- 2 days ago
Exploring the hottest place on Earth; an ultra-marathoner runs in the summer heat; the mayor of a town of one; an elder of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe.
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00:18At last, a breath of fresh air.
00:23In a place like this, you can let go of whatever weighs you down
00:27and fill your lungs with the joy of being outside.
00:33I'm in Death Valley, one of the most remote places in the United States.
00:38And at 282 feet below sea level, this is North America's ground floor.
00:47Rising up around me is a landscape that may seem empty and lifeless.
00:52And yet, I can't help but feel a connection
00:57to something that makes me feel alive.
01:06My name is Baratunde Thurston.
01:08I'm a writer, activist, sometimes comedian,
01:11and I'm all about exploring the issues that shape us as Americans.
01:17This country is wild.
01:20And its natural landscapes are as diverse as its people.
01:24There it is, there it is.
01:26How does our relationship with the outdoors define us?
01:29As individuals and as a nation?
01:40Ah, life on the move.
01:43It's nice to hit the open road sometimes.
01:46And nothing says America Outdoors more than a big ol' RV.
01:54I'll admit it, this isn't usually my style.
01:57But I'll be needing this fridge on wheels for where I'm headed.
02:02Death Valley.
02:03With temperatures up to 134 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:07it's the hottest place on Earth.
02:09And yet, nearly 2 million people travel there every year by choice.
02:13I do think getting outside means getting outside your comfort zone.
02:19But Death Valley?
02:20Seems like a bit of a death wish.
02:29My first glimpse of the place only confirms what I imagined.
02:35It's vast, arid, seemingly lifeless.
02:43No shade or shelter in sight.
02:48It makes me wonder why so many people are drawn to a place defined by dust and blistering heat.
02:58Who are they?
02:59And what are they looking for out here?
03:04The man I've arranged to meet first on my journey wasn't just drawn here.
03:08He moved here.
03:10And today, he lives on top of a windy, hot mountain, totally alone.
03:17Are you the mayor of Cerro Gardo?
03:20Depends on who's asking.
03:22Ah, just a visitor, man. Just a visitor.
03:24Welcome, welcome.
03:25Look at this!
03:27Something, right?
03:28Yeah, I'm feeling humbled.
03:29The wind is making my eyes water.
03:31It's definitely not emotions.
03:36This is Brent Underwood, an entrepreneur who once lived in the bustling town of Austin, Texas.
03:43Now, he lives on the edge of Death Valley, in a ghost town called Cerro Gordo.
03:50In 2018, Brent bought this town with a friend and a group of investors.
03:55And while his aim was to turn it into a major tourist destination, he soon saw it had another use,
04:02as the perfect place for social distancing.
04:07Escaping the pandemic was on a lot of our minds in early 2020.
04:12I remember going to Home Depot, buying two of everything in case I had to build an ark and start
04:17civilization from scratch.
04:18And you moved in to Cerro Gordo.
04:21Packed my truck, took a 24-hour drive to get here, and I haven't left since.
04:27This wasn't entirely by choice, at first.
04:31Immediately after he got there, Brent got a taste of why this region is often called a land of extremes.
04:40Snow getting out now.
04:41It's been snowed in for maybe four or five days.
04:46That's right, folks.
04:47It snows here, too.
04:49I saw my supplies I brought my truck dwindle to let me raid every single cabin for all the canned
04:55goods that may or may not be expired.
04:56So you were just eating random stuff that was here?
04:58I had to, you know, there was no way to get off, so I had, like, you know, some canned
05:02beans that may have expired in 2008, but, I mean, I'm still here.
05:05That's less Barack Obama inaugural beans, man.
05:09No, you can't go two presidential, three presidential terms.
05:14Brent survived on beans and stubbornness, and he soon grew to look at his ghost town in a whole new
05:20way.
05:21My life was never controlled by nature like that before.
05:24And to me, it's brought a connection to this place that I never had before.
05:28You know, I feel like I learned more about the property.
05:31I can feel, like, even my mental state change throughout the seasons and how it flows with it.
05:40Every day that I spent here, I fell more in love with it.
05:43And then the timeline is extended to forever, I guess.
05:47Forever.
05:48Forever.
05:48Okay, that's your exit plan.
05:50Yeah, that's it.
05:56Forever is kind of hard to imagine out here.
05:58But it's clear that a big part of what keeps Brent going is his fascination with the town's history.
06:08We are sitting in what was once the largest producer of silver in the state of California.
06:12You know, back in the day, they pulled something like $500 million worth of minerals out of the ground below
06:16us.
06:17Okay.
06:17And at its peak, this town had 4,000 residents.
06:21We're sitting here just quite peaceful, you know, the winds go in.
06:24Back in the day, it was anything but peaceful.
06:26It's said that there was a shooting here once a week.
06:30And given all the bullet holes, I believe it.
06:33But miners had to deal with more than just deadly duels up here.
06:36They also had to scrape by in an extreme environment, kind of like Brent.
06:49The Underwood.
06:50Yes.
06:51He has a nice house, but almost no amenities.
06:54This is your bathroom.
06:56This is the bathroom.
06:57It's an RV shower.
06:58It's mounted to the wall.
07:00So you just flip the switch.
