No hike in the country really compares with Yosemite’s Half Dome. The long, very strenuous, challenging, and incredibly scenic day trip to one of the most iconic and sought-after summits in America begins with ascending the Mist Trail through the shower constantly raining down from 317-foot Vernal Fall and below thunderous, 594-foot Nevada Fall. Climbing the cable route up several hundred feet of steep granite slab delivers a thrill that partly explains the hike’s enormous popularity.

The 8,800-foot summit of Half Dome—where many hikers complete the experience by standing on The Visor, a granite brim jutting out over Half Dome’s sheer, 2,000-foot Northwest Face—delivers an incomparable view of Yosemite Valley and a 360-degree panorama of a big swath of the park’s mountains.

Half Dome validates every step of effort you put into it.

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Having been up and down those cables a handful of times over more than 30 years of dayhiking and backpacking all over the country—including many years running this blog and previously as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years—I consider Half Dome one of the very best dayhikes in the entire National Park System and certainly one of America’s hardest dayhikes.

The cables are up for hiking Half Dome usually from the Friday before Memorial Day through the Tuesday after Columbus Day, depending on conditions. A permit is required for this popular dayhike and a permit lottery takes place throughout March. For 2026, Yosemite is no longer requiring a reservation to drive into or through the park for parts of the year; see nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/reservations.htm.

This story shares what I’ve learned about navigating the competitive permit system and embarking on a demanding day of hiking that’s roughly 16 miles round-trip with almost 5,000 feet of elevation gain and loss.

Please share your thoughts or questions about hiking Half Dome in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Enter the Dayhike Permit Lottery

Whether dayhiking Half Dome or hiking the cable route to its summit on a backpacking trip, advancing beyond the base of the sub-dome (below the sub-dome steps and the cables) on the Half Dome Trail requires a permit every day during the season when the cables are up. The park allows 300 hikers per day on the cable route: 225 dayhikers and 75 backpackers.

The dayhiking preseason permit lottery is held March 1-31 at recreation.gov/permits/234652, and results are announced on April 11. You can submit an application for up to six people (six individual permits) and for a range of dates, which improves your chances of success. You can only submit one application per lottery (i.e., only have your name as the permit holder or alternate permit holder on one application), and either the permit holder or alternate will have to show the permit to a ranger at the base of the sub-dome. People applying multiple times as permit holder or alternate will have all their lottery applications canceled. The cost is $10 to apply and $10 per person if you obtain a permit.

A daily permit lottery for dayhikers is held throughout the hiking season to issue permits that are unused or canceled. That’s held two days in advance of the hike date and you’ll receive notification of the permit the evening you apply (for example, you’d apply on a Thursday to hike that Saturday and get notified Thursday evening whether you received a permit).

Find more information at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermits.htm and apply for the permit at recreation.gov/permits/234652.

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Backpack to Half Dome

Instead of seeking a dayhiking permit, you can include Half Dome on a multi-day backpacking permit. In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas. Sixty percent of permit reservations are available by lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 beginning on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing the following Saturday. The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time up to seven days in advance of a trip start date.

See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.”

See also my expert e-books to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” both of which include Half Dome, and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you identify and plan your Yosemite backpacking trip (including navigating the permit process). Find more info at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wpres.htm.

I can help you plan this or any trip you read about at my blog. Find out more here.

Pick a Weekday in Spring or Fall

Not surprisingly, Saturday ranks as the most popular day for which people seek a permit to dayhike Half Dome (18 percent of applicants), with Sunday second (16 percent) and Friday third (15 percent), according to statistics from Yosemite National Park. Apply to hike it on a Tuesday or Wednesday (12 percent) and you will greatly improve your odds of getting a permit compared to applying for a Saturday.

Similarly, permit application numbers are highest from mid-June through mid-September, so your chances of getting a permit are best midweek in late May and early June or late September and October.

See the charts at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hdpermitsapps.htm.

The other good reasons for hiking in spring or fall include more moderate temperatures. Although spring can bring wetter weather, May and June are also when the waterfalls along the Mist Trail (and throughout Yosemite Valley) reach their most impressive peak runoff, whereas late summer and fall often deliver dry, pleasant weather.

Train Smartly

Dayhiking Half Dome from the usual starting point, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, entails about 16 miles round-trip with 4,800 feet of elevation gain and loss. That’s a serious day of hiking—one I’d rate as “extremely hard” in a chart that provides metrics for assessing a hike’s difficulty that you can find, along with other “hard” and “soft” measures, in my story “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

Approaching a hike that hard casually can be a recipe for an unpleasant or worse experience. Train for it weeks in advance of the date, certainly by getting in some practice/training hikes, as well as following a regular training regimen. See my story “Training for a Big Hike or Mountain Climb.”

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Hike Light

As with backpacking, traveling light when dayhiking helps you move faster and maintain your stamina longer, and a few pounds can make a difference. Your daypack’s weight matters and will mostly consist of food, water, and clothing layers, none of which you need to overpack.

Food weight will diminish over the day, of course, but there’s no need to pack much more than you intend to eat. Water is easy to refill along parts of the Mist Trail and most strategically at the Merced River on the JMT just above Nevada Fall, where you can top off your bladder or bottles before heading up to Half Dome and on the descent.

Wear lightweight, highly breathable hiking shoes that fit well and have a sticky outsole. See my picks for the best daypacks and hiking shoes and my “Pro Tips For Buying the Right Hiking Boots.”

Bring a hard-sided or collapsible filter bottle, like a Katadyn BeFree, which you can quickly refill when needed, and you can squeeze filtered water from a BeFree into a bladder. See my review of backpacking accessories and all water filter reviews at The Big Outside.

With a forecast for good weather, you can pack an ultralight shell jacket that’s more breathable, packable, and lighter than a rain jacket. See “The Best Ultralight Hiking and Backpacking Jackets,” all reviews of rain jackets at The Big Outside, and “5 Expert Tips for Buying a Rain Jacket for Hiking.”

I always use trekking poles on long hikes with substantial vertical gain and loss. See “The Best Trekking Poles,” “How to Choose Trekking Poles” and “The 10 Best Expert Tips for Hiking With Trekking Poles.”

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

See my stories “The 12 Best Hikes in Yosemite,” “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls,” and “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows” and all stories about Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

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If you’ve opened this story, you probably already recognize this truth: For backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, mountain runners, and others, trekking poles noticeably reduce strain, fatigue, and impact on leg muscles and joints, feet, back—and really on your entire body. And that’s true no matter how much weight you’re carrying, whether a daypack, an ultralight backpack, or a woefully heavy backpack.

But if you’ve opened this story, you also probably already have a sense of this often-overlooked truth: How you use poles matters. If you use them correctly, you’re gaining their benefits on virtually every step of your hike; if not, they become dead weight. This story provides 10 highly effective tips on using poles, from basics like adjusting pole length, gripping the strap, and moving uphill and downhill on trails, to managing steep terrain, fording streams, advanced tips for aiding balance, and more.

The tips below are based on my experience of many thousands of trail miles and more than three decades of backpacking, dayhiking, climbing, trail running, and taking ultra-hikes and ultra-runs—plus a quarter-century of testing and reviewing gear as a past field editor for Backpacker magazine and for many years running this blog. I believe this story will give you expert tips on hiking with trekking poles that you will not find anywhere else.

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With practice, using trekking poles can become so second-nature that you don’t have to think about what you’re doing—your body works on muscle memory, and your pole plants and movement become more efficient and effective. Mountain runners can even get skilled at rapidly swinging poles to assist with balance and braking when running trails downhill.

See my picks for “The Best Trekking Poles” and my story “How to Choose Trekking Poles.”

Tell me what you think of my tips, ask any questions, or share your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. And click on any photo to learn about that trip.

Ready for new poles? See my picks for “The Best Trekking Poles.”

#1 Set the Pole Length

For hiking on well-graded, flat to moderately steep trails, adjust the pole length so that your elbow is at a 90-degree angle when holding the pole upright, its tip planted on the ground, right in front of you. On many well-graded (not terribly steep) trails, you may not feel the need to adjust this length setting.

But on steeper terrain or trails, your poles may feel too long when going up or too short when going down. If so, shorten the pole by 5-10cm for hiking uphill and lengthen it a similar amount for hiking downhill. With a little practice, you will quickly learn your preferred length in different terrain.

The adjustable sections of poles typically employ one of two different mechanisms. Here’s how to set each of them correctly:

1. Twist-lock cams tighten and loosen, of course, by twisting them. Don’t over-tighten them: Turn the mechanism until you feel the cam tightening, then secure it with just another quarter-turn. If you’re applying much effort to twist it, you’re over-tightening it.
2. Locking levers have a small screw for adjusting the lever’s tension, so that it’s not so loose that the sections collapse easily, or too tight to open and close the lever. That screw will only require slight adjustment, and depending on the design, you might be able to do it with your fingers, or it will require a tool like a Phillips screwdriver (the size found on many multi-tools and Swiss Army knives) or an Allen key. Take note of whether your poles have shafts whose diameter varies slightly from end to end, so that you find the lever tension setting that’s not too tight or loose with the poles either extended or collapsed.

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#2 How to Grip the Pole Strap

To use poles properly, slide your hand through the strap before grabbing the pole grip, and wrap your thumb over the strap; that enables you to pull down on the strap—and lean onto the pole—without over-gripping and fatiguing your hands.

Pole straps are generally easily adjustable. Set them so that the strap wraps your hands comfortably when holding the strap as described above. Adjust straps if needed for wearing gloves (which is usually only necessary for thick, warm gloves).

A tip: Sometimes when hiking down steep, rocky terrain—when the risk of falling is elevated—I remove the straps from my wrists to avoid the poles getting in my way and somehow worsening injuries if I trip and fall. My concern is tripping over the pole or having the pole cause a severe twist of my arm or shoulder because my wrist is in the strap when I’m falling. Plus, when descending, we primarily lean on the poles and use them for balance and supporting our weight rather than to help propel us forward, so the straps are less important, anyway.

At just about all other times when hiking, without the wrist straps, you lose the major benefit of having poles: their ability to help you move forward and conserve energy

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#3 Use Poles to Propel Yourself Forward

When hiking relatively level terrain or gentle uphills, take a cue from cross-country skiers: Use poles to help propel yourself forward by planting the pole behind your back foot—which is the foot on the same side as the pole you’re planting when you swing your arms in a normal walking gait—and pushing off.

This will not, of course, feel or look quite the same as Nordic skiers who are sliding rapidly on skis over snow. The effort shouldn’t, for instance, cause serious fatigue in your arms and particularly your triceps muscles. But thousands of slight push-offs over the course of several miles translates to a significant, cumulative amount of weight taken off your leg and back muscles. Hikers using this technique will notice the energy efficiency gained.

Plus, if your goal is exercise, as with Nordic skiing, this technique will give you more of a full-body workout than just walking.

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#4 Using Poles on Steep Ascents

On steep ascents, plant poles alternately in front of you, swinging your arms the same as when walking gentler terrain (right arm forward with the left foot, left arm with the right foot); but plant each pole close enough that your elbow is bent, so that you can lean on the pole strap to gain a bit of upward leverage. A straight arm doesn’t convey much leverage onto the pole.

Some heavier, more-versatile poles have extended grips on the upper shafts, useful for holding the poles below the grips on exceptionally steep uphills without your hand slipping or holding cold metal. This is most useful for climbers and backcountry skiers.

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#5 Using Poles on Steep Descents

On steep descents—both on-trail and especially off-trail—use poles for balance and to reduce the impact of constantly stepping down. Employ these two techniques depending on the steepness (and follow tip #1 for lengthening your poles):

See my picks for “The 10 Best Trekking Poles” and all of my reviews of trekking poles at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker Magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See my Gear Reviews page at The Big Outside for categorized menus of all of my reviews and my expert buying tips.

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Any backpacker making the substantial effort to hike the 93-mile Wonderland Trail around Washington’s Mount Rainier soon discovers why it’s one of the most popular backpacking trips in the country. Those reasons include regularly wading through some of the best wildflower meadows you’ll see anywhere, the numerous waterfalls and raging rivers gray with glacial flour—and the countless times that the most heavily glaciated peak in the Lower 48, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, suddenly pops into view, looking impossibly massive.

That’s also why few backcountry permits are harder to get than one for the Wonderland—unquestionably one of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips.”

If you want to backpack the Wonderland Trail this year, it’s essential that you know how to navigate the permit-application process and the strategies that can help improve your odds of getting a permit—and the time to start that process is now.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

This story will explain the procedure for obtaining a permit to backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail and offer tips on how to maximize your chances of success, sharing expertise I’ve acquired from multiple trips on the WT and in Mount Rainier National Park over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

See my feature story (which requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full) about my most-recent trip on much of the WT, a 77-mile route that combines what I consider the trail’s best sections and alternate segments, plus “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Get my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park” to learn everything you need to know to plan and take this classic trip, including a day-to-day primary itinerary, alternate itineraries, and detailed pros and cons for hiking clockwise versus counterclockwise.

And see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can put together a completely customized plan for you to backpack part or all of the Wonderland Trail.

If you have backpacked the Wonderland or have other thoughts or suggestions about it, please share them in the comments section below. I try to respond to all comments.

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Enter Mount Rainier’s Early Access Lottery

Know this truth about the Wonderland Trail: Permits are issued based on availability in designated backpacker campgrounds—and all backpacker campgrounds along the trail will become fully booked from July through September. That includes the two-thirds of backcountry campsites available to reserve and the one-third assigned on a first-come basis to backpackers requesting a permit in person at a park wilderness center up to one day before starting a trip.

Those are the only two ways of getting a Wonderland Trail permit—and a reservation is a better strategy because it will be difficult to walk in and find enough campsite availability to create an itinerary for hiking the entire trail.

For trips from May 1 through Oct. 11, 2026, Mount Rainier National Park issues permit reservations at recreation.gov/permits/4675317 up to two days before a trip starts.

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The park holds an optional Early Access Lottery that you can enter anytime between 7 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 10, 2026, through when it closes at 7 p.m. Pacific on March 3, 2026, at recreation.gov/permits/4675317. Lottery results are released March 14 and winners will receive a date and time on or after March 21 when they can apply for a multi-night backcountry itinerary reservation competing against a limited number of other applicants—quite possibly the only chance of securing a permit for the entire Wonderland Trail. Lottery winners can also apply for a Mount Rainier climbing permit.

General reservations for all other permit seekers open at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on April 25. When searching permit availability at recreation.gov/permits/4675317, view by “Daily Groups” to see how many sites are available in each backcountry campground. There is a non-refundable $6 fee for an early-access lottery application or permit reservation and a fee of $10 per person per night for a permit reservation.

Maximum party size is five people for standard backcountry camps. Parties of six to 12 must stay in designated group camps.

Find more information about permits at nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/wilderness-permit.htm and nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/upload/Wilderness-Trip-Planner-2022-wMap-FINAL_508.pdf and more about the Early Access Lottery at recreationonestopprod.servicenowservices.com.

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Be Flexible With Your Dates and Itinerary

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to have flexibility with your dates and itinerary.

Availability at Rainier’s backcountry campgrounds will be shown in real time when attempting to reserve a permit at recreation.gov/permits/4675317. If you cannot reserve a specific campground on a specific date, you must be ready with alternative campgrounds, dates, and perhaps starting points.

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After the Wonderland Trail, hike the rest of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Try for a Walk-In Permit

You didn’t make a wilderness permit reservation but you hope to backpack all or part of the Wonderland Trail? There is a last resort: a walk-in (or first-come) permit.

Mount Rainier issues about one-third of permits on a first-come basis to backpackers requesting a permit in person at a park wilderness center up to one day before starting a trip.

While the chances of having enough backcountry campsite availability to put together a complete Wonderland Trail itinerary is very slim, you may be able to backpack a section of the trail—or another trip in the park, like the Northern Loop or arguably the nicest, short backpacking trip in the park, the 22-mile traverse from Mowich Lake to Sunrise.

Expect high demand for walk-in permits. Show up at a park wilderness information center or ranger station that issues permits at least two to three hours before it opens to get a spot near the front of the long line that will form; those are located at Longmire, Paradise, White River, and Carbon River. Go there with primary and alternative routes and camps in mind. Bring warm clothes, a headlamp, a hot drink, and something to read (or a park trail map to study). See “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit.”

You might get lucky and score a permit to start the same day. But expect to have to wait a day—if you’re fortunate enough to get a walk-in permit.

See all stories about backpacking the Wonderland Trail and backpacking in Mount Rainier National Park at The Big Outside. Like many stories at this blog, reading some of those in full requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

See also my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail Around Mount Rainier” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can plan your backpacking trip on the Wonderland Trail.

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Switching from a standard backpacking tent to an ultralight tent can shave pounds from your total pack weight—which for many backpackers will be the biggest step they can take toward a lighter pack. But it can be confusing to sort through the various ultralight tents out there, and the specs on them can look like a big pot of numeral soup, leaving you wondering: How are they different? And ultimately, which one is best for you?

I’ve tested and reviewed scores of tents of all types over a quarter-century of testing and reviewing gear—formerly as the lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine for about 10 years and even longer running this blog. I love the best ultralight tents, but I’ve also used some that had flaws or shortcomings not immediately obvious.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

This article will explain all you need to know to find the three-season, ultralight tent that’s best for you. See also my “5 Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent.”

Please tell me what you think of my tips or share your questions, suggestions, or favorite ultralight tent model in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Size Matters

Consumers of backcountry gear have grown accustomed to focusing on the weight of a product—which is smart—but not always paying adequate attention to other performance metrics. Think of your tent’s weight like it’s a prospective spouse’s feelings about starting a family: It’s a critical and potentially make-or-break factor, but it’s not the only question to ask when evaluating compatibility.

An ultralight tent is a two-sided coin: Before getting one, be certain that low weight ranks as a higher priority to you than other metrics like living space, or you might be disappointed.

Fans of them typically include ultralight backpackers, thru-hikers, climbers, and others who focus on the experience outside rather than inside the tent, who often spend much of each day on the move, and who don’t mind dealing with the inconveniences or quirkiness of a non-traditional tent design. Big people looking to trim pack weight may be smart to get a tent that’s not the absolute lightest, but still reasonably light while providing a bit more space (more on square footage below).

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That said, there are ultralight tents and shelters that do have adequate or even abundant living space, especially those employing non-traditional designs. Floorless tents and tarps that pitch using trekking poles weigh mere ounces while offering much more sheltered living area per ounce (or gram) than traditional tents. While not freestanding, when pitched and staked out properly they often stand up to strong wind as well as—and sometimes better than—any heavier, three-season, freestanding tent. Some have a single-wall or hybrid single- and double-wall design (see below) and optional mesh inserts for buggy conditions. Ventilation, of course, is almost never a problem under a tarp.

You may want a light ground cloth, and site selection and an adequately warm bag both become more important when you’re not in an enclosed tent. But if you really want to reduce shelter weight, when bugs aren’t an issue and you don’t anticipate relentlessly wet, windy conditions, a tarp or similar minimalist shelter is unquestionably the best choice. Plus, if you also want to move to a lighter, smaller-volume pack, you have to first reduce the bulk of your two largest pieces of gear: your tent and sleeping bag.

All of which leads to the conclusion: Yes, size matters. There are tradeoffs to reducing weight. For many backcountry travelers, though, the benefits of a lighter pack far outweigh any disadvantages of an ultralight shelter. Once someone switches to one, they don’t tend to go back to carrying heavier tents.

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How Light Should You Go?

What is an ultralight tent? There’s no hard definition, but I would include any kind of backcountry shelter that’s under about three pounds (1.4 kg). While somewhat arbitrary, that cutoff lumps in a wide range of products, from freestanding, double-wall tents that are significantly lighter than traditional models to shelters weighing a pound or less.

I’m not suggesting you ignore all tents over three pounds; there are two-person, three-season tents weighing mere ounces over three pounds that have their merits. What matters more are your personal needs and preferences in a shelter. That will dictate the design features you want, which (along with your budget) will largely dictate the weight of the shelter you choose.

See my picks for “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

The weight of any kind of shelter (or any gear) basically depends on the type and amount of materials that go into it—a seemingly obvious fact, but one which affects everything from interior space to price. The visible differences include:

• Interior and vestibule space.
• One or two doors.
• Freestanding or requires staking (which includes semi-freestanding).
• Double- or single-wall.
• Whether it has dedicated tent poles or pitches using trekking poles.
• Whether it has a floor and/or bug-proof mesh walls.

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Freestanding or Not?

Tarps and some tents employ your trekking poles, eliminating the substantial weight and bulk of tent poles from your pack. These models can require a little more time and possibly some practice to pitch correctly—you’ll be wise to pitch it for the first time in your yard rather than during a rainstorm in the backcountry. But you’ll quickly familiarize yourself with the idiosyncrasies of one. And tent poles represent one of the single biggest chunks of weight you can remove from your pack, which is why these non-traditional shelters are the choice for serious ultralighters as well as any backpackers who simply want to pack as light as possible.

Besides, “freestanding” is a somewhat misleading term: While such tents do stand independent of stakes, they virtually always must be staked out, anyway, including their rainfly, to ensure that they stay put in wind and ventilate well.

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See my stories “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,”
and “5 Tips For Spending Less on Hiking and Backpacking Gear.”

What’s Best for You?

As I’ve basically laid out above, choosing any kind of backcountry shelter, and particularly an ultralight one, requires asking yourself a few questions:

• How high a priority is low weight to you?
• How much space do you need?
• Do you usually backpack in buggy seasons and/or wet and windy conditions?
• Will this be your only tent or an alternative shelter to use in circumstances appropriate for it?

In the final analysis, if your goal is as light a backpack as possible, nothing gets you closer to that goal than your choice of a shelter. Find the lightest one that still serves your essential needs.

See all reviews of ultralight backpacking tents and ultralight backpacking gear, my “5 Expert Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent,” and my picks for the best ultralight backpacks at The Big Outside.

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker Magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See my Gear Reviews page at The Big Outside for categorized menus of all of my reviews and my expert buying tips.

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Minutes after we started hiking down the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail, we descended through short, tight switchbacks where the trail clings to the face of a cliff. The earth dropped away precipitously beyond the trail’s edge; we gazed down nearly a vertical mile into the bottom of The Big Ditch. Not much farther along, we stopped, awestruck, at a breathtaking overlook of perhaps the most famous canyon on the planet.

Those first vistas laid bare the audacity of our plans: to walk across this awesome chasm in one push, on a 21-mile, nearly 11,000-vertical-foot, rim-to-rim dayhike.

On a visit to the Grand Canyon in mid-October—one of the two brief windows annually that offer the best chance for ideal weather for this adventure—my wife, Penny, and I, joined by our friends David and Kathleen Ports, made what has become possibly the most coveted grail for avid and very fit hikers and trail runners. A rim-to-rim hike traverses one of the most inspiring, rugged, vast, vertiginous, arid, and unforgiving landscapes in America. And that’s just a short list of the applicable adjectives.

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Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim

I have both hiked and run the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim (r2r2r) in one day—42 miles and over 21,000 vertical feet—and hiked rim-to-rim-to-rim over two consecutive days (that time combining all three corridor trails, making it 44.5 miles). Going r2r2r in one day is an enormous challenge, and spreading it out over two days, or hiking in just one direction in a single day, still represents a very, very big undertaking — one that, based on what I have seen each time I’ve done it, many hikers underestimate.

My expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim” offers expert tips specific to the unique challenges of successfully and safely hiking or trail running rim to rim in a day, including preparing for it, the ideal seasonal windows, tips on strategy and direction to hike, gear, and all possible hiking itineraries combining the three corridor trails, the North Kaibab, South Kaibab, and Bright Angel trails.

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It’s unquestionably one of the most beautiful dayhikes in the country. The Grand Canyon’s severe verticality and desert climate create a landscape where seemingly endless views accompany you almost every step of the way. In the canyon’s bottom, or Inner Gorge, instead of looking out over an infinite maze of canyons sprawling for miles, you pass through a more intimate environment. Rim-to-rim hikers follow the North Kaibab Trail’s winding course through lower Bright Angel Canyon, walking along a lively creek, between close, dark rock walls that shoot straight up for hundreds of feet on both sides.

Click here now for my expert e-book to hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim!

It’s also one of the hardest dayhikes in the country—quite likely the hardest many people will ever attempt. Don’t underestimate its grueling difficulty. By the shortest route, combining the South and North Kaibab trails, a rim-to-rim hike, or r2r, entails about 21 trail miles and a cumulative nearly 11,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. The heat can wilt even the fittest people.

I have seen numerous hikers struggling on r2r attempts, including one young couple whose one headlamp had died late at night two hours before we found them sitting beside the South Kaibab Trail, where they might have spent the night if we didn’t show up with lights and accompany them up. On a separate hike, I encountered a woman who was collapsing to the ground repeatedly and had to be rescued by helicopter.

Cold temps and wind are not unknown in early morning and evening, and although unusual, rain or snow can soak your ambitious plans. In fact, hard rain fell the day before the four of us hiked it south to north on a Saturday, and snow fell the Monday morning after David and I made the return hike north to south on Sunday (while Penny and Kathleen—perhaps wisely—took the shuttle from the North Rim back to the South Rim).

See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “April Fools: Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and “Training For a Big Hike or Mountain Climb.”

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How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim

The following are some of my tips for hiking or running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim or rim-to-rim-to-rim. (Most of these tips are available only if you have a paid subscription to The Big Outside.) You will find many more tips and planning details in my e-book“The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim” (which can be purchased without a subscription).

I can also help you plan this hike or any other trip you read about at my blog; see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.

Use trekking poles, they’re critical on a hike this long with this much cumulative elevation gain and loss. I recommend an ultralight model like the Black Diamond Distance Carbon FLZ poles, the Gossamer Gear LT5, or the Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z. See my picks for “The Best Trekking Poles” and my stories  “How to Choose Trekking Poles” and “10 Expert Tips for Hiking With Trekking Poles.”

The park requires that any organized, non-commercial group of 12-30 participants, or not-for-profit group conducting rim-to-rim, rim-to-rim-to-rim, rim-to-river-to-rim, and/or extended dayhikes in the inner canyon must obtain a Special Use Permit (SUP). The inner canyon is defined as the area below the Tonto Platform from the South Rim and below Manzanita Resthouse from the North Rim. Groups may not break into smaller groups on different permits to accommodate group size. Commercial operations are not authorized under this SUP. For more information visit nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/sup.htm.

A rim-to-rim Grand Canyon hike delivers numerous moments of pure magic. Even on a popular trail like the Bright Angel, you can get gifted with a rare, thrilling surprise.

Get my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
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As I hiked wearily up the Bright Angel, in the final mile of the return leg of our two-day, nearly 45-mile, rim-to-rim-to-rim hike, I heard a noise to my left. Two bighorn sheep burst from the sparse vegetation on the trail’s downhill side, dashed across it no more than 10 feet in front of me, and disappeared within seconds, clambering up the steep slope on the trail’s uphill side. At that moment, there happened to be no other hikers within sight. I was the only one to see them.

Minutes later, still electrified by that chance encounter, I watched the same two bighorns jump onto the trail again, this time maybe 100 feet uphill from me. They sprinted down the trail, passing so closely to me that for an instant I thought they might crash right into me.

Check out my picks for “The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks” and my “8 Pro Tips For Avoiding Blisters When Hiking,” my five-level difficulty rating system in “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” and my “10 Tricks For Making Hiking and Backpacking Easier.” And see all stories about the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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The choices in tents for backpacking seem to get better every year, with lightweight models continually getting lighter and other advances that make tents sturdier and more livable without adding weight. But with all the options out there, how do you choose? The answer is simpler than you might think: It comes down to understanding the key differences that distinguish tents from one another—which will help you understand what you need.

Like tents, backpackers come in different sizes and their needs in a tent vary depending on their style of backpacking and where they go. In testing scores of backpacking tents over a quarter-century of testing and reviewing gear—formerly as the lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine for about 10 years and even longer running this blog—I’ve acquired a sense of what to look for in a tent and how to help people pick out one they like.

The five simple tips in this article will help you find the tent that’s best for your needs. Please share any tips of your own or your questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story; I try to respond to all comments.

See also my story “How to Choose the Best Ultralight Backpacking Tent for You,” which explains specific details and design differences that apply to all tents.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents”
and all backpacking tent reviews at The Big Outside.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

#1 What Kind of Backpacker Are You?

Is tent weight your top priority, or weather resistance, or interior space and livability? You’ll spend countless hours and nights, as well as plenty of waking hours inside that shelter; make sure it’s going to be enjoyable, and it all comes down to your personal style of backpacking.

Consider these three backpacker profiles:

If you’re the kind of backpacker who’s not interested in rising early and rushing out of camp, and who prefers to hike for not much more than half the day and reach your next camp with time to relax in the warm afternoon sun and perhaps take a swim in a lake or creek, you may prefer a tent with good interior space. That becomes doubly true if your usual destinations present the prospect of rain keeping you inside that tent for hours. Weight may not be your top priority. Still, consider weight as you compare tents, because you do have to carry that shelter.

On the other hand, if you are the kind of backpacker who loves to hit the trail early and bang out big mileage every day—like many ultralighters and thru-hikers—then weight probably is your top priority, and you’re willing to tolerate some compromises in your tent to minimize pack weight because you have a higher ratio of hours spent hiking to hours spent in the tent..

Do you fall somewhere between those two descriptions—not an early-rising, big-mileage backpacker, but nonetheless keen to keep your pack weight comfortable? There are tent models that strike a balance between livability and moderate weight.

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#2 Read the Reviews Closely

Yes, there are a lot of gear reviews in the ether and in print. Find sources you consider authoritative and experienced, whose perspective is shaped by having slept in many tents: With tents especially, the average backpacker doesn’t buy or use very many models, and people have a natural bias to want to affirm that a purchase they made was a good one, so they’ll tend to comment positively—but vaguely.

Read reviews for details you can’t glean by simply checking out a tent in a store, like how well it stands up to wind and rain, the ease of pitching it and breaking it down, and whether it has a problem with condensation buildup, especially on chilly, calm nights.

Use reviews in conjunction with your preferences in a tent to narrow your list to a few finalists—or perhaps easily winnow it to one obvious good choice for you. And lastly, look for brands known for making good tents or that you’ve read good reviews about. You may ultimately settle on a tent from a brand after hearing or reading about another model from that same brand.

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#3 The Little Details Matter

But some little things matter more than others. Here are some key details to examine in a backpacking tent:

A tent will typically last for many years. Make sure you’re satisfied with it.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents” and all reviews of backpacking tents, ultralight backpacking tents, backpacking gear, and ultralight backpacking gear at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of all gear reviews and expert buying tips.

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There are two immutable truths about backpacking in Glacier National Park. First, from its stirring landscape, where glaciers hang off muscular mountains and sheer cliffs soar above deeply green valleys dappled with lakes and waterfalls, to almost certain sightings of wildlife like mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, elk, and grizzly and black bears, there’s really no place in the continental United States quite like Glacier.

Second, it’s one of the hardest backcountry permits to get in the National Park System. But the new wilderness permit reservation system that Glacier adopted in 2023 and greatly improved in 2024 brings equity and order to the process. Still, knowing when and how to get a Glacier permit is critical if you want to backpack there.

In this story, I will offer tips on how to maximize your chances of getting a permit to backpack in Glacier, sharing expertise I’ve acquired from several trips there over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

And remember this: The permit system preserves a wilderness experience for backpackers in Glacier (as well as protecting the park from overuse). That’s a major reason why Glacier ranks among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips.”

Glacier National Park conducts two lotteries at recreation.gov/permits/4675321, for early-access times to reserve a backcountry permit: on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people (details below). For trips between June 15 and Sept. 30, Glacier makes 70 percent of backcountry campsites available for permit reservations and 30 percent of campsites available for walk-in permits no more than one day in advance during the backpacking season.

See my expert e-books “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park,” both of which provide all you need to know to plan those trips, including very detailed tips on getting a high-demand backcountry permit, multiple itinerary options of varied lengths, the best campsites, plus expert advice on the ideal time of year, gear, and safety in bear country.

I’ve also helped many readers plan a very enjoyable backpacking trip in Glacier—including tips on maximizing their chances of getting a very hard-to-get permit and an itinerary customized for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can do that for you.

Like many stories at my blog, part of this story is free for anyone to read. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of this story—including tips it offers on strategies for maximizing your chances of getting a Glacier permit—and all stories about Glacier, as well as all stories at this blog, plus get a free or deeply discounted e-book.

Please share any thoughts or questions about this story, or your own tips, in the comments section at the bottom. I try to respond to all comments.

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Apply on Specific Dates in March

For backpacking permit reservations during the peak season of early summer into early autumn, Glacier National Park conducts two early-access lotteries at recreation.gov/permits/4675321, on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people. The lottery only determines who gets awarded an early-access time to make a permit reservation; you won’t include any hiking itinerary details in your lottery entry.

The lotteries offer the best chance of reserving a backcountry permit for backpacking in most of the park, especially the most popular trails or an itinerary of more than one or two nights. People with earlier lottery timeslots will obviously see more camping availability than those who draw a later time. You can enter a lottery anytime during its 24-hour period and all applicants have an equal chance of being selected. Every person in your a party can enter and see who obtains the best time—and if multiple group members obtain a timeslot, all of them could try to reserve a permit.

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Standard group lottery winners will get an email on March 17 with a date and time between March 21 and April 30 when they can attempt to make a permit reservation. The recreation.gov system shows availability in real time; you will either find availability for your dates and campsites and complete the process with a permit reservation or fail to get one.

Successful large-group lottery entrants will receive an email from park wilderness permit staff on March 3 with instructions for making their permit reservation. The park issues just five reservations for large-group permits every year; other large-group permits must be obtained on a walk-in basis based on availability, which is hard to do.

After the early-access reservation period closes, general reservations open for all remaining backcountry campsites on May 1 at 8 a.m. Mountain Time, running through Sept. 30, although most backcountry camps will book very quickly. Glacier imposes a daily hiking limit of 16 miles for reserved permits.

There is a non-refundable $10 fee for a lottery application or any permit issued plus $7 per person per night, which can be refunded if canceled more than seven days prior to the trip start date at recreation.gov/permits/4675321.

See nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/backcountry-reservations.htm for more information and instructions on using Glacier’s permit page at recreation.gov/permits/4675321.

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Be Flexible With Your Dates and Itinerary

I’ve backpacked several times in Glacier over the years and I’ve failed to get a wilderness permit just once, for a reason I understood when I submitted that application: I sought only one specific itinerary and our dates were fixed, not flexible. I decided to just throw a hail Mary pass for a trip I wanted and see if I’d get really lucky. I didn’t. In a park like Glacier, that will almost guarantee you don’t get a permit—unless you have one of the earliest lottery timeslots to make a reservation.

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to have flexibility with your dates and itinerary.

Get my expert e-books to the best backpacking trip in Glacier
and backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

See all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside, including “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier,” and “Jagged Peaks and Wild Goats: Backpacking Glacier’s Gunsight Pass Trail.” Like many stories at this blog, reading those in full requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

See also my expert e-books “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park,” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can plan your backpacking trip in Glacier.

Start planning your next adventure now! See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips.”

You’re trying to plan a backpacking trip to a classic national park like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Grand Canyon, or some other park or wilderness area—but you’re not quite sure how to do it or where to go. Or the permit process and planning feel overwhelming. Or you want to ensure it’s the best trip possible. Or you just don’t have time to do all that planning and would rather have an expert do it for you.

Well, you have just landed on your solution.

For three decades, including 10 years that I spent as the Northwest Editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog, I have had the good fortune of hiking and backpacking all over America and the world. I’ve made a living identifying, planning, and writing about great trips.

Ready to get my custom trip planning? Click here now.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Right now, you can tap into my deep experience through my personalized custom trip planning—saving your valuable time and avoiding problems.

“Michael has opened up America’s spectacular outdoors to me, my son, and my best friend. For a few years now, I have been using his services and advice to visit some of the most beautiful national parks, and we have been able to do hikes that would have been otherwise very hard to plan without his detailed and thorough advice. From choosing where to go tailored to your level of fitness and outdoor knowledge and the time of the year, to every little detail regarding gear, food, permit (this would be particularly impossible without the knowledge of someone like him), etc., he provides a complete plan for any adventure. For us, everything has gone smoothly every time. I look forward to the many trips he will plan for us over the years to come.”

—Johann (comment posted at my Custom Trip Planning page)

Expert Custom Trip Planning

Through my custom trip planning, you receive an in-depth trip plan from me—shaped by our back-and-forth communication to create the best trip for you—that covers all necessary planning, gear tips, detailed guidance on reserving a permit drawn from my deep experience in numerous parks, tips on wildlife, the ideal season and weather, a daily hiking itinerary with recommended campsites, and much more.

