Squeezing in Banff Planning

In the midst of finalizing Peru, planning Ireland and knowing we will be in Hawaii (with an as of yet unplanned hop to New Zealand) through mid-January, we received an invitation to join two new friends in a Canadian Rockies hiking adventure in late August. We’d met these folks from Cincinnati last August during our first adventure (See WINDSTAR: ITALIAN TRIO CRUISE). We hit it off and have stayed in touch. I actually visited their home for a few days in January, enroute to see my mom in North Canton. We jumped at the chance to participate in another adventure with them. Once we had the name of the outfitter and the dates, we signed up and paid our deposit. Again, we committed to this trip!

In this case, we had a tentatively planned weekend with friends in Minnesota in August, to which we planned to drive, so our initial thought was we’d continue from Northern MN to Calgary, where the adventure starts. As it turned out the MN weekend has been postponed until 2025. However, while I’ve been to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Glacier, Chris has not. So, we stuck with the original idea of driving from Denver to Calgary (which  incidentally, is my maternal grandfather’s birthplace).

(SIDE NOTE: We love road tripping. In our first year of dating, we traveled from Minneapolis to the Smoky Mountains in east Tennessee and back, to switch out company vehicles with a colleague, over a weekend).

Chris drafted an itinerary, including routes, times, and stops that has us driving from Denver to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming with a few days hiking and exploring Yellowstone; then exiting through the west park entrance into Montana, through Bozeman and into Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for another day. From there, we will drive north into Canada and on to Lake Louise for another day of hiking before our 6-day Heli-hiking adventure begins.

Our return trip home will have us driving through Glacier National Park. We just need to book our hotels and buy our travelers insurance and we’re ready for our late August adventure! Packing for this trip will be easy after Machu Picchu, we just need to remember our #NationalParkPassport, Chris’s #NationalParkPass, and our US Passports!