Ask Me: The Best Backpacking Trip in Zion National Park

Michael,

Say you have one last trip to Zion: a 3- to 4-night backpacking trip with a group of men in average condition anywhere in the park.

What trails do you have to see one more time? (Insert any insider details here.)

What month do you go?

You’ve sparked something in myself and a friend to see that place. I know permits are crucial, we’re already planning. I’ve read your articles that mostly include all members of the family (which I respect). Does the itinerary change when it’s just guys?

Thanks so much,

Steven
Longview, Texas Continue reading →

Trump May Shrink Some Monuments. Here’s What We Could Lose

By Michael Lanza

As my friend David and I set out from the Peavine Canyon Trailhead on a 40-mile, mid-May backpacking trip through southeastern Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness—part of the Bears Ears National Monument now in the gunsights of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who’s proposing that President Donald Trump radically shrink this and other national monuments, something no president has ever done—a young cowboy rode up on a horse. He launched into a conversation that lasted just a few minutes, but spoke volumes about the broad chasm dividing the values and motives of people like Zinke, Trump, and others who want to diminish these lands from those of us who use and cherish them. Continue reading →

3-Minute Read: Backpacking Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness

By Michael Lanza

About five miles down Woodenshoe Canyon, in southeast Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness, David stops on the trail ahead of me and points to a barely distinguishable feature in the cliffs above us. We drop our backpacks and follow a faint path in the sand and up onto sandstone slabs, scrambling and zigzagging our way up onto a wide ledge below an overhanging cliff face. In the shaded alcove below that overhang, we stop before the ruins of a tiny, one-room stone structure perhaps large enough for two people to lie down inside, built centuries before Columbus arrived in the New World. Continue reading →

Photo Gallery: Hiking the Kolob Canyons of Zion National Park

By Michael Lanza

Hiking in the Kolob Canyons area of Zion National Park, you get down to business with five-star scenery with your first step from your car. At the Lee Pass Trailhead, Taylor Creek Trailhead, or the Kolob Canyons Viewpoint, you’re immediately greeted with views of crimson cliffs soaring hundreds of feet tall. Then it just keeps getting better. Continue reading →

Great Trip: Backpacking Coyote Gulch in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

By Michael Lanza

Whether you’re an expert desert backpacker, taking a first multi-day hike in the Southwest canyon country, or heading out with your family, the three-day hike of Coyote Gulch has everything you’d want in a canyon trip: soaring, redrock canyon walls that go for miles, surprisingly lush greenery, a year-round creek that saves you from having to carry a lot of water, and relatively easy hiking. Little wonder that this tributary canyon of the Escalante River, in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, has earned a reputation as a classic. Continue reading →