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:

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:

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 Instructor Course or a Semester Course or Gap Year Course in Patagonia, 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 

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. 

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: 

It’s only been a year and a half since China put a halt to accepting the world’s recyclable waste products, yet the effects are being felt in many countries — and in turn, local municipalities — that are scrambling with the challenge of dealing with their own recyclables, including cans, plastics, papers, and glass.

When laws mandating curbside recycling began sprouting up across the United States in the early 1980s, many Americans balked at the idea of being forced to sort their trash. Decades later, it’s embraced by residents in cities and towns throughout the country. In fact, the entire recycling movement has become as second nature to most folks as breathing.

But in January of last year, China quit importing most foreign recyclables, stating it wanted to address its nation’s own pollution issues. So, when you consider that the United States alone used to send 4,000 shipping containers of recycled goods to China each day, you can see the effect this might have on our recycling habits, especially in locations absent of recycling centers and recycling mills of their own.

As a result, the co-founder and director of operations here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), Celine Adair, is offering insight and some advice on what each of us can do to curtail the impact of this global event in our personal lives. Specifically, Celine is exploring how the nation’s outdoor, experiential, and adventure-based educators and guides can manage — and thrive — in this new era in the evolution of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

But first some additional background into the severity of the problem. China’s decision has the potential to

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) we’re not very big on endorsing products or brands. In fact, if you were to research our blog all the way back to the first entry at the end of 2013, you probably won’t find more than two or three posts chatting up products that we heartily support (most notably among them, our June 2014 endorsement of Banks Fry-Bake Pan).

But NCOAE is a super big fan — and customer — of Osprey Packs, a company that has been making some of the best expedition-style backpacks available in the outdoor recreation marketplace for the past four and a half decades. In particular, we’ve been hugely pleased with the Escalante 75 +10 backpack and the Kiva 70 +5 backpack — both available for our outdoor programs only.

As an Association for Experiential Education (AEE) accredited provider of guided outdoor trips and training in the realm of outdoor education and training, our organization qualifies for wholesale pricing for 100 or so manufacturers of expedition-style backpacks. But over the years, when it comes to program packs, we continue to work almost exclusively with Osprey. Why?

The ideal time to consider the best communications options for your backcountry trip is not after you’ve arrived at the trailhead, only to discover you can’t get a signal on your smartphone.

Ensuring you have a reliable means of reaching the outside world — especially during a backcountry incident or emergency — is an item on your checklist that should come way before you’ve parked the car, struggled into your backpacks and are a half-mile down the trail.

Cellphones with sketchy service might be acceptable for a quick four-hour hike within a populated area, but what are your choices should you be heading out on a multi-day adventure in a desolate wilderness area or a national park?

Possessing a reliable device when you need to communicate with people outside the immediate group of hikers accompanying you is a must. Because when it becomes necessary to communicate with search and rescue professionals, things probably aren’t going as smoothly as you had hoped.

And that’s when you want the best user-friendly device you can afford. Here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE), we recommend you become familiar with two or more communications systems you might want to carry with you into the backcountry.

Below are several suggestions from which to choose, keeping in mind that the choices you make — especially in an emergency situation — can make a

It stands to reason that the success or failure of any non-solo outdoor adventure depends to a great degree on the person or people accompanying you. As a result, and long before you head out the door on your next adventure, you’ll want to ensure you don’t select a partner who can quickly turn either a day hike or week-long trek into a peacetime version of the Bataan death march.

In addition to the hardships that accompany many human-powered outdoor recreation adventures, there are issues that should be cleared up before hitting the trail. For instance, there’s a thin line between picking a partner who is a good conversationalist and a motor mouth who is too self-important to pay attention to what’s really going on around the two of you.

Photo © Dylan Siebel (sourced and used with permission from Unsplash)

What we present here is a rundown of what leading outdoor industry publications and journalists have to say about finding the perfect outdoor partner or buddy. In each case, we’ve provided a link to the referring source. That way, you can

Crack, pop, pop, hiss. The campfire audibly confirms its presence as a contented audience sits around the pit, absently staring into the infinite colors created by the dancing flames.

When fire restrictions aren’t in place, campfires have always been a centerpiece for backcountry gatherings; a time and place where learning, cooking, impromptu singing, occasional horseplay and long descriptive stories punctuate comfortable stretches of silence.

But it’s the stories told around a campfire that are often among the most memorable portions of any wilderness outing — especially when one or more participants has some stories to tell and the ability to tell them well.

A few years ago I had the good fortune of leading a group of students on a trip that combined paddling, climbing and hiking. The weather was great for about 10 percent of the trip, which means the other 90 percent tested our resolve. As a result, our itinerary had to