The Season 2.21…Summit or Bust

Dawn breaks on Mount Rainier and it’s time for the 6,000-foot climb from base camp to the summit. This is the chance for Greg Hill to summit the mountain that launched him on his skiing career. Now, if only the weather will window will hold long enough.

The Season 2.19…Mountain of Potential

Rising 14,000 feet above sea level, Mount Rainier is where many aspiring mountaineers go to test their skills. Crevasses, hanging glaciers, weather that’s not always predictable. At 19, Greg had the climbing bug and set his sights on Rainier. But summiting is not a gimme by any means. When he first saw Rainier, Greg “saw an amazing mountain that scared the crap out of me. There was a lot of fear but no understanding.” After years spent honing skills in the mountains, Greg views Rainier as a mountain of potential. Now, he’s set his sights on two routes in two days.

The Season 2.15…Mountain-stache

Spread across Greg Hill’s downstairs man cave are a series of maps stitched together. The Purcells. Monashees. Selkirks. Adamants. Valhallas. British Columbia’s ranges extend outward from the hub of Revelstoke. Meticulous pencil lines are drawn to mark each route traveled, each successful peak.  When we saw it, we wondered what we had just signed up for.  After his successful two million vertical feet year, Greg had another idea altogether.  This season, Greg wanted to return to the mountain where his career began when he was 18 years old — Mount Rainier.

The Season 2.14…El Cap bound

“The List is this ongoing process in my head,” says climber Craig DeMartino. Each season, his mind wanders over past climbs. They bubble to the surface and Craig makes it a point to go out and repeat them, but over the years a funny thing happened. The list became less about looking backward then as a means for looking forward. Craig climbs as hard if not harder than he did before his accident and amputation, so it would only make sense that he would add new, more challenging routes to The List. For all traditional climbers, El Capitan is always right near the top of every tick list.

The Season 2.13…Down Stream

“It’s sort of a cliché, but there is this fishing joke that says – there is only one other sensation that can compare,” says Ryan Peterson. “I’ll leave it at that.” After days without landing a fish and living on the river, our fishing lives are as active as e local night life. The gang starts to wonder if landing one of these ghost run steelheads will ever happen. Everywhere there are signs of the fish, but when it comes to taking a fly, they remain elusive. We follow one California’s wildest rivers down to the mouth and back again.

The Season 2.12…Do The Math

In 2010, Greg Hill achieved the unthinkable. He ski toured two million vertical feet. He’d spent the prior decade prior shaping his body into a powder slaying weapon, sharpening his understanding of British Columbia’s sometimes dangerous snow pack and refining his mountain sense in order to travel safely, even on days when the avalanche danger crept into the red. Or as Greg puts it, “I used to be a mountain boy, but now I can grow a pretty decent mustache and I think of myself as a mountain man.” When he crossed the mark on the final day of 2010, everyone was curious– what’s next? Three million? Maybe not, but Greg has a few ideas.

The Season 2.10…Top Dog

The Ghost Run exists. Top Dog proved it. The pictures taped to wall of the Salmon River Outpost are worth a thousand words. With the rising water from recent snow and rain, the fish are moving up river and Ryan goes to work floating and fishing the Klamath River and its tributaries. It’s said that steelhead are the fish of a thousand casts, but on a river that has felt the hand of man so powerfully — through dams, agriculture and overfishing — it might just take a few more casts.

Directed and Edited by Tim Loubier

Episode 2.9…Leaving Newfoundland

After Cedar was born, Thomasina moved back home and tried to make a go of settling down. Newfoundland provided a sense of home. It was a place where store owners knew locals’ names and people helped one another. She managed it for a few months, but after a while the nomadic climber in her needed to leave. For Thomasina, the only thing that could rival the Newfoundland community was the climbing community.

Episode 2.8…The Ghost Run

We’ve got a ghost story for you. The Klamath River, running through the rugged Northern California mountains, used to hold the fourth largest population of salmon and steelhead in the world. Every year millions of fish would surge up stream. Now, over fishing, agriculture, and bad politics have taken their toll, and the once great runs are not only diminished, they are mostly gone. To many fly fisherman, the Klamath might as well be dead. But angler Ryan Peterson has heard rumors that during the winter, a run of massive steelhead creep upstream unnoticed. Is it a good yarn or is it real? This season Ryan wants to find out. The search for the ghost run begins.

Episode 2.6…The Fall

In 2002, Craig DeMartino’s life should have ended. Craig took a 100-foot ground  fall after a miscommunication with his climbing partner. The accident left Craig in a wheelchair and a slew of medical problems. Thankful to be alive, Craig still struggled to redefine himself after the accident.  His lifestyle had changed forever. He struggled to play with his kids. The outdoors were no longer a part of his life. After being diagnosed with a neurological condition, Craig reached a turning point. He could amputate his slow-healing foot to stem his nerve condition and gamble that he could get his life back or he could stick with the obvious outcome — stay in a wheelchair and grapple with pain for the rest of his life.