Zion national park backpacking itinerary, best hiking boots with ankle support, plastic bag drying rack plans
In a few cases, the photos from these places show the view a few steps from our tent, rather than the site itself. We slogged up Sahale Arm into a cold, wind-driven rain, unable to see more than a hundred feet in any direction.
Perched at the top of Sahale Arm and the toe of the Sahale Glacier, at 7,686 feet, the highest designated campsite in North Cascades National Park overlooks what appears to be a boundless, wind-whipped sea of sharpened peaks smothered in snow and ice, among them Johannesburg, Baker, Shuksan, Glacier Peak, and in the far distance, Mt.
See my story from this backpacking trip, with more images, a video, and tips on planning it yourself.
Backcountry permits can be difficult to obtain for some trips in this story, because of their popularity.
For one of the trips for my book about taking our kids on wilderness adventures in national parks facing threats from climate change, we took a five-day sea kayaking trip in Glacier Bay, where cliffs shoot straight up out of the sea and razor peaks smothered in ice and snow rise thousands of feet overhead.
See my story, more photos, and a video about sea kayaking in Glacier Bay for information on how to pull off this trip. It was one of the most glaring omissions in my resume as a backpacker: I had never hiked The Narrows of the Virgin River in Zion National Park. It almost seems unfair to compare other places to mountain ranges like the Tetons, High Sierra, and North Cascades, or to the Grand Canyon; those four destinations dominate this list in part because I keep returning to them, but I think the photos speak for themselves. Whichever direction you approach this lake from, you will pay for the privilege of a night here with significant toil. See my story about this six-day backpacking trip, which included Precipice and Columbine lakes, with many more photos, a video, and information for planning this trip yourself.
I could rattle off a list of gorgeous campsites in the Tetons, a park I’ve visited somewhere between 15 and 20 times and never get tired of. I’ve camped a few times in different spots on Death Canyon Shelf, a broad, three-mile-long bench at about 9,500 feet. We backpacked over Paintbrush Divide, at about 10,700 feet, and descended through switchbacks into the North Fork of Cascade Canyon, gaping at the view of the sheer north face of the Grand Teton rising several thousand feet above the deep, green trough of the canyon. Passing Lake Solitude, ringed by a horseshoe of cliffs, we hiked down into the North Fork camping zone and grabbed the first available campsite.
See my story about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail, with more photos, for information on how to pull off this trip. Our weeklong backpacking trip had featured too many wildlife sightings to count—including bighorn sheep and numerous mountain goats, not to mention that we had an impending date with a sow grizzly bear and her two cubs.
But upon arriving there, we soaked tired feet in the lake’s cold, emerald-colored waters, a 20-second walk from our campsite, gazing around at a basin ringed by thousand-foot cliffs with several waterfalls pouring off of them. See my story about backpacking my modified and expanded version of Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop, with more photos, for information on how to pull off this trip. Do you like The Big Outside? I’m Michael Lanza, the creator of The Big Outside, recognized as a top outdoors blog by USA Today, a Trip Advisor site, and others. We walked up to the shore of Evolution Lake after dark, laid out our sleeping pads and bags on granite slabs under the stars, and quickly nodded off.
Thru-hiking the John Muir Trail in a week, trying to knock off an average of 31 miles a day, we rose the next morning in the dark to begin another long day on the trail.
See my story about thru-hiking the John Muir Trail, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip (at any pace).
