Adult Education

NOLS adult courses are specifically designed to meet the needs of students 23 and over. Most courses are two weeks long with start and end dates that minimize your time away from work. Leadership lessons focus on the expedition model of setting goals and then mustering all of the resources available to meet them.

You'll learn techniques for maximizing each expedition member's strengths and how to motivate and support your team. Pack weights are generally lighter than on standard courses, but like every NOLS course you will learn the basic backcountry skills and practice them.

NOLS courses are instructed by men and women who have incredible amounts of backcountry experience and are great teachers. While nearly every NOLS alum praises their NOLS instructors, adult students are particularly impressed, describing their instructors as organized, professional, motivated, confident, top-notch and compassionate.

NOLS adult course graduates use the skills they learn. They are taking family and friends out on backcountry outings and employing the expeditioning skills they have mastered in the workplace. Whether its climbing, flyfishing or kayaking, a new world of outdoor recreation will be available to you after completing a NOLS course.

Adult Education Courses

Learn about NOLS Adult Education

Rocky Mountains

• Outdoor Educator Semester (21 and Over)
• Wind River Wilderness
• Wilderness Horsepacking
• Professional Instructor Course (25 and Over)
• Rocky Mountain Lightweight Backpacking

Teton Valley

• Backcountry Skiing
• Splitboarding

Pacific Northwest

• North Cascades Mountaineering

Alaska

• Alaska Mountaineering
• Brooks Range Backpacking
• Alaska Sea Kayaking

Mexico

• Baja Sea Kayaking

Patagonia

• Patagonia Sea Kayaking
• Patagonia Backpacking and Fly-Fishing

Scandinavia

• Scandinavian Backpacking

Read about a few of our Adult Education graduates

• Archie Clemins, retired commander of the Pacific Fleet. For 34 years, Admiral Archie Clemins has been giving orders and instruction, and watching some of the U.S. Navy's finest training others. But as a student on a NOLS winter skiing course in 1999, Clemins witnessed the teaching of "two of the finest instructors I've ever seen."
  
  
• Diane Brinkley, teacher, Newark Public Schools. A graduate of a 25 and older Wind River Wilderness course, Diane utilizes her NOLS education teaching in the Newark, NJ public schools.