Original subtitles

Know your land and know your prey

Bloody hell

good morning

This is Man Tracker.

His work can be a matter of life and death.

Today, it's personal. He has been challenged by these two.

Magnus is a wellness lifestyle coach.

Fitness is his weapon.

But victory comes from within.

I am...

Definitely an A-type. I also need to focus on the spiritual and mental, so

I'm going to be putting out the positive thoughts of me completing it and also me

not getting caught.

Jeff is a seasoned hunter who thrives in the bush.

I like it to be tough. I think I excel. The rougher it gets and the harder

things become, the better I act.

My first impression was that I had a crocodile dundee in my hands.

The reason he's been paired up with me because I'm a city slicker is because

he's got all the experiences in the wild.

Yeah, Magnus seems okay. I'm not sure about some of the rigging he has. He's

got a hard monitor with him.

I hope that doesn't mean anything.

The flare has been fired, and the prey are on the run, taking off through the

rugged foothills of the Canadian Rottens.

Magnus and Jeff have 36 hours to get to a highway 46 kilometers away.

What they carry, when they rest, and the route they take is up to them.

If you're okay with that, Jeff, we're going to head for the tree line just up

there.

They've just met, but like any fugitive, they need a strategy to get out of reach

and out of sight fast.

They have a map, a compass, and a three-kilometer head start.

The stakes?

Bragging rights.

The glory of beating Man Tracker at his own game.

He doesn't have a map or a compass.

and doesn't know where the prey are headed. But he's got the help of local

cowboy T.J. Maynard, who knows every field and fence between here and the

Rockies.

When we saw the flare, it looked like it was coming from over by Joey Buse. He's

got kind of a western town over there, a recreation where they've done some movie

shoots.

Finding the flare site is only the beginning.

Man Tracker needs to establish the prey's direction of travel.

He needs a sign.

Any clue the prey have left behind.

A snapped twig, a crushed leaf, a fresh track.

Only hard evidence will point him in the right direction.

We were only there a couple of minutes and we found their tracks and they

headed pretty much straight west towards one of the big ridges.

Jesus, this is deep.

For the prey, the long grass is tough to cut through.

For Man Tracker, it's a chance to make ground on the prey's lead.

A fresh horse and a clear track makes for a good hunt.

Tracking people through grass like this, it does make it fairly easy to track in

because it's fairly evident where somebody walked in the grass right here.

Normally when somebody walks away through grass, it's silver, and when

they're walking towards you, it's dark.

Man Tracker got a lock on the prey's trail.

But Magnus and Jeff take a steep uphill route.

They know they can't outrun the horses.

Their strategy, go where a horse can't.

The prey make it into the trees.

From there, it's a game of hopscotch, from one bit of cover to the next.

Wow. Wow, look.

A deer.

Something spooked it definitely might have been.

Might have been a man tracker. I hope not. I hope he ain't that close.

Just making me a little nervous here. We got to get going.

I just saw a man directly over there. We need to get back into the

thicket.

He couldn't have seen us. He'd be over there.

I'll tell you, my heart rate shut up. It's now 135.

You'll be all right.

They dive back into the thicket, and their trail disappeared.

But every clearing jeopardizes their cover.

It's an intricate puzzle, and Man Tracker is slowly piecing it together.

Looks like an old quad trail here.

It looks like the people have gone down this way.

There he is again.

How the f*** did he get up so quickly?

Seriously?

It looks like they've come across the fence right there.

All the grass has flattened down.

This is their trail right here.

This was not part of their strategy.

Jeff and Magnus are trapped in the woods.

Man Tracker hasn't spotted them.

Yet.

Camouflage is their only option.

The prey bury themselves into the deep brush.

There's no tracks coming out of this bush.

They've got to still be in there hiding somewhere.

The long grass and uneven ground is perfect cover, but the clock is ticking.

As the posse circles round to the north, the fugitives break out to the south.

Oh, Jeff.

We took off running like rabbits.

My heart rate went up to about 160.

After barely escaping from a twisted game of hide-and-seek with the trackers,

the prey scrambled to regain some separation.

We bolted over another fence.

We're all bloody barbed wire.

I hate that.

And then we reached another open bit where he may perhaps have got a glimpse

of us, but we're now in there.

The thickets of the forest, there's no way he can see us.

That was too close for comfort.

We've got to do better.

Oh, look at this.

Now we've got tracks coming out.

We've got a trail now.

But the trail leads back into the woods, the toughest terrain for the trackers.

The hunted have learned the forest is their best ally.

