Are the Knives Bear Grylls Used Still For Sale?

In the time since we started this blog and today, my girls have grown up and moved off to college and Man vs. Wild has gone off the air, as well as a Bear's new survival show. But as a testimony to the sheer awesomeness of these knives, people are still scouring the web for information about them. Here's a quick update just in case you haven't been able to pick one up for yourself.

• Buck Iceman - My favorite knife of the first season is simply not available anywhere for love nor money. As we wrote about before, Buck discontinued the Iceman. You can still get lucky on eBay if you are patient. Here's a search we recommend you bookmark.
  
  
• Buck Zipper - Still available and ready to take on any fish with the poor luck of getting in your way.
  
  
• Gerber Gator Serrater - This popular Gerber blade is not only still available, but it shows up for almost every search for anything Bear Grylls related.
  
  
• Titanium Pro Dive Knife - Still available. Still Awesome. And available in multiple colors. We still prefer Bear's choice of gray on black.
  
  
• Wenger Serrated Mountaineer - The Wenger Mountaineer is a big, beautiful knife. We love ours. But it's hard to find. All indications seem to suggest that the knife has been discontinued, but it may simply be out of stock from the manufacturer. Keep an eye on the official Wenger 16470 page, and an eye on eBay for the occasional auction.
  

If these old school Man vs. Wild knives don't suit your style, there is always the new Gerber Bear Grylls collection. Surely something there will catch your eye. We love the thumb studs that have been added to the blades for one handed opening and closing. When I talked with Gerber a few years ago, the salesman assured me their focus groups liked knives requiring two steady hands to open. I'm glad Bear got them to see things differently. With both of Bear's shows off the air, this collection may not be long for this world. Snap them up while you can.

For the Love of a Pocket Knife

I just came across an article over at Gizmodo about a contributor's favorite pocket knife. It's 50 years old and he wouldn't part with it for the world. It won't stand up well to any knife chosen by Bear Grylls. Heck, even the bottom end Bear Grylls Compact Scout Knife would beat it in a fight to the death in a back alley. But you've got to admire the author's love for the thing.

I am not a Navy Seal. I don't need a fixed-blade, full-tang pocket sword with a tanto point and a Rockwell factor of 58. I open a lot of boxes and trim my nails with this 50-plus year-old pen knife. It used to be my grandfather's. I'm named after him. He died before I was born.

I recently lost my Buck Iceman. I missed having it clipped to my pocket, always at the ready. I carried around a Gerber Gator Serrater for the past few months, but it always seemed too bulky. Unlike Bear, my wilderness is paved and filled with public transit. It was just too much knife for daily use. Imagine my joy when I found a spare Buck Iceman in the garage. I don't even care that the clip is all wiggly and that the blade is scuffed. I think the author of that article would know exactly how I feel.

Buck Iceman DISCONTINUED

In what is surely not news to any of you who have tried to buy one lately, the Buck Iceman is no longer made by the Buck Knives company.

I recently lost my Buck Iceman (my favorite Bear Grylls knife to date), and set about to find a replacement. Everyone was sold out, listing it as back ordered, or redirecting the old links to Gerbers and Titanium Pros. A quick call to the Buck Knives company today taught me a few things:

• The CEO's name of Buck Knives is Chuck Buck.
  
• The Buck Iceman was last offered in their 2008 catalog
  
• Buck Knives doesn't offer a newer version.
  

The closest knife Buck makes is the Bones. It has a camo tanto blade as opposed to a black matte clip blade, and the handle is aerated, but it's still all metal with a good heft. I did some digging and found some dealers with the Buck Iceman still for sale. I'm sure you can, too. But I'd snap them up while you can. In fact, I bought two of 'em today.

What Knife Is Bear Using in the Iceland Glaciers Episode?

In Season Two, Episode Two, we find Bear plunked down in the middle of a glacier somewhere in Iceland. It is like the French Alps, part two, but with more gore.

Highlights for us were when he dug out his own ice cave and when he experienced a full spa treatment as he gave himself a hot mud bath right after trying out for the Polar Bear club.

The low point for us was the fresh sheepsicle bit. In a pinch we suppose it is better than eating your own arm, or even your camera crew, but still, it wasn't pleasant viewing. In fact, it was much more stomach turning than watching him rend a dead zebra with his teeth. This dinner theater was made bearable only by the presence of the Gerber Gator Serrater. Good thing he had it on hand to strip the flesh from his frozen entré. That way we could enjoy watching him munch on an eyeball, complete with dribbling juices. Bear described it as being full of cold gloop as he tried to gag it down. Definitely not one of my daughter's favorite episodes.

More useful than a knife this episode were Bear's shoelaces which he used for a shish-kebab cooking line and a ptarmigen trap. Nobody ever asks us what brand he uses, though.


The Gerber Gator Serrater is available at Amazon.com

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What Knives Did Bear Use in Season One of Man Vs. Wild?

Season One:
01) Moab - Buck Iceman
02) Costa Rica - Titanium Pro Dive Knife
03) French Alps - Wenger Serrated Mountaineer Knife
04) Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano - Gerber Gator Serrater with Clip Point
05) Sierra Nevada Mountains in California - No knife
06) Northern Kenya - Gerber Gator Serrater with Clip Point
07) Alaska - Buck Iceman
08) Pacific Island - Titanium Pro Dive Knife
09) Rocky Mountains - No knife

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What Knife is Bear Using in the Everglades Episode?

