The Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS).

[sandbender]

The Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) host what appear to be some quite intensive courses in Utah, Colorado, and Mexico.

I stumbled across an online diary made by a chap who endured one of their longer 28 day courses, it makes for an interesting read, some good photos too.

You may read that diary here.


(The school was recently mentioned by Tadpole in the 'Elvenising my equipment' thread, apparently one of their pupils died on a course. You can read Tadpole's post and the comments of others here. And that incident was discussed on earlier threads here and here.

Additionally, one of our members, myakka, posted a review of the BOSS seven day course and you may read it here.)


Thanks for looking

 

[korvin karbon]

thanks.

I am looking at 2-4 week courses just now.

 

[charadeur]

To me this course seems more like an endurance test than a bushcrafting course. Not something I would be interested in.

Has there ever been any results from the lawsuit?

 

[Mr Cake]

I was interested in doing one of their courses until the pound seriously went the wrong way against the dollar so I have a few links saved somewhere including the one already mentioned. Here's another:

http://survivethis.typepad.com/index/2007/08/boss-day-1.html

I have read conflicting reports as to whether the 14 and 28 day courses were more of an endurance walking holiday than an opportunity to learn skills. Depends what you want from it -they do straight skills courses as well. I'd still like to go though (so long as it was cheap enough) - either way it's got to be quite an experience.

 

[nks487]

sounds like an endurance test to me. I can think of a lot of better ways to spend $3875! like doing stuff on your own!

If you want this kind of test then join the Royal marines or UKSF! They pay you!

 

[Nagual]

Aye, spending a fortune to be made to walk across rugged terrain, being forced to starve and dehydrate does not sound like fun. I mean you could do that for free rather than pay someone to make you do it.. madness. Why not spend the money or less on a good proper survival course or bushcraft course where you can learn much more/ Ach, each to their own I guess.. but madness I say Madness!!

 

[Bravo4]

Certainly you can digest more skills if you are not concurrently facing an endurance test, but if that is what you are after, go for it . I suspect that many students of the BOSS Field courses are looking for a 'test' or 'trial' more than a straight learning experience.

As Mr Cake points out, BOSS offers a Skills course in addition to the death march. Had a look at costs for some of the Schools listed on this website and they charge about the same per day as a BOSS course. They have been in business since 1968 so BOSS must be doing something right, at least with marketing .

Maybe take a BOSS skills course and afterwards you can walk out to the nearest airport, should take at least a month. Seriously, SE Utah is an amazing place and it would be a shame not to explore around a bit if you are ever in the area.
http://www.go-utah.com/UT/travel/overview-southeast-utah.cfm

If BOSS is too pricey, consider BUST(Bravo4 Uninsured Slacker Travel) where our motto this week is "It's Your World, Explore It! or just have another beer and relax"
You will learn: the fine art of taking a siesta, proper selection and use of local cerveza, and up to 3 other skills. Courses involve an intensive hands-on phase where you will be expected to take part; there are no spectators(witnesses) on a BUST course. BUST, it's not just a financial outlook, it's a way of life.

Here's what some of our alumni had to say after attending a BUST field course:
"What,,,what just happened?" Drew W
"You said there would be a first aid kit, " Abigail D
"My big toenail fell off the second day. I lost the other one on Day3" Eddie S
"My boyfriend dumped me while I was away on a BUST course, he took the dog" Christine R
"I had never experienced pulling cactus needles out of my backside before and never wish to again" Dan B
For your next adventure , Go BUST!

 

[helixpteron]

Brilliant!

 

[BOD]

Survival is not about wasting your energy stupidly or your water by walking at the hottest time of day.

That's modern man playing at being a hero (read moron) or Delta Force wannabee not how real bushmen did it.

