NARRATOR: On the rocky cliffs of Montana's Tobacco Root
Mountains, lion hunter Jake Herak and his pack
are chasing their fifth lion in just three weeks of the season.
JAKE: I think the dogs are on the trail.
Looks like they're cooking out of here pretty dang fast.
Up here, you put your foot in the wrong spot
and you're one slip away from death.
I'm not too sure what's going on right now.
I've got dogs circling around all these trees here.
Looks like they've lost the track,
and they're not sure where this cat went.
You never can be too careful with a predator like this
when the dogs don't have them.
Ah, [bleep]! There's blood.
There's quite a bit, actually, spread
out here in the dog tracks.
This isn't good.
I got to gather up my dogs here and see if one of them's hurt.
Come here.
Lefty, come here.
Ooh, looks like I found the source of the blood here.
Um, Lefty looks like he's pretty cut up on his hind foot.
I can't tell if that's from the lion
or from a rock file or what.
But right now I don't care where that cat is, I need to get
Lefty to the vet right away.
A cut like this can compound into a big infection,
and it could be a season-ender and possibly
be an ender to that leg period.
Man, if I lost a dog at this point in the season,
it would be a bad, bad thing.
Lefty, I call Mr. Consistent.
It's time to get the hell out of here and get him to a vet.
[ominous music playing]
I got about seven miles to travel out of the mountains,
and then I've got about another 10 miles of highway
to get down and out to the vet clinic.
And the snow conditions right now is just awful.
We got about a foot of fresh snow.
And it's really icy and these traveling conditions
right now are just bad.
NARRATOR: The mountain roads are covered
in 12 inches of fresh snow, and the surface is slick.
JAKE: Oh, here we go.
Oh, [bleep].
I've managed to slide us off the road here.
Not the best timing.
[car tires whirring]
I've got my truck shrunk down to the axle here.
I'm going to winch through that tree over there.
So I'm just clearing this tire here.
I definitely need this winch.
NARRATOR: Jake's pickup is equipped
with a winch that has a pull capacity of 6,000 pounds.
This thing's gotten me out of a lot of bad, bad situations.
Hopefully, my cable here is long enough to reach that tree.
Looks like a pretty long stretch.
Ooh, there we go.
I'm out of cable.
I'm about three feet short of touching the tree.
[bleep]
If I can't fix the problem, it's going to be a long night
and a long walk out here.
It's always important to be prepared.
It's why I brought my lucky cord.
NARRATOR: Mountaineering cord isn't
designed for heavy hauling, but could
be a life saver in a pinch.
Six millimeters of woven nylon should be able to withstand
nearly a ton of force.
The breaking strength of this cord
isn't enough to handle it with just one thread,
so I wrapped it around multiple times.
And now it's going to be pulling on three, instead of just one.
Test it, just to make sure it ain't going to bust.
Ooh, that's about as close as it gets.
I hope this rope holds.
This is usually trial and error, but I ain't
got time for that right now.
I've got to get this dog to the vet.
[suspenseful music playing]
It's working.
All right, I'm back in business here.
Need to gather up my winch, and get out of here.
This was a time consuming deal, and I've got a hurt dog.
I just need to be real careful the rest of the way.