How do you calculate mileage?

TOPO usually is how I do it. GPS will work in most cases, but not always – it can shorten if it is dropping at all. But if you can take the two and combine them, you get a very good idea of not only miles, but the route and elevation gain.

Don't trust published miles either – they can be a guess based on a person's timed hiking. The wheel device though used by map makers works well but isn't realistic of course.

A rough estimate from the topo map, knowing that my 'map miles' may be different from someone else's pedometer miles. Why worry?

Cheers

what level of accuracy do you want ?
within 20%
within 10%
within 2%

and over what general distances ?
5 miles
20 miles
100 miles

might determine the method you use.
I've heard GPS can be as much as 10% off depending on elevation changes, switchbacks, and tree cover.

"knowing how I handle miles on different types of terrain would be helpful when planning longer trips."

Nate,
There are a number of things to consider when trying to gauge your "rate of travel" over various types of terrain. The short answer is "experience is the best guide".

Miles alone don't tell the whole story. You have to factor in elevation, temperatures, pack weight, elevation gain, AND loss (for many, 8 miles of steep down hill would be crippling.)

For instance, I did a part of the CDT last year that has had No maintenance over the last 5 to 10 years. Lots of down timber, creek-like trails, stock-trough trails, no signage. But a piece of the Colorado Trail was like a freeway. On the first I was pushing to get 1.5 mph. On the second 2.5 was easy. And the guidebooks read the same.

The best you can do is learn from your training hikes and then extrapolate from the guide books, trail notes, and hiker reports.

And after three or four 'long' hikes, you'll know what to believe and what to expect.

I'm kind of a one-speed hiker. I find my pace early on and "lock in" pretty much for the rest of the day. And thus, I'm usually pretty good at estimating distance and timing.

I use "My map miles" which means that I estimate the miles looking at the topo map. I know from experience how many of these I can do in an hour, so I can figure from there. How this relates to actual, accurate mileage on the ground is irrelevant, since the important thing is knowing how far I can go in an hour or in a day. When looking at maps of trails that have mileages shown, I ignore those and do it the same way, for the same reasons.

Usually plot out course on computer, set a waypoint and then track with GPS. I haven't seen the inaccurracies unless they are in both the mapsource mapsets and GPS. I have no idea how they handle the added milegae up hills for example but that would cause the mileage to show up on the GPS as lower than actual so not a big deal.

Time it. I have a Polar wristwatch/heart rate monitor and I time everything.

There's uphill/downhill/ridge walking/uphill 500/600/800/1000!!! ft per mile. Doesn't take long for you to get it pretty well worked out.

Then there's Utah 4 corners canyon "stream" bed hiking. A unique category

I usually always measure my distance out on runs and check the time for each miles. About 5 years ago i got it down to be accurate within 5 seconds.
Got it from when I first started running distance and only had road to run on in Key West, (yuck). I did weekly sprint workouts and was quickly able to pick up what my pace would be.

I still do this time to time, and when I do, it's now somewhere in the 2-3 second range. Even if I am running with a 10 pound pack and 14 minute miles.

While doing a 10k with my brother and his wife, I decided to run the first mile with them until taking off. About 4 1/2 minutes in, I told them our first mile is going to be about a 7:42.
Sure enough, right as we passed the one mile mark, (7:42)

So if I'm off for a hike or run I hardly ever take the GPS other than to just be able to guess the distance gone during the day.

I am in the military and we run a 1 1/2 distance all the time. When people as me to pace them, I can usually pace someone within a few seconds without even looking at the watch.

So the best way to calculate distance is to learn the distance and do it yourself.

The rough estimate is all you really need. It's actually better not to try to keep track of your milage during the day as you are hiking. Why worry about it. I once hiked with a woman who kept counting her steps while we were walking. It was extremely obnoxious.

One reason for keeping track of miles per day is knowing where you are on a map and as well….knowing you won't run out of daylight.

Those are real issues if you are doing longer miles.

Rough estimates are often way off and a person can think "Oh I have done 8 miles so far" but in reality are hiking slower than they think and have done 5. If you are running against time that extra 3 miles may well be done in the dark.

> One reason for keeping track of miles per day is knowing where you are on a map

If you keep track of where you are on the map, why do you need to know how many miles you have traveled?

I guess different folks do it differently, but I am used to knowing where on the map I am, and from that knowing how far I have come (if I care). Estimating how far I have come to locate myself on the map is not anything I have ever done — sounds strange to me.

— Bob

For those of you that carry a smartphone, there are apps for this. For example, there's one for Android phones called "My Tracks" that tracks your mileage, speed, and elevation. It's free. I'm sure there are others for Blackberry and iPhone.

Beware that GPS receivers are all different and use different algorithms for calculating mileage traveled. For example, if you travel for one mile, then go through a mile-long tunnel (no GPS signals at all), then emerge from the tunnel for another mile, what will the receiver show?

