Hot Drinks - Stories From The Field

Today our guest is James "KG" Kagambi, Senior NOLS Instructor and the owner of KG Mountain Expeditions. He joined NOLS  as a field instructor in 1987. KG has worked many curses types over the years but regularly works in NOLS mountaineering programs in Patagonia, Alaska, East Africa, and India. KG is not only a senior NOLS instructor; he is the most senior, having more weeks in the field than any other instructor in the history of the school! He has over 870 weeks in the field working for NOLS, that is more than 6000 nights!! He has also completed four of the Seven Summits and in 1992 represented Africa in the U.N Peace Climb for the world on the Eiger. In addition, KG has summited the Eiger three times, became the first black African to summit Denali in 1989 and was the first black African to summit Aconcagua in 1994. KG has guided on Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro since the 1990s and Today trains search and rescue teams on Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro, and Rwenzori. KG's long-lasting commitments to the field of rock climbing and mountaineering in Kenya have prompted acknowledgment and respect in his country. While he is away from the field, he enjoys spending time with his family and children. In May, at 62 KG became the first Kenyan to submit Mt. Everest. Today he shares his story. https://www.fullcircleeverest.com/

Rachel James was born and raised in Palmer, Alaska. She started working at the NOLS Alaska branch at the age of 15, cleaning toilets and landscaping; this was also when she started ice climbing. Rachel took a NOLS Alaska Mountaineering course at 16 and started working as a mountaineering instructor after taking the first-ever NOLS Alaska Instructors Course in 2000 at 19. During her time at NOLS from 2000 to 2013, she mainly worked mountaineering expeditions while leading a few horse packing and hiking courses in Alaska, Patagonia, Yukon, and Wyoming. Rachel has also worked as a program supervisor at NOLS Alaska. Currently, she lives in the Chugach Mountains just outside of Anchorage and is working hard to defend salmon habitat in Alaska.

Jeff Rose has worked as an outdoor educator for over two decades, including 19 seasons with Outward Bound. Besides Outward Bound, Jeff has worked for numerous colleges and universities, including the University of Utah, Davidson College, San Diego State University, UC San Diego, and Indiana University. He also worked for Adventures Cross Country and various summer camps. As an instructor, Jeff taught climbing, glacier mountaineering, backpacking, sea kayaking, and a few rafting and canyoneering courses. Most of his field time has been in Washington's North Cascades and Puget Sound, as well as Alaska's Chugach Mountains, Prince William Sound, and Kenai Fjords. Jeff also goes by Dr. Jeff Rose and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism at the University of Utah, where he teaches courses in Outdoor Recreation Studies, with an emphasis on social and environmental justice. His research uses qualitative and spatial methods to examine systemic inequities expressed through class, race, political economy, and relationships to nature.

Steve Smith has worked in the outdoor industry for over thirty years, in the field, in the office, in the board room, and in national leadership roles, specializing in program leadership, risk management, and staff training. As a teen, he took a NOLS semester course in 1991 and for Outward Bound from 1998 through to today. Since 2008 he has run a risk management consulting company, Experiential Consulting, that uniquely serves outdoor education and experiential learning programs.   Steve is a regular speaker at national conferences such as WRMC, AEE, and Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, among others. In addition, he served two terms as a board member for the Northwest Outward Bound School, where he continues to serve on the school's Board of Directors Safety Committee. He also has a varied background as a classroom teacher (English) and an HR administrator in outdoor and corporate settings. He supports wildlife conservation in his free time, of which he has none.   Experiential Consulting - https://www.outdoorrisk.com/

Travis Holmes was born in grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He lived most of his life in Alberta, B.C. and the Yukon; however, for the past 15 years, he has been living in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, with his wife, ten and 8-year-old kids. Travis worked in outdoor education for much of the 1990s and 2000s. His work lifeguarding in swimming pools led me to the University of Alberta Paddling Society, where he really got into white water kayaking and began teaching kayaking and river rescue. Travis later became the canoe and river paddling coordinator for the University of Alberta Campus Outdoor Centre and director of education for the Alberta Whitewater Association before becoming a full-time NOLS instructor. Over the next ten years, he instructed hiking, canoeing, white water kayaking, rafting, sea kayaking, rock climbing and sailing courses for NOLS. Travel led courses throughout Western Canada, Alaska & and the central west USA, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia for NOLS. While working in Western Australia, he met his wife and later settled in Tasmania, where his wife had some roots. He continued working in Tasmania as a commercial bushwalking and river guide for a while before returning to University to finish his Honours degree in geology. Travis is still expeditioning for a living, but now he is doing it as an exploration geologist. Before COVID, he had been exploring remote parts of Tasmania, Western Australia and British Columbia, looking for much-needed battery metals such as Cobalt, Nickel and Tin. However, COVID has pinned him down to Tasmania for the past few years. Now that travel is open, he is planning a big family expedition sailing in the Arctic waters around Ellesmere Island and North-western Greenland this coming summer.  

As a young adult, Mike lived in New York City from 1981 to 1991, working as a freelance illustrator. During that time, he spent one winter season as a ski bum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 1986 and couldn't get it out of his system. So Mike moved west permanently in 1991, eventually settling in Driggs, Idaho, where he spent a quarter of a century. He worked for NOLS in the Rockies, The Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska for 17 years. Mike taught backpacking, mountaineering, backcountry skiing, and rock climbing courses for NOLS. He also spearheaded the lightweight courses at NOLS. In those years, he divided his time between outdoor work and illustration. Mike is now living on Puget Sound near Seattle, focusing on his writing.Mike has illustrated or written at least nine books. All of Mike's Book https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/570863.Mike_Clelland Mike's current website  https://mikeclelland.com/

Steve grew up in Maine & New Hampshire and was an outdoor recreation major at Plymouth State College. He completed a NOLS student semester in 1993, and the rest is history. He has been an outdoor educator professionally since 1994 for many organizations, including Plymouth State College, Barnstead Elementary School, Tioga County Community Wilderness Project, Adventures Cross Country, NOLS, Alpine Ascents, Rendezvous River Sports, USFS Forest Technician, US Park Service, and he says he is probably missing a few more.    Steve worked for NOLS from 1997 to 2016 and has instructed rock climbing camps, backcountry rock, mountaineering, kayak/canoe/rafting, caving, hiking, canyon, Winter, Avalanche, sea kayaking, alumni, Outdoor Educator, Instructor, and many custom NOLS Professional courses over this time. He's pretty much done it all. He has also worked in administrative roles with NOLS as a program supervisor (3-4 years) and assistant branch director at NOLS Southwest (2 years).   Currently, Steve has a small handyman business in Teton Valley and works as a Pro Ski Patrol at JHMR. Occasionally he guides paddleboarding and kayaking on the Snake River in Jackson and will most likely work a course for NOLS in 2023.   He says, “It's in my blood, and I will always be an outdoor educator.”

Steve grew up in Maine & New Hampshire and was an outdoor recreation major at Plymouth State College. He completed a NOLS student semester in 1993, and the rest is history. He has been an outdoor educator professionally since 1994 for many organizations, including Plymouth State College, Barnstead Elementary School, Tioga County Community Wilderness Project, Adventures Cross Country, NOLS, Alpine Ascents, Rendezvous River Sports, USFS Forest Technician, US Park Service, and he says he is probably missing a few more.    Steve worked for NOLS from 1997 to 2016 and has instructed rock climbing camps, backcountry rock, mountaineering, kayak/canoe/rafting, caving, hiking, canyon, Winter, Avalanche, sea kayaking, alumni, Outdoor Educator, Instructor, and many custom NOLS Professional courses over this time. He's pretty much done it all. He has also worked in administrative roles with NOLS as a program supervisor (3-4 years) and assistant branch director at NOLS Southwest (2 years).   Currently, Steve has a small handyman business in Teton Valley and works as a Pro Ski Patrol at JHMR. Occasionally he guides paddleboarding and kayaking on the Snake River in Jackson and will most likely work a course for NOLS in 2023.   He says, “It's in my blood, and I will always be an outdoor educator.”

