by now it’s it’s late October heading
towards November and we’ve actually done
something remarkable we have completed
what was originally planned as the first
section of our thru-hike and we’ve got
to a point in the river where we’re
actually climbing out of the canyon it’s
about a 3,500 foot climb along a very
obscure and very difficult route known
as a walter powell trail named after the
brother of John Wesley Powell who’s on
that on that expedition in the summer of
1869 and when we got to the rim of the
canyon we met this lady so this is Renee
yellow horse she’s a Navajo woman who
has spent her life out on the horizontal
world of the Grand Canyon she lives up
on basically the rim up here her family
is great sheep here for hundreds of
years she’s standing in a place where
there’s one of the most impactful
development projects it’s about to
happen and she’s basically become a
voice and a leader for this group called
save the confluence and they’re fighting
to save this land in this area of Grand
Canyon and it’s become a very
controversial issue it has divided the
Navajo community and we figured that
instead of us talking about it we let
you hear what they say in their voices
gonzo local would bring people all the
way down to the confluence and there at
the river level they would have a
elevated walkway snack bar of restroom
facility enough services to take care of
10,000 people in a day you’re going to
employ an awful lot of people in an
impoverished area and help them save
their culture what’s better than that
any idea of distrust in this area with
your jackhammers with your machinery or
whatever dynamite or explosive
bringing here you’re basically
destroying a shrine the confluence
Little Colorado River meets the Colorado
River where they meet this is where life
begins this is what our grandmother’s
tell us it is a sacred thing and we
don’t let us see the Disneyland on the
edge of the canyon I think the view from
the bottom gives one a perspective of
one’s place in the universe I were to
hike down to the bottom of the canyon
I’d have to be here evac’d out because
of my knees and ankles and so we’re
trying to offer the average person that
below the rim experience it’s like a lot
of experiences throughout the world you
know you’re never going to be on the top
of Everest we provide an incredible
visitor experience for millions of
people every year we can’t provide every
experience for every person based on
their own individual ability when I come
here I wish to commune with the ones
that have gone before me my
great-grandmother and my father and know
that they are the special place and if
the escalade development comes in and it
would dig into the heart of our mother
just mother earth and I would never be
able to come here to feel that way again
so we left the politics of storming
politics of the grande Escalade behind
us because we had to move downstream we
had weaved 500 miles to go we actually
walked back down through the area that
it would be built if it were to be built
and we moved down through the
kaleidoscope of colors which is so
famous for the Grand Canyon but the
reality is once again we were in this
situation where you can’t follow the
river you come in two sections like the
inner gorge where you’re constantly
getting pinned and locked up on these
different benches of rock so we’ve left
food roughly every five to ten days in
plastic buckets not a lot of food but so
we’re on a time schedule to get there
but more importantly we have to get to
water everyday we can’t carry more than
one day’s worth of water and so we’re
constantly trying to find ways to move
down Canyon sometimes on these benches
way above the river but we have to get
back to the river and when we get to the
river a whole new set of problems
present themselves you know what seemed
like impenetrable thickets of thorns
created by these dense groves of acacia
trees mesquite and as to say nothing of
the cactus that you encounter and the
attentiveness that you have to apply to
avoid stepping on these things and so
you know the challenges and the rigors
are still taking a toll on our bodies
we’re still feeling the impact of this
environment the difference however is
that unlike in September we’re holding
up and in fact you know we’re not only
holding up but we’re starting to see
evidence of our personalities reemerge
every now and then I look over and I see
you know the kind of Pete McBride that I
know and recognize and he would look
over at me and he would see the kind of
Kevin Sadako that he’s used to being
around
so basically what’s happening is that
you know we’re feeling comfortable
enough in this environment that we are
reverting to what passes for normalcy
between the two of us all right so it’s
now January we’ve moved all the way down
to the South Rim and I want you to look
at the lights on the top of this frame
this is this is where you’d enter the
South frame this is where five point
five and a half million visitors come to
Grand Canyon National Park it’s they do
a remarkable job there but the lights in
the distance is where the second on this
basically it’s a southern threat that’s
coming in is the Gateway community
called to see on that proposed twenty
eight hundred homes two million square
feet of commercial space a water-ski
park and what we started realizing and
what we continue to want to explore is
what happens up here on the rim how is
it going to affect life down here below
how is it going to affect the water
table the complex water table that runs
through it house it can affect the
wildlife so as we move downstream we
actually start depending on the wildlife
in an unusual way mostly the sheep but
also we start following lion tracks for
