ADULT QUEST: A Nature BASED RITE of passage

all for ages 18+

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Adult Quest: A Nature Based Right of Passage: June 28th - July 9th, 2025

Oriented towards all genders

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

What calls to you, from the deep heart and wild frontiers of your life? What will guide you as you learn to embody your fully human way of being on this earth — in conversation with your people, your place, and the mysteries?
We invite you to cross the threshold, if you dare…

Program Details | Apply Now | Program Staff | Other Programs

Return to Adult Programs

The practice of wilderness questing is an ancient and cross-cultural way of clearing oneself out to listen and converse with the voices of our bodies, psyches, and the more-than-human world. People chose to undertake a quest for many reasons. You may be in or approaching a major life transition, such as a change in career, or the birth of a child. You may be feeling the calling of a longing whose shape you can’t yet see. Or you may be seeking initiation into your mythic place and role in the many shifts occurring in our world.

Each adult chooses to quest for deeply personal reasons. Yet, together, the group of participants and guides will form an intimate and supportive community. This quest involves a three to four day, 4 night Solo fasting ceremony, supported by group ceremonial preparation and integration, in which you will begin the process of learning to embody what you’ve discovered on your quest. During our time together, you can expect to participate in group talking circles, one-on-one conversations with guides, solo walks on the land, expressive arts activities, ceremony, and more.

We will eat, laugh, and enjoy the wilderness together. But soul work can be hard, as is its nature. This won’t feel like a vacation. You’ll

experience discomfort and frustration, and you’ll get to experience the edges of your personal discipline. However, your reward will match your commitment. You’ll find yourself surprised, enlightened, humored and motivated.

The guides at Journeys bring many years of experience as mentors of life transition and offer exceptional skills and wisdom to support you with a balance of head and heart. They keep you emotionally and physically safe while you’re out in the wilderness, and provide the tools you need to do your work and follow your path.

Note: Adult Quest is a basecamp-based quest experience. To layer on the “crucible of the trail" to your journey, consider Adult Mountain Quest. Please scroll down to the comparison below, then Contact Us and we can begin the conversation.

registration now open

PROGRAM DETAILS

Ages 18 +

6/28/25- 7/9/25

Our basecamp is a private property on the Wild Middle Fork of the Nooksack River with access to both mountain and river valley wilderness - Mt Baker Area -Washington State

$2195.00; Deposit $500
Financial Aid available

Food: Participants provide their own food for breakfast and lunch during solo prep and return days with dinners provided by Rite of Passage Journeys. Detailed guidelines available upon registration.

Travel: Participants will need to provide their own transportation to and from the program, which starts and ends near Deming, WA.

HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!

registration Now open

Questions? Check out our FAQ page or send us a message!

SUmmer Quest: an adult rite of passage

Life paths frequently undergo transitions, shifts, and evolution, often taking unexpected turns. Are you the same person you were months or years ago? Change does not have to be a solitary experience. This program is designed for people to come together and share in the universal experience of change.

Why:

Rites of Passage Ceremonies facilitate our adaptation to our present lives. They provide opportunities to release what no longer serves us, embrace profound transformation, and step into the unfolding narrative of a future yet to be lived.

Who:

All bodies - All people - welcomed. The Adult Wilderness Quest is a deeply human experience, part of the generations before us, even if it wasn't in our immediate/contemporary culture. Transformation and marking change are intrinsic to the human experience.

While this program is for folks over 18 years of age, we work with all stages of the human experience to bring the curiosity of our inner child, honor the fire of being a teenager, orient to the responsibility of adulthood, and bedazzle the elder within you.

How:

We offer a supportive framework for our participants, empowering them to rise and gain clarity as they choose their personal quests. At the confluence of nature's wisdom and human culture, we respect the cycles of life and death, the balance between serious and silly, and the dance of creation, destruction, and discovery

What

Over the course of 12 days together we will spend time in connection with each other, in council, storytelling and teachings, as well as time immersed in nature in personal ceremony and solitude.

This program will have three phases. Our first four days are dedicated to preparation, participants will then embark on a personal journey, spending four days and four nights in solitude, engaging in their own self-created ceremonies amidst nature. The final phase involves reuniting with the group for four days, focused on integrating our experiences with community and closing our collective ceremony.

As rites of passage guides, we recognize that accepting this invitation takes great courage. Our community welcomes you as you are, and supports your unique process of becoming.

2024 Program Staff - 2025 TBA

GRAE GERLACH

Guide

More About Grae

Line

Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach (she/her) grew up in rural Montana on traditional Salish lands, where she was raised as much by the wilderness as by her nature loving community. With the Rocky Mountains, glacier fed rivers, ancient forests, creatures of her homeland and a horse ranching family as inspiration she declared her life purpose early on in life (6 years old); “I will work with the nature in people!” Grae has a degree from Brown University in sustainable agriculture and a background in wilderness therapy. For the past 8 years she has been guiding Rite of Passage experiences for various organizations including the School of Lost Borders, Pacific Quest, Alaska Crossings, and Juniper Canyon. Joining Journeys as a guide in 2018, she now works as a trainer and facilitator. When not guiding and facilitating for organizations Grae’s work is expressed through her business Naetura Cara, and is accessible to a wide variety of individuals and groups. Grae’s work has a passionate emphasis on the somatic embodiment of Rites of Passage and ceremonies for the sustainable practice of “whole-being well-being” and reciprocity with the natural world. Her style is to create a simple foundation and a center of gravity where individuals' internal natures, as rich and wild as the environments that hold them, can come together, can remember reciprocity, can heal, and can mark a place of belonging in the long lineage before and after them. She approaches her work from a place of love, humble responsibility, and gratitude for the wisdom she has inherited from her Mother (Mama and Nature!) as well as the lineage of learning that her mentors have shared. She currently lives and stewards her familial homestead on traditional Salish lands in western Montana.

STERLING BROOMFIELD

Guide

Sterling Broomfield (they/them) was ushered into rites of passage guiding by their direct mentor, and a centuries-old lineage of teachers who have come together to share their knowledge about what it means to be human. They bring practical experience and 13 years as a Wilderness First Responder in the backcountry, embarking on adventures in the mountains, oceans, or rainforests…

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Adult Wilderness Quest is not a Wilderness Therapy program, and is not intended to provide therapeutic support or counseling for those in need of psychological help. Our guides are deeply skilled in the process of self exploration. Even those who may have formal training as therapists or mental health providers are not hired to engage in that practice out on the trail. Individuals struggling with emotional or psychological dynamics may find that a trip like this stimulates their underlying issues beyond the ability to manage them, and the trip and the guides are not trained to provide support in such situations. If you have concerns about this, especially if you are working with a therapist or counselor, we highly recommend you discuss your situation with us before registering for Adult Wilderness Quest. We want to make sure that this trip is a good match for your current situation and capability.