NCOAE Blog

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 almost forced into building a water filtration system like the one we describe below. One of the participants swore he was having a reaction to the chemical treatment. And, because the mental perception of one individual can affect the entire group, when water quality is in question, we need to overcome that obstacle. My thought was to create a filter system that would not only educate the students but keep everyone safe — whether that danger was perceived or not. Fortunately, it never came to that.

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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 to empty a couple of soda or beer cans before you even get started. Any beverage can will work, but some folks would prefer to drain a can of beer. Because building this stove is about the experience and the pursuit of learning. And, of course, the enjoyment.

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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 trip. Teaching course participants how to read the clouds builds confidence, which in turn helps participants make informed decisions based on forecasts for what the day, afternoon, or evening ahead may bring.

Clouds provide a reliable method of predicting the weather in the backcountry. There are three ways to categorize clouds:

• High-level clouds: Cirrocumulus, Cirrus, and Cirrostratus
• Mid-level clouds: Altocumulus, Altostratus, and Nimbostratus
• Low-level clouds: Stratus, Cumulus, Cumulonimbus, and Stratocumulus

High-level Clouds

Cirrocumulus clouds: These clouds appear like ripples on the water surface, and they portent good weather and the likelihood of coming blue skies.

Cirrus clouds: The most common of the high-altitude clouds, these formations have a wispy look with long streamers as a result of being blown by high winds. Cirrus clouds indicate fair weather and by observing their movement, you can determine the direction from which weather and wind are coming.

Cirrostratus clouds: These are thin, sheet-like clouds that tend to cover the entire sky. They are so translucent that you can easily see the sun and moon through them. And when the sun and moon are visible, you may be able to spot a halo formation in the clouds. The halo is caused by light refracting through ice crystals in the clouds. They indicate a warm front approaching.

Mid-level Clouds

Altocumulus clouds: These clouds look like rounded soft clumps, somewhat similar to a flock of sheep in the sky. These formations are frequently seen after a storm. They may also indicate building cloud cover and afternoon storms.

Altostratus clouds: These appear as grey veils over the sun or moon, and if they become darker and thicker, it is likely rain is on the way.

Nimbostratus clouds: These are the low, dark clouds that blanket the sky, leaving little doubt that precipitation is en route and that it may last for hours.

Low-level Clouds

Stratus clouds: Hung low in the sky, status clouds look like enormous grey blankets. If they extend to the ground, they often become fog. These ominous clouds bring rain, and when it’s cold enough they will produce snow.

Cumulus clouds: Among the most beautiful of the cloud formations, the cumulus clouds look like puffy cotton. In addition to their cheerful appearance, they also indicate fair weather. That is, unless they become cumulonimbus clouds, as you’ll see below.

Cumulonimbus clouds: These are tall clouds, dark on the bottom and sometimes featuring a flat “anvil” top. These clouds indicate severe weather on the way, with thunderstorms, torrential rains, possible hail, snow, and even tornadoes.

Stratocumulus clouds: These dark and lumpy clouds show up just in front of, or immediately behind a frontal system. They may provide a brief period of rain or drizzle that most likely will end during the afternoon or early evening.

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education, our backcountry guides and educators travel the globe on an annual basis, which means we have experienced every form of weather imaginable throughout the year. It is crucial that our instructors understand the indicators that inform of oncoming weather. Knowing how to “read the sky” is a must for all outdoor educators, and it is a skill we love to pass on to our course participants.

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.

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:

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We’re literally going to be looking upward in the next three posts here on the NCOAE blog, with tips for outdoor educators, wilderness guides, and outdoor recreation enthusiasts alike regarding the terrain overhead. We will be honing our outdoors skills by exploring the wilderness above our heads.

Today’s post (part one in the three-part series) suggests taking a close look at the night sky. And why would we want to do that? Because most of us in the outdoor and experiential education field are adept at tying knots; cooking over a campfire; and naming local rivers, rapids and mountain ranges. But when it comes to the landscape above our heads — the heavens, the clouds, and the winged wildlife — many of us remain slack jawed with wonder.

Imagine an evening in the backcountry with a group of students or adults, some of them seeing bright stars — unhampered by city lights — perhaps for the first time. At this point, you can point upward and say, “That isn’t just a beautiful sky. It’s way more than just that!”

By having everyone lay down, look up, and listen as you point out and describe the individual stars and constellations that your group can now clearly see because they are far from city lights, you’ve opened everyone’s field of vision to the space above our buildings and tree lines that’s often forgotten and/or taken for granted.

