Hiking Merit Badge

The badge is requirement 4, and requirement 4 is five days

Four 10-mile hikes and one 20-mile hike. Each on a different day, and each of continuous miles, so two hikes cannot be stacked into one long Saturday, and a 10-mile hike cannot be assembled out of shorter walks.

That is sixty miles across at least five separate days. It is the longest calendar in the Eagle-required set that does not involve a fixed period of weeks, and the only part of this badge that cannot be caught up at the end.

The written plan comes before the hike, not after it

Requirement 4 asks for a written hike plan prepared before each hike and shared with your counselor or a designee for approval before starting. The plan covers map routes, a clothing and equipment list, and what goes in the trail lunch.

Five hikes means five plans and five approvals. A hike walked before its plan was approved is a hike walked, and this is the mistake that costs people miles they have already put in.

Rest, meals, and what breaks a hike

Requirement 4 allows as many short rest periods as you need and one meal during each hike. What it does not allow is an extended break such as an overnight. That ends the hike rather than pausing it.

The reports are per hike

Requirement 5 is one report for each of the five hikes: the date, the route or a map of it, the weather, what you saw, what was hard and how you got past it. It may be written during the hike if you are on a continuous trek.

Writing them as you go is much easier than reconstructing five hikes from memory at the end, and the weather in particular is not something anyone remembers accurately three months later.

Hiking, Swimming or Cycling. You need one of the three

The Eagle Scout rank requires one of Swimming, Hiking or Cycling, not all three. Which one is a decision about you rather than about this page, so there is no question here pretending to make it. If you have already earned Swimming or Cycling, you do not need this badge for Eagle.

What this page is

The Hiking merit badge, laid out so the five days are visible as five days. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.