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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See also these stories: “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: The Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan,” and all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grand Teton’s Paintbrush-Cascade Canyons Loop

Distance: 19.7 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

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

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

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

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

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

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The Best First Trip in the Grand Canyon

Distance: 21 to 23.5 miles
Difficulty: Moderate to strenuous

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

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

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

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

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

The Magnificent Heart of Yosemite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glacier’s Glorious Gunsight Pass Trail

Distance: 20 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zion’s Otherworldly West Rim Trail

Distance: 14 miles
Difficulty: Moderate

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

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

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

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

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

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The Wild Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wild Olympic Coast

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

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

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

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

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Grand Canyon Traverse

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yosemite South of Tuolumne Meadows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glacier’s Northern Loop Made Better

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Yosemite’s Wilderness Permit System

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

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

The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time seven days in advance of a trip start date.

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

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

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Yosemite’s Best Backpacking Trips

Little Yosemite Valley and Half Dome

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yosemite Valley to Half Dome, Clouds Rest, and Sunrise

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

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

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

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

See also my tips on hiking Half Dome.

Get full access to my Yosemite stories and ALL stories at The Big Outside,
plus get a FREE e-book. Join now!

Tuolumne Meadows to Tenaya Lake

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

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

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

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

The High Sierra Camps Loop

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

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

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

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

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

Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley

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

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

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

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

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Yosemite Valley’s North Rim to Ten Lakes Basin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

Apply As Soon As Possible, Months in Advance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yosemite Wilderness Permits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness Permits

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

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

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

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

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

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Inyo National Forest Wilderness Permits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mount Whitney Wilderness Permits

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

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

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

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

Keep Your Group Small

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

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Try for a Last-Minute Permit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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How to Get a Yosemite Wilderness Permit

In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas, with special rules for backpacking the John Muir Trail. Sixty percent of permit reservations are available by lottery at recreation.gov/permits/445859 beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the next Saturday. You will be notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes.

The remaining 40 percent of permits are made available at recreation.gov/permits/445859 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time up to seven days in advance of a trip start date.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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See all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside, including “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “In the Footsteps of John Muir: Finding Solitude in the High Sierra,” plus “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.” Those stories about trips contain numerous photos and information on planning them. While roughly the first half of many stories about trips are free for anyone to read, reading them in full is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Getting a Permit for Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Prime Season for Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

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

How Many Days on the JMT?

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

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

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

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

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Minimizing Pack Weight

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

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

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

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

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The Resupply Plan

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

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

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
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Acclimating to High Elevations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Muir Trail Wilderness Permits

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

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

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

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

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

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Starting the JMT in Yosemite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Starting the JMT at Whitney Portal

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

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

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

Want to hike the John Muir Trail or another High Sierra trip?
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Backpack a Section of the JMT

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep Your Group Small

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Want to hike the John Muir Trail?
Click here for my expert, detailed advice personally customized for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

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

Not Down With 20-mile Days?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First: It’s Not as Crowded as You Think

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

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

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

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How to Get a Yosemite Wilderness Permit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read all of this story and ALL stories at The Big Outside,
plus get a FREE e-book! Join now!

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

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

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

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

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Like moths to a flame—or perhaps pikas to talus—at some point, many serious backpackers will decide they must thru-hike the John Muir Trail. But some will wonder whether they’re ready or have the time for a 221-mile hike that may take up to three weeks—and many will fail to get one of the most sought-after wilderness permits in the country. What then?

Well, there’s no better Plan B for a JMT thru-hike than knocking off a section of it as a consolation prize or to dial in your strategy and gear for eventually adding “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” to your tick list. And for virtually any JMT section hike, you’ll have much better chances of getting a wilderness permit than you will for a JMT thru-hike.

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 Best Hikes on the John Muir Trail

I put together the John Muir Trail section hikes described in this article—which vary greatly in distance and lie spread out along the entire JMT (most of which overlaps the Pacific Crest Trail/PCT)—based on my personal experience thru-hiking it in an admittedly insane seven days as well as numerous trips on JMT sections and throughout the High Sierra from Yosemite to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. I’ve also backpacked thousands of miles all over the country over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor at Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

You’ll see on maps that it’s certainly feasible to combine some of the section hikes described below in a longer, partial-JMT trek. And some of the trips in this article hit wonderful stretches of the JMT while also covering significant distances off the JMT, exploring other, very worthy corners of the High Sierra.

Camping restrictions exist on some heavily used sections of the John Muir Trail; check each park’s or forest’s website when planning a trip. Bear canisters are required throughout the High Sierra. (See my favorite bear canister in this review.)

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This article includes links to feature-length stories about trips, which contain numerous photos and often a video. See also “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” and all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, plus “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Many stories at my blog, like this one, are partially free for anyone to read, but reading them in full (and seeing all the trips I describe in this story) is an exclusive benefit of subscribing to The Big Outside—which gives you full access to all stories at this blog, including my expert tips on planning the many trips I’ve personally taken and written about.

Check out my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any of these adventures, variations of these best hikes on the John Muir Trail, your JMT thru-hike, or any trip you read about at The Big Outside, and my expert e-books to many classic backpacking trips.

If you have any questions or suggestions for other JMT sections or High Sierra trips, please share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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

Tuolumne Meadows to Reds Meadow

36 miles

From the Lyell Canyon/Rafferty Creek Trailhead at the east end of Tuolumne Meadows, at 8,700 feet in Yosemite, you can hike just over a half-mile to jump on the JMT southbound. From there, you’ll remain on the John Muir Trail for the next 35 miles to Reds Meadow.

A likely easier permit to get compared to starting at the JMT’s traditional northern terminus, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley, this section hike ascends some 2,300 feet to cross 11,056-foot Donahue Pass from Yosemite into the Ansel Adams Wilderness, then mostly cruises downhill past Thousand Island and Garnet lakes and a few smaller ones before reaching Reds. 

A relatively easy but scenic JMT introduction, this 35.7-mile section also offers the logistical conveniences of not requiring two vehicles or to pay for a shuttle or have someone drop you off, with public bus and shuttle services connecting Tuolumne and Reds (as well as Yosemite Valley). Add about 24 miles—making it a 60-mile hike—by starting at Yosemite Valley, also a great, weekend or three-day JMT section hiking to Tuolumne Meadows.

See photos and read about this section of the JMT in my story “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience or Certifiably Insane?”

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

Agnew Meadows to Yosemite Valley

52 miles

You may notice that this hike is the only one in this article described as hiking the JMT northbound—not because any of these trips cannot be hiked in either direction, but because many JMT thru-hikers and section hikers go southbound in order to gradually acclimate to the higher elevations of the southern trail. But the benefit of hiking this section northbound is an easier wilderness permit to obtain—versus trying to start at the JMT’s northern terminus in Yosemite Valley—for a hike that combines a great stretch of the trail through the Ansel Adams Wilderness and the JMT’s entire Yosemite segment.

From Agnew Meadows at over 8,300 feet—where there are various possible starting trailheads—the shortest route to the JMT reaches it just 3.7 miles from the trailhead, at the west shore of Shadow Lake, where you’ll turn north and remain on the trail for the next roughly 48 miles to Yosemite Valley (depending on the route you take through Tuolumne Meadows and whether you opt for diversions off the JMT to Clouds Rest and Half Dome).

After passing two of the trail’s prettiest lakes, Garnet and Thousand Island, this route ascends steadily to enter Yosemite at 11,056-foot Donohue Pass. From there, it’s virtually all downhill through Lyell Canyon to Tuolumne Meadows, Cathedral Pass and Lakes, the meadows of Sunrise below the peaks of the Cathedral Range, past the Half Dome Trail junction—a highly recommended side trip—and the brink of thunderous, 594-foot Nevada Fall, finishing at the JMT’s northern terminus, the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley.

See photos and more info about this route and Yosemite in “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail” and “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” and see all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

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North Lake-South Lake Loop

57 miles

From the Piute Pass/North Lake Trailhead, at 9,360 feet, to the South Lake/Bishop Pass Trailhead, at over 9,800 feet, this near-loop—the trailheads lie a short drive apart—constitutes, mile for mile, not just one of the best hikes along the John Muir Trail, but also one of the best multi-day hikes in the High Sierra.

Located within the John Muir Wilderness of the Inyo National Forest (which is the permitting agency) and a corner of Kings Canyon National Park, this hike features nearly 27 miles of the JMT’s finest miles along the South Fork San Joaquin River, past alpine lakes rippling below soaring cliffs in the Evolution Basin, over 11,955-foot Muir Pass, and through LeConte Canyon, with its own towering granite walls and peaks.

The loop also crosses two other passes, Piute at 11,423 feet and Bishop at 11,972 feet; Humphreys Basin at 11,000 feet below Mount Humphreys, which towers to almost 14,000 feet, and the wall of peaks along the Glacier Divide; plus Dusy Basin at over 11,000 feet, below the massive crest of the Palisades’ 13ers and 14ers; and follows the courses of Piute and Evolution creeks past waterfalls and roaring cascades. There’s not a dull moment on this entire hike.

Find more information at fs.usda.gov/recarea/inyo/recreation/recarea/?recid=21048&actid=51 and fs.usda.gov/recarea/inyo/recarea/?recid=20358&actid=50.

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Rae Lakes Loop

41 miles

This 41.4-mile loop in Kings Canyon National Park earns its status as one of the most enduringly popular backpacking trips in the entire High Sierra—and certainly one of the best hikes on the John Muir Trail, even though much of the loop stays off the JMT, exploring the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park amid the skyscraping peaks of the southern High Sierra—for a few good reasons.

But foremost that it features an outstanding section of the JMT through the Rae Lakes Valley and over 11,978-foot Glen Pass, the loop’s only high pass.

Starting at Road’s End, at 5,035 feet in Yosemite Valley-like Kings Canyon, the loop gradually ascends the valleys of the South Fork Kings Canyon River and Bubbs Creek (when hiking clockwise) and finishes down the Bubbs Creek Valley.

Besides the convenience of a loop hike at a distance that many backpackers will consider moderate—plus just one high pass to cross, making it a bit easier than several section hikes in this article—it also begins on the west side of the High Sierra, less than a day’s drive from major airports and most Californians, helping to explain the huge demand for this permit.

Find more information at https://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/rae-lakes-loop.htm.

Do the JMT right. See “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit”
and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know.”

Kearsarge Pass Trailhead to Whitney Portal

48.6 miles

This section hike is not for the faint of heart or backpackers who struggle with high elevations. But the reward for this serious effort is some of the biggest scenery and highest points on the John Muir Trail, including the summit of Mount Whitney—certainly a highlight of any JMT thru-hike or section hike.

While it begins with a climb of almost 2,700 feet in 4.7 miles from the Kearsarge Pass Trailhead, at 9,185 feet, past a string of small lakes in the John Muir Wilderness to 11,845-foot Kearsarge Pass—where you enter Kings Canyon National Park—you’ll reach the JMT south of Glen Pass in just 7.5 miles and follow it southbound for 30.7 miles to its southern terminus atop 14,505-foot Mount Whitney.

The JMT makes a gradual ascent of the Bubbs Creek Valley to 13,180-foot Forester Pass, the trail’s highest, enters Sequoia National Park and descends through a stark alpine lakes basin at over 12,000 feet, and then makes a long, grueling ascent of almost 4,000 feet up the west face of Whitney to its broad summit.

From there, it’s a long, 10.4-mile and over 6,000-foot descent to the Whitney Portal Trailhead at nearly 8,400 feet. Starting at the Kearsarge Pass Trailhead lends you better odds getting a permit than trying to start at Whitney Portal—one of the most popular trailheads in the High Sierra.

See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience or Certifiably Insane?” and “Roof of the High Sierra: A Father-Son Climb of Mount Whitney.”

Get the right gear for your trips.
See “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail.”

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside and “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

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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It seems a fool’s wager to guess how many mountain lakes exist in the High Sierra, the range that reaches heights over 14,000 feet and spans some 200 miles through eastern California from Lake Tahoe to south of Sequoia National Park, including Yosemite and Kings Canyon national parks and several national forest wilderness areas. Some estimates place the number of named glacial lakes at around a thousand—but that omits the constellation of lakes and tarns identified by their elevation only or that remain completely anonymous. It’s a safe bet the total reaches into the many thousands.

Backpack virtually anywhere in the High Sierra—which comprises one of the largest contiguous blocks of wilderness in the Lower 48—and you’re bound to pass by countless shimmering, watery gems and pitch a tent near some of the prettiest you’ve ever seen. This story shares images of many of the finest I’ve seen on numerous backpacking trips all over the High Sierra, in all of the parks, the major wilderness areas, and on the John Muir Trail over the past three-plus 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.

