America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston

(Baratunde breathing deeply) (wind whistling) - At last, a breath of fresh air.

In a place like this, you can let go of whatever weighs you down, and fill your lungs with the joy of being outside.

I'm in Death Valley, one of the most remote places in the United States, and at 282 feet below sea level, this is North America's ground floor.

Rising up around me as a landscape that may seem empty and lifeless, and yet I can't help but feel a connection to something that makes me feel alive.

(tranquil music) My name is Baratunde Thurston.

I'm a writer, activist, sometimes comedian, and I'm all about exploring the issues that shape us as Americans.

This country is wild, and its natural landscapes are as diverse as its people.

- [Women] Hey!

- [Baratunde] There it is, there it is.

How does our relationship with the outdoors define us as individuals and as a nation?

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] "America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston" was made possible in part by a grant from Anne Ray Foundation, a Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropy.

This program was also made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Ah, life on the move.

It's nice to hit the open road sometimes, and nothing says "AMERICA OUTDOORS" more than a big ol' RV.

I'll admit it, this isn't usually my style, but I'll be needing this fridge on wheels for where I'm headed, Death Valley.

With temperatures up to 134 degrees Fahrenheit, it's the hottest place on Earth, and yet nearly two million people travel there every year by choice.

I do think getting outside means getting outside your comfort zone, but Death Valley seems like a bit of a death wish.

(tranquil music) My first glimpse of the place only confirms what I imagined.

It's vast, arid, seemingly lifeless.

No shade or shelter in sight.

It makes me wonder why so many people are drawn to a place defined by dust and blistering heat.

Who are they and what are they looking for out here?

The man I've arranged to meet first on my journey wasn't just drawn here, he moved here, and today he lives on top of a windy, hot mountain, totally alone.

Are you the mayor of Cerro Gordo?

- [Brent] Oh, it depends on who's asking.

- [Baratunde] Ah, just a visitor, man.

Just a visitor.

- Welcome, welcome.

- [Baratunde] Look at this.

- [Brent] It's somethin', right?

- Yeah, I'm feeling humbled.

The wind is making my eyes water.

It's definitely not emotions.

(Brent laughing) This is Brent Underwood, an entrepreneur who once lived in the bustling town of Austin, Texas.

Now he lives on the edge of Death Valley in a ghost town called Cerro Gordo.

(tranquil music) In 2018, Brent bought this town with a friend and a group of investors, and while his aim was to turn it into a major tourist destination, he soon saw it had another use as the perfect place for social distancing.

Escaping the pandemic was on a lot of our minds in early 2020.

I remember going HOME DEPOT, buying two of everything in case I had to build an arc and start civilization from scratch, and you moved in Cerro Gordo.

- Packed my truck, took a 24-hour drive to get here, and I haven't left since.

- [Baratunde] This wasn't entirely by choice at first.

Immediately after he got there, Brent got a taste of why this region is often called a land of extremes.

- [Brent] No getting out now.

We've been snowed in for maybe four or five days.

- [Baratunde] That's where I folks, it snows here, too.

- I saw my supplies about my truck dwindle to let me raid every single cabin for all the canned goods that may or may not be expired.

- So you were just eating random stuff that was here?

- Had too, you know, it was no way to get off, so I had like some canned beans that may have expired in 2008, but I mean, I'm still here.

- That's Barack Obama inaugural beans, man.

(Brent laughing) Oh, you can't go two presidential, three presidential terms.

Brent survived on beans and stubbornness, and he soon grew a look at his ghost town in a whole new way.

- My life was never controlled by nature like that before.

And to me, it's brought a connection to this place that I never had before.

I feel like I learned more about the property.

I can feel like even my mental state changed throughout the seasons and how it flows with it.

Every day I spent here, I fell more in love with it, and then the timeline has extended to forever, I guess.

- Forever?

- Forever.

- Okay, that's your exit plan.

- [Brent] Yeah, that's it.

