The High Country Wild West - America's Great Frontier

BELL TOLLS

In the far west of America...

..there's a legendary land.

The haunt of cowboys...

..and home to great Native American civilisations...

..where the promise of gold drew those seeking their fortune.

Here, over millions of years,

powerful forces have forged

some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth...

..from the continent's hottest deserts

and red, rock canyons...

..to towering mountain worlds cloaked in snow...

..and the most mysterious and magical coastline.

It takes a special breed with bold ambition and a pioneering spirit

to tame this fabled place and make it home.

The wild west.

From the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies,

great mountain ranges dominate the wild west.

It was the hunt for new land,

for furs and gold, that drew adventurous spirits

to this rugged frontier.

This is a world of extremes.

Where winters are long and hard...

..summers brief but plentiful.

With the ever-changing seasons,

life is a constant race against time

in this wild mountain world.

For six months, the high country has been in lockdown.

Blizzards, deep snow and sub-zero temperatures

make this hostile territory.

But, for a few, these are the best of times.

Coyotes prey on the victims of winter.

Working as a pack, they could kill an elk...

..but it's easier to let the cold do the work.

Three-quarters of their winter food comes from scavenging carcasses.

When their chance comes,

ravens and eagles will quickly pick the bones clean.

In the high country, survival depends on grabbing any opportunity.

As winter begins to loosen its grip,

a new world opens up in the mountains.

From its source 12,000 feet up in Colorado's Ruby Range,

Oh-Be-Joyful Creek is on the rise.

A few weeks ago, this was frozen solid.

Now, it's a raging torrent.

At its peak, over 12,000 gallons of water funnel

over these rapids every second.

Woohoo! That rocked!

There are dozens of cascades along the creek with names such as

Ankle Breaker and Heart Attack,

but this one is by far the biggest.

It's the ultimate test of nerve and skill.

Meltwater floods into thousands of creeks and rivers

all over the wild west.

This is a vast territory,

bordered by two great mountain ranges.

Towards the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada,

a 400-mile-long chain of peaks rising to over 14,000 feet.

And, far inland, beyond the great deserts, stand the Rockies,

1,000 miles of interconnecting ranges that divide the continent.

Across all this high country,

the increasing power of the sun is slowly drawing residents

out from their winter refuges.

Mountain goats are already on the move,

shedding their thick winter coats along the way.

After braving the winter snowed in on the high tops,

they are heading down towards the forest...

..and their first fresh food for months.

Nanny goats gave birth before the thaw began...

..giving their young the summer to grow strong

before the winter cold returns.

Yellow-bellied marmots have spent the whole winter asleep.

That means a record eight months deep underground...

..surviving only on their body fat.

Not even a flood is going to keep a hungry marmot

from the best grazing in town.

Grizzly bears have also ventured out from their dens.

They can lose a quarter of their body weight

during the long hibernation.

Summer for this family

is all about packing on the pounds as quickly as possible,

even if that means eating earthworms.

1,000 miles away, bathed in Sierra Nevada sunshine,

high country giants are waking up after six months of winter.

Sequoias are only found in these mountains, and at nearly 300ft tall,

they are the world's biggest trees.

Fireproof, rot proof, pest proof,

they can live for thousands of years.

The stringy bark makes perfect nest lining for a pair of tree creepers.

Sequoia's roots often reach down only a few feet

before they hit solid granite.

To compensate, the roots grow horizontally,

covering up to an acre.

Interlaced with the roots of neighbouring sequoias,

these giants are holding each other up.

Living in their deep shadow isn't easy,

but these strange plants have found a way.

Snow plants have done away with the need for sunlight completely.

Instead, they make their living as parasites.

Their roots infiltrate those of their giant neighbours

and they steal all the raw materials they need to grow.

In turn, the snow plants provide for one of the forest's

most unlikely residents.

Anna's hummingbirds live in high country forests year-round.

With few other flowers yet in bloom,

this female depends on the snow plant's nectar for fuel.

And the plants exploit this dependency.

They need help spreading their pollen.

Using nectar as a bribe,

the plants ensure many visits from both female hummingbirds and

brightly coloured males, who unwittingly collect pollen

as they feed.

