The Shape-Shifter

REALITY-TV STARS NEVER SUSTAIN LONG CAREERS. JUST DON’T TELL THAT TO BEAR GRYLLS.

- Michael Roberts

THERE HE IS! A helicopter approaches, descending from one of the ancient volcanic craters that rises out of the sagebrush near California’s Mono Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. Dangling below it on a rope is Bear Grylls, the intrepid king of survival entertainment. But wait—he’s not alone. He’s tied to someone. As the chopper gently sets them on the ground, I see that it’s a middle-aged woman. There’s some brief dialogue. And cut!

In an instant, Grylls is upon me with a bro hug and his signature boyish enthusiasm, a trait that belies the fact that he’s now 43, with graying temples and a lot more lines around the eyes than five years ago, when I spent a couple of days with him in Los Angeles. Do I know what I just saw? I don’t.

“That lady who I was hanging under the helicopter with is 100 percent blind!” he whisper-shouts (since they’re still filming her nearby). “I had her running down that volcano. It’s amazing! Tears in her eyes, just shaking with joy because she could be free. I had her on a short rope. I said, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. It’s 1,000 feet down, just dust and ash. Run. Embrace it. Let your legs flow. You’re not going to hit anything. Be free.’ ”

He pauses to point out a nearly full moon rising over the crater. He is ecstatic.

The woman, he continues, is going to be featured in a new ten-episode series he’s doing for Facebook Watch, the company’s video-streaming service, called Bear Grylls: Face the Wild, premiering March 21. Each episode will run 12 to 15 minutes and feature Grylls taking what he calls “incredible people” on mini adventures. To find candidates, his team put out a call for video applications in October. They got over half a million submissions.