Mountain Men (2012) s04e03 Episode Script
Welcome to the Tundra
1 [Animals howling.]
[ Fire crackling.]
NARRATOR: Previously on "Mountain Men" the pressure is mounting as Tom faces down a deadly threat Get out of here.
Get out of here! Get out of here, bear! while Morgan pushes his luck one step too far This is a little sketchy.
Aah! Oh [bleep.]
[bleep.]
[ Grunts .]
Ah! NARRATOR: and Kyle stands vigil against the night.
KYLE: I've got bloody deer meat.
And I can hear something out there.
Hey! Hey, bear! [ Gunshot.]
And be a simple kind of man NARRATOR: In New Mexico's high Cimarron Valley, armed with only a single-shot rifle, Kyle defends his fresh deer kill from a hungry bear.
[ Bear growls .]
Hey, bear! Hey, bear! Hey! [ Growling continues .]
Hey! Get on out of here, bear! Now! Git! [ Gunshot.]
KYLE: I didn't aim directly at him.
I just kind of saw his silhouette.
But I am reloading.
I ain't taking no chances.
This is my camp, and he's not gonna take it from me.
[ Breathing heavily.]
As tired as I am, I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep now, knowing that there's a bear right here close.
I've got my horses to think about, not to mention that deer meat that I worked so hard to take home.
It is really important that we get all this meat back and get it taken care of, because we're counting on that to get through the winter.
I guess I'm gonna have to go without some sleep tonight, just to make sure that bear ain't coming back.
I have to keep my fire built up.
If I doze off and the fire goes out, he's liable to get a lot braver, so a long day and a longer night.
NARRATOR: In Montana Nancy Oar has returned to the Yaak just in time to help Tom recoup his losses after a black bear invaded his tanning shed and cost him thousands of dollars in damages.
Oh, looks like a nice day coming, huh? [ Dog barks .]
I just got to get back to work.
I've got more deer skins that need fleshed and scraped.
With the bear causing all the trouble and me missing all the work days, I got to get going to try to catch up.
Hopefully the bear will begin the hibernation.
Oh, whoa.
Oh.
NANCY: Uh-oh.
Look at right there.
Bear tracks coming right through there.
Sure enough, this morning there was the bear tracks in the snow -- fresh bear tracks.
So we had a bear in here last night.
Where's he go from here, do you think? Can you tell? Right here.
He goes right across here.
Oh, look.
Yeah.
Right here.
Yeah.
And right there.
He's been all through here.
The bear has walked all over the yard.
There's tracks all around the pigeon house, all around the tanning shed.
So, he was just looking around, looking for stuff to eat.
Looks like that box was knocked over.
There.
Hell, we've had a bear right here.
There's no blood on the nails here, so No, it don't look like he -- Although, there's a couple crooked nails there.
Yeah, look at that one.
You're right.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
NARRATOR: This is the third time in three weeks that a bear has trespassed on Tom's property.
And, so far, his extra bear-proofing is working, but there's no telling exactly when they'll retreat into hibernation.
Never hurts to be a little lucky.
Yeah, I guess we were lucky.
TOM: Hopefully the bear will go into hibernation now.
I mean, they're really past time.
This has got to stop.
NARRATOR: In the great Alaska Range at the end of the last ice age, retreating glaciers carved the place we now call the Mat-Su Valley, 23,000 square miles of flat land at the base of the mountains.
Morgan Beasley is crossing through the valley on his journey inland.
He's saved up for nearly a decade to buy his own piece of Alaska -- a 37-acre plot of land that sits 200 miles beyond these peaks.
To get there, he must navigate unpredictable terrain with only a topographic map to guide him.
Started out by the big river.
And I dropped down out of the hills into this long, high valley, which is where I am now.
Eventually, this high, treeless valley joins a bigger, broader river valley.
I'm hoping down in that valley there'll be good forest and good shelter for the night.
My goal for the day is -- is to get to some good trees and get out of this windswept, open country.
There's no cover up here at all.
The colder it gets, the more difficult everything gets.
It doesn't take much, and you're a little Popsicle.
NARRATOR: Few plants can survive the extreme conditions of the arctic tundra, a barren expanse that stretches for miles without any trees or brush to offer shelter from frigid winds.
MORGAN: You're out here in this open ground, you are really exposed.
A long journey like this across wild landscapes, you're at your own mercy.
You're constantly trying to read the land.
These short days, it's getting dark early.
I don't want to be up here when it gets dark.
Maybe I can get up on this ridge, see how far it is to the tree line.
[ Sighs .]
Damn.
Wishing I was a little further.
I was hoping to see down into the valley and see forest within a mile or two, but it was miles away, and I knew that I wasn't gonna be there anytime soon.
Hmm.
There's really no good trees to take shelter under and no real good source of water around.
I reckon, if I had to spend the night here, that can be really dangerous, possibly life-threatening.
I'm gonna try really hard to hike and get down out of this high alpine tundra and make it to the tree line.
The breeze is already picking up, and the temperature is dropping.
It's not good.
[ Sighs .]
NARRATOR: High in the mountains of northwest New Mexico Mm.
Kyle awakes after a long night in bear country.
KYLE: After that bear came in last night, there wasn't any way I was gonna be able to sleep good.
I was worried about the meat, I was worried about my horses.
You know, I took a shot just to scare him off.
And I don't know if I hit that bear or not.
Well, he left me a little present.
I guess that's, uh [chuckles.]
a bear's way of saying what he really thinks of you.
There wasn't any blood.
I'm really glad that I didn't find a dead bear.
I did find a big pile of bear scat, so there's no doubt that he was right there close.
Yeah, I got to get out of here.
There's no way of telling how long that bear's gonna stay spooked, so I wanted to get the hell out of there.
We're almost out of here.
You'll be ready to go eat breakfast, won't you? Let's take you home to meet the family.
That was quite a hunt.
I mean, it was tough, but it was exciting.
I'm really glad to be heading home with plenty of meat to put in the freezer to start this winter.
It's what I came after.
And I got that done.
Whew.
[ Sighs .]
Well, let's go home.
NARRATOR: In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom presses on with his preparations for winter despite evidence that a bear was circling his property last night.
[Birds chirping.]
He's on a mission to kick-start his season but has just discovered another setback.
TOM: I'm ready to go to work, but now I can't find the scraper that I need to scrape the hides with.
The scrapers that I use is made out of an elk antler.
That bear must have picked up that antler, and I don't know if he's carried it away.
Maybe it was the smells that were on it that attracted him to it.
I'm sure in the springtime, when all this snow melts, we're gonna find that antler.
But now I'm gonna have to make a new one, I guess.
