iTrailMap - Going Green for Free

Once the snow has melted, resorts face a much bigger problem than simply maintaining lifts and trimming growing foliage: Trash! Remember that phone you had or that Gatorade bottle you accidentally dropped off the lift? You might not have been able to retrieve it, but a big part of a resort's summer operations is collecting the garbage that has accumulated under the snow throughout the season.

From cell phones to water bottles to gloves, our mountains can hide literally a ton of trash under the fun stuff; yet none of these is a bigger waste of resources than trail maps. If you think about it, resorts can print millions of trail maps over the course of a few seasons. As a lifty, I refilled map dispensers several times a week--the equivalent of hundreds of trail maps. Sadly, chances are that the majority of those maps didn't make it half of the day (shoot, many were probably lost on that lift ride).

Going "green" is one of the big things being tossed around in the snowboard industry right now; in fact, if you haven't heard of the green movement by now, you might be Amish (and probably not one of the world's major waste contributors). I'm not a hippy, and I don't make it my mission to buy only environmentally friendly products, but I have always lived by using as little of anything as necessary. Trail maps are necessary. Resorts can be BIG, and even with posted signs and markers without a trail map you will get lost... but are printed trail maps really that necessary? Technology has slowly eliminated the need for unnecessary print, and recently paper trail maps have become a thing of the past.

iTrailMap is an application for iPod Touch and iPhones that downloads up-to-date trail maps for over 700 resorts worldwide. Note, these are *downloads*, meaning you grab the map from local wi-fi access or where you know you have reception and access it anytime while you are on the hill...the only two ways to screw things up are to not charge your device or lose it (if you are one of those people who takes your things out on the lift, you are asking for bad things to happen eventually).

The application is available in the iTunes store as two versions: a free download which includes the 2D maps resorts print on their paper versions and a $4.99 version which creates 3D replicas of the mountains and labeled trails (see photos above and below). As a bonus feature for paid users, iPhone owners with GPS enabled can track their position real-time as they descend and upload their tracks online to Google Earth. The 3D version will also display real-time lift queues as long as your device has a connection.

Download and store as many maps as your device can hold... Zoom in, zoom out, trace your way down your chosen trail. With the iTrailMap application, you are good to go regardless of where you choose to make your turns.

iTrailMap

5/5 Cacti

I like having the paper maps; in fact, I'm sort of a collector. I love going to new mountains, snagging a map and tacking that sucker up on my wall as a reminder of great times. In terms of using maps to get around, I'll trade a soggy paper map for a digital version any day... and let's face it, you are going to bring your iPod or iPhone on-hill with you anyway so why not have it multitask for you?

Click here to view the iTrailMap website, or head to the iTunes store and grab your copy.