My kids in Spray Park, Mount Rainier National Park.

Video: Backpacking Mount Rainier National Park

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By Michael Lanza

Mount Rainier National Park presents a multitude of excellent backpacking options. But one that encapsulates the experience well, shows off some of the park’s highlight views, glaciers, and wildflower meadows, and can be knocked off in a weekend is the traverse from Mowich Lake to Sunrise. Hiking below Rainier’s north face makes it look so impossibly big it seems unreal, rising 8,000 to 11,000 vertical feet above hikers on trails. Few North American peaks have visible relief of two vertical miles. You naturally react as you might to a full-blown, heat stroke-induced hallucination: Compelled to believe your eyes, you nonetheless struggle with the nagging intuition that the delicate fruit that is your frontal lobe has spoiled badly in the heat.

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Gear Review: Scarpa R-evolution GTX Boots

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Scarpa R-evolution GTX
Scarpa R-evolution GTX

Backpacking Boots
Scarpa R-evolution GTX
$239, 2 lb. 14 oz. (men’s Euro 42/US 9)
Sizes: men’s Euro 40-47, 48, women’s 37-42
backcountry.com

Boot makers are trying harder to design footwear that bridges the divide between lightweight, nimble shoes and heavier boots that have traditionally delivered more support and protection, but have also been stiffer and less sensitive. I personally applaud that trend, and based on what I hear from readers, I suspect consumers will like it, too. Scarpa’s new R-evolution GTX represents a step in this direction. Curious about how well they achieve this lofty goal, I wore them on a four-day, 86-mile backpacking trip in northern Yosemite National Park last September, and for three days on the 37-mile Kepler Track in New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park in March.

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Trekkers on the Alta Via 2 in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, in Italy's Dolomite Mountains.

‘The World’s Most Beautiful Trail:’ Trekking the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomites

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By Michael Lanza

We follow the zigzagging trail upward until it becomes lost beneath an unbroken snow cover. Then we follow the boot prints of the few trekkers who’ve ventured up here before us recently, a navigational strategy based on hope—the hope that unseen strangers knew where the path goes. A bit farther than I could hurl a stone to either side of us loom sheer walls of dark rock, rendered fuzzy by the fog, as if Vaseline coats our eyeballs. The cliffs rise hundreds of feet into the oblivion of a soupy, gray ceiling, the sky a dark bruise that looks almost close enough to touch. A drizzly rain seeps from the clouds, but the air is calm and there is no sound but our footsteps and breaths—and a faint rumbling of uncertainty in my gut.

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Black Diamond Alpine Start Hoody

Review: Black Diamond Alpine Start Hoody

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Ultralight JacketBlack Diamond Alpine Start Hoody$189, 7.5 oz./212.6g (men’s medium)Sizes: men’s and women’s XS-XLblackdiamondequipment.com A breathable, ultralight jacket that sheds light precipitation can be the most versatile garment you own—something you wear almost as much as your skivvies. I’ve pulled on BD’s Alpine Start Hoody to combat wind, light rain, and cool temps on a 17-mile dayhike over the four …

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Gear Review: Tarptent Double Moment Tent

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Tarptent Double Moment
Tarptent Double Moment

Three-Season Tent
Tarptent Double Moment
$349, 3 lbs. 4 oz.
tarptent.com

With a preference for backcountry tents that are lightweight and stable, I’m willing to sacrifice capacious living space and the convenience of freestanding models, and I’ve seen tunnel-style designs that stand up well to strong winds despite their low total weight. Intrigued by the Double Moment’s space-to-weight ratio, I took it out on a five-day backpacking trip down Paria Canyon on the Utah-Arizona border in late March and a three-day backpacking trip on the Royal Arch Loop in the Grand Canyon, to see how it would hold up.

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