In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo saw the Santa Cruz Mountains while facing the San Francisco Peninsula. He gave them the name ‘Sierra Nevada’ which means “snowy mountain range” in Spanish.
Later, the name was applied to the mountain range in eastern California, which is made up of 400 miles of high peaks, deep forests, and scorchingly hot lowlands.
Five million people visit each year to go rafting, hiking or climbing, but each year more than 200 are stranded, seriously injured or killed.
Bear Grylls, the survival expert, recently starred in a television series that shows everyone the skills they need to survive in harsh environments. These skills often suggest success skills as well as survival skills.
My cynical stepbrother suggested that these abilities could help him last twenty seconds instead of ten seconds in an extreme environment!
In one episode, Bear visited the Sierra Nevada. He took with him a bottle of water, a cup, a flint to make a fire and a brave film crew!
He landed by parachute high up in the Sierras. The air is so thin that she knew she would descend extra fast. To smooth his landing, he guided the parachute to drop him into a shallow mountain lake.
He landed safely, but the water was just above freezing. She quickly dried herself and headed downstairs:
“The Nevada desert is to the east, so I want to go west.”
He made a primitive sundial to guide him west away from the desert. To achieve any success, it helps if there is a goal to aim for, even if it is very big.
John Soule once said ‘Go west, young man!’ and helped America become a great nation.
Bear kept moving down since you are more vulnerable to storms and lightning when you are high up.
Successful people act with smart priorities and two of them are health and safety.
Soon he had to climb down a steep granite cliff. She warned against descending when the rocks are wet or covered in sand. Common sense is a key part of survival and success!
Made it as far as the tree line but needed to keep moving lower as it gets cooler at night and the lower you are the warmer it gets. She had probably already descended 2,000 feet and was thirsty.
If you can’t boil the water, dig a small trench just above the water level. As the trench reaches below the water level, the water runs off.
Gravel and sand filter out the giardia parasite that is widespread throughout the world. It can cause chronic diarrhea and delay it for days.
Bear’s exit strategy was to follow a creek which soon led him to a river. This was good news:
“Rivers are often the key out of a problem. They’re always going to lead to a road or a town or something. I’m going to use it to go down the river.”
A key principle of success and survival is to learn from the experts if they are alive or dead or have moved to another place. Anyone who is too arrogant to learn from others is likely to fail.
Bear learned from the Mono Indians who once lived here:
“This area was once home to many Native Americans. I am using some of their survival techniques to turn this driftwood into a raft.”
Another key technique for success is to keep things as simple as possible. Overcomplication results in confusion and inaction:
“The key to building a raft is to keep it simple. When I try to make them complicated, they fall apart.”
Bear used grape vines to join his trunks. As the knots get wet, they will tighten. He used the hitch knots and weaving technique of the Mono Indians.
The rivers of the Sierras are used for whitewater rafting. 234 beams have been lost in a single river in the last thirty years.
Bear launched his raft with his upper body on the logs and his legs dangling behind:
“The river goes at a fast pace and I move faster than walking on land. You should always proceed downstream with an easy route to shore. Easier said than done.”
His knees took a beating in the shallows of the river, but in just half an hour he had floated nearly two miles. However, all successful people know that it is easy to start projects with enthusiasm and enthusiasm until problems arise:
“What during the first twenty minutes was very funny and quite warm is now less fun and much colder.”
I remember, as a teenager, walking from one end of the Isle of Man to the other, climbing all the hills on the way. Two friends and I started laughing hysterically and having fun. Within a few hours, life had become bleak and miserable. We finally made it, but it took us a week to recover.
Bear floated down the river on his raft, but he was taking risks:
“When I see the rapids, I have no chance of escaping from the currents. They are dragging me down the river. It is too late to reach the shore. I am completely at the mercy of the river.”
He eventually lost his raft which broke in the rapids, but managed to make it to shore:
“I freaked out a bit. I’m black and blue and very cold. I must have traveled about five miles and I’m exhausted.”
He found shelter under a jutting rock and lit a fire with his flint and a piece of hard rock. He basically talked about fire:
“The heat suddenly disappears when the sun goes down and this little baby here is my savior. Other than a few vine leaves, I haven’t had anything to eat. Tomorrow, I want to find some food.”
He woke up at 5 am It was dawn in the mountains. He had a cup of hot tea made from pine needles:
“I need to drink as much as possible. At altitude, the body uses more fluid than at sea level. If you can’t make a cup of tea, you can still get moisture from pine needles. They are a great source of vitamin C up to eight times higher than orange juice.