I will tell you how to execute your trip on the ground in the safest and most enjoyable way, answering all of your questions—and probably answering questions you didn’t think to ask.

Get the same positive experience that hundreds of other backpackers have enjoyed. See my Custom Trip Planning page for details and hundreds of comments from people like you whom I’ve helped plan a very successful adventure.

“Michael’s custom trip planning services save me many dozens of hours, but more importantly, with his expertise, we are able to have truly amazing vacations, making the most of our limited time together as a family. Michael planned a recent 9-day trip to Southern Utah for me, my husband, and our adult son. We had an incredible time. It’s only a few times a year that we get together and I feel like Michael’s custom trips make these vacations a ‘Wow!’ We hiked Angels Landing (scoring a last-minute permit on our first attempt w/ Michael’s advice). We hiked the spectacular Narrows. Michael’s planning services are a bargain for what you are getting—his top-tier advice on both strategy and tactics. Once you hire Michael, you’ll find yourself dreaming of taking another adventure vacation that Michael can make a reality.”

—Michele (comment posted at my Custom Trip Planning page)

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“Have done several trips with Michael… and he NAILED it again. We did the Alta Via 2 in the Italian Dolomites. Best scenery in my 45 years of backpacking. Michael’s trip planning was critical as choosing the routes and rifugios can be prohibitively time-consuming. Lots to consider from the altitude/distance each day to the ‘exposure’ of the trails. Michael’s planning made that part simple and enabled us to not only do something we would otherwise not had the time to do, but to focus on having fun and the scenery vs. being worried about logistics! As I have said, he has worked with us on domestic US/Canada trips as well, taking a lot of the time and work out of planning. I highly recommend him and his amazing breadth of experience.”

—John (comment posted at my Custom Trip Planning page)

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Ah, the High Sierra. Yosemite. Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. The John Muir Wilderness and Ansel Adams Wilderness, Mount Whitney, and countless other, less famous but equally beautiful places. Every backpacker who has ever walked for days through any of these wildlands holds them in special reverence—and for good reasons, given this seemingly infinite landscape’s constellations of sharply pointed granite peaks and alpine lakes, too many waterfalls to name, and rivers and creeks so pretty they make your heart glad. Plus, with thousands of miles of trails, you could spend a lifetime wandering here without seeing it all.

Little wonder there’s so much competition for backcountry permits throughout most of the High Sierra. But read on because the time for planning and reserving a permit for trips this summer is coming up fast.

This story gives you the necessary details for reserving a wilderness permit to backpack in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks, at Mount Whitney, and in the Inyo National Forest, including the John Muir, Ansel Adams, Golden Trout, and Hoover wildernesses, which all require a permit.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

If you want to know how to get a wilderness permit for a John Muir Trail thru-hike or section hike, see “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit.”

I also offer below tips on how to maximize your chances of getting a highly coveted permit, sharing expertise I’ve acquired from numerous trips throughout the High Sierra over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

See all of my blog’s stories about backpacking in Yosemite, the High Sierra, and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks. Most of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my expert tips and information on planning each hike. See also my expert e-books to multi-day hikes in Yosemite and other parks.

I’ve helped many readers plan backpacking trips in Yosemite, Sequoia, on the John Muir Trail, and throughout the High Sierra, answering all of their questions (and many they didn’t think to ask) and customizing an itinerary ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you and read hundreds of comments from others who’ve received my custom trip planning.

Click on any photo to read about that trip, park, or trail. Please share any thoughts or questions about this story, or your own tips, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

Apply As Soon As Possible, Months in Advance

Know the dates to apply for a specific agency’s wilderness permit. Yosemite, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Inyo, and Mount Whitney all accept permit reservations months in advance and issue them based on daily trailhead quotas, but with slightly different schedules and procedures (all detailed below).

For Sequoia-Kings Canyon and Inyo, plan to apply at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on the first day possible, exactly six months in advance. Applications show availability in real time, allowing you to secure a permit reservation immediately if there’s availability for your trailhead and start date. If you fail to get one, you can try again the next morning to start one day later.

Yosemite’s rolling lottery—a sensible and user-friendly system created to deal with enormous demand—provides weeklong application periods up to 24 weeks in advance for weeklong sets of dates and you are notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes. Thus, if you strike out in one lottery period, you will have plenty of time to apply for the very next lottery period.

The Mount Whitney lottery allows you to apply anytime between Feb. 1 and March 1 for the entire upcoming season, with results announced March 15.

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For popular trailheads—though not all trailheads—permits are difficult to get, especially for hiking Mount Whitney, a handful of the most popular trailheads in Yosemite, like Happy Isles, and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, like the High Sierra Trail (and certainly for thru-hiking the JMT starting at either its northern or southern terminus; see this story for tips on getting a JMT permit). That makes it imperative to apply on the earliest date possible.

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to consider at least two starting trailheads and itineraries—which requires knowing generally how far you want to walk each day—and a range of date options.

Permits issued by all national parks and forests in the Sierra for trips extending into another park or forest—for example, a John Muir Trail permit for starting in Yosemite and finishing at Whitney Portal—are valid in the other parks and forests for the permit dates. Backcountry campsites are (mostly) not designated or assigned; camp where you like but use sites that have clearly been used previously.

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Yosemite Wilderness Permits

In Yosemite—one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas, with special rules for the John Muir Trail. Popular trailheads, especially in the park’s core between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows, get booked up very quickly.

For trips from late April through October, 60 percent of all trailhead quota permits can be reserved through a lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday.

For example, to start a trip between Aug. 9-15, 2026, enter the lottery between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. You will be notified of the result on Feb. 23 and must accept it (if successful) by Feb. 26 or forfeit it, and remaining reservations become available at 9 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 27 at recreation.gov on a first-come, first-served basis.

The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time seven days in advance of a trip start date. Find more information at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm, where the park warns: “Do not arrive at Yosemite expecting to get a walk-up wilderness permit. While any unreserved permits will be available in person at wilderness centers on the start date of the trip, few, if any, unused permits will be available.”

There is a non-refundable fee of $10 for each lottery entered or permit reservation plus $5 per person for a confirmed permit reservation.

See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside, and my expert e-books to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

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Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness Permits

In Sequoia-Kings Canyon in the southern Sierra, permit reservations open at recreation.gov/permits/445857 up to six months in advance for a trip taking place during the trailhead quota period, which is generally the Friday before Memorial Day through the Saturday between Sept. 23-29; for 2026, the quota season is May 22 to Sept. 26. Permits are issued based on daily trailhead quotas and can be submitted up to one week in advance—although availability for popular trailheads fills up quickly.

The application form requires that you indicate a specific group size with a maximum of 15 people, with lower group size limits in some areas. A “0” on the application form indicates that reservations for that date have not yet opened.

A “W” indicates that all available spots have been reserved and a portion of that trailhead’s quota will become available for backpackers seeking a walk-in/first-come permit (without a reservation) in person at the appropriate park office (depending on where you want to backpack) starting at 1 p.m. no more than a day in advance.

There’s a non-refundable fee of $15 plus $5 per person (refundable if canceled) for each confirmed permit. See nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/wilderness_permits.htm.

See “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park” and all stories about Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks at The Big Outside.

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Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permits

Popular for its vast wilderness areas sprawling over the High Sierra between Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon as well as for John Muir Trail section hikes, the Inyo National Forest accepts reservations for 60 percent of trailhead quotas at recreation.gov/permits/233262 starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time six months before your start date—for example, on Feb. 1 for a trip starting Aug. 1—for trips within the quota season of May 1 through Nov. 1.

If you want to thru-hike the JMT, see “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit”
and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know.”

To finish by descending Mount Whitney to Whitney Portal, you must select permit type “Overnight Exiting Mt. Whitney.” Nearly identical to the Sequoia-Kings Canyon form (except for listing different trailheads, of course), the Inyo application allows a maximum of 15 people—although if you’re extending the trip beyond the Inyo, note that Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon impose limits of eight to 12 people on a permit in some areas. See this list of Inyo National Forest trailheads and quota limits in effect from May 1 to Nov. 1.

Forty percent of Inyo trailhead quotas open for reservations at 7 a.m. Pacific Time two weeks prior to a trip’s start date. See recreation.gov/permits/233262 and fs.usda.gov/main/inyo/passes-permits/recreation, which specifies that the Inyo allows JMT, PCT, and other long-distance backpackers to exit the trail “for a reasonable period of time necessary for resupply,” which presumably would be at least one day. See also this list of trailhead entry points for accessing the JMT.

There’s a non-refundable $6 fee for each permit reservation plus a fee (refundable if canceled at least 12 days in advance) for each confirmed permit of $15 per person for trips entering the Whitney Zone and $5 per person for all other areas of the Inyo. 

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “In the Footsteps of John Muir: Finding Solitude in the High Sierra,” and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

Get the right gear for the High Sierra. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Mount Whitney Wilderness Permits

Whether hiking Mount Whitney in a day or overnight, backpacking into this area of the southern Sierra, thru-hiking the JMT northbound or hiking a JMT or PCT section, for trips between May 1 and Nov. 1, all backpackers and dayhikers starting at Whitney Portal and entering the Mount Whitney Zone must enter the permit lottery at recreation.gov/permits/233260 anytime between Feb. 1 and March 1; the form can be viewed but not filled out until Feb. 1.

You choose either a Mount Whitney Zone Day Use permit, good for one date, or a Mount Whitney Zone Overnight permit, good for multiple dates but only the dates on your permit. Permit quotas are 100 people day use and 60 people overnight per day.

Lottery results are announced on March 15. The deadline to confirm a lottery reservation and pay the $15 per person fee is April 21 and reservations for remaining dates open on April 22 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time. Mount Whitney Trail permits are not valid for the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek approach to Mount Whitney climbing routes, like the Mountaineers Route.

See “Roof of the High Sierra: A Father-Son Climb of Mount Whitney.”

Keep Your Group Small

The High Sierra national parks and forests all issue permits based on trailhead quotas on the total number of people starting trips every day and those quotas vary between trailheads. It stands to reason that smaller parties of one to four backpackers will have a better chance of landing a permit than larger groups, whether applying for a permit reservation or trying to get a walk-in permit.

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Try for a Last-Minute Permit

Did you not reserve a permit months in advance? It’s still possible to salvage your trip by grabbing a permit in some parts of the High Sierra on much shorter notice.

Yosemite issues 40 percent of wilderness permits at recreation.gov starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time up to seven days in advance of a trip start date; see nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm (where the park warns: “Do not arrive at Yosemite expecting to get a walk-up wilderness permit… few, if any, unused permits will be available.”). Forty percent of Inyo trailhead quotas do not open for reservations until 7 a.m. Pacific Time two weeks prior to a trip’s start date. Those late-release permits in Yosemite and Inyo enable last-minute planners to still get a reservation without having to travel to their destination and risk not getting any permit. Sequoia-Kings Canyon issues some wilderness permits to walk-ins.

You may not get your preferred starting trailhead but you will likely be able to take some trip. Take the chance and you may find that second or third choice turn out to be an amazing spot that many backpackers happen to ignore.

See all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside, including “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites” for my favorite campsites in Yosemite and Sequoia, along the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon, and below the East Face of Mount Whitney.

Want my expert help custom planning your trip to ensure it’s as good as it can be? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you.

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If you’re super fit and strong, hike with a pack of any weight 50 or more days a year, and have never known any sort of injury or ache in your body, then don’t bother reading this article. But for everyone else, knowing how to find the right pack for backpacking and other outdoor activities—and for your body—will make a world of difference in your enjoyment when carrying that pack for hours a day on a trail or up and down a mountain. This article will lead you through five steps to accomplish exactly that—helping to ensure that you spend your gear money smartly.

These tips reflect what I’ve learned from field testing all kinds of packs for backpacking, dayhiking, climbing, trail running, and backcountry skiing over more than a quarter-century of testing and reviewing gear—formerly as the lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine for about 10 years and for even longer running this blog.

Follow these tips in chronological order and you will find the pack that’s right for you.

Please share any tips of your own or your questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

#1 Decide What It’s For

It’s tempting, especially when you’re on a budget, to want to buy one pack that will serve every possible need for which you can imagine using a pack. While that approach is understandable, unfortunately, setting such broad expectations takes you in exactly the wrong direction in this important first step toward finding the right pack.

Don’t sweat the fact that your diversity of interests demands a larger quiver of packs than you can afford; in time, when you can, you will get another pack. (We all do.) Your goal here is to focus down and narrow choices.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Grand Teton, Yosemite,
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

The profusion of pack choices is largely the result of specificity in pack design—companies pursuing customers by making packs intended to be perfect for one purpose or another. Decide the one primary activity for which you’re buying this pack. Backpacking? Dayhiking? Climbing? Backcountry snow sports?

Sure, you can find packs that are more generalist and all-purpose—for example, tough enough for climbing, but with adequate organization and capacity for backpacking, or big enough for weekend backpacking and not too big or heavy for dayhiking, and that may serve you just fine. But if you want a pack that’s ideal for, say, backpacking, then look for a pack primarily designed for backpacking.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and the best ultralight backpacks.

#2 Decide on Capacity and Weight

Are you a lightweight or ultralight backpacker, or carrying most of the gear and food for your young kids, or somewhere into between? Are you a weekend backpacker, or planning to take weeklong trips as well, or planning a long thru-hike? Do you dayhike or backpack only in dry, mild climates in summer, or go out in colder and wetter climates, in shoulder seasons (spring and fall), or even in winter, too?

Capacity and maximum weight you’ll carry are two distinct but overlapping considerations. A mid-size pack, for instance, may still be lightweight and intended to carry only a maximum load of 30 or 35 pounds.

Tips:

•    Consider the total weight and the bulk of the gear and food you’ll typically carry, so that your pack has enough space for your needs, can comfortably handle the weight, and isn’t more pack than you really need.
•    Don’t buy the lightest pack if you intend to carry more weight than it’s designed for.
•    If you’re unsure between two backpack capacities—say, 50L or 60L—ask yourself whether you’re ready to size down some bulky gear (like a sleeping bag or tent), or go with the larger pack.

I usually roll my eyes when I see a reviewer suggest that a lightweight or even mid-size pack can carry 50 or 60 pounds. First of all, many people—probably most backpackers—simply cannot carry that much weight with any pack (and don’t want or need to). Don’t trust any suggestion that a minimal frame and suspension system can carry a large weight, or you’ll set yourself up for some painful disappointment.

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How I use packs based on volume and approximate pack weight (there’s overlap between these categories):

•    Packs 65L/3,965 c.i. or larger, weighing four to five pounds or more (empty)—family or gear-intensive backpacking or climbing trips carrying loads of 40-50 pounds or more.
•    Packs 50-65L/3,356-3,967 c.i., weighing three to four pounds—longer trips carrying 30-45 pounds, including several days’ food, when I’m carrying some weight for a partner, or extra clothing and a larger sleeping bag for colder temperatures.
•    Packs approximately 50L/3,051 c.i. or smaller, weighing under three pounds—weekend to multi-day, lightweight/ultralight backpacking with 30-35 pounds or less and lightweight or ultralight, compact gear.
•    Packs 30-45L/1,831-2,441 c.i., weighing 2.5 to four pounds—ultralight weekend trips and gear-intensive activities like climbing and backcountry skiing day trips or hut/yurt trips carrying 30 or more pounds.
•    Packs 20-30L/1,220-1,831 c.i. weighing 1.5 to 2.5 pounds—dayhikes carrying 15 to 25 pounds.
•    Packs under 20L/1,220 c.i. weighing under 1.5 pounds—longer trail runs and dayhikes carrying under 15 pounds.

Want to hike the Teton Crest Trail, John Muir Trail, or another trip?
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#3 Get the Fit Right

For starters, measure your torso correctly in order to know your pack size. While many hydration packs and daypacks come in only one size, most mid-size and large backpacks come in two or three sizes, each fitting a specific range of torso lengths, or they’re adjustable. Some pack makers offer customization of fit such as different sizes in hipbelts.

How to measure torso length:

Stand straight and have someone use a soft tape measure (or a string which that person can hold against a stiff measuring tape afterward) to measure your spine. Find your iliac crest, which is the shelf-like top of your hipbones on your sides; place your hands there and your thumbs will point to the spot on your spine where your helper should place the end of the tape measure. Have that person run the tape measure along your spine to your C7 vertebrae, which is the knobby bone at the base of your neck when you tilt your head forward. That’s your torso length.

I’ve often found that if a pack model’s sizing is such that my torso length falls on the line between sizes, then either size could be a little small or a little big for me. If I really want that pack, the smaller size often fits me better. But you’ll probably find a more comfortable fit when your torso length falls closer to the middle of a pack’s fit range.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

See my reviews of “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs,” “The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks,” and the best ultralight backpacks, and my “Video: How to Load a Backpack” at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of gear reviews and expert buying tips.

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For many serious backpackers, a thru-hike of the John Muir Trail looms as a sort of holy grail. But every JMT aspirant inevitably faces the question: How do you plan a 221-mile hike of “America’s Most Beautiful Trail?” Besides preparing physically for it, a JMT thru-hike poses myriad logistical and organizational challenges, from obtaining one of the country’s most sought-after wilderness permits to choosing an ideal time of year, the itinerary and number of days to take, gear, food resupplies, transportation, acclimating to elevations commonly between 9,000 and over 13,000 feet, and other details.

And, of course, you also want to know: Where are the best campsites along the JMT? What’s the best itinerary for backpacking the John Muir Trail?

This article offers expert tips regarding critical planning details and challenges when thru-hiking the John Muir Trail—unquestionably one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips. It draws on my JMT thru-hike and numerous trips in the High Sierra, as well as thousands of miles of backpacking all over the country over the past three decades, my 10 years as a field editor at Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Two friends and I completed our JMT thru-hike in an admittedly insane seven days, hiking ultralight and averaging 31 miles per day. (The JMT spans 211 miles, but its southern end is atop Mount Whitney, where you still must hike over 10 miles downhill to finish the trip.) While the pre-trip prep proved time-consuming, it came together smoothly and we had a very successful—and quite memorable—trip.

Want to save a lot of time and ensure your JMT hike goes as well as possible? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan a JMT hike. At the bottom of that page you’ll find many comments from people who’ve received my custom trip planning, including a reader named Lauren who wrote: “Michael helped me plan my solo JMT thru-hike, and the process was beyond what I expected. He provided personal tips and perspectives from his own experiences as well as insight into what he’s seen others try and buy. He has amassed a wealth of detailed information about gear, training, trails, permits, regulations, transit, and all the details I knew would be a nightmare to suss out alone… It’s really like having a wilderness coach. Excited to plan another trip with him soon!”

Please share your questions or JMT tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Getting a Permit for Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

Obtaining a permit to backpack the entire trail represents one of the JMT’s greatest challenges—it’s one of the most sought-after backcountry permits in the country. JMT permits are in high demand for dates in July, August, and September. Check out the statistics on numbers of rolling lottery applications to start the JMT in Yosemite and their success rates at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wpstats. (Spoiler alert: Nearly 70 percent of applications are unsuccessful during those peak months.)

The JMT crosses three national parks—Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia—and two national forests, the Inyo and Sierra, as well as a pair of wilderness areas within those national forests, the Ansel Adams and John Muir. You must obtain a permit from the agency where you begin a JMT hike and that permit covers your entire trip.

Most thru-hikers try to begin in either Yosemite, the JMT’s northern terminus, or at Whitney Portal, which accesses the trail’s southern terminus, Mount Whitney.

Don’t have time for the entire JMT?
See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

To hike the JMT southbound (the direction I recommend; more on that below), apply for a permit from Yosemite National Park at recreation.gov up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, entering a weekly rolling lottery for a permit to start within a specific window of dates.

There are just two trailheads in Yosemite where you are permitted to launch a JMT thru-hike: the JMT’s northern terminus, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, which appears on the Yosemite permit application as Happy Isles to Past LYV (Donohue Pass eligible); and Lyell Canyon (Donohue Pass eligible)—the latter offering perhaps better odds of securing a permit, although starting at Lyell Canyon means you miss the JMT’s section from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows. (Note: LYV represents Little Yosemite Valley, the park’s most popular backcountry camp, where JMT thru-hikers are not permitted to spend a night). See nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/jmt.htm.

Backpackers starting at Whitney Portal to hike northbound reserve a permit through a lottery system conducted between Feb. 1 and March 1 at recreation.gov.

See “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit.”

Given the long odds of getting a full JMT permit during the peak season, consider the alternative of planning a trip on a long section of the trail—for which a permit can be much easier to obtain. I can help you figure out that itinerary and permit plan; click here.

I’ve helped hundreds of readers plan a JMT hike and other trips you read about at my blog.
Want my help with yours? Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

The Prime Season for Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

A John Muir Trail thru-hike can often be done from early summer through September. But the best time for an ultralight thru-hike is mid-or late August to late September, when the mosquitoes have abated significantly and rain is rare—allowing you to use a tarp instead of a tent—the high passes are snow-free, and mornings are cool. Keep in mind there’s a chance of an early-season snowstorm—or increasingly in recent years, wildfires—interrupting your plans, especially in late summer.

How Many Days on the JMT?

Traditionally, backpackers have taken three weeks to thru-hike the entire JMT, a pace of about 10 miles a day. Today, with lighter gear, good training, and smart planning, many cut the time to two weeks or less. For instance, following a 15-day itinerary for backpacking the entire John Muir Trail requires averaging 14.7 miles per day—which is entirely feasible for fit backpackers.

Begin each day early—a smart plan to take advantage of the coolest hours of the day, anyway—and average 2.5 mph while walking, and you can hike 15 miles in six hours. Assuming two hours of rest time over the course of the day, that’s eight hours on the trail each day—an 8-to-4 workday. Even at 2 mph with two hours of down time, you can cover 12 miles in eight hours. Arrive with your legs in good shape and you’ll grow accustomed to that pace quickly. Experiment with backpacking longer days and traveling light on shorter trips before your JMT thru-hike.

Hiking southbound, you begin on the northern sections of the JMT, which are at moderate elevations and offer more possible resupply points to let you hike with less food weight than the trail’s southern half. By the time you reach Muir Trail Ranch, a common resupply point roughly near the JMT’s halfway point, you’ll have developed your trail legs for longer days, allowing you to carry less food weight for the southern half of the JMT.

Except for the high passes, the JMT is not, step for step, as difficult as hiking in other parts of the country. Give serious thought to food supply and daily mileage, because leaving Muir Trail Ranch with 10 or 11 days of food will add about 20 pounds to your pack as you head for the JMT’s highest passes.

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Minimizing Pack Weight

Successful long-distance hikers live by a cardinal rule: Keep your base pack weight (including only gear and clothing weight, which remains constant, not food and water) low enough that you can hike at a strong pace and rack up decent miles every day. A base pack weight of 15 pounds or less is easy to accomplish without compromising comfort or safety; many thru-hikers get it significantly lower than that.

During the summer, given the generally dry weather in the High Sierra and nighttime lows that don’t often drop below 40° F, you can use lightweight to ultralight gear, including your pack, tent, bag, and footwear. No specialized gear is needed on this trip, other than a bear canister; see the type of bear canister that I like in this review.

See my article “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking” for tips on lowering your pack weight. (Reading it in full requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you don’t have a subscription, you can purchase that one article by clicking here.)

And see all reviews of ultralight backpacking gear at The Big Outside.

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The Resupply Plan

Given the JMT’s remoteness, another of its major challenges is how few convenient opportunities to resupply food lie along it. They are, in order when hiking southbound:

• Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite is a bit more than 21 miles on the JMT from Happy Isles Trailhead, the northern terminus. The Tuolumne Meadows store has a decent selection of groceries. You can ship a resupply package to yourself General Delivery at the Tuolumne Meadows Post Office, Yosemite National Park 95389; include your planned arrival date in the address. Grab a meal at the Tuolumne Meadows Grill.
• At Red’s Meadow (redsmeadow.com), a short hike off the JMT, resupply for the next 50 trail miles either by having someone meet you there, or for a fee, mailing or delivering a package in advance. Eat a big meal at the Mule House Café.
• Although it’s a few miles farther off the JMT than Muir Trail Ranch, Vermillion Valley Resort (vvr.place) provides lodging, free tent camping, showers, laundry, and an opportunity to resupply a bit north of MTR.
• Resupply a final time at Muir Trail Ranch (muirtrailranch.com/backpacker-resupply), about a mile off the JMT near the trail’s midpoint. Ship non-perishable food weeks in advance; a fee is charged.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Acclimating to High Elevations

The John Muir Trail ranges in elevation from 4,035 feet at its northern terminus, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, to the 14,505-foot summit of Mount Whitney, its southern terminus. But much of the trail lies above 9,000 feet and it crosses six passes and a seventh named high point between 11,000 feet and over 13,000 feet (in order north to south): Donohue (11,056 feet), Muir (11,955 feet), Mather (12,100 feet), Pinchot (12,130 feet), Glen (11,978 feet), Forester (13,180 feet, highest pass on the JMT), and Trail Crest on Mount Whitney (13,650 feet). Two other passes approach 11,000 feet: Silver Pass (10,895 feet) and Selden Pass (10,800 feet).

The trail’s elevation profile represents yet another of its physical challenges and provides one of the best arguments for hiking it north to south: The highest elevations are in its southern half. When beginning at 4,000 feet in Yosemite Valley, you have time to gradually acclimate before reaching the first pass over 11,000 feet, crossing from Yosemite into the Ansel Adams Wilderness at Donohue Pass.

Alternatively, beginning at Whitney Portal, at about 8,370 feet, you’re already sucking air, starting with a heavy pack due to zero convenient resupply opportunities in the trail’s southern hundred miles, and will attempt to reach the JMT’s high point, Mount Whitney’s summit at 14,505 feet, on your second day. That’s a tough start.

Got any questions or suggestions regarding the JMT? Please share them below.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: The Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan,” “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” , which has more images, and “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail,” plus my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan a JMT hike.

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Sometimes it can seem like everyone who’s ever carried a backpack through mountains somewhere wants to thru-hike the John Muir Trail—especially when it comes time to reserve a JMT wilderness permit. And why not? “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” earns its nickname and ranks indisputably among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.” Consequently, few permits are harder to get; most people who enter one of the JMT rolling permit lotteries get rejected. This story explains the various ways to reserve a John Muir Trail wilderness permit—which you must do months ahead of your trip dates.

The tips below draw from my personal experience thru-hiking the JMT in an admittedly insane seven days as well as numerous trips on JMT sections (most recently in August 2022), in Yosemite, and throughout the High Sierra over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

See “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know” and all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail and backpacking in Yosemite and the High Sierra at The Big Outside. Most of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my tips and information on planning each hike.

See also “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and my expert e-books to multi-day hikes in Yosemite and other parks, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

I’ve helped many readers plan their own JMT thru-hike or section hike and backpacking trips throughout the High Sierra and elsewhere, answering all of their questions (and many they didn’t think to ask) and customizing an itinerary ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you and read hundreds of comments from others who’ve received my custom trip planning.

Please share any thoughts or questions about the JMT in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Don’t Have Time for the entire JMT or didn’t get a permit?
See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

John Muir Trail Wilderness Permits

The 211-mile-long John Muir Trail crosses Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks and a pair of wilderness areas, the Ansel Adams and John Muir. You must obtain a permit from the agency where you begin a JMT hike and that permit covers your entire trip.

A high percentage of JMT permit lottery entrants don’t get a permit simply because the number of people seeking one every year far exceeds available permits. Check out the statistics on numbers of permits awarded in Yosemite (including for JMT starts) and their success rates at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wpstats.

Spoiler alert: About 70 percent of applicants seeking a starting date during the peak period of mid-July through mid-August fail to get a permit reservation. But the success rate rises steadily to over 50 percent by mid-September—an excellent time to backpack in the High Sierra.

JMT thru-hikers generally begin in either Yosemite, the trail’s northern terminus, or at Whitney Portal, the starting point to reach the trail’s southern terminus on the summit of Mount Whitney. Backcountry campsites are not designated or assigned along most of the JMT; with few exceptions (largely in Yosemite), you may camp where you like but use sites that have clearly been used previously.

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to consider at least two starting trailheads and itineraries—which requires knowing generally how far you want to walk each day—and a wide range of starting dates.

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Starting the JMT in Yosemite

To hike the JMT southbound (the direction I recommend), reserve a permit from Yosemite National Park at recreation.gov/permits/445859 up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, entering a rolling lottery for a permit within a specific window of dates. You will be notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes and will have three days to accept the permit or lose the reservation.

For example, to start a trip between Aug. 9-15, 2026, enter the lottery between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. You will be notified of the result on Feb. 23 and must accept it (if successful) by Feb. 26 or forfeit it, and remaining reservations become available at 9 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 27 at recreation.gov/permits/445859 on a first-come, first-served basis. The weekly lottery ends in early May.

Yosemite issues all wilderness permits based on trailheads quotas and imposes a daily quota of 45 backpackers exiting the park via Donohue Pass on the JMT.

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One advantage of Yosemite’s rolling lottery is that, if you strike out in one lottery period, you will have plenty of time to apply again for the very next week.

The JMT’s northern terminus, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, is the starting point most often requested in the Yosemite lottery. There are just two trailheads in Yosemite where you are permitted to launch a JMT thru-hike or section hike—and specifically, to cross Donohue Pass, exiting Yosemite on the JMT—and those appear on the Yosemite permit application as Happy Isles to Past LYV (Donohue Pass eligible) and Lyell Canyon (Donohue Pass eligible)—the latter offering perhaps better odds of securing a permit. (Note: LYV represents Little Yosemite Valley, the park’s most popular backcountry camp, where JMT thru-hikers are not permitted to spend a night.)

See nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/jmt.htm, which explains how to get a JMT permit for starting in Yosemite and how popular the JMT has become.

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Starting the JMT at Whitney Portal

To thru-hike the JMT northbound—or backpack a JMT section—starting at Whitney Portal between May 1 and Nov. 1, you must enter the Mount Whitney Zone permit lottery at recreation.gov/permits/233260 anytime between Feb. 1 and March 1; the form can be viewed but not filled out until Feb. 1.

Choose Mount Whitney Zone Overnight permit to create a permit good for multiple dates. Permit quotas are 100 people day use and 60 people overnight per day.

Lottery results are announced on March 15. The deadline to confirm a lottery reservation and pay the $15 per person fee is 9 p.m. Pacific time on April 21. On April 22, all unclaimed lottery permits are available for reservations at recreation.gov/permits/233260 starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time.

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Backpack a Section of the JMT

If you fail to get a permit for a JMT thru-hike, consider a long John Muir Trail section hike—a satisfying consolation prize and a permit that’s much easier to get, especially starting from a trailhead in the Inyo National Forest.

The Inyo sprawls over the High Sierra between Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, including a long stretch of the JMT through the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses. A permit from the Inyo allows you to continue on the JMT into Yosemite or Sequoia-Kings Canyon.

The Inyo National Forest accepts reservations for 60 percent of trailhead quotas at recreation.gov/permits/233262 starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time exactly six months before your start date—for example, on Feb. 1 for a trip starting Aug. 1. To finish by descending Mount Whitney to Whitney Portal, you must select permit type “Overnight Exiting Mt. Whitney.”

Forty percent of Inyo trailhead quotas open for reservations at recreation.gov/permits/233262 beginning at 7 a.m. Pacific Time two weeks prior to a trip’s start date.

See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and more information at fs.usda.gov/main/inyo/passes-permits/recreation.

Get the right gear for the High Sierra. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Keep Your Group Small

The High Sierra national parks and forests all issue permits based on trailhead quotas on the total number of people starting trips every day and those quotas vary between trailheads. It stands to reason that smaller parties of one to four backpackers will have a better chance of landing a permit than larger groups.

See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Want my expert help custom planning your trip to ensure it’s as good as it can be? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you.

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Are you planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail? “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” should be on every serious backpacker’s tick list. After hiking it in a blazing (and slightly crazy) seven days, I became convinced that—while that was quite hard—the traditional itinerary of spreading the roughly 221 miles (including more than 10 miles descending Mount Whitney that’s not part of the JMT) over about three weeks has a serious flaw: With limited food-resupply options, you’ll carry a monster pack that may not only make you sore and uncomfortable, it could cause injuries that cut short your trip.

As I write in my blog story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” thousands of miles of backpacking over more than three decades—including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—have taught me that the single best step I can take to make all trips more enjoyable is simple: lightening my pack weight.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

In this article, I lay out a smart, complete, and proven ultralight strategy for thru-hiking the JMT in 10 to 11 days—and why you’d want to do it—plus, for anyone not able to average over 20 miles a day, a suggested two-week JMT thru-hike. While much of this story is free for anyone to read, reading the entire story, including specific tips that are based on my experience, is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

The John Muir Trail—definitely one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—is ideal for going ultralight because of its generally dry summers, well-constructed footpath, and moderate grades. Backpackers who arrive with their legs in trail shape can knock off 20 to 22 miles a day—spending about 10 hours a day on the trail (including breaks) and averaging 2.5 mph, a reasonable pace for someone who’s fit and carrying a light pack.

Want to hike the John Muir Trail?
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See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail,” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” 

See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your JMT thru-hike or section hike or any trip you read about at The Big Outside, plus my expert e-books to backpacking trips in Yosemite and other parks.

Please share your thoughts on my tips below, or your own tricks, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Permit Get a permit for the entire JMT from the park or forest where you plan to start, either Yosemite National Park or Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail in the Inyo National Forest. JMT permits are in very high demand for dates in July, August, and September.

To hike the JMT southbound, apply for a permit from Yosemite National Park at recreation.gov/permits/445859 up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, entering a lottery for a permit within a specific window of dates.

Permits for hiking northbound, starting at Whitney Portal on the Mount Whitney Trail, are reserved through a lottery system at recreation.gov/permits/445860, conducted in February.

See “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit.”

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

Get the right backpack and tent for a hike like the JMT.
See the best ultralight backpacks and ultralight backpacking tents.

Not Down With 20-mile Days?

It’s not for everyone, of course. Many hikers allot three weeks, a pace of about 10 miles a day. Maybe the smartest strategy for you would be something in between—say, 16 days averaging about 14 miles per day. (I can help you plan that itinerary, including suggested camps. Click here to learn more.) Experiment with backpacking longer days and traveling light on shorter trips before your JMT thru-hike.

Still, traditional backpackers can draw benefits from adopting strategies employed by fastpackers—including hiking southbound on the JMT. Besides giving you time to acclimate to the higher elevations of the southern Sierra, it gives you two resupply opportunities in the northern half (Tuolumne Meadows and Red’s Meadow) to keep your pack lighter while building up your trail legs. And it gives you half the trip—prior to reaching the last resupply opp, Muir Trail Ranch—to gauge your food needs and daily mileage capabilities.

By that time, you may find you’re walking farther every day than you anticipated and possibly eating (slightly) less than planned. Both realizations are common among people doing their first long trail. Backpackers are as likely to overestimate food as underestimate it.

Plus, except for the high passes, the JMT is not, step for step, as difficult as hiking in other parts of the country. Give serious thought to food supply and daily mileage, because leaving Muir Trail Ranch with 10 or 11 days worth of food will add about 20 pounds to your pack as you head for the JMT’s highest passes.

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You might even plan to hike shorter days for the trail’s northern half, as you’re getting stronger as well as to linger in places, but by the time you reach Muir Trail Ranch, be ready for longer days in order to reduce your pack’s food weight for the southern half of the JMT.

And that, really, is the whole point. Carrying too much weight on your back only makes a trip more difficult—and can make it miserable. You spend too much time thinking about when you can take a break from carrying your pack instead of thinking about where you are. That’s not why you’re out there.

Discard any misguided notion that you’ll “miss too much” by hiking bigger days—you’re still walking, after all, and only incrementally faster than you would walk with a heavier pack. You’re just walking for more hours each day—and more comfortably.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

Let’s face it: The real reason you’d hike slower with a heavier pack is that it’s crushing weight is slowing you down—not because walking at that pace somehow gives you a higher-quality experience. It’s usually quite the opposite.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside and my Custom Trip Planning page for details on how I can help make your JMT hike exponentially better by giving you personally customized trip planning.

Find more advice about planning a JMT thru-hike in my story about our seven-day thru-hike, which has more photos and a video, plus tips on planning it, and this menu of stories offering expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and the lightweight backpacking guide without having a paid membership.

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Finding a sleeping bag that’s right for you may be the most confusing gear-buying task. Getting the right one is critical to sleeping comfortably in the backcountry—and in an emergency, your bag could save your life. But with the myriad choices out there, how do you tell them apart, beyond temperature rating and price? This article will explain how to evaluate the key differences between bags to make your choice much more simple.

