Bryce Canyon National Park

A backpacker above Crack-in-the-Wall, Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah.

Playing the Memory Game in Escalante, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon

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By Michael Lanza

Below a deep gash in a 50-foot-tall cliff of golden sandstone, shaded from the low, late-afternoon sun of early spring, I scramble up a steep slab using in-cut holds carved into the soft rock. Ten or 12 feet off the ground, I pull myself over the lip of a ledge to peer into a narrow cut in the earth, a hidden geologic oddity that lures in a certain type of hiker for one reason: because it’s barely wide enough for humans to squeeze through. And I have to smile.

I’m grinning first of all because I’ve found just what we had hoped to see. Water sometimes pools in a couple of potholes near the mouth of this slot canyon, and the air temperature today feels a little too cool to soak ourselves in cold water. Today, though, the sandy-bottomed, giant stone teacups are dry. But secondly, touching me on a more personal level, this canyon’s entrance looks much as I remember it from the first time I hiked through here, 16 years ago this month.

In less than two hours, my impression of this place will be almost completely remade.

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A young boy hiking the Chesler Park Trail in the Needles District of Utah's Canyonlands National Park.

7 Great Southwest Hiking Trips You Can Take Without Planning Ahead

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By Michael Lanza

The Grand Canyon. The Narrows in Zion National Park. Paria Canyon. The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. These are among the best backpacking trips in the Southwest—arguably in the country. But you have to plan those trips and apply for a backcountry permit months in advance. If you haven’t done that, your chances are slim for ticking off one of them in the next couple of months.

No worries. I have a Plan B for you. (In fact, I have Plans B, C, D, E, F, G, and H for you.)

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A hiker on the Observation Point Trail in Zion National Park.

12 Photos From 2018 That Will Inspire You to Get Outdoors

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By Michael Lanza

What adventures did you take in 2018 that inspired you? I hope you enjoyed at least a few. I did. The 12 photos in this story are favorite images from some of the trips I took over the past year. They included hiking in Zion (twice) and Bryce Canyon national parks; backpacking off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in spring and returning in fall to dayhike the canyon rim to rim to rim over two magnificent days; rock climbing in Yosemite; backpacking and scrambling peaks in Idaho’s Sawtooths; and putting an exclamation point on the year with a 90-mile traverse of Glacier National Park on the Continental Divide Trail.

Scroll through these photos, each of which is accompanied by a short anecdote from the trip and links to existing stories at The Big Outside. I hope they help inspire you to start planning your adventures for 2019. After all, these are the experiences that give meaning to our lives.

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A boy hiking Angels Landing in Zion National Park.

Photo Gallery: Hiking and Backpacking Utah’s National Parks

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By Michael Lanza

All of America’s 59 national parks possess special qualities and scenery, without a doubt. But southern Utah’s concentration of unique and awe-inspiring landscapes sets its five parks apart from the rest—and they’re each quite different from one another. You should see them all, and a prime season for hiking the Southwest is just around the corner. In this blog post, I’ll share many photos from Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion, and tips on the best ways to explore these parks.

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Tundra in autumn, Denali National Park, Alaska.

Photographing All 59 National Parks: 5 Top Tips From QT Luong

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By Michael Lanza

The number of people who can say they’ve visited all 59 of America’s national parks comprise a fairly small club. Only one person has made large-format photographs in all of them. In the 400 vividly sharp images in his beautiful and inspiring, coffee-table book Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America’s National Parks, photographer QT Luong distills the results of more than 20 years and 300 trips hiking, paddling, diving, skiing, snowshoeing, and climbing in every park, every type of environment, every season, and at all times of day and night.

Now, in an interview with The Big Outside, Luong talks about this project and offers his top five tips for shooting outdoors, for photographers from amateurs to pros.

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