Survivorman | Season 3 | Episode 2 | Colorado Rockies | Les Stroud

[Music] well I spotted all of this white bird droppings here on the log huh and then I looked about four feet away there's not much left here to pick from even for me let's see if there's any brains left in here to eat [Music] [Music] this time on Survivor man I'm about to take on surviving in the rocky mountains and I won't be alone with me will be nearly 2,400 pounds of companionship in the form of two quarter horses Flint my riding horse and Remington my pack horse got to carry all my gear once I'm out there I'll have to initiate survival for all three of us and it won't always be easy well you okay okay all right that's it I don't have a lot of experience with horses so the learning curve for me looking after these two powerful animals will come Swift and steady I don't want to over dramatize this but a simple mistake out here can prove fatal and could result in an accident so bad I could be crippled for life these are the Colorado Rockies a landscape where beautiful vistas and a chance for adventure can almost be taken for granted you can ski the slopes kayak the rivers and take in some of the most spectacular scenery in the world every year riders come out on a casual Trek and they get lost and they end up having to survive horsing all in the valleys and slopes of the Rocky Mountains sometimes you get lucky and by instinct your horse knows the way home that's not always the case and it definitely won't be my case I'm here without food survival gear or camera crew and I'll have to survive and keep my horses alive alone for the next seven days in the Rocky Mountains the camera crew now leaves me to the mountains and the meadows of Colorado [Music] the Rocky Mountains stretched for more than 3000 miles from central northern Mexico to Northwest Alaska they form the Continental Divide and are described poetically as the marrow of the world it will forever be a rugged landscape full of legends myths and tales of survival mountain men pioneers and settlers native cultures have all made their attempts at survival in this wild landscape when they knew what they were doing they fared well and enjoy the bounty of the Rockies when they were foolish they perished it said the mountains got its own ways I'll need to incorporate the knowledge of the old ways with the modern methods of survival if I'm going to make it through the week unscathed these horses are new to me and I'm new to them it'll take us a while to work out a relationship if it's ours it could be dangerous for me if I stay on top of it and treat them right and show them confidence all three of us will make it through the week without an incident [Music] well that's the horses taken care of electric wire put up all around I'll talk about that later and lots of grass for them to eat Suns going down it's a great deal time for me to get myself settled in [Music] this location might have a fantastic view but there's no water so it'll only hold me for this first night well with two horses to look after I can't exactly just pull up at nighttime and hold out somewhere and weather out any storms and make it through the night I've got to look after the horses - so that means stopping a good hour depending on where you are maybe two hours before the Sun Goes Down first so I can get the horses set up and then so I get myself set up I'm just gonna pull a classic cowboy move here and sleep out under the stars so the benefit of being out here with a couple of horses well actually there's many benefits for one thing I don't have to carry all my own camera gear around although trying to set up shots it's tricky but I end up getting a lot of good materials to use these are the pads go underneath the saddles for the horses turns into blankets or pad to lay on for me for at night this'll help there's my only source of water for now there's a simple bladder pack and I've been drinking out of this sight up here he'll be fine right now just - I just heard something in the bush probably an elk just to get away from well just to settle in for the night but I'm gonna have to get down for me I'm too high up and there's just no water I'm out here as a casual rider just gone for the day check out a valley do a little bit of fly-fishing and head back home but now I'm stuck so now what do I do well I'll tell you one thing I don't do is I don't panic if I panic now my horses are going to panic and that's the last thing I want to have happen my horses need to stay relaxed and calm as it is they're out here alone with me there's bear out here there's mountain lion out here and both of those creatures can spook the horses quite a bit even elk can spook the horses I've got to try to keep them calm if I stay calm I keep my horses calm they can get me out of this so having the horses will change how I survive because I can't just go in up in a hole and say this is a good spot I can make it here I'll be fine I gotta look after them and that's a lot of muscle back there I don't want them getting spooked it don't want them getting nervous and I don't want them getting ticked at me so