The first four nights of camping on the Ptarmigan Traverse are in the alpine zone with 360-degree views of some of the most severely vertiginous and heavily glaciated and snow-covered peaks in the Lower 48. Getting There Climbers traditionally begin the Ptarmigan Traverse at Cascade Pass in North Cascades National Park and walk south, largely hewing close to the Cascade Crest. It was a typical summer day in Doubtful Sound: alternating spells of light mist and steady rain punctuating brief periods without precipitation. Our small group pitched our tents behind a rocky beach, in the forest of podocarp trees and punga tree ferns. See my story about sea kayaking Doubtful Sound, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip. Not long into our first day backpacking across the massive sand dunes of this park—which tower several hundred feet tall—I was already convinced that carrying a pack loaded with food and gear for three days as well as two gallons of water up giant dunes was not a brilliant plan. It was November, and the light of late afternoon and early evening transformed the shifting, mountainous dunes into three-dimensional works of abstract art. See my story, with more photos, about backpacking at Great Sand Dunes for information on how to pull off this trip. On the second night of a three-day, 32-mile, partly cross-country traverse of the John Muir Wilderness from North Lake Trailhead to Mosquito Flat Trailhead, we pitched our tents in Granite Park, an aptly named high valley speckled with scores of alpine lakes and tarns and encircled by an arc of 12,000- and 13,000-foot spires of barren, golden stone. In the morning, we set out early and I got the above shot of my friend Jason Kauffman passing a lake minutes from our campsite. See my story and more photos about backpacking a 32-mile, partly off-trail traverse in the John Muir Wilderness for information on how to pull off this trip. While we were exposed to the wind—which can blow pretty hard—and had to carry water to that camp, those were small tithes for a 360-degree panorama reaching from the South Rim to the North Rim, with countless named temples and buttes within view, most prominently the Zoroaster Temple (visible in the background of the photo above).
See my story, with more photos, about backpacking in the Grand Canyon for information on how to pull off this trip. Camp Schurman sits at 9,460 feet, on the very tip of Steamboat Prow, a cleaver of busted volcanic rock and dust.
A two-foot-high, oval, stone wall shielded our tentsite from the irrepressible, bone-chilling wind. Getting There From White River Campground at 4,400 feet, five miles past the White River ranger station (get a climbing permit there), hike the Glacier Basin Trail 3.2 miles to Glacier Basin Camp, at 6,000 feet.
Paria, which meets the Colorado River at Lees Ferry (where we finished our hike), at the beginning of the Grand Canyon, is unquestionably one of the great, multi-day canyon hikes of the Southwest—partly explaining why it’s so difficult to snag a permit to backpack it. See my story, with more photos, about backpacking Paria Canyon for information on how to pull off this trip.
On the second day of a five-day, 44-mile family hike through the Glacier Peak Wilderness, we ascended a long finger of snow and crossed the pass that represents the crux of this trip in terms of technical difficulty, Spider Gap, at 7,100 feet. The Lyman Glacier poured down the cliffs of 8,459-foot Chiwawa Mountain into the vividly emerald waters of the uppermost lake. Read my story about this five-day backpacking trip, with more photos and information on how to pull off this trip.
We made up the name for this campsite; it doesn’t have a name that I’m aware of, though it is an established and large campsite on the Green River in Stillwater Canyon, seven miles above the confluence with the Colorado River. Really, there are many special campsites along this lazy stretch of the Green, which passes through a canyon of soaring redrock cliffs and spires. See my story about floating for five days down the Green River through Stillwater Canyon in Canyonlands National Park, with more photos and a video, for information on how to pull off this trip.
In the last week of June—not yet summer in the mountains—my son, Nate, and I backpacked with two friends to one of the gems of the Sawtooth Wilderness: Alice Lake. I’d been to Alice Lake a few times before, as had Nate, on his first wilderness backpacking trip—and one of the first of our annual “Boy Trips”—when he was six years old.
Zion National Park offers spectacular hiking along its towering canyon rims and many slot canyons.
Spend the day in the Narrows, hiking through the Virgin river and the magnificent canyon it has carved. Famous for its narrow chasms and towering walls, this premier canyon is diverse trek that can't be missed.
Leisurely hikes to Emerald Pools, the Hanging Gardens, or the River Walk can also be enjoyed. The second day of this adventure allows for more exploring and adventure in Zion National Park. Those wanting to visit Angel's Landing or Observation Point will want to get an early start. It's a steady 2.5 mile uphill trek as the trail ascends a series of switchbacks known as Walters Wiggles. Southern Utah and northern Arizona host a magnificent rock world so close to each other that visitors can get to most of the national parks even on a short vacation.
If you enjoy scenic drives, you will be happy as you motor through the incredible scenery along the Zion-Mt.
You can buy the America the Beautiful Pass that will allow you passage into all the national parks and national monuments in this Southern Utah guide. In summer, the only access to the Scenic Zion Canyon Drive is via Zion's shuttle, but during the winter private vehicles can travel in the canyon. Day Hike: Kolob Arch can be done as a long day hike but many prefer to take two days or even stretch it into a multi-day backpacking trip.
