Upcoming Courses with Wildcard Wilderness Survival

Join Jacks Genega from Season 13 of The History Channel's Alone: World Championship, for a riverside wilderness immersion that celebrates ancestral skills, craft, and community that will deepen your relationship to your wild within. 

The Wild Heart Wilderness Immersion is a transformative experience designed for women who want to reconnect with their confidence, capability, and authentic selves through wilderness living skills, community, and emotional freedom. Set in a supportive and encouraging environment, this immersive experience blends ancestral skills with nature connection and personal growth that allows one to step away from the noise of daily life and rediscover their inner lionheart.

Survival demands more than luck; it demands calories. Securing nutritional, edible, and palatable food in the wild requires a deep understanding of the landscape, the animals that dwell within it, and the ability to build simple, repeatable systems that yield results. Wild Protein is a five-day field course focusing on practical, proven methods for collecting essential calories from the natural world, how to process small game, and how to prepare our meals over a fire or preserve them. Students will master the construction of fish basket traps, gillnets, snares, and other small game traps, utilizing both materials found on the landscape and resources from their survival kit. In addition, we will learn various methods to preserve meat in the wild alongside preparing our food for consumption over coals and classic avenues.

Instruction emphasizes hands-on learning and real world application. Participants will gain a brief understanding of animal sign, selecting productive locations for sets, and understanding how water systems, terrain, and seasonal patterns influence success. The course also includes a brief introduction to wild edible plants that can aid in nutrition when protein and fat are scarce. By the end of the program, students will walk away with practical skills in primitive fishing, trapping, preservation, and meal preparation.

Basecamp Bushcraft is a course that is designed to promote a sense of wilderness living with others and beyond our basic needs of survival. Students will learn how to build varying means of comfort entirely off the landscape including benches, chairs, and beds. As a class, we will learn how to build instruments such as mallets, sawhorses, and vices and how they can aid in processing fuel and other materials. Other topics will include plant and tree identification, firecraft, cutting tool safety, food procurement and preservation, camp maintenance, simple pioneering as well as several different knots, notches and lashings on top of some handcrafted projects at the end of the course. Students will walk away with the knowledge of how to construct a basecamp to share in a community or as individuals in the wild.

Course Project Examples: Creating grass mats with a woodland loom, vices, sawbuck, bucksaw, mallet, dakota fire, tripod smoker, ground refrigerator, brooms, rakes, chairs, spatula, spoon, benches, rope beds, ladders, wash area, utilizing wood ash for hygiene, making a torch from Pine Tar

Take the first STEP! Get ready to experience Colorado’s wild frontier, rich with dense pine forests, rocky outcrops, and stream crossings, that will excite your curiosity and challenge your endurance on this thrilling wilderness adventure where nature becomes your greatest mentor. STEP (Survival Training Expedition Program) is a guided wilderness skills hike designed for outdoor enthusiasts seeking immersive survival training on the move while carrying minimal food and supplies, or the essential gear in a hiker’s day pack. Over the course of four days, you will witness an untouched landscape armed with little tools to deepen your connection with both the natural world and your lionheart within. Students will complete multiple phases with the last being an evening solo where they will implement the skills they’ve developed.

Day hikers are statistically more likely to confront danger in the wild due to their lack of knowledge, skill, and gear. This excursion is designed to be a ‘path to preparedness’ as you will learn crucial techniques such as fire-building, disinfecting water, foraging for edible plants, primitive food procurement methods, creating improvised shelters, navigating without a GPS, on top of several exercises to enhance your survival mindset while under the guidance of experienced instructors. Opportunities to learn and grow in resilience while tasting and testing your self-reliance will leave participants filled with courage to take their first step in future backcountry adventures. Participants will test their creativity in how to utilize environmental resources on top of the items they’ll depend on - a cutting edge, poncho, water container, and fire-starting tool. Each phase of the journey presents new challenges that will foster personal growth that will unlock your potential on your personal hero’s journey.

Phase 1 of the course begins on Day 1 where kits will be inspected, safety precautions will be thoroughly discussed, and an introduction to critical skills such as self-aid, fire, shelter, and water will be presented. Students are not required to stay on site on this night but are highly encouraged to do so to promote social bonds as we prepare to travel together in the remote wilderness.

​The following day will begin Phase 2 where we will embark on the expedition off the grid and dive into valleys and through gulches to gather materials from the forest floor for the evening’s fire. This phase emphasizes practical, hands-on learning, encouraging participants to engage fully with the environment while developing confidence in their abilities. Students will learn primitive trapping and fishing methods, friction fire off the landscape, how to read weather patterns, navigate via terrain association, and how to conquer both environmental and personal challenges. Whether you're seeking to prepare for the unexpected, challenge your skills in a remote setting, grow as an outdoor enthusiast, or simply embrace the simplicity of life on the trail, this immersive experience promises to leave you with invaluable survival training and unforgettable memories. By the end of the journey, you’ll walk away with an enhanced confidence, practical skills, a new appreciation for the natural world—and an ability to overcome that will continue to grow and inspire others. 

Participation in the expedition phase requires full commitment. Once the journey begins, quitting at any point is not an option, as it impacts the safety, learning, and cohesion of the group. This phase is designed to challenge you and foster growth through resilience and teamwork. While it may push you outside your comfort zone, instructors will support you throughout, ensuring your safety and success.​

Consider this commitment carefully before joining—once on the trail, perseverance is key to completing this transformative experience.

The final phase, Phase 3, will begin the afternoon of Day 4 and involves preparation for an individual evening alone. Students will complete the final leg of the expedition and gather materials needed for food and fire before scouting their desired location for a night in solitude. The following morning we will gather in community and discuss our challenges and triumphs of the previous evening and the prior days. This final phase will complete the program leaving students ready to take the first STEP in future wilderness adventures. 

When calories matter, protein becomes the difference between getting by and truly sustaining yourself in the wild. This immersive four day field course focuses on practical methods for harvesting food from the landscape using simple materials and traditional knowledge.

Participants will learn how to construct effective fish basket traps, crawdad traps, primitive fishing systems, and several styles of traps and snares designed for small game. Along the way, students will also explore the fundamentals of animal tracking and gain a brief introduction to identifying useful wild edible plants.

Instruction emphasizes hands on building, field testing, and understanding how these systems work within real environments. By the end of the course, students will leave with the skills and confidence to locate, harvest, and secure reliable sources of protein from the natural world.