Mountain Men (2012) s04e08 Episode Script
Lifeblood
1 Previously on "Mountain Men" Morgan makes a narrow escape from a dead zone of the Alaska Range.
There's no room to make mistakes out here.
I'm in full-on survival mode.
It's kind of an all-or-nothing kind of deal.
In the Revelation Mountains, Marty sets his sights on an elusive prize.
If there's lynx tracks, it's a really good sign there might e a lynx around.
You never know.
Hopefully have a cat when I come back.
That's what makes trapping neat.
You never know.
And in Montana, Tom goes on the chase to stay in the game.
I need a good, clean kill shot.
Come on.
Stand up.
after stalking a herd of elk for 5 miles on foot, Tom's last-ditch effort for winter meat comes down to one shot.
Well, that was -- that was an ordeal.
With this elk, it's like money in the bank, and you can't ask for any better than that.
Oh, buddy.
It will take several hours for Tom to break down the carcass, but he'll need to work quickly if he's to finish before it freezes.
It's not meat till it's in the pan.
The first thing you do is gut the animal.
The main thing is get the intestines out of them.
As soon as the animal dies, the intestines -- they start gassing up, and if you leave them for a long time, they'll actually bloat, and it'll actually ruin the meat.
There's a layer of skin that separates the intestines from the lungs and the heart and the liver.
Where the bullet went, that all has to be cut out of there.
All the innards all -- all emptied out.
The elk provides up to 200 pounds of meat, and Tom will put almost every other part of the carcass to use, including the hide and teeth.
We try not to waste anything.
We try to use up all of what we collect off the woods.
An elk hide should be worth maybe $800 if it comes out really nice.
I'm gonna pop these two ivories out.
Elk ivories used to be fangs that stuck down out of the primitive elks' mouth like canine teeth, and that's what's left of them.
These are really kind of an ivory, like an elephant tusk.
Two elk ivories alone will fetch up to $300.
It's a good feeling to be able to harvest something and use it all.
Whoa, now.
Whoa, now.
Nothing like getting paid at the end of a long work year, so, yeah.
Whoa.
Whoa, now.
Everything's come together.
This has been a real hunt, but it feels really good right now.
It feels good.
Far north in the Alaska Range, Morgan's recovered from a brush with death.
Two days ago, his overnight trek across the mountains led him straight into a blinding whiteout on the edge of an avalanche zone.
Can't hardly see where I'm going.
You guys, you shouldn't be bunched up here with me.
If something cuts loose, three of us don't need to get buried.
Now, with the mountains finally at his back and more than 200 miles of Alaskan tundra behind him, Morgan is ready to make a final push towards his homestead.
The land I've got is probably about 70 miles, as the crow flies, that way.
But he's not out of the woods yet.
Body's demanding a lot of protein right now, all the exercise I've been getting the last few weeks.
It's really nice to get out of the mountains and back into some thick forest, but I got three or four days' worth of food left, and I got about a week's worth of travel.
I'm definitely on the lookout for any kind of way to stretch my food supply at this point.
I packed about as much food as I could.
It's an inexact science planning for this kind of stuff.
You don't really know how fast, how many miles you're gonna make in a day.
You know, I've got firearm.
I've got ways to harvest food.
Right now, I'd love to find a little critter of some kind to roast for dinner.
A nice juicy porcupine, like, a grouse or a ptarmigan, rabbit.
Those are pretty much my options.
So far, I haven't seen much of anything.
Nope.
I'm always looking for sign.
Small-game animals often congregate around water sources, and Morgan's counting on a nearby stream to lead him to his next meal.
This creek here is going in my direction.
I'm gonna hop on it, walk on the ice.
Well looks like a beaver's been at work in here.
There.
It's this season's, for sure.
There's definitely a beaver around here.
Beavers are pretty heavy.
I think the record beaver is over 100 pounds, and I think 40, 50 pounds is pretty average for 'em, so you'd probably get a good 20, 30 pounds of meat out of that.
And that would be just about the right amount of food for me.
And a nice beaver pelt would be pretty awesome.
Let's see if there's any more sign up ahead.
There's a whole bunch more chewed-off sticks.
There's a slide over there and another one right here, so the beaver is coming out of the water and onto the snow.
I'm gonna sneak up onto the bank here and just wait and see if he comes out to do his thing.
You know, let's see if he shows himself.
I've never hunted a beaver before.
It seems like a long shot.
I may just be wasting time, but I need to find more food.
Otherwise, I'm gonna be on really slim rations, and I would rather not hike hungry.
In Alaska's Revelations Mountains, the rules of the wild are changing, and Marty Meierotto has spent the last eight weeks working to stay ahead of the curve.
After not being able to be on the trapline trapping, it's nice to be out actually running line.
Running traps, catching fur -- that's what it's all about.
Even the smallest change in nature's balance affects Marty's livelihood on the line.
And while an unusually warm weather system delayed the start of his season, it also created an unexpected opportunity.
I was very surprised to see lynx tracks this high up because they hunt rabbits, and rabbits are usually in the lowland, but this year, for some reason, there's rabbits here.
So, I imagine that's why they're here.
Lynx are solitary and elusive animals, making them among the most difficult to snare.
Their fur fetches a premium price on the market so Marty set five traps to increase his odds.
It'd be really cool to actually catch a lynx in one of those sets I made.
All right.
This is my first cat set.
Hey, the trap and drag are missing.
Something happened.
The drag's missing.
