Tom Mangan our online hiking guru. Here are 5 ways he researches best hikes:
1. State parks. (Google the one you want.)
2. AllTrails – http://alltrails.com– AllTrails allows you to search by zip code to find trails, post reviews, keep a journal of your hikes and scan for local events. …
3 EveryTrail – http://www.everytrail.com— EveryTrail's technology allows people to document their hikes via GPS, pictures, videos and smartphones. …
4. Local Hikes – http://www.localhikes.com– Local Hikes is an old-school online hiking site (if you can imagine such a thing): It's based on hikes near major metro areas, and includes topographic maps and reviews of each hike. …
5. TrailHeadFinder — http://www.trailheadfinder.com— The site is a bit bare-bones compared to the others …
read more on TravelCountry.com – Five ways to find hiking trails online
Conspicuously absent from that list is Trails.com, a database of 49,000 trails. It’s a walled garden, requiring a paid membership for a full membership. I don’t need it. And neither does Tom.
I’ve subscribed to Travel Country. Tom’s just one of their excellent bloggers.
besthike.com 
Excellent information. Thanks.
Trails.com nailed the domain name, but I agree; I tried, but just can’t go there.
summitpost.org is for mountains of course, but is the default info site for what I like to do.
http://www.wikiloc.com is a free and has trails worldwide. Trails are user-generated and there can be several “versions” of a trail. I don’t think I would want to use anything here as a map, but you can get a good idea of where a trail is, how long it is, and you can even download to google earth.