This Mountain Life (2018) - full transcript

Subtitles transcribed by rogard

I've never used GPS,
I use my orientation skills.

I've always enjoyed
walking in the mountains,

the swish-swish-swish sound of
the lovely powdery stuff

It's fluffy and moves easily
and pleasant to walk through.

Okay, nine.

The first hour or two is careful
measuring, padding and plotting.

25.

Drafting the line, this
is a somewhat careful process

because it's so easy
to make a mistake.

OK.



It takes about 12 hours.

This is it.

The idea normally is to try
and get it done in one session.

So it's about the same as
running marathon, I would think.

It depends, of course, on
how fast you run the marathon.

At an age when most
people think about retiring,

while I feel like I'm just starting.

I think my life has been largely wasted,
trying to do the wrong thing,

trying to be good at the
wrong thing, trying to

be too good at too many
things when I was young.

When I did my first drawing, I was very,
very surprised, such a simple process.

Just walking around in the snow can produce
such an impressive result.

The plan is to traverse the coast mountains
of British Columbia in Alaska.

Just myself and my mom.



It would be nice to do it in five months.
I think it will be six months.

But we figure we will actually have to
cover terrain of about 2,300 kilometers.

There will be ski traversing
the coastal mountains.

I am so honored that
she wants to do it with me.

She called me and she said:
"Oh, I've been thinking,

I just came up with this idea.

I don't know if you think
you'd do it with me."

She was very careful about how...

It didn't pop out right away

And then she says:

"Would you do the
coastal traverse with me?"

And silence, and I thought, "Yes!"

It's like, "Yeah, that would be so cool.
I'll be 60.

Yeah, let's do it.
That will be my birthday present."

My mom is super hardcore,
but she's also very humble.

I think she's aware of her
capabilities and her limitations and...

She doesn't actually care
what people think of her, I guess.

She'll be the first to talk about
her fears of water and heights.

I'm afraid of being submerged in water.

I do not like that.

My head under water is not acceptable.

Do not use in high winds, rapid currents,
open water or dangerous tides.

Follow these safety rules
to avoid drowning.

For the big rivers, we will be using
just the little children's raft.

We will use avalanche shovel for paddles.

Those will be big rivers.
They will be cold.

I'm not headlessly going.
I'll make sure we cross

somewhere as safe as possible.

She is dehydrating and
planning out six months worth of food.

We need at least
5500 calories a day.

Proteins and fats must be
a big part of that.

For me, it's hard enough to just plan out
what I'm gonna have for dinner,

but to plan out 180 dinners
and lunches

and breakfast and snacks, it's huge.

Um-hum, those are,
I did those last year.

I didn't catch them this year.

I started dehydrating the food

about a year ago, in September.

This is probably one third
of the pile for the six months.

I don't have a lot of money, right?

I have time.

We have to carry everything that we need.

We're going to try to get
resupplies every 5 to 10 days.

So that means that we have to carry all of our
food in between that, our stove, fuel, clothes,

glacier gear, because there*s gonna be
crevasses. We need to be prepared for that.

We will be sleeping in a
two person one wall tent,

and we will have down sleeping bags.

Alright, let's see.

- There could be two moms in there.
- Yes.

Yes. There will be a lot of room for my thermos
and hot water and lots of water bottles in there.

The first two months will be
be a little difficult with hygiene.

You know, do you really want to wash your
underwear in a cold creek in February?

I'm thinking, probably not, so...

With our food drops, we might have
a spare pair of socks and underwear

and base layer because
it might be crusty

by the time we
get to that food drop.

The thing I will be missing
the most when I'm out there

will be my little avalanche dog.

His name is Summit.

And... I've been training dogs for the
last probably 15 years training dogs.

So he's my third dog.

He's the best,

and I will miss him a lot..

It's
probably a hiking trail.

So there's this way, I...

It started snowing and
hopefully it will snow a lot

before we start and not
too much while we're out there.

But this winter is supposed
to be pretty stormy.

When I'm on a climb, colors
become more vibrant.

My hearing becomes more acute.

I just sense the structure
of the ice and the snow.

I like to think of the analogy.

You see a wolf loping through the forest.

You know that that wolf is aware
of everything around them.