(tranquil music) - [Baratunde] Forever is kind of hard to imagine out here, but it's clear that a big part of what keeps Brent going is his fascination with the town's history.

- We are sitting in what was once the largest producer of silver in the state of California.

Back in the day, they'd pull something like $5 million with of minerals out of the ground below us, and at its peak, this town had 4,000 residents.

We're sitting here, it's quite peaceful, the wind's going, but back in the day, it was anything but peaceful.

- [Baratunde] It said that there was a shooting here once a week, and given all the bullet holes, I believe it, but miners had to deal with more than just deadly duels up here.

They also had to scrape by in an extreme environment, kind of like Brent.

(playful music) The Underwood estate.

- [Brent] Yes.

- [Baratunde] He has a nice house, but almost no amenities.

This is your bathroom.

- [Brent] This is the bathroom.

It's an RV shower.

It's mounted to the wall, so you just flip the switch.

There you go.

- [Baratunde] You got a car battery?

- [Brent] Yep.

- [Baratunde] And just wires hanging out a propane tank.

He lives alone up here, but he does have three cats and three goats.

So you're not actually alone.

- No, I got the goats, I got the cats.

I got all sorts of things, ghosts.

- And the voices inside your head.

- Yeah, what else would you want?

(Baratunde laughing) - [Baratunde] He has no running water, and the closest grocery store is a full hour away, but he does have access to the internet, and where there's internet, there's opportunity to make a different type of personal connection.

- Hello, 13 months!

That is how long I've been living here.

Well, not specifically here, but here in Cerro Gordo, California.

(tranquil music) That's become kind of my community, you know?

I had never made a video in my life.

I just came up with a camera that my buddy lent me, so it's fun to put together something here and share what I find each week, and that helps me feel like it's all worth it.

- A lot of people seem to agree.

Brent's video have amassed literally millions of followers, but even his mountain of content can't quite capture the realities of mountain life.

I keep thinking about how lonely it might get up here.

And I know you've got your internet people, but what about companionship, friends, lovers, family?

How do you deal with that?

What's the situation there?

- Being alone can be strangely addicting, and I don't know if it's a good thing, but I've become comfortable with it.

I make do.

- [Baratunde] Brent admits he doesn't share everything on social media, like how hard it is living in a landscape like this.

- I've lost a lot of weight since being here.

It's just part of like moving around, not eating enough, but I truly believe that this town is important, the history here is important, that sharing the history of this town is important.

Just hearing about all these characters that were just lost over the time is just super fascinating to me.

It puts me in different rabbit holes that I'll spend months trying to figure out.

- Speaking of rabbit holes, you explore these mines.

- I do.

- By yourself?

- Quite often.

I take a precaution I can, we'll put it that way.

- [Baratunde] Other than not going inside.

- At the end of the day, mines are- - 'Cause that's my precaution, I'm not going down the mine by myself.

- And that's the best thing to do.

Stay out and stay alive is what the motto is for mines, but they're fascinating.

(suspenseful music) And to me, it's almost like a race against time.

What's in the mines are artifacts.

They tell a story.

Yes, I'll take that.

And if these things they're not recovered, then they'll just be lost forever.

After you.

- [Baratunde] Thank you.

Oh, smells so old in here.

(Brent laughing) - [Brent] This is it.

- Brent's building a museum inside the town's old general store, a way of preserving Cerro Gordo's history for himself and for anyone else willing to make the drive up here.

- So these are all things I've found in the different levels of the mine since being up here.

Dynamite boxes, pick axes, of course, miners' helmets.

- You can almost feel the stories behind these dusty artifacts, and they remind me that this place isn't empty, that people have willingly struggled to forge a living out here for a very long time.

(suspenseful music) (motorcycle engine whirring) We're exploring people's relationship with outside.

It's hard to think of a more extreme example than a dude who left inside.

- Right.

- So just live out in a mining town with very questionable structures.

