I am hoping somebody can help me with what kind of pedometer to use for a long distance hike (weight?, waterproof?, user-friendly?,etc.). Where I will be hiking, there are not a lot of mileage posts. I am curious what kind you use (if any) and why? There are just too many on the market to pick from so some advice would be greatly appreciated!
Happy New Year!
Steelhead
steelhead
I’ve never been able to get mine to work very well in the Mts. Mine is set on stride length and on some uphills it is shortened 50% or better. Making the darn thing totally unreliable. On our thru hike we got very good at mile guessing by watching our time. We normally hiked at a 3 mph pace. On any given day it measured 2 mph including lunch and breaks (unless we took a nap). On the trail 8 hrs and we did 15 plus miles. On good trail we would average a 4 mph pace. Like in VA, NY, NJ,CO, most of PA. Hope this helps. We never met anyone on the trail in '02 using a pedometer. Happy New Year
Papa Smurf
I wouldn’t bother with one. because of the constantl chanding terrain, they are rarely
accurate. I met no one on AT this year who thought differently.
Take a cheap watch and time yourself on various trail terrains. after a few days you will be able to guess fairly accurately your pace.
A good general rule of thumb on AT is 2mph uphill, 3mph downhill or a general average of
2.5mph., for experienced hikers.
Good Luck!
haywire
Thanks for the advice! I had troubles last year using a pedometer so I wasn’t sure if there was anything better out there this year. I will probably be using just my watch again!
steelhead
i dont know why but occasionaly i’d wonder how fast of a pace i was going from time to time so i’d pull out the watch and a guide book; then pick a spot; pick a second a mile; half mile; etc away and time it. some spots i did 3 miles in under 40 minutes; others a mile would take me 1/2 hour or more. so a watch and the data book work well.
Big Boy
Welcome back, Papa Smurf. Haven’t seen any posts from you on forum threads in quite a while. I’ve missed your insight and points of view. Welcome back.
Regarding subject, concur with all. I’m not even sure they are of much benefit hiking/walking on even terrain. I think they just sort of give you a good feeling about having walked so far. It would be interested to see how accurate some of them really are using a measuring wheel to check them.
One day soon however (maybe already), there will be ones out there which will use GPS (which will work a lot better and be more reliable than current GPS) and update every few seconds (so that switchbacks, etc are taken into consideration), and they will be state of the art. Don’t believe however they will be called pedometers. Hard to get GPS units currently to function well on many parts of the AT (deep hollows, under heavy tree canopy, etc). Who knows, one day maybe.
See you out there. :cheers
Maintain
Yeah,just use a watch. With a little practice you can almost get your speed or distance down within minutes.
Hey to all. I had to go to western NY Tuesday and stopped in Duncannon for a beer. Man what memories!!
Virginian
The rule of thumb for hiking is 2 miles per hour plus 1/2 hour for each 1000 feet of climb. When you see hiking times in various guidebooks, that’s the formula that they usually use.
Obviously, your pace may vary. In my younger days, I found that I was about 20% faster in mornings than book time, and right on for the afternoons.
Anyway, like others have posted, you see very few pedometers out there, even among section hikers. However, with a watch, you can estimate distance very well.
Peaks
I know I’m not the only one who counts steps as he hikes. No, not all the time, but sometimes when I’m alone, especially on climbs.
I find that I average (on all but terrain like you’d find in the Whites or western Maine) about 2,000 steps per mile. YMMV.
Counting steps helps me set a goal to get to the next 1,000th step, 5,000th step, etc. On trails where I KNOW the distance between Point A and Point B is X, 2,000 steps per mile is amazingly accurate. I’m rarely off by more than 0.05 mile.
Of course this measures distance, not the amount of time it takes to travel that distance. I’ve found my AVERAGE hiking speed, not including stops, to be about 2.25mph but this will vary greatly depending upon terrain, weather, and my energy level.
My experiences many years ago with a pedometer were not good. It was set to click off every stride I took, but regardless of where I attached it to my body it did not pick up every stride. The one I had also was not very weather-worthy.
“Skyline”
I started my thru hike with a pedometer. It was among my first shipment of unnecessary gear that was sent back home. In general my schedule was to hike 25 minutes and rest for about 5. I averaged about 2 mph that way. If you have a wrist watch and a map you’ll soon be able to judge your distance much more accurately than any pedometer.
Jeff
I was in a town called Cuba, close to Jamestown I believe. It snowed a little. Not so bad up there.The mountains were pretty,but the people talk funny!
Virginian
you were a few hours from me. its a little weird down that way. good snow country though if we ever get snow .
Big Boy