Yesterday, my boyfriend and I were itching to get outdoors, so we decided to hike the Coldstream Valley Trail in Truckee, Calif. Truckee is great–it has a Tahoe-like vibe but without the large crowds that swarm Tahoe’s trails during the summer. We thought it would be a good time to try out a hiking and trails app, too, so we downloaded My Tracks (available for Android and iPhone) to help us track our progress.

Coldstream Valley is a few miles away from the heart of Truckee, but it’s easy to find right off the freeway. The trail starts with a road that passes a campground, and eventually leads to the stream. Depending on how far you go, you’ll eventually hit a few large ponds along the stream. We hiked about two and a half miles in, and about a mile was uphill. It’s a great trail, well maintained and mostly shaded by trees.

My Tracks really came in handy while we were out trekking. It served as a map, and also kept track of our progress. When we got home, we were able to upload our path to Google Earth, and it played a video of exactly where we went! I’ll try to figure out a way to upload the video because it’s pretty cool (any idea on how to export a Google Earth file as a video?). Here are some of our stats.

This trail was a great find–it wasn’t busy at all, either, on the Sunday before Fourth of July, which is usually when people plan to go camping. We also stopped at the Fifty Fifty Brewery on the way back home for some locally brewed beer.

I’d say it was a successful adventure!