Original subtitles

- We're gonna start approaching this boil,

hold that line, just nice calm strokes,

good thoughtful strokes hold that line,

hold that line, fight the spin, fight the spin.

You're good, hard left, hard left, hard right, hard right,

hard right, hard right.

Charge, charge, left turn, left turn,

you're good, you're good, charge, charge!

- Dad, they don't fit in the same bag.

- I know, they just

fit differently in the same bag.

Now I got all my, all my gels in this bag.

Uh-oh I missed, oh no, that's somethin' else.

Hmmm?

What?

- This is a gel.

- It is?

Let me see it.

Ah!

Okay, that's Erik Kayaker.

- Get some glasses?

- And then I'm gonna stay home,

and I'm gonna send this guy in my stead.

Is that cool?

- Here you go.

Put some glasses on him?

Why is the neck so huge?

We're gonna keep Erik home.

- Little Erik is ready to go.

All right, so one side of me

is very sad because I'm leaving my family,

leaving my wife, leaving my kids, but I'm also ready

to go because I've been training for a long time,

I've been kayaking for six years I mean its time to go.

Sure about this?

- Has anyone told you Erik, that your shirts inside out?

- Is it?

- Yes. - Oh.

- Well we can put the boat up first and then you can--

- No, I can't.

- All right.

- It's annoying.

- This is my second catch in like a week.

- I first met Erik on a trip.

We had a bunch of blind and sighted youth,

kids that were kinda coming down on their adventure

and Erik was kinda the mentor of that group.

And throughout the trip, you know we thought it would be fun

to just get in the ducky and play around so I started

tooting a whistle for Erik and he'd follow me through

and, and we had a lot of fun.

It was great.

And uh, you know it's like, this is cool!

And I remember floating one point downstream

with Erik after a rapid just side by side, you know

and chattin' and,

the idea came up like, "Man we should,

"you should come kayak the whole Grand Canyon some time."

And that sounded like a great idea.

All right, it's actually happening, you guys.

Whoo!

We're going on a river trip.

I know, it's hard to believe.

Um, so you guys I just kinda wanted to talk about-

- The Grand Canyon is Harlan's home,

so he feels so comfortable in this environment.

And it's really cool to see somebody like that,

in a way, he's like a, like a river Yoda.

- Then you guys, we can,

let's uh haul our boats down a little bit and we

can spread out a little bit.

Here ya go bud, I'll take ya over to your boat.

- Thanks.

- I'll let ya get naked and then I'll come back.

- Okay.

- I'll grab your paddle.

- All right.

- And wanna sorta flip

this around so here in the front, so I'll have you spin.

Keep going, little bit further.

Yep.

- Do you want me to lead? - Sure.

- All right.

- I just, I mean you got the bow.

A small lap, okay?

Just I say, you don't wanna go, okay.

- Up to you, bro.

- Uh, Erik, why don't you go left.

Left a little further.

- Yeah.

- And right down to the water.

Perfect.

At the water's edge.

Hey, Erik?

I've got your, uh helmet here.

Now is this the one with the new, oh guess what?

There's no headset.

Oh no here it is.

- Yeah there's a headset, its tucked in there, yeah.

- So Erik, did you guys

figure out the uh, helmets.

- Yeah.

- Cool.

- Yeah, is yours attached?

- Yep, I'm attached.

I'm gonna get dressed and then we can turn this thing

on and see how it works.

- Harlan always wear a collared shirt

underneath his dry jacket.

- You always wear a collared shirt to the office, don't ya?

- How you feeling?

- Really good man.

I feel great.

- Been running around.

- Yeah, that's good.

This is, this is, you know the nice thing about this

right now thought is, you shove off of here, and then

we're packed this is what we do, right?

- Yeah.

- We're in our element.

This is what we've been training for.

- Good luck, you guys!

- Yeah we're doing it, fellas.

We're in the Grand Canyon.

- The Grand Canyon white water

is very unique because of it's sheer volume.

You get these massive hydraulics, you get boils

and whirlpools.

The Colorado River running through the Grand Canyon

is known for big iconic rapids.

These rapids are spaced out intermittently,

and in between them are these long, calm sections,

these long pools.

The biggest of all of these rapids is Lava Falls.

A lotta people get offline and they make big mistakes

in Lava because you can't really see where you're going.

It's a lot of anticipation leading up to each rapid.

- Small left.

Perfect.

Small right.

Small right again.

- Hearing Harlan's voice,

it goes beyond just information, like this

soothing voice is there that's saying,

"I'm right here next to you."

- There you go, nice easy forward strokes,

nothing too hard right here.

Perfect.