Andrew Cusack was born and raised in Sudbury, ON, and studied Outdoor Recreation and Natural Science at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, ON. He spent more than ten years working in outdoor education for organizations across Asia and North America, including NOLS Project DEAR, Asia Pacific Adventure, Hong Kong International School, Hong Kong University and Kingfisher Outdoor Education Centre. Upon leaving outdoor education, he worked the following ten years with the United Nations Refugee Agency, responding to humanitarian crises in multiple countries. In 2020 he left the agency and relocated to Victoria, BC, where he now works as a city planner for housing policy. In this episode, David Perry joins us, a former student on the course Andrew and I worked together in the Yukon's Ogilvie Mountains. As you will hear, David was a part of a significant medical evacuation on this course, and I thought it would be nice to bring him on and hear the story from a student's perspective. Currently, David has a unique business making 3D-printed violins, which we touched on in the conversation.  OPENFAB PDWhttps://openfabpdx.com/fiddle/ Full Circle Everst  https://www.fullcircleeverest.com/

Megan is currently living in Fairbanks, Alaska, on the lands of the Upper Tanana people, finishing up a Post Doctorate contract with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Megan has had an extensive career working in outdoor education. In 1992 she began the first of her eight years working for the North Carolina Outward Bound and later the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School. She also instructed for a few years with NOLS and held various coordinator positions with the North Cascades Institute.  She instructed backpacking, rock climbing, canoeing, mountaineering, and educator courses in North Carolina, the Everglades, Costa Rica, Oregon, Washington, and Chile. In 2016 Megan earned her Ph.D. in, Education, focusing on Learning Sciences and Human Development. She will soon be leaving Alaska to pursue other opportunities in Washington State, where she can also be much closer to family.

Brady Robinson Brady began working in outdoor education in the mid-'90s at a boy's camp in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. He went on to work with Outward Bound for over a decade, spent some time guiding, and instructed with NOLS for a few years. After leaving fieldwork, he has primarily worked in conservation as the Executive Director of the Access Fund for ten years and has positions with Tompkins Conservation and the Conservation Alliance. Brady is a gifted climber. Before having a family, he spent many years chasing bold rock and alpine first ascents in Patagonia,  Pakistan and other far-flung mountain ranges. Many of his partners were some of the most elite professional climbers, including Conrad Anker, Steph Davis, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin. These days Brady is taking a few months off to focus on being a dad, working through life transitions, reading, taking online courses, and reflecting on what he wants to give to his kids, himself, and the world in the next chapter of his career.Ed RobersonEd currently serves as Conservation Director at Palmer Land Conservancy, regional land and water conservation organization in Colorado. He is also the founder of Mountain & Prairie, a podcast/blog that has been recognized by groups including the Aspen Institute, High Country News, Montana Governor's Office, and more.  Ed was a student with NOLS during a 1999 Semester in the Pacific Northwest, in which Brady was one of his instructors for the backpacking and mountaineering section. He has stayed in touch with Brady over the years. Ed currently lives in Colorado Springs with his wife and two daughters.  

Brendan Madden is from Dublin, Ireland and has lived in Canada since I was 12. He is currently the head of Programs and Interim Director of a new Training Academy for Outdoor Professionals at Outward Bound Canada. He has been active in the expedition-based adventure education field for over 25 years, mainly as a program director and senior instructor at Outward Bound Canada and NOLS. Brendan has also been a risk management trainer and consultant at NOLS. Over the years, he has led expedition courses in white water canoe, backpacking, backcountry skiing, mountaineering, dog sledding, and international high altitude trekking. Brandan has also been an active presenter at the Wilderness Risk Management Conference for many years, working to increase the outdoor sector's capacity to manage work-related psychological trauma and stress injuries amongst our staff. He currently lives in Canmore, Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies.

Henry Wood grew up in Atlanta but has lived in Boulder, CO, since 2005. He studied Philosophy and English literature at Georgia State University before embarking on a  10-year career in outdoor education, most notable with Outward Bound and the NOLS. While working in outdoor education, Henry led backpacking, mountaineering, canyoneering, and climbing courses while working in outdoor education. In 2008, Henry joined Matt Cutter and Dany Page to start Upslope Brewing Company as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Over the past 12 years, Henry has built and developed his sales team in order to successfully operate in 9 Western States. Henry is also a veteran of the United States Army and a volunteer for Trout Unlimited. You can often find Henry on his rare time off skiing, climbing or Backpacking with his wife and three children.

In this short "in-between" episode, Shawn shares a few stories from former Outward Bound and NOLS Instructor and, most recently, stroke survivor Geoff Kooy, who had emailed to the show.  

Paul's career in outdoor leadership began in 1995 when he began working with adjudicated youth in the desert of southern  Utah.  He started working with Outward Bound in 1998 and moved up to work with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in 2000.  With  NOLS, he ultimately worked 265 field weeks as a mountaineering, rock climbing and sailing Course Leader in India, Mexico, Patagonia, and the  Pacific Northwest - with expeditions to the Northern Icefield of  Patagonia and the Waddington Range in British Columbia, among other locations.  Paul also served NOLS as mountaineering Program Supervisor in the Pacific Northwest and Patagonia and was an editor for the 3rd Edition of the textbook "NOLS Wilderness Mountaineering.”   In  2007 he started working as a professional mountain guide and leading high altitude climbs in South America, Alaska, and Tanzania, hut-to-hut ski tours, Matterhorn climbs in the Alps and climbs in the Sierra Nevada (including El Capitan and Mt. Whitney). Originally from Maine, Paul is based in Wawona, California, a small village in Yosemite National Park.   Paul became a certified guide by the prestigious IFMGA in 2017 and is currently an examiner. In addition, he serves as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Mountain Guide's Association.   After college, he was a Fulbright Scholar in (Germany from 1996 - to 1997) and speaks German and Spanish.

Tim Felt grew up in the suburban wilds of Northern California. His career in outdoor education started with him working in boarding schools 1991-94 running outdoor programs and teaching biology in New Hampshire and Arizona. He took a NOLS Instructors Course in 1993 and started work in the field immediately. For the next decade, Tim went on lead backpacking, rock climbing, and mountaineering course types in Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Alaska, and Chile for NOLS.  During his transition away from the school, he spent two summers as the mountaineering program coordinator at the NOLS Alaska branch. At the time, Tim was also attending veterinary school in madison WI where I still reside with my wife Pam Foster Felt ( also ex NOLS instructor) and their two teenage daughters. Ultimately he decided veterinary medicine wasn't for him, and he transitioned into a career as a residential remodelling contractor.

Rachel James Rachel James was born and raised in Palmer, Alaska. She started working at the NOLS Alaska branch at the age of 15, cleaning toilets and landscaping; this was also when she started ice climbing. Rachel took a NOLS Alaska Mountaineering course at 16 and started working as a mountaineering instructor after taking the first-ever NOLS Alaska Instructors Course in 2000 at 19. During her time at NOLS from 2000 to 2013, she mainly worked mountaineering expeditions while leading a few horse packing and hiking courses in Alaska, Patagonia, Yukon, and Wyoming. Rachel has also worked as a program supervisor at NOLS Alaska. Currently, she lives in the Chugach Mountains just outside of Anchorage and is working hard to defend salmon habitat in Alaska.

For the second podcast in a row, we have Curtis Tronolone on the show to share some more wild stories from the field. Before we review Curtis's bio we wanted to share a recent podcast review.  Podcast Review Makes me homesick for my recent expedition life! Just an incredible chance to get into the field from afar. I'm loving this podcast- it made me so excited for my drive every morning this past week as I took my NOLS Wilderness First Responder training. Certified now, and so inspired by the many voices on this pod who show me what is possible as I look forward, to beginning to build my own life in outdoor leadership. Hope to join many of you wonderful people out in the wild some day! Thank you for this absolute joy of a podcast. -Tabita ------ Our guest today, Curtis Tronolone, grew up in rural upstate New York, along the Erie canal, nestled between the small towns of Churchville, Spencerport and Brockport. He began his love of outdoor pursuits started as a kid, boating and hiking with his family, and spending his summers riding horses at New York summer camps before undertaking a NOLS mountaineering course as a student in the Wind River Mountain of Wyoming.  He started working in outdoor ed at a summer camp outside Attica New York in 2003/2004. Over the years he has gone on to work for several organizations, including Camp Wyomoco, Wilderness Ventures, Adventure Bus, NOLS, Bear Basin Adventures. When Curtis, completed his NOLS Instructor Course he become the first openly gay male NOLS Instructor. He specializes in leading horse packing, backpacking, and wilderness rock climbing courses. He currently lives in Lander, WY where he mixes time instructing with NOLS and renovating old homes.

