Trailing - Rood Bridge Park. Following AllTrails. 紀錄散步健行的好用app

One of the "new year resolutions" I've got for 2021 is to 

Walk More Trails!! Walk More and Explore More!

While searching for potential destinations, I came across several apps. After trying out a few , I deleted all and now only keep AllTrails. Honestly, I find it very useful! It's my first time using an app for trailing purpose (other than that time I made an app myself for a class). Can easily track trails visited, save interesting trails (large selection of known trails and users can submit requests for new ones that they discovered), shows progress of where you're at (kind of like a guided trailing experience) with elevation/distance/pace, and check reviews by other users. 

My favorite features are (1) the record feature, and (2) geotagging of pictures. With the record feature, after you arrive at your desired starting point (I usually start at the parking lot lol), you can track and record your trailing experience by pressing that "record" button on screen and the app will record your pace/elevation/distance as you move. You can do other things on phone and the app will keep on recording in the background until you tell the app to stop recording. The geo-tagging of pictures itself technically isn't that over-the-top-cool because this feature has been a built-in for my previous phones anyway. But! I really like it when I view a trail where I've taken pictures of, the map would have little pins pinned at the exact spots where I took them.

The user interface is pretty straightforward. One can search for a specific trail or just keep on scrolling to explore what's around or by category. Can filter results by difficulty level, reviews (stars), distance etc.

This is what the app looks like once it begins recording. The top green portion shows distance traveled (0.2 miles), time traveled (6:52), and estimated pace based on how fast you're moving (or rather, how fast the phone is moving). Elevation is automatically recorded as you move around. The map shows where you're at (blue dot), where you began (green dot), with dotted lines showing different paths of the trail. The bright red color shows your actual movement and it's pretty easy to tell if you made turns or not. 

When you're done with your trail, remember to press stop on the app to stop recording. Once it stops recording, the app will prompt you to rate/share your experience and if you'd like to include pictures for the trail. You can also choose to keep the recording private. The app will show a message saying your recording has been completed. You can go to the "History" tab to check out the summary page for what you just did! At this point, a black dot will show, which indicates where you "finished" the trail (essentially where you told the app to stop recording). 

If you take pictures, red dots would show up and you can click on individual red dots to see where you took those pictures. I think this is a very useful feature to remember where you took the picture at, also easy for marking landmarks / areas of special interests.

Here's a recording for Rood Bridge Loop. We had days of pouring rain and parts of the park got flooded (plus there's that big lake in the middle, so duh!) so we only walked half of the loop.

This was our first trail exploration with this app. Orchard Park was a bit muddy at the time but I'm sure it'll be pretty in spring!

The "History" tab lets you see your previous recordings and completed trails.

There's also a "stat" page under History that shows you a summary of your progress.

 This includes all trails you've been on while using the app, so not just the last trail you went on.

Notes:

• You can view, edit, and delete your review on the app AND on the website (alltrails.com)
• App is free to use, has upgrade options (I use the free version)
• You can stalk, just kidding, check out other people's recordings. I admit I do this sometimes to help determine if a trail is a good fit for me or not. I'm a beginner with trails. I've never been an "outdoor person." I grew up in Utah but disliked hiking and going to the ski resorts (now I see them as missed opportunities). I lived in Colorado and didn't take up any outdoor hobby there either (I picked up backyard gardening instead 😂). I find the difficulty level tag on AllTrails (or any other app/website) isn't always the most reliable predictor for trail difficulty for me. Reading user's comments and cross-checking, oops I mean, with illustrated recording help me better understand if this is a trail I want to save and explore later. For example, how does the elevation look throughout the trail? Is it mostly flat then a huge steep somewhere or is the elevation mostly equally flattened out? Some mentioned the trail had parts closed, how far into the trail could they get to?
• This one is more of a cautionary tale. One time I forgot to stop the app from tracking and it almost tracked me home (I didn't want that to happen). Luckily, I realized it while making a stop for picking up dinner. I stopped the recording then, but could not edit my ending point of the trail on the app. Later, I was able to change the ending point on the website by using a computer after I got home. The takeaway is be careful when using the recording feature. Do your best in remembering to stop the recording before you drive away from the trail head because if you forget, then it just records exactly where you go until you remember to do something with it. It can track you all day until your phone's battery's out. The recording, by default, is public. You can delete, edit, or change it to a private recording, but you have to remember to change it. Strangers clicking "so and so's recording" can show exactly that person's recording for that trail and if the person forgot to manually stop the app from recording at the trail/park, and forgot to change the ending point after stopping it, well, it could show the ending point is at a residential location...a pinpoint of where tracking ended. To put it bluntly, yes, privacy issues can be at risk. I saw people's ending points miles away from the trail and they looked obvious to be apartment complexes. 

Okay! Done with the app talk, I like it, and I recommend it (just don't forget to stop recording once you start using it, or just don't use it period)! The rest of this post is just a quick recap of our time at Rood Bridge Park. We went on a Sunday after days of pouring rain. There weren't many visitors when we were there, which we liked. We saw maybe 10 people total? 10 people and like 6 dogs lol We also brought Duke. This doggo has been getting more walk lately comparing to the last 12 months due to his back injury recovery + the pandemic. Since doggy park is not an option for us (because Duke likes to jump on other people and prefers to play with humans rather than playing with dogs), the least we can do is to take him out for walks more now that he's back to normal + lazy. Well, so far 90% of his walks occur in our immediate neighborhood, though I personally would like to go on more trails (mah new year resolution baby!) so might as well bring lazy doggo with us hahaha!

The trail at Rood Bridge Park is called Rood Bridge Loop. It's basically a loop that goes around a lake in the middle. Unfortunately the rain has caused flooding and made it impossible to finish the loop. We found out about this at the park (thanks to the strangers that told us). The picture above was taken at the beginning of the trail. That's not the flooding from the lake inside the park. That's....some other flooding.

The trees here are tall and skinny, and many are covered in moss. 

Thanks to the strangers that pointed out to us, we spotted a beaver! We were in awe of this wildlife experience. We just stood there and looked at it while it was drinking water. We don't think Duke saw the beaver, but he definitely smelled something and just kept sniffing at the soil when we were looking at this beaver.

Strangers (2 groups, each was a couple) told us they saw another beaver down the end of where the paved path could allow due to the flood. We didn't see that second beaver but it was ok. We were quite happy to have seen that first one.

Picture above: the farthest we could go due to the flood. 

This doggo. 💗

Calm down, and trail more! (like some slogan hahaha)

💗 CM