- Time of past OR future Camino
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I'm always amused by all the posts that ask how difficult a particular route is. And having just come back from the Le Puy route, I'm asked the same question by fellow Camino addicts in the SF Bay Area: How hard was it? Of course there's no answer. My hard is your easy, and vice versa.
Insofar as we try to move beyond purely subjective feelings, we often look to total elevation gain (in addition to distance, of course) as a measure of difficulty. But I don't find that very satisfying. A 400 meter ascent spread out evenly over 20 kilometers on a smooth path is hardly noticeable, but if that ascent involves clambering over rocks and it comes in the last 4 kilometers of an otherwise flat 20 kilometer stretch, you'll arrive gasping for breath.
However, it did strike me that there are some semi-objective ratings out there, which can at least help us make comparisons between caminos --- the Gronze ratings of 1 - 5 stars in order of increasing difficulty. Presumably (I said to myself), whoever created those ratings has no ax to grind. So, as a fun kind of game, I decided to try and arrive at a difficulty rating -- per Gronze -- of all the caminos my wife and I have walked, with special focus on the Le Puy, since that's the last one we did.
In doing this, it first struck me that you can't just divide the total number of stars by the total Gronze stages and get a per stage rating. Instead, you have to compensate for the effects of stages of different distances. A 30 kilometer or more stage will almost always get three stars or more, no matter how undemanding the individual kilometers are; conversely, a stage less than 20 kilometers will rarely get more than two stars, even if constantly up and down.
So -- to compensate for these distance biases, I added up the total number of stars Gronze gives for the entire camino, and then divided that number by the camino’s total length in kilometers. I then multiplied that quotient by 25 to get a star rating for a typical stage of 25 kilometers.
Here's what I came up with for the long caminos we’ve walked, from easiest to hardest:
Frances - 2.24
Le Puy — 2.43
Norte (up to link-up with Frances at Arzua) -- 2.70
That actually fit our subjective impression, so it was reassuring.
Throwing in the shorter caminos we've walked adds to the fun (although it's misleading, as discussed below):
Portuguese coastal (up to link-up with central route) — 2.11
Portuguese central route (from Porto to Santiago) — 2.18
Frances - 2.24
Le Puy — 2.43
Ingles - 2.46
Norte (up to link-up with Frances at Arzua) -- 2.70
Primitivo (up to Frances link-up at Melide) - 2.98
Of course, mixing the shorter caminos into a comparison like this is unfair to the longer caminos. Demanding as the Primitivo may be, for example, there’s no way it’s more taxing to walk the two weeks it typically requires than to walk the five weeks most people take to do the Frances. Nor is it more taxing to walk the Ingles for 5 relatively difficult days than to walk the Portuguese’s easier stages for 10 or 12 days.
In fact, throwing the Primitivo (my favorite, actually) into the mix is totally misleading when you’re comparing it to the longer caminos. And with a little more juggling of the numbers, I was actually able to "prove" that in walking the Norte and Le Puy routes (the last two caminos we've done), we actually first walked a camino as difficult as the Primitivo, then still had 500 kilometers to go!
Here's how I arrived at that "proof." According to Gronze, the Primitivo runs 250 kilometers from Oviedo to the junction with the Frances at Melide. My calculations above show that the Primitivo’s per stage rating is 2.98. The stage rating of the first 250 kilometers of the Le Puy route, from Le Puy to Figeac, is actually 3.0, essentially the same. The Norte’s first 250 kilometers, through Guemes, earns a difficulty rating of 3.16, even higher. So, on these two caminos, you start out by doing a camino as difficult as the Primitivo, and when you've finished, you still have 500 kilometers to go! (Of course, if you cut off the Norte onto the Primitivo, instead of sticking to the Norte, you've now given yourself two Primitivos -- and then some).
Just for the fun of it, although it doesn’t relate to the Le Puy route at all, I also calculated the easiest way to get a compostela, from easiest to hardest:
Portuguese (Tui to Santiago): 2.16
Frances (Sarria to Santiago): 2.41
Ingles (Ferrol to Santiago): 2.46
Primitivo (Lugo to Santiago): 2.50 (est.)
Norte (Baamonde to Santiago, via Arzua on Frances): 2.50
Finisterre (Muxia to Finisterre to Santiago): 2.61
And finally, although I've never walked it, I was curious how the Via de la Plata fits into this. Adding up the stars and the distances given by Gronze (from Sevilla to Astorga on the Frances) yields a difficulty rating of 2.35, about the same as the Frances. Undoubtedly, that will stir up some grumbling because often it's hard to break up VDLP's longer stages (or so I've heard), and 35 kilometers is just plain hard. Plus, while it can be pleasant on the Norte in August, just try walking the VDLP at that time.