You get into that awareness.

You're drawn absolutely into the present.

We spend a lot of our time
so removed from our body

and everything it can provide,

and it's nice to be the wolf for a bit.

I think I was called
to mountain climbing,

just looking on the western horizon,
growing up in Calgary

and seeing the mountains on the horizon.

I was riding a Greyhound bus
back from visiting my grandmother,

To getting picked up by mom.

I was nine years old.

There was a girl on the bus
who was in her twenties.

She took time to read me passages
and showing me pictures

of one of the really great
classic books on alpinism

called The White Spider.

Four guys coming together
on the north face of the Eiger

and bonding in partnership.

Using the rope to get up a wall
that no one else had climbed to that point.

Here were pictures of men doing their
best and trying to help each other

to get up this wall.

You know, Casperic, spending the night
in an uncomfortable position

supporting Vorg's back,
so Vorg could get sleep.

I just hadn't seen that much
sacrifice and support

in most of the males that were in my life.

And here were some guys
doing heroic things.

And that resonated
in my bloodstream.

All boys want to be heroes.

Here were men being heroes.

I was like: "Okay. This is something
that I want to experience in my life.

I want to be a mountain
climber, even though...

I didn't know much more about it
at that time than to say the word.

I really didn't know what was
involved in being a mountain climber.

But I started paying attention to it
and seeking it out.

My family is Metis. We're half
Indian and half Scots and French.

I have experienced prejudice in my life
because of my heritage.

You know, I'm a brown-eyed,
brown-skinned, chug, native neechee.

The young guy kind of labored under that.

Trying to be good enough
in the white world.

What's interesting about climbing
culture, is it's largely tribal.

That sense of tribe, which isn’t really
super strong in Metis culture,

because our religion is
Roman Catholicism,

but the sense of tribe is really powerful

experiencing it in the
climbing community.

I don't want to call
mountains an addiction.

I think I prefer to call them
call them a return.

I don't know.
A spring or a fountain.

A mountain will lift you physically,
intellectually and spiritually lift you up.

The moments of awe, and I'll
even use the word grace,

that you can experience up there.

They soothe your soul,
they rock your soul.

A lot of people refer to their
mountaineering as going to church.

I'm not interested in dying.

I'm up there,
because I want to live.

I personally think that the human body
was designed to be used really hard

for two or three days at a time maybe,
maybe a week,

and then to be rested.
I think we're built for it.

Looking at my buddies that I climb with,
I see some of them

come up with things that
they wouldn’t be able to do

at sea level. They become heroes.

And I don't think
I'll ever fatigue

of seeing human beings
accomplish the heroic.

That's really beautiful.

It's actually not that bad,
even with everything in it.

There is no way that we
can do this trip and not change.

You know, it will change
who we are as people.

And I think it will
change us for the better.

I'm excited to see what I'll learn about
myself and what we'll learn about each other.

And I'm excited to do
this trip with my mom.

No more logistics,
no more planning.

All I have to do is walk and ski.

We believe that we can pull it off,

but there are so many unknowns.

So many things can go wrong.

Facing a whole winter out there, 24/7,

through all the storms.

So much of it is out of our control.

What happened
to the last of our water?

And we should use it
before it freezes.

We are trying to get as
many food drops as possible,

hopefully once a week.

I'm sure we will maybe lose a drop.

That's my fear.

That we'll be short on food.

You should eat.
It's getting cold fast.

Yummy goopy.

Mind you, everything tastes yummy
when you're out here.

I know for sure
that there are risks.

I have been on search and
rescue for a number of years.

I've dug out bodies from avalanches.

My good friend, Todd Weselake,
was caught in an avalanche.

He was buried two meters deep.

The day of the avalanche,

we've got the phone call from Todd saying:

"Let's go out to Mount Proctor.

I was there two days ago,
the conditions were great."

In the morning, myself, Todd,
Janina headed out to Cold Feet Bowl.

Snow built in, putting on our climbing
skins on and headed up the ridge.

We're heading out with Todd.
He's one of our friends.

He's a photographer and we've
worked with him quite a bit,

Ian and I, so we were like:
"Let's go out and take some epic photos."

It was going to be a powder day.

