Original subtitles

I'm bear grylls. Whoo!

I've traveled to the ends of the earth

In search of the most extreme challenges

In the most dangerous locations

To show you the skills you need to survive

In the world's toughest environments.

I've dropped into every corner of the earth,

Battling the elements, eating the unimaginable,

Doing whatever it takes to show you how to survive.

But in my quest for survival, I'm never alone.

A small and dedicated team follow me

Every step of the way.

Filming this show has taken me to all corners of the globe.

Without my dedicated team at my side,

Making it would be impossible.

They're my trusted cameramen, simon and dan...

It's incredible working on this show.

Rewarding, tough, great fun, hard work.

...Dave, who helps keep them safe...

I look after the safety, all the rigging, all the roping,

...And duncan, who oversees logistics.

We get to travel to some unique places.

So join us as we take a special behind-the-scenes look

At what it takes to film an episode.

Here we go.

Yaaah!

At the beginning of every show,

My first mission is to fight my way into the wilderness.

The extreme terrain often calls for extreme measures.

It's a super important part of the show.

It's the time. It's his entry.

It's his big moment when he's gonna be

Coming into this incredible landscape,

Wherever that may be in the world,

And you obviously want to do it in style.

The idea is just to grab the viewers' attention

And say, "look at this.

This is what you're gonna get for the next 45 minutes."

Getting bear into the environment,

There's been helicopters, boats, ski-doos.

Cars sometimes we've done.

Dropped out of planes into the water,

Landing in the sea from a parachute,

Helicopters at 10,000 feet.

You name it, he's entered on it or in it.

My kind of survival means confronting fear head on

And using it to overcome whatever challenge you face.

And in the baking heat of the arizona desert,

The challenge started from 10,000 feet up.

On the ground I'll be fighting the furnace-like conditions.

But the intense heat was creating thermal up-currents,

Which I could use to my advantage.

This time, I'm not just gonna be skydiving in.

I'm actually gonna be using a wing suit,

Which gives me a huge amount of lift,

Which means I can literally fly like a bird

And target my landing zone.

We're always trying to come up with new ideas

For the openings of the show,

And the wing-suit idea was a brilliant one.

On opening, bear is gonna love the wing suit.

Grylls: I've only ever used

These one-man flying suits once before,

So this is a jump I've got to get right.

Man: We're gonna circle around to your left there.

Reay: They're tricky things to shoot

Because it's not just a free fall,

Person leaving an aircraft and dropping down,

Where you're seeing them just disappear.

They're going down, then they're going forward.

So it's a very, very hard thing to cover.

Etheridge: It was a cool-looking thing,

Especially when it was in full flight.

We got a couple of small cameras, put one on his wrist

And one on the back of his foot looking down his body.

Awesome, awesome shot.

That day, everything went to plan.

The team got the shots,

And I made it down to earth without a hitch.

In new zealand,

I got the chance to do something I hadn't done

Since my days in the military...

Jump out of the back of a c-130 hercules.

Today we're doing something

That I've tried to get onto the show for years.

I'm so pleased that new zealand air force have helped us out.

Come check this out.

Welcome to the c-130.

It's gonna be our dispatch aircraft.

Flying, the ramp's gonna drop here.

And then it's bye-bye.

And we're out of here.

It's gonna be good!

With the team and I safely on board, we headed for the skies.

Final checks before we go. We're at jump altitude.

In a minute, the ramp's gonna go down,

And then we're out of here.

It was an incredible moment

Watching the tailgate of the hercules drop down.

Once the back opened, it is an incredible thing.

Not only is it a lot noisier, it's a lot windier,

And you get blown around a little bit.

And the aircraft actually isn't quite stable.

When it stayed open, you got to see this spectacular view

Of the most incredible mountain range

Down in the south island of new zealand.

Everything happens in a military way when we're doing this.

He will literally look at you, and he goes,

"right, this is my spot. I'm going."

And you've got seconds to sort of deal with that.

[ beep ]

Let's go!

