"Create Route" refuses to snap to the shortest (and obvious) trail
I suppose there may be some gap in the trail I am trying to use to create a route. But starting from Macleay Park (Portland, OR), there's a trail that leads from the traffic circle near the restrooms at NW Upshur St. If I put a starting point there (or anywhere along the Lower Macleay Trail for quite a ways) and then try to add a waypoint further along the trail in snap-to mode, Gaia *always* creates a route that doubles back, climbs to NW Thurman St, zigzags through the local neighborhood streets, and eventually connects to the Wildwood Trail, which it then follows until a junction with the Lower Macleay, which it then backtracks along to the last waypoint. So the app is choosing a route that goes several miles out of the way to cover as short a distance as 50 yards from the prior waypoint.
I've looked at the post about turning snap-to on/off. On iOS at least, if I start in straight-line, that seems to be all I can use for the entire route. If I start in snap-to, switching to straight-line changes prior segments to match.
I've given pretty clear data on what I am doing that gets me this bizarre route. If there was a real way to choose, by segment, which mode to use, I could work around this bug...I think. But there should be some way for me to choose among alternative routes, instead of the app choosing the most stupid possible.
Would also suggest that it would be very desirable to be able undo just the last waypoint, instead of having to clear the route and start over.
I've now spent over an hour trying to create a route for this simple hike, and it's starting to drive me nuts.
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I have ran into the same issue where the route does not snap to the trail when I am planning a route on my computer. Sometimes the route I want is the shortest path other times I'd like to take another path. When creating a route it would be great if I could just click at a junction and then again at path I'd like to select and the route snaps to that route. Also being able to delete the last waypoint would vastly improve usability instead of having to start all over.
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So attempted this walk today, and found that City of Portland had closed the trail for construction right about the point where I was finding that adding another waypoint caused the bizarre detour. Well, I can't see any sign that the trail is closed in the OpenHikingHD map, but the bizarre detour is roughly the city's recommended workaround. So this is probably neither an app issue or a map issue, but a real-world issue.
That said, still would love to see "delete last waypoint" as a GUI option.
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Nathan, if you could please add me to list of people not happy with the route planning / editing functionality. Tried for almost an hour to plan a driving route between some good sized towns in Washington and BC. I first used OpenStreetMap, but at your suggestion above used Gaia Roadmap. The route chosen by Gaia was not the logical route and will send me on nonsensical detours - out and back off a side road or a loop off of the main route. I went back to edit it and the route will not respond to the edits, other times the edits do not hold and the route it reverts to the pre edit. So far I am finding the whole route function cumbersome at best.
The first screen shot shows the "automatic" weird and unwanted detour. The second shot shows that the route would not snap to the road and then after attempting to edit the route around the east side of the lake there was a dot produced, but no change in the route - even after refreshing the screen.
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Similar issues here. Create a route page is very buggy. It's much easier to build a route in Strava then export it to GPX then upload here, but that is not ideal at all. Also, if your route backtracks over the inbound portion of your route, things get really wacky - a return to start option would be nice.
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I'm having same issue. I primarily got this app because it was supposed to "snap to trail" but this feature doesn't work well at all. Very frustrating and doesn't seem to make sense. Also can't do out and back in one route even if you use the straight line method, have to break it into two segments which is annoying. Not sure why you can't use the same system that Caltopo uses which is so much easier and works perfectly. I just bought the app yesterday and I'm seriously considering requesting a refund as the main feature I wanted in this app is unusable.
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I hate to pile on but when I saw this thread I immediately sympathized with everyone. Gaia is an awesome product and I have used it extensively over the years, but the snap to route/trail functionality has wasted hours of my time. You can never predict when it's going to work and when it's not. Anything to improve this feature would be much appreciated!
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Hi all,
For the 'extra legs' getting added, we discovered it was a bug with one of the providers we use to make the snap to trail work, and we're working with them to get it fixed.
For other issues with the router, an important thing to note is that some maps show trails that aren't available for routing. To avoid this frustration, I highly suggest using Gaia Topo when planning routes to see what should work and what shouldn't.
If there is a trail you want to work with the router, but it isn't available, you can add it! The router uses data from OpenStreetMap.org. Here is a blog post we wrote about updating OSM: https://blog.gaiagps.com/map-your-world-with-openstreetmap/
For all other issues, you can email support by clicking 'Submit a Request' at the top of this page. And let us know where you are trying to create a route and what's happening. Screenshots and coordinates are very helpful!
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So apparently this problem still exists. I have tried everything to get it to stop adding routes to my track I'm building. It has added on an extra 600 miles and I'm using gaia too and one satellite. I'm trying to run a Route from Las Vegas to Reno all on dirt roads but the maps are just not cooperating. Help would be appreciated before I break my new tablet.
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@onecool1929
I'm sorry you are having an issue creating your route.
Can you let me know if have the same issue when creating and editing the route in the app? From your screenshot, it looks like you are using the mobile version of Chrome. -
I'm here with the same issue. I am using the ios app, trying to create a route that follows a well established trail. The first leg easily snaps to the trail but the next sections only go in a straight line. I am using the hiking mode and have also tried the cycling mode--neither works. This trail follows a logging road, so it is not a blazed trail by any means. Very frustrating.
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@cwcassella
I'm sorry for the frustration - I believe I responded to a similar post of yours in the forums here: https://help.gaiagps.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360013960913-Snap-to-trail-not-working-at-all?page=1#community_comment_360004114234
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