Survivorman | Sierra Nevada Search and Rescue | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Les Stroud

our subject that we're looking for is less drought he doesn't know the area it's a white male adult hair is light brown eyes are hazel [Music] he was going to spend the day up and down willow creek and was supposed to come out this morning he didn't show up [Music] [Music] these are the sierra nevadas and it's classic backpacking country every year hundreds of thousands of people take to the hills for some blood pumping r r a chance to commute with nature breathe the fresh air and feel alive but every year people push it too far or they just don't pay attention and their chance to commute with nature becomes a struggle to survive i'm on a beautiful well-established hiking trail and i've got enough backpacking supplies for a simple overnight in the woods but that's where the simplicity ends and where my camera crew leaves me to spend the next seven days out here alone without food water survival gear or camera crew in the sierra nevada [Music] the sierra nevada mountain range is in the state of california and it stretches 400 miles every year hundreds of thousands of hikers are drawn to the beauty of its peaks and waterways many of them never make it out alive they find themselves getting lost turned around and confused succumbing to fatigue and hunger and some to the bitter cold of the sierra nevada's dark unforgiving nights it doesn't get any better than this this is like parkland beautiful the wilderness doesn't care whether you live or whether you die it almost seems benevolent at times like this but i can never forget that i'm the master of my own fate out here becoming complacent can lead to something that turns ugly real quick and so ends a pretty typical day of backpacking beautiful trails to follow cross a few creeks check out some wildflowers maybe a few animal tracks nature at its best what could go wrong every once in a while you kind of got to pause and look around wonder if someone's watching you big cat black bear mosquitoes are coming out more than i want to see actually [Music] by far the best survival shelter i've ever made so i've decided to be in here as a very classic backpacker just coming out for one quick overnight right sleeping bag tent and a bit of food i've got dinner tonight breakfast tomorrow that's it wasn't planning on a fire so not set up with pots and things like that gone total high tech i have it's actually starting to cool down quite a bit up here in the sierra nevadas i'm not up that high i'm not down that low either and uh it can get down below freezing here for sure at night and still get snow this time of year [Music] [Applause] this should be a good day well the beauty of high-tech camping is that it's lightweight and it's convenient i'm just not so sure that i can get used to this camping without a campfire first thing in the morning but here we go in goes my breakfast speed and efficiency are the advantages of high-tech gear but the downside is the sacrifice of self-reliance nothing like having to fiddle with microphones while you trying to be up in the wilderness [Music] okay time to hike out of here i came prepared for one night of backpacking i had my night and it's time to go but i think i'll take the scenic route this is easy hiking now getting lost is not something that happens all of a sudden that may be how you realize it but in fact the seeds of your misadventure are usually sown hours before you give in to the reality of your situation then your heart starts to quicken your pace picks up sweat beads on your forehead you stop noticing what's around you over and over in your head you hear the words it's got to be just up there but it never is so this is the worst part and you think you should be there should have been around that next corner over that bend and you start to panic and unfortunately when you panic you start moving faster people get turned around simply walking 200 yards to relieve themselves and can get lost for days after that you get all frustrated you sure it's got to be around here somewhere pretty sure you should have been there by now and instead of moving cautiously and carefully you kind of get in a panic people been through this before describe it like there's something chasing you pushing you onward and onward i call it bush panic the only way to combat panic is to assess the situation once you slow down and figure out what you have and what your situation is that knowledge will give you confidence and calmness okay first of all i know i've got basic backpacking gear so i've got a tent and a sleeping bag good shelter and warmth done covered uh i've got i'm out of food i only had enough food for one night overnight with the exception the last of my little snacks which is one peanut butter cup and a small block of cheese now i have to decide whether or not i'm going to eat the food all at once ration it for as long as i'm out here or use it as bait to catch something bigger stuck out here sun's going down so darkness will be here soon time to settle in in most cases lost hikers push the first day to the max and only stop and set up camp when they've reluctantly accepted that they're not going home there's all kinds of fur and fluff here something was killed and eaten here likely a deer the only thing that's going to eat a deer here would be a mountain lion it may be a small comfort but playing guitar or even reading a book can offer a huge advantage at calming the soul in an otherwise panicky situation well it's uh morning of the third day it's only been a day and a half without food but i forgot just how vivid your dreams become when you aren't eating i also forgot to mention that the trees up and behind the tent there are the manzanita trees that's where uh if you're going to get ticks at all that's where the ticks like to hang out and uh the ticks in this area do carry lyme disease so i've got to be real careful about that make sure that i brush off every night before i climb in oh okay i need some water and i need some food [Music] the only way to know for sure if i'm picking an edible wild plant is to spend time in the field with a teacher that knows their stuff the danger is too great otherwise even referencing books though a great start is not enough just touching the wrong plant can lead to weeks of misery and pain when it comes to actually eating something well i could kill myself by eating just a teaspoon of the wrong plant this is what i'm talking about this is all miners lettuce you just pick it and eat it and it's delicious mmm it's juicy too let me get some water into my system right from the outset any nourishment i can get into me will help keep my energy levels up now i need to watch out for ticks on the manzanita trees but these flowers are succulent and tasty they're almost like uh like honeysuckle the stem is a bit bitter so you just eat the little flowers now i can eat them this way as i go along there's a few trees in behind my tent or i can just gather a whole bunch of this and then soak it in some cool water for about 24 hours i have a beautiful healthful sweet flavorful drink and here's a great score all around me here check this out oh i can smell the onion already oh yeah oh hang on all right so now there's another plant here that looks almost the same no smell can't smell onion at all but it looks very much like it and has a bulb like it which could be death camus might not be but it could be the fact is they're side by side here you've got to be really certain let's pull one of these onions out bon appetit camus is extremely poisonous oh wow that's good even while gathering wild edibles the need to remain cautious in my travels remains one slip could change everything we've got the manzanita flowers on top they're going to go into my water as well as the pine needles got some miners lettuce oops and all those onions i still have the leftover pouch from the boiling a bag meals i'm gonna put the pine needles in it but in this drink i'm also going to put the manzanita flowers to give a nice sweet flavor to the water some good old miners lettuce it's enough to at least get some nutrition into me don't know that it's going to give me enough energy to do a lot of bushwhacking but it's way better than nothing this is all really good my little bush meal my guitar plate my need for fire in a survival situation as always looms heavy it can give me a huge psychological advantage but this area is as dry as it gets and the last thing i want is to start a forest fire but without matches all i have is a small led headlamp [Music] see if i can get a fire going since this has been a day of harvesting i harvest the power from the batteries three double a's to see if i can make a fire that's where the bulb would go and i'm gonna just take the wires right off of this piece here theoretically i should be able to attach those two wires and perhaps create a hot enough bit of wire to make fire now the thing is i had a little tiny backpackers first aid kit and in it with some cotton so we're going to give this a shot here goes nothing one piece of cotton batting down on the pile comes a lucky battery not sure if that's going to work or not that's really hot getting some smoke and let that sit it's very hot oh there we go i didn't think that was gonna work but i can't believe it works an led flashlight taking the back off attaching the wires to each other and then simply turning it on and uh it was hot enough to get that cotton batten to ignite and i've got fire now any fire created this way is bound to have toxic fumes with the batteries and the plastic caught in the flames this can't be attempted inside and i can't allow myself to breathe in any of the chemical smoke [Music] well i call that a good day of survival wild edibles and fire would have thought fire from a flashlight with an led bulb and a bit of cotton batten but it works a few wild edibles and a fire drastically improved my situation but real nourishment is needed for survival and in the end i'd rather be safe at home [Music] good night okay stay for time to get some food into my system starting to get a little lethargic without the food energy i haven't seen much around you know you walk through the forest all you like you don't actually see that much i think there's lots of animals out there until you want to catch one but i've seen some signs of squirrel so i'm gonna go after some game trying to get some food into this belly [Music] all right this is good it's a nice find this old cut stump here is actually the home of a squirrel seems fairly active now there's a lot of flat rocks around here so i think i'll uh sacrifice some of the last bit of cheese i have and the peanut butter cup and see if i can catch myself something bigger ordinary parachute cord right what i want to do is somehow make it thinner peel back from the cut here we go there's the center core nice thin strand of line that's going to be perfect for making traps now i need one of you i think what i'll do is a clove hitch that's my favorite usually is to do a clove hitch because it stays on really well one little loop another little loop and then second loop goes in behind that's what's gonna go on my snare and go around like that and then the stick that goes out now i have to set it up the hardest part about traps and dead falls is harder it is for them to set up the more of a hair trigger they have the better they are at working i've been here before that might be the ticket right there okay i'm gonna make this short then now that i think i've got it to size i'm gonna put the bait on it now there's a trick to putting bait on these things smear the bait on there so it's actually