The Washington State Hiking Podcast

How to beat the crowds on the trail by finding your own hike

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 69

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Jennie Flaming:

Jennie, welcome to the Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host. Jennie Thwing Flaming,

Craig Romano:

and I'm your co host, Craig Romano, Craig

Jennie Flaming:

and I are happy to have you here. We provide practical and timely, seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun and inclusive.

Craig Romano:

Hey, Craig, how's it going? Jennie, excellent. Beautiful day out today. The sunshine. I love this time of year. The days are maximum daylight right now, it's just my favorite time. I say this about everything. It's my favorite time. Like,

Jennie Flaming:

I say that a lot too. If people are

Craig Romano:

gonna think we're lying all the time, right? Anybody who's ever, ever you know, comedating my presentations, right? Look, it's like one of the continuous things I say all the time. Is this one of my favorites. I would be wonderful if I had 12 children, because I could never be accused of having one favorite. Yes, but I only have one child, and he is my favorite. So

Jennie Flaming:

you're kind of wasting that on being a parent of an only child. Oh, that's hilarious. Okay. Well, it is officially summer now, and so we know that this means this the next couple months are when our hiking trails, especially the most popular ones that you would see on every like top 10 hikes in Washington, um, are really going to be slammed with people. So today we're talking about how to help people find kind of their own hike and, like, look around at what's out there and just make some decisions about a place to go that maybe will be pretty far away from crowds. So I know this is something both you and I do. So what's your advice about this

Craig Romano:

crowd? We're gonna say, with that said, the first thing I want everybody out there to do so that turn off Instagram right now. Turn it off for this month. No, turn it off. You're not going to look at Instagram. Okay, yeah, um, so

Jennie Flaming:

because, just a obvious pro tip, if it's on everybody's like, top 10 hikes thing, then it's going to be crowded. If you like Google top 10 hikes of in Washington and get a bunch of whatever, those are going to be crowded. So, yes, get away from that. Listen to us instead.

Craig Romano:

No, I don't want to, you know, toot my own horn here, because I am on Instagram as well as Jay. Yes, I, I tend to post places that you might not have heard. So me too. You can look at our Instagram. Yes, it's been nobody else's, especially the ones that are being you know, they're being paid to promote these popular places, which we are not. Yeah. Anyhow, I'm old school. I've been hiking for a long time, well before there was any such thing as the internet, and even though I've embraced all the latest gizmos and gadgets and everything when it comes to finding my own hike, I'm still old school. Now, first of all, in the state of Washington, I It's hard for me to find my own high because I've written 27 books and I've found all the hikes. But yes, but I do travel very frequently outside the area, and I hike. And this may come to a shock to a lot of people, especially to the younger sect. I don't go to all trails. I i Lots of times. First of all, like I spend a lot of time in California, I look for someone like me. I look for the guidebook author down there, who really knows the material. Who's written a lot, knows the area's been around for a while. I do that a lot. But you know, even before that, when I'm traveling places, what I love to do. And again, this is becoming a lost art, with a lot of younger people reading a map. Because, you know, Google Maps is punching everything. I get maps wherever I go when I travel and I it's like, it's like Christmas. I open up a map, it's like a gift. I open that thing up, put it on the table, and I just look at it. And things start popping up at me, state parks, national parks, rail trip, and whatever picks my interest on there, like, Ooh, that sounds kind of cool, especially the ones that are far from the cities and kind of the obscure places, and then I start doing my research. And so this is where the internet comes in. I will go to the state park of that area, you know, the Kansas Department of Parks, and find out what's there, you know, or same thing for a rail trail. And so I'm looking at the official sources. I'm not looking for the crowd based stuff that just which is going to tell me anything. I'm looking for that. And then if I want to go farther and that look more, I'll seek out if there's clubs, is there a club in this area that that has so here in Washington, we have great resources. We have the Washington Trails Association. So I look for equivalents like that when I'm traveling to get because I want reliable information. The trouble with. With, with all trails and a lot of these other web based map apps and everything, they are crowdsource, and they're not being monitored. And this is the thing. So even though there's good information on there, there's still a lot of garbage on there. And if you're new to an area, you're not going to know the difference. And so if you're new to hiking, you should definitely go to reliable sources where all trails would make sense. After you go through all your reliable sources, now you're ready to hit that maybe let's see if somebody's been on this trail in the last couple of weeks to see what the conditions are like. That's where I'd find that application good, but I would never use it. I agree. Primary Source never, ever use that's my primary