four days we followed Lion tracks along
the Esplanade layer but just as you
think you’re starting to get kind of
Grand Canyon savvy and get the kind of
vibe of the place it kicks you in the
gut again so winner in the Grand Canyon
announces its arrival in the form of a
bunch of massive storms that have rolled
across they’ve rolled through the
Pacific they’ve rolled across the west
coast of United States and they start
hitting the Southwest the desert
Southwest and when they do so the first
thing that happens is that they hammer
the temperatures way down below zero and
so you’re huddled in your tents at night
you’re trying to protect your water
bottles and keep them from freezing and
then the storms they start unloading the
precipitation that they carry in them
and the snow begins to fall late at
night when it’s dark you don’t really
know what’s happening except you hear
these ice crystals landing on the wall
of your tent
and you wake up in the morning and you
realize that this world that you are
inside of and suspended in has been
coated in glaze in a layer of ice 10:00
to 11:00 cheese thick which has rendered
the business
the imperative business of moving down
the stream toward those food caches
terrifying and absolutely dangerous I
get my feet in some frozen I can’t even
straight down this is a actual
desperation in an unexpectedly gigantic
snowstorm sure you can’t get your soul
out I can’t it’s frozen in there so we
made it through that area called allies
Bay was probably one of the most
physically challenged most grueling
sections of trip for us on a number of
levels I think on some points was a bit
of a milestone for us to get through it
but it didn’t it didn’t let up we got
through this snow and some level but the
temperatures persisted compared to the
fall where was over 100 it’s now below
zero we saw temperatures at minus seven
for a week after it hovered around five
degrees and I’m just going to give you a
little backup on the challenges I was
faced with trying to capture this this
place and our story with one camera with
one lens with one tiny solar panel and
four batteries there is no socket to go
pop your camera to charge in and cameras
and batteries they hate cold
temperatures so I basically would crawl
in when I would finally go to bed when
I’m not trying to capture the
Magnificent starlight I would go and I
would sleep the entire night stashing my
batteries in my armpit or anywhere that
I could find any shade of warmth which I
really couldn’t because I took some
stupid sleeping that it wasn’t really
warm enough but it’s part of the deal on
some level what do you think what did I
think
here’s what I think I think that what I
hate the most about working with the
National Geographic photographer is
something like this when you take
undiluted suffering and misery and you
weave it into an image of beauty you are
creating an act of fraudulent this is
what it’s like to be me
huddled inside of a tent with every
stitch of clothing I own on me wanting
not to go outside and this guy is
flitting around like some photo flyer
fallout Firefly you know early in the
morning and late at night it was it was
you know when I think back now I mean it
was really bad 100 degree heat wave in
September but it didn’t compare to this
it was just so miserable and so awful
that I don’t even like to look at this
front round because it triggers a level
of visual rebozo he gets going all right
let’s be fair there’s one you you
enjoyed sections right all right I will
admit yes there were some things that I
did enjoy it’s it’s it’s difficult for
me to recall them but as it turns out
here’s one of them and it occurred
actually I have to admit each and every
day so the thing is that like there is
this moment that comes after you’ve
completed your journey through the
canyon at the end of the day and you
finally stopped moving and you set up
camp and you heat up some food and you
get something hot into your belly and
you’re feeling this delicious sense of
relaxation and then what happens is that
you lean back and you stare up and you
realize that something extraordinary is
happening you are reminded that the
Grand Canyon is graced by something
exceptional each and every night you are
inside of an abyss that is a mile deep
one of the greatest environments on the
earth a place that has been polished and
carved out by the greatest river in the
southwest that is still running through
its bottom thousands of feet below you
and you realize that that river is
reflected in a second River that is
arched over your head a celestial River
of starlight and you are caught between
these two rivers and you
held in a beauty that hinges on the
juxtaposition between harshness and
asceticism it is an extraordinary thing
it is a privilege and is it a gift and I
do have to admit that encountering that
each and every night it’s one of the
closest things that I’ve ever
experienced the true religion now I
would say he may hate my fraudulent
photos but there are times that I did I
definitely wanted to stop and his
passion kept me going and we had to keep
going the reality is we couldn’t soak up
the Starlight like we wanted to we had
to crawl out of our bags we descended
into Ollo Canyon this is how you enter
Ollo Canyon is one of the most
magnificent slot canyons in all of Grand
Canyon it’s a 200-foot repel free repel
you’re cold and miserable but you have
to come in here and start your day and
find your way through this remarkable
maze I could have spent weeks in here as
a photographer it is total magic but the
reality is like I said before we cached
food every so you know distances apart
we were on a 10-day food line at this
point and we have basically run out we
