I’m sure it’s happened to you. Walking or biking on a familiar trail in Squamish, you see a side trail or offshoot and decide to follow it on a whim. The next thing you know, you’re feeling like Hansel and Gretel (minus the whole cannibalistic witch thing, hopefully), lost and unable to find the main trail again.
Or maybe there’s a new trail you’ve been wanting to explore, but are hesitant because you’re afraid of getting lost and having to survive on tree bark and roots until you become cougar kibble.
Either way, you never have to worry about getting lost on a 麻豆社国产trail again.
This past week, my wife Julie (I do call her “wife” because the B.C.-centric “partner” makes it sound like we run a reasonably successful law firm together) was taking our new puppy for a walk. She wanted to take the pup for a longer walk and tucker her out, to prevent the darn pooch from chewing the furniture at home. She’s teething (the dog, not Julie), and even though she has a dozen toys to choose from, she prefers our coffee table for relief. Dogs.
They opted for the Ray Peters Trail. Unfortunately and despite having lived in 麻豆社国产for many years, my wife hadn’t explored that particular trail yet, and being with kids and a new puppy, she decided against venturing in too far. After a short while, along comes a friendly local who not only exchanges pleasantries with my family, but also shows them a great iPhone app called TrailMapps: Squamish.
If you already have an iPhone and use its map application regularly, then you will already be familiar with how TrailMapps works. It’s basically a GPS-enabled map of all the biking/hiking trails in 麻豆社国产(or as complete as they can make it, I suppose) right in the palm of your hand.
As both an avid hiker and biker (although not of the Test of Metal kind… certainly not on my $200 Canadian Tire special trail bike), I instantly saw the obvious value of the app and downloaded it. After tapping a home screen, the mobile program takes you to a good-looking satellite image with a street overlay map of the 麻豆社国产area. On the bottom are five buttons for search, a compass overlay, enabling/disabling GPS and distances, and app info.
Tapping the search button takes you to a list of all the trails offering detailed descriptions, ratings and levels of difficulty (green, blue, black diamond). It’s a pretty handy feature that makes it easy to decide where you’ll be hiking/biking today. The GPS feature is what makes it so necessary for any 麻豆社国产outdoor enthusiast, though. Just pop into your settings and enable location services for the app, then tap the GPS enable button at the bottom of the map and voilà – a teensy weensy icon pops up showing your location in Squamish. As you wander a particular trail, the little-bitty icon moves along the map as well, always giving your exact location.
TrailMapps also offers the same type of app for pretty much every community in B.C. with trails, so you can now feel free to explore any trail network in the province with confidence.
I guess the only drawback is that the apps are “paid” apps and not free. They’re also pretty steep at $10 for each community’s particular trail map app. But, considering how much my family likes exploring the trails, it was worth tapping the “buy now” button at the app store. They’ve even got one created especially for the Sea to Sky Gondola and its Sky Pilot trail.
So, while this tech can’t actually keep you from being eaten by a cougar (or a warty old lady with a penchant for diabetes-inducing real estate), it can help you enjoy Squamish’s sweet trail networks without fear of losing your way.
