latest updates from basecamp
Today we just released a batch of improvements to our iPhone app:
Use this option when you finish a hike and you’re not ready to upload your trip report/photos right then
See your estimated vertical gain update more quickly while tracking a climb.
Top priority right now is improving our server performance. Hope to have news to share on that soon!
New version of our iPhone released today that adds 3D maps, a very useful feature for visualizing mountainous terrain (obvi?). While we were updating, we improved the map layer selection UI and redesigned the Satellite Topo map layer with easier-to-see contour lines, trails, and labels. You can get the latest in the App Store here:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peakery/id1550210398
Today we’re launching the next key feature for our iPhone app: save & follow any GPX track on the map. These “Ghost Tracks” can be tracks from other peakery members’ prior climbs or imported tracks from external sources. Ghost Tracks are hugely helpful for real-time navigation and routefinding, like breadcrumbs that don’t get eaten by birds.
Here’s how Ghost Tracks work on peakery:
Never blindly follow GPX tracks, they are not verified as current or correct. Many may contain errors or may have an important story behind them, so read any associated trip reports for more context. Example of track not to follow: “Went up the south ridge and found incredibly loose, chossy rock. Never doing that again, stay away!”. Ghost Tracks are just another tool among others to help in navigating & routefinding; use Ghost Tracks at your own risk. Above all, use your judgment!
TLDR the peakery iPhone app is now available! Tap this button to get it now:
YESSSSS! The peakery iPhone app launches today after a long development journey with a lot of iteration incorporating feedback from beta testers. Thank you to all those peakery members that shared feedback along the way.
This first version of the iPhone app includes a robust base set of features designed to let you find the best mountains to hike anywhere in the world, track your mountain hikes, log your past peaks, and see the latest hikes from peakery’s worldwide community. Importantly, the app is fully synched with peakery.com on the web.
We hope you like the app so far. We have grand plans for the future of this app with a long roadmap planned, what you see is just the tip of the iceberg peak.
Please send any feedback to feedback@peakery.com. With your help, we plan to keep making this better.
– the peakery team
The Map is the most popular feature of peakery. Its truly global coverage of the world’s peaks on detailed outdoor map layers is a great resource for those looking to explore the mountains. Now we’ve made it even better with a bunch of big new features.
As you browse the Map, see photos and info about the most popular and highest peaks currently in view. Profoundly improves the exploration experience. Oh, and easily hide the column whenever you want to see more map.
3D maps make a triumphant return to peakery, this time much bigger and better than ever. It goes without saying that a 3D view is ideally suited for visualizing mountainous terrain (sorry, guess we just said it).
Select the 3D Map option from this updated Map Layers control in the top center of the map:
In addition to the new peak toggles previously announced (Classics, In Challenge, You climbed, Has GPS track), we added 3 new peak sliders:
Length
Filter to peaks with routes of desired distance
Vertical gain
Filter to peaks with routes of desired vertical gain
Last climbed
See where peakery members have been climbing recently. Can be useful for trip planning and a great way to get a sense of what’s going on in a region.
We enriched the Map with several new pieces of info. Hit the new Eye button which is a map legend but also lets you toggle the visibility of many new items on the peakery map:
Your awards on the map
Your King of the Mountains, Summit Stewards, and First Ascents now appear right on the map. Strategize which peaks to tackle to amass clusters of awards, if that’s your cup of tea.
Classic peaks on the map
With new icons you can easily see the Classics at a glance while looking at all peaks in a region. Know of a Classic that’s missing? Let us know at feedback@peakery.com)
Peak Challenges on the map
Icons for Challenges are shown in the approximate center of all the peaks included in the challenge. A great new way to discover Challenges.
Photos on the map
Zoom in to see 1000s of geotagged photos from peakery members. Tap a photo icon to see it fullscreen in a gallery view and quickly swipe through all nearby photos.
We redesigned the map on peakery.com’s mobile website to show more map and less nav clutter. We also made the buttons bigger and easier to tap.
And we’re excited to unveil 3D maps on your phone and tablet. On most newer phones, they actually run smoother than most laptops!
iPhone users: we recommend adding peakery to your homescreen to see the fullscreen version. Just tap the share icon at the bottom of the Safari browser and then tap ‘Add to Home Screen’
Android users: be sure to head to the Google Play store to get the official peakery Android app
We plan to keep improving and extending these new map features. Also in-the-works are new tools to make it easier — and more fun — to help improve peakery’s mountain info.
We hope you like the changes. If you do, please let us know. If not, also please let us know. Please share your feedback with us at feedback@peakery.com or on Twitter @peakery . Bug reports, feature requests, questions — please get in touch. We’ll try to be responsive.
— the peakery team
You’re invited…
Peakery’s annual tradition of climbing mountains, PEAK MONTH, encourages you to climb as many peaks, mountains, and hills as you can from Aug 1 to Aug 31. Last year saw a record number of peaks climbed by a record number of people — let’s build on that momentum and make this year’s PEAK MONTH an even bigger celebration of the world’s mountains.
As if you needed an excuse to go get some fresh air in the mountains (with social distancing of course).
We look forward to seeing your PEAK MONTH mountain adventures on peakery.Go high, have (type-I & type-II) fun, and be safe out there.
– the peakery team
p.s. We’re usually really lazy about giving out peakery schwag to PEAK MONTH participants but perhaps someone with a lot of experience in setting up online dropship merch stores will reach out to us (cry for help!).
We’re excited to announce our Android app is now available! Have an Android? From your phone, tap this button to install:
(An iPhone app is next, fill this out if you’d like to help us test).