I’m a big fan of other American mountain ranges that are speckled with beautiful lakes, such as the Wind River Range, the Tetons, the Cascades (especially the North Cascades), and Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. See my stories “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites” and “Photo Gallery: 41 Gorgeous Backcountry Lakes.”

Still, almost none compare with the High Sierra for sheer numbers of freshwater bodies or the splendor of the “Range of Light.”

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The High Sierra national parks and forests all begin accepting reservations for wilderness permits months ahead of a trip starting date—including for the John Muir Trail—and competition is fierce for popular areas and trails. But some also set aside a percentage of permits for release a week or two ahead of a trip starting date. See my stories “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit” and “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.”

The photo gallery below includes some well-known lakes and others that are remote and obscure; you may have never heard of some of them. All are only reached by hiking or riding a horse for miles into the wilderness. Click on the gallery to open it and use right and left arrow keys to scroll through it. Scroll past the gallery for links to stories about the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

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

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip in the High Sierra, including the John Muir Trail, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks and the national forest wilderness areas. Want my help with yours? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.

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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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In early evening on a bluebird September day, deep in northern Yosemite National Park, my friend Todd Arndt and I—with legs a little weary—reached our fourth pass on a 23-mile day, the second day of a four-day, 87-mile hike. Only a quad-melting, 1,500-foot descent stood between us and soothing our feet in the cool sand and cold water at Benson Lake (possibly the most unbelievable mountain lake I’ve ever seen).

We hiked past quiet tarns where a few backpackers were camped. And it struck me that they were the first people Todd and I had seen all day. That’s not an observation one expects to make in Yosemite. But we were exploring the “other Yosemite”—not the overcrowded park, but its most remote backcountry, on one of the best multi-day hikes I’ve ever taken.

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.

There’s a back story here. After several visits to Yosemite over the past three decades, backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing—some of those to write stories for this blog and Backpacker magazine, where I was Northwest Editor for 10 years—I had become kind of obsessed with the fact that I had still not explored the park’s two most expansive swaths of wilderness: the Clark Range and Merced River headwaters south of Tuolumne Meadows, and even vaster northern Yosemite.

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 So I set out to finally fill in that glaring omission in my backpacking résumé, concocting an ambitious plan to make a 152-mile grand tour of Yosemite’s most remote backcountry in one week, divided into two legs, resupplying between them.

First came a three-day, 65-mile loop south of Tuolumne Meadows, including two of Yosemite’s most thrilling summits, Clouds Rest and Half Dome, plus walking through the Clark Range and tagging the highest pass reached by trail in the park, 11,500-foot Red Peak Pass.

That was to be immediately followed by a four-day, nearly 87-mile walk through the biggest and most remote chunk of wilderness on the Yosemite map: a circuit north of Tuolumne Meadows through a vast realm of deep canyons like the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River—which is sort of like Yosemite Valley, but twice as long, with most of the people and all of the buildings and cars removed. We crossed passes at over 10,000 feet below peaks rising to over 12,000 feet, and stood atop a peak often described as having the best summit view in Yosemite.

See “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now.”

Smoke from wildfires sent three friends and I home after completing the 65-mile hike. So Todd and I returned to Yosemite a year later and knocked off the 87-miler.

Scroll through the photo gallery and watch the videos below and you’ll see why that 152-mile grand tour of Yosemite’s most remote areas ranks among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.” Below the gallery, find links to my feature stories about both of these backpacking trips, videos about each one, and links to my expert e-books that will help you plan and successfully pull off either trip.

And my Custom Trip Planning page explains how I can help you plan your trip.

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See my blog’s feature stories “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” about the 65-mile first leg of that grand tour of Yosemite, and “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” about the 87-mile second leg. Both stories have many photos, videos, and details on planning each hike—in however many days you’d like to take (most backpackers would probably take six to eight days on them). Like most stories at The Big Outside, a paid subscription is required to read these two stories in full, including some basic trip-planning information.

I can help you plan a great backpacking trip in Yosemite
or any trip you read about at my blog. Find out more here.

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

Want to take either of these amazing trips? My expert e-books tell you everything you need to know (in much deeper detail than the feature stories) to plan and successfully pull off either trip, including multiple hiking itineraries. “The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite” describes the 65-mile hike south of Tuolumne and “The Best Remote and Uncrowded Backpacking Trip in Yosemite” describes the 87-mile hike north of Tuolumne.

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

 Click here now for my e-book “Backpacking Wild, Uncrowded Northern Yosemite.”

I’ve also helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip in Yosemite—including readers planning a last-minute trip without having a permit reservation. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your trip.

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

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We all want our wilderness backpacking trips to have two sometimes conflicting qualities: mind-blowing scenery, but also few other people around. A high degree of solitude somehow makes the backcountry feel bigger and wilder and the views more breathtaking. However unrealistic the notion may be, we like to believe we have some stunning corner of nature to ourselves. But in the real world, if you head out into popular mountains in July or August or in canyon country in spring or fall, you’ll probably have company—maybe more than you prefer.

Not on these trips, though.

From lonely corners of the majestic High Sierra (including, believe it or not, Yosemite), the North Cascades region, and Utah’s High Uintas and Maze District of Canyonlands, to the Wind River Range, Idaho’s beloved Sawtooths, the Eagle Cap Wilderness and a pair of rugged and remote adventures in the Grand Canyon, here are 12 multi-day hikes where you’re guaranteed to enjoy a degree of solitude—at least on long stretches of the trip—that’s equal to the scenery. All of these trips meet several of my “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking.”

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.

They also happen to be some favorite trips among countless wilderness walks I’ve taken over more than three decades (and counting) of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Each trip described below has a link to a full story about it, with many photos and often a video. Reading those stories in full, including key trip-planning details and tips, as well as this entire story, is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

Please tell me what you think of these trips—or add your own suggestions—in the comments at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

And I can help you plan any of them or any trip you read about at this blog. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how.

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

Glacier Peak Wilderness

The five-day, 44-mile Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass loop in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness has earned a reputation for spiciness—which keeps the crowds down. The reason is the off-trail route over 7,100-foot Spider Gap, which holds snow all summer and can be hazardous, depending on the firmness of the snow.

But for backpackers with the skills to manage that pass—which isn’t terribly steep or dangerous when done in soft-snow conditions, as my family did when our kids were 12 and 10—the rewards include five-star views of Glacier Peak and the sea of lower, jagged mountains surrounding it, some of the best backcountry campsites you’ll ever have (or perhaps hike past), and unforgettable wildflower displays and panoramas like you get from Liberty Cap, a short side hike from Buck Creek Pass (photo above).

See my story “Wild Heart of the Glacier Peak Wilderness: Backpacking the Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass Loop,” and all stories about backpacking in Washington at The Big Outside.

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Beartooth Wilderness

On a five-day, peak-of-summer, mid-August hike through Montana’s Beartooth Wilderness, two friends and I walked for miles and hours a day—most of the trip—without any other people in sight. At two of our four campsites, there was not another person within miles—including near a lake less than five miles from the trailhead where we started and finished the trip, in a cirque below the cliffs and slopes of a striking, nearly 12,000-foot peak.

And our route reminded me in many ways of backpacking in a Northern Rockies neighbor of the Beartooths, Glacier National Park: We hiked long stretches through alpine terrain with views of soaring cliffs, jagged peaks, and small glaciers at the heads of dramatic, glacially carved cirques. In contrast to Glacier, though, the Beartooths reach higher elevations. We hiked to one stunning pass at over 11,000 feet and crossed the treeless tundra of a plateau at over 10,000 feet—and, yea, saw no one at either spot.

See my story “Backpacking the High and Mighty Beartooth Mountains.”

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The Gems Route, Grand Canyon

For three days of a six-day hike from the Grand Canyon’s South Bass Trailhead to the Hermit Trailhead, five friends and I saw no one. Backpacking much of the Gems Route—named for several tributary canyons, including Ruby, Turquoise, Sapphire, Agate, and Topaz—we had amazing camps every night entirely to ourselves, with a vivid Milky Way glowing overhead.

The route traverses the longest segment of the 95-mile-long Tonto Trail with no bailout path the South Rim: the 29 miles from Bass Canyon to Boucher Creek, described by the park’s website as the Tonto’s “most difficult and potentially dangerous” leg for the lack of perennial water. (We twice carried six to eight liters of water—up to about 17 pounds each.)

But every day was a walk through a majestic landscape constantly reshaped by shifting light, with views reaching from the river to both rims. And these tributary canyons of the Colorado might, by themselves, be national parks in most other states.

See my story “‘Let’s Talk Water:’ Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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Southern Sawtooth Mountains

I’ve dayhiked, backpacked, and climbed numerous times in Idaho’s glorious Sawtooths, peaks that look to me like a love child of the High Sierra and the Tetons (if somewhat smaller); and with the exception of a few popular spots, I wouldn’t describe them as crowded. But for solitude and scenery that justifies my “love child” claim, I recommend diving deep into the range’s interior. 

On a 57-mile trip from the Queens River Trailhead, penetrating an area that’s a solid two days’ walk from the nearest roads, a friend and I saw some of the prettiest and loneliest mountain lakes of the dozens that grace the Sawtooths, and lonely valleys framed by endless rows of jagged peaks.

See my story “Going After Goals: Backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” and all stories about backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooths at The Big Outside.

Click here now for my e-book to the best backpacking trip in Idaho’s Sawtooths!

High Uintas Wilderness

The first hint at the solitude we’d enjoy on a nearly 50-mile loop hike in northeastern Utah’s High Uintas (including an optional eight-mile dayhike of Kings Peak, highest in Utah) came at the trailhead, where there were a grand total of two cars. We didn’t see another person until the second evening in camp, on a pretty mountain lake we had to ourselves, when two hikers passed by and one remarked, “Well, there are other people out here!” Our third day passed without encountering another human and we had a campsite for two nights in an 11,000-foot basin ringed by 13,000-foot peaks with no one in sight.

And during an unusual window of good weather in early October 2024, my 24-year-old son and I backpacked nearly 60 miles, mostly on the Uinta Highline Trail, enjoying 12,000-foot alpine passes and vast lake basins, great camps with stunning sunsets, night skies with the Milky Way glowing brilliantly—and a degree of solitude found only when hiking deep into big wilderness.

See my stories “Tall and Lonely: Backpacking Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness,” “Backpacking—and Sandbagging—Utah’s Uinta Highline Trail,” and all stories about backpacking in Utah at The Big Outside.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be”
and this menu of all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Northern Yosemite

Yosemite exceeds expectations in many ways, including that its reputation for crowds simply doesn’t square with the reality of backpacking throughout most of the park. On an 87-mile trek through northern Yosemite (shorter variations are possible), a friend and I crossed three remote, 10,000-foot passes; wandered through rock gardens in canyons beneath 12,000-foot peaks; camped on a lake’s sandy beach that looked like it was transplanted from southern California; hiked up a canyon resembling Yosemite Valley but twice as long and without the roads, buildings, and crowds; and stood on a summit known for “the best 360 in Yosemite.”

And every day, we walked for hours without seeing another person. When you’re ready to explore as deeply into the Yosemite backcountry as a person can wander, head north of Tuolumne Meadows into the park’s biggest, loneliest wilderness.

See my story “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” my e-book to that trip, “The Best Remote and Uncrowded Backpacking Trip in Yosemite,” plus “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside—including my story about another trip that offered a surprising amount of solitude, “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip.”

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See all stories about backpacking at The Big Outside, including “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

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All day, clouds the color of a bruise pile up across the sky, conceding the sun only brief, teasing appearances before blocking it out again. Carrying packs bursting with nine days of food, we hike past lakes, each one higher and prettier than the last. More than seven miles from where we began our walk, we stroll into the basin of a sprawling lake whose image captured in historic Ansel Adams photographs has in many ways come to define the public’s mental picture of what is arguably America’s finest mountain range, the High Sierra: Speckled by scores of rocky islets below the distinctive profile of aptly named Banner Peak, Thousand Island Lake today bares whitecapped teeth pushed up by strong gusts of wind.

We cross the John Muir Trail—which we’ll rejoin farther south in a couple of days—and pick up a use trail tracing the north shore of Thousand Island Lake. Not long after that path disappears into the rocky ground, we find a campsite semi-protected from the buffeting wind by a copse of stunted conifer trees, a couple minutes’ walk from the lake’s southwest corner, at just under 10,000 feet in the shadow of Banner Peak.

