Bear Grylls, Running Wild

Cafe Society
21

I’ve thought he is a poor survivalist since watching an episode in Africa where he got really sick eating a large centipede he caught, apparently it was toxic. Because he outright mentioned he had no idea if it was edible before cooking and eating it. And he left an area with a pond and catfish that he ate without issue.

I would think a survivalist would stock up on known edibles, and avoid eating something that they are unsure of and could possibly be fatally toxic, how many calories did a centipede provide anyway? A simple cost benefit analysis would suggest against it.

Its more like watch a fool blunder around the wilderness and eat nasty shit.

22

Engaging with kids in a way they can grasp.

23

Illusion? He and the guest talk to the camera …

Of course everything is pre-planned. The idea is (a) not to die and (b) create an adventure narrative - standing around in the middle of no where with nothing to do gets boring quite quickly.

24

[nitpick]Rapelling[/nitpick]

25

I saw this as well-given how little nutrition there is in a random bug, why risk it? many bugs are toxic to humans. Of course, it is part of the mythology of the show-how you can survive by eating disgusting things (except when they turn out to be poisonous).

26

Okay, I just saw that one, the one with Michael B. Jordan. Yes, pre-placed rope at the infil slot, up the first cliff face.

But he still acted like he found the mine opening by chance, then decided it would save them effort to rappel down the mine shaft, then climb inside the mine to the mine entrance that hopefully is in the right direction, versus hike over the top of the hill. Now admittedly it was raining and windy and cold and hailing when they started down the shaft, it still seems a risky proposition to hope the mine has a tunnel going the direction you want.

And guess what, they finally get to the mine entrance, and Oh My Gosh, it’s locked off with a steel gate. That’s right, the mine owners or whomever closed it down have gated and locked it for safety, to keep [del]weirdos[/del] people from going in and getting hurt. But look, he amazingly happens to be carrying an explosive charge and det cord, so they blow the lock open. :rolleyes:

Yeah, so for survival, don’t go into a mine expecting the other end to be where you want and to be open. But for an adventure hike you plan and bring explosives for, it’s entertaining.

This episode did have one redeeming feature - they found a sheep on top of the mountain they were climbing. Now in a pure survival situation, you eat the sheep of course. But they’re not in pure survival mode, they’re in adventure camping mode, and the sheep are owned by somebody, who wouldn’t be happy in losing a sheep to some dipshits hiking across the mountain. But what they did do was catch the sheep and huddle with the sheep between them for the night. Kept them warm and toasty, at least on that side. That’s a good technique.

Dinner was worms boiled in sports drink. Michael tried one and gave up. He sampled the brine and nearly retched, but managed to hold it down - apparently an accomplishment as he is known to his friends for vomiting easily. Bear was excited about the addition of flavor provided by the sports drink, but let’s face it, after urine, anything is going to seem more appealing.

Well, leaving was driven by the set up to get to a known extraction point, but you are correct he could have made some provision for carrying food. Though how safe would day old dead fish carried in a backpack be?

He does like to wing it a lot with regards to food, and yes, eating weird shit to show the extremes for survival is part of the shtick.

Centipedes are a bad option. I know a lot of things are edible, even bugs, but there are toxic insects, and centipedes do have venom. However, certain large centipedes are eaten in China, so it’s not completely bloody stupid. Still, risk/benefit analysis plays a strong role in eating anything you aren’t sure isn’t toxic.

Had a discussion on this from a survivalist method, perhaps a thread here come to think of it. To try out anything you aren’t sure of, it takes a long try and wait sequence of events to see if it makes you sick before you eat any quantity. Not the kind of thing you do on a snatch and run trip like Bear does, only sensible if you are going to have to survive long term in that area and need consistent food supplies.

[nitpick]Rappelling[/nitpick]

Yeah, I bungled that.

27

I came across Les Stroud and his then spouse Sue Jamison in the early 90s at a Temagami lodge where I was backcountry ski guiding. They were terrifically nice, normal folks: personable, bright, insightful, conversant and fun. They were spending over a year learning the skills necessary to live at a primative level in a boreal forest. The next spring, they set off for a year on their own in Wabakimi, for the most part living on the land at a stone age level, and relying on skills pre-contact skills.

Although Les had a strong background as a Blackfeather wilderness river canoe guide (I can’t say enough good things about that outfit), he took his skill set three very large steps further, for it is one thing to attain the skills to move through the land for extended periods, another thing to attain the skills to live off the land for extended periods, yet another thing altogether to attain the skills to live off the land at a primitive level, and then yet another huge leap to do so as an isolated couple rather than as members of a community, for with a community, there are shared experiences, shared skills and shared resources.

