Adventures in Luxury Travel

Mimi Lichtenstein 0:01
If you're a traveler that believes luxury and adventure are not mutually exclusive, then you're in the right place. Every week I take you to a new destination with one of my partners, sharing the hidden gems over the top experiences and active adventures to inspire your next family vacation. I'm Mimi Lichtenstein, an experienced Travel Advisor who has also traveled with my three teenagers and my husband around the world. Let's get started. Welcome to Episode 51 of adventures in luxury travel. Before we begin a heads up the today's episode is our last of the season. As with many of our clients, we will be on summer vacation. And while we're away, we'll be reimagining the next season of the podcast. Please send us a message if you have any feedback you'd like to share, and listen in to the end of this intro for an exclusive gift opportunity with this week's destination. Okay, for today, Mike and I talk about the place of my family's favorite vacation of all time towards yellow Mountain Lodge in Alaska. It is hands down at the top of the list of destinations I recommend for travelers I send to Alaska. listen in to learn about the adventures like heli hiking, heli fishing, and the one and only Via Ferrata. And if you choose to hang out by the lodge one afternoon you'll learn how to keep yourself busy learning to eat foil or wake surfed taking out a stand up paddleboard or getting a massage. Listen in for some serious travel inspiration. And if you decide to book a stay there with us mentioned you heard about it on the podcast and each member of your party will get a visit to Georgia pillows famous schwag room to pick out a quarter zip pullover, a trucker hat or something similar. Visit true a travel.com/ 51 for a video of today's show and additional resources. Today on Adventures in luxury travel, I have Mike overcast from Torcello Mountain Lodge with me, Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you, Mimi, I'm very excited to have you on for those people who get my newsletter every week. They all know that our family vacation to Georgia Willow and Alaska last summer was our absolute favorite family vacation ever. So to have you on today to share more about your lodge with everybody else is a great opportunity for others to learn about it and hopefully get to see you guys one day. So would you give us a little bit of a background about I know you have a business partner, but tell us a little bit of the history about how the lodge got started?

Mike 2:29
Well, we started skiing out here, way back when in 1997. And we operated out of the winter Lake Lodge a location for about five or six years Tommy mo myself at the time of the business, and we decided that we really wanted to have a lodge of our own and to curate our own experiences and not be tied to, you know, a partnership that, you know, was was challenging in creating something that we year to year, we could you know, expect it to be the same. So we went out and we went shopping for real estate and and found a derelict lodge that hadn't been operated in some years, and was under construction that had, you know, kind of been abandoned. And, you know, we approached the owner and the owner was ready to get out of it. And it was just kind of a perfect situation where we were able to strike a deal rather quickly next year, come back and operate out of this new lodge, you know, there was a lot we had to do to you know, change the lodge and make it you know, it commendations that, you know, we would be proud of and you know, that our guests would expect. But you know, in a relatively short order, we were able to find this location in purchase the lodge. Now what that game for us, we gave ourselves you know, about 30 miles closer to Anchorage, and more central in the mountain range. And right on top of one of the most special rivers in south central Alaska. So, you know, we were able to get off of a lake that didn't have a fishery put ourselves on a lake that had a fishery that has 80,000 salmon that come in every year. All the bears and all the wilderness activity that one would expect in Alaska as well as having great recreational opportunities on the lake itself. So it was a it was a real easy decision for us to make once we once we saw it. We fell in love with it we had to have and we we figured it out.

Mimi Lichtenstein 4:37
Well I can see why having been there myself. There's so many different places people can go in Alaska that I think it's hard for people to narrow down before they go you know, should we go to Katmai Should we go up to Denali? Should we incorporate deep sea fishing river fishing and what I love about Trello certainly for people who love to be active or have a spirit of adventure is you have so much at your lodge within minutes of your lodge or you know, a short flight away. And so that's one of the things for me that makes it so special and such a great idea for a lot of people like my family that has teenagers and you know, kids who love to be out there and do cool stuff. A lot of the pictures that we're going to show today are just simply from my trip. They're not professional photos, although we did throw in a couple of those. And I'm not even a good photographer. But I feel like it's so easy to take great pictures there. Because there's so many great things to take pictures. And this is what it looked like. So I was there in August, you know, the beautiful flowers you just mentioned to me before we started, you're already there for the year and you guys are opening up.