One big leap, and I was gone,

Flying over the epic southern alps of new zealand,

A day the team and I will never forget.

Massive, massive sense of relief when you get that in the can.

I mean, it's such an important part of the show.

Just a big effort on that one. Big plane, big effort.

Jumping out of planes can be a dangerous business.

Even with the best preparation,

There's always a strong element of risk,

Something I know from personal experience.

In a special experiment in norway,

I was forced to confront one of my darkest hours.

Age 22, while serving with the military,

My parachute malfunctioned during a routine jump.

I failed to deploy my reserve quickly enough,

And I hit the ground hard,

Breaking my back in three places.

I was lucky to escape with my life.

Bear quite often turns around to me and says,

"you know, I think I've done my fair share

Of super-dangerous things now."

And then you get to norway, and you hear

That he's jumping out of a helicopter,

Pulling his parachute, cutting it,

Falling away again, and then pulling his reserve.

Right. I thought we were off the super-dangerous stuff.

[ chuckles ] it's, like, insane.

He was really nervous about it. Quite rightly so.

Last time he'd had to do this, he'd severely injured himself.

Although he appeared quite calm on the outside,

I think inside he was battling a few ghosts.

All right?

Yeah. Good. Okay, bear. You can do this.

Stay focused. Yeah.

And I'll be with the team on the water.

Okay. Okay.

Good.

Grylls: Okay.

Main, cutaway handle...

And then the autocord and reserve.

And that's what I should have pulled all those years ago.

I didn't leave enough time to pull my reserve,

And I smashed into the ground.

Jumping from 10,000 feet,

You'd hit the ground in 60 seconds without a parachute.

So there's no margin for error.

I to make sure everything went like clockwork.

Etheridge: With the parachute jumps,

My heart does always still really go,

Especially if I'm on the ground

Or if I'm in the helicopter watching him leave.

Always my heart is going 10 to the dozen

Until I see the parachute open.

With that one, I mean, it was just, times it by 10.

Normally, a parachute opens in three seconds.

This one took 11.

That cost me over 1,000 feet

And meant I didn't have long to cut away the main chute.

Okay. We're under canopy.

Look for my cutaway handle.

Look for my reserve.

Reay: He said to me the hardest thing

Was actually going from the cutaway

To get rid of his old -- his main chute.

Here we go.

Reay: Then you free-fall.

Gaudin: Bear is very good in those situations.

He thinks very clearly.

Whoa!

Whoa!

Reserve's open.

I'll drop away.

My heart...Is thumping!

That time...It worked sweet.

Now just to land this baby.

If only I'd done that all those years ago.

Working on the show is all about

Pushing myself and the team to our limits.

In utah, my way into the wild was a first,

And the stakes were high.

The opening of utah, I'm hoping that that's gonna go down

As one of the big openings of "man vs. Wild."

Indiana jones style, skidding around all over the place.

It's just an epic opening.

So we managed to find an amazing old dc-3,

With a pilot called skip evans,

Who piloted in the bond films and shows like that.

My plan was to parachute in,

But high winds meant it was too dangerous.

It was time to go to plan "b."

Skip brought the plane down as low and slow it would go.

Pearce: Bear says, "if you just tickle the surface,

"I'll crawl out of the door and basically get dragged along

"far enough behind the rear wheel,

"this huge rear wheel going at whatever speed.

As long as I get past that, I'll just let go and get off."

Pilot was like, "all right. You're bear grylls."

Gaudin: A few things could have gone wrong for bear.

Obviously, we didn't know the terrain that well.

There could have been rocks

That he could have gouged himself on.

Pearce: He's lying on his front,

So his precious parts could easily get damaged,

Along with anything else.

I think, for me, what worried me was the rear wheel,

Which is a big wheel,

And there's the whole of the weight on the plane on it.

And, you know,

If you just scream or you let go or something

And go under that, that's it -- you're dead.

Dan was tasked with capturing my exit on camera.

We had a tracking helicopter

Getting a shot from the side at the same time,

And we put a camera on his wrist so you could see that.

