11 Days Solo Camping in the YUKON Wilderness - Special Episode

foreign [Music] there's a land where the mountains are nameless and the rivers run God knows where there are lives that are airing and aimless and deaths that just hang by a hair there are hardships nobody reckons there are valleys unpeopled and still there's a land and it beckons and beckons and I want to go back and I will [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign those Double D rings there and the d-rings on the side or for thigh straps that allow me to control the boat a little with my legs when I'm running White Water so there you go I got my 15-foot Nova craft prospector all outfitted and ready for my big solo trip down the Bonnet plume River I got a spray deck outfitting on it with the ladder lock system using pop rivets in the hull I got uh webbing on for bow and Stern airbags and lashing Bank lines so I can put inflatable bags in the bow and Stern I got d-rings down in the front and on the side by the seats so I can use thigh straps and white water and I got other d-rings in there as well so I can clip down my camera and my day bag and as well as bungees over the bow and Stern which I'm going to use to tuck my throw bags under which I would grab and swim to shore so I'd have that canoe on the end of the Rope if I did dump there we go it took a a long time but I was working alone but I got it done I'm super happy with the way it turned out so can't wait to get this thing into the water and over on the plume River [Music] well here we are on the North Klondike Highway and we are officially on our way to Mayo Mayo is where I'm going to be hopping on a float plane and flying off into the Wilderness to land at Bonnet plume Lake to begin my canoe Expedition down the Bonnet Blue River but we got a bit of a drive ahead of us beautiful scenery looks like so far we're gonna have a good day for flying take it in a little bit last few hours before my trip starts [Music] okay well here we are at Alcan air in mayo Yukon it was a long drive here from White Horse and I got here a little late so I'm just waiting for my float plane to come back and it is going to take me out and deposit me at Bonnet plume Lake which is a remote Lake in the Mackenzie Mountains and that is going to be my starting point to paddle the Bonnet plume River I'm going to take the Bonnet plume for 350 kilometers to the peel River and I'm going to follow the peel River down to a large Gravel Bar called taco bar where I'm gonna wait for another float plane to come and pick me up and fly me back here to mail so I can drive to White Horse and this is a fly-in fly on adventure because it is just extremely remote I'm going to be in the true Wilderness at the Yukon I got some serious White Water rapid challenges ahead there's grizzly bears there's black bears out there gonna try to avoid them and just have a blast I'm going to be having to do some portaging and the water levels are high so the Rapids are going to be challenging hopefully I can deal with those but I'm looking forward to hopping on this float plane and enjoying a spectacular flight through the mountains so my next big adventure is just about to start I'm here [Music] this is my gear here that bag's got solar panels solar chargers in it and a whole bunch of outfitting so that and that are going to go on the canoe we're still going to actually have to strap the canoe to the struts of this float plane here too because you can't put it inside so it's a process that takes him some skill oh [Music] okay [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] Lake and it is beautiful and I actually saw a cow and a calf moose right at the outlet of the river so I've already seen two moose that's pretty cool um end up getting in later today because I was tardy for my float plane Charter so I'm probably gonna take some time just get my boat outfitted and do a little fishing here and I might not start we'll see how I feel though I gotta get some food a line in the water and uh get set so anyways just going into land all right well that's it the float plane has left me all alone here in the remote Wilderness on Bonnet plume Lake it's an interesting feeling when that float plane takes off and just leaves you to completely be self-sufficient in a very remote area especially when you're all alone so yeah I'm gonna get my bear spray out to get my shotgun loaded up get a bite to eat and start getting this canoe outfitted this is a pretty big lake but I got dropped off on a decent Beach should be half decent for camping and the outlet of the Bonnet plume river is right over there so I don't have too far to paddle on this Lake and uh yeah super excited to start putting miles behind me greeted with grizzly bear well a quick Scout showed me that there's actually a much better and flatter place to Camp right down there so I'm not gonna have to paddle anywhere means I gotta schlep all my stuff from here over to the point though a hunch of these little berries around not sure what they are I think there may be low Bush Arctic raspberries might have uh something to do with the large grizzly bear poop i saw over there although that seemed to be full of like sages and grass and stuff like that but not a ton of berries here but I'm not feeling overly comfortable about camping by grizzly bear poop where there's a bunch of berries things I realized that my pickup isn't at the mouth of the Bonnet plume it's a ways down the peel so I'm gonna have to be paddling I don't know what I'll be really facing there then today was a bust because I got here late so it's giving me about 10 days to do the Bonnet plume what was supposed to be almost 14 days it's being cut down substantially get my boat outfitted so it'll be good to go first thing in the morning what I gotta do is I gotta inflate these airbags and what these do is they give your canoe extra buoyancy so you can take in more water and not swamp and still have control [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] look at that beautiful big good size that's for sure look at that this is what it's all about guys I'm finally here man ah yes I'm having so much fun right now [Music] [Music] another chunky grayling look at that there's Grayling number two a little smaller than the first one but a beauty still [Applause] that's gonna be making the bloopers real [Music] oh I forgot my net grayling's huge [Music] [Music] using this cold steel bird and trout yeah it's just gonna slip from cool right up to the top like that see I might have to cut that in half but I can't wait to eat that it's gonna be good a little Old Bay baby that one's done traveled a long way for