My Favorite Places to Backpack in the US

I mentioned in my IntroduceYourself post, that I enjoy backpacking and have already posted about Big Bend National Park. I plan on writing detailed posts on each of these amazing places, but I wanted to get things going with a simple list of my favorite places to backpack in the United States, so here it is (with photos at the end):

1. Olympic National Park

Located on the Olympic Peninsula in NW Washington, this park is my favorite due to its incredible diversity of habitat types and ridiculous scenery. Here you can see tide pools where purple and orange starfish compete for space with green anemones, temperate rainforests with giant ferns & massive evergreens coated with and dripping in moss, high alpine lakes (my favorite things to see backpacking), great wildlife (bears, deer, spawning salmon, and mountain goats), and even glaciers! It is possible to see a lot of this in a long day-trip or weekend trip, but if you go try to get in a full week and spend some time in each part of the park, or better yet backpack through it! Here are my favorite areas to backpack in the park: Sol Duc to Hoh Rainforest, seeing Seven Lakes Basin and High Divide along the way & around Obstruction Point.

2. Yellowstone National Park

I backpacked the Heart Lake Loop here with a side hike up Mt. Sheridan. I've never experienced wildlife like I did here and the crowds disappear once you are a mile or two down any trail. The scenery on this hike was spectacular and seeing thermal features right along the trail with no signage or protective railing felt special and different compared to seeing the main thermal attractions in the park. While the geysers, bubbling mud, and scalding hot pools are one of the main draws to the park, to me the massive wildlife are what make it so unique. We saw bison, bighorn sheep, moose (my favorite!), and elk. At night we heard the hauntingly beautiful sounds of wolves howling and elk bugling. If you go to Yellowstone, see the big name sites and then ditch the crowds by getting into the wilderness. You won't regret it!

3. Sequoia-Kings Canyon

I've done a few backpacking trips here. The popular Rae Lakes Loop definitely earns its reputation for spectacular scenery and some real elevation change. I also really enjoyed the less well-known Hell For Sure Pass and snowshoe to Pear Lake Ski Hut. Known for the world's most massive trees, the park is also home to enormous rocky canyons, beautiful mountain lakes, and Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48! Spend a day or two here getting acclimated and seeing the huge sequoias, then get into the backcounty!

4. Yosemite National Park

I've got a full post up on Yosemite and have been a lot of times and in every season. This park has incredible scenery and is only this far down the list because it doesn't have quite the same level of wildlife as the other parks above and it can be insanely crowded in the summer (but so can Yellowstone). Best known for its 2,000+ ft waterfalls and glacier carved granite valleys; the park also has beautiful meadows, chilly alpine lakes, and great views of Mono Lake and the desert to the east.

5. Big Bend

I already posted about Big Bend so I'll keep it short here. Go in the spring, take lots of water (it's a desert) and do the South Rim Trail (long dayhike or easy 2-3 day backpack). Take a car that can go on rough dirt-roads or you will miss lots of the park. I've always wanted to float the Rio Grande here through some of the sheer towering canyons.

So those are my five favorite places to backpack in the United States, where are yours?
You might also be interested in my post, "Tips for Enjoying Yosemite in the Crazy Busy Summer Months".