Five Star Trails Series of books offer Guide Books to the most beautiful hikes in your area. Trails covered in the series include those near Ann Arbor & Detroit, Michigan, Flagstaff and Sedona Arizona, Adirondacks of New York, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina.

All are about 200 pages, 5x7 format with photos, maps and charts.

About each book:

Five-Star Trails Ann Arbor and Detroit (available June 2011) will steer you off the beaten path where you’ll find exceptional beauty and peace of mind. Each trail description provides directions and commentary on what to expect along the way. Each hike features an individual trail map, elevation profile, and at-a-glance information, helping readers quickly find the perfect trip.

Sized to fit in a pocket, the book's detailed trail descriptions will help readers find their way on and off the trail. Driving directions and GPS trailhead coordinates will help with navigating the myriad of unnamed roads. The trails covered range from those best suited to the novice, families, experienced hikers, or backpackers.

About the author Greg Tasker

A Detroit-based journalist, Greg Tasker is currently the Assistant News Editor and Drive Editor at The Detroit News. He first became passionate about hiking while living in Pennsylvania and Maryland and has written hiking stories for Backpacker, AMC Outdoors, Scouting, France Today, Vermont Life, and other publications. He has hiked sections of the Appalachian Trail up and down the East Coast. He also has written winter sports stories—on topics that include cross-country and downhill skiing and snowshoeing—for the travel sections of The Baltimore Sun, Providence Journal Bulletin, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While living on the East Coast, Tasker contributed to various editions (1995-2002) of Fodor's Virginia and Maryland, Random House. Note, for Fodor's Virginia and Maryland, the sales data entered below (see Contributor's Previous Works) is for the 2001 edition. Previous editions' data is not available on Bookscan. Tasker returned to Michigan in 2002 and was surprised by the extensive network of hiking trails in the Ann Arbor-Detroit urban area. Extensive exploration of the diverse trail system led to his desire to share it all in a new and much-needed book.

Five Star Trails in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Park is an immense wilderness encompassing over 9,375 square miles. It is nearly as large as Vermont and larger than five other states. In fact, it is larger than the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Great Smoky Mountains, and Big Bend National Parks combined. Within its boundaries are rugged mountains, countless pristine lakes and ponds, seemingly endless forests, and thousands of miles of wild rivers providing an infinite number of outdoor adventures. With thousands of miles of hiking trails weaving throughout this precious wild resource, it is a hiker’s paradise. So whether you prefer easy strolls in the deep woods, panoramic views atop mountains, the calm of picturesque lakes, the drama of turbulent waterfalls or the excitement of bone-crunching vertical ascents and descents, Five-Star Trails in the Adirondacks covers them all. Each hike features an individual trail map, elevation profile, and at-a-glance information, helping readers quickly find the perfect trip. Sized to fit in a pocket, the book's detailed trail descriptions will help readers find their way on and off the trail. Driving directions and GPS trailhead coordinates will help with navigating the myriad of unnamed roads. The trails covered range from those best suited to the novice, families, experienced hikers, or backpackers.

About the author - Tim Starmer

Tim Starmer has always been an outdoor enthusiast and spent most of his childhood seeking out remote and wild areas whenever possible. Throughout his life, the Adirondacks and its vast wilderness have been one of Tim’s favorite destinations for hiking and backpacking trips. In 2006 Tim explored numerous wilderness gems across New York when he co-authored The Best in Tent Camping: New York State. Tim currently owns and operates New Heritage Woodworking, a construction company that specializes in designing and building timber frames in Upstate New York.

Five Star Hikes around Flagstaff and Sedona Each hike features an individual trail map, elevation profile, and at-a-glance information, helping readers quickly find the perfect trip. Sized to fit in a pocket, the book's detailed trail descriptions will help readers find their way on and off the trail. Driving directions and GPS trailhead coordinates will help with navigating the myriad of unnamed roads. The trails covered range from those best suited to the novice, families, experienced hikers, or backpackers.

About the author Tony Padegimas

Tony Padegimas is, among many other things, a free-lance writer who spends as much time as possible in his hammock slung in some random part of a national forest. His wife, two children, and two dogs join him on occasion, but report mixed feelings about whether these endeavors are really worthwhile. In addition to wanderings in the wilderness, he also chronicles sports, fitness, historical curiosities, technical theatre (which is also his day job) and the inside guts of buildings. His work has appeared in numerous local and regional magazines and a handful of national publications. This is his first book.

Knoxville:

Like others in the Five-Star Trails series, this book features up to 40 day-hikes, ranging from 1 mile to 12 miles, in and near a midsize city-m-in this case, Knoxville.

The author has carefully chosen each hike to create a collection of routes suitable for a varied, but primarily local, outdoors audience. Based on the author's extensive and intimate knowledge of the region, some of the hikes represent a combination of two or more trails that create a unique route.

As a distinguishing feature of the series, as signaled by the Five-Star series title, each entry displays ratings of one to five stars in five categories for that hike. Those categories are:

• Scenery
• Level of Difficulty
• Trail Conditions
• Degree of Solitude
• Appropriateness for Children

The book's overview map provides a quick visual summation of the hikes' locations within the greater Knoxville area. Then, individually, each hike features an easy-to-follow trail map, elevation profile, at-a-glance information, and narrative description. The main text for each entry provides details about the route to follow. It also focuses on the most notable aspects of that route: for some, it may be the panoramic view; for others, a bit of local history and legend; for others the abundance of flora or the opportunity to spot wildlife.

At the end of each route entry, if pertinent, the author leads the reader to nearby attractions. Such sites may be a pioneer museum, a fun and funky place for lunch where grubby hiking attire will pass muster, or a historic inn for future travel reference.

With a trail collection so diverse that it is designed for hiking levels from novice to trailblazer, this book will become a dog-eared companion for anyone interested in the best hikes his or her region has to offer.

About the author Johnny Molloy :

In spite of a disastrous first camping trip to Smoky Mountain National Park, Johnny Molloy developed a life-long passion for the outdoors, which he continues today. He has published numerous books including hiking guides to Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee as well as tent camping guides to Florida, Colorado, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Smokies. He is a resident of Nashville, Tennessee.

Asheville, North Carolina:

Five-Star Trails Asheville provides in-depth trails descriptions, directions, and commentary on what to expect along the way. Each hike features an individual trail map, elevation profile, and at-a-glance information, helping readers quickly find the perfect trip.

About Jennifer Pharr Davi, the author

Jennifer Pharr Davis grew up in the North Carolina Mountains, where she developed a love for hiking from childhood. She has trekked more than 8,000 miles of trails in North America, including the Pacific Crest Trail, Vermont’s Long Trail, and the Colorado Trail, and completed two thru-hikes on the Appalachian Trail. On many international trips, she has tred iconic paths that include Mount Kilimanjaro, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and the 600-mile Bibbulmun Track in Australia

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