Montana backpacking

A backpacker hiking the Dawson Pass Trail in Glacier National Park.

Backpacking Glacier National Park—a Photo Gallery

by

By Michael Lanza

If you have ever backpacked in Glacier National Park, you know you want to return. If you haven’t yet, then isn’t it time? One of America’s flagship national parks, it’s a must-see destination for backpackers because of the eye-popping scenery, remoteness, and an extremely rare variety of megafauna—including mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, and black and grizzly bears—as the photo gallery below from my numerous trips in Glacier shows. It includes images from my most-recent trip, a nearly 70-mile hike a week ago through some of the park’s premier scenery on its east side.

Read on

A backpacker hiking the Dawson Pass Trail in Glacier National Park.

Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park

by

By Michael Lanza

In the second week of September, the cool air in the shade of the forest nips at our cheeks as we leave our first night’s camp beside Glenns Lake in the backcountry of Glacier National Park, starting at a reasonably early hour for a day where we will walk nearly 16 miles and 6,000 feet of combined uphill and downhill. I’m hiking in a fleece hoodie, pants, and gloves and my friends Pam Solon and Jeff Wilhelm are similarly layered up. Once the sun reaches us within an hour, we’ll strip down to shorts and T-shirts.

Read on

A backpacker above the Belly River Valley in Glacier National Park.

The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park

by

By Michael Lanza

The three bighorn sheep lifted their heavily horned heads to gaze at us, but never budged from their beds of grass amid boulders on a mountainside above the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park. The mountain goats we saw on various occasions gave us little more attention than that. And fortunately, the grizzly bear sow with two cubs in tow that passed within about 30 feet of us—an encounter of less than 10 seconds that is etched into my memory forever—gave us no more than a passing glance.

Read on

A backpacker on the Piegan Pass/Continental Divide Trail in Glacier National Park.

Photo Gallery: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier National Park

by

By Michael Lanza

After more than three decades of wilderness backpacking all over the U.S. and around the world, rarely does a new trip immediately leap into my all-time top 10. But that’s exactly what happened when three friends and I backpacked a north-south traverse of 94 miles through Glacier National Park in a glorious week in September, mostly following the Continental Divide Trail.

Read on

A backpacker above the Belly River Valley in Glacier National Park.

Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop

by

By Michael Lanza

Never mind that it was the seventh straight bluebird morning of backpacking in mountains that constantly look surreal, like a painted mural backdrop in a movie. It didn’t matter that the trip had been a parade of wildlife. We even forgot about the heaviness in our legs from 15-mile days.

The menacing snarl piercing the silence seized our full attention.

Read on