Routes and travel modes

Between every pair of consecutive cairns there is a route — the leg. In the itinerary it appears as a pill between the two cairn cards; cairns are cards, routes are pills. Why the leg deserves an honest budget is covered in the routes essay.

Travel modes

Each route has a mode: drive · hike · bike · ski · transit · paddle · walk. The mode decides how the leg is routed on the map and how its distance and duration are estimated — a drive follows roads, a hike follows trail where trail data exists. You can override the estimated duration and distance on any leg; your numbers win.

Custom modes

If the real mode isn't on the list — packraft, horse, via ferrata — choose Other and name it. A custom mode is never auto-routed: the map draws a straight line between the cairns and the duration is whatever you say it is. That's deliberate. No router knows your packraft; a wrong guess dressed up as data is worse than your own estimate.

Route notes and divisions

Routes carry notes — “gate locked after Oct 15, add 2 mi road walk” belongs on the leg, not on either cairn. And any route can become a division: a decision point with a condition and two branches. That gets its own page.