All language subtitles for man.vs.wild.s01e11.iceland.dvdrip-momentum

I'm bear grills

I've served with British Special Forces

I've climbed to the summit of Everest

and cross the frozen oceans of the Arctic

now I'm in Iceland

a land of huge glaciers and volcanoes

every year 1,000 tourists need to be rescued

I'm gonna show the skills needed to survive here

I'm flying out of Bison's capital

Recubit

on the southwest coast

where most of the 300 thousand people live

the island lies just on the Arctic Circle

in between the US and Europe

it's about the size of Kentucky

but only has one main road that follows a coast

all around the island

most of the country is just a barren frozen wasteland

this place has a strange beauty about it

is also unforgiving down there

Iceland's original settlers were the Vikings

who came from Norway over 1,000 years ago

they knew how to survive these harsh climates

people come here to experience a unique geology

this called the land of fire and ice

fire because

one of the most volcanic countries in the world and ice

because over 2,000 square miles of it

are glaciers

on average three people a day are rescued

from the freezing glaciers

and huge volcanic plains

the glass is

directly under me

and those places

are one of the toughest places to survive

I'm going to show you how you can survive

in this inhospitable wilderness

I'll be getting some assistance from local

experts if needed

and a camera crew will follow me

at 4,000 feet

I'm on a

glacier on one of ice's highest and coldest points

man this place

is bleak

I'm here in the middle of winter

just now it's 15 degrees Fahrenheit

but in a few hours

it can get down to a deadly minus 10

get some help

feeling back in my hands again

my goal is to show

how you could survive in this wasteland

if you just know how

one of the simplest ways

of finding out north and south

when you're in the northern hemisphere

is just use your watch and the sun

and all I need to do is point the hour hand at the sun

so it's 3:00 now

I point that at the sun

and then halfway between there and 12 o'clock is south

as Iceland is in the middle of the North Atlantic

its weather can change so quickly

and storms can roll in literally in minutes

when I landed it was sunny

but now I'm in the middle of a full blown blizzard

one of the biggest dangers up here on these glaciers

in conditions like this

is hypothermia

and you can set in

very quickly

just atop of a couple of degrees in your cold

body temperature

will bring it on

and you start shivering

you start to slow your words

lose your ability to think straight

and I've had it before and it's very frightening

without shelter

you'd only survive a matter of hours in

blizzard conditions

but as quickly as it came

the storm lifts

and it gives me a brief chance to get my bearings

what we've got here is an ice cave

and caves can give you Protection

the problem is

this corner's

all the way up here

and how I'm gonna get

over this

over this lip

and down to that

it's a 60 foot drop to the bottom

and the overhanging ledges can collapse easily

probably my best way of doing this is just to traverse

along this snow bank

and I need to be careful

as you can see down there looks like a lip

might well be a cliff dropping straight off that

you've got to be really careful

doing this

without crampons and without a nice axle rope

it just means you've got to be really certain

of every foothold that you take

start edging across

the team is standing by in case I slip

but even so I've got to be so careful here

okay I'm out of the nasty bit of this now

it's just a loss it'll shoot down into the cave

I love these bits

this is in a cave

there's actually a funnel looting

see it's open at the bottom

but these things are formed

what happens melt water comes down the glacier

and because the water is water than the ice

it creates

these like tunnels running under the glacier

when they get bigger they grow into this sort of thing

you don't want to hang around

hang around in this

see a lot of that this is blue ice as well

and that's the oldest sort of ice

but it's also the most dangerous

it's most likely to crack

blue ice is as hard as steel

but it's also as brittle as glass

and because the glass is constantly moving

collapse as a common

you actually see look and follow this up

you actually see a bit of it where it's flaked off

and you imagine what that's going to do

if that dropped on top of you

last year a climber was in a nice cave just like this

and a 150 ton slab sheared off

he stood no chance of surviving

I was hoping this was gonna be a good place to shelter

but it's not it's just gonna act like a wind funnel

I need to think again

and get out of here pretty fast now

as it grows darker a storm once again is moving in

I've got minutes before it's going to hit me

let's keep moving so I've got to get off here soon

already temperatures are minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit

there is no sign of shelter

and this storm is getting worse

there's probably just 30 minutes of daylight left

I'm on a glacier in Iceland

a blizzard has come in

and if you are here you'd need to find shelter fast

it's 10 degrees Fahrenheit but winds are 50 mile now

make it much colder

for the winds not only in my enemy

it can also be my friend

and what happens

when the wind blows over these sort of ridges

if you look up here

it builds up

a load of snow on the leeward side of it

on the side out of the wind

and I can use that slow then to dig into

and create like a little snow cave

a couple of years ago

a snowmobiler got separated from his friends during a

blizzard

he managed to stay alive

for 48 hours before rescue came

because he got out of the wind by digging himself a

snowhole

this is

definitely harder work without

any form of shovel

but all of the snow

it's quite nice and loose

and the bits that are coming out

it blocks like this

I'm gonna keep

so I can use those

to then dam out the entrance at the end

you should keep your pace steady

if you allow sweat to freeze on your body

hyperthermia will come on twice as fast

a snowhole like this

would keep you out of the wind

the next thing I need to do

is dig a little bit of a pit

down

and the reason I do that

is that cold air sinks

so I don't want this cold air around me

I want it to go down

into

what they call a cold well

down here

what I want to do now is just block up

the bullet insects here

it's tempting to seal the entrance completely

to keep the wind out

but that can be lethal

okay what I've done here

is just put some of the blocks over the top

and this will consolidate down

left a bit of a ventilation hole I put my hand out here

and

blowing hard at snow

this will give it a light covering

but you need to make sure

keep putting my hand through

keep that ventilation on

otherwise you can suffocate in these things

staying hydrated helps keep your body warm

it's tempting to eat the snow

but that would just cool my core body temperature down

even more

so what you need to do is melt the snow

with your body heat

as soon as you see a break in the weather

you need to get off the glacier fast

you don't want to be caught in another storm up here

less

windy than it was yesterday it's still pretty windy

but actually I see the sun over there

it's a good sign

you'll need to find your way and you can use the sun

but in ice and the sun doesn't

rise in the east and sets to the west

it's more like southeast and southwest

so

that's southeast now the sun's just come up

means southwest is over there

glaciers are full of these ice gullies

and they can be dangerous

all of this snow here

this is what's called rotten snow

actually means it's fallen

it's stored and then it's refrozen

so you get this like crust

which is really good for walking on

I can just dig my feet in

and get really good holes in it

but the danger on glaciers

are crevasses

what you often get with crevasses

is just a thin covering of compacted snow

at this call of snow bridge

and you can see there just where one has collapsed

and this is why they're so dangerous

you don't know when you're on one

and you don't know what's under you as well

I mean these could be

sometimes you're hundreds of feet deep

just narrow chasms underneath you

therefore it's just gonna be

ultra careful and stick to the sides of these gullies

if you fall into a crevasse

they can be impossible to get out of

and with no chance to escape

a slow death is all that awaits you

and this really is

the very end of the glacier

you know I've always sort of glaciers is like

like living beasts

you know they move and they shift and they grown

and often they're angry

I'm now at 3000 foot

and the temperature is just above freezing

even when you get off the glacier

you can still come across hazards which will

block your route

like this a deep glacial river

all of that water

is glacial melt water

it's gonna be freezing freezing cold

you want to do anything you can to avoid being in that

so I need to think of

some way of trying to get across this

but there may be a solution

on the other side of the river

I can see some steam coming from some

vents on the Hillside over there

and that means geothermic hot pools warm water

and therefore jumping into this glacial water

is a risk I can take

to be able to climb down this

and really I've got no

choice to puff from just jumping it

but it's easily deep enough

the water is

crystal clear and see all the way to the bottom

but it is high

this is probably about 30 foot jump

and I just know

that water is glacial is going to be freezing

okay

freezing water can send my body into shark

I'm also rapidly losing heat

and that's making me weaker by the second

oh nice is biting cold

my hands are all my legs

just feel numb

so anyway

the air is literally refrigerating my body

okay

in extreme cold

my body acts to protect the brain and heart

by draining blood away from my hands and feet

and that makes running even harder

it was a

hot pool

but look at this and as you see

see that is bubbling

that is a boiling temperature

and there's no way

there's no wine getting

into that

I'm feeling my arms and legs beginning to shut down

