(For Women to Gather and Connect with self, nature and community)

A Nature Immersion Experience for Women to Reconnect, Rewild, and Restore

Step into the wild with us for a weekend of soulful connection, practical wilderness skills, and outdoor sisterhood. The Wild Women’s River Camping Retreat is a unique opportunity for women to unplug, slow down, and reconnect with themselves, the natural world, and a supportive community of like-minded adventurers.

Whether you’re an experienced backpacker or simply feeling the call to be in nature, this retreat is designed to welcome all women who want to deepen their connection to the outdoors while embracing healing, movement, and joyful reconnection.

Experience Aliveness and the profound effects of nature immersion at the beautiful Chapman Ranch with Wildkind Jess and Wildcard Jacks. Set up camp on the river with no cell service and plenty of good times. This rewilding retreat will be a reset for the nervous system as we rest, laugh, hike in the backcountry, swim at Mermaid Cove, make campfire meals together, learn fire-craft, enjoy yoga, share stories, and welcome holistic healing of mind, body, and spirit.

Nature skills will be shared including wild foraging, how to make fire from natural materials, and some basic blade school and bushcraft. We will also make dream catchers from harvesting willow and scavenging for small nature treasures!

“In this unique time of modern living, we are being called to live in greater communion with ourselves, humanity and the natural world. Through wilderness immersion, we can awaken our senses to engage life in a more meaningful way. Through embodiment we will feel greater aliveness and through the love and presence of fellow nature lovers, we find ourselves held in the nourishing web of community.”
~ Jess Caldwell

Course Highlights

• Remote camping in pristine Colorado wilderness

• Daily swimming, hiking, and nature immersion

• Wilderness survival and backcountry skills for women

• Campfire cooking and shared meals

• Bushcraft, foraging, and nature crafting

• Fire-making from natural materials

• Nervous system reset through rest and presence

• Daily yoga, embodiment practices, and quiet reflection

• Journaling, sit spots, and story sharing

• Connection and community with like-minded women

This women’s camping retreat is designed to nurture your wild heart and strengthen your connection to the land, yourself, and others. It is an invitation to awaken your senses, practice useful outdoor skills, and find peace and joy in a rhythm that flows with nature.

Join us at the river’s edge for a weekend of rewilding, renewal, and radiant connection—where every woman is welcome, and every story matters.

Join expert instructor Cattail Bob and The Survival University on a wild plant walk in the mountains near Cripple Creek. During the hike, we will identify plants that are edible, medicinal, poisonous, tool-craft, and smoke-able. With Cattail Bob’s expertise, we can easily identify over 100 different plants on this leisurely walk. Bring your camera and notepad to capture the knowledge and beauty of the wilderness.

Cattail Bob has been teaching wild plant identification since 1975 and has written several plant identification books. He teaches for colleges and has extensive knowledge of plants and their uses. During the class, he will guide students in identifying plants and distinguishing between edible, medicinal, poisonous, and utilitarian plants.

The class will start with an introduction to wild plant identification and safety considerations. Cattail Bob will explain the different parts of plants and their uses, as well as how to differentiate between edible and poisonous plants. We will then start our walk, where Cattail Bob will point out various plants and provide information on their uses for food, medicine, tools, and smoking.

Students will be able to touch, feel, taste, and smell appropriate plants to start their foundation on how to identify plants. They will learn how to use these plants for survival needs and get a deeper understanding of the importance of wild plants in nature.

By the end of the class, students will have gained valuable knowledge on how to identify and use wild plants for food, medicine, tools, and smoking. They will have had an unforgettable experience in the wilderness, learning from one of the most knowledgeable experts in the field.

Class will start at 9:30am and continue until about 5:00pm. We will visit several locations near Cripple Creek and surrounding areas. We intend to walk the Colorado Mountain Man Survival school location and Shelf Road.

Student capacity for the class is 20 people. Sign up before spots fill.

SURVIVAL PLANTS BOOK is not included in the price of the class. Cattails book will be available to purchase during class.

