The grades
To give an idea how hard each of our holidays is, we use two scales:
Skill (Terrain, and need for navigation and self-reliance) |
Fitness (Distance and ascent) |
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1 There is little or no ascent at this easiest fitness grade, and daily distances are modest. |
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2 The fitness to walk half- or full-days in the hills is needed, with typical daily ascents of 600m. |
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3 Good fitness in the mountains is called for, to tackle comfortably an ascent of around 1,000m in a full day's walk; it's an all-round day out in the mountains. |
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4 Strong fitness is needed at this highest grade, to tackle continuous ascents of between 1,000m and 1,500m in height gain in the course of a full day of 7 or 8 hours or longer. Exceptional days can involve even more ascent and time than this. |
These two scales combine into an overall grade. We hope that using two separate scales allows finer accuracy than the combined rating that we used before 2012. Our colour-coding of the skill grade will also be familiar from skiing or mountain biking.