Alone In The Wild TV show?

the electric fence was kind of funny imho. or when he was all paranoid thinking he saw a bear running in the bush...
 
I have camped a lot in the Yukon and never used an electric fence there. However, they are pretty handy when you are hunting in AK and drop a caribou on barren ground where you can't hang the meat from a tree while waiting for the plane. They are another tool to help dissuade bears and other scavengers from snacking your caribou.

DancesWithKnives
 
Just finished it, not terrible. At least it was something real on T.V. Props to him for at least trying it I guess, but he was under trained to try such a thing. I mean how can you have a shotgun and a scoped rifle and over the course of 50 days only shoot two porcupines at point blank range. He also seemed like a pretty lousy fisherman and an even worse trapper. I'm not even convinced he's a very good back country hiker. He had a topo map yet still got himself stuck down in steep impassable areas. It made for O.K. T.V., but really he had no business being out there. I would like to see the same scenario with a true seasoned outdoorsman.
 
He hears what he thinks are bears, but he keeps his shotgun slung upside down across his body. And shooting at squirrels with what had to be buckshot(the shotgun was his bear gun)...
 
I saw it today for the first time. He set up a hammock with a tarp over it. Then he unrolls this battery powered "electric fence" and sets up a perimeter with a diameter of about 25 feet with this electric fence to protect himself from bears and other animals. I turned it off at that point.
 
I was flipping channels for a few minutes and ran across this show again. Within 5 seconds of watching he was balling. I threw up in my mouth a little.
 
remmmm said:
I really almost had to turn it off when I saw his electric fence. If he's that freaked out he should just rig an anchor and sleep in the damn canoe out on the water.
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thats when I called it.....come on man an electric fence? might as well have taken along a mobil home.
 
I found the effects of him being alone fascinating. It was like the forced solitude wore him down so much more than his lack of survival skills.
 
I think the first episode wasn't actually that bad at all. Yes, the pansyness shows even before anything serious starts. I checked some clips from future episodes and it was.. uh. Well, one would think if that was his boyhood dream maybe one could be a bit more mentally prepared for it?
 
I haven't watched the show, but I do have some thoughts on isolation and on lack of food and the effects it has on your psyche.

I spent a long time as a mountain guide and got to the point that I enjoyed solo climbing more than climbing with partners so I spent quite a bit of time alone for somewhat extended periods of time (probably up to about a month and a half). When I was younger I enjoyed the solitude and liked not having to find a partner with about the same skills as me (so you're either having to carry the burden of the other person or they're having to carry you, as far as skills and physical fitness levels go). As I started to get a little older (mid-20's) I found that I started to long to see other people, which really annoyed me. I continued to climb solo when doing it for fun, but I found I preferred areas where I would likely run into other climbers to break the solitude. I find that after just a few days I start to get lonely. I'm fine for solo weekend trips, but after 5 or 6 days I really want to start hearing other voices and seeing other people. It depressed me a bit because I figured I was perfect for the fantasy solo survival scenario after the apocolypse depending on no one else, just my skills and wits. Good thing I have a family to take care of, I guess. The fact of the matter is, as humans we are social creatures and too much isolation tends to wear on the mind of most people. Some people are probably fine, but most people are not. Spend a few months in the wild by yourself and you come a very changed person, not all of it for the better.

In the military and as a climber I have gone for days at a time without food (always combined with sleep deprivation, which obviously changes the equation for the worse. I suspect this guy on the show wasn't getting much sleep do to stress of the situation and his fears, reality based or not). I've only gone as long as 6 days without food (and have gone 3-4 days without food on many occassions, all while burning at least 8000 colories a day) and I know what effects it had on my body. Burning many more calories than you are taking in has pretty immediate effects on you. You start getting irritated early on, due to low blood sugar, but it only goes down hill from there. Soon you start making bad decisions because the blood from the brain is being shunted to run essential organs (heart, lungs, etc.) that are necessary to survive and to keep up the work that you are demanding from your body. Your body grows weaker and weaker (compounded heavily by lack of oxygen if you are climbing at altitude, which robs your body's ability to deliver food to the muscles and further degrades the thinking process, something referred to as "lizard brain" in the climbing world, as it brings your thinking down to the most primordial, base thinking processes, and everything goes into slow motion). All of this has heavy effects on your emotions, and some people become extremely emotional, which translates into despair or anger in some (from my experience I tend to become quieter and quieter and more isolative so I tend to focus on the next step instead of the big picture to stay focused and to accomplish whatever I have set out to do. With lizard brain, small steps are easier to focus on and accomplish), which of course again effects your decision making processes and can greatly effect group dynamics (to the point that many climbing partnerships are permanently damaged by a bad climbing trip, especially an epic one, often ending friendships).

For short term survival, I intellectually understand that food is not important, but psychologically it's very important for several reasons: food helps to keep your mind clear which aids in decision making, a pain-hungry stomach is a huge and difficult distraction to ignore making the situation seem worse than it is, and getting food helps distract me from feeling hopelessness or despair and to stay focused which is an important aspect of who survives and who dies. It doesn't always have to expend tons of energy to get food. Eating insects for example, which has a great energy output for little energy expenditure, and I don't mind bugs having eaten them often in my travels.

I have been in several short term survival situations and even if I had food I still spent time getting more food, as you never know when a short term emergency will turn into a long term one. I have respect for Les Stroud for his willingness and his ability to go a week at a time without food. I know what effects it has on me, and I avoid it at all costs.

It's a worthwhile experiment to go several days without food or sleep or alone while performing heavy and difficult tasks. It will show you how you are effected by these variables, which may change your thinking on survival, which priorities are highest, and what gear you should bring or know how to prepare in the wild. You may expose weaknesses you were unaware of, which you may be able to improve in safer and less stressful environments. After experiencing these things for real, you may not like what you learn about yourself, but you'll be better for it.
 
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KuRUpTD said:
Thanks for this very insightful post Kage :thumbup:

This is a rough crowd here.
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You being from Brooklyn too...you gotta know that all that crying doesn't sit well with the average guy. LOL. :D The least he could have done is turn off the camera when he thought he was going to start crying. :rolleyes:
 
I think the point was to show what really happening to him. I watched the whole thing and to see the mood swings and how one day he would be estactic to be living the dream and the next dpressed at his situation. Right or wrong he had trouble sleeping due to the constant threat of being attacked by a bear. In his mind it was real possibility. As he became more malnutritioned (he lost weight like crazy at the end he looked like a concentration camp victim) and more sleep deprived the effects of being alone started to effect him more and more. It was quite fascinating to see someone break down like that.

Instead of calling him names and saying he lacked survival skills how about giving him credit for "trying". Since he was a boy it had been his dream to "try" to survive alone in the wilderness.

And people should watch the whole thing. It is a cautionery tale that a lot of the would be "survivalists" can learn from. I believe that even well fed and sheltered most people living in solitary confinement like that would "crack"

Like Kage said we are social animals (most of us) and instaed of seeing the show as a man with poor survival skills failing you should see it as a study of the what happens to us in forced solitude.

I don't think he's a pussy. Christ I wouldn't even have had the nuts to try to do what he did. He lived alone for 50 days in the wilderness surrounded by things that would eat him. Pretty ballsy if you ask me.

Its one thing to go all survivorman and do it for the weekend hell even 7 days. 50!?!?! Thats a long f'ing time people.

K Williams said:
You being from Brooklyn too...you gotta know that all that crying doesn't sit well with the average guy. LOL. :D The least he could have done is turn off the camera when he thought he was going to start crying. :rolleyes:
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