SURVIVAL STORE

Collage of participants in a Fall Cold Weather Survival Course in Colorado, showing various outdoor survival scenes including tarp shelters, fire-making, teamwork, snow shelters, and a camp dog. Logo of The Survival University is centered.
A makeshift A-frame tarp shelter set up in a forest, with a sleeping pad and gear inside. A volleyball painted like Wilson from Cast Away sits outside next to a tree, and a sweater hangs from a branch.
A man with a beard and hat lies back relaxed on a raised bushcraft bed made from logs and fresh evergreen boughs, surrounded by others in a forest camp setting.
A group of people building a raised log bed in the forest using thick branches. A small fire pit surrounded by rocks is visible in the foreground.
Hutch sits smiling under a plastic and reflective survival shelter with a raised log bed covered in pine boughs, while a small dog affectionately nuzzles his face in a forested setting.
Two people relax inside a sturdy lean-to shelter made from logs in a snowy forest. The shelter is elevated with a thick bed of evergreen branches underneath for insulation, and a fire pit is visible in the foreground.
Two people constructing a clear plastic survival shelter in a forested area. A fire ring made of stones is set up nearby, and the shelter is suspended between trees using paracord or rope.

FALL COLD WEATHER SURVIVAL COURSE – 3 DAY

$395.00

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.

Tap each tab below: Description, Additional Information, and Class Details. You’ll find the course overview, class times, driving directions, what to bring, and overnight arrangements.

Description

FALL COLD WEATHER SURVIVAL COURSE

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

Course Overview

  • Course: FALL COLD WEATHER SURVIVAL COURSE – 3 DAY
  • Duration: 3 days
  • Location: TSU Mountain Camp near Cripple Creek, Colorado
  • Class starts: 10:00 AM.
  • Class ends: 5:00 PM.
  • Required arrival for check-in: 9:00 AM, one hour before class starts.

Instructor

Tactical Instructor / Resident Instructor

Before You Arrive

Arrival and Directions

Colorado campus driving directions

Arrive by 9:00 AM for check-in. Class begins at 10:00 AM. Plan your drive so you are at the meeting location one hour before instruction begins.

Course Arrangements

Students enrolled in this course may remain on the training property overnight during the scheduled program. Students staying on the property provide their own shelter and sleeping equipment, using tents, tarps, hammocks, or primitive field shelters. Use of the training property overnight is limited to enrolled students and authorized program participants. Campsites are not independently rented or offered to the general public.

Students who prefer to stay off site can choose from multiple hotels and Airbnb rentals in the surrounding area. Cripple Creek is approximately a 15-minute drive from our location, and Woodland Park is approximately 30 minutes away. Students are responsible for arranging their own lodging and making reservations directly with their chosen provider. Please call or email us before the course if you have questions about overnight arrangements.

Facilities

  • Sanitation/Hygiene: A portable restroom and potable water will be provided at the main camp. There are no showers.

Food and Water

Water will be provided but students will need to bring their own food. We recommend quick field expedient meals such as freeze dried hiking meals or MRE’s. They can quickly be made at our primitive camps and won’t slow down the learning process. However, students may bring any food that they wish to cook over the campfire or on their own personal camp stove.

Food can be purchased locally at nearby grocers.

What to Bring

We do not provide students with gear unless they have purchased it from us ahead of time. Not much gear is needed for our courses, though good equipment does speed the learning process up greatly! Gear does not have to be purchased from our store to attend the course, but we recommend survival gear of equivalent quality.

  • Fixed blade knife (Preferably a full tang bushcraft style knife WITHOUT a serrated edge, 4”-5” blade length, no double edged daggers)
  • Ferrocerium rod
  • Poncho or Rain Gear
  • Outdoor Clothing and appropriate footwear
  • Folding hand saw
  • Overnight Camping Gear: Tent, sleeping bag, ground pad, etc
  • 100’ of 550 Paracord
  • Large cotton scarf
  • Headlamp and extra batteries
  • Cooking pot and eating utensils
  • Single walled metal canteen
  • Sunscreen and sunglasses
  • Insect repellent
  • Small Backpack

If it is still not clear what gear is needed for our survival courses, then we have assembled a complete kit that is still high quality but for a budget friendly price. All the items in this kit were hand selected by our instructors to be the best bushcraft tools on a budget. This survival kit is a useful starter kit that can be used in all of our courses. These tools are a must have, at a good price. It’s a great survival kit, bug out kit, go bag, or use it as a solid foundation to build a kit that perfectly fits your needs. With this kit and our training anybody can survive like a king in almost any environment!

Clothing and Weather

Warm outdoor clothing, warm gloves and hat, outdoor boots and wool socks. Cotton clothing is highly discouraged in the mountains! Wool will keep you warm even when wet and synthetics will dry faster. Layers are important in Colorado. You will want a water wicking base layer, an insulating mid layer, and a waterproof breathable outer shell. Check out our Clothes Layering Basics if you are unsure of what to wear.

Course Notes

Due to the different levels of prior experience and knowledge among students in each class, individual outcomes may vary. Weather conditions can also be a factor in changing class content slightly. Nonetheless, our instructors will always endeavor to be as accommodating and consistent as circumstances will allow to ensure students get the best training experience and value for money.

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