I wade slowly into the natural pool known as Mr. Bubble, deep in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, feeling the swirling blend of hot water from the natural hot springs pouring into one corner of the pool, and the cold creek water entering from another corner. I lower myself to a sitting position, chest-deep, and crab crawl to find a spot with a perfect, hot-tub water temperature—and plant myself there for a long time.

And I’m thinking: This is quite a sweet treat on a wilderness backpacking trip. I could get used to this.

Our visit to Mr. Bubble came on the second afternoon of a five-day, roughly 55-mile backpacking trip through Bechler Canyon in mid-September, the very tail end of summer, which happens to be a good time to backpack in this corner of Yellowstone. I definitely wanted to hike the Bechler after the notorious mosquito season of early to mid-summer, when dense clouds of hangry skeeters (and I do mean “hangry”) rise from the boggy Bechler Meadows and make the lives of any blood-filled creatures who happen to be here then a misery.

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This trip had been on my “I’m intrigued and want to do it” list for several years for a few reasons. One is the abundance of thunderous waterfalls and cascades along the hike, created by the geology of the region and the huge winter snowpack that feeds the creeks and springs draining the plateau in the southwest corner of Yellowstone. The Bechler River is also a beauty, varying in character from a gentle, quiet, tree-lined waterway with world-class trout fishing to a raging torrent where some cascades tumble for hundreds of feet. (And the fords along the Bechler can be deep, frigid, and a bit adventurous.)

Another motivation was to explore the Shoshone Geyser Basin, the largest backcountry geyser basin in the park—imagine having Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin almost entirely to yourself.

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And the last reason was, of course, the famous Mr. Bubble natural pool, where hot water erupting from the earth—you can actually see the water boiling up from the ground just several feet away, and bubbles of heated air constantly boiling near the middle of the Mr. Bubble pool—mixes with the cold water of the Ferris Fork creek to create a wide, hot pool for soaking. We ran into a few other parties of backpackers during our lengthy soak in Mr. Bubble, where it’s not unusual for hikers to linger for hours (especially those who have the good luck of scoring a backcountry campsite nearby).

The gallery below features some of my photos from backpacking Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon. Scroll below the gallery for the link to my story about this trip, which includes my expert tips on how to take it yourself.

A backcountry permit is required for overnight camping in Yellowstone’s backcountry. Bechler Canyon is popular, so reserve a backcountry permit in advance at recreation.gov/permits/4675323. For the best chance of getting a permit for popular backpacking trips like Bechler Canyon, enter the the Early Access Lottery, which runs from March 1 through March 20. General reservations open beginning April 26.

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

See my feature story about this trip “In Hot (and Cold) Water: Backpacking Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon”—which, like many stories about trips at The Big Outside, includes my detailed tips on planning this trip and requires a paid membership to read in full.

See also my stories “The Ultimate Family Tour of Yellowstone” and “The 10 Best Hikes in Yellowstone,” and all stories about Yellowstone National Park at The Big Outside.

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On my first trip to North Cascades National Park, I was sure I’d found heaven. The hard-earned views of a sea of jagged spires and snow- and ice-covered peaks stretching as far as you could see instantly cemented the place as one of my favorite mountain ranges. I’ve returned many times since, backpacking, dayhiking, climbing, ski mountaineering, including with my family.

But not many hikers and backpackers know much about Washington’s North Cascades, a region that includes one of America’s least-visited national parks and surrounding wilderness and national recreation areas that offer a rare combination of stunning beauty and solitude.

And the season for planning trips into the backcountry there is upon us.

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The North Cascades National Park complex includes the park itself—nearly 700,000 acres, 93 percent of which is designated as the Stephen Mather Wilderness—as well as the adjoining Ross Lake and Lake Chelan national recreation areas. To the north and south of the park complex, within the broader North Cascades region, are the equally beautiful Pasayten, Glacier Peak, and Alpine Lakes wildernesses. Ecosystems range from virgin rainforest of giant cedars, hemlocks, and Douglas firs, to sub-alpine meadows carpeted in wildflowers, and alpine areas hosting about 60 percent of all the glaciers in the Lower 48. Everywhere, waterfalls pour down cliffs.

Few mountain ranges compare for the ruggedness, raw beauty, and remoteness and solitude of the North Cascades.

North Cascades National Park also has one of the most mind-blowing backcountry campsites in the country at Sahale Glacier camp (the top left image in the gallery below and one of my 25 best backcountry campsites ever).

Check out these photos and scroll past the gallery for links to stories at The Big Outside. I think it will persuade you to put this region and at least some of these trips high on your list.

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See all stories about backpacking in the North Cascades at The Big Outside, including “Primal Wild: Backpacking 80 Miles Through the North Cascades,” “Backpacking the Pasayten Wilderness—On and Off the Beaten Track,” and “Wild Heart of the Glacier Peak Wilderness: Backpacking the Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass Loop.” Like most stories about trips at this blog, anyone can read much of those stories for free, but reading those stories completely, including expert tips on planning those trips, requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

I’ve helped many readers plan a trip in the North Cascades. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

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You want to explore the best backpacking in America’s desert Southwest, but you’re not sure where to begin, or how some of these trips you’ve read about compare for scenery and difficulty. You’ve heard about the need to carry huge loads of water, and environmental challenges like dangerous heat, rugged terrain, flash floods and even (gulp) quicksand. Or you want to take your kids and make sure you pick an appropriate trip for them. Or you’ve taken one or two backpacking trips there and now you’re hungry for another one and seeking ideas for where to go next.

Well, I gotcha covered. The seven trips described in this story comprise what might be called a Southwest Backpacking Starter Package. They are all beginner- and family-friendly in terms of trail or route quality, access, and navigability, and some have good water availability. But most importantly, regardless of their relative ease logistically, they all deliver the goods on the kind of adventure and scenery you go to the Southwest hoping to find.

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I draw this list from more than three decades of backpacking throughout the Southwest, including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and much longer running this blog. I present these seven trips in no particular order of priority; in reality, competition for a backcountry permit will dictate when you’re able to take the most-popular ones, such as those in the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Canyonlands—and those are trips you need to plan months in advance to get a permit reservation for the prime seasons of spring and fall.

Learn more in my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

See my expert e-books to several classic backpacking trips, including “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Narrows in Zion National Park” and “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these adventures or any trip you read about at The Big Outside; you’ll see hundreds of comments on that page from readers of this blog who have received my custom trip planning.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, this one is partly free for anyone to read, but seeing the full list of trips described below is an exclusive benefit for subscribers. Please consider subscribing to gain access to all stories at this blog and support my work on it.

Please share your comments, questions, or tips about any of these trips or another you believe belongs on this list in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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The Grand Canyon’s Corridor Trails

So many writers (including me) and other people have written and said so much about the Grand Canyon that it’s hard to find words that sound unique and inspiring to describe it. You won’t encounter that problem when actually going there, though—every hike is unique and inspiring.

But the very aspects of the GC that make it such a unique place—its severe topography and aridity—also ramp up the difficulty of any multi-day hike into the canyon.

That’s precisely why the park manages its “corridor” trails—the Bright Angel and South and North Kaibab trails—to accommodate backpackers (and dayhikers) will little to no experience hiking there.

Those well-maintained trails have established campgrounds and relatively frequent, reliable water sources, and offer a variety of route options, from an easy (by canyon standards) overnight trip to backpacking a full, rim-to-rim traverse of the canyon.

See all stories about hiking across the Grand Canyon and backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside, including “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” and “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” plus my story about another relatively beginner-friendly GC hike, the 25-miler from Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead.

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The Narrows in Zion

No surprise that Zion’s Narrows is one of the most sought-after backcountry permits in the National Park System. With sandstone walls that rise up to a thousand feet tall, the Narrows of the North Fork of the Virgin River in Zion squeezes down to just 20 to 30 feet across in places.

On this 16-mile, two-day hike, you’ll walk in the river most of the time—with the water coming up to thighs and hips in places—marveling at the constantly changing, towering walls, and oddities like a waterfall pouring from solid rock, creating an oasis of greenery clinging to a cliff.

I don’t want to understate the challenge—and it may not be a good choice for complete novices or young kids. Despite it being a very gradual descent for its entire distance, the Narrows can feel surprisingly strenuous because you’re walking much of the time on riverbed cobbles and in water.

The water and air temperature vary seasonally, and it can feel cool or downright cold, which saps energy over several hours. And there’s certainly flash-flood danger—don’t go without a forecast for sunny skies. But the park also closes the Narrows at times of flood hazard.

Still, this is one classic hike to get to whenever you can.

See my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows” (which includes tips on planning this trip, though not nearly as much detail as my e-book, linked above), and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Get my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”
And click here now to see all expert e-books at The Big Outside.

The Needles District in Canyonlands

Multi-colored candlesticks of Cedar sandstone stand 300 feet tall, appearing ready to topple over with bulbous crowns wider than their base. Waves of rock ripple into the distance, looking like a petrified, burnt-red ocean. Stratified cliffs stretch for miles.

The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park holds the kind of geological formations that fascinate both kids and adults. It also has over 60 miles of trails zigzagging over a high plateau spliced by canyons.

But unlike big, deep canyons, most trails here don’t involve much elevation gain and loss. While water is scarce, you don’t have to hike great distances to reach backcountry campsites and explore. And established trails to Chesler Park, Big Spring, Squaw, and Lost canyons, and the Peekaboo Trail are easy to follow.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” and all stories about Canyonlands National Park at The Big Outside.

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

Coyote Gulch, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

On a three-day, roughly 15-mile backpacking trip through southern Utah’s Coyote Gulch with young teen and ‘tweener kids, my family and another hiked across ancient dunes hardened to rock; squeezed through a claustrophobically tight, 100-foot-long slot called Crack-in-the-Wall (not as hard as it sounds and quite fun); and stood atop a cliff overlooking a vast landscape of redrock towers and cliffs (photo at top of story), including Stevens Arch, measuring some 220 feet across and 160 feet tall.

And that was just in the first hour.

With its short distance, a reliable, perennial stream, and lack of flash-flood hazard, Coyote Gulch ranks as one of the Southwest’s most beginner-and family-friendly backpacking trips.

But that description, while true, almost diminishes the raw beauty of a hike that features a natural bridge, two of the region’s most distinctive natural arches—and one deeply overhung cliff with amazing echo acoustics.

In many ways, Coyote delivers a complete canyon-hiking experience—without the common hardships and hazards.

See my story “Playing the Memory Game in Southern Utah’s Escalante, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon.”

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Zion’s Kolob Canyons and West Rim Trail

Zion may lack the extensive trail network found in parks like Grand Canyon, Glacier, or Yosemite, but it does harbor a classic backpacking trip widely recognized as one of America’s best—The Narrows—and other trails that compete with it for I-can’t-believe-my-eyes panoramas.

Sheer red walls towering above the vibrant, green forest, plus easy hiking and the perennial La Verkin Creek made the Kolob Canyons an enjoyable overnight hike for my family when our kids were nine and six.

Our overnight on the West Rim Trail on the same trip was a bit harder—and we (the parents) had to carry extra water—but it was within our kids’ abilities; and the views from the West Rim of Zion Canyon and the maze of canyons and white-walled mesas dicing up the Zion backcountry look like something from another planet.

Road access to both areas of Zion, and local shuttle services, allow for short overnight hikes or longer outings that are ideal for beginners.

The more ambitious can make a north-south traverse from the Lee Pass Trailhead in the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon, about 40 miles, depending on how many side hikes one takes (such as the incomparable Zion must-do, Angels Landing).

See all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside, including “Pilgrimage Across Zion: Traversing a Land of Otherworldly Scenery” and “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park.”

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

Like this story? Check out “10 Perfect National Park Backpacking Trips for Beginners.”

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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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More than four decades after it last erupted, Washington’s Mount St. Helens has become one of the most sought-after summits in the country—for good reason. Hikers on the standard Monitor Ridge route, on the mountain’s south side, emerge soon from the shady, cool, temperate rainforest onto a stark, gray and black moonscape of volcanic rocks, pumice, and ash, with little vegetation and sweeping views of the Cascade Mountains, including several other snow-covered volcanoes. The views could steal the breath from God.

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From atop crumbling cliffs at the crater rim, hikers look out over the vast hole—2,000 feet deep and nearly two miles across—created by the 1980 eruption that decapitated St. Helens. Ice-capped volcanoes dominate three horizons: Rainier, Adams, Hood, and Jefferson. Scroll down to the photo gallery below from my family’s three-generation hike up St. Helens, and you’ll see why I consider it one of “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

A permit is required for every climber above 4,800 feet on Mount St. Helens. It costs $20/person for the permit plus $6 for every permit transaction during the quota season of April 1 through Oct 31, when there are daily limits on the total number of climbers permitted on the mountain.

For each month during the quota season, permits go on sale at recreation.gov/permits/4675309 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time on the first day of the preceding month; for example, permits for hiking the mountain in July go on sale on June 1. Permits sell out very quickly. See fs.usda.gov/r06/giffordpinchot/recreation/mount-st-helens-summit for information.

Read my story “Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Pushing Limits on Mount St. Helens,” about my family’s three-generation hike of Mount St. Helens, with more photos, a video, and tips on how to pull it off yourself.

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See a menu of all stories about family adventures at The Big Outside and “The 5 Best Tips For Hiking With Kids.”

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From natural arches, hoodoos, and hanging gardens to balanced rocks and towering mesas, slot canyons and vast chasms, the desert Southwest holds in its dry, searing, lonely open spaces some of America’s most fascinating and inspiring geology. The writer “Cactus Ed” Abbey no doubt had this region in mind when he said there “are some places so beautiful they can make a grown man break down and weep.” Much of it sits protected within southern Utah’s five national parks: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef.

The good news? Many of the best sights can be reached on dayhikes of anywhere from a couple hours to a full day.

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 list below of the best dayhikes in southern Utah’s national parks draws from numerous trips I’ve made to each of these parks over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. Use my list as your compass, and I guarantee you will knock off the best hikes in these parks.

Like many stories at this blog, part of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading it in full and seeing the full list of hikes described below is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

I’d love to read your thoughts about my list—and your suggestions for dayhikes that belong on it. Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments, and as I continue to explore more trails, I will regularly update this story.

Angels Landing and West Rim Trail, Zion National Park

Angels Landing unquestionably belongs on any list of the best dayhikes in Utah. The five-mile, nearly 1,500-foot round-trip hike of Angels Landing culminates in one of the airiest and most thrilling half-mile stretches (actually, 0.4 mile) of trail in the entire National Park System. You scale a steep, knife-edge ridge crest of rock, using steps carved out of sandstone and chain handrails in spots. And the 360-degree panorama from the summit takes in all of Zion Canyon.

Two tips: If you can hike a strong pace, start in very early morning or wait until mid-afternoon (when the lower section of trail falls into shade) to avoid the crowds and the heat of midday. And after summiting Angels, continue up the West Rim Trail for another mile or two before turning back—you will ditch the crowds and explore a sublimely beautiful area of giant beehive towers and white walls streaked in red and orange.

Due to the hike’s enormous popularity, Zion National Park holds a seasonal lottery four times per year at recreation.gov for permits to dayhike Angels Landing. Key lottery dates for Zion’s two peak hiking seasons, spring and fall, are Feb. 13-25 for hiking permits from March 1 through May 31, held at recreation.gov/permits/4675310; for hiking dates from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, the lottery dates in 2025 were July 1-20 and held at recreation.gov/permits/4675325, but the lottery dates for fall 2026 have not been announced yet. The permit is only required for hiking the spur trail up Angels Landing; anyone can hike as far as Scout Lookout without a permit.

A separate lottery for dayhiking permits is held daily before 3 p.m. Mountain Time the day before you want to hike it. Learn more and find the link for a day-before permit at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/angels-landing-hiking-permits.htm.

See my stories “Hiking Angels Landing: What You Need to Know” and “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park.”

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Navajo-Queens Garden and Peek-a-Boo Loops, Bryce Canyon National Park

If the view of Bryce’s stone forest of multi-colored hoodoos is breathtaking from roadside overlooks, hiking in their labyrinthine midst is mesmerizing. Combine the popular and short Navajo Loop/Queens Garden Loop—which features one of the park’s best-known formations, Thor’s Hammer—with the Peek-a-Boo Loop (also shown in lead photo at top of story), and you will lose the crowds while walking through a maze of multi-colored limestone, sandstone, and mudstone towers.

The hike, mostly on good trails that are easy to follow, weaves among tall hoodoos, passes through doorways cut through walls of rock, and wraps through amphitheaters of wildly colored, slender spires that resemble giant, melting candles. The six-mile loop, with a total elevation gain and loss of about 1,600 feet, begins and ends at Sunset Point.

See “The Two Best Hikes in Bryce Canyon National Park,” and all stories about Utah national parks at The Big Outside.

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

Navajo Knobs Trail and Hickman Bridge, Capitol Reef National Park

While other hikes on this list are likely on your radar, Capitol Reef’s Navajo Knobs Trail may not be—and it absolutely should. This may sound like hyperbole, but there are few dayhikes in the entire National Park System, never mind in Utah’s parks, that compare, step for step, with the consistently mind-blowing Navajo Knobs Trail (lead photo at top of story).

A 9.4-mile, out-and-back hike with 1,620 feet of uphill and downhill, it starts at the same trailhead as the immensely popular Hickman Bridge Trail, winding upward to the Rim Overlook at 2.3 miles from the trailhead, with a sweeping view of the cliffs and the Waterpocket Fold from 1,000 feet above the Fremont River Gorge. The lightly traveled trail then meanders along the canyon rim, below enormous cliffs and towers in a variety of shapes and sizes, with continuously expanding panoramas of Capitol Reef, ending with some easy scrambling to the top of one of the pinnacles known as the Navajo Knobs.

The Navajo Knobs Trail presents delightful surprises around every turn and a unique perspective on the fascinating topography of Capitol Reef National Park. The short and easy Hickman Bridge Trail, less than two miles out-and-back with 400 feet of up and down, loops around the natural bridge, which spans 133 feet—a terrific hike for a young family.

See “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park.”

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Chesler Park, Canyonlands National Park

Hiking to Chesler Park in the Needles District of Canyonlands has the quality of approaching the Emerald City in the land of Oz. Multi-colored, 300-foot-tall towers of Cedar Mesa sandstone form a castle-like rampart, looming ever larger as you approach Chesler. The trail then leads steeply uphill through a break in the row of pinnacles—the doorway into Chesler Park, a horseshoe of sandstone spires arcing around a patch of desert more than a mile across.

From ledges between the spires of Chesler, you get views of the park’s pinnacles and the sprawling badlands outside its walls, where giant, white-capped mushrooms of stone sprout from the earth, and more red spires rise in the distance. It’s roughly 10 miles out-and-back hike to Chesler without probing into it. But if you have the time and stamina, hike the path almost three miles around the park to the Joint Trail, which passes through a very narrow, sheer-walled slot in solid rock.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.”

Want more? See “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes”
and “Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

Delicate Arch at Sunset, Arches National Park

The trail to what is probably Utah’s most famous natural arch is certainly a well-traveled path. But here’s the smart hiker’s strategy: Do it in the evening, timing your arrival at Delicate for shortly before sunset. The final stretch of the trail traverses the face of a small slickrock cliff before suddenly depositing you on the rim of an amphitheater of solid rock, looking across the broad bowl at Delicate Arch, with the La Sal Mountains, snow-covered in spring, visible through its keyhole. Then hold your jaw in place while watching as the low-angle sunlight seems to electrify the sandstone’s burnt color.

Just three miles round-trip with minimal elevation gain, it’s an easy stroll, even returning by headlamp; and that time of day is far more pleasant than trudging it during the morning or afternoon heat. Tip: Bring a headlamp and jacket and linger for a while after sunset, until most other hikers have departed, and you’ll enjoy a quieter, enchanting walk under a sky riddled with stars.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” and all of my stories about Arches National Park.

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The Riverside Walk and the Narrows, Zion National Park

From the Temple of Sinawava, at the upper end of Zion Canyon, you’ll walk the flat and very scenic, wheelchair-accessible, mile-long Riverside Trail, paralleling the North Fork of the Virgin River beneath red cliffs and shady cottonwood trees whose leaves turn golden in fall. At the end of that trail, you can either turn back or enter the typically ankle- to calf-deep river and follow it upstream to explore the Narrows, a canyon up to a thousand feet deep, with walls that close in enough to cut off direct sunlight in places, where waterfalls pour from rock walls, nurturing hanging gardens.

At Orderville Canyon, a narrow side canyon about 2.5 miles from the trailhead (on the right when walking upstream), you enter the roughly two-mile-long stretch of the Narrows known as Wall Street, where the river often spans the deeply shaded canyon wall to wall. Wall Street ends just before Big Spring, a lush and large hanging garden about five miles up, beyond which hiking is prohibited without a backcountry permit.

One of the most magnificent and unique hikes in the national parks and enormously popular, the lower Narrows teems with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dayhikers on hot days of late spring and summer, when the river is low and warmer.

See “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park.”

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Devils Garden, Arches National Park

Much of the mass popularity of Arches owes to the ease of viewing many of its signature features on short to very short hikes and roadside walks. That’s exactly why Devils Garden is the best hike in the park (at least among hikes that follow established trails). Besides being really scenic—you can view seven arches, including the park’s largest, 306-foot-long Landscape Arch—it’s much more adventurous.

The hiking is flat and easy for nearly one mile to Landscape Arch (almost two miles round-trip); beyond it, though, you’ll discover part of the magic of Devils Garden: immersing yourself in the landscape off the trail. You will scamper up and down steep sandstone fins and out onto exposed overlooks, and you can even scramble up into Partition Arch. Hike to all seven arches in the Devils Garden area, and you’ll cover about eight miles by the time you return to the Devils Garden Trailhead, at the end of the park road through Arches.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” and all stories about Arches National Park at The Big Outside.

See my 5-level difficulty rating system in my story
“How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

Cohab Canyon and Frying Pan Trail, Capitol Reef National Park

Of southern Utah’s five national parks, Capitol Reef plays the Cinderella role as the unappreciated beauty—which hikers who love the place consider a fortuitous break. I’ve explored much of this park’s lonely backcountry, and it’s worth all of the time and effort it demands. But to sample Capitol Reef’s Utah-caliber scenery on a relatively easy hike of two to three hours, head up the Cohab Canyon Trail, through a defile of walls sculpted with countless “windows.” From the clifftop ledges at the North Fruita Overlook and South Fruita Overlook, reached by hiking several minutes on spur trails, you’ll get breathtaking views from about 400 feet above the valley of the Fremont River.

Take a short, out-and-back detour onto the Frying Pan Trail: Within about 20 minutes of leaving Cohab Canyon, you’re on top of the nearly 100-mile-long Waterpocket Fold, soaking in a mind-boggling landscape of creamy-white, burgundy, and blazing-orange domes and cliffs. The Cohab Canyon Trail extends just 1.7 miles between UT 24 near the Hickman Bridge Trailhead and its other trailhead across the park’s Scenic Road from Fruita Campground; shuttle vehicles or a bike to hike it end-to-end, or hike out and back from either trailhead.

I describe the outstanding 11-mile hike combining Cohab Canyon and Frying Pan Trail in my story “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park.” See also “Playing the Memory Game in Southern Utah’s Escalante, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon.”

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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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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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America’s most stunning landscapes are protected within our 63 national parks, and some of the very finest scenery within our national heritage can be reached on dayhikes. Some of these hikes you may not have done yet or heard of. Others are famous, but there’s a reason for that: They are mind-blowingly gorgeous, so they stand out even in parks with multiple, five-star footpaths. You take these hikes for a one-of-a-kind experience.

Based on more than three decades of exploring most major U.S. national parks—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—and numerous trips to popular parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Grand Teton, Zion, and others, I’ve assembled this list of the best dayhikes in our parks. Many can be done by novice hikers and kids (and my kids have done many of them, at various ages), while others are burlier 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.

While you don’t usually set out on some these hikes expecting solitude, you can find it by doing them early or late in the day or outside of peak season; I offer tips below on the best times to do some of these hikes.

Use this as your tick list of great national park dayhikes to knock off, and I guarantee you’ll experience the best miles of trail our National Park System has to offer. By the way, this story actually describes 26 hikes—yea, there’s a bonus hike. And like many stories at this blog, much of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading it all and seeing the entire list of hikes is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

If I’ve missed an outstanding, favorite hike of yours, please suggest it in the comments section below to give me ideas for future trips. I regularly update and expand this list whenever I knock off a new trail that belongs here, and I try to respond to all comments.

South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon

You can’t go wrong on any dayhike in the Grand Canyon, but the South Kaibab is widely considered the premier trail in the Big Ditch. Following the crest of a narrow ridge that descends all the way to the Colorado River, it delivers expansive canyon views beginning minutes after leaving the trailhead.

It’s seven miles and 4,780 vertical feet one-way from the South Rim to the Colorado River—a one-day round-trip appropriate only for extremely fit hikers with desert-hiking experience, who are carrying enough food and water for a big day (there’s no water along the trail). Many people attempting a rim-to-river-to-rim dayhike descend the South Kaibab and ascend the less-steep Bright Angel Trail (9.5 miles and almost 4,500 feet uphill). But you can turn back at any point, choosing the length and difficulty of your hike—keeping in mind that going back up requires much more time and effort than going down. Start at first light and you’ll not only share the trail with far fewer people, you’ll be looking out over the Grand Canyon as the prettiest light of the day spills across it.

See all stories about the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail and all stories about the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

Do the canyon right. Get my expert e-book to dayhiking rim to rim
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Upper Yosemite Falls, Yosemite

Besides its towering granite walls, Yosemite Valley is famous for waterfalls that plummet hundreds or thousands of feet. The tallest, Upper Yosemite Falls, drops a sheer 1,400 feet (2,425 feet including the middle cascades and Lower Yosemite Falls, making the total drop the world’s sixth tallest). Near its brink, you’ll traverse a catwalk chiseled out of a granite wall to a ledge (with a safety rail) where you can peer down at the freefalling water and out over Yosemite Valley, nearly 3,000 feet below.

The round-trip hike to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls is 7.2 miles and 2,700 feet, but you can turn back at any point, such as at Columbia Rock (a mile and 1,000 feet uphill from the trailhead), which has a broad view of Yosemite Valley; or a half-mile farther, near the base of the upper falls, where you can stand in the rain of its intense mist.

See “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite” and “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls,” and all stories about Yosemite at The Big Outside.

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Highline Trail, Glacier

From 6,646-foot Logan Pass, the high point on Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, the Highline Trail traverses north across rolling, alpine terrain above treeline, with uninterrupted views of the park’s jagged peaks and soaring cliffs. It’s common to see bighorn sheep and mountain goats along the trail, and occasionally sight a black bear or even a grizzly (bring binoculars).

Hike in daylight as a bear-safety precaution, but start early morning, before most hikers, for the best chances of seeing wildlife. Distance options include turning around at any point or hiking 11.8 miles to The Loop on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, which, like Logan Pass, is a stop on the park’s free shuttle bus. Or hike the 7.6 miles from Logan Pass to Granite Park, spend the night at the Granite Park Chalet (make a reservation months in advance); and the next day, either backtrack to Logan Pass or continue over Swiftcurrent Pass and descend to Many Glacier, another 7.6-mile day.

