Navigate the wilderness with these backcountry camping apps

Are you a frontcountry camper who’d like to venture a little further afield? The backcountry is where it’s at: epic locations, less noise, and it’s great exercise. As much as I enjoy car camping, I have to admit that my trips into the backcountry are always the most memorable of ones.

As you transition from car camping to the backcountry, you’ll need to modify your approach and setup. You’ll get lighter gear that’s easier to pack and carry. Trip planning and navigation will become an important part of your activities. You’ll need to secure permits. Additionally, you might feel the desire to document your expeditions. The following backcountry camping apps can help with all of that:

AllTrails

A well-known name among lovers of the outdoors, AllTrails (on iOS and Android) is a handy outdoor companion for those who navigate the outdoors by bike or foot. AllTrails has data on over 400,000 trails that you can sort by location, interest, and skill level. You can even filter by trails that are friendly to wheelchairs, kids, strollers, and dogs.

Use the trail information and community reviews to plan your outing. Then check the conditions and driving directions to make your way to the trailhead. From there, AllTrails can help you navigate the trail. Keen hikers will opt for AllTrails+, an annual membership that offers offline and printable maps, topo maps, alerts for wrong-turn alerts, and additional safety features. This tier also offers satellite weather and live information on air quality, pollen, and light pollution.

BackCountry Navigator

BackCountry Navigator turns your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet into a complete handheld mapping GPS, which allows you to explore areas outside of cell coverage. With this app, you can download topo maps in advance when you have a wifi connection and store the data locally on your device.

BackCountry Navigator’s membership-based app offers vector topo maps and cloud integration at bcnavxe.com. It also has a wide variety of add-ons and supports Android Wear, so you can view maps and navigation right on your wrist. BackCountry Navigator provides maps for the United States and several other countries.

Cairn

Cairn is a safety-focused app for those who hike, cycle, run, ski, or travel the backcountry in some other fashion. The app allows you to share your plans with others, find areas with cell coverage, and download maps. Cairn also lets you see route stats and record your activity. and provides distance, elevation, and ETA stats for 4,000+ routes, summits, and trails.

Those you approve can view your GPS location on the trail. (You can send status updates with a tap.) If you’re overdue to return, Cairn will automatically notify them. In the event of an emergency, your contacts will receive rescue information and advice. Cairn is available as a free trial with subscription options, on iOS and Android.)

CalTopo

Another mapping-focused app, CalTopo offers several tools to help plan your backcountry trips. Features include offline topographic maps, aerial imagery, slope angle shading, viewshed analysis, and real-time SNOTEL and weather data. While connected to the web, the app integrates with the CalTopo website, which allows for seamless maps and route updates. Online functions include marine charts, FAA sectionals, shaded relief, USFS/NPS Visitor Maps, parcel data, public lands, as well as satellite daily and weekly layers.

When you’re off-grid, you can use the maps you’ve created to navigate the backcountry. Offline functions include: Map Builder Topo, Map Builder Hybrid, Scanned 7.5', FS Topo, NAIP imagery, contours overlays, motor vehicle use, the Map Builder Overlay, and Slope Angle Shading. CalTopo is available for download on iOS and Android.

Campnab

Much to the frustration of folks like me, backcountry camping permits sell out in seconds. For a long time the only way to get a permit after the fact was to refresh the booking system repeatedly in hopes of finding a cancellation. We built Campnab to automate that process so we didn’t have to check manually all day long.

With Campnab you note the park and permits you’re looking for. The system then monitors the booking site regularly for newly canceled permits. If it spots one that matches your criteria, it sends you a notification by text message or email. Campnab can monitor 650+ permits and tickets (tours, passes, permits, day use, backcountry, etc.) at parks in Canada and the United States.

Hiking Project

Going on a hike? Check out Hiking Project on iOS and Android. A hiking guidebook that helps you spot hikes nearby or afar, Hiking Project offers detailed topographical trail maps, GPS route info, elevation profiles, featured hikes, and high-resolution photos.

The app contains information from local experts who note hike highlights, challenging features, and other helpful insights. New trails are often added to the existing database of 74,000 miles of trail currently documented. In the app, you can view your current location and view offline maps you downloaded at home. The app also syncs your to-do list and check-ins on the Hiking Project website.

LighterPack

My wife doesn’t fully appreciate why I’m so obsessed with shaving grams from my pack. That said, every little thing adds up. Even if you’re OK with packing a little extra, itemizing and calculating your total gear weight is a good practice. This is where LighterPack comes in. This free, web-based tool allows you to inventory your pack and contents, and calculate the overall weight.

Visit the site and create an account. Then create some categories for your gear as you prefer. Once you have you can populate each category with the associated gear’s quantity, name, description, and weight. You can also mark worn items (not counted in overall weight) and consumables (which thankfully get lighter as you hike). Once your gear is in place, you can retool your selections as you wish. I’ve compiled different lists for varying hike lengths (i.e., by the number of days).

onX Backcountry

onX Backcountry for iOS and Android is one in a suite of tools made by the company. This product is products focused on backcountry adventurers. 3D mapping, helps you visualize terrain, scout lines, and plan for hazards. Offline maps help when you’re out of cell range. (The app connects with satellites for real-time location, even when you’re offline.)

The app contains 650,000 miles of trails and 10,000 featured adventures with trail info, photos, difficulty, distance, and elevation. After a 7-day free trial, you can opt to subscribe. Membership comes with features including topo maps, private lands map layer, public land boundaries, slope angle and aspect, wildfire information, air quality, avalanche forecasts, winter aerial imagery, tracking, points of interest, weather station data, and more.

Ramblr

Like to document your outdoor adventures? Ramblr can help you do so with stats, photos, videos, descriptions, and maps. Download maps or public trips for offline use. Not sure where to start? Browse others’ trips or search by video, audio, locations, keywords, or name. Track your route on the map and check trip stats (speed, duration, distance, peaks). The built-in GPS assists with routes and directions and your friends can view your activity in real-time.

You can tag photos, video, audio, and text to map points. Then use all of your collected data to create a story of your trip. Once you’ve done this, you can upload your journey and share it with others through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Ramblr is available on iOS and Android for free. You can support Ramblr and get realtime tracking by purchasing a subscription.

Don’t stop there!

Interested in other apps that you can use to camp and explore the outdoors? We’ve created some articles documenting these. Here are the links:

• Apps for camping in Canada round-up (soon)

• Boondocking apps round-up (soon)

• Car camping apps round-up
• Nature apps round-up
• Outdoor apps round-up (soon)
• Overlanding apps round-up (soon)
• RVing apps round-up (soon)

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