YVON: lt all started in my old forge
in Ventura, California, in the early '60s.
lt was a crude little shop,
but we were making the world's best climbing equipment.
You know, we were making stuff for ourselves, number one,
and we happened to be on the cutting edge of climbing at the time.
None of us wanted to be businessmen, that's for sure,
but we had to do something,
just to support our climbing habits
and surfing habits.
l hired kind of dirtbag friends
who were climbers and surfers and stuff,
and every time the surf come up,
we'd all abandon the shop and go surfing.
One day in 1968,
my friend Doug Tompkins said,
"Hey, let's go down to Patagonia and go climb Mount Fitzroy."
We picked up a 16mm Bolex camera to record the trip,
loaded the car up with surfboards and climbing gear
and took off for a 10,000-mile trip down south.
l think from the time that we decided to go
it was like two weeks before we went.
We bought this old van and took off from Ventura.
1968, you got to remember,
the Pan American Highway was pretty wild.
lt was a dirt road from Mexico City all the way south.
lt was like being in Montana or Wyoming a hundred years ago.
Here we were in an area
that's the size of the whole American West,
with no people.
DOUG: For those of us that grew up
going out into the wilds of the world,
where nature was basically untouched,
we got into our souls a sense of beauty.
YVON: That trip had a big influence on both Doug and l.
lt kind of set the course
for what we were going to do later in life.
DOUG: For me, it was the best trip of my life.
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
JEFF: 10 years ago, l found that old footage
of Doug and Yvon's trip to Patagonia back in 1968.
lt was like seeing everything l'd ever wanted to do in my life.
From that point on, l promised myself that someday
l'd find a way to do a trip like theirs.
Years went by before I finally got my chance.
l heard about a boat docked down in Mexico
that was headed for Patagonia.
♪ Ηere's to now ♪
They needed a crew,
and I needed a ride south.
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
My name is Jeff Johnson.
Look in any phone book, and you'll find 10 of me.
l grew up in Danville, California.
You've probably never heard of it,
but it's a long way from the ocean and the mountains.
When I was eight years old,
two things set me on the path that l'm still on.
The first one was when my parents
took me on a camping trip to Yosemite Valley.
l remember looking through a telescope
up at this huge granite wall
and guys climbing thousands of feet up.
l couldn't believe my eyes.
lt was like watching men walk on the moon.
♪ Ηere's to now ♪
That same year I saw surfing for the first time --
on TV -- "Wide World of Sports."
l saw these guys riding massive walls of water.
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
There were people out there
putting themselves in places they weren't supposed to be.
And I knew right then that I wanted to be there, too.
♪ Actually, was thinking, said everything out loud ♪
♪ 'Cause apricot seeds got arsenic ♪
♪ That we don't worry about ♪
♪ Sittin' on your doorstep ♪
♪ Waitin' for you to come home or come out ♪
♪ Well, apple seeds have cyanide ♪
♪ That we don't care about ♪
♪ So here's to now ♪
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
Most of my life, l've figured out ways
to pick up and leave as the seasons change.
l've been a dishwasher, a lifeguard,
a flight attendant --
Whatever it took to pay for the next trip.
ln the last couple years, though, l've found a real job.
l've started planting some roots,
and l've spent a lot less time on the road.
But I never forgot about my dream
of seeing Patagonia with my own eyes.
Sure, I could take my two weeks' vacation time
and just fly down to Patagonia,
but l'll never get a chance like this one again.
lf I don't get on that boat,
l know exactly what l'm going home to.
lf I do, my future is unwritten.
l'm drawn to open country.
lt's where everything becomes clear, where the world makes the most sense.
When I put myself out there, l always return with something new.
A friend once told me,
"The best journeys answer questions
that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask."
l met Yvon for the first time in the South Pacific a few years ago.
l told him about finding that old footage of his
and wanting to get to Patagonia myself.
YVON: Jeff is the real thing.
He's, uh, just a total dirtbag.
He can live out of his car, climbing in the valley.
He's become a really good climber,
rides any kind of waves.
He's just kind of just kind of hustling his way along
so he can stay on the road.
He reminded me a lot about how I used to be.
l met a lot of young people
who asked me what books to read or films to watch.
l think that's a good way to start,
but there's no substitute for just going there.
JEFF: Yvon gave me a photo Doug had taken,
a snapshot of a really remote coastline in Patagonia
with a mountain called Corcovado.
l've been carrying the photo around ever since --
imagining myself on top of the ice-covered peak.
For Yvon and Doug,
the best way to get down there was an old van.
For me, it's turned out to be this 54-foot cutter
called the Sea Bear.
Alan, the captain, grew up in Patagonia,
and he's taking his boat home.
And me, l'm just lucky enough to hitch a ride.
But l've never been on a boat for months at a time,
and my sea legs aren't as solid as I thought.
Stuff moving a lot, lots of movement.
Kind of like the verge of nausea at all times.
l'm at a major low point in my entire life.
l haven't slept much.
l'm tr-- l'm trying sleep right now.
l'm doing great.
l could vomit at any second.
[ Clunk ]
Ow.
YVON: Taking a trip for six months,
you get into the rhythm of it.
lt feels like you can just go on forever doing that.
Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that
because you get all these high-powered plastic surgeons
and CEOs,
and, you know, they pay $80,000 and have sherpas
who put all the ladders in place
and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes,
and you get to a camp
and you don't even have to lay out your sleeping bag.
lt's already laid out with a little chocolate mint on the top.
[ Both laugh ]
And the whole purpose of climbing something like Everest
is to affect some sort of spiritual and physical gain,
but if you compromise the process,
you're an asshole when you start out
and you're an asshole when you get back.
JEFF: Yvon and Doug should be in Patagonia when I get there.
They said l'd be welcome to a warm blanket
and a hot meal on my way to Corcovado.
Doug lives there full-time with his wife Kris
and Yvon will be down there helping them with a big project
they've been working on for almost two decades.
Yvon also told me the ice on Corcovado
could be completely melted
if I get down there any later than December,
and that can make it really difficult to make the summit,
which brings up one minor detail --
l've never climbed on ice before.
Even if I had, you still need a crew for something like this,
and I couldn't think of anyone better
than my two friends Timmy O'Neill and Keith Malloy.
TIM: And you can check it by going like this.
lt's gonna be a little abrupt, but watch. See?
-See how it works like that? -KEITH: Yeah, yeah.
TIM: So if the jugs were to mysteriously disintegrate,
you would drop on to your gri and it would stop you instantly.
JEFF: Timmy has climbed all over the world
and put up record-breaking ascents in Yosemite Valley.
He's climbed El Capitan in 3 1/2 hours.
Even great climbers can take days.
Keith quit the Pro Surf Tour about six years ago,
and since then, he's devoted himself
to discovering new surf spots around the world.
He's been chased by grizzlies in Canada
and shot at by rebels in the Spice lslands.
He's a man of few words,
but if there's any surf down there, this guy will find it.
We thought a good warm-up for Keith
would be the North American wall on El Capitan.
Yvon made the first ascent of this route back in 1 964
when it was considered the most difficult rock climb in the world.
lt's still no cakewalk, which was interesting
because Keith hadn't climbed much at all --
Not to mention, the guy's afraid of heights.
[ Andrew Bird's "Tenuousness" plays ]
♪ First it wanes and then it waxes ♪
♪ So procreate and pay your taxes ♪
♪ Tenuousness ♪
♪ Less seven comes to three ♪
♪ Them, you, us plus eleven ♪
♪ Thank the heavens for their elasticity ♪
♪ And as for those who live and die for astronomy ♪
[ Vocalizing ]
♪ When coprophagia was writ ♪
♪ Know when to stand or when to sit ♪
♪ Can't stand to stand, can't stand to sit ♪
YVON: We felt like climbing had no worth to society whatsoever.
We didn't want to be part of the military industrial complex.
Life was pretty easy in the '60s.
l mean, you could buy an automobile for 15 bucks
and live out of your automobile and camp out in Yosemite.
And then here were these great walls that hadn't been climbed
that were as big and as smooth and as difficult
as any walls in the world.
The biggest one of all
was the North American wall on El Capitan.
My friend Chuck Pratt, Royal Robins,
and Tom Frost and l,
we made the first ascent over a period of 1 0 days.
The wall overhangs the entire way,
and it's questionable whether you could ever get down
if you got halfway up and couldn't go any further.
lt's very similar to the first guys to ride really big waves,
like at Waimea.
They didn't know whether they could get held down
by one of these big waves to where they just die.
Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all,
but we just went for it.
JEFF: Keith and Timmy couldn't make the long Pacific crossing,
but hopefully, they'll be meeting me down in Patagonia.
l have the sunrise watch every morning.
lt's taken me a month
to get into the mind-set of long-distance sailing.
As each day passes,
l feel more detached from my scheduled life back home
and more in rhythm with what surrounds me.
Whoa!
MAN: Mast down! Mast down on deck!
All hands on deck!
J EFF: This morning during my watch,
our 70-foot mast was ripped out and snapped like a twig.
We were adrift in the middle of nowhere.
Everything was down in the ocean, smashing against the hull.
l thought it was obvious that we'd cut everything loose.
But Alan had a different plan.
He came up on deck with a knife in his hand
and announced that everything would be coming back on board.
12 long hours later,
we finally have the broken mast and everything else on board.
lt turned out a defective piece of rigging was to blame.
But it was hard not to feel
like I should have seen some early sign of this.
Tonight we are too tired to eat.
We don't have enough fuel to get to mainland Chile,
so our only option is to motor 400 miles to Rapa Nui,
otherwise known as Easter lsland.
YVON: The word adventure has just gotten overused.
For me, adventure is when everything goes wrong.
That's when the adventure starts.
[ Man singing in native language ]
[ Group singing in native language ]
A month and a half at sea,
and we have finally limped in
to the most remote island in the world, Rapa Nui.
[ Singing continues ]
We'd only planned to be on Rapa Nui
for a few days to resupply,
but it looks like we're gonna be here a lot longer than that.
The first person I met is a girl named Makohe.
l saw her teaching some kids to surf on the inside of the bay.
