About OneBar
Backcountry info by text message, built by a backpacker who needed it.
OneBar started in the summer of 2025 in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, on an eight-day family backpacking trip. The photo on the home page is from that trip.
On day four the group was well off trail and a long way from anywhere, and the sky was doing something. Paul, our founder, had a brand-new phone that could send a text over satellite, and no way to turn that into a weather forecast. Every forecast he knew of needed an app, a browser, or a data connection he didn't have.
So he built one. OneBar is a gateway that turns a short text into the information you actually want out there: official NWS weather, avalanche danger from CBAC and CAIC, SNOTEL snowpack, fire danger from BeWildfireAware, and smoke and air quality from the EPA Fire and Smoke Map, plus an assistant for everything that isn't a keyword. It works over one bar of cell signal, from a Garmin inReach, or from a flip phone, because SMS gets through where data doesn't.
It was built in Gunnison, Colorado, by Paul and his trusty AI. We hope you find it useful too.
How it works
1. Text a keyword and a place
WX Gothic, AVY Schofield Pass, SNOW Butte, or your coordinates, to (855) 767-2111.
2. We fetch the official data
Straight from NWS, the avalanche centers, SNOTEL, BeWildfireAware and the EPA, and trimmed to fit a text.
3. You get a reply in seconds
On any phone, and on an inReach as one satellite message (or a few numbered ones). One credit per lookup, no subscription.