Posted on 05/17/2009 6:05:22 PM PDT by appleseed
Scouts can earn activity badges for skills from skateboarding to global conservation, but the new chief scout could herald the prospect of members tackling some slightly trickier future pursuits – such as eating snakes and climbing Mount Everest.
Bear Grylls, 34, the former SAS man and survivalist who, as television viewers will know, long ago earned his stripes for both the above, said he would be encouraging more adults to volunteer so that 33,000 youngsters on waiting lists could join scout groups.
Grylls will become the youngest chief scout in the organisation's 102-year history later this year when he replaces the former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan, and he spoke warmly of his boyhood memories of scouting. "I got a sense of identity and a sense of belonging from scouts. My love of the outdoors started with scouting. It was a real confidence boost for me and opened a lot of doors."
An author and public speaker whose television shows have included Man vs Wild, at 23 he became the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, crossed the Atlantic Arctic Ocean in an open inflatable boat, and served three years in the SAS.
Grylls said that he hoped to increase the 90,000 adult volunteers offering more than 200 activities and to dispel the image of scouts simply singing around campfires in old-fashioned uniform
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
“Which one is the guy who never seems to ever be able to get any of his tricks to catch food to actually work?”
Bear is the one that usually relies on his camera crew to catch fish. That and the hotel pancakes.
OK kids, the very first thing you do when alone and trying to survive long enough to reach civilization is to do whatever you can in a bold effort to break at least one extremity, preferably a leg.
If it is cold and you have no food or outside source for heat, or fresh clothes and are alone, then leap into a freezing stream, you get extra credit if you can leap from a height guaranteed to break a leg if you hit a shallow bottom or a rock.
Remember kids when trying to make it out alone, always be hasty and find the most risky, injury prone manner to travel, leap, jump, rock climb, do whatever it takes to make a great show of it and to flaunt the possibility of losing mobility.
I don’t think it’s Bear. Doesn’t look like him. I know one of them is always near starvation out in the wilderness because any plan to catch food involving more than reaching down and picking it up never actually works.
A manly man. Nothing effeminate, mincing, or metrosexual about him. A great pick.
I know what you’re saying as far as lawsuits goes.
Been there and done that. I’ve come to the point that I don’t care what comes from my every day actions because I know what I see what is happening and I don’t like it. I teach my kids the way I think I see fit. I’ve had some shtf in my own life and I’ll live it for rest of my life. If someone teaches that life ain’t all fluff and roses, I can relate to that. Just my opinion and the way I see things.
Properly supervised I agree that this is a good thing for scouts.
Wonderful.
This guy is an idiot, he pats himself on the back for taking ridiculous risks while presenting himself as a “survival expert”, exactly the kind of person the Scouts need to be presenting as a role model to their members.
It seem not even the Scouts are immune to stupid.
That would be Les Stroud, Survivorman.
He may not manage to catch any food, but he’s an order of magnitude more capable than “bear” in any survival situation.
The scouts have a serious PR problem, and he should help with that.
“He may not manage to catch any food, but he’s an order of magnitude more capable than “bear” in any survival situation.”
he does ok on the food. I think its realistic on what you can do out there. Not too many pancake houses out in the boonies.
To all the naysayers on here who think he takes too many risks.
Les Stroud is on his own, that is why he doesn’t take risks. Bear Gryllis has a camera crew and he jumps into dangerous situations because he’s trying to teach people what would happen in a worst case scenario.
He jumps into a bog to show you how to get out, he jumps into a pond covered with ice to show you how to get out. Les doesn’t do that because he seriously might die.
Totally different types of shows. One is not better than the other, they are just different.
Gryllis does some seriously stupid crap to sensationalize his show. I’m sorry but there’s no good reason to leap from a cliff face into a tree as a means of getting down. That could get him killed regardless of who he has with him.
That said, I’m sure he has the skills and I would like to think he wouldn’t take the same risks in a real survival situation.
‘If all they need is a flashy, self promoting figurehead with no substance, “bear” is their man. “
I don’t like him either but I bet he will attract young kids into the Scouts. And that is a good thing.
The normal guys will be the ones that keep kids from getting themselves killed.
LOL
Interesting tidbit about Bear Grylls.
When asked what was his scariest moment on the show, he replied it was in the US Everglades when he had to swim across a river where there were alligators.
He and his crew watched the water for an hour (looking for bubbles indicating alligators) before he swam across.
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