Thursday, June 18 – Day 5 Training

Huge and Scary Caterpillars!

Nightmares about fluorescent, lion-fish-like, attacking caterpillars while bouldering near a river with one of my friends kept my brain racing all night. Not surprisingly, I was a bit exhausted, rather than well-rested when the alarm went off. I had considered doing an early morning hike pre-breakfast. The sounds of rain drops crashing into the canvas of our tent filled the night air well into the wee hours of the morning. The mossy ground was well soaked with fresh moisture when I stepped out of my tent. My awesome tent-mate, Jen, woke me up to inform me I had just 10 minutes to finish breakfast before lecturing began! Woops! I hustled to get to the bathroom, dress, and get in gear. I ended up getting into the lecture about 15 minutes late. I hung my head in shame, figuratively and literally, for being late to the training. I do not like being late, as I'm sure most people would likely admit. I waited for a break in the training and scurried into the kitchen to help eat some of the delicious leftover pancakes. They were tasty, even without butter or syrup. Even better were the delicious sausage patties I had on the side. Mary, our cook, is quite amazing and makes very tasty food. She hails from New Hampshire, near the SCA Headquarters, and is off to New Mexico next to delight folks with her culinary skills.

Another item regarding Ins/outs here at Mt. Rainier, we've got fresh coffee going all day, every day. I love having my mug full of deliciousness. I have been drinking at least one mug each day. I've been drinking my coffee out of a fantastic green stainless steel mug that I got from the SCA. I love swag. The mug has the SCA logo on it and it's even got a travel mug lid that can be closed when I'm not in the process of drinking. It's fabulous. My mug fetish continues and I have another mug in my collection. Insert a small jump for joy and a big smile here. Coffee isn't quite enough to keep me hydrated here at higher altitude (near 3000 ft.), so I've been drinking roughly 3L each day. Yesterday I think I was more around 2.5L and today I'm a little bit behind, something like maybe 1.5L so far, but it's still just 6:00pm. I do admit, I like not having to pee constantly.

Today's training included a review of Risk Management Task Plans for a few folks in the group. After a few plans, we continued our AERIE Backcountry Medicine training. I had a happy conversation with the AERIE instructor; I will be able to use the wilderness medical training for my continuing education units for my EMT-Basic certification requirements. The EMT certification I have requires something like 48 hours of continuing education over a two year period. After this week, I'll have 16 hours towards that requirement fulfilled! I just need to write in a letter/complete a form and submit it to the National Registry and I'll be done!

The day wrapped up with an awesome scenario outside involving many patients and lots of patience. I played the role of patient and was told I was quite convincing with my distracting injuries. There's nothing quite like a well-done moulage job. I do believe there were some awesome photographs taken during the experience and hopefully I'll be able to see a few copies sometime soon.