That evening, the clouds begin to fragment like river ice in spring, scurrying past us. As the sun hovers above mountains to our west and eventually tucks in behind them, its light streams over the bellies of the clouds floating past at greatly varying altitudes—some low, some very high, others in between the lowest and highest clouds. The combination of rays of sunlight at the red end of the spectrum and multiple levels of clouds, mixed with patches of deep blue, creates a skyscape that shifts its colors every few seconds and a nearly hour-long spectacle of one of the most striking sunsets I have ever witnessed.

John Muir certainly had it right when he called the High Sierra “the range of light.”

After dark falls and we tuck into our tents, we hear the wind gather itself in some unknown place high above us. Over slow minutes, it builds in volume until crashing with a roar through our camp in a tsunami of air that seems to shake the earth for long, tent-flapping seconds. After passing by, it leaves us in a quiet calm that rarely lasts more than a minute or two before the next great gust builds and barrels into us. This continues throughout the night.

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My longtime adventure partner David Ports, my 24-year-old nephew Marco Garofalo, and I have embarked on a nine-day trek of nearly 130 miles that will rival the very best High Sierra backpacking trips I’ve ever taken—including my thru-hike of the John Muir Trail.

Hiking barely more than half the usual distance of a full JMT thru-hike, we’re following an itinerary I created—which could be hiked in shorter pieces (see details in the trip planning information at the bottom of this story, available exclusively to paid subscribers to this blog)—that takes us into the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wildernesses and Kings Canyon National Park, exploring gorgeous high lakes basins, crossing passes that scrape the stratosphere at 11,000 to 12,000 feet, hiking some off-trail terrain and traversing one of the finest sections of the John Muir Trail.

I’ve been dreaming about this hike for months.

See “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

The Minarets

On our second morning, we hike cross-country south from Thousand Island Lake over a couple of passes above 10,000 feet and a couple of lakes basins, finally descending to the wind-rippled, brown waters of Ediza Lake at nearly 9,300 feet. There, we pick up a trail—with Marco flying ahead of David and me going uphill—ascending steeply to stunning Iceberg Lake at almost 9,800 feet. Tucked up hard against cliffs, Iceberg sits below a few of the well over a dozen 11,000- and 12,000-foot spires known as the Minarets, lined up like chipped and broken bowling pins.

And we’re not done climbing. From Iceberg, we follow an improbable, strenuously steep and rough trail of sorts across a slope of talus and scree angling upward around Iceberg to Cecile Lake, at 10,260 feet in another rocky bowl at the feet of the Minarets. With any semblance of a trail terminating there, we poke around to find a route across yet more talus and drop down a steep, narrow gully to aptly named Minaret Lake—arguably the prettiest lake we’ve seen today. We hike past at least a few other parties camped here, finding a spot for our tents amid conifer trees a short walk from the lakeshore for water and far enough from other backpackers that we see no one else all evening and the next morning.

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Fortunately, the Sierra weather gods are smiling on us. This day had launched with clear, sunny skies and pleasant temperatures—and this weather pattern will persist for six straight days, giving us comfortably cool nights for sleeping, mornings in the forties Fahrenheit and afternoons at elevation in the 60s. In the High Sierra, where between hot temps and the intense alpine sun, afternoons can feel like you’re hiking under a grow lamp, we spend half of our hiking time hardly breaking a sweat.

That evening, we sit on granite rocks watching the full moon rise in the V formed by the valley of Minaret Creek below us; and the next morning, our third, dawn light sets the Minarets glowing like the embers of a well-tended fire, reflected in the slightly rippling waters of Minaret Lake.

Marie Lake and Sallie Keyes Lakes

On yet another calm, clear day with comfortable temps and a blazing sun, we walk up to the shore of one of the most beautiful water bodies on the JMT: Marie Lake. A sort of downsized Thousand Island Lake, Marie spreads out like a spilt drink in a basin at over 10,500 feet. Numerous islands, large and small, speckle its surface and peninsulas jut into it from all sides. We drop our packs on granite slabs, strip off sweaty T-shirts and shorts, and plunge into the chilly but refreshing water, enduring the cold for just a few minutes, and sit in the sun to dry off and warm up—with the cool breeze aiding the former and slightly hindering the latter—followed by a long, relaxing lunch break.

It’s our sixth afternoon and, with lighter packs as we burn through our food weight, we’ve hit our stride, coming off back-to-back days of around 17 miles, one with over 5,000 feet of cumulative uphill and downhill, the other over 8,000 feet. (Marco again sets a pace impossible for David and me—both the age of Marco’s dad—to maintain, blasting ahead and waiting for us at trail junctions or lakes, where we’ll arrive to see he’s already taken a swim. When we see a white-bearded backpacker coming down the trail toward us, I ask him, “Did you see the young guy cranking uphill?” He quickly responds, “Yea, cranking up! It just ain’t fair.” To which I agree and David nods with resignation.)

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And the JMT has rewarded our efforts with scenery that acts as a balm for sore muscles and joints—the regular percussion of countless waterfalls and cascades, a constellation of lakes, and views of a sea of jagged mountains from high passes.

But the finest scenery of this trip still awaits us.

After our rejuvenating swim and lunch, we make the relatively easy climb over Selden Pass at 10,880 feet and drop to the lovely Sallie Keyes Lakes, twins wrapped in open forest at 10,170 feet, finding a protected site for our tents a short walk from the lakeshore—where we take another brief swim and will enjoy another gorgeous sunrise tomorrow morning.

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Evolution Basin and Muir Pass

In the cool air of our eighth morning, we ascend the JMT out of Goddard Canyon, passing the thunderous waterfalls and steep cascades on Evolution Creek and pulling our shoes and socks off to ford the frigid creek at a flat, wide, and slow spot. Hiking up the gentle, forested Evolution Valley, we step off the trail at an established campsite where the creek widens and slows in a broad meadow, its calm waters reflecting the puffy clouds and peaks across the valley. Minutes later, at the ranger station, the ranger tells us the perfect weather we’ve been experiencing for a week is about to shift to a cycle of afternoon thunderstorms—with a pretty good chance of one later this afternoon.

The forest thins as we ascend switchbacks above the valley. Granite cliffs come into view on both sides and ahead of us. Abruptly, the waters of another JMT gem appear in front of us: Evolution Lake. If you’re fairly new to the southern High Sierra, walking up to Evolution Lake requires the brain to recalibrate your sense of scale. We have reached one of the JMT sections—and there are several—that earn it the nickname “America’s most beautiful trail.”

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We follow the JMT’s easy, meandering course through meadows around the contours of the lake, which stretches a mile or more up Evolution Basin, passing other backpackers and a few tents already set up in early afternoon. Cliffs soar to tall peaks on all sides, including the 13,000-footers Mounts Mendel and Darwin and the 12,329-foot Hermit. Little clusters of small conifer trees offer some protection for camping; but as we climb farther up the Evolution Basin, where the trail ascends the rocky slope above Sapphire Lake, the wide-open terrain offers no such protection.

As the ranger foretold, dark storm clouds mass above the upper basin, moving toward us. When the wind-driven rain and hail begin, we find a couple of large boulders off the trail and hunker down on the ground in their lee, avoiding some of the precipitation and most of the wind. But the storm apparently has no intention of just blowing over quickly. We retreat to lower ground in the basin, just above Evolution Lake, hurriedly pitch the tents and crawl inside, inflating our air mats and slipping inside our sleeping bags for warmth to wait it out. More than an hour after the storm began, it dissipates; we unzip tent doors to see sunshine and mostly blue sky again in the direction we’re going, although the storm remains very dark over Evolution Lake.

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Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned backpacker, you’ll learn new tricks for making all of your trips go better in my “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips,” “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.” With a paid subscription to The Big Outside, you can read all of those three stories for free; if you don’t have a subscription, you can download the e-guide 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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A bit over a mile into our first day backpacking in Yosemite, as we round a bend in the trail, Half Dome suddenly rears up in front of us, looming over the horizon like an asteroid just seconds before it impacts the planet. “Wow!” bursts from my mouth involuntarily, sounding very inadequate for the majestic scene before us.

Jeff, who’d stumbled upon this apparition a minute ahead of me, chuckles and says, “I thought you’d want me to wait.” One of my most cooperative photo models, Jeff’s hiked enough miles with me—and backtracked a section of trail enough times for my camera—to sense in advance when I’ll require his services.

Our vista from high above Yosemite Valley frames Half Dome and a constellation of distant peaks—that kind of scene I’ve learned that backpackers come upon countless times throughout this park and the High Sierra. Almost every time I’ve enjoyed a view like this one overlooking the Valley, I’ve been surrounded by other hikers—sometimes dozens of them. And yet we’ll encounter just a handful of other people over more than five hours on the trail today—and surprisingly few over the four days of this loop hike, considering its proximity to both the Valley and Tuolumne Meadows.

My friend and regular backpacking compadre Jeff Wilhelm and I have come to Yosemite in late September—luckily, during a respite from the smoke hanging over another grim fire season in California (yet another stark reminder of how little time humanity has to take aggressive action to minimize climate change). Our plan: to hike a four-day, 45-mile loop that scampers along one rim of Yosemite Valley—including one of the best Valley overlooks—and explores a lakes basin at 9,000 feet before finishing at one of the park’s prettiest lakes. And yet, this area doesn’t see nearly the same demand for a coveted wilderness permit as Yosemite’s most popular trailheads, even though it’s just as accessible and only moderately difficult.

You could say this hike is hiding in plain sight.

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At midday, we stop for lunch beside Snow Creek, still flowing in late September in one of the West’s hottest and driest years on record. Numerous large, flat granite boulders straddle the stream, inviting us to sit—one of several common characteristics of High Sierra creeks that border on perfection and I wish could be copied and pasted to mountain streams everywhere.

Later, as our first afternoon slides toward evening, we hike uphill with packs that have suddenly gained more than 10 pounds, burdened with the weight of 11 liters of water between us in anticipation of a waterless campsite on Indian Ridge. After dinner, we walk out onto a nearby, unnamed granite dome overlooking Half Dome and the Valley—and watch, transfixed, over the course of about an hour as one of the finest sunsets and dusk skies I’ve witnessed in a while patiently unfurls before us.

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North Dome

Lovely, low-angle sunlight and the deep silence of a calm morning accompany Jeff and me as we hike down the nearly treeless southern end of Indian Ridge. To our left, the sheer face of Half Dome looms enormous just across the deep chasm of Yosemite Valley. The trail drops steeply into a saddle and then we stride up onto the broad summit of North Dome—stepping into a heart-stopping panorama.

From this perch at over 7,500 feet, some 3,000 feet above the Valley, our view spans from Clouds Rest and Half Dome to Glacier Point, El Capitan, and beyond.

I’ve seen the Valley and its world-famous cliffs from numerous angles and points of view over the years. But with the scarcity of human traffic here, standing on North Dome feels a little like stumbling upon a well-preserved little secret: Other than a few dayhikers, we have it to ourselves on a spectacular morning when I’m sure the usual hundreds of hikers are parading up and down the Mist Trail.

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Dropping from North Dome to Lehamite Creek, we’re relieved to find it flowing, though shallow. From there, we continue hiking through forest along the Valley’s North Rim, reaching Yosemite Point, another stirring overlook from the brink of sheer cliffs 3,000 feet above Yosemite Valley. We can see there’s no water pouring over Upper Yosemite Falls—which historically dries up by late summer—but when we reach its source, Yosemite Creek, a little while later, we find good news: large, standing pools of clear water.

In fact, we pass standing pools of clear water for the next several miles of hot afternoon hiking upstream along Yosemite Creek. By early evening, we find a great spot to settle in for the night. Jeff sets up his backpacking cot on one flat spot beside the creek and I lay out my air mat and bag on a slab in the middle of the creek, with shallow, gurgling braids flowing very close by on either side of my bed.

Nightfall brings a black sky riddled with stars and the foggy streak of the Milky Way—but only until the nearly full moon rises, illuminating the land so brightly that we would need no headlamp to walk around.

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The Yosemite Backcountry—A Granite Wonderland

For much of our night on Yosemite Creek, a chilly wind races down the narrow little canyon we’re sleeping in, prompting Jeff and me to mummy deeply inside our bags—which actually feels like a relief compared to our unusually warm first night. In the morning, the wind continues blowing fiercely. Bundled up in down jackets, we gobble down breakfast, eager to get out of camp and warm up on the trail.

Continuing up the Yosemite Creek Trail, we traverse a granite wonderland, intermittently walking through airy forest of widely spaced pine trees and some burned areas. The creek still has pools and flows in places as we steadily gain elevation. We even cross one small tributary that has a good flow—and guzzle water there, knowing we will, at some point today, hike miles under a hot sun without seeing water before reaching our next camp on a lake.