Curtis Tronolone, grew up in rural upstate New York, along the Erie canal, nestled between the small towns of Churchville, Spencerport, and Brockport. He began his love of outdoor pursuits as a kid, boating and hiking with his family, and spending his summers riding horses at New York summer camps before undertaking a NOLS mountaineering course as a student in the Wind River Mountain of Wyoming.  He started working in outdoor ed at a summer camp outside Attica, New York, in 2003/2004. Over the years, he has gone on to work for several organizations, including Camp Wyomoco, Wilderness Ventures, Adventure Bus, NOLS, Bear Basin Adventures. When Curtis completed his NOLS Instructor Course, he became the first openly gay male NOLS Instructor. He specializes in leading horse packing, backpacking, and wilderness rock climbing courses. He currently lives in Lander, WY, where he mixes time instructing with NOLS and renovating old homes. Curtis can be contacted at: curtis.tronolone@gmail.com 

David Yacubian has been working in Outdoor Education for more than 20 years and has over 15 years of risk management and emergency preparedness experience. He has worked with NOLS as an instructor and advisor on four different continents around the globe. Dave has also run over 100 NOLS Wilderness Medicine courses in the San Francisco Bay Area through his company, Ready SF. Ready SF also offers risk management consulting and emergency preparedness training to schools and businesses in the Bay Area. David is a member of The Crossroads School's, Environmental Traveling Companions risk committee and Outward-Bound California's safety committee. Dave enjoys spending time with his two lovely girls, when he is not teaching. He is often found on or in water, as well as participating in other sports on his bike, foot, or skis. In this episode: (02:23) David shares the purest moment of joy he has ever experienced in his life, with the exception of the birth of his daughters. He tells the story of a young female student on his first summer working in Alaska, and how the concern of the little girl's disappearance was more alarming than her eating disorder. Yacubian explains the details of Amy's missing – and what leads them to find her in the end. (14:27) Yacubian talks about an executive leadership Ilama packing, NASA course in the mid of August, five or six years ago while working along with Lynn Petzold, Rick Rochelle, and many others. He tells us one of the funniest stories about a bear sighting when one of the students ran after the black bear to get his food bag – it is even hilarious in his narration. (20:13) Going along he tells us how they were missing a llama when they woke up the next day, after the bear chasing incident. David talks about the disappearance of the largest llama they had namely Summit, and since there was no trail or signs to track it down – they were left dejected for the rest of the trip. (28:44) David terrifies us with a near-death incident in spring 2015 while running the wilderness medicine course. He tells us a story about a panicking experience that took place in their 10 days CPR course, when a young woman had a cardiac arrest in front of the whole group – without proper treatment and a hospital nearby.  (42:00) Moving forward, he gives us great advice on how it's important to learn survival skills. He tells how you never know when you might find yourself in a real-life survival situation – Survival courses aren't for everyone, that's for sure, but you'd be surprised at just how much you can achieve by simply giving it a go. (48:03) In the end, we play a rapid-fire question with David that intrigues us to the core – telling us the importance of adventure in his life, and how the excitement and happiness we experience during the adventure take us away from a normal hectic life to a new happy life within a matter of seconds. Please consider making a donation to help keep the lights on here at the Hot Drinks Podcast. Any amount is greatly appreciated but for all donations of $50 or more, I will send you the audio edition of my book Teams On The Edge. Donations can be made just by clicking the donate button on our website www.hotdrinks.com. There you can set up a monthly or one-time donation.

Our guest this week, Trevor Deighton, was born and raised in the Washington DC area. He currently lives in Victor, Idaho and teaches 8th-grade Physical Science at the Jackson Hole Middle School. Trevor is a passionate backcountry skier and has been teaching and guiding in the backcountry for over 30 years on all seven continents.  He has worked for many organizations over his outdoor education career, including Adventure Quest, NOLS, Naturalists at Large, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Exum Mountain Guides, American Avalanche Institute, Alpine Ascents International, and the US Antarctic Program. As senior NOLS Instructor, he Instructed climbing, mountaineering, caving, backpacking, backcountry skiing and snowboarding, and various whitewater courses. These days, when he is not teaching, he works as an Exum Mountain Guide in both summer and winter.

Our guest today Jared Spaulding has worked in the outdoor education industry since 1999. He has worked for NOLS for over 20 years as a field instructor and now mixes his time between instructing and an administrative program supervisor role at the Rocky Mountain branch. Jared has instructed courses in Wyoming, Utah, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, India, and Patagonia. Most of his fieldwork has been leading mountaineering courses and rock climbing camps, although he has worked several horseback courses and a few hiking-specific courses in the past five years. Jared was speaking to me from Lander, Wyoming on the traditional and present lands of the Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Crow peoples.

Anjeanette LeMay is a mother and educator living close to the forest, lakes and ocean of Mi'kmaki (Nova Scotia). Raised in Southern Ontario, AJ has relished the opportunity to work in outdoor and experiential education for 25 years throughout Canada, South Africa and the United States. Over this time, she has worked for outdoor education programs South Africa, Voyageur, and the Canadian Outward Bound schools. AJ is currently, an Instructor Trainer for the Outdoor Council of Canada, a sea kayak Instructor for Nova Scotia Sea School, and a co-Instructor for the women's mental health programs at Cape LaHave Adventures. Paddling, hiking, winter trips are still faves but say her kids might get her out climbing again next season.

Moose Mutow has over 30 years of traditional and alternative education experience around the globe. He has course directed 58-day Outward Bound instructor trainings in Appalachia, been a deputy headmaster in the Kalahari Desert, managed a beach concession on the Mediterranean, slogged through Australian rain forests with middle school students, juggled as a street performer in too many cities to mention, has more than 2000 days of field instruction in a wilderness setting. Since 2002 Moose has been a member and senior trainer of Yosemite Search and Rescue, working as a technician and within Incident Command, at one of the busiest SAR operations in the world.  Moose currently works for NatureBridge in Yosemite National Park as the Senior Projects Director for planning, design and construction of the National Environmental Science Center.

(This week we share a REWIND of a popular episode with Marc Randolph. Check out this new video about Marc's time working for NOLS - https://bit.ly/3nxK9uL) #TheTrailToSuccess Our guest is a former NOLS Instructor and Chair of the NOLS Board of Trustees, but he is best known as the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, Marc Randolph. His incredibly successful career as an entrepreneur span more than four decades. He's founded or co-founded half a dozen other successful startups, including, most recently, Looker Data Sciences, which was sold to Google in 2019 for $2.6B.  He is currently mentoring a handful of other early-stage companies, has advised hundreds of other entrepreneurs, is an active seed investor in startups all over the world. In 2019 he wrote the internationally bestselling memoir That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, and now is the host of the new podcast called, That Will Never Work, where he dispenses advice, encouragement and tough love to struggling entrepreneurs.   When he's not surfing, mountain biking, or skiing, Mark often speaks at industry events and actively participates in programs targeting young entrepreneurs. He also sits on the board of an environmental organization 1% of the planet. In this Episode:   [04:00] Mr. Randolph talks about his first camping trip where he was 15 years old, and he made a mess with his macaroni noodles on the campsite, which was left unnoticed. After hiking to the next camp, Mark and his tent-mates were told that they had to hike back to the last camp and clean up the mess they made. This event taught him the lesson of how everything has consequences and everyone is destined to take responsibility.   [07:20] Mark further shares his backpacking trip where it started raining, and his sleeping back was drenched in the rain. He beautifully continues this story and tells how this event alone taught him a lot about personal development. Since that day, Mark says that he has never left his car without a sleeping back properly covered and a raincoat even if it is sunny outside.   [14:30] at the age of 17, Mark talks about a classic situation where he learned that no one should judge things based on their abilities and qualities – if you are in a group, your strength should be based on the group or your team. Leading this moral, Mark beautifully recalls how they were descending a mountain through a tightrope, and it looked pretty easy to Mark, but this trip turned out to be many hours long when the team wasn't on the same level as Mark of how easy It was.   [33:50] He shares his climbing experience, which was led through a very narrow ridge. They ended up losing their rope and had another one stuck above them. So they had to spend the night on a ledge where people could only sit and not lie down. The rest of the story holds more mystery and adventurous spirits, and for that, you have to watch the podcast.   [50:07] Marks further shares how his transition was from the field to the entrepreneurship life and how everything fell right into place for him.   Later in the podcast, Mark plays a fun round of rapid-fire questions and interesting answers added to his wholesome personality.

This week on the Hot Drinks podcast Shari Leach interviews me about an epic I experienced while leading a NOLS course in the Himalayas of India.  Shawn is an international leadership consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, Ironman and Ultramarathon competitor. Shawn has a bachelor's degree in Experiential Education and a Master's in Leadership. He devoted 15 years to leading teams on wilderness expeditions around the world into some of the harshest environments, and, most recently, ten years consulting with corporations on leadership and team development. His first book, Teams on the Edge: Stories & Lessons from Wilderness Expeditions, was an instant bestseller and won a bronze medal in the Global E-Book Awards. Shawn is also the founder and director of the International Vegan Film Festival and World Tour. He started the festival in 2018 to inspire, educate and entertain audiences with vegan-themed films from around the world. Shawn lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with my wife and 3 daughters. 