NARRATOR: The scraper is a hand-forged tool that removes the hair and meat from the hide.
TOM: The traditional thing is, the scrapers are made out of elk antlers.
And the Sioux Indians, they call them "wahitakas.
" Primitive people 1,000 years ago was using them antlers to do their tanning with.
The thing about this scraper is, it needs to have some weight to it so that when you scrape the hair, the weight of the scraper will cut the hair off and you don't have to use your arm muscles so much pushing against it.
[ Coughs .]
This is the section that's gonna be cut out for the scraper.
And you can see how nice and straight this line is here.
All we have to do now is eliminate the rest of this that we're not gonna use.
This is not like wood.
I mean, this is a lot harder.
It's like bone.
I'm using a bone saw to cut through it.
There we go.
The cut I'm making now is where the steel blade will attach to the handle -- the steel blade that cuts the hair loose.
Almost got it here.
This is the blade we'll put in it.
The blade lays right in there.
There's no glue or anything.
You -- you just wrap it and tie it with soaked buckskin.
When it dries, it shrinks real tight, and it holds the knot real good.
Yeah, I think that'll work.
NARRATOR: Far north, in Alaska Marty Meierotto is on the move to get a final load of supplies out to the Revelation Mountains before he runs out of time.
MARTY: The days are starting to get really short, so this'll probably be my last chance for quite a few weeks.
I got about 4 1/2, 5 hours of light, and it's a 4-hour flight.
I'm kind of committed after I take off.
I just have to make it.
NARRATOR: Marty loads his plane with extra fuel and enough traps to establish a new 30-mile trapline.
MARTY: So, I'm just trying to get as many traps as I can carry.
I'll bring a few wolf traps in case some wolves show up.
Going back out to the Revelations, kind of making a gamble.
Maybe I'll catch some fur, maybe I won't, but it seems like good country.
I want to try and get this cabin built, because eventually I want to have my girls come out, have a nice place for them to stay instead of a cold, cramped tent.
That's pretty much it.
[ Sighs .]
To be out on the trapline with my family, for me, that's the best it can be.
Are y'all ready to go? Yeah, I think I'm all squared away.
Uh, there's plenty of firewood.
Freezer's full of caribou.
You guys should be good.
Uh-huh.
Right, baby? Uh, the plan is to come bring you and Noah out there in about six weeks or so.
All right? All right.
Don't forget your coffee.
[Chuckling .]
Okay.
Be safe.
I will.
All right? Okay, Be a good girl.
Make sure you haul in the wood.
Okay.
All right.
[Engine whirring.]
MARTY: It's always great to be up in the air.
I can't wait to get out to the trapline.
I got a lot of work ahead of me, and I'm looking forward to all of it.
NARRATOR: In the dense forest of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace Conway and his business partner, Preston Roberts, survey their new logging site for the first time.
Their job is to selectively harvest dead and damaged trees to protect the long-term health of the high-priced timber that grows on this 100-acre plot.
Eustace struck a deal to keep all the logs they cull in exchange for their labor, a payoff that they hope will be a boom for their new lumber operation.
PRESTON: I see that one that's got -- looks like a lightening strike or something.
See that whole dead top? Yeah.
And it's rotted all the way to the bottom.
Might as well take that one out.
Could be better to let some of that sunlight go to some of these other younger, straight ones.
EUSTACE: If we get one of these good, culled trees down, like, to him, the guy that owns this place, it's just a piece of trash, but it's got a few good logs in it for us.
We get those good logs out of that tree, get it back to Turtle Island, and we mill it up, we could make as much as $300 off of one of these pieces of trash.
Nothing wrong with a bunch of good trees.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I'm glad to have the work.
But, you know, every bit of this is hinging on the fact that we can get them back to Turtle Island Preserve.
If we can't get the trees back, we've done a lot of work and we're not getting much return.
NARRATOR: Eustace's strategy for hauling the felled trees and getting them back to his lumber mill is to build a sturdy, wooden sled that can hitch to the horses.
So, I'm thinking, if that's the front of the sled there Mm-hmm.
when we come back, what we want to do is have these fairly equally spaced.
This'll be our two runners.
And they'll be parallel to each other.
Mm-hmm.
That sled makes it so there's less pulling resistance, and the horses can pull a heavier load easier.
Put these crosspieces in here, and they'll go across from one side of the sled to the other, so they'll bridge that gap between them.
And right here in the front we'll put a chain, and that's where we can back the horses up to -- to hook to.
What do you think? I think we can do that.
yeah First thing in building a sled is you have to select the right tree.
You got to get a tree with a curve and a bend in it that's just right.
You see that one? Yeah, that might work.
It's got a bend right there and a straight section and a bend right there and a straight section.
Yeah.
This tree here looks like it's got about the right-size diameter so that it has plenty of mass to carve and work with.
And it's a poplar, so I think it's soft enough we can work with it and split it out.
It'll be a trick dropping it down in here, isn't it? Only bad thing about it is, there's trees all around this.
It makes it really hard to fall.
It'd be real easy to mess it up and get it hung in another tree.
[Chain saw revs.]
Looks like we ought to be able to fall it right down through there.
Famous last words.
[ Revving continues .]
To cut that tree down, we need to cut a wedge shape in the front, and then we need to back cut [Whistles 1 Hey! It's moving! Which way is it going? That way.
Okay, we need to tap a wedge in there.
I got one little pocket between the two trees to drop it.
You ready, Preston? Pm ready [Chain saw revs.]
[ Hammer tapping .]
[ Wood creaking .]
Yeah! Whoo! [Laughs.]
Ha ha! I can't believe you're a 1/4 inch off! [ Both laugh .]
That was a tough tree.
It was mean, but Eustace dropped it exactly where he wanted it.
Perfect shot.
I was worried about that one.
It was a tough one.
Let's build us a sled.
Let's do it.
NARRATOR: In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom is ready to work on the only elk hide he has left to sell after a black bear destroyed his stockpile.
[ Coughs .]
Our code of life is off the furs I trap, the -- the hides and skins that I tan, you know, so the elk hide needs to be really good, or I don't make any money.
NARRATOR: Once tanned, the leather can fetch up to $800.
TOM: Scraper works good.
Oh, yeah.
[ Scraping .]
One of the hardships of de-hairing the hide -- You're using a real sharp blade.
If you come whacking in there with that scraper, you can punch a hole right through it.
So the person de-hairing has to be real experienced at inspecting the hide and knowing where all them's weak spots will be in the hide.
It's the armpits and the belly that's very thin compared to the back or the hips or -- or the neck of these hides.
It's quite an art to learn how to do it.
NARRATOR: To deliver a top-quality hide, Tom thins the skin down to the millimeter.