We skinned up the ridge
to the top and we thought,

"Alright, this is the place where we're
going to go. Let's take some photos."

The last photos Todd took,
I ended up skiing by him.

Ian was in front
and he cut across.

And I created a small avalanche
and alerted the group.

We needed to get off his face.
We weren't really expecting that.

We went into larger trees where we thought
that it would be more supported.

Todd went first.

And there was this settlement.

It's when a weak layer
in the snow pack fails,

and you actually drop and
you can feel it collapse.

Suddenly I was just on my side
and I was holding on to the tree

and I looked down to Ian
and there was this huge wave of snow.

It seemed to me, like "My, what a huge
wave." And I was just like.

Waves of snow beneath me pull
up the stories of my sky.

I thought they would wind up my
sky would wind down.

I heard Todd just one scream and
then it stopped and everything went silent.

"Ian, Ian, Todd is caught in an
avalanche, he's caught."

And I remember just panicking and said,
"No, no, no he's right underneath me."

"No, he's caught in the avalanche."

My first thought was that we
need to switch our beacons

to search mode and go find him.

You know,
we've trained for this,

which is crazy because we just did an
avalanche course literally the week before.

Janina was in ahead of me with the beacon,

and as soon as she received a signal,
she started counting down numbers.

I had my transceiver out, looking.

The lowest signal I got on
my beacon was 4.7 meters.

Oh my gosh, he's buried deep.

We didn't have a lot of time at all.

And, um, yeah...

The first two probes I did,

I was actually in the wrong spot.

And Ian said, "Janina,
we need to step a meter over.

I'm getting a lower reading.
Fuck, we've just wasted time."

Then I took one step and
I got a reading of 4.2 meters.

Okay, this is actually a low reading.

Started probing again.
I did one in.

Nothing. Out. Probe again.

Clunk, and it was just
like...

Janina struck him
on the second probe.

"Ian, I' have him."

'You f***ing better have him.
Check again.

I was like:
"Whoa! Again, clunk."

She was certain
that it was, in fact, Todd.

I remember him saying, "We're not taking
home Todd dead. We're finding him alive."

We started digging immediately.

- The Digging was crucial.

We knew we had to get to to his head.

I was frantic.

I dug as fast as I could.

We were fairly certain it was
Todd, but I didn't know.

Digging and digging and digging,
trying to get to the end of this probe.

We could see a silver mark.

Oh my gosh, it's his bindings.

Shit, and we still need to get to his head.

As we got closer,
it was actually his helmet.

Oh my god, it's Todd. Like: "We
got him. We found him."

We managed to just get all the snow around
his head out, and he was bright blue.

- He was unconscious.
- Getting snow out of his mouth.

Like, sticking his fingers in his mouth.

He just had snow everywhere,
up his nostrils.

And I felt a very shallow
breathing on the back of my hand.

I have no idea if I died
during that time or...

What happened is about
20 minutes of not breathing,

being encased in ice.

I heard them yelling "Avalanche!"

So I just grabbed on
to the tree that was in front of me.

The wind blast from it

knocked me on my back.

And I remember the snow slowing down and I could
still see light and I was like, "I'm on top."

And at that point all the snow that was
above me, and it just hit me like a train.

It really pushed me into the snow.

And I just remember the feeling that
I was getting pushed deeper

and deeper and deeper and deeper.

And then it stopped.

Dead quiet and black.

I couldn't move my fingers,
I couldn't even expand my lungs.

A minute of panic.

I'm way too deep.
There's no way they"ll ever find me here.

I'm dead.

That's when I passed out.

After they got to me,

when I regained consciousness,

it was like coming out of the best
dreams that you've ever had

when you're in the deepest sleep
and then all of a sudden,

someone just like comes over
and shakes you hard.

And I just remember thinking:
"No, I just want keep sleeping.

Why are you waking me up Rom this? '

I was just the most
calming, peaceful sleep.

It was like a utopia.

He had his camera on his chest

and a puffy coat on,
and I remember pulling the camera off

and just seeing his puffer
starting to expand again.

I guess he was just so compressed
in there that his lungs had no air

and you could see that his
lungs start to breathe.

He came to and he just screaming,

"My toes, I can't feel my toes."

And we say, "Who cares about your
toes, you're still alive."

