Photo Gallery: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites

By Michael Lanza

Everyone has favorite campsites from unforgettable backcountry trips. I’ve been fortunate to have pitched a tent in many great campsites over nearly three decades of backpacking and trekking all over the U.S. and the world. This photo gallery spotlights several camps from my list of 25 all-time favorite campsites, which I update regularly. Among them are jaw-dropping spots like Death Canyon Shelf along the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park, The Narrows in Zion National Park, Camp Schurman on Mount Rainier, Johns Hopkins Inlet in Alaska’s Glacier Bay, a couple of unbelievable spots in the Grand Canyon, and Precipice Lake in Sequoia National Park (photo above).

My 25 favorite campsites are located deep in the wilderness of beloved national parks like Yosemite, Glacier, and Canyonlands, along the John Muir Trail, and some spots you may not have heard of, from the East Fork of the Owyhee River to the Glacier Peak WildernessParia Canyon, and a couple different mind-blowing beaches deep in the canyons of the Green River.

I update my list of favorite backcountry campsites regularly, every time I visit another that deserves a spot on this inspirational roster. The gallery below, in fact, includes a photo from Titcomb Basin in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, where two friends and I spent a night during a 39-mile backpacking trip last September. I’ll write about that trip later this year at The Big Outside.

 

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, the creator of The Big Outside, recognized as a top outdoors blog by USA Today and others. I invite you to click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter, or enter your email address in the box in the left sidebar or at the bottom of this story. And follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

Check out the photos below and see whether you’ve been to some of my favorite campsites—or maybe discover that you want to visit some (or all) of them. Below the gallery, you’ll find a link to my feature story covering all 25 favorite backcountry campsites.

 

See photos of all 25 campsites (plus several that used to be on my list) in my story “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites,” which has links to existing stories about each of those campsites at The Big Outside, and trip-planning information on how to visit each one yourself.

 

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See all of my stories about family adventures and national park adventures at The Big Outside.

 

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