Utah

A backpacker enjoying the view from Maze Overlook in the Maze District, Canyonlands National Park.

Backpacking the Maze in Canyonlands—A Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

With our first steps on the descent from Maze Overlook into the labyrinth of mostly dry desert canyons that comprise one of the greatest geological oddities in the National Park System—the Maze in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park—we had to remove and pass our backpacks over a ledge drop of several feet. But that was nothing compared to what lay ahead. Following a wildly circuitous trail marked by cairns but otherwise unobvious and not visible on the slickrock, we passed below redrock cliffs and towers, traversed the sloping rims of giant bowls of rippled stone, and several more times passed our packs to scramble through tight crevices and downclimb a ladder of shallow footsteps chiseled into a sandstone cliff face.

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A young girl hiking in Sequoia National Park.

12 Wonderful National Park Adventures to Take With Kids

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By Michael Lanza

America’s 63 national parks preserve over 52 million acres of uniquely beautiful and genuinely awe-inspiring places in nature, and the payoff for our country’s foresight in protecting them is a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable experiences—many of them entirely feasible, safe, and really fun for families with kids of all ages. Best of all, you’ll find that sharing these adventures will create your best times together as a family, as they have for mine.

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A hiker on the Navajo Knobs Trail in Capitol Reef National Park, in southern Utah.

The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park

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By Michael Lanza

Chances are, when you think about hiking in southern Utah, Capitol Reef National Park does not come to mind first. Or maybe even second or third. Ask many hikers and national parks fans to list Utah’s Big 5 parks—the others being Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands—and Capitol Reef will probably bring up the rear on most people’s list. If they even remember it.

If you’re one of those people, this article will give you an entirely new impression of Capitol Reef and make you want to hike there. If you’ve already gotten a taste of the park and long to explore more of it, you’ll find below a tick list of hikes to take there.

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Eve Garry on Snowbird's Cirque Trail

The Best Hikes In Salt Lake City’s Wasatch Mountains

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It’s no secret that Salt Lake City offers some of the best and most-accessible hiking of any city in the U.S. Unfortunately, the digital overload from over a million people living next door to the famous Wasatch Mountains spawns “too much information:” Every conceivable route has been posted in countless places, making it easy to end up at the most viral option and hard to figure out which hikes will give you some solitude after a tough day at work, provide the type of challenge that you find worth training for, or definitely make your visiting family or first-time-hiker friend come back for more. 

With this assortment of classics and less-well-known gems, I hope to make that decision easier—by providing a manageable number of hikes with a broad range of difficulty levels, popularity, and scenery. I’m confident that anyone will find a hike they’ll love on this list (and probably several).

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Larch trees glowing with fall color, reflected in Rainbow Lake in the North Cascades National Park Complex.

15 Awesome Fall Backpacking Trips

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By Michael Lanza

The imminent end of summer always feels a little melancholy. After all, it marks the close of the prime season for getting into the mountains. But it also signals the beginning of a time of year when many mountain ranges become less crowded just as they’re hitting a sweet zone in terms of temperatures, the lack of bugs, and foliage color. Autumn also stands out as an ideal season for many Southwest hikes, with moderate temperatures and even some stunning color.

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