While Bear Grylls may have all the charm and reckless abandon that we all love, everyone knows he doesn't really do half the surviving he claims to on his show.
Ray Mears however has spent his life learning from the worlds Indigenous tribes, picking up skills and dedicating all his time to survival, so he knows a thing or two.
Here he demonstrates how to build a snow cave, which if necessary you could shelter in for weeks at a time until the weather cleared up enough to get to safety. Not many of us are likely to see that much snow any time soon, but its a great bit of knowledge to have.
Link [YouTube]
Ray Mears however has spent his life learning from the worlds Indigenous tribes, picking up skills and dedicating all his time to survival, so he knows a thing or two.
Here he demonstrates how to build a snow cave, which if necessary you could shelter in for weeks at a time until the weather cleared up enough to get to safety. Not many of us are likely to see that much snow any time soon, but its a great bit of knowledge to have.
Link [YouTube]
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
First off his show is scandal ridden with Falsehoods. Just one example when he was in the Rockies "floating down the river with his "self made floating backpack" he in fact had to use a life preserver as well. You can even see the gray life preserver strapped to his chest at certain points.
Second, his advise is often times just plain wrong or even dangerous! This is what bothers me the most about the show because at least half the purpose of it is to teach people how to survive in the wild. But if you follow his advice to the letter you will just end up in a worse situation than where you started. He often takes unnecessary and ridiculous risks that if he makes one false move he would break his leg. Without a camera crew constantly around him this would almost certainly lead to his death in a survival situation.
I'm warning you guys now, if you are ever caught in a survival situation, you are probably better off doing exactly the opposite of what he tells people to do on TV. So don't jump into an ice cold raging river thinking your backpack full of plastic bags you puffed up will save you. And when given the choice to drink your own urine, there are ways to actually separate the water from the urine so you don't drink the stuff that's actually quite bad for you in a survival situation.
Talk to any survival expert and they will have nothing but scorn for this guy and his show.
Great, so he makes an entertainment show, we should always pay attention to that rather then his other accomplishments. Climbing Everest or being a British SAS Reserve doesn't matter.
Please, those criticisms are such a reach and misrepresented it's a joke. I'd take Bears advise over some anonymous internet poster any day.
Live and learn, I guess.
I know that entertainment is part of the reason people watch it, but another big part is the show claims he will "show you" how to survive in the wild. He and his production team try to make it something it's not.
Look I don't need the internet to tell me the show is ridiculous when he comes in with a script where they pretend a bear is coming after him while he sleeps. His advice? Run through the woods in the dead of night and leap off a cliff into a river even though you have no idea how deep it is. If a grizzly bear (or black bear) is looking to attack you that is probably the worst thing you could do. Not only is it faster, but anybody who knows anything about bears knows turning tail and running is the wrong move.
So yeah call it entertaining if you want, but in no way are criticisms of him "misrepresented". Man vs Wild tries to come off as realistic and educational as well as entertaining. Sure they may have the entertainment part down, but it's not very realistic or educational.
You don't have to take my word for it though, ask anyone who knows anything about survival situations and their advice will often vary greatly from what he gives.
Also, an important thing he didn't explicitly mention, is that when you place the "door" blocks, they need to extend lower than the bunk level.
Grylls is a noisy pillock.
Even my kids have spotted that one's worth watching, the other's not.