Not to hijack the thread....how did your daily miles vary from southern AT verses the Sierras....mainly JMT????
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i agree a big hike at the end is tough, but i dont think your formula acurately accounts for this in many situations.Originally Posted by LittleRock
for instance, i recently did a trip were i spent the night at horn's pond in maine. going sobo, the next day starts with a big drop, followed by a big gain, followed by a big drop. i ended my day there, BUT had i decided to do a few more miles, next up would have been a BIG climb that would have put me back to the elevation i started at. your formula would actually negate this and would possibly say my day was harder because i stopped at the bottom (giving me a net elevation change for the day) than if i had climbed the last couple miles back up to my starting elevation.
Just FWIW, having done both, the MPD efforts were pretty similar along the southern AT and the JMT. The JMT goes over a lot of high passes, one or two per day depending on your MPD, but the grade is easier, in general, than a lot of the AT. This assumes you are altitude acclimated, of course. Your first couple of days, especially coming from Florida, will be tougher. But the southern AT is certainly pretty trail-friendly as well, not many big climbs, just a lot of little ones. Really, pretty much a wash, maybe 1-2 MPD difference, but I couldn't say which way, it's that close IMHO.
I really like this math-applied-to-MPD stuff, and I use it myself. I maintain a spreadsheet with all the AT points along the way (about 1500 points of interest), that includes a MPD column that varies along the trail. I have it on my phone and when on the trail, I update it with my actual position every couple days or so and it refreshes where I'll be and when so I can tell my wife or other friends where to meet me, because their "when" is a fixed given time. Very useful tool.
Thx again CR
U confirmed what I've heard from a few others...trying to get mentally prepared...physically I'm ready except for altitude....JMT will be my longest hike as I'm a lowly weekend warrior....
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boring day at work so i made a very rough example- lets say i hike 13 miles, 2000 feet up, 3000 feet down, ending my hike 1000 feet higher than i started. formula gives a difficulty rating of 75.6.
if i then continue 1 more mile that gains 1000 feet i then have 14 miles, 3000 feet up, 3000 feet down, net elevation of zero for a difficulty of 71.14
that makes no sense. the second hike is clearly the harder of the two, as it contains the first hike plus one more mile. this concept of "net elevation" , as implemented, wrecks the formula.
should reading "ending my hike 1000 feet lower than i started"
In that situation, stopping at the bottom would give you a negative net elevation, which would subtract from your daily score. If there are a lot of ups and downs, the average grade will probably be high and the net elevation will be small by comparison. Based on personal experience, many of the easiest days were coming into town which involved a drop in elevation at the end of the day. The prospect of sleeping in a bed and eating non-trail food also helps. :-)
I got 150 for the first example and 184 for the second. Remember the average grade is in unit % (forgot to multiply AVG_GRADE by 100 in the formula in the original post).
First example: 13*(5+100*(2000+3000)/(13*5280) + (-1000/100) = 150 (rounded to nearest whole number)
Second example 14*(5+100*(3000+3000)/(14*5280) + 0 = 184
im no mathematician and could be wrong, but wouldn't the correct term then be "net elevation gain" which could at times be negative?
now though i also have to wonder if your formula might not make a steep downhill hike seem easier than it is. going down say mahoosuc arm comes to mind. i'll let you do the math if you want, but how does a 1 mile hike thats all downhill for 1500 vertical feet compare to a 5 mile hike that slowly and steadily gains 1500 feet?? that one mile is way harder. (and no im not claiming those are the particulars of mahoosuc arm, just making up hypothetical examples of something LIKE it to test the formula.)
I have not found these estimations of hiking difficulty to be at all accurate especially as I have increased my hiking fitness over the years. I suspect you will find that as fitness increases the impact from elevation gain/loss is less important and the average speed will be more consistent between incline, decline and flat.
just based on observations of a lot of thrus and other very experienced and conditioned hikers id mostly agree.
me though? while i improve (and backslide) i've always gone much slower in western ME than in SNP. like nearly half speed.
The formula I proposed referred to GROSS elevation change. I'd count the big drop, the big gain, the big drop as three elevation changes.
I agree that a gentle downgrade might be easier than a flat trail. Where I go, I seldom encounter either.
Last edited by Another Kevin; 07-29-2015 at 12:39.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
I noticed that in that Naismith's Rule linke posted by AK, they treat steep downhills with a penalty (more time) but gentle downhills as a benefit (less time). This makes sense, but would be harder to program in a spreadsheet. You can calculate the average grade for a section (up and down separately) but you don't know if it is gradual or comes all at once.
Yeah, agree, definitely gradual downhills are the fastest, but steep downhills probably as slow as steep uphills.
One would have to make a table such as below (my numbers just notional), with the Slope rating like: +5 = steep uphill, 0 = level, -5 = steep downhill, and everything in between....
Slope
Rating ........ Speed
(+5 to -5) .... MPH
5 ............... 1.0
4 ............... 1.25
3 ............... 1.5
2 ............... 2.0
1 ............... 2.5
0 ............... 3.0
-1 ............... 3.5
-2 ............... 2.5
-3 ............... 2.0
-4 ............... 1.5
-5 ............... 1.0
Then, using a discretized trail profile of slope rating at many points along the trail (one could make such a thing easily, though time consuming), one could integrate over any particular section and come up with an elapsed time for that distance (or distance given a particular time).
Then an adjustment could be made for things like trail conditions, rest stops (I generally take none except to pee or fill water, enjoy a view, take a picture, whatever; I even eat while walking generally) or whatever.