I’ve slept in many, many bags of all types over three decades of testing gear—including the 10 years I spent as the lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. I’ve zipped inside bags in all seasons, in temperatures from ridiculously warm to -30° F. (Ridiculously warm is more tolerable.)

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

In this article, I’ll share what I’ve learned about picking out a sleeping bag—or more than one bag—that will be ideal for your body and your adventures.

I’d love to read what you think of my tips or any of your own. Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any bag photo below to read its review.

General Tips For Buying a Sleeping Bag

•    Know your own body. Do you get cold easily or are you a furnace? Women tend to get cold more easily, and this is a simple function of physics: Women often have a higher ratio of body surface area to mass compared to men, so their bodies lose heat more readily. Those women are more comfortable in a bag made for women, which is shaped differently than a men’s bag and typically has extra insulation in areas like the feet. However, it also comes down to body metabolism.
•    If you get cold easily, get a bag rated 20 to 25 degrees colder than the coldest temperatures you plan to sleep outside in.
•    If you don’t get cold easily you may be more comfortable in a bag rated about five to 15 degrees below the coldest temperatures you plan to sleep outside in—and possibly even a bag rated right around the coldest temp you’ll encounter, provided you have extra clothing to put on, just in case. (I’ve spent many nights around freezing perfectly warm enough in a bag rated 30-32° F.) Being too hot is not really any more comfortable than being too cold and having a bag much warmer than needed means you’re carrying superfluous weight and bulk. (See “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.”)

See “10 Pro Tips for Staying Warm in a Sleeping Bag.”

Down Vs. Synthetic Bags

Down has traditionally been lighter, more packable, and warmer than many synthetic insulations; but once wet, synthetics still kept you fairly warm, while down feathers become all but useless at retaining heat. Today, the lines between down and synthetic have been blurred somewhat with the development of high-quality, lightweight and compact synthetic insulations like PrimaLoft, and water-resistant down, which retains its ability to trap heat even when wet. 

Down is more packable and very durable, so it still holds an advantage as the insulation of choice if you don’t expect to get that bag wet; and water-resistant down enhances your bag’s performance in common circumstances where it may get damp, such as when condensation builds up inside a tent. Still, even water-resistant down, once saturated, loses much of its ability to keep you warm, and drying out any bag is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in prolonged, wet weather. Synthetic insulation remains the best choice for extended trips in wet environments.

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High-quality down (rated from 800- to 900-fill or higher) is the warmest, lightest, most packable insulation out there, but expensive, while lower-quality down (usually 600- to 700-fill) still has the advantages of down and makes a bag less expensive but also heavier and bulkier. Manufacturers use lower-grade synthetic insulation in bags priced cheaply, making them much heavier and bulkier than better synthetic and down bags—typically too heavy and bulky for backpacking (unless you’re on a very limited budget and don’t mind carrying a big pack).

So the down vs. synthetic choice still comes down to pocketbook issues and the likelihood of your bag actually getting wet.

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Temperature Rating

In the past, bag manufacturers decided on temperature ratings for their own bags; the outdoor industry lacked a standardized method for measuring that. In recent years, though, the industry widely adopted the EN (European Norm) temperature rating system, internationally considered the most reliable and objective standard.

Found on most new bags, the EN rating typically includes three temperature ratings:

•    Comfort rating, or the lowest temperature at which the bag will keep the average woman warm (based on the premise that women usually get cold more easily than men).
•    Lower-limit rating, or the lowest temperature at which the bag will keep the average man warm.
•    Extreme rating, or the lowest temperature at which the bag will keep someone alive, albeit not comfortable, in unexpected, extreme conditions.

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
Want my help with yours? Click here now.

See all of my reviews of sleeping bags and air mattresses and sleeping pads that I like at The Big Outside.

See also my related stories:

5 Expert Tips For Buying the Right Backpacking Pack
10 Tips For Spending Less on Hiking and Backpacking Gear
5 Expert Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent
A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking
5 Smart Steps to Lighten Your Backpacking Gear

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I remember my first backpacking trip in Glacier National Park, more than 30 years ago, feeling magical—and a little bit intimidating, which is best illustrated by the fact that I had probably carried bear spray only once before. But I’m pretty sure my girlfriend (now wife) and I did not reserve a backcountry permit months before—we just showed up and got one. (Good luck doing that today.) We did little, if any, research on a route. We encountered some surprises and had what we considered a mostly wonderful adventure.

Today, though, with several multi-day hikes in Glacier under my hipbelt and knowing the park’s terrain, trails, climate, regulations, and permit system well, our uninformed strategy for planning that first, long-ago trip seems both quaint and like a formula that invites frustration and disappointment—especially in this era of much higher numbers of backpackers. Now, I take a very different approach to planning trips there.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

It’s not that planning a backpacking trip in Glacier is unnecessarily complicated. But familiarizing yourself with all that backpacking in Glacier entails—some of which is unique to Glacier—is far more likely to result in the experience that you’re hoping for.

So, what do you need to know about backpacking in Glacier?

This article will answer the biggest questions on how to go about planning and executing what is certainly one of the best of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—including details and tips on obtaining a wilderness permit that can be very hard to get. The information below draws on my several trips backpacking (and dayhiking) there over more than 30 years, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor with Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

See “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park” and all stories at this blog about backpacking in Glacier. Most of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my expert tips and information on planning each hike. See also my expert e-books to two great multi-day hikes in Glacier and other parks, including “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park.”

I’ve helped many readers plan backpacking trips in Glacier and many other places, answering all of their questions (and many they didn’t think to ask) and customizing an itinerary ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you and read hundreds of comments from readers like you who’ve received my custom trip planning.

Click on any photo below to read about that trip. Please share your questions, personal stories, or tips about backpacking in Glacier in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

After Glacier National Park, hike the other nine of
“America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

It’s Not as Hard as You May Think

With a few exceptions, Glacier’s trails are well-constructed, well-marked with signs at junctions, and mostly only moderately steep—built at what’s called a “horse grade” because many early visitors to the park traveled the trails on horseback. The topography, with the Continental Divide splicing the park into approximate halves and valleys filled with long, narrow lakes draining both sides of the Divide, allow for an extensive trail network that blends relatively easier hiking with ascents to and descents from passes that, with few exceptions, are not grueling.

Many backpackers who are reasonably fit and carrying packs weighing 25 to 40 pounds—basically, a total weight that doesn’t feel awful to them—will find hiking eight to 10 miles per day moderately difficult in Glacier, and a hiking pace of two mph feasible to maintain.

Also, trails in Glacier, even at the highest passes, remain below 8,000 feet, an elevation that doesn’t cause problems for most people beyond breathing harder when hiking uphill. That and the moderate grades of most trails result in daily elevation gain when backpacking 10 miles or less per day often totaling less than 3,000 feet and sometimes less than 2,000 feet; and 2,500 feet of uphill spread over 10 miles is an average relatively gentle gradient of 250 feet per mile.

Plus, the distribution of the park’s 65 designated backcountry campgrounds often enables planning days under 10 miles.

For those reasons, you may find that backpacking in Glacier is not as hard as on trails in parks with higher actual elevations, steeper trails, and/or greater elevation ranges between valleys and passes.

Water is generally plentiful throughout Glacier’s backcountry, although you may encounter waterless stretches of a few miles (perhaps two hours) or more when crossing passes. That means you almost never have to carry more than one to two liters, or about two to four pounds, of water. But be aware of water sources along your route. See the best water-treatment systems in my review of “Essential Backpacking Gear Accessories” and a menu of all reviews of water filters at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-books to the best backpacking trip in Glacier
and backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

How to Get a Glacier Backcountry Permit

As in most major Western national parks (like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Mount Rainier, and others), Glacier permits are in high demand for dates in July, August, and the first part of September. First key step for success: Know when to reserve a permit. Fortunately, like many other parks, Glacier in recent years instituted a reasonably user-friendly system created to manage enormous demand.

Glacier conducts two early-access backcountry permit lotteries at recreation.gov/permits/4675321, on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people. Those lotteries provide the best chance of reserving a permit for popular trails and backcountry camps for trips between June 15 and Sept. 30, and all applicants during these 24-hour lottery periods have an equal chance of being selected.

Standard-group lottery winners will get an email from the park wilderness office on March 17 with a date and time between March 21 and April 30 when they can make one permit reservation (or anytime after their time slot). Large-group lottery winners will receive an email on March 3 with instructions for making their permit reservation for one of just five permit reservations the park issues annually for large groups.

General reservations open for all remaining backcountry campsites on May 1, running through Sept. 30.

Glacier makes 70 percent of backcountry campsites available for reservations and 30 percent of campsites for walk-in permits no more than one day in advance during the backpacking season and limits daily hiking distance to 16 miles on reserved permits.

See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park.”

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to consider at least two starting trailheads and a range of date options.

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking trips in Glacier and elsewhere.
Want my help with yours? Click here now.

The Peak Season

While lower-elevation trails and backcountry camps in Glacier are often snow-free and open from mid-June into October, the peak backpacking season in Glacier generally begins around mid-July, when higher elevations and passes become mostly snow-free, and the season often extends into September, although the first snowstorm can arrive by early September or even late August.

But the best time for hitting the trails in Glacier is late July through early September, when the Rocky Mountains weather is typically idyllic: sunny days with very moderate temperatures, although afternoon thunderstorms are not uncommon, and comfortably cool nights and mornings.

And an early snowfall occurring before your late-summer trip isn’t necessarily a disaster. Snow from those early-season storms often melts away within a day or two after sunshine returns.

On one September backpacking trip, friends and I enjoyed sunny days with moderate temperatures, cool but not freezing nights, and dry trails—just a few days after a snowstorm hit the park. And we benefited from that storm occurring before our trip because it largely smothered a wildfire that was sending smoke throughout the park.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

Gear

During summer, given the generally good weather in Glacier and nighttime lows that don’t often drop below 40° F/4° C, you can use lightweight to ultralight gear, including your pack, tent, bag, and footwear. Still, look closely at the forecast and, if necessary, be prepared for heavy rain, particularly in thunderstorms, and possibly freezing temperatures.

Glacier National Park provides bearproof food-hanging systems or food lockers in all backcountry campgrounds, so backpackers do not have to carry a bear canister. See nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/bears.htm.

Find categorized menus of gear reviews, best-in-category reviews, and buying tips at my Gear Reviews page, and all reviews of ultralight backpacking gear at The Big Outside.

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Trailhead Transportation Logistics

Depending on where in the park you’re backpacking and whether you’re hiking a loop or a point-to-point route between different trailheads—especially if those trailheads are far apart—travel logistics can be very easy or complicated.

If your backpacking trip starts or finishes (or both) along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, it’s definitely easiest and most convenient to use the park’s free shuttle, which makes several stops along that road. It’s truly much easier—and cheaper—than trying to drive your own vehicle. It runs regularly from early July through Labor Day; see nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/shuttles.htm.

In recent years, Glacier has required timed vehicle reservations to drive a private vehicle from mid-June through late September in two areas: the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road and the North Fork. See nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/vehicle-reservations.htm.

See my expert e-books to two great multi-day hikes in Glacier, “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips,” and the All Trips page at The Big Outside.

Let The Big Outside help you find the best adventures.
Click here to join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

These articles at The Big Outside may be useful when planning a Glacier trip:

“8 Pro Tips For Avoiding Blisters”
“How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be”
“12 Expert Tips for Finding Solitude When Backpacking”
“How to Plan Food for a Backpacking Trip”
“How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking”
“10 Pro Tips For Staying Warm in a Sleeping Bag”
“5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking”

And see all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Wilderness backpacking opens new worlds to us. While dayhiking can bring you to many beautiful places in nature, walking for days through the backcountry, carrying all you need on your back, inspires a liberating sense of self-sufficiency and solitude as you escape the crowds to explore places most people never see. This article lays out in 12 detailed steps all you need to know to plan a wilderness backpacking trip that’s safe and enjoyable for everyone on it.

More than three decades (and counting) and thousands of miles of backpacking all over the United States and around the world have convinced me that most of the success of any backpacking trip depends on how you plan and prepare for it. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for planning a backpacking trip of any length from this article, which draws from the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Having made just about all the backpacking mistakes you can make when I was a newbie years ago and read about countless accidents, I will tell you this: “Epics” and accidents often result from bad planning or a simple lack of awareness of potential problems and hazards. Most are entirely avoidable.

I’d love to read what you think of my tips or any tricks of your own that help you plan your trips. Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Click on any photo to learn more about that trip.

1. Pick the Place

Where do you want to go backpacking? That’s the first question to consider, and the answer often draws inspiration from a specific destination. Like many novice backpackers, one of my first trips was in Yosemite (and my most popular e-book is “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”).

But new backpackers commonly commit the error of choosing a destination for their fixed vacation dates without considering the many factors that determine not only the ideal time of year for that trip, but also when you cannot take it. For example, many mountain ranges are inaccessible (without advanced skills and technical gear) for most of the year because of deep snow—trails may not become passable for hiking until June or July. Many also consistently receive a lot of rain and have thick clouds of mosquitoes at certain times of year, either of which can put a real damper on the experience.

Flip that flawed thinking around: Choose dates appropriate for your desired trip, or if your dates are not flexible, choose a trip appropriate for your dates. Do some research on the most special aspects of a destination and what times of year are best to see them, such as wildflowers, waterfalls, foliage color, or simply better weather.

See my story “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking.”

Find ideas for your backpacking adventures at my Trips Page.

2. Plan Ahead

I can’t remember the last backpacking or hiking trip I took without planning weeks or months in advance. Some destinations—particularly close to home, if they don’t require a permit reservation—may not require much advance planning. But the more complicated your life, the less likely you can pull off a last-minute getaway that entails multiple logistics and people.

Plan and make all needed pre-trip arrangements, from reserving any required backcountry permit to arranging any needed transportation and lodging.

Find planning resources (like my expert e-books and Custom Trip Planning) with detailed information about your trip, including:

• When and how to apply for a backcountry permit if one is required—which is months in advance of your trip dates for popular parks like Grand Teton, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Glacier, and Grand Canyon. See my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”
• Topographical trail maps and a good description of your route, including section distances, difficulty, and details about any sections that require special skills or a comfort level with scrambling, exposure, water crossings, or other challenges and potential environmental hazards.
• Current trail and road conditions and seasonal or temporary closures due to unmaintained roads, wildfire, washouts, or other causes (often available at a park’s website).
• Travel logistics.
• Important regulations such as backcountry camping and party-size restrictions.
• Seasonal recommendations or restrictions.
• Seasonal climate and weather information.
• Water sources: If they are limited, know where they are and how much water you have to leave each source carrying—including whether you’ll need extra water if your next campsite lacks water.
• Wildlife concerns (more below).

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3. Choose a Route That’s Right for Everyone

Whether a family, your favorite person, or a group of friends, the group’s pace and some choices will inevitably be dictated by the slowest and least-comfortable person—who may be a child or an adult. If your trip plan isn’t designed with that person in mind, you will likely have problems.

I typically plan trips following one of these two strategies, and they usually—by intentional design for the benefit of everyone—result in very different experiences:

1. If the trip involves a specific, challenging adventure—climbing a mountain or backpacking a challenging route, for instance—choose partners who have the physical stamina, skills, and comfort level for everything you will encounter.
2. If the trip’s goal is a fun adventure for a specific group of people—your family or any mix of people with a range of experience, stamina, and abilities—choose a destination and plan an itinerary that’s going to be enjoyable for everyone, including the slowest, least-experienced members of the group.

Click here now to plan your next great backpacking adventure using my expert e-books.

Choose a destination and daily hiking distances that everyone can handle—keeping in mind that the cumulative elevation gain and loss affects the difficulty at least as much as the distance. (See my expert tips in my story “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”) Consider how trail quality and conditions—whether it’s extremely rocky or muddy or steep—or places with difficult scrambling or significant exposure will affect everyone in the group, weighing both their emotional comfort and their safety.

Whether it’s family or friends, to avoid the pitfalls that can arise related to tip no. 3, get everyone’s buy-in by involving them in the planning.

Plan a trip that’s appropriate for everyone in your group and you’ll all enjoy it more.

See my Custom Trip Planning page to tap into my experience planning your next trip.

4. Craft a Sensible Itinerary

Create an itinerary that’s appropriate for the time you have—trying to cram too much into too short a timeframe can force you to overextend yourself and compromise everyone’s enjoyment.

Avoid these mistakes:

• Squeezing your travel time so tightly that your entire trip could be ruined by a delayed flight or bad traffic. When traveling to remote locations, taking multiple flights (especially in winter, when delays due to bad weather are not uncommon), plan for delays.
• An itinerary that entails hiking more miles each day than is right for your group.
• Travel plans that deprive everyone of adequate sleep. When traveling across several time zones, expect to need sleep when you arrive at your destination.

Trips and travel don’t always go well. But few travel-related incidents feel more disappointing than the clearly avoidable ones that ruin a trip.

5. Talk to Someone Who’s Done It

Even after decades of hiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, and paddling, I always try to tap into the knowledge base of someone who’s either done the specific trip I’m planning or something similar or in the same park or general area.

Every time I do that, I learn something unexpected.

That person could be someone you know, or any number of people with experience on the hike you’re planning: a backcountry ranger, a member of a hiking club, or an employee at a local outdoor-gear shop or another business near the destination. Ask questions and you’ll often get useful answers.

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6. Have Gear That Works

Many of us get by with more-affordable gear when we’re starting out. But it still should meet a minimum threshold of functionality: It must perform well enough not only to survive more than one trip—otherwise, you’ve wasted your money—but to ensure against an unpleasant or even dangerous experience. An uncomfortable backpack can morph into a despised object. Inadequate or poorly fitting boots or a sleeping bag lacking sufficient warmth might make your trip a misery. A tent that fails poses real risks. You get the idea.

Are you taking a first trip with new gear—or your first-ever backpacking trip? Don’t head out for several days without giving new gear a test drive:

• Walk around in new boots, even on short, local hikes or around town, to make sure they’re not going to cause blisters, that they feel good—adequately supportive, not too hot—and to help break them in if needed. See my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking.”
• Pitch a new tent in your yard to familiarize yourself with it, just in case strong wind or steady rain greet you the first time you pitch it in the backcountry.
• Assemble all of your gear and food for the trip at home and load your pack the day before you depart, to get a sense of how best to organize everything in your pack and how it’s going to feel on your back once loaded. See my “Video: How to Pack a Backpack” and “An Essentials-Only Backpacking Gear Checklist.”

Time for a better backpack? See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and the best ultralight backpacks.

Tip: Loading your pack pre-trip helps you see whether you’re overpacking. See “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.”

See my expert gear-buying tips in these stories:

“The 12 Best Down Jackets”
“5 Expert Tips For Buying the Right Backpacking Pack”
“5 Expert Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent”
“How to Choose the Best Ultralight Backpacking Tent for You”
“5 Expert Tips For Buying a Rain Jacket For Hiking”
“Expert Tips For Buying the Right Hiking Boots”
“Pro Tips For Buying Sleeping Bags”

And don’t miss my “10 Tips For Spending Less on Hiking and Backpacking Gear.”

Get the right tent for you. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents”
and “5 Expert Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent.”

7. Bring Clothing Layers for the Expected Weather

If the best weather forecast for the area where you’re backpacking provides conditions for the valleys, know that it will likely be at least 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in the mountains where you’re hiking. On average, the air temperature drops three to four degrees Fahrenheit for every thousand feet of elevation gain (or about 10 degrees Celsius for every 1,000 meters). The sun gets more intense at higher elevations, too, which means it feels warmer when the sun is out, but also cools off quickly when the sun sets or disappears behind clouds.

See my reviews of:

“The Best Rain Jackets for Hiking and Backpacking”
“The 12 Best Down Jackets”
“The Best Base Layers, Shorts, and Socks For Hiking and Running”

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plus get a FREE e-book! Join now!

8. Don’t Overpack Food

This may seem counterintuitive, but the fact is that for the vast majority of backpacking trips, whether for a weekend or a week or more, we plan a specific number of days and finish when expected. These trips don’t generally turn into survival epics. A pound or two of extra food or snacks is prudent; you don’t need to carry several pounds more food than you intend to eat.

Over more than three decades of backpacking, I’ve underestimated how much food I needed only a few times. Like probably most backpackers, at least when we’re relative novices, I have far more often carried an unneeded surplus of food the entire length of a hike.

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Backpackers planning a trip in popular national parks like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains, and others have one experience in common: A high percentage of them fail in their attempt to reserve a backcountry permit—and many probably don’t fully understand why. This story will answer your questions about how and when to reserve a backcountry permit in many parks—most of which have their own, unique reservation process and dates to make a reservation. And this story will share my expert tips on maximizing your chances of success.

Countless backpacking trips over more than three decades—during which I was the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years and have now run this blog for even longer—have taught me many tricks for landing coveted permits in flagship parks, which receive far more requests than they can fill. The strategies and knowledge of these permit processes outlined below will help you land a hard-to-get national park backcountry permit—just as they have worked countless times for me.

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Just in the past several years, using these strategies, I’ve gotten permits for backpacking trips on three hugely popular trails, the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier, a long section of the John Muir Trail, and the Teton Crest Trail (a trip I’ve taken multiple times), as well as in Yellowstone, Glacier three times (this trip and this one, with one canceled due to wildfires), the Maze District of Canyonlands (and before that, the Needles District), North Cascades, two popular trips in Canadian Rockies national parks (this one and this one), Yosemite three times (this trip, this one and this one), and Grand Canyon six times (for trips in 2025, 2024, 2022, 2019, 2018, and 2015)—and I’ve had just two unsuccessful reservation attempts, a previous one for the Wonderland Trail (under the park’s old permit system; the new one is better, although still extremely competitive) and one for Glacier in 2021 that was rejected for reasons I anticipated and explain in tip no. 3 (below).

And if you want to take a trip in one of those popular parks this year, the time for reserving permits is now or coming up soon.

A friendly warning: Don’t backpack without a permit. Backcountry rangers might issue you a citation for camping without a permit, which could involve a fine and a court appearance. The more immediate problem with lacking a permit for where you’re trying to camp is that all established campsites there could be occupied, leaving you no option but camping illegally in a potentially uncomfortable spot and causing damage to a sensitive area. That’s not cool and it’s not fun.

When you’re frustrated over being denied a permit for the hike you really wanted to take, keep this in mind: The permit system in parks imposes quotas on the number of backpackers in order to protect the landscape from overuse and give all of us an uncrowded, better wilderness experience. Compare the experience in many parks with places you’ve been that have no permit system and are overcrowded and visibly over-used, and you’ll realize: Permits are a good thing.

Plus, if you take a little time to understand how permit processes work, they become less daunting and you may have more success with them—and enjoy adventures of a lifetime.

Please share what you think of my tips or your own tips or questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story and please share this story with anyone who might benefit from it. I try to respond to all comments and questions. Click on any photo or link below to read about that park or trip.

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#1 Do Your Homework

Research your route in advance. Know where you want to go and how far you intend to hike each day. Keep in mind that your party’s speed will be determined by the slowest person, and factors like the terrain’s ruggedness, total elevation gain and loss on your route, and whether it’s at high elevations. (See the expert tips in my story “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”) Plan daily distances and pick campsites that make sense for your group, to minimize the likelihood of not reaching one and camping illegally.

See my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking.”

See also my expert e-books to backpacking trips in several popular national parks for detailed hiking itineraries, expert planning advice, on-the-ground knowledge, and tips specific to getting a permit in those parks.

Don’t have the time or expertise to plan it yourself? Want to make sure your trip is as good as it can be? Visit my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next great adventure and see hundreds of comments from readers like you who’ve received my custom trip planning.

Insider Tip

I have called or emailed backcountry rangers with questions many times, even at popular parks, and received prompt responses. If you’ve done your research and know the park—and have good experience, especially in that park—I have found that a backcountry ranger will more readily point you toward route options that they might not suggest to a novice. Don’t hesitate to talk about your experience.

#2 Know When to Apply

Check the park’s website (or, for most national parks, recreation.gov) months in advance of the trip dates you’re planning to learn about the timing and procedure for reserving a backcountry permit, which varies from park to park.

In some parks, to have any chance of reserving a permit, you must be ready at the very minute that reservations open—especially for popular hikes in parks that attract a lot of backpackers (like most parks and trails mentioned in this story).

Fortunately, most parks have now abandoned antiquated apply-only-in-person and apply-by-fax-machine permit systems and moved to online permit reservations operated through recreation.gov, a positive step forward in an era when demand for backcountry permits is skyrocketing in many places.

Still, while many are easy to navigate, a few are unnecessarily chaotic and frustrating for users in ways that seem clearly avoidable, given the numerous examples within the National Park System of successful park permit systems that work smoothly. The NPS is making progress but could still do much better.

Insider Tip

Use a shotgun: Try for permit reservations in multiple parks for a range of potential dates, hoping that at least one is successful. You can always cancel any you can’t use and usually get virtually all of the cost refunded. In parks that conduct early-access permit lotteries, have everyone in your group enter the lottery.

When to Reserve a Backcountry Permit in These Major Parks

•    In Grand Teton, for trips between May 1 and Oct. 31, permit reservations can be made at recreation.gov/permits/249986 starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, 2026, and up to two days before your trip start date. But popular backcountry camping zones, like those along the Teton Crest Trail, get booked up very quickly after reservations open—often within minutes in a process that can be chaotic. The park allows one-third of available permits to be reserved in advance, leaving two-thirds available first-come, for walk-in backpackers, no more than one day before your trip begins. See my expert e-books to the Teton Crest Trail and the best short backpacking trip in the Tetons, and my Custom Trip Planning page to see how I can help you plan that trip, as well as my stories “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail” and “How to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail Without a Permit.” There is a $20 non-refundable fee if you obtain a permit plus $7 per person per night. Find more information at nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/bcres.htm.

•    In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas, with special rules for backpacking the John Muir Trail. Sixty percent of permit reservations are available by lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday. For example, to start a trip between Aug. 9-15, 2026, enter the lottery between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov at 7 a.m. Pacific Time up to seven days in advance of a trip start date. The non-refundable permit fee is $10 for each lottery entered or a walk-in permit plus $5 per person if you get a permit. Permits issued by other national parks or forests in the Sierra for trips extending into Yosemite—for example, a John Muir Trail permit (see info below)—are valid in Yosemite for the permit dates. See my expert e-books to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” and my stories “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.” Find more info at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm.

Start planning now to take one of “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips.”

•    To thru-hike the John Muir Trail southbound, enter the Yosemite National Park lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday. For example, to start a trip between Aug. 9-15, 2026, enter the lottery between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. See nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/jmt.htm. Permits for hiking northbound, starting at Whitney Portal, are reserved through a lottery system at recreation.gov; enter it between Feb. 1 and March 1, with results announced March 15. To start a JMT section hike (or any hike) in the Inyo National Forest between May 1 and Nov. 1, apply at recreation.gov at 7 a.m. Pacific Time six months in advance, or up to two weeks in advance for a walk-up permit. See my stories “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit in 2026” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes” and all stories about backpacking the JMT at The Big Outside. Visit my Custom Trip Planning page to see how I can help you plan a successful and unforgettable JMT thru-hike or section hike or any other trip (as I’ve done for many other readers).

•    Since the beginning of 2024, Grand Canyon has issued about 80 percent of backcountry permits through a monthly, early-access lottery at recreation.gov/permits/4675337. Apply for the lottery anytime during a two-week period that ends on the first of the month four months in advance of the month you’d like to hike—for example, between Nov. 16 and Dec. 1 for a trip anytime in April and between May 16 and June 1 for October. The lottery awards up to 750 applicants a date and time between the 4^th and 17^th of the following month when they can attempt to reserve a backcountry permit. The park expects that most of those 750 applicants will get a permit. The fee is $10 per permit plus $15 per person or stock animal per night. The park holds about 20 percent of backcountry campsites for walk-in permits and issues a limited number of permits for the popular Bright Angel and North and South Kaibab corridor trails; that often involves waiting at least a day. See much more detail in “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon” and my e-books “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.” Find more info at nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/backcountry-permit.htm.

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•    Glacier conducts two early-access backcountry permit lotteries at recreation.gov/permits/4675321, on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people. Those lotteries provide the best chance of securing a permit for popular trails and backcountry camps for trips between June 15 and Sept. 30, and all applicants during these 24-hour lottery periods will have an equal chance of being selected. Successful large-group lottery entrants will receive an email from park wilderness permit staff on March 3 with instructions for making their permit reservation for one of just five permit reservations the park issues annually for large groups. Standard group lottery winners will get an email on March 17 with a date and time between March 21 and April 30, 2025, when they can apply for one permit reservation (or anytime after their time slot). General reservations open for all remaining backcountry campsites on May 1, running through Sept. 30. Glacier makes 70 percent of backcountry campsites available for reservations and 30 percent of campsites available for walk-in permits no more than one day in advance during the backpacking season and limits daily hiking distance to 16 miles on reserved permits. There is a non-refundable $10 fee for a lottery application plus $7 per person per night that’s refundable if canceled more than seven days prior to the trip start date. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park” and my expert e-books “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park.” Find more information at nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/backcountry-reservations.htm.

•   In Zion, backpacking permit reservations can be made at recreation.gov/permits/4675338 for trips in Zion’s wilderness, except for overnight trips through Zion’s Narrows, for which reservations are made at recreation.gov/permits/4675339, both on this schedule: March 5 at 10 a.m. Mountain Time for trips between April 1 and June 30; June 5 at 10 a.m. for July 1 to Sept. 30; Sept. 5 at 10 a.m. for Oct. 1 to Dec. 31; and Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. for Jan. 1 to March 31. Half of the backcountry campsites in Zion can be reserved—and usually get filled within minutes after becoming available—and half are available for walk-in permits, obtained in person no more than one day in advance. Max group size is 12. There is a non-refundable $20 fee for a permit and a refundable cost of $7 per person per night. See my story about backpacking the Narrows and my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking The Narrows in Zion National Park.” Find more information at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/backpackinginfo.htm.

Want my highly detailed, personally customized planning for any trip on this list?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

•    For Sequoia and Kings Canyon, reserve a permit at recreation.gov/permits/445857 starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time up to six months in advance for a trip taking place during the trailhead quota period, which for 2026, is May 22 to Sept. 26. Permits are issued based on trailhead quotas and can be made up to one week in advance—although availability for popular trailheads gets booked up quickly. The park keeps a portion of each trailhead quota available for backpackers seeking a first-come permit (without a reservation) no more than a day in advance. There’s a non-refundable fee of $15 plus $5 per person (refundable if canceled) for each confirmed permit. Permits issued by other national parks or forests in the Sierra for trips extending into Sequoia or Kings Canyon—for example, a John Muir Trail or Mount Whitney permit—are valid in these parks for the permit dates. See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit.”

•  Mount Rainier issues permit reservations at recreation.gov/permits/4675317 for two-thirds of backcountry campsites for trips from May 1 through Oct. 11, 2026, up to two days before a trip starts. The park holds an optional Early Access Lottery for preferential time slots to reserve a permit, greatly improving chances of getting a permit for the Wonderland Trail and popular climbing routes. Enter the lottery anytime between when it opens at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 10, 2026, through when it closes at 7 p.m. Pacific on March 3, 2026. Lottery participants will be notified of results on March 14 and winners will receive a date and time on or after March 21 to make a multi-night permit reservation competing against a limited number of other applicants. General reservations for all permit applicants open at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on April 25. The maximum party size is five people and three tents for standard campsites and parties of six to 12 must use designated group camps. There is a non-refundable, $6 fee for an early-access lottery application or permit reservation and a fee of $10 per person per night for a permit reservation. One-third of available permits are issued first-come, in person at a park wilderness center, up to one day before starting a trip. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.” Find more information at nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/wilderness-permit.htm and and more about the Early Access Lottery at recreationonestopprod.servicenowservices.com.

Pack Smartly. See “An Essentials-Only Backpacking Gear Checklist.”

•    Yellowstone accepts reservations for backcountry permits during the peak backpacking season, May 15 through Oct. 31, at recreation.gov/permits/4675323. For the best chance of getting a permit for a popular backpacking trip like Bechler Canyon, enter the Early Access Lottery, which runs from 8 a.m. Mountain Time on March 1 through 11:59 p.m. on March 20. Lottery participants are notified of results on March 25 and winners will receive a date and time between April 1-24 when they can reserve a multi-night backcountry itinerary competing against a limited number of other applicants. General reservations open at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on April 26. There’s a $10, non-refundable fee for entering the Early Access Lottery and a non-refundable $10 fee for a reservation (not charged if you’ve already paid the lottery fee), plus a refundable backcountry camping fee of $5 per person per night. About 75 percent of designated backcountry campsites can be reserved and the remaining sites are available for walk-up permits issued from May through October at park backcountry offices no more than two days in advance of a trip. Maximum group size ranges from four to 12 people at backcountry campsites. See nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/backcountryhiking.htm and the park’s Backcountry Trip Planner at yellowstone.co/pdfs/bctripplanner.pdf.

•    In Great Smoky Mountains, permit reservations can be made starting at midnight Eastern Time up to 30 days in advance of a trip’s start date at smokiespermits.nps.gov. There is a non-refundable fee of $8 per person per night with a maximum of $40 per person and seven nights. Maximum party size is eight, but some sites have a lower total capacity. Find more information and the permit reservation form at smokiespermits.nps.gov. Reservations and permits can also be obtained in person at the Backcountry Office at Sugarlands Visitor Center.  See the park website’s Backcountry Camping—Backpacking page at nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/backcountry-camping.htm.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

•    For Canyonlands, including backpacking in the Needles District, Island in the Sky District, and Maze District and multi-day float trips on the Green River, permit reservations open at recreation.gov/permits/4675315 at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Nov. 10 for a trip beginning between March 10 and June 9, on Feb. 10 for a trip between June 10 and Sept. 9, on May 10 for a trip between Sept. 10 and Dec. 9, and Aug. 10 for a trip between Dec. 10 and March 9 in the Island or Maze or from Feb. 13 to March 9 in the Needles. Reservations close three days before a trip start date, but you can get a permit in person closer to your start date at locations in the park and in Moab listed at recreation.gov/permits/4675315. Backpacking party size limits are seven in the Needles and Island in the Sky districts and five in The Maze. There’s a non-refundable $36 permit fee plus a refundable fee of $5 per person per night. Find more information at nps.gov/cany/planyourvisit/backcountrypermits.htm.

•    Rocky Mountain opens permit reservations at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on March 1 at recreation.gov/permits/4675320 for camping in the backcountry between May 1 and Oct. 31, for a maximum of seven nights. Reservations are accepted up to three days prior to a trip. Permits are issued based on quotas for designated individual backcountry campsites that accommodate parties up to seven people or group sites for parties of eight to 12 people. Unlike other parks, Rocky doesn’t hold a fixed percentage of backcountry sites for walk-ins; instead, most backcountry permits are reservable, and only a limited number of permits will be available at recreation.gov/permits/4675320 during the peak summer season. The total reservation fee is $36. Find more information at nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/wild_guide.htm.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure using my expert e-books.
Click here now to learn more.

• At Olympic, permit reservations can be made at recreation.gov/permits/4098362 starting at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on April 15 for trips from May 15 through Oct. 15, except in areas under seasonal closures: Backpacking permits are issued for Glacier Meadows/Elk Lake, Grand Valley, Royal Basin, Lake Constance, Upper Lena Lake, and Flapjack Lakes only from June 15 to Oct. 15, and for the Seven Lakes Basin/High Divide area only from July 15 to Oct. 15. Group size limits are 12 people and lower in some camp areas. Permits listed as walk-up can only be obtained by contacting the Wilderness Information Center. The permit fee is $6 per reservation plus a refundable $8 per person age 16 and older per night. Find more information at nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/wilderness-reservations.htm and nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/upload/OLYM-Wilderness-Trip-Planner.jpg

• North Cascades accepts permit reservations at recreation.gov/permits/4675322 for backcountry camping from May 16 through Oct. 11 for up to 60 percent of backcountry campsites, while permits for the other 40 percent of backcountry campsites are issued walk-in/first-come no more than one day in advance. For the best chances of getting a permit that includes popular camps, enter the Early-Access Lottery anytime between March 2, 2026, and 9 p.m. Pacific Time on March 13, for the chance to win a timeslot between March 24 and 9 p.m. Pacific Time on April 21 to make a permit reservation. General reservations open April 29 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time. The maximum party size for camps varies between four and up 12 people in group sites. There’s a non-refundable $6 fee for the Early-Access Lottery and a refundable $10 fee per person age 16 and older for a permit. Find more information at nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit/permits.htm and in the Wilderness Trip Planner at nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit/wilderness-trip-planner.htm.

