Grand Circle Field School (GCFS) is proud of its expert team of instructors. Our team has over 300 years of combined guiding experience!

Mike Anderson, Ph.D.
Mike has been researching, writing, and teaching the history of the Grand Canyon region since 1990. He is the author of three canyon books: Living at the Edge: Explorers, Exploiters and Settlers of the Grand Canyon Region; Polishing the Jewel: An Administrative History of Grand Canyon National Park; Along the Rim: A Guide to Grand Canyon's South Rim from Hermits Rest to Desert View. Mike organized the canyon's first history symposium in January 2002, and edited the proceedings for publication by the Grand Canyon Association. These days he is the roads and trails historian for Grand Canyon National Park.

Val Avery, Ph.D.
The Val Avery Memorial Scholarship
Val Avery taught American history at Northern Arizona University for twenty-two years, specializing in Mormon, western American, and Colorado Plateau history at both the graduate and undergraduate level. She comments, "It's a source of joy and pride that many of my students are writing and researching Grand Canyon topics and are doing it better than I." The highlight of her teaching career came in 2001, when the students at NAU dedicated Homecoming to her. Dr. Avery's books include Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (co-authored with Linda Newell) and From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet both won the Evans Award for western biography; she is the only writer to win it twice.

Bryan Bates
Bryan has an undergraduate degree in Native American Studies and a Master’s degree in environmental science, and been exploring the mountains, rivers and canyons of the desert Southwest for over 30 years. A professor of environmental studies at Coconino Community College, he has an impressive list of scientific publications. Bryan is also an instructor of ancient astronomy at Northern Arizona University and recently chaired the Oxford International Conference on Archaeoastronomy. He is a licensed river guide in Grand Canyon and Utah and is a field instructor for National Geographic Society and the National Wildlife Federation, among many others.

Brad Dimock
Brad spent thirty years as a river guide in Grand Canyon and on the rivers of Utah, Alaska, Guatemala, Chile and Africa. He has a B.A from Prescott College and has pursued graduate studies at Northern Arizona University. He collaborated on The Doing of the Thing: The Brief, brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom, and wrote Sunk Without a Sound: The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is an accomplished naturalist and a master storyteller.

Carolyn Emanuel
Carolyn has long been an Elderhostel Program Coordinator for Mesa Verde and a Road Scholar Tour Guide in the Four Corners area. She is a Certified International Tour Manager and Certified Interpretive Guide with 25 years of group trip experience in the mountains, canyons, and sagebrush plains of the Four Corners. Her passions include rock art, Native American history, cacti, Cowboy archaeologists of the Four Corners, wildflowers and geology.

Margaret Erhart
Margaret Erhart, MFA, is a river and hiking guide in Grand Canyon and on the San Juan River and the author of five novels. Margie's fourth book, Crossing Bully Creek, won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize in 2005. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and in several anthologies, and her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio. Margie has been swinging a butterfly net since the turn of the millennium, and has a good working knowledge of the bugs of the Colorado Plateau. She lives in Flagstaff and teaches creative writing.

Bill Hatcher
Climber, mountaineer and photographer extraordinaire, Bill has been shooting adventure, science and expedition photography in the remote mountain and desert regions of the world for twenty years. His photos have illustrated several books, including Desire and Ice, Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms, and Great Climbs: A celebration of World Mountaineering. A regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine, Bill’s work has also appeared in American Photo, Life, Outside, Adventure and Outdoor Photographer. Several of his assignments for National Geographic have involved exploration and natural history stories on the Colorado Plateau.

R. J. Johnson
R. J. (MS, geologist , hydrogeologist, environmental manager) has taught geology and environmental science at the college level and has designed and lead extended field classes on the geology and natural history of the Southwest for more than 20 years. Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range geology and natural history are his specialties. He has been guiding river trips on the San Juan, Green, and Colorado Rivers and teaching river and outdoor skills on rivers throughout the Southwest for over twenty-five years.

Gary Ladd
Gary Ladd, renowned Southwest photographer and author of numerous books including Page, Arizona: Hub of the Visual Universe, Canyon Light, Grand Canyon: Time Below the Rim, and Lake Powell: A Photographic Essay of Glen Canyon NRA. A resident of Arizona for thirty years, Gary has spent the last twenty-five years seriously hiking, exploring and photographing the astonishing beauty of the Colorado Plateau, particularly Glen and Grand Canyons. His work has been showcased in Arizona Highways, National Geographic, Sierra, Omni and Smithsonian magazines. A student of geology and astronomy, Gary’s images are imbued with and reflect his intimate relationship with and deep understanding and appreciation of this magnificent region.

