|
Custom Tours Only for 2008
Below are samples of previously scheduled trips from 2007.
As we are currently running custom tours
only, the descriptions below can provide
an outline for your very own custom trip.
Bob will gladly discuss trip options and
ideas; contact Bob.
Tucson/Sonoran Desert Border Country
Saguaro National Park, Chiricahua and Organ Pipe National Monuments
2007 DATES: January 22-28th,
February 18-24th, March 11-17th
Try desert hiking when the sun doesn't
bite, it soothes. Then add a
Southwest/Mex meal and a bed at night in old
historic hotels in towns like Bisbee,
Tombstone and Tucson. During the day,
it's traveling the historic trails of
Cochise, Geronimo, horse soldiers,
prospectors, those Clanton Boys with Wyatt
Earp and his brothers on their tail.
Once I thought I got a whiff of hard working
old saddle leather but it could of just been
my boots. Mix in rustlers and
desperadoes from both sides of no damn good,
cactus, an edgy border town, old Spanish
Missions, some birding, a museum or two (
including a visit to Kitt Peak National
Observatory) and a snake or two. What
else? Oh, I almost forgot to mention
the desert blue sky, the distance, the deep
silence and your own western mythos coming
alive in the doing of each next day.
$1,985
TOP OF PAGE
Rock Art and Archeology of the Four
Corners
Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico
2007 DATES: June 3-9th
From Durango, in southwest Colorado, this
weeklong meander takes in Mesa Verde
National
Park, Aztec, Hoovenweap, and Natural
Bridges National Monuments, little known
Cedar Mesa
Primative Area and Valley of the Gods.
And all along the way, here and there,
just us
under a big sky visiting seldom seen
mysteries with our local guides. With
more than
10,000 years of evidence of human
habitation, we will carefully examine life
in a hard
place with a noted expert on the Four
Corners rock art and ruins. Add in the
exposed
bones of the earth, with colors from blood
red to you name it, plus the scatter of
small
towns, two lane blacktop and dirt roads,
good lodging and slow food. Yes, these
places
still exist in the American West.
$1,950
TOP OF PAGE
Trading Posts of the Old West
Grand Canyon, Navajo & Hopi Nations of Northern Arizona
2007 DATES: June 17-23rd
This adventure is part
cultural, part National Parks and Monuments
with a big nod to the word diversity and the
American West. The Navajo Reservation is
larger than ten states. America's oldest
community is the Hopi Village of Old Oraibe.
From Flagstaff, Arizona we will travel a
wide loop east through the Painted Desert
then north into the high plateau country of
the Navajo "Res" then west past the Little
Colorado River to the South Rim of the Grand
Canyon and finally back to Flagstaff. Along
the we visit such places as Petrified Forest
National Park, the famed Hubbell Trading
Post, the ruins of Canyon De Chelly National
Monument (within which the Navajo still
live), Navajo National Monument and a walk
to the massive cliff dwellings of Betatakin,
then the Hopi Mesas, with our last two
nights on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
$1,950
Santa Fe and Taos Art - Salsa and
Backroads
2007 DATES: June 24-30th; August
5-11th
Santa Fe is only about an hours drive from
Albuquerque, but it's further than that.
Displacing Pueblo people, Spanish
explorers in 1607 founded Santa Fe. At
7,000 ft and
good water, this mountain oasis became a
destination for an eclectic mix of folks
and
cultures at the western and tired end of
the old historic Santa Trail. That
remains
mostly true today. Two hundred art
galleries, 12 major museums, that warm and
easy
southwest architecture tied together by
the beauty of the central plaza and St
Francis
Cathedral, food that talks back, and
lodging that feels like sanctuary, you may
not go
home. But hey, there are these great back
roads and they all lead north to Taos
which is
faraway, faraway from home. Three
languages are equally spoken here...Tiwa,
Spanish and
American. There's Taos Pueblo, 900 years
inhabited. Kit Carson's grave. An
extraordinary bridge that used to go
nowhere. Window frames that were painted
by DH
Lawrence. That big fat looking mud
church. And yes, more museums, galleries,
salsa, and
primary colors. There will be walks and
hikes for those that want to.
