Michael Lanza

Chasing Summer’s Tail Climbing in Idaho’s Sawtooths and Castle Rocks

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By Michael Lanza

In the dead-calm, 30-degree, predawn chill of a fall morning, our headlamp beams bore into the enveloping darkness on a trail through lodgepole pine forest in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. Stars salt what we can see of the sky through the trees. We’re not saying much, a little tired after having driven out here too late last night to camp, and not slept quite enough before rising at 5 a.m.

But then, it’s probably wise of us to hoard our energy in reserve, given the day laid out before us: at least 14 miles of hiking, with roughly two of those miles off-trail and nearly 4,000 feet of up and down, plus a couple pitches of rock climbing to a summit neither of us has stood on before.

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Backpacking the Grand Canyon Grandview Point to the South Kaibab

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By Michael Lanza

Hiking down the snow- and ice-covered Grandview Trail into the world’s most famous canyon, I’m thinking about time. It’s not such an odd thing to think about when you’re walking on rock that’s 270 million years old, while looking out at geologic layers that make the stone under your feet seem adolescent. But I’m thinking about a much, much shorter period of time: 11 years, actually.

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Torres del Paine National Park, in Chile's Patagonia region.

Patagonian Classic: Trekking the ‘W’ in Torres del Paine

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By Michael Lanza

We march upward through innumerable switchbacks on the steep and dusty last mile of trail to the Torres del Paine. Small stands of Patagonia’s ubiquitous, twisted lenga trees cling to an otherwise barren mountainside of dirt and rock, earth overturned by glaciers and continually rubbed raw by the abrasive wind.

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Gear Review: Exped Mira II Tent

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Exped Mira II

Backpacking Tent
Exped Mira II
$379, 3 lbs. 14 oz.
exped.com

Rain, hail, snow squalls, strong winds, temps below freezing, as well as dry, calm nights in the 40s and low 50s—I saw it all in this tent, from Washington’s stormy Olympic Mountains to Idaho’s City of Rocks and Smoky Mountains.

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Gear Review: MontBell Torrent Flier Jacket

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MontBell Torrent Flier Jacket

Ultralight Rain Shell
MontBell Torrent Flier Jacket
$249, 8 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: Unisex S-XL
montbell.us

When a violent thunderstorm caught me on the 9,595-foot summit of Eagle Cap Peak in Oregon, and the skies opened up with booming thunder, lightning, and pounding rain and hail, I was certainly glad to have this shell handy. It fended off strong winds and kept me dry through that tempest, as it did in extended, wind-driven rains in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, and when I got caught in a sudden June snow squall a pitch off the ground while rock climbing at Idaho’s City of Rocks.

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