On this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, I sit down with one of my good friends, Adam Greentree, to talk about his wildbackcountry elk hunting trip in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. We talk about the dangers of the trip and how he managed to survive it. We also talk about reintroduction of wolves to the wild and the impact that has had on the elk population in the past few years. And we talk a little bit about the new law that was passed by the Supreme Court that allows trophy hunting of elk and other big game in certain areas of the wild. I hope you enjoy this episode, it was a lot of fun and I hope it gives you some insight into what it's like to be a professional elk hunter in the wild backcountry. Cheers! -Joe Rogan Check it out: The Joe Rogans Experience Podcast by Night, by Day, All Day, by Night. -The Joe RogAN Experience by Day - By Night, By Night All Day - By Day, By Day All Day by Night -By Night, All day, All By Night by Night by Day By Night By Day by Day by Night By Night By Day By Day In The Wild Backcountry Elk Podcast by Day and Night, It's Good to be Back! - by Night! by Night I'm Back! - by Day! by Day I'll See You Soon! , by Night? - In the Wildbackcountry podcast by Night!! - The Wildback Country Podcast I'll be Backcountry podcast Backcountry Backcountry Adventures by Night Podcast by Dog Day Podcast, by Dog Backcountry Podcast, by Dogcountry Podcast - What's Good? Dogcountry by Night?! (by Night? by Night Out? , By Night? , by Day Backcountry by Day? . , and by Night Backcountry? I'm back? By Night! I've Been Here? (By Night! ) , I'll Be Back?! , All Day All by Night podcast by Day & Night Podcast, I'm Gonna See You Backcountry! . . . And I'll Come Back? We'll See Me Back? , , & So Much More! by Day Podcast , And So On & By Night podcast, Thank You!
00:00:47.000Yeah, so I couldn't capture it all, but I... Tried to at least mention everything that I was going through but there was like one stage I just felt like I was in the war and I actually slipped between two fallen down trees and I nearly broke my legs like straight across the front of my shins.
00:01:04.000And it's like I didn't capture it and I'm sort of hurt and so you don't get to see the whole story but I reckon I at least give the people 80% of the story you know.
00:01:13.000What happened when you almost broke your legs?
00:01:16.000Well, I was fucking rooted, for starters.
00:01:35.000You know, you're trying to, you know, conserve everything as you're going, so you're trying to use your headlight as less as possible as well.
00:02:46.000So I think a combination of a lot of things.
00:02:48.000Colorado's just reintroduced wolves, which is just...
00:02:51.000It's such a shell game because when there's like stipulations to reintroduce wolves, like Ranella's talked about this before, like they reintroduce wolves and then the idea is when the wolves get to be a certain population, then they will allow hunting.
00:03:08.000But then the wildlife protection groups come in and they sue.
00:03:13.000To make sure that you don't open up wolf hunting.
00:03:17.000So then they only can issue depredation permits to ranchers.
00:03:23.000You know, people don't like the idea of hunting wolves, and I get that.
00:03:26.000But you shouldn't also like the idea of rampant wolf populations that are invading into people's communities and eating their dogs and threatening children.
00:03:36.000The reason why Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood and all that shit, there was a story, because they used to eat kids.
00:05:19.000You know, and it's true, but there could be lots of elk in that area at another time of the year, but hunting season starts, hunters go in and sort of pushes them out.
00:05:26.000So it's a little bit hard to say, but yeah, you don't feel right.
00:05:29.000You know, you want to shoot something that's in a good, healthy population.
00:05:32.000And now considering the fact that you are getting these over-the-counter tags...
00:07:02.000The ones that you go on are really nuts.
00:07:03.000Like the one that you did last four years ago that you documented where you had that close encounter with a grizzly bear and you had a bad pistol.
00:07:16.000Yeah, that was a terrifying encounter.
00:07:18.000The video of you with your gun pointed out where you can clearly see that the round's not chambered because it literally doesn't fit in there.
00:07:30.000I've sort of fucked myself because I want to go to a place where there's just elk running around everywhere and stuff like that, but because I've done these hard hunts now, it's like I can't go backwards.
00:07:42.000And I'm not lining myself up for a disastrous hunt, but...
00:09:33.000Yeah, you're trying to find out something about yourself.
00:09:35.000Yeah, I've got no interest in climbing Mount Everest, and I've said this many times before, but if there's a fucking animal at the top of it, I'll do it.
00:09:41.000I'll do it, you know, and I'll push myself to that limit.
00:09:44.000Yeah, I don't get the Mount Everest thing.
00:10:15.000And if I had 28 days to do what you do, I don't know if I'd do that.
00:10:20.000But I guess what you're doing is, I mean, you hunt so much in Australia, and Australia is so game-rich, because there's so many invasive species in Australia, there's deer everywhere, there's stags everywhere, you have so many pigs, it's a great place to get your meat.
00:12:58.000It just, I don't understand why people would accept that.
