By Allan R. Smith
Mountain Readiness Expo May 5-7th, 2025
As we know there are several “Outdoor”, “Survival-Prepping” events across America yearly. But often they seem focus on profit and selling product, and the classes are often limited and mediocre. So when we were asked about attending the “Mountain Readiness Expo”, it was one of the events we had not heard about and sparked our interest. But how could this be any different than all the other events was our question?
First Appearance:
Arriving at the “Mountain Readiness Expo” we were pleasantly surprised at the venue. Nothing like what I expected and we were immediately greeting by the staff and Bob Toombs the Co-Founder of the event. Check in was easy and as we looked around, it was a down home event with campers, RV’s, tents and folks with there children and dogs walking around having a great time. Held at the Van Hoy Campground in North Carolina, one of the great perks to Mountain Readiness is you can literally camp at the event. It was awesome to be able to walk from your camp to a class and back and at night it also gave attendees after hours of camaraderie around the many camp fires.
The first thing you notice is that there are no large presentation tents or stages. No loud music or event staff with blow horns. Walking around the venue to get a lay of the land, this was an event like nothing we have attended before. There was no-one wearing tin-foil hats or UFO costumes like we had seen at other events. This was something different, much different then we’ve seen elsewhere.
The people attending were families and folks that seemed serious about learning how to be more self-reliant. Smiles and casual conversations were had between events and the classes offered gave them exactly what they were looking for.
Classes:
Attending classes, that was the difficult part. Why? Because you wanted to attend everyone and planning was key. There is no doubt that the staff at Mountain Readiness have put a lot of thought into this event. Classes at Mountain Readiness are a HANDS ON event, unlike most other Survival-Prepping events. We attended several excellent classes and with topics from Homesteading, Bush-crafting, Home Defense, Tracking, Medical Preparedness and so much more, planning your day is essential.
The classes put on by Karl and his team at the “Tactical Rifleman” covered everything from Off-Road Recovery, Setting up your rifle, Austere Vehicle Repairs which even included teaching folks how to patch a tire, to a packed class for “women only” on the AR-15.
Rally Point ST had classes on Hardening the Homestead, Caching Operations and more that was excellent.
A highlight for us was attending the “Man Tracking” class. Seaux Larreau a retired Green Beret and professional tracker presented a class on man tracking which fell into animal tracking as well. After a bit of classroom, it was outside to put memory to muscle and learn to track. This is one of those skills that takes a bit of devotion to master, but we walked away with a great base of knowledge to build upon.
Food & Vendors:
A perfect variety of food vendors were on hand with BBQ, Mexican, to Ice cream and coffee.
Vendors providing information on Water Purification, Canning, to the Angry American booth with his great books and so much more.
Final Take Aways:
If you’re serious about securing your home, learning a new skill, quality time with the family trying new things, this is a must attend event. This was the 3rd year for Mountain Readiness and can only image what they will do next year. The location in North Carolina provides a perfect venue and with the camping and accommodations this makes it a win win like no other. Whether you’re an expert or novice, age 8 to 80, there is something here for everyone and we look forward to attending again next year!
Check them out @ www.mountainreadiness.com
