Cave Rescue
The RAT-SAR team spent the weekend with teams from North Carolina for their third annual cave rescue exercise. The event has grown since its inception three years ago with more rescuers and teams participating. This year’s event featured a multi-drop vertical that required the rescuers to navigate tight horizontal passage, as well as raising the […]
2019 Idaho Bushcraft
The 2019 Backcountry Bushcraft class was a huge success! Students came from as far away as Nashville, Tennessee to take a tour of Rowen Manufacturing and learn many bushcraft and primitive skills. Shon Rowen led the tour of the facility and explained the entire process of making an ESEE knife. Students were then allowed to pick a model, […]
WFR 2019
Some classes are just more special than others. Our most recent Wilderness First Responder course was just one of those classes that stands out in our minds as “one for the record books”. Why it stands out is difficult to express, but I will try to provide a few reasons on what made this a class to remember. […]
Lynch Search – Smoky Mountains National Park
After spending four nights in the Smoky Mountains near the Cataloochee Trail, Kevin Lynch was found by search and rescue personnel, alert and responsive. For our non-profit search and rescue team (RAT-SAR,) it was a true honor to work alongside many other professional agencies, ultimately leading to this very successful outcome. We can’t thank all the […]
Bonas Defeat Canyon
Being that we love canyoneering, Bonas Defeat in North Carolina has been on our radar for some time. We finally got the chance to run it with a few search and rescue folks from the NC teams. Water was running higher than normal due to work on the powerplant that controls the flow through the […]
ESEE-AGK Goes Hog Hunting
Not gonna lie…. I love my job, but somedays are just better than others. Recently Patrick Rollins, Jackson Adams, and I went to Childress TX to meet up with Ashley Emerson for a hog hunt. Ashley has been a product designer in the gun industry for decades and has most recently designed our latest project: […]
Training Weekend
The hot temperatures didn’t keep the attendance down this past weekend at Randall’s Adventure & Training. On Saturday, we had our biggest class to date for the Intro to Survival Course. Students spent the day learning the basics of survival, building shelters, learning knife safety and use, and fire-making. For a few it was a refresher in the […]
MSAR Training / Wolf Creek
This past weekend found us back in the mountain of North Carolina training with the MSAR teams on Saturday. As always, the MSAR training scenario was pretty awesome with about 2000’ of rope in play along with gin poles, rock pro, and dual tension systems. We had a total of 18 rescuers working on Horsehoe Rock. […]
Over The Edge
For the past couple of years we have been experimenting with portable high directional edge management systems for our technical rope rescue and recreational rope activities. While the concept is nothing new in the rope rescue world, the cost associated with commercial lightweight systems is sometimes a bit expensive. Add to that a general lack […]
Southeastern Canyoneering
The RAT team was invited back to North Carolina this past weekend to run a hidden gem of a canyon – not only for the fun but for the training value for the eventual rescue(s) that will happen due to the increase of visitors to the area. The canyon is in a fairly remote area […]