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...
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…
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.
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.
I absolutely love Joshua Trees. Much like the Saguaros are iconic to the Sonoran Desert, the Joshua Trees are iconic symbols of the Mojave Desert and it’s too easy to imagine human characteristics in both. Every time I pull into an area with Joshua Trees it makes me smile and feel happy. Interestingly, Joshua Trees aren’t really trees at all, but rather a tree-like member of the yucca family. They may have been given their name by early Mormon pioneers who thought they resembled the Biblical Joshua with his arms raised.
It is believed that people have been living in the region of Joshua Tree National Park for 10,000 years. The first people of European descent who laid eyes on the area were with Spaniard Pedro Fages who was pursuing Native Americans who had “escaped” the mission in San Diego. After the Mexican-American War, American settlers started moving in, building ranches and doing some small-scale mining. Franklin Roosevelt protected the area as Joshua Tree National Monument in 1936 and it became a National Park in 1994. The park covers 1,242 square miles - slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island.
I’ve visited Joshua Tree National Park several times before, but always in the middle of summer when it was boiling hot out. We might get out and take some photos, but long hikes were pretty much out of the question. I was really happy to get there this past spring when it was cool and pleasant and I could get out on the trails. I hiked the Short Loop Trail from Black Rock Campground, Ryan Mountain, and the Lost Horse Mine Loop among others and they were all fantastic. Joshua Tree National Park is a special place and while it doesn’t get the hype of our other western National Parks, it’s definitely worth a visit. I can’t wait to return. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Joshua Tree National Park.
The natural oases of the Indian Canyons near Palm Springs have been home to the the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians for a very long time. They had abundant water and were able to plant and harvest melons, corn, beans and squash. Today they welcome visitors to their homeland to hike, relax, and enjoy the natural beauty of the world’s largest California Fan Palm oasis. I was lucky to be there in the middle of a particularly wet spring and the wildflowers were absolutely stunning. Palm Springs didn’t do much for me, but I’m definitely glad I got to visit the magnificent Indian Canyons just outside of town. I hope you enjoy these photos of the super bloom in this wonderful desert oasis.
Hello Everyone!
I hope your summer is starting out as great as mine is. The summer solstice is upon us and I’m trying to make the most of the long days. This week I’ve been guiding a trip for two wonderful ladies from San Francisco to Las Vegas via Yosemite, Death Valley, Zion, Bryce, Monument Valley and Grand Canyon. While I definitely prefer guiding a larger group, the three of us have clicked well and have been having a good time out here. We’ve had some windy days, but they’ve also been sunny and bright and of course these parks are truly magical places to spend time.
We left San Francisco early Monday morning and made a beeline for Yosemite. I was happy that route 120 was open again after being closed due to road damage on the final decent into the valley. That closure caused me to detour around to the 140 on my last two trips, which added about an hour to the drive and threw my regular route, landmarks and commentary out the window. It was nice to do things a little differently for a change, but I was happy to fall into my familiar groove on that drive this week. Unfortunately by the time we were dropping into the valley in the afternoon, it had clouded up and there was some rain falling. This should be quite normal for this time of year, but after 20 years of drought it doesn’t feel normal. El Capitan was in the clouds and Half Dome wasn’t even visible. Thankfully the waterfalls were going strong and we stopped at a couple of viewpoints to check them out. The rain slowed to a drizzle and we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old Ahwaneeche village behind the visitor center and visiting Galen Clark’s grave in the old cemetery. Clark came to the valley in 1851 after being diagnosed with consumption (tuberculosis) and having been given just a few months to live. He fell in love with Yosemite and decided to dedicate the rest of his life to preserving it. That life was supposed to be short, so he dug his own grave and planted Giant Sequoia saplings around it. He ended up living another 54 years but was eventually buried in the grave he dug for himself. After I told that story and we paid our respects, we headed to our hotel out in El Portal for the night.
We returned to the valley on Tuesday morning under blue skies and sunshine. Linda wasn’t convinced her knee would hold up on long ascents or descents, so we stayed on the valley floor for the day. We went out to Mirror Lake in the morning which was as full as I’ve ever seen it (it turns into Mirror Meadow pretty early in the summer most years). Then we wandered back to the Ahwanee, Yosemite’s classic park lodge. We had lunch in the Great Room and a nice chat about the afternoon. From there we made our way out to Lower Yosemite Falls which is still raging pretty hard right now and putting out plenty of spray. It’s awesome to spend some time there and the ladies really enjoyed it. Then we headed back to Yosemite Village for a coffee and then back to our hotel for the night.
Wednesday was kind of a quiet day. We chose a late start and then made our way down to the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. The shuttle is finally running again, cutting out the 4 mile roundtrip hike to the grove from the parking lot. We enjoyed our visit to the big trees and then spent some time in historic Wawona, checking out some of the cool old buildings from Yosemite’s past. In the afternoon we returned to the valley for a quick coffee and then made our way back to the hotel. I’d been eating salads for a few days so I decided to grab a pizza which was nice. My knee was giving me some trouble too so I was grateful to be able to ice it and rest for the night.
