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.

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

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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plus a FREE e-book. Join now!

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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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.

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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,
in Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

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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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Apply the First Day Possible in January

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

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

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

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

Be Flexible With Your Dates and Itinerary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep Your Group Small

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

Try for a Walk-In Permit

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

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

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

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

Get full access to all Teton Crest Trail stories and ALL stories at The Big Outside,
plus get a FREE e-book. Join now!

Go Outside Peak Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

On my first backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park, camped on Death Canyon Shelf, a broad, boulder-strewn and wildflower-carpeted bench at 9,500 feet, I awoke to the sound of heavy clomping outside my tent. I unzipped the tent door to investigate—and saw a huge bull elk standing just outside my nylon walls.

As I’ve come to learn over at least two dozen trips to the Tetons since that first one over three decades ago, that elk encounter symbolized just one of several compelling reasons why every backpacker should move the Teton Crest Trail to the top of their to-do list: the wildlife. Where it occurred illustrates another reason: After years of backpacking all over the United States—including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—Death Canyon Shelf is still one of my all-time favorite backcountry campsites.

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 I certainly consider the Teton Crest Trail one of the 10 best backpacking trips in America. It’s one I keep going back to again and again. (Read about my most recent trip.)

I think the five reasons I lay out below will give you insights into questions you might have about this classic hike—and inspire you to go do it.

But know this important planning detail: The park begins accepting permit applications at recreation.gov starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on a specific date in early January. (The date changes every year and gets announced by late autumn. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail” for details.) Apply then because most campsites along the TCT that are available to reserve for summer dates will disappear quickly—typically within minutes.

The park only issues reservations for about one-third of permits in advance, leaving two-thirds available each night during the hiking season for people seeking walk-in permits, which can be obtained no more than one day in advance of starting a trip. While there’s high demand for walk-in permits and popular camping zones will fill up first, it’s often possible to get a walk-in permit for a very good hike; and if you’re near the front of the line, perhaps for your first-choice route and camps.

My top-selling e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” will tell you everything you need to know to plan and pull off that trip. And I’ve helped many readers of my blog plan a successful and memorable backpacking trip in the Tetons. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can create a personalized trip plan ideal for you.

If you’ve backpacked in the Tetons or have other thoughts or suggestions about this trip, I’d appreciate you sharing those in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Here are the five reasons every backpacker must hike the Teton Crest Trail.

1. It’s Not Particularly Hard

Some big, wilderness parks are famous for steep, rugged terrain, high elevations, and/or severe weather. But with the exception of two or three long uphill slogs—like Paintbrush Divide from either direction, or climbing from the lower Death Canyon Trail to either Static Divide or Death Canyon Shelf—trails in the Tetons are not especially difficult. Most of the hiking is at elevations that flatlanders acclimate to fairly quickly and have no trouble with, other than occasional shortness of breath.

Like most of the Mountain West, the Tetons commonly see afternoon thunderstorms in summer, and snow can fall in September. But they generally receive stable, sunny weather with moderate temperatures during the peak hiking season, from mid-July through mid-September.

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

Don’t expect an easy stroll (and keeping your pack light has the biggest impact on comfort and fatigue). But we took our kids backpacking in the Tetons for the first time when they were eight and six, on a three-day, 20-mile loop from String Lake Trailhead up Paintbrush Canyon and down Cascade Canyon—probably the park’s most popular multi-day hike, and it includes the highest and hardest pass on the TCT. (Click here now to get my e-book to that trip, which is the best beginner-friendly backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park.) They were 10 and eight when we took took them on a four-day hike on the TCT.

In truth, on much of the TCT, you follow a good footpath, traversing a high plateau and descending and ascending canyons that are rarely steep. It is certainly tiring but not exceptionally strenuous.

See my story “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

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2. There’s a Good Chance of Seeing Wildlife

I’ve seen elk (and heard them bugling in September), moose, deer, pronghorn antelope, marmots, and pikas in the Tetons. Both times I’ve backpacked with my family there, we’ve seen moose fairly close (though at a safe distance). There are black and grizzly bears in the Tetons, but bear encounters are not common; in all of my trips there, I’ve seen one black bear, and it ignored me hiking down the trail while it fed on berries a short distance away. You should take appropriate precautions, of course, and the park requires carrying bear canisters for food storage.

Look for elk, marmot, and pikas at higher elevations in summer, moose in wet areas (like Phelps Lake, the forks of Granite Canyon, Death Canyon, and the main stem and forks of Cascade Canyon), pronghorn and bison in Jackson Hole, and deer everywhere. Hit the trail early in the morning or explore from your campsite in the evening hours—and be quiet—for the best chances of seeing wildlife.

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

3. It’s Not Crowded

Most dayhikers do not venture as far as the more-remote sections of the Teton Crest Trail, and climbers focus largely on the Grand Teton and other high peaks in the park’s core. Consequently, you’ll see only other backpackers on much of the TCT, and those numbers are managed to provide a wilderness experience. With the exception of a few spots that get busy at certain times of day—like misleadingly named Lake Solitude around midday in July or August, when dayhikers are streaming in, or Alaska Basin (which is actually outside the park, but along the TCT) on summer weekends, and in campsites in mornings and evenings—you will not see too many people in the Teton backcountry, especially after Labor Day.

Campsites are also fairly well spread out within the camping zones, keeping parties largely out of sight and earshot of one another.

See my “12 Expert Tips for Finding Solitude When Backpacking.”

Want a shorter trip? Click here now to get my expert e-book
“The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park.”

4. It’s Not Experts-Only

Beginners who can read a map can backpack the TCT. Throughout Grand Teton National Park, you will find trails that are well-constructed, obvious, and clearly marked, including signs at junctions. You can hike moderate days and still complete a Teton Crest Trail trip in four days, or take an overnight or weekend trip on a section of it. In many ways, backpacking the Teton Crest Trail is relatively beginner-friendly.

Get good gear. See my picks for “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

5. It’s Drop-Dead Beautiful

However high your expectations may be from the many articles, photos, and videos of the Tetons readily available to anyone with wifi, a hike on the Teton Crest Trail will still wow you. From the campsites to the high passes, canyon bottoms, and virtually every step of the hike, the TCT offers a succession of soaring cliffs, vast fields of wildflowers (in mid-summer), waterfalls, and nearly constant but ever-changing views of one of the most dramatic and famous mountain skylines in America.

That’s why I consider it one of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

See my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your Teton Crest Trail trip.

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See all stories at The Big Outside about Grand Teton National Park and backpacking the Teton Crest Trail (which require a paid subscription to read in full), including:

“A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail”
“How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail”
“Walking Familiar Ground: Reliving Old Memories and Making New Ones on the Teton Crest Trail”
“The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park”
“10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons”

See a menu of all stories about national park adventures at The Big Outside.

Here’s a truth I’ve learned from at least two dozen visits to the Tetons since my first backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail over 30 years ago: That incomparable, jagged skyline of peaks never fails to ignite a sense of awe and joy. Walking for days through these mountains, with their endless fields of wildflowers, long alpine vistas, and hypnotic mountain lakes, creeks, and waterfalls never grows old. I’m pretty sure I could backpack through Grand Teton National Park 20 more times without the experience ever growing ordinary.

