Requires: Thru Hiker tier
This page covers three things that sit inside a Trip Section. Waypoints mark the places along a route that matter: water, camps, resupply, junctions. Weather tells you what the location is likely to throw at you. Analysis turns the route into hiking time and calories. Waypoints and weather both roll up to the trip, so the three together are what you plan carries, resupply and rest days against.
Waypoints
The Six Waypoint Types
Each waypoint carries a type. The type sets its icon and its colour on the map, and it is what the filters work on.
| Type | Icon | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Resupply | dining | Town stops, post offices, trail angels |
| Camp | camping | Campsites, shelters, bivvy spots |
| Water | water_full | Streams, springs, water caches |
| Turn | signpost | Trail junctions, route changes |
| Shot | videocam | A planned filming location (see Trip Shot Planning) |
| Other | location_on | Anything else: viewpoints, hazards, landmarks |
Adding a Waypoint on the Map
Waypoints are placed on the map, on the section's Route tab.
On a phone or tablet:
- Open a section and go to the Route tab
- Long-press the map where you want the waypoint
- A Waypoint dialogue opens with a quick-icon row (Resupply, Camp, Water, Turn, and More), plus Name and Description fields
- Pick a type, type a name, and tap Save
In the web app, use the two extra buttons on the Route tab:
- Tap the add_location button to enter add mode
- Tap the map where the waypoint should go
- Fill in the same Waypoint dialogue and tap Save
Nothing is written until you confirm the dialogue. Cancel discards the placement.
The Route tab map also has a Map view picker with five modes: Contour - Flat, Contour - Hill shading (the default), Shaded relief with tilt, Satellite and 3D.
Importing Waypoints from GPX
If you already have a GPX file with waypoints in it, import them when you first set the section up. The Waypoints tab offers Import from GPX; pick your .gpx file and every waypoint in it is added to that section, name and description included.
The symbol on each waypoint in your file sets its Back in Pack type:
| Symbol in your file | Becomes |
|---|---|
| turn | Turn |
| resupply | Resupply |
| water | Water |
| camp | Camp |
| shot or videocam | Shot |
| anything else | Other |
Set those symbols before you export from your mapping tool and the types come across ready to filter on.
Waypoints from the Shot Editor
When you are planning a video shot, the shot editor's Drop a new waypoint button opens a small map picker and creates a waypoint for the shot's location. See Trip Shot Planning.
Editing and Deleting Waypoints
| Where | How |
|---|---|
| Section Waypoints tab | Tap the row to edit it, swipe it left to delete |
| Section Route tab (phone) | Long-press the map near the waypoint to delete it, then confirm |
| Section Route tab (web) | Tap the wrong_location button, then tap near the waypoint and confirm |
Tapping a row on the Waypoints tab opens a full-page editor with the type icon row, Name and Description. To move a waypoint, delete it and drop a new one from the Route tab.
How Waypoints Are Ordered
Waypoints are ordered for you, by how far along the route they sit:
- Each waypoint takes the cumulative distance along the route of the nearest point on it. That is the figure shown on the right of each row.
- The list is sorted by that distance, so waypoints appear in the order you will walk past them.
- A waypoint more than 1.0 km from the route is badged Off trail. Anything closer is badged On trail.
Distances and badges appear once the section has a route to measure against.
At trip level, every waypoint also carries a distance from the start of the trip. Switch Contiguous route on (at the bottom of the trip's Sections tab) and the trip's Waypoints tab sorts on that figure, giving one continuous order. With it off, the list stays grouped under section headings in section order.
The Section Waypoints Tab
The Waypoints tab lists that section's waypoints, sorted by distance from the section's route start. Each row shows the type icon, name, description, the On trail / Off trail badge and the distance. A filter bar sits at the top with All plus four icon-only segments for Resupply, Camp, Water and Turn.
Distance is shown here in every view, filtered or not.
The Trip-level Waypoint View
The trip's Waypoints tab pulls together every waypoint from every section. This is the planning view.
Filtering by Type
The same filter bar appears here: All, then icon-only segments for Resupply, Camp, Water and Turn. Shot and Other waypoints appear in the All view.