have about a day’s worth we’re running
down to jelly beans and so we’re in a
race for food here’s a little snippet on
that got one day left to food even
though we’re two days away from our food
cache
got it but you get so as it happens when
you camp or hike food get becomes kind
of important but we’re now once again
happy and we’ve found the yellow brick
road so to speak this is the MU of
limestone layer that we took for a short
distance about three River miles Canton
grew actually that Kevin featured in his
book was the first person to ever
realize you could connect these benches
we’re basically following the the black
pellets of gold we call them the the
bighorn sheep poop and we weaved our way
through here up to Matt cat we climbed
our way back up from the river back up
onto the layer and then weaved in ducked
and dived our way all the way around up
into Havasu because we wanted to really
investigate you see these black lines
here these Breck circles the uranium
lines we want to try to understand that
issue and the destination the end point
of this segment the place that we were
headed there’s the kingdom of the people
of the blue-green water this is a very
special part of the Grand Canyon and it
is home to the tiniest tribe of Native
Americans who live either around or
inside the canyon Havasupai people they
live inside of what looks to be an
idyllic home but they’re incredibly
vulnerable because one of the things
about the canyon is that everything is
connected and so they are aware perhaps
at a deeper level than almost anyone
else just how vulnerable they are to the
sorts of things that are happening right
now on the rim of the Grand Canyon so
this is the Havasupai coming out to do a
protest in front of the canyon mind the
canyon mine sits on the south side of
Grand Canyon it’s out of the border of
the park itself but to have a soup I
fear that it’s well within the watershed
of Grand Canyon and if there were to be
a breach or anything would happen that
it would flow down right into their
water source their life I’ve spent time
with uranium miners all guys trying to
hang on and do their job best they’re
doing everything legally it’s a
contentious area a lot of people
against uranium mining that the
challenge here is nobody has the money
to drill a 3000 foot well to monitor
these mines and if they’re acting
appropriate or not there they’re dealing
with systems environmental regulations
that are not meant for the Grand Canyon
because they’ve never there’s only one
Grand Canyon and if you get above this
and start to see the proximity this is
on the north side
this is Arizona one mine this is outside
of the park boundary but as you can see
from the air everything is connected
it’s well within the watershed so if
anything were to go wrong in the uranium
situation it would go right down into
the lifeline of the southwest
[Music]
towards November and we’ve actually done
something remarkable we have completed
what was originally planned as the first
section of our thru-hike and we’ve got
to a point in the river where we’re
actually climbing out of the canyon it’s
about a 3,500 foot climb along a very
obscure and very difficult route known
as a walter powell trail named after the
brother of John Wesley Powell who’s on
that on that expedition in the summer of
1869 and when we got to the rim of the
canyon we met this lady so this is Renee
yellow horse she’s a Navajo woman who
has spent her life out on the horizontal
world of the Grand Canyon she lives up
on basically the rim up here her family
is great sheep here for hundreds of
years she’s standing in a place where
there’s one of the most impactful
development projects it’s about to
happen and she’s basically become a
voice and a leader for this group called
save the confluence and they’re fighting
to save this land in this area of Grand
Canyon and it’s become a very
controversial issue it has divided the
Navajo community and we figured that
instead of us talking about it we let
you hear what they say in their voices
gonzo local would bring people all the
way down to the confluence and there at
the river level they would have a
elevated walkway snack bar of restroom
facility enough services to take care of
10,000 people in a day you’re going to
employ an awful lot of people in an
impoverished area and help them save
their culture what’s better than that
any idea of distrust in this area with
your jackhammers with your machinery or
whatever dynamite or explosive
bringing here you’re basically
destroying a shrine the confluence
Little Colorado River meets the Colorado
River where they meet this is where life
begins this is what our grandmother’s
tell us it is a sacred thing and we
don’t let us see the Disneyland on the
edge of the canyon I think the view from
the bottom gives one a perspective of
one’s place in the universe I were to
hike down to the bottom of the canyon
I’d have to be here evac’d out because
of my knees and ankles and so we’re
trying to offer the average person that
below the rim experience it’s like a lot
of experiences throughout the world you
know you’re never going to be on the top
of Everest we provide an incredible
visitor experience for millions of
people every year we can’t provide every
experience for every person based on
their own individual ability when I come
here I wish to commune with the ones
that have gone before me my
great-grandmother and my father and know
that they are the special place and if
the escalade development comes in and it
would dig into the heart of our mother
just mother earth and I would never be
able to come here to feel that way again
so we left the politics of storming
politics of the grande Escalade behind
us because we had to move downstream we
