The Trip of a Lifetime

A while ago Joe and I got to talking about how much fun it would be to do a road trip out to the western portion of the United States and do some climbing. I'll be honest here, I don't exactly remember how we starting tossing around ideas to take a trip like this. But for those of you who know us on a personal level, I'm sure its easy enough to imagine how we might have come to this. (maybe Joe can chime in here)

Anyway with the idea and ambition in place, we started coming up with a bunch of places we wanted to visit which eventually turned into a HUGE itinerary with a short amount of time allotted for each destination. Initially the main focus of the trip was rock climbing and we had planned on doing some serious multi pitch routes in places like The Needles in South Dakota, The Tetons and Devils Tower in Wyoming.

I think today Joe and I would both agree that our ambitions here far exceeded our actual talents. Being a novice to the climbing world I was especially worried that my limited ability and lack of experience could get us in some serious trouble. Joe however seemed confident that we could pull it off with just a couple months of serious training and developing/dialing in our trad climbing abilities. After expressing my thought about concerns with Mr. Walker, fate (also known as a small scale boulder) stepped in the way and broke Joe's middle finger, and just as the doctor ordered, no more rock climbing for Joe.

So while we were both upset about this, we took it as a sign and revised our agenda. So here it is loosely:

Leave CT on July 7Th and drive straight to Chicago. Why Chicago? I don't really know but neither one of us has been there and it sounds like a nice place to crash.

From there we travel northwest to the Badlands area in South Dakota. Some warm up hiking and maybe some sightseeing will take place here. Mount Rushmore's just up the road and Wall Drug will tame my caffine fix with some 5 cent coffee.

Once we get tired of cowboys and sand we will drive on over to the legendary and beautiful Glacier National Park in the Northwest corner of Montana. After seeing all the incredible pictures that Mr. Brad Poer had from his visits to the park, Glacier (GNP) made its way on my life list of places to go. The plan is to bag a couple peaks in the park and do some quality backpacking while taking in the views of the incredible landscapes and wildlife which GNP has to offer.

Speaking of bagging peaks aka summit bids or climbing mountains for all you traditional types. Next on our list is the mystical and enticing Mount Rainier in the state of Washington. Often referred to as the Mount Everest of the United States, Mount Rainier has made its way to the top of my agenda for the summer, and yes we do plan to climb this monster of a mountain.
Side note: Rainier cherry's are amazingly delicious. Thank you Mrs. Walker.

From there we will head on down to the lovely state of Oregon where our plan is to climb Mount Hood and spend some time in the Portland area.

Making our way south down the pacific coast we will make stops for redwood trees, possibly Yosemite, and then hike up to the summit of Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the lower 48) before we do some surfing in southern California.

From here we have a couple options before we make our way out to Utah for some Canyoneering/hiking at Zion/Bryce/Canyonlands. Its entirely possible that we will end up at the Grand Canyon or caving in New Mexico. This is entirely dependant on how much time we have left before we both need to get back to our obligatory lifestyles here in CT.

I hope I have left you extremely excited now that you have an idea of the adventures that will take place in the upcoming weeks. If anyone has any advice for us as we approach any of our destinations please contact us.