As the birds move around the forest,

they carry the pollen with them and so help fertilise the flowers.

All this hovering can be exhausting.

When a feisty rufous hummingbird tries to muscle in,

things turn nasty.

The smaller hummingbird is quickly run out of town.

But he's already drained most of these flowers,

so his attacker must move on.

The snow plants will soon wither away as spring moves towards summer.

In Yosemite Valley, granite cliffs rise vertically,

3,000 feet into the clear California sky.

During the last ice age,

this rock was gouged and sculpted by glaciers half a mile deep.

Anything in their path was bulldozed aside.

Whole mountains cut in half.

Rivers of ice helped create this landscape.

Now, meltwater is transforming it once again.

Yosemite Falls plummet over 2,400 feet -

the highest falls in North America.

In just a few weeks,

much of the high country has become green and welcoming.

And that's the cue for one of the great wild west traditions to begin.

For generations, ranchers have moved their cattle to summer pastures

to fatten on the fresh grass.

For Diane Bohna, boss of the 3Bar Ranch,

the drive takes her from these parched Sierra foothills

to the rich meadows high on Quartz Mountain.

It's a journey she's made many times.

I love the mountains.

I've been going since 1968 with my father.

We would go to the mountains in June and I would not come home

until the night before school.

I would see no-one all summer except the cows,

the mountains and the animals and my family.

Leroy is the lead bull,

taking charge of the herd on the 70-mile trek.

The steep, three-mile slog up Chowchilla Hill is thirsty work,

the cattle always in danger from heat exhaustion.

And now, having crested the hill,

they must face a new, 21st-century challenge.

Busy highways crisscross the old trail.

Diane has to call the sheriff for help.

Here, at least,

the old ways still have priority.

After three days on the road,

the drive is about to enter a very different world.

There is a transition that occurs.

We will actually come around a turn, then you can see the pines.

And once you see the pines, you can feel that cool breeze.

Here, their route crosses streams fed with high country meltwater.

It's a life-saver after the heat and dust of the first few days.

8,000 feet up, Leroy leads his herd into the meadows.

Diane has got her timing spot-on.

The grass is fresh, tall and sweet.

These lush pastures will be home for the next three months.

I feel my adrenaline dropping

when I am on the fourth day of the cattle drive,

because then I... We're home.

I'm home.

Not only do I do this now,

my family does this.

It is a family event to get the cows to the mountains...

..to be able to pass on those traditions that I learnt

when I was young to the future generations.

My father used to tell me that you better love what you do,

because you're not going to get rich doing it.

This is what I love.

In the Rockies, Yellowstone lakes are now full to the brim.

Cut-throat trout are starting the most important few weeks

of their year.

As summer settles in,

they leave the deep water where they spend the winter

and head for one of the lake's feeder streams.

Timing is everything.

There's only a narrow window when the stream's flow and depth

is just right for spawning.

Competition for the best sites is fierce.

Females dig scrapes in the stream bed,

while the males stand guard,

ready to fertilise the eggs as they're released.

In the frenzy, the same gravel patches are disturbed

again and again.

And the eggs of previous nesters are swept away.

So being the last to lay your eggs should be the best strategy.

But the stream is a dangerous place to linger.

This otter has timed its arrival to perfection.

Using the bank as cover,

the trap is sprung.

With the otter preoccupied,

those still in the stream make a run for it,

back to the safety of deeper water.

In the blazing summer sunshine,

high country flowers are in full bloom.

Bluebirds spend their winters far to the south,

but have flown back to nest

and enjoy the feast.

Many summer visitors join the year-round residents

to cash in on the bloom.

With bears around, this is dangerous territory for mountain goats.

But some have thrown caution to the wind,

irresistibly drawn to the richness of these meadows.

Although they never stray too far from the safety

of a cliff-face retreat.

Summer on the high peaks of the Rockies arrives weeks

behind the meadows.

Over 10,000 feet up,

some summits are only now emerging from beneath the snow.

This high-altitude world is where mountain goats are most at home.

They struggle with the intense summer heat,

so linger near the last snow patches to keep cool.

This is the high country stripped back to its bare bones.

There's never much to eat on these barren slopes.

But living here puts the goats out of reach of all but

the most determined predators.

