Welcome to my web page's "Big Trip" entry for the summer of 2014: a trip to the Rocky Mountains of North America. Ten days gave us enough time to fit in seven outings along a roughly five-hundred kilometre stretch of the range, from Glacier National Park in the south to Banff National Park in the north.
Much of the best scenery and most interesting peaks in these areas are clustered around the Continental Divide - a mostly continuous spine of peaks and ridges that form the hydrographic dividing line between the eastern and western drainage basins of North America.
For this trip, we end up doing a series of hikes and climbs that either directly visited, straddled or crossed the Continental Divide (or, at the very least, were in very close visual proximity to it). This clustering of outings along the divide also had the pleasing side-effect of allowing me to quickly come up with a cutesy name and theme for this trip report: "Astride the Divide".
The most logical place for us to fly to kick off our trip was Calgary, Alberta. Not only was it conveniently located near the front ranges of the Rockies, but Jenn's Aunt and Uncle - Sharon and Ralph - lived there, and they had graciously offered to pick us up from the airport and lodge us for the night. And to drive us to the off-airport car rental lot in downtown Calgary the next morning. Once again, our many thanks to you!
After a pleasant overnight stay with Jenn's aunt and uncle (and a visit from cousin Kelly), we arrived at the Alamo car rental location in downtown Calgary (114 5 Ave SE) at 9am the next morning. Time to head off and do some outdoorsy stuff.
