August in Alaska (Part 1)

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August in Alaska (Part 1)

Hello Everyone! I am slowly but surely making my way through my Alaska photos. I have one more set to get through which I hope to look at this week. The photos in this post come from another tour I led to Denali and Seward, a personal adventure to Homer and to look for the old Russian Orthodox churches in the Kenai Peninsula and a few others which I took along the way. Meanwhile, I am back in California about to run my last trip of the season. I’ll be heading home to D.C. for a while after that and I will definitely be getting some work done from home. Expect plenty more photos in the near future and then I really hope to be back to blogging and taking photos full-time in early 2025. Thank you for reading and I’ll be back really soon.

-Mike

Mount Redoubt Across Cook Inlet

Hiking in Kenai Fjords National Park

Mountains, Lakes and Glaciers are Everywhere in Alaska!

The Salty Dawg!

The Marina on Homer Spit

Mount Iliamna

Skilak Lake from Bear Mountain

Russian Orthodox Cemetery

Transfiguration of our Lord Russian Orthodox Church

Lighthouse Grill in Homer

Veronica’s Cafe in Kenai

An Old Boat on the Homer Spit

Homer Spit in Kachemak Bay

St. Nicholas Russian Church in Nikolaevsk

Holy Assumption Russian Church Kenai

Dusk at the Salty Dawg

A Beautiful Moose

Lakeside Fireweed

Holgate Glacier in Kenai Fjords

A Beautiful Island in Kenai Fjords National Park

Craggy Mountain Peaks from Denali State Park

I See Denali!

Nagley’s in Talkeetna

Fairview Inn in Talkeetna

Stunning Mountains at Dusk on Resurrection Bay

Across Resurrection Bay

Byron Glacier

An Amazing Sea Arch in Kenai Fjords

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July in Alaska

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July in Alaska

Hello Everyone! It has been a heck of a summer in Alaska, the first I’ve spent in The Last Frontier since the pandemic. I’ve been crazy busy running camping tours so I haven’t had any time to get to these photos at all, but now that I’m back in the Lower 48 I hope to get through them so I can share them with you. This next batch comes from my July tour - an Alaska Wilderness and Wildlife camping adventure which I ran for Exodus Travels. It was really a wonderful trip and I even had an old friend join me who went on tour with me many years ago. We had a nice journey to Denali National Park and had some crystal clear views of the continent’s tallest mountain - something only 30% of visitors to the park get to see at all. From there we headed down to beautiful Seward, one of my favorite little towns in the country. We had a nice boat tour out into Kenai Fjords National Park to spot whales and sea lions, puffins and eagles and so much more. And then we lucked into another clear and sunny day to hike to the Harding Icefields in the inland portion of the park. We rounded out the tour with some rafting on the Kenai River, a little gold panning and a few pleasant if lesser-known hikes in the Cooper Landing area...

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Hello From Alaska

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Hello From Alaska

Hello Everyone! Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska. I apologize for how long it’s been since I last posted. I’ve been unbelievably busy running tours all summer, and most have been camping tours with limited internet connectivity. But I promise I’ve been thinking about you and taking lots of photos. It’s been a very short but sweet run here in Alaska this summer, with three wonderful trips separated by a short jaunt back to California in August. I’ve gotten my fill of salmon and halibut. panned for gold, hiked up glaciers, watched humpbacks and bears and plenty of moose. And tomorrow it is all over. The leaves have started to change and there’s even some snow in the air at higher altitudes so that means it’s time for me to head south and finish my season in the desert and the Sierras. I promise there are many more pictures to come, so watch this space, but for now I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m still alive and to share with you some of my photos from the drive up to Alaska. Also know that I’ve really been saving my nickels and dimes this summer so I will be back to this project full-time in early 2025. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer wherever you are and I’ll share so much more about my summer when I get back to California next week. Take care and thanks for following along.

