NCOAE Blog

Early in my career I had the opportunity to work with a group of international teachers. The teachers were in the United States doing graduate work at a university that required an outdoor education component.

I greeted them and started things off with some typical outdoor education icebreaker activities, including a game called Help Tag. It’s a typical game of tag where players can “unfreeze” or rescue tagged teammates. However, I noticed the entire group froze. There was definitely something about the game that was unsettling to the participants. They were just standing there.

I gathered the group into a circle and asked what was wrong and was told the game wasn’t the way they play tag in their country. In fact, they said the version of the game I was proposing was a little scary.

I felt terrible — it was as if I had done more harm than good.

At the end of the day, using a reflective circle, I created time to debrief the activity. When I asked the group how they might teach a lesson that would reach my intended outcome, instead of just talking, they actually taught me a few games that they would have chosen for the lesson.

This was an incredible learning experience. It opened my eyes to the fact that, despite all the training sessions I had attended, all the mentors and organizations I had worked for, no one ever mentioned the importance of selecting games or using language in relationships tailored to the culture(s) with which I would be working. Instead, we depended on the books and activities we had on hand and simply pick one when facilitating programs.

Those teachers gave me real-time training on being culturally aware and responsive — training I should have received from<!–more–> my employers, the conferences I had attended, and other facilitators and guides I worked with over the years.

Without realizing it, we facilitate activities that often reflect deep cultural biases. Many activities celebrate and explore individualism, conquest, aggression, and competition, which may not be valued by all communities. As a result, students with different backgrounds may experience considerable discomfort and alienation when engaging in such activities.

Historically, the outdoor education industry in the U.S. has not been as culturally responsive as it could. It is often criticized for mirroring Eurocentric norms that emphasize individual adventure and the concept of “empty wilderness” (the idea that indigenous populations have no rights to land simply because they don’t have a legal document to prove ownership of it).

However, in recent years, our industry has evolved, with efforts led by the Association for Experiential Education’s (AEE) Professional and Regional Groups to incorporate culturally sustaining pedagogy, increase accessibility, and recognize culturally diverse relationships in the outdoors.

The questions we need to ask ourselves as an industry are:

1. Where did our industry’s cultural bias come from?
2. How can we get to a better place in outdoor education?

In this post, I answer those questions.

Two Factors Driving Outdoor Education’s Lack of Cultural Responsiveness

Cultural bias is deeply ingrained in society as a whole. In outdoor education, this bias can be attributed primarily to the following factors:

Historical lack of representation: The industry has long been dominated by European and North American traditions and values, such as individualism and self-reliance along with white, Western narratives. Additionally, structural barriers, ranging from cost and location to representation among instructors and leadership, can limit who participates and whose perspectives are reflected in lessons and activities. This legacy of exclusion can make the outdoors feel intimidating or unwelcoming to black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities.

Cultural disconnects: Typical outdoor activities often focus on individualistic, competitive, or high-risk challenges, which may not align with the community-focused values of all participants, as I pointed out earlier in this post.

Moving Toward Culturally Responsive Practices

The outdoor education industry is moving toward a more culturally responsive model by shifting from a “standard curriculum” to creating spaces that welcome and encourage diverse cultural perspectives and interactive teacher-student relationships.

Incorporating Diverse Narratives

To become more inclusive, the outdoor education industry has increasingly incorporated narratives that reflect indigenous perspectives, local community knowledge, and diverse voices in outdoor and adventure-based programming. Here are some specific actions you can take to make your outdoor education programs more responsive to participants from diverse backgrounds:

• Focus on local and relatable: Shift from exclusively high-adventure wilderness to local, accessible green spaces and incorporate community-specific knowledge. This approach is commonly referred to as place-based education (PBE).
• Increase accessibility and inclusivity: Remove cost barriers, improve access to gear, and diversify staff.
• Implement culturally responsive teaching (CRT): CRT is a student-centered, research-based approach that connects students’ cultural backgrounds, languages, and life experiences to their learning. The next section explains CRT in greater detail.

Numerous peer-revised studies show that outdoor environmental education, when designed thoughtfully, can significantly boost engagement and foster a sense of belonging in nature for diverse communities.

