Welcome to my page, which is a place where I get to share a little bit about how I learned some of my skills, where I’ve been and how I got here.

I was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1964.   Some of my strongest memories as a child are the sounds of the Pacific ocean waves crashing on wild beaches, the fragrances of alpine forests and the clear, dryness of the Mohave desert.     I taught myself to read when I was five, and I read everything I could get my hands on.   Tolkien, the Chronicles of Narnia and many other stories kept me company throughout my childhood.

When I was in first grade, my teachers didn’t like the way I walked up the stairs so my mother found a way to enroll me in the Sacramento Waldorf School.    I spent a lot of time looking for turtles along the vernal pools of the American River, and enjoying the difference in educational philosophy.    My teachers there didn’t mind how I walked up stairs as long as I helped turn the compost in the school garden!

When I was a little older, my mom, sister and brother and I moved to New York, where I then went to the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School.   We lived in a very rural area so I spent lots and lots of time in the woods, exploring, fishing, wandering and learning.   I didn’t know what I was doing half of the time, but it was usually really fun just being out there!

I loved basketball and was the manager of our team throughout my high school years.   I even managed the American River College team when I went to college!     Following those years I spent time working with the California Conservation Corps, planting trees, clearing streams for salmon spawning, building trails and re-planting dune environments.   I was chosen to be a part of the Backcountry Trails Program, and the experiences I had there, in the Golden Trout Wilderness, Sequoia National Park, the Shasta-Trinity Alps, Marble Mountain Wilderness, Inyo National Forest and Lava Beds National Monument changed me, forged me, and guided me towards who I am today….

I went to my first Wilderness School with my trail building earnings ($3.25 per hour, yeah!) and I found myself at Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracking, Nature and Wilderness Survival School.   Now, in 1984, there was only about 20 students and we had the greatest time learning and enjoying our journey into nature and native American style survival skills.    Frank and Karen Sherwood were teaching there, as well as John Stokes, and my passion for learning was fully ignited!   I spent many of those years studying and practicing with my best friend Craig Boynton, in Massachusetts. Buckskin, drummaking, hogans and lots of exploring and teaching.    Those days are jewels in my memory.

Over the next eight years, I attended many courses at the Tracker School, including the first Philosophy Class, on of the first Scout Classes, and the Ten Day Winter Intensive.   I did a ton of practicing of my skills in between classes and even started teaching at the Hawthorne Valley Farm Camp in Harlemville, NY.    I spent about three summers there and loved seeing how the young students responded to learning about nature and survival.   About the same time that I started to think about creating my own camp, I was given the opportunity to be an assistant instructor at the Tracker School for a little over a year, and I helped out there for many classes.   The class size had swelled to 45-50 students, which seemed huge to us out there in the Pine Barrens Primitive Camp Area! 

In 1989, I had the opportunity to begin a small, one week camp, that I called Hawk Circle.   Yeah, the one, the only, the original!  There were many campers who had been in my previous camps, and we had a blast teaching and learning and growing out there in the woods.    The camp was off the ground....    

My experiences working in between camps and my teaching and training times included window washing, restaurant cooking, organic produce manager, construction and carpentry, painting, wood cutting, landscaping, working with emotionally disturbed youth, environmental education instructor and graphic design.    All of these jobs helped me in different ways when I finally got my camp rolling and growing.

1996-97 was an intense year for me.   I met Trista over near Cherry Valley, and we had Javier on the way.   To say that children change your life is perhaps the biggest understatement ever!   We bought land  near her house in Cooperstown, and we moved the camp here as well.   Simon Mayer, Chris Marx, Joshua Kaufman, Frank Grindrod and Matt Burr all helped with the move and with turning our new farmhouse and lands into a camp.    There was so much to do and so much to learn!     We built the camp, changed the garage into an infirmary, installed a new septic system, drilled a well, made camp showers and put in our basic parking lot.  It took a lot of late nights and intense focus, sort of like building a survival shelter in the face of an oncoming storm.    We managed and somehow, it came together.

In 2000 we built a house on the property and moved in July with our whole family.   Matthew and Jesse, Trista's children, had a new little brother, and his special needs brought us together in many ways.    Being on the same land as the camp helped Trista to be more involved in our camp community, and I certainly got to see the whole family more.   However, switching schools and moving is never easy on kids, so it really took a while to have everyone settle in.

There is so much more to tell about me and how I got here, and what drives me and inspires me, but I guess that this is a good start for now.   If you want to know more about me, just e-mail me and ask!   

Until then, have a wonderful day and be good to yourself and your loved ones.

                                                Ricardo Sierra