Welcome to HikingWalking.com

A website for hikers by hikers

If you’re like me you love to hike and want to spend as much of your vacation and days off as possible on the trail. The challenge is weeding through all the online and hardcopy information to find the best hikes -- the trails that take you above timberline to beautiful mountain lakes nestled in dramatic cirques, to passes with see forever views and to glorious alpine meadows filled with wildflowers.

The goal of this opinionated guide is to help you find the best hiking and backpacking trails and destinations. Hikes in these guides will appeal to serious day hikers who like to go high and walk 6 to 14 miles a day. Elevation gains range from 500-ft.- to 4,300-ft. Detailed trail description, maps and photo galleries are provided for each of the recommended hikes. Also included are brief descriptions of short hikes, great for warms ups or an easy day, along with some of the longer hikes that did not make the “best of” list.

All the trails are reached in less than an hour drive from great base camps. For example, base camps in southwest Colorado include Ouray, Telluride and Silverton. In addition to hiking information, the guide describes the base camps, identifying local services, highlighting nearby attractions and suggesting activities for rainy days and days when you just want to take it easy.

Creating a “best of hiking guide” is a team effort. We are looking for bootjockeys – hiking experts in specific regions – to help out with the guide. We are trying to make this effort work without advertising. Send us a note if you want to take part in the effort.

I love feedback and would like to hear your opinion of how to improve the guides and the website. Obviously the selection of the best hikes is subjective, based on my personal opinion. Send an email or post a comment on the website if you like (or dislike) a particular hike or believe other hikes should be included in the “best of” list.

About the Ratings

All the hikes in this guide are recommended. That being said I want to make it easier for hikers to differentiate between trails. As such, hikes within a region are rated in relation to other hikes in the area. That does not mean that a hike rated as three stars is not worth doing. It just means if you only have a few days in a given area you might want to consider tackling the higher rated hikes first.

Happy hiking,

Diane Greer