Everyone who has wanted to walk in nature and in remote trails and terrain has some questions on how much walking, how far, what is typical.

I’ll outline a typical advanced walk that I do. I am in elevation, mountain terrain but I can find game trails and old logging skid trails and even some 100 year old mining trails to walk on. These are normally fairly even footing with some deadfall but for the most part I can cruise pretty good. It’s different than deep timber hiking. Advanced walking is when I want to get some steps in, move fairly quick with an adult dog and burn some fat.

My normal elevation is 1005 meters at the yard. At the upper end of the walk I am about to describe the elevation is 1205. So I would be climbing up 200 meters over the time of the walk up.

Typically if I have a Swedish Elkhound I can push myself fairly hard as they have a slightly larger frame size which gives then just a few inches longer stride. I am talking about the average female, not the big males. But in this case, Aurella, Vienna, Aila, Hada, all of those fit the category of size. Varella is a big female and pushes hard, so I am not using her in this example.

My target time is to maintain a pretty respectable pace right to around or close to 1 hour and reach close to or exceed 6000 steps. Keep in mind I travel slower on the way up, more stops for water break, but short breaks of course and the steps are a bit closer together.

Now Vienna for example has an easy walk pace on the way up to match my speed, she is a very comfortable walk, rarely needs to trot. Just a good nice walk for her.

My heart rate depending on the rise of the trail can be in that 103 to 113 range on the high end of bpm. I am not overly winded but warmed right up. I consume a fair bit of the water on the way up.

My water consumption is 2 cups before I leave, I will consume 2 cups before I get to the springs which are at 4000 steps. I will drink a full 2 cups at the springs, taking a few minutes break there. Fill my bottle at the spring and consume another 2 cups on the way to 6000 steps and 1200 elevation. On the way back I will stop at the spring, drink 2 more cups there, fill my bottle and drink the remainder 2cups on the way down.

Way less water on the way down. Total of 12 cups round trip, and then a good drink at home. Depending on the dog, they most likely will not drink at all, even though we stop at the spring on the way up and the way down. There are other little streams and such too, but they will for the most part not drink.

Now the distance down is the same, but the step length is different and the speed traveled is different. So this is where the dogs have to trot just a bit, a very fast walk for the medium females with some trot. Posso would not have to trot, but he is much longer/taller. But take Vienna she is moving much faster now.

So on the way down I can cover the same distance in 46 minutes and the steps are 5014, so I have a much longer stride as you can expect and move quicker. Expending way less energy as well. Heart rate is pretty much always 89 to 82 on real easy going. So you can see it’s more of a cool down walk.

However the shin muscles are getting the workout and the knees get the workout. On the way down I have “hold back” using the opposite muscles. I find more soreness on the way down muscles than those on the way up, just so you know.

So a total round trip advanced health walk with a female Jamthund/Swedish Elkhound is going to be very close to 2 hours of continual movement, with very short stops for the water. Give or take 11,000 plus steps, counting up and down. Heart rate breakdown is 1 hour extended heart range and 46 minutes much easier heart range.

For the dogs its a nice time to get out and spend a couple hours with me, they could go for many hours longer but are happy and content to cruise along on those trails.

So for those looking to gain some advantage to health by walking and utilizing the remote trails to do it, some elevation for increased cardio and expended energy to deplete some fat stores and get some very, very clean air and water. That’s a typical advanced health walk. I have much longer hikes depending on what I am doing, spend way more time up there, but on those it’s a different pace and so on, but this outlines the advanced health walk for me and the Swedish Elkhounds in elevation and fairly rugged terrain.

Another note is that I regularly will take more than 1 dog, but the illustration was with 1. But it’s so easy to have two or more depending on skill level etc. But two on long lead is very simple with this walk program I mentioned.

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