Michael Lanza

Ski touring the Elkhorn Loop, Boise National Forest, Idaho.

New Year Resolution: Getting Unplugged

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By Michael Lanza

Right before New Year’s Day, for the tenth year of the past 12, my family and another did something we have eagerly anticipated annually for almost as long as my children’s memory reaches backward. It involved skis, backpacks, and spending four days at a yurt tucked away in snow-covered mountains a few miles from the nearest, very lonely, winding, two-lane road. But the details matter only inasmuch as they steer us toward our ultimate goal: We really go there to get completely unplugged.

We do that mostly for ourselves, of course. But I think we need this notion of disconnecting to catch on more widely, to save us all from ourselves.

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A backpacker at a waterfall on the Deer Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.

Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop

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By Michael Lanza

The heat presses in from all sides as we hike down the Bill Hall Trail off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The overhead sun feels as if it has expanded to a supernova threatening to engulf the planet. The rocks radiate waves of heat up at us; I wonder if they might actually reach egg-frying temperature today. Even the air seems to be rising to a boil like a vast kettle on a stove. We hike cautiously over broken stones that slide underfoot, leaning out onto our trekking poles for the two- and three-foot ledge drops on this path—which appears better suited to bighorn sheep than to bipedal primates hauling backpacks weighed down with gear, food, and a surplus of a rare element out here: water.

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Are You Pissed Yet? 5 Things You Can Do For Our Planet Now

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Dawn at Quiet Lake in Idaho's Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness, created in 2015.
Dawn at Quiet Lake in Idaho’s Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness, created in 2015.

By Michael Lanza

How’s it feel to be a conservationist in America today? Does it feel like people who want the government to protect the environment—which is a large majority of Americans—suddenly find themselves losing a war that it seemed we had already won?

These are strange and frustrating times for conservation. We have to wonder: How could so many Americans believe that climate science is bogus—or even a “hoax,” as a certain world leader calls it? How could so many of our countrymen and women applaud as the current White House takes an axe to the agency created four decades ago to protect the very environment we live in? Or buy into the corrupt notion that ceding control of our prized public lands to private interests could, in any way, be in our public interest?

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Review: Montane Minimus Stretch Ultra Pull-on and Jacket

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The Montane Minimus Stretch Ultra Pull-on in the Grand Canyon.
The Montane Minimus Stretch Ultra Pull-on in the Grand Canyon.

Ultralight Rain Jacket
Montane Minimus Stretch Ultra Pull-on and Jacket
$185 (pull-on)/$205 (jacket), 6 oz. (men’s medium pull-on)
Sizes: men’s XS-XL, women’s US 6-14 (jacket only)
Sunnysports.com

From bone-rattling cold wind on a September dayhike in Glacier National Park and a back-to-back, rim-to-rim dayhikes across the Grand Canyon in October, to wind and rain while scrambling peaks in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, Montane’s Minimus Stretch Ultra Pull-on keep me dry and warm, thanks to its solid wind protection and good breathability. Certainly one of the lightest and most packable waterproof-breathable shells out there, this pull-on, and the jacket version, are a top choice for trail runners, hikers, climbers, and ultralight backpackers. Here’s why.

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MSR DynaLock Ascent Trekking Poles.

Review: MSR DynaLock Ascent Carbon Trekking Poles

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Trekking Poles
MSR DynaLock Ascent Carbon Poles
$190, 1 lb. 1 oz./481.9g (per pair, 100-120cm, with trekking baskets)
Two sizes, adjustable: S 100-120cm/39-47.2 ins., L 120-140cm/47.2-55.1 ins.
cascadedesigns.com

When you need trekking poles, you want them to stand up to the hardest use in any season. When you don’t need them, you want them to nestle unobtrusively under pack straps. On numerous days in the backcountry, including a 20-mile, mostly off-trail peaks traverse in Idaho’s Sawtooths, a rim-to-rim dayhike across the Grand Canyon, a five-day trip in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains, a six-day hut trek on Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails, and some of the hardest miles on the Appalachian Trail, MSR’s Dynalock Ascent Carbon poles stood out for being tough, stable, and exceptionally packable.

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