If the word prepper conjures images of remote, fortified hideaways loaded with guns, canned beans, dried food, water and fuel, you’re missing the larger part of the modern “be prepared” movement.
Spurred in part by devastating natural disasters such as fast-moving wildfires and the memorable COVID-19 pandemic’s toilet paper shortage, more people are taking stock of their ability to survive a few days on their own.
There are homesteaders learning to grow and preserve their own food. There are off-gridders who rely on various self-installed technologies to cut the cord from utility companies and their outages. There are survivalists who like to hunt, camp or explore the backcountry. And of course there are doomsday preppers.
Whatever the name and the degree of their “prepper” instincts, the common goal is increased — or total — self-reliance to get through a tough spot. And that includes learning to use that stashed, often unopened emergency gear.
“Prepping is just preparedness training for emergencies,” Jason Caspersen, co-owner of American Self-Reliance, said while working a table at the recent Colorado Prepper Expo in Pueblo.
He and Brendan Preston started their company during the pandemic and they evaluate the products they sell with an eye toward what they would want for themselves and their families and friends.
And Preston is no stranger to emergencies. The former Marine was living in the Black Forest community north of Colorado Springs in June 2013 when a wildfire swept through more than 14,000 acres, killing two people and destroying more than 500 homes.
“I had my family and 50 animals, and we had to bug out,” he said. “We learned a lot. We got out in a little over an hour.”
What do you need to be prepared?
Skills and equipment are important, Preston said, but more important and often overlooked is mindset. The more prepared you are, the more focused you can be during an emergency.
Jason Marsteiner, founder and instructor at The Survival University in Teller County, agrees.
“Survival isn’t about gear,” he said in an interview. “You need hard skills — how to build a fire, shelter — and soft skills — mental resilience. Put yourself in a controlled situation — learn to develop your mind.”
The demand for survival-type classes and seminars is growing. Prepper shows that once featured rows of tables of gear now also offer workshops and seminars, usually included with the cost of admission.
While the Colorado Prepper Expo in Pueblo was heavy on classes on surviving more doomsday-like scenarios, it also offered workshops on natural health, gardening and raising children in the wilderness without modern conveniences — things that previous generations of “preppers” learned to survive wars, famines and pioneer life.
Katie Sanders said the Pueblo event was her first prepper show and she had good exchanges with attendees. She runs the White Wolf Shop in Cañon City, which is part weaving and art studio and part Cherokee apothecary.
“I’m all about regenerative agriculture in Colorado, and rebuilding the eco-system,” she said after teaching a class on gardening.
At the Colorado Survival and Prepper Show this weekend at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds you can learn how to build a kit to survive being stranded for up to 72 hours in a Colorado snowstorm, or how to grow microgreens.
It also is offering, for a fee, a half-day class on wilderness first aid.
“When we started our events three years ago, we had a couple seminars,” show organizer Justin Anderson said. “At this event we have a seminar every hour. Self-reliance are the topics we focus on — doomsday prepping is not what we’re about.”
Anderson ran hunting and sportsmen shows for about 12 years before switching to the survival shows because he believed there was a gap in that area. His shows usually attract at least 1,000 people over two days and most attendees are not the stereotypical prepper types, he said.
“The majority of people we get are just curious about what’s going on,” he said. “If I get stuck in a snowstorm do I have what I need to survive for 72 hours? It’s the real-life things that we try to focus on.”
Fewer and smaller shows
Several people involved in the survival industry said there seems to be fewer huge shows that were a hallmark a decade or so ago. The uneventful passing of Y2K and the end of the two-year run of National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers” series might have something to do with that.
But other events, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the pandemic, have continued to spur interest.
Troy McKinley, who ran the Pueblo show and also has run shows in Minnesota, said about 600 people attended over the three-day event, short of the 1,200 he was hoping for. Still, he said, most of the vendors did well and the attendees were eager to sit in on seminars.
Shows, though, aren’t the only way to find information on being prepared. After the first devastating wildfire seasons in Colorado, the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management launched its READYColorado campaign to encourage communitywide emergency preparation.
Popular bug-out bags and other survival gear are readily available on the internet — as one man browsing survival bivvy bags at the Pueblo expo pointed out. He said he’d already gotten one for every member of his family — to keep them warm or cool and dry in case of emergency.
And you can get cases of water and beans and toilet paper at your local Costco.
Knowing how to survive
Marsteiner, of The Survival University, said he started in the prepper world by working to “get people to buy bullets, Band-Aids and beans.” He mostly designed custom kits and sold them to supplement his income in IT work — or, as he put it, for beer money.
He bought a couple kits online to see what was in them and found a lot of gimmicky stuff that broke easily.
“So I built a better bug-out bag,” he said. And soon came the emails and calls from buyers asking for more information on how to use the gear.
Colorado Mountain Man Survival was born in 2020 to fill that need and soon grew beyond what Marsteiner could do on his own. Survival University, which he says is the largest survival school in the world, was born on about 200 acres of land surrounded by about 1,000 acres of wilderness. A ranch and a mountain camp are just outside of Cripple Creek.
Basic wilderness survival — “how to find food, shelter, water and don’t die” — is the most popular class. Wilderness first responder and navigation also are popular.
“You’d be surprised at who comes to my classes,” he said. “Doctors, lawyers, business professionals, generally any people who like to go out into the wilderness.
“I get very, very few doomsday preppers. Maybe 10% have that prepper vibe.”
He offers more intense classes, including some specifically for military personnel. He has a cadre of instructors with various specialties, and many with military backgrounds.
And if you really want to test yourself, there’s a 50-day wilderness class where, after about three weeks, the attendees are “feral,” he said. “About three weeks after leaving the modern world, there’s a shift in the way they see the world.
“Some people like to spend their summer with us.”
In case you’re wondering, Marsteiner lives in Colorado Springs much of the year and enjoys city life. As long as he gets his escape to the mountains where he grew up.
Community preparedness
Preston, who has taught classes at Survival University, said sharing within communities also is important. He’s also part of the Elbert County Self Reliance Network, which has held its own small expos, and Elbert County Stands Up.
His philosophy is that the more people who are prepared for an emergency within a community, the more likely it is to weather it well. Over time, he said, people have lost a lot of the do-it-yourself skills that could help them survive an emergency.
“If I prepare for the worst possible scenario, a three-day power outage is no sweat,” he said. “Prepare for the worst and the small stuff is easy.”