Review by Martha Quillen
Colorado – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Colorado Journey Guide – A Driving & Hiking Guide to Ruins, Rock Art, Fossils and Formations
by Jon Kramer and Julie Martinezwith illustrations by Vernon Morris
Published in 2007 by Adventure Publications
ISBN-1591932084
THERE ARE GUIDES to Colorado trails, parks, museums, historic sites, geology, hot springs, caves, jeep roads, inns, ghost towns, and scenic attractions, plus biking, hiking, skiing, fishing, birding, wildlife-watching, and wildflower-viewing areas. And here’s yet another. But this one is a little different, and it’s well-written, beautifully illustrated, and suggests some interesting places you may not have visited before.
Kramer and Martinez present the obligatory warnings and precautions about preserving national assets and avoiding natural disasters (like bad weather, flash floods, and rock falls) with elan. Their style is friendly, informal, and sometimes humorous. Their directions are generally clear, and their advice common-sensical.
Though one might quibble with their choices — especially their geologic choices — the book makes it more than clear that their criteria for including attractions is personal and quirky. In fact, their explanation of the book’s rating system says, “The ratings are determined by our own personal standards.” And according to them two stars (out of five) mean: “Stop by here if you’re in the area and need to kill time. Who knows, you may like it more than the rating suggests.”
The authors are not from Colorado. Instead, they write about places they visit, which apparently includes entire regions at a time (such as the American southwest), and that makes for some surprisingly eccentric entries in this book. For example, I’ve never read a Colorado guide that warned people about Javelinas before. And although I’ve actually seen scorpions and tarantulas in Salida, I’d bet the scorpion pictured in this guide wasn’t photographed here.
Likewise, the authors fail to warn readers about ticks, impure water, hanta virus, moose, sticking to trails, getting lost, lightning, avalanches, and a host of other Colorado staples. Of course, there does seem to be some information about local dangers missing, since page 23 of the obligatory tourist warning section ends in mid-sentence (despite the fact that this guide is generally well-proofed and presented).
However, I suspect this lack of usual warnings is no great omission, since people who live here or visit here will doubtlessly be forewarned about all of the possible hazards by local newspapers and tourist guides.
Also, some of the book’s directions struck me as encouraging backtracking, because they tell you how to get to sites from specific places, which potential visitors don’t actually need to go to. For example, a lot of people going to Penitente Canyon will probably be coming in from the north, but to get to Penitente following this book’s directions they’ll have to start in Del Norte.
So….
This guide includes many local attractions worth checking out, and some Colorado attractions I had never thought of visiting before, but that look promising, such as the Devils Stairsteps, Pagosa Springs (the hot springs not the town), Picture Canyon, and Vermillion Falls. Although none of these places earned high rankings in Jon’s Ratings — which only judges on geology, paleontology and archaeological values — the pictures of them in this book were spectacular.
This guide is readable, gorgeous, and suggests some unusual places; yet it encourages tourists to visit developed, public sites rather than secret, pristine places. And what could be better than that?
