NCOAE Blog

Even if you’ve never participated in scouting, you probably know that “Be Prepared” is the Boy Scout Motto. It’s a maxim that still holds true for today’s outdoor enthusiasts — perhaps more so than back in 1908 when founder Robert Baden-Powell adopted it for the scouting movement.

Baden-Powell wrote that Boy Scouts in the field should consider beforehand, “any situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment and are willing to do it.” He also oddly mentioned that the motto was founded on his initials (BP), but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is this. It has been estimated that more than 8 billion people visit protected “wild places” each year — areas that encompass national parks, national forests, and wildlife areas in the United States and around the world. What that means is more people are heading outdoors, which results in more people coming into direct contact with wildlife.

And that’s not always a good thing. As the signs illustrating this post show, more and more of us are introduced to the backcountry and wild places with posted warnings concerning the “fulltime residents” of these remote and natural areas.

On Cape Cod beaches, for example, there are (more…)

There’s a paradox in this outdoor education industry of ours, and that seeming contradiction is this: Sometimes you have to go indoors in order to continue to enjoy the outdoors. Think back to the last time you opened your eyes under a canopy of trees, or glided across a lake on a kayak, or looked up and visually plotted out a course for a complex climb.

For the outdoors enthusiast — and especially for those of us who work in the outdoor industry — this is our life. We’re outside, showing others how to appreciate themselves and the backcountry. But our line of work is often a complex blend of gregarious solitude. We spend our days giving our students the best of who we are.

While we’re concentrating on the experience for the benefit of the novice as well as the experienced adventurers under our charge, we’re missing out on valuable time set aside to connect with our peers on a deeper level — outside of work.

(Image courtesy Association for Experiential Education)

The outdoor season ends, and many of us return home or follow the seasons to continue this work. In many instances, we pass up the opportunity to learn what’s new in the industry.

The solution? Look for outdoor industry conferences, trade shows, and summits you can attend. Traditionally, conferences are those large, more formal events that feature industry speakers, time in lecture halls and breakout rooms, and good dose of PowerPoint presentations. At the larger such gatherings, there’s usually a convention exhibit hall featuring industry vendors.

Summits, especially in the outdoor industry, on the other hand have a looser feel, with industry pioneers and luminaries speaking and offering demos, opportunities to meet with fellow outdoor pros during hands-on adventure-based activities, and the chance to participate in both formally led and informally organized discussions and salons. Summits often incorporate more interplay, with the opportunity to socialize with industry pros, designers and leaders taking precedence over formal education.

Below, we’ve listed some upcoming outdoor industry gatherings for those times when you’ve stepped off the trail and find yourself with some time to delve into what makes our industry tick. These outdoor industry summits, conferences, and trade shows are an excellent opportunity to (more…)

If Gordon Harrison’s name sounds familiar to you, that likely means one of two things: You either know him personally or you’re a fan of the water sport known as wakeboarding.

David “Gordon” Harrison (the third) recently graduated from one of our 19-Day ‘Intensive’ EMT-Basic training courses. And as you probably figured out by now, this native of Caroline County, Va. (who now calls Melbourne Beach, Fla. his home), holds the distinction of being the only professional athlete to enroll in that course — or any course for that matter here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education.

Harrison started wakeboarding as a child and become good enough in high school to be invited by the World Wake Association to join the Jr. Pro Wakeboard Tour. Suffice to say, he’s never looked backward since.

For the uninitiated, wakeboarding is a water-based sport in which the athlete — standing on a short board with foot bindings known as a wakeboard— is towed behind a motorboat across its wake, allowing the athlete to crest the wake for aerial maneuvers. In Harrison’s case, he’s so proficient at wakeboarding that he’s only one of a handful of people on the planet capable of making a living as a professional wakeboarder.

So, what possesses someone living the life of a pro athlete to drop everything and spend 19 days with us in North Carolina preparing to sit to for the NREMT (National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians) exam? That’s what we wanted to know. Here’s what Harrison had to say, in his own words: (more…)

Few things on Earth can match the unsurpassed contentment of sleeping outdoors. “If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night,” Bill Watterson once wrote, “I bet they’d live a lot differently.” Amen to that!

