Has anyone else seen this show? Man vs. wild is a show on the Discovery Channel. (http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/manvswild/manvswild.html) Bear Grylls gets dropped off in various remote places and shows the rest of us how to survive in these locations. My only real beef with the show is that the only way ever that I would end up in these situations is if my plane crashed. Given that I fly commercial, I would not have most of the tools he has like a knife. Already I am dead in this scenario because he uses it all the time.

I only catch the show when I am channel surfing but I have also realized that I would never survive in the wild. To be fair, I don't camp because I am afraid of serial killers (in the US) but have a tiny amount of experience in the wild. I climbed Kilimanjaro and trekked to Everest's base camp. On the Everest trek I learned what food really is: energy. We tend to think of meals and just enjoyable experiences but when you are climbing or hiking you become aware of how your body needs calories. I noticed something about myself on these trips. Once we got to camp each day my body shut down almost completely. I would get really cold and have to get into my sleeping bag. For about 10 minutes I was as cold as I have ever been in my life. Then everything would change and I would have energy and be warm again. I think it has something to do with how the body metabolism works — anyone have any thoughts on this? No one can explain it to me.

Anyway, Bear ends up doing a host of things I never want to do (drink urine) and a number I can never do (eat an eye ball). He and his team have people there to help should things go awry but if it was me, my hours would be numbered.