Mike 5:37
Yep, we just flew in like four days ago, like the lake was still frozen. Starting to break up a little bit. And four days later, you know that it's been like 80 degrees every day for the last four days. And the ice is kind of pulling out and going down the river. And that's a sign that screen is over and the summer is, is in full full program here. We'll have guests in two more days. And we will be inviting 12 guests to come out skiing with us and fishing for the next five days. And we have six sessions of what we call kings and corn. And that is king salmon fishing and corn snow helicopter skiing, which is probably one of our most popular trips that we sell for for summer guests. Because I combined you know winter experiences and summer experiences and you know people have a really good time.

Mimi Lichtenstein 6:29
The best of both. And we're gonna touch on one of my favorite parts of you guys, which is the Via Ferrata and a few minutes but I'm just curious is that open this earlier as well.

Mike 6:39
I flew out there the other day to take a look at it because it's become a very popular activity and a lot of the guests that look at our website that are coming to kings and corn. Go cool. Can we get on the the ferrata and do the Klein and that's that's something that I ever expected. But, you know, we went out and looked at it and it looks like we could we can, you know, get the climb opened after the snow was off of that face because it faces on the southerly aspect. And I would guess what we'd be doing the ferrata in the next week or so.

Mimi Lichtenstein 7:12
Very exciting. All right, well, let's talk about some of the different adventures and activities you can do while you're there. You mentioned I think you know you have a lot of Lake space stand up paddleboarding. This is I think my husband one night when we went out and I believe this picture was taken maybe about 10 minutes until 10 So one of the fun parts for me also about being in Alaska in the summertime is how long the day is so how much you can pack into the day when you know it's so bright out so late. But at this time of day I know you guys know watercraft or Motorcraft after dinner so it's peaceful and quiet paddleboarding kayaking, you know, swimming, whatever it might be, we absolutely loved all of it, I will say and I like this picture maybe you can tell us a little bit about all the different activities you can do on the lake you guys have a lot of boats you have a lot of motors you have a lot of paddles give us a little insight into some of the options

Mike 8:05
Yeah, well we like we like to recreate and you know we've over the years added new little elements to the to the program beer you know the latest probably being our foil boards and our electric foils we you know we have a great relationship with lift they ski with us in the winter and that supplier those suppliers for the foil boards in the center and basically that's just an electric motor that you know propels a foil board so you can fly through that fly above the water surface on the lake which you know is so ready experience relatively easy to pick up most people look at it and go whoa, I can't do that you know give us 30 minutes with you and and we can typically have you you know fly into some degree and then proficiency you know, by the time you're through it your trip if you're with us for three or four days and most people you know they end up going home when we try and find one for themselves and buying them that much fun. But between the foil board the Stand Up Paddle Boards, the the kayaks, the canoes, you know, the fishing that we have on the lake, we can keep guests you know, super occupied, you know, to the point of where you know we can we can let them do the activities themselves, we can accompany them on their activities. The nice thing about the you know, getting in and out of the water in this particular location is we have a sauna which would be right behind you. So you can go from you know, the relatively cool water of the of the lake and then you know, get rid of your wetsuit or out of your dry suit and jump right in the sauna and warm up or just go back and forth between the water and the sauna and not even have a wetsuit on is the way I like to do it. But yeah, we got the ski boat there. We can take people surfing, skiing, wait, wait, wake surfing, there's lots of different activities that we can do with that ski boat as well.

Mimi Lichtenstein 9:54
And I love this photo. So for those of you who are listening to the podcast, you got to come and check it out on the video. This is that I guess, the corner of the lake a little bit down from you guys, but it's not a huge lake. And when you're flying in in the plane or on a helicopter, you can see all of what looks like a black mass under the water. And you're sort of like what the heck is that? Tell us a little bit more about that those

Mike 10:15
are all sockeye salmon. In Alaska, people call them red salmon as well. But we get about anywhere between 50 to 80,000 fish that go into the lake in July and August of every year to spawn. And that's what they're doing right there as they're, they're grouping up in that particular area where they'll pair up. And then they'll continue on upstream where only really the bears could get at them. And they spawn, and then those, those, those little aeoi, or the small salmon will drop back down into the lake after they have hatched. And then they'll spend a year in the lake, and then they'll go out to the ocean and spend four years of the ocean. And then miraculously, they'll come back, as you know, the SEC, another generation of salmon do the same thing. And it happens every year, where we get this really large return of salmon come back, they spawn, they die, they create a new generation of fish. And, you know, hopefully it happens in perpetuity. And, you know, we're very, very, very lucky to have something like this, where we can observe it, and then also having a resource like that, that we can fish and take guests to experience that. Because there's not very many places in the world that happened TAC fisheries, that, you know, year after year, you know, show up in such force,

Mimi Lichtenstein 11:36
right? I mean, it is just such a sight. So I think if you have the opportunity to jump in a kayak or go on a paddleboard, and and go check it out right in front of you. It's a good suggestion.