See “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Glacier National Park,” “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

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Angels Landing and West Rim Trail, Zion

The 2.5-mile, 1,500-foot (one-way) ascent of Angels Landing culminates in one of the airiest and most thrilling half-mile stretches (actually, 0.4 mile) of trail in the entire National Park System: You scale a steep ridge crest of solid rock, on a path at times just a few feet wide, with steps carved out of sandstone and chain handrails in spots (see lead photo at top of story). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Angels Landing really has no peers.

Two tips: If you can hike a strong pace, start early morning or late afternoon to avoid the crowds and the heat of midday. And after summiting Angels, continue up the West Rim Trail for another mile or two; you’ll not only lose the crowds, you will enjoy increasingly dramatic views of Zion Canyon and venture into a quieter, sublimely beautiful area of giant beehive towers and white walls streaked in red and orange. The trail eventually climbs through exposed switchbacks to the West Rim, roughly five miles and 2,000 feet from The Grotto Trailhead where the hike begins.

Due to the enormous popularity of Angels Landing, Zion National Park has implemented a permit system for dayhiking Angels. Find out more at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/angels-landing-hiking-permits.htm.

See “Hiking Angels Landing: What You Need to Know,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park,” “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” and all stories about Zion at The Big Outside.

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North Rim Trail, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone

With more than 10,000 geothermal features, including hot springs, mud pots, fumaroles, and at least 300 geysers—two-thirds of the planet’s known geysers—Yellowstone is a land of marvels. Plus, you have a virtual guarantee of seeing more bison and elk than you can count and possibly other wildlife like wolves, bald eagles, trumpeter swans, and grizzly and black bears.

But of all the trails in the park, I’ll posit that the North Rim Trail, hundreds of feet above the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, is the most spectacular. Traversing the rim for 3.2 miles from Inspiration Point to the overlook of 109-foot Upper Yellowstone Falls, the trail passes several dramatic overlooks of the canyon’s crumbling, golden walls. Don’t pass up the side trip down the steep switchbacks of the half-mile-long Brink of the Lower Falls Trail, which, as advertised, leads to the very lip of 308-foot Lower Yellowstone Falls.

See “The Ultimate Family Tour of Yellowstone,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Yellowstone,” which includes the North Rim Trail, and all stories about Yellowstone at The Big Outside.

Want more? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm, North Cascades

North Cascades is one of the wildest, most rugged and spectacular, and least-visited parks—and after several trips, one of my favorites. With 9,000 feet of severe relief between the highest, jagged summits and deepest, rainforest valleys, more than 300 glaciers, and year-round snow coverage, the range has earned the nickname the “American Alps.”

But with 93 percent of its nearly 700,000 acres designated as wilderness, much of this park can only be seen by people willing to hike long distances over multiple days. Lucky for dayhikers, the 7.4-mile, 1,800-foot round-trip hike to Cascade Pass delivers views usually reserved for backpackers and climbers. Continue past it up wildflower-strewn Sahale Arm for steadily expanding views of a sea of pinnacles, ice, and snow. It’s another 4.4 miles and 2,300 feet to the trail’s end at Sahale Glacier Camp, but turn around at any time.

See my story “Exploring the ‘American Alps:’ The North Cascades,” and all stories about the North Cascades region at The Big Outside.

See Sahale Glacier Camp in North Cascades in my story
“Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Garnet Canyon, Grand Teton

The Tetons are another mountain range where some of the best views are enjoyed only by hiking many miles or tying into a rope. But Garnet Canyon, where soaring granite walls form a horseshoe beneath the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons and neighboring peaks, offers arguably the best views in the park that you can reach on a moderate dayhike.

From the Lupine Meadows Trailhead, it’s about four-and-a-half miles with more than 2,200 feet of vertical to the grassy area known as The Meadows, where there are campsites by a creek. The last stretch to The Meadows crosses an area of massive boulders beyond the end of the maintained Garnet Canyon Trail, but the views are just as good before the boulders.

Hiking to Amphitheater Lake, ringed by cliffs and forest high on Disappointment Peak and reached by a trail that forks off the path to Garnet Canyon, adds four miles out-and-back.

See my stories “Great Hike: Garnet Canyon, Grand Teton National Park” and “10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons,” and all stories about Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail
and the best short backpacking trip there.

Navajo-Queens Garden and Peek-a-Boo Loops, Bryce Canyon

Descend into Bryce Canyon on the Navajo Loop/Queens Garden Loop and you’ll walk through a maze of the multi-colored, limestone, sandstone, and mudstone spires called “hoodoos,” which resemble giant, melting candles, including one of the park’s best-known formations, Thor’s Hammer. But continue beyond that popular and short hike onto the Peek-a-Boo Loop, and you will lose the crowds—and discover the scenic heart of Bryce Canyon, hiking below row after row of towers in shades of flourescent red and orange, like the aptly named Wall of Windows.

The hike, mostly on good trails that are easy to follow, weaves among tall hoodoos, passes through doorways blasted through walls of rock, and wraps through amphitheaters of wildly colored, slender spires—a delightful, half-day hike that constantly changes character. The six-mile loop, with a cumulative elevation gain and loss of about 1,600 feet, begins and ends at Sunset Point.

See “The Two Best Hikes in Bryce Canyon National Park,” and all stories about Utah national parks at The Big Outside.

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Half Dome, Yosemite

One of America’s most iconic and sought-after hikes, the trek to Half Dome’s 8,800-foot summit—a tough 16 miles round-trip from Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, with 4,800 feet of elevation gain and loss—reaches its literal and emotional apex at the several hundred vertical feet of cables the park installs on the steep slab leading to the vast summit plateau. At the top, many hikers venture to the ledge known as The Visor that overhangs Half Dome’s famous Northwest Face, posing for photos on that granite gangplank thousands of feet above Yosemite Valley. Nothing compares with this hike.

Ascend the steeper Mist Trail past 317-foot Vernal Fall and 594-foot Nevada Fall, and after climbing Half Dome, descend the John Muir Trail—which has a classic view back toward Nevada Fall, the granite dome Liberty Cap, and the back side of Half Dome. Tip: Start an hour before sunrise to get ahead of most other hikers on this popular route.

See “Hiking Half Dome: How to Do It Right and Get a Permit,” “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite” and “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls” for details on hiking the much shorter and easier, classic loop of the Mist Trail and John Muir Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls.

Want to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Navajo Knobs Trail, Capitol Reef

There are few dayhikes in the entire National Park System that compare with the Navajo Knobs Trail. There, I’ve said it. At 9.4 miles out-and-back hike with 1,620 feet of elevation gain and loss, it’s just moderately difficult, yet sees little hiker traffic beyond its split from the trail to Hickman Natural Bridge—but really stunning every step of the way. It first climbs to an overlook of Hickman Natural Bridge and then winds upward and along the top of cliffs that offer sweeping views from 1,000 feet above the Fremont River Valley of the rumpled topography of the Waterpocket Fold and the Henry Mountains in the distance.

The trail continues meandering along the rim, below soaring cliffs and towers with continuously expanding panoramas of Capitol Reef and distinctive formations like Pectols Pyramid, The Castle, and Fern’s Nipple. At its far end, you’ll do some easy scrambling to the tiny summit of one of the pinnacles named the Navajo Knobs, worth the effort for the prospect it offers of the varied and fascinating geology and topography of Capitol Reef National Park.

See “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park” and all stories about Capitol Reef at The Big Outside.

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Clingmans Dome and Appalachian Trail, Great Smoky Mountains

Set aside the fact that over 12 million people annually visit the Great Smokies—America’s most popular park—and thousands hike the half-mile-long, paved walkway to the observation tower atop 6,643-foot Clingmans Dome, the park’s highest point. Still, the 360-degree panorama of the overlapping, forested ridges of the Southern Appalachians will steal your breath away (if the steep hike up didn’t).

Then head west on the Appalachian Trail—the 2.2 miles one-way to the Goshen Prong Trail junction is far enough—for a much quieter experience of walking the rocky, up-and-down crest of one of the East’s tallest mountain ranges, passing numerous overlooks of the rugged peaks and valleys on the North Carolina and Tennessee sides of the park. Double back to the Clingmans Dome parking lot and hike 3.6-mile out-and-back (for a total distance of nine miles) on the Forney Ridge Trail to 5,920-foot Andrews Bald, the highest grassy bald in the Smokies, where the views span a broad expanse of North Carolina’s mountains; azalea and rhododendron bloom spectacularly from mid-June to early July.

See more photos and info in my story “In the Garden of Eden: Backpacking the Great Smoky Mountains,” about a trip that included Clingmans Dome, the Appalachian Trail, and Andrews Bald, and see all stories about hiking and backpacking in the North Carolina mountains at The Big Outside.

Third Beach to Strawberry Point, Olympic

Stone pinnacles called sea stacks rise up to some 200 feet out of the pounding Pacific Ocean. Sea otters, seals, and whales swim offshore and bald eagles fly overhead. Mussels, sea stars, and sea anemones carpet boulders in tide pools. In one of Earth’s largest virgin temperate rainforests, Sitka spruce and western red cedar grow to 150 feet tall, with diameters of 10 or 15 feet, and Douglas fir and western hemlock soar well over 200 feet.

The 73 miles of coast in Olympic National Park comprise the longest strip of wilderness seashore in the contiguous United States, remote and mostly accessible only to backpackers. But dayhikers can sample it on the relatively flat, 10-mile, out-and-back dayhike from Third Beach Trailhead on La Push Road to Strawberry Point, one of the spots with a cluster of offshore sea stacks. Up for 14 miles round-trip? Continue to Toleak Point, where at low tide you can scramble out onto some sea stacks.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast,” and all stories about Olympic National Park at The Big Outside.

The Pacific Northwest is a wet place.
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Delicate Arch at Sunset, Arches

Just three miles out-and-back with less than 500 feet of elevation gain, the well-traveled path to what is probably Utah’s most famous and most-photographed natural arch is best done in the evening, timing your arrival at Delicate Arch for before sunset. Although still popular as a sunset hike, it’s more pleasant than trudging it during the heat of the day, and the sunset light seems to electrify the sandstone’s burnt color.

One of the pleasures of the hike is how the final stretch of the trail traverses the side of a small slickrock cliff before suddenly popping you out on the rim of an amphitheater of solid rock, looking across the big bowl at Delicate Arch, with the La Sal Mountains, snow-covered in spring, visible through its keyhole. Tip: Bring a headlamp and jacket and linger until well after sunset, when most other hikers have already started back, and you’ll enjoy a quieter walk under a sky riddled with stars.

See “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” and all stories about Arches National Park at The Big Outside.

Score a popular permit using my
“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Skyline Trail, Mount Rainier

The 5.5-mile, 1,500-foot Skyline Trail loop from Paradise, on the southern flank of Mount Rainier, delivers everything you go to this park to see: in-your-face views of The Mountain and the cracked face of the Nisqually Glacier; thick carpets of lupine, mountain heather, and other alpine wildflowers; waterfalls, and marmots perched on trailside boulders.

You might also see climbers on their way up to or returning from Camp Muir, the base camp for ascents of the standard Disappointment Cleaver route up Rainier. Have lunch at Panorama Point, at nearly 7,000 feet, with a sweeping view of the Tatoosh Range and sister Cascade Range volcanoes like Adams, St. Helens, and Hood. At the footbridge over Myrtle Falls, follow the short spur trail descending to a better view of the waterfall, There are a variety of interconnected trails above Paradise to create shorter or longer loops. Tip: Often buried in snow until early August, this hike is prettiest when the wildflowers are in full bloom, around mid-August.

See “The Best Hikes in Mount Rainier National Park” and all stories about Mount Rainier National Park at The Big Outside.

See my five-level difficulty rating system in “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

Dawson-Pitamakan Passes Loop, Glacier

The rare trails that run for miles high above the treetops, with jaw-dropping panoramas of jagged, icy peaks stretching to the horizon, bring hikers about as close as we get to the feeling of being an eagle soaring through the mountains. This loop from the Two Medicine North Shore Trailhead over Dawson and Pitamakan passes—both of which reach nearly 7,600 feet—does just that.

For more than five miles between the passes, this hike offers 360-degree panoramas of the peaks in Glacier’s remote heart, as well as deep, green valleys carved into classic U shapes by ancient glaciers, and shockingly blue alpine lakes. Watch for bighorn sheep and mountain goats. Shorten the 17.6-mile loop (with 2,500 vertical feet of elevation gain and loss) to 14.8 miles by catching an early boat shuttle across Two Medicine Lake (see glacierparkboats.com); do that at the hike’s outset in order to get off the alpine traverse, which is exposed to severe weather, earlier in the day. Shortest option: Dayhike 9.4 miles (with the boat shuttle) out-and-back to Dawson Pass—although you’ll miss most of the alpine traverse that makes this dayhike so special.

See “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Glacier National Park,” “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and my stories “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” and “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” for more photos of the Dawson Pass Trail between Dawson and Pitamakan passes, and all stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

Plan your next great backpacking trip in Glacier and other parks using my expert e-books.

Anhinga Trail, Everglades

Nothing prepares you for your first immersion in the unbridled wildness of the Everglades—and the Anhinga Trail may be the best introduction to one of the planet’s greatest biological preserves. Less than a mile long and flat—easy enough and a wonderful experience for young kids, and accessible to people in wheelchairs—the trail meanders between footpath and boardwalk through a sawgrass marsh, where you will see an uncanny number of large, exotic birds like herons, egrets, and anhingas.

Most shockingly, you will stand possibly within reach of alligators—but make sure it’s only from the safety of an elevated boardwalk: Before I set out on the Anhinga Trail, I saw a gator on the lawn outside the Royal Palm Visitor Center, where the hike begins, that hissed menacingly enough at tourists approaching it with cameras to send them scattering. Don’t do that.

See my story “Like No Other Place: Paddling the Everglades.”

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Lake Solitude, Grand Teton

Full disclosure: Unless you take this dayhike outside the peak summer season or start early, don’t expect Lake Solitude to deliver on the promise in its name: On a nice summer day, this hike sees scores of hikers. But they spread out so it mostly doesn’t feel crowded—and there are good reasons so many people make this considerable trek: Vividly blue Lake Solitude nestles in a basin ringed by tall cliffs in the very heart of the Tetons, and the views down the North Fork of Cascade Canyon are among the best in the entire park.

At just over 15 miles and 2,300 feet out-and-back from the boat landing on the west side of Jenny Lake, this stroll up Cascade Canyon and its North Fork is challenging but certainly within the abilities of many fit hikers. Tip: Catch the first boat shuttle across Jenny Lake to get a jump on the crowds and possibly enjoy a bit of actual solitude at the lake; you might even see wildlife like moose along the trail (as I have three times in Cascade Canyon and the North Fork).

See “10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons” and all stories about Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

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Are you a backpacker? You may like my stories “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips” and “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Wilderness Backpacking Trip.”

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Is it possible to find solitude backpacking in a national park as popular as Glacier? The answer is an unequivocal yes—even in Glacier’s relatively short peak season of mid-July through mid-September. And the strategies for doing so are remarkably simple and will not compromise the quality of your experience in other ways—in fact, encountering fewer people only increases the chances of encountering wildlife. This article describes five backpacking trips where you are virtually guaranteed to enjoy serious solitude in Glacier National Park.

For backpackers, Glacier delivers one of the most inspiring and unique wilderness experiences in the country, with scenery almost unmatched and a high likelihood of spotting megafauna seen in few places in the Lower 48, including mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, and black and grizzly bears. I have enjoyed stretches of solitude on each of the several backpacking trips I’ve taken in Glacier over the past three decades—including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. Most recently, I backpacked a variation of much of the Continental Divide Trail through the park, one of the trips described below.

This story describes 10 backpacking trips that deliver a high degree of solitude over most of their route—and a few represent the very best backpacking trips in Glacier, while also striking an optimum balance between five-star scenery and a high solitude quotient. This article really presents a list of the best multi-day hikes in Glacier, with a focus on avoiding the huddled masses most of the time. Each writeup below provides details on the overall degree of solitude on that trip and where you’ll find it, plus links to full stories at The Big Outside (which require a paid subscription to read in full; in this story, too, the first six trip descriptions below are free for anyone to read and the last four trips require a subscription  to read).

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.

Key Details About Glacier

A Glacier backpacking permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. Glacier holds 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. 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. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Full disclosure: Complete solitude is rare during summer because most available permits get used, but you can walk for hours, even on some popular trails that are farther from trailheads and see few or no people; and by avoiding the easily accessible, very scenic areas like Lake McDonald, Many Glacier, Logan Pass, St. Mary, and Two Medicine, which attract the most dayhikers and backpackers.

Go after Labor Day and you’ll probably see fewer people than in July or August. Keep in mind that you could certainly see a snowstorm in September (or even in late August). Check the forecast before you head out, and have good base layers, insulation, and rain shells, waterproof-breathable boots, a warm bag, and a good tent. Snow at that time of year tends to melt away as soon as the sun comes out again, but be ready for any weather. And certainly carry pepper spray in grizzly country.

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

See my feature stories about a 90-mile backpacking trip in northern Glacier, part of which is a 65-mile hike that I consider the best backpacking trip in Glacier; a 94-mile traverse of Glacier mostly on the Continental Divide Trail; and my family’s three-day backpacking trip on Glacier’s Gunsight Pass Trail. (Those stories require a paid subscription to read in full; in this story, too, the first six trip descriptions below are free for anyone to read and the last four trips require a subscription to read.)

As I suggest in the very first of my “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking,” the best strategy for finding solitude in a popular park like Glacier is to head to the less well-known areas of the park. Large parts of each trip described in this story do exactly that, and every one of them has Glacier-caliber natural beauty and a high likelihood of seeing wildlife.

Want to explore Glacier on dayhikes? See “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Glacier National Park” and “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park.”

Tell me what you think of these trips, or offer your own, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Chief Mountain to Many Glacier

Distance: 20 miles
Solitude: Virtually the entire hike except south of the Iceberg Lake spur trail.

Arrange a shuttle from Many Glacier to the Chief Mountain customs station on the Canadian border, and hike from there up the Belly River Trail and Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail back to Many Glacier; an awesome 20-mile trip over two to three days. If you can, add the 8.6 miles (but not much elevation gain) out-and-back to Helen Lake, and camp there; the trail ends there, so you could have the place to yourself, and the lake sits in a deep mountain cirque below the soaring cliffs of Ahern Peak.

Even though Iceberg Lake is a popular dayhike, the short side trip out to it is well worth the time and putting up with the crowds—although dayhikers are generally there mostly during the middle hours of the day. See photos from these areas in my feature stories “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park” and “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier.”

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

Bowman Lake to Kintla Lake

Distance: 37 miles
Solitude: The entire hike except within a few miles of Bowman or Kintla Lake.

The first backpacking trip I did in Glacier was a nearly 37-mile, point-to-point hike from Bowman Lake to Kintla Lake in the park’s northwest corner, via Brown Pass and Boulder Pass. It’s a beautiful hike in a less-accessible corner of the park, going from forest and lakes to alpine terrain with views of peaks and glaciers and likely sightings of mountain goats.

The three high camping areas along the route—Brown Pass, Hole in the Wall, and Boulder Pass—are all excellent, with views of the peaks in that corner of the park. I rode my mountain bike between the trailheads instead of arranging a vehicle shuttle; I recall it being less than an hour from Kintla (where I left our car) downhill to Bowman.

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

Traverse Glacier on the CDT

Distance: about 90 miles, with shorter options
Solitude: Most of the trip, except the Many Glacier and Two Medicine areas and within dayhiking range of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The Continental Divide Trail crosses Glacier from north to south (but you can hike it in either direction), traversing some of the richest scenery and loneliest corners of the park—as well as, to be sure, a few popular areas where you’ll see more hikers, like Many Glacier, the southwest end of St. Mary Lake, and Two Medicine. Still, for the price of those short periods within range of dayhikers, you’ll enjoy the jaw-dropping vistas in those marquis spots while spending most of this gorgeous trip just in the company of your companions.

The CDT through Glacier has a primary and an alternate route. I wrote about combining parts of both on a 94-mile traverse I designed to hit much of the park’s best backcountry, including the high, alpine trail from Pitamakan Pass to Dawson Pass that’s among the best high-level hikes I’ve ever done (see lead photo at top of this story). Over six days, we saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and a griz, and heard elk bugling almost every morning and evening (it was September). Many shorter trips on pieces of the CDT are possible.

I wrote about two slightly different variations of this hike in my feature stories “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park” and “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier.” My downloadable e-guide “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park” explains all you need to know to plan and execute that trip—and it describes several shorter alternative itineraries that hit parts of Glacier that provide the best opportunities for solitude.

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Flattop Mountain

Distance: 28 to 31.5 miles
Solitude: Much of the trip, except the southern Highline Trail, Granite Park, and anywhere close to the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

This three- to four-day hike incorporates a piece of the exceptional Highline Trail with another high trail that sees far fewer hikers, starting from a trailhead that sees much less demand for a wilderness permit than starting at Logan Pass or Many Glacier. Plus, the dayhiking crowds on the southern end of the Highline Trail diminish greatly beyond a few miles north of Logan Pass—and it’s hands-down one of the most spectacular trails in the park. (The lead photo at the top of this story was taken on the Highline Trail just north of the Fifty Mountain backcountry campground.) You can also take in the awesome vistas from Sue Lake Overlook and Ahern Pass, both reached on short spur trails.

Take the free park shuttle bus to The Loop, west of Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, and hike from there north on the less-traveled Flattop Mountain Trail to the Fifty Mountain backcountry campground, then return south on the Highline Trail to finish either at The Loop (28.1 miles total) or go all the way to Logan Pass (31.5 miles); I recommend the latter, but hike the busier section, the 7.6 miles from Granite Park to Logan Pass, in early morning to see fewer hikers.

See “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in Glacier National Park.”

Glacier’s Northern Loop

Distance: 52 to 65 miles
Solitude: Most of the trip, except the southern Highline Trail, Many Glacier area, and within dayhiking range of the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The popular, 52-mile Northern Loop takes in some of the most scenic and best-known areas of the park, including the northern section of the Highline Trail, the Ptarmigan Tunnel, and Many Glacier. It also may be the park’s most sought-after permit, or certainly one of them. And yes, you’ll see plenty of dayhikers along some of this route and Many Glacier feels like a small town. A 65-mile variation of the Northern Loop that I’ve hiked—which I consider the best multi-day hike in Glacier—adds stunning Piegan Pass below the Garden Wall and the entire Highline Trail.

But long stretches of both options for this route still deliver a satisfying degree of solitude. As I suggest in tip no. 6 of my “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking,” go deeper into the backcountry and you will find solitude. On most of this hike, you’ll walk through remote parts of the park’s northern tier, occasionally encountering only other backpackers. You’ll also see some of the park’s finest wilderness lakes and high country. And you might not mind spending one “backcountry” night in the Many Glacier campground and gorging on a restaurant dinner and breakfast.

See my story “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” photos of part of this loop in my story “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” and my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park,” which covers all the details on planning that trip, including my tips on the best way to do it and best campsites.

Nyack Creek-Coal Creek Loop

Distance: 45 miles
Solitude: The entire trip except when near either trailhead.

The approximately 45-mile Nyack Creek-Coal Creek loop, in the park’s much less-visited southwest corner, will deliver solitude, remoteness, and wildness in spades. Highlights of it are where Nyack Creek drops steeply over waterfalls through a narrow, rocky gorge; views of peaks on the Continental Divide along upper Nyack; Buffalo Woman Lake, which has a pretty waterfall and is ringed by mountains (Beaver Woman Lake is hard to reach—there’s no trail to it); and where the Coal Creek Trail passes through a large burned area with sweeping views of surrounding peaks.

Here on the west side of the Divide, the terrain is mostly less vertiginous than found in areas like Many Glacier, Logan Pass, and St. Mary, and much of this loop remains in forest; plus, sections of trail around Surprise Pass may be overgrown. There is a ford of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, which can run high and fast in early summer, and several fords of Coal Creek, which is shallow; it may be more convenient to hike in water shoes or sandals for a while there.

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

See the two Glacier trips that rank among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips,” “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside. Note that most of those stories require a paid subscription 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 “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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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.

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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.”

It’s known as “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” for good reason: There may be no long backpacking trip that’s more spectacular, step for step, than a thru-hike of the John Muir Trail through California’s High Sierra. From Yosemite Valley to the 14,505-foot summit of Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park, you walk 211 miles past jagged peaks of golden granite, through a constellation of sparkling mountain lakes and more waterfalls than anyone could name, and over numerous passes from 11,000 to over 13,000 feet.

Haven’t hiked the JMT yet? Check out the photos below. They just might convince you that it’s time to move it to the top of your list.

The John Muir Trail has become one of the most sought-after long-distance hikes among serious backpackers. Late summer is the best time for a JMT thru-hike (as well as backpacking anywhere in the High Sierra, or many other Western mountain ranges, for that matter), for many reasons: The bugs, heat, thunderstorms, and crowds of July and August have largely dissipated, and the high passes are snow-free, while dry weather often lingers well into September, with mild daytime temperatures and pleasantly cool nights.

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 if you hope to make this your year for a JMT thru-hike, the time to start planning, picking dates, and preparing to apply for a wilderness permit is now.

Get a sampler of this classic, incomparable backpacking trip in the photo gallery below. Scroll past the gallery to find links to stories at this blog about the JMT, including my feature story about thru-hiking it in a week with friends, and other stories offering expert tips on how to plan and execute a JMT thru-hike.

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

Read read my feature story “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” about my (admittedly somewhat insane) seven-day JMT thru-hike, which includes more photos, a video, and tips on pulling off your own trek on “America’s Most Beautiful Trail.” Please note that reading that full story, as with most stories about trips at The Big Outside, requires a paid subscription.

See also these 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,” “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: The Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan,” and all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside.

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One key to finishing and enjoying the 211-mile JMT (221 miles including the descent off Mount Whitney, which is not part of the JMT) is keeping your pack weight as light as possible. See my story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” If you don’t have a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read part of that story for free, or click here to download that full story without having a paid membership.

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So you’re a novice backpacker, or you’re planning your first backpacking trip in a big, Western national park, or you have kids you want to take on a relatively easy backpacking trip—and you want to sample the best scenery, trails, and backcountry campsites that experienced backpackers get to enjoy in our national parks. No worries. These 10 trips in Grand Teton, Zion, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Mount Rainier, Canyonlands, and two in Yosemite (photo above) are ideal for beginners and families, with easy to moderately difficult days and simple logistics, while delivering the spectacular vistas that each of these parks is famous for.

In fact, two of them (Yosemite and Grand Teton) were among the very first multi-day hikes I took as a novice backpacker more than three decades ago, and seven (Zion, Grand Teton, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Olympic, Mount Rainier, and Rocky Mountain) were among my kids’ earliest trips, which we took when they ranged in age from six to 10. They are also among the nicest multi-day hikes I’ve taken over more than three decades (and counting) of carrying a backpack, 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.

Besides delivering on all you expect from a backpacking trip in a flagship national park, any of these outings will help prepare you for bigger, more ambitious adventures. And like many stories at this blog, much of this one is free for anyone to read, but reading it all and seeing the entire list of backpacking trips is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

I can help you plan any of them—or any trip you read about at this blog, including beginner-friendly backpacking trips not in national parks, avoiding the need to reserve a permit months in advance. See my Custom Trip Planning page.