I was filming him hanging on to the rope,

And I was leaning on his rope.

So when he let go of it, I fell forward,

And I missed him letting go.

So I fall forward and bounce straight back up again,

And you see him tumbling around.

I was like, "oh."

It's a classic moment,

You're thinking, "we're not filming that again."

He's not gonna hang off the back of this dc-3

Or whatever it was

And be dragged along at however many miles an hour

Just for me because I missed that bit.

This time, we got lucky.

The action was covered from another camera,

In the tracking chopper.

[ coughing ]

Smoking trousers!

Okay. Let's get going.

Getting into the wild is tough enough,

But once your feet hit the ground, the real battle begins.

In the fight for survival,

You've got to grab every opportunity,

No matter how bad it tastes.

Ugh.

Fighting your way through the wild burns up vital energy,

Energy that must be replaced.

But wild dining takes a strong stomach

And the ability to leave your prejudices way behind.

[ crunching ]

Cold froggy, and full of bones.

Reay: I love it when bear finds an animal

And you know he's gonna eat it.

And I love it as much as the viewer loves it.

I think it's that anticipation,

"a," of what it's gonna look like

As he's chewing down on it with his teeth.

And you always see a little bit of a leg

Or maybe a wing sticking out, which I find quite amusing.

Trust me, there's a big grin on my face when this is happening.

Grylls: Rogue leg in there.

Etheridge: It's an endless list

Of disgusting, rotten, putrid things, really.

Still gripping on.

Etheridge: His mouth has been jam-packed

Full of the ugliest bugs on the planet,

Absolutely no doubt about it.

We all kind of snigger and bite our fingers or whatever.

I wouldn't say bear's the luckiest guy in the world,

Having to eat what he has to sometimes.

I'm not gonna need to eat for a week after this one.

Reay: I'm often laughing behind the camera.

Bear does often say he can gauge whether it's a good eat or not

By the size of the grin on my face.

Ugh.

This actually ranks as one of the worst things

I have ever, ever eaten.

The bear eats are always interesting times

When we're making the show.

Grylls: This is a part-developed chick fetus.

Pearce: There's always a very different atmosphere

In the crew when he comes to eat something,

Whether it looks reasonably pleasant or it's disgusting.

There's a leg.

There's this sort of level of anticipation --

One, what's gonna happen when he puts it in the mouth.

Two, what's his reaction gonna be?

And, three, is it gonna hurt him,

Or is it gonna make him ill or worse?

[ exhales deeply ]

He's got a cast-iron constitution.

The bloke could probably eat a jumbo jet

And not get affected by it.

My personal favorite was the whip spider.

I don't even know where you begin to eat it.

And on this one occasion, he came across --

I think it was a grub or something similar.

He's big and completely edible.

You just want to take off the head...

...Which you don't want to eat,

But all of this is fine.

He comes up with some interesting similarities

To what things taste like.

They say it tastes like peanut butter.

I love peanut butter on my toast,

But I wouldn't put this on it.

Yeah, it's ranged from, I don't know,

Baby poo to peanut butter.

Kind of reminds me of rat meat.

It's like somebody's got your steak...

[ spits ]

...Rubbed it in dog feces.

Man, that tastes weird.

It's like eating a...

[ spits ]

...Giant, sticky, slimy bogey.

[ spits ]

People pay a lot of money in a good french restaurant

For that stuff.

[ spits ] god knows why.

So we'll cut, and then I'll be like,

"what did it really taste like?"

Honestly, like, genuinely, I'm really interested to know

What that massive great spider that you just ate tastes like.

He always comes out with the same answer,

Which is, "how do I tell you what that spider tastes like

"when it tasted like the last spider I ate in the last show?

You haven't eaten them, so you don't know."

It's like cold, sandy, crunchy goo

With a very, like, off-mustard taste.

There was a couple occasions

Where I can clearly see it in his face.

He's thinking, you know, "okay, I might get paid to do this,

But this is actually drawing the line."

One moment I'll never forget was in new zealand

When came across a tree weta.