Perfect, small left,

just nice and loose, be, let it be keep clear and calm

in the moment.

Clear calm head creates nice, decisive, good action.

- The beginning rapids are less intimidating.

The Grand Canyon has this nice

build towards these massive rapids in the inner gorge.

- We're doing good we're lined up perfectly.

So we're going to be entering the tongue here.

Nice forward paddles now.

Hold that line, we're kinda coming into a bigger waves.

- I mapped this place, I know each day.

I know where the big rapids are, I've studied 'em.

Horn, and Granite and Hermit leading all

the way up to the granddaddy of them all, which is Lava.

And even though I've just started, Lava's never

out of my mind.

It's always there at the edge.

I got invited to this recreational program,

and my dad would drive me like three hours

up to this program.

And once a month they would take us out

doing different sports.

They'd take us canoeing, and sailing

and tandem biking and one weekend they took us

rock climbing.

And I was climbing up this beautiful granite face,

and I couldn't see the rock but I could use my hands

and my feet as my eyes.

And I could feel all of the little, like patterns,

all of the little features in the rock and it was so wild

because it was like, sorta connecting the dots,

like this, sorta puzzle that I couldn't see but I could,

I could sort of figure out how to decipher it

with my hands.

It's just full on engagement and I got to the

top of that rock face and I just remember thinking that

this is the opposite of what

I thought blindness would be like.

It was probably in my late 20s

that I started thinking about Everest.

It's not like in the movies where like, you go climbing

the first time, and then you're like, "I'm gonna stand

"on the top of Everest someday."

You know, it's, it's a long process.

When I got to Everest,

I felt in over my head most of the time.

- Okay if anything happens

just take a big deep breath, all right?

- Too far, too far.

- It's a narrow ladder, Erik.

- Like that.

And some guy, this dude Sandy came in today.

He didn't know I was in the tent, he didn't know I was

sitting right here, and he goes, "Well, you guys are

"gonna have a hell of a time getting the blind guy up there.

"You guys have your work cut out for ya."

- What'd that make you feel like, Erik?

- Um.

Half of me thought, "Oh shit.

"It must be really hard."

The other half of me said, "I'm gonna prove him wrong."

- That's the spirit.

We're gonna do it, Erik.

- All right.

- [Rob We'll pull--

- I needed to kinda really force myself

to believe that this thing was possible.

- Good job buddy, you did it!

You did it.

You proved everybody wrong.

- Okay.

- Dude, how's it feel?

- I feel good now.

So I'm on that high--

- Congratulations!

- Thank you.

When one of my teammates pulls me aside,

and he said, "Hey Erik do me a favor.

"Don't let this mountain be the greatest thing

"you ever do."

What else is there?

Like where do I go from here?

- It's plenty deep. - Okay.

- Let me have your hand.

- All right. - Now I want you to go

all the way as far as you can, and then snap up.

How's that feel?

- Cold.

- Go for it.

- One, two, three.

- Erik asked me to teach him how to roll

and I had no idea it was gonna lead to other things.

Um, started kayaking rivers.

- Start paddling forward,

we're gonna do an eddy peel out, good good.

Stay with it, no not yet!

Little further, and eddy peel out.

We're gonna do the rooster tail this time.

Hold that line.

Paddle forward, small right, left, small left.

Sorry.

Good.

Hold that line, hold that line, small right.

Charge!

- When you flip over in your kayak,

your basic instinct

is just to pull that spray skirt and swim for your life,

you gotta try to roll.

You're way safer inside your boat than you are

out of your boat.

But when I would flip over I would just panic.

How come I started having unsettled stomach problems,

as soon as it seemed to coincide

when I started learning to kayak?

- Now this feels like a river trip!

- Wow, look at that.

- Is that you?

- I'd just like a hot shower right now.

Come feel this.

- Erik?

Here, in this area

is okay, not the greatest.

- This is a table.

- What's pass this, up here?

Here we go.

Ammo can. - Tell her we're supposed to go this way now.

- Miscellany. - Miscellaneous.

That's my water bottle.

- Look at this tiny little thing, that's worthless.

- All right.

- When I started thinking about kayaking,

I was almost 40 years old.

Everything, rivers were just so different from

mountains, I thought, "This is a really vulnerable

"spot, where you're like actually trying to embark on

"something brand new,

"and I don't know if I have it in me."

I remember standing

on the river that first time, listening to the rapids,

thinking, "I climbed Mt. Everest

"so why am I so fucking scared?"

- Slide slide slide.

All right.

Nice.

- Sometimes I don't know why I stick with this.

Partly it's because of my friends.

They're not seeing this like little blind guy

squirming in the corner, they're seeing something else

and I wanna be that thing they see.