See also my stories “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips,” “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit,” “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

Please tell me what you think of these trip ideas or offer your own in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Grand Teton’s Paintbrush-Cascade Canyons Loop

Distance: 19.7 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

The 19.7-mile loop linking up Paintbrush and Cascade canyons from String Lake offers something of a highlights reel of Grand Teton National Park and is undoubtedly among the most scenic sub-20-mile, multi-day hikes in the National Park System. With nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, the loop crosses one of the highest points reached via trail in the park, 10,720-foot Paintbrush Divide, where the panorama takes in a jagged skyline featuring some of the highest summits in the Tetons. It also passes by beloved Lake Solitude, nestled in a cirque of cliffs, and below the striped cliffs of Paintbrush Canyon and waterfalls and soaring peaks of Cascade Canyon.

We backpacked this popular loop over three days with our kids when they were young, camping at Upper Paintbrush the first night and North Fork Cascade the second, and seeing moose in Cascade Canyon; I’ve also dayhiked it. It can be hiked in either direction—and the Paintbrush side is steeper and more strenuous whether going up or down it. But by going counter-clockwise, you enjoy a steady view of the Grand Teton looming high above the North Fork of Cascade Canyon; and you finish down Cascade Canyon, where most of the group can avoid the final slog through the woods and take the boat shuttle across Jenny Lake—with in-your-face views of the peaks—while someone hikes the last 45 minutes to retrieve the car at String Lake.

Click here now to get my expert e-book
to this beginner-friendly backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park.

I can personally help you plan this trip (or any trip you read about at my blog), from permit to daily hiking plan, through my custom trip planning; click here to learn how—and to read hundreds of comments from others who’ve received my custom trip planning, many of which were for backpacking in the Tetons.

See all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside (some of which require a paid subscription to read in full), including “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “Walking Familiar Ground: Reliving Old Memories and Making New Ones on the Teton Crest Trail” about taking our kids at young ages on the TCT.

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The Best First Trip in the Grand Canyon

Distance: 21 to 23.5 miles
Difficulty: Moderate to strenuous

While this is one of the most strenuous trips on this list, for beginner backpackers or families with good stamina who are up for a somewhat bigger challenge, crossing the Grand Canyon from rim to rim constitutes one of the most scenically astonishing experiences in the entire National Park System. Beginning at either the South or North Rim, you will descend through a constantly changing environment and multiple layers of geology, from vistas encompassing a huge swath of the canyon to intimate side canyons with rushing creeks and waterfalls.

The distance ranges from 21 to 23.5 miles depending on whether you combine the South Kaibab Trail or Bright Angel Trail with the North Kaibab Trail, and the cumulative elevation gain and loss is well over 10,000 feet. Many backpackers spread it over three days. Still, water sources are regular and you’re hiking the best-constructed trails in the entire canyon.

Want a shorter Grand Canyon sampler? Hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab Trail and up the Bright Angel Trail over two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Havasupai Gardens Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.

See my story “Fit to Be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day” for photos from this trip and my tale of dayhiking rim to rim, “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” and “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do.”

Click here now for my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.

The Magnificent Heart of Yosemite

Distance: 37.2 miles (with shorter options)
Difficulty: Moderate

Anyone looking for a five-star introduction to backpacking in Yosemite that hits marquis highlights and is beginner friendly need look no further than this 37.2-mile loop from Yosemite Valley. From the popular Happy Isles Trailhead at the east end of The Valley, it winds through the core of the park, starting with ascending the Mist Trail past 317-foot Vernal Fall—which rains a heavy mist on hikers—and thunderous, 594-foot Nevada Fall. The distance includes the optional, out-and-back climb of the steep and exposed cable route up Half Dome, where the summit view of Yosemite Valley is arguably only outdone by the view you’ll get later on the hike from a thousand feet higher on the knife-edge summit ridge of Clouds Rest.

From a campsite on the edge of the alpine meadows at Sunrise, you’ll get a sweeping view of the granite castles of the Cathedral Range. And the hike, spread over four to five days, follows a couple stretches of the world-famous John Muir Trail, descending it on the last day past a calendar-photo vista of Half Dome, Liberty Cap, and Nevada Fall.

See my story “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite” for a description of this route, and a much more detailed description with complete trip-planning guidance in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” which also covers alternate multi-day hiking itineraries beginning and ending at various trailheads ringing this core area of the park, including routes from Tuolumne Meadows and stunning Tenaya Lake. Click here to see all e-books available at The Big Outside, including three trips in Yosemite.

This is Yosemite’s most popular area for backpacking; permits are hard to get. See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit.”

And check out “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “Hiking Half Dome: How to Do It Right and Get a Permit,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

See my five-level difficulty rating system in “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

Glacier’s Glorious Gunsight Pass Trail

Distance: 20 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

Much of the more than 700 miles of trails in one-million-acre Glacier National Park traverse remote wilderness, requiring a commitment of multiple days backpacking in northern mountains thick with grizzly bears, where weather can shift. But the 20-mile traverse of the Gunsight Pass Trail, from Gunsight Pass Trailhead to Lake McDonald Lodge, is one of the logistically easiest and shortest multi-day hikes in the park. Both trailheads are on the Going-to-the-Sun Road and served by the park’s free shuttle bus.

Most of all, though, the hike takes in some of the park’s best scenery, including one of its largest rivers of ice, the Blackfoot Glacier (seen from a distance), scores of waterfalls, and backcountry camps at Gunsight Lake and Lake Ellen Wilson that rank among the prettiest in the park.

Spread it out over four days and add the optional, 6.6-mile, out-and-back side hike to Sperry Glacier—which involves more than 1,700 vertical feet of up and down and some steep sections, making it a relatively demanding side hike for many adults and children. That stunning trail ascends steadily across a barren, rocky, more recently deglaciated landscape, and passes through a narrow notch in the cliffs at Comeau Pass to reach an overlook of the Sperry Glacier.

Unlike trails around Logan Pass and Many Glacier, this route is not crowded with dayhikers. I’ve backpacked it twice—the second time with our kids when they were nine and seven, taking three days—and saw mountain goats near Gunsight Pass both times. The moderately graded trail never gets terribly steep, so it feels easier than the distances suggest, although the long descent to Lake McDonald is a thigh-pounder; still, hike it east to west because in the other direction, the day one uphill from Lake McDonald would be a strenuous and long slog, much of it exposed to the hot sun.

See my story “Jagged Peaks and Wild Goats: Backpacking Glacier’s Gunsight Pass Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in Glacier National Park,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park,” “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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

Zion’s Otherworldly West Rim Trail

Distance: 14 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

Only in a national park that features The Narrows—which, admittedly, ranks hands-down as one of the best backpacking trips in America and certainly one of the best in the Southwest—could the West Rim Trail be overshadowed. More than a few longtime Zion backcountry denizens have told me the West Rim is their favorite trail in the park—and having dayhiked and backpacked it, I’d say it is, in many ways, just as enchanting as The Narrows.

From the plateau on the trail’s upper sections, you overlook a labyrinth of white-walled canyons and green-topped mesas. Then the trail drops about 2,500 feet in 4.7 miles, zigzagging down a cliff face and through a landscape of towering beehive rock formations and walls streaked in vivid burgundy and salmon hues.

The approximately 14-mile, one-way, north-to-south, mostly downhill hike from Lava Point on Kolob Terrace Road to the Grotto Trailhead in Zion Canyon—requiring a shuttle (available in Springdale)—can be done in one day by fit hikers. But an overnight at one of the campsites along the West Rim Trail lets you see this incomparable scenery in the glorious light of early morning and at sunset, and makes it a more feasible objective for families and novice backpackers. Add just just under a mile for the side hike up Angels Landing, one of the most spectacular and iconic summits in the National Park System.

See my stories about a family backpacking trip on the West Rim Trail, a 50-mile dayhike across Zion that included the West Rim Trail, my e-book to a two-day backpacking trip through Zion’s incomparable Narrows (another relatively beginner-friendly trip), and all stories about Zion at The Big Outside.

See also “7 Great Southwest Backpacking Trips for Beginners,” and read this story about another easy, one- or two-night hike in Capitol Reef National Park’s Spring Canyon.

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The Wild Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

Along the 73 miles of seashore within Olympic National Park, you can’t buy fried seafood, ice cream, or a T-shirt. The longest strip of protected wilderness coastline in the contiguous United States, it’s one of the few remaining pieces of ocean-view real estate in the Lower 48 that the explorer Capt. George Vancouver would recognize.

Backpacking the 17.5-mile southern stretch of the Olympic coast from the Hoh River north to La Push Road became one of my kids’ most memorable backpacking trips—mostly for the hours they spent playing in tide pools on the beach (they were nine and seven at the time). But it’s also a hike any adults would find gorgeous and fascinating.

You will walk surprisingly rugged and muddy overland trails in the deep shade of giant trees in one of Earth’s largest virgin temperature rainforests, and scale rope ladders dangling down eroding headlands. Along the beach, you will pass tide pools and boulders teeming with sea stars, mussels, and sea anemones, with sometimes mist-shrouded views of scores of tall stone pinnacles, called sea stacks, rising out of the ocean, some close enough to walk to them at low tide. You may sight seals, sea otters, whales (and to my kids’ delight, lots of slugs).

A fun, beautiful, beginner- and family-friendly trip, especially with school-age kids, it’s also less crowded than the more popular northern stretch of the Olympic coast, an easier permit to obtain—and one of America’s most unique backpacking adventures.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast.”

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

See also “7 Great Southwest Backpacking Trips for Beginners,” and all stories about national park trips and family adventures 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.”

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Olympic, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Glacier, Zion, Grand Teton, Mount Rainier, Canyonlands, Sequoia, Great Smoky Mountains. To backpackers, these names read like a list of America’s greatest cathedrals in nature—and no surprise, because these parks harbor some of the most scenic wilderness trails in the country. Hike any of them and it will earn a spot on your personal top-10 list. Knock off every trip on this list and you will experience some of the finest landscapes not only in the nation, but on the planet.

Over the past three decades—including the 10 years I was a field editor for Backpacker magazine and longer running this blog—I’ve had the good fortune of backpacking dozens of trips in our national parks—and multiple trips in the most-beloved parks. Countless thousands of miles later, this list represents my picks for the very best multi-day hikes you will find in America’s national parks.

Ready to be blown away? Read on and discover your next unforgettable 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.

The descriptions below have links to feature-length stories about those trips, with numerous photos and often a video. While anyone can read part of those stories for free, reading them in full—including tips and details on planning those trips—is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

See my E-Books page for my detailed, expert e-books to several of the trips described below, and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at my blog, customizing it to your preferences and answering all of your questions about it.

Remember that all of these parks require a backcountry permit, which can be hard to get; apply for a permit reservation as soon as they become available, often months in advance. Find the smartest strategies for navigating that application process in my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Please share your thoughts or questions and offer your own trip suggestions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments and answer any questions.

Want to start with a fairly easy trip?
See “10 Perfect National Park Backpacking Trips for Beginners.”

The Wild Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles, 2 to 3 days
Why It’s Unique: Sea stacks, giant trees, beach campsites, exciting rope ladders, abundant sea life.

Backpacking the 17.5-mile southern stretch of Olympic National Park’s 73-mile-long wilderness coastline, you will walk in the shadow of scores of sea stacks rising up to 200 feet out of the ocean and giant trees in one of Earth’s largest virgin temperature rainforests. You will see tide pools and boulders teeming with sea stars, mussels, and sea anemones while hiking along the beach, traverse surprisingly rugged and muddy overland trails, and scale rope ladders dangling down eroding headlands.

You also just may spot seals, sea otters, and whales. A fun, beginner- and family-friendly trip, especially with school-age kids, it’s also less crowded than the more popular northern stretch of the Olympic coast and a relatively easier permit to obtain.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast.”

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Grand Canyon Traverse

Distance: 21 to 23.5 miles, 2 to 3 days
Why It’s Unique: Incomparable canyon vistas, geology older than life on Earth, unforgettable campsites, desert oases and wildflowers.

Backpacking across the Grand Canyon via either of two possible routes on the three main “corridor” trails—the South Kaibab or Bright Angel with the North Kaibab—is truly a hike like no other in the world. From long vistas spanning the Grand Canyon’s staggering vastness of towering rock formations and almost 40 geologic layers, to immersion in tributary canyons with soaring walls and waterfalls, your perspective constantly changes. Every backpacker should take this trek or other multi-day hikes in the Big Ditch.

While there are no “easy” trips that descend into the Grand Canyon, this route is definitely the most amenable for beginner backpackers or first-timers there. My expert e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” lays out in detail everything you need to know to plan and take this trip.

But given the enormous demand for backcountry permits on those three trails, other options are easier to get a permit for. Experienced backpackers seeking a higher-level adventure may want to check out my stories “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop,” “‘Let’s Talk Water:’ Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems,” “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop,” and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” and my expert e-book to the last one, also titled “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

See “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.  

Get my expert e-books to “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” and the easier trip described above, “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Yosemite South of Tuolumne Meadows

Distance: 65 to 74 miles, 5 to 8 days
Why It’s Unique: Famous landmarks like Half Dome, Clouds Rest, Tenaya Lake, Nevada Fall, and Tuolumne Meadows, plus some of Yosemite’s most-remote wilderness.

This just may be the perfect Yosemite backpacking trip: You see iconic vistas like the view from atop the sheer, 2,000-foot Northwest Face of Half Dome, and enjoy the solitude and scenery of one of Yosemite’s largest chunks of wilderness, the remote Clark Range in the park’s southeast quadrant.

Besides Half Dome, this 65-mile hike’s highlights include another of the best summits in the park, Clouds Rest (1,000 feet higher than Half Dome); thunderous, 594-foot-tall Nevada Fall; the stunning granite domes of Tuolumne and Tenaya Lake and the peaks of the Vogelsang area; the highest pass crossed by a trail in Yosemite, Red Peak Pass in the Clark Range; and the lakes and creeks at the headwaters of the Merced River. Permit and camping regulations and how you plan out the daily itinerary dictate whether you hike 65 or 74 miles (the latter involving more but shorter days as well as a bit of backtracking, but following a more moderate itinerary).

See my story about that trip, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” which provides basic details on planning it as a rigorous 65-mile hike (and requires a subscription to read in full); and my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” which gets into much greater detail about planning and taking that trip on a moderate 74-mile itinerary.

See also my story about a comparably remote and gorgeous, 87-mile hike, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” and my expert e-book to that trip, “The Best Remote and Uncrowded Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” which includes shorter variations of it.

Backpackers with less experience or hitting Yosemite for the first time may prefer to check out my story “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite” and my very popular e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

Check out “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

You want to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Glacier’s Northern Loop Made Better

Distance: 65 miles, 5 to 6 days
Why It’s Unique: Megafauna like mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, elk, and grizzly and black bears, breathtaking mountain scenery, primal wilderness.

Few places in the continental United States harbor the breadth of megafauna found in Glacier. You will likely see mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, and moose—and quite possibly black and grizzly bears. Neck-craning cliffs slash into Montana’s big sky, and glaciers pour down mountainsides.

This 65-mile route expands on the popular, 52-mile Northern Loop from Many Glacier, adding Piegan Pass and the entire Highline Trail to create arguably the best multi-day hike in Glacier. It also features the Many Glacier area, Stoney Indian Pass, the Ptarmigan Wall and Ptarmigan Tunnel, and some of the park’s finest lakes and most-remote wilderness. Have a sense of urgency about this trip: The park’s glaciers are on the fast track to extinction.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking Glacier’s Northern Loop and the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

See my story “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” and my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park,” which covers all the details on planning that trip, including my tips on the best way to do it and best campsites.

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

A traverse through Glacier on the Continental Divide Trail offers a similarly complete Glacier experience, overlapping part of the Northern Loop while taking in other areas that rank among the prettiest corners of the park. See my stories “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” and “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” my e-book “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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Zion’s Narrows

Distance: 16 miles, 2 days
Why It’s Unique: A narrow canyon with towering, multi-hued walls, hanging gardens, and pools to wade.

Little wonder that Zion’s Narrows is one of the most sought-after backcountry permits in the National Park System. With sandstone walls that rise up to a thousand feet tall and close in to just 20 to 30 feet apart, the Narrows of the North Fork of the Virgin River has few, if any rivals among the canyons of the Southwest.

Hiking in shallow water for much of the route’s 16 miles, you’ll gradually descend deeper and deeper as the canyon scenery evolves, marveling at the sight of water pouring from solid rock and enjoying one of your most unusual nights of backcountry camping.

Backpacking The Narrows from top to bottom delivers a far superior experience to dayhiking it partway up from the bottom, with real solitude and some of the trip’s best scenery and tightest narrows in the upper canyon, which bottom-up dayhikers never see.

Read my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Do this trip right using my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

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The Teton Crest Trail

Distance: 27-39 miles, multiple variations, 3 to 5 days
Why It’s Unique: Big views for much of its distance, beautiful wildflowers and campsites, and that incomparable, mind-boggling Tetons skyline.

Unquestionably one of America’s premier multi-day treks, the Teton Crest Trail stays above treeline for much of its traverse through the range, with nearly constant, long views of the peaks. Certain spots along the TCT have entered the place-name vocabularies of Tetons aficionados: Death Canyon Shelf, Hurricane Pass, the South and North Forks of Cascade Canyon, Lake Solitude, and Paintbrush Divide, one of the highest points reached by trail in the park, at nearly 11,000 feet.

After more than 20 trips in the Tetons backpacking, climbing, and dayhiking—and most recently backpacking the Teton Crest Trail again in August 2019, with three friends who’d never been on the TCT and loved it every step of the way—I have learned that you can return repeatedly and never fail to be awed by these peaks.

I have also learned the ins and outs of every aspect of this trek, from successfully getting one of the most sought-after backcountry permits in the entire National Park System, to the pros and cons of the various possible hiking itineraries. I share my expert tips in my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

I can also personally help you plan a Teton Crest Trail hike (or any trip you read about at my blog), from experience-based tips on navigating the permit process to a daily hiking itinerary. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how—and to read comments from hundreds of readers like you who’ve used my custom trip planning, many of them for the Teton Crest Trail.

See all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside, including “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” and “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” about my most-recent trip on the TCT.

Didn’t get a Tetons permit? Check out an excellent hike in its neighbor park. See my story, “In Hot (and Cold) Water: Backpacking Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon.”

Itching to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail
and the best short backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park.

Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail

Distance: 93 miles, 8 to 10 days
Why It’s Unique: Roaring rivers gray with glacial “flour,” countless waterfalls, giant trees, incomparable wildflowers, and ever-changing views of ice- and snow-cloaked Mount Rainier.

One of America’s best multi-day hikes—especially of more than a week—the Wonderland Trail makes a 93-mile, strenuously up-and-down circuit of the peak widely considered the queen of the Pacific Northwest, if not of the entire Lower 48: 14,411-foot Mount Rainier.

The Mountain boggles the mind. Seeing it appear as you round a bend can stop you in your tracks in disbelief over its staggering relief. The Wonderland Trail features innumerable waterfalls and views of Rainier, and some of the best wildflower meadows you will ever walk through.

Don’t underestimate this trip’s strenuousness: With a cumulative elevation gain and loss of over 44,000 feet, the trail regularly dishes up 2,000-foot and 3,000-foot ascents and descents. But the difficulty also depends on planning logistics like which direction you hike the loop and where to begin it, all of which I cover in detail in my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

Plus, there isn’t another multi-day hike quite like it.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” about a recent 77-mile hike on what I consider the WT’s best sections (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my e-book), and “Wildflowers, Waterfalls, and Giant Slugs at Mount Rainier,” about a three-day, 22-mile family backpacking trip from Mowich Lake to Sunrise.

If you strike out on a Wonderland permit, consider another big multi-day hike a bit farther north in Washington’s Cascades that’s described in my story, “Primal Wild: Backpacking 80 Miles Through the North Cascades.”

Click here now to get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

The Needles District of Canyonlands

Distance: 7 to 20+ miles, 2 to 3 days
Why It’s Unique: 300-foot-tall, candlestick-like pinnacles, natural arches, narrow slot canyons.

Waves of rippling rock look like a petrified ocean on a red planet. Sandstone spires rise up to 300 feet tall, with giant heads bigger around than the column on which they sit. Stratified cliffs stretch for miles.

The Needles District doesn’t have the severe, strenuous elevation gain and loss endemic to backpacking in the Grand Canyon and some other Southwest canyons. What it does have is fascinating geology that provides something of a Southwest canyons highlights tour.

Scarce water sources pose the biggest challenge, but the distances between them aren’t too great to prevent inexperienced backpackers from exploring Chesler Park and Big Spring, Squaw, and Lost canyons, as well as the Peekaboo Trail.

This relatively easy hike, with a variety of route options, explores a landscape that’s different in many ways from other favorite corners of the Southwest canyon country.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.”

Are you up for a more difficult and remote multi-day hike with greater solitude and mind-blowing scenery? Check out my story “Farther Than It Looks: Backpacking the Canyonlands Maze.”

Explore the best of the Southwest. See “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks”
and “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Sequoia’s Mineral King Area

Distance: 40 miles, 4 to 6 days
Why It’s Unique: Beautiful lakes and campsites, jagged granite peaks, passes over 11,000 feet, and backcountry groves of giant sequoias.

Looking for a full-value High Sierra backpacking adventure?

This 40-mile loop from Sequoia’s Mineral King area delivers (see lead photo at top of story), from passes up to 11,630 feet high with sweeping views of the majestic southern High Sierra to tranquil backcountry groves of giant sequoias that you may have all to yourselves.

I found the scenery photogenic around every turn, with row upon row of huge, granite spires looming thousands of feet above deep canyons, and campsites beside crystalline mountain lakes reflecting cliffs and razor-sharp peaks—and campsites that made my list of the 25 best spots I’ve ever slept in the backcountry.

While the John Muir Trail and popular paths in Yosemite do not typically offer much solitude, this trip shows a quieter side of the High Sierra without compromising on natural beauty.

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park.”

I’ve helped many readers plan this trip in Sequoia and others in the High Sierra. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help plan your next trip.

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

Bottom to Top in the Great Smoky Mountains

Distance: 34 miles, 3 to 4 days
Why It’s Unique: Unparalleled forest diversity, long views from the Appalachian Trail, and lovely streams and cascades.

While the Great Smokies may appear out of place on a list of Western national parks, there are good reasons why these forested mountains are beloved by backpackers.

I discovered their magic on a 34-mile loop from near Fontana Lake up to a stretch of the Appalachian Trail along the park’s crest. That grand tour of this half-million-acre park included rocky streams tumbling through cascades; some of the 1,600 species of flowering plants (76 listed as threatened or endangered); and gazing out over an ocean of blue ridges from 6,643-foot Clingmans Dome and the park’s highest bald, 5,920-foot Andrews Bald.

I also found a surprising degree of solitude, even during the fall foliage season.

See my story “In the Garden of Eden: Backpacking the Great Smoky Mountains” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in western North Carolina 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.”

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

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There are many good reasons the 93-mile Wonderland Trail encircling Washington’s Mount Rainier ranks among the most popular backpacking trips in the country. And yet, backpackers who’ve never attempted this loop around the third-highest peak in the Lower 48 may have questions about what it’s like. If you have not hiked all or part of the Wonderland Trail, read on to learn more about why you should—and perhaps learn some myth-busting truths about this iconic and challenging trail.

The Wonderland Trail certainly belongs on any list of America’s best backpacking trips—and I say that having hiked most of the best (some of them multiple times) over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. That’s because the Wonderland possesses nearly all of the qualities that make for a great multi-day hike—most conspicuously the countless views, from all angles, of the most heavily glaciated peak in the Lower 48, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, a sight that inspires beyond all expectations.

In fact, at the end of my most-recent trip there, a 77-mile hike on most of the Wonderland Trail, two friends and I—all of us very experienced and widely traveled backpackers—concurred that we had come to Rainier with high expectations for the Wonderland, and the trail exceeded them.

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.

Not many backpacking trips in the country are harder to get a permit for than the Wonderland. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit” and get my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail Around Mount Rainier” to learn everything you need to know to plan and take this classic trip.

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 questions or suggestions about it, please share them in the comments section below. I try to respond to all comments.

Here are five reasons every serious backpacker must hike the Wonderland Trail.

Click here now to get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

1. It’s ‘Next Level’

What do I mean by “next level?” Well, that could be interpreted in at least a couple of different ways—including that the Wonderland has next-level scenery (more on that below).

But for many backpackers, a 93-mile hike that may take upwards of eight to 10 days will be the longest and perhaps most demanding multi-day hike they have ever done. The physical, mental, and logistical challenges inherent to a hike of that distance provides excellent preparation for a longer thru-hike, such as the John Muir Trail or a more obscure and lonely long-distance trail like the Idaho Wilderness Trail; a section or all of a long-distance footpath like the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, or the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier National Park; or simply longer and more demanding backpacking trips in places like the remotest corners of Yosemite, the “best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” or the North Cascades.

The Wonderland also delivers a powerful sense of accomplishment—a strong reward, whether it’s for backpackers gaining experience or a family whose children are ready for this level of challenge and parents trying to inspire and raise their kids to love the outdoors. See my stories “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trips,” “10 Tips for Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” “12 Tips for Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You,” and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

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2. It’s Challenging, But Feasible

Make no mistake: Any backpacking trip of nearly 100 miles is a serious undertaking, but the Wonderland Trail amplifies the arduousness, subjecting backpackers to a constant succession of long ascents and descents—many of them 2,000 to 3,000 vertical feet—between alpine ridge crests of volcanic rock and wildflower meadows and deeply shaded forest in valley bottoms.

The Wonderland Trail profile at nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/upload/Wonderland-Profile-2018_Web.pdf shows at least 45,000 vertical feet of cumulative elevation gain and loss over the trail’s 93 miles (roughly 500 feet of up and down per mile, a moderate grade overall, although the WT has steeper sections). And that doesn’t include the variation many backpackers take off the WT onto the Spray Park Trail, which entails about 1,000 more feet of cumulative elevation gain and loss than the section of the Wonderland Trail it skirts (between the Carbon River and Mowich Lake).

Still, the Wonderland Trail shouldn’t be considered experts-only terrain. Despite its challenges, the WT does not pose the difficulties of some long, hard hikes.

The trail is well-marked and obvious—no one who can read a map will get lost. Well-spaced, designated campsites with poles for hanging food give backpackers a known destination each night with little risk of bear problems (and no need to carry a bear canister). While there are rocky sections with difficult footing, much of the trail consists of a soft treadway of packed dirt and conifer needles that’s easy on feet, leg joints, and the body overall. (It’s no mystery why many ultra-runners and hikers gravitate to it.)

If you’re looking to step up your game as a backpacker, the Wonderland Trail is a great place to do just that.

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3. You Will Probably See Wildlife

On our first day on the Wonderland Trail, we saw a black bear (from a distance, and it immediately dashed away), marmots—and nearly 30 mountain goats. Over the course of our hike, we also spotted perhaps two dozen more mountain goats and saw and heard pikas, both in alpine areas, and observed elk tracks in mud on the trail in deep forest.

In fact, Mount Rainier National Park—which spans an elevation range of about 13,000 feet—hosts 65 mammal species, including deer, mountain lions, fisher, and American marten (or pine marten), as well as 14 species of amphibians, five species of reptiles, 182 species of birds, and 14 species of native fish. While it lacks apex predators like grizzly bears and wolves, the Wonderland does not lack for thrilling wildlife sightings.

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

4. It Can Be Hiked in Sections

Yes, 93 miles sure is a really big walk. Throw in more than 45,000 feet of combined elevation gain and loss and the words “really big walk” seem inadequate. But you need not feel compelled to eat that entire meal at your first sitting.

