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Sierra Nevada Nature Journaling Retreat
with John Muir Laws, Robin Lee Carlson, and Mark Simmons
August 3-8, 2025

Join John Muir Laws, experienced artists and nature journaling educators Robin Lee Carlson and Mark Simmons, and special guest Dr. Nina Sokolov for a 6-day nature journaling retreat in the Sierra Nevada on the Yuba River, near Sierra City, California.

Join us for a joyful, peaceful, and rejuvenating 6-day, 5-night nature journaling retreat in the stunning Lake Tahoe region of the Sierra Nevadas, one of the most beautiful areas in California. This retreat is designed to energize your nature journal practice while inspiring you, challenging you, and encouraging meaningful connections with nature, fellow journalers, and yourself. Nature journalers of all experience levels are welcome—everyone will have lots to learn.

Throughout the week, we will explore the breathtaking beauty of the Sierra Nevada region as we journal landscapes, birds, and the other natural wonders around us. We'll rise early to sketch the sunrise at Sierra Valley—often called the Serengeti of the Sierra—and stay up late searching for owls and other nocturnal creatures, sketching the stars in the clear night sky. Each day will bring new opportunities for journaling, exploration, and relaxation.

Our schedule includes morning walks, evening talks, and campfires with s'mores and music. We'll have field lunches and opportunities to swim in the crystal-clear lakes of the Sierra or take a peaceful nap in the woods. 

Throughout the week, our instructors will offer workshops on various nature journaling topics and provide informal tutorials to guide you in your practice. Jack, author of The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada will provide expert guidance on the natural history of the area. We will also discuss different ways of keeping journals and share tips on how to develop habits that keep you actively journaling while maintaining a growth mindset.

You will come away with a journal full of beautiful memories, new journaling friends, and the tools, inspiration, and motivation to continue your nature journaling journey. 

Please review the detailed information below before you register, including teacher bios, ticket price options, and cancellation policy.

LOCATION
Our retreat will be held at the San Francisco State University Sierra Nevada Field Campus (map here), a popular summer camp for adults. We will be the only group using the campus during this time. Located right on the Yuba River, the campus is rustic and comfortable, with a dining hall, two classrooms, shared bathrooms, open air showers, a fire pit, tall trees, dark nights with amazing stars, and lots of quiet. 

We are partnering with Big Springs Retreat Center, located 3 miles down the road, to provide additional single and double rooms in modern luxury cabins with shared indoor bathrooms and all linens included. The Big Springs Retreat campus sits on 118 forested acres with a naturalized Japanese garden surrounding a one acre spring-fed pond. The trails around the immediate center are mostly flat and easy to navigate. The trails heading up the mountain are an easy gradient (for the most part) with plenty of meandering switchbacks. Guests staying at Big Springs will need to bring a car or carpool in order to get to the Field Campus each day.

SCHEDULE
Please plan to arrive at the Field Campus as early as 2:30pm and no later than 4pm on Sunday, August 3, so that you can get situated in your accommodations, take a deep breath of mountain air, and be ready for dinner and our first evening’s gathering. The retreat will end after lunch on Friday, August 8. Each day will be fun, full, and long, and participants may opt out of classes or field trips at their discretion. Our hikes will be gentle—most will be slow and less than 1 mile. Registered participants will receive a detailed schedule as well as a suggested packing list closer to the event.

Our special guest, Dr. Nina Sokolov, will join our group for one day during the retreat.

ACCOMODATIONS
The Sierra Nevada Field Campus celebrated its 75th season in 2024. A beloved summer camp for adults, it is remote, rustic, comfortable, with tent cabins among tall trees along the Yuba River, a central dining hall and classroom building, and open-air shared bathrooms and shower facilities. It is not a luxury lodge—more like cushy camping, where someone else takes care of all the meal planning, cooking, and dishes, and you get to play in nature all day. You may choose to stay in a shared large Field Campus tent cabin (one couple or 2 people of the same gender per tent—each tent has two raised platforms with a twin mattress and you are responsible for bringing your own bedding/sleeping bag, no electricity) OR you can bring your own tent or small (20ft long and under) camper/RV (no sewer or electrical hookups available). Single tent cabins are not available. NOTE: Regardless of which accommodation option you choose, all meals are included and there is not a registration option that does not include meals.

