America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
At a bit over 148,000 acres, Zion comes nowhere near America’s largest national parks in sheer immensity. Zion could fit inside Yosemite National Park five times, inside the Everglades 10 times, inside Yellowstone 15 times, and inside our largest park, Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias, 89 times. But if you’re a hiker, Zion harbors, mile for mile, some of the most breathtaking scenery to be found on any trails in the National Park System.
By Michael Lanza
If you invited all of the major Western national parks to a big family dinner, Zion would sit at the kids’ table. At a bit over 148,000 acres, Zion is dwarfed by the iconic wilderness parks that are the most sought-after by backpackers, like Yosemite (which is five times larger), Glacier (nearly seven times larger), and Grand Canyon (eight times larger), all of them with hundreds of miles of trails for backpackers to explore. But what Zion lacks in size it more than makes up for in breathtaking scenery—and for backpackers, some of the most unique, wonderful, and relatively easy multi-day hikes in the National Park System.
By Michael Lanza
What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a few days and half of the hikes on this list are under 50 miles. Another factor that truly matters is a wilderness experience: All 10 are in national parks or wilderness areas.
By Michael Lanza
I remember my first backpacking trip in Glacier National Park, more than 30 years ago, feeling magical—and a little bit intimidating, which is best illustrated by the fact that I had probably carried bear spray only once before. But I’m pretty sure my girlfriend (now wife) and I did not reserve a backcountry permit months before—we just showed up and got one. (Good luck doing that today.) We did little, if any, research on a route. We encountered some surprises and had what we considered a mostly wonderful adventure.
Today, though, with several multi-day hikes in Glacier under my hipbelt and knowing the park’s terrain, trails, climate, regulations, and permit system well, our uninformed strategy for planning that first, long-ago trip seems both quaint and like a formula that invites frustration and disappointment—especially in this era of much higher numbers of backpackers. Now, I take a very different approach to planning trips there.
By Michael Lanza
How was your 2025? I hope you got outdoors as much as possible with the people you care about—and you enjoyed adventures that inspired you. I’m sharing in this story photos from several backpacking and hiking trips I took this year, from the Grand Canyon in March and southern Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, Buckskin Gulch, and Paria Canyon in April to Idaho’s Sawtooths in August and again in early October and Wyoming’s Wind River Range in September.