Pacific Northwest Adventures

The Pacific Northwest Adventures Story

PNW Adventures is a Limited Liability Company with one owner-manger, Nicole Troyer.  Nicole was born in a small town of another Western state, but contends that her life didn t really start until she moved to Seattle when she was nine years old.  Once in the Emerald City she went through the middle and high grades in a small school on the city s pioneering peninsula West Seattle. 

Throughout these formative years she ventured into the city s parks on an almost daily basis, choosing the natural settings of Lincoln Park, Alki Beach or Seward Park to do her studying instead of inside under fluorescent lights. 

After graduating high school she moved to a suburb of Seattle in South Puget Sound but couldn t adjust to all the development and the lack of beautiful green areas like the ones she had grown up with.  She worked hard, and in 10 months completed her two-year degree in Biology at Highline Community College.

Having earned her primary degree, she moved to the University of Washington and proceeded to putz her way through the College of Forestry.  It wasn t that she was lazy or unmotivated she was on the Dean s List and in the Forestry Honor Society it was just that she kept taking time off school to explore the mountains around Seattle in more detail, and teach herself the material that she felt was lacking in her formal education. 

During this time she also took classes at other educational institutions like the North Cascades and Olympic Park Institutes on such ecological topics as forest canopy ecology, raptor identification, amphibian ecology, and the ecology of bats in the Northwest.  She also spent time volunteering with ecological conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy and People for Puget Sound in their education divisions.  Through volunteering she met and learned from various US Forest Service biologists about the sensitive species of the forests off the Mountain Loop Highway, the ecology and conservation of remnant wetlands on an island in the Columbia River, and how to pass this knowledge on to others.

After finishing her BSc degree in Conservation of Wildland Resources (cum laude-with honors), she accepted a job with the US Forest Service Research Station in Seattle.  This job allowed her to practice her knowledge of tree and plant identification in the Northwest and throughout the entire United States.  In fact, at this job she was able to work in natural environments in 15 different states and all four corners of the country.

All this time in the remote corners of the USA allowed her time to ponder her life goals.  Although she was doing what she was trained to do and learning new things every day, she felt that she had more to offer.  At lunch one day, while sitting on the rocky shore of Maine s coastal forest, she decided that other people should have the opportunity to learn what she knows without having to go through the standard educational system and pay heaps of money.  It was then that the seeds of PNW Adventures were sown.

In February of 2004, PNW Adventures became a fully operational company specializing in unique guided adventures of the natural areas of the Northwest.  To date, Nicole has given tours to visitors and locals desiring to see the area with help from someone who has lived in, and indeed grown with, this wonderful city.  Nicole has also given tours of the mountains and natural areas to people of all ages and backgrounds.  Several people have expressed their amazement at how even though they had been through that park (on that trail, in those mountains, etc.) many times, they were never really "aware" of their surroundings until they were shown what to look for.

The goal of all explorations with PNW Adventures is to show people where to look and what to look for in order to discover more about the natural processes happening around them all the time.  Nicole knows where to look, and how to show people of all ages to see and appreciate the natural processes happening around us everyday.  She has experience mentoring out-of-town colleagues on the ecology of the Pacific Northwest, instructing the general public on the technical aspects of building hiking trails, and motivating young learners to want to know more about their natural surroundings.