Middle Fork Salmon River

Michael Lanza's family sea kayaking in Johns Hopkins Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park.

7 Tips For Getting Your Family on Outdoor Adventure Trips

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By Michael Lanza

In the Digital Era, the idea of families spending sustained time outdoors—actually taking trips built around some outdoor adventure enjoyed together—can feel like a wonderful aspiration that’s awfully hard to achieve. But that lifestyle is a reality for many families—and always has been for mine—and one that brings parents and children together for long periods of time (hours or even days!) in beautiful places in nature for an activity that’s genuinely fun and, most importantly, offline and unplugged.

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A backpacker above the Redfish Valley of Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.

Idaho Wilderness Trail Maps and Overview

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By Michael Lanza

Want to hike the most remote and wild long-distance trail in the Lower 48? The Idaho Wilderness Trail stretches for 296 miles across three central Idaho wilderness areas that comprise nearly four million acres. If these three wildernesses were contained within one national park, it would be America’s third largest and the biggest outside Alaska. This article offers a primer on the IWT and links to digital maps of its four stages.

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Whitewater rafters in Cliffside Rapid, Middle Fork Salmon River, Idaho.

Reunions of the Heart on Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River

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By Michael Lanza Sitting in my inflatable kayak as our flotilla of more than a dozen rafts and kayaks launches on our first morning on Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River, I just drift and wait. And it takes only a moment before the feeling sinks in deeper than the warm sunshine on my skin: serenity. The profound peacefulness …

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A hiker above the Middle Fork Salmon River in Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

America’s Newest Long Trail: The Idaho Wilderness Trail

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By Michael Lanza

We emerge from our tents on a mild August morning to discover that the waters of the upper and middle Cramer Lakes, in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, have transformed overnight. Where last evening these lakes on either side of our campsite had been rippled by mountain breezes, now they lie perfectly still; they are glassy mirrors offering inverted, sharp reflections of the forest and jagged peaks surrounding the lakes. A few hours later, our backpacking party of three parents and six teenagers hikes across wildflower meadows and past alpine tarns to proudly reach a mountain pass at over 9,000 feet on the Cramer Divide, overlooking a turbulent sea of razor peaks stretching to every horizon.

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Rafters on the Middle Fork Salmon River in Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

Photo Gallery: Floating Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River

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As our big group of several families and friends disembarked from our flotilla of rafts and kayaks and wandered up to our campsite on a sandy beach beside the river, I started surveying facial expressions. We had just finished the first day of a six-day float trip down Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River—a day filled with running rapids, swimming, cliff jumping, fishing, and drifting lazily down one of the West’s most lovely river canyons—and I wondered: What was everyone thinking?

It didn’t take long to ascertain the collective mood: All I saw were smiles, laughter, and the kind of deep calm most of us don’t experience often enough. This did not surprise me. I knew from experience that’s the effect the Middle Fork has on people.

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