This year, we are excited to partner with Big Springs Retreat Center to provide additional rooms in four large and modern upscale cabins, beautifully situated beneath the pines, that sleep between five to nine people in single or double (one couple or 2 people of the same gender) rooms. Each cabin has two and a half shared bathrooms. In addition there are two ADA-accessible rooms. All of the cabins have a shared tea station and small refrigerator for personal items.

MEALS
All meals will be served at the Sierra Nevada Field Campus. Retreat tickets include dinner on Sunday, August 3 through lunch on Friday, August 8 no matter which housing option you choose. The kitchen will accommodate your dietary restrictions, and we will send registered participants a survey to gather that information later in the summer. Meals are served buffet style in a simple dining hall with an attached deck. There is a hot breakfast and dinner served each day, and lunch fixings are set out with breakfast so you can make yourself lunch for the field. Coffee, tea, and water are available all day. No food is allowed in any tents or tent cabins due to bears, but there is a dry goods and small refrigerated storage area fir attendees in the dining hall if you choose to bring additional snacks for yourself. Big Springs residents may have snacks and cold items in their cabins.

TRANSPORTATION
The nearest airport is Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO). We do not offer airport transfers, but we are happy to help connect participants to share rides to/from the airport. We also encourage participants driving from similar geographic areas to carpool, and we will help participants connect about those options. NOTE: We will be taking several field trips during the week that require driving, and participants will share rides with those who have cars.

SCHOLARSHIPS
The Wild Wonder Foundation is committed to inclusiveness, respect, and equal opportunity for everyone as we nurture and celebrate a diverse, global community of nature journalers. We have a very limited number of partial scholarships available. Those who face economic barriers, underrepresentation, and/or historic marginalization are eligible for financial support, and we will give scholarship priority to those most in need of assistance. Learn more and apply here.

COST

There are housing options at 2 locations this year: the Sierra Nevada Field Campus and Big Springs (a few miles away). All tickets include all meals. All rates shown are per person.

  • $1550–Off-site ticket, you will need to book your own sleeping arrangements

  • $1850–Field Campus: Bring your own small (under 20 ft) camper/RV *(no electricity or sewer hookups are available) - SOLD OUT

  • $1850–Field Campus: Bring your own tent

  • $1960–Field Campus: Double occupancy field campus tent with 2 twin mattresses on a wooden platform (two people per tent, bring your own sleeping bag or bedding). No single tent cabins are available.

  • $2650–Big Springs: Twin bed in a double occupancy room with private bath (bedding and towels included, ADA accessible)

  • $3120–Big Springs: Twin XL bed in a private room with shared bath (bedding and towels included)

  • $3230–Big Springs: Full bed in a private room with shared bath (bedding and towels included) - SOLD OUT

  • $3380–Big Springs: Queen bed in a private room with shared bath (bedding and towels included)

*Each RV with a single participant requires one RV ticket. Additional participants in the RV will need their own off-site or camping ticket.

Big Springs has limited (2) double occupancy ADA-accessible rooms.

This retreat has capacity for 40-50 participants.

Is your preferred option sold out? Please fill out the Wild Wonder Retreats Wait List form asap. We get cancellations and will fill the open spaces in the order that wait list entries are received.

TRAVEL INSURANCE
We require all participants to purchase travel insurance that includes cancellation and medical evacuation. This is to ensure that you protect yourself financially if you experience illness before departure, cancelled flights, lost baggage, or a medical incident during the event OR if we have to cancel the event due to local emergencies such as wildfire, flood, or global health crises. We recommend Travelguard for this insurance, but you are free to choose the carrier that works best for you. Cost varies depending on your age, home state, and total travel costs, but it’s affordable and well worth the peace of mind it offers. Allianz Travel, Seven Corners, Travelex, and Faye are all highly rated travel insurance providers with options for trip cancellation coverage.

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS

If you cancel on/before June 18, 2025, you will receive a refund minus a $450 cancellation fee. If you cancel after that date, there will be no refunds. Please ensure that you purchase travel insurance, so in the event that you need to cancel, the insurance can cover reimbursement of expenses.

You may arrange to transfer your ticket to someone else (meaning you find someone else to buy your ticket from you and you arrange that transaction) by July 3, 2025 for a $250 fee.

Note: Refunds can take 3-5 business days to process.

RETREAT EXPECTATIONS

To ensure a positive, supportive, and healthy experience, we ask that all retreat participants read, understand, and agree to the following:

QUESTIONS?
Please begin by reviewing our Frequently Asked Questions (located at the bottom of this page) to see if your question is answered there. If not, please reach out to us at retreats@wildwonder.org, and we will respond as soon as possible, typically within 3 business days. Please note that we are a small team with limited staffing.

