So if you’re here to read about hiking, or hiking in Canada, or hiking over 40, you may want to know a little more about me.

Our day jobs are in the Canadian Armed Forces, but neither of us joined young – we both joined as a second career (well, in my case more like fifth – in hers, second). We have a quiver full of boys, who are just now beginning to launch. We have spent all of our lives in the West of Canada, and no matter where our jobs take us, we know when it comes time to hang up our combat boots, we will be retiring to our Canadian Rockies.

We love to hike, but strangely, we haven’t had a lot of time to indulge this passion so far in life. In fact, dayhiking has been the bulk of our time on trail, stuff the kids could handle, but in the last few years we have been finally able to get out on more overnights, which seem to get longer every year!

So here we are – in our 40’s, looking for ways to stay healthy, and on the cusp of finally making it all happen. We are dialling in our gear to minimize physical impact on our bodies – we don’t want to blow out a knee or back through overwork at this point and take ourselves entirely out of the game so being careful and working on an ultralight setup.

We’ve been reading (and watching) tons of content on the thru-hikes down in the USA, but it’s still a dream to do an entire trail. However, thankfully there is a long trail or two (or three) in Canada, and maybe we will get to do a number on them!

(Updated for 2024)