Running Wild With Bear Grylls Two Days With Tamron Hall [Recap/Review]

On Running Wild With Bear Grylls tonight, Bear will be taking Today‘s Emmy-nominated Tamron Hall with him on a two day adventure into the desert of Utah. She will explore her personal tragedies and triumphs during the 48 hours she spends with Bear Grylls, as well as having herself be physically tested by the terrain and survivalist conditions that she will face. Tamron Hall is the first, and only, woman who is participating in this season of Running Wild With Bear Grylls. Bear will learn that Hall has a lot of grit and determination and hopefully, he will include more women in the second season of this NBC show.

Running Wild With Bear Grylls began with Tamron Hall driving down a dirt road, saying that she has been told “to keep driving and at some point, Bear will appear.”

Bear flies alongside her vehicle, hanging from the side of a helicopter. She stops and Bear tells her “Bring your pack. let’s go; follow me.”

Standing on the skids of the helicopter, they take off. The scenery looks majestic. Bear asks her if she has ever rappelled before, and Tamron answers: “I’ve never rappelled before.”

On the ground, Tamron says “I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe that Bear picked me up in a helicopter.”

Bear tells her that they are at 9,000 feet, so it might be harder to breath and her heart might beat faster. They will be traveling alongside a razor-edge ridge.

Bear asks her where she was brought up and she says in Texas, but she was a bookworm and into Nancy Drew. Then, she talks about her career as a journalist in the “wilds of Manhattan,” which are definitely wild, but are a far cry from the wilds of Utah.

Bear said that the mountainside that they were on was “dry and a bit crumbly. If we get it wrong, it will be a one-way ticket straight down.” He adds that Tamron will be “the pathfinder and will go first.” He reassures her that that way he can save her if she starts to fall. However, she is not sure how he can save her, if she is the one going first.

Coming up on Running Wild With Bear Grylls after the first commercial break, Tamron will be talking with him about her sister, who was murdered. She will also rappel for her first time ever.  

“I’m absolutely terrified going across the ridge,” she tells the camera. They both can see and hear rocks falling as they proceed.

“Is you accent Texan or New York?”

Bear asks her.

“It’s Texas,” she says. “Once Texas, alway Texas.” She admits to Bear that she even has a tattoo of the state of Texas on her hip.

“”Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Bear asks her.

“The bad news,” she answers.

“It’s going to get more crumbly and rougher. The good news is we have this tree we can tie the rope to,” Bear says.

“Tree? That looks like a twig,” Tamron replies.

Bear goes down first and tells Tamron “Start to go down backwards. Tell me if you need more slack.”

“Well done! he tells her, as she slowly rappels downward. She is worried, though, as she keeps hearing rocks falling.

At one point, Bear tells her to sit down. She must drop off, lowering herself down a tricky part of the cliff side. Then, Running Wild With Bear Grylls went to another commercial break.

“It’s the first time Tamron has been on something that scary and steep. It’s frightening,” Bear tells the camera.

Tamron gets down, though she wonders if she did it, or if nature “kinda pushed me down.” She slides down on her behind the rest of the way to where Bear is and they continue on to view how nature made a natural stone bridge. “For a rookie, I’m proud of you,” he says.

She tells him about becoming the first African American to host the Today Show. She also tells Bear about her sister’s murder and how she was the victim of domestic violence.

As they then continue walking, Bear says “I love it! We’re in the trees!’ There are now trees around them. Bear wants to find them some food next.

They come across the carcass of a dead squirrel. Bear mentions that the squirrel still looks fresh and that they are lucky that birds or other animals have not gotten to it yet. He tells Tamron that she will gut the squirrel and then she will carry it in her backpack. Tamron does not look she she wants any part of it.

“Can’t we just eat vegetables?” she asks him.

“C’mon, this is a great find,” Bear says. He tells her to “put your fingers in and pull.”

“Why?” she asks.

“So then, we can eat it,” he answers her. She is very reluctant to be touching the dead squirrel, but she does, just as Running Wild With Bear Grylls goes to yet another commercial break.

Back from the break, she pulls on the guts, but they resist coming out. “The most terrifying feeling is pulling on guts or organs and feeling them squish but they won’t come out,” she says to the camera. “And now, I have flies around my backpack because I have a dead squirrel in my backpack.”

At a place where they will camp for the night, Bear asks her what she has in her backpack. When she gets to the “hand sanitizer” item, he tells her “good” because hand sanitizer contains alcohol. That will help them make the fire.

As the fire cooks the squirrel, Bear says that “This would be a pretty good date.”

“It would be the last date,” she tells him.

“Are you dating now?” he asks her.

She tells him no, but she does not really have the time and she measures everyone she meets against her father. She thinks that her father getting sick and dying had something to do with the loss of her sister. Bear relates about how his father died when he was 25, and about how when something like that happens, a person has to suddenly grow up.

She tells him that the squirrel is surprisingly good, but that could be because her taste buds are worn off by the dust. Still, she eats it and seems to like how it tastes, despite Bear saying I won’t lie to you. It might not be that good.”

“I pretty much hate Bear Grylls right now,” she tells the camera that night, talking about how she is sore and aches. “I might just run out on him.”

When Running Wild With Bear Grylls returns from another commercial break, it is the dawn of Day 2. “So, how did you sleep, Tamron?” he asks her.

She tells him “pretty well,” but they are about to face another day of the same.

“She’s pretty beat up at the moment,” he tells the camera. To Tamron, he says “We’re getting pretty close to the end.”

Then, Bear has more “good news/bad news” to tell her. “The good news,” he says, “is that our exit point lies just over there. The bad news is we have to get across that chasm.”

A deep chasm is in front of them. Bear tells her that they must rappel down together.

“My mouth feels so dry,” she says.

“Everyday, she is on live news across the country. She just has to summon that resolve one last time,” Bear tells the camera.

He tells her to lean back and keep stepping down, one step at a time. “One last thing,” he tells her. “Try not to look down.” Of course, Tamron does look down, and says “Oh, my God, oh my God!” and says to the camera “Every part of my body was shaking.”

They are still high up with a long way to go to get to the bottom. Running Wild With Bear Grylls went to another commercial break.

“We’ll finish this together,” Bear tells her, “and finish it strong. I love it; you’re doing great,” he adds.

She is scared but continues going down. “Are you kidding?” she asks him.

“What’s going through your mind?” Bear asks.

“I’m going to finish it. I need to finish it,” she answers him.  Together, they finally make it to the bottom of the chasm. Tamron laughs happily that they made it. “I could feel her body next to mine, literally shaking with fear,” Bear tells the camera. “But, we made it.” To Tamron, he says “Good on you, Tamron!”

“I learned I need more downtime. I need to unplug,” Tamron tells the camera.

“Tamron is a girl who really needed to overcome a lot of obstacles to get where she is. This adventure kind of reflects that, but she is coming out of it with a huge smile on her face. That’s why she’s such a joy to be around,” Bear tells the camera.

At their extraction point, leaving via helicopter as they had come, is where Running Wild With Bear Grylls concluded. Tamron Hall showed that she had the perseverance and determination to continue on to the very end, moving on despite her fears. Tamron Hall proved that she has what it takes to run wild with Bear Grylls. Next week, NFL star Deion Sanders will be the next celebrity to spend two days in the wilderness with Bear Grylls on the adventure of his lifetime.

Written By Douglas Cobb