Who we are

Mark, Sarah & Grace yancey

We are Mark, Sarah, Grace and Alden Yancey. We are honored and humbled to be the new caretakers of Margie and Art's tradition at Boulder Creek.

Mark attended an avalanche course at the Boulder Hut in 2005. Mark and Margie were kindred spirits. Margie mentioned in passing that Ptarmigan Tours was for sale. Mark picked his jaw up off the floor, and a dialogue began. As a family, this was an opportunity we just could not pass up. The question remaining was not if we could make this work but how.

As backcountry skiers, this was a dream come true. Mark has been adventuring in the mountains for over twenty years. Sarah has been working seasonally for fifteen years in the mountains of Alaska, Washington and Idaho. We have both worked as professional ski patrollers for the past ten years: most recently, Mark focused on avalanche forecasting, Sarah on training her avalanche rescue dog, Dory.

What we bring to Ptarmigan Tours is an ethic of stewardship, a passion for places wild, a love of adventure and adventurers, and the simple desire to share the backcountry experience with others. We would like to operate Ptarmigan Tours for the next thirty years in the same spirit it has been run for the past thirty years.

With over twenty years of construction experience and fifteen years as a self- employed builder and craftsman, Mark's talent will be an asset as we renovate The Boulder Hut's infrastructure.

We will be actively shaping the future of Ptarmigan Tours. We will once again offer hut to hut tours to the Ptarmigan Hut as an option to our guests. We are exploring the potential of late summer trips into both huts. We will strive to be responsive to the desires of our guests without getting too carried away from what we think
should still be a backcountry experience.

We look forward to meeting those of you we have not yet, and re-acquainting ourselves with those of you we have. When you return to the Boulder Hut you can expect the same down to earth, fun-loving environment that Margie has always created but with some new faces and the inevitable evolution that time and new energy bring.

Mark, Sarah, Grace and Alden Yancey