EQUIPMENT TYPICAL OF WHAT WILL BE USED FOR OLD RAG SAR (Search and Recue) INCIDENTS
CLASSMATES PRACTICING A LITTER CARRY
ORMS MEMBERS PARTICIPATING ON ONE OF MANY PRACTICE SCEANARIOSThis weekend I took the ORMS Sponsored Wilderness First Aid certification course held up off Skyline Drive at the Pinnacles Research Station. In addition to the Wilderness First Aid course, Shenadoah National Park staff members responsible for Search and Rescue in the Central District (where Old Rag is located); introduced themselves, showed us various types of equipement that will be used on Old Rag SAR incidents, and also gave us an overview of how Shenandoah National Park will organize and run any Old Rag SAR incidents. An immense amount of information was gone over and a large number of practice sceanarious provided significant hands-on development of practical skills. Solo who has been the leader in wilderness medical training for thirty years did an awesome job. http://www.soloschools.com/ This was one of those courses that could be compared to drinking-from-a fire-hose. The handout materials were excellent so I will be able to use them to continue to reveiw, internalize and become fluent in the material over the coming weeks. Thanks to the teaching styles of the instructors and presenters the long days were kept informative, lively, fun and interesting. The free coffee graciously supplied by Central Coffe brewed in the three coffee makers brought by various class members along with countless tasty pastries and snacks brought by other class members helped power our days. Saturday evening there was just a little bit of time to relax and class members had all the ingredients for a great impromptu social event. Starting with a dinner of delicious roast pig and an incredible amount of other great eats. There were lots of good conversation, a lively dice game, an interesting card game and a short but excellent set of guitar music. Had Cedar Run been a little closer I am sure there would have been a quick trip to one of its swimming holes.
GREAT TRAINING WEEKEND
On the way home I had a couple of hours of daylight so I stopped by Old Rag and strolled up along the Brokenback Run for about an hour. A few types of understory bushes are starting to show green buds and I saw my first Tick (THEY'RE BACK!) since fall.
On the drive home I noticed the evening light on the rolling piedmont hills seemed very different from how it has been this winter and it suddenly dawned on me that it was because the pastures are starting to glow with that bright spring green that the grass takes on when it first comes up.
Great post Bob. Looking forward to getting up on the mountain soon. I was thinking of organizing a clean up weekend in mid-May before the kick off of the busy weekends.
ReplyDeleteI believe ORMS starts the first weekend in May. I would imagine that Andy has a plan to focus on litter pick up on at least one weekend. I pick up litter I can see from the trail every weekend but I do not usually range far from the trail. There is lots of litter that can be found way off the trail especially around the bottom of cliffs. Also we should probably make a point of taking a long pole with a remote grabber or barbed spear end on one weekend for the purpose of getting hold of trash that is visible deep in cracks that are too skinny for a human to get into.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking if we had enough people, we could break up the length of the ridge/saddle trails so that each pair of people could focus on a mile or two (although I think the ridge trail and especially the rock scramble need the most attention). My finals end around 5/7, so I'll likely be headed out the following weekend (or two) if there are enough folks interested.
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