Next location...

Well my book 'Man Vs Wild, Survival techniques from the most dangerous places on earth', launched across the USA this week and I was in NYC and LA for some book signings.

It was good to get to meet many of the people who have enjoyed and encouraged the show over the last few years. From college kids to ex-Rangers, survival guys and climbers to armchair adventures, fathers and sons, and just good ol' regular TV viewers!

I found it quite daunting at first sight but felt, above all, what a privilege and thank you.

I then brought my family out for a few days chill out before we then flew home and I started to prepare for the next Season of shows. I leave for location tomorrow morning. Quite nervous - again!

I thought though it would be good to add a couple of my favourite shots from these latest shows for people to view.

(There are more of these now in the photo gallery and they are generally the unofficial shots, my crew shots, so to speak. I hope you enjoy them.)

See if you can guess where these ones are from? It's a good Geography test!!

Also here's a tip about where the next few locations are: 1) big state, cold and hilly! 2) Big island, black drinks!

Stay well

wish me luck!

Bear x

Have had a bit of an epic on the last two shoots in Mexico and the Deep Southern swamps!

The first shoot I got whopped by some bees whilst raiding a nest to get honey. Hence the photo here. (although I did get the honey!)

But it meant that I had to spend the rest of the shoot looking like this, feeling terrible and only able to open my eyes with much effort.

It made fighting a big pit viper rattlesnake interesting! (Although I did eventually get it. I then could eat it, and then use its skin to store my urine in whilst in the burning hot salt pan desert. (The cocktail of snake innards and pee was truly terrible!)


I was then in the swamps - these are always the toughest shows to do- and I did end up having a pretty full-on encounter with a 6ft alligator. I came out on top, just, skinned it for cordage for my camp to sleep in, rubbed the alligator fat on me for mosquito repellant and then ate it.

In short, I am looking forward to a bit of a holiday with my family next week!

Bear x

We have just made it home from Sumatra where we filmed a bit of a marathon session of a desert island film, a volcano one and a jungle and swamp programme.

I am really proud of how the crew managed out there in probably amongst the hardest nd most dangerous conditions we have ever had. (and certainly the wettest and stinkiest!)

I thought at this point it might be good to show a few of my favourite 'un-official' pics from behind the scenes of Man Vs Wild & Born Survivor, as ultimately it is these guys who make the whole thing work and make it possible.
My good friends - highly professional and a team that I have much pride in.
Enjoy!

Introducing the one and only..... Man vs Wild Crew!

Back from Africa...

 

I have just landed back home after one of hardest few episodes of Man Vs Wild/Born Survivor.

Having started off on the Namibian coast on day 1 with fresh, soft hands after a good holiday break, two weeks later I am walking back through the front door of our houseboat with Shara saying I looked battered, with cuts, grazes, brusies everywhere, and with blistered, hard hands... I guess I am just back into the Man Vs Wild way again after Christmas!

These shows though, I feel will be especially good ones; full of some of the most intense scenes I can remember. From being dropped into the infamous southern Atlantic swells off the Skeleton Coast, doing battle with large puff adders, to riding some of the biggest rapids in the world; to then getting diarrehea hanging off a sheer rock face, making a canoe out of a dead zebra, and then being caught in a pit with a ravaged giant porcupine! No-one can say life is dull.

As ever the crew worked alongside me in some quite intense situations, and the San Bushmen I encountered were an inspiration to me. Wonderful, gentle, instinctive people.

I hope you guys enjoy the shows when they air in the Spring along with Siberia and Indonesia which I leave for in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I am away again this week as I am speaking in both Phoenix and Prague, but am then taking my two young boys off for some antics in the English countryside!

Stay well,

Bear x

ps Channel 4 in the UK start airing the new Born Survivor Series around Easter time, sunday nights 8pm. More to follow.

pps photo is from the end of the Zambian episode - somewhere down on the Lower Zambezi River. Alongside me is one of the professional hunters assigned to the safety of the crew when we were working so close to the hippos and crocs.

leaving the sub zero and heading to the desert!

 

I leave today for Namibia, one of the oldest desert in the world, and the second least populated country on earth, after Greenland.

It's going to prove a very hot one in the southern hemisphere summer...but if I have learnt anything from all these expeditions it is that the good moments of life are rarely easy.