had weaved 500 miles to go we actually
walked back down through the area that
it would be built if it were to be built
and we moved down through the
kaleidoscope of colors which is so
famous for the Grand Canyon but the
reality is once again we were in this
situation where you can’t follow the
river you come in two sections like the
inner gorge where you’re constantly
getting pinned and locked up on these
different benches of rock so we’ve left
food roughly every five to ten days in
plastic buckets not a lot of food but so
we’re on a time schedule to get there
but more importantly we have to get to
water everyday we can’t carry more than
one day’s worth of water and so we’re
constantly trying to find ways to move
down Canyon sometimes on these benches
way above the river but we have to get
back to the river and when we get to the
river a whole new set of problems
present themselves you know what seemed
like impenetrable thickets of thorns
created by these dense groves of acacia
trees mesquite and as to say nothing of
the cactus that you encounter and the
attentiveness that you have to apply to
avoid stepping on these things and so
you know the challenges and the rigors
are still taking a toll on our bodies
we’re still feeling the impact of this
environment the difference however is
that unlike in September we’re holding
up and in fact you know we’re not only
holding up but we’re starting to see
evidence of our personalities reemerge
every now and then I look over and I see
you know the kind of Pete McBride that I
know and recognize and he would look
over at me and he would see the kind of
Kevin Sadako that he’s used to being
around
so basically what’s happening is that
you know we’re feeling comfortable
enough in this environment that we are
reverting to what passes for normalcy
between the two of us all right so it’s
now January we’ve moved all the way down
to the South Rim and I want you to look
at the lights on the top of this frame
this is this is where you’d enter the
South frame this is where five point
five and a half million visitors come to
Grand Canyon National Park it’s they do
a remarkable job there but the lights in
the distance is where the second on this
basically it’s a southern threat that’s
coming in is the Gateway community
called to see on that proposed twenty
eight hundred homes two million square
feet of commercial space a water-ski
park and what we started realizing and
what we continue to want to explore is
what happens up here on the rim how is
it going to affect life down here below
how is it going to affect the water
table the complex water table that runs
through it house it can affect the
wildlife so as we move downstream we
actually start depending on the wildlife
in an unusual way mostly the sheep but
also we start following lion tracks for
four days we followed Lion tracks along
the Esplanade layer but just as you
think you’re starting to get kind of
Grand Canyon savvy and get the kind of
vibe of the place it kicks you in the
gut again so winner in the Grand Canyon
announces its arrival in the form of a
bunch of massive storms that have rolled
across they’ve rolled through the
Pacific they’ve rolled across the west
coast of United States and they start
hitting the Southwest the desert
Southwest and when they do so the first
thing that happens is that they hammer
the temperatures way down below zero and
so you’re huddled in your tents at night
you’re trying to protect your water
bottles and keep them from freezing and
then the storms they start unloading the
precipitation that they carry in them
and the snow begins to fall late at
night when it’s dark you don’t really
know what’s happening except you hear
these ice crystals landing on the wall
of your tent
and you wake up in the morning and you
realize that this world that you are
inside of and suspended in has been
coated in glaze in a layer of ice 10:00
to 11:00 cheese thick which has rendered
the business
the imperative business of moving down
the stream toward those food caches
terrifying and absolutely dangerous I
get my feet in some frozen I can’t even
straight down this is a actual
desperation in an unexpectedly gigantic
snowstorm sure you can’t get your soul
out I can’t it’s frozen in there so we
made it through that area called allies
Bay was probably one of the most
physically challenged most grueling
sections of trip for us on a number of
levels I think on some points was a bit
of a milestone for us to get through it
but it didn’t it didn’t let up we got
through this snow and some level but the
temperatures persisted compared to the
fall where was over 100 it’s now below
zero we saw temperatures at minus seven
for a week after it hovered around five
degrees and I’m just going to give you a
little backup on the challenges I was
faced with trying to capture this this
place and our story with one camera with
one lens with one tiny solar panel and
four batteries there is no socket to go
pop your camera to charge in and cameras
and batteries they hate cold
temperatures so I basically would crawl
in when I would finally go to bed when
I’m not trying to capture the
Magnificent starlight I would go and I
would sleep the entire night stashing my
batteries in my armpit or anywhere that
I could find any shade of warmth which I
really couldn’t because I took some
stupid sleeping that it wasn’t really
warm enough but it’s part of the deal on
some level what do you think what did I
think
here’s what I think I think that what I
hate the most about working with the
National Geographic photographer is
something like this when you take
undiluted suffering and misery and you
weave it into an image of beauty you are
creating an act of fraudulent this is