My first backpacking trip on the Wonderland Trail covered just part of its northern section, between Berkeley Park and the Carbon River, when I hiked Rainier’s 32.8-mile Northern Loop (a solo trip that unexpectedly turned into a tense adventure). My second WT hike traversed its southernmost stretches. On my third, with my family when our kids were nine and seven, we hiked from Mowich Lake across Spray Park and covered the gorgeous WT stretch from the Carbon River to Sunrise.

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

Finally, after the Wonderland sat on my to-do list for years, two friends and I took a 77-mile hike on most of the trail—including the sections I had not yet hiked previously. Read my feature story about that trip, “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.”

With several access points at road crossings in the park, the WT offers numerous opportunities to backpack—or take ultra-hikes or runs on—sections of varying lengths.

My e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail Around Mount Rainier” tells you everything you need to know to plan and take this classic trip and includes several shorter, alternative itineraries describing section hikes on the WT.

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

5. It’s… Incredible

Any conversation about the quality of a hike always circles back to the scenery—and in that regard, the Wonderland equals its name and deserves top-tier status alongside classics like the Teton Crest Trail, John Muir Trail, and premier hikes in flagship parks like Yosemite, Glacier, and the Grand Canyon.

Why? There are the meadows choked with an abundance and variety of wildflowers matched in few places. The crystalline creeks and rivers gray and frothing with “glacial flour.” Waterfalls leaping off cliffs and cascades plunging and roaring for hundreds of feet. Mountain lakes shimmering in sunshine or offering a mirror image of Mount Rainier. Intensely quiet and enchanting forests of giant trees like Douglas fir, western red cedar, and western hemlock at lower elevations and subalpine fir and mountain hemlock growing in islands amid sprawling meadows at higher elevations.

And all of that frequently showcases a backdrop of “The Mountain,” as Rainier is known to Washingtonians. Cloaked in crack-riddled glaciers, Rainier ranks third among all U.S. mountains—behind only Alaska’s Denali and Hawaii’s Mauna Kea—in topographical prominence, a measure of how high a peak rises above its surroundings, which for Rainier is 13,210 feet. It often fills the horizon at a seemingly unbelievable scale.

As you round yet another turn on the Wonderland to discover another meadow or cross another river, Rainier appears suddenly in surprising places, stealing your breath away.

Given all of its qualities, any adventure-seeking backpacker would have to contemplate the question: How many reasons do you need to walk the Wonderland Trail?

Go there. It is the kind of adventure that validates itself over and over and stays with you long afterward.

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

Read my feature story about a 77-mile hike on most of the Wonderland Trail, “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.” See also “The Best Hikes in Mount Rainier National Park.”

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.”

Let The Big Outside help you find the best adventures.
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At precisely 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, many thousands of Americans logged into recreation.gov/permits/4675342 hoping to reserve a backcountry permit for backpacking sometime this year in Grand Teton National Park. That enormous virtual crowd included me and probably dozens of my blog’s readers, many of whom I’ve heard from. For many, perhaps most, the experience was confusing, frustrating, and unsuccessful.

They saw backcountry camping availability for dates throughout the summer backpacking season disappear within anywhere from five to two minutes (which is exactly what I saw). Some succeeded in selecting nightly camps on specific dates to create an itinerary, only to watch the page freeze when they clicked to book and purchase their reservation—and they subsequently received a message indicating that their itinerary was no longer available.

By that point, just a few minutes after the reservations page opened, many or probably most users saw no more backcountry camping availability for building a multi-day Teton Crest Trail itinerary on any summer dates this year.

And here’s the thing: It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, other large and popular national parks have recreation.gov permit pages that function much more smoothly. Those parks employ methods in their reservation systems, like lotteries, that clearly help eliminate the chaos seen every January when Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) opens reservations.

To provide a little background: In recent years, many large national parks with vast areas of wilderness moved their backcountry permit reservation systems over to recreation.gov. That move has replaced internal national park reservation systems that were often clunky and frustrating for countless users.

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’m deeply familiar with current and past permit reservation systems in our national parks. I have personally reserved scores of backcountry permits over three decades working as a professional backpacker, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor with Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

From what I’ve seen in many parks, the switch to recreation.gov has been a resounding success, easing what can be an inherently difficult process for users—as well as making it more equitable and speeding up both the reservation procedure itself and the confirmation of permits. Under past permit reservation systems, it could take several weeks for some parks to notify applicants whether they had been issued a permit reservation—and even into this decade, at least one major national park required permit applications to be faxed in. (To anyone born in this century, a fax machine is… well, never mind, it’s not important.)

Now, for many parks using recreation.gov, that takes anywhere from several days to just minutes. As much as anything, these permit reservation systems in recreation.gov have mostly become more transparent, clear, and consistent, greatly reducing the stress of trying to use a system that doesn’t operate efficiently and keeps you waiting for weeks to learn the results.

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

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that, while GTNP also moved its permit reservations over to recreation.gov a few years ago, it has not adopted some of the most effective improvements to the process of reserving a backcountry permit that other parks employ.

And it’s frankly difficult to understand why Grand Teton does not emulate any of those existing, working examples of a well-functioning permit reservation system.

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Frustrated Users

Since Jan. 7 of this year (2026), I have heard from many readers of this blog who’ve purchased either my e-books to trips in Grand Teton (and other national parks) or my Custom Trip Planning service to get my personalized help planning their trips (including navigating the permit-reservation process in many parks), all of them sharing their experience with GTNP’s recreation.gov page.

Few of those experiences were positive.

Susannah Clark, of Melrose, Mass., attempted to reserve a permit for five nights in camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail in September, logically figuring she would see less demand for permits than in August. It “was a complete disaster,” she wrote to me. She observed that because everyone who wants to reserve a permit sees the page to view camping availability at exactly the same instant, many are undoubtedly trying to figure out how to navigate it while availability is rapidly disappearing.

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.”

And it appears that, as one would expect, huge numbers of users select the exact same camping zones for the exact same dates. They might then believe they have completed an itinerary, but upon clicking the Book Now button, only a small number can receive confirmation of that specific itinerary; the rest receive a message that their itinerary is no longer available.

Clark was not able to reserve a permit at all.

“Holy smokes, is this system distressing!” Clark wrote. “People who are not comfortable with computers, are unfamiliar with the system, are not available at those exact five minutes, are never going to get an advance permit to hike the Teton Crest Trail; and if you don’t live nearby (I live on the East Coast), just jetting out and hoping for a walk-in permit is a risky investment.”

Doug Bagley, of Salt Lake City, also had a Teton Crest Trail itinerary built that was suddenly “not available” when he clicked the Book Now button. He started over repeatedly with other camping zone options and dates from early July to late September and had them in his cart but kept receiving a “not available” message. He wrote to me: “I put in a lot of time to familiarize with three different four-night backpacking itineraries. I used your guide, which was awesome. I read every thread about the online process.

“I had no chance,” Bagley wrote. “Way too many moving parts even though I thought I understood the process. I have applied for and gotten backcountry permits in Yosemite. I would rather go into a lottery like that than compete for them (in this way).”

Dennis Gawlik, of Bainbridge Island, Wash., who used my Custom Trip Planning and managed to reserve a permit on Jan. 7 for part of the Teton Crest Trail, hopes to modify it walk-in when he arrives at the park—and his dates are late September, when he realizes new snow could force him to either cancel his trip or alter his itinerary. He described to me a GTNP permit reservation experience that was “fast and hectic.”

As with other people, Gawlik attempted numerous dates and camping zone options but saw availability repeatedly disappear, destroying his various itineraries. “Yes, 8:05 a.m. was when things went really south—all booked.”

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Five minutes after GTNP opened reservations, it had become impossible to reserve a Teton Crest Trail permit.

Brothers Richard Serpe, of Cream Ridge, N.J., and Ed Serpe of Cambridge, Mass., both repeat users of my Custom Trip Planning, were among a group of people attempting to reserve a permit in January 2025—hoping that at least one of them would succeed.

They told me: “During the first 60 to 120 seconds (after reservations opened), we were each able to get one or two of our desired camps but failed to get everything we needed. Pretty much after the 120-second mark there was no going back, everything was booked solid at the camps on the desirable itinerary for the dates we were looking for.”

But while the rest of the group was attempting to reserve a standard permit for up to six people, Richard tried for a group permit for seven—and succeeded. “Honestly? It was almost anticlimactic. I got it with no trouble at all,” he wrote to me.

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Full disclosure: I was able to build a three-night Teton Crest Trail itinerary on Jan. 7 and lock it in after clicking Book Now, but I did not complete the purchase because the early September dates I chose conflicted with other plans I have; I mainly wanted to see how the system was functioning (and I immediately canceled my chosen itinerary). But I’m also much more familiar with recreation.gov and GTNP’s reservations page and camping zones than most people. And I also found virtually everything booked up for the entire summer season by 8:05 a.m.

“You should not have to be a professional permit seeker to be able to hike the national parks,” Susannah Clark wrote to me. “I really like the Grand Canyon system (on recreation.gov). It’s a little more cumbersome” because Grand Canyon National Park, like some other parks, uses an early-access lottery (more on that below), “but it is so much easier and relaxed, and you are less likely to have a heart attack from the stress of getting a permit,” Clark added.

(If you’ve had a recent experience trying to reserve a backcountry permit in Grand Teton National Park or other parks on recreation.gov, however well or poorly it went, please share it in the comments section at the bottom of this story.)

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
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How Grand Teton Compares to Other National Parks

Many large and popular parks, like Grand Teton, receive far greater demand for permits than they have backcountry camping availability every year. That, of course, creates an unavoidable, competitive situation: Many people will fail to obtain a permit simply due to demand.

However, GTNP’s permit system is such an outlier in how it’s organized that it seems to compound the difficulty of reserving a permit—all while there are examples of national park permit systems that are set up to eliminate or at least minimize chaos.

To understand the issue better, it’s helpful to compare GTNP’s permit reservation system with those of other large, wilderness-based parks that are very popular with backpackers:

Score a popular permit using my
“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

• In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas, with 60 percent of permit reservations available through a weekly rolling lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859. You can enter the lottery anytime during any weeklong period and you will find out two days after that lottery ends whether you got a permit reservation; if not, you have time to enter the following week’s rolling lottery for a specific window of dates. The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 seven days in advance of a trip start date.
• Since the beginning of 2024, Grand Canyon has issued about 80 percent of backcountry permits through a monthly, two-week-long, early-access lottery at recreation.gov/permits/4675337, and everyone who enters a lottery, no matter when, will have an equal chance of being selected. 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 before reservations open to the general public; and the park expects that most of those 750 people will get a permit. The park issues about 20 percent of backcountry permits walk-in.
• Also in 2024, Glacier started conducting 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, and all applicants during these 24-hour lottery periods have an equal chance of being selected. 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 one permit reservation, competing against a small group of other lottery winners, before reservations open to the general public. 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.
• Mount Rainier issues permits for two-thirds of backcountry campsites through an early-access lottery held from Feb. 10 through March 3 for preferential time slots to reserve a permit at recreation.gov/permits/4675317 for trips from May 1 through Oct. 11. Lottery winners are awarded a date and time on or after March 21 to make a permit reservation competing against a limited number of other applicants, giving them much better chances of getting a permit for the Wonderland Trail and popular climbing routes. The remaining one-third of backcountry permit availability is issued walk-in.
• Yellowstone also conducts an early-access lottery from March 1-20 for backcountry permit reservations at recreation.gov/permits/4675323 for trips between May 15 through Oct. 31. Lottery winners will receive a date and time between April 1-24 when they can reserve a permit competing against a limited number of other lottery winners, providing the best chance of getting a permit for a popular backpacking trip like Bechler Canyon. About 75 percent of backcountry campsites can be reserved and the remaining 25 percent are available for walk-up permits issued no more than two days in advance of a trip.

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In sharp contrast to those parks, in Grand Teton, for trips between May 1 and Oct. 31, permit reservations opened for everyone at recreation.gov/permits/4675342 starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, 2026. (The date sometimes varies slightly each year.) Everyone seeking a permit flooding that page simultaneously has resulted in the system getting overwhelmed and popular backcountry camping zones, like those along the Teton Crest Trail, getting booked up for the entire season within minutes.

Plus, unlike other parks that open a majority of their backcountry permit availability to reservations (the examples above range from 60 to 80 percent), GTNP allows just one-third of available permits to be reserved, leaving two-thirds available first-come, for walk-in backpackers, no more than one day before a trip begins.

By not making a larger pool of backcountry permits available to reserve in advance—and not spreading out the demand over a longer period of time, or conducting an early-access or other type of lottery, GTNP effectively amplifies the chaos of trying to reserve a permit.

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Why is It Like This When It Could Be Better?

From what I’ve seen, it has been standard practice for many years within the National Park Service (NPS) to allow individual parks to manage backcountry permit reservations as they see fit. There are reasons for enabling local control: Most parks have trails and trailheads that see much higher demand than other areas—examples would include the John Muir Trail through Yosemite, Grand Canyon’s corridor trails (South and North Kaibab and Bright Angel), and Glacier’s Northern Loop. Parks may issue permits based on trailhead quotas or on backcountry camping quotas. Their peak seasons for backpacking may vary a bit or significantly from one another.

Still, having backpacked multiple times in all of the parks mentioned in this story as well as many others, I cannot imagine a logical reason why Grand Teton National Park could not adopt strategies employed successfully in other, similarly large and popular parks—strategies that have made the process of reserving a backcountry permit smoother, faster, and more equitable. Those parks have accomplished that despite the inherent challenges of seeing more demand than there is backcountry camping availability throughout their peak season.

It seems to me that by allowing individual parks to determine how their own backcountry/wilderness permit reservation system functions, the NPS essentially allows each park to repeat the mistakes of other parks. The argument that allowing each park to experiment with different ways of issuing permits makes sense only when all of them are adopting recreation.gov at the same time—or at least in the same year—and none have any real-world experience with it yet.

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But that’s not the case now. Some parks have been using recreation.gov for at least a few years—and some popular parks that see huge demand for wilderness permits, like Yosemite, use a system that works remarkably well. This begs the question: If examples exist of successful systems, why stick with a system that real-world experience has demonstrated is flawed?

I reached out to the National Park Service’s Office of Communications via email with my questions for this story, hoping they could educate me or at least make sense of GTNP’s permit system. They told me that GTNP staff estimate about 38,000 to 42,000 backcountry “user nights” each year, with roughly one-third coming from advance reservations.

Beyond that statistic, the NPS communications staff response, frankly, did not address the specific critiques and questions I had submitted regarding GTNP’s permit system. In fact, their response was so vague that it could be describing permit reservation systems in any national park.

Here is part of their response, lightly edited, but it captures the overall content of their response:

“The high-demand and limited opportunity nature of permits often make them difficult to obtain. Park staff evaluate the effectiveness of their permit operation and adjust over time to improve the customer experience. Demand for permits varies from park to park and by specific areas within each park. In some cases, local managers will receive thousands of permit applications for just a few dozen opportunities. Popularity and high demand for the permit is a primary reason a park will decide to utilize a lottery system to allocate permit reservations. People looking for a very specific hike (such as particular sites on the Crest Trail) may not always find those exact options available.”

The Tetons are Beloved by Many Backpackers

The Tetons are one of my very favorite mountain ranges. I’ve taken probably at least two dozen trips there over the years since my first one more than 30 years ago: backpacking, dayhiking, climbing several peaks, backcountry skiing—even paddling a canoe on String and Leigh lakes. I’ve seen black bears, several moose, certainly marmots and pikas, even a huge bull elk right outside my tent late one night (on my very first Teton Crest Trail hike).

I will return again to backpack; and at some point, with some amount of luck, I’ll reserve yet another Grand Teton National Park backcountry permit.

I’ve been thinking about writing this story for a few years but had previously held off in the hopes that GTNP would change for the better “this year.” That has not happened yet and the flaws in their permit system only grow more glaring every year.

I’m sure that GTNP managers are trying to create the safest and most enjoyable backcountry experience for all visitors. I fully support the need for a permit system to place controls and limits on the numbers of people camping in the backcountry of America’s major wilderness parks—without such a system, these places would quickly get trashed, trails and campsites overused and heavily eroded, fragile ecosystems damaged and wildlife constantly harassed and stressed by too many humans invading their spaces. I respect all the good, committed NPS employees who protect our parks, who are motivated largely by a love for them.

I’m merely saying that there are obvious, better ways for Grand Teton National Park to run their system for reserving backcountry permits. I hope they will make changes to improve their system at least before the date that they open reservations for 2027.

See all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at the Big Outside.

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After more than three decades of exploring all over Yosemite on numerous backpacking trips, I’ve learned two big lessons about it: First of all, few places inspire the same powerful combination of both awe and adventure. And Yosemite’s backcountry harbors such an abundance of soaring granite peaks, waterfalls, lovely rivers and creeks, and shimmering alpine lakes—plus, over 700,000 acres of designated wilderness and 750 miles of trails—that you can explore America’s third national park literally for decades and not run out of five-star scenery.

Yosemite exceeds expectations in many ways, including this truth: Its reputation for crowds just doesn’t square with the reality of backpacking throughout most of the park. Yes, Yosemite Valley sees insane numbers of tourists, and a few of the park’s trails—like the Mist Trail and Half Dome—are among the most popular in the country.

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But most of the park’s backcountry isn’t crowded. I once interviewed a retired backcountry ranger who’d worked for 37 years in Yosemite, 25 years as wilderness manager, and had hiked every trail in Yosemite “probably about 10 times.” He told me that only about 10 percent of the park’s hundreds of miles of trails—from Happy Isles to Donohue Pass (mostly the John Muir Trail) and the Sierra High Camps loop—accounts for about 80 percent of all trail use. Little Yosemite Valley alone accounts for almost 20 percent. And the average length of backpacking trips is just two nights.

Consequently, he said, “There are areas of the park where you will see very few people.”

Wander into the park’s vast backcountry and you will find some of the very best scenery in Yosemite—along with a surprising degree of solitude.

This article describes the 10 best backpacking trips in Yosemite, from the core between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows—including Half Dome—to the John Muir Trail, the Clark Range and southeast corner, and the vast wilderness of northern Yosemite. These trips range in length from roughly 30 miles to nearly 90 miles, and from beginner friendly to serious adventures in the park’s wildest corners.

I’ve backpacked all of these trips—and others across Yosemite—over more than three decades of getting to know this park very well, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor with Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Each trip described below has a link to a story about it that provides more detail (reading those stories in full, including key trip-planning details, requires a paid subscription), and some descriptions have a link to one of my three Yosemite e-books, which provide much more detail on how to plan and prepare for that trip.

See my expert e-books to three great backpacking trips in Yosemite—including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”—and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these classic adventures, variations of them, another Yosemite trip, or any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

Please tell me what you think of the trips described below, share your questions, or suggest your own favorite backpacking trip in Yosemite in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Understanding Yosemite’s Wilderness Permit System

In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on daily trailhead quotas on the number of people, which vary between trailheads, with special rules for backpacking the John Muir Trail. For trips from late April through late October, 60 percent of trailhead quotas can be reserved through a rolling lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 that begins on the Sunday up to 24 weeks in advance of the date you want to start hiking and runs for a week, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know”
and “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips.”

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.

Popular trailheads—including Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley and most of the trailheads in the Tuolumne Meadows area—fill very quickly. There are lower-demand trailheads in the park where you can more likely reserve a permit less than 24 weeks in advance.

See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

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Yosemite’s Best Backpacking Trips

Little Yosemite Valley and Half Dome

Let’s acknowledge this up front: Any list of Yosemite’s best backpacking trips must include this route from the park’s most popular trailhead to its most popular backcountry camp and the summit so famous and popular that the park requires a permit for hiking the cable route up it whether while backpacking or on a dayhike.

Many thousands of people attempt the strenuous hike up Half Dome, about 16 miles round-trip with almost 5,000 feet of elevation gain and loss from the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, in one big day. Backpacking it as an overnighter with a camp in Little Yosemite Valley spreads out the effort over two days—a more reasonable objective for many hikers.

Having the camp also makes it easier to reach the 8,800-foot crown of Half Dome ahead of the wave of more than 200 dayhikers permitted to hike Half Dome each day, enjoying something closer to solitude for the incomparable view of Yosemite Valley and 360-degree panorama of a big swath of the park’s mountains.

From Happy Isles, ascend the Mist Trail past 317-foot Vernal Fall and 594-foot Nevada Fall to reach Little Yosemite Valley. Dayhike Half Dome from your camp, and then descend the northernmost leg of the John Muir Trail back to Happy Isles—or skip Half Dome and turn this into an easy overnight of under 10 miles total, ideal for beginner backpackers or families with young kids. And understand: This is the hardest wilderness permit to get in Yosemite.

Read more about this hike in my blog post “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite,” and find much more detailed information on how to plan this trip, including variations of this route and insider tips in getting a permit for it, in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

I can help you plan any trip you read about at my blog—and I know the tricks for getting a Yosemite wilderness permit. Click here to learn more.

Yosemite Valley to Half Dome, Clouds Rest, and Sunrise

Planning your first backpacking trip in Yosemite and want to hit all the famous highlights—on a route that’s also beginner-friendly? Take this 37.2-mile hike from Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley.

Essentially an extended version of the above hike, this route from the Happy Isles Trailhead loops through the core of the park, including the Mist Trail past Vernal and Nevada Falls, the cable route up Half Dome, the spectacular summit of Clouds Rest, a section of the John Muir Trail, and a view of the Cathedral Range from your campsite at Sunrise. 

Probably the most popular backpacking trip in Yosemite of more than one or two nights—ranked behind its shorter variation to Little Yosemite Valley and Half Dome (above)—it usually includes at least one night at Little Yosemite Valley. Expect a lot of competition for this permit and plan alternative routes in case you don’t get it.

Read more about this hike in my blog post “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite,” and find much more detailed information on how to plan this trip, including variations of this route and insider tips in getting a permit for it, in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

See also my tips on hiking Half Dome.

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Tuolumne Meadows to Tenaya Lake

The roughly 30-mile traverse from the Rafferty Creek Trailhead at the eastern end of Tuolumne Meadows to the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead at Tenaya Lake features not only those two amazing spots, but the panorama of mountains from Vogelsang Pass, the beautiful canyon of the Merced River, the view of the Cathedral Range from Sunrise, and relatively quiet sections of trail.

This hike passes three of the park’s High Sierra Camps—Vogelsang, Merced Lake, and Sunrise—where you can stay in tent cabins and have all meals prepared for you, or stay in DIY backpacker campgrounds. This route is popular because it’s relatively accessible, scenic, and offers the convenience of using the free shuttle buses that operate between trailheads throughout the Tuolumne area.

This is described as an alternative route in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” which provides a wealth of information on how to prepare for and take a backpacking trip in Yosemite.

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

The High Sierra Camps Loop

One of the park’s most popular and scenic multi-day hikes, this roughly 47-mile loop from Tuolumne Meadows offers a signature Yosemite experience on a highlights tour around the Cathedral Range to the five High Sierra Camps: Glen Aulin, May Lake, Sunrise, Merced Lake, and Vogelsang.

You’ll enjoy views of granite domes and Cathedral Peak’s distinctive sharp profile; overlooks of the magnificent Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River and several waterfalls, including 594-foot Nevada Fall from a perch near its brink; gorgeous May Lake, Tenaya Lake, and Merced Lake; wildflower-choked meadows and crystalline creeks—and a surprisingly amount of solitude on sections of the loop, considering its easy access from several points.

There are ways to shorten the loop or lengthen it, options for side hikes to more lakes, waterfalls, and summits—including two of the best in Yosemite, Mount Hoffmann and Clouds Rest—and create alternate routes or start and finish from various trailheads, all of which can help you obtain a highly coveted wilderness permit. It’s also a beginner-friendly hike feasible for families and new backpackers, with amenities like toilets in all the backpacker campgrounds adjacent to the High Sierra camps (and the option of booking tent cabins in a High Sierra camp for every night and carrying only a daypack).

See photos and more about this area of the park in my stories “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite” and “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” and find more detailed information on planning variations of this route in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

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

Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley

Something of a classic ultra-dayhike or trail run—because it’s so darn beautiful but also predominantly downhill going in this direction—the approximately 19-mile traverse from the Cathedral Lakes Trailhead in Tuolumne to the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley follows an easy section of the John Muir Trail below the distinctive spire of Cathedral Peak; offers a choice between camping by or visiting the Cathedral Lakes or overlooking the meadows of Sunrise and the Cathedral Range; plus a chance to hike the cable route up Half Dome; and a second camp at Little Yosemite Valley before descending to the Valley via either the Mist Trail or JMT to the Valley.

Take the less-direct but thrilling detour from Sunrise to the 9,926-foot summit of Clouds Rest, one of the very best mountaintops in all of Yosemite (and far less busy than Half Dome), adding more than three miles and over a thousand feet of uphill and downhill. You will also have to choose between descending the more direct but steeper Mist Trail pass Nevada and Vernal Falls or the slightly longer and still scenic John Muir Trail, which bypasses the waterfalls.

This traverse requires a lengthy shuttle, but you can make the logistics much shorter and easier by finishing at the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead beside Tenaya Lake instead. And you could still hike Clouds Rest from the backcountry camp at Sunrise.

This hike crosses the popular area of the park described in my blog post “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite.” See also my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

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Yosemite Valley’s North Rim to Ten Lakes Basin

The 45-mile near-loop from Tioga Road may best illustrate the opportunities Yosemite offers to enjoy some of the park’s marquis scenery without running into conga lines of backpackers or dayhikers. The route scampers along one rim of Yosemite Valley—including one of the best Valley overlooks—and explores a lakes basin at 9,000 feet before finishing at one of the park’s prettiest lakes.

A friend and I spent our first evening in the backcountry alone atop a dome, soaking in a horizon that spanned from Half Dome to El Capitan and beyond; our second night beside a beautiful creek after a day of seeing few other people; and our third evening overlooking a lake, while hiking for hours at a time each day in solitude. And yet, almost incomprehensively, this area doesn’t see nearly the same demand for a coveted wilderness permit as Yosemite’s most popular trailheads. You could say this hike is hiding in plain sight.

I wrote about this trip in my feature story “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip,” which includes my tips on planning it yourself.

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.”

See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

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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.”

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

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.

Want to backpack in the High Sierra?
Click here for expert, detailed advice you won’t get elsewhere.

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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We can all remember specific places that we consider the best days of hiking we’ve ever had. I’ve been exceptionally fortunate: I have hiked many trails in America and around the world that would probably make anyone’s list of most-scenic hikes. From numerous trips in iconic national parks like Yosemite, Zion, Grand Canyon, and Glacier to the John Muir Trail and Teton Crest Trail and some of the world’s great treks, including the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, the Tour du Mont Blanc, New Zealand’s Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails, and the icy and jagged mountains of Norway and Patagonia, here’s a list of the hands-down prettiest days I’ve ever spent walking dirt and rock footpaths.

I think you’ll find some places in here to add to your must-do list.

I’ve taken these adventures over the course of more than three decades working as an outdoor writer and photographer, formerly as Northwest Editor of Backpacking magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog. Many of the photos in this story are from adventures widely recognized as classics, while others are from places you may not have heard of before.

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 list of my most scenic days of hiking runs to 39—yep, I know that seems like a lot of picks for a list of best days ever. (You should see some of the days I cut from this story.) I think as you go through this list of truly great hikes, you’ll understand my struggle to winnow it any further as you try to decide which of them to prioritize for your own to-do list. I think I’m giving you a whole lot of great choices.