Shifting to Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT)

Traditional teaching methods tend to be teacher centered. The teacher is the expert presenting the information and guidance the student is expected to absorb. It is an approach geared toward passive learning and standardized tests and a method that is outdated and ineffective for many students.

With CRT, students are engaged more actively in their education. The curriculum is adapted to the student’s cultural framework, making it more relevant to each student’s cultural knowledge, experience, and perspective.

We have more diverse students/clients today. Cherese Childers-McKee is an associate teaching professor in Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies in Boston, Massachusetts, and assistant dean of academic and faculty affairs. She says:

“We don’t have students sitting in front of us with the same background or experience, so instruction has to be different. It needs to build on individual and cultural experiences and their prior knowledge. It needs to be justice-oriented and reflect the social context we’re in now. That’s what we mean when we talk about culturally responsive teaching.”

CRT benefits students in the following ways:

• Strengthens students’ sense of identity
• Promotes equity and inclusivity in learning environments
• Engages students in the course material
• Supports critical thinking

In her article, “5 Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies,” award-winning reporter writer Kristin Burnham presents the following approaches:

1. “Activate students’ prior knowledge.”

When leading group discussions, encourage students to draw on their prior knowledge and experience. This approach anchors new learning to existing knowledge and understanding.

2. “Make learning contextual.”

Present new material in the context of the students’ lived experience in their real-world and online communities. For example, if you’re introducing students to Leave No Trace (LNT), encourage them to think about how these principles might help improve their neighborhood or your learning environment.

3. “Encourage students to leverage their cultural capital.”

Look for ways that enable students to leverage their cultural capital (the set of unique experiences every individual has). The goal is to create opportunities for students in the minority to feel like — and thus present themselves — as experts on something they are uniquely qualified to share.

For example, if you’re teaching a lesson on wilderness navigation and survival to students from an urban setting, you may design activities around situational awareness and route-finding. In that way, you’re encouraging students to draw on their experience of reading surroundings, spotting patterns, and noticing what’s out of place in their urban environments. That enables them to assess risks and make quick, practical decisions about movement and safety in wilderness environments.

Of course, you don’t want to stereotype a particular group’s knowledge and expertise, put a student on the spot, or make a student feel as though they are speaking for everyone in a certain demographic. The right approach requires some finesse.

Every student has a unique set of assets, resources, and talents, collectively referred to as A.R.T. As a teacher, part of your job is to encourage students to leverage and share their A.R.T.

4. “Reconsider your classroom setup.”

Materials and classroom setup include books, manuals, posters, brochures, online content, classroom décor, and more. Carefully examine everything that’s a part of the learning experience with an eye for inclusivity. You want your materials to include different races and ethnicities; cultures (urban, suburban, rural); gender identities; family compositions; ability levels; and so forth. Consider having a diverse group of individuals review the learning space and the materials you use instead of trying to do it all yourself — they may pick up on things you naturally overlook.

5. “Build relationships.”

To be effective, instructors must build relationships with their students, so their students will be more receptive and more eager to engage in the learning process. The goal is to make students “feel respected, valued, and seen for who they are.” As you build relationships with students, they build relationships with one another, which creates a dynamic, collaborative learning environment.

Changing the World Oneself at a Time

Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” The only way for the outdoor education industry to progress toward culturally responsive teaching is for each of us to do so. We need to commit to becoming lifelong learners and teacher-students — both instructing and learning from our students.

I learned a great deal from those international teachers I met early in my career about the importance of being sensitive to cultural differences. Today, I continue to learn from people with different knowledge, skills, and perspectives. This engagement enriches my life and improves how I function in all facets of my life.

I encourage you to take a similar approach as you interact with students and others from different backgrounds. To have any hope of moving the outdoor education industry forward and improving the world, we need to start by changing ourselves and leading by example.

About the Author: Stephen Mullaney is the Director of School Partnerships and Staff Development at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE).

In a litigious (lawsuit-happy) society like the one we hear about all-too frequently these days, medical professionals — and that includes wilderness medicine providers —absolutely must remain aware of the possibility of being sued by a patient or a patient’s family.

For certain, most states have “Good Samaritan” laws to protect those who volunteer to help others in emergencies against frivolous lawsuits, but those laws vary from state to state and may have some exceptions.

