In the new movie “The Mountain Between Us,” Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are forced to survive in the wild after their plane crashes. It seems easy when it’s in a movie, but how would you survive if it happened for real? Shireen and Lynn didn’t want to find out for themselves, so they sent Deco’s very own survivor man Chris Van Vliet to find out.
Bear Grylls is the guy when it comes to survival. I mean, remember when he drank his own pee on “Man vs. Wild?” He invited me to do his Bear Grylls Survival Academy and put me through some of the same stuff Kate Winslet and Idris Elba went through in “The Mountain Between Us.”
Welcome to the beautiful and dangerous Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York.
Bear Grylls: “You’ve been selected to be part of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy ‘The Mountain Between Us’ experience. All I say is be prepared, this is gonna be the adventure of a lifetime.”
The adventure is 24 hours with no power, no running water and, yeah, no internet. Thankfully, Bear Grylls’ team is here to guide us and maybe scare us a little, too.
Team member: “We’ve got scorpions, we’ve got snakes, we’ve got bears.”
In “The Mountain Between Us,” Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are strangers who have to rely on each other to survive.
Kate Winslet (as Alex Martin): “Nobody knows where we are. We’re all we’ve got, me and you.”
So just like the movie, I’ve been paired up with Jo — aka a complete stranger. After putting a little mud on our faces for camouflage, it’s go time!
In order to get through the night, we’re gonna need some skills.
Chris Van Vliet: “Got it! I have made fire!”
That fire is what we’ll need to boil water and make this…
Delicious pine needle tea. Mmmm, very nature-like.
We also need to cook food, and by food, I mean this raw fish.
Chris Van Vliet: “Oh wow! What do you think?”
Jo: “It’s actually really good. It needs some salt and pepper, but I can’t be picky in this situation.”
Chris Van Vliet: “That is pretty good!”
Before it gets dark, we have to build a shelter.
Chris Van Vliet: “This is my house for the next 12 hours — about the size of a South Beach apartment.”
The next day is the final test.
Yep, rappelling down this — a 100-foot waterfall!
I survived — although I think that fish I ate is still only partially digested.
You can see all of that for real when “The Mountain Between Us” hits theaters on Friday.
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