Find challenges & fun in Wyoming’s mountains

If you’re excited to make new friends and learn new skills while backpacking through the beautiful Rocky Mountains, then this is the course for you!

Spend three weeks with other 14- and 15-year-old girls exploring Wyoming’s Bighorn or Wind River Mountains—75 miles of granite peaks, wildflower meadows, and alpine lakes. You’ll scramble up ridges, cross mountain streams, and fall asleep under starry skies.

This course starts with the essentials—your supportive instructors will teach you how to pitch tents, cook on camp stoves and read maps. From there, you’ll progress into learning more advanced skills like wilderness first aid, off-trail navigation, and leadership skills like effective communication and decision-making. Depending on conditions and instructor focus, you might also learn baking, fly fishing, rock climbing, snow travel, geology, or plant identification.

You’ll live in small cook groups with two or three other students, learning backcountry living while practicing Leave No Trace principles. The leadership curriculum emphasizes experiential learning and building an inclusive community with your peers. As your group demonstrates strong teamwork, instructors will give you greater responsibility— you may travel in student-led groups for a day at a time, and if ready, your course could culminate in a multi-day student expedition where you navigate independently for two to four days.

You’ll return with a new community of like-minded girls, confidence that translates to life at home and outdoor skills to take with you on your future adventures.

Information for Parents: The NOLS Difference

At 14-15, your teen’s brain is in a critical rewiring phase—where experiences now become traits later. While camps keep teens comfortable, a NOLS course gives them tools to navigate an uncertain world. Hiking beneath Wyoming’s granite peaks and through wildflower meadows teaches them that the world is big, beautiful, and not revolving around them. We teach through natural consequences: if the tent isn’t set up right, they get wet. No nagging, just feedback that builds responsibility and judgment. You’re investing in the adult you want to send into the world.