Tougher Than Bear Grylls?

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September 11, 2010 by Jonsky

Photo courtesy of Sea to Summit

John Muir (not the American naturalist) is a mountaineer, polar explorer and desert survivor. He has gone solo in some of the most serious mountains in the world including Everest and five other summits. He’s what I would consider an epic wanderer. When he says he’s going out for a walk, don’t expect him to come back for dinner.

Is he really tougher than Bear Grylls?

Well, I don’t really know for sure but some people say so. I don’t think the two have been tested side-by-side and I think that’s the only fair way to compare the two. The next best thing would be to compare their achivements:

Jon Muir

“Muir climbed extensively in Australia and in the Alps of southern New Zealand in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His first big climb was in 1982 when he climbed the Changabang Mountain in the Himalayas. But in 1984 tragedy stuck when Muir was on the West Ridge of Mount Everest as part of an expedition of six climbers on their way to the summit. It was summit day when two in the team fell to their deaths. “My first thought was I didn’t want to follow them … I had to concentrate on the task at hand,” Muir says. He reached the peak of Everest in 1988.
In 1998 Muir and his friend Eric Philips were joined by Peter Hillary, the son of the great Sir Edmund Hillary, on a trek to the South Pole. It was to be the first unsupported trek from Ross Island to the South Pole and back. While completing the outward leg, the 84-day journey established a new route to the South Pole through the Transantarctic Mountains via the Shackleton Glacier.

The bearded adventurer also made it to the North Pole in 2002 and again he was teetering on the brink of disaster. Muir plunged through the ice into the Arctic Ocean in 2002. “I had just four minutes to get out or freeze to death,” he says. “Everything happened in slow motion and I think I was sinking slowly. There was a moment of horror as I was breaking into the water.” After the initial shock of realising he had fallen into the ocean , Muir’s survival instincts kicked in. He developed a technique in those first few seconds to extricate himself. “The only way to describe it is as the funky walrus maneuver…. I have never experienced anything like it in terms of going into cold water but I had to focus on getting out. I am scared of water and what’s lurking below.” Fortunately Muir’s partner threw him a rope and he scrambled out and onto the ice.

Muir also made a solo trek across Australia in 2001, walking some 2,500 kilometres from Port Augusta in South Australia to Burketown in Northern Queensland. He packed the bare essentials and by the end of the trip had lost 23 kilos and his canine companion Seraphine. His trip was the basis for the documentary Alone Across Australia.

Muir also spent 52 days in a kayak in 1997, travelling from Cooktown in Queensland to the tip of Cape York. Once again he lived mostly off the land and sea” – ABC.net.au

Bear Grylls

“At 7.22am on May 26th 1998, Bear enteredThe Guinness Book of Records as the youngest, and one of only around thirty, British climbers to have successfully climbed Everest and returned alive. He was only 23 years old.

The actual ascent took Bear over ninety days of extreme weather, limited sleep and running out of oxygen deep inside the ‘death zone’ (above 26,000 feet). On the way down from his first reconnaissance climb, Bear was almost killed in a crevasse at 19,000 feet. The ice cracked and the ground disappeared beneath him, he was knocked unconscious and came to swinging on the end of a rope. His team-mate and that rope saved his life. The expedition was raising funds for the Rainbow Trust and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

Previously, in 1997, Bear had become the Youngest Briton to climb Mount Ama Dablam in the Himalayas (22,500 feet), a peak once described by Sir Edmund Hillary as unclimbable’.

Prior to the Everest Expedition, Bear, also a Karate Black Belt, spent three years with the British Special Air Service (21 SAS). What makes his story even more remarkable is that during this time he suffered a free-fall parachuting accident in Africa where he broke his back in three places.

In 2003 Bear successfully completed another ground breaking expedition, leading a team across the freezing North Atlantic Arctic Ocean in a small open rigid inflatable boat.” – BearGrylls.com

Who do you think is tougher?

BTW, Bear’s got a new knife!