07:01There you go.
07:03You got a car battery?
07:05Yep.
07:05And just wires hanging out, a propane tank.
07:10He lives alone up here.
07:12But he does have three cats.
07:14And three goats.
07:16So you're not actually alone.
07:18No, I got the goats and the cats.
07:19Yeah.
07:19I got all sorts of things.
07:20Ghosts.
07:21And the voices inside your head.
07:23Yeah.
07:23What else would you want?
07:25He has no running water and the closest grocery store is a full hour away.
07:31But he does have access to the internet.
07:33And where there's internet, there's opportunity to make a different type of personal connection.
07:39Hello.
07:41Thirteen months.
07:42That is how long I've been living here.
07:44Well, not specifically here, but here in Cerro Gordo, California.
07:52That's become kind of my community, you know.
07:55I had never made a video in my life.
07:56You know, I just came up with a camera that my buddy lent me.
07:59So it's fun to put together something here and share what I find each week.
08:03And that helps me feel like, you know, it's all worth it.
08:08A lot of people seem to agree.
08:10Brent's videos have amassed literally millions of followers.
08:15But even his mountain of content can't quite capture the realities of mountain life.
08:21I keep thinking about how lonely it might get up here.
08:24And I know you've got your internet people.
08:26But what about companionship?
08:29Friends, lovers, family.
08:32How do you deal with that?
08:34What's the situation there?
08:35Being alone can be strangely addicting.
08:38And I don't know if it's a good thing.
08:40But I've become comfortable with it.
08:42I make do.
08:44Brent admits he doesn't share everything on social media.
08:47Like how hard it is living in a landscape like this.
08:51I've lost a lot of weight since being here.
08:53You know, it's just part of like moving around, not eating enough.
08:56But I truly believe that this town is important.
08:59The history here is important.
09:00That sharing the history with this town is important.
09:02Just hearing about all these characters that were just lost over the time
09:06is just super fascinating to me.
09:08It puts me on different rabbit holes that I'll spend months trying to figure it out.
09:12Speaking of rabbit holes, you explore these mines.
09:15I do.
09:16By yourself?
09:18Quite often.
09:20I take every precaution I can.
09:22We'll put it that way.
09:22Other than not going into the mines.
09:24Other than, at the end of the day, mines are-
09:25Because that's my precaution?
09:26Yeah.
09:26I'm not going down the line by myself.
09:28That's the best thing to do.
09:29Stay out and stay alive is what the motto is for mines.
09:32Yeah.
09:32But they're fascinating.
09:38And to me, it's almost like a race against time.
09:41What's in the mines are artifacts.
09:43They tell a story.
09:44Yes.
09:45I'm taking that.
09:45And if these things are not recovered, they'll just be lost forever.
09:54Oh!
09:56Smells so old in here.
09:58This is it.
10:01Brent's building a museum inside the town's old General Store.
10:04A way of preserving Cerro Gordo's history for himself and for anyone else willing to make the drive up here.
10:10So these are all things I've found in the different levels of the mines since being up here.
10:15Dynamite boxes.
10:17Pick axes, of course.
10:18Yeah.
10:18Miner's helmets.
10:20You can almost feel the stories behind these dusty artifacts.
10:25And they remind me that this place isn't empty.
10:29That people have willingly struggled to forge a living out here for a very long time.
10:47We're exploring people's relationship with outside.
10:50Yeah.
10:51It's hard to think of a more extreme example than a dude who left inside.
10:57Right.
10:57So just live out in a mining town with very questionable structures.
11:01Very questionable.
11:02What have you learned about your own connection to outside?
11:09Before I moved here, I thought that time in nature was a nice thing to have.
11:14And now it's a have to have.
11:18The more time I take walking around, the more clear my thoughts are, the more I appreciate my place in
11:28this world.
11:29And I've been enjoying it.
11:34If Brent's story is any indication, it takes a certain kind of person to make it out here.
11:40You have to be okay with extreme weather and extreme isolation.
11:46I'm not sure if that's me.
11:47At least not yet.
11:49But I'm willing to head deeper into the desert to find out.
11:52As long as I've got some AC.
11:59Oh yeah.
12:06Driving toward Death Valley proper, the road seemed to stretch off into infinity.
12:12And with cell service almost non-existent, I'm starting to worry a little bit about what might happen if I
12:18got lost out here.
12:20Coming into what passes for a town around here.
12:22I'm thankful to run into an old trading post called Ballarat, which sells old school maps on the honor system.
12:31Seems like I've traded a town of one for a town of zero.
12:43So I'm here in Ballarat, right next to Happy Canyon, which sounds, that sounds great.
12:49I like Happy Canyon.
12:51But then above that is Surprise Canyon, which I can only imagine how it got that name.
12:56Like somebody's just walking through, everything starts falling like, oops, surprise!
13:00This is a canyon!
13:01I don't want to hang out there.
13:03This place seems dead set on making you struggle.
13:07Even with things as simple as folding a map.
13:11I feel like I'm making my bed.
13:13But struggle doesn't even start to explain what you can face out here.
13:25Thanks to climate change, Death Valley's heat waves are getting longer and more intense.
13:31The blistering conditions have always kept me at a distance.
