Ages 18+
Linne Doran: Duvall, WA
$345
some meals provided
Future Dates TBD
“Thank you for a truly amazing and memorable experience! The instructors were absolutely amazing. It’s so hard to pick a favorite part of this program. The bowdrill, setting up a tarp, night walks, knife skills…I loved the ‘choose your own adventure’ style.”
– Dante, 2024 participant
“Kyle, Phoebe, and Luke were fantastic. They were patient, knowledgeable and kind – the kind of people you want as friends. I felt privileged to learn from them.”
– Joe O., 2024 participant
Join us for an engaging overnight experience at Survival Skills Overnight! This program will cover much of what is taught in our Wilderness Survival Basics program but will allow students to go deeper into these skills, putting them into practice. This program will cover the skills and knowledge necessary to live through a short-term wilderness survival situation.
Topics will include essential survival gear, survival priorities, and maintaining an upright mind.
You will learn these crucial survival skills:
- Firemaking using modern methods, as well as gaining an introduction to friction fire
- Water purification using both modern and survival techniques
- Wild food gathering and camp cooking
- Shelter-making using both a tarp and natural materials
- Animal traps
- Knife use and safety
- Bushcraft – cordage, spoon making, baskets, etc.
Anyone who enters the wilderness will benefit from having these essential survival skills.
Program Logistics
Class will take place at our school’s 40-acre property from Friday, at 6:00 pm, and will end on Sunday at 4:00 pm. We will have the basic survival food provided, including oats, raisins, nuts, chicken, fish, and wild foraged food. A light breakfast will be provided on Saturday and Sunday, as well as dinner on Saturday. Participants should arrive fed on Friday. Participants will need to bring additional food for lunches and snacks.
Please be prepared to be outdoors all day and to dress accordingly. While the class isn’t overly strenuous, we will be hiking about 6 miles over the course of the weekend.
Students will need to be able to carry food, water, and gear with them throughout the day – preferably in a backpack with a hip belt. A knife is required for the class. Fixed blade knives may be purchased during registration ($20-35 depending on the model).
Meet Your Instructors
Kyle Schultheis
Kyle grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he spent much of his time exploring the oak savanna landscape. He earned a BS in Geology from Chico state university before spending four years in the military, serving overseas and in snowy upstate New York. Upon exiting the Army, he spent several years living off-grid in a canvas wall tent in the Pacific Northwest and began a new path exploring nature-connected and holistic ways of living.
A graduate of Wilderness Awareness School’s Immersion program and multiple other year-long and seasonal wilderness skills programs, Kyle has been practicing bushcraft and naturalist skills intensively since arriving in Washington in 2016. He enjoys spending all hours of the day and night in every season living outside and helping others find what brings them alive in the natural world.
Phoebe Reid
Growing up on the Olympic Peninsula to a family steeped in adventure, Phoebe found a sense of home amidst thimbleberries, salmon bones, wild rivers, and the smell of seaweed. She grew up sailing, camping, fishing, kayaking, and exploring, but it wasn’t until she first witnessed a hand drill fire at age 14 that her curiosity about nature connection was piqued.
Phoebe attended the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) at age 16 and got her first Wilderness First Responder certification at age 17, which she’s held ever since. After spending two years finishing high school in Southern Africa, she went on to work as a backpacking guide for multiple organizations in Washington, Montana, and Alaska with humans of all ages. She graduated from the University of Washington with an honors degree in Environmental Studies and after several years of wandering (including working for a tech giant, becoming a life coach, traveling overseas, and living in Los Angeles), she reunited with a deep sense of belonging in the Pacific Northwest and attended The Immersion at Wilderness Awareness School.
It was at WAS that Phoebe discovered her love of crafting, archery, plants, wildlife tracking, friction fire, and being covered in mud. She graduated from The Immersion in 2021 and from the Adult Nature Instructor Training Program in 2022. She is now a core instructor at The Immersion.
Poetry, song, community, and rites of passage have been common threads that Phoebe continues to follow into the wild unknowns of being a human. She also loves horses with unbridled passion, has a cat named Colonel Oliver Longfox Marten, tends between 2-50 rabbits at any given time, and is a huge plant nerd.