wilderness knowledge, skills & safety training

“Why” and “How” Explained from our Experience unto your Experience = Wilderness W.H.E.E.E!

News Feed

Our thoughts on current trail conditions, certain hiking topics, weather and any other streams of thought we may have on hiking and the wilderness experience!

Southern Sierra PCT Weather Update, 5/14/23

Southern Sierra PCT Weather Update, 5/14/23: Yellow Flag = 11,500-feet and above Red Flag = 10,000-feet and below 2 critical changes have developed, weather-wise, for the High Sierra and its huge snowpack, Monsoonal moisture is blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico...

2023 Sierra, Current PCT thru-hiker intel

2023 Sierra, Current PCT thru-hiker intel: Snowline, So. Sierra: 7500-feet Snowline NorCal: 4300 "Open," low-flow creeks between 8,000-feet and 10,000-feet (water accessible) with soft, unsupportive, and melting snow Thawline above 10,000-feet with the following...

“The Secret Season.”

Right now, at 10,000 feet of elevation and higher in the Sierra Nevada, the environmental conditions of weather and snowpack are typical of what we call "The Secret Season." What is this "Secret Season?" The "Secret Season" is that time interval between the heavy...

The First Wave

The first wave of NoBo PCT Thru-hikers has left Kennedy Meadows, south (KMS), to enter the Sierra while the next one forms on the porch of the General Store. Their vibe is high, as to be expected when you finally reach a milestone, like the gateway to the Sierra and...

The KMS-23 Conundrum,” Part-2:

The Setting: Imagine that I'm a Trail Angel in Aqua Dulce and have a lone, early-season PCT thru-hiker who needs to go to REI for a new stove. Wanting to enjoy a nice, springtime drive out of town, I select the motorcycle for the task. Right before leaving the house,...

Donation based Wilderness school

Mountain Education, Inc. (MEI), is a Nevada non-profit corporation and a public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service (ID# 47-1263156) operating as a Wilderness School that has been teaching people how to safely backpack year-round since 1982. We have all the classes, videos, and Google Meets to answer your questions about short or long-distance backpacking and offer practical skills classes so you can learn by doing.

While much of our instruction can be easily accessed from your own laptop, we will soon be offering in-person outdoor classes, as well. We feel that we can reach and teach you best by keeping concepts simple, ideas brief, classes small and personal, and instruction demonstrated unto clarity right beside you out on the trail.

Since we are a public charity, all this is available for your edification because of free-will donations and non-profit offerings. We would like to share freely “of our Experience unto your Experience,” but everything, these days, has a cost. We choose to not utilize outside advertisers to subsidize our operation, as we like to maintain our presentation to be as clean, uncluttered, and unobtrusive as possible, thus, all of this school’s budget comes directly from our happy hikers!

Please consider supporting Mountain Education’s mission of providing free wilderness safety instruction by making a donation today.

founder & educator: Ned tibbits

Mountain Education’s Founder and Educator, Ned Tibbits, has been exploring the outdoors for his entire 65-year life. His family loved car-camping and when he was still in diapers you could find him crawling around in campground dirt exploring bugs, logs, and pine cones. Throughout his childhood, he learned to sleep in cavernous, canvas tents whenever not “sleeping out under the stars.”

Ned started backpacking in the Sierra once he was old enough – eight years old – by attending the Bob Mathias High Sierra Boys Camp for a month every summer for the next seven years. He fell in love with hiking, camping, trapping, campfires, swimming and diving in High Sierra lakes, cross-country exploring and peak-bagging, bouldering, and powdered hot chocolate. This was his start with learning-by-doing, or what is called, these days, “experiential learning,” and is his preferred method of teaching to this day….

our why

Ned got the idea for Mountain Education while on his thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail back in 1974 when he was only 17 years old:

“I was camped on the snowy side of 10,000-foot Mt. San Jacinto in Southern California, one night, when I heard distant voices through the twilight of the evening. This really surprised me, as I thought that I was all alone up there! I hadn’t seen any other footprints in the snow all day.

“I followed the voices out into a snow-covered meadow under a cold, starry sky and found five college-aged kids dressed in shorts, tee shirts, and tennis shoes huddled together for their lives. They were lost, without map, food, water, shelter, or extra clothing, and freezing to death. Some were so hypothermic they couldn’t talk, others couldn’t walk, and none knew what to do or how to get back to their cars.

“Though I hadn’t come up the trail they needed to go down, I knew where it was, so I took them there and wished them farewell. On my way back to my tent, I thought, ‘This is crazy! People are so eager to go for a little hike that their lack of planning and preparation for current conditions puts their lives at risk!’

“After I got back to my tent and was sliding into my nice, warm, down sleeping bag, I decided, ‘Somebody has to create a wilderness school to teach these people how to stay safe and make wise decisions in the mountains! This is too beautiful a place in which to die!’”

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

– Confucius

mission & purpose

To teach aspiring hikers what they need to know and do in order to have safe, fun, and personally rewarding outings in our awesome wilderness heritage!

We believe that, if people know what they’re getting into and understand that the fun and pleasure they seek favors being prepared, they’ll be able to stay out longer and reap the rewards of a protracted wilderness relationship! Historically, wilderness emergency medical response teams (like Search & Rescue) have discovered that, when the uninformed public hastily “heads into the mountains” with blind hopes for rest, relaxation, or adventure, their quests have usually resulted in some degree of calamity. We don’t want that!

By teaching people 1) How to have a safe and fun life in the wilderness and 2) Why our Experience encourages them to take and do certain things and actions, their Experience of that wilderness life goes so much better! Hence, our motto,

“Why” and “How” Explained from our Experience unto your Experience = Wilderness W.H.E.E.E!

learn safe & wise travel techniques

DIGITAL CLASSES + VIRTUAL MEETUPS + IN PERSON CLASSES + VIDEO SCHOOL

highlighted digital courses

Our Digital Classes allow you to learn at your own pace from the comfort of your own home. Check out some of our featured topics below.

River Crossings

What to look for in a ideal river crossing and when not to cross.

rescue beacons

What’s out there, why are they important and how they can be used.

Footwear

Why boots, crampons and more.

Nutrition

What to eat in the backcountry.

Maps

Routefinding and how to read topos.

Instructor history & Experience

  • Urban & Rural Paramedic
  • USFS Wilderness Ranger (Sierra National Forest)
  • Volunteer & Professional Ski Patrol (Lake Tahoe, CA)
  • Sheriff’s Department Volunteer Search & Rescue (Lake Tahoe, CA)
  • National Outdoor Leadership School,  Wilderness EMT
  • Community College Adjunct Instructor, Emergency Medical Technician
  • MEI Wilderness Instructor, 40 years
  • Federal Emergency Manager, FEMA
  • Pacific Crest Trail, 1974
  • Continental Divide Trail, 1980
  • 4-month, 5,000-mile bicycle-camping, Europe, 1979