Wilderness first responder course ?

[rlown]

I actually talk some people out of a trip that i know they're not ready for. I explain what it takes, and what you'll encounter on the trail up (mental and physical.) Some don't listen, and i still refused to take them. Sure would be nice to decrease problems before they happen.

[BSquared]

Sierra Club. Arrrrrrghhh. Don't get me started. Jeez, those guys would (and have) abandoned people all over the place, ...

Wow, that's really dismaying. And surprising. My experience with Sierra Club trips is old, admittedly, but I took a "basic mountaineering" class from the Loma Prieta Chapter back in the 70s and it was superb (though it would have been more accurately titled, "basic backpacking"). I was an experienced BPer by then but my spouse wasn't, and it was a good excuse to get outdoors together. Good outdoor philosophy, self-rescue ethic, emphasis on basic preparation, knowing when to turn around, not overestimating your skills, and of course basic practical things like cooking and pooping... all the good stuff. I've never been on any of their larger-scale organized trips, but I know some of the same guys who taught the class were perennial leaders of those trips, and I cannot imagine any of them passing an injured person off on "the ranger." That would certainly be worth a note to the trip organizers, at the very least!

-B²

[gdurkee]

I once had a guy who was the Crabtree Ranger in 1947 come to the station with his son. He asked me what I thought of Sierra Clubbers in general. I said some perhaps not very complimentary things about them. He turns to his son and says "See? They were exactly the same in the 40s..."

I shouldn't dump on them too bad, especially here. But, with a significant number of their organized group trips, there's a persistent assumption of entitlement by some of their members and especially the group leaders. Something along the lines of "we're Sierra Club, therefore we can do no wrong." As you might imagine, this leads to the occasional clash with a ranger trying to tell them that, yep, camping on a meadow or doing your socks in the stream is wrong... . Then you (the ranger) get the long lecture on how many years they've been hiking, how they knew Muir personally AND taught him everything he knew about bread and tea.

We wrote a lot of letters to them, but there's no real "there" there. They've got National trips, they've got Chapter Trips; they've got local trips. No one really takes responsibility.

<sigh> I said not to get me started.... .

On the bright side, there's some improvement in the past few years, but all the way into the 90s, I'd say that over half their trips were doing something wrong in their camping practices. That in itself wasn't so bad, a ranger's main job is to educate people about this stuff, but it was their resistance to change and arrogance that forced me into deep breathing exercises.

Sierra Clubbers running amok and no such thing as Santa Claus. How much worse can it get?

g.

[oldranger]

What george said! I used to review the Sierra Club Bulletin that announced all the National trips, and then put the itineraries for my area in my pocket calender. Then I made a point of visiting them in the most unlikely locations. Arrogance is the best word to describe them. When I caught a member bathing in the middle of the river with soap, he patiently described to me how it was biodegradable! I not so patiently pointed out that he was introducing stuff that didn't belong in the river. Once I rode up to a group in a particularly remote canyon (Actually I dismounted from my horse some distance away and approached on foot so I wouldn't be literally looking down at them (so instead I have to look up at them!). My wife was with me but since she wasn't in a uniform she was practically invisible. After we departed she said everyone was complaining about the ranger checking up on them. Gee and I thought I was being nice. George and I could go on and on. I hope he is right (I can't imagine George being wrong) about things getting better.

I think the problem with the Sierra Club National Trips dumping people on rangers is due to the fact that they usually have one leader and an assistant and people pay good money to go on these trips. They don't have anyone to stay with an injured person and escort them slowly out of the backcountry. Opening another can of worms, the Outward Bound folks always went out of their way to self evacuate--so it can be done.

Mike

[BSquared]

...Sierra Clubbers running amok and no such thing as Santa Claus. How much worse can it get?

*Sigh* I'll consider my myth busted. And I was seriously thinking of signing up for one of their service trips next year, too...

-B²

[maverick]

I will all ways remember the jerk in charge of a Sierra Club Trip at Rae Lakes back
several years ago giving the ranger a hard time about them camping in a
restricted area.
The guy was going on and on about how he was a VIP's who could camp any where
he pleased, and that he's been coming to the sierra longer than the ranger had been alive.
He really felt a sense of entitlement in his own mind, which was about the only place
it was worth anything.