13:36But some people actually seek them out as the ultimate physical challenge.
13:43This is Masi Smith.
13:45He's a former Marine and an ultramarathon.
13:48And for years, he's been running in road races so long and so intense, they'd seem to require superhuman strength.
13:56This region that we're in, Death Valley, what has brought you here?
14:01Well, I'll say initially the siren's call was the Batwater Ultramarathon.
14:11So a regular marathon is how many miles?
14:1326.2.
14:14How many miles is an ultramarathon?
14:1726.3. Or more.
14:20Really?
14:20Yeah, man. That's it.
14:21So you can do a 26.3 mile and call it an ultramarathon?
14:24As long as you go beyond, yeah, that's it.
14:26So if I just run through the tape, that's an ultramarathon at the very end.
14:30In your head, yes.
14:31I'll go an extra block in the marathon.
14:32That'll be a year, man. Yeah.
14:36Masi's being a little modest.
14:38The race he's run here multiple times is 135 miles.
14:43And the weather? I can't even think about that.
14:47What time of year is the Batwater ultramarathon?
14:51July.
14:52You run on purpose?
14:55Yes.
14:56You're running from something?
14:58No.
14:58We're running towards.
14:59You're running towards something.
15:01Three, two, one.
15:04Woo!
15:07And that something is the Whitney Portal, the trailhead for the highest mountain in the continental U.S.
15:14Which means Masi comes all the way out here to run 135 miles and climb a total of 14,600
15:20feet in the hottest place on earth at the hottest time of the year.
15:24We are different, man.
15:27I'm sorry, man.
15:28No, it's good.
15:29Difference is good.
15:29I celebrate diversity.
15:30Yeah.
15:31This is good.
15:31You're allowed to be you.
15:32I celebrate you from over here.
15:35Right on.
15:35Right on.
15:38So how could anyone compete in a race like this?
15:42The truth is, few can.
15:44Only 100 racers are accepted each year into the Badwater 135.
15:49And aspiring runners need to prove they're ready for what many consider the toughest foot race on earth.
15:55You start chafing in places that you didn't even realize.
15:59Yeah.
16:00Like the backs of my knees basically blistered from just getting cooked.
16:06Yeah.
16:10Which is why, well, I actually have no idea why I'm doing this, but I have agreed to go on
16:18a run with an ultramarathon.
16:21Pray for me.
16:22It was nice knowing you.
16:33Once we're off to the races, well, I'm being very generous by calling this a race, but it's actually not
16:40that bad.
16:43Masi sets an easy pace and I try to think of the best way to keep my mind off the
16:48heat and not collapse in front of you.
16:58Are there moments out here that stick with you?
17:01Like, that's where I figured this thing out. That's where I thought deeply about that other thing.
17:06Yeah. There's like stuff that's going on like internally, you know, or in your life.
17:11Like, yeah, you got, you got plenty of time to like sit with that and like either get to the
17:16root of the issues, you know, or like develop ways forward.
17:22It sounds like you're describing psychotherapy.
17:25It is. It feels like it. I'm not a therapist, man, but it feels like it every time.
17:30There's not a lot of distractions here. There's not a lot going on here, you know, and you can't run
17:35from anything.
17:35Like you have to like sit with yourself or whatever you bring here.
17:43It's an appealing concept. The idea that nature can help us focus our inner thoughts and find peace.
17:51The outdoors is supposed to be the place where we all belong.
17:56But that's not always the case for many of us.
18:02Ultramarathoning. You're the first black person I've come across who does that.
18:06Honestly, it's hard for me to sit with a black runner and not think about Ahmaud Arbery.
18:11Right. In Georgia, you know, where you're from.
18:13And we saw how that ended.
18:17In Georgia, three white men charged with murdering an unarmed black man, Ahmaud Arbery, pled not guilty today.
18:24Police say Arbery was shot and killed after the men spotted him jogging, thought he was a burglar and chased
18:29him down.
18:30I can't go out the door without thinking about that.
18:33Yeah.
18:34But it's like at the same token, like I refuse to.
18:39I still refuse to let outside things dictate my joy.
18:46I need to get out because that's like, that's when I'm being the best version of myself.
18:52With respect to what's bubbled to the surface over the past year, you know,
18:57we're going to see a lot more folks entering this space and I'm here for it.
19:05It's exciting to see the outdoors finally opening its doors.
19:10And that's the idea behind a new sports team that Masi just joined called Team Onyx.
19:16Team Onyx is basically the first all black like adventure racing team.
19:21Ooh.
19:22All right.
19:22Is adventure racing the thing you do where you make life much harder than it needs to be?
19:27Always.
19:28Always.
19:29With a bunch of other people.
19:31With other people.
19:31So it's a collective hardship.
19:33Yeah.
19:33By choice.
19:34Shared adversity, man.
19:35That's it.
19:36That's it.
19:40You're doing multiple disciplines, whether it's like whitewater rafting, kayaking, climbing.
19:45There's repelling, there's orienteering.
19:48Oh, and have a little bit of like sleep deprivation, you know, and like do it as fast as you
19:53can.
19:54This makes me think of all the things I was told black people don't do.
19:57Boom.
