Are you looking for great trip ideas for your bucket list? Well, you’ve clicked to the right place. This freshly updated story spotlights some of the most iconic wildlands in the U.S., including Glacier (photo above), Yosemite, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Sequoia national parks, southern Utah’s national parks and monuments, two wilderness areas, and two international adventures that may not be on your radar—all of them worthy of your bucket list.

All of them are also trips that you must start planning now or very soon to take them this year—including rapidly approaching backcountry permit-reservation dates for many national parks.

The 10 trips described below all stand out in personal memory among the countless trips I’ve enjoyed over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. They all have links to stories at The Big Outside with many more images and info, including my expert tips on planning and taking each trip. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)

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 update this list regularly to feed you fresh and timely ideas—and to help your bucket list, like mine, continually refresh as you steadily tick off new trips.

I can help you plan any of these trips—see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how and to read hundreds of comments from people like you whom I’ve helped plan an unforgettable adventure. See also my E-Books page for my expert e-books to many of America’s best backpacking trips, and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

I’d love to read any thoughts, personal experiences, or suggestions you want to share in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Southern Utah is Huge. Get Busy

Okay, you know of and maybe have dayhiked or backpacked in some of Utah’s Big 5 national parks: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, and perhaps even lesser-known Capitol Reef—which together protect landscapes that almost defy description and a density and breadth of parks and other wild lands that’s arguably unmatched in the country. You almost certainly haven’t finished with them yet.

But have you backpacked gems like Paria Canyon, Coyote Gulch, or Owl and Fish canyons? Or taken more obscure and challenging backpacking trips like Dark Canyon, the Death Hollow Loop in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, or the Maze District of Canyonlands? Or even taken classic adventures like backpacking Zion’s Narrows, Kolob Canyons or West Rim Trail or floating the Green River through Canyonlands? Not to mention the countless great dayhikes of all distances, like the beloved slot canyons Peek-a-Boo Gulch and Spooky Gulch.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve returned to southern Utah—it’s dozens—but I’m far from done there. You’ve probably only scraped the surface of this region. Treat southern Utah as a lifetime commitment and every new adventure will amaze you. Spring and fall are the prime seasons and some of these trips require reserving permits months in advance.

See “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest,” “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

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Get Lonely in the North Cascades

On at least three major lists of the least-visited national parks, North Cascades ranks in the top five (and most of the top 10 are in Alaska). For backpackers who prefer to have a beautiful wild place almost to themselves, that’s a good thing.

A sprawling swath of glacier-clad mountains and thickly forested valleys, North Cascades has long been one of my favorite parks—and it has one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever slept in.

On my most-recent trip there, a friend and walked 80 miles through the heart of the North Cascades National Park Complex just as the huckleberries ripened and the larch trees blazed yellow with fall color in the last week of September. 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 you turn a 360 overlooking waterfalls and glaciers pouring off cliffs and jagged, snowy peaks amid a sea of mountains.

North Cascades National Park holds an Early-Access lottery for permit reservations from March 2-13, 2026—enter it especially if you’re seeking any popular backcountry camps in the park—and opens general permit reservations on April 29.

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 route, and all stories about North Cascades National Park at The Big Outside.

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Backpack Incomparable Glacier National Park

Little wonder that Glacier ranks among the favorite national parks of backpackers: No place in the Lower 48 really compares with it. From its rivers of ice (which are disappearing rapidly due to climate change) pouring off craggy mountains and sheer cliffs that soar high above lushly green valleys, and over 760 lakes offering mirror reflections of it all, to megafauna like mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, and grizzly and black bears, these million acres in the rugged Northern Rockies simply deliver an experience you can’t find in any park outside Alaska.

I’ve backpacked multiple times all over Glacier, most recently in September 2023 (lead photo at top of story), when two friends and I hiked for a week mostly on the Continental Divide Trail through the park—unquestionably one of the entire CDT’s best sections. The park’s more than 700 miles of trails enable trips of varying distances, from beginner-friendly to serious, remote adventures in deep wilderness.

My e-books describing two long and magnificent treks through Glacier, “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park,” detail all you need to know to plan and execute those trips safely. They also describe shorter variations on those routes.

And, of course, I can give you a customized plan for a backpacking trip of any length in Glacier; click here to learn how.

Glacier holds two early-access lotteries, on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people, for a date and time between March 21 and April 30 when they can reserve a permit ahead of reservations opening to the general public on May 1. Glacier makes 70 percent of backcountry campsites available for reservations and 30 percent of campsites available for walk-in permits.

See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

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Backpack the Wonderland Trail Around Mount Rainier

Backpacking the Wonderland Trail around glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, one repeatedly sees “The Mountain” (as Washingtonians know it) fill the horizon—a sight that can stop you in your boots. If it’s fair to say that no multi-day hike in the contiguous United States is quite like the Wonderland Trail—and it is—that’s partly because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like Rainier.

But the WT isn’t just about views of Rainier. It also features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever walk through, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” countless waterfalls and cascades, and sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and black bears.

The full Wonderland loop around Rainier is a seriously strenuous, 93-mile trip, with over 44,000 cumulative vertical feet of elevation gain and loss. But because it can be accessed from several trailheads, you can choose between thru-hiking all of it—which takes up to nine to 10 days—or backpacking shorter trips of varying lengths on sections of the trail.

And choices like where to begin the loop and which direction to hike 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.”

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 “American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” about a 77-mile hike two friends and I took on much of the Wonderland (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my e-book).

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

Take Yosemite’s Best Dayhikes and Backpacking Trips

Half Dome, the John Muir Trail, Tenaya Lake, Mount Hoffmann, the Mist Trail, Upper Yosemite Falls, Tuolumne Meadows, and the Cathedral Range and Cathedral Lakes—these names are nearly as famous as the park that harbors them: Yosemite.

But in numerous trips backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing there over the years, I’ve discovered that other corners of Yosemite are equally spectacular if not as well known, including the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, Clouds Rest, Red Peak Pass, Matterhorn Peak and Matterhorn Canyon, Burro Pass, Mule Pass, Benson Lake, and Dewey Point, among many.

This flagship park’s finest backpacking trips and dayhikes offer a variety of experiences that will awe you no matter how much time you have or how many times you’ve been there. For backpacking, plan to apply for a wilderness permit 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the week you want to start hiking.

If you want to backpack Yosemite this summer, the time to apply for a wilderness permit is now.

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

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

I know Yosemite’s unique wilderness permit system very well and I’ve helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in Yosemite—including helping some obtain a permit after they had failed applying on their own. Go to my Custom Trip Planning page to see how I can do that for you.

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

Explore the Wind River Range

Come up with a list of the best backpacking trips in America that do not require you to reserve a permit months in advance, and rank them in order of scenic magnificence, and Wyoming’s Wind River Range would have to reside near or at the top of that list. The Winds are also one of the few mountain ranges in the contiguous United States where—if you put in the effort to get beyond the very few popular trailheads—you can hike for days below 13,000-foot peaks and count more alpine lakes than people.

Among the most recent of several trips I’ve made to the Winds, my wife, a friend, and I backpacked a five-day, roughly 43-mile loop from one of the less-busy trailheads on the west side of the range, following some of the most scenic trails I’ve walked in the Winds to high passes and gorgeous lakes around every turn. On a four-day hike, a friend and I camped near a lake every night and crossed four passes, including a sort of “back door” entrance into the amazing Cirque of the Towers, and I left there thinking we’d just done the best multi-day hike in the Winds.

And just last September, on a solo, six-day hike mostly on the Continental Divide Trail through the Winds, I went entire days without seeing other backpackers and walked past too many heart-stopping lakes to count. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

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

I’ve helped many readers plan a wonderful backpacking trip, ideal for them, in the Wind River Range. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at this blog and see hundreds of comments from readers who’ve received my trip planning.

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

Trek Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains

Located in the northeastern Italian Alps, with one national park, several regional parks, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Dolomites thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, gleaming like polished jewels in bright sunshine and virtually pulsing with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. They strike a sharp contrast with the deep, steep-sided, verdantly green valleys and meadows. On a weeklong, hut-to-hut trek through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, my family hiked a 39-mile (62-kilometer) section of the roughly 112-mile (180-kilometer) Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends.”

An alpine footpath famous for scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world, the AV 2 is also known for comfortable mountain huts with excellent food—and a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie, or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites. On one of the all-time best adventures I’ve ever taken, we discovered that it was all of those things and more.

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

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking or hiking trip.
Want my help with yours? Click here to learn more.

See the Glorious Southern Sierra in Sequoia National Park

With some of the highest mountains in the Lower 48 and a constellation of backcountry lakes, California’s southern High Sierra rank among the prettiest backpacking destinations in America. And Sequoia National Park hosts 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 lying open on the lake bottom.

On a six-day, 40-mile backpacking trip in Sequoia, my family hiked through a quiet backcountry grove of giant Sequoias and over 10,000-foot and 11,000-foot passes at the foot of 12,000-foot, granite peaks. We camped at two lakes that earned spots on my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites.

While many backpackers heading for the High Sierra point their compass at Yosemite and the John Muir Trail—creating enormous demand for those backcountry permits—far fewer set their sights on areas of Sequoia like where my family backpacked. That means it’s an easier permit to get, and the scenery rivals anywhere in the Sierra.

Apply for a permit up to six months in advance for a trip during the park’s quota period of late May through mid-September.

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” about my family’s six-day, 40-mile loop hike there, and all stories about Sequoia National Park at The Big Outside.

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

Wander Into Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

I have been hiking, backpacking, and climbing in Idaho’s Sawtooths—the wilderness in my back yard (or pretty close)—for almost 30 years. I’ve walked nearly every trail and some outstanding off-trail routes, from the most accessible lakes and mountain passes to the remote interior of the range, visiting numerous, incredibly picturesque alpine lakes that undoubtedly see few visitors. I’ve long thought that the Sawtooths look like they could be the love child of the High Sierra and the Tetons.

I returned there again in August 2025 for a four-day hike that began with walking through a lovely lakes basin I had not seen before. That trip featured several more wonderful and remote lakes (including the above photo), and on which we crossed four high passes and summited one 10,000-foot peak. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

Looking for a beautiful Sawtooths adventure that’s a moderate distance? The multi-day hike I’d recommend is a four- to five-day, roughly 36-mile route in the scenic heart of the range.

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

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

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

Trek Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

Picture this: an Arctic-looking landscape vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, wildflowers, and lichen blanketing glacial-erratic boulders. Cliffs and mountains that look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe. Thick, crack-riddled glaciers pouring like pancake batter that needs more water off starkly barren peaks rising to more than 8,000 feet. Braided rivers meandering down mostly treeless valleys, and reindeer roaming wild. Summit views of a sea of snowy, glacier-clad peaks rolling away to far horizons.

That describes my family’s weeklong, roughly 60-mile/97-kilometer, hut-to-hut trek through Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park—whose name means the “Home of the Giants.”

Our adventure combined pristine wilderness with the most luxurious huts I’ve ever stayed in—some featuring private rooms, hot showers, and restaurant-caliber meals—a trail network that allows for flexibility in route options, and optional side hikes to summits with mind-blowing views of mountains buried in snow and ice, including the highest peak in Norway. Some of us also hiked a spectacular ridge traverse known as “the most famous hike in Norway,” which I’d normally receive as a warning sign, but in this case, it’s a rigorous hike that I’d return to in a second.

Read “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park.”

Find more ideas and inspiration in my All Trips List, which has a menu of all stories at this blog, and in “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy trails.

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Hiking Yosemite’s Clouds Rest and Half Dome

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

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

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

Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Walking Across Zion

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

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

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Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

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

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

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

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

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

Hiking from Many Glacier to Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

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

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

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

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

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps

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

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

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

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

Backpacking the John Muir Trail from Evolution Basin to Mather Pass

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

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

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

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

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

Two Days Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

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

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

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

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

Hiking Capitol Reef’s Navajo Knobs Trail

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

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

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

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

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Two Days in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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

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

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

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

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Backpacking the Wonderland Trail

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

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

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

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

Hiking New Zealand’s Incomparable Tongariro Alpine Crossing

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

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

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

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Five Days Exploring the Wind River Range

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Backpacking The Narrows, Zion National Park

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hiking Mount St. Helens

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

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

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

Three Days on the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier

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

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

Glacier does that to me every time I go there.

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

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

Backpacking Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, Southern Olympic Coast

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

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

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

Two Days Backpacking Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch

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

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

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

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

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

Backpacking the High Sierra Trail, Sequoia National Park

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

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

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

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Four More Days in the Grand Canyon

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

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

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

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

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

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Backpacking the Rockwall Trail, Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies

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

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

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and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Climbing Norway’s Highest Peak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Grand Tour of Yosemite

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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Two Hikes in Glacier National Park

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

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Teton Crest Trail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

The Wonderland Trail

Distance: 93 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 4

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

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

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

Zion’s Narrows

Distance: 16 miles
Difficulty: 2

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

John Muir Trail

Distance: 221 miles
Difficulty: 4

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

South Kaibab to Lipan Point, Grand Canyon

Distance: 74 miles, with shorter variations
Difficulty: 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

The Southern Olympic Coast

Distance: 17.5 miles
Difficulty: 2

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

Honestly, nothing.

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

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

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

The Wind River Range

Distance: multiple routes and distances
Difficulty: 3 to 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runner-Up:

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

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

Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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

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

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

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

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

Close Runners-Up:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on any photo to learn more about that trip.

1. Pick the Place

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

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

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

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

Find ideas for your backpacking adventures at my Trips Page.

2. Plan Ahead

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

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

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

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

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3. Choose a Route That’s Right for Everyone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Craft a Sensible Itinerary

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

Avoid these mistakes:

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

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

5. Talk to Someone Who’s Done It

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

Every time I do that, I learn something unexpected.

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

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

Not ready to join yet? Click here now to buy my expert e-book version of this entire story.

6. Have Gear That Works

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

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

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

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

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

See my expert gear-buying tips in these stories:

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

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

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

7. Bring Clothing Layers for the Expected Weather

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

See my reviews of:

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

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

8. Don’t Overpack Food

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

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

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How was your 2025? I hope you got outdoors as much as possible with the people you care about—and you enjoyed adventures that inspired you. I’m sharing in this story photos from several backpacking and hiking trips I took this year, from the Grand Canyon in March and southern Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, Buckskin Gulch, and Paria Canyon in April to Idaho’s Sawtooths in August and again in early October and Wyoming’s Wind River Range in September.

That felt like a pretty good year to me (although there’s an argument to be made that my 2024 was better). But I’m very fortunate to be able to get out a lot.

Going through my photos always reminds me not just about the details of these experiences and places—but most of all, what’s most important in my life and why I strive to make getting outdoors a top priority. I know you do, too—that’s why you read my blog.

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

The photos in this story are selected images from my 2025 trips. Whether you want to learn more to take any of them yourself or simply draw some inspiration from them, I think you’ll enjoy this little escape.

Scroll through the photos and short anecdotes from each trip below. Some include links to stories about those places that I’ve already posted—many of which require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my tips and information on how to plan and take those trips. Watch for my upcoming stories about the other places described below. Click any photo to learn more about that trip.

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

I can help you plan any of these trips or any others you read about at The Big Outside—giving you the benefit of my more than three decades of professional experience identifying, planning, and successfully pulling off great adventures. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, and my expert e-books to some of America’s best backpacking trips.

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

Enjoy my pictures and start now planning your adventures for 2026.

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The Grand Canyon Tonto West to the Boucher Trail

In the last days of March, I returned yet again to a park where I have now backpacked and dayhiked in five of the past eight years (and several times further back in my past): the Grand Canyon. (And I just recently reserved a backcountry permit for another trip there in April 2026. I can’t get enough of it.) This time, with my wife, Penny, our 22-year-old daughter, Alex, and three friends—my longtime adventure partner David Ports, Penny’s great friend since college, Annie Black, and Alex’s close friend from college, Harper Meyer—we backpacked four days and roughly 36 miles from the Bright Angel Trailhead to the Hermit Trailhead, finishing via the notoriously steep Boucher Trail. And having now walked all of the major trails off the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, I can testify that the Boucher’s reputation is not exaggerated.

Besides starting on the park’s two most popular trails, the South Kaibab (David and I took this somewhat longer start) and the Bright Angel, our route followed a magnificent stretch of the 95-mile-long Tonto Trail west to Boucher Creek, crossing several tributary creek canyons with soaring cliffs and deep abysses and enjoyed three wonderful campsites, including one beside the Colorado River at Granite Rapids.

We also discovered that the Boucher is as exciting, varied, and breathtaking as it is steep in spots (but not the entire trail). Every time we lifted our eyes from the rocks and dirt at our feet in the steepest sections to look around, the scenery would slam the brakes on whatever focus we had on simply going up and hijack our full attention. The Boucher eventually levels off and makes a long traverse high above the grandest canyon, reminding me yet again that this place looks even better from a remote and lonely trail in the backcountry.

And on that traverse, we passed an established campsite that was an easy pick for my list of the best backcountry camps I’ve hiked past.

See my stories “Backpacking the Grand Canyon: Tonto West to Boucher Trail,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside, and my expert e-books to backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere.

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

Capitol Reef National Park

An April trip to southern Utah began with my friend Jeff Wilhelm and I dayhiking a roughly 10-mile traverse from the Grand Wash Trailhead on UT 24 to the eastern Cohab Canyon Trailhead on UT 24, including the spur trail to Cassidy Arch. That hike gave us a magnificent window onto Capitol Reef’s varied landscapes, taking us from canyon floors in Grand Wash and Cohab to the high plateau of the Frying Pan Trail and its sweeping views of the towers populating this part of the nearly 100-mile-long Waterpocket Fold.

I have written before that I consider Capitol Reef one of America’s most underappreciated national parks, and this hike demonstrates why.

Capitol Reef has become something of a regular stop for me, even if only for a day or two on a longer trip, because after more than 30 years of steadily exploring more of it, I’m still walking some trails there for the first time (this was my first time across the entire Frying Pan Trail and to Cassidy Arch), and there are others that I’m eager to walk again. The variety and striking natural wonder of this underappreciated gem of Utah’s canyon country keeps me coming back. It’s as nice as southern Utah’s other four parks—but not as crowded, especially once you hike at least a couple miles from a trailhead.

See “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park” and “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Get full access to ALL stories at The Big Outside about these and many other trips,
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Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon

In mid-April, joined by friends David Gordon, Doug Jenkins, and Jeff Wilhelm, I backpacked an overnight hike down southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch to its confluence with the canyon of the Paria River, which flows south into Arizona and empties into the Colorado River at Lees Ferry, the gateway to the Grand Canyon.

Then, having planned a longer hike but facing a forecast that promised to turn our lovely, sunny, warm weather abruptly into a full-blown snowstorm by afternoon on our second day, we pivoted upstream to finish at the White House Trailhead, the top end of Paria. (We finished as we had confidently planned we would, a couple of hours before the storm commenced—and very happy that we did.)

Unquestionably one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest, these two canyons combine what’s often described as the country’s or the world’s longest slot canyon, Buckskin, with the much longer and more varied Paria Canyon, which itself has a narrows with high walls that extends for several miles.

I had first backpacked this exact same route more than 30 years ago (and Paria top to bottom, without Buckskin, about 10 years ago), and seeing Buckskin Gulch again after so much time made it feel almost brand new to me. Its walls, often slightly overhanging, rise to perhaps 200 feet high and the canyon widens briefly a few times. But it mostly remains a true, very narrow slot—sometimes barely wider than a person.

Gazing around, I was reminded that the greatest magic of slot canyons is how the diffused light paints the wildly rippled, orange and red walls in too many shades of those colors to quantify, as well as hues of brown and a deep black that looks like an oil spill—creating stark contrasts that delight and mystify the human eye and brain.

See my story about that trip “Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon,” my story about a previous, two-family trip backpacking down the length of Paria Canyon, “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

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The Sawtooth Mountains

In August, two good friends and regular backpacking compadres, Todd Arndt and Mark Fenton, joined my wife, Penny, and me on a four-day, roughly 31-mile, point-to-point backpacking trip through Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains—a range that’s become my home mountains, having explored it extensively for almost 30 years since I moved to Idaho, from numerous backpacking trips to big dayhikes, bagging a bunch of peaks (adding yet another new one to my list in 2025; see the bottom of this story), backcountry skiing, and rock climbing some classic routes.

And it pleases me to say that, for as much as I’ve already seen of the Sawtooths, on this trip we hiked through areas that were entirely new to me—as well as new to Penny and Todd, who’ve also explored these mountains a fair bit, and entirely new to Mark, on his first trip here. He came away from it loving this wilderness and eager to come back.

While most of our trip was on trails, we did hike over an off-trail pass that was steep at times but straightforward on one side and involved crossing some not-entirely stable talus on the side we descended; all in all, though, not bad. And that pass delivered us into a remote area of the Sawtooths that sees very few backpackers, despite an abundance of beautiful alpine lakes and more high passes with sweeping views of these sharply incised peaks. And Todd and I scrambled up a 10,000-foot summit, a very worthwhile and remote peak to bag (which I’ll describe in more detail in my upcoming story about this trip).

Watch for my upcoming story about this trip. Meanwhile, see “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside as well as my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.”

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking trips in the Grand Canyon, Sawtooths, Wind River Range, and elsewhere. Want my help with your next trip? Click here.

The Wind River Range Solo

In the first week of September, after a good friend and longtime regular backpacking partner regrettably had to back out of this trip due to a persistent injury, I embarked on my first solo multi-day hike in probably a couple of decades (mostly because I prefer good company and I’m fortunate to have a great bench of partners).

But I wouldn’t have canceled because it was in one of my very favorite mountain ranges in America: Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Excited for it despite not having company, I walked about 64 miles in six glorious days, much of it on trails all new to me, including a big piece of the Continental Divide Trail through the Winds—which, by the way, is widely considered among thru-hikers (at least among the sizable sample I’ve now met) one of the two best sections of the CDT, along with Glacier National Park.

And what an adventure it was.

The Winds are known for its constellation of alpine lakes—estimates include 1,300 name and 1,600 total lakes—and this trip delivered on that reputation even more than I expected: I camped by gorgeous waters every night and walked past an untold number of gorgeous lakes at the foot of big, rocky peaks.

Watch for my upcoming story about that trip. Meanwhile, see “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range” and all stories about backpacking in the Winds at The Big Outside.

The right gear makes any trip go better.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Hiking the Second-Highest Peak in Idaho’s Sawtooths

In the first week of October, with the early-morning temperature bottomed out at a bone-chilling 19° F, my friend Chip Roser and I the hit the trail walking as fast as we could—partly just to warm up, but also because we had a big day ahead of us: hiking the second-highest peak in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, 10,716-foot Mount Cramer.

It was admittedly late in the season for hiking in the Sawtooths, but there wasn’t any snow yet at higher elevations and we had a forecast promising sunshine all day, comfortably cool temps, and little wind; and once the sun finally found us (we started early in the cold shade of the forest), we warmed up quickly and remained so all day. And what a day it was.

From the Upper Hell Roaring Trailhead (requiring a high-clearance vehicle; otherwise, start at the Lower Hell Roaring Trailhead), we hiked Trail 7092 past a glassy-calm Hell Roaring Lake to the northeast corner of Imogene Lake. From there, we found a use trail leading to the start of the long scramble up the rocky east ridge of Cramer.

Cramer’s summit rises to a sharp point on a boulder resembling a very large arrowhead, From there, in the heart of the Sawtooths, you can see the entire range and pick out numerous other peaks and distinctive alpine lakes far below. We even ended that nearly 18-mile October hike, with more than 3,500 vertical feet of uphill and downhill, with a little daylight remaining.

By the way, if you’re interested in a great hike up the highest peak in the Sawtooths (and somewhat shorter than Cramer, but a full day), read about 10,751-foot Thompson Peak and other outstanding hikes in my story “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths” (which I will update in 2026, adding this hike). And see all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside.

As you plan your trips for next year, see “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips,” “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes,” my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites, and my Trips page at The Big Outside.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No. 1 Plan Trips Weeks or Months in Advance

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

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

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

I need to get busy. So do you.

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No. 2 Involve Your Family

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

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

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

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

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

No. 3 Get Organized

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

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

No. 4 Be the Planner

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

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

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

No. 5 Build Extra Time Into a Business Trip

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

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

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No. 6 Get a Regular Partner

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

No. 7 Schedule Your Weekly Outings

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

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

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

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

No. 8 Get Up Early

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

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

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No. 9 Live Near Trails

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

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

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

No. 10 Make a Deal With Your Spouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Pick the Right Time of Year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Is it Still Possible to Get a Permit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Over more than three decades of backpacking adventures throughout America’s West, I’ve been fortunate to explore deeply into our most cherished national parks, wilderness areas, and protected backcountry. All of them are special. But some places rise above the rest, inspiring a sense of awe that can motivate us to reorder our priorities and rearrange our lives—and they have that effect on us every time we return to them. This story spotlights those special places in the West and many trips that you can take in them.

From the High Sierra to the Wind River Range, the Cascades to the best of southern Utah, Glacier, the Tetons and Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon and more, the 10 places and more than 40 trips described below comprise a tick list of five-star adventures that will keep you busy for years. (They have done exactly that for me.)

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

All of these adventures possess unique qualities that make them feel extraordinary while you’re out there and stay with you for a long time afterward—and I say that from the perspective of having taken scores of backpacking trips all over the country for more than 30 years, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

The descriptions below all link to stories at The Big Outside with many more images and information. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my expert tips on planning each trip.)

Please share your thoughts about my list or any suggestions you have for similarly awe-inspiring adventures in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

The Wind River Range

You could count on the fingers of one hand—without needing every finger—the number of Lower 48 mountain ranges where you can hike for days below rows of jagged 13,000-foot peaks, passing more of the prettiest alpine lakes you’ve ever seen than other people. And one of those places is Wyoming’s Wind River Range.

On a roughly 41-mile loop from Elkhart Park, two friends and I spent a night in one of the most awe-inspiring spots in the West, Titcomb Basin, an alpine valley at over 10,000 feet where evening alpenglow painted a granite wall of 13,000-footers above us golden. Our route crossed three 12,000-foot passes, one via an adventurous, off-trail route over that led into a lovely hanging valley.

A few summers ago, three companions and I made a very rugged, seven-day, 96-mile south-to-north traverse of the Wind River High Route, two-thirds of which is off-trail—one of the most difficult and stunning adventures I’ve ever loved. I returned in late summer 2022, when three of us backpacked a 43-mile loop in an area I had mostly never seen before and—not surprisingly—walked through inspiring scenery every day while encountering few other backpackers.

And most recently, in August 2023, a friend and I hiked a four-day, 41-mile route that crossed the Continental Divide four times, enjoying a five-star campsite near a beautiful alpine lake every night and passing through one of the justifiably best-known areas of the Winds, the Cirque of the Towers.

As I’ve learned on several multi-day trips into the Winds: Being there can make you believe that these are the most magnificent mountains you’ve ever seen. And you might be right about that. The Winds keep pulling me back.

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 Winds at The Big Outside.

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The High Sierra

Every time I return to explore another area of California’s High Sierra—as I did again most recently in August 2022, backpacking about 130 miles in nine days, mostly on the John Muir Trail through Kings Canyon National Park and the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses—I’m reminded of just how magnificent and vast this mountain range is.

Spanning three iconic national parks—Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite—and several national forests and wilderness areas, with thousands of miles of trails and alpine lakes, the Sierra offers endless opportunities for backpacking trips of any length and enough adventures to fill multiple lifetimes.

My own many backcountry travels in the Sierra have included several backpacking trips and dayhikes in Yosemite, where the beauty never ends, even after you’ve hit all the best-known corners; hiking a 40-mile loop with my family in Sequoia, crossing passes up to 11,630 feet and marveling over a landscape the camera loved; climbing the Lower 48’s highest peak, Mount Whitney, with my son; and thru-hiking the JMT. All of those and other trips have given me a good base of knowledge about the Sierra—and only whetted my appetite for more.

See “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite” and “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” my stories about thru-hiking the JMT and climbing Mount Whitney, my expert e-books to three stellar backpacking trips in Yosemite, plus all stories about backpacking the JMT and backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

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The Cascade Range

Stretching 700 miles from northern California through Oregon and Washington into southern British Columbia, the Cascade Range—with the notable exception of Mount Rainier—does not reach the heights of the Sierra. But the range is nearly twice as long and harbors some of the finest backpacking trails in the country, both famous and relatively obscure.

The 93-mile Wonderland Trail (lead photo at top of story) around Washington’s 14,410-foot Mount Rainier belongs on any list of America’s best backpacking trips—for the countless, jarring views of the most heavily glaciated peak in the Lower 48, some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever see, numerous waterfalls and cascades, raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” and sightings of mountain goats, marmots, and black bears.

See my stories about my backpacking trip on what I consider the best sections of the Wonderland and “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” and my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

The 41-mile Timberline Trail around Oregon’s Mount Hood rivals the Wonderland for wildflowers, waterfalls, and scenery, including frequent views of 11,239-foot Mount Hood. The Timberline also serves up challenges like potentially edgy creek fords—and it requires less than half the time of hiking the entire Wonderland, with no permit complications. See my story “Full of Surprises: Backpacking Mount Hood’s Timberline Trail.”

Check out these three other very worthy Cascades backpacking trips:

• The stunning and adventurous, 44-mile Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass loop in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness.
• A 44-mile loop in the sprawling Pasayten Wilderness, combining the Pacific Crest Trail and more-remote and lonely trails with equally great scenery.
• And an 80-mile hike, with shorter variations, that delivers a stellar tour of North Cascades National Park.

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

Southern Utah

The national parks and other wildlands of southern Utah protect some of the best dayhikes and backpacking trips in America—period. But among all the multi-day hikes at the bottom of Utah, four stand head and shoulders above the rest: the Needles and Maze districts of Canyonlands National Park, Paria Canyon, and Zion’s Narrows.

In the more user-friendly Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, stratified cliffs stretch for miles and trails zigzag across waves of slickrock slabs below multi-colored sandstone candlesticks rising 300 feet tall. Across the Green River, in the Maze District, trails lead from overlooks of a vast, chaotic sweep of sandstone fins, towers, and canyons to circuitous routes through canyons that could only be called the Maze. With very rugged hiking through a hard-to-reach corner of the Southwest where water sources often dry up seasonally, the Maze is unquestionably hard—and a holy grail for serious Southwest backpackers.

Famous among backpackers for its towering walls of orange-red sandstone painted wildly with desert varnish and illuminated by reflected sunlight, hanging gardens where springs pour from rock, and campsites on sandy benches shaded by cottonwood trees, Paria Canyon is a must-do adventure made more, well, “interesting” by pockets of quicksand. Hike it top to bottom or combined with its 15-mile-long tributary slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch—which gets so tight that you must take off your pack and squeeze through sideways.

