National Outdoor Leadership School - Blessing Hayes

Signing up for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) was an experience and I must say, it was kind of hard. I didn’t want to sign up because I didn’t think I was going to get the scholarship. But then I wanted the experience, exposure and the feeling of being independent. When I received the letter saying I was accepted to attend, I jumped for joy! But I was still unsure about attending because I would miss several basketball tournaments over the summer. Even though I didn’t have to pack too many items,
I still ended up over packing.

The first day I arrived in Alaska I stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. The next morning, a bus transported me and a few other kids from the Bed and Breakfast to a farm. At the farm, we meet up with everybody and introduced ourselves. We then got together to ration out our food – for the next month! Later that day, we learned how to set up a tent and pack a backpack. These lessons were extremely helpful as we hiked about 8-12 hours each day.

During the trip, I learned:

• A lot about myself;
• How to perform CPR;
• How to manage risk;
• How to be a better leader;
• How to work effectively as a team;
• About group dynamics; and most importantly
• How to survive in a different environment.

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This experience has taught me that there’s a major difference in the necessities you need to survive in life and necessities you don’t need but choose to have in order to survive in life. Words really can’t explain the adventures, experience or the challenges you will endure and overcome doing this trip. You will have to go there to actually know what the experience is like. 

Making it through the exhibition has made me feel a lot more confident, successful, and accomplished. Some challenges I had while on this exhibition were transferring environments, life styles and my daily routines. But, I had a great time and appreciate the opportunity.