family backpacking

A backpacker descending the trail off Maze Overlook in the Maze District, Canyonlands National Park.

Why and When to Spend More on Hiking and Backpacking Gear

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By Michael Lanza

You need a new backpack, backpacking tent, rain jacket, boots, or a sleeping bag. You’ve read reviews. You’ve winnowed your short list to a handful of possible choices—with a significant difference in prices. That’s when you struggle with the question that pushes the frugality button in all of us: Why should I spend more?

This story will explain why some gear is more expensive and give you specific advice on buying five big-ticket items: packs, tents, rain jackets, shoes and boots, and sleeping bags.

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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 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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Middle Cramer Lake, 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 eighth backpacking trip there in the past 16 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, six of us, family and friends, spent four days hiking about 36 miles from the Bright Angel Trailhead to the Hermit Trailhead off the South Rim, including a trail with a reputation as one of the canyon’s most difficult: the Boucher (photos in the gallery, below). Hiking more than nine miles and about 4,000 feet up it on our last day (and you would not want to hike down it), we found it matched its reputation as strenuous, with sections of scrambling over rockslide debris and a lot of steep uphill.

But it also matched its reputation for beauty, with incomparably Grand Canyon-scale vistas from the moment you step onto the trail, culminating with a long traverse on the rim of The Esplanade, overlooking a huge swath of the canyon (and seeing one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve hiked past). Plus, we traversed an excellent section of the Tonto Trail, including the stretch between Hermit Canyon and Boucher Canyon that sees much less human traffic (photo above).

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

Backpacking—and Sandbagging—Utah’s Uinta Highline Trail

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By Michael Lanza

The strongest signal that late afternoon has begun its inexorably precipitous October slide into a freezing evening comes as my son, Nate, and I step from almost-warm sunshine into the deep shade of a peak whose shadow tops out at over 13,000 feet in eastern Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness. The wind cranks up in volume as we continue upward, wearing shell jackets with hoods up, wool hats, and gloves while carrying full backpacks uphill at a lung-busting elevation—and still feeling just marginally warm enough.

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