The weekend opened as much needed rain poured down on the mountain, two inches by the end of the day Saturday, which was more than enough to dampen the spirits of most visitors.. but not all.
The absence of hikers enabled the ORMS to do a lot of hands-on training under the guidance of Chad and Jeremy... a whole day of learning.. likened by some to taking a drink from a fully pressurized fire hose... a lot of info in a relatively short bit of time.
Sunday was a different story. Similar to the previous Saturday, the parking lot was approaching capacity by noon, and the lines of hikers at the summit choke points added a different dimension to the hiking challenge. (If you click on this picture, you can see the folks lined up on the far right side of the image, ORMS steward Bob L is in the right foreground, white shirt, helping folks up and over.)
We had four new stewards with us for the weekend, including former (and still part-time) SMG guide extraordinaire, PatMo.. great fun, great cameraderie... with a total of 10 different stewards over 2 days.
Besides the usual reconnecting misplaced hikers with their groups, we were able to assist new backpackers with their Leave No Trace skills and practices, and taught some strategies for positive human backpacker behavior in nuisance bear territory.
We're all marking our calendars for the last weekend in March, 2009,when we will be having our annual field training extravaganza... watch for details!
No comments:
Post a Comment