part of the wood and that way the squirrel or the mouse has to work hard to get what it thinks is the food and will hopefully dislodge the trigger i've got a little bit of the quickly turning horribly hard block of cheese there's my bait all squished on there all right here we go classic paiute deadfall all i want that squirrel to do is to come in here touch on this bait right here if he goes for that bait the whole thing should go down i should have myself dinner okay that's one i'm gonna set up three or four more of these the great weather has made me forgetful of how quickly things can change okay it is coming on to rain so i should have prepared for this before i'm gonna shove some dry material in underneath the tent here just to protect it ouch big funky pieces of wood right by the fire ready to put on top of it if it does come on to rain a lot i don't want to put it on until it's really rainy because if i put it on now everything is still way too dry anyway and uh i'll just have an inferno on my hand and probably shot a forest fire foolishly i've been lulled in by the good weather and i'm now paying the price as i'm not prepared for the approach of rain one thing's for sure though in a pouring rain the bigger the fire you have the more likely it's going to stay going even in a hard downpour i've used it many times had a six foot fire going keep me warm in the winter wet snow freezing rain blizzards and get a bigger fire going stays going through the storm here it's tricky because there's so much pine needle duff all around me here that one ember could shoot this whole forest up into a big forest fire so as much as i want to keep my fire going i've got to be careful until it really comes on to rain then then i'll be a lot safer but right now everything's still dry all right here it comes starting to come down put the log on getting real windy too hopefully uh no heavy branches will come down on me that could be bad i wait for morning i guess [Music] well it didn't rain all night and it didn't pour hard so i checked the fire a couple of times and that trick worked fantastically the uh punky log kept it going all night and the sun is shining so i better get up [Music] just gonna do a little fire preparation here make myself what's called an apache match and shred this up so it's good and fluffy essentially an apache match is a fire bundle a way of transporting a coal over long distances or having a cool smolder over a long period of time so that's just some slabs of cedar bark the next layer i've broken up a bit but not a lot i wanted it to be sort of fibery in the middle of all of that is all of my fine powdered stuff so this goes on top i'm just going to tie it up create a little hole there and shove in all the rest of my fine fine fine shredded bark how well this thing burns depends on how tight you have the string you have to loosen it sometimes so that or pull it back a bit so that the coal will keep smoldering in there okay there we go my big apache cigar i'll call it the apache cigar it's time to head back across the stream and see if my traps have been working for me no luck here at this one i'll um come back one thing i haven't done yet is i'll drop a little bit of that peanut butter bait all around here just to entice them in ah that's a real shame oh and i should know better look at that the trap has actually been set see that's just dangling here's the bait stick with no bait on it you can see the stick was just underneath the rock too much and so when the rock went went when that stick was pulled out this main stick here stopped the rock from flattening down on the animal so good sign though that there's an animal here and that he took the bait i'm gonna have to come back and reset that trap some more bait on it and spread some bait around but something's in the area obviously something came in and uh went for it got my bait [Music] well i'm gonna try something that you definitely won't find in the books i'm gonna see if i can make a different kind of trap using my guitar all right so i also have left over from that first night of camping some duct tape actually it came with the camera equipment a little bit left of that flattened and melted peanut butter cup let's see what can happen here if i put this like this and i can get the animal to go down into this tube then hopefully the squirrel or the mouse will not be able to jump out okay what do you think mouse goes in can't come out i doubt that a squirrel would get stuck in this trap but it is likely that a few mice will make their way in and not out all that's needed right now is some bait around here and the bait down into the guitar and for that i'm going to use that peanut butter cup or what's left of it a few little drops here and there and then the rest goes down in the hole there we go i gotta say this is a first i don't think anyone's ever made a guitar trap before adaptability and ingenuity changing how you look at something can make the difference between surviving or not surviving [Music] this log has been kept flat over the years it's great makes it easy to cross this creek every single day once my traps are set i have to take the time to get out and check them as often as possible if something gets caught and i'm not there to take it then a large predator can easily take it out from under the trap and have themselves a meal [Music] ah nothing there either nothing's even been moved all right this beautiful area here it's a place called willow creek and i'm at the top of an area called devil slide instead of walking out on day seven i'm gonna bring in the local search and rescue they've got to try and find me because i'm going to take a 24-hour head start right now and i'm heading that way in the thick of the bush the direction i've decided to head is uphill all the way at least for today now i know there's been recent