Calories Burned Hiking With a Pack: Estimates and Tables

Calories burned hiking with a pack depend mainly on your weight plus your pack's weight, the terrain, and how long you're moving. A simple, widely used estimate multiplies a MET value for the activity by your combined weight and time. For a 70 kg hiker with a 10 kg pack, that works out to roughly 500 kcal per hour on rolling hills and about 650 kcal per hour on steep climbs. This guide shows the formula, gives tables you can read off, explains what the estimate misses, and shows how to use it to plan food.

Run your own numbers with the hiking calorie estimator.

The formula

The Compendium of Physical Activities, a widely used research reference, gives MET (metabolic equivalent) values for many activities. The standard conversion is:

kcal = MET × 3.5 × weight (kg) ÷ 200 × minutes

To account for the pack, a simple approach is to use body weight + pack weight. The estimator uses these rounded MET values:

Calories per hour: quick tables

Rolling hills (MET 6.0)

Steep climbing (MET 7.8)

All figures are kcal per hour, rounded. They're population-average estimates, not measurements.

Worked example: a full hiking day

Sam (a made-up example) weighs 70 kg and carries a 12 kg pack. Her day:

Each row uses 82 kg (70 + 12). For the climb: 7.8 × 3.5 × 82 ÷ 200 × 150 = 1,679 kcal.

That's the energy for the hiking hours, and MET values already include resting metabolism during those hours. For a full 24-hour estimate, add resting energy for the other 17 hours.

Uphill versus downhill

Climbing is the most expensive part of a hike. Lifting your body and pack up a mountain takes extra work beyond walking on the flat. Downhill walking is cheaper per hour, but it isn't free: on steep descents your muscles work to brake, and that braking is what makes legs sore the next day. If your route has a big climb followed by a long descent, rate the climb as steep and the descent as mixed rather than easy.

Estimating moving time

Moving time is often the weakest input. A common hiking rule of thumb, Naismith's rule, allows about one hour per 5 km of distance plus one hour per 600 m of ascent. Fitness, pack weight and terrain shift this a lot, so after a few trips, compare your actual times with the rule and adjust. Then subtract breaks: a seven-hour day on the trail might include only five and a half hours of walking.

What changes the real number

More detailed models, such as the Pandolf load-carriage equation, include speed, grade, terrain and load explicitly. They're more precise, but they need inputs most hikers don't track.

From calories burned to food packed

You don't need to eat back every calorie on the trail. On short trips, many people run a modest deficit and refuel at home. On longer trips, the deficit adds up. A practical process:

1. Estimate hiking energy with the estimator for a typical day.
2. Add resting energy for non-hiking hours. Many adults burn roughly 1 to 1.3 kcal per kg of body weight per hour at rest, though individual figures vary.
3. Decide how much of that to carry as food. Many backpackers carry 2,500 to 4,000 kcal per day.
4. Convert to grams with the backpacking food weight calculator.
5. Split into meals with the trail meal planner.

Sam's food decision

Sam's hiking estimate is about 4,170 kcal. Adding roughly 17 hours of resting energy at around 1.1 kcal/kg/h (70 kg), about 1,300 kcal, gives a full-day estimate near 5,500 kcal. She decides to carry 3,500 kcal for this hard day, accepting a deficit. At 450 kcal per 100 g, that's about 778 g of food.

Calories burned over a multi-day trip

The tables above are per hour. Over a trip, those hours add up quickly. Here's a three-day example for the same 70 kg hiker with a 12 kg pack (82 kg combined):

Add resting energy for the remaining hours each day, and you can see why many backpackers come home a little lighter even when they eat well on the trail. Use these totals as the starting point for your food plan, as in the 3-day backpacking meal plan.

How pack weight changes the picture

Using the simple body-plus-pack approach, every extra kilogram adds the same energy cost as a kilogram of body weight. In the steep-climbing table, going from no pack to a 15 kg pack raises the hourly estimate by about 15% (100 kg hiker) to 27% (55 kg hiker). A given pack is a bigger share of a lighter person's weight. That's one reason lighter gear and a well-planned food bag pay off: every gram you don't carry is energy you don't spend.

At the same time, a lighter pack built by under-packing food is a false saving. The goal is to carry enough energy at the highest sensible density. The trail food density ranking and the calorie density checker help with that.

Why trackers disagree

Watches estimate calories from heart rate, motion and personal data. With a heavy pack, heart rate rises while arm swing changes, which can confuse the algorithms. Use tracker numbers as one input. If your watch and the MET estimate are within a few hundred calories, that's reasonable agreement.

Water and electrolytes

Higher energy use usually means more sweat. Plan water with the water carry calculator, and consider salty foods or electrolytes on hot days.

A note on weight loss

This site doesn't give weight-loss advice. Energy estimates here are for planning trail food. If you're hiking as part of a health or weight goal, talk to a qualified professional about what's right for you.

Common mistakes

1. Counting total time instead of moving time. Breaks don't count at hiking MET values.
2. Using flat-ground numbers for mountain days.
3. Forgetting the pack in the weight.
4. Treating the estimate as exact. It's a planning range.
5. Trying to eat every calorie back and carrying a huge food bag on a short trip.

Checklist

• ☐ Body weight and loaded pack weight known
• ☐ Day split into terrain sections
• ☐ Moving time per section estimated
• ☐ Hiking energy calculated
• ☐ Resting energy added for a full-day picture
• ☐ Food target chosen and converted to grams

Sources: MET values in the ranges published by the Compendium of Physical Activities (Ainsworth et al.); the formula kcal = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200 × minutes is the standard conversion. Pandolf et al. (1977) describes the load-carriage equation mentioned above.