Original subtitles

[crickets chirping]

Kevin costner: Flashlight, headlight, hatchet.

[mumbling]

Perfect.

Ah, tent, tent.

No, but I'm sure you're gonna ask it anyway.

Well, you ever heard the expression

That sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction?

I think this is one of those stories.

It's a story about a confluence of tragic events,

Separated by time and space, intersecting

At a seemingly impossible manner, and somehow something--

Something incredible came out of all of it.

A young boy suffering from severe asthma,

A president's assassination, a horrible accident

In a wagon wheel factory.

Unrelated events in most people's minds, right?

But they all needed to happen for this story to unfold,

For two men to come together for three days

Out in the wild, three days that would change america forever.

That's a story worth telling, don't you think?

Now I'm gonna turn these lights out

Because I'm pretty sure I forgot something

And I'll get it in the morning.

[theme music]

Kevin costner (voiceover): Two men embark on a camping trip.

These two men have never met before.

They push through heavy snow, get soaked with rain,

And wash down stakes with hot coffee.

[whimsical music]

They didn't set out to change america.

But what they dreamed up around the campfire,

Some might call it ingenious.

Others might say cunning.

But boy, did it work.

[birds chirping]

[uplifting music]

Yosemite national park, 1,200 square miles of soaring cliffs,

Cascading falls, and endless groves of sequoias.

The lush valleys are a playground for the 400 species

That live here.

The alien granite structures are a playground for us.

It's pristine and protected.

Today, the national park service employs more than 700 rangers

To keep this land safe, to keep it just the way

It was when it was created.

But that hasn't always been the case.

And if not for events that took place more than a century ago,

It'd probably look a lot more like this.

But let's go back to the beginning of the story.

Well, the modern part, at least.

The year is 1872, geologists and surveyor

Ferdinand hayden has just led a team to the yellowstone region.

He successfully lobbies congress to protect

The land for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

[uplifting music]

President ulysses s. Grant signs the yellowstone

National park act into law.

For the first time ever, the us government

Vows to protect america's natural wonders in perpetuity.

By the time our story takes place in 1903,

There are six national parks, six areas that congress

Has promised to protect.

[uplifting music]

But it's not working at all.

Congress saw the national parks as a zero cost initiative.

Each park has a single unpaid superintendent responsible

For enforcing regulations.

This is the system in place to protect the lands.

Poachers are decimating the elk herds in yellowstone.

Sequoia national park is under relentless assault

From loggers who have no interest

In letting go of a cash cow.

And here in yosemite, gold miners

Have flooded into the valley after a 75 pound

Gold nugget is discovered here.

Those who aren't tearing up the rock in search of gold

Are cleaving through the forest with reckless abandon.

You know, as a parent myself, I can confidently

Say that the rules I believe don't really work if they're

Only enforced some of the time, and even less effective

If the punishment for breaking them isn't much of a punishment

At all.

And that's exactly what was happening in the national parks.

There was this poacher.

His name was ed howell, and he was caught red handed

By the army soldiers cutting off the heads of 10 bison

That he had killed in yellowstone national park.

He admitted it on the spot; that he'd sold them

To a taxidermist for $125 each.

But despite getting caught in the act,

The only punishment allowed by the law was to make him leave

And telling him that he should never come back.

I guess that would be what we'd call the proverbial wrist slap.

10 bison with their heads cut off in the national park

And all they said was you can't come back.

And that's exactly what had been going

On in the national park system.

Kevin costner (voiceover): But the gruesome image

Is printed in newspapers across the country.

The public outcry is enormous.

How could the government claim to be protecting

The national parks when there's no policy

In place to enforce the rules?

The public wants congress to do something.

But a few years later, after the public outcry has died down,

The plundering in our national parks continues.

What was once a herd numbering in the millions

Has dwindled to just 23 bison remaining in yellowstone.

[suspenseful music]

And 1,300 miles to the southwest,

Yosemite is still under assault. The trees,

The streams, the wildlife, all of it is at risk.

The dream of ferdinand hayden, the concept of protecting

America's wildest places, the very idea of national parks

Is hanging on by a thread.

