If you've got it, you may as well flaunt it.

Snohomish County, located directly north of Seattle, has outstanding hiking opportunities, from the beaches of Puget Sound to the crest of the Cascades.

The county tourism office in Everett, the county seat, wants visitors to know about its hiking gems. The Snohomish County Tourism Bureau has recently updated and published a 52-page color booklet called "Hiking in Snohomish County.''

The free guide is ideal for visitors because, for one, it's free, and also because it really does cover the best of the county. The author is Craig Romano, one of Washington's top hiking guidebook authors.

The guide can be downloaded from the county visitor website, ordered by phone (425-348-5802 ext. 10) or ordered from the website snohomish.org.

The guide describes 30 hikes in detail and includes driving directions, topographical maps and a handy chart that lists each hikes round trip distance, easy-to-difficult rating, elevation gain, best season to hike it and closest community. Also included are local resources and a list of accommodations for those who want to plan an overnight getaway around hiking.

This the third edition of "Hiking in Snohomish County," authored by Romano for the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau. Romano is an award-winning author of nine guidebooks on hiking in Washington state. He is a content provider for hikeoftheweek.com and trails editor for Outdoors NW magazine.

In this latest brochure, Romano increased the number of featured hikes from 25 to 30 and replaced some hikes in previous editions to spotlight new ones. The 30 hikes capture the full scope of hiking destinations within Snohomish County: beaches, scenic rivers, old-growth forests, alpine lakes, wildflower meadows, mountain tops, wildlife preserves, historic sites and impressive waterfalls.

For more information on Romano and his guidebooks, visit craigromano.com.

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Snohomish County (Everett area) publishes free hiking guide of beaches to mountains