Читать книгу Hawaii Trails. Walks Strolls and Treks on the Big Island онлайн

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Agencies in charge of hiking areas may close an area because they’ve realized it’s environmentally too sensitive to withstand more human visits. An area once open to overnight camping may become a day-use-only area. Trails become impassable from lack of maintenance. Happily, agencies may open new areas because they’ve been able to acquire new acreage or complete a trail-building project.

Change is the only thing that’s constant in this world, so that guidebook authors and publishers always play “catch up” with Nature and with agencies. We want to keep the guidebooks up to date, but we are always at least one step behind the latest changes. The day when you’ll have constantly revised books on-line at your wristwatch/computer terminal isn’t here yet. So it’s possible that a few trail descriptions are becoming obsolete even as this book goes to press.

Write for the latest information

It’s a good idea to use this book in conjunction with the latest information from the agency in charge of the areas you plan to hike in. Unfortunately, the recreation map of Hawaii published by the Hawaii District of the divisions of Forestry and Wildlife and of State Parks lacks trail information for hikers. The information it does have is quite out of date. There isn’t a better map available from those agencies. This book gives you a far more complete and detailed picture of Hawaii’s principal hiking and backcountry camping opportunities than the current recreation map does. And it describes those opportunities from a hiker’s perspective.