Something needs to happen fast, but it doesn't.

It's destined to disappear forever.

But then on may 15, 1903, two men embark on a camping trip

Just a few miles from where I'm standing.

[instrumental music]

They didn't set out to change america,

But that's what ended up happening.

This is where it all started.

[whimsical music]

Kevin costner (voiceover): These two men have never met before,

But through a series of letters, they agreed to spend three days

Camping in yosemite together.

They entered the region from the south in an area

Called mariposa grove.

[whimsical music]

Before they disappear into the vast wilderness,

The two men and the entourage that came to see them off

Posed for a photograph in front of a giant sequoia.

This is teddy roosevelt, the president of the united states.

And this is his tour guide, renowned naturalist john muir.

And naturally, that tour starts among the giants.

Then, as now, the groves of giant sequoias

Are synonymous with yosemite.

And their timber is what many of the poachers in the park

Were after.

The sequoias are a sight to behold, towering into the sky.

They're the largest species of tree

On earth, reaching heights up to 325 feet.

They're as tall as a 30 story building.

[uplifting music]

But each of these behemoths starts like this.

[whimsical music]

A seed no larger than a single flake of oatmeal.

They grow the same way we do, little by little.

After a year, they're about 9 inches tall.

After three years, they're about 3 feet tall.

The key to their immense size is longevity.

Living up to 3,000 years, they have

One of the longest lifespans of any organism on planet earth.

[whimsical music]

This is the oldest tree in yosemite.

Meet the grizzly giant.

She germinated around 1,000 bc.

In the 3,000 years since, she's endured wind and snow.

She's endured drought and fire.

The burn scars around the base are called cat faces,

And they're worn like a badge of honor.

A lesser tree may have been felled by the fire

That this once survived.

And yet, fire is a necessary part of the cycle

Of the mighty sequoia.

[fire crackling]

The sequoias cones are just a few inches long,

And they hang on for dear life, often staying sealed on the tree

For 20 years or more.

It takes an extremely dry period or a fire

For the tree to release the cone down to the ground.

Then the heat of a fire on the forest floor

Causes the cone to open and release the seeds to the soil

Below.

Only one out of every million will ever take root.

[uplifting music]

The grizzly giant has produced around 900

Million seeds in her lifetime.

So it's likely that many of the trees that stand nearby

Are her offspring.

Standing at the base of the mother tree,

It's easy to see that she appears to be ready to fall.

With a weight of over two million pounds,

She leans heavily to the south, nearly five degrees in angle.

The force of gravity does what it does,

But there's a reason the giant doesn't fall.

It's because each of the 500 mature sequoias

In mariposa grove are giving a little help

To their friends and family.

Giant sequoia roots don't tap straight down into the ground

Like most trees.

Instead, the shallow root system spreads out to the side

And interlaces with the roots of other trees around them.

In this case, the oldest tree in yosemite

And one of the oldest living things on earth

Is held steady by the trees around her.

And it's right here on the edge of the majestic grove

Of sequoias that this part of our story unfolds.

When roosevelt showed up at the wawona hotel

On the outskirts of yosemite, a massive reception in four

Days of events were planned.

Governors and politicians had gathered to meet with him.

Agendas at the ready.

But the president, well, he had an agenda of his own.

[classical music]

Imagine that happening now.

The president of the united states

Shows up to a campaign event and then suddenly

Vanishes into the wilderness.

It'd be a national panic.

There'd be military search parties called in,

Helicopters and drones flying around the clock.

But those who knew teddy roosevelt

Knew that it was best to not send anyone after him,

Especially if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Roosevelt was a different kind of guy, and so was his guide.

[classical music]

Kevin costner (voiceover): John muir arrives

In the yosemite region in 1868.

He instantly falls in love with the place and decides to stay.

He uses his status as a well-respected author

To draw up the proposed boundaries

And write magazine articles that lead to yosemite being crowned

America's third national park.

And in 1903, when he receives roosevelt's letter asking him

To guide him through yosemite, he doesn't accept the invitation

Because he's starstruck.

