Trail Elevation Profiles

Using a standardized format for presenting elevation profiles of the trails, this handy little tool allows you to see at a quick glance the relative difficulty of a hike. All of the elevation profiles for the hikes presented at PA Hikes.com have a fixed elevation scale. The elevation ranges from 600 feet at the base of the profile to 2600 feet at the top of the profile. This 2000 foot elevation differential is the maximum that you are going to encounter on any hike within Central Pennsylvania.

Listed along with the elevation profile is the trail/hike name, hike difficulty, trail/hike length, elevation traversed per mile, and the total elevation traversed. Clicking on a trail name will take you to that specific hike which will give you more hiking statistics as well as topo maps and photos from the hike.

Using the trail profiles you can get a visualization of the difficulty of the hike. Along with this graphical element the hike difficulty rating will also assist in determining the difficulty of the hike. The Hike Difficulty number is a value assigned to a hike that takes into account three elements of the hike: length, elevation traversed, and days of hiking. The numerical value is determined by assigning 10 points for every mile hiked and 10 points for every 500 feet of elevation traversed. This total is then divided by the number of days spent hiking the trail.

You can sort the trail profile listing by clicking on any of the column headings. The first click will sort the listing in ascending order with a second click sorting the listing in descending order. Using these sorting techniques allows you to quickly find the longest or hardest hike, or if you prefer, the shortest and easiest hike.