My 35 Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever

By Michael Lanza

We can all remember specific places that we consider the best days of hiking we’ve ever had. I’ve been exceptionally fortunate: I have hiked many trails in America and around the world that would probably make anyone’s list of most-scenic hikes. From numerous trips in iconic national parks like Yosemite, Zion, Grand Canyon, and Glacier to the John Muir Trail and Teton Crest Trail and some of the world’s great treks, including the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, the Tour du Mont Blanc, New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park, Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails, and the icy and jagged mountains of Norway and Patagonia, here’s a list of the 30 hands-down prettiest days I’ve ever spent walking dirt and rock footpaths.

I think you’ll find some places in here to add to your must-do list.

I’ve taken these adventures over the course of three decades working as an outdoor writer and photographer, formerly as Northwest Editor of Backpacking magazine for 10 years and now even longer running this blog. Many of the photos in this story are from adventures widely recognized as classics, while others are from places you may not have heard of before.


Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-guides to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.


A trekker on the Alta Via 2 north of Ball Pass in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains, Italy.
My wife, Penny, hiking the Alta Via 2 north of Ball Pass in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains, Italy.

Yep, I know that 35 seems like a lot of picks for my most scenic days of hiking ever. (You should see some of the days I cut from this story.) I think as you go through this list of truly great hikes, you’ll understand my struggle to winnow it any further as you try to decide which of them to prioritize for your own to-do list.

Scroll through the photos and short anecdotes from each trip. They include links to stories at The Big Outside about those places, with my tips and information on how to plan those trips. Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.

And I can help you plan any of these trips or any other you read about at this blog—giving you the benefit of my many years of professional experience identifying, planning, and successfully pulling off great adventures. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, and my downloadable, expert e-guides to some of America’s and the world’s best backpacking trips and treks.

I’d love to hear what you think of any of my photos or the places shown in them, or upcoming plans you have or are contemplating. Please share your thoughts or questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Happy trails.

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A hiker atop Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
Mark Fenton atop Half Dome, high above Yosemite Valley, in Yosemite National Park.

Hiking Yosemite’s Clouds Rest and Half Dome

Traversing the slender summit ridge of 9,926-foot Clouds Rest, we walked what felt like a high wire between sphincter-puckering abysses in the heart of Yosemite National Park. Below one elbow, a drop-off of several hundred feet; on the other side, 4,000 feet—that’s a thousand feet taller than the face of El Capitan. It’s arguably the best summit view in Yosemite and one of the best reached by a trail in all of California’s High Sierra. On the first day of a 151-mile grand tour of that flagship park, four of us walked from the granite-framed shores of Tenaya Lake over Clouds Rest and on to one of America’s most famous summits: Half Dome. And after all that, we still weren’t even finished for the day.

See my story about that hike, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” and all of my stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

You want to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-guides to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

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

Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

We breezed down the narrow crest of the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail as the first light of day fell on one of the planet’s most magnificent and unfathomable landscapes: a mile-deep chasm with twisting side canyons, walls stacked in multi-colored layers, and an army of stone towers each standing thousands of feet tall. Three friends and I walked across the canyon from the South Rim to the North Rim, and back again—42 miles with over 22,000 feet of up and down—in one very long day. I’ve repeated the r2r2r running and hiking in one day and hiking it over two days. Wherever I hike for the rest of my life, I’m sure I’ll always rank hiking rim to rim among my greatest trail days ever.

See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” “8 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

Do your Grand Canyon hike right with these expert e-guides:
The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon
The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon
The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim.”

Trekkers on the Alta Via 2 in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, in Italy's Dolomite Mountains.
My family trekking the Alta Via 2 in Parco Naturale Paneveggio Pale di San Martino, in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.

Trekking the Alta Via 2 in the Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains

Often described as “the world’s most beautiful trail,” the Alta Via 2 traces a roughly 112-mile (180k) path through northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, which thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, gleaming like polished jewels in sunshine and virtually pulsing with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. On my family’s hut-to-hut trek of a 39-mile (62k) section of the AV 2, jaw-dropping views became routine.

But on the day we hiked from the Rosetta Hut, in the sub-range known as the Pale di San Martino, down to the small mountain town of San Martino di Castrozza, we walked below one sheer limestone tower after another on a path that clung to vertiginous mountainsides, sometimes chopped from the face of a cliff.

