A Comprehensive and Engagingly Personal Guide to Two of America's Most Special Places

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	• Moon Yellowstone and Grand Teton (Moon Handbooks) Don Pitcher Avalon Travel Publishing, 2006 - 350 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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The only travel book you need

When I'm planning a trip the first thing I do is order a Moon Handbook for the area in which I want to travel. They are invariably well informed because the people who write are passionate about the area and will suggest places that some people may miss out on.

The layout is good and the maps are excellent - simple to read and navigate by. We travel pretty extensively in Canada and America and the Moon Travel Handbooks are the only travel books we take with us.

I particularly like the suggestions for hiking trails and what you can expect to see as well as the rating for each hike e.g. easy flat walk or moderate walk with some steep ascents.

Before you book the suggested accommodation check on tripadvisor to get traveller reviews and make your judgement from those. This book had the usual good tips on where to eat.

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A Comprehensive and Engagingly Personal Guide to Two of America's Most Special Places

If you're planning an extended visit to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, I highly recommend this guidebook. (If you're only going to visit the Parks for three or four days as part of a longer trip, however, it's probably more detail than you would need.) We recently visited the two Parks for a total of twelve days, and I found this Guide extremely helpful. Unusually for a guidebook, I actually read it pretty much straight through before we left. It's an enjoyable read, even aside from the quality of the information it presents.

The Moon Guidebooks only seem to have emerged onto the scene within the past several years, and for many readers they are still likely to be less familiar than such old standbys as Fodor's or even Lonely Planet. But I've used several guides from this publisher now and have found them to be uniformly excellent.

In terms of the book's coverage, you get 70 pages on Yellowstone Park itself; 64 pages on the Yellowstone Gateway communities; 33 on Grand Tetons National Park; and 91 on the Jackson Hole area. There's also a 33-page "Background" section that provides interesting information about the geography and climate, flora and fauna, and the often controversy-ridden history of both Parks, and a 4-page section on avoiding or dealing with bear attacks. Finally, there's a solid 6-page bibliography with suggestions for other reading.

The book includes an abundance of maps - in the sections focused on sightseeing (as opposed to where to stay and eat), you'll typically find at least one map every four pages. There are interesting, even compelling sidebars, such as the one about "Beaver Dick" Leigh, an English immigrant and early resident of Jackson Hole who on Christmas Day 1887 watched his wife Jenny, newborn baby, and four other children all die of smallpox and left a heartbreaking account of the experience, which the author quotes in full (p. 113).

This guidebook is thorough, accurate, and useful, but beyond that, I enjoyed the glimpses of the author's personality that he lets come through in his writing. "The Buffalo Bill Museum is a real joy," he tells you, although his assessment of the Cody Firearms Museum is more restrained: "it's interesting even for those of us who consider the proliferation of guns a national menace. . . . All told, this museum houses more implements of destruction and mayhem than you're likely to see at an NRA convention." Or: "For those who love history, Trail Town is an incredible treasure trove without the fancy gift shops and commercial junk that tag along with most such endeavors. This is the real thing, low-key and genuine."

He also writes effective descriptions that will help you decide what you may want to see:

"Togwotee Pass is one of the most scenic drives imaginable, with Ramshorn Peak peeking down from the north for several miles until the road plunges into dense lodgepole forests (Shoshone National Forest) with lingering glimpses of the Pinnacle Buttes. At the crest it emerges into the grass-, willow-, and flower-bedecked meadows with Blackrock Creek winding through. Whitebark pine and Englemann spruce trees cover the nearby slopes. . . . Togwotee Pass is a complete shock after all the miles of sagebrush and grassland that control the heartland of Wyoming. It's like entering another world - one of cool, forested mountains and lofty peaks instead of the arid land with horizonwide vistas."

In short, this is an excellent guidebook to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and the immediately adjacent areas. If you're planning a more extensive ramble around other parts of Wyoming, then you'll want to check out the author's Wyoming volume for Moon, which tops out at a comprehensive 728 pages. (The Yellowstone-Grand Tetons coverage in the statewide volume runs about 180 pages, about half as long as in this separate volume specifically focusing on the Parks.)

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In this spectacularly scenic region of the northwest corner of Wyoming lies Yellowstone, the nation's oldest and best-loved national park, along with one of the most stunning mountainscapes on the planet, Grand Teton National Park. Expert travel writer and photographer Don Pitcher helps you have a truly personal experience in these stunning regions.

Don's travel suggestions include: Yellowstone in a Day, Two Weeks in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Watching Wildlife, and more. Suggested travel strategies and lists of must-see sights provide you with the real insights so you can decide where you should go, stay, and eat?without hassles or regrets. Don also details where to hike, climb, mountain bike, raft, ski, snowshoe, go horseback riding, and more. Moon Yellowstone and Grand Teton is complete with maps, photographs, illustrations, and special emphasis on leading destinations such as Old Faithful Geyser, Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs, the Tetons, Jenny Lake, the Snake River, and Jackson Hole.

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