Trips

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 backpacker on the Tonto Trail above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.

The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon

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By Michael Lanza

All three of us have hiked this footpath before, and even still, our first steps down the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail leave us with hanging jaws. It’s early morning under clear skies, with the low-angle sunlight bringing the vastness of this chasm into sharp clarity—every inconceivably towering monolith, bottomless abyss, and sheer precipice—and we’re sputtering silly superlatives about the vista unfurling before us.

This is, after all, the world’s grandest canyon. It does that to people, even hardened veteran backpackers like us.

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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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The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast

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By Michael Lanza

On a remote, sandy beach on Washington’s Olympic coast, we stop in our tracks and gaze up. A wall of muddy earth rises some 300 feet into jungle-like rainforest. A thick strand of hemp rope dangles down this steep, eroding embankment. A ladder of wooden steps built into the muddy ground rises in tandem with the rope.

We’re going up 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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