The way I've got my cubby set set up is I put 'em on a drag so that they don't tear up the cubby when they're caught there.
So, they get caught, and then they take off with this drag, and the drag'll tangle on the first little bit of brush or tree or something that they come to.
They usually don't go far at all.
Looks like he went through that way.
Unbelievable! It looks like a nice big one, too.
He just got caught.
I'm looking for a good shot.
Come on.
Turn your head.
A lynx is a specialized predator.
They're gonna get nasty if you try killing 'em.
Even once you catch 'em, they're hard to hold because they are so powerful, so nasty.
If he jumps and that line breaks, it's gonna be bad.
In the Revelation Mountains, Marty has a 50-pound lynx in his sights.
If you get up close, they can get kind of wicked on you.
Lynx are very aggressive, so I need to stay back a little bit, or it's probably gonna bite me.
All right.
Looks like a nice, big tom.
Lynx fur is what they call a luxury fur, and it's used a lot in the trim trade.
Where utility fur is more like a muskrat or raccoon, where it keeps you warm, but lynx fur has the added aspect of being real pretty.
Cool.
Put him away, go remake the set, and go check some more traps! I'm really happy that fur's starting to come in, and then with the added bonus of the lynx, it makes it all worth it.
Pretty neat to be catching cats in this country.
In the foothills of the great Alaska range, Morgan stakes out a beaver dam in hopes of adding some meat to his dwindling food supply.
But after two hours of waiting in the freezing cold, he's seen no sign of his prey.
I've been here a while, waiting to see if I can see a beaver, but taking the time to try to stake this beaver out is another cost-benefit thing, whether I'm gonna waste time sitting there, end up with nothing, or, in a couple hours, I could make 3 or 4 miles.
And I'm getting chilly.
Damn it.
Wondering more if I just bag this and keep moving.
Okay, this is a waste of time.
I'm thinking I'm done here.
I'm like, "The beaver's not coming out.
I'm too damn cold sitting here.
I'm starting to shiver.
I need to get moving.
Let's get back down on the ice, where the walking's a little easier.
Oh! Here he is! Damn! He went under the ice.
Damn it! I know I hit him.
Look at all this blood.
Ohh! Ohh! He's gone! Damn it! I thought, "There he goes.
I just killed this animal, and now I can't recover it, and I'm not gonna have any food.
" Got flushed downstream in the current.
Oh, damn.
Crap.
Maybe he got -- Oh, here he is! Here he is! Here he is! See him there -- that dark spot? He's caught up on something.
He's not moving.
I think he's hung up on something.
There's a bit of current under there, though.
I got to get him out of there before he gets flushed away.
Oh.
Oh Beneath the ice, the water temperature is a bone-chilling 20 degrees.
Come here, you little bugger.
No! No! No! Aww! Whoo! Yeah! Ohh.
Yeah! Whoo-hoo-hoo! He's a nice one! They just love to run for the water.
They're like a mountain goat running off a cliff.
His last throes of life, he just wanted to get back to where he felt secure.
That's a bunch of food.
That's a few days' worth.
I mean, that's just -- That's gonna at least double the food that I've got now.
I'm gonna find a place to bed down and get camping and get some beaver meat roasting on the fire and get a little warmed up, too.
Happy day- Across the country, in North Carolina winter rain has soaked the Blue Ridge Mountains for three days straight, bringing Eustace Conway's logging operation to a standstill.
That looks good, doesn't it? Creek-water corn cakes.
Oh, heck, yeah! But a break in the weather means it's time to get back to work.
What do you think, Eustace? We gonna get up on that steep ground today with it frozen? I wish it was a little drier, but we'll make it do.
Up on the high ground, we've got some trees we haven't been able to get to yet, but we're gonna try to get up there.
All we can do is try, and we'll find out, you know? Tom, you up for that hill today? You guys have been talking about it all week.
Yeah, I'm a little nervous, but if you guys think it's all right, I'm with you.
Their target today is a single giant poplar tree that the land owner marked for removal.
To reach it, they'll need to climb 200 yards up a steep ridge -- a sharp, 45-degree incline blanketed with slick leaves and rocks.
Let's see if we can get everything together.
We'll head on out.
I guarantee you that this is gonna be a lot harder job than what we've been up against so far.
You know, that steep stuff's just dangerous.
It's hard, and we've got our work cut out for us today.
Let's see if we can just tie up right here.
See? It's up there.
See that big one there? Yeah The one with the ribbon? That's the one we're headed for, way up on that hillside.
This is some steep, dangerous stuff right here.
Frozen underneath and wet and mushy on top.
Oh.
You all right? Man, this thing is slick! Boy, I can hardly stand up.
Yeah.
I'm not sure we ought to be up on this today.
It's a long way to the horses.
Whoo! Well, we made it.
Man.
I don't want to come and go up through that hill too many times today.
No.
Let's get everything down that we need down.
Now if we can just get this guy down the hill.
The poplar is mostly rotted, but if Eustace can get it back to camp, he can salvage the usable timber and a pure profit.
We're probably gonna get one or two logs, $80 to $180 out of this one right here.
I think I can hopefully steer a little bit towards the horses there.
Then they can pull it down on the bottom.
So, I'm gonna try to steer it with a hinge cut and let the hinge pull it over here.
Hopefully, it won't get too close to 'em and spook 'em.
Eustace has one shot to drop the tree within a narrow 20-foot corridor, and he's banking on the steep slope to usher it to the bottom.
