OUTDOORS TRAVEL -- Properly fitted backpacks and hiking boots are key to comfort and safety, preventing back injuries, blisters and potentially nasty falls.

The National Outdoor Leadership school has a mantra: snug around the waist, loose in the toe.

For more tips on selecting and adjusting packs and sizing boots, check out NOLS instructional videos, including on fitting a backpack by NOLS Teton Valley gear gurus and fitting boots by NOLS Rocky Mountain boot expert Kevin McGowan.

Founded in 1965 by mountaineer Paul Petzoldt, NOLS is a wilderness education leader, providing transformative experiences to more than 15,000 students each year. These students, ages 14 to 70, learn in the wildest and most remote classrooms worldwide—from the Amazon rain forest, to rugged peaks in the Himalaya, to Alaskan glaciers and Arctic tundra -- but also with offerings closer to home, from the Washington Coast to the Rocky Mountains.

Info: (800) 710-NOLS (6657) or visit www.nols.edu.

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