TOM: We're taking the epidermis off, also.
You can see, like, this little black line right here.
That's a shade of epidermis that's still left on the hide.
All this kind of dark shading, it has to come off yet.
Once I got the elk hide all fleshed, we'll cook up some brains, and we'll paint the brains into the hide, and then the hide's tanned.
Commercial tanned skins, they're very, very, hot.
They don't breathe.
Where this stuff here, when it's finished, it breathes.
All right.
We almost got her here.
Almost got her.
It's very comfortable to wear.
Very warm to wear in the winter, and yet it's cool in the summer.
Gonna be good enough.
NARRATOR: 1,000 feet above Alaska's Revelation Mountains, Marty returns to his trapline, where he'll spend the next three months in total isolation.
MARTY: Holy cow.
Look at that.
Man, I got to get some snow.
It's like 50 degrees.
Mid November, and it's 50 degrees out.
This is the weirdest winter I can ever remember.
NARRATOR: The Revelations usually see their first snowfall by this time of year.
Without snow on the ground, Marty will struggle to track animals, making it harder to know where to set traps.
MARTY: There's plenty of snow in Two Rivers, and then I came around the corner, and there really wasn't any.
NARRATOR: The unseasonably warm weather could mean trouble ahead.
Ahh.
MARTY: Without snow, I can't do any trapping at all.
Can't even see tracks, so not having snow just shuts me down.
I can only do what nature allows me to do.
So, for right now, I'll just work on the cabin.
You just got to take what you're -- what you're given, try and make it work.
Tie her down real good.
All right.
That should keep her put.
If you live in the bush very long, you'll learn not to expect what you want, because things are never gonna go the way you plan it or want it to.
Think I'm gonna get me something to eat.
But you just adapt, or you will never make it out here.
NARRATOR: In northwest Montana, with black bears still active in the area, Tom works quickly to turn a raw animal hide into leather before he attracts another unwelcome visitor.
The final step is to tan it with a solution made from the animal's own brains.
Now that we've got the skin all dried out and all de-haired and all ready, it's ready for the brains now, which actually tans the hide.
NANCY: Hi.
How are you, baby? Got your elk brains for your bucket.
You got brains.
All right.
It takes brains.
Every animal has enough brains to tan the hides.
Nancy generally handles the brain thing.
I just got to get these brains in there and add some water.
Pretty nice brains.
[ Chuckles .]
Warm them up a little bit.
Okay.
All right, see you later.
The first thing we usually do with the brains that we're gonna use for tanning is cook them.
Ooh.
They look good.
They're warming up in here.
Once you cook them, well, then they'll break up, and we just mash them up.
So, the water that those brains are put into now is more like the thickness of a malted milk.
We're ready to brain an elk.
[ Door opens, closes .]
Now we can take a paintbrush, and we can paint that right into that dry hide, and it'll suck right into the hide.
All right.
Here we go.
The oils that are in the brains is what softens the skin.
I don't know how in the world the primitive people ever figured out all you got to do is rub brains in it and work it.
I mean, of all the things there are to rub into a hide to tan it, how long did it take them to figure that one out? And you can -- you can see now it's softening up, where it used to be very rigid.
There aren't lots of brain-tanning masters in the country anymore.
You know, I mean, it's mostly a forgotten thing from the past.
Well, it's all going in there.
An elk hide, a brain-tanned one, should be worth maybe $700, maybe $800 if it comes out really nice.
[ Paintbrush thuds .]
Well, we got it coming.
[Birds chirping.]
Because of the damn bear, we can use all the help we can get.
NARRATOR: In North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace and Preston's sled build is under way.
It's critical to the success of their winter logging venture.
We're not gonna have anything store-bought on this sled except maybe a little piece of chain and one bolt.
Measure that from that little mark and see.
We're hoping that this final sled's gonna be about 4 feet wide and about 10 feet long.
That way, we'll be able to haul 8-foot logs and we'll be able to haul 12-foot logs on there.
Maybe I can cut most of the way through.
Then maybe we can cut it in half down there.
Well, this tree is a funky tree.
It's got some really odd twists.
[Chain saw revs.]
For a sled, you need one certain weird shape, and that's a -- a sharp bend in the front.
But the rest of it you all want to be straight.
[ Breathing heavily.]
PRESTON: Next, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna take that one big log, and we're gonna drive some wedges in it.
So, let's not drive that too deep, but let's get it started there.
Split it open with the wedges and the gluts, and we're gonna make two runners out of one log.
Looks good.
Let's see how we did doing down the side.
It is pretty dang twisty, funky, weird.
The wood always wants to run to the weakest side when you're splitting it, and so it's making a bit of a twist in there, and it's making one side of the log come out thinner than the other side, so, if it comes out too thin, we've just wasted a whole lot of time and energy.
Can you see the crack all right on that side? [Wedge clangs .]
Yeah.
Opening up? Yeah.
[ Grunts .]
There's a crooked sled runner.
Yeah.
It's good to have a little experience with that kind of thing, and sometimes you can pull it off.
[ Grunts .]
Whew! Man, that stuff's heavy.
NARRATOR: To shape the wood, they use an ancient tool that dates back to the Stone Age called an adz.
PRESTON: It's similar to an ax, except the blade's turned in a different direction.
And what it enables us to do is to kind of chop down into the piece of wood and then remove those chips and make a flat surface.
It's straightening up a little bit, Preston.
Front's really got the catawampus, though.
It does.
If you do it right, you can quickly change the shape of it and make it the way you want it.
[ Breathing heavily.]
Getting to be a little bit more like a sled runner, isn't it? Yeah.
This is one of the most important jobs for this logging operation.
This will make it so that the horses won't use up as many calories and just have a lot more ease.
We get more logs pulling a day with this tool.
I believe this one looks good enough.
Let's go get that other one.
We done a lot of work, but there's still a lot of work to do.
NARRATOR: Across the country it's sunset over Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, and Morgan is still miles from the shelter of a distant tree line.
MORGAN: It's getting dark.
I absolutely do not want to stay up here in this open, exposed ground.
I need to keep hiking till I make it down to tree line.
And that could be four, five miles away.
I still have a long way to go.
NARRATOR: But there's another problem brewing.
Morgan is running dangerously low on water and needs to find a source before it's too late.
MORGAN: I'm definitely gonna need to get hydrated if I'm gonna keep hiking tonight.
Now, a lot of people think you don't have to drink as much water when it's cold like this 'cause you're not sweating, but, uh, that's not really the truth.
I've been stretching my water by adding snow to it, but it's not a good option.
NARRATOR: Snow crystals formed at temperatures below freezing tend to be smaller and hold little to no water content.