keeping them alive keeping them calm that's gonna be key to my own survival well I'm not here in the middle of the Rocky Mountains [Music] all right here we go it's night number one I've got a flashlight and I've got no food very little water no survival gear really could be nice having that fly-fishing rod and my horse blankets and that's about it on this sweater so that'll help keep me a bit warm and I just remembered that I am probably in an area with the densest population of mountain lions that I certainly have ever been in before so I think shinai should be closer to the horses I'm kind of exposed out here in this little field sleeping out in the middle of it but there's also black bear here I don't worry about the black bear I worry more about them when it comes to my horses cuz I can really spook a course but here on my own I'm a little more worried about mountain lion so off to keep my my eyes open I know that they have attacked people and not far from here and people see them all the time so I'm writing out in their homeland right now so that's it this is night number one surviving in the middle of the Colorado Rockies with horses I sleep with my boots on just in case [Music] well no food down my stomach so with that in mind I'll start grazing and eating everything I can that any any wild edible that I find anything I see and I've got to get the horses to water you got to keep your horses clean and a little bit of grit or dirt that gets underneath the saddle underneath the Cinch can really bother the horse a lot annoy them before you know it you got trouble out there Flint and Remington are good horses but they are still animals and they can react on instinct alone and that can be dangerous okay that's one then I got to do the pack horse which takes even longer knowing that I'm out here for a full week and having to film everything myself I need to bring a pack horse with me carry the gear the benefits of this is that it helps keep the riding horse calm because they don't like to be solitary creatures but it creates double the efforts and double the chance of accidents for me operating my camera gear to cover all the action of surviving out here is tough the horses get annoyed by my constant getting on and off of them to set up the cameras to those who are observant the mountains offer a great bounty with wild edible plants some are poisonous but many are a good source of energy vitamins and nutrients tired with a packhorse on the back the packs often get caught on trees when you're going through this tight bush like this over top of trees around through brush and bush you really got to be careful we got to be ready with your other hand let's go this way let's go this way that's it because if the pack horse gets stopped to the back by a tree like right through here good man I got to be ready to ease off my hand that's holding up out here this time of year major lightening strikes come daily they can really spook the horses and send them running hopefully not with me half falling off boots still caught in the stirrup my body being dragged at full speed along the ground like a wet rag excellent hmm some protein once I clean the dirt off of it believe it or not earthworms have a lot of protein well one's a little gritty who want a little bitter - oh I've got major thunderstorms threatening all around me here I'm just gonna keep moving give myself another couple hours of travel all I've done all day so far has been travel just keep on moving with the horses and oh it's a little tricky trying to film when you've got to look after the horses and keep riding so mostly I'm just trying to get to a good spot for water and survival after a full day of riding I've made it to the top of a ridge with a good view and enough grass to feed the horses I'm getting chased by the rain here a bit there's thunder clouds all around and lightning strikes I've got to get myself set up here well it's not much rain but it's enough that I don't feel like standing out in it right now so left with hanging out under a tarp the rain has abated for now I find that I'm at quite a disadvantage with the horses I have to look after the horses I have to make sure they have enough grass every single night have to make sure they have water that's not too much of a problem but the grass is a problem and as it turns out that a lot of the places that are best for them to survive and not so good for me so today I was pretty much reduced to just grabbing some wild edibles all the way along the trail load of this stone crop hmm high in vitamin A vitamin D shooting star a shooting star the leaves are good and so are the roots some dandelion there's nothing bad you can say about Daniel Lyons that's delicious and it's full of tons of nutrients that's one thing that there's no shortage of around here all kinds of dandelion thistle another thistle it's delicious of course it's got the spines on it and everything Wow mosquitoes are really coming out up here but if you peel away the bottom of it mmm juicy it's like asparagus freakin hungry let me tell you this horses take a lot out here this would normally be