America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
“How hard will that hike be?” That’s a question that all dayhikers and backpackers, from beginners to experts, think about all the time—and it’s not always easy to answer. But there are ways of evaluating the difficulty of any hike, using readily available information, that can greatly help you understand what to expect before you even leave home. Here’s how.
By Michael Lanza
We shuffled silently up the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail in the last hour of a 42-mile, over 21,000-foot, one-day rim-to-rim-to-rim run across the canyon and back. Following the beams of our headlamps—night had fallen a few hours earlier—exhausted but knowing we had the gas to reach the South Rim, my friends Pam, Marla, and I trudged upward in the darkness, heads down.
By Michael Lanza
When three friends and I decided to attempt to thru-hike the John Muir Trail—221 miles through California’s High Sierra, with numerous mountain passes ranging from 11,000 to over 13,000 feet in elevation—in just one week (backpackers traditionally take two to three weeks), the plan seemed like a wild dream. Hike 31 miles a day for seven straight days through some of the biggest mountains in the Lower 48? It was an agenda for lunatics. So we started training. Seriously training.
By Michael Lanza
If you’ve opened this story, you probably already recognize this truth: For backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, mountain runners, and others, trekking poles noticeably reduce strain, fatigue, and impact on leg muscles and joints, feet, back—and really on your entire body. And that’s true no matter how much weight you’re carrying, whether a daypack, an ultralight backpack, or a woefully heavy backpack.
By Michael Lanza
You just finished a big dayhike, backpacking trip, mountain climb, or trail run convinced it was one of the best experiences of your life—and now your body seems to have mounted a loud protest of pain against it. And you wonder: Is this suffering necessary? The simple answer is no. Follow the tips in this article—or even just some of them—to greatly lessen the physical aches and pains that sometimes follow an outdoors adventure.