Armstrong Scholars

Join us in celebrating the start of another fantastic year of Armstrong Scholars! In December we selected the educators who will be leading the charge this summer, and we are psyched to have representatives from THREE NatureBridge campuses helping to bring the magic alive: Mia Perez (Golden Gate), Felicity Holmes (Olympic), and Ivy Moore (Yosemite).

In retrospect, the process of this year’s Armstrong Scholars adventure was unexpected. Back in January, it didn’t occur to us that the record-breaking snowfall of winter had anything to do with Armstrong Scholars in the summer of 2023, nor did we think the personal challenges we were facing as individuals had anything to do with it, either.

Last Sunday, eleven fantabulous volunteers (aka Resupply Angels) joined me in hiking fresh fruits and vegetables, bagels and yogurt, chips and cookies, along with next week’s meals to the Armstrong Scholars. This year’s resupply team was one of a kind, in that TEN of us had been Armstrong Scholars or Armstrong Scholars leaders ourselves! Three of us flew across the country to be resupply angels! We represented 2002, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2022 and were all there to support the team and pay forward the goodness we’ve received from this program. It was such a delight to see Joie’s light burning so brightly on Sunday! 

The 2022 Armstrong Scholars embarked on an excursion filled with unexpected challenges including illness, wildfires, rain and more but remained resilient.

This year, NatureBridge is proud to welcome Armstrong educators Amanda Adams and Kaitee Levinson. Their love of the program, strong backcountry experience, social emotional learning skills and commitment to equity and inclusion will serve them and the Scholars well as they explore the High Sierra and so much more together this summer.

In July 2021, a group of young women set out on a trek through the High Sierra as part of NatureBridge’s Armstrong Scholars program. In this blog, Lesley and Sarah share their reflections and the lasting impact the adventure made on them and their fellow Scholars.

As the Armstrong Scholars program looks ahead to the next 50 years, one thing is for certain: the spirit of Joie is being actively kept alive. It is woven into the curriculum and through 20+ years of backcountry experiences. The scholars and the leaders and Leslie evoke Joie in ways big and small, inside and outside of the two-week journey.

Jenn Peach led the 2017 Armstrong Scholars program alongside Daniella Beinstock. When the 13-day excursion began, the high school-age women saw Jenn as mature, but little else beyond that — she was there to lead and instruct. After Jenn and Daniella held the open conversation period around the campfire, the dynamics of the entire group changed. One of the memorable questions they fielded around that campfire in the dark: “How do you have the courage to go do things by yourself?”

“At some point I said that I was the person who gave me permission to do things, and it sparked this fascinating conversation about the ‘permission’ to be certain things as a young woman. It opened everyone’s eyes to each other.”

Jacqueline Ruggieri held her arm up to the screen on our Zoom call. Scrawled in beautiful cursive on her wrist: “gulp life.” The phrase comes from a poem written by Joie Armstrong, and according to Jacqueline, it perfectly embodies who she understands Joie to have been before she was tragically killed in Yosemite National Park in 1999.

“Joie is that poem, ‘Gulp Life,’” she says. “There are at least three of us associated with the program who got this tattoo on our wrists independently of each other.”

When she got the tattoo in 2011, Jacqueline was a NatureBridge educator seven years removed from her experience as an Armstrong Scholar. For her, the path from one to the other is clear and direct. Without participating in the Armstrong Scholars program, she’s not sure where she would be today.