My name is Bear Grylls.
I've served with the British Special Forces.
I've climbed to the summit of Everest
and crossed the frozen oceans of the Arctic.
Now, my challenge
is to survive one of the most treacherous landscapes on Earth,
Alaska.
Over a million tourists come here every year
and over 500 go missing.
I am gonna show you the skills you need to survive.
This is the coast of Alaska, just below the Arctic Circle.
It's extraordinary landscape is made up of endless coastline,
deep forests and huge glaciers.
I am going right to the top of 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 am gonna put myself in a position of a lost skier,
to show you 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
and I'll have to find my own way back to safety.
You got about 400 feet to touchdown,
100 feet, 50 feet.
All I have with me are my skis, my knife,
a water bottle and a flint.
A camera crew will follow my journey.
17 of the highest mountains in the U.S. are here in Alaska.
It's every extreme skier's idea of heaven.
With so few people
and so much space, this is one of America's true wildernesses.
Just beautiful,
being out on 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 could 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
and to see whether it is compacted or whether it is 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 like suddenly drops a little bit,
it's a sign that it is 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 1,600 feet.
I have descended at least 5,000 feet now
and at last I'm leaving the high snow faces behind.
There is so much rock it's becoming impossible to ski any further.
All these skis are going to do is slow me down.
I'm better off without them.
Below me is a glacier, literally a river of ice
and like a river, this glacier flows downhill.
If I can get to it,
it should lead me out of the mountains.
But to get to the glacier I need to follow this ridge
and 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 watch out for are your extremities,
your hands, your feet, your face
and the signs that you are getting it
is that your skin goes this waxy red colour
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 me to a North-facing slope.
This gets less sunlight, so it's still covered in snow.
I am starting to wish I still had my skis.
This weather is not looking so good.
Getting caught out in bad weather can be fatal.
I need to get down fast,
but the slope below me is over 300 foot.
I could down climb, but it would take hours.
Instead, I'm going to use a technique
mountaineers call a glissade.
As you slide down,
you slow yourself by digging in your ice axe.
I don't have an ice axe,
so I'm breaking a ski stick in half instead.
Really see this cloud now moving in.
And I can hardly even see the bottom of this glissade
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 will fall too fast,
but push in too hard
and the stick can get ripped right out of your hands.
(SCREAM)
That was fast.
I've done a few glissades 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 the glacier
and there are over a 100,000 of these in Alaska.
They form the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth,
but the bad news is they are 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.
I don't have a climbing partner,
so I need to get onto solid ground as fast as I can.
But my luck is in.
There is solid ground running alongside the glacier,
but keeping my footing in these ski boots is almost impossible.
They feel more like lead boots, but I can't stop now.
Stranded at night up here could be fatal.
Oh, look, I see the end of the glacier
and...
Yeah, that's definitely...
Where it comes out and that is just such a relief.
At last I am nearly off the snow and ice,
but the glacier still has one final sting in its tail.
I have come to 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 and there is no way in these boots
and without rope I'm going to make it down this
and I need another plan.
I need to get down. The only question is how.
I've been dropped into the remote, icy mountains of Alaska.
My challenge is to find my way out,
but first I have to get off this glacier.
My way down is blocked by a 60-foot waterfall.
But I think I can see another way.
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 200 feet of ice above me
and at any moment it could come crashing down.
Only do this as a last resort.
I am finding it quite claustrophobic in this place.
I do not know if you can kind of just see 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 crevasse give way under my feet
and...
It's not bringing back great memories being in here.
I just want to get out now.
And the further you go in, the harder it is to go back.
Then I see daylight ahead.
It's my way out.
I have never been so relieved
and finally I'm off the glacier.
It's just so good to be out of that glacier
and just have some open space,
but the best news of all is that I am going to get these
ruddy boots off.
That is so nice
and I'm gonna keep these inners.
They are not ideal to walk in,
but I'm going to need something to protect my feet
in the tougher terrain that is going to be ahead now,
but there is no way I can walk another metre in these outer...
Shells.
The landscape is beginning to open up
and I can see the tree line ahead.
I have been walking for most of the day
and I am hungry and it's now starting to rain.
But at least finally I am almost in the forest.
This is good news. I am just seeing now the clouds clearing.
I can see it's thick forest down there,
but also what looks like a deep gorge
and there might well be a river at the bottom of that
and that's what I want to be heading for.
I know that most Alaskan villages are along rivers
and if I can find one it should lead me to people,
but first I have to get through the deep undergrowth.
