How many miles per day did the average pioneer travel on the Oregon trail?

Answer 1

This cannot be answered with any certainty: first they did not walk every day, significant parts of the trip were by horse or boat.

However the average distance traveled everyday can be estimated from an estimate of the total distance traveled (about 7600 miles) and the total time spent (two years, four months and ten days or about 862 days). This gives an estimate of the average miles traveled per day at 7600/862 = about 8.817 miles/day.

This was very typical of the period of time, at the very best one could rarely travel more than 10 to 15 miles/day. On stagecoach routes with horse teams being changed at least every 10 miles, "good" dirt roads, and in good weather one might be able to travel 40 to 50 miles a day, but there were few stagecoach routes even that long within the US at that time. In the area Lewis and Clark were exploring there were no roads at all, at best there were narrow Indianian trails at worst nearly impassible mountains. Most of the trip mileage was by boat, as the Missouri, Snake, and Columbia rivers were the nearest thing to "highways" in the areas through which they flow at that time.

Answer 2

Their were 2000 miles that Lewis and Clark had to travel

Answer 3

They traveled about 10,000 miles on the way there. And on the way back they took an alternate route and traveled 15,069 miles.

Answer 4

447 miles