Hey Friends! 

I'd be remiss if I didn't provide you some advice on how to be a decent human on the trails. Enjoy responsibly!!! 


If you need a TLDR:

« BE PREPARED » 

What does being prepared mean to me? It means preparing for the worst. It means wearing proper gear and attire & having supplies in the event of an emergency. Don't know what that means? Check out what I bring in my day packs

« KNOW BEFORE YOU GO » 

thunder hail storm that caused me to bail a hike this summer

« BE A DECENT HUMAN » 

Ghosty Boy & Brother Man

« HIKING WITH A PUP» 

« GEOTAGGING & LOCATION SHARING » 

The majority of outdoor enthusiasts opt to not share the locations of their travels or adventures in hopes of keeping the areas "wild". As I grew up and enjoyed the outdoors I definitely bought into this same idea: don't tell people your cool nature spots because too many people will ruin it. In a sense this idea can be stretched to say that nature somehow becomes less enjoyable when you have to share the trails with other humans. 

A lil piece of my brain didn't agree completely with this because from a young age I always LOVED saying hi to everyone I passed on the trail (honestly still haven't grown out of it and don't know if I ever will). I think this is one of the the things that made me start questioning sharing nature spots with other people- why would other humans on the trail make it worse? Why shouldn't they have the same opportunities I do? My opinion on this matter was solidified after an article I read really spoke to me a few years ago and moving to a new area exposed me to what I believe the real problem to be. 

So why is Geotagging so controversial? The argument against geotagging is routed in keeping people from overrunning areas and not treating them with the respect they deserve. The basic idea is that if someone posts a photo and tags its location- more people will go there. When more people go to an area trails become overrun, busy, and human presence often remains in trash and dog poop left behind- making the whole experience less enjoyable (and the area less wild). I've attached a few articles that really highlight what can happen if too many people start flocking to the same area. There is also the argument that when more people are flocking to an area- more people are showing up unprepared and can quickly be put into dangerous scenarios that could've been avoided. In some extreme cases unprepared hikers can end up costing resources in the event any rescues need to be made. Feel free to google "unprepared hikers need rescue" and be blown away about the amount of articles that show up for events that have happened in the past few months alone. 

Delta Lake, Tetons

However, I wanted to add a few personal anecdotes to really stress how overly common some of these issues are. I'm blessed to live relatively near a few National Parks and the National Park System is quite a magnet for people curious about the outdoors- whether they are experienced with it or not. 

Just south of me is the incredibly scenic Grand Teton National Park. In 2018 the Jackson Hole tourism board came out with a statement that they didn't want people tagging locations in the park because particular areas were beginning to become overrun. The best example of this is the GORGEOUS Delta Lake. According to a NYT article the lake used to receive 1 or 2 visitors a day and had now been receiving up to 145 visitors a day. I just visited the lake this past summer and can certainly see why if anyone sees a picture of this beauty they would be drawn to it, but it was definitely a bit busier of a trail. 

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/travel/instagram-geotagging-environment.html 

Another incredible park just south of me is our nation's first national park: Yellowstone. Unfortunately Yellowstone made national news this summer (2022) for three different incidents of people getting gored by bison in the span of a single month. I remember seeing a video of one of the incidents that blatantly showed an attack occurring after the humans involved insitgated an attack by stressing out the bison by being WAY too close to them. 

I'd recommend checking out a quite popular Instagram account called Tourons of Yellowstone. It has a lot of content of our fellow human's stupidity in the outdoors- usually involving the wildlife.  

While Yellowstone is the most well known for people getting too close to animals, it definitely is prominent in other parks as well. When I visited the Badlands this past May (2022) I was SHOCKED to see how close people were getting to the Big Horn Sheep. It was not safe for the animals OR humans at all. 

