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A backpacker hiking the Dawson Pass Trail in Glacier National Park.

Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park

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By Michael Lanza

In the second week of September, the cool air in the shade of the forest nips at our cheeks as we leave our first night’s camp beside Glenns Lake in the backcountry of Glacier National Park, starting at a reasonably early hour for a day where we will walk nearly 16 miles and 6,000 feet of combined uphill and downhill. I’m hiking in a fleece hoodie, pants, and gloves and my friends Pam Solon and Jeff Wilhelm are similarly layered up. Once the sun reaches us within an hour, we’ll strip down to shorts and T-shirts.

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Backpackers hiking the Skyline Trail north toward Tekarra camp, Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies.

Backpacking the Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park

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By Michael Lanza

About three hours into our hike on the Skyline Trail in Canada’s Jasper National Park, a rumble of thunder rips the sky with a sound like a train derailment; moments later, the gray overcast that had rolled overhead maybe 30 minutes earlier starts spraying us with random bursts of raindrops. By the time the five of us have hurried into rain shells and flipped our hoods up, the rain commences in earnest, chauffeured by strong wind just as we emerge from forest into the alpine terrain.

Walking into the full brunt of the weather but dressed for it—and this crew has deep experience with all kinds of nasty weather—we just push on through the rain, motivated by the first taste of the scenery that awaits in greater glory ahead. Plus, we face several more miles of hiking to our first camp on the Skyline Trail in Jasper, the much-less-visited but larger sister park of its joined-at-the-hip sibling, Banff, in the Canadian Rockies.

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Backpackers hiking up southern Arizona's Aravaipa Canyon.

Backpacking the Desert Oasis of Aravaipa Canyon

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By Michael Lanza

In strong, cool gusts of wind competing against a blazing desert sun, we descend a dusty trail flanked by tall, muscular saguaro and countless small cacti aiming thousands of sharp needles at the legs of anyone who wanders too close to the trail’s edge. Just minutes from the trailhead, we reach the bottom of southern Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon, splashing across Aravaipa Creek in several strides—the first of scores of crossings we’ll make of this calf-deep, crystal-clear, and cool but not numbing little desert waterway over the next three days.

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A backpacker above Toxaway Lake, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Photo Gallery: Hiking and Backpacking Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

When can you claim to know a mountain range well? Maybe it’s once you have spent enough time—certainly measured in years, and probably decades—that you have explored beyond the most accessible and popular spots to the obscure, unknown corners. Perhaps it’s when you have hiked most of its trails. Just possibly, it’s when you unfold a map and it takes several minutes to tick off for someone all the places you have visited. That’s a good start, anyway.

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Backpackers hiking past a tarn off the Highline Trail (CDT) in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range

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By Michael Lanza

Less than an hour into our five-day backpacking trip into the Wind River Range, we turn onto the Doubletop Mountain Trail and within minutes splash across the shallow New Fork River at a spot where it’s flowing just inches deep; I ford it with boots on, walking gingerly on my toes to—happily—keep my socks dry. On the other side, just before beginning a long climb out of this valley, we run into a couple coming down the trail and stop to chat.

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