I need to think quickly now

you see this stream

is just running out of that hot MUD pool

and all I'm doing here

is damming up

this bit of the street

and then perfect crate

a bit of a pool

for me to get in

yeah that's kind of a manageable temperature

I've got to get in fast

and if I don't get these wet clothes off

my body will go into shock

in this wind

they should hope you dry

it may be not about

but at least

during that time

I can lie

in this hot boom

and not freeze the death

thank God from volcanoes

here in the hot water

you've quickly regained your body heat

now

it's kind of almost like being at home

got from a bit muddy

after warming up and with my clothes nearly dry

its time to get going

Iceland has many geothermal areas

and over 90 percent of homes

are fueled by naturally heated water

this comes from underground rivers

being heated by volcanic magma

I need to be a bit careful with

where I'm threading here because what you often get

are these soft areas of MUD

where actually the MUD is at boiling point

you're really frothing away and every year

there'll be several tourists

who get stuck in this stuff and get really

really badly burned

the way just to test the ground

is just step really gingerly

and just push with your boot

see whether the MUD is soft or not

and also just to tap it as well soften

it will feel like hollow

and what that means is you've got this

crust over the top

with the MUD then boiling underneath it

and yeah let's see even here this what I mean

you got a hole

straight down if I trod on that

this would probably give way

for a step over this bit

and this is a kind of pretty nasty area here

I've got a boiling pool

on both sides

temperatures here are about 40 degrees Fahrenheit

so it's warm enough for edible grasses moss and lichen

since Viking times sheep have roamed free grazing here

and some of these grasses

like this reindeer moss you could eat too

and I can tell it's reindeer most look it's

kind of white

look a little bit like little branches

actually they look quite like

quite like reindeer Antlers as well

but you can actually

eat this and it's not gonna give

mean much nutritional value

but what it will do is fill out my stomach

and stop me feeling so hungry

and this is what the Vikings used to use it for

survival is all about making the most of opportunities

most Icelandic sheep

are taken inside in the winter time

but there are always a few that don't get rounded up

a local farmer has left me a dead sheep

so I can show you what to do

he hasn't been dead that long

his eyeballs are still there

which means he's probably only

maybe a few days

since he's died

and see all of it

is really really nice meat

and now I've got this bit off

I can just begin to cut

the meat

away from all the skin

and that's gonna cut a nice strip

of this fat as well

fat should be stored whenever possible

the oils can be used in many survival situations

like emergency food

or fire icenders

eat almost every part of a sheep

you know everything from testicles

heart liver

and even the eyeballs actually I want to take this out

sheep eyeballs are extremely nutritious

they are high in protein and rich in vitamin a and D

usually they are the first things to rot

but in this cold weather

these are still good

and I will give them

a dunk in the geothermal

and cook the meat in there as well as it's boiling

and then all of this is going to be

good enough to eat

I could eat the meat raw

but it's harder to digest

and can actually take energy away from the body

so cook meat whenever you can

you can see here just where all the waters

are boiling

and all I need to do

is take my shoelace off

and then if I put a little loop

in the end here

like that

and if I just go straight

through these bits of meat

I can then thread this through

and then just this last bit

and then what I'm gonna do

loop it through itself

and that then

is ready to go into the boiling water

and look instantly you see it turning brown there

that's how hot this water is

and while the meat is cooking

on one end of the shoe lace I can

take the other end of it

and just thread it

through this eyeball

these are really

okay to eat raw

I'm just going to dip it in here just to get any

sort of bacteria off it

give it a quick glass in the boiling water

and then

this

eyeball is gonna be okay

to eat

God it's like chewing

gristle

sort of cold glue

10 minutes of cooking time and my main course

should be done

see

see if this is ready

oh

I was starting just saying

the best lamb you get in a restaurant cooked

in volcanic

boiling water

already I can feel the wind changing

and the Icelanders have a saying

if you don't like the weather

just wait five minutes and it will get a lot lot worse

I'm in the wilderness in Iceland

here there are huge freezing rivers like this

and another storm with 50 mile an arctic winds

has whipped up

and the temperature is plummeted to minus 15 degrees

really blowing a hooley here

but I've got to get across this river

somehow and this isn't the narrowest part

but it is the shallowest part of the river

and I can use this to my advantage

and you can see the rocks in it

crazy like these eddies of slack water behind them

and I can use that to go from one to the next

