4 ms·

There's an intensive wilderness school in Washington, and their capstone activity is IIRC a 2 week long game of capture the flag in an even larger area of dense

by tern 2y ago

There's an intensive wilderness school in Washington, and their capstone activity is IIRC a 2 week long game of capture the flag in an even larger area of dense woods It's a great way to test stalking, camouflage, and survival skills. A lot of the game is played in pitch darkness, where moving silently becomes critical. Rather than a fast-paced running game, capturing the flag often means inching into enemy territory over the course of days, and moving back to your side just as slowly without being detected.

carpdiem 2y ago
That sounds crazy, and amazing. As I've now got a kid of my own who might eventually be interested, could you point out _which_ intensive wilderness school in Washington that is? I did some googling, but wasn't able to find it.
- jrgoff 2y ago
  https://wildernessawareness.org/ https://wildernessawareness.org/ - I went there over 15 years ago now and did what is now called The Immersion adult program. The capture the flag type event was around 4 days long, there was another capstone experience that was around 4 days on a survival trip. I think they probably still do these activities but I'm not certain. I thought it was a great program for me. They also have programs for kids and teens including summer camps. I've heard great things about the teen wolf tracking expedition and I imagine their other programs are great too. There are a few other wilderness schools in the area, some of which may have similar activities, so I am not sure if that is the same one the GP was referring to.
at_a_remove 2y ago
We did a lot of, uh, unofficial versions of these as Dungeons and Dragons-obsessed tweens and teens, resulting in some slightly maniacal, if ultimately harmless, behavior. Our pitch dark bits involved sneaking out via a window and completing a circuit of the neighborhood, which escalated into taking and leaving items stashed in various places as proof, finally culminating in a "yeah, but can you do it completely naked without being spotted?" set of dares. Our various forest pellet free-for-alls may have resulted in one of us entering the military in some kind of scouting capacity. My personal stratagem was camouflaging myself by remaining stock still in bizarre positions and orientations, resulting in my profile not being an immediately recognizably human outline from a distance, then getting the drop on someone. Others could cover large amounts of ground without much noise, and so forth. In retrospect, we ended up getting quite good at that kind of thing, very quickly, and with age I realize that this is probably a large part of the evolutionary history of humanity: skulking, hunting and being hunted, deception, complex strategies for evasion and capture, tracking and being trackless, first against the other animals and then likely against each other. This was likely just built-in, waiting for the right prompts to develop.

by tern 2y ago

carpdiem 2y ago

That sounds crazy, and amazing. As I've now got a kid of my own who might eventually be interested, could you point out _which_ intensive wilderness school in Washington that is? I did some googling, but wasn't able to find it.

jrgoff 2y ago
https://wildernessawareness.org/ https://wildernessawareness.org/ - I went there over 15 years ago now and did what is now called The Immersion adult program. The capture the flag type event was around 4 days long, there was another capstone experience that was around 4 days on a survival trip. I think they probably still do these activities but I'm not certain. I thought it was a great program for me. They also have programs for kids and teens including summer camps. I've heard great things about the teen wolf tracking expedition and I imagine their other programs are great too. There are a few other wilderness schools in the area, some of which may have similar activities, so I am not sure if that is the same one the GP was referring to.

at_a_remove 2y ago

We did a lot of, uh, unofficial versions of these as Dungeons and Dragons-obsessed tweens and teens, resulting in some slightly maniacal, if ultimately harmless, behavior. Our pitch dark bits involved sneaking out via a window and completing a circuit of the neighborhood, which escalated into taking and leaving items stashed in various places as proof, finally culminating in a "yeah, but can you do it completely naked without being spotted?" set of dares. Our various forest pellet free-for-alls may have resulted in one of us entering the military in some kind of scouting capacity. My personal stratagem was camouflaging myself by remaining stock still in bizarre positions and orientations, resulting in my profile not being an immediately recognizably human outline from a distance, then getting the drop on someone. Others could cover large amounts of ground without much noise, and so forth. In retrospect, we ended up getting quite good at that kind of thing, very quickly, and with age I realize that this is probably a large part of the evolutionary history of humanity: skulking, hunting and being hunted, deception, complex strategies for evasion and capture, tracking and being trackless, first against the other animals and then likely against each other. This was likely just built-in, waiting for the right prompts to develop.