Jennie Flaming:

source. Yeah. And in Washington State, the WTA trail or w the Washington Trails Association trip reports are even better. But, you know, not every state has that, so I agree with you about that current

Craig Romano:

condition. The biggest difference between the WTA and their database and a lot of these web based mapping there's a lot of them out there. Is that WTA is actually an organization that's devoted to hikers. It's all about hikers, whereas a lot of these other organizations, this is a bunch of techies just with their algorithms making money. They're not they're probably some exceptions in there. So hear me out. But the thing is, a lot of it is just make money, throw a bunch of trails up there, get people hooked, have them, have them put their own data. So we don't have to do that, get the algorithms going in there and just let it fly without paying attention. And that's why you're going to have, you're going to have trails showing up on these things that aren't official, they're routes. They're getting all kinds of trouble with that, because they could be trespassing. And I've seen it. It's crazy where a group like WTA and your official websites with clubs and park sites are not going to have that on there. They're going to have the official and they're also going to have the official information and the rules what needs to be done. You're going to see things on a lot of these dogs where they shouldn't be. I mean, just rule breaking mountain, but because there's no oversight to it, it's just let it go and let the algorithms do their trick. So that's my biggest problem with those sites.

Jennie Flaming:

Yeah, I agree with you about that. Okay, well, those are all really great tips. Any others before I share a few of mine, which are not surprisingly, pretty similar.

Craig Romano:

Yeah, the other thing too, again, and this is the other thing, which I find fascinating, again, from the old school. And I it just blows me away. When I'll be on on the web and looking and people will just pop up. I'm coming out to Washington for a week. Tell me where I should hike this. This cracks me up. It's like I'm going to New York. Tell me how to dress for this affair. You have no idea who I am, what I what, and so I see the same time, and then I watch people chime in from like, the most ridiculous, oh, just do this easy walk to the most crazy, you know, rope. And not even knowing what people are, know yourself what you want in your own interest, and realize that a bunch of strangers are only going to chime in about what interests them, yeah, um, and so I see this stuff, and plus half the time, more than the majority of time, they're going to tell you to go to the most popular, crowded places. Again, like everybody else, that's them, yeah? So stop doing that. That's, you know, the thing is, for me, half of the journey. And again, I love, you know, I'm a history geek, you know, from I love doing my own research, discovery. That sense of discovery half the fun to me when I go to a new place is finding it. I those maps, those books, and then getting there without seeing pictures on the internet, without people telling me how great it is, hitting him like, Oh, my God, this place is incredible. I can't even imagine it was like this. Um, so I know my interests. I love, I love old growth forests. I love the obscure. Give me the most obscure place, yeah. So, um, absolutely, do this. What? What are you interested in, and then cater your hikes. Don't, don't let other people decide where to go and how to spend your vacation. That's insane,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah. And I the one thing I would say about that Craig is it definitely helps if, instead of saying I'm coming to Washington, where should I hike, or I'm going to LA, where should I hike, you can get better information by asking something more specific, right? So instead of, hey, what's a great hike to do with kids near Seattle, to say, instead, I would love to do a hike with my kids this summer. It'd be great if it's not more than an hour drive from where I live in Bellevue, where I live in Lynwood, where I live in Seattle, where I live in Federal Way, my child has never hiked before. That's a different question from I am looking for some new hikes to do with my child. He or she has done. Several hikes, and they've got about two miles in them or five miles in them, and they've done really well with steep hikes. Or steep hikes haven't been great, but like flat hikes, they can go for a long time, right? So that is a totally different question. Both of those questions are, what's a great hike with kids near Seattle, but you're going to get a totally unhelpful answer if you don't provide a little more info, which I think it's related to what you're saying. But like, there's also the I'm looking for a hike, because it's useless to say I'm looking for an easy hike, or I'm looking for any word like that. We've talked about the word easy. It's a useless word when it comes to hiking, because for some people, I have heard people say mailbox peak is easy. Mailbox peak is not easy, like in no planet is it easy, right? So, um, but I think a better example is a hike. I'm thinking of a super popular hike near Seattle, let's say rattlesnake ledge, the I 90 corridor, yeah. Is that an easy hike? Some people will say yes. Some people will really struggle with that hike, right? So you kind of need to know when you're asking someone for advice, what am I looking for? Like you said, I like old growth forest, right? I might so if, if I am like a view person or a waterfall person, I'm always going to recommend a waterfall or a view hike to you, but you really want to see some cool forests, like, how could I know that if you didn't tell me? So I think that's really important when looking for advice, is to, instead of saying I'm looking for an easy hike, say I'm looking for a flat hike, or I'm looking for a hike that is not more than three miles. And the trouble

