Mountain Men (2012) s04e01 Episode Script
Adapt or Die
This season on "Mountain Men" I'm back in the Revelation Mountains, and I'm kind of making a gamble out here.
But I'll do whatever it takes to keep going.
This is my life.
This is what I do.
There's a lot of risks and dangers out here.
But I have to provide for my family.
The last winter was a rough winter.
But my whole goal in life is just to live.
Living wild, living free, to me, that's everything.
So, we're heading way back in the woods.
Hopefully, we can make it work.
A logging operation has more risk and more danger than about anything.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! The Alaska Range, it's one of the biggest pieces of rock on Earth.
I've got to get to the other side of that.
You never know what's gonna happen.
You need to be prepared.
Whoa.
Ah! Can't hardly see where I'm going.
Ah.
If this gets any worse, it can kill me real quick.
You just have to adapt or die.
Last year, we had such a cold winter.
It's just the strongest ones that survive.
Every year, it gets a lot harder.
Whoa.
Them are grizzly tracks.
That's the deal up here.
You've just got to keep going and try never to stop.
So, I'm gonna give it all I got.
It's late October in Montana's Yaak Valley, and winter's making an early appearance.
It's an unwelcome omen because last season, early storms ushered in one of the most relentless winters on record and a year of violent extremes across the country.
For those who make their living off the land, the rules are changing, and survival hangs in the balance.
Winter's still ahead of us.
We're just getting into it.
This time of year, I can use all the skins I can gather.
So, we're gonna get after it, get to working on it.
Torn Oar is returning home after a few days on the road.
The elk hide he picked up along the way will be his first big-ticket project this fall, and he's eager to get started.
The hell? Whoa.
Whoa.
Look at this.
The hell happened here? Had to be a bear.
Had to be a bear.
What a mess.
Claw marks.
Oh.
Holes.
Tore all these skins down.
Wow.
Lot of work for nothing.
Man.
There's frames broken and holes in hides.
Skins are torn up and ripped, and lots of skins are ruined.
And, I mean, there's a lot of work into the skins that have been ruined so far.
This is a real mess.
A real mess.
Lock of bear hair.
That's what it was.
We've had bears come onto the deck and stuff, but we've never had one actually break into the shop before.
This is definitely a black bear.
And that's kind of what I figured it was.
This is the last thing I needed.
In Alaska on the southern coast, the 14-million-acre Mat-Su Valley sits in the shadow of the massive Alaska Range.
And the tallest peak in North America, native Athabaskans named it "Denali" -- The High One.
In this treacherous land, cut by a web of ancient rivers, one man is preparing for the journey of his life.
I live one breath at a time and one step at a time and one day at a time.
I like to be out in it and in the nitty-gritty and get wet and get cold and get hot and get covered in smoke and blood and just be a human animal.
My name is Morgan Beasley, and I'm 33 years old.
I'm originally from Idaho, and now going into my fifth winter in Alaska.
Morgan lives wild.
He has spent the last 10 years moving across Alaska, along with the changing seasons.
I've been living off the land ever since I was in my early 20s.
It's a pretty high-stakes living, really.
But I have a whole skill set that I've developed throughout my life to fall back on.
Now he's looking to set down roots, and to do that, he'll embark on the most grueling trek he's ever undertaken -- across America's most forbidding mountains.
I just purchased 37 acres of land on the other side of the Alaska Range.
Everyone wants to make their mark on the world, and being able to build a home from start to finish with a raw piece of land is just a dream.
So that's pretty awesome motivation to get your feet moving, but first, I got to get there.
It's a 275-mile journey from Morgan's campsite here on Cook Inlet to his plot of land on the other side of the Alaska Range.
And without access to a bush plane, Morgan will cover the distance on foot.
The Alaska Range, it's one of the biggest pieces of rock on Earth.
And I'm thinking I got to get to the other side of that.
I know winter's coming, and I only have so much time to get to my land.
Let me show you the big picture here.
This is me here, and this is the property I just purchased.
And I've got to work my way up to these mountains, several large rivers to cross.
I look for a viable pass through the range.
And then it'll be another -- another good, solid 100 miles or so.
You know, God willing, I should be there.
Now, just to put this all in perspective, this little lighter here -- that probably equals about one day of travel.
I'm hoping to average 8 or 9, 10 miles a day.
It's going to take awhile.
The decision to leave in late fall is a calculated risk Well, I'd better get going.
that pits Morgan in a race against the coming winter.
There's certainly risks to starting out this late, but hiking this time of year has its merits -- leaves are off the brush, the swamps and tundra is frozen solid, a little easier to walk on.
But the dangers in the late fall, you get slammed with real cold temperatures.
Of course big storms are always a significant concern.
If you can't manage keeping yourself warm, you're gonna die.
End of story.
Well, this here, this is all my gear that I'm gonna be bringing with myself.
Years of living nomadically have taught Morgan how to travel light.
Everything I've got, I try to balance durability versus weight and functionality versus weight.
You know, there's a real big difference between 40 pounds on your back and 70 pounds on your back.
His supplies include a bedroll, 12 pounds of smoked goat meat, and a lightweight tarp for protection.
Just can't afford to carry all the conveniences and comfort.
I have to go pretty bare-bones.
But there's one tool he can't do without.
This is my .
357 here.
I like it 'cause it's lightweight and it packs enough of a punch to do the job.
There's a number of potentially dangerous animals in Alaska -- black bear, moose, grizzly bear -- so you got to be ready, you got to be aware.
So, I consider this kind of like my claws or my teeth.
It's my way of saying that I don't come easy and I don't come free.
A long journey like this across wild landscape, you got to be really honest with yourself.
You know, you got to get your ego out of the situation and say, "What am I doing? ls this too dangerous? Am I taking too big of a risk?" All right, it's time to get gone.
The goal is to arrive alive.
If you die, you lose.
In the shadow of the great Alaska Range the vast wilderness of the Mat-Su Valley is virtually untouched by man, leaving Morgan to cut a path through land where no one has traveled before on the way to his first way point, the Susitna River.
Trips like this, there's really no trails or roads or tracks.
