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California Survival School

California Survival School

California's Premier Outdoor Survival School!

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  • About Us
  • Courses
    • Wilderness Survival – Core Survival Skills
    • Live Call Online Survival Training
    • Emergency Preparedness And Urban Disaster Survival Training:
    • Wilderness First Aid Certification
    • Expedition Adventures + Survival Field Courses
    • 2 Day SERE Training Stealth And Evasion Basics
    • Team Building Adventures
    • WilderSkills Summer Camp
    • Private Events
  • Adventures
    • 5 Day Desert Survival Training
    • Cold Weather Survival & Snowshoe Backpacking Adventure (3 Days)
    • 6 Day Primitive Mexico Island Survival Adventure
    • 5 Day + 50 Mile Ultralight Desert Running Primitive
    • 4 Day Desert Winter Backpacking & Bushcraft Adventure
    • 10 Day Tarahumara Copper Canyon Mexico Adventure
    • Winter Mountaineering And Emergency Rescue Fundamentals (3 DAYS)
  • Media
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Global Backcountry Survival Training And Adventures

Through single-day wilderness survival training adventures, multi-day advanced survival courses, and the toughest “clothes-on-your-back only” international expeditions in the world, California Survival School trains more students each year to be safe and lead lives of adventure outdoors than any other survival training program world-wide.

See our Courses & Adventures

Adventures of a Lifetime.
Every Time.

California Survival School’s International survival training programs and world-class survival instructors have been featured with National Geographic, Good Morning America, History Channel, Forbes, and more.

No matter your skill level or background, Team CSS is ready to help you start your training adventure today.

Survival Training Courses

Core
Survival Skills

Hand-on survival training teaching you how to manage wilderness survival emergencies in low-gear/no-gear survival situations.

Wilderness First-aid Certification

16 Hour Wilderness First Aid ( WFA ) certification. Learn how to handle remote medical emergencies in the back-country.

Emergency Preparedness and Urban Disaster Training

 Learn how to prepare for large scale disaster situations. Natural disasters, Civil Unrest, Pandemics, War, and more.

See all courses

Training Adventures and Expedition Trips

Stone Age Desert Survival Adventure

5 Day Stone-age Desert Survival Adventure

Know more, carry less! Learn to replace modern survival gear with primitive gear you make yourself and then test it in the field on a desert walk-about.

10 Day Copper Canyon Adventure - Primitive Survival

10 Days Copper Canyon Mexico Adventure

10 days traveling across the most scenic & remote parts of northern and central Mexico with primitive survival experts and native Tarahumara guides famously featured in the bestseller “Born to Run”.

Winter Mountaineering

Winter Mountaineering And Emergency Rescue Fundamentals (3 DAYS)

Winter adventure covering overnight expedition camping, rope skills, rope team travel, glaciology, crevasse rescue, steep snow climbing instruction, in addition to a summit bid of Mt Hood itself.

See all Trips

Meet our amazing team.

Past projects of note for our instructors have included work as primitive skills experts behind-the-scenes and on camera for Man v. Wild, Survivorman, Dual Survival, World-wide Extreme Survival (Japan), Good Morning America, and Castaway with Tom Hanks.

Dan Baird

Head Instructor

Dan began sharing his love for the outdoors and primitive living technologies professionally in 2004.

    David Holladay

    Specialist Instructor

     A founding instructor for Boulder Outdoor Survival School and one of the most experienced primitive survival instructors alive, Dave Holladay has been practicing and teaching primitive living skills for over 30 years

      Jessie Krebs

      Specialist Instructor

      Jessie Krebs is a former U.S. Air Force SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape.) Training Instructor from the old school the days when they were simply called Air Force “Survival Specialists”. 

        Meet the rest of Team CSS

        Media Consulting

        California Survival School is your one-stop source for Adventure Media Consulting and Film Fixer services. Whether you need to find a remote tribe to film primitive living skills with, recruit skilled survival talent, or negotiate government film permits internationally, Team CSS media production services has you covered.

        Learn more about our Media Consulting

        Survival Training News and Views

        Live Call Online Survival Training

        Online survival training is your way to start learning wilderness survival skills FROM anywhere in the world, FOR anywhere in the world.

        Learn More about Online Survival Training

        World-class Outdoor Team-building & Executive Leadership Training

        California Survival School is proud to be consistently rated as an elite outdoor experience provider by Fortune 500 Companies and top-level Executive Leadership teams around the world. Our clients include names like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon. 

