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The Best Trekking Poles of 2025
By Michael Lanza One of the most immutable truisms about hiking is this: Backpackers, dayhikers, climbers, mountain runners, and others who start using trekking poles almost never hit the trail without them again. No matter how much weight you’re carrying—from an ultralight daypack or running... -
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5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail
By Michael Lanza On my first backpacking trip on the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park, camped on Death Canyon Shelf, a broad, boulder-strewn and wildflower-carpeted bench at 9,500 feet, I awoke to the sound of heavy clomping outside my tent. I unzipped the tent door to... -
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The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips
By Michael Lanza As a parent of two young adults who’s taken them outdoors since before they can remember, I’ll share with you the biggest and in some ways most surprising lesson I’ve learned from these trips: Our outdoor adventures have been the best times we’ve had together as a family—and... -
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New Year Inspiration: My Top 10 Adventure Trips
By Michael Lanza I often get asked the question, “What’s your favorite trip?” And I don’t have an answer. To pick just one from all the amazing adventures I’ve had the good fortune to take over more than three decades feels like an impossible task. Instead, I’ve just updated this list of my 10... -
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How to Dress in Layers for Winter in the Backcountry
By Michael Lanza If hiking, backpacking, and climbing from spring through fall teaches us the fundamentals of layering our clothing for comfort in variable weather, the backcountry in winter confers a graduate degree in layering. In mild temperatures, getting wet with perspiration or... -
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Review: Patagonia Black Hole Pack 32L Travel Pack
Travel Pack Patagonia Black Hole Pack 32L $169, 32L/1,831 c.i., 1 lb. 12.6 oz./810g One size backcountry.com If you’re like me, whenever you’re flying somewhere for a few days, maybe a week or more, you ask yourself the same question: Can I do this without checking luggage? Not only do I... -
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17 Photos From 2024 That Will Inspire Your Next Adventure
By Michael Lanza How was your 2024? I hope you got outdoors as much as possible with the people you care about—and you enjoyed adventures that inspired you. I’m sharing in this story photos from several backpacking and hiking trips I took this year, from the Grand Canyon in April and southern... -
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Review: Rocky Talkie Mountain Radio
Two-Way Radio Rocky Talkie Mountain Radio $110 each/$220 per pair 6.1 oz./172.9g (one radio only), 7.9 oz./224g (including carabiners and leash) rockytalkie.com Over more than 30 years of climbing and skiing in the backcountry, I’ve had a few close calls, some directly due to the inability of... -
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Review: Black Diamond Fineline Stretch Shell and Pants
Rain Jacket and Full-Zip Pants Black Diamond Fineline Stretch Shell $180, 10 oz./283.5g (men’s medium) Sizes: men’s XS-3XL, women’s 2XS-2XL Men’s: blackdiamondequipment.com Women’s: blackdiamondequipment.com Black Diamond Fineline Stretch Full-Zip Pants $155, 9 oz./255.1g (men’s small) Sizes... -
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The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest
By Michael Lanza We all love the majesty of mountains. But the vividly colored, sometimes bizarre, often incomprehensible geology of the Southwest canyon country enchants and inspires us in ways that words can only begin to describe. And while you will find very worthy dayhikes and even... -
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10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit
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... -
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How to Plan a Backpacking Trip—12 Expert Tips
By Michael Lanza Wilderness backpacking opens new worlds to us. While dayhiking can bring you to many beautiful places in nature, walking for days through the backcountry, carrying all you need on your back, inspires a liberating sense of self-sufficiency and solitude as you escape the crowds... -
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5 Reasons You Must Backpack in Glacier National Park
By Michael Lanza Create a list of the attributes that constitute a great backpacking trip and the chances are very high that you will describe Glacier National Park. There’s the incomparable landscape, where the remnants of glaciers hang off craggy mountains, vertiginous cliffs tower above... -
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America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips
By Michael Lanza What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a... -
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Pro Tips For Buying a Backpacking Sleeping Bag
By Michael Lanza Finding a sleeping bag that’s right for you may be the most confusing gear-buying task. Getting the right one is critical to sleeping comfortably in the backcountry—and in an emergency, your bag could save your life. But with the myriad choices out there, how do you tell them... -
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The Best Backpacking Trips in Zion National Park
By Michael Lanza If you invited all of the major Western national parks to a big family dinner, Zion would sit at the kids’ table. At a bit over 148,000 acres, Zion is dwarfed by the iconic wilderness parks that are the most sought-after by backpackers, like Yosemite (which is five times... -
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The Best Mittens for Winter 2025
By Michael Lanza Let’s start with two truths about mittens: 1. We know they’re warmer than gloves. 2. We often choose gloves over mittens, anyway, for some reasons that make sense and some reasons that, well, don’t make much sense. Whether you need them for resort skiing or snowboarding... -
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Hiking Angels Landing: What You Need to Know
By Michael Lanza Thrilling, scenic, and enormously popular, an impressive feat of trail building, an intimidating and exposed scramble—these are some of the descriptions commonly given to Angels Landing in Zion National Park, all of them accurate. It also has a reputation as one of the scariest... -
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The Best Gloves For Winter 2025
By Michael Lanza Looking for winter gloves that keep your hands warm and dry and are made to last for years? As a professional gear reviewer who gets cold hands easily and spends many days outside in winter, from downhill, backcountry, and Nordic skiing to trail running, biking around town, and... -
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Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: The Ultimate, 10-day, Ultralight Plan
By Michael Lanza Are you planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail? “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” should be on every serious backpacker’s tick list. After hiking it in a blazing (and slightly crazy) seven days, I became convinced that—while that was quite hard—the traditional itinerary of...