Original subtitles

(sighs)

(dramatic music)

- It's not in need of pushing myself like I didn't have to go in there.

I can't allow it my body to deteriorate again.

It was much more empowering to take myself out of the picture.

- I had an idea to try and make a lure.

- Come on.

(beep)

- My fishing game just took a significant blow.

- I need to get this food situation under control.

- Without food, I'm not gonna be able to last as long as Vancouver Island.

- My bowels are still not kicking anything out.

- If I don't have a bowel movement, I won't get to win.

I won't get to provide for my family.

(dramatic music)

- For the first time ever on a loan, 10 past participants return.

They come back with one goal, redemption.

- I deserve to be here and I'm back.

- I want to learn more this time than I did last time.

- Now we fresh hell awaits.

The cold is an incredibly strong punch in the

face in the punishing wilderness of Mongolia.

- We're in the middle of nowhere.

- Mongolia is a very unforgiving land.

They must survive in complete isolation.

- And during as long as they can, I'm just gonna

push and push and push until there's nothing left.

- The last one's standing, wins.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

- That water I boiled last night,

solid chunk of ice.

- I put it by the fire and thought out enough to take a little sip.

- It's 30 outside, you could swing 60 degrees colder.

- Be so cold, my fire will freeze.

- It's like no joke cold.

Every time I lean and it pulls all my clothes tight against my back,

I can feel that the cold is seeped through every layer.

Me just sitting here like this.

(dramatic music)

- You're kind of sleepy today.

I want it to be too lack of sleep.

I'll attribute it directly to a low caloric intake.

Let's see be expected when I'm eating as little as I am.

And all the protein I can get.

- This makes today the first fish I've ever caught when it's snowing.

There's the water higher today.

We can't get the good angle on that cove.

Yesterday I could stand over there.

It's so high in the lip of my boot.

I gotta move back and change the spot.

I gotta give myself a couple of inches from the top of my boot.

See if I can get further out there if I walk.

Check the shoreline and then walk in.

Stupid precipitation, ruining my fishing spot a little bit.

Staying in a freezing river in the middle of a winter.

Nothing is a cold.

I don't know.

It's not for them not biting, just that I can't reach where I know they are.

That's enough.

I can't reach the spots.

That's frustrating.

I'm still trying to stay focused and driven, but it's really hard.

Every day it gets harder.

Probably get used to this though.

I could have a lot of days like this in my future.

Think about.

Think about.

I could be doing a whole lot of that right now.

But those kiddos at home.

My little girl loves people.

I've been worried about my bowel movements

or lack thereof so much that it could result in me tapping out.

Because if I get severe abdominal pain

and I don't tap out, I could seriously ruin my intestines.

But a glorious thing happened and my bowel issues are resolved.

Now it's back to business.

It's just a very cold, dreary place.

And with all this like cold around me, I just decided today to prioritize firewood.

This place could snap at any second and I could be in a world of hurt.

It's a little snowflurry around.

Definitely well, well, well, well freezing.

I'm guessing like 15 right now, maybe.

This is not that late in the year.

Makes you wonder how cold it's gonna be on day 50, 60, 70.

All right, okay, that's all I got later on, can't.

Gotta go out fine for more now.

I've gone something like a week without any protein at this point.

Like I could feel the muscles just wearing out

as the days go by, I can feel my strength giving away.

You haven't tapped into a food source at this point.

Your odds of just magically finding something is very low.

I tried to catch fish out here and it wasn't working for me.

So if I didn't have several pounds of emergency rations

still strapped to my frame in the form of a body fat, probably have issues with that.

So a bit of my strategy is to look down to my belly if I ever feel real hungry.

See if I can pinch anything down there and if I've still got something to pinch,

it means there's still a little bit of life left in me and I'm gonna keep going.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

The blower, that's a log woodpecker.

Come on, I miss my family.

I'll see 'em here soon.

I wish my daughter could see some of the things I've seen.

She'd have a blast too, fishin'.

Fishin' with my own fishin' pole, I made that fishin' pole.

