The terms hiking, trekking and mountain climbing are all similar in the sense that you go out and walk in nature. But, there are certain significant dissimilarities between them. The easiest amongst them is hiking which means walking on well-marked trails of easy to moderate difficulty. The duration of hiking usually ranges from half-day, full-day up to two days. Hiking does not require climbing skills or any specific equipment.

Likewise, trekking is a multi-day hike with long hours of walking up and down in the high mountains above 3000 m with difficulty level somewhere between hiking and mountaineering. Trekking also does not require technical skills and deep knowledge.

Mountain climbing or mountaineering is a technical adventure requiring high technical skills, climbing gears and a good fitness level. Among the three, mountaineering is by far the most challenging as it involves walking on steep sides of the rock, snow, and icy mountain terrains. It requires having an experience of high altitude walk, rock climbing, technical skills of handling gears such as crampons, ice-axe and pinpoint navigations. Mountaineering is a more technical variation of trekking that takes climbers to higher peaks that are over 5000 m.