If I am honest, I am quite apprehensive about these next two African shows (Zambia and Namibia) and I know how careful you have to be with crocs, snakes and wild beasts in those countries. (My two young boys seem much more relaxed about it than me!)

But we have a good team and I have operated in Zambia beforehand. I am sure once I am on the ground I will find that survival instinct comes to me again.

It is so often like this before I leave: I am nervous of the unknown and the risks, then once I land in country I am so absorbed with doing everything that the apprehension gets pushed aside.

Feeling nervous is normal though, I guess. What matters is that you still go, and give your everything, no matter how hard it is.

One of my favourite quotes I ever heard was from a soldier: "I look at it like this: I expect to work for 24 hours of every day, until my eyes bleed with fatigue. Anything less than this is then a bonus!"

I will update this on my return.
Wish me luck.

Bear x

ps the photo is from Siberia - after an encounter with a yak.

Siberia and beyond...

Well I am home in one piece... more or less! (The ends of my fingers in my left hand and the tips of my toes in my right foot are still tingling and a bit numb from some frostnip which is annoying.)

But Siberia was definitely the hardest show I have ever filmed, with daytime temperatures of -30o and at night time it dropped down as low as -40o.
We did some great stuff, from jumping onto Trans-Siberian trains, to swimming under the ice in a frozen lake. We did sub-zero river crossings, big ice and snow climbs, and a heli jump from 40ft into a snow cornice. I ate frozen yak eye balls, made a toboggan from its fur & skin, and skydived into the Taiga Siberian snow buried forest!
Man Vs Wild is staying suitably extreme!

But it was all fun and the crew really worked hard, and in such environments as these this show works because the team works. I feel very proud of how everyone coped in such conditions.

Pieces of news: Discovery have some new top management who want me to stick with pure Man Vs Wild rather than branch out into the pre-proposed extra shows where I might have taken a couple of applicants with me into the wild. Shame but maybe one day this will re-surface. But ultimately I'm not the paymaster!

I now have a bit of a break for Christmas with my family, (heaven!) then I leave for Namibia, Zambia then Sumatra in the New Year for more programmes.

Have a lovely Christmas, God bless and go wild at New Year!

Bear x

ps pic is of me and the crew at the end of the Siberian programme - we are all exhausted...and it shows! (left to right: Simon, Dan, Dave, and me.)

Siberia...in winter!

The new Season of 'Man Vs Wild' and 'Born Survivor' is in the middle of its run, airing across Europe and America, but I actually leave today to what feels like the furthest end of the world: Siberia.

Filming a 'Man Vs Wild' here in mid-winter, with average day time temperatures of -25o, feels pretty daunting, but it is also a place where I have dreamt of doing one of these survival shows ever since we first started. But I am definitely nervous.

I actually fly via Miami where I am giving an Everest talk at a conference there, then I fly back to Europe, onto Moscow, before a second night flight east across Russia to Siberia. Then I am pretty much straight into the opening of the film, which will be a skydive from the back of a military helicopter into the frozen wastelands. By that stage I predict I will be desperate to get out of flying machines and onto the ground!

Two extra pieces of news:

First up, Channel 4 in the UK have bought the next 13 episodes of Born Survivor. Channel 4 were the first broadcasters to encourage me to do TV, when I did the show 'Escape to the Legion', and I feel a great loyalty to them, so it is good to have the next year planned.

Secondly, Discovery are planning a potential series of Man Vs Wild 'extras', to run alongside the main 'Man Vs Wild' shows. The idea for these episodes is for a couple, (maybe a father and son, or two college friends, a mother and daughter, two celebrities, you name it!) to get dropped into the wilds alongside me, and I assess how they cope and help them through where I can. We live the struggle together and these guys get to pit themselves against some true wildernesses.

We plan to film a pilot show of this in February. Watch this space and also www.discovery.com/bear for more news and how to apply!

Until then, fingers crossed for Siberia. I am just focussed on surviving and making it back in time for Christmas with my family.

Bear x

ps photo is Natasha (Beddingfield) and me launching Global Angels Charity in Time Sq, New York last week. Global Angels are the charity we raised funds for through our latest Mission Everest, and this US launch should open up the possibility of many thousands more children's lives being saved worldwide. Please support any way you feel you can! see: www.globalangels.org