fantastic fine not necessarily so in a place like this let me explain why normally I'd be quite thrilled to find this much snow because it would represent for me some great fresh water but here in the Colorado Rocky Mountains these patches of snow that are left behind in the late spring and early summer if you see a red kind of watermelon colored tinge to the top of them and you eat that snow you're in for some serious stomach and bowel problems not quite certain what it is whether it's bacterial or fungal but I'll tell you it's the one thing you do not want to eat out here is snow with a slightly red tinge to it it will make you sick for quite a while one way to get around it if you really must and it's the only way to get some water for survival is to simply get rid of the top layers and go down in the snow a few inches get away from anything that looks like it might have color to it oh yeah mmm cold water in a very dry place that goes down nicely it's generally known that there is a lot of Giardia a waterborne parasite in the water of these hillsides even though the meltwater from the snow has formed puddles they're still likely stagnant and animals from all over will be here to drink and likely defecate in the pond so it's not a good source for me to drink from so tomorrow if I can find an area where I can have the horses in a rotating pasture all within a short distance you know by the day that would be great and then I can concentrate on getting some real survival food so meat hmm it's a long day of riding nice ending though [Music] all right so I've got about a two-hour ride to get back to the valley that I passed earlier there's some good grass there and I think a better chance for my own self to affect survival I might even be able to catch some fish if I'm lucky because I saw stream there so I've been caught off guard adjust how much energy is taken from me looking after these horses little green plants are not going to give me enough of what I need to keep moving and to find better survival impatience toughest part of the day saddling up the horse there we go [Music] I've got a pack this camera now so even in survival it's better to think ethically spread around the horse manure so it's not left in one big pile otherwise the large clumps of manure killed the native grasses as I travel I'm trying hard to find a place where both the horses and I can survive at the same time so this is the stuff I need for the horses just good straight grass however this right beside it is poisonous for the horses and if they get too much of it it can be really hard on them so even trying to find a location out here where I can feed the horses at ease and not worry about them poisoning themselves can be tough you still have to find a section of just good grass and no poisonous plants this poisonous plant is called LOX / I've come back to this valley that I passed through yesterday and it looks like I've got enough grass for the horses and there is fresh drinking water for me down there which means there's obviously fresh water for the horses too and then there's a series of beaver ponds which I'm hoping will have brook trout in them so not a bad place if I'm lost and I'm stuck and I've got to survive this we'll have enough going for both me and the horses [Music] so now I finally get a chance to explain this Corral that I've been putting the horses in see the best way to help them survive out here is by having this portable electrical fence this is safe effective and it keeps the horses in where the grass is and that's a good thing and I just got to put all these poles in and then the cable and this is it just an electrical cable goes around each of these posts and I continue on all I have to do then make sure that it's free and clear and not touching the ground in any place like branches it might be coming up clear those away and attach it to the battery we've got ourselves a portable electric Corral best way to look after horses when you're out like this the way to test and see if the fence is working and it's delivering its electric shock is to touch it using a leaf you get this app but it's not as strong ok it's starting to rain on me so I better move a little faster here and this whole time that I've been here I was thinking that I would probably have to make some kind of a lean-to or something like that just to get organized for the night and completely forgetting that I've got a horse I've got two horses which means I've got horse tackle I've got rope and a canvas tarp so I can save myself a lot of time and a heck of a lot of energy they don't have all that much tarp now that I think of it I can't actually cut this rope because I'm going to need it for when I travel with the horses now the clove hitch over top of a piece of wood stuck inside the corner here [Music] alright well this may not be the sturdiest shelter that I've ever built but hopefully it'll keep the rain out I'll tell you it helps a lot having something as simple as a canvas tarp saves me a lot of energy if I had to build a full-on lean-to utilizing all the boughs and branches around here lots of materials