Navigation/Survival Weekend with RAT

I mentioned a while back that RAT was generously hosting free training several times throughout 2013 on a variety of topics. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Navigation/Survival one this past weekend up in northeast Alabama. I live just about 2 hours due west of their training property, and with the time zones working for me, it was an easy drive in on Friday morning.

Of the twelve guys that planned to attend, only eight ended up actually making the class. With four instructors on site the whole weekend, it was an incredible opportunity to train in close contact and pick up techniques from those guys. 

Day 1 was spent entirely on map and compass navigation. I admitted there and will again here – I have learned these skills three separate times now, once in ALERT, once with Jim Greene at SE-SOS, and again here with RAT. Navigation is one of those skills that if you don’t keep up on, it degrades quickly! The first half of the day was classroom exercises – shooting an azimuth, reading your compass, understanding topography, accounting for declination, etc. Classroom work done, we hit the woods in two teams. The goal was to navigate to 5 different sets of UTM coordinates in opposite directions. Jeff Randall didn’t spare our feelings or arms one bit and sent us through thick Alabama bramble. He did give a machete to each team, so there is that… Two of the members of our team were with Asheville Fire, and I actually ended up learning quite a bit from them along the way too. With their search and rescue perspective, it shed light on additional use applications to these skills. Jeff and his wife, Wendy, shadowed our group, occasionally slowing us down to offer a suggestion or point out a terrain feature. I picked up a ton of info and got another chance to ingrain the skills into my brain. 

Day 2 was my day. Firestarting, traps, natural shelters, woodcraft and knife skills, cleaning game, everything a woodsman would enjoy. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Fellow north Georgian Patrick Rollins did the instruction most of the day.

Lean-to debris shelter with reflector wall

The start if a beautiful debris shelter

The living room

Adding some insulation

Spacious living quarters

Day 3 was once again a lot of material that was once familiar from my ALERT training, but has either changed over time or been lost in my memory. Hugh Coffee was the instructor for nearly all of this material and covered serious injury care.  I’ve been entertaining the idea going through the EMT-B process as an avenue to get involved in overseas missions, and the day’s training solidified my intent to do so.

Hugh Coffee demonstrating a variety of bandages

Broken femur traction device

Field expedient traction device

A few additional notes about the training in general – You won’t find an easier set of guys to learn from that the RAT instructors. They specifically asked at the beginning, ‘Hey, if you see us teaching something and you know a better way, tell us. We want to teach the best, easiest methods out there.’ Every question I heard was taken seriously and answered. Every suggestion was met with a nod and then discussion. Though the RAT guys are experts, professionals in their field, the atmosphere was that we are all enjoying the practice and skills. And another thing. They didn’t push their knives at all. When asked about it, Jeff answered some specific questions and that was that. No selling, no bashing other brands.

I don’t have a negative thing to say about the course. The material, the location, the instructors, the weather, the methodology, the whole thing was top notch and a great time. 

There is no way I am going to get away with not admitting that this is where I slept all weekend. Alas, it's true. I'm for full on primitive roughing it, but I am not going to freeze in my hammock 10 yards away from my vehicle. Nope.

The jungle grill loaded down with chicken

Just a cool method of building a wood frame when no lashing is available