this meal um [Applause] well it is late probably geez I'm gonna guess 11 30 12 right now lots of light still land of the Midnight Sun amazing day I was really tired and hungry when I got here a lot of travel a lot of anticipation I mean the flight was incredible Jagged Mountains everywhere beautiful amazing when you fly in the mountains sometimes you have to fly through a valley and you actually have to look up the float plane window to see the top of the mountains because they're taller than the elevation you're flying at which is pretty cool anyways I got some a little bit of food in me and um like there's just Grayling coming like right up to the shore right now it's incredible they're coming right into like inches of water yeah as soon as I saw those fish jumping I knew I had to get out there take a few casts and sure enough from Shore didn't take me long to get a beauty probably the biggest one today was the first one I caught which was absolutely delicious and I headed out there and where I saw a bunch jumping sort of where the the current picks up and starts to flow down the Bonnet plume and sure enough there was a cow mooth just sitting there probably the same one that I saw when the float plane landed we were taxiing up to the gravel Beach here and that was really cool so I got a good look at that cow moose as I was catching gray lake so yeah just incredible the the fishing beautiful fish and beautiful beautiful sight this is going to be the only Lake on this trip so um it'll be sad to leave it behind but I'm super excited to see what lies down river the Bonnet plume is supposed to be the most beautiful River in the peel Watershed and so I think that we're going to see some things that Top This believe it or not really looking forward to just everything that lies ahead and I already feel more chill you know now that I got everything I know I have everything here I know the canoes outfitted everything's done that anticipation is pretty much gone and I just feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to tackle whatever lies ahead I'm gonna leave my food Barrel kicking around and uh Grizzly country that's for sure take this ah stash it in the Willows [Applause] mourning a day two man awesome awesome spot it's gonna be tough to leave this spot I put my um gold zero up uh the solar panel not a lot of sun but it's still going to be doing something I think it's dropped out to the top of my canoe got the water on to boil I had to get creative and put my ground pad around the stove because the wind will just blow all the heat away and you waste gas and I gotta conserve gas so now it's time to take down the tent and have my coffee have some oatmeal and get on the water [Applause] foreign [Applause] making and breaking Camp every morning I'm so used to it now oftentimes when I just spend two days at the same campsite I just get bored I feel like there's nothing to do unless of course it's like an epic fishing hole or something [Applause] looks like it might be starting to clear up or we might get a patch of blue and then overcast again I don't know [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] today I'm stirring my coffee with the cold steel Outdoorsman fixed blade knife we'll see if there's any difference compared to you know knives I've used in the past oh what a spot to have breakfast I don't have my brother with me on this trip which means that you know the French Press holds two coffees so I made two just so I can get that caffeine rush just kidding but I'll probably drink too I wouldn't want to waste stove gas perfect cut some rays I'm bringing a large solar panel because uh I want to really reduce the amount of time I have to charge when Ted and I were in Manitoba we had tons of sun we only need a 60 watt but it was super sunny and we were traveling 12 hours a day in the blazing sun so that really worked we got some Sun [Applause] [Applause] so you got the generator battery in a dry bag in in the canoe and then this out on top I'm just going to tie it down with some parachute cord and this waterproof panel here doesn't matter if I dump or whatever it won't get broken well here's a little injury my knife has a bone cracker on the back but I want to slice the parachute cord to tie down the solar panel it whacked there and my first aid kit is completely packed away so looks like I'm gonna have to uh maybe just put a little Spruce gum on it [Applause] uh ideally if you can get it when it's still gooey that's better so I'll have to Heat this up don't ask me I've seen this in a movie not the spruce pitch the uh heroin spoon it's gonna melt it down by and let it cool a bit till it's sticky and I'm just going to put that screw scum right on the cut it works for deep Cuts Like stitches like that you need stitches for it hardens and then you wait a few days and it comes off and the cut will be healed still challenging because of the part of my finger it's on but let that get into the cut and I'm off that took a while [Applause] well finally pushed off from camp I've never really ran a system kind of like what I'm doing now like way larger Nook case and uh more gear in the solar panel system so it took me a long time to get it dialed in because I have a lot of shooting equipment like some rain coming this way they can't make up its mind but uh yeah ever since I got here the weather's been kind of all over the map um cold really cold at night and then it was and it was hot for a while I was sweating and then cooled right down again snug as a bug yup that's uh that's the Marine oh yeah oh it's something pretty good maybe it's a lake trout oh I lost it God damn it that is such a bummer oh something shiny to match these watercolors here although I was having success on the black Fury orange Dot but this is a dressed MEPS aglia 2 here wow this is beautiful oh got one wow I just watched that come up and just Crush my lure that was exciting [Music] well we got one I'll take that I'll take it nice little tributary in a back out of here well that scared the bejesers out of me nice little pocket here you guys see that hello dinner I'm gonna call you dinner a little smaller than the lake but definitely a good eater foreign that wasn't really the Bonnet plume proper it actually feeds up on it plume and I'm just pulling up to it right now it looks kind of brown definitely not as beautifully clear as this one so I might just jump out and take a couple casts here and um maybe uh bust out my gold pen this is uh some black sand black sand is a good indicator of gold so if you see Creeks or deposits of uh black sand it's worth dipping in a pan Wow first cast here at the Confluence and I hooked