We are using our smartphones more and more while hiking to perform many tasks we used to reserve for multiple devices or hauling paper.
I’ll be looking at a few iOS apps which I use pretty much at every hike, some have an Android version or you can find an equivalent.
Nova Scotia Hiking Trail Guide
A few years ago I had an iPhone app called NSTrails which I used to share my hiking trail GPS tracks and brief description of the trails I’ve done around Nova Scotia (it was a lot). But I’ve since sunset the app and revised the eBook version to a iPhone friendly version. I’ll be adding most of the trail listings that used to be in the app in future edition.
Topographic Maps Canada
This great app is darn simple; Makes available offline the latest digital version of the Canadian topographic maps available via geogratis. The maps are the 50k version. An essential tool if you don’t have good paper maps. Another bare bones app.
Earthmate
This is the companion app when you are carrying a Garmin inReach communication device. The app allows you to pair via Bluetooth you smartphone and inReach so that you can compose your messages faster and view offline maps from Delorme. You can download additional maps layers like aerial, digital atlas and openstreetmap. The last one which is very good quality for those outside of the US.
Parks Canada
In case you’ve missed it during the Canada 150 celebrations, Parks Canada has slowly been adding to its offerings a few very solid apps to use when planning a trip to one of the National Parks or while on site.
Snapseed
You probably took a bunch of pictures along the hike. While smartphone cameras have improved greatly, you still need to tweek some of the images to make them look even better. This app from Google is dead simple to apply tweaks and filters to your images and allows you to share to common social apps.
Do you have a favorite app for hiking? Leave them in the comments!