Route planning newbie! How do I plan my route?
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swimmerguy
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 9/6/2025
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Route planning newbie! How do I plan my route?
Hello, I am planning my solo trip from Purgatory Creek Trail to the Chicago basin and end at Elks Park. I hear people using Caltopo or GPX Studio to plan their route and way markers then export that into an app like Gaia GPS where I will upload for offline use. Do I have this correct? Are there any other tips any experienced backpacker has?
Re: Route planning newbie! How do I plan my route?
That's a great plan! I heavily use Gaia but will often do the route planning in Caltopo. There's also lots of GPX files in the GPX library that you can directly download and import into Gaia. I then will record my route in Gaia but this does use battery so I'd plan to bring a charge block for your phone when backpacking. Happy adventures!