Mike 11:46
Why wouldn't you? It's like, it's only like two minutes away.

Mimi Lichtenstein 11:49
Right? Yeah. And by the way, I also want to add that both my teenagers who were 15 and 17, at the time, they happen to be wakeboarders and snowboarders. But I think Brandon had them out there for 2030 minutes, like you said, and they were up and watching my son do it the first time, there was a lot of this, and a few crashes. But I mean, best trip ever. He absolutely loved it. So I love this photo, I think this was I don't remember where we were probably going fishing, it looks like we might have a raft. But helicopters are obviously a big part of staying at the lodge, partly because you need to take them to get places. And they take you really cool places. We never tired of going in a helicopter, I think I took videos of the helicopter landing, I took videos, when we were in the helicopter, I took videos when the helicopter flew away, it was like lots of helicopters. It was definitely a highlight for us when we had never none of us had actually been in one before. And this one took us fishing, I think we went out with Troy and absolutely loved it. So we went out a couple different days, all of my kids, only one of them had been fly fishing before. And so I'd my husband, but for beginners who have never done it before, again, high five to Troy, he got us all catching stuff and set up and all of our gators and having an amazing time. I know you probably get people with a wide range of fly fishing abilities. You know, starting with us total newbies to I assume very advanced people.

Mike 13:15
Yep, we do. And you know, we pride take pride in the fact that if you don't know anything about fishing, that, you know, we are the people that to walk you into it and show you how to enjoy, you know, a fly casting experience. And that doesn't mean that we don't use, you know, traditional spin casting gear when when guests want to do that. But most people that that come to the lodge would like to try their hand at the fly casting. It's very, you know, simple method to fishing that that kind of puts it together for people easier than you know, throwing a piece of hardware that you can't see out into the water. So look at these pictures that of the of the kids that you know, that have your kids that have caught fish and and you know, they probably showed up with the, you know, the trip, not knowing what fly casting really was but probably left with the idea that, hey, I may want to do some more of this in the future. And I might choose, you know, as a family, you know, to go to another fly fishing destination because it is challenging, it is methodical and but it is very meditative as well you know, just the the cadence of casting and drifting in the, in the water, you know, washing around your feet and the quietness and nature and the eagle, the bears and all of that combines to be an activity that some people might consider fishing to be somewhat boring, but when you put all that together and Alaska, all of those all those elements, it's far from boring. It's very challenging and fun. And you can pass six hours out there. And like it was nothing like you get dropped off and then you're like, oh, it's time to go to dinner. Yeah, you gotta go.

Mimi Lichtenstein 14:58
I agree with that. And what may Is it fun to is that you know, we were moving the whole time. So we got Scott dropped us off with a helicopter in one spot, and you're walking down river as you're fishing as you go. And then we actually had a raft with us and then we rafted down some more and then fish some more. And I did a total newbie move where I got a little too deep for my Gator. So I got a little wet. Sure, I made this fire to help warm me up and give us some snacks and some drinks, which was a fun surprise. So yeah, there's nothing boring about fishing in Alaska, that's for sure. Here we are. Here we are going down the river. So much fun. And this next one, I think you could see for those of you who are listening again, I think it's my foot next to a very large bear prints. The reason that I submerged in the water was because Troy said he saw a bear I was like, oh, where and I went looking for it. And I got a little too deep. So they're out there with you, you know, so it's nice to have someone like Troy who's super experienced, knowledgeable. And Ken knows what to do when the bears are around.

Mike 16:03
Ya know, the bears are they're like omnipresent. They're around us all the time out here but they're typically stick to themselves. And you know, when you see them, they're usually have something that they are doing, you know, like looking for food or, or looking for a place to bed down. And we typically don't have trouble with them because they have lots of food and we give them the space, you know, that respect their space. And I think honestly, around here in the lake, they respect airspace.

Mimi Lichtenstein 16:31
Well, yeah, to your point. I mean, there's salmon everywhere, we just were, you could see in the water, you could see all the salmon you were trying to catch. So there's no shortage of food for bears. Okay, the Via Ferrata my number one bucket list item until I checked it off last year. This is a photo of my son crossing over one of the wires we have done via ferratas before and I absolutely love them. And I love sending people who might not be like real rock climbers out to do them because it's such an approachable way to essentially go rock climbing, right, where it's safe. And you're being heard in and all of that. So tell us a little bit about this experience because you're either the first or the only via ferrata and Alaska, right.