- Right turn again,

okay forward paddle.

There's gonna be one hit down here

at the bottom I'll tell you about.

Nice easy forward.

Hold that line, charge on that.

Fight that spin.

There you go.

Steadying out, fight that spin.

- There are days I was learning,

you know in a thousand hours of preparation.

When I was flailing and bleeding and slamming into

rocks and swimming through these rapids.

I think it fed my ego to be the only blind kayaker

out of seven billion people on Earth.

Then I learned about Lonnie.

- Yeah, go go go!

Whoo!

Yeah baby!

Okay, you got the right speed?

- Yeah.

- Hard left, hard left.

On me, on me.

- As long as I can roll up as many times as I roll down,

I'm golden.

- Fair enough.

- Chris and Seth and I met the summer

for the first time.

I don't know how they stay with me when I screw up but they do.

- Lonnie!

Sometimes I think I push them

a little bit out of their comfort zone,

if I'm trying a few things.

But uh, so far it's worked.

- Lonnie.

- I mean bluntly kayaking is a dangerous sport

but you know for anyone who can see.

There's things that can suck you down and hold

you there until you, you drown.

You can smash into rocks.

And you can get flipped over and smash your head against

an under water rock, you could get knocked out

and be floating down the river unconscious.

And then all that stuff is just multiplied,

when you can't see any of it coming.

I've slammed into some walls and things like that

so, I, I don't really like to do that, so yeah.

- You don't like to go careening into rock walls?

- I've slammed into a few walls, yeah.

Just like, dented my helmet, you know.

And it's like I, it's almost good that you don't know

it's coming, you know?

'Cause then you just like bounce off.

- Yeah.

- And roll over and ahen hopefully roll back up, but.

- Hey Erik, where you at man?

- I'm right here.

- High, high five paddles.

Talk to me.

- All right hold on.

- Here we come, I'm comin'.

- Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

- Talk, talk, talk talk, yeah!

- One more time.

One, two, three.

- Whoo!

- Lower, lower.

- Lower lower, okay hold on. - One, two, three.

- Nope I didn't get close to ya.

I gotta get closer, let me turn back around. - One, two, three.

- There ya are.

- That's lame, hold on a second.

Once I got over the shock of not being

the only blind kayaker in the world,

I thought, " I really like this guy."

And so I invited him on the expedition.

You never know what to believe with Lonnie,

when he told us that he had gone blind in

a hunting accident,

he said he was hunting with Dick Cheney.

And it turned out that was actually true,

except the Dick Cheney part.

His friend heard a noise, they were in thick bushes,

he rolled around and shot him.

Lonnie still has lead pellets all in his skin, I,

I've actually felt the pellets under there.

- I used to make money cuttin' firewood for people,

and uh, you know cuttin' wood around the home

and everything else so.

So it's nice to be able to feel comfortable

comin' out here and just doin' stuff I used to do.

Like, I'm not near as fast, the lengths aren't right,

the angles, but still,

you know I can do it.

I was out at the, the Disabled American Veterans

Winter Sports Clinic,

and the organization Team River Runner had kayaks out

there in the pool.

So I'm like, "This, this is cool." you know?

And uh, they called me up and asked me if I

wanted to be able to whitewater in a raft.

And I said, "Nah," I said,

"that would scare me to death." you know,

and they're like, "Uh, well you can't do a kayak,

"'cause you, you gotta do at least a thousand rolls.

You uh, have to have more experience."

I'm like uh, "Okay,"

well he didn't know I'd had my kayak here on this porch

and I went, "All right."

And I took my kayak and went and

drug it down to my pond down there the next day.

Need to practice those babies.

When I first started you know I was just learning,

and I kinda picked it up.

Well I did 100 rolls the next day.

- God it's gigantic, it's almost like it doesn't seem right.

That's open, there's an open,

it opens up some where over there.

- Opens off to the left, right? - Here take my finger.

- Yeah.

- It opens somewhere there maybe, I mean I don't know.

- Right yeah that's kinda what I'm thinkin'

'cause I hear people talking.

- Right. - And then it's naturally, definitely open up

in front of me and then--

- Yeah.

- I don't know how far to my right.

'Bout how far to my right do you think it is?

- It's closed um, it seems like it's closed

all the way to like--

- I'm gonna feel where you're at.

- It seems like its closed maybe all the way to like, there?

- Now see, to me I would think, yeah, I dunno.

Yeah.

Or I dunno.

- Yeah somewhere like that.

- Yeah. But I don't know if we're right or not.

- Lonnie and I started kayaking separately

so we were developing our systems

in a completely isolated way.

