For gender-diverse youth ages 11–16
10:00 am–4:00 pm each Saturday, plus a weekend overnight and potluck for families
Fall 2023–Spring 2024 Schedule: Contact us for dates.
Tuition: $800 for the year
This monthly Saturday program, with an overnight campout in April, provides a safe and fun space for trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer youth to explore the natural world, gain wilderness skills, and build community with one another. Within this caring container, young people can learn, play, take on healthy challenges, step into their leadership, and just be themselves!
Time in nature enhances resilience, well-being, and self-esteem, while learning survival and awareness skills helps kids and teens to cultivate awareness and emotional regulation. As young people connect with nature, they strengthen their connection with their own inner knowing and with those around them, and feel more at home in themselves and on the planet.
Our curriculum will incorporate:
- Sensory awareness activities
- Games and storytelling
- Outdoor living skills and crafts
- Friction fire making
- Shelter building
- Tracking our wild neighbors
- Sit spots—a mindfulness exercise in nature
- Exploring the element of water.
The series will include a family potluck in the spring to expand the circle of connection.
Swallowtail Instructors
Raei Bridges | They/them/their
Raei was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley in California and always sought out ways to deepen their connection to nature. As a child, Raei could be found playing in the mud, climbing trees, and observing insects in any way that was accessible to them. In 2016, Raei had the opportunity to explore the backcountry of the San Isabel National Forest in Colorado in a way that completely changed their relationship to both themself and the land, and served as the catalyst for their work as a guide today. Currently Raei leads backcountry trips for BIPOC individuals through their grassroots organization, the Rusty Anvil, a platform that creates safe and noncompetitive space for people of color to reconnect to the natural world, transform outdoor culture, and build a deeper outdoor community. Raei is a certified SOLO Wilderness First Responder and Kripalu Mindful Outdoor Guide, and a trained Wild Mt. Rite Of Passage Guide, and is dedicated to serving as a pillar of safe space for BIPOC, neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ youth.
Rowan Quinn K Davis | They/them/their
Rowan Quinn (Hawk Moth) grew up constantly running around outside with no shoes, and this spirit still lives inside of them. Their love of nature and exploration came from hours of climbing trees, playing in the mud, exploring their godparents’ farm, and going on family camping and rock climbing trips. As Quinn grew up, their passion for and joy in nature never left them. They studied at Hampshire College, examining the intersections of education, architecture and design, dance, circus arts, and community. At Hampshire, Quinn often spent their evenings wandering through the woods, and one starry night they had the realization that their future needed to be outside. Since graduating college, they have been able to fulfill that promise to themselves while also continuing on a path of education, art, and community work. Outside of Flying Deer, Quinn has most recently worked for the Hampshire College Early Learning Center, Greenagers, and Jacob’s Pillow. One of their goals is to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.