Walking

Here's some information for all you hikers in the higher elevations - I thought I'd pass it on. It may be something to take into account for the "on foot" days some of us see in our futures. (The trails the writer refers to are at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimmaron, New Mexico. A Philmont hiking "Crew" consists of about 15 people)

Offered by Laura.

For what it's worth, my "trail profiling" values are 1 hour for each 3 miles of trail, add 1 hour for each 1000 feet of elevation gain (uphill), and add 30 minutes for each 1000 feet of elevation LOSS (downhill). You have to do an actual trail profile in order to get accurate total elevation and total loss values. For most of my Crews, this has turned out to be reasonably accurate. By the way, any deviations for us usually reflect a Crew that is faster than the estimate; in my experience, it has been rare that a Crew was significantly slower than the estimate.

Dr. Bob Klein