If you've read this far, you're probably grumbling away, with lots of "Buts" and strenuous disagreements. And that's the fun of it.
Bring it on!
Insofar as we try to move beyond purely subjective feelings, we often look to total elevation gain (in addition to distance, of course) as a measure of difficulty. But I don't find that very satisfying. A 400 meter ascent spread out evenly over 20 kilometers on a smooth path is hardly noticeable, but if that ascent involves clambering over rocks and it comes in the last 4 kilometers of an otherwise flat 20 kilometer stretch, you'll arrive gasping for breath.
However, it did strike me that there are some semi-objective ratings out there, which can at least help us make comparisons between caminos --- the Gronze ratings of 1 - 5 stars in order of increasing difficulty. Presumably (I said to myself), whoever created those ratings has no ax to grind. So, as a fun kind of game, I decided to try and arrive at a difficulty rating -- per Gronze -- of all the caminos my wife and I have walked, with special focus on the Le Puy, since that's the last one we did.
In doing this, it first struck me that you can't just divide the total number of stars by the total Gronze stages and get a per stage rating. Instead, you have to compensate for the effects of stages of different distances. A 30 kilometer or more stage will almost always get three stars or more, no matter how undemanding the individual kilometers are; conversely, a stage less than 20 kilometers will rarely get more than two stars, even if constantly up and down.
So -- to compensate for these distance biases, I added up the total number of stars Gronze gives for the entire camino, and then divided that number by the camino’s total length in kilometers. I then multiplied that quotient by 25 to get a star rating for a typical stage of 25 kilometers.
Here's what I came up with for the long caminos we’ve walked, from easiest to hardest:
Frances - 2.24
Le Puy — 2.43
Norte (up to link-up with Frances at Arzua) -- 2.70
That actually fit our subjective impression, so it was reassuring.
Throwing in the shorter caminos we've walked adds to the fun (although it's misleading, as discussed below):
Portuguese coastal (up to link-up with central route) — 2.11
Portuguese central route (from Porto to Santiago) — 2.18
Frances - 2.24
Le Puy — 2.43
Ingles - 2.46
Norte (up to link-up with Frances at Arzua) -- 2.70
Primitivo (up to Frances link-up at Melide) - 2.98
Of course, mixing the shorter caminos into a comparison like this is unfair to the longer caminos. Demanding as the Primitivo may be, for example, there’s no way it’s more taxing to walk the two weeks it typically requires than to walk the five weeks most people take to do the Frances. Nor is it more taxing to walk the Ingles for 5 relatively difficult days than to walk the Portuguese’s easier stages for 10 or 12 days.
In fact, throwing the Primitivo (my favorite, actually) into the mix is totally misleading when you’re comparing it to the longer caminos. And with a little more juggling of the numbers, I was actually able to "prove" that in walking the Norte and Le Puy routes (the last two caminos we've done), we actually first walked a camino as difficult as the Primitivo, then still had 500 kilometers to go!
Here's how I arrived at that "proof." According to Gronze, the Primitivo runs 250 kilometers from Oviedo to the junction with the Frances at Melide. My calculations above show that the Primitivo’s per stage rating is 2.98. The stage rating of the first 250 kilometers of the Le Puy route, from Le Puy to Figeac, is actually 3.0, essentially the same. The Norte’s first 250 kilometers, through Guemes, earns a difficulty rating of 3.16, even higher. So, on these two caminos, you start out by doing a camino as difficult as the Primitivo, and when you've finished, you still have 500 kilometers to go! (Of course, if you cut off the Norte onto the Primitivo, instead of sticking to the Norte, you've now given yourself two Primitivos -- and then some).
Just for the fun of it, although it doesn’t relate to the Le Puy route at all, I also calculated the easiest way to get a compostela, from easiest to hardest:
Portuguese (Tui to Santiago): 2.16
Frances (Sarria to Santiago): 2.41
Ingles (Ferrol to Santiago): 2.46
Primitivo (Lugo to Santiago): 2.50 (est.)
Norte (Baamonde to Santiago, via Arzua on Frances): 2.50
Finisterre (Muxia to Finisterre to Santiago): 2.61
And finally, although I've never walked it, I was curious how the Via de la Plata fits into this. Adding up the stars and the distances given by Gronze (from Sevilla to Astorga on the Frances) yields a difficulty rating of 2.35, about the same as the Frances. Undoubtedly, that will stir up some grumbling because often it's hard to break up VDLP's longer stages (or so I've heard), and 35 kilometers is just plain hard. Plus, while it can be pleasant on the Norte in August, just try walking the VDLP at that time.
If you've read this far, you're probably grumbling away, with lots of "Buts" and strenuous disagreements. And that's the fun of it.
Bring it on!