Ancient Puebloan ruin in Woodenshoe Canyon, Dark Canyon Wilderness, Utah.

3-Minute Read: Backpacking Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness

By Michael Lanza

About five miles down Woodenshoe Canyon, in southeast Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness, David stops on the trail ahead of me and points to a barely distinguishable feature in the cliffs above us. We drop our backpacks and follow a faint path in the sand and up onto sandstone slabs, scrambling and zigzagging our way up onto a wide ledge below an overhanging cliff face. In the shaded alcove below that overhang, we stop before the ruins of a tiny, one-room stone structure perhaps large enough for two people to lie down inside, built centuries before Columbus arrived in the New World.

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On the summit of Mount Hoffmann, Yosemite National Park.

How to Have More Fun and Be Safer Outdoors

By Michael Lanza

People occasionally ask me the same basic question about hiking, backpacking, or some other outdoor activity: How much do I need to know to do this? They ask that question, of course, because they want to keep themselves and their family or friends safe. And you can find the answers to questions like that—and probably many others that you have—in one place.

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The Outdoor Research Helium Hybrid Hooded Jacket.

Review: Outdoor Research Helium Hybrid Hooded Jacket

Ultralight Hybrid Shell JacketOutdoor Research Helium Hybrid Hooded Jacket$145, 8 oz. (men’s medium)Sizes: men’s S-XXLbackcountry.com Just as the first waterproof-breathable membrane, Gore-Tex, did four decades ago, and soft-shell fabrics did nearly two decades ago, today’s hybrid outerwear let us rethink the role of rain jackets—or more broadly, weather protection—for everything from hiking and climbing to trail running and biking. Many …

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Gear Review: Black Diamond ReVolt Headlamp

Black Diamond ReVolt
Black Diamond ReVolt

Rechargeable Headlamp
Black Diamond ReVolt
$60, 3.5 oz. (with 3 AAA batteries, included)
moosejaw.com

Updated in 2017, Black Diamond’s ReVolt rechargeable headlamp quickly became the one I grabbed from a drawer full of headlamps, for trips ranging from backpacking 40 miles in May through Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness, to backcountry skiing for four days in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and camping in Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley. Beyond the convenience of running on either its USB-rechargeable NiMH batteries or standard AAA alkaline batteries, it offers a variety of modes and features not found in other headlamps—including BD’s PowerTap technology to instantly cycle between brightness settings, plus being waterproof—at a competitive price.

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Crabtree Falls, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, N.C.

Photo Gallery: Waterfalls of the North Carolina Mountains

By Michael Lanza

Sunlight still lit up the trees high up the mountainside above me, visible through the canopy of maple, oak, and tulip poplar trees, but down in the bottom of the valley, dusk had settled in at least an hour earlier. Rosebay rhododendron and a variety of ferns carpeted the ground. I had the trail all to myself hiking to Moore Cove, in the Pisgah National Forest of western North Carolina; and save for the songs of some birds and the soft conversation of water flowing over rocks, the silence exerted an immediate calming effect—like I had taken a happy pill. It’s lovely to have a piece of Appalachian forest to yourself.

Then I reached Moore Cove and gazed up at a 50-foot waterfall free falling in a veil of silvery water over the lip of a deep, rock alcove. 

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