Craig Romano:

is, a lot of these posts, I see it just people are lazy. If you're down like lazy, they're coming. I'm coming. You know, let me think, Where do I hike? I mean, you can't get any more lazy than that. And so that would warrant the type of, well, why put any effort into the response for that? But it's always funny, because a lot of people will chime in no matter what, because they always want to put their point in. But again, you don't know what you're going to get so and again, this is one of the things I'm constantly teaching my son about anything about putting the effort into something, and if you're asking somebody to give up some time and your expertise to give you really good information, yeah, have the common courtesy to actually take the time, and, you know, to ask a really good question and think about it, instead of just shooting into the wind and, you know, you'll hit something, but, yeah, but you want to be more specific, so you're same thing I get, I get letters to me sometimes, you know, writer and I will take an amazing amounts of time to respond back to one of my readers who actually writes something that's taken time and a lot of thought than someone who I can obviously see is someone trying to get information out of me for nothing. Probably doesn't even buy my books, doesn't even, doesn't even address me. I mean, it's like, I mean, every three days, why do I? Why am I going to respond to that? So

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, that happens to me quite a bit too typically when people are emailing me for advice that's related to Alaska travel, because that's another part of my business. And I haven't written 27 guidebooks about hiking in Washington, like you have. I haven't written any guidebooks. Um, so, so if someone emails me and they say something like, where, where should I go in Alaska? Like, well, I need you to give me a lot more information. Who's going, what do you like to do when you travel? What kind of places? So if someone says, What should I do, or is visiting a glacier worth it? Impossible question to answer. But if instead they say, I really want to see glaciers, but I I'm going to be in this area, or I don't have much time, or I don't want to go on a flight scene trip. Well, that gives me so much more that I can use to give them an answer. So kind of back to finding our own hike. Listeners, if you like me, have not written 27 guidebooks like Craig has. You know, you might be thinking, well, Craig, of course, you've always got these unholy uncrowded hikes just in your head. And you do that's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast.

Craig Romano:

Find them when they hike in California, New Hampshire, too. Exactly. Methods, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yes. And you know, you found them to write your guidebook. So if you are listening to this and you're like, Oh, I really want to figure out how to find my own hike, but I am, you know, working 50 hours a week in an office job. How am I going to do this? I want to just recommend a couple shortcuts. One of them is Craig in your more recent books. I don't know. Maybe you can tell us when you started doing this. I love that you have a crowd rating for each hike. So if you're listening and you haven't read one of Craig's books, he's got this thing that'll be like this hike crowds, and it's like a one through five rating, and five is like, don't bother if it's a weekend. And one is like, Good luck finding this. So that is a fantastic shortcut for someone, say, like me that isn't living and breathing trails as my full time job, right? So I want to throw that one out there, and then the other one Craig and I have both mentioned this already, is Washington Trails Association trip reports. And not just trip reports, but also the hiking guide. So you can filter it by things like, I'm looking for a wildflower hike, right? Or I'm looking for a fall color hike, or I'm looking for a river hike, or whatever. There are these different features. And then you can also filter it by how much distance, like how long of a hike and how much elevation gain, and it'll give you, you know, a lot of different options. And then from there, you can go and read the trip reports, which is helpful to know how accessible it is. But if there's one trip report for that trail in the last year, it's not going to be crowded, right? So those are a couple like shortcuts, hacks, that I would recommend people consider it to you, right?

Craig Romano:

Jennie, I definitely talked about that's a great way of seeing how popular trail is. The other thing too, again, this is where you can pull in your all trails too. When I am traveling in an area and there aren't many sources at all, and I find a trail that I might be interested in, just type in all trails. It'll be interesting sometimes, because it might not even show up on all trails. And when that happens, like, my god, it's not even on all. That means nobody's on this trail. Bingo. And then, of course, the other things to to to look for just general rules, General, but not always. If you're trying to find those alternative if you if you're trying to find the most popular, crowded places, well, that's different. But if you're trying to find a different experience in general, you want to stay away from the major metropolitan areas, but not always, and from the major parks, the big national parks, and lots of times, one of the things we've talked about a lot trial, I like the secondary parks, the parks that that people aren't going to so last year, I spent a couple days in Congre National Park in South Carolina. What it's one of the least visited the National Parks is amazing. I spent a day kayaking there with the group, incredible, and a day hiking there, and no crowds, and we stayed in a hotel, but you could have just showed up and camped if you wanted to. Yeah. So I've had a lot of experiences like that. Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona is another one of my favorites. I've been there several times. It's never been crowded when I'm there. So a lot. And I'll tell you what I love about a lot of these secondary national I might call them, say they're just, I mean, they're not saying they are still top notch and everything. Alright, they're

