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Am I the only one who planned routes by mileage for 15 years before realizing that was the wrong number to care about?
I was on the Timberline Trail around Mt Hood back in 2019, and I ran into this older guy near the Zigzag crossing who asked how many hours I had planned for the next section. I said I had no clue, I just knew it was 11 miles, and he kind of laughed and said mileage tells you almost nothing out there. He pulled out this beat up little notebook where he tracked elevation gain per mile for every route, and his rule was anything over 500 feet per mile meant plan for way slower going. I went home and looked at my old trip logs, and sure enough the days that wrecked me were not the long days, they were the steep ones. A 9 mile day with 4,000 feet of climbing took me longer than a 15 mile day on flat ground every single time. Now I write elevation gain on my route cards first and mileage second, which sounds obvious but nobody taught me that starting out. Curious if anyone else tracks gain per mile, or do you go by total gain for the day, or something else entirely?
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quinnb637d ago
Felt this in my bones. Spent years wondering why a 12 mile day would leave me wrecked while a 16 mile day felt fine, and it was always the gain kicking my butt. The 500 feet per mile rule is a good one too, I have started using something close to it and it honestly changed how I plan trips. Nobody told me either, I just thought I was slow or out of shape for way too long. Sorry you had to learn it the hard way out there but glad you ran into that guy.
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