He accepts because he has an agenda of his own.

In a letter he sends to a colleague, muir writes,

"an influential man from washington wants to make a trip

Into the sierra with me, and I might be

Able to do some force good and freely

Talking around the campfire."

He's labored tirelessly to stop the destruction

Of america's natural places, and yet it's

Still happening in yosemite.

By the early 20th century, one third of the original sequoia

Groves have been clear cut, and the one man who can do

Something about it is about to give

Muir a very intimate audience.

If he can show the president the magic of this place,

Maybe he can convince him to use every shred

Of his power to protect it.

And so after a quick photo opportunity in front

Of the yosemite's oldest resident,

The president and the naturalist head into the wilderness.

Yeah, I actually do remember the first time

Coming to yosemite.

And there was something about yosemite

That when you first arrived to it, I came through a tunnel

And saw maybe the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life,

This valley of stone surrounding it, protecting it, this rush

Of water that looked like it was just hurling out

Of the mountain.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

I was lucky.

Do you realize that?

I was lucky that someone had made a decision

Along the way to protect this.

Otherwise it had been gone.

And my whole essence of how I've lived my life

Was formed from being in these wild places,

And these wild places needed protection.

Someone had to speak for it.

John muir had to speak for it.

Part of what muir understood so clearly if he could just

Get teddy there, if he could just get him to this spot,

That it would change the trajectory

Of the national park system.

[uplifting music]

Kevin costner (voiceover): As muir guides roosevelt

In the yosemite valley on horseback,

They're surrounded by more than just breathtaking views.

Wildlife abounds in the spring.

One of muir's favorite resident creatures is the black bear.

"bears are made of the same dust as we

And breath the same winds and drink the same waters,"

Muir wrote.

It's early may when he and roosevelt embark

On their journey, the same time of year

That mothers and cubs emerge from their hibernation.

[whimsical music]

These cubs were born four months ago during the coldest

Part of winter.

After months of hibernation and nursing her cubs,

The sow was in a dazed state called torpor.

Even a bite or two of insect larvae

Are welcome calories for mom.

Her walking around weight is usually 200 pounds,

But during the winter she's dropped 60 of those pounds,

Losing about a third of her body weight during the long rest.

For the 5 pound cubs, this is their first taste of food

Other than mother's milk.

She'll continue to supplement their diet for a few more weeks.

But by early summer, they'll be eating their meals

The same way she does.

[whimsical music]

In may, the black bear in yosemite

Will feed mostly on low nutrient meadow grasses

While they wait for berries and other high calorie foods

To become available.

Over the next eight months, these cubs will double in size

Every two weeks, reaching a weight of 80 pounds

By their first birthday.

Roosevelt said that he was once afraid

Of things like the mighty bear.

But by pretending not to be, his fear went away

And he was able to enjoy the sights

And sounds of the outdoors.

[classical music]

It was no coincidence that he requested

The famed naturalist john muir to be his personal guide

Through yosemite.

But roosevelt's road to becoming an outdoorsman

Was just a small part of a seemingly impossible confluence

Of events that leads to this camping trip, which

Will change america forever.

It's well known that roosevelt was severely asthmatic

And suffered as a young boy growing up in manhattan.

His parents took him to all kinds of doctors

To try to help him.

The first doctor they took him to told them to--

And this isn't a joke-- but told them to give

The boy a shot of whiskey.

Another suggested that they have their son

Light up a big-- a big fat cigar once or twice a day.

Well, they tried and found that no amount of booze or tobacco

Helped his asthma.

Finally, one doctor suggested that young teddy spend

As much time as he could outside in nature, breathing fresh,

Clean air.

And finally, something worked.

And from that day forward, teddy roosevelt would forever equate

The outdoors with health, and his infatuation

With the wild places of the world begins.

Kevin costner (voiceover): He draws everything

He sees, and memorizes the latin names

Of each species he identifies.

Then, when he's 12, his father becomes

The founder of the american museum of natural history.

Teddy loves it so much, that he decides

To start a competing museum, calling it the roosevelt

Museum of natural history.