- I have a guide in front of me

giving me voice commands of left and right.

Simple commands.

And we just go by voice.

- On me, on me.

- So as we're comin' in down the tongue

we're gonna be making an angle from the left to the right.

- Okay.

- We're gonna ferry into the right.

And then just above the rock, above the big rock

in the middle of the river, we're just kinda gonna cut

to the right, cut to the right.

- Yeah, sounds good.

- Sounds like a plan.

- Let me know when you're ready.

- Let me hear you, uh give some commands.

I don't really hear you too well.

- I was talking, well I had the mic a little ways away

from my mouth.

So, left turn, left turn, hard right,

hard right, hard right.

Charge, charge, charge.

- Yeah they're getting worse again.

- Yeah?

You're broken, repeat?

- What?

- Left, left, good, hold that line,

Hold that line.

Hold that line.

Hold that line, hold that line.

Hold that line, hold that line.

Brace a left, there you go.

Hard left, right, hard right, hard right.

Wait two hard rights, hard rights, hard right.

- 10 feet of distance there was nothing.

Five feet of distance it was super loud.

- It was more like,

- Some muffles.

Oh maybe somethin'.

There we go.

- You got it?

Cool.

- It's not that loud though.

Then I can't hear.

- Is it pretty faint?

- It's terrible.

I figured messin' with Harlan's-

- Correct. Yeah so we'll take this out and replace it with one that we

think works, but we don't know for sure.

Okay so it's the speaker.

So that one labels, labels bad I gotta bad microphone.

- Yeah, there we go.

- Oh my gosh.

- Can you hear me now?

- Yeah, it's loud.

One thing about the Grand Canyon,

is that it gets bigger and bigger and bigger everyday,

you're experiencing bigger and bigger rapids.

Everyday, you're waking up and putting on wet gear

and getting in your kayak.

And everyday has a map of a bunch of hard rapids

that you have to get through.

Day after day it's pretty exhausting.

Only a small percentage of the time

is actually running these chaotic white water rapids.

Each rapid might last 30 seconds,

maybe a minute long.

The times in between, we're paddling from rapid to rapid

are these long calm stretches.

I like drifting down the river,

it's a time for me to listen to the canyon walls

and bring in a lot more information into my mind, you know,

like I can hear the little pour overs in the rocks,

I can feel the sun and shade lines in the canyon

at the different times of day.

I love the peaceful times on the river,

I think I like 'em actually better than the rapids.

- On me, on me, hold that line.

Scorpion!

Dude there's a scorpion crawling up the inside of my thigh.

That's an adrenaline rush.

- Yeah!

At least something in this river can get you.

- I'm gonna drown that little sucker outta here.

I think he's still in my boat.

We never saw him floating.

And he got me too, the inside of my leg is totally numb.

- The one I got scorped by,

my butt was a quarter that, like tiny little guy.

- Fair warning guys, check your boats for scorpions.

- Check everything.

- Here we go.

Okay, because Harlan had to jump out of his kayak

because a scorpion was about to bite his inner thigh

and other nether worlds, it's time for what fellas?

- Booty beer!

- Yeah!

Yeah, get that in there.

Yeah!

Ah, drink drink drink drink!

Good job!

Yeah!

Give it up for him, guys!

- Whoo!

- Three beers.

- Oh that was excellent.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah!

- When I was four years old I was diagnosed

with this really rare eye disease, retinoschisis.

And my brain just went into denial.

I just wanted to be a kid.

I had people that I loved who said,

"Hey, it's gonna be okay."

Not, and I appreciated that, I loved that support,

but nobody knew.

Really.

It doesn't matter how many people have said,

"Get ready for this it's happening,"

like I was not ready.

It felt like I was, like I'd gotten hit in the head

with a sledgehammer.

A week before my freshman year in high school,

I lost the last traces of vision.

And I wasn't like a little bit seeing impaired,

I was blind as a bat.

Like I could not see to take a step.

I was born into this really great family.

My dad's a Marine pilot aviator,

just really tough, really disciplined.

- I have a, a placard,

I send it to sons and daughters when I think they could

use it but it's, "When things go wrong as they sometimes

"will, and the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

"and the funds are low and the debts are high and you

"wanna smile, but you have to cry.

"When care is pressing you down a bit,

"rest if you must, but don't you quit."

- My mom was really loving, really soft.

Almost fragile in a way.

- His mom, she was the one

that went into schools

and absolutely demanded that he be schooled

like a normal kid.

So she was a real tiger, lioness.

- I remember listening to my brothers

out there playing basketball as I was going blind,

and just really wanting to be a part of that

and really sort of angry because you know

what was I gonna do?

