Journey: The Quest For Self-Reliance (1976)

I [Music] well I call you when I get out if I'm not out in 2 weeks you'll know where to look for me take take it easy be good [Music] when I heard V's car driving off down the road I knew it was going to be the last man-made sound I would hear for 2 weeks it was late fall and I was setting out to cross the Sierra Nevada on foot I've Loved These mountains since I was a kid and I'd been planning this trip for a long time you have to plan you can't just get up one morning and head off into the hills not if you're used to harvesting your food in supermarkets you have to know the ways of the people people who'd called these mountains home how they gathered food made tools navigated by the Sun and by the Stars how they took what they needed from the hills without destroying them so I studied for a long time and I made a lot of shorter trips for practice then one day I knew I was ready I packed a knife a few tools and one Thin dime for that phone call I'd be making when I got across of course I still had doubts I had 70 M of wilderness icy rivers and deep snow to cross on foot with no food no matches and no [Music] Compass but this was a challenge I had to face and I want wanted to do it alone [Music] [Music] there's one thing about living in the wilderness life gets reduced to very simple things like making a shelter or finding food or just staying warm sometimes it seems like you're spending a lot of time just taking care of Basics but the rewards are simple and IM mediate too a couple of hours spent on making a good shelter for instance can mean the difference between a good night's sleep and shivering all night on a bed of rocks and pine cones the same is true for finding food you've got to give it time the Shashi Indians used to catch fish with their hands just by reaching in under Creek Banks or rocks stroking the fish's belly and pulling it out of course you have to know fish and know where they'd be likely to sleep or to hide and you can't be squeamish about sticking your hands blindly into slimy places but you don't have to be faster than the fish just smarter and remember you hold the element of surprise sometimes but the important thing is not to give up you've got to believe you can do it [Music] w [Music] [Music] starting a fire with a fire bow looks easy until you've tried it once and then it seems impossible until you actually made it work for yourself it takes dry Tinder a good fire set and a lot of faith you've just got to believe it really can be done after a few failures the first night I I found myself wishing I'd brought along some matches but I'd done it before and I knew I could do it again if I just kept trying it only takes a single spark and a very gentle touch [Music] [Music] the for [Music] [Music] until that first night I never really knew how much a friend a fire can be that little circle of light was like a home in the middle of the Wilderness I found myself wondering just what I was doing there I felt like I was a million miles away from the life I was used to most of all I missed the sounds of other people and my imagination turned every sound I could here into a [Music] threat of course the mountains weren't really threatening me they were ignoring me maybe that's why I felt so alone [Music] the next morning I couldn't even remember what had bothered me so much the night before I was excited all over again and could hardly wait to get started but leaving a campsite without putting things back the way you found them is like well like carving your initials in a tree or painting your name on a rock someone once called that leaving a monument to yourself so I covered up all my traces and I still got an early start ah head was a whole mountain range to cross and less than two weeks to do it [Music] in the farther away you get from the city the more you begin to see and hear and taste and smell the wilderness after a few days you can pick out small things that you might have missed only a week [Music] before I remember day after day of walking and feeling my feet stop aching and my body grow stronger then one day I realized I wasn't in a hurry anymore [Music] after about a week the only companions I needed were the sounds of the mountains and my own thoughts but I was alone and I realized that more than ever when I hit my first real obstacle the Kern River was Fuller than I hoped it would be that late in the year I couldn't find a place to walk across and there wasn't any way around it so that left me with two choices cross it right there or turn around and go home and that was really no choice at all whatever happened I was on my own to make it across sometimes you've just got to take a chance and trust yourself I thought about building a raft but that would have taken a lot of time and I didn't really think it would be necessary all I had to do was hang on to my end of the rope and I would be washed down and across the river like a giant pendulum my big worry was the water temperature it was about 40° and that's cold it can cramp your muscles and make you numb so I had to get across quickly or I'd lose control and wind up going for a swim in the Rapids finally I secured everything as well as I could I thought about the river how strong the current was and how cold it would be and then there was nothing left to do but get in [Music] [Music] once you've gone through something you were afraid of the idea of doing it again doesn't seem as frightening I didn't mind the idea of Crossing Another River but as I sat there shivering and trying to get dry I kept thinking next time I'm going to build a raft [Music] I camped in one place for a couple of days to gather food and to get ready for the high mountains ahead when your life depends on the things you do and how you do them you've got to take the time to do each thing the best you can I wasn't looking forward to spending a night in the snow but I figured that if I was prepared I could get across the deep snow in one long day of walking what I needed took a combination of time and a little mountain grown ingenuity [Music] all it took was Willow branches yucka leaves and an idea that's the amazing thing about living in the wilderness you find find out you can do things you never thought you could I wasn't sure I could build snowshoes until I did it at first I hoped I wouldn't need them but when I was done I couldn't wait to try them out [Music] you haven't felt real Solitude until you've been alone surrounded by the silence and Stillness of Mountain snow I remember thinking I'm really here walking in snowshoes that I built across snow that no other human being will ever see I enjoyed having it all to [Music] myself it took me almost a full day's walking to realize that I wasn't going to be out of the snow before nightfall the clouds began to look very threatening and I still had miles to go I headed downhill to see if I could find a protected place where the snow might not be so deep [Music] deep it takes more than a campfire to stay warm on a cold snowy night in the mountains I decided to build a fire bit a technique the Indians use to survive in the winter the idea is to sink stones into the ground heat them until they're red hot then cover them with dirt it takes time and it takes a lot of hard work but if you're like depends on it you don't mind the work as much and anyway the digging keeps you warm sometimes I imagined myself frozen stiff being discovered after the first spring thaw but part of me kept saying trust yourself you know what you have to do and you're doing it they say the person who is likely to survive in the wilderness is the one who believes he will and take some sort of direct action if you think you're not going to make it you probably won't I decided then and there that I was going to make it that first warm day in the Hills 2 weeks back I'd seen some Cattails growing and I picked them for an evening just like this one I needed some way to keep my body from losing heat while I waited for the fire bed to be ready the seeds inside work just like [Music] down I kept thinking just one more night make it through tonight and tomorrow you can be sleeping in a warm bed as the night got colder it helped to have that to look forward [Music] to a fire bed can't be hurried you have to wait at least an hour before the dirt heats up but it seems more like 10 when you're cold I kept going over everything in my mind did I heat up the stones enough did I cover them with enough dirt or too much for the bed to stay warm all night everything had to be [Music] perfect the steam Rising from the dirt told me the firebed was ready I was surrounded by snow the wind was blowing it was below freezing and I was going to stay warm all [Music] night the fire bed stayed warm right through the next morning and I was in no hurry at all to get out of [Music] it it was my last day in the Sierra I'd stopped counting the days and it was almost a surprise to realize that my trip would soon be over in just a few hours I'd be standing on the highway waiting for vau to pick me [Music] up Suddenly I was in a hurry again I wanted to be there on the other side of the mountains 2 weeks ago I hadn't really been sure that I could make it but now I knew that I had met the challenge I'd set for myself and I felt it was true more and more with every step I [Music] took it was going to take a while to get used to cars and people and City things again I'd come a long way in the last two weeks and I didn't want to lose what I'd found in the mountains but I wanted to go home now and find out if this feeling would last this feeling that one step at a time I could make it over anything [Music] n [Music]