- Very questionable.

- What have you learned about your own connection to outside?

- Before I moved here, I thought that time and nature was a nice thing to have, and now it's a have to have.

More time I take walking around, the more clear my thoughts are, the more I appreciate my place in this world, and I've been enjoying it.

- If Brent's story is any indication, it takes a certain kind of person to make it out here.

You have to be okay with extreme weather and extreme isolation.

I'm not sure if that's me, at least not yet, but I'm willing to head deeper into the desert to find out, as long as I've got some AC.

(engine whirring) Oh yeah.

(gear shift clicking) Driving toward Death Valley proper, the road seemed to stretch off into infinity, and with cell service almost nonexistent, I'm starting to worry a little bit about what might happen if I got lost out here.

Coming into what passes for a town around here.

I'm thankful to run into an old trading post called Ballarat, which sells old-school maps on the honor system.

Seems like I've traded a town of one for a town of zero.

(flag flapping) (map rustling) So I'm here in Ballarat, right next to Happy Canyon, which sounds, that sounds great.

I like Happy Canyon, but then above that is Surprise Canyon, which I can only imagine how it got that name.

Like somebody's just walking through, everything starts falling, like, "Oops, surprise.

This is a canyon."

I don't wanna hang out there.

This place seems dead set on making you struggle, even with things as simple as folding a map.

Feel like I'm making my bed.

But struggle doesn't even start to explain what you can face out here.

(suspenseful music) Thanks to climate change, Death Valley's heat waves are getting longer and more intense.

The blistering conditions have always kept me at a distance, but some people actually seek them out as the ultimate physical challenge.

This is Mosi Smith.

He's a former Marine, and ultramarathoner, and for years, he's been running in road races so long and so intense, they'd seem to require superhuman strength.

This region that we're in, Death Valley, what has brought you here?

- Well, I'll say, initially, the siren's call was the Badwater Ultramarathon.

(uplifting music) - [Baratunde] So a regular marathon is how many miles?

- [Mosi] 26.2.

- How many miles is an ultramarathon?

- 26.3 or more.

- (laughing) Really?

- [Mosi] Yeah, man, that's it.

- So you can do a 26.3 mile and call it an ultramarathon?

- As long as you go beyond, yeah, that's it.

- So if I just run through the tape, that's an ultramarathon at the very end, I just- - In your head, yes.

- [Baratunde] I go an extra block in the- - I mean, yeah, man, yeah.

- Mosi's being a little modest.

The race he's run here multiple times is 135 miles, and the weather, I can't even think about that.

What time of year is the Badwater Ultramarathon?

- July.

- See, that's, you run on purpose?

- [Mosi] Yes, yes.

- And you're running from something?

- No.

- [Baratunde] Okay.

- I'm running towards.

- [Baratunde] You're running towards something.

- [Runners] Three, two, one, whoo!

- And that something is the Whitney Portal, the trail head for the highest mountain in the continental US, which means Mosi comes all the way out here to run 135 miles and climb a total of 14,600 feet in the hottest place on Earth at the hottest time of the year.

We are different, man.

(both laughing) - I'm sorry, man.

- No, it's good.

Difference is good.

I celebrate diversity.

This is good.

You're allowed to be you.

I celebrate you from over here.

- Right on, right on.

(dramatic music) - [Baratunde] So how could anyone compete in a race like this?

The truth is few can.

Only 100 racers are accepted each year into the Badwater 135, and aspiring runners need to prove they're ready for what many consider the toughest foot race on Earth.

- You start chafing in places that you didn't even realize.

Like the backs of my knees, basically, blistered from just getting cooked.

- [Baratunde] Yeah.

Which is why, well, I actually have no idea why I'm doing this, but I have agreed to go on a run with an ultramarathoner.

Pray for me.

It was nice knowing you.

(uplifting music) Once we're off to the races, well, I'm being very generous by calling this a race, but it's actually not that bad.

