High-quality mentorship, social, active+unplugged time in the outdoors
What is Teen Forest Adventures?
TFA is an all-outdoor, screen-free summer camp and homeschool enrichment program for teens in the greater Asheville area. We use play, survival skills, and outdoor adventures to foster confidence, resilience, and creativity in tomorrow's leaders. We believe in mentorship - that individual connection between instructor and student that allows us to know what challenge will help each teenager grow in the way they need at that moment.
Why all-outdoor?
Connection to nature is at the core of everything we do, whether it's fire building, songwriting, or foraging for wild foods. We strongly believe that each and every person has a right to a connection to nature, and that connection deepens our relationship with ourselves and each other. We think that connection can only be built through “dirt time”, hours of time outside in all conditions.
Why screen-free?
By now most of us have heard about the harm that social media and screen time is doing to our kids - the word is out everywhere, whether its books like The Anxious Generation or movies like The Social Dilemma. But what have you heard about what happens when those screens are removed? At TFA, we see what happens every day - teens talk and laugh, they play with abandon, and they start to shift into a space of awareness and connection. Connection to each other is so important for teenagers, and that connection is much deeper and more honest when it's mediated by nature, not their phones.
Why should I trust Teen Forest Adventures with my teenager?
TFA isn't like many traditional summer camps - we don't hire off-season college students or recently graduated campers to teach at our camp. All of our staff are professional outdoor educators with many years of experience guiding kids, teens, and adults on hiking and camping trips, and through conflicts or difficult conversations. Our director created TFA to meet the need for top-quality teen mentorship for her own daughter, and continues to hold us to the same high standard she wanted as a parent.
Where is Teen Forest Adventures located?
TFA uses a unique model for our programming - with a central location in Asheville for pick-up and drop-off, and a van to transport students to our many different wilderness locations for the day’s exploration. Day camps may use a different location every day. This is a great way for teens to learn about new places to hike in the Asheville area - we're always hearing from our families about how much they love going back to places they first found through TFA!
Teen forest adventures Team
Tiffanie Pope (she/her), Director
Tiffanie Pope is a homeschooling mom, passionate cook, gardener, artist, and craftsperson who lives outside of Asheville with her husband, daughter, and landmates - human, furry and feathered. After building a diverse background in performing arts and cooking, she was led to nature connection, cultural mentoring, and rites of passage work in 2012.
She quickly dove in. She studied, trained and served on staff teams to support live and online events with Jon Young and the 8 Shields Institute, as well as Sal Gencarelle and the Helpers Mentoring Society. These studies continue today - Jon’s organization now Living Connection 1st - and Tiffanie serves on the HMS mentoring team for their international programming.
She also served on the Board of Directors of the Earthskills Rendezvous organization 2018 through 2024.
Tiffanie believes a deep personal relationship with the natural world is profoundly and fundamentally important - accessing awe and wonder, meaning, inner and outer fulfillment, creativity, belonging, and love while simultaneously healing the past and finding a way to the future. Through Teen Forest Adventures, she is thrilled to be able to connect quality mentors to teens in the Asheville area.
Nico Piedrahita (he/him), Program Director
and Mentor
Since he was a kid, Nico's always wanted to live in the woods. Beginning with the immersive living experience at Wild Roots Community, for the last 12 years, he's been fulfilling that dream, living off-grid in the mountains around Asheville, and studying the skills and knowledge it takes to meet his own needs from the land. That “simple" act, of meeting a need for himself, ties him closer to the land and all the beings around him. His main areas of focus have been hide tanning and woodworking, and he now runs a business tanning hides, carving spoons and bowls, and teaching these skills to the local community.
Nico’s playfulness, relaxed attitude and passion make him a favorite mentor for humans of all ages. He attended Wild Leaders in 2017 to deepen his mentoring skills. He has instructed through Asheville area nature connection programs and Earthskills gatherings for over ten years.
