Guides
Evergreen explainers and desk notes that cite official pages. Fees without a live source stay unverified. Not a route planner.
Foundations
What hiking is, what it is for, how to start, and how not to wreck the land. Sourced, not padded.
Foundations
What is hiking?
Walking a natural trail for its own sake. Where hiking ends and trekking, mountaineering, or a stroll begins.
Foundations
The benefits of hiking
Hiking counts as the moderate aerobic activity WHO and CDC recommend. Specific claims stay attributed to those pages.
Foundations
Hiking for beginners
Pick a trail by difficulty, not distance. What a first hike is like, and a short checklist with the grades this catalog records.
Foundations
Gear, safety & Leave No Trace
The Ten Essentials, footwear and layering, and the seven Leave No Trace principles — NPS, REI, and lnt.org.
Mountain guides
Climbed summits, from adjudicated evidence sheets — origin, geology, and logistics sourced or honestly Unverified. Passes, lakes, forts, and base-camp walks stay trail records. All mountain guides.
Peak · relates to a trail
Deo Tibba
6001 m · Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, India
Walk-up summit · relates to a trail
Shrikhand Mahadev
5155 m · Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, India
Walk-up summit · relates to a trail
Kalsubai
1646 m · Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India
Walk-up summit · relates to a trail
Kudremukh
1894 m · Chikmagalur district, Karnataka, India
Walk-up summit
Sandakphu
3636 m · Darjeeling district, West Bengal, India / Ilam district, Nepal
Peak
Stok Kangri
6153 m · Stok, Leh district, Ladakh, India
Peak
Mount Everest
8848.86 m (2020 joint Nepal-China measurement) · Nepal, China
Peak
K2
8611 m · Pakistan, China
Peak
Kangchenjunga
8586 m · Nepal, India
Peak
Lhotse
8516 m · Nepal, China
Peak
Makalu
8485 m · Nepal, China
Peak
Cho Oyu
8188 m · Nepal, China
Peak
Dhaulagiri I
8167 m · Nepal
Peak
Manaslu
8163 m · Nepal
Peak
Nanga Parbat
8126 m · Pakistan
Peak
Annapurna I
8091 m · Nepal
Peak
Gasherbrum I (Hidden Peak)
8080 m · Pakistan, China
Peak
Gasherbrum II
8034 m · Pakistan, China
Peak
Broad Peak
8051 m · Pakistan, China
Peak
Shishapangma
8027 m · China (entirely within Tibet/China)
Desk notes
Permits, seasons, and method — cited from the issuing authority, or omitted.
India · 2026
Hiking in India
The verified Uttarakhand, Himachal, Western Ghats, Ladakh, and J&K records — permits official or Unverified, Sikkim parked, Likir La not the Sham Valley walk.
Switzerland · 2026
Hiking in Switzerland
The verified SchweizMobil national and canton records in this catalog, grouped by canton and theme — with the three national superroutes we omitted named, not invented.
Method
How we verify
OSM 2-D length within 3% of the official kilometre, Copernicus GLO-30 verticals, permits official-or-Unverified, honest hard-stops. Sourced or omitted.
Method
Where hiking ends
Walking, scrambling, and mountaineering as this catalog draws them. We map the walk and mark where it ends — we don't dress a climb as a hike.
Himalaya & Karakoram
Base camp treks explained
The famous 8,000 m treks go to camp, not the summit. Distances and highs from records we hold; membership auto-fills as camp walks land.
Access · 2026
Permit lotteries explained
JMT, Half Dome, Whitney, and the Inca Trail: lottery and quota rules from the issuing authorities. Fee amounts are not copied here.
Search
What to check before a trek
Permit, grade, season, distance, and trailhead access — the questions people search — mapped to the stored records.
Nepal · 2026
Nepal trekking permits
ACAP, Sagarmatha NP, Khumbu Trek-Card, TIMS, Nar-Phu RAP, and Manaslu RAP — quoted from official pages, with Unverified where the notice is missing or contested.
Peru · gaps labelled
SERNANP permits
Salkantay, Ausangate, Choquequirao. Unsourced fees stay blank.
Pakistan · gaps labelled
Pakistan trekking permits
CKNP core and Gilgit-Baltistan clearance stay separate. No guessed fees.
Balkans · gaps labelled
Cross-border permits
Peaks of the Balkans only, from the stored record.
Argentina · gaps labelled
National park fees
Los Glaciares and Nahuel Huapi records. Blank means not yet sourced.
Method
How long is the trail, really?
Why published kilometres disagree, and why we keep the OSM 2-D line as the DataPoint — including EBC’s schematic, not walking, distance.
Catalog · 2026/27
Permit & season calendar
Live permit, fee, and best-season from every record, with the cited URL and Unverified shown where we cannot confirm.
Tasmania · 2026/27
Overland Track fees & season
Parks Tasmania’s current Overland Track Pass is A$312 adult (1 Oct–31 May), not the stale A$160. Two seasons, tent required.
Europe · huts
How hut-to-hut booking works
Four booking models on four records: TMB’s association portal, GR20’s park system, Alta Via 1’s per-rifugio contact, and Laugavegur’s FÍ huts — not a ranking.
Peru · 2026
Peru Inca Trail permits
Operator-only network ticket, February closure, and the 2026 split between the trail and the Machu Picchu citadel ticket — no fee amounts.
United States · 2026
USA wilderness permits: John Muir Trail
Yosemite lottery, Donohue Pass quota, Half Dome as a separate lottery, bear canister required — public level, no fee amounts.
Lodging culture
Refuge vs ryokan
Alpine CAF/CAI/PNRC hut bedding versus Japanese pilgrimage lodging on records we hold. Official rules only; fees not invented.
UK & Ireland · access
UK & Ireland waymarked trails
Kerry Way, Hadrian’s Wall Path, and the West Highland Way — public access codes and camping rules, not invented walking fees.
Himalaya · altitude
Himalayan altitude
AMS facts on records we hold. Thorong La is cited at 5,416 m; the Circuit’s DEM high stays 5,385 m. No invented rest-day itinerary.