woofering

It’s early evening in the Tetons. The sun is setting over a hill to my left. A picturesque creek gurgles in front of me; I’m walking across the uneven rocks of its bed. The sky is azure and cloudless. Flecks of blood dot the pale stones. There is no wind. A woman to my right is on her knees, screaming uncontrollably. The temperature is dropping as the sun sets pleasantly. Blood flows down from her cheek from her eyeless socket.

The 10-day curriculum of the Wilderness First Responder (1) course - an intensive crash course in wilderness medicine - is packed with hands-on scenarios intended to simulate the actual stress and chaos of an emergency in the backcountry. The exercises are creative and, like the one above, use realistic makeup and props. It may sound hokey, but the theatrics work: I graduated from the program on Wednesday but can’t get some of the images out of my head, even if they were just training exercises. One of my other favorites was when, one cloudless morning, the instructors mentioned that it looked like it would rain and we should probably bring appropriate gear. I was puzzled but threw my jacket in my bag. During the exercise - a rescue of an unconscious patient at the bottom of a waterfall - they soaked us with hoses.

The course itself was terrific: the curriculum was practical, focused and thorough, and the instructors were top notch. I'd enthusiastically recommend it to anyone with an interest in leading groups in the backcountry.

The highlight may have been the nighttime rescue scenario. It was nearly dark as we were treating our patient's compound fracture when a bull moose popped out of the bushes 40 feet from us. Despite the very real danger - bull moose are actually the most irrational and dangerous wildlife in the Tetons this time of year - it was thrilling to watch from a distance (our patient was magically healed and we got out of the way) as it ambled through where we had been, lazily eating leaves. I didn't have a camera, but fortunately one of my teammates is a talented artist and captured the moment:
After roughly a month in residence at the Grand Teton Climbers' Ranch, I'm back in Seattle today. I'm flying up to Anchorage, AK tomorrow morning to meet up with my sister, and we'll be driving down through Alaska to Haines, AK and then taking a ferry through the Inside Passage to British Columbia. After a few days of river rafting in BC, it's back to Seattle by the end of August and then off to the Himalayas on Sept 2.

Your man in AK,
Jay

Note:
1 Wilderness First Responder = WFR, or "woofer" to those in the know

Not Bad to Wake Up To

The Tetons this morning, coming out of the fog after a mid-summer storm last night:

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Down in the Bayou, Pt. 2

When we told people at the wedding reception that we were going frogging, we got a uniformly reluctant and concerned laugh. Finally one person said, "Have y'all heard of [non-blog appropriate four letter word] water moccasins(1)?" I stayed in the boat.



[Press the caption button in the slideshow to get photo comments, or double click on the slideshow to go to the Picasa album]

Thanks to A. Barnette and J. Vail for photos.

Note:
1

Down in the Bayou, Pt. 1

Down in Louisiana with Pomona classmates T. Woo and A. Barnette for the wedding of our college friend L. Bishop. After a cursory tour of Baton Rouge, we drove northwest, three men in a rented, midsize soccer-mom minivan, purposely sans-navigation to encourage exploration. Our first stop was at Wal-Mart to buy frogging clothes (more on that later), and we scored these sweet hats:
We running early, so we took a turn off the highway towards a blank area on our subpar map from Avis. After we turned onto the backroads, T. Woo decided he'd be more comfortable with the door open. A. "Your Safety is Our Priority" Barnette capturing the moment (while driving with other hand):
We got pretty backwoods:
We happened upon this cool old general store...
... and after we told them we were going frogging that night, they showed us this vintage frog "gigger" (the sharp metal jaws at the end snap shut):
Later that night we had a cookout with crabs, shrimp, etc., and T. Woo pressed the locals into service (1):
The real highlight of the day was frogging at night. Suffice to say it took place on the bayou under the cajun moon, and there were gators involved. Pictures and details forthcoming in a post soon.

Your man on the bayou,
Jay

Note:
1 Sadly, this is not T. Woo's first brush with questionable child labor practices. Several years ago in Baltimore leaving the Preakness Stakes horse race, T. Woo found himself behind his group after stopping to buy a burger. For a few dollars, he enlisted the services of a Tracy McGrady jersey-wearing 10-year old with a shopping cart. Witnesses report T. Woo sitting in said cart, repeatedly shouting "Hurry up, McGrady" between bites of burger as the kid pushed him up the hill.

The Rest of the Tetons

Clark and I did manage a few productive things other than the Grand and scaring kids off play structures. The last week, with no particular rhyme or reason:
Those are the Tetons, once again. Pretty self-explanatory. Last gratuitous mountain shot of this range, promise.

Several high quality climbs are accessed by taking a boat across Jenny Lake. This is the lake from aboard the first morning boat at 7AM:
After the boat ride, we had to deal with this ascent:
Our climb for the day, Baxter's Pinnacle, is above Clark's head. The scramble to the base of the climb took us a little less than an hour; it turns out this is one of the shortest approaches in the range. Teton approaches are blood-suckingly brutal: they are long, steep, start at high altitude, end at even higher altitude, and then you have to actually climb. Longtime Teton climbers describe the experience in creative, non-blog-appropriate combinations of four-letter words.

Climbing on Baxter's Pinnacle:
Waiting for Clark at the belay:
View from the summit:
We also made a trip to Yellowstone during a rest day. This steaming-hole-in-the-middle-of-an-otherwise-fairly-normal-looking-landscape summarizes most of the attractions:
The teeming masses of humanity in Yellowstone were an unpleasant shock after the relative solitude in Grand Teton. Our first stop was Old Faithful; the parking lot reminded me of a county fair, with rows of RVs punctuated by the odd rental car alarm going off. I'll spare you the aural and photographic evidence.

It's a testament to the park, that, after the traffic jams and Disneyland-ification, it still retains the power to awe. Some of the geologic formations are right out of science fiction:


And, all joking aside, I really liked the Post Office:
Lastly, I'd like to thank Clark for being an excellent climbing, camping, and suffering partner... and in particular for not dropping me on belay.

I'm off this weekend to a wedding in deep Louisiana and then back in the Tetons for a week and a half to take a Wilderness First Responder course. Look forward to mobile updates of alligators and gumbo....

Your man in the Bayou,
Jay

Rest Day

Rest day today at Jackson Hole playing frisbee golf, but we couldn't help getting extreme....

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