Extreme Surv1val In Fiordland: Joe Teti & Matt Graham’s High Stakes Stag Hu.nt
Rock. On this episode of Dual Survival You’re not going to believe it. Joe and Matt are stranded in one of the planet’s most remote and uninhabitable environments. At least it’s a dry spot. It’s probably one of the worst places I’ve been to find a suitable shelter. Where only the world’s most sk1lled h.unters dare to tread.
And survival is only one bull3t away. We have a firearm, but we have one round. Special Operations veteran Joe Teti and primitive h.unter gatherer Matt Graham two guys with two opposing survival strategies will show how to make the most of your surroundings. There ain’t no getting across this. That’s deep.
It looks like we can get up on that ridge and then cut over. Hunker down for the long haul and live That’s a fire. We’ve got to get over there. to f1ght another day. This is what I do best. On New Zealand’s South Island lies Fiordland. A place of otherworldly beauty featuring snow capped granite peaks waterfalls cascading hundreds of feet into majestic fjords and moss covered valleys.
It’s a 5,000 square mile piece of land in the middle of nowhere. The only way to get here is by helo or boat. It rains up to 300 inches a year out here. Everything is completely wet to the core. The conditions are d4ngerous for hypothermia. Thousands of h.unters flock to Fiordland for the annual roar h.unt. When trophy red deer call to attract mates and protect their territory the h.unters spend days trekking into this rugged terrain.
But every year hundreds of people have to be rescued from this remote wilderness. In this scenario Joe and Matt take on the plight of two h.unters stranded at the bottom of a ravine after heavy rains trigger a landslide hurling them down the steep valley slope. Two h.unters weren’t situationally aware.
They got in over their head and now they get caught in a situation that they can’t get out of. It’s very cold, rainy. The average person I would give about a 50% chance of even surviving the night. We’re walking up to a situation that quite frankly is a little d4ngerous. You just had a landslide and you’ve got loose rocks and dirt everywhere.
So, this is going to be very precarious. We can’t be here too long, but we’ve got to take the time to look for stuff. Matt backpack Let’s check it out. Looks like a safety vest, like a h.unter’s vest or something. All right, what have we got here? It’s a nice tarp there. That’s a decent size. At least 8 ft. That’s definitely shelter material, right? Got some 550 cord.
What do you think, about 30 ft? Yeah, or a little bit less. What’s this? A black bandana. I think that’s it, bro. We’ve got Jack in this backpack. There’s no way these guys came out here with just this. There’s got to be more stuff here. Was it open when you found it? Yeah. Well, stuff could have definitely tumbled down here.
That’s actually a good point. Looks like it came from up there and just washed itself down. Why don’t you look around down there, Matt, and I’ll take a peek up here. This is not just a situation where you come upon a backpack. You can see that there’s been a lot of fresh gravel, fresh rock that had come upon this area. It’s going to be a search for Joe and I.
We’re going to have to really dig to find wh@tever’s missing from these h.unters. Joe. Yeah. Found a roll of duct tape down here. Oh, dude, that’s a huge score. Oh, nice. Nice little tomahawk axe, man. I’m liking that. You see anything else, bro? Nothing down here. Hold on. This is really unst4ble here, man. Guess what? What’s up? You’re not going to believe it.
As I get to the top, I just glance over to my left, faced down in the mud, is a rifle. Woo. It’s a mess. And I hope it’s loaded. It definitely took a tumble. The barrel’s clogged. There’s dirt in the action. It’s unloaded and has no ammo. Dude, there’s got to be ammo around here. They did not come out here without ammunition.
There has got to be a box of ammo or something that is holding ammunition that is in this rock slide. We just have to find it. We need to search this whole slide because all it is right now is a $900 hammer. We find ammo, it changes the whole perspective of our situation. A bull3t, as far as I know, is about this big, and lots of debris has fallen through here.
