LELT - 21st Edition Begins

July 01, 2010

Our 21st Leadership Training expedition has begun and some of the finest young leaders in the land have converged in Colorado to tackle big mountains, raging rivers and gigantic rock walls. The expedition got a little late start with Daniel and Eli arriving a little bit later than the rest of the group, but they made it safely out to Little Cambo on the Arkansas River. The 12 students hail from Italy, France, British Columbia and across the United States. Two of Longacre's top-notched leaders, Jodi and Chad, returned to lead LELT. Jodi has successfully led this program the past three years and Chad has returned for his 2nd year in a row. With their experience and training they could work for anyone, anywhere in the world, and we are flattered that they continue to return to Longacre each summer.

Day 2 began with the Wilderness First Aid certification. A longtime veteran of the wilderness medical world, our WMI Instructor, Greg,has been teaching in the field for over 20 years. The training focused on best practice wilderness protocols- how to assess an emergency in the backcountry, how to check vitals, how to splint a broken limb, etc. Hopefully, they won't have to put any of their new-found skills to the test this month. The next day, the crew took to the Arkansas River for their first taste of whitewater. Instructor Greg headed down in advance with a crew of rookie rafting guides and they staged an emergency response scene complete with hypothermic victims, impaled objects, and broken limbs. Again, this was just for pretend, allowing our group some hands-on practice. Greg reported that the group did a terrific job and was impressed with this class. Everyone earned their Wilderness First Aid certification and were ready to move on to the next phase of this adventure: mountaineering and backpacking.

Yesterday afternoon, the expedition hiked up towards Mt. Augusta to go find some snow to play on. We won’t hear from LELT for the next 5 days, so stay tuned. The backcountry nature of this program lends itself to few Journal entries, but we will try to post whenever we hear from them.