Scroll through the photos and short anecdotes from each trip. They include links to stories at The Big Outside about those places, with my tips and information on how to plan those trips. Like many stories at this blog, part of those stories are free for anyone to read, but reading them in full, including my tips and information on how to plan those trips, is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

And I can help you plan any of these trips or any other you read about at this blog—giving you the benefit of my many years of professional experience identifying, planning, and successfully pulling off great adventures. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, and my expert e-books to some of America’s and the world’s best backpacking trips and treks.

I’d love to hear what you think of any of my photos or the places shown in them, or upcoming plans you have or are contemplating. Please share your thoughts or questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Happy trails.

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Hiking Yosemite’s Clouds Rest and Half Dome

Traversing the slender summit ridge of 9,926-foot Clouds Rest, we walked what felt like a high wire between sphincter-puckering abysses in the heart of Yosemite National Park. Below one elbow, a drop-off of several hundred feet; on the other side, 4,000 feet—that’s a thousand feet taller than the face of El Capitan. It’s arguably the best summit view in Yosemite and one of the best reached by a trail in all of California’s High Sierra. On the first day of a 151-mile grand tour of that flagship park, four of us walked from the granite-framed shores of Tenaya Lake over Clouds Rest and on to one of America’s most famous summits: Half Dome. And after all that, we still weren’t even finished for the day.

See my story about that hike, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

You want to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

We breezed down the narrow crest of the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail as the first light of day fell on one of the planet’s most magnificent and unfathomable landscapes: a mile-deep chasm with twisting side canyons, walls stacked in multi-colored layers, and an army of stone towers each standing thousands of feet tall. Three friends and I walked across the canyon from the South Rim to the North Rim, and back again—42 miles with over 22,000 feet of up and down—in one very long day. I’ve repeated the r2r2r running and hiking in one day and hiking it over two days. Wherever I hike for the rest of my life, I’m sure I’ll always rank hiking rim to rim among my greatest trail days ever.

See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” “9 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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”

Trekking the Alta Via 2 in the Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains

Often described as “the world’s most beautiful trail,” the Alta Via 2 traces a roughly 112-mile/180km path through northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, which thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, gleaming like polished jewels in sunshine and virtually pulsing with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. On my family’s hut-to-hut trek of a 39-mile/62km section of the AV 2, jaw-dropping views became routine.

But on the day we hiked from the Rosetta Hut (lead photo at top of story), in the sub-range known as the Pale di San Martino, down to the small mountain town of San Martino di Castrozza, we walked below one sheer limestone tower after another on a path that clung to vertiginous mountainsides, sometimes chopped from the face of a cliff.

See my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.”

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Walking Across Zion

From the red-rock Kolob Canyons in the park’s northwest corner to the 2,000-foot, creamy white and blazing burgundy cliffs of Zion Canyon, Zion National Park harbors some of the most uniquely beautiful and beloved natural real estate in the entire National Park System. Hiking 50 miles across the entire park in a day, tagging highlights like Angels Landing and the West Rim Trail, seemed like the perfect way to experience a park without peer. That’s what several friends and I figured, anyway. Our adventure was proof that, even when events don’t proceed quite as planned, it can be a great day.

See my story “Mid-Life Crisis: Hiking 50 Miles Across Zion in a Day,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park,” and all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning any trip on this list?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

Nearly every day that my family spent trekking hut to hut on Iceland’s 34-mile/55km Laugavegur Trail and 15.5-mile/25km Fimmvörðuháls Trail struck me as one of the prettiest days of hiking I’ve ever had.

Among those seven days of hiking, I feel compelled to spotlight four: The morning we spent dayhiking the peak named Bláhnúkur, from the hut at Landmannalaugar in Iceland’s Central Highlands (see the lead photo in this story); our third day on the Laugavegur, hiking from Álftavatn to Emstrur (photo above); and both days on the magnificent Fimmvörðuháls, hiking the spine of a narrow crest between two deep chasms and crossing a moonscape created by recent volcanic eruptions (photo at left) on day one, followed by descending a river valley past more than two dozen big, powerful waterfalls one after another—probably the single best waterfalls trail I’ve ever seen.

My advice: Just go trek both the Laugavegur and the Fimmvörðuháls trails.

See my feature story about my family’s hut trek on these two trails, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails,” “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

Hike one of the world’s great treks using my e-book
“The Complete Guide to Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.”

Hiking from Many Glacier to Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

In the cool hours of early morning, my hiking partner and I set out from the Many Glacier complex on the east side of the park, heading toward Swiftcurrent Pass and eventually Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road: a traverse of 15.2 miles with about 2,000 feet of uphill. Neither of us had hiked these trails before, so we carried no expectations—and were amazed at every turn.

We walked below towering cliffs spliced by ribbon waterfalls, climbed to a notch hundreds of feet above the Grinnell Glacier, and followed the Highline Trail, an alpine footpath with sweeping views of the Northern Rockies where sightings of mountain goats and bighorn sheep are common.

See “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

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

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps

Some hikes need no introduction. The Tour du Mont Blanc is one of them. One of the most storied, popular, and step-for-step majestic trails on the planet, the roughly 105-mile (170k) footpath around the “Monarch of the Alps,” 15,771-foot (4807m) Mont Blanc, passes through three countries—France, Italy, and Switzerland—delivering a cultural and culinary experience to match the scenery.

While there are few mediocre kilometers on the trek, one of our nine days walking it with family and friends really stood out scenically: day four, hiking from the Rifugio Elizabetta Soldini mountain hut into the resort town of Courmayeur, Italy, below a staggering array of knife-like spires.

See my story “Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace.”

Save yourself a lot of time and avoid mistakes.
Get my expert e-book “The Perfect Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc.”

Backpacking the John Muir Trail from Evolution Basin to Mather Pass

The John Muir Trail, aka “America’s Most Beautiful Trail,” is a 211-mile journey through one of the most picturesque mountain ranges in the country—the High Sierra, which Ansel Adams dubbed “The Range of Light.” When a few friends and I knocked off the JMT in a week, we packed two or three normal days of hiking into each day. (The scenery was morphine for our aching feet.)

But I have to give the edge to the day we ambulated from Evolution Lake in Kings Canyon National Park all the way to the Upper Basin of the South Fork Kings River: past the glassy lakes of the Evolution Basin, over 11,955-foot Muir Pass, through LeConte Canyon with its soaring granite walls, and over 12,100-foot Mather Pass, which we crossed as the setting sun set puffy clouds overhead afire.

I more recently returned to the Evolution Basin on a 130-mile hike, much of it on the JMT, and, yea, it’s still just as pretty as ever.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great Section Hikes on the John Muir Trail,” and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?“

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

Two Days Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

Having backpacked the Teton Crest Trail multiple times and taken perhaps two dozen hiking, climbing, and backcountry skiing trips throughout the Teton Range, I’ve gotten to know these incomparable peaks pretty well. But the two sections of the TCT that stand out scenically for me are the sections from Death Canyon Shelf to Hurricane Pass and from the North Fork of Cascade Canyon over Paintbrush Divide.

My experiences on those stretches of trail include a bull elk waking us by clomping around just outside our tents; early-morning moose sightings; uninterrupted views of these famously jagged mountains; and endless fields of wildflowers. I’ve had many magical days in the Tetons since my first backpacking trip there more than three decades ago, but I still consider those sections of the TCT its finest.

See my stories “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons,” and all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail and
the best short backpacking trip there.

Hiking Capitol Reef’s Navajo Knobs Trail

Although it dwells in the shadow of the other four of Utah’s Big 5 national parks—Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands—I’ve long seen Capitol Reef as chronically under-appreciated. And that was before I hiked the Navajo Knobs Trail, which I now consider one of the most beautiful dayhikes in the entire National Park System.

A moderate, out-and-back hike (9.4 miles with 1,620 feet of up and down if you do it all, but the scenery is spectacular however far you go), it shares a trailhead with the short, very popular hike to Hickman Natural Bridge, but soon splits from it—and sees very light hiker traffic beyond that junction. The trail passes an overlook of Hickman Bridge, winds upward to a stunning viewpoint from the canyon rim 1,000 feet above the green Fremont River Valley, and then meanders along the rim, with almost constant views of the cliffs and rumpled topography of the Waterpocket Fold, giant formations like Pectols Pyramid, The Castle, and Fern’s Nipple, and the Henry Mountains in the distance.

It culminates with a fun bit of easy scrambling to the tiny summit of one of the pinnacles named the Navajo Knobs, worth the effort for the prospect it offers of the varied and fascinating geology and topography of Capitol Reef National Park.

See my story “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park.”

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Two Days in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

The Sawtooths are another place where it’s difficult to pick just one or even a few standout days because there are so many—especially given how many days I’ve spent in those mountains that have been my home range for nearly three decades. But I feel comfortable spotlighting two (with the caveat that I could have chosen so many more).

On a July day some years back, my wife, Penny, and I started hiking in a cool, morning fog that hung thickly over the Sawtooth Valley and, four-and-a-half hours later—after almost seven miles and climbing 4,200 vertical feet uphill, after passing some beautiful alpine lakes and tarns, and culminating with a bit of airy scrambling, we stood on the small stone block that’s the 10,751-foot summit of Thompson Peak, the highest in Idaho’s Sawtooths. Our reward (besides virtually every moment of the hike itself): a 360-degree panorama of the entire Sawtooth Range and the White Cloud Mountains across the valley.

And in August 2025, Penny and I, joined by two friends, backpacked a four-day route deep into the Sawtooths. On our third day, we hiked past several lovely and lonely wilderness lakes (including the lakes we camped by the previous night and that night), bagged two summits, and crossed three passes. It feels both hard to imagine a better day and yet such a common experience in the Sawtooths.

Watch for my upcoming story about that August 2025 trip. Meanwhile, see my story “The Roof of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Hiking Thompson Peak,” my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths Mountains at The Big Outside.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
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Backpacking the Wonderland Trail

No multi-day hike in the contiguous United States compares with the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier—because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier. The sight of “The Mountain” repeatedly filling the horizon at a seemingly unbelievable scale is thrilling every time. But this trail also features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever see, countless waterfalls and cascades, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” and likely sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and possibly black bears.

On the second day of a 77-mile hike on what I consider the WT’s best sections (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my Wonderland Trail e-book), two friends and I walked from the glorious meadows of Summerland on Rainier’s east side to more meadows west of Sunrise and eventually our campsite at Granite Creek, drinking in some of the best vistas along a path rich with amazing scenery.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.”

Want to hike the Wonderland Trail? Get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

Hiking New Zealand’s Incomparable Tongariro Alpine Crossing

I could create a separate list just of the most spectacular days I’ve spent in New Zealand. It would include day two on the Kepler Track, at least one day on the Dusky Track, and sea kayaking in Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, all in Fiordland National Park, as well as days on the Cascade Saddle Route and the Whanganui River.

And in late fall 2024, I returned to New Zealand for my fourth trip, this one with my family, and we trekked the classic and popular Milford and Routeburn tracks—and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. A 12-mile/19.4km traverse of Tongariro National Park in the central North Island, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing deserves ranking among the world’s great trails for its almost constant views of active, rugged volcanoes, massive craters, and lakes that all but glow with color. That’s why it’s on this list of mine.

See my stories “Hiking New Zealand’s Epic Tongariro Alpine Crossing” and “Super Volcanoes: Hiking the Steaming Peaks of New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park,” and all stories about adventures in New Zealand at The Big Outside.

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Five Days Exploring the Wind River Range

Few places foil my attempts to pick favorite days of hiking more doggedly than the Winds—because few days walking through those mountains are mediocre. But I can spotlight a handful that feel extra special.

A one-day, 27-mile, east-west traverse I made of the southern Wind River Range with friends felt like a stroll through mountain paradise. We spent much of our hike above 11,000 feet, drinking up vistas of peaks rising above 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide. We scrambled up 12,250-foot Mount Chauvenet, crossed the Lizard Head Plateau gaping at thick glaciers, and then put an exclamation point on our adventure by walking across the Cirque of the Towers, a horseshoe of sheer-walled granite peaks scratching at the clouds.

On the first day of a 39-mile backpacking trip, two friends and I hiked from the Elkhart Park trailhead, past Island Lake and several others, to camp in Titcomb Basin—an alpine valley at over 10,500 feet, where peaks on the Divide soar more than 3,000 feet above lakes rippling in the wind.

Three companions and I backpacked one of the most audacious and magnificent wilderness adventures in the country: traversing the range south to north on the 96-mile Wind River High Route. While most of that week arguably belongs on this list, our fourth day began with crossing Sentry Peak Pass and passing a tiny tarn reflecting a row of incisor mountains in the upper valley of Middle Fork Lake (photo near the top of this story), moved on to a second 11,000-foot pass and eventually reached 12,000 feet on the Divide at Europe Peak.

Backpacking a 43-mile loop, my wife, a friend, and I started our second day from one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had (photo above of reflection in a tarn), walked a stunning stretch of the Highline/Continental Divide Trail past two of the prettiest backcountry lakes I’ve hiked past and more lakes that came close, crossed three high passes, and finally, camped by a lake that reflected the alpenglow on the peaks.

Most recently, on a four-day hike in August 2023, a friend and I crossed three passes on our third day, the middle one, Texas Pass, depositing us in the Cirque of the Towers via a back door of sorts that may have sealed my impression that we were on the best multi-day hike in the Winds. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

See all stories about backpacking in the Winds at the Big Outside, including “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup,” “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range,” “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin,” “Adventure and Adversity on the Wind River High Route,” and “A Walk in the Winds: Dayhiking 27 Miles Across the Wind River Range.”

I’ve helped many readers plan a great backpacking trip in the Winds that was ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, too.

Our 27-mile Winds dayhike is one of “America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

Backpacking The Narrows, Zion National Park

Tough call deciding whether the first or second day backpacking Zion’s Narrows deserves a spot on this list. But take this classic, two-day backpacking trip and you’ll get to decide for yourself. Walking down the mostly shallow North Fork of the Virgin River between close sandstone walls that rise up to a thousand feet overhead, with trees and lush hanging gardens contrasted against rock painted in a rainbow of colors, Zion’s Narrows keeps getting more spectacular with every step.

Read my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Click here now to get my e-book to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.

Hiking Above the Gray Glacier, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

A rumble of thunder ripped through the air, audible over the persistent wind—but it wasn’t thunder. A few hundred feet below our rocky overlook in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, a slowly widening ring of small bergs floated in the lake, shrapnel from a massive chunk of ice that had just calved off the snout of the Grey Glacier. We were ascending a trail over a mountainside scoured to bedrock by ancient ice, scaling hundred-foot-tall steel ladders anchored to the earthen walls of gorges, while looking out over a river of ice two miles across and 17 miles long. Part of the spectacular “W” trek in this park in Chile’s Patagonia region, it was a 19-mile day that ended when we walked up to the Paine Grande Lodge after dark, buzzing with excitement.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine,” and all stories about hiking in Patagonia at The Big Outside.

Hiking Mount St. Helens

The catastrophic eruption that decapitated Washington’s Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, removing almost 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop, ironically created one of America’s most strikingly beautiful, fascinating, and coveted dayhikes. On a climb up the mountain’s standard Monitor Ridge route—10 miles and 4,500 vertical feet up and down, most of it over a rugged and stark moonscape of loose rocks, pumice, and ash—you’ll soak up views of several Cascade Range volcanoes, and eventually stand atop the rim’s crumbling cliffs, gazing out over a vast hole 2,000 feet deep and nearly two miles across.

See my story “Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Pushing Limits on Mount St. Helens.”

Got an all-time favorite campsite? I have a few great ones.
See “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Three Days on the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier

On a couple of long, north-south traverses of Glacier in September 2018 and again in September 2023, mostly following two variations of the Continental Divide Trail from the Belly River Trailhead to Two Medicine, friends and I saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and a grizzly bear, and heard elk bugling almost every morning and evening—and we enjoyed mountain views unlike anywhere else in America.

As difficult as it is to pick out which days on those hikes stood out, I can point to three in particular: hiking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail from the Belly River Valley to Many Glacier; hiking below the cliffs of the Garden Wall to cross Piegan Pass; and following the high, alpine Dawson Pass Trail from Pitamakan Pass to Dawson Pass—jaw-dropping, all of them.

Glacier does that to me every time I go there.

See my stories about those two trips, “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” and “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

Save yourself a lot of time. Get my expert e-book to backpacking the CDT through Glacier.

Backpacking Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, Southern Olympic Coast

You won’t find much on the longest strip of wilderness coastline in the contiguous United States, the shore of Washington’s Olympic National Park—just seals, sea lions, sea otters, bald eagles, many species of seabirds and whales, and trees 10 to 15 feet in diameter and growing over 200 feet tall. On the middle day of a three-day, 17.5-mile backpacking trip, hiking from Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, my family explored tide pools and boulders coated with mussels, sea stars, and sea anemones, looked out on scores of stone pinnacles rising out of the ocean, and camped on a wilderness beach. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or the adults.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast,” and all stories about Olympic National Park at The Big Outside.

Score a popular permit using my
“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Two Days Backpacking Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch

Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon yet again in April 2025, I was reminded just how uniquely spectacular they both are. With walls that rise to perhaps 200 feet tall and close in so tightly at times that an adult wearing a backpack can barely squeeze through, Buckskin is widely regarded as the longest slot canyon in America.

And Paria Canyon, hiked by itself or in combination with Buckskin, has long been widely considered one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest—and I would argue one of the top three or five, for its own deep narrows section stretching for miles.

Walking through these canyons always reveals that the greatest magic of narrow canyons is how the diffused light paints the orange and red walls in too many shades of those colors to quantify, as well as shades of brown and a deep black that looks like an oil spill—creating stark contrasts that delight and mystify the human eye and brain. Buckskin and Paria each deserve a day on this list.

See my stories “Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon” and “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Explore the best of the Southwest on “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks” and
“The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Backpacking the High Sierra Trail, Sequoia National Park

We weren’t far into a nearly 40-mile family backpacking trip in Sequoia before I realized it promised to be one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever hiked. Part of one of the biggest chunks of contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48, it’s home to many of the highest mountains outside Alaska, lonely backcountry groves of giant sequoias, and crystal-clear alpine lakes.

On our third day, hiking the High Sierra Trail from Bearpaw Meadow toward 10,700-foot Kaweah Gap, we traversed a cliff face hundreds of feet above the deep Middle Fork Kaweah River. We stopped for lunch and a swim at the Hamilton Lakes, which are almost completely enclosed by towering cliffs and pinnacles. By late afternoon, we found campsites at Precipice Lake at 10,400 feet, its glassy, green and blue waters reflecting white and golden cliffs (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park.”

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Four More Days in the Grand Canyon

If the Grand Canyon looms large in this story—and in others at The Big Outside, like “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest”—that’s because it looms even larger in my perspective and that of probably every backpacker who ventures into it. In fact, besides hiking rim to rim to rim (described above), I can think of at least a few more days of backpacking in the Big Ditch that rank among my most scenic ever.

Those would include the second day on the very rugged and infrequently hiked, 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, which featured just about everything that makes backpacking in the Grand Canyon unique: sweeping views, a sandy beach beside the Colorado River, an intimate side canyon with lush hanging gardens, a high solitude quotient—even some spicy scrambling and a fun rappel off a cliff—not to mention one of the best campsites in the entire canyon, below Royal Arch (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

It would also include the day that two friends and I traversed most of the Escalante Route, one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, on a 74-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Lipan Point. And I’d have to include day three on yet another rugged and remote GC hike, the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, which features some of the canyon’s loveliest waterfalls, narrows, and desert oases.

Oh, and then there’s almost any day on the Gems Route, the most remote section of the Tonto Trail, from the South Bass Trailhead to the Boucher Trail.

See my stories “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop,” “Let’s Talk Water: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems,” and “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do.”

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Backpacking the Rockwall Trail, Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies

My family’s second day on the 34-mile (54k) Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park was long and hard—12 miles over two 7,000-foot passes—but we had the most effective painkiller: views that even impressed our 14- and 12-year-old kids. One of Canada’s most popular and stunningly scenic hikes—and really deserving a spot on the list of the world’s finest treks—it follows the base of an almost unbroken limestone cliff up to 3,000 feet (900m) tall. We started that day below 1,154-foot (352m) Helmet Falls, one of the tallest in the Canadian Rockies, and hiked to Numa Creek, crossing meadows carpeted in wildflowers below hanging glaciers, and sighting four mountain goats at Tumbling Pass.

See my story about backpacking the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park.

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and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Climbing Norway’s Highest Peak

Under a brilliantly blue morning sky in the highest mountains in northern Europe, my wife, Penny, our friend, Jeff Wilhelm, and I started a 5,000-foot climb of the highest peak in Norway, 8,100-foot Galdhøpiggen. It was the final day of a 60-mile trek in Jotunheimen National Park—another trip which every day could legitimately be the one chosen for this story—and we could have lounged in our last hut, but were glad we didn’t.

Ascending a treeless mountainside, we gained increasingly longer views of a rugged, Arctic-looking landscape vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, and wildflowers, where cliffs and peaks look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe. At the chilly, windblown summit, we stood above a sea of snowy mountains and glaciers. And, of course, it being Europe, there was a hut at the summit where we could buy hot cocoas.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park” and all stories about international trips at The Big Outside.

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Ready for your first backpacking trip in one of America’s greatest national parks for backpackers? Having backpacked several times all over Yosemite, my advice for a first-time backpacker who wants to hit highlights like Yosemite Valley, the Mist Trail, and Half Dome is nearly identical to the itinerary I followed on my first trip more than three decades ago—but modified because now I know better.

This magnificent, beginner-friendly, four- to five-day, 37-mile loop from Yosemite Valley through the core of the park includes following the Mist Trail past 317-foot Vernal Fall and 594-foot Nevada Fall, ascending the cable route up Half Dome, reaching the equally spectacular (but much less busy) summit of Clouds Rest, walking a very pretty section of the world-famous John Muir Trail, and overlooking the jagged Cathedral Range from a campsite on the edge of alpine meadows at Sunrise.

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Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley is probably the most popular trailhead in the park—it also happens to be the northern terminus of the John Muir Trail—and the park issues backcountry permits based on a daily quota of people starting from each trailhead, so it’s hard to get a permit to start at Happy Isles. But if you get it, hike up the Mist Trail to Little Yosemite Valley (also hugely popular) to camp your first night.

Get an early start that first day so you can get ahead of the Mist Trail crowds and hike Half Dome (lead photo at top of story is from the top of Half Dome) without your gear that first afternoon; by then, most hikers are coming down, you’ll share the summit with fewer people (but make sure no afternoon thunderstorms are threatening). Or even better, hike Half Dome really early on day two, ahead of just about everyone—I’ve done that, it’s when you’ll share Half Dome with the fewest people.

Click here now for my detailed, expert e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

Day two, head north on the John Muir Trail to camp at Sunrise. Day three, from Sunrise, hike over Clouds Rest, one of the best summits in the park, and descend to camp again in Little Yosemite Valley.

Last day, hike down the John Muir Trail back to Happy Isles, passing a classic view of Nevada Fall, Liberty Cap, and the backside of Half Dome.

My popular, expert e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite” describes that route it in far greater detail, including suggested daily itineraries for hiking it in four or five days, plus alternate itineraries for backpacking trips in that spectacular core of Yosemite, between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows. It shares my insights on getting a coveted permit in Yosemite and my experience of multiple trips in this area of the park going back more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

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How to Get a Yosemite Wilderness Permit

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 next Saturday. You will be notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes.

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.

Check out “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite.”

Dying to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Permits are valid for continuous wilderness travel from the park into adjacent wilderness areas; similarly, wilderness permits issued by other agencies for beginning a trip in another national park or forest in the High Sierra—including Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks and the Inyo National Forest—is valid for continuous wilderness travel into Yosemite National Park.

See “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

If you can’t get a permit to start at Happy Isles, you can do almost the same route starting at Glacier Point, following the Panorama Trail to Nevada Fall.

See all of my stories about backpacking in Yosemite, including  “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip,” “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” and “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” about gorgeous multi-day hikes in the park’s most remote areas—trips to consider when you’re ready for a bigger adventure in Yosemite. (Most stories about trips at The Big Outside require a paid subscription to read in full.)

My e-books to those two hikes south of Tuolumne and north of Tuolumne tell you everything you need to know to plan and successfully pull off either trip.

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At a bit over 148,000 acres, Zion comes nowhere near America’s largest national parks in sheer immensity. Zion could fit inside Yosemite National Park five times, inside the Everglades 10 times, inside Yellowstone 15 times, and inside our largest park, Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias, 89 times. But if you’re a hiker, Zion harbors, mile for mile, some of the most breathtaking scenery to be found on any trails in the National Park System.

This story will point you to Zion’s 10 best dayhikes, based on my personal experience of many visits there over the past three decades, including formerly as a field editor for Backpacker magazine for about 10 years and even longer running this blog.

You will also find in this story my insider tips on how to avoid the crowds when hiking in what is one of the most-visited national parks. Follow those tips and you will discover an entirely different experience when you’re not sharing the trails with hundreds of other hikers—as are often seen on hikes like Angels Landing and the lower Narrows from spring through fall. Much of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading it all, including my tips for avoiding crowds plus the story’s last four hikes, is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers.

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The park’s free shuttle buses operate regularly between the visitor center, just inside the south entrance, to the end of the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive—which is usually closed to private vehicles—for most of the year. See the park’s Information Guide at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/publications.htm. The visitor center parking lot fills early in the day. The Springdale town shuttle connects to the park’s shuttles and there is public parking in Springdale, shown on this map. It’s often easiest to take the town shuttle to stop number one, just outside the park entrance, and use the pedestrian entrance and footbridge over the Virgin River, walking just minutes to the visitor center.

Trails and roads in Zion are occasionally closed due to rockfall, construction, or other reasons. Check current conditions at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/conditions.htm.

I’d love to hear what you think of these hikes or any suggestions for your favorite hikes in Zion, as well as your thoughts on my tips for avoiding what can be huge crowds on the most popular hikes. Share them—and read others—in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Angels Landing

5 miles round-trip, 1,488 vertical feet up and down
Trailhead: The Grotto (shuttle bus stop no. 6)

You know Angels Landing belongs on any list of the best hikes in Zion—not to mention the best hikes in Utah’s national parks, and the best hikes in the entire National Park System. The five-mile, nearly 1,500-foot round-trip hike reaches its apex in one of the most thrilling half-mile stretches of trail in America. The “trail” follows a knife-edge spine of rock, with chain handrails and steps chiseled out of sandstone in spots. At the summit of this famous pinnacle, you can do a slow spin and see all of Zion Canyon—and its elevation 1,500 feet above the canyon bottom but still hundreds of feet below the canyon rims gives you a unique panorama of one of America’s prettiest natural wonders.

From the Grotto, the West Rim Trail ascends steep switchbacks that get morning sun and can be hot early, to Refrigerator Canyon—often shady and cool—and then the tight switchbacks of Walter’s Wiggles. At Scout Lookout, where the West Rim Trail continues upward, follow the 0.4-mile spur trail up the very exposed crest of Angels Landing to its summit, with fixed chains and steps chopped out of the rock in places. While the ridge offers only a few wider spots (where hikers can safely pass one another), the broader summit area has plenty of space to sit and enjoy one of the park’s best 360-degree panoramas.

