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Published: June 17th 2008
NOLS IC Students on Continental Divide
This photo comes from a great hiking day on May 15th, enjoying the sun, snow and mountains. Though it's from the middle of the course, I had to post it first as it's one of my favorites from the course. Read on!Greetings from the Rocky Mountains!
Apparently I just can't quit this blog, but there are lots of friends and family I've been out of touch with the last few weeks, so I find myself back here once again. As you may or may not know, I've been traipsing around the Wyoming wilderness since early May, enrolled in an instructor course with the
National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). The course was a prerequisite for working as an instructor with NOLS, which I'll be doing this summer and hopefully in future summers as well.
Also, I'm posting lots and lots and lots of photos in this blog with no external links. I don't think they all show up on this page so make sure you click one of the images so you can scroll through all 60-something photos!
I've got a lot of news since I was last in touch, so I think I'll just cut to the chase with some of it right now. I'm moving back to Bainbridge Island! It's been a long time - nearly two years - since I left the northwest and headed overseas. But I'm very excited to move back and return to work at
IslandWood, where I
Day One
Here we are in the bay at the Rocky Mountain Branch getting our gear organized and packing our bags. Notice how even in town we're wearing hats and jackets ... it was cold! will be teaching in the field with visiting students. This time around, I'll also have my summers free to continue working as an instructor for NOLS and/or heading off on fun adventures; in other words, this blog could be going for a long, long time to come!
Okay, without further adieu, on with the show ...
NOLS Instructor Course - Wilderness Section or What is NOLS Anyway? I should probably start with a quick description of the school, and what NOLS is all about. And since I'm lazy, I'll just pull some text right from the home page: "NOLS, the premier teacher of outdoor skills and leadership, offers courses 10 days to full semesters in the world's most spectacular wilderness classrooms." That actually just about sums it up. The school runs backpacking, mountaineering, climbing, sailing, rafting, sea kayaking, skiing, snowboarding (etc.) classes all over the place. I took a mountaineering course in Washington in 1998 which eventually set me on a career path in outdoor education and this spring/summer I'm returning to teach at the school.
I enrolled in this year's May 1 Rocky Mountain Instructor Course, which helps potential instructors to "get checked off" in
all the requisite skills in order to teach for NOLS while getting us ready for employment during the current summer season. The May 1 IC is also a bit of a physical and mental testing grounds because the high country in the mountains is still buried in snow, the temps drop below freezing each night, and this year, the Wind River Mountains (and perhaps all of Wyoming?) received a record snowfall which is still lingering around as I type.
I traveled from Boulder, CO to Lander, WY (NOLS headquarters and Rocky Mountain branch) on April 29 with a few others who were heading out into the woods as new potential instructors. We arrived at the historic Noble Hotel in Lander, which serves as host to all students and instructors pre- and post-course. We spent a day and a half in town, meeting and greeting with our course-mates, as well as NOLS staff for orientation/training in town. Before heading out, we each signed up for a class or two that we would teach in the field and studied up in the NOLS library to prepare before packing our bags.
Then on May 2, we were off! Even in town,
The Ration Room
Here we bagged all of our food for the 18-day wilderness section of the course i.e. lower elevation, we were welcomed with a heavy dose of fresh snow as we loaded the bus with our bags. We drove about 2 hours to our trailhead in the Northern Wind River range and the course began. In brief, we spent our days as follows: early morning wakeups, 6-6:30 am, breakfast, hiking around 8 am in small groups of 5 people practicing off-trail navigation/travel/hazard evaluation, arriving camp between 3-5 pm, setting up camp, preparing dinner and having classes. In this instructor course format, we were the teachers more often than not, giving classes while being evaluated by our peers and our instructors. We kept a group journal to record all of our notes on the wide range of classes: Leave No Trace camping and travel, Expedition Behavior, Snow School, Cooking, Baking, Hypothermia, Map and Compass, Public Land Management, Group Dynamics, Leadership Skills, Avalanche Hazard, Weather, Glaciers, Ecology, Risk Management, Teaching Skills, Stove Repair and Maintenance, Nutrition, not to mention ongoing "Nature Nuggets" given trailside during hikes. We also rotated the "Leader of the Day," a classic NOLS format in which the students take over the route planning and taking charge of the group during the travel day, giving
everyone opportunities to stop into formal leadership roles on the course.
