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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Grand Tour of Yosemite

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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Two Hikes in Glacier National Park

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

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Teton Crest Trail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

The Wonderland Trail

Distance: 93 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 4

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

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

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

Zion’s Narrows

Distance: 16 miles
Difficulty: 2

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

John Muir Trail

Distance: 221 miles
Difficulty: 4

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

South Kaibab to Lipan Point, Grand Canyon

Distance: 74 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

The Southern Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles
Difficulty: 2

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

Honestly, nothing.

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

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

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

The Wind River Range

Distance: multiple routes and distances
Difficulty: 3 to 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

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

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

Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

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

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

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An elegant, high-elevation, multi-day walk through a magnificent mountain range is the stuff of dreams for many backpackers, and there may be no walk better than the Wind River High Route. Traversing a range with few equals by any measure—elevations, abundance of alpine lakes and glaciers, remoteness, length and breadth, or raw splendor—the WRHR embodies everything we imagine a great hike in the mountains should be.

There are multiple, high, largely off-trail traverses of the range that have been described as the “Wind River High Route.” In August 2020, three friends and I backpacked the route that appears to gaining popularity, mapped by the long-distance backpacker Andrew Skurka. It traces a roughly 96-mile, south-north course that weaves back and forth across the Continental Divide about a dozen times, 65 miles of which is off-trail, with more than 30,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain and loss.

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Almost relentlessly rugged and physically and mentally taxing, with navigational challenges, and mile-for-mile arguably the most jaw-dropping trek through any mountain range in America—and I’ve taken many of the very best over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—the WRHR stays mostly between 10,000 and 12,000 feet on or near the Continental Divide.

It crosses 10 named alpine passes ranging from nearly 11,000 feet to nearly 13,000 feet—nine of them off-trail—and tags the southernmost and northernmost 13,000-foot summits in the Wind River Range, 13,192-foot Wind River Peak and 13,355-foot Downs Mountain.

It passes countless alpine lakes while crossing one amazing valley or cirque after another—and confronting you with what can seem like endless miles of talus, scree, some snow and glacial ice and a bit of third-class scrambling, but no technical terrain. For its entire length, it crosses no roads, rarely even coming within a moderate day’s hike of the nearest road.

In all respects, the Wind River High Route offers one of the most remote, arduous, and glorious wilderness adventures anywhere.

In this story, I share photos from our August 2020 weeklong traverse of the Wind River High Route. Read my feature story about this trip “Adventure and Adversity on the Wind River High Route” (which requires a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my insights on planning that trip).

If you have any questions or comments about this hike or the Winds in general, please share them in the Comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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After reaching the summit of 13,192-foot Wind River Peak—the southernmost 13,000-footer in the Winds—on our second morning, we tackled perhaps the most difficult and dangerous section of the Wind River High Route: the very steep and loose descent of West Gully (photo above). With virtually every step downhill landing on unstable boulders, talus, and scree, we had to stay focused for the entire two-and-a-half hours it took us to get down it. Still, we had two near-misses, with one boulder tumbling past a member of our group, and another member slipping in a thin stream of water running over a slab and nearly sliding over the brink of a short cliff.

Early on our third morning, we crossed Jackass Pass (photo above), at just under 10,800 feet, gateway to the world-famous Cirque of the Towers—and the only one of 10 named alpine passes we crossed on the Wind River High Route that was on trail. I’ve hiked over Jackass Pass several times over the years, climbing in the Cirque and on a 27-mile, east-west dayhike across the Winds, and this view never fails to steal my breath away.

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Many miles and hours later on day three, as evening set in, we hiked and scrambled over huge boulders and talus en route to Raid Peak Pass at around 11,600 feet (photo above). That afternoon, we had hiked off-trail up the valley of the East Fork River, soaking in frigid pools between stunning cascades tumbling over granite slabs in the river, and walking below one towering cliff after another (lead photo at top of story). After crossing Raid Peak Pass, we carefully found a safe route down steep and exposed rock slabs and made camp in the Bonneville Lakes basin around 7 p.m., 12 hours after we started that day’s hiking.

After climbing steeply from our camp in the Bonneville Lakes basin to Sentry Peak Pass on our fourth morning, we traversed another stunning valley (photo above) past Middle Fork Lake en route to Photo Pass, the second of three tough ascents on that long day. A little while before shooting this photo, we passed a family at their campsite by Middle Fork Lake, who had impressively backpacked in some 20 miles with two young children to reach this lonely valley.

