Aaron
That's me.
I'm 21 years old and currently work as a lifeguard and swim instructor for the local recreation commission. Up until this passed summer, I had been busy trying to figure out what the hell kind of career I wanted to get into. In the two years I spent at Capilano University, I was working towards a bachelors of arts with a major in anthropology. I wanted to become Indiana Jones, except without all the Nazis constantly fouling my day, however after spending lots of money and time on that, I realized that it wasn't really my thing, as cool as it was, and I decided to put post secondary on hold until I found the right fit. My plan changed from school to work and saving up money while I figured out what it was I wanted to do. While I began working near full-time hours at the pool, I began looking into the military. The military was something I had always had an interest in. It looked right up my alley.
I've always been an outdoors kind of guy. Much of my childhood was outside in my backyard playing with my dog Jade, wrestling with my older brother Ben on our trampoline, running back and forth across my backyard as my oldest brother, Jon, practiced his aim with his paintball gun. We loved building forts and spent two summers building a tree house which was really a miniature house next to one of the trees in our yard. I loved playing sports, organized or unorganized. I got into baseball for a couple of years, though that didn't work out because I grew tired of getting hit with the ball every time it was pitched at me. I moved on to gymnastics with my second oldest brother, Ben, and my younger sister, Brooke. It was fun for a while but we couldn't afford to keep doing it after a while so we stopped doing that too, though Ben kept going and hasn't lost the ability to wow everyone with his insane flips and tricks.
From the time I was about 4 years old until I was around 11, we lived in Nanaimo. During the summers there, my family loved to hike all over Vancouver Island. We would regularly hike around Pipers Lagoon and walk the beach in Departure Bay. We would drive to Tofino other places along the West Coast and spend hours walking and beach-combing. At night, all throughout the year we would go and play what we called "Night Games" which really was a big game of flashlight tag. My siblings and I would get dressed up in dark or camouflage clothing, paint our faces like Rambo or Seal Team Six, and go out into our half-acre yard and hide. We'd sneak around the yard looking for the next best place to hide before my mom and my step-dad came out to find us. Those summers were fantastic.
Got to see Pipers Lagoon at the end of the summer with Kait. The fort my siblings and I built there as kids was still there.
Another view of Pipers Lagoon. This is looking east towards
the mainland
In the winter, we would spend any time we weren't in school or didn't have chores to do outside in the snow any time there was snow, and a few years in a row we had some great dumps of snow. We would build snow forts and have huge snowball fights. Occasionally, someone would get mad, and if that someone was bigger than you, you often got face washed in a pile of powder. One year, we were driving around town getting some errands done when some teens decided it would be a good idea to pelt our crappy old van with some snowballs. Little did they know there was a family of 7 inside, all with good arms. We pulled the van around the block, hopped out, and snuck into the car lot that the teens were throwing snowballs from. We all packed a few good snowballs and after everyone was ready, we charged them. I can only imagine what we must have looked like, especially since some of us were pretty young (me and my younger sister were about 6 and 4, respectively), but the kids we were attacking seemed pretty scared, and it wasn't long before they bolted for the hills.
Another good memory from one of the winters spent in Nanaimo was the time that we went to my elementary school to go tobogganing only to find that a group of people had constructed one of the largest snow forts I'd ever seen. It was about 5-6 feet tall and had a roof made of a bunch of light plastic tobaggans. Those inside the fort were raining snowballs down on everyone else on the field, and everyone else was trying to hit those inside the fort but weren't doing awfully well at it. My family and I decided we'd join in on the fun and began trying to get those inside as well. I don't remember a whole lot of what happened but I do remember that at one point I managed to throw a snowball through a small viewing hole about 5 or 6 inches in diameter and smoked on of the kids inside on the face. I also remember that a little while later, my brother Ben decided to sprint up to the fort using a garbage can lid as a shield and launch himself at it, destroying the main wall of the fort and exposing everyone inside. It was pretty damn cool.
Anyway, very long story short, my childhood was spent mostly outdoors, and so when I began looking at potential careers after dropping out of CapU, the military-more specifically the infantry-seemed very appealing to me because of the outdoors aspect of the job. It wasn't the kind of job that kept you in an office all day. It was a challenge, both physical and mental. It was a job where I could learn a very unique skillset that I didn't think any other job could offer. While the idea of going to do my BMQs, or Basic Military Qualifications (basic training) made me a little nervous, I was excited for what would come after those hard few months. I wanted to become a SAR Tech, which is short for Search And Rescue Technician and is part of the Air Force. Those guys were hardcore, and it was very difficult to attain the job for several reasons: the job is highly competitive, and the training is extremely difficult to pass.
The good looks started at a young age.
Anyway, very long story short, my childhood was spent mostly outdoors, and so when I began looking at potential careers after dropping out of CapU, the military-more specifically the infantry-seemed very appealing to me because of the outdoors aspect of the job. It wasn't the kind of job that kept you in an office all day. It was a challenge, both physical and mental. It was a job where I could learn a very unique skillset that I didn't think any other job could offer. While the idea of going to do my BMQs, or Basic Military Qualifications (basic training) made me a little nervous, I was excited for what would come after those hard few months. I wanted to become a SAR Tech, which is short for Search And Rescue Technician and is part of the Air Force. Those guys were hardcore, and it was very difficult to attain the job for several reasons: the job is highly competitive, and the training is extremely difficult to pass.
