Mike Smith is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. He lived in the Ventana Wilderness as a monk at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery and served as the director of San Francisco Zen Center’s City Center Temple. He is a devout backpacker and brings to Wildtender’s pilgrimages a love of the untamed that stretches back to his time as a young waterman growing up in coastal Connecticut. He has been lucky enough to explore on foot Big Sur’s Ventana Wilderness, the islands of Hawai’i, the Inca Trail, the Sierras, the Cascades and the Oregon Coast, and many national parks.