I love the Outdoors Interview #26

There are so many great bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, and photographers out there creating amazing outdoor content on a daily basis.

Not only did I want to personally get to know them better, but I also wanted to explore their outdoor influences and passion for nature.

Thus, we’ve launched the I Love The Outdoors Interview Series.

If you are interested in participating in the series, please contact us and let us know!

Becky Lomax

Tell us a little about yourself.

Although originally from the Seattle area, my home for several decades has been about 25 minutes outside Glacier National Park in Montana and 5 minutes from trails in Flathead National Forest.

It was a deliberate choice to live close to mountain outdoor activities.

2. What is your favorite outdoor activity?

Spring, summer, and fall are all about hiking and backpacking.

Annual hiking routes in Glacier National Park are like old friends that I’m honored to share time with again, but returning to melting glaciers is always bittersweet and shocking at the amount of ice lost.

In between the trails that are old friends, new trails and scrambling routes feed my explorer instinct.

In winter, I chase that Zen frame of mind that comes from gliding on cross-country skis in fresh snow.

Local groomed trails serve for exercise, while the park and national forests have places where we can forge our own trails through soft cruising snow.

In spring, bicycling Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier tops my list.

It provides a way to get up on the scenic roadway before it opens to vehicles with the summer traffic mayhem.

3. Where is your favorite trail?

Hmmmm. My fave trail is usually whatever trail I am on at the moment in whatever national park. But some special ones stick out.

In Canyonlands National Park, Chesler Park and The Joint feature fun, playful desert elements like spires and slot canyons.

While a long, tough haul in one day, Paintbrush Divide Loop in Grand Teton National Park yields scenery that makes me yearn for more while at the same time hitting the wall in exhaustion.

While short, the Beehive Loop in Acadia National Park uses iron ladder rungs and a precipitous trail to make a climbing playground while grabbing views of the Atlantic Ocean.

In Yosemite National Park during spring runoff, hiking up the Misty Stairs to the top of Vernal Fall and then further looping over the top of Nevada Falls strikes home the power of water.

To stand in the presence of the ancient Bristlecone Pines on the Bristlecone-Rock Glacier Trail in Great Basin National Park is humbling indeed.

4. Where is your favorite camping spot?

Although I camp frequently in the front country, my preference goes to the minimalism of backcountry camping.

The remoteness of camping at Boulder Pass in Glacier delivers the combo of solitude I seek and off-trail adventures that start from there.

While the tent is important for sleeping, other physical activities need to happen, too, and Boulder Pass delivers a unique experience with its low-rider pit toilet.

The view looks out over Agassiz Glacier and Kintla Peak, which elevates a necessary bodily function while camping with a brain-swell of scenery.

5. Who was your biggest outdoor influence?

When I was six months old, my parents carried me on hikes in Mount Rainier National Park.

Their love of Rainier in turn planted the seeds in me for my deep connection to the national parks and wilderness.

As a family, we camped, hiked, and backpacked. I grew up thinking that’s what all families did.

We skied the Paradise rope tows at Mount Rainier back when they still existed and backpacked in Olympic National Park to overnight in Enchanted Valley Chalet decades before the encroaching river closed it.

My parents had no idea that I’d later become a hiking and backpacking guide in a national park and then a writer of national park guidebooks.

6. Who is your favorite person to camp or hike with?

Whomever wants to go.

I love sharing the outdoors with friends and family.

Often, hiking a trail with others just amplifies the experience.

7. What is your favorite piece of gear and why?

My boots. If my boots suck, so does hiking.

8. What do you love about the outdoors?

Wilderness provides a necessary brain laundry.

It offers a place to shed the mind-spinning garbage piling up inside in order to reconnect with what is important in the natural world.

9. What outdoor places are on your bucket list?

One summer, I spent two months camping and hiking around Alaska. But I long to go back to explore more.

10. What is your goal as an outdoor content creator? How can we support you and where can we find your content?

My goal is to aid people in experiencing the national parks safely, sustainably, respectfully, and ethically.

Part of that demands a conscientiousness in what photos I share–reinforcing proper safety by showing sturdy footwear on hikers, helmets on bikers, and PFDs on kayakers, for example.

The ethical angle comes from showing things like refillable water systems rather than one-time-use plastics, hikers on trails or solid surfaces rather than trampling fragile meadows, and park visitors respecting wildlife at appropriate distances.

I’m also an advocate of shifting our language to describe outdoor adventures: moving away from the battle language of “conquering peaks” in favor of personal emotional expression and minimizing the use of words like “pristine” to describe beautiful scenery as they negate recognition of those who were on the land before it became public.

While most of my writing and photography is for my six Moon Travel Guides, you can also find me on

Instagram: @beckyjlomax
Twitter (now X): @beckyjlomax

My six books are available at most book retailers as well as other outlets.

Becky Lomax, thanks for the great interview and for participating in the I Love The Outdoors Interview Series!

If you are interested in participating and sharing your story, please contact us and let us know!

I love the Outdoors Interview #26 – Becky Lomax

Becky Lomax

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