All language subtitles for man.vs.wild.s01e08.alaskan.mountain.dvdrip-momentu

my name is bear grills

i've served with the British special forces

i've climbed to the summit of Everest

and cross the frozen oceans of the arctic now

i'm going to show

how to survive one of the most treacherous landscapes on Alaska

over a million

tourists come here every year and over 500 go missing

i'm gonna show the skills needed to stay alive

this is a coast of Alaska just below the arctic circle

its extraordinary landscape is made up of endless coastline

deep forests and huge glaciers

i'm going to mount Chugacha in Alaska

it's where mountaineers

hikers and skiers come to enjoy the wilderness

but with the thrill comes danger

and every year over 20 people die

i'm going to show how to survive in a wilderness

like this any moment now

the pilot is going to drop me

onto the top of one of these mountains

if needed

i'll get some help from local experts and a camera crew

will follow my journey 17 of the highest mountains in the us

are here in Alaska

it's every extreme skiers idea of heaven with so few people

and so much space this is one of America's true wildernesses

yeah it's beautiful being out of these mountains amazing

the biggest threat to skiers is avalanche

they kill around 40 people every year in North America

one wrong turn

and the whole mountainside can come crashing down on you

you need to know how to avoid them

the key

with avalanches is to read the snow

and you can use a ski pole in front of you just to test

it to see whether it's compacted

or whether it's in layers

and what you want is when you push it in

it's nice and consistent

but if you push it down and it suddenly drops

a little bit so sign

that's in layers and that's the dangerous stuff

avalanches are often triggered by inexperienced skiers

and snowboarders who come to enjoy the 40 foot of Virgin snow

which can often fall here

in early 2006

a snowboarder from Anchorage triggered a 200 foot wide avalanche

on a slope just like this

his body was eventually recovered three months later

he had fallen 1600 feet

i've skied about 5000 feet and at last

i'm leaving the high snow faces behind there is so much rock

and it's becoming impossible to ski

any further all these skis would do is slow you down

you'd be better off without them below me is a glacier

literally

a river of ice and like a river this glacier flows downhill

i'm going to follow this ridge

it's not easy and the temperature is dropping fast

temperatures here in Alaska can reach as low as minus

60 degrees and frostbite is always a danger in the mountains

and the bits to wash out for your extremities

your hands your feet

your face and the signs

you are getting

it is

that your skin goes is

waxy red color and eventually black

and i've seen very severe frostbite on climbers on Everest

and it's a really horrible painful thing

this ridge has led to a north facing slope

this gets less sunlight

so it's still covered in snow

this weather is not looking so good

getting caught out in bad weather can be fatal

so you need to get down fast

but this slope is over 300 foot i could downclimb

but it would take hours instead

i'm going to show you a technique that mountaineers

call a glysade

as you slide down you slow yourself

by digging in your ice axe i don't have an ice axe

so i'm braking a ski stick in half instead

really see this cloud

now moving in i can hardly even see the bottom of this glusade

and i'm pretty nervous about doing this this technique is risky

but in an emergency

it can save your life if you don't apply enough pressure

you'll fall too fast

but push in too hard

and the stick can get ripped right out of your hand

that was fast

i've done a few casses before

but never anything that steep and that long

and i reckon i hit 50 miles an hour on that

and that's like speeding five time

i've reached to glacier

and there are over hundred thousand of these in Alaska

they form the largest reservoir fresh water on earth

but the bad news is they're full of crevasses

deep valleys of ice often covered by layers of snow

and the only safe way to travel is to be roped and in pairs

their solid ground running alongside the glacier

but keeping my footing in these ski boots is almost impossible

oh look

i see the end of the glass here and yeah

that's definitely where it comes out

and that's just such a relief

i'm nearly off the snow and ice

but the glacier still has one final sting in its tail

a sheer cliff

this is literally now

the bottom of the glacier

and this moraine is just dropping off in this

like 40 foot waterfall

there's no way in these boots and without rope

i'm gonna make it down this and i need another plan

there's an ice tunnel into the glacier

this is formed by melt water streams

which run under the ice

but this one could lead me out

ice tunnels are extremely unstable

