SOLO has a campus up in North Conway, NH though they also teach classes in other locations.

Web site here.

I have some friends who are instructors in Wilderness Medical Associates. Some of the best are there.
http://www.wildmed.com/

I think this is a good thought. Something to do during the winter months. I try to take a first aid related course every year. Not that difficult, seeing as my EFR card requires a refresher course every two years to remain valid.

I got my Oxygen Administration certificate last year. It's really amazing how much O2 can do towards keeping someone alive long enough to get to the ER.

I'll be recertifying through these guys http://www.wildmed.com/ no experience with them yet but they offer courses all throughout the NE.

I'd be a little hesitant to shell out the cash for a 5 day course. Most WFR certs I'm aware of are 72-80 hours long and most recert places want an initial course length of 64+ hours so a 5 day course seems kind of short. I notice it says Ontario so maybe the certs are different from the US to Canada.

As far as high angle rescue you can always hire a local guide to teach you rope rescue skills. IMHO the quality of courses varies tremendously but you get what you put into them so if you do a good bit of self study and try to motivate the other participants if it is needed then you should take a good bit away from the course.

My sister teaches CPR and she does say smaller classes move more quickly. I have heard other instructors say the same. I would want to see a course outline and ask if they could teach a little bit more.
And from personal experience a smaller class is better,unless you have some particularly dense classmates,then your time is long

KristoriaBlack wrote:Yeah, that is exactly what got me hesitant about the WRF course taught by that group. They told me that because the class sizes are so small, 1:1 or 1:2 that they can get the 80 hour course taught in 50 hours.

Does that sound reasonable? To anyone who's taken the course is there a lot of time wasted because of the large group sizes? And I heard the WFR is pretty intense, is it a good idea to cram the 80 hour course into 5 days?

I remember in highschool I went to a private school for my grade 13 calculus credit that offered to give me the credit at an accelarated pace. I got the credit but the next year I took calculus as a required course in undergrad and flunked out horribly. I don't want the same thing to happen should my skills ever be needed, on the other hand the course is offered quite close to home.

Well, I guess we might have paired as much as 4-8 hours off and we had a smaller class with a good instructor/student ratio but 72 down to 50 is so much that they must be skimping on something. I don't know the place you posted so this isn't a knock on them but I can't see how you can cram the amount of material we covered down to a five day course. NOLS is sort of the standard (although I didn't do it with them) and they run an 80 hour course http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/wildfir ... nder.shtml Wildmed offers a 5 day course with 25 hours of pre study for a total of 70 recorded hourshttp://www.wildmed.com/outdoor-pro ... 5-day.html , the place I did it required 72 http://www.wildernessmedicine.com/Class ... fault.aspx.

Maybe your place also requires prior study and credits you for 64+ hours when completed? If so that is probably fine, a lot of it is DIY study.

I'd say the biggest concern you have is that it is tough to recert wfr courses in general and you will not want to do the whole thing ever again. I'm driving 6 hours each way and spending three nights at a hotel for my recert because I never want to put the time and money into the full course again. Practically speaking you probably want to keep the cert once you get it and 50 hours probably won't cut it other places. So, my advice would be, as annoying as finding and taking these courses can be, to make sure you can recert it. If you aren't likely to move anytime soon and the place you are getting it from has been around long enough then consider it an option. If you find yourself elsewhere needing to recert through a different agency proceed with caution.

It is well worth doing though and I've never understood why more places don't make it modular so that more people can go through it.

I did the original WFR cert with WMA (wildmed.com) and re-certify with WMI (NOLS). Both are good, although I like WMA better for its clinical skills and more in-depth protocols.