Helen Loennig’s earliest memory of hiking in the Elkhorn Mountains near Baker City involves a heavy tent and a temper tantrum.

But her affinity for the range has proved more influential than that unpleasant introduction.

She was about 2½.

She accompanied her father, Frank Loennig, to an alpine jewel that her dad knew as Green Lake but is shown on maps today as Red Mountain Lake.

As she climbed the steep switchbacks that lead to the lake, she decided the tent was too great a burden.

There was something of a scene.

Decades after that difficult hike, Loennig spends as much time as possible in the Elkhorns and other local mountains.

She continues to be inspired by her dad, who died in 1993.

“He just loved these mountains, and I guess that love transferred to me,” she said. “He took me all over those mountains as a kid.”

But Loennig has used that affection to do something that wasn’t available to her father.

In May, she and her daughter, Kate, who’s 11, started a website designed to introduce other hikers to the Elkhorns.

The site — hikingbaker.com — includes maps, descriptions, difficulty ratings and other information for more than two dozen hikes.

And the Loennigs aren’t the only Baker City hikers going online to help fellow wanderers.

Amy Hindman started her website, Eastern Oregon Family Hiking Guide — easternoregonfamilyhikes.com — about four years ago.

Hindman and Helen Loennig had similar motivations — filling an online void.

“There’s not a lot of great resources for our area,” said Hindman, who moved to Baker City in 2015 with her husband, Jeremy, who grew up in the area.

Loennig said she noticed the relative scarcity of detailed information about trails in the Elkhorns last year when she sought to fulfill what she called a “bucket list” item — hiking to all of the lakes that she first visited decades ago with her dad.

Although Loennig found quite a lot of sites describing trails in the Eagle Cap Wilderness — Oregon’s biggest, at 350,000 acres — the situation was vastly different with the Elkhorns, most of which are not designated wilderness.

She became frustrated.

“And when I get frustrated about something, I tend to try to do something about it,” she said.

Loennig and her daughter started to gather information about their hikes.

Then they decided to create a website.

Hindman said her family started hiking more in 2020, during the pandemic.

“Since everything was closed, it was a good year to start exploring more,” she said.

As with the Loennigs, hiking — and gathering information for the website — is a family activity for the Hindmans.

They have four children: Anne, 14, Will, 12, Levi, 10, and Jack, 7.

Neither website is a money-making venture.

“I just really love hiking and I enjoy sharing this information with people,” Hindman said. “I hope it helps people out.”

She said she relishes receiving comments on her site from people who have used the descriptions to find a hike they liked.

Loennig’s motivations are similar.

“I want people to get out and exercise,” she said.

Loennig said the topics on her site have “snowballed” in the two months or so since she started it.

She decided that in addition to posting details about local hikes, she would turn the site into “sort of a base camp for Baker.”

That led Loennig to add nonhiking sections, including lodging options, gear recommendations, local restaurants, a list of businesses she and her daughter have patronized, and one she’s especially excited about — a calendar of local events.

Although both Loennig’s and Hindman’s sites focus on the Elkhorns and the Phillips Reservoir area, each has featured hikes elsewhere in the region.

Hindman, for instance, has information about hikes in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, in the La Grande area and a couple in the Wallowas.

Loennig’s choices include hikes around Olive Lake and in the Ben Harrison Mine area, both on the Umatilla National Forest west of Granite.

Hindman, whose site reflects her preference for hikes that are suitable for families, said her favorite spot in the Elkhorns is Crawfish Lake, southwest of Anthony Lakes.

“My kids love Crawfish Lake,” she said.

The lake is suitable for swimming, a good reward for kids after the hike.

“I just really love hiking and I enjoy sharing this information with people. I hope it helps people out.”

— Amy Hindman, Baker City hiker who runs a website, Eastern Oregon Family Hiking Guide