Mike 17:11
Yeah, I believe we're still the only ferrata in Alaska. You know, it was it was some years ago, when, when I was out in Italy that I was introduced to, to the, to the ferratas, of suit to roll. And, and it immediately was like, Wow, this would just be an incredible thing to have in Alaska for a summer activity that, like you said, it takes people that may not have a lot of interest or experience in rock climbing, and giving them an experience that very much is like, you know, rock climbing with the exposure and the beauty of the sights that you can see from off the wall. But all the time being tethered into a very safe line of which you can't fall off and gives people confidence to climb a wall that of that size without, you know, the fear of falling off, or the fear of having a guide that's right behind you that that you know has to mind your rope and whatnot, you mind your own gear, and you move up all as a family or as a unit, you know, until you get up to you know, a particular challenge. And then everyone stops and, you know, let them go one at a time, Courage each other cross and it's, it's a bit of a social activity. And it's also a bit of a, you know, exhilarating athletic activity to get up the ferrata, it's, you know, 1800 foot climb up, you know, a sheer face, you know, kinetic face that, you know, is is perched right next to a five mile wide glacier and surrounded by 12,000 foot peaks. So, you know, you really come from a, from a view shed and what you're experiencing out there, it's every bit as Alpine it is, as any place you're going to be in Alaska. And, you know, we can take pretty much anybody through this experience as long as they have an element of trust, that they're that we're going to keep them safe, and that they can overcome, you know, potential fear of heights and things

Mimi Lichtenstein 19:08
like that. And I'd say for anybody who thinks that they might not be able to do it, if you then overcome that, and you actually do do it, right, that's like mind blowing as far as

Mike 19:18
a huge deal for people. No, I mean, it's, that's the most fun thing is come back to the lodge. You know, the morning of your everyone's you know, some people are really reluctant or nervous about it, just trying to, you know, keep them move the boat to go out there. And then when they come back, they have an area of competence. They're, they're carrying themselves different. They, they accomplish something you overcame a fear that they didn't think they would. And so it's a growing experience for a lot of people and that's cool.

Mimi Lichtenstein 19:47
Absolutely. And I think as much as I tried to capture what it was like in a picture, this gives it a little bit you know, of a view as to how vast and big the two Writing is when you're out there. But I know there's nothing like seeing this in person, it just feels like you're on the top of the world number one. And it almost feels like it's just a screen out there. Like it can't possibly be real. It's just so incredibly beautiful.

Mike 20:15
Yeah, it really is. It's hard to, it's hard to capture even as we tried to do it to, for our website or for you know, for position ourselves to sell an experience like this, you know, every time we look at ads, and that's really what it's like what, like, you know, it doesn't show it as good as it could but you know, one of those things, you know, you have to be there to experience it to really appreciate how awesome it is.

Mimi Lichtenstein 20:43
I think it belongs on any sort of active adventurous travel travelers bucket list for sure. Then you have the beauty of going in the helicopter to get there to get home from there. And I'm gonna link to it in the show notes. But I took a video after Scott picked us up up there first of all, we finish it and we say to Desi well where's he going to pick us up as we feel like we're you know, in the top of like a peak there's nowhere for him to land and he goes oh yeah, it's gonna land right there. It was like, you know, felt like it was about this big. Scott is a super experienced pilot and he did land we thought he might land on my husband's head but he didn't and then we took off and Jason happened to ride copilot on this particular flight and it's just stunning the wilderness. This is one of your photos. I don't know if Brandon took this one but you know, just to be flying over and above that it's it's you know, it is It's awe inspiring. There's me and my daughter there's a lot of smiles when you're flying around in helicopters that's for sure. Oh yeah. Really? Yes. I mean it's just stunning and then as far as other heli experiences tell us a little bit about I think you guys also do some whitewater rafting right