The hinge that you leave on the tree -- that's the part that you don't cut through -- that's what it folds and hinges on.
That's what controls which way it pulls.
Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no! In North Carolina Whoo! Whoo! Man, did you see that? It hit hard, didn't it? There's a lot of things that can go wrong when you're felling a large tree, and it happens so fast that you hardly even have time to blink.
The tree landed in the clear, but it's still 30 feet from the road.
We're gonna need to get that log somehow over towards that path the horses are on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's go on down there.
The next step is to saw it to length, working 'em down to where we can get to 'em to pull 'em with the horses.
Man! That thing made a big hole when it came down! We'll see what we've got in this thing for a log.
Yeah.
Once it's all cut into pieces, we're gonna roll 'em as far as we can by hand.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to roll 'em or not.
We're just gonna try.
Yeah, I think this piece right here is gonna be the most valuable piece.
We'll get a 10-foot section right down there to Tom.
Iâll tell you what -- I'll saw here some if you'll saw down there some.
We'll see if we can free it up.
Eustace needs to salvage at least one straight 10-foot log in order to make any money off this otherwise rotten tree.
This one should be free.
I've got to be loose down there.
So, what we're gonna do is try to roll it that way.
We're gonna roll this? Well, we're gonna try.
Okay, my man.
I am a little nervous because that's a big tree.
Somebody could get hurt real easy if you're not paying attention to what you're doing.
Whew! All right.
1,2,3.
There we go.
1,2,3.
1,2,3.
There we go.
Oh! Oh! Let it go! Oh Tom! Whew! Whew! God.
That was too close.
You all right? Yeah, I'm fine.
Tom just doesn't have enough experience on these steep hillsides.
He might have learned some logging and stuff somewhere else, but he's just not really aware of everything that can go wrong.
We're just worried about you going down there with that log.
You got to let the log do its own thing.
Amazing how far that thing went downhill, isn't it? It went down so far that we might have to pull it back up just a little bit, and we don't want to pull anything back up.
In Alaska, Morgan prepares for a hard-earned meal.
Got a nice bed of coals there.
The first thing I want to do is get my knife nice and sharp before I go to skin it.
You know, using -- using the knife around camp, whatever, you always get it dull.
I'm feeling really blessed that I recovered this beaver, and it's gonna be awesome to have plenty of fresh meat.
I'm gonna cook the carcass, probably, and strip all the little bits of meat off that, and then the quarters -- I'm gonna save them to cook them fresh over a couple of days so I can have fresh meat for a couple of nights.
I'm gonna try to keep as much fat as I can off the hide so I don't have to pack it around and flesh it later.
All right.
Cool.
There it is skinned off.
It's a pretty nice skin.
It's gonna make a really nice hat or something.
There'll be some fleshing to do on that one.
I've got another three or four or five days' worth of food and probably 10 pounds of good meat I'll get off this animal, besides the nice fur, and I'm stoked.
You know, it's my first beaver.
We've got meat.
Not only just meat, but it's nice, greasy meat that's got some fat to it.
And I've got a cool pelt, so I'm sitting pretty now.
Not too strong.
Sometimes I think beaver gets pretty fishy.
Not bad.
Oh, yeah.
That's a nice, fatty piece, too.
I can't even begin to describe to you how good fat tastes after you've been out here and you're hungry, you know, as long as it's cooked through.
I'm not into raw fat, but fat's got 9 calories per' gram, so it's your densest energy source.
It's gonna keep you twice as warm as just straight protein or straight carbohydrates, sugars.
You know, it's got twice as much energy in it.
I've probably got 60 miles between me and my land right now, and unless something really derails my progress, I got plenty of food now.
I'm gonna eat some more of this and stretch my bag out.
Hopefully just get some good rest and hit it, go up tomorrow, and be one day closer.
400 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in Alaska's Revelation Mountains, Marty rolls into camp with his biggest haul of the season -- a lynx pelt worth $400.
This day turned out better than I had hoped it would.
It's exciting to catch lynx.
This makes it worthwhile.
It's been a really good day.
It's 20 below zero, and the freeze will set in within an hour.
I like to get the lynx skinned 'cause I don't want to have to take him home frozen.
It's just extra hauling weight, and lynx aren't bad to eat.
Skinning a lynx is pretty much just like a marten.
You just make a couple of initial cuts and then just peel it off.
But some places, you have to actually use a knife.
If you can pull it, it goes faster.
Lynx are pretty thin.
I always like catching lynx.
It's a good sign, you know, that it's good trapping country.
When I look at the Revelations, it's a totally new country, and it's unknown.
It's always a gamble, but after a day like today, it makes me feel even better about investing so much time and energy into this area.
It helps make it worth it to me to bring my family out here.
Done! I'm looking forward to that.
You can see the hide's already froze.
I finally feel like I'm a trapper, like this is what I'm meant to do.
I'm looking forward to doing some more trapping tomorrow.
In Montana's Ruby Valley, predators are proving to be a growing threat this winter.
Mountain lions and a recent explosion of the wolf population in the area are keeping Rich Lewis and his dogs busy.
To keep up with the pace, the hunting team must be in peak condition, and today Rich is testing their stamina in a 10-mile run.
Come on.
Get in.
It's like shooting a rifle.
You just don't grab your gun and go hunting.
You need to sight it in and be ready.
When I put 'em on a lion track, my dogs have to be in good condition because if they get tired, the lion's gonna get away from us.