The stars above, the clouds floating by like sailing vessels, the trees whispering in the breeze. And, of course, there’s the mosquitos, the rain, the crawling critters, and Mother Nature. Like I said, nothing better, with the only caveat being what comes next.

If you want to sleep under the stars, you’re going to need a plan. And coming up with that plan entails understanding what types of shelters are out there and what fits your personal or group shelter profile. During this tour of common shelters, we look at the most basic/minimal shelters and work our way up to more complete shelters.

Let’s hit the trail!

Cowboy Style

Here’s how this one works: You get tired, you make a fire, and you fall asleep under the stars. That’s it. Welcome to ‘cowboy camping.’

Why cowboy? You wanted an experience in nature. This style of camping places you cheek-to-cheek with (more…)

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.” ~ Saint Augustine

On those many occasions when schools, clubs, organizations, or companies ask us to come up with an adventure/education excursion for their group, we don’t reach into a cabinet and pull out a cookie-cutter version of a wilderness outing. Instead, we break out topographical maps, weather charts, time-tested notes from adventures past, permits for numerous routes, and we add a lot of imagination to the occasion.

The sole purpose within our Custom Programs Division is to make sure your organization experiences an adventure that meets and then exceeds your most specific objectives. And we start out by using our ears.

We carefully listen to what it is you want to achieve, and then we begin planning that experience from the ground up. No matter the size of your group, we’re here to present an experience of a lifetime for each of your organization’s guests, students, or employees.

Our objective is for our participants to come home safe and tell stories to their friends and acquaintances that sound more like fiction. Really good fiction! The only difference is you’ll have the photos to back up your stories. You dream of an experience, and we dream too! Need proof? Take a look at (more…)

Most of us have caught at least an episode or two of “Survivor,” the original reality show that has cast members “outsmart, outlast and outwit” each other in order to win a million dollars at the end of 32 days in a wilderness environment.

Inevitably on this popular TV show, two finalists are forced to build a fire, with the winner moving on and the loser going to the jury. And you’d think after 38 seasons, that all contestants would find it advisable to practice building a fire with flint and kindling BEFORE arriving on that season’s desert island or jungle outpost. But they don’t.

What we’re going to do in this blog post, is show you how to plan for a campfire in the wilderness, what to bring, what to source onsite, and how to avoid setting your tents, sleeping bags — or the entire backcountry afire.

Fueling the Flames

Oh, and if you’ve never learned how to build a fire — or cooked over an open fire — you should. It’s an amazing, freeing experience. Here’s what you’ll need: (more…)

Secure in my shelter and listening as the rain dances on my tarp, I pull out my alcohol stove and relax, waiting for the water to boil. Twenty-seven miles of hiking in one day — a personal distance record. It’s been a good day.

Reflecting back 20 years, I remember purchasing a first-edition copy of Ray Jardine’s “Beyond Backpacking,” a book that completely reshaped my thinking on how to pack for travel in the backcountry. It wasn’t that long ago that the philosophy of Wilderness travel was to get a big bag and fill it up. Since then, the mindset of “more is better” has changed.

Packing ultra-light — once considered the mantra of wild-eyed survivalists — has now become firmly embedded as a philosophy among those in the multibillion-dollar human-powered outdoor recreation industry.

In my own case, I have moved beyond packing light to achieve big miles, and more toward doing it just for the comfort. Carrying less weight is better on the body, mind — and pocketbook. That’s primarily because I now cover more ground in the backcountry, spend less money on costly gear, and I find it much easier to pack and unpack at the beginning and end of each day. 

First things first: Get thyself to a bookstore and pick up a copy of “Beyond Backpacking.” Then read it. After that, break out your gear and (more…)

Stereotyping is never a good thing — primarily because such finger-pointing prejudices are usually unsupported by fact. Take, for example, the 140 million Americans who either dabble in human-powered outdoor recreational activities to some extent or are fully immersed in everything related to the backcountry and Wilderness itself.

