3.  Viewing Your Climbs After Signing an ePeakRegister:  After signing an ePeakRegister for all of your climbs, you may view each of your climbs with a Personal Peak Register (PPR) (See PPR Examples).  As the PPR examples illustrate, your PPR page can be as simple or complex as you desire.  Naturally, your PPR can only list information, such as mileage and elevation, that you take the time to enter.

4.  Concealing Dates and Trips:  On occasion, you may wish to sign an ePeakRegister of a peak so that you may view the record of your ascent on your PPR, but simultaneously keep the date or the ascent private.  When you conceal a date, the date of your ascent will be shown as "unrecorded" on the ePeakRegister of the peak and on any list publicly available that shows your climbs.  When you conceal a trip, your ascent is not shown publicly on the ePeakRegister of the peak, nor is the ascent counted in summaries showing the number of peaks climbed on a list.    

5.  Entering Miles and Elevation:

Explantion of Climbing and Backpacking Miles, Climbing and Backpacking Elevation Gain
ePeakRegister treats Climbing Miles and Climbing Elevation as the miles hiked and elevation gained on a day when at least one peak is climbed, and Backpacking Miles and Backpacking Elevation as the miles hiked and elevation gained on a day when no peak is climbed, and typically on an approach to the peak with a backpack.  Backpacking Miles and Elevation are not intended to represent the miles and elevation where you literally carried a backpack.

The two categories of miles and elevation allow ePeakRegister to provide accurate daily, monthly, and annual summaries for mileage and elevation.  The typical PPR sort displays a mileage and elevation associated with a peak (see example 2 at PPR Examples), and the mileage and elevation shown for each peak represents the total miles and elevation of the trip, including any backpacking miles and elevation that resulted from a backpack the day before the climb of the peak.  The backpacking miles and elevation entered for any peak are also included in any monthly or annual summary of mileage and elevation (see example 1 at Summary Examples ).

Example 1 - Entering Miles and Elevation for a Peak Climb with a Backpack
A peak is climbed over two days, with a 4-mile, 1000’ backpack from the trailhead to camp the first day.  The second day involves a 6-mile, 3000’ roundtrip climb from the camp to the peak and a 4-mile backpack to return to the trailhead.  For ePeakRegister to provide accurate mileage and elevation summaries, enter the Climbing Miles as 10 (6+4), the Climbing Elevation as 3000, the Backpacking Miles as 4, and the Backpacking Elevation as 1000.

Example 2 - Entering Miles for Climbing Two Peaks in a One-Day Trip
Two peaks are climbed in a one-day hike of 10 miles.  The best practice is to enter 10 as the Climbing Miles for the higher peak and 0 as the Climbing Miles for the lower peak.  However, the mileage summaries and Daily Summary PPR sort will still be correct if the total of 10 miles is divided between the two peaks, such as entering 5 as the Climbing Miles for each peak.

Explantion of Climbing and Return Elevations
In addition to providing daily, monthly and annual elevation summaries, ePeakRegister automatically calculates the average rate of ascent (feet/hour) if you enter the elevation gain and the start and summit times of the climb.  On some hikes, the total elevation of a climb includes some elevation gained that occurs after reaching the summit and on the return to the trailhead.  The elevation gained in returning to the trailhead is included in the elevation summaries, but not in the calculation of the rate of ascent.  When the Climbing and Return  Elevations are entered for a trip when more than one peak is climbed, divide the total elevation gain into discrete values and only enter each value once. 

Finally, to eliminate the need to calculate Climbing, Backpacking and Return Elevations, one can enter the relevant elevations involved in the climb and allow ePeakRegister to calculate the climbing, backpacking and return elevation gains. 

Example 3 - Entering the Elevations for One Peak with Elevation Gained on the Return to the Trailhead
A peak climb starts with a descent of 500' to a valley floor before a 3000' elevation gain from the valley floor to the summit.  Enter the Climbing Elevation as 3000 and the Return Elevation as 500.