00:13:01.000Yeah, and as a hunter, I get to see these animals up close, you know, and you realize that they are a beautiful animal and have a lot of respect for them.
00:13:08.000And then, so you see, when you see that happening, it is pretty upsetting.
00:14:13.000And it's because so much passion and everything goes into it.
00:14:17.000Why don't they let you bring meat back to Australia?
00:14:20.000Customs is really strict in Australia and because there's no diseases in our red meat, I think they're really, really strict that they don't want that.
00:14:27.000Well, how are you going to get a disease from a dead animal with frozen meat?
00:15:51.000Unless you're eating something like a bear.
00:15:54.000that's been eating a rotten animal or i've heard people catch uh they've eaten bear that have been eating nothing but fish and they're nasty yeah okay yeah that makes sense yeah it does make sense yeah because like everyone's always said like like the tar in new zealand oh it's a smelly goat you know or the pronghorn in here in america right because they do have that smell to them but once it's prepared prepared correctly yeah oh it's delicious I think the thing about the pronghorn,
00:16:21.000too, is that you hunt them in the summer and it's very hot.
00:16:24.000And a lot of times people are dragging the carcass across the sage.
00:17:49.000And if you had a cooler in your truck at the trailhead, and you're back there for 30 days, there's no ice back there anyway, or someone's going to steal it.
00:19:15.000And she actually had a bit of elevation sickness.
00:19:18.000We were climbing up one morning and she started feeling sick.
00:19:21.000And we get all, like, we're way out there and we get way back and we're climbing up this mountain and a gunshot goes, like, straight off in front of us because Colorado's got muzzleloader at the same time.
00:19:34.000And that was about the point that she's like, look, book me a flight.
00:22:06.000But I think if you're going to shoot a traditional bow, you have to be a guy who's been practicing for a long time, and you have to put a lot of hours every day doing that.
00:22:16.000Because it's essentially like you have to judge just based on how far you know an arrow drops.
00:23:51.000And so my effective range with a trad bow is like 30 yards.
00:23:55.000Ideally, I'm at 10 or 15. So even having the stalk in that close with traditional gear and then having the compound and being at like 40, 50 and being just like, oh, this thing's done, you know?
00:25:50.000Because we're shooting buffalo, so I do that buffalo hunt once or twice a year, and then some of our bigger deer, like the red deer, are pretty solid as well.
00:25:58.000With a two-blade broadhead, you can still split bone and punch all the way through the animal.
00:26:04.000If you shoot something in Australia using that sort of setup, like a 70- or 80-pound bow...
00:26:09.000A good, like, micro-diameter shaft, so there's no restriction on the shaft actually passing through the animal after the broadhead.
00:32:56.000And like you'd see the amount of hunting I'm doing, I'm going through water, I'm going through dirt and grit, I'm going through crap, and it's just like properly locked up where it's holding on to 80 pounds without letting go.
00:33:10.000So I mucked around up at my farm like I can shoot out to however distance you like.
00:33:14.000I'm up at the farm and then I was trying to get it to go off and I still couldn't get it to go off.
00:33:20.000So that's why I changed because that wise guy's got very limited...
00:33:29.000So I bought three, because now I keep one in the backpack, so I've just cryovacked it so no crap can get in the backpack, and it's just in the backpack sitting there waiting as a spare.
00:33:39.000Also, if you just breathe on that thing, it goes off.
00:34:40.000I've been thinking a lot about that, you know, because I've talked to Joel Turner and he brings you through, you know, that whole shot IQ process.
00:34:48.000I think you can shoot a release and make it go off, but you make it go off while you're in control of all your faculties and you're not panicking and you have a shot process.
00:35:03.000I mean, if I have a hinge and I pull it back for people that don't know what a hinge is, A hinge is a release that you don't have a trigger.
00:35:11.000You're just rotating the release and eventually it goes off.
00:35:15.000Well, sort of, because it gets to a click.
00:35:17.000And the click is saying, hey, we're real close.
00:35:52.000And all you're trying to do is make this absolutely perfect shot into the X and you have all this time to set up and relax.
00:36:01.000That's not the same thing as bow hunting.
00:36:04.000Bow hunting is a very different thing.
00:36:06.000And I think the anticipation of the moment and the extreme anxiety that comes with the animal being, it's really about managing that anxiety.
00:36:14.000It's not about whether or not you can make a trigger go off.
00:36:17.000Because you can make a trigger go off and still have perfect form and shoot a perfect shot.
00:37:08.000I've hunted with a hinge, but this year I hunted with a thumb button and I just had it set pretty hot and I executed a perfect shot.
00:37:19.000I have a process in my head and you know I'd also had the luxury of having one elk hunt that was just a couple weeks before that and Where I shot a nice elk and also I shot a pig a few weeks before that.
00:41:48.000There's no human footprints or anything like that.
00:41:51.000No frigging elk footprints either at that point.
