Staying Alive: Modern Wilderness Survival Skills
No-Nonsense Training to Help Keep You Alive in EmergenciesClass limited to 12 students
August 9-10, 2025
Tuition: $765
Instructors: Cody Lundin and Mark Dorsten
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Click here for wait list options if course is labeled "full"
Our Staying Alive course was the cover story for Backpacker magazine’s September 1999 issue for a reason. For 33 years, it’s taught hundreds of students no-nonsense, practical skills designed to help them survive a modern wilderness emergency. Loosely based upon Cody’s best-selling book, 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive, this course is what every outdoor traveler needs to know for maximum safety and enjoyment in the outdoors. (Want even more training? Our seven-day Arizona Combo Special course is the big brother of the Staying Alive course, allowing you to train in Sonoran desert, Pinyon/Juniper Woodland and Pine/Fir forest.)
Modern Fire: learn the art of making fire from paper, wood, and metal matches, as well as lighters, magnesium, chemicals, optics and parabolics, how to boil water with corn chips, the physics of fire, techno-tinders that work, fool-proof home-made tinder, fire safety and fire extinguishing techniques.
Making shelter with native materials.Wilderness Shelter: where, what, why and how to build improvised shelter for hot and cold environments, how to sleep warm and dry, use space blankets, set up the multi-use tarp and choose outdoor clothing to prevent hypothermia and hyperthermia.
Digging a ground still.Water Wisdom: creating water through evapotranspiration, bag and solar stills, water survival gear, nature’s water indicators in the woods and making it fit to drink using modern water disinfection methods.
Signaling for Rescue: getting attention using mirrors, ground to air, sound and smoke, homemade signal mirrors and whistles.
Fire lighting options.Survival Psychology and Physiology: effective trip planning, recognizing survival priorities in the deserts and mountains, dealing with fear in yourself and others, activating the Search and Rescue system and much more.
Important training consideration: Many outdoor schools confuse primitive living skills with modern outdoor survival skills. There is a radical difference between the two, both in their intention and how the skills are executed in the field under stress and fear. If you want to learn the truth about preparing for and surviving hypothermia and hyperthermia, the biggest outdoor killers, this course is must-know outdoor knowledge. Learn dozens of no-nonsense skills that can save your life or that of someone you love! (no hiking required)
"My experience in attending the Staying Alive course was that I found out that I didn’t really know anything about emergency survival. I liked that it wasn’t BS flashy survival stuff. They are serious about what they do and if you do what they teach, you have a high likelihood of surviving a serious situation."
Jack Carnes, “Staying Alive: Modern Wilderness Survival Skills” alum, 2012.