Guide to National Parks of the West

NEW YORK - Does your summer vacation include plans to visit the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone or one of the other great national parks of the West?

A new guide from Fodor's, "The Complete Guide to The National Parks of the West" ($21.95) can help you plan your trip.

The book covers 37 parks in all, from Big Bend, Texas, in the southernmost spot on the guide's map of the West, to Jasper and Banff north of the border in Canada, to the Channel Islands off the coast of California, to Olympic National Park in Washington, in the northwest corner of the continental U.S. (The book does not cover Alaska or Hawaii.)

If you'd like to visit the parks but don't know where to start, check out the book's "best of" recommendations. The book's best parks for cultural history include Mesa Verde in Colorado; the Petrified Forest in Arizona, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Best parks for day trippers are the Grand Canyon; Joshua Tree in California, and Saguaro east of Tucson. Recommendations for "fun and funky activities" include watching bats set out from Carlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico; taking a boat tour of Oregon's Crater Lake, described as the "clearest, deepest lake" in the nation, with sunlight penetrating to 400 feet, and visiting the bubbling springs and mudpots at the Lassen Volcanic National Park in California.

Each chapter also includes sections on where to stay and eat in each park, maps, contact information for outfitters and tours, nearby attractions, best times to go, and recommendations for one-day visits to each park. A day at Arches in Utah, for example, might include the Park Avenue and Delicate Arch trails, a walk through the Devils Garden to the Landcape Arch, a hike to the Double O and a stop at Balanced Rock and The Windows for great photos.

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