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

In late morning, we run into a young woman on her first day of a solo backpacking trip and talk for a few minutes. She’s the first person we’ve seen since we left the vicinity of Upper Yosemite Falls yesterday afternoon and we won’t see another human until encountering just a few parties of backpackers later this afternoon.

Over the course of more than three decades and numerous backpacking, climbing, and dayhiking trips in Yosemite, I have observed this park’s multiple personalities. While most visitors confine themselves to Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne Meadows, and famous hikes like Half Dome and the northernmost section of the John Muir Trail, I’ve had the good fortune to explore much of the park’s backcountry.

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In remote corners like the Clark Range and the canyons south of Tuolumne and east of the Valley, as well as northern Yosemite’s vast wilderness of deep canyons, 10,000-foot passes, and 12,000-foot peaks, I’ve hiked for hours or even entire, gorgeous summer days without encountering another person (outside my own party)—a counterpoint to the usual narrative of crowds in this flagship national park.

One lake in Yosemite ranks among the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had among countless nights over four decades of wilderness travel; I’ve also lamented not camping at a spot I hiked past in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River.

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And that canyon—which I’ve compared to Yosemite Valley, if the Valley had no roads and buildings and was twice as long—was one of many highlights that have disabused me of any notion that, after several trips, I’d already seen all there was worth seeing in Yosemite. Not yet halfway through this hike, I’m already sensing that it will only reinforce that impression.

My experience in Yosemite’s backcountry has informed my conviction that this beloved park, with over 700,000 acres of designated wilderness and 750 miles of trails, offers a lifetime of exploration.

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Good Eats Post- and/or pre-trip, scarf a dinner of the world-famous fish tacos and a breakfast burrito or the Mammoth omelet at the Whoa Nellie Deli, in the Mobil station at the junction of CA 120 and US 395 in Lee Vining, 30 minutes from Tuolumne outside Yosemite’s east entrance; whoanelliedeli.com.

See all of my stories about backpacking in Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

The Gear I Used See my reviews of the outstanding backpack, tent, down jacket, sleeping bag, boots, and trekking poles I used on this trip.

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.

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See my expert tips in these stories:

“Bear Essentials: How to Store Food When Backcountry Camping”
“How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking”
“8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking”
“5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking”
“7 Pro Tips For Keeping Your Backpacking Gear Dry”
“How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be”

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

Under a sky lacking even one tiny cotton ball, and so blue you want to pour it into a cup and drink it, Todd and I walk across Tuolumne Meadows, carrying full but light backpacks and hearts full of anticipation. Across the creek-cut meadows, Cathedral Peak knifes into the stratosphere, and domes of polished granite bubble up above the treetops. The temperature hovers around 60° F, the air is as calm as a monk.

When you’re hiking on a September morning at 8,600 feet in the high country of Yosemite National Park, life floats intoxicatingly close to perfection.

And why wouldn’t it seem perfect? My friend Todd Arndt and I have embarked on an ambitious plan to backpack nearly 87 miles in four days through the biggest, loneliest, and most remote chunk of wilderness on the Yosemite map: a circuit north of Tuolumne Meadows through a vast realm of deep canyons, passes at over 10,000 feet, and peaks rising to over 12,000 feet.

Although I’ve been to this park several times, every visit makes me want to pinch myself. After all, this is Yosemite, the Sistine Chapel of national parks. Just uttering the name, you expect to hear heavenly trumpets and a chorus of angels singing. Half a lifetime ago, when I was a young, clueless, novice backpacker who had only barely begun exploring the rocky hills of New England, I decided to take my first big Western backpacking trip. But I didn’t want to start in the minor leagues and work my way up. Like thousands of backpackers every year, I wanted to go right to the best. So I chose Yosemite.

Now, a few decades later, I’m finally about to discover Yosemite’s farthest corners, her best-kept secrets. It’s like I’ve been hiding the map to a buried treasure for all these years and, at long last, I’m going to follow it to dig up my fortune.

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Todd and I cruise the easy six miles from Tuolumne to Glen Aulin—the Gaelic term for “beautiful valley”—in two hours, knocking off nearly one-third of our first day’s mileage quickly. We take a short break beside cascades with a view down the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River—which we’ll hike back up in just two days—and hit the trail again.

It feels joyous just to be out on a big hike in this park.

A Mild But Healthy Obsession

Todd and I have returned to Yosemite a year after hiking a three-day, 65-mile loop south of Tuolumne Meadows last September because we have some unfinished business. We had originally planned to complete a 152-mile grand tour of Yosemite’s most remote backcountry in seven consecutive days last year, but smoke from wildfires sent us home early (although the smoke hadn’t affected our three-day hike).

As I wrote in my story about the 65-mile, first leg of this Yosemithon, after several visits to Yosemite, backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing, I had become kind of obsessed with the fact that I had still not explored the park’s two most expansive swaths of wilderness: the Clark Range and Merced River headwaters south of Tuolumne Meadows, which we backpacked last year; and even vaster northern Yosemite, which stretches out before us now.

I should back up. For years, I’ve kept a list of ideas for trips I want to take, with brief notes about each. It’s inspirational and a resource I review whenever I’m thinking about where to go next. (Keeping such a list is tip no. 1 in my “10 Tips For Getting Outside More.”) And my list keeps getting longer, not shorter: It’s now well over 17,000 words.

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But I confess: I get a little overwrought thinking about a hike or climb that’s been on my trip ideas list for a while. I’ll reach a point where I can’t stop thinking about it—and the more I think about it, the more I feel an overwhelming need to get it done, and that gets me thinking about it more, which inflames my irrepressible desire to get it done. It’s a vicious cycle and often leads to me concocting a plan that involves hiking distances that only a very small group of my most, um, unique friends would view as a good idea.

My WOCD (Wilderness Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) has led to some extreme perambulations, several of which Todd has been a party to, including hiking 44+ miles across the Grand Canyon and back in a day, dayhiking 50 miles across Zion, and thru-hiking the John Muir Trail in seven days, averaging 31 miles a day. (Todd’s feet—which got so badly blistered that he had to go on antibiotics afterward—have still not forgiven me for that last one.)

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However borderline psychotic these adventures, we’ve always undertaken them with a high degree of preparedness—and yet, not without a niggling feeling of realistic uncertainty.

Our plan to walk through most of northern Yosemite in just four days feels no different. Although we managed 65 rugged miles in three days pretty well a year ago, this time we’re adding a fourth consecutive 20+-mile day to a tough itinerary that features lots of vertical relief—including today, when we’ll cross four passes, three of them over 10,000 feet. Todd tells me this will be the longest hike he’s ever done except for our JMT thru-hike.

I think my feet began a low-grade throbbing even before we started out today, as a warm-up for the next four evenings.

Matterhorn Canyon to Benson Lake

Following a clear night camped in Matterhorn Canyon, a short walk from a creek that lulled us to sleep, Todd and I hit the trail at 7 a.m. on our second morning. It’s chilly but calm. We prefer hiking while it’s cool, and we have a long day ahead of us. Besides, we both feel good after a 20-mile day yesterday. Todd recalls of our past ultra-hikes: “I remember it’s not cumulative—your legs don’t feel worse every day.”

Within a half-hour, Matterhorn Canyon opens up. Small, scattered copses of conifer trees throw spots of green on a landscape dominated by granite—stones and boulders littering the canyon bottom, rock walls stretching to the sky on both sides of us. Thanks to our early start, we’re hiking in the cool shade of those cliffs in this broad canyon. When the sun finally crests the walls, it’s warm, but not the searing heat of July or August in the High Sierra. Walking at a brisk pace with our light packs, I’m not even breaking a sweat. This is exactly how I like to backpack. (See my top five tips on my backpacking strategy.)

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At 10,650-foot Burro Pass, we drop our packs for a snack and to soak up the view of upper Matterhorn Canyon’s meadows and rock gardens embraced by an arc of cliffs, pinnacles, and 12,264-foot Matterhorn Peak. Beyond Burro, we cross a cirque below the serrated Sawtooth Ridge, followed by arduous climbs over two more 10,000-foot passes, Mule and Rock Island.

By early evening on our second day, we cross our fourth pass of the day—Seavey, at just over 9,000 feet—and stroll past quiet tarns where a few parties of backpackers have already pitched their tents in the forest. It strikes me that they are the first people Todd and I have seen all day—not an observation one expects to make in Yosemite. That’s because we tend to think of “that Yosemite”—the overcrowded park—but Todd and I are exploring “this Yosemite,” its most remote backcountry. A gargantuan moon rises over 10,000-foot peaks bathing in the last, red rays of daylight as we make the steep, quad-melting, 1,500-foot descent to Benson Lake.

At Benson, we walk up to the most unlikely sight deep in the mountains: a sprawling, sandy beach that looks like it got lost on its way to Southern California. After hiking more than 22 miles today, the cool sand and cold water feel so good on our bare feet that I swear I heard my toes sigh.

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

It’s 4:30 a.m., a time of day that puts us in the questionable company of cat burglars and alpinists. Our headlamp beams seem to bounce off the inky black of a moonless night in Yosemite Valley. Four of us are taking the first steps on the 221-mile John Muir Trail. And my friend Mark Fenton is staggering like a frat boy on a weekend bender.

“No problem, just a little vertigo I get hiking in the dark. I’ll be fine.” As if scripted for a sitcom, he then lurches too near the edge of the trail—which drops off into the dark roar of the Merced River far below.

From that moment on, he becomes known as Stumbles.

We laugh, because the nickname’s funny and appropriate, and because our packs weigh in at only six pounds, and because the four of us have trained and trained some more for the insane undertaking we’ve just begun—so we’re practically running uphill effortlessly, feeling as fit as racehorses. But mostly we laugh because we are only at the beginning of an odyssey that seemed impossible when we first contemplated the idea. We haven’t yet entered the zone of constant pain, so it’s easy to delude ourselves into believing that we aren’t pursuing an ambition of fools.

Besides, we’re in Yosemite, a place crazy with distractions. In the faint first light, 600-foot Nevada Falls looks like a wavering white apparition, and our inability to see it well seems to amplify the sound of the free-falling water sheering through air like a liquid guillotine. Deer bound away silently in the chilling dawn. At mid-morning, from ledges at 9,000 feet, we go slack-jawed at a shark’s grin of peaks: Tenaya, Tressider, Cathedral, Matthes Crest. We’re giddy as little girls, knowing this is just a scenic appetizer for the feast of alpine vistas awaiting us over the course of the week ahead on the JMT: snow-draped mountains and jagged granite spires, passes from 11,000 to over 13,000 feet, and a constellation of lakes reflecting it all upside down.

That’s right, I wrote “the week ahead.” We’re out here as guinea pigs testing a theory that, by arriving ultra-fit and going ultralight, we can collapse a hike normally stretched out over three weeks or more into seven days. We’re taking what Ray Jardine preached in The Pacific Crest Trail Hiker’s Handbook back in the 1990’s—a then-controversial gospel that called for drastically slashing pack weight and ramping up daily mileage—to a questionable extreme. The math sounds pretty simple: trim pack weight by two-thirds (or more), and hike three times as far. A lot of Ray’s disciples have since embraced the ultralight strategy with great satisfaction, including many Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers, who would not complete that 2,600-mile thru-hike in one season without going light.

See “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know.”

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I’ve made a steady evolution into that style of backpacking, going from regularly lugging 50-pound loads for eight or 10 arduous miles a day to carrying sub-30-pound packs on 15- or 20-mile days. Instead of suffering under an unwieldy load and taking five days to hike 40 miles, I’d walk more comfortably and finish in three days, or hike farther in the same five days, and feel less taxed physically. I’ve found it easier to train for walking farther with a moderate load than for walking less distance with a heavy one. And based on personal experience and what I’ve seen happen to other hikers, I’m convinced that backcountry injuries are more often attributable to excessive pack weight than to excessive miles.

To purist backpackers who object that I’m not stopping to smell the roses—or whatever it is one smells when bent double under a huge pack—I point out that I’ve simply gone from walking 2 mph to walking 3 mph. I’m not missing anything; in fact, I’m going farther and seeing more than I used to. But just finishing a day on the trail feeling great was evidence enough for me.

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Fastpacking the John Muir Trail

For a few years, the idea of speed-hiking the JMT had been stabbing the button of my obsessive-compulsive disorder, demanding my attention like a tiny thorn in my sock. I learned that fit hikers going überlight were sailing “America’s most beautiful trail,” as the JMT is often called, in just 10 days; it sounded reasonable, given the Sierra’s dry, mild summer weather and the trail’s moderate grades. Then I bumped into one ultralight guru who suggested cranking it in seven days. Another Muir Trail veteran told me that “30- to 40-mile days are totally doable.”

