Loading…
2
I used to blow off elevation gain maps until a 4,200 foot day in the Collegiate Peaks humbled me
For routes I always just looked at mileage and figured anything under 15 miles was a chill day. Last month outside Buena Vista I did the Missouri Mountain approach and that 4,200 feet of gain in 6 miles wrecked me way harder than any 20 mile flat walk ever has. Now I check the gain per mile before anything else and it has totally reshaped how I plan weekends. How many feet per mile do you all treat as the cutoff before you start cutting pack weight or adding a rest day?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
simon7174d ago
This is the same trap people fall into with money honestly, where they look at one big number and ignore the rate. A 20 mile flat walk sounds way worse on paper than 6 miles uphill, but the uphill is doing way more work per step. I learned this the hard way too, not in Colorado but on a trip where I had 3,000 feet in 4 miles and thought it would be a quick morning. It was not. The gain per mile number is really the thing that tells you how hard each step is going to feel, and mileage alone hides all of that. So yeah, checking that number first is smart, and it carries over to all kinds of stuff where the total looks fine but the pace of it is what actually gets you.
3