Where the Work Meets the Wild: Reflections from Our 2026 Summer Staff Retreat
A collaboration by the Balanced Rock team
Welcome to Notes from the Sierra: a monthly offering born from the voices within our own community.
This series is a space for the wisdom of lived experience, the elemental insights that shape our work, and the inspiration we draw from the mountains, forests, and beyond. Each month, someone from our teaching, guiding, or creative circles will share a reflection—a story, a lesson, a moment of relationship with nature or Self.
The only parameters we offer: make it honest. Make it from the heart. Make it real. Rooted in place, shared in the spirit of connection.
This July, the Balanced Rock team traded our laptops and busy summer schedules for a few days together in the Southern Sierra!
Our staff retreat took us into the Golden Trout Wilderness where we slowed down, shared meals and miles on the trail, weathered mountain storms, and made space for both rest and connection. It was an opportunity to step outside the day-to-day work of Balanced Rock and spend time together in the landscapes that continue to inspire so much of what we do.
For this special edition of Notes from the Sierra, we’re sharing a glimpse into those few days through photos and reflections from our team*—on the landscape, the laughter, and the value of making space to reconnect with one another and with the natural world. *
Note: two of our team members, Paula Wild and Makaya Mackie, were unable to join us. They were dearly missed!
For Heather, making this kind of space together felt like an extension of Balanced Rock’s mission itself.
“It was a delight to gather as a staff in the Southern Sierra this July. We took a few days carving out time together in nature, and slowing the amped summer pace WAY down felt like really living Balanced Rock’s mission—to inspire health and wellbeing through deep connection to nature—and literally walking our talk by taking a ramble up to incredible vistas over the Owen’s Valley and visiting with some ancient foxtail pines.
There was also lots of time to sit and relax or read by the creek, to have organic conversations about the direction of our programming, and filling our cup and bellies with amazing food, sunsets, and mountain community.
Time like this is essential for growing as a team, for inspired thought, for personal rest and relaxation and to charge up the creativity well. I feel so grateful for this core BR team and look forward to what will come from this intentional time together as a staff.
I am so deeply grateful for the partnership between Balanced Rock and Golden Trout Wilderness School and for GTWS making the space for this retreat, our annual YETI trip and for the possibility of future collaborations. Big thanks to the GTWS staff for all of your hard work and love. We felt so cared for!!”
For Meg, it was about nurturing a creative reset in BR community.
“I came into this time together craving not only relaxation and connection as a team in the mountains, but also a much-needed reset. So much of the work we all do at Balanced Rock means truly balancing different and often quite diverse aspects within our roles. On any given day as Director of Operations, I toggle between spreadsheets and bookkeeping tasks to writing email campaigns or creating content for social media. The swing between each side of my mind means my creative tank can deplete quickly, which makes dedicated time away from screens and out in nature with the BR crew all the more worthwhile.
I found myself near giddy upon arrival at Golden Trout, keen to do all the things. I wanted to see the fairy shrimp and the infamous golden trout! I wanted to see the sky pilot and ancient foxtail pines! I had to pet those sweet donkeys! This is how I knew I was in the right place, for the surge of energy that came forth was palpable— turning my mind toward the beauty and art that exists in nature.
I pressed my nose against tree bark to examine its texture, bent down for wildflowers to learn the shape of their petals. I ran my hands across foxtail pine skeletons and marveled at their spiraled trunks made squatty and gnarled by the harsh edge of the high alpine winds.
Beyond the exquisiteness of nature out at Golden Trout, I am most grateful for the group of people that made the time memorable. From the incredible meals by Ari (I have never eaten so well in the backcountry!), the stories and facts shared by Cam and the rest of the GTWS crew, to the laughs around the campfire…I already can’t wait to go back one day.”
We took a jaunt up to the ridge line with sweeping views of the Southern Sierra Nevada and Owens River Valley
For Darcy, it was the wildness—and a little bit of mountain magic—that left the biggest impression.
“Golden Trout Wilderness felt unlike anywhere I'd ever been before. High in the Sierra Nevada, the air was impossibly pure, though so thin it took my breath away in more ways than one. Once my body settled into the elevation, it felt as if I had wandered into another world, a place where granite peaks touched the sky, wildflowers painted the meadows in every color imaginable, and it wasn't hard to believe fairies and magic lived just beyond the next bend in the trail.
One moment we were hiking ridge lines, laughing until our cheeks hurt and feeling on top of the world. The next, we were tucked inside our little tent cabins, listening to rain drum against the canvas while thunder echoed through the mountains around us. It was wild and gentle all at once, the kind of place that reminds you how small you are, yet somehow makes your heart feel bigger.
I feel so incredibly grateful to have shared this experience with my coworkers, who have become such dear friends. These are the moments that stay with you long after you leave the mountains.
Until next time, Golden Trout. 🤍”
As Heather shared, the time we carve out as a staff to go analog and connect beyond our screens and to-do lists is one of the ways we “walk the walk” as a wellness organization living in a buzzy, modern world.
We have found that when our team is well-supported—not only within their roles but also through participating in the practices we cultivate within our programming—we can funnel our collective, renewed energy back into better tending ourselves and the world beyond. Like all things Balanced Rock, the effect ripples outward: into our community, visitors, and the ongoing mission of Balanced Rock.