Calories Burned Hiking Calculator

A leisurely hike will burn between 300 – 600 calories per hour, depending on your weight, backpack, speed and terrain.

The highest impacting factors for calorie burn are:

• Your Weight
• The weight of any backpack you carry
• How long you’re hiking for
• The distance you hike
• The speed of your hike
• The terrain you hike (cross country, uphill, downhill etc)
• How steep the hills are

A 150 pound person with no backpack hiking for 60 mins at 2.5 miles per hour cross country will burn: 351 calories.

The same person with a 20lb backpack on hiking at for 60 mins at speed of 3 miles and up up and down hills of 4% incline will burn: 464 calories.

Is hiking a good way to lose weight? In a word…..yes!!

Hiking is a great way to lose weight.

Do you enjoy getting out on hiking trails? Do you have ready access to some good trekking paths? Hiking is an ideal way to burn extra calories and lose weight.

To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat.

The key to any exercise routine is to find something you enjoy doing and can stick to.

Establish yourself a regular routine of hiking several times a week. And reduce your calorie intake and you’ll soon start to see the inches drop off.

For example:

If you weigh around 200 lbs,  a 90 minute hike over small hills, with  a 10 lb backpack will burn over 700 calories.

Increase the incline of those hills and that calorie burn will be closer to 900 calories.

To lose a pound of weight you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you eat.

Reduce your current calorie intake by 250 calories per day.

For example drop two cans of soda and do 3 hours of easy paced hiking a week. You can expect to drop at least a pound of fat every week.

Use the calories burned hiking calculator above to get an estimate of your calorie burn.

Hiking burns a lot more calories than walking. 

If you goal is to lose weight, a cross terrain hike will beat a walk around the block every day. To understand more of the difference see hiking vs walking.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

If you weigh 175 lbs and walk for 2 hours at a normal pace, you’ll burn around 580 calories.

If you were to spend those 2 hours doing a hilly hike, while carrying a 30 lb backpack, you’d burn around 1,120 calories.

That’s 540 calories more!

If you weight 220 lbs and walk for 2 hours at a normal pace, you’ll burn around 730 calories.

Instead if you spend those 2 hours doing a hilly hike, with a 40 lb backpack, you’ll burn around 1,420 calories.

That’s 690 calories more!

Whatever your weight, hiking instead of walking, will burn up to twice as many calories.

The weight of your backpack makes a big difference. Every 1 lb of backpack weight increases calorie burn by around 5 calories per 2 hour hike.

Your backpack weight should not exceed 20% of your body weight. So a 200 lb person should not exceed a backpack weight of 40 lbs. A 150 lb person, should not have a backpack bigger than 30 lbs.

Here some examples of the approximate calories burned for walking a mile up hill.  Each example is for hiking 1 mile up hill at the same speed. 

WALKING A MILE UPHILL BURNS BETWEEN 175 TO 390 CALORIES.

What varies in each example is the person’s weight, the weight of the backpack and the hill incline.

150 lb person

• no backpack, 1 mile up gentle incline hill: 175 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up gentle hill: 200 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up medium incline hill: 235 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up steep incline hill: 300 calories

200 lb person

• no backpack, 1 mile up gentle incline hill: 230 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up gentle hill: 255 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up medium incline hill: 305 calories
• 20 lb backpack: 1 mile up steep incline hill: 390 calories

To get an estimate of the calories you would burn walking a mile up hill use the calories burned hiking calculator.

The U S department of health says:

Moderate-intensity physical activity is something that raises your heart rate to around 50% of the maximum. Brisk walking is an example of moderate-intensity physical activity.

Vigorous-intensity physical activity is something that raises your heart rate to 70% – 80% of the maximum. Hiking up hill is an example of Vigorous-intensity physical activity.

If you really want to get the maximum effect from hiking following this general approach.

Aim to keep your heart rate as high as possible for as long as possible.

1. Warm up gently – to make sure you don’t injure yourself
2. Go hard uphill at a fast pace – this drives your heart rate up
3. Maintain a steady state – doesn’t require as much effort but keeps you heart rate high

The average person takes 2,000 steps per mile, however your actual steps per mile will vary based on various factors, the most important of which being your height.

Use our calculator to get a personal estimate of how many steps in a mile.