Equipment: Take at least 3 quarts of water per person as well as a means to purify or filter it, energy food, comfortable hiking shoes that would dry quickly if they get wet, dry socks, sun protective clothing, extra clothing for possible changes in the weather, insect repellant and emergency gear. Difficulty: This is a strenuous hiking trail when done as a day hike, but only moderately strenuous as a backpack. Water Availability: Water is generally available a mile into the hike at Timber Creek, but in dry years it might not be present until Laverkin Creek which is located about 4 miles from the trailhead. See our vacation planning section for classic Zion National Park trails or choose from a complete Zion National Park hiking guide or the Kolob hiking guide. If you like it, please help me continue producing The Big Outside by making a contribution in any amount: $5, $10, $25, $50, $100 on up. Sometimes that perfect spot where you spend a night forges the memory that remains the most vivid long after you’ve gone home.
This year, I decided that three campsites where I’ve spent a night within the past 12 months deserved a spot on this list—and none of them will shock you, given that they are in much-beloved places of incredible natural beauty (all of which I will post stories about in coming months at The Big Outside): The Narrows of Zion National Park, Paria Canyon on the Utah-Arizona border, and Alice Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains (my back yard).
I share a brief anecdote with each photo because, for me, each campsite isn’t merely a beautiful scene: it is a story and a memory. But as my friend David Ports and I reached Sahale Glacier Camp (see lead photo at top of story), the rain and wind abated and the clouds dropped below us, giving us a view of the earth falling away into a bottomless abyss a few steps from our tent door. We watched bald eagles and other birds flying overhead, harbor seals popping up out of the water near our boats, Stellar sea lions honking and carrying on while sprawled on the rocks of South Marble Island, and brown bears roaming rocky beaches looking for food. From there, we kayaked up the inlet to within about a quarter-mile of the mile-wide snout of the Johns Hopkins Glacier; a thousand or more seals occupied floating icebergs or swam around the inlet. On a six-day, family backpacking trip in Sequoia National Park, we camped at two alpine lakes that deserve placement on this list: Precipice Lake and Columbine Lake (below).
But when we reached Precipice in late afternoon on our third day, we decided within minutes to stop for the night. Filling a stone basin at nearly 11,000 feet, below the distinctive spire of Sawtooth Peak and an arc of snaggletoothed mountains, Columbine is reached either via a 600-foot hump up through dozens of switchbacks from Lost Canyon; or a much harder 1,200-foot scramble, sans a maintained trail, up a steep mountainside of sliding scree from Monarch Lakes to 11,630-foot Sawtooth Gap, where a primitive but better path leads down to Columbine.
We explored the granite ledges on the north shore of the lake, where crevices and small bowls in the granite hold tiny pockets of water and you sometimes have to scramble on all fours over short, vertical walls. But I decided to include just the two camping zones I consider the best places to bed down in the Tetons backcountry, that can be reached by trail: Death Canyon Shelf (above) and the North Fork of Cascade Canyon (below). With the earth dropping away abruptly into Death Canyon on one side, cliffs rising some 500 feet on the other side, and views across the jagged peaks and canyons of the Tetons—reaching all the way to the Grand Teton—there are few spots with such sweeping and dramatic panoramas. The shot above is of the creek flowing a short distance from our tent, looking down canyon at the Grand. Then we laid down on the sun-warmed pebbles on the beach, which felt like a heated bed with built-in massage. If you like what you see here, please help me continue producing The Big Outside by making a donation using the Support button at the top of the left sidebar or below. So we didn’t catch a glimpse of our surroundings until first light the next morning—which actually made it more magical, I think, because we got to watch daylight slowly reveal this magnificent alpine valley to us. We departed Evolution Lake by headlamp, but soon the approaching dawn began slowly illuminating a starkly beautiful landscape of rock, water, and sky. Beyond Dome Peak, from the Cub Lake area in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, the route descends to the Downey Creek Trailhead on Suiattle River Road. After a mild night of periodic showers, we woke and walked to the beach to see the water still and glassy, reflecting the sea cliffs and misty clouds. Our group of editors from Backpacker Magazine marched a few miles over the rolling, sometimes steep dunes until we found a relatively flat spot to pitch our tents. I wandered a wide perimeter around our camp in the evening and early morning, shooting photos of frost on multi-colored dunes that often came to a peak as sharp as on the roof of a house. In the evening, the sinking sun painted the peaks, lakes, and granitic landscape in a shifting, vivid light that was absolutely captivating.
