One of Danielle’s favorite backpacking trips is down in the Southwest region of Utah. It requires a 50 mile drive down a 4WD dirt road before even getting to the starting point, and once there, it takes decent navigating skills and route finding skills as there is no true trail. It’s around eight miles of walking the desert and avoiding the crypto before getting to another couple miles of navigating slick rock. She loves it due to the amazing views at sunrise and the clarity of the stars at night. Danielle recommends doing this particular trip in spring to avoid the summer desert heat.

Miles can’t recommend thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail enough. He hiked the entirety of the trail from March 29th to September 20th in 2011. He loved being able to walk to New England from Georgia, while seeing really cool mountain tops and views from above treeline. The ability to see many parts of the wilderness in the U.S. is one of the main draws to the trail. If you can’t do the whole trail, he recommends backpacking the Maine section due to its remoteness and the beauty of the forests. Once finished, pop by Acadia National Park for more nature.

There might be no official name to this trail, but Caulen recommends backpacking to Parry Peak and Mt. Bancroft in Colorado. He loves the difficulty, isolation, and the high altitude that the trail provides. This particular backpacking trail is awesome if you like to fish on your trips. He enjoys backpacking up to near the lake and spending a few days fishing for Brook Trout in it. He prefers to do the 13 miles as a two day backpacking trip, but you can certainly spend more time out there.

As one of Stephen’s favorite Pennsylvanian backpacking trails, the Standing Stone Trail couldn’t be more recommended as it sees very few people and has a lot of history. This mountainous trail, first known as the Link Trail, originally connected the PA Midstate Trail to the Tuscarora Trail in Virginia. It has some cool ridges and drops into towns that many people don’t know exist until on the trail. A good three night, four day trail, Stephen suggests doing it with the North East extension.