TrekWeather
Weather For Your Colorado Adventures
For now, I source my weather data from 2 places:
- The National Weather Service (NWS)
- DarkSky
I prefer the National Weather Service, but being a free API, it has a lot of problems. Namely it crashes a lot. The result is a bad user experience as users wait indefinitely for the 3 and 7-Day forecasts to load.
I think the data from the NWS too good not to use, so I built in the option to allow users to toggle weather providers. So now a user can see the 3 and 7-Day forecasts from DarkSky OR the NWS. If the NWS is taking its good old time, the app will soon automatically switch over to DarkSky's forecast.
Also wow - what a difference in forecasts between 2 weather providers; especially when dealing with mountain forecasts!
DarkSky will typically have a forecast that is a bit different than the NWS's forecast. My hypothesis is that by giving the users the option to view several forecast among different providers for the same location, we will help them make safe decisions while in the backcountry.
So it is a win win!
Any other ideas on how to solve this bad API problem?
Caching? A Paid NWS API?
Cheers!
We put our product up on Product Hunt.
So far, we received 30 upvotes. Not a ton, but that means 30 people like our idea. That feels good. The best however, was a a comment left by a Product Hunt user:
"As an avid climber of 14ers and skier, this looks useful! Thanks."
Validation of your idea feels amazing, and this is the kind of steam that will keep me going. Building something that helps even just one person feels great. So thank you random Product Hunt User! You made my day.
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Well, Ryan Hoover commented on it so that’s an accomplishment! My sister lives in Golden so I’ll be sure to pass this along to her. She’s trying to hike all of the 14ers in Colorado.
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Much appreciated!
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Congrats on the launch 🙌 1 person loving your product is way better than a 100 saying "looks nice, I could see this being useful to others", so congrats on that as well!
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I agree and thank you very much!
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Congrats!
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Danke!
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Nice congrats on the launch. I can agree about the validation but what I found that the underlying amazing feeling that it gives is caused by seeing your product be useful to someone impacting their life, even in the smallest way. This in and of it self is validation that you produced something useful versus just validating its a "good idea". Great stuff. I love the landing page btw!
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Thank you - I spent way too long on the landing page. Coloring clouds in GIMP. HA it was fun. It makes me smile - I guess that counts.
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How did you do the floating clouds in the background of the hero?
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Hi!
I have a png I made in photoshop of clouds that I move ever so slowly across the page
background-size: contain; -moz-animation: MOVE-BACKGROUND 60s infinite linear; -webkit-animation: MOVE-BACKGROUND 60s infinite linear; animation: MOVE-BACKGROUND infinite linear;@keyframes MOVE-BACKGROUND { from { transform: translateX(0); } to { transform: translateX(-1600px); } }The PNG's background is transparent so it gives the illusion of moving clouds.
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Nice. Very interesting. I'm considering doing something like this for my new landing Page but instead of the clouds I want to have some icons floating behind it.
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From what I can tell, there is no good way get a list of all snow-stake camera urls for all the ski resorts in Colorado. If anyone knows a good way, please send me a message.
So… for the first version, I was able to launch with 15 resorts. Luckily, these were relatively easy - I was able to find a static url with the latest snow-stake image. With a simple cron task, I ping the url, download the image, format it, and upload it to Amazon’s S3. It runs every 15 minutes.
Check out Loveland Ski Area!
https://trekweather.com/us/colorado/ski-area/loveland-ski-area/22525
Sadly, for the next 15 resorts, I was unable to figure find a static url, so I assume I will need to somehow hook into a video stream, take a screenshot, download it, format it, upload it to S3, and display it. Web scraping anyone? 🤦
Sometimes simple features, like being able to search a ski resort and see it’s snow-stake are by far the hardest and most brittle to build. Stay tuned (no pun intended) for the next batch of ski resorts
Cheers,
Bret - Founder of TrekWeather
I recently left my day-to-day developer job to take a 3-month “sabbatical” with the goal of launching and building out my weather app, TrekWeather. Prior to leaving my job, I used Google Domains to purchase my domain - trekweather.com. Sometimes with google, it can be quite difficult to see what email you are logged in under. Of course, I was logged in with my work email, and of course, I purchased my domain with my work email… and of course, I realized ALL OF THIS on my last day of work.
Having no time, I wasn’t able to transfer the domain. I could have granted an admin role to my personal email, but the owner role was still tied to work email. Slowly the realization came to me that my only choice was to DELETE my domain. I had to give up my rights to my domain name.
When the dust settled, I learned that with Google Domains you have 30 day grace period to “recover” a deleted domain. I called Google to recover my domain, using my personal email instead of my work email. They said ok, but it would cost $100.
Bootstrapping it all the way, I took my chances, and decided to let trekweather.com go back on the open market, hoping desperately that when the time came, someone wouldn’t purchase it before me.
37 days of waiting later, trekweather.com was finally available for purchase, and I was able to launch!
What did I learn: The simple things are where you make your mistakes. Move slowly when making small mouse clicks with big consequences.
Four years ago, in June, I was nearly struck by lightning while climbing Mt. Bierstadt, a popular 14,000 foot peak in Colorado. The storm moved in relatively early, but in hindsight given the high probability of storms for that day, I should have stayed home. All in all 15 people around me were struck by lightning, and a dog was killed. It was a terrifying experience; an experience that I never want anyone to have to go through.
Since that day in June, I have always made it a priority to know the weather for each and every one of my outdoor adventures. The problem was that it was difficult to find detailed forecasts for a specific trail, peak, backcountry ski route, etc. Sure, I could search the nearest town, but in the Colorado Rockies, that doesn’t really help.
There is also Weather.gov; which is an EXCELLENT website for weather. But even after years of use, I still find myself clicking around clumsily trying to find the relevant information. Over the years, I found my “go to” sources for weather, but it always meant that I needed to access several sites to find the information I was looking for.
Why wasn’t there a tool focused on weather for outdoor adventures with all the relevant information displayed in 1 neat mobile-friendly website?
With this in mind, I decided to build TrekWeather. My goal is to create a modern simplistic website where users can search for specific trails, peaks, and ski resorts to get a detailed and pinpointed weather forecast.
I hope it helps the outdoor enthusiast travel safely while being in the places they love.
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