While I rank the Teton Crest Trail among the 10 best backpacking trips in America—a list that draws on more than three decades of backpacking all over the United States, including 10 years as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and longer than that running this blog—the truth is, any backpacking excursion into the Tetons will probably hold a cherished place among the prettiest and most memorable multi-day treks of your life. It will very likely feature some of the most scenic backcountry campsites you’ve ever slept in; a couple of Tetons camps populate my personal list of all-time favorite backcountry campsites.

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The five backpacking trips described below, ranging from nearly 20 miles to about 39 miles, represent my picks for the best multi-day hikes in Grand Teton National Park—a place I have dayhiked, backpacked, and climbed extensively. This list includes my favorite itinerary for a Teton Crest Trail hike, the best short (two- or three-day) backpacking trip in the park, and various options that offer different distances, varying levels of solitude, and opportunities to see different areas of the park.

The peak backpacking season in the Tetons generally begins in mid-July, when higher elevations and passes become mostly snow-free, and runs into September. Some high passes, most notably Paintbrush Divide, can remain snow-covered and potentially dangerous into late July, depending on the previous winter and spring’s snowpack and weather in spring and early summer.

In early January, the park opens up permit reservations at recreation.gov for backpacking trips from May 1 through Oct. 31, and you can make a reservation up to two days prior to a trip start date. Apply promptly at 8 a.m. Mountain Time the first day reservations open, because many campsites that are available to reserve, especially along the Teton Crest trail, disappear quickly (and the process can feel maddeningly chaotic).

However, the park issues reservations for only about one-third of permits in advance—leaving two-thirds available each night during the hiking season for people seeking walk-in permits, issued no more than one day in advance of starting a trip. High demand makes walk-in permits for camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail and other popular camps hard to get.

See my stories “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail Without a Permit,” “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit” and “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit.”

My popular, expert e-books “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” and “The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park” will tell you everything you need to know to plan and pull off either trip.

And I’ve helped many readers of my blog plan a successful and memorable backpacking trip in the Tetons. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can do that for you.

If you’ve backpacked in the Tetons or have other thoughts or suggestions about the best backpacking trips there, I’d appreciate you sharing those in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

See the “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail.”

Death Canyon to String Lake

Having hiked and backpacked all of the side canyons that access the Teton Crest Trail from the park’s east side as well as some on the west side and the full TCT route starting from its southern terminus, my favorite Teton Crest Trail itinerary (and the one I planned for my most recent TCT hike with three friends going there for the first time) is this nearly 36-mile hike from Death Canyon Trailhead to String Lake Trailhead.

Done in anywhere from a rigorous three days to a more moderate five, this route delivers the complete Tetons experience: miles of hiking open meadows and above treeline with endless panoramas, amazing campsites, one of the highest passes crossed by a trail in the range, wildflowers in abundance, enchanting lakes, creeks, and waterfalls, and likely wildlife sightings. Hike south to north and the scenery gets better every day.

Get my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

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and the best short backpacking trip there.

Paintbrush Canyon to Cascade Canyon

The park’s most popular backpacking trip for logical reasons—scenery and access—the nearly 20-mile Paintbrush Canyon-Cascade Canyon loop from String Lake offers a highlights reel of Grand Teton National Park condensed into a two- to three-day hike (or a big dayhike or trail run). It’s probably among the most scenic sub-20-mile hikes in the National Park System and great for beginners, young families—we took our kids at ages eight and six—and any backpackers seeking a short outing.

Involving 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.

Get my e-book to this trip, “The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park.”

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Death Canyon to Static Peak Divide

This 25-mile loop from Death Canyon Trailhead will not take you through the majestic core of the Teton Range below the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons. However, it makes a circuit through some of the nicest terrain in the range, including Death Canyon Shelf—with some of the best backcountry camping along the Teton Crest Trail—Alaska Basin, some magnificent and surprisingly lonely alpine hiking, and one of the highest passes reach by trail in the range, plus the opportunity to reach an 11,000-foot summit.

From Static Peak Divide, with sweeping panorama of Jackson Hole and the southern Tetons, an unmaintained but easy trail leads about 15 minutes uphill to the 11,303-foot summit of Static Peak, where the vistas expand, including a dramatic view across an abyss to 11,938-foot Buck Mountain. Lastly, this loop is logistically simpler than many Teton backpacking trips, with no shuttle required and possibly no permit if you hike it as an overnight in Alaska Basin.

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

Granite Canyon to String Lake

The 38-mile traverse from Granite Canyon Trailhead to String Lake Trailhead is almost identical to my favorite Teton Crest Trail itinerary (described above) and arguably more tantalizing to some backpackers. It explores another of the cliff-flanked eastern canyons and more of the southern Teton Range—and offers another appealing itinerary option when seeking a permit that’s hard to get.

Granite Canyon compares with Death Canyon for scenery, camping options, and the chance of seeing moose, and this route also brings you past pretty Marion Lake, which sits in a bowl at the base of the cliffs of 10,537-foot Housetop Mountain, and the distinctive spire of Spearhead Peak, in the area where the Teton Crest Trail ascends onto the high plateau that it traverses for numerous miles all the way to Hurricane Pass.

A trip like this goes better with the right gear.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

The Full Teton Crest Trail

The Teton Crest Trail’s southern terminus is the Phillips Pass Trailhead, off WY 22 east of Teton Pass. From there, the TCT runs north for about 39 miles to the String Lake Trailhead in Grand Teton National Park. Beginning in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness, the trail passes through the much lonelier southern Teton Range—crossing Phillips Pass at 8,932 feet, the headwaters of Granite Canyon’s Middle and North Forks, Marion Lake, and Spearhead Peak, before reaching Fox Creek Pass, Death Canyon Shelf, and the better-known core of the Tetons farther north.

The southern end of the range lacks the cathedral-like skylines of the Teton core, but the landscape evokes a sense of classic, sprawling Western mountains, and much of this terrain is moose and elk country. Plus, much of the southern range lies outside the park, where no permit is needed.

Get my expert expert e-books “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail” and “The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park.”

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

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As we backpacked up the North Fork of Cascade Canyon on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park, moments after the path emerged from the forest into a meadow strewn with boulders and still dappled with blooming wildflowers in late August, my friend David turned to look over his shoulder and blurted out, “Oh, wow, look at that view!” Behind us, the sheer north faces of the Grand Teton and Mount Owen towered a vertical mile above us, shooting straight up over the canyon like fireworks (photo above).

By that point on our trip, though, uncontrolled outbursts of awe were occurring several times a day. That’s what it’s like to backpack the Teton Crest Trail.

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Three friends and I backpacked a 36-mile traverse of Grand Teton National Park, mostly on the Teton Crest Trail, in late August—in many ways, an ideal time to hike there. While I’ve backpacked the TCT several times now, it was the first time for all three of them.

Seeing the reactions of these friends—every one of them very experienced backpackers who’ve taken numerous trips with me—to the scenery along this classic trek, reaffirmed my opinion that few multi-day hikes offer so much grandeur almost every step of way like the Teton Crest Trail. But I’ll let the photos in this story make that case.

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I count the Teton Crest Trail unquestionably among the top 10 best backpacking trips in America, and two camping areas on it—where my friends and I camped on this most-recent trip—among my list of top 25 favorite backcountry campsites of all time (although, honestly, other spots where I’ve pitched a tent in this park would make almost anyone’s list). After at least two dozen trips into the backcountry of the Tetons, I can’t get enough of these sharply serrated peaks and deep, cliff-flanked canyons, the alpine lakes and icy creeks, campsites with jaw-dropping views, or the explosion of wildflowers in summer.

