Walking time on a hike: how to estimate it without getting it wrong

The basic rule: 4 km/h and 300 m of ascent per hour

It is 3pm, the sun is starting to slide towards the ridge, and the signpost puts the mountain hut 4 kilometres away. One hour’s walk? Two? In the mountains, distance alone will not tell you: it is mostly the climbs and descents that set the effort, as the French Hiking Federation (FFRandonnée) points out [1]. Fortunately, two figures are enough to get a fair idea.

On flat or nearly flat ground, an average walker covers about 4 kilometres an hour. Uphill, you allow about 300 metres of total ascentThe sum of all the climbs on a route, in metres. A loop that climbs 400 m, drops down, then climbs another 250 m has 650 m of total ascent. per hour. These are the benchmarks the French Hiking Federation gives for a walker who is ‘neither a beginner nor a speedster’, breaks not included: 4 km/h on the flat, 300 to 350 m of ascent per hour, and 400 to 500 m of descent [1].

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The simplest calculation works out the two times separately, then adds them together, much as a recipe adds the cooking time to the preparation time:

For a 12 km walk with 450 m of ascent, that gives 3 hours of walking on the flat and 1½ hours for the climb: about 4½ hours of actual walking. This figure does not include stops: it only measures the time spent moving.

Where these figures come from

These benchmarks did not come out of nowhere. In 1892, in the journal of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, the Scottish mountaineer William Naismith proposed a rule that is still well known in Britain [2]:

His rule is quicker than the French benchmarks: in his own words, it was meant for ‘men in fair condition’ on ‘easy expeditions’ [2]. In other words, fit walkers on straightforward routes: not necessarily you, with a heavy rucksack, on a wet day. A century later, in 1993, the American geographer Waldo Tobler proposed a formula in which speed varies with the gradient [3]. It gives about 5 km/h on the flat, a maximum of about 6 km/h on a gentle descent, then a speed that drops quickly as the slope steepens.

Signposts sometimes do the sums for you. In Switzerland, the yellow signposts at the start and end of routes, at major junctions and near points of interest often show how long the walk to each destination will take: an approximate time, without breaks [4]. Not all of them do: a signpost with times costs more to make, and a diversion, after a landslide for instance, can make those times misleading [4]. In Germany and Austria, the times on signposts follow a standard, which we come back to below.

The corrections that make all the difference

Breaks

No rule counts stops: photos, lunch, waiting for a companion, checking the map. Add them separately. Allow ten minutes or so per hour of walking, plus lunch: generous, and deliberately so. The French Hiking Federation also advises taking stock often along the way, of both your effort and the time [5].

Descents

The simple calculation leaves them out, and that is often where the estimate goes wrong. The French Hiking Federation’s benchmarks do count them: 400 to 500 m of descent per hour [1]. On a gentle descent, you walk a little faster than on the flat. On a steep one, you slow down markedly: you have to place your feet, spare your knees and secure every step. Eric Langmuir suggests taking off about 10 minutes for every 300 m of gentle descent (a slope of 5 to 12°), and adding as much when the slope is steeper than 12° [6].

So should you add a descent time to the simple calculation, say the descent divided by 500? No: the methods do not combine times in the same way, and mixing two of them skews the result. Pick one method and apply it in full. The simple calculation does not count the descent; if it is long or steep, use a method that includes it instead: the German standard, set out below, or Naismith’s rule with Langmuir’s corrections.

Rucksack, terrain, weather and group

• A heavy rucksack (wild camping, several days) slows you down noticeably, especially uphill.
• A rocky path, scree or snow greatly reduces your speed.
• Heat means more breaks, and rain makes descents slippery: the French Hiking Federation advises adjusting your timings to the weather [5].
• A group moves at the pace of its slowest walker: that is who the estimate should be based on.

A worked example: a 14 km loop

Take a 14 km loop with 650 m of ascent and the same amount of descent. Depending on the method, the estimated time ranges from 4 h to 5 h 40 min:

None of them is ‘the right one’: the simple calculation is cautious uphill but leaves out the descent, Naismith’s rule assumes a strong walker, and the German standard counts the descent while combining the times its own way. The best choice depends on you. The constants of each method and more worked examples are in the walking time calculator.

That still leaves turning walking time into a day out. Add ten minutes or so of breaks per hour of walking and three-quarters of an hour for lunch, and the 5 h 40 min of the simple calculation becomes more than 7 hours out: leave at 9am and you will be back around 4.30pm.

Finding your own pace

The most reliable way to predict your walking times is to measure yourself, as the French Hiking Federation also advises [1]. On two or three walks you know, note your actual walking time, minus breaks, then compare it with the calculation.

1. Work out the theoretical time with the rule of your choice.
2. Time your actual walking, without breaks.
3. Divide the actual time by the theoretical time: that is your correction factor.

If a walk estimated at 4 h took you 4 h 40 min of walking, your factor is 1.17. From now on, multiply your estimates by this figure: you will get times made for you, which you can refine with every walk.

Guillaume Hoarau

Camping, wild camping, bushcraft and hiking

Guillaume Hoarau writes for Outfarer about camping, wild camping, bushcraft and hiking. A survival-skills enthusiast and a collector of old field manuals, he likes clear explanations, lists that earn their place and other people’s stories, which he tells well.

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