Tales from the Trail Blog
Phoenix hiking tours: Vacation destination
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • July, 20, 2021
So, where does an adventure tour company owner go on vacation to take a break from the workaday grind and seek their getaway thrills? The answer might surprise you! The providers of guided Phoenix hiking tours and Scottsdale mountain bike tours are just like everybody else when chasing the ever-elusive physical, mental, and spiritual healing powers of recuperative rest and relaxation.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 112
Phoenix hiking tours: Hot times, cool thoughts
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • June, 30, 2021
So, you have hot summer vacation plans that include guided Phoenix hiking tours. Here is how to make sure instead of fizzling in Arizona’s legendary July heat, your adventure with Wild Bunch Desert Guides sizzles like an Independence Day firecracker. Hint No. 1: Start by crossing off an iconic Camelback Mountain hike.
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Posted in:
Hiking |
Views: 291
Phoenix hiking best adventure for group outings
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • June, 20, 2021
Whether the calendar says July 4 or Nov. 4, an Arizona adventure tour is a great way to celebrate everything from a holiday to an anniversary, birthday, or another personal milestone. Guided Phoenix hiking or Scottsdale mountain biking also makes for a fantastic way to put a unique stamp on any corporate retreat, business event, family reunion or weekend group getaway. However, for the largest groups, hiking in the Sonoran Desert with the Wild Bunch is the best option and here is why.
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Posted in:
Hiking |
Views: 125
Phoenix Adventure Tours salute our heroes
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • May, 28, 2021
Memorial Day is more than a long holiday weekend to mark the beginning of summer with an avalanche of activities. Mountain biking & hiking on Phoenix adventure tours is among the many freedoms Americans enjoy because of the sacrifices made by our war heroes. Never forget who blazed the trail to your fun.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 278
Phoenix adventure tours: Eight great memories
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • May, 23, 2021
A man with a prosthetic leg scaling Camelback Mountain. A first-time bike rider learning fundamentals on the fly. Guided Scottsdale hiking trips or guided Scottsdale mountain biking tours with either the famous or the fascinating. These are the Eight Great Memories from my company’s Phoenix adventure tours.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 322
Scottsdale mountain biking becomes a Mother’s Day gift
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • May, 09, 2021
As a tour guide and adventure company owner, I feel my gift is being chosen to play pathfinder to people’s personal journeys by showing them amazing sights, incredible scenes and even discovering something about themselves in the process. Instead, the gift was all mine to receive countless times over during a Scottsdale Mountain Biking visit leading into Mother’s Day from my friend -- the inspirational adventurer, motivational speaker/author, and Social Media sensation known as The Mirnavator.
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Posted in:
Mountain Biking |
Views: 459
Phoenix adventure tours: Beat the summer heat
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • May, 02, 2021
The Wild Bunch Desert Guides are offering an online booking discount along with the annual roll out of special summer start times for the safety of our guests from June 1-Oct. 1. Read on to get discount details and understand how a highly rated Phoenix adventure tour company handles the heat of the summer.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 473
Top 3 Phoenix guided hikes from a Scottsdale adventure tour company owner
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • April, 25, 2021
I am posed with this question often: When friends or family visit from back home in the Midwest, where does a Scottsdale adventure company owner take them for a Phoenix guided hike? The answer: The same places I like to walk my dog – and the Wild Bunch Desert Guides take our guests! Here is my list of all-time favorites, though.
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Posted in:
Hiking |
Views: 403
'The kids are all right' on hiking & biking tours
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • April, 11, 2021
The scenery is unbelievably beautiful. The experiences are unforgettably memorable. If only your kids could be part of your guided Phoenix hiking trip or guided Scottsdale mountain biking tour. But wait! They can! Here is how families can enjoy the same thrills together with the Wild Bunch Desert Guides.
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Hiking or Mountain Biking in Phoenix? Watch for these ‘Easter Eggs’
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • April, 04, 2021
Easter comes only once per year, but the Wild Bunch Desert Guides offer an “Easter Egg Hunt” of a different kind daily in the Phoenix Metro area. From Flora to Fauna, Arizona’s Sonoran Desert boasts all sorts of colorful and exotic sights not seen elsewhere. And those cool plants and animals are just waiting to be discovered, too, during a guided hiking tour or guided mountain biking trip.