A Grand Teton National Park backcountry permit is one of the hardest to get in the National Park System. The park issues just one-third of available permits in advance, so two-thirds are available first-come, for walk-in backpackers, no more than one day before your trip begins. See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Get a Last-Minute, National Park Backcountry Permit” and “How to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail Without a Permit.”

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

My expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” tells you all you need to know to plan and take this trip, from how to get a very popular backcountry permit to describing the various route options and pointing out the best places to camp, as well as how to prepare for this trip.

I feel so attached to these mountains that I made a point of taking my kids there as soon as they were both capable of a trip that rugged: When our daughter was six and her brother eight, we spent three days backpacking the nearly 20-mile Paintbrush Canyon-Cascade Canyon loop from the Leigh Lake Trailhead, an adventure that concluded with a close-up sighting of two bull moose in Cascade Canyon. Two summers later, we returned for a longer family backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail.

The photos below are from my most-recent backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail.

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

See my feature story about my latest trip, “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” and all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail, including “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park.”

See also my popular “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

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The imminent end of summer always feels a little melancholy. After all, it marks the close of the prime season for getting into the mountains. But it also signals the beginning of a time of year when many mountain ranges become less crowded just as they’re hitting a sweet zone in terms of temperatures, the lack of bugs, and foliage color. Autumn also stands out as an ideal season for many Southwest hikes, with moderate temperatures and even some stunning color.

From Yosemite to Yellowstone, Grand Canyon to Grand Teton, the Great Smokies to the White Mountains and hikes that may not be on your radar, like the North Cascades (lead photo, above), Ruby Crest Trail, and several great ones in the Southwest, this story describes 15 backpacking trips that hit a nice season or their prime season sometime between mid-September through November—all of them standouts among the innumerable trips I’ve taken over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor at Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

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

Click on links below to read the feature-length stories about these trips, which contain numerous photos. While much of those individual stories is free for anyone to read, reading them in full, including my tips on planning those trips, is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. See also my expert e-books to several classic backpacking trips 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.

Don’t stay home and lament the end of summer—get out and make the most of autumn, an ideal time of year in the backcountry.

Please share your questions or suggestions for fall backpacking trips in the comments section at the bottom. I try to respond to all comments. Click any photo to read about that trip.

Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness

“Ara-what?” Yea, that was my reaction when I first heard about this place from a friend—whose tip I wisely followed. (Thanks, John.) Five of us backpacked into Aravaipa for three days, dayhiking from a base camp to explore this lushly green, 12-mile-long defile between redrock walls that reach up to 600 feet tall.

Although tiny compared to many more-famous public lands, the 19,410-acre Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness, in southeast Arizona, stands out as an anomalous Southwest oasis in the hyper-arid Sonoran Desert. Aravaipa Creek flows strongly year-round, nurturing tall cottonwood, sycamore, ash, and willow trees in the canyon bottom, while saguaro cacti grow in giant armies on the rims overhead. With easy, nearly flat hiking often in the shallow river, no water scarcity typical of Southwest desert backpacking trips, abundant shade, the low elevation and southern Arizona climate, Aravaipa offers a relatively casual and beautiful adventure in spring and fall—but fall paints the canyon in brilliant hues of red and gold.

See my story “Backpacking the Desert Oasis of Aravaipa Canyon.”

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The High Sierra

Like Yosemite (below), demand for wilderness permits throughout the High Sierra, especially in Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks and the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses, grows fierce during the summer. But most backpackers fail to realize that the real peak season for exploring the incomparable High Sierra begins in late August—when the wilting afternoon heat and ravenous mosquitoes of early to mid-summer start to abate—and often continues through September and into October.

And the options are virtually unlimited in this contiguous wilderness spreading over nearly three million acres—an ocean of jagged peaks rising as high as 14,000 feet and a constellation of shimmering alpine lakes—from weekend trips to a week or longer, including five-star section hikes of the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail or variations off them into less-well-known corners of the Sierra. After backpacking many hundreds of miles throughout the Sierra over more than three decades, I have yet to run out of great hikes to do there.

See all stories about High Sierra backpacking trips at The Big Outside, including “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “Backpacking the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know.”

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

North Cascades National Park

In the last week of September, with huckleberries ripe and tasty and the larch trees blazing yellow with fall color (lead photo at top of story), a friend and I took an 80-mile hike through the heart of the North Cascades National Park Complex, a sprawling swath of heavily glaciated mountains and thickly forested valleys. Our grand tour from Easy Pass Trailhead to Bridge Creek Trailhead took us through virgin forests of giant cedars, hemlocks, and Douglas firs, and over four passes, including Park Creek Pass, where waterfalls and glaciers pour off cliffs and jagged, snowy peaks.

We enjoyed five sunny, glorious early-fall days; but of course, snow can fall in these mountains in September, so watch the forecast. North Cascades has long been one of my favorite parks (it has one of the most inspiring backcountry campsites I’ve ever slept in). But not many backpackers know this place: It’s one of America’s least-visited national parks. That’s good if you like to have a beautiful wild place to yourself.

See my story “Primal Wild: Backpacking 80 Miles Through the North Cascades,” which has my tips on how to plan and take this trip, including shorter variations of the 80-mile route, and all stories about North Cascades National Park at The Big Outside.

I can help you plan a backpacking trip of almost any length in the North Cascades. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how.

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Owl and Fish Canyons

Like other Southwest canyon country backpacking trips, the approximately 17-mile loop through Owl and Fish Canyons in southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument features tall, red cliffs, towers, and natural arches (Nevills Arch spans 140 feet); walking up or down rippled slickrock slabs; plus flowering cacti and other prickly desert flora in spring and the greenery of cottonwoods.

Unlike other multi-day hikes in the Southwest, Owl and Fish have a surprising abundance of seasonal, clear water, creating an unexpected desert oasis—and enabling backpackers to avoid carrying an onerous burden of extra water. The hike also involves quite rugged terrain in parts of both canyons—scrambling, steep sections of loose rocks, and a bit of exposure. Hiking in one of the least-populated parts of the country, you might see the darkest night skies of your life: Sleeping out without tents, friends and I awakened after moonset to a Milky Way glowing with a rare luminescence against a coal-black sky riddled with stars.

See my story “Backpacking Southern Utah’s Owl and Fish Canyons” and all stories about Southwest backpacking trips at The Big Outside.

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.”

Ruby Crest Trail

Maybe like me, you’ve had Nevada’s Ruby Crest Trail in your sights for several years. When I finally made it there, I wondered why I’d waited so long.

The four-day, approximately 36-mile traverse of the Ruby Crest Trail goes from a high-desert landscape speckled with granite monoliths to aspen and conifer forests and alpine terrain high above treeline, with constant views of the craggy Ruby Mountains. We passed some stunning mountain lakes—one of which ranks among the prettiest backcountry lakes and best backcountry campsites I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy.

While my family backpacked the Ruby Crest Trail in mid-July, when wildflowers bloom and moderate temperatures prevail, late summer and early fall bring even greater solitude to a wilderness that sees relatively few backpackers and dayhikers compared to many parks and mountain ranges. If you’re trying to pull together a last-minute trip, the Ruby Crest Trail also offers the convenience of requiring no permit reservation.

See my story “Backpacking the Ruby Crest Trail—A Diamond in the Rough.”

I can help you plan any trip you read about at my blog. Click here to learn how.