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On our fifth afternoon, we spent hours scrambling over talus and snow traversing the stark valley of the Alpine Lakes—a dramatic rockscape almost devoid of greenery and guarded on both flanks by soaring cliffs and at both ends by passes well over 11,000 feet. Reaching our second off-trail pass of that day, Alpine Pass at about 12,150 feet, we overlooked yet another stark landscape of rock and snow and a long descent (photo above) before we made camp in grassy meadows.

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

I’ll remember that fifth day traversing the Alpine Lakes basin, crossing Alpine Lakes Pass and the long descent over rocks and snow on its north side as one of the most glorious on the Wind River High Route. To cap it off perfectly, after the sun set behind the towering wall of peaks to our west, we reached grassy meadows in the wind-scoured, treeless valley beyond the pass and called it a night at what may have been our best campsite of the trip (photo above), listening to the roar of the South Fork of Bull Lake Creek below us.

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Even on a trip with long, hard days, day six was huge. Hiking shortly after 6 a.m., we forded the North Fork Bull Lake Creek in a stunning valley below 13,810-foot Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest, followed by a tough, 2,000-foot ascent over talus, snow, and scree to 12,750-foot Blaurock Pass, one of the highest on the WRHR. Then came another long, hard downhill and ascent to West Sentinel Pass at around 11,900 feet—where, now on the most remote, northern section of the WRHR, we crossed a few glaciers, beginning with the Gannett Glacier (photo above).

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range.”

On our final day on the Wind River High Route, we departed our camp near Baker and Iceberg lakes and hiked over a plateau at around 13,000 feet toward 13,355-foot Downs Mountain. Even in August, the wind blew cold, but an alpine sun under bluebird skies helped warm us. As we traversed the final stretch of high terrain along the Wind River High Route, I turned around to capture an image of one of my companions with the mountains we’d crossed over the past couple of days spreading out behind him (photo above).

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In the West Gully of 13,192-foot Wind River Peak, a steep bowling alley of loose scree and boulders that look poised to roll into someone’s femur and crack it like a peanut shell, four of us move cautiously downhill, searching for the safest path through one of the most hazardous stretches of the 96-mile Wind River High Route.

With every other step triggering a small rockslide, there’s little opportunity to relax our focus for a moment. We walk with patient deliberation. The descent grows relentless.

Nearing the bottom of the gully, I step gingerly onto a large rock—it must easily weigh 300 pounds—and inadvertently kick it loose. As it tumbles downhill, I yell at Joe, who’s just below me, “Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!” He turns as it rolls past his leg, missing him by inches.

But this will be only our first close call today.

Maybe 30 minutes later, moments before reaching Lake 11,185 in the valley bottom, I start across a sloping granite slab. A wafer-thin snowmelt stream a little too wide to leap over pours down the slab and plunges over a short waterfall—a sheer drop of perhaps 15 feet onto rocks awaiting anyone slipping here. I eyeball the stream, place a foot on a tiny dry spot in the middle of it, and then stride across to the other side. 

Out of habit, I turn to watch Kristian, who’s behind me, cross the water slick. 

He takes one step, slips on the wet rock and goes down, suddenly sliding out of control. Instinctively, I crouch at the stream’s edge and reach toward him—and we lock hands and forearms just before he whips past. With our arms still locked, he carefully rises to his feet and steps onto dry rock. And we both exhale loudly, our eyes wide as dinner plates.

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Indeed, with our 2,000-foot descent of West Gully finally behind us—after two-and-a-half mentally grueling hours—the sense of relief feels palpable.

I’ve joined my Boise friend Justin Glass, his brother-in-law Joe Souvignier, and Justin’s friend Kristian Blaich on a 96-mile, south-to-north traverse of the Wind River High Route, 65 miles of which is off-trail.

Weaving back and forth across the Continental Divide about a dozen times, the WRHR stays mostly between 10,000 and 12,000 feet, crosses 10 named alpine passes ranging from nearly 11,000 feet to nearly 13,000 feet—nine of them off-trail—and tags the southernmost and northernmost 13,000-foot summits in the Wind River Range, 13,192-foot Wind River Peak and 13,355-foot Downs Mountain.

