After months of deliberation, we've finally decided on our 2013 summer plans. I can't recall a winter in which we spent so many hours working on a trip, only to run into a dead end and have to start over. Issues such as permit availability, timing of snow melt and the availability of mass transit in certain parks have derailed our plans multiple times. The plan usually starts out as a grandiose trip idea, and then as I learn about the destinations, I decide that each one needs more time to be fully explored. The trips get paired down into something more manageable this way. Now that we are only three weeks away - we have settled on some destinations.
We will head out of town on June 7th and race the sunset to the west in our Jeep. We'll make the long drive to Zion National Park in Utah. After Zion, the trip will take us gradually east, allowing us to explore Bryce Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. We'll do some front-country camping and day hiking in each park, along with some backpack trips in most of the parks. I'll beginning to learn about hiking and camping in a desert environment and preparing myself for the first scorpion or rattlesnake sighting!
All told, we'll spend six weeks out west, before returning home for a night. We'll head north to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for a week of relaxed camping on the shores of Lake Leeland with family. Next, we'll head further north, to the cold waters and quiet forests of Lake Superior Provincial Park in Ontario. The plan is to take a five day paddle trip on Lake Miji, in the park's interior.
On the drive home, we'll meet up with some more family in St. Ignace for a couple of days, including a visit to Mackinaw Island. We'll be home for a full week while I teach a high school band camp, before heading out again. Our last destination of the year will be to Vermont for the next 100 miles of the Long Trail. This section will take us from Sherburne Pass to Smuggler's Notch - arguably the most challenging and most scenic stretch of the nation's oldest thru-hike.
I'll be blogging about all of it, of course. I hope you'll follow along, as we trek from high desert mesas to dark slot canyons, across wildflower-covered meadows beneath snow-capped peaks and along calm, quiet waterways in the paths of loons and otters. All the way to the summit of Mount Mansfield in Vermont, it should be a grand adventure!
