Winter wilderness survival trip

After much debate and discussion we decided we would stay fairly close to home during this trip so we ended up in a meadow off of Horsethief trail just south of the Crags.

The hike started up a gradual incline through the forest on the fairly well traveled trail. After about .5 mile we changed direction from the easterly course we started on to a more northerly course that brought us into a valley along a creek dotted with few frozen beaver ponds. The views were magnificent as we had an unobstructed view of Sentinel in all of its rocky glory. After a short distance we found a great site just off of the main trial in an open area that was slightly blocked from the wind that was slowly creeping up on us.

Once we blazed our trail into our camp area we quickly broke off into teams and began setting camp. This primarily consisted of deciding which type of shelter each group would be building. All in all I think we had seven trench shelters and three domes. Two of the domes were massive and one unfortunately collapsed (I had not inspected it, nor given the OK so no one was in it) and the other never got hollowed out, while the third albeit small worked out nicely and it actually stayed quite warm! The seven trench shelters were, well, interesting to say the least for some reason the majority of the trenches seemed to come out just slightly too large making it difficult to utilize the tarps we had packed in as a “roof” so there was a great deal of “survival rigging” and all in all I think five of the seven worked out fine. Two were relegated as failures and abandoned and tents pitched in their place (I was disappointed by the students decision to set their tents but that us neither here nor there). One thing I want to mention about the trench shelters is they all seemed to be rather well built and one of the students, “Mr. GoLite” was on an ultra light kick and slept somewhat comfortably in his trench with only the minimal clothing he had and a bivy sack (no sleeping bag)!

Cooking was interesting, I used my can stove and it worked great boiling 2 cups of H2O in just over five minutes. Although I needed a bit more fuel the stove performed well at aprox. 10,500ft in temperatures hovering around 0F. It did however take longer to “fire up” but once going it rocked, firmly establishing itself among my gotta have kit. Some of the students decided to forgo cooking their meals and ate it cold, others brought MRE’s and some others used their various stoves. One student even hauled in a full pound of bacon to cook!!!! To each their own I guess, I am happy the bears were no where to be seen!
Fortunately everyone in the class survived and there were no injuries to speak of. It is a real shame I did not have more time with the class so we could have dedicated more time out doors. Especially to demonstrate as well as practice other skills. However I am grateful to have had the time I did and hopefully the students are leaving the experience understanding that while widely popular the “survivor” shows often glorify the painful truth of any survival situation.

This coming weekend I think some of the students and I are going out again to a different area to practice among other things navigation, fire starting, snaring, and signaling. Once again wish us luck.

Through out this post are some pics of the trip, the first is the class hiking in with Sentinel in the background, the second is from inside of my snow cave, the third is the trail into and out of our camp. Hope we have the same great weather next week.