See my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.”

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A hiker on the West Rim Trail above Zion Canyon in Zion National Park.
David Ports hiking the West Rim Trail in Zion National Park.

Walking Across Zion

From the red-rock Kolob Canyons in the park’s northwest corner to the 2,000-foot, creamy white and blazing burgundy cliffs of Zion Canyon, Zion National Park harbors some of the most uniquely beautiful and beloved natural real estate in the entire National Park System. Hiking 50 miles across the entire park in a day, tagging highlights like Angels Landing and the West Rim Trail, seemed like the perfect way to experience a park without peer. That’s what several friends and I figured, anyway. Our adventure was proof that, even when events don’t proceed quite as planned, it can be a great day.

See my story “Mid-Life Crisis: Hiking 50 Miles Across Zion in a Day,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park,” and all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning any trip on this list?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

Trekkers along Iceland's Laugavegur Trail between Álftavatn and Emstrur.
Trekkers along Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail between Álftavatn and Emstrur.

Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

Nearly every day that my family spent trekking hut to hut on Iceland’s 34-mile/55k Laugavegur Trail and 15.5-mile/25k Fimmvörðuháls Trail struck me as one of the prettiest days of hiking I’ve ever had.

A trekker on the Fimmvorduhals Trail south of Thorsmork, Iceland.
My daughter, Alex, hiking the Fimmvorduhals Trail south of Thorsmork, Iceland.

Among those seven days of hiking, I feel compelled to spotlight four: The morning we spent dayhiking the peak named Bláhnúkur, from the hut at Landmannalaugar in Iceland’s Central Highlands (see the lead photo in this story); our third day on the Laugavegur, hiking from Álftavatn to Emstrur (photo above); and both days on the magnificent Fimmvörðuháls, hiking the spine of a narrow crest between two deep chasms and crossing a moonscape created by recent volcanic eruptions (photo at left) on day one, followed by descending a river valley past more than two dozen big, powerful waterfalls one after another—probably the single best waterfalls trail I’ve ever seen.

My advice: Just go trek both the Laugavegur and the Fimmvörðuháls trails.

See my feature story about my family’s hut trek on these two trails, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails,” “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

Hike one of the world’s great treks using my e-guide
The Complete Guide to Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.”

 

A backpacker on the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park.
Geoff Sears hiking the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park.

Hiking from Many Glacier to Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

In the cool hours of early morning, my hiking partner and I set out from the Many Glacier complex on the east side of the park, heading toward Swiftcurrent Pass and eventually Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road: a traverse of 15.2 miles with about 2,000 feet of uphill. Neither of us had hiked these trails before, so we carried no expectations—and were amazed at every turn.

We walked below towering cliffs spliced by ribbon waterfalls, climbed to a notch hundreds of feet above the Grinnell Glacier, and followed the Highline Trail, an alpine footpath with sweeping views of the Northern Rockies where sightings of mountain goats and bighorn sheep are common.

See “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-guides to the best backpacking trip in Glacier
and backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

A family trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in Italy.
My nephew Marco, daughter, Alex, and 80-year-old mom, Joanne, hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc in Italy.

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps

Some hikes need no introduction. The Tour du Mont Blanc is one of them. One of the most storied, popular, and step-for-step majestic trails on the planet, the roughly 105-mile (170k) footpath around the “Monarch of the Alps,” 15,771-foot (4807m) Mont Blanc, passes through three countries—France, Italy, and Switzerland—delivering a cultural and culinary experience to match the scenery.

While there are few mediocre kilometers on the trek, one of our nine days walking it with family and friends really stood out scenically: day four, hiking from the Rifugio Elizabetta Soldini mountain hut into the resort town of Courmayeur, Italy, below a staggering array of knife-like spires.

See my story “Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace.”

Save yourself a lot of time.
Get my e-guide “The Perfect, Flexible Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc.”

Sunrise reflection in a tarn above Helen Lake along the John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon N.P.
Sunrise reflection in a tarn above Helen Lake along the John Muir Trail, Kings Canyon N.P.