So, it’s hard to say how far this thing’s buried, and it’s a small object to find in a big boulder field. Hey, Joe. Huh? Oh, yeah. Let me see that. Where’d you Where’d you find that? It was just right here where all this stuff’s been falling out. Okay, but this is huge. Matt’s holding up a plastic container that holds these rounds, and there’s one round in it.
Is it still okay? This holds 20 rounds. Dude, keep digging cuz there’s no way they came out with one round. This kind of ammo comes in a box of 20 and there may be one more round and there may be 19 more rounds, but we need to take the time to look. That extra ammo can come in real handy. What the heck? That was close.
Good call. That might have stung. In an environment like this, as steep as it is, it doesn’t take a whole lot of time for a small rock to pick up enough speed to hit you with a force that will break a bone. The last thing you want to do is get hurt in this terrain. Yeah, Joe, I think maybe we shouldn’t dig around there too much more.
We’re We’re just standing in a danger zone right now. You know, Matt, we’ve got one round. One round. If you just give me 2 minutes, just keep an eye out, let me just dig around here real quick where the ammo was and and see if I can find more. That That rock was inches from hitting you when it came down.
You really want to risk that again? We’re in a d4ngerous spot. Joe wants to keep looking for the bull3ts, but I just feel like it’s not worth the risk. I think if we keep looking, we’re risking not getting out of here at all. Think about what we have right now. We have a firearm that’s capable of taking big game, but we have one round.
Having one round compared to having two or four or 10, think about it, dude. That increases our chances of of bagging something. I don’t care how good of a sh0t you are. Having one round is really not a good insurance policy. You miss, you’re crap out of luck after that. You’re done. I hear your point, but I I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s a big risk.
It’s a d4ngerous spot, d4ngerous situation to be in. You know, I’ll I’ll be the first one to tell you if we were in another situation If we were in another situation I would stay here digging till tomorrow morning, but Yeah, I I’d have to say Matt, you’re right this time and that just man, that sucks. Matt’s right.
It’s time to leave this place. I wish we could find the ammo. They’re putting us at risk like we are here. That would just be plain stupid. Let’s go up this way, bro. Let’s get up out of here and figure out what the h3ll we’re going to do. Check that out. .308 As Matt and I are walking along, he reaches down and he picks up an empty sh3ll casing and what that tells me is that there have been people here at one time.
You know, this is great finding this. That just reconfirms everything that we know about this area. There’s a lot of h.unters out here, but this round is probably I mean, it could be a week old. Yeah, it’s a big country out here. You know, I feel like we’re going to have to travel a few days before we even have a chance of running into anybody.
Yeah, I agree, man. The second you see signs of people, you need to start thinking proactively how are you going to signal for rescue? I have an idea. Why don’t we take that h.unter’s vest and mark our trail, kind of leave cookie crumbs? It’s orange, it’ll really stand out in here. That way if somebody does come by, you know, maybe they’ll see it and be like, you know, what is this? Right.
And if somebody’s curious, they may follow it. Sounds like good idea. Joe decides he wants to leave markers on the trail that we’ve been traveling and it is clear that at some point a h.unter traveled through there. But in a landscape like the fjords of New Zealand, your chances of actually running into someone are very slim.
Keep an eye out for footprints, too. One of the challenges that Matt and I have right now is we have no frame of reference how high or low we are in the scheme of things. So, we’ve got to figure that out first off. We’re going to follow survival protocol and head downhill. That’s where you’re going to find water.
Secondly, it’s going to be easier on the body. Hiking uphill is an a.ss kicker. Going down is a little bit easier. Matt, I hear water. Yeah, it’s coming from over there. Let’s check it out. Yeah. One of the best sounds you can hear in a survival situation is water. Obviously, dehydration is a major factor in any kind of terrain, but it also is telling us that our navigation plan is working cuz small bod1es of water will eventually lead to a larger body of water, and that’s where people hang out.
I want to clean this g.un right now. Sounds good. I’m going to grab a drink and look around a little bit. Got it. For someone with my background to be toting around a firearm that is inoperable and dirty is like putting an elevator in an outhouse. It just doesn’t make sense. Joe is a world cla.ss marksman and former special forces w3apons sergeant.