19:58And you're just taking that whole list and putting it in one event.
20:01That's it.
20:02Yeah.
20:02But it's more important to showcase that, you know, it's not just one person, you know, in this sport or
20:09one person in that sport.
20:10Like there's a whole family of us out here.
20:16I look at this apography and the flow of the land and instantly I'm transported back to road trips with
20:24my mom.
20:25I'd just be looking out the window and I'd imagine myself like running, running through the landscape.
20:33Out here, life blooms.
20:37For me, like this place represents one of the jump off points of my story.
20:42That's opened up areas of my life that I didn't even imagine.
20:46I love it, man.
20:48Life blooms.
20:49Life blooms.
20:53Life blooms is not something I expected to hear about a place like this.
20:58And inside the boundaries of Death Valley National Park, it only feels more barren.
21:03It doesn't exactly look life affirming.
21:07But not everyone sees it that way.
21:10And that includes the people whose ancestors were the first to live here.
21:13Many of whom don't ever refer to this place as Death Valley.
21:21We've learned to call this place Death Valley, allegedly because it's empty and it's lifeless.
21:27But there's another word which captures the truth of this place.
21:31Timbisha, referring to the people who've lived here for thousands of years and referring to the red ochre rock which
21:38sits behind me.
21:40People and land, indistinguishable.
21:43Timbisha.
21:46The Timbisha Shoshone people have lived in this land since time immemorial.
21:52But ever since outsiders started arriving in this region, it's been labeled Death Valley.
21:59For Pauline Estevez, a legendary activist and former tribal chairperson, the name isn't just a misnomer.
22:06It says a lot about this region's fraud history.
22:10They call this Death Valley and I guess we're supposed to be dead.
22:14But the name of the valley itself is Timbisha.
22:17It refers to a place where they found the red ochre, which they use spiritually to heal themselves with.
22:33The name of it has nothing to do with death at all.
22:36There had to be explained to us why it was called Death Valley.
22:44The reason?
22:45In 1849, during the California Gold Rush, a group of westward bound prospectors got lost here.
22:52And when they were rescued, one supposedly uttered,
22:55Goodbye Death Valley.
22:58Ever since, the name has stuck.
23:01The settlers who came here and called this Death Valley,
23:04they called it that because they felt it was so extreme.
23:07Did you find it extreme and hard to survive?
23:09Do you know a different story of this place?
23:12The way I was taught by the old ones was that we go with what the environment gives us.
23:19If the wind blows, the wind blows, so you go with it.
23:22And so when it's hot, it's hot, and you go with that.
23:25And you learn how to live with it.
23:28We was always, you know, playing outdoors, never hardly indoors at all.
23:34How did you grow food or catch food?
23:37What was the meal plan out here?
23:41Well, I grew up where they did a lot of trapping, a lot of gathering.
23:46For hunting, they hunted the deer and big horse sheep.
23:52In other words, Tembisha was a land of plenty.
23:56Or at least a land of enough.
23:58But everything changed when the U.S. government entered the picture.
24:02Back in the 1930s, when you were a child,
24:07the U.S. federal government designated this land as a national monument.
24:12What do you remember changing when the government came and declared this a national monument?
24:20They came in uniform.
24:22We were already accustomed to the white people living here.
24:26They were after everything that was significant, spiritual significance to us.
24:31They had a policy to remove all indigenous peoples off of their lands,
24:36you know, the lands that they're going to develop into a monument or a park or whatever.
24:44The goal, in part, was to build a big tourism industry here.
24:49Since the Tembisha weren't federally recognized at the time,
24:52the government didn't need their consent.
24:54And that didn't go over well with the tribe.
24:58We started to rebel against them as we got a little older,
25:02to let them know that they were wrong, you know, we were right.
25:07What did that look like? What did you do? What was that act of it?
25:10We pulled the stems out of their tires,
25:13that all the air would go out and go flat.
25:16We kind of thought that was funny.
25:19And then they said,
25:19Oh, those Indians did it. The Indians did it.
25:22And we laughed.
25:24They were always getting in our way, trying to change our ways, you know.
25:29But we belong here. They came here.
25:33That's the difference.
25:37Unfortunately for the Tembisha, the government was undeterred.
25:41The idea that Death Valley was uninhabited
25:44made it even easier for the National Monument to move ahead.
25:50The Tembisha were eventually forced to move to an out-of-sight village
25:54with adobe houses built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
25:58And officials later threatened that if the Tembisha ever left the homes,
26:02the structures would be demolished.
26:06It was traditional that we move out of here during the summer months,
26:11you know, go to other areas.
26:13Because it's hot.
26:13It was too hot.
26:16Yeah.
26:16And after we picked the mesquite beads, after they ripened,
26:21we'd take off up into the mountains.
26:24During that period of time, that's when they come in here
26:27and they hose down our little houses that we had.
26:31When water meets adobe, even a house dissolved.
26:35So, destroying them.
26:37Then you'll come back and your house is gone.
26:41This was far from the end of this ambitious struggle.
26:45For decades, they fought for legal rights to their homeland,
26:48while the feds pushed back.
26:52The government even conducted nuclear tests nearby,
26:56potentially contaminating their food and water sources.