This blog post brings you up to speed on what Good Samaritan laws are, what they entail, and how you may be able to reduce your chances of becoming a target of lawsuits when you’re doing your best to help a fellow human in distress.

Shameless disclaimer: I am not an attorney, nor am I overly fond of them, except for The National Center for Outdoor Adventure and Education’s (NCOAE) legal counsel — they’re great! This post is intended to provide some basic guidance for providing medical care in a wilderness setting in a manner that could prevent you from becoming the target of a lawsuit. However, it is no substitute for professional legal advice.

What Is a Good Samaritan?

The Good Samaritan comes from a

(more…)

In the wilderness, balance is the foundation of survival. A misstep on uneven terrain, poor pacing on a long trek, or exposure to extreme weather can quickly tip the scales from stability to crisis.

Nature itself operates in balance: day and night regulate temperature, along with alternating periods of activity and rest; ecosystems rely on opposing forces working together (predator-prey dynamics, life and death, photosynthesis and respiration). Muscle and bone development is largely driven by the body’s efforts to overcome gravitational forces, and the very act of walking involves shifting balance from one leg to the other.

Nothing captures the concept of complementary opposites working together to establish balance and harmony than the yin and yang of ancient Chinese philosophy. It applies to all aspects of life — night and day, hot and cold, good and evil, masculinity and femininity, happiness and sadness, health and illness.

In the human body, that balance is maintained through homeostasis, largely regulated by the autonomic nervous system — the part of the nervous system that regulates involuntary physiological processes, including heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion. The autonomic nervous system is able to perform its magic thanks to two complementary components — the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

(more…)

Maps cover the floor like carpet. I’m perched on the edge of a couch in the back room of a surf shop, watching the Weather Channel. I jot down timing, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, tides, and air and water temps. Then I study the maps and place pebbles where I might score big winter swells.

My objective is simple: maximize fun while reducing risk.

Thoughtful weather monitoring plays a central role in that. It helps identify, analyze, and reduce risks tied to changing conditions by combining real-time data, historical patterns, and forecast trends. For organizations like The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), it supports preparation, protects operations, and, most importantly, keeps participants safe.

Over the years at NCOAE, I’ve thoughtfully pushed myself and others with similar skills right to the edge of our comfort zones. From that experience, I built a three-tier framework to assess and reduce weather-related risk. This post breaks it down.

The Three-Tier Framework

Before heading out, I run every trip through a simple framework that keeps my decisions grounded and intentional. It helps me stay focused on what matters most: making the most of the experience while staying prepared for what could go wrong.

Here’s the framework:

(more…)

Backcountry travel and wilderness recreation means traveling light while having everything we need to survive. A small problem like a deep cut or a sudden change in weather can quickly become an emergency when civilization is miles away.

That’s why wilderness medicine starts long before anything goes wrong. It starts with what you carry.

Everyday carry (EDC) is a popular topic of conversation among those in the self-defense and prepper communities, from which the term was born. In the world of wilderness medicine, EDC — or Echo Delta Charlie for those of you with phonetic alphabet experience — refers to the carefully selected tools and supplies you keep with you at all times to respond to injuries and illness that can occur in remote wilderness and backcountry settings.

In this NCOAE blog post, I explore the essential items you may want to include in your wilderness EDC and explains how a few well-chosen items can make a big difference when you’re far from help.

Think of EDC as a less formal wilderness first aid kit. Some EDC items are on “your person” meaning in clothes pockets and on a pants belt. Other items may be in a “go bag” that you always have with you. Your EDC’s contents, comprehension, and container will be personalized based on your expectations, risk tolerance, and how light you prefer to travel.

(more…)

By definition, an expedition is quite a big deal. Typically, it involves a crew of people, covers a lot of territory, and lasts for weeks, sometimes months. Several examples come to mind. There’s Columbus’ first voyage to discover a western passage to China in 1492, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition from 1804 to 1806, Earnest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914 to 1917, and the Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969 to name a few.

I’ve been on a number of weeks-long expeditions with groups of various sizes, so I’m well aware of the planning and preparation that a successful wilderness expedition demands. The way I see it, the expedition is the culmination of that planning and preparation.

