Camino del Norte elevation profile

832.2 km and 14,641 m of ascent,between -1 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.

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%, 31% and 30% 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 552 to km 564, gaining 613 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 34, Vilanova to Abadín — 870 m over 25.3 km
Day 4, Deba to Etxebarria — 714 m over 19.2 km
Day 3, Zarautz to Deba — 669 m over 20.6 km
Day 24, Cazanes to Gijón / Xixón — 655 m over 26.8 km
Day 5, Etxebarria to Gernika-Lumo — 645 m over 29.2 km

Every stage

Measured ascent for every stage of the Camino del Norte
Day	From	To	km	Ascent	High point
1	Irún	Donostia / San Sebastián	24.5	596 m	271 m
2	Donostia / San Sebastián	Zarautz	22.5	471 m	310 m
3	Zarautz	Deba	20.6	669 m	285 m
4	Deba	Etxebarria	19.2	714 m	495 m
5	Etxebarria	Gernika-Lumo	29.2	645 m	402 m
6	Gernika-Lumo	Larrabetzu	16.3	476 m	362 m
7	Larrabetzu	Bilbao	15.8	342 m	349 m
8	Bilbao	Sestao	15.2	343 m	179 m
9	Sestao	Sámano	29.1	458 m	252 m
10	Sámano	El Puente	19.8	178 m	74 m
11	El Puente	Laredo	16	398 m	234 m
12	Laredo	San Miguel de Meruelo	19.8	118 m	107 m
13	San Miguel de Meruelo	Santander	30.6	276 m	115 m
14	Santander	Arce	17	160 m	75 m
15	Arce	Santillana del Mar	15.8	171 m	91 m
16	Santillana del Mar	La Iglesia	17.7	325 m	138 m
17	La Iglesia	San Vicente de la Barquera	16.1	301 m	106 m
18	San Vicente de la Barquera	La Franca	19.9	330 m	123 m
19	La Franca	Llanes	20.5	304 m	121 m
20	Llanes	Ḥontoria	15.4	102 m	140 m
21	Ḥontoria	Ribadesella / Ribeseya	20	224 m	107 m
22	Ribadesella / Ribeseya	Colunga	20.1	303 m	91 m
23	Colunga	Cazanes	15.2	279 m	173 m
24	Cazanes	Gijón / Xixón	26.8	655 m	434 m
25	Gijón / Xixón	Avilés	25.5	265 m	187 m
26	Avilés	L'Arena	16.8	242 m	113 m
27	L'Arena	La Magdalena	15.9	334 m	178 m
28	La Magdalena	Aucinera	15.5	581 m	337 m
29	Aucinera	Luarca / Ḷḷuarca	27.2	518 m	629 m
30	Luarca / Ḷḷuarca	Navia	19.8	261 m	179 m
31	Navia	Porcía	15.2	208 m	115 m
32	Porcía	Ribadeo	16.9	135 m	75 m
33	Ribadeo	Vilanova	26.7	593 m	363 m
34	Vilanova	Abadín	25.3	870 m	547 m
35	Abadín	Vilalba	20.3	235 m	555 m
36	Vilalba	A Castiñeira	15	158 m	518 m
37	A Castiñeira	Portoscarros	15.7	157 m	488 m
38	Portoscarros	Sobrado	28.9	479 m	708 m
39	Sobrado	Arzúa	26.2	212 m	649 m
40	Arzúa	Santiago de Compostela	31	519 m	415 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: 8,323 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 +285 m. The profile's own start and finish differ by +240 m, so the two agree to within 45 m over 832.2 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.

The Camino del Norte page says 825 km and this track measures 832.2 km, a difference of 0.9%. Both are right. The quoted distance is the conventional one every guide and waymarking sign uses; the measured one is the length of this particular GPS trace, and any two traces of the same route differ by roughly this much depending on which variant they take through each town. The ascent above is computed along the track shown here, so it belongs with 832.2 km rather than with the quoted figure.

Route facts, stages and the full description are on the Camino del Norte route page. Every route's profile is on the tools page.

Compare with another route

All measured the same way, so the numbers are comparable. Ordered by total ascent, hardest first.

Vía de la Plata elevation profile — 11,724 m over 994.6 km
Camino Francés elevation profile — 10,450 m over 768.4 km
Camino Portugués elevation profile — 6,839 m over 605.5 km
Camino Primitivo elevation profile — 6,776 m over 306.5 km
Camino Invierno elevation profile — 4,948 m over 262.9 km
Camino Mozárabe elevation profile — 4,617 m over 418 km
Camino Lebaniego elevation profile — 2,134 m over 66.5 km
Camino Inglés elevation profile — 1,802 m over 110.5 km
Camino Finisterre elevation profile — 1,433 m over 84.2 km