First off, I should probably tell you who we are. BOSS stands for the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, a private, educational corporation created to teach adults a curriculum of traditional living and wilderness survival skills. Our courses vary from 1 to 28 days in length in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Canada, and Mexico and offer a variety of focuses and formats. But all of our c ourses somehow address the values of traditional technologies and what indigenous cultures can offer you. Actually, we usually don't.
People sometimes forget that all the modern 'necessities' of backpacking are very recent inventions.
And while it's nice to go camping with fancy sleeping bags, tents, lightweight stoves, GPS units, headlamps, etc. In fact, there are some good reasons to learn how to enjoy wilderness travel without all that gear. Therefore, at BOSS, we teach you how to survive with technique , not technology. We place an emphasis on the skills which can provide fire, shelter, water, clothing, etc. without the need to carry a 60-pound backpack. But we do have a philosophical bent towards traveling lightly, walking gently, and listening carefully.