Work Out Your Hillwalking Level before you book a guided holiday
Your biggest hill day of the last 12 months: how much ascent was in it?
The morning after that day, how were the legs?
Take an average week: what is in it by way of activity?
Walking days back to back, have you done it?
The ground under the boot: how far does it go?
The pack, on a walk of several days:
Your ideal week in the mountains looks like:
- Facts rather than a notion of being fit
- Placing yourself from 1 to 5 before booking a trek
- On a trek, how do you read your level?
- The mistake nearly everybody makes rating themselves
- Checking physically with 4 measurements
- Checking physically with 1 day on the ground
- If in doubt, take the time to ring us
- Frequently asked questions
Level 1 to 2: Accessible
Your answers point to an easy-going practice, where the walking is there to show you something rather than to take the legs from under you. Your ground for now is 200 to 400 m of ascent, 2 to 4 hours out and a light pack, near enough a waymarked stretch of the Wicklow Way with one pull in it: our day-long nature outings and our family activities. Level 2 is within reach this season if you fancy it, whether with a donkey-supported walk that lengthens the day without you carrying a thing, or with a weekend in the Southern Alps. Level 3, where most of our departures sit, turns into a fair target after one season of steady hill days. The levels in detail. No 7 questions replace a phone call: Alice or Robin go through this result with you before you book, and it shifts a notch either way often enough.
Level 2: Moderate
A full day on the hill no longer costs you the rest of the week. Up to 600 m of ascent, a shade under Croagh Patrick from Murrisk, 4 to 5 hours on the ground, on paths that ask nothing technical of you: a walking weekend in the Southern Alps or a bivouac night in the Écrins is open to you this season. Put the pack on and string days together and the figure comes down to 400 to 500 m a day, because the ceiling drops the moment stages follow one another. If you want to push, level 3 is the notch to go for, and it carries most of our departures. If you would sooner keep something in hand, or bring somebody who trains less, a level 1 holiday costs you nothing at all. The levels in detail. No 7 questions replace a phone call: Alice or Robin go through this result with you before you book, and it shifts a notch either way often enough.
Level 3: Intermediate
A pass a day holds nothing over you and one night sets you right. This is the level we see most on our departures: up to 1,200 m of ascent in a day, more than Carrauntoohil gives you from Cronin's Yard, 4 to 6 hours of walking, and the legs to head off again in the morning. The Tour du Vercors, the crossing of the Hauts-Plateaux and the 4-day trek in the Valgaudemar suit you. Anyone who has linked the Reeks in a day already knows the shape of the effort. If you want to push, our level 3 to 4 treks are on for you provided the hill days go in beforehand. If you would sooner keep something in hand, or bring a friend who trains less, a level 2 holiday leaves you the reserve and the time to look about you. The levels in detail. No 7 questions replace a phone call: Alice or Robin go through this result with you before you book, and it shifts a notch either way often enough.
Level 4 to 5: Sustained
Ascent has stopped being what stops you. From 1,200 to 1,800 m in a day, the Coomloughra Horseshoe and then some, 6 to 8 hours of walking, with stretches where the foot has to go looking for its place. Our level 3 to 4 treks, the 5-day Écrins traverse and the 7-day Tour du Mont-Blanc sit inside your compass, and level 5 routes open once technical ground stops slowing you. One reminder that holds here as everywhere: on a point-to-point route days 3 and 4 pass the verdict, not the first. Nor is there any obligation to go high, and a level 3 holiday stays the sound call for an easy week or for bringing somebody who trains less. The levels in detail. No 7 questions replace a phone call: Alice or Robin go through this result with you before you book, and it shifts a notch either way often enough.
Level 4 to 5: Intense
Scree, pathless ground, airy ledges and long days: you are after the commitment. If the far side of Brandon and a winter day on the Reeks are familiar to you, this is your register. Routes of that order are built around you, so tell us what you have in mind and we will draw the line together. In the meantime level 4 carries most of our scheduled departures and you will have room to spare there, whether on the 5-day Écrins traverse, the 7-day Tour du Mont-Blanc or in the Dolomites, whose cabled sections come nearest to level 5 on our calendar. And a level 3 holiday keeps every bit of its point the day you travel with somebody who trains less. The levels in detail. No 7 questions replace a phone call: Alice or Robin go through this result with you, and it shifts a notch either way often enough.
Tell us what you have in mind for the hills this year and we will say whether this level covers it, or which one does.
"I am a fair enough walker." 2 people saying that on the same day can mean 300 m of ascent for one and 1,200 m for the other, and neither of them is fooling themselves.