Since the Tioga Pass over the Sierras is still under many feet of snow and likely won’t open until August, I had to make the long drive around the mountains to get to Death Valley on Thursday. Not only is this route far less scenic, but it also adds 2-3 hours to the drive. It wasn’t a fun or beautiful drive except at the very beginning or the very end, but we got there. I haven’t been to Death Valley in years, and we were greeted with a cool 107° when we arrived…
Hello Everyone!
It’s been a great couple of weeks out here on the road. I spent two weeks guiding a tour for Austin College, a small university based in Sherman, Texas (far from Austin, Texas – the school is named for Texas hero Stephen Austin). The tour was for a class on environmental concerns in our National Parks, a topic quite near and dear to my heart. It consisted of 10 students and their professor and took us from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the desert. I really enjoyed these young people and I got along really well with the professor, Dr. Baker, as well.
I met the group two weeks ago on a Tuesday night here in San Francisco. They invited me to join them for dinner at House of Nanking in Chinatown which is a pretty cool place to eat as a group and we all enjoyed quite a feast. It was interesting to hear what the students were studying and what their specific area of interest was for this particular class. Their topics ranged from birds to flash floods to water conservation and all of them were really important to our western parks.
We spent the next three nights in Yosemite, hiking and meeting with the rangers to discuss the park’s key issues. There was still a lot of water in the valley and it was great to see everything so wet and green. On our first full day we hiked up the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls and there was a ton of water coming over those waterfalls. Everyone got absolutely soaked, but thankfully it was a sunny day and we dried out quickly. The last time I did that hike was last November when those waterfalls were barely a trickle and the trail was completely dry. The next day we went out and hiked to the Giant Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove in the south of the park and it’s always awesome to see these massive 2-3,000 year old giants. In our meetings with the rangers and staff, we discussed fire management and bear conservation and the conversation was quite interesting. Leaving the park we headed south and around the mountains and ended up in Barstow for the night. We did some serious grocery shopping and then enjoyed a nice dinner at Peggy Sue’s 1950s Diner just outside of town. That night we had our first group discussion and I really enjoyed hearing the student’s opinions about Yosemite and what they had seen and heard over the previous few days.
We left Barstow early the next day as we had a pretty long drive to Grand Canyon that day. We stopped in Seligman to get our kicks on Route 66 and then headed on to the South Rim…
Located right on Highway 101 between Los Angeles and San Diego is the gorgeous little city of Carlsbad. As you drive down the highway, you can’t help but notice the beautiful Twin Inn on the inland side of the road. It’s the kind of building that just sparks your interest, especially a block from the beach in Southern California. The Inn was built by Civil War veteran Gerhard Schutte in 1887. Schutte and his partners laid out the townsite of Carlsbad as “a town of small farms and gracious homes”. They sold plots at $40/acre and the town grew from there.
This area was originally inhabited by the Payómkawichum and Kumeyaay people who enjoyed the bounty of the sea and the fresh water provided by Buena Vista Creek. When the Portola Expedition came to California in 1769 they camped on Buena Vista Creek and mingled and traded with the native people. During the Mexican period, the area that is now Carlsbad was part of Rancho Agua Hedionda which wasowned by Juan María Marrón.
In the early 1880s, a man named John Frazier dug a well and served up water to thirsty train passengers on their way through. It turned out that the water was quite special and the area became known as Karlsbad after a famous Bohemian spa town. Enter Gerhard Shutte and his Carlsbad Land and Mineral Water Company which laid out and promoted the town as mentioned above.
Today, Carlsbad is a pleasant, medium sized city of about 114,000 people. I really enjoyed walking around on a beautiful, sunny spring day to take these photos. The old train station has been converted into the town’s visitor center and the Twin Inn has been incorporated into the Village Faire shopping area. I also loved the many old and quirky buildings I found as I made my way around the city center and the modern parts of Carlsbad have been tastefully added to enhance the city’s beauty. There are plenty of beautiful murals around and some great shops and restaurants as well. I’m so glad I stopped in to see Southern California’s stunning Village by the Sea. I will definitely be back to visit again in the future. I hope you enjoy these photos of beautiful Carlsbad, California.
Hello Everyone!
