Alderroot Healing & Renewal
Now Booking: Forest Bathing Camp, & Align and Discern mini retreat
Eco-Spiritual Facilitation Training
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An eight month training for people on a spiritual journey who feel called to guide others. You’ll grow your confidence as a facilitator while exploring your own spirituality and deepening your connection to earth. ​
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Facilitators: Irene Elle Bailey and Dr. Heather Burns
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8 month training November 2025- June 2026
Live & virtual-1 Saturday afternoon and 1 evening a month
In-person retreat in June
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Open to all identities
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You will leave this training with…
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More capacity to trust yourself and live from your values so that you can guide from a more authentic and confident place
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Toolkit of earth-based practices and rituals that strengthen your connection and commitment to earth and spirit to support your personal journey
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More confidence, clarity, and ease in yourself and in your own facilitation style so that you can design and guide meaningful workshops, retreats, and other sacred group experiences
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A greater capacity for mindful awareness and loving presence, so that you can meet these times with greater stability and compassion
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New facilitation skills and resources that will support your eco-spiritual facilitation so that you feel effective and confident
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Supportive community of peers and mentors doing the work alongside you to enrich your journey going forward
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Eco-spiritual facilitation certificate to add your resume and website
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You could stay on the sidelines, thinking you don’t have enough to offer, or not trusting that you have valuable gifts to share. You could continue to question whether you are worthy to lead others or have enough confidence to contribute to collective well-being. You could put off stepping fully into what is yours to do, thinking you don’t have the time or money right now, that you’ll do it at some point, later.
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Or you can listen to that whisper and tug inside you to step into a deeper connection to earth and spirit. You can learn new tools and develop the confidence and courage to effectively guide others sooner, rather than later. You can become a grounded and resourced facilitator through eco-spiritual practices and spiritual growth.
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In today’s world, where uncertainty and disconnection have become pervasive, the need for wise and compassionate guides has never been greater. As individuals and communities grapple with unknowns, anxiety, and a sense of isolation, we can cultivate steadiness and resilience. Guides—whether we are coaches, healers, teachers, nature-based guides, spiritual leaders, or care givers—serve as beacons of wisdom who can support re-connection to ourselves, each other, and the larger web of life.
Facilitating sacred space is not the work of a few; it is an invitation for all of us. Through intentional eco-spiritual facilitation, we can create spaces where people feel seen, heard, and empowered to step into their own capacity for healing and belonging.
Whether you are a long term facilitator or just beginning, you can learn new tools for holding space, fostering deep listening and meaningful dialogue, and creating earth and spirit-based invitations that support healing.
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Are you ready to build the skills and confidence to hold space for healing and re-connection?
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What you'll learn...
In this training you will learn how to choose and commit to personal practices that hydrate your connection to spirit and anchor you in trust.
You will enhance your ability to weave storytelling, ceremony, and micro-rituals into your facilitation style.
You’ll learn how to use your intuition to respond to participants when facilitating, how to hold space for the emotional needs of a group, and how to guide with a trauma-informed lens.
You will learn how to facilitate with spaciousness, trust, and presence, knowing how to accept paradox and non-closure, and how to guide with a light touch.
You’ll know how to create and offer meaningful invitations that are aligned with your unique facilitation style.
You will learn how to design and structure gatherings that support re-connection and transformation.
You will learn how to align your values with your practice as a facilitator, and how to lean into new confidence and clarity in your work.
5 Core Tenets
These tenets are foundational to our work. Throughout the training we will be integrating these tenets into our learning.
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Relationship & Interbeing: Our learning and lives are rooted in interconnected relationships. We can learn to trust that when our path is rooted in interbeing, we have access to intuition, earth wisdom, and deeper knowing. We are committed to creating inclusive relational spaces rooted in healing justice.
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Mindful & Compassionate Awareness: Our approach to our work and ourselves recognizes the need for our loving attention, presence, and compassion in a distracted and overwhelmed world.
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Ecological Wisdom: We work in partnership with the earth and access wisdom directly from the natural world. Emergent ecological design, ritual, and seasonal connection are tools in this unfolding relationship.
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Transformative & Experiential Learning: The learning we guide is participatory, intuitive, emergent, and holds possibility for transformative change. We use tools such as invitation, reflection, and embodied & sensory experience to enhance learning.
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Inherent Wholeness: We believe everyone is inherently whole and deserves to uncover and remember wholeness. We cultivate experiences that deepen relationships, honor grief, and invite joy, playfulness, curiosity, and creativity.​
"Thank you, A million times thank you, thank you. Each class was so personal for me but also just as special in the community building. I feel connected to the land, I feel connected to these people, and I feel connected to myself. Thank you for fostering so much growth."
-Skyler
"Heather shows up so authentically and vulnerably to every class, it is infectious. Her teaching not only helps you see and understand the world better but helps you see and understand yourself better."