and then out but this water

is going to be freezing cold

especially with a windshield factor

so I've got to do everything I can

to make sure my clothes flashing my top half stays dry

soaking wet clothes in these conditions and lethal

so I'm keeping my clothes dry by wrapping them

in my waterproof jacket

I'm facing upstream into the water

it's easier to keep my balance

I can't afford to slip here

from across and all of these clothes have actually

stayed amazingly dry in that

and then what they used to say

in the army

if we ever complain of being cold

then make us do burpees

and 10 of these

and you'll walk again

the storm has blown over

and have spotted a forest in the distance

in Iceland the poor soil

wind and temperature

means that trees are fewer far between

but when you do find them

they're ideal for both shelter and wildlife

hey

look at this

this is ptarmigan feathers here

see this

all of this and ptarmigan's like a

like a type of grass

but this is what they have this white winter plumage

and what it does look camouflages them

well with the snow

and that's good news for me if there

ptarmigans around I might well be able to get one

tarmagan are known as snow chickens in the US

because of their winter plumage

and they feed on berries and seeds beneath the trees

this is kind of what I'm looking for here

look a bit of a natural a natural channel

where tomgans might well pass

so what you need to do is use your shoe laces

just tie this end

in a really simple

little overhand knot

that gives me

a little loop

and then tie this end

around the tree

and then just set this one in that side

and drape that over here

and the idea is if Tamun comes along

goes through this

they'll get snared in that

and stuck to the tree

I'm gonna set several

traps and hope that one will pay off by morning

your next priority

will be to find shelter and build a fire

I'm gonna show you how to make a traditional shelter

like the ones used by the Vikings

what I'm doing here

is just making a nice

springy mattress

then I'll build up the walls with rocks

in the shape of a coffin

to trap the heat inside

this bit of the wall I've built up higher

so I can then put some branches over the top of this

and these dead branches have like a natural

bow to them there

which means I can just

drape them over the top

and there's enough room under here for me to lie

nicely to put some moth on the top of it here

this should be waterproof

now I'm on the lookout for fuel for a nice warm fire

there are loads of these birch trees around here

and these are what I'm looking for

and I can tell they're

birch just because of the way they're silver limbed

this time of year in the winter

all the leaves have fallen off

and it's the leaves underneath them

that I'm after

and these are gonna make good

tender for my fire

I'm going to need loads of wood to keep me warm

it's building up like a wall

of rocks around it as well just to protect it

and then keep filling it up

I can just feel really nice warmth in my hands

it's nice

so far I've shown you how to cope with everything

Iceland might throw in you

but its deadly lava tunnels might be one thing too many

oh no

this has just got an awful lot harder

last night I laid traps for ptarmigan

a type of grass found in Iceland

and I'm hoping I get lucky

so I want to build this up and then go and check

check my traps

no

nothing

nothing in this

you know it's no great

no great surprise

my past experience says

realistically to get things and snares I need to set

you know a really good number of these

but so much the survival is just about

you know keep trying

and having the energy to

make these sort of things

even when you're tired

you don't really feel like you know

if you'd manage to trap a ptarmigan

this is what you do with it

I don't need to pluck this

there's a faster way

I just cut the head and wings off

and peel the skin at the breast back

push there all the skin will come off

and then just get my hands in

and pull all of its guts

all the way down to back

and peel all of this

back

I gotta wait to eat this

the ptarmigan is a popular Christmas dish in Iceland

but I'm not waiting that long

this one's gonna be ready in about 15 minutes

mmm look at all that dark meat mmm

quite strong

this is an angelica plant

and these are very special plants and ice

and they actually grow

I grow wild all over the place

but you can recognize these

in the summertime

all of this is green

and they have these like white flowers on the top

obviously in the winter time it's just bare

because these very distinct

shape but what I'm after is the roots

and actually all of these roots

are edible are for food

if I scrape away a bit of the

bit of the sand here

to get the inside of the route there

this is all edible

actually

it's gonna make my mouth also a little bit numb because

it's actually a local anaesthetic

as well but it's good for me

it's gonna boost boost my immune system this stuff

actually is also antibacterial

so what I can also do is take a bit of it

take a bit of it and clean my teeth with it

which is always nice when you're out

and the wilds

with no toothbrush

when you're stranded in the wilds

it's still important to try and look after yourself

