Backcountry Ready, Outdoor Education
Prepare Today, Adventure for a Lifetime
Our story
As our outdoor community rapidly grows, our understanding of basic, life-saving skills needs to grow with it. What do you do when you can’t call 911? How do you stabilize a friend in critical condition? What happens when a rescue team can’t get to you for 4+ hours?
I, Becky Fuys, founded Backcountry Ready, Outdoor Education with a mission to empower our outdoor community with backcountry rescue skills, understanding of wilderness medicine, and confidence responding to incidents so we can all adventure safer together.
As a long-time WFR with 11+ years of professional guiding, personal adventuring, and outdoor education experience, I’ve had to respond to traumatic backcountry incidents for both strangers and personal loved-ones. Through these experiences, I recognized the importance of both learning essential backcountry medical skills and continuing to practice these techniques to ensure confidence while performing them in high-stress situations.
At Backcountry Ready, we not only provide nationally-recognized WFA & WFR courses, but we also equip our graduates with online & in-person opportunities for continuing education. In addition, we offer beginner-friendly first aid clinics so every adventurer has the opportunity to learn essential wilderness medicine skills. Our ultimate goal is for each and every person in our community to feel confident, empowered, and backcountry ready.
Our Curriculum
Did you know anyone can create a wilderness medicine course and teach you anything they want to? There is no government jurisdiction that defines what information is taught in a WFR or WFA course.
Instead, the wilderness medicine community relies on Standards of Practice released by the Wilderness Medicine Education Collaborative (WMEC), an organization comprised of members from the 6 main wilderness medicine companies in the US, and largely driven by Nadia Kimmel, owner of Desert Mountain Medicine (DMM). The WMEC puts their heads together periodically throughout the year to update their SOP’s, which are then used by their organizations when developing course curricula.
Here at Backcountry Ready we proudly provide certifications under Desert Mountain Medicine, one of the top wilderness medicine providers in North America, who’s curricula has been developed and fine-tuned over the past 25 years. DMM strives to provide provide students with as much hands-on experience as possible in an inclusive & equitable learning environment. Each WFA & WFR student goes home with a field manual that’s updated annually to ensure all students have the most pertinent information available while in the field.
At Backcountry Ready, we make certain each and every one of our courses is compliant with DMM’s teaching curricula so students can feel confident in the education they’re receiving. Additionally, our instructors are required to uphold a standard of certifications, including their own rigorous continuing education protocols.
But you don’t have to take our word for it, hear what our students have to say about our courses & educators:
Our Philosophy
While there are certainly places to save time & money… your safety & education isn’t one of them.
At Backcountry Ready, we pride ourselves in providing the best outdoor education training possible. We strive to ensure each and every one of our students completes their course feeling proficient in their skills. This means providing hands-on practical training with instructors that have 30+ years of collective backcountry medical & rescue experience and a curriculum that’s constantly updated by Desert Mountain Medicine.
We’re all in the same backcountry community— it’s up to us to be ready for each other.
Continuing Education with Backcountry Ready
“If you don’t use it, you lose it”
Keep your skills sharp through our continuing education opportunities.
Your education shouldn’t stop at the end of your course.
That’s why Backcountry Ready & Desert Mountain Medicine provide 2 types of Continuing Education opportunities for our students.
Online:
All students who graduate with a WFR or WFA certification automatically gain access to Desert Mountain Medicine’s online continuing education dashboard.
This dashboard consists of case studies, curriculum updates, articles, videos, and even live webinars with outdoor professionals to ensure each student has access to the most up-to date wilderness medicine information available.
In-Person:
In addition to online materials, all students with a valid certification through Desert Mountain Medicine (this includes affiliates such as Utah State University & Backcountry Ready), are eligible to participate in scenario practice sessions hosted by Backcountry Ready. These sessions are comprised of environmental, medical, and trauma related scenarios similar to the scenarios practiced during course.
If you have a group of 6+ friends, we can host a custom session with scenarios tailored to a specific season or activity of your choice. Your confidence in the backcountry is our top priority, and we’re here to support you anyway we can.
Email Becky for more information about custom scenario practice sessions
Becky@backcountryready.com