Stranded in Alaska's Rainforest - 3 Days Solo camping

Luke here at the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and I'm stranded in the wilderness of Alaska. For the last three days I've been solo camping in Alaska's rainforest. I've used float planes, canoes, and my own two feet in order to explore remote hot springs. But my plane was supposed to pick me up this morning and it didn't show up. I'm not sure how I'm going to get home but one thing's for sure this is going to be an I've got birdshot. It's the nice thing about shotguns. They're versatile. There we go. I'm gonna leave my gun case in the bushes. I'll get it on my way back. Well guys welcome to the temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska. It rains over 270 days out of the year here and we're about 45 miles north northeast of Ketchikan, Alaska. All right we're gonna get trucking. Got a long way to go. Look at this place. It's a cold jungle. Everything is covered in moss. Well this is the lake I was trying to find. Unfortunately I'm on the wrong end of the lake and it's a big lake. Sure is pretty. Hold on. There's a little something over there. Check it out. It's an old trolley. All the wood's rotted away but you can still see the metal frame. That is slick. You see the trolley pretty good here. I think normally the water level is a little bit lower and you can walk out to that thing. But hey I got a great view of the lake. Look at this. Looks a little beat up. National Forest Service left these canoes here for anybody to use. As long as you take care of them, put them back where you found them, everyone can enjoy them. It's a real great thing. You know what? Rain or no rain, this is still pretty cool. Look at this. There's a couple ducks right over there. I think I might go get them. Oh there we go. Well they didn't let me get close to them but they're here and that's a good sign. If I get up early tomorrow morning I think I might have a good chance at them. There we go. We got ourselves a nice little shelter. Gonna need it because I've already wet my pants. Well this is a pretty slick little shelter. It was built in 1937 so it's almost 90 years old. Just made with logs and cedar shingles. Got a nice little shelf up here you can sleep on or use for storage. Look at the big old solid benches here. Got even a little bit of wood here I might be able to chop up. Well this is a pretty cool spot but I got to get my tent set up. I am really wet and cold. Well check this out. It's a volcanic hot spring. Look at all the steam coming off this water. Oh that's warm. See if we can jam this hole up. There we go. It's filling up with hot water pretty quick. Scalding hot right there. This right here must be the source. Yeah that's boiling. This over here is just warm. You can see all the steam coming off the hillside. There's probably other hot springs popping out higher up there. Now there's a hose over there bringing hot water down the hill. We got to figure out why it's not working. There we go. That's hot. All right so we got cold water there, boiling hot water there, and warm water flowing in here. And you can kind of use the three to adjust your temperature. Oh man I want to jump in this right now but it's getting dark and I'm getting hungry and I need to give this some time to clean out the pool and get it nice and warm. That is so awesome. I think the only thing that could be more exciting than that is a hot meal. Oh I am so hungry. These bratwursts are pre-cooked so you just want to warm them up really. Put a little bit of water in the bottom of the frying pan, bring it to a boil. By the time the water evaporates the bratwurst is piping hot through and through. Oh that's delicious. It's not fancy but it's warm and it's quick. Two things I really appreciate right now. There you go. I'll tell you what guys, I am exhausted. I had to get up at 5 30 in the morning to catch my flight, spent all day on a plane, and then I had to hurry as fast as I could to get here before sunset. Didn't even have time to eat lunch. Got my hot water bottle here, check for leaks. All right looks good. Let's put that in there. Well I got some bread flour with me and tomorrow morning I'm going to eat hot fresh bread. So I'm gonna go ahead and mix up a little water with it, give it a little mix, let it sit overnight and it'll be fermented and all ready to go tomorrow morning. Making fresh bread is one of my favorite things to eat on a camp out. I get people asking me all the time how you do it. I did an entire video on how to make campfire bread. It's really easy. Just gonna hang it up on this clothesline so mice can't get at it. Well I think I am ready to get out of these wet clothes. All right. Well the sun set about an hour ago and it's only 7 15. It is getting dark so early nowadays. I'm just gonna kind of hop