Get the right gear for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

•  In Everglades, backcountry permit reservations can be made year-round 90 days in advance of your trip’s start date at recreation.gov/permits/4675314, beginning daily at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. There is a non-refundable $21 reservation fee plus $2 per person per night in the backcountry. The park no longer issues walk-up permits. Quotas exist for each wilderness campsite for number of groups and number of people per site. Find more information at nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/wildernesscamp.htm.

Insider Tip

For parks like Grand Teton, Olympic, Zion, Rocky Mountain, and Canyonlands that open permit reservations at a specific date and time (i.e., they do not have an early-access lottery or rolling reservations), start your reservation the very minute they begin accepting them. Set up an account in advance at the host website, like recreation.gov, and familiarize yourself with it.

#3 Have Alternative Itineraries and Dates Ready

If you want to take a popular trip during its peak season, having flexibility with your dates and itinerary is the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit.

Since most large, marquis wilderness parks now use recreation.gov or a similar online system that shows backcountry camping availability and processes your reservation in real time, this requires entering the process with a range of possible start dates and routes in mind so that you’re ready to adjust quickly if your first choice isn’t available. That may be as simple as starting a day earlier or later for the same route, reversing your route’s direction, starting midweek instead of on a weekend, or choosing an entirely different route.

With a park like Yosemite that conducts a weekly rolling lottery for weeklong date periods rather than processing your reservation in real time, you can improve your chances by indicating that you can start on any date during that week and providing alternative itineraries.

As I mentioned at the top of this story, my permit application for a 2021 trip in Glacier was rejected—and I’m sure it was mainly because I applied for just one specific itinerary that I wanted and our dates were not flexible, which greatly reduced my chances of succeeding. The rejection email the park sent me noted that they received over 2,500 backcountry permit applications just on the first day that it opened, March 15. That was under Glacier’s previous permit system; the park now uses recreation.gov.

Insider Tip

If you’re determined to backpack in a park, make any permit reservation, even if it’s slightly or entirely different from your desired route. When you pick up your permit, ask about altering your itinerary; other campsites may be available due to cancellations and sites held for walk-ins. Ask a backcountry ranger for suggestions.

#4 Focus on Less Well-Known Areas of Popular Parks

This piece of time-tested advice is also the first of my “12 Expert Tips for Finding Solitude When Backpacking”—which is worth reading for the appeal of solitude as well as the clear overlap between that goal and the objective of getting a backcountry permit.

And you might be shocked at how much permit demand is concentrated in just a handful of enormously popular trails in national parks that backpackers all want to explore, including, just to name a few, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Great Smoky Mountains, and Mount Rainier.

You might also be pleasantly surprised to find how much incredibly scenic hiking is found in less well-known areas of those parks—and how much solitude you can find.

A few examples:

• In Yosemite, about 10 percent of the park’s hundreds of miles of trails—the John Muir Trail from Happy Isles to Donohue Pass and the Sierra High Camps loop—accounts for about 80 percent of all trail use. The Little Yosemite Valley backcountry campground alone accounts for almost 20 percent. Thus, the other 20 percent of all trail use gets distributed over 90 percent of Yosemite’s trails.
• In the Grand Canyon, about 75 percent of applicants seeking a permit for backpacking the three popular corridor trails, Bright Angel and South and North Kaibab, in spring or fall will fail to get a permit. Put differently, there’s about four times more demand for the three backcountry campgrounds on the corridor trails than there is availability.
• In Mount Rainier, close to half of permit seekers want to backpack the Wonderland Trail. The park has campsite capacity to grant about 900 permits annually for the entire Wonderland, while historically three times as many people have sought a permit for the full Wonderland (and that number is likely growing). But those 900 permits represent less than 25 percent of the approximately 4,000 backpacking permits issued annually.
• In Great Smoky Mountains, shelters along the Appalachian Trail are far and away the most popular—and that’s the park’s busiest trail—but backcountry campsites elsewhere in the park are much easier to reserve.

But many backcountry areas even in popular parks see far less demand for permits, such as northern Yosemite and a hike I consider Yosemite’s best-kept secret backpacking trip; numerous trails in Glacier including sections of the Continental Divide Trail; the Grand Canyon’s Escalante Route, Gems Route, Royal Arch Loop, and Clear Creek Trail and Utah Flats Route; Mount Rainier’s Northern Loop; the Maze District in Canyonlands; and a gorgeous swath of the High Sierra in Sequoia National Park, among numerous examples. I even enjoyed solitude on most of a solo, 34-mile loop in the Great Smoky Mountains—during the October peak foliage season.

Go where others don’t.
See “Big Scenery, No Crowds: 12 Top Backpacking Trips For Solitude.”

#5 Think Small

Keeping your party small—at two to four people or even solo—can increase your odds of landing a permit in parks where permit quotas are based on the number of campers in an area each night or departing from each trailhead daily.

Glacier’s backcountry campsites are sized for a party of four people; in a park where it’s already very hard to get a permit, larger parties face much higher hurdles to getting one than a group of four or fewer. In Mount Rainier and the Maze District of Canyonlands, standard parties are limited to five people. In Yosemite, permits are issued according to a maximum quota of hikers starting at each trailhead in the park—and it’s common for quotas at popular trailheads to winnow down to just one, two or three spots available on some dates.

Most parks limit the number of people allowed on one standard permit, often to six to eight; otherwise, it’s considered a group permit, and there may be fewer campsites for large groups.

Insider Tip

While it’s hard to get a permit to dayhike Yosemite’s Half Dome, it’s probably less difficult to add Half Dome to your backpacking permit because many more people attempt to reserve dayhiking permits than backcountry permits. See “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite.”

#6 Camp Outside the Park

National parks often border on other public lands, like national forests, where there’s typically no limit on the number of backpackers—which may give you campsite options when sites or camping areas within park boundaries are full on your trip dates. For instance, Alaska Basin, along the Teton Crest Trail, is not within Grand Teton National Park; so if you can’t get a permit to spend a night on Death Canyon Shelf in the park (a gorgeous spot and one of my all-time favorite backcountry campsites), Alaska Basin is a very nice alternative and may fit neatly into an itinerary for which you have the other camping zones you need inside park boundaries.

At other parks, like Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, you can start your trip in a national forest wilderness area—which, in the High Sierra, are just as spectacular as the parks—and permits issued by those national forests are valid for continuing a multi-day hike into either park. That may increase your chances of getting a permit to backpack in the park. Keep in mind that advance permit reservations are needed in many of those national forests, too, often made months ahead of your trip dates.

See my stories “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail” and “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit.”

Hike all of “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

#7 Try For a Walk-In Permit

If all else fails, show up at the park at least a couple of hours before the backcountry office opens and try to get a front spot in line for a walk-in, or first-come permit. Parks hold a percentage of permits for walk-in backpackers, issuing those usually no more than a day in advance. The percentage of permits set aside for walk-in backpackers varies greatly between parks. As examples, Grand Teton keeps two-thirds of available campsites for walk-ins, in Yosemite it’s 40 percent, and in Glacier it’s 30 percent of campsites.

Insider Tip

Start a trip from a less-popular trailhead and you might be able to land campsites in more-popular areas later in your trip.

The difficulty of landing a first-come permit varies during the peak hiking seasons. Since Grand Teton sets aside two-thirds of available permits for walk-in backpackers, chances are relatively good, especially if you’re flexible about your itinerary and accept what’s available—and any Tetons hike is great. At Zion, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Denali, and Everglades, you might not score a permit to start that same day, but Grand Canyon has a wait list—get on it.

If you don’t get one of the available permits the first day you show up, you will have to return each morning until you do.

Yosemite makes 40 percent of permits available up to seven days in advance of a trip start date—and that’s the correct way to get a walk-in permit there. The park warns at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm: “Do not arrive at Yosemite expecting to get a walk-up wilderness permit. While any unreserved permits will be available in person at wilderness centers on the start date of the trip, few, if any, unused permits will be available.”

See my story “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit.”

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#8 Go Outside Peak Season

I’ve always been amazed at how few backpackers there are in the Tetons in September, when, while it could snow, you can more often enjoy perfect weather. In Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, at lower elevations in Olympic and North Cascades, and sometimes at Mount Rainier and Rocky Mountain, good hiking weather can extend into October. At Sequoia-Kings Canyon, the quota season for permits ends on the Saturday between Sept. 23 and 29; if you have a good forecast after those dates, you can get a last-minute permit.

I backpacked Zion’s hugely popular Narrows and dayhiked The Subway (which requires a permit that’s hard to get) in early November in very pleasant weather (albeit short days) and low water (a plus); I saw a good forecast and grabbed a permit because there was availability at that time of year, when just a week or two earlier all permits were undoubtedly reserved. Good weather and hiking conditions can also last into late autumn and return by late spring in Great Smoky Mountains.

In mountain parks, the most popular season extends from early or mid-July to mid-September or later. In desert parks like Grand Canyon and Zion, it’s April, May, September, and October. Although summers are too hot for backpacking, watching for a good forecast and going in early spring or late fall means you will have a much easier time getting a permit.

Are you a fan of the beautiful photos you see at The Big Outside? Click here now to get professional-quality prints of this blog’s most inspiring images!

#9 Go to a Less-Popular Park

Okay, this tip and the next one don’t help you land a permit for a popular hike—but they do offer excellent alternatives if you fail to get that desired permit. National parks that are off the radar of most backpackers are never a disappointment. At two of my favorite Western parks, North Cascades and Capitol Reef, walk-in permits are relatively easy to obtain (although North Cascades does accept reservations for popular areas).

See some of Yosemite’s best scenery on any of “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite.”

#10 Dayhike It

When all efforts to secure a permit to camp in the backcountry fail, ask yourself: Is it possible to dayhike all or part of my route or another trail in the same area?

It’s often easier to hike a long distance in one day than it is to carry a heavy backpack a shorter distance. Choose well-maintained, well-graded trails and keep your pack light, and if you have the stamina for it and can average even a reasonable two mph pace over a 10-hour day, you can cover 20 miles.

If I were to add an eleventh tip, it would be this: When your first attempt fails, find another trip to do that year instead, and try again the next year. Wherever you go, the effort to plan and pull off that adventure will pay off.

See the All Trips List and All National Park Trips page at The Big Outside.

See also all stories with my expert tips, including “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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If hiking, backpacking, and climbing from spring through fall teaches us the fundamentals of layering our clothing for comfort in variable weather, the backcountry in winter confers a graduate degree in layering. In mild temperatures, getting wet with perspiration or precipitation merely risks discomfort. In freezing temps, it can quickly lead to hypothermia and actually become life-threatening.

This article offers expert advice on how to choose a specific, personalized layering system for different exertion levels and body types in backcountry in winter. Drawn from my four decades of experience backpacking, Nordic and backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, climbing, camping, and trail running in winter—including 10 years as the Northwest Editor and lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—these tips go beyond the usual layering advice to help you stay comfortable and safe by customizing clothing systems according to activity and body type.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

A layering system is simply the clothing layers you wear outdoors, and we all understand that dressing in layers allows us to make adjustments—adding and removing layers—as needed for changing conditions. But temperatures near and below freezing compound the challenge of dressing comfortably during exertion, when our bodies sweat, because damp clothing conducts heat from your body, and cold air rapidly accelerates that cooling effect—potentially to a dangerous degree.

See “12 Pro Tips For Staying Warm Outdoors in Winter.”

Choosing a Layering System

Three variables dictate the layers you need:

• The ambient conditions you expect to encounter—temperature range, wind, and precipitation—as well as how terrain and vegetation cover affect your exposure to the weather: You’re more protected from wind and weather in the forest than above treeline. But a shaded valley bottom with no direct sunlight, where the coldest air pools on a calm day, can feel colder than the warm sunshine and calm air higher up.

• Your level of exertion, whether moderate (downhill or backcountry skiing or riding, ski touring, or snowshoeing) or highly aerobic (fast Nordic skiing, trail running).

• Your body type and metabolism, or more simply, how easily you get cold.

Think of those variables on a sliding scale. As we all understand, you need warmer layers as temperatures and exertion level drop. But your choice of specific garments will also depend on your body and activity, and some apparel can cross over between the two types of layering systems (explained below).

See “The Best Gloves For Winter—and All Seasons” and “The Best Mittens For Winter”
for both high-exertion and moderate-exertion activities.

Base Layers for Winter

Whatever your exertion level, you want next-to-skin tops and bottoms that do two things:

1. Wick moisture off your skin quickly.

2. Provide at least the minimum amount of warmth you need for the conditions and your body.

In winter, those two traits become especially important. A top that’s too light reduces your layering system’s versatility by forcing you to rely only on your insulation layer for warmth—and insulation that’s warm enough for the coldest temps you face, as it should be, may be too much at other times.

Start your layering system smartly with
the best base layers for being active outdoors.

On the other hand, you also don’t want your base layer top to make you overheat, which can happen in the warmest circumstances you might encounter—such as skiing or snowshoeing uphill in sunshine, calm air, and temps around or above freezing. It’s also possible to overheat when moving uphill in temps just below freezing and snow falling hard enough that it requires you to wear a shell jacket. In that situation, an insulation layer may be too warm, so you need a base layer under that shell that provides adequate warmth.

You can also combine two base layers, a lightweight one and a midweight, giving you another possible layering adjustment to deal with fluctuating temps. (Or you can moderate your pace, which is another of my “12 Pro Tips For Staying Warm Outdoors in Winter.”) But peeling off and putting on base layers is less convenient in winter than in summer—especially in falling snow or when you’re wearing an avalanche beacon. Better to have one base layer (or two) that does the job.

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Pants for the Backcountry in Winter

We swap out top layers in winter, but not our bottoms. Depending, of course, on the activity and conditions, we generally wear one or two bottom layers and do not change them while outside. Consequently, our pants or bottoms must be chosen specifically for the activity and conditions.

Here’s what to look for:

• For trail running in moderately cold temps (around freezing to 40s F), I often wear running shorts over compression shorts or three-quarter-length tights (which reach to the top of the calves and cover the knees) with compression calf sleeves or socks; or lightweight, highly breathable, fast-wicking tights.

• When Nordic skiing, I favor lightweight soft-shell pants that breathe well, block some wind (for skiing downhill), shed snow, and offer a bit more warmth than tights. This type of pant crosses over well to three-season hiking and climbing in the mountains, too.

• For backcountry skiing or snowshoeing, I want more substantial pants that still breathe well—typically soft-shell—but are designed to keep snow out of ski boots (with an internal gaiter) and deliver a bit more warmth and weather protection.

Which puffy should you buy? See “The 12 Best Down Jackets” and
“How You Can Tell How Warm a Down Jacket Is.”

Two Types of Layering Systems for Winter

When it comes to a shell and insulation, most people will employ one of two different types of layering systems in temperatures from just above to well below freezing:

1. Layering for moderate-exertion activities of anywhere from an hour to all day, or even multiple days if you’re staying in a backcountry cabin or yurt or winter camping. That demands a versatile system, with three or more layers, that allows adjustments dictated by changing conditions.

2. Layering for high-exertion activities, which are usually of shorter duration—a few hours or less—and often may not involve making adjustments, such as when Nordic skiing or trail running.

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The Best Moderate-Exertion Layering System

If your primary winter activities are backcountry skiing or ski touring, snowshoeing, or hiking, you need a layering system with great versatility, which usually means three types of layers: base, middle or insulating layer, and shell.

This could consist of just three pieces, and at times, you might only wear one layer over your base top: insulation for warmth when it’s not precipitating, or a shell to fend off falling snow when you’re working hard enough to stay warm without insulation. You might, of course, wear two base layers (one lightweight, one warmer) or even a combined vest and insulating jacket as “middle” layers, with or without a shell.

Want to hike the Teton Crest Trail, John Muir Trail, or another trip?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get elsewhere.

Insulation The classic middle layer is critical because it provides most of your layering system’s warmth. It should also breathe well, because your outer/shell layer will already be the least-breathable piece of the system; more than one layer with limited breathability can quickly start feeling clammy. The good news is that there’s an ever-expanding array of options in insulating layers that breathe well, some of which also cut some wind. Your middle layer will many times pull double duty as an outer layer when you don’t need a shell.

Shell In winter temps from above freezing down into single digits or below zero Fahrenheit, I want a shell jacket with superior breathability, because I can overheat skiing uphill in the backcountry (or even skiing downhill in deep powder), but also built to repel hours of falling snow and block most wind, with an adjustable, brimmed hood that keeps wind and precipitation off my face. While not many years ago, these fully technical shell jackets fell on either side of a fine line between soft shell (highly breathable but not fully waterproof) and hard shell (fully waterproof but not quite as breathable), today you’ll find shells that blur that distinction, with the supple feel and breathability of a traditional soft shell while delivering fully waterproof performance.

Lastly, for multi-hour or multi-day adventures deep in the backcountry in winter, far from the nearest road, prudence dictates having a warm puffy jacket both to prevent you from rapidly cooling off during short rests, and in case of an emergency. The best are stuffed with enough insulation to keep you warm when stationary in temps well below freezing; have a hood that closes snugly around your noggin (and in some cases, over a helmet); and have properties that help them repel moisture and falling snow, like a DWR (durable water-resistant treatment) on the shell, and synthetic or hydrophobic (water-resistant) down insulation.

Plan your next great backpacking trip in Yosemite, Grand Teton,
and other parks using my expert e-books.

The Best High-Exertion Layering System

If your winter sport of choice involves sweating and breathing hard, like running and Nordic skiing or even power hiking, fabric breathability becomes the top priority in your outer layer—you need to dump as much of the moisture your body is producing as possible, to avoid getting too wet. Your jacket should also have enough water resistance to not soak through in light rain or snow, but a fully waterproof-breathable jacket is typically overkill, because it’s not nearly as breathable as a water-resistant shell and usually heavier. Besides, in temps below freezing, you don’t need a waterproof jacket; a water-resistant shell can shed falling snow.

This layering system usually consists simply of an adequately warm, often midweight base layer and a lightweight, very breathable jacket. Occasionally, I’ll wear a lightweight base layer under a midweight, when I need a little extra warmth, because for these activities, I’m not wearing an avalanche beacon or likely to make layering adjustments.

A Tip About Hoods

Most of the time, I like having any kind of hood on a jacket—and I definitely want an adjustable, helmet-compatible, full-coverage hood on a shell for multi-hour activities like skiing or snowshoeing. But understand the pros and cons to having a hooded middle layer.

Hoods come in basically two styles:

1. Very close-fitting, non-adjustable, usually elasticized hoods intended to just provide some added warmth and good breathability, but minimal wind and weather protection. They are usually found on insulating layers or lightweight jackets and designed to fit under a ski or climbing helmet.

2. Adjustable, “fully technical” hoods on a shell that deliver complete weather protection and fit over a helmet or any hat.

While there are advantages to having an insulating layer with a close-fitting hood for warmth (type 1 above) as well as a fully technical hood on your shell (type 2), if your system has more than one hood, make sure they fit well together when on and off your head. For the most part, insulated jackets have either a close-fitting hood or none; but some insulated hoods are bulky and don’t fit compatibly with all shell hoods. Two high-volume hoods are too many. Test them together.

Be sure to read my “12 Pro Tips For Staying Warm Outdoors in Winter” and see all reviews of outdoor apparel at The Big Outside.

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For backpackers, the Teton Crest Trail really delivers it all: beautiful lakes, creeks, and waterfalls, high passes with sweeping vistas, endless meadows of vibrant wildflowers, a good chance of seeing wildlife like elk and moose, some of the best campsites you will ever pitch a tent in, and mind-boggling scenery just about every step of the way. And it’s a relatively beginner-friendly trip of 40 miles or less, which most people can hike in four to five days.

No wonder it’s so enormously popular—and there’s so much competition for backcountry permits.

In this story, I will offer tips on how to maximize your chances of getting a permit to backpack the Teton Crest Trail, sharing expertise I’ve acquired from at least two dozen trips in the Tetons and several on the Teton Crest Trail over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

See my story from my most-recent trip on it, “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” which requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including basic information on planning a TCT backpacking trip. For much more information and expert tips on planning this trip, get my top-selling e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

I’ve also helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in the Tetons and elsewhere, answering all of their questions and customizing an itinerary ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you.

Please share any thoughts or questions about this story, or your own tips, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Apply the First Day Possible in January

For backpacking trips between May 1 and Oct. 31, permit reservations can be made at recreation.gov starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, 2026, and up to two days before your trip start date. But go online to make your reservation right at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on the day reservations open because most campsites that are available to reserve, especially along the Teton Crest Trail, get booked up for the entire summer very quickly, often within minutes. Find more information at nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/bcres.htm.

This point cannot be overemphasized: Given the huge demand for reservations and the fact that they get booked up so quickly, there’s effectively just one day every year—and for all practical purposes, just one brief window that may only last minutes—when you can reserve a permit for backpacking the Teton Crest Trail. Be prepared to reserve one then.

See my story “A Teton Crest Trail Permit Shouldn’t Be So Hard to Get.”

Click here now to get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

Be Flexible With Your Dates and Itinerary

As I write in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” the single most-effective strategy for maximizing your chances of getting a permit for a popular trip during its peak season is to have flexibility with your dates and itinerary.

When going through the Grand Teton National Park backcountry permit reservation at recreation.gov , you will be able to check availability in real time for each camping zone on specific dates; thus, you will either finish the process with a permit, or you will be unable to finish the process and obtain a permit due to lack of availability on your dates.

Plan in advance how far you want to walk each day and begin the process with a specific, day-to-day itinerary planned out—but also with a range of possible starting dates and camping zone options.

Many backpackers will find hiking eight to 10 miles per day moderately difficult on the Teton Crest Trail—but the TCT is accessed via trails up canyons on the park’s east and west sides, with backpackers primarily using (from south to north) Granite, Death, Cascade, and Paintbrush canyons on the east. The topography generally creates a strenuous uphill day (or two) at the beginning of a trip and a long descent at the trip’s end. Some backpackers may want to build in short days, which also creates time for side hikes.

Select a Mountain Camping Zone for each night in the backcountry. The camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail within Grand Teton National Park are spaced out at easy to moderate distances for most backpackers to hike in a day; some, like the zones in the North and South Forks of Cascade Canyon, are close enough to provide relatively short hiking days. Keep in mind that each camping zone is roughly a few miles long, so where you camp within each zone will determine each day’s actual hiking mileage.

See a basic map of camping zones in the park’s backcountry camping brochure and my story “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites” for my two favorite areas to camp along the Teton Crest Trail.

I suggest side hikes and several itinerary options in my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park,” which provides great detail on everything you need to know to plan and pull off this trip, including when and how to get a permit.

Get the right gear for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

While your permit designates a specific camping zone each night, you are not assigned a specific site; you can choose any unoccupied campsite when you arrive in each zone. The boundaries of the camping zones are marked by small signs along the trail. In some zones, like the North Fork Cascade Canyon, individual campsites are marked by signs; in others, like Death Canyon Shelf, there are not marked sites, but you can select from numerous, established sites that have clearly been used before, to minimize impact.

There is a $20 non-refundable fee if you obtain a permit plus $7 per person per night. 

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail.
Want my help with yours? Find out more here.

Keep Your Group Small

Grand Teton National Park issues permits for standard campsites for backpacking parties up to six people; parties of seven to 12 must reserve the group site in each zone. Whether making a permit reservation in January or trying to get a walk-in permit (see below), keeping your party smaller than seven will improve your chances of getting a permit in the zones of your choice, because the park limits the total number of people permitted nightly for each zone.

Try for a Walk-In Permit

You didn’t plan months in advance and now it’s too late to reserve a permit for camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail? There is a last resort: get a walk-in (or first-come) permit.

The park allows reservations for only about one-third of permits in advance—leaving two-thirds of backcountry camping available each night during the hiking season for people seeking walk-in permits, issued no more than one day in advance of starting a trip. Naturally, there’s high demand for walk-in permits. Show up at a park backcountry desk (there’s one in the park’s Craig Thomas Discovery & Visitor Center in Moose) at least an hour and ideally two or more hours before it opens, to get a spot near the front of the line.

Arrive there with a preferred hiking itinerary planned, including where you’d like to start and finish and camp each night, plus optional itineraries, and talk to a ranger about what’s available. You might get lucky and score a permit to start the same day. But expect to have to wait a day—if you’re fortunate enough to get a walk-in permit.

You can get the required bear canister on loan for free at the backcountry desk if you don’t have one. (See my favorite bear canister in my review of essential backpacking gear accessories.)

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Go Outside Peak Season

I’ve always been amazed at how few backpackers there are in the Tetons in September, when you can often enjoy perfect weather. The peak season for backpacking runs from whenever the higher sections of trail and the passes become mostly snow-free, usually by mid-July, through around Labor Day.

That’s also the period with the greatest demand for backcountry permits.

Although there is the possibility of your plans being ruined by an unusual early-season snowfall, choose dates after Labor Day and your chances of getting a permit are much better.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “American Classic: The Teton Crest Trail,” “Walking Familiar Ground: Reliving Old Memories and Making New Ones on the Teton Crest Trail,” and “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” plus all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail and about Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

My Custom Trip Planning page explains how you can get my personal help planning this trip or any trip you read about at my blog.

After the Teton Crest Trail, hike the other nine of
“America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Staying warm while skiing or riding at resorts or in the backcountry, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, or running in winter is a constant challenge: We sweat, our clothes get damp, and then we have periods of reduced exertion like riding a ski lift or walking or running downhill, when we cool down. But as humans have known for thousands of years, it’s a matter of smartly managing and insulating our body’s furnace (and today we have much better technical clothing than animal skins).

As a longtime skier (downhill, Nordic, and backcountry), hiker, and trail runner who runs hot when moving, cools off quickly, and gets cold fingers and toes easily—just like many people—I’ve learned many tricks over four decades of getting outdoors in frigid temperatures and working for many years as a past field editor for Backpacker magazine and running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

In fact, my coldest winter experience was camping on a couple of nights that dropped to -30° F/-34° C in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. (I don’t recommend it.) Most people, of course, don’t face extreme conditions in winter. But even in the temperatures most of us encounter in whatever form of recreation we enjoy in the coldest season, we’ve all known moments of wishing we felt warmer—and sometimes those moments last longer than we’d prefer. Follow these tips and you will be vastly more comfortable when enjoying the outdoors in winter.

Please tell me what you think of my tips, ask any questions, or share your own tricks in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Thanks.

1. Move

Clothing does not produce heat, it only helps trap the heat that your body produces and protects you from wind and precipitation. Anytime you get cold, the single best strategy for rewarming is to start moving or increase your pace. Watch others in your group for signs that they’re cold, especially children, who have less body fat and mass and cool off more quickly than adults. When you take a break, make it short, to avoid cooling off. If someone has visibly cooled off faster than others during a break, have that person start moving ahead of the group; you will regroup before long.

What touches your skin matters. See my picks for the best base layers for any season.

2. Pace Yourself

Minimizing how much you perspire in cold temperatures is critical to keeping warm, because wet clothing conducts heat away from your body. Try to set a pace that keeps you warm without causing you to overheat and perspire heavily. I try to strike a balance between producing enough heat to keep my toes and fingers warm without sweating copiously in my core; the optimum pace usually accelerates my heart and respiration rates to comfortable levels without me struggling for breaths.

If sweating is unavoidable because of your activity level, there may still be moments when that level drops—such as a transition from moving uphill to moving downhill. Try to smooth out that transition by slowing to a pace at which you stop or reduce your sweating but still generate enough body heat to at least begin drying your base layers. Drier base layers will help prevent a sudden chill when your activity level declines. (When camping in winter, I do that about 20 minutes before stopping to camp.)

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3. Adjust Layers

Sometimes, whether climbing uphill on backcountry skis or snowshoes or in high-exertion activities like running or Nordic skiing, it’s impossible to avoid sweating, so adjust your clothing layers. For example, if there’s no wind and you’re exerting hard, you may only need a breathable insulation layer (like fleece) over a fast-drying, wicking base layer. If it’s windy, you may want a waterproof-breathable hard shell over a midweight insulation layer, like a fleece or a vest, to prevent you from cooling down.

For a high-exertion, high-speed activity like Nordic skiing, where your motion creates wind against your body, or a moderate-level activity like snowshoeing, wear a somewhat windproof and more breathable soft shell or a jacket with breathable insulation, to prevent excessive sweating and move moisture off your base layer more quickly.

Find the right outer layer for your purposes and you may only have to adjust layers infrequently.

Keep your fingers warm and happy.
See “The Best Gloves For Winter—and All Seasons” and “The Best Mittens for Winter.”

4. Eat More

Your body needs more fuel in freezing temperatures to keep your internal furnace burning when you’re out for more than about two hours. Eat high-fat snacks like chocolate, cheese, and nuts, because fat is a slow-burning fuel that keeps your body going for the long haul, which becomes even more important in the cold. Keep snacks handy so you can refuel frequently; feeling a chill or fatigue is often an indicator that your body needs food. If you eat energy bars for convenience (especially when wearing gloves), choose ones that pack plenty of protein and calories.

Be smart about winter. See “How to Dress in Layers for Winter in the Backcountry.”

5. Drink Up

In cold, dry conditions typical of winter, you become dehydrated more quickly than you realize, even if you’re not sweating much. Drink frequently. Carry a thermos with a hot drink. Add sugar to it (for quick energy) or a little dollop of butter for flavor and fat.

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6. Don’t Freeze Your Water

I use a hydration bladder in temps down into the mid-20s Fahrenheit without the hose or mouthpiece freezing—if I keep the pack on my body (which helps warm the hose, especially when it’s running through a tunnel in a shoulder strap of my pack, a design feature of many packs made for winter activities). I also make a point of blowing back into the hose after each time I drink, to clear water from the mouthpiece and hose, which are more likely to freeze than the water reservoir inside the pack, which is close to your back and warmed by your body heat.

But in colder temps, the hose will likely freeze, so use wide-mouth water bottles or double-wall bottles like Hydroflasks instead. Store uninsulated bottles in an insulated sleeve inside your pack, upside-down, so that when you hold them upright to drink from them, any ice that has formed will be at the bottom of the bottle. When camping in freezing temps, don’t leave a water bottle out or it might freeze solid (and take hours to thaw if it does at all). Either empty your bottles, or preferably, fill them with hot water and put them inside your sleeping bag as heaters.

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Today, after many return trips throughout Yosemite, I’ve learned that one can spend a lifetime wandering the more than 700,000 acres of wilderness in America’s third national park and not get tired of it.

But what do you need to know about taking a Yosemite backpacking trip? This article will answer all of your questions on how to go about planning and executing what is unquestionably one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips—including tips on obtaining a wilderness permit that can be very hard to get. The information to follow draws on my numerous trips backpacking, dayhiking, and rock climbing there over more than 30 years, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor with Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite” and all stories at this blog about backpacking in Yosemite and in the High Sierra. Most of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my tips and information on planning each hike. See also my expert e-books to three great multi-day hikes in Yosemite and other parks, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

I’ve helped many readers plan backpacking trips in Yosemite, on the John Muir Trail, and throughout the High Sierra, answering all of their questions (and many they didn’t think to ask) and customizing an itinerary ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you and read hundreds of comments from readers like you who’ve received my custom trip planning.

Click on any photo below to read about that trip. Please share your questions, personal stories, or tips about backpacking in Yosemite in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

First: It’s Not as Crowded as You Think

Yosemite will far surpass your expectations in many ways—and it can blow up the stereotype of hugely popular national parks. The first is the notion that it’s overrun with people. I can speak to that question from deep personal experience: I’ve hiked many days there, during the peak season, encountering few other people.

While certain spots and trails get insanely busy at times—think: Yosemite Valley, the Mist Trail, Half Dome—most of the park’s backcountry offers a surprising amount of solitude. The truth is that only about 10 percent of the park’s 750 miles of trails accounts for about 80 percent of all trail use: mostly the John Muir Trail from Happy Isles to Donohue Pass, Little Yosemite Valley (which alone accounts for almost 20 percent of backcountry use) and the Sierra High Camps loop. And the average length of backpacking trips is just two nights.

Consequently, as a career backcountry ranger in Yosemite once told me, “There are areas of the park where you will see very few people.”

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How to Get a Yosemite Wilderness Permit

As in most mountainous Western national parks (like Grand Teton, Glacier, Mount Rainier,, and others), Yosemite permits are in high demand for dates in July, August, and September. First key step for success: Know when to reserve a permit. Fortunately, Yosemite established in 2022 a sensible and user-friendly system created to handle and spread out enormous demand.

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip in Yosemite.
Want my help with yours? Find out more here.

Yosemite issues wilderness permits based on daily trailhead quotas (with special rules for the John Muir Trail) through a rolling lottery that provides weeklong reservation periods.

Enter a lottery up to 24 weeks in advance of your desires trip start date and you will be notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes. Thus, if you strike out in one lottery period, you can apply in any subsequent lottery period—so it makes sense to enter the lottery for the earliest possible date you could take the trip.

Sixty percent of permit reservations are available by lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday.

See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit.”

Forty percent of wilderness permits become available for reserving at recreation.gov/permits/445859 starting seven days and up to three days before a trip start date.

See “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.” Find more information at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm.

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Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Backpacking Trip,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking tips, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

See these articles at The Big Outside that may be useful for a Yosemite hike:

“Bear Essentials: How to Store Food When Backcountry Camping”
“8 Pro Tips For Avoiding Blisters”
“How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be”
“12 Expert Tips for Finding Solitude When Backpacking”
“How to Plan Food for a Backpacking Trip”
“10 Pro Tips For Staying Warm in a Sleeping Bag”
“5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking”

See all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

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Do you get outside as much as you’d like, either locally or on longer trips away from home? Who does? For many of us, work, home, and other responsibilities erect roadblocks to getting out as much as we’d like—even as spending time outdoors feels ever more urgent and necessary. This story shares 10 simple strategies to help you sate your appetite for getting outdoors, both on short outings near home and longer trips away from home.

While my work as an outdoors writer and photographer for more than three decades—including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—enables me to spend a lot of time outside every year, like most people, I serve many masters and balance many commitments.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

In fact, my professional need to get out frequently on trips—along with my desire to get out regularly on shorter, local hikes, runs, cycling, and skiing for anywhere from an hour to a day—has, over the years, taught me many tricks for accomplishing those objectives within the framework of a busy life as a working parent with a spouse who works.

In the past year, for instance, I took several backpacking and hiking trips—some of them with various combinations of my family (see tip no. 2 below)—including backpacking in the Grand Canyon in late March and in April in southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon and dayhiking in Capitol Reef National Park; yet another incredible backpacking trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains in August; a six-day solo hike mostly on a section of the Continental Divide Trail in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in September; and a three-week family trip to New Zealand back in late autumn 2024 to trek the Routeburn and Milford tracks and do some mountain biking and dayhiking—including arguably the best dayhike in New Zealand, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Watch for my upcoming stories about these trips that I haven’t yet written about.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

But the point is not whether you’re getting out as much as someone else or where you go—it’s whether you’re doing what’s necessary to satisfy your need for the release and happiness the outdoors provides, or at least come as close to that ideal as possible.

In many respects, most people reading this story face similar challenges and obstacles and I think you will find that these tips can help improve your life. Please share your thoughts on them, or your own tricks for getting out more, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

No. 1 Plan Trips Weeks or Months in Advance

When was the last time you had the freedom to take off on the spur of the moment? Probably been years, right?

Many people lack that flexibility, which means that your outdoor recreation, like your work, has to be scheduled or it doesn’t happen. That’s true whether it’s your regular, short local hikes and other outings or longer trips backpacking, hiking, and camping in many national parks, such as Grand Teton, Yosemite, Glacier, and Grand Canyon, or an international adventure like trekking hut to hut in Iceland (lead photo at top of story), which require making reservations months in advance.

I usually have at least three trips in some planning stage; and by late April every year, I typically have blocks of my summer booked with trips long and short. For years, I’ve also maintained a list of trip ideas with some details or links to information; that document is now nearly 23,000 words and the list keeps getting longer, not shorter.

I need to get busy. So do you.

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No. 2 Involve Your Family

As a parent, the best way to get outdoors more is to get your kids involved at a very young age—carrying them on hikes and other activities before they’re walking, then letting them move under their own power as soon as they can walk. Since our kids were babies, we’ve taken them on adventures that were realistic for their ages and abilities. Now young adults, they have—to our joy, for many reasons—grown into enthusiastic and very capable backpackers, climbers, skiers, and whitewater boaters.

I believe part of the reason for that is that, for years, I took annual father-son and father-daughter trips, which my kids loved and looked forward to as much as I did—and we still do, even as they’ve become independent and busier with their own lives.

