A backcountry skier in Idaho's Boise Mountains.

12 Pro Tips For Staying Warm Outdoors in Winter

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By Michael Lanza

Staying warm while skiing or riding at resorts or in the backcountry, Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, or running in winter is a constant challenge: We sweat, our clothes get damp, and then we have periods of reduced exertion like riding a ski lift or walking or running downhill, when we cool down. But as humans have known for thousands of years, it’s a matter of smartly managing and insulating our body’s furnace (and today we have much better technical clothing than animal skins).

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Backpackers on the Piegan Pass Trail in Glacier National Park.

5 Reasons You Must Backpack in Glacier National Park

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By Michael Lanza

Create a list of the attributes that constitute a great backpacking trip and the chances are very high that you will describe Glacier National Park. There’s the incomparable landscape, where the remnants of glaciers hang off craggy mountains, vertiginous cliffs tower above deeply green valleys carved in the classic U shape by ancient rivers of ice, and hundreds of mountain lakes reflect it all. And encounters with wildlife like bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, moose, and, yes, grizzly and black bears: Few places in the continental United States harbor such a breadth of megafauna.

Sprawling over a million acres in Montana’s Northern Rockies, most of it wilderness, Glacier exudes a sense of wildness and beauty that no longer exists in most of the country.

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A backpacker hiking Buckskin Gulch in southern Utah.

Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon

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By Michael Lanza

We haven’t hiked far down the sandy wash from the Wire Pass Trailhead when the red rock walls start steadily rising higher on both sides and crowding in closer. And although none of the four of us has backpacked this route into southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch before, we’re all familiar with approach hikes into slot canyons—and the unnatural and kind of thrilling sensation of descending into the Earth.

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A backpacker in Matterhorn Canyon, Yosemite National Park.

Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know

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The first major Western national park I backpacked in was Yosemite. I wanted to begin exploring America’s big, iconic wilderness parks—and like a lot of backpackers, I thought: Where else would I start but Yosemite? The name alone conjures mental images of walking for days through wild backcountry sprinkled with shimmering alpine lakes, granite walls, and high passes and summits overlooking a sea of jagged peaks (which, it turns out, is accurate).

Today, after many return trips throughout Yosemite, I’ve learned that one can spend a lifetime wandering the more than 700,000 acres of wilderness in America’s third national park and not get tired of it.

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A young boy hiking in the North Fork Cascade Canyon in Grand Teton National Park.

The Best Short Backpacking Trip in Grand Teton National Park

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By Michael Lanza

As we backpacked up Paintbrush Canyon on the first day of a three-day family hike on the nearly 20-mile loop of Paintbrush and Cascade canyons in Grand Teton National Park, I kept a close eye on our kids. Our son, Nate, then eight years old, had taken a few backpacking trips with me already; I figured he’d do fine, but still, he was young. Our daughter, Alex, then six, was on just her second backpacking trip. I knew that making it fun for them would be an important first step toward nurturing in them a love for future wilderness trips.

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