Most of the time, I'm totally just picking my own way through.
There's just a whole lot of brush in Alaska.
They call it the bush for a very good reason, and it can be darn-near impassable.
Whew.
You're really working three times harder than you thought you were to go half the speed.
As he heads north, Morgan will navigate by keeping the sun at his back until afternoon.
He travels in a general direction but must adapt to the terrain and its obstacles.
Oh, there she is.
Now I just got to find a way down there.
From the ridgeline, the river looks passable, and that's an important advantage.
Any time I've got a river or creek big enough to float the raft going my direction, I try to use it.
Oh, that does look inviting to my sore feet.
Morgan carries a four-pound inflatable raft in his pack.
It's his most important piece of gear for navigating in the Alaskan backcountry.
A mile in the raft might take 10 minutes compared with that same mile might take you an hour or even longer in bad terrain.
Oh, man, this creek looks nice and floatable.
It's gonna be a real nice break from humping this monster pack up and down the hills.
The Susitna River runs west through the valley for 300 miles, and if it's clear of ice, it will allow Morgan to skirt around the base of the Alaska Range.
Winter's coming on.
The waterways are starting to ice up.
And slower, you know, safer waterways are gonna ice up first, unfortunately.
Even though it looks good on the map, you come around the corner on some of these creeks, they'll dive into a canyon, and they get hairy really fast, and you got to be ready to get the heck out of the creek.
If I lose my raft, if I lose my pack, I'm in a really serious survival situation.
This is my raft.
It's pretty nifty.
It's, like, almost as important as a pair of boots.
You got to have a way to cross rivers if you're gonna do a long distance trip.
And at 4 1/2 pounds, it's not too much extra weight to carry around.
The raft is a single air chamber, which means if you do get a leak, your raft is going to deflate and you will be in the water.
And I've got like three ways to make a fire on me.
I've got my map, my compass.
So if I hit the shore with just the clothes on my back, I've got the means to start a fire, to plan an escape route, and rescue myself.
On the map, it looks like this creek's gonna be going my way for a few miles, then I'll be back to humping it.
All right, here we go.
We're rafting now.
Back in the Lower 48 Tom assesses the damage after a raid on his tanning shed.
Oh, God.
It looks like I've been completely attacked by something.
Turns out it's a black bear.
It just tore these suckers apart.
The thing that probably brought the bear in in the first place was these two fresh skins that had been set here, because they still had blood in the hair, and they weren't frozen, so the smell was still good on them.
And he must've just smelled it.
And then, also Nancy and the dog wasn't here for two nights, too.
The dog is usually real aggressive toward bears.
I think that's what really keeps them away, you know, but without Ellie being here, it was the bear's opportunity.
Bears normally prepare for hibernation by putting on weight -- as much as 30 pounds per week in the fall -- but when winter strikes early, it accelerates their timeline, making the hunt for food urgent and the bears more dangerous.
Starvation brings desperation, that's all there is to it.
That's a desperate bear.
He just wanted to put on that extra bit of food.
He just needed to eat.
What a deal.
It took a big bear to do this, to bust out the window and to be able to climb in.
You can see claw marks on the outer edge of the thing where he just stuck his feet into the wood to climb in to break this window out.
So, I know this is the way it came in.
And now we got snow and weather coming in.
I'm gonna have to get this window covered in because it's snowing out.
Pretty soon we'll have snow blowing in here on the floor and all over the skins, too.
The tanning shed is the base of Tom's entire operation.
The destruction is a loss of both money and time.
He's done lots and lots of damage here.
Yeah, I've got hours in the work, and he probably tore it all apart in an hour.
I haven't gone through it yet to find out what the real damage is, but looks like lots of skins were ruined.
Well, this will at least keep the snow out.
It probably won't keep the bear out again, but ought to keep the snow out of here.
Bears are one thing you don't want to have coming around because they make a habit of it.
If they come to your place one time and get some free chow, they'll normally come back.
Damn that bear.
Damn that bear.
Okay.
We got to stop this.
I mean, we can't have this bear doing this all the time.
I've got to clean up the mess that he made.
I guess I'm gonna have to bear-proof it even more.
In North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, winter is still weeks away, but Eustace Conway isn't up to his usual preparations.
Instead, he and Preston are closing down and heading out.
Right now we've got a unique opportunity.
One of our neighbors that lives about 40 miles from here, he's got about 100 acres, and he said we could selectively harvest the trees on his land.
So, basically, Preston and I can take advantage of what he wants to get rid of.
We're gonna go out there and see if we can cut a lot of trees and get the lumber and sell the logs.
Last season, Eustace restored his century-old sawmill and partnered with Preston to start a business turning timber into lumber.
This is really a nice opportunity for us.
Timber prices are the highest they've been ever.
So we stand to really make some good money on that.
We can make $10,000, $12,000.
It looks like we're getting it.
Yes, we are.
Finally.
Man, that's a lot to pack up.
Seems like a win-win deal, and we're going after it, and we're taking a gamble on the whole thing, but if we make it work, we'll come out all right.
And Preston and I are splitting the profits right down the middle.
It will take about four months to clear and collect the dead timber from the 100-acre property, so Eustace and Preston will stay on site until the job is done.
Just getting out to that piece of land is gonna be quite a journey.
The only way to get there is by horseback or horse and wagon.
Once we get out there, we're gonna set up a logging camp.
That'll be our winter home, so we're gonna set up things to make it as comfortable as we can.
We've got a limited amount of canned goods and dried food to take with us.
But, you know, living off the land, there's everything you need out here.
It's gonna be a whole different ballgame for us.
I'm looking forward to the challenge, and I think we're gonna do fine.
But, uh -- But it's a big one.
Eustace is locking up Turtle Island for the winter and leaving it to the care of a neighbor while he's away.
Well, you know, I don't like leaving home.
This is the first time in years and years that I've been away for this long.
It makes me a little uneasy just leaving everything at home and just hoping it'll be as good when I get back, but this job is just too good to pass up.
You're sure we got everything packed right? Lord, I don't know if we do or not.
Right on, let's get out of here.
And come on, boys.
Good boys.
