Be prepared for that awesome journey through majestic mountains, down flower ladened valleys, and over craggy passes. Trace routes to find approximate distances and elevation profiles between locations.

In this example I am going to look at the route from Cow Creek Meadows to Larch Lake in the Glacier Peak Wilderness.

To trace a route firstselect “Plan” and then “Trace Route”.

Next drag the cross hairs to where you want to start tracing a route.

Once you have the cross hairs at the start of the route, tap on start in the upper right corner and then drag the cross hairs over the route.  If at any point you trace off of the route you can tap on undo in the upper left corner to undo the last few points.  You can tap on undo as many times as you need to.

Once you are done tracing the route tap on Done in the upper right corner.  You can always go back and continue tracing a route, so you can tap done even if you are not yet finished.

Tap on the arrow at the bottom of the screen (on the iPad it is the arrow on the right side). This will bring up the trip details.  You can look at this any time while you are tracing the route as well.  The first screen give the approximate distance, elevation gain, and elevation loss for the route.

Swipe the view with the distance to the left to get the elevation profile (on the iPad you just scroll down to get all of the screens).

Tap and hold on the elevation profile and then move your finger back and forth to get more detailed information.  You will see a green dot on the map for the location that corresponds to where you finger is at on the elevation profile.

Swipe the elevation profile to the left again.  Here you can rename the route.  You can also continue tracing the route if you want to make it go farther.  If you have scrolled the map away from this route, tapping on view route in map will scroll the map back to the route.  You can also share the route.

When you choose to share the route you will be able to select the region of the map that you want to share.  By default the entire route will be selected.  Drag the blue buttons to change the size of the selected region.  You can tap and hold on the selection box to lift it up and move it around.

Once you have selected the region you want to share tap on the share button in the upper right.  You will then be able to select how you want to share the image.

For example, selecting email lets me email the map with the route on it to a friend.  (If the map is very large Mail may not show the preview correctly.)

Now swipe the bottom view over again.  Here you can change the color of the route on the map.  You can also make it so that the route is not shown on the map by toggling the “Hide Route on Map” setting.

Later if you want to go back and view this route again you can select “Plan” and then “My Routes” to get a list of your routes.  Select the route in the list to view the route in the map.

You can also view this route on other map types.  Now that the route has been traced it will show up on the satellite map.  This is helpful because it lets you see where the trail is when viewing a satellite map.  To switch to the satellite map tap on Map Type and then select MapBox Satellite.

Now you can see the route on a satellite map.  (Tip, if you tap on the screen you can view the map fullscreen.)

Finally, you can also view this route on your other iOS devices.  You can sync your Topo Maps+ data between all your iOS devices.  This lets you do your planning on your iPad and then have those routes available on your iPhone.

Topo Maps+ is a great way to prepare for your next outdoor adventure!

The most important thing to do in Topo Maps+ to get ready to “leave the grid” is downloading maps.  When you download maps you can access those maps on your iPhone without needing an internet connection.  Version 2.1 added a much easier way to download USGS and Thunderforest topo maps.

When you want to download maps first zoom and pan the map to the area you are interested in downloading.  Then select “Download Maps” -> “Download Map Regions” in the app.

This will show you the map with a grid overlay on top of it.  Tap on the regions you want to download and then tap on the download button in the upper right corner.

Before heading out the door be sure and check that you have the maps you need downloaded.  There are two ways you can check which maps have downloaded.  You can go back to the download map regions.  This will show you which maps have been downloaded.

You can also go to the “Downloaded Maps” section.  This will list out each of the regions you have downloaded.  You can tap on any of them to go to that location in the map.

There is one other way to download maps that works for all map types and not just for USGS and Thunderforest topo maps.  You can turn on turn on download tiles.  Turning on this setting will make Topo Maps+ save all map tiles that it downloads.  As you scroll and zoom around on the map all map images that you see are downloaded and saved.  This only saves the images you are looking at and not the region at different zoom levels.