You want to see how you cope in an arid wilderness having no food and trying to find a waterhole every day the go to Western Australia and do The Walk. 180-200km (depending how you wander in the bush). Run by a guy who does extreme environment research for NASA, and a host of other people but is firmly grounded in indigenous bushcraft. But they won't accompany you in the bush! But at least you will have been taught to be smart and not stupid in the bush first


PM if you want details

 

[xylaria]

If BOSS is too pricey, consider BUST(Bravo4 Uninsured Slacker Travel) where our motto this week is "It's Your World, Explore It! or just have another beer and relax"
You will learn: the fine art of taking a siesta, proper selection and use of local cerveza, and up to 3 other skills. Courses involve an intensive hands-on phase where you will be expected to take part; there are no spectators(witnesses) on a BUST course. BUST, it's not just a financial outlook, it's a way of life.

Here's what some of our alumni had to say after attending a BUST field course:
"What,,,what just happened?" Drew W
"You said there would be a first aid kit, " Abigail D
"My big toenail fell off the second day. I lost the other one on Day3" Eddie S
"My boyfriend dumped me while I was away on a BUST course, he took the dog" Christine R
"I had never experienced pulling cactus needles out of my backside before and never wish to again" Dan B
For your next adventure , Go BUST!

That sounds simerlar a safari tour I saw honeymoons from hell. This very nice english couple had booked a for a "Genuine African Experience Tour" of Botswana. They knew they were into something special when they were met at the airport by a fat afrikaner with BO who was driving a toyota flat bed. She got to sit in the front with this bloke and his sleazy charms, and he got to sit on a plastic garden chair tied on to the flat bed. To make the experience more authentically african he was given two guns, one large calibre to shoot rhinos and hippos and the other to shoot bandits. The tent leaked, and they weren't given enough water to wash.

 

[BOD]

I suppose the best thing about BOSS is that it creates an opportunity for people who need their head read to go out and test themselves with someone knowing where they are unlike this guy who wasted a lot of people's time.

(And it is only fair they charge big money for the privilege)

Robert Bogucki decided he needed to isolate himself for a long period of time. He chose to do it beginning on July 12, 1999, in Australia's Great Sandy Desert. After telling a friend that he planned to rely solely on his spiritual resources during his four-hundred-mile trek through the desert, the thirty-three-year-old volunteer fireman from Fairbanks, Alaska disappeared into the brutally inhospitable terrain, setting off a massive search that was subsequently depicted in an hour-long segment of Dateline NBC.

Rescuers who followed Bogucki deep into the 160,000-square-mile wasteland--terrain so harsh even Aborigines don't live there--marveled at how he was able to keep going for so long. They knew he couldn't possibly carry enough food and water to sustain him the whole way, and with every 90-degree day that passed, hope dimmed for the man the Australian media had dubbed "the desert vagabond."

Finally, after several hundred miles, his footsteps disappeared. The search was officially declared at an end. Bogucki's parents, however, hired a professional team to sustain the effort. Trackers and dogs in trucks and helicopters were deployed and miraculously picked up his trail again. Then they found his camping gear.

By then he'd been alone in the desert for six weeks with no known supplies. Searchers in a helicopter finally came across his backpack, tarpaulin, water bottle, and his most-prized possession--the Bible he was never without. And the tracks leading on, resolutely straight until now, seemed confused. Also, his footfalls weren't as strong, and his rest periods came much too often.

Where initially he had averaged twenty-five miles a day, he was now covering less than three. What's more, revealed the Dateline narrator, Bogucki's girlfriend had disclosed his intention, if he decided that he wasn't going to make it, to secrete himself somewhere in the vast wilderness to die. Then, with the hope of finding him dwindling with each passing hour, the searchers suddenly came across him, "just strolling along, head down, oblivious to the roar of the helicopter," according to one rescuer.

Weak, gaunt, his skin hanging loosely on a now-skeletal frame, Bogucki was flown to a nearby hospital. He had lost forty-four pounds, roughly a third of his former body weight. Otherwise, he was fine.

Meanwhile, people around the world were asking, "Is the man crazy?" "Why did he do such a thing?" "What was he looking for, anyway?" Bogucki's answers came four months later in a filmed interview. He said he'd dreamed of making such a journey for ten years, that he did it because he needed to know that God exists, otherwise his life would be pointless.

He had originally planned to ride his bicycle across the desert, he said, but the terrain was so sandy that walking was easier. As his strength withered he forced himself to keep going, felt he'd eventually come to the place where he'd be "tested." He once went three days without water, got desperate and dug six feet with his bare hands and found water. He ate desert flowers.

