Courtesy Chris Rojas \/ PNW Survival Games<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe pair had 60 days to scale up their concept into a bona fide competition. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participants pay $495 to register for the event and are first taught basic skills by \u201csurvival instructors,\u201d this year including E.J. Snyder from \u201cNaked and Afraid XL,\u201d and Biko Wright from \u201cAlone\u201d Season 8.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Peniche said he and Robinson were overjoyed by the experts and celebrities who wanted to be involved. <\/p>\n
\u201cA few celebrity survivalists started reaching out, saying they want to be a part of it, and we\u2019re like, \u2018dude, these are our heroes and they\u2019re calling us right now,\u2019\u201d Peniche said. <\/p>\n
All necessary supplies are included in the registration fee. <\/p>\n
\u201cShow up with clothes on back or sleeping bag or tent,\u201d Peniche said. \u201cYou get a backpack that has all the gear you are going to need.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the competition, each team launches into a timed challenge to test their application of those basic skills, but with a twist \u2014 like trying to build a fire while shivering and cold after a plunge into the river. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not about primitive living, we are focusing on emergency survival, and we simulate panic hour. You are lost in the woods,\u201d Peniche said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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,\u201d Robinson said. <\/p>\n\nPhil Robinson, co-founder of the PNW Survival Games, is shown in this provided photo evaluating the logistics of one of the challenges during the Aug. 2024 competition in Molalla.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Chris Rojas \/ PNW Survival Games<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nTom Ratts won the very first PNW Survival Games in 2023. <\/p>\n
\u201cTony\u2019s 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,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI clicked the little button that said, \u2018I\u2019m interested,\u2019 told my wife about it, and I went to bed. And my wife came in an hour later and she had changed me from \u2018interested\u2019 to \u2018going,\u2019\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Ratts is a service and warranty manager for a high-end adventure van builder. He said he\u2019s been interested in survivalism since he was a teenager. <\/p>\n
Though his wife was the one to push him to participate in the competition, Ratts said he was excited for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it looked like a fun weekend, and like-minded people who wanted to practice skills,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Ratts described himself as \u201chyper competitive\u201d and said he was surprised by the welcoming atmosphere, where everyone cheered each other on. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe supportive environment was really beautiful,\u201d Peniche said. <\/p>\n\nA team of experts, some of whom have competed on survival reality TV shows, serve as judges and instruct participants on skills such as archery and shelter building. Three of those judges are shown in this provided photo during the competition in Aug. 2024 in Molalla: (from left to right) Sharon Ross, aka Afrovivalist, E.J. Snider and Biko Wright.<\/p>\n
Chris Rojas \/ PNW Survival Gam<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPeniche and Robinson said anyone can compete, and the final ranking is often surprising.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had professional models, makeup artists, guys who work at Intel and guys who\u2019ve been in Boy Scouts or avid outdoors people, and we were concerned that it would be lopsided,\u201d Robinson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had people who had competed in \u2018Naked and Afraid\u2019 and \u2018Alone\u2019 and they didn\u2019t make it to the top three.\u201d <\/p>\n\nThis provided photo show two contestants attempting to boil water during the water purification challenge, which was part of the competition in Aug. 2024 in Molalla.<\/p>\n
Chris Rojas \/ PNW Survival Games<\/em><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cWe have noticed that absolute amateurs do really well. There seems to be a personality type that does really well,\u201d Peniche said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no experience required to do this, and it\u2019s supposed to be educational, and the competition is fun and motivates people to get off the couch and do something, as long as they\u2019re 18 years old and somewhat able-bodied,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
First-, second- and third-place teams win cash prizes and outdoor gear from sponsors. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the entire first season sketched out. We just need to have those professional backings to get those things moving forward,\u201d Peniche said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shelter-sleeping-gear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redbulltravel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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