The challenge with America’s best wilderness adventures isn’t fitness or gear. It’s permits. The best destinations are gated by lottery systems that open months before anyone’s thinking about summer plans, and the rejection emails have a particular sting. I’ve entered enough to know. I’ve also stood at the base of the cables on Half Dome because a preseason application landed, and then pushed through to the summit and back before dark with friends. Same story with the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim and the Enchantments traverse.

Every year, I try to team up with friends for at least one big push. Gawking at ridiculous views is more fun with company. Suffering through mile 15 at 2 AM is still suffering, but at least you have someone to complain to.

The Wave. Half Dome. The Enchantments. These aren’t destinations you book. They’re destinations you win. And winning is easier when you know the calendar.

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Day Hikes

The Wave

Coyote Buttes North, Arizona/Utah

The Wave is the one everyone’s seen in photos: 190 million years of Jurassic-era dunes turned to stone, swirling Navajo Sandstone that looks Photoshopped. Navajo Sandstone is the connective tissue of the Colorado Plateau. The same formation that creates The Wave’s swirls also builds the walls of Zion Canyon, the fins of Arches, and the chains section of Angel’s Landing. It’s all one ancient desert: a Sahara-scale sand sea called an erg that blanketed over 200,000 square miles during the Early Jurassic. The crossbedding patterns you see at The Wave are fossilized dune faces, preserved at the exact angle of repose where the sand came to rest 190 million years ago. It’s also, counterintuitively, a smaller adventure than most things on this list. The hike itself is only 6 miles round-trip with minimal elevation gain. The real effort is winning the lottery (2% odds¹) and navigating unmarked desert terrain²³.

What makes The Wave compelling isn’t just the geology. It’s the logistics. The Vermilion Cliffs area has some of the darkest skies in the lower 48. Bortle Class 1. At this darkness level, the zodiacal light is bright enough to cast faint shadows, the Milky Way has visible structure (not just a smear), and you can see the gegenschein, a faint brightening of the sky directly opposite the sun caused by backscattered sunlight off interplanetary dust. Most people have never seen a sky darker than Bortle 5. The difference between 5 and 2 is the difference between “nice stars” and “existential crisis.” No light pollution for miles. If you win permits, camp the night before and get a proper stargazing session in. Milky Way season runs roughly March through October; a spring or fall permit puts you in prime dark-sky territory.

More practically: this is a good “shakedown trip” for testing camping systems. It’s close to Vegas, the hike isn’t punishing, and a gear failure here means a mildly annoying night instead of a crisis at 12,000 feet. If you want to dial in your sleep system, camp kitchen, or overnight pack before committing to something bigger, The Wave is the place to do it.

Lottery System: The Wave runs two lotteries. The advanced lottery opens on the 1st of each month for hikes four months later (apply in February for June). $6 application fee, $7/person permit if selected. A daily lottery via Recreation.gov app (geofenced, 6 AM–6 PM) releases 16 remaining spots for the next day.

Best Season: Spring (April–May) and fall (September–October) offer the most comfortable weather. Summer exceeds 100°F. Winter has better lottery odds but shorter daylight and potential mud.

The Hike: 6.4 miles round-trip over sandy washes with no official trail, navigation by landmarks only⁴. The Wave’s swirling red and gold sandstone striations are otherworldly. High-clearance 4WD recommended for Wire Pass trailhead access.

Finding Your Way: TheWave.info⁵ is the definitive resource: GPS waypoints, photo landmarks, and navigation tips for a trail with no official markers.

Angel’s Landing

Zion National Park, Utah

The final half-mile follows a knife-edge ridge with 1,000-foot drops on both sides, aided by chains bolted into the rock. The rock itself is Navajo Sandstone, the same 190-million-year-old formation that created The Wave, 300 miles to the east. Ancient sand dunes from a Sahara-scale desert, lithified and tilted skyward. The iron oxide that rusted those dunes red is the same stuff making your hands orange as you grip the chains. ⁶

I’ve done this one twice, and the secret is starting in the dark. Leave at blue hour with a headlamp, climb the switchbacks while the canyon is still asleep, and time it so you’re reaching the chains as the sun breaks over the rim. It takes about an hour to reach the end, which means a 5:30 AM start puts you at the summit right as golden hour hits.

Watching the sunrise paint the canyon walls while you’re standing on that knife-edge ridge. There’s nothing else like it. The photos don’t capture the scale. The crowds don’t exist yet. It’s just you and 190 million years of fossilized desert waking up.

