Lillard Fly Fishing Expeditions understands that when considering a wilderness adventure for you or your children, safety is the primary concern. We have made safety the most important consideration behind all of our decisions.
Participants and parents should understand before signing up for a LFFE adventure that travel in remote wilderness areas and fly fishing involve a level of inherent risk. While we have taken every measure to minimize these risks it is impossible to eliminate all risk. Through our experience working with youth adventure companies, summer camps, and guide services we have become familiar with a variety of safety policies. LFFE’s safety policy draws from the best practices from these programs. Below are some of the ways we go above and beyond industry standards to create the safest possible wilderness fly fishing expeditions.
Knowledge
While planning our trips we take every risk into consideration. All LFFE trip directors have previous experience in the areas we travel in during our expeditions. To put it simply, we do not train our trip leaders in NC to lead trips in CO. Our leaders’ first-hand experience and onsite training allow them to lead trips with a deeper awareness of the unique risks associated with the diverse regions in which we lead expeditions.
Experience
LFFE’s small list of trip offerings puts us in a unique position to hire a small group of proven trip leaders. We don't have dozens of trips with huge variations in activities. This allows us to be very selective with our trip leaders. At LFFE all our trip directors have a minimum of one year experience leading wilderness trips and a comprehensive 7-day Wilderness First Responder certification.
Risk Management
One of the most important steps towards minimizing risk in wilderness settings is prevention. From day one, our trip leaders teach the importance of risk management and decision making in wilderness settings. This is also the most important skill for the confident and independent backpackers and fly fishers we aim to educate. Whether it be protecting your feet by deciding to wear footwear at all times at a camp 10 miles into the backcountry or deciding not to climb 15 feet into a tree to recover a $1.50 fly when we are hours from definitive care, our participants learn the importance of risk benefit analysis. This important skill not only minimizes risk on our expeditions, but will also be valuable for our students in their every day lives.
If you have any questions or concerns about safety on any of Lillard Fly Fishing Expeditions adventures please give us a call at (828) 577-8204 or send us an email at info@lillardflyfishing.com
