One of the ways that I’ve incorporated technology into my hiking journey is by tracking my hikes on my apple watch. I wear my apple watch everyday to meet goals, track steps, and record my workouts. Usually, I just glance at the data and don’t analyze my stats each day. However, when I go hiking, I love to analyze and reflect on the workout summary. Right before I start my hike, I select the hiking option on my watch so that I can get the most information possible. As my hike progresses, I get a notification when I reach a new mile or achieve a specific goal. This is great because it keeps me motivated, especially on a long and tougher hike. The hiking setting on my watch tracks the hiking route, the workout time, the distance, the elevation, a progression and average of my heart rate, the miles/mile times, my average pace, the amount of steps, and the calories burned.

I don’t set specific goals or expectations for myself in terms of stats because I just like to enjoy myself when I hike, but I’m often pleasantly surprised by my output and achievements when I look back. It is really interesting to see how my pace and heart rate fluctuate throughout the duration of the hike. One of my favourite things to do is to compare my stats if I do the same hike multiple times. Although factors such as who you hike with, the weather, how busy it is and how tired you are will impact your success, more often than not, my stats improve when I repeat a hike. This encourages me to challenge myself and makes me excited to hike more. I often look back on my previous hikes if I’m trying to decide which hike to do on a specific day because I can look at the difficulty and the length of each hike based on my stats. This is more accurate than googling this information as the time and difficulty will vary for each person.

My apple watch is a really efficient and effective way to implement technology into my hikes. As I already wear my watch daily, it is super convenient and doesn’t take away from the experience. I can also use my watch to call/text or look at my location which is a good safety measure when I’m exploring new trails. Although this is an obvious feature, it is helpful to access the time so easily for various reasons.

Below I have attached screenshots of a few of my hikes/walks that I found in my apple watch history.