Have been troubled by my inability to correctly gauge the total height of the hill climb. Today I went out and did 4 reps with a recovery loop between each hill rep. The first time I made this climb I arrived at the top half dead, totally incapable of further forward movement until I had fully recovered my breath. Today, I marched up to the top without any problem at all. And did it four times running.
The height of the hill is deceptive. The track does not go directly up the hill face but cuts across it at an angle. The first pitch is fairly steep. It rises an estimated 24 feet in less than 24 feet of run.
The next pitch contains a gradual rise of 12 feet along a run of about 80 feet. After this the track steepens and the last pitch rises 24 feet in a 30 foot run. Viewing the climb from either the bottom, or from the top, makes it appear to involve a rise of about 100 feet. I have tried several times to capture the height of the hill in an image. None of these attempts seems to capture, or convey, the full height.
First Image
Second Image
Third Image
Fourth Image
On a couple of occasions I have been able to capture imagery of another person making the climb. A portion of the fourth image is shown in colour in the header above. Within the red circle you can just make out the legs and bare feet of a woman walking along the lower track. Her head and upper torso are obscured by undergrowth. Only her outstretched left leg and foot are visible.
The right hand portion of the header image circles the barely discernible figure of a climber. This is an enlarged portion of the header file found on image three, the Shambolic post. The figure is not evident until you know what to look for. When you then turn to the original unenlarged header image, you can pick out the climber. She is close to reaching the crest. Image three and four were taken from almost the same spot. The third image looks uphill toward the crest. The fourth image looks down toward the main track.
When looking at these images the height of the hill looks to be greater than my estimate of roughly 60 odd feet of climb. Being concerned over my ability to correctly judge reality (a major concern of anyone with a head injury) I sought to verify the actual height of the hill.
To achieve this I downloaded an Altimeter app and made four repetitions of the hill climb. The first three all gave identical readings of 115 meters at the base and 132 meters at the crest. The fourth rep resulted in a reading of 114 meters at the base and 131 meters at the top. This change was likely due to a low pressure system which was rolling in and obscuring the sky.
All of the altimeter readings gave a height difference of 17 meters. Translated into the English equivalent that metric reading equals a 60 foot climb. 55.77 feet to be precise. So my Mark 1 Eyeball estimate was off by only 4 feet, 2 and three quarter inches. Not bad at all. I credit my time in marine SAR for this ability to accurately judge both heights and speed.
Update September 15th, 2015
Google watches my phone images and produces interesting panoramas and will merge discrete images into faux moving pictures. I found Google has done exactly this with my attempt to capture the walker on the lower main track. The Google imagery may be found here. The walker is clearly seen in the upper left corner.