LINDSAY YOST

We don’t often know where we are headed in life, but sometimes when we look backwards we can see in hindsight just where we came from. Time and time again, I look back in my career path and connect the dots to ALC. Many times, hiking through the woods or sleeping under the stars, I have drafted a reflection of this genre in my head. It is usually in the form of a thank you letter but sometimes I envision it as a postcard getting read at logs on Sunday night in the Camphouse. Either way, the verses that spin through my mind take on the form of an appreciation for all that ALC taught me, or should I say, for all that ALC allowed me to learn.

 

When I turned 21, I decided to spend my first summer at camp. Before that I just thought it was some cult with a special language and lots of singing and dancing around a campfire. I would never have imaged that a summer job in college could have such a remarkable influence over my life and career.

Now, working as a field instructor for NOLS, my students frequently ask me, “What lead you to become a NOLS instructor?”  (Mostly, I think they are just trying to figure out why in the world I spend so much time sleeping in a tent and hiking with a heavy pack.) Just as I was not an ALC camper, I was not a NOLS student. My background and passion for education led me both to ALC and NOLS.  It has taken years of fighting off the classic question – “when are you going to get a real job?” for others to finally discover that my job is most certainly real, just as singing and dancing around the farmhouse, driving the whaler and having Sunday picnics are also real jobs.

 

No matter what career or life path I may have taken, a part of me would always credit ALC for helping to form my judgment, ethics and sense of empowerment. Beyond that, camp allowed me to access a world of trip leading and outdoor education that I never considered, especially not as a career path or real job. Now, with nearly 100 weeks leading backcountry courses all over the world for NOLS, the trips that remain closest to my heart are still Nova Scotia and AMT and Bald Pates (if you can find it) and Maiden’s Cliff. Those trips were the foundation of what made me a leader.

 

My work with NOLS allows me to teach students experientially, to empower them to gain confidence and learn through their mistakes. I say mistakes in parentheses because I think we sometimes over use that word with young people and negatively reinforce a concept of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad. It is through these so-called mistakes that we develop our judgment. ALC was one of the first places where I got to make lots of “mistakes”. I led a group in the wrong direction on the Appalachian Trail. I packed out multiple meals of instant cheesecake mix instead of powdered milk. I changed a drop off for a canoe trip, which caused us to spend the entire day paddling upstream instead of down. I helped with a helicopter evacuation off of Mt. Katahdin. I carved my name into a lean-to and I even miscounted loons in the loon count. I tell these stories all the time to my NOLS students. These moments, learning to lead experientially, built the foundation of how I got to where I am today.

 

It is obvious to me now that camp was a place where I started to develop this skill of judgment and risk management in the outdoors. It was a place where I learned by doing. I was in an emotionally safe environment to take risks, to be brave, to be myself, and to constantly work at being better. Leading courses for NOLS requires me to call on my judgment all the time, I have to make big decisions about risk and safety and still leave the space for others to learn through experience. I credit my time at ALC as place where I learned to believe in myself, to be humbled, and to take a risk to be who I want to be.