The Narrows of Zion National Park certainly ranks among America’s top 10 backpacking trips and the best in the Southwest. Much of the magic lies in seeing it change as you literally walk deeper into the earth, splashing down the river through deeply shaded, tight passages and seeing springs gush from solid rock, creating lush desert oases. Backpack the 14-mile route from top to bottom, spending a night in the canyon to savor the solitude of an evening below walls that soar 1,000 feet tall and a slice of black sky bursting with stars.

See my stories “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” “Farther Than It Looks—Backpacking the Canyonlands Maze,” “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows” and my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Narrows in Zion National Park.”

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.”

Glacier National Park

Few wild lands inspire feelings of awe as often and as intensely as Glacier. Besides almost constant views of mountains unlike any in America, on many multi-day hikes in Glacier you will see rivers of ice pouring off of craggy mountains and cliffs, some of the more than 760 lakes, and often mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose—possibly even a few grizzly and black bears: I’ve seen bears on every backpacking trip I’ve taken there.

Those hikes have included what I consider the best backpacking trip in Glacier as well as a 94-mile, north-to-south traverse of the park, combining the primary Continental Divide Trail route through Glacier and my hand-picked variations off it to hit what I believe comprise the park’s finest areas.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in Glacier National Park,” “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park,” “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
in Glacier, Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon

If every American should visit Yellowstone National Park—and every American should—those who long to explore its unique and rich backcountry should embark on the park’s best backpacking trip, through Bechler Canyon. Hiking for miles along the Bechler River Trail, beside a five-star trout stream, you’ll pass several thunderous waterfalls—including 45-foot Iris Falls and Colonnade Falls, where the Bechler River plunges 35 feet over an upper falls and another 67 feet over a second drop.

The trip features bracing river fords—which pose little risk beyond chattering teeth (a friend and I made our trip’s last ford in strong, frigid wind and wet snow falling in late September)—possible sightings of bison, bears and other wildlife; the opportunity to explore Yellowstone’s largest backcountry geyser basin near the shore of one of the park’s biggest backcountry lakes; and the icing on the cake: soaking in a natural hot springs-fed pool called Mr. Bubble.

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

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

The Grand Canyon

What can be said about the Grand Canyon that hasn’t already been said a thousand times? What words can measure up to the scale and majesty of this place—its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, the intimate side canyons where waterfalls pour through green gardens in the desert?

In this landscape of incomparable scenery, multi-day hikes vary from beginner-friendly to notoriously strenuous and challenging. Having ticked off some of the canyon’s best multi-day hikes—South Kaibab to Lipan Point, including the Escalante Route and Beamer Trail, Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead, Grandview Point to South Kaibab Trailhead, the Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, the New Hance Trail to Grandview Point, the Royal Arch Loop, the canyon’s Gems Route, and the Utah Flats Route and Clear Creek Trail—and hiked and run rim-to-rim-to-rim multiple times in a day, I’m still scheming my next trip there.

The canyon has no peers. Every backpacker should go there.

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 Grand Canyon backpacking trips at The Big Outside.

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

The Idaho Wilderness

Anyone following my blog for very long knows my affection for Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains—my backyard wilderness. But central Idaho harbors nearly four million more acres of almost-contiguous wilderness beyond the 217,000 acres in the Sawtooths: the 1.3-million acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which is larger than many national parks, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Glacier; and the nearly 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (“the Frank”), largest in the Lower 48 and bigger than Yellowstone.

If this vast realm of mountains and canyons—divided by just one rural highway and two remote dirt roads—were contained within one national park, it would be America’s third-largest.

Several years ago, I asked the Idaho Conservation League to help me create a long-distance backpacking trail through the state’s three signature wilderness areas. The result is the 296-mile-long Idaho Wilderness Trail, which crosses mountain passes over 9,000 feet and meanders below dramatic spires from the Bighorn Crags in the Frank to the Sawtooths. It follows three designated wild and scenic rivers, the Middle Fork of the Salmon, Main Salmon, and the Selway, and traces the shores of innumerable alpine lakes.

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

It also traverses pristine lands that are home to mountain goats and bighorn sheep, elk and moose, black bears, a population of wolves estimated to be at least seven times larger than that in Yellowstone—and that protect some of the nation’s best remaining habitat in the Lower 48 for restoring wild salmon.

Perhaps most uniquely, the IWT offers the kind of solitude you simply cannot find on most long-distance trails. In fact, many backpackers have never even heard of the wilderness areas the trail traverses.

See my stories “America’s Newest Long Trail: The Idaho Wilderness Trail” and “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” and all stories about backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains at The Big Outside.

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

The Tetons

This list would not feel complete without Wyoming’s iconic Teton Range. Fairly beginner-friendly in terms of difficulty and navigation, a place where you may come upon a marmot, moose, elk, or black or grizzly bear, and so constantly picturesque from the campsites to the high passes and vast fields of wildflowers that it almost shocks the senses, these razor peaks never fail to dazzle.

I’ve returned to the Tetons more than 20 times over the past three-plus decades, most recently backpacking—again—my favorite variation of the Teton Crest Trail, universally considered one of the best backpacking trips in America. Two of my all-time favorite backcountry campsites lie along the TCT.

While the Teton Crest Trail captures the imagination of most backpackers, any multi-day hike in the Tetons will rank among the best hikes you’ve ever done. Want proof? Check out “The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park.”

See “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” “10 Great, Big Dayhikes in the Tetons,” all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside, and my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park,” which tells you everything you need to know to plan and pull off that trip—including how to get one of the most coveted and difficult-to-reserve backcountry permits in the National Park System.

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

Rocky Mountain National Park

The Colorado Rockies, with 58 peaks that rise higher than 14,000 feet and another whopping 637 that stand between 13,000 and 13,999 feet, have drawn hikers and mountain climbers like mice to peanut butter for decades. But for many, the Colorado Rockies reach their scenic apex in Rocky Mountain National Park.

While not nearly as large as other Western parks like Glacier or Yosemite, Rocky nonetheless offers some excellent and relatively beginner-friendly options for multi-day hikes. I’ve backpacked there on both sides of the Continental Divide, including taking my kids when they were young on a short, three-day hike in Wild Basin, in the park’s southeast corner, south of the park’s tallest and most famous mountain, 14,259-foot Longs Peak.

We camped our first night beside a small creek where the kids played for hours, and our second night a short walk from the shore of lovely Ouzel Lake, nestled in ponderosa pine forest at just over 10,000 feet, below a striking wall of 12,000- and 13,000-foot peaks.

See my story about backpacking with my young kids in Rocky Mountain National Park.

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I may be risking an impassioned debate here, but I think there are very few mountain ranges in America with as many drop-dead, gorgeous high mountain lakes as Idaho’s Sawtooths. Yes, a few mountain ranges clearly outnumber the Sawtooths in that department, like the High Sierra, Cascades, and Wind River Range. But I believe the Sawtooths deserve similar recognition, and I’ve seen many of those watery jewels over more than 20 years of wandering around Idaho’s best-known hills. This gallery of photos of many of them may persuade you to agree with me—and to see them for yourself.

I don’t make this claim about Sawtooth Mountains lakes lightly. I’ve hiked and backpacked all over the country as a past Northwest Editor for Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog, and I’m a big fan of the High Sierra and the Winds, the Tetons, the Cascades (especially the North Cascades), the White Mountains (where I started hiking), and other mountain ranges. Anyone reading my story “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites” or looking at my photo gallery of favorite backcountry lakes will see I’ve camped by a lot of nice lakes.

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Some lakes in the Sawtooths, like Alice and Sawtooth lakes, are well known. Others are more remote and obscure; you may have never seen a photo of some of these. All are only reached by hiking or riding a horse for miles into the wilderness. Seeing these incredible places requires time and effort.

When you consider the beauty and the sheer numbers of clear, high mountain lakes tucked in granite basins ringed by soaring cliffs and jagged peaks, I just think Idaho’s Sawtooths are up there with the best. I rank the Sawtooths among the 10 best backpacking trips in America.

Click on the photo gallery to open it and use right and left arrow keys to scroll through it. Find links below the gallery to stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside.

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

If you think I’ve overlooked an outstanding lake in the Sawtooths, or if you believe you know of a range with prettier mountain lakes, please suggest it in the comments section below this story. I try to respond to all comments.

See “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths,” and all stories about backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains at The Big Outside. Most stories about trips at The Big Outside require a paid subscription to read in full, including my expert tips on how to plan and take those trips.

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip in Idaho’s Sawtooths and elsewhere. Want my help with yours? See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.

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Do you wonder how some people come back from national parks and other outdoor trips with fantastic photos? Would you like to take the kind of pictures that make people ooh and aah? Improving your photos may not be as complicated as you think. The following tips on outdoor and landscape photography, which I’ve learned as a trained professional and refined over more than three decades of shooting the finest scenery in America and the world, will help you take home better photos whether you’re a beginner or an experienced photographer.

Sure, equipment like a high-end camera with interchangeable lenses helps a lot, and the more time you spend shooting and learning how to hone your skills, the better your photos will be. Shooting raw files—which record more data for each photo than jpegs and can be edited more extensively—and learning how to use a high-end editing program like Adobe Lightroom also greatly improves photo quality.

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But the best camera gear and editing software cannot create a great photograph. That still requires skill—beginning with understanding some fundamental rules of composing images.

I’ve assembled here what I consider the 15 simplest, easy-to-follow, actionable, and most effective tips for taking better pictures, especially landscape photos, and improving your outdoor photography. Follow them and your family and friends will start asking to see your trip pictures.

Click on most photos in this story to read about that trip. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this one is free for anyone to read but reading the entire story and all of my landscape photography tips requires a paid subscription. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting my blog.

If you have comments or questions on my tips or your own to share, please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

1. Look for Dramatic Light

We were on a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park, and after doing the sit-and-wait with the kids—and several hundred other tourists—for Old Faithful to erupt, I wanted to stop at Midway Geyser Basin. I had done the walk through Midway before, and thought that then—in late afternoon, with dappled, low-angle light coming through scudding clouds—would be a perfect time to shoot Yellowstone’s largest hot spring, the wildly multi-colored and aptly named Grand Prismatic Spring.

The timing could not have been more perfect. The light accentuated the contrast between the dark hills in the background; the steam rising from the water, brightened by low-angle sunlight slashing through it; the deeply blue sky; and the incredibly rich, kaleidoscopic colors of Grand Prismatic, whose waters also reflected their surroundings perfectly in that light. In about 30 minutes of shooting, I came away with even more than the 14 keeper images in the gallery above—which for a serious photographer is a major haul.

The lesson: Dramatic light is what makes a landscape photo pop. Know your location and think about the best time of day and even the best season to shoot it to capture it in strong light.

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2. Think About Your Foreground

Photos are two-dimensional, and if you just shoot a row of distant mountains, the photo will look flat. Shooting in dappled sunlight (described in tip no. 1) helps make a photo look more three-dimensional.

But you can convey a sense of depth—of the three-dimensional appearance of the landscape—by shooting with a wide-angle lens and composing your photo with a person or object in the foreground, as I did in the above shot from the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park and in the lead photo at the top of this story of a small tarn above Helen Lake, along the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park, and the second photo in this story of Alice Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

Position the camera close to, say, a big rock, a lakeshore, or a wildflower and frame the image so that there’s scenery in the middle distance (maybe a lake or forest) and far away (the mountains). Observe closely and you will notice many photos at The Big Outside and elsewhere that employ this basic technique.

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

3. Think About Your Background

The background may not be your primary subject, but it can either make your subject more prominent or swallow it.

For instance, if the subject is a person or people in the middle distance who look small against a scenic backdrop (see tip no. 5)—as with the photo above from a peak named Bláhnúkur in Iceland—position the camera (yourself) relative to your subject so that there’s a bright backdrop behind the person, like the sky or lake waters or light-colored rock or ground.

A person who’s small in the image would get lost against a dark backdrop like forest—unless that person is wearing brightly colored clothing (another trick for making the subject stand out against the background).

Conversely, if your subject is very bright—like a wildflower spotlighted in a shaft of sunlight, such as these geraniums (at right) in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park—position yourself to shoot so that there’s dark shadow behind the flower, to make it stand out better; and use a low aperture setting to blur the background (tip no. 10, below).

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4. Follow the Rule of Thirds

Beginner photographers commonly place the subject smack in the middle of the photo (and, too often, they cut off a person’s feet—a no-no). Compose photos following the rule of thirds: Mentally divide your image into thirds along the longer edge, i.e., when shooting a horizontal picture, the imaginary lines dividing the photo into thirds run vertically. Place your subject—person, bunch of wildflowers, animal, whatever—in the right or left third of the frame, as in the photo above of a backpacker on the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier. Have the person facing toward or away from the camera or facing into/across rather than out of the picture.

For the same reason, do not compose a photo with the land-sky horizon cutting straight through the middle of it; give the sky one-third of the picture or place the horizon in the lower third of the photo and let a dramatic sky dominate the image.

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5. Put a Person in There for Scale

You’ve seen many examples of this and probably done it yourself: Place a person or people far enough from the camera to make them appear small in order to convey a sense of the landscape’s vastness, as I did in the photo above from the Teton Crest Trail. Magazines use photos like this frequently because they know that readers identify with the person in the photo—the “I want to be there” effect.

The trick to doing this effectively is to make sure the tiny person remains large enough and visible against the background (tip no. 3) so as not to disappear, and to remember the Rule of Thirds (tip no. 4). Having just one person in the picture also introduces a powerful feeling of solitude that amplifies the sense of vastness.

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

6. Look to the Sky

The sky is typically at least two f-stops brighter than the earth and sometimes much more than that—especially in early morning or evening, as in the photo above from Wanda Lake on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park. An f-stop is a full step in aperture settings as they used to appear on cameras in the pre-digital era, i.e., the different between f5.6 and f8, or f8 and f11, which represents a halving of the amount of light entering the camera as you move up the f-stop number scale, just as going from a shutter speed of 1/125 to 1/250 halves the amount of light entering the camera. Modern digital cameras increase aperture versatility by allowing adjustments of one-third of a full f-stop, for example, inserting two more partial f-stops (6.3 and 7.1) between f5.6 and f8.

Overexposing the sky so that it washes out—loses all or most detail—makes the photo look dull. In pre-digital days, photographers used graduated filters to darken the sky when shooting while keeping the earth brighter. Today, we can edit digital photos for the same effect produced by those old graduated filters, but it’s more difficult to restore details in an overexposed sky when editing than it is to brighten underexposed earth. So I often expose for the sky and brighten the shadowed land when editing.

Very simply: Point the camera toward the sky and depress your shutter-release button halfway to set the exposure. Then depress and hold the camera’s auto-exposure lock (typically marked AE-L and AF-L if it doubles as the auto-focus lock, and within reach of your right thumb) as you move the camera to compose the picture you want, and then shoot it.

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I doubt that I had any typical routine when arriving at a campsite on my earliest backpacking trips; like many backpackers, I probably just dropped my pack, shucked off my boots, and kicked back until motivated to move by the urge to eat, drink, get warm, or go to the bathroom. Over the years, though, I’ve developed a routine that I follow almost religiously when I arrive in camp at the end of a day of backpacking. These five simple, quick, almost effortless steps make a world of difference in how good I feel that evening and the next morning, and how well I sleep.

These tips derive from habits I’ve gradually adopted over more than three decades and innumerable backpacking trips across the U.S. and around the world, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. These are practices I’ve followed in every type of environment and on every type of trip, from easier outings with my family when our kids were young—although it didn’t always feel “easier” carrying much of our children’s gear and food—to extreme adventures backpacking 20 to 30 or more miles per day.

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

Follow these tips and I think you’ll make your campsite hours—and backpacking trips as a whole—more comfortable.

Click on any photo to read more about that place and please share your thoughts on my tips, or any tips or regular practices you have when you get into camp on backpacking trips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail,
in Yosemite or other parks using my expert e-books.

#1 Take Care of My Feet

Task number one: yank off my boots (or shoes) and socks and soak my feet in a cold creek or lake to “ice” achy muscles and wash dirt off my feet and legs as well as possible without soap. I often also take a swim—usually after stretching (see #2)—to cool off, get the dust and sweat off my body, and let the chilly water soothe all of the muscles I’ve worked. All of this will help me relax and sleep better.

I sometimes bring light camp footwear, like flip-flops or sandals, to change into if my hiking footwear is boots that are heavier and hotter than I want to wear in camp. If I’ve worn low-cut, breathable shoes hiking, I don’t bother bringing camp footwear. But I’ll wear hiking shoes in camp with the laces untied and loosened and tongue pulled up, more like slippers, to keep my feet cool and dry.

By the way, taking care of my feet demands all-day attention. See my “8 Pro Tips for Preventing Blisters When Hiking,” including the great tips and suggestions from readers in the comments section at the bottom of that story.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

#2 Take Care of My Body

Carrying weight on your back for miles taxes most people physically. I’ve learned from scores of backpacking trips, whether my pack is heavy or ultralight, that I’m going to feel significantly better that evening and the next morning and sleep much better if I spend about 10 to 20 minutes stretching soon after I stop hiking for the day, while muscles are still warm.

You don’t need an elaborate routine, just a handful of stretches focused on the major muscle groups you’ve been working hard: quads, hamstrings, (definitely) calves, and your core, including your back, sides, plus shoulders and neck. There are plenty of resources online suggesting specific stretches; I also talk about my stretching routine in my story “Training For a Big Hike or Mountain Climb.”

I know it sounds like an effort you don’t want to bother making but try it on your next trip—once you start, you may like it enough to just continue. And like me, you might find it habit-forming.

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#3 Change Clothes

After washing off the dirt and dried sweat, I’ll put on the dry base layers I’ve brought. (My story “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking” details what I usually carry for clothing.) Then I’ll dry out my hiking clothes, which I’ll wear again the next day, either by hanging them in sunshine or, if they’re only damp (not too wet), pulling them on over my dry layers to let my body heat dry them without having the damp layer against my skin. If it’s cool or windy enough to wear a jacket, it works very well to dry out a damp base layer by wearing it under a breathable shell.

In warm temperatures, I’ll just remain in my damp hiking clothes until my body heat dries them out (often while stretching and pitching my tent), and then change into my extra clothes. On many trips in mild temperatures, my “extra clothes” consist simply of a second base layer top and insulation; I’ll often only have one pair of zip-off pants, so I’ll wear those to dry them and perhaps just zip the legs on.

See my picks for “The Best Base Layers, Shorts, and Socks for Hiking and Running,” “5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking,” and “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking.”

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

#4 Replenish Depleted Body Reserves

Dinner may not happen for a while, but I need to replace some of what my body has depleted sooner than that—mostly fluids, sodium, fat, and electrolytes. In warm temperatures, the first thing I often do is add a powdered energy-drink mix to a liter of water to consume over the next hour (beginning while I’m stretching). After I’ve finished steps 1 through 3 above, I’ll eat an appetizer that delivers what I’m craving—fat and sodium. I typically like crackers, cheese, and pepperoni or salami, nuts, maybe some chocolate. In cooler temperatures, I’ll fire up the stove and boil water for hot tea or cocoa or instant soup.

Getting rehydrated and starting to refill my body’s fuel tank, combined with the stretching, make a huge difference in my energy level and greatly help reduce any stiffness that evening and when I hit the trail again the next morning.

As a side note, in some parks with grizzly bears, like Glacier National Park, the first thing I do when reaching a campsite is actually required by park management: Hanging food properly as a precaution against bears.

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#5 Set Up Camp

Assuming that foul weather hasn’t forced us to immediately pitch the tent upon arriving in camp, I now unload my pack, set up the tent, inflate my air mattress and lay out my bag to let it loft up, and break out kitchen gear, water filter, and anything else I will need. I almost invariably carry a lightweight camp chair (one of my “25 essential backpacking accessories”), which is far more comfortable than sitting on a rock or log—meaning my body will feel better when I’m going to sleep later and putting on my pack again the next morning.

At some point during the evening, I’ll figure out how much water I need to leave camp with in the morning and fill my bladder or bottles, to help expedite an early departure the next day, because in summer, I usually like an early start to hike in cooler temperatures.  See my “5 Tips for Getting Out of Camp Faster When Backpacking.”

These five steps don’t require much time or effort. But they make my evening, night, next morning—and really, my entire backpacking trip—much more enjoyable.

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BONUS TIP: You won’t feel good the next day without a good night’s sleep. See “10 Pro Tips For Staying Warm in a Sleeping Bag,” plus all reviews of sleeping bags and air mattresses at The Big Outside.

Do you have any regular practices you have when you get into camp on backpacking trips? Please share them or your thoughts on my tips in the comments section below.

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

Our group of three adults and six teenagers crossed the 9,200-foot pass on the Alice-Toxaway Divide, separating Alice and Twin lakes from Toxaway Lake, on our third straight bluebird August afternoon backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. Before us, an arc of spires and jagged peaks wrapped around a pair of alpine lakes appropriately named Twin Lakes. And although I had hiked over this pass many times before, I stopped in my tracks and just stared at our vista. Perhaps most impressively, even the jaded teens with us found themselves awestruck, too.

Living in Idaho for over 25 years now, I’ve hiked most of the trails in the Sawtooths over the course of at least 20 trips there, and climbed a number of peaks. While there remain many climbs and off-trail areas I want to explore, I’ve gotten to know much of the range quite well. And having had the good fortune of dayhiking and backpacking in some of the prettiest mountain ranges in the country over the past three decades—including the 10 years I spent as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog—I’ve become convinced that few rival the Sawtooths for their jagged granite peaks and skylines and abundance of lovely alpine lakes.

I never tire of exploring the Sawtooths.

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

This article describes several favorite dayhikes and backpacking trips in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, and includes links to several stories about trips I have taken in the Sawtooths (most of which require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full). See my expert e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your trip in the Sawtooths or any other trip you read about at The Big Outside.

Click any photo below to read about that trip. Please tell me what you think of these hikes or share your own questions or suggested hikes in the comments section at the bottom of this story; I try to respond to all comments.

Dayhikes

Much of the best scenery in the Sawtooths lies far enough from roads to be hard to reach in a day, but there are highlights you can knock off in several hours—or at least between sunrise and sunset.

Sawtooth Lake

Very photogenic Sawtooth Lake is one of the most-visited corners of the Sawtooths; expect to see other hikers here on nice summer weekends and to compete for campsites with backpackers. At 8,430 feet, it’s about 8.5 miles round-trip and 1,700 vertical feet from the Iron Creek Trailhead. The trail up the Iron Creek Valley ascends past a long, pinnacled ridge, and you can make a short side trip en route to Alpine Lake, tucked in a granite bowl.

Get an early start because the glassy waters of Sawtooth Lake on a calm morning offer up an unforgettable mirror image of Mount Regan. Scramble the steep but non-technical west face of 9,861-foot Alpine Peak for the best perspective on the natural stone bathtub the lake sits in.

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Baron Divide

The pass known as Baron Divide, at over 9,000 feet along the high ridge separating the gorgeous Baron Lakes basin from the valley of Redfish Lake Creek, is a stout but doable dayhike from the Redfish Inlet transfer camp boat landing at the southwest corner of Redfish Lake. At some 14 miles round-trip, with about 2,700 feet of elevation gain and loss, it’s no light stroll. But the trails are good all the way, the grade rarely gets difficult, and the scenery is top-notch beginning with the boat shuttle across Redfish Lake.

At Redfish Lake Lodge, two miles off ID 75 about five miles south of Stanley, go to the marina and get the 10-minute boat shuttle across the lake. On the other side of the lake, follow trail signs up the Redfish Lake Creek Valley toward Alpine Lake and Cramer Lakes. About three miles up, at Flatrock Junction, turn north onto Trail 101 toward Alpine Lake and the Baron Lakes; this switchbacks that follow are arguably the hottest and toughest stretch of the hike, before you reenter forest for a while.

Eventually, the trail emerges from the forest, passes a pretty tarn, and reaches the alpine pass at Baron Divide, with sweeping views of the peaks to either side, including the serrated ridge of Monte Verita and Warbonnet Peak. Return the way you came.

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Thompson Peak

Thompson Peak, crown of the Sawtooth Range at 10,751 feet, can be tagged on a rugged, partly off-trail hike of about 13 miles and 4,200 vertical feet round-trip. A fun, easy, short, third-class scramble at the very top places you on a blocky summit with space for just a few people and head-spinning drop-offs on all sides. See more photos in my story “Roof of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Hiking Thompson Peak.”

From Redfish Trailhead, right before Redfish Lake Lodge, follow Trail 101 west to the Alpine Way Trail heading toward Marshall Lake. After climbing 1,800 vertical feet in just about four miles on the trail, before Marshall Lake, bear left (west) onto a well-beaten but unmarked footpath that’s usually blocked by a log; this unmaintained user trail climbs steeply into the cirque between Thompson and Williams peaks. The lake below Thompson’s headwall is a good enough destination by itself for a frigid and brief swim—it usually has blocks of ice floating in it well into July.

Continue up and scramble to the Thompson-Williams saddle either via its south end (easy when it’s dry rock, potentially dangerous when snow-covered) or the much steeper, usually dry, exposed fourth-class cliff at the north end of the saddle (find the line of least resistance ascending very exposed ledges angling up and left). Traverse the talus below Thompson’s west face (farther than you might think) to the gully separating Thompson from its 10,000-foot neighbor to the south, Mickey’s Spire. Then follow the steep, often loose, use footpath to the summit. Return the same way.

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Alice Lake

Among other lakes reachable in a day, I’d suggest Alice Lake at 8,598 feet, because it’s a gorgeous spot, there’s more scenic hiking above it, and the hike to Alice ascends a really pretty valley flanked by cliffs and spires. In early summer, the lower ford of the creek draining Alice Lake can be exciting or potentially dangerous (the next ford upstream is shorter and often has a log across it). You can avoid both fords by following a faint, sporadically cairned use path that begins where the maintained trail crosses the creek at the lower ford; the sometimes-faint use path stays on the north side of the creek and rejoins the maintained trail above the second (higher) ford.

From Tin Cup Trailhead at the northeast corner of Pettit Lake, it’s 5.3 miles and a bit over 1,600 feet to Alice Lake. It’s another mile with not much more climbing to Twin Lakes, and then a half-mile and about 400 feet up to the approximately 9,200-foot pass on the Alice-Toxaway Divide, with a killer view of the jagged peaks above Twin Lakes.

Backpacking Trips

The Sawtooths have few on-trail, multi-day loop hikes. Many multi-day hikes require short shuttles between trailheads (some of which can be done with a bike). My suggestions below assume moderate days of seven to nine miles a day, but I mention multiple campsite options to allow you to plan shorter or longer days.

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“The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains!”

Weekend Hike: Alice Lake-Toxaway Lake Loop

This 17-mile loop from the Tin Cup Trailhead on Pettit Lake is popular as an overnight or two-night trip for incredible views and campsites on stunning, high lakes. (This was my son’s first real backpacking trip, at age six.) There are stellar campsites at Alice Lake, Twin Lakes, and Toxaway Lake; you might decide between the first two locales just depending on what time you start the trek and whether other backpackers have beaten you to the sites at Alice Lake. Hike it clockwise because the stretch from Farley Lake back to Pettit Lake is the least interesting, sometimes hot, and dusty, and better to walk down than up.

Do you like hiking or running long loops in the mountains? This one follows good trails and fit hikers and runners can do it in a day—but in July or August, I suggest an early start for cooler temps. September is often ideal.

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

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

See all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at The Big Outside, including “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” “Mountain Lakes of Idaho’s Sawtooths—A Photo Gallery,” “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “Sawtooth Jewels: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes,” and “Going After Goals: Backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.”

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Water makes up about 60 percent of our bodies—and, I suspect, 100 percent of our hearts. We crave it not only physically, for survival, but emotionally, for spiritual rejuvenation. We love playing in it for hours as children and we paddle and swim in it as adults. We’re drawn by the calming effects of sitting beside a stream or lake in a beautiful natural setting, an experience that possesses a certain je ne sais quoi—a quality difficult to describe, but that we can all feel.

And nothing beats taking a swim in a gorgeous backcountry lake.

I’ve come across quite a few wonderful backcountry lakes over more than three decades of exploring wilderness—including about 10 years as the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. I’ve just updated and expanded this list of my favorites—adding a lake I camped beside last year in Montana’s Beartooth Wilderness—to give you some eye candy as well as ideas for future adventures, and perhaps compare against your list of favorite backcountry lakes.

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 the links to my stories in these brief writeups to learn more about each of these trips. Part of this story is free for anyone to read, but reading the entire story is an exclusive benefit of a paid subscription, which also provides full access to all the numerous stories about trips at The Big Outside, and those include my tips on planning those trips. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan a trip to any of these lakes.

If you know some gorgeous lakes that are not on my list, please suggest them in the comments section below this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Here’s to your next peaceful moment beside a gorgeous lake deep in the mountains somewhere.

Elizabeth Lake, Glacier National Park

Early on the second morning of a six-day, 94-mile traverse of Glacier National Park, mostly on the Continental Divide Trail, three friends and I set out from the backcountry campground at the head of Elizabeth Lake, hiking along the sandy shore. An elk bugled from somewhere in the forest nearby. The glassy water reflected a razor-sharp, upside-down reflection of the jagged mountains flanking it. Among many lovely backcountry lakes in Glacier, Elizabeth Lake is one of the finest.

See my stories “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” and “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” plus my e-books “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park.”

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

Helen Lake, John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon National Park

In the wake of a violent thunderstorm, we crossed 11,955-foot Muir Pass on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park in early evening on the eighth day of a nine-day, 130-mile hike through the High Sierra. Finding what seemed the only two patches of rock-free ground, we pitched our tents above Helen Lake, at around 11,600 feet. The next morning, the rising sun ignited the peaks across Helen Lake, the scene captured in razor-sharp reflections in the lake and a tiny tarn near our camp—burning that almost accidental camp above Helen Lake into memory for all three of us.

See my story about that trip, “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

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

Tarn Along the Highline Trail, Wind River Range

Searching for a suitable campsite along the Highline Trail late one afternoon on a five-day, roughly 43-mile loop hike in the Winds, my wife, a friend, and I reached an unnamed, small tarn—and the view stopped us in our tracks. From our camp a few hundred feet off-trail beyond the tarn, we overlooked grassy meadows littered with glacial-erratic boulders that sloped down to another lake. Beyond that, 12,119-foot Sky Pilot Peak and 12,224-foot Mount Oeneis towered over the valley. I shot this photo as we hit the trail the next morning.

