Andrew Johnson (TPR'03) and his partner, Anna Hentzel, are about 11 miles from their home in Truckee, Calif., a mountain community nestled atop the Sierra Nevada Range, just north of Lake Tahoe. Along with two friends, they had taken a short jaunt into the rugged snow-covered terrain and are skiing home. Unexpectedly, they find themselves caught in a blizzard. Their trail disappears under the snow.
Not unprepared, Johnson checks the compass on his GPS device, but he can't get a reading, perhaps because of the cold. He pulls out a map, but without help from the GPS, it's impossible to identify coordinates. With the temperature below freezing and the falling snow, he realizes they're in some danger. The group decides to return to a nearby rest-spot hut where the map on the wall will enable them to navigate safely home.
"That would have been a really good time to have an iPhone that showed you exactly where you were on the map, showed you exactly which way home was," says Johnson.
This wasn't the first time the couple—avid hikers and skiers, whose travels have taken them as far as Mount Kilimanjaro—wished they had better technology for their excursions.
Combining their backgrounds in business, programming, and Web development, they have created a company for outdoor adventurers like themselves. Their collaboration has led to TrailBehind.com and an iPhone application, Gaia GPS, which gives access to reports, pictures, and more than 10 million waypoints for all kinds of outdoor expeditions. It was among iTunes' top 20 navigation apps last year.
—Danielle Commisso (HS'06)
