The CRUX: True Survival Stories - Podcast Rankings and reviews

The unique skill sets and professions of Kaycee and Julie provide a fantastic podcast for anyone that likes tales of survival. Not only do you get the story, but also lessons learned (without blame) and a wealth of information about the psychology and physiology of survival (or not). Also it’s delivered with a mix of humor, personal anecdotes about their kids or experiences, in a voice and cadence reminiscent of NPR. Love everything about it.

Kaycee and Julie are great storytellers and very informative. I love the perspective they bring to these stories and the guests they occasionally have on. I’ve heard a lot of stories I’ve never heard before and they’re all great stories of heroism and survival. Even when things don’t end well, there are great educational opportunities that really put you in the scene and make you wonder what you would do in the situation. Really appreciate the research and perspective they bring to the stories, with their experience.

I just found this podcast and I’ve been binging over the holidays. The stories are short and the hosts are articulate. They do a great job of going through the details of the disaster and then describe the series of poor decisions by victims which compounded their situation. It’s very much like the drama in real life articles that used to be in the readers digest. One of my favorite podcasts!

I want to like this podcast because I live in Alaska and am always eager to listen to wilderness survival advice. However, I’m surprised by how often the hosts mention that they’ve traveled to Alaska, when their advice is sometimes lacking. Spending 10 minutes talking about the drone in a bear attack episode and not even once mentioning the common practice of making noise any time you hike so as not to sneak up on a bear, even if you’re alone, or hiking in a group, seems like you’re not even trying to give people good advice. It’s also pretty common knowledge to fight back if it’s a black bear and lay down and protect yourself if it’s a brown bear. Nobody is out here trying to figure out if the bear is giving off predatory or defensive behavior when they’re being attacked but you can pretty quickly figure out if it’s a brown or black bear.

It also seems like they don’t do research sometimes, for instance the French tourists in White Sands “his name was never released” but in looking up the story online, immediately found the name in several articles. You can just say that you don’t know.

Some of the medical advice also doesn’t make sense for “medical professionals.” Giving the Nanga Prabbat climber the benefit of the doubt and saying she did everything she could is nice, but she also could have called for help the moment something was wrong instead of waiting out the night in the cold, when she has a satellite phone and knew her partner was dying.

Just my observations, but everyone can stand to learn more about survival situations and responsible recreation.

POTS is NOT anxiety, it’s nervous system dysfunction with orthostatic tachycardia based on the position of the body being upright. It’s been extremely common as a post viral illness following COVID infections