Mike 21:50
yeah, we do whitewater rafting we did helicopter hiking like that terrain that you can see back behind there. There's a lot of like rolling hills you know, we'll we'll just I mean, rarely do I go over the same country get it because it's just so unique to be out there with a helicopter I usually try to find a different hike every day. You know, so that stuck behind there behind the photo there I'm looking at I found some new hikes out that way last year that combined a little bit of you know, rock scrambling with you know, alpine tundra and grass and wildflowers you know, so those alpine hikes out there are very very special all of the guides love to guide the the hiking and you think oh yeah, I think that's going to be boring but you know, with a helicopter and being in the you know, glacial mountainous terrain in Alaska, hiking, this is one of our favorite activities. You know, some of the other things that we like to do out there is is do bear viewing, you know, we'd like to go out to we're not very far from Katmai National Park, we can be out there in about an hour with the airplane we have the otter we can load up six seven people fly to cap money and go to the famous Brooks Falls or we can go to some other more private areas that we know of where we can do salmon or Bear Bear fishing observation where you know the bears are picking up salmon. And that's that starts typically, in about the middle of the month of June we can rely on the go find bears course we have the all of the activities around the lodge, the lake based water based activities. We have, you know, we can take people fishing to numerous different rivers and locations in the area. We have hikes that are based right here or Lodge.

Mimi Lichtenstein 23:36
You know, so never a dull moment.

Mike 23:39
You wake up and we'd like to we'd like to not have things to overly curated for people where it's a canned experience. We'd like people to wake up and go cheese. I'm tired from that ferrata clean yesterday, maybe we should just go fishing and hang out grab today. And rest up and tomorrow we'll go for a longer hike, those kinds of things. And so it's kind of an ALEC Hart thing in the morning or the evening, discuss what you're going to do the next day. Make sure the weather cooperates when you get up and pivot if you need to change to a different activity or stick with your activity and add one so it's really pretty custom you know we like to we like to let people design their own trip not wake up and say you're going to go here.

Mimi Lichtenstein 24:24
Yeah. And I love that. And so you touched on the kings and corn and mentioned you know now is the season so in June What is the the regular heli skiing season

Mike 24:33
the first of February through the end of April's or winter season. So we do about 90 days of skiing. We don't open up until the first of February typically because the light hours in Alaska in the winter can be as low as about six hours of direct labor. We don't feel that like That's enough time for people to travel all the way up to Alaska for you know for six hours a day a ski. We typically open that back up when we have up over eight hours of skiing in, in February, and you know, operate up to 20 guests out of two different lodges that we that were active 60 miles to the south of us and about 40 miles north. So we have 100 miles of mountains, about 40 miles wide. So kind of hard to get your head around, you know, it's like that's the size of most mountain ranges. Yeah, but the Alaska Range is feet 100 miles long, I mean, just think about that, that is the longest mountain range in the world, or in the in North America, the Andes would be would be a longer mountain range. But it's it's quite quite extensive.

Mimi Lichtenstein 25:42
Lots of first tracks. Last week, I was talking about Doppler farm in Iceland. And I learned that there heli skiing is actually a very approachable heli skiing operation. For more intermediate skiers. Tell us about the level you need to have. I think you guys are way above my paygrade. Personally, maybe my husband could do it, but I'm not going to do it how how expert you have to be,

Mike 26:06
we typically would ask the guests, our advanced novices, you know, it really, it's who you're skiing with. You don't want to be a novice and be paired with a couple of experts and feel like you're holding those experts back. But if there's four guests that have similar skiing ability, whether they're intermediates, or their advanced, or their expert, we typically group them together and, and take them to terrain that suits their abilities, you know, so we have really gentle terrain like that, where we have real steep terrain where, you know, it keeps the experts engaged in and excited. So you know it you know, like, declar we're not dissembler we're not in the business to scare people. We're in the business to give people you know, to provide a lot of fun and safe activity that you know that they come back year after year for

Mimi Lichtenstein 27:00
nice. Oh, and this is huge. I believe this was from a kingsun Corn season. This salmon was way bigger than anything that I caught. I don't know how much do you think this weighs?

Mike 27:11
It's probably a 30 pound King. That's about half as big as they get in our river. You know, we get up to about 60 pounds, so oh my goodness, which they get quite a bit bigger than that. And right now. This week, they started coming in to the river and so we'll be we'll be fishing to him in four or five days at bat and then hoping to catch some of those Seabright kings.

