PNW Survival Games puts outdoor enthusiasts to the test, and could soon be a reality TV show

The third annual PNW Survival Games kicks off Friday at a campground in Molalla, Oregon.

Fifty people, organized into teams of two, will compete in a series of weekend-long challenges designed to test their outdoor survival skills, from building a fire and shelter to purifying water to building a raft from saplings and other foraged materials.

Tony Peniche and Phil Robinson are the duo that started it all, back in 2023. According to the event’s website, Peniche is a fashion designer, high fashion photographer, inventor and serial entrepreneur, and Robinson is an operations professional.

“He’s the big-vision-and-ideas guy,” Robinson said. “I’m good behind the scenes, I have background in logistics, project management.”

They said the games actually started by accident. Peniche and Robinson were trying to plan a competition between friends, and were thwarted by scheduling issues.

“I couldn’t get my friends to commit to it. They kept bailing out last minute, and I was expressing my frustrations to Phil, and we were out camping and having a really good time,” Peniche said.

“We’re like, what if we just put it on Facebook, we’ll make new friends, we’ll see if anybody in Portland wants to come hang out with us nerds,” he said.

After making a public post on Facebook, Peniche and Robinson were blown away by the amount of interest the idea garnered. Their post had gone viral.

“People were messaging us saying, ‘I wish I had heard about this years ago.’ They’re asking us when the TV show’s coming out, and we’re like, ‘What is happening right now?’” Peniche said.

The pair had 60 days to scale up their concept into a bona fide competition.

“When the momentum started, Phil and I just saw it happening and we just grabbed a hold of it and adapted and worked our butts off for 60 days, and pulled it off.”

Participants pay $495 to register for the event and are first taught basic skills by “survival instructors,” this year including E.J. Snyder from “Naked and Afraid XL,” and Biko Wright from “Alone” Season 8.

Also among the survival instructors this year is survival expert Sharon Ross; emergency medicine physician and wilderness medicine expert Dr. Natalie Bonthius; and Peter Bauer, anthropologist, historian, author and bushcraft instructor.

Peniche said he and Robinson were overjoyed by the experts and celebrities who wanted to be involved.

“A few celebrity survivalists started reaching out, saying they want to be a part of it, and we’re like, ‘dude, these are our heroes and they’re calling us right now,’” Peniche said.

All necessary supplies are included in the registration fee.

“Show up with clothes on back or sleeping bag or tent,” Peniche said. “You get a backpack that has all the gear you are going to need.”

In the competition, each team launches into a timed challenge to test their application of those basic skills, but with a twist — like trying to build a fire while shivering and cold after a plunge into the river.

“This is not about primitive living, we are focusing on emergency survival, and we simulate panic hour. You are lost in the woods,” Peniche said.

“There are six challenges over two days, and each challenge is based around a pillar of survival, like something that you should definitely know if you find yourself in an emergency survival situation,” Robinson said.

Tom Ratts won the very first PNW Survival Games in 2023.

“Tony’s friends with my oldest daughter, and so she had seen his Facebook post and she knew what I like to do, so she suggested I participate,” he said.

“I clicked the little button that said, ‘I’m interested,’ told my wife about it, and I went to bed. And my wife came in an hour later and she had changed me from ‘interested’ to ‘going,’” he said with a laugh.

Ratts is a service and warranty manager for a high-end adventure van builder. He said he’s been interested in survivalism since he was a teenager.

Though his wife was the one to push him to participate in the competition, Ratts said he was excited for it.

“I thought it looked like a fun weekend, and like-minded people who wanted to practice skills,” he said.

Ratts described himself as “hyper competitive” and said he was surprised by the welcoming atmosphere, where everyone cheered each other on.

“The supportive environment was really beautiful,” Peniche said.

Peniche and Robinson said anyone can compete, and the final ranking is often surprising.

“I’ve had professional models, makeup artists, guys who work at Intel and guys who’ve been in Boy Scouts or avid outdoors people, and we were concerned that it would be lopsided,” Robinson said.

“Last year, one of the guys got paired up randomly, and he bought all his camping gear the weekend before, and he ended up getting second place,” he said. “We had people who had competed in ‘Naked and Afraid’ and ‘Alone’ and they didn’t make it to the top three.”

“We have noticed that absolute amateurs do really well. There seems to be a personality type that does really well,” Peniche said.

“There is no experience required to do this, and it’s supposed to be educational, and the competition is fun and motivates people to get off the couch and do something, as long as they’re 18 years old and somewhat able-bodied,” he said.

First-, second- and third-place teams win cash prizes and outdoor gear from sponsors.

Peniche and Robinson have aspirations to take their concept beyond its Oregon roots onto a much bigger stage by transforming it into a reality TV show that could be picked up by Netflix or Amazon.

“We’ve got the entire first season sketched out. We just need to have those professional backings to get those things moving forward,” Peniche said.