After several weeks at home in Canmore—working long days, getting minimal exercise, chafed by the reality that little hiking is available in the Canadian Rockies until June—we felt strange, unsettled. The nomadic life is strong in us. So after taking care of essential business and stacking the rest onto our laptops, we migrated south. Early spring is ideal hiking time in southern Utah.

Leaving the icy mountains behind, we headed to the land of sun-pounded slickrock domes and sandy-floored, sinuous canyons. We traded a palette of grey and straw, for red, orange and yellow. We pitched our tent under grand cottonwoods, sat out late beneath the starry, cobalt sky, woke up to temperatures that invite hiking in shorts.

We hope you can take time this year to visit Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, or Zion national parks, or the vast, high-desert regions surrounding Moab, Torrey, Boulder, or Escalante. Bring our book Hiking from Here to WOW: Utah Canyon Country. It will ensure you make the most out of each day. You live in western Canada? A 20-hour drive is all that stands between you and another planet: southern Utah. If your home is in the northwest U.S., you’re close enough that four or five days is all you need for a quick but fulfilling canyon-country adventure.

While driving through the outskirts of Calgary, we passed a housing development with a huge sign: FINAL PHASE! Our interpretation was, yes, this is indeed the historic, final phase for these absurdly huge, utterly unsustainable, hilariously boxy, anti-architecture mansions. Even a dim awareness of reality (peak oil, climate change, global economic decline) is sufficient to recognize that these trophy homes are monuments to excess and will soon be unwanted embarrassments. Besides, homes and mortgages of that magnitude have always been anchors that severely curtail one’s independence. They represent the final phase of whatever liberty their owners previously enjoyed.

Continuing our drive south of Calgary, we saw other housing developments spilling across the prairie. All the homes are boxes. All are “detached” but none is more than a couple meters from the nearly identical box next door. All are drab shades of the drabbest colours: taupe and grey. We could not live there. Such pervasive monotony would quash our creativity. The comforts those boxes provide would not compensate us for the soul-deadening affects of uniformity, repetition, and predictability.

We’d rather be in a downtown Calgary condo, where we’d have the Bow River and several big parks nearby, and where we could participate in stimulating city life.

Approaching Lethbridge, we could see the weather was worse on the southern horizon. We stopped for gas and discovered the approaching snow storm had already knocked out the city’s electricity. Without electricity, gas pumps are inoperable. Plus the Coutts border crossing was closed, as was the highway in northern Montana. “Don’t try it,” someone told us. “Cars in the ditch everywhere.”

It seemed the snow had defeated us. Our four-hour drive south was wasted. We turned back north. But nomad determination kicked in. “I bet we can outflank this storm,” Kath said. “We’ll drive west over Crowsnest Pass into B.C., then probe south.”

It was longer by four hours, but it worked. It was a more interesting drive, too. And it allowed us to keep moving. That’s the nomad philosophy: Keep moving.

From New York, we drove through Vermont’s rolling hills and pretty forests to the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire. After spending two weeks in the sedate Catskills, we were eager to hike bigger mountains.

We expected the Presidential Range — biggest in New  England — to impress us. We considered hiking up Mt. Washington, highest in the range, until we learned there’s a road to the 6288-ft (1917-m) summit. So we chose Franconia Ridge, which includes the summits of Mounts Lincoln and Lafayette. At 5260 ft (1604 m), Lafayette is the 7th highest peak in New England. The Franconia Ridge loop is 9 mi (14.5 km) long and entails a 4,000-ft (1219-m) ascent/descent but grants a 1.8-mi (3-km) cruise along the alpine ridgecrest. Apparently this is a scenic bargain here in the tree-clad eastern half of the country.

Approaching the trailhead, we drove through a couple “notches” (passes) and were encouraged to see exposed, rock cliffs. “Ah! Real mountains!” we thought.

Midway up the bouldery, aggressively steep trail, the weather turned grim. Though we were swift, we were in full-on winter conditions by the time we surmounted the ridge. We peered north along the crest into a frigid, windy, snowy, whiteout. The region is notorious for these sudden onslaughts. We considered turning back but were sufficiently equipped that proceeding cautiously did not
seem foolishly risky. We stayed hyper alert about avoiding injury and staying on course.

Losing your way on Franconia Ridge would normally be all but impossible, because the route is occasionally cairned and frequently lined with stones. Many of these markers, however, were buried in snowdrifts that sometimes reached our thighs. So we simply followed the crest of the narrow ridge and kept pushing northward. The temperature was -9°C (about 16° F) not counting wind chill. Conditions rapidly deteriorated into a blizzard. We did, however, glimpse our surroundings a couple times when the clouds briefly parted. Forested valleys and gentle, rolling mountains extended in every direction.

By the time we summitted Lafayette, even the intensity of our effort was not keeping us warm, so we were glad to begin the descent. We were even happier to discover the Greenleaf hut, part way down the descent route, was still open. We gratefully stopped there to refuel.

Resuming the loop, the route steepens markedly below the hut, and we encountered long stretches of treacherous ice. Deliberate foot- and pole-work was necessary to prevent a bone-breaking tumble. Very slow and frustrating.

Lessons learned? The stature of a mountain range and the quality of its trails don’t necessarily correspond. Even a “good” trail in the Whites can be rough. The Canadian Rockies are enormous, yet the trails tend to be gentler under foot, often allowing you to stride. Rockies’ trails also ascend more gradually. And to surmount treeline in the Whites you must, on average, endure twice the ascent necessary in the Rockies.

One hike is not a fair sampling, we know. And visibility during our Franconia outing was poor. Still, we concluded it’s not worthwhile for hikers from the West to devote precious hiking time in the East. A severe shortage of alpine terrain in the East prevents adequate scenic compensation.

In the Canadian Rockies, the North Cascades, or either Canada’s or America’s Glacier National Park, you can spend hours on end traversing glorious, see-forever, alpine slopes and ridges. Even Franconia Ridge, fringed with krummholz, barely qualifies as “alpine.” If it’s constant views you seek, Utah canyon country is unbeatable. If you want to marvel at trees, the grand, ancient, cathedral forests of the North Cascades easily dwarf the oldest, loveliest eastern groves.

We met several hikers in the the Atlantic states and Maritime provinces who said, “Oh, there are lots of great places to hike here.” Some said, “The Adirondacks are much better than the Catskills.” Others said, “Forget the Adirondacks, hike the Whites.” In Quebec, atop the third and final summit of the sentier l’acropoles, in the hautes gorges de la rivière Malbaie dans Charlevoix, we met a hiker from Montreal who said, “This is very nice, but the best hiking in Quebec is in the Chic Chocs, in Parc de le Gaspesie.”

We listened attentively to all of them. We even took notes. But we were too kind to speak our minds…

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d ever hiked out west. One good day in the Rockies, the Cascades, or Utah canyon country and you’ll experience a paradigm shift of tectonic-plate proportions.”

The Whites afforded us a vigorous challenge, a strong feeling of accomplishment, and a sense of wilderness. We enjoyed it. We’re very glad we’ve hiked in the East. If we had to live there, we’d still be happy, mountain freaks. But we’d head west at every opportunity.

If you live in eastern Canada or the U.S., we urge you to come west for a hiking vacation. “Awesome” is a threadbare cliche, but where we live, you’ll be hard pressed to think of a more apt adjective to describe the mountain scenery.