It's hiking with a welcome twist: no tandem driving, no dropping off a car at the end of the trail--and no turning around to hike back the way you came. Bruce Grubbs has selected the best existing loop trails and stitched together segments of other trails to form new loops. This is a guide of tremendous variety. You have your pick of terrain: desert, canyon, mountain, or forest. There are hikes along old pioneer trails, through volcanic fields, and past petroglyph views. To top it off, you'll often hike through several different life zones on the same trail--Grubbs is your guide in understanding these too. Useful features include elevation profiles and charts listing hikes by special interest and best times to go. Water availability is listed for each hike, plus tips on hiking in comfort and safety in Arizona's extreme conditions. Regions covered include Grand Canyon, Mogollon Rim, White Mountains, Mazatzal Mountains, Superstition Mountains, and Southeast Mountains.

BRUCE GRUBBS has been hiking, backpacking, and exploring the American Southwest for 35 years. He is a mountain biker, kayaker, cross-country skier, and has had a climbing career as well. He has experience doing desert mountaineering expeditions and still prefers long-distance, cross-country backpacking in the Grand Canyon and other remote desert areas. He co-wrote Hiking Arizona for Falcon in 1986 and since then is the author of thirteen other titles for Falcon. Grubbs has been published in Backpacker Magazine, in Know How, and Weekend Wilderness columns. He was the outdoor editor for "Flagstaff Live," a local arts and entertainment weekly for two years and is currently a contributing editor for The Sojourner, the online magazine of the Adventure Radio Society. He had a regular column in Outdoor Arizona, a now defunct regional magazine in the late 1960s and was the Southwest editor of Off Belay during the early 1970s.