Look. You can see him holding on to that.

But just mean-looking.

These guys actually predate the dinosaurs, and you can see why.

But fine to eat.

Not quite sure where to begin on it.

Etheridge: I do sometimes think, "go on. Go on, weta.

"make a stake for freedom.

"go on.

"just claw your way out and run off,

And tell all your mates that you survived bear grylls."

Ow, ow, ow, ow. He got me there.

Ow! Ow!

[ groans ]

Ow.

What a brute. He's actually drawn blood.

All right. That's war. Head's coming off.

The body...Is fine to eat.

Oh, my goodness.

I've eaten a lot of bad things before.

Whew.

[ spits ]

It's gonna be one of those ones where you want to hold your nose

And just get it down so you don't have to smell it.

Oh, it's rancid.

God.

It smells like it's been alive since before the dinosaurs.

[ clears throat ] whew.

Eating in the wild isn't always so tough.

In borneo, where I caught a large crayfish,

All eyes were on me as I tucked in.

This time the crew were desperate to have a taste.

That's a whole tail.

Power, muscle, and great energy.

Meals in the wild don't come much better than this --

Energy-giving and tastes great too.

Happy bear face.

Pearce: And he was a happy bear, definitely.

I would say it was the only time

I was really envious watching him eat it.

Grylls: Look at that. Wow.

Every time he took a mouthful,

I was like, "oh, I could have had that."

You're looking at me with envy.

And he'd take another mouthful because he was enjoying it.

But he's not that selfish, so he did give us some.

Second half's yours.

Pearce: We all enjoyed a good morsel of crayfish,

And it did taste really good.

Insects and bugs are a great source of protein

And usually pose no threat when you stumble across them.

Ow!

But when you bump into animals with teeth,

It can be a different story.

No sudden movements.

The wild can be an unpredictable place.

If it's not the weather that catches you out,

It's the animals.

You do not want to mess with it.

There's no telling how animals will react when they spot you.

You've got to think on your feet.

Ow!

And if you're lucky, you'll get a good meal.

The biggest risk, I always say, on making this show,

Are the things that you can't prepare for.

You have no idea what a wild animal is gonna do.

And through the viewfinder, you're always hugely removed

From what is actually maybe only a few feet in front of you.

Grylls: Come close. Nice, steady. Nice and steady.

We've got a serious, proper-sized snake here.

No closer. No closer.

So I trust bear, and I trust bear to protect me as well,

Keep an eye out for me

While I've only got one eye on the situation.

Grylls: And that is a big boa constrictor.

He marches the path out for you.

So wherever you go, he's always 10 foot in front of you.

So if there's anything about

That's gonna cause any kind of problem,

He's normally the first one to bump into it.

Grylls: Okay. Come through. He's seen us now.

They get a little bit annoyed,

And of course they'll defend themselves.

Look at those eyes looking straight at me.

He's pretty primed.

Pearce: The scorpions are always quite interesting

'cause the smaller they are, the more dangerous they are.

Tarantulas, spiders -- you never really know.

The one that's always shocked me, I remember,

Are the wild pigs, the boars.

These things are huge, and they're very, very aggressive.

And it's the only wild animal I've seen, really,

That will turn and have a go.

With that in the back of my mind,

It was with extreme caution

That I hunted a wild pig in the borneo jungle.

You can actually see that print. See that?

Hoof mark.

Once he knows there's something on an island like a pig,

You know what the inevitable conclusion of that

Is going to be, 'cause it's only a small island.

He found a narrowing kind of pinch in the island

Where he knew, if anything he pushed down or chased,

Would have to go on this ridge, point of least resistance.

And then right after this ridge,

He made this sort of fence that goes across into a funnel,

Funneling the animal into his trap.

Grylls: And this just loops under there.

That just slips into that.

Here. Let's just trigger this, make sure it works properly.

Stand back.

Animal comes along, stands on the pressure plate.

Reay: Then we retraced our steps

'round to the other side of the island, avoiding the area

Where the pig was gonna hopefully be pushed through,

Waited there for a while.

