Meet Our Resident Instructors

Hello, I am Jason Marsteiner and I am the owner/founder of Colorado Mountain Man Survival, LLC and founder/CEO of the non-profit organization, The Survival University. I decided to officially start this journey in 2010 when I made the move to establish a Survival School to pass on my knowledge to all those interested, but there is much more purpose behind it than just being with like-minded individuals.

I’m a Wilderness Survival Instructor and I teach people how not to die in the backcountry. I can survive off the land with little more than a knife. Take my knife away and I will make one out of nothing. I get asked at least once a week about being on Naked and Afraid. That’s not happening. Not because I’m scared of being naked, but because the show is about drama, not skills, and I don’t like drama. I’ve been on the news multiple times on foreign travel channels, in books and magazines, and am a published author of "WILDERNESS SURVIVAL GUIDE - Practical Skills for the Outdoor Adventurer". If there is ever a zombie apocalypse, then I’m your man! If we are ever in a plane crash in some remote area, I’m not your man because... Murphy ’s Law and every horror movie ever made, states that I am first to die in the crash. If I do happen to survive then no worries... our vacation just turned into an adventure!!!

But enough with the glamorous things. I am a Colorado native, born on the base at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and, soon after, moved to and grew up in the small mountain town of Cripple Creek. While there I was with the volunteer fire department, worked as a tourist guide, ran a coal fired steam locomotive, worked construction, and even worked in an active gold mine. When I wasn't going to school or working, I was on an adventure in the surrounding mountains. As a child, camping, hiking, hunting, fishing and what everybody deems as survival and prepping skills, was just a way of life for my parents, my sister, myself and pretty much everyone we associated with. What people call being a prepper or a survivalist these days was called common sense and was a way of life when living in a small mountain community. When most kids were doing what most kids do, I was packing my survival kit and heading out into the hills to see what kind of adventure I could find, and it began molding me into who I am today.

After high school, I attended the University of Northern Colorado with a focus on Wildlife Biology before turning my sights on a technical “career”, which I found completely unfulfilling. It paid the bills and allowed me to still spend a lot of time outdoors, but that was not my passion. Having spent a good deal of my life in the city working for corporate America, I know the reality of living in the world that most live in today. When I realized survival and prepping became popular in 2010, I found a use for my lifelong experiences and returned to my roots with the hope of getting my fellow man back to nature as well as teaching them the skills needed to make it home to their loved ones.

I have found that my experiences have given me the knowledge, personality and drive to teach others, as well as the ability to put together a well-trained team to pass on a wide variety of skills to you. I have been running the Colorado Survival School since 2010, but to earn my instructor certification, I trained for 45 days in the forests of Arkansas and Missouri and 12 days in the jungles of Costa Rica, with not much more than a basic survival kit. I achieved my first BWLS, (Basic Wilderness Life Support), certification through the University of Utah School of Medicine and have kept my Wilderness First Responder certification current over the years with Off Grid Medic, LLC.

I am not a mountain man as most perceive it, running around in a bear skin coat and a raccoon hat, but I am a mountain man, nonetheless. I don’t consider myself to be a hardcore survivalist or a bushcrafter. I’m not a prepper or a tactical firearms instructor. What I am is a well-grounded jack-of-all-trades with a desire to share the vast knowledge that I have of, what I feel, is a very important subject. What I am is a hunter, a fisherman, a hiker, a camper, a backyard homesteader, a cook, a family man, and an outdoorsman that incorporates the skills of survival and bushcraft to do what I love to do in my everyday life. I have spent thousands of hours in the backcountry honing and practicing my primitive and modern survival skills and continue to train and learn new skills, any chance I get. What I am is a woodsman!

Many people ask what got me into teaching survival. There are many levels to this answer, but it started with my father as he pretty much taught me everything I know about being an outdoorsman. He laid the groundwork for it all in my early childhood, but 1993 is when the path ultimately changed. That year I turned 17 years old and that year my father died in a tragic accident that probably could have been avoided. It impacted me greatly and I believe it is what set me in this direction. After developing many more life, practical, and survival skills over the years through first-hand experience, I decided that if I could bring one father, one mother, one son, or one daughter home to their family by teaching them what I know; that is what I was going to do. I hope that you never face a survival situation, but if you do, I hope what you learn from me and my team of instructors will bring you home to your family.

My intentions are to run a family-friendly survival school while also offering more intense programs that many of you desire. We strive to offer classes for younger individuals to get them back to nature and away from today’s ever-evolving technology, as well as run separate courses for adults looking for a true survival experience or to those that just seek skills to better themselves.