Example 4 - Entering the Elevations for Two Peaks Climbed in One Day
Two peaks are climbed with a total elevation gain of 5000' that involves 3500' of climbing to reach the first summit, 1000' of climbing to reach the second summit from the saddle between the first and second peaks, and 500' of climbing to return to the trailhead.  When signing the ePeakRegister of the first peak, enter 3500 as the Climbing Elevation and 500 as the Return Elevation.  When signing the ePeakRegister of the second peak, enter 1000 as the Climbing Elevation and leave the Return Elevation field blank.  If the Return Elevation is entered twice for the two peaks, any daily, monthly and annual elevation summary will be erroneous by 500.

Example 5 – Using ePeakRegister to Calculate Elevation Gains
A climb starts at the trailhead of 11,000’, descends to a valley floor at 10,500’, and climbs to the summit at 14,000’.  Instead of calculating the elevation gains to be entered as the Climbing and Return Elevations, one can enter 14000 as the “Summit (High) Elevation” field, 10500 for the “Trailhead, Camp or Valley (Low) Elevation” field, 11000 as the “1a) High Elevation” field, and 10500 as the “1b) Low Elevation” field.  Multiple elevation fields are provide in the event a climb involves many ascents and descents.  If you have more than three cases, sorry, but you must sum the secondary elevations yourself and enter the result in the "secondary elevation" field.

To summarize:

Climbing Elevation:  All elevation gained when climbing the peak that should be considered when calculating the rate of ascent. 

Return Elevation:  All elevation gained on a day a peak is climbed, but should not be considered when calculating the rate of ascent.

6.  Entering Times:  If you are interested in your PPR calculating an ascent rate or recording the times for your climbs, please take the time to understand the explanation below for the time fields (See a PPR with Ascent Rate).  The PPR shows an ascent rate; a trip time, which is the total time spent hiking from the start of the hike to the finish of the hike; and an ascent time, which is the time spent hiking from a trailhead or saddle to a summit.  If you climb one peak in a single day, the times for starting the climb, reaching the summit, and finishing the climb are entered.  When viewing your PPR, the trip time is calculated as the difference between the stop and start times, and the ascent rate is calculated using the ascent time as the difference between the summit time and the start time. 

If you climb more than one peak in the day, the best approach for entering times is to enter the start, summit, and stop times for the first summit reached and then enter the appropriate times for each subsequent peak using the first summit, saddle, and second summit time fields.  For example, imagine a climb starting at 6AM that reaches a first summit at 9AM, a  saddle at 10AM, a second summit at 11AM, and finishes at 1PM.  For the first peak, 6AM is entered as the start time, 9AM is entered as the summit time, and 1PM is entered as the stop time.  The trip time is shown as "7:00" in your PPR, and the ascent rate is calculated based upon the three hours required to reach the first summit.  For the second peak, 9AM is entered as the first summit time, 10AM is entered as the saddle time, and 11AM is entered as the second summit time.  The trip time is shown as "2:00" in your PPR, which was the time taken to travel from the first summit to the second summit, and the ascent rate is calculated based upon the one hour taken to reach the second summit from the saddle. 

If your climb involves a backpack, the ascent rate is calculated based upon the elevation gain and time spent climbing on the summit day, thereby excluding the time and elevation of the first day of the backpack.  Accordingly, the ascent rate is calculated using the difference between the times entered for the "Summit Time" and the Camp Start Time" fields.  The ascent elevation should be based upon the camp elevation, and the elevation gained during the backpack should be recorded as secondary elevation.  Recording the "Backpack Start Time" and Camp Stop Time" for the first day of backpacking allows for an accurate calculation of the total trip time, which is the time spent hiking over the backpack.

7.  Unsuccessful Summit Attempts:  ePeakRegister allows you to track your progress on climbing lists (Climbing List Example).  In the event you wish to record the mileage, elevation gained, and perhaps a trip report or comments for an unsuccessful summit bid, checking the "Unsuccessful Summit Ascent" box ensures this summit attempt will not appear as a successful summit climb on a climbing list.

8.  Favorite Climbs:  The PPR sort menu allows you to sort your climbs by any number of criteria, including your favorite climbs.  Checking the "Favorite Climb" box for your favorite climbs and creating a PPR page sorted by favorite climbs allows you to quickly and easily access the information of your favorite climbs. 

9.  Publishing or Concealing Trip Reports or Comments:  Trip reports or comments cannot be read by the public if you click the "conceal" button.  If you check the "publish" button, the public can read your trip report or comment when they it is displayed on an ePeakRegister for a peak.