Hey guys, I just got an email I got from the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. Running courses since 1968, they are the longest-running survival school in America (they are also a non-profit organization) to my knowledge. I completed their 28-day field course, the bread and butter of the school, which runs in the rugged canyonlands of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. There are no cabins, no sleeping bags, no flashlights, no tents. You eat a minimum of rations each day and whatever you can hunt, fish, or forage from the land (with guidance from instructors and the right permits). For the entirety of the 28 days we roamed the desert and the mountains with backpacks tied up out of wool blanket rolls and slept under tarps made from plus-sized rain ponchos with debris beds underneath.

BOSS works in close conjunction with federal land agencies. Requires a lot of special permits to operate those courses. BOSS teaches Leave No Trace on all its courses and goes beyond with its “Positive Impact” philosophy, showing students ways they can leave the land better than they left it.

The federal lands agencies are rolling out new plans that restrict dispersed camping activities, such as travelling in groups of more 12 people, or making campfires. While this is no doubt well-intentioned, BOSS instructors should not be the target of these restrictions, as they serve an important role in educating people about the wilderness, and sustainable ways to live alongside it. Sustainability is the hallmark of BOSS, something it prides itself on (most of their vehicles are older than their instructors and they re-use plastic ziploc bags repeatedly until they break) and new regulations that threaten their ability to teach courses would be a loss to us all.