AAR Brushbeater Basic Wilderness Survival

AAR Basic Wilderness Survival

One of the common things I think about during the winter, wherever part of the US I happen to be living in, is how glad I am to have a house. Walking the dog in the dark and cold has prompted me many times to contemplate how I would handle getting stuck out away from home or even my vehicle. Combine this with the reading I’ve been doing about the “forest hospitals” of WW2 Yugoslavia, and I was very excited to participate in redux of the Brushbeater “First-line course”. NC Scout had not offered the First-Line since I started as a student at Brushbeater, and Basic Wilderness Survival taught by callsign Timber, a protege of NC Scout and professionally trained SERE instructor in his own right was a fantastic opportunity.

As is typical for classes at the GCamp, I arrived the evening before and was up into the wee hours sharing beverages and conversation with students for BWS and Rallypoint ISR Solutions’ students. It was great to catch up with compatriots as well as make some new contacts.

Day 1 started at 0900-ish, with some students rolling in closer to 1000, but Timber rolled with it and kept everyone on schedule. Walking out into the woods where he had partially constructed a parachute shelter, Timber walked us through a progression of knots that would allow us to perform our later shelter-construction tasks. Starting with the simple square knot and advancing through the trucker’s hitch, I began to feel like the power of the simple para-cord in my hands was near limitless.

Following the early morning knot-tying session, Timber then demonstrated a shelter construction using line, a tarp, and improvised stakes. While he emphasized the importance of getting every stage right (tight ridgeline, etc.), he also showed how to improvise solutions for tying down corners, such as the sheet bend and the “button” using natural materials.

The instructor shelter demo wrapped up the morning, and class was paused for an hour to allow students to go get lunch and change socks. Upon return, we students launched our own shelter set-ups, using the techniques Timber had modeled in his. Assigned time for this was an hour, and following feedback on shelter construction, Timber had some hip-pocket instruction on avoiding trench foot. It’s surprising how fast even slightly wet socks can set your feet up for a cold injury.

The balance of the afternoon was occupied with fire making, starting with wood sourcing and preparation. In addition to invaluable instruction on preparation and building of a fire from a spark on up to sustained blaze, Timber provided the materials for making char-cloth and pine-needle tea once the fire really got going. To conclude the fire block, Timber also covered fire safety and dispersion. There’s a strong theme of safe practices and injury avoidance throughout the class, with the reminder that even a minor injury in an austere environment can disproportionately effect your chances of survival.

To conclude the day after 1700, we went as a class to the Brushbeater Store for an additional block of instruction on knife sharpening and maintenance. It’s always fun to go to the store, both for the welcoming environment and friendly staff, but also to see what new toys NC Scout has added to his growing inventory. In this case, a whole new counter has been added to make room for 1911s, striker-fired handguns, and revolvers, as well as a wall of rifles.

Day 2

Closing out Day 1, Timber offered the class an optional morning module on medicinal/edible plants, which everyone was interest in. So, at 0900 we stepped off for a nature walk. Over the next hour Timber showed us various plants native to the GCamp that have no dangerous mimics. He talked through with us the various uses of these plants, and special considerations. This was a part of the class when I wish I had followed the packing list and brought a notebook. Timber is a wealth of knowledge, and I would have benefited even more from taking notes. He recommended a couple of resources, such as “Botanist in a Day” by Thomas Elpel as well as the phone app PictureThis for self-study on this important topic.

After an hour of the nature walk, we returned to the parachute shelter, and got to work improving it using even more knots and lashing techniques.  At 1100, Timber gave us the agenda for the next 4 hours, to the conclusion of the class time at 1500. Essentially, this was to independently do the various tasks we had been taught over the last day and a half: shelter, fire, foraging, char-cloth production, etc.

While all the students had the same basic task list, Timber did personalize instruction to each student. For example, he did a module on fire-drill with an advanced student. For me as a physician, he tasked me with gathering all the discussed medicinal plants, rather the minimum of two. This actually worked out really well, as I had extra plantain and yarrow for a poultice after another student suffered a minor burn while working with his fire.

Like all Brushbeater classes, Basic Wilderness Survival ended with a  concluding address from Timber, and the awarding of the famous diamond/skull/resistor patch.

While taught for a permissive non-tactical environment, BWS was a necessary place for me to start, and a great companion to other such classes as Scout/Recce, RTO, and Joe Dolio’s Fieldcraft. Don’t just buy the gear you think you need from watching YouTube and leave it in a bag. Get out there, get training, and find what you actually can use. Make yourself harder to kill.

“Discipline equals Freedom.”