into something pretty big [Music] that's the biggest one yet look at that looks like uh we have a potentially a little rapid coming up as this Creek out of Bonnet plume Lake meet the Bonnet from plume River proper and I'm just taking a minute to clean up these two Grayling here this one I caught in the creek coming down and then when I got here to the Confluence of this Creek in the Bonnet plume I just started catching tanks like it's crazy they're just they're not they're just in the in the Swift Current in the shallows and the Eddies like they're not just in the Eddies they're they're like all over the place basically probably gold Flack right there foreign say goodbye to what very well could be the best fishing part of the trip however it's looking like this is going to be a pretty good fishing trip in general but man tough to beat that got a little rapid coming up here more of just a Swift I'm gonna try to put in a few more hours on the river here thank you well this river is just screaming along that's great news so the high water might make the Rapids tougher but it's looking like it's going to make it faster it's making me feel a little more confident that I'll be able to make it in time and not have like a complete rushed trip foreign up on our first rapid of the adventure it's been rainy and cold unfortunately for a while but I'm still just having fun um Rivers picked up a lot since I got off the creek from Bonnet plume Lake and into the Bonnet plume River hopefully maybe who knows maybe I'll still be able to bang off my uh daily distance day which is about 35 clicks but I'm gonna run a rapid right now should be fun looks like maybe a class one maybe a class two pretty straightforward but uh you always want to be prepared so probably not the best line but fun enough to see some squirrely looking stuff up there I'm terrified here we go you got this Jim you got this kind of a blind corner here to keep my Stern into Shore but it's Rocky on the right serious man looks kind of like a class three gonna catch over to the right these guys got some squirrely coming up here just missed all that whoa holy that was awesome this is way crazier than what I've read in the trip report anyways I'm gonna jump out and have a look because right now this is a completely blind corner in between the Rapids there is no in between the Rapids it's all a rapid a ripping fast Swift at the least man it's not a nice day it's cold and windy and that actually makes it more dangerous to run Rapids because if you dump you can get hypothermia this water is freezing cold I'm gonna head back to the canoe bail any remaining water and uh head out all right here we go all right I'm doing it look what we have here a trail so this way would be to scout the blind corner and this way would be to Portage and that kind of tells me whatever's around the corner is probably pretty challenging since people Portage it that's a canoe Crusher that's all I could see from up River so that's why I was a little nervous but looks like plenty of room to pass it on the right hopefully we're home free and Jim will have survived another one oh and to the canyon too only a little slot where you can make it over now the other thing is the one that I'm skirting right now I'm gonna go take a peek around the corner here I cut around the side slaw to avoid a gnarly looking rapid and it looks like there's something else that I'm going to head right into so I'm gonna go have a look I walk down to look around the corner again and she's still going so so I guess I'm gonna try to drag down here jump into this Eddie and go I don't hear any Rushing Water ahead I think we might be out of the thick of it for today anyways but wow that looks incredible smokes Lord of the Rings foreign the sun on those mountains went away but still pretty awesome but there's a nice Gravel Bar here and I've only gone like 13k today a bit more if you count all the bends but not even half of what I supposed to do I might stop here I'm going to check the time it might be a decent fishing hole looks like a decent enough place to camp and absolutely beautiful so [Applause] every shot oh I guess uh first things first set up the tent and get that over with foreign well just time to get uh fire going and uh find a little baby duckling and just punch it in the face just kidding I'm always trying to lose it it's only day two [Music] [Applause] good morning day three just woke up I'm still tired it's raining I don't know what's on the agenda today but I think we might have a couple portages and some more intense Rapids I heard uh an animal out here at like 3 30 this morning I heard a a noise an animal walking out here I think it was a moose but it seemed to be like not far from my tent today is going to be about trying to make some distance but I think I also probably have at least one Portage today I left my stove out and it's all wet so let's see how well it lights turning so particularly feel like riding a fire this morning oh no no pressure oh son of a Dove is broken unbelievable this is all damp foreign pilot told me about the Bonnet plume is that it's very rarely traveled so you know that means there's nobody on the river no other group behind me no other group ahead of me just me out here in the middle of nowhere which is kind of cool foreign nothing like a hot cup of coffee to help you procrastinate on the morning one or two short portages today and it's not gonna be the Portage that's challenging it's hard to just get my boat perfectly loaded so that I can have that solar panel on top of the solar battery underneath it so I really got to do kind of a Tetris maneuvering job of my bag so to load and unload the boat is like more time consuming than the Portage itself probably but it is what it is foreign so all packed up now but I haven't panned the mouth of this Creek or up in a little bit so I'm just going to take a couple minutes and head up there and see if I can find some gold nuggets I just can't imagine how cool it will be just swirling everything around and then little nuggets of gold uh in My Pan it'll be super exciting so yeah I'm gonna go and do that for a minute and then jump in the canoe and get going [Applause] thank you [Music] already starting to get into some more kind of denser forests just from the little bit that we've come down in that elevation now see patches of ice still up in the mountains that are still feeding these uh small little runoff Creeks well this is looking kind of sketchy up ahead I got pushed into a narrow braid and there's a tree down over the river and literally nothing I can do here to Eddie out and miss it so looks like maybe if I just