Yeah, this barrel’s clogged. Making him a specialist in the operation and maintenance in a wide variety of US, allied, and other foreign w3aponry. This rifle landed nose down in the mud. And if you were to fire a round through this g.un right now, you’re going to have what’s called a catastrophic failure of the barrel.
And chances are you’re going to get injured badly. What I need to do right now is just p.unch the bore on this rifle. Take a small stick, loosen up the mud that’s on the inside. That’s what you don’t want. I can see through it, but that’s not good enough. I can’t afford to leave one speck of dirt cuz I’m tying a knot at the end of the 550 cord just a little bit bigger than the diameter of the muzzle.
And what that’s going to do is clean the barrel more efficiently and get all of the grime out. Perfect. Much better. Wow, where did you find that thing? Just down the creek. There’s some fresh scat down there, too. That’s a horse. That’s getting me excited cuz now we have a functioning w3apon and we have one round.
If we could bag one of those things, dude, our food problem’s over for a while. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, it’d be a good source of meat. And I’m seeing some fresh sign of scat. Good deal. Yeah, there’s no doubt that they’ve been running through here. Grab the backpack. All of a sudden we hear a g.unsh0t way off in the distance.
Let me get a beat on here. Come here. Now, let’s go check it out. Matt and I have got to take down some brush cuz if we can catch up to these people, now we have a way out of here. We just heard a g.unsh0t. That means there’s people over there. That’s potentially our ticket out of here. You got to be kidding me.
There ain’t no getting across this. That’s deep. Plus that water’s freezing. Even if we got across that, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in h3ll of getting up that. There is no way we can climb that cliff. All it is is loose rocks and dirt. We got to go upstream, get up on that ridge, and then cut over. All right, let’s duck back in and head back up upstream. All right.
Matt and I have to box around this obstacle, and that is going to take time. And that is something we don’t have. My biggest fear right now is we’re taking too long to do this, but we have no choice. In the fjordlands, you’ve got lots of water to negotiate. It’s very rugged land, so it’s very slow going at this point.
Right here? Yeah, looks like that’s about our flattest, widest spot right there. I think we can scoot across these rocks. It doesn’t look that deep. We can make it all the way across. We found a place we can cross, but before we do, we’re going to be smart about this. We’re going to keep our clothes as dry as possible, cuz this water is freezing.
And if you get your clothes wet in this environment, you’ve had it. Lost a little bit of time on that one. Yeah. Let’s see if we can make it up. Going in that general direction right there. That’s a de@d end. Yeah. Damn. Carved by glaciers tens of thousands of years ago, the finger shaped fjords along the coast of the South Island created disjointed wilderness.
The surrounding slopes are so impenetrable that there are no roads in or out of this territory. We walk out into this cove, but the problem is there’s no way to see anything. Joe, it seems Seems like it was coming more from that direction over there. Yeah, I I would I’d have to tend to agree with you, Matt, but we’re stuck in this cove.
We need to get to some high ground and make a peek. What do you think, dude? We can get out on a point over here. Yeah, think we just head up there, like you’re saying. Bolt straight down the ridge. All right. We’re very sheltered here. There’s no sign of the h.unters, and we’re not able to see much of the terrain. We feel like if we can get up on the ridge, we’re We’ll get a much better vantage point.
You know, this fjord. Joe, come here check this out. Huh? Check this out. I’m not sure right behind there doesn’t really look like clouds and down low I’m seeing almost looks like smoke coming out of the trees right near the shoreline. It’s got to be fire. I’d have to agree. I just saw another huge plume come up there.
there. That’s a fire. I see smoke. Smoke means fire. Fire means people. People means we’re getting the h3ll out of here. We’ve got to get over there. How far do you think we’d make it if we tried to swim that? We wouldn’t make it halfway, man. We’d be hypothermic. This is freezing water. It’s like ice water.
