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Hi, I'm Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside and former Northwest Editor at Backpacker magazine. Click my photo to learn more about me and my blog. Sign up for my free email newsletter in the blue box above. Click on Subscribe Now! in the main menu (top right) to get full access to all of my stories on America's best backpacking, hiking, and outdoor adventures. And click on Ask Me in the main menu to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
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Tag Archives: Monument Creek
5 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do
Todd Arndt backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.
By Michael Lanza
This is, in a way, a story about addiction. Or a love affair. Or both. Because those are the best metaphors I can come up with for how the Grand Canyon consistently 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 scale 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 bighorn sheep than to bipedal primates.
I’m going to show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning for spring or fall trips. Continue reading →
Extreme Hiking: America’s Best Hard Dayhikes
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. There’s no camp to set up and pack up, because you’re not backpacking, you’re dayhiking. Yes, I love backpacking—living in the wilderness, getting into that mindset of not knowing or caring what day it is or what’s going on in civilization. And I do it a lot. But sometimes, I prefer to knock off a weekend-length—or longer—hike in one big day. Continue reading →
One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon
By Michael Lanza
There’s not another hiker in sight as my friend David Ports and I start down the Hermit Trail on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, even though it’s nearly 8 a.m., hardly an early hour to hit the trail. And that’s just the first conspicuously unusual circumstance at the outset of our hike. The second obvious oddity this morning is that it’s overcast—a welcome sight here—and actually chilly enough that we’re wearing the light jackets we brought.
But most unusual aspect of this hike is that we’re only carrying light daypacks—and cruising along almost effortlessly—for a walk of nearly 25 miles, with some 4,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. That’s because we’ll do it all today. Continue reading →
One Photo, One Story: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon
By Michael Lanza
In the Grand Canyon, where vistas reaching for miles tend to make you feel very, very small, hiking an inordinately long distance in a day sometimes seems like the only way to get a sense that you’re making any progress. (Think hard enough and you can rationalize any crazy endeavor.) On a 25-mile dayhike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead—on a day when clouds and sprinkles granted us blessed relief from the usual searing heat of mid-May—I got this shot of my friend David Ports as we passed through the shattered canyon of Monument Creek, just beyond the fragile-looking spire that inspired the creek’s name. Continue reading →