The preparation required comes in several layers:

• Physical fitness
• Mental acuity and resilience
• Equipment and supplies

Life’s demands don’t always leave me the time and resources to engage in lengthy expeditions, but I have still managed to practice an expedition lifestyle by incorporating micro-expeditions into my daily routine. This has allowed me to build what I like to refer to as an Expedition Every Day mindset. Not only does this practice satisfy (to some degree) my constant yearning for adventure, discovery, physical challenge, and time outdoors, but it also prepares me for more complex, challenging, and lengthy expeditions. You know, the ones that take me outside my comfort zone.

I encourage you to build an Expedition Every Day mindset of your own, and in this post, I explain how to do just that, drawing examples from my own expedition lifestyle experiences with biking, hiking, and photography.

The purpose of building an Expedition Every Day mindset is to prepare yourself for expeditions that take you outside your comfort zone. However, micro-expeditions also have intrinsic value — they keep you physically fit, mentally sharp, and in tune with your equipment. And, of course, they guarantee you’re spending some time each day outdoors.

(more…)

Most healthcare professionals, including some pediatricians, would rather treat adults than children. That should come as no surprise. If you’ve ever had to draw blood from a young child, you know how heartbreaking it can be for everyone in the room. Maybe in the building. Those screams can be dramatic!

The emotional pain we feel as practitioners, let alone parents, can be as equivalent to the physical pain the child experiences. It adds new meaning to the expression, “This is going to hurt me more than you.”

Unfortunately, the desire to avoid such emotional pain, along with other challenges, often discourages even the most knowledgeable and skilled doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and other healthcare providers from assessing and treating children. In some ways, they’re just little adults. In other ways, they’re not. And what we don’t know about their similarities and differences compared to adult patients can hurt them. That is particularly true when it causes us to withhold medical care when that care is most needed.

To some degree, we often fear what we don’t fully understand, and in some ways, we have been conditioned to fear those differences. In a lot of medical education, this fear is often instilled by (more…)

Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died on Jan. 10, 2026, hopefully reuniting with fellow band members who passed before him — Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (died in 1973), Jerry Garcia (died in 1995), and Phil Lesh (died in 2024). 

I say, “Fare thee well,” in reference to one of their songs and to their 2015 Fare Thee Well tour celebrating 50 years of the Grateful Dead. Only two of the original Grateful Dead band members remain — drummer, Bill Kreutzmann and percussions, Mickey Hart.

Now you may be wondering, “What does a ’60s jam band have to do with The National Center of Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE)? For that matter, how does music  relate in any fashion with spending time in the backcountry?” 

Bob Weir’s passing, and my appreciation of his band’s music, reminded me of role music plays in outdoor culture for many members of our community. And this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve had this realization. A few years ago in this spåace, our Director of School Partnerships and Staff Development, Stephen Mullaney, shared playlists from several NCOAE team members in a post entitled, “The Quintessential Backcountry Expedition Road Trip Playlist.”

Some music genres and band types just seem to be more intricately intertwined with outdoor culture than others, and The Grateful Dead is definitely one such band. Other “jam bands” embraced by the outdoor community include (more…)

For some readers, the headline of today’s blog might spark visions of Disney on Ice, complete with professional figure skaters dressed as emergency medical technicians, gliding, spinning, and soaring through the air as they provide emergency medical care in a winter wilderness setting. 

As they successfully evacuate the injured party from the ice, one skater performs a perfect triple axel in celebration. As for musical accompaniment, I’m thinking we should choreograph the entire scene to Vanilla Ice singing “Ice Ice Baby.”

I only bring this to mind because it was around this time (1990) that Vanilla Ice released his hit video recording, “Ice Ice Baby.” I climbed Mt. Shasta in Northern California’s Cascade Range that winter, and I recall the approach provided intermittent views of the frozen water that would make up the majority of the climb. I came to the realization that providing medical treatment and making potentially life-saving decisions would be much more difficult to achieve in icy conditions and bitter cold than in more temperate conditions. 

In the years since that icy climb, I have continued to enjoy ice and snow activities and have often participating in rescue operations, providing medical care in winter wilderness settings. In this post, I explore the unique challenges of providing wilderness medicine in cold, icy environments and lead you through the standard protocol for responding to injury or illness in these challenging conditions. 

