Another user here told me the average american hike is 3 miles and I have not been able to get that off my brain since. That's the shit I do with a friend on a hangover to get some fresh air
I mean I get the socioeconomic reasons, I think what irks me most is calling 3 miles a hike. That's a walk. It's fine to do a walk, it's just not hiking
One time I was at a park and asked a park worker where a certain trail was. They legit freaked out and said that trail is very intense, make sure you are well prepared.
We went on it and it was like 4 miles and pretty mild. Most Americans are allergic to physical activity.
In most of the popular hiking spots in my state, once you go a mile down a trail there's like nobody around.
IMO it's more about duration than mileage. You can't call it a hike if it's under an hour, that's a walk. I'm of the opinion that if you can do it comfortably without drinking water it's probably a walk. That said, three miles can definitely be a hike, there are plenty of trails in the northeast US that will give you >2000 feet of elevation gain in that distance.
Much like the BMI is useless if you're a bodybuilder statistic I'm fairly certain the average hike in the US or anywhere is not made up of a significant enough amount of hiking straight up a vertical wall to make this statistic entirely worthless
Another user here told me the average american hike is 3 miles and I have not been able to get that off my brain since. That's the shit I do with a friend on a hangover to get some fresh air
You have to remember two things
Many Americans live in suburbs where 3 miles might get you out of the suburb
America's car brained infrastructure design means most places have incredibly shit accommodations for pedestrians
I mean I get the socioeconomic reasons, I think what irks me most is calling 3 miles a hike. That's a walk. It's fine to do a walk, it's just not hiking
This might just be everyone saying they like hiking these days. It's great, but is also sure to pull down that number.
One time I was at a park and asked a park worker where a certain trail was. They legit freaked out and said that trail is very intense, make sure you are well prepared.
We went on it and it was like 4 miles and pretty mild. Most Americans are allergic to physical activity.
In most of the popular hiking spots in my state, once you go a mile down a trail there's like nobody around.
IMO it's more about duration than mileage. You can't call it a hike if it's under an hour, that's a walk. I'm of the opinion that if you can do it comfortably without drinking water it's probably a walk. That said, three miles can definitely be a hike, there are plenty of trails in the northeast US that will give you >2000 feet of elevation gain in that distance.
Much like the BMI is useless if you're a bodybuilder statistic I'm fairly certain the average hike in the US or anywhere is not made up of a significant enough amount of hiking straight up a vertical wall to make this statistic entirely worthless
A hike should be 6 minimum, 8 ideally. Doing something like the Appalachian Trail will have you doing like 15-20/day though.
Hold on, you mean a "hike in nature"-hike?
3 miles doesn't get you anywhere
It's what I've been told and I trust every user of this site entirely uncritically
3 miles, isn't that like 5 kilometres? We did longer hikes in third grade.