Backpack with us in 2026
We will accept applications starting on Monday, December 8, 2025
Schedule & Availability
We offer trips in four locations, each in a prime season: southern Utah in late-April and early-May, the Brooks Range in late-June and early-July, the High Sierra in late-July and early-August, and Yellowstone in early-September.
Curriculum
All of our trips are learning-intensive, regardless of length, location, or the group’s experience level or fitness. Clients learn critical planning and field skills, including selecting gear, creating maps, and navigating on- and off-trail.
Reviews & Testimonials
Just what I wanted: an experience I could not achieve if I had planned it on my own. Excellent pre-trip prep, meals, and backcountry experience. Looking forward to the next one. - Ross G.
Guide Team
We are expert backpackers and guides, combining extensive first-hand backcountry experience with teaching, people, group management, and risk management skills.
Southwest Canyons, Utah
Brooks Range, Alaska
High Sierra, California
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Greater Yellowstone
Program trailer
Blog: Most recent
Blog: Featured content
Recommended footwear for deserts and canyons
Footwear is consistently the most discussed topic among the clients on our guided trips in southern Utah during the planning phases. It comes up in our online discussion board, during…
Aquamira: Why we like it, and how we use it
For about twenty years and almost exclusively I have used Aquamira ($15) to purify backcountry water sources. And it’s been the only purification method used by the guided trip program…
High Sierra record snowpack: Implications for trip planning, gear selection, and skills
As atmospheric rivers crashed into the High Sierra during the 2022-23 winter, I had two primary reactions. I was: In 2023 backpacking trips in the High Sierra will be more…
Detouring: San Joaquin River bridge alternates
During a flight tour in April, the National Park Service discovered that a critical bridge over the South Fork of the San Joaquin had been damaged. For photos, refer to…
PSA | Hazardous High Sierra creeks: List, map & alternates
Update (May 18, 2023): Refer to this post for detouring around the damaged bridge over the South Fork of the San Joaquin. Update (May 22, 2023): More bridges are down.…
Video tutorial: Finding historical temp & precip date from NCEI
Last year the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) updated its website and launched two new tools for researching historical temperature and precipitation data. The good news is that the…
Long-term review: CalTopo || My go-to mapping & GPS navigation platform
Let me sound old for a minute. When planning the Sea-to-Sea Route in early-2004, I relied on USGS 30- x 60-minute paper maps at 1:100,000 scale to plot, measure, and…
Toilet paper-less: My evolution in butt cleaning
When I began backpacking nearly twenty years ago, I used toilet paper exclusively for cleaning my butt after pooping, just like I did at home. I’ve pooped outside thousands of…
Video tutorial: Research historical temperature & precipitation data
In a recent post on my favorite resources for researching the conditions that I will likely encounter on a backpacking trip, I plugged the Environmental Centers for Environmental Information, which…
Template: Environmental & Route Conditions Assessment
Nineteen years ago at the start of my first real backpacking trip — an over-my-head thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail — I was simultaneously over-, under-, and mis-prepared, and had…
Trip planning research: My go-to resources
A six-week hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, starting at the US-Mexico border on June 6, 2006, sounded hot and dry to me. But fifteen years ago I had no…
Trip Planner Template: Stay organized & track details
In preparing for a backpacking trip, especially outings that are beyond the normal weekend getaway in a familiar place, I rely on a handful of tools that collectively help me…
Tutorial: Plan a backpacking trip in these 7 steps
Preparations for my earliest backpacking trips were clumsy, and I made every mistake possible. I recall carrying way too much stuff for an overnight in Yosemite, shivering all night in…
Tutorial: Smoke forecasting in Yosemite & the High Sierra
For five of the past eight years, we’ve guided trips in Yosemite or Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks in September. Wildfires have occasionally affected us — like with trail closures and…
Recommended footwear for high routes, Alaska, and early-season conditions
What is the optimal backpacking footwear for high routes, Alaska, and early-season conditions? Each year I field this question from dozens of clients, so here I’d like to provide a…
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Andrew Skurka
I'm a guide, writer, and endurance athlete. In my twenties I hiked 30,000+ miles from sea to sea, around the American West, and in Alaska. Since then I started a backpacking guide company; wrote a definitive how-to book, The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide; and ran a 2:27 marathon.