Mountain lions are so powerful, they can run indefinitely at a speed of 10 miles an hour, so Rich will condition his dogs to run twice as fast.
Well, I'm gonna let the dogs out and rode 'em down this road, give them some exercise.
I need to make sure they can run a long distance, so 8 to 10 miles is what I'm looking for.
Then I know they're in good shape and I have a good chance of keeping up with the lion.
All right, one a time.
Let's go.
One at a time.
Come on.
Easy.
Easy.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on, Diamond.
Good girl.
Good girl.
The youngest in the pack is 1-year-old Diamond.
I think they're ready to rock and roll.
Rich is watching her closely to see if she's that rare breed -- a born lion hunter.
Let's go! Come on! Let's go! Hurry up! Come on! Good dogs! Dogs need to go on a long run just like an athlete.
They have to stay in shape.
They really have to put pressure on a lion to get him to go up the tree.
If them dogs can catch him, then he goes up a tree right away.
On my speedometer, looks like I'm about 7 miles so far, so another couple, two, three miles.
They're all doing pretty good.
Turbo's slacking off a little bit, but he's starting to get a little older.
He's a little too heavy yet.
Got to get him on a diet, I guess.
Come on, Turbo! Let's go! Get up here! Come on! 6-year-old Turbo is normally one of Rich's fastest dogs and one he relies on for even the most challenging hunts.
Turbo's kind of falling behind the rest of 'em.
Young Diamond hugs the outside of the pack, matching the veteran dogs stride for stride.
Diamond's doing good.
This is -- She's just a year old.
Well, I better get these guys loaded up.
Come on! Hey! Hey! Come on! Turbo, come on! Come on, Diamond! Come on! Load up! Come on, Diamond! Good girl! Come on! Load up! Good girl.
Diamond has energy to spare, but after passing the speed and stamina test, she will now have to rise to the challenge of a much harder trial.
The dogs did real good.
Now I just have to let 'em out on a scent and see what they're going to do.
In Montana's Ruby Valley, Rich Lewis is working his hunting dogs to keep them in peak performance for chasing mountain lions.
After a 10-mile endurance run, the next challenge is critical to refining their most powerful skill.
When I train my dogs, they have to be physically in shape to run a long distance, but I also have to train them to develop their nose.
The better they develop their nose, the better they can smell the track.
I'm gonna go to another location now that I can lay some scent and work with them on good scent and bad scent.
This looks like a good spot right here.
The hounds have 100 times the smelling power of a human, but they perceive every scent as equally strong.
The most difficult training exercise will hone their ability to distinguish one scent from the other.
These are deer glands.
I cut these off a deer when I kill a deer and salt them.
Deer glands hold a lot of scent.
I'll wet these, and this is what I'm gonna drag through the snow as one of my scents.
This is a piece of old bear hide.
I'll wet this, put my lion urine on there, and make a drag.
And then I'll get somewhere where I can put it in the roll cage, and so the dogs think that they've got the scent of a lion, and they should go to treeing.
And then these other scents -- I'm hoping they don't follow them, but we're gonna find out.
I'm constantly training them because the more I train them, the better their nose is, and that's what I got to develop.
And if they develop a really good nose, they have a lot better chance of catching a lion.
I'm just leaving the gland here for that smell, and then I'm gonna take my lion drag and go way out here.
There's a lot of work that's involved.
You just don't take a dog and go out lion hunting.
They cannot chase deer and elk because a lion -- and I've seen it -- will see deer, and they will go right through a herd of deer because they know there's a good chance that them dogs are gonna chase that deer instead of him.
Rich drags four different scents over a 10-acre area, including a stream where inexperienced dogs tend to lose the track.
Now I just have to let 'em out on the scent and see what they do.
In North Carolina, Eustace and his team have spent most of the day wrestling a SOD-pound log off a steep mountain slope.
But now they've overshot the trail below.
Until they're able to hook it to the horses and haul it back to camp, there will be no payday.
'Cause it's too hard for the horses to pull just straight up that slippery hill.
We're gonna rig a little system with a rope and some pulleys and anchor 'em on some trees.
Hopefully, that log will just go right up that slick hillside.
If we can take the end of this with some grabs and sort of pull it up the hill Uh-huh.
we're gonna take the rope around the pulley on that poplar and then back down the hill to that tree there, put another pulley on that poplar, and then shoot the rope down to where the horses are right now.
The horses can go down the hill using all their body weight and gravity on them, and that, hopefully, will pull that log up the hill.
You could drop one pulley right about there if you wanted to.
Bye.
Bye.
Good boys.
Go ahead.
Good job, Preston.
I believe we're about ready for the horses.
Any time you start moving these big things around, it's dangerous on a good day when the ground's not slicker than snot.
The horses are hitched to the pulley in order to make the difficult maneuver.
Bye.
Bye.
You don't want to roll it somewhere by mistake or get it lodged where it's harder to get it out, so when you make a move, you want it to count.
Wait.
Bye.
Bye.
Y'all get out of the way.
All right.
Ready? And get up, boys.
Wait.
Ho, ho, ho! Wait.
Rest easy, boys.
We made it, didn't we? Yeah, that worked real good.
It cost Eustace an entire day to fell this single tree, and at best, he only earned $180 worth of timber for his efforts.
Today has been a challenging day.
Tom made some mistakes, and that set us back, and we didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but we at least made it safely through the day.
And come up, boys.
