Training

The Wilderness Rescue Team is devoted to training regularly to keep our level of preparedness high. WRT members train and prepare for operations in several ways. Individually, members are responsible for keeping physically and mentally prepared for operations. This means maintaining a high level of fitness and an ability to respond to call outs most of the time. At every monthly business meeting, there is a portion devoted to skills trainings. The team also does a minimum of two days per month of in the field training year round. Below you can see some of the types of training we do.

The WRT also maintains a library so that members are able to build their knowledge of SAR techniques and skills. Team members are able to cheek our library materials at team business meetings. The Wilderness Rescue Team is a very highly skilled and trained group of volunteer backcountry rescuers; we are devoted, individually and collectively, to building and maintaining the search and rescue knowledge and skills our work requires.

Meeting Skills Trainings:

These trainings are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long; they are conducted in a classroom setting so that team members can gain a deeper understanding of the systems we use before using them in the field. These trainings might be rigging techniques for doing this rigging faster, safer, and better. They also might be a medical refresher on a specific area of wilderness medicine. Trainings also might include search tactics, lost person behavior, or other search techniques.

Summer Trainings:

Our summer 2-day trainings happen in Baxter State Park; we are the on-duty SAR team for the park the second weekend of every month. This means we have at least one hasty team that is ready to respond to any call within thirty minutes. This gives us a typical call-to-trailhead time of less than an hour.

We practice scenario-type rescue rigging and techniques on a water tower throughout the summer. This allows for live practice of the skills we go over at our monthly meetings.

We also spend some of our time in the park familiarizing ourselves with the terrain and trail systems. This allows for faster, more accurate response times when a call comes.

We also require backcountry navigation and routefinding skills of our members; this means developing map-and-compass and GPS skills.

Additionally, we spend time on trainings to go over clue awareness, lost person behavior, grid search techniques and tactics, hasty search techniques and tactics, and search specific criteria.

Some of our time is also spent practicing rescue techniques in areas with high exposure. This means getting out on a steep or high angle area and honing our skills.

Winter Trainings:

During the winter, the team typically gets together for about one day every month to practice climbing and rescue skills. These trainings focus more on winter preparedness and climbing skills and less on rigging. Twice a year, we head to Baxter State Park to train on the upper mountain of Katahdin. These training sessions are typically two to four days long; this duration allows us to cover topics such as avalanche danger, winter clothing systems, cramponing techniques, snowshoe usage, and winter survival in the exposed environment that we operate in during the winter.

Typically, we get sledded into Roaring Brook by the park and then hike to Chimney Pond. We spend time practicing avalanche skills; reading snowpack, searching for beacons, and probing. In a steep, snowy world these skills are vitally important.

We typically spend some time practicing mountaineering skills such as snowshoeing, backcountry ski touring, ice and mixed climbing, steep-angle snow climbing, rescue rigging in the winter environment, and daytime heat/moisture management.

Some of our trainings are specifically focused on honing a particular skill; we might meet up for a day at a crag and work on ice climbing without the rescue context so that newer team members get a chance to learn and practice the basic mountaineering skills that form the foundation for rescue work.

We also require members to participate in an overnight winter bivy in order to practice for winter survival. We practice winter survival with minimal gear; usually one sleeping bag and one sleeping pad for each two rescuers with one tarp for the team as a whole. This is when we really get to know each other.

We spend the morning of our last day practicing some winter medical skills with the park rangers and are sledded back to the park entrance and head home.