what it’s like to be me
huddled inside of a tent with every
stitch of clothing I own on me wanting
not to go outside and this guy is
flitting around like some photo flyer
fallout Firefly you know early in the
morning and late at night it was it was
you know when I think back now I mean it
was really bad 100 degree heat wave in
September but it didn’t compare to this
it was just so miserable and so awful
that I don’t even like to look at this
front round because it triggers a level
of visual rebozo he gets going all right
let’s be fair there’s one you you
enjoyed sections right all right I will
admit yes there were some things that I
did enjoy it’s it’s it’s difficult for
me to recall them but as it turns out
here’s one of them and it occurred
actually I have to admit each and every
day so the thing is that like there is
this moment that comes after you’ve
completed your journey through the
canyon at the end of the day and you
finally stopped moving and you set up
camp and you heat up some food and you
get something hot into your belly and
you’re feeling this delicious sense of
relaxation and then what happens is that
you lean back and you stare up and you
realize that something extraordinary is
happening you are reminded that the
Grand Canyon is graced by something
exceptional each and every night you are
inside of an abyss that is a mile deep
one of the greatest environments on the
earth a place that has been polished and
carved out by the greatest river in the
southwest that is still running through
its bottom thousands of feet below you
and you realize that that river is
reflected in a second River that is
arched over your head a celestial River
of starlight and you are caught between
these two rivers and you
held in a beauty that hinges on the
juxtaposition between harshness and
asceticism it is an extraordinary thing
it is a privilege and is it a gift and I
do have to admit that encountering that
each and every night it’s one of the
closest things that I’ve ever
experienced the true religion now I
would say he may hate my fraudulent
photos but there are times that I did I
definitely wanted to stop and his
passion kept me going and we had to keep
going the reality is we couldn’t soak up
the Starlight like we wanted to we had
to crawl out of our bags we descended
into Ollo Canyon this is how you enter
Ollo Canyon is one of the most
magnificent slot canyons in all of Grand
Canyon it’s a 200-foot repel free repel
you’re cold and miserable but you have
to come in here and start your day and
find your way through this remarkable
maze I could have spent weeks in here as
a photographer it is total magic but the
reality is like I said before we cached
food every so you know distances apart
we were on a 10-day food line at this
point and we have basically run out we
have about a day’s worth we’re running
down to jelly beans and so we’re in a
race for food here’s a little snippet on
that got one day left to food even
though we’re two days away from our food
cache
got it but you get so as it happens when
you camp or hike food get becomes kind
of important but we’re now once again
happy and we’ve found the yellow brick
road so to speak this is the MU of
limestone layer that we took for a short
distance about three River miles Canton
grew actually that Kevin featured in his
book was the first person to ever
realize you could connect these benches
we’re basically following the the black
pellets of gold we call them the the
bighorn sheep poop and we weaved our way
through here up to Matt cat we climbed
our way back up from the river back up
onto the layer and then weaved in ducked
and dived our way all the way around up
into Havasu because we wanted to really
investigate you see these black lines
here these Breck circles the uranium
lines we want to try to understand that
issue and the destination the end point
of this segment the place that we were
headed there’s the kingdom of the people
of the blue-green water this is a very
special part of the Grand Canyon and it
is home to the tiniest tribe of Native
Americans who live either around or
inside the canyon Havasupai people they
live inside of what looks to be an
idyllic home but they’re incredibly
vulnerable because one of the things
about the canyon is that everything is
connected and so they are aware perhaps
at a deeper level than almost anyone
else just how vulnerable they are to the
sorts of things that are happening right
now on the rim of the Grand Canyon so
this is the Havasupai coming out to do a
protest in front of the canyon mind the
canyon mine sits on the south side of
Grand Canyon it’s out of the border of
the park itself but to have a soup I
fear that it’s well within the watershed
of Grand Canyon and if there were to be
a breach or anything would happen that
it would flow down right into their
water source their life I’ve spent time
with uranium miners all guys trying to
hang on and do their job best they’re
doing everything legally it’s a
contentious area a lot of people
against uranium mining that the
challenge here is nobody has the money
to drill a 3000 foot well to monitor
these mines and if they’re acting
appropriate or not there they’re dealing
with systems environmental regulations
that are not meant for the Grand Canyon
because they’ve never there’s only one
Grand Canyon and if you get above this
and start to see the proximity this is
on the north side
this is Arizona one mine this is outside
of the park boundary but as you can see
from the air everything is connected
it’s well within the watershed so if
anything were to go wrong in the uranium
situation it would go right down into
the lifeline of the southwest
[Music]
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