Big Horn Sheep vs Humans, Badlands

Noonmark, ADKS

While some of the issues are extremely common in National Parks, they are not unique to them. In New York State some of the most well known hiking in the Adirondacks is hiking one of the 46 high peaks. As a result any of the 46ers are usually incredibly busy trails- with some  of them like Cascade and Porter being simply overrun to the point there was a need to move the trail for area recovery and for accidents occurring due to parking conditions. The parking situation was a problem in many other hiking areas as well. A parking reservation system had to be rolled out for the trails out of the AMR area in Keene Valley. I was initially bummed when the reservation system was rolled out because one of my favorite mountains, Noonmark (a non-46er), utilized the parking in this area and it would be THAT much harder to go to my fav mountain. On my latest trip home I wasn't able to enjoy the fall colors on my fav peak because all of the reservation spots had been long booked up. There is an argument that a lot of this could've been avoided if people hadn't tagged their locations because what people don't know about they can't go to. Particularly one hike out of this parking area, Indian Head, is without a doubt the most well known "Instagram fall hike" in the area and very much could've been the reason I wasn't able to get a spot.  

So with all of this being said- how could someone like me support Geotagging and location sharing? While I agree that geotagging can be a contributor to some of the stuff I've mentioned above, I really don't think that it is the main problem. I think the main problem here is the lack of information available to people. I actually believe that when geotagging is used in the right manner it can help spread people out and prevent gatekeeping (we'll get into gatekeeping in a second).

Does the Adirondacks fall into the category of a small natural place that can't handle a lot of annual visitors? I mean an area that is larger than seven of the smallest US States (Hawaii, Connecticut, New Hampshire Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New Jersey) and equal to the size of Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Everglades, and the Great Smokies COMBINED should have plenty of recreation area. 

For an area this large how is it everyone and their mother are all on the same freakin trails? I'm thinkin it has a little something to do with the limited information they have available to them. I was lucky enough to experience the outdoors from a young age due to my Dad's encouragement. My dad knew about a LOT of places from where he was exposed to growing up, word of mouth, and having access to resources such as trail maps. For someone that hasn't been lucky enough to have the resources I did, but still wanted to experience the outdoors where would they start? Probably by googling. What is some of the first things that come up when googling? Pretty much only the well known popular places that are frequently being geotagged. Of course the 46er hikes are gonna be WAY more popular than any of the other equally as scenic mountains in the area- they are the first ones (and some of the only) ones people find out about. 

References: https://www.adirondack-park.net/trivia.html 

When some friends and I wanted to do a late season fall peak hike in New York during my grad semester we saw leaves were peaking in the Catskills area of the state. The Catskills are absolutely gorgeous, but I didn't spend a ton of time in that region of the state growing up because the Adirondacks were always closer to home. When my friend brought up hiking Giants Ledge and Panther from seeing online recommendations for foliage- we were all incredibly stoked to go check it out. The leaves were absolutely amazing, but the trail was the BUSIEST trail I've been on in my entire life. It was impossible for our group not to hike within eye sight & voice of groups in front & behind us. Is the Catskills a small recreation area? Nope there were plenty of mountains for everyone to check out. Why was everyone on this trail? It is top recommended from a simple and quick google search. Were a lot of the people on the trails unprepared without water and appropriate foot attire? Yup. 

Giants Ledge, Catskills 

Fairly Lake, Bozeman

My move to Montana further opened my eyes to how lack of information and resources can contribute to more people on specific trails. I had never been in the Rockies before my move and I certainly was eager to get after it and hike as soon as I got here. Being as I just moved I already had a lot of out of the norm expenses and buying hiking literature wasn't exactly at the top of my list. I didn't know anyone here so I didn't have anyone to rely on for some word of mouth recommendations. My first move for figuring out where I wanted to adventure? Googling. 

Now one thing I'd like to note for all of you is that I consider myself to be a pretty experienced hiker. There are pictures of me on top a mountain in my dad's backpack before I was even walking well. I knew I was going to be in a different region of the country so I did research on things I hadn't really experienced before: hiking in higher altitudes, bear safety, etc., but when it came to researching locations to check out there wasn't a ton of information other than a few of the same trails being consistently recommended. In turn I ended up going to some of the most popular (and instagramable) trails in the area: Fairy Lake, Lava Lake, The "M", etc. In a way it was nice to be on super popular trails when hiking alone in bear country, but primarily I just didn't really know where else to go. Eventually the longer I've lived here I've been able to check out some of the less traveled trails from learning about it from literature I've purchased or hearing recommendations from some of the people around me.