It's in his bedroom.

When he's 14, the family takes a trip across africa

And the middle east.

Teddy collects animal specimens.

And when he turns 18, he ships off for harvard university.

Roosevelt spent three of his college summers

In the adirondack mountains, researching

His first book, "the summer--

The summer birds of the adirondacks."

Four pages.

"bluebird, common near malone.

Golden crowned wren, quite common.

Often heard singing in June.

Chickadee, rather scarce in June."

It's just a-- it's just a list of birds he saw.

Maybe for roosevelt, writing his first book while attending

Harvard was more of a summer vacation

Than a real attempt at literary genius.

But he'd-- he'd grow as a writer.

Something was burning inside this young man, and he was--

He was destined to.

Kevin costner (voiceover): Roosevelt

Would go on to write 35 books and 155,000 published letters.

Some are about war.

Some about politics.

And the rest, well, most of them are

About his true love, the great outdoors and the animals

That live there.

Roosevelt's first foray into wildlife

May have started with the birds of the adirondacks.

But by the time he visits yosemite,

He's become infatuated with america's big cats--

So much so, that just a few months before his trip,

He'd been gifted a live mountain lion

By a prominent political supporter.

Don't worry, he never brought it to the white house.

Roosevelt may have hoped to catch

A glimpse of a wild mountain lion

During his time in yosemite.

But you could live here an entire life and never see one.

It's estimated there may only be 18 of them living in the park.

That translates to one every 65 square miles.

But those who do exist in the sierra region

Earn their place at the top of the mountainous food chain.

A mountain lion on the hunt can travel 12 miles a day

In search of a meal, traversing many terrains,

Including the highest heights for the rarest of prey.

The sierra bighorn sheep ranks highest among the animal

Mountaineers of yosemite.

"possessed of keen sight and scent and strong limbs,

He dwells secure among the loftiest summits.

Leaping unscathed from crag to crag, up and down

The fronts of giddy precipices.

Crossing foamy torrents of slopes of frozen snow exposed

To the wildest storms, yet maintaining a brave,

Warm life and developing from generation

To generation in perfect strength and beauty."

John muir, 1894.

With more than 300,000 years of adaptation,

That's three ice ages of survival in the sierra nevada.

The bighorn sheep has acclimated to the most severe terrains.

And the habitat they call home is their primary defense

Against predators.

And it generally works against all but one--

This lioness.

The elusive big cat is collared and monitored by park rangers

To help ensure they remain viable in the ecosystem.

This feast could last for a week, if she's dining alone.

But this mother has her babies' mouths to feed.

Mom trains them between her hunts every few days.

And when she goes back on the hunt,

Leaving them in their hidden den,

The cubs sharpen their skills.

These mountain lion cubs were only born a couple months

Ago at the tail end of winter.

And despite their instincts, the road

Seems long over the next year to making it on their own

As an apex predator.

By the looks of it, it's going to be a very long summer.

Whether teddy roosevelt and john muir were lucky enough

To catch a glimpse of a big cat during their trip in yosemite,

We'll never know.

Everything we do know is pulled from a journal here,

A letter there, or short passage in roosevelt's autobiography.

Small fragments for us to piece together

The rest with our imaginations.

One thing we do know is that after their first day and night

Camping underneath the towering sequoias,

Roosevelt and muir spent much of day two

Following along the merced river.

It is truly the lifeblood of yosemite.

For the animals who live here, a constant source of fresh water.

For the 3.5 million people who visit each year,

It's a source of entertainment and sport.

But this river is actually what formed the entire landscape--

50 million years in the making.

Humans-- we operate in years, decades.

Even a century can be a daunting frame of reference

To wrap our heads around.

Trying to conceptualize 50 million years in time

Is, well, maybe it's a bit like trying to teach

Calculus to a bumblebee.

But 50 million years ago, the river was slow-moving,

Even still at times.

Yosemite looked like this--

No mountains, no granite cliffs, just grasslands

And gently rolling hills.

Then a 10 million-year-long period of tectonic activity

Deep below the surface threw everything into upheaval.

