About the Difficulty Level of a Hike

You always have to make sure that the route suits your fitness level and hiking experience. The organiser is not the only one preparing the hike – every participant has to prepare it on his / her own by taking a look on the Internet.

People generally assess the difficulty of a hike by just looking at the length (15 to 25 km for single day hikes), which is a big mistake. You have to take into account the elevation gain as well. To avoid struggling, I would suggest that:

• First timers should try less than 700m of elevation gain

• Beginners (1 to 5 hikes) should do less than 1300m of elevation gain

• After a few hikes, you can increase the difficulty for more challenging hikes. Experienced hikers can do 1800 to 2500m of elevation gain in a single day.

What about the technical difficulty?

Even regular hikers could have some difficulties with scrambling, or climbing a steep ascent by holding a cable. It is very important to know about such details before joining a hike, by doing some research about the route on your own, or by asking to the organiser.

European trails are graded from level 1 to 6, according to the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) scale. Levels 1 to 3 are regular hiking trails, even if level 3 is a bit exposed and can include some cables. Levels 4 to 6 are alpine trails (very exposed, you might need some climbing gear for safety). For more details, have a look here. First timers and beginners should avoid any trail graded T3.

Here is the description of each level of the SAC scale (Source: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:sac_scale)