If you like what you see here, please help me continue producing The Big Outside by making a donation using the Support button at the top of the left sidebar or below.
But my favorite (so far) is this spot just off the Tonto Trail, on the plateau between Lonetree Canyon and Cremation Creek.
While the kids played with rocks in the dirt and my wife read, I walked around with my camera, finding an amazing background in every direction.
Two massive glaciers, the Emmons and Winthrop, part around this stone prow in a way that illustrates how frozen water behaves much the same as its liquid form. Follow a climbers’ trail up into the basin, reaching the Inter Glacier (good training ground for new climbers) at around 6,800 feet.
But our two-family party found a little more adventure than we’d anticipated—which became evident when the other dad in our group, Vince, plunged hip-deep into quicksand on our first afternoon. But before you register a complaint about that with the Bureau of Land Management, which administers the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, bear in mind that the permit system preserves an unusual degree of solitude and a unique wilderness experience: We saw very few other people over five days, and spent much of that time on our own. From there, we descended snow into the head of a valley sculpted and scoured by ice just a geologic moment ago, the Upper Lyman Lakes basin.
We gave it that name because, minutes after we landed, the eight kids in our five-family crew—ranging in age from four to 12—immediately planted their figurative flag on this boulder at the edge of the campsite and christened it “Kid Rock.” We all now remember that site by the name the kids gave that boulder. But besides being spacious and scenic, this one sits at the bottom of a trail that climbs about three miles uphill to White Crack, one of the most spectacular campgrounds on the White Rim.
While the ground was mostly dry and snow-free in the valleys, we had a frigid ford of a creek running knee-deep and fast with snowmelt, and then encountered up to three feet of snow still on the ground for the last hour or so to Alice Lake, which sits at 8,598 feet below an eye-catching row of granite pinnacles. If you like hiking in the National Parks, taking incredible scenic drives and seeing the finest that nature has created, then southern Utah is the place to go. While in Zion, be sure to hike in Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Red Canyon and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Much of the path is soft sand leading to some leg fatigue and there may be several stream crossings. Summer is also nice if you get an early start, otherwise it can be a hot day due to lack of shade, even though it is usually about 10 degrees cooler in Kolob Canyons than Zion Canyon. Once at La Verkin Creek, water will be abundant until the intersection with the short half-mile spur trail to Kolob Arch. A photo of that camp can send recollections of the entire adventure rushing back to you—it does for me. That’s why I maintain, below my top 25 list, a second list of campsites that were previously in my top 25. See my Ask Me post about backpacking in North Cascades National Park for more photos and information on how to take this trip. But sometimes it takes a hard day of hiking to reach a magical spot, and a this lonely corner on the floor of the Big Ditch was a pretty good place to rest tired legs. Night fell like a black curtain to reveal a sky riddled with more bullet holes than all the road signs in Arizona combined.
I broached the idea of backpacking The Narrows to my friend, David Gordon, he leapt at the chance, and we got a last-minute permit for a very popular trip at a time of year when there are far fewer people either competing for a permit or dayhiking from the bottom. This camp sits at the confluence of Deep Creek and the Virgin River; the slot on the left side of the photo is The Narrows—we had emerged from that slot, hiking downstream, just an hour or so earlier.
Cliffs of clean, white granite with black streaks ring much of the compact lake’s shoreline.
I’ve watched moose in Death Canyon through binoculars from the cliff tops and was awakened one night by a bull elk outside our tent.
In the morning, we continued down the canyon, passing several more established campsites in the North Fork camping zone that would have easily made this list as well. I would have forgiven Lake Ellen Wilson, our final night’s campsite, for being anticlimactic. For my friend Jerry Hapgood and me, dropping off into an afternoon nap on them was the default setting. Dawn struck the line of jagged peaks on the horizon first, then eventually found us, the only people already on the trail that day. But besides White Rock Lakes, my other favorite campsite on the Ptarmigan was on the Dome Glacier, base camp for our climb of Dome Peak.
