Wednesday, July 29, 2015

BAMRU at Western States Endurance Run

This year BAMRU continued the tradition of staffing a team for the medical aid station at mile 85 of the Western States Endurance Run. Seven members volunteered to stay up all night to help ensure the safety and well being of the runners who had made it to that point of one of the most difficult 100 mile courses in the country.

The runners start in Squaw Valley, California and have a 30 hour cut off time to make it the grueling 100.2 miles to Placer High School in Auburn. Some years snow has altered the course, but this year heat was one of the main obstacles. Some of the valleys reached over 100 degrees on race day.

BAMRU's medical crew was responsible for assessing each runner as they passed through the station to make sure they weren't showing signs of what can be dangerous electrolyte imbalances. In addition, we also did a lot of shoe patching, blister care and basic first aid. We were prepared to run up or down the trail to assist any runner in need of aid and even prepared to perform carry outs or evacuations that required the use of our litter and wheel. Fortunately, none of the runners needed this kind of assistance.

We had a great night, met some wonderful volunteers and were inspired by the perseverance and endurance of the runners.

Photos courtesy of Chris Seffens and Ben Yaffe:



Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Training to be Spiderman

by Tyler Phelan

During the weekend of June 20th, BAMRU hosted its annual Personal Rock Skills course, this year, led by Tyler Phelan. The course was held near Indian Springs campground, about 25 minutes west of Truckee, CA. 

Participants rotated through 6 skills stations on Saturday including: rappelling; ascending a rope using Purcell prussics; anchor building; escaping the belay; knot passing while rappelling and ascending, and finally, skills involved in working effectively around the Edge of a cliff as the Edge attendant. This year the time spent at each station was increased to enable more practice. 



Saturday evening attendees participated in a fantastic night scenario designed by Thom Dedecko and Blake Gleason. The scenario included three missing people with varying injuries and locations. As always, a lot was learned and it was one of the highlights of the weekend!



The weekend was capped with a fun Ropes Course on Sunday, led by Lyndsey Chromik and Adam Garcia. The goal of the course was to practice the skills learned on Saturday, and provide the flexibility for participants to focus on any area they wanted. Adam and Lyndsey had the great idea of making the skills practice into a game of bingo and had delicious prizes for the winners--nice work! 



We already looking forward to Personal Rock Skills 2016! Hope to see you all there!