That’s almost half the nation’s population, if my math skills are accurate. Yet whenever the beneficial goings-on of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) are in the headlines, many local and state politicians conjure up a negative image in their heads. “Oh yeah, those deadbeat climbers, those slacker surfers, those burned-out mountaineers.”

These closed-minded politicians fail to recognize who their outdoor constituents really are, and what the outdoor recreation industry means to the economy. And that includes activities from the local and state level, all the way up to the top — the National Park Service.

A report recently released by the Outdoor Industry Association estimates our industry produces $887 billion in annual revenues, and employs an estimated 7.5 million people, both fulltime and seasonally. Let me repeat that — $887 billion, with a B!

Statistics like these have local and state government officials beginning to sit up and take notice. And it’s got many of them thinking that maybe saving all these wilderness treasures might just be worth the expense. As a result, some forward-thinking states are creating offices of Outdoor Recreation with director-level positions. Take North Carolina for instance — which is home to (more…)

One of our vendors lives and works out of an ocean-view condo in Laguna Beach, California, where taking long walks throughout that quaint Southern California “Art Colony” is an added bonus for many of its residents. A far cry from our wooded headquarters of Wilmington, North Carolina, our vendor’s office is set squarely between reality and the Pacific Ocean.

Laguna Beach, California

During one such salt-air stroll, he came across an affable homeless man who sets up shop most days in front of Laguna’s historic movie theatre. Sporting a neatly trimmed grey beard and a big smile, the open-air entrepreneur sells colorful, custom-designed patches for application to denim jackets and trousers. As you can see from the image below, these unique patches are, as their creator says, “perfect for Deadheads.” And anyone else with a taste for whimsy.

The pair struck up a conversation and our vendor found Keith Sanderson to be a friendly, upbeat man who enjoys selling his patches and chatting up the locals — whom fondly refer to each other as “Lagunatics” — in that free-spirit community. He also caters to the hordes of tourists who frequent the town’s nearby boardwalk on any given day.

During one such friendly exchange, our vendor noticed a new sign next to Keith’s patches that read, “Will work for a new backpack.” Spotting his frayed and forlorn North Face backpack lying on the ground nearby, our vendor made a call to our North Carolina headquarters and asked if we might be interested in digging up a used pack from our gear shed and donating it to Keith. (more…)

Back in December of last year, we asked key NCOAE administrative and field staff to share some of the things for which they were most grateful. Those gratitude’s, as they’ve become to be known around here, comprised our year-ending blog post for 2018. And if you read that post, you may recall that today’s featured staff member — NCOAE EMS Program Director Julius McAdams — thrives on teamwork and the quality of our students.

Born and raised near our headquarters in Wilmington, North Carolina, Julius ascended to the role of Program Director in early-October of 2018, having previously served as one of our very capable and enthusiastic EMT Training Instructors. In his current position, Julius is responsible for coordinating and scheduling all of The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s emergency medical services-related trainings, as well as teaching some courses and helping prepare our students to pass the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) exam.

As we do with our staff profiles and ‘get to know us’ posts, we asked Julius to tell us about his background, and here’s what he had to say: (more…)

It’s official. We’ve symbolically planted a National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) flag in the ground and established a basecamp for our South American operations in Southern Chile/Northern Patagonia. What does that mean to you?

It means that — as of the final days of last year — we officially have a base of operations from which we can now run our future trainings and outdoor courses when in South America. Fittingly, the basecamp was established at the outset of one of our Patagonia-based 24-day Outdoor Educator courses, witnessed by a group of students we took down from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Located alongside a river, the basecamp offers unique accommodations that include a treehouse dormitory, hosteria (which is an inn-like facility), eco-friendly domes, a riverside group kitchen area, and quiet forested areas for camping.