MORGAN: [ Exhales sharply.]
It's almost like a desert.
That snow might as well be white sand for as much moisture as you can get out of it.
If I don't get some water, it's gonna turn into a just awful, miserable death march.
I'm starting to kind of vary my path to kind of check out little low spots, hoping I'll find some open water.
But I haven't found any yet.
Everything I've seen has been totally frozen over.
Your blood is mostly made of water, and your blood's what circulates the heat.
It's just like in your pickup truck, you wouldn't want to let the antifreeze get too low in the winter.
In most cases of frostbite, dehydration is a significant factor.
Your body just shuts off the blood in your fingers 'cause it needs the moisture, not because it's out of heat.
Oh! I see water.
There's some water right there, a little spring.
All right.
Cool.
Whew! This water's gonna make all the difference in this night hike.
I'm gonna stop here and get some water and have a little bite to eat.
I like to drink plenty when I find a good water source, and I anticipate that water's gonna get harder and harder to find.
Drinking a big bellyful of ice-cold water, that doesn't feel very good when you're trying to stay warm, but you've got to.
If you keep eating and you keep regularly adding a good complex mix of sugars and fats and proteins to your body, it's just like throwing wood on your wood stove.
If you got plenty of calories, it's amazing how much warmer you stay.
Now that I'm refueled, I'm going to head off down the trail, then settle into some night hiking.
I got a long ways to go tonight.
Aw, man, that sun's going down.
It's about to get real cold.
NARRATOR: In the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Eustace's first order of business for his new logging job is to find a way to transport the timber he cuts.
He and Preston are building a primitive sled using poplar runners, which they'll connect using crossbeams made of 20-year-old locust wood.
EUSTACE: [Grunts.]
[ Chuckling .]
There she goes.
That's popped, isn't it? Yeah Yeah, that'll make a good crosspiece there.
Yeah.
We can make some of our pegs out of this piece.
Yeah, that'll split out and make something nice.
Mm-hmm.
Plenty standard, there, huh? Nothing about that locust is gonna break, so we can depend on the strength of that locust to make a strong deck for this sled.
See how well that lines up.
Oh, yeah.
Looks about right.
Good.
[ Wood cracks .]
I believe that's pretty good.
Now that we have the sled hammered together, I need to go make some pegs.
This is gonna become the nail, you might say.
It's just a wooden nail.
We'll make the pegs, uh, by splitting the fiber of the locust right now.
We split them out about an inch square, and then we take an ax or a knife, and we carve off the edges to make it a little bit more round.
We put it all together like a big puzzle with stuff that we got right out here in the forest.
Is that the last one there? That's the one we're looking for.
Man, I like it.
That feels like home, there.
[ Exhales sharply.]
I believe we just need to put a chain on the front, and then we'll be done.
PRESTON: Yeah.
All right.
The last thing to do on the sled is to put the hookup apparatus on the front.
That'll be a good place to hook those horses to.
Yeah.
Hook those horses in there, and away we'll go.
Yeah, I believe that's what we call an Appalachian sled.
Just right for Appalachian surfing.
[ Chuckles .]
Your original all-terrain vehicle.
Hot dog! It's exciting to have this thing done and getting ready to use it.
It's gonna help our work go so much easier.
Tomorrow will be a big day.
NARRATOR: In Alaska's Mat-Su River Valley, Morgan's trek to his new homestead in the Alaska Range has left him exposed on the open tundra.
Nightfall brings icy winds, and the temperature drops to just 10 degrees.
But Morgan must push through the darkness, unable to rest until he secures shelter.
Still no sign of a tree line or the lower valley, but it does look like this Valley's starting to drop off.
It can't be more than a few miles.
[Wind blowing .]
It's harder to see where you're going at night.
You got to move a little slower, watching out for slips and falls.
It's pretty difficult to see the next obstacle up ahead when your headlamp only goes out 50, 60 yards.
[Wind blowing .]
I'm walking into some big brush here.
I just can't see anything with this light of the brush.
Ugh! That brush gets up in your face.
You know, it, like, blinds you.
The light's reflecting right back off it.
Ugh! Feet are down in the shadows.
[ Grunting .]
Oh, brush sucks.
[Wind blowing .]
You're walking on this kind of stuff through the bush, there's an opportunity to roll your ankle on every step.
Anything that demobilizes you becomes a serious threat in those kind of temperatures and that kind of landscape.
[ Grunting .]
[Wind blowing .]
[ Grunting .]
I've already put in a full day, so the fatigue factor is really adding up.
[ Grunts .]
It's the hardest walking you can imagine except waist-deep snow or quicksand.
I mean, it's right on par with those levels of exertion to cross this kind of terrain.
[ Exhales sharply.]
I'm not gonna be able to go much further.
[Wind blowing .]
NARRATOR: Night shrouds Alaska's Mat-Su Valley in freezing darkness.
Morgan pushes through his 12th straight mile of tundra on a quest to reach the shelter of a distant tree line he can no longer even see.
[ Exhales sharply.]
It can't be too far to the trees now.
This valley can't go on forever.
[ Sighs .]
I realized that I've been doing this for 14 hours now.
But as soon as you stop, you start to cool down.
You kind of have to push yourself more when you're fatigued.
You either keep going or you die, so I'm gonna keep walking until I physically can't anymore.
If I come down a little further, kind of drop below the snow line, there's a marsh here.
There's ice everywhere.
There's a little guy.
[ Chuckles .]
Hey, buddy.
You got any bigger friends around? [ Chuckles .]
That's a good Oh! Trees! I got trees.
Heh! Oh, baby.
Trees.
[ Chuckles .]
Oh, I got to get a fire going.
It's cold.
Got to be getting down towards zero down here.
There was a big line of nice spruce trees, and pretty much the first one I walked up to had a bunch of dry wood, had a nice, soft, flat space to sleep under.
I can have a decent fire and be out of the major wind.
The trees make it a lot safer and more comfortable.
Today was a pretty long day.
Put in a lot of hours.
I probably covered over 10 miles.
[ Fire crackling .]
I'll get a lot better night's sleep here than I would have shivering in some ditch up there and above tree line.
Tomorrow's another day.
Get a good night's sleep and wake up refreshed and do it all over again.
NARRATOR: Next time on "Mountain Men" in Alaska, Marty pushes himself to the limit MARTY: This is the riskiest part about building a cabin.
You got to just stay focused and not get in a rush.
Aah! NARRATOR: while Rich makes a gruesome discovery.
Whoa.
These are wolves.
[ Dogs howling .]
You guys better hold it up here.
Let me go see what's going on first.
NARRATOR: And Tom's bear troubles go from bad to worse.
Oh.