Then he told us
to take pictures.

Take photos.

And he was, "Take photos,
take photos." And we're like...

'Todd, relax. We're taking photos.
We're getting you out of there first.'

I knew that I damaged my back,
I could feel the pain in my lower body.

At that point, as I was waking up, I puked.
I, I shit myself, I pissed myself.

Everything had left his system, he
was so close and he just kept going,

"I pooped my pants." "We don't care!
Like, you're alive. We got you out."

Just after they finished
getting me out of the hole,

I remember knowing that the
hazard was still very real.

It was getting dark.
If we would have called for help,

there was nothing they
could have done at that time.

30 to 35 minute of snowmobiling
on a forest service road,

and then a 20 minute drive
to get Todd to a hospital.

We didn't even get the snowmobile back on
the truck, we just left it out there.

Jumped in the car and drove and we
were just sitting in the car going,

"What just happened?"

They laid
me down on the bed,

put heated blankets around me just to
get my core temperature up.

Did some x-rays and then discovered
that I had compressed my spine.

Based on the depth that
I had about two feet,

the probability of surviving something
like that is about 18% or a little less.

Everything just lined up perfectly
for me to able to survive.

The days after the avalanche,
when I was at home,

it just wouldn't stop snowing.
It was just the perfect storm.

I was scared to go back out,
but I knew I had to.

If I didn't go back soon,
I might not do it again.

So I chose to go back to work
four days after it happened.

Getting into the mountains still and sharing
my passion through photography with people,

if you don't have the same opportunities
to get places,

it means a lot to me.

It might have actually been this tree.

Janina and I both took an
avalanche course together.

I believe that that information was
invaluable to the success

we had that day in getting Todd out safely.

I would not go into the back
country now with anyone

that hasn't done an avalanche course.
Ever.

It's not worth losing a life over.

I got my private pilot's license.

The feeling of flying in the mountains
is pretty much unbeatable.

Now I*m able to go out and help
Martina and Tania,

drop off their food for
this trip they're doing.

Papa Victor,
we're only 20...

180?

Yes,
let's do that.

Some of the drops
are as high as 800 feet.

I hope the boxes hold together.

- A pass there.
- That right there?

We are outside the CAP.

It will be fairly
close to??? out there..

What they've chosen to do is further
than walking from Canada to Mexico,

only it's over some of the most
rugged remote terrain in North America.

- Do it right there.
- OK.

Crack it open.

Five,

four,

three,

two,

Box away.

Being out there for 6
months in the mountains,

I would not do this trip.

It's a munchkin.

Look at the munchkin.

- Oh, oh.
- Oh, my God.

Oh, look,
he's holding the avalanche forecast.

Ooh.

- Sushi.
- Control your tempura.

- Yay!
- What's oh, that's fuel.

That's fuel.

Oh,
I was hoping that was vodka.

There's some tea when
you're done there.

That was a good 12 hours of sleep.

I could sleep all day,
but I feel better now.

Well, I'm not doing it
to impress someone, right?

I'm doing it for the two of us.

When people ask me,
did you do this trip or that trip?

I would think,
maybe when I'm old.

Maybe when I'm old I'll do Churchill
River or when I'm old...

And then I'll get these odd looks.

And then I realize, "Oh,
they think I'm old now."

I don't feel old, right?
I feel I can do this.

When I'm old, that means when
I'm not capable of sleeping...

in the winter somewhere out in a tent.

I think people
make themselves old way too early.

They accept they are old
because something hurts.

They stop exercising. And I think when you
stop exercising, then you're getting old.

You're just going that
much faster to your grave.

So I'm fighting it.

It doesn't have to be outside,
whatever you like doing.

Just don't think you're too old to do it,
because most of the time you're not.

Snow
scared me the first year.

And then Sister Claire encouraged
me to really push myself

And go and touch it and feel it.

And I did.

It's like flowers.

In the city, there's all kinds of
sirens and this is happening and...

But here the only thing we hear
are the wolves.

Silence is really
an endangered species.

We are not here
to convert people.

They can be of any religious tradition,
but they can come and experience this.

Our main way of preaching as Dominican nuns

is not going out to stand
in the middle of the street

or in the church in the
pulpit and preach.