Troy Pope (he/him) - CFO, Rockstar-Behind-the-Scenes
Anyone with a supportive partner knows that even if one person gets the credit, they don’t do what they do solo. TFA never would have begun without Troy. He has been integral every step of the way. From researching insurance, to copy editing, to changing the oil in the van and everything in between, Troy Pope has his fingerprint on TFA.
Thanks, Troy!
Chelsea Spitzer (they/she), Mentor
Chelsea is an artist, a musician and a lifelong student of the natural world. Her first and most impactful teachers were the birds, trees and creeks in the ecosystem where she grew up: an island of protected forest within the urban sprawl of Baltimore city. Her mother instilled in her a deep respect for nature and helped nurture her budding passion for learning about plants and animals by sending her to various camps at the local nature center. In college, Chelsea began to find her identity as a facilitator and teacher, as president of the hiking and camping clubs and as a supplemental instructor. After graduating with a psychology degree, she realized she needed to find work that expressed her love of the natural world and began her path as an outdoor educator. This began first with an after school program she created, and continued in a forest program at the Waldorf school of Baltimore based in the pedagogical lineage of Jon Young. She went on to work year round programs for the DC-based school Ancestral Knowledge where she was introduced to earthskills gatherings and community. As a counselor for their summer camps, she was also introduced to working with teens through training them to be counselors. She deepened her mentoring skills in 2019/2020 supporting Michael Ismerio with the teen programs at the Falling Leaves and Florida Earthskills gatherings, and discovered how meaningful and important it felt to work with this age group. After these experiences, Chelsea was thrilled when she was invited to start a teen program in Maryland in collaboration with the Remembrance Park project. This ran successfully for several seasons, until she decided to move to WNC to be around more people living closely with the earth through earthskills. While in WNC, she has continued to create programming for youth of all ages, including teens, through her work with earthskills gatherings, such as the Firefly Gathering, where she coordinates youth and teen programs. She is very excited to continue on this path of mentorship with Teen Forest Adventures in the coming year.
Scotty Greenheart (he/him), Mentor
Scotty’s first experience with plants was growing up with his mother in her suburban Maryland garden. He received his degree in Industrial Engineering from Penn State University in 2007. When Scotty was introduced to Permaculture on a WWOOF farm in 2008, he realized he was able to apply his engineering brain to living systems. Scotty received his PDC in 2009 and immediately started getting hands-on experience.
Scotty moved to Asheville in 2010 and has been learning alongside the mountains and the ecologies here ever since. Scotty deepened his knowledge of plants in herbalism school with the Chestnut School of Herbal medicine in 2011. In 2016, Scotty and four other friends founded Sun Song Community in Barnardsville, NC. The purpose of this community is to tend the Earth together, raise children in community, and contribute to life through healing and holistic community events and workshops.
Scotty is passionate about nature connection and mentoring children and adults to feel more connected to the natural world. He has spent 8 years working for Forest Floor Wilderness programs as a nature connection mentor. Scotty is also passionate about young men’s rites of passage work and has been working with Mountain Wisdom and Boy’s Sacred Fire since 2016.
Scotty and his wife Maayan run Soul Gardens which aims to connect people to the cycles and rhythms of the Earth, facilitate folks gaining a deeper understanding of themselves, and to celebrate beauty. He is a proud father, community member, mentor, and earth tender.
Jennifer Friedman (she/her), Mentor
Jen has been devoted to the empowerment of young people for over a decade now. She believes a more vital world can be born from humans growing up able to experience a deep sense of connection in their lives to the world around and within them. Some settings she has mentored within include a Montessori preschool in Louisiana, a Waldorf farm school for teens with disabilities in Pennsylvania, a forest school and a teen rite-of-passage program in Vermont. You can often find Jen cultivating community, attending ancestral skills gatherings, playing games, talking to trees, gardening, making candles, cooking, wondering about plants, swimming, contemplating mythology, and being a silly goose.
“Time in nature is not leisure time;
it’s an essential investment in our children’s health.”
~ Richard Louv
☽☼☔︎☾♢☆♡
Learn more about our weekly homeschool programs for teens.