One thing that comes up in most hiking conversations is "how long did it take"?  This is often pared with the much easier answer of how many miles and how much elevation which can be determined by using a map and counting contour lines, or more easily read up in the guide book or use a mapping software.  But that how much time question is not an easy one to answer.  It all comes down to what your body can do as far as pace goes along with the trail itself.

Nobody should ever be embarrassed at having a slow pace.  Oddly enough, nobody ever is embarrassed by having a super fast pace.  Your pace is your pace.  You can push yourself and try to keep up with the quicker people, but will you enjoy it?  Most likely not.  On the other end, if you're a fast hiker and hiking with slower hikers, you should be slowing your pace down to keep up with them, but there too comes a point where you're not enjoying it either.  That is ok.  That means that you should split up into 2 different groups.

Speaking from my experience, I am a slower hiker on the uphill sections.  Once I see that the slope of the trail is going to be over 20%, I know I'm going to be slowing down.  On the flats I am usually around 3 mph, which is on the faster end of things.  From flat to that 20%, I'll be somewhere around 1.5 to 2 mph depending on the condition of the trail.  Once I hit that 20% though, I'm down to 1 mph or less.  That is just what my body demands of me, and I've gotten faster with more training, but I'm still not fast.  What happens is that I'll go up for a few hundred feet and then take 10-20 seconds to lower my heart rate back down, catch my breath, and repeat until the steep section is over.  What I have found to work for me to break that is if I'm having a good conversation with someone, and we both slow down our pace just a little.  I've hiked entire mountains with a good conversation without realizing that we went through the steep sections.

So, how does one know how long a hike is going to take?  Well, there are 2 things I do.  First is I keep track of my pace over multiple hikes.  Currently it's sitting around 1.3 to 1.4 mph for hikes with big mileage and elevation gain.  So, last weekend when I was planning on a 13.4 mile hike with big elevation (5100 feet), my initial guess was 10-11 hours.  I also look at the slope of the trail and the distance for each section of elevation.  The following is what I was looking at for Dial and Nippletop one way.

The first 1.6 miles were road, and a road that I have hiked quite often, so I knew how long it was going to take me to get to the actual trailhead, about 45 min.  Then I looked at what the slopes were going to be.  There are 3 sections with significant ups.  The first that goes over 20% is from 1.8 to 2.6 miles, the second was from 3.3 to 3.6, and the last was 4.3 to 4.8.  So we're talking 1.6 miles of significant up on the way in.  We also have about another 0.5 of moderate up.  On the way out (so we're looking at the negative slope in the graph above), we have about 0.5 of significant ups.

So now a bit of math.  I assumed that the significant ups will be 0.8 mph, moderate will be 1, and everything else besides the road will be 1.5.  We have 3.2 miles of road, 2.1 miles of significant, 0.5 of moderate, and 7.6 of "flat" or down.  Doing math, the road will take about 1.5 hours based on my experience with the road.  The significant ups will take 2.6 hours (2.1/0.8), lets round up to 3.  moderate ups will take 0.5 hours (0.5/1), lets round up to 1.  The rest will take 5 hours (7.6/1.5).  That brings us to an estimate of 10.5 hours.  I round up because I'd rather over estimate than under estimate.  This way I take into account stopping for pictures, food, water, bathroom, changing traction/flotation, etc.  This turns out to be about how long it actually took, 10 hours 24 minutes per my GPS, and my GPS said it was 0.6 miles more than the map did.

What I can't estimate though is the trail conditions.  On this hike, I ran into a lot of ice in one section.  Going up it was not a problem, but going down it took longer than if it was just packed snow.  If i didn't run into that, and the few slips and falls I took as a result of it, I probably would have been closer to the 10 hour mark.  The other thing that is difficult to take into consideration is where in the hike the elevation occurs.  If you are doing multiple peaks, you will have multiple significant up and down sections.  How will you feel after you do the first one?  More often than not, you start off strong, and slow down as the day goes on.  Food and proper hydration helps you, but still, in general that's what happens.  So that's something to keep in mind.  If it's a single peak, then no big deal, but if you're doing something like the Dix range, you have 5 peaks you're hitting 4 of which will be after some kind of major elevation gain.

In the end though.  Your pace is your pace.  If you're forced to go significantly faster or slower than what your body says is good, you will not have a good time, and hiking will become a chore.  This is one reason so many of us slower hikers tend to do solo hikes.  There's nothing wrong with that, and it can be done safely.  But there is something you miss out on when you're not hiking with a group.