Unfortunately, where another hiker might think that pounding out 31 miles a day for a solid week sounds just slightly over the top, my admittedly altered brain chemistry rationalizes, “How hard could that be?” I also had the ulterior motive of simply wanting to hike the entire trail, but knowing I couldn’t possibly abandon my working wife and two young kids for three weeks. Before long, I’d convinced myself that a seven-day thru-hike of the JMT—221 miles including the 11-mile descent off Mt. Whitney (the 211-mile JMT terminates at its summit), with more than 40,000 feet of elevation gain—was not only feasible: It would even, quite possibly, be fun.

Right now, anyway, my prognostication is looking pretty good. At the risk of sounding cocky, we’re chewing up ground. We roll into Sunrise High Sierra Camp—nearly 13 miles out—by 10 a.m., as fresh as if we just did a 10-minute warm-up. The afternoon heat drains us, but we refuel on burgers, fries, and milkshakes at the Tuolumne Meadows café at around mile 22, and rendezvous with Mark’s wife and kids, who’ve driven there with our camping gear and a food resupply for the next two days. Then we set out again with 18-pound packs to hike into the evening.

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In the mountain dusk of 7 p.m., we pitch our tarps near a windswept, unnamed alpine tarn at 10,180 feet in Lyell Canyon. We pass the ibuprofen like we’re doing shots, rub tired-but-not-aching feet, and take stock. On our first day, we’ve walked 34 miles, with 7,000 feet of uphill. Mark’s pedometer reports the day’s mind-boggling tally: 72,376 steps. We should look like enemy combatants with open-ended leases at Guantanamo, but instead, we’re just tired.

As we take an icy dip in the lake, below a skyline of granite cliffs, Stumbles tells me with an ears-wide grin, “You know what? I can’t believe how good I feel.”

I smile, naively thinking: We’ve got this thing licked.

Planning a John Muir Trail Thru-Hike

“Subject: Re: You’re going to do what in 7 days?!”

That was Mark’s response to my e-mail, months earlier, baiting him with a passing mention of my plan. Mark, who lives south of Boston, is an author of books on fitness walking and a former U.S. race-walking team member who’s now, like me, past 40 with a demanding career and a young family. I wanted him in, but knew I couldn’t just invite him outright. Mark’s a hyper-analytical MIT guy: He would react to this supremely irrational idea in a very rational way—dismissing it as a plan for masochists.

I knew that before agreeing to this level of insanity, he would have to go through something like the stages of grief: First there is denial (“No way I’m doing something that stupid”), then anger (“Why me?!”), followed by bargaining (“Okay, I’m tentatively in, but I reserve the right to back out at any time”), depression (“Oh, my God, we’re actually going to do this”), and finally, acceptance (“I’m an idiot”).

Get the right shelter for a trip like the JMT. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents”
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Honing my sales pitch as Fenton chewed on my proposal, I started recruiting a team of the blissfully ignorant.

My fellow-Idahoan friend Todd Arndt takes hours-long trail runs and still fondly recalls the time we hiked 8,000 feet up out of Hells Canyon—108° F., no shade. Todd’s a doctor, so if one of us perished—assuming it’s not him—at least we’d have someone who’s qualified to pronounce the time of death. When I called him and broached the idea, there followed a long pause, then he said slowly, as if he’d just bumped his head very hard: “That. Sounds. Great.”

Heather Dorn, mother of two girls and living at the time in Pennsylvania, exhibited impeccable judgment—a valuable wilderness asset—by avoiding my calls and emails for weeks. But proving demonstrably that a Y chromosome is not a prerequisite for bad judgment, she ultimately gave in to the lure of the impossible disguised as plausible.

And Mark Godley, of the Bay Area, was tough enough for it: He had hiked with me through the rugged Bailey Range of the Olympics carrying a sleeping bag the size of a prize-winning pumpkin. In a two-career marriage with three preschool children, he couldn’t escape for a week, but would join us for our last two days.

And a month after that first e-mail to Fenton, he was in. Defying reason, I had a team.

We set out to get in the shape of our lives in four months—going out on 5 a.m. speed hikes, grinding out 25-mile dayhikes in blistering heat, doing ridiculous numbers of lunges. A few weeks prior to meeting up in Yosemite Valley, Fenton and I banged out a one-day, 32-mile hike of the Pemi Loop in New Hampshire’s White Mountains with 10,000 feet of ups and downs.

We were ready. Or so we thought.

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I am floating in the stratosphere.

The feeling reminds me of childhood dreams of flying, but this is no dream. We are hiking across the slender, granite spine of 9,926-foot Clouds Rest, between sphincter-puckering abysses of deep air in the heart of Yosemite National Park. Below my left elbow, the rock drops off like a very long and insanely steep slide for several hundred feet before reaching forest; and that’s the side that feels less exposed. Below my right elbow, a cliff face sweeps downward a dizzying, stomach-churning 4,000 feet—that’s a thousand feet taller than the face of El Capitan.

Strolling over this airy catwalk toward the top of Clouds Rest (lead photo, above), seeing the world the way that soaring hawks and bald eagles see it, feels about as close to flying as a terrestrial creature can get while keeping at least one foot reassuringly attached to solid earth. From the expressions on the faces of my friends Todd Arndt, Mark Fenton, and Jeff Wilhelm, I can see they’re thinking the same thing.

Ahead of us, just a few miles away, Half Dome and Yosemite Valley look surreal—like an Ansel Adams photograph blown up to full-Earth scale. Farther off, the Cathedral Range, Clark Range, and the peaks of northern Yosemite point sharpened knives at the sky. It’s one of the best views reached by trail in a park overstuffed with world-famous scenery. And while hundreds of hikers will file up the Mist Trail and Half Dome today, we have Clouds Rest to ourselves.

Clouds Rest marks an auspicious start to an ambitious trek I’ve wanted to do for a long time: a 152-mile grand tour of the most remote reaches of Yosemite, hiking through much of the vast sweep of far-off mountains and canyons sprawling before us.

And we’ll do it all in a week.

We are seven miles into the first morning of the first leg of my plan: a 65-mile backpacking trip south of Tuolumne Meadows, which we intend to knock off in three long days, hitting highlights such as Clouds Rest, Half Dome, Vogelsang Pass and Lake, and remote Red Peak Pass in the Clark Range. We’ll follow that with an 87-mile hike north of Tuolumne in four days.

Backpacking 152 miles in seven days will certainly challenge all of us, but we’ve done this sort of thing before. Todd, Mark, and Jeff share my enthusiasm for hiking distances that most people associate with forced marches or bird migrations.

We’ll travel very light and hike 12-hour days simply because we want to see as much of Yosemite as we can in the limited time we have. And our agenda promises big rewards. We’ll explore the wildest wilderness in the very landscape that inspired John Muir to commit his life to preserving places like Yosemite—that helped popularize the very idea of national parks: In 1864—eight years before the designation of Yellowstone National Park—President Abraham Lincoln signed a law granting Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias to the state of California to protect. A generation later, Muir’s dogged activism led to the 1890 designation of Yosemite as our third national park.

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Having hiked quite a lot with my three companions—including the John Muir Trail, Timberline Trail, dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim to rim and across Zion National Park, and trekking in New Zealand and Patagonia—I’m pretty confident that we’ll make it.

But from Clouds Rest, looking out over much of Yosemite’s 1,169 square miles and contemplating that we plan to hike through most of what we can see over the next week leaves me feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation. It all looks very far away. I know we’re all wondering: Can we pull this off?

Depending on your perspective, you might think our agenda has a dreamlike quality—or sounds like a nightmare.

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

Hiking Half Dome

I’ve returned to Yosemite on a mission. After several visits, I’ve seen a fair bit of this flagship park: three previous backpacking trips in the park’s core, summiting Half Dome (a couple times), thru-hiking the John Muir Trail (about 37 miles of which are in Yosemite), dayhiking the Mist Trail and Upper Yosemite Falls, and rock climbing Cathedral Peak and other routes. A lot of people would probably feel satisfied that they had covered Yosemite fairly thoroughly.

But not me. I have an irrepressible fear that I might not hike every worthwhile trail and peak in America (or, I suppose, the world) before I’m old—at which point I’ll live out my tragically sad, last days drowning in regret over the life that might have been. That might sound like a severe case of WOCD (Wilderness Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), but the more I get out, the more I crave the next adventure.

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Setting aside whether that’s totally healthy from an emotional standpoint, more than 20 years after my first visit to Yosemite, I found myself haunted by frustration over having still only scratched the surface of this nearly 750,000-acre crown jewel of the National Park System. How could I have let that happen?

For years I’ve yearned to explore the two biggest swaths of wilderness on the map of Yosemite: the Clark Range and Merced River headwaters south of Tuolumne Meadows; and northern Yosemite, a vast reach of deep canyons and sub-alpine lakes and meadows hemmed in by an arc of 12,000-foot peaks.

Now, with a bold plan, seven days blocked out, and hopefully enough stamina, we just might complete that mission.

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Later that first day, beyond Clouds Rest, we stash our packs in the woods and start up the Half Dome Trail—of course. Scaling Half Dome is a rite of passage for Yosemite hikers, so even though we’re just halfway through a day that will stretch more than 20 miles and not end until dusk, we’re going up. Beneath a clear sky, gusts of wind buffet us as we haul ourselves up the cable route, scaling several hundred vertical feet of severely angled granite.

This marks the third time I’ve hiked the cable route on Half Dome. (See my tips on hiking Half Dome and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”) Biggest surprise this time? How steep it seems to me. Looking up and down the cables, I wonder whether they felt this steep those previous times and I just don’t remember—or age is making me more conscious of the peril of defying gravity. Either way, a little healthy respect for gravity isn’t slowing us down—although the column of people is.

Despite the inevitable traffic jams, though, a block-party atmosphere prevails. Complete strangers exchange “Well, gee, look at us!” expressions. Jeff, Todd, and Mark are grinning like boys sprinting into the surf at the beach. Halfway up, we chat with three sisters, well into middle age and none of them much for hiking, but one decided they needed to share some big adventure together and, by gosh, now they’re going up this thing. On top, we take the requisite photos standing on “The Visor”—a ledge jutting out over a vertical half-mile of thin air above Yosemite Valley. Then we chat with a couple just finishing their two-day rock climb of Half Dome’s famous big wall.

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While you won’t find anything approaching solitude on Half Dome, here’s what I think is wonderful about hiking it (besides the thrill and the views): Even though we’re on a 150-mile odyssey, we’re no less excited for the three sisters on possibly the biggest one-day adventure of their lives. And even though that climber couple just lived for two days on a 2,000-foot cliff, they’re no less pumped for us. Half Dome—like Yosemite itself—is a great, big melting pot under the Sierra sun, where people from all walks and all over the world cross paths in pursuit of their own favorite adventure flavor.

By that evening, we’re many miles from where we started the day, at Tenaya Lake. The sun begins its final descent as we cruise along the trail high above Illilouette Creek, hoping to find a campsite before dark. Mark stops abruptly, points, and calls out, “There’s a bear!” The large black bear sprints away from us in the sparse forest, and then stops some 50 yards off, sits and stares back at us—as if reconsidering who should be running from whom. That’s when we notice the little trickle of water nearby—not much, but the only water we’ve seen on this high plateau for miles; the bear is waiting for us to leave so he can get back to slaking his substantial ursine thirst.

So in the interest of being good neighbors—and avoiding any unnecessary rough stuff—we move on.

Get the right pack for a hike like this one in Yosemite. See my picks for “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and the best thru-hiking packs.

Red Peak Pass

Sucking air while climbing through switchbacks on our second day, I look up at Todd and Mark, chugging on ahead of me, wondering how they maintain that pace. That’s the trouble with having strong partners: You can get an inferiority complex. Before long, we reach a narrow notch that looks like it was chopped into the ridge by a hatchet—11,500-foot Red Peak Pass, the highest pass reached by trail in Yosemite. Getting here was worth struggling to breathe.

A stunning landscape spreads out before (and mostly below) us: the busted-up, burgundy face of 11,699-foot Red Peak; the Ottaway Lakes, inviting a swim and looking like a great spot to camp; and awaiting us on the other side of the pass, a constellation of smaller lakes sprinkled across a starkly barren plateau of reddish-orange rocks.

These are the headwaters of the Merced River, which, many miles downstream, thunders over 594-foot Nevada Fall and showers heavy mist onto hikers below 318-foot Vernal Fall, before meandering peacefully through Yosemite Valley. There, thousands of people file nose to butt along popular trails. Here, we see no one. When Mark says, “I’m feeling pretty good, actually,” he gets only agreement from Todd and Jeff.

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Moments like this validate for me our strategy of packing really light—taking only essentials—and hiking long days, the only way we’d see so much terrain in so little time. The bonus in our approach is seeing wild country at times of day, early morning and evening, when most other backpackers are still snoozing in their bags or sitting around camp.