She's gotta get my head right, get focused, start doin' some stuff.

I'm gonna go lookin' around for a nice piece of birch bark that I can harvest.

That's a nice piece right there.

And just make a pair of birch goggles.

Which makes it so you can go out into a snowy,

bright environment without damaging your eyes.

One eyeball is there.

One eyeball is there.

Kinda measure it like that.

Just like that.

They don't look too bad.

They even got the nose part pretty good.

These are, you know, you're not gonna have a great

field of vision out of these, but that's the point.

It narrows down your field of vision.

So the bright glare doesn't come bangin'

against your eyes and give you snowblin' this.

So the next time it's sunny out, I got me a rockin' pair of shades, baby.

You know you wanna pair.

A...

I just wanna do stuff with people, man.

I want somebody to talk to.

I want somebody to interact with.

It gets really lonely, just sharing the experience as just with yourself.

I wanna talk to somebody and say, "Dude, did you hear that L call?

" That's so cool.

Dude, did you hear the wolves?

That's so cool.

Do you see the mountain?

It's so beautiful.

Did you see the sunrise this morning?

It was beautiful.

I want someone to share those experiences with.

This time I'm really missing my family.

Brother (beep)

'cause the charm gone.

I was 18, 20 minutes ago.

Made my wife in high school.

Runin' away.

I'm years it was just me and her.

Not a damn care in the world, man.

Not a care in the world.

God, we were fancy, three-in-foot loose, man.

Moving down south and having two kids.

Cutting a cord on my baby.

Boy, I had my baby girl cutting the cords.

Changing their diapers.

Bottle feedin' 'em.

My son, during the Air Force, he wanted to go see the world.

And my daughter graduated.

She went off to college and it was empty.

It was really empty in the house.

Really empty.

God, I felt mighty.

Give me some (beep) food.

This is terrible.

I've been trying to think out how to write out like a little love note to my wife.

Like how I did on Vancouver Island, how I said I love Rachel.

This is how I've been feeling ever since I launched.

Especially today.

I love you, Rachel.

I don't know how it's to say it.

Right when I got back from Vancouver Island, I was a mess.

As of my wife said, she said I was a hot mess.

I didn't want to reintegrate into society.

I couldn't be in crowded places anymore.

They made me really twitchy.

I hated going to work again.

Rachel, this one really made me realize how much I miss you and miss the family.

I think I'm healed now.

I think those heat will be.

Oh, I didn't even think of that.

I think this did heal me.

I think this trip healed me.

I was such a mess after Vancouver Island.

I just didn't want life at all.

I didn't want anything.

No, I wanted all.

I want it back again.

Since I've been here, I've realized I truly deep down need my family.

It's not a superficial need.

I need my family to survive.

But I'm conflicted because I know I could stay longer.

Would be torture, staying longer.

I want to go home.

I miss my family.

I miss the creature comforts in life.

I'm done.

Hello, this is Larry.

I'm ready for you guys to come get me, man.

Mongolia kind of slapped me upside the head and said, listen, you little moron.

You've got a good job.

You've got an awesome wife.

You've got fantastic kids.

Just stop moving around and enjoy life.

I've just enjoyed the experience so much more than I did on Vancouver Island.

And now I'm ready to go home.

And I've got fantastic people in my life that I want to

keep close to and I don't want to leave them ever again.

And that's what I learned out here.

I'm going to remember what it's like to starve.

I'm going to remember what it's like to not be

able to talk to your friends or talk to your wife.

But I'm also going to remember the blue sky, the ice crystals on the trees.

I'm going to remember my fishing pole and how I caught a lot of fish on that.

I've gotten everything out of this experience I can get.

I had the most pleasure, the most discomfort that helped teach myself these lessons.

Vancouver Island broke me down to just a shell of a person this time.

I'm leaving on my own terms.

It's okay to know your limitations.

And it's okay.

I don't have to push myself as hard as I've pushed myself my entire life.

I'm starting to realize that.

(dramatic music) Test test.

