Desert Forest Survival Camp - Day 1

This looks like a really good area because there are some good flats around and a lot of trees for lean-tos, maybe hammocks, something. Yeah, hammock time. Right? Something that we can build and come back to and improve. I really like the look of this whole area. Yeah, it's flatter because there's so many hills and this seems like a flat basin in here. There's a bit of a creek running through here and it's off to the side of the flat area. Well, we were walking on that creek for a while there. That's what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, right here. So, we've got a nice flat area here. We've got three trees here. Oh, look at the triangle, dude. That's hammock time right there. You could do a hammock and a hammock in the triangle like this. Yeah, yeah. We could do possibly a lean-to over here with a bench. Oh yeah, the hills going up there. This is a good area. I'm thinking, you know, fire maybe out here, fire pit. Yeah. And then whether you're tent camping, nice flat area here, hammock. And we're in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, yeah, it's nice. I should have taken off my flannel an hour and a half ago. Dude, I'm sweating. I'm sweating. Great, you found us a spot. Let's get this stupid down. I'm just going to lay down. Yeah, I'm sweating. I'm actually sweating even though it was really cold this morning. So bigger or what do you think? Make a circle with your arms. Yeah, a little bit big like this to your fingertips though. Yeah, like that. Not much bigger. I think that looks pretty good. We don't have to go overkill to start. I think we can always make it bigger. I'm really just trying to keep the ashes in here. Well, we can fix this up after. So we got the grill on. Grill on. Lunch time. All right, I'm so hungry. I don't even care that these are MREs. I don't care. What do we have? What are the meals today? Menu 9, menu 10. Menu 9 is beef stew and menu 10 is chili and macaroni. Oh, nice. They both sound good. So this is a continuation of our MRE series. 24. We're up to 9 and 10 now. And it always starts fine and then it's like, oh, it's all downhill from here. No more MREs. My bowels can't take it. Are you doing the mix and match? Yeah. Yeah, you do whatever you don't look at. No, I'm not looking at it. All right. I mean, we know at least you're not horrible. It's not like one is like lizard guts. Okay, so you pick left or right hand? Uh, right. What is this one? Chili Mac. Which one? Do you know which one is supposed to be better? No, no. Come on. You speak French. I don't speak French. I don't remember. I can't use this thumb to do that. That's why it's hard time opening it. Because you, back in the day, used to hitchhike a lot. No, it's a hitchhiker's injury. I had surgery on it. Oh, not hitchhiking. You, you want to test it? Look, it's part of this hand right here. What? There's no way, dude. That's a total ripoff. It was random. It was random due to his fate. And fate likes me better. It likes me better, my friend. That is a total ripoff. All right, so I've got beef stew. Jalapenos. Oh, and some people were saying like, what you can do is put this in the heater pack to make it nice and saucy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretzels. I like pretzels. I got beef jerky. Multigrain snack bread. What's multigrain? The wheat is bad enough, now they're going to dry it out even more. Hot sauce. Hot sauce is good. I got beef jerky, grape-flavored drink, crushed red peppers. Lemon-lime, strawberry jam. Jam on it. Spoon. Oh, fudge brownie. Oh. Yeah, yeah. What is this? Peanut butter. Peanut butter jelly time. Carrot pound cake. Yeah, that was pretty good, right? I will take that over the bread. I didn't get any Skittles. Crackers, vegetable crackers. I didn't get any Skittles. What? Do you know what? Because I'm a good guy, I'm going to share them with you. I like Skittles. So do I. Look at that, dude. It's going to have Skittles pox. Is it contagious? No, not at all. All right, let's heat them up. Yeah, let's get this going. Time for some lukewarm gourmet food. How is it? How's the heat? It's not hot. Yeah, it's good and hot. It feels warm. Put my peanut butter in here. Peanut. I put my... Oh, yeah, it does liquefy. I feel that. Oh, yeah. Jalapenos. Super squishy now. Nice. Mm, chemical warm. I'm going to put this in here, peanut butter. So when I'm ready for that, it'll be nice. Deliciously warm. It'll be flowing. All right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to eat the beef stew first. Yeah. I'm going to go peanut butter jelly time on the terrible bread thing. Yeah, yeah. Then I'm going fudge brownie pretzels. Oh, that's a good