Have you ever wished you could find an accurate and consistent difficulty rating for trails? “Easy” vs. “Strenuous” is so subjective, and if it’s like some major hiking websites that will be left unnamed, the difficulty ratings are user-generated and therefore every single trail comes out as “Moderately Strenuous” because of each user’s different skill level. So I’m happy to give you a hike difficulty calculator that’s actually fairly accurate – and doesn’t rely on how much pizza the author had eaten in the past six months and how lethargic they were feeling the day of their hike!
If you want to calculate in metric (kilometers and meters instead of miles and feet), click here. For an explanation of accuracy and how the calculator works, scroll to the bottom of this page.
Note: This calculator does not account for terrain. Obviously, a paved path will be easier than a rock scramble over boulders! Take terrain into consideration when determining difficulty by bumping the difficulty to the next level (for example, Moderately Strenuous to Strenuous) if the terrain will be challenging.
Hike Difficulty Calculator
Now, this calculator is great for determining the overall difficulty. However, it's not very accurate at telling you how long a trail might be. For example, an 11 mile trail with 110ft. of elevation gain comes out as Easy, but a 3 mile trail with 3,800ft. elevation gain is Strenuous!
To help with this, I created 3 more hike difficulty calculators – one for trails up to 5 miles, one for trails 5-10 miles, and another for 10+ miles to help compare more accurately trails of similar lengths.
Hike Difficulty Calculator for Trails 0 Miles to 5 Miles
Hike Difficulty Calculator for Trails 5 Miles to 10 Miles
Hike Difficulty Calculator for Trails 10+ Miles
Is the hike difficulty calculator accurate? Well, I'd say it is accurate based on two measures. First, it's worked pretty well for me, including times when I've been like, "Oh, was that why this trail was so hard - it came out Very Extremely Strenuous!" Second, a friend uses the scientifically-proven Paul Petzoldt’s “energy mile” scale to determine difficulty, and this formula comes out pretty much the same difficulty as his effort-per-mile calculations.
This hike difficulty calculator is based on a formula used by Shenandoah National Park. The basic formula (for all you nerds out there) is a simple (Elevation Gain in Feet)*2*(Round Trip Trail Length in Miles). Take the square root of the resulting number, then plug the final number into the scale (below) to determine the difficulty.
Overall Difficulty Scale
Easy - Less than 50
Moderate - 50-100
Moderately Strenuous - 100-150
Strenuous - 150-200
Very Strenuous - 200 to 250
Extremely Strenuous - 250 to 300
Very Extremely Strenuous - 300+
Zero to Five Mile Scale
Easy - Less than 25
Moderate - 25-50
Moderately Strenuous - 50-75
Strenuous - 75-100
Very Strenuous - 100-125
Extremely Strenuous - 125-150
Very Extremely Strenuous - 150+
Five to Ten Mile Scale
Easy less than 25
Moderate - 25-75
Moderately Strenuous - 75-125
Strenuous - 125-175
Very Strenuous - 175-225
Extremely Strenuous - 225-275
Very Extremely Strenuous - 275+
Ten Plus Mile Scale
Easy less than 75
Moderate - 75-125
Moderately Strenuous - 125-200
Strenuous - 200-250
Very Strenuous - 250-300
Extremely Strenuous - 300-350
Very Extremely Strenuous - 350+
Read about some of my all-time favorite hikes in the western US in this book
I put together this book as a collection of some of the best trails in the western United States. Buy your copy here.
