How to convert elevation gain from feet to meters

The short answer

Divide a figure in feet by 3.28084 to get metres. Multiply a figure in metres by 3.28084 to get feet. A climb of 2,000 feet is 2,000 ÷ 3.28084 ≈ 609.6 metres, which rounds to about 610 metres. A climb of 610 metres is 610 × 3.28084 ≈ 2,001 feet, which rounds back to almost exactly the number you started with. The factor itself, 3.28084, is just how many feet fit into one metre — the same fixed relationship every time, regardless of how big or small the total is.

Why this conversion does not flip direction the way a pace conversion does

Converting a pace between minutes-per-mile and minutes-per-kilometre famously runs backward from what feels natural, because pace is a rate — a question about time, not a plain amount of length. Elevation gain has no such trap. It is a length, exactly like distance, so it follows the same simple rule distance does: converting into a smaller unit takes a bigger number, and converting into a larger unit takes a smaller number, every time, with no flip to remember.

A metre is the larger unit here — it takes 3.28084 feet to make one — so turning a foot total into metres always divides, giving back fewer, bigger units for the same climb. Turning a metre total into feet always multiplies, giving back more, smaller units for the same climb. That is the entire rule, and it never reverses depending on which direction you are converting, which is what makes elevation gain a genuinely easier case than pace.

A worked example

Say a guidebook describes a climb as 1,340 feet of elevation gain, and you want to compare that against a hike your phone recorded in metres. Multiply by 0.3048 (the exact length of one foot in metres) rather than dividing by 3.28084 if that is the easier direction for you — both give the same answer: 1,340 × 0.3048 ≈ 408.4 metres, so about 408 metres.

Going the other way: a recorded hike shows 275 metres of elevation gain, and you want to describe it in feet for a trip report written for a mostly US audience. 275 × 3.28084 ≈ 902.2 feet, so about 902 feet.

A quick reference for common totals

• 500 ft ≈ 152 m
• 1,000 ft ≈ 305 m
• 2,000 ft ≈ 610 m
• 3,000 ft ≈ 914 m
• 5,000 ft ≈ 1,524 m
• 100 m ≈ 328 ft
• 300 m ≈ 984 ft
• 500 m ≈ 1,640 ft
• 1,000 m ≈ 3,281 ft

When you actually need to do this by hand

Most of the time, nobody needs to run this calculation themselves. A GPX file always stores elevation in metres regardless of which app wrote it, and an app displaying that figure converts it to whichever unit you have set before it ever reaches the screen — the elevation gain shown on a route, and read aloud during a walk, follows the same unit choice as distance. That conversion has already happened by the time you look at it.

Where the arithmetic in this guide is actually useful is comparing against something outside the app entirely: a trailhead sign posted in feet when your own total is in metres, a printed guidebook using the unit your app is not set to, or a friend's tracking app set to the other system than yours. None of those sources know or care what unit your phone happens to display, so lining them up is a manual step, not something either app can do for you automatically.

Converting correctly is not the same as matching exactly

It is worth being clear about what this conversion does and does not fix. Doing the arithmetic correctly guarantees that a given number of feet and its converted metric equivalent describe the same length — that part is exact, fixed by the definition of a foot, and never in question. It does not guarantee that a converted app total will land on the exact figure printed on a trailhead sign, because the two numbers are often built from different sources to begin with: a sign is frequently a rounded, sometimes decades-old survey figure, while a GPS-based total is added up point by point from a specific walk on a specific day. A mismatch that remains after converting correctly is not a units problem — the reasons two elevation gain totals for the same climb can differ are covered on their own in the guide to why your GPS elevation gain doesn't match the trailhead sign.

Things that trip people up

• Reaching for 1.60934, the mile-to-kilometre distance factor, out of habit — feet and metres use a different factor, 3.28084, and mixing the two produces a number with no real meaning.
• Rounding 3.28084 down to a friendlier 3.3 for a big total — the shortcut is fine for a rough mental estimate, but the error grows along with the number, so it is worth using the fuller factor for anything going into a written record.
• Assuming a GPX file might already store elevation in feet if it came from a US-based app — it never does; the format always stores metres, and any unit shown on screen is converted for display only, as covered in the guide to what unit a GPX file stores elevation in.
• Expecting a correctly converted total to match a trailhead sign exactly — the conversion itself is exact, but the sign and the recorded total are frequently drawing on different original measurements, which is a separate question from the arithmetic.

Where TrailCam fits in

TrailCam reports elevation gain for every route in whichever unit you have set, the same way it handles distance, so this conversion is not something you need to run against your own numbers day to day. It becomes useful the moment you want to line a walk up against a figure from somewhere outside the app — a trailhead sign, a guidebook, or someone else's total given in the other unit. TrailCam is free to download.