Ivo Lucchitta, Ph.D.
Ivo’s love affair with the geology of the Colorado River and its Grand Canyon began in 1963 while working on his PhD thesis, and has continued unabated ever since. He has been a college professor and a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey; he has worked on the Quaternary Geology of the Grand Canyon and was part of the Apollo team for manned lunar exploration. Ivo is now dedicated to teaching non-geologists the fascinating stories that Earth has to tell and so has appeared in NOVA documentaries, contributed articles to such publications as Plateau Journal, Boatman’s Quarterly Review, and Grand Canyon Nature Notes, and has authored Hiking Arizona’s Geology, (The Mountaineers Books 2001). Ivo has led river trips and hikes through Grand Canyon for over 20 years for professional geological societies such as the Geological Society of America, for river guides training seminars and for private groups interested in learning about the Grand Canyon.

Alisyn Martinez
Ally is currently working on her MS in environmental toxicology and physiology at the University of Northern Arizona. She has worked as a Biology Technician for US Fish and Wildlife Department studying native fishes on the Little Colorado River and for Sequoia National Park surveying non-native fish species and Mountain Yellow Legged Frog. She is a Grand Canyon river guide and has also rowed several trips in Cataract Canyon, the San Juan and Salt Rivers, and the Watut River in Papua, New Guinea. She is a certified backcountry guide in Grand Canyon.

Mike Masek
Mike is an ethnobotanist who has been exploring the canyons and mountains of the southwest for more than 30 years. His love of plants has taken him to China, India and the Tibetan Plateau. He has studied many herbal healing traditions of both East and West and has taught ethnobotany programs at several national parks in the southwest. Mike teaches herbal medicine at Coconino Community College and leads outdoor trips in wilderness skills at Northern Arizona University and he instructs bushcraft and outdoor survival at Ancient Pathways school in Flagstaff.

Tony Norris
Storyteller, folk singer and cowboy historian of the Southwest, Tony is the nephew of two of Bob Will’s original Texas Playboys. Born in the ranching country of Central Texas, Tony was raised on the stories and music of the West. As an award-winning country music disk jockey, he worked to keep the culture of the cowboy alive through his weekly radio show, “Under Western Skies,” which featured music, interviews, stories and poems of the West. Tony hosted the open music sessions at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, for ten years and he has performed at the Arizona Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Prescott since its inception and has been featured at the Cochise County Gathering, the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, The Red River Western Festival, “Riding the Rim” and at the Grand Canyon “Hole in the Ground” gathering.

Jim Page
Since retiring from the US Forest Service in 1991, Jim has devoted his time to exploring, hiking and being a backcountry guide, boatman and kayak instructor on the Colorado Plateau. He is an avid history buff and knows Lake Powell and its surrounding areas like the back of his hand. In September 2006, Jim led the team that discovered the only known inscription from the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante expedition. The inscription has been nominated for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Chris Parish
Chris N. Parish obtained his B.S. in Biology at Northern Arizona University with emphasis on Fish and Wildlife Management. After working on the Black Footed Ferret Reintroduction Program for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, he transferred to the Flagstaff Regional Office as Condor Project Coordinator in 1997. Since fall 2000, he has been directing the condor project’s field effort for The Peregrine Fund.

Andre Potochnik, Ph.D.
Andre is a geologist who has been a Colorado River guide for 30 years, has led backpacking excursions for nearly as long and has been a university instructor and a field instructor for Northern Arizona University, Museum of Northern Arizona, and Grand Canyon Field Institute. Andre has extensively researched the history of the uplifting of the Colorado Plateau and the evolution of the Grand Canyon and he is a contributing author to Colorado River Origin & Evolution, (Grand Canyon Association 2001) and Grand Canyon Geology, (Oxford Press 1990).