Their year or more of preparation included learning as much as they could from First Peoples who were still close to the land and had knowledge of traditional skills, but even then they had to go back further, for they wanted to work from the bottom up in developing their skills and in preparing their equipment. Start with trees, stones and mud and work up from there. Once they developed the skill sets and set off for their year in the wilderness, they made some time saving compromises that included a steel axe, a steel saw, a metal pot, emergency meds and a rescue radio, and were helped out by a couple of friends who came in to bring in a food supply and help cut wood. That permitted them to live in isolation at a primitive but early post-contact level.

The thing to remember is that Les and Sue wanted to live with the wilderness together at as basic a level as possible – the key word being with. They were not out there to fight the elements, or test their will to survive in the most adverse conditions. Instead, they were out there to become one with each other and one with the land.

That is very different from from Bear Grylls, who looks at wilderness as something to be survived, and as a venue that provides opportunities to test one’s physical and psychological endurance (e.g. climb a steep hill, cross a cold river, dangle from a cliff, eat something truly disgusting).

With Grylls’, the SAS foundation is about fighting and conquering – what does it take to climb Mt. Everest. With Stroud, the First People’s foundation is about integrating and living with the land – how can we sit together by a lake.

Both Grylls and Stroud have to play to the TV market, so their shows are somewhat similar, with Grylls tending to play up the adventure and ick aspects in contrived and staged environments, and Stroud tending to play up the extremely uncomfortable endurance aspect in contrived but somewhat less staged environments.

Who would I want with me during the zombie apocalypse? Grylls, the ultimate A type SAS survivor (as long a I were not his sole remaining food source).

Who would I want with me in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Stroud, the artist with skills, balance, and the proven ability to build a life from minimal raw materials.

Either way, I take my hat off to both of them for living their lives to the fullest, and for trying to share with us that which makes each of them tick.

28

This is probably the thing to remember; the show’s probably conceived as much or more as a way to put celebrities in some kind of uncomfortable, moderately scary contrived situation to see how they tick, what they say, and how they overcome the problem, rather than a documentary or demonstration of real-world survival, woodcraft or mountaineering skills and techniques.

I mean, I watch the show somewhat regularly, and find the most interesting part to be the celebrities’ reactions and commentary, rather than what Bear is actually doing, or how they’re going about it.

In a broad sense, it’s kind of similar to writers using a science-fiction or fantasy setting being used as a way to develop characters and ideas in ways that you might not do in a real-world setting

29

So I never did watch “Man vs Wild”, but I just caught an episode on cable, and now I can see a bit about the distaste for some of Bear’s “survival” techniques.

He had some good things, some interesting things, and some bad things.

The episode I watched had him trek through the Romanian forest. Apparently the insertion point was so tricky, they couldn’t land a helicopter, so they tied him off under the helicopter and lifted him in, and as soon as he touched down, the guy in the helicopter cut the rope. Um, okay. Now we all know Bear could have rappelled in or parachuted in or just declipped the rope, but no, they cut the rope. At least he bundled up and saved that rope to use later.

Next, he’s trekking through the forest, and there was an interesting bit where he’s rushing on a steep slope with loose footing, and starts to slide that looks like he’s not going to be able to stop for a long distance, but his cameraman grabs his arm as he’s going by.

Anyway, they find a brown bear in the woods, and stay quiet till it leaves.

Setting up camp, he finds a small ledge on a rocky slope that provides limited access. That’s good, reducing approaches for a bear. Then he rigs a tripline with rocks in a cup and some of the rope. Potential bear warning to wake him. Good. He even fashions a short wooden tipped spear - not ideal, but something to keep a bear away if necessary. Fortunately, no bears attack.

One interesting bit, he found bear poop, and he ate it. Okay, technically, he ate undigested fruit bits that were in the poop. Bears have short digestive tracts, and the fruit made it through largely unaffected. You could discern the fruit bits on camera. However, it was coated in brown stuff, which he rinsed not to thoroghly from his canteen.

Now if I found myself in the wilderness enough that undigested fruit in bear poop looked like a tempting food option, I would be saving it for having access to a stream to give as thorough a rinse as I could manage. But anyway…

He has to scale some rocky cliffs, so his rope comes in handy.

But where I think he’s totally off his rocker and completely wrong about survival, he is in a canyon and comes to some steep cliffs up in front of him, so that hiking and climbing around might take several days or something. But there’s a cave and a river running under the limestone cliffs. So he argues that it’s better to be faster and take days off the travel by trying to navigate the river under the mountain.

At least he makes some torches, using grasses and lichens mixed with pine sap. But going under the mountain on a hope and a prayer? Stupid.

