Our 2024 trip schedule has been released! To view it, click here.
The season will start again in mid-April in Escalante, Utah, which greets us with mild temps, wildflowers, and long days. In addition to our normal Adventure 5-day and 7-day trips, we’ll offer 5- and 7-day technical canyoneering expeditions and one 11-day thru-hike of the Escalante River, from town to Coyote Gulch (or thereabouts) often following Steve Allen’s Overland Route.
Our season resumes in mid-June in Alaska’s Brooks Range. If our timing is good, the rivers will have come down and the snow will be mostly gone, but the mosquitoes will not have hatched yet. The 7-day trips will be in Gates of the Arctic National Park, the ends of which I’ve still not yet found. My goal is to put the 11-day trips in the Arctic Refuge, a new location to the east that is eight times bigger than Yellowstone.
The next stop is the High Sierra, rightfully our most popular location. The mountains are stunning, the weather is almost always perfect, and the off-trail travel is world-class. We will have 3-, 5-, and 7-day trips, plus one 11-day thru-hike of the Yosemite High Route, starting at Sonora Pass and finishing at Tuolumne Meadows.
We take off the month of August for our own summer vacations and my eleventh wedding anniversary.
The crowds thin after Labor Day, so we head back out. For two consecutive years we’ve gone to Olympic National Park, and we may do that again. But I may relocate our operations to Greater Yellowstone, including the park and/or the surrounding mountains, pending the availability of commercial permits. In the Olympics, we would have 5- and 7-day loop trips, and one 11-day traverse of the park, from the northwest corner to the southwest corner. In Greater Yellowstone, we’d offer the same, plus perhaps some 3-day intro-level courses.
It’s become customary that our season ends in West Virginia, with falling fall colors, increasingly longer nights, and crisp daytime high temperatures. This location is ideal for 3- and 5-day trips. We may add half-day caves to one of the longer trips as a pilot program, pending landowners permissions.
Have questions about the 2024 season?
- Sign up for a one-on-one office hours appointment with Katie or me
- Join an Ask Us Anything event, November 28-30
- Contact me, and I will respond to you promptly
Early July in the Brooks – there are going to be bugs, you guys are brave, hah!
We’ve been there for several seasons now around this time, and it’s a mixed bag — some years pretty minimal, other years kind of bad, but always pockets of relief even in the tougher years.
It’s really not practical to go earlier, because the rivers are too high and because any lingering spring snow is scarily rotten. And later in the year is tough for us, too, because we conflict with our other locations and the hunting season.
Yeah, could be good, could be bad. Your June 18-24 is a great window, and when I personally would plan to be in the Brooks. Best of luck with your 2024 guiding season!!