Mosi sets an easy pace, and I try to think of the best way to keep my mind off the heat and not collapse in front of you.

(uplifting music) Are there moments out here that stick with you?

You're like, "That's where I figured this thing out.

That's where I thought deeply about that other thing."

- Yeah, there's like stuff that's going on, like internally or in your life, like, yeah, you got plenty of time to sit with that and either get to the root of the issues, or develop ways forward.

- It sounds like you're describing psychotherapy.

- It is, it feels like it.

I'm not a therapist, man, but it feels like it every time.

There's not a lot of distractions here, there's not a lot going on here, you know?

You can't run from anything.

You have to like sit with yourself or whatever you bring here.

- It's an appealing concept, the idea that nature can help us focus our inner thoughts and find peace.

The outdoors is supposed to be the place where we all belong, but that's not always the case for many of us.

Ultramarathoning, you're the first Black person I've come across who does that.

Honestly, it's hard for me to sit with a Black runner and not think about Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, where you're from, and we saw how that ended.

- In Georgia, three white men charged with murdering an unarmed Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, pled not guilty today.

Police say Arbery was shot and killed after the men spotted him jogging, thought he was a burglar and chased him down.

- I can't go out the door without thinking about that, but it's like at the same token, I refuse to, I still refuse to let outside things dictate my joy.

I need to get out because that's like, that's when I'm being the best version of myself.

With respect to what's bubbled to the surface over the past year, we're gonna see a lot more folks entering this space and I'm here for it.

- It's exciting to see the outdoors finally opening its doors, and that's the idea behind a new sports team that Mosi just joined called TEAM ONYX.

- TEAM ONYX is basically the first all Black adventure racing team.

- Ooh, is adventure racing the thing you do where you make life much harder than it needs to be?

- Always, always, with a bunch of other people.

- With other people, so it's a collective hardship by choice.

- Shared adversity, man.

That's it, that's it.

(Baratunde laughing) You're doing multiple disciplines, whether it's whitewater rafting, kayaking, climbing, there's repelling, there's orienteering.

Oh, and have a little bit of sleep deprivation, and do it as fast as you can.

- This makes me think of all the things I was told Black people don't do.

- Boom.

- And you're just taking that whole list and putting it in one event.

- That's it, but it's more important to showcase that it's not just one person in this sport or one person in that sport.

It's like there's a whole family of us out here.

I look at the topography and the flow of the land, and instantly I'm transported back to road trips with my mom.

I'd just be looking out the window and I'd imagine myself running, running through the landscape.

Out here, life blooms.

For me, this place represents one of the jump off points of my story.

That's opened up areas of my life that I didn't even imagine.

I love it, man.

- [Baratunde] Life blooms.

- Life blooms.

- Life blooms is not something I expected to hear about a place like this.

And inside the boundaries of Death Valley National Park, it only feels more barren.

It doesn't exactly look life affirming, but not everyone sees it that way, and that includes the people whose ancestors were the first to live here, many of whom don't ever refer to this place as Death Valley.

(suspenseful music) We've learned to call this place Death Valley, allegedly because it's empty and it's lifeless, but there's another word which captures the truth of this place, Timbisha, referring to the people who've lived here for thousands of years, and referring to the red ochre rock which sits behind me.

People and land, indistinguishable, Timbisha.

The Timbisha Shoshone people have lived in this land since time immemorial, but ever since outsiders started arriving in this region, it's been labeled Death Valley.

For Pauline Esteves, a legendary activist and former tribal chairperson, the name isn't just a misnomer, it says a lot about this region's fraught history.

- They call us Death Valley and I guess we're supposed to be dead, but the name of the valley itself is Timbisha.

It refers to a place where they found the red ochre, which they used spiritually to heal themselves with.

(tranquil music) The name of it has nothing to do with death at all.

That had to be explained to us why it was called Death Valley.

