National Park and Public Land Trails

National Park and Public Land Trails is an online hiking trail guide that provides detailed information on trails across national parks, state parks, and federal lands. The site organizes trail entries by park, including locations such as Great Smoky Mountains, Zion, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, listing specific named trails within each. Each trail guide offers route facts, access notes, hazards, timing, and practical planning information to support safer day-hike preparation.

The site serves hikers planning visits to public lands by offering route facts, access notes, hazards, timing, and practical planning information. It includes information on permits, park access, and trail conditions to help users prepare for their hikes safely.

Users can start by choosing a trail with details that change daily, such as distance, climbing, terrain, access, permits, weather, and turnarounds. The process involves matching the route to the people, weather, access rules, and terrain that apply on the actual day before committing to the hike.

The guide provides specific named trails within parks like Joshua Tree, offering route walkthroughs that include trailhead checks, main route details, and turnaround strategies. For example, Contact Mine Trail in Joshua Tree includes information on surface changes, confusing side paths, and sections where the return requires more attention than the approach.

The site emphasizes comparing full round-trip distance, total climbing, highest elevation, surface, exposure, shade, reliable water, permit status, access method, expected moving time, and the hardest part of the return. This comparison helps prevent a famous destination or simple mileage number from hiding the real work of the hike.

The guide advises matching the route to the least-ready person rather than the strongest hiker and securing access by confirming entrance passes, timed entry, trail permits, parking, and road openings. Users are encouraged to save proof before cellular service disappears in remote areas.

Conditions and access can change quickly, so users should verify current park alerts, check official alerts and an hourly forecast at trail elevation, and add river, smoke, fire, avalanche, tide, or heat information. The park or land manager remains the final authority for closures, road status, reservations, and current conditions.

The guide notes that the practical difficulty depends on more than mileage, including surface, grade, shade, altitude, exposure, wayfinding, recent weather, and crowding. In Joshua Tree, the setting can shift from comfortable travel to slower decision-making when heat, exposed sun, scarce water, confusing washes, sharp desert plants, and long dry exits become part of the day.

The site includes information on permits, park access, and trail conditions, and it also mentions that the above image of Contact Mine Trail was generated and may not accurately represent what it currently looks like. This highlights the dynamic nature of trail conditions and visual representations.

The official website of National Park and Public Land Trails is hikingtrailguide.com.

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