We preach by our way of life.

It's all about centering.

It takes such concentration...

That it centers your whole being.

At the still point of
the turning world,

there are the dances.

Where there is no still point,
there will be no dance.

So I feel like I'm in tune
with the whole cosmos.

I was born in the prairies,
not in the mountains.

Our house had a hill and I spent my childhood
going up and down that hill on skis.

And my parents were
alpine ski instructors.

We spent a lot of time there
in the mountains and skiing.

By the time I was 14,
I was on the Canadian ski team

as a junior cross-country ski racer.

I think the most essential
part of my cross-country skiing

wasn’t the competitive aspect.
It was the community with the other skiers.

It was a highly structured lifestyle
of training and time of solitude.

It was really formative for me.

We weren't
even Catholic, our family.

I had this interior
kind of secret spiritual quest

that was awakened in the outdoors.

It became my center of gravity.

The mountains have
really changed my prayer.

In the candles you see this changing of
light and then changing of the snow.

You are never tired.

It's just prayer made real.

It has become apparent that it's
the coldest winter in about 20 years.

- What are we eating today?
- Well, just our three-course meal and...

We just did not expect minus
20 temperatures for weeks in a row.

It has been hard, really hard

to stay away from hypothermia.

We...

are dealing with it...

but its making us much slower.

With the cold come the consequences
of things like our stove breaking, and...

When the stove breaks, we can't
make water, we can't cook.

- Have some ice tea.
- Oh yes.

Alright, tomorrow night, minus 25.
Whoo-hoo!

- What, again?
- Again, big surprise.

- Winds die on Monday.
- So that's two days from now?

- Yes.
- Balls.

Mainly sunny,
temperature rising to minus 10.

Yay, it's getting warm.

I wasn't
expecting to have to deal

with so much hazard every single day.

I knew for sure it was going to be
a dangerous trip,

but a constant assessment
of, "Is this too risky?

Should we try to find a different way?
Should we back off?

Do we keep going?"

It feels like
we're not getting anywhere.

Mom is literally carrying
half of her body weight.

Walking through all that is like
going through a field of angry octopuses.

Oh, here we go.

It used to be logging road.
Now it's a creek.

We don't know what to do,
so we're climbing a cliff.

I don't hear any swearing yet.

Let it go.

Oh, see the tee.
Please don't make me go for a swim.

We're moving
in teaspoon distances.

It's making me doubt
our chances of finishing.

The Arctic outflow is coming
and it's gonna be really cold again.

I am almost looking forward to it because
this wetness is my nightmare.

I don't like being wet.

We're stuck on the Goddard
glacier and we can't find the food.

We've put Bluetooth beacons in each of the
food drops, but we can't get a signal here.

Mom just made the last
of the hot chocolate.

We really have pretty much nothing left,
just a few crumbs.

We keep having the same dreams out here.

Dreams about food.

I will be in a grocery store.

I walk down the aisles
and fill up my cart.

When I go to check out,
the food will suddenly disappear.

I never get to eat the food.

We searched for boxes and every
little rock we found.

After two full days of
searching, we had to give up.

Our next food drop was about six days away.

So Todd had to organize a
helicopter to come in.

We were super remote.
It cost about $4,000

To get a few boxes of
junk food flown in at that point.

We got food. A lot of food.

Oh, honey!

Those were the most expensive
chips, I think, anyone's has ever eaten.

Food. Cheese!

Mom has gone through so
many difficult things in her life.

These are just little things and
she knows it will pass.

My mom was born in the Czech Republic
in a small town called Teplice.

It was under Russian occupation
and communist rule.

I felt like I was living
in a police state.

I did not want to raise kids in the physical
and mental environment I was living in.

You couldn't
leave the Czech Republic,

so they had to escape across
the mountains on foot.

They had to leave everything behind,

all of their possessions other than

what they could carry on their back.

They had homemade down
jackets and sleeping bags.

It was in early spring, so they were forced
hauling through snow, and it was wet and cold.

They picked the worst border crossing.

This narrow canyon with a
road and a river down below.

They had to walk through the river.
If the border guards

ever just looked down,
they would have been caught.

My mother is pregnant with my sister.
They are soaked.

