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View ProfilesPublished November 2, 2022 at 10:00 a.m.
A hiker stepped off the trail to pee, got disoriented and wound up dead. A mother and son's car broke down in Death Valley; the son died. A hunter lost the trail back to his truck and died of hypothermia in a surprise snowstorm.
Jessie Krebs, a U.S. Air Force-trained survival specialist, has a million of these stories, and none features a happy ending. On a recent Sunday, Krebs — a five-foot, four-inch dynamo with a sparkling smile and an outback hat — used these grisly tales to capture the attention of 15 women gathered for her outdoor survival skills class. It worked.
Bundled up to ward off the October chill and hunkered down on camp chairs and benches, the women ranged in age from their thirties to their seventies and in fitness level from marathon runner to not-so-much. They were a collective sponge, soaking up Krebs' hard-earned wisdom.
Krebs, 50, is the founder of Outdoorsy Women Learning Survival Skills (OWLS Skills), a Colorado-based outdoor school dedicated to teaching women. An eight-month stint living in Vermont in the early 2000s acquainted her with the Vermont Outdoor Guide Association and its women's programming, Doe Camp Nation. The latter periodically invites her to teach at the Monkton property of the association's executive director, Gray Stevens.
Krebs was, more or less, born a survivor. Abused from early childhood by her step-grandfather, she sought shelter, solace and healing in the outdoors. "Indoors did not feel safe. I'd go outside and climb a tree," she said. "My reasoning was, He can't get me here."
At age 18, she was one of 12 students (out of 20) to survive the Air Force's yearlong training to become an elite Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Specialist. She endured a trek across the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania for the National Geographic "Mygrations" series. Earlier this year, she made it to day 46 as a contestant on the ninth season of "Alone"— a HISTORY Channel show that, as the name implies, drops contestants in the wilderness to survive on their own. A stomach illness required that she bow out; the winner survived for 76 days.
There's not much chitchat during a Krebs workshop. Participants explore the five basic needs of a survivor: signaling, navigation, sustenance, shelter and health. The five ways we lose heat: respiration, radiation, evaporation, conduction and convection. The handy STOP acronym: stop, think, observe, plan and act.
Krebs joked: "I'd rather be a live lump than a cute corpse," extolling the heat-retention properties of loose, layered clothing over form-fitting spandex. She cajoled. She growled. She engaged in some call-and-response: "You're lost in the woods. What's your priority?!" was the frequent question. "Signaling!" we caroled back. "Feel yourself starting to panic?" she asked. "S.T.O.P.!" we chorused. She taught a simple breathing pattern — exhales should be longer than inhales — to show us how to calm down and get out of "lizard brain," the part of our brains that tends to make very bad decisions.
Although some of her workshops include men, and her MasterClass on wilderness survival is geared to everyone, Krebs said she focuses on outdoor education for women. Her literature specifically invites women and "nonbinary folks who are comfortable in women-only spaces," because, she said, she has found that "once you get a man in the group, the whole dynamic changes." She has seen men grab a line from a female classmate's hands during a knot-tying session.
"Humans have been passing down wilderness skills for years, but women were often excluded," Krebs said. Her Air Force survival training included only one other woman. In nine seasons, 80 percent of "Alone" contestants have been men. The OWLS Skills school aims to address that disparity.
Her students were grateful. "I'm surrounded by men all day at work," said Jodi Ovens, 46, the chief financial officer and HR manager for a construction firm in Newbury. A marathon runner and serious cyclist, Ovens searched for a class for "strong, empowered women." She wants to be able to travel more safely outdoors and to be more thoughtful and intentional in exploring nature.
Concerns about the impact of climate change prompted Sami Pincus, 56, an Alexander technique instructor from Charlotte, to seek out the workshop. She said she was surprised by how meaningful it was to take an all-women class. "It is so conducive to learning in a comfortable way," she said. "It felt so supportive."
Pincus noted that the skills Krebs taught could be applicable to many situations in life. She referred to one of Krebs' examples of a student who used signaling techniques with a mirror to alert passing motorists that her car was broken down at the edge of the road. "I think everyone should know this information," Pincus said.