The peakery Android app seamlessly integrates with the rest of peakery. As soon as you log in, all of your existing info will be there: your mountain stats, Peak Badges, Summit Logs, Peak Challenge progress, and photos. Also easily access the 100s of thousands of trip reports, photos, and mountain routes from the global peakery community.
Use the app to record your mountain hikes and save them directly to peakery. The GPS tracker was designed specifically for climbing mountains with special features such as an always-onscreen current elevation and hold-and-press buttons to prevent accidental pausing. For multi-day climbs, you can keep the tracking paused while sleeping and resume the next day (external battery definitely recommended for this).
Just like on the peakery website, after saving a log in the app you can earn Peak Badges, awards, and automatically see your progress in any of 100s of Peak Challenges.
Use detailed topo maps to discover the best peaks to climb out of over 600,000 peaks. Extensive filters such as length, vertical gain, popularity, elevation, and more help you quickly hone in on suitable objectives.
The app features all 6 of the excellent map layers found on the website, including the stunning Natural Atlas in the US and our customized Terrain view for the entire world. We tried to keep the map as uncluttered as possible for the best browsing experience.
The new List view is a great way to get a quick sense of the mountains in an area. It’s a perfect complement to the map view — whatever peaks you see on the map are shown in a sortable, filterable list. Every peak in the list shows if it’s a Classic, if it’s included in Peak Challenges, and how many times you’ve climbed it. You can sort peaks by popularity, elevation, and distance away from a location. Paired with peakery’s extensive peak and trip database, it’s a comprehensive discovery tool.
Browse the worldwide community’s latest climbs in any region in the world and interact with other members with likes and comments. You can also download GPX routes to your phone to use in other apps if you choose.
We hope you like the app so far. Please send any feedback to feedback@peakery.com. With your help, we plan to keep making this better.
– the peakery team
We’ve been quietly releasing improvements to peakery over the last few months, sshhhhh! Wait, it’s not a secret; here’s what’s new:
We optimized the site for screens up to 50% wider. We noticed that over 75% of total desktop/laptop visits come from wider screens and a lot of the screen was just empty background. Now peakery uses the extra screen width more efficiently, proudly.
We increased the resolution of every photo on peakery by 4x. See them at fullscreen size in the gallery. Also notice the much sharper detail in every photo on the site. It’s like getting Lazik.
We introduced the concept of Classic peaks. We’re still trying to work out exactly how to define a Classic peak, but if you explore around on the map you’ll hopefully intuit what we’re aiming for. Use the new ‘Classics’ toggle on the Map to see what we’ve deemed worthy so far. Are we missing a Classic? Suggestions welcome.
We’ve been testing a peakery Android app with a handful of peakery members and incorporating feedback. One major challenge has been ironing out the kinks in GPS tracking, the tentpole feature of the app. Happy to report we’ve made big progress with this (with a breakthrough this week!) but still working on it. We could definitely use more testers — if you’re interested in testing please let us know on this form (Android phone required with Android 8 or higher). Thanks for the help.
peakery’s annual PEAK MONTH is upon us! Aug 1 to Aug 31.
Hopefully you already have some mountain adventures planned for this month. If not, now’s the time to make some plans. With over 600,000 peaks on peakery, there’s guaranteed to be a good one for you. Need some inspiration? Take a look at the 100s of Peak Challenges waiting for you to tackle.
Here’s a recap highlighting some of the obstacles everyone encountered during last year’s PEAK MONTH.
How to participate in PEAK MONTH:
1. Go climb as many peaks as you can anywhere in the world between Aug 1 and Aug 31, 2019
2. Then share your photos, GPS tracks, and trip reports on peakery.com
We look forward to seeing your PEAK MONTH mountain adventures on peakery. Have fun and be safe out there.
– the peakery team
We just pushed a complete overhaul of routes that brings peakery closer to providing you the necessary info to go out and climb a mountain.
It rethinks how routes are created, grouped, and featured. It simplifies the underlying route data model. It sets up an organized structure for GPX track contributions going forward. It also groups and features the 1000s of GPX tracks already contributed by peakery members.
Every peak now shows a Routes card that features all of the routes with GPX tracks for that peak. As members contribute more GPX tracks, the Routes cards will fill in with additional routes. An algorithm automatically figures out which GPX tracks are the same and uses all matching GPX tracks to calculate average times. Note that by default, routes are now all round-trip; one-way routes are now designated like “Disappointment Cleaver (1-way)”. Except in rare cases where it makes sense, we aim to feature round-trip GPX tracks for routes going forward since these give you the best estimate for how long an outing will be.
We’ve revised route stats to give you a better understanding of each route. Now every route shows:
As before, on any route page you can click the ‘GPX’ button on the map to download the GPX for personal use. Note this is currently unavailable on mobile and tablet devices.
We’re still working on some tools to help clean up and normalize the existing route data — things like associating the best GPX files with specific routes, hiding duplicate routes, etc. If you find any bugs with anything route-related, please let us know.
peakery needs your GPX tracks to make it a better resource for everyone. Most routes are missing a GPX track, and even if a route already has a GPX track, an additional GPX for that route is valuable as it helps refine hiking time estimates. If you’d like to contribute your GPX files to climbs you’ve already logged, you can go back to one of your logs and click ‘edit’ to then add your GPX and associate it with a route. So please, dig up those old GPX files you have stored away somewhere and add them to your past climbs —it’d be a huge help.
The routes revisions set things up for some great features to come, such as better map features and filters based on distance and vertical gain. That and a lot of bug fixes are coming next.
Thanks for reading! And please hit us up at feedback@peakery.com if you have any feedback.