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Posted in:
Hiking, Mountain Biking |
Views: 431
The Business of Love: The Adventures of Bonnie & Clyde
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • March, 21, 2021
Life is an adventure, but especially when you own an Arizona adventure travel tour company. The demands of the industry make long-term personal relationships a tough business. An understanding significant other is a requisite for success in both business and love.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 498
Survival drive delivers lessons in gratitude
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • March, 13, 2021
When the CoVid-19 pandemic began a year ago in March, I was worried the dream of owning a small business was over for me. However, my Arizona adventure tour company not only survived, but is thriving a year later – and I have a front-line job to thank for saving my small mom-and-pop specialty shop, as well as my sanity. Here’s how I got from that perilous Point A to the paradise of Point B.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 428
'March Madness' underway: Here's 'Elite Eight' Arizona adventures
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • March, 06, 2021
“Selection Sunday” is fast approaching. Spring Break also is upon us. If planning a “March Madness” Spring Break dance to Arizona, these are the “Elite Eight” adventure you must consider during your visit to the vaunted “Valley of the Sun.”
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 474
IF YOU BUILD IT: 'Field of Dreams' realized through business, friendship
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • February, 27, 2021
A chance meeting with a top baseball executive has led to a wonderful friendship and annual spring training tradition for the Wild Bunch Desert Guides. While I have reveled in the career successes of “Mr. Diamond” -- including a huge promotion after winning the 2016 World Series with my childhood team and home-state Chicago Cubs – he has been incredibly supportive of my small mom-and-pop specialty shop’s steady rise, too. Suffice to say, we have enjoyed the ride since our first mountain bike meeting in 2015, and become each other’s biggest fan while building our personal “Field of Dreams.”
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Posted in:
Mountain Biking |
Views: 387
Cancel culture: Why there is a refund policy
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • February, 20, 2021
A cancellation policy is a necessary protection for a small business in the service industry. However, as an Arizona adventure tour company owner, I am torn by putting myself in other people’s shoes when a last-minute cancellation crops up. We all have been there as a customer, right? But there have been a few nightmarishly notable reasons for a strict 48-hour no refund policy in the past for the Wild Bunch Desert Guides.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 366
Open love letter to the real superheroes of the Sonoran Desert
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • February, 13, 2021
As “The Devil Woman,” I get to be a superhero to tourists by delivering fun and adventure during their visits and vacations to Arizona’s “Valley of the Sun.” However, the unsung heroes for me are the super team making my Wild Bunch Desert Guides a success. Together those talented pros and fantastic human beings make either a guided mountain bike tour or guided hiking adventure an amazing experience.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 371
Camelback Mountain Master Class: This is 'F'ing hard'
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • February, 05, 2021
Look at the spectacular pictures from the peak, and the attraction of a Camelback Mountain hike is easily understandable. I certainly get the allure for visitors to Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, too, as a Midwestern transplant blessed with many unforgettable moments in my memory bank. However, as an adventure tour company owner, I must be honest with my guests -- a guided Camelback Mountain hike is not for everybody.
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Posted in:
Hiking |
Views: 422
An adventure guide walks into a coffee shop … (no joke!)
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • January, 28, 2021
A chance meeting with visiting multi-media specialists TOTL turned into a glorious day of mountain biking in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. A mutual-admiration society also was formed that day in the Phoenix area, as well as a wonderful promotional video produced for my small adventure tour company, Wild Bunch Desert Guides. But more than anything, the experience served as a great series of lessons learned by this small business owner.
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Posted in:
Mountain Biking |
Views: 335
This woman’s adventure tour company truly a ‘wonder’
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Laurel Darren, Wild Bunch Desert Guides • January, 21, 2021
I am lovingly referred to as the "Devil Woman" because I bring the heat as a hard-working taskmaster with a wicked sense of humor, devil-may-care demeanor and fun, adventurous spirit. Those super powers serve me well as the leader of the Wild Bunch Desert Guides, a band of do-gooders fighting a never-ending battle against boredom, lethargy and the "crime" that is the CoVid-19 pandemic.
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Posted in:
Adventure Tours |
Views: 350
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Featured Reviews
Matt was our guide. He did an excellent job of judging our fitness and our level of interest in information about the area. He was very willing to answer questions. Best of all he gave us a great hike that we could not have done or fully appreciated on our own. The pace was not too slow or too fast and was a little bit challenging all the way. He was well prepared and brought all the supplies we needed. I showed up with only good sneakers and a hat. Someone let on that it was my birthday and when we got to the summit, he even had a birthday snack for me. I like doing tours while traveling and this was a good one. Well worth it as a private for two people. I would do another one of their tours or a second route on this same Sonora Desert hike through Squaw Peak.
- Ben A.
We climbed Camelback with Ellen! She was outstanding! She was waiting for us just as she stated and had everything we needed for our trip. She explained everything along the way and gave us all the encouragement we needed for our first climb. Truly an outstanding experience!
- Michael K.