Hiking Calorie Calculator

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Some background is explained in this post. Basically this is a rough estimate of the workload and calories burned during a hike.

For terrain, assume a value of 1 unless you have a feeling that the terrain you are hiking on really adds on more work that normal. In that case, you might want to scale the energy by some factor - say 1.1 (10% increase), but this is highly speculative. (I have disabled the 'terrain' option for now and set it at 1)

I personally would trust the uphill estimates pretty well, but the downhill may be underestimated.

UPDATE #1: I think generally we all feel the downhill could be quite underestimated. The study & equation I used did the research on a treadmill, where friction on downhill is quite consistent and this is not the case in reality. For now, I am going to assume that one mile downhill (at any grade) is equivalent to walking a flat mile. Even though this isn't the best assumption (probably more work descending 20% grade than flat, but less at 10%), it's probably a decent guess until I get a lot of data collected.

Summitpost discussion / debate on the topic

Inputs

Distance Round Trip (miles):
Elevation Gain (ft)
Bodyweight (lbs)
Backpack Weight (lbs)
Terrain Scaling (1-2, normal to all very rough)

Measure	Uphill	Downhill
Average Grade %
Work Ratio relative to Flat Walking
Equivalent Number of Flat Miles
Base Calories Burned (kcal)
Adjusted Calories Burned