A buddy man-trucker comes through here, he's going to have a goddamn burr in his

blanket. This horse is going to be pissed off and throw him off. Yeah. And

we're going to get it.

The horses struggle to make it through the tangled trees.

They lose time, and they've locked the trail.

Jeff, you in the down?

I would... You pick up? I pick up. Okay.

All right. The prey are just plain lost.

That's down, if anything.

That trails at the bottom of this dam slope, I think.

Yeah. Sticking to the trees is making it harder for them to keep their bearings,

and the tension builds as the prey vie for control.

Don't leave any tracks in the mud, man, so you can help it.

Hello. Got some raspberries here.

Raspberries. We've got time to pick them. We get a hold of some protein

food. We've got some grasshoppers and crickets and shit.

You are having a giraffe. Some grasshoppers?

Both men carry ample food supplies, but clearly Jeff wants to make a point.

When you get hungry, there's a lot of protein. It's good.

Yeah, I just hate to slug because I ain't been getting enough protein.

The bugs are full of protein. It'd be silly not to get older.

May as well pluck the feet off and the head comes out, guts come out, get the

wings left.

Take the wings off they get caught in your throat.

Oh my god protein That is disgusting

Well, these tracks are pretty

much headed that direction, what is there over there? Well, I was gonna make

this door the hill over here Well, it seems to be a logical place. They can

get water there They haven't had water for quite a while Sounds good. Let's

head over there.

Holy shit.

This is going to be interesting.

It was wet. We come across this one point where we're going to get wet.

I've got two pairs of trainers, but I didn't want to use the other pair, so I

thought, well, if I can avoid this bog, this stream, then I will.

Jeff, you're on your own if you're going that way.

Magnus, at that point, didn't want to get his toes wet.

Looks deep.

So there was some load of tree branches to one side.

So I thought I'd rather risk breaking my neck on there than going through a bog.

I can show off my proprioception, my body's awareness in space.

I'm starting to get a little antsy to keeping the move. You got to get this

heartbeat a little faster. Never mind. I'll bring a mud hole.

Man tracker heads down into the valley.

His horses need water, and as he suspected, so do the prey.

We had a creek to cross, a decent creek, which was nice.

Got to fill up my canteen, get a good drink of water.

What does it taste like then?

Tastes like water. Perfect. I took opportunity there to change my socks,

which were soaked from the last bit of swamp there.

We've been running hard here.

I can appreciate everybody's values and beliefs, but

I don't know what good talking to a stick does.

Holy smokes.

My heart rate is at 165, and I'm just walking.

How many steps are we taking today? If we went 20 clicks, we're at 25,000

steps. The prey have set out on the toughest route possible.

Their objective?

Slow the horses and frustrate man-tracker.

Meanwhile, the trackers have been riding blind for too long.

Finally, they catch a break.

We've got a pretty good track right here.

It looks like a hiking boot with a fairly definite pattern. It's got a hole

right in the middle.

The track is a solid lead, but the prey have left something more behind.

They're making it pretty easy, aren't they? They are.

The veteran hunter has made a rookie mistake.

Yeah, a little evidence for him, whatever.

The tracks with air stocks, I don't think, didn't make any difference.

I sure as hell wasn't going back for them.

The killer climb is costing them.

They don't have time to stop for air, and Jeff's coming up lame.

We saw them three-quarters of the way up the next big ridge in front of us, which

did kind of surprise me because they went straight up.

It's a big ridge, and they went straight up.

I'm alive.

Now I know why he's got the heart monitor shit strapped to him.

I often know his mind's still beating.

It's been a struggle, but we made it.

There's no way we were going to go straight up, so we kind of circled

around and went up.

The long slope.

We've been on the road now for 10 hours, just over 10 hours, and we're pretty

fatigued. I'm feeling pretty much every one of my 47 years. I get a little bit

less. Overconfident and overtired, the prey forget their prime directive.

Stay ahead of man tracker.

And still no sign of man tracker, so I'm happy.

Thank you very much.

Staying dry.

Almost halfway to the finish, the distance between prey and predator is

being measured in obstacles, not kilometers.

And it's a tough, slow climb for Man Tracker. He's losing ground and

daylight.

It only gets steeper. For Jeff and Magnus, it's all downhill.

It's so bloody steep.

Here you go easy, all right?

I'm okay.

Give me that.

Coming down them slopes, that's brutal on the knee. That'll knock you out. I

never experienced anything quite like it.

The horses are also suffering from the punishing hills.

It's getting dark, and Jeff needs to stop.

