Geotrail

Welcome to Geotrail

Geotrail — Mon Apr 30 14:20:00 -0400 2012

Geotrail is a geosocial enterprise that promotes hiking and outdoor education through interactive online tools. Our growing trail cloud provides information for cities, towns, conservation authorities, parks and agencies as well as eco-tourism and events. Users can search a number of trails, from a number of sources, all in one place.

For trail owners, Geotrail provides tools to help manage, promote and communicate your trail networks and programming.Specialized hikes and tours have a number of points of interest that can be explored through the click of a mouse, giving users a brief look at things to see when they head out on the trail. For more information on these tools, click here.

Geotrail’s goal is simple: To make trails easy, fun, safe and sustainable.

Featured Trail Area

Geotrail — Wed Sep 21 12:00:00 -0400 2011

The Royal Botanical Gardens Trail System

The Royal Botanical Gardens’ trail system is much larger than most people realize.With over 27 kilometres of trails, there is enough to keep an avid hiker occupied for weeks.From a mix of environments, to a variety of locations, the RBG network touches many parts of the Greater Hamilton and Burlington area.

The trail system is essentially broken into four areas:The Escarpment, Cootes Paradise North Shore, Cootes Paradise South Shore, and the Hendry Valley.The Escarpment area, as its name suggest, sits on the Niagara Escarpment, up near Flamborough, with some trails extending down to York Road in Dundas.Hikes here offer amazing views of the area and can test your endurance as you climb up and down the escarpment.There is also some great social and geological history displayed along the trails that give a sense of just how old this area is.

Cootes Paradise North Shore has the RBG Arboretum as it’s major node, although the network extends over to York Road in Dundas.You experience extensive views of Cootes Paradise from various lookout points, as well as on the water from a boardwalk.The variety of heritage trees is another major feature of this area, particularly in the northern portion of the zone, along with the gardens contained at the Arboretum.

Cootes Paradise South Shore is a well travelled trail network that connects McMaster University to Churchill Park and North to the shore of Cootes Paradise.The major trails travel through deep ravines before heading out to peninsulas that extend into Cootes Paradise.Princess Point is one trailhead that offers a great destination for hikes on the South Shore. Above and below are a couple of videos a Geotrail fan uploaded to YouTube showing the Sassafras Trail.

The major feature of the Hendry Valley trails is the Grindstone Creek.An extensive boardwalk gives hikers a unique experience enriched by lively animal life.Further east, the trail follows the meandering Grindstone Creek.To the south, the trails climb towards Plains Road and Hendry Park.

RBG walk? There's an app for that

Geotrail — Thu Sep 15 12:00:00 -0400 2011

THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR

Lush walking trails, waterfalls and rarely seen turtles can all be found in Hamilton's back yard -- and at your digital fingertips.

Hikers, bird watchers and outdoor lovers now have Geotrail, a new high-tech interactive tool to help them map out routes on the Royal Botanical Gardens' 27 kilometres of walking trails.

"There's this growing ability to use online mapping to do all sorts of things," said Geotrail co-founder Paul Shaker. "One niche that we saw could be improved was the outdoor experience and outdoor education."

The Hamilton company created the web service that allows people to plan walking routes based on distance, difficulty level, scenery and duration. It's part of a growing wave of handheld technology applications, or apps, that connect users with the Internet anywhere they go, even the woods.

"You don't just have a dot on a map," Shaker said. "To be able to compare (nature walks) in real time before you head out, you really get a sense of knowledge."

Geotrail also promotes local trails and natural land that don't get much recognition, Shaker added.

That's partly what attracted the RBG to the project because it's much more well-known for its rose and tulip gardens, said Lee Oliver, RBG communications manager.

When Geotrail's Shaker and business partner Gallisedo Bae approached the RBG about the project a couple months ago, "we jumped on it," he said.

"We've been talking about ... how can we better promote the trails to people," Oliver said.

"There's so much amazing technology out there. We're definitely going down that route."

Check out Geotrail on the RBG's website: rbg.geotrail.ca.

[Read the full article here]

RBG hikers, bird watchers benefit from trail software

Geotrail — Wed May 04 15:40:00 -0400 2011

InsideHalton.com

Sometimes, nature and modern society’s technological progress can co-exist.

Thanks to a partnership between the Royal Botanical Gardens and Hamilton-based software developer Geotrail, hikers, bird watchers and nature lovers have a high-tech interactive tool to help them map out routes and plan their time on the RBG’s 27 kilometres of walking trails.

The trails are laid out on interactive Google maps and contain dozens of photos of points of interest on each path.

Visitors can plan their trip based on anything from degree of difficulty, time spent walking, distance covered or for locating waterfalls, bridges, scenic lookouts or interesting historical tidbits.

Experiences shared

After a hike, users can return to the website and share their experience on a blog and rate the trails. To visit the site, go to www.rbg.geotrail.ca or click on the link on RBG’s homepage, www.rbg.ca.

Geotrail in Paradise Found Magazine

Geotrail — Wed Nov 24 11:33:00 -0500 2010

Before you get back to nature ...

Check out the 27 kms of RBG trails online with our latest web-based tool, Geotrail. Plan your hike, plot out the highlights and download the maps to your smart phone.

[Read the full article here]

Geotrail in the News

Geotrail — Tue Aug 24 11:41:00 -0400 2010

RBG walk? There's an app for that - TheSpec.com

Lush walking trails, waterfalls and rarely seen turtles can all be found in Hamilton's back yard -- and at your digital fingertips.

Hikers, bird watchers and outdoor lovers now have Geotrail, a new high-tech interactive tool to help them map out routes on the Royal Botanical Gardens' 27 kilometres of walking trails.

[Read the full article here]

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RBG hikers, bird watchers benefit from trail software - InsideHalton.com

Sometimes, nature and modern society’s technological progress can co-exist...[Read the full article here.]

Geotrail featured on CBC's iDesk

Geotrail — Tue Aug 24 11:37:00 -0400 2010

Geotrail was covered on CBC's iDesk. Mike Wise's program shows highlights of new websites and technology.

"Looking for a some help in picking a hiking route this summer? The Royal Botanical Gardens has created a new online service to help you search among its many routes. "