Man Versus Wild - Dangerous Ideas?

Some people say that the star of the television program Man Versus Wild, Bear Grylls, is a fake, but I don't think so. He clearly has a lot of skills and training, and he can climb and swim better than most of us. He easily chokes down scorpions and worms for food - it's good to have a strong stomach if you want to survive in the wild. Unfortunately though, he also sets a terrible example in almost every program. He does things that nobody in a survival situation should consider.

I'll refer to just one program for my examples - though there are good ones in almost every show. In the episode where he parachutes into the Montana wilderness, he starts by dropping into a lake because there are supposedly no other open areas to land, other than the grassy stretches the camera can't quite exclude from view. This is done to be dramatic; choosing to get soaking wet in a survival situation in the mountains of Montana would almost always be a bad idea, to say the least.

In order to travel to lower ground where it will be warmer, he runs down a slope of loose rock, a technique sometimes called "scree-running." This may be fun, but if you are truly lost in the wilderness, the last thing you want is to risk injuring yourself.

Waterfall Climbing

Grylls loves to climb down waterfalls for some reason, and has done so in more than one episode. This time, after following a stream and coming to a seventy-foot waterfall, he assures us that the best way to proceed is to climb down the slippery dead tree leaning against the cliff between the two parts of the falling water. Of course, the tree doesn't quite reach the bottom, so a ladder of sticks and para-cord is made on the spot, which still doesn't quite get him to the bottom of the fall.

I returned late after a commercial and missed the last part of this descent, but it's safe to assume that Bear did his trademark jump into unknown water to get down. Just imagine a sharp point of a stump or rock just under the surface, right between where your legs will go into the water, and you'll understand why this is a bad idea in general. Never jump into water when you can't see what is there - and remember that there is almost always a better way down than through a waterfall.

Soaked again, Grylls must start a fire to dry his clothing and gear. Consider the time spent building a ladder, descending a slippery dead tree, swimming out and drying off for hours. Did he really save time versus finding a safe way around the waterfall? I can tell you from experience that it's very rare to find a waterfall without a relatively quicker and safer route around it versus climbing down through it.

Man Versus Wild - The Rest of the Story

Grylls finds a lake that is several miles across. He decides, without really explaining why, that it's important to cross it rather than follow the shoreline around. As in many episodes of Man Versus Wild, he runs into the water fully clothed, ignoring the common sense rule to keep clothing dry when in a wilderness with cold nights and quickly-changing weather. He discovers a broken canoe in the muck and cleans it out, patching the holes - sort of.

By the time he is almost across the lake - using a kite made from his parachute for propulsion - the canoe is full of water. It capsizes, soaking him for the fourth time in eight hours.

Things get really ridiculous later in the program, when Bear decides that rather than finding a safe way into a deep gully (which he thinks he must enter), he needs to create a "zip line" and slide over to a tall tree below. He uses a grappling hook made with a deer antler, and a cable he found by an old cabin. To hook onto a tree with an uncertain attachment and climb out over a deep gully on a thin cable is clearly reckless and unnecessary. With even modest abilities, anyone could have found a safe route down and been waiting for him at the bottom long before he completed this asinine stunt.

Besides the other reckless actions I probably forgot, he eats uncooked grasshoppers, risking getting parasites - and while he stands next to a perfectly usable fire the whole time. Towards the end of the show he climbs 100 feet up a train bridge over a meadow, supposedly to follow the train tracks, rather than simply walk along them below until he reached them on the other side of the meadow. He throws a chain over the lip at the top of the bridge and swings out into space to climb up - with no idea what he caught with the chain! Actually, he probably had safety crews up there, but that wouldn't be the case in a real survival situation - which is what he is supposedly advising us about.

Then there was the death-run out of the narrow train tunnel by the whole film crew, ending in them jumping to safety just as the train caught up with them. I have to admit that Man Versus Wild is entertaining, and Bear Grylls is fun to watch, but it seems likely that someone will eventually be hurt if anyone in a true wilderness survival situation "learns" survival from Grylls.

Every chapter has tips for lightweight backpacking and wilderness survival.