The calculator
Hike Time calculator
Naismith’s Rule gives a fit walker’s moving time and nothing else. This adds the corrections a real day brings: your fitness, a pack, a steep descent, altitude, and the breaks no formula counts. It shows each one, so the number is honest.
Realistic time
3 h 12 m
car to car, breaks included. The bare Naismith base alone is 2 h 14 m; the rest is the corrections a real day adds.
Where the time goes
| Base moving time (Naismith) | +2 h 14 m |
| Fitness — steady day-hiker | +20 min |
| Steep / rough descent | +17 min |
| Breaks and faff | +21 min |
| Realistic total | 3 h 12 m |
A time is only half a plan. Turn it into a safe start and turnaround with the turnaround & daylight tool, or get a full go / no-go from the hike planner. The method is in Naismith’s Rule.
How the estimate is built
Every figure starts from Naismith’s Rule: one hour for every 5 km of distance, plus one hour for every 600 m of ascent. That is a fit walker’s moving time on good ground, and on its own it reads low, because a real day is slower than the map.
So the calculator adds the corrections that actually move the clock, and shows each as its own line rather than folding them into one number. Fitness scales the base up or down. A pack adds time that grows with the climbing. A steep or rough descent is counted rather than treated as free. Altitude thins the air higher up. And the breaks, photos, navigation and faff that no formula counts are added as a share of the day.
The result is an honest car-to-car time, not an optimistic minimum. The full reasoning and the sources behind each correction are in how long a hike really takes. Once you trust the time, turn it into a safe start with the turnaround and daylight tool, or get a plain go or no-go from the hike planner.