In 1987, I had this idea that a great way to teach wilderness survival would be to head out into the woods and do exactly that.

Survive.

Now I need the skills because I'd be filming myself alone.

And you, the viewer, would be made aware of that.

And I thought, what a great way to make these skills more relatable to you.

Problem was, the technology was not available for me to film myself beyond the old grainy camcorders as we used to call them.

Well, fast forward to the year 2000, 13 years and indeed the technology became available.

What you're about to watch is raw and real, and not to be confused with reality television.

These are my journeys into the world of survival and around the planet.

These are the skills that can keep you alive and open the doors to nature.

The only reality that matters.

(intense music) ("Survivorman" theme music) This time on "Survivorman," I'm heading deep into the Rocky Mountains.

This fast range is more than 300,000 square miles of barren mountaintops, cold glacial rivers, and steep valleys.

Oh boy.

What did I get myself into this time?

Heading out onto a glacier alone anytime in the year is foolhardy.

Because, man, I'm in and out of freezing bitter cold rain, and when the sun does come out, I start sweating.

It looks like the weather's coming in on me.

this may not look very comfortable, that's because it isn't.

Oh yeah, mountain blueberries.

(rain pattering) I think it's been about 48 hours now since I've eaten and I'm getting hungry.

yeah, it's rumbling.

This is the last place I wanna be on the top of a mountain during a lightning storm.

But I gotta stick with that waterfall, find my way down.

The only way is to go up and around some bad spots.

(waterfall roaring) Oh.

Every little step I take could be one where I snap an ankle.

Every little step I take could be one where I snap an ankle.

I have to be so diligent at watching where I'm walking.

So tell you one thing, they'd never ever find me if I was trapped here.

(waterfall roaring) Aah.

(upbeat music) Look at this, here's what I don't wanna see.

That's bear crap.

Okay, that's bear droppings.

All right, great.

Okay, so it doesn't look like much to you.

Trust me, it's about 20 feet.

Okay.

(Les grunting) (intense music) Yeah, I don't know.

Back to the waterfall.

I figure the best route down is to follow a mountain stream.

It should lead me to a river.

Just up from the river there, this big, huge, massive spruce tree and it's very dry right here now.

It was raining for a good week solid before I stepped foot on the mountain and it's been raining ever since I had been on the mountain and look at this.

It's bone dry.

It's not gonna be comfortable at all, but this is as good as place as any to hole up for the night anyway.

It's night number three.

Tell you, it's a heck of a climb down from the top of a mountain, five or 6,000 feet.

And I think it's gonna rain again.

Actually, it is starting to rain again, but this is pretty cool.

One little spot under this tree and it's just so dry so I'm just gonna huddle beside the tree tonight and see what I get tomorrow.

(wind blowing) (thunder rumbling) (water rushing) It must be at least 10 degrees warmer down here than it was up on the top of the mountain.

What I've gotta do now is just come up with a quickie shelter, get through tonight.

is just come up with a quickie shelter, get through tonight.

This is gonna be better though.

More chance for gathering food.

More chance for maybe hunting food.

Now that I've made it to the bottom of the valley and the rain is breaking, I can finally go through my gear.

Look at that glorious sunshine.

I was beginning to doubt its existence.

The circumstances that put me on the top of the mountain, basically simulate heli-hiking gone wrong.

I figured since it's centered around heli-hiking, this kind of survival, I can at least have a few items that I might be able to make use of for survival, something indicative of being up there on the mountain.

Ice ax makes perfect sense for crossing the glaciers.

Walking stick.

Just an old ski pole.

Crampons with a couple of carabiners on them.

And just the remnants of an old pack.

You know, just who knows what I can make use of with that stuff.

A lot of people, when they're heli-hiking, have a camera or a video camera, some sorts with them, so in this case, yeah, that's what I've got.

A tripod and a video camera.

Lastly, just a little cassette tape that would go in with the video camera, of course.

And then lastly, always with me is my multi-tool and this time... (harmonica sings) my harmonica.

(harmonica jazzy music) That's my happy song because the sun's out.

Oh, one last thing, my emergency blanket.

Let's just see what I can do with this guy.

(upbeat music) (tool scraping) Woo-hoo.

Keeping myself up off the cold, damp sand is vital to keeping the chills away.

(upbeat music continues) I have to admit it, my main reason for building here was the ease of filming.

We'll see it being so close to the water's edge is a mistake or not.

Ah.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (rock pounding) Little tape, little button rock.

