Black Diamond Elevate Scholarship
What is the Black Diamond Elevate Scholarship?
- A full-ride, travel + gear included, scholarship for select courses in Summer 2026.
- This is a need-based scholarship. Applicants must first complete a financial aid form. Those who qualify will then be required to fill out a follow-up questionnaire.
- Must be 17 or over to apply.
- The application window runs from February 17 - March 13, 2025.
- Recipients will be notified in mid April.
The 2026 course offerings for the Elevate Scholarship are:
- Summer Semester in Alaska (5/17-7/30/2026) – 75 days of sea kayaking, mountaineering, and backpacking.
- Summer Semester in the Rockies (6/12-8/18/2026) – 68 days of rock climbing, backpacking, and whitewater paddling.
Partnership Statement
Black Diamond and NOLS have joined together to invest in the future of our outdoor community. Together we believe that the wilderness is the best teacher, and that the lessons learned and skills sharpened in wild places help elevate the leader in everyone. Our partnership is founded on three key principles:
Provide Mentorship
As the mentorship gap grows each year, the value of providing opportunities to learn hard skills and risk management from an experienced teacher—whether in-person in the field or in a digital setting—is more vital than ever to helping people achieve technical competency and develop mountain sense.
Develop Leadership
We believe there is a leader in everyone, and that people from all walks of life should have the opportunity to rise up and be leaders, whether on an expedition or in their daily lives. Lifting up others and encouraging them to take the lead inspires us all.
Grow Stewardship
We see stewardship as the evolution of a love and awareness of wild places into a sense of commitment to protect what matters—advocating and engaging on a civic and environmental level —and taking action to conserve wild places and recreation resources for future generations.
The Black Diamond Elevate Scholarship
We know that easy access to the outdoors is a privilege that not everyone shares, and the Black Diamond Elevate Scholarship exists to foster the future of the outdoor community by providing a pathway to wilderness education and leadership for those who may lack the means to arrive there on their own.