but would it wore me right out this saves a lot of trouble the problem with this shelter is all of the heat will just escape right out so it's not really going to keep me very warm and I don't have any matches but that doesn't mean I can't make a fire as always for me having a fire in a survival situation reign supreme it'll keep me warm and cook my food any food I might get I see if I can get a fire going using the flashlight first we'll start by taking this thing apart take out the bulb going to need to break through the top of it okay that's that what I need to do is break the bulb without breaking the filament inside the bulb that's the tricky part where's my bandanna broke the ball but I think the filament is okay put it all back together here there's the bulb in there so I've got all my powder dried grass mixed in there any luck at all that's will ignite for me all I got to do is turn it on that's hope yeah yeah what's that rope doesn't burn you see that oh that was sweet it eventually it just sort of pooped the grass into flames there and that was nice and now I just need something to cook on this fire well there's a lot of old dry cow patties around here so I've grabbed one or two and put them on the fire that actually keep the fire going for hours it'll smolder and smolder and the added benefit is we've got rid of all the mosquitoes so I could sit here with the mosquitoes gun and watch a knight come in manure is simply dried grasses packed tight by the intestines of a hoofed grass eating animal so it's the perfect long-lasting fuel once it's dried Sun setting on day three now and I've eaten an awful lot of greenery ton of dandelions today I've got to watch that that can be really hard on the system I sacrificed my flashlight for fire which as it turns out is not such a bad sacrifice a lot of the wood here is pitch wood giving me a torch which is great because I need a light now feel bad for the horses they're just covered in mosquitos back there so hopefully it'll cool down enough tonight to kill the mosquitoes off but not so cool that I'm chilled down here and have to keep the fire roaring but at least I do have a fire which is amazing now so what I want now is to cook something over top of this fire and if something would be fish I hope there's a big creek down there there goes a big big duck hmm well there's a big creek down there and hopefully uh it's full of brook trout and I can get some food without food keeping my blood sugar levels up it gets hard to think which is a dangerous situation when you're looking after horses well the mosquitoes seem to have stopped that's good for me I've got the fire going here and I'm not noticing them at all even went back to the horses and gave them one last wipe down with my hand just sort of killing hundreds of mosquitoes all at the same time it's kind of gross but with the cooler temperatures coming in even the horses should get a break so with any luck at all I might even get a nice sleep here [Music] well I spotted all of this white bird droppings here on the log and I thought well maybe this is where a grouse likes to just sit huh and then I looked about four feet away come on it still smells so this is obviously a spot where either a pack of coyotes or a mountain lion has taken and killed a deer now there's not much left there for me that I can use although some of this deer hair here might just work out as fly material for fly-fishing so that's good that's helpful the skin itself well I could boil it neat it if I had a container which I don't the only possible thing left for me and I doubt it by the feel of things yeah I would go in might be able to might see if there's any brains left in here to eat that might be the only thing that's still possibly edible yeah no I don't think so shoot if I had a container to boil in I could probably take all of these rib bones boil them up and make it kind of a stew kind of a gross stew now this is only about 75 feet from where I'm camped so it shows you that there's either a very active mountain lion in this area and this is this is not a very old kill I can it still reeks or there's a pack of coyotes that are taken down the idea [Music] my best bet by far is going to be to get out here and these little beaver ponds and see if I can catch myself some trout ah would be survival of course the issue here is that I've never fly fish before so now I've bait fish to all my life can't be that much different can it I'm not that far away but it still took me a half an hour ride to get from my base camp to this spot with any luck at all it'll be worth the ride as I fish my stomach growls are reminding me of the importance of being successful at this yeah well that was fast lost my fly already that's my bad technique so this is a bit tricky trying to get it out into there it's really shallow right in the beginning trying to get it way up there it's gonna be tricky I might have to walk around a bit this is when cowboy boots necessary for riding are not so good for survival the ground all around this Creek is essentially a bog [Music] okay I actually just hooked the camera I caught