Packing List: What's a Gaiter?

gait⋅er /n./
a covering of cloth or leather for the ankle and instep and sometimes also the lower leg, worn over the shoe or boot.

One of the most important items on our CRROBS packing list for our hikers is a pair of gaiters. The majority of incoming students - and their parents - have never heard of them. I am one of those people.

Donna White, one of our veteran and most beloved land instructors, has fully explained what is required of a gaiters purchase and why they are so detrimental to a hiking experience in the rainforest.

She says they must be:
1. well-fitted
2. snug
3. tall (to your knee)

They are necessary to:
*keep out mud (especially during rainy season)
*keep socks and feet clean and dry (when it rains and when crossing rivers)
*protect from thorny or poisonous plants
*protect from bugs bites

Watch this video in which Donna demonstrates how to wear gaiters and how they remarkably help our jungle hikers.



Do you need to purchase some? Click here to find a multitude of options where you can find the best gaiters for you.

Students in WRT Training

November 2, 2009

This week we sent our Water & Wave and Tri-Country students out to Rio Pejibaye to get a taste for what it takes to be a river guide. They will have two days of training in WRT, Whitewater Rescue Technician, while our Leadership students receive the full certification.

What does it take to be Rescue 3, WRT-certified?

The course concentrates on advanced water rescue skills for river guides and professionals, including managing the rescue scene, litter management and the utilization of teams. Costa Rica Outward Bound students get their training and certification through reputable Rescue 3 International. Four days of training, practice, experience and testing are required to obtain that coveted certification card.

1. Classroom instruction (1 day)
2. Developing and practicing water rescue skills in the river including search and rescue scenarios (3 days)
*Developing self-rescue skills
*Controlling in-water contact rescues
*Handling hazards and obstacles
*Setting up technical rope systems
*Understanding water dynamics
*Using basic rescue equipment
3. Written test

All CRROBS rafting instructors have not only been certified by Rescue 3 International's WRT program, but they renew this certification once a year. They run so many rivers and have so much valued experience, in fact, that the International Rafting Federation (IRF) has asked them to help structure and standardize its training program. An article explaining this series of standardization seminars (taking place on CRROBS base) will be posted in the upcoming week.

Viva la Tortuga!

Long live the turtle!

‘Tis the season to be nesting. Every year from August to October, two of Costa Rica's three sea turtle species lay most of their eggs on the coastlines: the Green Turtles in Tortugero National Park (Caribbean coast) and Olive Ridley Turtle in Guanacaste (Pacific coast). There are seven species of sea turtles found in the world, all of which are endangered. Therefore many animal lovers fly to Costa Rica to do their part in assisting with turtle conservation projects set up by Costa Rica-based organizations.

Costa Rica Outward Bound is one of these organizations. And this week, students from two of our fall semester courses, Water & Wave and Tri-Country, are sacrificing their sleep to help out on the beaches of the Pacific Coast.

With a special partnership with one of Costa Rica’s turtle refuges (an area protected by the government) in Tulin, CRROBS students are able to participate in the conservation of these beloved animals. There are three crucial ways through which our students participate in the conservation process:

1. Beach cleaning: maintain and improve the beach; rescuing turtles if necessary
2. Night patrols: protect eggs from poachers and predators
3. Collecting eggs: place them in a secure hatchery area

The beaches must be maintained because, in the off-season, the sea turtles stay in the water. When it is time to lay their eggs (mainly between August and October), they exit the water and follow the moon to find a safe spot to lay them. Because they do not see very well, they are confused if the beach has too many obstacles and no place to go. Volunteers, including our students, clear the beaches maintain safe places where turtles consistently go to lay their eggs year after year.

In addition, poachers steal eggs, and predators eat them. Turtle eggs are a delicacy and can sell for a lot of money. As night time is both the time when eggs are laid and the time when poachers and predators make their moves, conservationists set out around midnight and again at 3am to safeguard eggs and relocate them to safer places. Costa Rica Outward Bound’s students make these patrols every night while camping on Playa Hermosa.

Through these efforts, CRROBS students and conservation organizations all over the country hope to repopulate the beaches with these adored creatures.

To read more from a previous CRROBS newsletter, click here.

Water Adventuring

October 23, 2009

Our three fall semester courses, Tri-Country, Water & Wave, and Leadership, are all daring Costa Rica's world-renowned clean waterways this week. Rivers, estuaries, surf breaks, oceans, waterfalls... they're experiencing it all!

Water & Wave and Tri-Country students have combined courses this week on the Pacific coast. The first day of their "combo course" was on Tuesday on our Manuel Antonio base (Click here for a satellite map; the arrow is about one inch west of where our base is located) when surf instructors Carlos "Diablos" Castro Montero and Alex Cook immediately began teaching surf basics to the Tri-Country students who just arrived that day with their primary instructors, Donna White and Santiago Lopez Salazar.

And since then, they've been even more active. All four CRROBS instructors have led the students north to a peninsula called Isla de Damas where they kayaked down an estuary in duckies (a.k.a. inflatable kayaks or IKs; see picture on right) into the ocean. It is there where they will camp and surf. One of the most important reasons for going through all of this trouble to get to a new beach? Uncrowded waters. Leave it to CRROBS' surf instructors to know the best beaches for enjoying the "barrel" experience. Carlos reported yesterday "all of the students are doing really well."

In other areas of Costa Rica, the Leadership students spent Day Number Two busing to Taos, their "put in" (rafting term for where a rafting trip begins) at Río Pejibaye. Whitewater rafting experts - and CRROBS instructors - Felipe Lopez Salazar, Joe Ewing, and Carlos Granados Flores will guide these new leaders for nine days down the river to their "take out" (rafting vernacular for the point at which rafters exit the river) in Puente de Oriente. Río Pejibaye is a Class II-III river here in Costa Rica, which is no sweat for our rafting guides who frequent the class IV-V rivers. Leadership students will have no problem following instructions; from what we've heard from their instructors: "This is a great group of students."

Backpacking Tips & Tricks: Cooking

If you are a past student, an instructor, or a wilderness enthusiast, you have been in this situation: the fire won't build, and you're hungry. Hopefully, you finally succeeded, or maybe you resulted to eating raw food. In the case of the latter, we have gathered a few tips to help you the next time you are starving in the wilderness.

So here are some helpful tips:

• Where: on a sandy or rocky area (or near a supply of sand and water so as to avoid forest fires!)
• Most common mistakes: choosing poor tinder, failing to shield precious matches from the wind and smothering the flames with too-large pieces of fuel
• Four Key components: spark, tinder, fuel, oxygen
• How to create a spark: matches, a lighter, flint against steel, electric spark from a battery, or sun rays through a magnifying glass

Or if you are a serious camper ready to make your own stove (and avoid the struggles of building a fire), see this 1.5-minute video for making a do-it-yourself stove out of a can, a tac, a razor, antifreeze, a piece of tape, and a small piece of insulation.