And, for a little fun, I’m going to weave in a few lyrics from “Ice Ice Baby” to reinforce key lessons. So, strap on your crampons and “Let’s Kick It!” (more…)

You’ve no doubt seen the symbol below painted on the side of an ambulance, embroidered on the uniforms of emergency medical technicians (EMTs), or stuck to emergency medical equipment. Maybe you even wondered whether it had any meaning. What’s with the snake coiled around the staff? What’s the significance of the six-pointed star?

The Origin of the Star of Life

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) was formed in the United States in the late 1960s around the realization that survival rates were higher on overseas battlefields than on U.S. highways. The high mortality rate on our highways was due, in part, to the lack of an organized system for responding to accidents and treating injured parties. 

As emergency medical services were becoming standardized in the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration designed and later trademarked the blue, six-pointed Star of Life to serve as the official symbol identifying EMS personnel, vehicles, and equipment. The symbol was introduced largely because the Red Cross emblem is (more…)

When high school students return to classes after summer break, they’re often asked to write an essay on “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.” For many, there’s not much to  write about. Maybe a week spent with the grandparents or binge watching your favorite show on Netflix.

Instead, imagine spending a 32-day summer semester engaged in wilderness adventure, exploration, and learning in North Carolina, Oregon, or Ecuador.

Our summer high school semester, designed for rising 10th and 11th graders, offer students the opportunity to engage in hands-on, experiential learning and outdoor adventures, all under the guidance of our world-class, certified field instructors and guides. 

Throughout these monthlong NCOAE High School Semesters, which take place in June and July, or July and August, students participate in Honors-level Natural Science field research and study — all while earning high school credit. 

Students also earn certifications in Wilderness First Aid, Leave No Trace (LNT), and Outdoor Leadership. These 32-day high school semesters blend academic rigor with outdoor adventures, leadership lessons and experiences, and exposure to activities that positively impact personal growth and development.

A High School Experience You Won’t Forget

Whether you choose to explore North Carolina from the Mountains to the Sea or the beauty of Oregon’s Cascades, or experience cultural immersion in Ecuador’s Andes Mountains, your High School Summer Semester at NCOAE will offer a learning experience like no other — a meaningful, memorable adventure that really gives you something to write about.

Each summer high school semester begins with a week of on-campus learning in preparation for the field experience. Students participate in a range of activities that offer a mix of academics, adventure, and team building. For example: (more…)

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” ~ Charles Bukowski

When it comes to just about every worthwhile pursuit, the more you put into it, the more you get out. In the context of human-powered outdoor adventures, especially those that test your metal, that means pushing the limits and, for those of us who are thrill-seekers, risking life and limb. 

Spending time in the backcountry is often more than simply experiencing the great outdoors; it often entails exposing ourselves to, and overcoming, adversity. Through the process, we hone our outdoor skills and build strength, coordination, and character.

Part of the attraction and much of the fun we experience when we engage in extreme outdoor activities such as mountaineering, whitewater rafting/kayaking, rock climbing, skiing, snowboarding, and so on, is the thrill. We choose to expose ourselves to an increased risk of injury or death, because that’s part of what makes extreme sports so much fun.

The secret to success is managing risk and adversity so an outing becomes a thrilling challenge while still preserving life and limb. While we crave an epic adventure that we can live to remember and talk about, achieving the right balance often involves deciding when to bail; when the balance between risk and reward is weighted far too heavily on the side of risk.

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), we recommend using the following Safety-Fun-Learning Triangle as a guide to achieving the right balance:

Pre-Trip Bailing

It’s late on a Friday night and the floor is littered with maps, satellite images, weather reports and info I received from reputable sources.

Teeming with excitement, my brain narrows in on the largest, wildest expedition I can put together with the info in front of me. As the early morning hours of the next day approach, I have pared down my list to one or two realistic options (realistic for me).

Regardless of whether I am consciously aware of it, this trip planning I routinely engage in almost always involves pre-trip bailing. I start with “visions of grandeur” (more…)

Throughout our lives, we develop knowledge and wisdom, in part, by learning from our mistakes and those of others. In the context of outdoor education and adventure programming, we learn from both catastrophic events and near misses — close calls. These are events in which nearly every factor necessary to cause serious injury or death is present but catastrophe is averted due to the presence or absence of one or more conditions.