Go straight down the hill.

See the back end of him, black back end. It's a pig.

He just kind of made noise and ushered it

And walked around it

And just gently ushered it towards the trap.

He was really calm at this,

And he often tries to rush these things.

I think even he knew that if he rushed this,

He'd never, ever get this right.

Just moving along.

You can hear him move pretty steadily.

Okay. Let's keep moving.

He's literally about four foot from the snare there.

[ pig squealing ] we got him.

Just go around the back trotter there.

Just let him settle for a second.

[ squealing continues ]

But it's still alive. It's only caught by the leg.

So a little bit angry.

But there's so much unpredictability

Because you never knew at any point

Whether this pig would turn and run at you.

But I think probably because he was so concerned about that,

He kind of done away with it so quickly,

It didn't really cause too much of a problem.

Okay. He's dead.

Straight through the heart behind the shoulder blade.

[ camera shutter clicks ]

Survival's not pretty, and this is something I do not enjoy,

But a kill like this will feed you.

His stomach can be used to hold water,

And his gut can be used as cordage.

Nothing will go to waste.

That time, I was fortunate, but things don't always go my way.

Gaudin: Recently in borneo,

Bear was preparing himself for an overnight

And was just going out and foraging for bits and bobs.

He sees this tree racer.

Oh, just got it.

Gonna pull him back.

He's got a good technique for snakes.

"control the head, you control the body."

I've heard him say that a few times.

Grylls: Where's his head?

Got his technique worked out. Goes to get the snake.

Goes out, the snake bites him. [ laughs ] straightaway.

Ow!

He just got me, then.

Gaudin: It was pretty damn quick.

Bear's usually very good with snakes,

But this one obviously knew it might be dinner

And wasn't too happy about it.

Luckily, he's nonvenomous, though.

But you've always got to be careful.

It's a frightening thing to see.

It doesn't matter if it's venomous or not.

If it bites you, it freaks you out.

Without a doubt. Of course it does.

They say snakes don't brush their teeth.

You see his jaw's gone 'round himself.

That's where he had me.

Being in the jungle,

There's so many medicinal plants in and around the area.

He noticed one straightaway.

Grylls: I want to give that bite a good wash.

You're not human if your hand doesn't shake a bit

After getting bitten by a snake.

This will do. Wild yam. See this?

Break it off.

Rub that sap onto a wound,

And that's gonna act like a mild antiseptic to a snake bite.

I do not want an infection in the jungle.

Wherever you are in the world,

Rivers are often a great place to hunt.

In borneo, I used local methods to make a fish trap.

Gaudin: One of bear's fishing techniques

Was to use some local bamboo.

He made it into, like, a funnel.

You place it in the water,

And the fish basically go in and can't get out.

The next morning, I returned to check my trap.

Etheridge: Ingenious looking fish trap.

Beautifully made, carved. Really done a good job of it.

Useless. Didn't catch a thing.

[ chuckles ] he left it in there for hours.

You know what? I really thought we'd get something there.

It was so funny. Literally every piece.

"there must be a morsel here somewhere."

But sadly, on that occasion, it didn't work.

Kind of disappointing.

Breakfast is looking decidedly...

Nonexistent.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

That one was a no. I mean, it looked the part.

Let's get going for the day.

Food, water, and shelter

Are all key in the battle for survival.

But if you have fire, the war gets a whole lot easier.

Facing off with the wild,

There's nothing better than a fire to make life feel good.

Fire-starting is an essential survival skill,

And there are so many ways to achieve it.

There's numerous ways that bear will make fire on the show.

That ranges from the flint that he carries around with him

To a fire drill to a mobile-phone battery.

He's used loads of different techniques.

It's almost impossible not to smile

When you get a fire going like that.

I'd defy anybody, any age, any sex

To not be intrigued by seeing fire.

I think there's something more intriguing about making fire.

It's tedious, it takes a bit of time,

Particularly if it's to do with friction

And, say, a drill of some kind.