27:00We came to a conclusion, you know, after so many years of fighting with them,
27:04you know, that we had to do something to become recognized by the United States government,
27:09that we were people living here.
27:12That made us laugh, but we did it anyway.
27:14Why did that make you laugh?
27:18Because we felt that we were just part of the land, you know,
27:21and no piece of paper could say that, you know,
27:25our histories are right here, you know.
27:28It's in those mountains.
27:30Everywhere you look, you'll see us.
27:34You can't get rid of us.
27:39Pauline lobbied on behalf of the Timbisha in Washington, D.C. and beyond.
27:44The tribe was federally recognized in 1983.
27:47And in 1994, when Death Valley was upgraded to a national park,
27:53the government launched a study into a potential reservation.
27:57Ultimately, the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act of 2000 was signed into law.
28:03It granted nearly 7,800 acres of land back to the tribe,
28:07the first reservation ever created inside a national park.
28:12A lot of people said that I was an activist.
28:14I said, I was just being what I was taught to be.
28:18I said, I was born this way.
28:21I find Pauline's story inspiring.
28:24But it's also a reminder that so many of our national parks have complicated
28:29and even tragic backstories.
28:31The parks have preserved amazing landscapes for Americans to live, work, and play in.
28:37But they've often done so at the expense of those who lived here before America existed at all.
28:47This is not just an empty desert for tourists to visit.
28:51It's a storied community and a place that many still call home.
28:57It's part of life. It's what we live on, you know.
29:01It's not a commodity. It's part of us.
29:04We are supposed to protect it.
29:06You talk so much about life, it just feels like a mismatch to have this called Death Valley.
29:15Well, I'm proof here that it isn't a matter of doubt.
29:18I'm still kicking around. I was born here.
29:23The Timbisha's amazing resilience shows that life in this arid, dusty landscape isn't just theoretically possible.
29:31For some, it's something worth fighting for, even as the planet warms and as this whole region continues to dry
29:38out.
29:49But wait a minute. Water flowing freely in the desert?
29:54Is this a mirage or some kind of fever dream?
29:56In a place where it almost never rains, man-made geysers leap from the ground to shower the grass of
30:04the Furnace Creek Golf Course.
30:06The striking contrast between this place and the landscapes I just left gives me pause.
30:14But I'm hoping Don Forho, a member of the Timbisha Shoshone tribe and the golf course's assistant superintendent, can give
30:22me some answers.
30:25Hey, you must be Don.
30:28Yes, sir.
30:29What's up, man?
30:30Baratunde.
30:31Don, nice to meet you.
30:33What a grip.
30:34Marine Corps, baby.
30:35I'm not messing with you, sir.
30:38Don grew up in the Timbisha Shoshone village right next door.
30:43Pauline is his aunt, and today he works to ensure that this resort remains an oasis in the desert.
30:50I'm seeing a lot of green, and it's the only green I've seen for days out here.
30:55What's the challenge in having all this grass in the desert? It doesn't feel like it's a natural thing to
31:00be growing here.
31:01Well, it's mostly the water. You know what I mean? We've got to make sure that we put out the
31:05right amount of water at the right amount of time.
31:07You don't want to take away from the natural environment that we have around here, so watering and keeping everything
31:13conservatively is what we try to do.
31:18Death Valley only averages about two inches of rain per year, so it boggles the mind how a place like
31:25this is even possible.
31:27But it turns out the water here originally comes from something invisible to most of us, an aquifer hidden deep
31:33underground.
31:35That one spring does all of our water. The drinking water for the village, all the water for the ranch,
31:41as well as the National Park Service.
31:43That's an amazing combination, because those three entities, the park service, the resort, the village, have all been on kind
31:51of different sides of how this land is supposed to be used.
31:54All pulling from the same pool of water.
32:00It's incredible to think about, really. The village, the resort, and the National Park have often been at odds over
32:08the years.
32:09Yet they're all equally reliant on a single natural resource in the middle of this massive desert.
32:17And how that resource is used is something that can drive people apart.
32:23As a member of the tribe who knows and respects and is related to Pauline, do you have thoughts about
32:28reconciling this amazing oasis?
32:32Which to me, as an outsider, feels like, okay, there's been some alteration of the terrain, there's a lot of
32:38structures.
32:38That really is a tough question, because out here water is considered scarce, you know what I mean?
32:44You don't want to overstretch what you're pulling from the land.
32:47Yeah.
32:48Our entire premise behind it is that, how much building is enough?
32:51You know, how far are we going to take it?
32:52It's kind of making some of the elders nervous, but it's a private property, you know, privately owned, so it's
33:00its own entity.
33:01Yeah.
33:01My job is to make it as beautiful and the biggest experience that it can be.
33:07It's fascinating to me how Don is kind of like a bridge between the resort and the village where he
33:14grew up.
33:15Two very different worlds and two very different ways to experience the outdoors.
33:22When I was a kid growing up, they went out of their way to let me play for free.
33:27So instead of going out and just, you know, getting crazy, I just came out and golfed.
33:31That's all I did.
33:32But I never had a lesson.
33:33I just kind of just did my thing.
33:35So you've never had a golf lesson in your life?
33:37It's all self-taught.
