| Day Hikes Day hikes are a safe, easy way to gain the skills you will need to stay safe in the wild--all while learning about the natural and social history of the area. You will learn about the 10 Essentials, map and compass, trip planning, risk management, and staying found. Your Guide will lend you a kit with some of the Ten Essentials, and you will hike +/- 7 miles while learning about Olympic National Park. Trips do not leave every day, so Reserve Your Spot Today! |
Backpacking Backpacking sweeps the backpacker into the wild world of wilderness with all its grandeur and intensity. Backpackers can hike for almost as many days and almost as far as they want: for example, from Staircase in the southeast corner of the park to the Grand Valley in the northeast, from the Dosewallips in the east to Quinault in the west, or from Elwah in the north to Sol Duc in the west. Consider these routes for your ultimate wildnerness experience. Then Reserve Your Spot! |
| Leave No Trace (LNT) Trainings Leave No Trace is the national standard for outdoor recreation ethics from a conservation perspective. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics has established two main basic trainings in LNT: Awareness Workshops and Trainer Courses. Awareness Workshops last only a couple hours and offer little or no outdoor training. Trainer Courses are an intensive overnight experience with some backpacking. Reserve Your Spot for the course that's right for you. |
Scouting Guide and owner Jason Bausher is an Eagle Scout, Vigil Honor recipient, and is Wood Badge-trained. He can advise your troop about 50-miler hikes, the Leave No Trace Awareness Award, and merit badges such as Hiking, Backpacking, Camping, and Climbing. Jason can also serve as a liaison with the National Park Service to organize work parties or service projects in Olympic National Park. PLUS: Grays Harbor Boy Scouts receive FREE TRAININGS! Reserve Time for Your Program. |
| Service Tourism on the Olympic Peninsula will only last if we work to conserve the resource by doing trailwork, raising money for political action, and by teaching wildness to the generation to whom we hand over the earth. Sign Up Today to do or give what you can for the preservation of our children's earth. Where are your talents? Clearing trails? Educating National Park visitors about Leave No Trace ethics and practices? Raising money from friends, family, and business associates? Leading Boy or Girl Scouts? YOU CAN HELP!!! |
Mountain Seminars Do the mountains, rivers, and glaciers of Olympic National Park merely form one big playground, or is wilderness essential to our Being as embodied Beings in the world? Jason Bausher works on questions such as this in his environmental philosophy, and he shares his research in mountain seminars. He received his master's degree in theology from Yale University and is finishing an M.A. while in a doctoral program in philosophy. Check out a few of the seminars. Don't see your burning "big questions" being asked on this list? Email Olympic Mountain School for a custom program. |
Call for Papers:
Wildness Week 2007
Wildness Week 2007 is a wilderness conference planning to investigate the philosophical theme of wildness as it has recently emerged in philosophical literature. Set as a backpacking trip in the Seven Lakes Basin and Bailey Range of the Olympic Mountains in Olympic National Park, a select group of twelve (12) papers will be given by twelve (12) participants over five (5) days covering applications of the philosophical category of wildness (and its contrary, domestication) to a variety of philosophical loci, e.g., Critical Theory, Epistemology, American Philosophy, Phenomenology, and German Idealism. Papers should be 10-15 pages in length. Papers should be prepared for blind review and emailed to jason@olympicmountainschool.com or mailed to Olympic Mountain School, PO Box 624, Amanda Park, WA, 98526. Graduate students will be eligible for the Paul Shepard Prize ($200 travel stipend and $200 tuition remission) and the Edward Abbey Prize ($200 tuition remission). Attendees will meet at the Greyhound Station at 8:00 a.m. in downtown Olympia, Washington on Monday, June 18, 2007, and will be shuttled to the Sol Duc trailhead in Olympic National Park. Participants will hike 5 miles to Deer Lake for the first two papers, dinner, and a night of discussion. Participants will then hike 6 miles to the rocky crags of the subalpine Catwalk along the High Divide separating the Bailey Range from the Seven Lakes Basin, prepare dinner, and discuss the second round of two papers. Participants will then spend the next two days hiking, climbing, exploring, and mountaineering in the subalpine region of the Bailey Range--perhaps even summitting Mount Carrie, Mount Ferry, and/or other nearby peaks. The next six papers will be given during these days and end the two days with a special Earth Festival of Solstice a la Delores LaChappelle (who began studying Heidegger on Mount Olympus, a peak gloriously presenting itself to the south of the site of the conference). Two papers will be given in the morning of June 22 before making the ten-mile hike out to the trailhead and taking the trip back to Olympia.
Recommended Readings include:
- Paul Shepard, Nature and Madness, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game, Man in the Landscape, The Others, The Sacred Paw, Thinking Animals, Traces of an Omnivore, Environ/Mental, Encounters with Nature, and Coming Home to the Pleistocene
- Gary Snyder, Turtle Island, The Practice of the Wild
- Neil Evernden, Natural Alien
- John Livingston, Rogue Primate
- Bruce Wilshire, Wild Hunger: the Primal Roots of Modern Addiction
- Peter Wilson, The Domestication of the Human Species
Equipment required for the conference includes all necessary backpacking gear (required) and mountaineering gear (optional). Participants must be in good physical shape and capable of hiking several miles per day with a heavy pack.
