Your privacy

Your journey, your choice.

HikerQuests stores the email, password hash, display name and optional biography you provide. It stores your hike dates, notes, photos, challenge selections and any coordinates you explicitly attach. Profiles start private. Public profiles show display names, biographies, challenge progress and hike names/dates—not email addresses, private notes or personal check-in coordinates.

Trail reports and their coordinates become public only after moderation. Photos are private unless submitted for public approval. Uploaded images are resized and re-encoded without original EXIF metadata. Display names accompany public reports.

Cookies keep you signed in and protect forms. Public content pages use Google Analytics (measurement ID G-V9C3ZLSG40) to understand visits and usage. Google may set analytics cookies and process device, browser and interaction information. The tag is excluded from pages marked noindex, including account forms and private member areas. We do not deliberately send your email, hike logs or GPS coordinates as analytics events. Embedded videos connect to YouTube, and shop links may lead to affiliate offers. Enabling the online street map sends map tile requests, your IP address and the viewed area to OpenStreetMap’s tile service. Organizer links open external websites.

Offline packs, pending changes and optional saved progress live in this browser. Avoid shared devices. Use the offline basecamp controls to delete private local data or downloaded maps. Foreground GPS tracks stay on your device unless you export them or explicitly save them into your journal.

Use your profile to disable public visibility and your journal to delete logs. Contact the site operator for account or report removal. Retention is until deletion, subject to hosting backups. The operator should publish a contact address before promoting the site.

Beta preferences and feedback

We store your chosen interests, on-site update preference and read-through date. Private beta feedback and replies are visible to you and the site administrator. To measure returning members, we record the calendar days on which signed-in accounts use the website; this adds no IP or cross-site tracking. These records remain until account deletion, subject to backups. On-site updates are optional and can be switched off in My preferences. These on-site updates do not send email or push alerts. Separate email preferences are described below.

Optional emails and reminders

Joining does not subscribe you automatically. If you choose emails, we record your selected topics, consent wording version, timestamps and email confirmation status. The topics are hiking guides, return-to-hiking reminders and gear offers, which may include affiliate products. Confirm your address before being included in an email audience. Change topics or unsubscribe in Email preferences; unsubscribing does not close your account.

Our administrator can export confirmed opt-in addresses and selected topics to a mailing service. We retain an unsubscribe record to help avoid emailing you again. Confirmation messages use the host’s mail service. Calendar reminders are added only when you download and import them; your calendar app controls notifications and removal. Adding the site to your home screen does not grant notification permission. This release does not send background browser push notifications.

Imported adventures and sharing

GPS export files are parsed in your browser. Saving an activity uploads its route coordinates, optional point times and elevation, hike date, notes and selected fields. Health measurements are discarded. Imports start private. Public activities and patch photos require moderation and a public profile; private activity visits are excluded from public challenge counts. Ordinary destination check-ins still contribute to public challenge progress when your profile is public.

Public activity routes hide points inside your selected endpoint radius and omit individual point times. Notes, activity dates and photos you choose to publish remain visible. This trimming does not guarantee anonymity: review your content and landmarks before sharing. Public GPX, KML and GeoJSON exports use the same trimmed route.

Saved route snapshots remain on the device until removed or browser storage is cleared. They are not encrypted against someone using your browser. Signing out clears private local records. Changing or deleting an online entry cannot recall copies previously downloaded by others.

Follows, saved hikes, patch claims and history-passport dates are stored in your account. Follows power an in-site feed; no automatic email or push notifications are sent. You can remove your follows, saved items, journal entries and patches from their respective pages.

Your profile and hiking friends

Profile photos, covers, trail status and interests follow your public-profile choice. Friendships require acceptance by both members; existing follows remain separate. You choose whether to show your friends and Top 8. Guestbooks are off until enabled, accept notes from friends, and show notes publicly only after the profile owner approves them. Owners and authors can delete notes; administrators can remove inappropriate content. Interaction blocks stop new friend requests, following and guestbook interactions between the accounts, but public pages remain accessible to visitors. You can manage these choices in Profile → Privacy and Friends.