Work Out Your Walking Level before you book a trek in the Alps
Your biggest walk of the last 12 months: how much ascent was in it?
The morning after that walk, how were the legs?
In a normal week, how much activity do you actually do?
Multi-day walking, have you done it?
The ground underfoot: how far are you happy to go?
The pack, on a walk of several days:
Your ideal fortnight in the mountains looks like:
Level 1 to 2: Accessible
Your answers point to an unhurried practice, where the walking is there to show you something rather than to flatten you. Your ground for now is 200 to 400 m of ascent, 2 to 4 hours out and a light pack, near enough a Grade 3 day track in the Blue Mountains: our day-long nature outings and our family activities. Level 2 comes within reach this season if the appetite is there, with a donkey-supported walk that lengthens the day without you carrying a thing, or a weekend in the Southern Alps. Level 3, where most of our departures sit, turns into a fair target after one season of steady walking. Worth remembering that our season runs June to September, squarely in your winter, so the training window is the cold half of your year. 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 out no longer costs you the rest of the week. Up to 600 m of ascent, near enough Cradle Mountain from Dove Lake, 4 to 5 hours on the ground, on tracks 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 travel with somebody who trains less, a level 1 holiday costs you nothing. 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, a shade under Mount Bogong by the Staircase Spur, 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 carried a full pack for 6 days on the Overland Track already knows the shape of the effort. If you want to push, our level 3 to 4 treks are on for you provided the leg work goes 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, Feathertop from Harrietville 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, and after 20-odd hours in the air day 1 passes none at all. Nor is there any obligation to go high, and a level 3 holiday stays the sound call for an easy fortnight 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, off-track ground, airy ledges and long days: you are after the commitment. If the Western Arthurs are in your logbook, 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 Alps and we will say whether this level covers it, or which one does.
"I am a fairly strong 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 kidding 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 trip we run.
The rest of this page covers what the questions measure, how to read the level you get, how to check it in 3 minutes on your own body, and what shifts it a notch.
Facts, not a feeling of being fit
Whatever picture you hold of your own condition, it is a poor instrument for measuring. The record of a season of walking 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 trip 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 bushwalker holds one pace from car park back to 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 a day | Time walking | What it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Accessible | 200 to 400 m | 2 to 4 h | Good health, and that is all |
| 2. Moderate | up to 600 m | 2 to 6 h | Some activity now and then |
| 3. Intermediate | up to 1,200 m | 4 to 6 h | Something every week |
| 4. Sustained | 1,200 to 1,800 m | 6 to 8 h | 2 sessions a week and mountain days behind you |
| 5. Intense | often past 1,500 m, off-track | 7 h and up | Steady practice and ease on technical ground |
Those figures describe a single day on its own, with a light pack. That is the reading to use when you are picking a day walk or a weekend.
One conversion is worth doing before you read the table. Australian tracks are graded on effort and remoteness rather than on ascent, so a Grade 4 day can hold 300 m or 1,200 m. Convert your own walks into metres climbed before you set them against a level here.
On a trek, how do you read your level?
Once days stack up with a pack on, 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 right: fatigue accumulates, and a single 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 built track and on scree, and it is ascent rather than distance that sets the pace. The first sizes a trip, the second plans a day.
Where self-assessment usually goes wrong
Nobody rates themselves too low. Across several seasons of bookings, the gap between the level people announce and the level we see runs one way only, and it traces back to 3 blind spots that keep repeating.
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. Coming from Australia, add a layer: 20-odd hours in the air and 8 to 9 hours of time difference make day 1 less informative still, which is why a night in the valley before the trek starts beats walking off the plane.
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 soreness 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, built track 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.
So one plain rule when the result puts you between 2 levels: take the lower. No one has ever regretted finishing a day with fuel left, and a variant can go in along the way if the form is there. The other way round gets paid for in tendinitis, or in pulling out mid-route.
Check it 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 bush.
4 measurements will settle it. All done at home, no gear, 3 minutes. You need a wall, a staircase and something to count seconds on.
The wall sit: back flat to a wall, no chair, thighs level and knees at a right angle. How long before the burn stops you?
4 flights of stairs without stopping, at a solid pace. At the top:
Your pulse the second you finish those stairs, then 2 minutes on. How many beats a minute has it dropped? (count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4)
An hour of walking without a stop at a solid clip, around 5 km/h, in town or on the flat:
The body is behind the experience
Your measurements land below what your walking history suggests. This is the familiar case of the walker 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 guide.
The body is ahead of the experience
Your fitness runs ahead of what your walking 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. Altitude sits in the same bracket, since Kosciuszko tops out below most of our passes.
This second result corrects the first. Where they disagree, back the body: memory usually dates from several seasons ago. Mention it when you book, because it is exactly the sort of gap Alice or Robin sort out in 2 minutes on the phone.
Check it physically, with 1 day out
The best test before booking fits into the one outing: a day walk with 600 to 700 m of ascent and 6 to 8 kg on your back. Come home tired and pleased and the level above is open to you. Come home flattened and the answer is a few weeks of outings at 400 and then 600 m, and nothing more ambitious than that.
The calendar works in your favour more than it looks. Our season runs June to September, which is your winter, so the 4 or 5 months of preparation fall in the cool half of your year, when a full pack on a Grade 4 track is a pleasure rather than a heat-stress exercise. Book the trek first, then put 2 winter weekends a month in the diary.
Between 2 outings, walking briskly and taking the stairs every time already amount to training that pays. Walking 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 gear list sets out where the kilos come off.
If in doubt, take the time to call 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. Altitude earns its own mention for anyone flying from Australia, since Kosciuszko sits at 2,228 m and several of our passes go above it, on legs that landed 2 days earlier.
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 guide 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 trip, half a level of difference is absorbed without drama. 2 levels is harder work, and 17,000 km from home it is harder again.
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 treks 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 puts the 4 side by side, quiz included.
Frequently asked questions
Does the test level match the one shown on your treks?
It does. The same scale of 1 to 5, set out in full on our walking difficulty page. A trip 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 guide has variants ready for whoever asks. Flying 17,000 km to endure a route is a poor trade.
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 trips, which fall in your summer, carry a level of their own, to be read as it stands.
And for children?
The usual marker is about 100 m of ascent per year of age on a day walk, so 600 m for a fit 6-year-old. Over several days, cut that right back and work on motivation instead: mates along, a night in a tipi or a donkey beat any amount of talking.
Can I aim a level higher if the trek is guided?
The one notch, provided you are honest about the room you have. The guide 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 trip stops being a holiday.
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