NOLS winter camping in the 1970s.
It was December 1973, in the midst of a two-week winter course somewhere in the Winds. With our 70+-pound packs, we used seal skins on our wooden Army-issue skis to ascend a steep ridge. The day was clear and very cold. The snow was almost to our knees, as I recall. So daunting. So hard. So worth the hard-earned view into the next valley. But then the shimmering peace was shattered by the roar of snow machines along the valley floor. I remember the disappointment of their easy access, after ours had been so hard-earned. Shortly after that, I fell forward between my skis. Trapped, I did push-ups to grab lungsful of air until someone could help me.
That wilderness, our classroom—that ridge—is still there. Every student who has entered a NOLS experience has a similar “there” to remember. Despite numerous odds, this school continues to offer tolerance for adversity and much more in these vastly different social, political, and generational times. Many students from the early days now have children and even grandchildren who have benefited from a NOLS education. The school itself has traversed up steep slopes, had its share of falls, been rescued and assisted along the way while benefiting from spectacular views—modern intrusions be damned.
NOLS Founder Paul Petzoldt and former Executive Director Jim Ratz in the 1990s.
My personal story came in the second wave of the school’s history, well after Paul Petzoldt’s dream began to take shape with the aid of so many larger-than-life origin story personalities: Tap Tapley, Rob and Martha Hellyer, Norma, too many early instructors to name. Many arrived as beneficiaries of the infamous “Pay Back When Able” scholarships. Was it the December 1969 article in Life magazine or the January 1970 Alcoa Hour airing of Thirty Days to Survival that attracted the tsunami of students (including me) that skyrocketed the trajectory of NOLS? For many (again, including me), coming to Lander and later, Baja, Patagonia, Alaska, and elsewhere, to arrive at NOLS was to be transformed.
Suddenly, though, 60 years have zipped by. Fewer of us can still recall Paul’s booming voice, his bear-paw handshake, his penetrating gaze from beneath those bushy eyebrows. Hundreds of thousands have benefited, though, from his legacy as forwarded by people just as committed to the school’s mission. The lessons of the wilderness and expedition behavior, and more, have been dispersed globally, even to outer space. It has not been easy. But the people of this school have, as John Gans wrote in his foreword to A Worthy Expedition: A History of NOLS, “made the difficult, daunting, and authentic happen on a daily basis.” In 2025, after sixty years, NOLS is still here.
Author Kate Dernocoeur atop an Appaloosa during her student course in the 1970s.
Since the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2015, the school’s rebranding and refreshed logo have become old news. The adversities of the COVID years knocked hard upon the foundations of the school and were overcome. Against all odds (given the early days when a career with NOLS wasn’t on anyone’s radar), many familiar, dedicated faces stayed in positions of leadership for decades. Most have now yielded to the astonishing fact of retirement. But somehow, the inevitable wrinkles caused by changes in leadership iron themselves out, and the school endures.
So what is next? What will NOLS look like in another sixty years, in the year 2085? Given the modern “advances” we have known, is it even possible to wrap one’s imagination around what life will be like then? Whatever newfangled tech and AI and who-knows-what human innovations and/or catastrophes come along, one thing is (hopefully) sure: the wilderness and its lessons will still be available to those willing and able to go there. It will surely be a changed place, given the struggles humankind is imposing on the globe, but maybe, with continued advocacy and care, wilderness will be the same nourishing and terrifying and steady and immense place we cherish. As Paul often said to anyone with hopes and dreams, “Go for it. You can do this.” And that includes stepping into the future with purpose and resolve.
[Author's Note: Writing the history of NOLS in 2015 for the 50th anniversary remains my most challenging writing experience. The task of wrangling fifty years of three-dimensional stories full of oversized personalities into a linear, two-dimensional offering was daunting. I remain grateful to everyone who shared their memories, and hopeful that, overall, I got it decently right.]
