Fifield Trail Guides - Self-Published Guidebooks to the State Parks

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Fifield Trail Guides

Nature Trail Guidebooks for the State Parks • Written, walked and published by Owen and Dana Fifield
"We walk every trail twice so you only have to walk it once."

Welcome. We're Owen and Dana, and we write and publish small guidebooks to the nature trails in our state's parks -- the kind of book that fits in a jacket pocket, tells you how long the trail really is, where the good view is, what that tree is, and whether your grandmother can make it. We started because we couldn't find a book like that ourselves. The big hiking guides cover the long backcountry routes; the free park brochures cover one park each and go out of date. Nobody was writing up the two-mile loop by the campground, and that's the trail most people actually walk.

So in 1996 we started walking them, all of them, and writing them down. Three books later, here we are. Each one covers a region of the state's parks, every marked nature trail and short day-hike loop in it, with a hand-drawn map, honest mileage (we measure it with a wheel), an estimate of the time, a rating for how hard it is, what you'll see along the way in each season, and the things the sign at the trailhead doesn't tell you, like where the poison ivy is or which loop to do counterclockwise so the climb is at the start.

The books are $9.95 each. We print them in runs of a thousand at a printer two towns over, and we sell them by mail from our kitchen table and through the park stores. It's not a big operation. It's the two of us, a station wagon, a measuring wheel and a very old computer.

The Books

Book One: Walking the Northern Lakes (1997, second printing 1999) -- 112 pages, 38 trails in 11 state parks.
The lake country in the north of the state: shoreline loops, bog boardwalks, the old logging-railroad grades, and the fire tower trail everybody asks about. The second printing (this spring) fixed the mileage on two trails that were rerouted after the 1998 storms and added the new accessible loop at one park. If your copy has a green cover, it's the first printing; the trail updates below will bring it current.

Book Two: Walking the River Valleys (1998) -- 128 pages, 44 trails in 13 state parks.
The parks along the big rivers through the middle of the state: bluff-top overlooks, floodplain forest, the spring wildflower trails (April is the month), and the trails at the old mill and canal sites. Includes a section on which trails flood and when, which we learned about the hard way.

Book Three: Walking the Hill Country (April 1999) -- 136 pages, 41 trails in 12 state parks.

The hilly, rocky south and west: waterfall trails, cave-country sinkhole loops, the ridge trails with the fall color, and the longest trail in any of our books (a 7-mile loop that we rate "strenuous" and mean it). Our best maps yet, if we say so ourselves; Dana drew them at twice the size and the printer shrank them down.

Every book has the same layout, so once you've used one you can find your way around the others: a locator map up front, one trail to a page or two, a season-by-season note, and a blank "my notes" line at the bottom of each trail because we've never met a hiker who didn't want to write in the margin.

How We Make Them

We walk every trail twice. That's the rule and we've never broken it. Once in one direction with the measuring wheel, the compass and the notebook, marking every junction, bench, bridge and sign. Then again in the other direction, in a different season if we can manage it, to check that the description makes sense going the other way and to catch what we missed. (You'd be surprised what you miss. On one trail we walked the entire loop before noticing a waterfall, because it was behind us the whole first time.)

We measure the mileage with a wheel, not a guess or a park sign. Park signs are often rounded or years old. Our mileages are to the tenth, and if a trail is 2.3 miles we say 2.3, not "about 2."

We time it honestly. The times in the books are for a normal walking pace with stops to look at things, not a race. If we say 1 hour 15 minutes, a family with kids will take an hour and a half and a fast walker will take fifty minutes.

Dana draws every map by hand from the wheel readings and compass bearings, then checks it against the park's own maps and the topographic sheets. The maps show what you'll actually see at a junction: the sign, the bench, the big rock. We've found that's what keeps people from getting lost.

Owen does the plants and animals, and he's careful: if we're not sure what a tree is, we say "oak" and not which one. We would rather be vague than wrong.

We talk to the rangers. Every park, every time. They know what's washed out, what's closing for the season and where the eagles are nesting this year, and they've been generous with us. When a ranger tells us we've got something wrong, it goes in the update list the same week.

Then we type it up, lay it out on the computer, print a proof, walk the proof through our own kitchen, argue about commas, and send it to the printer. Each book takes us about a year and a half and roughly 150 miles of walking. We don't get rich. We do get to spend our weekends outdoors and call it work.

Where to Buy

$9.95 per book. Any two for $18, all three for $26.

At the parks. All three books are carried at the park stores and visitor centers in the parks they cover, and at a few of the park-headquarters bookshops that carry all three. Buying at the park is the best way, because the park gets a share and you have the book in your hand at the trailhead. If your park store doesn't have them, ask -- they can order from us.