$2,450
Southeast Utah Loop
Arches and Canyonlands National Parks
plus Monument Valley
2007 DATES: April 22-28th;
Sep.23-29th
This is a story about the geology of
people and place; take 11,000ft of slow
rising sedimentary deposits of mostly shale,
limestone and sandstone, work it with water
and time ( about a billion and a half years)
and the politics of life. Throw in ten
people from all over and a couple of quirky
guides. Then let's go for a week of
meandering through the almost empty
backcountry of Southern Utah, located in the sixth most
urban state. Lodging like the remote
Boulder Mountain Lodge, with its tasty Hells
Backbone Grill, after a days slithering
through sandstone slot canyons. Throw
in wide-eyed localists, polygamists,
survivalists, tourists, some fangs, the most
uniquely beautiful landscape blizzard of
shapeshifting stone anywhere and the promotional concept of meeting expectations
becomes laughable.
$1,915
TOP OF PAGE
Southwestern Utah Loop
Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyon National Parks
2007 DATES: March 22-28th
This is Bob's briar patch. Great
lodging, grub and hikes... all the while a
rich blue sky leans into deep slot canyons,
rubs old trails dusty, promises nothing but
another chance at getting it right... the
drift through days of sandstone, Brooke's
endless stories, a few flat tires, and many
small wonders that will visit with us in
this giant place. Perhaps one evening
coming on last light, when deer turn to
stone and all the days of your life are
dancing in your heart, you'll be thinking
this Utah trip has been just about right.
4 day, 3 night - $995; 7 day 6 night - $1,890
TOP OF PAGE
Yellowstone Loop
Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Parks plus Jackson Hole
2007 DATES: July 1-7th, 22-28th; Aug. 5-11th
The most active geothermal caldera or
basin (30 by 45 miles) on this earth,
Yellowstone the world's first National
Park, is also a tourist hotspot. As
are Grand Teton and Jackson Hole. But
we try our best to finesse the road and
lunch crowds. Old historic lodges, out
of the way spots like Cooke City, Montana
where a
sign on one establishment reads: Food, Gambling,
Liquor... Families Welcome. The
mountain man, Jim Bridger trapped this
country till beaver top hats started looking
silly to white guys. Amidst all the
great hiking, there will be some that say
sitting in a saddle at the bar of the
Million Dollar Saloon in Jackson
waiting their turn to dance was a highlight
of the trip. I guess. Plan on
hiking in the Beartooths, the Tetons, along
the Yellowstone River near the awesome
Yellowstone Falls or through the lodge pole
pine sneaking up to view elk, bear, bison or
wolf.
$2,110
TOP OF PAGE
Glacier/Waterton National Parks
Canada/United States
2007 DATES: July 8-14th, Aug.12-18th
The northern Rockies - massive, rugged.
Old lodges beset with jewels for lakes, big
timber, ringed by the gapping stone teeth of
vernal earth. It might snow on the
Fourth of July. There is a problem
hiking here. The problem has big teeth
and huge claws where we have fingernails.
We are very careful. Like the mountain
men who came following the fur trade in the
mid 18th century, the Blackfeet culture and
settlers who call this home. Hiking
the spine of North America has a humbling
immensity. A feel of reefed sails on a big
sea. Wolf, Beargrass, Elk, Bald Eagle,
Mountain Goat, Glacier Lily.
$2,095
TOP OF PAGE
Disclaimer Statement
Passage to Utah and its
employees act only as an agent for vendors
supplying services including but not limited to
hotel accommodations, sightseeing,
transportation and food. As an agent, Passage
to Utah accepts no responsibility or liability
for any injury, delay, damage, loss or any other
incident which may be caused by any company or
individual performing these services. Passage
to Utah is not responsible for personal luggage
or effects of any individual or group
participating in its’ tours/trips. Passage to
Utah strongly recommends the purchase of travel
insurance. It is the responsibility of the
individual to purchase travel insurance.
Additionally, Passage to Utah is not responsible
for losses, injury, damages or any expenses as a
result of illness, weather, strikes, terrorist,
war or acts of nature.
|
