I live in a large city so the local trails I ride on are often overrun with hikers. Usually there's not a serious problem except for the weekend when the club rides come out (up to 30 riders at a time). Anyway, yesterday I was riding a short steep stair when a hiker in front of me suddenly stopped. It was either brake or ram. I chose to brake, screwed up my weight, too much on the front brake and...mountain bikers really do know how to fly. Didn't hurt anything but got some nasty rash on my leg. Have any of you had any of these suddent meeting with hikers or pedestrians? Post your pedestrian/hiker mishap stories please.

Yell at em to move out of the way. Even if they just get mad at you, your safety is more important.

That'll just piss off the hikers, and possibly endanger other bikes ability to use the trails Dirtbike.

General trail ettiqute says to yield the trail to pretty much everyone when you're on a bike. If you want to get crazy, find trails that are bike specific, or enter a race. Doing other wise gives MTB riders a bad name.

I'm shout out 'coming through' and say 'thank you'; they comply and say 'no problem'. Most outdoor people have good manners that way.

Yes, but if you cant stop without flipping over, tell them to move. Should you go OTB, simply because the hiker in front of you stops to tie his/her shoe?

When I'm riding behind someone, especially hikers, I generally make sure there's enough space between me and them that should they do something ridiculous like stop dead in their tracks, I'll have time to stop too. But here's my question- If trail etiquette demands that bikers yield the right of way to everyone else, what is the proper procedure when overtaking a hiker/equestrian who's moving slower than we are and headed in the same direction?

I believe the etiquette they are refering to is only for oncoming 'traffic'. How can you possibly 'yeild' to someone who is moving away from you?
I believe the proper thing to do is to yell 'Rider on your right/left' or 'coming up on your right/left'.
Yelling is alot less startling than having a full grown adult hurling at you with no warning at all!
As with horses, from my experience, noises dont startle them nearly as much as 'sneaking up' on them. Never ever sneak up on an animal, make it clear as day your coming.

I usually spot stairs before I ride them, especially if there's a chance there could be someone coming up them. You can see a lot more than the people approaching, unless there's a sharp turn at the bottom. In that case, you're probably better off walking down the stairs.