Some of the greatest ideas are given in a lightbulb moment. Some take years to develop. For me and my fellow adventurers – sometimes it just takes a cool picture on Instagram and a late night twitter conversation.

cole/gerald/johnson and I go way back. Something about the place we met seems to inject a sense of adventure into people that is hard to get rid of. We didn’t get around to one last summer, so we knew this summer had to be epic.

We wanted to go up to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada (the Canadian Rockies), but we needed some fellow travelers. A few texts and minutes later we had 8 people locked and ready. Most of us have real life jobs and responsibilities, but we don’t want to forget the kid inside of us. It’s a priority.

After weeks of planning, we decided to spend 5 days in Banff and hit up Glacier National Park for two on our way back. This was mostly because Needtobreathe (whom I have gushed over in multiple blogs) was putting on a free show in Montana the night we’d be driving back. Why not end with a bang?

It’s hard to describe our trip in words.

The sights were breathtaking. The community was authentic. The adventure was intoxicating. The freedom was necessary.

Last week one of the guys at my bar asked me “why in the world would you go camping with your week off?” (This was in response to me telling him I didn’t shower for a week).

Because for me and my crew it has nothing to do with luxury. We love each other and want to remember why we’re here. We want to see God with no filter, and we want to do it together.

The word “Banff” sounds an awful lot like the popular, vulgar acronym “BAMF” (if you don’t know what it means, don’t google it). Cole wanted our trip hashtag to be “#BAMFinBanff” so he found some Hebrew words and declared our team name “Bara Adonai Midbar Fellowship.” 19 grammatical offenses later, what we’re trying to say is “Filling up with God in the wilderness…together .”

Here’s a quick highlight video from our trip – I did my best to capture a glimpse of our experience. What a crew.