Calories Burned Hiking Calculator
How many calories do you burn hiking cross country, uphill and downhill?
Written by Matthew Magnante, ACE Last Updated on 18 March, 2023 | 12:57 AM EDT
The number of calories burned during hiking depends on various factors, such as your weight, hiking terrain, speed, and duration of the hike. Use our calculator to find the number of calories burned from hiking
Imperial Metric
Weight Weight in Pound
Backpack Weight Weight in Pound
Distance Distance in Miles
Hiking Time : Hiking Hours
Hiking Minutes (Max – 59)
Type of Hike
Cross country
Uphill & Downhill
Average Incline
More than 10%
- Calories Burned
- Distance Covered
- Hiking Pace
- Hiking Duration
Calories Burned with Outdoor Activities (weight: 175 lbs)
How To Use The Calories Burned Hiking Calculator
The calories burned hiking calculator is rather simple, and straightforward.
To ensure an easy experience for you, we’ve included step-by-step instructions in detail below.
Step 1 : Choose your preferred unit of measurement: Imperial (lbs, hours, and minutes) or metric (kilograms, hours, and minutes).
Step 2 : Enter your weight.
Step 3: Enter the backpack weight. If not carrying extra weight during your hike, put 0.
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Step 4: Type in the distance.
Step 5 : Enter the number of hiking hours (.e.g, 1, 2, 3, etc).
Note: In less than an hour, put 0.
Step 4 : Enter the number of hiking minutes. If not applicable, put 0.
Note: Because there are 60 minutes in an hour, the max number of minutes that you can enter is 59.
Step 5 : Select the type of hike. Tip: Click directly on the text (e.g., cross country) and not the empty gray circle. This will ensure it is selected.
Note: If selecting uphill and/or downhill, you also have the option to choose the incline level displayed in a percentage range (e.g, 1-5%, 5-10%, or more than 10%).
Step 6 : Press Calculate !
How Does the Hiking Calorie Burn Calculator Work?
This calculator approximates the number of calories that someone burns from hiking.
Firstly, the calculator determines your metabolic rate or metabolism according to your weight.
What does that mean? Keep reading for a more detailed explanation.
If you take two people, one weighs 150 lbs and the other weighs 210 lbs, the person who weighs less will burn fewer calories than the heavier individual during the same exact workout.
A calorie is a unit of energy and a heavier person requires more energy to move their bodies or to perform activities.
Think of it like how a larger vehicle typically uses up more fuel than a smaller one. Weight affects fuel consumption (the amount of energy used) .
But this also means that the heavier person expends more calories in a rested (non-exercising) state. This is also known as metabolic rate or metabolism.
The calculator uses a formula to approximate resting calories burned and then it factors in the duration and activity intensity to guesstimate calories burned.
How Many Calories Can I Burn Hiking?
The number of calories that you can burn from activity depends on a few different factors such as your weight, exercise intensity, and duration, or how long you perform the activity. Therefore, this can highly vary.
But this calculator does most of the guesswork. You punch in the necessary details and it’ll give you a close estimate of calories burned hiking.
However, we’ve provided a few examples of how our calculator will estimate calories burned.
According to the calories burned hiking tool, a 150 lb person hiking 2 miles cross country (flat level) in 20 minutes while wearing a 10 lb backpack will burn 177 calories .
The same person will expend about 208 calories hiking uphill and downhill.
But let’s say this same person straps on a 20 lb backpack with everything else staying the same. The calculator estimates 188 calories burned.
But how many more calories can someone burn walking uphill, downhill, or both?
Using the same example individual from before who’s wearing a 10 lb backpack, an uphill trek at 5-10% incline would burn 319 calories, downhill expends about 177 calories, and a trip uphill and downhill will cost you about 248 calories.
Less incline burns fewer calories and more incline burns more calories.
How many calories you can burn hiking or doing any physical activity is dependent on several factors.
While it’s not so easy to precisely estimate calories burned from movement, our calculator is designed to provide a reasonable estimate of energy expenditure.
