Days and cairns

Platform docs · 4 min · Current as of Jul 2026

A trip is a sequence of days, and each day is a sequence of cairns. This page covers building that trunk. The thinking behind it is in The cairn is the unit of commitment.

Adding a cairn

On any day, choose Add cairn. A name is enough to start — location and details can come later. To place it, search for a place or drop a pin on the map; a located cairn immediately starts pulling its own weather and ground elevation.

01Name it — “Cathedral Lakes camp”, not “camp?”

02Locate it — search or drop a pin; coordinates drive weather and the map

03Detail it — activity, arrival time, duration, distance, gain, cost, notes

The fields that matter

Every cairn has an activity — hike, climb, paddle, ski, camp, and a dozen more. If none fits, pick Other and type your own word; your word is what displays everywhere. Elevation is two separate numbers on purpose: the gain/loss you enter for the activity (signed, like +1,200 ft), and the absolute ground elevation Divide looks up automatically once the cairn is located. Difficulty runs 1 (easy) to 5 (extreme) and shows up on the shared itinerary, so the group sees which days are the serious ones.

Drag to reorder

Plans change; the tool assumes it. Drag a cairn within a day to resequence it, or across days to move it — the day numbers, the route line on the map, and the weather dates all follow. You can also drag a cairn into a division branch and back out again; the trunk and every branch are one continuous drag surface.

NoteMoving a located cairn clears its cached ground elevation and refetches it — the old altitude described the old spot. Weather refreshes the same way.