Ingram Falls Exiting through window above first station The backcountry ice in the San Juan's delivered in spades last week with an ascent of the classic Ingram Falls above Telluride. Ingram seems to form only once or twice a decade. It is a prize tic, when you can get it. Solid [...]

These past two weeks have been busy with Waterfall Ice Rescue Workshops.  The workshops are a blend of ice climbing movement skills, partner rescue, and small teams rescue. All in the waterfall ice and alpine domains. An added bonus included the Ouray Ice Park opening up some of the first new terrain in the Ice Park [...]

Every other year we have the pleasure of returning to Acadia National Park to train with personnel from across the Great State of Maine. The seminars are arranged as open enrollment events to teams across Maine who are responsible for rope rescue response in their respective jurisdictions. It ends up being a terrific team-building week [...]

Working through a Re-Anchor scenario Deviation and Knot-Pass maneuvers Last week we hosted the first of two autumn SPRAT rope access training and evaluation sessions.  100% of the candidates passed their evals and are now certified SPRAT rope access technicians.  Our next offering is Nov 30-Dec 4, 2021. We are welcoming [...]

The weather gods took care of us last week with some rock solid high pressure and bluebird skies for our annual training event at Grand Teton National Park.  The highlight of the week was utilizing the contract helicopter to ingress personnel to the top of Peak 11,840 for a multi-pitch lowering exercise down some unknown [...]

This summer's West Metro Fire training event followed an A,B,C shift rotation of 2-days each shift.  The focus was on swiftwater-related ropework and rescue solutions for both pickoffs and patient transport.  Our first scenario was a traditional Guiding Line through steep slope ground to a river crossing. At the river, we unstrapped the patient's litter [...]

We recently finished a fantastic week with Rescue 1, Seattle Fire Department.  The commitment to excellence and dedication to the mission within this Company - and entire Department- is remarkable.  Our objective heading into the week was clear: deliver a set of experiences that challenged reliance on gadgetry; focus on fundamental principles of rigging and [...]

We wrapped up the second training workshop with ICE-SAR team members to include some volcanic rock crevasse rescue scenarios, utilizing an artificial high directional. My hosts took me out for a nice hike to the active volcano on the way to the airport. Getting that close to a fresh river of molten lava was an [...]

Uppylsingar East Sideways A-Frame near Akranes AHD edge transitions Vertical litter orientation Volcanic crack crevasse rescue The second week of our trip to Iceland included a Refresher Workshop for previous RfR Fundamentals attendees. The weather continued to be dry and cold, and we had some [...]

We wrapped up our first course in Iceland with a nice drooping horizontal Kootenay Highline System over a scenic river gorge near the end of the fjord. There was a humorous misfire of the line delivery device that resulted in a small delay in establishing the messenger line. However, the comic relief was well worth [...]