Disclaimer

This page explains what EarthTrek’s tools are — and aren’t — so you can use them as a helpful part of your planning, alongside your own judgment and preparation.

Last Updated: September 14, 2026

1. General information

EarthTrek provides informational tools — including the Trail Pace Calculator, Hiking Time Calculator, Hiking Difficulty Calculator, and Hiking Checklist Generator — designed to help you think through the planning side of a hike. They’re meant to support your own preparation, not to make decisions for you.

EarthTrek is an independent website. We are not a guiding service, a certification body, a professional trail authority, or an emergency service, and nothing on this site should be understood as a claim otherwise.

2. Calculator accuracy

Every result produced by EarthTrek’s tools — including pace, moving time, rest time, total trail time, and difficulty ratings — is an estimate. These estimates are calculated from the details you enter and a simplified planning model; they are not measurements of a specific trail and won’t always match what you experience on the day.

Actual hiking time varies from one hiker to the next, and even for the same hiker on different days, based on factors a calculator can’t fully capture: fitness on the day, group pace, how the trail is currently maintained, and more. Difficulty in particular depends heavily on individual fitness and experience as well as the real condition of the trail at the time you hike it, so the same route can feel easy to one person and demanding to another.

Use EarthTrek’s results as a helpful starting point for your planning, not as a guarantee of how your hike will go.

3. Hiking and outdoor safety

Hiking and trekking carry inherent risks that no calculator or checklist can fully account for. Before heading out, it’s worth taking a few sensible steps: check that a trail suits your fitness and experience, carry appropriate gear and navigation, and let someone know your plans.

You are responsible for independently assessing whether a trail, route, or activity is appropriate for you, your group, and the conditions on the day. EarthTrek does not guarantee your safety, the safety of any trail, or that following our tools’ suggestions will prevent injury, getting lost, or other incidents. Our tools are not a substitute for professional guidance, emergency services, or the knowledge of local experts when those are appropriate for your situation.

4. Weather and trail conditions

Trail and weather conditions can change — sometimes significantly — between when you plan a hike and when you actually set out, and even over the course of a single day. Rain, wind, temperature swings, trail closures, and maintenance work can all affect a route in ways our tools don’t and can’t track in real time.

Please check current, official weather forecasts and trail condition reports for your specific location before you go, and again closer to your start time if conditions seem uncertain.

5. Third-party information

Where the Site references, links to, or is used alongside third-party sources of trail, weather, or location information, we do not independently verify the accuracy or completeness of that outside information. Third-party sources may have their own limitations, update schedules, or errors.

We encourage you to cross-check important details — especially anything safety-related — across more than one reputable, official, or local source before relying on it.

6. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, EarthTrek and its owners, operators, and contributors are not liable for any injury, loss, damage, or expense arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Site’s tools, estimates, or content, including decisions made about a hike based on information obtained here.

This disclaimer works alongside our Terms of Service, which contains additional detail on limitation of liability and disclaimer of warranties.

7. Contact

If you have questions about this disclaimer, please contact us at:

hello@earthtrek.xyz