I couldn't catch a baseball or anything,

and one of the things I heard that a blind person could

do was to wrestle.

And so one day after school,

I found myself tapping my cane down the hallway

towards that stinky, musty wrestling room and just

signing up, and uh,

and that first day, the captain of the team

slammed my head against the mat so hard just

like every other kid and I loved it,

that this is my family.

- Come on, Erik!

Whoo!

- After I went blind,

I felt like I was stuck in this prison.

It was scary being inside and it was also scary

trying to get out of it.

- Cool, how you guys feelin'?

- Eh, kinda like, business.

- Business?

- Business moment.

- Yep.

Focus.

- Focus.

- I like focus, I think that's a good word.

Downstream you guys we have Horn Creek rapid,

it's actually the steepest rapid in the Grand Canyon.

- All right.

- So--

- I can hear it.

- One of my favorites

down here in the Grand Canyon.

But yeah, and you know just just be loose,

be thoughtful in your strokes and calm and--

- Are we gonna jump in,

do you want us to jump into that eddy down below?

You want us to--

- Oh you know we'll probably eddy out there

and then once everybody's through we can peel off

and celebrate and we're all gonna just grease

our lines you know?

- There you go.

- Yeah.

- Thank you, man.

Good luck.

- Thank you, thanks, Lonnie.

- Yep, see ya man.

- All right.

- Good seeing you.

- Cool, any questions about it?

- Nah man, sounds good.

- All right.

I'm feeling it-

- So the first uh, when you angle in,

the first, will, will probably be left, right?

- Yep, so we're gonna be,

we're gonna be running right to left-

- Yeah, okay.

- And uh, yeah.

There's actually, there'll be a lateral

so on that left we're gonna be kinda squaring

up to a lateral coming off the right horn,

so there'll be a one pit there.

And then we'll have a little bit of slack water,

so we'll push through that.

Yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- On me.

On me.

Hard right, hard right, hard right.

Hard right, hard right, paddle,

on me, on me, on me, on me, on me.

We're just about to enter the tongue here,

hold that line,

small left,

small left,

hold that line,

let that current take you a little bit, perfect,

hold that line.

Hold that line, charge a little bit,

couple laterals here, small left,

left, there you go hold that line.

Charge!

Hard left, hard left!

Perfect!

Good job, brother!

You have the beach about 10 feet in front of ya.

And five feet, and there she is right there.

- Touchdown, thanks.

- One of the life tragedies that you face,

uh Erik was at wrestling camp and his mom

was in a car accident.

I walked onto the edge of the mat

and he knew that it was his dad and he said,

"Dad, dad!

"Where are ya?"

He said, "you know the tournaments not until Saturday."

And then I had to tell him that his mom had died.

So that was a, that was a huge blow to him.

- Losing my mom was the definition of pain,

like so painful, uh that you know you wonder

how your body goes forward.

How your heart keeps ticking.

- Not long after that

he went totally, blindness at the same time.

Blindness and losing your mom, and I've thought many

times about the fact that that would uh,

destroy many people, right?

I never figured out why it didn't destroy him.

- Wait wait wait, oh.

- Nice.

The way people react to bad things

is that they shut down and they build a lotta crust

around themselves and I, I'm the first person

who does that, and yet something keeps nagging

at me telling me that that's, you know, to build up

that crust is the, the exact wrong thing to do.

Lay it open, and that's where like,

that's where the great stuff happens in your life.

The river isn't really alive, but it has a strong character.

Some rapids are big and friendly and big waves,

and some are really violent,

like going into a boxing match, you just get stomped.

So, it's uh, easy to think about the canyon

and the rapids as sort of having a life and energy.

Each rapid you wanna do well,

you know you wanna, you wanna squeak through the gauntlet.

But now I hear something below, it's hard to know exactly

what it is.

And so, it just like gets that little tingle in your belly,

and you're like, okay, what is that ahead?

- Small left, there hold that line.

We're still about 150 feet away.

- There's always that potential chance

that the river takes me away, or washes me one direction

and him the other direction or I flip upside down.

And that, and that is a very stark reality.

Never before have I felt so, adamant

that I have to be upright.

I have to be upright and be you know aware

of what's going on.

- Hold that line, left turn.

Hold that line.

Right turn, hard right, hard right, hard right.

- Small right?

- And hard left, there you go.

Eddying out, fight that spin, there you go,

good job buddy, good job.

- When I first met Erik,

I think the thing that drew me to him and being involved

on this project the most was not necessarily

kayaking the Grand Canyon with a blind guy,

but we were both given uncertainties at a young age.

It's definitely interesting that several

of my pivotal moments in my life have happened with water.

