ENGAGE
ALUMNI PROFILE
Pat Erickson
By Rich Brame Alumni Relations Director I recently caught up with NOLS grad and adventurer Pat Erickson. I sought Pat out because I’d heard that she’s hiked on all seven continents and has more plans in the works. It took a while for me to track her down—she’s been traveling. Last year included camel trekking in Mongolia and this year’s more constrained travel notched trips to California and Delaware. She also recently had a party to celebrate a notable birthday: number 90. What led you to NOLS in 1977? Originally a city girl, I was a high school physical education teacher in Illinois for thirty-five years. My first taste of the “mountains” happened in college on a trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills. I also had a friend who was involved in outdoor education and ropes courses—I felt that outdoor education elements might fit well at my school, which had access to lots of green space. My NOLS Outdoor Educators course was in the Uinta Mountains on the Utah/ Wyoming border. We practiced self-arrest on snowfields, learned rock climbing and the classic Tyrolean Traverse, were re-rationed via horses, and had really eye-opening learning about minimum impact camping. Many of the men and women on my course chewed tobacco—that was something really new to me! As NOLS courses did in those days, we had a multi-day student expedition out of the mountains—with no food. Luckily, one of my student partners had a grandfather who taught her fly fishing, so we had plenty of fish to eat with our foraged salads.
Tell us about your other adventures beyond NOLS. I started alpine skiing in Aspen in 1960 and was on several regional ski patrols for decades—I gave up skiing in 2016. After a 2003 NOLS Alumni Sea Kayaking seminar, my husband and I did a lot of paddling: the Queen Charlottes, the Bay of Fundy, and Vancouver Island’s rocky coasts. We also raced sailboats for over thirty years, mostly on Lake Michigan. For a couple of decades, we explored North America in a small Airstream, which is a different kind of adventure. I still do a bit of hiking and biking. Before I became a skier, I was a dedicated baton twirler. I won national titles in 1946 and 1950 as well as numerous regional titles. It’s sort of hard to believe today, but baton twirling really opened up the world for me. My husband passed away a few years ago and I’ve recently found a new partner. He likes adventuring too. We have our sights on Eastern European travel—Romania, maybe. Antarctica is nice, but the penguins don’t let you hike very far.
“Pat Erickson’s adventures fill a lifetime. Her path inspires us all to seek new experiences, teach and help others, learn new skills, and to go all-in in the outdoors with those you love.”
Pat Erickson’s adventures fill a lifetime. Her path inspires us all to seek new experiences, teach and help others, learn new skills, and to go all-in in the outdoors with those you love. Rich Brame, Alumni Relations Director and Instructor, came to NOLS as a Fall Semester in the Rockies student and worked his first course at Wind Cave National Park in 1984.
Pat won national titles for twirling. Courtesy of Pat Erickson
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