I saw this app and decided to give it a try. Very pleased with the results. It did a great job of tracking my skiing but the map is not the best for navigating. I would highly recommend this to anyone that wants to track their miles skied, maximum/average speed and runs skied. I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a map substitution. I wish I had used it throughout my trip but didn't remember to turn it on until the second half of the 5th and last day.
Install:
There are 3 North American packages to choose from: 1 map, 5 maps and all maps available (80+ North American). I purchased the 5 map package and had some trouble downloading maps. The developer worked with me to get everything set up and working properly. They were prompt to reply and very courteous.
Maps:
The interface is easy to navigate and the maps are on your unit so they pop up quickly. The runs are drawn over a Topo map and I think the maps are oriented with North at the top of the screen. For Snowmass, this made the runs backward as you faced the screen. The top of the mountain was at the bottom of the screen. Also, because the map is accurate it is more difficult to read. The paper maps at the resort are spread out to make the runs and lifts easier to see. The topo map has lots of runs and lifts overlapping and this requires you to zoom in to delineate individual run names and lifts. However, this was not a major issue for me. Snowmass has moved to an RFID lift ticket system which made me tuck my phone away to avoid interference. I stuck with a good old fashioned paper map for navigation.
Data Collected:
This is the good part. While I forgot to turn it on until the last half of the last day, I was impressed by the software's ability to accurately track my skiing. During lunch, I opened the Snowmass map and selected record from the context menu. It took a little time to lock onto the GPS signals then I was off and running. After the last run, I stopped the recording and went to see what sort of information was recorded.
I had the options of playing back the recording, viewing the recording or reviewing the stats. Playing back will load the map and you can watch yourself moving around the runs as a little red dot. Viewing the recording brings up the map with a black line drawn over all of the paths you took during the recording (like using a sharpie to mark your movements on a ski map). Finally, the best choice was to review the stats. Each set of runs is broken down based on when you took the lift and summarized. You can see the maximum speed, average speed and distance traveled on each run and all of this information is added up for each downhill set of runs. Then a red bar appears with the name of the lift followed by the next summary of downhill runs.
I have nothing to check the accuracy of the speed and miles recorded but the runs listed were accurate and the other information seemed reasonable, shamefully so (give me a break it was the last day of skiing). I highly recommend trying this program and plan to use it again next year.
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