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Strava Opens Up About FATMAP, Winter 3D Mapping

Originally posted on Powder | By Max Ritter | Last updated Apr 2, 2025 7:02 AM ET

The 2024-25 ski season was a strange one for many reasons: weird weather and snowfall patterns, big developments in the gear industry, big upsets in the ski racing and freeride comp world, and the first winter that many backcountry skiers didn't have access to the 3D mapping tool FATMAP.

Last fall, after being purchased by Strava, FATMAP was shut off for good, with users losing access to a powerful 3D mapping mobile app that enabled them to view high-resolution winter imagery of mountains directly on their screen. The move was announced long in advance, but left many users questioning why would Strava do such a thing? It was a tool that worked very well for its intended use, and no other apps came close to replicating its navigation, route-tracking, and planning features.

I penned a piece last October about what the perplexing move from Strava meant, that seemed to spark some discussion in the industry.

In the mountains this winter, particularly among the backcountry skiing community, there was a never-ending discussion about how one could find a solution to the 3D-mapping dilemma. Friends, co-workers, fellow skiers, even random strangers in the liftline asked me if I knew anything they didn't. So I reached out to Strava to get to the bottom of it.

After a recent, but admittedly somewhat disappointing, release of "winter mode" on Strava that implemented a suite of useful new features but no winter satellite imagery, there seems to be some good news on the horizon!

The recent update added the capability to highlight avalanche prone slopes, show slope angle/gradient and slope aspect, and introduced a new winter 3D map style.

Thanks to Matt Salazar, Strava’s Chief Product Officer, and Rob Terrell, Strava’s Chief Technology Officer, for kindly providing answers to the burning questions us skiers had!

Why did Strava decided to turn off FATMAP? It certainly ruffled a few feathers, so I’m curious what the rationale was to get rid of a tool many folks used every time they went skiing?

Matt: We definitely hear you and understand the frustration. The transition didn’t happen as smoothly as we would have liked. The goal was always to integrate FATMAP into Strava, so that all of Strava's users could benefit. But FATMAP and Strava were built on different technologies, and bringing them together required more work than originally expected.

For example, FATMAP was designed to display just one map throughout the app, whereas Strava supports multiple maps at once. Since FATMAP wasn’t originally built for that, we had to make deep technical changes to ensure everything works smoothly.

We are excited about the most recent updates to users as it lays the groundwork for even more value in the seasons ahead. Owning a proprietary map rendering engine gives Strava a unique advantage, allowing us to rethink how maps deliver value to our community.

Why is it so hard to find up-to-date high res winter satellite imagery? There’s certainly a few options out there, but none are great, and even FATMAP’s imagery was dated.

Rob: Yes, cost is a factor, but the biggest factor is weather. Satellites make their passes over a region of interest periodically, and to get great imagery you need the right combination of weather and time of day.

For example, no clouds or fog or other weather events, with the sun being in the right place to light the surface in a way that makes it clearly viewable. If the surface has great snow cover, that’s wonderful, but you want that to be captured without strong reflections or atmospheric effects like light scattering or absorption. So the number of satellite passes that result in usable winter imagery might be far fewer than you’d expect.

For these reasons, in the past we’ve augmented satellite data with imagery acquired from airplanes, which can be even higher cost than satellites and require further work to correct the image to fit within the desired map projection.

Why not include winter satellite imagery in Strava?

Matt: Thank you for asking about this. Users can expect winter satellite imagery very soon.

What further plans exist (if any) to integrate guidebook-style features in Strava?

Matt: That’s a great question. Central to our mission at Strava is helping users explore the world around them. Combining the more terrain-specific detail from FATMAP with the heatmap data has unlocked more value for users. We feel that we have one of the best route recommendations and we’re continuing to invest in more route and planning features.

I can’t share details about what’s coming next, but I’m excited about what we will be able to deliver to the community the rest of this year.

What percentage of the Strava user base actually considers themselves backcountry skiers? Are the majority of your subscribers are purely summer athletes like runners or cyclists?

Matt: It’s an interesting question. What I love about Strava is that the community has grown a lot since 2009, when it was focused on just cyclists. Strava is unique in that its community has expanded and evolved far beyond that original cohort; it is now more global, younger, more female.

What we hear from talking to users is corroborated in what we see in the data, which is that more and more of our users are identifying less as a single sport user. Many of them run or bike, but they also weight train, do yoga, swim, and ski. We’re excited that users are finding value in recording their complete active lives with Strava.

This article first appeared on Powder and was syndicated with permission.

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