Are you planning an outdoor adventure during summer fire season in the United States? Check this nice Google map of Air Quality Index (AQI) before you go to hopefully avoid unhealthy smoke levels.
CalTopo, the best desktop mapping tool for backcountry users, has a very cool feature - custom terrain shading. Once you get the hang of this, you can make custom map overlays showing slope angles, aspect, elevation, and more. It's fun and easy! Learn how from this tutorial.
When using the terrific desktop mapping tool CalTopo, it's easy to focus only on the maps and GPS tracks. However, waiting patiently on the right side menu is an extremely handy map overlay, “weather shading”. Give it a try to plan your next outdoor adventure.
CalTopo now offers weekly high resolution satellite imagery. This is a terrific tool for near real-time trip planning in the backcountry, because you can see snow level along with roads, trails, contours, and your intended route. Weekly coverage goes back to 2017, so you can also compare snow level over multiple years.
CalTopo, my favorite backcountry mapping software, keeps getting better and better. A recent update: adding a high resolution digital elevation model to their default map layer. Why is this cool? You can see crevasses!
CalTopo, the best backcountry mapping tool, just add a cool new feature - Travel Plan. Draw a line or import a GPS track, then add waypoints on the line that break the trip into segments. Now, choose travel plan, and you get a table showing distance, bearing, elevation gain and estimated travel time between each leg of your trip.
Google Earth is a great tool for scoping your route before you go, but it does have an occasional bug: Summits that are especially pointy can sometimes appear to be “flattened”. Look at a few examples of this effect, and know that it's good practice to look at many different sources of route information, especially topo maps and photos.
Google Earth offers more than eye candy for looking at your favorite mountains; you can use it to draw waypoints and tracks, and then export both of them as a single GPX file for use on your backcountry trip. There are a few tricks to it, here's a walk-through tutorial on exactly how to do it.
The GaiaGPS app has yet another cool new map layer - cell phone coverage of the United States. If you need to make a backcountry 911 call, or if you're on a long backpacking trip and want to check in before you enter an area with minimal coverage, this map could be really handy.
If you have a GPX track of your hike, climb, or outdoor adventure, it's easy to view it in the 3D fly around magic of Google Earth. It's a simple three-part process, learn how to do it here.
Modern navigation tools can be a tremendous help for wilderness trip planning. Check out this in-depth video on planning a multi day backpack trip using GaiaGPS.com, which covers many of the more advanced features. (Not just for backpackers, has applications for just about any wilderness trip.)
If you have a Caltopo subscription, you can view all of those cool map layers as overlays in the 3D splendor of Google Earth. Warning - for map geeks only . . .
On loop routes, it’s handy to use different line colors and/or styles to easily see the ascent and descent. This can be especially helpful when sharing your route with others who may not be familiar with it. CalTopo can do this easily with the “Split Here” feature.
CalTopo, the best backcountry mapping software, just got even better. The slope angle shading is now at an even higher resolution, improving wilderness trip planning for much of the United States. See some examples here.
When using a compass, it's important to know the magnetic declination for your area. Websites like magnetic-declination.com make this easy. You can also see it in CalTopo, right at the bottom of the screen.
Storing your GPX track collection in Google Drive is handy for a lot of reasons, but moving a file from there into Gaia GPS is not very intuitive. Here are two ways to do it. (OK, not a climbing trip directly, but still can be helpful.)
If you find yourself driving a lot to remote trailheads without good cell coverage, you may find that Google maps and driving directions don't always work so well. Here’s a cool way to make a GPX track from Google driving directions, which you can follow on your phone or GPS device without cell coverage.
Wondering how much snow is on your intended hike or climb? Learn how to view your route and an overlay of current snow levels in Google Earth.
This clever website, created by Ben Stabley, shows you time lapse and historical webcam images of both major northwest peaks and iconic mountains around the world.
When you have a GPX track for a hiking trail, it can show you the trailhead location, give you an elevation profile with distance and vertical gain, and of course help you stay found on your hike. Here are some websites where you can download free tracks for hiking.
If you want your climbing route drawn on a map, or a track to follow on your GPS, it usually starts with a GPX file. Here’s how to take a dive into Peakbagger to get the file you need to stay found.
It’s helpful to have documents (pdf maps, GPX track, guidebook scans, trip roster, etc) related to a hike or climb available offline on your phone. It's easy to do in Google Drive if you follow these steps.
An “elevation profile” is a sort of sideways look at your route, showing distance and elevation gain on a graph. It's a very handy tool to study your route, and making one with the great mapping software Caltopo takes just a couple of clicks.
Being able to see in real time on your phone if you’re on public lands or not is helpful for all kinds of things, especially finding free dispersed camping spots. Here’s how to use some modern mapping tools like Caltopo and Gaia GPS to do this.
Weather forecasts don't have to be boring. Windy.com shows you worldwide weather patterns at a glance, and also gives pinpoint local forecasts that are easy on the eyes. (Works on mobile devices and shows webcams, too, take that, mountain-forecast!)
The Mt. Rainier climbing rangers have written an excellent series of guides for the most popular routes. which have a lot more detail and quality than you might expect. Definitely recommended reading if you are planning a Rainier climb.
There are some fantastic navigation resources online, but it can be confusing how to use them most effectively and where to get started. Watch this video to see one way to plan a climb, from start to finish.
Want to know the amount of snow on the ground anywhere in the US and most of Canada? This is your go-to website. This interactive map from the US Forest Service is easy to use, understand, and shows real-time snow info for your trip planning.
A slick, lesser-known trick in CalTopo is stacking various map layers onto each other to highlight unique map features. Learn how to do it.
“Slope angle shading” is a bit of cartographic wizardry that adds an overlay of color coded slope angle to a base map. It’s a handy tool for route planning, avalanche avoidance, and even sniffing out waterfalls. Learn how to use it in CalTopo.
“Sno-Tel” data stations show real time weather data for hundreds of mountain locations, including snow depth, recent snowfall, and min/max temperatures.
Sometimes in the rush to leave the house, we may forget to leave important information with our emergency contact person. Take a few extra minutes and do it right.
Google maps and driving directions works great in the city, where places have street addresses. But what do you do in the backcountry? Answer: use latitude longitude coordinates in decimal degrees, to pinpoint any spot in the world and (usually) get driving directions to it.
Google Earth is great for wasting time at work, but it's good for a lot more than eye candy. Learn a few tricks about how to scope your route at home, complete with a route line and annotation added.
Posting photos of your latest mountain outing is great. How about making them a lot more useful by adding in some route info with simple drawing tools?
Toss that extra guide book in your car before a trip, case you need to suddenly change objectives.
Use this great website to see all of the active wildfires in the Western US. Check this before you leave home in the summer - don’t let a distant fire shut down your trip.
If you already have a PDF file of a map that you’ve made in Caltopo or other mapping software, why not save a copy to your phone? It’s free, fast and weighs 0.00 grams.
Want to make Google Maps act like Google Earth, and view the whole world in fly around 3-D satellite view? Here's how to do it.