00:41:54.000And by the time you get back to camp, cook dinner, you're in bed pretty early, like two hours after dark sort of thing.
00:42:01.000And I'll say the word again, you're rooted.
00:42:04.000So you put your head down, you're fucking fast asleep two seconds flat.
00:42:08.000And I get up in the morning and it's like dark still and I climb out of my tent and there's like this light-coloured blob like just across from me and I'm like, fuck, what is that?
00:42:19.000And then I start walking closer to it and a dude set up a tent like right near me, like 50, 100 yards from me.
00:42:28.000So he hiked in in the pitch black of night, dude, and set up his tent there.
00:42:34.000So I went back in the tent and I'm like, shit, I've got company.
00:42:46.000If he walked in on the dark, I wouldn't think so.
00:42:49.000But the other thing was it was blowing a gale and it's like one of the only flats and it's sort of like on a little saddle on the mountain.
00:43:38.000And then, so I made my coffee and looked up and he's walking up to the rock and this dude goes and sits on the rock that I wanted to glass from.
00:43:45.000So then I just hightailed it like in a completely different direction, you know, and it's like, hey, we're both there not looking at elk.
00:43:51.000There was stuff all back there, but those sort of guys...
00:44:32.000And cause like that, like, it's one of the most amazing things there is that I think people are missing out on is going and harvesting your own meat.
00:45:26.000I'd be better next year, if that makes sense, because I've already done so much land and walking this year that it's sort of, oh, there's no sign there, there's no sign there, there's no sign.
00:45:35.000Even older sign, you know, like I've constantly taken note of like the trees that have been nibbled at by the elk in the winter, so they winter there.
00:45:42.000Or where there's a shed antler, you know, you've sort of taken all that sort of thing in and, oh, there was heaps of hunters there, so stay away from that.
00:45:49.000Oh, there was bugger all hunters there.
00:45:50.000So as long as I get to follow it up next year, I think I'm better off.
00:46:40.000But because there was no game, like literally like no prints on the ground that it's like, there's no use staying here, pack up, can't move.
00:46:47.000And then I end up walking so far that I walked out to a highway at the end of the unit and called a friend and it's like, hey, is there anyone that can pick me up?
00:46:56.000Because my truck is like seven days walk away.
00:48:12.000Jim Shockey was on the podcast a while back and he was telling a story about how they had actually hired him to go to Africa to hunt crocodiles because there were so many crocodiles that were taking people in this village.
00:48:22.000They would set up stakes in the water so that the crocodiles couldn't go through the stakes to get to them.
00:48:29.000But they figured a way around the stakes.
00:48:31.000And this woman, while he was there, was washing clothes and she got jacked.
00:49:42.000Right there on the bank you can see a big saltwater crocodile.
00:49:45.000You can see his snout and his eyes closest to the bank and then you can see like the ridge at the front of his tail standing under the water.
00:49:53.000I actually watched him come from the center of that billabong there right to the edge when he noticed the line that I was taking to the edge of the water.
00:51:39.000So, but that seems more common at the moment.
00:51:43.000And I don't know why, if the population's getting too high, but you used to get around and see like a saltwater crocodile every now and then.
00:51:52.000And, but nearly like hard to find, you know, certain river systems not, but like tucked away water like that.
00:51:59.000Whereas now it's just like every fucking waterhole's got a crock in it.
00:52:03.000So we just bought a property up in the Northern Territory of Australia and it's got a beautiful big lagoon on it.
00:52:11.000And Kimmy's like, oh fuck, that's going to be sweet for swimming.
00:52:13.000I'm like, that's the wrong state of Australia, you know, because all the top of Western Australia and all of Northern Territory and the top of Queensland, that's where the crocs are.
00:52:25.000Saltwater crocodiles are in that district.
00:52:31.000So, and this property that we've purchased is inland as well, but they get pushed in there.
00:52:36.000Like, the Norma Territory will have a big wet season, water will rise, like over the top of the land and everything like that, water will rise, and those big soldies can move into a little water hole.
00:53:43.000Grabbed this pig, like threw it over in the water and then started swimming away with it and actually took, and it was a big boar pig, actually took it underwater for like 30, 40 yards and then come back up with it.
00:53:56.000And then another big salty was trying to get it off that saltwater crocodile.
00:54:01.000Now, if that pig was already dead, I would have just jumped straight down the back, the bank, and I would have been right in the line of fire.
00:54:30.000It was funny, because when you're in society, like back at home, you've got all the different things going on, whether it's bills, kids, just a thousand things going on, work and stuff like that.
00:54:42.000And Kimmy really enjoyed that trip, because all you had to worry about every day was water, food, where you're going to camp...
00:54:51.000But with water comes fucking crocodiles because you have to go down and collect the water.
00:56:10.000Yeah, because they'll only come so far at the bank.
00:56:13.000So this last mission that I did with a couple of friends...
