There’s some serious scrambling on Heart Mountain. It’s not a hike.
A national outdoor magazine appears to be commissioning lists of “best hikes” from freelance authors who get their suggested list of hikes from trail aggregators such as Alltrails or from local community sites which only have general information on trails. We have serious concerns regarding the quality of information being provided.
Furthermore, the authors deep link to other sites (linking to pages within a site rather than the home page) without getting permission from the site’s author for a description of the trail. While it’s not illegal, it is in our opinion ethically questionable. The authors are unlikely to know if the descriptions they are linking to are accurate and up-to-date.
Let’s look at 10 of the Best Hikes near Canmore. Two of the 10 are scrambles, not hikes, and one of them is in the top three of Kananaskis Public Safety incidents over the past year. There have been fatalities in the last few years on both of these scrambles. They are not suitable trails for the intended audience; visitors to the area who think they are getting quality information. Moreover, the information is not kept current and has not been updated since it was first written several years ago. Think: Ha Ling (re-built), Lady MacDonald (closed) and Guinns Pass (new trail).
A recent addition is 10 of the Best Hikes Near Lethbridge. There are no pictures and all but one of the trails links to Alltrails. The descriptions are all very general, giving little indication what the trails are actually like. One of them involves a slog up a gated gravel road for 4 km, adding 8 km to the days hike.
Here is another laughable sample from 20 Dog-friendly Trails near Calgary. “…Boundary Peak and Ridge is a great trail to take on. This is a full day hike near Kananaskis that offers stunning views of Mount Athabasca and its glacier once you reach the summit.” The peak being described is northwest of Belmore Brown Peak and is definitely not a hike for dog walkers! This whole list, in our opinion, is shallow and insubstantial, very poorly compiled and with no links to any useful information.
It bothers us that these lists are being produced for commercial purposes using other people’s information by a company with a broad public reach without any apparent concern for the accuracy of the information.
The magazine’s guideline for writers states “We expect our writers to be authorities on their subjects. Our where-to and how-to pieces must provide the latest, most reliable information.” Does this magazine not have any duty of responsibility to its readers? Are they not concerned about the magazines credibility?
Interesting and agreed. You get what you put into your research on a new hike/scramble. Once source is a bad idea. I’ve been mislead by only looking at one source before. Prime example last year going from Shark to Assiniboine return in a day, I think I read it was approx 300m one way, thought it would be super easy despite the distance. Boy was I surprised. If I’d known it was 1360m for the day I would have skipped it given it was 53.6km. google earth/fatmap, anything 3d is a good start for seeing what a trail looks like.
As an author of the first Family Friendly hiking book, “Take a Hike With Your Children”, I couldn’t agree more with you. It is very frustrating to see.
I couldn’t agree more. What’s particularly also laughable-if not downright maddening-is within this publication “The Guidelines for Writers” is stated:
“OUR READERS DEMAND THE BEST, so we expect our writers to be authorities on their subjects. Our where-to and how-to pieces must provide the latest, most reliable information; our news articles must be timely and well-researched; and our features and profiles must be original in style and content.” As an aside that particular pontification is dated Jan 6, 2010. Those self-proclaimed journalistic standards 11 1/2 years ago have most certainly evaporated.
What’s shocking is that you’re shocked, Tony.
It doesn’t change the fact you’re right, but it does help demonstrate the lag between reality, truth, and nature vs the manufactured realm of “connected” make believe to be found online.
I’m not at all shocked that the passion of hiking in the mountains isn’t immune to the general trove of BS/lies/phony/pretentious content there is to be found on the web.
It’s not only obscure websites doing it, the mainstream media is chock full of these kinds of innacuracies 24/7.
We live in a clown world of lies built upon lies and the escape K-Country offers from the ever increasing absurdity is more important every day.
Thanks for keeping things current and up to date on your invaluable site!
This is a disturbing trend, no accountability, no guidance for accuracy and nothing to be responsibility by putting out copied details that are out of date.
Interesting and disturbing Tony. Unfortunately with hiking and hikes seen as just another source of advertising income I think we can expect much more of this. It’s shocking how many requests for “guest posts” I get every week. These are nothing more than advertisements dressed up as “articles”.