- The reason, in 1849, during the California Gold Rush, a group of westward bound prospectors got lost here, and when they were rescued, one supposedly uttered, "Goodbye, Death Valley."

Ever since, the name has stuck.

The settlers who came here and called this Death Valley, they called it that because they felt it was so extreme.

Did you find it extreme and hard to survive?

Do you know a different story of this place?

- The way I was taught by the old ones was that we go with what the environment gives us.

If the wind blows, the wind blows, so you go with it.

And so when it's hot, it's hot, and you go with that, and you learn how to live with it.

We was always playing outdoors, never hardly indoors at all.

- How did you grow food or catch food?

What was the meal plan out here?

- Well, I grew up where they did a lot of trapping, a lot of gathering.

For hunting, they hunted the deer and the bighorn sheep.

- In other words, Timbisha was a land of plenty, or at least a land of enough, but everything changed when the US government entered the picture.

Back in the 1930s, when you were a child, the US federal government designated this land as a national monument.

What do you remember changing when the government came and this a national monument?

- They came in uniform.

We were already accustomed to the white people living here.

They were after everything that was significant, spiritually significant to us.

They had a policy to remove all Indigenous peoples off of their lands, the lands that they're going to develop into a monument or a park or whatever.

- [Baratunde] The goal, in part, was to build a big tourism industry here.

Since the Timbisha weren't federally recognized at the time, the government didn't need their consent, and that didn't go over well with the tribe.

- We started to rebel against them as we got a little older, to let 'em know that they were wrong, we were right.

- What did that look like?

What did you do?

What was that activism?

- We pulled the stems out of their tires and that all air would go out and go flat.

We kind of thought that was funny, and then they says, "Oh, those Indians did it.

The Indians did it," and we laughed.

They were always getting in our way, trying to change our ways, but we belong here.

They came here.

That's the difference.

- [Baratunde] Unfortunately for the Timbisha, the government was undeterred.

The idea that Death Valley was uninhabited made it even easier for the national monument to move ahead.

The Timbisha were eventually forced to move to an out-of-sight village with adobe houses built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and officials later threatened that if the Timbisha ever left the homes, the structures would be demolished.

- It was traditional that we move out of here during the summer months, go to other areas.

- 'Cause it's hot.

- It was too hot.

And after we pick the mesquite beans after they ripen, we'd take off up into the mountains.

During that period of time, that's when they come in here and they hosed down our little houses that we had.

- When water meets adobe, even a house dissolves.

So destroying the homes.

- To destroy them, and you'll come back and your house is gone.

- This was far from the end of the Timbisha struggle.

For decades, they fought for legal rights to their homeland, while the feds pushed back.

The government even conducted nuclear tests nearby, potentially contaminating their food and water sources.

- We came to a conclusion after so many years of fighting with them that we had to do something to become recognized by the United States government, that we were people living here.

That made us laugh, but we did it anyway.

- Why did that make you laugh?

- Because we felt that we were just part of the land, and that no piece of paper could say that our histories are right here.

It's in those mountains, everywhere you look, you'll see us.

You can't get rid of us.

(Baratunde and Pauline chuckle) - [Baratunde] Pauline lobbied on behalf of the Timbisha in Washington, DC and beyond.

The tribe was federally recognized in 1983.

And in 1994, when Death Valley was upgraded to a national park, the government launched a study into a potential reservation.

Ultimately, the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act of 2000 was signed into law.

It granted nearly 7,800 acres of land back to the tribe, the first reservation ever created inside a national park.

- A lot of people said that I was an activist.

I says I was just being in what I was taught to be.

I said, "I was born this way."

- [Baratunde] I find Pauline's story inspiring, but it's also a reminder that so many of our national parks have complicated and even tragic backs stories.

The parks have preserved amazing landscapes for Americans to live, work, and play in, but they've often done so at the expense of those who lived here before America existed at all.

(gentle music) This is not just an empty desert for tourists to visit.

It's a storied community and a place that many still call home.

