Pilgrim

Trekking

"To Journey without being changed is to be a nomad.

To change without a journey is to be a chameleon.

To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a Pilgrim."

– Mark Nepo

Where Could You Go?

Who Could You Become?

Imagine Adventure and Challenge and Faith

Imagine Community and Service and Growth

Imagine Vision and Purpose and Change

Imagine!

Our Mission at Pilgrim Trekking is Awe and Wonder and Community.

To Learn More and Get Started Visit Purpose and People and Places

jumpinng into a clear, clean wilderness lake

early morning refelection by a wilderness lake

breaking of the bread

Good. Good. People.

"The Blessed Company of the Saints in Light." Sometimes I just need people. I have spent many nights alone in a tent. I'm not asking for pity when I say this. There is something really, really remarkable about traveling alone in the Wilderness. I admit that it took me some time to get used to it, but now I want it. At the same time, I find it deeply challenging. I don't sleep well in backcountry places, alone. Like Jacob, I wrestle in my sleep, waking, watching, wondering.

Good. Good. People.

Pilgrim. Tourist. Nomad.

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without a journey is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim. --Mark Nepo I’ve been a Nomad. I’ve been a Chameleon. I’ve been, sometimes, a Pilgrim. Poet Mark Nepo’s words helped me understand the difference. A Nomad is not really on a journey—she is simply wandering. Not lost, really, and maybe not aimless, but certainly she is without sustaining roots, perhaps even by c

Pilgrim. Tourist. Nomad.

Again. Again. And Again.

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. " —T.S. Eliot There are certain places to which I have to return. It's not nostalgia or the lure of escaping the present by burrowing into some happy memory. It's the need to ground; to be at home; to feel and know what can only be known in a particular place. Sometimes a certain place, a certain geography, is the only place where

Again. Again. And Again.

Reading a Map.

"When the days seemed fulfilled, he set his face for Jerusalem." --The Gospel of Luke Jesus was on the road. All the time. No matter what we might feel about the historical accuracy of the Jesus stories, what seems overwhelmingly clear is that he traveled. He moved. He covered ground. I know I will soon be moving too. When July arrives I will be more on the trail than behind the wheel or at a desk. I will point myself in a direction and go. I love to use maps to find my wa

Reading a Map.

Unbearable. Lightness. Being.

"Let there be Light." --The Book of Genesis June will bring the Summer Solstice. We will talk about longer days and the way the light lingers, longer. It's good talk. The extra light is a recurring gift. There was a time when for me that light meant more "efficiency." I could stay at work longer and still get home in time to "do stuff." Like mow the lawn. I didn't want to waste the gift of Light. Yet underneath that adult drive toward efficiency was the kid who just love

Unbearable. Lightness. Being.

Gear. Check. Heart. Check.

"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world

Gear. Check. Heart. Check.

Camp. Fire.

"When they came to land, they saw a charcoal fire laid there, with fish and bread on it. Jesus spoke to them. ‘Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,’ he said." The Gospel of John Try something fun. Go ahead and light up your search engine with "campfire with Jesus." Amazing, right? We all have campfire memories. When I was young--around 11 or 12--I spent my summers on Vashon Island, a wonderful free-range place in Puget Sound. I'm pretty sure we had a beach bonfire ev

Camp. Fire.

Believing is Seeing.

"Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reverence everywhere to the mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine … to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal." --Abraham Heschel Somewhere Spri

Believing is Seeing.

Always. Winter. Always?

"Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It's she that makes it always winter. Always winter, and never Christmas; think of that!" C.S Lewis. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe So that was her curse on the world. The way she pulled nature apart. Always Winter. But no "White Christmas." No Christmas at all. Just Winter, Winter, Winter. And so Winter became something to endure. It was a curse, and to be stuck in that Winter Snow was to be cursed. And yet

Always. Winter. Always?

New Day. New Year. First Light.

Bumps in the (Dark) Night.

Francis Followers.

In early October I set off with 8 colleagues on a professional adventure. It was 5 days of backcountry travel to (somehow) honor the model of St. Francis. In early October I went backpacking with a group of 7 priests and 1 Bishop. In early October I set off with 8 friends on a Pilgrimage. All of the above. It started as an adventure and became a pilgrimage. We started as colleagues and become friends. I started out believing I was a leader. I fell in step as a Follower—and th

Francis Followers.

Sawtooth Summer.

There is no doubt that I am infatuated with Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. And I am in love with the effort of traveling Sawtooth trails with teenagers. I suppose I’d be in love with the experience of long trips regardless of the mountain range, but over the last 10 years, travleling many ranges and trails with High School students, I have seen the way the ragged ridge edges of the Sawtooths, and their high and clear lakes, reflect awe and wonder on so many young faces. And that

Sawtooth Summer.

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About Us

Bill Harper, the founder and director of Pilgrim Trekking, has been working with young people in the wilderness for three decades. As an Episcopal Priest Bill developed a parish-based wilderness program for the young people in his own parish, a program that has changed and sustained parish youth for 20 years…

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