Killing time

I haven't done a whole lot in the past week or so, just killed a lot of time. While the break is nice, the main reason for the pause is because I am waiting to hear back from a potential employer. They want to hire me, but there have been some snafus regarding the insurance company. I have been trying to schedule most of my days so I can be near a pay phone at some point in the day to call them and find out any updates. It's even worse since they are on the east coast, so I am dealing with a three hour time difference as well.

At least it fits in with my modified LNT motto. "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time."

First set of days

I just finished my first set of days off, after having Scattered on June 5th and working until June 17th. Scatter went fairly well, with my camp being the first to leave Philmont base camp for the backcountry. We got all of our important supplies for the first week or so, so we were able to clean out the cabin. The main threat is haunta virus, but after bleaching and sweeping everything in the cabin we were good to go.

The first few days in the backcountry were mainly training days, going over program activities with my staff and making sure they were comfortable with Philmont procedures. Especially interesting is the fact that my final staffer is from Zambia, Africa, as an international scouter. He missed the whole week of training in base camp, so I have spent a while getting him up to speed with the program activities.

The first crew through Dan Beard for the summer was from Mississippi. I had actually met this crew while hiking on the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama several months ago, and we recognized each other, which was pretty cool. Even more exciting was the fact that one of their adult advisers was my boss's boss back in 2006. Cliff was the head of the conservation office during my first summer at Philmont, while I was on a conservation work crew.

Right before I left camp we were getting 8-9 crews per day, so each staffer is running 2 crews through program each day on average. The main program we have is a Challenge course, which is similar to a COPE course, but more focused on teambuilding and communication, rather than problem solving and out of the box thinking. It can be fun and rewarding to see the scouts working on the events together, especially if they improves over the course of the 2 hour program. It is designed to address crew dynamics and any specific problems the crew might be having together, so it can really help to improve their overall trek.

On my days off I visited Dean Cow, a rock climbing camp, for the first night. We played volleyball against the campers and advisers, and of course the staff won. The next day I took care of laundry and shower in base camp, and then headed back out to Urraca, where I worked last year. It was nice to see the camp again, especially some of my personal projects that I worked on the past summer. My last day I spent visiting Ute Gulch, Sawmill, and Cyphers Mine with a commissary driver before heading back to base to get ready to head back to Dan Beard.

Scatter

PC training week is over, and its off to the backcountry tomorrow. I got my last PC in today, on our day off in Taos, so he still has a lot of training to take care of. He is actually an international scouter from Zambia, Africa, so that will be an interesting twist on the summer. My other staff are from PA, OK, TX and MN, so we have a scattering of locations. Only one of the staff is a returning PC, all the others are first years, so I am mostly on my own. So far it seems like a good group, and we have had fun during the training week.

WFR Finished

I just finished the 8 day WFR course, so I am officially certified. In addition to all the classroom lectures we did a total of four simulations.

The third simulation was by far the worst because it included basically an overwhelming rush of patients in a very limited setting, with only 6 care providers. Fortunately I was designated as an assistant, and we were told to act as if we had no medical knowledge. The assistants were mainly just babysitting patients and doing patient carries in a Stokes Basket when needed. It was actually a bit hard to sit with a patient and have to pretend to not know how to help them.

The fourth simulation wasn't as bad, because we had roughly 45 care providers, probably more than the number of patients. The main thing about this simulation was just that it was supposed to be unexpected. They had initially set it up similar to the other simulations, with designated primaries, assistants, and patients. When we got to the side they tried to surprise us by telling us that the patients were already on scene, and we were all primaries (care providers). It wasn't that bad, considering that the change made it a lot easier. Since we hadn't really been told much about the scene we didn't have the opportunity to plan around it. The 'surprise' didn't really change much, so we were able to just roll with it.

This coming week is CD (Camp Director) training week, so I have another week of straight training to look forward to.

WFR training

I arrive at Philmont on Saturday morning after a 2 day bus ride, and just hung out all Saturday.

Sunday morning started WFR training (Wilderness First Responder) which is basically learning how to treat all sorts of injuries in the backcountry, where medical help is quite a ways away, either in time or distance. I figured this would be pretty useful for me, either for any type of future outdoor job, or just for personal use, since I'm almost constantly in the woods somewhere.

The classroom lectures go over all the medical conditions and proper treatment of almost any type of injury you might find in the woods. We've covered trauma all over the body and all types of environmental events, such as hypothermia or snakebite. The classes can get pretty long, but they cover all the information pretty well, especially different scenarios we might encounter an injury in.

The more exciting aspect of the course is the hands on scenarios and simulations. We started with basic patient examinations, to determine vital signs and obvious injuries. This course is nice because we actually get into makeup and do a more realistic simulation, rather than just trying to fake a broken leg. Our first major simulation was a car crash caused by a seizure in the driver. We had a total of 13 patients with a variety of injuries all happening at the same time. One particular patient was on a bike and had been run over by the car. He had broken both femurs and had brains spread out across the pavement (obviously dead). The instructors had bought sheep brain and threw it on the road, and dumped several gallons of fake blood under the patient (people only have 5-6 quarts of blood). It actually looked really realistic to have someone laying in a large pool of blood, with bones sticking out of their legs.

Tomorrow is another major simulation, in which I will get to be a patient. I will be told what my injuries are, and the instructor will add makeup, broken bones, and fake blood, depending on what the simulation is. Its actually really fun to act like you are injured, especially if you are supposed to be antagonistic towards the rescuers. This can be pretty realistic of patients in a traumatic event, often in ASR (shock).

Packing up

I'm almost finished packing up for my next trip. The past few years I have been perpetually packing or unpacking. I am going to be spending the summer working at Philmont, a boyscout backpacking camp in northeast New Mexico. I will be responsible for running a camp with five other staffers, and will be teaching teamwork skills and LNT camping to all the crews of scouts that come through the camp. Another fun summer.