- It's part of life.

It's what we live on.

It's not a commodity, it's part of us.

We are supposed to protect it.

- You talk so much about life, it just feels like a mismatch to have this called Death Valley.

- Oh, well, I'm proof here that it isn't (indistinct).

I'm still kicking around.

I was born here.

- The Timbisha's amazing resilience shows that life in this arid, dusty landscape isn't just theoretically possible.

For some, it's something worth fighting for, even as the planet warms, and as this whole region continues to dry out.

(playful music) But wait a minute, water flowing freely in the desert?

Is this a mirage or some kind of fever dream?

In a place where it almost never rains, man-made geysers leap from the ground to shower the grass of the Furnace Creek Golf Course.

The striking contrast between this place and the landscapes I just left gives me pause, but I'm hoping Don Forhope, a member of the Timbisha Shoshone tribe and the golf course's assistant superintendent can give me some answers.

Hey, you must be Don.

- [Don] Yes, sir.

- [Baratunde] What's up, man?

Baratunde.

- Don, nice to meet you.

- What a grip.

- Marine Corps, baby.

- I'm not messing with you, sir.

Don grew up in the Timbisha Shoshone village right next door.

Pauline is his aunt, and today he works to ensure that this resort remains in oasis in the desert.

I'm seeing a lot of green, and it's the only green I've seen days out here.

What's the challenge in having all this grass in the desert?

It doesn't feel like it's a natural thing to be growing here.

- Well, it's mostly the water, you know what I mean?

We gotta make sure that we put out the right amount of water at the right amount of time.

You don't wanna take away from the natural environment that we have around here, so watering and keeping everything conservatively is what we try to do.

- [Baratunde] Death Valley only averages about two inches of rain per year, so it boggles the mind how a place like this is even possible, but it turns out the water here originally comes from something invisible to most of us, an aquifer, hidden deep underground.

- That one spring does all of our water, the drinking water for the village, all the water for the ranch, as well as the national park service.

- That's an amazing combination 'cause those three entities, the park service, the resort, the village, have all been on kind of different sides of how this land is supposed to be used.

- Yep.

- All pulling from the same pool of water.

(tranquil music) It's incredible to think about really, the village, the resort, and the national park have often been at odds over the years, yet they're all equally reliant on a single natural resource in the middle of this massive desert.

And how that resource is used is something that can drive people apart.

As a member of the tribe who knows and respects and is related to Pauline, do you have thoughts about reconciling this amazing oasis, which to me as an outsider feels like, okay, there's been some alteration of the terrain, there's a lot of structures.

- That really is a tough question 'cause out here water is considered scarce, you know what I mean?

You don't wanna overstretch what you're pulling from the land.

Her entire premise behind it is that how much building is enough?

How far are we gonna take it?

It's kind of making some of the elders' nervous, but it's a private property, privately owned, so it's its own entity.

My job is to make it as beautiful and the biggest experience that it can be.

- It's fascinating to me how Don is kind of like a bridge between the resort and the village where he grew up, two very different worlds and two very different ways to experience the outdoors.

- When I was a kid growing up, they went out of their way to let me play for free.

So instead of going out and just getting crazy, I just came out and golfed.

That's all I did, but I never had a lesson.

I just kind of just did my thing.

- So you've never had a golf lesson in your life?

- [Don] Nah, just all self-taught.

I mean, the ball's not going anywhere.

It's just sitting there.

I mean, how hard is it to hit a ball that's not moving?

- I feel like you're setting me up.

- I am, I am.

I feel like it's gonna be a good thing, I really do.

That'll be on the blooper reel, for sure.

- Oh, wow, somebody's got a lot to say.

We'll see, we'll see.

You don't know me.

- Hey, I got my club back here.

It's gonna be on.

- It's gonna be off, way off, and you should clear the area.

And clear the area we do.

After a few pointers from Don, I give it a whirl.

