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Wilderness Skills and Survival Clinic with Adventure Out, Santa Cruz Review


Kelvin blowing on tinder to create fire

If you've ever thought about stepping out of your comfort zone and learning something new, this Wilderness Survival course with Adventure Out in Santa Cruz is highly recommended.


Although peak physical fitness has it's own purposes to helping you survive in the woods, having some knowledge of survival skills is also crucial which is why I stepped out of my comfort zone to learn a few new things. I recently had the opportunity to join a Wilderness Skills and Survival Clinic with the Santa Cruz company, Adventure Out. This experience was a highly interactive experience that taught us the essential techniques and knowledge to thrive in the wild, from building shelter and starting a fire. Here's how my experience went.


Overview:

Class Details

Location and Arrival

Skill 1: Building Shelter

Skill 2: Retrieving Water

Skill 3: Building Fire

Final Thoughts


Wilderness Skills and Survival Clinic Details

Instructor - Jeff

Class length - About 5 Hours

Start time - 10:00 a.m.

Cost - $139 per student (as of 2024)

Parking available? - Yes. There were plenty of parking spaces in the dirt lot however, it may be a different story of you attend during peak seasons.

Bathroom available? - Yes. There are bathrooms in the parking lot. There is also a porta potty at the actual spot where we practiced our skills however, it's not the best.

How about food? - Because it was long course, it's highly suggested to bring a bag lunch. Based on my experience, I would bring something easy to consume such as a sandwich, apple, trail mix etc. Our class didn't include a dedicated time for a lunch break. We simply consumed our food as Jeff shared stories and educated us on the next task. Additionally, don't forget to bring plenty of water.


Location and Arrival

Because I'm located in Gilroy, I traveled about an hour to this survival class. Coming off the main road, you'll turn into a narrow passage that will look like a very small culdesac however if you continue up the road, it will lead you to a wide, open space where you can park. I arrived about 30 minutes early and was the first one there. About 15 minutes before class, Jeff came walking down a trail with his dog and introduced himself. After chatting with Jeff, more students started to arrive; there were 14 of us for this class. We gathered in the parking lot and introduced ourselves. After the introduction, we collected our belongings and hiked up about 800 meters (half lap around a running track) that led us to the clinic site. We all sat around the instructor on tree stumps as Jeff explained his background and experience with us all. If you're looking for an instructor who has a fancy, well-organized presentation, this isn't the class for you. Jeff was tremendously laid back and didn't follow a strict agenda. With that said, after he shared stories and his experience, we got straight into the skills training.


Skill 1: Building Shelter

This skills portion was pretty straight forward. He walked us around the site to share some shelters that were already built from the previous class. We were educated on how-to and how-not-to build a shelter using natures gifts.


  • Build the skeleton of your shelter with an A-Frame with large, thick logs. This will allow water and other debris to roll down rather then having weight collect on a flat rooftop and collapsing in.

  • The shelter of your frame should be just large enough to fit you; if you're with someone else, the two of you. Having too large of a frame won't only require more pieces of nature, but will also release body heat faster.

  • In addition to the frame, the entrance to your frame should also be just big enough so you can crawl in and out.

  • As you complete the frame, start throw lighter twigs and leaves over the frame to cover all holes. When you lay in your shelter, there should be zero light peaking through.

  • Finally, place additional leaves and twigs in your shelter to lay on. This won't only cushion your body from the hard ground, but can also help retain heat.


Skill 2: Sanitizing Water

This skills portion of the class was more listening to Jeff speak about how to sanitize water. This was also the time for all of us to eat our packed lunches. Although we didn't get the hands-on practice for this, Jeff did share a sufficient amount of information on how to sanitize water.


  • If you are planning a backpacking trip, it's highly recommended to bring iodine or chlorine tablets to treat the water chemically.

  • In addition to chlorine tablets, you should bring a water filtration straw.

  • If netiher of these items are available, water can also be sanitized by the suns ultraviolet rays. First filter the water by pouring water through a cloth into another clear bottle. Once collected place it in direct sunlight. It can take up to 4-6 hours depending on the severity of cloudiness.

  • Finally, you can boil the water. Depending on the cloudiness, water should be boiled for about 1-5 minutes.


Creating a friction fire in Santa Cruz

Skill 3: Creating a Friction Fire

This was the highlight of the class. Have you ever seen outdoor enthusiast create a fire with a branch, rope, rock and twine? I am happy to say that every single person in our class was successful in completing this skill! Although, we can carry matches, lighters and even a fire-starter set when camping or backpacking, I would say this is still a good skill to learn because..."you never know".


This skill required multiple pieces to be successful. We needed a knife. Twine to be used as tinder. A fire board and wooden drill to create the friction. A flat rock to press the wooden drill to the fire board and a sturdy branch as long as your arm and nylon chord to create the bow. The tools that were provided to us were the knives, flat rock, and chord. For this specific class, Jeff had pre-made bows already prepared for students to use. However, if you wanted to take a bow home, you had to make your own and in this case, I made my own. After gathering all the necessary pieces from nature, I proceeded as follows:


  • Find a sturdy branch with a bow curve and cut it to the length of my arm.

  • Tie the chord to each end of the branch with as much tension as possible without snapping the branch.

  • Use the knife to create a point on one end of a short branch and stub on the other end to build a wooden drill.

  • Use the knife to shave the twine and create tinder.

  • Create a wooden board with notches.


After building the necessary tools, I attempted to ignite fire. If you're new to this, I will say that it takes patience and a little bit of muscular endurance when pushing and pulling the bow to spin the drill to create friction. As long as you can maintain enough pressure and consistent spinning, you'll start to create smoke and essentially small flakes of coal into the fire board. Once these flakes of coal are transferred into the tinder nest while still smoking, then the coal can be ignited into a large flame through consistent air flow.


Final Thoughts

Overall, this class was a unique experience. Although we did learn three basic survival essentials, I would have liked to learn how to distinguish edible plants from poisonous ones and how to navigate my way through a forest if I did not have a compass available. In the end, it was clear that this class wasn't just about the basics of building shelter and creating a fire, but it was also about being patient, being resourceful and developing a mindset of resiliency, adaptability and learning about nature. If you've ever thought about stepping out of your comfort zone and learning something new, I would highly recommend this Wilderness Survival Clinic with Adventure Out in Santa Cruz, California.



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