Winter backpacking? Try Maui, Havasu Falls
Where to go backpacking in the U.S. during winter? Go somewhere gorgeous so you can forget bad weather, long darkness.
A tweeter, @wudanyan, posed the question of where to backpack in the United States during winter.
The desert Southwest got some responses. The Florida Trail is also another interesting idea.
The main drawbacks, of course, are seasonal weather that can bring cold/rain/snow, plus long hours of winter darkness.
A fair amount of people go snow camping with snowshoes or skis, though I bet a lot of that is in the spring when the daylight is longer.
Looking back, all of my U.S. backpack trips (and overnight river trips) have been between March and October — except for two: a January hiking trip on Maui, Hawaii, and a February trip to Arizona’s Havasu Falls.
A popular answer to the Tweeter’s question was the Big Bend area of Texas. But I ask why, when you can book remote car camps in the Big Bend state and national parks where you will be alone and have sufficient water in your vehicle.
On Maui, I hiked from just below the summit of Haleakala National Park at 10,000 feet one January day, tented outside Paliku Cabin at 6,000 feet across the crater, then walked a second day to near sea level where my brother who had driven the Hana Highway picked me up.
It’s truly one of the best one-night trips in the world, though the next day when I was back in the condo, two inches of rain fell up in the crater.
For Havasu Falls, the tribal reservation permit system opened on Feb. 1 one year and within minutes everything was booked, except a few nights in mid-February. I snapped up three nights and lucked out with mild weather, though the snow and cold returned to finish out the month.
The pandemic has closed Havasu Falls to outsiders, but it looks like it will reopen in 2022. This is likely the most expensive backpacking trip in America at $100 per person per night ($125 on weekends). Havasupaireservations.com is where to book a trip. At those prices, you may as well add helicopter transport (to save an eight-mile hike) for $85 one way (prices subject to change).
Maybe winter backpacking isn’t as crazy as it sounds, if you pick the right place.