As the pacific plate slid underneath the north

American plate, it melted into magma

Under the immense pressure.

As that magma rose to the surface and cooled,

It turned into the massive blocks

Of granite that eventually punched through the surface.

These granite blocks that were once sediment

Under the pacific ocean now give yosemite

Its signature peaks and domes.

And over the course of millions of years,

The entirety of yosemite tilted dramatically to the west.

As it did, the merced river now had gravity on its side,

And the force of the water grew and grew as it moved from higher

To lower elevations.

Now the merced was a force to be reckoned with.

And it would spend the next three million years carving

Through the newly formed mountains,

Burrowing 3,000 feet into the rock and creating

A canyon seven miles long.

Then, 250,000 years ago, glaciers moved through

The canyon, widening and deepening

The trail that the merced river had already blazed.

You know, there's not exactly a map with

An "x marks the spot on it."

But what we-- what we do know about that camping

Trip between roosevelt and muir was that everything

We could piece together either came

From articles from the newspaper or quotes from roosevelt

Himself.

You know, they didn't have a bunch of guys

With cameras following around.

But the one yosemite ranger who did

Decide to accompany them, well, he wrote a few pages

Of his recollection.

Said they made camp just past the falls,

Somewhere not far off the banks of the merced.

So I'd say--

I say, yeah, I think we're somewhere in the ballpark.

Kevin costner (voiceover): He also said that the night they

Camped here, roosevelt said to him,

"charlie, I'm hungry as hell.

Cook any damn thing you wish.

How long will it take?"

When charlie tells him a half hour,

Roosevelt lies down on a blanket,

Falls asleep, and starts snoring so loudly that you can hear him

Over the crackling of the fire.

The next day, roosevelt wakes up a new man.

Says he's never felt better in his life.

The crisp mountain air gives the president a new lease on life.

He later speaks rapturously to anyone who will listen

About the wonder of yosemite, saying

He had no idea of the sublime scenery

And the magnitude of the force before.

And that no tale of the west, however marvelous it might be,

Can now astonish him.

You know, I think--

I think I'm going to take a walk before that sun gets

Over the mountain.

You guys are welcome to come, but you might want a coat.

Kevin costner (voiceover): Roosevelt's trip

Through yosemite couldn't have come at a better time.

He was exhausted, depleted, on the tail end

Of an epic whistle-stop tour.

The tour spanned nine weeks, 25 states, and over 14,000 miles.

And it was all part of the sequence of events that brought

Roosevelt and muir together--

The right people at the right place at the right time.

Tr will soon be up for re-election,

And he's drumming up support for the republican party

All across the united states.

Roosevelt is the incumbent, but he's never been

Elected by the american people.

Roosevelt had only taken office after president william mckinley

Was assassinated by a lunatic in buffalo, new york,

Just six months into his second term.

At just 42 years old, roosevelt becomes the youngest

President in american history.

So with an election right around the corner,

Why from a campaign trail to disappear into the wilderness?

What kind of politician would risk

Losing an election in exchange for sleeping on a blanket

Underneath the stars?

Well, teddy roosevelt is no ordinary politician.

He was forged in a very different fire.

Born into a wealthy family that's part of the new york's

Long-standing dutch aristocracy, he's just 23 years old

When he starts his political career as a state

Legislator in new york.

It was during this time that he makes

His first trip to the dakota territories

For a two-week bison hunt.

By the end of his trip, he's fallen in love.

He immediately invests in a ranch and buys 1,000 head

Of cattle, and builds a small cabin along the banks

Of the little mississippi.

After his mother and his wife both tragically die

On the same day in the same house in 1884,

A distraught roosevelt abandons politics and retreats

Back to the dakotas.

He becomes a local sheriff, and spends

His day tending to his herd.

He says that the romance of his life began here,

And that the rugged integrity of the terrain

And the people in the dakotas took the snob out of him.

There is no room for snobs during the notorious winter

Of 1886.

A raging November storm brings daily temperatures of -40

Degrees fahrenheit, windchill not included,

And the winter never relents.

