A hiking app for the UK hills

What makes a good hiking app for the UK?

Hills in the UK are small by world standards, but the weather on them is not. A sunny car park in Glen Coe or Wasdale can sit under a summit in cloud, wind and sleet, and the paths that look obvious on a clear day vanish in mist. So a hiking app here has three jobs: get you on a sensible route, keep you on it when you can't see far, and tell you what the top will be like before you leave.

Peakify does those three things first. Routes snap to mapped walking paths. Offline route packs keep your turn instructions and off-route warnings working when the signal drops in a glen. The Mountain Briefing forecasts the summit itself, with the cloud base and freezing level, and you can run it on the Met Office's 2 km model, which sees the hills in more detail than global models.

Plan a route

Start from a summit, a car park or where you are standing.

• Route planner

  Pick one or more summits in order and a start point, or use your location. Peakify snaps the route to mapped walking paths. You can draw waypoints by hand or compare alternatives.

• GPX import

  Open a .gpx file from another app or a website and Peakify loads it, or import one into the route planner.

• GPX export

  Pro

  Export your saved routes and download mountain routes as GPX files for your watch or another mapping app.

• Map styles

  Satellite, topo, streets and dark maps, plus OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap and CyclOSM, which show the footpaths satellite images hide.

Navigate on the hill

Follow the route with your phone in your pocket.

• Offline route packs

  Download a route's path, waypoints and turn instructions before you go. Turn instructions and off-route warnings keep working without signal. Map tiles still need a connection.

• Route preflight

  A checklist before you set off covers the offline pack, your direction of travel and live tracking.

• GPS navigation

  The next instruction, distance and ascent remaining, your ETA, altitude, time to sunset, and an alert when you leave the route.

• Lock Screen Live Activity

  Progress, distance left, ETA, time to sunset and the next direction on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.

Stay safe

Tools for when the day doesn't go to plan.

• Mountain plan

  During navigation Peakify works out your own ETA, a turnaround time, a cloud window and a safety briefing for the route.

• Live tracking link

  Share a peakify.ai link so family and friends can follow you while you are out.

• Emergency SOS

  Your OS grid reference and GPS coordinates, a rescue message to send by SMS or WhatsApp, and a reminder to call 999 or 112 and ask for the police, then mountain rescue. It also explains the UK emergency SMS service.

• Avalanche risk map

  Official avalanche bulletins by region, with an unofficial Peakify conditions index alongside.

Check the summit weather

A forecast for the top, not the nearest town.

• Mountain Briefing

  Conditions at the summit, halfway up and at the base, with the cloud base, the freezing level and one line naming the best weather window.

• Met Office 2 km model

  Pick the weather model behind the forecast, including the UK Met Office 2 km model, ECMWF, ICON and others.

• Offline forecast

  With no signal, the briefing keeps the last forecast it fetched and tells you how old it is.

• Sunrise and sunset

  Sunrise, sunset and twilight for the summit, and time to sunset while you navigate.

Know its limits

No phone is a substitute for a map, a compass and knowing how to use them. Map tiles need a connection, batteries go flat in the cold, and GPS can be out by tens of metres under crags. Download the route pack the night before, carry a power bank, and tell someone where you are going. In an emergency in the UK, call 999 or 112 and ask for the police, then mountain rescue.

Hiking app questions

Where to next

Pick a hill from the best UK mountains to climb, see every feature in the app, or read about the hill bagging app side of Peakify, which ticks off Munros and Wainwrights from your GPS tracks.