In The Wild

Though you may feel you are in a safe location, you never know when you will be faced with a survival situation. There are no formal boundaries between the wilderness and humanity. Nature has a way of encroaching into areas which may surprise us. 

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The Little Moose Mountain Wilderness Area is in the western middle section of Adirondack Park, south by southeast of Seventh Lake in the Fulton  Chain. The area encompasses over 12,000 acres but is bordered on all sides by other regions of the Adirondack Park. If you were lost, wandering out of the region would not help facilitate a rescue, as you would still find yourself in the heart of the Adirondack wilderness. The Little Moose Wilderness was in the past and remains a little-visited region today. Very few tourists visit the area, as it is one of Adirondack Park's most remote and wilderness-like areas. 

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Mountain lions, also known as cougars, panthers, pumas, or catamounts, are all the same animal. In fact, the scientific name, 'Puma concolor,' is sometimes known as 'the cat of many names.' Naturalist, writer, and Utah native Claude T. Barnes listed 40 English names for a mountain lion, along with 18 names from South America and 25 from Native Americans. This large cat species is native to the Americas and is quite agile. They can leap 15 feet toward prey or into a tree, sprint 50 miles per hour, and maintain a 10-mile-per-hour gate over several miles.

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These Boy Scouts in the Adirondack mountains of New York took a hike and a climb that lead to days they never knew were coming..

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In the Wild details amazing stories of survival. In our episode "Cougar Attack," we told the unbelievable true story of Marine Corps veteran Anne Hjelle living to tell about being pummeled by a vicious predator. Our "Mama Grizzly VS Father and Daughter" episode detailed father and daughter Johan and Jenna Otter surviving a grizzly attack. But not all stories on In the Wild are about escaping horrifying encounters with animals. Many people come prepared for a hike lasting a couple of hours in a hot or cold climate but don't expect to be out there for days or weeks and end up facing that reality. Even worse, sometimes the protagonists of our stories don't come prepared at all, and the harsh truth of extreme climate comes unexpectedly. Like on our episode "Stranded and Freezing," where Jim Stolpa and his wife at the time, Jennifer, got stuck in an avalanche for nine days on the way to Jim's grandmother's wake. To give you an idea of how extreme this avalanche occurring on the last day of 1992 was, it completely buried people at a Sierra ski resort, even killing one of them. So being prepared for extreme climates is a must; let's dig into that subject.

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Long time listeners of this podcast know that a common theme of In the Wild are the dangers of national parks. All 63 of them designated in the U.S. are a sight to see, but it should not be overlooked that these parks experience a total of over 300 deaths each year. But what about if you take heed to the necessary precautions often mentioned, and come fully prepared for your journey? Even so, some unexpected circumstances can arise that may actually put your life in jeopardy.

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A scorpion symbolizes evil, death, destruction, and unpleasant situations. Filmmakers have long used imagery of scorpions to convey the above moods in a storyline. Scorpions themselves are unique. Classified as predatory arachnids, they are related to spiders. Scorpions have eight legs and a pair of pincers extruding from their front limbs. But what makes them unique is the narrow, segmented tail, curving up from behind and resting above the scorpion’s back. At the end of the tail is a stinger, always prepared to inflict two-fold damage: first with a painful sting and second with a deadly injection of poisonous venom. Many people find even the mere image of a scorpion extremely unsettling.

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For over three years here at In the Wild podcast, we’ve told dozens of real-life stories of survival. Many of these situations take place deep in the woods, with families and individuals simply looking to escape and enjoy nature, only to be unsuspectingly attacked by ferocious predators in their natural habitat. We asked our listeners what their greatest fear would be if they were to be out in the woods with things taking a major turn for the worse. They answered overwhelmingly that the greatest terror they could imagine would be a bear attack. So it’s certainly no coincidence that our show’s logo depicts a massive grizzly bear with its mouth open and ready to inflict carnage.

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We all have dreams, or accomplishments that we wish to check off the ol’ bucket list during our time here. Some of them are more ambitious than others, and some that you’d need a nice chunk of time to complete. That’s why many of these milestones are put off until retirement, with people wishing they had the time off from work to get out and make a certain dream come true. This was true of 76-year-old Joe DiTommasso, a recreational sailor and a native of the South New Jersey/Philadelphia region. He dreamt of one day taking a boat from around there, all the way to beautiful and sunny South Florida. His friend and fellow sailor, Kevin Hyde (64) had done it before himself. So, with some planning in place, the two made the decision that they were going to do it. On a cold day this past December of 2022, dreaming of the sun and the sands, their voyage began.

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In 1805, a four-year-old boy named Paul Gasford separated from his family and became lost in the wilderness. The boy's remarkable story of survival grew into a bit of a legend. By his own remarkable contrivance and wisdom, after four days' travel, Paul got safely to his parents at Niagara, 40 miles from the place where he was lost.

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