Coyote Gulch

From one of the trailheads, you begin the roughly 15-mile hike through Coyote Gulch, in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, by crossing ancient dunes hardened to rock to stand atop a cliff overlooking redrock towers and cliffs, including massive Stevens Arch, which spans 220 feet across and 160 feet tall. From that clifftop, you scramble down to squeeze through a tight, 100-foot-long slot called Crack-in-the-Wall—which is quite fun and not as hard as you might think.

Once in Coyote Gulch, you’ll often hike directly in the mostly shallow but energetic, perennial stream that nurtures lots of greenery, while hiking below some classic features of Southwest canyons: a natural bridge, one of the region’s most distinctive natural arches—and one deeply overhung cliff with amazing echo acoustics that delighted the kids when my family and another spent three days exploring this canyon. With relatively few hazards associated with Southwest canyons, Coyote Gulch represents one of the Southwest’s most beginner-friendly backpacking trips while earning five stars for scenery.

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

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

Yellowstone National Park

Imagine this: You’re partway through a wilderness backpacking trip when you reach a natural hot spring-fed pool in the backcountry… and soak for hours. That’s what awaits you in Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon, where the famous Mr. Bubble forms a wide, hot pool at a perfect temperature for soaking.

A friend and I enjoyed a long soak in Mr. Bubble on a five-day, roughly 55-mile hike through Bechler Canyon. We also saw thunderous waterfalls and cascades along the Bechler River Trail, which also, in sections, is a quiet, tree-lined waterway with world-class trout fishing. We saw a black bear, heard elk bugling, and explored the largest backcountry geyser basin in the park—which we had almost entirely to ourselves.

September and early October are the best months to backpack in this corner of Yellowstone—after the notorious summer mosquito season, with frequently pleasant weather, when the multiple, cold fords of the Bechler get a bit lower.

See my story about that trip “In Hot (and Cold) Water: Backpacking Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon” at The Big Outside.

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Death Hollow Loop

The 22-mile Death Hollow Loop in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument begins with the Boulder Mail Trail’s wildly meandering, up-and-down route across steep-walled canyons and over a slickrock plateau of rippling Navajo Sandstone. That first day culminates at an overlook at the rim of Death Hollow that steals your breath away, right before the trail abruptly plunges to that Escalante River tributary.

On the second day’s sometimes narrow and constantly surprising descent of Death Hollow, you’ll hike in cold water ranging from ankle- to thigh-deep—provided you successfully avoid slipping into the deeper pools—while encountering a succession of terrain obstacles. (Full disclosure: The poison ivy is insane.) Then you’ll ascend the upper Escalante River canyon between soaring walls of red, brown, and cream-colored rock painted with desert varnish.

The Death Hollow Loop poses significant challenges to take seriously. But at every turn, you will stumble upon scenes as pretty as you’ll find in any canyon in the Southwest. This adventure will blow your mind.

See my story “Backpacking Utah’s Mind-Blowing Death Hollow Loop.”

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

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Unquestionably one of the East’s premier backpacking destinations, the Great Smokies have two peak seasons: spring, when about 1,600 species of flowering plants—more than found in any other national park—come into bloom; and fall, when dry air and moderate temperatures settle in, insects have mostly disappeared, and the forest paints itself in the brilliant hues of autumn foliage.

While you’ve probably seen many photos of the classic vistas from Great Smokies summits of overlapping rows of blue, wooded ridges fading to a distant horizon, I’ve found that much of the park’s magic resides in its rocky streams tumbling through cascades, and a diverse forest where you may hear only the sound of birds.

On a 34-mile, October hike in the park, beginning near Fontana Lake and traversing a stretch of the Appalachian Trail, I enjoyed a grand tour of this half-million-acre park, including 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 in the very popular fall hiking season.

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

Get the right puffy jacket to keep you warm in fall. See “The 12 Best Down Jackets.”

Yosemite National Park

Want to know the hardest thing about backpacking in Yosemite? Getting the permit. Well, okay, the hiking itself can be tough at times. But the competition for wilderness permits in this flagship park is stiff, especially for popular trailheads in and around Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows. That’s one reason why backpackers in the know go after Labor Day. Another reason is that while early-season snowstorms occasionally slam the High Sierra in autumn, nice weather often lasts through September—my favorite time in the High Sierra—and sometimes into October.

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With less demand in late summer and autumn, you can often score a last-minute permit for a five-star hike of almost any distance, hitting top Yosemite summits like Clouds Rest and Mount Hoffmann, and the incomparable Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, plus remote areas like Red Peak Pass, the highest pass reached by trail in Yosemite.

The park issues 40 percent of wilderness permits online from seven days to three days before the trip start date at recreation.gov/permits/445859. That enables backpackers who didn’t apply months ago to plan a trip about a week out and arrive at the park with the assurance of having a permit reservation. And outside the park’s popular core area between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows, a permit is much easier to get.

Then the only hard aspect of the hike will be… you got it: the hike.

See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now,” “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip,” “Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

See also my expert e-books “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” and “The Best Remote and Uncrowded Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

I’ve helped numerous readers of my blog figure out how and where they can get a last-minute, walk-in wilderness permit in Yosemite, and then laid out the route for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page.

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Grand Canyon National Park

You already know that spring and fall are the prime seasons for backpacking in the Grand Canyon. But while weather can be unstable in either season, in spring you’re aiming for a window between when snow and ice melt off the rims in April and when the scorching temps hit the inner canyon in May. In fall, though, you’ll enjoy dry trails, a surprising amount of color in the sparse desert vegetation, and pleasant temperatures often lasting into November (which was when I backpacked there with my 10-year-old daughter).

Backpacking permits for the corridor trails—the South and North Kaibab and Bright Angel—are in high demand. Sure, grab those campsites if available; but if not, I recommend the 29-mile hike from Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trailhead, or the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead—or even combining or overlapping them. Both feature sublime campsites, stretches of flatter hiking along the Tonto Trail with views reaching from the Colorado River to the South and North rims, and crossings of deep side canyons with flaming-red walls shooting straight up into the sky.

And backpackers ready for a bigger canyon route should see my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” a trip that is described in this e-book.

See “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” or scroll down to Grand Canyon on the All National Park Trips page for a menu of all stories about the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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

Grand Teton National Park

Like Yosemite and Grand Canyon, Grand Teton is a park where securing a backcountry permit reservation requires being on top of the process months in advance, applying the minute reservations open in January; most reservable backcountry camping gets booked for the entire summer typically within minutes. But the park also sets aside about two-thirds of available backcountry campsites for walk-in permits, issued up to a day in advance of a starting multi-day hike. While demand is huge for those during July and August, as with other parks, it tails off steadily after Labor Day.

The combination of relatively high elevations and a northerly latitude brings a slightly higher probability that snow will fly in the Tetons in late summer or early fall. But beautiful summer weather, with pleasant days and crisp nights, can extend into late September, a season when you’ll see aspens turn golden and hear rutting elk bugling. And fewer backpackers show up at park offices seeking a permit—you can walk in, grab one, and go.

See my stories “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,” “How to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail Without a Permit,” and all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.

See also my bestselling, expert e-books “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” and “The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park.”

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Zion National Park

Here’s what I’ve discovered about Zion in numerous visits since my first three decades ago: The more time you spend there, the more you discover there is to do—so you need to keep coming back. But exploring Zion faces seasonal limitations, especially for its two premier backpacking trips.

