Posts by NOLS

To help recognize NOLS’ 50th anniversary, the Star-Tribune caught up with Peter Metcalf, founder and CEO of international outdoor gear company Black Diamond Equipment and former NOLS student to explain how his experience in the organization helped shape his future.

NOLS was founded in Wyoming and is still headquartered in Lander, where it serves tens of thousands of students each year. Wyoming Public Radio’s Caroline Ballard caught up with John Gans, the executive director at NOLS, to hear his take on the school’s 50-year legacy.

Photographer Hudson Henry on the new documentary An American Ascent, which covers the first African American expedition to take on Denali.

John Ganns, Director of the Lander based National Outdoor Leadership School, welcomed over seven-hundred returning NOLS graduates , former staff, community members and officials during opening ceremonies last night (Thursday) of the 50th Anniversary of the school, founded in March of 1965 in Lander.

Fifty years ago on March 4, 1965, Judge Jack Nicholas and Paul Petzoldt signed papers establishing the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander,’ current NOLS Executive Director John Gans told a large gathering at the Lander Community and Convention Center. ‘While Paul was a visionary, he did not envision that today we would be an international school that taught courses in 28 countries, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have chosen ‘National’ for the name.’

This month, on October 8th through 10th, the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) will celebrate its 50th Anniversary with an alumni reunion full of events and merry-making. The celebration will take place in Lander, Wyoming, the school’s home base. In attendance will be Liz Nichol, RMFI’s Office Manager, who completed her first NOLS course as a student in 1967

As part of the NOLS 50th Anniversary Celebration, the 10th Mountain Division is hosting a Living History Display featuring the uniforms and equipment that Paul Petzoldt, founder of NOLS, helped develop for the Army. The display includes mountaineering equipment, skis, sleeping bags, packs, climbing boots, and a display of military mountaineering medicine from that time.

Andrew Altepeter fell in love with the outdoors at a young age after a transformational hike up to Knapsack Col in the Wind River Range. Pushed past his limits by his father, incredible views of the northwestern Wind River Range awed him. He was hooked. This passion stayed with him through four years at Whitman College, where he regularly participated in the school’s outdoor program. Next came work in the energy industry as a drill-site geologist, but still he managed to find time to adventure when not at work. However he soon moved on, taking an instructor course with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). There, he started to learn about lightweight hiking. “By summer of 2010 I had worked a few courses, and I was hooked,” he says. And five years later he shows no signs of slowing down. He says the chance to be an instructor has “provided an avenue to support transformational experiences for others” and helps him appreciate the importance of the wilderness. Plus it has given him the opportunity to hone his ultralight hiking skills and how he teaches these skills to others.

Molly Herber, Staff Writer at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) recommends a recipe that’ll knock the socks off any camper: backcountry pizza.

My life has been connected with the outdoors, as an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School and now as the leader of a conservation organization.

A Big City Mountaineers teen trip opens a window on some of the more daunting challenges of increasing youth diversity in the outdoors. By Corey Buhay

I wanted to go Lander, home of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and to the Wind River Range, where the fishing was supposedly epic.

The Lander Valley Leadership Expedition has become a tradition for upcoming seniors at Lander Valley High School who elect to serve as ‘Senior Mentors’.

One of the toughest aspects of the training is NOLS Expeditionary Training. This involves the whole class roughing it out in the wilderness for 10 days.

The idea behind City Kids is to get kids out of these neighborhoods and into wilderness adventures that help them learn, grow and build skills.

Actor Harrison Ford received the 2016 Murie Spirit of Conservation Award, adding a wow factor to the event. NOLS Director John Gans also attended.

Summer Search Boston, a nonprofit enrichment program has students take NOLS courses during the summer as part of their participation in the program.

The 19-year-old recently finished a 75-day expedition in Alaska, kayaking, hiking and mountaineering hundreds of miles. This was part of a summer semester with NOLS.

After the Bachelorette, as an escape, he signed up for a three-week National Outdoor Leadership School sailing expedition in Mexico in October 2012.

They paddled 1,239 miles over 66 days from Wilderness Canoe Base to Hudson Bay–raising over $40,000 for Wilderness Canoe Base in the process.

This list was compiled byTiffany Smith, who has been a certified Wilderness Responder for eight years through NOLS Wilderness Medicine.

UC Berkeley and NOLS alumna Sheyna Gifford emerged from a year-long simulation of a Mars mission with a new perspective on the universe.