combo. Yeah. I'll go carrot pound cake after. I'll eat the Skittles when you and I want a snack later. I'll eat the Skittles when I'm on a hike. What? Oh, you're not coming? You're going to miss out on the Skittles. I have to use the restroom. I'll be back. I'll come back. Rainbow flavor. That was the best restroom ever. Why, you know? Oh, yeah. Oh, I can feel chunks in here, man. Yeah. Chunky. Could be good. Could be bad. You don't know. You know. Oh, it smells like Alpo. Well, this doesn't smell that bad, actually. Let's take a look at this. Oh, that's not too bad. That looks good. All right. It smells like canned stew. That's what that smells like. It doesn't smell bad at all, actually. Oh, and you know what? Hot sauce. I don't have the MRE hot sauce, but I do have some local Tapatio. Tapatio. Tapatio hot sauce. When we got tacos the other day. Yeah, we almost cleared them out. We're like, let's grab those. Those would be good for MREs, right? We did. We grabbed so many. Oh, yeah. Get in there, you Tapatio. It's like a little boat of hot sauce. Okay, I got potatoes. Chunks of potatoes, peas, and big chunks of beef. Here, let me take a look at that. Oh, yeah. You can smell it, too, though. It looks like a hearty meal. That looks like a good hearty meal. It does not look like a pink chicken. This and a nap. I'll be good in a couple hours. Oh, man. You got to mix this up, though. It's a bit pasty. A bit pasty. Look. Looks like refried beans down there. Oh, that hot sauce is hot. You got hit with it. Hit me with your best shot. It tastes exactly like Denny Moore beef stew. In the can. Oh, yep. The hot sauce got me. It got me. Good. Put me in coach. This is fine. And I'm actually super hungry. Well, we waited too long to eat. I don't even know what time it is. We're hiking around a lot. Probably should have. All the firewood. The lean-to stuff. We're not even done. We got to get way more lean-to stuff after lunch. Decent start. For sure. It's not bad. This one's not bad at all. You're eating really fast. For the first time ever, I finished mine before you. I'm savoring the beef. That was really good. Grape. It's like blue. I ate the whole thing. Oh, it's like smurf. Yeah, it's not really purple. It's kind of like a bluish purple violet. Smurf blue. Oh, it's making my nose run. Can I borrow your sleeve? You ever pound Gatorade? Makes me sick. Just going to town on it. Too much. You know when you run and you're supposed to mix one-third Gatorade. Is it one-third Gatorade or two-thirds? You have to dilute it or it makes you barf if you're a runner. Just to get enough electrolytes. Yeah. It's too strong. Like normal Gatorade is just too strong. I made that mistake. I ran years ago when I ran, but I did 14 kilometers. Yeah. And after 10, I like just hammered some back. Yeah. I was throwing up for the last four. Really? Yeah, it was too much. And then I read on the like, oh, you don't drink it straight. I'm like, oh, yeah, I know. Oh, dude. Here, have a piece of that. The return. Break this off. Spice carrot. You didn't eat the desiccant on the back? I didn't see the desiccant. I wouldn't have known not to eat it. That's good, eh? It's not as good as this. I mean, come on, let's be honest. All right, we've got strawberry jam, jam on it. It's going to look like a blood pack. This one actually. Oh, that's not bad. It actually looks. You can see little seeds and stuff in there. Can I use this to spread it? Kind of. You can do whatever you want. I can get a pine cone. You can use that. Whatever your imagination. It's only limited by that. That's good. I'm good to go. Oh, yeah, totally. You guys are right. Totally warm up that. Like whether it's the cheese or even the peanut butter, right? Make it spreadable. I can't grip with my thumb. I can't. I can't pinch with this thumb at all. I have no strength in it, but I can punch you in the face real, real well. Oh, yeah. Look at that flow. That's some good flow. Yep. It's going to look exactly like that on the wheel. What? The same thing. Flow, the look, everything. It still doesn't fix the bread. The bread sucked. Remember I was saying Bridgford? Yeah. Bridgford foods. Yeah. The bread that they have in Bridgford bread or the snacks or whatever. Way better. You know, I know it doesn't last as long as that, but it is way better. I would much rather if they had that. I wouldn't even complain. Hardly ever. Minimal complaining. Minimal for me. One last thing. What? What is that? Oh, the fudge brownie. Oh, it's like the carrot cake, pound cake or whatever it is. You need that desiccant? Uh-uh. Here, try some. I'll break a little piece off. That's better than mine. Trying to make me feel better? Nope. It's better than what mine