Backpacking

A backpacker hiking west from Porcupine Pass on the Uinta Highline Trail, High Uintas Wilderness, Utah.

Backpacking—and Sandbagging—Utah’s Uinta Highline Trail

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By Michael Lanza

The strongest signal that late afternoon has begun its inexorably precipitous October slide into a freezing evening comes as my son, Nate, and I step from almost-warm sunshine into the deep shade of a peak whose shadow tops out at over 13,000 feet in eastern Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness. The wind cranks up in volume as we continue upward, wearing shell jackets with hoods up, wool hats, and gloves while carrying full backpacks uphill at a lung-busting elevation—and still feeling just marginally warm enough.

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Backpackers in the narrows of Paria Canyon, in southern Utah and northern Arizona.

Paria Canyon—A Top 5 Southwest Backpacking Trip

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By Michael Lanza

Walls of searing, orange-red sandstone towered hundreds of feet overhead in a chasm at times no more than a dozen strides across. A shallow river flowed like very thin chocolate milk down the canyon, spanning it from wall to wall in spots. And the spectacle had only just begun: We were mere hours into the first day of one of the most continually stunning, multi-day canyon hikes in the Southwest: Paria Canyon.

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Backpackers hiking the Tonto Trail above Sapphire Canyon in the Grand Canyon.

‘Let’s Talk Water:’ Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems

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By Michael Lanza

The April sun seems to dangle just over our heads like a giant grow light—or perhaps a very, very big and hot interrogation lamp—as we hike down the Grand Canyon’s South Bass Trail, a steep path littered with enough ankle-rolling stones to keep pulling our eyes from the unfathomable expanse of canyon beyond us back to the unstable ground at our feet. We all lumber under packs heavier than any of us usually has any reason to carry: Including more than 10 pounds of water and 11 pounds of food, mine tips the scales at around 40 pounds. Everyone else hauls a similar load.

And we will carry them thousands of feet downhill on this unkind-to-ankles footpath, eventually to search for today’s lone, uncertain source of water that we may or may not find, so that we can refill the bladders and bottles we’ve sucked empty in this desert heat, allowing us to again shoulder ungainly burdens and continue walking what will total over 14 hot miles before we set our packs down for the night.

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Backpackers hiking below Nevills Arch in lower Owl Canyon, Bears Ears National Monument, Utah.

Backpacking Southern Utah’s Owl and Fish Canyons

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By Michael Lanza

The wind blows a steady warning blast heralding the meaner gusts forecast for tonight as we begin backpacking down the rugged “trail,” such as it is, into Owl Canyon, in the Cedar Mesa area of southern Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument. In the first week of May, the four of us wear pants and shell jackets over a couple of top layers—it feels that chilly.

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A backpacker just north of Jackass Pass in the Cirque of the Towers. in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup

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By Michael Lanza

As my friend Chip Roser and I reach Pyramid Lake, in a magnificent stone bowl at 10,571 feet in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, nestled below its namesake peak and the attention-grabbing, soaring face of the 12,000-footer Mount Hooker, the overcast grows increasingly darker. We both look up at the sky, probably sharing the same thought: wondering when the thunderstorms and strong winds the forecast had warned of would finally catch us out here; and hoping to stay dry at least until getting our tents up—and with luck, until after we’ve eaten dinner.

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