Although many folks prefer the simple, almost analog feel of the CalTopo interface, others prefer Gaia GPS, which merges different map-overlay features-for instance, toggling between the original USGS quad and an updated digital rendering of the landscape-with a brighter, moremodern graphic and cleaner, less cluttered interface. How we plot and plan will differ from user to user. Using either app, one feels less dependent on an ability to make route selections or conditions assessments germane to the terrain in question and more focused on sifting the gold from the dross, much in the way of any modern social media system.īoth AllTrails and FatMap are emblematic of a new breed of what we might call deep-content mapping apps,which shift the focus away from using maps as tools for that central ritual of plotting and planning and toward an on-the-spot depth of data. In the AllTrails app, which has achieved an unusual ubiquity among new hikers during the backcountry influx of the past two years, the focus swings from 3D visuals to user-generated content, allowing users to make decisions based on route popularity, average time of completion, and a Yelp-esque star-rating system. The sheer volume of data and content involved in these apps, some crowdsourced and some professionally curated, astounds: Equipped with the FatMap app, hikers can enter the woods and, cell phone service permitting, decide their route mid-hike based on a three-dimensional visualization of the terrain ahead, real-time weather data, and even by seeing which friends of theirs have done the route recently. As much as Avenza helps the skier stay found once in the field, doing research to put together a tour plan on CalTopo puts them in the mindset, once out there, of avoiding terrain traps, staying out from under avalanche paths, and making go/no-go decisions at critical moments.Īpps such as FatMap, AllTrails, and OnX Backcountry have sprung up to fill that space, offering not just a digital canvason which to trace a route, but a fully realized platform to decide on a hike or ski tour at a moment’s notice. This heavy emphasis on preplanning thatthe CalTopo–Avenza combination entails is precisely why it is so often used in outdoor learning environments such as avalanche courses. At home, that skier probably also consulted some combination of print guidebooks, the internet, a localavalanche forecast, and several buddies on a group text about the next day’s plan. Even the millennial or generation Xer who doesn’t mind opening Avenza during, say, a ski tour that requires a tricky cliff pass to exit a summit snowfield has done the heavy lifting at home while making a trail plan with CalTopo on the computer. Pulling geospatial PDFs from CalTopo to reference in the field with Avenza is, in effect, just an updating of the “create a map online, print it for reference” system that still survives, especially among those of a certain generation who aren’t averse to using their desktops for research and would rather not pull their phones out for navigational purposes onceon the trails.
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