Hey everyone, welcome to the Hot Drinks podcast. I am your host Shawn Stratton. Each week I sit down with an outdoor educator to hear some of their best stories leading students on wilderness expeditions around the world.  Dave was born in Simsbury, CT, and grew up in Maine. He graduated from the University of Maine BS in Wildlife Biology and started working in outdoor education in 1979. He hasn't stopped working in the field since. Dave currently lives in Las Vegas, NV. Along with working for NOLS, Dave have at taught at many colleges and outdoor centers including the Roaring Brook Nature Center, University of Maine, Whitman College and Westminster College. He has also worked for Acadia Mountain Guides, Green Mountain Guides, Alaska Wildland Adventures, and his own company “LittlePo Adventures” which he started with his wife in the last few years. These days his focus is on teaching natural history, photography, while continuing to write for several different publications.   Accompicshed photoraper.   IVFF   -------   I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Shari Please subscribe to Hot Drinks wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to follow the show on twitter or Instagram we are @morehotdrinks. we also have a Facebook group called Hot Drinks Podcast, where I am most active with updates about discussions about the pod. To get in touch by email, the address is hotdrinks@livemoregroup.com.    This episode was produced and edited by Dustin Mijares (MEHARES)and our theme music created by Darin Welch. In this episode: (2:20) Dave starts the podcast by sharing a story from a mountaineering Alaska course in the summer of 2001. He begins by telling us how the course's main focus was to travel over the McLaren glacier, and things got more accessible when they found the river was frozen. But later on, after some lousy weather hit them, they ran out of food when their plane, which was carrying their resupply, couldn't land. Then, it took a drastic turn when things started going sideways. (26:50) Later on, Anderson tells us about his trip to China. He talks about how he found out about some amazing peaks to climb while reading an American Alpine Journal and took a leap of faith into trying them out, which was located in Sichuan, China. He tells how the drivers who took him and his wife and other clients nudge them for more money in the middle of nowhere. After dealing with that, he was greeted by hundreds of monks, that took them in and greeted them warmly. The whole experience still warms his heart, even now. (34:40) Dave shares his trip to India, where he ran into many travellers discovering places where not many have gone to. It turns out the track to reach those places usually closes in winters, so the locals wait till the river freeze  to cross it, which takes them several days to reach their destination. The story gets more interesting when Dave reaches Zenskar in northern India.

Our guest today, Michel Raab, was born in Santiago, Chile. He has always been fond of nature since childhood. Swimming, sailing, mountain biking, hiking, and slowly venturing in the Andes as a teenager – these things were what grew Michel into all that he is today. He currently lives in Coyhaique, Chili's Patagonia region, with his wife, Betsy, and their two children. Michel joined the outdoor education industry in 2002, working for NOLS, instructing mountaineering, hiking, and climbing courses in Patagonia and North America. He has also worked for several seasons at NOLS Patagonia as a Spanish Programs Coordinator and Operations Manager. He is now the Director of the Chilean Programs for Alzer School.

Clemencia Caporale belongs to East Coast but currently lives in her Kimbo Camper and instructs for NOLS Wilderness Medicine and Prescott College. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire's Outdoor Education Program, attended the Audubon Expedition Institute's travelling master's program, and earned a Master in Environmental Education from Leslie University. Clemencia completed a NOLS semester in Baja, Mexico, where she learned backpacking, kayaking, and sailing skills. She has worked in many universities in outdoor education programs over the past 20 years. Long-distance hiking is one of her passion and has hiked more than 10,000 miles. She can ruin her shoes in three weeks!In this episode:   [3:51] Clemencia talks about her meeting with Paul Petzoldt, also known as the founder of NOLS and one of the first Outward Bound Instructors in the USA. She was a freshman in collage when a woman told her about having a job where she had to sleep out in the open, so after the class, she talk to the woman where she gave her some number and told her to call Paul. After going back to her dorm, she called him, and he later told her to come to his house to talk about the job further. After drinking a couple of hot beverages and sharing some stories and advice, they went to get lunch together. After a few more hours had gone by, he autographed two of his book and gave them to her without answering any sort of job-related questions. A few days later, in her outdoor class, Dan Garvey asked a question about everyone's weekend, and she told him that she met Paul Petzoldt when he immediately asked her that had she read his books and recommended her to read them.   [17:34] Caporale tells about the thru-hiking course where she took eight students on Appalachian Trail, about 100 miles. They had Privy not far away from where they were camping, but it was a rainy day and was very foggy. They were going to camp for eight days, and on the 6th day, one of the students named Kate went missing. The story gets more interesting when she finally finds the missing girl.     [30:32] Clemencia shares the story when they were heading to Wyoming and got stuck in Jack's Canyon. So they were on their way to Wyoming, and they spotted a great spot to camp, but to get to the location, they had to go through and muddy road. They thought the road was frozen and could drive over it, but it was not frozen. Both of the van's front wheels got stuck in the mud. Later on, there was no choice but to get everyone out and head over to the camping spot on foot. After spending the night, she, alongside two more people head over to the van where the mud got frozen overnight, and they pulled out the van easily and parked at a better spot.    [34:31] Clemencia Caporale narrates a tale but still to this day warms her heart. She was in Edinburgh, and some of her friends knew that she was a hiker and convinced her to do a very short hike known as Arthur's Seat. After spending a couple of hours there, she saw a man lying across the trail. She recently completed her medical training, so she rushed to him and checked to see if he had a pulse. To know how Caporale saves the day, head over to the podcast now.

This week's guest is Phil Henderson. A native of California, Philip has worked in the outdoor industry for almost three decades, mostly with NOLS. His passion for outdoor recreation, education and climbing has provided him with opportunities to travel and climb around the world. He has been on several major expeditions including Everest, Denali, Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya.  As an educator, he has assisted in training guides, rangers and porters on several expeditions. In 2012 Philip was a member and team leader of the North Face/National Geographic Everest Education Expedition, became one of few African Americans to summit Denali in 2013 and led an all African American ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro in 2018. He is the recipient of the Outdoor Afro 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.

This week on the show, I speak with Chris Agnew. Chris has dedicated his career in education to combining immersive learning with more traditional learning models. He grew up on Bainbridge Island near Seattle and spent 25 years in various outdoor educational institutions, 15 of which were with NOLS. Chris began his career at NOLS, leading expeditions backpacking and mountaineering, teaching wilderness medicine, eventually becoming the NOLS Pacific Northwest Branch Director. Chris left NOLS in 2015 to lead Teton Science Schools, which provides on-site learning for all ages, including more comprehensive learning for PreK-12 students. Chris currently lives at ID Victor with his wife Lara (former NOLS Instructor) and their 11 and 8-year-old sons. In this episode:   [5:21] Chris Agnew talked about his first Waddington range course where he and Jared Spaulding were newbies. The glaciers in this mountain range are similar to those in Alaska.  To get to the glacier, you had to endure days of bushwhacking. There were crevasse falls and rockfall, near misses, and Jared got hit in the head with an ice ball the size of a basketball. But everyone got out of there safely.     [11:42] Chris Agnew talked about his 2nd trip leading a Waddington mountaineering course where they had the same route and had to do all the bushwhacking. But this time there was 3 weeks straight of rain, and on their first resupply, they had so much fuel that they burned so that they could carry less. But on their 2nd resupply, the story was vice versa they were low on food and had less fuel due to delay. On the final and 3rd resupply, there was a miscalculation in the amount of cheese when someone mixed up kilograms and pounds. So everyone had to carry a  five pounds log of cheese. On their last day on the course, a truck drove to them and told them that their plane was not coming tomorrow. Listen to the podcast to get to know what happened after their plane didn't come.     [27:00] Chris talked about an incident in his third Waddington Range Course. This year, he started the course on the other side of the mountain range and had to take a  floatplane to begin the reverse direction from past years. On the first day hiking, one of the students had difficulty breathing from his pollen allergy. He started to use his inhaler, but that didn't help him. So Nadine began to care for the student, and at one point, she said that he had lost his airway. SO they called for help on the satellite phone. Luckily they were in British Columbia, where there is a robust search and rescue system and the cavalry can come fast. A large military plane came in less than 30 minutes, and two people jumped off with parachutes and immediately started to help Nadine. The student with asthma turned out the be having a panic attack brought on by his asthma. They made the student comfortable until a helicopter came near enough to lift him off the mountain.   

  Since the early 90s, Shari Leach has been involved in outdoor and adventure education. Since then, she has worked in OB, NOLS, United World College, Prescott College, and NOLS Wilderness Medicine. Shari currently teaches first aid, rock climbing, and mountaineering and is a Prescott master's program lecturer. She is fluent in English and Spanish, having lived in Honduras while serving in the Peace Corps. Shari holds a bachelor's degree in environmental protection, a master's degree in humanities, and an interdisciplinary doctorate in culture and identity. Most recently, Shari has started her own podcast called What's Up with Karen. In addition, Shari Leach oversaw NOLS online summer camp partnership in 2020 and 2021 for the Fresh Air Fund.

