I will be working on building out this page to provide useful information and linked resources, especially if it can help you plan your next trip out. Some of the resources will be based on geography, while others will help point you in some direction.
Useful Online Resources for Hiking:
This provides some easy links I have come across when it comes to hiking, road/trail conditions, and weather forecasts. I will continue to update as I come across additional valuable resources.
National
- National Parks Service
Find a Park National Trail System National Trail System
- US Forest Service
- Provides some geospatial information regarding fire activity, weather warnings and watches, wilderness activity, and twitter activity.
- National Forest Road/Trail Conditions
- This is a good resource for seeing which roads and trails are open/closed, semi-current status information. This also provides Ranger District and Public Service information
- The Mt Baker-Snoqualmie link in the picture below will take you to the site. For other Nations Forests, you should be able to query for the appropriate sub-site for a more localized information wherever you are
- Incident Information System
- InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident information management system.
- There are 10 regional coordination centers that contribute to this system.
- Seeks to provide the public a single source of incident related information and standarized reporting tool for Public Affairs community
Summit Post
Collaborative content community on climbing, mountaineering, hiking and other outdoor activities.
Great for searching for various trip reports and a lot more expansive than Washington Trails Association.
Mountain Project
A rock climbing guide that provides a lot of information about climbing areas, climb details, ratings, getting their, what gear is needed, weather and more.
User post and comment about the different climbing routes.
Regional
- Mid-Atlantic
- Hiking Upward
- Good hiking resource to search and filter on hikes based on different features.
- Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina
- Hiking Upward
- Pacific Northwest
- Northwest Interagency Coordination Center
- This is one of the coordination centers that feeds information to the Incident Information System mentioned above.
- For other regional coordination centers, the Incident Information System About page has a list.
- Northwest Interagency Coordination Center
State
- Washington
- Washington Trails Association
- Good hiking resource to search and filter on hikes based on different features.
- Washington Smoke Information
- Additional resource for local smoke/fire information.
- This is a tailored site for county, state, Federal and Indian tribes to coordinate and aggregate information.
- Features information about air quality, webcams, forecasting and more.
- Washington Trails Association
Weather Resources
Other blogs and websites for hiking:
Blogs:
Outdoor Websites:
Books:
- Coming soon…
Professional Institutes and Organizations to boost your skills and experiences:
Below are some resources where you can look up available outdoor courses to improve and enhance your skills in the outdoors. This by no means encompasses all the resources available out there.
American Alpine Institute
AAI is a teaching and guiding organization that offers lots of courses focused around mountaineering, climbing, expedition preparation, rescue/first responder and leadership development.
NOLS
NOLS is a non-profit global wilderness school that focus’ on leadership development, risk management, wilderness medicine, mountaineering, backpacking, seafaring activities and more.
If you have come across valuable resources that you think I should add, please comment below. After review, I’ll either append it in the appropriate area or provide a comment back.
