10 Adventures to Put on Your Bucket List Now

Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

By Michael Lanza

Are you looking for great trip ideas for your personal “bucket list?” Well, you’ve clicked to the right place. This freshly updated list spotlights 10 of the best adventures in the U.S. and around the world—from Yosemite, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Everglades, and other national parks to Patagonia, the Alps, and New Zealand—all of them trips that belong on every serious outdoor adventurer’s list. All of them are also trips that demand you start planning for them now to take them in 2019.

Because here’s the thing about bucket list trips: They usually require advance planning. At this time a year ago, for example, I began planning months in advance so that I could backpack off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in May, rock climb with my family in Idaho in June and in Yosemite in July, backpack in Idaho’s Sawtooths in August and a 90-mile traverse of the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier National Park in September, and dayhike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim in October.

Continue reading →

The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest

David Ports backpacking the Royal Arch Loop in the Grand Canyon.

By Michael Lanza

Everyone remembers his or her first visit to the desert Southwest. The bizarre, vividly colored geology of southern Utah and Arizona ignites wildfires of the imagination that burn permanent impressions. I recall staring at rock formations sculpted in ways I’d never observed before and thinking, “How can this be?” And you’ll find very worthy dayhikes and roadside eye candy in classic parks like Grand Canyon, Zion, and Canyonlands. But leaving civilization for days to probe more deeply into those parks—and other canyon-country gems you may not know much about—opens invisible doors to experiences that amplify the feelings inspired by these mystical landscapes.

After a quarter-century of chasing the best backpacking trips in southern Utah and the Grand Canyon area, I’ve put together this list of what I submit are the 10 best. Continue reading →

15 Adventures on Earth That Will Change Your Life

Anna Garofalo on the final day trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps.

By Michael Lanza

Can travel “change your life?” How many experiences have such an enormous impact? I can name several that shifted my perspective, or expanded how I view the world and other people. Exploring the surreal landscapes of Iceland and Patagonia. Walking among Earth’s highest mountains in Nepal, through remote villages where people live much as their ancestors did for centuries. Immersing myself in the mountain culture on hut treks in the Alps like the Tour du Mont Blanc (photo above). And seeing unforgettable places like Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, Italy’s Dolomites, and Alaska’s Glacier Bay through the unclouded eyes of my kids. Continue reading →

How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking

Todd Arndt staying warm in cold wind high in Glacier National Park.

By Michael Lanza

Rain and wind battered two friends and I as we hiked across exposed meadows high in the Olympic Mountains—our second straight day of rain. Dripping, knee-high vegetation ladled cups of water onto our pants and boots. My rain jacket kept my upper body dry, but my soft-shell pants eventually soaked through. That, and the wind, slowly made me steadily colder—more than I realized.

After a strenuous ascent of a steep mountainside, carrying a heavy pack with my jacket hood up—which should have made me quite warm—it occurred to me: I’m still cold.

I was hypothermic. Continue reading →

What Zion’s Narrows Closure to Backpackers Means to Us All

A backpacker in The Narrows in Zion National Park.

By Michael Lanza

We rightly think of America’s national parks as inviolable public treasures, protected in perpetuity to remain unchanged forever, always there for us to admire and enjoy. Zion National Park’s closure yesterday of one of the very best backpacking trips in the Southwest—the 16-mile descent of The Narrows from top to bottom—due to a landowner suddenly revoking public access to the trailhead where the trek begins, reminds us that even the best-guarded treasures can be looted. Continue reading →