Mike Murphy is a 48 year-old school teacher at Gettysburg Elementary. He works for the Clovis Unified School District in the Central Valley of Calfornia. He has extensive experience as a backpacker in the Sierra Nevadas and has hiked the John Muir Trail four times. His wife, Janet is also a backpacker. Over the past 13 years he has shared the top of Mt. Whitney with over 60 students. He enjoys sharing the outdoors with new people.

Mike says about American Frontiers, "This journey will allow me to share the outdoors, especially the public lands, with many more people than I am able to now. I have seen changes in my students after a trip to a wilderness area, and it is long lasting. As an educator, I look forward to bringing the public lands to as many Americans as possible."

****2004 UPDATE****

Michael Murphy, also a National Geographic Geography Alliance Teacher, was a trekker on the North Team. “My life will be forever changed by the American Frontiers experience,” he reports. Murphy is a fifth grade school teacher in California. “I have given over two dozen slide shows to schools, Boy & Cub Scouts, as well as civic, university, and two statewide conferences. I will be presenting to a national conference in October in Salt Lake City. A week does not go by where I don’t hear, ‘Hey, are you the guy that did the trek?’ I used the website at school to generate essays and even had the mountain man we met in the Gros Ventre Wilderness come to the school for a full-day experience.”