November 13, 2006

Man Vs Wild

Tonight I got to watch my first episode of Man Vs Wild, a show about surviving in the wilderness with just the clothes on your back and maybe a knife. Living in Silicon Valley, I'm faced with these situations all the time. :-) The host of the show is a British ex-special forces guy, and in the first episode he is dropped off in the Moab desert and has to find his way back to civilization. My critique is that the guy may know what he is doing (he obviously survived) but he is recommending people do things that only special forces or expert rock climbers could do. He recklessly goes into slot canyons climbing on and around every boulder he comes across and then when he is swimming through the water and gets to a bunch of trees jammed up that he can't get around he decides to go under it and nearly drowns. Then he reaches a dead end, and instead of turning back he climbs up putting one leg on each wall for about 50 feet until he gets out of the canyon. The real kicker is when he is walking around in the desert (in the mid day sun) he decides to urinate on his t-shirt and put it on his head to keep him cooler. I'm not joking. The guy is whack job. First, you're not supposed to be running around in the mid day sun, and secondly, you're not supposed to be taking a lot of chances doing stupid stuff like jumping around on boulders stuck in slot canyons and tracking down rattlesnakes so you can kill and eat them. I can't wait to see what this guy does if he goes to Alaska. A much better show is Les Stroud's Survivorman because his advice is much more reasonable and is less likely to get people killed if they try to follow it.

Posted by troutm8 at November 13, 2006 11:08 PM
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