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When thinking of a hiking trail, many people first imagine a rocky path going up the side of a mountain that takes all day to get to. Thankfully, we're here to let you know that not every hiking trail is a struggle up to the summit. In fact, the options are almost limitless for the type of hike you could do. All you need to do is figure out what the trail description means and then you’ll be on your way to picking out the best one for your comfort level!

When you look up a hike online you might come across a lot of different descriptions. These outlines generally include several key elements:

• Destination
• Difficultly
• Use Type
• Route Type

Let’s explain.

1. Destination

Destination would be one way of describing a hike. Walking the sandy shores to a hidden beach is much different than heading into the dense woods to a hidden lake. Usually a hike could be defined by where the trail takes you. Like to the top of a mountain. Or through a canyon to a river. Not all hikes need a point of destination though. Some are loops through national parks and others could just follow the coastline or an epic ridgeline.

2. Difficulty

Some hikes are literally described by the difficulty of the trail such as easy, moderate and difficult.

With these three types of trail difficulty, you’ll need to know what goes into the decision of the grade. While most of the trail attributes are objective, some details of the trail are subjective as well, meaning what one person thinks is difficult is not difficult for everyone else.

For a hike to be put into a difficulty rating, a few factors are taken into consideration:

Length

This is described merely in either miles or kilometers.

Make sure when you’re reading the distance that you determine whether or not they are explaining it in total length (to the end and back) or length of the trip only one way.

Terrain

This describes how the trail is maintained, whether that be a paved trail, a rocky scramble or anything in between.

Elevation Gain

This describes the cumulative gain of elevation throughout a hike and is generally defined in feet or meters. It does not take into account the elevation losses through a hike.

Pro Tip! It’s also a good rule of thumb to know that every 1,000 feet of elevation gain, you’ll add about an hour to your hike.

As you can assume, the longer, unmaintained and higher a trail travels, the more difficult it is rated.

It’s important to read these grading systems, but also take them with a grain of salt. If you’re a seasoned hiker, for example, you can read the details of a hike and determine that for you, a hike rated as moderate may, in fact, be easy. If you are a beginner hiker, you may want to save the hikes described as difficult for later on when you have a few introductory miles under your belt or have a good amount of fitness training.

There are websites out there to help you determine how difficult it is by putting in merely the length of the hike and the elevation gain.

Bonus tip! When reading the trail descriptions on popular sites, reviewing the comments left by recent hikers always helps to determine a more subjective grading judgment.

3. Use Type

A part of what makes up the trail difficulty level is terrain, as described above. Part of that terrain is the type of user that a trail can be accessed by. This can make a path more or less difficult depending on how it’s maintained and who for. The terms used to describe who is allowed to use it are:

Single-Use Track

A narrower trail that was constructed for only one mode of transportation whether that be a hiker, biker or horse for example.

Multi-Use Trail

Allows more than one type of use on the path at once such as hikers and horses.

Hiker-Biker Trail

Usually an urban paved path that has room for both bicycles and walkers. Oftentimes these paths are marked to show a bike lane and a separate lane for foot traffic.

These are only a few of the terms that are used to describe who can use trails. These descriptions aren’t always laid out easily when looking at a hike so make sure to read the description first. If you’re not sure, you can usually call the government agency that maintains the trail to ask. There are also usually signs posted at the beginning of the hike that describes it as well.

Knowing who can use a trail beforehand can eliminate surprises when hiking and help you be more prepared if you come across a horse or a biker.

4. Route Type

The route type simply describes how you are meant to hike a trail. These types are defined as one of three terms:

Out and Back

This is a one track trail that you travel from the trailhead to the point of destination and back using the same trail in both directions.

Loop

A trail that is a “closed circuit” type that starts and ends at the same point but the route is a circle meaning you don’t pass the same section twice.

Point to Point

A hike where the starting point and ending point are not at the same destination.