Mimi Lichtenstein 27:35
Yeah, absolutely gorgeous. I will say actually our freezer was full of halibut and salmon for a couple of months after we got home I think we sent home a good like 4050 pounds of it but now it's gone. So now I need to come back obviously it's hard to buy salmon and halibut at the grocery store after after you bring it home from Alaska. I will say

Mike 27:56
a lot of people just make it a regular trip to Alaska to go supply. Yeah,

Mimi Lichtenstein 28:00
absolutely. I'll talk to him about that. Gotta have the budget. You mentioned the sauna before so I think this is the backside of the sauna right

Mike 28:09
yeah that's that's the sauna is inside the house but we we have an exterior load stove so you don't have to open up the sauna and bring you know wood chips and stuff like that into the into the sun it's but yeah we're we love to do the in the winter you know jump through that you know kind of hold the ice we jump into the prison you know the you know, into the lake water in the winter and then in the summer it's the same thing you know, cooler water you go from the hot tub or the sauna to the lake to the sauna do a couple of cycles of that and it really makes your your your body feel better and it helps your sleep patterns and get you it gets you into bed and gets you out of bed. You know in a in a better fashion. If you're taking care of yourself by doing sauna hot tub. We just built a brand new hot tub last year it's been some years since we've addressed that and and we ended up not finding anything commercially that we wanted. So we decided to have a welder in Anchorage weld up a big stainless steel tub, and then custom fit everything. So it's a it's a fairly large size tub with the you know, heated slab around it. And you know, we we didn't we didn't take any shortcuts on this one and have accomplished getting a really nice tub together.

Mimi Lichtenstein 29:29
Yeah, I can attest to that. We went in the tub. It is huge. We loved it. The new

Mike 29:34
one. You got the new one. Yeah, that didn't work. And I

Mimi Lichtenstein 29:37
think for people who might have if you're coming with your family and you might have a range of interests, or you might have some people who are a little bit more active adventurous than others. You can have you know, if one parents was there a grandparent or an aunt, who didn't want to go out and do some of these adventures, you could just spend a day hanging out at the lodge there's plenty of things to do. Anyways to luxuriate chill out. I love Have the morning stretches. We did that every day. That was so fun. You guys have a great fitness room. Like we said all the cool Lake stuff you could do. You could hang out in the sauna, read a book. There's a lot of great relaxing, fun things to do just chillin at the watch.

Mike 30:14
Yeah, yeah, take a flight see up to Denali go to check out the mountain verse. You know, there's activities to do good, that are active, you know, that will keep somebody who, you know, may be an elderly person that that wants to be with their family that they can't go out there in the field and do those activities. Well, we bring the activities back to the lake whenever one's out field. And they can feel like they're part of right here.

Mimi Lichtenstein 30:39
Yeah. And like, for example, this great room, I'm in it just you could tell how comfortable it looks. My daughter who was reading a lot when we were there, I think she was studying for the SATs. She spent some time in here just with her book open. In fact, one day, she didn't go, she didn't go fishing with us to stay back and study for the SATs, which I guess I was impressed by there. She was hanging out in another fun spot upstairs. And I saw some of these like bongo drums and you know, a guitar here. So I imagine sometimes if you have some more musically inclined guests, people might break out and start playing.

Mike 31:12
Yeah, we a lot of us here at the lodge like to play, you know, at after dinners or in the afternoons over the deck. You know, you find people picking up the guitar and maybe the you know, using the drums and in doing little jam session, but yeah, we we've had a lot of musicians up and all really appreciate music and just be together.

Mimi Lichtenstein 31:32
Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the food for a minute. You guys again, you're in the middle of nowhere, you got to fly everything in unless I guess you catch some salmon and then you have to fly everything out. The quality creativity and all of that that I experienced while I was there regarding the food I thought was amazing. We had Wagyu beef, we of course had halibut. My daughter's a vegetarian, you guys are super accommodating to that is a photo of nice chard piece of cauliflower. And actually some mushrooms. I don't remember what kind of mushrooms they were they were the best mushrooms I'd ever had these jumbo mushrooms. So what trumpets. Yeah, they were so good. Anyway, so for people who wonder what kind of food you're going to be having in a remote Lodge and Alaska, this is the kind of food you're having. So it's

Mike 32:20
more we're the big foodie folks, and we it's for us, you know, it's um, it's, it will really we don't have a budget for what we spend on guests. It's the best of what we can get at that time. That's that's kind of what I tell the kitchen, you know, that look, we you know, we're trying to do top service here. Yeah, and so Alaska has really good food, you got king salmon and halibut, all the seafood, you've got, you know, an amazing amount of stuff that we can grow right here at the lodge, you know, all of our greens and stuff like that come, you know, from the garden here. So you know that food to table for the farm to table approach, you know, we're not a farm. But you know, nature has it right out there in the lake in the rivers. And, you know, we can provide the vegetables. So, you know, the kitchen has been instructed to really, you know, give it their best.