The North Fork of the Virgin River often runs too high in spring to make the overnight descent of The Narrows; and while much of it is shaded and cool even on summer’s hottest days, the top and bottom are exposed to the broiling sun. And he approximately 40-mile, north-south traverse of the park from the Lee Pass Trailhead in the Kolob Canyons to Zion Canyon crosses high plateaus that often remain snow-covered into May, with one creek crossing that can be challenging in the high water of spring.

But September and October offer prime conditions for these hikes—and the cottonwood trees turn golden in October. I even backpacked The Narrows with a forecast for ideal weather in early November.

See my stories “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows” and “Pilgrimage Across Zion: Traversing a Land of Otherworldly Scenery.”

Get my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Narrows in Zion National Park.”

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

White Mountains

If ever there were mountains that screamed to be explored in fall, these are those. New Hampshire’s rocky and steep White Mountains are where I wore out my first several pairs of hiking boots, and I still return every year for their awe-inspiring brand of suffering. While the fall colors that usually peak in early October are beautiful throughout the Whites, my top two picks for fall backpacking trips are a 32-mile loop around the Pemigewasset Wilderness and a 24-mile traverse from Crawford Notch to Franconia Notch, mostly on the Appalachian Trail.

The 32-mile Pemi Loop from the Lincoln Woods Trailhead on the Kancamagus Highway (NH 112) crosses eight official 4,000-foot summits, including the alpine traverse of Franconia Ridge—with its constant panorama encompassing most of the Whites—and a walk along the rocky crest of remote Bondcliff, in the heart of the Pemigewasset. Crawford to Franconia overlaps some of the Pemi Loop’s highlights, while adding killer views of Crawford and Zealand notches. (Tip: Definitely take the short side trip to the overlook at Zeacliff, photo above.) And you can add on the summits of Bond, Bondcliff, and West Bond by tacking on an out-and-back side trip that adds several miles.

See “The Best Hikes in the White Mountains,” “Still Crazy After All These Years: Hiking in the White Mountains,” and “Being Stupid With Friends: A 32-Mile Dayhike in the White Mountains,” about dayhiking the Pemi Loop.

Do you love backcountry lakes?
Check out these photos of the most gorgeous wilderness lakes I’ve ever seen.

Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail

A multi-day hike with views around almost every bend of a towering volcano draped in snow and ice, where you pass through forests of ancient, big trees—sounds like the classic Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier, right? Actually, it’s the 41-mile Timberline Trail looping Oregon’s 11,239-foot Mount Hood, and it competes with the better-known Wonderland for scenic splendor, waterfalls, and wildflower meadows, while delivering a higher degree of excitement and challenge with its full-value creek crossings. Although the wildflowers are past bloom in September, the creek crossings become reassuringly easier, the crowds thinner, the air crisper, and the views no less stunning.

Granted, the year’s first snowfall can certainly happen at Hood in September or October. That said, late summer and autumn deliver many days of glorious weather in the Pacific Northwest, and the Timberline is less than half the distance of the Wonderland, making it easier to knock off with a decent weather window. Plus, unlike the Wonderland, the Timberline involves no permit hoops to jump through. If the forecast promises a string of three to five reasonably nice days, aim your compass for the Timberline Trail.

See my story “Full of Surprises: Backpacking Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail.”

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

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So you just got the inspired idea to backpack the Teton Crest Trail and discovered you’re months late to reserve a backcountry permit. You’ve probably also learned that it’s possible to get a walk-in backcountry permit for Grand Teton National Park—but competition for those is high, especially for the camping zones along the TCT.

So you’re wondering: Is it possible to backpack the Teton Crest Trail without a permit? In a word, the answer is: yes. It’s somewhat complicated and not easy, but this story explains how to do that.

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

The Teton Crest Trail deservedly sees sky-high demand for backcountry permits. It’s unquestionably one of the 10 best backpacking trips in America, incredibly scenic virtually every step from start to finish, featuring high passes with sweeping vistas, endless meadows bursting with wildflowers, beautiful lakes, creeks, and waterfalls, a good chance of seeing wildlife like elk and moose—and some of the best campsites you will ever pitch a tent in.

I’ve taken at least two dozen trips in the Tetons and several on the Teton Crest Trail over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

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

I’ve also helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in the Tetons and elsewhere, answering all of their questions and customizing an itinerary ideal for them—whether helping them navigate applying for a backcountry permit reservation in advance or obtaining a walk-in permit. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.

Please share any thoughts, questions, or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading all of it—including my key tips on the strategy for backpacking the Teton Crest Trail without a permit—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

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It’s Probably Too Late to Reserve a Permit

In Grand Teton, for trips between May 1 and Oct. 31, permit reservations opened at recreation.gov at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Jan. 7, 2025, and can be made up to two days before your trip start date. But most reservable backcountry camping, including camping zones along the Teton Crest Trail, get booked up within minutes after the system starts accepting reservations.

Given the huge demand for reservations and the fact that they get booked up so quickly, there’s effectively just one day every year when you can reserve a permit for backpacking the Teton Crest Trail. Once reservations close in May, the only option left is a walk-in permit.

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You Can Get a Walk-In Permit

Like virtually all national parks, Grand Teton National Park has a walk-in or first-come backcountry permit option that allows you to grab a last-minute permit, without a reservation, based on availability, no more than a day in advance of starting a multi-day hike in the park’s backcountry. Grand Teton National Park sets aside two-thirds of backcountry campsites for walk-in permits—a higher portion than most major parks.

Getting a walk-in permit isn’t impossible—numerous backpackers get one every summer. But it requires some flexibility in your schedule and a willingness to accept whatever camping zones have availability when you arrive at a park backcountry desk to speak to a ranger. Plan to arrive hours before the backcountry desk opens (they’re located in park visitor centers) to get a spot near the front of the line that inevitably forms in the wee hours. You might not get the itinerary you want.

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

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How to Backpack the TCT Without a Permit

To backpack the Teton Crest Trail legally without a permit you must camp every night outside Grand Teton National Park. And don’t poach backcountry camping in the park without a permit. Backcountry rangers patrol and getting caught risks a penalty and I can tell you from personal experience (long ago), it’s embarrassing.

Fortunately, the TCT wanders in and out of park boundaries and signs along trails clearly indicate when you’re crossing a park boundary. The challenge is that you must be able to hike at least one big day to link up campsites outside the park, particularly through the TCT’s northern stretch—which harbors the most glorious hiking on the trail.

Here’s how to do that.

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail.
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Grand Teton National Park requires storing food in a hard-sided bear canister; although you’re not subject to park regulations when camping outside the park, a canister still offers the best protection. See my favorite bear canister in my review of essential backpacking gear accessories.

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

And see all stories about backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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Wildflowers bloom in colorful abundance, vast fields of lupine, columbine, and geraniums as we hike the steeper switchbacks in upper Death Canyon to reach Fox Creek Pass, at nearly 9,600 feet in Grand Teton National Park. It’s the last week of August, in time to catch the wildflowers even as a hint of fall hangs in the air: A cool wind has blown so hard all morning, the credulous might suspect it possesses sentience and a will to launch us airborne all the way to Colorado.

But the bright sunshine bathes us in warmth—and we are, after all, taking our first steps on one of the great multi-day hikes in America: the Teton Crest Trail.

As has been the case virtually every time I’ve wandered through these mountains, the Tetons have already given me several reminders on our trek’s first day that memory is flawed, and this trip will repeatedly inspire moments of fresh awe, as if I’m seeing these vistas for the first time. I will also come upon many familiar scenes that feel like I’m visiting with an old and dear friend.

