Meet your guides
Group 1
Fletcher Tucker
Wildtender Co-Founder Fletcher was raised by the foggy redwood ravines and fragrant chaparral bluffs of the Esselen tribal territory now known as Big Sur, California. Fletcher is a lifelong student of natural history, an ancestral skills practitioner, devotee of trail-craft and minimalist backpacking, an experienced teacher of adults and children, and a multidisciplinary artist.
Fletcher’s inner work includes ongoing exploration in Zen and Taoist practices/philosophy; over a decade of study in the Gestalt lineage of Esalen Institute co-founder Dick Price; and engagement with the Earth-reverent, spiritual practices of his own Celtic and Nordic ancestors.
Fletcher is a NOLS certified Wilderness First Responder.
Tom Strickland
Tom grew up in the oak and granite foothills of Northern California and was a student and steward of the Central Coast between 2007-2015. With experience as a farmer, arborist, educator, and wilderness guide, Tom integrates his love for Earth and community in his work as a licensed professional counselor. He is driven by an insatiable and playful curiosity for life and our authentic relationships with ourselves, each other, and place.
Tom lives on the Eastern slope of the Cascades in Central Oregon where he practices as a Gestalt therapist in community mental health. He has been working in Gestalt process groups since 2012 when he apprenticed in the Esalen Farm and Garden. A lifelong student of awareness, dialogue, and somatic-emotional process, Tom guest lectures on Gestalt therapy for masters level counseling students at Oregon State University-Cascades.
Group 2
Mike Smith
Mike 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 where he was shuso, or head monk, in the fall of 2024. Mike also served as the Director of San Francisco Zen Center’s City Center temple. He’s a devout backpacker and brings to these pilgrimages a love of the untamed that stretches back to his time as a young waterman growing up in coastal Connecticut. He’s been lucky enough to explore the islands of Hawai’i, the Inca Trail, the Cascades, the Oregon coast, and many National Parks. You can find him walking about Big Sur, the Sierras, and Santa Cruz.
Ali Goodman
Raised among the mountains and waters of Northern California, Ali has always felt profoundly at home in the outdoors. While living at the Esalen Institute as a work scholar with Wildtender in 2022, she began nurturing reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world and found a deep sense of both inner and outer belonging.
Informed by her own experience living with chronic pain and illness, Ali is dedicated to creating accessible, inclusive spaces. She is a breathwork facilitator and a forest therapy guide, offering gatherings centered on connection, creativity, healing, and play. She calls Big Sur home and can often be found heel-clicking her way toward a nearby body of water.
Ali is a certified Wilderness First Responder.
BRYAN GOLDBERGER
A lifelong wilderness seeker, Bryan has worked as a professional hiking guide in Big Sur since 2018, and with Wildtender since 2021, honing his passion for reconnecting people with the wild. With a background in Biology, Bryan combines scientifically-based thinking with barely-constrained awe at the wonders of the natural world. Believing that the land is our greatest teacher, Bryan is an avid naturalist and student of the ecology and natural history of California’s Central Coast. He works within his community to advocate for environmental stewardship, maintain trails, and increase wildfire mitigation awareness. Bryan is an Eagle Scout, a Wilderness First Responder, and an enthusiastic nerd about minimalist backpacking skills and philosophy.