Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Jenson.
Hi Jeff, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Julie and I raised 7 children on a teacher’s salary. We took a couple of odd jobs to supplement, but none of them were enough to really change our lifestyle. We were asked to move to Kanab, UT in 2007. Housing was very expensive and the inventory was limited. This being the case, we had to buy a home that was well out of our price range. We felt we needed to be in Kanab, so we made a terrible financial plan and decided to use some of our savings to supplement our income for 5 years, and then we’d move again. Well, the housing market crashed in 2008, and at the end of our 5 years, we were facing an insurmountable debt on our home, and even started taking on credit card debt for the first time in our marriage. We rode that as long as we could, until we were facing bankruptcy in 2015. The day after bankruptcy was presented by an attorney as our best option, a new young teacher came into my office and let me know he started renting out his basement on Airbnb and suggested that we try renting our basement as well. He had no idea of our financial woes. He just knew that we had some kids leave on two year missions for our church, and that we had a great setup for small groups and families in our basement. We wrestled with the idea, but finally decided we needed to do it. The next two years we rented out 310 nights per year at an average of $120 per night and we were able to keep our home and pay off our credit card debt. Julie was also preparing to run the Grand 2 Grand. This is a 170 mile stage race from the Grand Canyon to basically Bryce Canyon. The entire race is off road, mostly on sandy trails and sand dunes. It’s a week long self sustained race with the exception of water every eight miles and large tents set up each night by the race staff and volunteers. Julie ran the race and wanted to share the incredible sites with me. I was preparing to have my knees replaced and my back fused, so I was not about to run in sand for fun!
I had some students start talking “Jeeping” with me. I had heard of some of the popular sites in the area, but I’d never seen them. That day after school, on the drive home I noticed a 1994 Jeep Cherokee on the side of the road for $1500. Of course, that was a sign from heaven for sure!!
We bought the jeep, still in my suit I went straight to the back to pick up my good friend who knows the area well. He, also in a tie, was excited to show me the way to Peekaboo Slot Canyon. My first hike through Peekaboo was with my friend, both in ties. We classed up hiking in Southern Utah to new levels!
I learned about driving in the sand. I broke my “new” jeep in just about every way possible, but a kind and trustworthy mechanic helped me navigate my errors and get back out in the sand without burying me with overpriced service. We would have never tried a business without knowing he’d take good care of us. We are forever grateful to M.D. Auto. I gave free tours to anywhere people would go with me for a year and a half. In that same time, Julie refused to drive in the sand, she’d rather hike?! We had some grand adventures, and met amazing people from all over the world.
After 18 months of repairs and gas, we decided it was time to get a business license and insurance, and run a real business. We made enough the first year to cover our insurance and half of our gas! We couldn’t have been more excited! We were able to hire some friends who love the outdoors and share cultural backgrounds with our guests, which really became the driving influence for Julie and me to keep the business going. We learned that we love learning about people! That has been the personality of the guides we hire. They have to love people above all else. While jeep driving, geology, and history are all part of the experience, we have found that people are wonderful! Our slogan is that “the rocks are just an excuse to have people experiences.” As people share their backgrounds, particularly when things were tense on a lot of fronts during and after COVID, we adopted a quote from Thomas S. Monson that we shared with most of our guests, “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” We wanted our guests to know that whatever they decided to talk about, we would approach every scenario from a place of love, whether we agreed with them or not. Although we try not to have any controversy from our end, we have found that people love to visit while in the jeep, and we’ve found that they seem to appreciate that we genuinely care about them as people, more than whether or not we agree with whatever they want to discuss. People matter! It makes no difference what background they come from, each person who rides or hikes with us is worthy of validation and being heard. Because we feel so strongly about the interpersonal interactions between a guide and our guests, we chose Jeeps and SUV’s rather than the popular side by sides that generate more money. We want the time with our guests, in fact, we cherish the time we get to spend with our guests. We feel that this approach has led to some wonderful discussions to go along with the magical scenery in southern Utah.
Coral Cliffs Tours has a small marketing budget by comparison to our competition, who joined the ranks with much deeper pockets than a teacher, his wife, and our ratty old Jeep. However, our little business has grown into a stable income for 4 full time guides and a great supplement for 8 part time guides. We run about 3-5 vehicles per day to some of the prettiest landscapes on earth.
