Yosemite 2026: Growing Momentum Through Gathering

The Yosemite Gathering, in many ways, does not reflect the language of an “event.” Far from singular, it feels closer to a temporary ecosystem. Climbers, farmers, chefs, scientists, artists, educators, and families gathering around a shared question: What does reciprocity actually look like and how can regenerative agriculture be a pathway to fight climate change? Not as abstraction, but as practice. In soil. In food systems. In movement. In community. In the choices that shape everyday life.

Across three days, and under the full moon, boundaries between disciplines softened. Conversations moved easily from climbing nutrition to regenerative agriculture, from microbial soil networks to parenting, from kelp forests to food access.

Kate Rutherford opened the gathering with the story behind Farm to Crag, an idea that began through conversations around climbing nutrition and expanded into something larger: a framework for thinking about nourishment, stewardship, and interdependence. She recalled returning to Patagonia for winter climbing trips in Patagonia, where she returned daily to a small restaurant for a custom salad designed around what made her feel strongest in the mountains. By the seventh year, the restaurant had named it after her, which she joked might have been her “greatest accomplishment,” even after notable first ascents on Fitz Roy in Patagonia, Kenya and Venezuela, and a free ascent of El Capitan’s Freerider. But, agreed… pretty cool to have a salad named after you.

The story resonated because it reflected something central to the gathering itself. Food is never separate from performance, recovery, ecology, or community. Fueling the body is also a relationship to land, labor, culture, and long-term health. That philosophy carried into every meal shared throughout the weekend.

Chef Tikko Sperling-Freilich, and team created some of the most beautiful and nourishing spreads we’ve shared at a Farm to Crag Gathering, filled with local ingredients from Raw Roots Farm, Wondernut Farm, Serrano Farm, and Shelley’s Jellies. Their cooking centered seasonality, intention, and care.

Loaves from The Midwife and The Baker appeared at nearly every table. Their bread, made from organic grains milled in-house on granite stone mills, felt emblematic of the gathering itself: simple ingredients approached with rigor, patience, and intention. When flour, water, and salt are the entire equation, quality becomes inseparable from process.

James Beard Award-winning chef Matt Dillon brought the same philosophy to the table that has shaped his work for decades through restaurants like Sitka & Spruce and The Corson Building. He showed us how simple, honest ingredients can become unforgettable farm-to-table meals when rooted in seasonality, sourcing, and deep relationships with the land. It is safe to say we ate good. Really good.

Mornings beneath the oaks began with yoga led by Heather Sullivan of Balanced Rock. Breath settling into rhythm. Bodies waking with the land rather than against it.

Esther Smith’s (Farm To Crag Executive Director) Food As Medicine workshop reframed nourishment toward longevity, relationship, and habit. Not performance as extraction, but sustainability. Something steadier and more durable. She left us with practical tools to carry that practice home.

We moved between fieldwork, conversations, and workshops exploring the systems beneath the surface.

Farm tours and hands-on work sessions with Andrew and Lauren Glikin (our gracious hosts and pillars of Farm To Crag) grounded the gathering in the daily realities of regenerative agriculture. Walking the fields at Raw Roots Farm, we saw firsthand how soil health, food systems, water, and community resilience are deeply interconnected.

In one session, Dr. Becca Ryals guided the group through the biological architecture inside healthy soil: fungal networks, organic matter, mineral structures, and microbial life. Discussions around compost, water retention, and carbon cycling grounded climate conversations in something tactile and immediate. The science never felt distant from daily life. At Raw Roots Farm, theory was constantly being tested against practice. We could see and feel the actual benefits of regenerative farming.

Movement remained central throughout the gathering, though not solely in the form of climbing. Madison Dusseau shared dance, song, and reflections drawn from her experience as a member of the Navajo people and a Fancy Shawl dancer with the Akamya Cultural Group in Big Pine. Her presence offered a different expression of movement, one rooted in tradition, storytelling, and Indigenous continuity.

Josh Wharton’s reflections on climbing in Peru moved in a similarly expansive direction. While he spoke about expedition climbing and the scale of Jirishanca, some of the most resonant moments centered around fatherhood: watching his child encounter the outdoors with curiosity and wonder, and recognizing how relationships to expeditions evolve over time. Ambition, in his telling, had become less singular. Less summit-focused. More connected to stewardship, partnership, and what it means to pass reverence for wild places forward.

Josh Wharton and Tyler Karow also brought the stoke for multi-pitch efficiency, sharing systems and lessons before many participants carried that energy into Yosemite Valley itself. That thread surfaced throughout the gathering: How do we build systems that inspire and create positive impact?

Ricardo Romero Gianoli approached that question through ocean ecosystems, kelp forest restoration, and coastal foraging, connecting marine biodiversity, food systems, and climate resilience into the same living framework. Participants shared fresh uni and seaweed harvested from the California coast while discussing pathways for ocean stewardship and restoration work happening across California.

A panel discussion weaving together regenerative farming, outdoor culture, and collective effort expanded many of these conversations even further, followed by a workshop focused on tangible ways to create action within local communities.

Evenings returned everyone to the tables. Meals stretched long after sunset while conversations drifted between farming, climbing, ecology, parenting, policy, and adventure. Natalie and Ryan of Outward Wines poured the (new) Farm To Crag wine while opening conversations around terroir, stewardship, and the future of farming.

What emerged over the weekend was not consensus or easy optimism. It was something more grounded: a shared willingness to stay engaged with complexity and approach it with joy.

To ask better questions.
To remain teachable.
To participate.

The gathering closed beneath El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.

Some members of the group had climbed the walls overhead. Others stood quietly looking upward for the first time in awe. A day spent climbing in Yosemite Valley, fueled by regenerative snacks and shared partnership, tied together many of the weekend’s larger themes and reminded us why all of this matters in the first place.

Because the Yosemite Gathering was never designed to end at the farm, or in Yosemite.

Its real measure lives in what happens afterward:

the farms and farmers we support,
the meals we cook,
the communities we invest in,
the younger generations we teach and mentor,
the land we choose to care for,
the systems we help reshape over time.

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Change rarely arrives all at once, nor should it. More often, it grows through attention. Through relationship. Through people willing to keep showing up for the world they want to build, or rebuild. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Curious to learn more or get involved?
Explore our upcoming events
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Add to and eat through the Farm to Crag Map
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We are deeply grateful to Raw Roots Farm, and to every farmer, climber, chef, scientist, artist, educator, volunteer, and curious human who made this gathering what it was. So much of this weekend exists because of the people working quietly behind the scenes, and we could not do it without you.

Many thanks to our generous partners and collaborators:

Patagonia
Patagonia Provisions
Skratch Labs
Baobab Superfoods
Outward Wines
Raw Roots Farm
Key Stone Forager
Madison Dusseau
Esther Smith
Old Chaser Farm
Outscape Experiences
The Midwife and The Baker
Wondernut Farm
Serrano Farm
Shelley’s Jellies
Uzumati Ceramics
Jeremy Collins

As a nonprofit, we rely on the generous support of our community to keep inspiring climbers and others to invest in local, sustainable food systems. If you’d like to become a monthly donor or make a one-time gift, please visit farmtocrag.org/donate.

Yosemite 2026: Growing Momentum Through Gathering

From Soil to Stone: How What We Eat Shapes the Places We Climb