It always feels good to be back on the Teton Crest Trail.

I’ve returned with three friends who are longtime companions of mine on adventures of many kinds, Todd Arndt, David Gordon, and Jeff Wilhelm. But by strange coincidence, none of them have backpacked here before. Over and above the pure joy of walking this trail again, I’ll get the bonus pleasure of seeing these mountains through their eyes.

Today is our first day of a three-day traverse, following an itinerary I designed around my desire to spend our nights in two favorite backcountry camping zones, Death Canyon Shelf and the North Fork of Cascade Canyon (both of which grace my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites).

We follow the TCT along Death Canyon Shelf, a broad, alpine plateau at around 9,500 feet and one of the trail’s highlights—which seems a bold claim, since the entire trail unspools a nearly constant highlights reel. But the Shelf lies between a three-mile-long escarpment of cliffs towering above us on one side, and the deep, striking, five-mile-long trench of Death Canyon to the other side. Meanwhile, straight ahead of us, the jagged summits of the core peaks in the range, the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons, rise in the distance like a beckoning star.

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A short walk from a spring-fed creek that has diminished to a trickle in the dry conditions of late summer, we find a couple of spots for our tents. Strong gusts of wind signal cooler temps arriving tonight or tomorrow, although we have three bluebird days ahead of us.

As we watch the light of a falling sun paint the mountains a fiery red-orange, three or four deer wander our perimeter, grazing, including a buck with a four-point rack, who returns all night and the next morning. His nocturnal visits conjure a memory of my first-ever night sleeping on the Shelf, when a clattering outside my tent prompted me to stick my head out to see a huge bull elk standing just a few steps away, staring back at me.

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Death Canyon Shelf to North Fork Cascade Canyon

A few hours into our second day, we leave crystal-clear Sunset Lake behind and begin a steady but gradual uphill climb on the Crest Trail. All around us, perhaps the densest concentration of wildflowers we’ve seen so far carpets the ground of this almost tree-less, alpine plateau. Once again, I have to marvel at how much more beautiful this section of the trail is than my memory of it.

As we gain elevation, the Grand Teton’s pointed crown pokes up above the plateau’s horizon. Then the Middle Teton eases into view, followed minutes later by the South Teton. Finally, the four of us stroll across level ground to reach Hurricane Pass at over 10,500 feet, overlooking those three crown peaks that share the same last name. Below us, in the South Fork of Cascade Canyon, forest intermingles with boulder gardens flanked by cliffs, a terrain scoured by glaciers that have all but disappeared as mountain snow and ice steadily diminish due to the escalating speed of climate change.

Click here now to get my e-guide “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail.”

Not far down the TCT from the pass, we walk a faint but visible path to the brink of a cliff directly above the cracked face of the Schoolroom Glacier—a tiny remnant of the river of ice that clearly once filled much of this canyon. The Schoolroom flows into an iceberg-choked, emerald glacial lake—no more than a small pond, really—enclosed almost entirely by the rock and dirt walls of a moraine, except where the wall of the moraine opposite the glacier has eroded, creating an outlet creek.

Afternoon slides toward evening as we descend the South Fork Cascade Canyon, passing waterfalls and long cascades of thunderous, foaming water. About halfway up the North Fork Cascade camping zone, after the long dusk of a canyon bottom has settled in, we find an empty campsite.

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

For the next three hours, we sit on a rock slab at the edge of our site with an unobstructed view down the canyon, watching alpenglow slowly set ablaze the Grand Teton and Mount Owen, looking like stone giants framed by the canyon.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve traveled through the backcountry of the Tetons, perhaps 20 or more trips if I include every time I’ve backpacked, taken a long dayhike, climbed, backcountry skied, or paddled a canoe on one of the park’s lakes.

But I can say this much with certainty: I’ve been here enough times that if it was possible to get tired of these mountains, it would have happened to me by now. It’s not possible.

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The Best Backpacking Trip in America?

Not long after we hit the trail early on our final morning, hiking in the chilly shade of the North Fork of Cascade Canyon, I look up when David whispers from a short distance ahead and points. A hundred yards or so from us, in a meadow speckled with wildflowers, a huge bull moose saunters in search of breakfast. He pauses to return our stare, but loses interest in us well before we reciprocate.

Thanks to our early departure from camp, we’re the first people at Lake Solitude—enjoying a true period of “solitude” at this spot that’s enormously popular with dayhikers. Another direct benefit of rising with the birds: In the calm air of morning, the lake lies as still as a sheet of glass, reflecting in sharp detail a cirque of cliffs, rocky mountainsides, and lingering patches of old snow. On a spit of granite jutting into the lake—and temps not exactly warm, although the sun beats warmly on us—Todd leaps into the frigid water.

Then we begin the long climb to Paintbrush Divide.

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That first full day was a hard one.

We had hiked less than an hour into the backcountry of Grand Teton National Park the night before, camping in the dense forest surrounding Phelps Lake, where we saw mule deer grazing at dusk and the wind howled through the dark night. In the morning, probably tired from the long previous day of traveling to Jackson, we got a slow start under packs heavy with too much old, oversize gear. The sun starts baking the open lower section of the Death Canyon Trail by mid-morning; so our gorgeous hike beneath soaring granite cliffs and along a roaring cascade quickly also became a hot, dusty climb.

Death Canyon is not the kind of place its name conjures. One of the several major east-west-oriented canyons carved deeply into the eastern front of the Tetons, pouring creeks into Jackson Hole and the Snake River, Death Canyon abounds with life. We saw deer, moose, lots of birds, and black bear scat. On the long ascent of the canyon’s headwall to Fox Creek Pass, we practically waded through vast meadows of wildflowers.

And it only got better from there. Knackered from the miles and the alpine sun and not yet acclimated to the high elevations, we nonetheless felt pulled along the Teton Crest Trail over Death Canyon Shelf, a 9,500-foot bench sandwiched between a three-mile-long, 500-foot-tall cliff and the deep trench of Death Canyon. Boulders as big as small houses lay strewn about this tableland, their sides and edges so neatly squared off they look quarried. After pitching our tents near the rim of Death Canyon, with a view of the jagged Tetons unlike anything these native Easterners had seen before, we tried bouldering on those massive rocks, but discovered they had edges that sliced like razors.

After watching the sunset slowly paint the peaks golden, we turned in for a well-earned crash. But one of the locals decided to interrupt our rest. During the night, I heard heavy clomping just outside our tents, and unzipped the door to see a bull elk almost close enough to lean out and touch it, staring back at us as if trying to discern what manner of beast lay before him. In the frosty early morning, we sat on the rim of Death Canyon with binoculars, counting upwards of a dozen moose several hundred feet below us on the canyon floor.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. 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 to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

I fell in love with the Tetons on that first visit, almost 20 years ago, when three old friends and I backpacked from Death Canyon Trailhead to Leigh Lake Trailhead, including a stretch of the Teton Crest Trail. It’s step for step one of the most gorgeous mountain walks in America, a true classic offering all the elements of an unforgettable adventure: views of the incomparable skyline of the Tetons and deep, wide, glacier-scoured canyons flanked by enormous cliffs; wonderful campsites, wildflowers, mountain lakes and creeks; and a good chance of seeing moose, elk, marmots, pikas, mule deer, and black bears.

That’s why I keep coming back.

Click here now to get my e-guide The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail.