00:56:16.000We had no choice but to camp within like 20 yards of the bank, but it's a high bank and the saltwater crocodiles were trying to come up that high bank every night.
00:56:26.000So we end up running fishing line, you know, like three or four inches off the ground and like tying tin cans and like whatever we could that would make noise across there just so you'd hear them coming up overnight.
00:58:41.000So a freshie might bite you, but he'll let you go.
00:58:44.000Whereas a salty will bite you and hold onto you and fucking eat you.
00:58:48.000And then so I'm going around with this torch and I'm seeing all these freshies.
00:58:54.000Freshwater crocodiles everywhere and then I hear something moving up like there's sort of rapids below me and I hear something moving through the water and I'm like oh no that's not a fucking freshie and I turn around start walking down there and shine the torch and yeah it's a big salty and he's like coming straight up the water towards me and uh yeah so fucking they do live they do coexist with each other so if you see a freshie don't think you're safe and jump in for a swim there could be a bloody salty in there too So is that just a lack of people traveling in their area and so they've developed
00:59:47.000There's a place called Car Hills Crossing up in the Northern Territory, heading out towards a part of Arnhem Land.
00:59:54.000It might be actually the border of Arnhem Land.
00:59:56.000And there's so many saltwater crocodiles on that crossing.
01:00:00.000And people come unstuck there all the time because it's tidal, right?
01:00:03.000So they'll try and drive across there with a car and their car will get washed off and they've got to swim back to the bank with all these crocodiles in the water, so...
01:00:51.000So there has to be a bit of a fight back, but there needs to be some sort of middle ground where it's like, oh shit, this is actually going to be better for the...
01:00:57.000Elk and deer population and people population.
01:01:02.000And probably better for the bears as well.
01:01:04.000The grizzlies just wipe out the black bears.
01:01:07.000The problem is that these people that are the wildlife activists, they do not like hunting in any way, shape, or form, and they don't want to give up any ground.
01:01:17.000I'm going to send you this, Jamie, because this is pretty crazy.
01:01:19.000A friend of mine filmed this in California.
01:03:15.000I got the same feelings towards a pig as a beautiful deer and they're good feelings you know and it's like you as a hunter you understand this as well that it's not like you know nah shoot it i want to kill it you know it's not about that at all no they're all cool they are it's cool that they exist we're very fortunate that we get to be around them in the wild because it's such a unique moment when you're around an animal that you know especially the places that you go Probably never seen a person before.
01:03:43.000And I just actually had an accountant with a dingo, a wild dog in Australia that had never seen people before.
01:03:50.000And he actually arced up at me, like was like barking flat out at me.
01:03:54.000And I didn't know what I was, and then I pretended to be prey, so I turned and started running away to see what he'd do, and he'd come flying down the bank and was coming at me, and then he hit my scent, and then it was a completely different story.
01:04:10.000As soon as he smelt human, he knew it was danger, and he spun around and bolted.
01:04:15.000And he actually, there was a little waterhole there that he'd just walked out of, like there was wet prints coming out of the waterhole in the half-eaten wallaby.
01:04:23.000And they were on a killing rampage there, these dingoes.
01:04:26.000End up finding three wallabies, one dead that hadn't even been eaten, had just been killed.
01:04:34.000That one that I was just talking about, that had half-eaten, they'd half-eaten another one in the creek, and they'd also killed a wild cattle calf.
01:05:04.000They generally always run the other way.
01:05:07.000And that's why that was a weird encounter.
01:05:09.000Like me and Kim were both walking down the bank in the Distriar River and he both were in plain view and just stood his ground on the top of the bank on the other side just going off at us.
01:06:12.000Like basically a search mission forum throughout Australia doing a series on it, which I think would be really cool because they haven't been extinct for that long.
01:06:21.000And there's a lot of remote country in Australia that there's still definitely a possibility that they're out there somewhere.
01:06:54.000You know, I mean, there's a lot of people that go looking for them and there's a lot of people that absolutely believe that they still exist.
01:07:22.000And then I did another series of Isaac Butterfield looking for the Black Panther in Australia because they come over as like mascots on the US ships and then when I think when they were told to like put them down as in like don't bring them back they didn't want to put them down like these these soldiers had these animals near them every day that they kicked them off on the mainland of Australia.
01:07:43.000And then, so we did this black panther one and I set up a couple of trail cameras and obviously we never got any photos of a black panther.
01:07:50.000And then, you know, Isaac's like, do you think they're real then?
01:08:48.000I remember watching a documentary about a man.
01:08:51.000Who spent his entire career looking for the giant sloth in the Amazon because it used to exist and there's been a bunch of indigenous people that have told stories about encountering these giant sloths.
01:09:03.000So this guy was absolutely convinced that these sloths were there and he was kind of banking his career on it and it wasn't working out.
01:09:10.000And you could see the desperation in him.
01:09:12.000He was just realizing, like, what have I done with my life?
01:09:19.000You know, and these people would tell him stories about it.
