I had been dreaming, planning, scheming a road trip for the longest time. The opportunity presented itself when Ann finished her residency training, and we moved from Chicago to New York. She was changing jobs, and I got the chance to take some time off work. We shipped all our stuff to a storage box in New Jersey, we headed West, then came all the way back East. After some lengthy negotiations intended to calibrate the %of the trip devoted to climbing so both Ann and I would be happy (sort of ...), away we go.

We were out for six weeks, drove a lot, saw a bunch of friends, hiked some, and climbed about half the time on the trip. Our itinerary was Chicago - Badlands NP - Mt. Rushmore - Devils Tower - Glacier NP - Calgary - Banff - Vancouver - City of Rocks (ID) - Yellowstone NP - Jackson Hole - Devils Tower - New York. By the end of the trip, Ann and I got pretty proficient at climbing longer routes as a team, and were much looking forward to climbing more such routes again.

One notable segment not covered in trip reports, was climbing at Banff, which has some great bolted routes in Gunks-like featured rock on the shore of Lake Louise. The setting is hard to beat, although the mosquitoes were fierce. Also had a great time climbing Baxter's Pinnacle (5.6 A1 ** 6p) in the Tetons. That route turned out to have an unbelievable crowd factor, but it is also in a great setting.