Two full days of talks, adventure, bonfires, and brotherhood on 100+ acres of Tennessee woods at Deer Run Camp in Leipers Fork. Come alongside the Forming Men Conference in Franklin, or come just for the retreat — do one or both, it’s up to you. Come once, and you’ll come back every year.
For one weekend a year, we pull fathers and sons out of the noise and into the same room, to mark thresholds, do the hard relational work, and remember they’re not doing this alone. New sons are welcomed into the brotherhood. Finishing young men are commissioned. And every dad leaves with his fire relit.
Your Primal Path membership already includes your seat, and your son’s, at the retreat. It’s the centerpiece of the year, and it’s on us. And because it butts right up against Forming Men, active members get their son’s conference ticket free too — you just buy your own. Just get to Tennessee.
* The Forming Men Conference is a separate ticket, purchased at formingmen.com. Members: your son’s conference ticket is free with active membership; dads buy their own conference ticket.
* A $100 deposit holds your spot to the retreat — fully refunded when you show up. It just keeps no-shows from taking a seat another family wanted.
Kick off Friday night at the Forming Men Conference, go all day Saturday — then the whole brotherhood moves out to Deer Run Camp for The Father-Son Retreat, Oct 25–27. Here’s the shape of it — but the best parts, we keep as surprises. Final schedule sent before you arrive.
Camp does what a classroom never could. Between sessions the whole crew is loose across Deer Run’s 100+ acres — fathers, sons, and boys who just met racing each other up the tower — and crews of boys head out on camp adventures they’ll be retelling at Christmas.
Part of the Retreat is pure doing — fathers and sons shoulder to shoulder across 100+ acres of guided recreation. Compete a little. Give him a first he’ll tell his own son about.
The rhythm is deliberate: Jon and the team bring the fathers the kind of teaching men fly across the country for — then we walk straight out of the room and into experiences built to knit your heart to your son’s. Head, then heart. Truth, then trail.
And it isn’t a one-off. The Father-Son Retreat is the brotherhood’s annual meetup — same fields, same fires, every October. The boys grow up marking their years by it. The dads come back to get relit.
Twice across the weekend, you and your son step away, just the two of you, with a guided framework, to have the conversations that don’t happen on their own. No awkward silences; we hand you the words.
Most dads say these 90 minutes are the most honest they’ve ever been with their son. You’ll leave with a shared vision for the year, and a relationship that’s closer than when you arrived.
Ten years from now, ask him what he remembers about the last week of October when he was fourteen: fourth-period algebra… or ziplining into a lake next to his dad and standing in a field while 50 men called him up.
The homework will be there when he gets back. This won’t. (And yes — we’ll happily write the world’s proudest absence note.)