![]() You can filter trails by location, length, difficulty, trail conditions, and more. The trail guide database in this popular hiking app includes more than 100,000 trails with detailed hike descriptions. The real reason an avid hiker should choose AllTrails is that it can help you figure out where to go hiking. The maps aren’t incredible, but you can easily record a track and even get alerts if you start to stray off your planned route. AllTrails was built specifically for on-trail adventures and it’s a great app for casual hikers. If you’re planning to stick to hiking trails, you don’t need as much navigational firepower as apps like Caltopo and Gaia GPS offer. Very limited off-trail mapping capabilities.Find trails to hike anywhere in the world.So, it’s easy to plan out routes from the comfort of home and then follow them in the backcountry. Like Caltopo and Gaia GPS, BackCountry Navigator offers a web-based route planner that syncs automatically to the mobile app. ![]() BackCountry Navigator also has PDF versions of Forest Service topo maps, which can be cool if you want to practice traditional navigation with a compass. This makes it easier to download just the area you need, so you don’t take up a ton of storage space on your phone with maps. One of the things that stands out about BackCountry Navigator is its grid-based system for downloading offline maps. It shares a lot of features in common with Caltopo and Gaia GPS, including excellent shaded relief base maps and a huge selection of map overlays. Best for Offline Navigation: BackCountry NavigatorīackCountry Navigator is another highly reliable GPS app for off-trail travel. If you like to keep track of your mileage and elevation gain across trips, Gaia GPS makes it easy. You can pause recording at any time or continue a track from one day to the next even if you turn your phone off overnight. One of the key advantages to Gaia GPS is that its route recording tools are excellent. The price is still affordable in the big scheme of mountaineering, though, so don’t let this dissuade you. The main reason I switched from Gaia GPS is that you need a premium membership for slope angle shading, which is a bummer since Gaia GPS is already somewhat pricey compared to other hiking apps. You can also use Gaia GPS with an Apple Watch, which is great for following a track. The base maps are great, it’s easy to organize routes you have planned, and there are tons of trail map overlays to choose from. Gaia GPS is an incredibly popular GPS app and my favorite hiking app for years before I switched to Caltopo. Best GPS App for Recording Routes: Gaia GPS I can’t recommend this app highly enough. There are so many more advanced features to Caltopo, including an outstanding website for trip planning and integration with real-time Sentinel satellite imagery. The data Caltopo uses for slope angle shading is extremely high resolution, so it captures features that don’t show up in the topo lines. I can’t overstate how important this is when creating your own routes in steep terrain and for navigating avalanche terrain in winter. The next best feature is slope angle shading. If you don’t love the base maps like I do, Caltopo also has Forest Service maps and scanned topo maps. ![]() Even without the topo lines you’d have a pretty good sense of what’s uphill and how steep it is. ![]() Simply put, there’s no better backcountry GPS app and nothing else you need to get around on-trail or off.Ĭaltopo’s shaded relief base maps are the best of any mapping app I’ve tried. This whole guide could be reduced to a glowing review for Caltopo.
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