Bear Grylls - The Volcano Challenge

Contents

The Blizzard Challenge

The Desert Challenge

The Jungle Challenge

The Sea Challenge

The River Challenge

The Earthquake Challenge

The Volcano Challenge

The Safari Challenge

Bear Grylls got the taste for adventure at a young age from his father, a former Royal Marine. After school, Bear joined the Reserve SAS, then went on to become one of the youngest ever people to climb Mount Everest, just two years after breaking his back in three places during a parachute jump.

Amongst other adventures he has led expeditions to the Arctic and the Antarctic, crossed oceans and set world records in skydiving and paragliding.

Bear is also a bestselling author and the host of television programmes such as Survival School and The Island.

He has shared his survival skills with people all over the world, and has taken many famous movie stars and sports stars on adventures and even President Barack Obama!

Bear Grylls is Chief Scout to the UK Scouting Association, encouraging young people to have great adventures, follow their dreams and to look after their friends. Bear is also honorary Colonel to the Royal Marine Commandos.

When Bears not travelling the world, he lives with his wife and three sons on a barge in London, or on an island off the coast of Wales.

Find out more at www.beargrylls.com

• There are about 1,500 active volcanos on Earth, and over 400 of them are in the Pacific Ocean, in an arc-shape known as the Ring of Fire.
  
• Inside a volcano, the boiling liquid rock is called magma. Once it explodes out of the volcano, it is called lava.
  
• The word volcano comes from Vulcan, who was the Roman god of fire.
  
• There are volcanos all around the solar system too the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune all have active volcanos.

The ground shook. Chunks of fire flew through the air.

Charlie ducked and dodged, getting out of the way of the flying fragments.

Wherever they hit the ground, they blasted everything away, leaving a crater full of molten rock.

Charlie

Charlie ignored the voice. He had to concentrate. A blazing boulder was coming right for him. He was going too fast to stop. It was too late to swerve. The boulder smashed into the ground right in front of him, leaving a deadly crater of bubbling lava.

One touch would mean instant death.

Charlie only had one choice.

Jump.

One, two, three

Charlie!

Charlie looked up. He was sitting at a trestle table in a forest clearing with his friends Joe, Harry and Olly. They were at Camp. There were no flying rocks or craters. But two of his friends were looking worried.

We just got the five-minute warning, Harry said.

And were on clean-up today, Charlie, remember? Olly added.

Charlie had been too busy playing Magma Quest on his tablet to actually eat anything. He grabbed his bacon roll with one hand, and looked again at the screen. His character crunched face-first into the crater.

Game over.

Agh! he groaned. I never get across that stupid crater!

Harry pretended to give an enormous yawn. Olly dropped his head to one side and started to snore loudly. Joe smiled.

Tell us something new, he said kindly. Youre obsessed!

Olly pushed back from the table and picked his tray up.

See you over there, Charlie? he said.

Charlie swallowed some bread and washed it down with juice as he watched the others walk off. He still had a banana to eat. Maybe he could have one more go while he finished his breakfast?

Bananas! Charlie thought suddenly. Bananas were slippery, werent they? Maybe that was the trick. If he played in anti-gravity mode then he could make his character skid a little. That way hed just glide along

Charlie licked his fingers clean and restarted the level. Hed just dodged his first flying boulder when

Charlie? Charlie!

He looked up. Everyone on clear-up duty was waiting for him on the other side of the clearing. There were more trestle tables covered with plates and pots and pans. The leader was smiling. Kind of.

Oh, sorry hang on Charlie called. Just a couple more seconds should do it

Charlie, now! the leader called, sounding annoyed. Put that away!

Charlie reluctantly paused the game. As he walked over to the others he could almost hear Magma Quest calling him. All he needed was another go and hed smash it this time

Right! The leader clapped his hands together and gave them all a big smile. Lets get started.

Charlie could feel himself getting annoyed. If he didnt have to bother with this stupid clear-up he could finish the level.

Gather everything up, said the leader. Uneaten food into compost bags, cutlery into this basket here. Plates can be heavy, so dont carry more than five at a time, please. You can work in pairs

Charlie could feel his chance to play Magma Quest slipping away and his bad mood get worse.

Charlie and Fatima, you two can work together

Great, thought Charlie. His shoulders slumped. This really was game over.

Fatima and Charlie took opposite sides of the table. Charlie picked up a couple of plates, and felt his thumb squelch into a blob of butter and jam. Yuck! He looked up at Fatima. She was busy working. It would only take thirty seconds. He could get over the crater, get the level out of the way, then get on with clean-up.

Charlie pulled the tablet out. His character wobbled on the edge of the crater, then tumbled into the fire at the bottom before Charlie could react. Another life down!

His character reappeared on the other side of the field. He aimed at the crater again, started to run

Charlie! Fatima was staring at him from beside a neatly stacked pile of plates, clearly annoyed.

He looked back at the screen and groaned. Hed lost another life. And now Fatima was nagging him as well.

Sorry, Mum, Charlie muttered sarcastically. He paused the game again. He chucked cutlery into the bowl and piled the plates up. Uneaten food squished out between them.

Youre meant to scrape the food off first, said Fatima.

Charlie ran out of patience.

You do it then, he snapped angrily. He sat down and went back to Magma Quest. He knew he was being bad-tempered but he couldnt help himself. He just wanted to finish the level and she was interrupting him. It was so annoying.