The tribe watches Taylor Stocker compete for Immunity on “Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen. X,” when the Emmy Award-winning series returns for its 33rd season with a special 90-minute premiere on Wednesday. (CBS / CBS)

Rather than try to eke out a living teaching snowboarding on the slopes of Mount Spokane and doing whatever jobs he could cobble together in town, Taylor Lee Stocker decided in 2014 to go to North Dakota to work in the oil fields.

It wasn’t, as he put it in a phone interview on Monday, a “fun adventure.” Still, the money was good.

But in late spring of 2015, when the snow shut down his job, Stocker had time on his hands. So he decided to try something he’d always wanted to do: apply to be on CBS’ long-running reality series “Survivor.”

Stocker, who grew up in Liberty Lake and now lives in Post Falls, is among the contestants in the 33rd edition of “Survivor,” which premieres Wednesday. The season was filmed earlier this year in the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji with a “millennials vs. Gen X” theme. Stocker, 24, is in the Vanua Tribe of millennials (along with Yakima resident Michelle Schubert).

“I basically grew up watching the show,” Stocker said. “I remember being a young kid and seeing the first episode of the first season, and not really understanding the concepts, but thinking this is kind of cool.”

He loved the idea of going out into the wilderness, something he does often, whether for fishing, camping or other adventures. It was “crazy and appealing to me at the same time,” he said.

When he decided to apply, the 2011 Central Valley High School graduate pulled together some clips of himself snowboarding and slack-lining, “just a bunch of crazy things. My goal was to make a video that would give them a perfect example of my personality, in under five minutes or so”/Caroline Lamberson, SR. More here (subscription).

Question: How long would you last as a contestant on "Survivor"?