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.
Example: 175 lb, 30 min
250kcal burned
208 kcal from the activity itself, plus 42 kcal your body burns at rest in that time anyway.
Enter your own weight and minutes above to replace this example.
Above resting
208 kcal
What the activity adds
Per hour
500 kcal
8.3 kcal a minute at this pace
To burn off 250 kcal
36 min
Counting calories above resting
3 times a week
750 kcal
624 kcal above resting, in 1 h 30 min
| Activity | Time | Per hour | kcal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hiking, cross country6.0 MET, Compendium 17080 | 30 min | 500 | 250 |
Calories = MET x 3.5 x body weight in kg / 200 x minutes, rounded for each activity. Above resting uses MET minus 1, because 1 MET is what you burn sitting still. METs from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities.
Related calculators
Calories Burned with Outdoor Activities (weight: 175 lbs)
Calories each activity burns in 15 to 60 minutes at a body weight of 175 lb, from the MET in the second column.
| Exercise | MET | 15m | 30m | 45m | 60m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cycling or Biking | 8.0 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
| Hiking | 6.0 | 125 | 250 | 375 | 500 |
| Fishing | 3.5 | 73 | 146 | 219 | 292 |
| Horseback Riding | 5.5 | 115 | 229 | 344 | 458 |
| Kayaking | 5.0 | 104 | 208 | 313 | 417 |
| Skating | 7.0 | 146 | 292 | 438 | 583 |
| Skateboarding | 5.0 | 104 | 208 | 313 | 417 |
| Golf | 4.5 | 94 | 188 | 281 | 375 |
| Jogging | 9.8 | 204 | 408 | 613 | 817 |
| Rock Climbing | 8.0 | 167 | 333 | 500 | 667 |
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: Enter your weight and choose lb or kg.
Step 2: Choose the kind of hike: cross country, through fields and hills (slow or normal pace), uphill with no pack (by grade: 1 to 5%, 6 to 10% or 11 to 20%), uphill with a pack (a 10 to 20 lb pack on a 5 to 10% grade, a 21 to 40 lb pack on a 3 to 10% grade, or any pack over 20 lb at a brisk pace on a 5 to 20% grade), with a daypack, or walking downhill. There is no pack weight box. Pick the pack range instead; your pack is not added to your body weight.
Step 3: Type in how many minutes you hiked.
Step 4: Went up and came back down? Add each part under “Add an activity” with its own minutes, for example the climb with your pack and then walking downhill.
Step 5: If you want, set how many hikes you do a week and a number of calories to burn off, such as a 250 kcal snack.
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 cross country for 20 minutes will burn 143 calories.
With a daypack, the same 20 minutes comes to about 186 calories.
But let’s say this same person straps on a 10 to 20 lb backpack and spends the 20 minutes going uphill at a 5 to 10% grade. The calculator estimates 155 calories burned.
But how many more calories can someone burn walking uphill, downhill, or both?
For the same 150 lb person, 20 minutes of walking downhill burns about 79 calories, and 10 minutes up with that pack plus 10 minutes back down comes to about 116 calories. With no pack, 20 minutes uphill burns 126 calories at a 1 to 5% grade, 167 at 6 to 10% and 210 at 11 to 20%.
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.
Can Hiking Help Me To Lose A Lot of Weight?
Hiking can be a very challenging activity and as a result, it can help to burn lots of calories which is an essential component of the weight loss process.
But how much weight you lose really and truly depends on your overall habits and approach to your goals.
As long as you create a calorie deficit, and do it the healthy and proper way, you can lose weight.
If you’re hiking and/or doing other forms of physical activity in an effort to lose weight, you want to determine your Maintenance calories, and then reduce your calorie intake, exercise more, or do a combination of the two.
Use our weight loss calculator to determine the number of calories you should be consuming.
If you also do resistance training and want to maximize muscle gain and muscle maintenance as you knock off the body fat, our macronutrient calculator is a very useful tool.
It’ll recommend an ideal protein, carbohydrates, and fat intake for you.
Also read: The Top 20 Simple Weight Loss Tips
How Many Calories Does Hiking Burn Compared To Other Forms of Cardio?
There are many different variables that determine the number of calories burned between the different forms of cardio activity. Weight, intensity/pace, and duration are the biggest factors. Although, environment, hormones, and genetics also play a role too. But there are no simple ways to measure these.
Therefore, we stick with the basic details that contribute most to the approximation.
If you’d like to compare estimates of calories burned during various activities, we offer a free calculator that includes a database of over 250 different exercises and activities.
Is Hiking A Good Activity For Overweight People?
Let us preface this section by saying that the term overweight applies to people who have both high and low body fat.
That’s because even if someone has a healthy body fat percentage, they may have a naturally bigger build/frame and/or more muscle mass than someone else of the same weight but who has more body fat.
But they would still be considered overweight according to body mass index (BMI) calculations.
Hiking is a great option for those who are overweight because it’s very low-impact, unlike running and jogging. These activities can be a lot on the joints especially for heavier individuals.
But while anyone can go for a hike to burn calories, improve their health and fitness, enjoy the outdoors, or all of the above, as with any form of exercise, it’s important to know your capabilities.
If you’ve never hiked, are just starting out, and/or are out of shape and carry extra body fat, it’s probably a good idea to start small and hike a short distance cross country or slightly uphill/downhill.
On the other hand, someone who is in great shape can hike for longer distances and up/down steeper areas.
Additionally, it’s not recommended that someone out of shape climb or overweight climb long distances on steep surfaces. This too can cause a lot of unnecessary stress on the joints.
Should I Wear A Backpack When Hiking?
Do you want to bring along some items such as snacks, hydration, first aid, and whatever else people take with them? In that case, it’s probably a good idea.
Some people carry a few smaller and lightweight options while others prefer to bring more things on their adventure.
On the other hand, many wear heavier backpacks because it simply makes the hike more challenging and it’s a great workout.
The most important thing is to wear a backpack that you can safely and comfortably carry around on your back. You shouldn’t be straining or leaning forward to counterbalance the weight of your belongings.
A common backpacking pack weight recommendation is 20 percent or less of body weight. So, for example, if you weigh 125 lbs, your backpack should not exceed 25 lbs.
The recommendation for a day hiking pack is about 10 percent. So if you weigh 160, the pack should not exceed 16 lbs.
Also be sure to try out our other calories burned calculators below.
Take A Hike… and Track Your Calories Burned!
The calories burned hiking calculator is a handy tool that anyone can use to measure their calorie expenditure from hiking activities.
It’s simple to use and you can use the results to help with your weight loss, weight maintenance, or even weight/muscle gain journey.
