In November, with questions about our future – Would we remain in Salt Lake? Would we be moving in the summer? Would we be leaving the West? – we decided to repeat our summer road trip and return to Canada. We chose the same two-week period, tacked on a few extra days, and charted a rough itinerary beginning with Kootenay National Park, going as far north as Mt. Robson Provincial Park, and looping back down through Jasper and Banff again. I made a few reservations in December and January, but I let planning stall for a few months. Then, in March, Zach got a job offer from Boise State and our entire outlook changed. We had answers to all of those questions, and we needed to update our trip to reflect our new reality.

We shortened the trip by four days and changed the entire route to focus on the Kootenay Rockies, a region of southeastern British Columbia with stunning mountain ranges (Selkirks, Purcells, Monashees, & Rockies), long deep lakes, and small mountain towns. We drove through and hiked some of this region last year – Yoho NP and Golden – but this year we decided to concentrate on it.

Now that we’re back and we’ve moved to Boise, I hope to write about our trip much quicker than last year. For the time being, I’m also unemployed, so that should help?
I haven’t figured out how I want to organize the posts, but here’s a tentative list that I’ll update as I go along:

• The drive north – Montana
• Kootenay National Park
• Side Trip to Banff
• Emerald Basin, Yoho National Park
• (Canada’s) Glacier National Park
• Revelstoke, Craigellachie, & Salmon Arm
• Nakusp & Halfway Hot Springs
• New Denver & the Slocan Valley
• Kaslo
• Rafting the Lardeau River
• Buchanan Lookout – Kaslo
• Monica Meadows
• Nelson
• Salmo & Coeur d’Alene
• Big Hole Battlefield

Here’s the route we took: