At the end of October another wilderness first aid training deal was arranged. This time it was up north of Sedona overlooking the valley to the south.
A view from camp when we arrived:
Shortly after we arrived, we split up into groups. One group:
The other group:
Shortly after we began, we were visited by the Forest Service's finest:
It seems we weren't following one of the new Forest Service rules to a "T". Meh.
So we learned all kinds of different things that need to be known in a backcountry emergency situation. It actually illustrates what can't be done very well and very often the best option is to secure the injured and transport to a real medical facility. A lot of what is covered is how to prepare the injured for transport and how to diagnose some of the more common conditions that can arise in the wilderness--like dehydration.
After dinner, we were treated to a fire starting demonstration. This guy can start a fire with two sticks and a shoelace faster than I can start one with a Bic:
The next morning we packed up and a few of us traveled down the trail a ways to a place where we could park and proceeded to hike out to a point to find an airplane crash site. A view on the way out:
The site is the final resting place of a Stinson Reliant SR-9C that belonged to and was piloted by Gerald Vultee and his wife Sylvia was his only passenger. Unfortunately, they both perished in the crash. There is a great article about the crash here:
http://verdenews.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&SubsectionID=114&ArticleID=43609 and of course there is the usual Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_Aircraft . The Wiki is more about the Vultee Company, but it has a good timeline of the company and who bought and sold it throughout the years.
Most of the aircraft is gone having been salvaged after the crash and scrappers over time reducing the total amount of remains to nearly nothing, but still pretty good compared to many wreck sites throughout the state/southwest. There are, however, still some pieces of the airframe still visible.
The tail section/elevator/rear wheel mounting:
A piece of exhaust manifold with a chunk of engine exhaust port on it:
A general overview of the site:
We found some local wildlife on the hike out; the infamous horny toad:
A look back over to where we camped. We were right above the white cliff off to the right:
All in all it was a good trip. Learning about how to keep people alive in emergency situations is a very good thing to know. Seeing a crash site and learning some history about it was right up my alley. I'm not much on hiking, but in the end it was well worth the effort.
. The last trip I almost broke a rubber exhaust pipe mount 