For example, imagine starting a rock climbing route and then realizing, when you’re 20 feet up, that you failed to do a specific knot check. You look down and can’t see the knot because your puffy jacket or a feature on the rock is obscuring your view. You look up and see that you have to climb about 60 feet more feet to reach an area of safety, and you’re unable to let go of the rock to get a better view of the knot, so you decide to descend. Upon reaching the ground, you discover that your knot was only half-tied.

Eventually, you’ll ponder:

• Would you have made it to the top of the climb without falling?
• Would the half-tied knot have held?
• Would a possible fall have resulted in injury?

The possible outcomes are numerous and uncertain, but the near miss is obvious, as is the lesson to be learned — don’t forget to check your knots before starting your ascent.

As Close as the Width of a Slice of Swiss Cheese

You can think of a near miss as being as close to disaster as the width of a slice of Swiss cheese. Why Swiss cheese? Because it has (more…)

One of the best things about camping is eating, and you’re likely not the only one in the backcountry who appreciates fine camp cuisine. Any bear, racoon, coyote, skunk, possum, or other opportunistic scavenger close enough to pick up the scent might stop by for dinner or a late night snack. 

And these moochers aren’t picky. They’ll settle for food, trash, even toiletries like toothpaste and soap. That’s why it’s so important to take precautions to protect your foodstuff — and yourself — from bears and other wildlife that might come calling.

Are bears a major safety concern in the backcountry? Only if you encounter them, and that depends on where you’re spending your time. As explained in our previous post, “Gauging Your Safety in the Wilderness: What’s the Most Dangerous Animal?” you’re most likely to run into bears in remote forested or alpine areas. But you should always be careful whenever you’re in an area bears are known to roam.

Explore Your Food Storage Options

Your type of activity and style of travel will determine the food storage system you choose. Here are several simple food storage options to consider:

• If you’re car-camping, simply return your food and cookware to your vehicle after a meal.
• If you’re at a campsite that provides food storage boxes, you can use one of those.
• If you’re on a paddling trip without any risk of encountering a bear, simply secure your food in a cooler with a good lid.

However, if you’re hiking in the backcountry, you’ll need to take some additional precautions. That means using specific food storage methods such as bear hangs or bear cans, and being intentional about how you arrange your campsite.

Using a Bear Hang

Bear hangs dangle your food bag out of reach of animals. They’re lightweight and require minimal equipment:

• Bear bag or stuff sacks to contain your food and scented items, such as toiletries
• 100 feet of rope or parachute cord
• One or two carabiners
• A weighted object, such as a stuff bag with a rock in it (a heavy carabiner can do the trick)

You can choose from several different bear hang techniques. Here’s the basic One-Tree Method:

1. Select a tree with a sturdy branch at least 15 feet off the ground and extending at least five feet out from the trunk.
2. Tie one end of your rope to a weighted object, such as a carabiner or a stuff bag with a rock in it, and toss it over the branch.
3. Clip the carabiner onto your food bags and pull on the opposite end of the rope until the bags are at least 12 feet off the ground and five feet from the trunk of the tree.
4. Tie the end of the rope around the trunk of a nearby tree.

Safety precaution: Be sure nobody is standing in the direction the rope is being thrown or under the area the bag is hung.

This basic method works well in most areas; however, (more…)

When wilderness medicine practitioners gather ’round a campfire, one favorite topic of discussion involves which animals are the most dangerous. Barring the obvious winner, we humans, leading candidates typically include the gorilla, shark, lion, tiger, and bear. 

The unassuming mosquito and deadly microscopic organisms are often overlooked, but most likely lay absolute claim to the title.

In some parts of the world, the hippopotamus is considered the deadliest creature. Here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE), we’ve yet to conduct a course where hippos are involved but if we ever do, we will certainly take precautions to make these semi-aquatic animals are not on campus!

