CaminantesCamino del Norte elevation profile
831.6 km and 14,663 m of ascent, between 0 m and 708 m. Measured from the route's own GPS track rather than copied from anywhere, which matters more than it should: almost every ascent figure published for these routes, including ours until August 2026, was an estimate nobody could source.
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Metres up the side, kilometres along the bottom. Ticks are stage boundaries. Sampled every 100 m against SRTM 30m, smoothed over 500 m, climbs under 3 m discarded as noise.
Move across the profile to read any point, or drag to measure a stretch. With the keyboard: focus the profile, then arrow keys to move, shift for finer steps, Enter to start and end a measurement, Escape to clear. Each stage in the table below can also be measured directly.
What the profile shows
The Camino del Norte climbs 17.6 m per kilometre on average, which makes it the fourth steepest of the 10 routes measured here. A total on its own mostly measures how long a route is; per kilometre is what decides whether your days feel hilly.
The climbing is spread fairly evenly: 39%, 30% and 31% of the total ascent falls in the first, middle and final third. There is no one section that decides the route.
The longest sustained climb runs from km 553 to km 565, gaining 614 m over 12.3 km, an average grade of 5.0%. The high point, 708 m, comes at km 762, 92% of the way in.
The hardest days
Ranked by climbing rather than distance, which is a different list and the one that decides how the evening feels.
- Day 6, Gernika-Lumo to Bilbao : 836 m over 31.9 km
- Day 32, Vilanova to Abadín : 788 m over 25.3 km
- Day 4, Deba to Etxebarria : 744 m over 19.1 km
- Day 31, Ribadeo to Vilanova : 674 m over 26.7 km
- Day 3, Zarautz to Deba : 669 m over 22 km
Every stage
| Day | From | To | km | Ascent | High point |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Irún | Donostia / San Sebastián | 24.5 | 596 m | 271 m |
| 2 | Donostia / San Sebastián | Zarautz | 22.3 | 471 m | 310 m |
| 3 | Zarautz | Deba | 22 | 669 m | 285 m |
| 4 | Deba | Etxebarria | 19.1 | 744 m | 495 m |
| 5 | Etxebarria | Gernika-Lumo | 29.1 | 622 m | 395 m |
| 6 | Gernika-Lumo | Bilbao | 31.9 | 836 m | 362 m |
| 7 | Bilbao | Sestao | 16.6 | 382 m | 179 m |
| 8 | Sestao | Sámano | 30.6 | 459 m | 252 m |
| 9 | Sámano | El Puente | 20.8 | 168 m | 74 m |
| 10 | El Puente | Santoña | 20.4 | 414 m | 235 m |
| 11 | Santoña | Ajo | 17.7 | 227 m | 94 m |
| 12 | Ajo | Santander | 25.4 | 164 m | 114 m |
| 13 | Santander | Arce | 17.3 | 146 m | 75 m |
| 14 | Arce | Santillana del Mar | 20 | 262 m | 122 m |
| 15 | Santillana del Mar | La Iglesia | 17.7 | 352 m | 138 m |
| 16 | La Iglesia | San Vicente de la Barquera | 15.6 | 272 m | 100 m |
| 17 | San Vicente de la Barquera | Colombres | 16.8 | 340 m | 122 m |
| 18 | Colombres | Llanes | 24 | 232 m | 139 m |
| 19 | Llanes | Ribadesella / Ribeseya | 30.4 | 299 m | 107 m |
| 20 | Ribadesella / Ribeseya | Colunga | 20 | 300 m | 90 m |
| 21 | Colunga | Villaviciosa | 17.1 | 282 m | 173 m |
| 22 | Villaviciosa | Gijón / Xixón | 29.9 | 663 m | 434 m |
| 23 | Gijón / Xixón | Avilés | 26.2 | 264 m | 187 m |
| 24 | Avilés | L'Arena | 16.7 | 334 m | 178 m |
| 25 | L'Arena | La Magdalena | 15.8 | 341 m | 196 m |
| 26 | La Magdalena | Aucinera | 15.5 | 643 m | 489 m |
| 27 | Aucinera | Luarca / Ḷḷuarca | 24.7 | 342 m | 629 m |
| 28 | Luarca / Ḷḷuarca | Navia | 19.8 | 280 m | 180 m |
| 29 | Navia | Porcía | 15.2 | 199 m | 115 m |
| 30 | Porcía | Ribadeo | 16.9 | 163 m | 75 m |
| 31 | Ribadeo | Vilanova | 26.7 | 674 m | 362 m |
| 32 | Vilanova | Abadín | 25.3 | 788 m | 555 m |
| 33 | Abadín | Vilalba | 20.5 | 205 m | 541 m |
| 34 | Vilalba | A Silvosa | 15.8 | 166 m | 518 m |
| 35 | A Silvosa | A Bouzaboa | 15.4 | 165 m | 488 m |
| 36 | A Bouzaboa | Sobrado | 27.8 | 429 m | 708 m |
| 37 | Sobrado | Arzúa | 21.7 | 208 m | 556 m |
| 38 | Arzúa | O Pedrouzo | 19.5 | 277 m | 415 m |
| 39 | O Pedrouzo | Santiago de Compostela | 19.1 | 270 m | 390 m |
Stages are a suggested split, not a rule. Most people walk their own.
Where the numbers come from
The GPS track carries position but no height, so the altitude was measured rather than read off: 8,316 points along the route, one every 100 m, each looked up against the SRTM 30 m elevation dataset.
One check worth stating, because it is the difference between plausible and correct. Total ascent minus total descent comes to +275 m. The profile's own start and finish differ by +245 m, so the two agree to within 30 m over 831.6 km.
They do not match exactly, and the reason is the noise floor: climbs under 3 m are discarded as sensor jitter, which removes a little real height along with a lot of imaginary height. A tool claiming these two numbers agree perfectly would be hiding that.
Ascent depends on method. Sample more finely and you measure noise as climbing; smooth harder and you flatten real hills. Anyone quoting a single authoritative number for a route this long is hiding that choice, so the settings used here are stated above and you can compare like with like.
Route facts, stages and the full description are on the Camino del Norte route page. Every route's profile is on the elevation profiles page, and how the ten routes compare puts the totals side by side.
Compare with another route
All measured the same way, so the numbers are comparable. Ordered by total ascent, hardest first.
- Vía de la Plata : 11,724 m of ascent over 994.6 km
- Camino Francés : 10,446 m of ascent over 768.6 km
- Camino Primitivo : 6,777 m of ascent over 306.6 km
- Camino Portugués : 6,519 m of ascent over 620.2 km
- Camino Invierno : 4,941 m of ascent over 263.1 km
- Camino Mozárabe : 4,452 m of ascent over 419 km
- Camino Lebaniego : 2,134 m of ascent over 66.5 km
- Camino Inglés : 1,802 m of ascent over 110.5 km
- Camino Finisterre : 1,431 m of ascent over 85 km