here is one of the many ancient lava fields

that covers over 10% of Iceland

they are formed by volcanic eruptions

when the molten rock cools and solidifies

and they can be treacherous to cross

see here all of this lava fields just covered

in this moss and it's just making

crossing it really slow

slow work and also

need to be careful just because it's hard to tell

what the moss is growing over

whether it's like a hollow or gap

or solid rock

I mean just too easy to

twist an ankle in this stuff

yeah look at this look

see all these are the holes

that's what I'm talking about

the last volcanic eruption was in 2004

but some of these lava fields are ancient

more than 7000 years old

and they hold a special place in Icelandic folklore

the idea of elves and trolls

is really embedded in Icelandic culture

and they say about 50 percent of icenders still today

believe are inelves

and trolls and they're meant to live in the rocks

and some are meant to be good

and some are meant to be more mischievous

I just hope there's the good ones

looking after me out here

this lava field here is just full of

these sort of caves and actually what this is

is actually an old lava tunnel

and this is where originally flying molten

red hot lava would have been racing through this

and what happens when that's gone

it leaves behind these sort of tubes

but here off the glacier fresh water is scarce

and you know all of this lava field

the exact translation into Icelandic

is literally no water

but my best chance is to get in there

and see if I'm finding some seats coming through

through the walls of fresh water

first of all before I even think about getting in there

I've got to make some sort of torch

yeah it's piss black

I can make a torch

Addison twigs and the fat I save from the dead sheath

get down here

out of the wind

cave water is filtered through the rock

so it'll be a lot purer

than the outlying snow which can be full of bacteria

and all I need

is just a bit of the material

from my T-shirt

now I've got some of this

sheep's fat wrap this round

like so

take this bit of T-shirt

and then tie

that round it

now if I just get

a little fire going

that fat will burn really bright

try and get this going

okay let's go

but I need to be really careful to all of this

it's fragile

it's sharp

that's how I'm gonna leave my gloves in here

Iceland has on average 33 earthquakes a day

and any one of those could collapse this tube

you've got to be quick

what I'm looking for

is just a good source of dripping water

this move is just getting

lower and lower now

so don't like

all in this part of the ceiling

here

has just collapsed

it's a bad time for tours to go apart

just because I'm in real trouble

I think I let you just see

all of this stuff here is where it's collapsed

and this is why these places are so dangerous

I want to get water and get out of here

as quick as I can

there's a little

seep of water going through the rock here

and this is good enough to drink

you know that's

as good as I need to get around here

it's nice

I now have a full water bottle

I just want to get out of this lava tube

before this fire dies

do the rest of this in the dark

if this goes out and that is a lot more I want

look it's gone

I'm forced to do the last 200 yards in darkness

but at last I've made it to the cave exit

I'm at the edge of the lava field

but I'll still need all my energy

to cross the vast plains that stretch in front of me

and then a 50 mile hour wind closes in

and it's just like making progress

almost impossible

this is very gusting

this will be gustling

50 60 mile an hour

and what it does

is just whip up

with all this sand

and flossing into your face all the penals

and that's what I need into this week

that's how too late

hey get down here

this

is actually a kettle hole

in this black sand desert

give me a chance to get out of the wind look you notice

just like two foot under the surface

and already

how can I hear myself

think again

the wind still screaming

screaming over my head here

this is brilliant fine

give me a chance

listen maybe

sit here

wait a while and see if this wind is gonna ease up

it's good to take a rest

the storms here can last for weeks

so it's better to keep going

among what Iceland is called the Sandur

it stretches for over 100 miles down to the coast

and can be treacherous

all of this area here

is just now vast black sand plain

and it's a dangerous combination

of loose sand and water

and it's been known in the past literally

to swallow up men

and horses and there is something

something eerie about this place

the way to cross this

is just to aim always for the higher ground

watch out for the shallower

depressions that are going to be boggier

and if you do find yourself in those

you've got to back away

and go round to the higher ground

otherwise you can find yourself way steep in quicksand

in the past Icelandic sailors

were unaware of the deadly hazards of the black sands

and many perished whilst coming ashore

and really you know winter

in Iceland

this land of fire and ice

has just shown me Mother Nature at a most raw

and has been extreme high winds

extreme low temperatures

and really

it's pushed me

to my limit