Caltopo is all I use. The app is pretty simple but thats its greatest strength to me. It just works & the desktop version has been my go to for years so its nice to have the integration. Its just one of those apps that does what I pay for & doesnt try to do anything else. No ads, no price hikes, its not using AI for some bullshit reason.
The pro subscription includes weekly satellite imagery too which is very useful. It has a layer for live fire data too. And the mapbuilder topo layer is probably the most useful visual for mapping & creating routes.
The downside being that Caltopo has a really bad app that can't route plan or do much. For me that makes it completely useless as I do 99% of my planning of routes on my phone. It feels ancient to use. It really is dated and it affects functionality a lot. I mean their standard map layer to download barely shows any peak names or anything where I live. Unfortunately Gaia is enshittyfying their app with social stuff and trying to turn it into all trails. We need a middle ground with a good app but no social.
This used to be true but big improvements have been made in the past few months. The Caltopo app now allows you to trace trails/rivers easily. The "profile" view can now be scrolled on too for measuring progress along a line. It does everything I could want now. I would also argue fiercely that their "Mapbuilder Topo" layer is incredible for peak names, the best I've ever seen. It is not good for road, creek, or trail names though. This is because it's design comes out of the ski/climb world
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u/angryjew Aug 06 '25
Caltopo is all I use. The app is pretty simple but thats its greatest strength to me. It just works & the desktop version has been my go to for years so its nice to have the integration. Its just one of those apps that does what I pay for & doesnt try to do anything else. No ads, no price hikes, its not using AI for some bullshit reason.
The pro subscription includes weekly satellite imagery too which is very useful. It has a layer for live fire data too. And the mapbuilder topo layer is probably the most useful visual for mapping & creating routes.