Bear Grylls: Mission Everest

[Bernie Garland]

Love him or hate him, i for one take my hat off to him, to fly that rig to the hight he did, whether it was over everest or not,in the unpredictable weather conditions took some bottle and the man to me proved his bottle by doing it.

Bernie

 

[firecrest]

Hate him? Oh now don't get me wrong, I wouldnt be saying No to him if he tried to seduce me... *sigh*

 

[crazyclimber]

Only just saw it. Started watching with a (I like to think) healthy amount of skepticism considering some of the daft things he's demonstrated on his 'survival' shows...
on this one I'm a skeptic no more. I thought it was a nicely made show, less trickery and stunts and more about good honest record breaking, including showing some of the pitfalls that inevitably happen. Forgetting anti-freeze well these things happen. They were working under considerable time pressure, I don't think Milo actually admitted to screwing up but I bet he thought it

To respond to a few points made here... yeah to break the altitude record they could have done it somewhere far safer, but remember that these things are expensive. Having staff on hand, equipment, etc all costs and in this case I'm guessing producing the film helped towards a large part of that. 'Bear returns to Everest' sounds a lot more interesting and probably appeals to a far wider cross section of society than 'paraglider pilot breaks world height record over the malverns'... no offence to people who walk up the malverns.
Also... well I can't think of many places where I'd prefer to go to do something like that

There were a few criticisms of Bear regarding his decision to leave his young family to do the flight. In a way I see their point, but at the same time I think we should remember that this is what he does; this is how he makes money. For every time he breaks a record I imagine there's thousands upon thousands to be made with motivational speaking and books. For decades people worked underground in mines doing dangerous jobs for bugger all money to support their families. Fire service today - risk involved - dozens upon dozens of people are living on oil rigs in the remote North Sea as we speak working there for the same reason. I see it as being no different. Anyway plenty of other people have done risky things while having families to support. Neil Armstrong is the first that springs to mind.

Hope Bear keeps making good TV!

 

[crazyclimber]

I guess its just a difference in opinion. I haven't ever liked the kind of things that get people into the guiness book of records. Most of it is trash. I feel nothing is acheived, no boundaries are pushed. So a Paraglider can go that high? lovely!. There was no real technological advancement, all what happened was Gilo built one bigger. In the same vein Ive no respect for people who go climb everest, i think they do it not to learn to make themselves more interesting people.
These things are easy to acheive in the general scheme of life, but I don't wan't to get philisophical about it
Maybe teenagers achieve a sense of the same pride and achievement of dodging a train that we assume mountain climbers and bear grylls feel? Perhaps we have just made the world too safe for them to push their own person boundaries and thats why they have an urge to artificially create a situation where they are risking their own life. I think the paragliding and other such record attempts (especially stunts) is just the same root issue but on a bigger, more professional looking scale.
Maybe I shouldnt be dissing that though, you know, I think we can harness kids desire for less cotton wool in their lives and get something good out of it channelled into outdoor activities and bushcraft, which I feel has a beneficial purpose to a persons wellbeing and can be used as a tool of education, before they start doing even more dumb and pointless things as adults.

Records are there to be broken Running marathons, the olympic games... the list goes on. Why? Well why not. I admire him for the get up and go... I wonder how many people he went to school with are unemployed living off benefits, how many are sick to death of their McJobs...
If someone wants to go make a name from themselves, assuming it's for the right reasons, I have no problem with that

 

[mayfly]

to fly that rig to the hight he did, whether it was over everest or not,in the unpredictable weather conditions took some bottle and the man to me proved his bottle by doing it.

I agree, spot on Bernie!

Also worth mentioning that they helped raise awareness of, and donations for, numerous children’s charities in Africa. I can't imagine they would have raised anything like as much awareness or money if they'd done this in, well, some English shire!

Chris

 

[spamel]

It would have been better if they did the flight around Bavaria/Allgau regions of Germany or over the border in Austria, that is where the proper Alpine Pareagliding takes place and some of the pilots there get to very great heights using thermals alone. Noisy engines spoil the elegance of the sport, and make the use of thermals less important. Any numpty could use one of those motorised wings and get up high.

Sorry for quoting myself, which reads like I have seen the programme, but I haven't. I do want to though. I'm not keen on Grylls' Survival telly, but this could be something I could tolerate from him. All criticism of his mentality or lack thereof and also the technique he used (that one was made by me!) there are still many things that could have gone wrong that would have been totally out of their control. Cyclonic air, Assymetric frontal deflation of the wing, spiral dives, dead air, the list goes on and on. Any of these could have been problematic, but a major concern would have been if the wing had picked up moisture on the way up which then froze. Frozen lines would have made it near impossible to steer the wing.

I'm pretty sure that they would have known of these things, but until I watch the show I'll not know. Flying that high above the ground does take considerable bravery, if the wing fails then you'll be falling a long way before you reach terra firma and that is a long time to think "Ahhh, crap!" Hopefully he had a reserve 'chute, the wing would act like a parachute obviously, but the reserve is carried by law in UK on any flight over 50 metres in height, so off of the training slope you have a reserve. I'm sure this isn't a law in Germany where I flew, but as we came under British Law due to being on a Forces course, we reverted to UK rules. I'd like to think Bear would have seen the sense to carry a reserve.

 

[crazyclimber]

Spamel - not sure whether he did on the actual Everest flight or not (wouldn't know it if I saw it, not being into paragliding myself), but on one of the test flights, I believe in the UK, one side of the wing folded up into the lines causing him to have to land with a fairly high ROD in a field. Shook him up by the look of it, but it specifically stated that he had no reserve.
If you want to see it it's free on 4OD at the moment.
I agree that whichever way you look at it, that flight took some guts. Descent took 45 minutes!!

 

[Lucyc]

Hate him? Oh now don't get me wrong, I wouldnt be saying No to him if he tried to seduce me... *sigh*

Exactly my view..