Privacy, thoughtfully.

Updated September 30, 2026.

Your hiking journal

What you type into the journal stays in your browser. PDFs are created on your device. Optional “remember” storage and imported photos remain in this browser until you clear them. Backups are files you control. We do not receive your journal entries or photos.

Contact messages

When you use our contact form, your name, email, subject and message are sent to our inbox to answer your request. Messages are not stored in the website CMS; our email provider processes and retains delivered mail. Cloudflare Turnstile checks submissions for spam and processes browser and network information. A necessary session cookie protects the form. Hashed IP attempt counters expire after one hour and are removed on subsequent submissions. Do not include sensitive information in your message.

Essential storage

Optional permissions last up to 180 days or until configured services change. A refusal saved in browser storage remains until changed or cleared. A necessary preference cookie and browser storage remember these choices. Optional journal storage lasts until you clear it. Administrator session cookies protect access to the CMS. Your hosting provider may keep standard security logs such as IP addresses and requested pages.

Statistics

When enabled, Google Analytics loads with storage consent denied by default. It can send limited, cookieless measurement signals before you make a choice. Analytics cookies are a separate, optional choice and require basic statistics to be enabled. Matomo, when enabled, is configured without cookies; it may start before a choice if the site operator enables privacy-configured early measurement. You can turn statistics off below. We respect Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track. Journal contents are excluded from our tracking.

Advertising

When AdSense is enabled, Google’s consent message manages advertising choices and regional privacy rights. The advertising tag loads only after you enable Google advertising in our preferences. Google then controls advertising consent and whether ads are eligible. Turning this off stops future loads; reload the page after saving your journal to unload previously loaded advertising. HikeNotes does not make downloads conditional on advertising consent.

Other sites

Instagram and partner links open only when you choose them. Those sites have their own privacy policies. Following Hike.Notes is optional, and no Instagram tracking widget is embedded here.