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Dez Bartelt is the founder of Best of Both Women's Adventures. She is considered one of America's leading alpinists and has spent more than 20 years conquering some of the world's most challenging mountains and cliffs as a professional climber. She is skilled in a wide range of outdoor sports including white water rafting, sea kayaking, ice climbing, skiing and is trained in and teaches wilderness survival. Dez has worked and trained with rescue units all over the US, as well as fire departments and policy departments. She has worked with the department of BLM to developed environmental plans to help preserve our public lands. She worked and developed outdoor programs for the physically disabled. Another claim to fame is that she developed the world's largest freestanding climbing wall which she co-designed and built in cooperation with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks.
Dez's mission has always been and will continue to be to explore, study, and preserve while enjoying the natural beauty of the outdoors. She has been carrying around 75 pound back packs for 20 years and when she decided to start Best of Both Women's Adventures her goal was to show women you don't have to be extreme to take an adventure. You can have an adventure with out the heavy back pack. Dez has given up the 75 pound back pack for a much lighter one, and now after long days hiking or climbing she comes back to amazing spas and gourmet food. If you ask her, she'll tell you how pleased she is with the life she created for herself and for others. "I've worked long and hard to live where I want to live, and have a job I am passionate about and I wanted to give all women the same opportunity."
As an experienced entrepreneur and business operator, Dez has used her expertise to develop and implement programs such as the Rincon Surf and Board Guesthouse Rincon Surf School and Boca's Surf School to found the Best of Both Women's Adventures Company
Our resident Best of Both yoga teacher is Michele.
Michele Fulkerson was born and raised in Michigan and resides in beautiful Northern Michigan with her husband of 18 years and their daughter Clara. Michele owns and operates a gourmet food and wine store during the summer months and then travels to the warmer climate of Puerto Rico with her family where she is part of the Best of Both Adventures team.
Michele began studying dance at the age of nine and continued through college. She attended a fine arts school and she started the Betsie Valley Dance School in 2000 where she began teaching children's ballet and adult Pilates classes. She and her husband study Vinyasa Power Yoga and have practiced Bikram and other Hatha Yoga for years. Michele currently teaches yoga, Pilates and Spin classes at the Betsie Valley Athletic Club and is certified through the National Exercise Trainers Association. She is an avid cyclist and tries to ride 100 miles a week during the cycling season. Her most recent accomplishment was completing 72 miles in the Northern Michigan Harvest Tour.
Michele has combined her love for good food and exercise in a career that allows her to express creativity in both areas. She has a desire to share with women the knowledge she has gained about the amazing individual growth that can occur by adding yoga into their lives and that through gaining inner strength, outer strength flourishes.
Michele has studied extensively the tradition of yoga. She brings these ancient practices to life and makes them accessible to all who want to learn how to incorporate these transformative practices into everyday modern life.
Michele teaches with energy, intelligence and compassion. Inspired by a genuine desire to share the techniques that have transformed her own life, Michele draws from a vast range of yogic traditions focusing on Vinyasa Power Yoga which incorporates breath, heat and focus to weave a flowing experience. Breath is the key to unlocking your body's potential. Breath is pure, raw energy. Breath and movement are brought into harmony by the mind and union, as one of the many definitions of yoga is achieved.
With Power Yoga students get all the benefits of more traditional methods in a format that is perfect for beginners while challenging for the experienced yogi. Michele welcomes students of all fitness levels and all body types working with their abilities, modifying as necessary giving students the tools to follow their own body, intuition and wisdom.
Thanks to parents who shared a deep love for and appreciation of all cultures, “seeing the world” was an important part of Juliana’s upbringing. With her family, she lived in the tropical Pacific, visiting many island nations as well as parts of Southeast Asia. Later, they found themselves in the Middle East, living amongst people who would, for her, create a powerful and fascinating link between the old and new worlds. Later travels on her own would take her to Europe, South America, Thailand, Alaska and the Caribbean.
It was with further travel in mind, but also a growing and intense interest in and concern for wildlife that her university studies focused on Oceanography. Research cruises and projects provided the perfect blend of adventure and science, taking her to the Antarctic Peninsula (in the winter), Mexico, the Pribilov Islands and California.
Love for the ocean also extends into the sports and activities that give her the most pleasure. Juli surfs, sails and ocean swims as much as possible whether it’s in the chilly waters off Central California or the bathtub-like waters of Puerto Rico, Mexico and Hawaii.
Love of music has recently brought the fiddle into her life in a big way. She has found that learning to play an instrument opens a whole new magnificent world of exploration: musical theory on the technical side and, even more importantly, the beauty of collaboration between musicians.
Currently and for many years, after some retraining, Juliana has been able to refocus her skills to emphasize environmental work. In California, where the pressure to develop is enormous, there is a great need for oversight and guidance to assure that development takes place in a way that allows for humans and wildlife to flourish and even coexist. Juliana finds this work to be both important and satisfying. “It’s gratifying to work with construction crews who are willing and enthusiastic to preserve wildlife and plant life in the course of their work; to find this sensitivity where perhaps it wasn’t expected.”
This is a recurring theme for Juliana-looking for, discovering and nourishing humanity in her fellow beings. She feels strongly that being an informed and empathetic ambassador should be the goal when traveling to other nations. She also feels that Mother Teresa said it quite well: “Peace begins with a smile”.
This desire to connect with the peoples of the world, combined with a desire to leave the world a better place for future inhabitants, is something Juliana hopes to encourage in others. She believes that everyone has something special and vital to contribute to the world and would like to help bring that gift to fruition wherever possible.
So, it seemed the logical next step to join the Best of Both team! Juliana looks forward to helping each woman to discover within themselves abilities and depths previously untested. “There is something special that happens when you have the support of other women around you; an opportunity to try new things and be a little braver. And, it doesn’t hurt to know that there is a nice dinner and massage awaiting you after an arduous day!”
As part of a large family growing up in a small house on the east coast, the mantra heard most often in Sally’s household was “go outside and play!” Having parents who were both very active and shared an appreciation of the outdoors, instilled an early appreciation in Sally for the environment and its preservation, and an active, physical lifestyle.
Summers were spent on family camping trips, hanging out with the dogs and indulging in a growing passion for horses and riding. Sally spent her teen years riding, teaching and showing competitively, which continued when she moved to California. Here she spent time taking daily hikes with her dogs, backpacking, paddling in an outrigger canoe club, running and practicing yoga. Being physical also inspired a deepening interest in the proper care and feeding of the body, which in turn, eventually led to a career as a massage therapist. She has over 1,000 hours of training and was the office manager, instructor, and clinic supervisor at the Santa Barbara Body Institute. Sally is interested in muscle function, injuries, and how emotions as well as physical stress can affect one’s health. This has made her into a compassionate bodyworker, specializing in myofascial release. She enjoys helping people make the connection between their internal and external worlds through body awareness.
Travel in Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean has developed Sally’s interest in regional cooking and culture. Still an avid hiker, she looks forward to sharing with other women the joys of working hard and playing hard.
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