Meet Our Yellowstone Guides
We love Yellowstone!
All our Yellowstone guides have many years experience in assisting participants of every age and background in place-based, science-based learning in the world's first National Park. We are adept at not just seeing Yellowstone, but helping you feel its essence. Our knowledge, experience, passion, and storytelling will leave you with memories of an unrivaled experience and a deeper appreciation for living on a moving, breathing planet!
Ashea Mills,
Owner
Naturalist Guide
Ashea has spent thirty years exploring and sharing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, helping people connect to a wild landscape and to themselves. After obtaining a degree in English Writing Arts and Theater, she found herself in Yellowstone, working seasonally and falling in love with one of the most dynamic landscapes on earth.
She has led all ages and interests through the park as a Yellowstone guide, including children’s programming, driving snow coaches, skiing and hiking deep into the backcountry, geyser gazing and road-based wildlife watching. Since 2020, she has become an expert in Virtual Touring, offering her Yellowstone interpretation in increasingly modern ways while the world adapted.
Ashea is a certified Leave No Trace Trainer and Wilderness First Responder. She is involved in many local and regional organizations pursuing smart growth, wise use of water, and maintaining a Wild Livelihood. Ashea is grateful to raise her daughter in such a wild space. Immersing in Yellowstone's wildness and the surrounding public lands on skis and foot is where they find nourishment.
Gabe Ford,
Naturalist Guide
Gabe has spent over twenty years working and exploring in Yellowstone, often racking up a thousand back country miles per year on skis and foot! Hailing from Whidbey Island, Washington, he cut his teeth on the North Cascade range, but eventually found himself falling in love with Yellowstone Park. After a couple seasons serving visitors through food services, Gabe naturally found his passion by leading and teaching visitors in his chosen home space. He has guided in the 1930s-era Historic Yellow Busses, on snowmobiles, and thousands of days in both the front and back country of Yellowstone.
A life-long learner, Gabe is constantly adding knowledge to his repertoire of expertise. He especially excels at taking complex ideas of biological and geological processes and making them entertainingly digestible. He loves sharing the history of Yellowstone, and was lucky enough to live in the Old Faithful Inn—ask him for some insights of our most prized historic building!
Gabe is certified in Wilderness First Aid, and is a Certified Interpretive Guide. He volunteers for the National Park Service, assisting on surveys involving bison and other ungulates. But his passion is guiding, especially immersing in the culture of assisting families in connection amongst themselves and with the park, whether it's a group who is here for their 20th visit, or their first.
His “off time” finds him exploring the wilds of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, or headed off to southern Utah with his sweet, loyal pup, Piper.
I can't recommend Walking Shadow Tours enough!! My family went on a day trip...and it was one of the best days of our lives. I am a former wildlife guide myself and my hopes were high. What I appreciated most was how Ashea and Rhiana listened to our input for the day and were more than willing to adjust the plan to our interests. Their approach to wildlife tourism is top-notch, always putting the best interest of the wildlife and their habitat first while making the tour fun and as educational as you are up for!
Rhiana Peck
Naturalist Guide
Rhiana grew up on the northern edge of Yellowstone Park, where she thrived on being an active outdoors woman with the mountains and rivers of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as a backdrop.
For the past decade, she has studied and lived abroad in India and Turkey, earning a degree in Sociology and Anthropology from Earlham College in Indiana. Her interest in history and the human experience lends to sharing the unique story Yellowstone tells with visitors from around the world.
After relocating back to the northern edge of the park in 2020, Rhiana is excited for the opportunity to immerse herself in her home dirt, and share her voice connecting the human story to a wild landscape. Winter finds her driving a snowcoach in Yellowstone’s interior based at Old Faithful, interpreting the landscape for a wide variety of travelers. Summer finds her based in Gardiner with the Walking Shadow Ecology team, presenting the stories of Yellowstone through the lens of geology, wildlife, and the human connection.
Rhiana is a Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) with the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) and is a Wilderness First Responder.
My life has been changed by this incredible experience. I have a deeper awareness of the awesomeness of nature.
Reggie D.
Thank you for a most sincere, and now deeper, appreciation for the journey, wildlife, the living Earth, and what brings us home to ourselves.
Leon A.
I can’t stop thinking about Yellowstone and how important it is that we care for our Earth.
Carly, age 8
Walking Shadow is a business devoted to advancing knowledge of Yellowstone National park through highly experienced guides.
Christine D.