Pick a filter and two numbers appear against each row:
- The number on the right is the cumulative distance from the start, not the gap to the previous waypoint. With Contiguous route on it counts from the start of the trip; with it off it counts from the start of that waypoint's own section.
- A small grey line underneath gives a Naismith time estimate for the leg from the previous waypoint of the same type: 4 km/h on the flat, plus one hour per 600 m of ascent. Descent is not counted.
Planning Water Carries
Filter by Water. Read the cumulative figures down the list and subtract one from the next to get each carry: 34 km then 52 km means an 18 km stretch with nothing in between. The grey sub-line has already done that arithmetic as walking time, so a carry showing ~5h 30m tells you how much water to put on your back however the kilometres fall.
Long gaps are the ones to spot. A leg with a big Naismith figure but a modest distance is a climb, and you will drink more on it.
Planning Resupply
Filter by Resupply. The same two numbers give you the distance and the walking time between town stops. Divide the time by your Hiking hours per day setting (Profile → Trips) to get days of food, or cross-check against the estimate on the section's Analysis tab.
Planning Camp Spots
Filter by Camp. Anything badged Off trail is more than a kilometre from the route, so add the detour to your day twice, out and back. The leg times then tell you what each night's walk really costs, which is more use than the raw distance when the terrain changes.
Weather
Weather lives on a Weather tab. Where that tab sits depends on the trip type. A Thru hike gets a Weather tab on every section, because each leg has its own location. A Shorter trip gets one at trip level, since the whole trip shares one location.
Either way the tab needs a location, set in the editor. Without one it says "Add a location in the editor to view weather data."
8-Day Forecast
The top half of the tab is an 8-day forecast, fetched when you ask for it. Tap Fetch Forecast, or the refresh icon in the section heading, and the app pulls the forecast and stamps it with a Last updated date.
You can do this once every 24 hours. Try sooner and the refresh icon is greyed out, and fetching shows "Weather data can only be refreshed once a day".
After a fetch, the app also writes a short summary under two headings, This Week and Next Week: plain-language notes on the forecast you just pulled.
Historical Averages
Below the forecast sits Historical Averages, subtitled "Based on 10-year weather data for this location". This is the one to use when the trip is months away and there is no forecast to be had.
Tap Fetch Weather once and you get monthly average charts:
- Average Temperature (°C), showing Avg High and Avg Low per month
- Avg wind (km/h), if the service returned wind data
- Average Snow Depth (cm), if any month has snow
Historical data is fetched once per location, and can be fetched again if you change the location.
Analysis
The Analysis tab sits on both a section and a trip. It estimates how long a section will take and what it will cost you in calories.
Before it can run, it checks three things and lists them:
- Route loaded with its distance, or "No route - load a GPX in the Route tab"
- Your measurements set, or "Add height & weight in Profile → Measurements"
- Elevation data available, or "No elevation data in this route - add it via the Route tab"
With all three green, tap Calculate Analysis.
The result is a headline stat row followed by detail:
| Block | What it shows |
|---|---|
| DISTANCE | Total route distance for the section |
| EST. TIME | Estimated walking time |
| DAYS | Shown only when the section runs over more than one day, using your Hiking hours per day setting |
| CALORIES / CAL/DAY | Total hiking calories, or the daily figure once the section spans several days |
| Ascent and Descent | Collapsible tables broken down by Gradient band, each with Distance, Elevation, Est. time, Actual and kcal |
| Parameters | The inputs used: Stride, Base speed, and Pack weight if a pack is linked |
| Nutritional Requirements | BMR (at rest), Hiking calories, Hiking days, Daily total (avg) and Day total |
The Actual column in the band tables is filled from your recorded traces. Without any, the Parameters block shows "No trace data - estimated times only".
Recalculate re-runs everything with the current route, measurements and pack. The timestamp next to it tells you when the figures on screen were produced.
Tip: Turn on Contiguous route at the bottom of the trip's Sections tab before you plan water carries. It keeps the distances running across section boundaries, so a carry that spans two legs reads as one long stretch rather than two short ones.
Tip: Set your height, weight and gender in Profile & Account before running Analysis. The pre-check asks for them, and the calorie figures are only as good as the measurements behind them.
Related: Trip Sections · Trips · Live Tracking · Trip Shot Planning · Profile & Account