Hey tommy you want to come hiking with me i'm going to walk 17 miles and sleep on rocks how about you nathan you like to hike come on let's go hiking   be safe well it is a chilly wet summer's day and.

We are gonna go up there we're doing some solo alpine survival camping in bushcraft i don't have a tent and i'm gonna hike 17 miles up this mountain and we're gonna see if i can't build a shelter where there's no trees no firewood also gonna hike to a remote alpine lake.

See if i can't catch some dinner and try not to get eaten by a bear see this little plant right here it's called yarrow it's a medicinal plant people make tea out of it for stomach aches this plant right here this is fireweed the blossoms are edible a little bit like honeysuckle here in.

Alaska a lot of people like to make jelly out of the blossoms there's a mama moose and two babies right over there down in the valley a lot of moose in this area the moose feed on this willowed you can see how it's all clipped and broken that's from moose grazing and biting the tips off.

See right here blueberry bushes down here are crowberry bushes there's a crowberry forming pretty much anywhere in this valley that's not covered with trees is has berry bushes but we're too early for berries come here in the early fall you can fill up buckets of berries and the bears will be.

Out here feeding on berries as well you can see we still have unmelted snow up here it's a bit chillier up here in the mountains the weather moves quick and weather forecasts aren't very accurate in the mountains got to be prepared look at that cloud coming around the mountain it's coming so quick.

The weather and visibility can change in a heartbeat in the mountains  i'm getting a little sweaty now i gotta go climb this thing uh all right we just went over the top of our first mountain about 3 500 feet of elevation.

And you can see here we got this little saddle and another mountain and another mountain and they just keep getting bigger and bigger by the way look at these valleys see how they're just like perfect bowl shapes they're like used instead of the v's you see out east.

These were all carved by glaciers but right there is a parky squirrel parky squirrels and tarmigan are about the only game you'll find up here and uh parky squirrels don't taste very good it's like eating buffalo wings with claws and fur that's my next mountain to climb now there's no more clear trail here so.

I've got to sit and pick my spot i know i've said it before but the weather around here just moves so quick look at these clouds so previously i was on the northwest face of the mountain and i'm coming around the side and this is the southwest side of the mountain you can see how much more vegetation there is.

There's little trees and bushes and things like that the berries here on the south side of the mountain are three to four weeks riper than the berries on the north side of the mountain look at this look at all these berries not quite ripe yet but they're getting there see they're just all over all.

Blueberries so if you're at the beginning of the berry season you look on the south side if you're at the end of the berry season look on the north side so this right here this is lykan this is what caribou live off of you can technically boil this up and eat.

It it's not it's not good stuff here's some black liking it tastes kind of like boiled mushrooms but not that good i don't want to even think about how many pounds of that garbage you'd have to eat to survive it's edible but i don't know if it's food.

Well there we go i linked up with the new trail check it out we've popped below the tree line and we've got some cottonwood trees growing here cottonwoods love water they absolutely need tons of water so whenever you see cottonwoods you know that there's a river or stream nearby here's another.

Group of cottonwoods there's another stream this is the cotton from these cottonwood trees if you have a ferrous rod and steel you can use that to start fire see this plant right here i don't know what it's called but it's got a sap that if it gets on your skin it'll make you sunburn and blister.

Really bad these are called alders we get them all over the sides and mountains here and they are so difficult to walk through do you see if you ever try to get through an alder patch you'll never want to do it twice.

You're getting these elder thickets and it's really hard to navigate because you just can't see very far it's another plant you want to be able to identify from far off so that when you're sitting on a ridge planting where you're going to go you don't go through any alder patches if you're going to do off-trail trekking through mountains.

The vegetation is often a bigger obstacle than the terrain so understanding and identifying the plants on the side of the hill it's really important all right there's the term again hear it at time we get out of the state bird of alaska and very delicious ptarmigan like.

To come to these gravel paths because they need rocks they'll go and swallow little pits of gravel storm in their crops so they can break up seeds and berries see these small scraggly little spruce trees these grow in really windy spots at high elevation you can always tell which direction the wind usually blows.

Because that's the side without branches it's bare on that side bear on that side bare on that side and the winds coming right from this direction they also have these really cool purple pine cones but if you ever need to build a shelter near one of these patches always build on the leeward side of the trees the snow just barely melted out of this.

Valley floor look the alders are just getting their buds that's because that mountain right there is blocking the southern exposure so all the vegetation down here is like a month or two behind everything else in this valley later on in the season when all the berries up there have fallen you can come back down to this spot and find berries that are.

Just barely ripening right there that parking squirrel over there had a bird in its mouth we have a lot of flesh eating squirrels in alaska it's about a 20 mile per hour headwind and it feels like it's in the upper 40s but i'm keep snacking and i'm keep.

Moving so my body's staying warm my hands are a little cold though we've been heading down this path for about four hours so i think i only have about two or three more miles left to go there we go that's the destination i think i'm gonna walk around a little bit and explore.