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If you have the time and energy, continue up the West Rim Trail into an area of towering beehives, multi-colored cliffs, and increasingly dramatic views of Zion Canyon—spectacular scenery however far you go. (See West Rim Trail description below.)

Angels has a well-deserved reputation as thrilling and scary for its exposure. For anyone who has a fear of heights, it can be terrifying. But hikers accustomed to a little exposure will likely find nothing more difficult than a few sections of short, moderately challenging scrambling. Young kids with the stamina for it, and who will follow instructions, are safe as long as you shadow them closely through exposed sections.

Scroll down to my insider tips for the smartest strategy for avoiding the crowds on Angels Landing and the West Rim Trail.

Due to the hike’s enormous popularity, Zion National Park holds a seasonal lottery four times per year for permits to dayhike Angels Landing at recreation.gov. Key lottery dates for Zion’s two peak hiking seasons, spring and fall, are Jan. 1-20 for hiking permits from March 1 through May 31, held at recreation.gov/permits/4675310; and July 1-20 for hiking dates Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, held at recreation.gov/permits/4675325. A separate lottery for dayhiking permits is held daily; apply for one before 3 p.m. Mountain Time the day before you want to hike it.

The permit is only required for hiking the spur trail up Angels Landing; anyone can hike as far as Scout Lookout without a permit. Learn more about the lottery and find a link to the daily lottery at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/angels-landing-hiking-permits.htm.

See my story “Hiking Angels Landing: What You Need to Know.”

Gear up right for hiking in Zion.
See the best hiking shoes and “The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks.”

Observation Point

8 miles round-trip, 2,148 vertical feet up and down
Trailhead: Weeping Rock (shuttle bus stop no. 7)

Alternate route: about 7 miles round-trip, 800 feet up and down
Trailhead: East Mesa Trail

Unfortunately, two of the best hikes in Zion Canyon, the Observation Point Trail and Hidden Canyon (below, which can be combined), have been closed since a major rockfall in 2019, with no indications of reopening. The usual access, the East Rim Trail at Weeping Rock in Zion Canyon, is closed, barring access from there to Observation Point and to the Hidden Canyon Trail, as is Weeping Rock shuttle stop no. 7 in Zion Canyon.

Fortunately, there is an alternative route to Observation Point from the East Mesa Trailhead, at about 6,500 feet outside the park. To reach that trailhead, from the park’s East Entrance, drive 2.5 miles east on UT 9 and turn left onto North Fork County Road; follow it for 5.4 miles and turn left/west onto Twin Knoll/Pine Angle Road. Continue straight past the left turn onto Buck Road, then swing right/north onto Beaver Road, which could get rough before reaching the East Mesa Trailhead. The dirt roads on the East Mesa are passable for most cars when dry and can become impassable even for four-wheel-drive vehicles when wet; but the road to East Mesa Trailhead may require 4WD.

The East Mesa Trail leads west and southwest across the high, ponderosa pine-forested plateau, which lacks the constant, magnificent scenery of the East Rim Trail from Zion Canyon to Observation Point; but it may offer more solitude and does get much more interesting after it passes the head of Mystery Canyon (don’t wander down into that technical canyon) some two miles from the trailhead. At the junction of the East Mesa and East Rim trails, about 3.1 miles from the East Mesa Trailhead, turn right/west and follow that trail, with little uphill, to where it ends at Observation Point, high above Zion Canyon and distinctive Angels Landing below and across the canyon.

Hiking to Observation Point from the Weeping Rock Trailhead, the stunning views begin minutes after you start out and keep getting better all the way to Observation Point, where you stand at the brink of sheer cliffs more than 2,000 feet above Zion Canyon. In fact, it’s arguably prettier and more varied than Angels Landing. It’s also a longer and harder hike than Angels at eight miles and more than 2,100 vertical feet round-trip, but on a good trail that’s mostly solid rock or paved.

There are three distinctly different sections of the hike to Observation Point—all beautiful. The lower stretch zigzags up through a natural bowl in the cliffs above Weeping Rock (which you’ll get a view of below you), gaining elevation and more-expansive views rapidly with each switchback. The middle section enters the often-shady narrows of Echo Canyon, where a stream spawns greenery and pools of water reflect soaring red and white walls; watch for bighorn sheep at less-busy times of day. The upper section of trail breaks out into the sunshine while ascending switchbacks overlooking the dramatic geology of Echo Canyon (lead photo at top of story), then makes a high, airy traverse above Zion Canyon to Observation Point.

Fit hikers can easily combine this with the half-mile-long spur trail off it to Hidden Canyon; plan at least an hour round-trip for the latter, especially if you want to explore beyond the mouth of Hidden Canyon (see below).

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The Subway

9.5 miles, about 2,000 vertical feet downhill and 400 feet uphill
Trailheads: Upper end at Wildcat Canyon Trailhead, 15.5 miles up Kolob Terrace Road; lower end at Left Fork Trailhead, 8.2 miles up Kolob Terrace Road.

Zion’s most-famous, technical slot canyon, the Subway takes its name from a bend where flash floods have bored a colorful, round passage that resembles a subway tunnel. But it’s so much more than that one, oft-photographed spot. Descending it 9.5 miles from top to bottom—which requires only beginner-level canyoneering skills and a popular, one-day permit that’s difficult to get—takes you through a canyon at times wider than a soccer pitch, with trees growing in the shade of walls hundreds of feet tall, which narrows to a slot barely more than shoulder-width across. Like Angels Landing, the Narrows, and arguably Observation Point, the Subway is considered by some to be one of the most scenic and certainly most adventurous one-day outings in the National Park System.

Also known as the Left Fork of North Creek, the top-to-bottom descent (from the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead to the Left Fork Trailhead) has long sections that do not follow a maintained trail. After following the Wildcat Canyon Trail and turning south onto the Northgate Peaks Trail, watch for a small sign indicating the start of the Subway route. Marked by occasional cairns, it still requires route-finding to descend Russell Gulch, which becomes quite steep and loose near its bottom. Once in the Left Fork Canyon, you will clamber over giant boulders in a twisting canyon of wildly sculpted, kaleidoscopic walls, wade or swim a few deep, frigid pools (bring a dry suit, which can be rented in Springdale), and make three rappels (the longest of them 30 feet, the other two much shorter).

It can also be dayhiked partway from the bottom up, a strenuous more than six miles out-and-back from the Left Fork Trailhead on Kolob Terrace Road, getting as far as the famous subway tunnel before you have to turn around at the base of cliffs. The bottom-up hike features rugged terrain and a creek crossing in each direction. But that’s a very different experience because you see much less of the canyon’s best sections—and you encounter a lot more people. It also requires a one-day permit. If you have the skills for it, do this hike from top to bottom.

See my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 1: Hiking Zion’s Subway,” for many photos and details on how to get a popular one-day permit for this classic hike. Don’t enter the Subway with rain in the forecast.

Explore the best of the Southwest. See “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks”
and “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

The Riverside Walk and The Narrows

2.2 to 10 miles round-trip, nearly flat
Trailhead: Temple of Sinawava (shuttle bus stop no. 9)

One of the most magnificent and unique hikes in the national parks, the Narrows begins at the upper end of Zion Canyon, where the North Fork of the Virgin River has, over eons, carved out a canyon with sheer walls that tower up to a thousand feet overhead and, at times, squeeze so closely together that they turn daylight to dusk. Hiking much of the time in the river, you will find yourself craning your neck up at a canyon that changes with every bend. Springs create waterfalls pouring from rock walls, nurturing hanging gardens in the desert.

The hike begins on the flat, wheelchair-accessible, 1.1-mile (one-way) Riverside Trail, itself a fine, very easy hike, paralleling the river beneath red cliffs and shady cottonwood trees whose leaves turn golden in fall. At the end of that trail, you enter the river and follow it upstream, turning back anytime; it’s usually easy to avoid any sections of deeper, slightly faster current. At Orderville Canyon, a narrow tributary about 2.5 miles from the trailhead (on the right when walking upstream), you enter the deepest and darkest portion of the Narrows, the roughly two-mile-long stretch known as Wall Street, where the river often spans the canyon wall to wall. Wall Street ends just before Big Spring, roughly five miles up the Narrows, beyond which hiking is prohibited without a backcountry permit.

Enormously popular, the lower Narrows teems with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dayhikers on hot days of late spring and summer, when the river is low and warmer. Scroll down to my insider tips for avoiding crowds when hiking in Zion; it includes two tips specific to the Narrows.

You are often walking directly in the river, which is typically ankle- to calf-deep, occasionally up to thigh- or waist-deep, frequently with slippery cobblestones underfoot. That will slow your hiking pace more than expected for a flat hike. Use poles or a walking stick. The water is cold in spring and fall, and there’s little direct sunlight in the Narrows, where the temperature can be about 10 degrees cooler than in Zion Canyon; plus, the wind frequently blows down canyon, making it feel colder. Bring multiple clothing layers—especially if hiking in early morning in spring or fall—and if you don’t own canyoneering boots, neoprene socks, and dry pants, rent them in Springdale. (One rental place is located in the parking lot right across the footbridge leading into the park.) Don’t hike the Narrows with rain in the forecast.

Carry all of the drinking water you’ll need for the Narrows; the river is often murky. You can also refill water at Big Spring if you get that far; you may want to treat it, although I often drink spring water untreated when captured right at its source. (See my favorite water-filter bottles and other water treatment in my review of essential backpacking gear accessories.)

See my feature story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows,” about a top-to-bottom, overnight trip down it.

Click here now to get my expert e-book to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.

Hidden Canyon

2.2 miles round-trip, 1,000 vertical feet up and down
Trailhead: Weeping Rock (shuttle bus stop no. 7)

Note: Hidden Canyon has been closed since a major rockfall in 2019, with no indications of reopening, and remains inaccessible.

In a place with crazy, mind-boggling scenery around every corner, the 2.5-mile round-trip hike to Hidden Canyon is arguably the most beautiful hike under three miles in the park.

Beginning from the same trailhead as the Observation Point hike, the trail to Hidden Canyon diverges to the right less than a mile up. It ascends switchbacks and traverses the canyon wall, including a section traversing the cliff face that’s wide and safe but exposed.

It’s quite scenic all the way to the mouth of Hidden Canyon, where the trail officially ends. If you’re up for a little scrambling, continue beyond the mouth of Hidden Canyon into the slot canyon, where tight walls rise high overhead; I’ve seen an owl napping in a small tree in this slot canyon. Before long, you’ll reach a sign marking the turnaround point.

See below my tips on avoiding the crowds while hiking in Zion, which include a specific plan for combining Hidden Canyon with two of the other best hikes in Zion Canyon in a single, big dayhike (if the park reopens Hidden Canyon).

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West Rim Trail

16.6 miles (top to bottom), about 800 vertical feet up and 3,600 feet down, or shorter variations
Trailheads: bottom end is the Grotto (shuttle bus stop no. 6), top end is the West Rim Trailhead near Lava Point

I’ve met longtime locals who call this their favorite trail in all of Zion, and it’s easy to see why. Stretching nearly 17 miles from near Lava Point off the Kolob Terrace Road to the Grotto in Zion Canyon, the West Rim Trail traverses a high plateau dividing the almost impenetrable labyrinth of canyons and mesas on its west side from the Narrows and Zion Canyon to the east and southeast. Some of the best backcountry viewpoints in the park are along this footpath.

It can be dayhiked or backpacked in either direction—though it’s mostly downhill going from top to bottom—or dayhiked out-and-back from the Grotto for as far as you’d like to go. The most scenic stretch of the West Rim Trail lies between Refrigerator Canyon (below Walter’s Wiggles and the spur trail to Angels Landing) and the upper junction with the Telephone Canyon Trail (just south of Potato Hollow). So you can see all of that on an out-and-back dayhike from the Grotto that’s the same distance as hiking the West Rim Trail from top to bottom, without requiring a shuttle—but of course, requiring you to hike up and down about 3,000 vertical feet.

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

The three springs along the West Rim Trail— Beatty, Sawmill, and Cabin springs—are usually reliable, though they recharge slowly at times. Reach the upper West Rim Trailhead by driving 25 miles up Kolob Terrace Road, then turning onto the road to Lava Point and the West Rim Trailhead and continuing about two miles. That road get rough for standard cars in wet conditions, but you can start at Lava Point and hike down the road. Shuttle services are available in Springdale. Kolob Terrace Road is rendered impassable by snow in winter.

See my feature stories about backpacking in the Kolob Canyons and on the West Rim Trail with my family and a 50-mile dayhike across Zion from the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon and the East Rim Trailhead.

There are more dayhikes in Zion that could be on this list—not to mention backpacking trips and canyoneering adventures. Consider these 10 hikes a great starter list for a park you’ll want to explore further.

See all stories about Zion at The Big Outside, or scroll down to Zion on my All National Park Trips page. Planning to combine Zion and Bryce in one trip? See “The Best Hike in Bryce Canyon National Park.”

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Thrilling, scenic, and enormously popular, an impressive feat of trail building, an intimidating and exposed scramble—these are some of the descriptions commonly given to Angels Landing in Zion National Park, all of them accurate. It also has a reputation as one of the scariest and most dangerous hikes in the National Park System—a claim that would seem somewhat overblown just by virtue of the fact that innumerable thousands of people, including many novice hikers, safely venture up and down it every year. For those willing to brave the exposure, the 5,790-foot summit offers arguably the best view of Zion Canyon.

Constructed nearly a century ago and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, now one of the classic dayhikes in America and certainly one of “The Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks“ and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes,” Angels Landing is safe for anyone exercising reasonable caution and should be in the sights of every avid hiker. This story explains what you need to know about it.

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I have hiked Angels Landing several times over the years—and taken my kids up it as young as age five. I’ve hiked it at times when the trail was packed with a conga line of hikers and at times when I’ve enjoyed it nearly to myself. I’ve seen the many faces of Angels Landing and enjoyed it every time.

The out-and-back hike begins from the Grotto Trailhead in Zion Canyon, shuttle stop number six on the free and frequent park shuttle buses that operate from mid-March through October. (Private vehicles are generally only permitted in upper Zion Canyon outside the season that the park shuttles operate.)

Due to the hike’s enormous popularity, Zion National Park launched on April 1, 2022, a permit system for dayhiking Angels Landing. A seasonal lottery held four times per year at recreation.gov makes permits available for three-month periods throughout the year. Key lottery dates for Zion’s two peak hiking seasons, spring and fall, are 13-25 for hiking permits from March 1 through May 31, held at recreation.gov/permits/4675310; and for hiking dates from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, the lottery dates in 2025 were July 1-20 and held at recreation.gov/permits/4675325, but the lottery dates for fall 2026 have not been announced yet. The permit is only required for hiking the spur trail up Angels Landing; anyone can hike as far as Scout Lookout without a permit.

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A separate lottery for dayhiking permits is held daily; apply for one before 3 p.m. Mountain Time the day before you want to hike it. Learn more about the lottery and find a link to the daily lottery at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/angels-landing-hiking-permits.htm.

Nearly five miles and 1,500 vertical feet round-trip, the route is paved for roughly its first two miles on the West Rim Trail, including the cool slot of Refrigerator Canyon and the 21 steep switchbacks known as Walter’s Wiggles. Then you reach Scout Lookout, at the beginning of the spur trail ascending the narrow, sandstone fin of Angels Landing, where hikers encounter steps carved into rock, steep scrambling, chain handrails anchored into the rock in the most intimidating spots, and drop-offs of 1,000 feet or more to each side.

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Anyone uncomfortable with the looks of Angels Landing can turn around at Scout Lookout. Beyond that point, many hikers who do not have a fear of heights generally have no trouble with the difficulty of the scrambling. There are fixtures in place in many spots to assist your ascent and descent.

The prime seasons are spring (April through June) and fall (mid-September through October), when temperatures are moderate and the trail is often dry. If the forecast calls for high temperatures (and to avoid the crowds), either start early in the morning, or if your party consists of strong hikers, wait until afternoon, when you’ll get more shade for the ascent and have beautiful, late-day sunlight slanting across the canyon for your summit view. Bring a headlamp for the descent and get off the Angels Landing spur trail in daylight. Avoid the hike in high winds, icy or wet conditions, or if lightning threatens.

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Angels Landing has been the scene of several fatalities from falls, but if done with caution in dry weather, it’s safe for adults and school-age kids.

See “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park” and a menu of all stories about Zion National Park, including feature stories about a family backpacking trip, a 50-mile dayhike across the park, hiking Zion’s Subway, and backpacking Zion’s Narrows, plus all stories about national park adventures, hiking and backpacking in southern Utah, and family adventures at The Big Outside.

Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks loom large on the radar screens of most backpackers. But savvy Sierra aficionados know that the two major wilderness areas that sprawl over nearly 900,000 acres along more than 100 miles of the High Sierra between those parks, the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses, harbor just as rich a cache of soaring, jagged peaks and shimmering alpine lakes—not to mention sections of the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail that enable almost endless possibilities for multi-day hikes, short and long. And while competition is stiff for permits to backpack in the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses, those permits are not nearly as hard to draw as permits for the most popular trips in Yosemite or Sequoia-Kings Canyon or to thru-hike the John Muir Trail.

Having backpacked many hundreds of miles throughout the High Sierra on numerous trips over more than three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog, I have seen much of the abundant gorgeous backcountry in those mountains—and concluded that, while Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon certainly do belong on every backpacker’s tick list, you should add the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses as well.

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On my most-recent hike of nine days and almost 130 miles through the Adams, Muir, and a corner of Kings Canyon National Park in August 2022 (the lead photo at the top of this story was taken on that trip), two companions and I walked some premier sections of the John Muir Trail, explored high, off-trail terrain, and hiked through and camped by alpine lakes below skyscraping granite peaks and spires.

That trip illustrated how the extensive trail network throughout the High Sierra’s national parks and forests enable myriad options for multi-day hikes of virtually any distance—and the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses protect those lands in as pristine a condition as you will find in any of the national parks. If you don’t have the time or desire for, say, a full John Muir Trail thru-hike, countless options for JMT section hikes and other trips exist throughout these wilderness areas.

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The photos in this story are from various trips in the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses. Below the photo gallery, you’ll find links to many stories about High Sierra backpacking trips.

Please share your questions or comments about your own experiences in the High Sierra in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

And see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next High Sierra backpacking adventure or any trip you read about at this blog.

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See all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside, including “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “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,” plus “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.” Those stories about trips contain numerous photos and information on planning them. While roughly the first half of many stories about trips are free for anyone to read, reading them in full is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Want to hike the John Muir Trail or another High Sierra trip?
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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.

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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.

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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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If you invited all of the major Western national parks to a big family dinner, Zion would sit at the kids’ table. At a bit over 148,000 acres, Zion is dwarfed by the iconic wilderness parks that are the most sought-after by backpackers, like Yosemite (which is five times larger), Glacier (nearly seven times larger), and Grand Canyon (eight times larger), all of them with hundreds of miles of trails for backpackers to explore. But what Zion lacks in size it more than makes up for in breathtaking scenery—and for backpackers, some of the most unique, wonderful, and relatively easy multi-day hikes in the National Park System.

This story describes the best backpacking tips in Zion, based on my personal experience of doing all of these hikes on many visits there over more than three decades, 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.

A Zion backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. 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 types of permits are reserved 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 each month—and half are available for walk-in permits, obtained in person no more than one day in advance. See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Late March through May and mid-September through October are the prime seasons for backpacking in Zion, and the cottonwood trees in Zion Canyon turn golden in October. June through early September are typically too hot and heavy rainstorms are common in July and August, while snow prevents access to higher trails on the rims in winter and snowmelt raises the river level too high to backpack The Narrows through much of the spring.

The park’s free shuttle buses operate regularly between the visitor center, just inside the south entrance, to the end of the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive—which is usually closed to private vehicles—for most of the year. Be aware of the shuttle schedule and when the last bus leaves the trailhead where you plan to finish a hike. Commercial shuttle services in Springdale provide rides to trailheads outside Zion Canyon.

The park has been warning hikers and backpackers against drinking water from any river or stream in Zion National Park due to a toxic cyanobacteria bloom. You will have to carry enough water for any hike or as needed between springs in the park, where you should filter the water. See more information at nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/toxic-cyanobacteria-bloom-in-the-virgin-river-and-the-streams-of-zion-national-park.htm.

See my expert e-books to several classic backpacking trips, including “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Narrows in Zion National Park,” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these hikes or any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

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

Looking for dayhikes? See “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park.”

The Narrows

There are many great canyon hikes in the Southwest, but a tiny number compare with The Narrows—which certainly ranks among the very best backpacking trips in the Southwest and the 10 best backpacking trips in America. Generally hiked over two days top to bottom, the route descends 1,500 vertical feet over 16 miles from the upper trailhead at Chamberlain Ranch to the Temple of Sinawava Trailhead at the end of the road in Zion Canyon.

This spellbinding adventure begins with easy hiking amid forested plateau country that offers no hints of the spectacle awaiting ahead. But you quickly enter and follow the North Fork of the Virgin River downstream, often hiking directly in the mostly ankle- to calf-deep water.

The canyon walls steadily rise higher and draw closer as you walk with the river deeper into the earth, sometimes wading pools up to thigh- or waist-deep. With the permit system limiting the number of backpackers, and dayhikers not permitted to hike from the bottom of The Narrows upstream beyond Big Spring (five miles up), you’ll enjoy a surprising amount of solitude—especially on day one—in this canyon that grows ever more spectacular. Water and tiny oases of greenery erupt from solid sandstone walls, which eventually reach a thousand feet tall and squeeze down to about 20 feet across in places where you’ll see only a slender strip of sky high overhead.

Early summer and fall are the prime seasons for backpacking The Narrows, which is frequently unsafe because of high water levels in April and May and sometimes into June, and during July and August, when heavy rainstorms are common.

Hiking in the river will slow your pace more than expected for a flat hike. Use trekking poles. The water is cold in spring and fall and with little direct sunlight in The Narrows, the temperature is often 10 or more degrees Fahrenheit cooler than in Zion Canyon; plus, the wind frequently blows down canyon, making it feel colder. Bring multiple clothing layers—especially if hiking in early morning in spring or fall—and if you don’t own canyoneering boots (which drain water and have traction for slippery cobblestones underfoot), neoprene socks, and dry pants, rent them in Springdale.

It’s popular and tough to get a permit for, but that’s because the park regulates the number of overnight hikers to preserve a sense of a wilderness experience: A friend and I saw only two other backpackers early on our first day, and no one else until we were a couple hours downstream on our second day.

My expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking The Narrows in Zion National Park” will tell you everything you need to know to plan and execute this classic backpacking trip.

See my feature story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows,” with many more photos and a video, plus basic trip-planning information (though not nearly as much trip-planning detail as provided in my Narrows e-book). Like most stories about trips at this blog, reading that story in full is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

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The West Rim Trail

The Narrows and Angels Landing are more famous, but some locals who know the park like their back yard (because it is) call the West Rim their favorite trail in Zion. A 16.6-mile hike with about 800 vertical feet uphill and 3,600 feet downhill from the upper trailhead at Lava Point, at 7,890 feet off Kolob Terrace Road, to the Grotto Trailhead in Zion Canyon (shuttle bus stop no. 6), the West Rim Trail begins with a traverse across a high plateau overlooking a mind-boggling labyrinth of canyons and mesas.

The trail’s nine backcountry campsites lie spread out along its higher elevations, all located above Cabin Spring (the lowest of three springs along the trail), where the trail begins a steep drop of 2,500 feet over 4.7 miles into Zion Canyon, zigzagging through a landscape of towering beehive rock formations and wildly colored cliffs and passing overlooks with some of the best views of Zion Canyon.

Hiking the West Rim Trail top to bottom, usually done as an overnight trip, although some hikers and runners do it in a day, offers the opportunity to tag the summit of Angels Landing—not merely one of the best hikes in Zion, but one the best hikes in Utah’s national parks and in the entire National Park System.

At Scout Lookout on the West Rim Trail, take the nearly half-mile spur trail that follows a knife-edge spine of rock to the summit of Angels Landing, where you’ll drink up a 360-degree panorama of Zion Canyon.

The lower West Rim Trail, mostly a paved sidewalk, descends steeply at times through the tight switchbacks of Walter’s Wiggles and the often shady and cool Refrigerator Canyon before reaching the floor of Zion Canyon.

See my feature stories about backpacking in the Kolob Canyons and the West Rim Trail with my family and a 50-mile dayhike across Zion from the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon and the East Rim Trailhead.

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La Verkin Creek Trail

At the Lee Pass Trailhead in the Kolob Canyons area of Zion National Park, you get an immediate introduction to the enchanting scenery awaiting on the hike up the La Verkin Creek Trail, standing at an overlook of deep-red cliffs rising hundreds of feet tall, split by parallel canyons. (Tip: Drive a few minutes past the trailhead to the Kolob Canyons Viewpoint at the end of the road—you won’t regret it).

Plus, you’re starting out 2,000 feet higher in elevation than Zion Canyon, in an area of the park with cooler temperatures when it’s getting hot at the park’s lower elevations. Even more appealing, the Kolob Canyons draw far fewer people than the enormously popular trails in Zion Canyon and along the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway.

A relatively easy, out-and-back hike of about 14 miles (more or less, depending on where you camp), with about 1,000 vertical feet both uphill and downhill, this is an ideal overnight or two-night hike for families with young kids and beginner backpackers but also a beautiful hike for anyone—and an opportunity to explore these remote canyons.

The trail follows perennial La Verkin Creek through a canyon with scattered cottonwood trees and lots of greenery, contrasting dramatically with the red cliffs. At 6.4 miles from Lee Pass, the trail reaches a junction with the Kolob Arch Trail, a 1.2-mile hike to an overlook of the 287-foot span, considered the world’s sixth largest, but you see it only from a distance.

Like many Southwestern streams, La Verkin Creek’s level varies significantly throughout the year, often running high and brown with silt in spring, while mellowing to a much lower, quieter, and clearer stream by late summer and fall. It can be challenging to ford in spring and usually easy by fall, but fording isn’t necessary for a dayhike or overnight trip on the La Verkin Creek Trail—only if you want to continue south from La Verkin to Hop Valley and Kolob Terrace Road, and perhaps through Wildcat Canyon to the West Rim Trail.

There are 10 backcountry campsites between Lee Pass and the Kolob Arch Trail on the La Verkin Creek Trail and three more farther upstream, beyond the junction with the Hop Valley Trail at 6.7 miles from the trailhead. The Lee Pass Trailhead just over two miles from the Kolob Canyons entrance in the park’s northwest corner, off exit 40 on I-15.

See my feature stories about backpacking in the Kolob Canyons and on the West Rim Trail and a 50-mile dayhike across Zion from the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon and the East Rim Trailhead.

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
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Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon

Want to take the best long backpacking trip in Zion? The 37-mile, north-to-south traverse from the Lee Pass Trailhead in the Kolob Canyons to the Grotto trailhead in Zion Canyon links up the La Verkin Creek, Hop Valley, Wildcat Canyon, and West Rim trails on a generally downhill route through these highlights of Zion’s backcountry, including, of course, Angels Landing,

Typically done in four days, this trip’s scenery justifies its logistical complications, such as transportation (there are commercial shuttle services) and limited safe water sources. But the few springs along the route as well as the opportunities to cache water at the Hop Valley or Wildcat trailhead on Kolob Terrace Road, approximately halfway through the trip, and replenish again in Zion Canyon, enable completing this hike without carrying onerous water weight. Seasonal timing is also key and springs often flow stronger from March through May than in the fall.

