Calories burned- hiking?

LifeTakeTwo

Hi Ladies! 

I'm back on the calorie counting wagon using sparkpeople after maintaining on my own for a few years.  I don't usually eat back my burned calories, but this morning I went on a 13mi/5hr hike.  Sparkpeople says I burned 1674 calories!  This seems way too high to me.  

Any thoughts?

doglove

Was it a hard hike? I average 70 calories per mile when I'm hiking and about 2-3 miles per hour. Usually for a 2 hour 5 mile hike I will burn close to 400 calories and that's with climbing up and down some steep hills. In the warmer weather, I burn more calories because my heart rate gets a little higher.

LifeTakeTwo

There were few short steep climbs, but most was flat or gradual.  The distance/time was the hard part as opposed to the terrain. 

Brit's Luna154

There are a lot of variables to look at such as the terrain and your body weight, but that is probably a high figure. Like Doglove, I usually estimate 70 calories/mile for hiking. I am 5'7/120 FWIW. My H is 90-100 lbs heavier than me and fairly muscular, he estimates more like 150 calories/mile for hiking. <-- Your body weight and composition will have a huge bearing on calories burned.

LifeTakeTwo

70 calories/mile is sounding a lot more appropriate.  I think if it had more climbs I'd be more likely to trust the sparkpeople number, but this was mostly flat. 

Thanks!