Wayne Ranney
Wayne Ranney is a geologist, author and educator who specializes in interpreting the landscape history of the Colorado Plateau. He is the author of Carving Grand Canyon and Sedona Through Time, both of which tell how the landscape in northenr Arizona evolved. These books have met with wide acclaim. Wayne has lived on the Plateau for over 32 years and has worked as a backcountry ranger, river and trail guide and tour leader. He is currently a geology instructor at Coconino Community College in Flagstaff. His easy-going lecture style blends well with his knowledge, experience, and love of this land. Participants who attend his trips and classes come away with a clearer understanding of how this landscape evolved through time, and an appreciation for how mankind has interacted with and been shaped by the power of this colorful landscape.

Richard T. Reynolds, Ph.D.
Richard T. Reynolds, Ph.D., is Senior Research Wildlife Biologist for the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado. He has studied the habitat, behavior, and population ecology of birds and mammals for over 35 years in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, and Arizona, including goshawks on the Kaibab Plateau in Arizona and flammulated owls and Mexican spotted owls in Colorado. His research, which identifies the determinants of habitat quality for these species, helps managers design forest landscapes more likely to sustain viable populations of these sensitive species.

Glenn Rink
With an undergraduate degree in Geology and a Master’s degree in Biology from Northern Arizona University, Glen is a master botanist and an avid birder. He has over 22 years of river and hiking guiding experience in remote desert wilderness settings: he has been a Grand Canyon River Guide since 1981 and has rowed river trips in Central America.

Christa Sadler
Christa is a writer, geologist, educator and guide who earned her Bachelor's degree in Physical Anthropology and Archeology from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Master's degree in Earth Sciences from Northern Arizona University. Christa has guided on rivers throughout the Southwest and in Alaska and Ecuador since 1986. She has taught introductory geology and paleontology at Northern Arizona University and Coconino Community College in Flagstaff and Prescott College, in Prescott, Arizona. Christa is the author of Life in Stone: Fossils of the Colorado Plateau and she has published an anthology of short stories and artwork by boatmen on the Colorado River, called There’s This River... Grand Canyon Boatman Stories and her articles and photographs have appeared in Plateau Magazine, Plateau Journal, Sedona Magazine, and Earth Magazine.

Kate Sease
Kate is a multi-talented backcountry guide, yoga instructor and massage therapist. Her B.S. from Northern Arizona University in Parks and Recreation Management comes with an emphasis in Outdoor Leadership. She has been a Backcountry Ranger for the Paria Wilderness, and has guided in the Paria for many years. She also guides kayak trips on Lake Powell and has been a licensed Grand Canyon River guide. Kate has her own massage and yoga studio in Page, Arizona where she lives and plays. She enjoys life most when she is in the great outdoors with her husband and dogs, being present with her experiences and sensations.

Scott Thybony
Writer, archaeologist, wilderness guide, and former river guide, Scott writes articles for newspapers and major magazines, such as National Geographic Magazine, that demonstrate his extensive knowledge of this dramatic land. Books he's authored on the same topic include Canyon Country Parklands and Burntwater. He has received a grant from National Geographic to search for and document Native American cave paintings. Scott’s interviews have ranged from astronauts to medicine men, and his travels through North America have resulted in award-winning articles in Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler. Having lived with Navajo Indians in the American Southwest and the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, he brings to his writing and story telling an enthusiasm for the natural world and those living close to it.

Greg Woodall
Greg earned a B.S. in Botany, with a minor in Anthropology/Archeology from Southern Utah University in 1982. An experienced archeologist and ethno-botanist, Greg has over 20 years of river and hiking guiding experience in fragile desert areas of the Colorado Plateau and he "specializes" in the Arizona Strip area between the Grand Canyon and southern Utah. At Grand Canyon National Park, Greg worked in revegetation and he developed and taught environmental awareness curriculum to Youth Conservation Corps crews for the Park.

Ann Zwinger
Natural history author and illustrator of prize-winning books, including Beyond the Aspen Grove; Land Above the Trees; Run, River, Run; Wind in the Rock; Downcanyon: A Natural History of the Grand Canyon and The Nearsighted Naturalist; Adjunct Professor, Colorado College teaching “Writing the Natural History Essay"; Ann is also an instructor of various classes, including “Journal Keeping,” Drawing from Experience” (illustrated journals), "In the Loupe" (using loupes for magnification of plants), "Postcard Poems," and "Have Pencil Will Travel" (travel writing), for Grand Canyon Field Institute, Canyonlands Field Institute, Catamount Institute, North Cascades Institute, Four Corners School of Outdoor Education.