We wouldn’t make it far at all. This is a place where h.unters hang out. And if another h.unter hears a g.unsh0t, I really don’t think he’s going to respond to it. We’re going to have to make our way around this thing, get back up on this high ground, come all the way around, and come back down. It’s going to take, if I were to guess, in this terrain, we’re looking at probably, if we’re lucky, 5 hours to get over there.
We’ve got almost 2 hours light left. We don’t have that kind of time. Let’s play it safe, get sheltered. In the morning, when it comes, let’s just make a run for it. Get up as soon as we can possibly see. Done. Yeah. The sun is setting and we’re both soaking wet. If you get caught in a situation like this unprepared, wet, without a way to get warm, I can guarantee you you will get hypothermia.
Hypothermia occurs when the body’s core temperature drops below 95° Fahrenheit. Seeking protection from this life threatening condition, Joe and Matt split up in search of for for the night. It’s a really tough environment out here. It’s raining, it’s wet, and we don’t have a lot of time to work with. So, our biggest priority right now is to figure out a way to stay dry as well as warm.
Joel, looks like a pretty good shelter down here. All right, coming towards you. As beautiful as this place is, it’s probably one of the worst places I’ve been to find a suitable shelter. So, what Matt found was actually a home run in my book cuz I found zero. What is your plan about staying warm cuz we’re both soaking wet and it’s going to get cold tonight? Do you think you can put a fire somewhere out here to dry us out or what? You know, my my feeling is in this environment, it’s very damp.
I just don’t think I can get a fire started. Even myself would have difficulty making a fire primitively. So, you got to think outside the box. I think we got to focus primarily on insulation. Like all those those de@d ferns that we pa.ssed on the low growing ones. If we can collect enough of them, we can create a pretty good pocket in here, make a bed.
We can go ahead and wrap ourselves up in that tarp, then even put more on top of us and make a cocoon, basically like a little sleeping bag of ferns. I think we’ll be fine. All right, man. It’s not much, but it is what it is. We just don’t have time. We can’t be doing this in in the dark. Let’s do it. Done. Matt had a really good idea about this.
Instead of making a fire, Matt is suggesting that we just insulate ourselves with these ferns. The reason that we’re taking these de@d ones is if you look, these green ones on the top are kind of acting like a an umbrella. These are a little drier. We’re not going to be warm as if we had a fire, but we’ll be warm enough to get some sleep and not to become hypothermic.
Matt, how many more of these do we need you think? I think that’s good. Let’s go ahead and start piling in it. There’s two key things. I want to insulate from the ground and also want to insulate on top. Can you pull Yep, the tarp out. Let’s just fold it in half. All right. In this case, the tarp is basically a sleeping bag liner.
It’s containing all the loft both on the top and the bottom of us as evenly as we want to put it. Man, I think we just beat the darkness here, man. Yeah. By about 15 20 minutes. And the rain, too. It seems like it’s coming in harder and harder. Well, it ain’t pretty, but uh it’s what we got tonight. Yeah, man. I was pretty bummed we couldn’t make it over there today. Yeah.
Yeah, I think tomorrow morning, at least let’s let’s get up, get an early push on, and try to figure out a way to get across there. Yeah. Did you hear that? Yeah. What the h3ll was that? Remember those antlers we found earlier? Yeah. That’s the red stag call. You’re kidding me. That thing was pretty close, too.
Yeah, I hope it gets a little closer. I got something for it. Joe and Matt are stranded in New Zealand’s Fiordland, one of the most inaccessible and rugged landscapes on the planet. That’s definitely smoke, Matt. It’s coming up from behind that brush. The previous day, they spotted smoke from a h.unter’s campsite across a mile wide fiord.
How far do you think we’d make it if we tried to swim that? We wouldn’t make it halfway, man. We’d be hypothermic. We’re going to have to make our way around this thing. We’ve got almost 2 hours of light left. Let’s play it safe, get sheltered. In the morning, let’s just make a run for it. Done. Now, with the rising sun, they head off through the dense terrain which encircles the body of water in hopes of finding the h.unters still in their camp.
