backpacking Grand Canyon

Backpackers hiking the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia National Park.

The 10 Best National Park Backpacking Trips

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By Michael Lanza

Olympic, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Glacier, Zion, Grand Teton, Mount Rainier, Canyonlands, Sequoia, Great Smoky Mountains. To backpackers, these names read like a list of America’s greatest cathedrals in nature—and no surprise, because these parks harbor some of the most scenic wilderness trails in the country. Hike any of them and it will earn a spot on your personal top-10 list. Knock off every trip on this list and you will experience some of the finest landscapes not only in the nation, but on the planet.

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America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips

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By Michael Lanza

What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a few days and half of the hikes on this list are under 50 miles. Another factor that truly matters is a wilderness experience: All 10 are in national parks or wilderness areas.

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A backpacker hiking west from Porcupine Pass on the Uinta Highline Trail, High Uintas Wilderness, Utah.

17 Photos From 2024 That Will Inspire Your Next Adventure

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By Michael Lanza

How was your 2024? I hope you got outdoors as much as possible with the people you care about—and you enjoyed adventures that inspired you. I’m sharing in this story photos from several backpacking and hiking trips I took this year, from the Grand Canyon in April and southern Utah in May to the Tetons and Montana’s Beartooths in August, Colorado’s San Juans in September, northern Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness in early October—and culminating with three classic Great Walks and dayhiking in New Zealand in late November and December.

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Backpackers hiking the Tonto Trail above Sapphire Canyon in the Grand Canyon.

‘Let’s Talk Water:’ Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems

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By Michael Lanza

The April sun seems to dangle just over our heads like a giant grow light—or perhaps a very, very big and hot interrogation lamp—as we hike down the Grand Canyon’s South Bass Trail, a steep path littered with enough ankle-rolling stones to keep pulling our eyes from the unfathomable expanse of canyon beyond us back to the unstable ground at our feet. We all lumber under packs heavier than any of us usually has any reason to carry: Including more than 10 pounds of water and 11 pounds of food, mine tips the scales at around 40 pounds. Everyone else hauls a similar load.

And we will carry them thousands of feet downhill on this unkind-to-ankles footpath, eventually to search for today’s lone, uncertain source of water that we may or may not find, so that we can refill the bladders and bottles we’ve sucked empty in this desert heat, allowing us to again shoulder ungainly burdens and continue walking what will total over 14 hot miles before we set our packs down for the night.

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A backpacker on the Clear Creek Trail, Grand Canyon.

Finding Solitude Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Utah Flats and Clear Creek

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By Michael Lanza

After descending seven miles and over 4,800 feet on the Grand Canyon’s always-stunning South Kaibab Trail and crossing the footbridge to the north side of the Colorado River, we follow the path through the Bright Angel backpacker campground to its end. There, not marked by any sign and not obvious to anyone unaware of it, a faint path leads through low bushes. Within moments, it turns and runs straight up a steep canyon wall of cacti and other desert flora, loose scree, and boulders, ascending about 1,500 vertical feet in the first mile, beyond what we can see from the bottom of it.

Gazing up with a volatile mix of excitement and trepidation, we start a long uphill grind.

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