Hiking difficulty levels

All tourist routes offered on this site are indicated by the level of difficulty (low, medium, high). The terminology is quite understandable, however, I would like to tell you in more detail what these levels mean and what conclusions to draw from this.

Official classification.

You may know that there is an official classification of hiking trips: non-categorical (the simplest), first, second, third ... sixth (most difficult) difficulty categories. There is a whole set of objective criteria by which a hike can be classified into one of the official difficulty categories. This includes the duration of the hike (in days) and the length of the route (in kilometers), the elevation difference and the presence of certain difficult technical sections on the route.

So, all our routes are non-categorical. From the official point of view, they are very simple and “do not reach” even the first category of complexity.

With all this, I am well aware that two “neighboring” routes, with the same length and elevation difference, can differ significantly from each other (in terms of difficulty level). To somehow inform you about this, I came up with an unofficial classification of routes.

Unofficial classification.

When assigning a hike one of the difficulty levels (low, medium, high), I was guided not only by the previously mentioned official criteria (kilometers, altitude...). The condition of trails and roads along the route, proximity to civilization, the number of water sources, the possibility of replenishing food supplies, the climate of the area, and the availability of mobile communications were taken into account.

Route variability.

When determining the level of difficulty, a very important criterion is the variability of the route - i.e. the ability to make changes to the route. This may be needed in case of bad weather or to “adjust” the route to the capabilities of the group. Agree that it’s nice to have a dozen alternative places to stay overnight with springs, a hundred detour paths, a thousand ways to quickly “dump” to a safe place. But there are areas where there is only one option for overnight accommodation with water, to which only one path leads. And whether you want it or not, you have to go through this section. It is clear that this increases the complexity of the route.

Subjective assessments.

No matter how much I praise the merits of my classification, it has and will have one insurmountable drawback - objectivity. Yes, objectivity is not always good. More precisely, not for everyone. After all, you personally are actually interested in your own subjective perception of the route (whether it will be easy or difficult for me). And it may differ significantly from my conditionally objective assessment of the complexity of this route.

A good example

Last year you hiked a low difficulty route (Cave Cities). But everything turned out to be not so simple. Uncomfortable shoes rubbed blisters, an unusual backpack pressed on my shoulders, which were also badly sunburned. Your subjective assessment of the difficulty of the route is unambiguous - very difficult.

A year has passed, you are ready to go on a hike again. Route “Water and Stones” - medium level of difficulty. This time you took comfortable, worn-in shoes and prudently protected yourself from solar radiation. You’ve already gotten used to the backpack, and based on last year’s experience, you took half as much stuff. And the company turned out to be very cheerful and it was not boring to go. The result is that you rate the route as easy. Much lighter than last year. And this despite the fact that 2 times more kilometers were covered, and peaks were conquered that were more than 3 times higher than last year’s.

Search for meaning.

If everything is so subjective, then why do we need levels of difficulty?

And they are needed to give you additional information to choose a suitable tour. So that your reasoning is based not only on an assessment of the artistic merits of the description of the tour. So that my conscience is clear, about the fact that you were warned about the complexity of the route:)