We spent five weeks in the USA on a number of backpacking trips mostly in California's beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains. These were termed the 'Range of Light' by the Scotsman John Muir and the term makes sense with the piercing sun, dazzling white granite and generally stable weather. The mountains are part of Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and are also protected by US wilderness designations preventing wheeled and motorized vehicles entering. Our aim was to mix trail hiking with cross country and scrambling over some lesser visited parts of the range. Also see our hiking blog
For contrast we also included about 10 days in southern Utah doing some backpacking in areas new to us in the Escalante canyons.