squeeze left I'll be able to get under the tip but this is the kind of thing that can really cause problems yeah it looks I can get through the busting my face through branches sketchy man well things are going pretty good just hanging out watching uh bald eagle here there's actually two of them an immature one and a really large mature one oh of course now it starts dumping rain when I'm trying to swap out my maps oh we're probably getting pretty close to the Rapids so my GPS shows me my exact location and it is right here so right on the next map so nailed it is that a way to go before the Rapids yet but Rapids there two Rapids here contour line crosses the river and then another double bar Rapid there so things are about to get interesting ladies and gents a little rapid right here wow what a view of the mountains sweeper coming up here looks like there's enough room to get fired [Applause] so I have some serious Rapids coming up in six kilometers and I really just got to keep my eye on the map so I can judge the character of the river as I get close wow what do we have here a very nice tributary it's just screaming to take a couple of casts well no luck here I just eddied out right at the mouth of a crystal clear tributary rushing right into the Hass River not there's a little tributary mark on my map that looks like it's marked coming in from a swamp so I was not expecting it to be this fast flowing and a beautiful Eddy here I love how you can see the two waters the kind of turbid water of the Bonnet plume mixed with a crystal clear emerald colored water of the tributary it's so neat no we have a little uh class one coming up right here tight maneuvering here got some standing waves here I would I would have taken in a lot of water maybe I should have hit that for fun we're getting interested that is a rapid right there I gotta Scout that out and they just rounded a corner and saw this flushing rapid with some big standing waves looks like maybe one hole to avoid and a bunch of big standing waves so I had to pull over quick crazy and it just keeps going around the corner oh class three a big wave there a little irregular well I'm gonna run it hit the first big wave then get right hard and Eddie out and then Scout Woods down river terrified though it's the biggest standing wave yet probably not the most technical but to try to take her slow nice documentary on here basically just skip the whole thing cool anticlimactic actually well the reason that that rapid terrified me wasn't because of the rapid but it's because of what's down river we're in a little small Canyon more standing waves super pushy and then a tight blind corner with a huge Boulder in the middle this isn't even a marked rapid on the map and I guess just because of the high water it's making what would be you know something manageable into something that isn't long story short it's a huge drop there and if you hit it left you go into a hole you can't hit it right so the tongue is completely blocked by this curling wave I might be able to kind of cheat it that sneak up through here though this would be a challenging Portage look at this also looks like another rapid around the corner too anyways here we go gonna stay right this shouldn't be too exciting wow this is terrifying that's where I don't want to be big or slow pretty much home free now foreign [Music] technical run I just started Beast battling full speed when I had to and then slowing down maybe support Tosh starts like right over here hey bear the trail keeps going but there's a little side kind of Trail might be an animal Trail here that leads down there and I'm gonna go for it damn it the weather was really beautiful and then some dark clouds rolled in it got cold windy poured rain and that's blowing through leaving a spectacular rainbow and I even see some double rainbow action starting to happen over here super awesome I like to carry the canoe blast on places where the Trail's hard to follow because that way to learn the trail a bit better before taking the canoe would you look at that I'm here yeah that was not easy oh now I gotta load all this gear back in the boat head on down river and uh look for a place to camp well raging class three over 100 meters long and there's still Rapids around the corner so yep gonna get the boat unloaded and uh get set up try to get to bed relatively early maybe I'll just do uh some dehydrated meals Tori um made some delicious dehydrated meals for me so I might Hammer one of those [Music] thank you this is also the start of a very faint Portage Trail it could be just a game Trail coming down so if I was going to Portage this I might just start from here rather than loading the boat and floating my gear all of a hundred feet just found the remains of a caribou antler it's almost like rotted into the ground but kind of cool I was just walking looking for where I was going to put my fire and looking for some wood and I just saw it there [Music] said platform Drive standing dead wood baby well it's so cold out right now that the water and the river is steaming that means that the water is warmer than the air and the water's freezing foreign dehydrated meals foreign berries basically all the things stuffing mashed potatoes turkey and cranberries all dehydrated they're mixed together I think we're supposed to be like two or three meals in that dehydrated pouch because my pot is full thank you honey for making this delicious food [Applause] today was day three so looking forward to seeing what tomorrow has to hold it's a beautiful day [Music] choosing my uh Cold Steel Hudson bayocks traditional ax head style they're sold by the Hudson Bay Company in the fur trade era used by the voyagers [Music] well today's stacking up like it's gonna be uh an interesting one I start off with uh a raging class three that I'm gonna have to spend some time scouting because it just disappears thundering around the blind Corner then in about three kilometers from there gonna be hitting four marked Rapids back to back to back I think one of them needs to be portaged well I'm going down to uh scout out this rapid again I walked down and looked at it yesterday which uh promptly made me firm up on the decision to Camp here above it what concerned me is what's around the corner so I'm going to track down a ways further and see what I can see there's a waterfall there for example I wouldn't want to run this one an animal bone just jammed between the Rocks here I found as I'm scouting maybe something secane to the river maybe that's a bad Omen anyways this rapid just keeps going but it's a class two and then it kind of Peters out and go into a Swift and