WaterGauge

WaterGauge is a mobile app (with an optional web dashboard) that helps hikers and trekkers plan around the most failure-prone resource on trail: water. It combines official water reports (where available), crowdsourced check-ins (flowing/trickle/dry), seasonality, recent weather, and route elevation to estimate water reliability along a planned route. The app works offline once you download a region, and it nudges users to submit quick, low-friction updates at trailheads and water sources. An AI layer summarizes recent reports into a simple confidence score per source and flags “high-risk gaps” between sources based on your pace and temperature. Brutal reality: you won’t beat full-featured navigation apps head-on, so WaterGauge stays narrowly focused on water decisions and integrates with GPX imports rather than trying to replace maps.