Best Rail Trails Pacific Northwest

These FALCON GUIDES books are the best Rail Trail books on the market. They give much more information than the other books.

I got this book specifically for the information that would be there about the Willapa Hills Rail Trail that runs from Chehalis, WA to South Bend, WA. That's 56 miles!!! All she covered was the last 4 miles of the trail at the far, far, less used west end of the trail.Every year the Rail Trail holds a celebration where 100s of families and single riders ride part of all of the trail...and back! They spend the night at Rainbow Falls State Park and it's a big family party. It's so sad that none of this was covered in the book.Now I am stuck with the book and seriously wonder how many other things are left out about the other trails mentioned in the book.

There’s not a single color photo in the entire book. This is called bait and switch, and it’s a form of fraud. The description of the product needs to change.

I purchased this book because it was the only trails-to-trails guide that included Idaho. The description says the book contains full-color photo plates. The only color plate in the entire book is on the cover. All other photos are b&w.Also, the book doesn't cover the Sammamish Rail Trail, nor does the book cover the connection between the Burke-Gilman Trail and the Sammamish Rail Trail, which can extend your ride. I believe this is a serious omission.These two failures of the book are the reason for the average score.I'll hang onto the book because it's newly published and more up to date than Rail-Trails Washington & Oregon and covers Idaho. However, if hardly say the book features all the "best rail trails" in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

I have the wonderful second edition (2015) of this comprehensive book. The 2015 second edition is in color with high quality paper and packed with useful information. I have biked many of the trails in Washington and Idaho, and Natalie Bartley, the author, has really done her homework.I was about to order this updated 2023 third edition because it has been 8 years and I expected to find much new information. However, I got this third edition from the library to check it out first and was quite disappointed in the lower quality black-and-white page stock (with bike maps that just aren't as clear in gray shades). The information itself is hardly changed as well (maybe because bike routes haven't changed much). Some route information is moved around in the book and some routes are removed altogether (like the "Seattle Waterfront Pathway" and "Snohomish County Interurban Trail") because, indeed, work on our Seattle waterfront and on our Light Rail system up north has taken away or altered the old bike routes and they haven't yet installed the anticipated nifty new ones.Truly, I am not familiar with every route in the book but I just didn't find much or any difference in the descriptions of the ones that I know from the second to the third editions.So my suggestion is to consider getting the excellent earlier higher-quality edition and check the internet for updates. This is still an excellent book and I appreciate the author's work, but this version is just a "poor improvement" over the previous one in my view.