As he walked, he spent the time thinking, he said, thinking and crying. He thought of his life; how much love God has for people. And he kept walking. He walked for weeks with no food to sustain him and barely any water. He tried not to lose his mind, he said, and had left the bible behind because he didn't need it anymore.

Then he spelled out "HELP" with rocks on a stretch of open ground. And he kept walking. "Ready to die, at peace," he said later.

Bogucki found water barely minutes before the helicopter came upon him--forty days after he'd set out into the desert. He had walked 240 miles without food, surviving by eating plants and flowers and drinking muddy water. The number forty was no coincidence, he claimed, because both God and Moses were in the desert exactly forty days. "God did that," he said.

The most important thing to him, Bogucki disclosed at the end of the Dateline interview, was that he'd found his relationship to God. He also said that he had married his girlfriend of the past eleven years, that he'd become more of the person he wanted to be and could be close to someone else now, and that he didn't need to go without food and water to find God anymore.

"Better," he said, "to show compassion and kindness."

Also here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/428505.stm

 

[helixpteron]

People do many and various things in order to find exactly where they are, whereas all I do is go to the shopping centre and look on the map, which states 'You Are Here!'

 

[Chinkapin]

The last time i looked at one of those shopping center maps, it said "you think you are here, but you not. - - your a jerk, and you're lost."

I don't get no respect. no respect at all.

 

[Tiley]

Did the Search and Rescue folk charge Bogucki for the massive inconvenience his antics caused?

I've nothing against folk with a strong faith but this does appear to be several steps too far. At least he married his girlfriend.

The BOSS set-up and courses definitely look to be at the extreme end of the spectrum; that said, I do like the sound of their skills courses. Has anyone done any of them?

 

[Bravo4]

I stumbled across an online diary made by a chap who endured one of their longer 28 day courses, it makes for an interesting read, some good photos too.

You may read that diary here.

Thanks for that there link sandbender, it is a good read. It seems like the guy started out with very little experience in the outdoors and by day 20 he writes,

" Don't need to pay anyone after this - I can just go and do it on my own. Sounds liberating, doesn't it? "

Full of confidence and with a much deeper appreciation of the world, I think the young man probably got his money's worth on this trip. He states pretty clearly that his primary motivation for attending the BOSS field course is as a rite of passage and that may have been just what he needed.

Ever notice how privation and gratitude go hand in hand? How about when you first experience something and it seems intolerable but second time around there's nothing to it; the mind is a wierd place. Southern Utah is a beautiful place; if you've got the loot and it's what you are after then do the BOSS thing. Odds are it won't get you killed where as to get some boa-fide 'high-speed' army training, well those odds are a little different these days wouldn't you say?

I remember the R Boguki story; I guess finding God is not priceless after all, it's only about $72,000US.

Oh boy, the strangest tale of death in the desert that I can think of :
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/books/two-went-out-one-came-back.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Coughlin
and the film based on the above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_(film)

I've been down to Carlsbad, camped out in Rattlesnake canyon. These guys were not that far out in the backcountry. I hope Mr Kodikian takes the time to develope his nav skills before he heads out again for a weenie roast and campout.

 

[Bushwhacker]

That sounds simerlar a safari tour I saw honeymoons from hell. This very nice english couple had booked a for a "Genuine African Experience Tour" of Botswana. They knew they were into something special when they were met at the airport by a fat afrikaner with BO who was driving a toyota flat bed. She got to sit in the front with this bloke and his sleazy charms, and he got to sit on a plastic garden chair tied on to the flat bed. To make the experience more authentically african he was given two guns, one large calibre to shoot rhinos and hippos and the other to shoot bandits. The tent leaked, and they weren't given enough water to wash.

Hell?

That sounds like fun to me.

 

[charadeur]

At least he married his girlfriend.

She might want to reconsider.

I am all for going on vision quest but go with a plan that reduces the anxiety on your loved ones and does not cost tax payers anything. The way this guy did it shows he was either very selfish or very disturbed.