Information-sharing has become essential to the outdoor community these days. From current conditions, route tracking, and safety information, there are few adventurers who don’t use an app or go online for pre-trip research. Well that research will be made a lot easier now with the launch of Mountain Hub. From a company based in Park City, Mountain Hub is a crowd-sourced, community platform that incorporates all sorts of outdoor information available in the palm of your hand.
Mountain Hub was previously known as Avatech, an app specific to backcountry skiers who used it to share snowpack and avalanche danger information to fellow users. Mountain hub is essentially the same but incorporates all outdoor activity including trail running, mountain biking, hiking, backpacking, climbing, and more.
The first version of Mountain Hub has been live for a while now during beta testing, but version 1.2, released Monday, is a massive update for iOS and Android that improves functionality and adds features like adventure tracking, trip reports, user profiles and free subscriptions for all users.
“Mountain Hub 1.2 is a substantial update that speaks to the direction the company is moving,” says Jim Christian, co-founder and chief product officer at Mountain Hub. “The new adventure tracking and trip report features allow users to share more detailed information with the Mountain Hub community while the collection of free, downloadable maps helps users plan and navigate their adventures. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback in beta testing, and we’re excited to get this update out to the public.”
Below are some of the standout features Mountain Hub highlighted in a press release.
- FREE: The app is now completely free for all users. Mountain Hub Pro, a network limited to qualified professionals with additional sharing architecture and advanced features has been made free thanks to a partnership recently signed with Black Diamond Equipment.
- Adventure Tracking: Track your adventures with a real-time map of the area traveled as well as elevation profile, elapsed time, distance and pace stats. Mountain Hub. Adventure Tracking automatically overlays your photos along your route to create a map-based journal of your experience.
- Trip Reporting: Share the highlights of your trip with geo-tagged photos, route descriptions, and more. Report conditions encountered during your trip including weather, wildlife, closures, snow/river/trail conditions, and incidents.
- Unlimited Offline Maps: Choose from an array of topo, aerial and terrain maps to use both online and offline. Eighteen different maps are available depending on location.
- User Profile: Whether you are an individual or an organization, view all of your information in one convenient place on your Mountain Hub profile.
I downloaded Mountain Hub on Friday and tested it on a mountain bike ride on Saturday. My buddy, Mason and I rode the IMBA Super Epic going from Park City to Canyons via the Wasatch Crest Trail. We climbed up Armstrong and Pinecone Ridge trails at the Park City side of the resort. Then we rode the Wasatch Crest Trail over to the Canyons side. From there, Ridge Connector to Mid Mountain Trail allowed us to descend Ricochet all the way down to the Canyons base for a 22-mile ride.
During the ride, I found the app to be easy to use and very accurate during tracking. At every break stop, I took a photo, wrote down trail conditions, and uploaded it for all to see for future trip planning. But somehow I must have messed up because my photos didn’t make it onto the final adventure report. I’ll need to play around with it a bit more. However, Mason also tracked our ride with his Garmin bike computer and we got identical mileage and elevation stats, so I’m very confident about the accuracy of this app.
What I’m most impressed by is the maps. There are up to 18 different styles of maps to navigate from, including topo, satellite, and terrain. What’s also sweet is that if you know you’re going to be in an area with no cell service, you can download your map ahead of time and have it on your phone for reference before the trip begins. That’s a feature that you normally have to pay a lot of money for, but with Mountain Hub it’s totally free.
After my first go-round with the app, I’m excited to delve deeper into it. It’s going to be my go-to app for outdoor adventure from now on and it’s great knowing that I’m supporting a Utah company and contributing to the collective knowledge of the outdoor community.
To download the latest version of Mountain Hub click here for iOS and here for Android. Or you can visit them at mountainhub.com