Far and Away Adventures in America's Wilderness

Company‚s 30^th Anniversary Year Includes Reviving Style

Of 1915 Mather Mountain Party in its Remote Yellowstone Lake Camp

SUN VALLEY, ID, Feb. 17, 2011 ˆ The year was 1915. The trip was about preserving wild lands as National Parks. The travelers were the Mather Mountain Party, a mix of Interior Department staff, literati, politicos, businessmen and a Chinese cook who prepared gourmet fare served on linen table cloths in the now Sequoia National Park.

Fast forward. The year is 2011. The trip is about experiencing in utmost privacy the wild land of Yellowstone National Park. The travelers are drawn from sophisticated walks of life. A cook prepares and serves gourmet fare in the style to which cognoscenti then and now are accustomed.

In its 30^th anniversary year, Far and Away Adventures http://www.far-away.com/ will recreate menus and a style of travel executed in 1915. Supplies then were transported by mules and horses, as were guests. Today a jet boat from Bay Bridge in Yellowstone National Park speeds supplies and a maximum of only eight friends and family to a dock where sea kayaks carry on to a wilderness camp on a remote arm of Yellowstone Lake, the largest freshwater alpine lake in North America. See: http://www.wildyellowstone.com/yellowstone.html

Then, promises Steve Lentz, the company‚s visionary owner, for minimally 50 hours (three days and two nights) it‚s complete time out from life‚s frenzy and Yellowstone‚s crowds.

Why minimally 50 hours?

„That‚s the minimal amount of time a human being needs to at least begin to brush off the other life,‰ says Lentz. „This process is assisted by the private location of our camp on a remote shoreline providing complete solitude and escape from the trappings of our over-civilized world.‰ Lentz points out that cell phones usually don‚t work out here.

„But you should see what‚s in store at night with our telescope,‰ said Lentz.

„This precedent set for engaging comfortably with the wilderness was established nearly a century ago,‰ he said, noting that the world didn‚t yet know that Ansel Adams would later move through cataracts and canyons with his camera, seducing a public passion to engage with nature.

This Yellowstone program maintains a 3:1 guest to guide ratio. The camp provides opportunities for lake kayaking, guided backcountry hikes, wildlife observation and fly-fishing. Rates are $840 for adults, $760 for children. Three day/two night programs are offered weekly from mid-July to early September.

Offering services and amenities even Mather would find extraordinary, morning begins with a breakfast spread for early risers who can eat a cooked breakfast later if they choose. Gourmet picnics with local microbrews and wines determine who will nap or hike after lunch. Formally served appetizers surface around 7 p.m. and a four-course, linen-draped, candlelight dinner proceeds before a naturalist discourses with music around the campfire. Portable outhouses with lights, solar-generated hot water for showers and state-of-art tents with elevated beds, flannel linens, carpets and nightstands ensure sweet dreams.

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