-Camilla
This training is rooted in recent research and wisdom from adult learning theories such as contemplative, experiential, and transformative learning, and is strongly informed by an understanding of Spiritual Ecology, New Science, Ecopsychology, Critical Theory, Forest Therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Ceremony, and Rites of Passage work. Additionally, our decades of practical experience as transformative educators and facilitators inform and guide this training.
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This facilitation training not only offers new concepts and relationships but models eco-spiritual facilitation, providing a clear experience of what it feels like and looks like to be an eco-spiritual facilitator. You will also receive a toolkit of practices and have opportunities to practice what you are learning. This training will be small enough so that you'll have the opportunity to build supportive relationships and connections within our learning community.
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Gain clarity and confidence in your ability to hold transformative space for others, knowing that you have the tools and skills to be an intuitive and impactful facilitator of shared sacred spaces.
“Thank you for creating this shared learning experience that touched me deeply and constantly transforms my understanding of life and what our relationship with this earth could look like."
-Noppawan
“One of the most nourishing, peaceful, reflective, and connected experiences I’ve had in years. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I am so thankful for the wisdom of the teachers, the opportunity to practice being vulnerable, to slow down, and to connect with the land.”
-Steph
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What is the 2025-2026 training schedule?Day Long Orientation: November 8 (10:00-4:00 PST / 1:00-7:00 EST) Monthly Workshops: Saturdays, December-May (1-4:00 PST / 4-7:00 EST) 12/13, 1/10, 2/13, 3/13, 4/10, 5/8 Monthly Connection Sessions Wednesdays, November-May (5:00-7:00 PST / 8:00-9:30 EST) 11/19, 12/17, 1/21, 2/25, 3/18, 4/22, 5/20 4-day/3 night In-person Retreat (Yachats, Oregon) June 18-21, 2026 We will be camping and hosting our retreat at Temenos Forest Sanctuary, a private, beautiful, and sacred 5-acre forested property 2 miles north of Yachats. It is truly a spectacular place to camp and call home. The ocean is a 15 minute walk, mostly through the forest, and there are various creeks to enjoy on and around the property. This space offers itself for deep nourishment and calm. Alternate accommodations can be made (hotel/ airbnb) if you prefer not to camp but will be an additional charge.
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What do we mean by Eco-Spiritual?An approach to life rooted in relationships, interconnectedness, reverence, and wholeness. A deep awareness of ourselves as ecological and spiritual beings. A reverence for the magic and mystery of spiritual experience rooted in earth connection. A trust in process and unknowns, in the unfolding of life. Eco-Spirituality has been part of the human experience since the beginning of time. An Eco-Spiritual lens offers a healing response to the climate crisis and other challenges we currently face together.
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What do we mean by Facilitator?A facilitator is someone who eases the way for others, who supports a growth or healing process. The word facilitate comes from the Latin facilis, for "easy." It means to make something easier or more likely to happen. A facilitator may serve in the role of guide, teacher, mentor, coach, healer, or anyone who creates and supports spaces of ease and possibility for others.
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Who is the Eco-Spiritual Facilitation Training & Certification for?This is a non-religious training that welcomes people from all spiritual backgrounds. You are invited to attend virtually from anywhere but will need to make arrangements to attend the in-person retreat in June. Specifically we invite: Forest Therapy and other nature guides Mindfulness and Meditation Teachers Therapists Life and Creative Coaches Yoga and Qigong teachers Somatic Practitioners Acupuncturists Plant medicine guides Artists Energy Workers Herbalists Doulas Social justice & climate activists Conservation and restoration leaders Spiritual leaders Anyone that wants to bring an eco-spiritual approach to their facilitation work
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This training is for you if you are...
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A values-based practitioner or guide who would like to feel more confident facilitating groups
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Wanting to deepen your connection to yourself and the earth, and learn how to skillfully facilitate learning and healing in partnership with the earth
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Curious about how to facilitate transformative adult learning that inspires meaning and invites change
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Needing the flexibility of virtual learning. You are able to commit to a relational learning process with fixed meeting times and a culminating in-person retreat
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Looking for ways to commit time and space to your learning and growth
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Wanting to connect with like-hearted others in a learning process that is emergent, supportive, and deeply relational
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a nature or forest therapy guide, an organizational facilitator, a garden-based or wilderness guide, an outdoor educator, a healer, a coach, a teacher, or someone on a spiritual path.
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This training is for you if you are longing to...
