This is not a real hike. Shut up for 20 years, I must make a public welfare notice.
This is not a rogue opinion. I have seen very knowledgeable people tremble when they hear this person’s name. Michael Kelsey wrote the Killer Desert Hiking Guide. This is not a joke, I want to know how many people died from using them. If this guy didn’t kill anyone, I would be surprised.
The biggest tragedy is that you can find this guy’s book on the shelf of the National Park Service store. This will infer that the guide is suitable for “family outing” hikes. The best thing I can say is that NPS is very irresponsible.
Say something positive? MK discusses hiking that no one else knows about. If you don’t come back and tell you, it’s a little comfort. Oh, and one more positive. When we were caught in a flash flood (see “Hiking and Exploring the Paria River”), it was not his fault. Natural disasters are responsible.
The following are some of the general weaknesses of his book:
1) He walks at 4-5 miles per hour in all terrain (and didn’t tell you). No one can do this. For this person, everything is a highway. His book is not very descriptive (in my humble opinion) because he walks so fast that he can’t see anything. So he is great, because according to his description, leaving enough time and water for hiking will make you half the success. All the time allocated in his book has doubled!
2) He writes the path description in kilometers. It is difficult to convert linear measurements when you are mentally confused due to dehydration and heatstroke, because he underestimates the difficulty of hiking. Let this sink into it, he wrote about the metric distance of American desert hikes. OK! So at best, he is just unreasonable.
It’s just an experience of my wife and I using one of his hiking guides (“Hiking and Exploring the San Rafael Swell of Utah”). (By the way, we are very good hikers, but not Supermensch). One of his “hiking” is swimming and diving. We can’t swim. One of the real miracles in our lives happened on the day in question. My wife and I should die on that day-100% sure.
At the beginning of the “Hiking” narrative in the book, Kelsey said to measure nearby rivers to see if it is safe to hike in the canyon. The measurement is “safe”. Oh, by the way, he said, “You might want to put inner tubes on the kids.” Guess what. The children are long dead. No miracle can save them. So we think we will use inner tubes safely.
So, I was on my belly, my wife was on her ass, and drifted along the lazy river in the inner tube. We are just waiting. What is certain is that there will be enough banks for hiking. I guess we are thinking that this is not a real hike, but it is very mellow.
We have tried dozens of such good people hikes, reserved double the time and water for the hike, and made sure that the “measurement” is safe for the hike.
Remember, where we are is a place you may not have encountered in years. The population per square mile is zero. We often hike in the desert of Utah and see nothing alive except for rattlesnakes and bighorn sheep. If you are familiar with San Rafael Swell, you will understand what I mean.
Miracle: When we were floating, la la la, I heard a little hissing sound. Now we are walking fast. Suddenly, two guys stood on top of us with wings on their backs, shouting “Don’t go over there!” It was a waterfall, we would die, and I would face down. I certainly believe that this kind of help is realized from our needs.
The conscientious writer did not say navigating the waterfall on a hike. We will not try. We can’t swim. The angels have a good book written by another author. They have ski poles and an extra raft for their equipment. We have backpacks and inner tubes.
I will be brief now. Well, just before we crossed the waterfall, they used ski poles to pull us out and saved our lives. I still spend the rest of the “hiking” underwater, hung on my inner tube, sucked into the whirlpool, and other interesting things. There are more waterfalls, many rapids.
My wife can’t swim at all, she has to dive from the boulder. She didn’t know which way to die.
Well, we did it, and I was just hypothermia. The river trip of our guardian angel ruined our nanny. At least they know what they are going to do.
Oh, by the way, there is a second part of the hike. We did not try. It was rated as harder due to some minor log obstacles. I can imagine. There should be no obstacles in what we do. I have a lot of books from good people, and they are all in the trash now.
Steve Allen’s guide is perfect for hiking in Utah (the most important thing) (Utah University Press).
My sister gave me a good book, which focused on hiking in the superstitious wilderness near Phoenix, Arizona. Written by Jack Carlson and Elizabeth Stewart (Clear Creek Publishing).
If one is interested in hiking in Oregon, I recommend William L. Sullivan’s guide. He explored the regionality of the state in five books. He is also an excellent photographer (Navillus Press).
This is a website I like: www.americantrails.org. Just put in the state that says “Choose a State”, and you’re good to go! Discussed some cycling and hiking. There are trails of various lengths, thousands of miles in length. Well, you don’t have to go the whole route, and you don’t have to do it all at once. For long-distance (multi-day, state, week) routes, do not click the state.
This is what I did: I went to http://www.nps.gov/nts/ and clicked on “National Trail System Map” (there is also a “visit trail” format there). Then there are 3 map formats available. I use “Adobe Acrobat PDF”. Now that you have a route you are interested in, the American Trails website can guide you to some printed guides by placing the route name in the “Search our website” area and clicking GO.