Where you are in the wilderness, of course, makes the determination of which animal presents the most peril to hikers, climbers and swimmers. For example, if you’re navigating the Boundary Waters that straddle the border between Ontario, Canada, and Minnesota here in the U.S., you’re more likely to encounter a bear than a gorilla. That’s why traveling to an unfamiliar remote location requires that you research the area to determine the biggest threats to your safety, including wild animals, and discover how best to avoid them and what to do if that doesn’t work.

The good news is that your odds of being injured or killed by wildlife are low, especially if you use common sense to avoid the biggest threats. Most wilderness injuries and fatalities come from falls, weather, and getting lost rather than from animal attacks. And don’t discount the stupidity factor, such as the man who was slapped with jaw-dropping $153,161.25 medical bill after trying to take selfie with rattlesnake.

In this post, we weigh in with our team’s take on the seven deadliest animals you might encounter when trekking through the wilderness in the U.S., along with some basic information to help you gauge your likelihood of encountering them and protect yourself and others in your group. First up, bears!

Bears

Bears are fast, powerful, and often unpredictable, especially when surprised or protecting their cubs, food, or territory. You’re most likely to encounter them in remote forested or alpine areas. Species include Grizzly bears in the northwest and Alaska, with black and brown bears being more widespread.

To protect yourself (more…)

When we venture into the backcountry, whether it’s a day hike in a nearby forest or a multi-day expedition into remote terrain, we knowingly trade comfort and convenience for solitude, challenge, and a deeper connection with nature. 

This is a trade-off that comes with a conscious decision to expose ourselves to a higher-than-normal level of risk. Backcountry travel increases our chances of experiencing injury and illness while decreasing our accessibility to nearby basic or emergency medical care.

Mitigating this heightened risk requires improving our wilderness medicine knowledge and skills, something we help people do here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE). Our Wilderness Medicine and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) courses cover everything from scene size-up and patient assessment to providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), treating wounds and fractures, and successfully evacuating patients from remote wilderness areas.

As experts in the field of wilderness medicine, we often find ourselves discussing what we believe to be the most essential wilderness medicine skills. Here, we present our top seven, in no particular order. These are skills that we think all of our students should possess before venturing into the backcountry.

1. Scene Size-Up and Patient Evaluation

Every wilderness medicine event should start with a scene size-up and patient evaluation, which consists of the following three components: (more…)

Coming off a four-year stint as coordinator for a university outdoor recreation program, J.T. Schexnayder III is proving to be a masterful leader as our outdoor program coordinator. Raised in Myrtle Beach, S.C., this neighboring state native led his middle school peers on backpacking, climbing, caving and paddleboard expeditions to backcountry areas in his home state, as well as other excursions to Colorado and Wyoming.

Before joining us here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), J.T. organized student expeditions for the University of Georgia from 2021 to 2025. Before that, he brought the outdoors into his six- through eighth-grade classes in South Carolina and Wyoming. When school broke for summer, he would head to Highlands Presbyterian Camp and Retreat Center in Allenspark, Colorado, where as the Adventure Camp director, he supervised and guided climbing, hiking, and outdoor leadership programs as camp director.

Our new program director (he joined our team in June of 2025) received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 2018 from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, with a major in American History. Following that, J.T. received a Master of Science in Forestry and Natural Resources (major in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management) in 2025 from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA).

As an outdoor educator, J.T. is a member of the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education (AORE), as well as the Association for Experiential Education (AEE). He holds certifications in Wilderness First Responder (WFR), CPR/AED and Mental Health First Aid (MHFA).

We asked J.T. to respond to a few questions about himself and his career, and he graciously agreed: (more…)

Bleary eyed from a scarcity of shuteye, you shimmy out of your sleeping bag, stick your head out your tent flap, and observe your campsite. It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, it looks like you woke up in the middle of a yard sale. Or the tail end of a party turned bad.

There’s gear spread out everywhere, a tarp blown up against a tree, protein bar wrappers discarded by hungry racoons. And now it’s time to pay the piper for last night’s decision for selecting and setting up a terrible campsite.

It happens. Sometimes it’s due to unpredictable weather, poor planning, inexperience, or just bad decision making. Fortunately, you can take steps to reduce its frequency. This post explains how, but first, let’s look into the importance of even having a quality campsite.

What’s the Big Deal Over Selecting and Setting Up a Quality Campsite?

