High peaks resource with trail information, topographical and trail maps.
Built for Android and iOS
Getting to Know ADK46erNow
The Main (Home) Screen
Welcome to the ADK46erNow app. This app is meant to be a companion on your hikes and summits of the Adirondack high peaks. Its aim is to be quick and easy to use so you can focus on enjoying your hike. As such, much of the information and features you need are available on the app’s main screen.
Need a compass? Tap the ADK46erNow logo to reveal a compass with your current latitude, longitude and altitude. Tap again to dismiss the compass and return to the logo.
The Peak tabs immediately below the logo list the peaks for the current itinerary in your Log Book.
- Summited: Summits you’ve already completed.
- Overdue: Any planned but overdue summits.
- Today: Summits you’ve planned to hike today.
- Future: Unplanned summits or summits planned for a future date.
Below the peak lists tap the Now bar to slide open the drawer with access to the app’s major features.
At the very bottom of the screen is the Summit Progress Bar displaying green tick marks and a count of your achieved summits. Also, dragging a finger over the tick marks will show the peak name and the summited date.
Your High Peaks Reference
From the main screen tap the Now bar to slide up the drawer where you’ll find a host of features including the High Peaks button (trail marker).
This is your 46 High Peaks reference guide. You will find a sortable list of peaks with peak order, name, elevation, ascent and round trip distance (in metric or US measurements, based on your preference). The AZ button at the top of the screen will change the sort order from ascending to descending and back again.
Tap any of the peaks to find the peak’s common trailhead, round-trip distance, trail difficulty, trail maps, and current peak weather forecast. Use My Info to record details of any alternate summit route you may decide to take or additional information about the peak.
(Click the thumbnails below to expand)
Your Current Weather, Location, and Compass
Two more features in the Now drawer: Weather and Maps.
If you are currently not on a hike the weather and map services default to your current location.
If you haven’t stared a hike, but want to know what the current forecast is at one of the peaks, then use the High Peaks screens.
If you have started a hike then these two services will be relative to the peak you are attempting to summit.
The Compass, which is accessed by tapping the logo at the top of the home scene always shows your current latitude, longitude, altitude and compass bearing.
It is a good idea to turn the compass off (tap so the logo is showing) when you’re not using it. This feature is energy intensive and will deplete your device’s battery.
Identifying The Surrounding High Peaks
Use the 360 View to identify surrounding high peaks. The previous version of this app required you to have started a hike before this feature could be used. This is no longer the case! The only requirements are that you are in the high peaks region, that your device has a built in magnetometer (compass service), a camera, and location services.
Another limitation of the previous version is that the “through the camera view” that helped line up the feature’s crosshair with the surrounding peaks didn’t work on Android (it worked, but a white background was displayed instead of the camera view). This has been fixed and now works identically on iPhone and Android.
To Plan or Not to Plan?
Not everyone is a planner and depending on the weather, your energy level or any other number of reasons you may decide to hike a peak that you haven’t previously planned (see “To Plan: Your Log Book” below).
This app wants to be as flexible as you need it to be, so you always have the option to start a hike of any peak at any time. With that in mind, the Future peak tab will show you a list of all the peaks you’ve planned for a future date or that are unplanned. Similarly the Overdue peak tab displays a list of the peaks you had planned, but whose hike start dates have already passed.
To start a hike just tap on one of the peaks in the list and you’ll be presented with a dialog asking if you want to start your hike.
To Plan: Your Log Book
Your Log Book is where you plan your ADK itinerary(ies), schedule peak hike dates, see your list of peaks and which ones you have and have not summited. You can also add notes and photos to your hikes, journaling them from here.
There’s a lot here, but the first thing to understand is what an Itinerary is. You can think of an itinerary as a chapter in your log book. This chapter includes all 46 high peaks and your hike and summit achievements, hike notes, photos, and summit stamps.
Your log book must, and will, have at least one itinerary, but you can have multiple. For example you may want to hike all 46 seasonally in which case you would create an itinerary (“chapter” in our anaology) for each. Say “My Summer 46”, “My Winter 46.”
Also, there will always be one current itinerary. When you hike, summit, and journal a hike your accomplishments will apply to whichever itinerary is current.
If you want to plan your ADK 46 adventure you can schedule the dates of your planned hikes.
An initial untitled itinerary is created for you in your Log Book and marked Current. The + Add button allows you to create a new itinerary. You can create as many itineraries as you like.
