OLTA

OLTA, or Outdoor Leadership Training Academy is a fictional school in Idaho:

OLTA had a reputation that overshadowed a black belt; it was a combination of school and Marine boot camp.^CF10 "The Outdoor Leadership Training Academy in Idaho liked to pride themselves on how tough they made things, so they could be sure that their students could handle them when they came up in the real world."^DW3

It was a special school out west, that taught people how to lead outdoor groups, and helped them develop various outdoor skills, like hiking, climbing, and kayaking. It had a reputation as being a tough school, almost an outdoor boot camp, but it did a good job of turning out people that were competent in almost any backcountry situation, and their graduates had a reputation as being pretty hardcore outdoor people.^Ran

• Crystal Chladek, Nicole Clark and Scooter graduated from OLTA.^CF4
• Barbara Sipes probably went to OLTA with Crystal.^DW56
• Tamara McKimmey "Harmony" was planning to go to OLTA in the fall of 1998.^DW59

A real life version of OLTA could be modeled on the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), based in in Lander, Wyoming. Their web is at http://www.nols.edu. NOLS was founded by Paul Petzoldt in 1965. He was the chief instructor of the Outward Bound School in Colorado.
NOLS is everything that the fictional OLTA is, and more.