|
41°F |
|
Press Releases
|
|
41°F |
|
|
meet the author:
Colorado Mountain Club Guide Editor Jeff Eisele
Maria’s Bookshop will host a signing with Jeff Eisele, editor of the new local guidebook The Best Durango Hikes, on Tuesday, May 24th from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at 960 Main Avenue in Durango.
Members of the San Juan Group of the Colorado Mountain Club (CMC) have selected the 20 best hikes within a couple hours of Durango and then hiked, described, photographed, and mapped the routes in The Best Durango Hikes, the fifth in a series of pocket-sized guidebooks published by CMC. From high desert loops, to easy town hikes, to peak bagging in the San Juan Mountains, The Best Durango Hikes has something for everyone.
The difficulty levels of the hikes range from easy walks – including the handicap-accessible Big Al Trail – to challenging ascents of such notable summits as Engineer and Hesperus mountains. The Animas Mountain and Smelter Mountain trails begin right in town and lead to bird’s-eye views of Durango, the Animas Valley, and the mountain ranges beyond.
Other hikes take you into the La Plata Mountains west of town and the San Juan Mountains to the north. These include a trek on the southern terminus of The Colorado Trail, as well as hikes to spectacular high mountain basins surrounded by soaring 13,000-foot peaks, such as Crater, Ice and Columbine lakes.
Some of the trails – notably Tomahawk Basin – take you past the ruins of mining operations dating to the 1800s. The Sand Canyon Loop passes dozens of Anasazi cliff dwellings.
The Best Durango Hikes is all you need to hike around one of the great mountain towns of Colorado.
About the Author:
Jeff Eisele is a veteran journalist with more than 25 years experience as a reporter, editor and newsroom manager with the Sky-Hi News in Granby, Colo.; The Daily Press in Paso Robles, Calif.; The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif.; The Fort Collins Coloradoan and The Durango Herald.
Jeff grew up in the Denver suburbs and enjoyed a variety of outdoor activities in Colorado’s mountains as a youth. Returning to Colorado in 1996 after spending 11 years in California, his passion for hiking and climbing took off a couple years later as he prepared to fulfill a desire he had as a teenager – to climb Longs Peak. He started small, first climbing 7,255-foot Horsetooth Rock west of Fort Collins in the spring, and gradually worked his way up to higher-elevation summits. By the end of fall 1998, he had climbed his first 11 fourteeners – Longs Peak among them – and was hooked.
Jeff joined the Colorado Mountain Club in 2002 to meet others who shared his passion and explore new mountain destinations. A year later, he took the Fort Collins Group’s Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC), providing him with the skills to climb more difficult routes on more difficult mountains. He since has served as a junior instructor for BMC as well as activities director and newsletter co-editor for the Fort Collins Group. He also was a contributing writer and photographer for The Best Fort Collins Hikes. He now claims 44 fourteener summits and 57 Centennials – the highest 100 peaks in Colorado.
In 2008, Jeff moved to Durango, where he is weekend editor at the Herald. He spends as much time as he can exploring the mountain and desert trails of the Four Corners. He is the proud father of two college-age daughters, Erin and Emily.
For more information about this event and others coming up at Maria’s Bookshop,
call (970) 247-1438
or visit www.mariasbookshop.com
