Mobile App Critique - Hiking Project

    I chose the Hiking Project app for this week’s discussion. I moved out to Colorado about eight years ago. I have always been interested in hiking and enjoying the beautiful scenery in this state. I started looking for hiking trails just by driving around and seeing what trails were in the area. I have also purchased books and maps to find adventures. I downloaded and tried out another hiking app before I found Hiking Project. I like many things about this app and very few improvements that I can think of.

    First, this app is 100% free to download and use. There is no purchase price, and there are no ads. This app is actually owned by REI. Users are potentially paying for it by shopping at REI, but it gets you out exploring, and I think that is exactly what REI has intended with this app. They also have MTB Project for mountain bikers and Climbing Project for rock climbers.

    The second thing that I love about this app is that it works even where there is no cell phone reception. My favorite experience with this app was when I used it for hiking Maroon Bells Four Pass Loop near Aspen, Colorado. I hiked with six other people. We got into White Forest National Park on a Sunday and said goodbye to cellphone reception. We camped and set out on a 4-day backpacking trip the next day. This entire trip we had planned was one of the trails in my Hiking Project app. For this entire trip, I had no cell phone reception and was unable to charge my phone. Every time I pulled up this app it was accurate with where we were on the map. I was impressed with this app from this point on. There have been numerous other times since this adventure that I have turned to this app to figure out if I need to turn left or right, how much farther I have, or just to help me know if I am still actually on the trail.

        The third thing that I will mention is that this app is easy to use. After downloading the app, you will need to download whatever state you plan on hiking. You can also download trails outside of the country. I have used it in the U.S. Virgin Islands (I know, it’s still in the U.S.) and found a few good hiking trails there. Next, you can search for hiking trails with different filters. I usually forget about this and just search for a new trail in an area that I haven’t explored yet. Another thing to look for on the map is a gem. This particular gem is on just about every calendar of Colorado. After I find a trail that I want to hike, like the Maroon Snowmass Trail, there is useful information below about the trail. This trail can only be accessed by shuttle at certain times, which the app actually mentions. At the far bottom, there is a box to click on for driving directions, which comes up in Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze on an iPhone. The directions haven’t failed me yet like they had once before on another app.

 

   I have really enjoyed using this app over the last 6 or 7 years. I really have a hard time picking out three areas for improvement. I visited their actual website www.hikingproject.com while I had some spare time at work and was looking for new trails to hike on my upcoming days off. Each of the times that I have looked at trails to explore this way, I would run into some issues navigating the website. I would have to go back and explore the website for a while to find the exact details of suggestions for changes to make on their website. Next, I have never created an account for this app. I am not exactly sure what benefits there are from logging into the app, but I haven’t chosen to. I wish there was a way to check off the trails that you have hiked already and be able to see some sort of visual representation of that while looking at the map. Maybe that is something that you get when you do log in. The third thing that I would like to recommend is to be able to search for their “gems” easily from an iPhone. When you visit the actual website, you pick the state where you want to hike. One of the first things that you see there are the “gems,” followed by “recommended routes.” These gems and recommendations look absolutely amazing on the website. I think they can make these gems and recommended routes easier to find while using the app. Another recommendation that I had was for the app to give the actual location of the trailhead instead of just sending the user to Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze. I like to be able to easily put the destination into my car's navigation instead of having to look down at my phone on the drive there.

    Overall, I am very pleased with this app. I think that I should get around to logging into it and exploring it more both on the app and the computer. I might find some of the things that I was wishing for.