The only dry thing I had on me,
was a toque because I fell in the current.

She took off her toque and put it
over her belly, trying to to warm up her belly.

Little baby, stay warm.

We made it to Switzerland.
We lived there for about four years.

And just the idea that we could be sent back
home any time was not acceptable to me.

We applied for Canada
and Canada accepted us.

When I was like ten years old,
I was reading books about Canada and...

It was my dream to
see the nature here

and here I am.

I think my whole life I was
just steering to this place.

My friends ask
me why I'm doing such a thing.

Why would I go through
a hardship like this?

I keep telling them:
"Well, you see things...

you normally would not see. And sometimes
you just pretty much trip over them."

One day...

we walked by an ice cave at
the bottom of an ice field.

It was such a magical place.
It was unbelievable.

I've never seen anything like that.

Ages old ice.

It was so beautiful.

Like without ugliness,
there would be no beauty,

Or without night
there would be no day,

then without suffering
there is no joy.

And I think the harder I have to
work for something I want to experience,

something beautiful,
the bigger the joy, or...

I don't know how to
better describe it.

When the helicopter came and,

he quite blatantly asked
if we wanted a ride out of there,

Martina stopped in her track and I could see that
she was really tempted to just take a break.

She just wanted to keep going.

I'm really proud of her.

She's never done
anything this hard.

There is definitely
a chance that we will fail.

We still have months to go.

I'm not a city person.

I had to move out here
Because it was the only time

I felt I had my heart in my chest
is when I was up in the mountains.

I feel at home.

Bernhard is his
German pronunciation.

And "Bern" is bear,
and "hard" is heart.

He is bear-hearted.

When Bernhard walked me
around his property,

When he proposed that I
might want to live with him,

I knew right then and there he would
never move away from here.

You're free if you follow your heart,
otherwise you are not free.

We are at the northernmost tip
of the Cascade Mountain Range.

We're at about 2400 foot altitude here.

We've lived off the grid
for almost 50 years.

The steepness of these mountains
is really abrupt and severe,

and it takes a lot of getting used to,
and it didn't happen overnight

that I, I felt at home, shall we say.

I have no idea
which one's supposed to be clean.

They're all clean now.
I know you don't wash them at all.

They're all clean,
but they're all dirty.

Yes I know--

I came from an area

that was hill and dale and ravines

and I would go home in a flash

if Bernhard would kick the bucket on me,
because my family is there.

Are you absolutely sure
that there's nothing else.

But you and I live beyond Amanda.

By the time I met him,
he was fresh out of art school.

Once I started touching rock,

it's like, you know, the first time that
a duck becomes aware that it floats.

You can't get him out of the water.

That's what happened to me.
I love working with rock.

I can bake eight loaves of bread in here,
large loaves of bread.

This is the first fort he ever built,

because every boy
wants to build a fort.

And he finally got to when he was 20.

And he's been working on it ever since.

I just love the idea

of taking what is wasted otherwise

and make something with it.

He's a pretty versatile guy.

In the winter, Bernhard paints.

But for a number of years he was mostly
doing woodwork and carving.

In the winter you can't go anywhere
anywhere to go. There is no road, no train.

The winter allows me to
take what I have harvested

from my year

and place it within the
concept of my art.

That's something that I
credit the mountains for.

I am allowed the time and the
season to grow old.

If I weren't allowed to
explore in the summer,

what would I paint about in winter?

It's what makes something brilliant.

It's when opposites
stand next to each other as equals.

Life comes from
the yin and the yang.

Heavenly thing.

When I met Bernhard, he had
two young boys aged three and six.

And their mother lived in the city,
but they came here every other year.

We home schooled them. I would work from
dawn till dusk and I'm glad I did,

because then now you can
look back on it and think,

"Oh my goodness, I did that."

I'm going to give the peas some water

because I didn't do that earlier.

Um-hum.

Bernard and I are actually
better gardening far from each other,

because we don't agree
on how to do it.

I have been in the garden and
been surrounded by bears

and I think they recognize,
that I'm making my food

and they're eating their favorite food,
so we can coexist.

When I first started out
here as a younger person

I knew that where we were living,
if there was something

like a stroke or a heart attack
or something really serious

where you cut an artery,
you would be dead.

