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Automated, and it can be wrong. It cannot give medical or injury advice — for that, book a free consultation.
Naismith's rule, corrected for descent, pack and the stops nobody plans for.
Time on the hill
4 h 5 minincluding stops
3 h 30 min moving, plus about 35 min of stops — averaging 3.4 km/h over the ground.
Worth knowing. Good conditions on a summer trail. Snow, ice, deep mud, darkness, heavy rain or navigation in cloud can each add half again — and they compound. Set a turnaround time from this figure rather than a finish time, and hold to it.
Train for longer daysThe gap between a 4-hour day and an 8-hour one is not fitness in general — it is ascent under load, trained specifically.An hour per 5 km, plus an hour per 600 m of ascent. It describes a fit hillwalker in good conditions and is optimistic for most people, which is why a fitness factor sits on top of it here rather than being folded silently into the constants.
Naismith ignores descent entirely. Langmuir subtracts 10 minutes per 300 m descended on gentle slopes and adds 10 minutes per 300 m on steep ones. The second half is the one that catches people out — a rough descent is slower than the climb.
Time is increased by about 1.5% per kilogram over 5 kg, and 10 minutes per moving hour is added for stops. Naismith gives moving time; days are not made of moving time.
Altitude above roughly 2,500 m, snow cover, river crossings, group size and heat all matter and none are inputs here. Treat the answer as a good day, and plan the turnaround for a bad one.
That is the part worth talking through, and the first conversation is free and takes half an hour.
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