mountain lion sightings in this area and not all that far away there was an attack so uh you know i'm a lone person walking in the bush i'll keep my eyes open but for the most part especially with me talking to you that noise is going to scare them away as well as black bears or anything like that so it's about walking with confidence they've got a full backpack on and a heavy walk so that should be fine all right uphill we are i've left behind everything but one camera tripod and my jacket moving locations and taking my life into my own hands one slip one poke in the eye or an encounter with a dangerous animal and my chances of survival are radically reduced there's no safety net at this point communication is often cut off by areas of thick bush oh it's getting thick shoot officially down on my hands and knees crawling i took the uh the fire bundle found a way to strap it onto my pack so that uh it'll keep smoldering i hope normally i do my seven days and i survive in jungles and deserts all over the place and i get out of there but uh this time they really have to find me because i'm intentionally getting lost way out here very steep shady spot to sit down oh boy i'm probably not even maybe halfway there's the view across see that so i'm probably about here i still gotta go up there but in this direction behind you now if anything goes wrong here now my safety net's just been dropped um i've got a communication system but it's hard to reach anybody out of this thick bush and if i snap an ankle which you can see is easy to do climbing like this if i got attacked by mountain lion if i had a an appendicitis attack uh i'm in some serious trouble here it's more than just a tv show at this moment i'm able to climb so vigorously i think now only due to the fact that i have an adrenaline rush knowing that the search and rescue crew will be looking for me today okay i've made it to pretty high up now i can see the big bald face from here too there are going to be at least 35 sar personnel looking for me but it's in an area 4 000 square hectares in size i'm actually crawling on my belly i've got to pay a little more attention to uh watching out for rattlesnakes now that i'm up in the rocks here especially in the heat of the day they'll be just underneath the shade of the rock watch where i start putting my hands and feet oh my god is this beautiful this is why people climb views like this unbelievable okay i'm just gonna walk around and enjoy the sights and uh get my sweat to dry off it's beautiful up here becoming hypothermic on the top of a mountain would make for a miserable night i have a feeling it's going to be chilly up here tonight [Applause] oh yeah that worked like a charm three or four hours later and my little fire cigar here worked out perfect my apache cigar so that's it this is night number six and tomorrow search and rescue tries to find me somewhere out there i'm just going to start hiking [Music] sierra nevada pretty intense and beautiful place [Music] that ought to keep away the mountain lions [Music] by the time of things i believe that a search has probably already started for me so i'm going to take myself off of this top exposed vista here and get down into the thick of it see if they're able to find me down low and in the thick bush all right so here's the situation in the morning the call will go out and the searchers will all meet at the base camp they'll be given information how many people they're looking for state of health my age what condition i'm in at that point the first thing that happens is the hasty crew goes out and they'll do a very fast search of the lkp the last known position to see if there's any sign of me at all to see if the loss hiker is down and injured because a lot of times they're not far at all from their lkp there'll be teams on horseback atv teams with dogs [Music] teams and jeeps they'll be teams on foot and then lastly we've got a chopper in the air now the chopper in the air is going to try and film the whole situation this might be a special exercise with me in mind that i've done to see what else we can throw into the reality of being lost out here but the search and rescue crew take it very seriously because the next time could be for real it could be a lost child out here lost husband lost wife anybody it could be an injured person uh and they've got a lot of situations they have to deal with it what if it could be an autistic child that refuses to answer calls it could be someone who's on the run like a teenager who's on a runaway it's not always the classic hiker who wants to be found bear in mind we had a fatality april of last year at angel falls this is dangerous country i'll tell you my hat's off to them if they can find me out here a lion was spotted over off of sky ranch road guys with the dogs be cognizant of that especially we can't help him if we get hurt i'm a hiker out for an overnight i see the vista in the distance what a nice climb that would make climb up to the top i'll spend my night up here spend the night up on the vista next day heading out ah let's go out a different direction and then i'm gonna get stuck snap an ankle that's all it would take and you're stuck in a place where you weren't planning on going originally and nobody knew you were going originally and that's where search and rescue has to come in guys we're going to be working around willow creek and and out from there a lot of you work down in that area you know it's pretty rugged country it's pretty dangerous stuff down there it can be very panicky you know when you're in spots that are real thick and you're getting scratched and your face is getting scratched your arms are getting chewed up when you come to an opening it's just like this ah this breath of fresh air okay and you get this little moment of of safety of sanity where you've got some clearing you