So after much discussion, we’ve come up with the basics of our route through next winter. Here is a map with all of the waypoints labled:

Feel free to check out the route and some free campsites along the way at freecampsites.net.

Our first stop out of Denver is Salida, CO. Kathleen and Mike have offered us their driveway for a few days to get settled into the RV and Salida also happens to have some fantastic whitewater. Then we get to the first of the hard deadlines for us.

May 20th – 22nd – I’m teaching whitewater kayaking lessons at the Colorado Whitewater club’s biggest event of the year: Training Camp. They rent out a whole campground in the town of Cotopaxi, just outside of Salida and do lessons for 150 people on Saturday and Sunday. After that we’ll have two weeks to make it to Jackson, WY, 12 hours away.

June 4th – 11th – Allison is racing 3 races in Jackson, WY and West Yellowstone, MT. We already made reservations at some campgrounds in the area.

Then we are off of any strict time deadlines. We’ll probably take a fair bit of time exploring Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks there before heading north through Big Sky and Bozeman, MT (and the awesome whitewater along that route).

Next, west to Missoula, MT where we’ll probably spend some time enjoying the awesome wilderness areas that surround the city. Then north again to Glacier National Park.

After that, it gets more into “like to see” territory at least until the end. We’d like to see North Cascades National Park, Olympic National Park, Seattle, Mount Rainier National Park, Highway 101 along the Pacific, Portland, Bend, Boise, and the Salmon and Snake Rivers.

Finally, assuming Allison gets accepted into an internship at the National Ability Center, we finish up at Park City, UT for the winter.

The basic path that I drew out above puts us just over 3000 miles, or 2 days 6 hours 30 minutes of driving time. Add in a bit to get to and from camping spots and to hit Mt Rainier and highway 101 (the tool was having trouble with what I wanted to do) and we’re probably still under 4000 miles on the RV. Speaking of camping spots, check out all of these free ones along the route:

This of course a rough plan. We really want to be off of a timetable as much as possible. We just want to stay flexible. It’s possible we’ll end up staying in one place for two months and then need to cut some other parts short. And we’re totally ok with that.