Training & Events

Adventure Travel Guide Training June 2016

Applications: CLOSED

Applications for this training are closed. If you have questions, please contact [email protected]

The first in a series of training events, the Adventure Travel Guide training will take place between June 13th and 20th, 2016. This comprehensive course covers:

General technical and safety skills
Group management
Natural and cultural history interpretation
Sustainability
First Aid

All successful participants will receive an Adventure Travel Guide certificate from the Adventure Travel Trade Association and a Wilderness First Aid certificate from Wilderness Medical Associates International.

Structure of program:

June 13 – 17: Classroom and field training will include:

General technical and safety skills
- Navigation theory and orienteering skills- map, compass, GPS
- Understanding meteorology in Nepal and how to apply this to trip preparation
- Safety management systems and risk analysis
Group management
- Leadership skills and group interaction
- Destination specific health and safety issues
- Planning and preparing for group travel-
Natural and cultural history interpretation techniques
- How to teach natural and cultural history
Sustainability
- Leave No Trace minimum impact camping and travel
- Educating travelers on wildlife crime

June 18 – 20 Wilderness First Aid:

During this course, participants will:
- Treat and care for patients in a remote wilderness environment
- Recognize and manage life-threatening injuries
- Wound management, musculoskeletal injuries, high altitude sickness, and other illnesses
- All skills will be taught both in the classroom and outdoors with practical scenarios

Instructors

The course will be taught by experienced and successful adventure travel guides who have extensive experience working in Nepal. Course participants must complete a step-wise application process and will be selected based on their experience and skills.

Gordan Janow

Gordon is a founding member and Director of the mountaineering outfitter Alpine Ascents International. He has spent a good portion of the last 35 years traveling about Asia scouting new locations for Alpine Ascents and as an independent traveler: most of often in India and Nepal. Other travel to less frequented areas include: Yemen, Iran, Mongolia and India’s Ladakh and Nagaland regions.

As a writer, he has had both fiction and travel works published in the U.S. and India. Gordon has served as an Indian subcontinent expert for numerous media sources such the New York Times, The BBC, Outside Magazine and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and the NBC Nightly News. Any other “spare” time, Gordon can be found coaching ice hockey in rinks of the Northwest US and Canada.

A proud member of ATTA’s Adventure Edu, he has recently lectured in Kosovo and Nepal. Gordon also serves on the Board of the Sherpa Education Fund (building schools and providing scholarships for Nepalese children) and as the Secretary for Studio Ladakh (which conducts research and promotes education and awareness about architecture in the western Himalayas).

Gordon and his family reside on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, USA

Jean-Claude Razel

Jean-Claude has 30 years of experience in the adventure business, specializing in safety management, operation and product development. Initially focused in mountaineering and climbing, Jean-Claude is now active in the whole chain of the adventure business. His company Alaya is the reference company in Brazil.

In 2001, Jean-Claude conceived and built the first tree-rope course in Brazil called ”Verticalia” and the first zipline circuit. He built more than 50 other circuits in the whole country some of them operated on a franchising business model. He created a safety system for these circuits called ”vagao” specially designed for children. In 2009 he was elected President of ABETA. He actively participated in Aventura Segura, one of the most successful qualification program in Adventure Travel in the world.

Jean-Claude grew up in the Alps in Chamonix, France and has travelled 65 countries to practice nature & adventure activities as a climber, a mountaineer, an adventure racer. His rock climbs lead him to Niger, Jordan, Yosemite. As a mountaineer, Jean-Claude participated in several expeditions in the Himalayas. He twice participated in Raid Gauloises, the first global Adventure Race.

Fluent in French, English, Portuguese and Spanish, Jean-Claude has been a resident of Brazil for the past 17 years. A lover of the great outdoors, he is the happy father of two girls. He studied business administration and has a bachelor’s degree from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris. He plays the piano and sings rock n’ roll with his band after a good climb or raft.