Originally from Southern California, John Abel has worked in outdoor education from 1984 to 2019. He has worked in many different roles such as administrative, instructional, consultative – but the bulk of and the best of his work was as a field instructor for NOLS. John has been a NOLS instructor since 1991, mainly working hiking, climbing, and mountaineering courses. He has a Master's in Leadership and Organizational Development from the Leadership Institute of Seattle. Since 2010, he has worked primarily for NOLS Professional Training,  facilitating various leadership training programs for NOLS organizational clients.  Presently, he's changing careers, moving from outdoor ed into financial planning. His goal is to provide financial planning in an empowering and client-centric way. In this episode: (02:23) John starts the interview by telling us the story behind "I can't see." As bizarre as it sounds, the story is stated back to NOLS fall semester in 1994, where his group faced a drastic turn in the weather that left everyone in three to four feet of snow. The story gets interesting when John shares how a group of students informed him that one of the students couldn't see, which led to more mysterious and thrilling events moving on.  (18:11) John gives his side of the story on the best Halloween ever. If you guys haven't listened to Andy Blair's side of the story, go ahead and listen to that first. In the beginning, Abel tells us how an instructor's robbed wallet turned the instructors being suspicious towards the whole group and all the students being resentful and upset over having a ruined experience. The course instructors planned a fun and memorable Halloween that involved witches, ziplines, and fire to cheer them up.   (27:50) He further shares one of his best days in outdoor education. John tells us how he was working in a climbing course in the late summers in the Wind River mountain range when he was tagged with a young student who wasn't too comfortable in outside activities. He talks about how a disagreement between the two lets them feel the breath of death on the back of their necks. (41:10) Later on, John shares one of the worse days of his life that he titled "Groover explosion."  He tells us about groovers, as they are attached to the toilet seats where all the human wastage is stored, but once they were full – he was left with no choice but to carry the box to an area where all the waste was supposed to be dumped. The story gets hilarious when John tells us how a hectic yet straightforward task left him covered in poop and made it the worse memory of his life. (53:55) Johns tells us yet another funny story about the toilet seat prank. He talks about how one of the instructors keeps bragging about the fact that no one ever gets away with a prank on him, which made John come up with a brilliant idea to slip a broken toilet seak into his bag pack for his next trip. He soon introduced the idea with his colleagues that later turn into a 42 vs 1, the person who had no clue that he would get the prank of his life. (01:02:29) We throw quick, intriguing rapid-fire questions at John to dig deeper into his favourite locations to lead trips and his go-to gear to take along. He entertains us more with his hilarious talk at the end of the show.

Like many outdoor educators' travel has been a constant theme in the life of our guests today. I'm thrilled to have Heather Hamilton join us on the show. Heather has always had a hard time answering, “where are you from?” – as she has lots of places that feel like home but was born in Wichita, Kansas, and has travelled a fair amount for a Kansas kid. But after finishing University at CU-Boulder, she bounced around the west a fair bit, did some international travels to Costa Rica, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Mexico, etc., and eventually ended up living in New Zealand for a bunch of years.  While living in New Zealand, she travelled extensively throughout Australia and Indonesia, as well. And now her base is in Hawaii. She worked in outdoor education roughly 2000-2013. After her time as the Operations Manager for the NOLS NZ Branch, she shifted to Hawaii and chased after more judging work with professional surfing events. Heather was doing that as well in NZ while still working for NOLS but decided to mix things up a bit and go after some surfing dreams.  When she first started with NOLS, she was a river instructor - primarily white water kayaking and then migrated into canoeing, hiking, sea-kayaking, etc as most of us do. In this episode: Heather shares her experience following the devastating earthquake in New Zealand in 2011, while she was an Operation Manager of the NOLS branch outside of Christchurch. and had been residing near a 30-minute drive through town to Sumner Beach. She explains how shaking turned water-saturated layers of sand and silt beneath the surface into sludge that squirted upwards through cracks. Thick layers of silt covered properties and streets and water and sewage from broken pipes flooded streets. House foundations cracked and buckled, wrecking many homes. She tells us how once the mobile coverage was back on; students and instructors were bombarded with calls from parents and loved ones all around the world. She further states the tragic aftershocks that lasted for months playing a game of catch it before it hits the floor, as she assisted the neighborhood with laundry and filling water jugs, which resulted in taking an emotional toll on her health and pushed her to the breaking point. Hamilton talks about another dreadful incident in Mexico City, and how she was hot to trot beforehand knowing all the ins and outs – that surfaced all the memories and struggled of the past. Moving forward, Heather shares some memorable trips on the Drysdale River in Northwest Australia, and how it still is the most special place to her. She gave us a deeper insight into how they went to the Malcolm Douglas crocodile farm and learn about saltwater crocodile country, and get educated on 10 different snakes. She entertains us more with hilarious funny stories with her pals, Warren, Travis, and Lelia, and shares some great tips to stay dry in Mozzie domes. We throw a quick intriguing rapid-fire questions at her, which she answers as gracefully as only she can. Lastly, she tells us her favourite hot drink after a long hard day at camps, and one particular place she wishes to share this drink in the field with - after all, what's more, soothing than wrapping your frozen fingers around a piping hot mug of something refreshing. 

Today our guest is James "KG" Kagambi, Senior NOLS Instructor and the owner of KG Mountain Expeditions. He joined NOLS  as a field instructor in 1987. KG has worked many curses types over the years but regularly works in NOLS mountaineering programs in Patagonia, Alaska, East Africa, and India. KG is not only a senior NOLS instructor; he is the most senior, having more weeks in the field than any other instructor in the history of the school! He has over 870 weeks in the field working for NOLS, that more than 6000 nights!! He has also completed three of the Seven Summits and in 1992 represented Africa in the U.N Peace Climb for the world on the Eiger. In addition, KG has summited the Eiger three times, became the first black African to summit Denali in 1989 and was the first black African to summit Aconcagua in 1994. KG has guided on Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro since the 1990s and Today trains search and rescue teams on Mount Kenya, Kilimanjaro, and Rwenzori. KG's long-lasting commitments to the field of rock climbing and mountaineering in Kenya have prompted acknowledgment and respect in his country. While he is away from his beloved duty, he enjoys spending time with his family and children.   [3:50] KG talked about two jogging students and how one of them was chased by some Maasai. They were hiking in Kenya, and 2 of the female students wanted to go for a jog. KG allowed them to go but under some rules. They agreed to all of the rules and started their jog. When they reached the point which they promised not to go any further, one of the girls didn't stop and kept jogging even after the other girl told her that they should not go any further. While she was jogging, some Maasai saw her and tried to help her get back to her camp. They ran toward her to help her, but she thought they were trying to chase her.    [18:42] KG talked about his bizarre experience in Patagonia in 1994. It was KG'S second mountain course. After a very long bushwhacking on a rainy day, they got to treeline on a sunny and clear day. So they set up their tents on snow and got some rest. In the morning, everyone was ready to climb the peak, so they started their journey, and by ten, they reached the top of the peak. After hanging out for a while, KG and two of his fellow instructor made a group of 2 students head back down. As they were going down, KG and one of the instructors saw a small dark cloud, and just in minutes, a major wind storm descended upon them. So they started running while yelling to head back down fast and dig the tent's cord even deeper. As they got down, everyone began to dig into securing their tents, and KG was digging a deeper hole when suddenly the wind changed its direction, which made the tent flew up in the sky like a kite and kept going up. As the tent was in the sky, his stuff started to fall out, and his sleeping bag fell into a waterfall that made KG sleep in a wet sleeping bag for days. But eventually, everyone got out of that trip safe. Later in the show, KG answers the rapid-fire questions that reflect his jolly personality.

David Pool grew up in Ottawa and currently lives in North Vancouver with his wife Katey and his two kids. He worked for Outward Bound Canada from 2001-2007 and with Class Afloat. When David moved to the west coast of Canada, he started working in the outdoor education Explore Program at Collingwood School before moving into student services as a counsellor, a position he currently holds.   During his time working in outdoor education, he has led canoeing, sea kayaking, hiking and winter expeditions and twice crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He loves providing opportunities for youth to learn, grow, and succeed. He believes that students learn in all environments and through all experiences. As an educator, his role is to challenge youth to see every opportunity as a learning experience and provide guidance and moments for reflection. In this episode:   [3:20] David Pool talks about him and his friend Jonathan Carroll building a sauna for his students so that when they came back from the two days of solo hiking, they could enjoy and have fun in the sauna. But things didn't go the way they wanted them to be. After completing and making sure there were no leaks for the steam, also they were on a pebble beach instead of a sandy beach. Which made the beach suck steam and made the sauna pretty cold.     [9:43] David Pool shares his experience working for Class Afloat, where he taught senior English and History. While they were on their tall ship, some of the people got GI-BUGS. A few days later, the weather started to roll in, and the waves were about 9 to 10 meters, as well as the pounding wind hitting the deck. Their decks were consistently going in the water, so they had to bring the sails in. David, alongside another person, goes to square sails, which is about 100 feet off the deck, and clipped the sails while hanging over the dark ocean as well as rolling and pitching.   [35:42] David talked about his personal trip where he got stuck alongside one of his friends. They started their trip at Lytton, BC. On their way, they saw a rescue landing pad, and they joked about it that if they got into any sort of problem, they could go up there. What they didn't know was later on, on their way back to their home, they would get stuck due to snowpack, and they didn't have any snow gear. So after few days of being stuck, they got to the rescue landing pad, and a  couple of days later, they saw a chopper which David's dad sent to rescue them. The story is much more when you hear it yourself, so hop onto the podcast and get the best of it.  

