Trails of the Wild Cabinets

By Dennis Nicholls and Jim Mellen

This is the first-ever guidebook to focus exclusively on the Cabinet Mountains, the magnificent but little-know mountain range stretching from northern Idaho some 150 miles southeast into Montana. Revised in 2008 with three new trails and changes and corrections to many trails by inveterate hiker Jim Mellen, the book is designed as an indispensable guide for hikers but it also includes an appendix identifying trails suitable for mountain bikers. The book includes detailed descriptions for 85 trails with numerous maps and photographs and a features chart to help readers more easily find trails with major points of interests such as lakes, waterfalls, old-growth forests, lookouts and peaks. The second edition also includes GPS coordinates for each trailhead, indexes by trail name and number, an index on gear, and another on "Leave No Trace" ethics. Author Dennis Nicholls also provides a sketch of the range's human and natural history, and livens up the text with essays drawn from his own hikes into the Cabinets.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1879628228
• ISBN13: 9781879628229
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Keokee Co. Publishing, Inc.
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Good guide book.

This book is a great guide to the CMW. However, I find the sweat indexes on most trails to be a little too high. Most of the trails in the Cabinets are classic trails much like most of the trails in NW MT. Overall though a very good guide book, one of the better ones I have found.

Outstanding Guide to our local trails

As a local outfitter, we seek out accurate information to share with our clients - we have copies of this book in each of our rental cabins! Well done, and very complete information.

What the doctor ordered

OK, I suppose it's a sad sign of my miserable life, but I have so little free time that I have to approach taking a hike like a consumer buying a new vacuum cleaner or going to the movies ... I want to find the best places to spend my precious bits of money and freedom. So that's how I look at trail guides (and I have a whole shelf of them). I want them to get me to the trailhead efficiently, give me a good idea of the trail condition and difficulty, and a good appraisal of what I may or may not expect on the hike (with a little left over to make some of my own discoveries). It's worth $15 for the advice, assuming it's GOOD advice.So far I've hiked a pair of trails in this book and it was right on. First was Strong Creek outside of the town of Hope (which has really great views over Lake Pend Oreille). The trailhead was completely unmarked and I never would have found it without the description in the book. Beautiful, easy hike as promised in the book. The second was St. Paul Lake in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. Trailhead was easier to find and the descriptions of the trail were all good, including the hint to look for the huge western white pine just off the trail and for the bubbling spring a couple miles in. That's the kind of stuff I like. This is a hike to a beautiful pothole lake.We even had fun coming back from that hike -- we stopped at a tavern on the highway outside of Noxon and one of the folks there saw me reading the book and went on a rant about the writer and how we could meet him if we hung around for a bit longer as he was coming in "pretty soon." We hung around for a while but had to take off. This guy is a regular rock star in that part of Montana.The Cabinet Mountains have some real beautiful places, lightly used, and so far this book has not disappointed.

Excellent book...

Having grown up in the area, this book took me home. The author gives great descriptions of the trails, what you might see on them and their locations. The sweat index is my favorite! The most inexperienced hiker could pick up this book and take off in the Cabinet mountains.