Seems most every human-powered outdoor recreation activity has a language of its own. And the more popular that activity becomes, the more expansive the list of slang words and new terminology become. It’s a way of communicating efficiently with your fellow enthusiasts, and let’s face it, speaking the language makes your part of the group.

In this next series of posts here on the NCOAE Blog, we’re going to explore the unique spoken word of our beloved adventure-based sports. We’ll start off with surfing, the “Sport of Kings,” this week, then move on to climbing and paddling in future posts.

And now, without further ado, let’s go ahead and push through the shorebreak, paddle out to the lineup and grab us up some gnarly waves.

Sorry. One more aside before we begin. Let’s go ahead and elaborate on that “Sport of Kings” comment above:

Back when missionaries arrived on the Hawaiian Islands, they quickly banished the sport of surfing, calling it hedonistic and probably too much fun. They also gifted the Hawaiian population with a variety of diseases, but that’s another story. However, when King Kalakaua was installed on the throne in 1872, one of his first acts was to reinstate this ocean-specific human-powered activity that was so loved by his royal predecessors. And once again, surfing became the “sport of kings” and commoners alike.

Since then, surfing has become among the most romanticized sports in the world. Films like The Endless Summer, Point Break, Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii and even the Gidget television series drew thousands of young people into the ocean and onto waves across the coastlines of America — and around the world. And most recently, as you’ll see in the video below, Maya Gabeira — a Brazilian surfer who makes it her mission to tackle big, big waves — recently broke the Guinness World Record for the Largest Wave conquered by of woman!

Again, sorry. One final diversion and then we’ll get to those surfing terms:

Lee Clow, the advertising icon who worked directly with Steve Jobs on classic Apple television ads and futuristic consumer trends, brought the culture of local surf shops into Apple’s megastores around the world. Instant success. This California ad genius — himself a veteran wave rider — knew all about the bond between a surfer and a surf shop.

For instance, he knew that surfers find any reason at all to visit a surf shop. Even when they’re broke. It’s where they hang out, hear about the trends in surfboard design, get the insider track on new surf spots or what’s breaking. You feel part of a family, and you speak the same lingo. Yep, Apple took Lee Clow’s sales pitch to heart and the rest is history.

No more asides. No more fun facts. Let’s talk surfing terminology:

Kassie Kehrer is our new executive assistant, tasked with ensuring the efficiency of our Wilmington, N.C., office here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). In addition, Kassie is responsible for enrolling students in our many medical trainings, outdoor education courses, and backcountry trips. She’s also the go-to person when it comes to customer service and support, collecting enrollment paperwork, and making sure things are running smoothly for students and staff members alike.

Born in Schenectady, N.Y., and raised in Washington State, Kassie attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., where she majored in recreation with a concentration in Recreational Therapy & Child Life Services.

Prior to joining us at NCOAE, Kassie spent the past six years working for the YMCA of the Triangle in Raleigh, N.C., with four of those years in the position of director of Camp Rising Sun. She said the job gave her the opportunity to coach and hire staff and build an inclusive environment for kids of all abilities.

Prior to that, Kassie worked in a variety of roles, ranging from counselor to kayak instructor, at places like Camp Wingate Kirkland in Yarmouthport, Mass.; Brookline Parks and Recreation in Brookline, Mass.; Camp Indianola in Indianola, Wash.; and Camp Greenville in Cleveland, S.C.

In college, Kassie was a recreational therapist and Child Life intern at Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Boston. She then went on to work as a program coordinator at the Henderson School for Inclusion in Dorchester, Mass., and served as a behavioral therapist at The May Institute in Boston.

We asked Kassie to tell us a little bit about herself, and here is what she had to say:

What’s the only item in your gear closet that could possibly be more important than food, water, and shelter? For most of us the answer to that question is coffee! That complex nectar of the gods that makes us sharp in the morning and warm at night. And as the old saying goes, “Everyone should believe in something. I believe I will have another cup of coffee!”

And, since brewing coffee is as much of a ritual as it is a necessity, you can imagine the amount of gear you’d need to stuff in your backpack in order to prepare the perfect cup of coffee in the wilderness. The question becomes, how do we get that great cup of coffee — using the best beans and blends we can find — without breaking the bank and our backs in the process?

In this, the third and final installment of Do-It-Yourself camping tips, we address the coffee snob within most of us, and share some interesting coffee-related quotes along the way.

Now make a face and say, “Instant coffee? Are you kidding me right now?”
COFFEE QUOTE NO. 1: “What goes best with a cup of coffee? Another cup.” ~ Henry Rollins
So let’s get to it. We’ll teach you how to pack and prepare the best cup of coffee possible in the backcountry. And you’ll be able to perform this feat in five to seven minutes.

Heres’ what you’ll need:

We’ve all seen those old Western movies where the hero is crawling on the desert floor with an empty canteen and a parched throat. None of us want to experience that torture. It’s bad enough watching the bad acting. Same goes for heading to the backcountry for a weeklong wilderness experience. Nobody wants to be caught short of fresh drinking water.

Here’s where the do-it-yourself approach to human-powered outdoor recreation really comes in handy. The stove we built in Part One of this three-part DYI series, can be seen as an inexpensive alternative to a store-bought stove, and as a tool to help us understand how camping stoves work. Because the more we are familiar with the inner workings of equipment, the more likely we’ll be able to solve challenging issues with that stove.