For a while, Bear gave up his priority, heading west, in favor of going down the hill to get food and water.
He saw some horses and could see himself riding out of the lowlands in style:
“This is a long shot, but I’m going to try.”
He wove some willow branches into a rope following the example of the Native Americans. They use sensitivity, patience, and a rope to tame their horses.
He tried to use his focus but, when he jumped on the horse, he fell and the horse was thrown.
He walked for an hour and then stopped early to build a proper camp and find some decent food.
He built a wickiup using Native American techniques and some wood from a dead red spruce. If you build a wickiup, don’t build over game trails or near fire ants and leave some open sky above you so searchers can find you.
Bear used another technical room to catch a rabbit.
He crushed a piece of cedar into a throwing stick almost two feet long. Cedar is hard and when smoothed out it will be quick and deadly in the air.
He practiced with little success at first, but later became more accurate. Bear, like all successful people, rarely gives up.
Native Americans used these sticks primarily to throw at rabbits. Bear hit one in the head on his first try. I remembered how my grandfather used to kill rabbits with a stick and a Lakeland terrier to drive the rabbit to him. We often had rabbit for lunch.
Bear used a piece of elderberry bush and a piece of base wood to generate an ember to light the tinder. He rubbed the elder spindle between his palms:
“This requires patience and takes me a lot of trying and it’s exhausting. If the shaft comes off, you’re right back where you started. The friction should heat the elder stick to 400 degrees Celsius.”
He fought but again did not give up even though he is not naturally patient. Eventually, the stick smoked and he generated an ember from which he was able to start a fire.
He skinned the rabbit and put it on a spit to roast. She buried the remains of the rabbit before eating. Local black bears can smell food twenty-five miles away.
The rabbit tasted delicious. With a full stomach Bear could look around and appreciate the majesty of the mountains and the night sky.
He used the stars to navigate, especially the north star. It’s not one of the brightest, but it’s one of the only constant stars in the sky that you can navigate by.
He traced a compass on the ground with branches to know where to go in the morning. Planning your tasks for the next day is one of the great success techniques that Ivy Lee taught Charles Schwab.
Schwab paid $25,000 for this information, about half a million dollars at current exchange rates.
The next day, Bear set off with his survival priority:
“It is the morning of my third day. I left my wickiup and went west. I am out of the woods and into the chapparal, the most extreme region of the Sierras.”
It was 43 degrees centigrade. Bear ate the abdomen of some carpenter ants. The flavor was tangy and sweet, but surprisingly quite good. He went on:
“I want to make rapid progress before this heat really kicks in.”
Snakes were a problem in this hot terrain. Always stand on top of logs before passing them. The snakes find shade under the logs in the heat of the day.
Saw some bright red berries. Nature warns us with such color. But, in case you’ve ignored Nature, she’s kindly provided a close antidote: coffee berries. My grandfather taught me the dock leaves next to the nettles.
Bear was already very thirsty. A manzanita bush provided some relief. Manzanita means ‘little apples’. The Mono Indians used it as a dried fruit and as an ingredient for a drink. They used the leaves as a kind of toothbrush. Bear picked his teeth on some of the leaves.
By mid-afternoon, the heat was relentless and was slowing their progress to a crawl, but successful people and survivors know that things often turn around just when you think you’re getting nowhere. Just keep going.
Bear suddenly came across a huge lake where he could drink and cool off. On the other side of the lake, about half a mile away, he saw a path.
He tied the ends of his pants together and then took a deep breath into them as he dipped the waistband end of the pants into the water. They helped him swim across the lake to safety. Bear makes full use of everything he has.
His mission had been difficult due to the wide variety of environments – hot and cold – in the mountains. He respected the ingenuity of the Mono Indians who had survived there:
“Before the Europeans came, they ruled this land and I have learned that they can still teach us a lot.”
They can teach us the patience and skill to make effective rafts, shelters, and a powerful weapon like the throwing stick out of whatever materials are available.
They can teach us how to keep things simple to avoid confusion and inaction, how to tame wild horses, and even how to brush our teeth in the wild!
Bear himself has a lot to teach us, like how to stay safe in tough situations and how to make health and safety our top priorities. Take Ivy Lee’s advice, at least in part, that is
Make a list of 6 things you plan to do tomorrow in order of importance. The next day, start with the first thing and continue until you finish it, even if it means not completing the entire list. Make a new list at the end of the day. This advice is completely free!
Above all, Bear taught us, in this episode, to have the humility to learn from the local experts: the Native Americans who were in the Sierras long before Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo showed up on the California coast.
