I arrived at the Landmark Learning Campus on Thursday afternoon for my orientation with Justin Padgett, the executive director. It was a beautiful drive to Sylva, NC that had me climb up a road that degrades to an unimproved forest service road at the turn for the campus. When I arrived on campus just before my appointment, I found students gathered around eating their lunch and discussing the medical information from their class. It was clear from the start that this is an active campus where people live for adventure.
We reviewed my schedule and then Justin walked me around campus so I knew where everything was located. It’s a simple campus made up of an upper section and a lower section. The lower section is known as the downstream campus and the upper section as the upstream campus. I would be living in the bunkhouse above the upstream campus for the next six weeks. Meaning, every morning I get to walk down enjoying a 360-degree view of the Appalachian Mountains before I get my first cup of coffee.
The first course of my journey was a certification as an American Canoe Association (ACA) Canoe Instructor. This was a small course as there were only four of us students and our instructor Fritz Orr. Fritz has lived a storied life as a professional canoeist. He represented the United States as a competitive canoer. He raced across North America and Europe back in the ’80s. He then went on to help design kayaks and canoes working in research and development for two major companies.
My experiences thus far have been much simpler. I have paddled on and off most of my life. From Boy Scout camp to trips down the Susquehanna River, I have always enjoyed my time in a boat. I did develop my own style and found boating to be fairly intuitive to me. What I never really got though was formal instruction on best practices for paddling. I really appreciated what I learned from the course and how it made me a more efficient paddler.
The course started by going over basic paddling techniques and then how to teach that technique to novices. In the past, I would often switch sides between strokes to help balance the canoe out. Here I learned to only use one side and be more efficient. This allowed you to work better with your partner who was in the front of the canoe.
The part I enjoyed most was cruising down the river and running some rapids. I had little knowledge of whitewater canoeing but I learned that there is a segment of the population who prefer canoes to kayaks. It was described as a similar rivalry as the snowboarders and skiers. I was impressed to see that in a canoe we could perform a lot of the same maneuvers that kayakers perform, though a bit more challenging in a 17-foot boat.
Another part of this course was working on our instructor abilities. Fritz tested us on how to give basic lectures and demonstrate skills. Sometimes they were impromptu and others we had time to prepare. This was great because it challenged me to keep a coherent flow that students could follow. It also was a great test of the information – who knew there were so many parts of a canoe?!
My next course was Wilderness Lifeguarding. This course had more students, a majority of whom were some form of a camp counselor. Some worked at standard summer camps while others worked in addiction based rehab programs. It was interesting to learn more about the different paths available in the outdoor industry.
I think I was one of the few people in my course who had not at least had the standard lifeguard course in high school. All of this stuff was new material for me, but with a backcountry twist. We learned such skills as how to make a lifeguard float out of sleeping pads and webbing. The course focused on lifeguarding in areas where cell service may be non-existent and emergency services a long way out. So a key message of the course was the importance of prevention with rescue being a worst-case scenario.
One thing I learned was that if you don’t swim often you lose it and have no endurance. The 100-meter swim test really challenged my endurance. It was also a test of mental strength for me. I had to keep my body calm and focus on just making the next stroke without getting overwhelmed by the distance ahead of me. It was not that much different from running some of my harder ultramarathons.
This course also required a lot of teamwork. Having been out of the military for so long, it was nice to work with competent people to manage an emergency. It was oddly comforting and familiar. It made me start thinking about returning to emergency medicine again. We will see where that goes as I progress.
The final part of my water training was the ACA Swiftwater Rescue course. This was by far one of my favorite trainings I have ever taken. Outside of the classroom portion, it was a day spent swimming rapids and learning how to rescue people in complex situations. The techniques varied from something as simple as throwing a rope bag to a swimmer, to finding a way to stretch a few hundred feet of rope across a river. We learned how to set anchors and methods of swimming through strong currents to get to someone injured.
I thoroughly enjoyed standing in the cold, rushing water. It was more invigorating than a gallon of espresso and really makes me want to get into whitewater paddling! Anyone who gets into whitewater paddling should take this course so they know how to take care of themselves and their friends. It definitely is a taxing course with lots of physical demands.
Check out this video of how a competent paddler is able to rescue his buddy in under 3-minutes.
So far the Landmark Learning courses have been top notch and I am enjoying the learning environment. Next up I have the EMT course and wilderness upgrade for that. It will be a few weeks of dense classroom and practical testing. I just keep driving on to the next thing.