A BIG THANK YOU to all who came up to Bridgton Maine to participate in the Mountain Travel and Rescue Enhancement Seminar on May 8th. The Maine, New Hampshire and EMARI MTR staffs got together to teach Land Navigation which is a perishable skill. Many longtime MTR students came back for the refresher and a day of practice, however there was a sizable group of first-timers and at least five non-NSP members.
I know I can speak for all of the Instructors when I say that “we were quite impressed with everyone’s enthusiasm and team work in both the classroom sessions and the field work.” In the classroom session, we reviewed a lot of material and had a great day outside in the field with the practical work.
I encourage everyone to keep practicing the skills that you learned, when out trekking/hiking or at your Mountain with fellow patrollers. This is a great skill to have. We also recognize that this it’s hard to meet everyone’s learning needs in just one short 8 hour day. However, in general, it seems like everyone did benefit from this course based on your evaluations. THANK YOU for completing the course feedback evaluations! We take these reviews seriously and will make appropriate changes to future courses.
Courses like these take a lot of effort and advanced preparation, and I wanted to officially thank my fellow instructors for their time and effort. Most importantly, thank you to the Shawnee Peack Ski Patrol for hosting our event at your beautiful mountain. Shawnee Peak is a great place to hold an event, although we did not see any bears!
I have included several photos from the events, and it is my hope that all NSP members come out and join us at a future MTR event. As more mountain travelers get into the Back-Country, whether it be for skiing, boarding or just plain old hiking, NAVIGATION skills become more important than ever. Remember that navigation makes it into the “ten essentials” for survival list.
Feel free to contact me, Deb Brown, if you have any questions, concerns, or comments. Check the Eastern Division Web page and Regional Web pages for future MTR events, because we look forward to seeing you at our next Mountain Travel and Rescue event, enjoy the pictures below.
The whole crew, participants and Instructors numbered 22.
Shawnee Peak, Maine
Instructor Dana Gray reviewing the essentials of the analog compass
Instructor Sean Klaboe reviewing the fundamentals of how to navigate around an obstacle
Instructor Dana Gray setting up a compass course with participants
Instructors and Participants calibrating a pace count
Instructor Sean Klaboe explaining another compass challenge course
Instructor Craig Spear explaining the compass course challenge to the very enthusiastic younger members of the course!
Instructor Craig Spear and Sean Klaboe getting participants ready for the compass course challenge
More Calibration on the pace course with instructor Dana Gray
Looks like while attempting to navigate around our obstacle the alligator won!
