Mapping Apps / Devices

[supranihilest]

Let's see how deep I can quote myself over the years.

Copied from another post asking a similar question:

For peak bagging I use... Drumroll please... Peakbagger. Yep.

• Free
• Offline topo map downloads
• Daily low-res and weekly high-res satellite photos
• Find peak waypoints easily and save them offline
• Trip reports and GPX tracks easily downloadable (if one is available for a particular peak)
• Peaks available worldwide, not just in US
• Syncs to Lists of John for LoJers

Spanish Peaks overview with tracks I downloaded right from the app. I can also download GPX from LoJ/All Trails/Hiking Project/anywhere that has GPX tracks and import them to Peakbagger.


West Spanish Peak overview.


West Spanish Peak GPX closeup for fine detail.


Want to know where you are on a track, or where a spot on a track is? You can find that out.


Track details.


Selection of peaks and tracks I've saved offline.


High-level overview of Boulder and Jefferson counties with dozens of tracks I've saved.

I don't trust an app on my phone not to kill the battery, plus what happens if I drop my phone on a rock and destroy the thing, so I also use a GPS watch (Garmin Fenix 5 edit: Fenix 7 as of 2023) for ~20-24 hour battery life and breadcrumb trail, and a Garmin inReach for connectivity to the outside world (friends and family can watch live on an online map) and texting, plus multi-day battery life. Never had to use the SOS on my inReach but it's available if need be.

If you're only going to get one, single device I'd recommend an inReach since it has damn near every feature you could want, but the drawback is that it's not cheap.

Again - free, offline maps and GPX imports. The rest is just icing on the cake.

Third mention of it being free just for fun. And another mention of it doing everything all the other apps do. While still being free. Did I mention that it's free? And that it finds peaks for you? Free peak finding is pretty cool.

[Eli Watson]

While it's neither of the apps listed, I want to mention COTREX.The free website and app are through the Colorado DNR and CPW, so it's limited to the state of Colorado. There is a feature that allows for offline map downloading, just select the grid of interest. Larimer County, for example, updates trail closures in real-time, so I like that as well instead of checking each natural area's website or Zuckerberg page. There is a recording feature as well, though I have not used it. One feature I wish would improve would be the 'Measure' tool on maps: drawing a point to point line will yield the distance offline, but the maps are required to be online for elevation profile - which doesn't really make sense to me if the map is downloaded but I'm far from an expert on the underlying technology.

[sfreytag]

I use a combo of Hiking Project, BackCountry Navigator, and OnX Hunt apps.

Hiking Project is free and has a nice trail profile and route line on the map. Very easy to see if you are off trail and exactly where on the trail you are. Has pretty much all the hiking trails in the state. Most 14er standard routes are on there...some of the non standard routes are missing.

BackCountry Navigator is nice if you aren't on a trail. Hi res topo map.

OnX Hunt used mostly for hunting but if you are in the back country it is nice to easily see if you are on public or private land if you want to make your own route.

[twhalm]

+1000 For Caltopo.

One big perk of Caltopo over other apps is you can use it on a PC and do all of your planning on a big screen with all of the great layers and overlays they have and then just open that map on a phone in-app and track/record.

Plus, you can send your map to other people and collaborate on future ideas and plans.

I essentially have a living Caltopo map for each of the major mountain ranges in CO and my friends and I can all collaborate, plan, and use those same maps for trips.

[nsaladin]

+1000 For Caltopo.
One big perk of Caltopo over other apps is you can use it on a PC and do all of your planning on a big screen

The same can be done on garmin/delorme web apps.