It is a shame that there no longer are as many outing clubs that offer free "schools" as there were when I started out. I started with the Spokane Mountaineers and they offered a free "mountain school" that included several months of classroom, outdoors one day each weekend, and then some really nice longer trips. Our textbook was "Freedom of the Hills".

Formal outdoor training is a good way to start. Like golf- you can pick it up yourself but probably will learn some bad habits and take a lot longer to become proficient. Getting a good start with an outdoor school or a mentor is ideal.

But, if you are already experienced, outdoor schools are very expensive for the incremental extra you will learn. I will say that the Wilderness Medicine courses are worth the $$ because there really are not other places to learn and practice these skills.

I was a NOLS instructor for 7 years. The students that got the most out of the courses were the ones who were in shape, had some camping (but not backpacking) and mostly ages 17-21. Older folks were already set in their ways and not open minded about learning. Younger kids lacked the maturity to get the most of the school. People who had not ever been outdoors spent too much time just trying to be comfortable outdoors. Having worked with long duration courses, I find it nearly impossible to teach a newbie to become a competent outdoors person in a week. We really felt that it took 30 days to do the job. The per-day cost of longer courses usually are less than the shorter courses.