Plan your hike, no subscription required
Trace your route with Bikerouter, export the GPX to your Garmin or your phone. No account, no ads, no paywall on the "send to your watch" button.
This page is the entry point to Bikerouter, a free open-source planner maintained in Germany by Marcus Jaschen. No account, no ads, Sonny LIDAR elevation data more accurate than AllTrails in the Alps. You trace, you export, you're done.
The reasoning behind this approach is in the article AllTrails, Komoot, and me. Here, we go straight to the tool.
Open Bikerouter (hiking preset)Opens Bikerouter in a new tab, with OpenTopoMap and hillshading layers already enabled and the Hiking profile pre-selected. You can move the map to your own terrain.
Mini tutorial, in five steps
From blank map to track on your watch
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1. Pick the Hiking profile
At the top of the right sidebar, open the profile selector (keyboard shortcut G). Bikerouter offers several profiles: Road, Trekking, MTB and more. For hiking on foot, pick Hiking or Trekking. The engine will favour trails and avoid high-traffic roads.
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2. Activate the right layers
At the top right of the map, open the layer selector (stack icon). For hiking, I stack:
- OpenTopoMap as the base, for contours and topography
- Hillshading on top, for shaded relief
- Waymarked trails as an overlay, to see GR, PR and European long-distance paths in colour
The rendering is more readable than what you see on AllTrails or Komoot. No ads, no premium overlays getting in the way.
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3. Draw the route
Enable the pencil tool in the left toolbar (keyboard shortcut D). Click on the map to drop your start point, then your end point. Bikerouter computes the route along trails matching your profile. To pass through a specific spot (a pass, a refuge, a summit), click it: Bikerouter recomputes automatically. To adjust a segment, drag the line with your mouse: it redraws along the new possible paths.
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4. Check the stats and export the GPX
In the right sidebar, the Data tab shows distance, positive and negative elevation, high point, altitude/distance profile. The Analysis tab breaks the route down by surface type (trail, road, single-track). Once you're happy with the trace, click Export (keyboard shortcut X) and pick GPX. The file downloads.
Bikerouter also offers a FIT export (Garmin's native format). Depending on your watch model, the behaviour can be imperfect. Stick with GPX, it's safer and accepted by every app.
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5. Send the track to your watch or smartphone
The GPX is on your computer. Two ways to get it to the field:
- Bikerouter QR code: click "Create Shortlink and QR Code". Scan the QR with your phone, the page opens, you download the GPX directly to your phone. Thirty seconds, no cloud.
- Tap the GPX from your phone: once the file is on the phone, tap it. Android offers Garmin Connect (which sends it to the watch), CoMaps or OsmAnd for hiking, and just about anything except AllTrails. Special case for Ascend Maps: you need to import the file from inside the app itself, because the APK isn't registered in Android's native handlers.
For those who don't want to use a website
The Ascend Maps desktop alternative
Bikerouter runs in the browser. For those who prefer software installed on their PC, Ascend Maps also ships in a Windows desktop version. Same planning capabilities, contours, hillshading, stackable map sources. The project is maintained by Matthew White (solo developer, GPL-3 code on GitHub). It's the equivalent desktop option, without keeping a browser open.
On smartphone, Ascend Maps is also available: iOS via the App Store as a normal download, Android via an APK (manual install). See the Ascend Maps install tutorial for the Android version.
Coming soon
A video shot on a real hike will walk through this workflow end to end, from the click on Bikerouter to the GPS point on the watch. Whenever I find the time after the month in the mountains coming up.
Longer term, I'd like to integrate a planner directly on Hiking3000, on my own servers with my own map tiles. It's a project, not a promise.