We've got a real opportunity here with this stand of timber.
Logging is always hard.
It's always dangerous.
And we're biting off a pretty big chunk here.
Got to have the money to keep my land, and if this is what I got to do, I got to do it.
Goodbye, Turtle Island.
In Northern Alaska, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Marty Meierotto is the only man for miles around.
He's returned to the isolated Revelation Mountains to make a new start.
And for a mountain man, that means a lot of heavy lifting.
The type of tree I'm looking for is something about 8 to 10 inches at the butt and as straight as it can be.
All right, this one doesn't look too bad.
After the success of last year's exploratory trapping season, Marty is back to set up a permanent foothold here.
He spent the last three weeks building a trapper's cabin to protect him from the harsh winter ahead.
To conserve his energy as he builds the cabin by hand, Marty fells and processes one tree at a time.
Size log I'm looking for -- I can't have it too big because then I can't move it.
And if I have it too small, it's not big enough for the cabin.
Moving these logs all by yourself, it's a lot of work, just a lot of heavy lifting.
Oh.
Once the log is cut, Marty hauls it to his portable wood mill -- a special tool that mounts his chainsaw to cut the log along a horizontal plane.
To build the cabin this way, this mill is like the main component.
I can't stack the logs in the round by myself.
Milling the logs gives them a flat surface on each side, which he needs to build the cabin walls.
Without the mill, it would be impossible for him to stack and brace the rounded logs without help.
I'm just gonna take a slab off this log.
I'm gonna roll it, take another slab, roll it, take another slab, and then I'll be done.
And that'll be three-sided so the logs have a flat place to stack.
Okay, so now I've got a slab taken off, so that's a surface that the log can lay on, the next log.
So when I get it up on the wall, I can just set it down and spike it in place.
I don't have to worry about rolling off.
And it's the only way I could figure out how to build a cabin by myself.
All right, that's the last cut on this one.
Each log weighs 300 pounds.
The final step is to hoist it onto the wall and spike it in place.
All right.
Just lifting the log straight up on the roof, I can't do.
They're heavy, so you always have to kind of find a balancing point and swing them around that way.
The wall serves as a fulcrum to take some of the weight off Marty's shoulders.
If I can get the log balanced in the center somewhere, kind of like a teeter-totter, then I can lift the other end with ease.
To be exactly level or exactly square doesn't matter on a trapping cabin.
Only thing that matters is it being warm.
All right, a couple more logs and this wall will be done.
In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom is picking up the pieces after a bear incursion and working to prevent a repeat attack.
There were two hides here that still had meat and stuff on them.
I see he drug one out the back door, and it looked like he was dragging it off.
I need to scrape that meat and fat off of them to keep him from coming back.
So I've got work to do before nightfall.
A black bear's sense of smell is 2,000 times more powerful than a human's, meaning a bear can detect the scent of raw meat from as far away as 20 miles.
There's always the danger of the bears coming.
They're always attracted to the smell of the hides.
It's real hard.
I've got to keep right on the stick all the time to keep things like this from happening.
Hopefully, once the meat's taken off these hides, there won't be near the odor to attract the bears.
This is what that bear came to eat -- the meat off this hide.
Now I've got to make sure that I have no green hides out in the shop anymore.
Things like this are meant to keep us on our toes, even better than maybe what we were.
Once Tom has separated the meat from the hides, he hauls the scraps into the woods far from his property.
The scent should lure the bear away from his home.
I generally have buckets of hide scrapings of meat and fat, and normally, I'll just take it out and I'll dump it out in the woods, as long as I can have it not near the house to draw attention to the shed.
It's a damn bear.
In Montana,Tom Oar stands his ground against a predator.
Go on, bear.
Get out of here.
Get out of here.
Go on.
Get out of here.
Go.
Get out of here.
I would reckon the bear is the same one that tore my shop all apart.
It seemed like he wasn't very afraid of me.
Bears are normally real afraid, and they're usually nocturnal.
They usually come out at night.
What an encounter.
I mean, I've hunted bears a lot, and I've never seen anything like that, you know? Made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Bears that don't fear humans are a serious threat to Tom's way of life in the mountains.
Left unchecked, this predator could return to claim the territory, or worse.
Looks like I might be dealing with a problem bear.
I just can't have this happening.
I'm gonna have to protect this place.
It's all that I have.
If it comes back here, I'll have to kill it.
Morgan heads west on the frigid Susitna River.
He's covered two miles so far, but he needs to travel at least six more today to stay on schedule and reach his property before the dead of winter arrives.
You have to go all ice breaker on it.
Floating is way easier than bushwhacking.
It's such a wonderful feeling to be floating in the raft past miles and miles of awful brush that would just take you hours and hours to get through.
But it is far more dangerous.
The water temperature is well below freezing.
If submerged, the human body can only survive for 15 minutes in these conditions.
I'm looking at what the flow is, you know, if there's ice present.
You know, ice is sharp.
It'll pop a raft.
There's lots of rocks and things.
Whoa.
The inflatable raft is made of durable quarter-inch rubber, but it's still vulnerable to sharp rocks, ice floes, and branches.
You have to have excellent river-reading skills if you're even gonna try to do something like this.
Your eyes are always downstream.
I don't have anyone there to rescue me.
I'm the one in charge of my own destiny when I'm in that raft.
Sounds like white water up ahead.
Whoa.
Whoa.
It's picking up here.
Hopefully, there's no bad rocks in there that'll rip up the bottom of my boat.
I'll make a shot up here between this logjam and these rocks.
Whoa.
Yeah, it's definitely getting interesting.
Well, there's some rocks in here.
Whoa.
Hopefully, I'll find a place where the river is slower moving, so I can get out.
Looks like I'm heading into a canyon here.
It's probably just gonna neck down and get faster.
And the walls are getting higher and rockier.
We'll see what's up ahead.
Oh, yeah.
Getting into it now.
Whoa Oh I'm kind of in a real serious survival situation all of a sudden.
The faster the water, the higher the stakes.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Oh Oh, no.
In the Alaskan wild, Morgan is caught in the turbulent waters of the icy Susitna River.
