- Yes.
I have made fire!
Fire
in Montana.
♪ Fire ♪
♪ A fire on the mountain ♪
(fiddle music)
What's going on Coyote Pack and welcome to
what's certain to be
the most epic base camp episode ever
because we're in Montana.
- And we have a real fire!
- Yep.
And this is
not a green screen.
- No. - No.
Those are mountains.
Fire on the mountains.
- Thousands of acres of wilderness behind us
and we filmed some episodes in Montana before.
- That's right.
- And we're here in Montana right now
shooting photography for the Brave Wilderness website,
we figured,
why not get some base camp episodes and review
the old videos we shot here?
- Yeah.
We shot the trout video
right over there.
The rainbow trout, but we already reviewed that one, so.
Probably should pick something else.
- Yeah, we're gonna do something
a little bit different today.
We're actually headed back to Bozeman
to work with
what is arguably one of, if not,
the cutest animal we've ever featured
on the Brave Wilderness channel.
- So we've already worked
with Bucky, we've already reviewed that video.
- The baby blackbear.
- So it's not that one, I'm taking.
- Nope.
Mario, any guess?
- Is it the pine marten?
- Ah, you got it, buddy.
The pine marten,
a feisty little member of the weasel family.
So if you guys are ready,
I know the Coyote Pack is ready.
Let's climb up a tree
with the pine marten.
- Let's go.
- [Coyote Speaking On Ad] This episode of...
- [Coyote Commentary] Ah!
- [Mark] The BuyPower Card.
- [Coyote Commentary] There's an advertisement first.
- Of course.
It was worth it.
We got some really cool vehicles to use
for that campaign.
- I think we were using the Chevy Traverses
in that episode, right?
- Yeah.
- This is a good shot right here.
I like this low angle with that blue sky.
Oh, there he is!
Or she is!
- [Mark] Look at her!
Whoa, that was a fast intro.
- [Coyote Commentary] What was that?
Eight seconds?
- [Mark] Oooh, got the retro Breaking Trail logo.
- [Coyote Commentary] That's right.
The old logo, season one.
- [Mario] I think we need a t-shirt of that.
- Yeah.
I liked this music,
this was good.
- Pretty epic
for an epic location.
- Actually, Bozeman's only about
three hours that way, believe it or not.
- But what's cool is that some of these b-roll shots
we actually filmed at this location.
You get a little bit of the movie magic.
- Wait, look!
There's your selfie-stick.
- Yep.
That shot came off the selfie-stick.
Look at that height.
- [Mario] That's the very tip.
- [Coyote Commentary] All the way up!
- I've been an absolute cat at climbing trees.
Today's gonna be a little different though.
- [Coyote Commentary] I've climbed a lotta trees
since we have filmed this episode.
- [Mark] Little did we know you were gonna climb a tree
to catch that monitor lizard.
- [Coyote Commentary] Yep.
This is a good precursor to that.
- [Mark] Ah, that'll be a good
comparison.
- [Coyote] And I see her,
she's right up here.
I'm gonna go up there and try to get her down...
- [Coyote Commentary] Ooh, there she is.
- [Mario] So, of course...
- Yeah, pause it for a second.
- Disclaimer.
This is a captive
pine marten, right?
- Yes.
- A lot of people were confused.
- Right.
- Yeah, we clearly stated in the video
that's an ambassador and it is captive
pine marten.
- You would never be able to
get up close to a pine marten in the wild like that, so.
- If you were lucky enough to see a pine marten,
that would be amazing.
But you would never wanna climb up a tree
after an animal like this,
because the last thing you'd wanna do
is corner this feisty little mustela.
- Truth be told,
I wasn't sure, and I remember we were talking about this,
if this was a good idea at all because
we saw this pine marten when we showed up and it was
going in circles,
rawr, rawr, rawr.
In its cage and I'm like,
"This thing's gonna just phheeww,
"just take off!"
So they're like, "Let it up the tree,"
and Mario and I were looking at each other like
ehhh.
- If you say so.
- It's important to note
that this a part of her daily routine.
They actually take her out into the wild,
because she was raised in captivity,
and she climbs trees.
This is what pine martens do but she's
very
accustomed to humans so she'll come back.
- It's an enrichment, right?
So it allows the animal to do its natural behavior,
climbing up, searching, foraging for
prey and having fun.
- Yep.
- But there were a lot of variables.
