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Regarding Man v.s. Wild: The entire premise of the show is false. They claim to drop Bear Grylls in some remote location where he has to make it back to civiliz
by avar 16y ago
Regarding Man v.s. Wild: The entire premise of the show is false. They claim to drop Bear Grylls in some remote location where he has to make it back to civilization. But in reality they seem to just drive around and film him doing stunts, see e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UpSlpvb1is
Worse, a lot of the behavior on that show is terrible survival behavior. E.g. when they did the episode in Iceland Grylls at one point jumped into a water filled ravine to make it to the other bank, and planned to dry off in some geothermal area he could see in the distance.
Firstly there's no ravine like that in Iceland that you couldn't easily walk around in 5-10 minutes without getting yourself wet, and secondly jumping into freezing water in the wilderness and thinking you can dry yourself off in some unfamiliar geothermal area you can spot in the distance is beyond stupid.
Most of the world's geothermal areas (including Iceland's) are just a collection of steaming holes in the ground, or water either too hot or too cold to dry off in. It's much better to stay dry than to take such a chance.
There are examples like that in virtually every episodes. E.g. Grylls climbing down a waterfall that he could trivially have walked around.
- grandalf 16y agoAny more examples of terrible survival behavior?
- rdtsc 16y agoYes, I liked the one where Mr. Grylls jumps into a glacier tunnel to make his way towards the waterfall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gOVbNftSdQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gOVbNftSdQ
- feral 16y agoIts very hard to find examples of good survival behaviour in Grylls' work. Essentially, if you are on your own, with no rescue coming, you must be super conservative in everything you do. A simple and common broken ankle is now a fatal wound. With this in mind, you don't charge around everywhere like Grylls does. You don't climb anything you could fall off, you don't make any big jumps. You move slowly and carefully, conserving energy and minimising risk. Pretty much everything he does, from start to finish, as he runs around for the camera, while entertaining television, is a terrible survival template. You find very few experienced mountain guides that run around like Bear does.
- avar 16y agoYou said it better than I could have. The only cases of genuine survival behavior I can recall on the show are the segments where he discusses what local plants are safe to eat, or how one might acquire water in some seemingly dry locations.
- jeebusroxors 16y agoI think the entire notion of finding your way back is silly. One of the keys of survival is letting someone know where you are and when you will be back. If you go missing, people will come looking with a general idea of where you are, and how far you could have traveled. Once you start trekking around because you saw a river and rivers always lead to civilizations, that's what Bear said, you start increasing the area you could be, while wasting calories and risking injury. Conserve your energy, make yourself visible (fire, mirror, bright colors, signals), and try to have a decent time.
- gregable 16y agoTo be fair, they do point out that many of the situations are simulated to demonstrate a survival technique. In much the same way that you generally never want to, for example, be in a situation that causes you to have to use your buddy's secondary breather on a dive, you still want to simulate that while training so that you know what to do if it does happen. That all said, I totally agree with you in general.