My mom had been taking us on river trips

since I was probably three years old.

This is a bunch of old random photos,

this is my first waterfall I ever dropped kayak.

Up in Oregon, middle of winter freezing cold.

So this is me, probably when I was three or four,

and then this is my sister Marika

and then my dad his name is Guerin, his name was Guerin.

He died when I was seven and he was 41, I believe?

So he was probably my age.

After my dad died I got really quiet

and didn't say much for a couple years.

I think I lost myself in a way, I, I didn't process

the grieving or the loss at all.

Finding my dad dead in a bathtub with water spraying

on his face, not being able to pull him out of the water.

I remember just feeling totally fucking helpless, you know?

Big 250-pound sack of muscle and guy

laying in a bathtub,

and not being able to really know what to do.

I think that is something I carried on with me

for quite a while.

There's the, a part of you you know

that wants to live and survive and continue on,

but I, I think for some reason my relationship

with water has always felt um, like it's okay.

I'm haunted by water.

- You know, I'd always thought

of Harlan as indestructible.

You know, he's like a superhero.

But, I don't think you can ever really truly see a person.

You know, see past that armor.

To this kid that's just sitting there helpless

and shattered and

speechless.

You know?

Feeling the weight of that water on his soul.

It's not lost on me that after his dad died,

he had to find his own way out of that deep well of

despair just to find that voice again and,

that's the voice that's carrying us down the river.

- Whoo!

- If you break down things like Lava,

you realize it's two minutes.

It's two minutes, and I can handle two minutes.

I'm really trying to block that out of my mind

right now, 'cause that's several days away

and I'm not just gonna sit and harp on it.

It's a miserable sort of way to do it, it's not healthy

for my brain.

Like the Khumbu Icefall that's 2,000 foot jumbled up section

of boulders of ice of like every size imaginable.

I remember feeling panicked you know,

just like um, "I'm gonna be trapped

"in this landscape forever."

It, and so it was after getting beat up by the Icefall

many times, that I realized that I was kind of going

through the motions.

That I wasn't really believing that I could stand on top.

- It's gonna be a long fall if you stay like that.

- I can't hear ya, what?

- Stand up.

- Stand up.

- It's so hard to be fully in the moment

when you're on that mountain,

because there's so much fear, there's so much anxiety.

And all that stuff becomes like a layer between you

and the mountain.

Harlan has this really deep affinity to the river.

He experiences the river in such an honest way

and I want to experience it that way too.

I keep feeling like I'm letting myself down somehow,

because I'm not in the state that Harlan is in.

It's like a person looking through a window

at an experience rather than being in the experience.

I slept till like maybe30,

and then just couldn't fall asleep and just laid there

listening to the, to Nevill rapid out there.

It's kinda loud.

- I'm getting ready to run through this little rapid here,

uh gonna try it solo.

The only thing I'm gonna want from these guys is

to tell me going in, if you know I split the sound of

the big roar, or if I keep it off to one side or the

other going in.

And then I'm just gonna try to feel the waves,

and see if I can roll right down through.

- Tell me about that run, how was that?

- It was independence, man.

- Uh-huh.

- You know, and uh, uh,

I don't know.

I know you know the feeling of uh,

well that's one of the harder things of not being able

to see is losing that freedom and total independence

and that's uh, just a small moment of just--

- Yeah.

- It's just good, you know?

- Just going down by feel that's super cool.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, uh--

- Nice, well good job.

- Yeah, yeah thank you, man.

Appreciate it.

- Ooh, and your T-shirtin' it too.

- Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Seth what is it, sun's out guns out kinda stuff, man?

Yeah, thanks bud.

- Hold on a second though, you gotta go--

- Yeah I gotcha, I gotcha.

- We gotta go.

- Gotta go, oh yeah, gotta roll huh?

- All right now you're, now you're better.

- Yeah, yeah, but I aint got the guns

you got so there you go, you know?

But you got the guns out, I's got the chicken wings so.

- There's a rapid called Upset and it's uh,

kind of a big one.

And uh, some people say it's fun.

Hope that's the case.

- Hey, Har.

- Thank you.

Eating your porridge?

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna go get some porridge.

- Yeah, porridge is good breakfast 'cause it goes down easy.

- When you're tummy's upset above Upset--

- Yeah, sausage before Upset is just not, not flying.

- No.

Well how 'bout this--

- A big meaty sausage.

- I'll put some in your pants for later

and you can have it after Upset.

- Thanks, I'll slide it in my pocket.

- You can have some pocket meat.

- Well, I mean I can hear some loud waves right down there.

Um, I think maybe that's on the right side, right Harlan?

