About Us – Iron Pines

Iron Pines wasn’t built on business plans or bright ideas.
It was carved from scars and stubborn blood.

I witnessed a school shooting at sixteen.
That kind of violence doesn’t fade.
It brands you.

I carried those scars into years of silence — into fists thrown in empty rooms, into a job standing shoulder-to-shoulder with kids fighting their own invisible wars.

Through it all, the woods called me back.
Not for peace.
But for permission — to survive broken and still be whole.

Iron Pines is for the scarred.
The bloodied.
The unbowed.

For every outsider who’s been told they don’t belong —
in the wild,
in the fight,
in the damn conversation.

For the women carving trails no one gave them permission to walk.
For the LGBTQ+ warriors surviving in a world built to forget them.
For the broken knuckles, the tattooed hands, the stubborn hearts who refuse to kneel.

This isn’t polished adventure gear.
This is survival, worn proud.

You don’t have to look a certain way to bleed real.
You don’t have to fit a mold to fight like hell.

You belong here.
In the scars.
In the dirt.
In the fire.

Welcome to Iron Pines.
Nature’s Misfits — every damn one of us.