David Berg began working in outdoor education in 1992 as a kayak guide in the San Juan Islands, just after graduating from college. He then spent several years in Southern California teaching open water kayaking, surf kayaking, and expeditions. David finished his NOLS Sea Kayak IC in British Columbia in 1999. His first course was in Baja the following winter. From there, David spent ten years leading Sea Kayaking and backpacking courses throughout Baja, the Pacific Northwest, Norway, and Patagonia. Still, he spent most of his time in Alaska, primarily in Prince William Sound and Southeast Alaska. David also worked for NOLS Alaska for two summers as the Sea Kayak Program Supervisor. David was also a high school teacher and now works with a non-profit that assists high schools worldwide in developing good outside-of-the-classroom learning opportunities. In addition, he co-founded ImBlaze, a digital platform that helps schools expand their internship programmes. David and his wife with their two children live on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, where they go hiking, sea kayaking, and sailing on weekends, making more adventure memories along the way. In this episode:   [3:35] David Berg talks about his experience with Chris Manchester and the students, where he and Chris woke the whole group in the middle of the night to lift their tents so that the tide wouldn't make the tents wet. Along with the group, he stood with their tents for an hour or so, and he can't help but still recalls that amazing cold night having to lift their tents as the water touches their feet and ankles. The experience sounds magical to us!   [14:45] David shares his horrifying incident in Prince William Sound, where he lost food bags because of the big wave. A few years later, he and his good friend Doug went back to Prince William Sound with another group. Because of the past incident, he was paying extra attention to the waves since he was terrified that what happened last time couldn't happen again and doesn't end up hurting or losing someone in brutal waves. Around midnight David heard the glacier calving; he got up and started yelling for everyone to leave for their tent before the wave hit them. As the wave comes closer, it got smaller and smaller and barely hit the beach. For David, this counted as the most embarrassing moment of his life.   [26:25] David and her wife Suzanne white took two groups on two courses where the first group did a great job, while the second group was with adults and their kids. They paddled out to Cienega glacier when heavy rain started and kept going for a good 2-3 days, which made the kids cold, and ended up parents telling them to evacuate them. The story gets more intense by the end!   [31:06] David tells us about a party called cabin crawl. The party quickly turned into chaos when his fellow instructor and some other guys from another organization got into a fight. The other guy got drunk and was inappropriate with some of the women, leading him into a brawl.  

In this summer rewind addition, of the Hot Drinks, we share one of our most popular episodes today with veteran NOLS Instructor Chris Machester. Chris shares a few hair-raising stories from Alaska to Baja and from bears to drugs! 

This week we speak with NOLS living legend Jim Chisholm. Jim has worked in the field with NOLS for over 35 years and has many outstanding stories to share.  8:15 Caiman, Anaconda, Electric Eel, Cat Fish ... 9:30 Jaguar hunting ground 19:45 I thought about my options 23:19 I WILL NOT DIE 34:50 I also know the Jaguar

Shawn is an international leadership consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, Ironman and Ultramarathon competitor. Shawn has a bachelor's degree in Experiential Education and a Master's in Leadership. He devoted 15 years to leading teams on wilderness expeditions around the world into some of the harshest environments, and, most recently, ten years consulting with corporations on leadership and team development. His first book, Teams on the Edge: Stories & Lessons from Wilderness Expeditions, was an instant bestseller and won a bronze medal in the Global E-Book Awards. Shawn is also the founder and director of the International Vegan Film Festival and World Tour. He started the festival in 2018 to inspire, educate and entertain audiences with vegan-themed films from around the world. Shawn lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with my wife and 3 daughters.  In This Episode: 12:52 What Is A Missle Doing Here 16:00 Tents Were Ripped Apart 29:30 Changing Rivers To Touch The Arctic Circle   40:40 Sand Blowing Through the Tent Zipper 55:50 He Shoots the Moose  

Born in Guelph, Ontario, our guest today, Jesse Pierce, grew up cross country skiing and hiking with her family. She remembers camping in Tobermory near Georgian Bay, Ontario as a teenager and having the tingling feeling that this is what she needed to be doing in the future. So after high school, she went on to earn a degree in Outdoor Recreation at Lakehead University. After university, she ended up working at Outward Bound Canada year-round for six years from 1998 to 2003 – leading white-water canoeing, backpacking, and back-country ski courses in Northern Ontario, BC and Yukon. In 2003, Jesse returned to school to become a Naturopathic Doctor. She currently has her own Naturopathic practice in Ottawa, Ontario. The only trip leading she does now is with her family - cross country skiing, mountain biking and canoeing.  

Ian Pineau has spent the past 45 years learning about and working in the Outdoor Education field. From a small PEI farm; close to the coast, his first outdoor education experience would be in a fishing boat with his grandfather. Ian's first paid job in the field came at 18 when he was a facilitator with at-risk youth. As a student at the University of New Brunswick, he took extracurricular outdoor skills courses, including Hiking; Canoeing; and Winter Camping. These courses set Ian up to help teach the Canoe Camp skills as a senior at university. A chance encounter with a NOLS van hauling sea kayaks at a highway gas station in Yukon eventually led to a 15-year working relationship with NOLS. Ian now teaches in and coordinates the Outdoor Adventure Naturalist program at Algonquin College's Pembroke Campus in the Ottawa Valley. In this episode:   [2:05] Ian Pineau talks about his experience in a fantastic sea kayak and whitewater course, where he enjoyed every minute with some great folks. Later on, he talks about how one of his friends started a  job where he got three months of duty and three months off, which he spent with his college kids on trips or other personal trips. And he also talked about PFD, which you can find out in the podcast.   [20:36] Ian shares an awestruck and hilarious incident in his Baha trip when he found his co-instructor Shawn and two other Canadian instructors were broadcasting CBC radio in Mexico teaching students who are all from the US.   [26:00] Moving forward, Ian tells us about his personal trip with his friends from Yukon on the Grand Canyon. He shares how this trip happened after the 9/11 incident and what type of high-level security he had to endure.   [32:33] He further shares some great stories about Mexico. He also tells us some amazing things about Chico and his family and what a fantastic time it was for him.   [53:30] We end the show with our very own rapid-fire questions, and as always, our guest intrigued us with his answer. 

Today, I speak with NOLS Instructor Mark Hamlin, from small-town Indiana and living in Lander, WY, full time for the past decade. He completed a NOLS student course in 1987, mountaineering in the North Cascades of Washington state and led his first backcountry trip at the age of 18 in 1988. Mark took his NOLS Mountain Instructor Course in 1990 and led his first course in the Absorkas mountain range of Wyoming in 1991. Over the years, he has worked predominantly whitewater canoeing, backpacking, and sea kayaking course compiling over 250 weeks in the field. Mark's most recent NOLS course was a San Juan river canoeing Alumni trip in May 2021. Currently, he is a stay-at-home Dad and part-time tortillero/owner at Tortillas del Chico Blanco, Lander's first and only home-based tortilleria.   In this Episode:   [1:53] At the start of the episode, Mark talks about his Love-struck-story and shares that it was his semester course in Baha in 1995 where Erica was falling out of love for what she thought NOLS was about. Soon they managed to land at a beach where they met this Canadian blonde man who instantly became the love of Erica. The course was woken up at night to a note with a poem and a written paragraph by Erica telling that she is leaving the course and running away with the Canadian guy. The story gets interesting when Mark shares how the team searched for 5 hours for Erica and, in the end, found her in a sea cave. But that's not in it; she ran many more times.     [22:30] Mark shares a hilarious story about the first time he was called "a bald man." This course was the most aggressive one he had as it consisted of Mark and Jesse, who were both verbally and physically abusive to the students and had swords and blades in their luggage disguised as sugar canes. The story takes a scary turn but being called bald was a first.     [39:20] Talking about having behaviorally challenged people on the course, Mark emphasizes a story where the heavy rain and creepy weather wore down people. A moment came by where a student faced chronic tendonitis flare-up in the elbow and needed to be evacuated. Still, as soon the others saw that the elbow student could be taken off the course, everyone demanded to quit NOLS and leave the whole event in the middle. Mark wasn't thrilled with this, but things later unfolded for what they really were.  