01:09:21.000He's like, this guy could be bullshitting me because I'm some fucking white dork from, you know, the Pacific Northwest or wherever the fuck he's from.
01:10:05.000So it's like, but why did they paint that there and they painted the same painting there and maybe they never even got along with each other or communicated from both to the same drawing, you know?
01:10:14.000And then I watched that Graham Hancock documentary, which was frigging brilliant to watch.
01:10:20.000And I started actually thinking, because they're starting to really date back some extreme Aboriginal civilisations now in Australia.
01:10:32.000I don't know if Graham's ever been to Australia to see and witness it and study it, but I'd love for him to come out at some point.
01:10:41.000There's every chance that those animals existed, but we just haven't found them yet.
01:10:46.000And I was talking to Jamie when I first got here about that boneyard in Alaska.
01:13:03.000Well, the area that he's at, though, because of the thick carbon layer, what he thinks when he's listened to Randall Carlson and Graham Hancock discuss the Younger Dryas impact theory, he thinks he's in an area that got hit.
01:15:25.000Here's a picture of one of the straight cut bones, still frozen beneath the ice wedge in the frozen muck, about 50 to 60 feet below the surface.
01:15:32.000So who knows how many thousands of years of ground is covering those things.
01:15:39.000And because it's permafrost, they're able to get these things out completely preserved.
01:16:56.000One of the things we were talking about last time you were here was that when you explained that there's 700 different languages that these Aborigines have and that a mob, that's what they call like a tribe, a mob of Aborigines, could be just 10 kilometers away from another mob.
01:26:20.000And the story is that there was people that lived on the mainland on the coast.
01:26:25.000This is the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
01:26:27.000And then there was people that lived on the islands.
01:26:29.000So the Dampier Archipelago is 40 odd islands, I think, just off the coast.
01:26:34.000And there was another community of people that lived on the islands.
01:26:38.000I think they called them like the boat people or the canoe people or something like that because they traveled from island to island in canoes.
01:26:44.000And they looked and talked and acted so much different than the people on the mainland that when these canoe people used to come towards the mainland, the people on the mainland would clear out of there, like would leave.
01:26:57.000That's how freaky these other people were to them.
01:27:00.000It's like so fascinating to think about, eh?
01:27:06.000No idea, but the fact that there were over 70,000 rock arts on the mainland, that says that there was a lot of people on the mainland, and they would clear out of there when these canoe people would come.
01:30:48.000That sounds like what a really rich person would do way back then.
01:30:52.000They just had the ability to do, like, get a boat, feed up a stag.
01:30:57.000I've seen the images of, like, the tar getting taken up to, I think it might have been the top of Mount Cook, in, like, a trolley system on wires, you know?
01:31:08.000Like, they went all out to get them to where they wanted them, you know?
01:31:16.000So, New Zealand's doing the same thing as Australia where they just, you know, they're helicopter culling them and, you know, trying to eradicate them.
01:31:24.000Are they trying to eradicate all of them?
01:33:34.000The weather was rolling in really bad and I actually climbed into a pretty horrible spot.
01:33:40.000But I was confident in doing it because I was always going to get a helicopter out.
01:33:44.000Get an animal on the ground, process it, pack up camp, call in a helicopter and get the helicopter back off the mountain because going down can be pretty risky.
01:33:52.000It always feels safer going up than actually coming down with a bunch of weight on your backpack.
01:33:59.000And I looked at the weather, had a GPS on me which could tell me the weather and I looked at the weather and it was coming in really bad for like the next four or five days was forecast.
01:34:09.000So I called the helicopter in a little bit early, but they're like, hey, there's a gap in the weather.
01:34:14.000We can come and pick you up right now.
01:34:16.000And I'm like, yeah, look, let's get it done.
01:34:19.000I was pretty keen to get off the mountain.
01:34:20.000I was only like camped on this tiny little spot, like a tiny little flat spot that just sort of fit the tent and like me coming out the front of it.
01:34:30.000And the back of it was just like sheer cliff for like 200 yards straight down.
01:34:33.000Yeah, it was pretty, pretty sketchy spot, but the weather was still good.
01:34:39.000I can hear the helicopter coming in, and as the helicopter's coming in, these fucking horrible clouds just start rolling in, like at my height.
01:34:47.000And I hear the helicopter coming in, but it sounds like it's frigging below me.
01:34:52.000And I've just got my sleeping, not my sleeping bag out, my mattress, because it's bright orange, to flag them down in the clouds.
01:35:00.000So I've walked onto the far side of the tent and I can just every now and then see these lights flashing and they're like a hundred yards below me flying in the clouds.
01:35:10.000And I hear this chopper like coming in.
01:35:12.000I'm like, it's going to, I thought it was going to smash straight into the mountain.
01:35:15.000And you see them coming in, coming in.
01:35:17.000Like, I mean, it's like sheer rock straight below me.