She was born and raised here
and she's promised to show me around the island.
lt's nearly December, but for the first time,
l'm not as worried about getting to Corcovado
before the ice melts.
[ Singing ends ]
MAKOHE: Coming to Rapa Nui is like going back to the past
and the people, they have, like, their history in their blood.
My mom, she used to live in the time when the plane came over the island
and dropped something in the ocean --
the letters, supplies.
JEFF: A lot's changed, huh?
MAKOHE: Yeah. Many things.
Yeah, when we were kids, like, the entertainment
was to watch the plane coming and going.
And we would sit in this, like, big tree
that we had in the corner of my house somewhere,
and would bring sandwiches,
and we'd sit and we'd watch the plane come down
for the whole time it was there.
JEFF: That was the entertainment?
-Everybody watched? -MAKOHE: Yes.
JEFF: So you're the first woman surfer in Rapa Nui?
MAKOHE: When I start surfing,
there's only these guys in the water,
and l've never seen a woman surfing in the water.
And I told my brother, "Can I go there?"
'Cause he had so much fun.
He said, "No, it's only for men."
And then one day I told him, "Oh, take me there
'cause I want to see."
And I went and it was fun.
And I was the only woman for, like, a long time,
maybe 10 years.
When I am in big cities surrounded by cars or smog...
l just close my eyes, and I think about Rapa Nui.
The blue sky, the nice people, the ocean, the waves --
l just think about that in my mind,
and that makes me strong, just having Rapa Nui.
l don't want Rapa Nui to change. l want it to be like this.
JEFF: Days have turned into weeks.
When the sea is calm, we work on the boat.
When it comes to life,
l explore the volcanic coastline with Makohe.
This island has taken us in like family.
♪ You're like a ro-o-o-ller coaster ♪
♪ You got heavy-metal wings ♪
♪ You could make a dead man scream ♪
♪ You're like a ro-o-o-ller coaster ♪
As the weeks pass,
l tell Makohe about my plan to climb Corcavado.
Without hesitation, she asks if she can come along.
At this point, l wonder if any of us
will make it to Patagonia on the boat,
but I promise her l'll ask Alan
if we can squeeze one more person on board.
♪ Roller coaster, it was the worst of times ♪
♪ Because you lift me up so high, high, high ♪
♪ lt's the most unbelievable ride ♪
Yvon had told me about Jared Diamond's book Collapse
and how Diamond presents Easter lsland
as a cautionary tale --
a grim example of a society
that exceeded its resources and suffered the consequences.
YVON: When the first Europeans set foot on Easter lsland
in 17-something,
all the Moai were all standing upright.
But as the population increased,
the people started separating out into different little tribes,
putting all their time and energy into, you know, outdoing each other,
making larger and larger Moais.
And that became the central focus of the entire society.
lt took priority over survival, almost.
And eventually they would cut down their entire forests
to transport these giant carved stones.
And this -- this became such an obsession
that they depleted the island's resources,
and it led to tribal warfare, cannibalism,
and eventually the population of the island of 30,000
was finally reduced down to 111 people.
l've met Jared Diamond a few times
and talked about his book Collapse
and how all the different societies of the past
that he's studied that have collapsed,
and what does that mean for our society,
and in the end he really says
that we're making all the same mistakes
that all of these other societies have made.
JEFF: As the story of Easter lsland goes,
so goes the planet.
lt's a haunting thought,
and l'm beginning to see these statues a little differently.
l remember a quote I read one time from Aldous Huxley.
lt never resonated with me much until now.
He wrote, "Men do not learn very much
from the lessons of history,
and that is the most important of all the lessons of history."
There wasn't a harbor on the island big enough
to get in to fix our mast.
So we have to figure out how to do the repair
while anchored offshore.
♪ When the winter rains come pouring down ♪
♪ On that new home of mine ♪
♪ Will you think of me and wonder ♪
♪ lf l'm fine? ♪
Alan got a hold of some old plans sailors have used for centuries
when forced to remast while at sea.
With no proper boat-building equipment,
these archaic blueprints are our only option.
♪ Will I still be in your eyes ♪
♪ And on your mind? ♪
♪ Now I'm going back to my hometown ♪
♪ On a journey through the past ♪
♪ And I won't be back till February comes ♪
♪ Ooooooooh ♪
We'd spent a month getting ready to hoist our mast,
and we've used everything we can get our hands on.
Our jury-rigged mast, half the size of the original,
weighs over 500 pounds.
Stepping it to the deck in a rolling sea could be disastrous.
One snapped line could set off a chain reaction,
bringing everything down, taking us out with it.
When the wind eases, we'll take our best shot.
lf we fail, it'll be the end of my trip.
♪ When the winter rains come pourin' down ♪
♪ On that new home of mine ♪
TOGETHER: Whoo!
♪ Will I still be in your eyes ♪
♪ And on your mind? ♪
Almost a month on Rapa Nui.
Soon we will pull anchor
and start our 2,300-mile crossing to Chile.
l've always felt better on the move.
As soon as I learned to walk, l was running.
Today though, I wouldn't mind staying here forever.
lt's hard to leave a place l really connect with.
l tell myself l'll be back,
but I know there's a good chance l never will.