Alaska Basin, Cascade Canyon

Incredibly, the scenery kept improving as we hiked north, following the Teton Crest Trail across the polished granite slabs of Alaska Basin. At Sunset Lake, I noticed the pointed crown of the Grand Teton jutting up above a notch in a band of cliffs rising over the lake. That view stuck with me, and every time I’ve passed that spot since, I’ve looked for the Grand peeking at me through that notch.

We paused for a long look from 10,372-foot Hurricane Pass at the tiny Schoolroom Glacier and the green speck of its meltwater lake, and the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons lording high above the enormous cliffs and patches of green in the South Fork of Cascade Canyon. Years later, on another hike through that canyon, I would notice dirty glacial ice visible in cracks in the dirt and rocks covering much of the barren uppermost reaches of the canyon, the buried ice extending well beyond the Schoolroom’s obvious boundaries.

Near a campsite in the South Fork, we shivered in an icy creek and watched whistling marmots scurry around on talus. From our campsite in the South Fork, we hiked out-and-back up to Avalanche Divide, another pass well over 10,000 feet, overlooking the emerald waters of Snowdrift Lake in Avalanche Canyon, below the long, formidable cliff band identified on maps simply as The Wall.

We then knocked off the toughest day of our journey, going from the South Fork of Cascade over to Paintbrush Canyon, including the hot, arduous climb over 10,700-foot Paintbrush Divide. But on a trip where the scenery just seems to keep getting better every day, this day may have been the zenith. We cooled off—actually, went mildly hypothermic—in Lake Solitude. And we managed to avoid tripping and falling off the trail zigzagging up out of the North Fork of Cascade Canyon, despite the distraction of staring down that U-shaped glacial trough at the arrowheads of the Grand Teton and Mts. Owen and Teewinot rising more than a vertical mile above it.

On our last night in the Tetons, camped in Paintbrush Canyon below cliffs streaked with geologic strata, I lay awake for I’m not sure how long, listening to tremendous gusts building from high above us and growing in volume for several seconds before slamming into our trembling tents with a roar like a train passing close by. I had not yet heard the term katabatic winds, but when later I learned what it meant, I remembered that night.

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

The Crest of the Tetons

The Teton Crest Trail presents a couple of innocent deceptions. First of all, it does not stick to the Teton crest, if there even is one contiguous crest linking these densely packed spires and boulder heaps. That would require rock-climbing gear, advanced skills, and a high degree of emotional comfort with seeing a couple thousand feet of air beneath your heels. But the Tetons do follow a north-south orientation that, at least on a map, forms something of a crest. And the Teton Crest Trail follows the course of the range, mostly sticking to alpine terrain, but also traveling through two of the most spectacular clefts ever carved into granite, Cascade Canyon’s north and south forks.

The other misleading notion is calling the trip a trek of the Teton Crest Trail—it’s merely a good, simplified description and the name approximately describes the journey. But it is not strictly that; because the TCT lies deep in the mountains, hiking it requires linking with other trails as well. The good news is the variety of options for trips of different length and character created by accessing the TCT via trails leading up some of the range’s parallel, roughly east-west canyons. Granite, Open, Death, the main Cascade, and Paintbrush Canyons are all worthy destinations, as are the canyons in the adjacent national forest land that access the trail, including Phillips, Moose, and Teton. Or begin at the southern terminus of the TCT, off WY 22 just east of Teton Pass. You may discover, like me, that one hike here is like one potato chip: not nearly enough.

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Can’t Get Enough

Since that first trip, I’ve returned to the Tetons some 20 times—and counting—backpacking, climbing, backcountry skiing, and taking long dayhikes on pieces of the Teton Crest Trail and the various feeder trails that access it. One of the most enjoyable was one of my most recent: taking my kids, then age eight and six, on a three-day loop of Paintbrush and Cascade Canyons—their first backpacking trip in the Tetons—capped off with a sighting of two big bull moose on our last day.

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After so many visits, I still haven’t grown jaded about these mountains—I can’t seem to get enough of them. There are peaks and climbs still on my tick list, and hikes I want to repeat with my children. I’ve explored many corners of the range, but still consider a multi-day trip on the Teton Crest Trail one of the finest adventures in America.

Tell me what you think.

I spent a lot of time writing this story, so if you enjoyed it, please consider giving it a share using one of the buttons at right, and leave a comment or question at the bottom of this story. I’d really appreciate it.

See my story “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail” and my story about backpacking a section of the Teton Crest Trail with my family and a couple of friends. And get my e-guide The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail.

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Take This Trip: The Teton Crest Trail

THIS TRIP IS GOOD FOR beginner to intermediate backpackers with a moderate level of fitness—the more fit, the more you’ll enjoy the harder days. Backpacking experience is less critical because trails are obvious and well-marked, so anyone capable of reading a map won’t get lost. Challenges include potential afternoon thunderstorms, acclimating to elevations generally between 8,000 and nearly 11,000 feet, and protecting your food from black bears (see Concerns below).

See my expert tips in “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking” and my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking.”

Find menus of gear reviews, expert buying tips, and best-in-category reviews like “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and “The 10 Best Down Jackets” at my Gear Reviews page.

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The moose cow and her calf block the trail, staring back at us with expressions that I swear look like confusion over what to do. So the feeling is mutual. They were coming down, we were going up, and now none of us are moving. With steep, rocky, wooded terrain on either side, we backpack-carrying humans aren’t interested in an off-trail detour. The moose don’t seem enthusiastic about that option at the moment, either.

We appear to be at a standoff.

Mike Baron, one of my oldest friends and first backpacking partners—and one of the friends with whom I first backpacked this very trail to Death Canyon in Grand Teton National Park almost 20 years ago—looks at me and says, with a grin, “What do we do?”

I smile, shrug, and tell him, “We wait.”

We’re just a few miles into one of the greatest multi-day treks in America, backpacking for four days from Death Canyon Trailhead to Jenny Lake in the Tetons, a 27.1-mile traverse that takes in some of the most scenic miles of the classic Teton Crest Trail. Our group includes my wife, Penny, our 10-year-old son, Nate, and eight-year-old daughter, Alex, and another longtime friend, Diane Tompkins.

But actually, that’s just a superficial description of our itinerary. On a deeper level, we four adults are retracing old footsteps through mountains as full of memories for us as our packs are full of gear and food. Meanwhile, my kids are making new prints beside ours, embarked on a metaphorical path they will follow far beyond these four days. So in a sense, one long journey continues while a newer, parallel journey is just getting underway.

It’s mid-morning on our second day. We met up in Jackson yesterday with Diane and Mike—who had both flown in the night before, from opposite ends of the country—and shuttled one vehicle to Jenny Lake. We then set out from Death Canyon Trailhead in the cool shade of early evening for the 1.6-mile hike in to Phelps Lake at 6,633 feet, where we pitched tents and ate dinner after dark. We awoke to a perfectly still morning, with the lake like a deep-blue glass eye reflecting the dense pine forest ringing it and the cliffs and jagged peaks above. Now, an hour after hitting the trail, we run into this roadblock.

The moose cow and calf keep us waiting for about 15 minutes before finally turning and crashing downhill through the trees—amazing Nate and Alex with their surefootedness on this steep mountainside. Then we bipeds continue up the trail, under a warm sun and bulletproof blue sky, in comfortably cool alpine air, into the broad bottom of Death Canyon.

