[Minnie]

We're finally getting to the point we can get back into doing some exploring and hiking again. We spent 2 summers ago, just starting out with day trips from Calgary, south down to Waterton/Crowsnest Pass and out to Canmore/Banff/Lake Louise and attendant areas. Occasionally we get out to Radium/Invermere and we do the loop back from Radium, to Golden and then back east on Highway 1, through Field, etc.

Of course, my daughter's accident changed all that and we've done very little - we hadn't done a lot before that, but we had gotten a start at least. My husband's had his knee repair (ACL) and needs to get busy on building up muscle, etc, again. My daughter is doing well enough now, at times, that we can begin to start on this again.

We have done the Bankshead hikes/tramps, a bit of hiking up on the Spray Lakes road, up near Takkakaw Falls, here and there along the Radium highway, around Waterton a very little bit and so on. A fair amount of small hikes west of Turner Valley - Sandy McNabb/Blue Rock. Grew up going to that area all the time. Nothing major.

We will need easy hikes to begin with, to build ourselves back up, both in experience, stamina and strength. We'd like to work up to some scrambles and ridge walks (unless there's a ridge walk that's an easy hike, lol) and major day hikes, and maybe eventually even some back country hiking/camping trips.

I had a book at one point, that I grabbed at the library, about day trips from Calgary and we did a few of them, but there wasn't a lot about hikes in there. I did have another book that I had just taken out, right before my daughter's accident, to start researching hikes/scrambles but I ended up taking it back fairly quickly because it was painfully obvious we weren't going to be doing any of it, for quite a while - I can't recall the name of it but it gave a lot of information - degree of difficulty, degree of ascent, that sort of thing, going from easy/beginner to difficult/expert. Oddly enough, we managed to find a couple of 'strolls' that we could push her chair along and we went as far along those trails as we could, which wasn't terribly far but our main goal was just to get out there so that we weren't sitting at home staring at four walls all the time (or hospital rooms/doctor's offices).

So I'm asking all you smart people for your ideas and suggestions for good hikes. Cowperson has given me a few ideas but I'm sure he's an even deeper well of information on this and I know there are more of you out there that do the hikes/scrambles, etc, so you probably are a wealth of information as well. I did a quick search but didn't see another thread along this line but I may have used the incorrect search criteria, so if it's a repeat, my apologies.