25 days living alone in the wild, in a shelter, confronting wild animals and dangerous reptiles

Hidden inside the branches of this tree right here is a four-story tree house built using nothing but rope and over the next three days I'll be learning the intricate process of weaving a tree web on the side of this very tree hoping that it will hold my weight as I attempt to sleep on it overnight. Unfortunately the only knot that I know how to tie is this one and the spot that I'll be building on is as tall as that huge Jesus statue in Brazil. But I'm in luck because in this video I'll be learning from the knot master known as Charlie's webs. He single-handedly built this entire tree house and he will literally be showing me the ropes as well as multiple tree webs that he's built over the years all with the hope that I will be able to build a web strong enough to keep me alive overnight. But Preston why are you doing this? Because. I flew to San Francisco to meet Charlie for the first time after seeing this video he posted. This rope is 100 feet long so I should be able to tell exactly how high this is. My male brain loved every second of this. It almost felt equivalent to those videos where guys break ice but way cooler which is why I was so surprised when he responded to my DM saying that he was down to teach me. But again we had never actually met in real life. Over the past year I've gotten more and more comfortable meeting strangers. I do this train journey across Canada and after doing that I felt like my ability to make friends with strangers definitely increased but there's this little part of me every time I do something like this where I question myself and I think is this the time where it just doesn't work? I think it's gonna go good. All right let's go find him. I was still a little nervous but he offered to pick me up from the airport so he must be nice. It's not like he's gonna show up in a white van. Yeah what's up dude? What's up? Good to see you. Good to see you. Who's this? This is Bartholomew. You never know how long it'll take for strangers to warm up to each other. Dude thanks so much for coming. My guy Bart didn't waste any time and Charlie and I too we just hit it off so quickly. He's such a kind dude and I was no longer worried about the white van. As we drove he explained how over the next few days we'd be hitting three different webs and he'd be teaching me how to build my own along the way. We'd start with the baby web he's working on which he called my training wheels. On the second day we'd head north to rainbow web which he said was bigger than the first but not as big as Franklin's Tower which is the enormous tree that I would be adding my web to and sleeping on for my final night. Since we only had a few days and I knew absolutely nothing we drove straight to training wheels to get it going. Is there any tips or tricks on like walking through here? Crawling was not Charlie's idea. Meanwhile Charlie just looks like a total G. Even Bartholomew was more comfortable climbing than me. Once I did kind of find my positioning Charlie started explaining that this was an unfinished web that he was building for a client. People basically find him on Instagram and pay him to make tree houses in their backyards. Now snip it tie those uh two ends together with a regular old knot. Uh that's different. It was the wrong knot. Charlie tied the right one and then the weaving tutorial began. Wrap twice that's that pull back twice pull back wrap twice pull back hold that tension with the other hand. Or like here I think I want to go through. I'm going to be honest I'm definitely listening to what Charlie's saying and watching what he's doing but mentally I'm wherever Bartholomew is. I'm retaining absolutely nothing because I'm still in disbelief just how bad my knot was. I just keep thinking like if I can't do that how can I do this? Charlie then teaches me how to tie a clove hitch knot which I obviously crush it first try like that. Charlie shows me the clove hitch again with one hand while filming and tells me it's hands down the most important knot. How did he do that? You're fast. Yeah. You did all of this in a day in one day. Okay. But luckily Charlie was a very patient teacher as I slowly learned his process. So it's just a lot of that. Yeah a lot of that yeah. I would just need to learn how to do that 400 times faster. Let's get some food. We drove to a pub for dinner met a guy named Richard. I watched him eat one of Bartholomew's dog treats and then we pulled up to some random person's house and I think we're gonna stay here now and we're gonna have a great job. What do you think? That man stole from me. It's day two. It's day two. Back in bed I go to get this shot for you. It's day two. It's day two. Yes this wig comes fake but look this yawn is true. Turns out we were not at a random person's house. This was one of Charlie's close friends that he had actually built a tree web for in their front yard. How'd you sleep? What I didn't realize until I walked up to his van was that the tree web at this house was the almighty Franklin's tower. This twin-shrunk 130 foot tall redwood tree would be the home of my own personal tree web. Charlie walked me over to it and when I looked up a thought crossed my mind that I hadn't really considered until this moment. Oh my gosh this tree's so big. I hate intrusive thoughts like these. I'm in control, need not them. Intrusive thoughts no more, this is the end. Broken legs, broken ribs, broken arm and eight punctured lungs and of course I'm scarred by the cost of an emergency helicopter. So yeah I ended up just shoving those voices way down because I wouldn't be climbing