Came in with one log.
That's better than nothing.
Slo-o-o-o-o-w down.
There's no room to make mistakes out here.
I'm in full-on survival mode.
It's kind of an all-or-nothing kind of deal.
In the Revelation Mountains, Marty sets his sights on an elusive prize.
If there's lynx tracks, it's a really good sign there might e a lynx around.
You never know.
Hopefully have a cat when I come back.
That's what makes trapping neat.
You never know.
And in Montana, Tom goes on the chase to stay in the game.
I need a good, clean kill shot.
Come on.
Stand up.
after stalking a herd of elk for 5 miles on foot, Tom's last-ditch effort for winter meat comes down to one shot.
Well, that was -- that was an ordeal.
With this elk, it's like money in the bank, and you can't ask for any better than that.
Oh, buddy.
It will take several hours for Tom to break down the carcass, but he'll need to work quickly if he's to finish before it freezes.
It's not meat till it's in the pan.
The first thing you do is gut the animal.
The main thing is get the intestines out of them.
As soon as the animal dies, the intestines -- they start gassing up, and if you leave them for a long time, they'll actually bloat, and it'll actually ruin the meat.
There's a layer of skin that separates the intestines from the lungs and the heart and the liver.
Where the bullet went, that all has to be cut out of there.
All the innards all -- all emptied out.
The elk provides up to 200 pounds of meat, and Tom will put almost every other part of the carcass to use, including the hide and teeth.
We try not to waste anything.
We try to use up all of what we collect off the woods.
An elk hide should be worth maybe $800 if it comes out really nice.
I'm gonna pop these two ivories out.
Elk ivories used to be fangs that stuck down out of the primitive elks' mouth like canine teeth, and that's what's left of them.
These are really kind of an ivory, like an elephant tusk.
Two elk ivories alone will fetch up to $300.
It's a good feeling to be able to harvest something and use it all.
Whoa, now.
Whoa, now.
Nothing like getting paid at the end of a long work year, so, yeah.
Whoa.
Whoa, now.
Everything's come together.
This has been a real hunt, but it feels really good right now.
It feels good.
Far north in the Alaska Range, Morgan's recovered from a brush with death.
Two days ago, his overnight trek across the mountains led him straight into a blinding whiteout on the edge of an avalanche zone.
Can't hardly see where I'm going.
You guys, you shouldn't be bunched up here with me.
If something cuts loose, three of us don't need to get buried.
Now, with the mountains finally at his back and more than 200 miles of Alaskan tundra behind him, Morgan is ready to make a final push towards his homestead.
The land I've got is probably about 70 miles, as the crow flies, that way.
But he's not out of the woods yet.
Body's demanding a lot of protein right now, all the exercise I've been getting the last few weeks.
It's really nice to get out of the mountains and back into some thick forest, but I got three or four days' worth of food left, and I got about a week's worth of travel.
I'm definitely on the lookout for any kind of way to stretch my food supply at this point.
I packed about as much food as I could.
It's an inexact science planning for this kind of stuff.
You don't really know how fast, how many miles you're gonna make in a day.
You know, I've got firearm.
I've got ways to harvest food.
Right now, I'd love to find a little critter of some kind to roast for dinner.
A nice juicy porcupine, like, a grouse or a ptarmigan, rabbit.
Those are pretty much my options.
So far, I haven't seen much of anything.
Nope.
I'm always looking for sign.
Small-game animals often congregate around water sources, and Morgan's counting on a nearby stream to lead him to his next meal.
This creek here is going in my direction.
I'm gonna hop on it, walk on the ice.
Well looks like a beaver's been at work in here.
There.
It's this season's, for sure.
There's definitely a beaver around here.
Beavers are pretty heavy.
I think the record beaver is over 100 pounds, and I think 40, 50 pounds is pretty average for 'em, so you'd probably get a good 20, 30 pounds of meat out of that.
And that would be just about the right amount of food for me.
And a nice beaver pelt would be pretty awesome.
Let's see if there's any more sign up ahead.
There's a whole bunch more chewed-off sticks.
There's a slide over there and another one right here, so the beaver is coming out of the water and onto the snow.
I'm gonna sneak up onto the bank here and just wait and see if he comes out to do his thing.
You know, let's see if he shows himself.
I've never hunted a beaver before.
It seems like a long shot.
I may just be wasting time, but I need to find more food.
Otherwise, I'm gonna be on really slim rations, and I would rather not hike hungry.
In Alaska's Revelations Mountains, the rules of the wild are changing, and Marty Meierotto has spent the last eight weeks working to stay ahead of the curve.
After not being able to be on the trapline trapping, it's nice to be out actually running line.
Running traps, catching fur -- that's what it's all about.
Even the smallest change in nature's balance affects Marty's livelihood on the line.
And while an unusually warm weather system delayed the start of his season, it also created an unexpected opportunity.
I was very surprised to see lynx tracks this high up because they hunt rabbits, and rabbits are usually in the lowland, but this year, for some reason, there's rabbits here.
So, I imagine that's why they're here.
Lynx are solitary and elusive animals, making them among the most difficult to snare.
Their fur fetches a premium price on the market so Marty set five traps to increase his odds.
It'd be really cool to actually catch a lynx in one of those sets I made.
All right.
This is my first cat set.
Hey, the trap and drag are missing.
Something happened.
The drag's missing.
The way I've got my cubby set set up is I put 'em on a drag so that they don't tear up the cubby when they're caught there.