[rlown]

I'm guessing you don't want to get me started on the Yosemite association as well, with PETA members running 8 grader trips. Referred to my fishing as "that form of hunting".. Funny that at Evelyn Lk (Yose), no one had a fishing rod.. well.. not really funny, more sad.

[Bad Man From Bodie]

Ever wonder where these people come from? I hope to God, I don’t ever have to rely on someone other than the crew I am with to get me out. I figure, if you get in trouble back there.....chances are you did something to almost deserve it. I figure that I will just trust in the folks I am with and most important, use common sense.

As gdurkee said, any class in survival or first aid ect, is worth wild but, when it comes to wilderness survival there is no substitute for good old fashion common sense. You can have all the formal training out there and if you have no common sense you’re no better than the person without training.

For wilderness first aid I recommend reading....Medicine for Mountaineering and Other Wilderness Activities. I have the fourth edition edited by James A. Wilkerson, MD. This one is fairly diagnostic, but most books are. There are some useful guides and pocket cards you can carry with you that cover the basics out there - should be all you need.

BSquared.....don’t give up on the Sierra Club’s service trips.....I’m sure you could teach "them" something. Otherwise, I think they do more harm than they do good! As for them educating others about wilderness related subjects.....

[maverick]

Like Dr. Bill Wattenburg refers to them on KGO " A bunch of Eco Frauds".

[BSquared]

Well, I was going to let well enough alone, but after a couple of glasses of wine...

The problem here is a lack of respect (RESHPECT!). Really. Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially people who consider themselves experts. Let me give you an example.

I have a good friend who pioneered most of the acid-rain research in the northeast. He set up transects on Camel's Hump in the Green Mountains of Vermont in the 1960s and 70s that are still being used to assess acid-precipitation damage (alas, it hasn't let up). He was also a teacher, and even now (at 79) he takes occasional groups up the mountain. The State Wilderness area around the base of the mountain was recently named after the guy. Now, the Green Mountain Club has recruited several young folks to sit on top of the higher peaks in the Greens as monitors during the summer. They have precisely the role of park rangers except that they have no enforcement powers, no weapons, and only the power of persuasion to keep people from trashing the mountains (which, really, is what most of the NPS rangers have most of the time). Vermont has very few truly alpine areas, so they're particularly sensitive about the extremely sparse above-tree-line vegetation. OK, so my friend takes a group of students and older appreciators of the wilderness up to the top of Camel's Hump, wanders over to the nearest clump of alpine grasses, and begins to teach his temporary pupils about the ecology of alpine vegetation in Vermont, about which he knows more than probably anybody in the world. You can guess what's coming: the nice, young Green-Mount-Club guy comes by and tells him to get out of the vegetation, he's trampling it.

My friend introduces himself, but the guy has never heard of him. Well, my friend can be quite diplomatic and he just smiles and says, "sorry," and moves farther away from the patch of grass. But he remembers the incident and is quietly pissed off for years. (He can also be an irascible son-of-a-****, so the Green-Mountain guy is very lucky!)

I think this kind of situation happens all too often in the Sierra, and, frankly, on this board, as well. We've all been in the mountains a lot (most of us, anyway), we all have goodly-sized egos (or we wouldn't be posting), and none of us likes to be told what to do (that's one of the reasons we go out into the mountains). So, my plea to anyone who cares to listen is to respect what *everyone* says, but give the benefit of the doubt especially to the rangers. They're the only ones who are actually charged with keeping the mountains in the state we'd all like to find them in. So, when a Sierra-Club hoo-hah tells you he's been in the mountains since before you were born, ask him to tell you some stories about his early trips, and then maybe you can say, "well, I used to wash in the stream with soap, too, but you know, there are so damned many newcomers up here now, I just can't justify the pollution anymore." And when a ranger asks you not to build a fire right there even though you know that you personally have been using precisely that fire ring for the last five summers especially so you won't pollute the wilderness with more fire rings, just take a deep breath, say "sure," and ask him about his last patrol.

Peace.

-B²