You can also slide an itinerary left to expose a Delete button. The delete button will do just what you think – it will delete the itinerary and all its related information – so make sure that’s what you intend. You can’t delete the current Itinerary.
Tapping an itinerary’s start and end dates will expose a date picker. Setting and changing dates are auto-saved. The Save button at the top of the screen is available when you change the Itinerary’s title.
Itineraries have a scrollable list of Summit Events. Summit events are the heart of each itinerary. Itineraries consist of a list of summit events, one for each peak. Summit events allow you to plan, stamp, journal, and share your hikes.
Summit events are added automatically to your itinerary when it’s created. By default the trail signs are “un-summited” meaning you have not yet summited the and stamped the peak.
When you have successfully summited a peak and recorded it, a Summit Stamp is displayed for that summit event.
Starting Your Hike
There are two ways to start a hike. The first and easiest is to select (tap) the peak from the overdue, today, or future list on the home screen. The second is to set the start date (to today using the Now button) of a peak’s summit event in your Itinerary. The Home screen will display the Underway dialog with the Journal, Stamp Summit, and End Hike options.
Journaling Your Hike
As mentioned above a Journal button appears on the Home screen when you have a hike underway. Tapping the Journal button will take you directly to the Summit Journal screen. You can also get there at any time, whether you are currently on a hike or not, from your Log Book (see the image above). Use your summit journal to record Notes about your hike and attach Photos. Also, any time you hike, but fail to summit a peak it will be listed under Attempts.
Whenever you add or update your notes the Save button will become available. Use the + Add button to attach photos. To remove a photo simply swipe left to show the Remove button. Removing a photo only detaches it from your journal. The photo is still in your device’s photo library.
Side note: When you have an underway hike the Map and Weather buttons on the Home screen are focused on your currently selected peak.
Stamping The Summit
The second button that appears on the Home screen when a hike is underway is the Stamp Summit button.
When you reach the peak’s summit press the Stamp Summit button to record your achievement. When you do your current GPS latitude and longitude will be recorded along with the current date and time. If you have cell reception then the current weather will also be recorded.
It may take a second or two to get the weather forecast or determine that it’s unavailable, so be patient. Once stamped you’ll see your summit stamp award. The award graphic is a new feature of version 3 of the app. Back on the home scene the Stamp Summit button will change to Summit Stamped! You’ll also notice that the progress ticks at the bottom of the screen have updated by one.
If you are viewing or journaling your peak in your Log Book, you’ll also notice on the Stamp tab that you can use the Now button next to the Summit Stamp date and time. This is another way to stamp your summit.
At this point your hike is still underway, but you may not want to end it yet… see Ending The Hike below.
Prior Version Summit Stamps
If you’ve upgraded from a previous version you can still get the summit stamp awards for the peaks you’ve already summited. Simply go to the peak in your Log Book and you’ll see your stamp next to the stamp’s date and time. Tap the stamp graphic. This will create the stamp award graphic and display it. You can then share it along with the rest of your summit journal.
Ending The Hike
When to end your hike?
In most cases you’ll want to end your hike, not when you summit, but when you return to the trailhead.
However, if you plan on summiting multiple peaks on a single hike, like Cascade and Porter, or Algonquin and Wright, then you will want to stamp your summit, end the hike using the End Hike button and immediately start a new hike to your next peak and keep going!
If you use the End Hike button without stamping your summit then a summit attempt will be saved for this peak. You can find your history of summit attempts for a peak on the Summit Journal screen in your Log Book.
Sharing Your Summit Journal
Message or email friends and family and post your summit journals to Facebook.
You have the option to Share the planned and actual dates of your hikes, your summit stamp, hike notes and the photos you’ve attached.
On the right is the Share scene and an example of an email share (click to enlarge the email).
Built for Android and iOS
Disclaimer
Of course, the ADK46erNow app is not a replacement for appropriate hiking gear, a good trail guide, compass, GPS device, good topographical trail maps, or common sense. The hiker uses this app at her own risk. Trail conditions and boundaries often change, so let us know if you find that updates are needed, and tell us about any new or improved features you would like to see in future versions.
Please enjoy and hike responsibly!
Version 3.0
Brings you simplified navigation. Less taps to get to the most useful features. Context aware weather and maps. And finally, parity between the iPhone and Android versions with the 360 View fully supporting Android devices.