The good news is, that question I asked Alan
about whether or not we had any extra space on the boat --
Well, we do,
and Makohe is coming with me to Corcavado.
YVON: You get to the top of a wall, and there is nothing up there.
Lionel Terray, the great French climber,
called it "Conquistadors of the Useless."
Yeah, the end result is absolutely useless,
but every time I travel, l learn something new and l...
Hopefully I get to be a better person.
YVON: When you've had a whole life in the outdoors,
you realize that you have a sense of responsibility
to protect these wild places.
JEFF: After a 16-day crossing from Rapa Nui,
we finally arrive in Chile.
This marks the end of Alan's 10,000-mile voyage from Seattle,
After years of being gone,
it is good to see he's made it home.
The Sea Bear will be months in port waiting for a new mast,
so Makohe and I decide to keep moving south.
Makohe has a friend from Pichelemu, a town south of here.
He's a big-wave rider named Ramon Navarro,
and his roots here go back generations.
She thinks he'll have a place for us to stay.
And since his dad is a fisherman,
he might have ideas on finding us another boat to Corcovado.
RAMON : And my mom say my grandpa,
he traded the land for one horse.
JEFF: Right in here?
RAM ON: Yeah, all where my house it is, and all around.
50 acres, maybe more, for one horse.
My whole family come from here, so I have my roots in here.
l see a lot around the world
what happen when the people come in with money
and change everything,
but we don't want to change
the best and the most beautiful place we have in here.
We gonna fight for that.
♪ Wouldn’t you Iike to be out on the rolling sea ♪
♪ With onIy the sky above you for a roof? ♪
♪ What if your friends were there ♪
♪ Laugh at all your jokes and chill ♪
♪ Sweet soft air within you, wouldn’t that be good? ♪
♪ You know it wouId ♪
♪ Wouldn't you like to find yourseIf there sometime ♪
♪ Ducking when the bow swings your way? ♪
♪ Whenever we make plans ♪
JEFF: Getting good surf when I travel
has always come secondary
to the experience of just being on the road.
Βut on our second day, we woke up to a big, perfect swell
and no one in the water.
The last wave I rode that day
turned out to be the longest wave of my life.
l'll never forget it.
♪ Nothing escapes the rolling sea ♪
♪ Not the past nor you or me ♪
Gracias.
Ramon's parents watched the ocean change
when big commercial fishing companies arrived
and destroyed the local fisheries.
His father taught him to work hard, live simply,
and have a deep respect for the ocean.
[ Speaking Spanish ]
JEFF: Ramon tells me that today the biggest threat they face
are the pulp mills popping up along the Chilean Coast.
JEFF: Here I am in the city after three months at sea.
This place has more people than Los Angeles.
Right now they're building a 3-million-square-foot shopping mall
and an office tower
that will be the tallest building on the continent.
l find myself thinking about the collapse of Rapa Nui.
Growth is inevitable,
but can we maintain this momentum in the long-term?
Being here reminds me of my life back home,
and l'm beginning to think about my own use of resources.
Yvon told me before I left that if we come through Santiago,
we should visit his friend Juan Pablo Orrego.
He's made it his life's work to stop urban sprawl in wild Chile
and is fighting for the fading way of life
of its indigenous people.
My old friend Keith Malloy has finally caught up with me.
During our climb last year on El Capitan,
he tore up his knee pretty bad and had to get surgery.
On the mend, just before this trip,
he caught one of the biggest waves of his life at Mavericks.
l thought Timmy would be with him, but he's off climbing somewhere,
so I hope he shows up before we get to Corcovado.
We've come to a point where the road ends
and the land begins to break apart.
So we found a local boat to take us on the last leg to Patagonia.
What I see here is the realization of a dream
40 years in the making.
lt all started with that trip Doug and Yvon took in 1 968.
This is Conservacion Patagonica,
and it stretches as far as the eye can see.
♪ All my friends are getting oIder ♪
♪ I guess I must be, too ♪
♪ Without their Iove and kindness ♪
♪ I don't know what I'll do ♪
♪ Oh, the wine bottle’s haIf-empty ♪
♪ And the money's all been spent ♪
♪ We're a cross between our parents ♪
♪ And hippies in a tent ♪
♪ Love calls just like wild birds ♪
♪ Well, it's another day ♪
♪ Spring wind blew my list of things to do away ♪
For the last 18 years,
Doug and his wife Kris,
along with Yvon,
have dedicated their lives
to one of the largest private land-conservation projects
in the world -- Conservacion Patagonica.
In the early '90s, Doug and Kris began raising money
and using their own life savings
to acquire large tracts of wild lands in Chile and Argentina.
With the help of hundreds of passionate workers and volunteers,
they've succeeded in protecting entire ecosystems
and fostering sustainable farming and ranching programs.
Added together,
the amount of land they've put into conservation
is bigger than Yellowstone National Park.
♪ Well, it's another day ♪
♪ Spring wind blew my list of things to do away ♪
l've arrived over a month late, but Yvon and Doug are still here.
l'd heard about their project, but I had no idea just how big it was.
l've always thought of their trip here 40 years ago
as an adventure,
but now I realize it was a turning point.
