Backpacking Trip Ideas
Backpacking is basically just hiking for more than one day while carrying everything you need. Below we’ve listed each of the backpacking trips that we have done! By clicking on the button below each trip, you’ll find our complete report for that specific trip, including hike stats, what trails we used, and what we thought of the overall hike. We hope that you find this information helpful for planning your own trip! Enjoy!
The Twins, Galehead, Garfield, and Owl’s Head
As a part of an overnight backpacking trip, we did North Twin, South Twin, Galehead, and Garfield on Saturday and then Owl’s Head on Sunday. We spent the night in the backcountry, staying at the 13 Falls Tentsite. We really recommend this route as it’s a fun way to get a bunch of peaks and do a not-so-typical route for these peaks. All together this route is 25.5 miles and will certainly tire you out!
Three Day Presidential Traverse
While some people choose to do the Presidential Traverse in a single day, we chose to stretch it out over the course of 3 days to take it slow and enjoy the time in the outdoors. We opted to go north to south, since this gets the big peaks (and a lot of the elevation) done with early on. We spent the first night at The Perch Tentsite in between Mount Adams and Mount Jefferson and the second night at Nauman Tentsite just below the summit of Mount Pierce. We climbed 8 of the 4,000 footers plus Mount Webster on this trip!
The Carters and Moriah
Due to their close proximity, Carter Dome, South Carter, Middle Carter and Mount Moriah commonly done together in a single day, or as an overnight trip if you take it slow like us. This route will give you the opportunity to visit Carter Notch and the Carter Lakes, visit the Carter Notch Hut, take a side trip to Mount Hight, camp at a high elevation at a backcountry tentsite (Imp Tentsite), watch the sunset, peak bag four summits, and enjoy multiple opportunities for incredible views along the way. If that doesn’t get you excited for this traverse, then you really need to experience it to see how great it is!
the wapack trail
The Wapack Trail is a 21.5 mile trail that runs from Greenfield, NH to Ashburnham, MA. This trail This trail will take you across rock slabs, through beautiful fields, into lush forest and even some short road walks through town so that you really get a wide range of experiences! With minimal elevation gain and excellent views, we recommend this hike as a warmup backpacking trip after a winter hiatus or a great option for a first-time backpacker! Be sure to check out and book in advance the gorgeous shelters at Windblown cross country ski area.
As experienced hikers, we always make sure that we are hiking with The Ten Essentials which include navigation, a headlamp, sun protection, first aid, a knife, shelter, extra food, water and clothes. Overtime, we have discovered some items that we always bring on our hikes and consider them to be our personal, expanded ten essentials.