places and glaciers can move up to 60 feet a day

before you go in check

the ice is solid

there could be over two hundred feet of ice above me

and at any moment

it could come crashing down

only do this as a last resort

i'm finding it quite claustrophobic in this place i know

if you can come just sit around but

this is not a good place to be

and i was almost killed on a glacier

like this on Everest where i had a cavascive

way under my feet and

it's not bringing back great memories being in here

i just want to get out of there and the further you go in

the harder it is to go back

then i see daylight ahead it's my way out

i've never been so relieved and finally i'm off the glacier

it's just so good to be out of that glass here

and just have some open space

but the best use of all is that

i'm gonna get these running boots off

ah

that is so nice and i'm gonna keep these inners

they're not ideal to walk in

but i'm gonna need something to protect my feet

in the tougher train

that's gonna be ahead now

here off the mountain there should be food and shelter

that's getting dive bombed by these seagulls

and that's a sign that i probably walk through an area

they're nesting

and they're just trying to protect

protect their eggs what i am trying to do

is see if i can find one of their nests and actually find

maybe some eggs tweet

it's June prime nesting season

and each nest could have two or three eggs

each one packed with protein

vitamins and minerals

i've scoured all of these banks

and i just can't find what these guys were protecting

the landscape is beginning to open up

and i can see the tree line ahead

but now it's starting to rain

but at least finally i'm almost in the forest

this is good news

i'm just seeing now

the clouds clearing i can see a thick forest down there

but also what looks like a deep gorge

and then might well be a river at the bottom of that

and that's what

i want to be heading for

i can only see a couple of feet ahead of me now

and it's strangely claustrophobic i know

this is bare country both black and brown bears live here

brown bears can weigh up to 1100 pounds grow to nine feet tall

and can tear a man apart

look you can actually see

where the bear here is being scratching along the tree

and this is what they do

they come along their scratch

and they rub their back against it

and you can see actually

where the bear's fur is there

and this is all part of it just marking its territory

a hiker was recently killed here when rangers found

the remains of his body

they discovered bare blood at the scene and empty gunshells

the hiker fired two shots of the bear

but that was not enough to stop the attack

but big groups rarely get attacked for one simple reason

lots of people means lots of noise and that warms off the bear

it's when you're alone that you're vulnerable

her bears are the most dangerous when they're surprised

and actually

most attacks happen on hunters

just because they're always sneaking around and that's why

it's really important

when you're on your own to keep making lots of noise

and let these bears know that you're here

and it might sound

a bit weird

but i'm doing a lot of wandering around at the moment going

yo bear

but just trying to keep them away

yo bear

yo map

yo map

however much noise

i make i still feel uncomfortable

this is bear crap

and the good news is that you can see in this poo

little seeds from berries

and that means they're going to be berries somewhere around

nearby the bad news

that means there's a bear around somewhere

this is only about a day old

this undergrowth is vicious every step hurts

this is all devil's club

which must be the spikestoriest plant i've ever come across

just look you can see

all the spikes

all the way along

all the stem all the way down the stork

all the leaves as well

i just covered in it

and when the flowers come out

even they have spice on it and the roots

and it's just hell to walk through

but for alaskanatus

this is one of the most revered medicinal plants

just full of loads of good things

lots of ginseng but to walk through

it is not good

it's claimed that jinseng

increases your strength and your stamina

a stream is made a clearing through the devil's club

this should lead to a river and a way through the

forest it means i can move fast now

but this wilderness is so unpredictable after several

hundred yards

there's a major obstacle

a huge waterfall

it's over 200 foot and even with a safety line it's risky

but i'm an experienced climber

i'm going to show how to get down it

the most important thing

when you start down here is to take your time

and so many accidents happen climbing

as the adrenaline gets going and you rush it

and i'll tell you you can get a ride

a thousand times

but you only need one mistake for it to all go wrong

these rocks are incredibly slippery

and it's easy to make mistakes to make it down