YVON: We didn't change our lives overnight,
but it had a big influence on me.
For me, it was the best trip of my life.
The whole history of Latin America is Conquistadores.
lt's not much different from the States,
but in the States,
at least we don't trust the government,
and so we have a history of philanthropy.
So Doug comes down here, and he says,
"l'm going to create a national park,
and l'm going to give it back to you Chileans."
And they're going, "Give me a break."
[ Laughs ]
"People don't do that.
You know, there has to be another reason."
l think first and foremost,
people only protect those things they love,
and you can't love something
unless you inherently identify with that.
That's certainly one of the reasons we ended up here.
We have over 2 million acres of land put into conservation,
and people think that's a lot of land,
but really we're on the losing team here.
DOUG: First of all, you never know if you're doing the right thing.
You got to, you got to temper all your thinking that way.
But the way I see it,
with land conservation, say, of this type,
is that the risk of something negative coming from this
seems to be rather small
compared with taking a exploitive approach.
lf we make some errors,
they are going to be rather small.
Βecause l'm sure we are making errors.
The thing is to minimize those errors.
l think it leaves open possibilities for future generations.
lt doesn't seem to be worth wasting a lot of energy
on attempting to rewrite the past.
l just realized that at least what I was doing
was making a lot of stuff that nobody needed
and pushing a consumerist society.
So I went to do something else.
YVON : We're really, really different.
We have the same viewpoint of the world and where it's going.
Different approach to it.
He's more bothered, probably,
about the end of society and mankind and stuff than I am
because he wants to do something about it.
And l'm just kind of a laid-back Zen Βuddhist and just say,
"Well, l'll do what I can, and so be it."
-DOUG: Well... -YVON: [ Laughs ]
DOUG: Go ahead, tell my buddy Yvon --
that good Buddhist --
has to take his Bodhisattva Vows,
which means that before self-enlightenment,
one has to end the suffering in the world.
MAKOHE: I never knew about Douglas before,
and many people told me that he was a bad man
because he bought all this land from Chile
and he's taking all the land for him.
That's what people said,
like now, because they don't know him.
They don't know what he's doing.
And for me to get to see that,
he's an example that many people should follow.
The solution, l think it's in all of us,
and I learned that in the South with Douglas.
ln a way, I saw the future of Rapa Nui, too.
DOUG: Here we're germinating from seeds,
and different species.
First of all, we're just doing general restoration work
and reforestation.
Here we have Alerce.
They're from Lago Negro and different places.
Since you can't find these species in regular nurseries in any numbers,
we realized that we had to start our own tree nursery.
♪ Blink or not blink Iong enough ♪
♪ Now you're sIeeping ♪
♪ Blink or not blink Iong enough ♪
♪ Now you're sIeeping ♪
KRIS: During the Pinochet era,
Chile awarded the rights, the water rights,
to the majority of their rivers to private enterprise --
Something that you would find in almost no other country.
And the result of that is the Spanish energy company Endessa,
they have been rather methodically going through
and establishing energy projects
in the form of dams on rivers throughout Chile.
JEFF: I saw what Kris was talking about
up north on the BioBio River.
This was once a fully functioning ecosystem
where the river, forest,
and people depended on one another.
Juan Pablo says these dam projects are a symptom,
but he also says the true cause of the problem
is the development model.
l'm thinking of those looming high-rises in Santiago, all lit up.
l'm thinking of Ramon
and his talk about the price tag of progress.
l read that the American video-game habit
annually consumes as much power as the entire city of San Diego.
So l'm also thinking about all those little things that add up
to keep us comfortable or just amused.
And l'm beginning to see the real consequences.
Better late than never,
Timmy O'Neill always comes through,
and today, 2 days before we set off to Corcovado,
he's arrived fresh from another long stint of ice climbing
and running rivers.
DOUG: All in here, there are big long beaches and so forth.
l'd say not as much up in here,
and especially there is where you get exposed,
and there's kind of the open ocean out there,
and you get these swells that are kind of unimpeded
that coming in there, and they hit right in this area here.
And if you got the boat, you can, depending what kind of weather it is.
Hopefully you get some kind of storm.
You get some storm swells.
JEFF: You ever been in this area here?
DOUG: Yeah.
You want to just trek along here,
and you'll go comparatively fast up the gully,
and then you'll get slowed down,
as it starts into the thing, and this gets up...
JEFF: Doug is the only person who has ever stood on top of Corcovado.
ln the early '90s,
he and a friend set out to do the first ascent.
lt took 'em three long days just to get to the base.
When they reached the top of the glacier
below the steep summit pitches,
his climbing partner decided to turn back.
So Doug climbed the rest of it alone,
soloing the last few hundred feet of technical ice without a rope.
YVON: l must say, that's --
that's pretty wild what he did.
You got to think about not only getting up,
but you got to think about getting down.
There's no anchors to rappel or anything like that.
He had to down-climb a lot of that.
That was a great climb. lt's never been repeated.
♪ Lay me down ♪
♪ I've got blisters on my heel ♪
♪ Blisters on most everything I need to move ♪
JEFF: l love this old son of a bitch.
YVON: You know where I want to be right now...
is right here.