By mail. Send us an e-mail with your name, which books you'd like, and your mailing address, and we'll send you an order form with our mailing address and the total. Payment is by check or money order; we're too small to take credit cards, and we don't take orders over the Internet -- the e-mail just gets you the form. Shipping is $2.00 per order no matter how many books (book rate, allow two weeks; we go to the post office on Tuesdays and Fridays). If you'd like a copy signed, say so. It costs nothing extra and Dana likes doing it.

At the shops. A handful of outdoor stores and independent bookshops around the state carry them too. We don't keep a list on this page because it changes, but e-mail us with your town and we'll tell you the closest one.

Libraries and schools: we offer a discount for orders of ten or more. Ask.

Trail Updates (as of September 1999)

Trails change: bridges wash out, loops get rerouted, a section closes for logging or nesting season. We keep this list current between printings so your book stays right. Pencil these into your copy.

Book One, Northern Lakes (first printing, green cover) --

Trail 7, the bog boardwalk loop: rebuilt and rerouted after the 1998 storm; it's now 1.4 miles, not 1.1, and the junction near the parking lot is a T, not a Y. (Fixed in the second printing.)
Trail 22, the fire tower: the tower itself is closed to climbing until further notice. The trail is open and the view from the base is still worth it.
Trail 31: the footbridge at the 0.6-mile mark was out in August. The park expects to replace it this fall. Until then it's a wet crossing or a turnaround.

Book Two, River Valleys --

Trail 12, the floodplain loop: closed during high water. It was closed most of March and April this year. Call the park before you drive.
Trail 29: a new spur to an overlook was opened in May 1999 (about 0.3 miles each way, easy). It will be in the next printing. It's marked with a new sign at the second bench.
Trail 40, the canal towpath: the far end now connects to a town trail. Our description ends at the lock; you can keep going.

Book Three, Hill Country --

Trail 18, the cave loop: the park has begun closing the section past the second sinkhole from October through April to protect hibernating bats. The short loop is open year-round.
Trail 33: the ridge section had a lot of blowdown after the June storms. Passable, but slow, as of our walk on August 21.
One error we made: the parking area for Trail 9 is on the north side of the park road, not the south. Sorry. We wrote it from memory, which is why we have the rule about not writing from memory.

Know of a change we've missed? Please e-mail us. If it checks out, it goes on the list, and you go in the acknowledgments of the next printing.

Book Four: Due Spring 2000

Walking the Coast and Marshes will cover the parks in the last corner of the state we haven't done -- the shoreline, dune and tidal-marsh parks, about 35 trails in 10 parks. We finished the first walks in August and are doing the second walks this fall, when the marshes are at their best and the bugs are at their worst. Dana is about half done with the maps. We're aiming to have it at the printer by February and in the park stores for the spring season, around April 2000.

If you'd like to be told when it's ready, e-mail us and we'll add you to the list (it's a list on paper, in a folder; we'll send a postcard). With Book Four done, the whole state's park nature trails will be covered, which was the plan from the beginning, four years and something over 600 miles ago. After that? A second edition of Book One, probably. Trails don't sit still.

About Us

Owen taught high school biology for 26 years and retired in 1995, which is how this got started -- a retired man with a compass and no particular place to be. He writes the trail descriptions and the natural history, and he's the one who stops every fifty feet to look at a fern. Dana worked as a draftsman for a surveying company for most of her career, and it shows in the maps. She keeps the books, does the layout on the computer, handles the mail orders and is in charge of the measuring wheel because Owen lets it drift.

We've been married 31 years, we have two grown kids who think we're a little nuts, and a station wagon with 140,000 miles on it that's been to every state park in the state. It's just the two of us; there's no staff, and when you e-mail, one of us answers. Usually Dana. Owen is probably outside.

Pages by other people who walk:
Trail Maintenance Volunteers -- the folks who fix what we write about. Bless them.
Dayhikes with Dad -- Mark and Emma, age 8, out on the short trails. Our kind of hikers.
Family Camping for Beginners -- the Kirkpatricks.
Wildflowers of the Rockies -- Helen Stockstill's field guide in progress; a much harder job than ours.
The RainForest neighborhood

Hikers who've stopped by this trailhead since October 1998:

E-mail Owen and Dana
Orders, trail updates, and questions about whether a trail is right for your group. We answer within a few days unless we're out walking, in which case a week.

Last updated September 14, 1999. © 1999 Owen and Dana Fifield. Book titles and contents © 1997-1999. Prices good through the end of 1999.