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Guest
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I don’t think any other area of the country has been blessed with as many paddling guidebook authors; Burmeister, Matacia & Cecil, Randy Carter, Roger Corbett, Ed Gertler, Ed White.
I forgot Paul Ferguson’s more recent paddling guides of North and South Carolina, which are well thumbed and annotated from past trips.
About latter day guidebook authors. Folks in the mid-Atlantic owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Corbett. His Virginia Whitewater set a standard.
https://www.amazon.com/Virginia-whi...inia+Whitewater&qid=1551291327&s=books&sr=1-1
A standard for breath of coverage (there is a lot of flatwater in that Virginia book). A standard for the author having actually paddled every mile of every stream or river included, even the dull, flat or urban areas. Which supposedly wasn’t always the case in some river-comprehensive Burmeister books, including some technical parts.
Corbett set another standard for the most user-friendly descriptions and intuitive data points and maps. Having every section of river bullet pointed for Gradient, Difficulty, Distance, Time (haha), Width and Scenery was genius for at-a-glance basics for different pieces of river.
Corbett set those guidebook standards, and other’s picked them up.
The lineage story, as I’ve heard it, is that Corbett and Ed Gertler were working together on a Maryland/Delaware canoe guide and Corbett essentially said, “OK Ed, you got this, run with it”. Which he did, compiling the MD/DE canoeing guide (my multiple-edition Bible, some broken spine and heavily annotated).
https://www.amazon.com/Maryland-Del...oe+Trails&qid=1551292054&s=books&sr=1-1-spell
Some of Corbett’s maps feature notes, roads and river sketches appear very similar to my own sloppy in-boat penmanship. Gertler improved the river and shuttle map presentation to make them more consistent and concise. His clarity of surrounding shuttle roads is too often lacking in a river guide, and having a car at each end has proven very helpful in the past.
Gertler followed same format writing Pennsylvania and NJ guidebooks
https://www.amazon.com/Keystone-Can...anoeing&qid=1551292178&s=books&sr=1-1-catcorr
https://www.amazon.com/Garden-State...+state+canoeing&qid=1551292246&s=books&sr=1-1
I don’t know if Gertler worked with Paul Ferguson, or if Ferguson just knew a great design when he saw one, but his paddling guides to North and South Carolina are formatted and arranged identically.
https://www.amazon.com/Paddling-Eas...dling+eastern+,stripbooks,135&sr=1-1-fkmrnull
https://www.amazon.com/Canoe-Kayak-...oe+kayak+south+,stripbooks,137&sr=1-1-catcorr
Between Corbett, Gertler and Ferguson that’s NJ, PA, DE, MD, VA, NC and SC.
Having dang near everything between New York and Georgia covered in exactly the same familiar user-friendly format makes it really guidebook convenient. I’m kinda hoping Paul Ferguson is somewhere down Georgia way, paddling rivers and taking notes.
I don’t mean to leave out Bryan MacKay, we have most his hiking and cycling guides, including his updated revision of the out-of-print and beloved Baltimore Trail Guide
https://www.amazon.com/Baltimore-Tr...ore+Trail+Guide&qid=1551296976&s=books&sr=1-1
Must be something in the waters hereabouts for guidebook authors.