(playful music) - [Don] Yeah, boy!

- Oh, yeah!

- [Don] That's how you hit a golf ball!

- That's what I'm talking about!

And of course, Don makes sure to get in the swing, too, just to knock me down a few pegs.

- Oh, okay, nah, I get it.

I mean, basically, I did something a lot like that, it was just less.

- [Don] Yeah.

- For people who were coming to kind of connect with nature, explore the outside, what do you want them to know?

Whether it's things to see or just things to know and to feel.

- Yeah, it's hot, yeah, it's dry, yeah, it doesn't rain, yeah, we're below sea level, but at the same time, it's a beautiful place.

You can go to Darwin Falls, a double falls in the middle of an desert that has waterfall 24/7.

- That doesn't make any sense.

- Yeah, there's a lot of water in this area, it's just finding it.

If people can see the beauty in it that we do, they'd enjoy this place just as much as we do.

- [Baratunde] Yeah.

- [Don] For sure.

- [Baratunde] It's hard to imagine that a waterfall in Death Valley could real, but I'm willing to entertain the idea enough to make the long drive out to Darwin Falls.

And there I connect with Shawnt Salabert, an avid outdoors enthusiast and writer who herself was surprised at how many gems this region has.

Can you tell me the first time you came here?

- It's really the first time I almost didn't come here.

- [Baratunde] Okay.

- Because my friend Casey wanted to organize the trip, and I was like, "Could we go anywhere else?

Do we have to go to Death Valley?"

- So you didn't wanna come to Death Valley.

- No, no, so you think Death Valley, you're thinking, "All right, it's dry, it's flat, it's hot, it's dead," right?

- [Baratunde] It's in the name.

- Why would I wanna go there?

And then our very first hike, he's like, "Let's go to a waterfall."

I'm like, "Excuse me?

A what in Death Valley?"

And I will say that this hike single-handedly changed my opinion of Death Valley, and, honestly, of the desert.

- And that's the hike we're on right now?

- It's the hike we're on right now.

I want you to see this waterfall.

- So do I.

- I cannot wait for you to see this waterfall.

- Okay, let's get it.

- [Shawnt] Let's do it.

(gentle music) - [Baratunde] This path to the fabled Darwin Falls starts off pretty straightforward, but it doesn't take long for it to start surprising me with plant life that seems out of this world.

- Isn't it amazing?

It looks like three different plants.

You see different ways that plants adapt to being in the desert, and it's different ways of storing water, they create shade for themselves.

You get out here and it almost looks like alien structures, stuff we're not used to seeing places where maybe we have more water or we have more natural shade.

People would look at this and think it's dead, but then you see these flowers and you're like, "Oh no, that's completely alive."

- Yeah, life looks different out here.

- It sure does.

- [Baratunde] Another half mile down the trail and we're covered by a canopy of trees.

- Smells different, right?

- Yeah, and it's so cool in here.

- Like significantly cooler.

- Yeah, this feels like a forest.

- [Shawnt] Is this what you would expect when you think about Death Valley?

- No, no, not at all.

- I didn't either.

- This reminds me of like a park near where I grew up.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time exploring the parks around my home, but I never thought I would see one of the animals from my old field guides in a place like this.

- [Shawnt] Look at that.

- So these are tadpoles, right?

- [Shawnt] These are tadpoles.

- [Baratunde] Okay, there's like scores of them in here.

- Yeah, no, and imagine, these are going to become then frogs in the desert.

- [Baratunde] Yeah, but we're not in the desert right now, we're like somewhere else.

- The desert is multitudes.

- [Baratunde] Yeah.

(upbeat music) It's hard not to wonder what else we might see out here.

I find myself paying closer attention to my surroundings, and starting to see Death Valley in a whole new way.

- [Shawnt] You have this idea that there's not a whole lot of life here, it's very beige, but then when you start to get down on its level, you realize you're like, "Wait a minute, there's water."

