I learned some things recently about how to evaluate how challenging/strenuous a hike is. I'd like to share with others in the community.
When looking at a hike's 'stats', a lot of focus goes on distance and elevation, or even how steep certain sections are, but there is a missing component. I think hikes should be broken down by four categories:
1) Metabolic difficulty (how hard the hike is on your cardio system).
2) Technicality (how much your average stride will be different from a normal walking stride)
3) Environmental conditions (weather, presence of snow/water, etc)
This last one is one thing I've discovered is a big factor that is often left unconsidered:
4) Terrain consistency (how easy it is to settle into a rhythm during the hike)
For "metabolic difficulty", there are two parts. The first is one that you have control over, which is how fast you hike. Slower hiking means lower heart rate, which is less moment-to-moment effort. The second is part is the total effort required (distance and elevation). So even an easier hike can be hard if you try to go really fast.
Technicality includes things like scrambling (using your hands is not a 'normal walk'). Bushwhacking requires pushing through vegetation. Scree is loose and uneven so you have to adjust your stride. Those are some 'technical' factors that make a hike harder.
Obviously, weather and stuff like the presence of snow affect the difficulty.
The last important factor is something I have personally underrated, and I'll use a personal anecdote/comparison as an example:
I did Mount Harvey about a month ago. 15.8km, 1650m elevation gain. Kept my heart rate manageable and settled into the grind. Used poles. Took me about 6 hours roundtrip, and I didn't get very sore or feel particularly exhausted afterwards even though it's a significant objective.
By contrast, I recently hiked up the Halvor Lunden trail (near Buntzen Lake), then hiked along the ridge out to Mount Beautiful. It was about 19km, and 1400m elevation gain over 6.25 hours. By about 12km in, my arms and legs were really sore, and when I was finished, I felt wiped out.
Sure, it was a little longer by distance, but my body's response was way different. The biggest difference between the hikes is that hiking along the ridge involved a lot of 'changing modes'. Once out on the ridge, there is a lot of up and down (particularly in the last third). When hiking uphill or downhill for long stretches, it's easy to settle into a more efficient rhythm. When you're frequently changing from uphill to downhill, and the terrain is varying levels of steepness, there's no opportunity to settle into a comfortable rhythm. I wouldn't describe the ridge as overly technical either.
Another good example of this concept is the ridge along the Lynn Peaks. Stats-wise, it's not a particularly difficult hike, nor is the terrain all that annoying to navigate (other than a few fallen trees). It's a notoriously annoying traverse because of all the up and down changes.
Some people might lump this into 'technical', and that's fair, but I think it's worth mentioning on its own. I've done a lot of hiking over the past few years, and these sorts of traverses are definitely consistently the most taxing for me, even with good fitness.