Lottery Windows (2026):

• Spring (Mar–May): Apply Dec 1, 2025 – Jan 20, 2026
• Summer (Jun–Aug): Apply Mar 1 – Apr 20, 2026
• Fall (Sep–Nov): Apply Jun 1 – Jul 20, 2026

$6 application fee. Select up to 7 preferred dates/times, up to 6 people per group. $3/person permit fee if selected.

Zion Narrows (Top-Down)

Zion National Park, Utah

The Narrows is what happens when a river spends millions of years carving through sandstone, walls rising 1,000 feet on either side, sometimes close enough to touch both at once. You wade through the Virgin River for most of the hike, water anywhere from ankle-deep to waist-deep depending on the season, the canyon narrowing until it feels more like spelunking than hiking⁷⁸⁹. This one’s on my list. The top-down route, 16 miles of river walking through slot canyons, is the full experience.

Lottery System: Top-down overnight permits are required for the full 16-mile traverse. Day-hikers can enter from the bottom (Temple of Sinawava) without permits, but you’ll only see the first couple miles before turning around.

• Advanced Reservations: Open on the 5th of each month at 10 AM ET for dates 3–4 months ahead
• Last-Minute Permits: Available 7 days before at 10 AM ET for remaining spots

$5 application fee, $15/person permit fee if selected.

Best Season: Late June through September. Water temperature matters: hypothermia risk in spring. Flash flood risk during monsoon season (July–August). Flash floods in slot canyons don’t require local rain. A storm 20 miles upstream can send a wall of water through the Narrows with minutes of warning. Water levels can rise from ankle-deep to chest-deep in under an hour. The canyon walls offer no escape routes for miles. NPS closes the top-down Narrows route when the Virgin River flow exceeds 120 cubic feet per second (150 cfs for the bottom-up day hike); check the Zion River conditions page obsessively on hike day. Several deaths in the Narrows have been weather-related. Check forecasts obsessively¹⁰¹¹.

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Overnight Adventures

Half Dome

Yosemite National Park, California

The cables on Half Dome are equal parts exhilarating and terrifying: 400 feet of granite at 45 degrees, with nothing but steel cables and your grip between you and a very long fall.¹² The granite itself is 87 million years old, formed when magma cooled slowly miles underground. Glaciers carved the valley and sheared off the dome’s northwest face; what’s left is still shedding. Exfoliation is granite’s slow-motion self-destruction. When glaciers retreated and removed the overburden, the rock expanded outward from the reduced pressure, cracking in concentric sheets parallel to the surface. The same process that makes Half Dome smooth under your palms also causes rockfalls: in 2015, a triangular slab roughly two-thirds the length of a football field peeled off the northwest face, and smaller exfoliation events happen every few years. The cables route crosses some of the most active exfoliation zones on the dome. Exfoliation cracks peel sheets of rock like onion skin, which is why the surface feels so smooth under your palms. The exposure is real, but the physical challenge is manageable if you keep moving. It’s the mental game that gets people, looking down between your feet at 4,000 feet of air¹³¹⁴.

This is my favorite hike. I’ve done it three times now, and at just three hours from San Francisco, it’s the most rewarding day trip in driving distance.

The first time, I went up the cables without any climbing experience, white-knuckled the whole way, hauling myself hand-over-hand while trying not to look down. After picking up some basic climbing skills (harness work, prusik knots, rappelling), I went down the cables on a later trip. Completely different experience. Knowing you can self-arrest changes everything about how you move on steep granite.

A word on timing: The lottery season gets sketchy. The sheer number of people on those cables during peak hours creates traffic jams at 8,000 feet. If you have climbing experience, consider going just before the cables go up in late May. The cables are steel posts with two parallel cables, raised every spring and lowered every fall by Yosemite trail crew. The exact date varies by snowpack but typically targets Memorial Day weekend, though heavy snowpack can push installation into June. Before installation, the posts are folded flat and the cables lie on the granite. You can still climb, but you’re on bare rock with no handholds. A harness, a prusik loop on a static line, and confidence on steep slab are non-negotiable. The tradeoff: complete solitude on one of the most iconic features in the park. You’ll need a harness and prusik setup, but you’ll have the dome to yourself. No lottery, no crowds, no waiting in line on a 45-degree granite slab. Otherwise, the lottery is the way to go.

One lesson I learned the hard way: I tried to do Half Dome a week before the SF Marathon. Bonked hard on the descent, cramping and dizzy. Heat and hydration are the hidden crux of this hike.

