Avalanche terrain
Terrain class, not danger
- Ski spots carry an ATES-style terrain class (simple, challenging or complex). It is a static, slope-based description of the terrain, approximated from elevation data.
- It is never an avalanche danger rating. Danger changes with snowpack and weather every day; this app does not know or compute it.
- Before any trip, check the current forecast from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center at avalanche.state.co.us, carry rescue gear, and have avalanche training. Challenging and complex terrain asks you to acknowledge this again before its location is shown.
Private land and trespass
- Private land is excluded from results, but ownership data can be wrong or out of date. Posted signs and the landowner win. If in doubt, stay out.
- Colorado streams: under People v. Emmert (Colo. 1979) and C.R.S. 18-4-504.5, you may float through private land on a stream, but touching a privately owned streambed or banks (wading, standing, anchoring, portaging) is trespass.
Float-only reaches
Stream reaches through private land are tagged float-only. That tag never means you may wade or fish from the bottom there.
Float-only
Local rules vary
County and city open space, state parks, wildlife areas and national forests each have their own rules: hours, fees, seasonal wildlife closures, dog and camping rules, and fishing regulations (you need a Colorado Parks and Wildlife license to fish). Check the park or managing agency's current rules before you go.
Park rules apply
Leave No Trace
Plan ahead, travel and camp on durable surfaces, pack out all waste, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife, and be considerate of other visitors. Quiet places stay quiet only if we keep them that way: don't geotag or post exact locations.
Scores are estimates
Scores are estimates built from public data proxies, not guarantees. A high score means the data suggests a place may be good or uncrowded, not that it is, that it's accessible, or that it's safe.
Each spot shows two separate ratings, never blended: quality (is it good to fish, ski, climb or camp here?) and solitude (how unlikely are you to meet people?). Each is a word in five steps that ranks a spot against the others of its own activity: Excellent means the top 20% of that activity's spots on the map, and solitude runs from Busier than most to Very quiet. By default the map lists hidden gems first: a spot ranks by the weaker of its two ratings, so it has to be both good and quiet.
Each activity's model is in one of three states. Tested: checked against places people know, and it passed. Experimental: tested, and it fell short (the card says how far). Untested: not yet checked against known good spots. Treat Experimental and Untested words as leads, not promises.
Privacy
Your spots are never shown to other users, in the app or its admin screens. They're used only to improve the model. The model may still independently find and show similar places, including these. They're stored on a private server that John runs. To check each spot, its coordinates are sent, without your name, to public government map services (land ownership, land cover, water and elevation).
Your account is just a username and password; there's no email address. Exact spot locations on the map are only shown when you ask for one, and each of those requests is logged.
The map tiles come from USGS (The National Map) and OpenStreetMap, so those services see your IP address and the map area you're viewing, including where you zoom in to drop a pin. The land-ownership check on the spots you share uses a PAD-US map service that Esri hosts on ArcGIS Online.