Nowhere else, not in the future, not in the past.
Look at that. Look at that fat guy.
JEFF: Oh, my God. Don't lose the juice.
[ Laughs ]
YVON: Oh. Oh, man.
This is what l've worked for all of my life.
l'm going to be 70 next November,
and it was a good life, though, l'll tell you.
l have no regrets.
lt's, uh...
l just live for the moment.
JEFF: We're making our final passage to Corcovado.
And this morning, Yvon surprised us all by hopping on the boat.
He's been a climber for over 50 years.
He just couldn't help it.
Who knows? This could be his last big climb.
We are two days out,
and the clouds have finally lifted from the mountain.
After five months of travel, l'm finally here.
lt's hard for me to believe that in only a few days,
we will be up there standing on the summit.
YVON: I think you are gonna like climbing.
MAKOHE: Have you climbed with women before?
YVON : They're great climbers.
-MAKOHE: Really? -YVON: Yeah, I think so.
MAKOHE: Do you think l will be a good climber?
YVON: Yeah.
So, you always want your ice ax on the uphill
because it's a position of balance.
This is how to balance.
Easy to follow, right?
JEFF: Keith has figured out that the Corcovado Coast
is more sheltered from swell than we had originally thought.
Turns out this place needs a really specific swell direction
from the south.
Βut Keith got a report of some movement off Cape Horn,
so he's opted to stay back and scour the coast for waves
while the rest of us head up the river.
♪ Oh, got to see, got to know right now ♪
♪ What's that writing on your everything ♪
♪ It isn't anything at all ♪
♪ Oh, got to see, got to know right now ♪
♪ What's that writing on your shelf ♪
♪ ln the bathrοoms and the bad motels ♪
♪ No one really caring for it at all ♪
♪ Not the gravity plan ♪
♪ Εarly, early in the morning ♪
♪ It pulls all on down my sore feet ♪
♪ I want to go back to sIeep ♪
Now that we've followed the river to its source,
we have to cross the forest along four glacial lakes
until we have a clear shot at the summit
from the northeast side.
♪ It all will fall, fall right into pIace ♪
♪ As fruit drops, flesh, it sags ♪
♪ Εverything will fall right into pIace ♪
♪ When we die, some sink and some lay ♪
♪ But at least I don't see you float away ♪
♪ And on spilt milk, sex, and weight ♪
♪ It all will fall, fall right into pIace ♪
YVON: We really underestimated this thing.
TIM: l think higher was the call.
Well, I think even just a little higher,
you get more valleys, but you get less jungle.
lt gets thicker as you get toward the river, you know?
YVON: Oh, yeah.
TIM: I would even think about going back.
YVON: Oh, God.
TIM: Mileage? I don't know.
Maybe three miles,
but hours -- seemingly endless.
YVON: This is the worst. This isn't climbing.
Βut, you know, you could take a helicopter
right to the snow line and climb it,
but that's cheating.
l guess this is what makes the climb -- this crap.
JEFF: We have rock-hopped and bushwhacked
10 hours a day for the last few days.
Sometimes we've been forced to backtrack
and start all over again.
We've been in this section of the new park for three days now.
l've spent a lot of time in places I thought were wild,
but l've never seen anything like this.
This is probably the craziest part of Chile
that l've seen so far, I think.
l don't think very many humans have been up here.
♪ La la la-la ♪
♪ La la la ♪
♪ La la la-la ♪
♪ La la la ♪
♪ La la la-la ♪
l think we can do this whole thing on this ridge
and not even touch snow.
TIM: On the ridge to the left of the snow?
JEFF: That we're looking at, yeah.
TIM: Moving on snow will be easier than moving on really lose debris.
-JEFF: Yeah. -TIM: I mean safer, essentially.
But the problem is if you fall on snow,
you slip down --
-JEFF: You could die. -TIM: And die.
JEFF: Snow kind of scares me a little bit.
TIM: Have you done much on it?
JEFF: l've done none.
-TIM: Zero? -JEFF: Zero.
TIM: Why am I finding this out now?
JEFF: l've told you this a long time ago.
TIM: A long time ago? That was a long time ago.
l forget.
lt's like Makohe has an excuse. She's from Rapa Nui.
lt's a really remote island in the middle of the Pacific.
JEFF: What's my excuse?
TIM: Your excuse is just ignorance, I guess.
And that's not an excuse, Jeff.
JEFF: But I told you of my ignorance,
so you're not ignorant of my ignorance.
TIM: That doesn't absolve you of it, though.
That only makes me knowledgeable of your ignorance.
What l'm saying, Jeff, is that this is serious.
J EFF: We got to camp last night around dark,
and woke up at 2:00 a.m. to push for the summit.
Now, after months -- years, really --
l'm finally approaching my goal.
♪ Do you still sing of the mountain bed ♪
♪ We made of limbs and leaves? ♪
♪ Do you still sigh there near the sky ♪
♪ Where the holly berry bleeds? ♪
♪ You laughed as I covered you over with leaves ♪
♪ Face, breast, hips, and thighs ♪
♪ You smiled when I said the leaves ♪
♪ Were just the color of your eyes ♪
Keith is somewhere below us searching the Corcovado coast for surf.
