About CoolTrails.com

What is Cool Trails? Cool Trails is an outdoor recreation site. We provide honest, free insight into Pacific Northwest backcountry destinations, year-round, for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia. We also sell equipment and guidebooks.

Our mission is to increase hikers' enjoyment of the Northwest by sharing no-hype information about destinations. We do this by publishing Trip Reports that come directly from hikers all over the region, and by sending out an e-mail newsletter.

Honest? Yeah, honest. Trail guides are great, but nothing takes the place of hearing another hiker's trail stories. Cool Trails' vision is a no-hype, no-fee environment that provides an experience similar to that. Plus pictures.

Why is Cool Trails so specialized? Outdoor-oriented web sites abound, especially in the Northwest. There are other excellent sites for trail conditions, regulations and weather forecasts. That allows Cool Trails to concentrate on publishing stories about hikes. The Bearings page on Cool Trails lists other web sites that provide excellent hiking information of all kinds.

Why don't you rate hikes for quality? The purpose of Cool Trails is to give you the good and bad news about a destination, from the perspective of someone who has been there, so you can decide whether a trip is right for you. Instead of an arbitrary rating based on one person's opinion, we assign an Effort Rating to most hikes, to give you an indication of what you're getting into.

Are you making lots of money? No. Excess profits are donated to organizations dedicated to protecting the wilds and everyone's access to them. We have so far refused to accept advertising. Operations are funded in part by the generosity of individual supporters, and from commissions from online book sales through Amazon.com and gear sales through GearPro.com. In 1999, Cool Trails had over a million hits from around the world. Most serious hikers in the Northwest subscribe to our e-mail newsletter. Almost any web search for trails in the Northwest will lead you to Cool Trails.

Where is Cool Trails? Cool Trails is located and licensed in Seattle, Washington, USA. We cover B.C., Idaho, Oregon and Washington trails.

Are you associated with...? Cool Trails is not associated Snow-Trails.com, Hiking-Trails.com, Trailwork.com, Trails.com, Great-Trails.com, Timber-Trails.com, Snowboarding-Trails.com, Horse-Trails.com, Ocean-Trails.com, Mountain-Bike-Trails.com, Nordic-Ski-Trails.com, GORP.com, Trailfinder.com, or any of the other Trails.com sites on the web. We have relationships with several outdoor-related web sites, and encourage others with complementary services to contact us.

How did Cool Trails begin? Seattle resident and lifetime backpacker Denis Du Bois started a web site called "Base Camp" in 1994 as a personal project to learn about the web. The modest site grew in size and polularity, and was soon re-launched as Cool Trails in 1997.

How can I get involved with Cool Trails? Publish a report about your favorite trip. If you want to get even more involved, please contact us.

Can I use your content? Please contact us about incorporating Cool Trails content into your related web site or print publication. We encourage linking to cooltrails.com. We also allow certain other types of "repackaging," with our written permission. ALL content and designs on Cool Trails are protected by federal copyright laws.

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