It snows so much that animals had

To climb the drifts to graze.

Their frozen carcasses were found hanging from high limbs

Like ornaments on a macabre christmas tree.

70% of all cattle in the dakotas and montana die that winter.

Roosevelt toughs it out in his little cabin,

Doing whatever he can try to save his herd.

But in the end, fighting the force of mother nature

Is a losing battle.

His herd is decimated and his investment in the dakotas

Is lost.

But still, just 28 years old, roosevelt

Emerges a hardened man.

Neither the elements nor tragedy can faze him any longer.

Winter in yosemite can rival the dreaded storms of 1886.

In 2023, new records were set, with 40

Inches of snow in a single day and accumulations up to 15 feet.

And a new record low temperature of -22

Caused the famous falls to freeze solid.

On the second day of roosevelt and muir's

Camping trip through yosemite, this is exactly what happened.

After several weeks of pristine weather,

A blinding snowstorm hits yosemite.

By this time, the entirety of america

Has become fascinated with the story of their rogue president

Disappearing into the wilderness,

And news of the snowy conditions quickly spreads.

A wire report comes out early that afternoon,

And the general public becomes concerned about their leader.

You know, the thought of the president of the united states

Riding a horse through 14-feet of snow, I mean,

It's just hard to imagine how americans

Would react to that today.

And it'd be even harder to hear the next wire report that got

The people really worried, telling them

That president roosevelt has not been heard from today.

I mean, think about that.

Try and picture it.

Now, it's-- it's possible that this disappearing act was

Actually a brilliant publicity stunt orchestrated

By president roosevelt himself.

I mean, we'll probably never know,

But I don't think so myself.

But the american public, they ate it right up.

It was pure teddy roosevelt.

Kevin costner (voiceover): It's known that roosevelt and muir

Are headed for glacier point.

At an elevation of 7,200-feet, the whiteout

Conditions would stop most rational men from

Continuing up the mountain.

But one journalist at "the san francisco chronicle"

Has a solid grip on the man the president truly is, writing,

"some in his party say that this is just

The kind of trip he'll enjoy.

Severe weather cannot frighten him."

After a full day of riding through deep snow,

Stopping now and then to let their tired horses

Rest before plunging through another drift,

Roosevelt and muir reached their campsite.

"a snowstorm came on.

And at night we camped on the edge of yosemite,

Under the branches of a magnificent silver fir.

And very warm and comfortable we were," roosevelt later wrote.

They had covered 35 miles of rugged terrain,

And it was time for roosevelt and muir

To finally get down to business.

Huddled by the fire that night, as five more

Inches of snow fall, they spent hours in spirited conversation.

They talked a great deal about the conservation of forests

In general, and particularly in yosemite.

But they also talked about the setting aside of wild areas

In the united states.

Roosevelt is impassioned by their time in the wilderness.

Maybe their exhilarating day in the snowdrifts

Reminds him of his younger years spent in the dakota territories.

But something about the conversation with muir

On that snowy night injects a ferocious energy

Into the president.

The ranger who guided them later reports that the only difficulty

With the conversation was that the energy was so frenetic,

That both men were so excited that they

Simply couldn't help but talk over

Each other the entire night.

When roosevelt finally returns to his eagerly awaiting party,

He announces, "this is one day of my life,

And one I will always remember with pleasure.

Just think of where I was last night.

Up there amid the pines and silver firs in the sierra,

In solitude.

In a snowstorm, too.

And without a tent, I passed one of the most

Pleasant nights of my life."

I've never known how to make sense of this story.

But I know one thing-- that's the good part of the story.

There's another part of the story that ended tragically,

And I'm not afraid to tell it.

In the coming episodes, roosevelt and muir

Hatch a cunning plan.

It gave the president himself enormous power

To deem an area of land protected by federal law

Without it needing to pass through congress or the senate.

Kevin costner (voiceover): And we go back to the very beginning

Of the yosemite story, when the sounds of bloody battle cries

And gunfire echo from the canyon walls.

It was a piece of paper that said, "wipe them

Out if they get in your way."

[music playing]