MOUNTAINS & WATERS PILGRIMAGE

“The world around you is sacred. Its appearance is miraculous, as is yours. Though this is clear everywhere, it's clearest in the mountains. It's clearest in the waters.” – Dogen (13th century Zen philosopher)

Following the course of an ancient river, whose primordial gestures have carved a 3,000 foot deep canyon between even more ancient mountains, we will walk with wonder and intention to remember our own timeless kinship within the more-than-human-world. Immersed in the fields, forests, ravines, lakes, passes and peaks of the “Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne” (ancestral lands of the Miwok Peoples), in the heart of Yosemite, we will backpack in beauty for five days with an intimate group (up to 12 participants + 3 guides).

This pilgrimage will be devoted to reweaving our pan-ancestral threads of kinship and belonging to the Earth and our relations. Present-centered, spacious, silent hiking will be our primary practice as we journey thirty miles through this sacred and majestic landscape.

First called Ahwahnee (“the Creator’s Mouth”), Yosemite Valley was sculpted over eons by the births and deaths of glaciers, and tended for millennia by human hands. It is a place outside of modern time, shaped by deep time. It has been homeland and habitat for countless generations of human and other-than-human folk. And it is an expressive and expansive place to practice clearing away the dust from our senses, cultivating qualities of peace and presence, and feeling our way back into an embodied awareness of the animacy that surrounds us everywhere in this living, breathing world.

Gallery of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

Program Itinerary

This point-to-point journey covers ~30 miles, with overall elevation gains of +6,600 feet and losses of 7,400 feet. We will stay within an elevation range of 4,200-8,700 feet during the journey. The details of our itinerary are still taking shape, and will be shared closer to the program start date. The broad strokes are below.

• Day 1| Meet at 3pm in Yosemite National Park to camp one night at a “backpackers campground” to adjust to elevation and begin to connect as a cohort. After setting up camp, we will share a dinner by campfire with orientation and introductions.

• Day 2 | Drop some vehicles at our end point (White Wolf) and shuttle back to the trailhead. Begin our hike from Toulumne Meadows, reaching the banks of the Toulumne River and enjoying swimming holes and waterfalls as we descend into the Grand Canyon of the Toulumne.

• Day 3 & 4 | Backpacking and immersing in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, we’ll have abundant waterfall and river time, and space to connect with ourselves, each other and the landscape.

• Day 5 | Beginning the ascent out of the Canyon, camp in the forest with expansive views of the Canyon and Hetch Hetchy valley.

• Day 6 | Completing a steep hike out of the Canyon, we will conclude our pilgrimage with a closing circle and integration practices. We will hike out at White Wolf Campground, and will retrieve any remaining vehicles at Toulumne Meadows by 4pm. Please note that if you want to enjoy one more night in Yosemite National Park, you are entitled to camp in one of the “backpackers campgrounds” the night of September 5th as part of our wilderness permit.

Meet Your Guides

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.

Ariel Johnson

Ariel Johnson is an embodiment facilitator specializing in trauma-informed somatic practices. As a guide with Wildtender, Ariel supports participants to meaningfully immerse in the California wild, and to cultivate deeper relationships with the broader web of kinfolk. A practitioner of meditation and mindfulness practices, she is a dedicated student of Gestalt Awareness Practice in the lineage of Christine Price, as well as grief tending with Francis Weller. With extensive training in ballet and modern dance, yoga (E-RYT 500), and Gyrotonic Level 1, she helps students cultivate greater presence and intuition in their connections with self, community, and the earth-body. Ariel is a Wilderness First Responder.

Growing up in Japan, Washington, and California, Ariel inherited from her father a deep love of the natural world through camping and hiking. Now living with her family in Pacific Grove, California, she finds joy in studying natural history, literature, and Japanese tea ceremony.

Erik Davis

Erik Davis, PhD, is an author, award-winning journalist, and teacher based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. He is the author, most recently, of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (2019). He also wrote Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (2010), The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (2006), a critical volume on Led Zeppelin (2005), and the celebrated cult classic TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998). Davis’s scholarly and popular essays on music, technoculture, drugs, and spirituality have appeared in scores of books, magazines, and journals, and his writing has been translated into a dozen languages. Davis has spoken widely at universities, conferences, retreat centers, and festivals, and has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, NPR, and the New York Times.

He graduated from Yale University in 1988 and earned his PhD in religious studies at Rice University in 2015. He writes the online publication the Burning Shore (www.burningshore.com). In 2022, he co-founded the Alembic, a Berkeley center for meditation, movement, citizen neuroscience, and visionary culture.  

Sliding-Scale Program Tuition

$1,550 – Supported Rate (covers a portion of the cost of your program)
$1,950 – Sustainer Rate (covers the cost of your program)
$2,350 – Helper Rate (covers the cost of your program and contributes some financial support for another)
$2,750 – Benefactor Rate (covers the cost of your program, contributes generously to the financial support of another, and supports Wildtender’s ongoing organizational capacity and stability)

For more transparency into our pricing, and some guidance for how to decide where you fall on the sliding scale, please see our registration page.

Further scholarship funds are available for Wildtender tuition; if interested, please see more details and apply here.

Payment plans are also available; please email us to inquire.