A few months ago KidCharlamagne posted a thread about a class he was going to take a “Hunter Gatherer” survival course through Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS).
Well the Kid never posted his findings… So I decided to Post a thread about The course as I have completed it. I took the course whilst in Graduate School at Arizona State University.
Essentially you are dropped off in the middle of nowhere with Nothing and told to survive for 10 days…in the desert.
For more info on the classes go here . The link is directly to the BOSS site. They can answer Q’s about what they have to offer, I can tell you what it was like fending for myself in the desert for 10 days without any tools but hand made ones.
Though I did not take a course called Hunter and Gatherer, I did the same things as the Kid describes. I think back in 1993 the classes were called other things anyway.
So what do people want to know? Anything?
Here are some tid-bits to spur some thoughts.
We made all of our tool the first day at base camp. I made a walking stick with sharpened tip out of a Saguaro Rib. We lost a lot of weight on the trip, but I must say, when you have all day to find edible materials, you are generally having Some fun…
The worse injury I sistained was stepping on a cholla with bare a bare foot. The nights were not that bad, we had someone who could start a fire in ten minutes. All in all we had a good time, I found out what different desert rodents tasted like, and also how long it takes to fashion a knife out of stone…
This sounds soooo cool.
What were your day to day activities (a rough schedule)?
What did you eat?
Did you use traps/snares/slingshots/etc?
What tools did you make?
Which tool was the most/least useful?
What did you wish you had the most?
Where were you?
How scarce was water?
I could go on and on…
Thanks
-tool
Just curious what it cost.
Will you be using any of your new-found skills in the future, or was it just for “fun”? Will we be seeing you on the next Survivor?
Lightning - We were on a trek. It was roughly 50 miles, and we had 10 days nine nights to get to the destination. 50 miles can be done in a few days usually, but when you have to find water and preserve it you have to take your time. The first tools I made were walking staff’s with spear points, and rock knife. Try cutting into an edible cactus with a piece of wood…Doesn’t work very well. So I made a rock knife, with a couple other guys on the trek.
What did we eat? well we ate a lot of Prickly pear cactus. The ones that look like a paddle. They have a fruit on them called prickly pear. It’s very Tart, but good. We also ate the cactus itself. The knife was used to get the spikes off.
Saguaro cactus have an edible milky excretion that we tapped on occasion for moisture. We gathered Dew in clumps of dried fibrous material from the inside of the paddle cactus. It worked very well. So we were up at 4 a.m gathering the dew.
On the third day one of the guys killed a jackrabbit. It was very messy trying to clean it, but when we did we cooked it. It was about 3 bites a piece for 7 guys. We made a fatal error that night by not burrying the carcass. We had coyotes following us for the rest of the days to the home camp. It was not that bad because they are suprisingly scared of humans, and a loud shout usually sends them running.
As for cost, it was nil because we were part of a school co-op program and this was a life skills exercise for psych-grad students. (The program didn’t last long at ASU after a grad student some years after me was sent to hospital with severe mal-nutrition)
As for skills I gained from it. I am a very calm individual. And as a teacher, I utilize many unorthodox methods of teaching and I find it helps ten fold with getting my point across…