See “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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Alice Lake, Sawtooth Mountains

Idaho’s Sawtooths must be in contention for the title of American mountain range with the most beautiful lakes—maybe eclipsed only by the High Sierra and Wind River Range. Like the Sierra and Winds, backpacking in the Sawtooths brings you to the shores of multiple lakes every day, shimmering in sunlight, rippled by wind, or offering a mirror reflection of jagged peaks on calm mornings and evenings. Alice (also shown in lead photo at top of story) is one of the larger and prettier of them, a spot I’ve visited several times without getting tired of the view across it to a row of sharp-edged peaks.

See all of my stories about Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, including “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “Jewels of the Sawtooths: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes,” and “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths,” and my e-guide “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” which describes a route that includes Alice Lake.

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

Precipice Lake, Sequoia National Park

Precipice wasn’t even our intended campsite on the third day of a six-day, 40-mile family backpacking trip in Sequoia, in California’s southern High Sierra. We planned to push maybe a mile farther, to camp on the other side of 10,700-foot Kaweah Gap. But when we reached Precipice Lake at 10,400 feet, and saw its glassy, green and blue waters reflecting white and golden cliffs, and took a bracing swim, it wasn’t a hard sell when I suggested we spend the night there. It became one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites.

See my story about that trip, “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” and all of my stories about Sequoia National Park at The Big Outside.

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

Lake Solitude, Grand Teton National Park

Hiking in the chilly, early-morning shade of the North Fork of Cascade Canyon, we looked up to see a huge bull moose sauntering through a meadow speckled with wildflowers, maybe a hundred yards from us. Minutes later, thanks to our early departure from camp, we reached the rocky shoreline of at Lake Solitude—the first people there that morning, enjoying a true period of “solitude” at this spot that’s enormously popular with dayhikers. In the calm morning air, the lake lay absolutely still, mirroring in sharp detail a cirque of cliffs, rocky mountainsides, and lingering patches of old snow.

See my story about my most recent trip in the Tetons, “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” my stories “Walking Familiar Ground: Reliving Old Memories and Making New Ones on the Teton Crest Trail” and “American Classic: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” and all of my stories about the Teton Crest Trail and Grand Teton National Park.

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No Name Lake, Glacier National Park

On the last night of a seven-day, north-south hike through Glacier, right after making the Dawson Pass Trail’s awesome alpine crossing from Pitamakan to Dawson passes, two friends and I spent our final night at No Name Lake—which I’d hiked past without stopping on a very similar, six-day trip five years before (see this story).

The next morning brought the kind of calm air that creates a perfect, mirror-like lake reflection—this one enhanced by the coincidental angle of the sun across the cliffs above the lake that lent it such striking, high-contrast light. Happening upon a moment like that makes me gasp.

See my story “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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Rainbow Lake, North Cascades National Park Complex

After a relentless, seven-mile-long, 3,500-foot uphill slog to Rainbow Pass in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, a friend and I descended to a wonderful, wooded campsite on the shore of Rainbow Lake. We stuffed fistfuls of huckleberries into our mouths, then walked down to the lakeshore, where the setting sun was setting larch trees—their needles turned golden in late September—afire. It seemed a fitting final night of an 80-mile trek through the heart of the North Cascades National Park Complex.

See my story about that trip, “Primal Wild: Backpacking 80 Miles Through the North Cascades,” and all of my stories about the North Cascades.

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Overland Lake, Ruby Crest Trail

Near the end of my family’s second day of a four-day, approximately 36-mile traverse of Nevada’s underappreciated Ruby Crest Trail, a nearly 2,000-foot uphill slog landed us at a pass at about 10,200 feet. Almost 1,000 feet below us, a stone bowl held Overland Lake like a pair of cupped hands. Beyond it, the backbone of the Ruby Mountains stretched for many miles—exciting us over the alpine walk that awaited us. We descended into that bowl to make camp on a rock ledge jutting into one corner of the lake, at around 9,400 feet. The Ruby Crest Trail cuts a snaking route along the spine of Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, a north-south range of granite-rimmed lake basins and arid valleys carved by ancient glaciers. Overlooking this hike would be your loss.

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

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Island Lake, Wind River Range

As I mentioned above, few mountain ranges in America are as blessed with gorgeous backcountry lakes as Wyoming’s Winds. That makes it hard to pick out just one or two as favorites, but Island Lake deserves a shout out as much as any and more than most. Two friends and I hiked past it on a three-day, 41-mile loop from the Elkhart Park Trailhead to Titcomb Basin and over Knapsack Col in the Winds—and if we didn’t already have our hearts set on spending that night in Titcomb, we could have easily pitched our tents by Island for the night.

Read my feature story about that 41-mile hike, “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin,” and check out all of my stories about the Winds at The Big Outside.

Don’t let red tape foil your plans.
See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Wanda Lake, John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon National Park

The seven-day thru-hike of the John Muir Trail that I made with some friends featured many unforgettable moments and a lifetime’s worth of stunning scenery—and aching feet—but few moments as quietly lovely as the early morning that we hiked along the shore of Wanda Lake. We were climbing toward 11,955-foot Muir Pass when we reached this uppermost lake in the Evolution Basin, a high valley scoured from granite by long-ago glaciers and studded with lakes. As my friend Todd walked along the lakeshore, I captured perhaps my best image from that entire trip.

See my story “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” See also all of my stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail.

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May Lake, Yosemite National Park

A friend and I reached May Lake on the last afternoon of one of my top 10 best-ever backpacking trips, a weeklong, 151-mile tour of the most remote areas of Yosemite. We arrived as the sun dipped toward the western horizon, casting beautiful, low-angle light across the lake, which sits at the base of craggy, 10,845-foot Mount Hoffman. But you can visit May on an easy dayhike of 2.5 miles round-trip. Bonus: There’s a High Sierra Camp on May’s shore that’s a good base camp for hiking the area, including the steep jaunt up Hoffman, which has arguably the nicest summit view in Yosemite.

See more photos, a video, and trip-planning tips in my story about the 87-mile second leg of that 151-tour of Yosemite, “Best of Yosemite, Part 2: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” and my story about the 65-mile first leg of that adventure, “Best of Yosemite, Part 1: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” and “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite” (including May Lake and Mount Hoffmann) at The Big Outside.

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Quiet Lake, White Cloud Mountains

A longtime backcountry ranger in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) got my attention when he told me that Quiet Lake was his favorite in the White Clouds, which are part of both the SNRA and one of America’s newest wilderness areas. He wasn’t overhyping it. When I backpacked to Quiet Lake with my son, following a partly off-trail route that was moderately strenuous and not too difficult to navigate, we hit the summit of a nearly 11,000-foot peak with an amazing panorama of the White Clouds, traversed a barren, rocky basin with four alpine lakes, and pitched our tent by the shore of Quiet, below the soaring north face of 11,815-foot Castle Peak, highest in the White Clouds. And we didn’t see another person the entire time. If you need a bit of peace and quiet—not to mention breathtaking natural beauty—go here.

See my “Photo Gallery: A Father-Son Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains,” and all stories
about Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains at The Big Outside.

Get the right shelter for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents”
and my expert tips in “How to Choose the Best Ultralight Backpacking Tent for You.”

Lake Sylvan, Beartooth Wilderness

Quite by accident, two friends and I saved the best campsite for our last night on a five-day August hike through Montana’s Beartooth Wilderness. We pitched our tents a short walk from the shore of Lake Sylvan, tucked into a cirque below the cliffs of Sylvan Peak, which rises to nearly 12,000 feet. That night capped a trip where we enjoyed complete solitude at two of our four camps and for several hours each day while hiking below jagged peaks, seeing small glaciers at the heads of glacially carved cirques, to one pass at around 11,000 feet, and across the treeless tundra of a plateau at over 10,000 feet.

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

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Minaret Lake, Ansel Adams Wilderness

The relentlessly steep trail brought us to stunning Iceberg Lake at almost 9,800 feet and continued, even more strenuously, upward over talus and scree to Cecile Lake, at 10,260 feet at the feet of the 11,000- and 12,000-foot High Sierra spires known as the Minarets, lined up like chipped and broken bowling pins. With the “trail” terminating there, we found our way across more talus and down a steep gully to Minaret Lake—arguably the prettiest among several lakes we’d already seen that day. We found a spot for our tents amid conifer trees a short walk from the lakeshore and enjoyed a sunset and sunrise that ranked among the best of several great ones on that trip.

See my story about that trip, “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

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

Ouzel Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

Tucked into the ponderosa pine forest at around 10,000 feet, in the park’s Wild Basin area, Ouzel is reached on a moderate hike of less than five miles and 1,500 vertical from the Wild Basin Trailhead. Although it gets some dayhikers, you can have a protected campsite in the trees there all to yourself, as my family did on a three-day, early-September backpacking trip. My kids, then 10 and seven, played and fished for hours in the shallow waters near our camp and the lake’s outlet creek.

See my story “The 5 Rules About Kids I Broke While Backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park.”

Want to take your family backpacking? See these expert e-books:
“The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park”
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”

Mirror Lake, Eagle Cap Wilderness

Early on the clear and calm, third morning of a 40-mile family backpacking trip in Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness, I left our campsite and walked down to the shore of this lake, anticipating the scene I’d capture in pixels. Mirror Lake, in the popular Lakes Basin, earns its moniker, offering up a flawless reflection of its conifer- and granite-rimmed shore and the cliffs of 9,572-foot Eagle Cap Peak high above it. Our hike made a long loop through some less-visited areas of the wilderness, but you can reach Mirror Lake on weekend-length hikes, too.

See my story “Learning the Hard Way: Backpacking Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness,” and all of my stories about backpacking in Oregon at The Big Outside.

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Peak Lake, Wind River Range

As I’ve written elsewhere at this blog, take a long walk in the Winds and you can hardly swing an extended tent pole without hitting a lake or tarn. I have now backpacked past Peak Lake on separate 41-mile and 43-mile loop hikes in the Winds (which overlapped by just several miles of trail that did not grow dull on the return visit). Shimmering at the bottom of a tiny bowl, surrounded by peaks resembling giant incisors, Peak Lake can be reached from a few different directions—none of them short walks, which helps keep this jaw-dropping little basin in the Winds relatively quiet. Both times I’ve walked past it, the only company I had was my two companions.

See my stories “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range” and “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin,” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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Oldman Lake, Glacier National Park

On day six of a weeklong hike through Glacier National Park, three of us reached Pitamakan Pass on a bluebird morning and set our packs down; we had to spend some time enjoying this prospect. Behind us, Pitamakan Lake and Seven Winds of the Lake nestle in the cliff-ringed cirque that we just hiked through on the Continental Divide Trail. But even more impressive, the view south took in the immense horseshoe of cliffs and forested mountainsides cradling Oldman Lake, below the sharp point of Flinsch Peak and the 2,000-foot stone wall of Mount Morgan rising virtually out of the waters of Oldman.

See my story “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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and backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

Thousand Island Lake, John Muir Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness

Thru-hiking southbound on the John Muir Trail, among the first of many moments that signal how this trek seems to keep getting better and better is when you descend toward Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. Yosemite—a pretty impressive place in its own right—now lies miles behind you. Banner Peak, scraping the sky at nearly 13,000 feet, has been in sight for some miles and looming ever larger. Then you catch your first glimpse of the lake, speckled with islets, and it takes your breath away.

Remind yourself that much more of this kind of stuff still awaits you.

See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

And see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your JMT thru-hike—as I’ve helped numerous other readers.

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See all of my stories about backpacking, family adventures, and national park adventures at The Big Outside.
 

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As we neared Gunsight Pass in Glacier National Park, on a three-day family backpacking trip, a man and woman in their fifties stopped to talk with us. They sized up our kids and smiled; Nate was nine and Alex was seven. “We’re impressed!” they told us. “We never had any luck trying to get our kids to backpack when they were young.” We chatted a bit and then headed off in opposite directions on the trail.

After they were out of earshot, Alex turned to me, wanting to clarify a point: “You didn’t get us to do this,” she told me. “We wanted to do it.” Her words, of course, warmed my heart. But her comment also spotlighted the biggest lesson for parents hoping to raise their kids to love the outdoors: Create experiences that make them eager to go out again the next time.

Sure, all kids are different. Offering advice to parents on how to raise their kids treads on dangerous ground—kind of like telling members of my extended Italian-American family how to make pasta sauce.

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

But my wife and I have had good success. Our kids are now young adults and and still look forward to our regular backpacking, skiing, paddling, and other adventures. They also amassed an impressive list of pretty hard-core trips on their wilderness CVs by a very young age, from sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay and descending a technical slot canyon in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, to numerous backpacking trips in national parks like Grand Teton, Zion, Olympic, and the Grand Canyon, and trekking hut to hut in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, on the Tour du Mont Blanc, and in Spain’s Picos de Europa, among other international adventures.

(See a menu of stories about many of our trips at my Family Adventures page, and see my Book page to read about the year we spent taking wilderness adventures in national parks threatened by climate change.)

I think much of what we’ve learned could be helpful to most families, and it boils down to these 10 basic guidelines laid out below. Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story requires a paid subscription to read: The first six tips below are free for anyone to read, but reading the rest—including tips I don’t think you’ll find from other sources—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

See the many comments at the bottom of this story, and please share your own thoughts, questions, experiences, and tips there, too. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to see the story about it.

1. Give Away Your Baby Stroller

As soon as your toddler can walk, give some friends that stroller and let your child walk everywhere you go, whether around town or on a trail. Sure, walking with a little one requires patience. But it turns children into strong hikers at a young age and gets them used to the idea that they will walk rather than be carried.

I preferred a child-carrier backpack to a stroller, even in urban settings, for those occasions when one of my kids needed a break from walking. It gives you exercise, is more convenient on stairs, and helps communicate to kids that our family carries packs—that we’re hikers.

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2. Don’t Give in to Frustration and Apathy

Let’s face it: Hiking, camping, or doing almost anything outdoors with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is often more work than fun. Don’t get discouraged; take them out anyway. If you wait until they’re older, you may find that your child isn’t interested. Introduce children to the outdoors while they’re very young and make it part of your family lifestyle, so that you nurture in them a long-term love for it.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
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3. Take Baby Steps

Don’t push your kids too hard. This one’s especially hard for parents who have always been very active, but pushing them risks creating a negative association with the outdoors. Start small, with short hikes, and work gradually up to longer outings. Think of it as pulling them along rather than pushing them. This also helps prevent the need to abandon plans, which is sometimes necessary (see tip #5) but can be disappointing for everyone involved.

What’s familiar and easy to you may seem scary and intimidating to a kid. Evaluate your child’s readiness for something new based not just on its physical difficulty, but how well your child handled previous experiences that presented comparable stress.

Example: When I considered taking my kids, at age nine and seven, sea kayaking and wilderness camping for five days in Glacier Bay, Alaska, I decided they were ready for it because they had done several backpacking trips, rock climbed, floated and camped on a wilderness river, and cross-country skied through snowstorms to backcountry yurts. They had managed stressful situations well and understood the need to follow instructions and that trips have uncomfortable moments. Despite how wet and raw it was at times, they loved Glacier Bay.

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4. Employ Bribery Strategically

Bring along motivators like their favorite candy bar to eat halfway through a hike and a favorite stuffed animal. Do things that create positive associations for kids, like giving them their own gear (headlamp, pack, walkie-talkie, etc.), and letting them be the hike leader or take charge pitching the tent.

Remember: What a child says now does not necessarily reflect how she will feel 20 minutes from now. I’ve been reminded time and time again that a seemingly tired kid is often just a hungry kid. They don’t have nearly the fat reserves and muscle mass of adults, so they need to rest and refuel more frequently, sometimes every hour.

Look for warning signs: grumpiness, a slowing pace, growing quiet, or a faraway look. Remind them frequently to take a drink. A 10-minute rest and a fat chocolate bar can swing a kid’s attitude 180 degrees.

Keep the magic going with my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You”
and my “7 Tips for Getting Your Family on Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

5. Tear Up Your Agenda

Whether hiking with kids or on a serious mountain climb, I think people often get into trouble simply because they focus too much on the destination, overlooking that it’s really about the journey. Don’t be so wedded to your agenda that you fail to see when it’s time to switch to Plan B.

Taking children outdoors, especially younger ones, does not always go according to plan. Adults hike for exercise, the views, and to get somewhere; young kids want to throw rocks in a creek and play in the mud. Let them. Explain to kids that there will be time for playing, but also a time for hiking. Encourage your teenager to invite along a friend. Find a balance that makes everyone happy, giving children some say without relinquishing all control.

Take a great, family-friendly backpacking trip using my expert e-books.
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6. Talk and Listen

Establish a rule up front: no whining. Tell your children they can talk about any situation they’re not happy with, but draw the line at complaining just to complain. Everyone will be happier.

At the same time, explain to your kids what you will be doing and what’s expected of them. Welcome their questions and address their concerns. Make sure they know that you won’t ask them to do anything they are not comfortable with, and that you will provide whatever help they need. Make them feel like they’re part of the decision-making process, so they have a sense of control over their own fate, which goes a long way toward relieving stress, no matter what your age.

I’m also a big believer in taking charge when necessary. My friend Shelli Johnson, a life and leadership coach, adventure guide, and blogger at yourepiclife.com, framed this advice wonderfully: “If you want to go hiking as a family, don’t ask your child or children, ‘Do you want to go hiking?’ Just say, ‘We’re going hiking.’ Trust me on this. You’re in charge, and if you’re serious about wanting a family that hikes and spends a lot of time outdoors, be the captain.”

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

See a menu of all stories about our many family outdoor adventures at my Family Adventures page at The Big Outside.

I wrote about taking our young kids on 11 wilderness adventures in national parks facing threats from climate change in my National Outdoor Book Awards-winning book, Before They’re Gone—A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks, from Beacon Press.

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“That sounds totally boring.” “Other parents don’t force their kids to do things they don’t want to do.” “I hate (fill in the activity).” If you’re a parent of a teenager, you’ve probably heard these responses from your child, or any of an infinite number of variations on them—like a personal favorite that one of my kids, at 14, laid on me: “You get to choose your friends, but you don’t get to choose your family.” If you’re trying to persuade a teen to get outdoors with you—which often entails pulling him or her away from an electronic screen—your child can summon powers of resistance that conjure mental images of Superman stopping a high-speed train.

My kids, now young adults, have taken far more backpacking trips and other outdoor adventures than they can remember, paddled whitewater rivers and waters from Alaska’s Glacier Bay to Florida’s Everglades and Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and skied and rock climbed since they were preschoolers—and they are still eager to take trips with my wife and me. Although we no longer encounter blowback to our plans to do something outdoors together, that certainly persisted well into their teen years. But as teens, our kids usually looked forward to our adventures. This story shares the reasons why.

Following up on my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” mostly intended for parents of younger children, the tips below summarize what I’ve learned from many outdoors adventures with increasingly independent young people—who happen to share my genetic makeup.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story requires a paid subscription to read: The first six tips below are free for anyone to read, but reading the rest—including tips I don’t think you’ll find from other sources—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for that, I appreciate it.

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

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

#1 Establish a Tradition

I took my son on our first father-son “Boy Trip” (the name he gave it), backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, when he was six. My first father-daughter adventure (yup, our “Girl Trip”—her name) followed within a few years, and we have kept the tradition alive most years since.

Similarly, our family and another with kids close in age began taking an annual ski trip to a backcountry yurt when the children ranged in age from seven to four. The boy trip, girl trip, and yurt trip have become staples of our annual travel calendar, considered as sacrosanct as birthdays—and each involves days spent entirely disconnected in remote backcountry.

Ideally, start a regular tradition of an outdoors adventure when kids are fairly young—but your child is never too old to begin. With a teenager, you may need to up the excitement stakes, like climbing a big mountain together. Find whatever it is that excites everyone involved; it may be the same activity or destination every year, or something perennially different. There are no rules, except to make it strictly about spending a lot of quality time together.

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

#2 Encourage Their Interests

My wife and I introduced our children to dayhiking and backpacking, skiing, rock climbing, and paddling on easier rivers and protected bays, with the occasional, guided whitewater rafting adventure. Then our son, at age 12, decided on his own to take up whitewater kayaking. We sent him for several summers to a four-day whitewater kayaking camp near our home; through that instruction, and lots of practice on Idaho’s beautiful and fun rivers, he has developed into a competent boater.

Most importantly, he loves it and does it safely. But by encouraging his new interest, we not only gave him the freedom to embrace the outdoors in his way, we’ve also reaped the benefits of having someone in our family who expanded our horizons. Our family now does much more whitewater kayaking (our son in his hard-shell boat, the rest of us in inflatable kayaks), including rafting and kayaking one of the West’s classic wilderness rivers, Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon.

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#3 Do Something Really Cool

On a two-family, spring break trip to southern Utah, the parents wanted to take some scenic dayhikes in places like Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon national parks—which the four youths deemed “boring.”

But when the other dad and I took them on a three-hour, late-afternoon hike through the slot canyons Peek-a-Boo Gulch and Spooky Gulch in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, squeezing between wildly curved walls frequently closer than shoulder-width apart, all we heard from them was laughter and expressions of awe.

Some places and experiences are so fascinating and fun that even teens can’t find a reason to complain. It may require a little research, but surprise your teenager with activities and destinations that will excite him—or perhaps even better, ask your kid to help you research and plan your trip, finding those things that will excite them and getting him or her emotionally invested in the entire plan.

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

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#4 Pick a Shared Goal

When I went to our then-15-year-old son with a proposal that he and I climb a technical route up the highest peak in the Lower 48 states, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, to raise money for an organization that introduces kids his age to the outdoors, he loved the idea and, months later, he and I made that climb together.

During my years as a field editor with Backpacker magazine, I participated in two of the first Summit For Someone fundraiser mountain climbs for Big City Mountaineers, a non-profit that takes underprivileged, urban teenagers on multi-day wilderness adventures. I believe strongly in the critical importance of BCM’s work in helping to ensure that the generation growing up today sustains America’s outdoors heritage.

Nate gleaned the importance of helping give opportunities like this to other young people while he and I pursued a big, shared goal together. (One ancillary benefit: Preparing for a rigorous, four-day snow climb up a big mountain helped motivate him to exercise regularly to train for it.)

Whether it’s a mountain climb or something else, find a shared goal that will challenge and excite you and your kid. You may both grow personally from it in ways that surprise you, while opening new doors in your relationship with your child.

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#5 Let Them Bring a Friend

When I invited my 17-year-old nephew, Marco, on what I knew would be an extremely difficult, 17-mile, 6,800-foot dayhike in the rugged Northern Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, he asked about bringing a friend. Marco had done a comparably hard dayhike in the Whites with me the year before, but I didn’t know anything about his friend except that they were soccer teammates. So I got on the phone with that boy’s father, told him about our plans in detail—partly because, as a parent, I’d want to know more about whoever was taking my kid on such a demanding adventure—and he told me why he thought his son would do fine.

Although it was a really tough, 15-hour day, ending by headlamps long after dark, all of the kids—including Nate, who was 14—did great and went home with a memorable war story to tell. But more importantly, they emerged from the experience eager for more.

Letting a teenage son or daughter invite a friend along has long been a staple parenting strategy. It’s no different for outdoor adventures—just a little trickier in that you want to make sure the friend is up to whatever challenges he or she will face.

Even better than finding the one friend who becomes the perfect adventure mate for your child is discovering an entire family that pairs well with your clan—parents and kids. That’s gold.

Take a great, family-friendly backpacking trip using my expert e-books.
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#6 Talk About the Outdoors

This tip may ring familiar to anyone who’s read my “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” in which I advise parents to “Work Your P.R.” All that changes with older kids is how you talk about it. Put your enthusiasm about the outdoors on display. Don’t shove it down a kid’s throat, but when an opportunity presents itself—when your child looks interested—talk about what you love.

Show teens an inspirational online video (a medium they trust and connect with). When the Banff Mountain Film Festival Tour comes to our city every winter, showing dozens of the year’s prize-winning films about the outdoors, we take our kids, and we all go home jonesing for our next adventure.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips”
and “10 Tips for Taking Kids on Their First Backpacking Trip.”

See all stories about family adventures and my All Trips List at The Big Outside.

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In the Digital Era, the idea of families spending sustained time outdoors—actually taking trips built around some outdoor adventure enjoyed together—can feel like a wonderful aspiration that’s awfully hard to achieve. But that lifestyle is a reality for many families—and always has been for mine—and one that brings parents and children together for long periods of time (hours or even days!) in beautiful places in nature for an activity that’s genuinely fun and, most importantly, offline and unplugged.

How do you create that kind of lifestyle for your family? As the father of two young adults who are avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, paddlers, and intelligent, fine young people who make me proud (and most importantly, love spending time with and just talking to their parents!), I believe this goal remains not only entirely feasible today, but all that much more critical—especially for young kids.

And when it’s done right, you and your children will consider the time you spend together outdoors some of the best you share as a family.

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

For this story, I’ve synthesized the biggest lessons I’ve gleaned from two decades of parenting outdoors as often as possible—and four decades building my life around outdoor recreation, including formerly as a field editor for Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog—into seven tips that will help set you on the path to wonderful times together as a family.

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

No. 1: Don’t ‘Wait Until They’re Older’

For starters, abandon any misguided notion that you should “wait until the kids are older”—that’s a formula for winding up with a ‘tweener or teen who’s not interested in any of your wild-eyed notions about spending family time outdoors.

My initial motivation was admittedly somewhat selfish. One lesson I learned soon after becoming a father was this: If I wanted to keep getting outside—and especially on big trips—as much as I had before parenthood, I would have to involve my family in the activities I love doing. (That’s why that tip ranks no. 2 in my “10 Tips For Getting Outside More.”) But I also understood that making that effort when they were small would pay dividends as they grew older and more capable.

As I urge in my “Survival Guide for the Outdoors Lover Who’s a New Parent,” take your kids outside often, beginning when they’re too young to remember it—then their oldest memories will include being outdoors with their family. They will learn that getting outdoors together as a family is almost as routine as dinner.

That’s not to say it’s ever too late to start, of course. It’s never too late to spend quality time together.

Want to take your family backpacking? See these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”

No. 2: When You Need It, Get Expert Help

You want to get your kids outdoors more, exploring nature, and enjoying the myriad experiences available in local, state, and national parks; but you and your spouse lack the skills and knowledge to even know where to begin, never mind keep everyone safe. That’s not an obstacle—everyone begins as a novice. There are free programs, many of them family-oriented, available on public lands all over the country, and numerous paid guide services—an abundance of expertise available to help you acquire experience and skills.

As just one example, when planning a visit to a national park, search the park’s website for ranger-led activities, like hikes, that are usually free or low-cost and ideal for families and beginners; you’ll find them at virtually every national park and many other public lands. Those websites also list guide services and outfitters that are licensed to operate in that park.

For instance, you can find guided tours of all kinds in Yellowstone, guided hikes in Glacier National Park, river trips through the Grand Canyon, and climbing guides operating in Grand Teton National Park and on Mount Rainier, and ranger-led tours and interpretive programs in almost any park, including Yosemite, and an adventurous, ranger-guided tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches.

See all of the stories about family trips listed at my Family Adventures page at The Big Outside, including stories about guided whitewater rafting Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River and Utah’s Gates of Lodore section of the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument and the Green River’s Desolation and Gray canyons, climbing Mount Whitney, guided hiking and slot canyoneering in Capitol Reef National Park, sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay, and kayak touring in the Everglades.

See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next family adventure..

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No. 3: Talk and Listen to Them

From the longer perspective of a father of young adults, of all the advice that I offer in my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” I think the two best nuggets of hard-earned wisdom are simply “talk and listen” and “work your P.R.”

When planning a trip, make your children feel like they’re part of the decision-making process. Welcome their questions, address their concerns, and give them some say in what you’re doing. They will be more emotionally invested in making it a success.

Your children crave your attention; shower them with it, especially positive reinforcement. Compliment kids when they do well and encourage them when they’re challenged. Tell children they’re good hikers, skiers, climbers, paddlers, or cyclists, and they will take pride in that. You will help them self-identify as a kid who likes being outdoors.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
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No. 4: Take One-on-One, Parent-Child Trips

When my son and daughter were both very young, I established a tradition of taking an annual father-son and father-daughter backcountry trip, getaways that have become known as our “Boy Trip” and “Girl Trip.” (At a young age, my daughter gave me a waiver for my gender.)

By launching this idea when they were young and eager for entire days of one-on-one time with me, I created a tradition that my kids would look forward to as much as I did.

While most of our trips have consisted of backpacking and rock climbing in our home state of Idaho, I’ve also backpacked in the Grand Canyon with my daughter and climbed Mount Whitney with my son (click on the photos above and at left to read about either trip).

But it matters less what you do or where than simply that you do it, give your child your entire attention, make it fun, and demonstrate your commitment to it—so that, as your child gets older, the shared commitment remains strong.

I can report now, from the far end of the parenting journey with two kids who are young adults and avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, and paddlers, that our son and daughter—as busy as their lives have become—still strive to spend as much time with us, especially outdoors, as they can, and we’re continually planning adventures together, whether for a few hours or a few weeks.

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No. 5: Blow Their Minds

Taking outdoors trips with little kids can, at times, create that defeated feeling of herding cats; but in some ways, it’s easier than when they get older, because you’re still in charge while they’re young. As they get older, they not only want more say in decisions about family outings and vacations, but they tend to come down with a chronic case of cynicism—everything is potentially “boring.”

Solution: Overwhelm their cynicism with trips so irrefutably fun that your offer becomes one they can’t refuse. One of my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You” is: Do something really cool.

As our kids grew older and more physically capable, comfortable with bigger challenges, and self-confident, we took them exploring slot canyons, including two non-technical, family-friendly slots in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a technical slot canyon that required four rappels in Capitol Reef National Park.

We rafted and kayaked whitewater rivers like Oregon’s Grand Ronde, Utah’s Green through Dinosaur National Monument, and Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon. We’ve backpacked and trekked hut to hut in amazing landscapes from the Tetons and Glacier National Park to the Tour du Mont Blanc and Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. I would regularly take them rock climbing and skiing.

No, it doesn’t have to be totally hard-core, involve international travel, or cost a small fortune. The point is simply to be willing to rise to the challenge of motivating your kids when they’ve grown a little tired of the same old. The fact that they want to step up to a higher level of outdoor adventure means you’ve been successful.

Make your kids want to go again. See “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

No. 6: Recruit Another Family

From the first river trip we ever took as a family—a beginner-friendly, five-day float down the Green River in Canyonlands National Park—to hiking in Yosemite, backpacking Paria Canyon and the Needles District of Canyonlands, and skiing to backcountry yurts, as well as other trips, we have frequently brought other kids, another family, or multiple families along for the adventure.

