a convert to ebook hiking guide books. At least on the iPhone.
Robert C. Ross 2009
Addendum: After almost two months and four more hikes, I'm a convert to the iPhone version of hiking guide books, if they are available in that format. One pleasant discovery: it's great fun to read about new hikes (or treasure old) ones in the odd moments -- waiting in line, on the train, where ever I may be -- the cell phone is always with me -- and so are the hikes.
Robert C. Ross 2010
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