We are storytellers

Poetically, Ravenchase was created by Founder and President Josh Czarda under tragic circumstances. Christmas was approaching, and the mother of Josh's three little brothers — Jimmy, Cliff and Stephen — was in the ICU with an advanced stage of cancer. Chemo had gone on for weeks, the entire family was sad, and Josh simply wished to give the boys something to take their minds off of the future — even for just a day.

Inspiration for adventure arrived while shopping for gifts, when Josh stumbled across a metal detector and an antique compass. Holding the compass, struck by its weight and beauty and the stories it might tell if only it could, it became clear to him that the thing to get the boys outside of it all was to get the boys outside of it all.

Josh scouted locations and developed clues that would lead his brothers from point to point across their farm, through the town of Warrenton, Virginia, and ultimately up into the Shenandoah mountains, where he had buried an actual treasure chest within a cave near the top of Old Rag Mountain.

It was the look that Stephen gave Josh when the boys dug the treasure chest out of the ground — elation, wonder, happiness — that was a gift of equal measure. The boys knew they had done something extraordinary, and it showed.

Inspired by that moment, Ravenchase has continued to create one-of-a-kind moments, in innumerable adventures, around the globe.