Hike alone? Check out Yodel to help keep you safe.

Written by Adam Nutting at hikingthetrail.com make sure to check out his blog!

This past weekend I tried a new iPhone app called Yodel. Its a very simple little app that allows you to send information out to people to tell them where you are. I chose to set up 3 friends for my first trip. You can also have it check into Facebook or send out a message to email addresses.  I would typically do this all manually before I went on a hike but the one thing that Yodel provides that I did not have off hand was my coordinates.  Overall the app is very simple to use.  You schedule a notification that transmits your location to your contacts where you are what you are doing and when you will be back. You can set your activity by typing in a short description. Hit save and off you go. A timer keeps track of when you are scheduled to be done and when you reach your completion time a notification pops up that requires you to check in. The program runs in the background to help save battery life.There is also an SOS button to send an emergency message out to your contacts. One of the settings I did not activated  was when you push the SOS button it can  automatically dial 911.    The app is only 99 cents and can be purchased via the Apple app store.

The app was worth the money and worked great. There are only two things I might suggest. The first one is to be able to cancel your scheduled notifications rather than having it notify you your time is up and have to hit cancel before sending the message. The second feature I might suggest is adding integration with a twitter account.

Overall a great little app and it does exactly what they say it will. I would recommend it to anyone who has an iPhone who does any kind of outdoor adventure sports.

To find out more information about the app and the company  please visit their website .