With just a little bit of research, you can pick up a wealth of “fun facts” about the night sky. For example, knowing where to find constellations and then sharing the stories that accompany these heavenly connect-the-dot starry clusters makes you even more authoritative and helpful than you already are.  

And the stories behind the constellations are beautiful, cultural, and entertaining. Using the embedded video below, watch and listen to Neal deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, cosmologist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator, as he describes the night sky.

The best place to start any chat about the constellations is with the Big Dipper, which is part of Ursa Major (Great Bear). It is comprised of seven stars, with three representing the handle overhead, connected to the remaining four stars to create a big square pot or pan.

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You might have heard that we have packed up and moved the first 14 days of our traditional June, July and August “Intensive” 19-Day EMT-B training courses to an online and at-home format. The reason for this change, of course, is the continuing saga of the coronavirus.

What this modification essentially does is add a mandatory hybrid component to this 19-day training program, with 14 days online, followed by five days on campus for practical and hands-on skills training. Earlier this year, the North Carolina Office of EMS approved our adjusted schedule for five days of on-campus EMT training programs.

Meanwhile, all NCOAE medical training programs taking place outside North Carolina have been put on hold, and the summer sessions on campus in Wilmington, N.C., remain on schedule, but with the hybrid component playing a major part of that training.

Which raises several important questions, including:

1. How do we successfully train future emergency medical technicians remotely in this emergency era of digital space?
2. How does a potential NCOAE trainee become a great online learner?

Just like everything else connected to COVID-19, this is brand new territory for all of us, and trial-and-error has become the name of the game. That said, we here at NCOAE have come up with some rules and procedures for those in training that, to date, have proven successful. And we will briefly outline those procedures toward the end of this post.

But for now, we’d like to share what we’ve discovered in our effort to make the temporary transition to digital training effective, interesting, and productive. What advice can we offer to those students new to online learning who are participating in our Hybrid 19-Day ‘Intensive’ EMT (EMT-B) training program? Here’s what we learned:

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Because of the situation with COVID-19, we’ve been thinking a lot lately about the path forward for outdoor and adventure-based programs like the ones we offer here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). Specifically, how do we operate in a day and age where physical distancing is either required or strongly recommended? That’s where Collective Impact may come into play.

The concept of Collective Impact takes into consideration the notion that industry players need to coordinate their efforts and work together in order to create lasting solutions to shared and common societal challenges and problems.

Put simply, collective impact is a structured form of collaboration. The term garnered national recognition in 2011 when it was touted by the White House Council for Community Solutions as a powerful framework for solving social issues. The concept became so popular that “collective impact” was selected as among the top philanthropic “buzzwords” for that year.

With the current conundrum of coronavirus facing our world today, we here at NCOAE are of the opinion that solutions for COVID-19-related issues from any qualified source is worth considering. And, if you or your organization is of the same mind, we would love to hear from you. We can listen to each other’s challenges and maybe we can help each other discover solutions to those problems associated with operating an outdoor and/or adventure-based program in the time of coronavirus.

Since this crisis evolved in mid-February, we have been working up schedules and then reworking them. And, because our work crosses into many sectors — including schools, businesses, and government agencies — and because we deal with multiple states and international borders, we find ourselves dealing with a lot of moving parts.

The good news, of course, is that our staff has evolved to become a finely tuned machine. We’re able to juggle a lot and do it well. But that still leaves us wondering how the greater outdoor and adventure education industry may be grappling with the same or similar challenges as we’re contending with.

As most successful adventurers and explorers do, we set out to do some research. And here is some of what we’ve discovered so far: (more…)

So, here we all sit, settling into another sequential week of sequestered sheltering and supreme seclusion, many of us working from home and many of us not. As a certified teacher with a license in EC, ESL, AIG and Classroom Education, and as a member of The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s (NCOAE) leadership team, I admit I was caught off balance by the virus named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes, named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Like getting smacked upside the head by a wayward surfboard.

This stay-at-home edict forced me to search, find, and deliver a completely new approach to educating my students. And I had zero time to waste. There were students to contact. More important — I had to learn ways to communicate with them face to face and get them engaged through online platforms. And I felt the pressure to do all of this ASAP!

I quickly discovered that my side was already behind — and hindered by handicaps. The major hurdle? I have never owned a cell phone. Essentially, I’m a caveperson. Then I remembered what it is we outdoor and adventure educators constantly preach to our students: Step out of your comfort zone and adapt in the time of coronavirus.