Like a magician conjuring a rabbit from a hat, Krebs pulled small pieces of equipment from the pockets of her dusty pants: a tiny signaling mirror, a cheap plastic compass, a ferro rod for creating sparks to start a fire, a vial of iodine pills for purifying water, a Mylar blanket folded to the size of a deck of cards to use as a windbreak or as a signal when laid on the ground, a Swiss Army-type multi-tool for everything. She prefers to stash her tools in pockets rather than a small pack, because one could get separated from a pack (another terrifying story was offered).
Around her wrist, Krebs wore a yellow survival bracelet made of six feet of paracord that can be separated into multiple strands to create a rope 50 feet long. In the inner band of her hat, she'd stashed a threaded needle, for clothing repairs, and a single-edged razor blade wrapped in oil-soaked cardboard. The blade has many uses, including shaving kindling, and the cardboard is handy for starting a fire.
The workshop was a flurry of activity: We tried our hand at signaling with mirrors. We gathered round a rain barrel to watch Krebs scoop and purify water. We practiced square knots and half hitches. We broke for lunch and snacks. We peed in the woods. We sharpened knives. Krebs' energy never flagged.
The class is not geared toward mountaineers or extreme adventurers, although the lessons apply to them. "Day hikes are the most dangerous," Krebs said. "People think, Oh, it's just a day hike. I have some water and my phone," and they leave unprepared. Something happens — unexpected weather, a fall, missing a trail marker — and the trouble starts. The phone dies. It gets dark. Panic sets in, and that lizard brain takes over.
Kerri Hansen, 67, a retiree from Wolcott, had a scare when she stepped off the hiking trail on a ridge near Mount Worcester. After relieving herself, she decided to try a spur trail to get back to the main path.
"It was so stupid, but I got lost," she said, laughing with embarrassment. She and her hiking buddy began calling to each other (signaling!) and were quickly reunited on the right trail. "It was not really anything," she said, "but I could feel that feeling in the pit of my stomach."
Natalia Perchemlides, 45, of Cornwall said she barely kept her panic in check when, on an organized group cross-country ski outing with her 8-year-old daughter, the pair lagged behind to help a 6-year-old who was having trouble keeping up. Before Perchemlides knew it, the main group was out of sight, and it was growing dark. She thought she knew where she was going but kept getting turned around. Finally, she heard one of the group leaders searching for her and calling. "I shouted back, and she came and led us out," she said.
"I want to be competent in emergency situations," said Perchemlides, a writer who homeschools her two children. In June, she attended Krebs' overnight course in Monkton. "It pushed me to the limits of my comfort level but was definitely doable," she said of the night she spent in the rain under the tarp shelter that Krebs taught her to build. "It really made me feel more confident."
The chance to become a more confident camper appealed to Rebecca Feldman, a nurse practitioner in Brooklyn, N.Y. She and her three sons often leave the city for camping trips in the Catskill Mountains. (Her Manhattan-raised husband, she said, is "not very interested.") Other outdoor skills classes she considered, she said, had a "macho vibe: ... 'Do you have grit enough to survive this course?'"
A fan of "Alone," Feldman said she was delighted to discover Krebs' workshops. "She's so practical and positive," she said. "I followed her on Instagram but never dreamed I'd get to learn from her." Feldman's goal is to hike the Appalachian Trail — "probably in segments, not all at once."
"I'm not interested that much in backpacking," said Krista Imes, 36, of Bolton Valley. "Frankly, it just sounds like too much work." Imes, who works remotely as a recruiter in the maritime industry, began doing serious outdoorsy stuff while living in the Pacific Northwest. She liked Krebs' class because it emphasized "minimal" survival equipment — a mirror, a ferro rod, a compass, a tarp. To Imes, that means "I can safely plan to go longer distances in a day." A veteran of several Doe Camp Nation courses, she hopes to do one of Krebs' overnight sessions.
In all of her offerings, Krebs has two main goals, she said. One is to educate people about the wilderness and empower them to keep themselves safe outdoors. The other is to help people keep themselves safe indoors, too. She talks openly about her childhood experience of abuse.
"I think the more we talk about it," she said, "the more we realize how much is happening around us — and the more we can work to keep it from happening."
Spoken like a survivor.
The original print version of this article was headlined "'Alone' Together | Elite specialist Jessie Krebs leads hands-on wilderness survival classes for women"
Tags: Outdoors & Recreation, Jessie Krebs, Outdoorsy Women Learning Survival Skills, OWLS Skills, survival skills
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