Winter in Cleveland, Ohio is the location of this learning point in my life. Snake Hill is snow covered and closed for the winter. All my friends in the neighborhood would gather and take our chances on this one mile long section of steep sledding and tobogganing. We would careen downward, missing storm downed trees, kids and other obstructions and finally perform a controlled crash to slow our out off control plunge to the base of the hill. This was great fun and actually we did control our speedy little sleds running at thrilling speed on their tiny runners.

This was stopped, forever, as one of the kids crashed badly into a downed tree and died in this collision. That was the story at least. At ten we were no news hawks but that was the local folklore and I actually believe that it was true. Even at ten years old we kind of figured that careening down a hill at close to 30 miles an hour was not the safest or even the smartest thing to do. Looking back none of my friends, or even me for that matter, ended up winning a Rhoades scholarship. I do agree it was a great way to spend a Saturday and it was great fun. Nascar on a sled, cool!!

Fast forwarding 15 years or so, ice climbing in the Sierra’s of California learning the ropes; so to speak The learning curve for ice climbing is rather steep. So is the terrain! Some never make it past ropes 101 but if you do your career is about to begin. One of the first things that you learn is self arresting on slopes above 15 degrees.

Back to being ten for a little longer! One thing I learned was that sliding down a steep hill was a bit on the dangerous side. Possibly verging on stupid, but at ten we live forever, right. Another tangent here but it is cool. Have to admit to this, talking about stuck on stupid as a kid. I held the world speed record, at least in Seven Hills, for shopping cart racing finally releasing from my friends car fin at a speed of 37 miles an hour. This record held up until one of my friends, another Rhoades scholar, made it to 43 miles an hour, literally smashing my record to pieces. My Nascart racing days ended with my record being eclipsed. Never again did I suit up and check the bearings of another high speed shopping cart in the rear parking lot of the Pick and Pay Market. Never checked the Nascar standings to see if Denny C ever made it to the track nor was I interested enough to check the obits. Those were my stunt days and they were a riot and I did live with only a few broken bones and assorted patches of skin being removed by high speed pavement. The one overriding lesson I did learn was to allow stunts to movie guys with a budget. Now back to ‘Bear’ boy.

One of the first things you learn when ice climbing is to stop when falling. What’s cool about rock climbing is its self limiting fall capability. It is mostly vertical and the ground stops your fall, hopefully way before, you gain a lot of speed. Sometimes this can produce other issues though. Falling sucks as does gravity. Anyway, on ice you really do not want to gain much speed before you try to self arrest. A side note here. I teach rock climbing ice climbing techniques so I am pretty good at it. My stunt days are way over so I teach quick arrests from multiple positions and using both axe pick and adze. I also teach proper slope travel and crevice identification. This is called safety on the mountain. On a 30 degree hill I usually arrest myself in the first 20 feet depending on snow conditions. That is from a rolling or flipping position. I occasionally want to see what a long fall feels like, yeah right, so in the Sierra one late spring, when the snow was really honeycombed and rotten, I did the unthinkable and took a seventy-five footer. I was fortunate in that a tree stopped my downward progress. Thank God for trees in the mountains. By the way, the tree was not serious damaged, fortunately. Barb was calling to me for a few minutes as I collected body parts and brain cells. Clamoring out of the spring melthole around the tree I climbed back to where she was and the first thing she said was, “ Mingo, you accelerated like super fast, that was really amazing”. Well maybe for her but not for me. I think she was quite amazed, I know I was. In the late season snow the self arrest would not work even with digging in the adze by a 200 pound climber. Lesson here, arrest quickly and in good snow if possible and do not try to ride a slope without a sled.

Look, on the slope, speeding by at the speed of stupidity, is it a plane, is it a rocket, is it a dumbshit in a gore-tex jacket careening out of control down an icy slope. No, its Bears Grylls performing another in a long line of stupid stunts! Have to love it when the drama starts as he crashes into his cameraman and the whole crew of 500 descends on this mottled mass of humanity. He has a broken leg, no he does not! His head is gone, oh just stuffed up his butt! These wizards, ‘I am not a doc but I play one on TV’, are convinced the Bear has a broken leg, huh, no articulation, no commutation, no blood just a bunch of pain. Duh, he crashed into a camera at 40 MPH. What do you expect! Point of interest here, generally when a blunt force trauma occurs on a femur there will be noticeable displacement of the bone. Rarely do femurs not commutate in massage speed injuries. This learned from many technical rescues on rock and ice over a period of about 25 years. Now back to the daring rescue! ‘6 tango foxtrot we need immediate med evac on a bear. Copy foxtrot, we will dispatch a local vet to the scene. Negative, negative rescue one, this is the ‘Bear’ not a bear. 6 tango foxtrot we will be flying Air Force 1 with a full compliment of US Marines, and Corpsman. Advise landing and drop smoke! US Marines are better than our Brit counterparts. Sorry Bear, get real!

Ok, he did not have AF 1 at his disposal. After much hoopla and lots more filming he was medevaced to a local hospital with a bruised leg. All that for bruise! Come on folks. I was under the impression this guy was tough, a super mountaineer and real man.

In the Sierra climbing up to Forrester Pass,13,000 plus feet, I broke through some snow and ice and did a complete dislocation of my right thumb. Slapped it right back to my wrist! I was no longer opposable in the thumb department. Looked at it, yanked on it to get it back in the destroyed joint and continued the climb. At the top my partner, Jeff, a Marine officer, looked at it and said that was the end of this trip. “What I said, I have some vicodin and ace bandages and some great fishing was ahead of us”. Took about 4 vicodin in the next couple of days, and then did the grin and bear it method of pain control. Stayed there for a week and did some great fishing in Lake South America and a few others in the area. Came home and Desert Orthopedics casted me for 14 weeks! Joint was substantially broken up but healed fairly well. I ended up losing about 20% of my power and grip but gained a great story and some delicious trout. No cameras, no helicopters, no hospital and no drama. Get real dude. US Marines Rule!

I love these Hollywood hardmen! When the chips get rolling they are out of here. A bruise! A bruise is all we got for all that drama. They should have operated just because of all the drama, hell I would have. Taken his foot off and attached it to his mouth where it generally is. Still cannot believe the video and all the drama for a silly bruise. Oh well we have to sell the ‘Bear’ as a really tough guy. Yeah right.

This is of course tongue in cheek humor and is supposed to be fun and humorous. It does have a bit of truth in that none of what you see on Man vs.Wild is true or wise and these stunts should never be attempted at home or on an icy slope for that matter. As a seasoned mountaineer and guide you try to stay away from these sporty situations. Fortunately, I have only watched a few of the Bear Grylls drama hour and have not been impressed with anything that is remotely looking like anything that I have seen in the real wilderness of North America. I do have to say that some of his activities are fairly entertaining only in the improbability of reality. Will I even watch more, naaaaw, only if there is not anything else on the other 1200 channels on my tv.