From up here, I see fresh swell on the horizon.
Even if the surf is small,
l know he is finding what he came down here for --
Solitude.
♪ Rosin smells and turpentine smells ♪
♪ From eucalyptus and pine ♪
♪ Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed ♪
♪ Where tangled wood vines twine ♪
♪ Trees held us in on all four sides ♪
♪ So thick we couId not see ♪
♪ I couId not see any wrong in you ♪
♪ And you saw none in me ♪
♪ Your arm was brown against the ground ♪
♪ Your cheeks part of the sky ♪
♪ Your fingers pIayed with grassy moss ♪
♪ As limber you did lie ♪
♪ Your stomach moved beneath your shirt ♪
♪ And your knees were in the air ♪
♪ Your feet played games with mountain rοots ♪
♪ As you lay thinking there ♪
♪ Below us the trees grew clumps of trees ♪
♪ Raised families of trees, and they ♪
♪ As proud as we, tossed their heads in the wind ♪
♪ And flung good seeds away ♪
♪ The sun was hot and the sun was bright ♪
♪ Down in the valley below ♪
♪ Where peopIe starved and hungry for Iife ♪
♪ So empty come and go ♪
JEFF: Off Belay!
At the edge of the ice field, my worries have become a reality.
Our delay in Rapa Nui has pushed this climb deeper
into the Southern Hemisphere's summer.
There's no ice left on the summit,
and from here, the rock doesn't look solid.
This climb is going to be a lot more dangerous than we thought.
TIM: lt looks like we have 10 pitches of really rotten rock.
MAKOH E: lt looks like all the rocks are just gonna fall down.
YVON: lt's gonna be a little sketchy.
You know, we got to get the team up.
You guys are the fastest,
so you guys ought to just go -- Go for it.
l'm happy.
-JEFF: You sure? -YVON : Yeah.
JEFF: We rope up and prepare to make our move
from solid ice to crumbling rock.
We are unsafe here at best.
Timmy and I hoped that the rock would get better
as we got higher,
but three hours later,
it felt like we were standing on the slanted roof of a high-rise
with nothing but marbles under our boots.
We were only 200 feet from the top, but we had to face the facts.
l'm not sure if we should continue
because it seems literally like the next pitch above me
is the worst unconsolidated nightmare l've ever seen.
We've climbed about 500 feet of this bullshit.
And the worst is right in front of me.
These loose boulders here
hold -- Oh, my Lord -- hold this block
which holds this block
which holds our equipment in the crack.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rock.
This isn't a good option.
TIM: Hey, Jeff!
lt doesn't seem like it's worth risking my life,
but we still have to get down.
[ Vocalizing ]
JEFF: l've come all this way
and have given myself to this trip completely.
l'd pictured myself on top of Corcovado --
just like those guys l saw through a telescope
in Yosemite Valley when I was a kid.
And now l'm backing down,
just a couple hundred feet short of the summit.
l wouldn't take back anything l experienced along the way,
but it's hard to shake it --
those last two pitches that went unclimbed.
[ Love as Laughter's "Coconut Flakes" plays ]
♪ Grab some grapes and leaves, man ♪
♪ You can never tell ♪
♪ When you'll have to change your face ♪
♪ And hide your trophies well ♪
♪ Comin' down the mountain ♪
♪ Or goin' to your home ♪
♪ The village has evacuated ♪
♪ Now you got to roam ♪
♪ Your feet couId start to moan ♪
♪ And your eyes don't see too cIear ♪
♪ The darkest dreams couId come ♪
♪ And shake your faith to steer ♪
♪ Remember the sun ♪
YVON: When those guys came back, they were pretty shot
and pretty discouraged that they couldn't climb it.
Any mountain, at certain times, is safe,
and at other times, it's super dangerous.
We just happened to be there at the wrong time.
Maybe Jeff and Tim were still bothered
by the idea that they couldn't climb it.
So it's kind of like the quest for the Holy Grail.
Well, you know, who gives a shit what the Holy Grail is?
lt's the quest is what's important.
The transformation is within yourself.
That's what's important.
JEFF: lt's been nearly six months
since I left home to climb Corcovado.
But getting shut down doesn't mean my trip is over.
The biggest project for Conservacion Patagonica
is even further south,
and that is also where the dams are to be built.
Βut the locals are getting more and more organized in their opposition.
They have created a grass-roots organization
called Sin Represas, which means "without dams."
We've been seeing their signs and banners everywhere.
♪ Remember the sun before you awake ♪
l'm humbled by this place and inspired by its people.
The gauchos work with Doug as park rangers,
and I've asked Yvon
if we could spend our last few days here working with them.
YVON: The protest started with one gaucho
in the little town of Cochrane
who heard about the power company's plan
to build these dams on the Baker and the Pasqua River.
And so he decided to go to the capital
to demand that the government stop this construction.
JEFF: Word got out as he passed each farm and ranch,
and in just two days,
hundreds of riders had joined him.
Four days later,
when they arrived at the steps of the power company in protest,
there were over 300 riders.
This new park used to be a sheep ranch,
but the livestock was removed from this section
so the wildlife can come back.