Was the pine marten gonna stay in this tree?
Was Coyote gonna be able to climb the tree?
'Cause at this point,
we really hadn't seen you climb many trees.
- I can climb anything.
- Well, I mean...
- Look at all the holds on this.
Climbing this pine tree was like a ladder
with a gazillion holds.
- Alright, alright.
But you know, this was the first climbing the tree video
so, you know, in all fairness.
- Alright, let's keep it going!
Let's see can he climb it?
- [Mark] Look.
Pine marten's like, "Are you gonna come or what?
"Are you gonna come up here?"
- [Coyote Commentary] She's like, "I'm going up!"
- After a pine marten.
- [Coyote Commentary] And here's where she just bolted
at this point.
We're getting these shots,
I'm going up,
and she keeps going higher.
You can see how high up she is there.
'Cause you're zoomed in
and she goes all the way up
to the tippy top of that tree.
- Yeah.
Which,
if you'll see,
you can see clearly in this shot,
it's completely dead.
- It's all dead.
- How tall was that tree?
- It was probably close to 30 feet,
I would guess.
- And you're an expert tree climber, right?
So,
where's the most dangerous part of the tree to climb?
- Well certainly, to the top.
And what I was worried about
is a single gust of wind
grabbing me, the pine marten,
and the top of the tree and just
snapping it off and then we would fall to the rocks below.
Although, I probably would've caught the pine marten
and held it up so that it survived.
(laughs)
That would've been a sweet hero shot, right?
- I think the pine marten would've been fine.
They just would've jumped back on the tree.
- Pine marten would've jumped to the next tree.
- Probably would've,
and I would've hit the rocks.
That would've been the end of Coyote.
I was nervous at this point, though.
- You got a lot of
soot in the air.
- Well that's what happens when you have a campfire.
Alright, keep rolling.
- Real fire,
no expenses.
- Alright, I'm gonna make a reach for her...
- [Coyote Commentary] She was kind of,
at that point, I think she was like,
"I'm not going any higher either."
- [Mario] But she's like,
"You're gonna come up here to grab me."
- [Coyote] Yep.
She started to
come back down and
got her.
- Now the real challenge,
getting back down.
- That is challenging.
Anytime you guys see me climb down a tree
with an animal in my hand--
aside from Wilson, who I put in my pocket--
I have to hold the animal in one hand
while climbing down and scaling with my knees
and my other hand.
- I have to admit,
it looks very challenging.
Yeah.
Look at her face,
she's just having a great time.
- Here comes the dismount.
Ta da!
- Whoa, smoke.
- How beautiful is that little...
- [Mark] What a cutie.
- [Mario] Look at those teeth.
- Oh yeah, back up to that.
So Mario,
tell us about those chompers.
Pearly whites.
- Yeah, well as we know,
pine martens are in the mustelidae family, right?
Related to weasels,
wolverines,
so these guys look cute,
but they're formidable predators.
- And what are they hunting in the treetops?
- Ah, they're omnivorous.
They eat anything.
And in the treetops, they're going to be hunting birds,
squirrels, actually.
- Chipmunks?
- Chipmunks.
- Oh, no.
Poor chipmunks.
No.
- So what you're saying is that if
Alvin and the Chipmunks came across a pine marten,
it would pretty much be the worst day of their lives?
- Yeah, yeah.
- No more sing song after that, is there?
- I mean, these animals have
excellent vision, excellent hearing.
Their ears are huge!
Very disproportionate to their body
so really big ears.
Their claws are semi-retractable.
So they're basically
just like the wolves of the treetops.
- Like the wolverines of the treetops?
- Wolverines of the treetops, yeah.
- Perfect predators.
Alright, let's keep rolling.
- [Coyote] One of the coolest features
about the pine marten...
- [Coyote Commentary] She's so cute.
Oh, look at that tongue!
- [Mario] This was probably the cutest animal
we had filmed up until this point.
- I think a lot of people still argue
that this is the cutest.
- Yeah.
- We had that baby squirrel,
there's a baby squirrel.
- The sloth, baby B-Rad.
Baby B-Rad.
- B-Rad's my favorite.
- Yeah.
- I don't know. - Sorry.
- Yeah, B-Rad, I think B-Rad still does win
but this is one cute animal.
- Lunge, actually can grab them out of mid air
and then they wanna bite to the back of the neck.
- [Mark] Yeah.