the camera this is why I don't like name twos which is essentially what this canvas shelter is a lean-to now you're completely exposed on one side which is not a good thing so tuck in behind here and hope that everything stays dry well I'd spent a few hours of fishing with no luck going down there I think extremes just two shallows not enough holes it's way up high at the top end of this whole system so tomorrow I'm gonna head downstream and see if indeed I can find some brook trout and get some real food meantime I'll wait this storm out and then and then see about getting some water and seems like an oil some water even these fast-moving streams have been known to have Giardia in them the result of ingesting this parasite would be extreme bowel cramping diarrhea stomach upset and weakness nothing you want to deal with a survival situation there we go cow patty and that's all I need to keep the fire smoldering while I'm away looks great I may not have a metal pot but that doesn't mean I can't purify water [Music] all right well I've tried this before and I've actually burned a hole through the bottle no surprise there but I've also had it be successful for me too I was down earlier washing my hands of my face in the stream and you know what that's all it can take sometimes to get Giardia and in these streams are could be Giardia or Cryptosporidium so I want to be real careful so I'm going to attempt to see if I can boil this water in this water bladder here without burning through in theory it should work [Music] well this is not a good sign man I tried I tried here's my leak well that's too bad I I was just about to turn the cameras on because it was starting to rumble and boil so I've got a small pinhole leak but I have purified this water well I'll drink this up I can probably reuse this and get another boil on as long as I keep the pinhole to the top it looks like obviously if I'm gonna make this work I can't let the flames get anywhere near the bag at all with plastic sometimes you can let the flames just lick the bottom but this is pretty thin so I think it's always got to be done by coals and then I can bring the water to a boil in a bladder bag like this and that way I can purify the water and keep the Giardia out of my system [Music] of course eating these little chicks would be helpful in a survival situation but I think having the heart and leaving them be is the better way to go today besides the mother keeps watching me without any deciduous tree leaves available evergreen boughs can be very helpful when it comes to insulating my shelter from chilling drafts I'm lucky to find them in a forest that's been devastated by pine beetles well that ought to help a bit anyway it still gets pretty chilly here at night and you never know when a storm might blow in so every little bit of protection from the elements will help so I went down to the pond down there and and made it back just as the Sun was setting the pond is very promising lots of little fish jumping just just little tiny guys I was trying with the fly-fishing but the mosquitoes are really thick right now so I'm gonna wait till tomorrow morning and then head down try some fly-fishing in that pond that doesn't work see if I can get some worms try it with some worms and man if I could land me it just you know a half a dozen or so of those little fish that'd be sweet [Music] that little pond down there is the one where all the fish were jumping last night so I'm gonna try and see if I can entice them to grab my hook this morning and save myself from maybe going out on a long trek with the horses searching for some other pond where I might catch fish give it a shot anyway you go out fishing casually when you fish for survival either way you have a lot of Locker you can be skunked I'm gonna give it my best shot here at this little pond of course the difference for me is that I need this food I'm getting tired of eating dandelions and violets and lacy lilies well unfortunately I'm going to have to take my shoes off and wade into the water a bit to get close enough to that hole to try to get to the fish I say unfortunate because that water is coming directly off a mountaintop from melting snow it's gonna be cold [Music] yeah well I spent an hour at least down there trying to catch some of those brookey's and I didn't catch a single fish I caught two you know they said make sure if for survival that you carry a fly-fishing rod with you in fact everybody who goes out here riding in these mountains in these hills takes a fly-fishing rod with them and now I see why now that is survival five days in a survival and luck or no luck I'm beginning to feel the stress of little food and a little sleep frustrations can't be understated and it's taking its toll on my filming all right this is going to be good now I could easily just eat these fish raw just bite into them as they are you know what hang on a second lens looks really dirty I better clean it all right this is gonna be great I'm sure would look really cool if I just ate this raw but I've got a fire going now most of you getting hungry and tired I can't talk