Backpacking the John Muir Trail from Evolution Basin to Mather Pass

The John Muir Trail, aka “America’s Most Beautiful Trail,” is a 211-mile journey through one of the most picturesque mountain ranges in the country—the High Sierra, which Ansel Adams dubbed “The Range of Light.” When a few friends and I knocked off the JMT in a week, we packed two or three normal days of hiking into each day. (The scenery was morphine for our aching feet.)

A backpacker passing Wanda Lake on the John Muir Trail in Kings Canyon National Park.
Todd Arndt passing Wanda Lake, along the John Muir Trail in the Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon National Park. Click photo to learn how I can help you plan your JMT hike.

But I have to give the edge to the day we ambulated from Evolution Lake in Kings Canyon National Park all the way to the Upper Basin of the South Fork Kings River: past the glassy lakes of the Evolution Basin, over 11,955-foot Muir Pass, through LeConte Canyon with its soaring granite walls, and over 12,100-foot Mather Pass, which we crossed as the setting sun set puffy clouds overhead afire.

I more recently returned to the Evolution Basin on a 130-mile hike, much of it on the JMT, and, yea, it’s still just as pretty as ever.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “10 Great Section Hikes on the John Muir Trail,” and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?

After the John Muir Trail, hike the other nine of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

A backpacker on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.
Jeff Wilhelm backpacking the Teton Crest Trail on Death Canyon Shelf in Grand Teton National Park. Click photo for my e-guide to the Teton Crest Trail

Two Days Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

A backpacker on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park.
David Gordon backpacking the Teton Crest Trail toward Paintbrush Divide.

Having backpacked the Teton Crest Trail multiple times and taken 20 or more hiking, climbing, and backcountry skiing trips throughout the Teton Range, I’ve gotten to know these incomparable peaks pretty well. But the two sections of the TCT that stand out scenically for me are the sections from Death Canyon Shelf to Hurricane Pass and from the North Fork of Cascade Canyon over Paintbrush Divide.

My experiences on those stretches of trail include a bull elk waking us by clomping around just outside our tents; early-morning moose sightings; uninterrupted views of these famously jagged mountains; and endless fields of wildflowers. I’ve had many magical days in the Tetons since my first backpacking trip there more than three decades ago, but I still consider those sections of the TCT its finest.

See my stories “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons,” and all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-guides to the Teton Crest Trail and
the best short backpacking trip there.

A backpacker above Granite Creek on the Wonderland Trail, Mount Rainier National Park.
Jeff Wilhelm above Granite Creek on the Wonderland Trail, Mount Rainier National Park. Click photo for my Wonderland Trail e-guide.

Backpacking the Wonderland Trail

No multi-day hike in the contiguous United States compares with the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier—because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier. The sight of “The Mountain” repeatedly filling the horizon at a seemingly unbelievable scale is thrilling every time. But this trail also features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever see, countless waterfalls and cascades, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” and likely sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and possibly black bears.

A backpacker on the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.
Todd Arndt on the Wonderland Trail west of Sunrise in Mount Rainier National Park.

On the second day of a 77-mile hike on what I consider the WT’s best sections (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my Wonderland Trail e-guide), two friends and I walked from the glorious meadows of Summerland on Rainier’s east side to more meadows west of Sunrise and eventually our campsite at Granite Creek, drinking in some of the best vistas along a path rich with amazing scenery.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.”

Want to hike the Wonderland Trail? Get my expert e-guide
The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

A hiker at the rim of Red Crater in New Zealand's Tongariro National Park.
A hiker at the rim of Red Crater in New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park.

Hiking the Volcanoes of Tongariro National Park, New Zealand

I could create a separate list just of the most spectacular days I’ve spent in New Zealand. (It would include day two on the Kepler Track, at least one day on the Dusky Track, and sea kayaking in Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, all in Fiordland National Park, as well as days on the Cascade Saddle Route and the Whanganui River.) But not for nothing was Tongariro, on New Zealand’s North Island, this country’s first national park and the world’s fourth.

Active volcanoes have birthed a virtually lifeless, yet Technicolor world of craters painted in vivid shades of burnt red, orange, brilliant white, gray, deep black, yellow, and brown. On a 12-mile dayhike over three of the park’s volcanoes and craters, a local guide and I walked through old lava flows of coal-black rocks and up to the 7,516-foot rim of the active volcano named Ngauruhoe. But you take your life in your hands hiking here: Tongariro has seen dozens of volcanic eruptions just in the past century.