into bed and eat some snacks and listen to an audiobook. I've got a pumpkin pie infused gouda cheese which is gonna be kind of wild. Got some chocolate covered hazelnuts, a wicked salami, fig cake and some pilot bread. So yes I'm having an awesome time. Sun's just barely up and it's not raining so I think I should go do some duck hunting. Oh yeah these didn't dry out at all last night. This is not gonna be fun. That flock of ducks is right back where they were yesterday. I'm gonna try to stalk them. Oh there's about 15 ducks in that flock and they flew off before I even got half as close as I needed to be. I'm sure they're not the only duck on this lake. Mallard ducks actually have a language of sorts. There's a hey baby I'm here call. There's that num num this is tasty call. There's the basic quack. Well that duck came right into the call and I was able to close the distance with him pretty good. When I got closer I could tell he wasn't a mallard. He's some sort of diving duck and those usually don't taste as good as mallards so I'm just gonna kind of let that one go. I'm just working my way up and down this river and around the lake just looking for sloughs and marshy spots. Oh my legs. Well I spent about three hours paddling around looking for ducks. I didn't shoot any and oh I am tired and hungry. I think I am ready for breakfast. Some fresh pan-fried bread with honey butter and pork jowl bacon. Few things in the world taste better than fresh homemade bread smothered in melted butter and honey. I'll tell you what the rain has eased up a little bit. I want to take advantage of that. I want to go get some firewood and bring it into the shelter so it can dry off a little bit. Maybe just maybe I can build a fire tonight. If nothing else cutting firewood will keep me warm. Look at that. There's water all the way through that log. There we go. Got a nice pile of wet wood. It's mostly dry on the inside but it's so wet on the outside it's going to take a lot of heat to get it dry so it can ignite. In order to get the fire started I'm going to need dry kindling and lots of it and the problem is where do you find it? All the branches and moss and grass here are just soaking wet. I got these two dry pieces of wood I found in the shelter so I need to chop them down and make them into kindling and keep that kindling bone dry. Each dry piece of wood I'm going to lay over here where it's nice and dry. Another great fire starter is charcoal but this stuff's soaking wet so we're going to dry it out. There you go that works real good. Also use your stove to dry out other pieces of wood. I'm out of water. Luckily around here there is no short supply of water. If the water you're filtering out has a lot of sediment it'll gum up your filter really quick so I use the carrying case for my water filter to kind of do an initial screening. The carrying case will filter out all the sand and sticks and other things. I just hang up the dirty water and gravity pulls it through a filter down the hose and fills up my water bottle. All right let's go and pinch it off. Rumor has it there's brook trout in this lake and I haven't caught a brook trout in a long time. I got my rod rigged up with a little fly got a black leech with a gold bead on it. I don't know a ton about this lake but most lakes like this in Alaska have leeches in it and trout love to eat leeches. I think I want to bring a hot water bottle with me fishing but I don't want to sit and wait for a pot to boil on my stove. Yeah that's toasty. Oh that feels nice. Well the fishing isn't going great the rain's picking up and I am soaked to the bone. I think I might head back. I am soaking wet and very cold. My hot water bottle has lost its oomph. I think I need to do something to warm myself up and I got an idea. Oh all right let's get warm. I'm starting to regret my idea. Okay half of me is being boiled alive half of me is freezing to death and there's just a little bit of sweet spot. Okay well I think I've got the temperature dialed in pretty good. That hot water pipe is just a touch too hot so I got a little bit of that warm waterfall coming in and mixing with it. Just perfect. Between the hiking and the canoeing I'm a little bit sore. This is nice. Oh well I missed lunch and I'm a bit hungry so uh I think I'm gonna have a hot spring snack. It's so good. Oh this is nice but I'm starting to get overheated. A little light-headed getting out of that hot water. I don't have any towels so I'm just gonna have to put all my clothes wet and dry out slowly. Honestly I don't feel any wetter than I did before I got into the hot springs but man I'm a whole lot warmer. I'm starting to get hungry so I am going to make a tinfoil dinner. A little salt, pepper, a little pork jowl bacon on there, green onion and a whole bunch of cilantro. If you're doing