Altimood puts these questions to you on a call before you book: the last big day you had, what it left in the legs the following morning, what an average week holds. The test takes them up and turns them into our scale of 1 to 5, the one printed on every holiday we run.
The rest of this page sets out what the questions measure, how to read the level they hand you, how to check it in 3 minutes on your own body, and what shifts it a notch.
Facts rather than a notion of being fit
Whatever picture you hold of your own condition, it is a poor instrument for measuring. The record of a season on the hill can be counted.
So the test works from facts: the last big day counted in ascent, the state of the legs the following morning, what the weekly activity actually consists of, your habit of stacking days, how you go on ground that shifts, and the weight you agree to shoulder. The morning-after question counts double, since it measures recovery, and recovery is what separates people on day 3 of a point-to-point route. The last one is about appetite, because the same body will not aim at the same holiday depending on whether it comes to rest or to push.
2 findings sit underneath all of it, learned on the ground rather than off a table. The kind of sport weighs as much as how often you do it: somebody in the gym 3 times a week goes off fast and comes undone on day 3, where the steady hillwalker holds one pace from the car park back to the car park. And carrying alters the level you can hold without altering the walker: the same legs take 200 to 300 m more per day once the bags travel by road or on a donkey.
Placing yourself from 1 to 5 before booking a trek
| Level | Ascent in the day | Time on the ground | What it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Accessible | 200 to 400 m | 2 to 4 h | Good health and nothing past it |
| 2. Moderate | up to 600 m | 2 to 6 h | The odd bit of physical activity |
| 3. Intermediate | up to 1,200 m | 4 to 6 h | Something weekly |
| 4. Sustained | 1,200 to 1,800 m | 6 to 8 h | 2 sessions a week and hill days behind you |
| 5. Intense | often past 1,500 m, pathless | 7 h and up | Steady practice and ease on technical ground |
Those figures describe the one day taken on its own, with a light pack. That is the reading to use when you are picking a day walk or a weekend.
Worth knowing before you read them: no Irish hill hands you 1,200 m of ascent in a single pull, so an Alpine level 3 day already asks for more continuous climbing than anything at home. The way to build it here is to link 2 hills instead of repeating the one.
On a trek, how do you read your level?
Once the days stack up with a pack, the daily budget settles well under the ceiling of the level. A level 3 who climbs 1,200 m on a one-off day runs at 600 to 700 m a day across a 4-day route, and that is exactly right: fatigue accumulates, and one night no longer clears it.
2 figures carry a multi-day plan. The first is that daily one, well below the single-day ceiling: 400 to 500 m a day at level 2, 600 to 700 m at level 3. The second is time, since the same 6 hours do not buy the same ground on a made-up path and on scree, and it is ascent rather than distance that sets the pace. The first sizes a holiday, the second plans a day.
The mistake nearly everybody makes rating themselves
Nobody rates themselves too low. Over several seasons of bookings, the gaps between the level announced and the level observed all run the one way, and they come back to 3 recurring blind spots.
Day 1 proves nothing. On fresh legs, with the pull of the start behind them, near enough everybody gets through 800 m. The verdict lands on the third morning, thighs stiff and the pack heavy already, with another climb waiting.
The descent gives no warning of itself. It costs the lungs nothing, so it never makes it into the sums people run before booking. It builds most of the stiffness all the same: a stage at -900 m usually leaves more behind than a stage at +900 m.
The ground alters everything. 1,000 metres on a wide, made-up path near enough climb themselves. The same 1,000 on running scree in the Écrins, where the foot goes hunting for its place at every step, cost twice the concentration and twice the legs. Irish hills school you well in wet rock and in bog that swallows a boot, less well in a slope of loose stone that keeps moving under you for 300 m.
Hence one plain rule when the result leaves you between 2 levels: take the one below. Nobody ever regretted finishing a day with something in hand, and a variant can be added along the way if the form is there. The other way round gets paid for in tendinitis, or in stepping off a route halfway.
Checking physically with 4 measurements
The test at the head of this page runs entirely on what you declare: an outing you remember, legs you remember. It holds up while the season is fresh, and much less once the last big climb goes back a few years, or once the fitness was built somewhere other than the hills.
4 measurements will settle it. They are done at home, with no gear, in 3 minutes. You want a wall, a staircase and some way of counting seconds.
The wall sit: back to a wall, no chair, thighs level and knees at a right angle. How long before it burns too much?
