ft per hour

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Mike Shepherd
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Re: ft per hour

Post by Mike Shepherd »

Reading through the responses I see a lot of comments with respect to hiking and also maximum rates of some truly talented individuals.

I would be interested to see what are considered "good" rates based on more specific activity. I've personally seen someone climb about 2,000 ft/ hour on a moderate snow climb and it pretty much looked insane, almost as if they were running up the couloir. Alan Arnette aimed for 1500ft/hr (I assume on moderate to steep snow) with a 20-30 pack on his back for his K2 training according to his blog. Several rock jock friends of mine who climb 5.11+ consider a 10 pitch trad route to be a full day event.

hiking in shoes/boots/trailrunners with no to light pack:
hiking in shoes/boots/trailrunners with backpacking pack:
moderate snow climbs:
steep snow climbs:
AI3/WI3 and below:
AI4/WI4 or above:
5.6 and below (this is the cut off FOTH suggest is possible in mountaineering boots):
5.7 and above:

So if you have experience in an activity chime in. I would consider a rate of over 1,000 ft/ hr on a moderate or steep snow climb to be "good".
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Mindy
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Re: ft per hour

Post by Mindy »

Gerry has the answer(s). Seriously. :)

Haven't posted here for awhile now, but had to break out of my "haven't really climbed anything lately shell" for Gerry. His calcs have never steered me wrong for the peaks he published them for.

Cheers.
bob863
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Re: ft per hour

Post by bob863 »

now we're getting down to some very serious stuff, I would like to know detailed, scientific, answers to the serious questions people have posed....
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Carl
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Re: ft per hour

Post by Carl »

DoctorBreaks wrote:Could someone really summit Pyramid for example in two hours hiking 2k ft per hour?
Nope, it's 4,500 vertical feet. But to answer your question specific to Pyramid, I tried to hustle up it a couple years ago and it took 2 hours 22 minutes (1,900 vert/hour). For comparison, if I'm trying to hike fast I can average around 2,500 vert/hour on class 1 and 2 14ers. For similar mileage easy class 3 14ers it's about 2,100 vert/hour. No surprise that the ascent rate declines as technical difficulty increases. To be fair, these times are only applicable for hikes where I'm leaving the trailhead with the intent to go as fast as I can. Most of the time I'm much slower. Not sure how much so as that's not as much fun to keep track of.
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jomagam
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Re: ft per hour

Post by jomagam »

DoctorBreaks wrote:Could someone really summit Pyramid for example in two hours hiking 2k ft per hour?
The FKT is 1:48, so the answer is yes.
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Carl
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Re: ft per hour

Post by Carl »

^^^ if you think about it some more I think you'll agree the answer is definitely no
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Re: ft per hour

Post by ameristrat »

MATH!!!
You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. - Rene Daumal
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DoctorBreaks
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Re: ft per hour

Post by DoctorBreaks »

I didn't mean is it physically possible, more is it practicle. I do like keeping tabs on how fast I am so I can improve. I have found that Roach's point system is pretty cool to keep track of it. I was reading how he said he could when he was young hike over 3kft/hr and it just seemed like it was impossible lol. I'm really new to the mountains so all these explanations have been amazing. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can.
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jomagam
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Re: ft per hour

Post by jomagam »

Carl wrote:^^^ if you think about it some more I think you'll agree the answer is definitely no
Ha, I was answering the question that the OP meant to ask, not what he actually did.
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Carl
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Re: ft per hour

Post by Carl »

jomagam wrote:
Carl wrote:^^^ if you think about it some more I think you'll agree the answer is definitely no
Ha, I was answering the question that the OP meant to ask, not what he actually did.
Yup, I'm just messing around. Didn't know the FKT, thanks for that.
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rajz06
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Re: ft per hour

Post by rajz06 »

DoctorBreaks wrote:I have found that Roach's point system is pretty cool to keep track of it. I was reading how he said he could when he was young hike over 3kft/hr and it just seemed like it was impossible lol. I'm really new to the mountains so all these explanations have been amazing. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can.
I too have been intrigued by the R Point system and have wondered what algorithm Roach uses to arrive at it. His estimation that most climbers will climb 20-25 R points/hour roughly translates to 800-1200 vertical ft/hour. I find that I typically average 2X this (40-50 RP/hour) on most basic Class 2 routes and possibly a bit higher if speed were my primary goal. If you thought Roach's 3Kft/hr was amazing, he did also claim to have been able to cover 5Kft/hr for short periods! Of course, we don't know what conditions those were under, but the top ultrarunners are certainly capable of sustained 3.5K'/hr speeds even at higher elevations as evidenced by the records for the PP marathon! As someone mentioned, the human capacity for excellence in any endeavor, physical or otherwise, is so staggering that if you're very good at something you're just an underachiever. So I measure my success by how much I enjoyed the outing rather than any quantifiable metric.
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SeattleHc100er
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Re: ft per hour

Post by SeattleHc100er »

All funny guys and sarcastic, condescending asses aside, I use the vertical feet per hour measurement to help decipher cardiovascular fitness for climbing trips. I live at sea level, so one of the things I do when I know I'm going to be climbing above 10 or 11,000ft, is I hike/climb a series of the very steepest of the local Cascades' class 1/2 trails as fast as I can. I decipher the average grade of each mountain first, then I compare the average grade to how many ft per hour I averaged over the course of the entire hike/climb. Over the course of 7 training climbs, I can get a good feel for how many ft per mile I can climb on dry, mostly unobstructed trail, with an average grade of over 30% or more. For example:

One of the climbs I recently trained on for 14ers is Mailbox Peak in WA. It gains 4100ft of elevation of 2.4 miles, which calculates to a 32% average grade. At a 32% average grade, starting at 900 ft, I climbed 4100ft in just over 1.5 hours. That translates to roughly 2700ft of elevation gain per mile. That was my third training climb. By my last training climb, I was aiming to climb sustained 30% average grade with a pace of at least 3000ft per hour to pt myself in condition to peak six 14ers, three 13ers, and a 12er, in a 5 day period. That's the rate at which I find is minimally sufficient ( near sea level ) to ensure that you will perform well on, and assimilate well to, higher elevation hikes/climbs rather easily. But there are so many factors that go into climbing rate that differ from person to person; hike to hike. Everything from your weight, to how your weight is distributed across your body, to posture, to muscle and core strength/weakness, to trail conditions, to grade/steepness of said hike/climb, to diet, to elevation, to how you train, influences the rate at which you can climb something. It's not a perfect science. But I'd say for training purposes, almost anyone looking to do extensive hiking, climbing, and mountaineering in their life should be able to bust out at least 2,000 ft per hour on 20%+ average grade. For just the occasional, leisurely, day hiker, that number doesn't have as much significance.
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