Backpacker

For me, the horizon is a to-do list. I look west from my home in Colorado’s Front Range and tick off the inventory of peaks: Done it, done it, need it, need it, done it … oh man, gotta climb that one. And the one next to it. Those last two wishlist mountains have names: Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain, rising high above the commotion of the busiest trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s the one at Bear Lake, where you’re as likely to spot an open parking space as a snow leopard. I’ve been wanting to climb Hallett and Flattop ever since I moved to Colorado, because I like the way they hang above that hallowed landscape, and because that ridgeline divides the continent. Empty your Nalgene up there…

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, passed in 1968, was a landmark piece of legislation. For the first time in United States history, it gave Congress the power to protect rivers with “outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values,” prioritizing sustainable management and banning dams or other development. Since then, though, just under half of 1 percent of the nation’s rivers have been designated as Wild and Scenic, while over 12 times that many river miles are classified as too polluted for swimming or fishing. This year, a set of proposed bills from several states—Oregon’s River Democracy Act, Washington’s Wild Olympics Act, New Mexico’s M.H. Dutch Salmon Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act, among others—would protect another 7,000 river…

Weill is a California fire ecologist and the lead author of a study published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire about how hikers relate to landscapes scarred by flames. She takes pains to prevent fires, but once the smoke clears, she’s among the first out there to study, learn, and appreciate the beauty in the blackened landscape. BACKPACKER: In your article you wrote: “Residents of fire-prone landscapes may benefit from…visits to local burn sites throughout the recovery period.” How? Allie Weill: My study came out of the Wragg fire in the California Coast Ranges. It’s a popular hiking area that was totally denuded. A friend and I went to scope it out a month after it burned. There hadn’t been any rain yet, but there were already little bits of green…

Fourteenermania PETER MOORE I hiked all 47 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-footers as a kid, but now that I am an adult, I have put away childish things. After climbing just 10 Colorado Fourteeners, I know that East is least, and West is best—I write that with all due affection for the pipsqueak peaks that cower in the shadow of Mt. Washington’s 6,288-foot summit, including Mts. Tom (4,051 ft), Willey (4,285 ft.), and Field (4,340 ft.). Even if you combined those three dwarves (Sleepy, Dopey, and Pointless), they wouldn’t add up to a named peak in the Rockies. And they shrink in comparison with Colorado’s Quad of the Gods—Democrat (14,148 ft.), Cameron (14,238 ft.), Lincoln (14,286 ft.), and Bross (14,172 ft.)—where I danced above timberline for eight hours of uninterrupted sunshine and bliss.…

At the top of British Columbia’s Tin Hat Mountain, the 360-degree panorama looks uncannily like Tolkien’s Middle Earth: Below me spread deep-cut fjords and hazy lakes, velvety mountains and densely forested foothills. A hobbit wouldn’t seem out of place. But today, nothing moves. There isn’t a single backpacker outside the handsome wooden hut perched on a rocky bluff several hundred feet below, a sought-after overnight destination in a normal year. It’s summer 2021, though, and between the fluctuating pandemic restrictions and the shift away from international travel, it has been anything but normal, which is how I find myself alone on the summit. Tin Hat marks the halfway point of the Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT), a 112-mile path that meanders from Sarah Point in Desolation Sound to Saltery Bay, its route winding…

I left the oceanside trailhead at Pensacola Beach at 4:30 in the morning and walked east along the edge of the barrier island that forms this section of Gulf Islands National Seashore. I was looking for a place where the light pollution is all but nonexistent. The sand was so fine that I left my hiking shoes behind in favor of some old Crocs, which spread my weight like snowshoes; the tiny, pure-white grains squeaked under every step. A few eager birds sang, but the loudest noises were the rush and retreat of ocean waves. The Milky Way spread out above, more vast even than the ocean, with the crescent moon rising beneath. Hiking this beach at night is one of my favorite things in the whole world: You never…