Happy New Year!

It’s the last week of August.  All of the NOLS students on courses this summer have now graduated and returned to “the real world.”

As we begin to send out our next batch of NOLS students on fall courses, we here at NOLS are about to throw a big New Year’s Party!  Yahoo!  In just one more week, we are about to celebrate the end of another successful NOLS year. 

But before all the celebrating begins, we are in our final push towards making school history.  At the end of this week we will have made it to our highest NOLS Annual Fund goal ever, surpassing our target of $1.3 million dollars. 

The Annual Fund supports the school’s scholarship program as well as the research, outreach and sustainability initiatives currently going on at NOLS.  Donations to the Annual Fund come from the generosity of our NOLS alumni, parents, staff and friends around the world.

If you are interested in being a part of history and supporting the furthering of the  NOLS mission, you can go online today to make a secure gift. If you like to do it the ol’ fashioned way, you can call us at  #800-332-4280 or send us a check to NOLS, 284 Lincoln St., Lander, Wyoming, 82520.

Thanks to all our donors out there and thanks to everyone for your interest in this wonderful school.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have enjoyed the summer!

Lindsay Nohl
Annual Fund Manager
Rocky Mountain Instructor Course Graduate '04
Fall Semester in the Rockies Graduate '02

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A new bin on the block. . .

Our new commercial size composter arrived and it's located in the alley behind the Noble Hotel.  We're fired up about the new composter!  Why? You might ask.

Well, our new commercial compost system has a volume of 3 cubic yards, which means there is a heck of a lot of room to drop in food scraps, unusable rations, dried leaves, yard cuttings and more.  Most of this currently goes to the landfill.  Initially, the compost produced will be used to enhance our grounds (lawns, flower beds).  Eventually, once we know how much compost is produced and in what length of time, we would like to partner up with local community gardens who could use the nutrient rich soil.  Perhaps we will even start our own organic garden!

What will go in our giant composter? For any good compost, there are basic ingredients necessary for producing rich soil.

1) nitrogen-- green materials like food scraps, coffee grounds, fresh lawn cuttings and leaves. . .

2) carbon-- dried plant matter like leaves, twigs, wood chips, paper products, compostable picnic flatware and plates, press board such as cereal boxes. . .)

3) water

4) air

Click on the link above to read more about composting.

Our composter is conveniently located behind the Noble Hotel where it receives a healthy does of sun all year long.  In our efforts to be more sustainable, the fencing around the composter is salvaged fence posts from a BLM campground and the fence boards themselves are made of trex (recycled plastic).  We sourced gravel from a local river for the bottom of our composter.

What can you expect to see in the coming weeks, months and years? - An educational display for students and the public about composting. - Compost bins conveniently located around NOLS Rocky Mountain, Headquarters, and the Noble Hotel. - Statistic keeping to gather info on how long/ how much we compost. For more information and stats on our compost bin, check out Green Mountain Technologies.

The BLM fence posts where the composter will live.

Latane checks out the inside of the composter.

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10 Weeks, 400 Hours, a Summer I'll Remember for a Lifetime

This week I had to say goodbye to all the wonderful people at NOLS Rocky Mountain. It seems like my ten weeks as an intern flew by. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone there and seeing an inside view at such a great program. Seeing the students get off courses and talk about the impact that it had on them was one of the most amazing parts of my job. What was more amazing was the hard work that everyone does to create that experience. I want to thank everyone for making my internship one of the biggest learning experiences that I have had in my college career.

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NOLS Alumni Volunteer on Public Land

In partnership with the US Forest Service's Wind River District and the Student Conservation Association, NOLS recently piloted a new type of alumni service trip—participants spent a week in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains re-routing an alpine section of the Glacier Trail.

Of course, many NOLS expeditions do a good bit of arranged or informal service work. Among other projects, courses around the world dismantle fire rings, pack out pounds and pounds of litter, and help battle invasive weeds. But this particular alumni trip (for grads and non-grad friends and families) was our first full-on service adventure.

Our intrepid group spent days at 11,000' moving rocks and cobbles to establish a new trail section away from a fragile riparian area, exchanging typical day-hiking gear for sledge hammers, mattocks, shovels, and pry bars.

This trip wasn't all work—they broke up the week with a day off to explore beautiful area peaks and try out the fly rods. Great food, horse support, and alumni camaraderie also added fun to the mix.

It was a real pleasure to get into the backcountry and really roll up the sleeves for public lands and Wilderness. Thanks to the Shoshone National Forest and Student Conservation Association for helping to make this unique trip a success. And thanks too to the committed grads who returned to NOLS for this new and challenging service trip.

Click here to see more photos from this alumni service trip.

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Solar Power at NOLS Rocky Mountain

At NOLS Rocky Mountain we have been busy with hundreds of students coming in and taking our summer courses. While we were getting students ready, issuing equipment, rationing food and welcoming them back after their course our solar panels were working hard to help power our branch. This sumer the panels have generated 7,800 Kilowatt Hours of power. That is about 40 percent of the electric power that we use here. This is awesome. Since we installed the panels we have avoided 18,557 pounds of greenhouse gases.

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The Things you "Doo" at Rock Camp

The Outdoor Educator Backpacking and Rock Climbing Course just got back to the Rocky Mountain after 17 days of backpacking and 5 days of rock climbing in the Beartooth Mountains.  The highlight of their course was summiting Sky Pilot at an elevation of 12,047 feet.  The highlight of my day was smelling the 47 pounds of human waste they brought to the Rocky Mountain this morning.  The course was in same location for 5 days of rock camp, so they practiced amazing Leave No Trace skills by packing out everything they “took in.” 

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