33:39I mean, the ball's not going anywhere.
33:40It's just sitting there.
33:41I mean, how hard is it to hit a ball that's not moving?
33:43I feel like you're setting me up.
33:45I am.
33:45I am.
33:46I feel like it's going to be a good thing.
33:48I really do.
33:49That'll be on the blooper reel for sure.
33:50Oh, wow.
33:52Somebody's got a lot to say.
33:53We'll see.
33:54We'll see.
33:54You don't know me.
33:55Hey, I got my club back there.
33:57It's going to be on.
33:57It's going to be off.
33:59Probably way off.
34:00And y'all should clear the area.
34:02And clear the area we do.
34:05After a few pointers from Don, I give it a whirl.
34:09Yeah, boy.
34:11Oh, yeah.
34:13That's what I'm talking about.
34:15And of course, Don makes sure to get in the swing too.
34:18Just to knock me down a few pints.
34:23Oh, okay.
34:24No, I get it.
34:25I mean, I basically, I did something a lot like that.
34:27It was, it was, it was.
34:28It was just less.
34:29Yeah.
34:29You know?
34:32For people who are coming here to kind of connect with nature,
34:36explore the outside, what do you want them to know?
34:40Whether it's things to see or just things to know and to feel?
34:44Yeah, it's hot.
34:45Yeah, it's dry.
34:46Yeah, it doesn't rain.
34:47Yeah, we're below sea level.
34:49But at the same time, it's a beautiful place.
34:51You can go to Darwin Falls.
34:52A double falls in the middle of a desert that has water flowing 24-7.
34:57That doesn't make any sense to me.
34:58You know, there's a lot of water in this area.
35:00Yeah.
35:00It's just finding it.
35:03If people can see the beauty that we do, they'd enjoy this place just as much as we do.
35:07Yeah.
35:08For sure.
35:11It's hard to imagine that a waterfall in Death Valley could be real.
35:15But I'm willing to entertain the idea.
35:17Enough to make the long drive out to Darwin Falls.
35:21And there, I connect with Chante Salabert, an avid outdoors enthusiast and writer who herself
35:28was surprised at how many gems this region has.
35:31Can you tell me the first time you came here?
35:34It's really the first time I almost didn't come here.
35:36Okay.
35:37Because my friend Casey wanted to organize a trip and I was like,
35:41could we go anywhere else?
35:42Do we have to go to Death Valley?
35:44So you didn't want to come to Death Valley?
35:45No.
35:45No.
35:46So you think Death Valley, you're thinking, all right, it's dry, it's flat, it's hot, it's dead.
35:52Right?
35:52It's in the name.
35:53Why would I want to go there?
35:54And then our very first hike, he's like, let's go to a waterfall.
35:58I'm like, excuse me?
35:59A what?
36:00In Death Valley?
36:00Yeah.
36:00And I will say that this hike single-handedly changed my opinion of Death Valley and honestly,
36:06of the desert.
36:08And that's the hike we're on right now?
36:09It's the hike we're on right now.
36:10Right.
36:10I want you to see this waterfall.
36:11So do I.
36:12I cannot wait for you to see this waterfall.
36:13Okay, let's get it.
36:14Let's do it.
36:23This path to the fabled Darwin Falls starts off pretty straightforward.
36:27But it doesn't take long for it to start surprising me with plant life that seems out of this world.
36:34Isn't it amazing?
36:35It looks like three different plants.
36:37You know, you see different ways that plants adapt to being in the desert.
36:40And, you know, it's different ways of storing water.
36:43They create shade for themselves.
36:45You know, you get out here and it almost looks like alien structures.
36:48Stuff we're not used to seeing in places where maybe we have more water or we have more natural shade.
36:53People would look at this and think it's dead, but then you see these flowers and you're like, oh no,
36:57that's completely alive.
36:58Yeah.
36:59Life looks different out here.
37:00It sure does.
37:04Another half mile down the trail and we're covered by a canopy of trees.
37:13Smells different, right?
37:14Yeah.
37:15And it's so cool in here.
37:17It's significantly cooler.
37:18Yeah.
37:19This feels like a forest.
37:22Is this what you would expect when you think about Death Valley?
37:24No.
37:25No.
37:26Not at all.
37:27I do neither.
37:27This reminds me of like a park near where I grew up.
37:31Growing up, I spent a lot of time exploring the parks around my home.
37:35But I never thought I would see one of the animals from my old field guides in a place like
37:40this.
37:41Look at that.
37:44So these are tadpoles, right?
37:46These are tadpoles.
37:47Okay.
37:47There's like scores of them in here.
37:50Yeah.
37:50And imagine these are going to become then frogs in the desert.
37:54Yeah.
37:54But we're not in the desert right now.
37:56We're like somewhere else.
37:58The desert is multitudes.
37:59Yeah.
38:04It's hard not to wonder what else we might see out here.
38:07I find myself paying closer attention to my surroundings and starting to see Death Valley in a whole new way.
38:15You have this idea that there's not a whole lot of life here.
38:19It's very beige.
38:20But then when you start to get down on its level, you realize, like, wait a minute.
38:24There's water.
38:27There's fish here.
38:28There's running streams.
38:30There's trees.
38:32There's people who have lived here forever.