goes around another Corner here's the end of the Portage Trail so I think some people do carry but it would go right up to there okay so here's my line I'm gonna come down here like this I don't know maybe I could hit it here maybe that's like a pillow but there's a lot of boils there I might just carry my stuff to here and put in here it's not even in the boat anymore and it's like not even 50 meters so yeah I'm gonna come and put in here and just play it smart and then go out this way and around and down I can just feel that gut-wrenching fear in my stomach when I'm planning a line and I'm thinking yeah this probably should happen you know I want a line where I know pretty much you know it's impossible to know every time but I want to run a line where I know what's going to happen if I hit that line well I'm sorry to say it but we have another set back here damn it yeah basically yesterday when I went to get wood I cut down a standing dead and I just nicked my dry suit with my saw so I'm basically putting some of the aquaseal waterproof goo on the back of the duct tape sticking the duct tape to it putting another piece down and then gluing all the corners and the edges that are likely to peel up and gluing those down with the super glue I probably should be leaving it for several hours I don't have that kind of time so I'm just going to have to risk it fingers crossed this works and I don't fill up with water because that water is a hypothermic cold let me tell you [Music] all right baby [Music] [Music] foreign missed a huge sketchy curling wave if I'd hit that I might have done foreign I said that uh I saw a bone while scouting the rapid stuck between two rocks well I just pulled over on a Gravel Bar because look what I found cool I think we're approaching the first of the uh marked rapid foreign [Music] looks like I was right to pull over and Scout this we got another class three I can't really see around the corner either so maybe I can Wade through the water and get a look but from here it looks pretty runnable and I think there's another one following it so this is definitely one of the marked Rapids so fingers crossed I could run it well this actually looks pretty straightforward there's some big stuff in there but plenty of room more or less to avoid it and shift back and forth across the side of the river I'd have to come in right get left get back right and then hit the middle but the thing is it rages around the corner which means unfortunately they're gonna have to walk way down there and Scout that blind Corner because the map shows back to back Rapids but you see how the river disappears that's pretty dangerous you don't want to just head off into this without knowing what's around the corner oh wow unfortunately it looks like a Portage plumber if the water is just a little lower it would be totally doable but it's just that one big part where it pours over and then just the irregularity of the waves and the crazy boiling current curling waves coming back both and forth irregularly plopping up here and there and then plus all this past it and the current doesn't slow and then there's another class three around the corner so this is class three then class two then class three non-stop so I can't take a risk at running that when I'm out here alone and swimming all of this it's just too dangerous so I'm gonna have to Portage it might as well get it over with you know it looks like maybe it's not going to be today that I make time maybe I can just push way into the evening again I don't know but I'm getting further and further behind here unfortunately a lot easier than portaging okay first trip [Music] [Music] foreign pretty much almost there last 50 meters no breaks not bad for double packing [Music] wow oh my god oh I thought it was home free it's an enormous Gully here [Music] 's that uh point there I don't know what's around the bend and it's a mark rapid so it could be something pretty gnarly and there there's a clear water for me to take awesome [Music] [Music] [Music] all right hopefully that's it but either way there's a raging fastly moving a regular waved class three right in front of me here's the part that I couldn't see some boils and whirlpools they can be tricky holy another intense rapid down there oh this day is turning out to be pretty interesting and hair-raising but anyways take it a step at a time I think I'm going to go back jump in my canoe and run this rapid as carefully as possible though got a pretty freaking intense class three coming up here and then pushy class one two and then right into the next rapid Jesus Christ [Music] whoa ugly man those boils I'm telling you oil and current it'll get you doesn't even look like much oh this one looks raging too I gotta go Scout this out the Portage Trail I put in that actually just continues and bypasses all of this because we have another big class three here a horrible horrible boiling class four right at the base of this beautiful runnable rapid how depressing oh I need to have a look at it doesn't look so bad but I'd have to run perfectly along that line if I got into this here or that there look at the boiling Eddy here that would be all kinds of trouble crazy boils here getting kind of sick of just being scared this all the time well I'm gonna pick my way along the shore here trying to take it slow there you go baby well this is the last hurray of this raging Whitewater torrent where the Rapids are marked on the Canadian topographic maps looks like just a Ledge to be able to run and right at the end to cap it all off I see a smashed in half canoe didn't work out too well for someone serious drop here holy all right thank you we had another powerful rapid here and I uh barely made it to shore it's one that needs to be scouted I've hardly made it anywhere today uh just a little debacle having to patch my dry suit this morning and waiting a while for it to dry ended up kind of portaging this morning too then uh ran the Rapids and got into this crazy Canyon yeah basically I've made it nowhere today I was hoping to like bang off 40 clicks today I think I've made like 10 clicks but anyways this is a sick campsite I noticed a little fire ring up there nice little place to put a tent to so pretty stoked on this campsite enough carrying of those bags for one day for crying out loud my dry suit patch lasted today let me have it submerged for a bit no water got in so that's something to celebrate oh just using my uh Cold Steel Outdoorsman bring a little pot hanging device you just can't even tell you how freaking beautiful it is here man the air smells incredible like this campsite maybe I should have pushed on