North Cascades National Park Retreats
Our programs are shaped by landscapes.
Each one offers its own medicine. Each one supports a different kind of remembering. Some landscapes open us. Others ground us. All of them invite us into deeper relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
In each program location, we consider the ecosystems at play—mountains, desert, water, open spaces, forests, sky, dark sky—and how their unique characteristics can support your healing, integration, and belonging.
Healing with the land is not extractive. We enter with respect. We receive what’s offered. And we return care in turn.
This is relational healing—guided by the land, held by the seasons, and rooted in reciprocity.
Keep reading to explore the gifts of each landscapes you may encounter during our programs.
North Cascades National Park
🏔️ Mountains
Rise with intention.
Mountains help us slow down and see the long view. With every switchback, we practice pacing, perseverance, and perspective. These landscapes remind us that steady effort matters, and the climb is part of the clarity.
🌲 Forests
Root down. Reach out.
In the forest, life is layered and interconnected. We’re invited to listen beneath the surface, to grow in the shade of each other’s stories, and to remember that we’re never healing alone. Every step is part of a larger system.
💧 Water
Let it move through you.
Water teaches us about flow, release, and resilience. Whether still or rushing, reflective or roaring, it shows us how to soften, how to change, and how to carry what matters without holding it all at once.
🌌 Dark Sky
You belong to something beautiful.
Beneath a canopy of stars, the noise fades and the vastness comes alive. Dark skies remind us how small we are and how held we’ve always been. Here, rest becomes reverence. Wonder becomes a way back to ourselves.
EXPERIENCE: Program Pillars
Environmental Stewardship
We include environmental stewardship projects in our immersion programs to foster a deeper connection to nature, empower participants to give back to the landscapes we visit, and cultivate a sense of purpose and responsibility for preserving these spaces for future generations.
Mindful Movement
We center mindful movement in our wilderness wellness retreats to help participants reconnect with their bodies, enhance their presence in the moment, and deepen their experience of nature as a source of healing and restoration. We move at the pace of presence and no hiker is left behind!
Self-Discovery
Each day has a theme to help you connect the dots between the wilderness within and the wild areas we are exploring and conserving. We draw inspiration from our surroundings in North Cascades National Park and take the wisdom of the wilderness home with us.
What’s Included?
$1,999
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Your registration includes a shuttle from Seattle-Tacoma airport to North Cascades Institute, transportation within the park during the event, and a shuttle from North Cascades Institute to a central drop point in Seattle and a stop at Seattle-Tacoma airport. Please plan on the following for travel times:
Flights should arrive no later than 12:00pm PT on June 24th
Flights should depart no earlier than 2:00pm PT on June 28th
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Your retreat registration includes five days, four nights at the North Cascades Institute (NCI) inside North Cascades National Park.
Participant Accommodations: North Cascades Institute offers double-occupancy hostel-style rooms with 2 sets of bunkbeds (four beds total), bedside lights, desks, room to store your personal items, and electrical outlets. In the lodge, there are two bathroom facilities each with two hot showers and two toilets, as well as a shared living space. Linens, blankets, pillows, and towels are provided.
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Since everyone has different needs when in the field, you are encouraged to bring your own snacks. We’ll take care of breakfast, lunch, and dinner on-site:
WEDNESDAY: Dinner
THURSDAY: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
FRIDAY: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
SATURDAY: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
SUNDAY: Breakfast + Lunch
Breakfast and Dinner are served buffet style. The menu for any given meal is decided by the NCI cook team. The kitchen will accommodate vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, dairy-free, egg-free, and gluten-free diets. Guests with more than two dietary restrictions, severe and/or life-threatening food allergies are encouraged to bring their own food as we cannot guarantee no cross-contamination. NCI provides mini fridges, storage bins and a microwave in each lodge for those who bring their own snacks or additional food items. -
Movement becomes meditation in motion. Learn techniques to transform any outdoor activity — hiking, walking, even breathing by a river — into a mindful experience that calms the nervous system and restores balance.