38:35Yeah.
38:35And it's just, it's not at all, I think, what most people think of Death Valley.
38:39I'm responding to this idea of Death Valley having this really negative image.
38:44There's nothing to do there.
38:45It's dead.
38:46It's too hot.
38:47And then you find this whole other story.
38:50It's a little slippery.
38:52We make so many assumptions about the world around us.
38:54And you come out here and you're completely disconnected from your phone.
38:58You have no cell service.
38:59But at the same time, you have this opportunity to sort of connect on a deeper level.
39:04When you can come to a place like this that's called Death Valley and realize, like, this place is completely
39:09alive and it's beautiful, your stereotype is completely smashed.
39:13Like, now you take that back home.
39:14And how can that happen back home?
39:29As Shantae and I push on into the forest, the canyon walls close in on us.
39:35The light starts to dim.
39:36But the faint sound of rushing water draws us on.
39:41Until finally, we emerge into a clearing.
39:48Look at that.
39:51Yes.
39:54That is so beautiful.
39:57And so calming.
39:59I know.
40:16For me, I love looking at the waterfall and you see the green.
40:21Again, as it turns out, super alive here.
40:23Yeah.
40:24Very lush.
40:25Very surprising.
40:30I feel held when I come to a place like this.
40:32Yeah, that's it.
40:33Because you're like, the walls are just a little cocoon.
40:39Thank you for bringing me here.
40:41Thanks for wanting to come here.
40:43Yeah.
40:44Wanting to come here.
40:46I'm realizing that that's what surprised me most about Death Valley so far.
40:50Sure, there aren't very many people out here.
40:53But the folks you do encounter, they really seem to love it.
40:56And each for their own individual reason.
41:04Am I good here?
41:05Yeah.
41:06Okay.
41:07All right, sound sweet.
41:10So this is my first time here in Death Valley and I've got to say it's pretty awesome.
41:16I always envisioned it being just kind of flat and boring and there's an immense amount of beauty out here
41:22that I was not expecting.
41:25Everyone should take an opportunity to come to Death Valley National Park.
41:29It's an amazing location.
41:31The landscapes are like nowhere else.
41:34You can have the wind, it's blowing everywhere, and then you take two steps and it's silent and no wind
41:43at all.
41:44And that's magical.
41:45I couldn't agree more.
41:47Every corner of Death Valley seems to contain something you'd never expect.
41:51What we see is a very big similarity to Iran.
41:56That is surprising for us.
41:58It's very similar.
41:58Yeah.
42:00And it turns out, beyond all the colorful landscapes, there are colorful characters here too.
42:06From all over the world.
42:08And even from galaxies far, far away.
42:12They've been sent down by Lord Vader to look for two droids.
42:15So this place is known for the spot that R2-D2 came down at the Jawa's.
42:20This is one of the locations.
42:22And I know it's pretty hot.
42:24But this time the rule for us is not too bad.
42:27And I have a pretty good air conditioning system inside this.
42:36Not to go all dark side, but I do get what the stormtroopers say.
42:41Any chance to chill out here should be celebrated.
42:45It's not just the heat.
42:47Endless surprises can tire you out too.
42:53It's bigger than I expected.
42:55It's dustier than I prepared for.
42:58But I also have some beautiful memories and experiences of just how humbling this trip has been.
43:06The solitude of this place is kind of intense.
43:11The sky is huge.
43:12The vista is vast.
43:16I'm invigorated.
43:18My dreams have been off the charts out here.
43:22I find myself getting up early just to catch the sunrise.
43:26So many senses have come alive for me out here.
43:31I feel small.
43:33And I feel lucky.
43:36To be a part of all this.
43:42Small and lucky.
43:45Nothing inspires feelings like those more than being alone in landscapes like this.
43:52But there's a side to Death Valley that I haven't fully explored yet.
43:56One that only reveals itself once the tourists have scattered back to their cars and the sun is dipped below
44:03the horizon.
44:05Of course, what I'm talking about is the darkness of night.
44:18Immense darkness, in fact.
44:21The kind that can only be found in a place as remote as Death Valley.
44:29And Harun Mehmedinovich, the man behind this amazing time-lapse photography, is the perfect guy to introduce me to this
44:38new environment.
44:45Hello.
44:47We did it.
44:49Yeah, not bad.
44:50Quite a meeting spot you picked.
44:52It's good, yeah.
44:53Where we're standing here is one of the last remaining pristine night sky places that we have left in America.
45:01So when we're looking at most of this park, especially towards the north from here, we're looking at about 100,
45:07150 miles without artificial light.
45:11Over 100 miles with no artificial light is a big deal.
45:16It means that the skies here are exceptionally dark.
45:20A sight that Harun has cherished since he was a kid.
45:24I grew up in Bosnia.
45:27My dad's family is out from the country.
45:29And part of that lifestyle was telling stories.
45:32So you would gather at night and you'd have a feast and you'd eat and all that sort of good
45:37stuff.
45:40That was a pretty dark place so you could see the Milky Way.
45:45That experience of actually seeing the night sky and the wonder of it, it was very important sort of from
45:50an imagination standpoint for me.