So, they get caught, and then they take off with this drag, and the drag'll tangle on the first little bit of brush or tree or something that they come to.
They usually don't go far at all.
Looks like he went through that way.
Unbelievable! It looks like a nice big one, too.
He just got caught.
I'm looking for a good shot.
Come on.
Turn your head.
A lynx is a specialized predator.
They're gonna get nasty if you try killing 'em.
Even once you catch 'em, they're hard to hold because they are so powerful, so nasty.
If he jumps and that line breaks, it's gonna be bad.
In the Revelation Mountains, Marty has a 50-pound lynx in his sights.
If you get up close, they can get kind of wicked on you.
Lynx are very aggressive, so I need to stay back a little bit, or it's probably gonna bite me.
All right.
Looks like a nice, big tom.
Lynx fur is what they call a luxury fur, and it's used a lot in the trim trade.
Where utility fur is more like a muskrat or raccoon, where it keeps you warm, but lynx fur has the added aspect of being real pretty.
Cool.
Put him away, go remake the set, and go check some more traps! I'm really happy that fur's starting to come in, and then with the added bonus of the lynx, it makes it all worth it.
Pretty neat to be catching cats in this country.
In the foothills of the great Alaska range, Morgan stakes out a beaver dam in hopes of adding some meat to his dwindling food supply.
But after two hours of waiting in the freezing cold, he's seen no sign of his prey.
I've been here a while, waiting to see if I can see a beaver, but taking the time to try to stake this beaver out is another cost-benefit thing, whether I'm gonna waste time sitting there, end up with nothing, or, in a couple hours, I could make 3 or 4 miles.
And I'm getting chilly.
Damn it.
Wondering more if I just bag this and keep moving.
Okay, this is a waste of time.
I'm thinking I'm done here.
I'm like, "The beaver's not coming out.
I'm too damn cold sitting here.
I'm starting to shiver.
I need to get moving.
Let's get back down on the ice, where the walking's a little easier.
Oh! Here he is! Damn! He went under the ice.
Damn it! I know I hit him.
Look at all this blood.
Ohh! Ohh! He's gone! Damn it! I thought, "There he goes.
I just killed this animal, and now I can't recover it, and I'm not gonna have any food.
" Got flushed downstream in the current.
Oh, damn.
Crap.
Maybe he got -- Oh, here he is! Here he is! Here he is! See him there -- that dark spot? He's caught up on something.
He's not moving.
I think he's hung up on something.
There's a bit of current under there, though.
I got to get him out of there before he gets flushed away.
Oh.
Oh Beneath the ice, the water temperature is a bone-chilling 20 degrees.
Come here, you little bugger.
No! No! No! Aww! Whoo! Yeah! Ohh.
Yeah! Whoo-hoo-hoo! He's a nice one! They just love to run for the water.
They're like a mountain goat running off a cliff.
His last throes of life, he just wanted to get back to where he felt secure.
That's a bunch of food.
That's a few days' worth.
I mean, that's just -- That's gonna at least double the food that I've got now.
I'm gonna find a place to bed down and get camping and get some beaver meat roasting on the fire and get a little warmed up, too.
Happy day- Across the country, in North Carolina winter rain has soaked the Blue Ridge Mountains for three days straight, bringing Eustace Conway's logging operation to a standstill.
That looks good, doesn't it? Creek-water corn cakes.
Oh, heck, yeah! But a break in the weather means it's time to get back to work.
What do you think, Eustace? We gonna get up on that steep ground today with it frozen? I wish it was a little drier, but we'll make it do.
Up on the high ground, we've got some trees we haven't been able to get to yet, but we're gonna try to get up there.
All we can do is try, and we'll find out, you know? Tom, you up for that hill today? You guys have been talking about it all week.
Yeah, I'm a little nervous, but if you guys think it's all right, I'm with you.
Their target today is a single giant poplar tree that the land owner marked for removal.
To reach it, they'll need to climb 200 yards up a steep ridge -- a sharp, 45-degree incline blanketed with slick leaves and rocks.
Let's see if we can get everything together.
We'll head on out.
I guarantee you that this is gonna be a lot harder job than what we've been up against so far.
You know, that steep stuff's just dangerous.
It's hard, and we've got our work cut out for us today.
Let's see if we can just tie up right here.
See? It's up there.
See that big one there? Yeah The one with the ribbon? That's the one we're headed for, way up on that hillside.
This is some steep, dangerous stuff right here.
Frozen underneath and wet and mushy on top.
Oh.
You all right? Man, this thing is slick! Boy, I can hardly stand up.
Yeah.
I'm not sure we ought to be up on this today.
It's a long way to the horses.
Whoo! Well, we made it.
Man.
I don't want to come and go up through that hill too many times today.
No.
Let's get everything down that we need down.
Now if we can just get this guy down the hill.
The poplar is mostly rotted, but if Eustace can get it back to camp, he can salvage the usable timber and a pure profit.
We're probably gonna get one or two logs, $80 to $180 out of this one right here.
I think I can hopefully steer a little bit towards the horses there.
Then they can pull it down on the bottom.
So, I'm gonna try to steer it with a hinge cut and let the hinge pull it over here.
Hopefully, it won't get too close to 'em and spook 'em.
Eustace has one shot to drop the tree within a narrow 20-foot corridor, and he's banking on the steep slope to usher it to the bottom.
The hinge that you leave on the tree -- that's the part that you don't cut through -- that's what it folds and hinges on.