Not only do the kids get energized by more peers, but it’s more social and fun for everyone—and adds the benefit of spreading the work out among the adults (when children are too young to be much help). Bring another family regularly into your trips, and you create more voices motivating the movement toward always planning the next one.

Get the right backpack for you and your kid.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and the best ultralight backpacks.

No. 7: Pick a Shared Goal

When my son was 15, I proposed to him that he and I (for our annual Boy Trip) climb a mountaineering route up the highest peak in the contiguous United States, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, to raise money for an organization that introduces kids his age to the outdoors. He leapt at the suggestion.

Motivated by this goal, he joined me in spending the next several months training for it. After we successfully reached the summit, in our tent that night at our base camp at 12,000 feet, he told me it was “the best trip we’ve ever done, and it makes me excited to do bigger ones and climb more mountains like this.”

I told him I would love that.

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Bonus Tip: Don’t Worry, Just Take It Slow

If your family is entirely new to hiking or any outdoors endeavors, it’s okay. You have time. Take baby steps, learn as you go, and follow your gut instincts in choosing what’s right for your family. Seek a balance between encouraging everyone to try something new and not pushing so hard that anyone gets discouraged.

The only important goal is to keep making the effort to get out there. The rest will work out.

See more tips about walking that fine line in my “10 Tips for Keeping Kids Happy and Safe Outdoors” and “5 Tips For Hiking With Young Kids From an Outdoors Dad,” and my story “5 Questions to Ask Before Trying That New Outdoor Adventure.”

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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.”

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

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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Chances are that, by now, you’ve heard of Idaho’s Sawtooths—having typed that name into a search box may be the reason you’ve landed on this story. Maybe you’ve been intrigued at what you’ve heard or images you’ve seen from Idaho’s best-known mountain range. Perhaps you’ve even been there and the experience has only amplified your curiosity to see more of this range.

As someone who’s had the good fortune of having backpacked all over the country and in many other countries over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog, I rank the Sawtooths among the 10 best backpacking trips in America.

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

I’ve wandered around the Sawtooths at least a couple dozen times over more than two decades, including numerous backpacking trips, dayhikes, peak scrambles, rock climbing, and backcountry skiing. While there remain peaks on my list to climb, a few trails to hike, and many lakes to leap into (or just sit beside), the Sawtooths have become my backyard mountains. I feel at home there.

This story presents the five reasons I think every backpacker should take a multi-day hike through the Sawtooths—spotlighting the characteristics of a trip there that make this place unique. I believe this argument may persuade you to go (if, somehow, the photos don’t do it).

See my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains” to learn all you need to know to plan and pull off a five-day, 36-mile Sawtooths hike through the core of the Sawtooths, and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan every detail of a multi-day hike there.

Please share your thoughts or experiences there in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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1. It’s Not That Hard

Having backpacked all over the country and in many other countries, I recognize how friendly the Sawtooths are to relatively inexperienced backpackers, starting with generally well-maintained and well-marked trails that rarely get very steep, having been constructed for pack animals like horses and llamas.

Elevations remain moderate. Most passes crossed by trails rise just over 9,000 feet, a height that most people acclimate to quickly. And as with many interior West mountain ranges, summer brings stable weather and blessedly few mosquitoes after July.

See the best of the Sawtooths using my
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2. These Peaks Will Kind of Blow You Away

For years after moving to Idaho in 1998, with each trip I took into a new corner of the Sawtooths, I’d discover a spot that I was convinced was prettier than anyplace I’d been previously in this range. That happened to me several times, until I’d covered a fair bit of the Sawtooths and settled on the general conclusion that these peaks and mountain lakes are as beautiful as almost any range I’ve been in—certainly in the American West.

The Sawtooths look like a little sibling of the High Sierra or Tetons for their serrated skylines and mountain lakes that compare in beauty (if not in numbers) with the Sierra and Wind River Range.

A total of 57 summits top 10,000 feet in the Sawtooth Mountains, and nearly 400 trout-filled alpine lakes, many sitting well over 8,000 feet, shimmer in high bowls sculpted by long-ago glaciers. The range lies protected within the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, which encompasses the equally beautiful White Cloud Mountains across the Sawtooth/Salmon River Valley, and most of the range is designated wilderness.

In other words: There’s plenty of space to wander around.

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3. Yes, You Can Find Solitude

As happened in many—if not most—backcountry areas across the country, the pandemic summer of 2020 brought a big leap in the numbers of backpackers in the Sawtooths. Friends and readers of The Big Outside reported to me about seeing more people than expected or more than they’d seen on any previous trip there. To some extent, that has continued since.

Still, those reports and my personal experience point to a certain reality that’s long been true in many backcountry areas: Most backpacker use is heavily concentrated around weekends in August and at a few popular lakes within a day’s hike of popular trailheads. Hike midweek during the peak summer season or after Labor Day, or venture into lesser-known areas more than a day’s hike into the mountains, and you can often find a surprising degree of solitude.

Some readers who purchase my custom trip planning tell me they prefer to get away from the crowds—and are willing to compromise a bit on mountain splendor for solitude. But that’s not necessary in the Sawtooths, as one reader who I helped plan a trip there discovered. After it, he emailed me describing his shock at how few people he saw and posted this comment at my Custom Trip Planning page: “Just back from an amazing 5-day trip in the Sawtooth Mountains. Michael took the time to understand my priorities, goals, and comfort level and crafted a route that was clearly tailored uniquely to me. Most important, Michael’s itinerary was significantly different from—and better than—anything I would have come up with on my own.”

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

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

4. No Red Tape

Unlike in national parks and more popular national forest wildernesses (in the High Sierra and elsewhere), no permit reservation is required for backcountry camping in the Sawtooths. You show up, fill out a permit at a self-service trailhead kiosk, and hit the trail.

That’s very appealing for backpackers who don’t always plan their trips months in advance in order to apply for a permit reservation; or who may have done that but struck out getting a permit somewhere else; or who find themselves changing plans due to wildfires—a regular summer occurrence these days—or another reason.

And the Sawtooths represent a pretty darn good consolation prize if your first trip fell through.

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

5. There’s a Lot to See

A network of almost 350 miles of trails presents myriad opportunities for exploring the Sawtooth Wilderness on backpacking trips ranging from easy to ambitious—from the relatively accessible trails we hiked on the two trips described in this story, to more remote footpaths deeper in the wilderness, such as the 57-mile hike a friend and I took that I wrote about in this story.

See all stories about backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains at The Big Outside, including these:

“The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit”
“Jewels of the Sawtooths: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes”
“The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths”
“Going After Goals: Backpacking Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”
“Roof of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Hiking Thompson Peak”

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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Imagine this: You’re heading out on a long, beautiful hike deep in the backcountry, but instead of a full backpack, you carry a light daypack. You’ve avoided hassles with getting a backcountry permit and there’s no camp to set up and pack up. I love backpacking—and I do it a lot. But sometimes, I prefer to knock off a weekend-length—or longer—hike in one big day.

A completely different way to experience a hike, walking 15 to 20 or more miles in a day feels liberating in how lightly you travel and how much ground you can cover. The following list of 15 hikes represents the very best long—and huge—dayhikes I’ve taken over more than three decades of hiking all over the country, as a longtime field editor for Backpacker magazine and running this blog.

I’ve taken huge dayhikes many times simply because I had just one day free and wanted to see as much as possible. But there are some long stretches of trail that, to me, just cry out to be hiked in a day—for aesthetic reasons and because the length and access are just right and the scenery top shelf. The hikes on this list possess those qualities.

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

If you have a favorite long dayhike that you think belongs on this list, tell me in the comments section at the bottom of this story, and I’ll try to get to it. Or just tell me what you think of my list. I try to respond to all comments.

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

The Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

Arguably the granddaddy of ultra-dayhikes, traversing the Grand Canyon from the South Rim to the North Rim and back again constitutes not only the most demanding stroll on this list, but a mind-blowing, top-to-bottom tour of one of Earth’s most magnificent and unfathomable natural features—twice in one day. By its shortest route (depending on which trails you use), the r2r2r, as it’s known, is 42 miles round-trip with a cumulative elevation gain and loss of over 21,000 feet.

Backpacking the route requires obtaining one of the most hard-to-get backcountry permits in the National Park System, so if you possess the fitness and skills to knock it off in a day, that may offer your best chance of actually doing it. Of course, the shorter (and perhaps saner) alternative is to hike across the canyon in just one direction, halving the distance, using available shuttle services to travel between the rims before or after your hike (depending on your lodging arrangements).

I hope it goes without saying that this is an extremely arduous undertaking in an extreme environment and should only be attempted by very fit, experienced desert hikers: Every time I’ve done it, I’ve seen a surprising number of people attempting to hike it in just one direction (rim to rim) who were already suffering mightily long before they would finish it. This is no place to experiment with how far you can hike in a day: Be certain you are prepared for this massive undertaking.

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

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

Logan Pass to Many Glacier, Glacier National Park

Take one of the prettiest moderate-length dayhikes in the National Park System—Glacier’s Highline Trail—and tack on waterfalls, a view from above a glacier, and a walk down a valley flanked by peaks, and you have the 16.4-mile, point-to-point traverse from 6,646-foot Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road to Many Glacier, via Swiftcurrent Pass. This hike delivers uninterrupted views of the park’s jagged peaks and cliffs, and there’s a good chance you’ll see bighorn sheep and mountain goats. The distance includes the optional but very worthwhile side hike—1.2 miles and a steep 1,000 feet—to the Grinnell Glacier Overlook, a notch in the long cliff known as the Garden Wall.

See my stories “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park” and “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” and all of my stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

Do you want to backpack in Glacier? See The Big Outside’s E-Books page for a menu of all expert e-books available at this blog, including to two five-star trips in Glacier.

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Tenaya Lake to Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park

From the post-card view of the granite domes and cliffs flanking Tenaya Lake, to two of Yosemite’s finest summts and two of its most spectacular waterfalls, this 21-mile traverse hits many of the park’s best and most famous landmarks.

After admiring the view from Tenaya Lake’s southwestern shore, hike up 9,926-foot Clouds Rest, culminating with its gripping, sidewalk-width summit ridge, with a drop-off of several hundred feet on the left and a cliff on the right that falls away a dizzying 4,000 feet—a thousand feet taller than the face of El Capitan.

Then comes Half Dome’s thrilling cable route (lead photo at top of story) and a view of Yosemite Valley that would otherwise require you to have rock climbing skills or wings—for which you need a permit—followed by a descent of the Mist Trail past 594-foot Nevada Fall and 317-foot Vernal Fall, before finishing at the Happy Isles Trailhead in Yosemite Valley.

See more photos and information in my stories “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “Hiking Half Dome: How to Do It Right and Get a Permit,” “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” and “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls,” and all stories about Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

Gear up right for huge hikes like this. See the best hiking shoes and the best hiking daypacks.

Traversing Zion National Park

Few “dayhikes” on any list of ultra-hikes stretch as long as this—or get as scenic—but the north to south traverse across Zion National Park has earned something of a cult following among uber-fit hikers and ultra-runners.

From Lee Pass Trailhead to East Entrance Trailhead—with a short shuttle-bus ride in Zion Canyon from The Grotto to Weeping Rock—you’ll navigate a 47-mile grand tour of some of the most amazing scenery in the Southwest: deep chasms with burnt-red and white walls, soaring cliffs and beehive rock formations, and edge-of-the-rim walks high above labyrinths of slot canyons.

Throw in a few stunning, short side hikes along the way—Northgate Peaks, Angels Landing, and Hidden Canyon—and you log more than 50 miles on one of the most incredible days of hiking in the entire National Park System.

For a shorter but still full day of hiking that’s a reasonable length for many more fit hikers and trail runners, hike the West Rim Trail, 16.6 miles from the upper trailhead near Lava Point to the Grotto trailhead (shuttle bus stop no. 6) in Zion Canyon, a mostly downhill hike with about 800 vertical feet uphill and 3,600 feet downhill.

But the most scenic stretch of the West Rim Trail lies between its lower switchbacks, starting below Walter’s Wiggles and the spur trail to Angels Landing, and the upper junction with the Telephone Canyon Trail—and you can see all of that on an out-and-back dayhike from the Grotto that’s the same distance as hiking the West Rim Trail from top to bottom, without requiring a shuttle—but of course, requiring you to hike up and down about 3,000 vertical feet.

See my stories “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park,” which provides details about an ongoing trail closure that has prevented completing this full traverse, although it’s still possible to hike about 40 miles from Lee Pass to Zion Canyon, and “Mid-Life Crisis—Hiking 50 Miles Across Zion In a Day,” and all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

If you like this list, check out “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

Paintbrush-Cascade Canyons Loop, Grand Teton National Park

Probably the most popular backpacking trip in the park, the nearly 20-mile Paintbrush Canyon-Cascade Canyon loop from String Lake Trailhead, with a bit over 4,000 feet of elevation gain and loss, sees hikers and runners regularly notching it in a day.

The scenery is classic Tetons: serrated peaks and deep canyons with rock walls soaring thousands of feet overhead, and waterfalls tumbling off those walls in Cascade Canyon. Plus, the loop crosses one of the highest points reached on any trail in the park, 10,720-foot Paintbrush Divide, where the panorama takes in a huge chunk of the Tetons. It also passes cliff-ringed Lake Solitude in the North Fork of Cascade Canyon, where you’re looking straight down the glacier-carved valley at the towering north walls of the Grand Teton and Mount Owen.

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

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail
and backpacking the beginner-friendly loop described above.

Presidential Range ‘Death March’

This archetypal huge dayhike—the first known traverse dates back to 1882—the 20-mile, 8,500-foot “Death March” of New Hampshire’s Presidential Range remains above treeline for 15 miles, with vistas spanning the White Mountains. And the distance and difficulty hit a sweet spot—within reach for fit hikers, yet hard enough to fire aspirations, especially given the notoriously rocky and steep character of trails in the Whites.

Starting at one of the trailheads below 5,367-foot Mount Madison (the Air Line and Osgood Trail are personal favorites) and hiking south to Crawford Notch (to tick off the harder, northern summits first), purists tag all nine summits along the way, including the Northeast’s highest, 6,288-foot Mt. Washington—where winds exceed hurricane force an average of 110 days a year, and the average year-round temperature is below freezing, at 27.2° F. Pack some layers.

See my stories “Step Onto Rock. Step Down. Repeat 50,000 Times: A Presidential Range ‘Death March’,” “Big Hearts, Big Day: A 17-Mile Hike With Teens in the Presidential Range,” and all stories about the White Mountains at The Big Outside.

Get ready for your next big hike. See my stories “Training For a Big Hike or Mountain Climb”
and “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be.”

High Divide-Sol Duc Loop, Olympic National Park

Like the above hike, this 18-mile loop with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain is popular with backpackers, but a doable objective for many fit dayhikers—and a great day in a mountain range that’s largely beyond reach to all but backpackers and climbers on strenuous, multi-day outings.

Hiking counterclockwise, you’ll pass lovely Sol Duc Falls, with its triple columns, and climb through old-growth rainforest to higher meadows carpeted with lupine and other wildflowers. On a clear day, the High Divide Trail’s long alpine traverse delivers views across the deep, lushly green trench of the Hoh River Valley to ice- and snow-blanketed Mount Olympus. After passing beautiful Heart Lake, set in another sprawling meadow, the loop makes a gentle descent below ancient, giant trees along the Sol Duc River. You’re likely to see elk and mountain goats at higher elevations and black bear almost anywhere.

See all of my stories about Olympic National Park at The Big Outside.

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Crossing the Wind River Range

Huge vistas for much of the way, in one of the highest ranges of the Rocky Mountains, are the payoff on this 27-mile, east-west crossing of the southern Winds, from the Bears Ears Trailhead in Dickinson Park to the Big Sandy Opening Trailhead.

With a cumulative elevation gain of about 4,500 feet, this traverse stays above 11,000 feet for many miles, with views of peaks rising above 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide. Don’t pass up the 20-minute, off-trail side trip up 12,250-foot Mount Chauvenet, overlooking a row of peaks that includes Buffalo Peak, Camel’s Hump, and Mounts Washakie and Hooker. But the hike’s highlight is the Cirque of the Towers, a mind-boggling horseshoe of sheer-walled granite peaks standing shoulder to shoulder.

See my story “A Walk in the Winds: Hiking a One-Day, 27-Mile Traverse of Wyoming’s Wind River Range,” and all stories about the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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It is one of those unfortunate inevitabilities of life, like death and taxes: Occasionally on backpacking trips you will hike past one of the most sublime patches of wilderness real estate you have ever laid eyes on, a spot so idyllic you can already see your tent pitched there and you standing outside it, warm mug in your hands, watching a glorious sunset. But it’s early and your plan entails hiking farther before you stop for the day—not camping there. Or your permit isn’t for that site. Or even worse, you are looking for a campsite, but someone else has already occupied this little corner of Heaven.

Disappointment is an awfully large pill to swallow, especially if you know you may never get back to that place. Then again, you might make a note on your map and return there someday. Goals are a powerful motivator.

My recently updated story “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites” has photos and descriptions of the best spots in the wilderness where I’ve ever spent a night over the past three-plus decades, including many years running this blog and previously as a field editor for Backpacker magazine for 10 years. So it seems fitting to spotlight the best camps I never had but wish I did—all of them places potentially awaiting your tent.

Just make sure you get there before someone else grabs it.

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

This list grows every year—an inevitable outcome of backpacking frequently—giving you more ideas for trips to take. The descriptions below include links to stories at The Big Outside about those trips, with more images and information about planning them. Those stories about trips, and many other stories at this blog, require a paid subscription to read in full, although you don’t need a subscription to purchase any of my E-books or my Custom Trip Planning.

Please share your questions or suggestions about these campsites or others in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Hamilton Lakes, Sequoia National Park

Granted, there are a lot of great campsites in the High Sierra. But some really do stand out even from the many extraordinary sites—in fact, two of our camps on this Sequoia trip made my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites.

After a morning hike along a stretch of the High Sierra Trail that traverses hundreds of feet above the cliff-flanked canyon of the Middle Fork Kaweah River, we reached the largest of the Hamilton Lakes, nestled in a bowl of granite at 8,235 feet, just in time for a long lunch break. Everyone took a swim in the invigorating water, but mostly we just soaked up the panorama of jagged peaks rising to over 12,000 feet that surround the lake.

See my story about that 40-mile, family backpacking trip, “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” with lots of photos and a video, and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

Get the right pack for you. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and the best ultralight backpacks.

Alaska Basin, Teton Crest Trail

There’s hardly a bad place to pitch a tent (legally) in all of Grand Teton National Park—and certainly not even a mediocre spot along the Teton Crest Trail. In fact, my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites includes two along the TCT. But simply because I’ve always been successful at getting my desired campsites on my backcountry permit, I have always hiked through the one area along the TCT that lies outside the national park and doesn’t require a permit for camping: Alaska Basin.

But I’ve hiked through it enough times to realize what I’m missing. The two campsites shown in these photos happen to be perfect perches we passed that lie just off the TCT in the basin. Both have broad, flat areas of clean granite with amazing 360-degree panoramas of the mountains and cliffs surrounding Alaska Basin. That’s why I’ve recommended Alaska Basin as a campsite depending on the type of hiking itinerary people are seeking when I provide custom trip planning for the TCT.

See my story about my most-recent trip on the TCT, “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail.”

Get my Teton Crest Trail e-book or my custom trip planning for the TCT.

Yuma Point, Grand Canyon

On the last, hard but stunningly pretty day of a 40-mile hike from the South Kaibab to the Hermit trailhead, our group of six family and friends ascended the often steep and difficult Boucher Trail—yet another tortured footpath that illustrates why the words “hard but stunningly pretty” describe so many trails in the Big Ditch. After a long uphill grind, we reached the long, level bench the Boucher Trail follows below Yuma Point, at just over 5,400 feet, and saw immediately why in-the-know GC backpackers consider it one of the very best campsites in the canyon.

Several spacious, obviously pre-used camps on dirt sit right behind a large, flat rock ledge at the brink of cliffs overlooking a huge swath of the canyon from more than 3,000 feet above the Colorado River. Yes, I sure did imagine laying my pad and bag out on that ledge, gazing up at a night sky crazy with stars and then watching the sunrise light up the canyon. Those camps lie a short walk off the Boucher Trail 5.2 miles from the Hermit Trailhead, at 6,640 feet—and that’s about the only relatively “easy” way to get there. One drawback: Yuma Point lies right below the Dragon Corridor, where the sky is filled with a daily invasion of constant sightseeing overflights between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

See “Backpacking the Grand Canyon: Tonto West to Boucher Trail” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

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

Death Hollow, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

I’d read on some websites that viable campsites were non-existent in Death Hollow, in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. And looking at the contour lines of this deep and generally narrow cleavage in the slickrock plateau, it did seem like a bad bet to assume one would find good camps in there. Turned out, that was wrong.

On the middle day of a three-day hike on the 22-mile Death Hollow Loop, two friends and I backpacked down the dramatic canyon of Death Hollow, frequently walking in the creek amid small cascades and weaving our way around deep, calm pools and other obstacles and hazards—and bushwhacking through thickets of poison ivy that stood taller than us. And we passed a handful of camps where we’d have been happy to spend a night on one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest, where each of our three days presented different terrain and scenery, a sort of three-in-one wilderness adventure in landscapes that repeatedly made me to pause and just gape.

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

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Liberty Lake, Ruby Crest Trail

On the last afternoon of my family’s backpacking trip on Nevada’s Ruby Crest Trail, a steady uphill climb deposited us at the edge of Liberty Lake, a cobalt eye tucked tightly within a shoreline of granite slabs, patches of evergreen forest, and a talus mountainside. We followed the trail around and above the lake, where we stood on a ledge overlooking the lake and the long chain of the Ruby Mountains stretching into the distance (lead photo at top of story). Although camping there didn’t fit neatly into our four-day itinerary, it was easy to see why other backpackers had set up camp nearby.

Liberty Lake was not the only highlight of an approximately 36-mile, south-to-north traverse of the Ruby Crest Trail. We enjoyed a campsite on another beautiful alpine lake, wildflowers in bloom, relatively few other backpackers, and long stretches of hiking above 10,000 feet, traversing an almost treeless alpine zone for miles.

See my story about my family’s trip, “Backpacking the Ruby Crest Trail—A Diamond in the Rough,” at The Big Outside.

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See “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking.”

Imogene Lake, Sawtooth Wilderness

Returning to Imogene Lake again for the first time in some years, on a weekend backpacking trip with my then-11-year-old daughter, I was reminded just how gorgeous this sprawling water body is. On calm days—like we had on that visit—the water reflects an Impressionist painting-like panorama of pine forest and rocky peaks.

I was actually planning to finally atone for my sin of having hiked past Imogene on at least two or three previous occasions by setting up camp here with my daughter. But we got a late start on a Friday and rolled in to Hell Roaring Lake—four miles below Imogene—after dark. So we just dayhiked to Imogene. I’ll camp there yet—I swear. Meanwhile, Hell Roaring is a pretty nice spot, too, and close enough to visit Imogene on a morning hike.

See my story “Jewels of the Sawtooths: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes,” about father-son and father-daughter backpacking trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths, and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths, including in the remote southern Sawtooth Wilderness and “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths.”

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Below Nevills Arch, Owl Canyon, Bears Ears National Monument

Consider this a shining example of “if we’d just hiked a little while longer, and started early enough to beat the party that got there first, we’d have camped here.” On the second morning of our three-day loop through Owl and Fish canyons, in southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, we walked through the amphitheater where striking Nevills Arch presides over a sort of royal court of tall, red cliffs and pinnacles that resemble melted candles—and right past the lone campsite on flat, packed dirt that sits within the warm embrace of that amphitheater.

Having camped (at a pretty nice spot, anyway) just an easy 30-minute or shorter walk farther up Owl Canyon, it was a little painful seeing how close we’d come to enjoying this camp—although the small group who’d camped there were still packing up as we strolled past it. One of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest, the two- to three-day Owl-Fish loop offers an unusual combination of qualities: short distance, incredible scenery (and night skies), solitude, rugged hiking and scrambling, and a permit that’s easier to get than for better-known Southwest backpacking trips.

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

Elbow Lake, Wind River Range

In the week before Labor Day 2022, a prime time to be in the mountains, my wife, Penny, our friend, Chip, and I backpacked a five-day, roughly 43-mile loop from the New Fork/Doubletop Mountain Trailhead at New Fork Lakes, mostly exploring an area of the Winds I had not seen before. But we also walked a stretch of the Highline Trail (part of the Continental Divide Trail) which I had hiked previously (on this trip), reminding me not only how nice that trail is but that I’ve now hiked past Elbow Lake twice without laying out my sleeping bag there.

I rank that day among the prettiest I’ve ever hiked in the Winds—and that’s saying a lot. We started out from one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had, overlooking the lower of the Twin Lakes, 12,119-foot Sky Pilot Peak, and 12,224-foot Mount Oeneis, following the Highline Trail past several alpine lakes and tarns to sprawling Elbow Lake—embraced by granite slabs and grassy earth where you can’t help but picture your tent pitched. From there, we continued to a pair of high passes and more spectacular lakes.

And as happened throughout that trip, we passed fewer than 10 people all day.

See “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range” all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside. National forest and wilderness managers require camping at least 200 feet from any lake or trail in the Winds.

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

Iceberg Lake, Ansel Adams Wilderness

Two companions and I walked one of the finest sections of the John Muir Trail on a nine-day, north-south trek of nearly 130 miles through the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wildernesses and Kings Canyon National Park, exploring high lakes basins and crossing passes at 11,000 to 12,000 feet. But one highlight came early in that trip, when we detoured off the JMT to hike below the row of jagged spires called the Minarets in the Ansel Adams.

On the steep uphill hike from Ediza Lake—itself a nice spot to pitch a tent—we reached Iceberg Lake, tucked into a compact bowl at 9,774 feet right at the foot of sheer rock walls that rise to sharp points. Not far from the lakeshore, we saw some perfect little patches of dirt for tents. The Minarets can be visited on a weekend or three- to four-day hike that will give you a great sampler of the central High Sierra.

See photos and read about this area in my story “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and check out “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes” and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

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

Dead Horse Lake, Uinta Highline Trail, High Uintas Wilderness

In an unusual window of warm and mostly clear weather in early October, my 24-year-old son, Nate, and I backpacked nearly 60 miles through Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, mostly on the Uinta Highline Trail—which blew us away. We had some great camps, but one we sadly walked past was beside Dead Horse Lake, at around 10,900 feet at the head of a lake-filled basin tucked inside a ragged horseshoe of castle-like peaks between Red Knob Pass, at 12,000 feet, and Dead Horse Pass, at 11,600 feet.

Getting there isn’t easy from any direction—which typically ensures more solitude—and neither is getting out. Hiking southbound from the lake on the Uinta Highline, we climbed below tall cliffs and sheer buttresses soaring several hundred feet above us, the trail tilting steeply upward, weaving through huge boulders, and frequently consisting of no more than a goat path of boot prints across sliding scree. At Dead Horse Pass, I told Nate, “I think I know what killed the horse.”

Still, the High Uintas, and especially the Uinta Highline Trail, deserve more attention from serious backpackers than they get: This place is a big, majestic wilderness with 13,000-foot peaks and over 1,000 mountain lakes. Go there.

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

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The Narrows, Zion National Park

Rather than pick one of the campsites in Zion’s Narrows that a friend and I hiked past—we stayed in campsite one, which made my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites—I have to give all of the 11 other designated campsites in The Narrows a collective spot on this list.

On the second day of an overnight, top-to-bottom backpacking trip of The Narrows, we checked out campsites two through 12, and I eventually gave up on the idea of picking a favorite. Each one sits within sight and earshot of the burbling river, below sheer, multi-colored walls rising hundreds of feet to a ribbon of sky overhead. Some may have a little more space or some other appeal; but given the location, any one of them guarantees you an incomparable night.

See 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.”

Indian Ridge, Yosemite National Park

On our first night in the backcountry during a four-day, 45-mile hike in Yosemite, a friend and I carried water up onto Indian Ridge, on Yosemite Valley’s North Rim, and found a great campsite a short walk from an unnamed dome overlooking a panorama that took in Half Dome and distant mountains to the south. We watched a sunset linger until the final light of day dripped from the sky.

But not long after hitting the trail the next morning, we saw where we wished we had camped. A little farther down Indian Ridge, the terrain opens up and flat spots abound just off the trail—where we saw no other backpackers. We had a much closer and more spectacular view looking directly at the huge Northwest Face of Half Dome just across the deep gulf of the Valley. Park regulations require camping at least a half-mile from the North Rim of Yosemite Valley—which is easy to achieve and have plenty of spots to choose from on Indian Ridge—and more significantly, you have to carry water up there.

But I don’t know of another spot in the backcountry where you can camp with that kind of view of Yosemite Valley.

See my feature story about that trip, “Yosemite’s Best-Kept Secret Backpacking Trip.”

Get the right shelter for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents”
and “How to Choose the Best Ultralight Backpacking Tent for You.”

Elizabeth Lake, Glacier National Park

I first included Elizabeth Lake on this list after backpacking Glacier’s magnificent Northern Loop, which I describe how to plan and hike in my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park.” But since then, I’ve returned to Glacier to make a comparably awe-inspiring, 90-mile, north-south traverse of the park, mostly following the Continental Divide Trail, but with some variations I built into the route to show friends who accompanied me what I consider some the finest scenery in Glacier (described in this e-book).

And on our first night of that more-recent trip, we camped at Elizabeth Lake—and I got the photo above early the next morning, as the calm, chill air turned the lake into a mirror reflecting the surrounding, jagged peaks. So technically, I’ve now hiked past Elizabeth (twice, actually) and camped there, but I decided it still belongs on this list so that you don’t risk passing up a chance to spend a night there.

See my stories about backpacking Glacier’s Northern Loop and Gunsight Pass Trail and about traversing the park mostly following the Continental Divide Trail, and my most recent hike in Glacier, a weeklong traverse mostly on the CDT with an itinerary and camps that varied from the first CDT trip.

Glacier ranks among “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Jacob Hamblin Arch, Coyote Gulch

I had fully intended for our group of two families to spend our second night backpacking Coyote Gulch right beneath Jacob Hamblin Arch; I remembered, from a trip there years earlier, that it’s a magical spot to layover and watch the light shift.

But when our group reached Coyote Natural Bridge that afternoon, the kids were ready to call it a day; and it being about an hour (at a family pace) downstream from Jacob Hamblin, and not a bad place at all to pitch tents on the broad, sandy beach below the bridge (it was formerly on my top 25 best backcountry campsites list), I quickly gave up on the idea of reaching the arch. I also knew the arch is a popular spot, so all available sites could be snapped up by the time we got there. It turned out they weren’t, and a prime campsite, on the upstream side looking right up at the arch, was actually empty when we got there the next morning. Oh, well.