Look, I'm totally not dressed for this yet.

(laughing)

So look at this, it's snowed like five inches of snow.

And you know when it's like when it's snow

outside it's kind of insulated so you're not cold.

You don't feel the cold because it's like, I don't know, maybe I'm just pumped up.

But look at this.

Look at this.

This is awesome.

Mongolia, this is what I was waiting for.

This is what I was waiting for Mongolia.

(dramatic music)

I definitely need to get my fire lit

because I need to get the snow off the top of my shelter.

If it becomes too heavy for my structure to hold it can totally cave in.

At which point I don't know if I can recover from something as catastrophic as that.

So I am incredibly glad that a while back I changed out my birch rafters

and put in these thick pine ones because there's a lot of snow in the roof.

At least it's evenly dispersed.

So I'll keep a nice warm fire, get all this snow melted off my roof.

And yeah, it'll be good.

I hear a drip, which is good.

It's melting.

(dramatic music)

I've got to get firewood.

Because I'm here and gets colder.

It becomes a game of who can endure the cold the longest.

It becomes very difficult to try and maintain body warmth.

I've been jumping over several holes at the same time.

You know, and I can clear the cold hurdle I can clear the alone hurdle.

I can clear the food hurdle, but each of the hurdles are getting a little bit higher.

The alone one snags my foot every once in a long

and makes me stammer and the food one does the same thing.

So each time I'm trying to jump, it just snags me a little bit more.

Oh, the snow is deep.

And the drag on the sled doesn't help.

Look at me taking a rest.

I only walked 50 feet.

Look how good the snow is though.

Oh, wow.

And look at that.

I just look right down.

I mean, there's literally tracks everywhere.

And now I can see where some of the animals do.

They're out here walking all the time.

I mean, I hear them holding it.

And oh, well, we came over here

and dug up all this.

War, bear, crazy.

Look at this.

Damned near hold, hill is overturned.

I mean, that's 10 feet across.

Oh, man.

So that's 14.

And I'm just trying to imagine the size and the strength of the animal

that could be doing this through the snow, through the rock, through the sand.

There's a big hoof tracks.

They are everywhere out here that night.

And they are extremely close to my shelter.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

Tapping to a new food resource.

This is like the hidden jam of Mongolian.

So Mongolian actually has virtually unlimited snow cones

and free more than just one way.

There's no carbohydrates, there's no calories.

You know, it's protein free, vitamin free.

It's free.

You gotta remember not to eat the lemon ones.

I can't be timid around the snow.

I can be actively trapping.

You can really start to unwind the story

that the animals are telling all through their tracks.

So the snow is such a game changer.

So these tracks right here are singing a little bit of rabbit to me.

But I'm also seeing scat and urination spots.

Those are all really good signs that we've got some animal activity.

Pretty good area to put a trap.

So I'm gonna look for basically an area

with two trees that are close enough together

that I can anchor an Athabaskan deadfall trap too.

So the Athabaskan deadfall trap can be as heavy as you want it to be.

We want an instant kill trap.

So we need a lot of weight holding it down.

That's nice and strong now.

So it's all anchored off of this.

We need approximately six times the body weight

of the animal in order to make an effective kill.

As far as critters that we're going after with this,

it's really anything in the five to 20 pound range.

The animal steps right here.

Those are gonna push down that trigger stick and it's gonna trigger it.

Whatever animal there is gonna get a 200 pound log right down on its back.

I think it's set up pretty good.

Well, we'll checker from time to time, once every 24 hours.

And I'm just hoping it'll catch me something.

It's just the most frustrating thing because no matter how

hard I try, the mental demons definitely sneak in there

and they tell you, hey, there's other folks out here.

They're doing a lot better than you.

And that is a very, very dark feeling.

(dramatic music)

But there's a lot more activity right around my camp at night than I realized.

All right, so after seeing this tracks,

I reset my spring scenario, fresh birch, the hope

is that the animal comes in, tugs on, the bait.

It'll release that toggle, pulling that up.

And the loop underneath the animal will cinch tight and it'll go up with it.