        Explore Team-building Adventure Options Here

        california_survival_school

        Our #NASAR Wilderness First Aid students rocked da Our #NASAR Wilderness First Aid students rocked day one of their 16 hour certification today. Well done! 🤠 right here they are running a patient assessment for a downed skier with potential spinal injuries. This is one of the most important courses we offer along with #CoreSurvivalSkills. Our Core survival skills course teaches students how to prioritize and tackle any wilderness survival situation in the world. Wilderness first aid (WFA) is a training component that teaches you how to start tackling any remote wilderness first aid situation you may encounter. Wilderness survival and wilderness first aid situations are often married together, especially when the time in either is prolong outdoors. Sign for a course and start learning how to tackle both. Our next WFA training is in orange county in two weeks. Followed by more dates later this summer. Check the website. 🙌 @danbairdsurvival  #WFA #FirstAid #SurvivalTraining #BePrepared #WildernessSurvival #Adventure‘s #AlwaysLearning #SummerBackpacking #Travel
        Adventure waits only for you to say yes! 🤠👣 Adventure waits only for you to say yes! 🤠👣 This is a trip for runners looking to take things next-level with thier personal outdoor skills, self confidence, and personal growth. Click the link in the bio. Your instructors @mattgraham_earthskills  and @danbairdsurvival are excited to help you get off to the right foot in preparing for your journey. Don’t miss out on making something of May 2021 you’ll be grateful for the rest of the year. With @california_survival_school our adventures are “once-in-a-lifetime, every time”. #Adventures #SurvivalTraining #OutdoorSkills #UltraRunning #Travel #Utah #WildPlaces #Expeditions #Yolo #TrailRunning
        Is that a Indonesian bamboo pack-basket and coconu Is that a Indonesian bamboo pack-basket and coconuts in the Frozen North? We’re excited for the upcoming release of @Nomadthefilm!
- A survival adventure story unlike any other we’ve ever worked on. Nomad was filmed in over 25 countries, and Team CSS was proud to contribute throughout the film’s production journey with survival expertise, fixer services across the globe, and prop production. Follow @NomadTheFilm for more project updates and behind-the-scenes views. #Survival #Adventures #Travel #Bushcraft #Film #MakingMovies @txlfilms @DanBairdSurvival 
📷 @NomadTheFilm
        Who wants to learn Snow Camping and #WinterSurviva Who wants to learn Snow Camping and #WinterSurvival skills in the Sierras? 🤠🙌 Beginners Welcome. March 5th - 7th. Limited spots. Message us to snag a spot. Skills to be taught - #SnowShoeing #AvalancheSafety #SnowCaves #FireCraft #WarmthSystems #ColdWeatherCooking #WinterFirstAid #SnowCamping #WinterBushCraft #Tracking
        Ice-flow inbound! 🤠 What’s the scariest thing Ice-flow inbound! 🤠
What’s the scariest thing about cold weather adventuring for you? Could you hike for three hours and make 15 water crossings with exposed feet and still be ok? Cold weather season transitions are some of the most dangerous times to be outdoors for those not prepared. Students on our recent 4 day winter #backpacking and #bushcraft adventure with @danbairdsurvival  and @mattgraham_earthskills , learned how to do more with less while moving through the winter wilderness, gaining skills to navigate cold weather like pros while still enjoying all the #backcountry has to offer. For some it was even their first backpacking trip! #WinterSurvival #Epic #Bushcraft #SurvivalGear #WinterCamping #Travel #AlwaysLearning #Winter #Utah #SurvivalSkills #PrimitiveSurvival #Hiking #Camping #RiverCrossings
        Our Winter Backpacking and Bushcraft crew! 🤠 It Our Winter Backpacking and Bushcraft crew! 🤠
It was an epic winter adventure full of sunshine, snowstorms, icy river crossings, handline fishing, wild edible and medicinal plant instruction, friction-fire skills, primitive tools and traps making, campfire cooking, and more! Expect more photos as soon as we make it back to civilization. 🙂
@mattgraham_earthskills @danbairdsurvival  #FrictionFire #Bushcraft #WinterCamping #WildPlaces #Utah #Outdoors #Travel #Adventures #SurvivalSkills #AlwaysLearning #DesertSurvival #WinterAdventures
        Adventure is calling! Next 5 Day / 50 Mile Ultrali Adventure is calling! Next 5 Day / 50 Mile Ultralight Running Primitive is a go. 🤠🙌 May 5-9, 2020.  Link in our Insta Bio today . Learn primitive living skills while running fast and light across Southern Utah. Instructors @Mattgraham_Earthskills and @DanBairdSurvival.
Snag a spot today if you want one. Only 8 left (and it’s only been open 30 min! 😅). #AdventureOfALifetimeEverytime #Wildplaces #Ultralight #SurvivalSkills #RunningAdventures #UltraRunning #TrailRunning #Running #Hiking #Travel #SurvivalGear
        Do coyotes really hunt and kill people? How do you Do coyotes really hunt and kill people? How do you know if a coyote will attack you and what do you do if a coyote attacks? (Vid link in bio).

After seeing new Coyote attacks on the news in California this week, we’ve decided to upload to Youtube some info answering these questions and more on coyote attacks.

Follow California Survival School Instructor @DanBairdSurvival as he walks the trail were Coyotes are last known to have killed a human being in North America while he explains in detail how to understand coyote behavior and what we can do to make things safer for humans as well as coyotes as a critical part of our wildland biodiversity. #Wildplaces #BePrepared #AnimalEncounters #AnimalAttacks #SurvivalSkills #ProtectNature #Hiking #OutdoorSafety #Travel #HikingSafety #Camping #Coyotes #Canines
        Course Web Link in Bio. Four days of #WinterBackpa Course Web Link in Bio.
Four days of #WinterBackpacking and #Bushcraft Training Dec 11 - 14
Your Instructors @MattGraham_Earthskills and @DanBairdSurvival  are geared up to take a group of adventurers out to learn the secrets of doing more with less in one of the wildest winter adventure spots in the US. Full details on the course page on our bio. Comment if you’re thinking about coming! 🤠🙌#WinterAdventures #WildPlaces #KnowMoreCarryLess #Backpacking #Bushcraft #SurvivalTraining #PrimitiveSkills #SurvivalSkills #Trekking #DualSurvival #NatGeo #WildPlaces #Wanderlust #Travel #Hiking #WinterSports #BePrepared
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        California Survival School LLC
        California, USA

        Tel: 949-216-0252
        Email: info@casurvival.com

        Contact Us

        Courses

        • Core Survival Skills Adventure Training
        • Emergency Preparedness And Urban Disaster Survival Training
        • Wilderness First Aid (WFA) Certification

        Adventures

        • 5 Day Desert Survival Running Adventure
        • 5 Day Desert Survival Adventure

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