The benefits of that include creating additional opportunities for me to get outside and ingraining in our children a love for the outdoors that my wife and I have always shared.

Plus, by getting my family out as much as they’re willing to go, they occasionally don’t mind when I take off without them on a trip with friends (or maybe they’re just happy to get a break from me).

Like this tip? You may also like my “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids”
and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

No. 3 Get Organized

If the thought of packing up your gear for a weekend erects a mental hurdle to going, lower that hurdle. Get organized and efficient not just about packing for a trip, but also about storing gear after trips; having it ready to go helps you get out the door more quickly. Keep supplies like stove fuel and backpacking food on hand. That way, taking off for a night or two of camping or backpacking doesn’t feel like mobilizing an army.

Plan your next great backpacking trip in Yosemite, Grand Teton,
and other parks using my expert e-books.

No. 4 Be the Planner

Just about anyone appreciates much of the trip planning being done for them. I look at my list of trip ideas and propose specific adventures to my family and friends. By repeatedly coming up with ideas for great trips and facilitating them, I motivate my family and have cultivated a stable of capable, fun friends to choose from, depending on the nature of the trip.

While it requires some time from me, I enjoy thinking about and planning new adventures. Plus, when you’re taking the lead-planning role, other people are often willing to have duties delegated to them.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
Click here now to learn more.

No. 5 Build Extra Time Into a Business Trip

Whether it’s a week or more, a weekend, a day, or even a morning or afternoon before catching a flight home, when traveling for work, schedule time to get outside. Before you depart on the trip, find out about the local recreation options where you’re headed—the choices may pleasantly surprise you.

For example, on a visit to Joshua Tree National Park, I added two days to a business trip, and a good friend who lived in California was able to schedule a work trip to that area at the same time. We enjoyed bonus days hiking and rock climbing together without incurring more travel time or expense.

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No. 6 Get a Regular Partner

Self-motivating is hard. Find a partner for regular, local hikes, rides, or trail runs who’s compatible with your style and pace. Even better, find or organize a group of like-minded people who enjoy the same activities. Besides pushing each other to work a little harder, you’ll motivate one another to stick to the commitment.

No. 7 Schedule Your Weekly Outings

Don’t treat exercise and outdoor recreation as something you’ll get to at the end of the day or on the weekend if there’s time after everything else gets done—that’s the best way to ensure it doesn’t happen.

Schedule your regular, local outings during the week, like short hikes or trail runs, bike rides, and gym workouts, just like you schedule work or personal appointments.

Carve out time for it on your calendar—and promising a partner that you will be there (tip no. 6)—creates a stronger commitment to the activity and helps turn it into part of your regular routine. That’s one critical key to creating more satisfaction and happiness in your life.

Score a backcountry permit in popular parks like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Grand Teton
using my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

No. 8 Get Up Early

Whether I’m itching to knock off a quick hike that my family’s not interested in at the end of a vacation, or I’m trying to squeeze in a trail run or ride on a weekend at home, getting up early, before them, and getting it done fast has long been a strategy that works for me.

I’ve taken some really nice hikes in national parks—like the Eagle Peak Trail in Mount Rainier National Park (photo above), which I consider one of “The Best Uncrowded National Park Dayhikes”—and other places, that I would not have otherwise fit in, just by getting out really early. It’s also a cooler, often lovely time of day, when you might get the bonus of seeing wildlife or enjoying beautiful morning light.

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No. 9 Live Near Trails

Your ease of access to local trails and outdoor-recreation opportunities greatly affects how often you get outside. I’ve lived in rural areas where, ironically, I always had to drive to go hiking, trail running, or mountain biking. Now I live near the densely populated center of a city of over 200,000 people, but I can bike, run, or walk with minutes to access a trails network that spans over 200 miles.

While moving obviously isn’t an option for everyone, if you live inconveniently far from trails, bike paths, rivers, or other places where you enjoy outdoor recreation, maybe it’s just time to move closer. Or if you don’t have trails or parks near you, be an advocate for them with your local government.

Get the right gear for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

No. 10 Make a Deal With Your Spouse

My wife and I always gave each other the freedom to get out for daily exercise or occasional trips when our kids were little. Many parents find that’s a difficult stage in life, when you can easily fall off an exercise routine and not get outside much—and suddenly discover that five years have passed since you last got out on a real trip—unless you’re both willing to do these things separately, taking turns.

There’s a side benefit in that each of you will experience the rewards of some solo time with kids. If you don’t have children, you and your spouse may just not enjoy all the same activities or level of intensity. Give each other the space you each need to be happy.

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Have you been disappointed by backpacking trips that were too hot or too cold or too buggy or too crowded, or too hard or long or short, or where permits weren’t available for the hike you really wanted, or where you had sketchy creek or snow crossings or other scary hazards, or you missed the wildflowers or foliage season or didn’t see much wildlife?

If so, this story is going to help you solve those problems.

You can find abundant information online offering advice on how to plan a backpacking trip (including my 12 expert tips)—some of it good and some, frankly, not very thorough or simply clickbait created by sites lacking any expertise in backpacking. But there’s little advice out there on how to choose where to go backpacking—and many backpackers fail to consider key aspects of trips that greatly affect their experience: They follow an essentially backward decision-making process.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

While this may sound esoteric and irrelevant to you, I’ve learned that how you decide where to go greatly affects how well your trip goes—it really does matter. The tips below explain the thought process I follow that make my trips much more enjoyable and will do the same for you.

I’ve developed these trip-planning strategies over more than three decades and countless thousands of miles of backpacking all over the United States and around the world, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and now even longer running this blog.

That experience has not only convinced me that much of the success of any outdoors adventure comes down to everything you do before the trip—but it has also refined how I choose each of the numerous multi-day hikes I take every year.

Here’s what I mean by saying many backpackers follow a backward decision-making process: They pick a place they’re eager to explore—say, Yosemite, Glacier, or the Grand Canyon—and the dates that work for them. I do essentially the opposite: choosing from my long list of trip ideas (which is now over 23,000 words) by first considering which of them are best taken during the dates I can go.

See my story “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” my All Trips List for a long menu of adventures you can read and learn about at this blog, my expert e-books to numerous five-star backpacking trips, and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can give you a personalized plan for any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

Click on any photo in this story to read about that trip. And like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of my tips in this story is an exclusive benefit of having a paid subscription.

Got questions about my tips or any of your own to offer? Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

1. Pick the Right Time of Year

This seems obvious and yet many backpackers get this simple step wrong. My advice: Choose either a place appropriate for your dates or dates appropriate for where you want to go.

You can often find information online—such as at the website of the public land of interest to you—about climate and seasonal variables such as:

• Average high and low temperatures for each month, sometimes at multiple elevations.
• Average monthly precipitation and times of year when thunderstorms or snowfall occur.
• The hours of daylight on your planned dates.
• When snow melts out at higher elevations.
• When creeks and streams may be dangerous to cross (see my tips on fording streams).
• When biting insects are thickest.

Plan your next great backpacking trip using my expert e-books.

For instance, in the bigger mountains of the U.S. West, snow normally lingers at altitudes above roughly 8,000 feet until around mid-July, while lower elevations may be snow-free by mid- to late spring. Mosquitoes and other biting insects emerge right after the snow largely melts out and linger for several weeks—as do the wildflowers. Late summer often brings moderate temperatures, dry weather, and few bugs—and increasingly, as climate change worsens, wildfires, widespread smoke, and poor air quality and visibility. Foliage color arrives by early autumn and snow may return anytime between September (infrequently) and November (more lastingly).

In the desert Southwest, prime seasons for backpacking are spring and fall, but even within those seasons are micro-seasons that bring changes: temps reaching the most comfortable range and snow melting out by sometime between late March and early May (varying with elevation) and often growing hot by mid- to late May or early June; and pleasant temperatures returning by late September or early October. Late October and early November bring foliage color—accompanied by short, cooler days and sometimes scarcer water sources.

My expert e-books offer detailed advice about the best times of year for each trip and my Custom Trip Planning can help identify the very best time to go for the experience you’re seeking.

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2. Pick a Trip That’s Right for Your Party

A primary consideration in choosing where to backpack comes down to who your companions will be. An appropriate trip looks very different for a group of experienced, strong backpackers versus relative beginners or a young family.

Choose a trip that not only fits into your schedule—including travel time—but also whose length in days and miles matches the abilities and desires of your party.

The length of a multi-day hike will dictate the cumulative fatigue everyone feels (see my tips on training for a hike and on recovering from a hike) and possibly increase your chances of encountering bad weather or developing problems like blisters (see my tips on avoiding those).

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
Want my help with yours? Click here now.

The number of days you’re on the trail also dictates how much food weight you must carry—and at typically about two pounds of food per person per day, that adds up, especially if you will carry more than your share of your group’s gear or food weight, for instance, if you’re backpacking with young kids.

See my stories “How to Plan Food for a Backpacking Trip” and “Bear Essentials: How to Store Food When Backcountry Camping.”

Research any logistics specific to a place or trail, like a scarcity of water sources that may require you and others to carry extra water—which, at two pounds, two ounces per liter, gets heavy very rapidly—and whether bears pose a major concern and hard-sided canisters are required for food storage, which also adds weight and bulk to your pack.

Some places are relatively beginner-friendly, like southern Utah’s Coyote Gulch, Washington’s Olympic coast, and even some trails in Yosemite. In others, multi-day hikes tend to be moderately difficult overall but can have strenuous days, including Grand Teton, Glacier, Yosemite, and Zion national parks, Utah’s High Uintas, Nevada’s Ruby Crest Trail, and Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

Still other destinations present consistently strenuous and rugged hiking, such as Grand Canyon, North Cascades, Sequoia, and Mount Rainier national parks, Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail, and most of the High Sierra, Colorado Rockies, Wind River Range (lead photo at top of story), and New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

See my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

See my “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip”
and my very popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids.”

3. Is it Still Possible to Get a Permit?

Most national parks and some other public lands (like national forests in the High Sierra) issue a limited number of backcountry permits based on quotas and have systems for both reserving a permit weeks or months in advance of your trip dates and for acquiring a first-come or walk-in permit right before your trip (including Yosemite’s innovative system for reserving a permit two weeks in advance). An advance reservation obviously provides more assurance, while a walk-in permit is riskier and you may not get the itinerary you want.

A tip: When acting far in advance, consider applying for permits and trips in more than one park for the same dates—the cost is relatively low and that improves your chances of securing at least one assured trip.

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If you fail to reserve a permit, plan a trip that doesn’t require a permit reservation or where there are no limits on the number of people in the backcountry, as is true in many national forests and federal wilderness areas. You’ll find many options on the All Trips List at The Big Outside, including Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness, New Hampshire’s White Mountains and almost all of New England, Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, and Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness and Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail.

See my stories “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” “How to Get a Last-Minute National Park Backcountry Permit,” and “20 Great Backpacking Trips You Can Still Take” when you’re too late to get many permits.

Start out right. See “10 Perfect National Park Backpacking Trips for Beginners”
and “The 5 Southwest Backpacking Trips You Should Do First.”

Looking for the right gear for your backpacking trips? See The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of gear reviews and expert buying tips.

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First-time backpackers in the Grand Canyon quickly absorb two lessons about this one-of-a-kind place. Foremost, the canyon’s infinite vistas and deceptive scale, the beauty of desert oases and wildflower blooms, the peacefulness and quietude of some of the best wilderness campsites you will ever enjoy—all of these qualities will hook you forever.

And you learn how difficult it can be to get a permit for backpacking there.

In fact, so many people attempt to reserve a Grand Canyon backcountry permit that a high percentage of them fail every year—including up to 75 percent of people seeking nights at any or all of the three most popular backcountry campgrounds, Havasupai Gardens (formerly Indian Garden), Bright Angel, and Cottonwood campgrounds along the popular Bright Angel and North Kaibab corridor trails.

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This story explains the somewhat complex, multi-step process for obtaining a Grand Canyon backcountry permit reservation or getting a walk-in permit and shares strategies I have used to secure permits for several multi-day hikes in the Big Ditch—which I’ve revisited many times over more than three decades of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Since 2024, Grand Canyon National Park has issued backcountry permit reservations through a monthly early-access lottery at recreation.gov/permits/4675337 conducted four months in advance of the month you want to hike. See more details on how that works below.

Click on any photo to read about that trip. Please share your questions or experiences about backpacking in the Grand Canyon in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Decide Where You Want to Hike

First step: Research your route in advance, including how far you will hike each day and where you’d like to camp. A Grand Canyon permit requires specifying a camp location for each night, identified by the location name (such as a creek) and either a specific campground code or backcountry camping zone code shown on the interactive map at nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/useAreaMap.pdf.

Keep in mind that many of the canyon’s trails are rugged and feature significant elevation gain and loss; many people find their hiking speed slower here than in other places, especially anytime you have to carry extra water weight, and hot days can force you to hike very early and late and hunker down in shade during the heat of the day. Plan daily distances that make sense for your group.

Know where to find water sources, which are scarce, and some are seasonal.

Find descriptions of the park’s Backcountry Trails and Use Areas, including water sources, at nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/campsite-information.htm.

See all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside (which require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my planning tips for each trip) and check out my expert e-books to some of America’s best backpacking trips, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.” Those contain detailed hiking itineraries, expert planning and gear advice, on-the-ground knowledge, tips specific to getting a permit, and myriad other details relevant to taking a trip into the canyon.

Want my expert help custom planning your trip to ensure it’s as good as it can be? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you.

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When and How to Get a Permit

Since 2024, Grand Canyon National Park has issued about 80 percent of backcountry permits through a monthly, randomized early-access lottery at recreation.gov/permits/4675337.

One important detail remains unchanged under the new permit system: For the best chances of obtaining a permit reservation—especially for camps on any corridor trail (the Bright Angel or South or North Kaibab trails)—be ready to begin the permit process four months prior to the month in which you want to start a trip.

Enter the early-access lottery anytime during a two-week period that ends on the first of the month four months in advance of the month you’d like to hike—for example, between mid-November and Dec. 1 for a trip anytime in April and between mid-May and June 1 for October. See the chart showing dates to enter the lottery at recreation.gov/permits/4675337 and nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/backcountry-permit.htm.

Do your Grand Canyon hike right with these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim.”

The lottery only determines who gets awarded an early-access time to make a permit reservation; you won’t include any hiking itinerary details in your lottery entry. Every individual can enter only once per monthly lottery period, but all members of a party can enter it and see who obtains the best timeslot—and if multiple group members obtain a timeslot, all of them could try to reserve a permit.

Held on the 2^nd of every month, the lottery awards up to 750 applicants a date and time over the next couple of weeks when they can log in to their recreation.gov account and attempt to reserve one permit for a specific itinerary with designated campsites each night.

Each timeslot includes no more than 15 applicants and there are five timeslots per day (8am, 10am, noon, 2pm, and 4pm Mountain Standard Time; Arizona does not switch to Daylight Savings Time) over each early-access period.

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People with earlier lottery timeslots will obviously see more camping availability than those who draw a later time. You can check availability prior to your assigned date and time—a wise thing to do, to know what’s already not available, saving you time when you begin the application—but you cannot make a reservation until your timeslot. You can make a permit reservation anytime after your timeslot—but that only reduces your chances of success.

Key detail: The park expects that most of the 750 applicants awarded a lottery timeslot will get a permit—although popular camps and dates will definitely get reserved quickly.

Tip: The park has more backcountry campsites for “small” groups of up to six people than “large” groups of seven to 11 people. Keeping your group to no more than six increases your chances of obtaining a permit.

When you log in to make a permit reservation, recreation.gov shows backcountry campsite availability and processes reservations in real time, meaning that, if you succeed in assembling an itinerary with camps every night, you will immediately confirm and pay for a permit reservation. Under the previous system, where rangers manually processed thousands of faxed applications, applicants had to wait up to a month to learn whether they got a reservation.

The park designates some areas only suitable for backpackers with previous Grand Canyon backpacking experience, due to the difficulty of those routes. Those are categorized at recreation.gov under the Starting Areas “Requires Prev GC Experience” and “Requires Adv GC Experience or Unusual.” When selecting some of those options, you will be directed to call the park to speak with a ranger about booking that itinerary. See more details about which trails are recommended for second Grand Canyon backpacking trips under the Need to Know tab at recreation.gov/permits/4675337, and trail descriptions and more information about use areas and management zones at nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/campsite-information.htm.

The fee is $10 per permit plus $15 per person per night below the rim and $4 per person per night for backcountry areas above the rim. The fee for entering an early-access lottery is $10 (every time you enter a lottery) and that is applied to the permit cost if you succeed in making a reservation. Refunds are granted for partial or full permit cancellations made in recreation.gov before you print the backcountry permit (through recreation.gov) and at least 30 days before the permit start date.

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Second and Third Chances to Get a Permit

There’s a second phase of the permit process that creates another earlier access opportunity. Lottery applicants who are not among the 750 awarded a timeslot can apply for a reservation before they are opened to the public, from the 20th of the month or shortly before it until the end of the month.

Finally, on the first day of the subsequent month—for example, Jan. 1 for April start dates and July 1 for October dates—reservations will open for the public to check availability and reserve any remaining backcountry campsite spaces.

Given the sky-high demand for permits during the peak seasons of March through May and mid-September through mid-November—and the fact that the park issues 80 percent of available permits through reservations, a higher percentage than most parks—the early-access lottery will unquestionably offer the best chance of scoring a backcountry permit.

The lottery also eliminates the frantic scramble for permits that occurs with reservation systems that open to everyone at the same time on one day. In parks with that type of system, virtually all backcountry campsites get vacuumed up within minutes for the entire year, leaving countless people frustrated over seeing their chosen campsites suddenly become unavailable.

Find more information at nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/backcountry-permit-questions.htm.

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Plan Alternative Itineraries and Dates

As I suggest in my “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” if you want to backpack in the Grand Canyon during its peak seasons of spring and fall, begin your permit application with at least two itinerary options and a range of starting dates, in case your first itinerary and date choice are unavailable. Consider starting your hike midweek instead of on a weekend and selecting a route that’s less popular, remote, or difficult than your first or second choice.

Under the Grand Canyon’s previous permit system, some 75 percent of people who applied for a permit to backpack some combination the Bright Angel and South and North Kaibab trails were denied; it’s hard to imagine demand for those trails changing.

But you will find it easier to get a permit for the 29-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Grandview Point, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead, or any much more rugged and remote trip, like the 15-mile hike from New Hance Trailhead to Grandview Point, the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, the 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, the Clear Creek Trail or the off-trail Utah Flats Route, or some of the itineraries possible along the route I write about in my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

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Try For a Walk-in Permit

You didn’t make a permit reservation and you’re trying to plan a last-minute backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon? Although not easy to obtain, the park does set aside about 20 percent of available backcountry campsites for walk-in permits and issues a limited number of walk-in permits specifically for camping at Havasupai Gardens, Bright Angel, and Cottonwood campgrounds along the Bright Angel and North Kaibab corridor trails.

Note that the park doesn’t issue walk-in permits that include all three of those backcountry campgrounds. A walk-in permit on the North Rim gives you priority access to Cottonwood Campground but you will likely not be able to obtain a permit for Havasupai Gardens. Backpackers obtaining a permit on the South Rim will have priority access to Havasupai Gardens and likely not be able to obtain a permit for Cottonwood. Permits issued from either rim allow access to Bright Angel Campground.

That means that if you want to attempt a rim-to-rim hike over two or three days, you’ll have to get a walk-in permit that includes Bright Angel campground and/or Cottonwood and may need to possess the stamina (and a light pack) for at least one big day hiking from Bright Angel to either the South Rim or the North Rim.

Walk-in permits are issued only in person, no more than one day in advance, at both the South Rim (open year-round) and the North Rim (open May 15 to Oct. 31) Backcountry Information Center (BIC). The hours for both are 8 a.m. to noon and 1-5 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, including holidays. You might not obtain a last-minute permit the first time you visit a Backcountry Information Center; you may have to return the next day. Use the wait list to guarantee your position in line.

And there may be more than 20 percent of backcountry campsites available at any given time due to canceled permit reservations. Cancellations must be made at least 30 days before the permit date to get a refund, hopefully resulting in fewer permit holders canceling at the last minute and giving permit seekers expanded opportunity to claim cancelled camps and dates. Some 10 percent or more of permit reservations get canceled in a given year, according to these park statistics.

See my e-books “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside, and “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit.”

See also “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”  and all stories with expert backpacking and outdoor skills tips at The Big Outside.

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There are only three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and at some point, getting rained on when dayhiking or backpacking. As we all know, wet clothing conducts heat away from your body, making you colder. Staying as dry as possible while on the trail or in camp is key to staying warm in the backcountry when the weather turns wet—especially in temperatures below around 60° F and in wind, which swiftly chills your body. This article will help you enjoy a much more comfortable and pleasant backcountry adventure—even when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Many hikers mistakenly assume that all one needs to do when caught hiking in the rain is don a rain jacket—and sometimes, that is all you have to do. But in mild temperatures, even a high-quality waterproof-breathable shell can cause you to overheat and sweat a lot—especially when walking uphill and carrying a pack—making you wet from the inside rather than the outside. 

The key to staying as warm and dry as possible while hiking is learning the strategies for balancing your body’s heat production with the ambient weather conditions and your clothing layers.

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I’ve walked through countless downpours and long days of rain over three decades of dayhiking, backpacking, and climbing from the rainforests of the North Cascades and Olympic National Park to the Wind River Range (lead photo at top of story), High Sierra, White Mountains, the Tour du Mont Blanc, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand and many other places—formerly as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years and much longer running this blog.

After that many trail miles in miserably wet weather, you either learn some tricks for staying dry or you give this stuff up, and I couldn’t give it up.

The 12 simple tips below will help you stay dry and warm through the wettest adventures. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of my tips in this story requires a paid subscription to this blog.

Click on any photo in this story to read about that trip. Please share any tips of your own or your questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story; I try to respond to all comments.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

1. Carry an Umbrella

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? So why don’t more hikers and backpackers carry one when they expect rain (as my daughter is in this photo from Italy’s Dolomite Mountains)?

A lightweight, backcountry umbrella can be very effective at keeping rain off you, as long as it’s not so windy that the umbrella keeps getting inverted or the wind snaps its arms. I recommend the Six Moon Designs Silver Shadow Carbon Trekking Umbrella ($45, 6.8 oz.) or another Six Moon Designs umbrella, Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil Trekking Umbrella ($50, 8.5 oz.), and the Gossamer Gear Lightrek Hiking (Chrome) Umbrella ($43, 6.6 oz.). The Six Moon Designs Hands Free Umbrella Kit ($10, 0.35 oz.), allows you to attach an umbrella to a pack’s shoulder strap, keeping both hands free.

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2. Eat and Drink

People hiking in rain commonly just put their head down and keep plodding forward without thinking about hydration and nutrition needs. It’s easy to do: You may not feel hot or thirsty—until a dry mouth and other sensations of thirst hit you, typically long past you becoming dehydrated—and you just want to get where you’re headed. You don’t want to stop in the rain to get food out or treat and refill your water.

But hydration and food provide the fuel critical to the body’s ability to generate energy and heat and for all cells to function normally. Just as when hiking under a hot sun, drink frequently—every 15 minutes or so—and eat something every hour. Keep snacks that are easy to eat on the move in pockets within reach so you don’t have to stop. When hiking in a place with frequent water sources, carry a water filter bottle, like the Katadyn BeFree, that you can simply dip and drink from without having to stop, drop your pack, and pull out a filter to fill a bladder or bottle; see the water filters I recommend in this review.

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3. Ventilate Your Jacket

Waterproof-breathable rain jackets have a membrane or coating that enables some moisture on the inside to pass through to the outside, while preventing rain from penetrating inside. But most are better at keeping rain out than releasing moisture and heat from your body that builds up inside. That’s why, when hiking in rain and warm temperatures, we can overheat and get very wet from perspiration.

Some rain jackets made for hiking have zippers under the arms that allow ventilating; open them when needed and unzip the front of the jacket partly to release heat and moisture. Dropping your hood at times, even briefly during pauses or light moments in the rain, will help you cool off.

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4. Don’t Wear Pants

Rain pants, that is. I rarely carry rain pants backpacking, especially when the forecast calls for mild temps and little or no chance of rain. In moderate rain and warm temps, just wear quick-drying soft-shell or nylon shorts with either high or low gaiters to help keep your feet dry. (Low gaiters I like: the Kahtoola Renagaiter Mid and Low.) In cooler temps and steady rain, wear soft-shell pants (I like the Outdoor Research Ferrosi Convertible Pants)—which will eventually get wet in a hard rain, but trap heat reasonably well, keep you warm enough in mild temps, and dry quickly on your body once the rain abates.

5. … Unless You Need Pants

By the afternoon of our second straight day of steady rain and cool wind on a September backpacking trip in the rugged Bailey Range in the Olympic Mountains, my soft-shell pants had become steadily soaked and the wind was blowing hard. I realized I had slowly become hypothermic—it can come on that slowly. Only by continuing to hike at a rigorous pace did I finally warm back up again over the next hour.

In cool temps, steady wind, and persistent rain, hiking in shorts or soft-shell pants will not keep you adequately warm and dry— you need shell layers top and bottom. Have waterproof-breathable rain pants, like to can pull on over whatever bottoms you’re wearing, like the Outdoor Research Helium Rain Pant or Black Diamond Fineline Stretch Full Zip Pants.

When wearing rain pants with gaiters, layer the pant cuffs over the gaiters, rather than tucking pant legs inside the gaiters, so water drains over rather than inside the gaiters.

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6. Slow Down or Speed Up

Use your pace, or exertion level, to stay warm without overheating. If you’re sweating under a rain jacket on a long uphill climb, but the rain is too heavy to take off your jacket, slow down until your body’s producing enough heat to remain comfortable but reduce how much you’re perspiring; you may even actually dry out the jacket on the inside, which feels more comfortable than when it’s clammy.

Similarly, 20 or 30 minutes before reaching camp, slow your pace to where you’re warm but not perspiring. This can dry out your base layer and the inside of your jacket—and you’ll be more much comfortable and happy putting on your hiking layers the next morning if they’re dry.

Are these tips helpful? See also “7 Pro Tips For Keeping Your Backpacking Gear Dry”
and “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking.”

12. Wet Bag, Way Bad

When you expect rain on a backpacking trip, keep your sleeping bag dry by either lining its stuff sack with a plastic trash bag or using a waterproof, dry bag-style stuff sack with a roll-top closure; the one I used most is the Sea to Summit Evac Compression Dry Bag UL. On an August 2023 backpacking trip in the Wind River Range, an afternoon thunderstorm with torrential rain soaked through my backpack. That dry bag sat in water pooled at the bottom of my pack for an hour before I unloaded the pack in camp—and my sleeping bag was perfectly dry.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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From the rainforests of the North Cascades and Olympic National Park to powerful thunderstorms in the High Sierra and Wind River Range and steady New England rain, from the Tour du Mont Blanc to Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail to New Zealand (lead photo, above) and many more places, I’ve carried a backpack through many fierce downpours and endless showers. I’ve tried virtually every strategy imaginable to keep my clothing and gear inside my pack dry—some which have failed spectacularly, and some which have worked flawlessly, no matter how wet I got. In this story, I share my seven top tricks for how I keep the rain from getting anywhere near my dry clothes, sleeping bag, and other contents of my pack.

I’ve learned the tricks described below over nearly four decades of backpacking all over the U.S. and around the world—formerly as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog. The seven simple tips in this article will help you keep your gear dry through the wettest adventures.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

See also my ”10 Expert Tips for Staying Warm and Dry Hiking in Rain” and ”How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking” and all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of my tips in this story requires a paid subscription to this blog.

Click on any photo to read about that trip. Please share any tips of your own or your questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story; I try to respond to all comments.

#1 Pack Your Gear in Waterproof Stuff Sacks or Dry Bags

Most backpacks, of course, are not waterproof because of the added expense but also because making them waterproof restricts other design options and often makes them heavier. For most backpacking trips, I prefer using waterproof or water-resistant stuff sacks instead of a rain cover because I use stuff sacks for my sleeping bag and clothing, anyway, so I’m not adding a new item to my load. Plus, a rain cover makes accessing your pack less convenient and can get blown off in strong winds.

On a recent August backpacking trip in the Wind River Range, Sea to Summit’s 3L Ultra-Sil Dry Bag kept my puffy jacket dry, and the brand’s Evac Ultralight Compression Dry Bag UL kept my sleeping bag dry through an afternoon thunderstorm and a torrential downpour that soaked through my backpack—even leaving a small puddle of water in the bottom of the pack. Those two sacks saved me from a cold, wet, miserable night. See my favorite stuff sacks in this review of favorite backpacking accessories.

A pack liner serves the same purpose and can act as a first layer of defense, along with stuff sacks, for very wet trips. The 43-liter Hyperlite Mountain Gear Roll-Top stuff sack has kept my pack contents completely dry through steady, wind-driven rain on the Tour du Mont Blanc, the Laugavegur Trail, and elsewhere. Made with waterproof, very tough and lightweight DCF11 fabric, it’s large enough to fill most of a midsize pack as a liner, holding your bag, tent, extra clothes, etc., while leaving space above it in your pack for items you want to access during the day.

The more affordable Six Moon Designs Pack Liner has also kept my gear and clothes dry when rain pounded my pack. A roll-top, 50-liter sack that’s treated to repel water, it’s made of 40-denier ripstop nylon with taped seams.

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Zip-lock storage bags are a cheap alternative to waterproof stuff sacks, and generally reliable; plus their contents are easily identifiable through the clear plastic material. But they are obviously not as tearproof or durable as stuff sacks, and their seal can pop open. Avoid overstuffing them, which also makes it easier to pack multiple bags together without having pockets of unused space between them.

A thick plastic trash bag works as a cheap liner (cut it down to fit in your pack); but I find the thin bag fabric gets in the way when I’m digging into my pack, and black trash bags make the pack’s contents hard to see. Trash compactor bags are white and tougher.

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#2 Use a Custom Rain Cover

I’ve used all kinds of rain covers on a pack many times, but I rarely do anymore because of their shortcomings—although I make one exception to that rule.

I use a rain cover that comes with a pack because those are made specifically to fit it and are more likely to stay on even in strong wind (if they have an elasticized perimeter, as most do).

Granted, those are inconvenient in that you must remove it every time you want something inside the pack, and doing so exposes pack contents to rain (whereas waterproof or water-resistant stuff sacks protect contents when you open the pack, and they don’t present an obstacle to retrieving anything from inside the pack).

Lightweight rain covers can also eventually soak through in a sustained or heavy rainfall.

That said, a pack with a custom or integrated rain cover does provide an extra layer of protection—at no added expense.

But I still want to have waterproof or water-resistant stuff sacks or a pack liner.

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#3 Minimize How Much You Open Your Pack

Pack contents are most exposed to getting wet when you open the pack—so take steps to greatly minimize how often you do that, and try to do it only during breaks in the rain or in spots protected from the rain, like under a tree or rock overhang. Keep snacks within reach in your pack’s side or hipbelt pockets. Preload enough water in bottles—and especially a bladder, because it loads inside most packs—to minimize the number of times you have to stop and refill.

Packs with a panel or side zipper accessing the main compartment, or external pockets large enough for items you want during the day, like a water filter or shell jacket, let you avoid exposing the top of the pack to direct rain. When loading your pack in the morning, if you expect rain, keep items you’ll want on the trail accessible.

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Rain and wind battered two friends and I as we hiked across exposed meadows high in the Olympic Mountains—our second straight day of heavy rain. Dripping, knee-high vegetation ladled cups of water onto our pants and boots. My rain jacket kept my upper body dry, but my soft-shell pants eventually soaked through. That, and the wind, slowly made me steadily colder—more than I realized.

After a strenuous ascent of a steep mountainside, carrying a heavy pack with my jacket hood up—which should have made me quite warm—it occurred to me: I’m still cold.

I was hypothermic.

What’s more, we had all—ironically, given the rain—run out of water more than an hour earlier. We undoubtedly hadn’t eaten enough to replace the calories burned through a full day of hard hiking in cold wind and rain. Now, as the rain continued pounding us, night approached and we were nowhere near a water source or flat ground for camping.

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We understood that our situation was serious. We calmly discussed our priorities. First and foremost, we needed a spot to pitch our tents—under the circumstances, shelter was more important than water, because we knew we could survive a night without water and that we’d find some in the morning, and we had plenty of food. But a night without shelter in those conditions posed far greater risks.

We backtracked to a flat area we had recalled passing about an hour earlier. The rain stopped before we set up camp, and we spent the night dry and warm in our tents. Clear skies greeted us the next morning. Two hours after leaving that camp, we reached a creek and drank copiously. We had gone about 20 hours without water, but hadn’t felt any serious effects from dehydration. Prioritizing shelter and warmth had been the right call. And I was amazed at how juicy dried mangoes taste when you have a raging thirst.

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If you’ve spent much time outside in wet, cool, or cold weather—as I have over four decades (and counting) and thousands of miles of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—you’ve probably been at least mildly hypothermic. Most likely, it wasn’t serious and you easily remedied the situation with clothing, food, or shelter, by descending out of the wind, or some combination of those typical strategies.

But hypothermia isn’t like an ankle sprain, occurring suddenly and broadcasting its symptoms clearly. And it isn’t like hunger, always remedied with a quick fix.

It can happen quickly, or it can sneak up on you slowly. It may happen even when you believe you’re dressed well, because you didn’t initially feel cold. While it’s an obvious threat in the dead of frigid winter, it happens perhaps more often on cool, windy days in spring and fall, and certainly can happen in the mountains in summer.

Hypothermia can present a minor obstacle if recognized and addressed soon, or escalate into an emergency and even prove fatal.

Plus, as those two friends and I discovered that day in the Olympics, hypothermia can happen to anyone—even very experienced backpackers (and two of us were experienced climbers) who’ve endured severe weather numerous times.

In this article, I’ll explain what hypothermia is and how it happens, and offer expert tips and skills on how to avoid hypothermia and treat it when it happens to you or a companion, drawn from my decades of wandering through the backcountry in all kinds of weather, all over the U.S. and the world (and shivering more times than I could estimate).

And like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of my tips in this story requires a paid subscription.

Trust me when I say this: Someday, you will use these tips.

Please share your own tips, questions, or thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

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What’s Hypothermia?

Hypothermia is defined as a core body temperature of 95° F/35° C or lower, which is about three degrees Fahrenheit below the average normal body temp of 98.2° F/36.8° C (although “normal” can vary from 97° to 99° F between individuals). Hypothermia occurs when someone is losing body heat faster than they can produce it, causing the body’s core temperature to drop.

While it’s hard to find statistics on how many hikers die from hypothermia, according to the Centers for Disease Control, an average of 1,300 Americans die from hypothermia every year. While most of those victims are undoubtedly nowhere near the backcountry, according to the National Park Service (reported in this Washington Post story), “cold exposure” accounted for about 25 deaths in all national parks between 2003 and 2007. That’s actually far fewer than deaths from falls (about 175), vehicle accidents (over 250), and drownings (over 350).

Still, hypothermia poses a significant risk to backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, and others in the backcountry. Preventing it begins with knowing how to recognize it.

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Head into the mountains in summer, or almost anywhere in fall or spring, and you can encounter nighttime and morning temperatures anywhere from the 40s Fahrenheit to well below freezing. That’s more than cold enough to pose a real risk of hypothermia or, at the least, result in a miserable night for you or a partner or child you’ve taken backpacking or camping—and would like to take more. Here’s the good news: The very simple techniques outlined in this article can turn a potentially unpleasant night into a comfortable one.

Countless frosty nights sleeping outside over the past three-plus decades—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—have taught me a few things about how to stay warm. (My coldest night was -30° F/-34° C, in winter in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. I don’t recommend it.)

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No matter how easily you get cold when sleeping outside, or whether you’re camping in the backcountry or at a campground, these 10 tips will keep you warmer on cool and chilly nights in your sleeping bag.

Tell me what you think of my tips, ask any questions, or share your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

1. Clean Up

At the end of each hiking day, wash the dirt and dried sweat from your body; the latter can act like a heat conductor, chilling you, and getting a bit cleaner will just make you feel better. Swim in a lake, wade into creek and splash water all over yourself, or at least wet a bandanna or other cloth (or use wet wipes or other such products) and wipe yourself off.

2. Change Into Dry Clothes

Damp clothes promote conductive heat loss from the body. Change into dry clothing to sleep, as opposed to the clothes you sweated in while hiking.