Hike “The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Zion Traverse

An unforgettable multi-day hike with few peers in the Southwest or the entire country—and a classic, one-day challenge for ultra-fit dayhikers and trail runners—the roughly 50-mile, north-south traverse of Zion from the Lee Pass Trailhead to the East Entrance Trailhead crosses the entire park, extending the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon trek (above) onto the East Rim Trail.

Unfortunately, the Observation Point Trail has been closed since a major rockfall in 2019, with no indications of reopening. The usual access, the Observation Point/East Rim Trailhead and the Weeping Rock shuttle stop no. 7 in Zion Canyon, are closed, barring access from there to the upper section the East Rim Trail as well as two great hikes, Observation Point and Hidden Canyon—and shutting down, for now, a critical link from the West Rim Trail to the East Rim Trail that’s necessary to complete the full Zion traverse.

For dayhikers and backpackers who want to access the East Rim area and Observation Point, there is an alternative route from the East Mesa Trailhead, at about 6,500 feet outside the park. See “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park.”

See all stories about backpacking in Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

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What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a few days and half of the hikes on this list are under 50 miles. Another factor that truly matters is a wilderness experience: All 10 are in national parks or wilderness areas.

I’ve probably thought about this more than a mentally stable person should, having done many of America’s (and the world’s) most beautiful multi-day hikes over more than three decades (and counting) of carrying a backpack, including my 10 years as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. In the final analysis, though, the criterion that matters most is more simple and intuitive: that it’s undeniably a great trip. And that character shows itself over and over in my picks for the 10 best backpacking trips in the country.

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.

Each hike here merits a 10 for scenery. The longest trips on this list can be chopped up into smaller portions. Each description below includes a difficulty rating on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the hardest in terms of strenuousness and challenge. I’ve listed them in a random order that’s not intended as a quality ranking; I think that’s impossible.

I regularly update this list as I take new trips that belong on it—but it has remained largely unchanged for a while (I think you’ll see why), except for adding new photos and links to new stories each time I revisit one of these trails or parks; as well as adding some new Close Runners-Up trip suggestions, which accompany each hike in my top 10.

My advice: Do every one of these top 10 and runner-up hikes that you can, when you can—many of the top 10 are harder to get a permit for than the runners-up, so the latter group provide good backup plans. You won’t be disappointed with any of them.

The descriptions and photos below link to stories at The Big Outside that have more images and information about these trips (most of which require a paid subscription to read in full)—including tips on planning each one yourself and when to apply for a backcountry permit, which is generally months in advance.

See my affordable, expert e-books to several of the trips described below and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these classic adventures, variations of them, or any trip you read about at The Big Outside. You might also find helpful tips in my stories “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

If you have a trip to suggest, please tell me about it in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I hope to get to them all. It’s a tough assignment, but I’m on it.

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A Grand Tour of Yosemite

Distance: 152 miles, with multiple shorter variations
Difficulty: 4

John Muir saw more than a few world-class wildernesses, and he focused much of his time and energy on exploring and protecting Yosemite. A lot of people would legitimately argue it’s the best national park for backpackers. After several trips there, I had thought I’d seen Yosemite’s finest corners, including many trails in the park’s core, its section of the John Muir Trail, and the summits of Half Dome and Clouds Rest.

Then, in two trips totaling seven days spread over two years, I backpacked 152 miles through the biggest patches of wilderness in the park, south and north of Tuolumne Meadows (also shown in the lead photo at the top of this story)—and discovered Yosemite’s true soul, a vast reach of deep, granite-walled canyons, peaks rising to over 12,000 feet, and one gorgeous mountain lake after another dappling the landscape. And after those two trips, I returned again to backpack a 45-mile hike that I subsequently dubbed “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip.”

See my stories “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” about the 65-mile first leg of that 152-mile grand tour of Yosemite, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” about the nearly 87-mile second leg, “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking the 65-mile hike south of Tuolumne Meadows
and the 87-mile hike through northern Yosemite (which include shorter options).

Want more of a less-committing, introductory backpacking trip in Yosemite? See my story “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite.” The trip I suggest in that story is described in much greater detail in my e-book “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.” That e-book offers planning tips and suggested daily itineraries for a primary route and alternate itineraries for backpacking trips in the spectacular core of Yosemite, between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows.

Close Runners-Up:

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite” and “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” about a 40-mile family backpacking trip that featured campsites that made both my top 25 all-time favorites and my list of the nicest backcountry campsites I’ve hiked past, plus all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

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Two Hikes in Glacier National Park

Distance of each: 90-94 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty of each: 3

With rivers of ice pouring off of craggy mountains and cliffs, deeply green forests, over 760 lakes offering mirror reflections of it all, megafauna like bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, moose, and grizzly and black bears, and over a million acres in Montana’s Northern Rockies, most of it wilderness, little wonder that Glacier is so popular with backpackers.

Two big hikes of over 90 miles—both of which have multiple possible shorter variations—deservedly grace this top 10 list. On both, my companions and I saw all of those sights and large beasts described above—yes, including grizzlies—and enjoyed a surprising degree of solitude even while hitting many of the park’s highlights.

One, a 90-miler through northern Glacier, split into 65- and 25-mile legs, was a variation of a hike known as the Northern Loop, following a route I customized to hit some of Glacier’s best scenery, including the entire Highline Trail, the Many Glacier area, Piegan Pass and Stoney Indian Pass, the Ptarmigan Wall and Tunnel, and some of the park’s finest lakes and most-remote wilderness.

On the second hike, three friends and I backpacked about 94 miles through Glacier, from Chief Mountain Trailhead at the Canadian border in the park’s northeast corner to Two Medicine, combining parts of the primary and alternate routes of the Continental Divide Trail, and adding the high, alpine trail from Pitamakan Pass to Dawson Pass above Two Medicine. Yet again, we saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and a griz, and heard elk bugling almost every morning and evening (because it was September)—not to mention vistas unlike anywhere else in America.

See my story about the two-stage, 90-mile hike “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” my story “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” about the 94-mile hike, and “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” about my most recent, weeklong hike in Glacier on a variation of the CDT route.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking Glacier’s Northern Loop and the CDT through Glacier.

And check out “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

Close Runners-Up:

Think of the Canadian Rockies this way: They resemble Glacier but with more and bigger glaciers and covering a much vaster area. For much of its distance, the 34-mile Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park passes below a long chain of sheer cliffs and mountains that conjure images of numerous El Capitans lined up in a row, but with thick tongues of glacial ice pouring off them. And the 27-mile Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park remains above treeline for more than half its distance, with nearly constant panoramas of massive walls of rock and a sea of mountains in every direction.

Retaining a surprising degree of anonymity considering that they’re situated between Glacier and Yellowstone, the Beartooth Mountains rise to over 12,000 feet and are most uniquely characterized by high, rolling, alpine plateaus over 10,000 feet. Like Glacier, the Beartooths have deep, glacier-carved canyons with remnant patches of ancient ice, and are home to moose, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, bald eagles, gray wolves, black bears, and grizzlies—plus hundreds of trout-filled alpine lakes. See my story “Backpacking the High and Mighty Beartooth Mountains.”

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Teton Crest Trail

Distance: 33-40 miles, multiple variations
Difficulty: 4

One of my first big, Western backpacking trips was on the Teton Crest Trail in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, and it so inspired me that I’ve returned more than 20 times since to backpack, dayhike, rock climb, backcountry ski, and paddle a canoe in the Tetons. I can’t imagine that jagged skyline ever failing to give me chills.

Running north-south through the heart of the national park and adjacent national forest lands, the Teton Crest Trail stays above treeline for much of its distance, with expansive views of the peaks, but also drops into the beautiful South Fork and North Fork of Cascade Canyon, Paintbrush Canyon, and the upper forks of Granite Canyon, and crosses Paintbrush Divide at 10,720 feet.

Various trails access it, allowing for multiple route options, any of them making for one of America’s premier multi-day hikes.

See my stories  “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “Walking Familiar Ground: Reliving Old Memories and Making New Ones on the Teton Crest Trail,” plus all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.

I’ve helped countless readers plan a perfect, personally customized itinerary on the Teton Crest Trail. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your trip.

Yearning to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail
and the best short backpacking trip in the Tetons.

Close Runners-Up:

A two- or three-day hike linking any of the east-side canyons in Grand Teton National Park, such as the nearly 20-mile Paintbrush Canyon-Cascade Canyon loop (the most popular in the park). See “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park.” Or virtually any backpacking trip in the Wind River Range (see below).

The Wonderland Trail

Distance: 93 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 4

No multi-day hike in the contiguous United States compares with the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier—because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier.

Backpacking the Wonderland Trail, one repeatedly sees Rainier fill the horizon at a seemingly unbelievable scale, a sight always thrilling and inspiring. This trail features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever see, countless waterfalls and cascades, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” and likely sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and possibly black bears.

Accessed from several trailheads, it can be thru-hiked in its entirety—commonly done over nine to 10 days—or you can backpack shorter trips of varying lengths on sections of the Wonderland. The full loop is a strenuous trip, with over 44,000 cumulative vertical feet of elevation gain and loss, and choices you make like which direction to hike the loop, where to begin it, and whether to take a popular detour onto the higher and more-scenic Spray Park Trail, all affect the trip’s overall difficulty—which I spell out in detail in my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

This much I will guarantee: The Wonderland Trail is the kind of adventure that stays with you long afterward.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” about a 77-mile hike on what I consider the WT’s best sections (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my e-book).

Close Runner-Up:

See my story “Full of Surprises: Backpacking Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail” about a trip very similar in character to the Wonderland Trail—but much shorter and requiring no permit reservation—the 41-mile Timberline Trail around Oregon’s Mount Hood.

Want to hike the Wonderland Trail? Get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

Zion’s Narrows

Distance: 16 miles
Difficulty: 2

The North Fork of the Virgin River carves out a uniquely deep, slender, and awe-inspiring redrock canyon in Utah’s Zion National Park, with walls up to 1,000 feet tall that close in to just 20 feet apart in places. Springs gush from cracks in the walls, nourishing lush hanging gardens. On clear nights, a black sky riddled with stars fills the narrow strip visible between the rock walls soaring overhead.

In the low-water levels when backpackers typically make the two-day descent of The Narrows, you’re walking most of the time in water from ankle-deep (most commonly) to, occasionally, waist-deep, over a cobblestone riverbed that makes for slow progress.

Click here now for my e-book to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.

But you’ll feel no desire to rush through one of the most enchanting hikes in the National Park System (especially since the lower end is often crowded with dayhikers, while the trip’s first day and second morning are much quieter).

See my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Close Runners-Up:

Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch
Traversing Zion National Park
The Needles District and Maze District of Canyonlands National Park
Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Death Hollow Loop, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Aravaipa Canyon, Arizona

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

John Muir Trail

Distance: 221 miles
Difficulty: 4

The John Muir Trail’s 211 miles from Yosemite Valley to the highest summit in the Lower 48, 14,505-foot Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park, has often been described as “America’s Most Beautiful Trail”—and hyperbolic as it sounds, it’s hard to argue against that lofty claim.

The two- to three-week journey through California’s High Sierra (totaling 221 miles, including the 10-mile descent off Whitney, not actually part of the JMT) stays mostly above 9,000 feet as it traverses mile after jaw-dropping mile of a landscape of incisor peaks, too many waterfalls to name, and countless, pristine wilderness lakes nestled in granite basins.

You climb over numerous passes between 11,000 and over 13,000 feet, with views that stretch a hundred miles. Although not a place for solitude during the peak season (mid-July to mid-September), the JMT may be the one hike on this list that every serious backpacker probably aspires to accomplish.

The hardest part may be what comes long before you lace up your boots: getting a JMT permit, which necessarily requires figuring out your itinerary and how many days you will spend on the trail.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” an “Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan” for a JMT thru-hike, and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?”

Close Runners-Up:

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” my story about a remote, partly off-trail, 32-mile traverse of the John Muir Wilderness, and all stories about High Sierra backpacking trips at The Big Outside.

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

South Kaibab to Lipan Point, Grand Canyon

Distance: 74 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 5

Every backpacking trip I’ve taken in the Grand Canyon deserves a spot on this list—the place possesses all the qualities of a great adventure, in a landscape like nowhere else on the planet. But when a longtime backcountry ranger in the park told me this 74-mile hike was “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” of course I had to check it out.

After backpacking it, I decided: He’s right.

For starters, the South Kaibab is one of the best trails in the entire National Park System. Beyond that, this route follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” in the canyon, the Escalante Route, which involves some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling. This hike also includes an outstanding section of the Tonto Trail, the beautiful and surprisingly rigorous Beamer Trail, and another lovely, rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.

Plus, you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado River, and the kind of solitude that’s rare in many national parks.

See “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Get my expert e-books to “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
and an easier alternative, “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

I’ve helped many readers plan a perfect, personally customized backpacking itinerary in the Grand Canyon—a place where trip planning is complicated by seasonal temperature extremes and road access, scarce water sources, high competition for backcountry permits, and significant differences in character and difficulty between trails and routes.

See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your Big Ditch backpacking trip.

Close Runners-Up:

Almost any other trip in the Grand Canyon. See “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

Hike all of “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”
For a beginner-friendly trip, see “The 5 Southwest Backpacking Trips You Should Do First.”

The Southern Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles
Difficulty: 2

The 17.5-mile hike from the Hoh River north to La Push Road, on the southern coast of Washington’s Olympic National Park, is still one of my kids’ most memorable backpacking trips—mostly for the hours they spent playing in tide pools on the beach (they were nine and seven at the time). But it’s also one that backpackers of all ages find gorgeous and fascinating.

It features giant trees in one of Earth’s largest virgin temperature rainforests; frequently mist-shrouded views of scores of sea stacks rising up to 200 feet out of the ocean; boulders wallpapered with sea stars, mussels, and sea anemones; rugged and very muddy hiking on overland trails around impassable headlands; sightings of seals, sea otters, whales, and to my kids’ delight, lots of slugs; and rope ladders to climb and descend very steep terrain—including cliffs.

Consequently, while just as scenic, it’s less crowded than the more popular northern stretch of the Olympic coast. The 73-mile-long finger of the park on the Pacific Ocean protects the longest stretch of wilderness coastline in the contiguous United States—and one of America’s most unique backpacking adventures.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast.”

Close Runner-Up:

Honestly, nothing.

But for classic wilderness trips in the Pacific Northwest, I suggest the hike to Cascade Pass and up Sahale Arm to Sahale Glacier Camp, in North Cascades National Park, with a jaw-dropping campsite view; this 80-mile hike (and shorter variations of it) in the North Cascades; the Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass Loop in the Glacier Peak Wilderness; and certainly, Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail.

See all stories about Olympic National Park and stories about the North Cascades at The Big Outside.

See “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

The Wind River Range

Distance: multiple routes and distances
Difficulty: 3 to 5

The Winds can’t honestly be described as “undiscovered,” by any stretch. Still, as popular as a few corners are, much of this Wyoming range offers a rare combination of periods of solitude amid some of the most dramatic peaks and beautiful mountain lakes in the country—lots of lakes. Rank U.S. mountain ranges according to the best scenery and lakes, and I think the top two are the Winds and the High Sierra—and you could argue which is number one for as many years as it would take to visit every lake in the Winds.

I’ve taken several trips into the Winds over the past three decades, backpacking, climbing, and one really long dayhike—all of them outstanding, but a few places stand out.

One was a camp in Titcomb Basin—where granite peaks rise to over 13,000 feet from lakes at over 10,000 feet—on a 41-mile loop where two friends and I hiked past a constellation of beautiful lakes and took a spicy off-trail route over 12,240-foot Knapsack Col.

On long stretches of a lonely, 43-mile loop in a less-visited area of the Winds, we enjoyed one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had, crossed four high passes, and walked one stunning trail after another past numerous alpine lakes, including two of the prettiest backcountry lakes I’ve hiked past without camping at.

I’ve climbed in and hiked through the Cirque of the Towers on multiple epic adventures, including a 27-mile, east-west dayhike across the Winds and a 96-mile, mostly off-trail, south-north traverse of the Wind River High Route. But most recently, a friend and I hiked across the Cirque to cap off a four-day loop from Big Sandy that crosses four passes and features camps by beautiful lakes—a route I consider the best multi-day hike in the Winds.

The Winds can seriously make you wonder: “Why don’t I just come here all the time?”

Don’t forget anything important! See “An Essentials-Only Backpacking Gear Checklist.”

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Wind River Range,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup,” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

Close Runner-Up:

See my stories about another high, rugged mountain range where you can find solitude, northern Utah’s High Uintas: “Backpacking—and Sandbagging—Utah’s Uinta Highline Trail” and “Tall and Lonely: Backpacking Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness.”

Ready to hike one of the world’s great treks?
Click here now for my e-book “The Perfect, Flexible Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc.”

Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

Distance: 36 miles, with longer and shorter variations
Difficulty: 2

The Sawtooths are one of the West’s most under-appreciated mountain ranges, with national park-caliber scenery, but nowhere near the numbers of hikers found in the most popular parks (although more and more backpackers are exploring the few popular areas of the Sawtooths).

Having backpacked and climbed through most of the range since settling in Idaho more than 20 years ago, the multi-day hike I’d recommend there is a five-day, roughly 36-mile route from Redfish Lake to Tin Cup Trailhead on Pettit Lake, including an out-and-back side trip to one of the finest lakes basins in the entire range.

Requiring a short shuttle that can be arranged locally—the Sawtooth trails aren’t conducive to creating long loop hikes—this trip crosses four passes over 9,000 feet and features campsites on some of the Sawtooths’ best mountain lakes, below endless jagged ridgelines.

See my story “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit.” My expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains” tells you all you need to know to plan and pull off this trip and includes three alternate itineraries that allow you to shorten the hike to four days or extend it to six or seven days.

Close Runners-Up:

See my stories “Mountain Lakes of Idaho’s Sawtooths—A Photo Gallery,” “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths” and “Going After Goals: Backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” about a 57-mile hike in the more remote southern Sawtooths.

See also my story about the Idaho Wilderness Trail, a nearly 300-mile, long-distance trail I helped conceive that passes through the Sawtooths, and all stories about Idaho’s Sawtooths and neighboring White Cloud Mountains at The Big Outside; plus my story about another under-appreciated mountain range dappled with gorgeous lakes, northeastern Oregon’s Wallowas, “Learning the Hard Way: Backpacking Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness.”

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

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.”

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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.

Read all of this story and ALL stories 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.

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.

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.

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.

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•    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.

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• 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.

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#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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We all love the majesty of mountains. But the vividly colored, sometimes bizarre, often incomprehensible geology of the Southwest canyon country enchants and inspires us in ways that words can only begin to describe. And while you will find very worthy dayhikes and even roadside eye candy in classic parks like Grand Canyon, Zion, and Canyonlands, you really have to put on a backpack and probe more deeply into those parks—and other canyon-country gems you may not know much about—to get a full sense of the scale, details, and hidden mysteries of these mystical landscapes.

Drawing from more than three decades of chasing the best backpacking trips in the Southwest—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—I’ve put together this list of my picks for the 12 very best multi-day hikes in America’s Southwest canyon country, from its acknowledged gems to trips you may not have heard of. While I’ve listed the trips in a specific order, I don’t intend that as a quality ranking. They all deserve five stars.

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 descriptions and photos below all link to stories at The Big Outside that have more images and information about these trips (most of which require a paid subscription to read in full)—including detailed tips on planning each one yourself and when to apply for a backcountry permit, which is generally months in advance of a spring or fall trip.

See also “The 5 Southwest Backpacking Trips You Should Do First,” my expert e-books to some of the trips described below, and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these adventures, variations of them, or any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

I’d love to read your thoughts about my list—and your suggestions for trips that belong on it. Please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Rim to Rim Across the Grand Canyon

Most multi-day hikes, including some of the best, feature stretches of hours at a time that are ordinary. Not the Grand Canyon. With huge physical relief and so little vegetation to obstruct views in this desert environment—except for brief stretches of forest at the South and North rims—there’s never a dull moment as you traverse a cross-section of a chasm stretching 277 miles long and averaging a mile deep and 10 miles across (as the crow flies—hiking distances on winding trails are much greater). It’s undoubtedly one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world.

Although most trails here are quite rugged—and some routes on the map are not even maintained—the three so-called “corridor” trails, while strenuous, are maintained, don’t present the kind of scary exposure or difficult scrambling found on other trails, and have more frequent water availability. The typically three-day hike crossing from rim to rim (one-way, can be done in either direction) via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails is 21 miles with over 10,600 feet of cumulative ascent and descent; via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab, it’s 23.5 miles with over 10,100 feet of cumulative ascent and descent.

See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all stories about South Rim backpacking trips at The Big Outside.

Do this trip right. Get my expert e-book to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim
or my expert e-book to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.

The Narrows, Zion National Park

One of the most uniquely magnificent and coveted hikes in the National Park System, The Narrows of the North Fork of the Virgin River in Zion squeeze down to the width of a hobbit’s living room in places, with walls of golden, crimson, and cream-colored sandstone that rise as much as a thousand feet tall. 

On this 16-mile, top-to-bottom hike—typically done in two days—you’ll walk in the shallow river most of the time and see very little direct sunlight, marveling at the constantly changing canyon and natural oddities like a waterfall pouring from cracks in solid rock, creating a hanging garden.

Enormously popular, the lower end of the Narrows teems with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dayhikers on hot days of late spring through early fall, when the river is warm and low. Many of those people don’t walk more than a mile or two upriver, while some go as far as Big Spring, at mile five, the farthest point dayhikers can venture without a wilderness permit. The hauntingly quiet upper Narrows can feel remarkably lonely.

Not surprisingly, this unrivaled adventure ranks among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “My 25 Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever,” and our campsite in The Narrows graces my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites.

See my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Click here now to get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Narrows in Zion National Park.”

The Needles District, Canyonlands National Park

Stratified cliffs stretch for miles. Stone towers, with bulbous crowns bigger around than the column on which they sit, seem ever at the verge of toppling over. Multi-colored candlesticks of Cedar Mesa sandstone, in more hues than Crayola has yet replicated, loom 300 feet tall, forming castle-like ramparts.

Trails marked by zigzagging lines of stone cairns lead across waves of slickrock slabs, up narrow water runnels and calf-pumping ramps. In the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, trails ignore the axiom of Euclidian geometry that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Hikers there navigate a maze without walls.

The Needles District encompasses a high plateau split by canyons. Erosional forces working over unfathomable gulfs of time formed this arid and tortured landscape; but it looks more like the work of giant children squeezing mud from their fists. That network of trails creates multiple options for short, relatively easy, but strikingly scenic backpacking trips and dayhikes through The Needles.

See my story “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.”

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Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch

For much of the first three days of the five-day descent of Paria Canyon, you pass through its twisting narrows, where walls of searing, orange-red sandstone shoot up for hundreds of feet, so close together at times that a person can cross from one side to the other in a dozen strides.

Sunshine often ignites the upper walls and reflects warm light downward, painting every wave of rock in a subtly different hue. You’re often walking in the shallow river, and pockets of quicksand add an adventurous element to this trek.

The 38-mile hike down Paria Canyon has become famous among backpackers for its towering walls painted wildly with desert varnish, massive red rock amphitheaters and arches, hanging gardens where the few springs in the canyon gush from rock, and sandy benches for camping, shaded by cottonwood trees.

It’s done alone or combined with its 16-mile-long tributary slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch—where the walls, in spots, are barely wider than a person.

See my stories “Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon” and “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon.”

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Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

On a two-family, roughly 15-mile backpacking trip through Coyote Gulch, we hiked across ancient, petrified dunes; squeezed through a less-than-shoulder-width, 100-foot-long slot called Crack-in-the-Wall (which was fun and not as hard as it sounds); and stood at a cliff top overlooking a desert landscape of redrock towers and cliffs, including Stevens Arch, measuring some 220 feet across and 160 feet tall. And that was just in the first hour.

One of the Southwest’s easier backpacking trips—because of its short distance, lack of a narrows creating flash-flood potential, and the presence of a perennial stream (read: you don’t have to carry several pounds of water)—Coyote Gulch features a natural bridge, two of the region’s most distinctive natural arches, and one deeply overhanging wall some 200 feet tall with amazing echo acoustics.

Coyote’s sheer walls at times loom close and you walk in the creek; elsewhere, the upper canyon walls spread a quarter-mile apart and rise up to 900 feet overhead. In a sense, Coyote delivers a complete—and beginner-friendly—canyon-hiking experience.

See my story “Playing the Memory Game in Southern Utah’s Escalante, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon.”

Coyote Gulch is one of “The 5 Southwest Backpacking Trips You Should Do First.”

The Grand Canyon’s ‘Best Backpacking Trip’

Whoa, you’re thinking—the “best backpacking trip in the entire Grand Canyon??” That was my initial reaction when a longtime backcountry ranger in the canyon whom I know, who’s hiked every mile of trail in the park, described this 74-mile route from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Lipan Point to me using those words. I mean, every hike in this place is amazing, right?

Click here now for my expert e-book to the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.

Then I backpacked it and found myself agreeing with him.

Besides the fact that the South Kaibab is one of the absolute best hikes in the entire National Park System, this route—which has shorter alternatives—follows one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, the Escalante Route, and incorporates the little-traveled and beautiful Beamer Trail, as well as another rim-to-river footpath, the Tanner Trail.

There’s some tricky route-finding and exposed scrambling, and water sources are sporadic—this high-level adventure is better for experienced and fit backpackers, ideally with a previous GC or other Southwest backpacking trips under their belts.

But you’ll enjoy some of the best backcountry campsites you’ve ever spent a night in, including beaches on the Colorado River (with the prospect of mooching real food from a river party).

See “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

Score a popular permit using my
“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Aravaipa Canyon

Just 12 miles long from its west trailhead to its east one, southern Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon captures enough water flowing out of the Galiuro Mountains to sustain a vibrant, perennial stream and an oddity in the Grand Canyon state: a desert oasis, where cottonwood trees taller and more abundant than you’ll see in most Southwest canyons line both creek banks.

The lush greenery contrasts starkly against redrock walls that rise as much as 700 feet above the creek. But high up the canyon walls and the often-dry side canyons, the environment shifts abruptly to that of the surrounding, vast Sonoran Desert, with saguaro occupying the numerous cliff ledges like thousands of spectators in a strangely steep-sided, long, narrow, and winding stadium.

With no maintained trail in the canyon, backpackers follow whatever user trails get beaten into the sandy ground—or, more often than not hike directly in Aravaipa Creek, splashing through water that ranges from not too cold to chilly and rarely up to calf-deep. The max stay permitted is two nights and most backpackers set up a base camp and dayhike to explore this unique and truly lovely canyon.

See my story “Backpacking the Desert Oasis of Aravaipa Canyon.”

On the same Southwest trip that we backpacked in Aravaipa Canyon in early April, three of us from that group also backpacked one of the finest three-day sections of the Arizona Trail, Passage 16, during a wildflower superbloom. See my story about that surprisingly beautiful hike.

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

Owl and Fish Canyons, Bears Ears National Monument

The loop through Owl and Fish canyons, in southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, begins and ends with rugged hiking and scrambling to enter and exit both canyons: You will use your hands at times going up and down, including the final, 12-foot corner in a cliff to reach the rim of Fish Canyon (aided by a fixed rope dangling down the cliff). The upper sections of both canyons present very steep terrain and, especially in Owl Canyon, debris from flash floods like knots of crushed vegetation and boulders bigger than a car to navigate around.

