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 fitness level and an ability to respond to callouts most of the time. At every monthly business meeting, a portion is devoted to skills training. 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.WRT also maintains a library so that members are able to build their knowledge of SAR techniques and skills. Team members are able to check 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.
Skills Training:
These trainings are typically forty-five minutes to an hour long; they are conducted in a classroom setting before our monthly business meetings so that team members can better understand 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 Training:
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 also require backcountry navigation and route-finding skills from our members; this means developing map-and-compass and GPS skills.
Winter Training:
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, crampon techniques, snowshoe usage, and winter survival in the exposed environment that we operate in during the winter. We practice reading snowpack conditions, identifying the best choices for winter route finding, and winter survival techniques. We also cover ice climbing and rope management in the winter, two important topics for any winter moderate to high-angle rescue. The Katahdin winter weekends are some of the longest training sessions we do as a team; they really focus on building competency in the larger mountain environment that Katahdin has to offer.
Other winter trainings also bring the team together to practice these important skills. We typically spend these additional winter trainings focusing on one particular skill; backcountry ski touring, ice and mixed climbing, steep-angle snow climbing, rescue rigging in the winter environment, etc. are just some examples. Our normal monthly trainings in the winter might consist of meeting up for a day at a crag to 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. These trainings are essential to build the comfort level of newer team members so that they may be able to participate in winter callouts more fully the following year.