Mimi Lichtenstein 33:11
And they do. So another thing that we love is the big community table that we all ate at with the other guests who were there with the guides, the helicopter pilot, the regular pilot, you know, whoever might be around. We loved it in the morning, you're sitting around talking to everybody about what are you going to do today? What are you going to do lay and then in the evening, you have cocktail hour, and then sit down together at this table, of course talking all about what you did that day. So I personally think this was one of my favorite aspects of of the lodge, just that community that develops when people are there.

Mike 33:43
Yeah, it's something that naturally happens and nothing that we do. It's just it's that opportunity, that happy hour that you know, when everyone gets back and naturally starts talking about their day. That's where the next day's plan comes from. Yeah, yeah. Because some guests will sell the experience to other guests for us, you know, and they say, well, we want to go to the Bronto tomorrow, or we want to go catch some of those salmon. And so you know, your guests do a lot of that sorting up to the next day. It's great.

Mimi Lichtenstein 34:13
Well, I think when people experience something, you know, so amazing, they just want to share it, obviously, which is another reason that you're here talking with me today. I also love this to get some glacial ice cubes in your cocktails. That was super fun. And it happens to be so crystal clear. I know it has something to do with the oxygen amount in there. But it's one of those things that I wish I could bring it home and keep it but obviously it melts so that wasn't going to work but you guys just do everything so so well what I loved cup another thing I loved and just gonna keep repeating that. So one day I learned the term aggressive standby, which I love the term aggressive standby when you're waiting for the helicopter to come. But there might be a delay for fog or whatever it means like be as ready as possible so that you can run out the door as soon as we could take off. You think maybe you'd sit around do not Think for a while but no instead, Jeremy comes over to my daughter and he said, Hey, do you want to learn how to tie a tie? Or make a tie or whatever however you say that flight sorry flying there you go tie a flight. So he Allison and Jeremy just sat down he had out his you know, fly tying machine. I think I might be remembering this a little correctly or incorrectly but Jeremy's dad was like, he owns a fly fishing company or used

Mike 35:31
to he's probably one of the more famous flight casters fly fisherman. Yeah, shop owners in the West. Okay. Yeah, we're like pedigree like a, you know, you have a generational thing, Jeremy comes from what I would consider to be the best fishing pedigree that a person could find. He's very as you know, he's just, that's what he's about is, is teaching people that fish. It's not about him and his experience. It's about the guests, and their experience. And he is just the most selfless person. And a lot of the guides are this way, that just want to turn people on to something that they're so passionate about. Yeah, if we can convert a fly fisherman every week, you know, world's gonna be a better place.

Mimi Lichtenstein 36:15
Well, the two of them just sat here. And he taught Allison how to do this, you know, until the helicopter was ready to pick us up. And by then she had her own. And she brought it with us and used it to catch a fish. So I mean, no fun. Yeah. Then we were waiting for the helicopter to come pick us up. So Troy said to my husband, Hey, you want to shoot my gun? And Jason has shot a variety of guns in his life. And he was like, Sure. I've never actually been near someone who shot a gun. I took a video. I don't have it here. But I think I swore after he actually shot it because it was so much louder than I was expecting. But again, it was so fun. And like, you know, they're going to just come up with something fun for you to do if you have nothing to do while you wait. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I mean, hats off to all the guides, I really think for us, you know, your staff, not just the guides, but your whole staff just makes such a difference in people's experience. So you obviously have a beautiful Lodge, with all sorts of water, toys, amazing food, you know, the whole setup is there to have a wonderful time, but it's really these people who, you know, are front facing with the guests that they feel that every day that made such a big difference for us. So

Mike 37:28
hurts, you know, I mean, it's the it's an important, you know, that you're going to spend your day with your guy, you know, I hope Yeah. You know, and, you know, they should be able to introduce you to things in Alaska that, you know, that that you weren't aware of and, and we intentionally keep our guests involved with the guides, there's not a front in the house in the backend of house here. Our guides and our employees are encouraged to interface with guests and make their experience better. And you know, that there's, there's, there's other ways to do it. That's just the way we like to do

Mimi Lichtenstein 38:00
it. Yeah. Well, I love that you like to do it that way. All right. So before we go, what give me some of your thoughts about different lodges or places in Alaska that would pair well with coming and staying with you guys at Georgia law?