It’s a given. Your gear will fail you.

That being said, the water filter we’re building today falls more into the understanding of how filtration systems work. Again, if we comprehend how our equipment works, we can better take care of that gear and repair it when it reaches a point of failure. And, if you have spent a considerable amount of  time traveling in wild places, you know that your gear is eventually going to fail.

First off, there are three tried and true methods of water purification — boil, filter (purify), and chemical treatment. (For more on this, read Stay Sharp in The Offseason By Following the Way of the Farmer, available here on the NCOAE Blog.)

The industry standard when traveling with groups on guided trips in the backcountry is the use of chemical treatment, typically Iodine. That’s because Iodine is inexpensive, easy to carry, and highly reliable. Many outdoors enthusiasts use a commercially available filter, life straw, or gravity feed system. Not surprising, many don’t know how they work or how to repair them in the backcountry. This lack of knowledge has cut short many a trip due to a water filtration failure.

Once, while traveling in Nepal with a group of students from NCOAE, I was

Visitors to our blog are going to react in one of two ways when they see an article with “Do it Yourself” in the headline. You’re either going to avert your eyes and try to find a less intimidating article. Or you’re going to greet this headline and subsequent instructions with enthusiasm and frenzied fervency.

Here’s hoping you’re among the second category of DYI folks who revel in the experience of creating things from scratch. You know, those Junior MacGyvers who’d rather spend a weekend creating a project than spend nine bucks for the same item at the store.

That’s why we’re dedicating the next three posts here on the NCOAE blog to help you find what we hope is the do-it-yourselfer deep in your soul. Here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure and Education (NCOAE), we have always used the equation of Self + Community + Action = Impact. It’s the notion of making the changes necessary to feel better about yourself and see your role in a community of peers, practice, neighbors, or just society as a whole.

Through our outdoor education and wilderness medicine programs we have helped countless individuals and organizations — through interaction with nature and wild places — to move forward to a more conscious way of living life and perhaps influencing the world around them. Just look at the many companies that were born of DIY thinking. There’s Patagonia, Petzl, Outdoor Research, Swift Industries, Black Diamond, and pretty much everything related to the surf industry.

So, for this installment and the two that follow, we will be exploring the DIY experience of creating equipment destined for human-powered outdoor pursuits, either for fun or out of necessity. We find that DIY projects give you a taste of the experiential education process from the comfort of your own home or garage.

And Part One of this series is how to make a denatured alcohol stove.

Years ago, I made the beautiful mistake of buying “Beyond Backpacking” by Ray Jardine. The mistake? The book inspired me to begin purging my gear, make my own gear, and learn how to go light for less money. Gearing up for a huge trip inspired me to follow the “Ray Way.”

It was around that time that I built my first denatured alcohol stove. The process is straightforward and acquiring the materials can be a lot of fun. For instance, you’ll need

As we outlined in earlier parts of this series, our instructors are expected to possess a wealth of experiences, as well as areas of knowledge and skills that educate and keep course participants safe, engaged, and active in the backcountry.

An example of that is learning about cloud formations and their relationship to weather. Just like constellations(see: Look Up: A Guide to Viewing the Upper Half of Our Surroundings and bird identification (see: Look Up and Meet Your Feathered Friends), learning the individual names and characteristics of clouds can be a fascinating and worthwhile enterprise, not to mention informative and highly useful from a risk management perspective.

In this, the third and final installment in our “Look Up” series, we cover how to identify the clouds overhead and what those clouds are telling us. Because learning this skill is yet another way our AEE-accredited outdoor education program scaffolds leadership and learning in the backcountry.

Why clouds are important

Clouds, which help regulate temperature and are needed for precipitation, are invaluable in the water cycle. Identifying and them is important in the backcountry, where a sudden weather change can make or break a hike, climb, or whitewater

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One of the best parts of an outdoor educator instructor course is when the group of participants comes together — either spontaneously throughout the day, or at the end of a solid day of training — and we all benefit from the unorganized sharing of one’s individual talents and skills.

These experiential-based skill-sharing sessions — which can range from eco-sensitive and safe ways of starting a fire, to hacks for successfully facilitating dialogue among youth participating in a 12-mile trek — bring a helpful spirit to the group. In addition, they enable everyone participating in the course to see the wilderness experience in a different light, with a new set of eyes and appreciation.

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), we expect our staff to go into the backcountry with a rock-solid set of technical outdoor skills. But it’s also our objective to hire instructors who have developed skills and knowledge that sets them apart from others and deepens the backcountry experience for those they educate and guide.

Photo shoutout and credit to McGill Library (sourced from Unsplash)

We talked about instructors who become fluent in the constellations and stars in the first post in this three-part series. Bird identification is another of those teachable skills and is the second of our series’ topics.

Just a walk through a forest as someone points up and tells you the name of the bird perched on a low-hanging branch can be a surprising and eye-opening experience. Learning the identities of the birds in your area can help you connect with the local environment, offering you a teaching skill that can bring a new community of people to enjoy the outdoors and participate in what is essentially a free hobby — birding (aka birdwatching).

Here’s pretty much all you need to get started: