Wildcat Hollow 4K | Ohio Backpacking, Hiking and Camping in Wayne NF

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All of the musical compositions or arrangements and footage in this video are original, and were composed, recorded, and captured by Andrew Lin, Bryan Lin, Robby Huang, and Thomas Sinard

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Tags: bushcraft,backpacking,hiking,camping,wilderness,survival,outdoors,travel,outdoor recreation,prepping,nature,4k,wild,survival skills,ray mears,les stroud,wildcat hollow,best backpacking in ohio,best hiking in ohio

Video Transcription

[Music]

on a nun seasonably warm October we found ourselves driving across the nostalgic Midwestern countryside of Ohio [Music]

we pass by small patches of woodland prairies and fields of crops soon to be harvested

[Music]

although most of the trees were still green the evenings waning light gave the scenery a warm almost autumnal look [Music]

eventually we entered Wayne National Forest and saw a young white-tailed buck [Music]

and as dusk sit-in we arrived at the parking area near our trailhead as we read it our dear we took in our surroundings

[Music]

goldenrods teasel Xand Astor's suede in the meadow surrounding us above us was a classic evening sky as we made our way out we went over our plan after camping tonight about a half a mile in from our trailhead we would hike the rest of the 10-mile northern loop of Wildcat Hollow camping another night along the way before making our way out we were looking forward to a restful night still something about the walk to our trailhead felt comforting and familiar between all the familiar sights and smells and sounds and in fact that we're walking on a road it kind of feels like I'm just a kid like on a walk around the neighborhood you know it's like that summer evenings were to nostalgia feeling kind of nice we came across one of the entrances to the trail [Music]

it's another sign right here you're doing cedar on our Chapel capital but our trail is further down the road so we should be entering the trail from this side on this side right let's go look up here oh that's the old schoolhouse yeah we saw an old schoolhouse which was marked on our map and knew that our trail had to be close by but first we wanted to check it out any students inside look right into that [Music]

sturdy ground get on there it's not terribly surprising that somebody would leave the piano creepy it's kind of creepy so the trail doesn't start here does it oh you did okay well we do know it can't be too much farther if we go too much farther we run out of trail what sure it wasn't before that know like just across from the other trail could be because it kind of looks like that on here but let's go take a look eventually we found our inconspicuous trailhead oh yeah yeah that's it I'm gonna assume it's the trail looks a little overgrown what's a bug spray [Music]

[Music]

we entered the trail and immediately had to trudge through overgrown Meadows thick tall grass ended pretty quickly now we're in like a nice pond pine forest hiking through the dark woods was a spooky beginning to our hike it's definitely been a while since we've hiked in at night I don't miss it some sections of the path were particularly muddy and being in a pine forest didn't mean we were free of overgrown vegetation and spider webs on the trail [Music]

so how far in do you think first campsite is I am really glad that we are in pine forest because like having all these pine needles on the ground just they can seem that much more open which is what I need right now and in the pine needles

we found a red-backed salamander that had been flipped on its back there we go he's flipped over after helping it on its way I looked at some of the other things on the forest floor so we think that's a red striped salamander we just saw it seemed like it was flipped over and could it get back on its belly but we helped it out and we also saw a woolly bear caterpillar just kind of all fuzzy lying there in the leaf litter but I think the splash of cool weather we had in the moisture has brought all these Bush rooms and there's some wrestlers lying around but this one is Amanita phalloides which is the death camp one of the many deadly poisonous Amanita mushrooms and yeah it's kind of suiting for this early autumn Halloweeny feeling that we're getting [Music]

we hiked further into the woods surrounded by a cacophony of crickets and katydids

[Music]

no matter how deep we got we had to keep navigating our way through the unrelentingly overgrown trail this place is really thick I hope that the campsites actually marked or at least easy to find excellent yeah not bad not bad thankfully in a complete 180 from the trail the campsite was open clear and covered in soft pine needles after a quick tick check we set up camp [Music]

and tonight was the inaugural night of my new shelter so if you had watched our previous episode you know that I lost my tent poles for my old tent and well I kind of ripped some holes in it too so went ahead and got a new tent and I went with this one I think it's like Mountain Smith or something and good golly this tent is huge next it was time for a spooky treat so Andrew and I were wandering around in the grocery store the day before we have camping as we are want to do would probably be like around Halloween when people watch this so we thought what if we got like a bag of really random treats and it made everyone like pick one out to eat them how'd you meet you ran well I picked the tree hinges were feet we're all in trouble but I figure maybe we'll uh pass this around each take like three okay three things there you go first

[Music]

[Laughter]

[Music]

okay so these two are like purple sweet potatoes that's what the lady said and this is like a red bean jelly so instead of a jelly bean it's a bean jelly red bean here we go I've actually had that before literally my dad's favorite thing to say on planet earth not too sweet Wow also much less sweet than I imagined yeah not too sweet okay round two

[Laughter]

oh yeah Oh yours not match together I'll redraw this is an Indian gummy Oh which is raw mango flavor something it's like a snowball I'll just get this one I know that's a good choice and that'll cleanse our palate out I got big Goku - joy you know who did not I read it exactly filled with pleasure P joy filled with pleasure this is kind of like a lemon marshmallow ooh this one hits you real strong with the green flavor nuts raw mango - oh that is mango when you open this like the chocolate immediately hits you oh wow not not too animal a little chocolate fill them cookies are you being filled with pleasure oh yeah this actually kind of does make me feel nostalgic for Halloween yeah come back after trick-or-treating

I remember dump all your candy out you'd be like sorting through it and I remember the almond joys and mounds were like a give away from you to me so these cookies are from an Indian store it says ally Chi which means cardamom hmm which is the spice you always get in Korea excellent candy choices new work excellent

look at this I can't even reach top is like so roomy just kick my whole leg out like do calisthenics in it [Music]

[Laughter]

[Music]

it was a still in quiet morning a few birds and crickets chirp around camp but all around us the forest life was readily apparent

[Music]

tangles of crooked stemmed asters grew from the forest floor and mushrooms sprouted from the ground somewhere alien looking others more familiar some had hidden colorful gills and still others were even more enigmatic than their companions

[Music]

[Applause]

eventually we all woke up and started packing up for the day [Music]

we headed back onto the overgrown trail where we saw an old abandoned Shack and a sign riddled with bullet holes [Music]

then the trail intersected with a wide dirt road

[Music]

kind of nice it's a lot clearer on the third pass yeah the path led us to some intriguing Ohio geology a small sandstone rock shelter [Music]

we cross the shallow stream and came across another strange piece of machinery just still in use because it's got a cable running to these wooden boards here so it won't move around it looks like it's a car coming on the road apparently people ride quads through here that's why that trail was so open [Music]

that'd be a great way to travel a great blue lobelias and pennsylvania smartweed grew nearby but a loud thrum distracted us from their beauty look but that one's on right now how much money do you think they make off of that's enough to be worth it I'm not gonna do that we made our way past the oil drill and we're happy to make our way back into the relative quiet of the forest although we understand people need to make a living it was a bit off-putting to come across oil wells on public land so close to the trail but at least now we were once again surrounded by the wilderness and all the critters that live in it and all the tall trees above so this time we've got an entirely new danger which are those acorns that keep falling from the sky it still kind of looks and feels like summer in a lot of ways but the hints of yellow in the leaves and the nuts all over the ground tell you that it's starting to become fall we're surrounded by like oak trees hickories and walnuts and you're just seeing the husks all over the ground we always eat like pecan pie during Thanksgiving and stuff and that's why it's because it's in the season Oh what are these right here so this is a nut that everybody in Ohio recognizes the Buckeye this one is the yellow Buckeye because it's got this smooth shell but this is one night you don't want to eat because it's actually poisonous that being said it's really pretty and it's fun to throw at people but don't eat it despite seeing some of the signs of fall it definitely didn't feel like fall this feels like Shaunie all over again because it's hot and humid it's not that's hot

but got the humidity and then trying to wipe out all the spiderwebs in front of us as we go yeah I suspect that part of the reason it's overgrown it's cuz how close it is to civilization it seems like there's a lot of species encroaching onto this forest that you would normally find in meadows Lee all these brambles with thorns that's like raspberry and Blackberry usually find that growing out in the meadows but it's just covering this entire forest floor I'm also noticing a lot of flowers in the aster genus like goldenrod and a lot of multiflora rose which is actually an invasive species so I think the health of this forest is maybe not at its best but in time I'm sure for succession will take over and eventually the forest floor will be a lot more clear but unfortunately for us it's not right now we also saw a Japanese Barbary bush there's another example of an invasive plant and actually for a while this was a huge problem in the US because they carried a disease that wiped out a lot of the wheat crops that people were growing in the Great Plains there is a variety of this that grows in the UK originally I think that is edible but this one is not and then there's all these yellow mushrooms growing out of the pine needles and that's in the genus Wheeless and these tend to be mycorrhizal with pine trees so like they tend to mesh well with the roots of pine trees and obviously we're in a pine forest so you'll find things like that here

[Music]

this was a strange force to be in on one hand there were signs of encroaching civilization but there were also sections of the woods that felt healthier wildlife tall trees and mushrooms sit down on the ground here we've got some gem studded puff balls just a month ago we were picking ones that were perfectly fresh and good to eat but now it's already producing spores and on the ground all over the place are these acorns and you can actually eat acorns if you process them you basically have to soak them for days to get rid of the tannins but there are certain things you want to look for the ring around here you want to make sure there's no holes or that there's no like fungus growing you want to check the entire surface for holes and actually even those these acorns look pretty good and clean you should not eat these because if they're detached from the little top part this early in the season that pretty much means that there's something wrong with them and the tree has detached them to like get rid of any disease and nearby we found some puff balls that were fresher some canoeing on the theme of nuts there's a bunch of hickories line all over the ground this is what they look like when they have the husk on them and this is the nut that's actually inside I've only had the privilege of trying a really fresh Hickory not one time it tastes so sweet and almost like a maple syrupy and they grow plentifully it's just a little harder to crack them open compared to like cultivated nuts down here is a plant we've all seen before which is stonecrop it's actually Ohio's only succulent plant and it grows natively in these forests but something I've never ever seen is whatever this is my guess is either some sort of insect cocoon or a fungus that like maybe a cordyceps fungus which is a fungus that infects insects makes them climb trees and then sprouts from their bodies whatever it is it looks like it's from another planet so hopefully I'm not breathing any of its spores and this is the started last of it in fact this was likely not a quarter SEPs but a kantham I sees a colitis which similarly infects and kills a host moth then sprouts spindly fruiting bodies from the corpse yeah that's the trail they'd like this for the rest of the way this would be great yeah I noticed on the map that a lot of the trail goes along this Ridge top and last night I was just really hoping that once we got up here things would clear out it was like my hopes of an answer

we came across a small campsite and decided to stop and have a snack these were from Esther sugai thank you very much they're sweet Maui onions macadamias this type of forest is such a quintessential Midwestern forest just like exactly what you think of I feel like we've hiked through this sort of forest a lot in the late fall in the early spring and so I'm used to seeing this just like completely clear it's usually a lot colder too what is humid but thanks to the warm moist weather I did find a really cool mushroom so this is something I've actually been wanting to see for myself for a while but it's old man of the woods you can kind of see why it's called that because it's got this old dark cracked surface and I don't it just kind of looks like something that's been sitting out here a few years too long and if I'm recalling correctly it is edible it's one of those mushrooms where you look at it and you're like you can understand where fairytales came from nearby there were mushrooms being attacked by a mold like parasitic fungus and there were parasitic plants like the spare corn we continued hiking always on the lookout for spiderwebs we didn't really want to come face-to-face with a spider like this marble or believer and as we ascended a hill Andrew saw some familiar plants along the margins of the trail [Music]

giant red stalk belongs to American pokeweed phylla talk--i Americana the berries are toxic but you can use them to create a die and the leaves actually when they're younger earlier in the season can be eaten if you boil them several times it's sort of like a desperate food that people use it in times of survival and this is another classic spice bush I would actually expect to find more of the red berries on it right now I only see one but yeah round this time of the season it's berries turn red and you can kind of use those as like a seasoning they have sort of like a black peppery taste and the leaves have like a fruity fragrant herb eat smell to them and you can use those for tea so we were just looking at the map and there was another campsite just past the one we were stopping it right here

pretty nice one but we still had several miles to hike today so we continued on we passed by some rustle Amash rooms and a fruiting striped wintergreen plant [Music]

we took in all of nature's curiosities as we hiked along there were mushrooms growing everywhere and in the mud we could clearly see deer tracks [Music]

the trail became a bit muddy in some sections

came to a fork in the path and continued through the mushroom filled forest [Music]

we have entered a section of the path that was dense with vegetation as we hiked we as the walking stick to clear away any cobwebs kind of thick in these rhinos

[Music]

there's all these tangles of woody flaky barky vines and it belongs to Japanese honeysuckle and if you can get enough bark it's actually really good tinder and you don't even have to feel bad because it's an invasive plant fortunately these ones don't have too much bark on them but I'm just gonna gather some fur now just in case and like that the trail cleared up again into more open forests all right I think we are coming up on our next landmark which means we've hiked about two miles so far making decent progress and with the road come certain plants often found in civilization so since we're sorted by a road I'm seeing all these plants that you're not typically see growing in the forest but I often do see them hiking on like bike paths through suburban areas but down here we have a little sapling of a black locust tree and it's in the legume family same with the Red Bud over there but both of these have flowers that in the spring are edible the black locust has like sort of this clump of white flowers whereas the red bud has pink flowers that grow all over it and then in the lawn I'm also seeing some more familiar plants like burdock dandelion and common plantain which are all edible and medicinal and then it was back into the woods splashes of yellow gave a warm hue to the canopy above its kind of weird this really feels like fall except for the heat like the environment like the color of the sky how quickly it's getting dark the leaves leave it the smell of it like you got that like rotting leaf smell just one thing that matters the most for fall we don't have right now

we saw more signs of civilization it's like somebody tried to bring in their tent the easy way like some metal poles I can't imagine what circumstances led it to that fate and I saw a familiar tree the sticks from a tulip poplar tree will always be sort of dark and cracked but I'm gonna take some of this bark for tinder

the Sun emerged from behind clouds as we continued hiking

the trail wound downhill and as we got deeper into the woods we felt far away from everything else you know places like this though they do make me appreciate how much I enjoy solitude because when there's nobody around and you don't really run into anybody you really get the sense that you can actually like get lost in a place and if you were to get lost these pear-shaped puff balls might offer a tasty snack and speaking of snacks so none of us have eaten yet and I think the consensus is the next campsite will stop and have lunch I think energy levels are waning right now and just as soon as we felt solitude we came across some litter uneaten and unopened food right for the taking it's slightly tempting it's slightly tempting and then you realize how much weight it probably is yeah I mean those beans half sob good yeah well there's some Spanish rice too it's Roma people lots of things I guess they abandon all their food because they were trying to forage on these walnuts but I don't know how that would have gone either but uh there's all these big green balls everywhere and these are the husk of walnuts on the inside is a shell and it's really hard to crack open but if you do the meat inside is edible but actually got to be careful when you touch these because these will stay in your hand and you just kind of wait for your skin cells to fall off and be replaced by the other skin cells for the stain to go away you actually can use the husk to like dye clothes black or dark brown we made our way to a campsite saw even more litter somebody really wasn't happy with the community I put up all their clothes abandon ship nice campsite now it was time for some much desired rest and food so I'm gonna be doing the Timberline Trail in Portland Oregon and so to save on weight I'm seeing how feasible it is to pack basically just dehydrated meals for my main meals and then maybe some nuts and stuff for snacks while that cooked we had an appetizer we got some ramen snacks from ester sugai mm-hmm actually tastes really good but maybe there's like some ramen bits that don't make it into the cubes so this is the chili mac with beef I feel like we've had this with Thomas before we did literally last time we can this one's for you Thomas so yeah this would be a really nice hike if we actually had fall weather mm-hmm yeah as it is this is like feels like summer looks like fall but also the fact that all this tall vegetation is still around so we got to like be mindful of tips and other annoying parasites yeah there's literally no breeze like maybe if you have to measure it like something moving out one foot a minute as you're hiking you just feel nothing you know what I mean yeah you're just you're always waiting for that relief it's like like the temperature equivalent of being thirsty like you mean with that cold brisk wind and all you get is like room-temperature water cold brisk wind well maybe the universe heard our wishes if it did the universe seems to have a twisted sense of humor it seems these days rain just follows us around it was so sunny earlier I mean the breeze is nice but uh yeah yeah I feel the droplets yeah it just got so dark suddenly all right yeah all right we'd better get ready [Music]

[Applause]

rain of course it would rain we figured there was no sense waiting around so we made our way out of the campsite or at least we thought we did well I did see a trail from the campsite that looks kind of like something we could try that what [Music]

are you sure though because I saw a trail leading out of the campsite but it was like let me let's check back at the site

[Music]

yeah

[Music]

it's funny it's like as soon as the rain starts we get panicky and we just stop thinking clearly and we like almost lost the trail to step out even though it's literally right over here I hate the rain it's terrible it's wet and it gets everywhere the universe has a funny way of giving you what you want just in the way you don't want it you're complaining about the heat and then starts raining and it feels kind of nice but [Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

I hesitate to say anything but I think I think the worst has passed [Music]

so the trail right now is kind of going parallel to a road and it's really weird it's like on one hand we feel completely isolated in this really thick jungle esque bit of the forest but on the other hand we keep coming by signs of civilization we continued hiking up a muddy hill in the rain I was on my last leg

[Music]

and then the rain picked up once again Brian still alive [Music]

feel like it's coming down hard again yeah we're almost at a water cache at least it's really coming down pretty hard actually it's not even like a light rain this is pretty heavy rain whoa not having much luck with the rain these days earlier I was saying hey maybe the worst of the rain is done I was wrong kind of had a feeling it couldn't be that easy though it has cooled down significantly though not sure the trade-off was worth it the rain is so heavy that it seems to be seeping through all of our rain jackets thankfully we saw Forest Road just past a dirt road which meant we were near another campsite where we could settle down and take shelter the rain right now though is ridiculous [Music]

pretty ironic that we need water yep I know for some reason it's like comforting to come this landmark even though it it really does us no good in fact

now I'm more exposed to the brain at the road we waited a bit so we could all regroup

now we had to access a little supply cash we left for ourselves the water here is not good to drink because there's a history of mining and heavy metals leeching into the water so when we came in we had to drop water off where this road intersected with the trail

so we were heading to the place where we were in a store or water for the second day but unfortunately the road was closed so we have to detour background instead of heading in from the north and from the south and kind gentlemen over there helped us out so hopefully we'll see I didn't really understand some constructions but I'm looking at the battle tickets coming up back in the air oh yeah well can't haul a trail okay we found it let's get the water and stash it we wrote on it just in case somebody found them and the roads right there so you can't really see it trails over there I'm gonna take a picture of the tree just in case okay I never forget a tree nice clear

no thirsty beer has gotten to it yet obviously we couldn't fill our water up in the rain so we had to carry the gallon jugs by hand for now thankfully we soon came across [Music]

big I think this will do yes I may be able to set up a tarp first yeah that's what I was thinking get dry a little bit yeah oh what a relief I mean relatively in the game the Finns they have bars that like visualize their happiness attire they are and how hungry they are mine are all empty right now that's how I feel as we set up the big hexagonal tarp we talked about the rain heavy rain yeah hardest rain I think I've ever experienced while camping while hiking that is so how's everybody feeling I have like all these things that run through my mind and things like this happen

storms like this can really make your mind race and make you question why you came camping in the first place but they also add to the fun of the experience at least in retrospect thankfully the storm eventually dissipated and the Sun even came out we brewed some coffee and had a snack I feel better now that the Sun's up

well it's cooled down and the sun's back on it's stopped raining so it's actually a little bit better yeah we've got her water it's it's funny how much of a 180 it is like we were hiking in the heaviest rain ever yeah and now it's just like so peaceful skroob waffles were good - really good when you dip them in the coffee would you guys actually think of it stroopwafels though you ball super good that's the first time I ever had them I didn't even know they existed or you guys told me about so normally I have my coffee a little sweeter on the sweeter side I'd like to have them but not with my I want it to be snowing outside and I have a fire and I want to have a TV with Danish TV on or something just listen I was on an airplane one time and the the flight attendant came by with back at the stroopwafels and then like a little clean of pretzels and she's like do you want salty or sweet this float like what kind of question God it is so nice that it's sunny that's so weird like the whole sky is blue yeah it's completely blue and it was so funny when we're at the other campsite cuz we were just sitting there and we looked up and you could just see it came out of Jarvis's yeah and I stood there going like

doesn't just be dark uh-huh we should have set up the tarp there and just waiting it out tipping stroopwafels uh yeah but I think we're gonna hike one more mile to our next camp yeah yeah but we still have another snack for later very fall oh yeah after resting a bit we filled up our water and tore down the tarp we were tempted to just stay here for that night but we wanted to get to the next campsite to make tomorrow's hike shorter before we leave I want to look at some plants around here this one is sassafras with the sort of lumpy bark there and the leaves have a really fragrant kind of fruity smell good for making tea and then over here we've got tulip poplar with its distinct for lobed leaves of course one of these get big the bark is good for tinder we collected some earlier probably won't get a fire started at this point and down here is dolls eye which is a deadly poisonous plant this time of year it has these really really distinct white berries that look like the eyeball of a doll it just stands out like that very uh in season for this sort of October Halloween II thing going on and then we were on our way we're not here we got this campsite right no but I didn't see it it's kind of a zone it's clearly someone put them there but I feel like if somebody came by they would have been like hey you want this water yeah you'd think they would have told us that it was there it'd be spooky if we hadn't seen multiple people best by while we were at the kids

[Music]

we hiked along more thick trails the rain had made the mud even muddier and we often had to navigate our way through fallen trees but still the Sun was a welcome sight after the rain it's very quiet and peaceful now the stroopwafels and coffee didn't hurt i think either by now we were all feeling pretty raggedy sometimes in places like this you have to cultivate a part of you that's kind of a masochist I mean you've just got to like learn to kind of enjoy the pain and discomfort of like you know when you're exercising really hard and it kind of hurts but you're sweating and you're burning and it feels good to exert yourself like that it's kind of like that the times when you need something like that the most are when you are stuck in civilization and like living too much of a cushy sort of life like yeah I understand that whole thing but sometimes that doesn't mean you need to like hurl yourself and you know headlong into alone and afraid and make it in afraid well it's nice to be outside this place has offered me nothing exceptional besides just really overgrown woods I think you've got to be seeking something specific to be here in this condition at least like you've got to be looking for that absolute roughness you know if you're looking for pretty sights some really really feels like we're hiking through the jungle oh this is autumn Oliver it's an invasive plant from Asia and have these berries that you can eat when they're all shriveled up but otherwise they're too astringent they dry your mouth up this right here is dogwood my favorite trick this grind over here is Christmas fern it's called that because it's actually evergreen and it lasts through the winter so you can use it in like wreaths and stuff and then over here these like really heart-shaped leaves this belongs to wild ginger while ginger is like mildly toxic but I've heard people use it as a spice there's a lot of contention on whether or not it's worth it but in the springtime it does grow really pretty flower in between the leaves that almost looks like a monkey's face we continued on and thankfully we were soon reaching the end of today's hike it's like a little pond over here this looks like what looks like if you walked along that Ridge you would get right to our campsite and hoosier we arrived at the campsite which we were sharing with others and Andrew saw a peculiar mushroom so this is the elusive green looking Russell which is actually a russello parvovirus uns now you see that the cap has like this sort of green cracked texture and then underneath sometimes the gills fork a little bit this one only is forking a little bit here and there but this mushroom is actually edible even though it looks very much inedible but looks are deceiving yeah it might not give you an extra life but eating it certainly won't hurt you

we set up our shelters thankful to be surrounded by a clear pine forest we prepared the area for a good night's sleep

finally it was time for our evening snack and the first step was to quickly whittle a stick into a point now the step is to puncture this Apple which by the way is specifically weirdly narrow and well we're gonna Bank today caramel apples do you guys want the peanuts or the pecan okay so we've got our not exactly homemade caramel you guys a caramel or caramel I say whatever house you're trying to go easy on the caramel because I don't think we need that much good so have you guys ever had go to a fair and get a caramel apple I haven't actually yeah I think I have but I don't remember it like I don't remember being so like blown away by it you still want them as a kid all the time at the grocery store they look amazing it and had parents never next step is to put some crumbled peanuts on it

happy Halloween I feel like we've just been better off buying caramel apples bringing I mean do you like bit right through the stigma you can't argue with the game Janek bite the peanuts are actually good I'm in pretty good oh man so sweet to her [Music]

after our sugary snack we had a restful night's sleep under a starry sky [Music]

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it was the final day of our adventure we packed up our things and headed out all around us were a colorful pallet of mushrooms including some we had seen at our first campsite like this like area okra purpurea so this is an unassuming mushroom and that species named okra purpurea when you turn it over the gills have this sort of lavender color and this is actually an edible mushroom sometimes the gills are even more of a bright purple color but yeah unassuming from the top but it's a party on the bottom and then over here we have an Amanita mushroom you tell today I'm Aneta because it's got these characteristic spots on the top which are actually flakes from basically an egg that the mushroom comes out of and down here along the stem there's a little skirt and at the bottom is a characteristic ball of the stem and it's just bright yellow color and typically a monedas will grow alongside pine trees and obviously we're in this big pine forest so there you go how did you guys sleep yesterday I felt like it was the most humid night I've ever had in my life I did not sleep as well as I did the first night but I didn't feel like it was humid I had trouble sleeping because I had to pee I had a headache hungry but once I got up and resolved others issues yeah but there was a barred owl last night oh what's this I believe these are ringless honey mushrooms they sort of have like a slight fuzzy texture on the top their stem has no ring or skirt hence the name and they usually grow in clumps like this they are actually edible and when you cook them they have sort of this sweet flavor

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we Hecht along the trail to an opening in the forest the road that we kept hearing apparently we were very very close

there's like one point I think was early in the night it super super lab there like for motorcyclists who drove okay that's a little wise I heard that pit and then it was back into the tangled woods

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so is the poorest supposed to be this overgrown typically not actually I feel like I usually see this when it's a younger forest or when there's some encroachment of civilization in fact a lot of these brambles that you're seeing are multiflora rose which is an invasive species earlier we are also seeing cat briar which is in the genus mlx which is native and then these thick woody vines are grapevines

these are like native but a big problem for us today is that there's too many of these growing across yet another road before entering a clearer section of the woods

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mushrooms sprouted all along the trails age

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we saw some Clavel inna crostata among other things dead wet logs are a great place to find all sorts of mushrooms and fungi and we see some sort of puffball growing on here when you cut it in half it's black inside which is a clear indicator that you should not eat this and there's actually some that have burst open and release their spores already don't be fooled this isn't a truffle or edible puff ball its Claro dermis to trina-- the poisonous pigskin puff ball

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we came to a heavily eroded fissure with a narrow slippery log across it feel wondering how worth it this is this is not worth going around this section of force felt more open and clear and it was alive with native flora the club mosses big healthy trees and beautiful fungi

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sort of been a decent campsite [Music]

we came across a cut leaf grape fern with a beautiful spore containing fertile leaf standing tall and we came across another marbled orb-weaver which was meticulously building its web using its hind legs to precisely place its strands of silk it was a pretty incredible sight

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we continued on through an expanse of pines we came across another campsite with litter in the fire pit it's like whoever was here at home style chicken noodle casserole you want to have a good time like these people pack your food out we've continued on our way passing by more mushrooms the heat was really getting to us at this point what yeah it feels like the height of summer come on fall I'm gonna do better than that

hidden in the leaf litter below were tiny but distinct orange mushrooms so as I'm walking around on the ground I'm seeing lots and lots of Cantor Ellis minor or small chanterelles they really pop out with a bright orange color and there's just so many mushrooms here it's really cool but of course like all chanterelles those ones are edible as well consistently on this trail we've been running into these really nice like pine covered trails that are pretty open and they've they're really comfortable to walk on and then just suddenly it would turn into this marshy disgusting overgrown mess and it just would transition instantly like it's so weird that it just changes like that and then we came across a muddy road with no clear trail markers well where's the trail promising defense yeah I think Wildcat hollow not really recommended unless you're looking to beastmode through a forest we should go the other way yeah

I don't believe there's a single Wildcat living in this holler not much of a hollow either pretty dense to be Hollow Road is adding to the weight of my boots all of these roads aren't marked on the map a little weird trail no wear blaze would have been useful first road [Music]

thankfully the trail led us back into another nice clear pine forest but we still felt pretty sweaty and gross well right now I feel a lot like this purple court mushroom which is very slimy and sticky there's not much to say about it besides it's this beautiful lavender color and its natural slime eNOS kind of accentuates the color it does get even brighter and more vibrant than that sometimes though or slimy mushrooms technically ones you can't eat no slime eNOS really doesn't mean anything don't think this one is particularly edible but there was another set of fungi just down the trail there are times on an endless hot and muggy trail where you feel a need to express frustration and sometimes mother nature gives you the means to do that I probably made the situation worse for myself down the trail we also found the speckled ogle a growth caused by a certain species of wasp as we continued on we passed by many other curiosities more spiders and an oil hose among other things we saw some crown tips coral fungi and soon came across another muddy road and back on the trail we saw another curious thing a natural thing in the natural world ernest we decided to take this opportunity to rest in english well it's been a hell of a trip emphasis on health its experiences like this that you have to remember when you're doing something that's not as physically strenuous or uncomfortable trust me I've been remembering it this entire trip this is the type of trip that Calvin always complained about but I've also found that like in moments like this where it's a little more peaceful you remember just how temporary pain is and then we did some cooperative eating [Music]

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eventually we got back on the trail and saw some clove area fragilis or fairy fingers and the trail again became dense that's thick and hot now but soon we were back in the woods and I spotted something really incredible this is kind of Awesome I just walk in and I saw something in the distance and I thought like there's no way that's a mushroom it's got to be a leaf but turns out it's one of one of everybody's favorites chicken of the woods wow that's beautiful

I just love how like bright and orange it is and it's definitely got some good pieces we could eat if we wanted to chicken woods is one of the big mushrooms a lot of people look for always a good day when you see one of these and I'm just gonna take a few pieces of just in case we want to cook some up specifically this was laid a porous sulfurous which grows on wood and has a yellow underside whereas the Cincinnatus species grows on the ground and is white underneath on the ground though I did find another treat can you see any paw Paw's in the tree yeah yeah you see that one up there yeah let's see if we can get it down oh yeah Oh baby I still have yet to try one I'm so excited oh can you smell it oh it smells so fragrant Oh baby mmm Yaga tude oh man yes I peeled the Papa when we got ready to eat is there a pit inside yeah there are several but you just sort of fight into it and then sit down so what I'll say is that this one's slightly under right I don't know it's pretty good no the see I actually like them under right because it has this like custard eat cake battery flavor to it you know it'll be less soft slightly yeah but it still has that like mango banana taste you know tastes just like a banana mango and you notice earlier I just shook the tree to knock them off because generally that means they're good enough to eat they just come off on their own what do you think your first time eating a pot pot right mm-hmm it also tastes like a little bit like pineapple I think the smell is a lot like pineapple mm-hmm I don't see that got that like short of tropical it's not the most clean fruit that's partly why you don't see it sold in stores because like it's so hard to keep like fresh and also it only ripens on the tree so once you pick it it doesn't really ripe them hmm but it is in the custard apple family so it's related to some plants you can find in the store like soursop and cherimoya that's so cool that that's a local fruit in a pop-up tree one it has bark that's good for making rope into the wood actually is good for friction fires which is why has I always say one of my favorite trees after enjoying the paw Paw's we crossed a placid stream and came to a small campsite here we decided to have another sin and cook up our chicken of the woods I don't know what else will get your appetite going like boiled chicken substitute it all serious doesn't know this this is a really delicious mushroom it's just that we don't have like butter or any of the other spices and accoutrements as unceremonious as this fuels I am really excited that we found this I guess the best way to taste it is with no seasoning

here's crazy how much like chicken that textures weird man it's so much like chicken it's bizarre it's just like overdone white meat chicken yeah yeah like chicken breast that you didn't season that must have like the same protein structure or something like it's got this sort of like tough stringing this you know they need to use this for vegetarian substitutes one way I still want to try this is to deep-fry it oh my god some ketchup all that talk about chicken and proteins and stuff makes me wonder if this water can taste at all like chicken broth you look disgusting we'll see oh that tastes a lot like chicken broth really yeah wow that's weird

I did not expect the while the mushrooms one thing I did not expect this to take flake broth maybe it actually is chicken huh what came first chicken or the egg the mushroom even without butter or seasoning the mushroom was pretty tasty now it was back on the trail up a very steep hill

it was one of those 45 degrees wow this might be 45 degrees really along the trail I spotted a small chanterelle cantarella siberius and at the top of the hill we ran into an interesting man um right here there's two plants side-by-side at the basement tree there in plain view hey yeah I'm stood um Stu young ginseng plants ginseng plant is it is a tough little root I've seen a root laying right on the ground the roots sometimes are that deep sometimes that deep the big ones are deep but but dem roots right there are not very deep so I got used to hunt virgin sang all over these parts he's lived here all his life and he was kind enough to show us some small jinks and plants that guy you must have such a keen eye for that plant because I mean I knew what it looks like but I'm looking all over the ground and there's these little hickory saplings that if you're just walking by oh look just like good ginseng plant if you're not paying attention and it's also so interesting as a first-generation Chinese American how there's this cultural connection between somebody who's lived in the foothills of Appalachia all his life and then the like people out over in China or Chinese immigrants in America who using scent as a traditional medicine this is like two facets of the world you would never think we're related in any way got that very I don't know it's a good reminder that the landscape is what we have always relied on and the way in which we use the land shapes our entire society and you can even see this reflected in your own personal life [Music]

there are landscapes that are natural clean and truly wild and they affect your mood accordingly it's amazing how a little change in the scenery and the lighting just kind of like really ups your spirit because for some reason like this area is very very familiar to me it feels a lot like a Zaleski or a old man's cave or something it's just really uplifting my spirits for some reason but it feels good now oh that's so close you can see why people would make it like a state nut because it's just like it's such a beautiful night [Music]

but there are also landscapes that have been encroached upon by civilization and even though we learned to adapt to different landscapes and living conditions when we stray too far from the conditions humans originally evolved in we can end up feeling lost [Music]

you go right yeah I'll check my compass thing almost there humans originally lived in peaceful legality Rhian societies that were intimately connected with the land [Music]

but humans are inventive and after a couple thousand years of civilization we've come to where we are now we have modern medicine and modern conveniences that in many ways do improve our lives on the boundary of wilderness and civilization it becomes clear that we must address a critical question where do we draw the line how do we find a balance can we blend the inventiveness of modern technology with the connectedness of our ancestors and create a brighter future the thought of an inhabitable planet is pretty spooky but we believe our species is capable of working towards a better tomorrow [Music]

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but this is the onion-ring loaf apparently this is what my dreams are made of I guess it's sort of like the so many onions it's hilarious so it's occurred to me that we've got two large pizzas and Andrews food coming they were like we tried to get a medium pizza and said it's cheaper to get a large that well large it is peanut butters looks like pepper jack cheese bacon

can you taste the peanut butter only really subtly but I mean it does that like that sort of subtle Thai peanut sort of tastes like I would never is definitely like a bachelor you've got nothing in the house is it I will just be nut butter on this burger I've done some weird I've done like oatmeal cookies with cheddar cheese and X that's pretty good I wonder how many food creations are like that [Music]

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are you happy that you didn't come on the trip oh yeah I was a coughing gagging well I miss much Thomas no I'm glad I didn't go what a whole affair neither for the next one that is for sure

see that sometimes men take matters into their own hands no sir you made it clear just moments ago that your men never take matters into their own hands so home long should never have been any danger should have colonel you little bastard if Dennis Co told his men that home Long's canoe wasn't to be flipped then why did he have to be transferred Dennis you ordered the canoe flipped didn't he because that's what she told Dennis eyo to do and when of it bad you cut these guys loose you had an McBride sign a phony transfer or you want answers I think I'm entitled to them you want answers I want the truth you can't handle the truth son we live in a world that has water and that water needs to be navigated by canoes who's gonna do you do lieutenant Jim Potts I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who lives under the blanket of dryness that I provide and then questions the manner in which I do I prefer you just say thank you and move along otherwise pick up a paddle and start paddling either way I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to [Music]

d Bryce Ryan send you na expedition research LLC and trails we hike sent us well I got a message for T Bryce Ryan remember T keep sharing and caring yeah well we got a message from Eric Locker Norman Mountjoy Charlie Joe and all the other fellas you robbed in Valentine last week oh yeah what's that they say Eric Bruno has a message for his girlfriend he says let's go on that road trip soon you think they brought a seat for me

looks like we're shy one seat you brought two too many I was wondering if you would be my girl Oh Jason bourgeois of course I'll be your girl I have something I want to tell you I'm not like other guys like Chuck and coupe and John truly of course not that's why I love you no I mean I'm different

what are you talking about no I'm enjoying

well I can't watch [Music]

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