Terms, safety and privacy

Your safety is your call

Live Free or Hike turns public weather forecasts, maps and terrain data into an estimate of how a hike might go. It is a planning aid, not a guarantee. Forecasts are often wrong in the mountains, maps and trail data can be out of date, and conditions on the trail can change in minutes. A "Favorable" rating does not mean a hike is safe, and the site can't see ice, washouts, closures, wildlife, or how you're feeling that day.

Hiking and swimming carry real risk of injury and death. By using the site you agree that you're responsible for your own decisions and safety: check the official forecasts, carry the ten essentials, leave a plan with someone, turn back when conditions or your body tell you to, and never rely on this site alone. In an emergency, call 911.

Swim ratings are estimates from river gauges and forecasts. Depth, currents, water quality and hidden hazards are not verified. Swim only where swimming is allowed, never alone, and never dive into water you haven't checked.

Using the site

The site is provided as is, without warranties of any kind, and may be unavailable, incomplete or wrong at any time. To the fullest extent the law allows, Live Free or Hike and the people behind it are not liable for any injury, loss or damage arising from use of the site or reliance on its information.

The site's design, code, ratings and written content belong to Live Free or Hike. You're welcome to share links to it. Businesses may show today's ratings on their own sites only through the official conditions widget, which links back here.

Places to eat, drink and swim are suggestions, not endorsements of their safety, hours or quality; check before you go. Some places are marked "Local partner": these businesses support the site, and we only partner with places we'd recommend anyway.

Privacy

There are no accounts and no advertising trackers, and the site sets no cookies.

• Kept only on your device: your usual plan, hikes you save for the trail, trip details you type in for the person you leave your plan with, any backup hikes you choose, and the date of your last visit. They never leave your phone or computer unless you share them yourself, and clearing your browser's site data removes them.
• Counted on our server, as totals only: how many visits are first or returning ones each week, and how many times hikers use the directions and calendar links for a recommended place, and the links to trail reports. No names, addresses or device IDs are kept with these counts.
• Other services: to work, your browser loads fonts from Google Fonts, and our server asks weather services for forecasts about the mountains, not about you. Links to other sites follow those sites' own policies.

Where the data comes from

Forecasts from the National Weather Service and Open-Meteo; river levels from the U.S. Geological Survey; trails and places from OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License; tree cover and land cover from public datasets. Each hike page lists its sources under "Data sources." None of these organizations reviews or endorses the site.