Calculate total elevation gain for a hike, trail, route, climb, or backpacking day. Enter multiple uphill segments, starting and ending elevation, and optional elevation loss to estimate climbing gain, net elevation change, and route difficulty.
Uphill segments:
Enter each climb or uphill section from the trail profile. The calculator adds only the climbing portions to estimate total elevation gain.
Start and end elevation:
These values are used to calculate net elevation change, which may be different from total elevation gain.
Route distance:
Distance is used to estimate average climbing grade and gain per mile or kilometer.
An elevation gain calculator helps estimate how much climbing a hike or route includes. This can be useful for hiking time, route difficulty, backpacking planning, calorie estimates, pacing, and comparing trails.
Total elevation gain is often more useful than starting and ending elevation because it includes repeated climbs along the route.
The basic elevation gain formula is:
Total Elevation Gain = sum of all uphill elevation changes
Elevation gain is the total amount of uphill climbing on a route. It adds all uphill sections together, even if the trail later goes downhill.
No. Net elevation change is the difference between starting and ending elevation. Elevation gain is the total uphill climbing along the route.
For many hikers, 1,500 to 3,000 feet of gain can feel hard, especially over a short distance. Fitness, pack weight, altitude, trail surface, and weather also matter.
GPS elevation gain can vary because of signal noise, barometric pressure changes, map data differences, smoothing, recording settings, and how small ups and downs are counted.