Ahhhhhhhh……..

Well the time has come to take a break for the holidays. Our interns are all moving on and headed home for the holiday season. The blog will be taking a break until the beginning of next year. Happy Holidays!

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NOLS and NASA

While NOLS staff danced and ping-ponged their way through the annual holiday party, three instructors gathered around a television in the newly renovated Noble Hotel to watch the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. Revelers may have thought the trio rude or antisocial, but Missy White, Chris Brauneis and Tod Schimelpfenig were merely keeping tabs on seven former students hurtling towards the International Space Station. Brauneis later recalled a sizable pit in his stomach that persisted until the crew of STS–116 safely cleared the pad of the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
    A successful launch behind them, the crew shifted their focus to re-wiring the International Space Station, the task that brought them together and, indirectly, to NOLS, where they learned the skills to work effectively and efficiently as a team. White and Brauneis led astronauts Christer Fuglesang, Robert Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham, Bill Oefelein, Nick Patrick and Mark Polansky (Suni Williams attended a separate NOLS course in 2006) through the canyons of Utah’s Dirty Devil Wilderness in June of 2005. They practiced leadership while increasing their threshold for uncertainty by adapting to the variables that inevitably complicate a group’s plans. “Nothing is contrived on a NOLS course,” Brauneis noted, so the principles of navigating one’s teammates through a tricky route are directly applicable to, say, managing the risks of a spacewalk.
    NOLS and NASA have a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Instructors are able to sharpen their teaching tools and astronauts build foundations for successful expeditions. The crew of STS–116 is only one of the most recent in a series of NASA courses. To learn more about NOLS and NASA, or about the crew and mission of STS–116, visit the NOLS and NASA websites.

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OES Jumps The Shark

 

The Outdoor Educator Semester (OES) returned to Lander, marking the end of our fall season here at the Rocky Mountain (RM). Congratulations are due to the OES students for completing a fun and successful semester!

Since our season is winding down at the RM, we’re getting ready for the holidays, taking time to wind down yet at the same time gearing up for our early spring season which starts in February.

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Fall Semester in the Rockies 9 Finishes!

Fall Semester in the Rockies (FSR) 9 returned Tuesday from their Winter Snowboarding section. All 11 students had huge smiles on their faces and conveyed surprise at the warm temperature in Lander. Cold temperatures during the winter section were cured by a fun time and “shredding the gnar gnar and the pow pow”. FSR Nine had the only snowboarding section of the winter. The rest of the semesters’ winter sections were characterized by telemark skiing.   FSR 9 was able to spend eleven days living and traveling in the Absaroka Mountains of Togwottee Pass Wyoming. Students gained experience building and living in snow shelters and traveling on Voile split boards with packs and sleds. They completed basic avalanche awareness and most importantly finished their semester in superb style!

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Who ya gonna call?

Our grads go the distance!  Hot off the bus and fresh off their semester, NOLS grads from the Fall Semester in the Rockies (FSR) 5, 7 an 8 volunteered to call spring semester students.   Why?  You might ask.  It can be frightening to think of what a semester long or even a two-week long adventure with strangers in the wilderness might be like.  FSR 5, 7 and 8 students were armed with inspiring energy, advice, and stories, which they shared with enrolled students during a recent phone call session.  What did we hear as the new grads talked to future NOLS semester students?  “It was the time of my life.”  “I learned to work through differences and challenges with a group of people I will remember for the rest of my life.” “Well, they aren’t really classes in the traditional sense. . .you learn a lot and your instructors are really experienced.”

Congratulations to the 2006 Fall Semesters students!  Thank you FSR 5, 7, and 8 volunteers for your inspiring stories.  Stay tuned for stories from FSR 9 and the Outdoor Educator Course as they finish up their courses later this week.

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And the Sun Sets...

Now that our last group of students has graduated, it has grown very quiet at NOLS Southwest. Most of our staff have moved into vacations or other bits of work. The rations room has been closed up, with everything put into storage. The issue room is a little quiter, as no one is here to play table tennis. The air is even a bit chillier and the wind a bit gustier as the sun sets over this past work season.  

However, one can tell that all are excited for a brief winter hibernation filled with skiing, climbing, just relaxing or woodchopping. As the spring season rolls around, we will move into it rested and excited for the warm sun to return, new groups of students and a whole new round of challenges.

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FSW2 Graduation!

Our Fall Semester in the Sonoran number 2 graduated last night. After a nice evening barbeque, we sent them on their way. Best of luck in all your backcountry adventures and beyond.

 

 

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Art in the Afternoon

On Sunday, December 3rd, the newly renovated Noble Hotel played host to the annual Art in the Afternoon celebration. For the past eight years local Lander artists gathered to show and sell their wares. This year was no exception, 50 artists showed photos, pottery and much, much more. The Johnson’s played in the kitchen, beer from the Snake River Brewery was served and there was much excitement in the air! Rumor has it that many people enjoyed their first look at the renovations, had a great time and are looking forward to next year’s celebration!

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Good Bye Everbody

After having brought you such fascinating blogs as “ NOLS Adventures in Space” and countless Student Press Release to towns across America (my personal favorite being Truth or Consequences, New Mexico), it has come time for the Marketing & Public Relations interns to go.  For those of you who don’t know us we are Shara Brown and Will Barkan. 
   

( Shara & Will)

Besides the climbing, road racing and near death experiences there are lots of things to look back on.  I arrived at NOLS this past June wondering what an internship would be like working in an office that pursues the wilderness.  I found myself primarily coordinating and supporting Press Releases on students and expanding media for the NOLS Bus program.  Shara arrived in September with the “can do” country attitude of upstate New York that she applied to coordinating the shipping of NOLS promotional materials and research and development of marketing projects of all shapes and sizes.  Outside of providing support to standard marketing efforts, we worked day and night (which is fairly easy when it gets dark at 4pm) on NOLS’ “ Creating a Climate for Change” program conducting extensive research on NOLS carbon emissions and ways in which we can reduce and offset those emissions.  It’s been fun and interesting helping make the building blocks for the next NOLS evolution in environmental ethics. 
    Throughout our time here we’ve done some hard work, had some good times and learned the behind the scenes face of NOLS.  It takes a lot of people and work to keep NOLS running the way it does and we’re proud to have been a part of it.  In January Shara will be returning to school at SUNY (State University of New York) at Delhi to finish her degree in Business Administration.  I will be returning to Washington D.C. to continue work in the research field of International Energy Security.   We will miss many things at NOLS including Joe Austin’s office athletic equipment, t-shirt folding parties, sorting NOLS paraphernalia, daily shenanigans and attacks from Laurel in the mail room, getting all bloodied up to be a practice victim for a W-EMT courses, Gookin bear fence demos and the scamper of feet chasing each other down the hallway and the dumb founded realization that your boss has engaged in a game of tag with senior NOLS staff. 
Thanks for all the fun and learning
    The Marketing & PR Interns

P.S. Joe Austin and his in office Athletic Shenanigans

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Congrats FSW1

Our first graduates moved on to new adventures yesterday. FSW1 was a great crew of guys and it was great to have them with us this season. Great luck guys! Keep in touch.

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