Mountain Shepherd
Adventure School
OUR MISSION
Explore with Confidence
At Mountain Shepherd, we believe every person, regardless of their background and level of experience, can learn to appreciate and navigate the outdoors. Mountain Shepherd provides the training and skills you need to embrace your next outdoor adventure. Each course and adventure we offer is focused on safety and preparedness in the outdoors. Through education and outdoor recreation, Mountain Shepherd aims to introduce people to new outdoor activities, to improve adventurers’ planning and preparedness skills, and to inspire everyone to learn more about the environment and themselves. Our experiences are tailored to each group of participants so every adventure is safe, personalized, challenging and exciting!
Enjoy exploring the
Mountain Shepherd Experience!
Adventure
Courses
Try out a new type of recreation or gain valuable safety and preparedness skills in our adventure courses. Experiences include backpacking trips, canoeing, rock climbing, caving outdoor fitness courses, and even a summer camp for adults! Survival skills are always included. Adventures are available for families, women only, and co-ed adults.
Survival
Courses
Survival priorities and skills are the foundation of every Mountain Shepherd adventure. For the individuals and families looking to try their hand at more than just the basics, we offer several survival-focused courses. Learning and practicing wilderness survival is not only fun; our training provides you with the knowledge and confidence to adventure responsibly!
GEMS
Camp
Girls Empowered by Mountain Shepherd (GEMS) gives girls in middle and high school empowering opportunities to learn survival skills, explore outdoor recreation, and learn about themselves while surrounded by supportive peers and positive role models. GEMS come to camp to expand their comfort zones in the outdoors, and grow into courageous, confident, compassionate leaders!
Leadership &
Team Building
Surviving in the wilderness is strikingly similar to surviving in the workplace, especially when you’re navigating high-pressure, stressful situations. Teamwork in outdoor scenarios translates well into the office! Our leadership and team-building experiences include our core wilderness survival curriculum and can be customized to help your group meet their goals..
Custom
Experiences
Get creative with your Mountain Shepherd experience! Do you want to design an educational course for a group? Are you looking for help planning and preparing for an upcoming outdoor adventure? Do you need a location for an exciting, off-the-beaten-path celebration? Contact us to propose your plans and begin customizing your experience! Custom experiences are subject to scheduling and space availability.
Wilderness
Inspirations
Our partner non-profit organization fundraises to provide empowering outdoor experiences for girls and women. Wilderness Inspirations aims to ignite courage, confidence, and compassion in women and girls through outdoor adventures and experiential education. Scholarships for our Girls Empowered by Mountain Shepherd (GEMS) program are provided by Wilderness Inspirations.
Experiential
Education
Our programs for students, teachers, teams, and clubs provide opportunities for learners to engage with their community and the natural environment to make learning real. Environment-based education encourages student engagement in all school subjects and improves students’ ability to problem-solve, think critically, and make decisions. Experiential education programs are tailored to each group’s interests, needs, and goals, and can include our wilderness survival curriculum.
About GEMS
Girls Empowered by Mountain Shepherd (GEMS) is a program for girls and young women facilitated by Dina Bennett of Mountain Shepherd and our partner non-profit, Wilderness Inspirations. Mountain Shepherd Survival School hosts girls participating in the week-long overnight camp program each summer. The GEMS program gives middle-school and high-school girls the empowering opportunity to learn the seven survival priorities and practice survival skills while surrounded and supported by their peers. Girls also come to GEMS to learn about themselves, their personalities, how they communicate, and how they lead. The backcountry skills for which Mountain Shepherd is known indeed provide surprising connections to the campers’ lives in the “front-country.”
Additionally, Mountain Shepherd’s location and facility provide an excellent basecamp for GEMS campers to begin or continue their empowerment journeys. Girls just beginning their GEMS experience may sleep in a tent for the first time after a couple nights in the cozy bunk-room. Meanwhile, girls who have grown into the advanced courses will pack their backpacks and use the trails on the property to connect to the Appalachian Trail for a new adventure. Whether staying for a week or just using Mountain Shepherd as a launching pad for an excursion, GEMS campers feel welcomed and excited while here.
The series of GEMS summer camps challenges girls to expand their comfort zones through various outdoor adventures, and to dig deeper into their understandings of themselves. Read more about GEMS 1: Shining Bright, GEMS 2: Digging Deeper, GEMS 3: Rock On, and the bridge course for high school students, GEMS: Polishing Up by following the links to the program’s website.
GEMS for G.I.R.L.s
.entry-content a {font-weight: bold;text-decoration: underline;} Introducing “GEMS for G.I.R.L.s” from Girls Empowered by Mountain Shepherd (GEMS) and Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline Council! This unique set of experiences for Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors...
read moreWhat’s so great about learning in the “great outdoors”?
At Mountain Shepherd, we believe each person, regardless of life experience, can learn to navigate the outdoors and respond to unexpected challenges. We also agree that learning outdoors, about anything, and even shifting activities typically done indoors out to a...
read more
