Why no separate activities for hiking vs backpacking?

Garmin calculates the calorie burn for nearly all activities based on heart rate and body size. The harder you work, the higher your heart rate and the higher your calorie burn. this is no different for backpacking than any other activity. If you are working harder because you are going uphill, or carrying extra weight in the form of a backpack, increased HR will pick up this extra work.

There is no question to resolve.

The general problem is that there is no description of the activity type, no guidance what app you should choose in what circumstances.

Walk? You know it is a common English word, so you must know what Garmin exactly means. Hike? The same. Climb? The same. Etc.

You pick one of them, use it, and will understand whether Garmin had meant what you supposed to be the truth.Let it be Climb.  

If you are unpleased with the algorithm how distance is calculated then you will choose another app. Let it be Walk.

If you lack stopped time, moving time, moving speed as choosable datafields you will choose another app, namely Hike.

If you are unpleased that your VO2max is not calculated and/or that your activities cannot be shown on GCM just in “total activities” but not using the filter “walking activities”  then you will probably revert to Walk.

And so on and so on and so on.

It’s funny that you assume that all anyone wants to know is caloric burn. Maybe I like the functionality of the watch that tries to compute whether training status your body is in…so when it says I’m “being productive” or tells me my VO2 max is 1000, then I strap on 100lbs and go for a “hike”, it calls me an out of shape slob with a crappy VO2. Or maybe I just want to track my workouts that I have a pack vs ones I don’t. There’s many other good reasons to add a backpacking/rucking/or weighted option. Not everything is about calories. Hell, I’d be happy to help simplify Garmin’s engineering team’s complex equation problems, and just say to make that activity one that doesn’t track crap, I don’t really care. The point is, it’s one option that should be available and isn’t. If “wing suit” is an option, why can’t this be??

the only accurate way to calculate calorie expenditure is to measure total gases inhaled and exhaled. All trackers are off. Even CNET did a piece on this subject. 

you can relabel the activity in connect if you want the data  separated. 

as far as estimated calories from the device your HR rate will show you are working harder over distance progressed. so it will perceive effort is greater and more calories will score as burned. i wouldn’t get too caught up on any of these devices. the best any of them can do well is provide your location, pace (when gps has only a few glitches) and provide a log of the activity. 

Before splitting it even more, why hike's distance is not counted as walk towards challenges?

That is another valid point. All the slow motion activities made on foot should be sub-categories of a “walk” category.

And maybe the present walk app/activity type should be renamed to “stroll” or “easy walk” etc.