i'll need to follow some basic climbing rules

let your legs take the pressure you know

so many people trying to always climb with their arms

and your arms give up your legs are much much stronger

and just use your arms to steady you and to balance you

there's loads of loose rocks so i have to test every hand hole

the force of the water now about half way

down is making it much harder

it's like trying to downclimb

whilst giving someone a piggyback

okay

the final bit is almost vertical

this freezing glacial water is a torrent

and it's pushing me down hard

and the cold is making it much worse

this water is just so cold

and my hands are getting so numb out there

i can hardly hardly hold on

i'll tell you what looking back up there

that is much steeper than i ever thought it was gonna be

when i started down

it's light nearly 24 hours a day here in the summer

and it's easy to lose track of time

but it's important to take a rest when you need to with soaking

wet clothes

you'll need a fire to dry them out and in a survival situation

there's nothing better for morale than a fire

there are nearly 6 million acres of forest in Alaska

and much of it is covered in spruce and alder both of

which are great for building shelters

to build the shelter on the need like ten

or serve these older saplings

and the best way of cutting these is to bend it over

until you see the stressed out of it

and then when those fives are under stress

you can just show it the knife and it will cut through

you can recognise an order by the leaves they're serrated

and they grow alternately up the stem

and i'm using the spruce for the roof

i'm making what's called a half dome shelter

it's simple

and it's fast to waterproof it you start at the bottom

then move up putting one layer on top of the one below

and then i need fire

i always carry a Flint to light a fire normally

this Willow down makes excellent kindling

but it's damp so

lighting this fire is going to be a struggle

and let's use up half of it the first failed attempt

black bears kill fewer people and grizzlies

but in 90 percent of their attacks

they literally stalk humans as prey many locals carry a gun

people

often think that grizzly bears are the really dangerous ones

but in this part of Alaska

the most dangerous bears are actually

the black bears and if one approaches you depending on

which it is you need to react differently if it's a brown bear

the chance are it's a territorial issue and the best thing

you can do is just be submissive and back off

if it's a black bear

the chances are is after you and in that case

you're gonna have no choice apart from to fight for your life

your body has an internal clock

which makes you sleep when it's dark and wake when it's light

so in a place

like this where it's only dark for four hours

a full night's sleep is always gonna be hard

it's now 5 am and it's already light

i'm awake and a little cranky still raining

and i'm getting a bit cheese stuff

but i think that's all right when you've been wet all night

i think you're a little bit of itchy stuff i'm going to carry on

following the same stream that i followed yesterday

i've seen a river at the bottom of the valley and that's where i

need to get to

but following the river is not easy

lots of smaller streams flow into it

so i'm constantly forced to cross them

wow

flowing this

and these glacial rivers are deceptively far and cold

it's really important to stay facing up dreams

so you can fight against the flow

after several miles the river widens

the coast should be near

i love the sea

i've come out into one of the many small inlets

that dot the Alaskan coastline

your best chance of being picked up

will be to be spotted by one of the many small fishing boats

the fishes area

hey look at this

look the dead salmon

and there's another one over there

this is great news

this means the salmon are using this to run upstream

and this is what they do

they return for often like up to 200 miles out to sea

they find the exact same river they were born

even the same tributary return to it lay their eggs

and then they'll die

the river is packed with king and pink salmon

i haven't got a fishing line with me

so i need to find another way of catching one

i'm making a spear out of wood

here's a tree with a branches fork out in a v about four foot

along the main stem

the first step is to clear all the other chutes

and then break off the two branches

and cut them into sharp points

these will puncture the tough skin of the fish

and keep it pinned down

while i grab it with my hands

there must be a thousand salmon in this pool down here

but it's too deep for me to be able to spear one

but i reckon

if i can spook them and drive them up into shallows

then i'll have a good chance

my tactics working the fish are going just where i need them

i can see just loads and loads of them there