Them are grizzly tracks.
The scary part about it is it's close to home.
[ Fire crackling.]
NARRATOR: Previously on "Mountain Men" the pressure is mounting as Tom faces down a deadly threat Get out of here.
Get out of here! Get out of here, bear! while Morgan pushes his luck one step too far This is a little sketchy.
Aah! Oh [bleep.]
[bleep.]
[ Grunts .]
Ah! NARRATOR: and Kyle stands vigil against the night.
KYLE: I've got bloody deer meat.
And I can hear something out there.
Hey! Hey, bear! [ Gunshot.]
And be a simple kind of man NARRATOR: In New Mexico's high Cimarron Valley, armed with only a single-shot rifle, Kyle defends his fresh deer kill from a hungry bear.
[ Bear growls .]
Hey, bear! Hey, bear! Hey! [ Growling continues .]
Hey! Get on out of here, bear! Now! Git! [ Gunshot.]
KYLE: I didn't aim directly at him.
I just kind of saw his silhouette.
But I am reloading.
I ain't taking no chances.
This is my camp, and he's not gonna take it from me.
[ Breathing heavily.]
As tired as I am, I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep now, knowing that there's a bear right here close.
I've got my horses to think about, not to mention that deer meat that I worked so hard to take home.
It is really important that we get all this meat back and get it taken care of, because we're counting on that to get through the winter.
I guess I'm gonna have to go without some sleep tonight, just to make sure that bear ain't coming back.
I have to keep my fire built up.
If I doze off and the fire goes out, he's liable to get a lot braver, so a long day and a longer night.
NARRATOR: In Montana Nancy Oar has returned to the Yaak just in time to help Tom recoup his losses after a black bear invaded his tanning shed and cost him thousands of dollars in damages.
Oh, looks like a nice day coming, huh? [ Dog barks .]
I just got to get back to work.
I've got more deer skins that need fleshed and scraped.
With the bear causing all the trouble and me missing all the work days, I got to get going to try to catch up.
Hopefully the bear will begin the hibernation.
Oh, whoa.
Oh.
NANCY: Uh-oh.
Look at right there.
Bear tracks coming right through there.
Sure enough, this morning there was the bear tracks in the snow -- fresh bear tracks.
So we had a bear in here last night.
Where's he go from here, do you think? Can you tell? Right here.
He goes right across here.
Oh, look.
Yeah.
Right here.
Yeah.
And right there.
He's been all through here.
The bear has walked all over the yard.
There's tracks all around the pigeon house, all around the tanning shed.
So, he was just looking around, looking for stuff to eat.
Looks like that box was knocked over.
There.
Hell, we've had a bear right here.
There's no blood on the nails here, so No, it don't look like he -- Although, there's a couple crooked nails there.
Yeah, look at that one.
You're right.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
NARRATOR: This is the third time in three weeks that a bear has trespassed on Tom's property.
And, so far, his extra bear-proofing is working, but there's no telling exactly when they'll retreat into hibernation.
Never hurts to be a little lucky.
Yeah, I guess we were lucky.
TOM: Hopefully the bear will go into hibernation now.
I mean, they're really past time.
This has got to stop.
NARRATOR: In the great Alaska Range at the end of the last ice age, retreating glaciers carved the place we now call the Mat-Su Valley, 23,000 square miles of flat land at the base of the mountains.
Morgan Beasley is crossing through the valley on his journey inland.
He's saved up for nearly a decade to buy his own piece of Alaska -- a 37-acre plot of land that sits 200 miles beyond these peaks.
To get there, he must navigate unpredictable terrain with only a topographic map to guide him.
Started out by the big river.
And I dropped down out of the hills into this long, high valley, which is where I am now.
Eventually, this high, treeless valley joins a bigger, broader river valley.
I'm hoping down in that valley there'll be good forest and good shelter for the night.
My goal for the day is -- is to get to some good trees and get out of this windswept, open country.
There's no cover up here at all.
The colder it gets, the more difficult everything gets.
It doesn't take much, and you're a little Popsicle.
NARRATOR: Few plants can survive the extreme conditions of the arctic tundra, a barren expanse that stretches for miles without any trees or brush to offer shelter from frigid winds.
MORGAN: You're out here in this open ground, you are really exposed.
A long journey like this across wild landscapes, you're at your own mercy.
You're constantly trying to read the land.
These short days, it's getting dark early.
I don't want to be up here when it gets dark.
Maybe I can get up on this ridge, see how far it is to the tree line.
[ Sighs .]
Damn.
Wishing I was a little further.
I was hoping to see down into the valley and see forest within a mile or two, but it was miles away, and I knew that I wasn't gonna be there anytime soon.
Hmm.
There's really no good trees to take shelter under and no real good source of water around.
I reckon, if I had to spend the night here, that can be really dangerous, possibly life-threatening.
I'm gonna try really hard to hike and get down out of this high alpine tundra and make it to the tree line.
The breeze is already picking up, and the temperature is dropping.
It's not good.
[ Sighs .]
NARRATOR: High in the mountains of northwest New Mexico Mm.
Kyle awakes after a long night in bear country.
KYLE: After that bear came in last night, there wasn't any way I was gonna be able to sleep good.
I was worried about the meat, I was worried about my horses.
You know, I took a shot just to scare him off.
And I don't know if I hit that bear or not.
Well, he left me a little present.
I guess that's, uh [chuckles.]
a bear's way of saying what he really thinks of you.
There wasn't any blood.
I'm really glad that I didn't find a dead bear.
I did find a big pile of bear scat, so there's no doubt that he was right there close.
Yeah, I got to get out of here.
There's no way of telling how long that bear's gonna stay spooked, so I wanted to get the hell out of there.
We're almost out of here.
You'll be ready to go eat breakfast, won't you? Let's take you home to meet the family.
That was quite a hunt.
I mean, it was tough, but it was exciting.
I'm really glad to be heading home with plenty of meat to put in the freezer to start this winter.
It's what I came after.
And I got that done.
Whew.
[ Sighs .]
Well, let's go home.
NARRATOR: In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom presses on with his preparations for winter despite evidence that a bear was circling his property last night.
[Birds chirping.]
He's on a mission to kick-start his season but has just discovered another setback.
TOM: I'm ready to go to work, but now I can't find the scraper that I need to scrape the hides with.
The scrapers that I use is made out of an elk antler.
That bear must have picked up that antler, and I don't know if he's carried it away.
Maybe it was the smells that were on it that attracted him to it.
I'm sure in the springtime, when all this snow melts, we're gonna find that antler.
But now I'm gonna have to make a new one, I guess.
NARRATOR: The scraper is a hand-forged tool that removes the hair and meat from the hide.