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Facilitated by Sydney and Barry Williams, these sessions blend reflection, storytelling, and nature connection. Step away from the demands of daily life and into a container where you can listen deeply, reconnect with your body, and remember your belonging — to yourself, to each other, and to the land.
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Healing happens in relationship. Together we create a supportive environment rooted in shared humanity, where stories, struggles, and strengths are held with care. Through guided discussion and group reflection, you’ll experience the medicine of community — remembering that you’ve never walked this path alone.
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Reciprocity means giving back to the land that holds us. We’ll provide all the tools and materials for our stewardship project — an opportunity to contribute to the wellbeing of the park and embody reciprocity in action.
North Cascades Institute
The North Cascades Institute (NCI) is on a mission to inspire environmental stewardship through transformative learning experiences in nature. Hosting this program at NCI is reciprocity in action, and directly supports this mission!
📍We acknowledge that our programs with North Cascades Institute take place in the ancestral homelands of Tribes, Bands, and First Nations, including most notably the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Samish Indian Nation, Nooksack Tribe, Lummi Nation, Stó:lō Nation, Nlaka’pamux Nation, Colville Confederated Tribes, Syilx/Okanagan Nation. Curious about the history of the land where you work, live, and play? Native Land is a great starting point for additional research.
Registration is open!
REGISTRATION DEADLINES:
North Cascades Retreat:
February 28, 2026
Foundations only (no retreat):
March 30, 2026
Program Facilitators
We’re here for you.
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ABOUT SYDNEY
Sydney Williams is a keynote speaker, author, and advocate whose journey from a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis and unresolved trauma to the wild trails of self‑discovery turned into a mission: to rekindle our relationship with the land, each other, and ourselves.After more than a decade in digital communications — launching campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and crafting social stories — Sydney traded the boardroom for backcountry trails. Her first major backpacking trips across Catalina Island ignited a realization: healing isn’t just something we find in nature — it is something we practice with it.
In 2018 she founded Hiking My Feelings (HMF), a nonprofit designed to make nature‑based wellness accessible, inclusive, and relational. Under her leadership, HMF has guided thousands of participants through trails, stories, and transformative experiences.
Today, as the founder of Wellness in the Wilderness Consulting and creator of Reciprocity Rx™, Sydney blends lifestyle medicine, somatic reflection, and land‑based learning into a growing library of free resources and an eight‑month certification program that empowers providers, public‑lands professionals, and community stewards to integrate nature‑informed care into their work.
Sydney holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder and has facilitated field‑based workshops across national parks and protected landscapes. Her work has been featured in BBC, Health Magazine, Psychology Today, HuffPost, and on the SXSW and Public Lands Alliance Conference stages.
She lives between the trailhead and the campfire, believing that when we slow down, look around, and lean into the land, the next step isn’t just for us — it’s for the Earth we belong to.
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ABOUT BARRY
Barry Williams went from high-rises to high altitudes — trading a tech career on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a trailer in the backwoods of Maine after a single skydiving experience changed the trajectory of his life. Within 18 months of that first jump, he left the world of Fortune 100 clients behind to pursue instructor ratings in the skydiving industry, eventually building a 16-year career as a professional skydiver and mentor.Originally from New Hampshire, Barry grew up hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains, where he also earned his Wilderness EMT certification. Today, he brings that same sense of adventure, adaptability, and calm under pressure to his work as co-founder of Hiking My Feelings and Wellness in the Wilderness (WITW) Consulting.
Barry is the behind-the-scenes engine and on-the-ground support — co-leading hikes, facilitating retreats, documenting our programs and events with photos and pictures, and ensuring participants feel safe, seen, and supported in the outdoors. He also helps design and deliver custom wellness experiences for public lands agencies, corporate teams, and nonprofit partners, weaving stewardship, story, and movement into every offering.
Inspired by the teachings of Bruce Lee, Alan Watts, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, Barry lives by the mantra “be like water.” Whether he’s cooking a soulful meal, hiking at the pace of purpose, or capturing the perfect moments shared under the stars, Barry shows up with presence — and invites others to do the same.