We have officially arrived in Lander at the NOLS Rocky Mountain Headquarters! And it is amazing! We got in yesterday around 3 and then had our orientation at 6:30. There are two sections of our course which have 14 or 15 students each. It's a very interesting group of people ranging in age from 20 to 34. Everyone has some level of outdoor experience, a few have even been on other NOLS courses, but there's plenty of room for everyone to learn. We all come from different backgrounds and disciplines, but everyone shares the common desire of wanting to integrate teaching and their personal passion for the outdoors.
Today has been a busy day which began with breakfast at 7 am and then rations and gear selection at 8. We traveled from our hotel about two blocks down the street to the Rocky Mountain Headquarters where we "exploded" all of our gear and pulled out the things that we need for the hiking section of the course. NOLS has an amazing gear shop that has everything in it that you could ever want or need for a course. You could literally walk in here with only the shirt on your back and get set with everything for your course.
In addition to culling through our gear, we went to the Gulch and collected our rations. NOLS provides rations of rice, flour, cake mix, pasta, cheese, animal crackers, and all other kinds of food, which each tent group is responsible for combining and turing into food for each meal. We have a couple of cookbooks to share on the trail, which have amazing recipes for everything from pancakes to cinnamon rolls. I've never cooked with rations before, so I'm excited to see what kind of stuff with come up with. Apparently people get pretty creative especially toward the end of a section when there's not much left.
For the hiking section (which is 9 days long) we will each carry 15 pounds of food. We began the process by making bags of food for everyone and then a gulch girl took us around in our tent groups (3-4 students) and filled our food bags with rations. Afterward we split up the weight with each other so that one person wasn't carrying more than the others- side note: cheese is HEAVY!!!!
This afternoon we will have our first class on packing our backpacks and we'll also get more of a run-down on how the course is going to flow. We have learned, that we are only going to be in Lander once during the course around October 8-10. Other than that, we will either be in the field, or at the 3 Peaks Ranch, which is NOLS horse packing camp headquarters. WOW!!! We're really going to be out of touch! We will, however, be able to send mail every time we receive a resupply- about once every 8-9 days and we'll receive mail between each course section. Here's a quick rundown of the course:
September 18-27: Backpacking in the Wind River Range of Wyoming
September 27-October 7: Wilderness First Responder at 3 Peaks Ranch in Wyoming
October 8-10: In Lander for Defensive Driving, resupply and rationing for the remainder of the course
October 11-31: Climbing in the Red Rocks of Nevada- near Las Vegas
November 1-28: Canyoneering at the Dirty Devil in Utah
November 28-December 17- Backcountry Skiing in western Wyoming
December 18: Return to Lander
The next three months are going to be insane! But amazing.
Well we're off to our next class... I'll try to write more later.
Today has been a busy day which began with breakfast at 7 am and then rations and gear selection at 8. We traveled from our hotel about two blocks down the street to the Rocky Mountain Headquarters where we "exploded" all of our gear and pulled out the things that we need for the hiking section of the course. NOLS has an amazing gear shop that has everything in it that you could ever want or need for a course. You could literally walk in here with only the shirt on your back and get set with everything for your course.
In addition to culling through our gear, we went to the Gulch and collected our rations. NOLS provides rations of rice, flour, cake mix, pasta, cheese, animal crackers, and all other kinds of food, which each tent group is responsible for combining and turing into food for each meal. We have a couple of cookbooks to share on the trail, which have amazing recipes for everything from pancakes to cinnamon rolls. I've never cooked with rations before, so I'm excited to see what kind of stuff with come up with. Apparently people get pretty creative especially toward the end of a section when there's not much left.
For the hiking section (which is 9 days long) we will each carry 15 pounds of food. We began the process by making bags of food for everyone and then a gulch girl took us around in our tent groups (3-4 students) and filled our food bags with rations. Afterward we split up the weight with each other so that one person wasn't carrying more than the others- side note: cheese is HEAVY!!!!
This afternoon we will have our first class on packing our backpacks and we'll also get more of a run-down on how the course is going to flow. We have learned, that we are only going to be in Lander once during the course around October 8-10. Other than that, we will either be in the field, or at the 3 Peaks Ranch, which is NOLS horse packing camp headquarters. WOW!!! We're really going to be out of touch! We will, however, be able to send mail every time we receive a resupply- about once every 8-9 days and we'll receive mail between each course section. Here's a quick rundown of the course:
September 18-27: Backpacking in the Wind River Range of Wyoming
September 27-October 7: Wilderness First Responder at 3 Peaks Ranch in Wyoming
October 8-10: In Lander for Defensive Driving, resupply and rationing for the remainder of the course
October 11-31: Climbing in the Red Rocks of Nevada- near Las Vegas
November 1-28: Canyoneering at the Dirty Devil in Utah
November 28-December 17- Backcountry Skiing in western Wyoming
December 18: Return to Lander
The next three months are going to be insane! But amazing.
Well we're off to our next class... I'll try to write more later.
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