Hi! I'm Ali
I'm the owner & founder of Wayfinder Outdoors.
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You probably want to know a bit more about me if you're considering trusting me to lead you into the wilderness or teach you skills that could be life and death.
First, let me tell you what Wayfinder Outdoors is all about.
Doing hard things in beautiful places is absolutely transformative.
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I've seen it it happen in other people and I experienced it myself.
It brings us connection with nature, self and community.
It transforms us into more resilient, more empathetic, humble and awestruck versions of ourselves. ​
(also known as badass)
It feels like a brief, shallow glimpse into what life could be like as a wild human.
I've been lucky enough to lead amazing trips all over the world with incredible people. I had patient, knowledgeable mentors. I learned from hard days and bad decisions.
I literally got paid to play with baby elephants, bolt new rock climbing routes and camp on uninhabited islands. I lived in remote villages, taught mountain biking, led sea kayaking trips, rode horses and so much more. What a dream!
I gained incredible technical skills, but more importantly. . .
I learned how to use challenge in the wild as a tool.
If that tool is wielded with discretion and empathy, it helps people become their best selves.
It enables us to build communities that prioritize authenticity, empathy and belonging.
I learned how to cultivate a group culture where people felt like they belonged, where like they didn’t have to choose between being authentic or fitting in, and where they could experiment and make mistakes while having a safety net and support system.
But something was still missing . . .
There was a deeper level of understanding- a relationship with these wild places, that was missing.
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I led a thousand miles of kayaking trips along a single stretch of coastline, and yet I did not know which plants were edible or how the fish moved with the tide.
My kayak, my shelter, my clothes, were all made from synthetics- from petroleum.
Outdoor education and recreation still treat humans as separate from nature.
We establish wilderness as human-free places. It is a place we come to visit and try not to impact.
It’s no wonder so many of us suffer from anxiety and depression.
We are wild animals living in captivity.
We are not disconnected from nature, we are dislocated from it.
Have you ever dislocated a joint? It is painful, and it doesn’t stop being painful until the bone is put back into place. Leave No Trace is critical to protecting the few wild places we have left, but where and how can humans have deeper interactions with the land where we live?
How and where can we play and explore and experiment like the wild humans we are while also becoming the most awesome versions of ourselves?
That is why I started Wayfinder Outdoors.
I’m bringing everything I learned from a decade in outdoor education and I'm integrating it into experiences that allow humans to do human things, like play, track, forage, explore, and create.
The goal is to help fellow humans have incredible, transformative experiences in wild places.
To help you integrate back into the wild and have a blast doing it.
To give you the skills and knowledge you need to continue the journey yourself, and confidently bring your friends!
​My Business Model
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Right now, this is a one-woman show. But that is not the goal. ​
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The goal is to provide a space for my fellow badass, wild and talented educators to do what they love and what they're amazing at while getting paid what they're worth.
They have decades of knowledge and experience. They should be paid for it.
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Because the dentist won't accept 'but it was an amazing experience' in payment.
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Pay structure is the opposite of most outdoor companies, where the instructors delivering the experiences get the lowest pay.
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My business model puts instructor pay at the top of the priority list, second only to safety.
Every aspect of the business flows from that. The bulk of money from a class or course goes to the instructor delivering it.