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Wilderness Drum > Wilderness Schools > Outdoor Leadership The bare vastness of the Hopi landscape emphasizes the visual impact of every plant, every rock, every arroyo. Nothing is overlooked or taken for granted. Each ant, each lizard, each lark is imbued with great value simply because the creature is there, simply because the creature is alive in a place where any life at all is precious. Stand on the mesa edge at Walpai and look west over the bare distances toward the pale blue outlines of the San Francisco peaks where the ka’tsina spirits reside. So little lies between you and the sky. So little lies between you and the earth. One look and you know that simply to survive is a great triumph, that every possible resource is needed, every possible ally – even the most humble insect or reptile. You realize you will be speaking with all of them if you intend to last out the year. Thus it is that the Hopi elders are grateful to the landscape for aiding them in their quest as spiritual people.

— Leslie Marmon Silko

Much of today’s training for wilderness leaders is the legacy of legendary mountaineer Paul Petzold, a member of the first American expedition to K2 in the Himalayas in 1938. In 1963, Josh Miner brought the British program called Outward Bound to the United States, and he hired Petzold as the chief instructor at the Colorado Outward Bound School. Frustrated by the lack of qualified instructors, and responding to the growing public interest in wilderness travel, Petzold founded the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) on March 23, 1965, in Sinks Canyon near Lander, Wyoming.

The original facility was located at the Rise of the Sinks where the Sinks Canyon State Park Headquarters is found today. On June 8, 1965, the first NOLS students were issued food and gear. They were loaded into stock trucks and driven to the trailhead at the Hidden Valley Ranch, where they were dropped off to spend the next month in the Wind River Range. That summer, there were three wilderness courses consisting of approximately 100 male students.

By the end of 1976, NOLS employed about forty instructors and was educating more than 1500 students. However, on July 14, 1975, due to disenchantment between Petzold and the NOLS board of directors, the board removed Petzold as executive director and gave him the title of ”senior advisor.”

Thus, in 1976, Petzold went backpacking with Dr. Frank Lupton and a group of students through the Wind River Range and the Targhee National Forest in Wyoming, as part of the course Camping and Outdoor Education which Lupton taught at Western Illinois University. This experimental course became the model for the Wilderness Education Association (WEA) National Standard Program. In 1977, Petzold, Lupton, and a group of college professors, in order to meet the need for college-level courses to train professional outdoor leaders and educators, founded what was to become the WEA. In 1980, Petzold became the new association’s Executive Director.

In 1993, Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO), long known for its wilderness medicine courses, introduced its first Advanced Leadership and Emergency Care program. Based on many years of contact with trip leaders, who shared their assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of their training, and based on the trip-leading experience of SOLO’s own staff, the course taught both backcountry emergency medicine and leadership skills, seeking to train trip leaders who could safely manage a group in a variety of outdoor environments and thus prevent medical emergencies from occurring in the first place.

Wilderness Leadership Programs
	*Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities* P.O. Box: 3150 Conway NH 03818 603-447-6711 info@soloschools.com
Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO) offers two outdoor leadership programs – Advanced Leadership and Emergency Care (ALEC) and the Outdoor/Wilderness Leadership School (OWLS). The month-long ALEC course incorporates SOLO’s widely respected Wilderness First Responder training; the two-week OWLS extracts the leadership component of the ALEC program for those students who have already received their WFR or WEMT certification. SOLO divides the leadership component into two areas of curriculum – hard skills, such as navigation, weather forecasting, hygiene, cooking for groups, evacuation, and minimum impact camping; and soft skills, such as role modeling, confrontation and critique, presentation, wilderness use ethics, leadership styles and their applications, and an exploration of the nature of the leader-follower, client-guide relationship. All SOLO programs share the educational philosophy that staff presentations should be balanced by student practical work. Presentations and demonstrations are followed by opportunities for students to practice skills, either in a scenario, in small teams, or on their own, depending on the subject. As part of a team, students cook meals in the backcountry, examine case studies, and navigate orienteering courses. There are also a number of practical simulations involving both leadership and medical issues. After a scenario or practice session, students have opportunities to receive coaching and evaluation on their performances. Throughout the program, presentations, practical sessions, and activities all stress the fundamentals of leadership in the areas of trust-building, structure for participation, division of responsibilities, and assessment skills.
	*Wilderness Education Association* 900 East 7th Street Bloomington IN, 47405 812-855-4095 wea@indiana.edu
The goal of the Wilderness Education Association is to promote wilderness safety and conservation by training competent outdoor leaders. WEA’s National Standard Program emphasizes experiential teaching in the field, allowing students to supplement their existing outdoor aptitude with environmentally sound group-leadership skills. WEA offers three types of certification program: The *Wilderness Steward Program* is typically ten days in length and is designed to teach participants the basics of judgment and decision-making skills, leadership, minimum impact camping and travel techniques, and other essential components of the WEA eighteen-point curriculum. The program is intended for recreation professionals, licensed guides, camp counselors, and anyone who wishes to sharpen his or her outdoor and leadership skills or learn more about the field of outdoor leadership. The *National Standard Program* is a 21 to 35 day course designed for those with minimal wilderness expeditionary experience who wish to become certified as outdoor leaders or pursue a career in the fields of outdoor leadership, outdoor education, adventure travel, wilderness therapy, or any field that requires a leader capable of planning, organizing, leading, and executing a safe and environmentally sound wilderness expedition. The *Professional Short Course* is designed for the professional already working in the field of outdoor leadership or related fields who wishes a fast track to becoming a National Standard Program Certified Outdoor Leader. Entry into this course requires potential participants to complete an application and screening process. Only those who qualify will be able to attend this intense indoctrination to the WEA eighteen-point curriculum, philosophy, and teaching techniques. PSCs are typically ten days in length and are taught expedition style, but generally with more class time than moving time to maximize the learning. All training under the National Standard Program is based on the WEA 18-point curriculum, which in turn is based on the concept of good judgement.Judgment, says the WEA, is the pervasive leadership quality that grows from the exercise of decision making in a leadership role. The development of good judgement is the philosophical and educational objective underlying all eighteen point, which are: Decision Making and Problem Solving Leadership Expedition Behavior and Group Dynamics Environmental Ethics Basic Camping Skills Nutrition and Rations Planning Equipment and Clothing Selection / Use Weather Health and Sanitation Travel Techniques Navigation Safety and Risk Management Wilderness Emergency Procedures and Treatment Natural and Cultural History Specialized Travel / Adventure Activity Communication Skills Trip Planning Teaching, Processing and Transference
	*National Outdoor Leadership School* 288 Main Street Lander, WY 82520-3140, 307-332-5300 admissions@nols.edu
NOLS was founded with the specific purpose of training outdoor leaders. While the NOLS course list has expanded over time to include mountaineering, rock climbing, horse packing, skiing, and snowboarding, the core enterprise of the school remains its wilderness leadership courses, offered in the Yukon, the Wind River Wilderness, the Teton Valley, the Brooks Range, the Himalayas, and Kenya. The leadership course has four components: Safety and judgment, including basic first aid, safety and accident prevention, hazard evaluation, injury prevention and treatment, rescue techniques, and emergency procedures; Leadership and teamwork, including self awareness, expedition behavior, decision making, and communication; Outdoor skills, including campsite selection, shelter and stove use, fire building, sanitation and waste disposal, cooking and baking, nutrition and rations, and equipment selection and care; and Environmental studies, including resource protection, ecosystems, geology, weather, land management, and wilderness ethics.

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