-Mike

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A Month in the Rockies

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A Month in the Rockies

It’s always wonderful to be writing in this space and especially to be sharing photos of the places I travel. The last time I wrote, I was just finishing the first tour of a two tour package in the Rocky Mountains. I just finished the second tour and have returned to San Francisco where I have a few days to rest and recover before starting a new trip in a few days. This has given me a chance to go through some photos and pick out some of my favorites from the last month.

It was a great couple of trips and a great couple of groups out there in the mountains. They stuck it out through some pretty cold weather (for June), and both groups saw a reasonable amount of snow. While the rest of the country was struggling through a massive heat wave, we were building bigger and bigger fires to try and stay warm. It’s also spring, so the wildflowers were starting to bloom and the newborn baby animals were frolicking around as well. We saw babies of all of the following animals this month: bears, moose, elk, fox, wolves, pronghorn and mule deer. My favorite was definitely the baby pronghorn which couldn’t have been more than a few days old and was jumping around on its unsteady legs. My heart just melted…

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Back on the Road in America

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Back on the Road in America

Hello Everyone!

It’s wonderful to be back with you this week and to be back on the road. I’d first like to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you who reached out with kind words about my uncle since last I wrote. He is doing much better and seems on the road to recovery. It was a hard few months at home, but I was glad I could be there to support him and my mother through some very tough days.

I’ve also had some really good news on my photography front as the two photos above have been selected to hang in the Rockwell Gallery of the Salmagundi Club in New York City. This club is one of the oldest art organizations in the country and it’s truly an honor to have my photos included in their current exhibition. If you’re in or anywhere near New York City, go check it out, entrance is free.

With that good news in my back pocket, I flew back to San Francisco about two weeks ago and enjoyed a day to myself in the city before I ventured out to check on Shadow Catcher. Before I even turned the key, I changed the oil and checked all of the fluids etc., but she started right up with no problem. She definitely has a little bit of an issue with one of the front brakes, and while it didn’t seem to affect how well we stopped, it did make a heck of a noise each time. This should be an easy fix when I get the time to do it. Other than that, it was great to take her out for a spin for a few days.

I spent a couple of days cleaning her out real good and getting rid of some things which I just don’t need. In Stockton I went to see the Garden Brothers Nuclear Circus which was incredibly entertaining. I even got to meet the second shortest mobile adult in the world, Edward Niño Hernández, who stands proudly at just 27.64” (70.21cm). Then I went out for a night in Isleton, a cool little city with a lot of Chinese-American history right in the Sacramento River Delta. It also has one of the best little beer bars in the region. I spent my last night out in Pacifica getting a little beach time in before putting my old van back in storage. This is the last summer I plan to do that as I plan to be back to blogging and traveling in her full-time for a while after this season.

After a few days in San Francisco to get all of my paperwork etc. done, I drove solo up to Seattle where I began a two week camping trip through the U.S. Rockies. This is going to be my 17th summer guiding overland tours of the U.S. and Canada, something which seems truly beyond belief. This tour took in Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, three of my absolute favorites. It was still really cold out there with nighttime lows below freezing and plenty of snow still on the mountains. That being said, it was also really beautiful and we saw a ton of wildlife…

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Hello Friends!

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Hello Friends!

Hello Friends!

Long time, no see. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful winter, stayed warm, gotten out for some cool adventures and are looking forward to the coming spring and summer. I am writing to you today from home in Washington D.C. after an amazing couple of months in Europe and North Africa. I’ll be here for a few more weeks and then I’ll return to California early next month. I have a couple of trips to the Rocky Mountains scheduled for late May/early June and I’m really looking forward to getting back up to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Glacier National Parks. Who knows where the summer will lead from there.

When last I wrote, I was getting ready to fly out to Ireland. I arrived in Dublin with no problems and enjoyed a few days of catching up with old friends, knocking back a few pints of Guinness and hearing some great live music. I’ve been to Dublin before, but many years ago and it feels like such a distant memory at this point. It was nice to get out and do some exploring while my internal clock adjusted and I got used to sleeping in dorm rooms again. I was in Dublin for a few days and then caught a flight on to Porto in Portugal.

