Would Not Recommend

My son did the 30 day mountaineering course outside of Lander Wyoming in July of 2023. He was hoping to receive serious training in climbing and mountaineering. He was massively disappointed in the trip for a variety of reasons.
1. Poor screening of participants: one of the girls struggled with the hiking, and had to be evacuated by the group. She was clearly not prepared and had no concept of the demands. The evac had serious implications on the course routing, and severely impacted the climbing curriculum for the rest of the group. A problem that could have easily been solved by some early screening activities.
2. While weather (and evacs) negatively impacted the trip, NOLS apparently uses caloric restriction as a tool… not exactly sure what the intent of that is, but my 145 lb 6 foot tall son lost 14 pounds on the trip and was constantly hungry… obviously difficult to feed a bunch of teenagers, but a third food drop should have been organized. Not healthy for a growing teenager to lose 10% body weight.
3. My sons goal was to focus on mountaineering skills. He received a lot of lectures on how land ownership is inherently wrong, toxic masculinity, and pronouns. It seems like NOLS has gravitated more to politics and not just climbing. Ironically there was no hesitation to let my son carry a 72 pound pack (above weight normalized load expectations) but then complained about toxic masculinity. Politics aside, disappointing that the content was not purely hiking/climbing oriented.
4. Pricing: The course changed price by something like $600 several months after we signed up… seemed somewhat disingenuous. Then we got a $10 bill for damage to a group tent rental due to wind damage. Silly nickel and diming.
Our son left NOLS, went to Switzerland and paid a guide $3500 for a week of climbing… Matterhorn, Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Learned 10x the mountaineering skills for half the price. For a $6k course this NOLS course offers little value. If you’re into hiking and casual camping and talk about politics, probably a good course. If you are looking for true backcountry skills, NOLS is not the place to go.