Whoa.
That was a little sketchy.
I got a little wet on that one.
White water can appear with little warning, so Morgan proceeds with caution.
Each corner, there's a new scenario.
It's a new situation.
You really have to be honest with yourself, and you have to make split-second decisions about whether you're gonna continue or not.
You know, you drown in a place like that, uh, odds are no one's ever gonna find your body.
Oh No, no, out, out, out.
Whew.
Oh, that is heinous down there.
Whew.
Oh, hell, no.
That's awful.
Oh, man.
Even in, you know, a relatively small river like this, like, that kind of stuff is just nothing I'd ever mess with.
I see that, and it just looks deadly to me.
Looks like I'm done with this creek.
I think I'm going to, uh, climb up out, even kind of head up towards the high country.
I'd like to figure out my route and see what I can see.
All right.
Get the hell out of here.
Whew.
3,500 miles southeast and 3,000 feet up in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace and Preston are 10 miles deep on a backwoods trail to reach the plot of land they'll be working this winter, and they've found themselves sidelined by a roadblock.
123.
123.
123.
It's taken two hours to cut enough logs to repair a decaying bridge along the trail, which was first blazed by Confederate troops moving through the mountains during the Civil War.
We found this bridge, but there's some gaping holes and low spots that aren't really passable for the horses.
There's nowhere else to cross this river, especially with this wagon.
We've got to get the bridge fixed to get to lumber camp.
It's getting hard.
Let's hammer it in there.
All right.
It's going.
I believe we have enough support, really, and what we need is something to fill in all these Yeah.
little cracks.
We can just put a bunch of rocks in there and put them where the horse can't force them through.
Incoming.
It's still a little bit floppy.
Yeah.
But at least I don't see any holes that I know a horse will go through.
There's no turning back.
We can't just go home.
We have to get across this bridge.
Well, I'm just gonna spot you.
All right.
Let's try it out.
Step over, boys.
Step over.
Step over.
Good boy.
And go ahead.
Yes! Ha! With 30 miles of broken trail still ahead, Eustace and Preston push on.
We've got a limited amount of time to do this entire logging camp.
The more time on the trail, the less time we have out logging.
We've got to get this show on the road.
6,000 feet up in the mighty Revelation Mountains, Marty's cabin build is progressing one log at a time.
But living this far north comes with a unique obstacle.
The time crunch I have is, I can only work when it's light out.
The days are getting pretty short.
My work window gets smaller and smaller every day.
I lose seven minutes a day.
So I try to build it as fast as I can.
Oh, crap.
Ah, looks like the chain just jumped from all this dirt.
The chain gets so stretched out, it jumps off the bar.
Out here, there's so much dust and dirt in the trees, the chain doesn't get enough lube and it starts getting hot and stretches out, and it'll jump off.
Well, I got to fix 'er.
Without a blanket of snow to cover the ground, the wind systems in the Revelations are so violent, that they kick up gales of loose topsoil that embed beneath the tree bark.
One of the hassles of this country, all this dirt, it just wears everything out.
'Course, every time this happens, I'm fixing instead of cutting, so it's kind of a pain.
All right, back in business.
This is gonna be the inside of the cabin wall.
Man, listen to that wind.
I'd better go check on the airplane.
The wind really came up.
Marty leaves his bush plane tethered to the ground in a nearby clearing, but strong gusts could topple it, leaving Marty stranded.
The plane is my lifeline in and out of here.
If the wind ever destroys the plane, I'm done.
Man, look at that wind.
In Alaska's Revelation Mountains, the violent gusts of a sudden and severe windstorm have the potential to upend Marty's bush plane -- his only lifeline to the outside world.
I came running out here and the plane was rocking, and I looked out on the river, and there's just these huge dust storms.
Wow.
The plane blew back about a foot in this damn wind.
Must be some kind of weather front pushing in.
On the other side of the range, that's the coastal influence, you know, the warmer air.
And I think that's what's going on, is there's probably a weather system on the other side of the range, and it's bubbling up over and ripping down, you know? Storms in the Revelations can last for weeks at a time, which could ruin Marty's plans.
He only has one week left in his flight window.
After that, daylight becomes too scarce to safely make the four-hour flight home.
And he still has one crucial run to make because he's left his trapping supplies behind.
He intended to fly out at first light.
I still have to fly home and get one last load of supplies while I got enough daylight to do it.
With the winds blowing at these kind of velocities, it's just impossible to fly.
I would never get off the ground, probably, without getting blown off the runway and into the brush.
Wow, look at that storm coming.
Can't even see anywhere.
Man, this is nasty.
Mother Nature's king, and she's the one that lets you do what you want to do.
There's no battling Mother Nature.
She makes the calls, and you just deal with what she dished out to you.
This is impossible flying weather right here.
Really, all I can do is pack up everything and hope for the best.
Whoa.
140 miles away, in the glacier-cut Mat-Su Valley, Morgan closes in on his goal for the day.
He's rafted and bushwhacked across eight miles, and now he needs to plan the next leg of his route.
I'm heading up for some higher ground so I can look around at the next part of the journey.
Climbing to an altitude of 3,000 feet, the wind begins to whip, plunging the temperature to 10 below zero.
Whew.
Ah.
I think I'm almost to the top.
Whoa! Oh, yeah.
Whoo! Look at that.
There's the Alaska Range.
Oh, I see the Great One, Denali.
That's an Alaskan-size mountain there.
My land I'm going to is on the other side of that.
But I can't make it through there.
So I've got to head along the front of the range.
Miles and miles.
I'm gonna to have to hike along the front of the mountains till they diminish in size a little bit, and I can find a path through.
I think I probably covered 8 or 10 miles today between the hiking and the packrafting.
That's probably about average for off trails and stuff like this.
I'm feeling pretty good so far.
Uh, but I still have a long way to go, and, uh, I know winter's coming.
Next time on "Mountain Men" the pressure mounts as winter closes in.
I'm gonna do whatever I've got to do to keep the bear from getting back in again.
Tom fights back.
Kyle finds himself on dangerous ground.
That's a bear den.
I'm not the only predator out here.
