A GPX file is the standard way to move a route between apps and devices. It is plain text, it is not owned by anybody, and every serious navigation app and GPS watch will read one.
This guide covers what HutScanner puts in an export and how to use it sensibly, but most of it applies to any GPX file from any planner.
What is in the export
Exporting an itinerary gives you a GPX 1.1 file containing two things.
A waypoint for every hut on your route. Name, position, and elevation where we have it. This is the load-bearing part of the file, and the part to trust most: a hut's position is a fixed point that we hold, verify and correct, and it is the thing you actually need to find at the end of the day.
One track covering the whole route, with a separate segment for each day's walk. The day labels - "Day 3 - Bonhomme to Elisabetta" - are recorded in the track's description.
That structure is deliberate, and it is worth understanding because it is the most common way a multi-day GPX goes wrong. Several major applications, Garmin Connect's course import and Strava's upload among them, read only the first track in a file and silently discard the rest. A week-long itinerary written as seven separate tracks arrives as day one alone, with nothing anywhere to tell you the other six were thrown away. A single track with per-day segments avoids that: apps that understand segments still show the day breaks, and apps that ignore them still get the whole route. Either way each day boundary is marked by its hut waypoint.
If you are exporting a multi-day route from any planner, this is worth checking on arrival - count the days before you rely on the file.
The important caveat about the track
The tracks are computed estimates over open mapping data, not surveyed trails. They are generated by routing across public path data with a terrain-aware profile, and they are good enough to hand over, which is why we include them. They are not a substitute for a map, and they have not been walked by us.
Two specific things to understand:
Path data can be wrong or out of date. A path that exists in the data may have been washed out, closed, or never really have existed. This is a property of the underlying open data, not of any one planner.
The line is one option among several. Between many pairs of huts there are genuinely different corridors of different difficulty, and the exported track is the variant your settings selected. If you pinned a specific route variant in the app, that is the one you get.
So: carry a proper map, check the route against it, and treat the track as a strong hint rather than an instruction. The waypoints are the reliable part.
Loading it into the common apps
Komoot - import on the web at komoot.com rather than in the app; the mobile app's import is more limited. The imported track becomes a Tour you can then sync for offline use. Komoot will want to re-plan against its own routing if you edit it, which will change the line.
Gaia GPS - import directly in the app or on the web. Handles multiple tracks and waypoints in one file cleanly, which suits a multi-day itinerary. Download the map area for offline use before you leave signal.
OsmAnd - open the file with OsmAnd and it appears under Tracks. Good offline behaviour and it reads the waypoints properly. The one to pick if you want everything working with no signal and no subscription.
Garmin devices - upload via Garmin Connect or copy the file straight to the device's GPX folder over USB. Two things to watch: Connect's course import takes only the first track in a file, which is why a multi-day export should be one track rather than several; and older units cap track point counts and may simplify a long line. Check the route still looks right on the device rather than assuming.
Strava - the same first-track-only behaviour applies on upload. Strava is also a poor fit for a planned route rather than a recorded one; treat it as a sharing destination, not a navigation tool.
Organic Maps, Locus, ViewRanger successors and the rest - all read GPX. The pattern is the same everywhere: import, confirm the waypoints came through, download offline maps for the area.
The offline point
This is the part people get wrong, and it is the one that matters at 2,600 m.
Import the file and download the offline maps before you travel. Not at the airport, not at the hut. Alpine valleys have patchy coverage at best and high cols frequently have none, and the moment you need the route is exactly the moment you will not be able to fetch it.
Check specifically that:
- The offline map area covers your whole route, not just the start
- The waypoints appear on the map with names
- Your phone can find its position with data turned off
- You have a power plan - a battery pack, and the phone in flight mode with the screen off between checks
And carry a paper map and compass that work without any of the above. A phone in the rain at the top of a col is not a navigation system.
Practical habits
Check the day's ascent, not its distance. Hut-to-hut days are frequently 800 to 1,200 m of climbing, and that governs how long they take far more than the kilometres do.
Look at where the track sits against the contours before you set off. If it takes a line you would not have chosen, that is worth knowing at breakfast rather than at the col.
Ask the warden. Conditions change and a printed line does not. The person running the hut below a pass knows what the pass is like today.
Keep the booking confirmations separately from the GPX. They are not in the file, and a phone that has run out of battery holds neither.
HutScanner exports the itinerary as GPX with a waypoint per hut and a routed track per day, and also exports a written booking plan with the dates, the huts and their booking routes. Routes are computed estimates over open mapping data, not surveyed trails - check them against an official map. You book directly with each hut; we are a planning aid, not a booking service.