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What it is
Trail grade, also called slope, tells you how steep a trail is by comparing how much height it gains with how far forward it travels. A grade of 10 percent means the trail climbs 10 metres for every 100 metres of horizontal distance. It is the number trail builders, runners, and hikers use to compare climbs that look similar on a map but feel very different on foot.
Grade matters because it drives effort, speed, and safety. A gentle grade can be walked for hours, a steep grade exhausts legs quickly, and a very steep grade on loose ground becomes a slip and erosion problem. Knowing the grade before you go helps you choose a route you can finish in daylight.
How to use it
Enter the vertical rise and the horizontal distance, both in the same units, metres or feet. Horizontal distance is the map distance, not the distance your feet travel along the slope: on steep ground the two differ, and using slope length as the run understates the grade. Press Calculate to get grade as a percent, the slope angle in degrees, and the climb rate in metres per kilometre or feet per mile.
Get rise and run from a map’s contour lines, a GPS track’s elevation profile, or a route planner. Contour interval times the number of contours crossed gives the rise, and the map distance gives the run.
Worked example
A trail that gains 100 metres over 1,000 metres of horizontal distance has a grade of 10 percent, a slope angle of about 5.7 degrees, and a climb rate of 100 metres per kilometre. A trail gaining 528 feet over one mile of horizontal distance is also 10 percent, or 528 feet per mile, which shows why feet per mile is the natural unit for walkers used to imperial maps.
Double the rise to 200 metres over the same run and the grade doubles to 20 percent, with an angle of about 11.3 degrees. That is a hard, sustained climb, and most walkers will slow to roughly half their flat-ground pace on it.
How to read your result
Grade percent is the headline: under 5 percent feels gentle, 5 to 10 percent is a steady climb, 10 to 20 percent is steep, and over 20 percent is very steep for a walking trail. The angle in degrees is the same slope described differently, and it is useful when you compare with avalanche, road, or construction guidance, which usually quotes degrees.
Climb rate per kilometre or per mile translates the grade into a planning number: it tells you how much height each unit of forward progress costs.
Common mistakes
The most common mistake is using the trail’s length along the ground as the run, which makes steep trails look gentler than they are. Another is mixing units, such as rise in metres and run in kilometres, which gives a grade one thousand times too small. A third is averaging the grade over a whole route, which hides short, brutal pitches inside a gentle average.
Limits
Grade alone does not describe difficulty. Surface, altitude, weather, pack weight, and fitness all change how a grade feels, and a short steep pitch on rock is different from the same grade on a smooth path. Use grade alongside distance and total ascent when you judge a route, and check local guidance for trails with grades over 20 percent.
Questions people ask
What grade is a typical hiking trail?
Most walking trails sit between 5 and 15 percent on their climbs, with short pitches up to 25 percent. Purpose-built accessible trails are usually kept under 5 percent.
Is grade the same as gradient?
Yes, in everyday use. Engineers sometimes quote gradient as a ratio like 1 in 10, which is the same as a 10 percent grade.
Why give the angle as well as the percent?
Some guidance, especially for snow slopes and roads, is written in degrees. A 100 percent grade is a 45-degree slope, which is a useful anchor when you convert between the two.
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