The route is mostly off-trail and crosses six glaciers; expert skills at glacier travel and navigating off-trail through mountains are required. But the air was warm and the water flat, its dark surface as clear as a just-cleaned mirror. At times, sand avalanching downhill under our boots made an eerie sound, a phenomenon known as “singing.” I decided the dunes more than made up for the effort expended getting there. We camped here on the last night of a four-day, late-March family backpacking trip from Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trailhead (another trip my family took for a chapter of my book). More than four square miles of moving ice, thousands of years old, and stretching over nearly 9,000 feet of elevation, the Emmons is the largest glacier in the Lower 48; the Winthrop isn’t much smaller. But he managed, with considerable effort, to extricate himself; and by the next day, the kids had figured out how to identify shallow quicksand that they could stomp around in, howling with laughter. A creek leapt from the lake’s far shore, crashing over stones and a small waterfall, below which some of us took a frigid and very brief bath. If you choose to do this hike in the winter, keep in mind that the road leading to the trailhead might close temporarily due to snow. I’ve been very fortunate to have pitched a tent in many great backcountry campsites over more than two decades of backpacking and trekking all over the U.S. If you haven’t backpacked Zion’s Narrows yet, just trust me when I say start planning it and apply for a permit three months in advance. On my most recent night here, with my family and a couple of friends, we watched one spectacular sunset followed by an equally glorious sunrise. At that hour when many backpackers are still fast asleep, we hiked through one of the most stunning stretches of the JMT, the Evolution Basin, in its richest light. Throughout a clear evening, with a sea of clouds filling the valleys below us, we looked south to the white pyramid of the volcano Glacier Peak, glowing above the clouds in the dusk light. Tendrils of ghost-like clouds floated around granite cliffs that rose straight out of the sea up to 4,000 feet high; and the cliffs wore long coats of thick rainforest that seemed to defy gravity. When two friends and I set off to climb the Emmons in early August a few years ago, with much of the snow melted off the glaciers, they displayed heavy scarring: huge, frighteningly beautiful crevasses as plentiful as waves on a storm-tossed ocean. Ruth, then descend off the ridge onto the Emmons Glacier and continue to Camp Schurman at 9,460 feet.
But the calm of late afternoon and then the next morning served up a glassy reflection of the snowy peaks beyond that illustrates why this area is a favorite among Sawooths aficionados.
The Natural Arch and Bridge Society, after measuring in 2006, came to the conclusion that Kolob Arch is the second longest natural arch in the world measuring 287.4 feet. Words can hardly do it justice, but I’ll do my best (and include a lot of photos) when I post a story about backpacking The Narrows soon at The Big Outside. Granite ledges above the lake have flat areas for tents or to just lay out bags and sleep under the stars (as my 12-year-old son and I did).
And yet, I knew I was looking at a tiny fraction of Rainier—which made me feel both very small and very fortunate for just being there. While every campsite was really nice, the one at Big Spring (above), on our second night, took first prize. We pitched our tents on a grassy knoll near a copse of conifer trees, with an unobstructed view of that entire basin. Be prepared for cold temperatures at night since the Utah desert is a place where there are extremes. The evening alpenglow on the cliffs reflected in the lake, and on 12,040-foot Eagle Scout Peak towering above Precipice, put the icing on the cake. And we spent most of the evening watching the shifting light across the mountains until sunset lit the clouds afire, watching a pair of bucks and a few doe wander through our campsites, and, well, swatting mosquitoes. Trails range from quick little paved paths to long backpacking trips in remote country. Always bring along plenty of water and do not drink untreated water from springs or other natural sources. Kolob Canyons, where the arch lies, is in the far northwestern and less visited section of Zion National Park, accessed off I-15 at exit 40 near Cedar City. Zion National Park is a hikers paradise, but the greater Zion area offers treasures galore as well.
Bryce Canyon overwhelms visitors with its wow effect, offering a a totally different experience and view. Kolob Arch can also be seen by hiking through Hop Valley, located off the Kolob Terrace Road.
