Hiking calorie
calculator

Calories burned hiking with a pack, from your bodyweight, load, speed, grade, and terrain. The Pandolf load-carriage equation, imperial or metric — with the reason a pack punishes a lighter hiker more, and why downhill isn't modelled.

How the math works

Hiking with a pack is not walking plus a number of extra pounds, so this page doesn't use a flat MET table. It uses the Pandolf load-carriage equation (Pandolf, Givoni & Goldman 1977), which prices the metabolic rate directly in watts from bodyweight, load, speed, grade, and the surface you're on.

The three terms are the standing cost of your body (1.5 × W), the standing penalty of the pack (2.0 × (W+L) × (L/W)²), and the cost of moving — velocity plus grade — scaled by the terrain. The middle term is the one generic tools drop: it depends on the square of the load's share of your bodyweight, not on the pounds alone. The figure is a gross total — it already includes the standing baseline, so it is what you'd log for the whole bout.

Worked example

A 160 lb (72.6 kg) hiker carries a 30 lb (13.6 kg) pack at a brisk 3.0 mph (4.8 km/h) on a dirt road (η = 1.1).

• Level (0% grade): M = 1.5×72.6 + 2.0×86.2×0.1875² + 1.1×86.2×(1.5×1.341²) = 371 W = 319 kcal/h, about 106 kcal/mile (66 kcal/km)
• At a 10% grade: the grade term adds 0.35×1.341×10 to the bracket, giving 816 W = 702 kcal/h, about 234 kcal/mile (145 kcal/km) — the grade roughly doubles the hourly burn
• The pack's own cost at level is about 40 kcal/h (the difference between hiking with and without it)
• kcal/mile up the grade strip: 106 at 0%, 170 at 5%, 234 at 10%, 298 at 15% — grade, not pace, is the lever on a hike

When this calculator is wrong

The Pandolf model gets two things right that most hiking-calorie tools miss, and it has one hard edge. First the thing it gets right about the pack: the load's metabolic cost grows with the square of its share of your bodyweight, because the standing-load term is 2.0 × (W+L) × (L/W)². A 40 lb pack costs a 120 lb hiker about 1.85× the load penalty it costs a 200 lb hiker (16.1 W vs 8.7 W), because (0.33)² is more than double (0.20)². A "pack = extra pounds" model treats those two as equal; they aren't, and it's the small, heavily-loaded hiker it under-serves.

The hard edge is downhill. Pandolf is a level-and-uphill equation, validated for grades 0–10%. Applied uncorrected to a descent it overestimates by 20–30% — but descent isn't simply cheaper either: the real cost of going down is U-shaped. A gentle downhill is about the most economical locomotion there is, yet a steep downhill costs more than level ground, because your legs brake eccentrically to keep you from falling. So a tool that prints a smaller number for every downhill is wrong at the steep end, and one that prints the raw Pandolf number for any downhill is wrong across the board. When you set a negative grade, this page gives a caveat instead of a number.

• Validated range. Loads to about 40 kg (88 lb), speeds to about 6 km/h (3.7 mph), grades 0–10%. Past those — a very heavy pack, a near-jogging pace, or a steep climb — the number is extrapolation, and the page flags it.
• It can't see terrain detail or conditions. The terrain coefficient is a coarse six-way dial; deep snow, scree, mud, heat, and altitude all raise the real cost beyond it.
• It's a group model. Your own economy, pack fit, and trained state move the result 10–20% either way, which is why the honest use is planning, then calibrating against your own data.

What to do with the result

Use the per-hour figure to plan food for a long day and the per-mile figure to compare routes. For a loaded all-day hike, the hourly number is the one that matters: at roughly 320 kcal/h level and 700 kcal/h up a 10% grade for the worked hiker, a six-hour day with real climbing lands well into four figures — which is why multi-day hikers eat far more than their flat-ground TDEE suggests, and why underfuelling creeps up on exactly the days with the most vertical.

Treat the exact calories as an estimate and let your own numbers correct it. If you're hiking for fat loss, pair this with a TDEE estimate and a deficit target, then track your weight over two weeks and adjust by 100–200 kcal rather than trusting the readout to the calorie. And if you're sizing a pack, remember the quadratic: shedding load helps a light hiker's cost more than the pounds suggest, so cut pack weight before you chase a faster pace.

Common questions

How many calories does hiking burn?

For a 160 lb (72.6 kg) hiker with a 30 lb (13.6 kg) pack at 3.0 mph, about 319 kcal/h on level ground and 702 kcal/h up a 10% grade — roughly 106 and 234 kcal per mile. It scales with bodyweight, load, grade, and terrain, so there's no single number; the headline here is the gross total for your inputs.

Does carrying a pack burn more calories?

Yes, and more than its weight alone implies. The Pandolf load term is quadratic in the load-to-bodyweight ratio, so a heavier pack raises the cost faster than a linear "extra pounds" estimate. For the worked hiker, a 30 lb pack adds about 40 kcal/h on level ground at 3.0 mph, and the same pack costs a lighter hiker proportionally more.

How many calories does hiking uphill burn?

Grade is the biggest lever. For the worked hiker at 3.0 mph the per-mile cost runs 106 kcal at 0%, 170 at 5%, 234 at 10%, and 298 at 15%. A 10% grade roughly doubles the level hourly burn. The grade term in Pandolf is linear in percent grade, so each extra percent of climb adds a roughly fixed chunk per mile.

Why doesn't this calculate downhill?

Because the Pandolf equation is a level-and-uphill model (validated 0–10% grade), and applied to a descent uncorrected it overestimates by 20–30%. The true cost of downhill is U-shaped — gentle descent is very cheap, steep descent costs more than level from eccentric braking — and there's no downhill correction we could verify from a primary source, so printing a number would be guessing. For a negative grade the page says so instead.

Is hiking or walking better for burning calories?

Hiking usually burns more for the same distance, because it adds a pack, grade, and rougher terrain — all of which Pandolf prices and a flat walking MET doesn't. On level pavement with no pack, hiking and walking converge. The difference is almost entirely the load and the climb, not the word "hiking."

How accurate is a hiking calorie calculator?

The Pandolf model is a group average fitted in the lab, so expect roughly 10–20% error for an individual, widening outside its validated range (heavy loads, steep grades, fast paces) and for conditions it can't see (deep snow, heat, altitude). It's a good planning estimate and a poor precise ledger — calibrate against your own weight and intake over a couple of weeks.