and then about six inches of water

and key is just for me to approach from downstream

very steadily

one of the salmon's main predators are eagles

which swoop in from above

so the fish are highly sensitive to shadows if they see mine

they'll be off

i'm waiting for the perfect opportunity

as i stand motionless the fish start to come closer

but they always seem to be just out of my reach

and they say that keep for fixing these patients

i'm probably the least patient person

you'll ever meet

now i'm gonna take a more aggressive approach

throwing the spear around gets me nowhere

and my impatience finally gets the better at me

i had it it's like

that was so close

i give up

but one of the crew has more luck

you can eat these things strain out of the river like that

that is like the freshest Alaskan salmon you can possibly have

i've always like sushi

and in the local iaac communities

the annual fish runs with a primary food

source for the entire year fish

a pack full of protein and the scales are small on a salmon

so you can eat the skin as well

as it contains high levels of fat

just what my body needs to keep moving

i'm going to take full advantage of this feast

i might be out of the forest

but i know that i'm still surrounded by bears

they come down here to fish

hey look at this

look this is why you've got to be so careful around here

look you see

where where a bear is obviously come down

and plunked his fat backside down here

and started to feast on this salmon

but amazing you actually see

look the imprint of where he's been and actually

you can see the bit

that is eaten is all the belly fat and the eggs and the guts

that's the most fat and protein rich

and then it just leaves the rest of it

but this is why you've got to be so careful out here

if you know what to

look for there are all sorts of berries and plants

you can eat with your fish

this is Eskimo potato this plant here

i pull this up

and get to the root of it

this is all edible at this time of years

all a bit stringy uh and the best way really is to

you know roast this on a fire

but you can eat this uh

eat this rules

bit muddy

but a really really good food source for many people say

it's the most valuable food source in all of Alaska

these roots are full of starch and carbohydrate

it's hardly a gourmet dinner

but it keeps me going a little longer

it's been a tough day caves already made shelters

but are often already occupied by wildlife

including bears this one is so shallow that i know it's safe

and it's a perfect place to stop the high walls

mean that nothing can sneak up on me from behind

now i'm on the coast here in Alaska there's an abundance of food

especially on the beach at low tide

this rock is just covered in these muscles

and it's a great source of food only get a load of this

and then cook it up later

and this is actually

a pot of staple diet of a lot of localaskan tribes

shellfish should always be cooked properly first

so i need fire

old man's beard grows on the branches of trees

and it burns easily

but i need to find wood as well

yeah this is sort of dead wood

uh that i want uh

woodless dead on the ground is often covered in moss

is really damn

but this is Grace is off the ground

and it's dry

and it should crack and a good way of telling if wood's good

for burning

if you hear that crack sort of sounds like the crackle

when it's actually burning on fire

and that's a good sign it's good wood for burning

with no pan to cook them

in i've surrounded the muscles with two layers of seaweed

this effectively like steams them

and this should take about 10 minutes to cook

when you're collecting them tap the muscles if they don't close

they're already dead so leave them but once cooked

they should be open

wow those really are good

down here on the coast

i can show you how to get yourself seen by any passing boats

i've got such good visibility all the way out to sea here

and it's definitely worth

while i am here getting a signal fire going

and all i'm doing is building this back up again

and then i'm gonna put on top of it

a load of evergreen branches and these will smoke

and

if anyone's passing

they might well

see this

it's vital to create white

smoke

to contrast with the dark background of the trees behind me

but nature is conspiring against me you notice here

the smoke's not rising very well in the air

it actually looks as if it's like getting pushed down

and that's a sign that low pressure might well be on its way

so even those beautiful blue skies at the moment

it might well be getting much worse

better keep moving

but it's tough going

the shoreline constantly swells in and out of these deep bays

but over on the bank are some buildings

they look like a fishing lotch

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but the paths are overgrown and the building as a shambles