And Morgan takes one step too far.
Whoa.
Ah! Ah!
But I'll do whatever it takes to keep going.
This is my life.
This is what I do.
There's a lot of risks and dangers out here.
But I have to provide for my family.
The last winter was a rough winter.
But my whole goal in life is just to live.
Living wild, living free, to me, that's everything.
So, we're heading way back in the woods.
Hopefully, we can make it work.
A logging operation has more risk and more danger than about anything.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! The Alaska Range, it's one of the biggest pieces of rock on Earth.
I've got to get to the other side of that.
You never know what's gonna happen.
You need to be prepared.
Whoa.
Ah! Can't hardly see where I'm going.
Ah.
If this gets any worse, it can kill me real quick.
You just have to adapt or die.
Last year, we had such a cold winter.
It's just the strongest ones that survive.
Every year, it gets a lot harder.
Whoa.
Them are grizzly tracks.
That's the deal up here.
You've just got to keep going and try never to stop.
So, I'm gonna give it all I got.
It's late October in Montana's Yaak Valley, and winter's making an early appearance.
It's an unwelcome omen because last season, early storms ushered in one of the most relentless winters on record and a year of violent extremes across the country.
For those who make their living off the land, the rules are changing, and survival hangs in the balance.
Winter's still ahead of us.
We're just getting into it.
This time of year, I can use all the skins I can gather.
So, we're gonna get after it, get to working on it.
Torn Oar is returning home after a few days on the road.
The elk hide he picked up along the way will be his first big-ticket project this fall, and he's eager to get started.
The hell? Whoa.
Whoa.
Look at this.
The hell happened here? Had to be a bear.
Had to be a bear.
What a mess.
Claw marks.
Oh.
Holes.
Tore all these skins down.
Wow.
Lot of work for nothing.
Man.
There's frames broken and holes in hides.
Skins are torn up and ripped, and lots of skins are ruined.
And, I mean, there's a lot of work into the skins that have been ruined so far.
This is a real mess.
A real mess.
Lock of bear hair.
That's what it was.
We've had bears come onto the deck and stuff, but we've never had one actually break into the shop before.
This is definitely a black bear.
And that's kind of what I figured it was.
This is the last thing I needed.
In Alaska on the southern coast, the 14-million-acre Mat-Su Valley sits in the shadow of the massive Alaska Range.
And the tallest peak in North America, native Athabaskans named it "Denali" -- The High One.
In this treacherous land, cut by a web of ancient rivers, one man is preparing for the journey of his life.
I live one breath at a time and one step at a time and one day at a time.
I like to be out in it and in the nitty-gritty and get wet and get cold and get hot and get covered in smoke and blood and just be a human animal.
My name is Morgan Beasley, and I'm 33 years old.
I'm originally from Idaho, and now going into my fifth winter in Alaska.
Morgan lives wild.
He has spent the last 10 years moving across Alaska, along with the changing seasons.
I've been living off the land ever since I was in my early 20s.
It's a pretty high-stakes living, really.
But I have a whole skill set that I've developed throughout my life to fall back on.
Now he's looking to set down roots, and to do that, he'll embark on the most grueling trek he's ever undertaken -- across America's most forbidding mountains.
I just purchased 37 acres of land on the other side of the Alaska Range.
Everyone wants to make their mark on the world, and being able to build a home from start to finish with a raw piece of land is just a dream.
So that's pretty awesome motivation to get your feet moving, but first, I got to get there.
It's a 275-mile journey from Morgan's campsite here on Cook Inlet to his plot of land on the other side of the Alaska Range.
And without access to a bush plane, Morgan will cover the distance on foot.
The Alaska Range, it's one of the biggest pieces of rock on Earth.
And I'm thinking I got to get to the other side of that.
I know winter's coming, and I only have so much time to get to my land.
Let me show you the big picture here.
This is me here, and this is the property I just purchased.
And I've got to work my way up to these mountains, several large rivers to cross.
I look for a viable pass through the range.
And then it'll be another -- another good, solid 100 miles or so.
You know, God willing, I should be there.
Now, just to put this all in perspective, this little lighter here -- that probably equals about one day of travel.
I'm hoping to average 8 or 9, 10 miles a day.
It's going to take awhile.
The decision to leave in late fall is a calculated risk Well, I'd better get going.
that pits Morgan in a race against the coming winter.
There's certainly risks to starting out this late, but hiking this time of year has its merits -- leaves are off the brush, the swamps and tundra is frozen solid, a little easier to walk on.
But the dangers in the late fall, you get slammed with real cold temperatures.
Of course big storms are always a significant concern.
If you can't manage keeping yourself warm, you're gonna die.
End of story.
Well, this here, this is all my gear that I'm gonna be bringing with myself.
Years of living nomadically have taught Morgan how to travel light.
Everything I've got, I try to balance durability versus weight and functionality versus weight.
You know, there's a real big difference between 40 pounds on your back and 70 pounds on your back.
His supplies include a bedroll, 12 pounds of smoked goat meat, and a lightweight tarp for protection.
Just can't afford to carry all the conveniences and comfort.
I have to go pretty bare-bones.
But there's one tool he can't do without.
This is my .
357 here.
I like it 'cause it's lightweight and it packs enough of a punch to do the job.
There's a number of potentially dangerous animals in Alaska -- black bear, moose, grizzly bear -- so you got to be ready, you got to be aware.
So, I consider this kind of like my claws or my teeth.
It's my way of saying that I don't come easy and I don't come free.
A long journey like this across wild landscape, you got to be really honest with yourself.
You know, you got to get your ego out of the situation and say, "What am I doing? ls this too dangerous? Am I taking too big of a risk?" All right, it's time to get gone.
The goal is to arrive alive.
If you die, you lose.
In the shadow of the great Alaska Range the vast wilderness of the Mat-Su Valley is virtually untouched by man, leaving Morgan to cut a path through land where no one has traveled before on the way to his first way point, the Susitna River.
Trips like this, there's really no trails or roads or tracks.
Most of the time, I'm totally just picking my own way through.
There's just a whole lot of brush in Alaska.