Rugged, physically and mentally strenuous, and navigationally challenging almost without relent, it’s also arguably, mile-for-mile, the most jaw-dropping trek through any mountain range in America—and I’ve taken many of the very best over the past three decades, including 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

And now, on our second afternoon on the Wind River High Route, it has already become abundantly clear that it promises a constant stream of adventure seasoned with hazard.

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The Wind River High Route

“It’s like having your own Yosemite with nobody here.”

Justin says this as we gaze at a miles-long chain of granite towers with vertical, 2,000-foot faces looming above the broad valley of the East Fork River—including 12,532-foot Raid Peak and other summits unnamed on the map. We’re hiking off-trail up the valley through open meadows on our third afternoon on the Wind River High Route. 

Just a shallow but energetic creek up here near its headwaters, the East Fork leaps over dozens of small cascades and waterfalls and swirls through granite bowls. Before long, tired of merely look at the crystalline creek, we shed our packs and clothes and each find a pool to fully immerse ourselves in the frigid water. It feels marvelous.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range.”

We began this day in the cool air of early morning with the ascent to a windy Jackass Pass at 10,790 feet, reaching it at 7 a.m. There, under bluebird skies, we stared at the jagged, granite skyline of the Cirque of the Towers, golden in the low-angle sunlight. After descending several hundred feet to circle around Lonesome Lake, we made a long, steep, off-trail hike and scramble over New York Pass at around 11,400 feet. The gully descent on the other side seemed like a playground compared to West Gully on Wind River Peak. Then we spent a few hours hiking trails and seeing perhaps a few dozen backpackers before turning off-trail again into the solitude of the East Fork River Valley.

We’re now far enough into the WRHR to have wrapped our heads around the totality of its character, from the myriad challenges and unrelenting strenuousness of it to grandness on a scale rarely matched anywhere.

Traversing a range with few equals in the country by any measure—elevations, abundance of alpine lakes and glaciers, remoteness, length and breadth, or raw splendor—the Wind River High Route embodies everything we imagine a great hike in the mountains should be.

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It passes countless alpine lakes while crossing one amazing valley or cirque after another—and confronting you with what can seem like endless miles of talus, scree, some snow and glacial ice and a bit of third-class scrambling, but no technical terrain. For its entire length, it stays on or near the Continental Divide, rarely coming within a day’s hike of the nearest road.

In all respects, the Wind River High Route offers one of the most remote, arduous, and glorious wilderness adventures anywhere.

At Lake 10,586, the uppermost of a string of liquid pearls in the East Fork Valley, we commence a 1,000-foot ascent over talus and boulders the size of cars to Raid Peak Pass, at around 11,600 feet—our third high pass today. With the aim of completing the 96-mile Wind River High Route in a week—an aggressive itinerary even if this route wasn’t two-thirds off-trail—we’re putting in 12- and 13-hour days that average nearly 14 miles and several thousand vertical feet.

Crossing Raid Peak Pass as the sun sinks toward the horizon, we scramble through cliff bands down to the Bonneville Basin Lakes. There, in fading light and cool wind, we pitch our tents at 7 p.m.—12 hours after we started hiking.

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Huge, Hard Days

In a sharp-edged wind that nips at our faces, we stand on rocky, mostly barren tundra at around 11,600 feet, staring at a topographical puzzle. Ahead of us, the ground rises like an earthen wave, steepening to what looks from this distance very much like a cliff standing between us and 12,259-foot Europe Peak.

Somewhere on that wall—which has already fallen into evening shadow—the Wind River High Route weaves through ledges and breaks in cliff bands to gain the high plateau above it, where we hope to find water and a place to pitch our tents for our fourth night on the WRHR.

As we did yesterday, we’re embarking on our third hard climb today: We’ve already made a couple of steep, off-trail grinds to Sentry Peak Pass at nearly 11,600 feet and Photo Pass at over 11,400 feet. In the valley beyond Photo Pass, we ate up more than an hour locating the route through convoluted terrain, bushwhacking through forest and scrambling ledges around high lakes, but ultimately reaching the alpine zone at the base of Europe Peak.

Now, where Europe Peak’s east face steepens, we zigzag along ledges and scramble carefully up gullies of crumbling rock to reach the Continental Divide at around 12,000 feet north of Europe Peak, and then walk down a broad, gently rolling alpine plateau. Around 8 p.m., we find tiny patches of nearly flat, not-too-rocky ground for our tents a short walk from a tongue of snow about the size of a football field with a small pond of open water at one end. We eat dinner in a cool wind as darkness falls.

