Outings Committee

The Outings Committee coordinates outings throughout Oregon, supporting recruitment, certification, and ongoing leadership of outings leaders.

6/8/2021: The Club will permit us to restart outings this summer. Day trips can resume on July 5 as I'd hoped - more details on that later. But we're restarting almost from scratch. Areas like Portland that have leaders just need to update their First Aid certification, and outings will resume by late July. Other parts of the state will need to recruit leaders then train them.

The requirements for an outings leader are:

1) The Sierra Club's Outings Leader Trainer (OLT) 101 class is required every four years. It can be taken online: Outings Leader Training 101. Take the test and send me a copy of the certificate that you passed. All Portland/Vancouver outing leaders are current. Only two other people in the whole state, Bend's Mia MacCollin and Marys Peak's Jules Moritz, are current.

2) Red Cross Basic First Aid (CPR is optional), provided by the Red Cross and several other providers, is required every two years. We have someone local to Portland. Laura Lacy, who is herself an outing leader and certified to deliver that class for free. She is willing to come to Bend, Eugene, or Corvallis to do so. But COVID has put a stop to those classes. So everyone in Portland/Vancouver except Vancouver's Don Rose needs to take it before we lead another outing. Basic First Aid is sufficient for day hikes. But to lead hike-in overnight camping, wilderness first aid is required. It requires third-party instruction, but is good for three years. Mia MacCollin took it in 2019, so she and Moritz are the only people in the Oregon Chapter who could lead an outing right now.

3) Apprentice hikes. To get authorization to lead outings for the Sierra Club, a new leader must plan and lead an outing with a currently certified outing leader along to observe and judge whether or not they are ready. Practically speaking, this means the apprentice hike is invariably preceded by an outing where the leader-to-be follows a currently certified leader and takes notes. In Bend, you can have Mia conduct the apprentice outings and send me a statement saying you're ready. For Eugene and Corvallis that means you a) have to go to Bend or Portland for a couple of outings, or b) Mia or someone from Portland/Vancouver has to travel to where you are and do that. I am willing to do so.

4) The outings themselves are posted in Meetup for Many Rivers, Juniper, and Portland/Vancouver. Marys Peak uses the Group's web site.

Even though the Columbia Network was dissolved in November 2018, I am still acting as the Network outings chair as well as being the actual Oregon Chapter and Vancouver WA Loowit Group (WA Chapter) outings chair (I also lead a lot of outings, over 20 a year). I manage the Portland/Vancouver Meetup, coordinate training to keep everyone's certification current, recruit leaders, and conduct apprentice hikes to complete outing leader certifications. I also look out for the other Groups' outings and their needs.