Basic Outdoor Living Skills

“Without the context, it’s just arts and crafts.”
— Steve Watts

We teach more than just the skills, we teach how they truly relate to you and the environment in different situations, including survival.

Begin your journey with our Basic Outdoor Living Skills (BOLS™) class. Learn the bottom-line considerations of your physical body and practical skills for a more comfortable and safer experience that address the #1 killer in the outdoors, EXPOSURE. Field instruction will provide you hands-on experience of these practical skills. Time in the classroom will give you the context of what’s important AND point you in the right direction for continuing your education.

“In the school of the woods… there is no graduation day.”
– Horace Kephart, 1917

Learn the THREE ways you can make heat, and ALL the ways you can lose it. The easiest way to stay warm is to trap the heat you generate; get hands-on experience to do just that through SHELTERS, CLOTHING, SLEEPING BAGS, and BLANKETS.

Learn why FIRE is the second most important outdoor skill. Modern ignition methods, natural and man-made tinders, wet-weather fire making, useful fire-lays, how to properly extinguish a fire and more.

The importance of WATER and being properly hydrated cannot be understated; it literally ties into everything we do, physically and mentally. You will learn it’s physiological importance, it’s effects, wilderness water collection strategies and water treatments for biological pathogens.

The experienced woodsman can survive with just a KNIFE, so we will discuss and use this important tool and a PERSONAL SURVIVAL KIT, including signaling devices and how to use.

Before the nail, glue and duct tape, man’s world was held together with CORDAGE. This still applies when staying in the wilderness today. Knowing bindcraft and even how to make cordage is an invaluable skill for shelter and much more.

One of the cores of Outdoor Living Skills is TREE & PLANT IDENTIFICATION. Learn how-to learn trees on your own and the useful properties of specific plants in your area for fire, shelter, water, medicine and the truth about edible wild plants.

Please contact us for any questions and scheduling.