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Expand your capacity to trust yourself allowing intuition and wisdom to guide you and your work
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Make a commitment to your personal well-being through eco-spiritual practices
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Hold sacred spaces for others, with skill and confidence
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Learn practical and proven methods for designing and facilitating eco-spiritual learning
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Integrate more self-reflection and spiritual growth into your life
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Move beyond our dominant cultural norms, dismantle systems of oppression, and live and work with more ease, confidence, and creativity
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Be in a supportive community with others who are exploring their spiritual paths
Irene has a great way of making a gathering feel warm, welcoming and easy. Time with Temenos groups makes me feel connected to myself, to others, and to nature....the perfect reset and check in with myself, how I am feeling, and where my energies are being spent.”
-Amy
Format and Timing:
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This 8 month training begins with a day-long virtual retreat on November 8, 2025 and culminates with a 3 night in-person retreat in June 2026 (on the Oregon Coast). Each month from November to May there will be 2 participatory virtual sessions; one 3 hour Saturday session and one 2 hour Wednesday session per month (see below for specific dates). We expect people to participate as fully as possible and understand that you may need to miss a session. Due to the participatory nature of the sessions, we will record as much as possible.
Virtual sessions are designed to be participatory, meaningful, and relational. These sessions will include check-ins, contemplative practices, earth connection practices (on screen and with invitations to go off screen and come back), small group activities, reflective journaling, and more.
Each month we focus on a specific theme with content that aligns with the season and guides us into deeper knowing and ability in our eco-spiritual facilitation practice. Every month you will receive new facilitation tools, resources, and reflective and contemplative practices to support your learning.
Meet your Facilitators:
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Dr. Heather Burns (she/her) has been a scholar and facilitator of eco-spiritual learning for over 20+ years as a university professor and through her business, Alderroot Healing & Renewal. She holds space for transformative healing and wholeness rooted in relationships and interbeing. She has extensive experience teaching others how to design and facilitate eco-spiritual and sustainability learning, and she is an experienced designer and facilitator of participatory, experiential, contemplative, and transformative learning experiences. Over the years, she has deepened her intuitive facilitation skills through guiding retreats, forest therapy experiences, courses in spirituality and deep ecology, and personal mentorship.
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Heather holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership in Sustainability, an MA in Women Studies and Adult Education, and a BA in Psychology. She was the director of the Leadership for Sustainability Education graduate program for many years and has published numerous articles on transformative and eco-spiritual learning. She is the author of the book Transformative Sustainability Pedagogy: Designing and Facilitating Eco-Spiritual Learning.
Heather is also a certified forest therapy guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, a Reiki master, and a certified permaculture designer. Heather believes that we all need mindful support and inclusive spaces of gentle care and guidance as we struggle in these times of climate crisis and crumbling social systems. She knows healing is supported by remembering our connection to the living earth and by truly feeling our sense of belonging in this wise beautiful world. She supports finding renewal and joy in learning to listen to our bodies, and in direct reconnection to our spirits, the more than human world, and each other.
Heather calls Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest her home. She finds joy in her daily contemplative practices, tending her large polyculture garden, forest wandering, and ocean and river swimming. She is also an avid reader, writer, and creative designer of eco-spiritual experiences.
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Irene Elle Bailey (she/her) is a designer and facilitator of nature connection and mindfulness offerings that support the remembering that we are intimately and inseparably connected to all life. As a creator of spaces for cultivating trust, courage, intuition, and wisdom, Irene has supported hundreds on their path to living a more connected, authentic, and joyful life. Over the past 20 years, she has worked with numerous environmental and sustainability education programs. She is the founder and director of Temenos Rising where she shares retreats, workshops, forest bathing walks, and mentorship, all held in deep relationship with the natural world.
Irene holds an MS in Leadership for Sustainability Education from Portland State University and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide with the Association for Nature and Forest Therapy. She has trained with the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies as a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain and continues to train in ceremony and rites of passage work with the School of Lost Borders.
Irene believes wholeheartedly in the transformation and deep healing that is possible when we allow the more than human world to be a wise teacher and cultivate a felt sense of interbeing. Irene supports the creation of safer spaces in the natural world so that others can get the healing and nourishment they deserve to live well.
Irene calls the Oregon coast home where she enjoys hiking, hanging out with big trees, surfing, practicing meditation, foraging for mushrooms and seaweed, and taking romps with her partner and pup. She brings her whole self to this work for the benefit of all beings.
Cost:
$2995-4495 (Sliding Scale)
4 month and 8 month payment plans available.
at the lowest rate payment plans will be $749 for 4 months, or $375 for 8 months
$500 deposit with application
This deposit is applied towards the total cost.
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Payment, Refund & Cancellation Policy/Payment Plan Details: ​Payments, Refund, & Cancellation Policy: Full payment is due 60 days before the training start date (or at the time of registration if the training will start in less than 60 days). Cancellation received 90 or more days before training start date: Full refund minus $200 administrative fee Cancellation received 60-90 days before training start date: Refund of 25% of amount paid. Cancellation received 59 days or less before training start date: We will not be able to offer any refund. * There are no refunds available once the training program starts. Payment Plans: We offer payment plans for no extra charge. For those in need, we are able to offer a few payment plans that are billed monthly throughout the training. Priority will be given to folks with financial need who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color, trans, queer, disabled, or single parents. * Please email us for options and set up a plan that works for you.
