Meet Our Team

Owners

Hannah and Trent met, fell in love, and married in Seward and are endlessly grateful to call this little slice of Alaska home. Both spent many years guiding internationally from New Zealand to Uganda and consider Seward and the surrounding area one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Hannah grew up outside, exploring the hills, ponds, and dirt roads of rural New Hampshire. Her passion for the outdoors led her to Colby College in Maine, where she received a BA in Environmental Science, focusing on conservation biology.

Trent considers himself a grand generalist who enjoys windy hikes, sleeping outside, and empty surf breaks at sunrise. He originally hails from Southern California and spent his college years in Vermont obtaining a B.A. in Adventure Education and Wilderness Leadership.

They’re passionate about regenerative tourism, keeping tourism dollars in the Seward community, and taking good care of their guests and guides. You can find them answering calls in the office, leading multi-day trips in the fjords, hosting the Seward Farmers Market, or walking their sweet pup, Miss Jones, around town.

Guide

Laban grew up at camp in central Pennsylvania.  Having thousands of public forested acres around him, his childhood was spent in exploration with his two brothers. After a confusing few years studying saxophone, he spent his 20s in NC growing food in a horticultural therapy program and working operations at an outdoor ed center in California. Most recently, he’s worked natural resources at Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

Laban loves the classic Type 1 fun: biking flowy singletrack and climbing wild scrambly peaks, though he often comes back to that gentle space of peacefulness and awe that comes from slowly exploring, birding, or just sitting in the desert sun playing music.

Having spent 15 years sharing the outdoors with youth and adults, Laban believes connecting with ecological systems of which we are part is a joyous experience that thrives with our innate senses of wonder and curiosity. That when we explore these spaces together, we become a community of reverence and gentleness.

Guide

Abby has loved the environment for as long as she can remember. From growing up in St. Louis, to exploring New England during her time at Boston College, hiking in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah, and kayaking through the North Carolina wetlands, Abby has explored some rad niches of the environment. With a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Environmental Studies, Abby’s dedicated herself to learning about the earth in every way she can.

Most recently, Abby’s been wading through the bayous of Louisiana and working to remove invasive carp from the Mississippi River. As her time in Louisiana ended, Abby set her sights on studying high-latitude polar and arctic ecosystems. Abby is so stoked to introduce KAW guests to the beauty, wonder, and immensity that drew her to Alaska in the first place.

Abby is driven every day by her love of learning, her deeply adventurous spirit, and her unbridled passion for the environment. When Abby isn’t guiding, she enjoys trail running, hiking, skiing, biking, or swimming. On off-days, you may see her meandering through town on the prowl for a good coffee, working on her latest creative writing piece, or just spending quality time with her pals.

Guide

Kaelyn grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, but escaped to the Northern shores of Minnesota to get her adventure fix growing up. She attended college at the University of Wisconsin- Madison where she got a degree in Psychology with minors in Environmental Studies and Global Health. While in college, she spent a summer in Alaska and fell in love with the state and incredible outdoor opportunities, and since has been determined to come back. Her love for the outdoors expanded upon moving to Utah in 2020 to become a wilderness therapy guide. 

Since living in Utah, Kaelyn has spent countless nights sleeping under the stars, exploring the deserts and mountains the area has to offer. She has continued to work in the mental health field over the past couple years, working with programs that offer outdoor adventure as a means of healing. To escape the hot summers in Utah, Kaelyn has gone north to Montana and Washington to guide outdoor adventure camps for youth that include back packing, horse packing, rafting and sea kayaking. She is looking forward to focusing her skills on sea kayaking this year, and furthering her passion for the diverse landscapes of Alaska.

When Kaelyn is not guiding, she enjoys snowboarding, rock climbing, hiking, paddling, reading, making art, and cooking.

Ryan has spent much of his life nor-dorking around — fishing, farming, kayak guiding, fumbling with skis, and generally managing mildew in the fjords of Alaska and Scandinavia. Why is he once again uprooting himself from his home amidst the dry soaring granite and friendly mules of the Eastern Sierra to spend the best parts of the year smack in the middle of the earth’s largest temperate rainforest? From experience we know that Ryan actually loves putting his extensive glove & jacket collection to work. But more importantly, we also know that he — like us — has an abiding appreciation and enthusiasm for the connective potencies which can be realized through experiential learning.

