QUEER AFFINITY COURSE
7-day Wilderness Survival Training
Learn survival and primitive living skills in a challenging field context as part of a queer affinity group. Join up to 11 other students who identify as LGBTQIA+ and three BOSS staff for a 7-day classic field course.
We are committed to making the environment on this course a safe and welcoming one. We recognize that the LGBTQIA+ community has faced significant challenges when it comes to learning and participating in outdoor adventure, and this course is one way that we’re working to help make everyone welcome and safe in the wild.
This course is grant-supported, please contact us for information on reduced tuition.
About the Course
On this course, you and your group will embark into Southern Utah’s breathtaking Boulder Mountain and world-famous canyon country. Leaving the high-tech, modern world behind, you’ll explore the desert washes and mountain trails with little more than a knife, a water bottle, a blanket, and a poncho. You can’t get much more immersed in the natural world than on this course. The mental, physical, and emotional challenges are real, and the wilderness competency and the greater sense of self that you gain are priceless.
Course Highlights
- Learn traditional and primitive survival skills in context from master instructors.
- Practice and rely on those skills in a remote setting.
- Face and overcome serious challenges in the wilderness as part of an affinity group.
- Travel through a famously rugged and beautiful landscape.
Students
To sign up for this course, you must identify as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. You must also be 18 years old or older. Out of the 12 available slots on this course, 4 will be reserved for QTIBIPoC students until March 1, 2021. To maintain the affinity space, we are asking allies to choose another course.
BOSS Challenge
BOSS 7-day wilderness survival training course provides, among many other things, a physical and mental test for its students. You will hike long distances over the rugged terrain found in Southern Utah’s mountains and desert canyons, sometimes as much as 15 to 30 miles in one day. You will at times be thirsty, hungry, hot, and cold. We use our more than 50 years of experience to tailor the challenge to each group.
The affinity course is at this time only offered as a 7-day field course.
Other Courses Available:
Prerequisites
- No prior camping or outdoor experience is required.
- BOSS requires that all Field course applicants undergo a complete physical examination and receive their physician’s approval in writing prior to final acceptance on the course.
- Students are asked to complete a 1.5-mile timed run during course orientation.
- Students must be 18 years of age or older.
Know More, Carry Less
In line with the BOSS Positive Impact philosophy, the 7-day Queer Affinity Field course emphasizes the use of renewable, natural, and local resources. Tents, sleeping bags, stoves, backpacks and many other “essential” pieces of outdoor equipment are replaced with their low-tech counterparts: a poncho, a blanket, a campfire, etc. The skills we teach you allow you to travel in comfort without relying on modern gear.
7-day Field courses can teach:
- Desert ecology & travel
- Survival mindset
- Campsite selection
- Shelter construction
- Fire construction
- Water location and purification
- Trail hygiene
- Basic plant identification and use
- Knife use and safety
This course is not on the schedule at the moment.
Contact Us if you're interested!
Tuition Assistance Available
BOSS offers tuition assistance and discounts to qualifying applicants.
Learn more about BOSS Tuition Assistance.
Interested in a life-changing challenge?
BOSS is one of the oldest survival schools on the planet, delivering wilderness survival training to adventurous people since 1968. Our survival instructors are some of the most experienced and competent in the world. The challenges that our BOSS survival training offer aren’t for everyone, but if you’re the right person and it’s the right time for you, we promise adventure, challenge and world-class instruction.