Franklin's tower till later that day. I'd be practicing more knot tying at the next tree house which was a few hours north of us. We drove for a while, got some breakfast, kept driving, we got out of the van to see the water and before you knew it we were there. Hey editing Preston here. It would mean the world if you subscribed to my channel. I'm trying to get to a million subscribers eventually so okay thank you bye. All right how far up? You're gonna see it in two seconds. Welcome to Rainbow Web. This piece of land was an abandoned mercury mine and the owners have since converted it into an event space. Immediately so much more taut than the last one. And commissioned Charlie to build this web which has taken him 40 days and counting because it's not even done yet. This huge platform connects to a bridge that leads to a lookout point that sits about 30 feet above ground. Remember to explain like how this is being held up. It's kind of like wrapping a bunch of trees with shrink wrap. You start wrapping the trees with the rope and as you start weaving more and more the whole thing starts shrinking up really tight and so it holds itself in place with tension. How many people have you had on this at once? Oh I don't know like 35, 40 people. No way. Yeah. 35? Yeah. I think that number surprised me because when you look down you can see the ground very clearly through the web so as I'm walking around this for the first time every time I look down it's almost like my brain kept saying unsafe do not trust. Oh I don't know if jumping helps. Oh my gosh I'm so nervous wow I'm nervous oh my god. But Charlie said the more you move around on the web the more you trust it. Bro the belt I lent you kind of looks like a thong because it's like pulling up on both sides. I think Charlie could tell I wasn't necessarily as comfortable as he was so he started explaining to me in even more detail how the web was built. You know Charlie building a tree web sure reminds me of building a business. And what better place to do that than Shopify. Charlie explained that this tree web is a lot like Shopify. To prove his point... Wait you're saying you're gonna you're gonna no you're not dude. Charlie explained how this web stretches and adapts to hold the weight of a dirt bike just like Shopify stretches and adapts with your business whether you're making your first sale or scaling to thousands. You want to try it? I don't think I can. Okay okay okay. So despite how scared I was the web supported me and eventually turned that fear into joy. That's what Shopify does. It takes the fear and complexity out of starting a business by giving you the tools that you need to succeed. I've actually been using Shopify a lot the past four months because I've been preparing a little something for you guys. One of my favorite comments that has popped up pretty consistently over the past year is this one. Keep going. I think I like it because there have been a few moments chasing this YouTube dream where I wasn't sure if I could keep going. Slowly but surely I did realize that I can get punched in the face and like stand back up and like keep going. I don't know if I knew that before and I think getting to that conclusion was easier with reminders like these. So I made what I think is the perfect hoodie as a reminder for myself and maybe for some of you guys too that you've got what it takes to keep going. I'll be releasing these pretty soon and Shopify is hands down the only commerce platform to do it on. Tools like Shopify magic make changing the background of the product image so easy and honestly like really satisfying when you look at that and also writes like a way better product description than I ever could. If you are thinking about starting a business start your free trial today at shopify.com slash Preston goes. I'm leaving the responsibility of getting the sir on off of the web to Preston. I got it. What's going through your mind right now? I couldn't vocalize it at the time. All I was thinking about was how excited I was to impress him by getting the store bike off the web since my knots didn't necessarily impress him the day before. It felt good knowing broken legs, broken wrists, broken arm maybe. I'm okay. That was a little more dramatic than I wanted it to be. After my near-death experience we thought that exploring the mine would be a nice way to kind of wind down. As soon as we saw this Yeah that's enough for us. Nope nope. Charlie showed me some of his favorite songs on our way back to Franklin's tower. I'm going to be honest this was probably the moment where I felt like the two of us were actually becoming friends. It was probably a combination of trauma bonding as well as knowing what was to come. Right as we got back to the house Charlie said it was finally time for us to climb Franklin's tower and scout out the perfect spot for my web but all I kept thinking was If you were to ask me the last time I felt a sense of awe I may describe this moment to you. Knowing that Charlie doesn't bring a lot of people up here made me really grateful and maybe that's why I didn't feel as scared as I would have thought. No that can't be it this is terrifying but also very beautiful so when Charlie said let's go to the top surprisingly I didn't hesitate. I've said it a hundred times but I just want to say thanks to to welcome me in to such a special place. I truly like even if the camera was off I would be telling you this like yeah I'm I'm seriously very thankful this is like a a true gift. I appreciate it and I appreciate you coming out and being so enthusiastic to want to do this. There's not many people that I would invite. Wow that means a ton thank you