NOLS Blog
Case Study: Fishhooks
The Setting You’re on the first day of a twelve-day whitewater canoeing expedition down the Green River. Your group consists of fifteen students and four instructors. Everyone is paddling close together down a stretch of flat water practicing strokes, building skills, and getting to know one another. Spirits are high. People are laughing, chatting, and…
When Everything Came Into Focus — Hiking Patagonia’s Torres del Paine O Circuit Alumni Trip
Photo: Libby Poston I first learned about the O Circuit in 2025, a year before I actually did ...
Case Study: Heat Illness on an Early-Season Wildland Fire Assignment
Photo by Kirk Rasmussen The Setting You are working on a Type 2 initial attack handcrew in the ...
Rothberg-Birdwhistel Expedition Fund: Panchachuli III Peak Climb
In May 2025, Bharat Bhushan, Prerna Dangi, and I took on a challenge to climb Panchachuli III (6,349m), believed by local residents to remain unclimbed. We aimed to approach it via the northeast route through the Meola Glacier. Despite occasional visits by military and paramilitary personnel, there was no recorded mountaineering information or documented route…
Case Study: Non-Freezing Cold Injury on a Canoe Trip
The Setting You are leading an early-season canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It’s mid-May, and while the days are mild, the water is still very cold. Travel involves frequent portaging and wading in and out of the canoe to load and unload gear. Despite good effort, everyone’s feet have been wet…
Lou Gordon: Three Decades of Influence
Louise “Lou” Gordon’s office in the Wilderness Medicine wing of NOLS Headquarters is tucked into the perpendicular intersection of two banks of offices, in the center of the activity but quiet and a little reserved. Like Lou herself.
After more than 30 years, the last 6 1/2 as NOLS Wilderness Medicine’s Wilderness EMT Supervisor, Lou is cleaning and packing up her office in preparation for her retirement. Her last day is May 1.
Climate Medicine: Where Climate Change and Healthcare Meet
Springtime has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Trees and grasses are greening up, flowers are blooming, and birds have returned to greet the morning with song. As many of Earth’s residents head into boreal summer, they know to expect rising temperatures. But what does that heat mean for human health? What happens when infectious diseases…
Summer Travel Programs for Teens: Why Wilderness Expeditions Offer More Than a Passport Stamp
Most summer travel programs for teens promise adventure. A select few actually deliver it. There is a difference between traveling through a place and learning to move through it with skill and intention. That difference is worth understanding before you commit to any program, and before your teen boards a plane. This guide breaks down…
Staying Power
Shari Kearney didn’t just find a place at NOLS—as our longest serving female instructor, she has worked over 424 weeks in the field and influenced generations of students. Shari Kearney is checking on Three Peaks Ranch’s stable of horses, kept on pastures outside of Lander, Wyoming in the offseason. Each autumn, the horses—dozens of them—are…
Gap Year Leads to Evanston Resident’s Wild Adventure in Patagonia
When Jack Cleave was thinking about taking a gap year between high school and college, he never dreamed he'd end up hiking mountains in Patagonia with NOLS.
WY Not: Students of the Wilderness
Relying heavily on experiential education, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) works with over 24,000 students a year. Students are pushed to their potential.
Outdoors for All: Why Diversity Matters to the Outdoor Industry
Author of The Adventure Gap, James Mills offers insights as to why it's vitally important to add more color to the natural world and five things you can do to grow diversity.
NOLS Attends Conference on Bear Research
At the 24th International Conference on Bear Research and Management, NOLS joined other bear experts from around the world to share their knowledge last week.
NOLS Goes to Mars
National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) has been running courses for NASA Astronauts since 1999, through NOLS Professional Training.
New Zealand Outdoors Drawcard for International Students
They've left behind regular lives elsewhere in the world and have headed to the New Zealand campus of American-based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
The school provides an education some of the students say they'd never get from a regular classroom.
Their accommodation before heading into the wilderness is a small village of tents on a grassy flat above the river in Aniseed Valley, named for the spice which once grew there.
NOLS Given Heritage Award
The Wyoming Business Alliance and Wyoming Heritage Foundation presented the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) with the heritage award Nov. 17.
NOLS River Rescue Guide Wins National Book Award
The NOLS River Rescue Guide earned a national book award from NOBA for instructional books.
MtnMeister: Five Star Camping Cuisine
National Outdoor Leadership School - NOLS grad talks about camping cuisine on MtnMeister
WRMC presents Risk Management Award to Johnson
The Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) presented the seventh annual Charles (Reb) Gregg Wilderness Risk Management last week in Portland, Ore.