Note: Our retreat tickets tend to sell out quickly, so we anticipate a fully booked event.

Meet Your Leaders

  • Picture of John Muir Laws with his journal in front of a tree

    John Muir Laws

    A principal leader and innovator of the worldwide nature journaling movement, John Muir Laws (aka Jack) is an award-winning naturalist, artist, author, scientist, and educator who has dedicated nearly four decades of his life to connecting people to nature through art and science. The co-founder of Wild Wonder Foundation, Jack is the author of several books, including the Laws Guide to the Sierra Nevada, Sierra Birds, Sierra Wildflowers, and the Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling. He has taught nature journaling for more than 4 decades, and his passion, curiosity, and generosity are legendary. MORE

  • Robin Lee Carlson

    Robin Lee Carlson is a natural science illustrator and the author of The Cold Canyon Fire Journals. She builds careful observations of the natural world into deeper commentary on ecology and climate change, and her work centers on field sketching ecoreportage, living documentation of the ever-accelerating transformation of ecosystems by human activity. Her work has appeared in The Common, the literary journal of Amherst College, and in Arnoldia, the magazine of the Harvard University Arboretum. She teaches online and in-person workshops that combine drawing, painting, and natural history. Robin is one of the recipients of the Fireline Fellowship, part of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections Program in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon. MORE

  • Mark Simmons

    Mark Simmons is a freelance illustrator and cartoonist, specializing in comics and graphic storytelling. He's illustrated educational comics and animated operas about heroic animals, doomed sea adventures, and tragic mountaineering expeditions, as well as teaching figure drawing at the Academy of Art University and classes in cartooning, fast sketching, and wildlife illustration for SF Bay Area institutions such as the Nature Journal Club, the San Francisco Zoo, and the Cartoon Art Museum. He's particularly fond of bugs, fish, vintage cars, giant robots, and weird perspective drawing. MORE

  • Special Guest: Dr. Nina Sokolov

    Our special guest, Dr. Nina Sokolov, will join our group for one day during the retreat.

    Dr. Nina Sokolov is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley in Dr. Mike Boots' lab. She studies the viruses that infect managed and native bees of California and considers herself a disease ecologist and an entomologist. She is interested in understanding how crop pollination events impact the emergence of new diseases in bees. She has developed several field systems, including one in the Sierra Nevada mountains, studying virus dynamics between managed honeybees and native bees to understand the directionality of viral spillover (i.e. who is giving the disease to who?). Here she has found populations of the imperiled western bumblebee (Bombus occidentalis), a species that is in the process of being listed as endangered by the state of California. With her work, Nina aims to use her research to inform ecologically minded disease management strategies to protect pollinators. 


    In addition to being a scientist, Nina is an artist who uses a range of traditional and digital mediums to illustrate the natural world. This comes from being continuously creatively inspired by nature as a muse and using art to understand natural phenomena more deeply. Armed with a microscope and pen in hand, she draws insects' unique and almost alien attributes. Illustrating trains her observational skills and gives her "the eyes to see" the microscopic differences between species. With over 1,600 species of bees in California alone, art is also an invaluable skill for her science. Currently, she is working on a bee coloring book to educate people on the high diversity of native bees in California as a way to help inspire the conservation of less well-known species.

Retreat Frequently Asked Questions

  • Please see each retreat page for specific dates. If you cancel 45 days or more before the retreat, you will receive a refund minus a $450 cancellation fee. There are no refunds after that period. You may arrange to transfer your ticket to someone else (meaning you find someone else to buy your ticket from you and you arrange that transaction) up to 30 days prior to the retreat for a transfer fee of $250.

  • Please review the Wild Wonder Foundation COVID Policy.

  • Yes, we ask that you buy travel insurance to protect you if you have to cancel or leave early. Please review each retreat’s cancellation policy carefully. If you choose not to purchase travel insurance and need to cancel after the cancellation deadline, we will be unable to refund your ticket costs. This is due to the non-refundable expenses that the organization incurs while planning an event of this nature. We require participants to purchase travel insurance to ensure you are financially protected in the event of an unexpected cancellation. Thank you for your understanding.

  • The travel insurance requirement is in place to protect participants in the event of unexpected last-minute cancellations, which we unfortunately cannot refund. For example, if you were to fall ill or test positive for COVID right before the trip, travel insurance would help cover both the ticket fee and any other expenses, like flights.