We offer hikes to places like the Wave, White Pocket, The Great Chamber, Peekaboo Slot Canyon, and many other options in the Kanab and St George areas. We also offer canyoneering excursions through many of the slot canyons in the area. For those who don’t like to hike a lot, we also have some great scenic jeep tours to places like the TV Towers, Cedar Mountain, Sand Mountain, Toquerville Falls, and many other places around Kanab and St George.
Our goal as a business is to offer an affordable way to see this amazing area to our guests. We won’t grow beyond 4-5 vehicles per day because we like the intimate feel of our company. As the owners, we like to know as much as we can about the people who go on our tours, and we like to get reports back about how it went. We take tours when we can, but our guides are wonderful people who have committed to making our little business work, so we defer to them if there is ever an option. They are passionate about the outdoors and love to be out sharing their passion.
Julie and I now split time in Kanab and St George because of my teaching responsibilities, but Julie is on the phone all day, every day helping our guests to plan their adventures in southern Utah. She loves putting things together to help people to maximize their time while in the area.
Although we aren’t fancy business people, or even backed by investors, Coral Cliffs Tours and Townhomes has become a labor of love for us. We don’t run it to get wealthy. We provide top of the line vehicles, and top notch guides at discounted prices so that our guests will have the best possible travel experience while in southern Utah.
To summarize our experience with the townhomes and the tours, we feel blessed! We feel incredibly blessed! We see spectacular scenery every day. We get to watch people grow in canyoneering confidence. We get to see the expressions on people’s faces when they experience The Wave, White Pocket or a slot canyon for the first time. We work with some of the best quality guides you’d find anywhere in the world, and the crowning jewel for us is that we get to see the good in the people who come visit us from every walk of life this world has to offer. People are so good! We have felt blessed to be able to be a part of so many vacations. We are indeed grateful for the kindness and enthusiasm thousands have shared with us over the past 8-10 years in this industry. Thank you for taking some time to get to know us here. We hope to meet you soon!
Sincerely,
Jeff and Julie
Coral Cliffs Tours
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a wonderful ride, but there have been some bumps for sure. We had one jeep that had to have 3 engines replaced in 6 months. It later was stolen from a different mechanic’s shop than we usually use, and the guy totaled it. We had a failed partnership where we lost a lot of money, and COVID just about sent us to bankruptcy. In spite of all this, every time we are at the end of the rope, something miraculous has happened. We call it the “manna” business because we never get too far ahead, but whenever the chips seem to be down, something wonderful happens! People are so good!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We started our tour business as a way to let us live our passion for the outdoors. It also allows us to live our purpose, which is to make our small contribution to breaking down barriers with people and helping all with whom we interact to feel valued and validated. Although we have to make some money to run the tours, we have found a group of guides who share our passion for people and sharing the area with them. We all have to support our families, but we are fortunate to have found guides who share our desire to make these experiences possible and affordable for as many people as our little business can handle. We are most proud of the relationships we’ve been able to create with our guides as well as with our guests. A lot of people come back to see us, and we hear that many guests reach out to their guides for a long time after the tours are finished. Having people feel like they were treated fairly, safely, and forging new relationships is what we’d say are our greatest accomplishments.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Covid taught us that people have a lot more in common than differences. No matter which side of the heated debates of that day people gravitated toward, we found that love for people wins. We all want to be heard. We all want to be respected and validated. Covid taught us that we truly need to love our neighbors and work together to navigate the storms of life. We had almost all of our tours cancel. I put on Facebook that I’d use the rest of our money to take locals out to the sites before we went bankrupt. We had a number of people go out with us. It was really cool. Then, we had a number of people cancel other vacations and book a week in our townhomes and tours every day, just to try to keep us in business. We couldn’t believe the goodness of people!
Pricing:
- Peekaboo Slot Canyon from $67
- White Pocket from $135
- Very competitive Wave rates
- St. George Jeep Tours from $150
- Townhomes from $119 per night
Contact Info:
- Website: cctoursandtownhomes@gmail.com
- Instagram: Cctours
- Facebook: Coral cliffs tours of kanab
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