‘Alone’ star teaches survival skills to Colorado women

JEFFERSON COUNTY (KDVR) — Jesse Krebs knows her way around the outdoors. She even competed on the popular reality show “Alone,” and now teaches women how to survive in the wild.

It’s fair to say the 51-year-old outdoor expert is comfortable being alone in the great outdoors. FOX31’s Dan Daru caught up with her at class time. Krebs set up in a high mountain meadow just outside of Conifer with six female students preparing to learn the skills of self-preservation if they find themselves lost.

“Most of us are modern humans. We like to be in our towns, in our houses,” said Krebs. “When we are out playing in the woods, a lot of us don’t have the skills to be able to get back.“

Bushcrafting is the skills that provide for the basic physiological necessities for human life, food, water, shelter building and firecraft. Homesteading is the lifestyle of self-sufficiency, agriculture, food, preservation and even making your own clothes.

Krebs teaches women how to be rescued if they find themselves in a situation where there are unexpectedly lost. She says the first thing anybody should do when they find themselves lost, is to just stop moving.

“If it is truly a survival situation and that switch has gone off in your brain. Stop! Stop moving! And it is so hard for us to do,” said Krebs.

Krebs learned her outdoor skills from the best teacher, the United States Air Force’s SERE program: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

Krebs says what she teaches is for anybody who ventures into nature, like Kristen Musselman who took copious, notes and learned life-saving skills.

“I think it’s irresponsible not to know them. To be honest, we never know when we are in the outdoors if we are going to enter into a survival situation. And especially for me as a woman, I love spending time alone outdoors,” said Musselman.

Krebs says most people will be able to grasp in a day the basics that she teaches and will be able to practice a lot of those skills over just a couple of days.