See my story about backpacking Coyote Gulch and dayhiking slot canyons and trails in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and neighboring Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks for more photos, videos, and detailed trip-planning information.

After Coyote Gulch, hike the rest of “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Island Lake and Peak Lake, Wind River Range

Take a long walk in the Winds and you can hardly swing an extended tent pole without hitting a lake or tarn. When two friends and I backpacked a roughly 41-mile loop in the Winds, I deliberately planned a route that included a night in Titcomb Basin, where lakes shimmer below the soaring granite walls of 13,000-foot peaks. But we inevitably hiked past countless, pretty lakes that presented alluring campsites.

Two of the most memorable were Island Lake, where we stopped for lunch en route to Titcomb, and Peak Lake, which nestles in a tiny bowl below peaks that resemble incisors, and which we reached after hiking cross-country from Titcomb over Knapsack Col and down a lonely valley to reach the Shannon Pass Trail. On a trip where a shocking number of lakes feel like one of the prettiest spots on the planet, these two have burned lasting images in memory.

See my story about that trip, “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin” all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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By the Colorado River at Hance Rapids, Grand Canyon

While I have camped on the beach at Hance Rapids on the Colorado River (it’s on my top 25 best backcountry campsites list), more recently, I backpacked past that beach on a six-day trip that I concluded—after several trips in the Big Ditch—is “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.” As we left that beach, we walked past a spacious (and empty!) campsite fully enclosed by trees that cast substantial shade.

Anyone who’s hiked in the canyon understands the value of shade—especially in a campsite. We had many miles to go that day, so we didn’t stop. But the beach at Hance Rapids on the Colorado River has long been on my radar (since I took this three-day hike) as a spot to plan spending a night when hiking through this corner of the canyon. This shady site will be the first place I check for occupants the next time I plan to bed down on that beach.

See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” which includes a potential night at Hance Rapids, 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 a trip easier for first-timers, “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Marie Lake, John Muir Trail

It was the fourth morning of our seven-day thru-hike of the John Muir Trail through California’s High Sierra, from Yosemite National Park to Mount Whitney. Three friends and I were climbing toward Selden Pass in the John Muir Wilderness and not even thinking about taking a break yet; we wouldn’t stop for the night until hours later.

Below us, Marie Lake lay still in a bowl of granite ledges with trees dotting the landscape, rocky islands in the lake, and an infinite selection of places around the lake to temporarily call home.

This was one of the most painful times I’ve hiked past a beautiful backcountry camp.

And in August 2022, I did it again when two companions and I backpacked past Marie Lake—although only after enjoying a nice swim and lunch there—on a nine-day trek of nearly 130 miles through the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses and Kings Canyon National Park.

See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” and “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning your JMT thru-hike?

I’ve helped many readers plan all the details of this classic trip, including getting a very hard-to-get permit, figuring out how many days to take, and finding the best campsites. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you. 

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

Pyramid Lake, Wind River Range

It sure seems like I keep walking past really nice campsites in the Winds—maybe I just need to spend more time there. On an August trip with my son a few summers back, we aborted a planned four-day loop crossing the Continental Divide twice and finishing through the Cirque of the Towers—because the weather was so bad, with almost continuous rain and virtually no views of the mountains and no sign it would improve. But we did hike from one camp to visit Pyramid Lake and saw enough of its surroundings to know I wanted to return.

Now I’m happy to call this a success story because I did get back to this part of the Winds in August 2023, on a four-day, nearly 41-mile hike crossing four high passes, when a friend and I spent our first backcountry night a short walk from the shore of Pyramid Lake. At nearly 10,600 feet, the lake nestles in a rocky basin at the foot of 11,978-foot Pyramid Peak (which we scrambled up on that trip), 12,454-foot Mount Hooker, and 12,185-foot Tower Peak. (The lake is also a short, cross-country hike from the valley of the East Fork River on the Wind River High Route, which I write about in this story about the Wind River High Route).

See my story about that August 2023 trip, “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, Yosemite National Park

On day three of a four-day, 87-mile, backpacking trip in the remote, northern reaches of Yosemite with my friend Todd, we reached one of that trek’s scenic highlights: the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. With granite walls soaring hundreds of feet above a crystal-clear river that tumbles over innumerable waterfalls, massive boulders, and a beautiful bed of cobblestones, the canyon bears a striking resemblance to the park’s iconic feature, Yosemite Valley—except that it’s twice as long and has no roads or buildings and few people.

Todd and I actually spent a pleasant night in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, initially sleeping under the stars on a big granite slab by the river, then quickly pitching our tarp in the woods when rain started falling after dark. But we didn’t score one of the several primo campsites we saw in the canyon, either because we walked past them before we were ready to stop for the night, or someone else already occupied them. To grab one of the campsites that sit near any of the waterfalls and great swimming holes, I suggest trying to reach the mid-canyon stretch by early afternoon, before most other backpackers.

See many more images, a video, and trip-planning trips in my story about that backpacking trip in northern Yosemite, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” and all of my stories about Yosemite at The Big Outside, including “Best of Yosemite, Part 1: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” about a 65-mile hike south of Tuolumne.

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

Bench Lakes, Sawtooth Wilderness

As we hiked past the second-highest of a string of five lakes that sit above 8,000 feet on the east side of the Sawtooths, the glassy waters of a calm early morning offered a perfect reflection of the incisor summit ridge of Mount Heyburn high above us. It was early on a long day my friend Chip Roser and I would spend climbing Heyburn, and would ultimately be one of the day’s finest moments. A rough, sometimes-obscure use trail leads to the Bench Lakes from Trail 101 above Redfish Lake. The highest of the Bench Lakes, at over 8,600 feet, is the most alpine of them and has campsites right at the foot of Heyburn.

See all stories about the Sawtooths at The Big Outside, including “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “Photo Gallery: Mountain Lakes of Idaho’s Sawtooths,” and “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths.”

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

Toltec Beach, Royal Arch Loop, Grand Canyon

As with the Tetons, there’s not likely a bad campsite in the GC—or at least none that I’ve found. But when three friends and I reached Toltec Beach, beside the Colorado River on the Grand Canyon’s very rugged, 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, around lunchtime on our second day, we all made a vow to return there. The river offered an area to cool ourselves in the water, there was a tree casting nice shade onto the sand, and the views, of course, were epic.

The Royal Arch Loop makes a top-to-bottom-and-back-up circuit of the canyon—going from a words-can’t-do-it-justice panorama at the rim to dipping your toes in the Colorado. It delivers a highlights reel of just about every type of physical feature that makes backpacking in the Grand Canyon unique: sweeping views, an intimate side canyon with lush hanging gardens nurtured by a vibrant stream, a high solitude quotient, and one drop-dead gorgeous campsite after another.

See my story about that trip “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside

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Snowdrift Lake, Grand Teton National Park

I’ve had the pleasure of gazing upon the emerald waters of this alpine lake four times now—and I actually did once pitch a tent on a slope above the lake, but never in the site at the lake’s eastern end. A long, oval, often wind-battered gem parked at the head of Avalanche Canyon, just a few hundred feet below 10,680-foot Avalanche Divide and the long cliff band named The Wall, Snowdrift is not reached by any official park trail.

But there is an unofficial, unmarked, rough, and strenuous user trail that climbs up Avalanche Canyon; it branches west off the Valley Trail just north of Taggart Lake. It’s a hard trail to carry a pack up, and not much easier to carry a pack down (and finding the easy, safe way through the cliffs below Snowdrift Lake is trickier going downhill than uphill; I’ve done it in both directions). The easiest access to Snowdrift is hiking the good trail from South Fork Cascade Canyon up to Avalanche Divide, then hiking cross-country, over easy terrain, down to the east end of Snowdrift. The campsite is exposed, so don’t go if it’s windy or in bad weather.

See all of my stories about Grand Teton National Park, including this story that describes how to hike to Snowdrift Lake in Avalanche Canyon.

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

Phelps Basin and Spider Gap route, Glacier Peak Wilderness

On the first afternoon of a spectacular, five-day family hike of the Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass Loop through Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness—among my favorite wild lands—we camped in a spacious, established site in the woods above Spider Meadow and minutes below Phelps Basin. Two other parties had already grabbed the available sites in Phelps Basin (photo above), as I discovered, to my dismay, when we took an evening stroll up there.

The next morning, we carried our packs up the trail to Spider Gap, passing more campers perched on the bench atop a steep wall of earth high above Spider Meadow (photo at right). Whenever I get back there again, it will be exceedingly difficult to choose between these two spots.

See my story, with lots of images, about our five-day, family-backpacking trip in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness.

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Arrowhead Lake, Sawtooth Wilderness

Since my first of now many trips into Idaho’s Sawtooths, I’ve often marveled at how these toothy, granite peaks remind me of the High Sierra—without the crowds of hikers found in parts of the Sierra. My friend Jeff Wilhelm and I hiked past Arrowhead Lake on the second morning of a four-day trip and immediately agreed we needed to return with fishing poles and stay longer. I snapped this photo when Jeff walked out onto the granite spit jutting into the lake.

See my story about that backpacking in the remote southern Sawtooth Wilderness and my story “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths.”

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

The Wind River High Route

When three friends and I set out on a seven-day, 96-mile traverse of the Wind River High Route—65 miles of which is off-trail, including nine of 10 named alpine passes between roughly 11,000 and 13,000 feet—we expected to be dazzled by one of the very best wilderness treks any of us had ever taken. And it exceeded expectations.

Inevitably, we hiked past many spots we’d love to have set up camp for the night. But two spots, in particular, stood out for me. One was in the valley of the East Fork River, where we hiked below a long chain of towering cliffs and soaked in frigid pools between cascades that tumbled over granite slabs in the shallow river. The second spot was in the long valley of the Alpine Lakes—one of the most starkly beautiful places I’ve ever seen. High above one of those lakes, we crossed a wide, grassy shelf sprinkled with rocks that looked like a little piece of the Scottish Highlands transported to the Wyoming mountains. It pained me to not stop there.

Read my story about that trip, “Adventure and Adversity on the Wind River High Route.”

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Hance Creek, Grand Canyon

This is another success story. The camping area on Hance Creek, on the east side of Horseshoe Mesa, earned a spot on this list when I backpacked past it with my then-10-year-old daughter on this three-day hike. That’s my justification for keeping it on this list—even though I’m happy to report that I’ve since returned and spent a night there (photo above) on a six-day trip that I’ve described as “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Not to be confused with the beach at Hance Rapids on the Colorado River—which is several trail miles from and a couple thousand feet below the camping area at Hance Creek—the camping zone at Hance Creek is flanked by sheer, vibrantly red walls that by late afternoon cast a long, blessed shadow to give us relief from the sun.

See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” which includes a potential night at Hance Rapids.

Click here now for my expert e-book to the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.

Upper Boulder Chain Lakes, White Cloud Mountains

On a 28-mile, one-day loop hike through the heart of one of the most scenic Western mountain ranges that most hikers have never heard of, Idaho’s White Clouds, two friends and I scrambled off-trail up a very steep headwall, passed through a notch in a row of pinnacles, then picked up a trail and descended into the valley of a string of pearls known as the Boulder Chain Lakes. While we would run into backpackers camped at the lower lakes, we saw no one at three of the highest and most remote of the chain, Headwall Lake, Scoop Lake, and Hummock Lake, perched amid copses of conifers beneath peaks of unbelievably white rock that give these mountains their name.

Read my story about a 28-mile dayhike through Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, with more photos and trip-planning info.

That White Clouds hike is featured in “Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

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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An unforgettable campsite can define a backcountry trip. Sometimes that perfect spot where you spend a night forges the memory that remains the most vivid long after you’ve gone home. A photo of that camp can send recollections of the entire adventure rushing back to you—it does for me. I’ve been very fortunate to have pitched a tent in many great backcountry campsites over more than three decades of backpacking all over the U.S. I’ve distilled the list of my favorite spots down to these 25.

I update this list every year and it becomes a little more difficult almost every time. This year, I’ve added fresh photos from a couple of places I revisited in 2024: Painter Basin in Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness and the Grand Canyon, where I backpacked most of the Gems Route, which includes the most remote stretch of the 95-mile-long Tonto Trail. 

Below my top 25 list you’ll find a second list—now just as long—of campsites that were previously in my top 25. Each campsite photo below includes a short description of that trip, and most have a link to an existing story at The Big Outside.

In some cases, the photos from these places show the view a few steps from our tent, rather than the site itself.

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 share a brief anecdote with each photo because, for me, each campsite isn’t merely a beautiful scene: it is a story and a memory. Because that’s what camping in the wilderness is all about.

I’d love to read your thoughts about any of these places or your suggestions for campsites that belong on my list; I’m always looking for trip ideas. Share them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Sweet dreams.

Sahale Glacier Camp, North Cascades National Park

We slogged up Sahale Arm into a cold, wind-driven rain, unable to see more than a hundred feet in any direction. But as my friend David Ports and I reached Sahale Glacier Camp (lead photo at top of story), the rain and wind abated and the clouds dropped below us, giving us a view of the earth falling away into a bottomless abyss a few steps from our tent door. A mountain goat strolled past our camp.

Perched at the top of Sahale Arm and the toe of the Sahale Glacier, at 7,686 feet, the highest designated campsite in Washington’s North Cascades National Park overlooks what appears to be a boundless, wind-whipped sea of sharpened peaks smothered in snow and ice, among them Johannesburg, Baker, Shuksan, Glacier Peak, and in the far distance, Mount Rainier.

See my story “Exploring the ‘American Alps:’ The North Cascades” and all stories about backpacking in North Cascades National Park at The Big Outside.

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Beside Royal Arch, Grand Canyon National Park

Backpacking the 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, the most remote and arguably the most rugged and lonely established South Rim hike in the Big Ditch, three friends and I put in a monster first day to reach the campsite beside Royal Arch—and was it ever worth the effort. We descended Royal Arch Canyon, which involves slow, strenuous, and exposed scrambling in spots—but is also lush with hanging gardens growing along its vibrant creek, which plunges through several crystal-clear pools—until we came into view of the arch, the Grand Canyon’s largest natural bridge (it’s water carved, so technically a bridge, not an arch).

We passed beneath the tall, thick arch (which provided ample shelter during dinnertime rain showers) and walked just beyond it to a flat ledge more than large enough for our two tents, directly beneath a towering sandstone pinnacle. Just steps beyond our ledge loomed a vertical, 200-foot pour-off dropping into the lower section of Royal Arch Canyon—a reminder not to wander far from the tents after dark. Come morning, dawn light would set the red walls of that lower canyon ablaze. For the four of us, all longtime backcountry explorers, this was an all-time best campsite.

See my story “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop” with lots of photos, a video, and information on how to pull off this trip, and all stories about Grand Canyon backpacking trips at The Big Outside.

Start planning your next adventure now! See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
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Helen Lake, John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon National Park

Wind-driven rain and hail pounded us as we backpacked the John Muir Trail through the Evolution Basin on the eighth day of a nine-day, 130-mile hike through the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wildernesses and Kings Canyon National Park in California’s High Sierra, mostly on the JMT. The rain tapered before we crossed 11,955-foot Muir Pass in early evening, but gray-black storm clouds still threatened. A little while later, we pitched our tents on the only tiny patches of rock-free, flat ground we found above Helen Lake, at around 11,600 feet, drawing the curtain on an 18-mile day with over 5,000 feet of uphill and downhill. There have been few days when I’ve walked that far through grander wilderness.

The storm passed, granting us a dry, calm evening. The setting sun cast soft alpenglow upon a peak behind us and burnished the clouds hovering over the western horizon a dark burgundy. But the real payoff came the next morning, when the rising sun ignited the rocky faces of peaks across Helen Lake. The lake and a tiny tarn—more like a big puddle—near our camp offered razor-sharp reflections of our surroundings. Despite the weather that chased us there and our rocky tent sites, Helen Lake burned itself into memory for all three of us as an inspirational spot.

In fact, as always happens when I backpack through the High Sierra, we had a few truly glorious campsites on that August 2022 hike, including at Thousand Island Lake and Minaret Lake. See my story about that trip, “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes.”

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No Name Lake, Glacier National Park

With two of the six camps on my reserved permit closed due to bear activity when two friends and I arrived at Glacier National Park in the second week of September 2023, we had to scramble to create a new permit based on backcountry campground availability—and ended up with an itinerary very similar to a hike I’d done in Glacier five years before (see this story). But in Glacier, there are no consolation prizes, only trails that awe every time you walk them.

We backpacked a seven-day, north-south traverse of the park, mostly combining the primary and alternate routes of the Continental Divide Trail from the Belly River Valley to Two Medicine, hiking through the Ptarmigan Tunnel and finishing with the Dawson Pass Trail’s alpine traverse overlooking the peaks in the park’s remote heart. But unlike last time, we spent our final night at No Name Lake, where a calm morning brought the kind of lake reflection you want to frame for a wall at home (as I did). Another surprise treat on that trip was beautiful evening and morning light at Morning Star Lake—which would have made this list if not for the serendipitous light at No Name.

See my story “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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The Narrows, Zion National Park

It was one of the most glaring omissions in my resume as a backpacker: I had never hiked The Narrows of the Virgin River in southern Utah’s Zion National Park. (I actually had a permit to do it in October 2013, when Congress shut down the federal government, closing all the national parks and temporarily crushing my hopes of finally ticking off that classic hike.)

Then an unexpected opportunity arose: I had a window for a four-day trip in early November and saw an unusually good forecast for southern Utah. I broached the idea of backpacking The Narrows to my friend, David Gordon, he leapt at the chance, and we got a last-minute permit for a very popular trip at a time of year when there are far fewer people either competing for a permit or dayhiking from the bottom.

I shot this photo and video of David at our campsite, Narrows no. 1, in early evening; the slot on the left side of the photo is The Narrows—we had emerged from that slot, hiking downstream, just an hour or so earlier.

See my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows” and all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

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

Death Canyon Shelf, Grand Teton National Park

I could rattle off a list of gorgeous campsites in Wyoming’s Tetons, a park I’ve visited well over 20 times and never get tired of. But I decided to include just the two camping zones I consider the best places to bed down in the Tetons backcountry and can be reached by trail: Death Canyon Shelf (above and at right) and the North Fork of Cascade Canyon (below).

I’ve camped a few times in different spots on Death Canyon Shelf, a broad, three-mile-long bench at about 9,500 feet. With the earth dropping away abruptly into Death Canyon on one side, cliffs rising some 500 feet on the other side, and views across the jagged peaks and canyons of the Tetons—reaching all the way to the Grand Teton—there are few spots with such sweeping and dramatic panoramas. I’ve watched moose in Death Canyon through binoculars from the cliff tops and deer grazing around our campsite, was awakened one night by a bull elk outside our tent—and have usually caught a spectacular sunset followed by an equally glorious sunrise.

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

North Fork of Cascade Canyon, Grand Teton National Park

On my most-recent backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, in August 2019, three friends and I started up the North Fork of Cascade Canyon on our second afternoon—having already enjoyed two days of a constant stream of breathtaking scenery. Where the trail emerges from forest into boulder-strewn meadows with a first, sweeping view of the canyon, my friend David looked over his shoulder and exclaimed, “Wow!” He was gazing down the canyon at the sheer north face of the Grand Teton rising several thousand feet above us (photo above).

We found a campsite in a copse of pine trees with a ledge that afforded an unimpeded view down the canyon as the setting down turned the Grand golden and then ruby red (photo at left). Getting an early start the next morning, we passed a massive bull moose strolling across a meadow on our way to Lake Solitude—which we had to ourselves at a time of day when its still waters offered a perfect mirror image of the surrounding cliffs and peaks. And the eye candy just kept getting better as we hiked the TCT high up a canyon wall to Paintbrush Divide at 10,700 feet.

See my stories “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail” and “American Classic: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” and my e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.”

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail. Visit my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan yours.

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Precipice Lake, Sequoia National Park

It almost seems unfair to compare other places to the High Sierra, Wyoming’s Teton Range and Wind River Range, Glacier National Park, or the Grand Canyon; those destinations dominate this list in part because I keep returning to them, but I think the photos speak for themselves. On a six-day, family backpacking trip in Sequoia National Park, we camped at two alpine lakes that deserved placement on this list: Precipice Lake and Columbine Lake (see Past Favorite Backcountry Campsites below these 25 favorites).

Precipice wasn’t even part of the planned itinerary; we intended to go beyond it, over Kaweah Gap, to camp in the Nine Lakes Basin. But when we reached Precipice in late afternoon on our third day, we decided within minutes to stop for the night. Cliffs of clean, white granite with black streaks ring much of the compact lake’s shoreline. The mouth of the outlet creek provides an excellent pool for a chilling dip. Granite ledges above the lake have flat areas for tents or to just lay out bags and sleep under the stars (as my 12-year-old son and I did). The evening alpenglow on the cliffs reflected in the lake and on 12,040-foot Eagle Scout Peak towering above Precipice, put the icing on the cake.

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park” and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

Want to hike the Teton Crest Trail, John Muir Trail, or another trip?
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Titcomb Basin, Wind River Range

The views kept getting better with every mile on the first day of a three-day, 41-mile loop that two friends and I backpacked from the Elkhart Park Trailhead in Wyoming’s Wind River Range in mid-September. But as we entered the long, alpine valley called Titcomb Basin to find a campsite for the night, craning our necks at the cliffs and peaks towering overhead, we immediately realized it was one of the prettiest backcountry spots any of us had ever seen.

An alpine valley at over 10,500 feet, Titcomb Basin sits below mountains on the Continental Divide that soar more than 3,000 feet above the Titcomb Lakes in the valley, the highest of which is 13,745-foot Fremont Peak. In fact, high peaks flank the valley on three sides like a long, narrow horseshoe. The only easy way in and out is via the trail entering the mouth of the basin. The next day, we hiked an off-trail route over Knapsack Col at about 12,200 feet, at the upper end of Titcomb, descending another trailless alpine valley speckled with wildflowers. 

Every time I return to the Winds, it feels like a reminder that I need to get there more often. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a mediocre campsite in the Winds, including the six nights I spent in August 2020 on the 96-mile Wind River High Route.

Read my feature story about that 41-mile hike, “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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

Alice Lake, Sawtooth Wilderness

In the last week of June—not yet summer in the mountains—my son, Nate, and I backpacked with two friends to one of the gems of Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness: Alice Lake. While the ground was mostly dry and snow-free in the valleys, we had a frigid ford of a creek running knee-deep and fast with snowmelt, and then encountered up to three feet of snow still on the ground for the last hour or so to Alice Lake, which sits at 8,598 feet below an eye-catching row of granite pinnacles. We found Alice still partly frozen over. But the calm of late afternoon and then the next morning served up a glassy reflection of the snowy peaks beyond that illustrates why this area is a favorite among Sawtooths aficionados.

I’d been to Alice Lake a few times before, as had Nate, on his first wilderness backpacking trip—and one of the first of our annual “Boy Trips”—when he was six years old. In fact, on this recent visit, I recognized and pointed out to Nate the campsite where, seven years earlier, I hurriedly threw up our tent just before a violent thunderstorm rolled in. This time, we just spent one night out there, early enough in the season that we had a chilly night and no mosquitoes. Alice Lake has become popular and is usually overcrowded on summer weekends; plan to be there on a weeknight or pick another spot.

See my stories “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “Jewels of the Sawtooths: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes”  “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths,” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths at this blog, plus my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.”

Lastly, don’t miss two more photos from Sawtooths campsites that I’ve had to bump to my list of Past Favorite Backcountry Campsites (see below)—which tells you something about the alpine lakes of the Sawtooth Mountains.

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

Below the Chocolate Drops, Maze District, Canyonlands National Park

After an arduous descent with some exposed scrambling off Maze Overlook, on a five-day, roughly 46-mile, early March backpacking trip in the Maze District of southern Utah’s Canyonlands, three friends and I followed occasional cairns down the South Fork of Horse Canyon. After some searching, we located our quarry—a small but clear pool perhaps four inches deep, one of the few springs we would find flowing in The Maze.

Our packs newly laden with many pounds of water, we hiked about a half-mile beyond the spring into the mouth of a canyon traversed by the Maze’s Chimney Route. Turning onto a sandy footpath, we walked up a short, dead-end side canyon and found soft, flat ground for our tents, surrounded on three sides by tall cliffs of desert varnish. Rising above the canyon rim behind our camp, one of the Chocolate Drops—distinctive stone towers, visible for miles in every direction, colored a darker shade of brown than most of the surrounding landscape—seemed to peer down at us curiously.

We spent two nights in that wonderful, secluded campsite, dayhiking a nearly nine-mile loop from it that linked up two thrilling and improbably circuitous routes through the Maze, and marveling at how the simultaneously warm and cool light of March days constantly transformed our campsite’s canyon walls.

See my story about that trip, “Farther Than It Looks—Backpacking the Canyonlands Maze” and all stories about Canyonlands National Park at this blog.

Hike all of the “10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Evolution Lake, John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon National Park

The first time I walked up to the shore of Evolution Lake, on my thru-hike of the John Muir Trail, I couldn’t see the lake. Arriving there after dark, we laid out our sleeping pads and bags on granite slabs under the stars and quickly nodded off. Catching our first glimpse of our environs at first light the next morning actually made it more magical, because we got to watch daylight slowly reveal this magnificent alpine valley to us.

The second time I walked up to Evolution Lake, on a nine-day, 130-mile hike through the High Sierra in August 2022, my two companions and I arrived on a beautiful morning—and that’s a place that will make you turn in a circle and gape. At 10,852 feet, surrounded by soaring cliffs that rise to tall peaks on all sides, including the 13,000-footers Mounts Mendel and Darwin and the 12,329-foot Hermit, it’s the lowest lake in the Evolution Basin and has the most protected camping. While we were moving on—commencing one of the JMT’s sections that earn it the nickname “America’s most beautiful trail” (a day that concluded at Helen Lake, described in the writeup above)—part of me wished we were spending the night there. I’ve also felt that way both times I’ve backpacked past Wanda Lake in the upper end of Evolution Basin.

See my stories “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in 7 Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?” “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” and “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” and all stories about backpacking the JMT at The Big Outside.

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Elizabeth Lake, Glacier National Park

The chilly September air pinched our faces as we took the first steps from our campsite on Elizabeth Lake, on our second morning backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier. The still, glassy water captured a razor-sharp, upside-down reflection of the jagged mountains flanking it. Then we heard the sound: a high-pitched, nasal whine that built into something like a shriek, the note suspended for several seconds before it was abruptly cut off. It was an elk somewhere in the forest nearby, bugling an invitation to prospective mates.

The campsite at the head of Elizabeth Lake, tucked into the forest just a minute’s walk from the lakeshore beach, not only graced us with that elk bugle, but we also saw our first two bears of the trip while hiking along the lake that morning. While we would hear elk bugling almost every morning and evening on that trip, and more bears as well as mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and moose, Elizabeth Lake awed us with its morning reflection of mountains and set the tone for a consummate Glacier experience that turned into one of my all-time best backpacking trips.

See my story “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” about that 94-mile backpacking trip. Click here to get my downloadable e-guide that will tell you everything you need to know to plan and take that trip (including some shorter variations of it), and click here for my e-guide to the best backpacking trip in Glacier.

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Along the Highline Trail, Wind River Range

Backpacking one of the premier long footpaths in the Winds, the Highline Trail, on a five-day, roughly 43-mile loop from the New Fork/Doubletop Mountain Trailhead at New Fork Lakes, my wife, Penny, our friend, Chip, and I reached an unnamed, small tarn beside the trail late one afternoon and the view stopped us in our tracks. We walked around the tarn and a few hundred feet beyond it to a flat area on a low rise.

We pitched our tents overlooking grassy meadows littered with glacial-erratic boulders that sloped languidly down to the lower of the Twin Lakes. Beyond that lake, the far side of the valley shot upward to a pair of behemoths reaching for the clouds: 12,119-foot Sky Pilot Peak and 12,224-foot Mount Oeneis. Culminating a day when the miles we hiked—10—again exceeded the number of other people we saw, it felt like we’d found an appropriate home for the night.

See “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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Overland Lake, Ruby Crest Trail

My family reached Overland Lake in late afternoon on day two of a four-day, approximately 36-mile traverse of the Ruby Crest Trail in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains. Immediately—and literally—the three teenagers (including a friend of our daughter’s) staked out their tents turf on the flat top of rocky ledges just a few steps (but several feet) above the wind-whipped waters of the lake.

Although the wind blew all that night—and my wife and I pitched our tent in a more protected spot amid trees about 25 feet behind their tents—we all enjoyed eating and hanging out on that ledge while the evening sun poured alpenglow onto the west-facing peaks and cliffs above Overland Lake.

For several years, I’d been hankering to hike the Ruby Crest and explore a wilderness area that sees relatively few backpackers and dayhikers compared to marquis parks and mountain ranges around the West. We saw wildflowers blooming and incredible terrain, as well as relatively few mosquitoes… or other backpackers. Overland is a logical stop for Ruby Crest Trail backpackers, sitting at the southern end of a 12-mile day that stays high above treeline, with sweeping views.

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

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Painter Basin, High Uintas Wilderness

On the third afternoon of a six-day, roughly 58-mile loop hike in northeastern Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, we reached our second 11,000-foot pass of the day—Trail Rider Pass at 11,700 feet—and paused to catch the breath stolen away by both the climb and the view of an imposing row of 13,000-foot peaks, including 13,528-foot summit of Kings Peak, Utah’s highest.

Then we descended through switchbacks into an alpine garden of rocks and creeks called Painter Basin, where we pitched our tents at around 11,000 feet in the long shadow of Kings Peak. The sun dipped behind Kings, igniting the tall, billowing clouds that filled the sky in a wide arc overhead—a beautiful evening that foreshadowed a night sky riddled with stars. The next day, we dayhiked some 10 miles and 2,500 vertical feet to the crown of Utah, a fun and scenic day.

I returned to Painter Basin in early October 2024 (going on short notice with an unusually good weather window) with my son on the first night of a four-day, roughly 60-mile traverse mostly on the Uinta Highline Trail—and Painter graced us with lovely dawn light on those big peaks. Much of both trips occurred between 10,000 and 12,000 feet and delivered a considerable degree of solitude and beauty.

See my stories “Backpacking—and Sandbagging—Utah’s Uinta Highline Trail” and “Tall and Lonely: Backpacking Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness” and all stories that feature the High Uintas Wilderness at The Big Outside.

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See “12 Expert Tips For Finding Solitude When Backpacking.”