today I don't know probably could have made it a ways further but then I would have just like pulled up to Camp ate a granola bar and like crawled into bed so hopefully I can make some better time moving forward but anyways gotta go cut some wood foreign [Applause] bacon and uh beef jerky as well in there ripped up about a half a pack of ready crisp bacon [Applause] [Applause] I think I made too much but that is a rubber room [Applause] just to give you an idea of how cold it gets at night thick layer frost on my gun case and camera case this morning absolutely not a cloud in the sky I see a little wisp way off in the distance geez I want a coffee so bad I could shot gun one this is uh A5 so I'm getting towards the halfway point of my trip man it's just flying by probably because of the intense fear around every corner okay so boat's all loaded up I decided to put the solar panel up so I could bring it back out to full charge maybe if I have to Portage today I'll tuck it away but uh makes me feel warm and snuggly to have a full charge there and here we go first task of the day run this rapid [Music] well we got a long rocket here I can't really Scout it looks like a class too but there might be some serious older dodging happening [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh man more intense Rapids today holy smokes but not for a little ways but yeah one two three four in a canyon too who knows that might be a Portage up here heading into a major braided section still ice on the side of the river here in Late July crazy this looks like something kind of good here potentially foreign look at that there's dinner I just uh edit out where there's a big side braid of cos Creek that enters the Bonnet plume and a nice looking Eddy in First cast caught a grayling oh no oh God just got washed away First cast I got one there's obviously a ton in that Eddie man what a dumb mistake that was I bet you it was pretty good in there first cast to catch one like that and then probably who knows there might have been some white fish or something in there no I'm snagged son of a ah oh there's one feels better there we go nothing the same size as the ones uh upriver that's two little Keepers that's pretty sweet I'm gonna be having a nice little fish dinner tonight eh foreign looks like a honey hole here almost missed it too because it just it's hard to distinguish it between just another braid entering back into the main Channel but I want to take a couple of gasty booze this is what I'm talking about here oh it's animal prints around here too well at first glance it looked like an awesome fishing hole but when I got up there um there's wasn't really a calm part in the middle it was all sort of boiling and churning and the fish kind of like a spot where and then Eddie where there is no current where they can hang out and wait for food to drift by in the current we'll swim across the river and got up at the same spot as me look at the size of that on a warm Summer's Eve on the train bouncing nowhere met up with the camera we were both too tired to sleep so we begin you'd staring at the window in the darkness the bottom over took us and he began to see he said something I lived a lot out of reading people's faces knowing what the cards were by the way they held their eyes and if you don't mind me singing I could see your other faces for a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice just cruising along uh enjoying the scenery good current whipping through a braided River got a couple of fish in the boat and uh epic epic mountains all around um yeah a couple approaching Rapids but I'd say that I'm making decent time today which is exactly what I needed to do so that's great yeah foreign [Music] this little honey hole look at how beautiful wow gorgeous fish [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] um I've been making good time I don't know if I've been making the kind of time I need to be because I have been stopping to fish a lot but I just can't pass up the uh these spots so anyways gorgeous gorgeous day and uh just making my way here down the river a little Swift after a little Swift um less much less terrifying still than up River but we're approaching some uh what are likely pretty serious Rapids that are marked on my topographic map here so I'm bracing for a bit of a rodeo and or a long cortog all right by the way are you now welcome home from time to time it's all right it's okay foreign look at this just wild wilderness mountains all around perfect evening clean pure unaltered River in the state of true Wilderness I believe I am at the marked rapid it goes around a blind corner and I was cruising along and I like saw it and panicked and like paddle over the shore as quickly as possible and just sort of beach myself because there's no Eddie I'm gonna go Scout it out though hopefully it's runnable because uh there's not really a good place to Camp right around here at all looks like there might be a place to Camp after all littered with wolf print looks like people do Camp here though and there's a Portage Trail too leading right up this way it's usually when there's a Portage Trail that means that it's a pretty serious but I'm gonna go Scout it out it looks like it might be a class four not looking good so if you went into this hole here you could get really really hurt and this here is a hole if you went into that you just get trapped and swamped and you wouldn't be able to swim out it's a keeper see how that aerated water is boiling back on itself there's this enormous hole the only way down the whole thing is here except bam there's a huge Rock here so there's no root down the only route you'd have to crash into this Boulder my boat's not maneuverable enough to spin left and catch this little part and even so it's really Rocky looks like I'm starting the day out with a big Portage tomorrow that's a completely unrunnable the river pinches through a gap that's four meters thick and there's a small waterfall and it's just like a raging frothing hole that you know would only be runnable in a large inflatable raft so yeah so that's like that's a class five not uh not something that I can run kind of a bummer but it is what it is so it means I'm probably going to stay put today and uh I guess uh finish figuring out what I'm gonna do tomorrow I might have to keep portaging after this if it doesn't get any better but made to a good time today but this is going to slow things down again quarter to nine I did geez over 40K today you know I probably could have stopped less and paddled harder either way it would have probably been tough to do the 40 and this Portage yeah pretty