Mountain Quest

Coming of Age for Young Men

Ages 13-15 | July 5 - 25, 2025 OR August 4 - 24, 2025| Return to Youth Programs

"I got so much out of my trip: memories, experiences and undeniable challenges. I became extremely close to all of my comrades on this journey and I believe that I grew as a person in many ways. From jumping into freezing glacier water to pushing myself up the side of a mountain, every moment of this trip allowed me to grow. This trip is something that I will remember for a lifetime."
- Lochlan, Age 13

This three-week program challenges boys to develop into solid young men: heroes in their own life journeys.

For thousands of years, cultures around the world have relied on the wisdom of intentional rites of passage to awaken the mature masculine spirit within young boys. By overcoming various ordeals, initiates bring back the inner resources and external skills that the community depends on for its continued vitality.

In the spirit of these ancient traditions, the Mountain Quest offers youth an opportunity to live, learn, and laugh in a supportive community of male mentors and peers. Far away from video games, mass media, and pressures of modern society, life slows down and begins to take on new meaning.

As participants sleep under star-filled skies, hike among ancient cedars, and dip in cold mountain streams, the rich inner life of a boy awakens. At journey’s end, each will bring home the exciting and important story of his own adventure, a greater sense of self-awareness, and new gifts to share with his family and his community.

Family Participation

The initiate’s family plays an important role in the Coming of Age Journey. On the first day of the trip, parents and guardians will send their children off and then spend some time exploring the changes that are happening in their child and in their family. At the conclusion of the 3-week adventure, parents and guardians take part in a process of incorporation. During this day-long event, parents and young people alike will have the opportunity to see one another with new eyes. Together in this way, they breathe new life into existing relationships, and explore the possibilities of what it means to be a family in the 21st century, with a new family member who is no longer a boy, but a young man.

This journey welcomes all who identify as male, trans boys, and non-binary youth, knowing this journey is an initiation through the male lens. Please check out our welcome statement on gender identity here. Not sure which trip is right for your youth? Contact Us and we’ll help figure it out.

PROGRAM DETAILS

Ages 13 - 15

MQYM I: July 5 - 25, 2025
MQYM II: August 4 - 24, 2025

Olympic National Park
Program begins and ends in Bothell, WA

$3495.00; Deposit $600.00
Financial Aid is currently available

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Participants reunite with their families after their Coming of Age adventure and share the new stories of who they are.

After a 8-10 day backpacking trip, participants arrive at the Washington Coast and prepare for a 24-hour solo vigil.

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

Sample Itinerary

Week 1-2 | Coming of Age participants, their families, and our staff participate in a send-off ceremony at the Journeys basecamp. This ceremony is followed by intentional community building activities, backcountry skills training, and launching a 8 to 10-day backpacking trip during which wilderness, leadership and teamwork skills will be taught and practiced.

Week 2-3 | After their mountain journey, Participants will head for the Coast to prepare for their 24-hour solo vigil by the ocean. During this time participants will be involved in nature explorations, expressive art projects, journaling and ceremony.

Week 3 | Participants begin their return to “the world” that they left behind, ultimately arriving back at basecamp to celebrate their incredible journey and the beginning of young adulthood. The young men and mentors will participate in council with group and individually, and prepare for the Parent Incorporation Day. The final day of the trip will be spent with participants and families creating a family covenant to reflect the privileges and responsibilities of the young man.

Skills Introduced

Program Outcomes

Improved self-confidence
Skills and insight into teamwork
Understanding and taking responsibility
Ability to listen to intuition
Leadership skills
Improved physical strength and personal resolve
Knowledge of natural history of Northwest terrain
Exposure to Low-impact camping techniques
Understanding of a healthy and appropriate path to adulthood
Completion of a transformative rite of passage

Mountain Quest Video

Mountain Quest 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

Guides for Mountain Quest July 2024

Seth Rose

Program Coordinator

Seth Rose (He/Him), grew up in the Front Range of Colorado, where the vast horizon and and climbing mountains fostered his abound curiosity and quest for passion and purpose. This has led him to youth development and political organizing. Through time working with youth political organizing, Seth’s passion is based in the passion for fostering civic engagement and collective action. After graduating from the University of Colorado in 2017, with a B.A. in Political Science and minor in Leadership Studies, Seth found himself in chaotic waves of young adulthood, seeking to marry his passions and vision, to the vehicles of purpose. In this time, he joined the Men’s Leadership Alliance of Colorado, experiencing the power of intergenerational spaces, mens work, and the visceral wisdom of BEING in Nature. This experience was transformational in redefining friendship and belonging and the power of orienting his life and development towards his true values. This led him to working for Open Sky Wilderness Therapy (2020-2023), where Seth developed as a therapeutic guide, to foster attunement, self- efficacy, empathy, communication, through ritual, nature, and interpersonal process with groups of young adults. These experiences have informed his commitment to rites of passage as the vehicle of positive culture-change, shaping his pursuit of a Masters of Social Work at Case Western Reserve University, where his study has focused on positive youth development, community-trauma and promoting a reorientation to relationship in the process of socialization to deconstruct patriarchal socialization of men and boys in America. In his free time, Seth’s favorite hobby is friendship, along with partner dancing to to some blues music, singing during Friday night Shabbat, mountain biking, reading poetry, and taking long walks during the magical late night hours.

eli klarman

Program Guide
Eli is a community organizer, culture builder, youth educator, and facilitator of men’s work. Eli grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA and spent most of his summers in the Blue Ridge mountains where he was introduced to his relationship with nature and the wild…

Guides for Mountain Quest august 2024

david bronstein

Program Coordinator
David is a grassroots educator, seeker, community song leader, goat herd, Rabbi-in-training, cultural creative, of Ashkenazi Jewish and Scandinavian lineage. Born in the ocean spray of Miami Beach, raised in the suburbanized farmlands outside Washington D.C., he's currently being raised again by the cactus flowers, coyote howls, and beauty bare of the high desert of New Mexico, unceded Tewa land. When he forgets, his own journeys are reminders that he is the composer of his own life…

Felipe Chammas

Program Guide

Fê Chammas is a Brazilian whose roots are half Lebanese and half Italian. Although having grown up in a small countryside town in the state of São Paulo and being the third of three brothers, he was the first to leave the country when he went, having just turned 16, for a one year youth exchange program in central California through Rotary. Looking back, it's clear that this year abroad was his adolescent rite of passage that helped him develop capacities he relies on up until today and believe he could listen to the inner whispers that have always guided him. He has a degree in marketing and advertising, which he worked with for 8 years for companies like Google Brasil, until he decided to shift towards human development, which is really what ignites his internal fire. Since then, he's been trained in the international social leadership program Warriors Without Weapons; as a facilitator of the ZEGG Forum methodology; and is currently training in the Wild Mind Training Program with Animas Valley Institute. Being passionate about ecocentric approaches to health, he's been practicing Yoga since 2011 and Ayurveda since 2014. Since then he's trained on both and currently offers them as gifts to the world, supporting people on their own journeys with these ancient Indian systems of knowledge. And that naturally led him to his interest in permaculture and agroforestry, having had many experiences with growing food, bioconstruction and ecological living within and without Brazil. Felipe has been guiding human development since 2017 through body and health practices with Yoga and Ayurveda, through group processes with Instituto Elos in Brazil and also through private mentorship sessions.