I can only see a couple of feet ahead of me now
and it's strangely claustrophobic.
I know this is bear country.
Both black and brown bears live here.
Brown bears can weight up to 1,100 pounds,
grow to nine feet tall and can tear a man apart.
Look, you can actually see
where the bear here has been scratching along the tree
and this is what they do.
They come along, they 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 bear blood at the scene
and empty gun shells.
Yo, bear!
The hiker had fired two shots at 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 warns off the bear.
It's when you are alone that you are vulnerable.
Bears are the most dangerous when they are surprised
and actually most attacks happen on hunters,
just because they are always sneaking around
and that is why it is really important
when you are on your own to keep making lots of noise
and let these bears know that you are 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.
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 there are going to be berries somewhere
around nearby.
The bad news is it means there is a bear around somewhere.
This is only about a day old.
I need to get away, but it's not that easy.
This undergrowth is vicious.
Every step hurts.
This is all devil's club, which must be the spikiest,
thorniest 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 stalk,
all the leaves as well, just covered in it
and when the flowers come out even they have spikes on it
and the roots
and it's just hell to walk through.
But for Alaskan natives,
this is one of the most revered medicinal plants,
just full of loads of good things, lots of ginseng,
but to walk through it, it is not good.
It is claimed the ginseng increases your strength
and your stamina and that is just what I need now.
A stream has made a clearing through the devil's club.
If I am lucky, this should lead me to a river
and my way through the forest.
It means I can move fast now,
but this wilderness is so unpredictable.
After several hundred yards,
I come across a major obstacle, a huge waterfall.
I have a choice, go down it, or go back into the devil's club
and neither option feels like a good one.
I am stranded in an Alaskan forest.
I want to make my way down to the sea,
but there is an obstacle, this waterfall.
It's over 200 foot and it's risky,
but I'm an experienced climber
and I'm going to show you 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 it right 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 mistake.
To make it down,
I'll need to follow some basic climbing rules.
Let the legs take the pressure.
You know, so many people try and always climb with their arms
and your arms give out. 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 handhold.
The force of the water now about halfway down
is making it much harder.
It's like trying to down climb whilst giving someone a piggyback.
Okay.
The final bit is almost vertical.
This freezing glacier water is a torrent
and it's pushing me down hard
and the cold is making it much worse.
(WATER SPLASHING)
(SIGHS)
This water is just so cold.
My hands were going so numb out there,
I could hardly hold on.
Well, I tell you what, looking back up that,
that is much steeper than
I ever thought it was going to be when I started down it.
(SIGHS)
It is light nearly 24 hours a day here in the Summer.
You wouldn't know it, but it's already 10 at night.
I've been walking for hours and hours and I need to rest.
I have to build a shelter
and then light a fire to dry my clothes.
In a survival situation,
it is vital to keep your morale up
and for me there is nothing better than a fire.
There are nearly six 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 a shelter I'm going to need
like 10 or so of these alder 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 fibres are under stress
you can just shear it with a knife and it will cut through.
That's fine.
You can recognise an alder by the leaves.
They are serrated
and they grow alternatively up the stem
and I am using the spruce for the roof.
What I am making here is what's called a half dome shelter
and if I push that end in here
and then bring these two together
and then what you do is just start to interweave it.
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 that's used up half of it.
The first failed attempt.
And that's a relief.
Black bears kill fewer people than grizzlies,
but in 90 percent of their attacks,
they literally stalk humans as prey.
Many locals carry a gun.
If you haven't got one, your only option is to grab a stick
and try to jab it in the eyes.
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 gonna to be difficult
and then of course there are the bears.
It's about 02:00 a.m. and...
I could just hear,
hear something rustling around out.
See, can you hear this? Listen, listen.
Whether it's a moose or whether it's a bear...
I am just hoping that I have got a fire going
that they will be put off by that.
(WATER DROPLETS)
I hope whatever it is it will leave this Bear alone.
It's dawn on my second day stranded in Alaska.
It's now 05:00 a.m. and it's already light.
I am awake and I am cranky.
Yeah, it's still raining.
And I'm getting a bit cheesed up.
But I think that's all right, when you have been,
wet all night.
I think you're allowed to be a bit cheesed up.
I am going to carry on following the stream that I found yesterday.
I have seen a river at the bottom of the valley
and that's where I need to get to.
Now, I have found it. This is great news.
This river will take me to the coast
and that's where most people can be found in Alaska.
But following the river isn't easy.
Lots of smaller streams flow into it
so I am constantly forced to cross them.