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3. Dress Smartly

Inside your bag, wear a hat, socks, and extra layers on your body, but avoid putting on so many layers that you isolate your core, which is your body’s furnace, from your extremities, which get cold more easily. It’s often more effective to wear just one or two light to midweight base layers—that are highly breathable, so as to allow your core’s heat to disperse throughout the bag. If you need more warmth, lay an insulation piece over your torso and hips inside the bag, essentially boosting the bag’s insulation, and stuff other extra clothing around you or at the foot of your bag to provide added insulation for your entire body.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
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4. Use a Hot-Water Bottle

Stick a water bottle filled with hot water in the foot of your bag; water that’s heated up is hot enough, boiling water may feel too hot directly against bare skin. If one bottle at your feet isn’t enough, put a second bottle filled with hot water in the middle of your bag. Make sure they’re sealed tightly and that you’re using a sturdy, plastic bottle that’s designed to hold hot liquids, like a Nalgene bottle; a cheap plastic bottle (like an empty soda bottle) could split open, a potentially very dangerous situation. An insulated or vacuum bottle would not release any heat, negating any benefit.

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5. Sleep on Insulation

Use an insulated pad or air mattress rated for the lowest temperatures you expect to encounter. Mats and pads with an R-value of between 3 and 4 are intended for three-season temperatures—generally, above freezing—while those with an R-value of over 5 are intended for use on frozen ground in below-freezing temperatures. If needed, add a second foam pad under your primary air mat if you’re sleeping atop frozen ground or snow.

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6. Augment Your Sleeping Pad

If you’re using a short air mattress or foam pad (to save weight in milder temperatures), lay your empty pack beneath your feet to insulate them from the ground, which can drain heat from your body even in summer. Or bring a short foam pad to provide more padding and insulation under a full-length air mat.

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7. Pile Extra Clothing Underfoot

Your feet get cold more easily than other body parts because they lie the farthest from your heart and, inside a sleeping bag, are not close to your furnace: your body’s core. They can also get cold because the ground under your sleeping pad is cold. Pile extra clothing under the foot end of your bag to give your feet more insulation against the cold ground.

Never get cold again (well, almost never).
See my “5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking.”

8. Use a Bag Liner

Use a sleeping bag liner, which can add the equivalent of several degrees of warmth rating to a bag.

9. Eat Fat and Sugar (The Fun Tip)

Eat a snack high in fat right before bed, like a candy bar, and have a hot drink with sugar in it, like hot cocoa. Both will fuel your body’s furnace through the night.

10. Use Your Partner

If you’re sharing a tent with a partner who doesn’t get cold as easily as you, ask that person to sleep on the tent’s windward side. If you have two warm-sleeping partners, sleep between them, or at least position your bags and pads close together to benefit from one another’s body heat. Or maybe best of all, zip your bags together and directly share body heat.

See my “Pro Tips For Buying Sleeping Bags” and all of my reviews of sleeping bags, air mats, and backpacking gear at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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It’s a situation all backpackers eventually encounter, no matter how hard you try to avoid it: You reach a backcountry campsite in a steady rain and must try to pitch your tent without soaking the interior. How successfully you accomplish that will greatly affect how warm and dry you remain that night—and probably how well-rested and good you feel the next morning. Follow these tips to keep your backpacking shelter and gear dry in that scenario.

I’ve had to pitch a tent in rain countless times, from the White Mountains to the North Cascades, Olympic National Park, and Alaska’s Glacier Bay, among other places over the past three-plus decades of backpacking all over the country—including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

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Here’s the problem with getting your tent’s interior wet when erecting it: If the rain—and high humidity—continues, the interior is unlikely to dry out much overnight. That means everything you bring into the tent, including your extra clothing and sleeping bag (which have hopefully stayed dry in your pack; see my picks for the best stuff sacks and other backpacking accessories), will get wet via contact with the interior’s wet floor and walls.

And that means it will likely all be damp or quite wet when you pack up in the morning—and compressing a damp bag into a stuff sack ensures the spread of that moisture throughout the bag. Then you’re really hoping for the sun to come out by the time you reach your next campsite so that you can lay your bag and other stuff out to dry.

To avoid that unpleasant circumstance, follow the tips below.

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When pitching a tent in a steady rain, if possible, assemble it under a thick canopy of tree branches, which often provides some shelter from the rain. Once it’s set up, you can move it to your preferred tentsite and stake it out.

Whether or not you have some protection under a tree, with any traditional double-wall tent—that is, a shelter consisting of an interior, mesh-walled tent and a separate rainfly—first spread the interior tent on the ground and have the rainfly ready to quickly spread over the tent, before inserting the poles.

Then crawl under the rainfly to erect the poles, keeping the interior tent largely protected from direct rainfall. It’s a little awkward but not very difficult and usually succeeds in keeping your interior tent dry.

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Still raining the next morning? If you get a rain-free window, certainly take advantage of it to pack up. Otherwise, load most of your stuff into your pack inside the tent; then step outside, shield your pack from rain as well as possible (under a rain cover or even a tree); and just as when you pitched the tent, dismantle it with the rainfly protecting the interior tent, then stuff the latter inside your pack and the wet rainfly into an exterior stuff pocket.

If you frequently backpack in a wet climate and often find yourself setting up a tent in rain, consider that when buying your next tent—look for a model that pitches quickly and easily and perhaps has a rainfly integrated with the interior living space.

Got any questions or tips of your own? Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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See “7 Pro Tips for Keeping Your Backpacking Gear Dry,” “10 Expert Tips For Staying Warm and Dry Hiking in Rain,” “5 Smart Steps to Lighten Your Backpacking Gear,” all stories offering expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside, plus “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

See also my “5 Tips For Buying a Backpacking Tent” and “How to Choose the Best Ultralight Tent for You.” (Both of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Backpacking Trip,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Backpacking Trip,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of gear reviews and expert buying tips.

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Do you wonder how some people come back from national parks and other outdoor trips with fantastic photos? Would you like to take the kind of pictures that make people ooh and aah? Improving your photos may not be as complicated as you think. The following tips on outdoor and landscape photography, which I’ve learned as a trained professional and refined over more than three decades of shooting the finest scenery in America and the world, will help you take home better photos whether you’re a beginner or an experienced photographer.

Sure, equipment like a high-end camera with interchangeable lenses helps a lot, and the more time you spend shooting and learning how to hone your skills, the better your photos will be. Shooting raw files—which record more data for each photo than jpegs and can be edited more extensively—and learning how to use a high-end editing program like Adobe Lightroom also greatly improves photo quality.

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But the best camera gear and editing software cannot create a great photograph. That still requires skill—beginning with understanding some fundamental rules of composing images.

I’ve assembled here what I consider the 15 simplest, easy-to-follow, actionable, and most effective tips for taking better pictures, especially landscape photos, and improving your outdoor photography. Follow them and your family and friends will start asking to see your trip pictures.

Click on most photos in this story to read about that trip. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read but reading the entire story and all of my landscape photography tips requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

If you have comments or questions on my tips or your own to share, please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

1. Look for Dramatic Light

We were on a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park, and after doing the sit-and-wait with the kids—and several hundred other tourists—for Old Faithful to erupt, I wanted to stop at Midway Geyser Basin. I had done the walk through Midway before, and thought that then—in late afternoon, with dappled, low-angle light coming through scudding clouds—would be a perfect time to shoot Yellowstone’s largest hot spring, the wildly multi-colored and aptly named Grand Prismatic Spring.

The timing could not have been more perfect. The light accentuated the contrast between the dark hills in the background; the steam rising from the water, brightened by low-angle sunlight slashing through it; the deeply blue sky; and the incredibly rich, kaleidoscopic colors of Grand Prismatic, whose waters also reflected their surroundings perfectly in that light. In about 30 minutes of shooting, I came away with even more than the 14 keeper images in the gallery above—which for a serious photographer is a major haul.

The lesson: Dramatic light is what makes a landscape photo pop. Know your location and think about the best time of day and even the best season to shoot it to capture it in strong light.

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2. Think About Your Foreground

Photos are two-dimensional, and if you just shoot a row of distant mountains, the photo will look flat. Shooting in dappled sunlight (described in tip no. 1) helps make a photo look more three-dimensional.

But you can convey a sense of depth—of the three-dimensional appearance of the landscape—by shooting with a wide-angle lens and composing your photo with a person or object in the foreground, as I did in the above shot from the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park and in the lead photo at the top of this story of a small tarn above Helen Lake, along the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park, and the second photo in this story of Alice Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

Position the camera close to, say, a big rock, a lakeshore, or a wildflower and frame the image so that there’s scenery in the middle distance (maybe a lake or forest) and far away (the mountains). Observe closely and you will notice many photos at The Big Outside and elsewhere that employ this basic technique.

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3. Think About Your Background

The background may not be your primary subject, but it can either make your subject more prominent or swallow it.

For instance, if the subject is a person or people in the middle distance who look small against a scenic backdrop (see tip no. 5)—as with the photo above from a peak named Bláhnúkur in Iceland—position the camera (yourself) relative to your subject so that there’s a bright backdrop behind the person, like the sky or lake waters or light-colored rock or ground.

A person who’s small in the image would get lost against a dark backdrop like forest—unless that person is wearing brightly colored clothing (another trick for making the subject stand out against the background).

Conversely, if your subject is very bright—like a wildflower spotlighted in a shaft of sunlight, such as these geraniums (at right) in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park—position yourself to shoot so that there’s dark shadow behind the flower, to make it stand out better; and use a low aperture setting to blur the background (tip no. 10, below).

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4. Follow the Rule of Thirds

Beginner photographers commonly place the subject smack in the middle of the photo (and, too often, they cut off a person’s feet—a no-no). Compose photos following the rule of thirds: Mentally divide your image into thirds along the longer edge, i.e., when shooting a horizontal picture, the imaginary lines dividing the photo into thirds run vertically. Place your subject—person, bunch of wildflowers, animal, whatever—in the right or left third of the frame, as in the photo above of a backpacker on the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier. Have the person facing toward or away from the camera or facing into/across rather than out of the picture.

For the same reason, do not compose a photo with the land-sky horizon cutting straight through the middle of it; give the sky one-third of the picture or place the horizon in the lower third of the photo and let a dramatic sky dominate the image.

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5. Put a Person in There for Scale

You’ve seen many examples of this and probably done it yourself: Place a person or people far enough from the camera to make them appear small in order to convey a sense of the landscape’s vastness, as I did in the photo above from the Teton Crest Trail. Magazines use photos like this frequently because they know that readers identify with the person in the photo—the “I want to be there” effect.

The trick to doing this effectively is to make sure the tiny person remains large enough and visible against the background (tip no. 3) so as not to disappear, and to remember the Rule of Thirds (tip no. 4). Having just one person in the picture also introduces a powerful feeling of solitude that amplifies the sense of vastness.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

6. Look to the Sky

The sky is typically at least two f-stops brighter than the earth and sometimes much more than that—especially in early morning or evening, as in the photo above from Wanda Lake on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park. An f-stop is a full step in aperture settings as they used to appear on cameras in the pre-digital era, i.e., the different between f5.6 and f8, or f8 and f11, which represents a halving of the amount of light entering the camera as you move up the f-stop number scale, just as going from a shutter speed of 1/125 to 1/250 halves the amount of light entering the camera. Modern digital cameras increase aperture versatility by allowing adjustments of one-third of a full f-stop, for example, inserting two more partial f-stops (6.3 and 7.1) between f5.6 and f8.

Overexposing the sky so that it washes out—loses all or most detail—makes the photo look dull. In pre-digital days, photographers used graduated filters to darken the sky when shooting while keeping the earth brighter. Today, we can edit digital photos for the same effect produced by those old graduated filters, but it’s more difficult to restore details in an overexposed sky when editing than it is to brighten underexposed earth. So I often expose for the sky and brighten the shadowed land when editing.

Very simply: Point the camera toward the sky and depress your shutter-release button halfway to set the exposure. Then depress and hold the camera’s auto-exposure lock (typically marked AE-L and AF-L if it doubles as the auto-focus lock, and within reach of your right thumb) as you move the camera to compose the picture you want, and then shoot it.

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I doubt that I had any typical routine when arriving at a campsite on my earliest backpacking trips; like many backpackers, I probably just dropped my pack, shucked off my boots, and kicked back until motivated to move by the urge to eat, drink, get warm, or go to the bathroom. Over the years, though, I’ve developed a routine that I follow almost religiously when I arrive in camp at the end of a day of backpacking. These five simple, quick, almost effortless steps make a world of difference in how good I feel that evening and the next morning, and how well I sleep.

These tips derive from habits I’ve gradually adopted over more than three decades and innumerable backpacking trips across the U.S. and around the world, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. These are practices I’ve followed in every type of environment and on every type of trip, from easier outings with my family when our kids were young—although it didn’t always feel “easier” carrying much of our children’s gear and food—to extreme adventures backpacking 20 to 30 or more miles per day.

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Follow these tips and I think you’ll make your campsite hours—and backpacking trips as a whole—more comfortable.

Click on any photo to read more about that place and please share your thoughts on my tips, or any tips or regular practices you have when you get into camp on backpacking trips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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#1 Take Care of My Feet

Task number one: yank off my boots (or shoes) and socks and soak my feet in a cold creek or lake to “ice” achy muscles and wash dirt off my feet and legs as well as possible without soap. I often also take a swim—usually after stretching (see #2)—to cool off, get the dust and sweat off my body, and let the chilly water soothe all of the muscles I’ve worked. All of this will help me relax and sleep better.

I sometimes bring light camp footwear, like flip-flops or sandals, to change into if my hiking footwear is boots that are heavier and hotter than I want to wear in camp. If I’ve worn low-cut, breathable shoes hiking, I don’t bother bringing camp footwear. But I’ll wear hiking shoes in camp with the laces untied and loosened and tongue pulled up, more like slippers, to keep my feet cool and dry.

By the way, taking care of my feet demands all-day attention. See my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking,” including the great tips and suggestions from readers in the comments section at the bottom of that story.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

#2 Take Care of My Body

Carrying weight on your back for miles taxes most people physically. I’ve learned from scores of backpacking trips, whether my pack is heavy or ultralight, that I’m going to feel significantly better that evening and the next morning and sleep much better if I spend about 10 to 20 minutes stretching soon after I stop hiking for the day, while muscles are still warm.

You don’t need an elaborate routine, just a handful of stretches focused on the major muscle groups you’ve been working hard: quads, hamstrings, (definitely) calves, and your core, including your back, sides, plus shoulders and neck. There are plenty of resources online suggesting specific stretches; I also talk about my stretching routine in my story “Training For a Big Hike or Mountain Climb.”

I know it sounds like an effort you don’t want to bother making but try it on your next trip—once you start, you may like it enough to just continue. And like me, you might find it habit-forming.

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#3 Change Clothes

After washing off the dirt and dried sweat, I’ll put on the dry base layers I’ve brought. (My story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking” details what I usually carry for clothing.) Then I’ll dry out my hiking clothes, which I’ll wear again the next day, either by hanging them in sunshine or, if they’re only damp (not too wet), pulling them on over my dry layers to let my body heat dry them without having the damp layer against my skin. If it’s cool or windy enough to wear a jacket, it works very well to dry out a damp base layer by wearing it under a breathable shell.

In warm temperatures, I’ll just remain in my damp hiking clothes until my body heat dries them out (often while stretching and pitching my tent), and then change into my extra clothes. On many trips in mild temperatures, my “extra clothes” consist simply of a second base layer top and insulation; I’ll often only have one pair of zip-off pants, so I’ll wear those to dry them and perhaps just zip the legs on.

See my picks for “The Best Base Layers, Shorts, and Socks for Hiking and Running,” “5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking,” and “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking.”

Which puffy should you buy? See “The 12 Best Down Jackets” and
“How You Can Tell How Warm a Down Jacket Is.”

#4 Replenish Depleted Body Reserves

Dinner may not happen for a while, but I need to replace some of what my body has depleted sooner than that—mostly fluids, sodium, fat, and electrolytes. In warm temperatures, the first thing I often do is add a powdered energy-drink mix to a liter of water to consume over the next hour (beginning while I’m stretching). After I’ve finished steps 1 through 3 above, I’ll eat an appetizer that delivers what I’m craving—fat and sodium. I typically like crackers, cheese, and pepperoni or salami, nuts, maybe some chocolate. In cooler temperatures, I’ll fire up the stove and boil water for hot tea or cocoa or instant soup.

Getting rehydrated and starting to refill my body’s fuel tank, combined with the stretching, make a huge difference in my energy level and greatly help reduce any stiffness that evening and when I hit the trail again the next morning.

As a side note, in some parks with grizzly bears, like Glacier National Park, the first thing I do when reaching a campsite is actually required by park management: Hanging food properly as a precaution against bears.

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#5 Set Up Camp

Assuming that foul weather hasn’t forced us to immediately pitch the tent upon arriving in camp, I now unload my pack, set up the tent, inflate my air mattress and lay out my bag to let it loft up, and break out kitchen gear, water filter, and anything else I will need. I almost invariably carry a lightweight camp chair (one of my “25 essential backpacking accessories”), which is far more comfortable than sitting on a rock or log—meaning my body will feel better when I’m going to sleep later and putting on my pack again the next morning.

At some point during the evening, I’ll figure out how much water I need to leave camp with in the morning and fill my bladder or bottles, to help expedite an early departure the next day, because in summer, I usually like an early start to hike in cooler temperatures.  See my “5 Tips for Getting Out of Camp Faster When Backpacking.”

These five steps don’t require much time or effort. But they make my evening, night, next morning—and really, my entire backpacking trip—much more enjoyable.

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BONUS TIP: You won’t feel good the next day without a good night’s sleep. See “10 Pro Tips For Staying Warm in a Sleeping Bag,” plus all reviews of sleeping bags and air mattresses at The Big Outside.

Do you have any regular practices you have when you get into camp on backpacking trips? Please share them or your thoughts on my tips in the comments section below.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

You’re planning food for a backpacking trip—maybe for yourself or perhaps for your family or a small group of friends—and you have questions about how to do it. How much food do you need? What food should you bring? How complicated or simple do you want to make it? How do your food choices affect how much stove fuel you will need—or do you even need a stove? Drawing on decades of backpacking experience, this article will lay out some general guidelines and detailed advice that will help you plan food for all your backpacking trips.

Over the course of more than three decades and thousands of miles of backpacking all over the United States and around the world—including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—I have eaten countless meals in the backcountry and greatly refined my food planning over time.

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I’ll offer this caveat in advance: I’m not someone who feels a great desire to eat “gourmet” style in the backcountry. I certainly want food that tastes good and is satisfying. If you’re not hiking far, it’s easier to carry a little more and spend time preparing special meals. I tend to hike all day, sometimes very long days, so I don’t want to spend much time in food preparation (or cleanup) in camp.

That said, I do spend adequate time planning my food for a trip, but that’s mostly so that I’m packing the right amount of food that I like.

Click any photo to read about that trip or place. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading all the tips in this story requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Please share your thoughts or questions about my tips or any tricks of your own that help you plan food for your backpacking trips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
in Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

1. Keep It Simple

This comes down to personal preference and mine places a high priority on efficiency and minimal time and effort. I prefer hiking, taking a dip, or simply lounging in camp with my companions over cooking.

My priorities when planning food for backpacking are:

1. Replace calories burned during the day, as much as possible, understanding that you can’t always accomplish that after hiking all day. But on a typical backpacking trip of a week or less, you’re not likely to run into a big energy or caloric deficit.
2. Keep it simple, not time consuming in the backcountry. Hot meals that require only boiling water—not any cooking time in the pot—have the advantage of eliminating a cleanup task and consuming less fuel, enabling you to reduce fuel weight.
3. Minimize pack weight, recognizing that food weight is a significant portion of my total pack weight but also that food weight drops every day. Eat your heaviest food and meals early in a trip and save the lightest for later in a trip because you will carry those meals farther.

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2. Plan Exactly What You’ll Eat

I know it’s heresy among many backpackers to caution against carrying too much food, and it’s fine and even prudent to carry a little extra, especially on long, remote trips when there’s some uncertainty about when you’ll finish. But as a rule, I always plan specifically what I’ll eat every day and weigh my food; otherwise, I’m guaranteed to carry much more than I’ll eat.

In over more than three decades of backpacking, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve run out of food before the end of a trip, and it has never been a disaster. Far more times, I’ve carried at least a couple pounds of food throughout a trip without ever touching it, and a few pounds of superfluous weight represent the equivalent of carrying two extra sleeping bags or three or four rain shells.

In reality, on most backpacking trips, you’re rarely out longer than expected, and if you run low on food, you’re probably only going a little hungry for the last day because you can usually get to a road within a day. I generally end a backpacking trip with very little food left.

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Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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On our first night in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park on one of my earliest backpacking trips, two friends and I—all complete novices—hung our food from a tree branch near our camp. Unfortunately, the conifer trees around us all had short branches: Our food stuff sacks hung close to the trunk.

During the night, the predictable happened: We awoke to the sound of a black bear clawing up the tree after our food.

Despite our nervousness and incompetence, we somehow managed to shoo that black bear off, though not before it consumed a respectable portion of our food supply. But by virtue of having started out with way more food than we needed—another rookie mistake that, ironically, compensated for this more-serious rookie mistake (read my tips on not overpacking)—we made it through that hike without going hungry and ultimately had a wonderful adventure.

And we went home with a valuable lesson learned.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

I’ve learned much more about storing food properly in the backcountry over the more than three decades since that early trip, including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

This article shares what I’ve learned about protecting food from critters like bears and, more commonly, mice and other small animals and some birds like ravens. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading all the tips in this story requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Follow the tips below and you’ll not only save yourself and your party or family from going hungry, you might save a bear from developing a habit of seeing humans as sources of food, which too often leads to a bad outcome for that animal.

If you have any questions or tips of your own to share, please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Why Storing Food Properly Matters

Storing food properly when backpacking or anytime you’re in the backcountry is critical for several good reasons:

1. Failing to do so risks losing some or all of your food to animals or having your food contaminated by animals that can transmit diseases, like mice, imperiling your trip and group.
2. Public lands-management agencies often require proper food storage in the backcountry. In many national parks, you will receive instructions on storing food when picking up a backcountry permit.
3. Improper food storage places you and your companions at risk of physical harm from large, potentially aggressive animals like bears—or at the least, a penalty or fine.
4. Bears and other animals that become habituated to human food can become a nuisance, returning again and again to popular backcountry camping areas, threatening other people. Tragically, those bears may ultimately be destroyed by the management agency.

Follow the guidelines below for storing food when in the backcountry.

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Know the Rules About Food Storage

In many U.S. national parks—including parks inhabited by grizzly bears, like Glacier and Yellowstone, and parks with only black bears, like Yosemite, Mount Rainier, and others—as well as in parks in the Canadian Rockies and elsewhere with large bear populations, some to most or even all backcountry camping is in assigned campgrounds that have poles or cables for hanging your food (bring stuff sacks) or metal lockers for storing food. Other parks, like Grand Teton, require bear canisters. On public lands with fewer regulations, management agencies often still recommend the use of any of a few common and widely accepted methods of protecting food from animals.

Keep Food Out of Your Tent

Whether in a place with grizzly or black bears, do not bring any food or items that smell of food (example: a shirt you spilled food onto) into your tent. Put any odorous items—including toothpaste, sunblock, ointment, etc.—with your stored food.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
in Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

Wondering whether to hike solo in bear country? Read my tips about that.

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I deserve to be plagued by blisters. I field test several models of hiking, backpacking, and trail-running shoes and boots every year. I’m constantly wearing new footwear right out of the box, often hiking 15 to 20 miles or more miles a day—usually without doing anything more than trying them on, virtually never allowing for any break-in time. And I almost never get a blister. Best of all, the tricks I use to avoid them are simple and easy for anyone to follow.

This article shares the methods I’ve learned over more than three decades (and counting) of dayhiking and backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

First of all, remember that blisters require three conditions to occur: heat, moisture, and friction. Eliminate any one of those factors and you prevent blisters.

Simple, right? Well, not always. But blisters are a problem you can control. I’ve listed below the strategies I follow to dramatically reduce the occurrence of blisters. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading all the tips in this story requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Be sure to read the comments at the bottom of this story, where readers have offered their own excellent suggestions. Please share your suggestions or questions. I try to respond to all comments.

1. Buy Boots That Fit

Friction happens when your shoes or boots don’t fit your feet well. Eliminate friction through perfect fit, and you eliminate blisters. Buy footwear in a store where the staff knows how to measure your foot size. Try on a variety of brands because they all fit slightly differently; find the brand that fits your feet best. Until you’ve tried on several models, it’s difficult to even recognize the subtle differences between a pretty good fit and an ideal fit.

If the best boots you find still don’t fit perfectly, try after-market insoles to customize the fit. But in reality, almost anyone should be able to find shoes or boots that fit well; you just have to look hard enough. If your feet are unusually large or wide or narrow or have a high or low arch, find the brands that offer a size range and fit that matches your feet. Don’t settle for less than very good fit.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

2. Keep Your Feet Dry

This may be the easiest and most effective strategy I employ: Whenever I stop for a break of 10 minutes or more, I take off my boots and socks and let them and my feet dry out—eliminating or at least minimizing heat and moisture. As simple as that. Bonus benefit: It feels good, especially if I have an opportunity to cool my feet in a stream or lake (and then thoroughly dry them before putting my socks and shoes back on).

Another strategy for keeping feet cooler and drier is employing what pros in the footwear industry call the “chimney effect:” Roll the tops of your socks down over the collar of your boots, which channels air down into your boot and helps release heat and moisture from your feet.

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3. Carry Extra Socks

If your feet get chronically sweaty, change into clean, dry socks midway through a day of hiking. Wear wool or wool-blend socks that wick moisture and dry quickly. (Cottons socks hold moisture and virtually guarantee you blisters.) Try to wash any dirt and sweat from your feet in a creek and dry them completely before putting on the clean socks.

Tuck the damp socks under a pack strap or inside a mesh exterior pocket on your pack to dry them out (not balled up, or they won’t dry), in case you need to swap to them again.

See “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes”
and “Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

4. Wear Lightweight, Non-Waterproof Footwear

Any footwear with a waterproof-breathable membrane is not as breathable as shoes or boots with mesh uppers and no membrane—which also dry much faster if they do get wet. If you’re generally dayhiking in dry weather, why do you need waterproof boots? It may seem counterintuitive, but non-waterproof shoes or boots may keep your feet drier by not causing them to sweat as much.

That’s especially important when dayhiking or backpacking longer days: Double or triple the distance and you also double or triple the number of steps you take and the amount of friction on your feet, and greatly increase the number of hours your feet are potentially getting hot and sweaty inside footwear. Keeping them dry becomes critical on big days—and may be your last line of defense against blisters.

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5. Adjust Laces on the Trail

Shoe and boot laces often loosen up while hiking. Your feet and ankles move differently and endure different pressure points depending on the terrain, steepness, and whether you’re walking uphill or downhill. Feet can also swell slightly during a hike. Lacing footwear properly at the outset of a hike and retying during the day can alleviate the slippage and pressure points that cause friction.

First of all, shoes or boots should always be laced up snugly enough for comfort and to prevent slippage: For example, your ankle and toes should not rub, and your foot should not slip forward or backward (potentially jamming your toes). If you feel any rubbing or hot spot, adjust the lacing to achieve a closer fit.

Before starting a long descent, lace up snugly to prevent your toes banging against the front of the boots. With mid-cut or high boots, it can sometimes increase comfort (and help cool your feet) to loosen upper laces for a long uphill climb; but if you do that, make sure the laces are snug below your ankle, to avoid rubbing and slippage.

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NOTE: As I mentioned at the top of this story, be sure to read the comments below, where readers have offered their own excellent suggestions. Offer your own comment on this story, or your best tip, and thanks to everyone who’s contributed to my tips on preventing blisters.

See also my “Pro Tips For Buying the Right Hiking Boots,” all reviews of hiking shoes and backpacking boots at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

See all stories with expert tips on backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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You really want to backpack in Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Mount Rainier, Grand Canyon, or another hugely popular national park this year—but you didn’t apply to reserve a wilderness permit months ago? Well, you just may be in luck: Most parks have a system for getting a last-minute permit. It requires jumping through some hoops, understanding the system’s ins and outs, good timing, patience, and a bit of luck, but many backpackers get permits without a reservation every year.

This article shares the tricks I’ve learned from numerous backpacking trips to major national parks over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. These tricks have helped me get a last-minute, or walk-in backcountry permit even in very popular national parks like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Grand Canyon, and others.

Follow these tips and you just might go backpacking in a classic national park this year.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Most parks offer walk-in, or first-come backcountry or wilderness permits, which is simply a permit that you obtain, without a reservation, based on availability, often no more than a day in advance of starting a multi-day hike—but sometimes a bit further in advance, such as in Yosemite, which issues walk-in permits up to seven days in advance.

The number of walk-in permits varies between parks, and availability is affected by advance permit reservations. But in general, parks set aside anywhere from 20 percent (in Grand Canyon), 30 percent (in Glacier), or one-third (in Mount Rainier) to 40 percent (in Yosemite), half (in Zion), and even two-thirds (in Grand Teton) of available permits or campsites to be issued, in most cases, no more than a day in advance.

For starters, go to any park’s website and find out its procedure for obtaining a walk-in permit—especially where and when to do so. Demand for permits typically varies between different areas in the most popular parks—meaning that you may find permits available but perhaps not for the trip you had in mind; so it helps to familiarize yourself with different areas of the park’s backcountry and arrive there with options in mind.

Beyond that first step, four strategies are key to snagging a walk-in backcountry permit. Share your thoughts or questions about my tips—or offer your own tips—in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click any photo to read about that trip.

Don’t like the uncertainty of trying for a walk-in permit? I’ve helped many readers of my blog secure a backcountry permit reservation during the summer backpacking season, even after they had tried and failed. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you do that.

Wondering where you can still go now without needing a permit reservation?
See “20 Great Backpacking Trips You Can Still Take in 2025.”

#1 Go When Most People Don’t

Early or mid-July through Labor Day is the peak hiking season in most mountain ranges. Naturally, summer is when competition for walk-in permits is stiffest.

After Labor Day, though, the number of people seeking backcountry permits drops off dramatically in many parks, especially in the higher mountains of the West—partly because the summer vacation season has ended for many people, and partly because snow can fall in September.

But I’ve backpacked (and dayhiked) many times in September and even October in Western parks, including Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Teton, North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Olympic, and Yellowstone, in glorious, late-summer weather, with sunny, mild days and nights in the 30s to 40s Fahrenheit—although you should prepare for lows below freezing—and seen surprisingly few people on the trails, considering how pleasant it often is out there then.

I’ve long been in the habit of planning a roughly weeklong backpacking trip in the mountains for every September—it’s my favorite month because the weather is often good, bugs are generally gone, and permits are easier to get.

Backpacking in September or October certainly makes it even more imperative that you prepare for any weather, and accept the chance that a severe storm could force you to cancel your plans—or to simply go somewhere else. Still, in my experience, even when planning far enough in advance to book flights to a distant park—and thus, too early to know what to expect for weather—my September trips have had great weather most of the time.

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#2 Go Where Most People Don’t

In many popular national parks, a few trails, trailheads, and areas attract the vast bulk of demand by backpackers. Examples include Yosemite’s core between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows (including Half Dome and the northernmost section of the John Muir Trail); the Teton Crest Trail and Cascade and Paintbrush canyons in Grand Teton; the Highline Trail and Northern Loop in Glacier; the Narrows in Zion; the Wonderland Trail at Mount Rainier; the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia; the High Divide-Seven Lakes Loop in Olympic; and the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab, North Kaibab, and Bright Angel trails.

But in those same parks, vast areas—sometimes more remote and difficult to reach, but sometimes simply not as well known—receive far less demand, making it easier to secure a permit for them (whether walk-in or advance). With a park that provides current availability of backcountry campsites online, you can see which areas are the most popular, and avoid them, or at least have alternate hiking itineraries ready if you don’t get a popular hike (see tip no. 3).

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See my All National Park Trips page for a lengthy list of stories, many of them about backpacking trips that are less well-known. A few of my favorites include:

• In Yosemite, the vast wilderness north of Tuolumne Meadows (see my e-book to that trip) and another hike I wrote about in my story “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip.”
• The Southern Olympic Coast.
• Bowman Lake to Kintla Lake and other options in Glacier.
• The Northern Loop at Mount Rainier.
• A 40-mile loop from the Mineral King area in Sequoia.
• The Kolob Canyons in Zion.
• The Maze District in Canyonlands.
• The Royal Arch Loop, the Gems Route, the Clear Creek Trail and Utah Flats Route, and the New Hance Trail to Grandview Point in the Grand Canyon.
• Spring Canyon in Capitol Reef.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Along those lines, there are national parks like North Cascades and Capitol Reef, many parks in the Midwest, and nearly every park in Alaska, where backpacker demand remains so low that walk-in permits are easy to obtain. These parks have scenery just as beautiful as the flagship parks at the top of your list. If you don’t have flexibility in your vacation dates and don’t want to risk having to wait more than a day for a walk-in permit, go to one of these parks for an adventure just as memorable as any other.

See my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking.”

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#3 Keep Your Group Small

None of us wants to leave out our favorite backpacking partners, but the hard truth is that the larger your group, the harder it will be to get a permit, whether a walk-in a day in advance or a permit reservation months in advance. This simple statistical reality is based on availability—there are a limited number of backcountry campsites available for walk-in permits, and some of those sites may only have space for two or four people. Plus, many parks define backpacking parties larger than six or seven people as “groups” that require a larger campsite, and so-called group sites are often far less numerous than standard backcountry campsites.

Keep your party to four or less, and you will significantly improve your chances of getting a last-minute backcountry permit—possibly even for a popular route like the trip I consider the best first backpacking trip in Yosemite.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite, Grand Teton,
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

#4 Get in Line Early

In most parks, a walk-in permit is exactly what it sounds like: You show up, get in line, and see what’s available when you reach the front of the line. At any popular park, that line usually starts forming a few hours before the backcountry center opens. Get up really early and be first in line. Dress warmly and bring a book, a hot drink, food, a folding chair, and a headlamp, and make sure you know in advance where to go so you don’t wander around in the dark.

However, Yosemite National Park more recently launched what I think is a very good model for managing last-minute permits, issuing 40 percent of all daily trailhead quotas for walk-in, or first-come wilderness permits seven days in advance of the date you want to start hiking. See “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.”

Gear up smartly for your trips.
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#5 Have a Few Trip Options Ready

Come prepared with multiple hiking-itinerary options—you may not get your first choice. That can be as simple as reversing your route or having alternative campsite options for some nights, but should include, if possible, alternative routes. Ask a backcountry ranger’s advice on where to go—that person may point you to a great hike that you hadn’t considered and which is available for your dates.

Be prepared to start hiking either that day or the next day; or, if nothing’s available, to return early the next morning to get in line again for a permit starting the following day (although you can usually start your trip by the next day, except in parks with the highest demand for popular hikes, like Grand Canyon and Zion).

One Final Tip

Next year, plan months in advance. Mark your calendar now to remind yourself. See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit” for my top insights, based on many trips in major parks over more than three decades. Try to make a reservation as soon as a park starts accepting them, or with parks that run lotteries for permits, enter them for one or more parks.

With luck, you’ll get at least one permit, and if you get more than one, well, that’s the kind of problem a lot of people would like to have.

See a menu of all stories sharing backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can purchase the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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You just finished a big dayhike, backpacking trip, mountain climb, or trail run convinced it was one of the best experiences of your life—and now your body seems to have mounted a loud protest of pain against it. And you wonder: Is this suffering necessary? The simple answer is no. Follow the tips in this article—or even just some of them—to greatly lessen the physical aches and pains that sometimes follow an outdoors adventure.

This article shares the methods I’ve learned over four decades of dayhiking, backpacking, climbing mountains, ultra-hiking, trail running, cycling, and backcountry and Nordic skiing, including three decades writing about such adventures as a past field editor for Backpacker magazine and running this blog.

Short of suffering an injury, much of the aches and pains that sometimes follow any taxing physical activity result from entirely normal processes taking place within our bodies as muscle cells go through their usual healing and strengthening processes. But there are many ways to counter and minimize that pain with little to no effort or cost.

Please share your tips or questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

1. Use the Right Gear

Poorly fitted boots or a pack will virtually guarantee to magnify your post-hike soreness in large muscles, your back and shoulders and possibly result in blistered or injured feet. Get a daypack or backpack and footwear that fit your body and are suited to your style of hiking and the conditions you’ll encounter.

Avoid carrying more weight in your pack than feels comfortable to you: If it feels too heavy when you first put the pack on, it will probably only feel worse at the end of the hike.

See all reviews of lightweight hiking shoes and backpacking boots at The Big Outside, my picks for the best daypacks and backpacking packs and my “Expert Tips for Buying the Right Hiking Boots” and “5 Expert Tips For Buying the Right Backpacking Pack.”