01:36:44.000There's never a point that you can switch off in that country.
01:36:47.000You're constantly on the ball, otherwise that's when you're going to come unstuck.
01:36:52.000Anyway, what I didn't realise was the rock that I was jumping down onto had actually quite a bit of a slope to it and it had like clear ice, a layer of clear ice on it.
01:37:01.000You've got to remember, I've got this chamois in my backpack and frigging wet everything because I packed up in the wet.
01:37:08.000So the pack weighs a lot and it weighs a lot anyway because you're going back for like 14 days.
01:37:13.000Man, I hit this rock and my feet come out from under me that fast.
01:37:17.000It was just like full chest weight on the rock.
01:37:48.000I just remember my breath getting sucked out of me.
01:37:51.000I mean, it's crystal clear like that blue water straight off a glacier.
01:37:57.000And it ripped me down and then sort of I struggled to come back up and get to the surface and by the time I got to the surface, because it was flowing pretty hard, it was pushing me into one of the drainage chutes from it.
01:38:09.000And then so I hit this drainage chute sort of scramble and trying to grab on and then it pulled me down legs first as well, like down into the chute in the next lot of water.
01:38:18.000By the time I got to that point, there was no going back up.
01:38:22.000There was no chance I could go back up because it's dropped me into a spot where I wasn't on the sides of the bank anymore.
01:39:18.000I was just, like, stuck in this little canyon in the water, and I literally had to come up with the guts to be, like, jump into the next water chute, which is just, like, a slide cut out of the rocks from the water running down there for fucking millions of years.
01:40:42.000And it's just like, like then it was like, no, there's no going any further.
01:40:46.000Like, to go further is definitely deaf.
01:40:49.000You need to work something out here, you know.
01:40:52.000And it got to the point, it takes a lot of courage to even be like, I need someone to save me.
01:40:58.000Like, at least for me, because I've always, you know, like, it's the way that you're brought up, the way that I was brought up, because, you know, I never had the father figure in my life, I didn't have any of that, so it was always everything I do, I do for myself.
01:41:13.000That's why I never usually ask people for help.
01:41:16.000This is the biggest ask for help there fucking is.
01:41:19.000And it's pressing the SOS button on the emergency device.
01:41:23.000And I sat there for 20 minutes and still pumped with adrenaline over that time.
01:41:29.000I'm getting adrenaline talking about it now.
01:41:33.000And then realizing there's fucking definitely no way off here.
01:46:50.000And that was the best thing that happened to me because it was almost like I hit the button and it was almost like a give up as in like, oh, someone's coming for me.
01:47:24.000There's no branches or anything around, so then I'm back at that tree where my tent was, and I'm trying to carve into that tree to try and get into the middle of it, try and find some dry, because it's been raining for a day and a half now.
01:47:39.000Maybe even longer down low because I descended so far down.
01:47:43.000And then I'm trying to get in there and I'm like, I'll burn the tent.
01:47:55.000So I left the tent set up, left the chamois skin in there.
01:47:59.000And then I just got it to the point where I was like, I could probably start a fire now.
01:48:03.000It's not going to last long because there's no wood on it.
01:48:05.000It's just all, you know, trash that I had in my bag.
01:48:09.000And then I started thinking, what else can I do?
01:48:11.000I'm like, you know, I'm going to build a fucking helicopter pad.
01:48:13.000Because there was no, you know, it was all sheer, like no commercial helicopter could land there.
01:48:20.000Only a rescue helicopter at that point could pick me up from where I was because they, you know, they could drop down a rope and lift me up.
01:50:45.000Like, how did you know that I was here?
01:50:47.000And my buddy actually rallied the locals and they come out as a training exercise because they didn't actually even get the fucking SOS that I was down there.
01:51:08.000Anyway, they fucking probably saved my life, so they shouldn't be in trouble, but they come out as a training exercise and come and pick me up.
01:54:38.000Four years ago, that story still works out.
01:54:41.000Did you ever think about going back there?
01:54:45.000You know, it's funny because, like, I've done that real sketchy stuff in New Zealand four or five times now, and I've shot tar, and I've shot shemmy, and I've done them in beautiful ways, like the bow, walking from the bottom to the top, and days in and getting them,
01:56:11.000I've always got a spare battery and you just sort of lean on your phone for GPS. These new phones, at least in Australia now, they've been trialing it.
01:57:18.000Yeah, and then he got the punches, so I got the best spot.
01:57:21.000And then, yeah, me son come out, but if it wasn't for that, like no vehicles came, we're broken down on a road in Australia, and no vehicles drove past us in a day and a half.
01:57:50.000It's remarkable that this has only happened a couple of times.
01:57:55.000I prepare, you know, and it's like, it mightn't sound like I was prepared that time in New Zealand and, you know, and on a couple other things, it's like, you're not prepared, you're not prepared.
01:59:03.000Because one of the next projects I want to do is buy land in America, build an off-grid cabin, have a nice big truck here and RV and live that American dream.
