America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
Backpacking in the Grand Canyon, Glacier, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, North Cascades, and Mount Rainier (lead photo, above) national parks. Hiking to Yosemite’s waterfalls. Paddling the Everglades and sea kayaking Glacier Bay. Rock climbing in Joshua Tree, and cross-country skiing in Yellowstone. In one magical year, we took 11 national park adventures with our kids, sharing experiences that expanded their understanding of their world, times filled with joy and wonder.
By Michael Lanza
From Lookout Point, along the North Rim Trail in Yellowstone National Park, you gaze down hundreds of feet into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, with its crumbling walls of golden, gray, and cream-colored rock and patches of evergreens framing the roaring river. Just upstream, 308-foot-tall Lower Yellowstone Falls explodes through a notch in the cliffs, sending a plume of water and mist shooting into the canyon. Every time I see it, as I did again earlier this fall, I feel the same sense of awe that I felt the first time I saw this view.
Big more than that, I think about the foresight behind the creation of America’s national parks—what the writer Wallace Stegner called “the best idea we ever had”—including the first one, Yellowstone. That’s one of the many things I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving day.
Hi Mike,
We are planning a trip across the country in July to Seattle/Tacoma. We have six kids (ages one to 12). We’re planning to drive all the way across and back in about a month. There are lots of places we’d like to experience, but we don’t want to just spend 30 nights in 30 different places, so we are planning spend two to three nights in the most interesting places and four nights in and around Yellowstone. We aren’t campers, don’t boat/canoe, and while we enjoy hikes with the kids, anything more than a few miles (or less if there is significant elevation change) is challenging. Given your experience and all of our constraints, I was curious which parks/areas you might recommend we visit (vs. better to visit later when the kids are older and some of those constraints are removed).
Hi Michael,
I very much enjoy the stories posted on your website. My friend and I are planning a winter ski trip to Yellowstone in early March and your advice would be much appreciated. We’re looking for something in the 4-day, 3-night range that would be self-guided. We’re moderately experienced winter campers and have completed an 8-day backcountry ski trip in Denali together. Having read your post about the Bechler Canyon route, it reminded me of a similar storm experience in Denali and I can’t say I’m looking to repeat the experience of slogging through waste deep snow at less than 1/2 a mile per hour :-). It’s also a longer trip than our time allows.
Do you have any suggestions for a 4-day winter trip in Yellowstone?
Michael,
I’ve been checking out your excellent backpacking posts and think you may be the right person to help me out with my search. My partner and I have taken a year off work to travel around the U.S. We had a great time hiking and canyoneering in Escalante. So now we’re in the Northwest, and want to find a great wilderness base camp where we can set up for a few days and explore the surrounding area. I’ve heard great things about Idaho, but Washington, Montana and Wyoming are all within striking distance, too. So much choice! If you have any recommendations for us—even if it’s just a wilderness area to hone in on—they would be most gratefully received.
Thanks,
Brian
London, England