They call it the bush for a very good reason, and it can be darn-near impassable.
Whew.
You're really working three times harder than you thought you were to go half the speed.
As he heads north, Morgan will navigate by keeping the sun at his back until afternoon.
He travels in a general direction but must adapt to the terrain and its obstacles.
Oh, there she is.
Now I just got to find a way down there.
From the ridgeline, the river looks passable, and that's an important advantage.
Any time I've got a river or creek big enough to float the raft going my direction, I try to use it.
Oh, that does look inviting to my sore feet.
Morgan carries a four-pound inflatable raft in his pack.
It's his most important piece of gear for navigating in the Alaskan backcountry.
A mile in the raft might take 10 minutes compared with that same mile might take you an hour or even longer in bad terrain.
Oh, man, this creek looks nice and floatable.
It's gonna be a real nice break from humping this monster pack up and down the hills.
The Susitna River runs west through the valley for 300 miles, and if it's clear of ice, it will allow Morgan to skirt around the base of the Alaska Range.
Winter's coming on.
The waterways are starting to ice up.
And slower, you know, safer waterways are gonna ice up first, unfortunately.
Even though it looks good on the map, you come around the corner on some of these creeks, they'll dive into a canyon, and they get hairy really fast, and you got to be ready to get the heck out of the creek.
If I lose my raft, if I lose my pack, I'm in a really serious survival situation.
This is my raft.
It's pretty nifty.
It's, like, almost as important as a pair of boots.
You got to have a way to cross rivers if you're gonna do a long distance trip.
And at 4 1/2 pounds, it's not too much extra weight to carry around.
The raft is a single air chamber, which means if you do get a leak, your raft is going to deflate and you will be in the water.
And I've got like three ways to make a fire on me.
I've got my map, my compass.
So if I hit the shore with just the clothes on my back, I've got the means to start a fire, to plan an escape route, and rescue myself.
On the map, it looks like this creek's gonna be going my way for a few miles, then I'll be back to humping it.
All right, here we go.
We're rafting now.
Back in the Lower 48 Tom assesses the damage after a raid on his tanning shed.
Oh, God.
It looks like I've been completely attacked by something.
Turns out it's a black bear.
It just tore these suckers apart.
The thing that probably brought the bear in in the first place was these two fresh skins that had been set here, because they still had blood in the hair, and they weren't frozen, so the smell was still good on them.
And he must've just smelled it.
And then, also Nancy and the dog wasn't here for two nights, too.
The dog is usually real aggressive toward bears.
I think that's what really keeps them away, you know, but without Ellie being here, it was the bear's opportunity.
Bears normally prepare for hibernation by putting on weight -- as much as 30 pounds per week in the fall -- but when winter strikes early, it accelerates their timeline, making the hunt for food urgent and the bears more dangerous.
Starvation brings desperation, that's all there is to it.
That's a desperate bear.
He just wanted to put on that extra bit of food.
He just needed to eat.
What a deal.
It took a big bear to do this, to bust out the window and to be able to climb in.
You can see claw marks on the outer edge of the thing where he just stuck his feet into the wood to climb in to break this window out.
So, I know this is the way it came in.
And now we got snow and weather coming in.
I'm gonna have to get this window covered in because it's snowing out.
Pretty soon we'll have snow blowing in here on the floor and all over the skins, too.
The tanning shed is the base of Tom's entire operation.
The destruction is a loss of both money and time.
He's done lots and lots of damage here.
Yeah, I've got hours in the work, and he probably tore it all apart in an hour.
I haven't gone through it yet to find out what the real damage is, but looks like lots of skins were ruined.
Well, this will at least keep the snow out.
It probably won't keep the bear out again, but ought to keep the snow out of here.
Bears are one thing you don't want to have coming around because they make a habit of it.
If they come to your place one time and get some free chow, they'll normally come back.
Damn that bear.
Damn that bear.
Okay.
We got to stop this.
I mean, we can't have this bear doing this all the time.
I've got to clean up the mess that he made.
I guess I'm gonna have to bear-proof it even more.
In North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, winter is still weeks away, but Eustace Conway isn't up to his usual preparations.
Instead, he and Preston are closing down and heading out.
Right now we've got a unique opportunity.
One of our neighbors that lives about 40 miles from here, he's got about 100 acres, and he said we could selectively harvest the trees on his land.
So, basically, Preston and I can take advantage of what he wants to get rid of.
We're gonna go out there and see if we can cut a lot of trees and get the lumber and sell the logs.
Last season, Eustace restored his century-old sawmill and partnered with Preston to start a business turning timber into lumber.
This is really a nice opportunity for us.
Timber prices are the highest they've been ever.
So we stand to really make some good money on that.
We can make $10,000, $12,000.
It looks like we're getting it.
Yes, we are.
Finally.
Man, that's a lot to pack up.
Seems like a win-win deal, and we're going after it, and we're taking a gamble on the whole thing, but if we make it work, we'll come out all right.
And Preston and I are splitting the profits right down the middle.
It will take about four months to clear and collect the dead timber from the 100-acre property, so Eustace and Preston will stay on site until the job is done.
Just getting out to that piece of land is gonna be quite a journey.
The only way to get there is by horseback or horse and wagon.
Once we get out there, we're gonna set up a logging camp.
That'll be our winter home, so we're gonna set up things to make it as comfortable as we can.
We've got a limited amount of canned goods and dried food to take with us.
But, you know, living off the land, there's everything you need out here.
It's gonna be a whole different ballgame for us.
I'm looking forward to the challenge, and I think we're gonna do fine.
But, uh -- But it's a big one.
Eustace is locking up Turtle Island for the winter and leaving it to the care of a neighbor while he's away.
Well, you know, I don't like leaving home.
This is the first time in years and years that I've been away for this long.
It makes me a little uneasy just leaving everything at home and just hoping it'll be as good when I get back, but this job is just too good to pass up.
You're sure we got everything packed right? Lord, I don't know if we do or not.
Right on, let's get out of here.
And come on, boys.
Good boys.
We've got a real opportunity here with this stand of timber.
Logging is always hard.
It's always dangerous.
