zakn, since you said you're still trying to figure out where hike.io stands in the internet of hiking, you should know there is an app called "Yonder" that focuses on high quality photos of the outdoors, submitted by members of the Yonder community (who are by design mostly hiking types). They have an iPhone app and have a UI modeled after Instagram. I've used it to find hikes around my area. You should check it out for the some of the social-oriented features it has.