The team's training on Mounta Baker last fall prepared them for long days, climbing in the dark, and risk management.. Brian Fabel.
pie that’s becoming smaller and smaller ... we’ll have to shrink our organization,” said Aparna Rajagopal-Durbin, NOLS diversity and inclusion manager. Rajagopal-Durbin insists that’s not going to happen. She said NOLS wants to grow and continue to be an international organization, a leader in outdoor experiential education that works aggressively toward proactive change. Expedition Denali aims to make that change possible by providing the African-American community with role models and a clear path toward outdoor recreation as a favorite pastime or even a potential career. “My benchmark for success isn’t going to be the number of NOLS students and staff from the AfricanAmerican community who come in,” Rajagopal-Dubin said. “It’s a win when a young black man, because of this project, doesn’t necessarily join NOLS but goes to work for Denali National Park, to work in outdoor retail, or work for a group like the Nature Conservancy. I believe it’s all the outdoors and everyone wins when more people participate.” The primary purpose of Expedition Denali, then, is exposure—to raise the profile of outdoor recreation in general and in high-altitude mountaineering in particular among people of color in the U.S. Currently NOLS has only three African-American course instructors out of almost 800 staff members worldwide. Among them is Robby ReChord, a backcountry ski and water sports guide who is program supervisor at the NOLS Teton Valley branch. He’s also an aide on Expedition Denali and as part of this team of black climbers he’s a solid role model for anyone who aspires to follow a similar career path. “I made a lot of choices to live this life,” he said in a conversation at NOLS’ Noble Hotel in Lander, Wyoming. “But I spend my win-
ters skiing and I paddle all over the world. I couldn’t be happier.” Inspired by veteran NOLS instructor Philip Henderson, river program manager for NOLS Rocky Mountain, Robby joined NOLS to emulate the career and lifestyle of an outdoor professional he truly admired. Along with Cliff Debride, a Portland-based nursing assistant, whitewater paddling instructor, and the third of NOLS’ African American instructors, ReChord now serves as an example of the possibilities that are available to anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, who are looking to venture out into the natural world as a way of life. This new cadre of climbers, fresh off the West Buttress of Denali and having come tantilizingly close to the summit, will hopefully expand that number of positive role models even further. Far more critical than reaching the summit, the goal of Expedition Denali is to set a benchmark for all people to strive toward in the decades and centuries to come. The object is not merely the top of this one mountain, but the creation of a clear path that others might follow to ascend any peak they choose. The adventure will indeed be found not in the destination but the journey. The success of this historic project won’t be truly realized until well in the future when young black men and women across the nation imagine for themselves a place in the world where their highest aspirations are limited only by the depth of their greatest ambition.
Summer 2013
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