Cold.
Fast flowing this,
and these glacial rivers are deceptively fast and cold.
It is really important to stay facing upstream
so you can fight against the flow.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
After several miles, the river widens.
I must be nearing the coast.
At last the sea,
and I have always known that reaching this coastline
is going to give me my best chance of finding help.
It's just that I could go 500 miles in that direction
and 500 miles in that direction and still find no one,
so it's just trying to work out which way...
To go.
I have come out into one of the many small inlets
that dot the Alaskan coastline.
My best chance of rescue
is to be spotted by one of the many small fishing boats
that fish this area.
Hey, look at this, look. It is a dead Salmon
and look, there is another one over there.
This is great news.
It means that Salmon are using this to run upstream
and this is what they do.
They will return from often like up to 200 miles out to sea,
they will find the exact same river that they were born,
even the same tributary, return to it, lay their eggs
and then they will 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.
I found a tree where the branches fork out in a V
about four foot along the main stem.
The first step is to clear all the other shoots
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.
Making my spear only took about 10 minutes,
but catching a fish could take an awful lot longer.
There must be thousands of Salmon in this pool down here,
but it is too deep for me to be able to spear one,
but I reckon if I can spook them and drive them up into the shallows
then I will have a good chance.
My tactic is working.
The fish are going just where I need them.
I can see just loads and loads of them there
and they are in about six inches of water
and the 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 will be off.
I am 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 key for fishing is patience.
I am probably the least patient person you will ever meet.
Now, I am going to take a more aggressive approach.
(GROANING)
I had it. It was like,
that was so close.
I got him.
Come here.
(GROANING)
And this one is going to be a cracker.
I've got him pinned through the gills on either side here
and I have got my finger right through
where I have speared him at the back
to keep a hold of him
and...
You can eat these things straight out of the river like that.
That is like the freshest, Alaskan, Salmon.
You can possibly have.
I've always liked Sushi.
And in the local Iyak communities.
The annual fish runs with a primary food source for the entire year.
Fish are packed full of protein.
And the scales are small on the Salmon.
So you can eat the skin as well as it contains high levels of fat.
Just what my body needs to keep moving,
It's been two days now, since I had a square meal
and I'm going to take full advantage of this feast.
I might be out of the forest,
but I know that I am still surrounded by bears.
They come down here to fish.
Hey, look at this, look.
This is why you have got to be so careful around here.
Look, you can see where, where a bear has obviously come down
and plunked his fat backside down here
and started to feast on this Salmon.
But amazingly you actually see, look, the imprint
of where he has been
and actually you can see the bit that is eaten is all the belly fat
and the eggs and the guts.
That is the most fat and protein rich
and then it just leaves the rest of it
and this is why you have got to be so careful out here.
It's early evening
and I've got to find a place to rest.
Caves are readymade shelters,
but they are often already occupied by wildlife, including bears.
This one is so shallow that I know it's safe
and it is a perfect place to stop.
The high walls mean that nothing can sneak up on me from behind.
I need all the rest I can get now, as I have no idea what lies ahead.
Now, I am on the coast, there is an abundance of food,
especially on the beach at low tide.
This rock here is just covered in these mussels
and this is a great source of food, I am going to get a load of this
and then cook it up later and this is actually, you know,
part of the staple diet of a lot of local Alaskan 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 the sort of dead wood that I want.
Wood that is dead on the ground is often covered in moss
and is really damp, but this is great
this is off the ground and it's dry and it should crack
and a good way of telling if wood is good for burning
if you hear that crack,
it sort of sounds like the crackle when it's actually burning on fire
and that is a good sign that it's good wood for burning.
With no pan to cook them in,
I have surrounded the muscles with two layers of seaweed.
And this effectively like steams them
and this should take about 10 minutes to cook.
When you're collecting them, tap the mussels.
If they don't close, they are already dead,
so leave them, but once cooked, they should be open.
Wow, those really are good.
Now, I'm on the coast,
it's worth trying to signal any passing boats.
I've got such good visibility all the way out to sea here
and it is definitely worth,
while I am here, getting a signal fire going
and all I am doing is building this back up again
and then I'm going to put on top of it
a load of evergreen branches and these will smoke.
And...
If anyone is 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 will notice here the smoke is not rising very well into the air.
It actually looks as if it is getting pushed down
and that is a sign that low pressure might well be on its way,
so even though it is beautiful blue skies
at the moment, it might well be getting much worse.
No luck on spotting any boats,
so I've got to just carry on and keep moving.
