A student on the College Of the Rockies Mountain Adventure Skills program to become a guide. We taught a bespoke challenging ‘Survival week’ for the prospective guides.
“Mental toughness is so real!!!!! When’s the last time you spent a duration of time alone in the forest, nobody around, no belongs with you expect for a knife and a lighter? We as humans, always have stimulation, it’s natural. We are always busy, working, moving, creating, and teaching. We are never still, and alone with our thoughts. We often don’t give ourselves time to experience solitude. It’s so easy to depend on someone else. It’s so easy to give up, it’s so easy to say “another time” and it’s so easy to just distract yourself in our everyday society. I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to push myself in all aspects and truly connect to the wilderness. That is such a powerful, refreshing feeling. We are so small and Mother Nature is not forgiving.
Spend time with yourself! Spend time in the woods.
I can definitely say though, I’ve never been more thankful for a bed and warm blankets and food and water and truly everything under the sun!
Your mind is a powerful place. Just like the forest.”
October 2020
“5 days, and 4 nights in the pouring rain with minimal food and shelter. When I say rain, I mean almost 80mm in a week… and we were outside the whole time. The first two nights we spent under a tarp with a buddy, the last two nights we spent in our self built shelters.
On top of sleeping in a shelter we built, we were solo in the woods for 48 hours with no food and only the supplies we had on us which consisted of some matches, clothes, a knife, headlamp and 1L of water.
When the last day rolled around I was pretty happy to have a burger and lay down in my warm van. I was a little off from the lack of sleep and dehydration… I was hallucinating seeing smoke and hearing trains. After a good nights sleep and some eats I was back to just my regular mental irregularities!
Also, this was the trip that started off with the whole class taking off their pants and crossing a frigid river.
Would you do a wilderness survival week?”
October 2020