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I Went Hiking in the Rockies With Three People in Their 70s—And It Changed My Perspective

Jennifer McGuire

May 15, 2026

Smiling woman in hiking gear stands in a grassy meadow with towering rocky mountains and a pine forest behind him/her.

Photo by Jennifer McGuire

I started my five-day guided hike through the Rockies in a sulk. I am a 53-year-old woman. A perimenopausal mom of four. An adult. Yet there I was at the Calgary airport, quietly, deeply disappointed because my fellow hikers, strangers all, were in their 70s. Great, I thought, there goes my bucket-list hike. I had been cultivating a very specific idea of what this trip would look like for ages: my first time in the Rockies, my first time dedicating an entire week to hiking. I have long been a ca...

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READ MORE: Adventure, Alberta, Hiking

Jennifer McGuire

Jen McGuire is a freelance travel writer and essayist whose work has been published in the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Good Housekeeping, Tripadvisor and more. Her book "Nest: Letting Go From Italy, France, and Ireland," sold thousands of copies across North America. She is a mom to four boys, a hiker and a lover of all baked goods.

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