Wilderness Skills Schools, Part V:

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But right now our education centers upon getting the camp stoves working. Karen Mott, one of our instructors, shows us how. Check the fuel, 20 or so pumps, a mist of gas, a match, a fire. We watch and wait for the yellow flame to burn blue-green for clean before we start cooking.

Watching Karen, I think NOLS instructors are a modern-day wild bunch of sorts. At 27, Karen may be the NOLS rookie on this trip, but having spent several years guiding clients on hunts for Montana moose, elk and grizzly, she's no stranger to the wilderness. Aside from her other duties, Karen is responsible for the four horses carrying our food for the next nine days.

Next, we have Deb Trainor, 34, a physical education teacher from outside of Boston. This five-year NOLS pro specializing in rock climbing is also a newlywed. Married just 18 days ago, Deb will leave for her honeymoon (three weeks in the mountains) at the conclusion of our current course.

Finally, there's our expedition leader, Jim Landmann, 31. A 10-year NOLS vet and an enthusiastic sailor, Jim strikes me as a modern mountain man. I could easily see him in the 1800s, baiting greenhorns with tall tales. During our first question and answer session, someone asked, "Are you in radio contact?"

"Not at the moment," was Jim's reply, "but sometimes I receive signals from ships at sea."

The flame has blued, the coffee brewed. As we sip our drinks, Jim identifies the plastic bags of flours, grains and other hard-to-ID-without-a-wrapper food supplies. We then head for our own stoves and our first attempt at outdoor oatmeal.

After breakfast, we break camp and watch as Jim, Deb and Karen run each campsite through the NOLS white glove test. Conservation is a major theme at NOLS-conservation of our own energy, our environment and our equipment. And we don't cut corners. At one camp, dislodged stones and deadfall are returned to their original niches. At another, grass flattened by sleeping pads is raked over. At the next, scraps of food and pocket litter are collected. Then comes our campsite and humiliation; an abandoned lash strap is discovered in the leaves, and it stands out like a bowling ball on a pool table. Sheepishly, we recover our forgotten gear.

At first, this housekeeping seems nitpicky, but consider this: Roughly 100,700 people visited the wilderness areas of the Wind Rivers in 1987. If only half of them had lost a sock, dropped a beer can or left half-burnt branches in a fire pit, this place would look about as pristine as Manhattan's Central Park.

It's 10:30 a.m., the inspection's over, and it's time to move on. Strapping on my pack and feeling its 50-plus pounds, I notice that there's an awful lot of sky out here. But at 9,400 feet (quite a step up from my sea-level apartment), catching my breath seems to be a chore. Enjoying the deep quiet, however, comes naturally, and I relax for a minute before we move on to our next campsite.

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