Hello Everyone!! It’s been entirely too long since I last posted on this blog and for that I am genuinely sorry. As my tour season progressed, it got busier and busier and I got more and more worn down. I didn’t have much free time at all in September or October and what little I did have was spent trying to catch up on some sleep and rest up for the next tour. I ran 15 tours this season spanning the country from Seattle to New Orleans and Los Angeles to Glacier National Park. Most were at least a week long and each presented its own joys and challenges. In summary, it was another amazing summer guiding tours of the United States, but I’m thrilled to see it in my rearview mirror as I look ahead to what is to come this winter.
After I last wrote in September, I headed north to Seattle where I ran a two week trip through the U.S. Rocky Mountains to Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It was late in the season to be camping that deep in the mountains, and we woke up with ice on our tents more than once. That trip ended up in Salt Lake City, where I turned around and started back towards Seattle the following day on the same trip in reverse (but this time thankfully in hotels instead of tents). While both of those trips were late in the season and many things had already closed down for the winter, the crowds were thin and we did some amazing hikes. We also spotted plenty of wildlife including a handful of moose, a couple of bears and two different wolf packs in Yellowstone. I was able to get out on my own and hike up to Grinnell Glacier, one of my favorite hikes in the country, and ended up in about five inches of snow near the top. The days were short and cold, but we had a really good time out there on both trips.
After the long drive down from Seattle, I set off on another two week trip. That one started in San Francisco, took us out through Yosemite National Park and then brought us down into the desert where we visited Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks and also Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation. People often think of the desert as a warm place, but since we were well into October at that point and those parks are at such high elevations, it was definitely chilly out there as well. I cut my teeth as a guide in those parks though, and it is always a pleasure to be back there and to show people the beauty of the Desert Southwest. We finished up in Las Vegas and I was able to celebrate my birthday a few days early with a fabulous dinner and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon and a show at Lost Spirits Distillery. After the show I went out and caught up with my friend Delphi who has been living in Australia for many years and who I haven’t seen in at least a decade and a half. She was enjoying a little vacation with her fiancé, and it was nice to meet him. We ended up staying out all night, something I haven’t done in a very long time. Thankfully I had the whole next day to rest before making my way back to San Francisco.
I did a short overnight tour to Yosemite which was really nice and then took a little bit of time off to go to an event with the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, the history group that I’m a part of. It was nice to get away from it all for a few days and see some friends, many of whom I’ve known for over 20 years.
And then I flew across the country to Atlanta and did a music and cultural tour of the Deep South, taking in Birmingham, New Orleans, Natchez, Clarksdale, Memphis and Nashville. I had two of my passengers from last year with me and two other ladies and the four of us had a marvelous time checking out the scene and listening to some great music. The trip ended the day before Thanksgiving and I flew back to San Francisco on the holiday itself, making it there just in time to share a meal with my work colleagues which was really nice.
I wound up my season that weekend and then took a few days in Shadow Catcher up on the coast near Bodega Bay. After a couple of days of cleaning and organizing my van, it went back to storage and I flew home to Washington D.C., where I am right now.
And that’s a very short version of what the rest of my summer looked like. As I mentioned earlier, I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up with this through the last few months, but it’s been a hectic summer. I’m going to leave this post here so that I have more to write about in the next couple of weeks.
I hope you’ve all had a wonderful summer and that your autumn is starting out well. Here are some of my favorite photos from the last two months of my season in the mountains. It sure was nice to be out there. I’ll be back with you soon with more photos from the fall and winter. Thanks, as always, for reading.
-Mike