To help you choose the trip best suited to your abilities, we’ve put together an easy-to-strenuous rating scale for both the hike in to base camp and the anticipated work difficulty.
For our friends travelling from further away, remember that the higher elevation may affect your ability level!
HIKING DIFFICULTY
Easy hike: Trailhead based or car camping with no hike into camp
Easy hike to camp: Less than five mile hike with little elevation gain
Moderate hike to camp: 5-10 miles with <1,000 ft. elevation gain
Challenging hike to camp: 5-10 miles with significant (1,000+ ft.) elevation change
Strenuous hike to camp: 10+ miles over mountain passes or on uneven terrain, and/or multi-day hike ins,
WORK DIFFICULTY
Easy work: Educational day hikes or data collection for citizen science projects
Moderately easy work: Picking up trash from campsites or closing social trails; Mapping weed infestations
Moderate work: Infrequent sawing/digging with hiking breaks; Bending over to pull weeds; Lopping brush from trail corridor
Challenging work: More consistent and repetitive such as sawing or swinging a Pulaski for the full day
Very strenuous work: Difficult hike to the worksite; hard continuous labor (sawing, digging) in difficult terrain