About Timberline Adventures

We at Timberline marked our 25th anniversary season this past year—a major milestone some have said. But rather than investing a good deal of energy (and boring you in the process) with a lot of self-congratulatory pap, it’s high time that we move on to our next 25, or at least the year at hand. Most importantly, know that even after 25 years of doing this sort of thing, we’re still dreaming about the future.

For the past 10 years, our Odyssey Series of cycling programs have become
our signature cycling adventures. Last season, we Chased the Great Divide — 40 days, almost 2,700 miles and 140,000 feet of vertical as we traced the Continental Divide from Lordsburg, NM, to Jasper, AB. This season, we’re
Coming Home to Colorado, 17 days of some of the most exciting alpine cycling
that you’ll ever experience.

But what about our hiking program? Hasn’t the time come to create a hiking
experience that compares with our odyssey cycling opportunities? We think
so, and in the season ahead, we’ll launch the first of what will be an annual Odyssey Series for Hikers. Believe it or not, we’re going overseas for this inaugural odyssey. We’re headed to England to hike the historic Cotswold Way—not just a piece of it—the entire 103-mile trail from Chipping Campden to Bath in the context of a 10-day village-to-village trek.

Anyway, this is just a hint of our plans for the immediate future. Want a peek beyond 2008? In 2010, once and for all (and we need to get it out of our system),we’re cycling across the continent from the tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula to Bar Harbor, ME. Look for future hiking odysseys along
the Coast-to-Coast Trail in England and the Dolomites of northern Italy.

As we look to the future, our philosophy that has evolved over the past quarter-century remains unchanged. It has always been, and always will be, our hope that the content of our programs and the experiences that all of you share with us will define who and what we are as an organization.

We cling to the belief that our audience is one that loves to cycle and hike as much as we do and that they plan their cycling and hiking vacations to do those sort of things. For all of these reasons, we’re content to permit our programs and the experiences that we share to speak for us, and we’ll trust to your judgment as to whether or not ours is a program for you.

The content of our programs provides only a portion of our profile as an organization. From Day 1 to the present, we always have been and always will be Carol and Dick, “ma and pa,” along with our kids, both real and presumptive (our family of tour leaders) until they outgrow us. It’s us you’re talking to on the phone during the off-season; and it’s us out there on the road and trail cycling and hiking with you—whining with you in the headwinds, the rain, and, yes, in the snow, and sharing the joy, exhilaration and utter sense of accomplishment that is a part of every aspect of our program. In other words, don’t ever look to us to boast about how many computers we have accumulated in our office, or how many reservationists and specialists we have added to our staff—it’s just not going to happen here and it never will be the means by which we measure our success. For us, we’ll only measure our success by the quality of your experience that you’ve shared with us.

For better or worse, that’s who we are. We’re cyclists and hikers to the core. We’re also westerners, first and last; the West today, as in the past and as it will be in the future, is our primary focus. And we truly believe that you’ve never really experienced an area until you’ve experienced the joy and pride of doing so as the product of your own power and spirit. The cyclist and hiker alike, not only sees the breathtaking beauty of a region; each also feels the land, senses the crispness of the air, the sound of rushing waters, the scent of alpine flora. The West is our home and we feel that this land is special—its undulating terrain, its majestic grandeur, the challenge of its mountains and the incomparable peace and solitude of its isolated valleys. Accept our invitation to share with us the beauty of this land and the incomparable experiences and excitement in the season ahead.

Carol & Dick Gottsegen

E-Mail: timber@earthnet.net

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