The only real bad thing about hippies is they tend to shower much less than the people around them would like them to
Damn, I must be a hippie then
I was also rather impressed, thats right impressed, that they put in the part where Cody was unable to make a fire with Mora, flint, and char cloth. I had seen so much getting food every time they tried and starting fires every which way that I am glad they put in there that even the experts can't get it to work every time.
Then man woman wild goes and makes a fire with a fire saw. Wow I wonder how long that really took.
My recollection of the flint & steel episode is that Dave made the charcloth scrounged from the material in the beetle. Dave gave the charcloth to Cody later when they met up again. So Cody really didn't know the source of the charcloth given to him. If the material had any nylon in it then it would prevent it being useful for catching sparks. You really need 100% cotton or other natural materials like charring cattail fluff to catch the weak spark from flint & steel. I'm sure if it was good stuff Cody would have gotten an ember, he was producing great sparks. I remember laughing when Dave was ripping apart the VW beetle to find the battery to make a spark and I kept thinking, why doesn't he just use the cigarette lighter in the dash???
I do agree on the value of showing failures though!
Fair enough, but how many other survival shows feature a person actually going out and surviving on their own, not just being put in a survival situation to show you how to do things? How about the fact that he has to haul all of his own camera gear, do all of his own filming, and pack it all out, too?
To my mind, Les' show is still the most unique of the lot. You are sort of there for the terrible ride that he goes on. In this case, his excellent survival skills compensate for all the drudging and dragging around his extra gear and additional time needed for him to set up shots to demo things. I can't even begin to imagine how much patience and self discipline that takes. You have to appreciate Les for the huge sacrifices he goes through and he is by far the most realistic, being alone, there is not much time to set up 'sure things like catching game' and he is actually spending time worrying about survival unlike all the other shows which have huge safety networks associated with the crews that are with and filming them.
You would never get Les trying to catch a gater like Dave did in the swamp episode. The risk to Les would be simply too large. Personally, I very much doubt whether Dave would have went after the gator if there wasn't 3 guys with camera's, lights and probably a nice first aid kit filming him ten away. I have a hard time thinking that the safety net that is afforded by the crew doesn't influence some of their decisions. Noteworthy was Cody's clear demonstration that he thought this was a bad idea on Dave's return.
That's just the thing. I've been reading up on him and I don't see where and why all the negative comes from.
It is pretty unfortunate, but I think folks get jealous of another man's success at doing something they think of as their own hobby. Personally, I think the success had by people like Ray Mears, Les Stroud, Dave/Cody & Mike Hawke do a great deal towards exposing youth to the wilderness and this is a positive message needed by the video game generation. Even Bear is doing well here, I just wish that Bear would stop giving out truly dangerous advice and stick to the straight and narrow. That really is the thing that separates these other shows from M vs. Wild. M Vs. Wild provides advice that is wrong whereas the other shows tend to provide good advice even if the scenarios are not always realistic. How can any set-up survival scenario ever be realistic and general at the same time?