Grylls: Okay. I've got a fire going.

[ thunder rumbles ]

Man, the heavens have just opened.

There's often that waiting process.

For me, you're thinking,

"I'm going onto the fire, I'm up to his face

To the fire to the face."

I'm thinking, "shall I cut? I don't know.

If I cut, suddenly, it will burst into flames."

Just watching someone with a knife and a flint

Just going, tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh.

"any second."

Tsh, tsh.

For however long it is.

Grylls: [ scoffs ] god.

They say there's no smoke without fire.

Like a wizard -- poof, there's fire.

It's a great moment. It's always a great moment.

Grylls: [ sighs ] fire.

And that's such a good feeling.

Most people who get lost in the wild

Don't have the luxury of having a fire steel.

Most people routinely carry what?

Cellphone, wallet, keys.

But a cellphone, even though it's broken and waterlogged,

Is actually enough to start a fire.

It did seem that a lithium battery

Might be able to create some spark,

Which would allow you to make a fire,

Which can give you a footprint of where you are,

Which can help rescue you.

So bear decides to take this mobile phone that he had apart,

Cuts the battery out,

And then exposes the guts of the battery.

As soon as I cut into the battery,

It's gonna expose the lithium to the oxygen.

And that mix of spark, heat, and oxygen

Is gonna create fire.

I have the tinder ready.

Okay. Watch out.

Pearce: And the thing fizzed and buzzed.

I remember the reaction of us and even bear.

It was like, "oh, my god.

What's happening? What's happening?"

[ hissing ]

Well, that's going!

Scarily putting this tinder on top of the spark

And putting it there,

But it all seemed like some mad experiment gone wrong, almost.

But he got away with it

And created this fire out of this battery,

Which is, I think, a surprise to all of us, really.

It's all about priorities.

If you've got a cellphone that's waterlogged and not working

And you're freezing cold,

Use that battery, make fire, and save your life.

This method should only be used

In an extreme survival situation,

When your cellphone is broken

And all other options have been exhausted.

Dynamic survival is my kind of survival.

Fighting your way out of the wild and back to civilization,

And you've got to keep thinking one step ahead.

Here she goes!

Surviving in the wild can be tough.

You need to think smart and take advantage

Of anything that can help you to overcome the challenge.

Get it right, and it can make the difference

Between life and death.

Bear is very resourceful in the environments.

Deer antler.

I see a rock, but bear sees a raft.

And that there now is ready.

There's always a lot of ingenuity

And clever, often local techniques that he'll use.

Grylls: Might well be able to make

Some sort of wet suit out of that.

Whew!

Snug fit.

He's very good at finding stuff

That maybe has been left for many, many years.

This here will be quite good to lie on for a raft.

It is interesting to watch him making things

Out of things you see in the environment

And often ingenious

To watch bear sort of create these things.

Very dexterous, very, very clever

At putting his mind to creating things.

In new zealand, I was faced with a steep-sided river

That seemed impossible to cross.

I traced its course downstream

In the hope that the banks would shallow off

And I could carry on my way.

Gaudin: We'd been traveling down this canyon for a while,

And the sides had been getting steeper and steeper and steeper.

And bear had to get across.

Finally, I formulated a plan. The nearby trees would be key.

So he came up with this ingenious idea

Of climbing up a tree on the side we were on,

A very small tree, climbing up, getting it to whip and wave,

And he'd get so high that he'd get it across,

And he'd actually end up pole vaulting, effectively,

Across to the other side.

It was another sort of crazy idea to get across a river.

See, the whole root system, with a bit of encouragement,

Will actually go.

"no, bear. This isn't gonna work."

We're looking around at the crew.

"what do you reckon, boys?" "no, this isn't gonna work."

"trust me, guys," he was saying. "trust me, this will work."

Okay.

Moment of truth on this,

Whether this thing actually works.

Sometimes you need to take risks like this

If you have no other options.

Come on, you brute. Over you go.

Reay: You're thinking, "is he gonna make it?"

He was getting closer and closer,

Then finally, bang, it snapped.

