The classic 30-day 16-and-over course is $3150 £1970 the average age is 19

The classic 30-day, 16-and-over course is $3,150 (£1,970); the average age is 19. For $2,585 (£1,620) you can spend three weeks sea-kayaking in Baja (16-and-over programme, average age 23); for $3,490 (£2,200), two weeks with a 25-and-over group trekking through the isolated Brooks Range in Alaska. Semester-length programmes start at $8,720 (£5,450) and are offered at college and post-graduate levels. From Salt Lake City you can catch a shuttle bus run by Wind River Transportation (001 800 439 7118), fare $75 (£47).Alternatively, you can fly to Denver (eg non-stop from Heathrow on British Airways, 0845 850 9850; ) and catch a Great Lakes Aviation flight to Riverton, half an hour on the shuttle from Lander for ($12.50/£8).COURSESNOLS programmes are considered college level, and college in the United States isn’t cheap: fortnights in the Wind River Wilderness for the over-25s run at $2,490 (£1,550). There are no direct flights from the UK, but for travel in May, for example, you can expect to pay around £500 return through discount agents for a flight on Continental from Gatwick via Houston, or on Delta from Gatwick or Manchester via Atlanta.

But whether I can put those leadership skills to work and organise a group of my friends remains to be seen. I’m pretty confident on remembering matches, basic first aid and packing sensibly – but can I teach them what to do in the woods?TRAVEL GUIDEGETTING THERE The National Outdoor Leadership School headquarters, and the base for the Wind River Wilderness course, is the one-street town of Lander, Wyoming The closest international airport is Salt Lake City, Utah. And by the last few days of the course we were confident enough in navigation and safety skills to set off each day in small groups, instructors tailing us at a discrete distance.I’m still no Grizzly Adams, but I no longer feel like a helpless suburbanite either. Besides, despite the toiletry deprivation and long hikes, life had rarely seemed better.

We fished before breakfast and dined on trout stew, added wild blueberries to pancake mix and learned to create calzones and brownies from bags of bland-looking dried food.Most nights our more-or-less expertly erected tents were left empty, in favour of sleeping under the sparkling sky. We then substituted stoves for fires regardless, since in the middle of a dry summer the risk of starting a major blaze was too high.We even dug scat holes and yes, got to grips with sticks. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but after a few days pounding the miles without seeing evidence of another human being, you begin to appreciate why it is important to keep the wilderness that way. Clich?f a thousand postcards, bumper stickers and National Forest pamphlets, the now-ubiquitous “leave no trace” philosophy was pioneered by NOLS.