How many calories does hiking burn? The amount of calories you burn while hiking depends on many factors: weight of the hiker, backpack weight, changes in altitude, trail difficulty, distance covered, weather, etc. A very rough estimation would be that the average hiker burns 500 calories per hour.
Additionally, beyond hiking, there are simple ways to burn calories that one might consider to supplement or vary their exercise regimen.
How many calories does hiking burn
The question is simple enough, but the answer is a little bit more complicated.
I made a very rough estimation and claimed that the average hiker burns 500 calories per hour. The only problem with this is, how do we define the average hiker?
For example, in this estimation I assumed that the average hiker would carry a pretty heavy backpack. This obviously has a big impact on the total amount of calories burned.
There are many other things that will affect the amount of calories that you burn. Your body weight, the changes in altitude, the difficulty of the trail, your hiking speed, the weather and even your genetics.
Obviously, there is no way to think about the genetics while making these estimations. Just know that genetics matter when it comes to burning calories in general.
The easiest way to get a vague idea of how many calories you will burn while you are hiking is to use a hiking calories calculator.
I found multiple of these calculators, most of them were painfully inaccurate. It’s not that I expected a very precise result, but the results I got from most of these calculators were way off.
I was almost considering to create my own hiking calories calculator when I found omnicalculator.
This calculator will not be able to provide you with an extremely accurate number. It’s almost impossible to create a calculation that thinks about everything.
However, this calculator will give you a result based on distance, elevation gain, hikers weight and backpack weight, which are the most important factors.
Stuff like weather and trail difficulty are not taken into account, but this is probably a good thing because it would be very difficult to correctly apply these factors in a calculator.
Long story short, if you are just here to find the quick answer to the question “how many calories does hiking burn?”, I would suggest checking out the omnicalculator.
However, if you are interested in a more detailed answer and you want to have an idea of how these calculations are done, it would be recommended to read this entire article.
Body weight
Body weight is one of the most important factors when it comes to calculating how many calories you burn. If you weigh more, you will burn more calories, it’s as simple as that.
For simplicity, you should subtract or add 2.75 calories to the amount of burned calories per additional 1 lb (0.45kg).
For example, if a 160 lb (72.5kg) hiker would burn 400 calories per hour, a 170 lb (77kg) hiker would burn 427.5 calories per hour, assuming the conditions were the same for both hikers.
Note that this is not 100% accurate, since the weight factor will become more important when the hike gets more intensive. However, taking this into account this would simply become to complicated.
Keep in mind that clothes are also considered body weight in these calculations. Heavy boots will also have more effect on the calories burned because you have to lift them all the time.
Backpack weight
Backpack weight is very similar to body weight, the heavier your backpack, the more calories you will burn.
Keep in mind that carrying a backpack might lower your pace, if the distance covered gets affected by this, you will probably not burn a lot of additional calories.
Assuming your pace will be unaffected, backpack weight will roughly have the same result on the amount of calories burned than body weight.
This is not entirely correct. Even the way you packed your backpack might affect the amount of calories burned. For example, if you pack a lot of heavy items on the outside of your backpack, you will need to use more energy to balance yourself and walk straight.
Thinking about details like that would make the calculations way too complex. Instead, I will try to keep it simple.
Once again, you should simply subtract or add 2.75 calories to the amount of burned calories per additional 1 lb (0.45kg).
This means that a person who weighs 160 lb (72.5kg) and carries a 10 lb (4.5kg) backpack would roughly burn the same amount of calories than a person who weighs 170 lb (77kg).
Elevation gain
Together with body weight, backpack weight and the distance hiked, elevation gain is one of the most important factors when to it comes to burning calories while hiking.
Elevation gain will have a bigger effect if you are carrying a backpack or if your body weight is higher.
You could assume that on average, a hiker would burn an additional 16 calories per 100 feet climbed. Once again this is a rough estimation and depends on multiple factors, but it can give you an idea.
For example, if you would do a very difficult and technical climb, you will burn a lot more calories than if you would get the same elevation gain by walking on a stairs.
Most calculators that are designed to calculate how many calories hiking burns will take this into account.
Difficulty of the trail
The difficulty of the trail is another very important factor, but very hard to include in a calculation. The reason for this is that everything comes down to interpretation.
You could include a number out of ten in your hiking calories calculator that would represent the difficulty of the trail, but every hiker would have their own scale.
One hiker might think that a certain trail would rate 3/10 on the trail difficulty scale while another hiker might give that same trail a 7/10 rating.
Therefore, I prefer not to take this factor into account in a calculation. That said, you should realize that you will burn more calories on a difficult terrain.
This information is especially important if you use some kind of tracking device. These devices/applications (like strave) will probably give you an estimation on how many calories you burned during your hike.
However, these devices/applications will not consider the difficulty off the trail. The more difficult the terrain is, the more these estimated results will be off. Technology still has its limits.
Trail difficulty is also not to be confused with elevation gain. Sure, if you would walk uphill and downhill the entire time, the trail becomes more difficult. However, what I mean by trail difficulty is the condition of the trail. Are there a lot of loose rocks and technical climbs or is it a simple walk in the park?
When the trail gets more difficult and technical it will cost you more energy to cover the same amount of distance. For example: when you are climbing you will have to use more muscles. Additionally, you will have to replace your foot multiple times until you find a solid anchor point, this will cost additional energy.
Hiking speed
Does hiking speed actually affect the amount of burned calories or does only distance matter?
Well, if you hike 10 miles (16 km) in 2 hours it would not result in exactly the same amount of burned calories than if you would hike the same amount of miles in 3 hours, so both matter. That said, the actual speed is a very minor factor.
