Hiking Apps Can Make The Walk Less Stressful

Seems like hiking has become the “it” activity since the pandemic. At least it has here in Southern California. Many couples we know go on hikes locally. And why not? It’s great exercise, you can explore new places, get back to nature in many cases, and spend time together with friends and family.

My wife and I have two different social groups that we’ve gone hiking with for the past three years. Admittedly, I initially feared it was going to be boring. But after doing it, I found it kind of interesting and plenty of fun. Thankfully from walking hilly golf courses all of these years, I don’t find the hikes to be overly physically challenging. Except maybe the trek we took a few months ago up Ryan Mountain in Joshua Tree National Park near Palm Springs. It was pretty steep and incredibly scenic. But it got me a little bit out of breath on the way up to the peak at 5,456 feet.

Hands down, my favorite hike has been the Seven Bridges Walk in downtown San Diego that starts at the world-famous San Diego Zoo and meanders about 4.5 miles through surrounding neighborhoods, the downtown area and then back to Balboa Park. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting. It’s a wonderful way to see the city, stop for great food along the way, and enjoy dramatic suspension bridges over canyons, as well as amazing panoramas of the city. Only problem we had while doing it twice was getting lost. Both times.

In retrospect, I wish we had some technology help when we’d done it. There are apps available to help hikers in real-time, such as AllTrails, Avenza Maps, Gaia GPS, Komoot and Hiking Project.

On another trail this weekend close to our home, my wife and I tried AllTrails. While the free version is pretty cool to preview routes and trails, I got an upgrade – the $80 “Peak” membership that just became available this month – to access several premium features. One gives hikers the ability to create their own trails using AI-powered smart routing. If you want a unique experience, or want to make trails shorter, flatter or more scenic, this is for you. Another feature is real-time weather conditions – it can show you current temperatures, precipitation, snow depth, air quality and mosquito activity. The feature I like best is the community heat maps that helps you avoid crowded paths, discover hidden gems, and then some. This is paramount here in Southern California where everywhere cool draws crowds and traffic. There will also soon be an outdoor lens that instantly identifies trees, flowers via your phone’s camera. The trail we walked this weekend was pretty mundane, but my wife and I used it to monitor the exact distance and time we had hiked. And with its elevation tracker, it settled a little bet we had about how steep the hills were.

Many of these apps let you download an interactive GPS map for free. That helps of course if you get lost, but also when you want to know how far it is to the nearest restroom, back to your car, or to count the minutes to a local water fountain. Now that I’ve brought along some tech, I’ll never wing it again without at least some GPS. And I’m using it in advance: Like thousands of other Americans, we have a trip planned to a national park later this summer. AllTrails has already let us start routing and previewing.