And we're biting off a pretty big chunk here.
Got to have the money to keep my land, and if this is what I got to do, I got to do it.
Goodbye, Turtle Island.
In Northern Alaska, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Marty Meierotto is the only man for miles around.
He's returned to the isolated Revelation Mountains to make a new start.
And for a mountain man, that means a lot of heavy lifting.
The type of tree I'm looking for is something about 8 to 10 inches at the butt and as straight as it can be.
All right, this one doesn't look too bad.
After the success of last year's exploratory trapping season, Marty is back to set up a permanent foothold here.
He spent the last three weeks building a trapper's cabin to protect him from the harsh winter ahead.
To conserve his energy as he builds the cabin by hand, Marty fells and processes one tree at a time.
Size log I'm looking for -- I can't have it too big because then I can't move it.
And if I have it too small, it's not big enough for the cabin.
Moving these logs all by yourself, it's a lot of work, just a lot of heavy lifting.
Oh.
Once the log is cut, Marty hauls it to his portable wood mill -- a special tool that mounts his chainsaw to cut the log along a horizontal plane.
To build the cabin this way, this mill is like the main component.
I can't stack the logs in the round by myself.
Milling the logs gives them a flat surface on each side, which he needs to build the cabin walls.
Without the mill, it would be impossible for him to stack and brace the rounded logs without help.
I'm just gonna take a slab off this log.
I'm gonna roll it, take another slab, roll it, take another slab, and then I'll be done.
And that'll be three-sided so the logs have a flat place to stack.
Okay, so now I've got a slab taken off, so that's a surface that the log can lay on, the next log.
So when I get it up on the wall, I can just set it down and spike it in place.
I don't have to worry about rolling off.
And it's the only way I could figure out how to build a cabin by myself.
All right, that's the last cut on this one.
Each log weighs 300 pounds.
The final step is to hoist it onto the wall and spike it in place.
All right.
Just lifting the log straight up on the roof, I can't do.
They're heavy, so you always have to kind of find a balancing point and swing them around that way.
The wall serves as a fulcrum to take some of the weight off Marty's shoulders.
If I can get the log balanced in the center somewhere, kind of like a teeter-totter, then I can lift the other end with ease.
To be exactly level or exactly square doesn't matter on a trapping cabin.
Only thing that matters is it being warm.
All right, a couple more logs and this wall will be done.
In Montana's Yaak Valley, Tom is picking up the pieces after a bear incursion and working to prevent a repeat attack.
There were two hides here that still had meat and stuff on them.
I see he drug one out the back door, and it looked like he was dragging it off.
I need to scrape that meat and fat off of them to keep him from coming back.
So I've got work to do before nightfall.
A black bear's sense of smell is 2,000 times more powerful than a human's, meaning a bear can detect the scent of raw meat from as far away as 20 miles.
There's always the danger of the bears coming.
They're always attracted to the smell of the hides.
It's real hard.
I've got to keep right on the stick all the time to keep things like this from happening.
Hopefully, once the meat's taken off these hides, there won't be near the odor to attract the bears.
This is what that bear came to eat -- the meat off this hide.
Now I've got to make sure that I have no green hides out in the shop anymore.
Things like this are meant to keep us on our toes, even better than maybe what we were.
Once Tom has separated the meat from the hides, he hauls the scraps into the woods far from his property.
The scent should lure the bear away from his home.
I generally have buckets of hide scrapings of meat and fat, and normally, I'll just take it out and I'll dump it out in the woods, as long as I can have it not near the house to draw attention to the shed.
It's a damn bear.
In Montana,Tom Oar stands his ground against a predator.
Go on, bear.
Get out of here.
Get out of here.
Go on.
Get out of here.
Go.
Get out of here.
I would reckon the bear is the same one that tore my shop all apart.
It seemed like he wasn't very afraid of me.
Bears are normally real afraid, and they're usually nocturnal.
They usually come out at night.
What an encounter.
I mean, I've hunted bears a lot, and I've never seen anything like that, you know? Made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Bears that don't fear humans are a serious threat to Tom's way of life in the mountains.
Left unchecked, this predator could return to claim the territory, or worse.
Looks like I might be dealing with a problem bear.
I just can't have this happening.
I'm gonna have to protect this place.
It's all that I have.
If it comes back here, I'll have to kill it.
Morgan heads west on the frigid Susitna River.
He's covered two miles so far, but he needs to travel at least six more today to stay on schedule and reach his property before the dead of winter arrives.
You have to go all ice breaker on it.
Floating is way easier than bushwhacking.
It's such a wonderful feeling to be floating in the raft past miles and miles of awful brush that would just take you hours and hours to get through.
But it is far more dangerous.
The water temperature is well below freezing.
If submerged, the human body can only survive for 15 minutes in these conditions.
I'm looking at what the flow is, you know, if there's ice present.
You know, ice is sharp.
It'll pop a raft.
There's lots of rocks and things.
Whoa.
The inflatable raft is made of durable quarter-inch rubber, but it's still vulnerable to sharp rocks, ice floes, and branches.
You have to have excellent river-reading skills if you're even gonna try to do something like this.
Your eyes are always downstream.
I don't have anyone there to rescue me.
I'm the one in charge of my own destiny when I'm in that raft.
Sounds like white water up ahead.
Whoa.
Whoa.
It's picking up here.
Hopefully, there's no bad rocks in there that'll rip up the bottom of my boat.
I'll make a shot up here between this logjam and these rocks.
Whoa.
Yeah, it's definitely getting interesting.
Well, there's some rocks in here.
Whoa.
Hopefully, I'll find a place where the river is slower moving, so I can get out.
Looks like I'm heading into a canyon here.
It's probably just gonna neck down and get faster.
And the walls are getting higher and rockier.
We'll see what's up ahead.
Oh, yeah.
Getting into it now.
Whoa Oh I'm kind of in a real serious survival situation all of a sudden.
The faster the water, the higher the stakes.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Oh Oh, no.
In the Alaskan wild, Morgan is caught in the turbulent waters of the icy Susitna River.
Whoa.
That was a little sketchy.
I got a little wet on that one.
