Discovery Channels New Survival Reality Show: The Wheel

The Wheel is set in South America and has six contestants that are expected to survive six distinctly grueling landscapes according to The Discovery Channel. The Wheel turns and with each turn of the wheel contestant is dropped into a new location.

The locations are some of the world’s deadliest terrain, such as freezing tundra’s, rugged mountains and treacherous rainforests. The wheel spins based on the moons rotation. When your name comes up you are dropped off in a totally different environment from where you were previously. The participants do not know when or where they will end up.

Each contestant is given a survival pack referred to as “light” and SOS devices so if they do get into a life-threatening situation or if they simply want to give up and go home, they can call for help and assumedly be extracted to safety. They must find shelter, water, and food, at each location so it is assumed they do not start out with any in their packs. Their ordeal is 60 days, a very difficult 60 days to say the least.

The show has its debut on January 13, 2017, and we here, of course, have not seen the show, and by no means is this article a critique/review of the show (The Discovery Channel., 2017).

Preppers, survivalist, and bushcraft experts like to run various survival scenarios through their head, “what if situations” if you will. This mental exercise helps to prime the thinking process. Our ability to reason and to think ahead is one of the reasons we are an Apex predator. We can design and implement tools, we can do calculations in our heads, and we know high and low tides when to expect cold or hot weather and so on. We can take information and come up with an educated hypothesis based on that information.

We never know when disaster may strike. It could be in the dead of winter or the peak of summer, and in some cases, we may not know where our geographic location may be either. We could be near a swamp, in the mountains, on a prairie, or in a desert environment when the SHTF, so the question is, are you prepared right now to survive in any one of the described locations.

Thinking about transitioning without notice from frozen tundra’s to a sweltering rainforest virtually overnight has us thinking about what ifs. 

As we have stated numerous times in various articles, survival essentials are not necessarily disaster specific. You need life essentials regardless of the calamity, but location, location, location is everything right? Chances are very high that when the SHTF you will be in your home or at work in the community where your home is located.

You know the weather patterns, how cold it gets in the winter, how hot in the summer, and will the spring thaw bring flooding. This is information you take for granted. If you practice your survival craft, you probably know what local plants are safe to eat, where the best fishing is and you may hunt and have a favorite spot that usually yields fresh game during hunting season, but what if you are miles from your home, out of your comfort zone as it were. A strange land, with odd looking plants and unpredictable weather patterns and you, may have no idea of the type of game that roams the area. You would expect wild game to be there but what size is a mystery, which means your weapon of choice, is not clear either.

It would be very hard to transition without notice from hot to a very cold region to mountainous to swampland to prairie. A novice would not likely survive, but the reality show The Wheel like most other survival shows is closely monitored to ensure the safety of the participants, but your own survival situation would not be monitored, you would be on your own.

It is important to know the area in which you are. You need to know the hiking trails, the weather patterns, and realize that moving from lowlands to higher elevations means temperature changes. It can be warm starting out and yet you could find yourself in a snowstorm in a matter of hours as you move to higher elevations.

You cannot pack for every situation, so it is important you know what the situation is likely to be before setting out. Setting out whether you are driving, hiking, or camping. If you are taking a road trip, know what the conditions are likely to be at the other end and in between as well. Do your research first so you know how to pack, because you only have so much room and you cannot as a practical matter pack for every conceived possibility, from frozen tundra’s to rainforests to mountains. You have to go with what is most probable based on your research.

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Source: prepforshtf.com