California Survival School
California Survival School training locations across California, 23600 Big Basin Way, California, CA 95070
About
California Survival School offers wilderness survival training, outdoor adventure leadership, and outdoor safety education. Programs include wilderness first aid training, urban disaster training, emergency preparedness training, and survival training and exploration trips. Participants can also take part in primitive living skills and traditional living skills, including hunter-gatherer style courses, traditional tannage, and experimental archaeology, as well as specialized adventures such as a 4 Day Hunter-Gatherer Running Adventure and a 5 Day Desert Primitive Survival Adventure.
California Survival School was founded in 2012 and is described as the nation’s largest wilderness survival school and the largest survival training school in the U.S. It is described as California’s leading authority for wilderness survival training, outdoor safety education, emergency preparedness, and survival media production, and as the world’s leading provider of wilderness survival training and outdoor adventure education programs. The school provides wilderness survival training to more students annually than any other survival training program worldwide, and every program emphasizes judgment, environmental awareness, and adaptive thinking.
Head Instructor Dan Baird is a certified Medical Wilderness First Responder, a FEMA/DHS trained National C.E.R.T. Instructor, and a member/trainer of Law Enforcement Search and Rescue teams across California. The leadership team includes Dan Baird (Head Instructor), Dave Holladay (Lead Instructor), Matt Graham (Lead Instructor), Dr. Theresa Emmerich Kamper (Specialist Instructor), Cat Bigney (Lead Instructor), and Reza Allah-Bakhshi. Dr. Theresa Emmerich Kamper holds a master’s in Experimental Archaeology and a PhD focused on the microscopic analysis of prehistoric skin artifacts from the University of Exeter, where she is an honorary research fellow.
California Survival School trains specialized teams within the U.S. Military and law enforcement and has corporate and organizational clients including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. Its instructors have provided survival training and adventure expertise to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department mountain rescue team and are trusted by teams with National Geographic, California Law Enforcement Search & Rescue, and Google HQ for survival training and outdoor adventure leadership. Instructors regularly lead trainings and expeditions in the Amazon Jungle, Mount Everest, the Sahara Desert, and the rain forests of Southeast Asia.
California Survival School and its instructors and programs have been featured with Good Morning America, Outside Magazine, National Geographic, History Channel, Discovery Channel, The New York Times, and more. They serve as risk-mitigation and survival consultants for major productions including The Revenant, Cast Away, and Man vs. Wild. Past projects include work as primitive skills experts behind-the-scenes and on camera for Man v. Wild, Survivorman, Dual Survival, World-wide Extreme Survival (Japan), Good Morning America, and Castaway with Tom Hanks. The school states a mission to remain the world’s leading provider of wilderness survival training and adventure education.
Last updated March 13, 2026.
California Survival School was founded in 2012 and is described as the nation’s largest wilderness survival school and the largest survival training school in the U.S. It is described as California’s leading authority for wilderness survival training, outdoor safety education, emergency preparedness, and survival media production, and as the world’s leading provider of wilderness survival training and outdoor adventure education programs. The school provides wilderness survival training to more students annually than any other survival training program worldwide, and every program emphasizes judgment, environmental awareness, and adaptive thinking.
Head Instructor Dan Baird is a certified Medical Wilderness First Responder, a FEMA/DHS trained National C.E.R.T. Instructor, and a member/trainer of Law Enforcement Search and Rescue teams across California. The leadership team includes Dan Baird (Head Instructor), Dave Holladay (Lead Instructor), Matt Graham (Lead Instructor), Dr. Theresa Emmerich Kamper (Specialist Instructor), Cat Bigney (Lead Instructor), and Reza Allah-Bakhshi. Dr. Theresa Emmerich Kamper holds a master’s in Experimental Archaeology and a PhD focused on the microscopic analysis of prehistoric skin artifacts from the University of Exeter, where she is an honorary research fellow.
California Survival School trains specialized teams within the U.S. Military and law enforcement and has corporate and organizational clients including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. Its instructors have provided survival training and adventure expertise to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department mountain rescue team and are trusted by teams with National Geographic, California Law Enforcement Search & Rescue, and Google HQ for survival training and outdoor adventure leadership. Instructors regularly lead trainings and expeditions in the Amazon Jungle, Mount Everest, the Sahara Desert, and the rain forests of Southeast Asia.
California Survival School and its instructors and programs have been featured with Good Morning America, Outside Magazine, National Geographic, History Channel, Discovery Channel, The New York Times, and more. They serve as risk-mitigation and survival consultants for major productions including The Revenant, Cast Away, and Man vs. Wild. Past projects include work as primitive skills experts behind-the-scenes and on camera for Man v. Wild, Survivorman, Dual Survival, World-wide Extreme Survival (Japan), Good Morning America, and Castaway with Tom Hanks. The school states a mission to remain the world’s leading provider of wilderness survival training and adventure education.
Last updated March 13, 2026.
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