White water can appear with little warning, so Morgan proceeds with caution.
Each corner, there's a new scenario.
It's a new situation.
You really have to be honest with yourself, and you have to make split-second decisions about whether you're gonna continue or not.
You know, you drown in a place like that, uh, odds are no one's ever gonna find your body.
Oh No, no, out, out, out.
Whew.
Oh, that is heinous down there.
Whew.
Oh, hell, no.
That's awful.
Oh, man.
Even in, you know, a relatively small river like this, like, that kind of stuff is just nothing I'd ever mess with.
I see that, and it just looks deadly to me.
Looks like I'm done with this creek.
I think I'm going to, uh, climb up out, even kind of head up towards the high country.
I'd like to figure out my route and see what I can see.
All right.
Get the hell out of here.
Whew.
3,500 miles southeast and 3,000 feet up in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Eustace and Preston are 10 miles deep on a backwoods trail to reach the plot of land they'll be working this winter, and they've found themselves sidelined by a roadblock.
123.
123.
123.
It's taken two hours to cut enough logs to repair a decaying bridge along the trail, which was first blazed by Confederate troops moving through the mountains during the Civil War.
We found this bridge, but there's some gaping holes and low spots that aren't really passable for the horses.
There's nowhere else to cross this river, especially with this wagon.
We've got to get the bridge fixed to get to lumber camp.
It's getting hard.
Let's hammer it in there.
All right.
It's going.
I believe we have enough support, really, and what we need is something to fill in all these Yeah.
little cracks.
We can just put a bunch of rocks in there and put them where the horse can't force them through.
Incoming.
It's still a little bit floppy.
Yeah.
But at least I don't see any holes that I know a horse will go through.
There's no turning back.
We can't just go home.
We have to get across this bridge.
Well, I'm just gonna spot you.
All right.
Let's try it out.
Step over, boys.
Step over.
Step over.
Good boy.
And go ahead.
Yes! Ha! With 30 miles of broken trail still ahead, Eustace and Preston push on.
We've got a limited amount of time to do this entire logging camp.
The more time on the trail, the less time we have out logging.
We've got to get this show on the road.
6,000 feet up in the mighty Revelation Mountains, Marty's cabin build is progressing one log at a time.
But living this far north comes with a unique obstacle.
The time crunch I have is, I can only work when it's light out.
The days are getting pretty short.
My work window gets smaller and smaller every day.
I lose seven minutes a day.
So I try to build it as fast as I can.
Oh, crap.
Ah, looks like the chain just jumped from all this dirt.
The chain gets so stretched out, it jumps off the bar.
Out here, there's so much dust and dirt in the trees, the chain doesn't get enough lube and it starts getting hot and stretches out, and it'll jump off.
Well, I got to fix 'er.
Without a blanket of snow to cover the ground, the wind systems in the Revelations are so violent, that they kick up gales of loose topsoil that embed beneath the tree bark.
One of the hassles of this country, all this dirt, it just wears everything out.
'Course, every time this happens, I'm fixing instead of cutting, so it's kind of a pain.
All right, back in business.
This is gonna be the inside of the cabin wall.
Man, listen to that wind.
I'd better go check on the airplane.
The wind really came up.
Marty leaves his bush plane tethered to the ground in a nearby clearing, but strong gusts could topple it, leaving Marty stranded.
The plane is my lifeline in and out of here.
If the wind ever destroys the plane, I'm done.
Man, look at that wind.
In Alaska's Revelation Mountains, the violent gusts of a sudden and severe windstorm have the potential to upend Marty's bush plane -- his only lifeline to the outside world.
I came running out here and the plane was rocking, and I looked out on the river, and there's just these huge dust storms.
Wow.
The plane blew back about a foot in this damn wind.
Must be some kind of weather front pushing in.
On the other side of the range, that's the coastal influence, you know, the warmer air.
And I think that's what's going on, is there's probably a weather system on the other side of the range, and it's bubbling up over and ripping down, you know? Storms in the Revelations can last for weeks at a time, which could ruin Marty's plans.
He only has one week left in his flight window.
After that, daylight becomes too scarce to safely make the four-hour flight home.
And he still has one crucial run to make because he's left his trapping supplies behind.
He intended to fly out at first light.
I still have to fly home and get one last load of supplies while I got enough daylight to do it.
With the winds blowing at these kind of velocities, it's just impossible to fly.
I would never get off the ground, probably, without getting blown off the runway and into the brush.
Wow, look at that storm coming.
Can't even see anywhere.
Man, this is nasty.
Mother Nature's king, and she's the one that lets you do what you want to do.
There's no battling Mother Nature.
She makes the calls, and you just deal with what she dished out to you.
This is impossible flying weather right here.
Really, all I can do is pack up everything and hope for the best.
Whoa.
140 miles away, in the glacier-cut Mat-Su Valley, Morgan closes in on his goal for the day.
He's rafted and bushwhacked across eight miles, and now he needs to plan the next leg of his route.
I'm heading up for some higher ground so I can look around at the next part of the journey.
Climbing to an altitude of 3,000 feet, the wind begins to whip, plunging the temperature to 10 below zero.
Whew.
Ah.
I think I'm almost to the top.
Whoa! Oh, yeah.
Whoo! Look at that.
There's the Alaska Range.
Oh, I see the Great One, Denali.
That's an Alaskan-size mountain there.
My land I'm going to is on the other side of that.
But I can't make it through there.
So I've got to head along the front of the range.
Miles and miles.
I'm gonna to have to hike along the front of the mountains till they diminish in size a little bit, and I can find a path through.
I think I probably covered 8 or 10 miles today between the hiking and the packrafting.
That's probably about average for off trails and stuff like this.
I'm feeling pretty good so far.
Uh, but I still have a long way to go, and, uh, I know winter's coming.
Next time on "Mountain Men" the pressure mounts as winter closes in.
I'm gonna do whatever I've got to do to keep the bear from getting back in again.
Tom fights back.
Kyle finds himself on dangerous ground.
That's a bear den.
I'm not the only predator out here.
And Morgan takes one step too far.
Whoa.
Ah! Ah!