Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Routeburn: The physical work

I used Map My Walk on my phone to track our route - speed and altitude - for our Routeburn Tramp, and it was quite interesting (and INSANE) to contemplate, now that its all said and done.

 Day One. Not at all sure what was recorded for that first hour, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't all down hill (and dramatically so), especially since the breakdown suggests we started at 580m, not the 1500-odd that the elevation indicator shows! The map is fairly close to accurate though for the line.
You can clearly see where we started climbing - bang on the 9km mark. There were a LOT of stops on the way up the hill, and I had a rule that apart from lunch, I didn't stop the tracker during the day. Every km has some climb, with the last 2.7km involving 330m uphill (Routeburn Flats to Routeburn Falls Huts).
Fitbit: 24,398 steps over day
MapMyWalk: 10.72km, 14,577 steps while walking, 16,000kJ

 Day Two. Started reasonably high and got higher. You can see we climbed quite gradually up to the saddle, then it was a chunk of drop on to the Hollyford Face, before a gradual climbing sidle to the top. Clearly Laurie and I made good pace dropping down to Lake Mackenzie. Average pace much slower, and that first 3km was SO slow. Yikes. That will have been the 400m climb, plus the views, snow and heat! The last 2km was almost entirely downhill, with only a 3m gain from the lowest point at the very end. All other km breakdowns had a bigger climb.
Fitbit: 30,211 steps over day
MapMyWalk:  10.93km, 14,870 steps while walking, 21,824kJ

Day Three. Our fastest day on average, which is awesome, considering how exhausted we all were. Also just the longest. The gradual climb away from the hut is clear, and then its obviously a long sidle around. The descent to Lake Howden looks more obvious here than it felt at the time. The slower sections involved a bit more climbing on rough terrain (which Claires sore feet found really hard) and then the 5-6km distance involved Earland Falls, which we negotiated very slowly (large, wet rocks, with a nasty fall), and stopped for food.
Somehow, our climb up to the Key Summit turnoff (199m over about 1km) only took 20 minutes, and every single km involved SOME uphill from its lowest point (the least uphill was the last km, with 4m up).
Fitbit: 31,943 steps over day
MapMyWalk:  12.91km, 17,555 steps while walking, 18,723kJ

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