The wealth of hikes in northern Washington and a wild and wonderful landscape calls for multiple volumes — particularly hip pocket guides like the recently published Day Hiking North Cascades by Craig Romano (2008, The Mountaineers Books), which fits handily in a daypack’s top pocket.

These trails are chosen and described under the sure hand of Craig Romano, who also authored Columbia Highlands: Exploring Washington’s Last Frontier. Published last year by Conservation Northwest and The Mountaineers Books, Columbia Highlands includes descriptions of a dozen hikes in northeastern Washington.

In Day Hiking North Cascades Romano follows a sweet and sweeping tour of Cascades routes, from the coastal Chuckanuts to Mount Baker to the Cascades crest and eastern Okanogan. There’s a section for the “East Slope,” including day-treks to Gold Creek and the Methow, Twisp, and Chewuch river valleys, as well as a big handful of hikes in the westernmost Columbia Highlands and “big sky country” of Tiffany Mountain.

Along the way he emphasizes wilderness and wildlife in engaging, exuberant prose. The author includes interesting and relevant sidebars, for example, a piece on grizzly bears and gray wolves and Conservation Northwest’s work to protect these rare large animals. Romano describes listening to a recording of a lone wolf howling, made by wildlife biologist Craig Flatten in 2006 in the Twisp River valley. “After a long absence, the call of the wild is returning to the North Cascades.”