Our ultra-hiking adventures share one common denominator: me as Planner-in-Chief. Truth be told, I have perhaps occasionally pushed us beyond everyone’s comfortable physical limits. (After six days averaging 30 miles a day on the JMT, the final day’s 35 miles, with two 13,000-foot passes, left us all with open, bleeding blisters.) Still, we all look forward to the next one, knowing the payoff far exceeds any pain.

I suppose there’s another instigating factor behind our mega-treks: I get obsessed with hikes I haven’t done, especially a peak or trail that’s been on my list for a while. Case in point: About five years after my wife and I moved to Idaho, I could not stop thinking about the fact that I had yet to climb the state’s high point, 12,662-foot Borah Peak. How could I have let that happen??? But as usual, my summer was completely booked—except for a 24-hour window in July. So I left home at 5 p.m. on a Sunday, alone, drove four hours to camp at the trailhead, got up at first light, made the 5,300-foot, nearly eight-mile hike and descent in five hours, and got home an hour before I had to pick up our son at daycare at 5 p.m. A huge weight lifted from my shoulders—briefly.

We hike into our second evening across a 9,500-foot plateau above the Merced Canyon, through a forest of widely spaced pine trees, glacial-erratic boulders, and deafening quietude. After a steep, 1,000-foot descent at dusk into the canyon of the roaring Lyell Fork of the Merced River, flanked by towering cliffs, we find a granite slab bigger than my back yard sitting midstream. It’s a clear night, so we lay out our pads and bags on the clean rock and watch the tracer fire of shooting stars light up the sky.

Get the right synthetic or down puffy to keep you warm. See my review of “The 10 Best Down Jackets.”

Vogelsang Pass

On our third and final morning, I wake at 4:45 a.m. Mark’s already stirring; Todd and Jeff rise soon afterward, as I fire up the stove. By 6 a.m., we’re on the trail, wearing headlamps for only about 15 minutes before we have enough daylight. We all love hiking at this time of day, when dawn light first begins poking its way across the landscape, sparking mountaintops with small blazes of orange light, when we might see a deer or two, or a black bear gorging on berries.

We climb several hundred feet out of Lyell Fork, traversing cliff ledges with views overlooking the Merced Valley and the jagged skyline around Red Peak Pass, then hike through more blissfully quiet pine forest. After a couple of hours, Todd says, “This was the best morning besides going over Clouds Rest.”

On these trips when we’re hiking more than 20 miles a day, there are always extremes of emotion. There are moments near the end of a long day when your body and feet feel beat up and you’re wondering why you’re doing this. But there are also moments of powerfully positive feeling—at an awe-inspiring view, or on one of those peaceful afternoons or early mornings of walking through quiet forest—when I’m reminded of exactly why I like hiking long days in the wilderness.

Around 10 a.m., as we’re starting our last climb, to Vogelsang Pass, I’m reminded again of one significant benefit of hiking in the cool hours of early morning: Some four hours and nearly 10 miles into our day, I’ve yet to really break a sweat. We’ve also just passed by the seventh or eighth deer we’ve seen on this trip; and moments later, we walk past three bucks, each sporting a rack of eight or 10 points.

We reach Vogelsang Pass before 11 a.m. and stop to take in the view down to Vogelsang Lake, nestled in an expansive granite basin. We exchange looks and grins, and 20 minutes later, we’re all diving into the lake. After a hot, dusty, mostly shadeless hike down the Rafferty Creek Trail, we take one more dip in Lyell Canyon—a fitting finish to the glorious first leg of my Yosemite obsession.

But my mission isn’t over yet. Ahead of us awaits the tougher, 87-mile hike through northern Yosemite—a trek that will forever change how I look at this park.

See my story about our 87-mile, second leg of this 152-mile tour of Yosemite, “Best of Yosemite, Part 2: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” and all of my stories about Yosemite and adventures in California national parks, and my stories about ultra-hiking at The Big Outside.

THIS TRIP IS GOOD FOR experienced, fit backpackers ready to step up their game and explore beyond the most-accessible trails. Trails are well marked and obvious, so navigation isn’t an issue for anyone capable of reading a map. Challenges include long climbs to passes up to 11,500 feet and the fatiguing character of the typically hot High Sierra afternoons. I recommend traveling with as light a pack as possible (see my ultralight backpacking tips). If you’re planning your first multi-day hike in Yosemite and have a good base of experience, this hike is a good choice. Otherwise, see my story “Ask Me: Where to Backpack First Time in Yosemite” for a five-star route that hits highlights like Clouds Rest and Half Dome but is shorter and less committing.

Make It Happen

Season The higher elevations and passes in Yosemite generally become mostly snow-free by early to mid-July and summer weather usually lasts well into September and sometimes into October—but watch the forecast in fall, because a first-of-the-season snowstorm could dump several inches or more.

The Itinerary We took three days, but many backpackers would prefer to take five to seven days for the 65-mile hike south of Tuolumne Meadows.

From the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead at the west end of Tenaya Lake, hike over Clouds Rest and continue to the Half Dome Trail, which you’ll do as an out-and-back side trip. Many backpackers will want to spend a night at Little Yosemite Valley, the only designated camping in the area and the most popular backcountry camp in the park; reserve your permit six months in advance (see Permit section below). Continue past Nevada Fall, and then hike up the Illilouette Creek Valley and along Ottoway Creek to Red Peak Pass. At the Triple Peak Fork of the Merced River, head toward Isberg Pass, but turn north before the pass onto the trail following the rim above the Merced River (past Cony Crags).

Turn up the Lewis Creek Valley to Vogelsang Pass, then descend to Vogelsang Lake and follow the Rafferty Creek Trail to the John Muir Trail/PCT to Tuolumne Meadows. Finish at the Rafferty Creek/Lyell Canyon Trailhead.

See my downloadable e-guides to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

Want my help planning the details of this trip, including an itinerary appropriate for your group? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan this or any trip you read about at this blog.

Getting There Leave your car where this trip ends, at the Rafferty Creek/Lyell Canyon Trailhead in Tuolumne Meadows (down the road past the Wilderness Center). Then take the park shuttle bus to the Sunrise Lakes Trailhead at the west end of Tenaya Lake on Tioga Pass Road to start the hike.

For information about public transportation options in and around Yosemite, see nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/publictransportation.htm.

Shuttle Service Tuolumne Meadows has a convenient shuttle bus connecting trailheads that operates from June through mid-September.

Permit In Yosemite, wilderness permit reservations are issued based on trailhead quotas, with special rules for backpacking the John Muir Trail. Sixty percent of permit reservations are available by lottery at recreation.gov beginning at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time on the Sunday up to 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking, with the lottery for each specific window of dates closing at 11:59 p.m. the following Saturday. You will be notified of whether you get a permit reservation within two business days after the lottery closes and will have three days to accept the permit (or lose the reservation).

Forty percent of wilderness permits are available on a first-come basis at recreation.gov up to seven days in advance. The non-refundable permit fee is $10 for each lottery entered or a walk-up permit plus $5 per person if you get a permit. Permits are valid for continuous wilderness travel from the park into adjacent wilderness areas; similarly, wilderness permits issued by other agencies for beginning a trip in an adjacent wilderness area and continuous wilderness travel into Yosemite are honored by Yosemite National Park. 

See my stories “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” “How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now,” and “10 Tips for Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Find more info at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermits.htm and nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildpermitdates.htm.

Map Trails Illustrated Yosemite National Park map no. 206, $14.95, natgeomaps.com. Tom Harrison Yosemite National Park map, $12.95, tomharrisonmaps.com.

E-Book Click here now for my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

Concerns

•    A bear canister is required for food storage when backcountry camping in Yosemite or anywhere in the High Sierra. Canisters are available for loan at the park’s Wilderness Centers, including the one in Tuolumne Meadows, where you will pick up your backcountry permit.
•    Water is plentiful enough along the route, but there are waterless stretches, including for several miles going over Clouds Rest; between the Merced River at Nevada Fall and the Merced Pass Lakes; and between Triple Peak Fork (Merced River headwaters area) and the Lyell Fork of the Merced. Estimate how long it will take you to hike those sections and carry enough water.
•    High Sierra summer afternoons can be very hot, and high elevation and the dearth of shade magnify the effects of the heat. Wear a wide-brim hat, stay well hydrated, start early to hike in the cool morning hours, and don’t overpack. I also prefer wearing lightweight shoes or boots on trips that are hot and often dry. See my ultralight backpacking tips and my “10 Tips For Making Hiking and Backpacking Easier” and “7 Tips For Avoiding Blisters.”
•    Mosquitoes are thick in summer until mid- to late August.

Good Eats Post- and/or pre-trip, scarf a dinner of the world-famous fish tacos and a breakfast burrito at the Whoa Nellie Deli, in the Mobil station at the junction of CA 120 and US 395 in Lee Vining, 30 minutes from Tuolumne outside Yosemite’s east entrance; whoanelliedeli.com.

Contact Yosemite National Park, nps.gov/yose.

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

I stare at the backpack on the ground in front of me. At 85 liters, with every milliliter of it stuffed with about 60 pounds of gear and food, it looks like something that should be lowered by a crane into a container ship rather than attached to a person’s back. If it had legs, teeth, and an appetite for meat, I wouldn’t stand a chance.

In fact, standing at the Sawtooth Pass Trailhead at 7,820 feet in Sequoia National Park, looking up at our imminent ascent to 9,511-foot Timber Gap, I’m thinking the chances that I’ll have an easy time of it are very, very slim. Probably like most parents, before I became a dad I had absolutely no idea how much heavy lifting was involved.

With no small amount of dread, I heft my pack onto one bent knee, slip an arm through a shoulder strap and turn myself until the pack rests heavily on my back. Then I straighten up, feeling like I’ve already surrendered points at the outset of a wrestling match against a formidable opponent. This backpack and I are fated to spend a lot of intimate time together over the next six days.

And of course, this is all my doing.

I wanted to take my kids on their longest backpacking trip to date. I knew they were ready for it, and I liked the idea of exposing them to the shift in mindset that occurs after you’ve been on the trail for more than a few days. But our son, Nate, 12, and our daughter, Alex, 10, still do not carry their full share of gear and food. So I figured our limit was six days. But even with the lightest tents and other gear, fitting some 50 pounds of food inside two adult backpacks required some aggressive shoehorning. My wife, Penny, is carrying the heaviest load she has shouldered in years, and Nate eagerly accepted more than he’s ever carried, including our necessary third bear canister. Still, much of that 50 pounds of food ended up in my pack.

I’ve also been eager to backpack with my family in Sequoia, in the southern High Sierra, home to many of the highest mountains and one of the biggest chunks of contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48—a pristine and incredibly photogenic land of razor peaks and alpine lakes so clear you could stand on the shore and read a book laying open on the lake bottom. Hearing about our plans for a nearly 40-mile loop from the park’s Mineral King area, Penny’s brother, Tom, and his 18-year-old son, Daniel, decided to join us.

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While I’ve thru-hiked the John Muir Trail through this part of the Sierra and explored other corners of it—including a rugged, partly off-trail, 32-mile hike in the John Muir Wilderness—this would be my first deep foray into the backcountry of Sequoia, our second national park (designated 18 years after Yellowstone and a week before Yosemite, although the latter had been protected in 1864 as a public trust of California).

With my burly pack compressing my middle-aged spine, we start hiking at mid-morning in classic High Sierra weather: beneath a cloudless, blue sky, with the temperature in the low 60s and a breeze that’s very possibly saving me from heat exhaustion as we plod up through dozens of switchbacks on a sunbaked mountainside. Still, even in these pleasant conditions, within minutes, sweat pours from my head like a fountain.

Redwood Meadow Grove and Bearpaw Meadow

“I just startled a black bear about a quarter-mile back down the trail,” a backpacker tells us.

It’s late afternoon on our first day, and we’ve pitched tents in a spacious campsite in the forest by Cliff Creek, north of Timber Gap. The backpacker, just passing through, saw the bear on the trail we’ll hike tomorrow morning. It reminds me of what the ranger at the Mineral King ranger station told us when we picked up our permit this morning: This past winter saw the lowest snowfall in recorded history in Sequoia National Park, one fallout of which was less natural food sources for bears this summer—making them particularly aggressive in their pursuit of human food. It’s also a reminder of how climate change is affecting our parks. “Be extra careful,” the ranger had said.

In the afternoon sun, we boys take a bracing dip in pools in fast-flowing and frigid Cliff Creek. After dinner, all six of us play a long match of our new, favorite card game, Wizard. Although everyone’s tired, much yelling and laughing ensues—my family takes games very seriously. As we hit the trail the next morning, Nate and Penny passionately debate hands from last night’s Wizard game.