is. You like chocolate. It's totally moist too, right? Yeah. See, you thought I was lying to you. But I'm not sure this is going to sit and come out though. Again, it's all just going to be a hodgepodge. Mix it up. Okay, so nine and ten. Not too bad. Plus, it wouldn't matter. We were really hungry. I don't even know what time it is, but I know we worked well past noon. Oh, yeah. No, it's probably closer to three right now. Really? Yeah. We got to get a move on, dude. Yeah, I do. We got lots to build. Get out of here. Yeah, it's closer to three. All right. Well, we got lots to build. Did you find a piece? Oh, dead leaning. Yeah, you can see the top of it there is completely dead. The power of the little fella. The little fella. Look how tiny that is. I'm going to fell this tree. I like that. You know, when we're trying to make axes, you know, again. Yeah, that's exactly why. Because we were using that big knife to hammer with. And I never thought I would have a use for one of these little ones. But it's so cute. It's really... Oh, little fella. Yeah, that thing is so tiny. And that's a Grand First Brooks, right? Yeah, it's a Grand First. Okay, I would step back a little bit. Okay. Nice. So that top was dead, but this bottom part is good. That may be just long enough for our cross beam. It could be, right? Yeah, for sure. Just start collecting. And these can be the back pieces or the... However, we're going to do the support on this side. Since we don't have a tree. Yes. Something here, we can use some of these good ones. Let's keep searching. I want one about this far. Probably like 10 feet, just so we can both sit there. Yeah, for sure. All right, well, while we're looking for that, maybe you can help me get this campfire going here. I'll give you moral support. Moral support. Thanks, friend. You're the greatest. It's like walnut. Really? Yeah, I saw it before. I wasn't sure what that was. Do you see how dark it is? Yeah, I saw the red. I was like, this isn't manzanita. I thought it was just another oak when I got that. Well, it might be a red oak, but it's really dark. So I'm going to use some of our Can We Survive char cloth. Looks like my belly button lint in there. I got to make some more maybe tomorrow. Yeah. Hey, didn't you split your jeans? Yeah, we got denim. So I'm going to do this. I've been carrying around this little tiny bit of dryer lint for like two and a half years. Oh, is that in your fire kit? Yeah, I'm going to get rid of it. Because I really like the char cloth. Char cloth is like so good. I don't know how good this knife is. I don't... Yeah, it's all right. It doesn't take much with char cloth. My feather stick. The feather stick lid? Yeah. Look how much black is coming off this. There's so much resin in these. Yeah, I don't like burning softwood because of that. Well, it's really good to get things started. I went up and got some of this stuff for you. I just kept that. You know what? That bandana worked really good. It actually burned a lot longer. It looked like it burned hotter. Yeah, I could see it, you know. So I got this for nothing? Is that what you're telling me? Yeah. Let's see if it would have worked. It's a little steamy though. Even though how dry it feels. I tried to get some of the green stuff. Yeah, the green stuff. Do you see the steam in there? What if I put it out? You're done. No more fires for you. You idiot. All right, dig a hole. Dig a hole. Hole. Oh, that's not too bad. Well, I've loosened up just this top layer. It's a bit rocky underneath. Rocky road. This is a little SOG foldable shovel that you need if you're gonna number two in the wilderness. Gotta bury it. So this gets a lot of use from Neal's. Whatever, dude. You basically fertilize two states. So this is the bottom of the piece that I cut. You know, so as we get toward the bottom, it's obviously going to taper. And we don't need to be as wide. We can pack this dirt back in there. I just figured we'd dig a hole and make like our own tree post, you know, at this end. It'll help us set up until we can reinforce the post with some kind of things coming off the side. That's probably pretty good right there. Yeah, let me dig some then. Okay. Yep, I think it's good. What? He just barely touched it. Put the test piece in, see how it looks. You went down about a quarter inch. Shut up, that's at least an inch. All right. Yeah, we could have a leaning brace back down here. Yeah, now you just fill in. Try not to put any of the big rocks in. I'm going to hold this thing completely level, true, and plumb. Oh, pulling out the big tools. You know what they call the machines that tamp down soil? They're like a pile driver, eh? It's called a whacker. I've got one of