The rock in.

(emergency blanket crumpling) Around a couple of times.

Should work.

I should have known this was a real possibility.

There were certainly lots of bear signs up on the mountaintop, but it's more likely that right now, this time of year, they're down low, they're down in these valleys.

they're down in these valleys.

These tracks aren't all that old, considering the rain we've had.

You can see it's a small bear, possibly grizzly because the claws are poked up at the top here and hopefully it's just a small black bear wandering around on its own.

Hopefully it's not a little one with a mama close by.

One of the biggest problems I've had going through this forest, ow, is all because of this fella right here.

It's called devil's club and it is just covered with thorns.

Stuff gets into your skin and it just hurts very much.

(thunder crashing) (rain pattering) After a day full of sunshine, just had a huge downpour of rain, half hour just came teaming down.

Anyway, shelter worked great so I'm gonna crawl inside, dark's coming in and try and get a night's rest.

Home sweet home.

So we'll see how I do tonight.

Feels okay though, you know.

Feels a little bit protected.

Not from bears, but from the wind and rain.

Oh, it's just nice not to be freezing.

(rain pattering) Although I try to sleep while thinking about grizzly bears, I'll be waking up to a different problem.

(intense music) (rain gushing) Oh man.

It's been raining all night long, nonstop.

I can't believe it, but I'm dry in here.

That's the good thing.

Guess what I just discovered.

The river has come up.

That puts my shelter only about six feet from the water's edge now.

This is not a good thing.

(eerie music) In this brief moment without any rain, I can point out to you that the water's come up another eight inches, so I don't know, I might be in for some trouble here.

It's coming up pretty fast.

You gotta think, way up high in the mountains, the glacier's melting, the rain's hitting it and everything, all those creeks are all funneling down into this one valley.

This water just keeps coming up fast.

There's nothing I can really do except wait it out to see how high the water might get.

I've had enough of sitting and watching the flood come in.

I've gotta get some food in my stomach.

These are highbush cranberries.

Normally wouldn't eat these this time of year.

They're better after a frost, then they get a little bit sweeter.

Right now they're pretty bitter-tasting.

I'm actually not all that good with mushrooms and knowing which one is which.

And see, the thing is, with mushrooms, if you're wrong, you're dead because many of them are deadly, deadly poisonous.

This is called shaggy mane, I hope.

Do not do this at home, kids.

If you don't know, do not even touch it.

I hope that was a shaggy mane or I'm in big trouble.

Take a look at this.

That's on the river across from where I'm camped.

That's clear-cut logging.

That means there must be a road that leads to that.

If it wasn't for a swollen river, I could probably find that road and walk out of here.

There's no real way across to the old logging stand, so while the sun comes out, maybe I can try for a fire.

Gotta find some dry old man's beard.

This stuff, pretty damp.

(upbeat music) Doesn't feel super dry, but we'll see.

The ice ax is great for getting to some dry wood.

(ax pounding) (helicopter whirring) Sounds like a helicopter to me.

Huh, right over top of me.

They wouldn't have seen me no matter what.

Unless I had a fire going.

I've traveled so far from the mountain peak, I'm pretty sure that the crew has no idea where I am.

There's two days of survival left, and a fire will make a big difference.

First thing's first, though, pulling dry tinder out of a soaking wet forest.

(tool scraping) Stage one.

(wood splitting) Stage two.

(wood cracking) (tool scraping) Get rid of the damp stuff.

Remember, all this wood around me is soaking wet, but if you can get to the inside of cedar, good and dry still.

(tool scraping) My possibility of having a flood seems to be passed now.

The water has receded, that's good.

Well, like I said, you might very well be the hiker that gets lost with a video camera or a camera and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

(rock pounding) Huh.

Okay, now I'm getting closer to the meat of the issue.

(rock pounding) Aah.

Container, there we go, little bit like that.

I have no matches, but the camera lens will do the trick.

Listen folks, I may have a very small window of opportunity here.

The sun is breaking through a little bit stronger now.

Over there on the pebbles behind me, the part that was actually flooded a little while ago is the only place where I've got some sort of hot sun right now and look what I found.

This was one of the pieces inside the camera and in messing around with it, break this open here, and this is just a little bit of dry paper.

So I don't know if it's used for or something, I have no idea, not an electrician.

Okay, here's the tinder bundle, all the cedar that I gathered, the old man's beard, there's the paper inside.

If I get this, I'm gonna run back.

