The Great Adventure

Reflecting on the type of holiday to book, my greatest desire  is to remove myself from civilisation and escape into the back country.

 To have the opportunity to see the stars shining brightly in an unpolluted nights sky, to feel the wind rushing past me through the trees, to hear the sounds of mountain streams. I  feel the need to be out amongst it all, experiencing the rawness of nature, away from the distractions and noise of modern life.

 But where to go? 

I purchased many years ago a book of black and white prints by the renowned American photographer Ansel Adams. Of all his many superb pictures the one that left the greatest impression was that of Tetons and Snake River  taken in 1942 in  Grand Teton National Park in the American state of Wyoming. This along with the inspiration of the "brats" experience in the adjoining state of Utah made it a good area to start my search.

It seems sensible to join some form of organised trek, not only from a safety perspective, but also to take advantage of guides with local  knowledge to ensure the best routes, views and camping locations. They would also deal with the booking of admissions tickets  to the national parks (you need a permit to visit) organising the transport between parks and airport

The one thing that is immediately clear from researching on the web is that adventure holidays are not cheap. An initial trawl suggests for a 16 day trip an expenditure of at least £2000  plus the expense of purchasing additional personal equipment, insurance and  sundry incidentals. Somewhat perversely the more basic the holiday the more expensive it seems to become.

Explore! offer a 16 day camping holiday exploring Yellowstone National Park (NP), Grand Teton NP along with Arches/Canyonland NP's but whilst initially appealing reading the detailed itinerary a lot of time seemed to be spent travelling between the various parks. Given that the flight time to Salt Lake City is approximately 14 hours I don't want any more motorised travelling than is absolutely necessary.

Exodus seemed promising but on closer inspection were offering only day hikes,  a dubious jeep safaris and the opportunity to "stroll on the famous streets" of Aspen. Somehow I don't think that's me. The distance covered on the Trek America trip would have left me needing another holiday - but I guess that's why they seemed to target mainly the "youth" market.

All these trips used a mixture of camping sites and hotels, but who wants to camp next to a large RV and listen to cars coming and going whilst out in the country - not me!  All was not lost as  I eventually came across a "nugget" offered by KE Adventure Travel a proper backpacking trip, which seems to tick all the boxes.Their full tour dossier is here.

However this is no luxury holiday and comes at the expense of a primitive subsistence, carrying my own pack and share of group provisions. But that to a modern city dweller like myself is a challenge in itself.

Commencing from the oddly named village of Jackson In the Hole it features wilderness camping in both Grand Teton and Yellowstone NP's. Just in case this is all to much for my back (its 20 years since I did any camping) there are a couple of nights in lodges. I think I might appreciate the hot showers!

Next step is to investigate more fully what I am letting myself in for and fully cost the trip. Time to fire an email to KE Adventure me thinks ...  stay tuned.