You can follow in Bear Grylls’s footsteps – without having to eat dead rats and fermented shark…
Running Wild with Bear Grylls Sunday 7.00pm National Geographic
Ed Grenby - 11 April 2021
Leave the dead pigeon at home; you won’t need it. “The destinations we visited for this new series were so amazing,” says Bear Grylls. “On these kinds of trips, I normally get the crew to bring a dead pigeon along. Then, if I can’t find anything else to eat out in the wild, they chuck the pigeon in a bush, I pull it out, and my guest and I tuck in. That happens on maybe one in five trips – but not in any of the places on this series!” While that recommendation isn’t likely to earn a place in every country’s tourist brochure, it’s an indication that you don’t have to be an Everest-conquering ex-SAS survival expert, like Mr Grylls, to enjoy first-hand the spectacular scenery featured in Running Wild. So we’re giving you a choice: for each of the four spots Bear and his celebrity tent-mates visited in the latest series, we asked him to tell us how he did it – and we also show you how to do it like a normal, non-crazy person…
DINING IN THE DOLOMITES
How Bear did it
“For superhero Anthony Mackie [Falcon in the Marvel Avengers movies], we picked out an old First World War supply route through Italy’s Dolomites. It got quite steep and cold, especially when we climbed up a frozen waterfall. But we got lucky: just as we were making a shelter for the night from a fallen tree, a little snow rat dived down one of the roots and I managed to grab it by the tail. That was dinner.”
How you can do it
If rat doesn’t grab you, try the Michelin-starred cuisine of San Cassiano, which has an absurd number of the coveted culinary awards for such a small village. Its restaurants and hotels are there to serve the wealthy ski crowd, but there are summer-time adventures in the region, too – notably the vie ferrate, mountaineering-lite routes where climbers are safely clipped onto iron ropes and ladders at all times.
UTAH IN THE RAW
How Bear did it
Dodging rattlesnakes and dangling out of helicopters in the Moab desert – not to mention feeding tarantulas to actor Danny Trejo – was only part of it. “Skinnydipping with Rainn Wilson [Dwight in the US version of The Office] was a highlight. We were in a high alpine lake, 12,000 feet up in the La Sal Mountains, and we had to swim out to lay some fishing lines. So yeah, we were naked, but I told Rainn, ‘I think we can reassure ourselves there’s not another human being in 50 miles.’ It was freezing cold, though.”
How you can do it
Utah’s national parks (including its big names, Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands) are due to open at the end of May, with campgrounds unzipping their canvas doors around the same time. Whitewater rafting, horseback buffalo-herding and canyoning are all on tap – but so, too, is simple stargazing (one of the best spots on the planet).
LIONS IN CALIFORNIA
How Bear did it
In a threesome. “I’ve done a journey with [American Idol mentor] Bobby Bones before, but this time he wanted to bring his fiancée Caitlin Parker. We’ve never had a couple on Running Wild, so we said yes – then took them to California’s eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and threw them into big ravines, big caves, big rivers, ice-cold nights, scalding-hot days… you know, all the usual stuff. “We also agreed to help the rangers set up some camera traps because mountain lions had been reported in the area, so we were trying to pick up their trail – but that’s an interesting dynamic because mountain lions are ‘ambush predators’, so you’ve got to be smart, and careful, and lucky, moving through back country like that.”
How you can do it
The Sierra Nevada is one of America’s most accessible slices of natural beauty, just three hours from San Francisco, and criss-crossed by seven highways, all great drives. Stay on Lake Tahoe (North Shore for peace, South for a bit more buzz) – and don’t forget Yosemite, a little further south.
MORDOR IN ICELAND
How Bear did it
“Iceland is incredible. You truly feel like you’re in Mordor a lot of the time,” says Bear. Tolkien fans may struggle to find the page where Frodo pushes Gandalf out of an aeroplane, as Bear did with Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews (he was wearing a parachute), but their toughest test was authentically Viking-flavoured. “We asked the search and rescue guys for local delicacies – and I’ve learnt over the years those are rarely very nice. Sure enough, they point us to this fermented shark stuff that stinks of urine because of the high urea content. The Icelanders bury it in sand to rot for a few weeks because urea is toxic until fermented.”
How you can do it
Base yourself in the cute little capital, Reykjavik, and take day-trips into the wilderness. In particular, try the end-of-the world black sands at Reynisfjara, the walk-behind-it Seljalands foss waterfall and vast, echoing glacier, Vatnajokull.
Leave the dead pigeon at home; you won’t need it. “The destinations we visited for this new series were so amazing,” says Bear Grylls. “On these kinds of trips, I normally get the crew to bring a dead pigeon along. Then, if I can’t find anything else to eat out in the wild, they chuck the pigeon in a bush, I pull it out, and my guest and I tuck in. That happens on maybe one in five trips – but not in any of the places on this series!” While that recommendation isn’t likely to earn a place in every country’s tourist brochure, it’s an indication that you don’t have to be an Everest-conquering ex-SAS survival expert, like Mr Grylls, to enjoy first-hand the spectacular scenery featured in Running Wild. So we’re giving you a choice: for each of the four spots Bear and his celebrity tent-mates visited in the latest series, we asked him to tell us how he did it – and we also show you how to do it like a normal, non-crazy person…