principleintopractice

My Wilderness Medicine elective has officially come to a close. In the last three weeks I’ve experienced three very different environments (alpine, river, and desert) and learned lots of pre-hospital medical care for emergencies that arise in the wilderness.  I have quite a bit to write about, but I liked doing a “pic of the day” for the alpine session, so before I get to a thorough write up of the course I’ll post a “pic of the day” for the river and desert portions.

While the course is over, my adventure hasn’t come to an end.  I’m currently taking 2 weeks of vacation time to visit with my best friend, first spending more time in Utah in and around Moab and then heading back to her home in Boulder Colorado.  I hope to get some good writing in during this time… we shall see!

Without further ado- “pic of the day” river style!

Day 1- We started our adventure at the Sand Wash put in on the Green River where we camped, sans-tent, under the stars…

Camping under the stars.

Day 2- Over the next 5 days we travelled ~87 miles down the Green River, passing through Desolation Canyon and Gray Canyon.  We saw a few different areas with petroglyphs, presumed to be from Fremont people.

Petroglyphs carved into “desert varnish”, which according to the river guides (and wikipedia) is at least partially made of manganese.

Day 3- Sun rising on the cliffs of Desolation Canyon.  This pic is a bit deceiving, as we actually had more “bad” weather than good.  I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that we got to experience rain in the desert, but getting hammered with more than a third of the area’s average annual rainfall over 4 days could get a bit demoralizing!

The morning view from our campground. A great view by which to enjoy your morning coffee…

Day 4- Please allow me two pics for this day- I couldn’t chose just one (it would be easy to pick a gorgeous landscape for each day, but there really was a lot more to see).

The view from another campground…

Equipment at an abandoned ranch. During our float down the river we saw abandoned ranches, old mines, and even an old moonshine distillery.

Day 5- At the end of the day we would gather around a fire recapping the day, telling jokes, and marveling at where we were.  Off the grid, without technology or the distraction of modern society, it was wonderful to decompress.

Social gathering place and hot spot for heating evening beverages.

Day 6- Our last day of camp was spent just below Rattle Snake Rapids (I loved going to sleep to the sound of rapids).  We were pampered on this portion of the trip, being taken care of by river guides- renaissance men of the modern age.  They’re guides, chefs, handymen, naturalists, historians, and fascinating individuals… I hope to reconnect with some when I return to Moab.

The nomadic life, with a new campground each night, was great- especially when gear was being floated down the river and not packed on our back!

I’ll post some pics from the desert section when I get a chance!

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And for the skeptics, who question whether there was any medical learning on this trip…

I’ll write more on the medical learning in a future post, but here you can see me rocking an improvised humeral splint… in a torrential downpour (thank goodness for Gortex!)