Hopefully this will bring something.

Love to get some meat on my plate.

I love the snow.

It's definitely turning me into a bit of a kid.

I just wish I had my kid here to play with me in it.

Really miss my family.

I still think about them constantly.

Talk about them, talk to them.

My family is my drive out here.

That's all that's keeping me going.

If I was here for myself, I wouldn't be here anyway.

(upbeat music)

But it's hard to keep a beat going through this day in and day out.

The home would not need to have it all.

Never knowing when it's going to be over.

Every day gets harder.

Boy, that was cold.

But it's not about my suffering.

It's about my family's well-being.

I'm here to win the money.

I want to be the last one to be pulled out.

(upbeat music)

So last night, I clicked in my head that it's game on again for me.

Like, I will be staying for the long haul.

Just put right back in my mind that necessity

in my particular world to be a provider.

As a man, as a husband, as a father,

being a provider is the number one priority for me.

And I'm gonna keep going till they come get me basically

and say, hey, buddy, one, if I can win this cashola,

I'd say I've done a pretty good job providing for the time being at least.

(upbeat music)

I said before, if I didn't have my family at home,

there's no way I'd still be here.

They are right now just the sole driving force behind everything that I'm doing.

I keep thinking of all the things I want to do for them, how much stuff they deserve.

I mean, it'd be a tremendous boost financially.

It'd be the last person standing.

As long as I have them, I can keep going.

There's really not a whole lot of success in any of the traps that I've set.

I'm starving.

Oh, my goodness, am I starving?

Like, I feel it now.

I just feel it burning inside of me that I'm hungry.

In fact, that I haven't had protein, and muscles are given in.

It's a bad deal.

The weird thing about starvation,

but not even really in that hungry.

I don't know when my brain just knows I can't get it.

And my body is just adjusted to me not getting it.

And what's disturbing about that is that it's

because my body is just consuming itself.

But if my body can take it, my brain can take it.

This is so hard to imagine.

It's just biting in the day like this.

This is, this is foolish.

It is getting freezing cold, like ridiculously, ridiculously cold.

Either adjust to it, great top out.

And I'm not to happen now.

I've been in bed for over 17 hours.

And if you know how cold it was, you'd understand why.

It's good to be where all I want to do is stay warm, and stay still.

Obtaining food in this environment is not

something that I'm really capable of right now.

How long will I be able to go without any food?

I didn't even open my door yesterday.

I stayed in there all day.

I don't want the sound of my voice and what I'm saying make you think

that I'm leaving or going anywhere because I'm not.

I just just don't have motivation to do anything.

I miss my family.

I want to be home, but I just got to keep

telling myself it's not your time to go yet.

It's not the time.

Definitely lonely today.

What my family's companionship more than I want food.

I hope I realize I'm doing this all for them.

Physically, I am exhausted.

You've done everything you wanted to do out here.

You've tried everything in your mind to get food, mostly failed.

Made it outside.

First time I've been outside in four days.

First time I've put my pants on in three.

But you're still motivated.

I'm still here for a purpose.

I still have fight left, isn't it?

At this point, I'm not sure how long I can go like this.

I'll have to tell my wife, my kids, even though daddy tried his best.

I can do it.

I'm sorry, and I'm not sorry.

But there are a mander of the footage.

You'll probably look a lot like this.

20 hour days of me laying here are becoming common.

As much as I'm trying to keep my family in mind and do it for them,

I'm starting to have a thoughts in my brain that if my wife could see me right now,

it would bring her to tears as she would beg me to come home.

[MUSIC]

All right, here you go, I've been better.

I'm all right, I'm just beating down.

I've run all the tread off my tires, and I'm sitting in there looking at my shelter.

I can't lay in there another night by myself and be freezing and hungry and

I'm as soft and I just couldn't do it anymore.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

I mean, I may have hit my limit about a week or so ago, but

I just kept trying to dig in and think about the goals I was here for.

And today I sunk to a low, I just didn't think

I could pull myself back out of this time.