Course Topics:

• Introduction to wild plant identification
• Safety considerations for foraging wild plants
• Identifying the different parts of plants and their uses
• Distinguishing between edible, medicinal, poisonous, and utilitarian plants
• Identification a wide range of different wild plants
• Understanding the uses of wild plants for food, medicine, tools, and smoking
• Ethical considerations for foraging wild plants
• Basic plant harvesting and preparation techniques

Course Outcomes and Demonstrated Skills:

• Ability to identify and differentiate between various wild plants
• Knowledge of the uses of wild plants for food, medicine, tools, and smoking
• Understanding of the importance of ethical considerations when foraging wild plants
• Familiarity with basic plant harvesting and preparation techniques
• Confidence in identifying and utilizing wild plants for survival needs
• Enhanced appreciation and respect for the natural world and its resources.

Learn Wild Mushroom Identification, Foraging Techniques, and Edible Uses

Step into the woods for a full day of hands-on mushroom hunting and wild foraging. This immersive class is perfect for beginners and enthusiasts who want to learn how to identify, harvest, and cook wild mushrooms found in Colorado’s beautiful backcountry.

In this 1-day mushroom foraging course, you’ll stay at our camp location and explore nearby terrain to learn the art of mushroom identification and safe harvesting. You’ll gain field-based experience with mushroom anatomy, toxic vs. edible lookalikes, and tree and plant associations that help you locate high-yield zones. We’ll teach you how to spot medicinal mushrooms, edible mushrooms, and even a few to avoid.

What You’ll Learn in This Mushroom Foraging Class

• How to identify edible, poisonous, and medicinal mushrooms

• Mushroom anatomy and terminology for accurate identification

• Tree and plant relationships that help you find mushrooms in the wild

• How to use field guides, apps, and photos for documentation

• Foraging ethics and sustainable collection practices

• Basic cooking and preparation tips for wild mushrooms

After a day in the field, you’re invited to cook and taste your harvest with us back at camp—or take them home to your own kitchen for a wild food experience you’ll never forget.

Foragers Take Note

This is an information-packed day, so come prepared to learn, take notes, and explore. While we plan this course around optimal mushroom growing seasons at our camp’s elevation, we cannot guarantee a certain quantity or variety of mushrooms, as nature doesn’t follow a fixed schedule. No refunds will be given unless the course is canceled by TSU staff.

Why Take a Mushroom Hunting Class?

Whether you’re new to foraging or want to gain more confidence in identifying edible mushrooms in the wild, this class gives you practical skills and the ability to safely gather and enjoy one of nature’s most fascinating foods. You’ll walk away with more than mushrooms—you’ll gain knowledge that can support backcountry cooking, natural medicine, and self-reliant living.

NOTE:

While every effort is made to forecast the optimal mushroom harvesting season at the camp’s elevation based on past growth patterns, we are unable to ensure a guaranteed abundance of mushrooms. Our endeavors are confined to the resources nature presents, and this understanding shall preclude any entitlement to a refund. By enrolling in the class, students acknowledge and agree that no refunds will be given unless this class is cancelled by TSU staff or instructors.

The Ethnobotany 101 course is our course on learning the uses of wild plants. We will teach you how to harvest plants for edible, medicinal and utilitarian uses and then what you need to do to prepare them for their appropriate use. This course is designed to narrow the list of tens of thousands of plants into a handful that are most useful in a survival situation. The plants learned will be highly variable based on location and time of year.

Wild plants are an extremely important subject because without the availability of modern remedies, a good outdoorsman can substitute these remedies with nature’s medicine or tools. Nature provides a plethora of resources, one only has to learn how to identify said resources and know how to properly process them to maximize their uses. Being able to identify wild plants and use them for food, medicine and tools can literally save your life. Increasing your knowledge on plants will only increase your comfort in the wilderness and allow you to succeed in many tasks, where your average outdoor enthusiast would fail.

