Advanced Wilderness Survival Class: 5 Day

​Before taking this class, it is recommended that you take the 5 Day Outdoor Survival Skills Class or have taken an equivalent class elsewhere. Instructors will assume you have basic survival skills such as fire making, water procurement, shelter building, knot tying, etc… and will only briefly review these topics. You will be challenged during this class and will not be in an established camp. This class is intermediate to advanced in difficulty.

The Advanced Wilderness Survival Class is designed to immerse you into your survival experience while still keeping you in controlled environment where you can learn valuable skills. Instructors will take you to the next level of survival training where you can learn bushcraft and survival skills and see what it feels like to live off the land.

This course will teach you how to properly plan and prepare for emergencies and to give you hands-on, supervised experience and confidence. Instructors will not only teach you how to use equipment you should always have to increase your chances of survival, but will also teach you primitive techniques sourced from nature to help you to survive even if you don’t have all the necessary equipment. Some previous survival training is suggested, but not required.

During this 5-Day course, the Priorities of Survival will be emphasized and reinforced on a daily basis. You will learn basic techniques for fire, shelter, water, and food with new techniques added daily, building on the skills you learned the day before.

You will also learn how to read a map and navigate from one point to another, as well as use techniques to find your way if you become lost. Basic First Aid Skills for common wilderness injuries will also be taught and practiced until you can’t do them wrong. Students will also be taught how to be found by Search and Rescue Teams in a survival scenario.

Students will learn:

• Psychology of survival
• The priorities of survival
• Survival fire craft (both modern and primitive)
• Survival shelters (both modern and primitive)
• Finding, filtering, and purifying water
• Passive techniques for food (land and water based)
• Edible, useful, and medicinal plants
• First aid for common wilderness injuries
• Basic map reading and land navigation skills
• Signaling for rescue
• Choosing and using tools for survival
• Survival kit preparation

Students should expect to apply techniques taught throughout the length of the course. Days one through three are designed to teach you skills and give you time to practice them in a more controlled environment. Days four and five are set-up as a survival scenario that forces you into a situation to apply those skills with limited instruction and supervision.

​On day one, you will not only learn modern skills in a training environment, but you also will be required to construct and sleep overnight in a primitive shelter and you will start and sustain your own fire. You will field process a goat or other similar animal, butcher it and learn how to dry, smoke and preserve the meat over a campfire and this will be used to sustain you for the rest of the week.

​On day two, the class will build upon your modern skills and show you primitive techniques as a backup for when you don’t have the necessary modern equipment. You will also learn additional techniques like making a fire last all night to enhance skills you have already learned. That evening, you will improve upon your primitive shelter warmed by a fire you created using primitive means.

​Day three will be the beginning of the scenario phase. Students will be taken to a designated location with limited gear and be responsible for meeting their own needs: fire, shelter, water, food, first aid, navigation, and signal. Since hunting and trapping out of season are illegal, students must demonstrate that they can build a functioning trap before they are given their food rations for the day. This scenario will continue until the end of day five when the students are either “rescued” or walk out. Instructors will be present at all times and drive the scenario to ensure you get the most out of this scenario and certain requirements will need to be met to ensure your skills are tested and validated and for safety purposes.

​Upon completion of this course, you will have gained valuable skills, experience, and confidence in several scenarios and will have been tested in a controlled environment. This course will teach you, test you, and provide you with an extremely valuable lesson: knowledge of self.