See my story “Super Volcanoes: Hiking the Steaming Peaks of New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park,” and all stories about adventures in New Zealand at The Big Outside.

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A hiker in the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range.
Todd Arndt hiking through the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range.

Five Days Exploring the Wind River Range

Few places foil my attempts to pick favorite days of hiking more doggedly than the Winds—because few days walking through those mountains are mediocre. But I can spotlight a handful that feel extra special.

A backpacker hiking to Island Lake and Titcomb Basin in Wyoming's Wind River Range.
Todd Arndt backpacking to Island Lake and Titcomb Basin in the Wind River Range.

A one-day, 27-mile, east-west traverse I made of the southern Wind River Range with friends felt like a stroll through mountain paradise. We spent much of our hike above 11,000 feet, drinking up vistas of peaks rising above 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide. We scrambled up 12,250-foot Mount Chauvenet, crossed the Lizard Head Plateau gaping at thick glaciers, and then put an exclamation point on our adventure by walking across the Cirque of the Towers, a horseshoe of sheer-walled granite peaks scratching at the clouds.

On the first day of a 39-mile backpacking trip, two friends and I hiked from the Elkhart Park trailhead, past Island Lake and several others, to camp in Titcomb Basin—an alpine valley at over 10,500 feet, where peaks on the Divide soar more than 3,000 feet above lakes rippling in the wind.

Backpackers hiking past a tarn off the Highline Trail (CDT) in Wyoming's Wind River Range.
Chip Roser and Penny Beach backpacking past a tarn off the Highline Trail (CDT) in Wyoming’s Wind River Range.

Three companions and I backpacked one of the most audacious and magnificent wilderness adventures in the country: traversing the range south to north on the 96-mile Wind River High Route. While most of that week arguably belongs on this list, our fourth day began with crossing Sentry Peak Pass and passing a tiny tarn reflecting a row of incisor mountains in the upper valley of Middle Fork Lake (lead photo at top of story), moved on to a second 11,000-foot pass and eventually reached 12,000 feet on the Divide at Europe Peak.

A backpacker descending from Texas Pass into the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.
Chip Roser descending from Texas Pass into the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Click photo to get my help planning your next trip.

Backpacking a 43-mile loop, my wife, a friend, and I started our second day from one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had (photo above of reflection in a tarn), walked a stunning stretch of the Highline/Continental Divide Trail past two of the prettiest backcountry lakes I’ve hiked past and more lakes that came close, crossed three high passes, and finally, camped by a lake that reflected the alpenglow on the peaks.

Most recently, on a four-day hike in August 2023, a friend and I crossed three passes on our third day, the middle one, Texas Pass, depositing us in the Cirque of the Towers via a back door of sorts that may have sealed my impression that we were on the best multi-day hike in the Winds. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

See all stories about backpacking in the Winds at the Big Outside, including “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range,” “A Walk in the Winds: Dayhiking 27 Miles Across the Wind River Range,” “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin,” and “Adventure and Adversity on the Wind River High Route.”

Our 27-mile Winds dayhike is one of “America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

Big Spring in The Narrows, Zion National Park.
Big Spring in The Narrows, Zion National Park.

Backpacking The Narrows, Zion National Park

Tough call deciding whether the first or second day backpacking Zion’s Narrows deserves a spot on this list. But take this classic, two-day backpacking trip and you’ll get to decide for yourself. Walking down the mostly shallow North Fork of the Virgin River between close sandstone walls that rise up to a thousand feet overhead, with trees and lush hanging gardens contrasted against rock painted in a rainbow of colors, Zion’s Narrows keeps getting more spectacular with every step.

Read my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Click here now to get my e-guide to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.

A trekker overlooking the Grey Glacier on the "W" circuit in Torres del Paine National Park, in Chilean Patagonia.
Jeff Wilhelm overlooking the Grey Glacier on the “W” circuit in Torres del Paine National Park, in Chilean Patagonia.