We'll maybe miss that stuff.

- Yeah. - That loud noise there, some little pour overs isn't it?

- Yeah.

So just like we were talking about,

you know you pointed out you heard something over there

so we're gonna stay off the wall.

- Yeah.

- But we also kinda wanna be moving

almost towards the wall to get away from that,

there's a hole at the bottom.

- Yeah.

- How you feel about Upset, Lonnie?

- Nice, on me, on me, on me.

On me, on me.

On me.

On me.

On me.

On me.

Very nice.

Keep comin', keep comin'.

Keep comin', keep comin', keep comin'.

- Dude you came so freaking close, to this monster hole.

- Hold that line.

Hold that line.

Little bigger waves here, hold that line and small right.

Right turn, hold that line, hold that line, charge.

Hold that line, hold that line, charge, charge.

Hold that line, small right, hold that line,

charge, charge, charge, small right, hold that line,

right turn, then left turn.

One left, perfect, brother perfect,

hold that line and we're almost through it.

Hold that line, hold that line, you're perfect,

you're perfect, you're good, brother.

Nice job, E.W.

Perfect.

Good job.

You're doing it, like you're doing it,

like we, we've talked about it,

it's our little mantra above the rapid, right?

Like, be clear, calm and precise in your action

and be at peace in where you are in the moment.

And then at that moment,

that just allows you to let everything else go.

You know and I think seeing you harness that,

I mean I, it freakin' brings tears to my eyes

'cause it's amazing.

You know, it's like, that I think

is you reaching this next level of the sport.

That's something that I've had to learn how to harness,

now I get to share it with you and seeing that you're,

you're letting it in is really cool.

- I've dry heaved several times this morning,

when I think about it.

- Yeah.

You said you didn't, didn't eat so.

Have you ate yet?

- You know I think a lot about Lava

and it's starting to weigh a lot of my mind,

consume a lot of space in my mind.

And I can get sort of down in thinking about,

oh you know, so many things could go wrong.

But then I think, gosh it's just another rapid,

you know, I just gotta execute and do what I've done

in the past.

- Forgot how far it is, we gotta go a ways.

- So as we're coming in the green water,

we're gonna meet what I call the slick,

and it's kinda right where the eddy line meets.

- Mm-hmm.

- And we're just gonna kinda hug that eddy line.

We're not gonna, it's not gonna mess with us too much,

'cause we're gonna be pointed kinda right down the stream.

Um--

- Pointed right down?

Uh-huh.

- Pretty much.

And then when we kinda start getting close to the rapid,

there's some boils that kinda start to form, and the boils

are gonna feel like it's kinda surfing us one way

or the other.

- Could the two entry ways knock you over?

- Uh no, no two entry ways you'll be fine on.

If it does tip ya, just you know again nice

and calm in the moment, just be where you are,

focus on nothing else but just setting up for that roll.

Nail your roll, and then be listening for commands

and we'll get ya, we'll get through those tail waves.

And then it'll be done.

- All right.

- Charge, charge, charge, charge, charge.

All right, E.W.

How you feeling, buddy.

- Good.

- Just find that feeling,

remember that feeling is harnessing everything,

nice calm breaths.

Bring everything in right here right now,

we're in the moment.

Nothing else matters, just kayaking.

Clear, calm precise thoughts and actions.

Whenever you're ready, buddy,

we'll just take some forward strokes into the current.

Small left, there you go.

Hold that line.

Have a good one, fellas.

Small right, there you go, hold that line.

Small right again, hold that line, another small left,

okay hold that line.

So we're still about 100 yards above here,

some nice calm water.

And I will speak up in that rapid.

Small left, hold that line.

Small left.

Hold that line.

Getting closer to that first slick I told you about.

So we're still in green water, still in green water.

We're gonna start approaching this boil, hold that line.

Just nice calm strokes.

Good thoughtful strokes, hold that line, little boil line,

fight the spin, fight the spin.

- You're good, hard left, hard left, hard right,

hard right, hard right, hard right, hard right, hard right,

charge, charge, left turn, left turn, you're good.

That's good, charge, charge.

You're good, you're good, hard right!

You're good, buddy, you're on me, you're on me.

Go around to the back of my boat.

- All right will you help me so it's all right?

- Now go to Timmy, I'm right behind you.

- I had a shitty run.

I flipped.

- That's all right, buddy, we're good we're good.

- I flipped on that boil line right at the very top, what a joke.

- Ah, but we knew, didn't knew line,

I mean you got lined up down at the bottom and...

That stinks.

My paddle broke in that, right when we hit that last wave,

my paddle broke.

Ended up going up without, without half a paddle,

bird-winging it.