Campsite selection, setup, and management aren’t always a top priority. It’s something we outdoor adventurers often do “on the fly,” when the need arises. However, the more thought and planning you put into it, the safer and more enjoyable your camping experience will be.

When contemplating the construct of a up quality campsite, you might want to consider the following factors:

• Safety: Providing protection from the weather and its effects, as well as from natural and human elements and neighboring campers ensures you’re not posing a risk to anyone’s safety.
• Comfort: You need to seek a sheltered area with a patch of soft, level ground to sleep on and an area where you can eat your meals in comfort.
• Efficiency: You should have enough room to organize your food and gear for convenience, and you want easy access to water and places to use the toilet and wash your dishes.
• Ecology: You want a campsite that’s conducive to practicing Leave No Trace (LNT) Principles. For example, try to find an established campsite instead of one that requires clearing vegetation.

Including Campsite Selection in Your Trip Planning

The process of choosing and setting up a proper campsite in a quality location should begin well before you embark on your backcountry adventure. During our pre-trip meetings with groups or during training sessions, we always talk about what makes a good campsite and important factors we need to consider before choosing sites.

When planning a trip and thinking about where you will spend the night, take the following factors into consideration: (more…)

Recently I watched “Heritage,” a short documentary about one of the early professional skateboarders, Steve Caballero. At some point in the viewing, I realized more time was being spent on Steve’s mountain biking skills and passion for motorcross than on his skateboarding career, and I had to wonder why. 

If you’ve been a whitewater paddler, a climber, a surfer, or a skateboarder all your life, why would you want to try something new? You’ve proven yourself. You’re an expert. Why risk failure?

It occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, Steve wanted to experience the feeling of  improve at something new rather than watch his skateboarding skills plateau or, worse, decline. After all, progression is a lot more fun than regression. Sure, you might suck at it when you’re getting started, but the sky’s the limit in terms of potential for improvement.

So, in the spirit of sucking at something new, let’s dive into novice experiences and what we gain from trying something new.

What I Chose to Suck at

I’ve been a surfer all my life. I’ve ridden massive waves all around the world and was good at it. When I moved away from the ocean, I wasn’t able to get in as much surf time as I wanted, so I started whitewater kayaking. I never got to be an amazing whitewater kayaker, but I ran some big rapids, explored remote creeks, and progressed as far as I had expected. 

Knowing I wasn’t going to get much better at kayaking and knowing I was not surfing as much as I wanted to, I decided to try whitewater stand-up paddleboarding (SUP). At the time, I didn’t know anyone doing (more…)

In the backcountry, where hospitals are likely many miles away and help isn’t “just around the corner,” airway management becomes a high-stakes priority. After all, the statistics are against the patient. Without an open, clear airway, that patient has a zero percent chance of survival.

Whether it’s a fall, an allergic reaction, choking, or a drowning, keeping the airway open is a life and death proposition. Wilderness medicine demands quick thinking, decisive action, and a solid grasp of airway basics, because you’re the first, and perhaps only, responder.

This post brings you up to speed on airway management basics with a focus of first employing the simplest and least invasive methods for opening the airway.

What Is the Airway?

The airway is a tunnel connecting the mouth and nose to the lungs. It ends at the alveoli, which are the tiny air sacs in the lungs that facilitate the exchange of gases, primarily oxygen and carbon dioxide. As long as this tunnel remains open, a person can breathe. If the tunnel collapses or is blocked at any point, breathing ceases or is restricted to some degree.

Healthy humans maintain an open airway by holding their head upright, swallowing their secretions, controlling their tongue, coughing, spitting, and otherwise emptying the tunnel of everything but air. Whenever the airway collapses due to illness or injury or is blocked by solids or liquids “going down the wrong pipe” and getting stuck there, medical intervention is required. That’s where you, the emergency medical technician (EMT), or someone else who’s received the relevant training, must step in to clear the airway.

The interventions used by the EMT can be divided into Basic (simpler and less invasive) and Advanced (more complex and invasive).

Basic Methods for Clearing the Airway

When someone can’t breathe or is struggling to do so, you should use the simplest, least intrusive method necessary to open the airway. Basic methods include the following: (more…)