The gauchos have been taking down the old fences,
and we volunteered to help them in their work.
YVON: When we started,
we had 400 miles of fencing to take down.
That's a lot of fencing.
Now it's down to less than 300 miles.
Hopefully in a few years, it'll all come down.
JEFF: Almost immediately,
the guanaco and all the other wild animals
come back and take over the territory.
lt's a small but satisfying restoration of the natural order of things.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
MAKOH E: [ Singing in native language ]
JEFF: In a few days,
Makohe will head home to her family in Rapa Nui.
Timmy will head back to Yosemite.
And Keith will head north to look for surf in Canada.
This journey was like going back in time...
Like seeing North America before it became dominated by industry.
But for these people,
it's not some nostalgic trip into the past.
lt's their present.
Their hard work and ability to live simply with the land
is proof that we can learn from tradition.
These people have shown me that if you love a place,
you have a duty to protect it,
and to love a place, you must know it first.
This is one of the rivers
the gauchos have been trying to protect,
and where one of five dams is supposed to go in.
The plan is to have power flow from here
to big cities hundreds of miles away.
l'm certainly no expert,
but those fallen statues in Rapa Nui
are seared in my memory.
Lying face down in the dirt,
it's like they're trying to tell us something.
l left home six months ago
to follow in the footsteps of my heroes.
A bit of surfing, some climbing, lots of unspoiled terrain.
Pretty simple, really.
Well, I got all that,
but along the way, l've also begun to make connections
that I never thought much about.
ln these far corners of the world,
l am seeing the effects of encroaching progress.
And most of this has to do with overconsumption elsewhere.
lt's easy for us to blindly consume
when we don't see the effect it has on other places.
YVON : The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life.
lt's so easy to make it complex.
Βut what's important is leading an examined life
because most of the damage caused by humans
is caused unintentionally, I think.
DOUG: I n response to people who say, "You can't go back,"
say, "Well, what happens if you get to the cliff,
and do you take one step forward
or you do a 1 80-degree turn and take one step forward?
Which way are you going? Which is progress?
YVON : The solution may be for a lot of the world's problems
is to turn around and take a forward step.
You can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work.
JEFF: My whole life, l've been drawn to open country.
l always return home a little different.
But I know now we can no longer take it for granted.
When open country is gone, we will be gone with it.
DOUG: One day, if you've been climbing all your life,
you're going to get to your last climb.
JEFF: l thought the trip was over,
but Doug and Yvon showed me this unclimbed peak
on the edge of the new park that they tried to climb last year.
They want to give it one more shot,
and they've asked me to come along.
What do you want to call the route?
YVON: Nothing. Just climb it and walk away.
lt doesn't matter anymore.
Each of us in our own way got to do something.
Save your soul, you know?
Whatever that is.
[ Zipper unzips ]
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
♪ Actually, was thinking, said everything out loud ♪
♪ 'Cause apricot seeds got arsenic ♪
♪ That we don't worry about ♪
♪ Sittin' on your doorstep ♪
♪ Waitin' for you to come home or come out ♪
♪ Well, apple seeds have cyanide ♪
♪ That we don't care about ♪
♪ So here's to now ♪
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
♪ Building built sturdy growed up in every town ♪
♪ As the people get aged and their bellies get sagged ♪
♪ Well, the peopIe fall right out ♪
♪ 'Cause pride is really falling ♪
♪ I'm proud that I'm not proud ♪
♪ As the people get aged and their bellies get sagged ♪
♪ Well, their instincts all fall out ♪
♪ Ηere's to now ♪
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
♪ The bus boy's your onIy brother ♪
♪ When he drinks, he talks too much ♪
♪ Ηe seemed... ♪
♪ But at a quarter to 3:00 ♪
♪ Well, I could see he's a IittIe bit touched ♪
♪ Actually, was thinking, said everything out loud ♪
♪ 'Cause apricot seeds carry arsenic ♪
♪ That we don't care about ♪
♪ Ηere's to now ♪
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
♪ Actually, was thinking, said everything out loud ♪
♪ Actually, was thinking ♪
♪ So here's to right now ♪
♪ Ηere's to right now ♪
♪ Ηere is to now ♪
♪ Will you remember me the way I was ♪
♪ When I was free, an open book ♪
♪ That we couId read together? ♪
♪ Will I quash your dreams ♪
♪ The mockingbird with broken wings ♪
♪ A burned-οut barn, an empty swing forever ♪
♪ Time turns and, man, it files ♪
♪ A waterfall of lullabies ♪
♪ A smiling bird with crying eyes forget her ♪
♪ Moonlight upon her face ♪
♪ A storybook of empty space ♪
♪ Where you and l feeI out of pIace together ♪
[ Vocalizing ]
♪ Will we remember this the way it was or how it is? ♪
♪ What we love or what we miss forever? ♪
♪ Will we turn loose at Iast ♪
♪ The schools of thought from nets we've cast ♪
♪ And let our boats go sailing past untethered? ♪
♪ One fine morning ♪
♪ The machine is gonna cut us down ♪
♪ One fine morning ♪
♪ The machines are gonna cut us down ♪