That's what controls which way it pulls.
Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no! In North Carolina Whoo! Whoo! Man, did you see that? It hit hard, didn't it? There's a lot of things that can go wrong when you're felling a large tree, and it happens so fast that you hardly even have time to blink.
The tree landed in the clear, but it's still 30 feet from the road.
We're gonna need to get that log somehow over towards that path the horses are on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's go on down there.
The next step is to saw it to length, working 'em down to where we can get to 'em to pull 'em with the horses.
Man! That thing made a big hole when it came down! We'll see what we've got in this thing for a log.
Yeah.
Once it's all cut into pieces, we're gonna roll 'em as far as we can by hand.
I don't know if we're gonna be able to roll 'em or not.
We're just gonna try.
Yeah, I think this piece right here is gonna be the most valuable piece.
We'll get a 10-foot section right down there to Tom.
Iâll tell you what -- I'll saw here some if you'll saw down there some.
We'll see if we can free it up.
Eustace needs to salvage at least one straight 10-foot log in order to make any money off this otherwise rotten tree.
This one should be free.
I've got to be loose down there.
So, what we're gonna do is try to roll it that way.
We're gonna roll this? Well, we're gonna try.
Okay, my man.
I am a little nervous because that's a big tree.
Somebody could get hurt real easy if you're not paying attention to what you're doing.
Whew! All right.
1,2,3.
There we go.
1,2,3.
1,2,3.
There we go.
Oh! Oh! Let it go! Oh Tom! Whew! Whew! God.
That was too close.
You all right? Yeah, I'm fine.
Tom just doesn't have enough experience on these steep hillsides.
He might have learned some logging and stuff somewhere else, but he's just not really aware of everything that can go wrong.
We're just worried about you going down there with that log.
You got to let the log do its own thing.
Amazing how far that thing went downhill, isn't it? It went down so far that we might have to pull it back up just a little bit, and we don't want to pull anything back up.
In Alaska, Morgan prepares for a hard-earned meal.
Got a nice bed of coals there.
The first thing I want to do is get my knife nice and sharp before I go to skin it.
You know, using -- using the knife around camp, whatever, you always get it dull.
I'm feeling really blessed that I recovered this beaver, and it's gonna be awesome to have plenty of fresh meat.
I'm gonna cook the carcass, probably, and strip all the little bits of meat off that, and then the quarters -- I'm gonna save them to cook them fresh over a couple of days so I can have fresh meat for a couple of nights.
I'm gonna try to keep as much fat as I can off the hide so I don't have to pack it around and flesh it later.
All right.
Cool.
There it is skinned off.
It's a pretty nice skin.
It's gonna make a really nice hat or something.
There'll be some fleshing to do on that one.
I've got another three or four or five days' worth of food and probably 10 pounds of good meat I'll get off this animal, besides the nice fur, and I'm stoked.
You know, it's my first beaver.
We've got meat.
Not only just meat, but it's nice, greasy meat that's got some fat to it.
And I've got a cool pelt, so I'm sitting pretty now.
Not too strong.
Sometimes I think beaver gets pretty fishy.
Not bad.
Oh, yeah.
That's a nice, fatty piece, too.
I can't even begin to describe to you how good fat tastes after you've been out here and you're hungry, you know, as long as it's cooked through.
I'm not into raw fat, but fat's got 9 calories per' gram, so it's your densest energy source.
It's gonna keep you twice as warm as just straight protein or straight carbohydrates, sugars.
You know, it's got twice as much energy in it.
I've probably got 60 miles between me and my land right now, and unless something really derails my progress, I got plenty of food now.
I'm gonna eat some more of this and stretch my bag out.
Hopefully just get some good rest and hit it, go up tomorrow, and be one day closer.
400 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in Alaska's Revelation Mountains, Marty rolls into camp with his biggest haul of the season -- a lynx pelt worth $400.
This day turned out better than I had hoped it would.
It's exciting to catch lynx.
This makes it worthwhile.
It's been a really good day.
It's 20 below zero, and the freeze will set in within an hour.
I like to get the lynx skinned 'cause I don't want to have to take him home frozen.
It's just extra hauling weight, and lynx aren't bad to eat.
Skinning a lynx is pretty much just like a marten.
You just make a couple of initial cuts and then just peel it off.
But some places, you have to actually use a knife.
If you can pull it, it goes faster.
Lynx are pretty thin.
I always like catching lynx.
It's a good sign, you know, that it's good trapping country.
When I look at the Revelations, it's a totally new country, and it's unknown.
It's always a gamble, but after a day like today, it makes me feel even better about investing so much time and energy into this area.
It helps make it worth it to me to bring my family out here.
Done! I'm looking forward to that.
You can see the hide's already froze.
I finally feel like I'm a trapper, like this is what I'm meant to do.
I'm looking forward to doing some more trapping tomorrow.
In Montana's Ruby Valley, predators are proving to be a growing threat this winter.
Mountain lions and a recent explosion of the wolf population in the area are keeping Rich Lewis and his dogs busy.
To keep up with the pace, the hunting team must be in peak condition, and today Rich is testing their stamina in a 10-mile run.
Come on.
Get in.
It's like shooting a rifle.
You just don't grab your gun and go hunting.
You need to sight it in and be ready.
When I put 'em on a lion track, my dogs have to be in good condition because if they get tired, the lion's gonna get away from us.