​In this course, we will teach you the basics of plant identification and what resources are best to use in your area to learn what grows around you. We will then move on into advanced subjects and show you how to actually use the plants that you identify. Once you learn your plants you will be able to more freely scavenge for food and medicine in your own back yard or anywhere you choose to go in the world.

In the first part of the course we will take you on a wild plant walk and help you learn how to identify plants and then we will harvest these plants to use for either eating, making medicine or tools.

​Plants can be categorized as utilitarian, edible, medicinal, poisonous or a combination of all four. Some of the most useful plants to learn are typically the ones that combine all three positive features. With so many plant species growing in so many different environments during different times of year, it would take a person several lifetimes to learn them all.

Edible Plants – There are edible wild plants all around us. One just has to learn about them and have the confidence to know they are identifying them correctly.

​Medicinal Plants – Just about every plant has some medicinal property to them. You can find plants that have skin healing properties, to plants that will stop bleeding, even plants that will stimulate your liver or stop you from having an asthma attack. We will show you these plants and how to effectively use them.

​Utilitarian Plants – Besides food and medicine, plants have a plethora of tool based uses.

​Poisonous Plants – Alongside the useful plants, grow the poisonous ones that will make your life not so pleasant. We will show you all the ones to stay away from!

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

• Identifying useful plants for tinder, kindling, and sustaining fuel
• Best plant choices for friction fire sets
• Plants that are useful for shelter construction and insulation
• Plants that make strong natural cordage
• How to identify and create improvised containers from plants
• Identifying easily recognizable edible plants
• Medicinal and First Aid uses of plants
• Best plants for personal hygiene
• Poisonous Plant Identification
• Once we show you all the skills you need to know to identify plants and process them, then you can take that knowledge home and start using plants from your local area.

This path is for the student who has taken the Ethnobotany 101 or Artisan of Plants class and wants to explore herbalism on a deeper level.

Day one we dive into herbal actions and energetics and why they are important for holistic health and wellness. We prep our herbs to make Alcohol Intermediary Oils and Begin our Percolation extractions.
Day two we will finish the previous day’s preparations and learn to make Herbal Capsules, Pastilles, and Double Extraction Tinctures, as well as the benefits of choosing these preparations over other options.

We provide all the supplies and containers necessary for this class. You will leave with your own herbal preparations. For those interested in continuing to build their home apothecary, you will have the option to purchase your percolation cone kit and encapsulating machine at the end of the workshop.

​​Medicinal Plants – Just about every plant has some medicinal property to them. You can find plants that have skin healing properties, to plants that will stop bleeding, even plants that will stimulate your liver or stop you from having an asthma attack. We will show you these plants and how to effectively use them.

CLASS: ADVANCED HERBALISM

DAY ONE: Understanding Herbal Actions and Energetics
Importance for Holistic Health and Wellness
Herbal Preparation: Alcohol Intermediary Oils
Techniques for Extraction
Percolation Extractions
Initiation and Methods

DAY TWO:
Continuation of Herbal Preparations
Completion of Previous Day’s Preparations
Herbal Capsules and Pastilles Crafting
Practical Steps and Benefits
Double Extraction Tinctures
Methodologies and Advantages

OVERALL TAKEAWAYS:

• Selection of Herbal Preparations Benefits over Alternative Options
• Supplies Provided
• Hands-on Experience with Herbal Preparations
• Practical Use of Herbal Medicine
• Identification and Utilization of Medicinal Plants
• Building a Home Apothecary
• Option to Purchase Percolation Cone Kit and Encapsulating Machine

MEDICINAL PLANTS EXPLORATION:

• Identification of Medicinal Properties
• Understanding Skin Healing, Hemostatic, Hepatic, and Respiratory Properties
• Application Techniques
• Effective Usage for Various Ailments and Conditions
• Participants will gain in-depth knowledge and practical experience in advanced herbalism, including the creation of various herbal preparations and understanding the medicinal properties of diverse plants for holistic wellness.

Once we show you all the skills you need to know to identify plants and process them, then you can take that knowledge home and start using plants from your local area.