After several weeks on a largely vegetarian diet,

these grizzly bears now feel the need for meat.

They are heading two miles up, into mountain goat territory.

But these bears are not here to hunt goats.

Hundreds of thousands of army cutworm moths

have flown here from distant valleys,

attracted by the nectar of alpine flowers.

During the day, they shelter from the heat in these boulder fields.

It's like digging for gold.

If they hit the jackpot,

they can eat 40,000 in a single day.

Each moth is 70% fat, so this binge feeding is a vital boost

to the bears before hibernation.

And at these rarefied altitudes,

that may not be so far away.

The Sierra Nevada range is the backbone of California...

..crowned by Mount Whitney.

Cold and windswept,

some of these peaks are home to extraordinary trees.

Bristlecone pines.

Some have been alive for over 5,000 years.

They're the oldest living things on Earth.

It's so hostile here,

the growing season only lasts a few weeks.

The girth of these trees may have only increased by six inches

since Columbus discovered the continent over 600 years ago.

These ancient trees stand sentinel,

as the seasons and the years sweep around them.

But not everything in these mountains is so permanent.

In 1859,

gold was discovered here.

A rough and lawless boom town quickly grew out of the wilderness.

With 30 mines and 65 saloons,

Bodie had a reputation for wickedness, for bad men,

and the worst climate out of doors.

Of the thousands of fortune hunters that rushed here,

few struck it rich.

When the gold petered out,

the miners moved on.

But today, Bodie isn't entirely abandoned.

Pikas have moved in to stake their claim.

Relatives of rabbits,

they are obsessed by food.

They must collect and store 50 times their own body weight of food

in these mini haystacks before the winter returns.

There's just one problem.

With their thick coats, they can quickly overheat.

So, they can only use the cool of the morning

to gather grass and work on their hay piles.

But always, the relentless sun is in hot pursuit.

As shade shrinks away, they race to gather what they can.

Just time for one last mouthful...

..before high noon drives them into hiding, deep underground.

The Bodie pikas aren't the only ones making hay while the sun shines.

6,000 feet up in Montana's Big Hole Valley,

it's the start of a busy day on the Hershey Ranch.

Heidi Hershey is the matriarch of the family and she runs the show.

Usually the haying season is between

the 15th of July and the 15th of August.

Depending on the weather and...the breakdowns!

The Hersheys only have a few weeks

to cut and store enough grass to feed

their cattle through a Montana winter.

They rely on some antique, home-made machinery to help with the harvest.

Buck rakes are used to gather great heaps of cut grass.

Working as a team, they deliver

tonnes of hay to this monster of a machine.

It's called a beaver slide and it hoists the grass

into a frame that shapes the stack.

This is where the wild west meets the world of Mad Max.

By dragging the cage forwards, huge hay piles 30 feet high

and 100 feet long are built in double-quick time.

They will build more than 50 stacks this summer.

Each contains 20 tonnes of hay that can stay fresh for five years -

more than enough to ride out

anything a wild west winter can throw at them.

High up in the Rockies,

one of the greatest gatherings in the wild west is underway.

For most of the year, bison bulls and cows live separate lives,

but for a few weeks in late summer,

thousands congregate in this Yellowstone Valley.

It's the rut - the mating season -

and the biggest bulls are busy guarding their harems.

A dominant bull might mate with over 50 females.

For the calves born this year,

now is the time to stretch their young legs.

But as the herd grows, so tensions rise.

BELLOWING

BELLOWING

The rut takes a heavy toll on the big bulls,

so arriving now could give this young contender an edge.

But there's life in the old bull yet.

Head-to-head, the challenger more than holds his own.

Then, he makes a small mistake.

Shunted aside, his challenge is brutally ended.

The young bull gambled everything and has paid a heavy price.

BULL BELLOWS

As summer slips towards autumn,

there is a late flourish across the high country.

Many conifers are now covered in ripening seed cones.

And they don't come much bigger than these.

Over 18 inches long, sugar pine cones mature late in the season.

Dripping with resin and packed with juicy seeds,

they are on everyone's most-wanted list.

Including forester John Pickett.

There's a killer stalking these forests -

an introduced fungus that's destroying the pines.

