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Pathfinder

The PF Jump-Zone

This is where it all starts! Pathfinder Corps Jump-Zone. This is the testing zone. Here you determine how sure you are of your abilities and of your faith in Christ. We must drop into the places where we are needed in order to find those in need.


 

Riggin the High Drop

This is one of the many areas where you will learn that teamwork will be your most valuable tool in your arsenal of equipment. Rigging the ropes for a high-drop during the rescue requires such teamwork. Teamwork ensures the searchers make it through safely.
 

Carrying the Hurting to Safety

In the end, it is our responsibility to see to it that the rescued are carried to a place of healing. This too can be a tedious endeavor unless the team functions in one mind and one accord.

Pathfinders is the beginning and the end of attending academy as a boy. It is the last training corps offered to them as a boy. It is also the beginning of the road to working as leaders, passing on to the younger boys skills they have acquired over the years. Pathfinders use every skill they have learned from JLTC, Elite Corps, JTT and Special Forces. It is a very fast paced corps with long days and short nights as the norm. Pathfinders is very hands on. They put up the rope bridge and rig the rappelling tower themselves (under pathfinder staff supervision). They learn not only how to do it, but why to use these methods for safety reasons. There are classes on different types of ropes, d-rings, harnesses, belay devices and decenders. They learn how to tie all the nationally approved knots for search and rescue. They learn all the standard commands for the rappeller and the belayer. They will get to use many different kinds of rappel gear on the 40 ft. tower. They will be trained on how to be the tower safety man and will oversee the tower operations for their corps (under supervision). They will learn how to lock off a rope half-way down the tower and how to escort a stokes stretcher down the tower. At night, there are classes on map and compass, rigging, first aid, communications, knots and planning a rescue operation. They spend a whole day in the deep woods using a "topo map" and a compass traveling from point "A" to point "B" through the woods not using trails. For their final test, they have to pack all their gear, stretchers, ropes, pulleys, d-rings, figure eights and all there first aid equipment into the national forest. Then using map and compass find the location where the rescue will be conducted. They have to completely set up a rappel station from scratch, including all safety lines. They must then put their team over the side and rig down the rappel station while the medics perform first aid and prepare the victim for transport. The radio man will be calling in reports to the nurse and passing information to the medics. The riggers will be getting ready to rig a hauling device to get the stretcher up the rope bridge. Half the team will go across the rope bridge and the other half will put the stretcher on the rope bridge to get it to the other side. The last half of the team will cross the rope bridge. They still have several surprises ahead of them before they make it to the nurse's station. There the nurse will assess how well they performed the necessary first aid.

If only one sentence had to be used to explain the Pathfinder Corp, it would be this:

Teach young men to go into the world, search out the injured and hurting lost souls calling for help, attend to their immediate needs and then bring them to a place of healing where they can be cared for and have their strength renewed.