The Great Adventure

I have received a response from Tim to my query and the prospects for my trip proceeding are poor. To be honest I feel gutted - all that research, time and effort for nought.

It turns out that the only current firm booking is myself. There remain two "provisional" bookings i.e. people who have expressed an interest but are yet to put up any money. The previously advised two firm booking have transferred onto another trip. We need six for the trip to be guaranteed.

To quote Tim "As yours is the only booking on the trip at the moment, one of my colleagues Pete or Matt will be in contact with you to discuss options" I can only assume this is to suggest transferring to another trip. I wonder if this is what happened with the two previous firm bookings on this trip.

I suppose taking a pragmatic approach I cannot blame the company as they are in the business of selling holidays and from their perspective it is better that one runs full, rather than two not running. 

My other query as to payment in full being required two month before the trips due date has been confirmed. I find this mind boggling to say the least, especially having been previously advised that a decision whether to run a trip was made two month before its due date (now a month!). Payment of £2,000 for a holiday that may not even run. Needless to say this is totally unacceptable and no further funds will be forthcoming from me until the holiday is guaranteed to run. I don't do interest free loans.

I have not been idle since my last posting. I could organise my flight to Salt Lake City (SLC) myself and there is the aptly named Jackson Hole Express which runs from SLC to Jackson and back each day so the 300 mile transfer should be straight forward. My next thought was seeing if I could identify any local tour guides operating out of Jackson Hole and seeing if they could assist. There are lots of mountain guides in Jackson but it would only be cost effective if I were to form part of a group so this is probably a tenuous hope. I've emailed a few likely contacts and will await to see if any response is forthcoming.

Looking afresh on KE Adventures website I suspect that the alternative trip to be suggested will be the Yosemite and High Sierra . This has two dates 22/7 and 19/8 both trips are shown as "guaranteed to run". The full tour dossier shows that the first part camping in Yosemite is on "proper" camp sites (not what I was looking for) but the trek up to Mount Whitney (14,505 ft) does have some proper "wild" camping, albeit the main backpacking element will be taken care of by two mules and their "cowboy" handlers.

The other main changes are the flights - flying to San Francisco and returning from Las Vegas , the trip is one day shorter (15 days) and I guess on a positive note its further West and about 650 miles south of Grand Teton so perhaps the guarantee of better weather may be slightly higher.

KE have already attempted to call me once (Friday) and in my absence have left a message to advise they will call again Monday. Lets wait and see what they suggest.

In the meantime I'm off to sulk ...  (although I have completed 35 miles on my bike today before the rain started at 10 am)