Johns Hopkins Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park

For one of the trips for my book about taking our kids on wilderness adventures in national parks facing threats from climate change, we took a five-day sea kayaking trip in southeast Alaska’s Glacier Bay, where cliffs shoot straight up out of the sea and razor peaks smothered in ice and snow rise thousands of feet overhead. We watched bald eagles and other birds flying overhead, harbor seals popping up out of the water near our boats, Stellar sea lions honking and carrying on while sprawled on the rocks of South Marble Island, and brown bears roaming rocky beaches looking for food.

We spent two nights at this campsite near the mouth of Johns Hopkins Inlet. From there, we kayaked up the inlet to within about a quarter-mile of the mile-wide snout of the Johns Hopkins Glacier; a thousand or more seals occupied floating icebergs or swam around the inlet. Throughout the evenings and mornings in camp, we listened to that massive glacier calve another bus-size chunk of itself into the sea every 20 or 30 minutes, with an explosive sound the native Tlingits called “white thunder.”

See my story “Back to the Ice Age: Sea Kayaking Glacier Bay.”

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Beside Hance Rapids, Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park

The first day of a three-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon with my 10-year-old daughter, Alex, and two other families was a tough one: descending nearly 5,000 vertical feet in 6.5 miles on the rugged New Hance Trail. By the time we reached our campsites beside the Colorado River, everyone was whipped. But sometimes it takes a hard day of hiking to reach a magical spot, and this lonely corner on the floor of the Big Ditch is a pretty good place to rest tired legs.

Our front porch offered a view of redrock cliffs just across the river. The gravelly drone of Hance Rapids drowned out all other noise. Night fell like a black curtain to reveal a sky riddled with far more bullet holes than all the road signs in Arizona combined (and these holes glowed). Morning brought a sharp chill to the air—it was November—and the slow, patient unfolding of dawn light descending (kind of like very tired backpackers) from the South Rim a vertical mile above us to the mid-canyon geologic layers and, finally, bathing our campsite in warmth. We left there completely rejuvenated.

See my story “A Matter of Perspective: A Father-Daughter Hike in the Grand Canyon” for more images, a video, and tips on planning this trip, and all stories about Grand Canyon backpacking trips at The Big Outside . See also my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” about a trip where the beach at Hance Rapids is a potential campsite, and get my expert e-book also titled “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon” to find out all you need to know to plan and pull off that amazing multi-day hike.

So many spots where I’ve camped in the Grand Canyon would make most people’s list of best camps ever. But I’d be remiss to not mention that every one of our camps for five nights on the GC’s Gems Route—the most remote section of the Tonto Trail and one of the canyon’s most remote trips—featured breathtaking views and a shocking amount of solitude. See my story “Let’s Talk Water: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems.”

Get my expert e-books to “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
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Pyramid Lake, Wind River Range

After several multi-day hikes all over the Winds, I’ve gotten to know those mountains well and slept in so many beautiful spots that it’s hard to select just a few among them for this story. But after hiking to Pyramid Lake once before, I fulfilled my vow then to return, pitching my tent there on the first night of a four-day loop from Big Sandy in August 2023.

A friend and I camped in a meadow an appropriate distance from the lakeshore, where we enjoyed a sunset that set clouds aglow and a dawn that made the peaks surrounding the lake appear to glow. That proved to be a portentous start to our 41-mile hike, which crossed four high passes, featured camps near gorgeous lakes each night—Washakie and Arrowhead followed Pyramid—and delivered the kind of solitude one can find in the Winds when you’re prepared to work for it.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and call it the best multi-day hike in the Winds.

See my story “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

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

Thousand Island Lake, John Muir Trail, Ansel Adams Wilderness

Few backcountry campsites launch a backpacking trip as beautifully as the first evening my two adventure partners and I spent on a nine-day, 130-mile hike through the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wildernesses and Kings Canyon National Park, mostly on the John Muir Trail. From our camp above the shore of Thousand Island Lake (shown in lead photo at top of story), we watched a sunset that blazed furiously, igniting tiers of billowing clouds drifting past in what seemed like an endless light show with multiple, unexpected encores.

As has happened, I think, every time I’ve backpacked through the High Sierra, that adventure granted us the gift of more than a few really nice camps, including Helen Lake (above) and Minaret Lake. John Muir dubbed the High Sierra the “Range of Light” and the moniker has stuck because of the way those mountains seem to cling tightly to and refuse to release the abundant sunlight they receive. Stir a fast-moving cloudscape into a sunset like we had at Thousand Island Lake and you get a scene to remember forever.

See my story about that trip, “High Sierra Ramble: 130 Miles On—and Off—the John Muir Trail,” “10 Great John Muir Trail Section Hikes,” and all stories about backpacking in the High Sierra at The Big Outside.

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

Dome Glacier, Ptarmigan Traverse, Glacier Peak Wilderness

The first four nights of camping on the Ptarmigan Traverse in Washington’s North Cascades are in the alpine zone with 360-degree views of some of the most severely vertiginous and heavily glaciated and snow-covered peaks in the Lower 48. With clear skies, any of those camps might among the most memorable you’ve ever had. But besides White Rock Lakes (scroll down to the list of Past Favorite Backcountry Campsites, below), my other favorite campsite on the Ptarmigan was on the Dome Glacier, base camp for our climb of Dome Peak. Throughout a clear evening, with a sea of clouds filling the valleys below us, we looked south to the white pyramid of the volcano Glacier Peak, glowing above the clouds in the dusk light.

Climbers traditionally begin the Ptarmigan Traverse at Cascade Pass in North Cascades National Park and walk south, largely hewing close to the Cascade Crest. Beyond Dome Peak, from the Cub Lake area in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, the route descends to the Downey Creek Trailhead on Suiattle River Road. The route is mostly off-trail and crosses six glaciers; expert skills at glacier travel and navigating off-trail through mountains are required. See an excellent route description at summitpost.org/ptarmigan-traverse/154644.

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

Below the East Face of Mount Whitney

In frigid blasts of wind raking the snow-covered mountainside in April, our party crested a steep slope to find ourselves facing one of the most-photographed and unforgettable mountain vistas in America: the East Face of California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, highest peak in the Lower 48. On a flat pan of snow at 12,000 feet below that jagged skyline, we pitched our high camp, from which we made a successful ascent of Whitney’s Mountaineers Route the next day.

Spending two clear, starry nights in that camp, we saw the East Face in the varying light of all times of day, from dawn to sunset, dusk to dark. When I mentioned to one of our climbing partners that Whitney’s East Face was the only place I’ve seen that conjures mental images of the peaks of Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia, this man—who’s also been to Patagonia—told me that he’d been thinking the same thing.

See my story about that trip, “Roof of the High Sierra: A Father-Son Climb of California’s Mount Whitney.”

Toleak Point, Olympic National Park

On my family’s second day of backpacking the southern Olympic coast, we had already marveled at a massive boulder in the intertidal zone on the beach that was wallpapered with hundreds of mussels, sea anemones, and vividly orange or purple starfish. We had also climbed down an 80-foot cliff on a rope ladder that was missing several rungs at its bottom.

Late that afternoon, we found a spot for our tents on the beach at Toleak Point, where dozens of the rock pinnacles called sea stacks rise out of the ocean just offshore. As the kids played in a tide pool, a sea otter emerged from the pool’s other end and flopped across the beach to plunge into the ocean. A seal cavorted in the waves near us. When I went to explore the sea stacks exposed at low tide, a great blue heron lifted off of one and soared away over the beach like a winged dinosaur. Another of the trips my family took for my book, this three-day hike on Washington’s Olympic coast is still remembered by our kids, as well as my wife and me, as one of our all-time favorite trips.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast,” with more photos, a video, and my tips on how to pull off this trip.

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Lake Ellen Wilson, Glacier National Park

Our weeklong backpacking trip had featured too many wildlife sightings to count—including bighorn sheep and numerous mountain goats, not to mention that we had an impending date with a sow grizzly bear and her two cubs. The scenery blew us away every day. I would have forgiven Lake Ellen Wilson, our final night’s campsite, for being anticlimactic.

But upon arriving there, we soaked tired feet in the lake’s cold, emerald-colored waters, a 20-second walk from our campsite, gazing around at a basin ringed by thousand-foot cliffs with several waterfalls pouring off of them. Then we laid down on the sun-warmed pebbles on the beach, which felt like a heated bed with built-in massage. For my friend Jerry Hapgood and me, dropping off into an afternoon nap on them was the default setting. It turned out to be our best campsite of the trip.

See my story “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” about backpacking my modified and expanded version of Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop, with more photos, for information on how to pull off this trip, and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

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

Big Spring, Paria Canyon, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

I’d known that Paria Canyon could hold some surprises. But our two-family party found a little more adventure than we’d anticipated—which became evident when the other dad in our group, Vince, plunged hip-deep into quicksand on our first afternoon. But he managed, with considerable effort, to extricate himself; and by the next day, the kids had figured out how to identify shallow quicksand that they could stomp around in, howling with laughter. (Before the trip was over, Vince’s wife, Cat, and I would also take a quicksand dip.) We hiked for five days, mostly in the cold but usually ankle-deep Paria River, through a canyon that ranged from narrow with sheer walls to a big, open chasm between distant cliffs. While every campsite was really nice, the one at Big Spring (above), on our second night, took first prize.

Paria, which straddles the Utah-Arizona border and enters the Colorado River at Lees Ferry (where we finished our hike), at the beginning of the Grand Canyon, is unquestionably one of the great, multi-day canyon hikes of the Southwest—partly explaining why it’s so difficult to snag a permit to backpack it. But the permit system also preserves an unusual degree of solitude and a unique wilderness experience: We saw very few other people over five days, and spent much of that time on our own. (The BLM allows 20 people to start backpacking the Paria daily; we grabbed nine spots.)

See my story “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” with my tips on how to plan this trip.

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Past Favorite Backcountry Campsites

As I visit new places, I occasionally add new campsites to the list above, and have to remove some great spots from the list (to keep it to 25, a somewhat random but sensible number). But bumping a site from my list doesn’t diminish its attraction, of course. So I will keep those former favorites in the list below, to give you even more ideas and goals for future adventures.

Upper Lyman Lakes, Glacier Peak Wilderness

On the second day of a five-day, 44-mile family hike through Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness, we ascended a long finger of snow and crossed the pass that represents the crux of this trip in terms of technical difficulty, Spider Gap, at 7,100 feet. From there, we descended snow into the head of a valley sculpted and scoured by ice just a geologic moment ago, the Upper Lyman Lakes basin.

The Lyman Glacier poured down the cliffs of 8,459-foot Chiwawa Mountain into the vividly emerald waters of the uppermost lake. Barren, snow-speckled peaks and cliffs ringed the valley on three sides. A creek leapt from the lake’s far shore, crashing over stones and a small waterfall, below which some of us took a frigid and very brief bath. Wildflowers sprung hopefully from the few, shallow patches of soil. We pitched our tents on a grassy knoll near a copse of conifer trees, with an unobstructed view of that entire basin. And we spent most of the evening watching the shifting light across the mountains until sunset lit the clouds afire, watching a pair of bucks and a few doe wander through our campsites, and, well, swatting mosquitoes. (It was late July in the North Cascades, after all.)

See my story “Wild Heart of the Glacier Peak Wilderness: Backpacking the Spider Gap-Buck Creek Pass Loop.”

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Benson Lake, Yosemite National Park

At dusk on the second day of a four-day, 86-mile backpacking tour of northern Yosemite—the park’s biggest swath of wilderness—my friend Todd Arndt and I strolled up to perhaps 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 almost 23 miles that day, the trip’s longest, wiggling our toes in the cool sand and standing in the icy lake water in our bare feet reduced us to cooing babies.

A longtime backcountry ranger in Yosemite had told me that I’d find the park’s best backcountry beach at Benson Lake—but I never would have imagined such a vast expanse of fine sand deep in the mountains. It was one of many surprisingly gorgeous backcountry secrets I discovered over seven days of backpacking 151 miles through Yosemite’s most remote corners.

See my story “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking Remote Northern Yosemite,” and my story about the three-day, 65-mile first leg of that weeklong odyssey, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows.”

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

Tanner Beach, Grand Canyon National Park

A longtime backcountry ranger who has hiked every named trail in the Grand Canyon wrote an email to me recommending that I try a route off the South Rim—only a section of which I’d hiked before—that he described as “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.” Given the source of that endorsement, how could I not do it? So two friends and I backpacked a six-day, 74-mile, point-to-point traverse that took us down to campsites on the Colorado River and, of course, back up to the rim.

That hike showed us many diverse personalities of the canyon, from one of its most scenic and popular trails, the South Kaibab, to one of its most remote and primitive paths, the Escalante Route. We experienced some of the highest levels of solitude I’ve ever had on Grand Canyon trails—hiking for hours without encountering another person, and having little company at three of our four campsites. But we also spent a fun evening at a campsite with a very friendly rafting party that graciously fed us well.

And our last campsite, shaded by a rock ledge at Tanner Beach, turned out to be the best camp on the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon. I think you’ll see why when you read my story about that beautiful hike—titled, appropriately, “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.” Click here now for my e-book of the same title, which will tell you everything you need to know to plan and execute that trip.

See all stories about Grand Canyon backpacking trips at The Big Outside and my e-book to “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

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Columbine Lake, Sequoia National Park

Whichever direction you approach this lake from, you will pay for the privilege of a night here with significant toil. Filling a stone basin at nearly 11,000 feet, below the distinctive spire of Sawtooth Peak and an arc of snaggle-toothed mountains, Columbine is reached either via a 600-foot hump up through dozens of switchbacks from Lost Canyon; or a much harder 1,200-foot scramble, sans maintained trail, up a steep mountainside of sliding scree from Monarch Lakes to 11,630-foot Sawtooth Gap, where a primitive but better path leads down to Columbine. (We took the former and descended from Sawtooth Gap to Monarch Lakes—and were glad we did not carry backpacks up that route.)

Once there, though, your effort is (mostly) forgotten. We explored the granite ledges on the northshore of the lake, where crevices and small bowls in the granite hold tinypockets of water and you sometimes have to scramble on all fours over short, vertical walls. Alpenglow painted the peaks a salmon hue in the evening–of course—and sunrise cast an unbelievable pallet of orange, yellow, and reds onto a curlicue sculpture of clouds hovering just above one jagged ridge nearby. While not easy on the legs, Columbine Lake is very easy on the eyes.

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park” about this six-day backpacking trip, which included Precipice and Columbine lakes, with many more photos, a video, and information for planning this trip yourself. As of 2021, Sequoia National Park prohibits camping within 100 feet of Columbine’s lakeshore, to help protect the lake from use impacts.

Whitie Cox Camp, Middle Fork Salmon River, ID

Boy, it’s hard to pick one campsite that outdoes all others on the Middle Fork of the Salmon—they’re all pretty darn nice, often on large beaches in a canyon flanked by cliffs and mountainsides of pine forest, rocky crags, and golden grasses rising to summits 3,000 feet overhead. But for me, one stands out, and my family has, just by coincidence, camped there on both of our six-day rafting and kayaking trips down the Middle Fork.

In July 2019, on our second Middle Fork trip, joined by 20 good friends that included families with teens and young adults, we once again spent our second of five nights on the river at Whitie Cox camp. Just above a sweeping bend in the river, the camp has views up and down the canyon and a sprawling beach where the group sat in a large circle of folding chairs and talked and laughed for hours. After dark, some of us laid out our pads and bags on the sand and slept under the stars to the sound of the river softly murmuring past. In early morning, several of us hiked nearly a thousand feet up a ridge to an amazing vista up and down the canyon.

The Middle Fork, deep in central Idaho’s sprawling, 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, is rightly known as one of the great multi-day, wilderness river trips in America—if not the greatest—for its mix of breathtaking scenery, frequent rapids up to class III and IV, numerous hiking opportunities, hot springs, world-class trout fishing… and beautiful campsites.

See my story about that most-recent trip on Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River, and my story about my family’s first trip down the Middle Fork when our kids were four years younger.

See also my story about my involvement helping to create a new long-distance trail through the vast wilderness areas of central Idaho, which includes the Middle Fork Salmon River Trail, “America’s Newest Long Trail: The Idaho Wilderness Trail.”

Camp Schurman, Mount Rainier National Park

Camp Schurman sits at 9,460 feet, on the very tip of Steamboat Prow, a cleaver of busted volcanic rock and dust. Two massive glaciers, the Emmons and Winthrop, part around this stone prow in a way that illustrates how frozen water behaves much the same as its liquid form. More than four square miles of moving ice, thousands of years old, and stretching over nearly 9,000 feet of elevation, the Emmons is the largest glacier in the Lower 48; the Winthrop isn’t much smaller. When two friends and I set off to climb the Emmons in early August a few years ago, with much of the snow melted off the glaciers, they displayed heavy scarring: huge, frighteningly beautiful crevasses as plentiful as waves on a storm-tossed ocean.

A two-foot-high, oval, stone wall shielded our tentsite from the irrepressible, bone-chilling wind. Standing outside our tent, I was struck by the mind-boggling scale of Mt. Rainier. Looking up at the mountain, I couldn’t fit it all within my peripheral vision. And yet, I knew I was looking at a tiny fraction of Rainier—which made me feel both very small and very fortunate for just being there.

Getting There From White River Campground at 4,400 feet, five miles past the White River ranger station (get a climbing permit there), hike the Glacier Basin Trail 3.2 miles to Glacier Basin Camp, at 6,000 feet. Follow a climbers’ trail up into the basin, reaching the Inter Glacier (good training ground for new climbers) at around 6,800 feet. Climb to Curtis Camp on the ridge north of Mt. Ruth, then descend off the ridge onto the Emmons Glacier and continue to Camp Schurman at 9,460 feet.

Map/Guidebook Trails Illustrated Mt. Rainier no. 217, $11.95, (800) 962-1643, natgeomaps.com. Mt. Rainier—A Climbing Guide, by Mike Gauthier, $18.95, mountaineersbooks.org.

Contact Mt. Rainier National Park, nps.gov/mora.

Granite Park, John Muir Wilderness

On the second night of a three-day, 32-mile, partly cross-country traverse of the John Muir Wilderness from North Lake Trailhead to Mosquito Flat Trailhead in the High Sierra, we pitched our tents in Granite Park, an aptly named high valley speckled with scores of alpine lakes and tarns and encircled by an arc of 12,000- and 13,000-foot spires of barren, golden stone. In the evening, the sinking sun painted the peaks, lakes, and granitic landscape in a shifting, vivid light that was absolutely captivating. We couldn’t tear our eyes from the light show that went on for a few hours. When the last alpenglow faded away, night brought a sky riddled with stars.

In the morning, we set out early and I got the above shot of my friend Jason Kauffman passing a lake minutes from our campsite.

See my story and more photos about backpacking a 32-mile, partly off-trail traverse in the John Muir Wilderness for information on how to pull off this trip.

“Kid Rock” campsite, Green River, Canyonlands National Park

We made up the name for this campsite; it doesn’t have a name that I’m aware of, though it is an established and large campsite on the Green River in Stillwater Canyon, seven miles above the confluence with the Colorado River. We gave it that name because, minutes after we landed, the eight kids in our five-family crew—ranging in age from four to 12—immediately planted their figurative flag on this boulder at the edge of the campsite and christened it “Kid Rock.” We all now remember that site by the name the kids gave that boulder.

Really, there are many special campsites along this lazy stretch of the Green, which passes through a canyon of soaring redrock cliffs and spires. But besides being spacious and scenic, this one sits at the bottom of a trail that climbs about three miles uphill to White Crack, one of the most spectacular campgrounds on the White Rim.

See my story about floating for five days down the Green River through Stillwater Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.

Rock Slide Lake, Sawtooth Mountains

Having lived in Idaho since 1998, I have explored much of the state’s best-known mountain range, the Sawtooths. But it took me 13 years to finally backpack into the deep interior of the southern Sawtooths, an area speckled with mountain lakes that lies a solid two days’ hike from the nearest roads in any direction.

So when my friend Jeff Wilhelm and I carved out four glorious September days to finally explore this area, we found deep, clear lakes filled with lunker trout, ringed by jagged peaks, and trails that don’t receive many boot prints. Walking through the bright, airy forest there, filled with granite outcroppings, reminded me of the High Sierra—without all the people. We used Rock Slide Lake as a base camp for two nights to give us a day to explore with daypacks, and spent hours on its shore, marveling at the dawn and sunset light there.

See my story about a four-day, 57-mile in the southern Sawtooth Wilderness for more photos and information for planning this trip.

Green River, Dinosaur National Monument

Long shadows leaned over the steadily sliding river as we pulled into our first campsite on a four-day rafting trip on the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the Utah-Colorado border. From the floor of Lodore Canyon, we gazed up at burgundy cliffs soaring a thousand feet overhead. One friend said to me, “This is probably the nicest campsite I’ve ever seen.” But what was truly amazing was that the second night’s campsite was better than our first—and the third night’s site was even more breathtaking than the first two. For that reason—and because many campsites on the banks of the Green in Dinosaur are equally beautiful—I’m simply lumping all of them together for this list.

See my story about that trip, “Why Conservation Matters: Rafting the Green River’s Gates of Lodore.”

Coyote Natural Bridge, Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT

My memory of my wife’s and my first backpacking trip in Coyote Gulch 16 years earlier was cloudy when we returned recently with our 12- and 10-year-old kids and another family. Sometimes revisiting a place doesn’t measure up to a fond recollection of it; not so with Coyote Gulch, in southern Utah’s Escalante River canyons. It was more scenic even than I remembered. Soaring, red rock walls tower along its length. A steady creek pours over several short waterfalls, its year-round flow keeping the canyon bottom lushly green. And then there are features like Jacob Hamblin Arch and Coyote Natural Bridge.

My plan had been for us to spend our second night at one of the campsites below Jacob Hamblin; but the team was a little too pooped by the time we reached Coyote Natural Bridge to push on more than an hour farther. It turned out to be serendipitous, because we had the sandy beach area around the bridge to ourselves (whereas the campsites at Hamblin are popular). The kids played for hours in the creek and some adults took an evening hike while the others laid down on the warm sand with a book.

See my story about backpacking Coyote Gulch (and hiking slot canyons in the Escalante and at Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks), with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.

Tiger Key, Everglades National Park, FL

Songbirds chattered and flitted among the trees along the shore. Cormorants and brown pelicans skimmed the water’s surface. Egrets glided overhead. In one secluded cove in Tiger Key, an outermost island of the Ten Thousand Islands in Florida’s Everglades, we sat in our canoes and watched 10 brilliantly pink roseate spoonbills perched in a tree, watching us. In a small bay, we sat rapt while a dolphin swam wide circles around our canoe for about 20 minutes. Every evening, we stood in the warm beach sand watching the blazing red orb of the sun slowly sink into the Gulf of Mexico.

Another of the trips I took my family on for my book, paddling the Everglades was one of the most magical for all of us—for the scenery, the exotic birds, and the unique experience of having a wilderness beach all to ourselves.

See my story about kayaking the East River and canoeing and wilderness camping in the Ten Thousand Islands of Everglades National Park, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.

White Rock Lakes, Ptarmigan Traverse, Glacier Peak Wilderness

It was the third day of our six-day trip on arguably America’s premier mountain haute route. A multi-day walk along a high mountain crest, the Ptarmigan Traverse crosses six glaciers and stays high above treeline until the fifth day. We camped by lonely alpine lakes—one of which was still completely frozen and snow-covered in mid-August—below jagged summits in possibly the most vertiginous mountains in the country.

My climbing partners Stefan Kinnestrand and Wes Cooper and I ascended two of those glaciers, the LeConte and the South Cascade, in whiteout conditions on that third day, navigating by GPS while watching very carefully for crevasses. Then we scrambled from another pass down a precarious slope of loose rock so steep that a slip might have concluded with a tumble of several hundred feet right to the bottom. Most of the ground surrounding the White Rock Lakes remained snow-covered that August day, and the lakes were still almost completely frozen. When the fog finally lifted, we got a view across the deep valley of the West Fork of Agnes Creek to the Dana Glacier and Chikamin Glacier pouring off a ridge connecting several rocky peaks and spires. I’ll eventually post a story and more photos from the Ptarmigan Traverse.

Getting There Climbers traditionally begin the Ptarmigan Traverse at Cascade Pass in North Cascades National Park and walk south, largely hewing close to the Cascade Crest. Beyond Dome Peak, from the Cub Lake area in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, the route descends to the Downey Creek Trailhead on Suiattle River Road. The route is mostly off-trail and crosses six glaciers; expert skills at glacier travel and navigating off-trail through mountains are required. See an excellent route description at summitpost.org/ptarmigan-traverse/154644.

Spring Canyon, Capitol Reef National Park

Southern Utah’s Capitol Reef has scenery to match its siblings in the National Park System—but when it comes to crowds, this place ain’t no Zion or Yosemite. In the visitor center at the outset of a three-day, family backpacking trip, a ranger told me that we were the only party getting a permit to backpack into Spring Canyon that day.

We hiked below towering, burgundy cliffs with patches of white and orange and black water-stain streaks, passing enormous boulders piled up below the cliffs. More than four hours after setting out from the Chimney Rock Trailhead, we pitched the tent on a grassy bench in Spring Canyon, beneath cliffs topped by domes and spires soaring hundreds of feet overhead. Staying there for two nights, with a day of exploring in between, we saw no other people. If that kind of solitude is rare in the backcountry of many national parks, it’s especially unusual in a spot reached with relatively little effort.

See my story about dayhiking, slot canyoneering, and backpacking in Capitol Reef National Park, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.

Lagunas Chevallay, Dientes Circuit, Chilean Patagonia

The 35-mile Dientes Circuit through the Dientes de Navarino (“Teeth of Navarino”) on Isla Navarino (Navarino Island), at the southern tip of South America, is chock full of ends-of-the-Earth moments and beautiful campsites. With my friend Jeff Wilhelm and 22-year-old Puerto Williams-based trekking guide Maurice van de Maele, I hiked for four days through a wild, wind-battered landscape of incisor-like rock towers and alpine lakes that gets visited by just a handful of people every year.

About halfway through the trip, the Antarctic wind blew us through Paso Ventarron (Ventarron Pass) as the late-day light pierced clouds above the Lagunas Chevallay. We descended the rocky trail to camp beside the large, unnamed lake shown at the head of the valley in the photo above.

See my story about trekking the Dientes Circuit, with more photos, for information on how to pull off this trip.

East Fork Owyhee River

Guiding our kayaks between tight canyon walls on Deep Creek, we didn’t see the confluence until we practically fell into it, the swift waters spitting us out into a deeper, wider channel: southwest Idaho’s East Fork Owyhee River. The four of us immediately landed and dragged our boats up onto a spacious beach on river right, tired and wet. I felt chilled in my wetsuit from a day that had seen us spend eight hours or more paddling through rain, snow, hail, and wind.

Perhaps a football field’s distance downriver, the East Fork made a sharp left turn and plunged into unseen quarters between sheer rhyolite walls. As evening descended, those cliffs became a study in contrasting light—some in dark shadow, some edged with sunlight, and the white rock of the farthest one glowing as if lit by some internal power source. Though just one of many scenes of staggering natural beauty from an eight-day, 82-mile adventure on the upper Owyhee River system, from Deep Creek to Three Forks, that one has stuck with me.

See my story about kayaking the upper Owyhee River, with more photos, for information on how to pull off this trip.

Little Frazier Lake, Eagle Cap Wilderness

Sometimes the destinations closest to home are the ones you neglect for too long. That was the case for my family with northeastern Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness, just a half-day’s drive for us, but a place we had not yet backpacked in (with the exception of one disastrous attempt, when our son was a toddler, that was aborted due to a nasty stomach virus. But I have skied the backcountry of Norway Basin in the Eagle Cap with friends.) So last summer, we finally took a five-day, 41-mile loop in the southeastern corner of this 350,000-acre wilderness.

We hiked up broad, U-shaped valleys and camped by boisterous streams and lakes that offered mirror reflections of dawn light and alpenglow on rocky, 9,000-foot peaks. I made the side hike up 9,572-foot Eagle Cap for its 360-degree panorama overlooking much of the range; the kids played in streams and had the treat of one of the most spectacular thunderstorms of their lives on our second afternoon. Our third campsite, at Little Frazier Lake, sat near the lake’s outlet creek, where my son worked for hours rearranging rocks; my daughter and I scrambled high up some nearby ledges. And in the morning, the lake offered up a perfect reflection of the stone basin cradling it. I will eventually post a story, with more photos, about this trip.

See my story about this five-day, family backpacking trip in the Eagle Cap, including more photos and a video, for information on planning this trip.

Unnamed Canyon, Beehive Traverse, Capitol Reef National Park

An hour into a three-day, cross-country traverse of the Waterpocket Fold formation in Capitol Reef, my friend David Gordon and I had already taken our first wrong turn, seen a bighorn sheep, and I’d dislodged a boulder that nearly crushed David. (We were off-route.) The incidents were omens for the days to follow, navigating our way through a maze of canyons, cliffs, domes, and towers, where it was not unusual to spend 20 minutes or more hemmed in by seemingly impassable cliffs before finding the narrow ledge or the break in the wall of rock that indicated the direction of our route.

My friend, local guide Steve Howe, spent many seasons working out this cross-country hike, which begins at Grand Wash and zigzags south a very circuitous 17 miles to Capitol Gorge. He calls it the Beehive Traverse, for the type of sandstone towers encountered along the way. He shared a map and GPS data with David and me to let us attempt it ourselves; very few people have hiked the route before us, and most of them were guided by Steve. On our second night, we camped in this unnamed canyon below flying buttresses of golden sandstone.

See my story, with lots of photos and a video, about backpacking the Beehive Traverse in Capitol Reef.

On the Dunes, Great Sand Dunes National Park

Not long into our first day backpacking across the massive sand dunes of this park—which tower several hundred feet tall—I was already convinced that carrying a pack loaded with food and gear for three days as well as two gallons of water up giant dunes was not a brilliant plan. Our group of editors from Backpacker Magazine marched a few miles over the rolling, sometimes steep dunes until we found a relatively flat spot to pitch our tents. Then the magic show began.

It was November, and the light of late afternoon and early evening transformed the shifting, mountainous dunes into three-dimensional works of abstract art. I wandered a wide perimeter around our camp in the evening and early morning, shooting photos of frost on multi-colored dunes that often came to a peak as sharp as on the roof of a house. At times, sand avalanching downhill under our boots made an eerie sound, a phenomenon known as “singing.” I decided the dunes more than made up for the effort expended getting there.

See my story, with more photos, about backpacking at Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes for information on how to pull off this trip.

