Setting a turnaround time by the clock
We've spent a lesson on how the storms actually form. Today we're doing something with that information: picking an actual time, before you leave the house, when you'll turn around no matter what the trail is doing.
Here's the thing about turnaround times. Everybody nods along when I say "be off the ridge by early afternoon," and then they get out there on a nice morning, the trail feels good, and they keep going because turning around feels like giving up. A clock time fixes that. It's not a feeling you have to argue yourself into. It's a number you already agreed to.
Why the clock, not the sky
You'd think you could just watch the clouds and turn around when they look bad. Some days that works. But by the time a cloud looks bad, you're often already in trouble, especially if you're up high or out on an exposed ridge with no cover for a mile in either direction. The storms in our canyons build on something close to a schedule from July into September. If you wait for visual proof, you've waited too long. A clock time gets you moving before the sky tells you to.
How to set one, step by step
- Look up sunrise and start early. If you're not starting by 7 or 8 a.m. on a summer ridge hike, you're already behind. I did a late start once, hit the trailhead at 11, and spent the whole hike watching the sky instead of the wildflowers. Never again, if I can help it.
- Check your elevation profile, not just your mileage. This is where I want to slow down, because I've made this mistake myself. I once picked a trail by its mileage alone, four miles, sounded easy, didn't bother pulling up the gain. Turned out to be a brutal climb the whole way, and four miles felt like ten. Your turnaround time depends on how much climbing is ahead of you, not how many miles are left. A flat four miles and a four miles with 2,500 feet of gain take completely different amounts of time, and if you only look at the mile marker you'll misjudge it every time.
- Estimate your pace on the climb, honestly. Not your flat-ground pace. Your uphill, huffing, stopping-for-water pace. If you don't know it yet, guess conservative. Two miles an hour on steep, sustained climbing is common for a lot of people.
- Pick the exposed section on the map — the ridge, the ropey saddle, the part with no tree cover — and figure out what time you need to be past it or off it. For most of our local canyon hikes in summer, I want to be off anything exposed by 1 p.m. Some days it's earlier. I'd rather be early and wrong than on time and wrong.
- Work backward to your actual turnaround time. If you need to be off the ridge by 1 and it takes you 45 minutes to get down from the highest exposed point, your turnaround is 12:15, not 1:00. Build in the walk-out time, not just the summit time.
- Write the time down before you leave the car. On your hand, in your phone notes, wherever. Not "sometime early afternoon." An actual number: 12:15. Tell whoever's with you. Kids especially remember a number better than a vibe, and it gives them something concrete to hold you to, which is honestly useful.
What to do when the time comes
You turn around. Doesn't matter if the summit's fifteen minutes away, doesn't matter if the sky looks fine right that second. A clear sky at your turnaround time doesn't mean anything, because these storms can build fast, faster than you'd think watching from the valley floor. I've stood at a ridge at 1:15 and watched clouds stack up in a way that had everyone in my group grumbling when I called it. Twenty minutes later it was hailing on the switchbacks below us. Nobody grumbled after that.
This is the opinion I'll state plainly: start early, set your turnaround by the clock, and don't argue with the sky once you've set it. It's the single biggest thing that keeps a hike from turning into a story you tell with a nervous laugh later.
One caution
If the trail has multiple exposed stretches, don't just plan for the first one. Map out every ridge or open section and figure out your latest safe time through each. A turnaround time isn't one number for the whole hike, it's really a string of them, and the earliest one wins.
Before next time: Pick a real trail you're hoping to do this summer, pull up its profile, and write down the clock time you'd actually turn around. Bring the number to class and we'll pressure-test it together.