What's new in Northwest outdoors guides

In a thin year for new outdoor adventure guides for the Pacific Northwest, here are a few noteworthy titles:

"Day & Section Hikes: Pacific Crest Trail, Washington," by Adrienne Schaefer (Wilderness Press, $15.95)

This palm-sized guide offers 30 hikes (from day hikes to three-day trips) that utilize some portion of Washington's 503-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

It's a handy little volume that suggests some worthwhile jaunts, particularly those north of Stevens Pass. The trails are rated (useful), but the "outstanding features" descriptions, which sum up key attributes of each trip, are presented in annoyingly small, italicized type.

Experienced hikers will find nothing revelatory here, and a total of 30 hikes seems a little light, so a classic such as the grunt up to Snowy Lakes Basin goes unacknowledged. But the ideas that make the cut are typically good ones.

"Pacific Northwest Hiking," by Scott Leonard and Sean Patrick Hill (Moon Handbooks, $23.95)

Though mentioned nowhere inside or on the cover, this is the sixth edition of this long-running compendium, years ago co-authored by Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd and contributor Dan Nelson.

Its chief value: It crams brief summaries of most recognized hikes in the region into a single volume, rates all of them for scenic appeal and lets time-stressed hikers cherry-pick the 9s and 10s.

This edition still does a decent job of that, though author judgment at times appears a little dingy: Wallace Falls gets a 9; Spider Meadow gets an 8? Geographic organization can seem a bit whacked, too — Noble Knob (near Mount Rainier) is across the page from Little Giant Pass (in faraway Glacier Peak Wilderness). Still, its broad-brush approach to this huge region can come in handy during the early stages of trip planning.

"Babes in the Woods," by Jennifer Aist (The Mountaineers Books, $16.95)

Plan to tote a tot into the boonies? Aist, a mother of four and director of parent education at an Anchorage hospital, has assembled a nice package of dos and don'ts that first-time parents in particular should find useful.

Suggestions for camping, day hiking, backpacking and boating are included, and Aist shows her savvy on the various topics by devoting the most space to perhaps the most kid-centric issue of any outdoor excursion: food (followed closely by weather protection).

"Complete National Parks of the United States," by Mel White (National Geographic, hardbound, $40).

It includes Mount Rainier, Olympic and the North Cascades, plus Mount St. Helens, Hanford Reach and other national monuments in Washington state — as well as every one of America's national parks (58), plus monuments, battlefields, historic sites, recreation areas, lakeshores, seashores, rivers and more. A dandy book designed for armchair adventurers who like lots of choices when pondering their next excursion.

"The Creaky Knees Guide: Oregon," by Seabury Blair, Jr. (Sasquatch Books, $16.95)

Blair, past outdoor columnist for the Bremerton Sun, offers 80 ideas for easy hikes in Oregon, the companion volume for the Washington version he released last year.

Most entertaining tip in the book: If you attempt the hike to the summit of Crater Lake's Mount Scott (particularly if you are part of the creaky knees fraternity), a telltale sign of altitude sickness is HAFE, short for "high-altitude flatus expulsion" (or, in Blair's words, "explosion"). As Blair points out, you can look it up.

"Easy Hikes Close to Home: Seattle," by Andrew Weber and Bryce Stevens (Menasha Ridge Press, $8.95)

This hip-pocket guide offers 18 strolls and meanders, from Seattle's Discovery Park to Twin Falls Natural Area near North Bend.

For low-energy endeavors, it's fine. For more options close to the city, consider "Best Hikes Near Seattle" (Falcon Guides), "Take a Hike: Seattle" (Moon) or "60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Seattle" (Menasha Ridge).

It came out late last year, but "Winter Hikes of Western Washington" by Craig Romano (The Mountaineers, $15.95) introduced a file-card approach to trail guides. Each hike (50 total) comes on a 4-by-6-inch card with a map on one side and data on the other. A neat idea; this year The Mountaineers created day-hike card sets for Yosemite and Yellowstone/Grand Teton.

Notes

• Fans (and I'm one) of guidebook author Douglas Lorain should know that his newest title is out: "Backpacking Wyoming" (Wilderness Press, $18.95). Very inviting.

Lorain's "Backpacking Washington" is one of my primary hike-planning resources. Others on my shortlist: "Trekking Washington" (Mike Woodmansee), "100 Classic Hikes in Washington" (Ira Spring and Harvey Manning) and any installment in The Mountaineers' Day Hiking series authored by Romano.

• The Mountaineers Books earned two 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards for a pair of photo books published by its nature-focused Braided River imprint: "Planet Ice" (photography by James Martin) and "Salmon in the Trees" (Amy Gulick). Martin's book was one of 12 to earn a special gold medal for being "most likely to save the planet." Gulick's book won a silver medal in the environment/ecology/nature category.

Freelance writer Terry Wood is also editor of the Expert Advice section and contributor to The REI Blog, both at REI.com. Reach him at farhiker@rei.com.