So it’s decided! The things are packed, and you’re going to Alps, Aspen or Urals in a couple of days. Your passion for skiing is entirely praiseworthy, but apart from enthusiasm, equipment, and good health insurance, you will also need one more thing: a proper map application for your mobile gizmo.

Skiers, hikers, cyclists, and other brave adventurers – GPS on Ski map by Maprika will be gladly at your service.

A tourist magic wand

Maprika maps app is inadvertent when it comes to figuring out where exactly you are going, how exactly you’re going to get there. And probably what exactly you’re going to do there. Because Maprika knows answers to all of these questions.

The application is so helpful thanks to:

• Colossal map database – more than 10.300 maps can be installed via Maprika at the moment – an astounding number. You can see the paper maps, terrain/satellite pictures, maps with various layers, landmarks etc.
• Details – Maprika will help you find a track for hiking and cycling, national parks, coffee shops and cafeterias, hotels, motels, and businesses. Moreover, you can learn other people’s opinion on a certain place through Twitter feeds.
• Journey tracking – you can track your entire trip to share it with someone or study your route later to make some corrections/improvements.
• Moreover, people you trust can be aware of where you are at the moment, which in turn guarantees more safety.
• Offline use – in case the mobile signal says adios! you won’t have to panic. Maprika allows to select parts of the World Map and save them on your device – the lost connection won’t be a bad surprise.  

Besides the application has little widgets: a compass, speed & altitude meters, zooming function, friends online and show my location button.

Ski wizard

What Maprika is really famous for is its profound knowledge of ski resorts and trails. If you find Scandinavian countries on the map, you’ll be instantly shown Finnish Teijo resort or Swedish Idre Fjall. In France, you’ll see Courchevel, in Canada Whistler and Verbier in Switzerland.

The resorts are put on the map as bright red M marks, and if you tap on one of them, the app will offer you to install the detailed map.

Weaknesses

Maprika is a handy map app, but sadly it has its own issues yet to be solved.

Firstly it comes to battery life. The app gormandizes the energy so fast, specifically when the Tracking mode is on, so you might need to have a spare battery with you just in case.

And second, some of the maps that you can download are a little old. Of course when it comes to the big cities and popular parks, trails and resorts – the info will be relatively fresh. But smaller villages and towns and less known places suffer from this kind of neglect.

At least you can always employ one of the online map-services supported in Maprika. On the menu you have: Google Road/Satellite/Terrain, ArcGIS, OpenStreetMap, OpenCycleMap, USGS Topo and more.

Verdict

GPS on Ski map by Maprika deserves to be on your phone. Either as a primary or a backup map application. Its gargantuan collection of maps, live-GPS tracking, user-designed maps, active community, Online-Offline feature and an enormous database of ski resorts overweigh the little drawbacks in the long run.