If you’re looking to spend your summer learning to live in the wild and making lifelong friends while you do, then this is the course for you. Spend a week scrambling up rocky peaks and wandering through ancient hardwood forests in the Adirondack Mountains. Fall asleep under the stars, bake homemade pizza on a camp stove, and learn what it feels like to carry everything you need on your back. This course is designed specifically for 12- and 13-year-olds ready to test themselves in the mountains and discover just how capable they really are.

Kirk Rasmussen

You’ll travel through some of the oldest protected wilderness in the country, learning skills that will stick with you long after you leave—how to read a map, navigate bear habitat safely, and work as part of a team when the terrain gets steep or the weather turns stormy. Some days you’ll follow established trails; other days you’ll forge your own path. Whether this is your first backcountry camping trip or your tenth, you’ll come home transformed- with stories worth telling and the confidence to keep exploring. For some, this will be a springboard to longer NOLS expeditions. For others, it’s the beginning of a lifetime outside!

Photo by: Matthew Baugh