Armed with just a knife, water bottle, cup and a flint to make fire, Bear Grylls parachutes into this mountain range. From a radical new technique that could help save lives in crevasse zones, to building a snow shelter to survive alpine storms, to demonstrating how to escape from a fall into a frozen lake, Grylls puts his skills to the test.
View Man vs Wild - European Alps. Video hosted on Google. Bear is in the French Alps. Each year millions visit, hundreds get lost and stranded and dozens die. Bear has a knife, a water bottle and a flint to survive. Bear parachutes into the high mountains. Bear keeps the parachute that he uses. He lands on a glacier and knows that he must be careful hiking out as there are crevasses all over. He makes rope out of the rigging lines on his chute. He then fills the cute with snow and drags it behind him. The theory is that when you fall in the knots and the weight of the pack will dig into the ice and stop your fall. Bear tests this and it works. Falling in was the easy part, getting himself out was difficult and Bear uses a lot of energy to get himself up again.
Bear heads to a high ridge running next to him so he can find the best way out. As Bear hikes he starts showing signs of altitude sickness, breathlessness and a headache. As night approaches Bear knows that he needs to get off the mountain as temperatures there will be even lower. As the sun has now been at the highest point, the snow that Bear is climbing through is getting soft. Bear sees a snow storm approaching and knows that he must find shelter. Bear finds a slope that it not in the wind and starts digging to make a snow cave. He uses the plastic back protector from the chute. He makes a sleeping platform above the ground of the cave so the cold air moves down and the warm air from your body heat will warm up your area. Bear uses his chute to wrap up in. The cave should be about three times your size. Bear knows that he needs water and as he has no way to make a fire, he fills his bottle with snow and puts it against his body to melt. Bear wakes up in the middle of the night freezing and tries to keep his toes and fingers moving to keep them warm.
Bear has been snowed in during the night and digs himself out the next day. Bear heads up to the closest ridge and finds where the tree line is and heads towards that. Bear must cross a frozen lake so he makes fire to warm himself just in case he goes in. He knows that there is a patch of soft ice and actually dives in to show us how to get out. First you must keep calm and control your breathing. You always want to get out the place you fell in because you know that the ice was stronger. When Bear gets out he goes back to his fire, but it has gone out. He knows that he must take his clothes off, because he is losing even more body heat being wet. As he has no towel he uses snow to remove some of the moisture from him and exercises to get his blood flowing. Then he gets his fire going and warms up a bit and dries his clothes. After his clothes are dry he moves on and makes it to the tree line.
Bear finds a nest of ants and hopes to find larvae to eat, but it is too early in the year. He finds some pine roots and spring buds to eat. He continues on, often slipping and sliding down. He comes across a large gorge that he must cross. Randomly there is an old rope bridge that is still up that Bear uses to traverse across. He knows that this is dangerous, because he has no idea when the lines were put up. Part way across he slips but catches himself and makes it across. As he continues he passes an area of the forest that he been hit by an avalanche. He smells a dead animal buried in the snow that maggots have been eating on. He picks us handfuls of the maggots and bites the bodies and eats them, throwing away the head. He also took some for bait if he finds a frozen lake so he can fish.
As Bear heads on the weather is getting bad and it starts to snow. He knows that he can not travel far in this weather so he looks for food. He clears an area and breaks through the ice. Using some of his line he makes a fishing string and using some wire from his parachute to make hooks and places his bait. He places the line and waits. He places spruce branches in the hole to keep it from freezing over. Bear sees some fox prints and decides to follow him. Bear is hoping that the fox is hunting rabbits and he was going to wait and steal his dinner, but the fox heard him and ran away. Bear goes back to his line and has a fish. Bear eats it raw. As Bear has spent most of the day looking for food, he knows that he must find shelter for the night. He heads towards a mountainâs edge looking for a cave to keep the snow off of him.
As Bear continues down the snow turns to rain and Bear is having a hard time figuring out which way to go. He knows that he needs to keep going down. As it gets warmer the snow gets harder and harder to walk it. Bear finds a young sapling that he can bend into the shape of a show shoe to spread out his weight as he walks. They work well and Bear manages to cover a great deal of ground staying on top of the snow. As he comes to a clearing he sees a line of cross country skiers heading home. He knows that if he follows them, they will lead him to civilization.
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