Just like that.
Like a lion.
- [Coyote Commentary] Oh, look how long
those canine teeth are.
I mean, that pierces through the spinal column
of a chipmunk.
Eee!
That's the end of it.
(laughter)
- One distinct sign that will easily allow you
to identify a pine marten...
- And that's one thing, you can,
you see right here the way
she's whipping around, fidgeting like
she never stopped moving.
Ever.
Like, there was always movement.
Even
when she seemed to be calm, she was still
looking around.
- Well we noticed that with all members
of the weasel family.
- Yeah.
What'd you call her?
Like a slinkie?
- Yes.
Well because what that is
is that the inside of their body is so long and muscular,
they can actually shift their muscles
and skeleton inside of that fur
in case something like an eagle or a hawk
swoops down to grab it.
You get those talons, it will spin around
and then attack that bird.
Pine martens have been known to actually take birds
out of the sky that were trying to eat them
and then the
predator thing gets reversed.
- Pretty tough little guys.
- I just wanna try to stay as calm as I can right now.
If I stay calm, she will stay calm.
Now this is a pine marten...
- [Mark] And you were...
You had to hold her away from you.
She didn't like being held close.
- [Coyote Commentary] No.
Yeah, her handlers were like,
"She actually likes being held up like this."
Something about that was comforting to her
and then she could grasp her rear claws
into my leather bracelets.
It was great for me 'cause they weren't going in
to my skin.
- [Mark] You got scraped up a little bit.
- [Coyote Commentary] I did.
More than you would think.
- Look at those ears, they have incredible...
- And we didn't show it in the video, but
she was nibbly.
- Yep.
- She'd nibble on ya a little bit.
- Yeah.
(imitates pine marten noises)
She made that noise.
- How hard was it to get those close-up shots?
I mean, she was constantly moving, right?
- Very difficult.
Whipping the head back and forth, yeah.
Very difficult but
definitely a lotta fun.
- Yeah.
- Lotta fun to film.
- Wooo.
- This is a real fire, folks
with real smoke.
We're just inhaling it.
- Ah, smell that
fresh air.
- Ooh, there she is.
Ay ay.
- Look at that nose.
- [Coyote Commentary] Sniffy sniffy.
- Tell me about it in the comment section below.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave, stay wild,
we'll see ya on the next adventure.
Are you ready to go?
Let's get the heck out of here.
Yeah.
- [Coyote Commentary] Oh, that throws me off every time!
Look at that.
Just straight to a disclaimer.
- Yeah, just over four minutes.
Just
super...
- That's a short video.
- That's super short.
- Like if we made a pine marten video today,
I feel like it would be a 20 minute excursion.
- Well.
I mean, you did ask
the audience to name their favorite
mustelidae, right?
Which of course,
we know what yours is.
- The wolverine.
- And we know we made an epic one.
An epic segment.
- And this was actually the first time
we had filmed with
a mustelidae.
And we later filmed with
the badger
on this trip.
But I remember us all having dinner afterwards
and we were all talking about,
man, wouldn't it be cool if one day
we could travel all the way to Alaska
to film with wolverines?
- And sure enough, it was almost
an exact two years later.
So we shot this in the summer of 2014,
summer 2016,
is when we visited Steve Croshal
and got up close with the wolverine.
Which was,
it was pretty cool.
That's a long one, though.
We have not done wolverine
base camp yet.
- That might have to be a two parter.
- We might have to go back to Alaska for that one!
- I'm up for that.
- What do you guys think?
Should we go to Alaska and do an outdoors base camp
with the wolverine?
That'd be like a hour long base camp episode.
- Pretty epic, yeah.
- Tell us about it in the comment section below.
- Sign me up.
- Yeah.
Alright, well guys, you ready for the outro?
- Let's do it. - Yeah.
- Alright.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
- I'm Mark Vins.
- I'm Mario Aldecoa.
- Be brave.
- Stay wild.
- We'll see ya on the next base camp adventure.
How bout some s'mores?
- Yeah.
- Let's do it.
- Oh, look at that!
- Oh, good catch!
Do you want to become an official member
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There's no question about it,
the pine marten is one of nature's most adorable,
yet ferocious predators.
Make sure to go back and watch the full episode
as I get this unique animal
up close for the cameras.
And don't forget,
subscribe!
So you can join me and the crew
on our next big adventure.
(animal roar)