It was time for me to do just that. Over the first few weeks operating under shelter in place orders, I learned how to use Zoom for video conferencing and Google classroom for creating, distributing, and grading assignments in a paperless way. I also quickly adapted and learned how to use additional online platforms to connect with students, co-workers, and community members. And through this process, I learned that our new and hopefully temporary wilderness is the Internet, where we continue the exploration of creativity and the delivery of instruction. 

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Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), we’re known nationally and around the world for our consistency in producing highly impactful backcountry climbing, backpacking, kayaking and other outdoor adventures of an educational and team-focused nature. Our highly trained and experienced outdoor educators, field guides — along with our wilderness medicine and EMT instructors — present hands on training and guidance that vastly improve our students’ technical outdoor and wilderness medical skills.

That’s because all of our instructors and guides are experts at adapting to every scenario — whether that’s in a wilderness or urban setting, presenting each of our students and participants with endless opportunities to not only succeed, but to excel at whatever obstacle confronts them on the trail or in the medical training field guides.

To that end, our business currently finds itself in the same situation faced by every other educational organization on the planet: managing our affairs at a time when the virus named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is impacting every single aspect of the world economy. How we’re handling the problem is much like what we do on the trail. We’ve chosen to look at this uncertainty and chaos as an opportunity by seeking out the best solutions and maneuvering around and past what is undoubtedly nothing short of a global health catastrophe. In particular, we want you to know how we’re meeting the challenges with regard to our educational training and programming.

For example: (more…)

Embedded in each of our outdoor and wilderness-based experiential education courses is the delivery of place-based learning, which was first introduced by David Sobel in his groundbreaking book, Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities.

Place-based learning connects students to history, landscape, geography, and people through the intense exploration of a specific area which, along the way, serves to help solve the area’s inherent or most recent and/or chronic challenges.

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), our field instructors are required to research and be knowledgeable about the history, ecology, people, and events that impact a course’s geographical areas. Instructors then share that information with each other, discussing how to tie data to parts of the NCOAE curriculum and/or a client’s Custom Program requirements.

Having this depth of knowledge binds content and curriculum. The result? No topic or subject is taught in isolation. For example, the study of flora and fauna connects to math, literacy, and science. And meeting and knowing people who helped shape the land through writings or active conservation of the area ties into global studies, communication, and environmental stewardship. In this way, place-based learning benefits educators, students, and communities. For instance: (more…)

Here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE), we just aren’t all that interested in touting the attributes of the materials and products we use while traversing the worldwide wilderness areas in which we work. But every once in a while, we’ll step back and look at a piece of outdoor gear that’s still holding up well despite its age and we say, “Damn, we’ve been hauling that thing around for longer than we can remember and it’s still working.”

In particular, we’re reminded of the Canyon Coolers that we have stored in various sheds and aboard our fleet of river boats and rafts, and we marvel at how well these coolers keep stuff cold after multiple years of use.

We were attracted to this Flagstaff, Arizona-based manufacturer when we bought up our first Canyon Cooler a number of years back. We were looking for a sturdy product that would hold up to our strenuous schedule of river trips.

As background, we run guided trips and outdoor educator courses on a number of rivers, including the Deschutes River in in central Oregon (a major tributary of the Columbia River); the Grande Ronde River in northeastern Oregon (a tributary of the Snake River); tributaries of the Amazon River found in Ecuador; and in many other waterways across the globe.

What we were thinking back then was that we need a bomb-proof cooler that would hold up to the challenges any gear undertakes on one of our outings. But you know what really sold us on Canyon Coolers? It was their attitude.

They stood there, looked us right in the face and said that their stuff would keep ice “on ice” for a mind-blowing 11 days.

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Most successful outdoor retailers take monthly, quarterly, and/or an annual inventory of what they have in stock, what needs to be replaced, and what might need to be added to the store’s shelves. Items that sit ignored on the shelf or are no longer in fashion go in the “50% Off” bin or “sale” rack, enabling the retailer to make space for the newest and greatest products.

That practice of practical paring holds true for those of us who enjoy human-powered outdoor adventures and are, even now, preparing for the trails, climbs, and river rapids that we anticipate and dream about each winter.

And chief among those preparations is a thorough consideration of the current contents of our backpacks. The idea is simple: How do you lighten your load for your next adventure, feel less stressed when packing, and maybe offer free and still useful gear to a friend or local outdoor-based organization in need?

It’s time to “clean house.” And by that we mean pull your gear out and place it all on the ground, inspect it, and discard those items you can do without. In fact, here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education, we offer a number of courses that, among other things, show participants the ABCs of backpacking — which includes properly packing a backpack.