Among the highlights of the property is a treehouse dormitorio offering sleeping quarters nestled within the forest trees. Constructed over, around, and in between the forest, the result is a building that incorporates reliable cool summer breezes, an abundance of shade, and neighbors that include (more…)

Gratitude is most often used as a noun, describing as it does, the feeling of being thankful. This warm and comforting word is often bandied about during the holidays, when we reflect upon all of the things for which we are grateful. But for some of us — and in particular, many of our staff members here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) — we treat the word gratitude as a verb.

Great employees often live in gratitude by taking positive action. And that means being present for others, which includes listening to their issues or desires and connecting with them. It also means becoming the person that someone else is grateful for.

Image © Simon Maage (sourced from Unsplash)

Just before the holidays truly got underway, we asked some of our staff members to list just some of the things for which they were most grateful. We’re not the least bit surprised that some of their comments encompassed our students and fellow staffers.

Here’s their take on gratitude, in their own words: (more…)

The economy is booming and we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) find ourselves in the position of seeking a few part-time instructors. Specifically, we’re looking for instructors to supplement our expanding team of EMT professionals who teach courses at our North Carolina headquarters. Among the many courses we offer is an intensive 19-day EMT-Basic course that satisfies eligibility requirements for the National Registry and NC EMT certification. These classes meet Mondays through Fridays with an additional 24 hours of clinical and field practice on either Saturday or Sunday.

If you know anything about us, you know we pride ourselves with employing some of the very best instructors in the industry, and that includes instructors who are also EMT-paramedics, firefighters, military operations specialists, and experts in critical care management.

As an AEE accredited organization, we provide an exciting and one-of-a-kind teaching environment where teamwork is paramount — which means our EMT offerings stand out from most teaching institution’s. Our instructors provide (more…)

The thing that makes Ricardo Flores exceedingly well qualified to serve as a National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education field instructor is his love of the outdoors and experience in group dynamics through his corporate  management experience.

Specifically, Ricardo formerly worked as a logistics manager and a project manager for Proctor & Gamble, which was No. 42 on the Fortune 500 list last year. That’s not too shabby. In addition, he is a former CEO of an adventure tourism company, and a field instructor for Outward Bound.

In fact, Ricardo has been a wilderness aficionado since the age of 12, having spent 13 years in the Boy Scouts, plus, he’s amassed a boatload of summer camp, personal trip, and tour-guiding experiences. This Port Neches, Texas, native has professional certifications that include Project Management Professional (PMP), Leave No Trace (LNT) master educator, and Wilderness First Responder (WFR).

We asked Ricardo to fill in some blanks in his resume and tell us more about his life. Here’s what he had to say: (more…)

Some veteran backpackers claim the only time a heated can of Dinty Moore stew tastes delicious is when eaten outdoors, but today there are many quick and easy ways to pull together a gourmet meal from what you can grab out of your backpack. The trick is knowing what to pack!

Truth is, we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) are among the go-to experts when it comes to wilderness cooking for large and small groups that enjoy the backcountry. That’s because our veteran field instructors and leaders have had years to develop ways to transform mundane mountainside meals into Five Star (OK, maybe Four Star) dining experiences.

The secret? It’s all in what you pack in your gear. And with some advance preparation and careful planning, you can spice up your backcountry cooking menus to taste just as delicious on your weekend trail trek as they do for us on, say, an Outdoor Educator Course in Patagonia.

Real estate inside your backpack is always at a premium, but here are a few items that — come lunch or dinnertime — will make you glad you squirreled them away next to your clean socks and underwear: (more…)

Today, we can happily report that — following the trials and tribulations of last month’s bullseye hurricane confrontation on our Wilmington, N.C. campus — we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) are back in action. In fact, just a week after our return from evacuating, everything was cleaned up and looking like Hurricane Florence had never visited our 17-acre outdoor education campus.

But no matter how experienced you might be at preparing for, evacuating from, and recovering after a natural disaster, you can never fully anticipate what Mother Nature might toss your way as part of her standard repertoire of weather. And while today, with on-campus and field courses back in action, it certainly didn’t look that way on the morning of Friday, Sept. 28, when a thunderstorm completely unrelated to Hurricane Florence rumbled over our property.