All right guys here we go this is the valley where i want to build my shelter and camp for the night you can see there's there's no trees there's no firewood so if i want to go to shelter i'm going to have to use what's available and there's plenty of rocks and you can see here somebody had the same idea that i have.

Started stacking up some rocks to make a shelter for their tent so i'm gonna go ahead and use this to build my shelter all right i got a tarp here i'm gonna lay it out to kind of get the dimensions of my shelter the wind is consistently blowing from this direction which means i've got to.

Build this wall up that's going to be my primary wind break my entrance to my shelter is going to come this way all right i think i got my dimensions figured out time to get to work  it is so nice in here there's no breezes it's nice and warm i'm completely out of the wind and i've got enough room where.

I can sit up easily now i need to get some water going look at this water you know we got clean water coming out gravity just pulls the untreated water through the filter right here fills up my water bottle just go like that clamps it off only took about 60 seconds to fill up my bottle.

That's good tasting water well i think next on the agenda i need to catch a fish but i'll tell you what it's cold my fingers are a little bit dumb nice little rainbow a little small but i hooked him kind of bad so i think i better keep him and eat him nice another one let's get them back in.

The water here i just broke my fishing rod tell you what i'm freezing it's cold out here i think it's time to go make some dinner that butane squirted out so fast it gave give my finger a little bit of frostbite  all right i made up a batch of couscous.

And craisins a little bit of rosemary and basil and salt in there but i'm gonna go ahead and cook up that fish  um i forgot to bring utensils so we're improvising with knives and cups and fingers and whatever we can do the not having my fork thing is kind of.

Bugging me and then i remembered that i saw a plastic fork sitting on the ground about a quarter of a mile that way so i ran and i found it i'm gonna go ahead boil some water and sanitize this thing and i am gonna have myself a spoon this should be nice and sanitary now i'm gonna take the hot water here i'm.

Gonna pour it in my bottle and i am sticking it under my coat ah got some strawberry lemon herbal tea here and it's just warming me up so good ah my socks are wet i'll see you guys in the morning  my air mat is almost completely fine.

Good morning i slept okay the wind woke me up a lot got this flour and yeast and water that i mixed together yesterday and just let it sit in the bag and it is fermented nicely so we got ourselves some bread dough  a little melted honey and butter on some.

Fry bread it's gonna be great this is such a beautiful valley but uh we've got about seven miles to do this morning and we're not heading back the way we came we came in through that valley and instead i'm gonna go out that valley we'll see how that goes.

Well there we go that's the ocean that's my destination all right see this creek i'm gonna follow it all the way to the ocean check it out right there in that little valley there's two doll sheep over there on the mountain there's two more doll sheep are like rocky mountain.

Bighorn sheep only they're all white checking out all these different piles of poo looks like coyote to me probably coyotes come down this trail and he poops every time he comes down here check it out there's a bull moose right there and he can see me i can see him i actually know a guy who got his ear.

Bitten off by a grizzly bear while hiking this trail so i'm a little keyed up about the bears plus the visibility is so terrible you could be right around the corner from a grizzly bear and you wouldn't even know it the bear spray it's.

Hey bear something came tearing through here in the brush onto the trail  this is why i like bear spray instead of guns guns are only as good as your aim bear spray is like a hand grenade i can be in the fetal position curled up in a.

Ball spraying this thing and uh still do some good hey bear don't mow me now take a sweet deer it tastes much better that's doll sheet poo right there you can see all the liking in it coyotes bears moose doll sheep and who knows of what else are all using this trail.

The watermelon berries not ripe yet but i can hear a baby doll sheep screaming i could hear this frantic bleeding like a lamb in distress coming from somewhere over here this right here is mountain ash the seeds are toxic but the fruit's edible.

It doesn't taste very good though i'll take it out that looks like a salmonberry bush there's a raspberry bush right here our rose hips right here rose hills are a good food source in the wintertime because the berries don't drop off in the fall even when there's snow on the ground you.

Can still sometimes find rose hips to eat the arctic lupine is the seed pod it's a poisonous plant cottonwood trees right by the stream there's some more bear poop i got a great view of the ocean might see some beluga whales check it out this fungus is great for.

Holding a coal or fire you dry it out and you put a little coal or spark in there blow on it and it'll smolder for days if you take care of it and then you can carry fire with you when you hike if you're using primitive techniques to build your fire this is something you definitely want to have i do not know what type of berries those.

Are this right here is one of the most deadly berries in alaska the berries turn white in the fall and just a few of them will kill you it's a huckleberry bush you tend to find huckleberries at the foot of the mountain where there's a lot of rain so this plant right here is.

Devil's club see they've got all these spines on here really thorny the leaves of a devil's club are really big and they make good shingles for a lean too i just got a text from becca she's at our rendezvous point i don't want to keep becca waiting well guys there's my ride.

Hope you've enjoyed this video hi it's been fun but i have got to go sit down and take some advil if you guys like this sort of thing make sure to click subscribe we put out new videos every saturday morning so i'll see you guys then hey tom.

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