As an avid backpacker, and one who hadn't been on an extended wilderness trip in a few years, I really loved the entire wilderness section of the course. I don't know if can pinpoint one particular single highlight that stands above all the rest, but I can say that these first 18 days of the course, taken as a whole, were my favorite aspect of the 34-day course. The 12 students and 3 instructors had ample time to explore the mountains, get to know one another, eat great meals, teach classes, and progress into a highly functioning team. We had an instructor from Mexico, students from India (now at home in US), Patagonia (Chile), Brazil, Russia (now at home in the US) and the rest Americans. Without question, I've made a number of new friends for life, all of whom I'm hoping to work with in the future at NOLS.
We hiked through forests, around lakes, up and over the continental divide (near 12,000 feet at one point) and all around the Winds. One of the most unexpected aspects of the course was the true winter weather
Our first camp!
Actually, this is just before we packed up to start hiking on the morning of May 3. Notice it's sunny and warm with no snow ... that wouldn't last long! we experienced. Spring is usually a time of snow melt and fast-flowing rivers. But this year, with so much snow and such low overnight temperatures, we made our way onto snowshoes by day two of the course, and didn't take them off until we were one day out from the pickup point, down around 7,000 feet.
For the last few days of the wilderness section we broke into small group expeditions (4 people per group), spending 3 days and 2 nights as separate tent groups hiking on our own with different routes - an aspect of NOLS courses that is offered even to younger high school and college aged students towards the end of their 30 day courses. I joined up with three other friends on a fasting small group expedition. We left our last group camp early in the morning on May 18, and in an effort to save time, we ate cornbread that we had prepared the night before in order to keep the stove packed up. We hit the trail for what would be one of our longest days - 13 hours travel - as we hiked 8 miles gaining a few hundred feet of elevation,
followed by a 2,500 foot loss; it was the descent that caused the snow to turn into slush, hindering our pace. As our snacks ran out throughout the day, the fast began, and we arrived in camp around 8 pm, foregoing dinner.
We had now reached the low desert scrub in the mountain foothills, and had 2 relaxing days thanks to our big push the day before. We awoke on the 19th and skipped eating all together, though I did have sugary hot drinks (cocoa, lemonade, cider) throughout the day. We hiked one mile further and set up another camp late in the afternoon. The following day we were scheduled to meet up with the rest of the group, which required 500 feet of elevation gain and a 2 mile hike. Though still not feeling hungry, we were challenged to muster motivation to push ahead, and had to take many breaks during the short climb, struggling to find the energy to move.
At this point, you may be asking ... but why fast in the first place!?! Believe me, I didn't anticipate doing this myself, but it turned out to be an interesting challenge. Basically, by this time
Mini class
One of many on-trail, mini-class moments during the course in the course, I was mostly interested in the big travel day (that 13-hour day) followed by two rest days; this is compared to two other groups which (a) did a peak ascent one day, followed by another huge travel day and (b) a group that split the travel evenly over two days. But one of the other course members wanted to attempt a small group expedition as a fast (at least once we reached our layover days) and the idea caught on. Fasting at NOLS started back in the 1960's as a type of survival tool, giving students an opportunity to push their survival limits in a controlled setting. Over the years fasting has become an optional, infrequent activity, but one that kind of hangs around the school. Though I didn't really have an interest in fasting prior to the course, I decided that I wanted to give it a shot so that later, when I'm a course leader managing students, I can make an informed decision whether or not to encourage fasting, and with which students to do so. Besides, it just seemed like a nice option to sit, rest and reflect for a few days towards the
end of the course before we returned to town.
So by late morning on May 20th, we arrived at the group camp and two of us continued the fast for another 24 hours (myself included, for a 60-hour fast in total). The last day was focused on organizing and cleaning group gear and also - EVALUATIONS! - essentially, the moment we found out if we were signed off and hired to work for NOLS (I've basically glossed over the fact that we were constantly evaluated during the course, with formal mentors and check-ins, discussing our teaching, leadership and risk management/decision making). Then on the morning of the 21st a bus, fully stocked for breakfast, arrived to pick us up for the drive back to Lander where we would shower, say goodbye to two of our instructors and prepare to go rock climbing!
NOLS Instructor Course - Rock Climbing Section With the wintry wilderness section under our belts, our entire group was excited at the prospect of rock camp where we'd be based camping at a ranch with warm, dry weather, fresh produce, double-burner stoves and even ... toilet paper! We'd be climbing all day, eating great
meals each night, reading books, doing yoga, and leaving our tents in the same place day after day. Could it get any better? Could it get any worse?
