Featured Image: Courtesy of onX Backcountry
Getting into the high country requires enough effort as it is. Trying to decipher your map or access quality information about the outdoors shouldn't be another problem standing in your way. For us, the solution to that conundrum is easy: onX Backcountry. And now you can pick from the best trails in America
The ever-popular app has become a staple for those heading into the mountains, and for good reason. In winter, route-making features and various map layers provide crucial tools for navigating the backcountry, including avalanche forecast layers, trail slope layers, and guide notes from real guides.
Many of the features translate well from season to season. In the summer, onX Backcountry is just as helpful, giving both 2D and 3D readouts, topographical layers, trail information, route-building, off-line access, weather info and more. And of course, the app provides up-to-date land ownership information. For more on this point, check out their film with Griffin Post from last season.
Head to the onX Backcountry YouTube channel for tutorials from experts, athlete testimonials and more.
Recently, the company released its list of the most iconic trails in America, complete with the full routes on the app. Simply put, if you want to stay in shape for next winter without setting foot in a gym, this is a damn good place to start, with 17 options to choose from in this list and thousands more in the app.
Spread out from coast to coast, this list breaks down some of the best routes for Colorado's foremost 14ers, best National Park trails, state highpoints and more. These are classics like the Maroon Bells Four Pass Loop outside of Aspen, the Cables route on Half Dome, Zion's Subway slot canyon, the permitted Enchantment Traverse in Washington or New Hampshire's Pemigewasset Loop.
According to the map makers themselves, each one is mapped with "guidebook-quality descriptions, curated photos, access and permit info, current trail reports, and LiDAR terrain detail that no standard map can match."
To check each of these off in one summer would be... impossible. BUT it's good to have goals, and picking a few that are in your neck of the woods and trying to check them off isn't out of the question. Take a look at the full list, and better yet, grab a free trial of onX Backcountry and start learning your way around the seemingly limitless wilderness situated in the continental United States. We'll see you out there.