I spent about two weeks in Portugal in total. I was in Portugal way back in 2000, but really only spent a few days in Lisbon. My friend Julie has been raving about Portugal all year, so I thought I’d go see some more of it for myself. I spent my first day there out in the Douro Valley, the main wine region in the country, and had a lovely time. The next day it started raining and raining hard and it didn’t really let up for almost a week. I did my best to explore Porto, Aveiro (“The Venice of Portugal”) and the University Town of Coimbra, but the rain really brought me down. After a couple of days in Lisbon which included a trip to the incredible fairy tale town of Sintra and a quick visit to Europe’s Westernmost Point, I flew off to the beautiful island of Madeira. Madeira is still in Portugal, but it’s about 600 miles off the coast of Morocco and a world away from the rainy gloom of the mainland. It was beautiful and sunny out there and I had a blast exploring a little corner of the island and soaking up some rays.

After a few days on island time, I headed back to Lisbon and then swung south through Lagos and Faro before cruising on to Seville in Spain. Seville is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to in Europe and I really had a wonderful few days there. It’s vibrant and clean and churning with history and culture. The central cathedral there is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and also houses Christopher Columbus’ tomb. I also enjoyed plenty of tapas and wine and music and just wandering through the narrow alleyways of the city. In Seville I started to explore the history of the region in depth as my next six weeks would delve into the Muslim culture which ruled that part of Spain for more than 800 years.

Happily knowing I would return to Seville in a few weeks, I set off on a bus for Tarifa, where I boarded a ferry and bound for Morocco…

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Happy New Year, See You in March!

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Happy New Year, See You in March!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a very Joyous New Year to you all. I have had a wonderful month at home here in Washington to rest up and see family and friends. I’m headed off to Dublin, Ireland this evening and then on to Portugal, Spain and Morocco. I’m really looking forward to this trip and to exploring some new places and cultures. You can follow along on instagram if you’d like @miles2gobeforeisleep. I won’t be bringing my computer with me, so I will see you all in March when I return. I will get back to posting regularly in 2024 with a long trip to Oregon and the Pacific Coast and then hopefully a summer in Alaska. Have a great winter and I’ll see you in the spring. Thanks, as always, for reading!

-Mike

Here are some photos from the very end of my season out west and in the deep south.

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Fall Wrap-Up

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Fall Wrap-Up

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.

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August on the Road

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August on the Road

Hello Everyone! I apologize for how long it’s been since I last wrote, but it’s been a hectic and crazy month out here on the road. Until this past weekend, I had not had a day off in over a month and I’ve covered a lot of ground during that time. I guided four trips in a row which took a lot out of me, but I had great passengers with me and we saw some amazing and beautiful places. I have another solid month of guiding beginning in just a day or two, but I wanted to drop you all a quick ‘hello’ and share some of my favorite photos from this last month on the road.

I started with an old favorite – a six day hiking tour in Yosemite for Intrepid Travel. While I’ve done this trip several times including twice earlier this summer, it’s still nice to spend so much time on the trail and to show people one of my favorite National Parks. The waterfalls were still going strong for August and it was the first time I’d been able to get up to hike Cathedral Lakes in the high country this year. These hikes left everyone pretty tired, but I know every one of those passengers had a great and memorable trip and will remember Yosemite fondly for the rest of their lives.

After bringing that group back to San Francisco, I left the following day for Seattle where I started a six day trip to Portland via Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks. It had been 20 years since I was last in Olympic and it was really nice to be back in this beautiful and often overlooked park. We did a whale watching tour, explored the Hoh Rainforest and walked by the Pacific Ocean looking out at the beautiful sea stacks of Second Beach. While I used to spend a lot of time at Mount Rainier, that’s another park I haven’t been to since before the pandemic. On our first day there we got some fantastic clear views of the mountain and I’m glad we took advantage of them because our second day was almost entirely shrouded in fog. We still had a nice hike and then headed on to Portland where we visited the International Rose Test Garden (it is the City of Roses after all) and then had a quiet dinner in the park before calling it a trip.

