Live Hike Mode is the Android app's screen for the day you're walking. Today's route fills the screen on a topo map that follows your GPS position. The next stop along the way, and how far it is, sits at the top. The day's elevation profile shows where you are, and today's food and the pack's chat are a tap away.
Pro feature. Live Hike Mode needs a Pro account. During the beta every account is Pro, so it's open to everyone right now.
A planning tool, not a navigation aid. Live Hike Mode shows where you are against your plan. It isn't built to find your way, and a phone can lose its GPS, run flat or break. Never rely on it to navigate: carry a map and compass, and a navigation app made for the field.
Starting It
On a hike day, open the hike in the app. When today is one of the hike's days and the itinerary has a route on it, a Live Hike Mode tile sits at the top of the hike's Overview, with today's walk and its distance, ascent and descent. Tap Start Live Hike Mode.
- Today is your phone's date. A hike without dates has no today, so it has no tile.
- No tile? Check that today's day on the itinerary has a route on it.
- It always shows today. For another day's walk, open that day's Map on the itinerary.
- If you haven't opened a map on this hike before, Pack Hiker first asks you to confirm that it's a planning tool, not a navigation aid.
- Live Hike Mode is only in the Android app. It isn't on the website.
The Map
Live Hike Mode opens on a full-screen topo map of today's route, with everything else on the hike's map: water, camps, food drops, phone reception and waypoints. It turns your location on and follows you, with your position as a blue dot in the middle of the map. GPS works without phone reception, so the dot keeps up when you're out of signal.
- Drag the map to look around. It stops following you until you tap Follow me, at the bottom right.
- Show the whole day, just above it, fits all of today's route on the screen.
- The cog, at the top of the buttons down the right, holds the map's options: Topo, Street or Satellite, showing or hiding the hike's waypoints (and its travel legs, which start hidden), and Offline to download the map for use without reception. Live Hike Mode keeps its own map choice, apart from your planning maps, and starts on Topo.
- To close it, tap X at the top right or go back. Back closes whatever is open first: the list of stops, a panel, then Live Hike Mode itself.
If you haven't let Pack Hiker use your location yet, Android asks when Live Hike Mode opens. Until it has a fix, the figures are measured from the start of the day.
What's Next
The pill at the top of the screen names the next stop along today's route and what's left to it from where you are: the distance along the route, the ascent and the descent. Once you're 30 m past a stop, it moves on to the next. After the last stop it shows the end of the day, and says so when you get there.
A stop is anything on the hike's map within 200 m of today's route: water, phone reception, food drops, camps and other itinerary entries with a location, and waypoints. The camp you started from doesn't count, and a camp where the route ends is the end of the day.
Tap the pill to roll down every stop still to come today, in walking order, each with the distance, ascent and descent from where you are, down to the end of the day. Tap it again, or the map, to roll it back up.
- The figures follow the route, not a straight line. They're worked out from where you are on it, even where the route passes the same spot twice: an out-and-back, a loop that finishes where it started, or switchbacks stacked above each other.
- Off the route? More than 150 m from today's route, the pill says how far off you are, and the figures are measured from the nearest point on the route.
- Closed it for a while? Pack Hiker remembers how far along today's route you got, so opening Live Hike Mode again carries on from there.
Your Elevation
Under the map is today's elevation profile, with a line where you are and a dot for each stop. It's coloured by how steep the route is, from gentle to extreme. Turn that off with Grade: Live Hike Mode keeps its own setting, so the profiles you plan with stay as they are. Tap Elevation Profile to fold it away and give the map more room.
Checking A Point On The Route
Tap today's route anywhere to put a dot there. A panel says how far along the route it is from you, ahead or back, the ascent and descent to get there (or to walk back to it), and its elevation. Tap the map anywhere else, or the panel's ×, to clear it.
Today's Food And The Chat
Under the cog are two more buttons. Each rolls a panel out from the right, over the map:
- Today's food shows today's meals from your food plan, with their food and weights, and any food drop you pick up today. It's for reading on the trail: you change the plan on the Food tab, and Open the Food tab at the bottom of the panel takes you there. If you track your food as a weight per day, it shows today's. If you track one total for the trip, there's no plan for the day to show.
- Chat is the hike's chat, the same as the Chat tab. A red badge on the button counts new messages.
Close a panel with its ×, a tap on the map beside it, a swipe of its header to the right, or back.
With No Reception
Live Hike Mode is made for the trail, and keeps working out of signal:
- Open the hike before you go. The route, the stops and your food all come from the copy of the hike on your phone. Open it with reception (the night before is ideal) so it's up to date. See Using Pack Hiker offline.
- Download the map. Map tiles need a connection unless they're downloaded: use Offline in the map's options (the cog), here or on any of the hike's maps, before you lose signal. Satellite isn't available offline.
- GPS doesn't need reception. Your position, the pill and the line on the profile keep updating.
- The chat waits for signal. Messages you write offline are kept on the phone and sent when you're back in signal.
Tip: GPS and the screen are what drain a phone fastest. Turn the brightness down, and carry a power bank on long days.