I also noticed that I had an influx of friends reaching out to me for hiking recommendations in the area where I grew up. When I lived in the area I would just plan a lot of fun hikes for us to do together and I'd give a few recommendations here and there, but I didn't realize how much of a resource I was until it had to be a lot more intentional to ask me for some recs. 

How could geotagging help prevent everyone existing on the same trails? In my eyes geotagging is a form of word of mouth informing for people I might not talk to on a regular basis. I'm giving you an easily accessible form of hiking recommendations every time I geotag. Consider if everyone always tagged the locations of their adventures- there would immediately be a HUGE easily accessible new resource for people to check out when wanting to go on an adventure. For someone like me that is posting adventure photos ALL the time- this can be an extremely helpful resource that provides a lot of different options so people don't end up all on the same trail. 

I'd also like to add one quick note on how non-geotagging can be harmful. The first article I've linked on this webpage highlights this way better than I can so I would definitely recommend checking it out (so much so that I've linked it again here). My biggest takeaway from the article is how non-geotagging and gatekeeping culture can be pretty toxic. Gatekeeping is defined as "limiting general access to something". In application to the outdoors it is purposely limiting the amount of people who know about a specific scenic location.

If you hike in a serene spot and are hesitant to share where it is with other people I'd like you to ponder a few questions: What gives you more of a right to this natural public land than any other human? How did you hear about this location? Was it from a resource not available to everyone? 

Is this a form of privilege? 

The author does a great job of touching on the ethnicity of who you see out on the trails and how that directly implies who has access to outdoor resources and knowledge. Unfortunately in my personal experience I've pretty consistently only have seen white people out on the trails- something I hope will change in the future. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience how wonderful nature can be. 

Ultimately I don't always think geotagging is the right thing to do all the time, but I do think it is something that should be given more thought if the only reason you don't tag a place is because you don't want to see other people while you are there. If you are an "influencer" type person that has millions of followers that posts a nature photo every once in a blue moon it is pretty irresponsible to tag a specific location. You have to consider how your platform could negatively impact the area you loved enough to want to brag about it. If you are an average joe that went to a somewhat known area that honestly could handle more people checking it out? Heck yeah tag that bad boy and get people off of some of the more popular trails. Am I going to think less of you if you choose not to geotag? Nah. Am I going to judge you for geotagging- also no. I respect your decision either way, but I wanted to explain a little bit about why I choose to tag and share things the way I do. 

I personally have been trying to tag general areas on my regular Instagram account because I post less hiking posts there, but on vamessyvlogs I try to tag everything. I want people to be able to have the same wonderful experiences I do out in nature. I also feel more comfortable tagging locations on vamessyvlogs because I plan to provide more information to you guys on how to be a decent human on the trails. I'd love it if I could influence more people to enjoy nature responsibly. 

Speaking of enjoying nature responsibly: I'd like to add that I don't think the Yellowstone animal attacks are occurring due to lack of information. The park provides literature for EVERYONE driving in that shows graphics for recommendations on how far to stay away from the animals. Threw out your literature? Great. It's pretty impossible to miss the signs at almost every stopping area. I think visitors should be held to the reasonable criteria of following these rules- especially when they are posted everywhere. Wondering what else you should consider before adventuring outdoors? Check out my outdoor tips above ;) 

Note: I truly do think it is important to do your own research. I learn a lot from hearing the stories of other people's mistakes and my two favorite podcasts for nature mishaps are National Park After Dark & Tooth and Claw! If you are squeamish about gory things I would heed any warnings they may give because some of these stories are absolutely gnarly. Also look into any wilderness classes that may be offered in your area. I've had my eye on a few nature oriented EMT classes that I'm hoping to take in the next couple years. 

Coming Soon: One of my first vlogs is about hiking in bear country #gethype #stayscared #beprepared #knowbeforeyougo