Tell us how to improve YourHikes.com

[BirdShooter]

Now is your chance to lay out the future of YourHikes.com. Please tell us how we can improve this website to make it more useful to the hiking and backpacking community. This is an open forum, so you are not locked into the canned responses shown in this poll. Thanks for your feedback. All your comments are greatly appreciated.

[Tree Top Flyer]

Firstly, I think the site is first rate and most likely the best site within the genre.
The point totals for “free stuff” is just fine. I would however, decrease the number of points earned for entering a hike while increasing the number of points for a trip report. This awards hikers that are getting out there and going bush whacking. This would make it harder to earn points for most hikers in the end. Pros and Cons both ways.

I’ve thought several times how nice it would be to look up hikes by zip codes or within a certain radius of a city and state. Each would work well.

Getting more post from members in the forums, that’s on the members. Maybe earn one to five points per post for participating in the forum discussions to improve participation. More is not necessarily better however.

How to articles would be great! I’d honestly like to see quarterly newsletters in email and archived form which focuses on a specific hike for different regions of the country, as well as gear reviews, and question and answer forums. Imagine if you will, a condensed version of Backpacker magazine.

In all honesty, I really like the site. I commend you on your continued work to improve it.

TTF
KSVN, Ga

[TreeFrog]

BS, I like YourHikes.com just fine. I wouldn’t keep coming back if I didn’t. The forums are most interesting to me, but it’s all good. Nice job.

[Guests]

Many of the hikes don’t have maps tied to them which are very helpful. Is there anything you can do about that? Joseph

[Tree Top Flyer]

Joseph:

What area are you looking for?

[Moondoggy]

Shooter,

The main reason I keep checking in on a regular basis is to see what new hikes and new posts have been added. In other words, I don’t really use the site to go back and research potential hiking areas, backpacking trips, or gear reviews, or anything like that. I’m not saying that other people don’t do that, or that it wouldn’t be a useful tool for people to be able to search hikes by zip code, it’s just that that is not my main attraction to the site. I just like reading about where people have been going, and seeing what the current chatter is at the time. Therefore, in my mind, anything you could do to increase the number of new hikes or posts being added to the site would be beneficial.

Issuing a few points for posts made to the forums, as TTF has suggested, might spur more participation on this front. However, I wouldn’t be too generous, as this might beget a bunch of non wanted whimsical posts by those people just trying to earn points.

Another suggestion that I think might help encourage some more participation from users, would be to add a section where members can write, and post, outdoor adventure stories similar to the “Trail Tales”

[RB83]

I somewhat agree with rewarding points based on posts only becuase it may spark more conversation. Word of mouth is a powerful way to advetise and draw in more members which I think would eventually lead to more and more posts and hikes.

Personally I was pleased when I first discoverecd the site only becuase it was one of the first that did not ask for a credit card number to become a member. And when i discovered the forums I had to sign up right away.

Great site in my opinion, keep up the good work and I look forward to staying a member for years to come.

RB

[Guests]

Just found and like your community. Some more action in the forums would be a plus – although too much action and too many slammers chased me away from another backpacking website recently. So guess you just have to work a balance here. The hikes are a great idea – photos, maps, etc. – nicely done.

[Tree Top Flyer]

Birdshooter,

What did you decide or is the jury still out? Forum traffic seems to have picked up lately by a smidge.

[BirdShooter]

Since funding yourhikes.com comes out of my personal pocket, I’m open to anything that benefits the community and doesn’t cost me a fortune. At this point, I’d like to clean up the hikes/trip reports so that there is some consistency in the postings. For example, that the “hike summary” is reflective of the trails themselves and that the “trip reports” are representative of the overall experience. I’d just like to see some consistency on what information is provided and where, but I take the hit for not being clear on what to post and where. Overall, I’m really happy with the contribution. It’s exceeded my expectations so far. Keep up the good work.

[swampfox]

Birdshooter,
First of all, I love the site, but something I would like to see is GPS data for the trails people have hiked. If there was a way for us to share our tracks with each other, that would be a good thing. Here is a site that has something along those lines but the selection is pretty sparse.
http://www.travelbygps.com/premium/foothills/foothills.php

I would also like to know what equipment other people use.
There is a wealth of knowledge and experience among these members. What they use would say a lot about a product.
I imagine information added to the profile for tent, sleeping bag, pad, water filter, stove, cookware, backpack, boots, etc. Maybe there is a way to show statistics on how the different brand/models rate, based on member usage.

And last, a place for backpacking recipes. They could be entered into a form so people would know what is expected.
I would want to have:

ingredients
what to do at home (dehydrate, repackage, precook, etc)
what to do in camp (add 2 cups boiling water, mix ingredients x, y, and z)
how many servings
calorie content if possible
where to find special ingredients

You have a great site, keep up the good work.

swampfox

[Tree Top Flyer]

BirdShooter wrote:

Since funding yourhikes.com comes out of my personal pocket, I’m open to anything that benefits the community and doesn’t cost me a fortune.

You mean you haven’t made your first million from your book yet? J/K

Whatever you decide on man, please don’t make it as convaluted at the Backpacker site…geez

TTF,
KSVN, Ga

[Guests]

Adding some podcasts would be cool – especially hiking related.

[April Flower]

Have you considered a “add a profile map” option? I realize that they are only about 50-75% accurate, but I’d definitely take them into consideration before I hit the trail (and add a few in the process). Nice work, BirdShooter. Thanks for everything.

[Author]

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