Backpacker Magazine

By the time Daniel Crago saw the second grizzly, he says, it was too late. It was May 28, and Crago was wrapping up a weeklong trip to Glacier National Park, the San Diegan’s first. Over the four days prior, he and the friend he traveled there with had ridden the ski lift in nearby Whitefish, done a boat tour on Lake MacDonald, and dayhiked about 25 miles through the park.

It’s not that we have anything against National Trails Day. Celebrating the places where so many of us find so much joy and purpose, as we have every June since the American Hiking Association first established it in 1993, seems like a fine idea to us. But when you’re the editors of Backpacker, every day is about the trail, and narrowing down thousands of trails to one holiday hit list is difficult, to say the least. This year, we decided to lean into the summer vibe.

I lovingly refer to my hometown as “The Swamp.” My childhood house in the Atlanta suburbs sat in a wooded basin along the Chattahoochee River, an arrangement that seemed to trap humidity over the yard in a muggy cloud. On hot days, the air felt wet enough to swim through and thick enough to chew. My first hiking memories are of clothes sticking to my skin and my lungs working overtime.

Many people set out to complete a thru-hike because they are searching for something. It could be they’re fulfilling a lifelong dream; it could be that they’re feeling dissatisfied with the routine of day-to-day life and they want to figure out what else is out there. It could just be that they want to learn something about themselves that they can’t at home. Whatever your reason, a thru-hike can seem like an incredible way to break down your ego and find some enlightenment.

The human body is a marvel: You can walk along a rocky trail, eyes on a distant mountain peak, while your mind wanders. When you’re in a hiking groove, each step feels like you’re on autopilot. That is, until a dip in the trail comes out of nowhere and takes you down in a tangle of trekking poles and scraped knees. The mechanism responsible for those moments of successful autopilot is called proprioception.

A grizzly broke a hiker’s arm on a popular trail in Glacier National Park on May 28, the National Park Service said in a press release on June 2. This marks the second time in a month that a bear attacked a visitor to the park.

Just how bad of a year is the Colorado River in for? The numbers are stark: In a webinar this May, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center predicted that the waterway will provide just 13 percent of the water it normally does to Lake Powell through July. That would be the lowest summer inflow on record—a new nadir among decades of climate-change-fueled decline—and could have serious repercussions for everything from power generation to agriculture to endangered species habitat.

Cold-soaking—or rehydrating food without the use of a stove—is an increasingly popular strategy among ultralight backpackers. The good: Instead of lugging around a full kitchen setup and fumbling with cookware at camp, you can simply toss your food into a jar of water on the trail and arrive at camp with dinner fully hydrated. The bad: If you don’t nail your timing, you could end up stuck with a cold jar of still-crunchy pasta—and no source of heat to speed up the process.

No, you don't need to carry a sleeping bag pump. But with a built-in, dimmable lantern, the Exped Ultra Pump makes a strong case for doing it Exped Ultra Pump (Photo: Courtesy) If, like me, you hate blowing up sleeping pads, you have a couple of options. You can forgo them for closed-cell pads and get used to feeling the rocks and roots below you. You can knuckle down and just do it. Or you can pack a sleeping pad inflator to do the work for you.

Canyoneering adds another dimension to hiking—literally. In a slot canyon, the trail transforms into a 3D puzzle where sheer walls, boulders, and even roped obstacles become part of the route. “It’s a whole new way to interact with the wilderness landscape,” says Jayci Ferrimani, owner of Arizona Climbing Guides. “If you like hiking, canyoneering is kind of the next level.” Ferrimani started working as a climbing and trekking guide in 2006 and got into canyoneering not long after.