Your water hammer reference reminded me of a setup I once saw. It used a hydraulic ram to get water from a small waterfall (maybe 5m fall) up to a stock trough about 50m up and 200m horizontal. Those rams are awesome - and loud.
Did you have a way to release excess air from the hydraulic ram? I set one up with similar dimensions to what you described but it would always quit after about 15-30 minutes, presumably due to air in the line. If I evacuated the line and got it going again then it would run for 15-30 mins again and then stop. Never figured out a solution :(
It wasn't a homebrew solution and came as a kit. I'll try and find out where it was from. Presumably it had a way of releasing the air as it would go fine for weeks (until a flood took it out). The thing was awesome and could have gone way higher (with reduced flow). It had so much water running into the trough that the main issue was trying to work out how to reduce the flow, which is surprisingly hard.