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The content taught in OLP focuses on a variety of four season outdoor activities that cover:

Basics of Backcountry Travel: trip planning, map skills, stove maintenance and repair, outdoor cooking, and use of tents, tarps and snow shelters
Paddle sports: flat water/white-water, canoeing and touring and whitewater kayaking
Rock climbing: top rope, multi-pitch, and artificial wall climbing
Challenge course training: initiatives, low and high elements, briefing and debriefing
Nordic skiing: classical, skating, and telemark techniques
Risk Management: Wilderness First Responder review, current risk management practices

OLP offers students the opportunity to obtain certification in activity areas where national certifications exist. Where there are no national certification levels, OLP instructors evaluate students under a competency system tied to national standards for programming in the activity area. Students evaluate their progress on an ongoing basis through a series of individual meetings with staff.

Backcountry Travel snowshoers

Here is the core of our program! We use field experiences in four seasons to train students to lead trips in summer, fall, and spring experiences in remote locations. Skill development includes: trip planning, risk management, wilderness first aid, emergency preparedness, navigation, shelter, expedition menu planning, equipment selection and maintenance, environmental ethics, and natural history. Students leave with the ability to plan and lead extended trips in wilderness environments.

canoers Canoeing

Our canoe training begins with a solid immersion in September--three days of intensive instruction that leads to a 10-day backcountry canoe trip in New York's Adirondacks. Our "floatable classroom" allows natural history studies of river habitat as well as flatwater and whitewater skill development. By the trip's end, students handle Class II whitewater--an excellent foundation for the nine-day instructors course in the spring that offers American Canoe Association certification to students who meet the competences.

Challenge Courses ropes course

Understanding challenge course programming is the foundation of teaching and leading any adventure activity. In this course students learn how to introduce, guide and de-brief the games, initiatives, low ropes and high elements integral to challenge courses. But this orientation pays invaluable dividends in group observation and management that develop them into gifted facilitators of any outdoor activity, including extended backcountry trips. It is perhaps the toughest program area to grasp, because debriefing skills require much practice, but it provides the best foundation for emerging instructors and leaders.

rock climber Rock Climbing

OLP's focus is developing students who can conduct excellent institutional top-rope programs. We take students to rock sites for eight days in the fall to develop basic personal and instructional skills, and then we refine this orientation in several ways. Some students may choose an exposure to ice climbing on a winter mountaineering trip to test their rope skills under adverse weather. The spring instructors course continues to refine students' understanding of top-rope programming as well as exposes them to multi-pitch climbing in the White Mountains.

Artificial Wall Climbing wall climber

OLP offers students training in climbing wall instruction and operations, which supports our long standing tradition of developing climbing instructors. The biggest growth in the climbing industry right now is rock gym management at retail stores, fitness facilities and academic institutions. We want students to be a part of this work force, and with a 20' by 30' wall in the OLP classroom, we have an excellent facility for developing good climbing wall managers.

kayaker Whitewater Kayaking and Costal Touring

Have you looked recently at inland rivers and coastal waterways? Kayak touring is booming, and with a shortage of tour leaders in the industry, OLP is training leaders to help fill the gap. First students train on inland waterways such as the Connecticut River before they continue their education off the coast of Maine with a coastal camping and ocean experience. OLP staff work with American Canoe Association ACA instructor trainers to deliver the ACA's approved revised sea kayaking content. Kayak touring is so clearly aligned with our traditional focus on backcountry travel that it's a natural addition!

Nordic Skiing and Snowshoeing skiers

Whether the means of travel is skis or showshoes, the activities share some common techniques, and we use both on our 10-day winter camping trips. The separate Nordic ski instructors program moves students beyond traditional classical skiing to speedy skate and graceful telemark skiing. Students who meet the criteria can obtain Nordic track/skate instructor certification from Professional Ski Instructors of America.

Risk Management

Safety is the number one priority for successful Outdoor Leaders. OLP staff keep current with all risk management issues in the Outdoor field, and teach these protocols and standards to students. Students keep their Wilderness First Responder skills sharp by responding to frequent outdoor injury simulations and through classroom review led by medical professionals.