By Michael Lanza The wind and horizontal rain battered us and the fog reduced visibility to 50 feet at times as we hiked up Sahale Arm. We struggled into the maelstrom with rain jacket hoods cinched snugly, our heads bent forward into the wind. Bullets of cold rain pelted my cheek. It was mid-July in Washington’s North Cascades National Park, but it felt like mid-October—no surprise in the northernmost and one of the wettest mountain ranges in the contiguous United States, where 110 inches of precipitation falls annually on its western slope. My friend David Ports and I were headed up toward some of the most severely vertical mountain scenery in the country—though that morning, it didn’t look like we’d get treated to any of it. By Michael Lanza We walk along the crest of giant sand dunes as narrow as the peak of a roof, watching sand cascade down either side under our boots, and listening to it “singing” with squeaks and booms. Mouse-size kangaroo rats roam the dunes, leaping five feet into the air. At night, shooting stars arc like flaming arrows through a pitch-black sky. By Michael Lanza I’m standing on a rocky ridgetop amid the crumbling ruins of a castle built by Moors during their seven-century rule over most of Spain. It looks like a good spot to dig in. Beyond these broken walls, the ground plunges hundreds of feet over cliffs and mostly treeless, double-black-diamond slopes of thorny desert scrub. Today, though, there’ll be no rain of arrows from attacking marauders—only me and my guide, José Miguel Garcia, hiking through a sea of craggy limestone mountains. Some 3,000 feet below us, bleached terracotta villages dotting the valley bottom hold out the promise of a post-hike feast of tapas and local wine. By Michael Lanza The land is on fire. Actually, the land appears to be smoldering, stoked by some persistent furnace just beneath the surface. Which is essentially true. Steam from hot springs and other geothermal features issues from scores of points from here to the horizon. Mud pots bubble and burp, and the color of volcanic activity is everywhere—paint-can spills of ochre, pink, gold, plum, brown, rust, and honey against a backdrop of purple pumice and electric-lime moss. An old, hardened lava flow pours down one mountainside in a jumbled train wreck of razor-sharp black rhyolite. Barren peaks extend ridges like the arms of starfish. Chattering streams carry the runoff from July snowfields smeared across the highlands. Scudding clouds stampede overhead, constantly rearranging the dappled sunlight splashing over the landscape.
Exploring the ‘American Alps:’ the North Cascades
Exploring America’s Big Sandbox: Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes
Conquistadors of Adventure: Discovering Multi-Sport Gold in Spain’s Valencia region
Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland
A Category
How to Get a Last-Minute Yosemite Wilderness Permit Now
By Michael Lanza
You just decided you’d like to backpack in Yosemite this year and realized you’re months late in reserving a wilderness permit. What now? As it happens, one positive outcome of the pandemic was Yosemite National Park revising its procedure for obtaining a first-come or walk-in backpacking permit, making it possible to reserve one just a week in advance—meaning you no longer have to risk traveling to the park, standing in line and hoping for Lady Luck to smile (or frown) on you. Here’s how you can still grab a last-minute permit for backpacking in Yosemite this year.
How to Safely Cross a Stream When Hiking or Backpacking
In the ink-black darkness long before dawn on a morning in May, seven of us panned our headlamp beams over La Verkin Creek, deep in the Kolob Canyons of Utah’s Zion National Park, contemplating where—and whether—to cross it. Bloated and bellowing with spring snowmelt and brown with the silt of dirt torn violently from its banks, the creek charged past us with a force and noise level that could make any reasonable person question the wisdom of stepping into its path.