Hiking such long days, we rise with or before first light and start walking while the early-August air still feels like October at these high elevations. At any random moment on any given day, it’s hard to immediately recall where we camped the night before. Except for lunch and brief breaks, we don’t stop walking until dusk.

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And every hour of every day, we traverse an alpine wonderland of rocks, scant vegetation, wind-whipped lakes, some of them partly frozen, and peaks towering over 12,000 and 13,000 feet, with glaciers pouring off them.

In early afternoon on our fifth day, we follow a steep, green strip of grass and moss up the edge of a gully to Douglas Peak Pass, at over 11,600 feet. There, we look down the long valley of the Alpine Lakes—a trough almost devoid of green and one of the most starkly beautiful places I’ve ever seen. At the valley’s far end, some four miles and at least that many hours away, today’s next objective, Alpine Lakes Pass, is visible as a notch in a tall ring of stone that encloses the valley like the sides of a giant bathtub.

We descend over ground carpeted with of rocks and boulders of all sizes and commence a circuitous, slow, and arduous traverse of the valley, hiking and scrambling over talus and snow and navigating around three larger lakes and a handful of smaller ones, all at around 11,000 feet.

In the short time we spend along the shore of one lake, three separate car-sized blocks of snow calve with a loud whump into the iceberg-choked water. High above another lake, we cross a wide, grassy shelf sprinkled with rocks; it looks like a little piece of the Scottish Highlands transported to the Wyoming mountains. (Along with the East Fork valley two days ago, it’s among the nicest backcountry campsites I’ve regrettably hiked past.) Then we follow a system of narrow ledges and scramble on hands and feet up a fourth-class ramp. Here and there, wildflowers erupt from little patches of thin soil.

Most surprisingly, we run into five backpackers hiking in the opposite direction—a couple in their twenties and three guys who look college-age—exchanging with them expressions of wonder over the places we’re seeing out here.

In early evening, we reach Alpine Lakes Pass at about 12,150 feet. With each of us feeling the physical strain of these days, we begin another long, downhill slog over rocks, talus, and snow. As darkness looms, we stop for the day on grassy benches above the loud churning of the South Fork Bull Lake Creek.

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The Remotest Corner of the Winds

Around 6:30 a.m. on our sixth morning, layered up against a cold wind in a mountain shadow, we step into the shallow but icy South Fork Bull Lake Creek and cross to its opposite bank. After eating and packing up by headlamp, we started hiking 30 minutes ago, as the predawn light began brightening this valley. We face a huge day.

By midday, we’ll enter the fourth section of the WRHR and the most-remote area of the Winds, its northeast corner, home to towering peaks and the greatest concentration of glaciers in the range. With much of that section near or above 12,000 feet in the alpine zone, entirely exposed to wind and weather, potential campsites are almost non-existent. Our plan is to reach the marginally protected Iceberg and Baker lakes area for our last night on the Wind River High Route—and position ourselves to finish with one final, long day tomorrow.

Ninety minutes beyond the South Fork, we ford the North Fork Bull Lake Creek in a stunning valley below glaciers and 13,810-foot Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest. That’s followed by a brutal, 2,000-foot ascent over talus, snow, and scree to 12,750-foot Blaurock Pass, the highest on the Wind River High Route. From there, the Winds stretch far to the north and even farther to the south, a stirring panorama and a powerful visual representation of the tough miles we’ve walked—and the daunting terrain that still awaits.

See all of my stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

The Gear I Used See my reviews of the outstanding backpack, ultralight tent, trekking poles, down jacket, and sleeping bag I used on the Wind River High Route.

I recommend wearing lightweight or midweight, waterproof-breathable boots; see all of my reviews of hiking shoes and backpacking boots and my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking.” Gaiters would also be helpful in wet snow.

Find the best gear, 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 at The Big Outside.

See my expert tips in these stories:

“How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking”
“5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking”
“7 Pro Tips For Keeping Your Backpacking Gear Dry”

Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Wilderness Backpacking Trip” and “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking.” If you don’t have a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read part of both stories for free, or download the e-guide versions of “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Wilderness Backpacking Trip” and the lightweight backpacking guide without having a paid membership.