But it's tough going.
The shoreline constantly swells in and out of these deep bays.
Hey, look at this, look, look. See those cabins?
I can almost guarantee you there is going
to be somebody living in that, a fisherman or something
and I think I made it.
If there are people here, I could be on my way home.
Hello?
Oh, man.
Look at this.
But the paths are overgrown and the building is 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 am sure at one time this place would have been bustling
with trekkers, but today it's deserted.
It's not quite the luxury
log cabin I was after full of cookies and sandwiches.
It's not even a roof to shelter under.
Yeah, but I will tell you what,
if I ever find my way back to this place
this is a view you want to build your house looking at.
Look at that, just beautiful over the mountains, the glacier.
Amazing.
Seeing that glacier has given me an idea
and it could be my way out.
These coastal glaciers are notorious tourist hotspots
and there might well be a tour boat there,
but it looks miles away
and I've got a long walk ahead of me.
Hey, look at this. Brilliant.
This is great, look.
This could well be the key to me getting out of here
if this thing floats.
One of the core lessons of survival is to be open to every opportunity
and this boat provides me with one.
I just need a paddle and this spade will do the job.
The boat is old
and the sea is full of ice.
It's a decision I may regret.
I am in an old boat I have just found
and I am slowly working my way along the coastline.
On foot it could take me days to walk around these
endless craggy inlets.
Old boats, though, are often a risk.
But at the moment it's my best option.
There is a story of a father and his teenage kids
who ran aground in a winter storm
and they waited 10 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 was 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 used that to get back to his daughters,
who amazingly were still alive
and then a day later they were all rescued.
As I continue, I come across 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
In 1989,
The Exxon Valdez a 33,000 tonnes oil tanker
went to ground in Alaska.
While trying to avoid, just such icebergs.
Just amazing this place.
I tell you, out of all the places I've been.
I don't think I've ever seen Alaska it's so extraordinary.
And just thousands of these little,
you know, icebergs just floating around.
And all of theses would have disappeared off these glaciers
at a tumbling down into the sea.
And some of these bits of ice it could be up to 5,000-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 is submerged.
As ice melts faster when it comes into contact with water,
eventually the bergs become top heavy
and roll, often violently.
I am a bit worried because
all of this ice is beginning to close in a bit now
and it is so disorientating trying to work out where you are,
just because all of these things move with the current
and what looks like a gap one minute then suddenly
like closes up in front of you.
It's just so hard to get through this stuff. It's like rock.
And you can see how much damage these things can do
and I do not know how well this little skiff is holding up here.
This thing is taking in water as well.
I don't like this at the moment.
The constant banging into the ice is taking it's toll on the boat
and freezing water is seeping in.
If you see that spit of land,
all that gravel over there? That is where I need to go.
The camera crew are in protective clothing.
I am not. At first it's a trickle,
but soon it's gushing in.
It looks like my only option is to swim.
This thing is just going now.
But first I have 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 is just that tiny little bit of buoyancy keeping it up.
I've got about 200 metres I reckon
to reach the shore,
but this thing,
this thing is on its last leg, just that buoyancy at the back.
The shock of hitting this water makes me gasp
and the danger is sucking in a big lung full of air
and water
and that's how people drown.
My heart rate has gone through the roof
and I am beginning to hyperventilate.
In some people this can induce a heart attack.
Oh, man.
I am going to get this cotton off.
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 will survive longer naked.
And this stuff is all glacial water
and sea water freezes at a much lower temperature
than normal water,
so 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 save me.
Oh, look, this is open sea
and this is what this whole glacial bay drew me into
and this is good. I can just see for miles all the way
up and down the coastline here
and now I'm just going to 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.
I reckon this is a perfect spot to wait.
Fishing boats, as well as tourist boats,
often sail into these inlets
and it is not hard to see why people come.
It's beautiful.
I wait and wait, but nothing appears on the horizon.
I am heading off further down the beach to see what I can find.
If I have to spend another night here
I will need food and shelter.
But just when I have given up hope,
I hear the distant sound of an engine.
Hey look, look.
Hey...
There is a boat out there.
I just hope they are looking this way.
It will be gone in a matter of minutes
and with no way of lighting a signal fire,
I need to rely on movement
and a bit of luck to attract their attention.
He is turning. He is turning.
Hey.
They have seen me.
I am on my way home.
This has been an incredible journey,
from harsh mountain peaks to these icy seas.
Alaska is a place we can truly come close to nature
and that for me is its real magic.
Subtitle caption by ZestCorp