Born on the wild side

Meet Bear Grylls the survival expert and a man with a wild adventure streak Shot entirely in highdefinition the new episodes of Man vs Wild on Discovery Channel takes Grylls to the terrifying jungles of Belize He faces some of the harshest conditions on earth as he parachutes into the frigid Siberian Tundra braves the raging waterfalls of the Dominican Republic transverses his way through the remote wilderness of the Oregon journeys through the dry sands of the Sahara and the torturous swamp of Indonesia Grylls at 23 went on to become the youngest British climber to complete a summit and descent on Mount Everest He wrote about his experience in the book The Kid Who Climbed Everest Last year Grylls returned to the Himalayas to conquer a new dream u2013 attempting to fly a powered paraglider higher than Everest a feat that was documented in Bears Mission To Everest on Discovery Channel How long have you been an adventure freak I was brought up from a very young age with all the survival and outdoor stuff and all the climbingu00a0 My job with Special Air Service a Special Forces unit of the British Army always involved skydiving and climbing and survival again So all of those things are what really equipped me to be able to do Man Vs WildI grew up with a very strong dream to try and climb Everest and my dad taught me to climb when I was five or six and at that age it was my way of being close to him He gave me a picture of Everest when I was about eight and it was just a dream we really shared together and that was the world I grew up in It was a real dream come true to be able to finally achieve thatu00a0 But that was a huge dream for me growing upShare one of your most thrilling experiencesIve got a long list We have loads of clichu00e9s on this and much more than I would like to Ive had close encounters with jumping on the back of 16foot maneating tiger sharks and trying to get on top of alligators I have also dealt with big ninefoot boa constrictors Ive had vines break on me when Ive been climbing down overhanging vertical waterfalls and cliffs Ive had close scrapes in big rivers and rapids you know getting pinned against things I mean Ive had lots of them and Im not proud of those momentsu00a0 And then I had a freefall parachuting accident where I broke my back in three places and I spent like a year in rehabilitation and suddenly I couldnt walk or do anythingu00a0 Suddenly that dream of Everest was a long way awayu00a0 I think eventually by the grace of God many years after the accident Ive been lucky enough to eventually stand on the top of that mountain after three and a half months up there where we had four people lose their lives I think in many ways it was a very life defining moment for me So thats one of themYou have also broken records and seem to be quite daring What does it take to do what you doIts what I brought up to love and to be good atu00a0 And its always a difficult balance doing what you love and what youre good at in your life but also having the element of risk that is always attached to it I really have kind of developed an instinct over the years of what to look out for and where the real danger is coming from And its often the hidden things that you dont think of and the smaller thingsu00a0 It had been my dream since I was a little kid to sort of climb big mountains and have a job where I could be covered in mud and grime all day Its what I completely love and as I said its genuinely one of the few things I can do in my life and that Im good at and that really excites me So it is hard work Theres no doubt Its full on and its 24 hours a day when were on it But its a privilege and its all of these places are places Ive always dreamed of going and I always kind of feel Man vs Wild since I was a kid It just was never filmed before so I feel really lucky to be able to do what I always kind of grew up to want to doWe have been told that you use your training and adventurous techniques How and what have you been trained inI spent three years with the British SAS the years Im most proud of in many ways in my life They were also probably the hardest years of my lifeYou have also gone on record eating raw insects How do you do it And how different are you in your normal lifeIm certainly not one of these people who relishes eating yak eyeballs or goat testicles but it is part of survival Part of survival is leaving your prejudices behind and doing whatever you need to do to stay alive I do end up eating quite a lot of terrible stuff I think the raw goat testicles were the first time I actually threw up after eating something Ive had frozen yak eyeballs after we killed this big yak in Siberia a lot of live snakes a lot of massive grubs the size of a childs hand Man you name it the intestines from a camel the fluid from the intestines of a camel camel fat from its hump its sort of a long listu00a0 But it is a key part of survival Ultimately if youre going to selfrescue you need movement and movement requires energy So you need to eat But Im certainly not like that when Im at home Im very normal at home and I have two kids and I definitely not on a diet of yak eyeballs at homeInteresting Tell us a little more about your personal lifeI live on a houseboat on the Thames in London with my wife and three kids I have a little small private island off the Welsh coast thats got one little house on it and its six miles offshore