Grylls: Here she goes!

Reay: And it worked -- a tree. I couldn't believe it.

Actually very elegant.

What do you know! It worked!

Over he crawled, off he went. Job done.

In iceland, faced with freezing cold conditions,

I came up with an idea to use the natural geothermic heat

To warm my body and fend off the onset of hypothermia.

Look. You see the bubbles coming up there.

That's boiling,

But this bit is glacial and freezing.

It sounds a bit crazy, but I'm just wondering

If I might be able to divert some of the cold water

Into here, dig it out a bit,

And create a natural kind of hot tub, really.

Just when you think you've seen everything on this show,

He makes a jacuzzi in a field in the middle of iceland.

Incredible. I mean, I thought it was wicked.

I love things like this.

Just 'cause I can see this is gonna totally work.

All I've got to do is plug a few of these leaks with some moss,

Create a bit of an outflow at this end.

So I've got water running in and running out.

And that now is a really nice bath temperature.

Show me a man who doesn't like a hot bath

When they're cold and wet.

Away you go.

Jacuzzi in the middle of an icelandic field. Why not?

Oh!

Oh, man.

That is absolute heaven.

Etheridge: If ever he jumps in a swamp, you've got to go in.

If ever he films in a freezing- cold river, you've got to go in.

Sorry, guys. Only room for one.

Have a nice little jacuzzi in the middle of the field --

No. Not allowed.

"you stay there. I'm having a wash."

[ chuckles ] "it's quite nice."

And every englishman loves a bath.

Yeah, it's a good job.

We're quite a tight crew because bear goes quite feral sometimes

And enjoys getting at one with nature, shall we say.

Reay: Next to his wife,

I've probably seen him naked more than anybody else.

Is that a good thing? It probably isn't.

I've got just seconds in this.

Whoo!

You turn around sometimes, and there's bear in his full glory,

The old family jewels hanging out.

[ laughs ]

But hey ho.

[ chuckles ]

Fighting our way through the environment

Is all in a day's work on the show.

Fast and furious, the crew do all they can

To assure they're with me every step of the way.

Out in the wild, my crew are with me every step of the way.

Even when the environment hits us with a huge obstacle,

They'll do all they can to keep up.

Pearce: Bear comes up with a plan

To negotiate a piece of ground,

And he'll work it out, and he'll have his moment.

But once he's made his decision

And he thinks that everything is in his favor,

You know, give him his due, he commits 120%.

There's good clarity in it, you know?

But there's rocks, too.

Bup, bup, bup, bup, bup.

I'm gonna have to just go -- have to go for this!

And, of course, wherever I go...

At least I know it's deep enough!

...They've got to follow.

I've seen them

In some pretty, pretty uncomfortable positions.

Reay: I am quite used to

Being in an uncomfortable situation filming.

You actually have to push yourself.

You have to do your job,

But you also have to deal with where you are.

And I think, in order

To give the right experience to the audience,

You do find yourselves in situations

Which are uncomfortable.

But that's the right thing to do,

And it's the right place to be in order to tell the story.

We're gonna go for this. Go, go, go!

Whoo!

It's a pretty tough old job for those boys,

And it's with a kit as well.

So, you know, I do take my hat off to those guys.

In cape wrath, on the northern coast of scotland,

Dan had to follow me as I tried to cross an estuary,

But things got pretty hairy.

It was over a mile to the other side,

And the tide was coming in fast.

We couldn't afford to hang around.

Etheridge: Crossing the estuary

Was genuinely pretty scary, actually.

Being that far out in the middle of an estuary and looking back,

And you're just thinking,

"I don't know if we're gonna make that side."

And we're looking back to the other side and thinking,

"we're not really gonna make that side."

And this stuff is moving in so fast.

You can't believe how quickly it moves in.

Now the water was rising fast.

The channels between the islands were getting deeper,

And I could feel the current tugging at my clothes.

I was only halfway across.

It was time to make a critical call.

He got to a point where it was just like,

"quick -- let's make a decision. Quick decision.

