Adult

Winter in New England can be intimating. Learn the basics of what you know to enjoy the outdoors all winter long.  From emergency fire starting, to gear selection, to what to pack in your bag, this course will cover the basics to keep you not only safe, but comfortable as you enjoy the silence and beauty of the winter wilderness.  Please join us for this hands on approach to winter wilderness self reliance!

Losing your way in the wilderness can be an inconvenience or a life threatening problem. However, with some simple tools, knowledge, and skills, not only can you avoid getting lost but you can plan and execute off trail travel into amazing back country landscapes or navigate to a specific location when it really counts.

The Winter Tracking class is open to all skill levels and students 16 and older. The day will be predominantly experience based, offering guided ‘dirt time’ in which students can push their skills in real tracking situations. Trailing and interpretation will be a major theme for the weekend as we take in depth looks into the lives of the animals living in Vermont’s forests.  Expect to cover a lot of snow in any weather conditions and to spend the full long days in the forests and fields tracking.

We will be spending the afternoon learning, exploring, and nibbling on what early summer foraging has to offer.  All experience levels are welcome!  

Human tracking is a key element in the realm of Scout skills. In this course we will focus on human tracking  in teams with security following subjects who dont want to be followed.  We will cover subject ID, track aging, trailing in varied substrates, gait interpretation, site interpretation, counter tracking, team movement and tactics, and much more.  The ability to follow trails, analyze them for key information, discover their age, and build a profile of your subject is a game changer.  We will interpret camp sites and cache spots, and investigate how to see through counter tracking.

We will be taking a look at  bow drill, a fire by friction technique, and bring it to an elevated level both in material and technique.  To create a kit that is long term as well as beautiful we will craft a high performing flex bow out of osage orange and peck a stone handhold that will never have to be replaced.  We will also take a look at techniques and various ways to troubleshoot and modify your kit so that you can be versitile as you coax fire from wood.

Understanding birds, their behavior and their language is a key to understanding the natural world at large. The eyes and ears of the forest, birds can be constantly keying us in to deeper levels of knowing what is happening around us, the health of the ecosystems, and linking layers of the ecosystem together in exciting ways.

This class will be a 2-day beginners-oriented exploration of the various black smithing techniques useful in the creation of tools & crafts related to outdoor living skills.

A weekend of archery fun! 3d target course through the woods, moving target challenges, archery competitions, and a flaming arrow shoot. Long bows and self bows only. More info soon!