Healthy Hiking

“This is really related to hiking speed. On our power hiker/meanderer thread I noticed that many claimed to be one or the other but few gave the actual speed at which they hike. Do most of you folks actually measure your speed?

Went for a stress test at the doc's today. I told him about my Glacier hike and he couldn't believe that we actually hiked at almost four miles per hour. After ten minutes on the treadmill, that baby was up to full speed for the test. I wasn't breathing out of my mouth yet but I was getting there. He asked me if that was about the speed at which we were hiking in Glacier. I said that I thought it was close. The treadmill was maxed out at 3.4 miles per hour for the test! He thought hiking at nearly 4mph (especially with 50lb packs in 85 degree heat was nuts.

Have any of the power hikers actually measured the speed at which they hike? Is anyone in that category over 30?”

“this weekend, i did 11 miles of Cohutta wilderness in 3 hours.

what a ballbuster!”

“You and I hiked Ocala at a little better than 2mph, rad, and it doesn't get any flatter than that. Which is your NORMAL speed?”

“4 mpg is kickin' it!!!

My packweight is typically 40+ lbs. 52 years old. I can average 2.5 mpg on a good, level trail with very little problem and almost any packweight. With a light pack I can get a little more).

Going uphill, depending on altitude and packweight, it is more like 1.0 - 1.5 mpg average.

Downhill depends entirely on the slope and trail composition. Rock and sand-on-rock is the worst. Again, could be anywhere from 1.0 - 2.5 mph, depending.

arclite - what is your typical packweight?”

“I like to have a pack weight of around 45lbs for a week hike. I'm working on bringing that down. I'm (almost) 45, weight a little over 200lbs, am in pretty good shape (I did really well on the stress test), and have very strong legs.

That still didn't prepare me for the speed at which we hiked. I wonder if most people are actually aware of the speed at which they hike? I'd like to hike in grizzly country again, and I'd like to stick together. The guys I went with didn't really care about measuring their speed and weren't really aware of what speed they were hiking at. Grizzly country is the only place that I'm concerned about hiking together. I'd like to get some idea of how people describe their speed, and approximately what that speed actually is. I was totally unprepared for the Glacier National Park Eco-Challenge and would like to avoid that scenario in the future.”

“What is the point of running a footrace with a pack on?

I'm out there to enjoy the wilderness, not just pass through it.

We probably average about 2 mph over the course of our hikes. Or maybe a little less than that, depending on the scenery.”

“Joy and I average 2.5 almost no matter what,but we are flat landers. When I solo I hike more around 3.5 but I also have my two dogs to keep up with.”

“i usually go 1 or 2 mph, but i was with a guy who actually does eco-challenge-style endurance races.

whew!”

“I hike a 3 mile nature center trail near me almost daily, so I know for certain my speed. Flat as a pancake. The only time I ever approach 3 mph is when I'm very stressed and walking for a release. It typically takes me 70 minutes, which is 2.6mph.
With a backpack on a typical Michigan trail it's 2 mph, sometimes more.

I can't even comprehend 4 mph up and down at altitude.”

“9.5 miles in four hours = 2.375 mph in very mountainous terrain. 12 miles in 3.25 hours = 3.692 mph on flat lake bed. I am 34 years old.
I think it just depends on terrain, and how you planned your trip. I have also hiked 8 miles in 6 hours = 1.33 mph. I was with my wife and another couple.
Everything is relative.”

“In the Whites last week lots of time the inclines would be 1 mile = 1000 ft elevation. It's tough to average that distance in less than an hour. We only had one place that was flat for any distance (Ethan Pond to Zealand Hut= 5 miles). We did that in about 1 hour 30 mins.

In my normal terrain, I'll average 2 1/2 miles an hour. That's with: 30 pound pack, rocks & roots on the trail, and 400 ft gain per 1 mile (average).”

“yeah I think overall with those elevations in the Whites I walked about 1.5 mph including at least 1 break per hr. I usually go about 2.5 in most other cases.”

“Around town I do 3 mph. All uphill it comes to 1 mph including breaks so maybe a little better than that.”

“hell, sometimes i'll hike 2 hours per mile!”

“Last time I checked, I could pace, on a flat trail and 34lb pack, was at 3.5 mph and change. Up hill, different story. Clocked in anywhere from about 2.5 to 1 mph. I try to enjoy the hike, not death march it.”

“I hike at just about 2 mph plus 1/2 hour for each 1000 of elevation gain or loss. Slasher is about the same speed. Unless we get something severe, then it goes way down. Actually, sometime, depending on the grade, I go a lot slower downhill than uphill. On good level hiking, we can motor though.

I try to hike with 35 lbs for a 3-4 day weekend. Slasher tries for 25 lbs. We always seem to start with a couple pounds more than that though.”

“I hike fast depending on the area I'm in. Close to home and on trails I'm on frequently, I fly to get a good workout out of it,but when I go on a backpacking trip and go that fast I feel like I didn't see anything. I hiked fast this summer on an overnighter and all I remember about the trip is being focused on the trail in front of my next footstep. I hiked this trail so many other times it didn't matter too much, but if I hike an area I never saw before it makes little sense to me to fly down the trail unless you have too.”

“i have forgotten too many trips because i was going for a certain mileage.

no more...”

“I don't know what I can average on the flats. That's why I wanna do the 60 mile trip at LBL this winter.”

“I just walk fast without even thinking about it. On the flat, 4-6mph. Uphill, 2-3mph.”

“4 mph at Glacier is frankly unbelievable to me. But then people do a lot of things that are unbelievable to me.

When I'm in the Rockies anything better than 1 mph is making good time. 2 mph is double-timin'! In lower elevations (TX, OK, WV) I've done a little better than 3 mph.”

“Good for you, I take it slow!”

“I have calculated my hiking speed to be a consistent 3.141592654 MPH.”

“Isn't that pie?

Is this a scientific miracle?”

“Sure, unless you're talking about Gauss-Legendre algorithm and Borwein's 4th order iteration (1/Pi = 0.3183098661...)”

“Thanks for the speeds, everyone. Most of the folks, who I passed and talked with, said they were going about 1.5-2mph. I'm glad most folks really seem to know their hiking speed. I'll ask better questions next time.

You've been spending WAY to much time without sun light, kleetn. Those fluorescent bulbs are even turning your beard grey.”