Inside the trophy room of the Explorers Club in New York City.
See this image in my Flickr Photostream.
Tag: NOLS
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Explorers Club Trophy Room
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NOLS WOE Tetons Ski Mountaineering Expedition: Day 2 – Telemarking at Grand Targhee
Today was our first full day together as a group. In preparation for or departure to the backcountry, we’re spending two day skiing at Grand Targhee Resort.
Although i grew up alpine skiing, and have been an avid snowboarder for the past 15 years, today was my first day Telemarking. Telemarking gear looks similar to alpine gear, however the heel of the boot binding on Telemark skis is free travel up and down. That allows the toe to pivot forward,
Giving a lot of freedom of motion. To make use of this motion, the standard telemark turn is significantly different than the alpine ski turn. It requires much more balance, flexibility, and leg strength.I did a half day lesson, and spent the afternoon doing runs with coursemates.
Tonight we’re returning to NOLS base in Driggs for a bit of field preparation and relaxation. I’m also starting to get a few of my teaching modules together – I’ll be teaching basic backcountry medical and trauma patient assessment system, as well as a few others.
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NOLS-WMI Wilderness First Responder Training in Leadville, Colorado
For the past 2 weeks I’ve been living at the High Mountain Institute campus in Leadville, Colorado undergoing Wilderness First Responder training, through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI).
Photo Set on Flickr (Slideshow)
WMI WFR Training Group Photo The last two weeks, including people, class, adventures, and campus have been amazing. Our group is about 30 people, all taking this course for different reasons. A bunch of us, including myself, are going on to work in the outdoor education/wilderness guiding industries, a few people are going on to work in teaching roles, and a few are taking it because it’s fun!
Milenka Heran demonstrating how to splint and unusable leg fracture.
Our days here at the HMI campus have been packed. We start class in the morning around 8am, and have a combination of classroom learning and practical scenarios. Practical scenarios beak up the classroom learning. In these, we go outside and into the mountain landscape, to practice dealing with mock patients – everything from massive bone fractures, broken spines, overdoses, cardiac emergencies, hypothermia, and mental illness – we’ve dealt with it all. In addition to classroom learning and short scenarios, we’ve also had a number of major scenarios. We worked as a team to pull hypothermia patients out of freezing cold snowmelt water – I was actually the patient in this scenario, and actually started to develop mild hypothermia after laying in the freezing cold stream for a few minutes waiting for my rescue team to get to me. We also completed an extended night scenario, in which we went out searching for victims in the evening. The night scenario developed into a multiple patient remote emergency with no chance of immediate evac, mountain temperatures and low supplies.
Reed Holden eating dinner on our porch, with Colorado's tallest mountain, Mt. Elbert in the background
Our instructors, Milenka Heran and Iris Saxer were experienced, animated and effective educators, and were a pleasure to work with on this course.
Group debriefing after an intense cardiac emergency scenario in the mountain sun.
Our mountain home… Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive looming in the distance.
During the course, I managed to take a few photos, with three different cameras, depending on what I had access to and what was most appropriate for the situation. I used the iPhone4, Canon G10, and Canon 5DmkII w/ Canon EF24-70 f/2.8L lens.
Practice taking vital signs both in the classroom as well as in the field environment.
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