The Colorado Trail: The Official Guidebook, 8th Edition

By Colorado Trail Foundation

Book Overview

The Colorado Trail (CT) is the premier scenic long trail in North America. It winds its way through endless fields of wildflowers to wind-swept mountain passes, from wild mountain rivers and streams to quiet trails through old growth forests. The CT crosses eight mountain ranges, seven National Forests, six Wilderness Areas, and five river systems. Starting near Denver at 5,500 feet and ending near Durango at 7,000 feet, the CT gains and loses almost 76,000 feet in elevation over 468 miles. This eighth edition of the official CT guide has all the information a thru-hiker needs to plan and complete his or her trek. New to this edition are updated GPS waypoints, maps, and rewritten descriptions for the 28 segments, as well as new photographs of spots along the segments. Each segment provides distance, elevation gain, and an overview; a list of trailhead and access points; maps needed; a list of supply points; services and accommodations; detailed trail descriptions; a map; and an elevation gain and loss chart. Additional town maps and mountain bike detour maps (around Wilderness Areas) have been added where applicable.An extensive introduction includes information on planning, supplying, safety, mountain biking, regulations, and backcountry ethics, plus chapters on Colorado Trail heritage, natural history, and geology. At the back of the book you will find a graphic summary of the trail, equipment list, ranger districts with contact information, bibliography, and index.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0984221336
• ISBN13: 9780984221332
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Colorado Mountain Club Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Very helpful guidebook

Some friends and I are planning our thru hike of this trail this summer, and this guidebook was amazingly helpful. It details where nearly all water sources are as well as offering suggestions for food, showers, campsites, and all other necessary amenities. The maps provided are helpful but I'm still planning on buying the set of full topos for the trip to understand the topography of the trail better. This book is fairly heavy to pack on the trail, but I think I'll still probably bring it because of its turn by turn details of the trail, scenery, and what to look and watch for along your trek. Overall a fabulous guidebook and I would strongly encourage anyone planning a thru hike of this trail to get this book.

Co. Trail

The book overall was helpful when hiking for the first time in some areas but some descriptions were contradictory

Outstanding - Highly recommended

Get this book. You won't find a better Guidebook. I have numerous Guidebooks from several publishers and authors and I haven't seen anything better. The book includes sections on planning your trip, the heritage, natural history and geology of the Colorado Trail. The book provides a tremendous amount of information. A great deal of effort went into the organization and layout of the information in the book. The individuals that were responsible for making this book available should take tremendous pride in a job very well done. Note that this book is bigger and heavier than many other Guidebooks because of the great color photographs. I consider this to be a plus. This is a beautiful Guidebook. My other Guidebooks for the most part all have black & white photographs. They all pale in comparison to this beautiful book.

Now with GPS waypoints/coordinates

The new 6th edition comes with latitude, longitude, and elevation for each of the main waypoints and intersections along each of the segments.

Nice but missing a few things

I agree with all of the positive points of the first review. The only things that are missing, which I think are important, is that on the book's maps none of the coordinates are given for the trail. Waypoints would be excellent information so that you can map it on your own Topo! software without having to buy something else in addition to the book.