Seasonal Medical Issues- The backcountry emergencies you're most likely to face change depending on the time of year. We go deep on what's most relevant right now — whether that's heat illness and envenomation in summer, hypothermia and frost-nip heading into fall, or the specific risk profiles of the terrain you're adventuring in. This isn't a surface-level overview. We get into recognition, treatment decisions, and the nuances that textbooks gloss over.

Patient Assessment Drills- The NOLS patient assessment system is only useful if it's automatic. We drill it the same way we always do: over and over until it stops being something you have to think about and starts being something you just do. You'll run full head-to-toe assessments on simulated patients in real field conditions — not in a clean classroom, but out in the mess where it actually happens.

Realistic Emergency Scenarios -This is the heart of the class. You'll work through multiple scenarios built on real incidents — the kind of emergencies Ali and her teammates have actually dealt with in over a decade of leading backcountry expeditions. Each scenario is designed to be messy, ambiguous, and urgent — because that's what real emergencies are. You'll make the calls, lead the response, and debrief on what worked and what didn't.

Decision-Making Under Pressure- Knowing the protocols is step one. Executing them when you're stressed, your patient is scared, and your teammates are looking to you for direction is a completely different skill. We train that too.