Find a trail

Help guide · Updated June 25, 2026

What this is. The Find a trail panel lets you discover the trails and forest roads near where you're looking — by panning the map, or by typing a name. Results come from the same National Forest and trail datasets the app already renders, so everything you see is also tappable. Works fully offline once tiles for the area are cached.

Open the panel

Tap the trail icon in the toolbar at the top of the map.

Toolbar at the top of the map, with the Find a trail icon highlighted. — The trail icon sits in the main toolbar, between Find a spot and My location.

A panel slides up from the bottom with everything you need.

Find a trail panel opened, showing the Routes tab with a list of forest roads in the current viewport. — The number next to the title — here, **100** — is how many results were found.

Trails vs. Routes

Two tabs split the world the way most people think about it.

Trails — named footpaths and singletrack (National Forest trails). Best for hiking, biking, horse.
Routes — drivable roads, including National Forest Service roads, BLM roads, and MVUM routes — with surface info like "Dirt Road, Suitable for Passenger Car" or "Road, Not Maintained for Passenger Car."

Trails tab selected, showing named footpaths. — Switching tabs changes both the list and the search placeholder.

Two ways to find something

1. Pan around the map

By default, the list shows everything in the current viewport. Drag or zoom the map and the list re-queries.

Follow map (the blue toggle) — auto-refreshes the list as you pan and zoom. Leave it on.
Refresh (the circular arrow) — manual refresh for the times you want a static list while you pan.

The header reads 100 routes in viewport so you always know what's been counted.

2. Search by name

Tap the search box and type any part of a trail or route name. The list switches to name matches across the whole state — viewport filters don't apply while you're searching.

Search for 'midland' returning 5 matching trails, with segment counts shown for fragmented routes. — Searching for *midland* narrows from 100 viewport results to 5 by-name matches.

A few things to notice while searching:

The count badge and header update (5 trails matching "midland" in CO).
Follow map dims — search results aren't viewport-bound.
The × in the search box clears the query and returns you to viewport mode.
A long trail published in many pieces — a state-line bike trail, for example — is collapsed to a single row with a · 56 segments hint, instead of cluttering the list with fifty near-identical entries.

Open a trail

Tap any row to open a detail screen.

Detail screen for a selected trail. Action icons sit in the top-right.

You'll see, depending on what the data publisher provides:

Reported length under the title.
Elevation profile — an interactive chart with total distance, ascent (↑) and descent (↓), and min/max elevation.
Trail type, maintainer, open to (Hike, Bike, Horse, OHV…).
All properties — expand to see every raw field from the source dataset.

Hit ← Back to list to return to results without losing your filter or search.

The action row

Five icons sit at the top right of the detail screen. Each one is a quick action on the selected trail.

Navigate

Starts turn-by-turn navigation. If you're not on the trail yet, it drives you to the trailhead first and then switches to trail-following with off-trail alerts. Auto-minimizes the panel so the map is in view.

Directions

Opens driving directions to the trailhead in Apple Maps — the iOS Maps app on iPhone, or maps.apple.com in a browser. Useful when you want the standard car-nav experience to get there.

Show on map

Recenters and zooms the map to fit the trail, highlights its geometry, and drops a labeled pin. The panel auto-minimizes so you can see what you selected.

Play flyover

A cinematic 3D fly-through of the route, rendered in a parallel hidden map so your main view isn't disturbed. Requires a signed-in account (the flyover uses the Topo 3D basemap).

Favorite

Saves the trail to your favorites with a rating. Tapping the star opens a 1-to-5 picker — choose any star to commit. Once favorited, the star fills yellow and a Remove favorite option appears.

After tapping Show on map: the trail is highlighted in green and a labeled pin marks Midland Trail. The panel collapsed to a thin header at the top. — **Show on map** in action: highlighted geometry, labeled pin, collapsed panel.

Tapping the star opens a 'Rate to add' popover with five star options. — **Favorite** opens a 1-to-5 rating before saving — no rating means the trail isn't actually saved yet.

Get out of the way

The panel header has three sizing controls.

Minimize — collapse to a thin header pill so you can interact with the map underneath. Your selection is preserved.
Maximize — go full-screen for long elevation charts or to scroll all properties without losing context.
Close — dismiss the panel entirely.

Minimized state: the dialog collapses to a thin header at the top, with a Restore button to bring it back. — Minimized — tap the **Restore** icon to bring the panel back.

Tips

Works offline. Once you've cached tiles for an area, the panel reads from those tiles directly — no signal needed. Name search is exact-substring offline (no fuzzy ranking).

"100 in viewport" feels overwhelming? Zoom in further, or type a name fragment to narrow. The viewport count caps at 100, so an unzoomed view almost always hides more than it shows.

Routes and Trails route differently. Picking a Route and tapping Navigate gives you turn-by-turn drivable directions. Picking a Trail gives you trail-following with off-trail warnings once you reach the trailhead.