Whitewater
River Guide School
Learn the necessary whitewater skills to be a professional river guide on the Futaleufu River in Patagonia Chile...
Swiftwater
Rescue Training
Rescue 3 International Swiftwater Rescue Technician (WRT) - Level 1
Earn
an international certification in Swiftwater
Rescue on one of the most prestigious
and challenging rivers commercially run,
the crown jewel of big water rivers, the
Rio Futaleufu in Patagonia, Chile.
Our Rescue 3 International Swiftwater Rescue
Technician course is designed to help rescuers aid others and at the same time help themselves. This course is not a clinic or workshops but a comprehensive, competency based program. The course is essential for recreational boaters, commercial guides, police, firefighters, lifesaving and search & rescue
teams, or anyone who lives or works near moving
water.
Our
week-long swiftwater rescue course covers 30 hours of rescue training that includes: foot and body pins, boat pins and wraps, shallow river crossing, throw bag rescues, technical ropes, anchors and tension systems.
Another
30 hours include raft guide training on
the Futaleufu and outfitter management
training. For those in law enforcement
or firefighting
who don't want to participate in raft guide
training, we can substitute other activities
from our extensive Adventure
Vacation Program.
Participating
in the class does not guarantee certification.
You must pass all the requirements. This is
an intense and physically demanding course.
The hours for this six day period are from
7:00 am to 9:00 pm.
Achieving
certification on the Futaleufu River with
Expediciones Chile and Jim Coffee, one
of the top instructors in the industry,
will be something that you can be extremely
proud of. Gaining river guide training
and a river manager's insight, which you
can use with any company in the industry,
is an additional bonus.Our
accommodations are at the one of a kind
Tres Monjas Eco-Camp at the confluence
of the Azul and Futaleufu Rivers. This
eco-camp is a virtual island with a river
on each side. The Futaleufu River running
this time of year is between 15,000 to
18,000 cfs and the Rio Azul, on the other
side
of the camp, typically ranges between 500
and 2000 cfs. This gives us the settings
for all of the rescue scenarios that
we
need to exercise.Each
student will get a chance on the safety-cat
oars, the oars on the passenger raft, and
as safety
kayakers if they are kayakers with bomb-proof
rolls running the Futaleufu and Azul.
The training
camp starts with a morning jog or hike
at 7:00 am.Our
founder Chris Spelius says of Jim Coffey,
our Rescue class instructor and director
or River Safety: "Jim loves and lives
the river business. He has taken an already
impressive body of knowledge involving
river safety and river management, and
evolved it to a new level".
Send your river manager, head guide, or business
owner and revitalize your company. You will
be inspired and challenged by joining this
course.
Some swift water training topics that we will cover are:
• Preplanning rescue scenarios
• River and rescue communications
• Equipment needed for these types of environments
• Risk management
• Incident command system applied in a river context
• Working together: coordination of rafts, kayaks and land-based teams
• How to read large volume whitewater
• How to choose the safest lines
• Lining boats through rapids
• How to determine the best place to perform a rescue
• Ghost ride a raft (at Zeta, a usual portage)
• Rigging rafts and kayaks for rescue and/or flip and recovery
• Foot and body entrapment extrications
• Body searches
• The "V" -lower: a high-angle rescue technique
• High line Tyrolean and Telfer systems for rescue
• Rappelling and ascending a fixed line
ACA Whitewater Kayak Instructor Training
ACA Instructor Development/Certification
This
forty-hour weeklong kayak
school course covers both the American Canoe Association Instructor Development Workshop (IDW) and the Instructor Certification Examination (ICE). The first half of the week is designed to help paddlers develop as kayak instructors and prepare for the ACA Certification Examination. The course will stress the ACA model for effective instruction and group leadership required to teach others to paddle on moving water. Paddling skills, rescue and safety comprehension, and technical knowledge will be thoroughly reviewed and modeled in preparation for the instructor certification examination.
The second half of this kayak school
week will be devoted to the instructor examination
itself. Candidates will be evaluated on the
topics taught during the Development Workshop.
Three different certifications will be available:
Basic River Kayak Instructor, Whitewater
Kayak Instructor and Advanced Whitewater
Kayak Instructor. There will be time in the
week to practice the techniques modeled during
the Development Workshop and to also pursue
many of the multisport activities available
from the paddling school lodge.
Students can also sign-up for either half of the course, leaving the rest of the week open for optional activities.
Wilderness Medicine Seminar
Patagonia, Chile is an unparalleled outdoor classroom to teach practical and applied wilderness medicine skills. Not only is Patagonia one of the last frontiers of untouched remote wilderness on earth, it is a convergence of world class whitewater, mountains and ecology. Wilderness MedVentures believes Patagonia has the potential to attract a large number of physicians eager to experience pristine wilderness while gaining hands-on experience in wilderness medicine. Dr. Kevin McGarvey, one of the emergency physician instructors, has already done 6-weeks of University funded research in the Futaleufu Valley...