Alaska has a history of boom and bust

the coastline is littered with disused gold mines

tinning factories and from what i can see old lodges

i'm sure at one time

this place would have been bustling with trekkers

but today it's deserted

here i'll tell you what

this is a view

you want to build your house looking at

look at that

just beautiful over the mountains of the glacier amazing

and a beautiful glacier like this

could provide your way out of here

these coastal glaciers are no tourist

tourist hot spots

and there might well be a boat there

but it looks miles away

this is great

little boats are often used by these lodges and as a last resort

you should use one

i just need a paddle and this fade will do the job

i'm in a basic skiff

and i'm slowly working my way along the coastline

on foot it would take you days to walk

around these endless craggy inlets

but boats can often be a risk and in a moment i'll show you

what can happen

there's a story of a father of his teenage kids

who ran aground in a winter storm

and they waited ten days for rescue

but it never came and

the father then

made the very difficult decision to leave his teenage girls

whilst him and his son went off to look for help

and they eventually found an old log cabin

but there's no signs of life and the storm then came in

and it was six days before the weather broke

and he assumed his daughters would have been killed

but when it did break

they found an old skiff managed to repair it

and use that to get back to his daughters

who amazingly were still alive

and then a day later

they were all rescued

i vented a bay

full of sea ice and as i go on the ice thickens soon

ice blocks are all around me they may look magnificent

but they can cause serious damage to even a large boat

and in 1989 the exxon valdes a 33

000 ton oil tanker went to ground in Alaska

while trying to avoid icebergs just like these

just amazing this place

i'll tell you out of all the places

i've been

i don't think i've ever seen a landscape so extraordinary

and just thousands of these little

you know icebergs just floating around

and all of these would have just peeled off these glasses

that are tumbling down into the sea

and some of these bits of ice they can be up 5000 years old

and it's just an amazing landscape to be in

you can only ever see the tip of an iceberg as

90 percent are submerged as ice melts faster

when it comes into contact with water eventually

the burst become top heavy and roll often violently

all of this ice is beginning to close in a bit now

and it's so disorientated trying to work out

where you are just because all of these things move

what looks like a gap one minute

then suddenly light closes up in front of you

it's just so hard because this stuff is like rock

you can see how much damage these things can do

and if your boat takes in water

i need to get land

you see that spit of land like gravel

the camera crew are in protective clothing i am not

my only option is to swim fring

this thing is just going now

but first i've got to take some clothes off

or they're gonna really weigh me down

it completely goes

don't sink yet

don't sink yet

it's just that tiny little bit of boys to keep you up

let's see who's on this last leg just that boys at the back

the shock of hitting this water

makes me gasp

and the danger is sucking in a big lungful of air and water

and that's how people drown

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my heart rate has gone through the roof

and i'm beginning to hyperventilate in some people

this can induce a heart attack

let me have cotton up

cotton literally sucks the heat out of your body it's

a killer when wet

if you get soaked in a cotton t shirt and a pair of jeans

in conditions like this

you need to get them off fast you'll survive longer naked

and this stuff is all glacier water and sea water freezes

at a much lower temperature than normal waters effectively

that's like colder than ice

my fingers and toes are so numb

i need to get the blood flowing back

my jacket has stayed dry in the backpack

and this will warm me up

the glacial bay

opens up into the sea i can just see from miles

all the way up and down the coast around here

and i'm just gonna take stock and try and warm up a bit

on some of these rocks and not move anywhere

until i just get dry and properly warm

this would be a perfect spot to wait fishing boats as well

as tourist boats often sail into these inlets

and it's not hard to see why people come

it's beautiful

i'm heading off further down the beach to see what i can find

and a boat has been sent to pick me up

and i'm gonna do everything i can to attract their attention

they've seen me

this has been

an incredible journey from Harsh mountain peaks

to these icy seas

Alaska is a place where we can truly come close to nature

and that for me is its real magic