Michael Lanza

Gear Review: Scarpa Epic Lite Shoes

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Scarpa Epic Lite shoes.
Scarpa Epic Lite shoes.

Hiking/Approach Shoes
Scarpa Epic Lite
$135, 1 lb. 14 oz. (men’s Euro 42/US 9)
Sizes: men’s Euro 39-47/US 6-13, women’s Euro 36-42/US 5-10
moosejaw.com

The hardest footpath to the top of the highest peak east of the Mississippi, North Carolina’s 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell, runs you through a gauntlet of character-building trail conditions lurking in those rough Appalachian Mountains. Hiking the Black Mountain Crest Trail entails climbing a cumulative 3,500 vertical feet over 12 miles on an earthen rollercoaster that traverses 13 summits above 6,000 feet, over ground littered with wet, slick leaves, while hopping the occasional small pond of mud and carefully treading over slippery roots and granite slabs. I could hardly have thought up a better place to try out Scarpa’s new Epic Lites. And I’ve worn very few models of shoes over the years that handle all kinds of terrain as nimbly as these.

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Mark Fenton on the Osgood Ridge Trail, Presidential Range, N.H.

The Best Kind of Insanity: Long Dayhikes in the White Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

We started up the Daniel Webster Trail by the light of headlamps at a time of day that guaranteed we’d have the mountain to ourselves for hours: 3:30 a.m. My head had that squeezed, hungover feeling from not enough sleep; the four hours we grabbed on the floor of my friend Mark’s van the night before fell at least three hours short of rejuvenating. But we didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in. We were embarking on a one-day, 20-mile “Death March” across New Hampshire’s Presidential Range. And making our objective all the more lunatic, we had a bus to catch that afternoon—with nine summits between us and that bus stop.

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Tundra in autumn, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Photographing All 59 National Parks: 5 Top Tips From QT Luong

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By Michael Lanza

The number of people who can say they’ve visited all 59 of America’s national parks comprise a fairly small club. Only one person has made large-format photographs in all of them. In the 400 vividly sharp images in his beautiful and inspiring, coffee-table book Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America’s National Parks, photographer QT Luong distills the results of more than 20 years and 300 trips hiking, paddling, diving, skiing, snowshoeing, and climbing in every park, every type of environment, every season, and at all times of day and night.

Now, in an interview with The Big Outside, Luong talks about this project and offers his top five tips for shooting outdoors, for photographers from amateurs to pros.

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Gear Review: Osprey Stratos 50 and Sirrus 50 Backpacks

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Osprey Stratos 50 in Death Valley National Park.
Osprey Stratos 50 in Death Valley National Park.

Backpack
Osprey Stratos 50 and Sirrus 50
$190, 47L/2,868 c.i., 3 lbs. 9 oz. (men’s S/M)
Sizes: men’s Stratos S/M and M/L, women’s Sirrus XS/X and S/M
backcountry.com

How much do you have to spend to get a “good” backpack? If only I had a buck for every time I’ve been asked that question. Of course, finding a pack you’re happy with is a very personalized choice (my “5 Tips For Buying the Right Backpack” can help you figure that out). Still, like virtually every category of gear, packs come in a range of prices that reflect both the pack’s size as well as its technology, features, materials, and quality of construction—so, yes, price does correlate pretty closely with quality. In search of a pack that delivers good performance without sticker shock, I took the Stratos 50, newly updated for 2017, on a three-day backpacking trip in the Panamint Range of California’s Death Valley National Park.

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