Mason Wolters

🧑‍💻 Founding engineer @monarch_money
🔨 Solo building @backtrackmaps

[Mason Wolters @masonwolters]

In the end, the drone ended up being far better (and cheaper!) than a plane would have been. It gave me flexibility to choose the right weather windows and unlocked the ability to capture 360º fully geo-referenced panoramas (more on that later!).

#dothingsthatdontscale

[Mason Wolters @masonwolters]

As a new backcountry skier, I was often intimidated by unfamiliar terrain. Looking at aerial imagery beforehand helped me visualize routes and gain confidence, but these images were difficult to find.

So I created Mountain View. It's like Google Street View but for mountains ⛰️

[Mason Wolters @masonwolters]

So that's what I did.

I picked up a DJI drone, five batteries, and a solar charger. Then, I drove to every popular ski zone in Washington, flying the drone directly from the car (legally!) until I collected over 100GB of images on S3.

It worked so well I went to Colorado and did it all over again.

[Mason Wolters @masonwolters]

Hey 👋 I’m Mason.

For the past three years I’ve been quietly building @backtrackmaps, aiming to create the best mapping app for outdoor adventures ⛷️🚵🏕️🧗.

Now, I’m sharing the process and progress with you. Follow along for updates and nerdy map things.

#buildinpublic

[Mason Wolters @masonwolters]

@getKonstantin I’m making this at https://t.co/tI8lbn7l3Q! We diff the bundle and assets so only the necessary bytes are downloaded and the existing bundle is patched. Compatible native versions are also tracked automatically so you can never ship a broken OTA release 🤙