Alumni Spotlight: How my NOLS Course Impacted My Career

Almost exactly 10 years after coming to Alaska for the first time to take a NOLS course, Asa Darnell finds himself back, working his dream job. Now an Alaskan bush pilot and NOLS alumnus, Asa Darnell shares how his 2013 NOLS course impacted his career. 

The plane lands on a sea of white, and bush plane pilot Asa Darnell steps out onto the glacier to open the door for the students who are about to begin their mountaineering adventure. He understands better than anyone the anticipation, nerves, uncertainty, and excitement that the students are feeling, because 13 short years ago, he was in their shoes.

Born and raised in rural Kentucky, Asa heard about NOLS while researching NASA. Realizing astronauts took NOLS courses to refine their leadership skills, he figured taking a course would be a good first step toward his goal.

Flash forward to 2023 as Asa tells the story in his own words.

I moved to Talkeetna to fly for a company I had been interested in since I started flying. Almost exactly 10 years after coming to Alaska for the first time as a NOLS student, I was working as a pilot dropping off climbers and skiers (including NOLS teams) on the glaciers of Alaska’s most prominent mountains.

Over the past couple years I’ve settled into a life in Alaska that I very much enjoy yet never expected. My engineering degrees are going unused and I can’t imagine reporting to work in an office. I feel most comfortable surrounded by inhospitable mountain terrain and trust fully in the old airplanes that get me there. It’s still hard to trace out how I got here from growing up on a farm in Kentucky, but few things are as clearly pivotal as my time in the Wrangell mountains with NOLS.

This all started because I wanted to be an astronaut. I was in college, reading about astronauts and applying to grad schools when I read something about astronaut candidates participating in NOLS courses to learn expedition behavior, work as a team, and gain experience being in austere environments. I got hooked when I heard about a NOLS Semester in Alaska. I didn’t know anyone where I was from in rural Kentucky that had ever even heard of NOLS and only a few that had been to Alaska. 

The semester I signed up for was marketed as three sessions — sea kayaking, backpacking, and mountaineering. When I got to Alaska in May 2013, I learned we were doing a “mega” semester where there was a sea kayaking portion, then the backpacking and mountaineering sessions were combined for a 50-day stint in the backcountry. Backpack to the glaciers, do the elusive glacial mountaineering portion I sought after, then backpack out. 

The sea kayaking was simply a good adventure. While constantly wet and usually cold, it was an enjoyable time learning new skills and building friendships with people from faraway places. I was falling for Alaska. Wiping my butt with rocks worn perfectly smooth from the unrelenting waves of Prince William Sound, basking in sun that seemingly never set, eating fiddleheads and beach greens, and leaving the smallest trace possible. I soon learned that the kayaking was just the easy preamble to a life changing journey in the mountains. 

The mega portion of the trip started big with river crossings, bear sightings, and warm sunshine. I was yearning to reach the glaciers to put into practice all the things I had read about in Freedom of the Hills. I wanted to see my first crevasse, walk on a glacier, maybe climb a mountain. Something I didn’t know would even be involved, however, was what ended up altering the course of my life the most—the pilots supporting our expedition.

We started the trip at Devil’s Mountain Lodge, the home of the Ellis family, particularly legendary bush pilot Kirk Ellis. He was soft spoken, unassuming, humble and had a plane painted like the Hulk that could land nearly anywhere. When we got within a day’s hike of the glacier, the Hulk landed in the boulders under Mt. Gordon to bring us skis, ropes, food, and anything else we had staged. Weeks later, after walking on nothing but snow and ice, we were told to rope up and spread out across the glacier because a different pilot was going to land on the snow to bring us our next food ration. He needed something (us) to show him where the surface of the snow actually was. This was all very new and very interesting to me as I had never known a pilot of any type, much less an Alaska bush pilot bringing food to nothing more than an X on a map. Paul Claus landed his turbine Otter on the glacier, made some jokes, gave us our food we had been dreaming of, and went his merry way like it was just another day at work.

In one of our group talks a few days later, the question was, “What career that you are totally unqualified for are you drawn to?” To which my answer was being a bush pilot. I had studied engineering and thought that was the path I had chosen. I very clearly remember my good friend Jack replying, “I don’t think that’s out of reach.” 

The course finished up (easier said than done) and I was sent back to the front country. I went to the University of Colorado for grad school in engineering and was having the time of my life using the outdoor and expedition skills, both human and technical, that I learned from NOLS. I was returning to Alaska every year to do something in the outdoors, and I decided I had to try flying. I took some lessons, then some more, falling in love with aviation and building the hours needed to get a pilot job.

A few years later, in 2018, I quit my engineering career in Colorado and took the first job I could find flying airplanes in the backcountry of Alaska. It started with simply flying mail and freight to villages but soon I was landing floatplanes on small mountain lakes to drop off backpackers, landing airplanes with tundra tires on volcanic beaches, and often learning the hard way just how amazing those pilots from NOLS were. 

In 2023 I moved to Talkeetna to fly for a company I had been interested in since I started flying. Almost exactly 10 years after coming to Alaska for the first time as a NOLS student, I was working as a pilot dropping off climbers and skiers (including NOLS teams) on the glaciers of Alaska’s most prominent mountains.

Over the past couple years I’ve settled into a life in Alaska that I very much enjoy yet never expected. My engineering degrees are going unused and I can’t imagine reporting to work in an office. I feel most comfortable surrounded by inhospitable mountain terrain and trust fully in the old airplanes that get me there. It’s still hard to trace how I got here from growing up on a farm in Kentucky, but few things are as clearly pivotal as my time in the Wrangell mountains with NOLS.