anymore but you know what the toughest part of survival is the psychological part and after five days with nothing but dandelions and violets eat cooked fish is gonna do the job but the only thing I'm gonna take out of this fish is the intestines I could actually probably eat them although it's not good to eat the intestines with all the yeah whatever forget it I don't even know what I'm gonna say I'm just gonna cook this thing to get eating enough filming [Music] this is about as good as it gets when it comes to survival yeah I can't believe it not bad for never having fly-fish before this makes survival whole other story there's a few components to survival the will to live is obviously one of the most important ones the physical conditioning you're in what kind of state of health you're in when you start survival sometimes even just dumb luck matters a lot as to whether or not you're gonna survive but one element that I always add is your kit if you've got something in your kit to help you it can make a huge difference on whether or not you survive and for the riders that head out into the Colorado Rockies sometimes all it takes is one fly-fishing rod you've got enough to survive until you get home that's certainly gonna help me now this is more like it look at that now there is a survival meal got my dandelions my yellow and purple violets and the main course alright so I've also cooked the internal organs the liver the heart even some of the eggs while all of the eggs that are in these fish it's all edible all good and there is nothing like fresh cooked fish let me tell you wow that's good oh man hot food when it comes to survival hot food it's just it's such a bonus oh that's better than eating it raw I'm gonna come down and brush Remington and Flint once again they're just covered with mosquitoes especially Remington the brown horse I guess they like that color better because they're all over him hey hey Remington hey buddy yeah see what I mean it's just covered I came out here quite often but it doesn't really do much good he likes it anyway I can tell that's just an insane amount of mosquitoes that many mosquitoes are on me I'd be going out of my mind poor fella [Music] time to saddle up head for greener pastures everything too but not one can watch Remington always follows [Music] now they're cut now I can saddle up [Music] you got a lot of work taking care of horses [Music] feeling weak to carry a fire bundle it regularly needs tending to while riding a horse is just not going to work so I'll have to leave my fire behind as I begin my trek out of here [Music] everywhere I can stop and get some more food I've got to do that each time it means tine up the horses and then getting into the area and it could be a lot of effort for nothing so hopefully few fish will outweigh the benefits of climbing down this and climbing back up again [Music] okay there's a nice it's a nice little pool go over it right over here and there I dropped my fly into [Music] [Music] oh man that was funny I was just actually making sure that I had a fly still on my hand on my rod and I was just sort of looking back and forth and I actually snagged a little guy that's fresh fish is good if possible still to get rid of the intestines and gunk it's the only thing that'll give it a bitter taste mmm be eat them all you get a ton of nutrients let me go back to the sushi bar easy and on we go [Music] trip back out towards the ranch follows a valley the whole way often that's the only way to find your way out in this part of the world you can follow the course of the waterways eventually they'll lead you to civilization is that I have no fire of course for this last night so I just decided to huddle under Neath fááááá huddled underneath the tarp here weathers fine I don't think it's gonna rain mosquitoes have all gone in now it's cool enough and this is kind of like night number one all over again so I'm just gonna huddle here and head out in the morning [Music] [Music] you know surviving in the Colorado Rockies might not be that tough of a challenge this time of year a lot of wild edibles and we've got a fly-fishing rod you can catch brook trout but throw in looking after a couple of big animals whoa Flint whoa and the rules change drastically of course the best part is they can take me home let's go Flint let's go mountain men pioneers and the original native inhabitants have all called this area home on occasion when the mountain changes they may have even cursed it and wished they were safe in the flatlands either way you can't force your own agenda on nature out here mountains got its own ways [Music]

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 411,196

Rating: 4.8732095 out of 5

Keywords: Survivorman, Survivorman TV, 'Les, Survivorman TV Series, Stroud', Outdoor Survival, Survivorman TV Show, Les Stroud, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman - Season 3 - Episode 2 - Colorado Rookies, Todd Standing, Logan Stroud, Sam Omik, Uzimann, Joseph McConnell, Bob Wilson

Id: B_V433yZzbo

Length: 43min 35sec (2615 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020