those. Bands up completely. It looks like it belongs. We just grew a tree. We did it. Yeah, this is, it turns punky, right? You can cut this. Crossbeam. I'm going to get stuff out for dinner. And this time it's not just going to be steak. Because no one just eats meat for dinner unless you're a caveman. Although the last time we had steak. I felt like a caveman, it was good. And I was just going to say, it's all we needed. If that's what cavemen feel like, sign me up. I got some tinfoil for the grill. Little mini bag of potatoes. Yeah, it's got the purple, red, and the white ones. Zucchini, onion, and garlic. Did we bring the, we brought the salt and pepper, right? I've got it in my side pouch there. Thank goodness. Salt and pepper. That's the key. That's the key to life. This is the, this is from Sprouts, right? The organic place. It's Sprouts brand. Yeah. What does it say on it? Salt and, it's the butcher shop dry rub. Salt and pepper dry rub. Now you could just put salt and pepper on it. But this is like a really fine kind of flakiness actually. The salt and everything is like flaky. And it makes a crust actually on the steaks. So we're going to use it on the steaks and on our veggies. All right, I'm going to start with some potatoes. I'm doing the, I'm going to do potatoes with onion and crushed, or you know, garlic more or less. A little bit of olive oil. Oh, and I think meaty will like this. On the potatoes, a little bit of hot sauce on there to bring a little bit of heat on there with the olive oil. I'm going to do the zucchini separate though, because the potatoes take longer to cook. They're just harder. Zucchini will cook fast. And if we cook them in the same thing, either the potatoes are going to be undercooked or the zucchini will be overcooked, which would suck. How many do you think potatoes each? Two or three, right? Two? Two each. I'll throw in one for good measure. What about that? Roger. All right. And then we're going to just put them in foil and put them on the grill. I wonder if you can put them directly on the coals. I don't, I've never done that before and I don't know if that'll work. Probably just the grill will be. I'm pretty sure you can, but why not just put it on the grill if we're going to have steak. Well, yeah, that's just it, right? Ooh, that, look how yellow, no, see that's yellow inside. Oh yeah, yeah. That's going to be a good one. That is super yellow. That's not, because I mean, that looks like normal potato. That looks like an apple. Yeah. And that looks like a squash. Yeah. Oh. Holy cow, dude. It's like a beet. I don't like beets. I hate beets. No, it smells like potato. You got to kick in them hot beets. Beets, give me the beet. Wow, dude. I don't think I've ever had purple potato. It's bleeding purple. Dude, is that like food dye? Do they put food dye in it somehow? Or is that a nap? Did you get the carnival potatoes or? Dude, that's crazy. These are the clown potatoes. That, when they cook, that purple is going to bleed into the other ones. For sure. A couple of cloves of garlic, some flavor. You know what I notice about garlic? What? Is I like, no, no joke. I can smell it through people's pores. Oh yeah, it comes through. Later on, right? We, I grew up beside my Nan and Gramps and we had Italians that lived beside us. They grew garlic all the time. The dude would eat garlic, just like popping it like nothing. Yeah. And he would, when he was sweating, you just smell it on him. I'm like, whoa. You can totally smell garlic. Yeah, it's not B.O. It was, it was garlic. But you can tell, it doesn't stink like, like it's, you're like, yeah, you had garlic for lunch, didn't you? I sure did. Yeah, it's strong. Now you don't like onions. So I'm going to, I'm going to chop it coarse so you can take it out. Chop it like, like you did the potatoes. Then I can see. Don't try and fool me that you think that that might be an onion, but it might be a potato. People try to trick me all the time and greater people have failed. Yeah. I'm not going to, is that how that goes? I'll make them very thick sliced. Lesser people have tried and failed. All right. So I won't put any onion on the zucchini, but we will put garlic again on that because garlic is awesome. Oh, does that go in a different package? Yeah. It just, yeah, it just cooks differently. So let's put some of this. I wish we, we know that we could have put a, we got a plastic bottle. I know normally we would put them in like the little containers like that. Mine broke. Yeah. So we'll have to get some after this. This should leak everywhere. That should be good. Now, do you want the hot sauce on it? No, let's put it on later if we want, right? Right on, right on. Yeah.