AllTrails Now Has Custom Routes, a “More Scenic” Selection, and Community Heatmap

“Make sure to get enough water cos there are no rivers,” noted one user two days before I headed out on a hike of Mount Si in western Washington. Mount Si is a classic hike, 3,400 feet of elevation gain over four miles of steadily uphill switchbacking to a short scramble up a rocky haystack. I’d hiked this route several times in the past, but I had completely forgotten about how little water there is after the first half a mile. I packed some extra and ditched my water filter before heading out for the trailhead.

Boots-on-the-ground user reviews warning of snowed-in routes or impassable roads or wildflowers really kicking off has long made AllTrails an indispensable planning resource. And now they’re pairing this with new features on a new paid tier subscription that will make route planning, documenting, and organizing adventures an even more seamless user interface. The OL gear team had the chance to preview some of these features in the AllTrails Peak membership rollout.

Custom Routes

AllTrails is great for finding new hikes, and not having to map your own way, but it can be stifling when you’re ready to branch out. If you’re interested in connecting trails or making your out and back a longer loop, the Peak tier unlocks easy-to-create custom routes. This will certainly help hikers level up their mapping skills. While you don’t have the same mapping freedom compared to Cal Topo or Gaia, the building blocks are present in AllTrails Peak in an easy-to-use format. There are selections to create a loop, reverse direction, or double back to get the full stats for your route.

If choosing your own adventure seems daunting, AllTrails also has a few useful AI functions to make the route shorter, lower in elevation, or more scenic. When I used the app to track my typical trail run, I chose the more scenic option and it switched my approach route to a similar length trail nearby that includes a popular overlook. 

Be wary of the AI functions though, the scenic route only connects you to the views, sometimes greatly increasing your elevation and distance. And sometimes it says there is no loop trail until you create it yourself. I would treat these alternate modes as nice suggestions, but you should still verify the route is in your wheelhouse or time constraint. 

Trail Conditions

One feature that I appreciated seeing was a weather and trail conditions map built into the app. That made it a breeze to see at a glance what the weather forecast was for each hike I was considering. That can be less important in the dead of summer, but in the shoulder seasons, two different hikes could have two wildly different weather forecasts depending on elevation and rain shadows. 

AllTrails Peak is also working on incorporating information about snow depth, UV index, and precipitation. In our experience, this was a little more hit or miss. For trails that are close to major urban centers, the information provided was pretty good, but it started to decrease in quality farther into the backcountry. 

While we’re excited to see this feature in AllTrails Peak program, experienced users looking for in-depth information may find it lacking. When I checked the Marmot Pass in Washington State’s eastern Olympics, for example, AllTrails said to expect 22 inches of snow, while the first comment, dated from a few days prior, mentioned only a smattering of snow at the very top. While it’s useful to have new features that can synthesize information from Snotel stations and the like, the boots-on-the-ground feedback that AllTrails has long been known for will continue to be the gold standard. 

If you’ve ever had the experience of showing up to a new trailhead, only to find the parking lot completely packed with a line of cars snaking down a forest service road, then the utility of a community heat map will be instantly apparent. If I hadn’t already known to get to the Mount Si trailhead early, then the dark purple lines on the heatmap would have warned me in time to set an alarm.

Coming Soon: Outdoor Lens

This is probably the upcoming feature that I’m the most excited about. AllTrails is introducing a camera feature that will allow you to take a photo of different foliage and provide identification information. It will also save any photos taken this way in a logbook so you can access them again later. It wasn’t available at the time that we tested this feature, but will be available later this summer.

Final Thoughts

Layering some of the best new features of outdoor mapping apps — custom routes and community heat maps — on top of AllTrails already well-established community network will really simplify weekend planning for day hikers and even for multi-day adventures. Outdoor Life readers get a seven-day free trial to test out the new features on AllTrails Peak.