How we grade our tours
Every SummitGuides trip has two grades. They answer different questions, and a high mark on one does not mean a high mark on the other.
Physical effort
How hard the trip is on your body: hours on the move, elevation, altitude, the weight you carry, and how those days sit one after another.
Technicality
What the ground asks of you: a trail, easy snow, a glacier, an exposed ridge, or pitched climbing. This is skill and terrain, not fitness.
How a grade is chosen
- We grade the trip as it is normally guided, using the hardest typical day, in the season that programme runs.
- A long trek on paths can be physically hard and still non-technical. A shorter climb can be only moderate on the body and expert on the rock.
- The grade describes the terrain. On a course, your guide teaches the technique during the week. The tour page says what you should already know before you arrive.
- Weather, snow and the group can change a single day. The grade is the trip in normal conditions, not a promise about every hour.
Physical effort
Five steps, from a short valley walk to a trip you train for over months.
Very easy
Short, gentle days: about 2–4 hours and under 400 m of ascent, on good paths, with time in hand. There is no altitude to manage and no reason to hurry.
Easy
Comfortable trail days of about 4–6 hours and 400–700 m of ascent. You finish with energy left, and a daypack is all you carry.
Moderate
Real mountain days, repeated: roughly 5–8 hours and 700–1,200 m of ascent, with a daypack or a light hut pack. You should already hike regularly and be happy on your feet for a full day.
Hard
Long days, often 8–12 hours, with a lot of height gain, a heavier pack, or real altitude above 3,500 m. You need to arrive already trained for this specific trip.
Very hard
Several very long days in a row, sustained altitude, and little spare energy. Fitness is part of the requirement, not a bonus. These are the trips we ask you to prepare for over months.
Technicality
Five steps, in plain language.
Non-technical
Paths and tracks. Your hands stay on your poles. There is no rope, and no crampons.
Basic
Easy snow, or ski touring on moderate ground. You might use skins, hold an ice axe for balance, or put a hand on easy rock. You are not climbing roped pitches.
Intermediate
Glacier travel with crampons and a rope, plus short steeper steps. The ground asks for balance and attention. On many of these trips the guide teaches the technique, so earlier glacier experience is often not required. You do need to be steady on your feet.
Advanced
Steep snow or ice, an exposed ridge, or pitched climbing. You use crampons and the rope for more than a short walk across a glacier. Courses at this grade teach the skills on the trip. Private ascents expect you to have used them before.
Expert
Sustained, exposed alpine climbing. Rock, ice or mixed ground is the day itself, not a short step on the way to a snowy summit. These trips are for people who already climb in the mountains.
Read the two grades together
A long hotel-to-hotel trek can be Moderate and Non-technical: the days are long enough to matter, and the walking stays on trails.
The same Moderate mark on a short summit can sit next to Intermediate terrain: a glacier, crampons and a rope, even when the trip is only a couple of days.
Hard and Advanced is a long summit day with altitude, a glacier and an exposed ridge. Very hard and Expert is a step further: sustained, exposed climbing, with less margin in the day.