Lake 8522, Sawtooth Wilderness, ID

We backpacked the Alpine Creek Trail in Idaho’s Sawtooths less than three miles up a sunbaked valley flanked by cliffs to where it ends abruptly in ponderosa pine forest. A steep headwall loomed above us, 500 vertical feet or taller, capped by rocky ledges—a daunting obstacle that would logically turn away most hikers. But I had been told that the basin of unnamed lakes just beyond the pass at the top of this earthen wall was worth the effort of reaching it. So my son, Nate, almost 11 at the time, and I, joined by his buddy, another Nate, and that kid’s dad, Doug Shinneman, clawed and high-stepped our way up a faint, very steep user trail, grabbing branches and slipping in mud, and scrambling up exposed ledges.

At the top, we saw that I’d gotten good advice. A cool forest embraces one side of the blue-green waters of Lake 8522; a granite cliff juts straight out of the water on the other side. We found a spot in the woods for our tents and spent the next couple of days fishing, exploring the higher lakes in the basin, and taking in some sunrises and sunsets that kept my camera busy.

Getting There From ID 75, about 20 miles south of Stanley and 40 miles north of Ketchum, turn west onto Alturas Lake Road and follow it about seven miles to its end at the Alpine Creek Trailhead. Hike the Alpine Creek Trail roughly 2.5 miles to where the maintained trail terminates. Follow a faint, very steep and rough user trail that climbs almost straight uphill several hundred feet, with some scrambling, to a pass that leads into a lakes basin. Lake 8522 is a short walk beyond the pass. This area has some user trails and established campsites, but is not managed like official trails; minimize your impact.

Map Earthwalk Press “Sawtooth Wilderness,” $9.95, (800) 742-2677, omnimap.com.

Contact Sawtooth National Forest Stanley Ranger District, (208) 774-3000, fs.usda.gov/sawtooth.

Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand

It was a typical summer day in Doubtful Sound: alternating spells of light mist and steady rain punctuating brief periods without precipitation. The shifting gray overcast delivered about 10 minutes of sunshine the entire day. But the air was warm and the water flat, its dark surface as clear as a just-cleaned mirror. Tendrils of ghost-like clouds floated around granite cliffs that rose straight out of the sea up to 4,000 feet high; and the cliffs wore long coats of thick rainforest that seemed to defy gravity.

Our small group pitched our tents behind a rocky beach, in the forest of podocarp trees and punga tree ferns. After a mild night of periodic showers, we woke and walked to the beach to see the water still and glassy, reflecting the sea cliffs and misty clouds.

See my story about sea kayaking Doubtful Sound, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.

Tonto Trail, Grand Canyon National Park

If there’s a bad campsite in the Grand Canyon, I haven’t found it yet. But my favorite (so far) is this spot just off the Tonto Trail, on the plateau between Lonetree Canyon and Cremation Creek. We camped here on the last night of a four-day, late-March family backpacking trip from Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trailhead (another trip my family took for a chapter of my book).

While we were exposed to the wind—which can blow pretty hard—and had to carry water to that camp, those were small tithes for a 360-degree panorama reaching from the South Rim to the North Rim, with countless named temples and buttes within view, most prominently the Zoroaster Temple (visible in the background of the photo above). While the kids played with rocks in the dirt and my wife read, I walked around with my camera, finding an amazing background in every direction.

See my story, with more photos, about backpacking in the Grand Canyon for information on how to pull off this trip.

Indian Basin, Wind River Range

Six friends, 500 pounds of gear and food for a week, one horsepacker to haul our stuff the 15 miles from the trailhead to Indian Basin—and plenty of alcohol, which figures prominently in this adventure tale. We had grand ambitions for several rock and snow climbs of peaks along the Continental Divide that week. We didn’t plan on daily, cold morning showers or the violent afternoon thunderstorms that would dump a couple inches of hail in 30 minutes and threaten to blow our tents to Iowa.

Though we never tied into a rope all week, we did tag a few walk-and-scramble-up summits, including 13,745-foot Fremont Peak in cold wind and fog, and 13,517-foot Jackson Peak. Mostly, though, we huddled in all of our clothes under a tarp in camp, plowing through our alcohol supply and laughing uproariously over things I barely recall. I got the above shot during one of the rare moments of glorious sunshine that made us optimistic about climbing—until the next storm cell drove us back into our tents.

Getting There The Elkhart Park trailhead is 14.5 miles from Pinedale. From US 191 (Pine Street), in Pinedale, turn north onto Fremont Lake/Half Moon Lake Road. In three miles, bear right on Skyline Drive. A short distance beyond a viewpoint overlooking the high peaks, bear right at a fork to parking for the Pole Creek Trail. Follow the Pole Creek, Seneca Lake, Highline (for just a quarter-mile), and Indian Basin trails about 15 miles to Indian Basin.

Map Earthwalk Press “North Wind River Range,” $9.95, omnimap.com.

Contact Bridger National Forest Pinedale Ranger District, (307) 739-5500, fs.usda.gov/btnf.

Dog Lake, Seven Devils Mountains

A fresh September snowfall had just blanketed the Seven Devils, which rise to over 9,000 feet and form the east rim of Hells Canyon in west-central Idaho. My friend Geoff Sears and I started our three-day hike in thick fog, at first catching only glimpses of the craggy peaks.

But the weather slowly cleared through the afternoon, as we leapfrogged surviving segments of a long-abandoned, faint trail leading to Dog Lake, where we put our tent up in a small basin that rarely sees human visitors. That evening and the next morning, under blue skies with no wind, the lake offered up a sharp reflection of the snow-plastered cliffs of black rock.

See my story about another backpacking trip in Hells Canyon.

Getting There From US 95, a mile south of Riggins, Idaho, turn west onto Squaw Creek Road (CR 517). Drive 16.5 miles to Windy Saddle Trailhead, a half-mile before Seven Devils Campground. Hike south on Boise Trail 101 for 7.4 miles. Just after crossing Dog Creek, turn west and look for traces of the faint trail leading about 1.3 miles to Dog Lake; you’ll be mostly bushwhacking through semi-open forest with some blowdowns obstructing the way.

Map The Hells Canyon National Recreation Area map, Hells Canyon NRA website (below).

Contact Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, Riggins ranger district, (208) 628-3916, fs.usda.gov/detail/wallowa-whitman/recreation/?cid=stelprdb5238987.

Mount Baker, WA

It was a wretched campsite, actually. We’d had no intention of staying there, but weather left us without a better choice than to endure an interminable night on that cold ground of sharp stones. The wind-tortured, 9,000-foot saddle separating the Coleman and Deming glaciers on Mount Baker in Washington’s North Cascades was simply where we ended up when Plan A—camping on the summit—crashed in the sea of ambitious dreams. My wife, Penny, and I were climbing our first Pacific Northwest volcano years ago with our friend Larry Gies, through thick fog that reduced visibility to less than 100 feet at times. By late afternoon, we gave up on reaching the summit, pinned our tents to the ground, and dove inside.

But two hours later, a mountain fairy granted us one of those rare, magical events that occur when least expected: Sunshine lit our tents. We stepped outside to see the cloud ceiling below us. We tagged the mountaintop as the setting sun strafed that sea of clouds with red and orange light. You can’t distinguish our tents in the photo above, but they’re in the saddle below us—that miserable, serendipitous spot.

Getting There From I-5 north of Bellingham, follow WA 542 for 33.8 miles. One mile past Glacier, turn right onto Glacier Creek FS Road 39, and continue eight miles to parking for Mt. Baker (Heliotrope Ridge) Trail 677. The trail ends after two miles, at 4,800 feet; continue on the climbers’ trail up the Hogsback to a tenting area at 6,000 feet on the edge of the Coleman Glacier.

Map Green Trails Mt. Baker no. 13, greentrailsmaps.com.

Contact Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest outdoor recreation information, fs.usda.gov/mbs.

Solitude has always reigned as one of the holy grails of backpacking: We all dream of finding that lonely campsite deep in the wilderness with an amazing vista, or hiking for miles or days encountering few or even no other people on the trail. Unfortunately, reality often conflicts with expectations for many backpackers when they discover that the dream trip they’ve been anticipating for months was apparently a dream trip for an awful lot of other people, too.

But the truth is that there are many ways to find backcountry solitude because the odds work in your favor: Most wilderness trails have few or no people on them most of the time. The search for solitude is less a needle-in-a-haystack conundrum and more a matter of thinking outside the box: You simply have to understand where and when to look for it—and stop thinking like everyone else thinks.

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

I’ve learned the tricks for finding solitude described in this story over more than three decades (and counting) and innumerable thousands of miles of backpacking, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Following the strategies described in this story, I have enjoyed surprising degrees of solitude even on popular trails in major national parks like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Mount Rainier, Glacier, Zion, the Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains, and others, as well as in federal wilderness in mountain ranges like the Wind River Range and Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, in the Southwest canyon country—and even on parts of the John Muir Trail.

I believe these tips will work for you, too.

Like many stories at The Big Outside, part of this story requires a paid subscription to read: The first six tips below are free for anyone to read, but reading the rest—including tips you may not find from other sources—is an exclusive benefit for readers with a paid subscription to The Big Outside.

Please share what you think of my tips or any of your own tips for finding solitude in the comments section below this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Click on any photo in this story to read about that trip.

1. Hit Less Well-Known Areas of Popular Parks

The first truth to understand is just how heavily concentrated most backcountry use is in the most popular parks. Chew on these stats for a minute:

• From 2011 to 2016, the number of permit requests for starting the John Muir Trail in Yosemite National Park doubled, reaching about 3,500. That explosive growth prompted Yosemite to implement a rolling lottery for JMT permits. These days, that system operates efficiently and fairly—yet still, nearly 70 percent of applications are unsuccessful.

• 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.” (The definition of “good gig.”) He said about 10 percent of the park’s hundreds of miles of trails—the JMT from Happy Isles to Donohue Pass and the Sierra High Camps loop—accounts for about 80 percent of all trail use. Little Yosemite Valley alone accounts for almost 20 percent. He told me: “There are areas of the park where you will see very few people.” Having backpacked all over Yosemite, I’ve discovered how correct he was.

• Up to 2013, Mount Rainier National Park received around 800 applications every March (when the park begins accepting permit requests for the year) for wilderness permits to climb or backpack in the park, including all or part of the Wonderland Trail. That number jumped to 1,400 in 2013, 2,000 in 2014, over 2,700 in 2015, and 5,900 in 2017—44 percent of them for backpacking the Wonderland Trail. The park has campsite capacity to grant about 900 permits annually for the entire Wonderland, about one in three of the roughly 2,500 applications for a full Wonderland permit.

• When applying for a backcountry permit in the Grand Canyon on the earliest date possible (four months in advance), the success rate in obtaining one goes from nearly 100 percent for trips from December through February to around 40 to 65 percent in April and October. Upwards of 75 percent or more of applications for backpacking the three popular corridor trails (Bright Angel and South and North Kaibab) in spring or fall get denied.

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

Ready for Some Real Solitude?
See my story “Big Scenery, No Crowds: 12 Top Backpacking Trips For Solitude.”

I’ve helped many readers of my blog plan a backpacking trip—and successfully obtain a permit—in Yosemite, Grand Teton, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and other uber-popular parks. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan all the details of your next adventure.

See my stories “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Wilderness Backpacking Trip,” and “How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking,” the menu of stories on my All Trips List, and my expert e-books to backpacking trips.

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2. Go Outside the Peak Season

You may have read this tip before and thought it sounds decidedly unappealing. If so, reconsider your apprehension because this represents one of the easiest strategies for finding solitude.

Good weather often persists into autumn in many mountain ranges—while backcountry use tends to tail off sharply after Labor Day. I’ve long considered September the best month for backpacking in Western mountains and have almost always encountered mild, dry days, cool but not frigid nights—and no bugs. In the Southwest canyons, moderate temperatures often arrive by late winter or early spring and the fall season can extend late October and November.

As examples, target post-Labor Day—the later the better for fewer people and less competition for a backcountry permit, weather permitting—to hike many northern Rockies or Pacific Northwest trips such as “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park,” the Teton Crest Trail, Wind River Range, or Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail; late September or into October for “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite” or the John Muir Trail, mid-autumn for Zion’s Narrows (I hit a perfect weather window in early November—although I watched the forecast and our hike was preceded and followed by cold, wet weather), and late March to early April or late October well into November for “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

And friends and I enjoyed even more solitude than usual by backpacking the Maze District in Canyonlands in the first week of March—when, contrary to what many backpackers might assume, while we had cold nights, daytime temperatures were ideal for hiking, trails and routes were dry (and snow-free), and we found water flowing from seasonal springs that can dry up as early as April.

My related tip no. 9 (below) shares a trick I’ve learned about the transitional times between peak and off-seasons.

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3. Go to Wilderness Areas Instead of National Parks

For many good reasons, national parks are the marquis destinations for everyone who loves the outdoors. But the U.S. has over twice as much wilderness as parks: more than 111 million acres compared to 52.2 million acres in parks. That’s an area larger than California spread across more than 760 designated wilderness areas that are managed for the same values and uses as the large, wilderness-based national parks—although often without a need to reserve a permit in advance.

Many federal wilderness areas were protected before some newer parks and were once considered for national park designation—in other words, they’re just as nice, but without the red tape, renown, and crowds of some parks.

Want some suggestions?

I have long seen similarities between Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and the Tetons and High Sierra. The Wind River Range certainly compares for majesty with any mountains in the West and may be outdone only by the High Sierra in its abundance of beautiful alpine lakes. While getting a backcountry permit for the John Muir Wilderness and others in the Sierra can be competitive, it’s nothing like trying to get a permit in parts of Yosemite or for the John Muir Trail.

Moreover, the Timberline Trail around Mount Hood is in many respects the scenic equal—and a shorter version—of Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail. Paria Canyon unquestionably ranks among the very best multi-day canyon hikes in the Southwest. You’ll find outstanding mountains and solitude in much of the High Uintas Wilderness (lead photo at top of story), Glacier Peak Wilderness, Pasayten Wilderness, and Eagle Cap Wilderness, and on the Ruby Crest Trail.

Looking for a trip in the East? One of my favorites is this 32-mile loop in New Hampshire’s Pemigewasset Wilderness.

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

4. Go to the Places You Rarely Hear About

Yes, some wilderness areas are as popular and crowded as some national parks—or even more crowded, especially if they lack a permit system or other management regulations that control the numbers of people. Proximity to population centers exerts a major impact on the numbers of people seen on trails (the subject of the next tip).

But sometimes it’s simply a matter of a destination becoming well known—a name familiar to many people all over the country. If you read and hear about the place frequently, other backpackers are reading and hearing about it, too.

Seek out places you rarely or never hear about—like some of those in the menu of stories on my All Trips List, including southern Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness, Hells Canyon, and Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains and wild and remote Idaho Wilderness Trail.

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

5. Go to Places Far from Big Cities

Living in Idaho, a largely rural state where the biggest city is much smaller than the major cities in many states, I have explored many mountain ranges and canyons visited by few other people simply because there aren’t very many people who live within a half-day’s drive of these places. Conversely, parks like like Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Great Smoky Mountains, Everglades, Grand Canyon and others lie within reach of millions of people for a weekend trip.

Travel to places that lie several hours’ drive from major population centers and airports and you are virtually assured of seeing fewer people.

Some national parks with five-star scenery that are prime examples of this tip and the previous one are North Cascades, Capitol Reef, and the southern Olympic coast.

Read all of this story—including my best tips for solitude—
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6. Backpack Deeper into the Backcountry

When I planned a 150-mile hike—split into two backpacking trips—to explore the most remote corners of Yosemite National Park (photo above), that pair of trips illustrated a phenomenon I have seen repeated many times in many places: The deeper we got into the backcountry, the fewer people we saw.

With most backpackers taking trips of 50 miles or less, the falloff in numbers of people in the backcountry becomes significant the more miles you put between yourself and the nearest trailhead. Spending more days in the backcountry also eases you into a different mindset that brings its own rewards, beyond finding solitude, but which solitude amplifies.

I’ve enjoyed the myriad benefits of longer trips on this 80-mile hike through the North Cascades National Park complex, this 57-mile hike in the remote interior of Idaho’s Sawtooths, this 74-mile trek I’ve called “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon,” this 94-mile traverse of Glacier National Park (photo at right), and this 130-mile hike through the High Sierra, mostly on the John Muir Trail.

Upping your game from 40-mile backpacking trips to, say, 80 miles, or a thru-hike of a long trail like the John Muir Trail, becomes much more feasible when you get smarter about your trip planning and habits in camp and on the trail and lighten your gear.

See my stories “A Practical Guide to Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacking,” “5 Tips for Getting Out of Camp Faster When Backpacking,” and “12 Expert Tips for Planning a Wilderness Backpacking Trip.”

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

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Want to hike the most remote and wild long-distance trail in the Lower 48? The Idaho Wilderness Trail stretches for 296 miles across three central Idaho wilderness areas that comprise nearly four million acres. If these three wildernesses were contained within one national park, it would be America’s third largest and the biggest outside Alaska. This article offers a primer on the IWT and links to digital maps of its four stages.

From north to south, the IWT traverses the 1.3-million acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which by itself is larger than many national parks, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Glacier; the nearly 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (aka “the Frank”), largest in the Lower 48 and bigger than Yellowstone; and the 217,000-acre Sawtooth Wilderness, protected as a primitive area since 1937, among the first places protected in The Wilderness Act of 1964, and now Idaho’s best-known and most beloved mountain range for its jagged peaks and hundreds of alpine lakes.

Nearly 350 miles long when including three remote road sections—where backpackers may be able to catch rides—the IWT extends from its northern terminus at Wilderness Gateway campground on US 12 on the edge of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in North Idaho to its southern terminus on the outskirts of the tiny town of Atlanta, on the southern edge of the Sawtooth Wilderness. It can be hiked as four distinct stages or thru-hiked in a month or less.

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.

Born about 10 years ago when I brought the concept of it to the Idaho Conservation League, which embraced the idea and collaborated with me to create it using existing trails, the IWT spans a vast realm of mountains and canyons divided by just one rural highway (ID 21 outside the small town of Stanley) and two remote dirt roads. It crosses mountain passes over 9,000 feet and meanders below peaks rising over 10,000 feet; follows three designated wild and scenic rivers, the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the Salmon (often referred to as the “Main Salmon”), and the Selway; and traces the shores of innumerable alpine lakes below dramatic spires from the Bighorn Crags in the Frank to the Sawtooths.

It passes through pristine backcountry that is home to mountain goats and bighorn sheep, elk and moose, black bears, and hundreds of wolves—a population estimated to be at least seven times as many as live in Yellowstone.

Perhaps most uniquely, the IWT offers the kind of solitude one cannot find on most long-distance trails. In fact, many backpackers have never even heard of the wilderness areas the trail traverses. I’ve backpacked the John Muir Trail and parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail, and other long-distance footpaths. The IWT far eclipses them for solitude.

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Thru-hiking the IWT poses logistical challenges in some ways more challenging than other long-distance trails. Besides its remoteness, those include:

• The trail crosses mountains in each of its four stages and deep canyons in between the mountains. A thru-hike must be undertaken in the summer or early fall to avoid snow in the mountains, but that means dealing with heat in the lower canyons.
• Arranging a shuttle between the northern and southern ends of the IWT for a thru-hike—or even between the northern and southern ends of any stage(s) of the trail—is complicated by very limited road access and the sheer size of these wilderness areas. Two of the three roads the trail crosses are gravel and quite remote and the driving time between the Wilderness Gateway Campground on US 12 at the IWT’s northern end and the tiny town of Atlanta, Idaho, at the IWT’s southern end (reached via good but somewhat slow gravel roads), is over eight hours one-way.
• Resupply opportunities are scant and far apart. Unlike more-established long-distance trails like the JMT, PCT, and AT, there are not yet established places where one can resupply along the IWT.

Perhaps most challenging, some sections of the IWT follow trails that have not been maintained in years—or never maintained—especially the IWT’s northern sections in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Anyone considering a thru-hike or a backpacking trip on any section of the Idaho Wilderness Trail is strongly advised to read through the very detailed and well-researched blog posts written by my friends Tom and Will Gattiker, who thru-hiked the IWT in September and October 2022. Will’s report focuses on critical logistical details and recommends variations off the IWT to avoid abandoned/unmaintained trails: safesexandgoretex.com/2022/11/idaho-wilderness-trail-nitty-gritty.html. Tom’s report is more of a travel log about the experience: click here.

See my tips and more information on backpacking the IWT in my story, “America’s Newest Long Trail: The Idaho Wilderness Trail,” and the comments at the bottom of that story, where some backpackers who’ve hiked the trail share helpful, specific details about it See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan a thru-hike of the entire Idaho Wilderness Trail or a backpacking trip on one of its stages as well as any trip you read about at this blog.

Want to hike the Idaho Wilderness Trail?
Click here for expert, detailed advice you won’t get elsewhere.

Idaho Wilderness Trail Maps

See an overview map of the Idaho Wilderness Trail at https://drive.google.com/file/d/11GOZEV1ufser-wbHh9SniDkdXeJKyN2Q/view?ts=5ce5d90e. Mapping the IWT on gaiagps.com, the IWT measures 349.6 miles, including 296 total official trail miles divided into four stages and three road sections that total 53.6 miles.

These are links to the four IWT stages maps on gaiagps.com:

Gaia map of IWT Stage 1
Gaia map of IWT Stage 2
Gaia map of IWT Stage 3
Gaia map of IWT Stage 4

Will Gattiker, who thru-hiked the IWT with his father, Tom, in 2022, created a map of the route they took, including some variations necessitated by wildfires and poor trail conditions, at caltopo.com/m/R171T.

Existing print maps that cover parts of the IWT include:

• The Cairn Cartographics Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness North Half and South Half (two maps) cover that wilderness area, cairncarto.com.
• The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness South Half and North Half maps are folded paper maps that provide a good overview of the wilderness, showing trails, but are large, not tearproof or waterproof, and unwieldy to use in the backcountry. See info on buying these maps at fs.usda.gov/detail/scnf/maps-pubs/?cid=fsbdev3_029527. I think you might find those maps on Amazon and elsewhere.
• The U.S. Forest Service also offers digital maps of the national forests which can be accessed at the websites of many national forests, including by scrolling down to the “Download Maps” button at fs.usda.gov/r04/salmon-challis/maps-guides.
• Trails Illustrated Sawtooth National Recreation Area map no. 870. It has convenient mileage distances marked for trail segments and good detail for backpacking.

The Idaho Wilderness Trail will give you a backpacking experience like no other.

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Some people might say my wife and I are bad parents. We’ve repeatedly and deliberately placed our kids—at young ages—in risky situations. And I’m not talking about letting them ride their bikes without wearing helmets or frequently taking them to McDonald’s.

I’m talking about setting out with seven- and four-year-old kids to cross-country ski through a snowstorm for hours to a backcountry yurt. Tying a six-year-old into a rope and letting him or her rock climb a cliff. Rappelling into slot canyons. Backpacking into the remotest and most rugged wildernesses in the contiguous United States, from the Grand Canyon to the Tetons to Glacier National Park.

Rafting and kayaking a whitewater river deep in one of the Lower 48’s biggest wilderness areas. Paddling down a river teeming with alligators, or in frigid Alaskan waters plied by killer whales, while camping on wilderness beaches where brown bears would view those kids as the perfect hors d’oeuvres before a satisfying meal of adult humans. Trekking for a week through the snow-covered, highest peaks in northern Europe.

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-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

And yet, beyond occasional whining and tears (which I do less of these days than I did as a new parent), we have suffered no disasters. Maybe we’ve just been lucky.

But I don’t think so.

It’s tempting to believe that you only have to take kids outdoors and nature will do the rest—because spontaneity is inherently better than micro-managing, right? But experience has taught me that how diligently the adults in charge control the situation will dictate how well the outing goes and how positive an experience everyone has, adults and children.

Through a lot of trial and a fair bit of error, I’ve learned a few things over the years about keeping kids, at all ages, both safe and happy outdoors—and when it comes down to it, safe and happy are always our ultimate objectives out there.

The good news is that whether you’re paddling among alligators or just out for a short hike in a state or national park with little kids, the strategies for success boil down to some simple rules that are as easy to follow as they are to overlook.

This article shares lessons I’ve learned while taking our kids—who today are fine young adults who make us proud and still love getting outdoors on trips with us—on numerous family adventures dayhiking, backpacking, climbing, skiing, and paddling since they were quite little, a period of time that included the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and my many years running this blog.

Keep these 10 rules in mind and I think you will find that, as with my family and others that join us, everyone will be happy—most of the time, anyway. And safe.

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

1. Know Everyone’s Limits

When I was thinking about attempting a three-generation hike up Mount St. Helens, I was most concerned about the two people who would be the slowest and weakest in the group: the youngest person, my 10-year-old daughter, and the oldest, my 76-year-old mom. So I discussed the plans in detail with everyone who was going: how long it would take us, and how hard it would be both in concrete numbers (10 miles and 4,500 vertical feet) as well as comparing it to the difficulty of other activities they had done before. And I only considered hiking St. Helens with them because everyone had previously done well on hikes that were nearly as difficult.

This is my first rule because it’s so important, and yet incredibly easy to forget: Your group’s limits will be determined by the weakest member. At best, ignoring this can result in much loud complaining and bad feelings; at worst, someone could end up hurt, you may finish the day hours later than planned (with everyone exhausted, starving, and unhappy), and children may have a lasting negative impression of the event.

On the other hand, knowing and respecting everyone’s limits allows you to challenge those limits without undo risk and with the potential for huge emotional rewards for everyone: My family all made it up Mount St. Helens—and back down—and reaped the rewards of tremendous pride and self-satisfaction.

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2. Make Sure They Sleep Enough

This may seem like “duh” advice, but it’s remarkably easy to overschedule our kids just as we overschedule ourselves, resulting in an entire family of sleep-deprived people—not a fun group to hang out with. This is my second rule because it’s important enough to be interchangeable with my first rule, and I’ve found it rings just as true with grade-school kids and teenagers as it did when my kids were toddlers and preschoolers.

Before any trip, I make an extra effort to see that my kids get to bed at a decent hour. If I plan to wake them up earlier than usual for, say, a big day of hiking, I let them know in advance and get their buy-in with the plan. When camping, it’s easy to stay up later than usual, which is fun and fine occasionally. But too many late nights will catch up with them (and it’s hard to sleep late in the morning outside because of daylight), and studies show that a regular sleep schedule is the key to being well rested. Be aware of the time and whether your kids need to hit the sack.

See “Boy Trip, Girl Trip: Why I Take Father-Son and Father-Daughter Adventures”

3. Are They Warm Enough?

Your child’s body is not like yours, so don’t assume you will experience hot and cold identically. You may be hiking or skiing the same trail in the same air temperature, but kids can warm up more quickly because of their different metabolism and because they often simply move around more than adults. At the same time, they often cool down more quickly when stationary because they typically have much less body fat and mass.

Children don’t pay close attention to their own bodies until they’re really uncomfortable. Ask them regularly, “Are you warm enough?” Even when they say, “Yes,” their faces or body language may say, “No.” Look for signs that they’re cold in their posture, or reduced activity level, shivering, or blue lips. Tell them to add a layer if a cool wind kicks up, before they’re cold, or to shed a layer if you’re beginning a hot climb, before they’re sweating heavily (wet clothes can make them cold later).

Babies, of course, can’t tell you they’re too hot or cold—although crying may be a signal. A trick I used was to periodically check a baby’s or toddler’s fingers or feet, because those get cold first. On the other hand, you can overdress a young child, too. (Guilty.) If his or her face feels unusually warm, unzip or remove a layer of clothing.

One advantage with babies: You carry them, so they’re not cycling between warm and cold due to shifting exertion level. Keep in mind that wind plays a big factor when dressing a baby—put a windproof layer on her when needed, but not in calm air when it can make a baby too warm. Also, a baby in a carrier on your chest or back receives a fair bit of warmth from you.

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4. Shovel Food and Drinks At Them

I cannot even estimate how many times I’ve been reminded that a kid who’s complaining about being tired is usually just hungry. Give him a big candy bar or a sandwich. Children need to eat more frequently than adults—sometimes every hour.

Look for warning signs: grumpiness, a slowing pace, growing quiet, or a faraway look. Feed them pre-emptively—before they tell you, “I’m starving!” Ditto with water. But because most kids are sippers rather than gulpers, remind them every 15 or 20 minutes, “Everyone take a big drink.” They might object at first, but they’ll get used to doing this. Giving each kid a daypack and hydration bladder helps.

Another lesson I’ve learned the hard way: Don’t let a kid hit the wall. When he’s obviously in need of fuel, don’t let your own goals prompt you to suggest that you all “hike a little farther and find a better spot to stop soon.” Just stop immediately and give him something to eat; you will spare everyone a lot of unnecessary grief.

Make your family’s next big trip one of “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

5. Spell Out the Rules

Even adults who are in an unfamiliar environment will occasionally make seemingly stupid, dangerous mistakes simply because they did not understand the hazard. Children are at greater risk of not recognizing hazards. With young kids, define clearly the safe-zone boundaries in camp and rules like no one wanders out of sight or earshot of camp, or plays at the edge of the river without wearing a PFD.

Experienced older kids need less instruction and can be given more freedom, but don’t assume older kids who are beginners understand every potential hazard. Have experienced kids watch out for the less experienced. Rather than making rules seem like restrictions, tell kids you’ve taken them on this adventure because you think they have the maturity and ability to be safe and respect the rules—allowing you all to pursue more such adventures in the future. Turn it into a teaching moment about personal responsibility, and they will understand that they are in control of their own destiny.

Click here for my e-guides to the best beginner-friendly backpacking trips in Yosemite and Grand Teton.

6. Make It a Game

Adults have the patience and perspective to endure the difficult and tedious times of a hike or other outdoor activity, knowing the payoff will come. That’s an important life lesson that children can glean eventually—but in order to guide them to that level of maturity, we have to make tedious times fun for them.

Kids’ needs for stimulation vary depending on their age. Play games while hiking, like starting with one simple word and taking turns thinking of rhyming words until only one person is left with a rhyme. My kids love “The Story Game,” where we take turns contributing short pieces to the plot of one developing story, which always takes humorous twists. Tell your kids a true story about some past adventure of yours. Stop at streams for kids to play in or boulders to scramble on. Promise them a special stop along the hike, or that everyone gets a big candy bar at the halfway mark, to give them something to look forward to.

Relevant to this tip: Let your child bring stuffed animals or other comfort items that will make them happier. Think about what could make them more comfortable during difficult times—like high-quality technical clothing, or a lightweight umbrella for hiking in the rain.

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7. Surprise Kids

Simply put: Take them someplace really cool. Adults like big views, but kids want to interact physically with the environment. They want to play in water, climb on rocks, crawl through narrow crevices, weaponize sticks, throw stones.

