You can go “offroad” on gmap-pedometer itself, by selecting “manually (straight lines)” instead of “automatically (for runners)” in the “Draw Route” options in the panel on the left. The best part about the feature is that you can switch back and forth as you go, so you can draw most of the route automatically, then go “offroad” when you want to draw a route through a park or a canyon, then switch back to the automatic option when you want to start following the street map again.

If your “offroad” route is not a straight line, then you need to click on a series of points in order to approximate the path you took through the “offroad” area, but with a few mouse clicks you can usually get a fairly accurate estimation of the offroad part of the route.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?

Does anyone know of a map tool like gmap-pedometer that will let you go “offroad”? I wouldn’t mind the chore of drawing the walk routes, because as you say it helps make things clearer.

This is obviously a start. Diamond Park and the trail up Sausal Creek to the golf course needs to be included. There is some good geology up there.