TOM: The traditional thing is, the scrapers are made out of elk antlers.
And the Sioux Indians, they call them "wahitakas.
" Primitive people 1,000 years ago was using them antlers to do their tanning with.
The thing about this scraper is, it needs to have some weight to it so that when you scrape the hair, the weight of the scraper will cut the hair off and you don't have to use your arm muscles so much pushing against it.
[ Coughs .]
This is the section that's gonna be cut out for the scraper.
And you can see how nice and straight this line is here.
All we have to do now is eliminate the rest of this that we're not gonna use.
This is not like wood.
I mean, this is a lot harder.
It's like bone.
I'm using a bone saw to cut through it.
There we go.
The cut I'm making now is where the steel blade will attach to the handle -- the steel blade that cuts the hair loose.
Almost got it here.
This is the blade we'll put in it.
The blade lays right in there.
There's no glue or anything.
You -- you just wrap it and tie it with soaked buckskin.
When it dries, it shrinks real tight, and it holds the knot real good.
Yeah, I think that'll work.
NARRATOR: Far north, in Alaska Marty Meierotto is on the move to get a final load of supplies out to the Revelation Mountains before he runs out of time.
MARTY: The days are starting to get really short, so this'll probably be my last chance for quite a few weeks.
I got about 4 1/2, 5 hours of light, and it's a 4-hour flight.
I'm kind of committed after I take off.
I just have to make it.
NARRATOR: Marty loads his plane with extra fuel and enough traps to establish a new 30-mile trapline.
MARTY: So, I'm just trying to get as many traps as I can carry.
I'll bring a few wolf traps in case some wolves show up.
Going back out to the Revelations, kind of making a gamble.
Maybe I'll catch some fur, maybe I won't, but it seems like good country.
I want to try and get this cabin built, because eventually I want to have my girls come out, have a nice place for them to stay instead of a cold, cramped tent.
That's pretty much it.
[ Sighs .]
To be out on the trapline with my family, for me, that's the best it can be.
Are y'all ready to go? Yeah, I think I'm all squared away.
Uh, there's plenty of firewood.
Freezer's full of caribou.
You guys should be good.
Uh-huh.
Right, baby? Uh, the plan is to come bring you and Noah out there in about six weeks or so.
All right? All right.
Don't forget your coffee.
[Chuckling .]
Okay.
Be safe.
I will.
All right? Okay, Be a good girl.
Make sure you haul in the wood.
Okay.
All right.
[Engine whirring.]
MARTY: It's always great to be up in the air.
I can't wait to get out to the trapline.
I got a lot of work ahead of me, and I'm looking forward to all of it.
NARRATOR: In the dense forest of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace Conway and his business partner, Preston Roberts, survey their new logging site for the first time.
Their job is to selectively harvest dead and damaged trees to protect the long-term health of the high-priced timber that grows on this 100-acre plot.
Eustace struck a deal to keep all the logs they cull in exchange for their labor, a payoff that they hope will be a boom for their new lumber operation.
PRESTON: I see that one that's got -- looks like a lightening strike or something.
See that whole dead top? Yeah.
And it's rotted all the way to the bottom.
Might as well take that one out.
Could be better to let some of that sunlight go to some of these other younger, straight ones.
EUSTACE: If we get one of these good, culled trees down, like, to him, the guy that owns this place, it's just a piece of trash, but it's got a few good logs in it for us.
We get those good logs out of that tree, get it back to Turtle Island, and we mill it up, we could make as much as $300 off of one of these pieces of trash.
Nothing wrong with a bunch of good trees.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I'm glad to have the work.
But, you know, every bit of this is hinging on the fact that we can get them back to Turtle Island Preserve.
If we can't get the trees back, we've done a lot of work and we're not getting much return.
NARRATOR: Eustace's strategy for hauling the felled trees and getting them back to his lumber mill is to build a sturdy, wooden sled that can hitch to the horses.
So, I'm thinking, if that's the front of the sled there Mm-hmm.
when we come back, what we want to do is have these fairly equally spaced.
This'll be our two runners.
And they'll be parallel to each other.
Mm-hmm.
That sled makes it so there's less pulling resistance, and the horses can pull a heavier load easier.
Put these crosspieces in here, and they'll go across from one side of the sled to the other, so they'll bridge that gap between them.
And right here in the front we'll put a chain, and that's where we can back the horses up to -- to hook to.
What do you think? I think we can do that.
yeah First thing in building a sled is you have to select the right tree.
You got to get a tree with a curve and a bend in it that's just right.
You see that one? Yeah, that might work.
It's got a bend right there and a straight section and a bend right there and a straight section.
Yeah.
This tree here looks like it's got about the right-size diameter so that it has plenty of mass to carve and work with.
And it's a poplar, so I think it's soft enough we can work with it and split it out.
It'll be a trick dropping it down in here, isn't it? Only bad thing about it is, there's trees all around this.
It makes it really hard to fall.
It'd be real easy to mess it up and get it hung in another tree.
[Chain saw revs.]
Looks like we ought to be able to fall it right down through there.
Famous last words.
[ Revving continues .]
To cut that tree down, we need to cut a wedge shape in the front, and then we need to back cut [Whistles 1 Hey! It's moving! Which way is it going? That way.
Okay, we need to tap a wedge in there.
I got one little pocket between the two trees to drop it.
You ready, Preston? Pm ready [Chain saw revs.]
[ Hammer tapping .]
[ Wood creaking .]
Yeah! Whoo! [Laughs.]
Ha ha! I can't believe you're a 1/4 inch off! [ Both laugh .]
That was a tough tree.
It was mean, but Eustace dropped it exactly where he wanted it.
Perfect shot.
I was worried about that one.
It was a tough one.
Let's build us a sled.
Let's do it.
NARRATOR: In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom is ready to work on the only elk hide he has left to sell after a black bear destroyed his stockpile.
[ Coughs .]
Our code of life is off the furs I trap, the -- the hides and skins that I tan, you know, so the elk hide needs to be really good, or I don't make any money.
NARRATOR: Once tanned, the leather can fetch up to $800.
TOM: Scraper works good.
Oh, yeah.
[ Scraping .]
One of the hardships of de-hairing the hide -- You're using a real sharp blade.
If you come whacking in there with that scraper, you can punch a hole right through it.
So the person de-hairing has to be real experienced at inspecting the hide and knowing where all them's weak spots will be in the hide.
It's the armpits and the belly that's very thin compared to the back or the hips or -- or the neck of these hides.
It's quite an art to learn how to do it.
NARRATOR: To deliver a top-quality hide, Tom thins the skin down to the millimeter.
TOM: We're taking the epidermis off, also.
