This is one of the worst trail books I have ever purchased (and I've purchased a good amount). First of all, this book is absolutely useless without the accompanying map. The trails are explained with one-way mileage in sections of the High Peaks area. I'm guessing that's because there are so many routes you can take by combining trails, but for a first-timer to this area, it makes planning extremely difficult because I don't know which trails are starting at a trailhead and which trails are starting in the middle of the backcountry from another trail and there is no map to figure that out. I think you might be able to figure it out if you read all of the text for each of the hiking descriptions and take notes, but who has time for that. I wish they would have put little map drawings to visually show you where these trails are without having to fold out their massive map every time you want to figure out where something is. There is no at-a-glance information either. The entire book is text. There is no information in any sort of table, index, in the margins, or at the top of the hike to show pertinent info to narrow hikes before reading the entire book descriptions. There is a list of hiking mileage for each section (which again, not helpful if you don't know where you're starting from and what trails link together). There is no elevation gain information or difficulty rating. Who chooses a hike in the mountains based on mileage only?! That could get people in serious trouble. I wish there were an overview map in the book that shows where each of these sections are in the High Peaks areas that correspond to the chapters. There is one small map that shows just a few of them and it wasn't that helpful for me who isn't already familiar with these locations. I cannot comment on how helpful the hiking trail descriptions are because every time I open this book to plan my trip I get so frustrated. I don't want to read every description in the book to choose 2 hikes... I'll be heading there in a month though and will be able to comment better then. Unless you are well versed in the Adirondacks and already know which hikes you plan to take, I don't think this book will be much use to you in planning your hikes. Even then, I think Alltrails.com would still be more helpful. The authors/editors should benchmark off of the book 34;AMC's Best Day Hikes in the White Mountains34; and their other books. This is the most organized, comprehensive book I've seen for hiking. It made planning my trip a breeze and got me way more excited to visit a place than this book did.