AllTrails

I went to a National Park and the Rangers were hating on AT.... and im like... it's the only place I have to go where ppl post if they hiked it recently 🤣🤪🤷‍♀️

I don't necessarily believes it's 100% accurate with his mileage or elevation... but individuals own accounts for their hikes I find valuable

It boggles my mind that this could happen, but I don't use All Trails very often. But NPS rangers in the Tetons have had a couple of rescues of people off climbing routes that were listed as hikes in All Trails apparently. Like 5th Class climbs, where even a knowledgeable and experienced climber might use a rope both for ascent and descent.

See this article for details:

From the editors there:

While preparing these reports for the soon-to-be-released 2024 Accidents in North American Climbing, I found several popular hiking apps featured the East Face of Teewinot. The most disturbing representation was on AllTrails.com. On the page for Teewinot, the climb was referred to as a “trail” not once, but three times (See Fig 1.). The strongest warning given was to “proceed cautiously” on a “highly challenging” route that “should only be attempted by experienced adventurers.” In contrast, the Teewinot trail reviews posted by members revealed a different reality. A few are listed below [others omitted for this post]:

Alissa Cooke wrote on September 23, 2022: THIS IS NOT A REAL TRAIL AND REQUIRES CLASS FIVE MOUNTAINEERING* I did not hike this trail, but friends of mine attempted it two days ago and required search and rescue to come get them. They spent 24 hours on the mountain and at least 12 of which were in severe storms. As per the ranger who coordinated the search and rescue, there are no real “trails” to go up this peak (or the Grand Teton) even though it’s listed on AllTrails.

Again, this seems incredibly negligent to me, and All Trails clearly knows there's a problem. I'd only use it in conjunction with more reputable sources of info if in mountainous terrain.

I did a four day, three night solo backpacking trip in Yosemite Last week () and as a gadget geek I put AllTrails and Gaia up to the test of navigating me off-trail. I was pretty shocked and disappointed with how unreliable AllTrails was. I tested it on multiple days and the offline map would often just show up as grey, with me as a little blue dot in the middle of the grey expanse.

To fix this I would have to close the app, reopen it, and reopen the offline map I had downloaded specifically, but it would take 2-4 times doing this to get it to actually reopen the offline map. Gaia on the other hand, worked perfectly the entire time.

Planning on emailing AllTrails and asking for a refund for my pro subscription, sticking with Gaia as this would have been a pretty scary experience if I was actually relying on AllTrails.

Note: as a gadget geek (esp GPS's) I also had my Garmin GPSmap 67i with me as a full backup in case my phone died or neither app worked properly. ALWAYS better safe than sorry in my book!

Has anyone else experience this issue with AllTrails?

I had the unfortunate opportunity to see the downside of people getting all their info from AllTrails on a trail near Telluride, CO yesterday where I encountered three unaccompanied dogs digging holes in alpine tundra above treeline. Then they keyed in on a marmot, chased it to its den, and attempted to dig out to attack it. No owners in sight.

I chased the dogs off the marmot’s den and the owners finally appeared around a corner. I gave them a big WTF and let them know that dogs need to be on leash or under control per USFS rules for the wilderness area - clearly neither were happening here.

Through a toddler style, expletive filled meltdown over the correction, the owners said that “it’s a national forest!”, “AllTrails says we don’t have to use leashes!”, “We WORK for the Forest Service”.

I pointed out that AllTrails has nothing to do with the rules of the area and that it was a protected wilderness area - not just the national forest. More expletives and dumb blathering that culminated with “Where are you from?! We’re FROM Telluride!!” Not going to lie, I sank to the cretins’ level after hearing too much of their tantrum. But I also knew they were full of shit at this point bc pretty much no one on a USFS salary can afford to live in Telluride and they certainly don’t get their backcountry rules/regs from AllTrails.

I double checked the USFS sign at the TH and it definitely said dogs must be under control - which I can only assume means “not destroying sensitive habitat or attacking local wildlife”.

I don’t even know how to communicate this to AllTrails but their app and its sloppy info directly contributed to these backcountry oafs trashing a beautiful place. Kinda makes you feel a bit hopeless…

Some thoughts:

• “Native” or not, learn to read the rules of our backcountry places and understand both the spirit and letter of those rules. Don’t try to loophole yourself out of them. AllTrails is a poor source for this knowledge. There are plenty of USFS lands in the West with both leash and control requirements for pets.

• As a Colorado “native”, it doesn’t matter where you’re from in a situation like this. You’re either being a shithead or you’re not - your zip code is irrelevant. If someone with more knowledge offers a correction, be an adult and do the right thing.

• Unpopular opinion: leave your dog home when visiting the backcountry for all but the most popular trails where wildlife has already bugged out due to overuse. It’s the wildlife’s home. Your dog doesn’t care if they walk in the park in Denver or on a trail in the hills.

I live in California’s Central Valley.

Which one do you use and why?

If you were going to pay for one subscription to a riding app, which would you choose and why? Thinking about making the switch from just using the free versions but unsure of which is the best option. I live in Alberta, Canada and ride around Banff, Canmore and Kananaskis primarily but also interested in doing some rides in BC as well. Any insights would be appreciated!

For years I wanted to start the Trails series because of all the positive feedback on this sub, and I decided to build a little "Trails machine" and got myself a Steam Deck and the first three games.

The start was cool and interesting, and I was looking forward to explore the orbments/quartz systems, but now after 15 hours I have the feeling that I fought a handful of fun battles, everything else was mostly just reading. I'm fine with reading, I Just didn't expect such a type of game

I'm still going to finish the it since I've had it on my wishlist for so long, and I am enjoying it to some degree.

However, it makes me wonder. With all of these Trails games in front of me, are all of them so heavy on dialogue? Does the battle system get any love throughout the series?

They took away the map from the Apple Watch and replaced it with a compass that shows the direction you need to walk in. This is so much worse than a map, if the trail splits into a Y I have no idea where I’m going and need to use my phone, completely eliminating the convenience of using my Apple Watch. Anyone else feel this way? 😤