NOLS Blog
When Everything Came Into Focus — Hiking Patagonia’s Torres del Paine O Circuit Alumni Trip
I first learned about the O Circuit in 2025, a year before I actually did it. My wife and I were in Patagonia on a Road Scholar trip. It started with a cruise through the Strait of Magellan and the Darwin Passage, followed by a few days in Torres del Paine National Park doing short…
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
Team selfie. In May 2025, Bharat Bhushan, Prerna Dangi, and I took on a challenge to climb Panchachuli ...
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…
Connection, Resilience, and Dal Bhat: Manaslu Circuit Alumni Trip 2025
In November 2025, five gentlemen, one lady, three guides, and three support staff met in Kathmandu in preparation for a two-week NOLS alumni trek on the Manaslu Circuit in Nepal. Although we were all strangers coming from different parts of the world, our shared excitement for setting foot in the Himalayas was palpable. During those…
Meet Thinlas Chorol: Mountaineer and more
She attended the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) where she became a credentialed guide. She returned to Ladakh to open Ladakhi Women Travel Company.
How Gap Years Can Prepare You For College: A Semester in Patagonia
After several months and many reiterations of the Common App passed, I decided to defer from Colorado College and apply for a semester in Patagonia with NOLS.
Yarn Registry – I am a Grand Canyon park ranger
I obtained wilderness first aid and CPR certifications. I did a NOLS course and a American Red Cross class before starting to work at the National Park Service.
In Wyoming, a cautious public lands victory
Aaron Bannon, the stewardship and sustainability director at NOLS, said the crowd at the hearings included hunters and anglers next to conservationists.
Molly Graham is taking on a top ops role at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Molly Graham has also worked at Google and the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a wilderness instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
Steamboat Springs graduate completes Patagonia expedition
Jackson Perry, a 2014 Steamboat Springs High School graduate spent 80 days during fall term on a NOLS Semester in Patagonia.
This environmentalist is the flag-bearer of the changing face of farming
She became an instructor for NOLS and would live in the mountains for months, the environmental studies, working for the EPA and now farming.
Edmond resident completes 80-day wilderness expedition in Patagonia
Joe Romano, 20, of Edmond, recently completed a fall semester in Patagonia with NOLS.
WWII 10th Mountain Division Victories Honored Through Ski-In
Trained in skiing and mountain climbing during the war, many WWII 10th veterans developed the U.S. ski industry and outdoor recreation programs like NOLS.
Meet the first African-American crew member of the ISS
NASA announced that first flight astronaut Jeannette Epps will be the first African-American space station crewmember when she launches for her mission.
Teton Staycation: A Brief Escape to Baldy Yurt
The NOLS, Driggs location, offers various winter courses, some of which involve yurt trips, depending on the course objective and where the course travels.
Arkose Ridge Leadership Academy finds home at Palmer High
Palmer High School students will have a crack at a new educational model that is agriculturally minded and energy conscious: Arkose Ridge Leadership Academy.
