White Mountain Yoga Festival

Dates and Venue June 21 & 22, 2019 | Pinetop, Arizona

Reviewer Patricia Cassidy


I attended the first White Mountain Yoga Festival this past June 21 and 22 in Pinetop, Arizona – a town in the cool and beautiful White Mountains. As June 21 happened to be both the summer solstice and International Yoga Day, it was perfect timing for a festival celebrating “All things yoga” - and more. Pinetop, Arizona is 6,804 feet above sea level, and about a three-hour drive from Phoenix. It’s a favored destination for Tucson and Phoenix residents to come to cool off in the blistering summer heat.

The Festival was held in three separate locations – one outdoor, under the Big Top, and two inside. The event planners must be commended on their logistics, as everything progressed very smoothly, the yoga instructors/teachers were excellent and the three venues were fairly close to each other so it was easy to move from one place to another to explore, perhaps, a new or different type of yoga.

There were ongoing yoga classes for all tastes and abilities: Reggae Flow, Hang Loose in the Ropes, Slow Burn Vinyasa, Find Your Zen with Yin, Country Flow, Back Bends and Prana Danada Yoga (with Sticks), to mention just some of the classes available from noon Friday and all-day Saturday into the evening.

It wouldn’t be a Festival without vendors selling clothing, a massage person on hand, restaurants very close by, hand painting, jewelry for sale and educational wellness talks and music. There was also a chanting session, a Friday evening kirtan (Sanskrit performing arts/narration) and 109 Sun Salutations event (or as many as you could possibly do!) to celebrate the Summer Solstice. At 8pm on Friday a local Apache Native band played Reggae so we could all loosen up, have fun and dance while the sun went down (and the sunset that night was glorious).

A very good first Yoga Festival for the White Mountains with a nice mix of Yoga classes and related events, and I have been to a lot of festivals and this one was very well organized. I look forward to the second one in 2020.

© 2019 Patricia Cassidy