Estimate hiking time using distance and elevation gain with Naismith's rule.
Naismith's rule adds about an hour of walking for every 600 meters of ascent, on top of the flat-distance time. The combined figure gives a robust estimate when planning a mountain day. Ignoring elevation gain badly underestimates a hike's true effort, so factoring ascent prevents starting an outing you cannot finish before dark.
Hiking Ascent Time
Time = distance/speed + ascent/600 (hours)
Time = distance/speed + ascent/600 (hours) Naismith's rule adds about an hour of walking for every 600 meters of ascent, on top of the flat-distance time. The combined figure gives a robust estimate when planning a mountain day.
Ignoring elevation gain badly underestimates a hike's true effort, so factoring ascent prevents starting an outing you cannot finish before dark.
This calculator takes 3 inputs: Distance, Total ascent, Walking speed. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.