    Additionally, some participants purchase emergency medical coverage as part of their travel insurance plan, especially if they are traveling from out of state where their health insurance may not be accepted or may not provide full coverage.

    We want to ensure you're fully protected should anything unexpected arise, and travel insurance is the best way to safeguard your investment.

  • We will provide registered participants with a high-level schedule approximately 2 weeks prior to the start of retreat. Note: because outdoor retreats can be subject to unpredictable weather and changing conditions, we are not able to offer a detailed hour-by-hour itinerary. Instead, we maintain a flexible, high-level schedule that allows us to adjust as needed in order to best accommodate the group and the environment. This flexibility helps us ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience, regardless of unforeseen circumstances.

  • Yes, you may send your rooming preferences to us and we will accommodate where possible.

  • Double occupancy and group room tickets are for participants who will share a room with one or more people. If you have a specific friend or person you’d like to room with, feel free to email us at retreats@wildwonder.org to make that request. Otherwise, roommates will be randomly assigned.

    Please note that group rooms (for 3 or more people) may include mixed-gender assignments, while double occupancy rooms will be assigned same-gender roommates. None of these options involve sharing a bed—each bed is separate, and the bed type is listed in the ticket details.

  • No, we cannot provide refunds after the cancellation deadline.

  • No. Tickets are only available for the full retreat. 

  • This is an option for some retreats including the Point Reyes retreat, the Sierra Nevada retreat, and the Bainbridge Island retreat that offer off-site tickets. NOTE: All tickets include all meals, and there is no ticket that does not include meals.

  • No.

  • Children over 12 may attend when accompanied by an adult who is responsible for the young person’s supervision at all times. The child will require a separate ticket and there is no discount for children.

    Note: Additional paperwork for children will be required.

  • Yes. We will survey participants ahead of the retreat to gather food requirements.

  • Yes, we have a small number of partial scholarships for each retreat–click here for the application. Note: Retreats sell out quickly, and we hold a small number of spots for scholarships. If you apply for a scholarship and do not receive it, all retreats will likely be sold out by the time you are notified.

  • Due to the nature of our retreat locations and activities, most of our venues involve walking on uneven terrain and navigating steps or irregular ground. Activities at the retreats often include walking on trails, sometimes up to a mile. While all activities are optional, participants who require accommodations may find that they are unable to fully participate in some of the outdoor activities.

    Our most accessible venue this year is IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, WA. This venue offers a variety of accessible features, including ADA-compliant bathrooms, lodging, parking, and trails. There are also staff members available at the retreat to provide golf cart rides to assist participants with getting around the campus as needed. Please note that some off-site activities may not be fully accessible, and we may use campus paths that are not ADA-compliant during the retreat.

    At our Sierra Retreat this year, we offer some lodging options at Big Springs, including several ADA-compliant rooms. However, please note that most of our outdoor activities will involve dirt trails and uneven terrain. The field campus itself is not paved, so participants will need to navigate dirt paths and stairs to reach the dining hall.

    We want to ensure that everyone has the best experience possible, so please feel free to reach out if you have specific accessibility needs or concerns. We’ll do our best to accommodate.

  • While we can’t guarantee that everyone in your group will get a spot in the same room or that tickets will still be available when you sign up (our tickets can sell out quickly at times), we recommend having one person purchase all the tickets for your group at once. This gives you the best chance of securing all the spots together.

    If you're unable to get all the tickets you wanted, consider exploring some of our other room options. Alternatively, you can cancel or reach out to us about a ticket transfer if you're interested.

    We encourage you to carefully review our cancellation policy before purchasing your tickets. Please note that Wild Wonder incurs non-refundable transaction fees when tickets are purchased, so we are unable to offer a full refund once a ticket has been purchased.

  • Fill out the Wild Wonder Retreats Wait List form if you are interested in attending a retreat but the tickets are sold out. We will contact you in the order you sign up if a spot opens up or a ticket transfer is available.

  • Retreats and other paid events enable Wild Wonder to offer many low-cost and free events each year. Retreat pricing reflects the costs of paying experienced instructors and support staff, high quality food and experienced catering staff, and ensuring a quality experience for all participants. In addition, a portion of each ticket price supports retreat scholarships.

  • If you cannot find the information you need in the retreat description or FAQs, please reach out to us at retreats@wildwonder.org, and we will respond as soon as possible, typically within 3 business days. Please note that we are a small team with limited staffing.