can see the sky again and you don't feel so claustrophobic so closed in so they help it's amazing what little things help you psychologically in very big ways when you're lost the obstacles to a lost hiker are many and none of them should be taken lightly or underestimated well i don't want to understate this this is a slick rock country and uh when that rock gets wet you fall you slip very easily people die here every single year in this area on these creeks i know it doesn't look like much on your tv screen let me tell you when you're completely alone out here it's still a chance to take all it would take would be a little slip of the foot it only you only need a few inches of water to uh knock down a full grown man if it's slippery underneath and the current's strong enough so i've got to be real careful going across here and i think i'm going to keep walking upstream until i find something a little safer it's funny uh it's been uh probably a few hours since the search has been underway and i haven't even heard the chopper not once finding a lost hiker out here has always been described as being like finding a needle in a haystack for good reason whoa i hear the chopper okay how can i get out to where okay see now i'm on the wrong side of the stream i'm in the dark spot here but now this is a bad thing because this means i'm rushing okay regardless of the panic of the helicopter got to slow down get to your zen state and do something like this properly carefully okay got myself pull yep rocks are slippery that takes me part of the way looking for the shallow spots gotta lean upstream into the water face upstream oh that's full yeah to the nether regions all right sulking wet now but that's one stream crossed in a very safe location really no issues getting across there at all other than the fact that it was really cold and now i'm soaking wet and i've missed the chopper i'm gonna go and try and get into that open area see if i can uh signal in hopefully he'll come back over when you're in a survival situation you've got to be as cautious as possible take the safe route always don't run don't jump don't take chances all right i'm over the worst of the streams i've got a small one i think i still have to cross and i'm out in the open so with any luck at all the chopper will find me out here i hit the chopper again get the uh let me get the mirror out real quick here okay i'm flashing them i'm aiming this flash right on that chopper all right well i don't think he saw me i flashed it right on him i flashed him good see what happens is when a plane or a chopper is directly overhead of you the pilot can't look out his window and see straight down they're looking off on an angle and so what's right underneath them is often the hardest for them to find okay here they come again oh there he is this should be a good angle okay i'm flashing them i'm flashing the heck out of them okay widen the open there we go flash flash flash up and down i can see them clearly they're in a big open patch for me this is good i think [Music] um that's perfect but again he can't come down here to get me so now what's got to happen is the ground crew has to get to me either mounted or canine or on foot and it's still very rough terrain i could be laying here with a broken leg or a broken back who knows they don't know what to expect until they get on the ground and they get to me [Music] quite an operation okay what's important now is that i stay put i don't want to start thinking okay i'm going to try and make it for that little trail that i'm sure was just around the corner because they've spotted me that means they they know i'm here i can start moving it again it's completely the wrong thing it's a big mistake now's the time for me to stay put and wait for the ground crew to get here they spotted me they've notified me from the air they've let me know okay we see you we've got you they radio those this location in and the ground crew will make its way here if i move from here i just make it harder for everybody so i'll stay put and wait for them to come we're now five tenths of a mile from the subject the road is not passable by vehicles [Music] here they come that's great that's great man imagine imagine being totally lost out here and that's what you hear you hear that voice in the distance somebody going oh eva i mean i'm doing this i'm making this happen and i feel excited that they found me that was fast that is good search and rescue with this much control of the situation even with this many trained individuals involved the search and rescue operation can go horribly wrong with a simple twist of nice to meet faith all right gentlemen let's go eat the way to survival whether you're the victim or the rescuer is through the path of methodical caution a calming of the spirit and mind and careful planning of your every move courage is facing the challenge with a healthy fear not being fearless more than anything else making it through a horrendous ordeal requires the will to live if you expect to survive wow the crew's awesome that was fast it was good thank god i mean i went in i went in thick i didn't i paid no mercy to it so uh yeah i went into the vista on the first night and then just thought i'm gonna go down into the creek where it's thickest second time and i was timing things and i don't know when you guys started but

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 1,177,161

Keywords: Stroud', 'Les, Survivorman TV Series, Survivorman, Outdoor Survival, Survivorman Les Stroud, Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, Survivorman - Season 3 - Episode 1 - Sierra Nevada, Todd Standing, Logan Stroud, Sam Omik, Uzimann, Joseph McConnell, Bob Wilson, survivorman full episodes, les stroud survivorman

Id: HVTvAAri8_Q

Length: 43min 26sec (2606 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020