Some will show two miles total. Some will show three miles total (by interpolating where you went through the tunnel). Some will have difficulty re-acquiring signal after the tunnel, so they will show about a mile and a half. It's a crapshoot!

Hikers get this problem when going under dense tree canopy or when going through steep, rocky canyons.
–B.G.–

"If you keep track of where you are on the map, why do you need to know how many miles you have traveled?

I guess different folks do it differently, but I am used to knowing where on the map I am, and from that knowing how far I have come (if I care). Estimating how far I have come to locate myself on the map is not anything I have ever done — sounds strange to me. – Bob"

+1 here.

If I know where I started and where I am at all time, it's easy to calculate my relative speed and to estimate how far I've come and how far I can get before dark, next water, etc…

Of course I need to adjust for terrain, trail conditions, stamina, weather but that is an ongoing thing. With experience you know what your body can do, under various conditions with various loads, and good map/compass/GPS work takes care of the rest.

Someone else asked the OP how accurate you need to be. I think that is a good question. 1:24k quads, TOPO and/or a GPS gets you in the ballpark. How much more precise do you need to be? to what gain?

In California, we have two completely different standards for distance on a wilderness trail. One is called "park service miles" and the other is called "forest service miles." The two are randomly different.
It gets even more complicated when trail junction signs are juxtaposed. One sign will tell you that you are 5.0 miles to your destination, and then the next one tells you that you are 5.9 miles away, even though you were headed correctly. Once you have hiked past the same signs for a while, you figure out how they mis-planted the signs.
–B.G.–

"If you keep track of where you are on the map, why do you need to know how many miles you have traveled?

I guess different folks do it differently, but I am used to knowing where on the map I am, and from that knowing how far I have come (if I care). Estimating how far I have come to locate myself on the map is not anything I have ever done — sounds strange to me. – Bob"

+2

I hike between 1/4 mile an hour and 6 miles an hour. Terrain, track conditions and weather are much bigger factors than distance.

Miles don't count.
Hours do.

On Saturday we walked down a track – 6kph. Then we walked up a river bank – 1 kph. Then we climbed a peak – 500 m ascent. Then we went across a difficult valley, with mild scrambling to get out of it – 0 kph while climbing. Then we walked along a ridge – 3 kph until we hit some scrub, then about 1/4 kph with a lot of effort.

Position matters, hours matter, but distance …

Cheers

When trekking in Nepal, most of the trekkers would ask of our Sherpa guides, "How many miles is it to Namche?" The Sherpa guides never had a clear response, because they don't deal in miles or kilometers. They would answer, "About one day." Their concept of travel distance was how far could be covered in one day or two days or whatever.
Similarly, they had a poor response when asked about time within one day. In afternoon, the time was "Almost time for tea."
Too many western trekkers go there with rigid ideas about time and distance, and it takes them a while to mellow down.
–B.G.–

Sarah,

I use a GPS as well when I am doing a trip with long days. I use National Geographics TOPO but the milage is always low. Normally I load the track into the GPS and then just leave it off in the pack. Occasionally, later in the day I may turn it on to get an idea of how close I am to my destination.

I definitely get what the majority of you are saying as far as terrain and time being more important than mileage. No disagreement from me there. I was simply curious if there was a better way to calculate mileage, since nothing I've used seems to be very accurate.

My reason for wanting to know is largely just because I'm interested in it. Also, when preparing for a hike or run with so many miles and so much elevation gain, if I know the mileage of the trails I use locally, I can try and prepare some training hikes and runs with similar distance and terrain.

Somewhere I have a little map measurer that is desgined to roll across a map. Of course you need a 7.5 quad to even be close to accurate. If you are interested, I can dig it out and take a picture of it. I bought it about 30 years ago.

You can use Google earth to plot a track, and I seem to remember that it will calculate the mileage. Not sure if it is accurate. You can do the same with Topo!

For me, I am most concerned about completing my trip on time. Since I always hike alone, it is important for me to check in with my wife on time. I can do this by studying the map.

I hike on the Continent, where everything is tabulated in hours, not "milage" (kilometrage?). Theoretically this makes some sense, and despite different hiking paces, within certain regions the systems _can_ be consistent aids.

But each region has it's pace. I live near the Vosges, and in these lower mountains, the Club Vosgien maintains the signage, and they walk a little slower than most. In the Swiss Alps, on the other hand, "one walks quickly," as a friend said. I'm more of a Swiss hiker—but even then, if I were to time myself, I would have to stop the stopwatch every time I stopped to take a picture, retie my shoe, visit the bushes, etc. to maintain the pace.

If done consistently, subjective scales like "hours" can be very helpful. I'm sure one can use the elevation profiles of computer mapping to calculate pace vs/ work; but I bet such a scientific approach would just about reflect the experience of the masses. No scale I've run into can quite accurately predict how often I'll want to stop, marvel, snap pictures, soak the feat, etc. The Swiss are a bit too quick for this, I think.