I've got my pile of shavings ready to go to catch flame.

Actually have to go out above the water to start a fire.

Probably silly.

Okay, where'd I put my lens?

Where's the lens?

Well, this isn't funny.

Aah, this is not funny.

Okay, I see it.

Darn thing, sitting right there.

Ai yai yai, make this happen.

With the camera as well.

It might be too bright for you to see, but there's a little spot I can make there.

Okay.

Where are you there, so you can see what I'm doing.

Ah, forget it.

All right, clouds are back out.

It's just not strong enough.

Look at all that beautiful sun out there while I'm trapped in behind these trees and I've lost my sun over on the pebbles as well in the stream and in that clearing where I was, 100 yards out there, that of course, it's getting hit by the sun, so I'm gonna give it another shot.

It's worth a try.

One last thing, camera's set up now on that so when I come running back, I'll run over and push the on and with any luck, you'll see me back here in a bit with some flame in my hand.

(intense music) Big patch of blue.

Come on, baby.

It's gotta be getting hot there.

Hope the camera's running.

Hope there's enough tape in that camera.

Can't move.

I'm seeing the most smoke I've seen.

All right, here I go.

(intense music) Ah ha.

(leaves crunching) Okay.

Come on.

Yeah!

Woo-hoo.

(fire crackling) The first fire and the first real warmth I've had in five days.

(intense music) Oh man.

It rained last night, but not as much as before.

Mostly this morning, early.

Clouds look different today (helicopter faintly whirring) I hear a helicopter.

I've been hauling huge pieces of wood to keep the fire going in this rain and it's been six days with only a few berries and a mushroom to eat.

I need something more substantial.

This is from the pack that was left.

(intense music) From the leftover parts of a pack, I can make a tool for hunting.

(intense upbeat music) (intense upbeat music continues) All right.

(intense upbeat music continues) One side.

All right, I'm gonna shut the camera off while I finish this up.

This is it.

There is grouse around here.

Now, let's go see if it works.

Seems to work not too bad.

Making a slingshot is one thing, but finding something to hunt with it is another.

I can use the moose trails to push through the forest and look for grouse.

You know, trail or no trail, I've still gotta mark my way to make sure that I don't get the lost as I go through.

That's the only way I'm gonna remember, breaking some branches over.

Sorry about all the raindrops on the lens all the time.

It's pretty much impossible.

Keep wiping the lens and keep it dry.

This feels more like moose territory than it does grouse or ptarmigan.

Well, lots of fresh moose tracks here.

Catching moose is a little unrealistic for me though.

That's pretty much the area I came down from.

This is spectacular here.

(water sloshing) This is getting too mucky for my liking.

Think I'm walking deeper into a swamp here.

I'm gonna get out of here.

Yeah, I'm just in a big bog.

Gonna circle around and get out of this mess before it gets deeper on me.

All I really accomplished with this hunting trek was to get more muddy, wet, and exhausted.

(harmonica music) (rain pattering) That oughta keep the bears away.

(rain pattering) Stop raining.

(rain pattering) It's morning, the final morning, and of course it's raining.

I don't know if the helicopter's gonna be able to find me down here or not, but I'm gonna be ready with a bit of a signal fire if he is.

If not, I'm not sure what I'll do.

I might see if I can make my way out to one of those logging roads, I don't know.

I'm not gonna stay here.

Fire's still going though.

That's all that matters right now.

(helicopter whirring) Helicopters flying around trying to spot me.

Bit of a man rushed.

(intense music) I'm counting on the crew to figure it out that I would've made my way down to the river.

Whether or not they spot my fire is another story.

Wet spruce boughs on a hot fire will give you the most amount of smoke.

Let's see if they can spot that.

(intense music) (helicopter whirring) (intense music continues) I've been drenched for seven days, I've eaten nothing more than a few berries and a couple of mushrooms.

If there was ever a time when I look forward to dry, warm clothes and a hot plate of food, it's now.

- Has it ever not rained?

- [Les] Mountain survival has turned out to be one of my greatest challenges.

(intense music) (logo swooshing) (intense music) ("Survivorman" theme music) Directly inspired by his own survival expeditions, journeys and challenges.

World renowned survival instructor Les Stroud brings you survive, essential skills and tactics to get you out of anywhere alive.

Available for 19.99.

In addition, the book will to live Dispatches from the Edge of Survival is available, featuring Les Stroud's own top ten survival stories of all time.

21.99.

To order, please go to lesstroud.ca, and click on shop