Tactical Wilderness Rescue – RTR

Intro

If you were looking for a quality Monday through Friday workshop that teaches all these essentials for flat, low, and steep angle rudimentary rescue below high angle (<60 deg), this is your opportunity. There are no high directionals, no rigging pods, or unnecessary rigging. It is all similar to what we do in slot canyons—all improvisation from anchors built from available features and flora on site. Thinking outside the box is a key element here. The Tactical Wilderness Rescue Workshop (TWRW) then seeks to explore solutions for a safe and efficient minimalist wilderness rescue. It is designed for the serious wilderness SAR practitioner wishing to improve their personal rigging skill and capability in the backcountry, off the beaten path, and definitely out of bounds. And it is made to be quickly accomplished with no huge systems.

Expectations

We will be using smaller diameter “hybrid” ropes in the TWRW with exceptional strength and abrasion and cutting resistance. You can certainly use larger ropes up to 11.1mm (7/16in) diameter in this program. However, this program aims to reduce the gear and rope needed for a quick rope rescue. For this reason, we use a lightweight, break-apart titanium litter.

We will build the ever-popular, lightweight Purcell prusiks. These come from one piece of 6mm accessory cord. We use them on smaller ropes where traditional ascenders have limited applications. We will choose to leave all the heavy metallic gear behind. However, some students are still welcome to use their MPDs and Clutches if they prefer. We can use many different options.

These systems apply friction to specific rope diameters. We use them for lowering a litter, plus one, two, or even three bearers, down an embankment. This is part of thinking outside the box. The Tactical Wilderness Rescue Workshop will eventually move into the field for its final part. Participants will hang on improvised anchor systems they build. They will also rely on knots they tie. That’s the fun of it! Students in this program learn to work as a cohesive team. They collaborate toward the successful retrieval of an injured casualty in a non-threatening environment.

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