Question about trip reports

[Billy]

Looking for a site that posts trip reports for NH, Maine, and Vermont. I like reading trip reports, especially backpacking trip reports, and this site's trip reports forum
seems to be decreasing the last year or so. Is there a facebook page where people post trip reports....specifically a public facebook site, I don't have a facebook account.
Or any other site out there. Thanks.
Or people could just start posting their trip reports here again.

And yes, I'm aware of Chris Dailey's and DMOutdoors websites, so I'll also take links to anyone's individual blog.

 

[Montana]

http://newenglandtrailconditions.com

 

[Billy]

http://newenglandtrailconditions.com

That's a great well-known site for trail conditions. But I'm looking for actual trip reports. Prose and pictures.

 

[thegibba]

http://trailsnh.com

This site aggregates TRs from many public forums.

 

[DayTrip]

My favorite site by far is also New England Trail conditions. However, I would add that there are fewer and fewer useful trail reports on there. I find many reports are just diary entries for people to say who they were out hiking with and who they ran into while on the trails. The details of the hike are usually sorely lacking. I used to go out of my way to post very detailed trip reports there because of this but over the past few years it feels to me like the people who need to read such trip reports (i.e. newbies and inexperienced hikers) either don't bother to read them or aren't aware of such sites so the information is wasted. I stopped making trail report posts this Spring. I think the site is better and more useful in Winter because there is a different audience looking for specific information and these hikers are more aware to provide these details for each other.

Regarding "prose and pictures" many of the posts on NETC have links to there Facebook, Instagram, Flickr or blog pages which have tons of photos and great details about the hikes. If you follow the site for a bit you'll start to identify users that do this so you can scan for there reports and click through to their sites for all the details you can stomach. Eventually you could then just bookmark their blogs and follow it that way. There are quite a few people who have detailed posts at least once a week.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Facebook sites are very hard to search. Lots of pretty pictures, and "what have you done for me lately?" is the general mantra.

 

[shamples]

Why have they gone down? There used to be a ton

 

[David Metsky]

Why have they gone down? There used to be a ton

Because people are moving away from message boards to social media, and it doesn't lend itself to gathering info in the same way.

 

[Rhody Seth]

Shameless plug: you can check out my hiking reports on my blog found here: http://rootandrocks.blogspot.com/p/adventures.html

Most on that page deal with trips to the White Mountains

 

[Billy]

Shameless plug: you can check out my hiking reports on my blog found here: http://rootandrocks.blogspot.com/p/adventures.html

Most on that page deal with trips to the White Mountains

Cool. Thanks. Shameless plugs to individuals' trip report sites is one of the things I'm looking for.

 

[TJsName]

I find many reports are just diary entries for people to say who they were out hiking with and who they ran into while on the trails. The details of the hike are usually sorely lacking.

Yeah, I find this to frequently be the case too. I especially love the 'Dogs' comments, which I believe are intended to be concerns for dogs (water, regulations, wild animals, etc.) on the trail, but usually turn into how many dogs someone saw on the trail. I like that VFTT makes a distinction between trip reports and trail conditions. I don't take many pictures or write up my experiences in great detail, so I like just putting in the relevant conditions with a quick note at the end. I do enjoy reading others' trip reports though, especially ones that focus on the journey and experience as opposed to the conquest (such as http://mountainwandering.blogspot.com).

If you follow reports regularly you'll notice the trends and learn what to expect from different users. This isn't a complaint as I generally find what I'm looking for and then some, and I'm sure others looking for something else are also similarly satisfied.

 

[peakbagger]

I know there are quite a few individual blogs out there but I have heck of a time finding them. The videos that Wearemdudfun (VFTT members) are great and cover interesting subjects, usually bushwhacks finding old fire towers or other forgotten points of interest. Onehappyhiker (VFTT) does some great bushwhacks to unusual viewpoints.

One of the down sides to social media is that the user developed content is considered the property of the owner of the social media site and they really don't want the information readily searchable from outside their profit bubble.

 

[WeRmudfun]

I know there are quite a few individual blogs out there but I have heck of a time finding them. The videos that Wearemdudfun (VFTT members) are great and cover interesting subjects, usually bushwhacks finding old fire towers or other forgotten points of interest. Onehappyhiker (VFTT) does some great bushwhacks to unusual viewpoints.

Thanks for plug on our videos, Peakbagger. I guess we’ll add our shameless plug too, even though not everybody likes videos. The link to the channel is
www.youtube.com/WeRmudfun
Scroll down through the channel, we have playlists for the
1) NH48/NE67 (ones that we have done)
2) NH Fire towers
3) Unique Hikes
4) Hikes
You can also search for any hikes we have done by typing,
‘Wermudfun Mount Washington’ (or whatever mountain or hike you are looking for) in the search bar at the top of YouTube’s page