America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
Are you looking for great trip ideas for your bucket list? Well, you’ve clicked to the right place. This freshly updated story spotlights some of the most iconic wildlands in the U.S., including Glacier (photo above), Yosemite, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Sequoia national parks, southern Utah’s national parks and monuments, two wilderness areas, and two international adventures that may not be on your radar—all of them worthy of your bucket list.
By Michael Lanza
Backpackers planning a trip in popular national parks like Yosemite, Grand Teton, Glacier, Zion, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains, and others have one experience in common: A high percentage of them fail in their attempt to reserve a backcountry permit—and many probably don’t fully understand why. This story will answer your questions about how and when to reserve a backcountry permit in many parks—most of which have their own, unique reservation process and dates to make a reservation. And this story will share my expert tips on maximizing your chances of success.
Countless backpacking trips over more than three decades—during which I was the Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine for 10 years and have now run this blog for even longer—have taught me many tricks for landing coveted permits in flagship parks, which receive far more requests than they can fill. The strategies and knowledge of these permit processes outlined below will help you land a hard-to-get national park backcountry permit—just as they have worked countless times for me.
By Michael Lanza
Have you been disappointed by backpacking trips that were too hot or too cold or too buggy or too crowded, or too hard or long or short, or where permits weren’t available for the hike you really wanted, or where you had sketchy creek or snow crossings or other scary hazards, or you missed the wildflowers or foliage season or didn’t see much wildlife?
If so, this story is going to help you solve those problems.
By Michael Lanza
“Lots of bears at Grizzly Creek.”
Those words that a backcountry ranger spoke to me over the phone just yesterday echo through our heads now, as my friend Todd Arndt and I descend switchbacks from misleadingly named, 6,500-foot Easy Pass into the densely forested valley of Fisher Creek in Washington’s North Cascades National Park. Fog swirls around the jagged peaks nearly a vertical mile above us. Battleship-gray skies threaten a common meteorological occurrence in these mountains—rain—although we’ve seen only sprinkles and wind so far. We’re hiking downhill past ripe huckleberry bushes toward a thicket of slide alder and chest-high brush that the trail passes through—ideal bear habitat.
Michael,
I just stumbled upon The Big Outside! Wow! Amazing! Thank you for it! I LOVE it!
We have two girls, ages 11 and 9. Our first “major” backpacking trip last year was to Olympic National Park. Covered 30 miles in 8 days. Obstruction Point to Moose Lake, Third Beach to Toleak, and Graves Creek to O’Neil. What a trip! Each girl carried about 10 pounds and my husband and I each about 40 pounds. This trip took three to four months of planning. We fell in love with the Pacific Northwest.
Unfortunately, I dropped the ball this year in planning another fantastic westward-bound trip. I am scrambling to put something together. I am looking at North Cascades, primarily because they do not accept online reservations—first come, first served.