Jennie Flaming:

not, they're not famous like Yosemite and Matt Rainier and Olympic and Denali, right? And

Craig Romano:

in many respects. So you're going to get a better experience, one you can even get, you get to know a ranger talk you're going to have, because the Rangers aren't going to be, you know, just inundated by people and questions and out, you know, telling people stop picking the flowers. So I've had some amazing experiences at at these other parks. I absolutely love. Matter of fact. Same thing as to take national wildlife, National Seashore. This is a seashore that is two hours from Washington, DC, in Baltimore. I was there on a beautiful day in September, walking the beach with nobody. So they exist. These places exist. So seek them out, yeah, and you'll get an amazing experience. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

I totally agree. And one more thing I want to add about this, especially if you're you know, we didn't really intend to do this, but I think it's cool that we did where we talked about how to find hikes while you're traveling as well, because I'm sure many of our listeners are going to be traveling somewhere, maybe in Washington, but maybe outside of Washington,

Craig Romano:

outside of Washington, yes in his podcast,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah. So another thing I want to just sort of pull together here related to what Craig was just saying about, you know, less visited places overall, and what I was saying earlier about specifics in your questions, one wonderful way that I have found to found hikes, especially in national parks or any public land with a visitor center that's open and staffed. So we have a lot of questions around that in 2020, Five right now. But if you can find that asking, you know, there's all kinds of people coming in and saying to a ranger, where can I hike? Right but if you come in and you say, I would love to find a hike with solitude, and I don't mind if it doesn't have views of whatever, or I don't mind if it's not this famous place, they'll tell you. And you could even say, like, where would you go for a hike on your day off? And they'll tell you, right? And you could say, Hey, I'm up for a hike that's, you know, up to five miles long, or up to 10 miles long, and has up to 2000 feet of climbing, or 500 feet of climbing, or no climbing. These are people who know this park intimately, and they're going to have amazing some of the best hikes I've done in national parks. I have found that way. So I just want to know your Rangers do that

Craig Romano:

a lot of fun. Years ago, I was in the Abruzzi National Park in the Apennines of Italy. I spent a week there, and I stood out because I was, I was the, I'm of Italian origin. I was the only American there, but I got to wait. You're Italian. I never told anybody

Jennie Flaming:

that you never came up before.

Craig Romano:

I tell you, it has its advantages when you're traveling Italy. So I got to know the ranger at the station. We do espresso shots, do espresso shots in the morning and talk, and I got so much great information. Even towards the end, you have to the point where I do these one way hikes, and people would pick me up to bring me back. Well, that's the American who's hanging out in get to know your Rangers. And I had this amazing and again, here's another thing. I was in the happenings where no Americans go because they're all in the Alps, and that alone itself. Again, I'm in this national park that is wide open because the Americans, the typical Americans, to do their one Europe trip, is trying to do all the famous places, one in a row, they're not going to go there. I spent a week in this obscure Park, yeah, which is out of this world. Is bear, one of the few places where bears still live in Italy. It's just an incredible place, yeah. So to me, again, that's half, half the fun discovery. And how did I find this place? I'm just intrigued by reading the map and like, what is this mountain range, and what is this national park, and what's here? And you learn, you know, again, have that sense of discovery. It is so important to me. Half the fun of again, of going someplace, is the anticipation of getting there. I spend months planning trips and places, and I'm just so excited, because I love discovery. It makes life, you know, it's the spice of life. It really is, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

love it cool. Okay, everybody, well, hopefully we have inspired you to find some new places to hike this summer, and if you find one you love that you don't mind sharing, send us a text from the show notes. And we love hearing from you, so please tell us your thoughts. All right. Bye for now. All right. Ciao, if you're enjoying the podcast, we would love to have you leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening that will really help other people find us. And don't forget, there's a link to Craig's books and my email list in the show notes. If you'd like to connect with us and support us, you can always leave us a tip in the show notes. You.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

Host
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Craig Romano

Co-host