Michael Lanza

Off the Beaten Track in New Zealand: Trekking the Rees-Dart in Mount Aspiring National Park

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By Michael Lanza

We’ve hiked just thirty minutes from the trailhead when we hit the kind of view that frequently makes you stop and take a deep breath when trekking in New Zealand. The Rees River Valley sprawls out before us, golden grasslands dissected by a braided, meandering, emerald-green river. In the middle distance, a fat and foaming Lennox Falls plunges over a cliff. Farther off and thousands of feet above us, glaciers pour off a row of sharp peaks in the Forbes Range angling into the sky.

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Gear Review: Brooks-Range Ski Binding Tool and Heli Ski Straps

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Brooks-Range Ski Binding Tool

Brooks-Range Ski Binding Tool
$10, 6 oz.
Brooks-Range Heli Ski Straps
$7/pair, 2 oz.
brooks-range.com

I’ve seen ski bindings blow out in the backcountry, and the result ranges from truly not fun (a buddy hiked two miles back to our car on one ski) to potentially dangerous if you’re not prepared (another friend had a repair kit and remounted a busted binding two days into a weeklong ski traverse in Yellowstone). This lightweight kit comes with eight bits—two Philips, a PZ3, standard #6 and #4 flathead screwdrivers, ¼ and 1/8 Allen, and a Torx T-20.

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Gear Review: Cabela’s Thermal Zone ¼ Zip Mock T-neck

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Cabela’s Thermal Zone ¼ Zip Mock T-neck

Winter Top
Cabela’s Thermal Zone ¼ Zip Mock T-neck
$85 M-XL, $90 XXL, 8 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: M-XXL
cabelas.com

I took a five-mile December trail run wearing this long-sleeve top with nothing over it on the day I got it, and since then, I have hardly spent an active day outside without it. I’ve also worn it (with layers over it as needed) skate-skiing, backcountry skiing, and for four straight days on a January ski trip to a backcountry yurt in Idaho’s Boise Mountains.

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Sea kayakers in Hall Arm, Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand.

Into the Mystic: Sea Kayaking Doubtful Sound In New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park

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By Michael Lanza

A light mist falls as our small adventure armada of nine sea kayaks cruises along the shore of Deep Cove, the farthest inland extremity of Doubtful Sound in New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park. Around us, cliffs rise straight up out of the sea to 4,000-foot summits—sheer, Yosemite-like granite walls improbably sprouting a vertical jungle of podocarp trees and other indigenous vegetation that make these forests look like something from another planet.

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Bottomless Powder, Big Ski Lines in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

We reach a high saddle between two peaks, where the wind has sculpted the snow into stationary, perpetually cresting waves several feet high. Treeless slopes of clean, untracked powder fall away beneath us. Our group of several friends and a few guides have been climbing uphill in this remote corner of northeast Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for more than two hours, ascending some 3,000 vertical feet under a clear, ice-blue winter sky, amid scenery that looks like a post card from an Alpine resort, but without the ski lifts and quaint villages.

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