I’ll spare you the details. The two months preceding our departure we lived in a hotel while remodeling our condo because polar vortex + frozen pipes destroyed our recently remodeled condo. Happy ending: we spent two nights in our condo before leaving for our big adventure. And we were able to raise the ceiling by almost a foot so John can now standup straight while underneath our shower head.

And I’ll shortcut to the part where we landed in Buena Vista, Colorado with 14 other classmates and one tall man fishing guide (also our instructor) to learn how to become Wilderness First Responders (WFR, also pronounced as Woofers).

In WFR training, you learn a lot in just seven days. It feels a bit like language immersion + practical skills. I didn’t know how to do a patient assessment, how to identify a patient in shock, how to do CPR, how to make a splint with limited materials, or whether it’s a good idea to reduce a dislocated patella or not. Now I do. (John learned most of this in a previous WFR training but needed to get re-certified too).

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Our class was filled with people doing pretty amazing things: teaching young and old and everyone in between how to enjoy the outdoors safely, building tiny homes, converting vans into mobile homes, rock climbers, raft guiding along the Arkansas, ski patrollers in training, primitive arts teachers, and thru-hikers.

Our instructor Graham could have a side hustle on the set of a horror movie. He would setup scenarios with pretty in-depth story lines and the wounds to match.

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We both really enjoyed the class and feel more prepared for facing potential challenges on the AT. We’re in Atlanta through Wednesday morning before we head out on the trail for Day 1.