NOLS Blog
Case Study: Chest Injury with Fall
The Setting You are on a climbing trip in Red Rocks, Nevada. You’ve spent the last week dialing in your climbing, swapping beta with new friends at the crag and soaking up the desert sun. Today, you decide to take a break from long routes and focus on bouldering. You’re chalking up, eyeing a new…
Backpacking the Vilcabamba Valley to Machu Picchu Alumni Trip: Inaugural Trip Reflection
An Interview with Kellsie Forbes, NOLS Alumni Trips Manager Where did the idea to create an alumni trip ...
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 ...
The Wilderness Risk Management Conference: a Conference and a Community
An interview with Elyse Rylander, Wilderness Risk Management Steering Committee Chair The 33rd annual Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) will be held this fall, October 20 – 22nd, in Portland, Oregon. If you haven’t attended yet, the WRMC was developed from the work of multiple outdoor programs who wanted to create a space to foster…
Case Study: Bear Spray in the Face
The Setting You are almost done with a 3-day backpacking trip in the Wind River Mountain Range of Wyoming with two of your friends. You only have a couple miles left to get back to the car, and you’re already dreaming of the cheeseburger and milkshake you’re going to have once back in town. Prior…
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
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
The Setting You are working on a Type 2 initial attack handcrew in the Deschutes National Forest during the early part of fire season. It’s one of the first assignments of the year, and while conditions aren’t extreme yet, temperatures have climbed into the mid-80s°F with full sun exposure on a south-facing slope. The crew…
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…
WRMC Presents Risk Management Award to Jay A. Satz
Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) presented the eighth annual Charles (Reb) Gregg Wilderness Risk Management Award in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Idaho Rescue Training Brings NOLS Wilderness First Aid to Magic Valley
In May 2018, Idaho Rescue Training hosted a two-day NOLS Wilderness First Aid course for Magic Valley residents.
NOLS and Saybrook University Pioneer Innovative New Master’s Program
NOLS and Saybrook University have partnered to launch a new Master’s in Leadership program that combines online study and outdoor education. A 32-credit, three-semester program beginning in January 2019, the NOLS Saybrook MA in Leadership includes three wilderness expeditions led by NOLS.
James Mills Receives Paul K. Petzoldt Award for The Adventure Gap book
The Wilderness Education Association gave James Mills the Paul K. Petzoldt Leadership Award at the 2016 International Conference on Outdoor Leadership.
The Ultimate Gifts for the Daring Adventurer
See gift ideas for the adventurer in your life, including a NOLS expedition.
Honors Business Students Share Reflections on Wilderness Expedition
Students from the University of Texas’ Canfield Business Honors Program (BHP) reflect on an eight-day backpacking expedition with NOLS in January 2019.
ESF: SEO Steers NYC Student to Conservation Biology
Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Scholars. Taste for adventure sent him to the Talkeetna Mountains in Alaska for a 30-day backpacking trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School and helped guide him into an internship with the Nature Conservancy.
The Gap Year Trend: What, Why and How?
One option through NOLS is a semester in the Rocky Mountains including backpacking, mountaineering, winter camping, wilderness medicine, rafting, etc.