A few resistant trees have been found here in California,

so John gathers their cones and replants the healthy seeds.

150 feet up, he collects the cones any way he can.

None escape the long arm of the claw.

It's easy to see why these 4lb cones are known as widow-makers!

Standing under a sugar pine is not such a good idea.

But for this Douglas squirrel, it's too good an opportunity to miss.

And he's not the only one on the make.

While he strips off the protective scales and carries each seed to his

winter larder,

he's being watched.

Very closely.

A Steller's jay doesn't miss a trick.

There's buried treasure here,

if the jay can pinpoint the squirrel's secret stash.

This hoard is the squirrel's entire winter food supply,

so he's not going to give it up without a fight.

Time to run this seed rustler out of town.

For this year, John's work is done,

but it will be hundreds of years

before the replanted seeds grow to match this forest giant.

As winter edges ever closer, with the days shortening fast,

the sun is losing its strength.

Aspens urgently channel the last rays of useful sunlight into making

a sugary antifreeze that will protect them from the cold.

The green chlorophyll is withdrawn from the leaves.

When everything useful has been reclaimed,

the trees are ready to face the coming storms.

With time running out,

a young black bear is looking to put on a last few pounds.

And this oak forest is his best chance.

Acorns are full of energy, every one sniffed out is like gold dust.

But he faces some stiff competition.

Acorn woodpeckers have been busy.

All this is the work of just one family.

Some of the older larders may contain 50,000 acorns.

As the acorns dry out, they shrink, so must be moved into smaller holes.

The woodpeckers already have more than enough to see them through

the winter, but they just can't stop themselves.

And you never know what disaster

might be lurking just around the corner.

For the young bear, more serious competition has arrived.

This bear has grown fat after a summer of gorging.

Even so, he still wants all the acorns for himself.

For the young bear, taking to the trees opens up a whole new world.

60 feet up, there are acorns the bigger bears can't reach.

And these fresh green ones are the most energy-rich of all.

His acrobatics send down a shower of debris.

A bonus for the big bear waiting on the ground.

This might all be working out for the bears,

but it's bad news for the woodpeckers.

He's spotted one of their acorn larders.

These are mostly old, dried-up acorns,

but every little helps in the final rush to get ready for winter.

With a full belly, the young bear finally comes back down to earth.

Now all he needs is somewhere quiet to digest this last meal and to

settle down for his big sleep.

And not a moment too soon.

A change in the wind, a storm shifts course

and the greatest transformation of the year sweeps

across the high country.

Those that made the most of their opportunities

are ready for this change and for the hard months that will follow.

In the Big Hole Valley, the hay carefully stacked

in the summer now feeds the Hersheys' cattle.

Real horsepower is the only reliable delivery service

when it's this cold.

It will be another six months before these valleys are clear of snow.

Having grown just a little,

the sequoias once again shut down for winter.

Well-fed bears are now fast asleep, tucked up in their dens.

With thick new coats, a few hardy souls meet the cold head-on.

For hunters, the return of the winter means new opportunities.

The mountains are littered with reminders of fortunes won and lost.

It takes a special breed to carve out a life on this wild frontier...

..and survive everything the seasons throw at them.

They embody the spirit of the high country...

..where the west is still truly wild.

Nothing says wild west quite like a cattle drive.

So we join the cowboys of Three Bar Ranch on their annual drive to the

summer pastures in the High Sierra.

Ranch boss Diane Bohna loves her cattle so much

she even sings to them.

CATTLE LOW

I hear ya, darlin'.

This shoot was intended to be a welcome respite

from the challenges of

filming grizzly bears and extreme kayaking.

Unfortunately, the cattle had other ideas.

For field director Will Lawson,

the first problem was adjusting to cowboy time.

So it's 3:35 in the morning here at Three Bar Ranch in California.

And this is our first morning

learning what life is like as a cowboy.

Quite a brutal start.

Will and cameraman Owen Bissell

head out to the ranch at the appointed time,

only to find the 300 cattle seem to have disappeared into thin air.

The couple just decided to leave an hour early.

The cowboys are all back there, the cows are all up there.

I think they've done this before.

They now need to get ahead of the herd.

Easier said than done in this rugged country.

