International Adventures

Trekkers overlooking Álftavatn Lake, along Iceland's Laugavegur Trail.

A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

By Michael Lanza

Walking across the campground at Landmannalaugar, in Iceland’s remote Central Highlands, we can see the entire uphill portion of today’s hike ahead of us. A trail zigzags through dozens of short switchbacks more than a thousand vertical feet (well over 300 meters) up the crest of a ridge on a virtually barren, steep-sided, blue-black little mountain called Bláhnúkur, which means “blue peak.” Scudding clouds flash over the peak like tracer fire revealing the wind scraping the peak’s summit.

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A hiker on the Tour du Mont Blanc in Italy.

Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace

By Michael Lanza Our bus winds up a narrow road in the Vallée des Glaciers, below snowy peaks of the French Alps. We boarded it with about 10 other trekkers after a late-afternoon thunderstorm ripped the sky open while we enjoyed a café and tea with chocolate mousse and a slice of blueberry pie at the Auberge de la Nova …

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Trekkers hiking through Norway's Jotunheimen National Park.

Trekking Among Giants in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

By Michael Lanza On a treeless tundra plateau deep in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, we stop before a bouncy suspension bridge over a roaring, snarling whitewater river. I shoot a glance at my 75-year-old mom. In a tone that contains more fatalism than enthusiasm, she reminds me, “I’ve never crossed one of these.” I nod, and calmly assure her, “You …

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A trekker on the Dusky Track in the Pleasant Range, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand.

Hiking New Zealand’s Hardest Hut Trek, the Dusky Track

By Michael Lanza We step out of the Lake Roe Hut into a persistent drizzle, deep in what may be the most dishonestly named mountains in the world—the Pleasant Range in New Zealand’s chronically soggy Fiordland National Park. Belligerent gusts hurl cups of water into our faces. By the time my friend, Jeff, and I have taken our first 50 …

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Sunset at Idaho's City of Rocks National Reserve.

Why I Never Miss a Wilderness Sunset or Sunrise

By Michael Lanza

The June evening was more than a few hours old when, without warning, the sky suddenly caught fire. The kids, teenagers and ’tweeners, and some of the adults in our group scrambled up onto a nearby rock formation at least 50 feet tall to observe the sunset from high off the ground. Like a wildfire swept forward by wind, hues of yellow, orange, and red leapt across bands of clouds suspended above the western horizon, their ragged bottoms edges, appropriately, resembling dancing flames.

For a span of just minutes that felt timeless, the light painted and repainted the clouds in ever-shifting, warm colors starkly contrasted against the cool, deepening blue of the sky—as if a vast lake had ignited. We stood hypnotized and enchanted on that evening during a long weekend of camping at Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve, until the last, dying flames of the celestial conflagration faded and were extinguished. For that brief time, the sunset had us all, adults and kids, completely in its thrall.

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