Garmin’s new trail finder looks good, but it does not have my favorite trails

Garmin has launched a new feature in its connect app (when you sink your watch on your phone). This is called a garmin trails, and it helps you find hiking trails. With connect+ subscription, you can also sync the course for your map-able watch for those trails.

it feels great. Unfortunately, the selection of trails is very disappointing in launch – it does not even suggest that I try my favorite trails.

How to reach germin trails

You do not require connect+ subscription to search for trails, filter for features, and see the trail’s passage and reviews – all this comes free with regular connect app, whether on or through your phone or through Connect web Interface. If you have a gamin device, you already have a login for these services.

To find a gamin trails from within connect, tap More Menu in the app, search and tap Training and planningAnd then scroll Garmin trailsYou will be given a map of suggested trails. Zoom the map and tap on the small hicker icon to see each individual trail, or search in the search bar above. Unfortunately, the search results are not sorted in any logical way, such as from distance. If I find the name of a mark with me in Pennsylvania, I see the results from Main and Maryland First Pennsylvania.

There is also a filter icon, which you can use to limit your results from distance from your current location, climbing volume, as well as ratings, difficulty, trail types and features.

The features you can filter include:

• Dog -friendly

• no dogs

• Waterfall

• Lake

• Rivers

• Ocean

• Mountaineering

• Steep section

• Forest

• Flower

• Baby

• Permit requires

• Water source

• Reaches peaks

• rough road

Only America and some European countries have been supported

At the time of launch, trails are available only in the US and four European countries: Austria, Germany, Lieuchtein and Switzerland. “New trails will be added from time to time in various fields,” A says Garmin support page,

Germination Announcement This ban did not mention, so I see that I include disappointment from users outside this handful of countries. This writer in UKFor example, the feature “notrails” (referenceing competitive alltrails, get it?)

In America, I’m definitely watching Some? Trails, but not enough to make the convenience particularly useful.

I’m not just looking at a lot of trails

I like to run and increase the trails, and I live near a county park that is fully filled with hikeable, runner and mountain bike-able trails. There is a local trail running group that meets six times a week, always appears in a different place (I am sure they repeat their favorite, but there is a lot of variety on the offer). So what is in my database for my area near Garmin trails?

Here are the website on the left, and the county trails on the right:

Garmin, left; Allegheny county website, correct.
Credit: Beth Skveki/Garmin/Allegheni County

To learn about kudos to garmin Rachel Carson TrailThe tall one that manifests as a black line. It is 46 miles long and is quite famous in the region. Garmin has listed it as a series of miniature segments. They are correctly labeled as “hard” difficulty.

But the whole of North Park is in the area Two Trails? I am also not sure how a person will find out about orange and green trails without knowing about all others in the park. Where is the red trail, with all switchbacks with your red and blue branch? Where is the flat half-meal trail by Nature Center that I always used to take my children when they were younger? Where is the white trail that surrounds baseball fields?

For those orange and green trails, both are labeled with their right distance, but they are also marked as “easy”, which they are definitely not. I had a trail run last week which included the entire Orange Trail and green part. It was about five miles and was 800 feet Benefits of height. This is not an easy mark.

I asked a gamin representative where the trail data comes from, and Garmin said, “Different types of sources and our in-house cartography team.” As far as I can tell, they are not copied from alltrails or any other source, or not at least straight. (If they were, it could be better; Alltrails have green trail Label was labeled as medium than more appropriately easy.)

Browsing through other areas I am familiar, it seems that the most prestigious trails at any place are in the database, so it is not a tool UselessJust incomplete (temporarily with expected). Some gorge trails I remember who are the most fond of Ethaka, NY is there. There are a lot of label trails in Yelostone National Park.

I asked fellow Life -Lifeline Daniel Oropza to search for trails in areas he was familiar with, and he compared the area of ​​the three sisters in gamin and altrils. Garmin has a scar for the waterfall, while there are actually four; There are 19 trails in the Garmin database in the broad area, but in 143 Altrils.

Garmin, left; Alltrails, right.
Credit: Beth Squareki/Garmin, Daniel Oropeza/Altrils

This trails are free to browse, but you have to pay to send them in your watch

Looks a pot-consumer for germin trails New Connect+ Subscription TierTrails feature is independent in itself, but customers can send trail courses to their equipment from this database to connect only customers (or maps+, another gaminer). Compatible equipment includes Anything that supports coursesLike recent phenix, forever and instinct clocks (and age cycling computer). A clock that supports the map like the new precursor 970 will be a natural pair with this new feature.

The trails also appear to be a slightly different version of the convenience of courses that Garmin has done for some time. (You can find courses On this linkIf you have a gamin login). Courses can be private or user-made; Currently, users have no way to make a mark. This means that there may be several versions of the same trail, and courses that do not conform to a specific trail – any person who runs the orange part and green part, let’s say, because it was convenient for the day he made that course.

If more trails join the garmin trails, it may eventually be a useful feature. Trail ratings, comments and work for filters. But alltrails already Those features, and You can load alltrails routes for your gamin watch If you take membership Alltrails plusWhich is $ 35.99/year – more time than the gamin connect+, which will cost you $ 6.99/month or $ 69.99/year.