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On our second day, we enter one of the highlights of backpacking in this park: a backcountry grove of giant sequoia trees at Redwood Meadow Grove. We had visited the Giant Forest in the park the day before starting out on this backpacking trip, and it’s majestic—but almost as busy as a shopping mall. Now, as the only people out here, we feel like the Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels. Trees stand too tall for us to see their crowns, with trunks so big around that all six of us could not link arms around some of them, and branches as thick as the base of a Douglas fir. In the heart of Redwood Meadow Grove, we stop for lunch at the unoccupied ranger station, lounging in an eclectic variety of old, outdoor chairs left outside the log building.

That evening, another mild and clear one, we pitch our tents without rainflies in the forest of the backpackers camp just below Bearpaw Meadow. Then we walk the short distance to the rocky ledges of the meadow, high above the Middle Fork Kaweah River, to watch the sunset turn the peaks of the Great Western Divide to gold.

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Hamilton Lakes, Precipice Lake

On a trail contouring across the face of a cliff, hundreds of feet above the deep Middle Fork Kaweah River, Alex points at a smooth, waterslide-like groove in the granite across the canyon, where sheer granite walls and spires stab at a cerulean sky. She says to me, “A glacier used to be right there?” I tell her that’s right.

It’s our third morning, and we’re facing our biggest climb of the trip: more than 3,000 feet, spread over 6.4 miles, to 10,700-foot Kaweah Gap. It’s warm but there’s a nice breeze. Most significantly for me, my pack has gotten much lighter—a major relief. My family consumes an impressive volume of food every day, and since I’m carrying much of it, my pack sheds several pounds daily.

By midday, under a hot sun, we reach the largest of the Hamilton Lakes, at 8,235 feet. Everyone needs a break. I start filtering several liters of water while Penny and Tom dig out lunch food and the kids head for the water; before long, we adults join them for a swim. The lake is almost completely enclosed by towering, impassable cliffs and pinnacles, except on its north side, where the High Sierra Trail zigzags up through steep ledges en route to Kaweah Gap—still 2,500 feet above us. [Note: Hamilton Lakes made my list of nicest backcountry campsites I’ve walked past.]

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A bit after 5 p.m., I walk up to the rocky shore of small, oval-shaped Precipice Lake, still 30 minutes below Kaweah Gap. At 10,400 feet, with the nearest tree at least a couple of trail miles below us, the lake’s glassy, green and blue waters sit in a granite bowl, reflecting a white and golden cliff with black water streaks on the opposite shore. A ribbon-like waterfall, originating in a remnant glacier below the north face of 12,040-foot Eagle Scout Peak, pours at least 100 feet down the cliff. I unconsciously mutter, “Wow!” Standing beside me, Tom, who’s backpacked in some spectacular parts of the High Sierra, says, “Yea. Incredible spot.” [Note: Precipice Lake made my list of 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites.]

Nate had been saying for at least an hour coming up the trail that he would take a swim in Precipice Lake, “although it’s probably going to be pretty frigid.” As we all congregate at the shoreline, he keeps his vow, plunging into the icy waters; then Daniel and I join him. Before long, we reach a unanimous consensus to spend the night here instead of continuing over Kaweah Gap and camping in the Nine Lakes Basin on the other side.

A steady wind rakes the campsite, but it’s beautiful up here. We have a view back down this high valley to the Hamilton Lakes and the row of granite monoliths rising across the valley. High above Precipice Lake, scores of slender spires line up atop a long ridge of Eagle Scout Peak.

While Tom and Daniel and Penny and Alex find flat spots on ledges above the lake for their tents, Nate and I decide to sleep under the stars. We lay our pads and bags out on a flat slab big enough for both of us. Long after dark, the two of us lie in our bags looking up at a sky shot full of stars above the dark silhouettes of peaks.

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Will 2019 be the year that you hike the John Muir Trail? While next summer may seem very far off, an ambitious undertaking like a thru-hike of “America’s most beautiful trail”—more than 220 miles and anywhere from under two weeks to over three weeks—requires significant advance planning, and the time period for applying for a permit for it is coming up soon. Take your first step on that adventure right now by watching this video from my thru-hike of the JMT, and then click the link below to my story about that great trip, with my tips on how to do it right. Plus, read on to see how I can give you the best expert advice you’ll find to planning a JMT thru-hike.

Calling the JMT “America’s most beautiful trail” can sound hyperbolic, given the competition in places like Grand Canyon and Glacier national parks, southern Utah, and even elsewhere in California’s High Sierra.

But the description has stuck hard to the John Muir Trail for many years, nonetheless—and it’s hard to argue against the claim.

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Meandering 211 miles from Yosemite National Park to the summit of Mount Whitney (where you then face an 11-mile descent to finish the trip), it crosses a landscape dappled with thousands of lakes, and mountain passes over 13,000 feet high (like Trail Crest on Mount Whitney, in the photo above) below peaks soaring to 14,000 feet. Sheer granite cliffs loom everywhere, and roaring waterfalls are too numerous to even all have names. The JMT passes through contiguous, pristine wilderness in three national parks—Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia—and two federal wilderness areas, the John Muir and Ansel Adams.

I’ve backpacked all over the U.S., and I still consider the JMT one of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.” I think you’ll see why in this video. After watching it, scroll down to the link to my story about that trip.

Get the right backpack for a hike like the JMT. See my picks for “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
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Wondering whether you are up to it? Read my story about my thru-hike, where you can view lots of photos and read some of my tips on planning this adventure of a lifetime yourself.

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The JMT has grown enormously popular, making it increasingly difficult to get a permit for a thru-hike, and the time period for applying is coming up soon. See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.” Find more info at nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/jmtfaq.htm.

If you can’t get a permit for a JMT thru-hike or just don’t have the time next year, find some shorter, comparable backpacking trips by scrolling down to Yosemite and Sequoia at my All Trips Listed By State page at The Big Outside, or get my detailed, expert advice on backpacking in Yosemite in my downloadable e-guides to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

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On the long, uphill hike toward the highest mountain in the contiguous United States, in the middle of April, the alpine sun and wind behave like a couple married for far too long, who take their frequent disagreements to extremes that make everyone else uncomfortable. The sun offers us a hug of much-needed warmth one moment, only to later leave us wilting in its inescapable, unrestrained heat. The wind arrives at times precisely when we crave its relief from the sun’s thermal oppression, and at other times entirely unwelcome, an icicle knifing into bone. We alternately wish for and desperately try to avoid both of them.

But at this moment, somewhere well over 11,000 feet above sea level on the east side of California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, the wind is definitely not our friend. And the sun seems willfully deaf to our silent pleas to show us a little more love.

I shoot a glance at my son, Nate, 15, who has the body mass index of a legal-size envelope. Layered up in a shell jacket over a fleece, a warm hat, gloves, and soft-shell pants, he’s pacing a small, circular trough into the snow, trying to warm himself and not entirely succeeding. I can also feel the wind starting to thicken my marrow, and the body language of our companions communicates that most of them feel the same. We’ve been standing still for only a matter of minutes, on a short snack-and-drink break. Now, as we’ve done most of this day just to stay warm, we need to get moving again.

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It’s the second morning of our four-day ascent of Mount Whitney. Tomorrow, we hope to climb Whitney’s Mountaineers Route to the summit, armed with ice axes, crampons, enthusiasm, and if all goes well, an adequate degree of acclimation to elevations that most of us rarely encounter. In fact, our high camp at 12,000 feet, which we’ll reach within an hour, will be higher than several people in our group have ever been, including Nate. And from there it’s another 2,500 feet to the summit, where reduced air pressure has an effect similar to cutting the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere nearly in half compared to sea level.

I’m sure everyone’s wondering whether they will stand on that summit tomorrow. But I’m thinking mostly about Nate, and flashing back in my mind through the long chain of moments, reaching back many years, that have brought us to this spot here today, and the deceptively slow but persistent pace of time that has transformed my little boy into a young man.

Big City Mountaineers

Nate and I are in the John Muir Wilderness, in California’s Eastern Sierra, with eight other people whom we met in person only within the past two days. They include our three mountain guides from Sierra Mountaineering International, Tristan Sieleman, 38, Lindsay Fixmer, 35, and Trevor Anthes, 40. Tristan and Lindsay are affable joke-tellers who clearly delight in leading people on adventures in the mountains. They remind me of young musicians just starting to make it big: They appear to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Trevor is quieter, choosing his words carefully; but when he does say something, it comes from a deep knowledge base about how to travel safely through the mountains.

The other five members of our party are readers of this blog who signed up to join Nate and me on this climb, which we’re doing as a fundraiser for a fantastic organization called Big City Mountaineers that introduces urban teens to the wilderness.

Since 1989, BCM has been providing wilderness-mentoring experiences to underprivileged urban youths. Every year, BCM partners with youth-development agencies and professional field instructors to take hundreds of teenagers on a weeklong expedition that includes a five-day wilderness backpacking or canoe trip. This year, upwards of 800 kids age 13 to 18 will participate in a BCM program, increasing the likelihood of these kids staying in school and not getting involved in violence or drugs.

After I announced plans for this climb at this blog last fall, five readers of The Big Outside signed up for it, all telling me that it represents not only an opportunity to challenge themselves personally, but they were also drawn to the goal of raising money to help get more kids outdoors. Collectively, we raised more than $25,000 for BCM.

Molly Baab, 40, who works for an e-commerce site and lives outside of Boston, is an avid rock and ice climber who met her husband through climbing; they now have a five-year-old daughter and are introducing her to the outdoors. Molly turned 40 last year, and promised herself she would climb a big mountain to celebrate. When I announced this Whitney climb, she told me, “I went from unsure about it to signed up in 10 minutes.”

Tim Brosnan, 56, of Annandale, N.J., a senior vice president with an international risk-management firm, has hiked throughout the Northeast, in parts of the West, and in Spain and Nepal. He speaks fondly of his wife and three grown children, and told me this climb gives him a chance to “do something to improve the lives of kids who haven’t been as lucky as we have.”

For Nick Ornella, 31, a pharmacist from Cincinnati, tall and lean with an easy smile, this is his first major mountain climb; he has mostly day hiked and car camped and once backpacked 73 miles on the Appalachian Trail through Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

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John Kelly, 66, a retiree from Maple Ridge, B.C., who hasn’t retired from adventure, has backpacked for decades and walked Spain’s Camino de Santiago and the Snowman Trek in Bhutan, one of the world’s highest and most challenging treks, crossing nine passes over 4500 meters (15,850 feet) in elevation.

Frank Weber, 39, of Hardeeville, S.C., whose frequent laugh carries across the campsite, is an Arizona native and avid backpacker. He and his wife have taken their three young kids on numerous outdoor adventures “since before they could crawl,” he told me, and “we have watched them flourish in the outdoors, which has solidified for us the importance of unplugging children from our hyper-connected world to let them experience nature.”

We’d all agree with Frank on that point.

Camping at 12,000 Feet

When the wind becomes too much, we resume lumbering uphill, carrying 40-pound backpacks stuffed with camping and climbing gear, food, water, and clothes—except for Nate, who’s carrying about 25 pounds, which is still one-quarter of his body weight, while I haul some of his gear and food. As we pass over a snowy crest, the full, daunting East Face of Mount Whitney and its neighboring spires come into view, canine teeth of sheer granite intruding upon altitudes usually the exclusive domain of clouds.

It’s the rare kind of scenery that forces you to stop in your tracks, unconsciously, because simultaneously walking and intellectually processing this view overloads the brain. I’ve hiked through some of the most beautiful places in America and around the world. Looking up at the East Face of Mount Whitney reminds me, perhaps more than anywhere else I’ve been, of the surreal towers of Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park.

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More than three hours after leaving our first camp at 10,300 feet near Lower Boy Scout Lake—where we awoke this morning to find ice in our water bottles—we stroll onto a broad, snow-covered, flat area below the East Face: our high camp at 12,000 feet, more than two vertical miles above sea level. It’s afternoon, the wind has mostly died down, and there’s not a speck of shade in sight. With no escape from the direct sun reflecting off snow, it feels like we’re slowly boiling in a cauldron of dry air.

Standing around in T-shirts a couple hours after we had shivered, everyone steals long gazes up at Mount Whitney, highest point of land between Maine’s forehead and California’s tail, looming 2,500 severely vertical feet above us—comparable to the relief of the famous face of Yosemite’s Half Dome, but nearly 4,000 feet higher in elevation. We’ve hiked for two days to reach this spot, and still, the summit looks very far away.

