COURSE DESCRIPTION

Fall and Winter are two of our favorite times to spend time in the backcountry. There is, of course, the mushroom harvest and changing of the leaves to enjoy at the start of fall, but more than that, as the winter moves in the instinctive drive to mate and gather food dominates the lives of wild creatures. For the comfortable outdoor adventurer, this can make for a great time to see some of your favorite animals.

In addition to being rich with animal close encounters, fall is the first real test of your outdoor skills. It is one thing to sleep in a lean to or build a fire during the warm summer, but with the cold and damp moving in for the Autumn season your skills will begin to be challenged and your comfort will be based on how well you apply your skills and fine tune techniques.

Not only is fall training a wonderful time to add new skills, it is also the time to refine and grow old skills and to prepare your winter equipment and training.

Soon, the strong winds move in and the winter will change everything. This class is all about being ready to enjoy the upcoming cold season with the same comfort and spirit of adventure as you would enjoy any other season. This class is wonderful for the beginner and advanced as we will be revisiting some common skills to adjust them for the needs of cold weather, and we will be adding seasonal specific skills based on the weather and resources found through the fall and winter.

In the Rockies, no two falls are ever alike so the exact list of skills is everchanging for this class. We have built snow shelters in fall, but in other years we have relied on thatched roofs to hold in the heat and hold out the cold. In past classes, students have enjoyed learning such things as the one-hour primitive emergency action shelter, preparing and changing gear for the season, thatching roofs and blankets, making capote coats, snow tracking, making snow shoes, building bull boats, mastering fire in wet conditions, watching young foxes play, and more.

We will always be focusing on primitive, modern, and pioneer skills that have been proven to work, not just in the season, but specifically in the Rocky Mountains and other harsh environments.

Regardless of the specific skills and experiences the mountain gives us, the heart of this class is to prepare your gear and load you up with skills to make cold weather seem like an opportunity rather then a deterrent to cold season adventures.

WHAT TO EXPECT​

In this 3 day class, we will teach you the basics of cold weather survival so that you will be able to spend the night out in the wilderness. Your key survival tactics will be to stay warm and dry so we will primarily focus on fire and shelter during these two days.

SKILLS TAUGHT WILL INCLUDE

• Proper gear/clothing selection for cold weather
• Hypothermia wrap
• Primitive shelters and snow shelters (snow pending)
• Primitive and Modern fire starting methods in a cold environment
• Use of snow as water
• Full Length Body Fire and the All Night Fire