family backpacking

A backpacker above Liberty Lake on the Ruby Crest Trail, Ruby Mountains, Nevada.

20 Great Backpacking Trips You Can Still Take in 2026

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By Michael Lanza

So you didn’t plan months in advance to reserve a permit for backpacking this summer in Glacier, Yosemite, on the Teton Crest Trail, Wonderland Trail, or John Muir Trail or in another popular national park? Or you tried to reserve a permit but failed? Now what? Where can you still go this year?

You’re in luck. This story describes 20 awesome backpacking trips you can still plan and take this year—because most of them don’t require a permit reservation, and in the case of Sequoia, Grand Canyon, Olympic, Yosemite, Great Smoky Mountains, and Capitol Reef national parks, where one is required, you can still obtain a backcountry permit for this summer or fall.

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Penny Beach backpacking Trail 7092 to the pass on the Edith-Imogene Lakes Divide in the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

5 Reasons You Must Backpack Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

Chances are that, by now, you’ve heard of Idaho’s Sawtooths—having typed that name into a search box may be the reason you’ve landed on this story. Maybe you’ve been intrigued at what you’ve heard or images you’ve seen from Idaho’s best-known mountain range. Perhaps you’ve even been there and the experience has only amplified your curiosity to see more of this range.

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A backpacker hiking the Tonto Trail from Hermit Canyon to Boucher Canyon in the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon’s Best Backpacking Trips—A Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

I returned to the Grand Canyon yet again in April, my ninth backpacking trip there in the past 17 years. Any psychologist, behavioral scientist, or criminologist would describe that as an established pattern of behavior. I confess: I can’t get enough of that place. This time, a group of family and friends, including my son, Nate, spent five days hiking about 54 miles from the Tanner Trailhead to the Grandview Trailhead off the South Rim, including a route with a reputation as one of the canyon’s most difficult: the Escalante (photos in the gallery, below). Four of us, all accustomed to difficult backcountry terrain, found it matched its reputation for loose sections and a lot of steep uphill, including one scramble up a cliff; we spent about seven hours covering nine miles on it. And our last day consisted of hiking more than 12 miles and about 5,700 feet uphill. A typical Grand Canyon adventure.

But our entire hike also delivered the typical, incomparably Grand Canyon-scale vistas from start to finish, culminating with the long ascent of the Grandview Trail, overlooking a huge swath of the canyon.

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A backpacker at a waterfall on the Deer Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.

The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest

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By Michael Lanza

We all love the majesty of mountains. But the vividly colored, sometimes bizarre, often incomprehensible geology of the Southwest canyon country enchants and inspires us in ways that words can only begin to describe. And while you will find very worthy dayhikes and even roadside eye candy in classic parks like Grand Canyon, Zion, and Canyonlands, you really have to put on a backpack and probe more deeply into those parks—and other canyon-country gems you may not know much about—to get a full sense of the scale, details, and hidden mysteries of these mystical landscapes.

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A backpacker hiking down the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon.

10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do

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By Michael Lanza

This is, in a way, a story about obsession. Or a love affair. Or both. Those metaphors best describe how the Grand Canyon constantly lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips.

It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive immensity of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to rattlesnakes and scorpions than bipedal primates.

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