In the law of physiques speed is not a factor, but in the laws of biomechanics, it is. However, the effect of speed is almost negligible and very hard to add to the equation. Therefore, I will only take in account the actual miles walked.
Weather
Weather can affect the amount of calories burned in multiple ways.
When you get cold, your body will work harder to keep you warm. This might slightly increase the amount of burned calories. Once you start shivering however, you will start burning a lot more additional calories.
In very hot weather, your body will work very hard to cool down. This could also lead to an increased amount of burned calories per hour.
You could get wet, which would in time, increase your body weight. As we already know, this would affect the amount of calories burned while hiking.
Rain could also affect the conditions on the trail, it could become more dangerous and technical. This could affect the difficulty of the trail which would lead to more calories burned per hour.
Weather could lead to an increased amount of calories burned per hour in multiple ways, but it is very hard to add this factor to the equation. Keep this information in the back your mind and know that weather changes could lead to more or less burned calories.
Genetics
Even if you would be able to think about all the factors mentioned above you will still not be able to get an exact result.
Two identical (excluding genetics) hikers might hike the same trail in the same conditions, they will still not burn exactly the same amount of calories. Genetics are the cause of this.
This means that it’s simply impossible for a calculator to be completely correct. Even if it would somehow figure out how to include factors like weather and trail difficulty in the calculation.
How many calories do you burn while resting
Now we know – kind off – how many calories hiking burns, but we still have to take into account the amount of calories we burn while we are not hiking. This is important when you want to know how many calories you burn on an average day. Once you know this, you can adapt your diet the way you want.
As usual, getting an exact number is almost impossible. You might be resting, cooking, setting up your tent, collecting firewood, etc. All of these activities will result in a different amount of calories burned.
Instead of trying to figure out exactly how many calories you burn while you are not hiking, you should try to come up with an estimation.
I would estimate that the average hiker would burn 120 calories per hour when awake (but not hiking) and 70 calories per hour when sleeping. Note that body weight has a big impact on how many calories you burn, even when resting or sleeping.
If you want a more personalized answer on the question how many calories do I burn while sleeping or sitting, google is at your service.
Figure out exactly how many calories you burned
I talked a lot about rough estimations in this article. But is there a way to find out exactly how many calories you burned?
Theoretically, it’s possible – it is very common in fitness – but in practice, this is very hard to do.
First, let me explain how bodybuilders know exactly how many calories they burn.
Bodybuilders will measure every calorie that they eat without exception and weigh themselves consistently. Once you have the following variables: time, eaten calories and difference in weight, you will have everything you need to do the calculation.
The basic calculation is fairly simple, this is how you could calculate the exact amount of calories you burned on a single day:
(amount of calories eaten) + (weight difference in pounds * 3500) = amount of calories burned
If you want to use kilograms instead of pounds, simply replace “(weight difference in pounds * 3500) “ by “(weight difference in kilograms * 7700) “
Note that weight difference will be a negative number when weight was lost and a positive number when weight was gained.
The biggest issue with this calculation is that it is not possible to accurately know your difference in pounds on a signle day. Therefore, this calculation is only viable if you apply it after x amount of days (I would say minimal +- two weeks).
Therefore, we would have to tweak the math a little bit:
((amount of calories eaten per day * amount of days) + (weight loss in pounds * 3500)) / amount of days = amount of calories burned per day
Let’s make it even clearer with an example, let’s make the following assumptions:
- You will hike for 30 days
- eat exactly 4000 calories a day
- and lose 2 pounds after those 30 days.
This is all the information we need to figure out how many calories you burned on an average hiking day.
((4000 * 30) + (2 * 3500)) / 30 = 4233.33
We figured out that 4233.33 calories were burned per day (on average) and no rocket science was involved.
If you do not mind tracking your food exactly (but that’s a big if) this method might be very helpful to figure out exactly how many calories you burned.
That said, on your next hiking trip the conditions may be different and so might the average amount of daily calories burned.
Also, make sure to weigh yourself the right way, with the same amount of clothes and on the same time of the day. Do not drink or eat before weighing because this would influence your weight. The simplest way to weigh yourself correctly would be to stand on the scale right after you wake up (before eating and before putting on clothes).
Conclusion
There is no simple answer to the question “How many calories does hiking burn?”. There are multiple factors that come into play: weight of the hiker, backpack weight, changes in altitude, trail difficulty, distance covered, weather, etc.
An easy way to get a vague estimation would be to use a hiking calories calculator. However, you have to be careful because a lot of these are painfully inaccurate. If you want to use a calculator I would suggest this one: omnicalculator.
Hiking calories calculators will not take every factor into account because that would be almost impossible. However, a good calculator will at least ask your weight, your backpack weight, the distance traveled and the elevation gain.
Factors like the weather, the trail difficulty and your genetics will also have a big impact on your total amount of calories burned while hiking. However, it’s almost impossible to think about these factors in a calculation.
There is theoretically a way to determine your exact amount of calories burned. You could do this by tracking every calorie that you eat and weigh yourself correctly. By doing this, you have all the information you need to figure out exactly how many calories you burned.
That said, it will be almost impossible to do this accurately on the trail. The conditions of the trail are most likely going to change all the time and this will probably result in a slightly different amount of calories burned every day.
In my opinion, it is very beneficial to have a vague idea of how many calories you burn daily while you are hiking. However, trying to find the exact number of calories is almost impossible and simply not worth it.
PS: If you want to learn more about eating healthy while hiking, I would recommend this article: How to eat healthy on the trail.