I just took the first class of Thru-Hiking 101. Here’s what I think….
The first view students will get of my mug on the Thru-Hiking 101 class
All right guys, s&*% just got real! As many of you know, I’ve been working for the past few months on developing BACKPACKER Magazine’s first on-line course, a 6-week Thru-Hiking 101 class on the Adventure University Platform.
I’ve been a little nervous about how it’s all going to turn out. There’s other free material on the Internet. Was my little course going to actually be able to show it all up?
Now that I’ve seen the first class, I am absolutely BLOWN away by AWESOME it turned out! Like seriously–I felt like *I* learned a bunch of new stuff—and I wrote most of it! How well it turned out FAR exceeded expectations–and I had pretty high expectations of what this would look like. I’m impressed and really honored to have worked on such a project.
Backpacker Magazine did such a great job of integrating my content with that of experts in topics I don’t know so much about (like, say, all the financial planners they talked to about saving $ for a hike). And the photos and quizzes just made everything *pop* and engage in a way I don’t see in any sort of not-in person resource on thru-hiking.
At this point, I feel like I should be tired of looking at the content for the class, but Week’s 1 class was organized so well and flows so well it was actually really fun to take–even for me. Everything seemed broken down into really digestably chunks–somehow they turned all my lengthy 17 page monologues into exactly what I wanted to say, except way clearer (thanks, editors!).
I also love how well they integrated my content with that of so many other hikers who helped me. One of the most important facets of teaching this class for me was that it never comes across as pedantic. I believe that other than not being a d-bag and practicing LNT, thru-hiking has no rules. In the words of my friend Shane, “I may know thru-hiking well, but you know you well.” This course was designed to give tools to prospective hikers to make decisions best suited for them and I’m so thankful to all the other hikers who helped share their perspectives so that students of the trail can figure out what works best for them (even if it isn’t what works best for me!)
Read more about the course in my blog entry about it or on the course website.
It’s not too late! The class hasn’t started yet! Sign up today at www.tinyurl.com/thruhiking101
