Redwood Rangers in Jedediah Redwoods National Park

Course: Swiftwater Rescue Technician
Dates: 2/25-2/27
Where: Redwood National Park
Instructors: Don Lester and Ryan Higgins

We spent the day with the Redwood National Park Rangers on the Smith River right in Jedediah Redwoods National Park. The water was low at approximately 1200 CFS and a beautiful clear blue color, which the Smith is known for. The water temperature was a chilly 42 degrees, but we got lucky all three days to have 60 degree weather outside.

The course organizer, Joel Leachman, deserves an extra thank you for providing us with coffee and donuts every morning, as well as building us a fire everyday to warm up between scenarios. When I arrived the day before, Joel spent all afternoon scouting sites with me for the course. He also put Ryan and I up in the National park campground and had us over to his house one night for dinner.

The 3 day course went really well. We had 12 folks for the class with varied skills in and out of the water. Having Ryan as a co-instructor allowed us to run more scenarios with less downtime between. It was really neat to see how well the group ran scenarios and balanced their resources, they were obviously used to the ICS structure of things.

We focused the first day on self rescue and getting comfortable in the water. Day 2 was mostly a scenario day and day three we integrated ropes into the systems. It’s always amazing to see the level of comfort and confidence in the water increase over the three days. Great course.