Hermit Trail

A backpacker hiking the Italy Pass Trail through Granite Park in the John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra, California.

Big Scenery, No Crowds: 12 Top Backpacking Trips For Solitude

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By Michael Lanza

We all want our wilderness backpacking trips to have two sometimes conflicting qualities: mind-blowing scenery, but also few other people around. A high degree of solitude somehow makes the backcountry feel bigger and wilder and the views more breathtaking. However unrealistic the notion may be, we like to believe we have some stunning corner of nature to ourselves. But in the real world, if you head out into popular mountains in July or August or in canyon country in spring or fall, you’ll probably have company—maybe more than you prefer.

Not on these trips, though.

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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 hiker on Half Dome's cable route in Yosemite National Park.

Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes

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By Michael Lanza

Imagine this: You’re heading out on a long, beautiful hike deep in the backcountry, but instead of a full backpack, you carry a light daypack. You’ve avoided hassles with getting a backcountry permit and there’s no camp to set up and pack up. I love backpacking—and I do it a lot. But sometimes, I prefer to knock off a weekend-length—or longer—hike in one big day.

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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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A hiker on the Taylor Creek Trail in Zion National Park.

The 18 Best Uncrowded National Park Dayhikes

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By Michael Lanza

The best-known dayhikes in America’s national parks are certainly worth adding to your outdoor-adventure CV. Summits and hiking trails like Angels Landing in Zion, Half Dome in Yosemite, the North Rim Trail overlooking the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Glacier National Park’s Highline Trail, the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail and many others represent the highlights of the crown jewels of the National Park System. And for that very reason, unless you take those hikes outside the peak seasons or times of day, you can expect to encounter a lot of other people.

But there are other national park dayhikes that remain off the radar of many hikers—so they attract a tiny fraction of the number of people flocking to the popular trails. This story will point you toward many of the best of them.

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