> descent, which I feel is slower than walking on flat terrain when it’s sufficiently steep I found Tobler’s hiking function linked in the article interesting,

> descent, which I feel is slower than walking on flat terrain when it’s sufficiently steep I found Tobler’s hiking function linked in the article interesting, which reflects your observation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobler%27s_hiking_function https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobler%27s_hiking_function There are so many other factors involved. What about cumulative altitude gain? Climbing 2000’ starting at 15,000’ is much harder than starting from sea level, even if you didn’t already climb those 15,000’ from sea level to start the next 2,000.