Joe and I saw a smoke last night. So, that most likely means there’s somebody still there this morning. We’re moving as quick as we can to get there. We’re negotiating extremely difficult terrain. There’s moss on the rocks, on the trees. You slip, you’re not going to stop. You’re going to keep going.
But, it’s worth the risk because we got to track down these h.unters before they leave camp. I think I see something through the trees there. Matt, look. Yep. There’s a tin lean to out there. It’s definitely in the area that we saw the smoke, so this obviously has to be where they’re camping. But, I’m looking around, I’m not seeing any signs of people staying here.
There’s no backpacks left around. It basically looks abandoned at this point. Dude, no smoke. Is the fire warm? Yeah, it is. It’s still warm. They were here probably less than an hour ago. What I was envisioning is to roll up onto this place and see a bunch of guys drinking beer, and that’s just not the case.
You know what? I’m seeing some fresh tracks. I’m going to check it out. All right, brother. Go ahead. I get up to the water’s edge and I see a rope. It’s obviously a boat anchor. The tracks are leading right off that, and they’re gone. I look out across the water, and I don’t see any sign of boats. Just missed them.
In Fiordland, h.unters have to travel via boat when in pursuit of trophy red deer stags. But with 5,000 square miles of wilderness surrounding the many fiords of the area, the best chance of encountering another group of h.unters would be along the shore. These guys that leave anything of value behind, that tells me they’re not coming back at all.
I would have thought a wallet or a cell phone, different story. Hey Joe, we just missed them. It looks like there is a place where they docked a boat out there. That sucks. These guys came in by boat and they left by boat. When they’re coming back, your guess is as good as mine. Well, that was uh Dude, there’s no way we could have got here any faster. It is what it is.
What we need to do now is figure out what what the next step is. Uh looks like we we got a shelter here. Might as well use it. There’s good reason for us to stay down here. We’ve got a shack that’s been visited by people, and that means there’s potential for somebody to come back to this very location. Look at this real quick, Matt.
This is about what we have for dry dry wood. I mean, that stuff’s Yeah, that’s nice. There’s a little bit of dry wood still left here, and that’s a huge bonus in environment like this. You said that was hot? Dude, it’s Yeah, it is. There’s a large pile of coals inside the firebox, but the coals are starting to d1e out.
There’s not much longer we can spare before we can get a fire out. You think you can get some dry tinder here or something to get that thing smoking? I can carve up some of these sticks and get it going. Well, dude, then let’s do that right now. Let’s get a fr3aking fire going. At the southwestern edge of New Zealand, open ocean with Antarctic chill meets high mountain peaks.
This rugged terrain can cause localized storm cells, and temperatures can drop 20° in a matter of minutes. Joe and Matt will have to prepare for all possibilities. Check this out. Look at this game trail. They’ve been hauling butt through here. That is some fresh scat. This is within 24 hours for sure. Another Look at this, real fresh track.
These guys are right smack dab in the middle of a prime prime h.unting territory. Last night our shelter, everything was a bit wet. We were warm, but we’re a little bit on the soggy side, and temperatures today seem like they’re dropping. Most of the coals are de@d, and as I stir them up, I’m still not seeing any sign of life. Wind’s kicking up.
It actually feels like a cold front might be coming in. Starting to smoke a little now. Then I see just a couple coals that are glowing red. It’s either make the fire now or never. Ooh, I see smoke. Nice. nice. Nice. Good job, dude. Yet again, Matt pulled another rabbit out of his hat and got a fire for us.
That is huge for this environment. Matt, when I was collecting this wood, I saw more deer track and deer scat than I probably ever seen anywhere. Trails crisscrossing in every direction. Nice. Just right back here. Yeah. Right now, Matt and I have got three of the big four. We’ve got shelter, we’ve got water, and we’ve got fire.
