Planning a Hiking Route: Map, App, and GPX Track

Sunday night, the track downloads in two taps: a neat red line on the screen, a 9-mile loop, perfect. The next Saturday, that red line sends you up a slope no trail has ever crossed. It happens for real. In April 2026, two hikers crossing Franconia Ridge in New Hampshire’s White Mountains got disoriented in fading light and knee-deep snow and called for help; they were navigating with a hiking app, and told New Hampshire Fish and Game it was behind a lot of their confusion. Conservation officers talked them into turning back, then helped them down 2.2 miles of steep, icy trail in the middle of the night [1].

Planning your route comes down to three questions, in this order: where does the line come from, what does the map say, and what will you have left when your phone runs out of signal or battery? This guide expands on step 2 of our guide to planning a hike.

First, a reliable source for your route

The best line follows a trail someone maintains and marks. In the national parks, the Park Service suggests checking the park’s website or asking a ranger how hard a trail is, and rangers can recommend trails too; park alerts list trail closures, wildfire risks, and other hazards [2]. Once you’re out there, trail markers and blazes confirm you’re still on the right one.

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Tracks shared by other hikers can help too, as long as you don’t take them on faith: cross-check them with the land manager. At Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, in California, the park sends hikers to the visitor center closest to their trailhead for the latest on frontcountry trails, and warns not to rely on its online trail updates in spring, fall, and winter, when very few rangers are out on the trails [3]. Hiking in France? The mountain gendarmes of Luchon, in the Pyrenees, who have had to rescue hikers misled by a “fake” trail on their app, advise never relying on a single app [4].

On the map: the right scale

Few things beat a topo map spread out on the kitchen table, and it’s not just nostalgia talking. To follow a route on foot, the classic is the USGS 7.5-minute quadrangle, at 1:24,000: 1 inch on the map equals exactly 2,000 feet on the ground [6]. It’s the scale of most US topographic mapping, detailed enough to show footbridges, fence lines, and campgrounds; most of Alaska, where our cover photo was taken, was mapped at 1:63,360, or 1 inch to the mile [6]. Today’s US Topo maps keep the same 7.5-minute extents and cover the whole country, Alaska included since 2021; they’re free to download, or printed to order [7].

On the map, trace the route with your finger and note what matters: the elevation gain, by counting contour lines, the tricky stretches, water sources, shelters, and the trails that let you cut the hike short. Elevation gain and distance give you the time, which our guide to hiking time helps you estimate, and the trail’s difficulty rating tells you whether the terrain is within reach. Hiking in France? The Luchon gendarmes point out that recent 1:25,000 maps from IGN, France’s national mapping agency, are free to view on the Géoportail website [4].

The GPX file: what’s inside

GPX, short for GPS Exchange Format, is the go-to format for tracks: a lightweight XML format for swapping GPS data, waypoints, routes, and tracks, between applications [8]. It can hold three different things that often get mixed up [9]:

• Waypoints: a point of interest or a named feature, like a spring, a shelter, or a summit.
• A route: an ordered list of waypoints, a series of turn points leading to a destination.
• A track: an ordered list of points describing a path.

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Here’s what matters to you: a track recorded on the move hugs the trail, switchback after switchback, while a route keeps only the turn points, and between two of them, nothing tells you where the trail actually goes. A track drawn by hand at home is only as good as the map it was drawn on, so draw it on a recent topographic map, and check it.

Hiking apps: what’s free, and what you pay for

A hiking app does three things: it shows a map, lets you draw or import a route on it, and shows where you are, even with no cell service if the map has been downloaded. What sets them apart is the map underneath, and what’s free. Here are the ones you’re most likely to run into on US trails, no claim to be complete. Our comparison of hiking apps sets out their maps, offline use and prices.

AllTrails is the big one, with more than a million ratings on the US App Store, where its Plus plan costs $35.99 a year [10]. It keeps offline maps for its Plus and Peak plans [11], but any member can import and export route files, GPX included, on the website or in the app [12, 13]. Gaia GPS, now part of Outside, lets you record, track, and navigate for free [14]; Premium adds more than 300 maps and offline downloads [15], from $59.90 on the App Store [16], and you can export your tracks and routes as GPX, KML, or GeoJSON from gaiagps.com [17].

onX Backcountry’s free version includes topo, satellite, and hybrid maps and one offline map; Premium, $29.99 a year, unlocks unlimited offline maps [18]. You can export your markups at any membership level, but importing takes Premium or Elite [19]. CalTopo imports and exports GPX, KML, and GeoJSON files on the web, whether your map is saved or not [20], but using its mobile app offline takes a paid subscription [21].

On your phone: offline maps and battery

Don’t count on cell service: there may be no coverage in the park, the Park Service warns [2]. Its Ten Essentials suggest using the NPS App or downloading a map onto your phone or GPS unit before you go, and packing an extra battery for your phone [22]. Searching for a signal drains a battery fast, so the Park Service recommends keeping it fully charged and turning the phone off, or switching to airplane mode, until you need it [2]. New Hampshire Fish and Game’s rescue reports show why: in November 2025, two hikers who had lost the trail under fresh snow on Mount Monadnock had only their phones for light, and the phones were dying [23].

Cold doesn’t help. Apple says its phones work best at ambient temperatures of 32 to 95 °F (0 to 35 °C), and that in very cold conditions battery life drops, temporarily, until the battery warms back up [24]. In winter or up high, keep your phone in an inside pocket rather than the top pocket of your pack, and take it out to check your position, not to follow the line nonstop.

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On the trail: map first

The Park Service wants you to know how to use a topographic map, compass, or GPS unit before you head out, and to bring a physical map as a backup [22]. France’s sports ministry says it just as plainly in its summer mountain safety campaign: don’t rely on your phone alone, since there isn’t always coverage in the mountains [26]. A map and compass earn their keep the day fog rolls in, the French Hiking Federation notes [27]; our compass guide shows you how to take a bearing.

On the trail, check your position regularly: knowing where you are tells you whether you’re on schedule, and lets you decide in time to change your route, cut the hike short, or turn around. If you do get lost, the Park Service’s emergency plan says to find your location with your map, compass, GPS, or landmarks, and to retrace your steps if it’s safe; if you can’t, call 911 and stay put [28]. For that last case, our guide to calling for help without cell service is one to read before you leave, not on the trail.

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A damaged trail? Report it

A missing blaze, a washed-out stretch, a trail that’s no longer there: let the agency that manages it know. At Sequoia and Kings Canyon, trail conditions are updated from reports by park staff and backcountry users, and the park invites hikers to email in what they find [3]. Reports like yours are what keep everyone else’s maps and tracks accurate.

A track well chosen, checked, and downloaded, plus a paper map for the day everything goes dark: with those three layers, the red line goes back to being what it should be, a guide and not a boss. For the rest of your pack, our day hike packing list covers it all.

Guillaume Hoarau

Camping, backpacking, bushcraft and hiking

Guillaume Hoarau writes for Outfarer about camping, backpacking, bushcraft, and hiking. A survival-skills buff and a collector of vintage field manuals, he loves clear explanations, lists that actually help and other people’s stories, which he tells well.

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