Hiking Above the Gray Glacier, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

A rumble of thunder ripped through the air, audible over the persistent wind—but it wasn’t thunder. A few hundred feet below our rocky overlook in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, a slowly widening ring of small bergs floated in the lake, shrapnel from a massive chunk of ice that had just calved off the snout of the Grey Glacier. We were ascending a trail over a mountainside scoured to bedrock by ancient ice, scaling hundred-foot-tall steel ladders anchored to the earthen walls of gorges, while looking out over a river of ice two miles across and 17 miles long. Part of the spectacular “W” trek in this park in Chile’s Patagonia region, it was a 19-mile day that ended when we walked up to the Paine Grande Lodge after dark, buzzing with excitement.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine,” and all stories about hiking in Patagonia at The Big Outside.

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A family of hikers at the crater rim of Mount St. Helens, with Mount Adams in the background.
Three generations of my family at the crater rim of Mount St. Helens, with Mount Adams in the background.

Hiking Mount St. Helens

The catastrophic eruption that decapitated Washington’s Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, removing almost 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop, ironically created one of America’s most strikingly beautiful, fascinating, and coveted dayhikes. On a climb up the mountain’s standard Monitor Ridge route—10 miles and 4,500 vertical feet up and down, most of it over a rugged and stark moonscape of loose rocks, pumice, and ash—you’ll soak up views of several Cascade Range volcanoes, and eventually stand atop the rim’s crumbling cliffs, gazing out over a vast hole 2,000 feet deep and nearly two miles across.

See my story “Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Pushing Limits on Mount St. Helens.”

Got an all-time favorite campsite? I have a few great ones.
See “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

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

Three Days on the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier

On a couple of long, north-south traverses of Glacier in September 2018 and again in September 2023, mostly following two variations of the Continental Divide Trail from the Belly River Trailhead to Two Medicine, friends and I saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and a grizzly bear, and heard elk bugling almost every morning and evening—and we enjoyed mountain skylines unlike anywhere else in America.

As difficult as it is to pick out which days on those hikes stood out, I can point to three in particular: hiking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail from the Belly River Valley to Many Glacier; hiking below the cliffs of the Garden Wall to cross Piegan Pass; and following the high, alpine Dawson Pass Trail from Pitamakan Pass to Dawson Pass—jaw-dropping, all of them.

Glacier does that to me every time I go there.

See my stories about those two trips, “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” and “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

Save yourself a lot of time. Get my expert e-guide to backpacking the CDT through Glacier.

Toleak Point, Olympic coast, Olympic National Park.

Backpacking Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, Southern Olympic Coast

You won’t find much on the longest strip of wilderness coastline in the contiguous United States, the shore of Washington’s Olympic National Park—just seals, sea lions, sea otters, bald eagles, many species of seabirds and whales, and trees 10 to 15 feet in diameter and growing over 200 feet tall. On the middle day of a three-day, 17.5-mile backpacking trip, hiking from Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, my family explored tide pools and boulders coated with mussels, sea stars, and sea anemones, looked out on scores of stone pinnacles rising out of the ocean, and camped on a wilderness beach. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or the adults.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast,” and all stories about Olympic National Park at The Big Outside.

Score a popular permit using my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

In the Narrows of Paria Canyon, Utah-Arizona.
In the Narrows of Paria Canyon, Utah-Arizona.

Backpacking Paria Canyon

By our second day backpacking Paria Canyon, in southern Utah and northern Arizona, our kids had become so inured to the frequent, shallow puddles of quicksand that it became a game for them to stomp around in them, laughing and shrieking, to see if anyone could get stuck.

We were deep in Paria’s narrows, hiking in the shade of canyon walls that make humans look tiny.

At every bend and twist in the canyon, we’d look up at another sheer, multi-colored wall or huge, arch-like formations eroding into a cliff, and come upon the occasional hanging garden of moss and greenery where a spring gushed from cracks in solid rock.

The desert Southwest harbors many lovely canyons, but few compare with Paria Canyon for length, variety, and sustained beauty.

See my story “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Explore the best of the Southwest on “The 12 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks” and
The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

A young girl at Precipice Lake in Sequoia National Park.
My daughter, Alex, at Precipice Lake in Sequoia National Park.