It did.
We got rain.
Lots of rain.
And some hail, too. With a bit more snow.
So we spent the first few days attempting to get a few classes in while constantly running back to our tents and covered kitchen areas for shelter. We passed the time in our tents reading, napping or playing games - my group had a travel scrabble!
And finally the sun came, and rock climbing camp had begun!
We started learning knots, placing rock protection and building anchors, some basic movement on rocks and eventually progressed into more advanced climbing/anchor/rescue techniques. Those interested in getting "checked off" to teach rock climbing and mountaineering came to the course with a significant climbing background, and eventually led multi-pitch climbs before we departed. I, on the other hand, am a total novice who hadn't climbed on rock since 1999. In fact, I mostly spent the course discovering how much I'm not into rock climbing. Don't get me wrong, I had a great
time. By now we were all great friends and were still hiking, still living outside and enjoying the setting. But somewhere through the course I realized that I just wanted to get moving again and start leading my first course.
Finally on the morning of June 3 we packed up our gear and headed back into town for our official graduation ceremony and final dinner together as a group. On the morning of the 4th we each met individually with the staffing office and received our first contracts, sharing the exciting news with each other while saying our goodbyes. I learned that I'd been hired to lead an "adventure course," which is a 14-day course for 14 and 15 year olds. I'll be working from the Teton Valley Branch in Eastern Idaho (actually, that's where I am now ... the course starts tomorrow!). After the contract news, I spent the next few days at the NOLS Noble Hotel with a couple other classmates and enjoyed the relaxation, daily shower regimen and soft beds before figuring out a plan for spending time between my course and my first contract.
Post-NOLS - Lander Buffalo/Jackson/Tetons/Yellowstone Disclaimer - I didn't have
a chance to upload my Yellowstone pics just yet. I hope to do so in early July (check back over the holiday weekend, or later, if you're so inclined)
After a few days in Lander, I joined a few of the people from our sister IC (another course was out in the Southern Winds the same time as mine) to stay at a small house near the Bighorn Mountains near Buffalo, Wyoming. We went for a run one day, hiked another day and watched some DVD's, read books, cooked good meals ... you get the picture ... more relaxation time in a very quiet setting.
I came back to Lander where I met up with 2 of my classmates for a ride to Jackson, WY and the Teton Science School. Here I stayed with two good friends/former colleagues (and visited a third), all of went through my graduate program on Bainbridge Island. We hadn't seen each other in years, and it was great to see the Teton Science School, the town of Jackson (where I got to play in my first bball game in a few months) and a full day in Yellowstone, exploring the other-worldiness of the
park.
The NOLS Teton Valley Branch, while in Idaho, is really just over the mountains from Jackson, WY. So yesterday - Sunday the 15th - we came over the pass and I settled in to the branch. We started briefing for our course today, spending the full day looking over maps, gear and meeting our co-instructors. We'll finish briefing the morning of the 17th and our students will arrive during the evening and camp out on the lawn. Then on June 18th we're off - two weeks in the Pallisades mountains of Eastern Idaho!
Next up - Back Home Again, in Seattle! As I alluded to early on, I'm settling back down at home in the northwest! My course here ends on the morning of July 2 and I'm joining my co-instructor on a drive to Salt Lake City. I'll be heading back to Indianapolis for the 4th of July, then off to a wedding in NYC, and then making my way back to the west coast. I'll be back to Seattle in late July, but - par for the course - I'll be immediately disappearing into the wilderness to lead a backpacking trip in Hoh Rainforest
of Olympic National Park for IslandWood and a couple weeks later I'll be leading another NOLS course, this time in Washington state. After all that, I'll have a few weeks before starting back up, teaching in the School Overnight Program at IslandWood and mentoring the graduate student instructors!
All in all, this is a very exciting time for me. One year ago I was on Safari in Tanzania preparing to move to Uganda with no idea what my return to the US would hold for me in 2008. Ten years ago I was finishing up my final undergraduate course at IU and preparing for my student NOLS course in Washington. It's hard to believe I'm now writing this from a NOLS branch as an employee. Not to mention, five years ago I was moving to Bainbridge Island enrolled as a graduate instructor at IslandWood and in a couple months I'll be returning to teach and mentor. Thanks for sharing in my journeys and I hope to catch up with you in person in the near future!
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Carrie
non-member comment
wow! sounds incredible, you're making me quite jealous sitting here at my desk!