Adventure Journal (May 17, 2022) by Brendan Leonard

Memorial Day is just a couple weeks away, which kicks off long-distance hiking season for many. With that in mind, we present some of our favorite big hikes that are well-known. The lesser-known ones? We’ll keep those to ourselves. – Ed.

You can probably name The Big Three long-distance trails in the U.S. by their acronyms: the AT, the PCT, and the CDT. They’re all thousands of miles, life-list items, and personal-paradigm-shifters. But you don’t have to walk for half a year to have a formative experience (although it’s probably nice) – there are plenty of tremendous 100-plus-mile trails in the U.S. that will kick your ass and adjust your attitude, and you won’t go through six pairs of shoes on your way to mental clarity.

Here are our favorites:

1. Arizona Trail
Almost no state in the U.S. can beat Arizona’s north-to-south eco-diversity, from saguaro-lined desert floor to 12,000-foot peaks. Oh, and there’s the Grand Canyon, too. The Arizona Trail does its best to take in as much of that terrain as possible, stretching 817 miles from Coronado National Monument near the Mexico border all the way to the Utah line, through the Grand Canyon on the same trails used by hikers doing the classic Rim-to-Rim hike.

 

To read the rest of the article, click here.