Fire on the mountain

Ages 15 - 18 | August 16 - 26, 2025 | Return to Youth Programs

“I have made deeper connections here than I ever did at school or at home. Being in the wilderness and going on a solo journey has changed my life for the better. I've made friends to keep, gathered thoughts to remember fondly, and found more respect for other people and myself. This was a great experience.” – Jane, age 16

Program Details | Sample Itinerary | Skills Introduced | Program Staff | Other Programs

There is nothing like time in the wilderness to get fresh perspective and renew yourself.

Each summer in the Pacific Northwest, the grandeur of the mountains calls to be explored. If we have the opportunity to make it out there, we find all kinds of wonders, as well as a quietness in which we can hear our own voice more clearly.

What teen participants taking this journey over the years have said is that they want to enjoy the beauty and adventure of the wilderness, and to have some dedicated opportunities for self-reflection. This is what Fire on the Mountain is all about. Looking at ourselves and where we’re at isn’t always easy, but it always feels good to get clear and motivated about our next steps.

Along with three guides and up to eight other participants, you will spend almost the entirety of these eleven days in the wilderness, backpacking and developing skills in wilderness living, connecting with peers and mentors, playing games, enjoying some solitude, and much more. Along with being down-to-earth, experienced wilderness guides, your mentors will provide a safe and supportive setting to reflect deeply, share honestly, and set personally-meaningful intention for yourself going forward.

In 2016, we renamed this journey ‘Fire on the Mountain’ after a few years of seeing it inspire participants to connect with their authentic voice, their truth, their fire. There will be campfires with storytelling and talking circles under the stars by night. By day, we’ll keep cool and hydrated along the trail, enjoying big views, beautiful rivers, and opportunities to swim and play. Halfway through the journey, participants prepare for and undertake a 24-hour solo.

On this program we welcome young people with any amount of backpacking experience, including none. Participants should be in physical condition to hike up to 6 or 7 miles in a day with a heavy pack; however, physical challenge isn’t the purpose of this experience, and most days will be less strenuous. This journey serves as a great introduction to the more rigorous wilderness backpacking and personal challenge and growth opportunities available on our 3-week Solo Crossing program.

Come be part of a tight-knit community for 11 epic days, and feel in yourself the expansiveness offered by these stunning mountain landscapes.

check out 3-week solo crossing

PROGRAM DETAILS

Ages 15 - 18
All Genders

August 16-26, 2025

Olympic National Park
Program starts/ends in Bothell, WA

$2095.00; Deposit $500.00
Financial Aid is currently available

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check out 3-week Solo Crossing

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

On our final morning, we rise early to greet the sunrise from Blue Mountain.

Participants enjoy Nature Sit-Spots and Journaling activities.

trip description

Day 1 | Participants and families meet at the Journeys basecamp for a gear check and send-off ceremony. After a van ride and a stop at the Olympic National Park headquarters for bear cans, we arrive at the 1st campground, have a fire, get to know each other and prepare for adventures ahead.

Days 2 - 10 | Time to start up the trail! We will embark on a backpacking expedition, hiking 5-6 miles per day and setting up camp as we go. Along the way we learn and practice backpacking and wilderness skills & community skills, while also playing fun games, enjoying the great outdoors, exploring nature, and engaging in nightly Council talking circles around the campfire. Halfway through the journey, participants prepare for and then undertake their 24-hour solos.

Day 11 | Time to return home! Full from the wonders and sights experienced and our new friendships, we'll make the triumphant journey back across the ferry to basecamp and waiting families. And yes, we'll have some stories to tell...

Skills Introduced

Fire on the Mountain Staff

Our guide teams for 2025 will be announced ASAP. We typically have guide teams assembled by Spring. You can learn about last year’s guides below and learn more about the rest of our guide teams from prior years on our Staff & Board Page

fire on the mountain 2024 guide team

Akasha Dove

Program Guide

Although her roots reside in the foothills of Northern Colorado, Akasha lives a semi-nomadic life exploring deep wilderness, new perspectives, and communal connection. She was raised tending to awe and honoring the cycles of the natural world that mirror the changes within human beings. Her Mother, both Mama and Mother Earth, have served as her greatest teachers, graciously cultivating space for curiosity, empathy, and transformation. The connection between the self and nature has propelled Akasha around the world: mentoring youth in Spain and Chicago, living communally on off-grid organic farms in Guatemala and Hawaii, leading nature-based women's circles in Washington and Colorado, and working on environmental conservation projects throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania. Her belief in the healing power of nature and reverence for the teachings of all more-than-human Beings led her to rite of passage work in 2021, where she has found a synergy of her greatest passions. She brings exploration of ‘eco-hierophany’ (eco pertaining to earth and hierophany meaning a manifestation of the sacred) to her work and personal life. Guiding and sharing her passion for wilderness, art, food as medicine, and nature-based ceremony is a reciprocal gift that continues to offer her a deeper understanding of self, others, and the Earth. Akasha’s education and training in Outdoor Leadership, Recreation Management, Wilderness Medicine, Psychology, and Polarity Balancing aids her work as Rite of Passage Journeys' Assistant Director, Basecamp Manager, and Guide, as well as her own ever-evolving quest to fully inhabit all of her glorious humanness in this unrepeatable magic life.

koby silverman

Program Guide

Shaped by the alpine majesty of western Montana, Koby has always found solace in the wilderness. Growing up on the edges of suburbs and woodlands, he developed both a natural affinity for the land and a keen sensitivity to the societal disconnection that plagues our times. His early experiences sparked both a profound reverence for the beauty and need for nature, and a painful awareness of the shortcomings of a culture which fails to provide true guidance and mentorship to young people. For Koby, serving as a wilderness rite of passage guide is a way to help address the mental health and greater meaning crisis afflicting today's world, and especially our youth. Driven by what he calls an ‘initiation urge’, he embarked on numerous journeys of extensive solo travel, musical creation, education and meditation before encountering Rites of Passage Journeys in 2022. There, he realized that this need for initiatory experience could be contained in a more proper, ancestral and communal form. Already feeling the call to become a guide, he went through his own 12-day wilderness quest and continued on to serve as an apprentice guide the following summer. Deeply attuned to the urgency of our times, Koby strives to be a force of cultural repair in a world increasingly disconnected from nature, the body, community, and ritual. Koby holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and lives a semi-nomadic life often split between the majestic Northwestern mountains and arid Southwest deserts.