General Backcountry Safety

The Mountain Rescue Association offers a free, on-line course - "General Backcountry Safety" (http://training.mra.org/) - that is designed to provide an introduction for beginners and intermediate backcountry enthusiasts to help develop safe habits in the backcountry. This material is designed to cover the fundamental ideas that will help equip you to travel safely and be able to deal with emergency situations that can occur in the backcountry.

At the conclusion of this course, students should be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of outdoor fundamentals
Identify how to be adequately prepared for a backcountry trip
Know what to do when you are lost
Determine how to avoid the hazards of nature

If you spend time exploring the backcountry of Cascadia, General Backcountry Safety is the course for you. The course manual (PDF) can be downloaded here. 


For younger children, SAR Academy offers the Hug-a-Tree and Survive program, which teaches children how to survive in the woods should they become lost. The program was developed to educate children in a select few of the most basic and vital survival principles.

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