I much prefer being up in the mountains to looking at them on the web. Still, sometimes the web can be useful for planning a trip. For example, all US National Parks have a dedicated site, such as Yosemite in California, Rocky Mountain in Colorado, and Olympic in Washington State. There are hundreds of National Parks in the US and a full list of sites can be found at the general site of the National Park Service. There are also private web sites about each park, which are sometimes better than the official pages.
The best way to find out about climbing and walking in an area is to buy a book. You can try to find something useful on Amazon.com - but don't hold your breath, because they don't seem to stock very many walking guides. Usually the best strategy to get a good local guide book is to call in at the local outdoor shop wherever you are going.
You can also find a lot of suggested walks and climbs in magazines. For local information my personal favourites are Pyrenees Magazine and Alpes Magazine; these magazines have routes for people of all abilities and they include a lot of cultural and historical information about each walk. A wider geographical coverage and more technical routes can be found in Montagnes and Verticale. The websites for these magazines are not particularly good, but you can at least look at the contents of past issues to see if there are any articles of the area to which you are travelling. All these magazines have really lovely photos.
If you need to buy some outdoor gear then by far the best store in southern England is Field and Trek (which has several branches). If you want to buy over the web then Campmor in the US offer a huge range and very competitive prices. My personal favourite is the French chain Decathlon. Decathlon offer a complete range of products for every sport you can think of (and many that you can't) at good prices. They have stores all over France (including Calais) and also one in London (although I have never been to that branch, so I don't know if it's as good as the French stores).
If you don't have enough experience or confidence to take to the mountains on your own, then you can join a group. There is an excellent organisation in France called UCPA, which runs very cheap holidays and courses for all kinds of sport (aerobics, horse riding, paragliding, mountaineering....) The level of instruction and course leadership is really excellent, and I can highly recommend their courses. Again, their web site is not wonderful and their brochure is much better (just phone up one of their agencies and ask them to post you a free copy!)
UCPA mountain guides off some pretty advanced courses, but if you want something more challenging or more tailored then you can hire a private guide. This costs about £150 per day, divided between two clients. You can find out about British guides from the British Mountaineering Council.
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