good day all in all so anyways I'm gonna throw these boots on and get a fire going oh wait a minute I'm gonna get my tent set up first shelter fire water food shelter comes before fire so thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh yeah that's [Music] the best [Applause] [Applause] foreign [Applause] apple cinnamon today we're almost out of peaches and cream oh man it's like a bad dream but fortunately just to give me some apple cinnamon still pretty good in my tummy time yum yum about to eat some breakfast then I'm gonna get just a little bit Reckless starting the day off with Portage not as long as the other ones probably about 450 meters or so but it's super rugged like I have to go over loose Boulders and then tricky maneuvering more or less into scale kind of like to bypass some Cliffs and a slip and fall could be severely injury some but once I get past this I have another set of Rapids right after it these are marked on the Canadian 1 to 50 topographic map there's another set and then another set so I might have to Portage this load the boat Parliament Eddie out unload Portage load the boat paddle a bit and I'm talking about like a couple hundred meters in between definitely enough looking forward to doing this hotel dog but I am looking forward to getting it over with I trapped a little mouse in my canoe and I flipped it over the most bites look man nothing bites hard oh man it's putting up a fight this little feisty little guy I got some respect for this little dude might as well have been a panther that bit me I feel like he chewed through my airbag and my canoe because I see it deflated so this mouse might have really beat me up and trashed my gear you probably thought like wow what a perfect little Hideaway from the rain anyways I guess uh I just grabbed some stuff from my canoe and I'm gonna start portaging my gear rain's pretty steady now but not too too hard so shouldn't hopefully shouldn't raise the river too much [Applause] this is gonna be a tough one well I'm just plodding along and uh not far off to the beginning I noticed this old trail that goes right up the hill unfortunately I'm guessing that this is the trail to bypass both sets of Rapids in the entire Canyon which tells me that whatever's Down River from here I was thinking maybe I could run it might be a waste of my time and I'd just be able to paddle 100 meters unload and Portage again where I'd be better off to just Portage the whole thing in one shot it'd be faster but I think I'm gonna risk it and just uh I did see a trail of the way I went to which also means that potentially the lower rapid is runnable so I'm just gonna go with what I scouted it could mean I could put myself in potentially more dangerous situation because uh it might mean that there's not really a good place to take out before the next Rapid or it might just be a time suck because it means I have to unload my boat and all that again so I'm just gonna go with the plan though and of course now I don't have a trail here oh all right I got my drone and bags I don't want to fall off so far not so good holy this goes up and around too I don't need to Portage the entire thing I'm just gonna cut back down to the river so I'm just gonna I guess Portage along the Rocks here these drift pile lines are from when the river's in flood man down oh I just stepped on a a rock coming through some basically a drift pile and some Jagged Boulders and some slick Rock and fill up my my boots around grip but they just did not certainly think that maybe the top of the canyon route was better we're going through here [Music] and there it is the end so the clamber to get there though avoid the smooth areas of the rock uh people wouldn't have come this way regardless just because you go back long enough all those sharp Jagged rocks being carried under heavy packs will just trash your moccasins that's why they would have taken the soft Trail wolf came this way too well Hallelujah here we are I am definitely going to have to after I get my stuff here climb up the hill and Scout around the corner I might even do that now because uh if I put in here and around that corner and there's another class five I'll be in big trouble and it's a very likely thing considering the next rap it isn't marked any differently than this one well the good news is that uh from where I left my bags on my first load I'm just walking along this Trail to scout the blind Corner if it's a unrunnable rapid I want to make sure that there's a safe back Eddie with a place where I can get out and Portage around it I want to scout it and figure out how to run it or at least you know get an idea with what it'll be faced for on whether I should continue poor tossing or not oh looks like some big stuff down there oh maybe I could run it I don't know looks crazy though might be able to sneak down it on the left or something can't see it on the GoPro but right in there there's some really crazy irregular waves and a huge hole in a boulder and a big boiling Eddy coming back this way likely would dump if I went through there because you have to come and turn it would be pretty intense I've done stuff like that before there's a chance I could run this but with my heavily loaded boat in such a remote area and with the class three afterwards and pinning Boulders down river this is not the place to be doing that kind of stuff terrible news guys I have to Portage the whole Canyon this is going to take me all freaking day this is just crazy down here the water's too high there's just a line of just crazy curling waves crazy boiling current on the left huge Boulder on the right and just no root down without hitting some stuff that's very likely going to dump me yeah really good news guys this is just gonna quadruple the length of my Portage here so yeah gotta finish going all the way around there over that and probably down to that Eddy over there yeah like all this is manageable but I can't run this and then how would I get up the canyon how would I get over to the SAT before that rapid I know I'm doing the right thing I got little kids at home my little 11 month old Hudson and uh my special little four-year-old Wesley I don't want to do anything that could endanger my life because they those two little guys need me and just from my own perspective I just makes you want to make sure that I see them again and again there's my gear down there so first order business is coming up this super Steep Hill lots of fun lots of fun foreign [Music] that's for sure [Music] oh my God how horrible well just on the walk back here see these are the things you miss when you have a hundred pound load over your shoulder