Like I previously said, SAR Techs are nuts. To put it simply, they're paramedics that jump out of planes and swing out of helicopters to reach the victims they go out to help. Anyone in any branch of the military can apply, and currently in order to apply to become a SAR Tech, they first have to put in 4 years of military service and have a pretty outstanding service record. During those 4 years, they need to apply for as much extra training in any field of work that may be applicable to one day becoming a SAR Tech. Things like skydiving, scuba diving, mountain climbing, basic and advanced first aid training, and advanced navigation and survival training all are applicable. After the 4 years are up, they can finally apply to the program. There are usually several hundred applicants, and those few hundred people 24-30 are selected to attend Pre-Selection Training which is two weeks long and involves several phases. Phase one is a 3 or 4 day period of navigation and survival training, physical testing, and issuing of gear. After this is over, they drop them off in the woods 5 kilometers from camp and have they hike in carrying about 90 lbs of kit. When they reach the camp, they bump up their gear until you're carrying about 120 lbs. There's more physical training and classes; periods where they don't sleep for days on end. After 5-6 days of this, what they call "motivation phase" is over. Next comes "trek phase" where they spend most of their days walking through heavy bush while carrying 120 lbs on their backs. Weather can be anything from snow to sunshine, and the snow makes it especially difficult to move about. This goes on for 4 days. Once complete, they do one final navigation test where they're on their own and have to reach a checkpoint and once they reach it, their gear is taken apart by instructors and they tell the applicants to eat any food they have. They then tell them that they're on their own for 4 more days, with no food and have to survive by making shelter, getting a fire started, making fishing nets, get a smoke signal started, and lots of other tasks. After those 4 days are up, instructors come by, assess the camp applicants have made, tell them to pack it all up or tear it all down, and tell them to hike another 10 kilometres back to the Jarvis Lake military base, which needless to say, isn't all that easy after 4 days of no food. They get to the base, immediately write a final exam, and then finally are released to go clean up, shower, brush teeth, and rest.
That's just Pre-Selection Training. After that, about 15 people of the roughly 30 candidates are invited to do the year-long course. I'll keep the main course part short because I need to move on.
That's just Pre-Selection Training. After that, about 15 people of the roughly 30 candidates are invited to do the year-long course. I'll keep the main course part short because I need to move on.
The course is once again split up into several phases consisting of Ground Ops, which involves more survival and navigation skills training and lots of exercise, Medical Phase in which they do the Primary Care Paramedic course in only a couple months, Winter Operations which is self explanatory, Arctic Operations which involves a lot of Arctic survival skills, Dive Phase which is learning to scuba dive, Sea Operations which is learning how to operate boats and learning survival and rescue techniques at sea, Parachuting Phase which again is self explanatory, Mountain Operations where they learn to mountain/ice climbing, and the final phase which brings everything together in a series of sims and tests and the students have to prove they can handle it all.
Anyway, that took a long time to explain, but that was what I wanted to do, and I began working towards it. I started physical training of my own, working to match the physical standards they had to complete on their PT tests, I looked into more advanced first aid courses, scuba diving courses, skydiving courses, and a list of other things that might one day help me become a SAR Tech. This was all happening in April and the previous September, I had signed up for Tough Mudder in Whistler, BC which was running in June. I got my best friend Loder to join me in it and we trained and trained for it. We hit the gym for hours, we did 10-15 kilometre runs, working ourselves up to a half-marathon distance. Now, around the same time, I began hanging out with people from work more often. That summer was just as much about getting excessively physically fit as it was about going downtown to the clubs and bars and partying. It was during these times that I met Kait, who I'm sure you've put together is the wonderful and gorgeous girl that runs this blog with me.
Anyway, that took a long time to explain, but that was what I wanted to do, and I began working towards it. I started physical training of my own, working to match the physical standards they had to complete on their PT tests, I looked into more advanced first aid courses, scuba diving courses, skydiving courses, and a list of other things that might one day help me become a SAR Tech. This was all happening in April and the previous September, I had signed up for Tough Mudder in Whistler, BC which was running in June. I got my best friend Loder to join me in it and we trained and trained for it. We hit the gym for hours, we did 10-15 kilometre runs, working ourselves up to a half-marathon distance. Now, around the same time, I began hanging out with people from work more often. That summer was just as much about getting excessively physically fit as it was about going downtown to the clubs and bars and partying. It was during these times that I met Kait, who I'm sure you've put together is the wonderful and gorgeous girl that runs this blog with me.
Now here we are, and I need to wrap this up because I'm rambling and going way too in-depth. I wanted to do this blog because I love the outdoors. I love the beauty of the outdoors, the solitude you can find in it, and the never ending adventures you can create with it. I want to hopefully get others outside and exploring too, because I think a lot of people forget to go on an adventure every once in a while or don't care to make the time to. Not to mention, by doing this blog, it has actually helped slow me down so I can appreciate the outdoors instead of always rushing around to get my run in before work, or bed, or whatever it is I need to do.
I guess that's it.
-A
Oh yeah, we're pretty stoked about the West Coast Trail too.