Lottery Windows:

• Preseason Lottery: March 1–31, 2026. Results mid-April.
• Daily Lottery: Apply 2 days before your hike (midnight–4 PM) for remaining spots.

$10 application fee for either lottery.

The Enchantments

Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Washington

If you’ve seen photos of impossibly blue alpine lakes surrounded by golden larch trees, this is probably where they were taken. Larches are the odd ones out: deciduous conifers. They grow needles like a pine but drop them every fall, and in the two weeks before they drop, the needles turn a blazing gold that photographs absurdly well against blue sky and blue water. Peak larch season in the Enchantments is typically the last week of September through the first week of October, though it shifts by a week depending on elevation and the year’s first freeze. Miss the window by a week and you get bare branches. The Enchantments in September is Washington’s crown jewel, and everyone knows it.¹⁶ Thru-hikers consistently report 9–12 hour completion times¹⁷, with the mental challenge often exceeding the physical one¹⁸.

With a 10% lottery success rate, this is one of the most competitive permits in the country.

Lottery Window: February 15 – March 1, 2026. Results March 15.

I did the thru-hike version, started at 6:45 AM, reached the other side in the early hours of the next day. Eighteen hours of moving through some of the most pristine alpine scenery in the country: turquoise lakes, golden larches, mountain goats that genuinely don’t care about your presence.

One goat followed us for a quarter mile, apparently hoping we’d drop some electrolyte gummies. The goats are after your salt. Mountain goats in the Enchantments have learned that hikers are walking salt licks: sweat, urine, spilled electrolyte mix. They’re habituated enough to approach within arm’s reach, which NPS considers a management problem. Between 2018 and 2020, the National Park Service and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife relocated 325 non-native mountain goats from the Olympic Mountains to the North Cascades, where native populations had been severely depleted by overharvesting in the 1960s and 70s. The remaining population is still bold enough to follow you. Don’t feed them. Don’t pee near the trail.

What they don’t tell you: Aasgard Pass will destroy your legs. The 2,000-foot scramble up loose talus is relentless, and once you crest it, the terrain doesn’t get easier. It gets weirder. The Core Enchantments are rugged, rocky, and routefinding is trickier than expected. Follow the cairns religiously. Crampons are essential if there’s any lingering snow; one misstep on that granite-and-ice combination is a long slide into a very cold lake.

Wonderland Trail

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

A complete circumnavigation of Mount Rainier: 93 miles through old-growth forest, alpine meadows, and glacial valleys, with the mountain’s glaciated summit dominating the skyline the entire time.²¹ Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the contiguous United States: 28 named glaciers covering about 36 square miles. The Emmons Glacier on the northeast face is the largest glacier by area in the lower 48. The mountain is also an active stratovolcano, which means those glaciers sit on top of a heat source. If Rainier erupts, the glacial melt would produce lahars (volcanic mudflows) that could reach the Puget Sound lowlands in under an hour. It’s the volcano that keeps Tacoma’s emergency planners up at night. This is the Pacific Northwest’s answer to the Tour du Mont Blanc.

I haven’t done this one yet, but it’s the adventure I think about when I imagine having a full week off. Most thru-hikers take 6–10 days²²²³, and the permit strategy is almost as involved as the physical preparation²⁴.

Lottery System (Two-Phase):

1. Early Access Lottery: February 10–March 3, 2026. Winners announced March 14, may book starting March 21.

2. General Reservations: April 25, 2026 at 7 AM PT. Remaining dates become first-come, first-served.

No application fee for the lottery itself. $6/person permit fee plus $20/group reservation fee if successful.

Best Season: Late July through September. Snow lingers into early July most years. Wildflowers peak in August²⁵.

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Multi-Day Expeditions

Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Six million people visit the Grand Canyon every year.²⁶ Less than 1% hike rim-to-rim. The view from above is spectacular; the view from below is a geology textbook written in stone. You start on 270-million-year-old Kaibab Limestone at the rim, descend through layers of sandstone and shale, each one a different sea, a different desert, a different world, and bottom out at the Vishnu Schist, 1.8 billion years old, dark and twisted from unimaginable heat and pressure. Between the Vishnu Schist at the bottom and the Tapeats Sandstone a few hundred feet above, there’s a gap of about 1.2 billion years where the geological record simply vanishes. This is the Great Unconformity, one of the biggest mysteries in geology. Somehow, a billion years of rock was eroded away, leaving the 1.8-billion-year-old basement sitting directly beneath 500-million-year-old sediments. You can put your hand on it: a smooth contact surface where a billion years of Earth’s history was deleted.²⁷ The Colorado River is still carving. You’re walking through time. Trip reports show completion times ranging from 10.5 to 14 hours for fit hikers²⁸²⁹, with most recommending 3–4 months of specific training³⁰.