True - but I'd argue that they can be helpful for people (like myself) who live in the Flat Lands and only make it out to hike in the mountains once or twice a year.
Yes, you could do it that way, but you would need accurate information on trail elevation/grade at evenly spaced intervals. At least every 1/4 mile, maybe even every 0.1 mile. This information exists for popular trails like the AT, but I doubt it exists for most other trails. And unless the terrain is very steep and rugged, I doubt the results will be that much different than using just the average grade between waypoints.
In that case, for your personal formula, use a smaller correction for elevation change. My 40-minute figure, and my penchant for short days, reflect the fact that, as a clueless weekender, I never manage to get out for long enough or often enough to actually get into hiking condition and find my "trail legs." Most hikers would use a smaller number, I suspect, but I know that I'm slow. On the other hand, if I'm going with someone that hasn't backpacked at all before, I'll bump the number to 60 minutes, because I really don't know how they'll handle the hills.
But you surely won't get good results eliminating the correction entirely, unless you're seriously arguing that you'd make the same miles in the Wildcats as you would in Maryland.
In any case, I'm comfortable with being a couple of hours off either way in a day's hiking. The formula is more to get the idea, "is this section a day, or a half-day, or an overnight, or what?" not to make the trains run on time. I'll typically do something back-of-the-envelope like the following, which is an actual example of my thought process from one day of a section hike on the NY Long Path that I did last year.
Day 1:
The Sundown campsite is about 1200 feet.
The summit of Peekamoose is 3846, so that's a 2600 foot gain, and the book says it's 4.35 miles. Call that 2:10 for the mileage and add 1:40 for the elevation, so 3:50 to climb Peekamoose. Either the summit of Peekamoose or the overlook before it at the 3500 foot level might make a nice lunch stop.
Then the ridge over to Table Mountain is 0.85 miles, with about 400 feet of elevation lost and regained (800 feet elevation change). 25 minutes for the mileage and 35 for the elevation is about another hour, so I should hit the Table Mountain summit about 4:50 into the trip.
Boulton shelter is another 0.4 and down about 400 feet, that's another half hour. That'll be 5:20, so I most likely won't be ready to stop for the night when I hit Boulton. I might want to tank up at the spring there.
Coming down the north side of Table Mountain, the descent is interrupted by a couple little knolls, but none of them is much more than 100 feet of elevation regained, so I'll guesstimate 350 feet in addition to the 1650 foot descent. That's 1.95 miles and 2000 feet of elevation change. Round it up to 2 miles, so that's 1 hour for the mileage and 1:20 for elevation, 2:20. That puts me 7:10 into the trip. And the trail guide warns that there are some hands-to-the-rock scrambles on the descent, so allow a cushion of time. Yeah, I'll be ready to stop at the Neversink River campsites. Or if I'm feeling strong, I'll go another 2.2 miles of mostly-level walk to the Curtis-Ormsbee campsite. So this will either be a 7.2 or 9.4 mile day, which feels short, but starting the day off with a 2600 foot climb is pretty brutal.
Day 2:
From Neversink River elevation to the summit of Slide Mountain is just about 2000 feet of elevation gained steadily over 4.5 miles. 2:15 for mileage, 1:20 for elevation for 3:35 total.
Slide Mountain down to the Garden Path is another 0.95 with a loss of 800 feet. Half an hour for mileage, half an hour for elevation The guidebook warns of ladders and Class 3-4 scrambles, so add 20 minutes for difficult terrain. 1:20 for a total of 4:55 so far. No need to stop on the Garden Path campsites, most likely.
From the col to the summit of Cornell Mountain is 1.2 miles and regains about 500 feet. 40 minutes for mileage, 20 for elevation, call it an hour. 5:55.
Cornell Mountain has a 300 foot drop onto Bruin's Causeway with a difficult scramble at the Cornell Crack. Then Wittenberg is another 250 feet up, 0.8 miles. 25 minutes for mileage, 20 minutes for elevation, 15 minutes for rock climbing, call it another hour. 6:55.
Down off Wittenberg to the Terrace Mountain junction is another 1.2, with 1000 feet elevation loss. 1:10 for mileage 0.40 for elevation 8:45.
Then another half mile of level walking gets me to the Cross Mountain campsite, so 9 hours of hiking for the day. The end of the day looks like three solid hours of hiking above the 3500 foot level, where it's not lawful to camp. And with all the rock scrambling, it looks as if 10.6 miles is a strenuous day. It's a bit better if I can cut 2.2 off it by making Curtiss-Ormsbee the night before. That makes the two days 9.4 and 8.4, a little bit better balanced, and puts the hard scrambles on the shorter day.
One point here is that because I'm in "clueless weekender" shape, I have to adjust planned mileages for the strenuous trail. The first day, the planned stop is just 7.2 miles, but it's tough hiking, at least by my standards. The second day is really pushing it for me, despite being "just" 10.6 miles, given the amount of scrambling. The fact that each day has over a mile of elevation change makes for short mileage. The 10.6 is probably more work than 15 miles on level trail would be.
For what it's worth, on the actual trip I stealth-camped (lawfully!) both nights rather than using the indicated shelters and campsites, but made close to the planned mileages.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
Interesting. I don't use too complex of a formula really, I just know from experience that I will average very close to 2.5MPH up to about 30 miles per day whether it be on the AT, JMT, Colorado Trail, etc. Then just do basic math to determine how many days needed to cover whatever distance I'm shooting for. If for some reason I get behind the pace is increased or the amount of time hiked increases.
Ryan
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