Here we are on the eve of the third season finally getting around to writing up the second season. We can't say that makes us fashionably late, but we can say we've still done our homework. We saw some old favorites come back for a return bow and we saw some new knives make the spotlight for the first time. Such was the case with the Everglades episode - the first show of the second season.

Florida is a delightful state. We were there during July 4th in 1988. It was sweltering hot and muggy all day, then as the sun set the sky ruptured with rain. Every. Stinking. Day. Oh, the fun! Bear missed out on the rain, but then he was waist deep in swamp for most of the episode. We think we fared better than he did. We could wait out the rain in the comfort of our tent. Bear didn't have that luxury. With nary a motel nearby, Bear had to slog through the swamp water, build shelters in trees, and worry about alligators at every turn. For those viewers who believe that Bear was somehow making all this alligator anxiety up, we'd like to point you to a nice little story where a criminal fleeing from the law had his head chomped on by the local fauna.

"Some gators have a nasty disposition and [this] was a nasty gator. He seemed to have no fear of people which indicates that he was fed," said a local man who raises alligators for a living. He didn't say what the alligator was fed on, however, but we wonder if perhaps he meant people? At any rate, Bear had these delightful critters on his mind, especially when he practically walked across them from time to time.

Highlights of the episode for us were when Bear used his shoelaces for traction when climbing the tree in order to get his lay of the land. It was a wonderful tip. We'll have to try that up a street lamp next time we are downtown Salt Lake City looking for a parking space. The other highlight of the episode was the beautiful Buck Zipper he used when chopping down saplings, guarding against alligators, peeling grapefruit, and gutting turtles. It's a handy little darling with a gut hook and a rubberized grip. That grip provides a secure hold when the knife is wet which happened to Bear's knife a lot in this episode what with him being in a swamp and all. We think it's woodgrain handled brother is prettier to look at, but as usual Bear opts for the more practical and utilitarian version of the knives he trusts his life with.

It was a great episode and we recommend it for viewing for anybody planning on a trip to Disneyworld. You never know.

The Buck Zipper is available at Amazon.com

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Man vs. Wild Season One DVD Rereleased and Repackaged

The Man vs. Wild Season One DVD is back and better than before. Now it's a 4 disk set with new package art and set for a December 10th release. The Amazon site hasn't been updated yet, but we'll be sure to let you know when it is.

Will the double-sized DVD set feature the expanded episodes featuring crew footage? It seems a reasonable guess.

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Man vs. Wild Season One DVD Release Date Removed

A quick look at Amazon.com's page for Man vs. Wild Season One DVD boxed set
showed that the September release date has been removed. We were wondering if the first season would be retooled in light of the controversy over the summer. Looks like this will be the case, though we cannot verify that is the exact reason for the release delay. We'll post more information once it becomes available.

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Bear's Blog Updated with Support from Peers

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If you read Bear's Blog: Sahara Filming Update when we first linked to it you may want to visit it again. Bear's updated the entry to include supportive letters from other summiteers and explorers like this one from Sir Ranulph Fiennes:

Dear Sir/Madam

The Daily Mail's attack on Bear Grylls mentions that he is 'the cheese soufflé' of the adventure world and, by way of pushing this assertion, suggests that he may not have been the youngest Brit to scale Everest, and implies that the T.A's/21 SAS Regiment is not as tough as the Regular 22 SAS Regiment. I would comment that he was indeed the youngest Brit because the only possible rival claimant was clearly Australian. And that 21 SAS membership requires distinctly non-cheese soufflé people. Its comparison to 22 SAS is therefore irrelevant and cheap, suggestive journalism of a misleading nature.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes
('World's greatest living explorer' Guinness book of Records)

It's nice to see Bear getting support from his peers. We like to kid him because of the show's sometimes outlandish and extreme nature, but then that's what we love about the show! All those crazy stunts, dangerous climbs, and revolting food choices make us come back again and again. We may feel that certain elements of the show were staged for filming purposes, but not the way the press has portrayed it. Mark Wienert is a stand-up guy and we tend to believe he was misquoted and had his statements taken out of context. The Daily Mail's piece was particularly nasty and smacked of gleeful nancy boys eagerly pushing for the downfall of a man that makes them feel inadequate.

More power to you, Bear. We'll be tuning in for Season Three.


Preorder the First Season of Man vs. Wild now

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Bear Grylls Confesses! Sorta!!

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Now that Bear Grylls is back from his Sahara shoot he has taken some time to kick back, enjoy friends and family, and catch darts thrown at his face by the media. Figuratively speaking, of course. They'd never throw REAL darts. They just like to perforate people's lives from a safe and virtual distance. In this case, Bear grabbed the accusations and wrestled them down to the ground like he would an Alaskan Brown. Except he avoids those. Right. Well, he avoided the accusations, too.

Basically, Bear stated on his blog yesterday that the reports of his roughing it in motels and staging his stunts were not telling the full story, which means that there was some truth to it but probably not as bad as the media depicted. Oh, and the producers handed him the answers before he went on the air. No, we kid.

The most important bit of the blog entry was this:

The upshot is we’re determined to make all new shows more inclusive of the crew and their role. Discovery and Channel 4 will also include a disclaimer at the start of the show so there's no confusion.

Personally, we see this as a good thing. We're looking forward to seeing more of the crew. Those guys are out there roughing it along with Bear even if they DO eat Mars bars and sleep in motels more often than he does. We've already grown accustomed in the second season to the pitter patter of their little feet as they run up to Bear at the beginning of each episode. Why not show more of them? They could be stars, too.


Preorder the First Season of Man vs. Wild now

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