Privacy
Effective 2026-08-28 · written by a person, in plain words
The short version
- No account. We never ask for your name, email, or phone number, and we don't sell personal information.
- We use analytics (PostHog) to see how the site is used, and Google Ads conversion tracking to see whether the ads we buy bring people who actually use the map.
- Your GPS position stays in your browser. Recorded tracks are stored on your device, not our servers.
- Everything degrades gracefully: block the analytics and ad domains and the site still works fine.
§1What we don't collect
There are no accounts, sign-ups, or forms. We don't collect your name, email address, or phone number, and we don't sell personal information. The site shows no ads of its own today.
§2Product analytics
We use PostHog (US-hosted) to understand how the site is used, so we can improve it. It records:
- Page views and feature events — things like "the map loaded", "a filter was used", "a trail's details were opened", "an offline region was downloaded". Event names, not content.
- Session replays — a reconstruction of how the interface was used: taps, scrolling, and the page's controls. Text you type into inputs is masked by default, and the map itself (a canvas) is not captured. Replays are kept for 30 days.
- Diagnostics — JavaScript errors, browser console output, and page/network performance timings, used to find and fix bugs. Other analytics data is kept for up to 7 years.
- Your IP address — received with each event and used to derive an approximate location (city/region level).
Analytics honors your browser's Do Not Track setting: with DNT on, PostHog doesn't run.
§3Advertising measurement
We buy Google search ads to help people find the site. To know whether that money is wasted, we use Google Ads conversion tracking (the Google tag, gtag.js): if you arrive from one of our ads, Google sets a cookie tied to that ad click, and we report back two anonymous events — "opened the map" and "viewed a trail's details". This measures ads; it doesn't identify you to us.
Google may also use its cookies to personalize the ads you see elsewhere (remarketing). You can turn that off at adssettings.google.com or opt out of interest-based ads generally at optout.aboutads.info. How Google uses this data is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
§4Location, three different kinds
- Rough location from your IP — on a cold start we ask our edge server roughly where you are (city/region, derived from your IP by Cloudflare) so the map opens near you instead of in Colorado. We don't store it.
- Your GPS — used only if you grant the browser permission, and used in your browser: to show your position, find what's near you, record tracks, and warn you when you're off-route. It is not sent to our servers. Recorded tracks are saved in your browser's own storage on your device.
- The map area you're viewing — fetching map tiles necessarily tells the tile server which area you're looking at, and the current map view is part of the page address, which analytics sees. That's the area on screen, not your position.
§5Who your browser talks to
The map is assembled live from public data services. Your browser fetches tiles and data directly from them, so — as with any map site — they see your IP address and the areas requested. In particular:
- Government services — USGS, USFS, NPS, BLM, NASA, and the National Weather Service (basemaps, boundaries, recreation sites, fire and air-quality data, forecasts).
- Esri/ArcGIS and AWS hosts — some agency layers and elevation data are served from their clouds.
- OpenStreetMap services — OSM basemap tiles; and when you search for a place by name, the text you typed goes to OSM's Nominatim geocoder to be resolved.
- Routing — driving-time estimates send the start and end coordinates to an OSRM routing service.
- Our own servers — trail data and elevation tiles from
reckontrails.com domains (hosted on Cloudflare, which keeps standard server logs), and the viewshed tool sends the map point you clicked to our server to compute the answer.
Representative hosts: basemap.nationalmap.gov · apps.fs.usda.gov · mapservices.nps.gov · gis.blm.gov · gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov · api.weather.gov · server.arcgisonline.com · services*.arcgis.com · s3.amazonaws.com · tile.openstreetmap.org · nominatim.openstreetmap.org · tile.waymarkedtrails.org
§6Stored on your device
Preferences (filters, map position, chosen layers), downloaded offline regions, and recorded GPS tracks live in your browser's local storage on your device. They never round-trip through our servers, and clearing the site's data in your browser removes them completely — there's no copy anywhere else.
§7Cookies
| Cookie / storage | Who sets it | What it's for |
|---|
_gcl_aw (~90 days) | Google tag, first-party | Remembers that you arrived from one of our ads, so a later "opened the map" can be credited to it. |
| Google ad cookies | Google, third-party | Conversion measurement and ad personalization — see §3 for opt-outs. |
ph_… (~1 year) | PostHog | A random ID so repeat visits count as the same anonymous visitor. |
rt.* local storage | ReckonTrails | Your own settings — filters, layers, map view. Not tracking; never leaves your device. |
§8Your choices
- Turn on Do Not Track and analytics doesn't run.
- Opt out of Google ad personalization at adssettings.google.com.
- Content blockers that block the analytics or ad domains don't break anything — use one freely.
- GPS features only run if you grant the browser permission, and work without it (you just won't see your own position).
- Clear the site's data in your browser to remove everything stored on your device.
§9The boring but necessary
The site isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. When our practices change, this page changes with them — the effective date at the top is the tell. Questions, or want something deleted? Email [email protected] — it reaches the one person who runs this.