Colorado preferred trail navigation app COTREX has its own flaws, hikers say

When you set out for a hike, there's a motto to remember "know before you go," but even the best plans fall apart.

"I'm already confused," CBS reporter Karen Morfitt said while testing out the state-run trail explorer app, COTREX.

Mike Thompson who lives and plays in Northern Colorado was the guide.

"I have been here since 2008 and just really love the outdoors and getting out on the trail running, hiking, peak bagging, climbing, mountain biking," he said.

His past includes a career as a software engineer with two decades in geographic information systems also known as GIS.

"Basically, it's the tools and techniques and software to capture store manage visualize and analyze data about the earth," Thompson said.

His passions collided when he was introduced to COTREX to navigate around the backcountry.

"I noticed a lot of good things about its beautiful topography and a lot of good base map information and parking areas trailheads and so on, but I immediately noticed just because of my experience on the trails that there were a lot of trails that were wrong," Thompson said.

He showed us some of the issues he's identified everything from trails being mislocated, misnamed, and some missing altogether or on the app but not in reality.

His concern heightened when he trails, he flagged, Fox Creek Trail in Larimer County, which became the focus of a search for a lost hiker.

"I had tried to hike it a number of years ago and at some point, there was so much flood debris from 2013 that I just gave up so when I saw it in COTREX, I alerted them through the right click of course nothing ever happened and I heard about that someone had gotten lost and unfortunately passed away in that general area and I reached out again," Thompson said.

Not long after that, he got an email from Colorado Parks and Wildlife the department running the app that said the trail would be removed. A decision that came despite prior communication that changes could only come from an official source.

CPW says it relies on land managers like the U.S. Forest Service, national parks or individual counties for all its trail information.

"Get your verified trail info from COTREX," an advertisement for the app boasts.

That's different from commercial apps that rely on crowdsourcing for information.

"In other words, people can contribute information to it residents and trail visitors and oftentimes that information can be questionable so distances difficulties restrictions," Jefferson County park ranger, Mary Ann Bonnell said.

Her team sends updates on their trails regularly and she says rarely has there been a lag in the information making it to the app.

"Our GIS team is wonderful they are very proactive they work directly with the field team so say our trails team decides to do a reroute our trails team will walk the trail and provide a GIS data set to our GIS team or they love getting out so they may do it themselves," she added.

They are one of eight county, state, and federal public land agencies behind NOCO places, a group collaborating on ways to address the challenges they're facing in the mountains and foothills from high visitation and a growing population.

COTREX is their preferred app.

"Compared to the crowdsourced it is going to be far less of an occurrence than some of the issues on the crowdsource apps in my mind those somebody is really looking for errors," Bonnell said.

CBS News Colorado asked to look at the feedback from app users from January to August and found several concerns being raised from private land concerns to trail reroutes.

One commenter said, "changed to downhill only, bike only, not updating at least that is a safety hazard" to another asking for more information. "Can someone recommend a more reliable source for trail conditions?"

Colorado Parks and Wildlife declined an interview but said the frequency of their map updates is made on a case-by-case basis.

"In some cases, agencies require their staff to go, and field verify reported discrepancies so they can ensure their data is updated accurately and there are not any user-created trails being referenced. We leave the final decision up to our land management partners, which can take some additional time to make those corrections," CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan responded.

For Thompson it's not about one app being better than the other - it's about having the right information.

"I think that if you are going to provide an app to supposedly help people recreate safely in the backcountry it should be as accurate as possible."

In general backcountry experts say it's best to have multiple options for navigation.

Most trailheads provide paper maps, or you can snap a photo of the map there as well. Another suggestion is to find a hiking group or go with someone familiar with the area.