Another gear tip: Use trekking poles. Backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, mountain runners, and others have figured out that, no matter how much weight you’re carrying, using poles reduces the strain, fatigue, and impact on your leg muscles and joints, feet, back—and lessens your chances of an accidental fall.

See “The Best Trekking Poles,” “How to Choose Trekking Poles,” and “10 Best Expert Tips for Hiking With Trekking Poles,” and The Big Outside’s Gear Reviews page for categorized menus of gear reviews and expert buying tips.

Plan your next great backpacking trip in Yosemite, Grand Canyon,
and other parks using my expert e-books.

2. Wear Compression Clothing

Compression socks, calf sleeves, shorts, and tights changed how I dress for dayhikes and trail runs, especially longer outings. I noticed the boost in my endurance and dramatic decrease in stiffness and soreness both during and after my first run wearing compression clothing. Now, I virtually never take a long run or hike today without wearing compression socks and shorts.

I’ll also often wear the socks and shorts for a few hours or more post-hike or run—or change into clean, dry compressions socks and shorts after a shower—for the noticeable, long-term recovery benefits that wearing them post-workout provides and how much better I feel the next day.

Compression clothing fits more tightly than standard socks or shorts, squeezing the legs (or arms) to improve blood and oxygen circulation—beneficial during and after exercise. In fact, compression socks and other clothing are so effective they are used to treat a variety of medical ailments related to blood circulation.

See “The Best Base Layers, Shorts, and Socks for Hiking and Running” and “The Best Sun Shirts.”

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

3. Take Care of Your Feet

Think about this: The average person takes over 2,000 steps per mile when walking. A 10-mile hike entails over 20,000 steps, a 20-mile hike, over 40,000. In rugged terrain, where your steps may be shorter, that number will be even higher. I still recall our amazement when two friends and I thru-hiked the John Muir Trail in seven days—averaging about 31 miles per day—in seeing the pedometer that one friend wore recording over 70,000 steps on some days.

It should come as no surprise that hiking rugged terrain, with significant elevation gain and loss, takes a toll on your feet. Besides the repeated impact of all those steps, particularly on rocky ground, there always exists the risk of injuries ranging from routine blisters to more serious problems. But even on a good day, feet can feel achy by the end of a hike.

Take care of your feet before, during, and after a hike. If you tend to blister, pre-emptively tape sensitive spots like heels or toes. Keep your feet dry during a hike with habits as easy as pulling your shoes and socks off during a break. Afterward, give your feet some TLC, including flexing and stretching them and massaging the balls, arches, heels, and Achilles, all of which improves blood flow and just feels really good—especially on tired feet.

See my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking.”

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4. Cool Down

Many of us have had the unpleasant experience of ending a hike, run or mountain climb, immediately getting into a car for a long drive home—and emerging from the vehicle feeling like your body has skipped death and gone straight to rigor mortis. That results from small muscle tears, a normal physiological process that leads to the muscles healing and making themselves stronger.

While that phenomenon, known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), typically follows exercising at a greater intensity or duration than your muscles are accustomed to and can persist for 24 to 48 hours or longer, you can mitigate its severity with a practice that requires no additional effort or time.

Stopping abruptly at the end of a long hike, trail run, or mountain climb does not give muscles a chance to gradually adjust from an active to a resting state, causing them to stiffen up. Instead of walking or running at a hard pace all the way back to the trailhead, slow your pace to one where you’re breathing very easily for the last 20 minutes or more of your hike, giving muscles time to gradually cool down before you stop.

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5. Rehydrate and Fuel Up

We all know that our bodies require water and food to get through a physical activity as sustained and taxing as hiking. Still, it’s remarkably easy to underestimate our needs. Even when deliberately drinking fluids and eating throughout a moderate day of hiking, we often finish at least slightly dehydrated and certainly hungry; a strenuous hike only compounds that deficit. And our muscles require water and nutrients to repair themselves.

Besides drinking and eating plenty during a hike—gulping water every 15 to 20 minutes and snacking every hour is a good guideline—recovery begins with quickly feeding your body what it craves: fluids, electrolytes, fat, protein, salt, and to some extent even carbohydrates to help restore levels of glycogen, which provides your body with a reserve of long-term energy.

I like to have a big bottle of an electrolyte drink and salty/fatty snacks immediately after a hike to start the process of giving my body the nourishment it demands.

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
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See also “Training for a Big Hike or Mountain Climb,” “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and all stories offering expert hiking and backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

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You just decided you’d like to backpack in Yosemite this year and realized you’re months late in reserving a wilderness permit. What now? As it happens, one positive outcome of the pandemic was Yosemite National Park revising its procedure for obtaining a first-come or walk-in backpacking permit, making it possible to reserve one just a week in advance—meaning you no longer have to risk traveling to the park, standing in line and hoping for Lady Luck to smile (or frown) on you. Here’s how you can still grab a last-minute permit for backpacking in Yosemite this year.

Little wonder that the nation’s third national park, designated in 1890, sees enormous demand for wilderness permits and that most available permits get claimed months in advance. Unquestionably one of the 10 best backpacking destinations in America, its sprawling backcountry abounds in classic High Sierra scenery: high passes overlooking a sea of rocky peaks, meadows alive with wildflowers, and too many stunning mountain lakes, creeks, and waterfalls to count.

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After numerous trips in Yosemite since my first more than three decades ago—many of them during the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—my biggest lesson has been that every time I believe I’ve seen the best that Yosemite has to offer, I take another trip and discover how much more natural beauty this park possesses.

See my expert e-books to three great backpacking trips in Yosemite and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan a Yosemite trip or any trip you read about at The Big Outside. I’ve helped many readers of my blog navigate Yosemite’s permit process to find currently available permits for great multi-day hikes.

Please share your questions or suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Yosemite’s Wilderness Permit System

First of all—and keep this in mind for future trips—the best way to get a Yosemite wilderness permit for any backpacking trip in the park is by applying for one through the weekly lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance. The park makes 60 percent of permit reservations available on that timetable.

The most competition for permits—whether reserved or walk-in—centers on Yosemite’s core between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows, including Half Dome and the northernmost section of the John Muir Trail.

But a permit for other areas of the park is much easier to get, including the biggest block of wilderness in Yosemite, north of Tuolumne Meadows, and another large chunk of backcountry in the park’s southeast corner, south of Tuolumne and east of Yosemite Valley.

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How to Get a Walk-in Yosemite Wilderness Permit

Yosemite sets aside the other 40 percent of daily trailhead quotas for walk-in, or first-come wilderness permits, made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time seven days in advance of the date you want to start hiking. Popular trailheads usually fill within minutes, so be ready to make a reservation at 7 a.m. You can reserve a permit up to three days ahead of a start date—but most permits will be gone by then.

While getting a permit remains a challenge a week in advance, the system at least enables backpackers who didn’t apply months earlier to plan a trip about a week out and arrive at the park with the assurance of having a permit reservation. Many wilderness parks issue walk-in permits only in person no more than a day in advance of starting a trip—meaning you can travel there and not get what you want.

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The park makes any unreserved permits available to obtain first-come, in person at wilderness centers only on the start date of the trip—but there are typically very few, if any, unused permits available. Show up at a wilderness center between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Find more information at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm, where the park warns: “Do not arrive at Yosemite expecting to get a walk-up wilderness permit. While any unreserved permits will be available in person at wilderness centers on the start date of the trip, few, if any, unused permits will be available.”

See all of this blog’s stories about backpacking in Yosemite, including “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” and “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite,” plus my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

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I had crossed La Verkin once before, backpacking this route with my young family when this was an easy rock-hop in early October. Now, during the high runoff of spring, it posed a much bigger challenge—and we needed to reach the other side to continue with our ambitious plan to hike 50 miles across Zion in one day. We stood there, all very experienced hikers, keenly aware of the danger of a fast-moving creek.

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We scouted along the creek bank and within minutes found a wider, shallower spot just upstream, where everyone walked across La Verkin with the water never reaching above anyone’s knees. With patience and the knowledge of how to manage that potentially serious hazard, we reduced it to an easy obstacle.

Most backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, and other backcountry travelers will encounter unbridged creek or river crossings. These obstacles can vary greatly from easy rock-hops to fast, challenging, often-frigid fords or impassable whitewater. Deciding how to reach the other side safely—and if you should attempt it—will determine whether that episode passes without incident or turns into a situation where someone gets wet and perhaps dangerously cold, or devolves into a horrible disaster.

This story explains in detail how to plan for possible creek and river crossings before a trip, assess the relative hazard of any crossing for your group, and execute it safely. The strategies spelled out below draw from my experience of fording countless streams over more than three decades of backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Here’s my main takeaway about creek crossings: Respect the power of moving water because it will almost always push you harder and feel less secure than you expect. Plus, it’s a generally good rule of life to never underestimate any force that can carry your body beyond your control and immerse you in a medium where you cannot breathe.

Like many stories at this blog, part of this one is free for anyone to read but reading the entire story requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Please share your thoughts on my tips, your questions, or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

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Look at Streams When Planning Your Hike

When planning any backcountry trip, research well in advance about any unbridged water crossings and their typical seasonal levels and relative hazard and plan your trip accordingly. Many that are perfectly safe in summer and fall flow high, fast, and too dangerous to cross in spring and often into early summer, when widespread, deep snow melting rapidly raises water levels.

While stream levels are typically seasonal, the snowpack, rainfall, and temperatures over the preceding weeks and months will determine when any stream becomes safe to cross: They don’t just “open” on the same date every year.

Planning a trip for a time when creek levels may be dangerously high also runs the related risk of encountering significant snow cover on trails at higher elevations, rendering them hard to follow, miserable to hike when post-holing constantly in wet snow, or virtually impassable. In many mountain ranges in the U.S. West, trails above roughly 9,000 to 10,000 feet in elevation may not be largely snow-free until mid- or late July.

Right before your trip, check on the current creek and river levels with the management agency, backcountry ranger office, a local river guide service or gear shop, or an online river gauge if available.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Prepare in Advance

River and stream crossings can be challenging and very cold: In early summer, the water temperature may sit not much above freezing, having been snow just hours earlier. Bring the following gear for fording any creek or water that’s potentially more than ankle deep.

• Have footwear (sandals with closed toes, water shoes, or old sneakers, and perhaps neoprene socks for warmth) to change into for those crossings, to protect your feet and keep your boots dry. Fording barefoot risks slipping or injuring your feet on the rocky riverbed; it’s also harder to maintain your balance walking barefoot on slick rocks.
• Trekking poles will help maintain balance in any ford, but particularly when there’s a current or rocky bottom or both. Four potential points of contact are quite literally twice as stable as just your two feet. See my review of “The Best Trekking Poles” and my stories “How to Choose Trekking Poles” and “The 10 Best Expert Tips for Hiking With Trekking Poles.”
• For potentially deep or fast crossings, consider bringing at least two river throw bags for a rescue (one will be of no use if the person carrying it goes down in the river).
• Bring top layers that are warm enough to insulate your core for a cold crossing and extra dry layers to change into if your clothes get wet.
• Dry bags or waterproof stuff sacks will keep critical items like your sleeping bag and extra dry clothing layers dry inside your pack, just in case it ends up in the water (which usually means you ended up in the water with your pack). See my review of best backpacking gear accessories.
• Have an adequately warm sleeping bag protected in an appropriate dry bag or waterproof stuff sack inside your pack for rewarming someone who becomes severely hypothermic on a cold crossing.
• Carry some type of fire starter, in case someone gets fully immersed in cold water and needs a fire to warm up again. Only in hot sunshine and calm air can someone emerge soaked from a stream and quickly warm up once changing from wet to dry clothes; in any combination of weather and temperatures cooler than that, people can rapidly get hypothermic and may not rewarm quickly just by changing clothes. If someone is shivering and having trouble with simple tasks like changing clothes, they are hypothermic.
• A stove, fuel, and pot are often standard backpacking gear and mandatory on trips with cold water crossings for firing up a hot beverage or food to help a hypothermic person warm up.

Dry bags usually have roll-top closures and durable, thicker, waterproof fabric to completely seal out water even if completely immersed for several minutes or more. They also trap air inside, creating some buoyancy in water. Some waterproof stuff sacks will keep contents dry if splashed or rained on but not through more than a brief immersion; those are fine for most backpackers and for easy (read: slow and shallow) water crossings with no greater risk than a slip and fall where a pack gets briefly dunked, but not adequate for challenging crossings.

Only attempt a water crossing barefoot if it’s slow, shallow, and mostly sandy rather than rocky. Wearing only socks may be a better option than attempting it barefoot, but your feet can slip inside socks, affecting your balance; wear socks without other footwear only in shallow, easy currents with a pebbly but not terribly rocky bottom.

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Decide Whether It’s Safe

First and foremost, assess objectively whether the river or creek you want to ford is safe enough for your entire party to make it—bearing in mind that it comes down to whether the weakest party member will be safe. Plus, everyone should be comfortable with attempting it: Don’t make that decision for someone else or let someone make it for you.

If you feel uncertain about the safety of any crossing, abort your plans, whether that means choosing a different route or abandoning your trip entirely. A scary or bad accident leaves far greater regrets than canceling your plans.

The levels of rivers and streams fed by glaciers or ongoing snowmelt typically rise during the warmer daytime hours, when snowmelt upstream accelerates, and fall overnight when temperatures drop. Time those critical crossings for morning.

Gauge the current’s speed and depth. With a clear stream, you can see the bottom but understand that it may not look quite as deep as it is. With silted or murky water, the depth will not be visible.

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Throw a stick into the current to visualize its speed—a current moving faster than you can walk is likely unsafe. Toss a rock into the main current and listen for a low “ka-thump” indicating deep water. Seeing that rock carried downstream before sinking to the bottom, or hearing an audible rumbling of rocks rolling downstream, clearly indicates a current deep and powerful enough to sweep a person away.

Crossing any current that’s moving fast and more than knee-deep will be unsafe for most people. Attempt a crossing above the knees only in a very slow current or calm pool.

Sometimes, boulders or a log may offer a dry crossing, stepping rock to rock, across an otherwise, fast, dangerous creek. When deciding whether to attempt that, consider whether everyone possesses the balance and ability to navigate each of those steps, on rocks or a log that are possibly sloping and wet, and the consequences of someone falling in. Again, poles are invaluable aids when trying to walk a log or rocks across a creek.

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Check how cold the water feels. Spring and early-summer runoff from snow melting at higher elevations drops stream temperatures to just above freezing at the same time that it raises currents to levels that may range from challenging to dangerous—and frigid water not only feels really uncomfortable, it can quickly induce hypothermia and compromise your strength and balance when you desperately need it.

See “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking.”

Assess the riverbed: Is it rocky, sandy, so mucky that your feet may sink in and slip around, compromising your balance, or some combination of these conditions? Consider these factors when deciding whether it’s safe and what to wear on your feet.

Score a backcountry permit in popular parks like Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Grand Teton
using my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

See “The 10 Best Expert Tips for Hiking With Trekking Poles” and all stories with expert backpacking skills at The Big Outside.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free (as well as all of this story); if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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I field a lot of questions from readers about gear and backpacking, and I find the conversation often boiling down to one issue: how much weight they have in their packs. The biggest lesson I’ve drawn from more than three decades of backpacking—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor at Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—is that a major factor dictating my enjoyment of any hike is how much weight I’m carrying.

If I could convince my readers who backpack to follow one piece of advice— no matter your age, how much you hike, or how fit or experienced you are—it would be this: Lighten up. You’ll make backpacking more fun.

This article shares my five most effective tips for accomplishing just that.

The good news is you don’t have to embrace extreme measures or compromise safety or comfort—in fact, I’m convinced my strategy has made me more comfortable and safer than when I routinely carried a much heavier pack. Among many examples I could offer, when three friends and I backpacked the Grand Canyon’s remote and very rugged Royal Arch Loop, we moved more safely and confidently through that challenging terrain because our packs were relatively light—even with the weight of extra water. Other benefits include being able to hike farther, less likelihood of an injury, and just feeling much better at the end of every day on the trail.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

My story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking” goes much deeper into why and how I’ve greatly reduced my pack weight. (That story requires a paid subscription to read in full, but if you’re not a subscriber, you can purchase the e-book version of that story, “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.”)

But here are my five most-important tips as you set out on—or continue down—the path toward lightening your pack. Please share your thoughts on them, or your own favorite tips, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

And click on any photo below to read about that trip.

Take the first step. See my picks for the best ultralight backpacks.

#1 Start With Nothing

The best way to fail at lightening your pack is to start with your old gear list and remove items one by one. Don’t begin from the presumption that every backpacking trip requires the same gear and clothing. Instead, sure, use a gear list as a starting point but question everything, add only what’s necessary for each trip, and continually modify your list as you experiment and hone your own system and gear kit.

See my blog post “An Essentials-Only Backpacking Gear Checklist.”

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#2 Weigh Everything

I mean literally put everything on a scale, from gear to clothes and food. I do it all the time (especially with food). It may sound a little too obsessive, but this helps you assess the value of everything you carry—it motivates you to downsize when you see exactly how much weight each item adds to your pack. It makes you scrutinize everything that’s potentially superfluous and helps you establish a ceiling weight for your backpack.

A person can’t lose weight without stepping on a scale. The same rule applies to a backpack.

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#3 Don’t Be Miserable

I don’t sleep on a bed of leaves, harvest wild edibles or starve, or live in one pair of socks for days on end. I won’t use a wafer-thin foam pad or sleeping bag, because the energy saved through reducing my pack’s weight by those ounces of bag insulation or mattress would be eclipsed by the energy sacrificed to sleep loss. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve added a little more comfort to my kit to ensure that I feel good out there, while still keeping a close eye on that scale.

Customize your own gear kit to suit your needs—including comfort—but don’t lose sight of the goal, which is to end up with a much lighter pack.

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#4 Plan Your Water and Food Precisely

Water and food are heavy: The average person eats two pounds of food and drinks eight pounds or more of water every day in the backcountry. Don’t subscribe to some antiquated rule about a minimum amount of water you must carry or hauling around far more food than you will eat.

Ask yourself: What’s the walking time to the next expected water source, and the likelihood of not finding water at it? What are the real chances of running out of food long before finishing the hike?

I plan exactly how much I’ll eat every day, carrying very little extra food, and I haven’t starved yet. I guzzle water at every source (better to carry it in your belly than on your back) and carry only what I’ll need to reach the next reliable water source.

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#5 Replace Old Gear

This is my only tip that costs money, and it won’t be feasible for everyone—or not immediately, anyway. But new gear is generally lighter—and more comfortable, and sometimes even more durable—than old gear. As you can afford to, replace heavy, bulky, old gear with new stuff. Consider it an investment in your personal pleasure.

See a menu of all reviews and expert buying tips at my Gear Reviews page and all reviews of backpacking gear and ultralight backpacking gear at The Big Outside.

And don’t miss my picks for “The Best Backpacking Gear” of the year.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Backpacking Trip,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

See also “5 Smart Steps to Lighten Your Backpacking Gear,” “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking” and a menu of all stories covering backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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Years ago, in a visitor center in a popular national park, I overheard a conversation in which one person said to another, “Backpackers? They don’t start hiking until 10 or 11 in the morning.” I laughed to myself because I know how true that is in many cases. But I also found it amusing because I prefer to start hiking early when backpacking—and I know that it’s not just about what time you get up. Some simple and easy habits can help you get out of camp faster and on the trail earlier, bringing numerous benefits that really transform the experience of backpacking for you.

Are you a backpacker who doesn’t get out of camp very quickly, either due to your own inertia or that of companions? If your answer is yes, but you’d like to be more efficient about packing up and getting on the trail, this article will help you do just that. The tips below focus on making more efficient use of your time, which will help you get on the trail faster regardless of when you roll out of your bag.

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I’ve learned and adopted the following practices over three decades (and counting) and thousands of miles of backpacking, including having worked as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog. Those trips have been with a wide range of companions, including my kids from when they were very young through their teen years, as well as friends of all abilities and experience levels. Getting different companions packed and on the trail in a time-efficient manner in the morning demands, at times, different tactics—all covered below.

Please share your questions or thoughts about my tips or any tricks of your own that help you hit the trail faster in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Why Hit the Trail Early?

There are many benefits to starting your daily hiking before the sun rises high in the sky, including:

• Hiking more miles in the cooler hours of morning rather than in the heat of the afternoon, when every mile is much more exhausting.
• Enjoying greater solitude when hitting the trail ahead of most backpackers.
• Seeing wildlife, which are generally more active in early morning and evening and less visible during the middle hours of the day.
• Hiking during one of the two times of day—early morning and evening—when the sun is low and the light is much prettier for photography or just marveling at the landscape.
• Enabling you to cover more miles each day without having to hike any faster—essential for thru-hikers of any long trail, but also beneficial for backpackers who would simply like to see more in the number of days they have.
• Allowing time for a side trip to a summit, lake, overlook, or other point of interest not on your direct route.
• Reaching your next campsite with more time to relax, explore the area, or take a dip in a lake or creek while the sun is higher and the temperature warmer.

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No. 1 Have a Plan

The best way to ensure you get a slow and late start leaving your campsite in the morning is to not bother discussing a morning plan the night before. Let everyone move at their own speed and you will guarantee a slow departure because you have effectively ceded control of the group’s schedule to the slowest person and/or latest sleeper in your party.

Instead, discuss it the evening before and agree on a wake-up time and a departure time. It can be negotiable, but it helps inform the decision when everyone understands how far you plan to hike each day and how long that will take, as well as where you may want to spend time along the way to your next campsite and roughly when you would all like to reach that next camp.

There may be days when you decide on a later start—perhaps because some in the group need more sleep, or there’s great swimming or fishing at your current camp, and that’s fine. The point here is to take charge of your circumstances: Making no decision is essentially tantamount to deciding you will move slowly and start hiking later.

Hike “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

No. 2 Organize Gear the Night Before

Another good strategy to assure a slow departure is to leave your campsite and tent looking like a tornado swept through in the evening. The more work you leave for the morning, the longer you will delay your departure.

Instead, organize your clothes and personal items in the evening to facilitate efficiency in the morning. If water bladders or bottles need to be filled with treated water before you commence hiking in the morning, do that the night before (or even before eating dinner, rather than waiting until everyone’s tired and doesn’t want to be bothered with a chore). Store your kitchen gear together so that it’s ready to use and quickly pack up in the morning.

In your tent, keep your sleeping bag and air mattress stuff sacks handy and pack or at least organize all clothing and personal items so that they go from tent to backpack in minutes in the morning. Encourage everyone else to do the same. Example: I always had my kids put their air mat and inflatable pillow stuff sacks inside their bag stuff sack when they first set up their tent; come morning, they’re not wasting time looking for small stuff sacks buried somewhere on a tent floor that’s littered with clothing and other stuff.

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No. 3 Pack Up Gear When You Wake Up

As soon as you wake up, deflate and pack away your air mattress and pillow, stuff your sleeping bag, break down your tent and start loading your pack. You can do these things while your stove is heating up water.

If any of that gear needs drying time before packing it up, that’s all the more reason to empty the tent, lay your bag in the sun, and unstake the tent and turn it upside-down to dry the floor in the sun (because the bottom side of the floor tends to collect the most condensation). With a freestanding tent, leave the poles in place because air will circulate through the tent, drying it faster.

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
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Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Backpacking Trip,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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Stashing a backpack in the woods is just what it sounds like. If you’re on a multi-day backpacking trip and want to take a side hike of any significant distance, like to a summit, and then return to the same spot to resume your backpacking route, it’s a waste of energy (not to mention entirely pointless) to carry your heavy pack with you. But there are ways to do it wrong, and ways to make sure your pack and everything inside it are still there and not torn apart or gone when you return. Here’s how to do it right.

The tips below are drawn from my experience of many thousands of trail miles and more than three decades of backpacking—including more than a quarter-century of doing this professionally and testing and reviewing gear as a past field editor for Backpacker magazine and running this blog. And like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of my tips in this story requires a paid subscription to this blog.

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Basically, you want to make sure no animals (including humans) will find it and take or damage the pack or anything inside. Most hikers aren’t dishonest, but some adults might mistakenly think a pack was inadvertently left behind and assume it’s fair game for whomever finds it, or that they should deliver it to whatever agency manages the land so that its owner might reclaim it later (which is not helpful to you for the remainder of your hike); and kids will more readily take something they find.

That’s more of a concern for me on popular hikes that attract a lot of inexperienced hikers. In more remote areas, where you’ll generally only see experienced backpackers who aren’t likely to make that assumption, I worry less about a pack being visible to people.

Wild animals are a concern virtually everywhere. Rodents, squirrels, and larger animals like raccoons and bears can be attracted by food odors and might chew through or tear up your pack to get food. Many animals, including bears, have a much stronger sense of smell than people, so they’ll find a pack that’s well hidden from sight. Other animals, like deer and mountain goats, will lick or chew on pack straps and hipbelts for the salt left behind when you perspire, and can cause damage.

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Since you can’t lock up a backpack, you have to hide it in a way that avoids attracting an animal to it. Here’s how:

• If stashing it in an area with heavy human traffic, look around for a spot well off the trail and hidden from sight, in trees or bushes or behind a large rock, beyond where people are congregating or walking. If you’re in open terrain with little or no vegetation, you may have to walk farther off the trail to leave the pack hidden by a terrain feature out of sight of the trail.

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The steps I’ve suggested above may seem inconvenient or time-consuming. But it really only takes a few minutes to properly hide a backpack and food, and it prevents a much larger problem that can result from a person or, more likely, an animal discovering and taking or damaging your pack and food.

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-book versions of “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” the lightweight and ultralight backpacking guide, and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

See a menu of all stories about backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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So you just got the inspired idea to backpack the Teton Crest Trail and discovered you’re months late to reserve a backcountry permit. You’ve probably also learned that it’s possible to get a walk-in backcountry permit for Grand Teton National Park—but competition for those is high, especially for the camping zones along the TCT.

So you’re wondering: Is it possible to backpack the Teton Crest Trail without a permit? In a word, the answer is: yes. It’s somewhat complicated and not easy, but this story explains how to do that.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

The Teton Crest Trail deservedly sees sky-high demand for backcountry permits. It’s unquestionably one of the 10 best backpacking trips in America, incredibly scenic virtually every step from start to finish, featuring high passes with sweeping vistas, endless meadows bursting with wildflowers, beautiful lakes, creeks, and waterfalls, a good chance of seeing wildlife like elk and moose—and some of the best campsites you will ever pitch a tent in.

I’ve taken at least two dozen trips in the Tetons and several on the Teton Crest Trail over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

See my story about my most-recent TCT trip, “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” which requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including some of my tips and information on planning a TCT backpacking trip. For much more information on planning this trip, get my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

I’ve also helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in the Tetons and elsewhere, answering all of their questions and customizing an itinerary ideal for them—whether helping them navigate applying for a backcountry permit reservation in advance or obtaining a walk-in permit. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.

Please share any thoughts, questions, or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of it—including my key tips on the strategy for backpacking the Teton Crest Trail without a permit—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail and
the best short backpacking trip there.

It’s Probably Too Late to Reserve a Permit

In Grand Teton, for trips between May 1 and Oct. 31, permit reservations opened at recreation.gov at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, 2025, and can be made up to two days before your trip start date. But most reservable backcountry camping, including camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail, get booked up within minutes after the system starts accepting reservations.

Given the huge demand for reservations and the fact that they get booked up so quickly, there’s effectively just one day every year when you can reserve a permit for backpacking the Teton Crest Trail. Once reservations close in May, the only option left is a walk-in permit.

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You Can Get a Walk-In Permit

Like virtually all national parks, Grand Teton National Park has a walk-in or first-come backcountry permit option that allows you to grab a last-minute permit, without a reservation, based on availability, no more than a day in advance of starting a multi-day hike in the park’s backcountry. Grand Teton National Park sets aside two-thirds of backcountry campsites for walk-in permits—a higher portion than most major parks.

Getting a walk-in permit isn’t impossible—numerous backpackers get one every summer. But it requires some flexibility in your schedule and a willingness to accept whatever camping zones have availability when you arrive at a park backcountry desk to speak to a ranger. Plan to arrive hours before the backcountry desk opens (they’re located in park visitor centers) to get a spot near the front of the line that inevitably forms in the wee hours. You might not get the itinerary you want.

See my story “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit.”

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How to Backpack the TCT Without a Permit

To backpack the Teton Crest Trail legally without a permit you must camp every night outside Grand Teton National Park. And don’t poach backcountry camping in the park without a permit. Backcountry rangers patrol and getting caught risks a penalty and I can tell you from personal experience (long ago), it’s embarrassing.

Fortunately, the TCT wanders in and out of park boundaries and signs along trails clearly indicate when you’re crossing a park boundary. The challenge is that you must be able to hike at least one big day to link up campsites outside the park, particularly through the TCT’s northern stretch—which harbors the most glorious hiking on the trail.

Here’s how to do that.

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail.
Want my help with yours? Find out more here.

Grand Teton National Park requires storing food in a hard-sided bear canister; although you’re not subject to park regulations when camping outside the park, a canister still offers the best protection. See my favorite bear canister in my review of essential backpacking gear accessories.

See all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside, including “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” and “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail.”

And see all stories about backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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Whether you’re a family of novices planning your first backpacking trip or an experienced backpacker ready to take your kids on their first multi-day hike, heed this friendly advice: You’re in for some surprises. And I speak from experience. I’d been backpacking for years—in fact, I was already working as a professional backpacker—when my wife (also a longtime backpacker) and I first dove into the grand new adventure of taking our young kids into the wilderness.

We learned a lot. But the biggest lesson was this: Our backcountry adventures brought us closer together as a family and helped mold our children into eager and skilled backpackers and confident young adults with a passion and appreciation for the outdoors—and who seize every chance to spend time with us (their parents!) outdoors (and indoors!).

This article shares lessons I learned while taking our kids on countless backpacking trips since they were quite little and over the course of the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Follow the tips below to make your family backpacking trips a success and ensure that your kids want to go again and again. Like many stories at The Big Outside, much of this one is free for anyone to read but reading the entire story requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Please share your thoughts, questions, or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

Check out my expert e-books to classic backpacking trips and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next great adventure.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

1. Car-Camp and Dayhike First

My wife and I were avid and experienced backpackers before our two kids came along and we took our first child backpacking when he was a baby and toddler. But once our daughter joined the pack—and we had two in diapers, with all the stuff you have to carry with children that young—we shifted for about five years to dayhiking and car-camping as a family (and taking our adult backpacking trips whenever possible, separately or together).

Both proved a great means of preparing kids for backpacking. Our family hiking together became normal and familiar to them before their oldest memories and we got a sense of our kids’ hiking abilities—making the transition to backpacking easier for all of us. Similarly, car-camping helped us dial in our systems and gear for backpacking and probably made backpacking seem ordinary to our kids.

Once our youngest was five years old and could hike more than a few miles, we resumed family backpacking trips. I also established a tradition of annual father-son and father-daughter trips, creating very special one-on-one time together.

Backpacking Parent Tip Kids up to about age four roll around a lot in their sleep—often sliding out of a sleeping bag. We learned to just bring a child’s favorite blanket or two camping (on relatively mild summer nights). It’s much easier to throw a blanket over a kid in the middle of the night then to keep stuffing her back inside a bag.

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2. Don’t Get Overambitious

If you backpacked pre-kids, this won’t be like that. And even if your kids are good dayhikers, backpacking changes the entire dynamic. Your kids may be carrying more (see more on that in tip no. 8, below), but at the least, you are carrying much more weight and getting somewhere grows more complicated.

Myriad obstacles slow you down—most often that kids up to tweeners simply don’t hike fast, get distracted, and need frequent rest breaks and snacks. Set modest goals for distance and especially elevation gain and loss. Take your first trips on good trails that aren’t too difficult and have frequent, reliable water sources.

Backpacking Parent Tip Have a bailout plan. Be ready to accept that it may not go well the first time and a safe retreat is preferable to a loss. The only “failure” is if the kids don’t like it and don’t want to go again. Remember that your goal is their enjoyment, not yours—your reward will be seeing their joy and, when they’re older, their eagerness to do this more with you.

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3. Outfit Them With the Right Gear

We heard the young girl crying through the howling wind and July snowstorm on Besseggen Ridge in Norway’s mountainous Jotunheimen National Park. We caught up with the family and saw that she was eight or nine years old, crying inconsolably and repeating one word over and over: “Cold! Cold!”

We stopped to ask if they were all right. The parents and two teenage boys were dressed for the weather in good boots, enough insulation, and shells. The young girl, inexplicably, wore open-top rubber boots, tights, and the kind of winter jacket you’d buy in Wal-Mart. She walked very slowly. She clearly was hypothermic and only getting colder. The next hut was several miles ahead of us.

We convinced them to turn around and walk downhill to the Gjendesheim hut, just a few miles back. There, they could take a ferry across a lake to the next hut. (In fact, my wife and kids had taken that ferry instead of hiking through the storm.) We saw them that evening in the hut, warm and happy.

Children need functional gear—most critically a backpack and boots that fit properly and are appropriate for what they’re doing—and a versatile layering system just as much as adults do. Yes, that can get a little expensive, but cutting corners risks creating an uncomfortable, negative experience for your child and, at worst, placing him in danger of hypothermia or worse.

Plus, good-quality kids’ outdoor clothing and gear can often be obtained inexpensively. See my “10 Tips for Spending Less on Hiking and Backpacking Gear.”

Most importantly, check that they’ve brought everything they need before you leave home—my son, at age 11, once forgot to pack his rain shell, fleece jacket, and warm hat for a five-day backpacking trip in Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness. (He survived just fine. I felt a little chilly in camp with him wearing my down jacket.) And make sure they’re adjusting layers as needed in the backcountry and learn how and when to do that.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
in Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

4. Go at Their Pace But Meet Them Halfway

Young kids are not in any hurry on the trail. They want to stop and play in a creek, stream, or lake. They want to throw small rocks and climb on big rocks. They certainly want to watch animals. This is all good and you should encourage it: Children want to interact with their environment—which makes this fun for them. (That’s why tip no. 2 is important.)

But you also have a campsite to reach every day. Give them the time to stop and play and explore along the way—it also lets you set that heavy pack down for a bit—and join them exploring because they long for your attention (see the Backpacking Parent Tip under tip no. 6).

But remind them that you have to move along at some point. Tell them they’re going to love the campsite (and make sure you deliver on that—see tip no. 7).

Backpacking Parent Tip When our kids were little, we established a tradition: Every day on the trail, they got a chocolate bar when we were halfway to that day’s destination. (We got one, too.) It was a good motivator that we also used on dayhikes.

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5. Keep Feeding Them

I’ve been reminded of this truth countless times: A kid who’s griping about being tired is usually just hungry. Give her a big chocolate bar or energy bar or stop for lunch. Children need to eat more frequently than adults—sometimes every hour, especially when they’re small.

Look for warning signs: a slowing pace, growing quiet or grumpy, or a faraway look. Feed them before they scream, “I’m starving!” Ditto with water. Most kids sip rather than gulp, so remind them every 15 or 20 minutes, “Everyone take a big drink.” Giving each kid a hydration bladder helps. Don’t let them get dehydrated—that takes longer to fix than eating does.

As for meals, my wife and I have always kept it simple, preparing what we knew our kids would eat and that wouldn’t require much prep or cleanup.

Backpacking Parent Tip Don’t let a kid hit the wall. When he’s obviously in need of fuel, resist the urge to insist, “Let’s just hike a little farther” unless you intend to stop very soon. Take a few minutes and give him something to eat. You will spare yourself much unnecessary grief.

Start out right. See “10 Perfect National Park Backpacking Trips for Beginners”
and “The 5 Southwest Backpacking Trips You Should Do First.”

6. Talk and Play Games

When our kids were young, my family played word and number games while hiking for hours—it helped the time pass for our kids and was genuinely fun: We’d laugh for hours.

One favorite was “The Story Game:” One of us would begin making up a story with a few sentences and each of us would add some piece of narrative in turn, over and over, until it reached some conclusion. Our kids often introduced bizarre plot twists that reduced them to paroxysms of cackling.

That regular practice, I believe, set the stage for the long, engaging conversations we had while hiking with our kids once they became teenagers—because they had come to recognize this as an opportunity for us to spend extended periods of time talking to each other.

In camp, we’d also play games together, typically those that were easy to carry, like a deck of cards or, in the case of my daughter and me, working on Sudoku puzzles together on a tablet.