What we don’t have is food. We’ve got a h.unting rifle, and we’ve got one round. So, I think that we should put it to good use. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out Joe Teti has got a rifle and a round to go with it. I’m going h.unting. Think you can get a get an animal with that one, boy? Oh, well, dude, it’s not even a question if I can.
The question is depends on what it’s zeroed at. Zeroing a rifle refers to calibrating the crosshairs of the scope to match a bull3t’s anticipated point of impact. Commonly, shooters will fire several rounds into a target and make adjustments to the scope accordingly. With only one bull3t, Joe does not have that option.
So, let’s say if we can get up to 50 yards, how off could that scope be? There’s open areas here, and it’s also very thick. So, if I were a h.unter and I owned that g.un and that caliber with that scope, I would have probably zeroed it in at 100 m. But, if we could get within 50 yards of a deer, we’d have a pretty good chance of bagging it.
But, dude, getting 50 yards to a deer here is is not going to be easy. Matt and I have to figure out how we’re going to h.unt. We’ve got one round, and we cannot afford to blow it. Got an idea that we can get pretty close. If it is one of these red stags out here, I can call it in. You can call it in? Right now, we’re actually in the rut. It’s mating season.
Right. So, if I can imitate the call of another red stag, it’s going to feel threatened like I’m encroaching its territory. Right. Picking up a lady. Hm. Our plan needs to be foolproof. We’ve got to maximize this particular firearm and the one round that we have. We blow it, that’s it. All we have is a $900 hammer.
If you can get us within 100 m, done deal. I think we can get maybe even get up to 50. Even better. Let me get your fire for a minute, man. Yeah, come warm up. It’s been a wet night. Facing a potentially long term survival situation, Joe and Matt set off to h.unt a red deer that could provide meat to feed them for several weeks.
But, with an unfamiliar rifle and only one bull3t, the odds are stacked against them. Most of my h.unting experience has been in tree stands. I’ve never called deer. I’m trying to call in these red stags, and and Joe seems a little skeptical if this is actually going to work. It kind of sounds like it, but it kind of sounds like the noise a goat would make if you p.unched it in the face.
The roar h.unt coincides with the rutting season when male red deer vocalize to attract potential mates and est4blish a claim over territory. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually sh0cked that one of these things called back. I’m in the woods with Dr. Doolittle. Dude, I can’t believe that fr3aking worked.
I can’t tell if it’s up this gully or if it’s on top that ridge line, but it’s close. It’s really close. Oh, yeah. Oh, it’s just missed. I’m going to go up this game trail and I’m going to loop back around and try to get on this flank. And you just keep calling like a little diversion and we’ll see if I can get a sh0t. This is teamwork.
This is what it’s all about, working together to a common goal. It’s beautiful. Poetry in motion. In this land here in New Zealand, there’s not a lot of small game. He’s got to be able to get that red stag or else we’re not going to have meat to get the energy to be able to hike out of here. I’m trying to find a place where I can set up for a sh0t and this place is really tough.
There’s a lot of trees growing, a lot of vines. So, what I’m looking for is an open area where there’s maybe some brush that I can hide behind and I find a really good spot. All of the sudden, I hear some movement and sure enough, a stag comes rolling on by, but I could not get a sh0t. It’s k1lling me right now that I could not squeeze off a round, but for someone in my situation, you’ve got to be patient and you’ve got to take a k1ll sh0t.
The sad fact is that might have been my only chance. This is kind of like being in the Super Bowl. You’re on the 1 yard line with 1 second to go. You either get a touchdown or you’re host. It’s walking right in front of trees, and I can’t get a sh0t except for about a 2 ft window. And sure enough, Matt calls it right at that time.
It turns around and takes two steps back. Dual Survival’s Art of Self Reliance. When you’re looking to find a consistent direction of travel in a wilderness situation, look for the clues in nature that’ll tell you where the pattern themes are. For example, in an environment like this, we look at the trees, and we notice a lot of moss growing on this side of the trees, which seems to be the predominantly shady side.
