September 28, 2009

Last Friday was not normal because we began our 20-hour Wilderness First Aid training commonly known as WFA (pronounced "woofa"), with CPR classes starting immediately after dinner. Prior to CPR, we had an extended "Saturday" schedule, so we had only three classes, each an hour and a half long. There were history tests for all classes and fun oral presentations in Intermediate Spanish. After lunch, groups began heading out for the last laundry and Safeway run before the second expedition.

Recently formed tarp groups were conferencing, deciding who would buy what extra goodies to bring on the trip. Popular choices were jars of peanut butter, bags of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, Ramen noodles, and tortillas. After we all returned from our outing, we ate dinner, and then were off to a 4-hour course on CPR. We jumped right in, doing demonstrations and dealing with various scenarios our Wilderness Medicine Institute instructors invented for us. Some of the important steps we learned about were calming down, sizing up the scene, clearing the airway of the patient, checking for breathing, and beginning CPR. Did you know you should give a patient chest thrusts to the beat of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees? After CPR on Friday, it was straight to the cabins for a good night's rest to prepare us for the rest of the weekend's training.

Saturday morning we began again at 9:00 AM with more scenarios and learning. This time, it even involved makeup for fake bruises and blood. As the day progressed, we learned the entire patient assessment process including lessons on circulation, spinal injuries and how to deal with them, taking and assessing vital signs, conducting thorough head to toe checks, and much more. We also learned about treating burns, cuts, and more. Overall, we got a lot out of the class, but we hope we practice enough preventative care (aka "risk management") that we don't have to use our newly honed WFA skills.

We are all looking forward to our expedition starting tomorrow. From what we have been told, we are going to spend the first few days hard at work fixing up the trails on various peaks. It will be an interesting and rewarding opportunity to give back to the local environment through which we are privileged to travel. After that, we get to continue hiking on and around several "fourteeners" (14,000' + peaks) in the Leadville area. We are all excited to try to summit a peak nearby where we are doing trail work. Overall, we just can't wait to get even closer to our new expedition and tarp groups.

So, in preparation for this expedition, we needed to pack all of our gear once again. After a beautiful sunrise run, we broke into our expedition groups and began our preparation for this trip. We all went over our routes and then headed to the Red Room to prepare our rations. Each group packaged hot chocolate, cheese, Ramen and other delicious food to make in the backcountry. Once we had our rations, we divided up our group gear and began packing our packs. The packing went smoothly and when we were done our packs looked very svelte! After we finished packing we had some down time and were able to enjoy our last night on campus together!

RMS XXIII is definitely looking forward to this upcoming adventure.

By: Megan Morrow, Lilly Holman, & Cassie Ali