Hiking

A young girl backpacking at Kaweah Gap in Sequoia National Park.

Why I Endanger My Kids in the Wilderness (Even Though It Scares the Sh!t Out of Me)

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By Michael Lanza A glacial wind pours through a snowy pass in the remote mountains of Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park. Virtually devoid of vegetation, the terrain offers no refuge from the relentless current of frigid air. Some of the troops are hungry, a little tired, and grumpy; mutiny doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility, so I don’t want to …

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A hiker on Mount Luxmore on the Kepler Track in New Zealand's Fiordland National Park.

New Zealand’s Best, Uncomplicated Hut Trek: The Kepler Track

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By Michael Lanza The forecast for New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park looks particularly grim, even for this chronically wet region that receives more than 30 feet of rainfall annually—or about 10 times as much rain as Seattle. A “Southwesterly,” a fierce and not uncommon type of storm that blows in from the Southern Ocean off Antarctica and can offload several …

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A family hiking the Alta Via 2 in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains, Italy.

10 Expert Tips for Doing Adventure Travel Right

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By Michael Lanza

What exactly is “adventure travel?” While we may all define it slightly differently, I think there are universal commonalities to it. Real adventure transports you into a physical and emotional place you have never gone before, or rarely go. It brings surprises and occasionally hardships. But the good surprises are a gift that often comes wrapped in wonder and awe, while the hardships teach us something about the world and, usually, about ourselves.

Our earliest adventures can help kindle a fire for more experiences that deliver that buzz again—that feeling of being entirely on your own and not knowing what’s going to happen next, but whatever lies ahead, you’re eager to leap into it.

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A hiker going through Mahoosuc Notch on the Appalachian Trail, Mahoosuc Range, Maine.

A Path Too Far: Hiking Maine’s Mahoosuc Range in a Day

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David and I pause to catch our breath in quiet forest of wind-stunted conifers at the junction of the Old Speck Trail and Mahoosuc/Appalachian Trail, near the northern end of Maine’s Mahoosuc Range. Since we started hiking shortly after 6 a.m. from the Old Speck Trailhead on ME 26 in Grafton Notch, we’ve climbed 3.5 miles and nearly 3,000 vertical feet up this relentlessly steep trail in under two hours. Given our seemingly absurd objective today—to complete a 30-mile, north-south traverse of the notoriously rugged Mahoosucs before we sleep tonight—our strong pace on the day’s biggest uphill buoys our hopes.

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A hiker near Skeleton Point on the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon.

Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day

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By Michael Lanza

Minutes after we start hiking down the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail, we descend steeply through a series of short, tight switchbacks where the trail appears to cling tenuously to the face of a cliff. The earth drops away abruptly beyond the trail’s edge—we’re gazing down nearly a vertical mile into the basement of The Big Ditch. Patches of early-morning sunlight waltz with cloud shadows across the infinite complexity of the tortured landscape sprawling before us, the high-contrast light magnifying the perception of endlessness. Not much farther, we pause at a clifftop overlook of possibly the most famous canyon on Earth.

The view is breathtaking. But less than a mile into our hike, it also lays bare the audacity, or maybe the folly, of our plans: to walk from South Rim to North Rim across this awesome chasm—21 miles and almost 11,000 cumulative vertical feet—today. From here, tonight’s destination looks very, very far away.

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