Deep Survival with Laurence Gonzales$earch + Rescue: Should Victims Pay?

Most backcountry searches don’t cost the victim a dime. Let’s keep it that way.

On April 25, 2009, Scott Mason set out to hike the Presidential Range in New Hampshire on a popular, 17-mile route that crosses several peaks, including Mount Washington. Mason had decided to do it in one day. With his training and experience (he’s an Eagle Scout), it wasn’t an unreasonable plan.

But then the 17-year-old turned his ankle. At first, Mason continued hiking his original route. Then he tried to find a shorter trail off the mountain but was stopped by a stream swollen with spring runoff. The weather was good, and he was fairly well equipped, so he wasn’t in any immediate danger. He had food and was able to make a fire.

A search was mounted for Mason when he didn’t return as soon as planned. Things got complicated fast, and before long the operation involved the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, Mountain Rescue Service, Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and a Maine Forest Service helicopter. 

Aron Ralston's Survival Story Heading to the Big Screen

Danny Boyle, the Oscar winning director of Slumdog Millionaire just announced his next project: a mountaineer epic about the Colorado-based climber Aron Ralston, according to Variety. Ralston, of course, is best known for cutting off his right hand after an 800-pound boulder fell on it while hiking Utah's Bluejohn Canyon in 2003. The movie, called 127 hours, will chronicle Ralston's struggle to stay alive. Variety says the script is likely to be penned by Slumdog screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy. —Laura Buckley

Alone in the Wild - Live Chat with Ed

Tune in to the National Geographic Channel tonight for the final episode of Alone in the Wild, the survival show that documents Scottish filmmaker Ed Wardle's 50 days of solitude in Canada's Yukon wilderness. While you're at it, get out your computer and chat with Ed himself.  As he did the last two episodes, Ed will be answering viewer questions during the show.

Deep Survival: How to Build a Fire

After a million-plus years of tinkering, we’ve finally found a foolproof way to make fire. (Just ın time for winter.)

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the books Everyday Survival and Deep Survival

No one knows exactly when humans first mastered fire, but there’s evidence that it was more than a million years ago. In the 1960s the paleoanthropologist F. Clark Howell found fossils in Ethiopia that tell a remarkable story: Bands of early humans organized complex hunts, setting well-coordinated fires on the grass plains to drive herds of elephants into swamps, where the mired animals were slaughtered, butchered, and carried away. The strategy of combining fire and mud is a stroke of genius as dazzling as any modern technological breakthrough. Recent evidence also suggests that about 72,000 years ago, people were heat-treating stones with fire to make better tools and weapons. So it’s no wonder we love fire. It’s been with us a long time—perhaps longer than language.

Deep Survival: Most Airplane Accidents Are Survivable - Here's How

This year, 500* people have died in airline accidents. Here’s how to avoid being the next. 

Text by Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the books Everyday Survival and Deep Survival; Illustration by William Duke

Flying is a daring undertaking: Whether you realize it or not, you’re putting yourself in a Coke can full of explosive fuel going nearly three-quarters the speed of sound. When things go wrong—as several recent incidents have shown—they tend to go wrong rapidly and catastrophically.

Sometimes, there is nothing you can do about it. A Continental Airlines commuter plane, operating as Colgan Air Flight 3407, took off from Newark, New Jersey, bound for Buffalo Niagara on February 12, 2009. It had almost made it to the airport when it pitched up sharply, then pitched down violently, rolled left, and spun right, crashing into a home and exploding in a fireball. Everyone on board was killed, along with a man in the house. No matter what your strategy for survival might have been, it would not have worked under those conditions.

But most airline accidents are survivable, and what we do in an emergency can influence whether we come out alive. 

Still Wild, But Not So Alone

We’ve just learned that Ed Wardle, who we’ve been closely following on the National Geographic Channel’s Alone in the Wild survival show, was recently airlifted out of Canada’s Yukon wilderness. The Scottish filmmaker, who survived 50 days of solitude and rugged living, realized that he was slowly starving to death. "My heart rate had dropped to just 30 beats a minute,” he told London’s Daily Star today, “and I realized I had to leave or else I would be in serious trouble.” He was down to eating a meal of roots every other day, supplemented by the occasional wild game, when he finally dialed his producer on an emergency satellite phone and requested the evac. Wardle’s home safe now in north London. —Peter Koch 

Editor's Note: We're relieved Ed asked for help before the situation became tragic--and we're sure there are survival lessons to be learned from this experiment. Check back for more on this story.

ALIVE! Survivor Nando Parrado on the Spirit of a True Survivor

Nando Parrado’s story is familiar. You’ve heard it, seen the films (Alive!, and Stranded!), read the books (also Alive!, and Parrado’s own account, Miracle in the Andes), but it bears repeating. It is simply that astonishing. On October 12, 1972, a Fairchild 571 twin-engine turboprop flown by the Uruguayan Air Force and bound for Santiago, Chile, crashed high in the Andes. Thirteen died in the crash, 16 in the weeks that followed, and finally, after two-and-a-half months, Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio Vizintín set out on an 11-day trek over 18,000-foot peaks and lived to tell the tale. Here, Parrado discusses the spirit of a true survivor. (See photos from NGA writer James Vlahos's first retracing of the Alive! Andes escape route here.) —Ryan Bradley

Your experience was so different from the rest of the survivors because your sister, your mother, your best friend all died in the plane crash…and what really struck me was that not only were you going through all this turmoil, but your father was as well. His entire family was gone.

He was going through some very bad times at home. When I came back, he told me “you know I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t concentrate” because when you lose all of your family in one second it’s different, you know? I came back and I had to sit with my father alone at a table and look forward and never look back.

Video: Hipster Guru Goes Survivalist

Teva, makers of active-sandals and sandal-like shoes, and clothing to go with your sandal-like-shoes for things like...I don't know...canyoneering, has found an unlikely spokesperson in Gavin McInnes. McInnes is best known for being the founder of Vice magazine, a publication centered around (in no particular order): skinny jeans, plaid, urban decay, punk rock, drug use, graffiti, neon. But our hat is off to Teva and McInnes, who, with this series of web videos called "The Naturist" upends the reality survival genre to create something entertaining and, at times, almost clever. Watch more at www.teva.com/naturist/

—Ryan Bradley

Video: Helicopter Pilot Makes Bold Landing to Rescue Stranded Climbers

While most of us struggle to parallel park our cars, Terry Mercer, the helicopter pilot in the video above, is landing his ride on a jagged rock pinnacle in order to save injured climbers. Mercer is a pilot for the Utah Department of Public Safety and has a combined 34 years of flying experience, including nine flying rescue missions in Utah.

Alone in the Wild Survival Experiment - Week 4

Here's the latest video dispatch from Alone in the Wild's Ed Wardle, now in week 4 of his solitary survival experiment. Ed found the perfect, breezy camp at Tin Cup Lake -- much better for avoiding the bears. Now it's time to build his new shelter.

On July 3rd, 2009 Ed Wardle was flown into the wild and left to survive alone. For three months he will have no contact from another human. He’ll be filming himself throughout the whole process and dropping off the video tapes each week to an isolated drop off area. Those tapes will then be picked up by the production crew and posted on the website daily. Each day is a new challenge with new risks. Will Ed survive? Follow Ed online at www.natgeotv.com/alone with live GPS tracking, as well as video, photo, and Twitter updates.