Sure enough, as the river winds deeper, eventually there’s a part where it completely closes off the air channel and the only way through is under water. Now he does tie off his rope to hold on to and go under, to pull himself back if there’s no way through. And amazingly there’s an air pocket, which they move to, before taking a second pass to get to an exit. But that’s a ridiculously risky death trap approach to going through a mountain instead of over.

Seriously, I’d like some statistics on likelihood of finding your way through and not getting trapped in a pass that doesn’t have an air pocket, or is long enough you drown.

And then they are soaking wet in frigid water. Whee.

The next down slope is a cliff face, he uses the rope to rappel. He uses his backpack to cushion his crotch because a loop of rope for a harness is otherwise very uncomfortable. Anyway, the rope doesn’t reach the bottom. He was smart enough to tie a knot in the end of the rope, mentioning the problem of rappelling off the end. And he even rigged a loop on the rope for his hand that would allow him to climb back up. But he didn’t use it. When he got to the end of the rope and saw it wouldn’t reach to the bottom of the cliff, he wanted to go up about 10 feet to a ledge where the cameraman was. Instead of climbing back up the rope, he did a sideways swing to pendulum up. Of course, it took several tries, and one grab, the tree limb he grabbed broke. He was smart enough to keep one hand on the rope at all times.

Finally he got a good hold of the tree, but then he wants to crawl outward instead of inward, but the rope is holding him. So he cuts his rope. That seemed like a poor choice of strategy all around. However, he couldn’t really unhook the rope because of the way he tied it at the top, so he was pretty much loosing the rope then anyway. Still, he used doubled rope techniques before but didn’t this time.

Anyway, catching a small trout by using his hands to probe under eddies in the stream and eating it raw - okay. Eating bear poop - interesting. Eating a snail - um, can I get that toasted or something? Making a torch - useful. Going through a mountain river cave - STUPID IMO. Making a wooden “ice axe” to help his climbing - not bad. Rigging a tripline - reasonable. Not provoking the bear they saw - good move.

A fair amount of eating weird crap, some useful tips and techniques, and one really big stupid move.

30

Yeah, plus, by going through the mountain, he risked re-awakening the ancient horror of shadows and flame that depopulated the tunnel before. Everyone knows the danger of that.

31

I hesitate to say this is the stupidest or least likely to work thing he has ever done, but its has got to be up there. And yes the chances of you running into a situation where this might work are pretty damn low.

That’s what gets my goat about his show. Lots of his shit is a bad idea even as stunt. Its even worse in an actual survival situation where the first rule of thumb is probably don’t MAKE THINGS WORSE.

It would be one thing if the show had a big flashing disclaimer “for entertainment purposes, don’t actually do this shit”.

But no, Bear has to give a “this is what a professional would do” vibe to it.

Which will bite someone in the ass if they do it when they think they need to. Or hurt someone immitating his “skills” for fun.

And blowing that lock off the gate in the mine. I wonder where that was, who owned it, and if he got permission to do it?

32

Unless you are starving and desperate for food/energy to continue to survive. He could very well have learned these things as part of his SAS training. And moving closer to death through inaction is definitely making things worse.

33

Drew Brees got off easy, eating gator instead of worms (hope they fed the camera operators and other staff, or else most of that went to waste)

Brian

34

There is a restaurant in Houston(or at least used to be) that serves gator meat, it isn’t bad not gamey at all kinda snake tasting.

35

A professional what? :rolleyes:

36

What time is this show put out? It wouldn’t be in a similar time slot to, say, Dr Who?

37

Real survival techniques don’t make good TV. Avoiding (further) injury, staying warm, staying dry, and stuff like that figures heavily and isn’t really all that telegenic. Finding food is generally pretty far down the list, if it is even on the list at all. Real survival training emphasizes caution and planning what your next move is before you make it.
I’ve tried to watch some of the various survival shows over the last few years. “Dual Survival” presented the least idiocy and it was fun watching the two hosts bicker.

38

Disagree. After finding water and perhaps shelter food is vital. The body needs energy. Unless your plan is to sit and wait till someone finds you (if they are even looking) then you need to eat.

39

Just about every Cajun place serves gator, I thought. Never thought it tasted like much of anything at all- if anything, somewhere between chicken and fish in taste.

I hear it’s tough as boot leather unless you beat the crud out of it with a meat tenderizer though.

40

Most survival situations are resolved in hours or a few days at most. Going a day or two or more without food is not life threatening. If you did as smart hikers/campers/hunters/pilots etc. do and notified somebody of an itinerary and ETA , then there should be people looking for you and you shouldn’t be making their task more difficult by moving around. I promise you that there are many other things that will kill you before you have a chance to starve if you try to act like Bear.