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Considering that 60k feet is well above the altitude at which most commercial planes fly, does anyone find the concept of "total climb" a little misleading? If they're basing it only on all the "ascents", then wouldn't going up and down one foot for 60,000 times also count as "60,000 feet of total climb"?

Also, it's too bad humans don't have regenerative braking...

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No, not misleading at all. What measurement would you use instead to represent the amount of climbing involved in a route?

> wouldn't going up and down one foot for 60,000 times also count as "60,000 feet of total climb"

Yes. You try doing 60,000 step-ups and report back how easy that was.

What measurement would you use instead to represent the amount of climbing involved in a route?

The main issue I have with this "total climb" measurement is that it appears to depend on the "sampling frequency" - the closer together the points you sample the altitude of, the more rough the surface appears, and thus the more ups (and downs) to contribute to the measurement. It adds up, so the measurement isn't very meaningful without mentioning the sampling frequency used. Maximum altitude difference might be a bit better.

Yes. You try doing 60,000 step-ups and report back how easy that was.

I'm not saying it's easy, but this...

    /\/\/\/\/\/\

...would be easier than this...

     /\  /\  /\
    /  \/  \/  \

...and easier than this

      /\    /\
     /  \  /  \
    /    \/    \

or even this

         /\
        /  \
       /    \
      /      \
     /        \
    /          \

despite them all having the same "total climb". To take this to the extreme, consider a surface that varies up and down by 1 inch every inch. Run 60,000 feet on this surface, and you'll have achieved "60,000 feet of total climb."

I am -very much- not an expert but I suspect the difficulty profile is more like a hump than an upward slope - going downhill works different muscles than uphill and frequent* switching between the two seems like it would put more stress on you than uphill[hours]+downhill[hours] due to having two sets of muscles in use, less time for recovery, less time for warming up, etc.

(This is where we need a real physio / doctor / anatomist!)

Well, no. You would never change elevation, you'd be standing on top of the 1 inch peaks. It would be impossible to actually descend at all.

USGS dems are some of the best topographic data available:

http://ned.usgs.gov/

The highest resolution is 1 meter (but they don't have that data for the entire US).

The crappiness of GPS based total elevation gain is pretty well understood, so they probably wouldn't use that. So as long as they used data (or a topo map) instead of GPS, you can assume that the sampling frequency was not ridiculous (and it probably only includes gain that is apparent over something like 10 or 30 feet).

I think you may have a point, I also think the total climb metric is loosing information with regards to the difficulty.

Maximum altitude difference has the same issue IMHO.

Maybe related to the [coastline paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox)

I'd argue that the sampling frequency is each footfall.

A similar effect was described by Mandelbrot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britai...

Except the Earth isn't actually shaped like this. Even less so, paths intended for running (or cycling). The numbers are dominated by real altitude gain, and anything missed or contributed by uneven road surface is minor by comparison.

Its an old riddle: what is the length of the coastline of Britain? Measure it by miles, you get one number. Measure by inches, another number. Measure the line that wriggles around every grain of sand at the waterline on every beach, you get 10X the number.

I think races are counting from inflection point to inflection point or something. Still, its arbitrary.

From a strictly theoretical point of view, yes, but in practice this isn't a concern. No-one measures the individual pebbles on the trail. Generally, the "feet of climbing" is measured vertically from the valley bottom to mountain top.

It's a pretty standard way of counting for outdoorsy stuff in my experience. Most hiking routes will quote the total elevation gain, skiers and snowboarders track downhill vertical, and so on.

It would pretty misleading to quote net elevation for hikes. A loop up a mountain and back would have a net gain of 0' even if you hiked 2000' to the peak.

They only count the upward portions, not misleading at all

hence the use of "would" in the statement you are replying to

If you're somewhat familiar with marathons or have a flexible mind, it's not misleading. Check out this blog that analyses different height profiles of marathons: http://50-is-the-new-30.blogspot.com/2013/05/elevation-compa...

I don't feel it's misleading. If you climbed 60k in N hours, you did it, regardless of whether it was interspersed with descent. At least I don't see a difference.

I guess the only way it is a strange comparison is if you are imagining a 60,000ft high mountain in which case the two things are quite different. I wouldn't relish either challenge, but climbing a 60,000ft mountain would be a much greater challenge due to the altitude (which would include small inconveniences like your blood boiling!)

It is quite useless to a discussion to critique an established technique like this without offering alternative or explanation.

Obviously it is difficult to give objective ratings to very different kinds of elevation gain. 10 meters of steps up to McDonalds are easier then 10meters of vertical concrete wall, we all know this.

It is quite obvious you have no experience with this.

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