When the sun drops behind a notch in the row of spires beside Whitney, the temperature plummets like a ball rolling off a table.

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Trying to Raise a Kid Outdoors

Almost nine years ago, when Nate was a 40-pound six-year-old carrying a stuffed dolphin named Flipper, he and I backpacked the 18-mile, Alice Lake-Toxaway Lake loop in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, a rugged hike that goes over a 9,200-foot pass and has some of the prettiest mountain lakes in Idaho. It was actually our second “boy trip,” the name Nate gave back then—and that we still use today—to our annual father-son adventure (a tradition I’ve also established with my daughter). But it was our first real backcountry adventure.

That three-day hike doesn’t seem all that long ago to me, of course. But for Nate, those nine years represent more than half a lifetime of growing physically and gaining maturity.

We’ve since taken several boy trips, backpacking in the Sawtooths and the neighboring White Cloud Mountains and rock climbing at Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park. Every year, I’ve picked an outing appropriate for his stamina and abilities, and each time, he has shown an enthusiasm that turns my heart to butter. My wife and I have taken the same approach on family adventures with both kids; and from sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay to rappelling into slot canyons and hiking Mount St. Helens, they have always risen to each new challenge—not only delighting in the adventure, but taking visible pride in their ability to do something that they realize many people would never even attempt.

In an age when most kids seem to have been surgically attached to their electronic devices, and rarely get outside to play the way their parents regularly did as children, I’ve found that family-driven outdoor activities are one of the primary ways that my kids connect with nature.

But climbing Mount Whitney may be the hardest adventure Nate and I have attempted together. For us to reach the summit, he has to acclimate to an elevation more than 3,000 feet higher than he’s ever stood. And he’ll have to do that on a rigorous summit day involving 2,500 feet of climbing snow, coming on the heels of two strenuous days of carrying a heavy backpack uphill. He’s never done this sort of climb before.

Nate has been doing everything one can do to prepare for climbing a big mountain, from training for the past four months at home to drinking water assiduously since the evening before we started hiking from the Mount Whitney Trailhead, at over 8,300 feet. Now, in our tent on our second evening, at 12,000 feet, he tells me, “I think I’m pretty well acclimated.”

I tell him I’m confident he can do this. But there’s really no way to be sure he’ll make it.

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Mount Whitney’s Mountaineers Route

On summit day, Tristan wakes us a little while before the first light of day starts bleeding into the sky on the eastern horizon. But it’s surprisingly mild, several degrees above freezing, and clear and calm as we walk around camp by the light of headlamps, wolfing down a breakfast of oatmeal and hot drinks and getting into our clothing, mountain boots, harnesses, and crampons. Tim elects to enjoy a relaxing day in camp; he was feeling the elevation hard on our first two days, and has the maturity to accept his limits. Everyone else starts kicking steps in the frozen snow at 6 a.m., hiking toward the stunning wall of sheer granite pinnacles now glowing like gold nuggets in the dawn light.

Mount Whitney’s Mountaineers Route technically begins at the base of a 1,400-foot-tall gully that splits the mountain’s eastern flank right around the corner from the East Face. That’s where, a bit over an hour after leaving camp, we stop in warm sunshine and chilling gusts of wind—that troubled married couple arguing again—to tie together in rope teams. Varying from roughly the width of a five-lane highway to a country lane, the gully is filled with snow most of the year, pitched at an angle ranging from the steepness of a black diamond ski run to steeper than a double-black diamond. While this mountaineering route does not see anything approaching the thousands of hikers who walk to the summit—or try to—via the Mount Whitney Trail every summer, it does receive a steady stream of climbers from spring through fall. We’ll encounter several other parties today, including two skiers and a pair of rock climbers from Alaska who tell us ironically that they “were hoping for some warm rock climbing.”

When the wind dies down for periods of several minutes, we’ll heat up until another cold blast rips through the gully. “The weather’s actually perfect,” Tristan says to me during one short break, when we’ve stomped out personal platforms the width of our boots to stand on while we remove packs and grab drinks and snacks. “The wind blows just when you’re getting too hot,” he says.

About two hours after roping up, we scramble through bands of loose rocks and snow to reach the gully’s apex at a shoulder called The Notch. Then the Mountaineers Route makes a hairpin turn to enter a shorter but even steeper gully of snow and rock slabs rising for 400 feet. We step into the mountain’s shadow and blasts of wind that make it feel much colder even than the air temperature, which is probably below freezing. We move quickly, eager to get back into sunshine and out of this gully, where the threat of falling rock, inadvertently kicked loose by climbers above us, looms as a constant danger.

We reach the summit plateau, a wind-scoured, granite plain littered with rocks, and take the easy stroll to Whitney’s crown. At 10:30 a.m., four-and-a-half hours after leaving our camp, we all stand at the brink of cliffs falling away for thousands of feet to our campsite too far below to be seen. And we spin slowly around to absorb a view of scores of snowy High Sierra peaks, many rising to 13,000 and 14,000 feet, some in the John Muir Wilderness and others in Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks, all of them lower than the rocks we’re standing on.

With little wind and the sun evenly balanced with the cold temps, we linger at the summit for 90 minutes, taking pictures and just quietly celebrating having reached the roof of the High Sierra.

That evening, after we’ve all hung around outside talking and laughing until the dark and cold chased us to our tents, Nate tells me, “You know, this has been the best boy trip we’ve ever done, and it makes me excited to do bigger ones and climb more mountains like this.” I tell him I would love that.

And then Nate says, “Being out here just changes how time passes. I think about how I’m doing this right now and soon this will be over and I’ll be doing something else.”

Then my 15-year-old philosopher-son tells me, “Time is funny.”

Yes, I say to him, it sure is.

For information about Big City Mountaineers and its Summit For Someone program, through which you could take a guided climb of a variety of U.S. and international peaks while raising money to help BCM introduce young people to the outdoors, see bigcitymountaineers.org.

See all of my stories about adventures in California national parks and about family adventures, as well my very popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids” and Boy Trip, Girl Trip: Why I Take Father-Son and Father-Daughter Adventures.”

Guides Sierra Mountaineering International, sierramountaineering.com.

Contact Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center, Lone Pine, CA, (760) 876-6222, fs.usda.gov/recarea/inyo/recreation/recarea/?recid=20698.

I’m slogging up a long ramp of beach-like sand toward Cox Col, an off-trail pass sitting a few ticks over 13,000 feet in California’s John Muir Wilderness. The high-altitude sun feels like a blacksmith’s forge hovering right above my head. My breaths come faster than my steps, and I feel lightheaded. But I’m thinking mostly about the pass ahead of us—and whether there’s a safe route over it.

My friend Jason Kauffman and I are on a 32.2-mile, three-day traverse of one of the highest, harshest, and most achingly gorgeous strips of the High Sierra, from North Lake, outside Bishop, to Mosquito Flat, between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes. I’ve devised a route linking up trails with long stretches of cross-country hiking over lake-studded alpine basins and six passes between 11,150 and 13,040 feet. We are exploring corners of the Sierra rarely seen by people. John Muir himself would have been pleased with our itinerary.

Our route’s not in any guidebook—not entirely, anyway. Like assembling a puzzle with some missing pieces, I cobbled the traverse together from thin descriptions of fragments of it. I like that element of uncertainty, of the path ahead being something of a mystery. It’ll be an adventure, I told Jason, who’s laboring up this slope behind me. I got that much right. We’ve logged 10- to 12-hour days, at times weaving through cliff bands, descending steep, loose scree, and scrambling over big talus blocks that could crush a Land Rover.

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Lamarck Col

Starting out early on our first morning from North Lake Trailhead, we shiver in shorts in the 30° F air. But before long, the sun, intense at these elevations, moves in like a bad roommate. We climb steadily to Upper Lamarck Lake, whose clear, glassy waters act like a crystal ball, reflecting the cliffs and sea of talus awaiting us. From there, although the map shows no trail, we follow a path beaten by previous backpackers to 12,960-foot Lamarck Col.

Not yet acclimated, sucking the thin air in big gulps, I feel the familiar brain-core throbbing of a mild altitude headache—that feeling like someone has surreptitiously hammered a walnut up into the base of my skull. We cross a vast rock garden on a high plateau—thousands of rocks sprayed over the ground, from pebbles to boulders the size of orcas. Around us, pinnacled ridges rise to sharp peaks. Every time I lift my gaze from the path, the scene has changed—the light on the clean, gray-white granitescape having perceptibly shifted, one picture fading out as another fades in. John Muir and Ansel Adams were right: The light does fall differently here.

It’s good to be back in the Sierra.

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This story actually begins almost 20 years ago, during my first visit to these mountains, backpacking in Yosemite. One trip to the Sierra is like one M&M: you can’t really stop there. This range has pulled me back repeatedly in the years since, including for a thru-hike of the John Muir Trail (JMT) a few summers ago, when I both marveled at the beauty of that classic hike, and kept looking beyond the trail, at amazing peaks and passes and hanging valleys, and wondering, “What’s up there?”

In many U.S. mountain ranges, unless you’re a climber or have an untreatable attraction to thick bushwhacking, you’re left to continue wondering what lies beyond the trail’s edges. But the Sierra, with its open terrain, numerous walkable passes—and, of course, scenery that pulls in adventurers from all over the world—harbors the best cross-country hiking in America. There are scores of possibilities beyond the well-known Sierra High Route (SHR) that are more consistently scenic even than the JMT.

For this trip, I scoured maps and R.J. Secor’s indispensable guidebook The High Sierra—Peaks, Passes, and Trails. Our traverse, partly overlapping the SHR, demands expert skills and mental comfort with difficult scrambling. Thirty-two miles was also quite ambitious for three days out here. But Jason and I resolved to travel light and remind ourselves that all suffering in this world is temporary.

We kick steps across snow-covered talus to Lamarck Col, a break in a blocky ridge, described by Secor as “probably the most popular cross-country route across the Sierra crest between Bishop Pass and Piute Pass.” A sign greets us: “Entering Kings Canyon National Park.” We’ll walk through a northern corner of the national park only for the next several miles, until crossing Alpine Col later today.

This sign might also read, “Welcome to a skyscraping land of rock and water and virtually no vegetation,” because we will walk through that kind of starkly beautiful environment for most of the miles that lay ahead.

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Darwin Canyon

The plunge into icy water steals away my breath as effectively as the elevation. We stop on our first afternoon for a quick dip and lunch beside the fourth (or second-highest) of five lakes arrayed like a string of pearls in Darwin Canyon. Sunshine glints off the water, which ripples from a slight breath of wind. We lounge in T-shirts on flat slabs. Across the lake, a snowmelt cascade jostles loudly down a talus slope below a small glacier on 13,710-foot Mt. Meridel. I turn to say something to Jason, and see him napping.

It soon becomes clear we have this entire hanging valley to ourselves. That’s not an observation made often in the Sierra. When one of the world’s great mountain ranges shares a state with 36 million people, solitude becomes an elusive quarry. On this trip, though, encountering other hikers will be the anomalous experience, so unusual it’s a pleasant surprise. While we will see a few groups of backpackers along trails on our route, though, we will see no one on the off-trail sections.

And that may be the best reason to get off-trail here—to see, in a sense, the “lost Sierra,” the wilder, lonelier, harder, and vaster spaces beyond the Mt. Whitneys and Yosemites. For reasons difficult to enunciate, an alpine lake feels colder, a campsite below a jagged skyline more remote and tranquil, and a 12,000-foot pass like a prouder accomplishment when you’re not just another hiker in the queue.

By early evening that first day, we stand in a more earnest breeze at 12,320-foot Alpine Col. Behind us, a heavy mountain shadow falls like a comforter over Lake 11910—one of three nameless lakes in the trailless, nameless valley we have just hiked up. The lake’s talus-choked shores rises to cliffs and angular, razor peaks washed in a rosy light. It is a snapshot you could take in a thousand spots in the Sierra. But after hauling ourselves up over all that talus and not running into another person along the way, we are the only people getting that shot.

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Humphreys Basin

It looks as if someone laid the rocks in place.

Big, closely spaced, and flat-topped, they form a neat, meandering line bridging 25-foot-wide, calf-deep Piute Creek. They remind me of similar easy rock-hops that I’ve seen spanning broad creeks elsewhere in the Sierra. I suppose it’s just statistical inevitability: In a land so littered with rocks, the odds are that some would form lines of stepping stones across creeks. But it does encourage the impression that this place is perfect.

Jason and I cross the creek. It’s our second morning, and we’re en route to sprawling Humphreys Basin, below Mt. Humphreys, which rises to nearly 14,000 feet. With scores of lakes, tarns, and perennial puddles, the map of this plateau above 11,000 feet looks like someone waved a dripping paintbrush over it.

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