Some years ago, while hunting in the mountains (I am a flatlander) I was walking uphill on a survey line. The altitude was 9,000 ft. at camp.
Walking this grade(angle unknown) was strenuous but didn’t require rest stops. After somewhere like 30+ minuets of walking i realized there was no effort to walk anymore and wondered why the land had flattened out in front of me. The maps i had reviewed the evening before didn’t show any plateau’s. I then looked back and it was all downhill, the same effort to walk when i stated the uphill walk was again felt with every step.
Is there a explanation for this? other that I am just plain nuts
I have experienced somewhat similar things while driving long uphill grades. After some time the grade will look like a flat grade and the motor will be working hard. I even checked the parking brake thinking I had mechanical problems until a look in the rear view, and seeing the down hill grade, then the sensation of flat was gone. :dubious:
What happened here?
I often find the first 30 mins to be the worst regardless of terrain. I always thought it was due to my breakfast sitting in my stomach, but I am not really sure.
I’d agree that the first 30 minutes or so are the hardest and that after that, small slopes tend to be a lot less worrisome. It’s the big slopes that become a problem!
But then I’ve noticed the same thing canoeing in the BWCA, more or less. After an hour or two, you’re certain that you’re done in and won’t be able to keep paddling for days on end. At that point, I’m probably more tired than I am at the end of the same day.
I wish I knew the specifics, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the body using sugars for the first half hour of exercise, and then shifting to more effecient fat reserves after that time. FWIW, the first and last 15 minutes of a rugby game are the toughest, too.
How exactly is one able to tell what the “grade” that they are traveling on is? There are two main methods.
The internal sensation of gravity. Since gravity is pretty much always straight up-and-down, any sensation of “force” otherwise can give you a good idea of what the grade is. Unfortunately, being confined to a car seat doesn’t help this perception any. Also, it seems to be unreliable to begin with, as i’ve read accounts (urban legends?) of people buried by cave-ins digging in completely the wrong direction from the surface.
Visual cues. Trees tend to grow straight up and down. Water flows downhill, rock formations tend to be piled straight up and down. The location of the horizon gives a pretty good estimation as well. But lacking all those cues(i.e, driving uphill where the real horizon is obscured in front of you), it makes it real hard to tell.
If the uphill grade is long enough (as in your case), It might actually require you to turn around (when you start leaning forward away from your seat, your car starts coasting on its own, and you can see the horizon) before your sense of traveling at an angle returns.
I wonder about the bicyclists that ride in the mountain areas. They peddle for miles on uphills. They must at some point loose the perception of the grade.
I was thinking it may be more of a “Mind Over Matter” kind of thing.
The reason is,
