Austere Environment Survival Series: Urban Avalanche Exercise
- Pennsylvania Gunfighter Academy 251 Correction Road Cresson, PA, 16630 (map)
For more info, and to register, click on the class title.
The Lodestone Training and Consulting Austere Environment Survival Series will help you learn skills and techniques that could help save your life. You never know when you might find yourself in a situation you hadn’t planned for and there is no help on the way. Whether it’s primitive skills needed to survive in the wilderness, or techniques to maneuver in a non-permissive urban environment, this series will help you be prepared. There are some things you can’t learn from a book or playing a video game, they have to be experienced.
The Urban Avalanche Exercise is a practical training exercise designed to see how well you are prepared. With only what you have with you, you will first experience working alone, in a built-up area, while being looked for by an active threat. You will practice link-up procedures allowing you to work with a buddy. After accomplishing needed tasks, the entire class will link up and plan a mission to complete on the third day. This class uses many of the skills that are taught by LTAC and is not intended for those without a basic understanding of Land Nav, Wilderness Skills, Cache and recovery, and Communications, to name a few.
Day One: Arrive at the PGA training location. We will start in the classroom for a short brief. Each student’s equipment will then be inspected by a member of the LTAC cadre. After the inspection and repacking, all student cell phones will be turned in to the cadre until the end of the exercise. Each student will be placed alone at a specific location on the training site. The student will then need to accomplish tasks and move to their overnight rest site without being observed by anyone.
Day Two: Students will need to make a safe link-up with their buddy while avoiding an active, mounted and dismounted threat. Students will have a list of tasks and locations to travel to, again remaining undetected. These tasks and locations will be in both urban and rural environments. Students will put in a cache as well as recover one during the day. Only by working together will you remain safe and accomplish all you need to.
Day Three will start with all buddy teams making link-up. They will have to conduct a recon of their retreat location that has been taken over by a hostile threat. Students will have to plan and conduct a raid to recover their retreat. We will wrap the class up by holding a detailed AAR while grilling dinner.
This class isn’t one to read about, it’s one to experience. You will put miles on your feet, day and night, over various terrain.