Throughout the book, I often refer to the use of GPS enabled, hand-held devices.  Often I am speaking of classic GPS units such as Garmin and Magellan - but I am also a big fan of the latest 'smartphones' and their built in support for displaying GPS tracks, as well as a wide variety of other pertinent navigational data.

As I made my way along the many trails described in Sweet Singletrack, I often carried an iPhone with me, not only for it's telephone capabilities, but also for it's support of a wide variety of software applications (Apps).  My Top 3 App discoveries to date are; 'MotionX', 'Google's 'My Maps' and 'Topo Maps'.

All of these Apps are available at very low cost, and in some cases, free from the Apple 'Apps' Store online.  Coming from a background as a computer technician where "cheap software" means something under fifty dollars, I am astounded that Apps are generally priced between .99c to five dollars.  This software is by no means trivial; rather, it is incredibly powerful and outright impressive!

For those of you equipped with an iPhone, check out all three of the software  applications noted above via the App Store on the iPhone itself. Android OS and it's variant have a number of applications to choose from at the Android Market, while Blackberry users are limited to a few non-intuitive applications that are challenging to use...

I won't get into specifics about the workings of each App, as each is equipped with easy to understand 'help' sections.  Download one or more Apps, spend a few minutes reading the help tutorials and you will be on your way to years of discovery and fun.

In addition, I also produce "App" equivalents of this website / and the print edition of SweetSingletrack.ca

You may access these via the Apple Store and / or the Google Play Store. The Apps feature built-in maps and text descriptions of everything in the aforementioned publications, but do not require cell-tower access in order to present the background maps to the trails. This is bonus in areas of low or no reception.

Technology + the great outdoors, what a fantastic combination!