There would just be no help
that would be available quickly

and especially not without a phone.

The older we get,
the more perhaps questionable it is.

I don't worry about it.

That's just what you live with.

It takes me about minimum six
hours, eight hours to get up to my cabin.

I grew long in the tooth,
as they say in the horse language.

It's my backyard.

When I first came up here,

I lost my heart here.

I consider myself so fortunate

to have had the opportunity
to live a life

that really extended past
any of my expectations.

I never expected to outlast my horses.

And now I don't hunt anymore.

I wouldn't be able to
fire a shot at anything.

Only to save maybe a life,
not to take one.

Letting a bicycle or motorbike
out into the back country

where sanctity is in place,

that's letting a wolf into a pen.

I let the trails deteriorate, pulled dead
trees into the trail to obliterate it.

Because where a bicycle goes,

a motorbike will follow.

And where a motorbike will have been,

snowmobiles will go.

And where snowmobiles will go,

the wolf has a track to stay on ,

so that the moose cannot go and hide.

And all of a sudden,

the advantage is on
the side of the wolf.

When I look back
on approximately 50 years

in the mountains here, I...

It brings me to tears.

I'm so lucky. Somebody might say
they're lucky when they win the lottery.

Oh. Try this one.

I got the best draw of 'em all.

I'm looking forward to sushi.

I can't wait
for the unlimited sushi.

All-you-can-eat sushi, oh god.

I'd be bursting. I think
they'll lose some money to us.

- Shower, whenever we want a shower.
- Oh, showers.

- And toilet.
- Yeah.

- No more freeze-dried food.
- No more.

Conversations with other people.

You have all that.

We've arrived at the Dean River
and the water is black and fast and cold.

Mom has stripped down to her ski boots and
underwear so she can keep her other clothes dry.

She's got this. She's got this.

Mom, mom!

Come on momma!

It literally took us
all day to get across.

Darkness was setting in,
and it was pouring rain.

There she burns.

- The mean Dean River.
- Mean Dean.

I don't want to see that river
in my life anymore.

- Never again.
- Ever.

The glaciers
are clearly retreating out there.

Our original route plan
is just nit feasible.

This is really making me nervous to
see all these open crevasses so high up.

It was kilometers of bare ice and
rock, and then it just suddenly ended.

The map is showing three more kilometers
of the glacier, which is not there anymore.

All your baskets have caught.

Oh. It's so bad.

My pelvis is screaming at me right now.

- Are you dying?
- No, I'm not dying.

Oh, your feet stink.

- Put them in the sleeping bag.
- I need clean socks.

This three-day storm
had kept us tent-bound

and then it finally cleared up,
and we ski-toured up to this high ridge.

Mom was a little bit ahead of me and when
I reached her, I saw that she was crying

and she told me that it was the most beautiful
thing that she had ever seen in her life.

That's something I
will never forget for sure.

I think it's time to be done.
Six months is a long time.

I think our
relationship is stronger.

I understand her past and where
she came from a lot better

and I think she understands me
a little bit better, too.

I'm ready for summer.

We're still talking
still talking to each other.

We respect each other even more after this.

I can't believe
tomorrow is our last day.

Forecast for tomorrow of course is
rain. So it could never be easy for us.

You be careful up there.
You're 60, you know.

For me what's impossible
and what I am capable of

definitely got redefined.

We are in a?????

I found that when I
thought I had reached my threshold

and that I couldn't go any further,
I actually could.

I think she did not
have any idea what she was into

when she started thinking about this trip.

When I was a kid,
I was that uncoordinated asthmatic,

skinny child that just struggled
to pass gym class.

I knew she could do it,
but she had to figure it out on her own.

Oh my God.

- Nobody died.
- Yes.

Where did we just come from?

We climb and think:
Where did we come from?

Where do we come from?

We came from Vancouver.

Argh.

Wow!

It doesn't have to be 50
days or 100 days.

Even if you've just spent
a week in the mountains,

or some kind of trip where you're taken
out of your normal life,

it just teaches you about
appreciation of the little things.

All my life
I could always see mountains.

I could not live anywhere else.

There's something about
being in the mountains

that just feels like home.

Subtitles transcribed by rogard