45:54Thinking about being able to actually see the stars in the universe, it kind of takes the limits off the
45:59world, right?
46:00It kind of opens up the lid on that box.
46:03This was a major reason why Harun, after moving to America, decided to get into nighttime photography, which he sees
46:10as much more than just an art form.
46:13You know, with astrophotography, you become an activist in a way.
46:16How so?
46:17Because when you take images of the pristine night sky, everybody's going to immediately ask, is that real?
46:23Because we don't see it anywhere.
46:25So if you just take these kind of images, you are already telling a story of something that we're losing
46:29or we have lost.
46:30Because most people don't have that experience. They can't look up and see those stars.
46:33They can't.
46:34And they're like, it's a fake!
46:35It's amazing how much we have now become separated from, you know, the nature.
46:42Turns out, astrophotography is all about reconnecting with nature.
46:47To an extent that I might not be so crazy about.
46:51Aw, man.
46:54Every time you take a step on a sand dune, you lose half a step.
46:57It is a workout.
46:58It's like a dance move I didn't sign up for.
47:00Yeah.
47:00This is not graceful.
47:02I do not feel good about you right now.
47:07Oh, good. You slipped. That makes me feel better.
47:10Alright.
47:12Yeah. I do that all the time.
47:16Jeez.
47:18So what was your first impression of these sand dunes?
47:22Yeah, so the first time I got out here, it was quite a few years ago. It was incredibly windy.
47:29I remember we left a couple of things on a dash and we went out and when we came back
47:33they were melted into the dashboard.
47:34Oh, that's hot.
47:36Yep.
47:36Okay.
47:37Lesson learned.
47:38Lesson learned.
47:42It was perhaps not the best first impression, but Death Valley would get a second chance to win over Harun
47:48when he visited for an overnight trip.
47:52When I came back and I stayed overnight, you know, I looked up and it was unbelievable.
48:00You can see this incredible universe out here and really that's what got me in many ways into taking shots
48:06of the night.
48:08More and more of our dark skies are being lost to light pollution.
48:12And that loss can disconnect us from the ways our ancestors experienced the outdoors.
48:18It's really important to almost every population you can think of there's a night sky element to it and sometimes
48:23it's actually practical.
48:25There's an old spiritual that escaped slaves used to sing that cites...
48:31Drinking gourd.
48:32Yeah, the drinking gourd, which is...
48:34The Big Dipper.
48:35Yeah.
48:35Exactly.
48:37There is a value to the night sky.
48:40It's a spiritual value.
48:41But also it's the source of religion and of science.
48:45And it's the sort of source of all key questions that we have about where we're at and who we
48:50are.
48:52Harun ultimately became a Death Valley artist in residence.
48:55And while it's clear that he embraced the artist part of that title, I'm curious how he found it being
49:01a resident.
49:02Do you come out here alone?
49:04I've spent months at a time here alone in fact.
49:08Months?
49:09Yes.
49:10What's that like?
49:12Incredibly peaceful because at night there's gonna be hours upon hours of nobody being around.
49:19Not a single other car, not a single other person, not any light, nothing.
49:22Yeah.
49:23And the beauty of the stargazing is that it actually forces you to be in a meditative state.
49:28Like when you're looking up at it, you are meditating.
49:30So if someone's having a hard time meditating, your prescription?
49:33Is stargazing.
49:44All right, so this will be one of our spots for the night.
49:47We're looking for always some kind of an interesting foreground.
49:51And the foreground should be something that tells a little bit of a story of a location.
49:55You always want to add a little context.
49:57This is why you're the professional.
49:59I don't know.
50:08When you look at the stars, you're looking at stars that have died sometimes many, many, many years ago.
50:15We can't even grasp the idea that some of the things we're seeing up there were created billions of years
50:19ago
50:19and the last billions of years past us.
50:24I love the idea of your light lasting beyond your life.
50:28That's cool.
50:30Above me, the same sea of stars that Harun saw as a young boy emerges.
50:36It's not hard to understand why he and his family, like so many others before them,
50:41have seen fit to tell stories about sites like this.
50:44Stories that seem to transcend time and space.
50:48That help explain who we are, why we're here, and where we're going.
50:54Whoa.
50:55It's happening.
50:56There's so many more stars.
51:08I'm starting to see how the outdoors can help us understand and center ourselves.
51:14Which is why, the next morning, I decide to head to my last stop alone.
51:27This place is Badwater Basin.
51:32At 282 feet below sea level, it's the lowest point in North America.
51:40It feels like the epitome of why this location has long been called Death Valley.
51:47This vast, empty expanse feels otherworldly.
51:51It's covered in salt crystals that resemble snow.
51:56It seems completely lifeless.
51:59And yet, I can't help feeling utterly alive.
52:07When I started this journey, it was hard for me to imagine why anyone would want to come here.
52:13Now I know.
52:14This is a place where people can chase dreams, push themselves to their limits,
52:19marvel at nature's beauty, and uphold an unbreakable bond with the land.
52:29Death Valley might seem like an apt description for a place that looks like this.
52:34But there's a whole lot of life out here.
52:37For those who are willing to look.
52:42The End
52:43The End
52:43The End
52:55The End
52:57The End
52:58The End
52:59The End
53:04The End
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