Yosemite National Park

A backpacker hiking the Uinta Highline Trail west of Red Knob Pass, High Uintas Wilderness, Utah.

12 Expert Tips for Finding Solitude When Backpacking

by

By Michael Lanza

Solitude has always reigned as one of the holy grails of backpacking: We all dream of finding that lonely campsite deep in the wilderness with an amazing vista, or hiking for miles or days encountering few or even no other people on the trail. Unfortunately, reality often conflicts with expectations for many backpackers when they discover that the dream trip they’ve been anticipating for months was apparently a dream trip for an awful lot of other people, too.

But the truth is that there are many ways to find backcountry solitude because the odds work in your favor: Most wilderness trails have few or no people on them most of the time. The search for solitude is less a needle-in-a-haystack conundrum and more a matter of thinking outside the box: You simply have to understand where and when to look for it—and stop thinking like everyone else thinks.

Read on

A hiker atop Half Dome, high above Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park.

Hiking Half Dome: How to Do It Right and Get a Permit

by

By Michael Lanza

No hike in the country really compares with Yosemite’s Half Dome. The long, very strenuous, challenging, and incredibly scenic day trip to one of the most iconic and sought-after summits in America begins with ascending the Mist Trail through the shower constantly raining down from 317-foot Vernal Fall and below thunderous, 594-foot Nevada Fall. Climbing the cable route up several hundred feet of steep granite slab delivers a thrill that partly explains the hike’s enormous popularity.

Read on

A hiker on the summit of Mount Hoffmann, Yosemite National Park.

The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite

by

By Michael Lanza

The natural beauty, variety, pristine quality, and scale of America’s National Park System have no parallel in the world. Still, a handful of flagship parks rise above the rest—including, unquestionably, Yosemite. Created in 1890, our third national park harbors some of the most breathtaking and inspiring wild lands in the entire parks system. And you can reach much of Yosemite’s finest scenery on dayhikes.

Read on

Backpackers hiking to Island Lake in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

How to Decide Where to Go Backpacking

by

By Michael Lanza

You can find abundant information online offering advice on how to plan a backpacking trip (including my 12 expert tips)—some of it good and some, frankly, not very thorough or simply clickbait created by sites lacking any expertise in backpacking. But there’s little advice out there on how to choose where to go backpacking—and many backpackers fail to consider key aspects of trips that greatly affect their experience: They follow an essentially backward decision-making process.

While this may sound esoteric and irrelevant to you, I’ve learned that how you decide where to go greatly affects how well your trip goes—it really does matter. The tips below explain the thought process I follow that make my trips much more enjoyable and will do the same for you.

Read on

A hiker in the North Fork Cascade Canyon, Grand Teton National Park.

The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes

by

By Michael Lanza

America’s most stunning landscapes are protected within our 63 national parks, and some of the very finest scenery within our national heritage can be reached on dayhikes. Some of these hikes you may not have done yet or heard of. Others are famous, but there’s a reason for that: They are mind-blowingly gorgeous, so they stand out even in parks with multiple, five-star footpaths. You take these hikes for a one-of-a-kind experience.

Read on