Content Discussions

Content & Curriculum

On River Skills

Safety and Emergencies

• Rope Skills

  • Rope safety - when is it appropriate to use a rope?

  • Anchors - how to attach to boat, shore.

  • Rope basics: types, etc.

• Knife Usage

• Conducting a safe trip

  • Pre trip meetings

  • Conditions: equipment, river, weather

  • Communication

  • Safety Talk

  • Paddle Talk

  • Put-in meeting: roles, boat order, objectively assessing guide/guest readiness, comfort, and ability.

  • Roles: first aid, rescue, leader, support.

• Incident Response

  • Self, Others, Equipment

  • Count Heads

  • Promote a calm response.

  • Stop Think Observe Plan

  • Typical reactions in an emergency

  • Signaling and communication in an incident

  • Post-incident assessment / evaluation - physical and emotional.

  • Importance of guide self-rescue

• Scenarios

• Training Opportunities: WFA/WFR/SWR, etc.

Off River Skills

Equipment

Personal equipment required/recommended/nice to have

How to manage personal equipment on a trip – one day, overnight in campground, expedition

Camping:

    Pitch a tent

    Camping in the rain

Logistics – plan a shuttle (Sierra Club carpool rules?)

Carpool(Sierra Club carpool rules?)

Games

Tribes – is each trainee taking initiative?

Mel's list:

• Games

• Managing Personal Gear

  • Required equipment

  • Recommended equipment

  • "Nice to Have" equipment

  • (LINK TO EQUIPMENT/PACKING LISTS)

• Roles & Leadership

• Trip logistics

  • Carpools and shuttles

  • Timing

• Throw bag practice

• Knots (just a few practical ones)

• Pre-trip for weekend one

• Games and circles

• Camp Management

  • Breaking Camp

  • Leave No Trace ethics

• Kitchen

  •     Stoves

  •     Comm kit

  •     Sanitation, personal & cooking

  •     Garbage

• tent or not to tent

• Tarps for shelter and tarps for the environment

• Into to river etiquette & quiet zones

• SOFAR conservation and history

• Intro to working with ICO participant groups

  • Who we serve

  • how a participant trip works

  • Working with youth (our constituents in particular)

  • managing groups - games, activities,conservation/Environmental education and teamwork

• Good ICO citizenship

  • group awareness

  • self management

  • listening skills

  • how to be a good volunteer (more later!)

  • expectations

On River

• Hypothermia Talk (on and off river) and cold weather gear

• Put-in / Take-out management

• Time management

• Boat care

  • inflation and rigging

  • deflation and rolling (after a day of use)

• PFD Basics

• Paddle talk

• How to sit in the boat (as guide and paddler)

• Boat handling principles

  • guide strokes and commands (as guide and paddler)

  • Using crew

  • Ferrying

• Hydrology Demo

  • • Identify obstacles

    • Reading water /river hazards

    • Intro to Scouting rapids

    • Introduce Eddy

• Water/boat comfort

  • swimming class 1 & 2 water (yes, it's cold)

  • self rescue

  • rescuing others (with & w/o a bag)

  • sticks and flips

• Safety Talk

• Signals

• Knots

  • Bow-line coil

  • Truckers Hitch

  • Mooring Hitch

  • No-knot

  • Quick Release

• River etiquette & quiet zones

• Reading water /river hazards / communication

• Momentum control / maneuvering

• Boat spacing and attention to other boats

• Avoiding obstacles

• Catching eddies

• Introduce forward away options

• Scouting rapids part II:

  • Safety while scouting

  • Picking routes

  • Identify channels

  • Communicating the plan

• South Fork

  • Lines through major rapids

  • Rapid names (acronyms?)

• Incident Management

  • Stop Think Observe Plan

  • Stuck boats

  • Swimmers

  • Flips / Dumptrucks / Wraps

  • Communication

  • Protocols (TBD)

• Swimming rapids class 3

• Flip drills in moving water

• Advanced sticks and flips

• Pivoting

Comments from old page:

Jon Wurl - May 28, 2009 8:33 AM 

I think under "working with ICO groups" there should be a cultural diversity awareness section. In general, ICO (as ICO) gets short-changed in our guide training. This is for a reason, because there is so much other intense hard-skill training that needs to occur. I wonder if maybe another classroom session might be the way to handle it?

Jon Wurl - May 28, 2009 8:35 AM 

And what I mean by "ICO as ICO" is the types of things other ICO groups do nationally, or the equivalent of what SJ ICO calls "volunteer orientation."

Not part of Basic Training

MISCELLANEOUS SKILLS

Groover

INSTRUCTOR SUPPORT

Instructor training

Instructor refresher class?

Tune-up: instructor rafts to trade tricks, techniques

Review progressions, new curriculum