Your version of a bad day
- Out of the tree well, not out of trouble. You dug fast and he’s breathing, but the breaths come with a snore and he won’t wake up. Airway position, insulation from the snow, and a hard look at your watch: that’s the next ten minutes.
- The knee at 2:40. A binding rips out mid-turn and the knee goes with it. The trailhead is seven miles, sunset is at 4:50, and towing versus calling is arithmetic you want to have practiced somewhere warm.
- The shivering stops. Your partner’s been cold since the second transition. Now she’s quiet, clumsy, and not shivering anymore — which reads as improvement and is the opposite.
Start here
All 15 lessons are worth your time, but this order front-loads what your world serves up:
- Cold Injuries — hypothermia is the second problem in every winter incident
- Airway & Breathing — what tree-well extraction hands you: an unresponsive patient
- Musculoskeletal Injuries — knees and shoulders end more tours than slides do
- Patient Assessment — serial vitals with gloves on, in the snow
- Evacuation — winter daylight makes every evac decision a timed exam
Then pressure-test it
Interactive scenarios — one decision at a time, tempting mistakes included, debrief at the end:
- Snoring Isn’t Sleeping — the airway call after you’ve dug someone out
- The Burrito — the wrap, in the environment it was invented for
- Two Go, One Stays — sending for help before the light runs out
The certification question, honestly. “Wilderness First Aid” isn’t a regulated credential. No government body defines what a WFA card means — it means whatever the company that printed it says it means. What counts in front of a patient is whether you can do the work. This course teaches the work, free, and issues a record of completion — not a certificate, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Avalanche education is its own house: AIARE or AST coursework and regular beacon practice with your partners — none of it optional, none of it in here. If patrol or guiding is the ambition, OEC and WFR cards come from recognized providers; this free course is the medical fluency underneath both. If nobody requires you to hold a card, what you need are the skills, not the laminate.
What this is
Fifteen lessons, a 40-question knowledge check, sixteen practice scenarios, a printable field reference card, and a kit checklist. Free, no account, nothing recorded about you, source on GitHub. It teaches decision-making, not hands-on skill — practice the hands-on parts on a real, padded, complaining friend.