Hot Drinks - Stories From The Field

Today we have someone who is well-known for her thrills in the oceans. She is one of the most qualified ocean sports instructors in Australia. Our guest Jaclyn 'Crackers' Nicholl today has worked in outdoor education for over 15-years in many remote and isolated regions of the world. Some of her previous employers include; the Astrailas Department of Education, David Wirrpanda Foundation, and(NOLS).

Jaclyn is a true believer that passion is key to showing students how 'fun and exciting' learning in wild places can be and her enjoyment can be infectious across the group. Her past students are living evidence that our guests today can make the ocean a solid ground of fun and excitement.Today Crackers is the owner and operator of Cracker Jack Paddle Sports which she opened in 2015, in Dampier, a small coastal town in Western Australia.

In this episode:

• She talks about a sailing expedition where there was a moment where they could have gotten eaten by sea creatures. She takes a trip down memory lane and shares how nervous they were but it was also beautiful to witness orcas just 3 meters away from her boat. She further discusses the night stay at a point where they were invited for dinner. Later into the night, she realized that it was a fun dress-up dinner with passengers from an expedition cruise ship. 
• Roaring through the Kimberly in the dry season, she talks about hiking off trails. With the river bank being dry, she talks about how small groups were separated in search of water. Jacklyn shares her nerve-wracking incident with a wild bull who had all the time in the world to maintain vicious eye contact with her.
• She further shares how her high school student in a course faced a snake attack. Being bitten multiple times in the crotch area by a snake? Well, you wouldn’t want to miss this story.
• It was raining fishes when Jacklyn was enjoying her fishing sessions but snappers and oysters were the gold of it. Feeding off cold pasta and not such good food, she managed to get the entire group some good dinner and become the hero of it all.
• Jacklyn beautifully talks about rock art. Being unprotected, there is nothing beautiful leaving things to nature. She further adds how her love for rock art grew because of the NOLS expedition.
• Jacklyn later reveals her favorite trips and many other things during our round of rapid-fire. Her jolly, fun, and passionate personality revealed some great things in our show. www.crackerjackpaddlesports.net

Leaving marks all over the world, our guest today is someone who started working in outdoor education in 1994 with Project USE in NJ, everybody, today we have Kate Koons! She is the bird with a search for peace who has Worked for ARCC summer 97-2001, worked wilderness therapy in Bend, OR for a year. Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the woman of wonders, Kate who has been the NOLS instructor 2001-present.

After spending 300 weeks in the field all over the world, she now makes her mark as she currently lives in Victor. You may be wondering that we are talking about just another guest, but with the outdoor education career which has led Kate not only to 15+ years with NOLS, but working in Antarctica, the Himalaya and managing professional avalanche education in the US – she is the talk of the town!

Our show further investigated how Kate mainly worked backpacking, climbing, winter, instructor courses, and worked for 7 years as a program supervisor in the NOLS Tetons Valley Branch, if you are brushing it away, let us tell you that this isn’t something small. She currently works as the Field Risk Manager for the US Antarctic program, ski guide, and avalanche educator, imagine having her supervision as your ski guide – Exciting.

In this episode:

•   Kate Fun-ly talks about how she gave her motto of “Have a hot drink every day” to her winter semester Student.
•   She recalls her “Scouting gone wrong in India” episode where water is 1500 meter below and things are catching fire. It wasn’t it, something about reading the map wrong and thinking the compass was right made “The scouting Group” go through some tough times.
•   She further talks about how hanging out in a village gave them the opportunity to a wedding in which they didn’t know anyone – the Fun was just the vibe of it.
•   Being the only Female seal of the all-male course, she shares the dangerous canyon she faced with a group of 13 men. Being scared, and wondering how the ropes will take them to the ground, she shared some thrilling side of her adventure. The adventure took a bright turn when they saw majestic waterfalls after hitting the canyon.
•   She further talks about how a trip of three in the pandemic made them feel thankful for everything they have.
•   Kate shares a fun way she got pranked by Electric fences where she thought “There’s no way the electricity would be a part of it”. It was funny how having a sore muscle in her chest fooled Trevor into thinking that the minor electrocution of the prank had done Damage to Kate's heart.

At the end, we threw a quick intriguing rapid-fire round at her, which she answered gracefully and revealed many fun things along the lines.

Like many outdoor educators’ travel has been a constant theme in the life of our guests today. I'm thrilled to have Heather Hamilton join us on the show. Heather has always had a hard time answering, “where are you from?” – as she has lots of places that feel like home but was born in Wichita, Kansas, and has traveled a fair amount for a Kansas kid. But after finishing University at CU-Boulder, she bounced around the west a fair bit, did some international travels to Costa Rica, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Mexico, etc., and eventually ended up living in New Zealand for a bunch of years. While living in New Zealand, she traveled extensively throughout Australia and Indonesia, as well. And now her base is in Hawaii. She worked in outdoor education roughly 2000-2013. After her time as the Operations Manager for the NOLS NZ Branch, she shifted to Hawaii and chased after more judging work with professional surfing events. Heather was doing that as well in NZ while still working for NOLS but decided to mix things up a bit and go after some surfing dreams. When she first started with NOLS, she was a river instructor - primarily white water kayaking and then migrated into canoeing, hiking, sea-kayaking, etc as most of us do.

In this episode:

• Heather shares her experience following the devastating earthquake in New Zealand in 2011, while she was an Operation Manager of the NOLS branch outside of Christchurch. and had been residing near a 30-minute drive through town to Sumner Beach. She explains how shaking turned water-saturated layers of sand and silt beneath the surface into sludge that squirted upwards through cracks. Thick layers of silt covered properties and streets and water and sewage from broken pipes flooded streets. House foundations cracked and buckled, wrecking many homes.
• She tells us how once the mobile coverage was back on; students and instructors were bombarded with calls from parents and loved ones all around the world. She further states the tragic aftershocks that lasted for months playing a game of catch it before it hits the floor, as she assisted the neighborhood with laundry and filling water jugs, which resulted in taking an emotional toll on her health and pushed her to the breaking point.
• Hamilton talks about another dreadful incident in Mexico City, and how she was hot to trot beforehand knowing all the ins and outs – that surfaced all the memories and struggled of the past.
• Moving forward, Heather shares some memorable trips on the Drysdale River in Northwest Australia, and how it still is the most special place to her. She gave us a deeper insight into how they went to the Malcolm Douglas crocodile farm and learn about saltwater crocodile country, and get educated on 10 different snakes.
• She entertains us more with hilarious funny stories with her pals, Warren, Travis, and Lelia, and shares some great tips to stay dry in Mozzie domes.
• We throw a quick intriguing rapid-fire questions at her, which she answers as gracefully as only she can.
• Lastly, she tells us her favorite hot drink after a long hard day at camps, and one particular place she wishes to share this drink in the field with - after all, what's more, soothing than wrapping your frozen fingers around a piping hot mug of something refreshing. 

Veteran NOLS Instructor Chris Machester joins us to share a few hair-raising stories from Alaska to Baja and from bears to drugs! 

This week we speak with NOLS living legend Jim Chisholm. Jim has worked in the field with NOLS for over 35 years and has many outstanding stories to share. 

Episode 0 explains what that Hot Drinks podcast is all about. Enjoy the show!