In the first season of the series, 4 teams of 10 urban professionals are dropped off in the Alaskan back-country with directions to shelters they would spend the next few weeks in.
Paul Claus starred as the wilderness survival expert[1] and Neil Webster helped guide several of the participants on a moose hunt[2] which included training in firing .338 Winchester Magnum and .22 rifles for mountain goat hunting (which Claus and his son separately took participants to do).
Due to the greater difficulty for survival of large and inexperienced groups backpacking so remotely, each participant had an emergency GPS unit that could summon a rescue team to evacuate them from the experiment.
The format was very similar to the second season with nine volunteers[6] being dropped off on the remote Mount Roraima in the southern wilderness of Venezuela.
Just as in the second season, each volunteer could activate a GPS beacon to summon a rescue team via helicopter to remove them from the experience.