Mountain lions are so powerful, they can run indefinitely at a speed of 10 miles an hour, so Rich will condition his dogs to run twice as fast.
Well, I'm gonna let the dogs out and rode 'em down this road, give them some exercise.
I need to make sure they can run a long distance, so 8 to 10 miles is what I'm looking for.
Then I know they're in good shape and I have a good chance of keeping up with the lion.
All right, one a time.
Let's go.
One at a time.
Come on.
Easy.
Easy.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on, Diamond.
Good girl.
Good girl.
The youngest in the pack is 1-year-old Diamond.
I think they're ready to rock and roll.
Rich is watching her closely to see if she's that rare breed -- a born lion hunter.
Let's go! Come on! Let's go! Hurry up! Come on! Good dogs! Dogs need to go on a long run just like an athlete.
They have to stay in shape.
They really have to put pressure on a lion to get him to go up the tree.
If them dogs can catch him, then he goes up a tree right away.
On my speedometer, looks like I'm about 7 miles so far, so another couple, two, three miles.
They're all doing pretty good.
Turbo's slacking off a little bit, but he's starting to get a little older.
He's a little too heavy yet.
Got to get him on a diet, I guess.
Come on, Turbo! Let's go! Get up here! Come on! 6-year-old Turbo is normally one of Rich's fastest dogs and one he relies on for even the most challenging hunts.
Turbo's kind of falling behind the rest of 'em.
Young Diamond hugs the outside of the pack, matching the veteran dogs stride for stride.
Diamond's doing good.
This is -- She's just a year old.
Well, I better get these guys loaded up.
Come on! Hey! Hey! Come on! Turbo, come on! Come on, Diamond! Come on! Load up! Come on, Diamond! Good girl! Come on! Load up! Good girl.
Diamond has energy to spare, but after passing the speed and stamina test, she will now have to rise to the challenge of a much harder trial.
The dogs did real good.
Now I just have to let 'em out on a scent and see what they're going to do.
In Montana's Ruby Valley, Rich Lewis is working his hunting dogs to keep them in peak performance for chasing mountain lions.
After a 10-mile endurance run, the next challenge is critical to refining their most powerful skill.
When I train my dogs, they have to be physically in shape to run a long distance, but I also have to train them to develop their nose.
The better they develop their nose, the better they can smell the track.
I'm gonna go to another location now that I can lay some scent and work with them on good scent and bad scent.
This looks like a good spot right here.
The hounds have 100 times the smelling power of a human, but they perceive every scent as equally strong.
The most difficult training exercise will hone their ability to distinguish one scent from the other.
These are deer glands.
I cut these off a deer when I kill a deer and salt them.
Deer glands hold a lot of scent.
I'll wet these, and this is what I'm gonna drag through the snow as one of my scents.
This is a piece of old bear hide.
I'll wet this, put my lion urine on there, and make a drag.
And then I'll get somewhere where I can put it in the roll cage, and so the dogs think that they've got the scent of a lion, and they should go to treeing.
And then these other scents -- I'm hoping they don't follow them, but we're gonna find out.
I'm constantly training them because the more I train them, the better their nose is, and that's what I got to develop.
And if they develop a really good nose, they have a lot better chance of catching a lion.
I'm just leaving the gland here for that smell, and then I'm gonna take my lion drag and go way out here.
There's a lot of work that's involved.
You just don't take a dog and go out lion hunting.
They cannot chase deer and elk because a lion -- and I've seen it -- will see deer, and they will go right through a herd of deer because they know there's a good chance that them dogs are gonna chase that deer instead of him.
Rich drags four different scents over a 10-acre area, including a stream where inexperienced dogs tend to lose the track.
Now I just have to let 'em out on the scent and see what they do.
In North Carolina, Eustace and his team have spent most of the day wrestling a SOD-pound log off a steep mountain slope.
But now they've overshot the trail below.
Until they're able to hook it to the horses and haul it back to camp, there will be no payday.
'Cause it's too hard for the horses to pull just straight up that slippery hill.
We're gonna rig a little system with a rope and some pulleys and anchor 'em on some trees.
Hopefully, that log will just go right up that slick hillside.
If we can take the end of this with some grabs and sort of pull it up the hill Uh-huh.
we're gonna take the rope around the pulley on that poplar and then back down the hill to that tree there, put another pulley on that poplar, and then shoot the rope down to where the horses are right now.
The horses can go down the hill using all their body weight and gravity on them, and that, hopefully, will pull that log up the hill.
You could drop one pulley right about there if you wanted to.
Bye.
Bye.
Good boys.
Go ahead.
Good job, Preston.
I believe we're about ready for the horses.
Any time you start moving these big things around, it's dangerous on a good day when the ground's not slicker than snot.
The horses are hitched to the pulley in order to make the difficult maneuver.
Bye.
Bye.
You don't want to roll it somewhere by mistake or get it lodged where it's harder to get it out, so when you make a move, you want it to count.
Wait.
Bye.
Bye.
Y'all get out of the way.
All right.
Ready? And get up, boys.
Wait.
Ho, ho, ho! Wait.
Rest easy, boys.
We made it, didn't we? Yeah, that worked real good.
It cost Eustace an entire day to fell this single tree, and at best, he only earned $180 worth of timber for his efforts.
Today has been a challenging day.
Tom made some mistakes, and that set us back, and we didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but we at least made it safely through the day.
And come up, boys.
Came in with one log.
That's better than nothing.
Slo-o-o-o-o-w down.