One important part of our courses is when participants “explode” their pack in front of their peers. Typically, the group circles up and  (more…)

Happiness is an inside job. And on the flip side of that coin, depression — a mood disorder — is a condition that also primarily originates from inside our minds. Happiness is an action word. It requires a decision. And happiness does not have to wait.

Take the winter months, for example. If you are an outdoor enthusiast — and we assume you are if you’re perusing our NCOAE website — you know the true meaning of “winter blues.” Often, we find ourselves cooped up inside, postponing our happiness until the spring.

When it’s unbearably cold, windy, and wet outside, many of us feel out of sorts. We’re moody, have no energy, and we’re eager to get outside. Unfavorable weather conditions often put a halt to those plans, or seriously limit our participation.

Doctors have a name for this mental anguish, and it’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). We’re not trying to be cute or funny here, because it really is SAD. It’s a form of depression that is directly related to changes in season, usually beginning in the late fall and continuing throughout the winter months.

Doctors put part of the blame on the decrease in sunlight in fall and winter that can disrupt your internal clock. That same lack of sun beams can prompt a drop in serotonin — a chemical in the brain that affects mood. Finally, the seasonal change can increase the production of melatonin  — a hormone that regulates the sleep–wake cycle in the body and plays a big role in sleep patterns.

Symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder

According to the Mayo Clinic, signs and symptoms of SAD may include: (more…)

Dr. Christopher Davis, The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s medical director, spent most of his adult life combining his passion for helping others with his love of the outdoors.

He serves as medical director for all of our field courses and trainings, including wilderness medicine and EMS training programs, ad outdoor educator and adventure-based programs. These include custom programs developed by NCOAE, school programs, and branded adventures. And, of course, he loves to spend time in the field teaching.

Raised in Raleigh, N.C., Davis discovered his passion for emergency medicine and emergency medical services as an undergrad, teaching whitewater kayaking, rock climbing and backpacking for Duke University’s outdoor program — Outdoor Adventures.

After leaving Duke in 2006, Davis ran a small adventure travel company, taking customers on sailing adventures throughout the Caribbean and along the North Carolina coast. He also worked as a paramedic and firefighter in Durham, N.C., where he found time to teach wilderness medicine.

Davis began focusing more of his time on medicine, both front country and wilderness EMS, which inspired him to further his education. He applied to medical school, earning his MD from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, followed by training at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C.

He now serves on the faculty at the Wake Forest School of Medicine where he is an assistant professor in Emergency Medicine, specializing in integrating high-quality EMS care into wilderness settings.

We asked Dr. Davis to provide us with some additional information about his background, and to answer a few personal questions that our community might find interesting. Here is his response:  (more…)

When it comes to staying connected with outdoor activities — even in the dead of winter — the important thing is to dig deep, don’t procrastinate, and most important, remain consistent.

There’s an old expression that I just made up and it goes like this: You can’t stay full on yesterday’s hotdog. What does that mean? It means you can’t depend on memories of your summer wilderness experiences to keep you sharp during these “couch potato” months.

Staying sharp means using the wintertime to take on micro expeditions and stay connected with the outdoors.

Daylight Savings Time, a 9-to-5-job, freezing weather and endless offerings on subscription-based TV are all basic ingredients when you’re preparing a “couch potato.” However, if you are looking to stay fit until next spring, it’s time to come up with a better recipe.

Which is why those of us who hunker inside NCOAE headquarters on a regular basis came up with some excellent tips to keep you at your physical and mental peak during the winter months.

Here are the results of those brainstorming sessions: (more…)

This, indeed, is the time of year when most of us are spending way too much focus seeking the perfect gift for a loved one. In a mountain climbing analogy, the experience can be compared to ascending a 20,000-foot peak without oxygen. Good luck making a sound decision under those conditions.

But if we were gamblers, which we’re not — we’re very bullish on wilderness risk management — we would bet you’re someone who either loves human-powered outdoor adventures, is looking to go on such an adventure yourself, or knows someone ready for a wilderness or backcountry adventure. Not hedging our bets or anything, but if we’re wrong, why are you perusing this particular blog and this exact blog post?

Anyway, if you’re looking for gift suggestions, what we offer below are a half dozen reasons why you should consider giving the gift of adventure through The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE).