Backpacking the High Sierra Trail, Sequoia National Park

We weren’t far into a nearly 40-mile family backpacking trip in Sequoia before I realized it promised to be one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever hiked. Part of one of the biggest chunks of contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48, it’s home to many of the highest mountains outside Alaska, lonely backcountry groves of giant sequoias, and crystal-clear alpine lakes.

On our third day, hiking the High Sierra Trail from Bearpaw Meadow toward 10,700-foot Kaweah Gap, we traversed a cliff face hundreds of feet above the deep Middle Fork Kaweah River. We stopped for lunch and a swim at the Hamilton Lakes, which are almost completely enclosed by towering cliffs and pinnacles. By late afternoon, we found campsites at Precipice Lake at 10,400 feet, its glassy, green and blue waters reflecting white and golden cliffs (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park.”

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A backpacker on the Royal Arch Loop in the Grand Canyon.
Kris Wagner backpacking the Royal Arch Loop in the Grand Canyon.

Three More Days in the Grand Canyon

Deer Creek Falls on the Grand Canyon's Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.
Deer Creek Falls on the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.

If the Grand Canyon looms large in this story—and in others at The Big Outside, like “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest”—that’s because it looms even larger in my perspective and that of probably every backpacker who ventures into it. In fact, besides hiking rim to rim to rim (described above), I can think of at least a few more days of backpacking in the Big Ditch that rank among my most scenic ever.

Those would include the second day on the very rugged and infrequently hiked, 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, which featured just about everything that makes backpacking in the Grand Canyon unique: sweeping views, a sandy beach beside the Colorado River, an intimate side canyon with lush hanging gardens, a high solitude quotient—even some spicy scrambling and a fun rappel off a cliff—not to mention one of the best campsites in the entire canyon, below Royal Arch (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

It would also include the day that two friends and I traversed most of the Escalante Route, one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, on a 74-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Lipan Point. And I’d have to include day three on yet another rugged and remote GC hike, the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, which features some of the canyon’s loveliest waterfalls, narrows, and desert oases.

See my stories “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop,” and “8 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do.”

Get my expert e-guides to “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” and an easier alternative, “The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

A backpacker on the Rockwall Trail, Kootenay National Park, Canada.
My wife, Penny, backpacking the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park, Canada.

Backpacking the Rockwall Trail, Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies

My family’s second day on the 34-mile (54k) Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park was long and hard—12 miles over two 7,000-foot passes—but we had the most effective painkiller: views that even impressed our 14- and 12-year-old kids. One of Canada’s most popular and stunningly scenic hikes—and really deserving a spot on the list of the world’s finest treks—it follows the base of an almost unbroken limestone cliff up to 3,000 feet (900m) tall. We started that day below 1,154-foot (352m) Helmet Falls, one of the tallest in the Canadian Rockies, and hiked to Numa Creek, crossing meadows carpeted in wildflowers below hanging glaciers, and sighting four mountain goats at Tumbling Pass.

See my story about backpacking the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park.

Stay drier and safer. See “The Best Rain Jackets For Hiking and Backpacking.”

A hiker near the summit of Galdhøpiggen (2469m), the highest peak in Norway.
My wife, Penny, near the summit of Galdhøpiggen (2469m), the highest peak in Norway.

Climbing Norway’s Highest Peak

Under a brilliantly blue morning sky in the highest mountains in northern Europe, my wife, Penny, our friend, Jeff Wilhelm, and I started a 5,000-foot climb of the highest peak in Norway, 8,100-foot Galdhøpiggen. It was the final day of a 60-mile trek in Jotunheimen National Park—another trip which every day could legitimately be the one chosen for this story—and we could have lounged in our last hut, but were glad we didn’t.

Ascending a treeless mountainside, we gained increasingly longer views of a rugged, Arctic-looking landscape vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, and wildflowers, where cliffs and peaks look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe. At the chilly, windblown summit, we stood above a sea of snowy mountains and glaciers. And, of course, it being Europe, there was a hut at the summit where we could buy hot cocoas.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park” and all stories about international trips at The Big Outside.

