Irony Gap

Sunday my trail running group staged a run over the Charoleau Gap, a pass over the San Maniego Ridge.  This route is a well known jeep trail.  I brought up the rear taking photos.  The turnaround was at the first crossing of the Canada del Oro, which drains the valley between San Maniego and Oracle Ridge--

That was about 9.7 miles into the run.  On the way back as I neared the Gap, I started to encounter 4 wheel drive vehicles--

 

I couldn't help but be struck by the contrast between my calorie consumption and that of the vehicles.  In the course of the event I consumed 1 Clif Bar and one pack of Clif Blox.  Admitted I burned a lot more calories than that from my body's reserves.  Back at my car, I found the run director had left me her phone number, 2 drinks, some strawberries and a brownie, and the remnants of potato chips and peanut butter pretzels mixed together.   All were rapidly consumed.

However, for the 19.5 miles, my total calories burned would have amounted to less than 150 calories per mile.  So I burned perhaps 2,900 calories, maybe less.  A gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories.  A vehicle like the one pictured is probably under 10 mpg for a trek like this, so let's say they used 2-3 gallons.  For a full comparison, we should include travel to the jeep trail.  From my home that was 70 mile round trip.  In my Prius that is less than 1.5 gallons.  I've come across a claim of 16 mpg on smooth level roads for a Hummer, so at least another 4 gallons if I had one of those instead.  My expedition consumed about 49,400 calories between human and vehicle.  The Hummer-carrying human would have consumed at least 186,000 calories, not counting the human.

On the websites that talk about this route, a 5-7 hour transit time is mentioned.  I did a leisurely 7:45 on foot taking a lot of photos.  The next slowest runner took 4:29, less than the minimum time for a vehicle.   The fastest runners were under 3:15.  So not only is a vehicle pretty energy hungry, it's slow on this route.

I'm sure the drivers and riders were having fun, and they were all pleasant when I passed.  But this activity is probably a poster-child for a sport that will decline pretty quickly when oil gets expensive.  I frankly think a good field vehicle like a Hummer or a Land Cruiser is wonderful for what it's designed for.  I loved my Isuzu Trooper and drove it for over 200,000 miles.  But this was a striking demonstration of a subculture and associated manufacturers of off-road products and people selling them that is likely to fail quickly as oil production declines.  I suspect that's a multi-billion dollar industry employing in the hundreds of thousands of people.

Let's end with a view of what the 4-wheelers and the runners got to see back in the valley on the other side of the gap--