Skillset

This marksman challenge is about spending a night in the wilderness. What good are all of the knot tying, fire-making, and other outdoors skills if we don’t put them to use. Take this chance to get out there and enjoy a bit of nature.

This Marksman Challenge is all about the art of tying knots. I’ve long observed that experienced outdoorsmen learn to tie a few reliable knots extremely well, and use them for just about everything. Knowing knots also means you can carry less stuff. So let’s get on to the challenge.

This challenge is deceptively simple: get your ham radio ticket. I’ve been saying over and over that the time to start learning about radio is well before there’s an actual emergency situation where it becomes required. So what better way to encourage you to get started than offering a challenge?

Building a fire is a fundamental outdoors survival skill. Fire keeps you warm, cooks your food, signals others for help, and purifies your water. But too many of us take the easy route for building one. The survival fire challenge is about doing it the old fashioned way.

For this challenge, we’re pivoting to the survival world. With hunting season approaching, or just general outdoors activity in cooler weather, I thought it was appropriate to work on developing and deploying an emergency shelter kit.

So let’s talk about the Emergency Shelter Challenge.

On July 20th, 2019, I attended GoRuck’s Active Shooter Intervention training course, as well as a night fire. I took away a lot of lessons from this one, including a preference for fiber optic sights on my pistols over tritium night sights, as well as the importance of good weapon light usage.

I recently completed my ham radio technician exam with a score of 100% and received my license. In the end, it wasn’t all that difficult, and I’d like to go over my preparation process in case you want to do the same.

Communications is yet another skill that I think people should add to their toolbox. It’s just such a fundamental part of modern society, that I don’t think most people could even begin to imagine what it would look like without it.

Most training courses offered to civilians focus on quickly and accurately running a carbine.
This course is all about small unit tactics, and it’s amazing.

Knots are is an extremely useful skill to develop. At some point, you will find that the classics you always come back to aren’t great for every situation. Stacking a classic square knot or overhand on top of one another just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s look at some of my favorites.