View Full Version : Total vertical feet?
Powder River
01-04-2008, 01:46
I may have read this somewhere, but cannot find it on search or even google. Has anyone figured out how many total vertical feet climbed/descended throughout the entire A.T.? How about the number of mountains summited? Number of streams/roads crossed, number of shelters, number of trail towns, etc.?
I'm surprised such useless information isn't freely available...
4eyedbuzzard
01-04-2008, 01:55
471,151 feet. Approximately. ;) Each mile has an average elevation gain of some 217 feet according to various reports, or roughly 90 miles in positive elevation changes. Double that obviously to get the total climbed + decended.
I'd think there will be an answer forthcoming on the number of shelters although there might be more than one correct answer depending on how close to the A.T. they must be to be counted.
The number of mountains, streams/roads crossed and number of trail towns could vary over quite a range depending upon what qualifies and is then counted.
4eyedbuzzard
01-04-2008, 02:20
You could go through the aldha online companion and you can count all the mountains, shelters, roads, etc as most major points are described. To go deeper the ATC set of section guides would go into further detail. It's probably been done, but I don't know where.
Except for the total vertical distance, the other stats in the OP's list are too vaguely defined to enumerate. Total roads? Define road. Total summits? Define summit. Is there a minimum vertical distance to the nearest saddle or gap? What if the trail itself skirts around the last 25/50/100 feet (which is common.) Streams/rivers/lakes/ponds... same issue... how to define.
For anyone who's studied fractals, there's this familiar rhetorical question: "How long is the coast of England?" The answer is, it depends on how you measure it. If your unit of length is small enough, the coast of England is infinitely long.
hammock engineer
01-04-2008, 10:31
The guide doesn't show every bump. If you really want to figure it up, look at the maps and do the math. The only totally flat parts I saw were on roads.
I may have read this somewhere, but cannot find it on search or even google. Has anyone figured out how many total vertical feet climbed/descended throughout the entire A.T.? How about the number of mountains summited? Number of streams/roads crossed, number of shelters, number of trail towns, etc.?
I'm surprised such useless information isn't freely available...
It's all in Wingfoot's thru hiker guides. Doing the trail has the same elevation gain as climbing Everest 17 times or something like that. I forget the details and I don't look up "useless" information.
Weary
nitewalker
01-04-2008, 11:45
mathamaticaly there may be an answer but in reality the distance changes with ones individual hike by going to various trail towns, shelters, vistas, summits etc. going to every shelter vs skipping every other shlter means the person going to every shelter will have more elevetion gains, vertical elevetion and overall distance on that thruhike..
mathmaticly is it just trail miles without shelters or with all shelters and every inch of the AT??
The Old Fhart
01-04-2008, 13:09
Nitewalker-"mathamaticaly there may be an answer but in reality the distance changes with ones individual hike by going to various trail towns, shelters, vistas, summits etc. going to every shelter vs skipping every other shlter means the person going to every shelter will have more elevetion gains, vertical elevetion and overall distance on that thruhike.."As an engineering approximation you could consider the start and end of the A.T. about the same relative elevation. Thinking of it this way, the trail is statistically flat! ;)
As an engineering approximation you could consider the start and end of the A.T. about the same relative elevation. Thinking of it this way, the trail is statistically flat! ;)
A good example of why statistics can be misleading, at least according to my knees and calves. ;)
Rain Man
01-04-2008, 14:09
As an engineering approximation you could consider the start and end of the A.T. about the same relative elevation. Thinking of it this way, the trail is statistically flat! ;)
Or, as my daddy used to tell me,-- if you stand with one foot in a bucket of ice water and one foot in a bucket of boiling water, on the average you are comfortable!
Back to the question,-- I thought I saw the answer on the ATC web site. Might check with them.
Rain:sunMan
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Sounds like a problem for a GIS guy with some spare time, except you'd still have so many different answers based on different data. At what scale do you measure elevation? How many road/stream/shelter crossings at what time? Now or 5 years ago? You'd have to get everyone in all the states/jurisdictions to agree on which data was best to use...good luck with that.
There is an article
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=31293
The answer is " a lot"
(The amount of elevation gain seems to increase when you have re-upped your food and/or if you spent the night in a shelter with a large amount of boyscouts who ate sugar like a 1980s rock star snorted cocaine.)
Darwin again
01-05-2008, 00:29
Between North Adams, MA., and Pinkham Notch, NH., I carried maps and figured my daily vertical ascent. The total was somewhere north of 70,000 feet vertical climbing in Vermont and New Hampshire ALONE.
Yes, "a lot" applies. ;-)