The descent has exposed his Achilles heel.

Bad knees.

We needed it.

Lay down, get a snooze, do it again tomorrow.

Deadfall and gopher holes hidden in the grass is like a minefield for the

horses. Once the sun begins to set, Mantracker has to make camp.

It was kind of good to get off the horse and then stretch the legs and just get

on something that wasn't moving.

The night temperatures plummet, and the prey risk a fire.

Mantracker might see it, but they know he can't move till dawn breaks over the

ridge.

From just about six inches above my knees down to my toes, it's a mess.

Well, so far they've been going straight north.

If they keep going, what are they going to run into?

The bush just gets thicker and thicker.

The hills get bigger?

Yeah, the hills get bigger.

Not good news for Man Tracker.

Good morning.

I didn't sleep.

I'm a mess.

My feet hurt.

He was basically writing the scenario for the next day. I'm not going to

complete it. He said, you know, my legs are killing me, my knees are hurting,

blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking, suck it up, princess. We've got to keep

moving.

Let's see if I can get my act together.

Because we've got some running to do.

Good morning, hand tracker.

We're around about position here, and we're going to need to move up to there.

Even in daylight, the slope is treacherous for the horses.

The trackers have a long walk down, and at the bottom, a whole lot of fence.

After we found their fire from last night and started tracking them, it was

fairly evident that they were staying to the heavy bush and trying to stay out of

sight.

We found their tracks going into one patch of brush headed straight up the

hill, which is pretty typical of what they did.

The heart rate's high constantly.

I mean, every time I look at my watch, it's well over 120, and it was as high

as 185.

There ain't no way a horse could get up here. My legs were hurting big time. I

was having to help them with my arms to get up there. My knees felt like they

were hammering right up into my...

Into my belly.

You hear that?

That deer was running this direction. We know the prey were probably up in there

somewhere.

But that deer is just standing there looking at us. So it's a pretty safe bet

there's nothing over that way. The prey have probably gone up through these

trees right here.

The steep hill is slowing their pace to a crawl.

At this rate, the prey won't make it to the finish before their 36 hours is up.

It was worrying me that Jeff was complaining about his knees, his

fitness, because we are a team. And if he can't do it, then I'm not going to be

able to carry on either.

So if we get up in these poplars here somewhere, we'll just kind of take a

peek over the edge and then wait for him.

There's no way that bastard is catching us. And if I have to carry her...

Because of your knee, I'm going to carry you.

Yeah.

Good morning.

Not a good situation.

I ain't keen.

My damn feet are starting to hurt again, too.

The prey's decision to take the most difficult routes has cost them.

They've been able to avoid Man Tracker, but they're still 18 kilometers away

from the finish.

I kind of knew we'd come to this open stuff and it's going to be a struggle.

Tired of leaving tracks in the grass, Jeff takes control.

The prey raise the stakes and walk a barbed wire fence.

Bloody hell!

Let's take a chance and stay to the high ground and see if we can parallel them.

If they go south, we'll be able to see them.

Okay. Sounds good.

The tracker's decision to stay on the ridge is costly.

They've lost the element of surprise.

Well, that seam is just its head disappearing just behind them poplars

going back. Okay. So they're paralleling us on the other side of the damn valley

here, which makes it difficult.

They're like rabbits.

We're like rabbits. We're going to stay in the goddamn thicket.

Once again, the prey spot man tracker first.

Now they must plan a covert escape.

Jeff, sit tight for a while, yeah?

They can't sit forever.

They have to move.

But when?

All right.

I'm behind you.

Go fast to the pub.

There they are, right there.

The prey bolt, and Man Tracker's killer instinct kicks in.

But the cover is just too thin.

You think they've seen us, man?

I think I saw us for at least a second or so.

Go, go, go.

Go.

Go, go, go, go.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I wanted to continue the journey. I knew there was a greater distance to go, but

I was just kind of just annoyed, just really pissed off.

We got caught with their pants down as simple as that. They basically circled

and tightened the noose.

That was it.

They basically busted out in front of us like a pair of wounded rabbits.

Neither one of them can run very fast compared to a horse. They were looking

over their shoulder and giving it their best shot, but it was over.

They were pretty mad, but, you know.

Shit happened.

If a convict had done what we just did and covered the terrain that me and Jeff

had covered, I can tell you now, he would have won the court.

It taught me quite a bit about myself the last couple of days and what I can

do if I want to do it.

It's probably one of the best things I've done.

In my life, I've done a few things. This is definitely right up there