Half of that group stayed on with me for the next six days and a lovely Swedish couple joined us as well. That week brought us from Portland all the way back to San Francisco. We visited Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, ate smoked salmon with a lovely couple who run an indigenous salmon business on the Warm Springs Reservation, Kayaked in a volcanic crater near Bend, Gazed out over Crater Lake National Park and cruised the California Coast feasting on some fresh oysters. We finished with a walk through Muir Woods and a lovely view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I got a day to wind down and wind back up again and the very next day I picked up my last group of that run for a fast and furious 15 day tromp through some of America’s best National Parks. We started off with a few days in Yosemite and then had to duck around Death Valley due to the rains from Hurricane Hillary, staying in Tonopah instead. After a quick trip to Cathedral Gorge State Park, we went on to Zion and then had two great days at the North Rim of Grand Canyon. You may remember that the last (and only) time I was at the North Rim, I was recovering from Covid so I didn’t push myself too hard out there. This time I headed deep into the Canyon on the North Kaibab Trail and it was really nice to see the Canyon from a different angle. We headed from there to Monument Valley to spend some time with the Navajo and then had two great nights in Moab visiting Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park. Then we were off to Salt Lake City to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from the Mormon missionaries at Temple Square. Finally we spent three days in the splendor of Yellowstone before winding up our journey in beautiful Bozeman, Montana.

It was a long but quiet ride back to San Francisco from there, but I did get a few days to catch up on some sleep and a few other things before turning north again to Seattle where I am writing to you from today. Tomorrow I will meet another group and we will be headed east from here to Glacier National Park, my favorite place in the whole world. Then we’ll have some nice days in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons before winding up in Salt Lake City. I’ll get a day to myself there and then turn around and do the same trip in reverse bringing me back to Seattle in the first week of October. It’s going to be cold in the Rockies by then, but it should be quiet and beautiful as well and I’m really looking forward to it.

I don’t think I’m going to get much of a chance to do anything here on my blog over the next month, but I’ll check back in with you when these two trips are done in October. The summer sure flew by this year, but time flies when you’re having fun. I hope you’ve all had a great summer out there, wherever you are and that you’re looking forward to cooler days ahead. Thank you, as always, for reading and I hope you enjoy this little sampling of photos of some of the spectacular places I’ve been this summer.

-Mike

(Click the link to see my favorite photos from this month)

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July on the Road

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July on the Road

Hello Everyone,

I’m coming into the busiest part of my summer tour season, but wanted to drop a quick hello to let you all know that I haven’t forgotten you. I’ve just finished a hot couple of weeks out in the Desert Southwest, but it was also a really good tour. I’ve had a few days here in San Francisco since that trip ended, but I’ve been busily preparing for the next month which won’t have any days off for me at all. I’m ready for it and I’m looking forward to it, but it hasn’t left much time for anything else. But before I depart on my next trip tomorrow morning, I thought I’d send you all a quick update and a few photos from my last trip.

I wrote to you last from L.A. as I was getting ready to pick up the trip I just finished. I met 6 wonderful people the following day, all of whom were really excited to be out on tour. The trip was exclusively for passengers under 30, so you can imagine that I probably wasn’t who they expected walking through the door. Nevertheless, they gave me a chance and I know that by the end they had all had such a wonderful experience and were very grateful for the work I put into it. They thanked me a lot which may or may not surprise you is a rarity in my line of work. I know that my passengers feel thankful but they aren’t always the best at expressing it.

Our trip left L.A. bright and early the following morning and took us out to Joshua Tree National Park where we had lunch in the shade in the back corner of Hidden Valley. We did the one mile Hidden Valley Loop Trail which was probably enough hiking in the midday sun at 118°. We made a few other photo stops and spent some time at Skull Rock before beating feat out to Lake Havasu City which was just as hot. After a quick stop at the London Bridge, we went down to the lake for a swim and a barbecue dinner as the sun set in the desert heat. It had been a really good day and we were all thankful to be in a hotel instead of a tent that night.

