Writer-Photographer
"Before They're Gone is a beautifully written, moving meditation on the meaning of parenthood, our parks, and the first generation of children to grow up in the age of global warming."
—Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods
“Wilderness adventurers like Lanza are the advance scouts of global warming, bringing back first-hand testimony from pristine landscapes that powerfully corroborates what climate scientists are telling us about our changing planet. But this eyewitness report is much more than an impassioned polemic. It’s that, to be sure, but also an entertaining collection of backcountry anecdotes—surprise encounters with grizzlies, anxious moments on glaciers and wild coastlines, jaw-dropping views from remote summits—that bring climate change to life in a way that’s more palpable and persuasive than any data chart. Above all, Before They’re Gone is a fetching love letter to Mike’s wife, son and daughter, and friends—and to the wild places he treasures as only a hiker, climber, and explorer can.”
—Jonathan Dorn, editor-in-chief, BACKPACKER
“Delightful… a fresh and engaging way to tell the climate change story.”
—Laura Helmuth, Senior Science Editor, Smithsonian magazine
“Blending anecdotes and ecology lessons, Lanza sheds light on his family's charming dynamic (from his daughter's sensible suggestion that they depart from bear territory to his son's preference to attack the brutes), the wonder of the natural world, and the ethical responsibility we all have to mitigate the forces that are changing our planet ‘faster even than scientists or computer models have anticipated.’ This is a terrific blend of adventure ("Seeing a bison gallop thirty miles an hour—as they can—is like seeing a grand piano suddenly sprout horns and charge you with the speed of a horse.") and ecological forecasting (and forewarning) that aptly conveys the passion of a devoted outdoorsman, and serves as a wake-up call to the state of our planet.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“Michael Lanza braids a story of family, wilderness, and climate that's at once heartwarming and terrifying. I envy his kids for the incredible year they spent exploring America's finest wild places. And I mourn that they—and my own daughter—will have to endure the devastating consequences of our heating planet. Lanza makes abundantly clear that our children deserve better than the legacy we’re leaving them.”
—John Harlin, author, The Eiger Obsession: Facing the mountain that killed my father, and editor, The American Alpine Journal
“Lanza establishes his profoundly compelling narrative strategy of mixing in-the-moment accounts of their demanding hikes and intrepid Nate and Alex’s exuberant pleasure in nature with scientifically based and heart-clenching observations of ‘climatic anarchy.’… ‘Climate change,’ Lanza wisely concludes, ‘forces us to confront our deepest values.’”
—Booklist
“Lanza is a fine writer and an excellent observer both of nature and of family life, but he expands beyond a family adventure travelogue to chronicle the many ways in which climate change affects the nation’s most extraordinary natural places… a heartbreaking, compelling story.”
—AMC Great Kids, Great Outdoors blog
“I grew up in a national park, worked in twelve others and have visited well over two hundred of them. Their values, for people like me, often are taken for granted. In this wonderful book, Michael Lanza’s children learn and experience what is most important about our national parks—the necessity to leave them ‘unimpaired for future generations’—and why.”
—Bill Wade, Chair, Executive Council, Coalition of National Park Service Retirees and former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park
“Part family travelogue and part ecological observation… Lanza has opened the doors to this world to his children and readers alike.”—Kirkus Reviews
Read an excerpt from Before They're Gone—A Family's Year-Long Quest to Explore America's Most Endangered National Parks (April 2012, Beacon Press).
Read an excerpt from Before They're Gone and find links to media coverage of it.
Buy the book.
See stories and images from the trips taken for his book and other outdoor adventures at TheBigOutside.com.
He has written about topics as diverse as record floods at Mt. Rainier, the controversy over snowmobiles in Yellowstone, and the impacts of climate change on Glacier National Park and other wild lands; his articles about global warming helped Backpacker earn a National Magazine Award for general excellence in 2008. He has published stories in several magazines about adventure travels on four continents. See this site's Photos page for samples of his images. He is an engaging storyteller and enjoys giving talks and slide shows about his work and travels as an outdoor writer and photographer, the impacts of climate change on nature, and getting children out into the wilderness.
He's also the author of Seven Summits—The High Peaks of the Pacific Northwest; Winter Hiking and Camping; and Day Hiker’s Handbook. His past experience includes syndicating a weekly outdoor column in 20 daily newspapers across New England, editing an outdoor magazine, co-hosting a call-in show about the outdoors on New Hampshire Public Radio, and working as a reporter and editor at Massachusetts and New Hampshire newspapers. Michael has a B.S. in photojournalism from Syracuse University.
An avid backpacker, climber, backcountry skier, and cyclist, he has hiked and climbed extensively in the U.S. West and Northeast, and in the Alps, Canadian Rockies, Himalaya, Iceland, Patagonia, New Zealand, Spain, and the Scottish Highlands.
Michael lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife, Penny Beach, and their son, Nate, and daughter, Alex
Visit Michael Lanza's amazon.com author page
“Mike is a walking encyclopedia of outdoor expertise. If you can imagine it, he’s probably been there, done that, and brought home an engaging story. He’s one of our most versatile and skillful authors, which is why we call on him to cover issues and personalities beyond the scope of his duties as our Northwest editor.”
—Jonathan Dorn, editor-in-chief, BACKPACKER
