EXPOSE
A Trip a Year for 22 Years By Anne McGowan Advancement Communications Coordinator
Laura Parkman McElroy, Katherine “KL” Wells, and Betsy Bayne, above, set out to backpack in the Wind River Mountains last July. Courtesy of KL Wells
14 | THE LEADER
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n 2000, as her NOLS 25-and-Over Wyoming Wilderness course drew to a close, Betsy Bayne, then 43, collected the email addresses of all her coursemates. When she arrived home and contacted the others, asking if anyone wanted to backpack with her in the future, two people— Katherine “KL” Wells and Laura Parkman McElroy— replied with a resounding yes. That marked the beginning of a 22-year tradition of hiking and camping together that some combination of this trio has taken every year somewhere in the Western U.S. (Laura accompanied them on the first few adventures, but work kept her from participating for several years, until now). They’ve backpacked in locales from Denali in Alaska to Snowmass in Colorado, never repeating a location except when conditions required it. This year’s trip into the Wind River Mountains was an exception. “I thought it would be great to go back to the origins,” KL said when the women visited NOLS Headquarters last July before their trip.
