“Perfect is the enemy of good” – Voltaire (Voltron?)

And if you’re wondering, yes, I did watch this week’s episode of Ted Lasso. 

Whenever Trevor is out of town, I try to take Dutch out for a little date day. These Dutchie date days typically consist of a trip to the park or a hike followed by a pup cup or picking up a treat from our local pet supply store. 

This time around I was focused on finding the “perfect” trail for us. For a few days leading up to that morning, I tossed around the idea of different drive times, trail lengths, and scenic views like waterfalls or towering bluffs. 

The search for the perfect trail almost kept us indoors. 

And honestly, that’s the part I want to talk about.

This article serves two purposes. I’ll walk you through my typical search process for a trail, including my pros and my cons.

I’ll also remind you that the perfect trail doesn’t exist and that’s not for a lack of planning. 

We didn’t climb mountains. We didn’t chase waterfalls. We did get outside and we had a great morning. 

AllTrails

AllTrails is my go-to app when I’m looking up trails, but you have to know how to properly navigate it to get the most out of your experience. Although you can use it for activities like fishing, bird watching, biking, and many others, this article will be focused on hiking and walking. 

Difficulty 

Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by an “Easy” trail on AllTrails?

AllTrails rates activities as “Easy”, “Moderate”, “Hard”, and “Strenuous”. These ratings are subjective and meant for a broad audience, so it’s important to remember that your “easy” might be my “moderate”. 

You can find the up-to-date difficulty ratings on their website. Currently, this is how AllTrails describes them: 

• Easy trails are typically short, with clearly marked paths and fairly level terrain. 
• Moderate trails often feature gradual climbs or obstacles like rocks or roots.
• Hard trails usually cover longer distances and may have long or steep climbs or difficult obstacles.
• Strenuous trails are for advanced adventurers who are prepared for highly technical terrain, exposure, and scrambling.

Although I have completed hard and strenuous trails, I am typically filtering for easy and moderate trails. Especially if Dutch is coming along. 

Accessibility & Dog-Friendly 

Dog-friendly because obviously. I love that there’s an easy filter to check for the objective “are dogs allowed here?” However, “dogs allowed” doesn’t always mean it’s the best choice if you’re bringing your pup. This is where I start to dive a little deeper into the actual reviews and look for non-Dutch-friendly details like overgrown trails, tick reports, or rocky sections that require scrambling. 

“Easy” doesn’t necessarily mean “accessible”. Accessibility allows you to filter for wheelchair-friendly, stroller-friendly, paved, and partially paved. During the summer when we’re dealing with a high risk of poison ivy and ticks there are times I’ll filter for paved or partially paved trails to reduce that risk.

Reviews

AllTrails is more than just a search engine, it’s a community where other trailgoers share photos and experiences. I use the filters to help narrow down my choices, but I don’t make a final decision until I’ve looked through RECENT reviews. Emphasis on recent, because a review in March captures a very different experience than what you might experience in July. Sometimes there may not be recent reviews, so I might look back to the previous year if that’s an option or occasionally will take the gamble.

Things I’m looking for in reviews or photos:

• Dogs
  • It says it’s dog-friendly, but is anybody actually bringing their dogs?
• Trail conditions
  • Does it look overgrown or are there reports of overgrown areas?
  • Are there any recently reported hazards like flooding, downed trees, or fire damage? 
  • Is the trail well marked or do we need to rely more heavily on the map?
• Bugs
  • This tends to correlate with overgrown areas, but are there recent reports of ticks? 
• Water/Weather
  • Are water crossings higher than normal?
  • Are there restricted areas due to recent rain or fire events? 

Other Helpful Filters

Climbing mountains, but only want to climb so high? Filter for total elevation gain! Chasing waterfalls? Use the “Features” filter to narrow down the trails that have what you’re hoping to experience like waterfalls, wildlife, or scenic views. Or maybe you want to stay close to home while still logging some miles. You can filter for travel distance and length of trail.

Another filter I like to use is “Visitation”. Sometimes I want solitude. Sometimes I want a popular trail where I know I’ll see other people. Especially when I’m hiking solo with Dutch, that can be a factor in deciding where I go.

Pack It Up

So what did we end up doing? A local Greenway Trail. You probably have one in your city where urban scenery meets natural surroundings. It wasn’t the longest or most scenic trail, or even the one I’d originally had in mind. But it checked enough of the boxes, and more importantly, it got Dutch and I out the door.

There’s no single filter for the perfect trail. This is my process when narrowing down trails I should enjoy. Ultimately, a good trail is the one that got you outside. But a great trail comes home with you – in the photos, memories, or even in the way it has you filtering your future searches to be more like THAT. 

And the perfect trail doesn’t exist. 

Maybe that’s the point. 

Sometimes we spend so much time looking for the trail that’s worth the drive, worth the miles, worth the elevation, or worth the pictures that we forget that the point was just to go.

But let’s keep exploring for those almost-perfect trails, together.  

I’d love to know, what has been your favorite trail? What are you always hoping for on your journeys?

~ Mo