Both the GoBlog and Gear Junkie are commenting today on the fact that you can now download trail maps for some of the top ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada to your iPod and iPhone. You can grab the maps at Podpro.ca.
The site offers up 8 maps for Colorado and Utah, and another 7 for California and Canada. Resorts such as Snowbird, Aspen, Alta, Mammoth, and Whistler Blackcomb are all available, with the ability to click and view a route from the ski lift all the way back to the bottom of the mountain. The iPhone version is obviously more dynamic considering it’s ability to use the Internet to stream data, such as RSS feeds of weather conditions for example. The iPod versions are video based but still give you a nice understand of what to expect at each resort.
This is a very cool idea, and one that I’d like to see expanded further. When I head out on a trail solo these days, I tend to bring my iPod along and having the ability to check out hiking trails would be far more interesting to me than these ski runs, but the potential is evident in these as well. Of course, any decent GPS device will probably already have the trail info already programmed in, but that’s another item I have to carry!
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Nice! But I can only imagine holding that slippery lil’ metal object with icy gloves on a chairlift. One wrong move and you’ll be metal-detecting in waste deep pow. Yikes.
Yeah, it would be tough to operate the iPhone with mittens on. And I’m not sure I want my beautiful $400 phone anywhere on my person when I go down the hill. Especially the way I snowboard! 😉
It’s a great implementation, but I’m still happiest with a paper trailmap at the moment for the reasons the other commenters mention.
With it’s pseudo-geolocating maps, the iPhone is already well on the way to having some GPS-style fuctionality, though the accuracy isn’t there yet.
I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the pending software upgrades will allow custom Google Maps or some KML/GPX recognition, so I can access skiing and hiking trails like the ones I created over at my own site Trailspotting.com (shameless plug).
We don’t mind shameless plugs around here. 😉 The trail maps look good!
The iPhone is an amazing device. Lord knows I love mine, but it’s not well suited for the trail in reality. Much better for those ski maps than heading out on a real backcountry hike. As I noted, a GPS is still a much better bet. Also, the “auto location” feature in the iPhone works much better in urban areas where there are more cell towers to triangulate from. Out in the wilderness, you’ll be lucky if you have service. 😉
Settle down people. Don’t you have to take your mittens off to read the paper trail maps anyway ? 😉
Check this one out also:
http://www.clearlogic.com
Alpine Ski Trail Maps
Read on another blog that these guys sold 40k copies of this thing last week alone.