travel and rhum

Just for conversation.

What do you all carry on you for a day hike in the wilderness? And what do you all carry it in?

Hi Reddit, I had an interesting situation happen this morning and I was hoping you could clear this up for me. My wife and I decided to go for a hike in the mountains today. Now, recent conditions have been getting more wintry, and we wanted to pick a trail that would still be appropriate in these conditions. We looked around on Alltrails and picked one that seemed not too bad, with people logging ascents up until yesterday. Recent reports stated that the trail was snowy but mostly packed down, with hikers being able to break the trail through calf-deep snow as needed. When we arrived at the trailhead, it did look quite snowy but there was a clear path that had been broken by previous people. It looked like snowshoes would have been ideal but not fully necessary, and we hadn't thought to bring ours.

So here's where our trouble started. We headed off on the trail, trudging through the snow on the established path. It was a bit of a work out without snowshoes but not too bad. A few minutes in, we came across a woman heading back toward the trailhead on skis. She immediately started berating us, accusing us of trampling the ski path. She pointed us toward another adjacent trail (which, mind you, was also very snowy and had not been broken by anyone), stating it was more appropriate for hikers. She said the trail we were on crosses into avalanche terrain and is not appropriate for hikers, and she was outraged at having crossed several other parties of hikers further up ahead. Now, I know proper etiquette is to walk/snowshoe adjacent to ski tracks to avoid ruining the trail for skiers, but the path we were on had clearly been used by hikers already and if there were ski tracks, they were no longer visible. There is also no indication anywhere that this trail is reserved for skiing in the winter.

We ended up abandoning the trail and turning back since my wife felt bad and we were worried that we were somehow breaking some etiquette rule. We also don't have any actual avalanche training or gear and she was worried we had bitten off more than we could chew, though I felt we could have just turned around if conditions looked too dangerous.

So, Reddit, is it poor etiquette to hike through snowy trails? I know some trails are reserved for skiing in the winter but if there is no indication, how do you known which ones are okay to hike on?