I did it South-to-North, starting at blue hour with a headlamp, aiming to reach Ooh Aah Point right as golden hour hit. The canyon at sunrise is a different place than at midday: reds so saturated they look fake, shadows carving depth into walls that flatten out under overhead sun.

The middle section is where most people bonk. Phantom Ranch has amazing lemonade, worth planning your pace around. Phantom Ranch is the only lodging below the Grand Canyon rim, built in 1922 by architect Mary Colter from native stone, shaded by ancient cottonwood trees. Nearly everything arrives by mule: food, supplies, mail. You can send a postcard from Phantom Ranch stamped “Mailed by mule from the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” Cabin reservations sell out 13 months in advance, but the canteen is open to day hikers and serves lemonade, snacks, and beer. The lemonade is legendary for a reason: you’ve just descended 4,800 feet in desert heat, and it’s ice-cold. Get there, hydrate, refuel, and then prepare for the long climb out. The goal should be reaching the start of the North Rim ascent around noon, before the canyon heat becomes life-threatening.

Heat management is the entire game. I also ran around the South Rim on the same trip, apparently one R2R wasn’t enough and I needed an extra serving of that spicy Kaibab Trail. The videos from that run show how exposed the terrain is. Bring more water than you think. Then bring more electrolytes than that.

John Muir Trail

Yosemite to Mount Whitney, California

The JMT is arguably America’s most iconic long trail: 211 miles through the Sierra Nevada, crossing eight mountain passes (seven over 11,000 feet), ending at the summit of Mount Whitney.³² The JMT’s resupply problem is what makes or breaks the experience. There are only a handful of resupply points along the trail, and they’re spaced unevenly: Tuolumne Meadows (mile 23), Red’s Meadow (mile 58), Vermilion Valley Resort (mile 88, reached by ferry across Lake Edison), and Muir Trail Ranch (mile 108, about a mile off the JMT). Bear canisters are mandatory for the entire trail. Most hikers mail resupply boxes to these locations weeks in advance, and the logistics of coordinating food drops with hiking pace and caloric needs is its own planning exercise. If I ever take three weeks off in a row, this is where I’m going. Most hikers start in Yosemite Valley and hike south, taking 14–21 days with resupply strategy making or breaking the experience³³³⁴.

Permit Strategy: JMT permits are quota-managed by starting trailhead. The critical chokepoint is Donohue Pass Exit Quota: permits from Yosemite that exit via Donohue Pass into the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

• 60% Lottery: Opens February 15, 2026 for trips 24 weeks in advance
• 40% First-Come: Released 2 weeks before start date at 7 AM PT

$10 application fee. $5/person permit fee if successful.

Best Season: July through mid-September. Earlier means more snow; later means shorter days and potential early-season storms. First-timers benefit from 20-day itineraries that allow for acclimatization³⁵³⁶, and veterans consistently cite resupply logistics as the most underestimated challenge³⁷.

Mount Whitney

Inyo National Forest, California

At 14,505 feet, Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous United States.³⁸ The standard route from Whitney Portal is non-technical but relentless: 6,100 feet of elevation gain in 11 miles.³⁹ Day-hikers report 12–16 hour round trips with a 2–3 AM start being essential⁴⁰⁴¹.

I attempted this via the Mountaineer’s Route, and bailed. A crampon broke at altitude, and I’d botched the preparation anyway: insufficient acclimatization, questionable gear choices, and a timeline that was more ambitious than realistic. The altitude really hits you starting around 9,000 feet; by 12,000, every decision feels like it’s happening through fog. Above 8,000 feet, the partial pressure of oxygen drops enough to measurably impair cognitive function. At Whitney’s summit (14,505 feet), the oxygen pressure is roughly 60% of sea level. Your blood oxygen saturation drops from a normal 95-100% to around 80-85%, which is enough to slow reaction time, impair judgment, and create a distinctive mental fog that feels like making decisions after two glasses of wine. The standard acclimatization protocol is to sleep at 10,000 feet for at least one night before attempting higher elevations. Most day-hikers skip this, which is why the Whitney descent is where most problems happen. I’m going back. Lottery or no lottery, Whitney is on the list. Winning a permit would mean I don’t have to rush it in a single day like every other adventure I’ve done. For once, I’d like to actually enjoy the summit instead of calculating how many hours of daylight I have left.