Reason No. 1: An NCOAE Course is actually a gift that gives over and over again. When you give the gift of an Outdoor Educator or a Semester Course or Gap Year Course, it will be appreciated more than once. First, your recipient opens an envelope containing the course details, which we’ll gladly custom design for you (the gift certificate, that is). Nice start! Then the gift recipient finds themselves looking forward to the experience almost every day until their departure. Then there’s the  (more…)

As the numbers on the thermometer continue to drop in many regions of the United States, fewer people are packing up their camping gear and venturing into the backcountry. Not unlike our nation’s bear population, most outdoor enthusiasts lose a little of that enthusiasm for wilderness when winter makes its appearance.

Many part-time adventurers prefer to snuggle indoors, heat up some coffee or hot chocolate, catch up on their reading or TV binge watching, and begin planning for their first outing — next spring.

However, there are those of us who can’t wait to see how winter has decorated the trails, hillsides, and mountains, and how similarly can’t wait for the challenges offered in the outdoors when the cold settles in and the snow really hits the deck. Yes, there are myriad challenges and yes, wintertime spent in wilderness will definitely test your mettle. But just look at the advantages:

• No long lines at the entries to your favorite spots. No lotteries or camping permits in many locations.
• No bugs! No bears! Practically everything you dislike, or fear, is asleep in the dead of winter.
• No campgrounds full of novice campers and their loud “toys.” No caravans of raucous “juerguista” (party animals). No huge Ram Charger trucks parking four inches from your campfire.
• There’s no need to head off to an unknown destination. Your favorite spot — when seen in the winter months — can be a totally new experience. Where there are normally meadows surrounded by lush green trees, you might find yourself ankle deep in snow, accented by lacelike bare branches covered with powder.

Fact is, you just might arrive at your favorite spot and find far fewer — or possibly no other — visitors at all. Talk about remote. It’s just you and the environment.

Wildlife a la Carte

With fewer bipeds on the scene, the chances of spotting wildlife increase substantially. Have you ever looked up and spotted a wolf staring down at you from a rock? Ever been paced by a coyote? Or see owls land on a tree over your campfire? If not, it’s probably because there have always been too many people in the area.

In other words, the old becomes the new. We call that shoshin — a word from Zen Buddhism meaning  (more…)

For this year, Halloween is history, Thanksgiving looms in the near future, and Christmas is still far enough away that it doesn’t feel like Christmastime — unless you’ve visited the decorated and well-lighted malls and outlet stores over the last month or so.

Fortunately, when you tire of planning for family visits and turkey dinner with all of the trimmings, you can always set aside an hour or so to get psyched for your next outdoor adventure. And an excellent way to do that is to check out the list below of outdoor themed films that come highly recommended by our own staff here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education.

These films are guaranteed to provide some respite — and inspiration — for your next human-powered outdoor recreation adventure. Because, while we love and cherish our friends and families, we have an unconditional love affair with everything backcountry and wilderness related. We even argue with our friends about how much more we love the outdoors that they do.

So, we suggest you take a break during the hectic holiday hassle, maybe get together with a few of those above-mentioned friends, and watch one or more of these recommended films. Because there’s just something to be said about outdoor films — the beauty, camaraderie, the suffering, and the humor.  (more…)

The outdoor industry uses the term “shoulder season” to indicate times of the year when we’re less busy. With the exception of the snow sport sector of the industry, for many companies and outdoor outfits, that time starts in October and can stretch all the way to May or early June. 

The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) has diligently devised, implemented, and executed programs over the years in order to reduce the economic effects of the shoulder season. For us, this means employing many of our staff members year-round. That means our participants have the opportunity to experience adventure-based recreation and personal growth & development programs throughout the year. That’s because we offer opportunities that fit our client’s “shoulder season” schedules. And by expanding our season, we can travel to more diverse locations around the U.S. and abroad.

Instructor Course

If you work in the outdoor industry and want to expand your knowledge and depth of instruction, we offer our Instructor Course in many locations. These courses alternate between  (more…)

As another summer draws to a close, your adventures may have come, gone, or never materialized. No matter which one of these is part of your Summer 2019 your story, it’s always nice to stay in the adventure mindset.

That’s why we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education decided to put together a list of books intended to keep you in a wild and adventurous state of mind. This list is not your average adventure book list. It includes fiction, nonfiction, and some that bend and distort the lines of each genre.

Each book selection features its own element of protagonists — ordinary people finding themselves in wild landscapes for joy, escape, and the quest to push into the unknown. You can read these outdoor-oriented titles on the couch, off the trail, or wherever you find yourself. These adventures are portable, capable of being picked up and read during a break at work, in a snug sleeping bag, or wherever you find yourself with a free minute set aside for adventurous thought.

Here then are a half dozen or so of our favorite adventurous titles for your perusal:  (more…)