Mike 38:15
Well, Alaska is a big state. Okay. So when you when you start talking about like different areas and combining things, I one thing I see people making a trip to Alaska, is trying to pull up too much in one trip. And we're what we've created here and to drill Oh is to one location that you can do a number of themes, and not move around. Because you start moving around in airplanes and cars and hotels, and in and out, you just pretty soon you're moving around too much to really absorb everything that's around you, you know that what you've come to, to experience. And so when you're planning your Alaska trip, don't try to bite off the Ball State in one in one trip, you know, do a South Central trip, do a you know, a northern trip up in the BRICS range or something like that, and then do a southeast Alaska trip. Because to try to hit them all in one trip. It's just not going to happen for you where you're going to get you're getting exhausted and you're not going to absorb wouldn't you want it to experience? So I think that what would there well, you know, in this area, I think a marine environment that whether you're in Prince William Sound, or you're in Kachemak Bay, or you're cooking led to do a large based program out of Stillpoint or tuck Kobe or you know, some of the lodges out in Prince William Sound, all of those would be a great combination. You could do five days here and five days there, and you've got a pretty good, you know, look at South Central. If you're going down to southeast, you know, you might want to be in the Sitka area or Ketchikan, those they don't look anything like this part of Alaska in their strong ordinary, extraordinarily beautiful down offer a completely different experience. So there's lots of I just Just do your research Southeast Alaska is one of those places that's just as beautiful as South Central. You gotta go see it?

Mimi Lichtenstein 40:08
Well, I think a lot of people including me sort of feel like okay, well if you go to Alaska, like, Okay, I went to Alaska like done, where am I going next? But it is a a huge state, as you mentioned, and there's so much to see and so much to do that. I don't think before I went, I thought that I would go back multiple times. But after going I can say for sure that I would go back multiple times. So yeah, I didn't

Mike 40:31
even mention Kodiak Island. I mean, Kodiak Island is the most one of the most fantastic places in the Pacific and then the Aleutian chain and all the way out the Aleutians know you can get closer to Japan then you are to increase when you get out there in the Aleutian chain. So yeah, there's just lots to see and and incredible state very few people lots of wildlife during those kinds of things. It's it's the best

Mimi Lichtenstein 40:54
and to your point so when we were there we went bear viewing not when we were with you guys before we came to you guys and we were out and cat my and there had been a beached whale. I don't know how many 100 feet plus along with, I don't know 1517 coastal brown bears, you know, eating it up. Amazing. But you can do that from you guys, as you said. Yeah, definitely thing for people who love to fish getting in some deep sea fishing to go catch some halibut would be a great idea, a nice way to complement it. And there's just so many good things. We went river rafting on Six Mile Creek over by Alyeska. That was amazing. You are wearing a wetsuit It is rather cold. I actually were wearing a dry suit, I think because the water was so cold. But as long as you come prepared, you'll be okay. All right. Well,

Mike 41:38
you got an adventurous family. Maybe you hit off a lot of those those those top top experiences in south central River Run.

Mimi Lichtenstein 41:48
It was awesome. We loved it. And we went through. They do. I think you sign up to do like two sets. And then if you're of a certain caliber, like, like you're able to handle it, they'll take you on your third one. Yeah. So we did that. But we did have to portage one particular one because like the day before, I think that they had flipped and everybody fell out of the boat. And they thought that was a little too high risk for us. But what I love is that there's a lot of safety, you know, part of Alaska, if you're shooting a gun, you gotta be safe about it. If you're river rafting, you got to know how to save somebody falls out of the boat. And my husband did fall out of the boat on one of the rapids. And my two teenagers went over, follow the directions grabbed onto him, you know, and lifted him back in the boat with a good story to tell. So there's lots of fun to be had in Alaska, that's for sure. Yeah. Well, Mike, thank you so much. This has been a true pleasure. So nice to talk with you. And I look forward to sending a lot of people to Alaska in the future. And catching up on your season later this year. Great. Can't wait to meet him. Awesome. All right. Well take care. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. If you enjoyed today's show and don't want to miss an episode, you can subscribe and follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you haven't already, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review to let me know what you think and to help others find adventures and luxury travel. I want your honest feedback so I can create a podcast that shares lots of insights to help travelers have more amazing adventures. Visit true vai travel.com backslash podcast to launch for step by step instructions on how to subscribe, rate and review adventures in luxury travel today. See you next time. Thank you for listening to this episode of adventures and luxury travel. If you want more travel tips go to true a travel.com where you can sign up for our newsletter that shares more inspiring travel ideas around the world. See you here next week.