Ask the map

Type a question into search on glassing.app, and the map moves to the answer.

On glassing.app, the search field takes a question as well as a name. Type a sentence and choose Ask the map at the top of the results. The map moves to show the answer, and a short reply in the sidebar says what it shows and why. Ask the map is on glassing.app only.

What to ask

Ask about the ground the way you would ask someone who knows it. Name a place, or move the map there first. Questions about "here" or "this" mean the middle of the map, and "where I clicked" means the last spot you clicked.

For hiking:

• "How do I get to Aneroid Lake?"
• "Best trailhead for Eagle Cap"
• "Show slope angle and public land on satellite"
• "Where's the shade at 4 pm?"

For backpacking:

• "Plan an overnight to Minam Lake from Two Pan this Saturday"
• "1 night, 5 to 10 miles a day, a loop if possible, near Packwood, WA"
• "How much climbing is on my Eagle Cap loop?"

For hunting, in Oregon:

• "Elk hunts within 10 miles of Wallowa Lake"
• "Where can I glass the north face of Chief Joseph Mountain from?"
• "Closed roads I can walk in on near where I clicked"
• "How many points does it take to draw 258X?"

Hiking and backpacking questions work across the US. Hunting questions are answered in Oregon only, because Oregon's hunts are the ones on the map.

Ask can show your own waypoints, routes, tracks, and trips by name, like "show my elk wallow". It can't save, rename, or delete anything.

Answers move the map

An answer flies the map, changes the base map or layers, and marks what it found with numbered pins. The numbers match the list in the reply. Click one to open it.

Below the reply, suggested follow-ups narrow the answer. Type your own in Ask a follow-up at the bottom of the sidebar. A follow-up carries on from the answer, so "only the deep ones" or "steeper" works. A new question in the search field starts a new conversation from the map in view.

Library at the top of the sidebar, or Escape, leaves the conversation. The map stays where the answer left it.

Route cards

When you ask for a route, a loop, or a trip, each route the planner found gets a card in the reply, with its trails, distance, time, climb, and any closure it crosses. The one Ask recommends says Suggested, and the map frames them all. A trip lists its camps on its card, each with its distance in, its elevation, and its water, and marks them on the map.

Click a card to open it in the route planner, with the other routes listed beside it. Save it there, the same as any planned route. A trip's card opens the trip itself, a day for each stretch and a stop for each camp, and saving it there keeps it as a trip that goes to your phone. A rest day at a camp shows as one night there in the planner, and the saved trip's notes keep the rest day. Going back from the planner returns you to the conversation.

Undo and Stop

Undo puts the map back the way it was before the last question: the view, the layers, the pins, and any route cards and camps. Press it again to step back further, one question at a time.

While Ask is working, Stop takes Undo's place. What Ask already changed stays on the map, and Undo takes it back.

Asked before

Click the empty search field to see Asked before: your last four searches and questions, newest first. Click one to open the conversation as it ended, with its answers, its pins, and the view it left. See all lists the last 25, where you can remove one or clear them all.

Asked before is kept in this browser only. It is never sent anywhere, and signing out clears it.

Subscription and monthly limit

Asking the map comes with a subscription. Search by name, address, or coordinate stays free.

Each account can ask 300 questions a month, and each follow-up counts as one. After that, the Ask row says You've used this month's asks, and search still works. The count starts over at the beginning of each month.

Needs a connection

Ask the map works online only. If the connection drops or asking isn't working, the row says Asking isn't working right now, and your sentence goes back into the field as a search. Choose the row to try again.

Check the answer

Answers can be wrong. Ask reads Glassing's map data, which has the same limits as the layers it comes from (see Sources and limits), and it can misread a question. Check a route, a closure, a hunt's dates, or whose land you're on with the land manager, ODFW, and the signs on the ground before you go.

What's sent

To answer, Glassing sends your question, your follow-ups, and the names of the places in view to Anthropic, whose model reads the question and chooses what the map should do. What the map finds goes too, as names and numbers. If you ask about something you saved, the names of the waypoints, routes, tracks, and trips that match go as well.

Locations are never sent. Neither are your saved items' notes, photos, or dates, or the names of private landowners. A coordinate you type is replaced before your question leaves the browser.

Glassing counts how many questions each account asks, and does not keep what you asked. Anthropic does not train its models on your questions. See the Privacy Policy for the rest.

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