We go to the other side, there’s less moss. And if you look at this whole hillside, it’s all the same. So, that’ll give us an indicator of which direction to travel if the sun disappears. In the remote fjordlands of New Zealand, the chances for rescue are rare. So, with only one bull3t, Joe takes a chance on securing a long term food resource.
It’s down. Oh, was a good sh0t. There he is right there. Wow. That’s a bust your a.ss sh0t right there. Right through the shoulder blade, heart sh0t. Really, really excited. Great h.unt. Up to this point, Matt and I have only eaten some very small berries. So, bagging this animal for someone in this situation, that’s 500 calories per pound. Hey.
Look what I found. Nice. Nice sh0t. Right through the heart, shoulder. That’s a bust your a.ss sh0t through and through. Joe just dropped a 200 lb stag on the ground. I’m pretty impressed. Our next challenge is going to be able to get that back to camp. want to process this thing here? What What’s your plan? Yeah, it’s a little ways to dr4g it back to camp.
So, let’s go ahead and at least get the guts out for starters. Okay. Sounds good. This stag weighs a couple hundred pounds. Once we get the guts out, you know, we’re going to drop that weight down to about 120 lbs. We want to get every bit of that animal that we can back to camp, so that if this turns into a long term survival situation, we have those resources to use and come back to.
Yeah, it’s a biggie for us, bro. You know what I mean? This is a lot of lot of food. Right. A lot of protein. Now, I’m just gutting it out and being very careful to not puncture the stomach, cuz if I do, it’ll get really messy. This guy’s got a lot of food in his stomach. Yeah, I was just going to say, he just got done eating.
So, I’m just pulling out the guts, intestines, gallbladder, bladder, you know, just things that really aren’t that good to eat. So, those I’m going to leave This environment is is almost polar opposite to the environment that I live in back home. Yeah, in Utah, right? Yeah.
Like back in Utah, we get we get 13 in of rain a year. No, it’s it’s pretty desert y dry. You know, you get in the bottom of the canyons, it’s has a lushness to it, but the tops are just flat and barren. A lot of sand dunes. Yeah, this is this is not like any terrain I’ve been in before. Trees out here, they don’t grow in Utah. It’s an exotic place, all kinds of different plant life, leaves and trees that I’ve never seen before, and land out here is not very conducive for long term survival.
In these pockets, you get almost 300 in of rain a year. When we got here, those peaks were covered in snow. Now, it’s like backed up probably 300 ft. Right. Yeah, that’s how quick the weather changes here. I have never been in an environment like this before. This is a first. The weather here changes on a dime. 1 minute, it can be bright and sunny out, and 5 minutes later, the sky’s gone, and it’s pouring down rain.
And you can’t even compare it to a jungle, cuz it’s cuz it’s not, you know? I mean, I look out there, and they actually look like bonsai trees. Yeah. like the the Japanese trees that they prune up, they’re small. Maybe there’s a little Japanese man that comes here and trims them every day. Trims them all for him. This place is beautiful here, but it’s it’s a really tough landscape to survive in. Yeah.
In fact, I read that the indigenous people didn’t even spend hardly any time in this part of New Zealand, cuz there’s just not a lot of resources. They just stayed out for the most part. Wow. I I can see why, for sure. Matt, how do you like your steaks, bro? Rare is great, yeah. Medium rare. Okay. As soon as Matt and I process this deer, I want to get some meat on the Barbie.
We need some food right now to get the protein back into our bod1es and the energy that we’ve lost over the last 2 days. Oh, yeah. This is done, bro. That was a pretty full day today. You mean mine, man? Good job on the h.unt. This is Oh, this is really amazing to have all this meat here.
At this point, our camp’s pretty dialed in. You know, it’s starting to feel a little bit relaxed. This is a far cry from where we spent last night, that’s for sure. I think to leave here would would be pretty cr4zy. Joe Teti is starting to feel a little at home here. Uh yeah, for a while. Not too long, man. A h.unter’s camp like this is going to open up a lot of possibilities for someone in this situation.
