The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is the leader in wilderness education, conducting wilderness expedition courses to train students ages 14 and up in wilderness skills and leadership around the world. The ultimate goal is that students graduate from their courses capable of leading backcountry expeditions safely and responsibly; students also apply the lessons learned on a NOLS course throughout their lives in innumerable ways.

Essential to providing a quality wilderness education to thousands of students each year is a resilient backpack. Deuter has specifically designed the Program Pack for NOLS over this long-term patnership; many a NOLS graduate can reflect on the hours spent with his or her rented expedition pack. These Program Packs use a version of the Aircontact back system called the ACT Lite.

NOLS issues a wide variety of custom-designed and commercially available Deuter packs to students and instructors.

NOLS’ Deuter packs are toted to the most rugged, challenging, awe-inspiring terrain in the world. Branches in the Yukon to Patagonia, from India to the Baja California Peninsula use Deuter packs in backpacking, hiking, mountaineering, and climbing courses. In the Teton Valley, they are issued to 14-15 age groups in the summer and skiing and snowboarding students in the winter. NOLS Mexico estimates 95 percent of all the packs it rents to students are Deuter. These backpacks are intrinsic to not only backpacking courses, but also for canoeing sections in the Yukon. Climbing courses love the Deuter Spectro AC 38 as a crag pack. (Read Marco Johnson, an Instructor for NOLS, review of the Spectro AC 38.)

This relationship between Deuter and NOLS also goes in the direction of NOLS instructors and students testing Deuter packs in the field and subsequently endorsing them. Anyone can purchase the Spectro AC 38 with the NOLS logo. Most recently, NOLS tested, endorsed, and is transitioning into using the Aircontact suspension system, which is included in several lines of 2012 Deuter packs. Soon, all Deuter program packs designed specifically for NOLS students and instructors will feature this setup. It’s not surprising to hear one of the first things recent NOLS grads, myself among them, do upon embarking on the rest of their lives is invest in a pack like that they used on their courses.

Get yourself a NOLS approved pack today.

• Learn all about the Spectro AC 38 at Deuter.com
• Pick one up from NOLS