Home Page of Terrific Trails
Terrific Trails' mission is to photograph and document hiking trails in America's 61 National Parks. My goal is to photograph the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and provide a true representation of the trails as I see them while hiking.
I started the work in 2019, come and follow me on this adventure.
Terrific Trails Resources, Websites, Guiding Principles and Disclaimers
Terrific Trails is building out multiple complementary resources to document hiking trails in our national parks. The resources include a YouTube trail review channel, Books on Amazon, Trail photo galleries on a photography specialty website and the Main website you are currently browsing.
The information contained on this and all associated websites, video channels and books is not to be considered a guide. Before using any of the information, read the disclaimers.
How to navigate the resources?
Each page on this website has at least four buttons. They are the green buttons on top of each page. They will lead you to the Videos, Trail Photos (on a separate website), Books, and the Donation link. Each page also shows the "Hamburger" menu button ☰ in the top left corner of the page. The most important menu items are "Home", "Photos/Prints", and "Parks". "Home" takes you back to this page. "Photos/Prints" leads to the same separate website to browse the trail photos, as the "Trail Photos" button mentioned earlier. Finally, "Parks" takes you to the page with a list of links to the various national parks covered in this website. Subsequently, each park's page leads to a list of trails I photographed in that park. The trail pages describe the most important characteristics of the trails with a GPS track file and the trail's map. Each trail page features a fifth orange button on the top that leads back to the list of trails reviewed/photographed in that park.
YouTube video reviews show the most visual detail of each trail.
Video recording - other than for personal use - is not allowed in wilderness areas in national parks. The parks do not issue commercial filming permits for shooting videos in designated wilderness locations, only commercial photography permits are available. Almost all national parks in the US have wilderness designation for 80% or more of its geographic area and practically all trails intersect wilderness boundaries. Consequently, I am not recording video in national parks. I take photos in the field and at home I arrange them with commentary and music into videos. I also utilize GPS and other technology to visualize both the beauty and the potential challenges for the trails. My goal with the videos is to add artistic value, so even non-hikers will enjoy watching the videos. Would be hikers will see my experience on a given trail regarding geography, scenery, natural and historic objects and ocasionally wildlife. Non-hikers or people without easy access to these parks or have health problems that do not allow them to hike could just as well enjoy the videos and the photos. Click on the button above to watch the YouTube videos with detailed trail descriptions and photos. If you like the videos then please, subscribe. Subscription is free and it helps me growing the channel.
Photos for each trail live on a photography specialty website.
Click on the "Trail Photos" button above to browse the photo galleries for each trail. Viewing the photos on the web is free. You can also order different size physical prints and digital downloads of any of the photos directly from the galleries. When editing the photos my intent is to be as realistic as possible and present the trails exactly as I see them. Occasionally, I will include artistic photos (i.e.: showing a black and white photo), but every time I also include a photo with the original colors for the same scene, as well.
Books for the trails reviewed are available on Amazon.
You can order my trail review books (both paper and Kindle versions) for each park from Amazon. Each book covers one park and its trails as listed on this website. The books provide more detail than this site.
Guiding Principles Behind Trail Selections:
The most popular trails are included first on the list and less popular trails that either promise to have a view or lead to a lake, river or creek or are recommended by park officials are added later. I purposefully do not fill my review lists exclusively with popular trails only because most of these parks suffer from visitors preferring and overcrowding a few trails while neglecting many potentially also beautiful trail choices. The trail review hikes are usually done during the shoulder seasons (pre and post seasons) for every park. I do not hike park trails during off-seasons. That is if a park has its main hiking season in July and August, I might be there in June or September or in July or August but not in December or January when there are 20 feet snow on the trails. Winter hiking is not my interest and winter makes photographing harder because of the need for gloves, for example.
A Combination of No Charge and Paid Resources:
Photographing and describing the trails in books and videos is a passion for me but it is also a full time job (actually as time consuming as two full time jobs) with considerable expenses. I have to make a living by selling the photos, prints and books. Despite the costs, the vast majority of the content is available at no charge for personal use as my intent is to provide value for the widest audience. The Terrific Trails resources will provide value for you if you either prepare to hike a particular trail and want to see what my experience was or if you are not a hiker but interested in landscape and nature photos. The basic statistics of the trails are listed free on this website with a map and usually a downloadable GPS track. The photos are free to browse and view on the Internet, as well. The YouTube videos are also free of charge to watch.
The books, photos and prints are available to purchase. From these purchases I donate ten percent of the revenue after expenses to the National Park Foundation, which is an official charitable partner of the National Park Service. You purchase a book, photo, or print from me and you will also support the national parks. In addition to the purchases, you can also directly donate to me to support the unpaid content and website maintenance. You can donate by clicking the "Donate" button above. Obviously, you are also encouraged to directly donate to the National Park Foundation.
Terrific Trails has no affiliation with the National Park Service or the National Park Foundation.
All opinions are the author's only and they are just that, opinions. My intent is to provide a serious and valuable resource for those interested in the US national parks' hiking trails. This means for example, that I try to be consistent in my reviews and scores assigned to the trails. I believe that consistency is one area where I can provide value compared to crowd sourced trail review resources. For example, countles times I read reviews on crowd sourced review sites where the reviewers either overemphasize the challenges of the trail or go overboard at the opposite and downplay the potential dangers or hardship of the trail. I promise to be consistent in my reviews as much as humanly possible.
Guiding Principles Behind the Photography:
As a member of the Nature First Alliance for responsible nature photography, I strive to follow the seven Nature First Principles. The most important of the seven principles is to prioritize the well being of nature over photography. Consequently, my number one personal guiding principle isn't to get the best shot but to minimize my impact on the trails that I hike and photograph. My second most important personal principle is to be able to come home and edit the photos. As a result I do not try to take shots that I consider dangerous to get. This is subjective of course and some of you might consider some of the hikes and photos too risky to do while some of you will consider everything less hairy than "Free Solo" not a big deal. Taking the best shot possible comes after these two principles are fulfilled. Nature First Alliance members also follow the Leave No Trace principles and I encourage you to do the same if you hike.
Photographing Style:
My photography genre is a mix between landscape, documentary, nature, and travel photography. Not especially original but I call it "Trail Photography". It has particular challenges as photography goes and some of those challenges are mentioned in these two articles. Most important challenge is the very limited control over light conditions. Unlike in traditional landscape photography, I usually visit a location only once, the location includes the entire length of the trail, at any point on the trail I have very limited time to wait for conditions to improve if they are not perfect (and they almost never are), and have limited time for composition - for example, in national park wilderness areas you can not camp outside of designated camp grounds so you have to be back at your car or in the camp (often each destinations are miles away and in opposite directions) and can not hang around for that perfect sunset shot with the dead tree in the foreground for the divine composition. Gear requirements for professional level photography also poses challenges for hiking. It is interesting to read about the debate on base weight definitions for light vs ultralight backpacking if it is 10 pounds or 15 pounds or some other weight. My photography gear that I lug around on hikes is more than 15 pounds on its own without accounting for any of the hiking related essentials.
About the Author/Photographer:
In the last 25 years the author worked in various positions in IT both in industry and academia. He started Terrific Trails in 2019. When not on the road or in a park then he lives in the beautiful and rainy Pacific Northwest.