And I know what I really, really need is

waiting for me on the other side of the world.

And I just really want to get back to that.

>> This is not how I saw myself leaving, but I'm not hanging my head about anything.

I battled myself way further than anybody thought I could.

I'm definitely not the prototypical survivalist.

I'm not due that sits over into counting into the spreadsheets.

Not the guy that goes out in the wilderness for 56 days.

I achieved a great deal, and I'm really proud of it.

The hardest thing about this experience was it's definitely a battle of the mind.

That's been a whole lot of time in Patagonia breaking down interior walls.

That's the reason that I got out of there quickly.

Mongolia enhanced the way I was when I came.

So when I came here now, I felt a lot more open.

I was a lot more open and speaking.

I was a lot more open in my feelings and in the end where I look at where I ended up.

I'm extremely happy to feel cleansed and new and open and

ready to go back to my family and show them a different type of love.

Moment of truth.

Oops, oh yeah, these babies are cruising.

I made these snowshoes so that when I wake up and there's a ton of snow on the ground,

I will have a way to get around and gather

firewood even if it gets really, really crumb.

So I know I just have to wait for the snow, wait for multiple

feet of snow before I use them, but they're ready to go.

The checks are today at some point, but

honestly don't see them medically pulling me due to my weight.

I think I went in here heavy enough that that's probably not going to happen.

But you never know.

I feel really kind of uncomfortable in the

fact that I'll have to take off my warm sweater

and get weighed and I just am not very happy about it.

All right, I know I've got a long ways to

go and no, I'm not just slaying it out here.

I'm very vulnerable and all I've got left is

this really hard dark push through the pain

kind of time and I just want to get through it.

Honestly, I'm ready to go at this point any time.

If this is just a wilderness excursion just me,

I left a little bit of gold, but I'm willing

to push myself to provide for my family.

Just those kids a lot, like I can feel like I got a little bit in me even without a lot

of food and all that, but you have protein has not been there for me, but that's okay.

I've been in a good two weeks without protein,

but I just keep thinking like, "Oh my God!

" I'm in.

Oh, how are you feeling? Oh, I have no idea what happened today.

Oh, yes. All right, who's, who's thinking food?

Which one are you guys brought food with you?

Oh, we get to buy a house.

I just thought about you guys the whole time,

and I just thought about like, "Man, I was

like sitting back home and she's with the

kids and she doesn't have a tap out button.

" She can't just give up. So I'm not just going to give up, you know? You did it.

I can't believe it. I want to see everything.

All right, let's get up. This is called Athabaskan Deadfall, so animal basically

steps on here and just snap. Yeah, so you can

set that to take any, you know, any size animal.

This is where I live. Sam, this is awesome.

Oh, my gosh. See, I've got these old notches

on here, so I can adjust the heat and make

it hotter or, you know, high-medium low-type deal.

I feel like when I left Vancouver Island,

I was just angry at the place. I was angry at the rain, and I was just angry at every

little thing. But in Mongolia, every time I

started my morning fire, I felt grateful for the fire.

I was thankful for the trees and the resources that I had. I was just thankful

for every little tiny thing that came my way.

And when I had a thankful attitude, it just

taught me to love the land rather than look

at what it couldn't provide. When I go home,

the $500,000 is going to be a crazy change to my life.

This was an opportunity for personal redemption for me. Coming out here, set the

reset button on my life and give me a chance

to have my family look at me as a provider,

rather than someone who's just barely getting by all the time.

When you live in the world of traffic lights

and smartphones, it's very difficult to actually think about anything of substance.

Put out here in the woods. It's basically all you've got time to do.

You know, what do I need to do to be a better

dad when I go home? What do I need to do

to be a better husband and a better person to

the other people in my life? You're subjecting

yourself to an incredibly raw state of humanity.

And when you get that raw, it gives me strength.

Not afraid anymore to ask myself hard questions.

And the best way to ask yourself hard questions is to put yourself in a place

where you can be completely vulnerable.

And that only happens when you're alone.

(dramatic music)