Greetings from Gardnerville, Nevada! I have popped out of California for a few minutes on my way through the Carson Valley and am overjoyed to see gas prices that start with a 3 instead of a 4 or 5 which is the hardest part about traveling in California. It’s a bit gloomy out today and the temperature is hovering just above freezing, so it’s a perfect day to hunker down and get this post written. It’s been a wonderful week out here on the road, slowly making my way up California 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve driven this road dozens of times between Yosemite and Las Vegas or Death Valley, but I have usually had to make it all the way between the two in a day which doesn’t leave much time for exploring. Being able to stop off and see the sights and do some hiking and take my time is what this trip is all about and I’ve definitely enjoyed doing just that this week. In the beginning of the week, it was pretty hot out during the day, but the nights were cool and pleasant and seeing snowy mountains out my driver’s side window was been amazing. Towards the end of the week I made my way into those mountains and even saw some snow.
I left you last week in Ridgecrest, a nice little military support community near the China Lake Naval Weapons Center. After I finished this post, I ran across the street to the little Maturango Museum which had a small but wonderful collection of local artifacts. They highlighted the plentiful petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) in the area as well as the natural history of the local desert environment. The museum had some wonderful photos on display, both recent ones from a National Geographic bird photography competition and some great old ones from the area which had been taken by naval photographers practicing for their official duties in the local community. Perhaps best of all, the museum also served as the local visitor’s center and the ladies there gave me some wonderful ideas for my trip north. When they closed up for the day I went across the street to a very nice park where I cooked up some dinner and read my book before calling it an early night.
Wednesday morning I was up and off nice and early and made my first stop at Fossil Falls. This small recreational site is in the shadow of an ancient cinder cone and there is plentiful evidence of the area’s volcanic past. During the last ice age, the snowmelt fed into a river and that river ran over Fossil Falls. There hasn’t been any water there in a very long time, but you can still see where the water flowed over the rock on its downhill trajectory. From Fossil Falls I headed on to Lone Pine and stopped in at the Museum of Western Film History on the edge of town. The nearby Alabama Hills have served as the setting for over a hundred movies in the last hundred years, with their wonderfully textured western landscape and the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. While most of these films were made before my time, names like The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy were certainly familiar to me. In more modern times Tremors and Django Unchained were filmed in the area…
Avalon! Just hearing the name of this magical place will always make me smile. Avalon is the only town in California’s beautiful Channel Islands and is located on the easternmost island of Santa Catalina, just a short hour’s ferry ride from the mainland. It may be only an hour away, but it is a world apart and landing at the port feels like you’ve arrived in a far off land.
Catalina Island was once home to the Tongva people who used the island’s abundant soapstone to trade with other bands on the mainland and the other islands. It was purchased in its entirety by James Shatto in 1887 and Shatto built the island’s first pier and hotel hoping to attract tourists from Los Angeles. He had a tough time of it though and sold the island to the Banning Brothers just four years later. They had some level of success in developing the island’s tourism potential, but a devastating fire in 1915 and the general decline in tourism due to World War I caused them to look for a buyer themselves.
The man they found was William Wrigley Jr. of Wrigley Chewing Gum fame who purchased the island from the Bannings in 1919. Wrigley had the capital and the drive to make Avalon and Catalina Island a success. Wrigley built the Casino which is a theater, ballroom and gathering place and has never been a gambling hall. He purchased steamships to bring people to the island and built hotels to house them and restaurants to feed them. Wrigley owned the Chicago Cubs and had the team hold their spring training on Catalina from 1921-1951. Tourists came in droves, including many Hollywood stars.
After William Wrigley’s death in 1932, his son Philip took over and continued to promote Avalon and Catalina Island. During World War II, the island served as a training facility for the military, but after the war tourism would continue to grow. Philip was sensible enough to think of the long-term health of the island and signed over 88% of the island’s land to the Catalina Island Conservancy in 1975 to be kept in its natural state in perpetuity.
I had a great time in Avalon. I enjoyed some beach time at Descano Beach under the palm trees where I also tried the island’s signature cocktail: Buffalo Milk. I toured the Casino and saw the world’s largest circular uninterrupted dance floor. Our guide told us stories about the heard of bison which was brought to the island for the filming of Zane Grey’s The Vanishing American in the 1920s. They were left on the island and now roam free in a herd of over 150. We learned how Norma Jean Dougherty moved to the island when she was 16 and married a naval enlisted man. She worked pulling taffy at Lloyd’s Candy Shop (which is still there) and her husband was a projectionist at the Casino. Years later the world would meet her as Marilyn Monroe, but the island still remembers her as Norma Jean. An exotic bird park on the island was used to record the sounds used for the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. The stories went on and on, one more interesting than the next. I learned more island stories at Avalon’s wonderful history museum and enjoyed a wonderful fresh fish dinner at the Lobster Trap and delicious strawberry pancakes at the Pancake Cottage the next morning. I climbed up the hill to the beautiful Chime Tower which chimes the quarter hour and provides amazing views over the town. I was only there for a day and a half, but I felt like it was much longer. I will always remember my time on beautiful Catalina Island and will definitely return in the future. I hope you enjoy these photos from Avalon, the jewel of Catalina Island.
