Sarah,

I use a GPS as well when I am doing a trip with long days. I use National Geographics TOPO but the milage is always low. Normally I load the track into the GPS and then just leave it off in the pack. Occasionally, later in the day I may turn it on to get an idea of how close I am to my destination.

I definitely get what the majority of you are saying as far as terrain and time being more important than mileage. No disagreement from me there. I was simply curious if there was a better way to calculate mileage, since nothing I've used seems to be very accurate.

My reason for wanting to know is largely just because I'm interested in it. Also, when preparing for a hike or run with so many miles and so much elevation gain, if I know the mileage of the trails I use locally, I can try and prepare some training hikes and runs with similar distance and terrain.

Somewhere I have a little map measurer that is desgined to roll across a map. Of course you need a 7.5 quad to even be close to accurate. If you are interested, I can dig it out and take a picture of it. I bought it about 30 years ago.

You can use Google earth to plot a track, and I seem to remember that it will calculate the mileage. Not sure if it is accurate. You can do the same with Topo!

For me, I am most concerned about completing my trip on time. Since I always hike alone, it is important for me to check in with my wife on time. I can do this by studying the map.

I hike on the Continent, where everything is tabulated in hours, not "milage" (kilometrage?). Theoretically this makes some sense, and despite different hiking paces, within certain regions the systems _can_ be consistent aids.

But each region has it's pace. I live near the Vosges, and in these lower mountains, the Club Vosgien maintains the signage, and they walk a little slower than most. In the Swiss Alps, on the other hand, "one walks quickly," as a friend said. I'm more of a Swiss hiker---but even then, if I were to time myself, I would have to stop the stopwatch every time I stopped to take a picture, retie my shoe, visit the bushes, etc. to maintain the pace.

If done consistently, subjective scales like "hours" can be very helpful. I'm sure one can use the elevation profiles of computer mapping to calculate pace vs/ work; but I bet such a scientific approach would just about reflect the experience of the masses. No scale I've run into can quite accurately predict how often I'll want to stop, marvel, snap pictures, soak the feat, etc. The Swiss are a bit too quick for this, I think.