this at home use Italian sausage or kielbasa instead of bratwurst and it's even better but hey you know use what you got. All righty. Oh I think the rain eased up. I'm gonna make a fire. I better do it now. There we go. Even with the dry kindling that fire isn't taking aggressively. There's so much humidity in the air. I put these wet pieces of wood up here so they can dry but they'll also Oh nice. Working the fire is drying my pants out. Look at that. There we go. I forgot to bring a fork so I made some chopsticks. That is smelling like it's ready. Yeah that smells good. Oh that sweet potato is so good. Oh that was good. The meat and the sweet potato, a little bit of salt. Man that's good stuff. I think it's time to roast a marshmallow. Oh that's good. Got some lemon pound cake here. A cup of hot chocolate with some cake for dessert. Not too shabby at all. I gotta tell you what I'm feeling very fortunate right now. Got a nice warm fire. The rain has been really light. I got a full belly. I think there's a really good chance I'm gonna go to bed dry and warm. Really the only thing I can complain about right now is that I've got two visitors. Get out of there. Get out of there. Come on. Okay come on. This way. This way buddy. Come on. There's mice all over. Oh mice can cause a lot of damage. Anything fuzzy they want to steal it and take it to their nest. So they'll chew holes in your sleeping bag. They'll pull your hair out. They'll chew up your jackets and of course they can get into your food and ruin your food. Dude. Well that's a different one. He's a little fatter than the other one. I'm just gonna try to clean up really well and get all my stuff off the ground so they don't chew it up. Sure a mouse can still get to it if they want to but at least I'm not making it easy. Hopefully that'll keep my stuff away from the mice. Oh these socks are so wet. And it feels so good to be warm and dry. But it's late. I've got to turn off the camera and I'll see you in the morning. Oh good morning. I had this nightmare that I was rabbit hunting and I shot a rabbit and when I got close and picked it up it was someone's pomeranian. Tell this old lady that I shot her dog and thought it was a rabbit. Oh everything is so damp. You hang up your clothes and they do not dry at all. I've got an entire change of dry clean clothes but I'm saving it for the airplane ride home. Don't want to get the airplane all gross. Oh it's raining good outside. It's gonna be wet today. Oh this plate is disgustingly dirty. Well they're not exactly dry but they're a world better than yesterday. I'll tell you what this has been a pretty cool little adventure but I am ready to get out of the rain. I think it's time to head back to the beach. I got a plane to catch. Oh I'm gonna get pilot that they're weathered in at Ketchikan and they can't come get me. I don't know how bad the weather is. I don't know how long it's gonna last. All I know is the pilot said he'd give me an update in two hours. That's how it is here in Alaska. You have to bow to the weather. The weather doesn't bow to you. I need to get out of this rain. I'm getting soaked. Oh it's good to get out of the rain. I'm wet from the waist down and a little bit cold but at least I'm not in the rain anymore. I get cold just sitting here but if I go out and walk around I get more wet. So I've got to do little exercises under the tarp to try to stay warm. I don't have any more cooking fuel and I don't have a ton of food left so just having a really simple lunch. Well the rain eased up and I got a message from the pilot. They're still socked in in Ketchikan so I'm not getting rescued anytime soon. Maybe in a couple hours something will change or maybe I'll be stuck here for a day or two. I'm using the break in the weather to walk around. I'm freezing. I'm just gonna walk up and down this beach until I'm warm. Barely got half a dozen laps done and it's starting to rain a little bit. Well it's been five hours and I just got a message from the pilot that they're gonna try to leave. We'll see if they can make it. I can hear a plane. There's the plane. Thank you so much. I've got to catch my flight to Anchorage so they just dropped me off on a dock right here outside the airport. Oh well guys it's good to be back home and with the family. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you want to see more videos from the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel make sure to click subscribe. All right I'll see you next video everyone. If you like this video don't forget to check out the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel where we have hundreds of videos just like this. And don't forget to click subscribe so you can see other great videos every Saturday morning. Hit that bell button you'll get notifications. Thanks for watching.