dude. After this moment it felt pretty clear to both Charlie and I that it was time. We came back down to the main floor and started searching for the safest location to build the web that I would be sleeping on. Charlie has spent over 40 days building up here so I felt confident when he said I think I found the right spot. Okay see these branches out here yeah they're not just straight out shots there's there's actually like branches and curves at the end that you could link the ropes around so if we can get a rope to go all the way out there. It looks like there's no webbing underneath that's fine. Nope just a lot of branches to fall onto. Step one scaffolding. Charlie explained how these ropes were temporary and would service both safety net and a base for us to build on. Charlie said this part was a little sketchy and as you can see he did not want me to help which made me wonder if he trusted me to actually build the web. Do you think I can do it? I think you can do it. Really? Why he believes in me I don't really know but the scaffolding was done and the sun was setting which meant it's day three it's day three meant to film fake wake up forgot completely it's day three it's day three so here's the same fake shot of me from yesterday I needed that to rhyme so I said yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the final day. Our goals today are simple. Number one build the web. Number two party in the web. Charlie invited a bunch of his friends to watch the sunset with us. And number three somehow sleep in the web. In order to do any of those we'd have to start by getting 100 pounds of stuff pulled up to the top of the tree by someone super strong and super muscular. I shouldn't have volunteered. Multiple people would be sleeping in the tree tonight so we pulled up tents and blankets and food as well as instruments. Charlie's friends he invited are musicians. The friend I invited is not a musician or a tree climber I'm realizing after finding this clip editing. Okay look at that view. Once we were all settled in Charlie started explaining our construction game plan for the day. You see that branch right there that's broken? That is actually still a living branch and that's like our best option to hook off to. So you're saying that we're gonna build my bed off of the broken branch? Yeah. Awesome. We tied rope from the surprisingly sturdy broken branch down to where we were building. Charlie would use that green rope as well as the gray rope to tie together the skeleton of the web and then I would come in with the pink rope and hopefully weave the perfect base. But to do that I would have to finally step out of the safe tree house area onto the tree limbs that are 100 feet above the ground. This doesn't feel too bad. Nice. But before we could start I had to prove to Charlie that I could actually tie the clove hitch like he did the other day. After trying and failing over and over and over again all of a sudden. Cool. Was I tying slowly? Absolutely. But I was doing it and that was exciting in itself. Also having Charlie there helping me answering questions was really comforting. And you know what I'm just gonna say right now I'm gonna let you take over and do the rest of this and I'll come back and help you if it's if you know you need help. Are you sure? Yeah. You're on your own now? You're on your own. You wanted you wanted to make your own web. You think I can sit on this? Let's give it a try. Don't die. Oh my god. Thank god for the real spider-man coming to save the day. Just to confirm that this web could legitimately hold me overnight. We worked on this thing all day and it was finally time to test it. But seconds before we did the entire party showed up. It was a nice distraction to be honest. Having a party on top of a tree and seeing people on every level laughing, eating food, telling stories. I felt like I was in a Disney movie. I personally feel like Bartholomew would agree with me. All of a sudden we go from bright sun to heavy marine layer. We turn the screen lights on. I throw up my drone and just couldn't believe what these shots look like. Every time I do that I'm like. I got to meet Charlie's girlfriend, Charlie's sister, Charlie's sister's dog and a bunch of their friends who were just so great. I played what I thought was like one of my best guitar solos with Charlie. The whole time in the back of my head I kept wondering was I actually going to be able to sleep in this web overnight. This looks like a scary video game. We ate dinner and got some supplies on the ground level and then made our ascent for the long night. Andrew's here with me. He will not be sleeping on my web because you know that wouldn't be nice. The owners of the house gave me this safety harness because I kept making comments about being uncertain if I was going to make it or not. So if anything if it does give my limp body will swing to the side of the tree and slamming against it will probably wake me up. But first I'd have to see if this web actually held my weight. How comfortable are you? Four out of ten. Night Andrew. Before calling it for the night I set up dare I say a beautiful fake sleeping shot. I mean the hat on the face come on. And then somehow I actually fell asleep. I think I'm still up in the tree. I'm so glad we set our alarms for sunrise. Got the most beautiful sunrise of all time. I think stepping out on a limb may be the hardest part about building a tree web. You leave what's comfortable and safe and step out into something that feels very unknown and maybe scary. After these past few days there's no doubt that that's where the best tree webs are built and I don't think that friendships are any different.