Their only option is to hitch a lift

with ranch hand Bill in the support vehicle.

Where are you guys at?

And when they do find them again, they discover a new problem.

Owen and his camera are something strange in the cattle's world

and they don't like him at all.

So funny, they really get kind of spooked by the tripod.

Every time they get the gear out, the cattle go all camera shy.

And this is even before they face

the toughest challenges on the whole drive.

Looks pretty steep.

Yes, it is very steep.

Chowchilla Hill,

covered in thick brush and infested with rattlesnakes.

One of the most challenging part is you are going along flat like this

-and then you have to go straight up.

-Right.

To get the cowboys' perspective,

Will wants to get cameras in and amongst the cattle.

That would probably require Will to get on a horse.

I am looking forward to it,

but also slightly apprehensive at the same time.

Oh, don't be.

The next day, early roll call.

Again.

To get as many angles as possible, Will fits a mini camera on Ike,

one of the stock dogs.

You can definitely see what's going on. I think it'll work.

A stallion called Nash is Will's ride for the day.

Will feels he needs to look the part.

It's going to be phenomenal.

Do you think you'll stand out? I don't know.

I don't think I'll stand out, necessarily.

Owen races ahead to take a position on the hill.

Maybe let's go through that band right there.

Will is an experienced rider,

but this isn't the English countryside.

So, just started moving out on the cattle drive.

My look is slightly different from everybody else's.

Thank you, BBC Health and Safety.

Good boy.

There's a delay of some kind,

but we can't get to the back to find out what it is.

Hopefully Will hasn't fallen off his horse.

This helmet pretty much saved my bacon, so I can't complain about it.

He said he needed a ride, so we'll see.

It's a delay they can ill-afford

with the drive on such a tight schedule.

But, as the saying goes,

if you fall, get straight back in the saddle.

He took one look at that hat

and he was like, "I'm going to make sure that hat works."

We're going to establish some ground rules right off the bat!

As they resume the climb up the hill,

the newest member of the film crew gets on with the job.

Although sometimes he gets a little over enthusiastic.

Will's fall has left him at the back of the drive away from the action.

But up ahead, Owen is having more luck.

At the end of a long, hot day,

it's finally time for everyone to stop and quench their thirst.

Except no-one told Owen and there's always one more shot to get.

It's also time for Diane to look back

on a day free from calamities...

Well, almost.

Other than the producer guy getting dumped first thing this morning...

I mean, that was...

I'm sorry!

Over the next couple of days,

the crew are run ragged as they try to keep up with the cattle.

But the cows are still proving to be reluctant film stars.

They really don't like the cameras.

They seem to react better to our cars than they do to me on foot.

Arriving at the forest finally brings some relief from the heat.

But not from the foot slog.

It's a 15-mile day.

For Owen, mostly spent on the hoof.

-Go on.

-Go on, girls.

-Keep going.

And at last, Owen and the cattle are beginning to make friends.

See that? They actually listened to me.

After 70 hard miles,

the drive comes to an end in the lush meadows of Quartz Mountain.

And as far as the cows are concerned,

Owen is now just part of the scenery.

CATTLE LOW

All right.

Well, we struggled a bit more than we expected initially -

who thought cows were so skittish?

But after four days, they've accepted me into the herd.

Got some nice shots, right down at the grass level with them.

Wildlife filming is always unpredictable,

but no-one expected this to be so tricky.

It's been quite an experience.

Cow drives are tough to film.

Yes. One of the things that amazed me is how quickly they move.

And watching the cowboys do their thing

was pretty impressive, to say the least.

I actually asked Diane if she thought I could make it as a cowboy.

Yeah, what did she say?

She didn't say anything, she just laughed - hysterically!

DIANE LAUGHS

I'd like to think that we are. What did they say today?

"Will, it wasn't that you got thrown off the horse, you just got dusted.

"Every cowboy gets dusted, Will."

I got nailed by a horse, therefore...

-Therefore, you're a cowboy.

-I made it!

-Bye, cows.

-Bye, cows.

Next time... Wild west reveals a strange frontier...

..where the land and the sea unite.

Restless shores drive life to survive in unlikely ways.

And for those brave enough to take a chance, there are great rewards.