"make it fast. Got to be decisive.

Let's go with this plan."

Look. I'm almost completely surrounded now.

This was sand a minute ago.

We're going back. We need to change the plan here.

Come on. Go, go, go.

It was just a case of, make a decision, act on it,

And do it with gusto.

But this place went from dry to there in minutes,

And it was pouring in.

And I mean, we were, you know, running for it.

Absolutely full sprint, full tilt, trying to make it back.

Sometimes you've got to know --

[ water splashes ]

You all right?

Sometimes you've got to know when to turn back.

Later on, things got even stickier for dan.

Etheridge: We were sort of skipping around,

And it was all fine.

It was nice jumping from one bog to another.

No problem, no problem.

[ grunts ]

You okay? I didn't see that one coming.

Here you go.

Come on. Come. We need to keep moving.

Come on. Pull your feet up.

Don't leave that.

You know, he's quite a bit taller than me.

So I was kind of here, and then he's having to

Sort of drag me out as best as he can.

1, 2, 3.

[ chuckles ]

Man, this is priceless.

I don't often get you properly stuck as well.

Check this out.

You all right?

Etheridge: It was very undignified, I think,

Is the word I'd like to describe that.

Dragged out of a stinking peat bog

Because I'd fallen into it

Through no fault of anybody else's but my own.

Lucky he was there to sort of save the day, I suppose.

Sometimes things happen,

And there isn't time to wait for the crew.

You've got to act fast, or you'll miss it.

Reay: Bear doesn't hang around.

I've got to be on my toes in order to keep up with him.

He does just do things very instinctively.

They are the moments you really want to catch.

I'm just ready there, with my thumb on the "record" button,

Just in case something does happen, and often it does.

The opossum catch was interesting because bear

Just spotted this thing out of the corner of his eye

And just went running through the jungle.

See that?

Etheridge: I think it heard he was coming.

[ chuckles ]

It's like, you know, pokes its head out from behind this tree.

He's obviously spotted him.

Next thing you know, bang, he's off.

And he just disappeared.

Picked up a stick and disappeared.

Grylls: Stay there.

Gaudin: And you heard this little squeal, and that was it.

Grylls: Got him!

Just got him.

Certain situations call for quick reactions,

And that can leave the crew playing catch-up.

In the malaysian archipelago, I was looking for water.

Bear set up this good base on the island.

He had shelter, water.

He had food -- the pig food, you know.

It was kind of all there, really.

Grylls: Hello?

The silence of the jungle was broken

By the sound of an engine.

All those priorities of food, water, shelter

Then go out the window.

He was off. Absolutely bolted through the jungle.

We had to run after him.

We were going, crashing through everything.

Can't see it.

Reay: And sliding down slopes, burst out onto the beach,

And there was our boat.

No doubting what that is.

And there's no doubting

I couldn't do this without my team.

Change of plan here. Come on. Go, go, go.

Through the years of working with them,

We've built up a mutual respect.

We trust each other with our lives.

[ grunts ]

In extreme environments like these,

Good teamwork is everything.

And together, you're always stronger.

He's always looking out for me,

And I can't thank him enough for doing that.

It's so, so valuable and so helpful.

Etheridge: It's tough on everybody,

And everyone's got to get their jobs right.

And only one chance at it.

Pearce: I've been so privileged and fortunate

To travel to so many environments

And so many places in the world.

It's the extremes. That's the kind of thing.

Literally, one week you'll be

Somewhere absolutely freezing cold.

You'll be in norway, minus 20, the next week you'll be plus 30,

In the middle of a sweaty jungle somewhere.

Gaudin: And you get to meet some great tribes, some great people.

It's all part of the process. Very, very privileged, indeed.

Pearce: Certainly arrived back home

With a few scrapes and bashes to my body.

Reay: It's incredible working on this show,

And I think the key ingredient of that

Is the fact that bear is brilliant to work with.

Yeah, we go to some great places in the world,

And it's like going away with your mates

And doing some cool things.

It's an absolute privilege.