Energy Minimizing Mountain Ascent

In this article, an optimal mountain ascent is studied as a particular problem of a human walking over a rugged terrain. First, an approximation of the terrain is constructed using particular smooth splines–macro‐elements. Then a functional measuring the energy consumption along boundary curves of a macro‐element is defined. Finally, the corresponding discrete problem of finding the optimal path on a mesh of curves is applied. Numerical results on real‐life data indicate that computed paths are a good approximation of hiking paths in nature.