Every hike has a pack: real members with accounts, and optionally Pack Shadows — placeholders for people hiking with you who aren't on Pack Hiker.
Adding People
Add a Pack Mate on the Overview's members panel covers both kinds of pack member. Pick Invite by email for someone who'll use the app, or Pack Shadow for someone who won't — the only difference is whether an invite goes out. Either way you give them a name and pick their avatar.
An invite is a link valid for 30 days, accepted with a quick consent step; if they don't have an account yet they create one on the way in. Each invite carries a permission level, which you can change later.
Roles
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| View only | Read everything, change nothing in the shared plan — but still keep their own food plan, backpack weight and private expenses |
| Full edit | Edit the plan: itinerary, routes, food, expenses, gear, links |
| Co-admin | Full edit plus invite people and manage members & Pack Shadows, can setup & edit the gear list |
| Owner | Everything, including assigning co-admins and closing/deleting the hike |
A few fine points:
- Your own things are always yours. Whatever your role — view only included — you can edit your own food plan, your own backpack weight and your own private expenses. The permission levels govern the shared plan: what a view-only member can't do is change things the whole pack relies on, like adding a food drop or an expense everyone is split into.
- Only the owner can grant (or revoke) co-admin.
- Co-admins can't manage each other.
- The owner and co-admins share the pack-wide planning calls — the suggested water figure, and suggesting food drop assignments to everyone.
- Most packs work best with everyone on Full edit.
Pack Shadows
A Pack Shadow is a member you manage on someone's behalf — the friend who "doesn't do apps" but is definitely coming. Someone you've invited also appears as a shadow until they accept. Shadows can:
- appear in the member list with their own name and avatar
- hold emergency contacts and PLB details, so the safety brief covers the whole group — not just the app users
- pay for and owe shares of expenses
If they later join Pack Hiker, invite them via their shadow: on acceptance the shadow becomes their real membership and everything attached to it comes along.
Leaving And Removal
Anyone can leave a hike; owners and co-admins can remove members. When someone goes, their personal data on that hike goes too — their food plan, gear statuses, and the emergency contacts and PLBs they'd added. The chat gets a farewell message so the pack knows.
If the owner leaves, ownership passes automatically to the longest-standing co-admin (or the oldest member if there's no co-admin) — the new owner is emailed. A sole remaining owner can't leave; they can delete the hike instead.
Limits
During the beta everyone is on Pro with no caps. The Free tier (post-beta) allows 1 active hike as owner and 4 members per hike including Pack Shadows — existing hikes are never touched if you're ever downgraded; the limits only apply to creating new things.