By: Mia Ambroiggio ’26 MEM
There’s a familiar buzz that comes with the drive to Yale-Myers Forest (YMF). In early October, just as the nights began to turn cool, friends and I packed my car with groceries, art supplies, and blankets and headed up to camp. We were going for the Out in the Woods — Yale School of the Environment’s queer affinity group — annual weekend retreat that us second-years had already experienced and were eager to recreate for the new class, many of whom were visiting YMF for the first time.
People arrived and eagerly claimed cabins as we set up for the evening. We carpooled to Bigelow Hollow for a chilly swim, shared a pasta dinner served from the biggest mixing bowl we’d ever seen, and ended the night gathered around the fire.
Mia Ambroiggio ’26 MEM marvels over the giant mixing bowl. Photo: Sarah Lloyd
The best part, for me, was waking up early to put the coffee on while friends cracked eggs into that same massive mixing bowl for pancake batter. The stretch of lawn that sat between the rows of cabins was quiet; the swimsuits we’d hung to dry the day before had collected morning dew. Soon, everyone emerged slowly from their cabins, still in pajamas for breakfast. We ended our retreat with a queer ecology walk led by Brandon Hoak ’26 MEM, reading the landscape we had all felt so lucky had housed us the night prior. As people began to leave, their departure felt cyclical: it was hard to go, but we’d see each other again back in New Haven. This experience, although special, is not novel. YMF has long served as both a classroom and gathering place for generations of students, cultivating connection to each other and the local landscape we all call home for these precious years.
Students prep dinner in the camp kitchen during the Out in the Woods retreat in October 2025. Photo: Mia Ambroiggio
Gifted to the school in 1930-1934 by George Hewitt Myers, a member of The Yale Forest School’s first graduating class in 1902, YMF has acted as a classroom, sanctuary, and site of connection for students, staff, faculty, and the community at large for decades. Eva Garen ’95 MESc, ’05 PhD, director of Yale’s Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI), recalls spending her summers there as a student, working as the camp cook for Forest Crew and later MODs.
“It’s a long love story,” she laughs. Eva fondly recalls the rituals she took part in during her summers there: waking up early to take her dogs on long, quiet walks; painting the upstairs of the house she was living in for the summer; writing for hours outside before it was time to cook. She fondly mentions her memories at YMF being some of the best of her life. “[Returning for the summers] felt like a homecoming. I loved cooking up there. I loved being up there. It was such a wonderful community,” she says. “I swear, I would do it again. Maybe that’s my retirement plan, to be the cook in residence at Myers.”
Today, she carries that care for YMF into her work at ELTI, which hosts their annual strategic planning session at YMF. This feels particularly salient, as ELTI’s field programs are modeled after YMF sites, so gathering at the forest where these place-based experiential learnings were conceptualized is especially meaningful.
Students gather for Harvest Festival at the Yale-Myers Forest Camp, which serves as homebase for Forest Crew, summer research, retreats, and more. Photo: Cloe Poisson
Liz Felker ’19 MESc, ELTI program manager, notes that being at YMF is a different and deeper way to experience community. ELTI members participate in extensive strategic planning sessions, followed by breaks on the lawn and tours of the land in the afternoons. “If we were in New Haven, all staying in a hotel, it wouldn’t be the same,” she says. “Up at Myers, we had dinners together every night, we’d have fires, someone brought a guitar, we had silly singalongs…that kind of joy just infuses the space.” Eva mentions that when ELTI staff travel to Panama or Brazil, they always bring maple syrup from YMF as a token of gratitude. She reflects on how surreal it felt to be with ELTI staff in Connecticut, learning about their connection to the very landscape that had provided them with a gathering space, syrup, and the conception of their field programs. Worlds colliding.
Over the course of the week, ELTI staff were not only advancing their strategic goals but also living in community with one another. “People are just different versions of themselves up there. There’s something about being away from school, in this beautiful place, that lets people be more genuine,” says Liz.
Our relationships with YMF evolve over time from student to alum, and at times, to staff or faculty at the school. Previously a student, Shay Austin ’23 MF now serves as the Yale Forests’ forest manager, organizing community rituals such as Harvest Festival, supporting maple syrup production, and stewarding the forest.
Shay Austin ’23 MF looks out at the lake on YMF property. Photo: Billy Valvo
As a student, Shay remembers being struck by the expansiveness of YMF, and feeling lucky to have it as her living classroom. Living there for the summer in between her two years of graduate school, YMF “became a place of salvation.” “It became a home for me, just as important, or maybe more important, than New Haven.” Now, Shay’s role has changed. “My perspective has shifted from how do I make the most of my time here? to how do I provide the best possible experience in this place for others?”
Caring for — and existing alongside — YMF is not static; it is living and intergenerational. “The decisions I make have to be accountable to people who come 60 years after me,” says Shay. “It’s amazing to be the person here 60 years after the managers from the 1960s.” She fondly recalls this sense of continuity from her time as Christmas tree farm manager while a graduate student, aware that both tending the land and nurturing the community were traditions that began in the 1980s. She understood that bringing people into this space was essential to ensuring that care for it continued.
Like many rituals, these roles are carried on. Marina McGonigle ’26 MF, current Christmas tree farm manager, travels up to YMF on weekends to prepare for the winter’s harvest. “Yale-Myers Forest is a place where work never feels like work, and being outdoors is a constant reminder of why I study what I do — my first love in life is the forest,” she reflects. “The Christmas tree farm is where I get the opportunity to share this love with others. Getting to set up an event with fellow forest lovers in the context of YMF is a legacy I am thankful to help with.”
Marina McGonigle ’26 MF harvests a Christmas tree for her home in New Haven in December 2024. Photo: Jamila Jaxaliyeva
To capture every connection a student, staff, faculty, or community member has with YMF would be impossible, which stands as a testament to how deeply it is woven into our community. To know Yale-Myers Forest is, truly, to love it.