Lottery Window: February 1 – March 1, 2026. Results March 15. Confirm by April 21.

$10 application fee. $15/person permit fee if selected.

Best Season: Late June through September. The trail typically opens in late May, weather permitting. August has the most stable weather but also the highest demand.

Kalalau Trail

Nā Pali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii

The Kalalau Trail traces the Nā Pali Coast: 11 miles of cliffside paths, tropical valleys, and remote beaches accessible only by foot or boat.⁴⁴ The Nā Pali Coast is what happens when a volcanic shield erodes for 5 million years. Kauai is the oldest of the main Hawaiian islands, and its northwestern coast has been carved by waves and rain into fluted cliffs (pali) that rise 4,000 feet directly from the ocean. The valleys between the cliffs were inhabited by Native Hawaiians for centuries; Kalalau Valley at the trail’s end was home to a thriving community that grew taro in terraced fields. The last permanent residents left around 1919. Stone walls from the old taro terraces are still visible. Emerald spires dropping into turquoise water. Waterfalls you can stand under. A beach at the end that feels like the edge of the world. This is as close to a jungle expedition as you’ll find in the United States. Some call it “the most dangerous trail in the world,” which is an exaggeration, but the exposure is real, and the stream crossings can turn deadly after rain⁴⁵⁴⁶.

Permit System: Day-hiking past Hanakapi’ai (2 miles) or camping anywhere requires a permit.

• Rolling Window: Permits open 90 days before the hike date at 12:01 AM HST
• Daily Quota: 60 overnight campers, 60 day hikers past Hanakapi’ai

$35/night camping fee. Book immediately when your date opens. Popular dates sell out in minutes.

Best Season: May through September. Winter storms (November–March) create dangerous conditions and frequently wash out sections.

My Strategy for 2026

Here’s what I’m applying for this year, roughly in order of when they’d happen:

• The shakedown trip: The Wave (spring). I’m throwing applications at this one to dial in camping systems under a dark sky before committing to anything bigger. If I win, great excuse to test gear. If I don’t, well, join the club.

• The reliable favorite: Half Dome (late May). Three times and counting. I’ll probably do it cables-down (climbing gear, before the cables are installed) to skip the crowds, but I’m applying for the preseason lottery anyway in case anyone wants company during cable season.

• The one with better crampons: Mount Whitney (early September). Last time I bailed with broken gear and bad acclimatization. This time, proper prep, proper respect for 14,505 feet, and crampons that actually work. Applying for the February lottery. If I don’t win, I’m doing it anyway via the Mountaineer’s Route.

• The no-permit classic: Grand Canyon R2R (September/October). No lottery, no fees, just a shuttle and a very long day. Waiting for the canyon heat to become survivable. The Phantom Ranch lemonade alone is worth the 21 miles.

• The lottery ticket: The Enchantments (September). The Ivy League of permits. September’s golden needles are worth the 10% odds. If I win, I go. If I don’t, I’m sitting this one out. (Stumbling through talus at 2 AM singing “cairns will guide you home” to the tune of Fix You was fun exactly once.)

When to Apply

Full Reference

Download Calendar (.ics) \*Doable in a single day with enough training. Effort: ●●○○ moderate, ●●●○ strenuous, ●●●● very strenuous.

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That’s the list. I’ll keep updating it as I learn more. If any of this is useful for your own planning, I hope you win some lotteries and go see some ridiculous things. The rejection emails will still sting. But at least you’ll be applying to the right things at the right time. And when one finally lands, you’ll know exactly what you won.

One More Thing: Insurance

If you’re doing multi-day adventures in a single push because you couldn’t win the overnight lottery, you’re operating in the space where things can go sideways. Bonking at mile 15 of the Enchantments at 2 AM is a different situation than bonking at a campsite. Helicopter evacuations cost somewhere between “new car” and “small house.” A broken ankle in the Grand Canyon isn’t just painful, it’s a five-figure problem.

The cheapest option for groups is Garmin’s SAR 100: about $120 for 5 people ($24/person) for $100k coverage each. Going solo, it’s $40/year. AAC membership at $45/year gets you $7,500 in rescue coverage, or $120/year for $300,000 at the Leader level (plus gear discounts). Global Rescue ($139+/year) covers medical evacuations worldwide with no deductibles.

The same part of your brain that’s good at permit lottery strategy should probably also run the numbers on what happens if your crampon breaks at 12,000 feet. (Hypothetically speaking.)

Bibliography