Your ideal hike length?
Posted: Sep 07 2014 3:47 pm
Having not hiked a long hike in a while, I got to thinking. Last fall, when going for my year's big goal, I had to routinely hike over 20 miles to achieve my desired AEG goals. I realized that hiking 20+ miles, isn't that great for me, because it takes so long, and if you want to stop to explore or relax, it eat eats precious daylight up, and so the hike isn't as fun. A hike should be fun, and that distance as a routine weekend hike is simply too great. This isn't to say that from time to time I wouldn't hike 20 to 25 miles or so, if conditioned and interested, but my weekly "event hike", or interesting main hike of the weekend, as you might think of it, has an ideal length of about 10 to 15 miles, with some wiggle room depending on a number of factors. For example, a 17 mile hike isn't really pushing that too much, where as a 20 mile hike is, as it is at least another full hour, or more, over my ideal hike length. A 8 mile hike might seem like too little, but depending on what is interesting about it, it might be ideal for the other factors.
Keep in mind, for this survey, I am not asking about your routine or training hikes, as those tend to be shorter and probably are done after work, or in that fashion. This would be your main hike that you budget a day to enjoy, not what you fit into your schedule. If you backpack, choose based on what you feel is your preferred distance to average a day, not the entire hike.
My ideal, as answered is 10 to 15 miles, and it has about 3000 to 4000' of AEG, but unless very steep, I find that doesn't affect my speed as much, so I am not including that data. However, if you feel strongly, you can always say what you think is your ideal AEG. My ideal training hike, such as Elden and Pusch, falls in the middle 2,000' range. Less isn't enough, more is too much. While AEG isn't a hard fast criteria for length of hike, I do prefer to stay over 3000', as a really solid hike, for me, will be a challenging one, but not too much over 4,000', or so, as that can be too tiring for the day. Obviously, rare special exceptions come up, where I want to do 5,000'+ a day, but it can be very hard on my body, and it does take some of the fun out of the hike. My ideal training hike, is about 4 to 6 miles, depending on other criteria, but that isn't intended for the poll.
Keep in mind, for this survey, I am not asking about your routine or training hikes, as those tend to be shorter and probably are done after work, or in that fashion. This would be your main hike that you budget a day to enjoy, not what you fit into your schedule. If you backpack, choose based on what you feel is your preferred distance to average a day, not the entire hike.
My ideal, as answered is 10 to 15 miles, and it has about 3000 to 4000' of AEG, but unless very steep, I find that doesn't affect my speed as much, so I am not including that data. However, if you feel strongly, you can always say what you think is your ideal AEG. My ideal training hike, such as Elden and Pusch, falls in the middle 2,000' range. Less isn't enough, more is too much. While AEG isn't a hard fast criteria for length of hike, I do prefer to stay over 3000', as a really solid hike, for me, will be a challenging one, but not too much over 4,000', or so, as that can be too tiring for the day. Obviously, rare special exceptions come up, where I want to do 5,000'+ a day, but it can be very hard on my body, and it does take some of the fun out of the hike. My ideal training hike, is about 4 to 6 miles, depending on other criteria, but that isn't intended for the poll.