4 flights of stairs in the one go, at a fair pace. At the top of them:
Your pulse the moment you finish those stairs, then again 2 minutes later. By how many beats a minute has it come down? (count over 15 seconds and multiply by 4)
Walking the hour without stopping at a fair clip, around 5 km/h, in town or on the flat:
The body is behind the experience
Your measurements land below what your hill history suggests. This is the familiar case of the hillwalker with a good past in the legs and 1 or 2 quiet seasons behind him: the level from the head of the page describes who you were, not who you are this year. Drop a notch for this season, then go and win the level back over a few weeks of outings at 400 and then 600 m of ascent, as set out just below. If the test at the top already put you at level 1, there is nothing to correct: it was simply right.
The body keeps up
Your measurements and your history agree, which is the commonest outcome of all. Take the level from the head of the page as it stands and book on it. When memory and body say the one thing there is nothing further to look for, and the rest gets sorted on the ground with the leader.
The body is ahead of the experience
Your fitness runs ahead of what your hill history shows. This is the profile of the steady runner, cyclist or swimmer who has not done much walking at altitude yet: the engine is there, the ground is not. Add a notch to the level from the head of the page, and only the one. What is missing does not come off the training plan: scree running under the boot, or 5 hours of descent on the knees, is learned in the mountains and nowhere else.
This second result corrects the first. Where the two disagree, believe the body: the memory usually dates back several seasons. Say it to us when you book, since it is exactly the sort of gap Alice or Robin settle inside 2 minutes on the phone.
Checking physically with 1 day on the ground
The best test before booking fits into the one outing: a day on the hill with 600 to 700 m of ascent and 6 to 8 kg on your back. A Reeks day from Cronin's Yard does it, and so does Lugnaquilla from Glenmalure. Come home tired and pleased and the level above is open to you. Come home wrecked and the answer is a few weeks of outings at 400 and then 600 m, and nothing more ambitious than that.
Between 2 outings, walking briskly and taking the stairs every time already amount to training that pays. Hillwalking rewards regularity far above intensity, and a half marathon in the legs settles nothing about your 3rd day of trekking. Taking weight out of the pack does as much as a month of training and costs far less bother: our bivouac kit list sets out where the kilos come off.
If in doubt, take the time to ring us
Vertigo, a joint you do not trust, a recent operation, the highest you have ever been, heat that empties the legs in summer: none of it fits into 7 questions, and all of it moves the cursor. Heat earns its own mention here, because a July afternoon at 2,000 m has nothing to do with a summer day in the Reeks, and of all the factors it is the one that catches Irish walkers out.
The group escapes the questions too. On a scheduled departure you walk alongside people who do not all have the same lungs, and it falls to the mountain leader to set the pace, place the breaks before the fatigue takes hold, offer a variant to whoever wants more, and turn back below a pass when that is the call. On a guided holiday, half a level of difference is absorbed without drama. 2 levels is harder work.
That is also why Alice or Robin go back over these questions when you book: the result opens a discussion, it does not close one. Look at our guided walking holidays with this level in mind, and if yours lands between 2 of them, a tailor-made route settles it. And if the open question is the format rather than the grade, guided or self-guided lays the 4 out side by side, quiz included. The Alps sit a short hop from Dublin or Cork, which makes a shoulder-season week easier to fit in than most people expect.
Frequently asked questions
Does the test level match the one shown on your holidays?
It does. The same scale of 1 to 5, set out in full on our walking difficulty page. A holiday listed at level 3 to 4 therefore calls for a result of 3 at minimum, with room to spare on the longest stages.
I fall between 2 levels, which one do I choose?
The lower one, unless stepping outside your comfort zone is the whole point of the trip. A day finished with something in hand leaves a far better memory than a day endured, and the leader has variants ready for whoever asks.
Is my level the same on snowshoes as on a summer walk?
It is not. Snow slows everything and the snowpack decides how much: allow 200 to 300 m less ascent for the same feeling, plus the work of breaking trail. Our winter holidays carry a level of their own, to be read as it stands.
And for children?
The usual marker is around 100 m of ascent per year of age on a single day out, so 600 m for a fit 6-year-old. Over several days, cut that back hard and lean on motivation: friends along, a night in a tipi or a donkey beat any amount of encouragement.
Can I aim a level higher if the holiday is guided?
The one notch, provided you are honest about the room you have. The leader sets the pace on the group and can shorten a stage, but he will not be carrying your pack every day. Past the one notch, the holiday stops being a holiday.
Keep reading
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- Work Out Your Hillwalking Level before you book a guided holiday