This hike isn’t for anyone who’s uncomfortable with mild to moderate exposure. But these canyons evoke better-known places in southern Utah, with tall, red cliffs, towers, the striking amphitheater surrounding Nevills Arch (see lead photo at top of story), rippled slickrock, pour-offs and seasonal waterfalls, flowering cacti, cottonwoods, and a surprising abundance of seasonal, clear water in parts of both canyons.

Just 15 to 17 miles, hiked in two to three days, Owl and Fish canyons offer incredible scenery (and night skies), solitude, and a permit that’s easier to get than for better-known Southwest backpacking trips. That’s a rare find.

See my story “Backpacking Southern Utah’s Owl and Fish Canyons” and all stories about backpacking in Utah at The Big Outside.

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Traversing Zion National Park

Other Southwestern parks have natural arches, spires, and ancient cliff dwellings, but none really matches Zion’s grandeur: the giant walls of white and blood-red rock, with striations rippling across vast spans of sandstone.

While the park is best known for the 2,000-foot-tall cliffs of Zion Canyon and the justifiably popular dayhike up Angels Landing (which I consider one of the best dayhikes in the entire National Park System), backpacking a nearly 50-mile, north-south traverse takes you on a grand tour of this flagship park. And it can be broken into sections for shorter, beginner-friendly trips.

From Lee Pass Trailhead in the Kolob Canyons, where burgundy cliffs rise above verdantly green stream bottoms, you’ll pass between the black-streaked, red walls of Hop Valley, and follow the West Rim Trail—considered by some Zion aficionados the park’s best—high above a maze of deep, white-walled canyons.

After descending a sidewalk-wide footpath blasted out of cliffs, the traverse passes Angels Landing—a must-do side trip—before crossing Zion Canyon and taking the East Rim Trail past Weeping Rock, through Echo Canyon, and past the white beehive cliffs of the park’s east side.

See all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside, including “Pilgrimage Across Zion: Traversing a Land of Otherworldly Scenery” and “Mid-Life Crisis: Hiking 50 Miles Across Zion in a Day.”

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

Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, Grand Canyon

Yes, this top-10 list has three hikes in the Big Ditch—and it could justifiably have more. There is no place like the Grand Canyon, period. But of all the backpacking trips I have taken there, the most unique, varied, and magical just may be this rugged and remote, 25-mile loop off the North Rim.

Long on the radar of in-the-know backpackers and river-rafting parties taking side hikes, the Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop has an unusual abundance of a rare element in much of the canyon: water.

The two perennial creeks and one river (not counting the Colorado River, which this hike follows for a few miles) pour over some of the Grand Canyon’s loveliest waterfalls (see the photo near the top of this story), course through sculpted narrows, and nurture oases of trees and vegetation.

Descending a vertical mile to the Colorado River and then climbing back up again, on often-rugged trails, with seasons limited by road access and heat often challenging to put it mildly, this hike is no walk in the park—which is why many backpackers take four days or more to complete it. But it packs in all the qualities you go to the Grand Canyon for.

See my feature story “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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

Death Hollow Loop, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

From crossing a high, sand and slickrock plateau on the Boulder Mail Trail, to descending the sometimes narrow and always dramatic canyon of Death Hollow, and finally ascending the upper canyon of the Escalante River between soaring, overhanging walls of red, brown, and cream-colored rock painted with desert varnish, the 22-mile Death Hollow Loop northeast of the town of Escalante delivers a primer on the rugged and adventurous character of a host of desert Southwest landscapes.

The Boulder Mail Trail’s circuitous route over waves of rippling Navajo Sandstone repeatedly rises and falls steeply—but nothing compares to the overlook of Death Hollow just before the trail plunges into it. Death Hollow poses flash-flood risk and, in the best conditions, involves walking in cold water ranging from below the ankles to mid-thigh or deeper—when you successfully skirt the deepest pools—with challenging obstacles and possibly wind blowing up or down the canyon to compound the water’s chill. Then there’s the poison ivy, which is, well, hard to exaggerate about.

But hit this route in good weather and safe water levels and you will be blown away by it.

See my story “Backpacking Utah’s Mind-Blowing Death Hollow Loop.”

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The Maze District, Canyonlands National Park

Descending the trail off Maze Overlook, we followed a wildly circuitous trail across slickrock, marked by cairns but otherwise unobvious and not visible on the ground, winding below redrock cliffs and towers, past mounds of shattered boulders resembling ancient ruins, and along the sloping rims of giant bowls of rippled stone. In several spots, we removed and lowered our packs to scramble through tight crevices or downclimb a ladder of shallow footsteps chiseled into a sandstone cliff face.

That was on the second morning of our five-day backpacking trip into the Maze—and it came after we had lingered long over the panorama at the brink of the white cliffs of Maze Overlook, above the vast, chaotic sweep of sandstone fins, towers, and canyons that could only be called the Maze. A very rugged, remote, and hard-to-reach corner of the Southwest, with few water sources that can dry up seasonally, the Maze is undoubtedly one of the hardest trips on this list—for many reasons.

But the adventurous character of its routes, jaw-dropping vistas and canyons, ancient pictographs, and deep solitude make it a holy grail for serious Southwest explorers.

See my story “Farther Than It Looks—Backpacking the Canyonlands Maze.”.

See all stories about hiking and backpacking in Southern Utah and national park adventures 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.”

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How was your 2025? I hope you got outdoors as much as possible with the people you care about—and you enjoyed adventures that inspired you. I’m sharing in this story photos from several backpacking and hiking trips I took this year, from the Grand Canyon in March and southern Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, Buckskin Gulch, and Paria Canyon in April to Idaho’s Sawtooths in August and again in early October and Wyoming’s Wind River Range in September.

That felt like a pretty good year to me (although there’s an argument to be made that my 2024 was better). But I’m very fortunate to be able to get out a lot.

Going through my photos always reminds me not just about the details of these experiences and places—but most of all, what’s most important in my life and why I strive to make getting outdoors a top priority. I know you do, too—that’s why you read my 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.

The photos in this story are selected images from my 2025 trips. Whether you want to learn more to take any of them yourself or simply draw some inspiration from them, I think you’ll enjoy this little escape.

Scroll through the photos and short anecdotes from each trip below. Some include links to stories about those places that I’ve already posted—many of which require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my tips and information on how to plan and take those trips. Watch for my upcoming stories about the other places described below. Click any photo to learn more about that trip.

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

I can help you plan any of these trips or any others you read about at The Big Outside—giving you the benefit of my more than three decades of professional experience identifying, planning, and successfully pulling off great adventures. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, and my expert e-books to some of America’s best backpacking trips.

I’d love to hear what you think of any of my photos or the places shown in them, or upcoming plans you have. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Enjoy my pictures and start now planning your adventures for 2026.

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The Grand Canyon Tonto West to the Boucher Trail

In the last days of March, I returned yet again to a park where I have now backpacked and dayhiked in five of the past eight years (and several times further back in my past): the Grand Canyon. (And I just recently reserved a backcountry permit for another trip there in April 2026. I can’t get enough of it.) This time, with my wife, Penny, our 22-year-old daughter, Alex, and three friends—my longtime adventure partner David Ports, Penny’s great friend since college, Annie Black, and Alex’s close friend from college, Harper Meyer—we backpacked four days and roughly 36 miles from the Bright Angel Trailhead to the Hermit Trailhead, finishing via the notoriously steep Boucher Trail. And having now walked all of the major trails off the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, I can testify that the Boucher’s reputation is not exaggerated.

Besides starting on the park’s two most popular trails, the South Kaibab (David and I took this somewhat longer start) and the Bright Angel, our route followed a magnificent stretch of the 95-mile-long Tonto Trail west to Boucher Creek, crossing several tributary creek canyons with soaring cliffs and deep abysses and enjoyed three wonderful campsites, including one beside the Colorado River at Granite Rapids.

We also discovered that the Boucher is as exciting, varied, and breathtaking as it is steep in spots (but not the entire trail). Every time we lifted our eyes from the rocks and dirt at our feet in the steepest sections to look around, the scenery would slam the brakes on whatever focus we had on simply going up and hijack our full attention. The Boucher eventually levels off and makes a long traverse high above the grandest canyon, reminding me yet again that this place looks even better from a remote and lonely trail in the backcountry.

And on that traverse, we passed an established campsite that was an easy pick for my list of the best backcountry camps I’ve hiked past.

See my stories “Backpacking the Grand Canyon: Tonto West to Boucher Trail,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside, and my expert e-books to backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere.

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

Capitol Reef National Park

An April trip to southern Utah began with my friend Jeff Wilhelm and I dayhiking a roughly 10-mile traverse from the Grand Wash Trailhead on UT 24 to the eastern Cohab Canyon Trailhead on UT 24, including the spur trail to Cassidy Arch. That hike gave us a magnificent window onto Capitol Reef’s varied landscapes, taking us from canyon floors in Grand Wash and Cohab to the high plateau of the Frying Pan Trail and its sweeping views of the towers populating this part of the nearly 100-mile-long Waterpocket Fold.

I have written before that I consider Capitol Reef one of America’s most underappreciated national parks, and this hike demonstrates why.

Capitol Reef has become something of a regular stop for me, even if only for a day or two on a longer trip, because after more than 30 years of steadily exploring more of it, I’m still walking some trails there for the first time (this was my first time across the entire Frying Pan Trail and to Cassidy Arch), and there are others that I’m eager to walk again. The variety and striking natural wonder of this underappreciated gem of Utah’s canyon country keeps me coming back. It’s as nice as southern Utah’s other four parks—but not as crowded, especially once you hike at least a couple miles from a trailhead.

See “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park” and “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

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Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon

In mid-April, joined by friends David Gordon, Doug Jenkins, and Jeff Wilhelm, I backpacked an overnight hike down southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch to its confluence with the canyon of the Paria River, which flows south into Arizona and empties into the Colorado River at Lees Ferry, the gateway to the Grand Canyon.

Then, having planned a longer hike but facing a forecast that promised to turn our lovely, sunny, warm weather abruptly into a full-blown snowstorm by afternoon on our second day, we pivoted upstream to finish at the White House Trailhead, the top end of Paria. (We finished as we had confidently planned we would, a couple of hours before the storm commenced—and very happy that we did.)

Unquestionably one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest, these two canyons combine what’s often described as the country’s or the world’s longest slot canyon, Buckskin, with the much longer and more varied Paria Canyon, which itself has a narrows with high walls that extends for several miles.

I had first backpacked this exact same route more than 30 years ago (and Paria top to bottom, without Buckskin, about 10 years ago), and seeing Buckskin Gulch again after so much time made it feel almost brand new to me. Its walls, often slightly overhanging, rise to perhaps 200 feet high and the canyon widens briefly a few times. But it mostly remains a true, very narrow slot—sometimes barely wider than a person.

Gazing around, I was reminded that the greatest magic of slot canyons is how the diffused light paints the wildly rippled, orange and red walls in too many shades of those colors to quantify, as well as hues of brown and a deep black that looks like an oil spill—creating stark contrasts that delight and mystify the human eye and brain.

See my story about that trip “Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon,” my story about a previous, two-family trip backpacking down the length of Paria Canyon, “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

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The Sawtooth Mountains

In August, two good friends and regular backpacking compadres, Todd Arndt and Mark Fenton, joined my wife, Penny, and me on a four-day, roughly 31-mile, point-to-point backpacking trip through Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains—a range that’s become my home mountains, having explored it extensively for almost 30 years since I moved to Idaho, from numerous backpacking trips to big dayhikes, bagging a bunch of peaks (adding yet another new one to my list in 2025; see the bottom of this story), backcountry skiing, and rock climbing some classic routes.

And it pleases me to say that, for as much as I’ve already seen of the Sawtooths, on this trip we hiked through areas that were entirely new to me—as well as new to Penny and Todd, who’ve also explored these mountains a fair bit, and entirely new to Mark, on his first trip here. He came away from it loving this wilderness and eager to come back.

While most of our trip was on trails, we did hike over an off-trail pass that was steep at times but straightforward on one side and involved crossing some not-entirely stable talus on the side we descended; all in all, though, not bad. And that pass delivered us into a remote area of the Sawtooths that sees very few backpackers, despite an abundance of beautiful alpine lakes and more high passes with sweeping views of these sharply incised peaks. And Todd and I scrambled up a 10,000-foot summit, a very worthwhile and remote peak to bag (which I’ll describe in more detail in my upcoming story about this trip).

Watch for my upcoming story about this trip. Meanwhile, see “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside as well as my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.”

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon, Sawtooths, Wind River Range, and elsewhere. Want my help with your next trip? Click here.

The Wind River Range Solo

In the first week of September, after a good friend and longtime regular backpacking partner regrettably had to back out of this trip due to a persistent injury, I embarked on my first solo multi-day hike in probably a couple of decades (mostly because I prefer good company and I’m fortunate to have a great bench of partners).

But I wouldn’t have canceled because it was in one of my very favorite mountain ranges in America: Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Excited for it despite not having company, I walked about 64 miles in six glorious days, much of it on trails all new to me, including a big piece of the Continental Divide Trail through the Winds—which, by the way, is widely considered among thru-hikers (at least among the sizable sample I’ve now met) one of the two best sections of the CDT, along with Glacier National Park.

And what an adventure it was.

The Winds are known for its constellation of alpine lakes—estimates include 1,300 name and 1,600 total lakes—and this trip delivered on that reputation even more than I expected: I camped by gorgeous waters every night and walked past an untold number of gorgeous lakes at the foot of big, rocky peaks.

Watch for my upcoming story about that trip. Meanwhile, see “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range” and all stories about backpacking in the Winds at The Big Outside.

The right gear makes any trip go better.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Hiking the Second-Highest Peak in Idaho’s Sawtooths

In the first week of October, with the early-morning temperature bottomed out at a bone-chilling 19° F, my friend Chip Roser and I the hit the trail walking as fast as we could—partly just to warm up, but also because we had a big day ahead of us: hiking the second-highest peak in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, 10,716-foot Mount Cramer.

It was admittedly late in the season for hiking in the Sawtooths, but there wasn’t any snow yet at higher elevations and we had a forecast promising sunshine all day, comfortably cool temps, and little wind; and once the sun finally found us (we started early in the cold shade of the forest), we warmed up quickly and remained so all day. And what a day it was.

From the Upper Hell Roaring Trailhead (requiring a high-clearance vehicle; otherwise, start at the Lower Hell Roaring Trailhead), we hiked Trail 7092 past a glassy-calm Hell Roaring Lake to the northeast corner of Imogene Lake. From there, we found a use trail leading to the start of the long scramble up the rocky east ridge of Cramer.

Cramer’s summit rises to a sharp point on a boulder resembling a very large arrowhead, From there, in the heart of the Sawtooths, you can see the entire range and pick out numerous other peaks and distinctive alpine lakes far below. We even ended that nearly 18-mile October hike, with more than 3,500 vertical feet of uphill and downhill, with a little daylight remaining.

By the way, if you’re interested in a great hike up the highest peak in the Sawtooths (and somewhat shorter than Cramer, but a full day), read about 10,751-foot Thompson Peak and other outstanding hikes in my story “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths” (which I will update in 2026, adding this hike). And see all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside.

As you plan your trips for next year, see “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips,” “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes,” my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites, and my Trips page at The Big Outside.

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I often get asked the question, “What’s your favorite trip?” And I don’t have an answer. To pick just one from all the amazing adventures I’ve had the good fortune to take over more than three decades feels like an impossible task. Instead, I maintain this list of my 10 all-time favorites (so far). It includes some of America’s best backpacking trips, from the Teton Crest Trail and John Muir Trail to Glacier National Park, plus hiking across the Grand Canyon, trekking in Iceland, Patagonia, Norway, and Italy’s Dolomite Mountains (photo above), and some places that might surprise you.

As you’re planning your next great adventures—as you should be doing at this time of year—consider that my picks are chosen from scores of backpacking, dayhiking, paddling, trekking, and other trips I’ve taken, domestically and internationally, over a period of time that includes the 10 years I spent as a writer 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.

Some of the trips described below—each with a link to the full feature story about it at The Big Outside, which has my tips on planning it (and those require a paid subscription to read in full)—are classics you’ve heard or read about. But others are places you may not know of—because I feel a list like this should introduce you to someplace new. That’s what adventure is all about.

See also my picks for “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips” for more ideas; some of these trips could have made either list. See also my expert e-books to some of America’s best backpacking trips and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

I’d love to hear what you think of this list and any suggestions for trips you think belong on it. Share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Start planning one of your best adventures ever right now—to ensure yourself a very happy new year.

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Sea Kayaking Alaska’s Glacier Bay

Few corners of the planet remain as pristine as this national park that’s the size of Connecticut, which sits at the heart of a contiguous protected wilderness the size of Greece. On a multi-day sea kayaking trip here, you can see massive tidewater glaciers explosively calving bus-sized chunks of ice into the sea, humpback whales, orcas, Steller sea lions, mountain goats, seals, sea otters, brown bears, and a variety of birds and wildflowers. It feels like traveling back in time to the end of the last ice age.

See my story about my family’s five-day sea kayaking trip in Glacier Bay, “Back to the Ice Age: Sea Kayaking Glacier Bay.”

See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

The Teton Crest Trail is, step for step, unquestionably one of the most gorgeous mountain walks in America, a true classic offering all the elements of an unforgettable backpacking trip: views of the incomparable skyline of the Tetons and deep, cliff-flanked, glacier-scoured canyons; wonderful campsites, wildflowers, mountain lakes and creeks; and a good chance of seeing moose, elk, marmots, pikas, mule deer, and black bears. I fell in love with the Tetons on my first visit, more than 20 years ago, and I’ve returned more than 20 times since to backpack, rock climb, dayhike, bag most of the major summits, canoe, and backcountry ski. I never grow tired of the sight of these peaks.

See my stories  “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail”
and see this menu of all of my expert e-books to classic backpacking trips.

Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

If hearing the JMT described as “America’s Most Beautiful Trail”—as it often is—seems to you like a hyperbolic claim, then you really must go see for yourself. For mile after jaw-dropping mile, you walk below incisor peaks of clean granite, past more waterfalls than anyone could name in a thousand lifetimes, along pristine wilderness lakes nestled in rocky basins, and over passes topping 12,000 and 13,000 feet with views that stretch a hundred miles. Whether or not you agree with that nickname “America’s Most Beautiful Trail,” it will be one of the most wonderful research projects you’ve ever done.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” an “Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan” for a JMT thru-hike, and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?”

Want my help planning your hike on the Teton Crest Trail, JMT, or another trip?
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Trekking Patagonia: Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park

One of the most prized trekking destinations in the world, Torres del Paine National Park is a place of severely vertical stone monoliths thousands of feet tall, and some of the world’s largest glaciers pouring into emerald lakes. Of twisted lenga trees, raging whitewater rivers, and the maybe most relentless winds you’ve ever encountered. Patagonia is a dream destination for backpackers all over the world. Read this story to learn how to do Patagonia right.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine.”

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Exploring Deep into the Grand Canyon

Know this before you go to the Grand Canyon: This place will steal your heart. That has been my experience from numerous trips over the years, from rim-to-rim-to-rim dayhikes to multi-day hikes on some of the canyon’s most remote and rugged paths. Now, every return visit just fuels my hunger to go back yet again to explore another corner I haven’t seen yet.

Choose the dayhike or backpacking trip that looks most appealing and suits your skills and experience, and just go see this seemingly infinite complex of shockingly deep and wide side canyons, walls stacked in multi-colored layers, and an army of stone towers. If you’re like me, you will end up going back again and again.

See my numerous stories about Grand Canyon National Park at The Big Outside, including “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains

The Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends,” a roughly 108-mile/180-kilometer alpine footpath through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, Italy’s Dolomites, is famous for many attributes, including comfortable mountain huts with excellent food; a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie (plural for alta via), or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites; and scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world.

Read about my family’s weeklong, hut-to-hut trek on a 39-mile/62-kilometer section of the AV 2 in my story “’The World’s Most Beautiful Trail:’ Trekking the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomites.”

See which section of the Alta Via 2 made my “30 Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever.”
Click here to learn how I can help you plan this incomparable trek.

Backpacking in Glacier National Park

Think of Glacier National Park and you think of mountain scenery that truly justifies a severely overused adjective: awesome. You think of wildlife sightings that are possible in few places in the Lower 48: bighorn sheep, moose, elk, so many mountain goats you may lose count, and black bears and grizzly bears.

There are two 90-mile hikes in Glacier that make my list of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips:” The first is a tour of northern Glacier, broken up into two hikes, a 65-miler that’s my modified version of Glacier’s best backpacking trip, the Northern Loop, and a 25-miler on the beautiful Gunsight Pass Trail, simplified logistically by the park’s free shuttle buses. The second is a north-south traverse through Glacier mostly on the Continental Divide Trail, from Chief Mountain Trailhead at the Canadian border to Two Medicine.

Both trips deliver everything that makes Glacier a favorite of backpackers: sightings of bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and maybe even grizzlies. Go in September and you may hear elk bugling most mornings and evenings.

See all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside, including “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier,” and “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” about my most recent, weeklong hike in Glacier.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking Glacier’s Northern Loop
and the CDT through Glacier, which also describe shorter itinerary options.

Adventuring in Iceland

Do you believe in elves? Icelanders do, or at least enough to route highways around places considered the abodes of elves and trolls. This belief may draw inspiration from a landscape of raw beauty that has shaped the values of its people. Smaller than Kentucky, the country has about 150 volcanoes, the greatest concentration in the world. While exploring rugged trails through old lava flows, thermal features spewing steam into the sky, and mind-boggling waterfalls and glaciers, I began to think of Iceland as like a first crush, a mountain cabin, or Alaska: easy to fall in love with, hard to leave. You will feel the same way.

I returned in July 2022 to trek hut to hut on Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails and drive the Ring Road to see more of this fascinating island nation on dayhikes.

Read my story about my family’s hut trek, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.” See also “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

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Hiking Spain’s Picos de Europa

Just a few hours’ drive from a major airport in northern Spain lies a spectacular mountain range resembling the Dolomites, with huts and charming mountain towns—and it’s possible you’ve never heard of it. On a five-day, 52-mile hike through the Picos de Europa, my family walked below jagged limestone peaks rising to over 8,500 feet, over passes above 7,000 feet and across mind-boggling alpine terrain that conveys a sense of much bigger peaks. We spent nights either in huts or delightful B&Bs or inns with great food in quiet, beautiful little villages.

See my story, “The Best 5-Day Hike in Spain’s Picos de Europa Mountains.”

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

Trekking Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

Hike every day through a starkly beautiful, Arctic-like landscape of mountains plastered with snow and ice, and valleys bisected by rushing streams or filled with iceberg-choked lakes. Then spend every night in the most comfortable mountain huts you have ever encountered, eating meals fit for a four-star restaurant—that’s trekking Jotunheimen. From the multi-cultural experience to exciting stream fords and the opportunity for more challenging, optional side hikes—like the steep scramble up a peak named Kirkja and the all-day hike to Norway’s highest summit, Galdhøpiggen—this adventure was a home run for everyone in our group, age nine to 75.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park.”

See also my story describing my top 10 family adventures, and a menu of every story about outdoor adventures at my Trips page at The Big Outside.

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As a parent of two young adults who’s taken them outdoors since before they can remember, I’ll share with you the biggest and in some ways most surprising lesson I’ve learned from these trips: Our outdoor adventures have been the best times we’ve had together as a family—and not just because the places are so special. The greatest benefit of these trips is that they have given us innumerable days with only each other and nature for entertainment—no electronic devices or other distractions that construct virtual walls within families in everyday life.

For my family, our experiences together outdoors make up most of our richest and favorite memories. They have brought us closer together.

That’s a gift we’ve given ourselves as a family, one that I’ve cherished every minute of (well, most of the minutes, anyway). I also know our kids will appreciate it more and more as they get older—and perhaps they will pass this gift on to children of their own someday.

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.

No matter where you go or what you do with your kids, you can reap that reward. But if you want to share with your family the very best experiences and places in nature, well, I have a pretty darn awesome list for you.

For this story, I’ve picked out the 10 very best adventures my family has taken and I’ve written about at The Big Outside—which also rank among the most beautiful and inspiring trips I’ve taken over more than three decades as an outdoors writer, including many years running this blog and previously as a field editor for Backpacker magazine.

This tick list includes seven national parks, three world-class paddling adventures, three trips that should be on every backpacker’s to-do list, America’s most scenic and fascinating volcano hike, and cross-country skiing or hiking among the greatest concentration of active geysers in the world.

Not surprisingly, all of these trips are extremely popular and require planning and making reservations months in advance.

The writeups below all link to my full feature story about each trip at The Big Outside, which include more images and detailed tips on planning each one yourself (and which require a paid subscription to read in full).

You may also want to peruse my list of 10 all-time favorite adventures, domestic and international—there are definitely trips that could be on either list.

I’d love to read your comments about any of these trips or the entire list, and other readers and I would appreciate any advice you have on any of these trips. Share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Here’s wishing you many years of forging lasting memories together as a family.

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1. Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Hiking Mount St. Helens

I’ll make you this guarantee: Mount St. Helens is one of the coolest dayhikes in America, period. Hikers on the standard route, Monitor Ridge, soon emerge from shady rainforest onto a stark, gray and black moonscape of volcanic rocks, pumice, and ash, with infinite views of the Cascade Range, including other snow-capped volcanoes like Hood, Adams, and Rainier.

It’s also a tough hike at 10 miles round-trip and 4,500 vertical feet up and down, most of it on rugged terrain that varies from loose stones and dirt to ash that’s like hiking a giant sand dune. We had a special component to our trip up and down the mountain: a three-generation family group with a 66-year spread between the youngest, my 10-year-old daughter, and the oldest, my 76-year-old mother. When I scored last-minute permits to hike the mountain, I wasn’t sure everyone could make it. Then, hours into the ascent, events seemed to take an ominous turn.

Read my story “Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Hiking Mount St. Helens” to find out how it all turned out.

Mount St. Helens was one of “My Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever.”

2. The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls

Stand at the brink of a thunderous waterfall that drops a sheer 1,400 feet over a cliff. Hike a trail in the heavy shower of mist raining from a clear, blue sky. Dayhike through one of the most iconic landscapes in America—Yosemite Valley.

The Valley’s towering cliffs and waterfalls will awe any adult and even the most cynical teenager. But for kids, there are also the thrills of walking through the mist from a giant waterfall, and moments like traversing the narrow catwalk blasted out of granite on the final steps to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls. Hiking in Yosemite should be a must for every avid hiker.

See my stories “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls” and “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite” and all stories about hiking in Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

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

3. Tackling America’s Best Easy, Multi-Day Float Trip

For 52 miles through Stillwater Canyon in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, the Green River slowly unfurls beneath a constant backdrop of giant redrock cliffs and spires. Off the water, you camp on sandy beaches and slickrock benches, hike to centuries-old Puebloan rock art and cliff dwellings, and maybe even spot bighorn sheep scrambling around on precipitous rock faces.

An easy trip for beginners and families—our party of 17 ranged in age from four to 80 and included eight kids—floating the Green River stood, for years, as my family’s gold standard for river trips (eventually replaced, when our kids got older, by the last trip on this list).

See my story “Still Waters Run Deep: Floating the Green River in Canyonlands” and all stories about river trips at The Big Outside.

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