Plot Synopsis

ULTIMATE SURVIVAL ALASKA follows a group of explorers as they endure the brutal and dangerous Alaska terrain, with just their wits and the gear on their back. No tent, phone, watch or GPS, just the gear they can carry in their packs. Each 60-minute episode of Season 1 chronicled one, 72-hour leg of their 3,000-mile, 10-leg expedition, as these explorers traveled: 50 miles from the Brooks Mountain Range -- with elevations reaching 9,000 feet -- to Takahula Lake; 200 miles down the Yukon River, including a treacherous stretch of rapids; 25 miles through the snow-capped peaks of the Tordrillo Mountains; and many more epic adventures. The eight hard-core adventurists in Season 1 were: Tyler Johnson, a 36-year-old, who has climbed 27,000 feet with no oxygen in Nepal; Austin Manelick, a 24-year-old, who has practiced subsistence hunting under the watchful eye of his Alaskan wilderness guide father -- since he was five; Willi Prittie, a 57-year-old professional mountain guide, who is considered to be one of the leading climbing and logistical experts in the region; Marty Raney, a 30-year-old survival expert, who helped build his family home with his father, using nothing but a chainsaw and the logs on their property; Matt Raney, the 56-year-old father of Marty, who has led more than 20 expeditions on and around Denali, the highest peak in North America; Brent Sass, a 32-year-old dog sledder, who has done six 1,000-mile dog sledding expeditions for the Yukon Quest; Dallas Seavey, a 26-year-old, who is the youngest person to ever to win the Iditarod; and Tyrell Seavey, the 28-year-old brother of Dallas, who has run the Iditarod twice and won the Jr. Iditarod. Season 2 premiered on Nat Geo on Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 9pm ET/PT. The show's second season featured a slightly different format, as four teams of three adventurists are dropped in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness by bush plane and given 60 hours to make their way to the landing zone for each leg of their 11-leg, 1,500-mile expedition in Alaska's wild. Using raw, die-hard ingenuity, they push their way through the most hostile territory on the planet with only two pounds of beans and rice per leg. The Season 2 teams were: Team Military (Grady Powell, former U.S. Green Beret and expert land navigator; Jared Ogden, former U.S. Navy SEAL; and Rudy Reyes, former U.S. Marine Corps recon sniper and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan); Team Endurance (Dallas Seavey, the youngest person ever to win the Iditarod; Sean Burch, who holds six world records for climbing mountains; and Eddie Ahyakak, a native Alaskan marathon runner); Team Mountaineers (Marty Raney, a veteran mountain guide who has led more than 20 expeditions on and around Denali; and extreme climbers Tyler Johnson and Thomas Ginn); and Team Woodsman (Jimmy Gaydos, an off-the-grid survivalist; Yote Robertson, a wilderness guide; and 'Timber' Tina Scheer, a competitive lumberjack). On Sunday, January 4, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT, Nat Geo premiered the third season of ULTIMATE SURVIVAL ALASKA with four teams -- Military, Endurance, Alaskans and this season's new team, Lower 48 -- facing forbidding peaks, deadly tidal waves, massive glaciers, bottomless crevasses, man-eating predators and treacherous white water. In each of the 13 legs this season, teams have just 60 hours to make it from start to finish. In the two-hour season opener, four teams battle their way to the summit of Mount Gerdine in the first leg of the 13-leg competition. To get there, they must cross a rapidly thawing lake, traverse a crevasse-filled glacier and claw their way up walls of crumbing ice. The four teams in Season 3 are:

- Team Endurance: Returning ULTIMATE SURVIVAL ALASKA champion and two-time Iditarod winner Dallas Seavey is at the helm with avalanche forecaster and heli-ski guide Lel Tone and Ben Johns, a lifelong mountain climber and ski guide.

- Team Military: Leading the team once again are former Green Beret Grady Powell and former Navy SEAL Jared Ogden, joined by former Marine scout sniper Daniel Dean, who was selected from a casting call.

- Team Alaskans: Back for their third season, mountain man Marty Raney and big-peak racer Tyler Johnson lead the all-Alaskan team, joined by world-renowned mountain guide Vern Tejas.

- Team Lower 48: All ULTIMATE SURVIVAL ALASKA rookies, including legendary mountain climber James Sweeney, professional skier Kasha Rigby, and professional kayaker Scott 'Cluck' McCleskey.
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On Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 10pm ET/PT, Nat Geo premiered the Season 3 finale of ULTIMATE SURVIVAL ALASKA. In the season ender, "Final Gauntlet," beaten down after weeks in the Alaskan backcountry, the competitors brace for one last battle involving treacherous glaciers, volatile rivers and perilous mountains. Dropped in a glacial river valley, the four teams charge toward the final insertion flag, where they find a cache of mountain bikes. As the defending champions, Dallas and the Endurance team are eager to bring home two titles in a row. But when Ben takes a nasty fall, the fierce competitors gamble on a shortcut through a glacial crevasse to try and get back in the running. Against all odds, Lower 48 enter the final leg with a chance to win it all. But when Cluck slips into a crevasse, it's up to Kasha to pull out her partner, or risk losing him -- and the competition. The Alaskans enter the final leg with a shot to tie Endurance with a win. Stranded on the top of a sheer cliff face, the men must dig deep and improvise a route to the finish. For the Military, this final leg is about more than a title -- it's about revenge. After narrowly losing to their Endurance rivals last year, the team has set their sights on beating Dallas all season. But after weeks of suffering in the wild, will they have the energy to outmatch the athleticism of Team Endurance?