01:59:14.000And so I was like, I might freight my 79 series over here.
02:02:02.000I think I could have got in there with like an iron will.
02:02:07.000We did all these tests on that arrow, the Nexus arrows that we made with a solid broadhead on it, shooting all sorts of dumb things, you know, but...
02:02:18.000Like, I had like a gas, like a solid gas can there, and it would pierce that, and that's the two-blade broadhead.
02:03:05.000I was thinking if I had an iron will and if I had my 90-pound bow and I had a collar on the front of the arrow, I had all these thoughts in my head.
02:04:20.000And I was like, I'll put a smart charger and everything in there.
02:04:23.000We'll just get an electric vehicle for just doing the town stuff or the kids are growing up so they're getting their driver's license and, you know, a nice safe car like that.
02:04:30.000But by the time I looked into it, I'm like, it's just not practical for me.
02:04:36.000And the rest of the family too, because they're always going and doing things far away places as well.
02:04:42.000Yeah, that's the thing about the kind of stuff that you do.
02:04:44.000You could never take a cyber truck into the northern country.
02:04:48.000Northern territories would not make it.
02:04:51.000Just sitting there on my phone, like, waiting for it to recharge.
02:04:54.000You'd get 300 miles away, and it would die, and there's nothing you can do.
02:04:59.000Whereas all my cars have long-range fuel tanks on them, so you're good for 1,000 kilometers, and it's a long time between fuel stations in some of that remote country as well.
02:05:26.000So, I've got 130, which is the main tank, so 130 liters for the main tank, and then 90 liters for the auxiliary tank, and it's just on a switch.
02:05:55.000When the shit was going down in LA. I was starting to think the shit was gonna go down in LA before.
02:06:00.000I was thinking about earthquakes and things like that.
02:06:02.000If you get trapped and you have to drive off-road, I wanted something that was lifted, something that had a real off-road vehicle suspension, real power.
02:06:12.000It's got a supercharged Corvette engine in it.
02:08:00.000It's such a precarious scenario because so many people have had things provided for them for so long, they have no skills, no understanding, no knowledge, no ability.
02:08:12.000They would have to learn from scratch while starving.
02:09:38.000It's COVID. It's the current government.
02:09:41.000I mean, one of the things we found out about Los Angeles is the people that are working on the homeless situation are being paid exorbitant amounts of money.
02:09:50.000There's people that work on the homeless situation in Los Angeles that are making $240,000 plus a year.
02:09:58.000And there's no incentive whatsoever to fix it.
02:11:33.000And then you have places like Skid Row.
02:11:37.000Mike Glover, who runs, I forget the name of his organization, but it's a preparedness organization where he teaches people how to prepare for the worst and what you have to do if something happens.
02:11:55.000He said Skid Row is the worst place he's ever seen at all the places he's been to, all the third world places he's been around the world in terms of like Just the sheer amount of homeless people, the open-air drug use, no hope, no law enforcement,
02:12:14.000That's what I've noticed the last two trips.
02:12:16.000It seems to be a lack of law enforcement out there.
02:12:19.000Yeah, well, it almost seems like it's engineered.
02:12:22.000I mean, if you were a real conspiracy theorist, you would think it's engineered to collapse society.
02:12:27.000And I'm sure there's some very legitimate people that can't help being on the streets at the moment, whether it's from job loss through COVID, whether it's from mental illness.
02:12:37.000It's mostly mental illness and drug abuse.
02:12:39.000People want to label it as job loss, but it seems like if you talk to the people that actually understand the situation, that's very little of it.
02:12:46.000Because there's resources for those people, but there's not resources for people that are severely mentally ill.
02:12:52.000And also, there's many cities that incentivize people.
02:12:55.000They actually give people money to stay homeless.
02:13:24.000It's like they have this fucking ideology in their head, like they're in a cult.
02:13:28.000And they think their way is the only way to do it.
02:13:31.000And as long as they're safe in their home, they don't take into consideration what the overall effect on society.
02:13:37.000All these laws and lack of enforcement of laws.
02:13:41.000I mean, there's so many cities that all these businesses, like San Francisco, businesses are just pulling out left and right because they're just constantly getting robbed.
02:14:48.000It's really bad right now in New York because they made it a sanctuary city.
02:14:52.000So then you have all these – and so the way the New York State works, Coleman Hughes, who was on the podcast before, explained it, that it's actually – A New York state law where you have to provide housing to homeless people.
02:15:05.000But that was supposed to be for people that lived there.
02:15:07.000So these people have come here from South America, Mexico, and they've made it a sanctuary city.
02:15:13.000And so now you have entire hotels that are no longer hotels.
02:15:17.000They're just loaded up with these migrants.
02:15:21.000So the next president, if he's up to it, is going to have a hell of a job in front of him.
02:17:44.000They never tested it to stop transmission, and they had to admit that over time.