Backpacking Parent Tip To a young kid, a parent’s attention is everything. Even teenagers covet your approval, even if they don’t show it. Nothing you can do will make them want to do this again more than your full attention. Besides, few times provide so much undistracted time together as being in the backcountry—away from our phones and devices. That, I came to learn, delivers the greatest value of family backpacking trips.

Like this story? You may also like my “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids”
and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

See my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking,” “10 Tips for Keeping Kids Happy and Safe Outdoors,” “The 5 Best Tips For Hiking With Young Kids,” and “5 Questions to Ask Before Trying a New Outdoors Adventure.”

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As we neared Gunsight Pass in Glacier National Park, on a three-day family backpacking trip, a man and woman in their fifties stopped to talk with us. They sized up our kids and smiled; Nate was nine and Alex was seven. “We’re impressed!” they told us. “We never had any luck trying to get our kids to backpack when they were young.” We chatted a bit and then headed off in opposite directions on the trail.

After they were out of earshot, Alex turned to me, wanting to clarify a point: “You didn’t get us to do this,” she told me. “We wanted to do it.” Her words, of course, warmed my heart. But her comment also spotlighted the biggest lesson for parents hoping to raise their kids to love the outdoors: Create experiences that make them eager to go out again the next time.

Sure, all kids are different. Offering advice to parents on how to raise their kids treads on dangerous ground—kind of like telling members of my extended Italian-American family how to make pasta sauce.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

But my wife and I have had good success. Our kids are now young adults and and still look forward to our regular backpacking, skiing, paddling, and other adventures. They also amassed an impressive list of pretty hard-core trips on their wilderness CVs by a very young age, from sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay and descending a technical slot canyon in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, to numerous backpacking trips in national parks like Grand Teton, Zion, Olympic, and the Grand Canyon, and trekking hut to hut in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, on the Tour du Mont Blanc, and in Spain’s Picos de Europa, among other international adventures.

(See a menu of stories about many of our trips at my Family Adventures page, and see my Book page to read about the year we spent taking wilderness adventures in national parks threatened by climate change.)

I think much of what we’ve learned could be helpful to most families, and it boils down to these 10 basic guidelines laid out below. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story requires a paid subscription to read: The first six tips below are free for anyone to read, but reading the rest—including tips I don’t think you’ll find from other sources—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

See the many comments at the bottom of this story, and please share your own thoughts, questions, experiences, and tips there, too. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to see the story about it.

1. Give Away Your Baby Stroller

As soon as your toddler can walk, give some friends that stroller and let your child walk everywhere you go, whether around town or on a trail. Sure, walking with a little one requires patience. But it turns children into strong hikers at a young age and gets them used to the idea that they will walk rather than be carried.

I preferred a child-carrier backpack to a stroller, even in urban settings, for those occasions when one of my kids needed a break from walking. It gives you exercise, is more convenient on stairs, and helps communicate to kids that our family carries packs—that we’re hikers.

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2. Don’t Give in to Frustration and Apathy

Let’s face it: Hiking, camping, or doing almost anything outdoors with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is often more work than fun. Don’t get discouraged; take them out anyway. If you wait until they’re older, you may find that your child isn’t interested. Introduce children to the outdoors while they’re very young and make it part of your family lifestyle, so that you nurture in them a long-term love for it.

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3. Take Baby Steps

Don’t push your kids too hard. This one’s especially hard for parents who have always been very active, but pushing them risks creating a negative association with the outdoors. Start small, with short hikes, and work gradually up to longer outings. Think of it as pulling them along rather than pushing them. This also helps prevent the need to abandon plans, which is sometimes necessary (see tip #5) but can be disappointing for everyone involved.

What’s familiar and easy to you may seem scary and intimidating to a kid. Evaluate your child’s readiness for something new based not just on its physical difficulty, but how well your child handled previous experiences that presented comparable stress.

Example: When I considered taking my kids, at age nine and seven, sea kayaking and wilderness camping for five days in Glacier Bay, Alaska, I decided they were ready for it because they had done several backpacking trips, rock climbed, floated and camped on a wilderness river, and cross-country skied through snowstorms to backcountry yurts. They had managed stressful situations well and understood the need to follow instructions and that trips have uncomfortable moments. Despite how wet and raw it was at times, they loved Glacier Bay.

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4. Employ Bribery Strategically

Bring along motivators like their favorite candy bar to eat halfway through a hike and a favorite stuffed animal. Do things that create positive associations for kids, like giving them their own gear (headlamp, pack, walkie-talkie, etc.), and letting them be the hike leader or take charge pitching the tent.

Remember: What a child says now does not necessarily reflect how she will feel 20 minutes from now. I’ve been reminded time and time again that a seemingly tired kid is often just a hungry kid. They don’t have nearly the fat reserves and muscle mass of adults, so they need to rest and refuel more frequently, sometimes every hour.

Look for warning signs: grumpiness, a slowing pace, growing quiet, or a faraway look. Remind them frequently to take a drink. A 10-minute rest and a fat chocolate bar can swing a kid’s attitude 180 degrees.

Keep the magic going with my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You”
and my “7 Tips for Getting Your Family on Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

5. Tear Up Your Agenda

Whether hiking with kids or on a serious mountain climb, I think people often get into trouble simply because they focus too much on the destination, overlooking that it’s really about the journey. Don’t be so wedded to your agenda that you fail to see when it’s time to switch to Plan B.

Taking children outdoors, especially younger ones, does not always go according to plan. Adults hike for exercise, the views, and to get somewhere; young kids want to throw rocks in a creek and play in the mud. Let them. Explain to kids that there will be time for playing, but also a time for hiking. Encourage your teenager to invite along a friend. Find a balance that makes everyone happy, giving children some say without relinquishing all control.

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6. Talk and Listen

Establish a rule up front: no whining. Tell your children they can talk about any situation they’re not happy with, but draw the line at complaining just to complain. Everyone will be happier.

At the same time, explain to your kids what you will be doing and what’s expected of them. Welcome their questions and address their concerns. Make sure they know that you won’t ask them to do anything they are not comfortable with, and that you will provide whatever help they need. Make them feel like they’re part of the decision-making process, so they have a sense of control over their own fate, which goes a long way toward relieving stress, no matter what your age.

I’m also a big believer in taking charge when necessary. My friend Shelli Johnson, a life and leadership coach, adventure guide, and blogger at yourepiclife.com, framed this advice wonderfully: “If you want to go hiking as a family, don’t ask your child or children, ‘Do you want to go hiking?’ Just say, ‘We’re going hiking.’ Trust me on this. You’re in charge, and if you’re serious about wanting a family that hikes and spends a lot of time outdoors, be the captain.”

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

See a menu of all stories about our many family outdoor adventures at my Family Adventures page at The Big Outside.

I wrote about taking our young kids on 11 wilderness adventures in national parks facing threats from climate change in my National Outdoor Book Awards-winning book, Before They’re Gone—A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks, from Beacon Press.

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So, you’ve been an avid [circle all appropriate terms: hiker/backpacker/climber/trail runner/skier/kayaker] for years, and now you’re spending big chunks of your days changing diapers and your nights wondering when you’ll sleep again. You’ve never gone this long without getting out into the mountains, and you see no remedy for that shortfall in the foreseeable future. Your new baby is more wonderful than you’d ever imagined—and yet, you’re feeling a little despair over what’s missing from your life lately.

I know where your head is right now. And I have good news for you: I’ve reached the bright light at the end of the tunnel, and you can get there faster than you might think. Here’s how.

First of all, I know it’s hard to take a long view when you’re so deeply buried in the day-to-day management of a hectic life. But as a father of two young adults, I can tell you that growing children race through development stages—each one very different—with blinding speed. While in many respects the infant and toddler years are the most demanding (and cutest), and can seem eternal at times, they do pass. In my experience, parenting keeps getting better.

But for now, you need some strategies for surviving the early years of parenting, when you face the greatest demands on your personal time—and your sanity.

The following tips reflect what I’ve learned from more than 20 years as a parent who has always strived to get outside as much as possible—dayhiking, backpacking, climbing, running, paddling, skiing—with my family whenever I can, but also, at times without them. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read but reading the entire story is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

Please share your questions or tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

1. Ignore the Naysayers

You’ll hear too many parents say things like, “Oh, you won’t be out backpacking/climbing/skiing anymore!” Don’t listen to them. These comments tend to come from people for whom getting outside isn’t as important as it is to you. They don’t understand your lifestyle or how much and how often you need to get out there—or how hard you’ll work at accomplishing that goal, no matter the obstacles.

When my kids were babies and toddlers I’d put them in a front pack or a child-carrier backpack and go for a hike by myself. My wife and I took them camping, dayhiking, skiing, backpacking, paddling rivers, and climbing from the time they were very young—even though it was a lot of work—because it gave us time outdoors and helped turn our kids into young people who now love backpacking, climbing, skiing, and paddling with us. She and I also took turns solo parenting to let each other get outside—for an hour, a few hours, a few days.

If you’re that type of person, that’s what you’ll do—regardless of what other people think or say.

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2. Hike Your Own Hike

That’s a motto among thru-hikers of long-distance trails, but the message applies just as well to raising children. Just as there are many ways to tackle a months-long hike, there are probably almost as many styles of parenting as there are parents. Just like setting out on a long hike, those first steps on the path of parenting can get bumpy. You’ll fall down and end some days bruised, sore, and wondering what the hell you’re doing.

Just figure out your own comfortable pace and what you need and don’t need; it doesn’t matter whether it resembles someone else’s approach. You’ll get there.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite
and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

3. Embrace Good Advice

As much as you must hike your own hike as a parent, you will also meet other parents—some with kids older than yours—who, by all appearances, are doing it right. They get out as much as they like. Their kids actually like getting out with them, and seem like great kids.

Get to know those parents; they just might know some tricks you will find useful. At the least, they’re probably fun to hang out with.

Don’t miss my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids.”

4. Take the Kids Outside Often

Both of my kids went on their first hike—in a front pack on my chest—within a few days after they were born. That was merely symbolic, of course. But those short walks were emblematic of the philosophy my wife and I embraced from the beginning of parenthood: Our kids would learn that getting outdoors together as a family is normal.

We dragged the kids out camping, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, dayhiking and backpacking, paddling rivers and climbing (when they expressed an interest in the last one)—doing everything we liked to do with our kids, even though it often meant going much slower when the kids were little and involved much more work. Even at home, whenever we had to go somewhere in town within biking range, in reasonable weather, we biked there.

If you want your children to share your passions, start them young and do it with them.

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5. Stop Worrying So Much

Before they were out of grade school, our kids had backpacked in parks from Grand Canyon to Olympic and among grizzly bears in Glacier; sea kayaked through wet, raw weather and camped on remote wilderness beaches in Alaska’s Glacier Bay; paddled among alligators in the Everglades; trekked through cold rain and wet snow in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park; rock climbed 150-foot cliffs and rappelled into and crawled through slot canyons; and cross-country skied through snowstorms to backcountry yurts miles from the nearest road multiple times. (My award-winning book Before They’re Gone chronicles the year my family spent backpacking, rock climbing, paddling, and cross-country skiing in 11 national parks facing major threats from climate change.)

Bad parents, right?

Yes, we worry like any parents. We’re hyper-conscious about safety and ask a lot of questions. We’ve always tailored family activities to suit their ages and abilities. We’ve abandoned plans and turned back on trails when necessary.

But every time we’ve worried that we’re pushing our kids beyond their abilities, they have risen to the challenge and loved it.

It doesn’t matter whether your family tries to do what my family (or any other family) does; establish your own comfort zone. My point is this: Don’t over-worry about the kids. They’re often more resilient and adaptable than adults give them credit for.

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See a menu of all stories about our many family outdoor adventures at the Family Adventures page at The Big Outside.

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“That sounds totally boring.” “Other parents don’t force their kids to do things they don’t want to do.” “I hate (fill in the activity).” If you’re a parent of a teenager, you’ve probably heard these responses from your child, or any of an infinite number of variations on them—like a personal favorite that one of my kids, at 14, laid on me: “You get to choose your friends, but you don’t get to choose your family.” If you’re trying to persuade a teen to get outdoors with you—which often entails pulling him or her away from an electronic screen—your child can summon powers of resistance that conjure mental images of Superman stopping a high-speed train.

My kids, now young adults, have taken far more backpacking trips and other outdoor adventures than they can remember, paddled whitewater rivers and waters from Alaska’s Glacier Bay to Florida’s Everglades and Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and skied and rock climbed since they were preschoolers—and they are still eager to take trips with my wife and me. Although we no longer encounter blowback to our plans to do something outdoors together, that certainly persisted well into their teen years. But as teens, our kids usually looked forward to our adventures. This story shares the reasons why.

Following up on my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” mostly intended for parents of younger children, the tips below summarize what I’ve learned from many outdoors adventures with increasingly independent young people—who happen to share my genetic makeup.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story requires a paid subscription to read: The first six tips below are free for anyone to read, but reading the rest—including tips I don’t think you’ll find from other sources—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

Click on any photo to read about that trip. Please share your thoughts on my advice or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

#1 Establish a Tradition

I took my son on our first father-son “Boy Trip” (the name he gave it), backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, when he was six. My first father-daughter adventure (yup, our “Girl Trip”—her name) followed within a few years, and we have kept the tradition alive most years since.

Similarly, our family and another with kids close in age began taking an annual ski trip to a backcountry yurt when the children ranged in age from seven to four. The boy trip, girl trip, and yurt trip have become staples of our annual travel calendar, considered as sacrosanct as birthdays—and each involves days spent entirely disconnected in remote backcountry.

Ideally, start a regular tradition of an outdoors adventure when kids are fairly young—but your child is never too old to begin. With a teenager, you may need to up the excitement stakes, like climbing a big mountain together. Find whatever it is that excites everyone involved; it may be the same activity or destination every year, or something perennially different. There are no rules, except to make it strictly about spending a lot of quality time together.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

#2 Encourage Their Interests

My wife and I introduced our children to dayhiking and backpacking, skiing, rock climbing, and paddling on easier rivers and protected bays, with the occasional, guided whitewater rafting adventure. Then our son, at age 12, decided on his own to take up whitewater kayaking. We sent him for several summers to a four-day whitewater kayaking camp near our home; through that instruction, and lots of practice on Idaho’s beautiful and fun rivers, he has developed into a competent boater.

Most importantly, he loves it and does it safely. But by encouraging his new interest, we not only gave him the freedom to embrace the outdoors in his way, we’ve also reaped the benefits of having someone in our family who expanded our horizons. Our family now does much more whitewater kayaking (our son in his hard-shell boat, the rest of us in inflatable kayaks), including rafting and kayaking one of the West’s classic wilderness rivers, Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon.

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#3 Do Something Really Cool

On a two-family, spring break trip to southern Utah, the parents wanted to take some scenic dayhikes in places like Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon national parks—which the four youths deemed “boring.”

But when the other dad and I took them on a three-hour, late-afternoon hike through the slot canyons Peek-a-Boo Gulch and Spooky Gulch in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, squeezing between wildly curved walls frequently closer than shoulder-width apart, all we heard from them was laughter and expressions of awe.

Some places and experiences are so fascinating and fun that even teens can’t find a reason to complain. It may require a little research, but surprise your teenager with activities and destinations that will excite him—or perhaps even better, ask your kid to help you research and plan your trip, finding those things that will excite them and getting him or her emotionally invested in the entire plan.

See my story about that hike and others, “Playing the Memory Game in Southern Utah’s Escalante, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon.”

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#4 Pick a Shared Goal

When I went to our then-15-year-old son with a proposal that he and I climb a technical route up the highest peak in the Lower 48 states, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, to raise money for an organization that introduces kids his age to the outdoors, he loved the idea and, months later, he and I made that climb together.

During my years as a field editor with Backpacker magazine, I participated in two of the first Summit For Someone fundraiser mountain climbs for Big City Mountaineers, a non-profit that takes underprivileged, urban teenagers on multi-day wilderness adventures. I believe strongly in the critical importance of BCM’s work in helping to ensure that the generation growing up today sustains America’s outdoors heritage.

Nate gleaned the importance of helping give opportunities like this to other young people while he and I pursued a big, shared goal together. (One ancillary benefit: Preparing for a rigorous, four-day snow climb up a big mountain helped motivate him to exercise regularly to train for it.)

Whether it’s a mountain climb or something else, find a shared goal that will challenge and excite you and your kid. You may both grow personally from it in ways that surprise you, while opening new doors in your relationship with your child.

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#5 Let Them Bring a Friend

When I invited my 17-year-old nephew, Marco, on what I knew would be an extremely difficult, 17-mile, 6,800-foot dayhike in the rugged Northern Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, he asked about bringing a friend. Marco had done a comparably hard dayhike in the Whites with me the year before, but I didn’t know anything about his friend except that they were soccer teammates. So I got on the phone with that boy’s father, told him about our plans in detail—partly because, as a parent, I’d want to know more about whoever was taking my kid on such a demanding adventure—and he told me why he thought his son would do fine.

Although it was a really tough, 15-hour day, ending by headlamps long after dark, all of the kids—including Nate, who was 14—did great and went home with a memorable war story to tell. But more importantly, they emerged from the experience eager for more.

Letting a teenage son or daughter invite a friend along has long been a staple parenting strategy. It’s no different for outdoor adventures—just a little trickier in that you want to make sure the friend is up to whatever challenges he or she will face.

Even better than finding the one friend who becomes the perfect adventure mate for your child is discovering an entire family that pairs well with your clan—parents and kids. That’s gold.

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#6 Talk About the Outdoors

This tip may ring familiar to anyone who’s read my “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” in which I advise parents to “Work Your P.R.” All that changes with older kids is how you talk about it. Put your enthusiasm about the outdoors on display. Don’t shove it down a kid’s throat, but when an opportunity presents itself—when your child looks interested—talk about what you love.

Show teens an inspirational online video (a medium they trust and connect with). When the Banff Mountain Film Festival Tour comes to our city every winter, showing dozens of the year’s prize-winning films about the outdoors, we take our kids, and we all go home jonesing for our next adventure.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

See all stories about family adventures and my All Trips List at The Big Outside.

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Wonder why I’m smiling in the above photo? Well, sure, two friends and I were hiking the incredibly scenic Besseggen Ridge in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park; that had something to do with it. But the other big factor was that I was comfortable—and how well my pack carried had a lot to do with that. And how I loaded it greatly affected how well it carried on my back. In this four-minute video, I’ll show you how to properly load a backpack to make your backpacking trips much more enjoyable.

I have refined my method for loading my backpack over more than three decades of backpacking—including the 10 years I spent as Backpacker magazine’s lead gear reviewer and even longer running this blog. In the four-minute video below, I will demonstrate how to pack all of your stuff into your backpack in the most efficient way and to maximize your comfort on the trail.

If you have not been using good technique when loading your backpack, you may be surprised at what a difference it makes. But even if you have been following what you understand to be the recommended way to load a pack, you might learn some new tricks from this video.

There are two basic goals when loading a backpack:

1. Organize it so that the items you want to get to quickly while on the trail are readily accessible;

2. Balance and distribute the weight in the pack to maximize your comfort.

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Watch the video below to see me demonstrate how to properly load a backpack.

Don’t miss the comments section below, where I have a good exchange of questions and answers with some readers, and please type in your own questions or suggestions.

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See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs,” and all reviews of backpacks and backpacking gear at The Big Outside, plus “5 Tips For Buying the Right Backpack,” which includes instructions on how to measure your torso and properly fit a backpack, and “The Best Backpacking Gear” of the year.

And find all gear reviews organized by categories and expert tips on buying gear at the Gear Reviews page at The Big Outside.

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In the Digital Era, the idea of families spending sustained time outdoors—actually taking trips built around some outdoor adventure enjoyed together—can feel like a wonderful aspiration that’s awfully hard to achieve. But that lifestyle is a reality for many families—and always has been for mine—and one that brings parents and children together for long periods of time (hours or even days!) in beautiful places in nature for an activity that’s genuinely fun and, most importantly, offline and unplugged.

How do you create that kind of lifestyle for your family? As the father of two young adults who are avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, paddlers, and intelligent, fine young people who make me proud (and most importantly, love spending time with and just talking to their parents!), I believe this goal remains not only entirely feasible today, but all that much more critical—especially for young kids.

And when it’s done right, you and your children will consider the time you spend together outdoors some of the best you share as a family.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

For this story, I’ve synthesized the biggest lessons I’ve gleaned from two decades of parenting outdoors as often as possible—and four decades building my life around outdoor recreation, including formerly as a field editor for Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog—into seven tips that will help set you on the path to wonderful times together as a family.

Click on any photo to read about that trip. Please share your questions or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

No. 1: Don’t ‘Wait Until They’re Older’

For starters, abandon any misguided notion that you should “wait until the kids are older”—that’s a formula for winding up with a ‘tweener or teen who’s not interested in any of your wild-eyed notions about spending family time outdoors.

My initial motivation was admittedly somewhat selfish. One lesson I learned soon after becoming a father was this: If I wanted to keep getting outside—and especially on big trips—as much as I had before parenthood, I would have to involve my family in the activities I love doing. (That’s why that tip ranks no. 2 in my “10 Tips For Getting Outside More.”) But I also understood that making that effort when they were small would pay dividends as they grew older and more capable.

As I urge in my “Survival Guide for the Outdoors Lover Who’s a New Parent,” take your kids outside often, beginning when they’re too young to remember it—then their oldest memories will include being outdoors with their family. They will learn that getting outdoors together as a family is almost as routine as dinner.

That’s not to say it’s ever too late to start, of course. It’s never too late to spend quality time together.

Want to take your family backpacking? See these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”

No. 2: When You Need It, Get Expert Help

You want to get your kids outdoors more, exploring nature, and enjoying the myriad experiences available in local, state, and national parks; but you and your spouse lack the skills and knowledge to even know where to begin, never mind keep everyone safe. That’s not an obstacle—everyone begins as a novice. There are free programs, many of them family-oriented, available on public lands all over the country, and numerous paid guide services—an abundance of expertise available to help you acquire experience and skills.

As just one example, when planning a visit to a national park, search the park’s website for ranger-led activities, like hikes, that are usually free or low-cost and ideal for families and beginners; you’ll find them at virtually every national park and many other public lands. Those websites also list guide services and outfitters that are licensed to operate in that park.

For instance, you can find guided tours of all kinds in Yellowstone, guided hikes in Glacier National Park, river trips through the Grand Canyon, and climbing guides operating in Grand Teton National Park and on Mount Rainier, and ranger-led tours and interpretive programs in almost any park, including Yosemite, and an adventurous, ranger-guided tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches.

See all of the stories about family trips listed at my Family Adventures page at The Big Outside, including stories about guided whitewater rafting Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River and Utah’s Gates of Lodore section of the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument and the Green River’s Desolation and Gray canyons, climbing Mount Whitney, guided hiking and slot canyoneering in Capitol Reef National Park, sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay, and kayak touring in the Everglades.

See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next family adventure..

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No. 3: Talk and Listen to Them

From the longer perspective of a father of young adults, of all the advice that I offer in my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” I think the two best nuggets of hard-earned wisdom are simply “talk and listen” and “work your P.R.”

When planning a trip, make your children feel like they’re part of the decision-making process. Welcome their questions, address their concerns, and give them some say in what you’re doing. They will be more emotionally invested in making it a success.

Your children crave your attention; shower them with it, especially positive reinforcement. Compliment kids when they do well and encourage them when they’re challenged. Tell children they’re good hikers, skiers, climbers, paddlers, or cyclists, and they will take pride in that. You will help them self-identify as a kid who likes being outdoors.

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No. 4: Take One-on-One, Parent-Child Trips

When my son and daughter were both very young, I established a tradition of taking an annual father-son and father-daughter backcountry trip, getaways that have become known as our “Boy Trip” and “Girl Trip.” (At a young age, my daughter gave me a waiver for my gender.)

By launching this idea when they were young and eager for entire days of one-on-one time with me, I created a tradition that my kids would look forward to as much as I did.

While most of our trips have consisted of backpacking and rock climbing in our home state of Idaho, I’ve also backpacked in the Grand Canyon with my daughter and climbed Mount Whitney with my son (click on the photos above and at left to read about either trip).

But it matters less what you do or where than simply that you do it, give your child your entire attention, make it fun, and demonstrate your commitment to it—so that, as your child gets older, the shared commitment remains strong.

I can report now, from the far end of the parenting journey with two kids who are young adults and avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, and paddlers, that our son and daughter—as busy as their lives have become—still strive to spend as much time with us, especially outdoors, as they can, and we’re continually planning adventures together, whether for a few hours or a few weeks.

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No. 5: Blow Their Minds

Taking outdoors trips with little kids can, at times, create that defeated feeling of herding cats; but in some ways, it’s easier than when they get older, because you’re still in charge while they’re young. As they get older, they not only want more say in decisions about family outings and vacations, but they tend to come down with a chronic case of cynicism—everything is potentially “boring.”

Solution: Overwhelm their cynicism with trips so irrefutably fun that your offer becomes one they can’t refuse. One of my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You” is: Do something really cool.

As our kids grew older and more physically capable, comfortable with bigger challenges, and self-confident, we took them exploring slot canyons, including two non-technical, family-friendly slots in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a technical slot canyon that required four rappels in Capitol Reef National Park.

We rafted and kayaked whitewater rivers like Oregon’s Grand Ronde, Utah’s Green through Dinosaur National Monument, and Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon. We’ve backpacked and trekked hut to hut in amazing landscapes from the Tetons and Glacier National Park to the Tour du Mont Blanc and Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. I would regularly take them rock climbing and skiing.

No, it doesn’t have to be totally hard-core, involve international travel, or cost a small fortune. The point is simply to be willing to rise to the challenge of motivating your kids when they’ve grown a little tired of the same old. The fact that they want to step up to a higher level of outdoor adventure means you’ve been successful.

Make your kids want to go again. See “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

No. 6: Recruit Another Family

From the first river trip we ever took as a family—a beginner-friendly, five-day float down the Green River in Canyonlands National Park—to hiking in Yosemite, backpacking Paria Canyon and the Needles District of Canyonlands, and skiing to backcountry yurts, as well as other trips, we have frequently brought other kids, another family, or multiple families along for the adventure.

Not only do the kids get energized by more peers, but it’s more social and fun for everyone—and adds the benefit of spreading the work out among the adults (when children are too young to be much help). Bring another family regularly into your trips, and you create more voices motivating the movement toward always planning the next one.

Get the right backpack for you and your kid.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and the best ultralight backpacks.

No. 7: Pick a Shared Goal

When my son was 15, I proposed to him that he and I (for our annual Boy Trip) climb a mountaineering route up the highest peak in the contiguous United States, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, to raise money for an organization that introduces kids his age to the outdoors. He leapt at the suggestion.

Motivated by this goal, he joined me in spending the next several months training for it. After we successfully reached the summit, in our tent that night at our base camp at 12,000 feet, he told me it was “the best trip we’ve ever done, and it makes me excited to do bigger ones and climb more mountains like this.”

I told him I would love that.

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Bonus Tip: Don’t Worry, Just Take It Slow

If your family is entirely new to hiking or any outdoors endeavors, it’s okay. You have time. Take baby steps, learn as you go, and follow your gut instincts in choosing what’s right for your family. Seek a balance between encouraging everyone to try something new and not pushing so hard that anyone gets discouraged.

The only important goal is to keep making the effort to get out there. The rest will work out.

See more tips about walking that fine line in my “10 Tips for Keeping Kids Happy and Safe Outdoors” and “5 Tips For Hiking With Young Kids From an Outdoors Dad,” and my story “5 Questions to Ask Before Trying That New Outdoor Adventure.”

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My first tent cost about 75 bucks. It was a bit heavy and bulky for backpacking. I called it the Wind Sock because it snapped loudly in the slightest breeze, and its poles bowed disturbingly in moderate gusts. (I learned to choose protected campsites.) But at a time when I could not afford good gear and was developing a passion for hiking, backpacking, and climbing, it sheltered me for about 150 nights in the backcountry and in campgrounds. It ultimately cost me about 50 cents a night.

When I started dayhiking and backpacking, I needed gear and clothing that was cheap. And you usually get what you pay for. But I’ve learned the strategies for getting decent or even very good gear cheaply over four decades of backpacking and hiking—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor and lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

If you’re much shorter on cash than on eagerness to get outdoors—or you just prefer paying less for your gear so you can afford more of it or better stuff—these tips will help you get out there without emptying your checking account. Like many stories at The Big Outside, this one is partially free for anyone to read, but reading all of the tips below is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

You can begin finding excellent bargains—and help support my work on this blog—by making gear purchases through the affiliate links in this story and any other stories and gear reviews at The Big Outside. Thanks for your support.

If you have comments or questions for me, or tips of your own to suggest, please share them in the comments section below this story. I try to respond to all comments.

No. 1 Shop Discount Online Sites

Anyone shopping for new gear or apparel would be wise to begin by visiting sites like backcountry.com, cotopaxi.com, the REI outlet store, and campsaver.com. This is the best way to score higher-quality gear and apparel from top brands for bargain prices. These sites offer deep discounts on product that has perhaps been discontinued—replaced in a company’s line by something similar, newer, and improved, or simply in a color that sells better. This discounted stuff went on sale new at higher prices just months earlier—it’s current technology, not ancient crap.

If you’re looking for a specific product, you may not find it; and sizes available are sometimes limited. But if you’re on a more general quest for a rain jacket, a backpack, or something else, you may well find something of high quality at a price you can afford.

NOTE: In most blog posts and pages at The Big Outside, including the Gear Reviews page, I share links to some of the best gear bargains on the Web, where you can find deep discounts on good-quality gear.

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and other flagship parks using my expert e-books.

No. 2 Wait For Sales

Consumers spend top dollar when they buy impetuously or wait until the last second, when they absolutely need something. Most of the time, product prices are set at full retail.

But several times during the year—usually spring, late summer, and the holidays, plus clearance sales in fall and late winter—websites and brick-and-mortar stores offer major sales with product as much as half off the usual price.

Wait for seasonal sales at sites like backcountry.com and rei.com. Follow these sites through the social media you use.

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No. 3 Join Email Lists of Your Favorite Brands

Visit the websites of brands you like and you may see an offer of a discount code worth something on the order of 10 to 20 percent off full price simply for joining their email list. Go right now to ospreypacks.com, patagonia.com, blackdiamondequipment.com, outdoorresearch.com, featheredfriends.com, hyperlitemountaingear.com, msrgear.com, seatosummitusa.com, beyondclothing.com, mysteryranch.com, himali.com, and hellyhansen.com and join their email lists. These offers may pop up only at certain times of year, or maybe after you’ve clicked at least one internal link, or only once you move your cursor toward the URL bar.

Sign up for their email list. You get something that you wanted at a lower price, and you will be among the first to hear about new products and future sales from a brand you already like. What’s not to like?

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No. 4 Buy Used Gear

When my teenage son said he wanted to upgrade from the old whitewater kayak that he had received on semi-permanent loan from a friend of ours, I told him we could split the cost and he should start aggressively shopping around for a good used boat. He found a nearly new Jackson kayak for half its usual retail price on Craig’s List. He put in numerous days on rivers over a few years, grew out of that boat, and then sold it for nearly what he originally paid for it—and used that money to cover most of the cost of the newer (but still used) next boat he bought.

Cruise Facebook Marketplace, eBay and Craig’s List for used gear. Look into whether there’s a used-gear exchange near where you live. Some local outdoor-gear stores may hold used-gear sales or garage sales, where people can bring stuff they want to sell cheap.

Some REI stores host garage sales occasionally for members; go to rei.com/promotions/garage-sale. Local and regional hiking and outdoor clubs may do the same thing. Check the websites of some favorite brands for whether they have anything similar to Patagonia’s Worn Well program, where you can buy—and trade in—used Patagonia gear.

It can take time and you should jump on any good deal as soon as you see it, or someone else will beat you to it. But many people buy gear they think they’ll use, and end up selling it months later after hardly using it. Plus, you even get to inspect it before buying if the seller is local.

There are actually few better ways to get good gear cheap—if you’re willing to put time and effort into the search.

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See all hiking gear reviews and backpacking gear reviews at The Big Outside. And don’t miss my popular reviews of “25 Essential Backpacking Gear Accessories” and “The Best Backpacking Gear” of the year or all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker Magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See categorized menus of all of my reviews at my Gear Reviews page.

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You need a new backpack, backpacking tent, rain jacket, boots, or a sleeping bag. You’ve read reviews. You’ve winnowed your short list to a handful of possible choices—with a significant difference in prices. That’s when you struggle with the question that pushes the frugality button in all of us: Why should I spend more?

This story will explain why some gear is more expensive and give you specific advice on buying five big-ticket items: packs, tents, rain jackets, shoes and boots, and sleeping bags.

Over the past three decades of reviewing gear, including the 10 years I spent as the lead gear reviewer for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog, I’ve learned what separates the expensive from the moderately priced from the cheap.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Should you always spend more? Certainly not, and this story will explain why and when it’s worth spending more and when it’s not. The insights below will help you make smarter buying choices, stretch your gear budget farther, and feel better about it when you do spend more. And my “10 Tips for Spending Less on Hiking and Backpacking Gear” shares specific strategies for saving money—even sometimes without compromising on quality.

Before you spend another dollar, read on.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, this one is partially free for anyone to read, but reading all of the tips below is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

Please share your thoughts on my tips or your own, best gear-buying advice in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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What Makes Some Gear Expensive?

•    Lightweight: Lighter gear is often more expensive because of the materials used, like wafer-thin but strong fabrics in jackets, tents, and (sometimes) packs, and carbon fiber or high-grade aluminum tent poles.
•    Construction: Superior workmanship, materials, and technologies raise the price tag. Expect to pay more for, say, cutting-edge waterproof-breathable membranes in jackets and footwear, boots with one-piece or full-grain leather uppers, a super comfortable backpack suspension available in multiple sizes to achieve an optimal fit, or lamination used instead of stitching in jackets and footwear. But that also translates to high-level performance and, often, improved durability—which can save you money in the long run.

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•    Special Features: You want a rain jacket hood that stays in place in strong wind and when you turn your head? A pack with multiple backpacker- or climber-friendly features? Shoes with sticky outsoles? Or a sleeping bag or down jacket with the lightest and warmest insulation? Open your wallet.
•    Durability: Sometimes a higher price tag equates with materials and construction that translate to greater durability, but not always. Some lightweight materials are very strong and some are not. Especially with big-ticket items that receive heavy wear and tear—your pack, tent, shoes, and rain shell—low weight is sometimes achieved through, for example, the use of thinner fabrics that will tear more easily, or zippers that are less burly and will break sooner. Find out why one product is lighter than another and choose based on whether you’re willing to swap durability for lower weight.

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Packs

Why They’re Pricey The top pack makers—whose backpacks and daypacks generally cost the most—compete with one another primarily to make the most comfortable packs to carry. Beyond that objective, they try to distinguish their products through specialization (packs for specific purposes like climbing, ultralight backpacking, distance trail running or ultra-hiking, etc.), and through features, weight, and certainly superior construction that results in greater durability.

When They’re Worth the Price How important is comfort on the trail to you? How important is weight? How about specific features? Yes, you can make do with a pack whose fit is imperfect or that lacks a supportive hipbelt, a zipper offering quick access to the main compartment, or convenient, external pockets on the hipbelt and elsewhere.

But if you hike a lot of miles, the hours spent wearing and using a pack add up.

As anyone who’s upgraded knows, once you have a backpack that’s comfortable and designed for the way you use it, you’ll never go back to an inferior pack.

Get the right pack for you. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and “The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks.”

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Why Spend More?

If you can’t afford more-expensive gear, just get cheap stuff and get outside. You’ll be fine. If you can afford better gear later, you’ll appreciate it that much more.

But if you’re an avid outdoorsperson and you can afford good gear, why settle for less?

No, price does not always correlate directly with quality—but it often does. Whenever a friend who can afford good gear asks for my advice, I always say that he or she would be foolish to buy cheap, because they don’t need to put up with inferior comfort or performance.

And ultimately, if you’re out regularly and buy good gear, the cost per day of use over the life of that gear will be low, more than justifying the enjoyment you gained from it.

See all reviews of backpacks, daypacks, backpacking tents, outdoor apparel, rain jackets, hiking shoes, backpacking boots, sleeping bags, down jackets and insulated jackets, and backpacking gear and hiking gear at The Big Outside, plus “5 Smart Steps to Lighten Your Backpacking Gear.”

And don’t miss my popular reviews of “25 Essential Backpacking Gear Accessories” and “The Best Backpacking Gear” of the year.

NOTE: I tested gear for Backpacker magazine for 20 years. At The Big Outside, I review only what I consider the best outdoor gear and apparel. See my Gear Reviews page at The Big Outside for categorized menus of all of my reviews and my expert buying tips.

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