That’s when a massive bolt of lightning hit the window of our director of operations’ office, sending a bolt of energy through her keyboard to her fingertips while she was working. A second bolt of lightning hit a tree adjacent to our gear shed, traveled down the tree, through its roots, blowing a hole through our property’s water line and sewer line, and cooking the conduit that houses our property’s power line.

The central panel for our (more…)

Say what you will about global warming, climate change and other hemispheric anomalies, but there’s no question in anybody’s mind that a Category 4 hurricane is making a direct bullseye run at Wilmington, N.C., and The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) headquarters facilities.

The good news is that our staff have all become bona fide experts in matters related to risk management. Our co-founders Zac and Celine Adair — along with the rest of our hometown administrative team — are hard at work preparing our coastal headquarters for a direct hit from this latest storm which you can track online through the National Hurricane Center.

Here on our campus, NCOAE staff has spent the last 36 hours preparing for the worst possible outcome — a direct hit. Buildings have been boarded up, all outdoor furniture and materials capable of being turned into life-threatening projectiles have been removed from the property, which ‘as the crow flies’ is located just a mile from the Carolina coastline.

NCOAE vans have been packed up with a (more…)

It’s not often that we derive inspiration while standing in the middle of an overcrowded parking lot, but for our co-founder and executive director Zac Adair, it was in just such an unlikely setting that the notion of opening a Pacific Northwest location for NCOAE took hold.

(Image © by Edward Etojakovic via Wikipedia)

This idea came to mind during a recent trip to Oregon, where Zac was checking out the outdoor recreation and education scene. Accompanied by a friend who also works in the human-powered outdoor recreation and adventure education space, the two men found themselves in the parking lot of the historic Timberline Lodge, situated about halfway up the 11,239-foot-high Mount Hood — undoubtedly the most majestic mountain in the state.

Well known for more than a century for its outstanding outdoor recreational possibilities — available year-round and in every outdoor rec category imaginable — the Mount Hood area and the nearby Deschutes River are virtual meccas for wilderness enthusiasts of every outdoor sport persuasion. And as Zac and his friend were to witness in that hotel parking lot on that day last month, diversity is the key when it comes (more…)

Over the past two summers, The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) has received a total of nearly $9,000 from Island Women, Inc., a group of savvy, talented and passionate women who live in nearby Pleasure Island, N.C. Island Women is a not-for-profit organization that’s on a mission to enhance the quality of life on Pleasure Island, which is located just five minutes south of NCOAE’s headquarters facilities in Wilmington.

The generous donation (totaling $8,874) was designated by the local group to be used in NCOAE’s not-for-profit subsidiary, Education Without Walls — an outdoor- and adventure-based program that provides academic and life skill guidance for high school kids living at or below the Federal Poverty Level. The end goal of our program is to motivate and support low-income students in identifying and achieving their potential.

Among many other commitments, Island Women promotes education, cultural expression, and mentoring among women. In our case, Island Women’s members were interested in our Education Without Walls program after NCOAE Co-Founder Celine Adair was invited to address the organization in the summer of 2016.

Celine described how the majority of (more…)

How would you like to spend three weeks in windswept Patagonia, summiting a 19,000-foot-high peak in the Andes, taking on Class III and IV rapids alongside a volcano — and picking up six college credits for adding this adventure to your academic experience?

The University of North Carolina-Wilmington (UNCW) is offering this 24-day course (EVS 485/592) during the upcoming winter 2018 break, and the classroom is as described above — Patagonia, a nearly 300,000-square-mile area shared by Chile and Argentina that features the imposing Andes mountain range, deserts, plains, rocky coastlines and ice fields. This pristine real estate is enormous, yet only 5 percent of the populations of both countries live there.

And it’s available to adventure-seeking Seahawks as the result of an academic partnership between UNCW and us — the Wilmington-based National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). Our renowned center promotes critical thinking, environmental stewardship, and the acquisition of technical outdoor skills through accredited outdoor and adventure-based experiential education courses.

(more…)