 Marianne Dawson Alexander started working in outdoor education in 1995 at a YMCA summer camp in Ontario, leading two-week canoe trips in Temagami. From 2000-2005 she worked for Outward Bound Canada in Ontario and on the west coast of Canada, mostly leading hiking and canoeing course with youth at risk.  She came to NOLS in 2004, taking a River Instructors Course. Before the course, she had canoed and kayaked a lot but had never rafted. She quickly fell in love with rafting and enjoyed transferring those skills back to fine-tuning her white water canoe skills. She loved teaching students, especially young women and men, that you did not have to be huge to get a 2 thousand pound boat to go where you want it to go. As you will learn, she met her husband, Steve, on her NOLS Instructors Course.  Shortly after the course, he recruited her to work with him at St Lawrence university's Adirondack semester. At St Lawrence, they fell in love living and teaching in a yurt village in the Adirondacks. The next several years, they would split their time leading outdoor semesters for St. Lawrence and the other half living in the Tetons working NOLS backcountry ski and snowboard courses between heading over to India to work a few rafting and hiking courses. Marianne is currently living in Ottawa and works as the department head of Student Services and Special Education and a guidance counsellor at Ridgemont High School. In this episode: [3:34] Marianne Alexander shares her most memorable moment in the southwest, where she got into an encounter with a bear along with her camp. Later on, that same bear injured one of the members of another camp on the other side. [25:38] Marianne tells us about a time when she, along with Jeff, Mark Holloway, and some of the students, got low on food and survival resources. While paddling the Bonnet Plume River, her instructor team started running out of food; another private canoeing group came to them and offered all their leftover food. On their way back, they faced another challenge. A headwind kicked up, causing them to make extremely slow progress downriver. But eventually, they made it all together with safety.  

Jaret Slipp was born in Edmonton, Alberta and raised in Nova Scotia and Ontario. He believes that anyone can be a leader and that as instructors, it's our role to provide the environment and training to help people discover their full potential. He is currently living on a sailboat in the Caribbean with his wife and two adorable daughters for a couple of years, while his home base is in Whitehorse, Yukon. Jaret has worked in outdoor Ed for about 20 years. For NOLS, he has taught canoeing, backpacking, sea kayaking, caving, climbing, and mountaineering. He was a fixture at the NOLS Yukon Branch for many years, starting there as an intern and eventually becoming the Branch Director. In this episode:   [5:24] In the beginning, Jaret talks about his bizarre experience in Australia, where what seems to him a log turns out to be a crocodile on which he clumsily stepped on. Later the same day, while everyone was catching some sleep, a student started screaming. Jared began running, to save his students from the crocodile; the whole incident turns hilarious when it was revealed the student has just had a nightmare.   [12:07] While leading a NOLS course in Baffin Island when he was about to celebrate his birthday, a woman cruised into their camp on an ATV. She invited all the students to watch and help her dad skin a polar bear, which was a very disturbing thing but ended up being a life-changing experience.   [20:00] Moving forward, Jaret talks about a student on a Rio Grand NOLS canoeing course. In an incident, a student managed to get all his ADHD medication wet. The student's behaviour drastically changed for the better once he was no longer able to take his medication. The student who looked lost and always in his world became a role model and a great leader for the rest of the trip.    [25:51] Jaret tells the most adventurous story of his life where he and one of his favourite canoe partners faced an enthralling problem. While they were in June Lake, they had to wait for days. Eventually, the floatplane came to rescue them, but when everything started aligning in the right way, they hit a brick wall, making it all more dramatic, which you don't want to miss.

Our guest, Erica Lorenzen Lengacher grew up in the Seattle area and has been a bit of a nomad since her high school years. Along with her husband, 8-year-old daughter, she is now happily settled in Whitefish, Montana.  She took a NOLS semester in the Rockies in 1993 (during a year off from college) and was immediately smitten with all that NOLS had to offer. Erica took a Mountain Instructors Course the following year and started working for the School in Alaska in the summer of 1994. During her NOLS years, she mainly worked backpacking, canyon, winter, and mountaineering courses, with a few oddball horse packing, sea kayaking, and NOLS Pro courses. Since leaving NOLS, she received a bachelor's degree in nursing and a Master's in public health. Her post NOLS career has ranged from public health consulting, to teaching high school science, too, most recently working as a critical care ICU nurse. She's also just finishing a stint with the CDC Foundation doing COVID infection prevention and containment in long-term care and other congregate settings. All told, she worked in outdoor education for about 15 years, primarily with NOLS. Still, she had a few seasons with Alpine Ascents and continued taking high school students into the mountains when she worked as an educator at the Watershed School in Boulder and the Bush School in Seattle. In this episode:   (1:10) Erica talks about her 2002 Denali expedition, which seems to be a legendary alumni NOLS course. She tells us how she developed the necessary hard skills and excellent connections with the students despite being super young as an instructor. The trip was super smooth with beautiful weather, but as they moved up to 17,000 feet, things started going south ways as they are met with a deadly storm.   (52:55) Moving forward, Erica shares the experience of coming back home after facing such a challenging incident. She tells us how she had taken some of the radio types of equipment from her partner at the time on the trip, and there are still some recorded memories lying for her somewhere.   (55:18) Lorenzen tells us how she walks away from the terrible past, from the beginning by waking up on the right side of the bed to trusting her instinct when faced with uncertainty. She teaches us how releasing your negative energy through relaxing and moving forward can reinforce positive thinking.   (57:02) Later in the podcast, she tells us about her summer trip to Alaska rivers and how she has been called to be the ultimate course leader. She tells us about a series of events following the journey that she overcame one after another like a true hero.   (1:11:00) In the end, Erica shares her guiding experience apart from the NOLS course and how relaxing and fun it is to lay your hair down. She explains how she builds up more confidence and enhances her skills as a guide and how she got time to appreciate new places and explore the wilderness in the true sense.

Today, our guest is a former NOLS Instructor and Chair of the NOLS Board of Trustees, but he is best known as the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, Marc Randolph. His incredibly successful career as an entrepreneur span more than four decades. He's founded or co-founded half a dozen other successful startups, including, most recently, Looker Data Sciences, which was sold to Google in 2019 for $2.6B. He is currently mentoring a handful of other early-stage companies, has advised hundreds of other entrepreneurs, is an active seed investor in startups all over the world. In 2019 he wrote the internationally bestselling memoir That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, and now is the host of the new podcast called, That Will Never Work, where he dispenses advice, encouragement and tough love to struggling entrepreneurs.   When he's not surfing, mountain biking, or skiing, Mark often speaks at industry events and actively participates in programs targeting young entrepreneurs. He also sits on the board of an environmental organization 1% of the planet. In this Episode:   [04:00] Mr. Randolph talks about his first camping trip where he was 15 years old, and he made a mess with his macaroni noodles on the campsite, which was left unnoticed. After hiking to the next camp, Mark and his tent-mates were told that they had to hike back to the last camp and clean up the mess they made. This event taught him the lesson of how everything has consequences and everyone is destined to take responsibility.   [07:20] Mark further shares his backpacking trip where it started raining, and his sleeping back was drenched in the rain. He beautifully continues this story and tells how this event alone taught him a lot about personal development. Since that day, Mark says that he has never left his car without a sleeping back properly covered and a raincoat even if it is sunny outside.   [14:30] at the age of 17, Mark talks about a classic situation where he learned that no one should judge things based on their abilities and qualities – if you are in a group, your strength should be based on the group or your team. Leading this moral, Mark beautifully recalls how they were descending a mountain through a tightrope, and it looked pretty easy to Mark, but this trip turned out to be many hours long when the team wasn't on the same level as Mark of how easy It was.   [33:50] He shares his climbing experience, which was led through a very narrow ridge. They ended up losing their rope and had another one stuck above them. So they had to spend the night on a ledge where people could only sit and not lie down. The rest of the story holds more mystery and adventurous spirits, and for that, you have to watch the podcast.   [50:07] Marks further shares how his transition was from the field to the entrepreneurship life and how everything fell right into place for him.   Later in the podcast, Mark plays a fun round of rapid-fire questions and interesting answers added to his wholesome personality.

Originally from Southern California, John Abel has worked in outdoor education from 1984 to 2019. He has worked in many different roles such as administrative, instructional, consultative – but the bulk of and the best of his work was as a field instructor for NOLS. John has been a NOLS instructor since 1991, mainly working hiking, climbing, and mountaineering courses. He has a Master's in Leadership and Organizational Development from the Leadership Institute of Seattle. Since 2010, he has worked primarily for NOLS Professional Training,  facilitating various leadership training programs for NOLS organizational clients.  Presently, he's changing careers, moving from outdoor ed into financial planning. His goal is to provide financial planning in an empowering and client-centric way. In this episode: (02:23) John starts the interview by telling us the story behind "I can't see." As bizarre as it sounds, the story is stated back to NOLS fall semester in 1994, where his group faced a drastic turn in the weather that left everyone in three to four feet of snow. The story gets interesting when John shares how a group of students informed him that one of the students couldn't see, which led to more mysterious and thrilling events moving on.  (18:11) John gives his side of the story on the best Halloween ever. If you guys haven't listened to Andy Blair's side of the story, go ahead and listen to that first. In the beginning, Abel tells us how an instructor's robbed wallet turned the instructors being suspicious towards the whole group and all the students being resentful and upset over having a ruined experience. The course instructors planned a fun and memorable Halloween that involved witches, ziplines, and fire to cheer them up.   (27:50) He further shares one of his best days in outdoor education. John tells us how he was working in a climbing course in the late summers in the Wind River mountain range when he was tagged with a young student who wasn't too comfortable in outside activities. He talks about how a disagreement between the two lets them feel the breath of death on the back of their necks. (41:10) Later on, John shares one of the worse days of his life that he titled "Groover explosion."  He tells us about groovers, as they are attached to the toilet seats where all the human wastage is stored, but once they were full – he was left with no choice but to carry the box to an area where all the waste was supposed to be dumped. The story gets hilarious when John tells us how a hectic yet straightforward task left him covered in poop and made it the worse memory of his life. (53:55) Johns tells us yet another funny story about the toilet seat prank. He talks about how one of the instructors keeps bragging about the fact that no one ever gets away with a prank on him, which made John come up with a brilliant idea to slip a broken toilet seak into his bag pack for his next trip. He soon introduced the idea with his colleagues that later turn into a 42 vs 1, the person who had no clue that he would get the prank of his life.   (01:02:29) We throw quick, intriguing rapid-fire questions at John to dig deeper into his favourite locations to lead trips and his go-to gear to take along. He entertains us more with his hilarious talk at the end of the show.

