Updated: Sept 2025

By Hugh Smith

Starbuck.org User Guide

Home Page

The home page is https://www.starbuck.org/. You can click on the Search icon at the upper right to search for a known post. You can also click on the Trips tab at the top to see a list of all trip posts, broken down by state. Click on an individual area (i.e. "Joshua Tree") to get a list for that specific area, then click on the desired trip post. 

Hike Posts

Each Hike Post typically consists of two separate pages: the Trip Report Page, and a Photo Gallery Page. (If there are only a few photos in a post, they will all be on the Trip Report Page, with no Photo Gallery). 

Trip Report Page

The Trip Report Page will usually have a short history of the historical site hiked to, with a few photos sprinkled in. Below that will usually be a Directions section, unless Guy (or another author) wants to keep the site secret. The Directions will include both driving and hiking directions. 

The Directions section will also include a small CalTopo map, which shows the hike on a topo map. You can click on the map, which will open it on CalTopo's website, in a new browser tab. Once on the CalTopo website, you can pan and zoom the map, change  map layers, and download .GPX and .KML files for use with a GPS and Google Earth. Below the Map will be a list of important GPS waypoints. 

Finally, you will see a little auto-slide show, which continuously scrolls through the hike photos. Beneath that is the Photo Gallery button, which will take you to the Photo Gallery, where you can see all the photos in a full screen, high resolution slide show. (Some posts have two authors, with separate Photo Gallery buttons.) 

Important Note: Directions, downloadable files, and especially the Photo Gallery, can only be accessed by subscribers for most trip posts. Some posts are available to all visitors.

If you have a subscription, click on the Photo Gallery button to go to the photos.

If you are a subscriber and get a pop-up message saying that "This post is for subscribers only", there is also a link labelled "Already have an account? Sign in". Click on that link, and fill in your email address. You must use the email address associated with your account; this is how the site verifies that you are a valid subscriber. You will immediately get an email with a link to sign in. Note: if you have not visited the website in a few months, you will automatically be signed out. So, don't be alarmed if you have to sign back in occasionally. 

One more important note about access: the website looks at which device (desktop computer, laptop computer, iPad, etc. you are using when you sign in, as well  as which browser you are using. If you open the emailed sign-in link on your desktop  computer, only that computer and browser will be signed in. If you later want to sign in from your laptop, for example, you will need to send another sign-in request, and open the new sign-in link on your laptop. You can have multiple devices signed in, but you must sign each one in separately. This is to allow the site to be password free.

Photo Gallery page

This is what you really care about: seeing the photos in full screen. This is not Facebook or Instagram; the photos are high resolution, and they are not snapshots. You should use a desktop monitor if at all possible, and the best one you have; a laptop is ok if that's all you have, maybe even an iPad, but using a smartphone to access this website defeats the purpose of the website. You will see the "Feature Photo" across the top, which is just for display. Below are all the photos in a "thumbnail" format. You can click on any photo, and it will go full screen. That's ok if you want to return to a specific photo later, but for your first viewing, you want to click on the first thumbnail photo, then manually sequence through a "slide show".  

Click on the first photo. You will now see several small gray icons at the top. You can hover over each icon to see what they do. The two most important ones are at the top left and top right. The little "double-arrow" icon at the top left will take you to 100% Full Screen; you should click on this when you are ready to start going through the photos. The big "X" at the upper right corner takes you back to the Thumbnail view of all the photos. 

After you click the "double-arrow" icon to go 100% Full Screen, you can now manually sequence through the photos using the left and right arrows on the sides. This is the best way to see the photos, as you can now move along, forward or backward, at your own pace. Click the big "X" at the upper right when done, to exit 100% Full Screen and return to the Thumbnail page. Also note that back when you clicked on the Photo Gallery button, the Photo Gallery should have opened in a new browser tab. That means the Trip Report page you started from will still be available, in the previous browser tab. This makes it easy to cycle back and forth between the Trip Report Page and the Photo Gallery Page.