National Park Adventures

A backpacker enjoying the view from Maze Overlook in the Maze District, Canyonlands National Park.

Backpacking the Maze in Canyonlands—A Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

With our first steps on the descent from Maze Overlook into the labyrinth of mostly dry desert canyons that comprise one of the greatest geological oddities in the National Park System—the Maze in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park—we had to remove and pass our backpacks over a ledge drop of several feet. But that was nothing compared to what lay ahead. Following a wildly circuitous trail marked by cairns but otherwise unobvious and not visible on the slickrock, we passed below redrock cliffs and towers, traversed the sloping rims of giant bowls of rippled stone, and several more times passed our packs to scramble through tight crevices and downclimb a ladder of shallow footsteps chiseled into a sandstone cliff face.

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Lower Yellowstone Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park.

For the Enjoyment of Future Generations

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The Government is Gutting the National Park Service. Will We Just Remain Silent?

“The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations… which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

—The Organic Act of 1916, creating the National Park Service

By Michael Lanza

With the widespread, deep cuts to federal spending, which have often seemed chaotic and not even remotely thought out, since President Trump began his second term in January, I’ve occasionally heard from readers of this blog asking what they should expect visiting the national parks this year. I haven’t really had a good answer, in part because there seemed neither any plan behind the cuts nor much information about how and where funding would be slashed.

I backpacked in the Grand Canyon in late March and, besides one unusually long line to board a shuttle bus, I didn’t see evidence of any deterioration of public services or natural resources. Like, perhaps, many people, I wondered whether the parks would somehow, miraculously, dodge a death by a thousand cuts.

Now it’s clear that is not at all true.

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A young girl hiking in Sequoia National Park.

12 Wonderful National Park Adventures to Take With Kids

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By Michael Lanza

America’s 63 national parks preserve over 52 million acres of uniquely beautiful and genuinely awe-inspiring places in nature, and the payoff for our country’s foresight in protecting them is a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable experiences—many of them entirely feasible, safe, and really fun for families with kids of all ages. Best of all, you’ll find that sharing these adventures will create your best times together as a family, as they have for mine.

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David Ports backpacking the Tonto Trail west of Horn Creek in Grand Canyon National Park.

Backpacking the Grand Canyon: Tonto West to Boucher Trail

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By Michael Lanza

A thin, hazy overcast keeps the sun from frying my longtime friend and adventure partner David Ports and me as we descend the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail—a trail I’ve now hiked more times than I can immediately recall. And yet, watching how the marching, broken clouds cause the light to shift across the broad expanse of canyon visible to us, seeming to repaint and reshape the landscape every few minutes, it still feels fresh and thrilling to me.

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

Backpacking Glacier National Park—a Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

If you have ever backpacked in Glacier National Park, you know you want to return. If you haven’t yet, then isn’t it time? One of America’s flagship national parks, it’s a must-see destination for backpackers because of the eye-popping scenery, remoteness, and an extremely rare variety of megafauna—including mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, and black and grizzly bears—as the photo gallery below from my numerous trips in Glacier shows.

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