Re: average walking speed

"Roger" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Roy" <roy> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Naismith's rule says 3mph +1/2 hr
per 1000ft of ascent (in old money for folks of my age). Naismith

includes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

odd stops to check out the views and catch your breath, but not lunch
stops.

FWIW Naismith never said anything about excluding lunch stops and the
original form of words avoided the misleading reference to mph.

It was only a suggestion as well to get you started as an average for fit
people on average terrain who want to walk all day. The important thing is
to start with something like this, work out how wrong it is for *you* (OR
the walk you are doing) and come up with your own figures. Do a route plan
with the ascent and distances, estimate the time taken (including stops) and
see how far out you are. I mark ones I do with "OFP" - Old Fart's Pace - a
slightly more leisurely interpretation. It would be ridiculous (and wrong)
to base a day out in the hills and estimate a return time on someone else's
figures.

--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Bob Mannix" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

It was only a suggestion as well to get you started as an average for fit
people on average terrain who want to walk all day. The important thing is
to start with something like this, work out how wrong it is for *you* (OR
the walk you are doing) and come up with your own figures. Do a route plan
with the ascent and distances, estimate the time taken (including stops) and
see how far out you are. I mark ones I do with "OFP" - Old Fart's Pace - a
slightly more leisurely interpretation. It would be ridiculous (and wrong)
to base a day out in the hills and estimate a return time on someone else's
figures.

It all depends on what you want to estimate. IIRC the op was asking
about average walking speeds which is a bit of a 'how long is a piece of
string' question. I can average 4.5 mph on a flat road for up to half an
hour after which I am exhausted and I could be put in the same state in
the same timescale trying to average 1 mph over nominally flat difficult
ground. OTOH a typical hill walk on my own would probably average
somewhere between 2 and 2.5 mph without counting the stops (and only
marginally less with the stops). However it has been some years since I
was confident that I could easily manage more than 15 miles and 4000
feet of ascent in a single day. And it is the amount of ascent that is
the more important factor, at least to me, not having limitless energy
(or for that matter elastic knees) at my disposal.

Naismith (or some personal variation of it) gives an indication of the
total time for a walk. Trying to apply it to short sections will give
very optimistic and/or misleading results which will vary depending on
how hard the walk is and may vary depending on the time of day and how
good the walker is at pacing him/herself.

--
Roger Chapman so far this year 43 summits
New - 20 (Marilyns 6, Nuttalls 5, Outlying Fells 10)
Repeats - 23 (Marilyns 7, Nuttalls 14, Wainwrights 12, Outlying Fells 0)