The following day took us out to Grand Canyon with a stop along Route 66 in Seligman. We spent some time at the Canyon during the day and returned later for sunset which was fantastic as always. The sun wasn’t gone for long though and we were up to see it return the following morning at 5am. My group split in two for the day as half of them went towards Plateau Point on the Bright Angel Trail and the other half headed for Skeleton Point on the South Kaibab Trail. Everyone enjoyed their hike and they were all grateful for the early start.

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These Weeks on the Road - June 25th - July 12th

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These Weeks on the Road - June 25th - July 12th

Hello Everyone! It’s been a busy two weeks in Yosemite National Park, but a really good two weeks as well. Since I last wrote, I ran back-to-back 6 day hiking tours in the park with only a day in between, but both groups were really good and I definitely enjoyed my time with them. The weather was actually pretty cool for the first week but heated up considerably for the second. Of course the 4th of July has also come and gone and I can think of few better places to celebrate America than in our beautiful National Park System. There were no fireworks in the park or in the entire county since it’s mostly very dry forest, but we made up for that with stunning views from the newly reopened Glacier Point Road. I’ve been back in San Francisco for a few days of relaxing and planning and now I’m off to L.A. to run a 10 day trip which will take us to Joshua Tree National Park, Lake Havasu, Grand Canyon, Vegas and Yosemite, dropping us back in S.F. at the end of the month.

I’m always quite fascinated that I can run the exact same tour back-to-back and it is an entirely different trip. Different groups with different abilities and interests coupled with openings and closings in the park and a holiday weekend thrown in to boot and these last two trips only loosely resembled one another. Both were great though and I’m really happy I had the opportunity to run them both especially since one was a last second switch in my schedule. I had tweaked my knee a little bit on my last trip to the desert and have been really careful with it on these hiking-focused trips but I’m happy that it is healing well and will hopefully be back to 100% soon.

We set out on the first of the two trips on June 25th. After a nice lunch at the Iron Door Saloon in Groveland (California’s oldest saloon), we had a nice hike in the Tuolomne Grove of Giant Sequoias just inside the park entrance. These beautiful trees are the largest things by volume that have ever lived on the face of the earth. They start out as a tiny seed inside an egg-sized pine cone and can live for over 3,000 years under the right conditions. They are immense and majestic and always a sight to see. From there we dropped down into Yosemite Valley, made a photo stop up at magnificent Tunnel View, hiked to the base of Bridal Veil Falls and then made our way out to our hotel in El Portal, just outside of the park for the night.

We were up early the next morning to hike the Mist Trail past beautiful Vernal and Nevada Falls. A relatively cool June has kept the snow from melting too fast in the mountains so all of the waterfalls in the park are still going strong which is great for both the park and the state of California. As the name implies, the Mist Trail can get quite misty and it definitely was while we were out there. The trail takes you up a number of granite steps and past Vernal Falls for incredible views and a sizable soaking. We spent some time drying out on the top of the falls and then most of the group continued up to the top of beautiful Nevada Falls for lunch. After a nice long break we took our time coming back down from the waterfalls and stopped for a well-earned ice cream break at the bottom.

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Gone Hiking

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Gone Hiking

Hello Everyone!

As I mentioned last week, I’m out guiding a hiking tour in Yosemite all week. The hotel we are staying at is nice, but doesn’t have any Wi-Fi so I couldn’t get a This Week on the Road post up this week. I did get a few photo posts published this week from the Indian Canyons and Joshua Tree National Park so I hope you enjoy those. When this trip ends, I’ll have 36 hours to turn around and go out on the same trip again, so I’m not sure if I’ll have anything for you next week or not. It’s busy out here, but I’m thinking about you all and I hope you have a wonderful week. I’ll get back with you as soon as I can. Take care and thank you for reading.

-Mike

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