Inclusivity:
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We ask that our participants be committed to the ongoing learning and awareness of how white supremacy negatively impacts all life, especially Black and Brown people. In an effort to support an inclusive space, we know this work, this dismantling of systemic oppression, is essential to sharing healing spaces and to supporting the collective liberation for all beings.
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What is the 2025-2026 training schedule?Day Long Orientation: November 8 (10:00-4:00 PST / 1:00-7:00 EST) Monthly Workshops: Saturdays, December-May (1-4:00 PST / 4-7:00 EST) 12/13, 1/10, 2/13, 3/13, 4/10, 5/8 Monthly Connection Sessions Wednesdays, November-May (5:00-7:00 PST / 8:00-9:30 EST) 11/19, 12/17, 1/21, 2/25, 3/18, 4/22, 5/20 4-day/3 night In-person Retreat (Yachats, Oregon) June 18-21, 2026 We will be camping and hosting our retreat at Temenos Forest Sanctuary, a private, beautiful, and sacred 5-acre forested property 2 miles north of Yachats. It is truly a spectacular place to camp and call home. The ocean is a 15 minute walk, mostly through the forest, and there are various creeks to enjoy on and around the property. This space offers itself for deep nourishment and calm. Alternate accommodations can be made (hotel/ airbnb) if you prefer not to camp but will be an additional charge.
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What do we mean by Eco-Spiritual?An approach to life rooted in relationships, interconnectedness, reverence, and wholeness. A deep awareness of ourselves as ecological and spiritual beings. A reverence for the magic and mystery of spiritual experience rooted in earth connection. A trust in process and unknowns, in the unfolding of life. Eco-Spirituality has been part of the human experience since the beginning of time. An Eco-Spiritual lens offers a healing response to the climate crisis and other challenges we currently face together.
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What do we mean by Facilitator?A facilitator is someone who eases the way for others, who supports a growth or healing process. The word facilitate comes from the Latin facilis, for "easy." It means to make something easier or more likely to happen. A facilitator may serve in the role of guide, teacher, mentor, coach, healer, or anyone who creates and supports spaces of ease and possibility for others.
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Who is the Eco-Spiritual Facilitation Training & Certification for?This is a non-religious training that welcomes people from all spiritual backgrounds. You are invited to attend virtually from anywhere but will need to make arrangements to attend the in-person retreat in June. Specifically we invite: Forest Therapy and other nature guides Mindfulness and Meditation Teachers Therapists Life and Creative Coaches Yoga and Qigong teachers Somatic Practitioners Acupuncturists Plant medicine guides Artists Energy Workers Herbalists Doulas Social justice & climate activists Conservation and restoration leaders Spiritual leaders Anyone that wants to bring an eco-spiritual approach to their facilitation work
“Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers may take many forms: Animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor…”
-Joy Harjo
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In-Person Retreat Details
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Dates: June 18-21, 2026
Together we will gather for an in-person retreat where we will reflect on our learning in this program while being held by the earth and each other. With deep time in the forest and by the ocean, this retreat will offer nourishment and renewal, and will invite us to practice slowness, spaciousness, rest, and ritual. At this retreat, we will map and share our journeys of eco-spiritual facilitation, and each person is invited to practice facilitating an eco-spiritual learning experience. We will also set clear intentions for our continued work as facilitators, and will hold a completion ceremony.
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Location: Yachats, Oregon
We will be camping at Temenos Forest Sanctuary, a private, beautiful, and sacred 5-acre forested property 2 miles north of Yachats. It is truly a spectacular place to camp and call home for a few days. The ocean is a 15 minute walk, mostly through the forest, and there are various creeks to enjoy on and around the property. This space offers itself for deep nourishment and calm. You will likely go home having the land and its inhabitants wedged deeply into your heart.
What is included:
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Opportunities for deep connection to self, community, & the natural world so that you return refreshed, inspired and excited.
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Delicious healthy meals so that you can focus fully on your learning
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Private forest location to camp (option to stay nearby in a hotel/airbnb for an additional cost) to be immersed in nature
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Sacred space to explore and wander so that you can integrate your learning in an experiential way
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Sound & energy healing session to amplify your connection to self and earth
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Opportunity to practice your eco-spiritual facilitation style and receive feedback so that you can amplify your skills and confidence.
What is not included:
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Travel to and from the retreat (Central Oregon Coast)
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Camping gear
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Alternate accommodations if you prefer not to camp (hotels and other nearby accommodations are available). This must be arranged individually but please reach out for suggestions.