Get the right gear for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

 

A hiker on her way up Thompson Peak, the highest in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.
My wife, Penny, hiking Thompson Peak (the summit in upper right of photo), the highest in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

Hiking the Crown of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

We started hiking in a cool, morning fog that hung thickly over the Sawtooth Valley, headed for a very small and airy block of stone that lay beyond sight about 6.5 horizontal miles and 4,200 vertical feet in the distance: the 10,751-foot summit of Thompson Peak, the highest in Idaho’s Sawtooths. Four-and-a-half hours later, we had the crown of the Sawtooths to ourselves on that July day, with a view of the entire Sawtooth Range and the White Cloud Mountains across the valley. That was the most recent of my several trips up Thompson, a rugged, partly off-trail hike that starts out nice and then knocks your socks off long before you reach the summit.

See my story “The Roof of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Hiking Thompson Peak,” my e-guide “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooth Mountains at The Big Outside.

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20 thoughts on “My 35 Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever”

  1. Ooof this is great. And adding lots of new notes for my dream planning. Found you as I’m looking to do Rockwall this year.

    I’ve done a few of the ones listed here but I’m not a hiker like you. Some of your photos made my stomach drop with the exposure (cliff edges with a thin path? Eeeep no).

    Come back to Canada and do our Great Divide Trail and then give us info!! Hahaha. Fyi, if you’re back this way, crypt lake trail (day hike) is really lovely, as is Jasper Skyline, of course. Also in remote Georgia I really liked the landscapes and historical mix of the Mestia to Ushgali hike.

    Reply
    • Thanks, Ali, glad you like this story. I actually backpacked the Skyline Trail in Canada’s Jasper National Park last August, it’s beautiful. And now having hiked a few pieces of the Great Divide Trail, I would really like to return to Canada and hike all of it. I hope to be able to accept your invitation in the near future!

      Reply
  2. I have been following your blog for a long time, you have great photos!

    Thank you for the hiking ideas, I live in Europe and I advise you to get acquainted with the Carpathians. These are not the highest points in Europe. But they can offer you gorgeous views and ethnic flavor and local cuisine, which allows you to save on food on a hike.

    Also thank you for the ideas for traveling to Italy and Iceland!

    Reply
  3. Hiking the Kungsleden Trail from Nikoloktu to Abisko Station in Arctic Sweden was mind-blowing. It’s a hut-to-hut hike. Lapdanalds reindeer burgers at the 5km mark are not to be passed by. Start by flying to Kiruna. The Bishops Arms hotel/bar has a fantastic selection of Belgian beers.

    Reply
  4. Michael,

    An inspiring list of spectacular places to at least contemplate as we race towards the New Year of 2021. By the way Happy New Year to you, your family, friends and readers of your excellent blog.

    I have had to good fortune to trundle along several of the paths you brought to us. And, as you know, as few others. Thus far the trek up the Baltaro Glacier into the Concordia and then on to K2 Basecamp is the most spectacular place I have had the good fortune to not only see but experience. It is not just being in presence, and often touching distance, of so many iconic mountains like the Trango Towers, The Cathederal, Masherbrum, the Gasherbrums, Broad Peak and of course K2 plus innumerable other drop dead gorgeous mountains. The place has a life and spirit like no other that I have visited. I concluded that the Karakoram Mountains are like a teenager that is constantly growing and changing as it grows toward maturity. I have had the good fortune to explore many of the magnificent mountain ranges of the world but none are as vibrant and dynamic. The almost constant roar of landslides, avalanches, cirques collapsing, ice dams on glacial lakes suddenly collapsing and a lake disappearing before your eyes while the resulting river is tearing downstream pushing and dragging boulders the size of pickup trucks while sounding like a runaway train.

    I encourage you and your readers to include the K2 Basecamp trek to your lists. But be careful because you may find yourself returning because there are myriad other equally stunning places in the Karakoram like the trek over Snow Lake which takes you past the famous Ogre which, like K2, is one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb. Doug Scott’s book of his and Chris Bonnington’s mis-adventures on the Ogre is legendary.

    Again, Happy New Year!

    Reply
  5. Wow, more hikes to add to our bucket list! I came across your blog while researching our trip to Alaska and researching other “travel” blogs for ideas for mine (just getting started). You have some great resources! We travel quite a bit to the National Parks in the western part of the US (Rockies and west, except we have made it to South Dakota), and up to British Columbia and Alberta. Thanks for all your great info! Lisa

    Reply