You can see, like, this little black line right here.
That's a shade of epidermis that's still left on the hide.
All this kind of dark shading, it has to come off yet.
Once I got the elk hide all fleshed, we'll cook up some brains, and we'll paint the brains into the hide, and then the hide's tanned.
Commercial tanned skins, they're very, very, hot.
They don't breathe.
Where this stuff here, when it's finished, it breathes.
All right.
We almost got her here.
Almost got her.
It's very comfortable to wear.
Very warm to wear in the winter, and yet it's cool in the summer.
Gonna be good enough.
NARRATOR: 1,000 feet above Alaska's Revelation Mountains, Marty returns to his trapline, where he'll spend the next three months in total isolation.
MARTY: Holy cow.
Look at that.
Man, I got to get some snow.
It's like 50 degrees.
Mid November, and it's 50 degrees out.
This is the weirdest winter I can ever remember.
NARRATOR: The Revelations usually see their first snowfall by this time of year.
Without snow on the ground, Marty will struggle to track animals, making it harder to know where to set traps.
MARTY: There's plenty of snow in Two Rivers, and then I came around the corner, and there really wasn't any.
NARRATOR: The unseasonably warm weather could mean trouble ahead.
Ahh.
MARTY: Without snow, I can't do any trapping at all.
Can't even see tracks, so not having snow just shuts me down.
I can only do what nature allows me to do.
So, for right now, I'll just work on the cabin.
You just got to take what you're -- what you're given, try and make it work.
Tie her down real good.
All right.
That should keep her put.
If you live in the bush very long, you'll learn not to expect what you want, because things are never gonna go the way you plan it or want it to.
Think I'm gonna get me something to eat.
But you just adapt, or you will never make it out here.
NARRATOR: In northwest Montana, with black bears still active in the area, Tom works quickly to turn a raw animal hide into leather before he attracts another unwelcome visitor.
The final step is to tan it with a solution made from the animal's own brains.
Now that we've got the skin all dried out and all de-haired and all ready, it's ready for the brains now, which actually tans the hide.
NANCY: Hi.
How are you, baby? Got your elk brains for your bucket.
You got brains.
All right.
It takes brains.
Every animal has enough brains to tan the hides.
Nancy generally handles the brain thing.
I just got to get these brains in there and add some water.
Pretty nice brains.
[ Chuckles .]
Warm them up a little bit.
Okay.
All right, see you later.
The first thing we usually do with the brains that we're gonna use for tanning is cook them.
Ooh.
They look good.
They're warming up in here.
Once you cook them, well, then they'll break up, and we just mash them up.
So, the water that those brains are put into now is more like the thickness of a malted milk.
We're ready to brain an elk.
[ Door opens, closes .]
Now we can take a paintbrush, and we can paint that right into that dry hide, and it'll suck right into the hide.
All right.
Here we go.
The oils that are in the brains is what softens the skin.
I don't know how in the world the primitive people ever figured out all you got to do is rub brains in it and work it.
I mean, of all the things there are to rub into a hide to tan it, how long did it take them to figure that one out? And you can -- you can see now it's softening up, where it used to be very rigid.
There aren't lots of brain-tanning masters in the country anymore.
You know, I mean, it's mostly a forgotten thing from the past.
Well, it's all going in there.
An elk hide, a brain-tanned one, should be worth maybe $700, maybe $800 if it comes out really nice.
[ Paintbrush thuds .]
Well, we got it coming.
[Birds chirping.]
Because of the damn bear, we can use all the help we can get.
NARRATOR: In North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace and Preston's sled build is under way.
It's critical to the success of their winter logging venture.
We're not gonna have anything store-bought on this sled except maybe a little piece of chain and one bolt.
Measure that from that little mark and see.
We're hoping that this final sled's gonna be about 4 feet wide and about 10 feet long.
That way, we'll be able to haul 8-foot logs and we'll be able to haul 12-foot logs on there.
Maybe I can cut most of the way through.
Then maybe we can cut it in half down there.
Well, this tree is a funky tree.
It's got some really odd twists.
[Chain saw revs.]
For a sled, you need one certain weird shape, and that's a -- a sharp bend in the front.
But the rest of it you all want to be straight.
[ Breathing heavily.]
PRESTON: Next, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna take that one big log, and we're gonna drive some wedges in it.
So, let's not drive that too deep, but let's get it started there.
Split it open with the wedges and the gluts, and we're gonna make two runners out of one log.
Looks good.
Let's see how we did doing down the side.
It is pretty dang twisty, funky, weird.
The wood always wants to run to the weakest side when you're splitting it, and so it's making a bit of a twist in there, and it's making one side of the log come out thinner than the other side, so, if it comes out too thin, we've just wasted a whole lot of time and energy.
Can you see the crack all right on that side? [Wedge clangs .]
Yeah.
Opening up? Yeah.
[ Grunts .]
There's a crooked sled runner.
Yeah.
It's good to have a little experience with that kind of thing, and sometimes you can pull it off.
[ Grunts .]
Whew! Man, that stuff's heavy.
NARRATOR: To shape the wood, they use an ancient tool that dates back to the Stone Age called an adz.
PRESTON: It's similar to an ax, except the blade's turned in a different direction.
And what it enables us to do is to kind of chop down into the piece of wood and then remove those chips and make a flat surface.
It's straightening up a little bit, Preston.
Front's really got the catawampus, though.
It does.
If you do it right, you can quickly change the shape of it and make it the way you want it.
[ Breathing heavily.]
Getting to be a little bit more like a sled runner, isn't it? Yeah.
This is one of the most important jobs for this logging operation.
This will make it so that the horses won't use up as many calories and just have a lot more ease.
We get more logs pulling a day with this tool.
I believe this one looks good enough.
Let's go get that other one.
We done a lot of work, but there's still a lot of work to do.
NARRATOR: Across the country it's sunset over Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, and Morgan is still miles from the shelter of a distant tree line.
MORGAN: It's getting dark.
I absolutely do not want to stay up here in this open, exposed ground.
I need to keep hiking till I make it down to tree line.
And that could be four, five miles away.
I still have a long way to go.
NARRATOR: But there's another problem brewing.
Morgan is running dangerously low on water and needs to find a source before it's too late.
MORGAN: I'm definitely gonna need to get hydrated if I'm gonna keep hiking tonight.
Now, a lot of people think you don't have to drink as much water when it's cold like this 'cause you're not sweating, but, uh, that's not really the truth.
I've been stretching my water by adding snow to it, but it's not a good option.
NARRATOR: Snow crystals formed at temperatures below freezing tend to be smaller and hold little to no water content.
MORGAN: [ Exhales sharply.]
It's almost like a desert.