Ryan has been an environmental educator for almost 30 years and continues to be passionate about the capacity this work has to cultivate and create strong and earthly ways of knowing ourselves, one another, and of course the more-than-human. Guiding, tourism, and community organizing in these dynamic glaciated landscapes presents a powerful opportunity for us to build the necessary, new, and creative sense — and response — abilities, to our human ecology.

As a logistics coordinator this summer, Ryan is looking forward to contributing to the high level of guest and guide care that makes Kayak Adventures such a familial and generative organization.

Guide

Megan spent the first ten years of her life half-feral in the forests of north Georgia and then moved to Panama City, Florida, where she embraced the beach bum lifestyle. After graduating from college, she moved abroad and lived in Europe, Asia, and South America for 10 years. Finally, she came back to the U.S. to do a Masters in Environmental Studies in New Hampshire. She loves community conservation and wants to work with organizations to help them better engage the community and build projects that are beneficial to the environment and the people caring for it.

She loves being active and doing anything outside (she sat outside while writing this), as well as music and reading. She loves exploring and will try almost anything once.

Guide

Dustin Newman (Unignax “Blueberry”) is Unangax and Deg Hit’an Athabascan. He grew up in King Cove, Alaska a small fishing community along the Alaska Peninsula. Dustin is a traditional kayak builder, storyteller and Alaska Native Artist.  In the off season Dustin works for his regional non-profit corporation in youth prevention services tying cultural activities to healthy ways of living.

Cole Killinger, born and raised in Colorado where he was taught everything outdoors from early age by going to an expeditionary learning school called Odyssey. He is a simple man with simple pleasures, existing in wild spaces. Any sort of recreation in nature is time well spent, whether it’s climbing, skiing, and even just plain old existing. Aside from a constant desire to get outside, Cole is deeply fascinated with the unsung heroes of our collective ecosystems, from moss to fungi, Cole loves it all! When he isn’t camping or planning his next trip he likes to relax by just reading on his kindle (he just started the Harry Potter books for the first time) or running. In the offseason he loves to spend his free time on the central coast of California surfing and working for an awesome chicken farm making chicken coops for celebrities. But more than anything he values his family above all and is incredibly grateful that they love and support him, so that he can love this rad life!

Guide

Anna grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, walking around primarily with her face in a book. One of the few things that could always make her look up was when her family would announce they were “Taking the scenic route!” on their road trips to various national parks. 

She discovered a passion for the environment on these trips, which lead her to major in Environmental Studies and Public Health at Tulane University. After college, she worked in Ecuador on a rainforest reforestation project, where she figured out she wanted to work outdoors, helping the planet. This desire took her to Alaska, where she is incredibly excited to be doing that by guiding with KAW this summer!

When not reading or kayaking, Anna can be found going for runs, jumping into freezing bodies of water, or drinking as much coffee as is humanly possible.

Logistics Coordinator & Guide 

Tziporah was born in Alaska and grew up napping in the cockpit of her dad’s sea kayak and bouncing through the Chugach mountains in her mom’s backpack. Her family instilled in her a deep love of wild backcountry adventure, a connection to the land and respect for the natural world. She spent several years abroad as a teenager, finishing high school in different parts of South East Asia and Mexico. She moved to New Orleans to study Forensic Anthropology and attended field schools for Political Ecology in Tanzania and Australia.

After earning a W-EMT, she began her career as an outdoor professional. She worked in a wilderness therapy program as a backpacking guide for at-risk youth in Central Oregon and taught science and marine biology as a nomadic naturalist for private schools throughout California. She worked as a snorkel and kayak instructor in the kelp forest of Catalina Island before making the long journey home to Alaska.

Tziporah now spends her winters ski patrolling, cross-country adventuring, and writing. She loves reading thrillers, making art out of dried fruit, and would love to tell you everything she knows about kelp.

Kat grew up kicking soccer balls, shooting hoops and taking slap shots in the Boston area, and later transferred her athletic drive into the outdoor world when she escaped to Vermont for college. There she developed a passion for people, skiing, big-tree-hugging and finding the most jurassic park-like swimming hole the green mountains had to offer.

After graduating she flew westward to combine her passions of working with people from a variety of backgrounds, learning about our natural world and being physically active through working with Conservation Corps in Idaho and Oregon – helping to restore trails, improve safe access to wild spaces, and get others as excited as she is about being outside.