So, we have got to use this resource the best we possibly can. So, we’re going to shelter for the night, recharge our batteries, and signal for rescue. Why don’t we eat, hydrate, and just call it a day, dude? Yeah. With the start of a new day at their potentially long term shelter site, Joe builds a signaling device at the water’s edge, while Matt works on a way to preserve the deer meat that they secured the day before.
We’d be stuffing our face, dude, 35 40 lb of meat in a week. So, it’s going to be a lot better if we can preserve that meat. But, in an environment like this, where it’s really rainy and wet, you’re going to have to use smoke to preserve it. To make a smoker, I need to contain the smoke. And looking at this barrel, it’s it’s like the first natural option to do that.
You can just kind of reverse it, flip it around. I’ve got a pipe, which is perfect cuz I need to direct the smoke from a main fire. It’s going to be better to have the smoke come in from the bottom. The longer distance you have between the fire and a smoker, the cooler the smoke’s going to go. To preserve meat without the need for refrigeration, it must be smoked at temperatures between 125° and 150° F for as long as 10 hours.
This process removes nearly all the moisture, prohibiting the growth of microorganisms. I’m building a firebox now. I’m using a piece of tin from the roof, and I’m covering it up, sealing it up with mud. So, I simply have a fire in one spot, I get it smoky, and then it draws the smoke up through the pipe into the main barrel where the meat is smoking.
So, I’m just going to go ahead and grab some moss seal off the oxygen here and it’ll keep smoking even more. That looks great. This is a really good sweet spot. I’m right in the center of this cove. I can see that channel that runs right to left. So, I want the sound going basically right in front of me. Sound travels a lot easier and a lot faster over a flat surface like water.
So, I’m going to use that to my advantage. Oh, yeah. That’ll be good. The first thing I need to do is to construct the framework to hold this barrel. Elevating the drum will allow the energy of every hit to travel freely amplifying sound outwards through the metal container. I’m going to use this pot, but the only thing it doesn’t have is weight.
So, what I’m doing is taking a rock and taping it on the inside of it. That’ll give me the sound that I need. Hey. What’s up, bro? I could hear it from back at camp. Good. Sounded really good. This thing will work. There’s no doubt. If he heard it back at camp, you’re definitely going to hear it out on the water.
So, you happy with this, man? I mean, is there anything you want to change about it? It’s pretty solid. But, what I was thinking we could do is like we could use something like this, too. We can tape it to either side and then put a flag up here. So, while you’re swinging it, this flag will wave back and forth like a hand or a arm.
that. Not only now do we have sound, but we have a visual that somebody can see out there. That just increases your chances of getting rescued exponentially. Yeah. Oh, that flag’s moving around. Yeah, looks great. Why don’t we start doing our shifts every hour until the sun goes down? Yeah. Sounds good.
Sounds like a plan. All right, man. I got it from here. Every hour on the hour, we’re going to flip out. Whoever’s here is going to be signaling for rescue, and the other guy’s going to be resting. Joe and I have been out here for a while doing shifts. We haven’t seen a boat. You have your eyes open, don’t you? Yeah, I’ve been soaking in the view here. It’s been really nice.
Haven’t seen anything. Go take a break, dude. All right. See you in a little bit. This part of New Zealand is ma.ssive. It’s not like the United States where there’s town at each valley. It’s hard to say when a boat’s going to come by again. I can tell you from my personal experiences, it’s 1 minute you take your eyes off of something is when something’s going to happen.
So, either he’s here or I am. That’s it. Matt, grab the flag. North see this. What do you see, Matt? I can’t see him. I I he’s coming this way, Joe. Yeah, he’s heading right towards us. I think he sees us. Nice job, dude. Good work. Give me some, brother. Yeah. That was really nice. Really nice job.
When you enter a foreign landscape, don’t think you’re going to teach nature something. Nature makes its own rules. You’ve got to really learn from the environment. You may only get one chance at something, whether it’s shooting a deer or building a shelter before the sun goes down. And that requires confidence in your ability.
Hey. Hello. Can we hitch a ride with you?
