08/25/2026
Two Years on the Trail 🤎🌿✨️
In just a few weeks, Appalachian Wildlings Forest School will celebrate two years since our first gathering at Rivercane Walk.
It began with a little wagon, some ropes and tarps, a few drinks and snacks, and a dream for our family to share something special with local families outside in nature.
The response was more than we ever imagined.
We started small and thought big, investing the time, energy, and seed money needed to help that dream take root. Since then, every season has looked different. We have explored new places, tried new things, made plenty of adjustments, and learned so much along the way.
Just as the wheel of the year unfolds differently each time it turns, so has Forest School.
We have developed four complete seasonal frameworks rooted in the natural rhythms of Southern Appalachia. We have shared hands-on outdoor experiences, field trips, workshops, stewardship opportunities, clubs, and public-school outreach. We have also built relationships with some wonderful local people and organizations who have generously shared their knowledge, passions, and spaces with us.
Most importantly, we have watched deep learning happen through curiosity, play, problem-solving, relationships, and connection to place. We have learned alongside the children and families through every adventure, challenge, and seasonal shift.
Whether you stayed on the trail with us for a long journey or joined us for a short trek, you helped Appalachian Wildlings become what it is today.
Our family is incredibly grateful for every volunteer, collaborator, family, and community member who believed in what we were creating.
Because our offerings have shifted and remained at capacity with a large waitlist, we regularly receive questions about what is happening next and how families can sign up.
At this moment, there is nothing open for registration.
That feels very strange to say, but this is a pause, not an ending.
Appalachian Wildlings has operated entirely through volunteer labor and donations, using public land and temporary private land-use agreements. This has allowed us to keep creating and exploring, but it has also made consistency and sustainability difficult from one season to the next.
At the same time, I have entered a new season of my own.
This fall, I began graduate school in Experiential and Outdoor Education. For me, this is an intentional step toward becoming formally qualified as an experiential and outdoor educator.
It is an opportunity to build upon years of hands-on experience with expert guidance, research-backed approaches, and a deeper understanding of how to intentionally guide learning through experience and reflection.
Choosing this formal education as my path is not a measure of the value or ability of other educators. I deeply admire the many local families who educate their own children, and I have learned so much from the thoughtful, creative, and individualized ways they approach learning.
I also deeply admire our local educators who advocate for the individual child while working within a rigid system that demands so much of them, often extending into their unpaid personal time. To the educators committed to the children in our public schools, I see you, and I appreciate you.
Graduate school is simply the path that feels right for me as I strengthen the way I educate my own children and thoughtfully develop future Forest School programs.
This way of teaching and learning is not new. Long before formal schools, people learned through observation, participation, storytelling, practice, relationships, and direct connection to the land. Modern experiential education is helping us better understand and support the ways people have always learned.
My goal is not to make Appalachian Wildlings look more like mainstream education. It is to become more skilled and intentional in offering something different, something that honors the whole learner and recognizes the deep learning that can happen through meaningful experiences outside.
This opportunity may also help shine a light on far western North Carolina and build collaborations around accessible outdoor learning opportunities and environmental education specific to our part of the state. By helping people experience and understand what makes this place so special, we hope to deepen their connection to the land and their desire to protect it.
Alongside Appalachian Wildlings, I am raising and homeschooling my children while balancing family life and graduate school. Our family needs time to settle into this new season and understand what is sustainable, so we are not rushing to announce a restart date.
Like the land itself, not every season is meant for visible growth. Some seasons are for resting, rooting, learning, and preparing for what comes next.
This pause is part of the growth of Appalachian Wildlings.
Our family is deeply grateful for these first two years and for every person who has walked part of this trail with us. We are excited to see where it leads next and to walk it with y’all!
Rachel McCoy
Founder and Director
Appalachian Wildlings Forest School
