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Friday Film - Wild (2014)

Friday Film - Wild (2014)

If you’ve ever headed out for a big walk with just a pack and a desire for a bit of soul-healing solitude, Wild will feel like a kindred spirit. Pub-chain heiress Reese Witherspoon (lol jk about the pubs) plays Cheryl Strayed, a woman who takes on the Pacific Crest Trail alone after life knocks her sideways, via loss. It's not a film about hiking despite an array of recognisable gear paraded throughout its 2 hour running time. It's more about someone using the outdoors and all of its extremes as an antidote to what has gone wrong in her life. Whether it's the self-inflicted breakdown of her relationship or the traumatic loss of a loved-one, the outdoors has a handy knack of presenting whichever treatment you need to help get over it. And in Wild there's a true story we can all relate to. The cinematography is stunning, and it really shows off why the Pacific Crest Trail is so beloved. You can almost feel the dust, the sun, the weight of the trail. But beyond the environment and the challenges nature can chuck in front of us, this film shows solitude in a positive light. Long passages feature very little in the way of dialogue yet still hold your attention.Like all memorable movies, Wild's strength lies in its ability to reflect real-life scenarios back to us in a way we understand, whether it be the literal scenarios ("Shit, I've brought too much gear") or the spiritual benefits to be gained from reconnecting with nature and using it as a tool to rebuild yourself. Give it a watch. You'll like it. 

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The 1977 Yosemite Dope Lake incident

The 1977 Yosemite Dope Lake incident

Every now and then, you come across a story that feels more like a fairytale than real life. And along the long, winding trail of climbing mythology, a few tales stand out - not for superhuman feats of endurance, but for their sheer surrealism. Chief among them is the most infamous, far-fetched, and mind-blowing story of them all: the Yosemite airplane crash of 1977, better known as Dope Lake. Ask anyone about Dope Lake and you’ll get a different version of the story. But here are the facts: in the dead of winter, a Beechcraft twin-engine plane - crammed to the wings with Mexican red-hair marijuana - lost its bearings in a snowstorm and crashed into the frozen expanse of Yosemite’s Lower Merced Pass Lake. The wreck sat quietly beneath the ice, holding not only the bodies of the two pilots but an estimated 6,000 pounds of weed, shrink-wrapped and waiting. Word didn’t take long to travel. News of the crash filtered through the trees and into Camp 4 - the infamous stomping ground of Yosemite’s dirtbag climbers, who spent their days scaling granite walls and their nights dodging Park Rangers. Suddenly, a new kind of expedition presented itself. Allegedly tipped off by a radio call relayed by a climber’s Park Ranger girlfriend, a small group of dirtbags set out on the initial hike to the crash site. What they found was nothing short of a miracle: a plane embedded in a frozen lake, surrounded by bales of high-grade hash. They hauled back as much as they could carry and made their way - slowly and carefully - back to Camp 4. Their return sparked something close to a second Gold Rush. Word spread like wildfire, and soon climbers from across the region were making pilgrimages to Dope Lake - some reportedly bringing chainsaws to cut through the ice and free the bales. Supposedly, some dirtbags walked away from the affair with their pockets well-lined, and there are rumours - unsubstantiated, of course - that this is how Yvon Chouinard got Patagonia off the ground. Not saying we buy that… but it's a good story. The product itself, by all accounts, was absurdly potent. Joints were known to singe eyebrows on lighting, thanks to jet fuel soaking into the bales during the crash. Sadly, though, the high times didn’t last. Eventually, the DEA caught wind of the operation and shut it down. But by then, the legend had taken root. Dope Lake became climbing folklore - a hazy crossroads of wilderness, rebellion, and wild opportunity. Slogan tees appeared, emblazoned with: “I got mine at Lower Merced Pass.” The tale even helped inspire the 1993 musclebound mountain thriller Cliffhanger - well worth a watch, by the way. Stories like Dope Lake don’t come around often. And to us, they represent the raw, unpredictable magic of the outdoors. One day you’re climbing El Capitan; the next, you're hauling 30 kilos of jet-fuel-steeped weed out of a frozen lake.

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Radio Hikerdelic #16

Radio Hikerdelic #16

We're back with another list of ten songs we've enjoyed of late. We share them here in the belief you might like them, too.

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