This week on the pod I speak with Andy Blair is a simple man with a craving to be outside. He completed his NOLS Instructors Course in 1992 and his Wilderness Medicine Instructor Training Course in 2001. He has acquired over 250 weeks in the field and taught over 50 Wilderness Medicine courses. His fieldwork includes mountaineering, rock climbing, backcountry skiing, winter camping, canyoneering, whitewater canoeing, outdoor educator, and instructor courses. He maintains a National Registry EMT certification. For the last nine years, Andy has been the Assistant Director at the NOLS Rocky Mountain Branch in Lander, WY. His belief in the transformative student experience at NOLS drives his administrative work. Andy remains committed to doing whatever is necessary to provide NOLS students with this powerful experience. He is known to state repetitively that "being a field instructor is the best job I have ever had… by far. The places you get to go, the things you get to do, and the people you get to do them with have been some of the most rewarding experiences I have had." In this episode:   [11:57] Andy tells about his first camping trip in Kenya where he and his friend were travelling in a van and got mugged by a monkey who turned out to be a ‘carrot thief.' He also recalls that while they were in Samburu National Park, one of their co-instructors stayed in the camp to keep the place secured, but a troop of baboons came through and stole one of their drug kits – all this followed by some more hilarious stories about monkeys.   [18:48] Andy goes down memory lane and talks about the first hiking day in Kenya where he travelled with a Senior NOLS Kenyan instructor. He shares that elephants are one of the dangerous animals, even more than lions and hyenas in East Africa. Right after saying this, he shares a gruesome experience where one of the people started screaming in the bushes – 3 elephants staring at him through the bamboo. He describes the incident briefly and shares how the senior instructor started yelling, "Drop your bags and run," while he was frozen in place, the rest is the mystery hidden in our podcast.    [28:13] Later in the podcast, Andy talks about his encounter with lions which is the most exciting part of the podcast. He came across a lioness in Lake Nakuru National Park where a person was missing last week. While he was setting the tents, he saws six sets of eyes looking at him. He lit up his headlamp and saw a lioness broadside like 30 feet away from him – what happened next/ well, it is more interesting to hear him tell the story.   [38:54] as we go along the podcast, Andy takes a dive in and talks about her sailing trips and how he faced terrifying weather and storms – which is the highlight of the whole podcast. Please subscribe to Hot Drinks wherever you get your podcasts. Why don't you follow the show on twitter or Instagram we are @morehotdrinks. As I mentioned at the beginning we also have a facebook group called Hot Drinks Podcast where I am most active with updates about discussions about the pod. To get in touch by email the address is hotdrinks@livemoregroup.com.

Born in Boston, raised in New York City suburbs, our guest today, Atila Monteiro, went to the University of California Berkeley to study in 1984 and instantly fell in love with outdoor adventures. He worked for Cal Adventures and guided with ARTA river trips before taking a white water Instructors Course with NOLS in 1992. Atila mainly worked paddling (raft, white water kayak, canoe, sea kayak), hiking and Spanish language courses. He started teaching wilderness medicine in 2002 with WMI. Atila lived in Chilean Patagonia, working as NOLS Patagonia Program Manager from 1998 to 2002, and Asst. Director from 2002-2004. From 2004-2005 he was also the NOLS Mexico Director. He started the NOLS Amazon program in 2005 and was Program Manager there until 2009.  He now owns a small company named Backcountry Brasil that offers remote backcountry trips in the Brazilian Amazon and teaches full-time for NOLS Wilderness Medicine. Atila now lives in Bend, Oregon. In this episode: (02:23) Atila starts the interview by telling us about his experience crossing to the Midriff Island. He talks about how he and his friends planned a trip to cross the Gulf of California in October 1996 and how an adventurous, fun trip took a drastic turn when the sea current started setting them back. After struggle paddling through it, Atila mentions how they neared an anonymous island where they were greeted with the colony of sea lions.   (23:53) Moving forward, Atila shares stories from an epic canoe scouting trip to the Amazon with a group of veteran NOLS instructors to prepare for future NOLS courses.   (30:42) He further tells us how they encountered a new experience when they paddled through the ‘Coca-cola water' – a bizarre contrast of tannic acid and whitewater. Going forward, he shares their first-night camping in Amazon that turned into a nightmare when an army of ants and leaf cutters attack them. There were many more dramatic yet funny stories he shared with us.   (52:40) Atila shares a near-drowning experience on Bile in Chile in 1995.    (01:05:00) We throw our quick, intriguing rapid-fire questions at Atila to dig deeper into his favourite locations to lead trips and his go-to gear to take along. He entertains us more when asked to share his favourite backcountry costume – to which he shares a humorous story.

MATT DEINES Hey everyone, welcome to the Hot Drinks podcast I am your host Shawn Stratton. Each week I sit down with an outdoor educator to hear some of their best stories leading students on wilderness expeditions around the world.   This week's guest, Matt Deines grew up in western Nebraska and completed his Bachelor's degree in Natural Science from the University of Wyoming. He worked at NOLS for 12 years (1999-2011), leading backpacking and mountaineering trips in Alaska, backpacking courses in Wyoming, canyon courses in Utah, and lightweight backpacking trips in the southwest and Wyoming. Matt is currently living in Orange County, California, with his wife Jamie, also a NOLS Instructor and their adorable twin daughters. He now works for the University of California, Irvine as a physical & environmental sustainability planner. Matt and I completed our NOLS IC together out of the NOLS Southwest Branch in Tucson AZ. back in 1999 and it was great to catch up with him.  If you appreciate the work we are doing here at the Hot Dinks podcast and want to support us, you can make a donation by clicking on the donate button on our website at www.thehotdrink.com. Anything you can offer is greatly appreciated! In this episode: (03:15) Matt starts the interview by telling us about his father, who happens to be the boy scout leader and how he introduced the little Matt to outdoor adventure, wilderness, and backpacking trips. Matt further talks about the scout camp he attended in New Mexico called Philmont, where he overheard one of the instructors talking about NOLS being the most challenging thing he had ever done in life. At the tender age of 16, Matt couldn't hold himself back and perked up to face the challenges. Soon after completing his undergrad degree, he joined NOLS semester and later on got inspired to work for them by his amazing mentors. (07:11) Matt shares with us one of the first love stories of the podcast, named "Pranking leads to marriage.” He reminisced about when he met the girl of his dreams in the Alaska range in Clearwater mountain, which later became his wife. Matt told us how the group was divided in two for the night, which turns into a mischievous act when Matt's group pranked his wife Jamie's group by hiding their pots which then turns into a series of pranks – it's hilarious. (16:04) Going forward, Matt tells us about how his daughters took in the genes of both the parents and loves to go on wild adventure trips. He shares their camping stories and scrambling on long summer days and how they enjoy exploring canyons and going skiing. Matt talks about how his girls would be interested in joining NOLS someday – and how excited he is for it since the organization teaches so many different valuable lessons. (18:21) Deines yet again shares one of the funny stories back from his days in NOLS about his first day in the winds. He tells us how one of his co-instructor Joshua, blows his own trumpet by describing how he knows the place really well and would lead the entire group to the first X. All the bragging went in vain when after hour-long hiking, he dropped his bags, telling others they have lost their way and would need a map this time. (22:35) I asked Matt about his best and worst days in NOLS. He shares pretty exciting stories that involved navigating his group through a treacherous glacier that gave him a John Muir moment, to the moment when he maced himself with a bear spray that turned into one of the worst pains he had ever experienced. (31:47) We played our very own rapid-fire question with Matt, which he answered as gracefully as only he can, starting from his favourite gears and location to lead trips to his intriguing answer to his definition of the word 'adventure.'