Wilderness Survival Fundamentals
Get the mindset, skills, and confidence to stay alive when things go sideways in the wild.
When you're new to the wilderness, every rustle in the bushes sounds like danger and every wrong turn feels like potential disaster. This intensive builds the foundational knowledge and skills that transform that anxiety into quiet confidence.
​
We don't rise to the occasion in emergencies—we fall to our level of training. So let us give you solid fundamentals to fall back on when things don't go as planned in wild places.
​
Knowledge & Training - what stands between panic and competence
From Anxiety to Competence
What's the difference between people who survive and people who don't? It really comes down to four things:
- MINDSET - SKILL - AWARENESS - HONESTY -
Mindset is often the single thing that separates survivors from casualties. It's facing what is happening with honesty and knowing you can handle it. How do we ensure we have a survival mindset? Believe it or not, you can train that. We'll show you how- and more.
What can help your mindset? Having the knowledge and skills to do what needs to be done- things like how to lash together a shelter, sourcing tinder, making cordage, treating the water you find. Your mental state goes down the drain fast when you're shivering in wet clothes with no shelter. Being able to look around, find what you need and get a fire going turns despair into empowered action.
​
There is a saying- an 'ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.' Awareness is what can prevent these emergencies from happening to begin with- and awareness is what can keep them from getting worse, and even help you access the tools you need to make them better.
​
We teach more than just physical survival skills. We teach you how to prevent them, recognize problems early, and stay calm if things do go wrong.​
What You'll Learn
This isn't classroom theory—it's eight hours of hands-on practice where you'll build, light, tie, and test every skill until your hands remember. You'll discover that you're more capable than you think and head into wild places with the essential knowledge that turns "what if" fears into "I know what to do" confidence.
-
Survival Mindset - Your mental state is the difference between survivor and casualty. We'll teach you how to train your mind.
-
10 Essentials - The tools you should bring into the wild with you for both prevention and response. Plus how to modify them for different activities and locations
-
Shelter Building - knots and hitches, plus lashings that you'll put to use rigging tarps and building debris shelters
-
Fire Mastery - Sourcing tinder, ignition options with limited resources, and fundamentals to keep you warm, boil you water and signal for help
-
Water Security - finding, collecting and treating water
About your Instructor
Ali has taught wilderness survival and led wilderness expeditions on three continents since 2010. You'll learn from someone who doesn't just have the skills- she lives them. Ali spends 3-6 months a year living in wilderness areas while leading trips- something she has done for a decade. She has extensive experience managing risks and dealing with medical issues in remote places all over the world- from China to Oman, California to North Carolina.
Practice Makes Permanent
We drill the fundamentals over and over until they become second nature. We don't practice until we get it right, we practice until we can't get it wrong. Because when you're cold, wet, and the sun is setting, you want skills that are so ingrained they happen automatically—no panic, no overthinking, just competent action.
Remember that part about prevention? We'll cover that part too- all the little behaviors that prevent things like cutting yourself while preparing tinder or burning yourself with boiling water. They say it takes 5 mistakes combined to cause a fatal mistake in the wild. Learning survival behavior and then having the discipline to implement it means the difference between life and death.
Why Choose Us?
This isn't your standard survival course full of machismo and dominance. We don't see the wilderness as an inherently hostile place that we need to conquer. Nature is our home- we are nature. Most wild places are abundant with resources ready to help us survive, we just have to learn where to look and how to see.
​
Our mission is simple: get more people confidently adventuring in the wild. Wilderness survival skills are critical to doing that successfully, so we made it accessible by keeping costs down and class sizes small- all while supporting our local nature conservancies and our instructors.
​
We donate 15-20% of revenue to Triangle Land Conservancy. Our pay structure is inverse of most outdoor companies so that our instructors receive the highest possible pay. Read more about our business model here.
Come Prepared
This is an active, outdoor intensive. Be ready to walk, crawl, bend, and sit as we practice skills in real conditions. You're invited to bring any of your own survival kit to test out. Please note that there is not a bathroom facility on site and you'll need to use the woods. ​
​
The Essentials:
-
A day pack you can carry comfortably with extra space for provided gear
-
Lunch, water and snacks. We will have water for refills
-
Sunscreen + bug spray
-
A camp seat or chair
-
Layers that regulate body temperature, appropriate for conditions
-
Rain gear that lets you stay comfortable if the sky opens
-
Your current survival kit if you want to test your own gear, or get our advice on contents
-
A notebook, pen and pencil