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We hike up the five-mile-long canyon, through pine forest and vast fields of blooming lupine, columbine, geraniums, and loveage that run up to the base of long cliff bands. After a steep climb to Fox Creek Pass at 9,600 feet, we follow the Teton Crest Trail north onto Death Canyon Shelf. A quarter-mile wide, 3.5-mile-long plateau at about 9,500 feet, nearly treeless and littered with truck-size boulders, it’s one of my favorite backcountry spots to camp in the Tetons. Cliffs rise 500 feet tall on one side, and on the other, the earth falls away precipitously several hundred feet into Death Canyon. The nearby spire of 10,131-foot Spearhead Peak pierces the sky to the south, and several miles to the north—where we’re headed tomorrow—the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons and their neighboring peaks look like a skyline of incisors.

Less than a mile beyond the pass, we park at established campsites perched on the rim overlooking Death Canyon, with sweeping views of mountains. We’ve hiked nearly 12 miles today and climbed 3,000 feet, but Alex and Nate head immediately for the nearby creek to float sticks down it. We adults pitch tents and make dinner while the evening sunlight sets the peaks and streaks of clouds above them ablaze.

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On that first Tetons backpacking trip with Mike two decades ago, four of us camped our second night up here on the shelf. We awoke during the night to the sound of clomping outside our tents, peered through the mesh doors, and saw a bull elk standing just a few steps away in the milky glow of a bright moon.

That image has stuck in my head since, though it now shares a crowded space in memory with snippets from at least 16 or 17 other trips in these mountains. I’ve backpacked several times, taken 20-mile dayhikes, climbed several peaks, skied the backcountry, paddled a canoe on the park’s lakes—the list goes on. Penny and Diane have climbed and backpacked with me on some of my earliest visits. This is Mike’s first time back since that baptismal hike 20 years ago, which triggered something in me that keeps pulling me back. Alex and Nate are here for the second time; two years ago, we canoed and camped on Jackson Lake and backpacked the Paintbrush-Cascade canyons loop. Their box of just-started memories includes playing at the edge of the rushing creek in North Fork Cascade Canyon, and me prying a leech from between Alex’s toes at our campsite on Jackson Lake.

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Penny and I share with Diane and Mike the rare kind of friendship hewn from both the best of times and the worst of times endured together, a bond polished by decades. We rarely see one another more than once a year, and sometimes—for no better reason than the frantic pace of everyday life—go a few years without getting together. And yet every reunion has the same easy intimacy of days long past when we saw each other regularly. Talking with such friends feels like settling back into your favorite big, old chair and putting your feet up—you drop your guard and get ready for a lot of laughing.

On our third morning—sunny and calm again, a weather pattern that will hold up for all four days of this hike—the kids play by the creek more while the adults pack up, and then we continue north on the Teton Crest Trail. Wildflowers carpet the ground—marsh marigold, arrowleaf balsamroot, more lupine, and others—all the way across the shelf. Through sheer luck, we apparently timed this mid-August trip for the bloom’s peak, which came a bit late this summer because of the heavy snowfall of the past winter and spring. As we walk, the Grand Teton and its satellite peaks steadily loom larger.

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After lunch, we reach a calf-deep creek in Alaska Basin with a bridge of steppingstones across it. After I cross with Alex, Diane attempts to throw Alex’s stuffed dog over to me. But Diane’s effort wouldn’t win her a spot on any softball team: She slam-dunks one of my daughter’s favorite companions straight into the swiftly moving waters. Instead of getting upset, Alex calmly grabs a stick to catch her animal before it gets swept away—and leads all of us laughing at Diane’s comically pathetic toss. Nate and Alex will retell this story for weeks and months afterward; I expect they’ll remind Diane about every time they see her for years to come.

In the open meadows surrounding Sunset Lake, I look up at a sight I remember from 20 years ago and have looked for every time I’ve walked this trail since: the Grand Teton’s pointed crown peeking through a notch in cliffs to the northeast. Beyond the lake, we begin a long ascent on the Teton Crest Trail to our route’s high point, at just over 10,500 feet, about 10 minutes south of Hurricane Pass. The ragged crest of Battleship Mountain—another landmark I always look for—rises above the plateau.

We pause for photos at Hurricane Pass, with the Grand, Middle, and South Tetons towering overhead, looking close enough to touch. Nearing the end of what will be a nine-mile day, our group’s looking a little weary. Then we descend past the tiny, emerald lake at the toe of the equally tiny Schoolroom Glacier—the lake still mostly covered with ice and snow in the middle of August—into the South Fork of Cascade Canyon. We grab one of the first campsites we come upon, with big boulders, a grove of pines, two nearby creeks wallpapered with wildflowers, and a 360-degree panorama of granite cliffs.

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I thought about getting up an hour and a half earlier than everyone else to hike the spur trail that begins near our campsite and climbs 1.8 miles south, across a granite wonderland, to Avalanche Divide at 10,680 feet. From that saddle, you overlook Avalanche Canyon, where the rocky walls of the South Teton, Veiled Peak, and Mt. Wister frame the electrically blue-green waters of Snowdrift Lake. Also from that pass, you can look back down the cliff-lined South Fork of Cascade Canyon.

Avalanche is one of the few Teton canyons draining east into Jackson Hole that has no maintained trail, so it is rarely visited. I’ve hiked down and up it on two different occasions; it offers a glimpse of what it must have been like to explore the Tetons before the area was settled.

The good segment of footpath to Avalanche Divide has an interesting history, too: It was part of the Skyline Trail linking the South Fork of Cascade to Alaska Basin across the head of Avalanche Canyon. The trail was abandoned many years ago, apparently because snow frequently covered the stretch in Avalanche all summer. Today, not a trace of the trail remains in Avalanche Canyon, but you can easily follow this segment in the upper South Fork, which appears on maps. I’ve also hiked the still-visible remnant—not shown on maps—that leads from an unmarked junction with the Alaska Basin Trail to a high, unnamed pass at the south end of the cliff band called The Wall, above Snowdrift Lake.

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But this morning, the last of our trip, my warm bag feels too comfortable to leave, so I sleep in.

We have nearly nine miles to hike to catch the ferry across Jenny Lake, descending the South Fork of Cascade Canyon through cool forest below neck-craning cliffs, passing cascades still roaring with snowmelt, to Cascade Canyon, with its waterfalls and rows of towering peaks on both sides. Two summers ago, on our last afternoon backpacking the Paintbrush-Cascade loop, we saw two bull moose in Cascade Canyon—something my kids have not forgotten. We don’t see any moose today. But I point out to Nate and Alex some rock climbers on a cliff called Guides Wall that I’ve been up a couple of times, and they ask me to take them up it someday. I promise them I’ll be looking forward to it.

Walking down Cascade Canyon under a hot sun on our last afternoon, with my wife and kids and two old friends, I realize we’ve closed a circle: We have tied together the loose ends of many old memories with these first new memories being created for my kids. I like that idea a lot.

See also my story “American Classic: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail” and all of my stories about the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.

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Take This Trip: The Teton Crest Trail

THIS TRIP IS GOOD FOR beginner to intermediate backpackers with a moderate level of fitness—the more fit, the more you’ll enjoy the harder days. Backpacking experience is less critical because trails are obvious and well-marked, so anyone capable of reading a map won’t get lost. Challenges include potential afternoon thunderstorms, acclimating to elevations generally between 8,000 and nearly 11,000 feet, and protecting your food from black bears (see Concerns below).

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