In between climbing trails, hugging trees and jumping in any body of water she can find, kat is eating all her meals with a spork, reading every book that comes her way and drinking way too much iced coffee.

Guide & SWC Guide

Chris’s love of nature began on the rocky summit of Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire. Up there he discovered the perspective, play, curiosity, challenge, and peace that is possible when we leave the asphalt behind and he’s spent the majority of his adult life pursuing them and helping others do the same.

Chris has worked as an outdoor educator in New England and California, while guiding adventure travel trips in the U.S. and internationally. In the Northwest, Chris taught in Seattle and worked in wilderness therapy in Oregon. Last fall he decided to act on a long held ambition to live in Alaska and drove up the AlCan in winter.

Described by friends as light-hearted, playful (he is a champion WhirlyBall player), and thoughtful, Chris strives to add the personal to his professional side, upholding high standards while allowing space for vulnerability and authenticity. He believes in connecting people to each other and to the natural world.

Guide

After getting a taste of wilderness in the Delaware Water Gap as a child, Cooper has made an effort to spend time away from his hometown in the suburbs of New Jersey, and in the wind-blown trees and towering peaks of the North American West. Using a solo bicycle trip through the Canadian Rockies as a guide, Cooper learned the advantages of living simply. How moving through the world with everything you need on your back, or in this case on your bike, is a freedom like no other. While exploring the soaring peaks of the Kenai Peninsula, Cooper began to grasp the importance of reading the landscape and listening to its signs; which are sometimes barely decipherable. He believes that an unspoiled and wild space is worth protecting, for it has much to teach about ourselves and others, both human and more than human.

When Cooper’s not kayaking or peak bagging around Seward, you’ll find him enjoying the simple pleasures in life. Finishing an adventure novel. Baking 30 minute brownies in 20 minutes. And most importantly, enjoying a long nap on a quality couch.!

Guide

Meet Maggie, your guide with a passion for peach rings, chocolate chip cookies, and Cheerwine. All the way from Columbia, South Carolina, Maggie’s love of nature began in her childhood days spent chasing soccer balls and darting through the woods with neighborhood pals.

Her journey truly took off when she started backpacking with her dad in middle school, immersing herself in the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Family vacations were often to unique locations like the Smokies and Ocracoke Island. These experiences ignited a lifelong passion for helping others experience the outdoors.

Fueling her passion further, Maggie pursued higher education at Clemson University, where she earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management. During her time at Clemson, she honed her skills as the driving force behind Clemson Outdoor Recreation and Education’s trip program, guiding and inspiring students through trips like rafting, backpacking, and mountain biking. Now, she’s gearing up for her next chapter as the Coordinator of Outdoor Adventures at Duke University in North Carolina, where she’ll continue to share her expertise and love for the outdoors with college students.

When she’s not paddling the waters, you’ll find Maggie exploring trails with her loyal canine companion, enjoying really long bike rides at a leisurely pace, or challenging you to a round of Bananagrams.

Guide

China Ray grew up in Northern California— as a kid, wandering foggy coastal redwood forests, cold cobbly beaches, and rolling hills of golden grass and sage brush. She feels especially inspired by and connected to these ecosystems, and grateful to feel at home in them. She also feels at home in a kayak! From an early age, she began floating the inlets and bays of the CA coast in a tandem sea kayak with her dad, and sometimes her begrudging older sister (most siblings who have tandem-ed can probably relate). Raised in a family of desert boaters on one side and proud island folk on the other, being on the water feels particularly homey.

In college, where she studied Environmental Science and minored in writing, China began leading backpacking and rafting trips all over California. She also started spending her summers hauling a packraft and other science equipment across the Sierra backcountry, sampling remote alpine lakes and catching tadpoles (for science). Convinced that she works best outdoors, mentored by many amazing scientists, naturalists and educators along the way, and motivated by the idea that she might inspire a more expansive notion of what it means, and looks like to be outside, she is so excited to have found herself in Alaska.

In her free time, she likes biking, painting, and making dinner with friends. China loves a mocha that’s mostly chocolate, taking shaky pictures through binoculars, and surfing very small waves. She also loves her cat, named Toad.

Guide

From the moment Lynae got her first job working outside, she knew it was love. Said job was an AmeriCorps term with the student community farm of the University of Georgia, from where she had recently graduated with a degree in Environmental Economics and Management. She adored learning to grow herbs and veggies, teaching the importance of and facilitating community farming, and just generally sticking her hands in the dirt.