Dan Moore

Dan has over 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur, professional adventure guide, and high-level facilitator. He has successfully launched and led two travel companies, filling numerous roles at each. The infusion of naturalist guides with adventure and culinary activities helped his company quickly grow from small start-up to the (U.S.) Pacific Northwest region’s preeminent travel company. He currently is the CEO of the travel-industry consultancy, Pandion.

Dan has extensive experience designing cutting edge itineraries and travel products, and applying innovative techniques to market these products. His expansive operations knowledge, including guide training, permitting, risk-management, staff management, and more, differentiates him from other consultants.

Dan sits on several non-profit boards: he represents the Adventure & Recreation segment on the board of the Washington (State) Tourism Alliance and was a co-chair of the Alliance’s marketing committee; he sits on the board of community-based travel early adopters, Crooked Trails; and is Board President for the youth focused Terra-Forma Education.

He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and spent a large percentage of his childhood out exploring the wilderness and wild areas around home and afar. In 1996, after graduating from Macalester College, in St. Paul MN, Dan left to spend most of a year in South America – trekking and researching tropical forests in Bolivia, Peru and Brazil.

Susan Purvis
Susan Purvis is a lead instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates, a leader in wilderness medicine education. She owns and operates her educational company, Crested Butte Outdoors International, based in Whitefish, Montana. Over the past 25 years, Susan had made a living blending several careers: exploration geology, wilderness medicine and avalanche education, expedition and urgent care medic, and a decade as a search and rescue dog handler in the high country of Colorado.

Susan honed her medical knowledge working as a medic for eleven winters as a medic at a busy ski area clinic in Crested Butte, Colorado, and over the course of her 18-year history in wilderness medicine she has taught thousands of students. She has developed and taught high-altitude medical programs for Sherpas in the Mt. Everest Region of Nepal and for Africans who work on Mt Kilimanjaro. Among the many places she has taught: Mt Everest Region of Nepal, The Danakil Desert in Ethiopia, and Antarctica.

As a gold exploration geologist in Latin America for twelve years, Susan is also conversant in Spanish.

Susan is an American Institute for Avalanche and Research Education (AIARE) Course Lead. She received Congressional Recognition by the US Congress for her avalanche search and rescue efforts in 2003. She holds a degree in geology from the University of Montana.

She recently completed her memoir, Hang Fire: Adventures with an Avalanche Dog Handler. When she is not teaching she can be found boating on the cold, clear rivers in northern Montana or in search of the last great powder stash.

Peggy Miller

Peggy Miller has been an active volunteer emergency medical services provider for the past 23 years with a busy urban fire department; the past 12 years at the paramedic level. She is a Nationally Registered Paramedic and holds licensure in Montana and Maryland. For the past 16 summers, she has been working for the U.S. Forest Service in the wildland fire environment.

Initially a firefighter, she transitioned to an Incident Medical Specialist and fireline paramedic position. In addition to her fireline paramedic qualifications, Peggy is a nationally qualified Medical Unit Leader. She has been to wildland fire assignments in Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho and Georgia.

As a Maryland Instructor Certification Review Board (MICRB) Level II EMS Instructor, Peggy taught EMT and CPR classes at the Montgomery County Fire Training Academy and the University of Maryland Fire Rescue Institute until she relocated to Montana in 2009. While in Montana, she was the EMS Training Coordinator and instructor for the Whitefish Fire Department until she moved back to Maryland in 2012. Peggy recently began an instructor affiliation with Wilderness Medical Associates International.

In March 2016, Peggy traveled to rural Anupshahar, India to teach first aid at a girl’s school. While there, she helped organize a new medical clinic at the school.

An avid hiker, camper and scuba diver, Peggy enjoys the outdoors. She is the mother of 3 grown children and the very proud grandmother of 3 young children. Peggy resides in Frederick, Maryland.

Who can apply?

Experienced trekking guides are welcome to apply for one of twenty spots. Participants are required to have:

English language proficiency as per application and telephone interview
Experience working with western clients on trekking trips
Willingness, commitment and aptitude to transfer the experience to others
Good track record of accomplishment with previous employers
Be willing to provide their own gear. Click to download to see the required gear list.