09/04/2026
🌿 Summer 2026 at Twin Eagles... what a season!
Across Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, Priest River, Spokane, and Bozeman, hundreds of kids and teens spent their summer getting dirty, taking healthy risks, learning wilderness skills, building friendships, and discovering what can happen when we slow down enough to really meet the natural world.
There are more stories than we could ever fit into one post.
Kids stalked turtles through lily pads and watched bald eagles fishing over the lake. One group spent several mornings getting to know a red squirrel so well that they began noticing its gait, tail movements, alarm behavior, and exactly how it opened Douglas fir cones to reach the seeds inside.
At another camp, kids followed the subtle behavior of a mother dark-eyed junco until one of the children discovered her hidden nest, with three tiny nestlings waiting inside!
At our overnight camps, kids and teens went deeper into wilderness skills, community, and connection. And at Teen Camp, thirteen young people spent a full day and night alone on the land during a 24-hour wilderness survival solo. For some of them, those hours opened into deeply personal encounters with the wild that touched places of connection, meaning, family, and mystery that are difficult to put into words.
One of our younger campers perhaps said it best:
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve been facing my fears and I’ve been stronger than I ever thought I could be.” -Kiki
And one parent, Natalie Britton, shared this after her two sons attended camp:
“Our experience at Twin Eagles has been out-of-the-park PHENOMENAL... The design of Twin Eagles meets children on the deepest levels and allows them to connect with and care for the natural world authentically and completely. This is the medicine the world needs.”
The final weeks of summer also brought real challenges as wildfires and smoke deeply affected the greater Spokane community. We adapted as conditions changed, while holding the safety of our kids, families, and staff at the center. Our hearts remain with everyone who was impacted.
But when we look back over the whole summer, what rises above everything is gratitude. Gratitude for the kids who showed up with curiosity and courage, gratitude for the parents who trusted us, and gratitude for an extraordinary crew of mentors who brought so much skill, heart, playfulness, and care to the land every single day.
Twenty-one years into Twin Eagles, summers like this keep reminding us why we do this work.
Kids need wild places. They need meaningful challenges, strong community, skilled mentors, and the chance to remember that they belong in the living world.
Thank you to everyone who helped make Summer 2026 what it was! 🌲🦅
