Why would changing a walk to hiking not count toward walking challenges?? When you hike, you are walking

To explain why it works like it does: Each challenge/badge got a requirement on the activity type for the logged activities. There are the main types and most of them got sub types. Walking and Hiking are both main types and are not related at all. Walking got two sub types: casual and speed walking. They can both be used when logging activities for walking badges, but none of them works for hiking badges.

If Hiking moved to be a sub type of Walking then hiking would count for the walking badges, but Walking wouldn't count for the Hiking badges unless you put Walking as a sub type of Hiking... So, it can't really be done in a good way.

The solution that would fix it would be to make it possible to use multiple activity types for a badge. We haven't seen that yet so we don't know if it is possible with the current implementation of the badge system.

There are some activities like hiking, cross-country skiing, snow shoeing that are similar to walking (number of steps, distance). Thus, they should count to these walking badges & challenges that measure these parameters.

People would like to distinguish in activity logs various kind of activities (it is great feature) but would like also to participate in various challenges. Yes, I know that it is more difficult to cover the same distance during hiking than walking but currently there are no badges for hiking / cross-country skiing / snow shoeing at all. 

You can change the type to walking temporarily. Once you get the Challenge badge, you can change the type of the activities back to whatever you prefer for keeping your logs. Once the Challenge is closed and the badge awarded, it stays awarded even if you edit the concerned activities. Just please note, that this is not working for the regular non-challenge badges.

Good point! From the other hand I'm afraid that using walking instead of other activity (hiking, snow shoeing) will make some performance calculations (like calories) inaccurate. The next qustion is what to choose for skiing?

Finally, badges and challenges are introduced to encourage people to exercise more.  I would like not to tinker to be awarded. So Garmin please take into account all sports and all users and either add challenges / badges dedicated for them or at least change criteria of existing ones to cover more dyscyplines.

TomekB said:

The next qustion is what to choose for skiing?

Skiing isn't walking at all so just log it as skiing. Just because you are moving and lifting your feet doesn't mean it is walking. What do you do when skiing downhill? Are you gliding or taking steps? If you want to make it count as walking then log it as walking.

Yes, you are right. Downhill skiing cannot be logged as walking, as it is completely different activity. Cross-country skiing differs so much from downhill. Sometimes it is kind a walking, sometimes it is gliding. Hiking uphill with snow-shoes require way more energy than walking in park. 4km in swimming pool can't be compared with cycling the same distance. And this is a clue: each discipline shall be logged / tracked only by a dedicated watch activity to properly estimate effort, calories and other metrics. However, currently you can get badges only for small set of activities (winter sports don't have any). I think that every discipline shall allow getting a kind of "effort badges". Something that is based on burned calories,  heart rate, time or other calculations. In this way everyone can take part in badge competition and compare real effort.

I also think Garmin should make sure that the time, kilometres and steps taken during a hike are counted in the 'walking challenges'.
It is incomprehensible that this is not done since hiking implicitly involves walking but in the devices selecting "hike" counts multiple data fields, map, etc....