When her term ended, she moved to Arizona in search of a new landscape to discover. There she became a crew leader for a conservation corps, building trails across the Southwest and sleeping more nights outside than in. Most recently she worked with the National Park Service at Wupatki, Sunset Crater, and Walnut Canyon National Monuments where she lovingly nurtured native plants and bravely battled invasive ones.

While she has dipped her toes in lots of different types of fieldwork (and lakes and seas and canyon creeks) – one thread is common. She’s found that learning about the environment around us is one of the most fulfilling things you can do, and sharing it with others is even better. You can always count on Lynae for niche animal and plant facts, as well as being equally excited to see her first sea otter as her hundredth.

Certified Clinical Adventure Therapist; Guide

Imagine an angsty teenager finding solace and belonging in the diverse landscapes of Colorado. That teenager was Becks, and since 2008, she’s proudly called Alaska her home. Whether she’s tackling mountain biking trails, trekking up peaks, casting her fly rod, or paddling along the waters, each adventure deepens her understanding of the human experience.

But here’s the game changer: Becks found a way to blend her love for the outdoors with her professional career as a mental health clinician. This led her to become a Certified Clinical Adventure Therapist (CCAT), allowing her to connect her passion for nature with her work in historically and systematically excluded communities.

With two children by her side, Becks is on a mission to leave the world better than she found it. And when she’s not out on an adventure, you’ll find her enjoying board games, belly-laughing at hilarious videos, and, as always, working to disrupt unjust systems.

Operations Support Staff

The eldest of 9, Zach grew up in the rural hills of Minnesota, and – in an effort to escape the 5th flattest state of the US – has led a handful of multi-day backcountry backpacking trips to the mountains of the Bighorn and Bridger-Teton National Forests.  He’s also spent many summers counseling cabins at a summer camp near the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota.

In the fall of 2023, Zach hitchhiked from coast to coast in Iceland, embarking on one of the most transformative experiences of his life. Of Iceland, he says, “I met so many sights of wonder, awe and beauty – as well as people of the same ilk… ” – and, of hitchhiking, he says, “I was allowed a window into the lives of so many beautiful people – for little intervals along the coastal highway as it chopped through the devastated beauty of the rough Icelandic countryside.”

A love of Alaska was born out of a rainy trip with a friend to Fairbanks in 2023, and a love of both mountains and oceans led Zach to discover that you can have both – at the same time – in Seward.

When not exploring nature, Zach dives into the arts and spends his time drawing, painting, reading, writing and playing music.  He plays guitar (sometimes with a violin bow), bass, drums, and has released two full-length studio albums as a solo singer/songwriter.

Guide

Originally from Southern California, Brendan grew up exploring the canyons and mountains of the region. He attributes his passion for nature to his mother, who nurtured it by taking him on hikes not typically suited for a kid still in elementary school. The tough hikes led to some amazing landscapes and Brendan was hooked. Not only did he want to summit the most rugged peaks of SoCal he also wanted to identify all the birds, plants, and rocks on trail. The desire to learn more about the natural world led him to study Environmental Management and Biology at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

After college, Brendan’s journey took him to a camp in the San Diego backcountry, where he further developed his skills as an outdoor educator and guide. Be it at the campsite, out on trail, or on the water, Brendan enjoyed sharing his love and curiosity for nature with campers. He would never get tired of experiencing a camper’s excitement when they started to name the flora and fauna on their own after a week of camp.

When not hiking, birding, or educating Brendan is also a trivia host. So go ahead and try to stump him with your own trivia questions!

Guide

Freddy grew up on the Central California Coast exploring tidepools and jumping into waves. During high school he spent most of his time on a football or baseball field tossing a ball around. After graduating Freddy decided to head north to Oregon where he studied Geology and Outdoor Education at the University of Oregon. While in Oregon he fell in love with the outdoors and spent as much time as possible exploring the hiking trails, mountains and rivers all around the state. He soon became a leader for the UO Outdoor Pursuits Program where he took fellow students on multi-day backcountry trips and learned outdoor education and technical rescue skills.

During summers Freddy went further north to Glacier National park in northwest Montana where he drove tour boats and climbed as many mountains as possible. Glacier is where he fell in love with bringing people into the outdoors and guiding them towards a meaningful experience in the backcountry.

On his days off you might find Freddy climbing, skipping rocks or exploring the woods for the best possible spot to read in his hammock.