That snow might as well be white sand for as much moisture as you can get out of it.
If I don't get some water, it's gonna turn into a just awful, miserable death march.
I'm starting to kind of vary my path to kind of check out little low spots, hoping I'll find some open water.
But I haven't found any yet.
Everything I've seen has been totally frozen over.
Your blood is mostly made of water, and your blood's what circulates the heat.
It's just like in your pickup truck, you wouldn't want to let the antifreeze get too low in the winter.
In most cases of frostbite, dehydration is a significant factor.
Your body just shuts off the blood in your fingers 'cause it needs the moisture, not because it's out of heat.
Oh! I see water.
There's some water right there, a little spring.
All right.
Cool.
Whew! This water's gonna make all the difference in this night hike.
I'm gonna stop here and get some water and have a little bite to eat.
I like to drink plenty when I find a good water source, and I anticipate that water's gonna get harder and harder to find.
Drinking a big bellyful of ice-cold water, that doesn't feel very good when you're trying to stay warm, but you've got to.
If you keep eating and you keep regularly adding a good complex mix of sugars and fats and proteins to your body, it's just like throwing wood on your wood stove.
If you got plenty of calories, it's amazing how much warmer you stay.
Now that I'm refueled, I'm going to head off down the trail, then settle into some night hiking.
I got a long ways to go tonight.
Aw, man, that sun's going down.
It's about to get real cold.
NARRATOR: In the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Eustace's first order of business for his new logging job is to find a way to transport the timber he cuts.
He and Preston are building a primitive sled using poplar runners, which they'll connect using crossbeams made of 20-year-old locust wood.
EUSTACE: [Grunts.]
[ Chuckling .]
There she goes.
That's popped, isn't it? Yeah Yeah, that'll make a good crosspiece there.
Yeah.
We can make some of our pegs out of this piece.
Yeah, that'll split out and make something nice.
Mm-hmm.
Plenty standard, there, huh? Nothing about that locust is gonna break, so we can depend on the strength of that locust to make a strong deck for this sled.
See how well that lines up.
Oh, yeah.
Looks about right.
Good.
[ Wood cracks .]
I believe that's pretty good.
Now that we have the sled hammered together, I need to go make some pegs.
This is gonna become the nail, you might say.
It's just a wooden nail.
We'll make the pegs, uh, by splitting the fiber of the locust right now.
We split them out about an inch square, and then we take an ax or a knife, and we carve off the edges to make it a little bit more round.
We put it all together like a big puzzle with stuff that we got right out here in the forest.
Is that the last one there? That's the one we're looking for.
Man, I like it.
That feels like home, there.
[ Exhales sharply.]
I believe we just need to put a chain on the front, and then we'll be done.
PRESTON: Yeah.
All right.
The last thing to do on the sled is to put the hookup apparatus on the front.
That'll be a good place to hook those horses to.
Yeah.
Hook those horses in there, and away we'll go.
Yeah, I believe that's what we call an Appalachian sled.
Just right for Appalachian surfing.
[ Chuckles .]
Your original all-terrain vehicle.
Hot dog! It's exciting to have this thing done and getting ready to use it.
It's gonna help our work go so much easier.
Tomorrow will be a big day.
NARRATOR: In Alaska's Mat-Su River Valley, Morgan's trek to his new homestead in the Alaska Range has left him exposed on the open tundra.
Nightfall brings icy winds, and the temperature drops to just 10 degrees.
But Morgan must push through the darkness, unable to rest until he secures shelter.
Still no sign of a tree line or the lower valley, but it does look like this Valley's starting to drop off.
It can't be more than a few miles.
[Wind blowing .]
It's harder to see where you're going at night.
You got to move a little slower, watching out for slips and falls.
It's pretty difficult to see the next obstacle up ahead when your headlamp only goes out 50, 60 yards.
[Wind blowing .]
I'm walking into some big brush here.
I just can't see anything with this light of the brush.
Ugh! That brush gets up in your face.
You know, it, like, blinds you.
The light's reflecting right back off it.
Ugh! Feet are down in the shadows.
[ Grunting .]
Oh, brush sucks.
[Wind blowing .]
You're walking on this kind of stuff through the bush, there's an opportunity to roll your ankle on every step.
Anything that demobilizes you becomes a serious threat in those kind of temperatures and that kind of landscape.
[ Grunting .]
[Wind blowing .]
[ Grunting .]
I've already put in a full day, so the fatigue factor is really adding up.
[ Grunts .]
It's the hardest walking you can imagine except waist-deep snow or quicksand.
I mean, it's right on par with those levels of exertion to cross this kind of terrain.
[ Exhales sharply.]
I'm not gonna be able to go much further.
[Wind blowing .]
NARRATOR: Night shrouds Alaska's Mat-Su Valley in freezing darkness.
Morgan pushes through his 12th straight mile of tundra on a quest to reach the shelter of a distant tree line he can no longer even see.
[ Exhales sharply.]
It can't be too far to the trees now.
This valley can't go on forever.
[ Sighs .]
I realized that I've been doing this for 14 hours now.
But as soon as you stop, you start to cool down.
You kind of have to push yourself more when you're fatigued.
You either keep going or you die, so I'm gonna keep walking until I physically can't anymore.
If I come down a little further, kind of drop below the snow line, there's a marsh here.
There's ice everywhere.
There's a little guy.
[ Chuckles .]
Hey, buddy.
You got any bigger friends around? [ Chuckles .]
That's a good Oh! Trees! I got trees.
Heh! Oh, baby.
Trees.
[ Chuckles .]
Oh, I got to get a fire going.
It's cold.
Got to be getting down towards zero down here.
There was a big line of nice spruce trees, and pretty much the first one I walked up to had a bunch of dry wood, had a nice, soft, flat space to sleep under.
I can have a decent fire and be out of the major wind.
The trees make it a lot safer and more comfortable.
Today was a pretty long day.
Put in a lot of hours.
I probably covered over 10 miles.
[ Fire crackling .]
I'll get a lot better night's sleep here than I would have shivering in some ditch up there and above tree line.
Tomorrow's another day.
Get a good night's sleep and wake up refreshed and do it all over again.
NARRATOR: Next time on "Mountain Men" in Alaska, Marty pushes himself to the limit MARTY: This is the riskiest part about building a cabin.
You got to just stay focused and not get in a rush.
Aah! NARRATOR: while Rich makes a gruesome discovery.
Whoa.
These are wolves.
[ Dogs howling .]
You guys better hold it up here.
Let me go see what's going on first.
NARRATOR: And Tom's bear troubles go from bad to worse.
Oh.
Them are grizzly tracks.
The scary part about it is it's close to home.