Months later, I still find myself wondering what brought me there, and what I brought back.

Always it is like this: from the warmth of home, the mind moves towards cold and distant lands. From known to unknown, from comfort into fear, from one set of questions towards another at once more vast and elemental. From union into aloneness, and then back again—but never to stay.

Topics: Educators Notebook, Instructor expedition, Instructor Development Fund (IDF), mountaineering, Patagonia, story

As an outdoor educator and a student of wilderness medicine, I thought that I had a pretty good idea of what wilderness risk management was all about…preparedness! I thought, “I know how to do that”, and was looking forward to learning about how to do it better. Boy, was I wrong.

Going to the Wilderness Risk Management Conference really helped me gain a different perspective of risk management and provided me with an impactful educational experience.

Topics: WRMC, Wilderness Risk Management Conference, Educators Notebook, risk management, risk management training, education

The NOLS Risk Management Training (RMT) is designed to educate and empower administrators to develop or adapt their risk management practices to best suit their organization’s needs. View the upcoming schedule here.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC, Wilderness Risk Management Conference, risk management training

Editor's Note: Tara Verenna, the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Korea International School (KIS), runs an Experiential Education program focused on outdoor learning for students grades 4-12. Tara sought out NOLS for a Risk Management Training course (RMT), which ran in mid-September 2017. We caught up with Tara afterward to learn about her experience, and how the concepts and guidance provided by the RMT are helping to shape KIS’ risk management policies and procedures.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC, Wilderness Risk Management Conference, risk management, risk management training

It’s mid-November, and a crew of excited Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) undergraduates loads into a few vans bound for the Pacific Ocean, anxiously anticipating their first open water dive. There is an air of hearty excitement mixed with a small dose of nerves; this is the feel of an adventure beginning.

Topics: Wilderness Risk Management Conference, WRMC, Educators Notebook

Editor’s note: Instructor Rumi Kodama takes us inside the connection between person and paddle as she develops her whitewater canoeing skills.

Knowing and understanding a canoe stroke goes much deeper than the movement of the paddle. It’s all about the interplay between the paddle, the canoe, and the movement of the water.

Topics: Educators Notebook, whitewater canoeing

NOLS instructors write about paddling the Grand Canyon with family and friends.

Ribeye steaks on day eleven? This was not a NOLS course. This was a descent of the Grand Canyon, made possible by the NOLS instructor development fund—the classic journey, with all the iced sodas you can drink and rapids that might keep an oarswoman awake at night.

Topics: Educators Notebook

Working at NOLS, and in the wilderness medicine department for that matter, my colleagues and I are not unfamiliar with what can go wrong in the backcountry—that is what we teach our students to respond to, after all. Walking through the Exhibitor Reception the first evening of the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) in Salt Lake City, I met and mingled with a lot of folks who were dedicated to that same goal of being a leader in crisis situations, in one way or another.

Topics: WRMC, Educators Notebook

We read in plenty of places that getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing—it seems these days that everyone wants us to step outside of it and push its boundaries.

You can imagine the comfort zone place as a big pile of cozy pillows, with the temperature set at about 75 degrees Fahrenheit and with fuzzy socks on your feet. You’re safe. You know what to say and how to behave. You can complete tasks without even thinking. In all probability, you like your comfort zone.

Topics: education, Educators Notebook, leadership, risk management

For over 36 years, Wildlands Studies has provided environmental field courses to undergraduates in the U.S. and around the world. Leslie Arutunian, director at Wildlands Studies, reflects on the organization and her involvement with the Wilderness Risk Management Conference since 2008.

Learn how risk management relates to student groups at Wildlands Studies and why Arutunian returns to the WRMC year after year.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC

We recently caught up with Jay Satz, Senior Director of Partnerships and Innovation at Northwest Youth Corps (NYC). The NYC is a job training, educational, and conservation experience for youth and young adults, operating since 1984. They run conservation service programs in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and northern California. Perhaps you will see similarities to your own program and discover how the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) can help you.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC

Steve Rosencranz, founder of The Woods Project, recently spoke with us about his organization, risk management, and the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC.) The Woods Project was founded in 2001 and provides opportunities for low-income youth to experience the outdoors.

Read on to discover how the WRMC has benefited The Woods Project and how it can benefit you.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC

Where did you go for your trip and how long was it?

For this 9 day course we explored two different areas around Vancouver Island off of the west coast of British Columbia. We spent the first 3 days working on skills base camped on the south part of Gabriola Island, one of the Southern Gulf Islands then drove across Vancouver Island to the west coast and spent the next 5 days in Clayquot Sound just north of Tofino.

Topics: education, Educators Notebook, leadership, NOLS Pacific Northwest, Sea Kayaking

We recently caught up with the operations manager for Yellowstone Association Institute, John Harmer. Yellowstone Association explains, “Since 1976, its programs have introduced thousands of students to the park’s natural wonders. Programs range from one day to three weeks in length.”

Perhaps you will see similarities to your own program and discover how the Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) can help you.

Topics: Educators Notebook, WRMC

Southern Chile offers world class sea kayaking. In northern Patagonia, where NOLS is based, the Pacific Coast of South America fragments into a network of islands and fjords that offer some of the most remote, challenging, and beautiful paddling in the world. I had the chance to spend almost five months travelling and working for NOLS in Chile this past winter, and was grateful to receive an IDF grant to attend the South Pacific Sea Kayak Symposium in December.

Topics: education, Educators Notebook, IDF, Instructor Development Fund, instructors, leadership, NOLS Patagonia, Sea Kayaking