On family backpacking trips when our kids were young, they always wanted us to camp by a creek that was safe for them to get in. They have always loved a paddling trip—being on the water all day, paddling a canoe or kayak or having a turn at pulling the raft’s oars. The Green River through Canyonlands National Park is an easy, family- and beginner-friendly, multi-day float trip.

But our family’s favorite multi-day river trip has been Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River.

Our children were amazed when we descended slot canyons in southern Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Choose outdoor destinations that you know will provide natural features that engage and excite kids. Make them want to go out again.

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8. Teach Them Skills

On a two-family, cross-country skiing trip to a backcountry yurt, the other dad in our group taught the four kids—age nine to 12—how to build a campfire. He monitored them to be safe, and showed them how, but also gave them the freedom to each start his or her own fire. It was a huge success: they learned a valuable survival skill and had a blast. The takeaway lesson for parents? Children want to learn adult skills; it can be fun and thrilling for them and give them larger lessons.

Start when they’re young teaching kids age-appropriate skills: how to pitch the tent, build a snow cave, light the backpacking stove, use the water filter, read the map, belay a climber and build climbing anchors, paddle and roll a kayak, ski backcountry snow and recognize avalanche hazard. The long-term payoff for parents—besides the satisfaction of seeing your children learn? They learn how to take over these chores from you.

9. Let Them Bring a Friend

Young kids (generally under 10) love being with their parents and getting your direct attention. As they get older, you can still enjoy rewarding parent-child time in the backcountry together. I take an annual father-son and father-daughter trip with my kids for wonderful one-on-one time together—something they look forward to as much as I do.

But it becomes more important to older kids, especially teenagers, to have a friend along. Inviting one of their friends not only helps your child enjoy the trip more, it usually means less complaining: whining isn’t a cool thing to do in front of your friends.

Plus, you could be introducing another kid to the outdoors: When my son was 15, he told me that he wanted us to take two of his buddies on their first backpacking trip. We went, and it was a big success, from the boys enjoying it together to me seeing my son assume a leadership role showing his friends how to pitch their tent, cook on the stove, and other skills. (Read about it here.)

Finding other families that share these interests, where the parents and kids all become close friends, is like finding gold.

I know dangerous. Read “Why I Endanger My Kids in the Wilderness (Even Though It Scares the Sh!t Out of Me).”

10. Give the Gift of Independence

We have to dote on little kids—they need the attention emotionally and require it for their own safety. But as they get older, they must learn to anticipate and self-manage their own needs, so that you and they don’t have to go through the agony of the parent always telling the kid what to do.

This is hard, but know when to cut the cord. Find that delicate balance between giving kids enough rope to trip once in a while—which is okay because they have to learn to fix their own mistakes—without giving them enough to hang themselves. No one enjoys it or benefits when a parent is constantly correcting or instructing a child who’s old enough to figure it out. Everyone is happier when a child doesn’t need a parent’s help.

Ultimately, independence gives children the larger benefit of self-confidence—the belief that they can manage any personal crisis in life. That may be the best gift you can give your children through taking them outdoors.

See all of my stories about family adventures and all stories about backcountry skills at The Big Outside.

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When can you claim to know a mountain range well? Maybe it’s once you have spent enough time—certainly measured in years, and probably decades—that you have explored beyond the most accessible and popular spots to the obscure, unknown corners. Perhaps it’s when you have hiked most of its trails. Just possibly, it’s when you unfold a map and it takes several minutes to tick off for someone all the places you have visited. That’s a good start, anyway.

I’ve been exploring Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains for more than 25 years—backpacking and dayhiking, climbing peaks, backcountry skiing—and have fallen in love with these rugged, crenulated peaks. As someone who’s had the good fortune of having backpacked all over the country and the world over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog, I rank the Sawtooths among the top 10 best backpacking trips in America.

I think you’ll see why in this photo gallery.

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Protected as federal wilderness and the best-known piece of the sprawling wilderness areas of central Idaho—south of the nearly 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the second-largest in the Lower 48, and west of the 275,000 acres of newer wilderness in the Boulder-White Cloud Mountains—the Sawtooths resemble a cross between the High Sierra and the Tetons.

Dozens of summits rise above 10,000 feet. Innumerable granite spires and pinnacles loom above valleys and cirques where hundreds of alpine lakes ripple in the wind; the Sawtooths are outdone by few mountain ranges in the number and beauty of alpine lakes (see some of the best Sawtooth lakes in this story).

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While these peaks harbor some classic, technical rock climbs, many summits can be reached on third- and fourth-class scrambles, including the highest in the range, 10,751-foot Thompson Peak.

Besides Thompson, I’ve climbed a number of them, including most of the iconic summits visible from the Sawtooth Valley: Heyburn, Horstman, McGown, Williams, among others—some feasible in a day, all of them great adventures in a range where it’s not unusual to have a high summit all to yourself.

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Put Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains on your list of places to see this summer.

See all of my stories about Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains at The Big Outside, including these:

“The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit”
“Jewels of the Sawtooths: Backpacking to Alice, Hell Roaring, and Imogene Lakes”
“The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths”
“Going After Goals: Backpacking Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”
“5 Reasons You Must Backpack Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”

See also my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains” and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan every detail of a multi-day hike there.

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The June evening was more than a few hours old when, without warning, the sky suddenly caught fire. The kids, teenagers and ’tweeners, and some of the adults in our group scrambled up onto a nearby rock formation at least 50 feet tall to observe the sunset from high off the ground. Like a wildfire swept forward by wind, hues of yellow, orange, and red leapt across bands of clouds suspended above the western horizon, their ragged bottoms edges, appropriately, resembling dancing flames.

For a span of just minutes that felt timeless, the light painted and repainted the clouds in ever-shifting, warm colors starkly contrasted against the cool, deepening blue of the sky—as if a vast lake had ignited. We stood hypnotized and enchanted on that evening during a long weekend of camping at Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve, until the last, dying flames of the celestial conflagration faded and were extinguished. For that brief time, the sunset had us all, adults and kids, completely in its thrall.

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I follow a simple rule whenever I’m in the wilderness or any natural setting like the surroundings in the primitive campground at the City of Rocks (the sunset described above is shown in the lead photo at the top of this story): I never miss any dramatic sunset. And I almost never miss a similar sunrise. The reason is simple: These are often the most sublime and inspiring times of the day. Passing on them is essentially depriving yourself of one of the best reasons to be out there.

Catching a great sunset occurs with the serendipity of meeting the person who becomes your spouse (although, thankfully, far more frequently)—it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and not blowing the opportunity. The sky conjures a universe of color and emotion in fleeting moments, rushing headlong to a grand finale, after which many observers stop paying attention. But I’ve always enjoyed taking in the slow, quiet onset of dusk, spreading out like a ground fog before rising to overtake the sky. Night then settles in for its long watch, the stars emerging in a flutter of eyes popping open—a few tentatively at first, building to a visual crescendo of hundreds of thousands of specks of light.

From the buildup to sunset through nightfall, it’s the best silent film ever made. I could watch it over and over for a lifetime without ever feeling like its magical spell has diminished in power. The sky’s myriad personality changes across the span of hours from sunset through sunrise make me think that nocturnal animals have it right, and we humans sleep away the sky’s most fascinating hours.

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Sunset in the Everglades

At our campsite on a wilderness beach at Tiger Key in the Ten Thousand Islands of Everglades National Park, which we had to ourselves for two nights on a canoeing trip, our kids, then age 10 and almost eight, abruptly forgot about their sand castles as the enormous, blood-red ball of fire that is the sub-tropical sun appeared to swell and burn with greater intensity and slipped toward the horizon. My entire family stood spellbound as that flaming orb slowly lowered itself into the vast bathtub of the Gulf of Mexico.

Witnessing the dawn comes with the challenge of rising earlier than many people prefer. But after you’ve made the effort to reach a uniquely beautiful and remote corner of the backcountry, trading a dawn that may hold the most precious moments of an entire trip for another hour or two of slumber strikes me as a lost opportunity.

When I’m sleeping outside, the first light of predawn usually awakens me, and I’m glad for that: I want to be awake. I invariably look up to see what the sky has in store. Any signal of an imminent dawn worth observing—like wispy clouds hovering above the eastern horizon, or puffy cotton balls dabbed across the blue dome—will prod me to dress and step outside the tent. If I had slept out under the stars—my default choice if the night promises to stay dry and not buggy, because why sleep inside nylon walls when I can sleep beneath a starry sky?—then all the better: I can watch it from my warm bag.

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Dawn on Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit

I have many times begun hiking before or at first light, often because I had many miles to cover, but also partly because it grants me the great privilege of watching the birth of another day. I’ve watched a carpet of crimson light unroll across mountains and canyons deep in the backcountry of places like Yosemite, the Wind River Range, below the magnificent east face of Mount Whitney, on the crest of the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains, from the canyon rim high above the Green River in Canyonlands National Park, in Evolution Basin on the John Muir Trail, and countless other places.

On a fiercely chilly November morning, our last on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, my wife, our new Slovenian friend Gorazd, and I joined a procession of hikers and headlamp beams on a 45-minute walk up Poon Hill—a ritual for Annapurna trekkers. On its open summit, at over 9,000 feet, we gazed at a Himalayan night sky riddled with stars twinkling above the milky silhouettes of five snowy giants glowing faintly in the moonless hour before dawn—including one of the planet’s highest peaks, Dhaulagiri.

The mountains appeared to float above valleys still black with night. Slowly, rich bands of red, orange, and yellow ignited on the eastern horizon. As dawn bled across the sky, flashes of golden light struck the white crown of the first peak, and then hopped across the tops of the others. Within a few minutes, the rising sun turned the world’s greatest mountains blindingly white.

Hitting the trail early usually rewards me with solitude unknown in many places during the daytime hours, and wildlife encounters that are far rarer between mid-morning and early evening. I’ve strolled past bighorn sheep lounging casually beside the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park; heard elk bugling in the Tetons, Yellowstone, Olympic Mountains, and elsewhere; and watched a big bull moose emerge from the pond where it had been feeding on plants in Maine’s Baxter State Park.

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Sunset at Delicate Arch

Science provides a simple explanation for the beautiful light that captivates us at sunset and dawn. When the sun hovers near the horizon, its light passes through more atmosphere before reaching our eyes than it does when it’s directly overhead. That much atmosphere effectively erases the shorter, blue and purple rays of the visible light spectrum from our vision, while the longer red, orange, and yellow light rays remain visible but get more widely scattered across the sky.

But that explanation comes nowhere near sparking the depth of feeling of the actual event—which makes witnessing each possible wild sunrise and sunset a difficult pleasure for me to give up, no matter what obstacle stands in the way.

On the last afternoon of a three-family, spring-break trip to southeastern Utah, where we’d backpacked and dayhiked in Canyonlands and Arches national parks, I could barely muster the energy to lift myself out of the bed where I’d slept most of the day, sicker than I’d felt in recent memory. I willed myself to stand up—it felt like a mountain climb—and to go through with our plans to hike to Delicate Arch in Arches to watch the sunset that evening.

Plan your next great backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail, in Yosemite, or other parks using my expert e-guides.

Just four of us went: my friend, Vince, his 13-year-old daughter, Sofi, my 11-year-old daughter, Alex, and me. It’s possible I’ve never hiked a trail more slowly than that evening. Shuffling along, I watched one person after another pass me, even the slowest, oldest, littlest, and least-fit hikers; watching sunset at Delicate Arch is a popular ritual, so there may have been more than a hundred people out there that evening. We gave ourselves more than an hour to hike the mile-and-a-half-long trail, and thanks to my torpid pace, we arrived only minutes before sunset.

We watched that striking natural sculpture of red and orange rock appear, for several minutes, to glow against the backdrop of deepening blue sky and the gleaming, snow-capped La Sal Mountains in the distance. And even though the return walk took even longer because I was so sick—our car was one of the last to leave the parking lot that night—not one step along the way made me regret the effort to watch that sunset.

We don’t get enough of them in a lifetime as it is; I can’t afford to miss any good ones.

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On a morning when the late-summer sunshine sharpens the incisor points of every peak and spire in the jagged skyline of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, Nate and I step inside the Sawtooth National Recreation Area ranger station, south of the little town of Stanley, population sixty-three. I chat with the ranger behind the counter, mentioning that my son and I are heading out to backpack the 18-mile loop from Pettit Lake to Alice and Toxaway Lakes.

The ranger sizes up my six-year-old, 40-pound kid, and frowns skeptically. “You know, that’s a pretty rugged hike,” he tells me.

Over the years to follow, I would become accustomed to seeing that expression on the faces of well-intentioned people worried about what I was planning to do with my children. I would also get used to hearing the tone of voice someone uses when what they really want to tell me is: “You, sir, are a crazed lunatic, and coyotes will pick your child’s and your bones clean before we even find you.”

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I try to explain that I know these trails and the little boy with the stuffed dolphin has done a fair bit of hiking already—for someone who weighs less than the backpack I’ll carry for the next three days. But as we leave, I doubt I’ve allayed that ranger’s concerns. He’s probably made a mental note to check for my car at the trailhead in a few days, to make sure that the overzealous dad and his bear-snack-size kid made it out of the wilderness alive.

On the trail a little while later, Nate and I set out at a very casual pace, slowed by the frequent demands of important business like stopping to eat more chocolate or throw rocks at trees and boulders. Nature, it turns out, is conveniently well stocked with excellent throwing rocks and worthy targets.

That first evening, I hurriedly throw the tent up just before a violent thunderstorm rents the sky open. Then Nate and I huddle inside, warm and dry in our bags, listening to the pounding of rain on our nylon walls and repeatedly exclaiming, “Wow, did you hear that one?!” after each tectonic rumble of thunder quakes the air around us.

The next morning, we spend close to an hour slam-dunking rocks into Alice Lake. Each time, Nate erupts with a heartfelt belly laugh over the concussive effect of the rocks on the water’s surface. I laugh almost as hard at his laughter. After a difficult hike over a pass around 9,200 feet, we descend to Toxaway Lake with Nate looking bleary-eyed at mid-afternoon. But when we find a campsite in the woods with a small creek gurgling nearby, he revives as suddenly as if he were Superman and I had just tossed the Kryptonite it into the lake. Nate passes the next couple of hours quietly constructing stone dams in the creek.

In the evening, we hurl rocks into Toxaway, and then sit together atop a big granite slab on the shore, talking about space travel and which dinosaurs would beat other dinosaurs in a fight. On our third and final day, my first-grader cranks out nine miles with more stamina than many adults—although, by the end, he’s so punch-drunk tired that the sound of air shrieking through the pinched neck of a balloon sends him into paroxysms of hysterical laughter that make me double over laughing, too. I’d actually planned on four days, but he comes up with the brilliant plan to finish in three, get milkshakes to celebrate, camp another night nearby, then rent a two-person, sit-on-top kayak to paddle around Redfish Lake tomorrow morning, before heading home.

That was our second outing in what has become an annual, multi-day, father-son adventure together. We call it our “Boy Trip,” a term coined by Nate years ago. He’s now a teenager, and for both of us, the Boy Trip has risen to a status among the most exalted events on the calendar. Partly that’s because we always get outdoors on a fun adventure. But mostly it’s because we love carving out time for just the two of us.

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Idaho’s Smoky Mountains

Fast-forward several years. Sunset looms but the air has hardly cooled in this August heat wave as we start the roughly two-mile hike to the Norton Lakes in central Idaho’s Smoky Mountains. My nine-year-old daughter, Alex, and I are backpacking in to spend two nights at the lakes with our friends Gary Davis and his girls, Mae, 11, and Adele, who’s eight.

Alex and Adele have been BFFs since they were old enough to comprehend that the world offered other children to play with besides the older siblings who snatched toys from them and occasionally dropped something on their head. As we hike, they walk side-by-side as if joined at the hip, talking constantly, which helpfully distracts them from the uphill effort.

Wildfires have been burning across the entire West for weeks. Temperatures at home in Boise have been hitting 100 too much lately, and the air quality is approximately as healthy as putting your mouth over a running car’s exhaust pipe. Gary had suggested we take the girls out to the mountains, where the smoke is at least more dissipated.

As it happened, Alex and I had set aside this same weekend for our Girl Trip—the name she gives to our annual father-daughter getaway, as a counterpoint to Nate’s and my Boy Trip. Alex generously grants me a waiver for my inferior gender to enable our Girl Trip.

Just before dark on this calm and mild evening, we reach the lower Norton Lake, its shore mostly ringed by ponderosa pines, with a steep scree slope rising from one side. While Gary and I pitch our tents, the girls scout the night woods around us with headlamps until everyone’s tired enough to head for our sleeping bags. Alex and I do a Sudoku puzzle together by headlamp in the tent. She somehow thinks she solves much more of it than I do. To protect her self-esteem, I don’t contest her claim.

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In the morning, we all hike a trail through numerous switchbacks up to a pass several hundred feet above our camp, looking back down at the Norton Lakes. After a lunch capped with copious helpings of chocolate, we follow a steep, fainter user path up onto a narrow ridge crest of broken rock. (Early tomorrow, before anyone else is awake, I’ll make a quick, dawn hike up here again and surprise three mountain goats on this ridge.) Moving carefully through a few exposed spots, we scramble along the ridge to the summit of Norton Peak, at 10,336 feet the second highest in the Smoky Mountains. Although the air remains hazy with wildfire smoke, we can see most of this range of 10,000-footers, and across the Wood River Valley to the even more severely vertical and rocky Boulder Mountains.

At the summit, the three girls pump fists in the air. Then we carefully backtrack over the ridge and quickly descend the trail back to camp, where our expedition’s real celebration of our epic achievement ensues over s’mores.

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Never Easy to Make Time

It’s never easy to cram the Girl Trip and Boy Trip into any summer, when we usually take them. Our summers are consistently chock-full with outdoor travel either as a family or me going out sans family for my work. I’m usually away for upwards of half the summer—so much that, by fall, I’m burnt out on packing and unpacking gear and ready to stay home (a feeling that I get over within about a week, actually—but that’s another story).

Still, I’ve always committed to fitting in our Girl Trip and Boy Trip every year. Nate and Alex both considered it non-negotiable, as mandatory as celebrating their birthdays. I just love that they feel that strongly about it.

I’ve always tried to steer us toward outdoor adventures that are age-appropriate for my kids—who started young enough that they were always, admittedly, fairly advanced in their abilities, stamina, and confidence for their ages. And I have deliberately avoided pushing my own agenda. I wanted them to feel we share the decision on what we’re doing.

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Sawtooths to Grand Canyon and Mount Whitney

Our annual Boy Trip and Girl Trip don’t have to be major expeditions. We rarely leave our home state. The first, when Nate was five, consisted of him and me backpacking about a mile (he carried only a tiny daypack and his dolphin) to camp beside a creek in the Boise Foothills, a 10-minute drive from our home. To the occasional hikers and trail runners passing by, our campsite may have looked rather uninteresting; but to Nate, it felt as wild and remote as the Himalayan Mountains. Besides, we had enough sticks to launch into the creek and rocks to bomb them with to keep us occupied for hours.

Nate and I have backpacked to the Big Boulder Lakes in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, rock climbed at Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park, and backpacked into the southern Sawtooths with one of his buddies and that kid’s dad, camping by the shore of an unnamed lake, fishing, and exploring off-trail around a little-visited lakes basin. When he was 15, we climbed the highest peak in the Lower 48, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney together—raising the bar for Girl Trip and Boy Trip destinations.

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When Alex was younger, our first Girl Trips consisted of spending weekends skiing, biking, or dayhiking together. I didn’t push backpacking with her, waiting for her to welcome that idea. When she was 10, she and I joined two families I know on a three-day, Grand Canyon backpacking trip. When she was 14, we went to Costa Rica—again raising the bar for Girl Trip and Boy Trip destinations.

These outings deliver multiple benefits. The adventures always forge memories. They give me an excuse to get out. Plus, I’m hoping to nurture in my kids a love for the same activities I enjoy. But I have a broader agenda than all of those things.

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On our first trips, when they were little, my one-on-one conversations with each of them focused on such weighty matters as their favorite toys and games. But as they have grown older, we talk about their relationships with their friends, how much freedom and responsibility they want to have, those odd creatures making up the opposite gender, and how they navigate the mysterious and confusing waters of growing up.

Always, our conversations focus on whatever’s on Nate’s or Alex’s mind and consist mostly of me listening with deep interest. I want them to remember these experiences not just for the fun we had together, but as times when we could talk about absolutely anything, and I would listen and care.

And, of course, we talk about what new adventures we want to take together in coming years—because one goal of any trip should be figuring out where and when you’ll take the next one.

Like this story? You may also like “The 9 Hardest Lessons for Parents Who Love the Outdoors”
and “Why I Endanger My Kids in the Wilderness (Even Though It Scares the Sh!t Out of Me).”

I continued these father-son and father-daughter trips right through their high-school years and beyond; Nate and I rock climbed the Elephant’s Perch in Idaho’s Sawtooths together the summer he was 19. We have created a tradition that I hope my kids see as critical to continue now that they’ve become young adults, on the brink of leaving to build their own lives. Just like they hold me to it now, I intend to do the same.

But the only payoff I really need from these experiences are the moments like one when Nate reached high to throw an arm around my shoulders and told me, “I love these trips we do together.”

That’s enough right there.

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We reach an unnamed pass at 8,450 feet early on a September evening that could hardly be nicer, with temperatures in the low 60s and a soft whisper of breeze in the air. I’m hardly breaking a sweat; I love hiking at this time of day. Below us, the green valley of Johnson Creek falls away into deepening shadows below a skyline of granite spires glowing golden in the low-angle sunshine.

A feeling of anticipation fills me, a low-grade excitement over finally getting to a goal I’ve had on my to-do list for years. My friend Jeff Wilhelm and I are backpacking a 57-mile route into the deep interior of central Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains—into the most remote and probably the least-visited part of Idaho’s best-known mountain range that can be reached by trail. I’ve been backpacking and climbing in the Sawtooths numerous times, and have eyed this big, mysterious middle of the map for a while. But I have never made it in here before, and this trip feels long overdue.

If my example is indicative, this may be the last corner of the Sawtooths that most backpackers and climbers even consider exploring. The fact that it has taken me so long to get here also reminds me that the years slip past like water through our fingers, and goals can slip away, too, if we don’t go after them.

Dusk darkens the trees and ground as we decide to call it a day in the valley of Johnson Creek, after almost 13 miles and some 3,600 feet of uphill. We eat dinner by the light of headlamps, and then crawl into our bags. Sleep comes easily when you have a long-sought-after goal finally in your sights.

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Getting to Know Idaho’s Sawtooths

“Do you have the trail?” I call to Jeff as we’re wandering around an old burned area where Trail 494 has disappeared on our second morning.

“Over here,” he calls back, and soon we’re back on a good, narrow single-track that’s easy to follow, but clearly not heavily used. Rather than bare dirt packed nearly to sidewalk hardness, or a fine dust from the pounding of stock animals, this path is carpeted with grass, sticks, and pine needles. Just a rocky, little-used trail winding through open, piney woods. Wildflowers and low plants grow thickly on both sides, some of them still green and others turned red with autumn color, starkly contrasted against blackened tree trunks. Two backpackers coming down from Pats Lake tell us they saw 10-inch cutthroat trout swimming near the lakeshore, and they ate trout for dinner and breakfast.

Since moving to Idaho in 1998, I’ve explored much of the Sawtooth Mountains. Similar to Wyoming’s Teton Range in area and character if not quite in height, the Sawtooths have more than 50 peaks over 10,000 feet and hundreds of alpine lakes. Like the Tetons, the eastern escarpment of the range shoots up abruptly, with the summits rising 4,000 feet above the Sawtooth Valley, the bucolic headwaters of the Salmon River.

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On those earliest backpacking trips, I had no real idea what to expect; you don’t see pictures of the Sawtooths in outdoors magazines all the time, as you do, say, the Tetons or High Sierra. The first time visiting spots like the Baron Lakes and Alice Lake, or the 9,000-foot passes between Toxaway Lake and the Cramer Lakes, this raw country of infinite jagged spires and icy waters left me staring slack-jawed. I thought I had discovered wilderness gold. Every time I was convinced I had seen the most lovely corner of the Sawtooths, I proved myself wrong again the next time I went backpacking, climbing, or backcountry skiing here.

And most unbelievable of all: Except for one or two popular corners, there’s hardly anybody out here.

So I kept going deeper, scrambling and climbing to summits. Thompson Peak, the range’s highest at 10,751 feet, was an early goal; and the tiny block of stone at its apex, surrounded by sheer drop-offs, gave a thrilling finish to that ascent. Thompson’s neighbor, Williams Peak, only about 100 feet shorter, seemed too close to just pass up that first time I scrambled up Thompson, so I turned that day into a two-fer. The crazily steep scree leading to the ridge crest of Williams—I had to hug the very bottom edge of a cliff to avoid tumbling downhill in a rockslide of scree—and following the crumbling, knife-edge ridge to the summit kept me hyper-focused.

The more I saw of the Sawtooths, the hungrier I got to explore even farther. One buddy and I made a whirlwind, 47-mile, overnight hike from Iron Creek Trailhead past Sawtooth Lake, Baron Lakes, and Cramer Lakes, exiting via Imogene and Hell Roaring lakes—an amazing trip, despite finishing with throbbing soles (less due to the distance than both of us having the wrong shoes). He and I also, on another overnighter, backpacked from Goat Lake off-trail up the valley separating Williams and Merritt Peaks and tagged a trio of 10,000-footers: Thompson Peak and its neighbors, Mickey’s Spire and Mount Carter. On another trip, a friend and I rock climbed the Elephant’s Perch and Warbonnet Peak—the latter a pinnacle that comes to a wildly airy pinpoint summit high above a lake-filled valley not reached by any maintained trail—and scrambled Braxon Peak, all in three jam-packed days.

I was getting a little obsessive-compulsive. But I blame the Sawtooths for inspiring my addictive behavior.

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I’ve been fortunate, partly thanks to my work writing for Backpacker magazine, to hike in many of the most spectacular natural places in the West and around the world. But there’s nothing like getting to know one place really well—to the point where you can stand on a summit and rattle off the names of dozens of peaks in view, or you possess a mental map of numerous, idyllic campsites. New Hampshire’s White Mountains, where I started hiking 30 years ago, were my first “home” peaks. I’ve tagged most of their summits, some of them numerous times, and walked many trails there so many times that they are imprinted on my memory. The Sawtooths have become the second mountain range I know that intimately.

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

Jeff and I climb steadily uphill past Pats Lake to Arrowhead Lake, at 8,770 feet, a crystal-clear alpine pond with a spit of granite arcing out into it, a long boardwalk of rock rising several feet above the water. We see some of those fat trout swimming below the surface. A little while later, from the unnamed pass east of Arrowhead, around 9,200 feet, we drop our packs and hike an open ridge much of the way up 9,802-foot Blacknose Mountain, until cliffs bar us from continuing.

From there, under cottony, fair-weather clouds, we look north and east out over much of the Sawtooths. But two peaks in the ocean of pointy tops catch my eye—the two closest to us, North and South Raker. A pair of slender, stone fingers nearly 10,000 feet high, stabbing into the sky, I’ve seen them from other Sawtooth summits miles away and thought, “Wow! What are those?” Now, finally, I’m standing almost close enough to touch them.

We return to our packs and descend east on Trail 494, passing flowers blooming at almost 9,000 feet on Sept. 15; the snow here may have only melted out weeks ago. Pikas chirp and marmots whistle at us. We walk along the shores of small, sub-alpine lakes with blue-green water so clear that we can distinctly make out rocks and dead tree trunks that may be 15 or 20 feet underwater.

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Setting and Pursuing Goals

Some goals are simple. For me, that includes keeping a list of wild places I want to see. I’m no long sure how many years ago I started my list (probably 20 or more) or how many trip ideas are on it (easily at least 200). But I can tell you the precise word count of the document containing the list, which includes notes on each idea: 13,338 words as of this writing. I could conceivably tick off every trip on the list if I live to around 110 and stay healthy—except that I keep adding more ideas to it.

A glass-half-empty person might call my list unattainable. I like to see it as a wealth of choices.

More challenging than building that list, though, it actually getting to the places on it, a goal that can prove remarkably elusive in spite of how satisfying and rejuvenating it consistently is to take these adventures. Inertia can erect an insurmountable wall, but that’s not the only potential obstacle—a point illustrated by the fact that this is actually my third attempt to backpack into this part of the Sawtooths.

The first time, hiking solo, I inadvertently set out on the opening day of elk season. The Queens River trailhead parking lot overflowed with pickups and horse trailers. I didn’t understand why so many of those hunters seemed to be glaring inexplicably at me until a friendly one asked why I was out there, then explained, “Everyone thinks you’re Fish and Game.” I prefer to believe none of them were actually fingering a trigger while considering whether I was there to checks their tags. The second time, by myself again, I got turned around by a September snowstorm—at exactly the same of year as Jeff and I are hiking now.

See all of my stories about the Sawtooths, including my stories “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit,” “Photo Gallery: Mountain Lakes of Idaho’s Sawtooths,” and “The Best Hikes and Backpacking Trips in Idaho’s Sawtooths.”

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Morning fog hung like a damp, cold blanket over the Sawtooth Valley as my wife, Penny, and I started hiking in early morning from the Redfish Trailhead, minutes from the shores of Redfish Lake. Before long, we caught our first view of our destination—and it looked quite far off: the pinpoint summit of 10,751-foot Thompson Peak, the highest in Idaho’s best-known mountain range, the Sawtooths.

From where we started our dayhike, 6.5 circuitous miles and 4,200 vertical feet separated us from that lofty piece of granite, including on- and off-trail hiking through aspen and ponderosa pine forest, up a hanging valley with a steep headwall, over a stretch of talus and scree, and a bit of third-class scrambling.

But Penny had never stood atop Thompson, and we had a bluebird, late-July day. We fully intended to get there.

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Thompson Peak towers prominently above the Sawtooth Valley at the eastern front of the Sawtooth Range, where a row of jagged peaks and spires extends for miles. Looking up at them reminds me of the view of the Tetons from Jackson Hole (although the Sawtooths do not match the relief or heights of the Tetons). I’ve hiked and backpacked all over America for about four decades, including many years as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and running this blog, and from my perspective, Thompson Peak stands out as a great hike with five-star scenery much of the way, challenging terrain that’s feasible for many fit hikers, and a spectacular summit

According to Idaho—A Climbing Guide, by Tom Lopez, 33 summits in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains exceed 10,000 feet. That total depends on which ones you count. Using that guidebook, I’ve put together a list of 37 Sawtooth peaks over 10,000 feet that look worthy of climbing, although some may be considered just subsidiary summits of another mountain.

Click here now for my expert e-guide to the best backpacking trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains!