|
The Ultimate Test:
Learning to Survive in Utah’s Civilian Boot Camp of the Ancient
Arts
"We need the tonic of wildness." – Thoreau
I live a mile from the former Twin Towers. When I enrolled in survival
school, the thought of actually having to use the skills was only
in the back of my mind. It has since moved up-front. Learning how
to live outside of modern conveniences is a resourceful antidote to
today’s terrorist-based paranoia.
GOING TO CAMP
Lordy, what must one do these days to redeem himself? And what is
your breaking point?
One minute I am jetting to Salt Lake City, throwing back pretzels.
Hours later, I’m one of eight spry fellows in search of something
not found near concrete, lounging in a semicircle deep in a southern
Utah canyon. We’re turning our backs on civilization and starting
our 14-day survival course by taking in a sunset lesson by Cathy,
an outdoor survival guide, on how to wipe your ass with a handful
of fine red sand or sagebrush (pine needles and sticks wound, she
warns). This is a prelude to a three-day fast that begins with an
overnight speed-hike through sandstone-cactus backcountry, and continues,
relentlessly mobile, while eating nothing, and drinking only the fishtanky
water we find, frequently from puddles.
Hitherto, survival was taken for granted.
The underlying intent of a survival school is preparing students for
"what if?" Today, you can put the majority of outdoor enthusiasts
in the backcountry with their 60 lb. Pack, and most will do just fine.
However, put that same group in a scenario where their pack sails
off a cliff, they run out of food, or they find themselves lost far
from a town or re-supply point – and they could have serious
problems. Will they know what their priorities are? How to make a
fire without matches or lighters? How to make a shelter to keep from
dying of exposure? A survival school teaches traditional living and
field experience – how to live and travel without the high tech
gear on which we have grown to depend on.
Today, in our changing world, terrorism could render urban survival
adeptness a must. The rural skills taught in survival schools apply
to the urban world in the sense of establishing a pecking order of
needs – including protection from the elements and taking care
of others. I took this course for many reasons. One of them: What
happens if all hell breaks loose? Will I survive?
The Survivor television series was merely enduring annoying office
politics acted out in bathing suits. An epoch away, the Boulder Outdoor
Survival School (BOSS) teaches primitive wilderness living skills
and is a total detox from urban stress, billboard advertising enemas,
cultural originality genocide, and email habitude. Out here, we have
elected instead to be forced into pursuits as diverse as deep meditation
and starvation – which, I learn, go hand in hand. Without a TV
camera.
BOSS hasn’t changed their field course formula much since the
company’s inception in 1968. The Anasazi Indians migrated out
of Utah Canyonlands 1000 years ago; BOSS temporarily re-peoples the
same canyons with TV-reared beings unintentionally biting off more
than they can chew. The introductory course, which I am taking, starts
the group with three days in Impact phase traveling without food or
water. The next phase, Group Expedition, is about group learning and
practicing of survival skills. Then the three-day Solo/Quest phase
is followed by the finale, Student Expedition phase, where you spend
two days and nights in a smaller group traveling without a guide.
BOSS’s field courses roam near and within Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument. The Escalante zone, like all desert, is created
by channels worn by water flowing from all sides to a center nearer
to the vitals of the globe - the dynamic way the earth expresses itself
here. Signed into monument status by Bill Clinton, it’s America’s
newest and second largest monument, on deck to become a national park.
Nearby drug rehabilitation programs model part of the BOSS survival
school approach. There have been rehab patients who, seeking natural
psychoactive euphoria, consumed deadly vegetation. Just now, I think
that the water we’re suckling from a naturally-created pothole
– also home to innumerable, darting tadpoles – may render
some kind of buzz.
Survival courses attract a gamut of students ranging from millionaires
to destitute students – all looking to test their limits and
repurpose priorities: shelter, water, fire, and food. Our group is
eight email-savvy guys, aged 19-41 (including an LA cop, an Iowa collegian,
an erstwhile football player, and two East Coast suits who were recent
business school grad types). Four of us will be testing the theory
that the human body’s warranty expires around 35 years of age.
Women typically compose 30% of the student body and the dropout rate
for men and women remains consistent, both around 10%. Half of the
guides are women – but far from the type you’d find codependent
with Gucci.
A brief orientation for our mildly nervous pack of forty urbanites
is our first sighting of the guides. All are physically fit, though
not in a gym sort of way, wearing a variety of sarongs, pajama tops
and handmade deerskin Pocahontas bottoms, stitched vests, skin luggage
and Aztec-pattern backpacks. They are rootless, primitive artisans,
outdoor-renaissance people, nature handymen and women using minimal
gear. If I’d met the lead guide Breck in Manhattan, I’d
have taken him for a granola store counterman denying his privileged,
suburban Connecticut rearing. But he is Abo man – one for all
seasons – eating only meat he kills personally, then respectfully
using every part of the animal to make bone tools, oil, clothing,
fishhooks and ornaments. Breck makes even hippie minimalists look
like capitalist gluttons. He lives in a fold-up yurt when he’s
not teaching and seems happier than any penthouse-dweller I’ve
ever met.
The guides urge us to "repack" using only "appropriate
technology." In other words, they rummage through our approved,
scant belongings and eliminate forbidden fruits like vitamins and
sunglasses. "We need to see your eyes," they say. Then it’s
off into southwestern grandeur and temperature swings from 100 degrees
(day) to 40 degrees (night).
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WALK MAKES
Hard learning follows hard lessons – many were magnified in the
wake of three days of extreme trekking without cuisine. We set off
at dusk, wearing only waist packs minus water bottles, our belts dangling
with tied-off garments and one sparkly-blue enamel cup each. Crossing
the high desert replete with piñon pines, then slipping into
a meandering intermittent riverbed wash, the pace quickens. It’s
dark. We are drinking only the water we find, treated with drops of
Aerobic Oxygen, a cousin of chloride oxide. Albeit taxing, it’s
easier to fast with coaches holding you to the mission than it would
be slouching before a telly, hand tucked in the trousers.
Lesson: sleeping outside in light clothing without blanket or poncho
on cold sand sucks, even in a fetal clutch with limbs tucked inside
shirt. The mercury just above freezing, is. We have not yet been tutored
on the technical aspects of survival, so teeth chatter. In the middle
of the night and without warning, Breck points to a hillside and tells
us, "Go sleep!" Shiver dreams wake to shiver reality. My
night prayers include reciting the Door’s lyrics, "Waiting
for the sun."
I wake by accidentally rolling into a turgid cactus, and bite the
thorns out of my foot - already becoming an animal. The group assembles
for a solemn morning meeting. The executives sporting the top-of-the-line
name brand technical outerwear didn’t sleep at all; my hooded
"Princess Cruise" windbreaker, though failing to reaffirm
my manliness, fared better. Since most body heat escapes into cold
ground, a brief after-the-fact lecture on the importance of making
a puffy brush/mulch mattress – human bird’s nest - was useless.
Even the few who previously knew this had dug futilely into thorny
nests, given up and collapsed from exhaustion.
Breck explains how at night cold air settles downhill like water.
So when hunting shelter seek mid-level ground, that is protected from
the wind common on lower and higher ground. That, and "spooning"
with someone combines and redoubles body heat – none of the guys
looked at each other.
We set out for more Olympic-walking through myriad terrain changes,
the elevation rising and falling from 5,000 to 10,000 feet and back
again. We’re being pushed to simulate a survival situation. Jet-lagged
and originating from cement sea-level, I’m punchy with hungry
exhaustion and wondering if they mean impact…dismissed-from-plane
without chute? You can quit, but there’s no refund. You can die,
but there’s that death waiver you signed.
En route seminars include an introduction to animal track identification
(other specialized BOSS courses focus on tracking and trapping animals).
Rear bear tracks look amazingly human; lizards leave foot and trail
prints; and eating river-birch trees leaves tastes amazingly like
eating leaves. I discover why we packed two pairs of underwear: a
backup for when you shit yourself from either nerves or lapping up
buggy puddles. The gaze of angst widens.
Our troupe of civilization refugees continues zigzagging through big
sun desert, continually gaining or losing altitude via washes and
slot canyons, and intermittently ducking through spiky brush. We fall
into routines of duct-taping blistering toes and ergonomically stripping
and tying-off clothing onto our belts as the sun demands. (Duct tape
is handy for taping up sore feet, removing cactus-thorn blisters,
and taping your shoes back together. No need to pack a whole roll,
wrap some around two pens.)
During the breakout sessions on knife use and making fire without
matches, our guides remind us that there were "the big leaps
for humankind." We combust fire from carved sticks. This is making
a bow-drills by whittling a baseboard, a stringed stick cum bow, and
spindle. Then imagine a mad pyro-fiddler spinning embers by wailing
hurriedly back and forth with the bow on a handmade paper-towel holder
tipped on its side. The turning spindle-point creates smoking friction
with the baseboard. You plant the resulting ember into your fine-kindling
birds nest, blow, then appreciate matches for life. Ear wax and nose
oil lube the moving parts. A rock chisel puts the finishing touch
on my fire machine. Breck explains rock chisels work best to modify
wood because "you need a harder pecker."
Still no food. The mood swings from chatty to solemn. As the course
mandates, and to prepare you for a true survival situation, guides
are intentionally elusive about any future itinerary information,
and maintain an unsympathetic attitude toward individual difficulties.
They act only as safety nets in the event of a real emergency. This
is no Mountain Travel-Sobek guided adventure. Mini-pond libation continues,
for longer perhaps than we mini-mart consumers bargained for. Five-minute
breaks collapse into instant group naps.
Climbing out of canyon number 90 on Day Three, my supposedly high-tech
mountain-sneakerboots herniate by flapping shoe-sole rubber like an
18-wheeler losing retread. Branded into the sole are various decals
indicating the miraculous ability of each engineered area - intricate
parts which had promised to turn me into a wilderness trekking machine.
Soleless, I plod on, now wearing the equivalent of hospital slippers.
Feet still flapping, I contemplate wearing sandals for the next eleven
days. My thoughts are interrupted when one of the suits becomes unable
to carry his pack, so the kid from Iowa lugs it. Then, both business-types
become the Gatorade brothers by kneeling simultaneously to vomit lime-green
antifreeze. Yakking up bile is normal under extreme exertion circumstances
without food. The human body expects scheduled snacks or Big Macs
and not getting its fix will secrete superfluous bile, causing nausea.
The sneakerboot
blowout, however, was abnormal, so I duct-tape my soles back on. In
the midst of slicing tape sections to mummify by "boots,"
I glance away at the heaving-again Gatoradors and plant my knife a
half-inch inside my thumb. Mommy flashes into my mind – nobody
else notices her.
This simulated desperation is starting to feel real. I remind myself:
no trip in the fun, no fun in the trip – the adventure begins
when the plan fails.
The communication system on the trail is basic: one loud hoot is a
catch-up locator - hoot back until the missing party catches up. Two
hoots mean full stop and wait. Three's an emergency. Think quick hoots,
like redneck owls urging on a "Freebird" encore.
Duct-taped in five regions (primitive art), we walk into another night.
How much more can we take? Alas, at midnight we’re led to a mammoth
fire, heated sweet tea and a banana banquet: one each, best banana
I’ve ever tasted. This reunion with our gear certifies the end
of Impact.
Relieved, the group shares compelling campfire reflections that are
monitored by passing an only-the-holder-can speak ‘talking stick.’
Highlight confessions included: "I thought the instructors were
smirking sadistically at us," "Is this wilderness S&M?"
…"I was thinking guide revenge that would require my entering
a church using the emergency entrance." We took a vote: right-wing
militia we’re not. Guide mutinies, and hunting for a tavern,
are vetoed.
Then we slip into a swallow-your-tongue-tired slumber. A few of us
decided that it was time to rely on each other and beat the cold by
sleeping within spooning range. Outback lessons of survival over ego.
STAY THE COURSE, CURSE THE STAYS
Reunited with poncho, blanket and additional clothing, we enjoy a
few day’s rest. By this point, a half-cup of oatmealish veggie
mush and you’re bloated.
Workshops continue on flintknapping (cracking of a piece of obsidian
rock to create a cutting edge), munching dandelion greens (yellow
part too), knots and making animal traps. (By the way, obsidian is
500 times sharper than a standard surgical scalpel and obsidian is
used for eye surgery because it cuts so cleanly it leaves no scar).
We learn of a dozen ways to transform ponch into a tent. We learn
to value a sharp knife. We learn to expend fewer calories finding
food than we gain from eating it – not as easy as it sounds,
but a key equation your life would depend on in the real life outdoor
supermarket.
We’re now handy at stone-grinding oats and barley into flour
for breakfast cereal and bread ashcakes – it smells wonderful,
the reborn pilgrims are smiling. I know it won’t be long before
red river-birch leaf, wild violet garnish, and gooseberry salad are
hip at Dean & Deluca. Breck tells us "Consumers, never knowing
where there food comes from, are out of touch with the circle of life."
Think about your next burger. ...
The next day, we cooked sheep meat and vegetables in a steam pit for
a feast – an experience on par with Thanksgiving. …One of
our staples becomes sheep jerky, made by dangling strips of raw sheep
meat on a rack baking in the sun. On a 1,500 calorie-per-day diet
(rivaling a Snickers bar and fat stack of Pringles combo or a pint
of high-tech ice cream) it all tastes good, even the spongy vegetable
protein (TVP).
Our mobile homes are hand-tied backpacks made from military-issue
ponchos wrapped around a wool blanket. Together they are string-bound
like bakery cakes. The bundle is carried by one long section of seat-belt
strap woven through the parcel and around both shoulders, then tied
around your waist. Everything you carry has to have as many functions
as possible, ponchos and blankets outshine backpacks, which are only
good for carrying thing things – well… I guess your dog
could sleep in there.
We ration the supplies for the next five days. Carrots, corn-meal,
garlic, lentils, millet, potatoes, powdered milk, pepper, onion, salt
and vegetable bullion - plus a cloth bag with enough peanuts and raisins
to stuff a kitten.
But before going nomad again, we attend a forest-debris shelter review
that feels like a Better Homes and Gardens tour for the survival
set, where we shared our feelings about our self-made temporary homes.
In the wilderness show-and-tell, each builder stood before and critiqued
his structure. Then the instructors pointed out strong and weak points
– such as being aware of about-to-fall "widowmaker"
trees dying above. By the way, the only advantage to playing house
on a sharp hillside is assisting a running start from visiting beasts.
After discovering the designer animal in each one of us, we dismantled
our abodes and like completed Indian sand paintings, scattered the
evidence and moved on. I’m struck by the impermanence of man
versus nature.
Off we march into terrain morphing between mountaintop and jungly
creekside, slickrock and towering ponderosa forest. We dodge through
riverbank willow forests, rivers, dry washes, cliffs, hard clay and
series of mesa flattops and benches. Thinking our hard days are behind
us, I begin to sense more of this place. The aromas shift from juniper
to armpit to sage, to people battling digestive gas wars with vegetable
protein.
Living like a hunter-gatherer tribe, we now have the luxury of making
conical sleeping bags - the poncho snapped closed around the wool
blanket and tied off on one end like a burrito womb. Up here in the
thin air of a high-wooded ponderosa plateau, shaved down to your humanity,
the only apparent hazards seems to be campfire smoke inhalation, being
relaxed to the point of collapse, or getting a whiff of someone’s
breath (only baking soda is permitted to clean teeth).
The group splinters for a long downhill hike with light gear on a
mesa saddle-road flanked by dry mountains. At sunset, a warm breeze
from canyons on both sides lifts the moon. Now we’re on vacation.
While getting your PhD in nature, priorities change. One morning,
I caught the Iowa guy drooling while looking at guides’ abundance
of bedding mulch, after he’d spent the night sleeping on cold
ground.
Following a topographical map lesson we climbed down through sandstone
cliffs and slot canyons for several pant-wetting moments for the ex-footballer.
Seeing the tough guy frozen with fear was mildly satisfying. Another
day of sweat, the BOSS acronym has evolved to Boulder Outdoor Smelly
School.
At sunrise, no bother that my canteen of mossy agua was nearly frozen
solid.
THE FIRST
THING YOU PACK IS YOURSELF.
The boot camp on sheep jerky continues but now its just God and me.
My two new concerns:
1. While doing laundry naked by the river I sunburned my butt-cheeks.
Must sleep on stomach, face down into ant ranch.
2. Once the stomach unbloats, an amazingly small amount of food suffices
and you must find other things to consider - peacetime to ponder the
chasm between modern and ancient living. I remember something that
was written with a finger in wet cement that is now a concrete block
in a Manhattan intersection: The fastest way to leave childhood
is to have one.
There are points of no return, both in the human psyche and in the
desert. Typically in their 30s, people swap their once strong desire
to mature with cumbrous longings for youth. A comparable phenomenon
transpired in the midst of my Solo when my mind-set shifted from looking
back on the course – and my life – to wondering forward,
about both. Seizing this flash is my now.
While simulating sleep, burrowed deep in my poncho burrito, hat pulled
down completely over my face, listening to my breath… a large-footed
animal, possibly a human linebacker, encroached. The sound of legs
pounding against brush started and stopped abruptly … my adrenaline
flooded as it drew close. It stood above me; I lay stone-still. The
steps became more erratic as my heart raced. I froze, waiting for
the intruder to decide my fate. It just stood there. I blinked. It
stepped. Blink. Step. The sound of my heart thudding against my eardrums
overtook all clamor. I held my breath - then realized that the nervous
commotion was indeed my eyelashes whipping against the inside of my
hat.
Reclaiming philosophy mode, the sediment of consumerism sunk to the
bottom and cleared my vision. I ponder "customer service"
but still think microwaves are a batchelor’s best friend. Eating
uncooked food has blessed me with gas and diarrhea rivaling something
I sampled in India. So I’m mellow, slow-moving like a patient,
80 year-old Yoga devotee. Time is irrelevant. Perfect plodding and
reconstituting the period from sun up to down.
Question: Is engaging in a relentless verbal soliloquy while alone
weird? How come abbreviated is such a long word? Why do we say something
is out of whack? What is a whack? As surely as cottonwood trees and
animal tracks usually lead to water, germinating love handles have
vanished and been replaced by skin stretched over my lower ribs.
My fire machine (bow-drill) wouldn’t behave. The ointment cap
I used to clamp the top of the spindle burned through and the spindle
cut into the palm of my hand. Now I have no fire or cap for the ointment.
Matted hair, scalp crusting, involuntary fast (the shits)… What
to do? Adamant, I stood up and assumed the unshaven, hunter-gatherer
stance… My savage reawakened, I brave the hours either reapplying
a body mud-sheen to repel bugs, or refiguring high time for a bug
snack.
Your Solo is a sort of vision quest. A traditional Native American
vision quest which is experienced in isolation usually gives the questor
a direction, a plan, a dictum, or a purpose for their life from that
point on. One quest can change everything and every quest should try.
The psychological and emotional impact could depend on what you do
with your spare time back in civilization. A fisherman is used to
quietude and self-entertainment. An office executive likely is not.
My sense are alive. I smell the pinecone breeze, see the dry earth
crackling under my feet, and feel the precious seconds ticking. At
this point I know that I’ve had a life-changing experience –
one very much worth the effort. The scope of my experience is still
not clear because I’m consumed with suffering from ant-fly madness
and widespread body and scalp itchiness. Food fantasies wane behind
a hot shower daydream that will sooth skull-dermis decay and cactus
attacks.
My inspiration bears an idea…I decide to spend a week with my
parents upon my return. A candle loses nothing by lighting another
candle.
Knocked out by the liquid gold sputtering from my bowels, I amuse
myself by watching an ant war and wonder how the ages revolve, rockwise.
Night birds conduct low flybys, a lizard bursts away on lightening-speed
legs. But I’m too tired even to create indents in the sand that
will prevent my hip and shoulder from falling asleep. Through a process
of elimination (eating only sheep jerky) I link sheep jerky to diarrhea.
Individuality blossoms when you leave conformity behind, now I’m
nearest allied to red rock and sagebrush (that sentence a testimony
to solar delirium). Reading and writing in the shade, I make compelling,
light-headed forays out into sun for liquid-gold expulsion - always
near handy-wiping sagebrush. I repeople my imagination with clones
of dudes like me, all manufacturing solid stools.
Seeing my first person, post-Solo, was supernatural. The guy I saw
looked animal, bearing an expression indicating that he had intelligence
with some remote horizon – a different, unblinking look in his
eyes. He thought I looked wierd too.
The group gathered in a cave, consumed divine soybean hominy, then
patiently shared experiences. Prior to Solo, Breck had us pick names
from a hat, to identify a person you’d create a gift for during
your Solo. The post-Solo exchange of gifts – ranging from whittled
wood jewelry to a poem to a bone fishhook – was sappy, but real.
The guy from Philly gave me a cloth pouch full of raw potato, thinly
sliced and sun-dried into chips (sort of).
Day follows night, and night follows day, again and again. The calendar
is irrelevant. Ambivalent about retapping modern life, I leave the
sheep jerky behind.
TEAM EXPEDITION
We’re now split into two groups of four with a mission to travel
30 miles in two days without a guide. Before heading into the river
canyon with three other guys, one of them began stretching to prepare
for exertion. I wonder: do wild animals stretch-out before going for
a run?
Grazing as we go, our wayward posse has plenty of cuts and scrapes,
some contending with infection. We alternate the leader and the sweeper,
who also runs the lost and found. We traverse a chest-high river,
Deer Creek, fifty times, splashing and stumbling. Several times the
canyon walls pinch the river to a depth of ten feet or more. Our waterproof
string-bound poncho backpacks double as flotation devices. We cling
to the packs with both hands and kick our way downriver. This is more
fun than playing hooky from school. A thunderstorm and close lightning
strikes send us up to camp on a choice canyon shelf where I’m
finally at one with Mother Nature. Nobody knows where we are.
The difference between wearing the same T-shirt and shorts for 14
consecutive days in the Utah desert, and doing the same thing in an
urban setting, is that in Utah your ensemble is periodically dunked
in a crystal-clear river. You need to be athletic to handle this;
prehistoric street smarts will find you later. Though I didn’t
learn to load a pistol blindfolded, I was becoming a new man.
The mission complete, we meet the others and the guides by the muddy
Escalante River for dinner – best lentils on record. Our pushed-to-the-edge
buttons are reinstalled, but… It’s not over yet. ...
RE-ENTRY
A van ride back from Escalante to Salt Lake City starts to bring us
back to so-called modern civilization – but we still smell like
cavemen. The next morning, it took me a minute to recognize that I
wasn’t in another handmade shelter of my own making. My mirror
image was weird, bearded and 15 pounds thinner – who is that
I thought? Flying back to New York, I began a voracious three-day
food binge of triple servings, salt and unlimited confection: wilderness
detox. I looked out the window into a desert canyon with respect,
and wondered: Do ants like sheep jerky?
EPILOGUE
Ancient cultures provided rites of passage that graduated their citizens
into new levels of awareness. Today, Native Americans still practice
vision quests, and Holy Communions and Bar Mitzvahs endure (though
some would argue their primary benefactors are the catering companies).
Getting your driver’s license, getting laid at the prom, entering
the military or graduating college aside, our contemporary society
provides few inspiring benchmarks on the road of life. Getting in
touch with this desert did. Learning to survive, I realized my mind
is the strongest muscle in my body.
Redefine yourself by getting familiar with your limits. Manipulating
the big levers of chance need not be exiled to an eighth-grade summer.
After all, the earth is melted dust and we’re here for a very
short time.
The manufacturer of my failed sneakerboots claimed they were from
a defective batch, refunded my money and sent me a fearless replacement
that are still performing, with soul. I ate back 5 pounds before the
flight landed. And, I survived that week with my parents.
Bruce Northam's Globetrotter Dogma is an ode to wandering.
His books include The Frugal Globetrotter and In Search
of Adventure. His multimedia travel presentations - held at universities
and seminar centers nationwide - celebrate the spirit of circling
the globe many times, freestyle. His musings and details on travel
presentation are on AmericanDetour.com
|