Come here, buddy.

Give me a hug, we fuckin' did it buddy.

You did it.

Yeah.

Good job, you know I'm proud of you,

you rolled up in one of the cruxiest places

you can roll up in this river.

It's at the top of Lava Falls.

- You wanted to see me swim, didn't ya?

- Maybe I did.

- You know you get the idea that you start out

on this big journey and you commit to it.

You surround yourself with this amazing team

and you push forward, and then reality crashes in.

And you're swimming through Lava like a drowned rat.

I don't know,

you know, you just, you know, you just keep getting

flipped and then it starts to, kind of uh, mess with

you, you know what I mean?

So you're like wondering if you're like offline

or something like that.

- Yeah.

- And then I just couldn't breathe.

- Yeah.

- I pulled.

And then literally I pulled and I was through it.

- Yep.

Yeah.

- I was through it.

There was nothing, nothing left.

Blind five.

- Blind five.

There you go.

Yeah, it was uh--

- All right, I should get my booty beer over with here.

- I pour it fast, and you know--

- Booty!

- It's comin' in.

- Wait. - It's gotta go in first.

- What's got the--

- It's gotta be run into the booty.

- Yeah yeah yeah.

Got it.

- Got the beer, hold on.

- Yeah, booty!

- And there is a little whiskey deal on there.

- Okay, there you go.

- Little skip of whiskey, there it is.

And now down it!

- Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink!

- Wow!

Dude.

Nice work.

- He didn't spill a drop.

- Yeah, you didn't spill a drop.

- You'll never swim again.

- I'm probably not supposed to say this,

but I honestly I hate it when people tell me anything

is possible.

You know barriers, they're not like imagined,

they're not perceived.

They're real, they're real things with real substance

and they actually hurt a lot.

Part of me wants to keep on going

and just never look back at this thing ever again.

Maybe I just go back, and I, and I finish the circle.

I, I finish this thing and I do it fully.

Not like, with just giving into myself.

If I have another, another disaster

and I swim through Lava I can live with that as long

as I, I did this thing fully.

- Erik pulled me aside

when he didn't successfully run Lava,

he swam Lava.

And he pulled me aside and he asked me,

"What would be the possibility

"if I wanted to run Lava again?"

We're gonna be paddling upstream

for quite a while, you know up to uh the black rock,

and then we'll make the ferry across.

He said, "Well if we do this,

"who do you think should come with us?"

And I said, I said, "Your team."

I said, "Your team.

"All of us.

"We'll go up, we'll hike up and we'll go do it again."

- When care is pressing you down a bit,

rest if you must.

But don't you quit.

- Just take a deep breath and clear everything.

Just be here in the moment, and feeling the river.

- Thanks, Harlan.

- Yeah, buddy.

Come here, man.

Thanks for letting us be here with you, buddy.

- Thanks, Rob.

- You're welcome, bud.

Good job, buddy.

- Thanks for letting us be here with ya.

- We'll have to come back though, you nailed it.

- You did buddy, good job man.

- High intensity Lava Falls.

- That's high intensity.

I didn't really wanna, like part of me didn't really

wanna come back and do it but I just felt

like I, I needed to and then I sort of tossed

and turned last night listening to Son of Lava

thinking like, "Should I do it?"

I, I tell my kids it's the open heart policy,

just trust and, and uh, give it a whirl.

- There we go, buddy.

- I don't wanna understand love,

I wanna feel it.

I don't wanna understand trust and I wanna feel it.

I wanna be exposed to things;

hard things, easy things,

beautiful things, the kind of trust

that you have with somebody like Harlan or Rob.

I think being exposed to that, is what enables you

to feel it and I think it's something I've struggled with

a lot in my life.

This experience was this chance to live.

- This is the geographical end of the Grand Canyon,

so you guys are here man, you did it.

- Well, I'm proud of you Lonnie, good job.

- You too, buddy.

You too.

- Yeah.

It's awesome, man.

Harlan, great guiding too.

- Yeah thank you guys.

Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

- And six years ago, long time but I remember

when I first came down here and I scouted Lava

and I remember thinking, I don't know if I can do this.

So we're through it, we did it.

- Yeah, you know it's uh, I gotta say.

I can't imagine doing it with someone I have

anymore respect for.

- Good job, you guys.

Small right, hold that line.

Hold that line, about 10 feet to the beach, buddy,

small left, and there's the beach right--

- The beach!

Awe.

- Like a one foot step up right there.

Flat on top.

- Hi, Daddy. - Hi, little buddy.

- What?

You guys are crazy.

- No, you're wet.

- That is a surprise.

- 277 miles, buddy.

- 278 miles.