02:17:48.000But this has just been the story of pharmaceutical drugs in America.
02:17:53.000The massive amount of profit that they can make by forcing people to do that just...
02:17:59.000That amount of money just went really far to enforcing this because so many people were on the take.
02:18:05.000Whether they were on the take voluntarily, whether they were on the take psychologically because this was set up as the one way to get out of this and everybody believed them.
02:18:14.000I felt like Australia was like, oh, what's that country doing?
02:18:41.000You're on a plane ride for like six hours to WA, Western Australia, and everyone's got their mask on, and then when the food gets served, everyone's got their mask down.
02:20:11.000They're shutting down the world, basically.
02:20:14.000And so I get that message, and I'm like, shit!
02:20:17.000And I turn around, Kim and Tyler behind me, and the sun's gone down, so the ground's dark, but the sky's slightly lit up still.
02:20:25.000And I just see these 14 bright as fuck lights in a row, like, leaving, like, the atmosphere, like, cruising across, like, the horizon.
02:20:36.000And the first thing that jumps into my head after getting that message and COVID's going mad is, like, all the fucking rich and famous, like, Joe Rogan's on one of them ships.
02:21:18.000Because COVID... You know, although people did lose their lives and the economy got destroyed and it was a catastrophe and a pandemic, it's fairly minor compared to something that could happen if we got hit by a meteor.
02:22:05.000Now there's talk of, at least in Australia, and I haven't read too much on it because it's been hard to find since, that there's a vaccination that cattle are going to get.
02:22:16.000And for anything to go to the stockyards, like the sale yards for cattle, they have to have this vaccination.
02:22:23.000That vaccination gets passed on to people.
02:22:28.000And like right now, I'm trying to buy acreage because I want to run unvaccinated cattle, like pure blood cattle, you could call it, and sell direct to consumer because I believe there's going to be a big market in that.
02:22:40.000And you don't take your cattle to the market to be sold.
02:22:43.000They get sold through you direct because if that's something that comes out, I'm not going to want that meat either.
02:22:49.000Because I'm eating meat now and I'm fine.
02:22:54.000The thing is, if there's something that they can profit off of, and if they can profit off of forcing cattle to get vaccinated, then these pharmaceutical drug companies can force these cattle ranchers to make sure they vaccinate their cattle.
02:29:44.000They have antidepressants that make you suicidal, so they provide you with another drug that you take with the antidepressant that is supposed to stop the suicidal thoughts, but those side effects for that also include suicidal thoughts.
02:32:00.000And if you don't have that passion, then yeah, the whole exercise, like going out of your way to exercise, yeah, it feels shit at the time.
02:32:07.000But then afterwards, you're like, oh, fuck, I got that done, you know, I feel great.
02:32:11.000You know, I'm looking forward to, you've got to look forward to life.
02:32:14.000But then you've got to do it all over again the next day.
02:33:01.000I've seen people come into bow hunting and drop straight out of it, but it's because they're looking for their thing and it's not bow hunting.
02:33:10.000I follow them on social media, obviously, after meeting them.
02:33:14.000And I see them move through different things, you know, and some people mightn't be able to stick to one thing too, so they do a lot of things.
02:35:15.000I don't think it's how anybody would design it.
02:35:17.000Yeah, it's not anyone's design, but it's like, fuck, if you want to do that, you need a vehicle to travel, I need fuel, I need time off work, so I have to work, I have to make money.
02:35:30.000So their survival is, because they're paying bills and everything, is working in that cubicle, which fucking seems disastrous for the mind.
02:36:31.000But it is hard, and I feel for these people that are stuck in a cubicle or in a situation they don't want to be in, you know, and it's just like, where's the light at the end of it for them?
02:36:40.000Not everybody's going to make it out, but enough people that are listening to this are realizing they have to do something.
02:36:46.000And conversations like this are important, because they hear that and they go, God damn it, this resonates with me.
02:38:43.000I love, it was just a little reel or something.
02:38:47.000And it was about if you spend this much time a day doing something that in so many years you're a professional at it.
02:38:56.000I can't remember exactly how it went but all it is is just saying what you said.
02:39:01.000You've got this big goal and you've got the picture and it's written down and it's like every day or each week or each month You keep tapping a bit of that away, knowing that at some point you're going to be there where you want to be.
02:39:17.000Once you've done it, it's easy to think back on because you've already done it.
02:39:21.000I'm even talking about multiple things because you've already been at that point.
02:39:25.000You've already gone through that shit and you know what's on the other side of it.
02:39:30.000I sum up hunting like that a little bit.
02:39:33.000I've done enough of those horrible backcountry elk hunts That you know at some point, even if you're not successful, you still succeed in yourself.
02:42:19.000I just think humans are inherently tribal hunter-gatherers.
02:42:25.000And I think there's certain human reward systems that are deeply ingrained in our DNA. And you can either accept those and find some way to satisfy those needs, or you can live a life of misery.