KEEPING OUR SKILLS SHARP
Earlier this week, JJ and I spent the day in Rancho Cordova at the Prairie City State Vehicular Recreation Area (near Sacramento) for an All-Terrain-Vehicle (ATV) training. JJ has had practice driving ATVs in Guatemala with his uncle, but had never had formal training, and I took this training many years ago when I had just started at OWCN. So, it was good for both of us to spend the day with Mia Roberts from CDFW-OSPR as she instructed us (and two OSPR Game Wardens) on how to operate ATVs safely.
Over the years I have taken many trainings of various kinds: Incident Command System courses, EROS (Environmental Response to Oil Spills) training, HAZWOPER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response) trainings, MOTC (Motorboat Operator Training Course), Swiftwater Rescue training, Wilderness First Aid, and many more. I find all the trainings interesting (some more than others, of course), but it is always enjoyable to get to spend the day away from my computer, interacting with colleagues and people with similar roles as me, and learning (or refreshing) skills. With each of these trainings I feel like I am adding skills to my skill bank and honing my skills, which gives me more confidence for successfully filling roles during a response.
The ATV training was especially fun because there was no PowerPoint lecture! The entire day was outside, most of the time on the ATVs, learning and practicing skills. The day started with simply learning how to do the pre-trip ATV check, start the ATV, then progressing into harder skills such as driving forward, backward, turning, stopping, swerving around, and going over obstacles, and generally building more and more confidence on this machine in a safe and controlled manner. The final exercises consisted of driving up and down steep hills and then doing a challenge course, which made us practice all the different skills we had learned throughout the day: sharp turns, going down and up steep stairs, going over loose boulders and big bumps. It was challenging, but so much fun!
At the end of the day, I was exhausted (and a bit sore!), but now I feel much more confident driving our ATVs if we ever need to use them during a response. I'm already looking forward to a next training!
Kyra