so so I enjoy the walk back back at Camp I feel like I haven't been here for years all right ready for the next load well here's why I say hey bear when I'm coming down the trail because uh Bears use the trail too so it's good to say hey bear once in a while when you're all alone out here in the grizzly bear wilderness the river's already started to come up in the volume here I think I should be all right though but it pops into my mind and don't leave your stuff close to the shore anyways one more trip with the canoe hopefully this rain dies off before I jump back onto the river though this is nuts oh my goodness man this is rain I found another bypass root that like cuts off the corner because this Canyon's on a bit of a half moon it's a really old trail and it's really hard to follow in some places I think we're gonna give it a go hopefully I don't get turned around thank you easily a mile this Portage usually a mile long this Portage probably more yeah well it was not something I expected to have to do with four times that entire Canyon but I did it and it feels great to get it over with look at all this gear I got over here now well it looks like the clouds are lifting at least for now so that torrential downpour has come to an end I'm about to run what is likely the craziest rapid of the adventure the only thing is there's no pinning Boulders and no Down River Rapids so I feel a lot more confident that if I did dump and the sketchy Parts only at the very end that it wouldn't be the end of the world it's almost impossible to Scout and endless deportage too so as much as I'm happy to be through it I'm also sad to likely never lay eyes on this part of the world again so I'll always remember this Canyon and the horrible Portage but yet the incredible beauty of it well I got the boat loaded up and figured it'd just be easier to walk down on the side I was on to uh check out the next rapid and at first look at it I got concerned and like oh my God because the portal Trail continues but it looks like it's going to be a runnable class three this is the last Mark rapid and then I'm home free for a while so just one death defying harrowing run and uh I'm through this look at the perspective here that's my canoe right there you can even see it well I decided I'm just gonna go for it if I dump I dump okay yeah back on the water [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] and then oh there's another one here well it's a tight corner so I'm gonna try to go on the outside here it's just huge standing ways it curly waves blasting straight into a rock wall so I'm gonna try to take it hard on the outside and Eddie out and and uh avoid all that gorgeous back very hard right foreign what time is it probably like four in the afternoon pretty much took me all day but I'm still gonna pull over and rig up my fly fishing rod because the Bonnet plume is a little kind of emerald-ish color sort of like an emerald gray as you can see behind me so I'm gonna try to match it and I'm going to kind of go with something bigger because the fish when they start to bite they're pretty freaking aggressive and they're just like hammering my Spinners and stuff like that so I feel like uh something that I can actually play more in the water as opposed to just let it drift might work pretty well but like at the same time a lot of the fish that I've cleaned their stomachs have been full of insects but also just like plant matter and just like anything so there are just hitting stuff that's drifting past in the current that's you know pouring out of those uh side creaks [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] there's one yeah ah baby yeah first fish on the Fly that's dinner right there [Applause] [Music] you go I'll just keep this guy got him through the eye okay well there we go got dinner and just picking my way down river don't know how much time I'm really gonna have to stop again but uh that was another braid of the same Creek where I first tried that's the second braid oh my God it's so beautiful here wow there's all snow on the ground all through here well I think I'm gonna try to find a place to Camp here clearly it's not the warmest maybe on the uh ground right beside the creek but we'll have to make this work weather's turning on me and it's after nine wow I guess after I go out to Camp I just started getting hammered with rain and hail but like crazy looking storm that way looks fine pretty much that way and over here we have a rainbow [Music] [Music] here is our campsites freaking beautiful right at the most of this Creek that comes out of a canyon in the mountains and when I showed up all kinds of horrific weather hammered me blasting hail there was actually some thunder and lightning which is rare for the Yukon and I was like oh my God here we go it's a survival situation and then all of a sudden it cleared up and it was like this two seconds later bizarre there's a beautiful rainbow so I'm expecting it to go to again maybe not that bad but it seems that there's some more weather Blowing in and anyways it's already late it's probably like 9 30 right now so I'm gonna just cook up those fish and get to bed as quickly as possible because I want to be up at six tomorrow so I have time to do all the things I want to do here and finish on time so yeah hopefully the rain holds off I'm gonna get a fire going and um if it starts to rain I'll whip my rain pants on and maybe whip a tarp up but really it's super late I just want to eat something quick and go to bed so that's the plan [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] red clouds so maybe that means it's going to be a beautiful day tomorrow fingers crossed got my fish uh cleaned up boiled some water for some tea and I'm just gonna let this fire burn down a bit before I start cooking my fish and go to bed I'm just gonna have a little snack bring a couple of these cans of smoked mussels and I get it all to myself foreign [Music] [Music] that's gotta be gold but look at this cool cabin

Channel: Jim Baird - Adventurer

Views: 61,310

Keywords: Jim Baird, Jim Baird Adventurer, Outdoors, Canada outdoors survival, Yukon, Yukon river fishing, Float plane drop off, Remote river, Yukon wild, Spell of the Yukon, Canoeing, Camping, Bushcrafter, Fishing, Survivalism, Survival expert, Wilderness travel, Outfitter, Outfitting, Solo rapids, Alone in the wild, Wild, 11 days solo camping in the Yukon wilderness, Gold panning, Prospector, Mountains adventure, wild camping, off grid, solo rapids, primitive travel, documentary, fly in fishing

Id: yysj-Y_zU7s

Length: 113min 15sec (6795 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 18 2022