Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Calories burned during high altitude climbing

Awhile back there was a long debate about how many calories were burned in a high altitude climb. Last weekend I climbed Shasta (can't do Whitney every weekend) and took along a Garmin Forerunner portable GPS with a heart monitor. It records your workout and calculates a number of parameters, including calories burned using heart rate as a measure of work done. I recorded from Helen Lake (10,500') to the summit (14,162') and back. The definitive answer is that it burned fifty four (54) Calories.

Hah...sounds like one of my workouts where I will run 8 miles, burn 1000 calories, go to work, have a donut and realize that I just negated the caloric benefits of an hour-long run in one minute! Doh!

Could it be that the software measured your starting and finishing point and surmised that you really didn't go anywhere, since start and finish were the same?

Sam -- All this means is that you have the most efficient body out there! You should be proud that your training has paid such dividends.

I think you are on the right track, it has to be a software glitch of some sort. Since most runs and bike rides, the application that this was designed for, start and end at the same point I don't think that is specifically it. I'll call Garmin later this week and see if they know what is going on.

Hey SS, I just recently purchased a Polar RS800 (for the GPS Pod that supposed to come out in a few months). It does calories burned, ft/m per hour, etc. Interesting looking at the data when it's downloaded to the computer. I really like that I can "set" a lap time and see what the rate of ascent was for that part of a route.

There was a thread on this topic a number of years ago and I recall having an e-mail conversation with the folks at Polar about the accuracy of the data. They stated that calorie consumption data was practically useless at altitude, because HR is a factor in the calculation and normally HR climbs as you climb. (Not based on effort necessarily, but due to the acclimitization process.)

Just got one myself. Make sure you install and run the Webupdater with your Forerunner connected to your computer. There is a software patch that supposedly takes care of the problem.

FYI, I just completed a 7 mile run with about a 500' elevation gain out and back, and it calculated 941 calories - so I know that with the update it works.