There's fish here, there's running streams, there's trees, there's people who've lived here forever, and it's not at all, I think, what most people think of Death Valley.

- I'm responding to this idea of Death Valley having this really negative image: there's nothing to do there, it's dead, it's too hot, and then you find this whole other story.

Just a little slippery.

- [Shawnt] We make so many assumptions about the world around us, and you come out here and you're completely disconnected from your phone, you have no cell service, but at the same time, you have this opportunity to sort of connect on a deeper level.

When you can come to a place like this that's called Death Valley and realize like this place is completely alive and it's beautiful, your stereotype is completely smashed.

Like now you take that back home, and how can that happen back home?

(pebbles crackling) (uplifting music) - [Baratunde] As Shawnt and I push on into the forest, the canyon walls close in on us.

The light starts to dim, but the faint sound of rushing water draws us on until finally, we emerge into a clearing.

(water splashing) - [Shawnt] Look at that.

- Yes.

(Shawnt laughing) That is so beautiful and so calming.

- [Shawnt] I know.

(tranquil music) For me, I love looking at the waterfall and you see the green.

Again, as it turns out, super alive here.

- Yeah.

- Very lush, very surprising.

(water splashing) I feel held when I come to a place like this.

- Yeah, that's it 'cause you're like, the walls are just a little cocoon.

Thank you for bringing me here.

- Thanks for wanting to come here.

- Yeah.

Wanting to come here.

I'm realizing that that's what surprised me most about Death Valley so far.

Sure, there aren't very many people out here, but the folks you encounter, they really seem to love it, and each for their own individual reason.

(playful music) - [Man] Am I good here?

- [Woman] Yeah.

- [Man] Yeah.

- [Man] Okay.

- [Woman] All right.

- [Man] All right, sound speed.

- So this is my first time here in Death Valley, and I've gotta say it's pretty awesome.

- I always envisioned it being just kind of flat and boring, and there's an immense amount of beauty out here that I was not expecting.

- Everyone should take an opportunity to come to Death Valley National Park.

It's an amazing location.

The landscapes are like nowhere else.

- You can have a wind that's blowing everywhere, and then you take two steps and it's silent, and no wind at all, and that's magical.

- [Baratunde] I couldn't agree more.

Every corner of Death Valley seems to contain something you'd never expect.

- What you see is a very big similarity to Iran that is surprising for us.

It's very similar.

- [Baratunde] And it turns out, beyond all the colorful landscapes, there are colorful character here, too, from all over the world, and even from galaxies far, far away.

- [Stormtrooper] They've been sent down by Lord Vader to look for two droids.

So this place is known for the spot that R2-D2 came down with the Jawas.

This is one of the locations.

Normally, it's pretty hot, but this time in year for us, it's not too bad, and I have a pretty good air conditioning system inside this.

(door rattling) - Not to go all dark side, but I do get what the stormtrooper's saying.

Any chance to chill out here should be celebrated.

It's not just the heat.

Endless surprises can tire you out, too.

(Baratunde sighs) It's bigger than I expected, it's dustier than I prepared for, but I also have some beautiful memories and experiences of just how humbling this trip has been.

The solitude of this place is kind of intense.

The sky is huge, this vista is vast.

I'm invigorated.

My dreams have been off the charts out here.

I find myself getting up early just to catch the sunrise.

So many senses have come alive for me out here.

I feel small and I feel lucky to be a part of all this.

(tranquil music) Small and lucky, nothing inspires feelings like those more than being alone in landscapes like this, but there's a side to Death Valley that I haven't fully explored yet, one that only reveals itself once the tourists have scattered back to their cars and the sun has dipped below the horizon.

Of course, what I'm talking about is the darkness of night.

(dramatic music) Immense darkness, in fact, the kind that can only be found in a place as remote as Death Valley.

And Harun Mehmedinovic, the man behind this amazing time lapse photography, is the perfect guy to introduce me to this new environment.

(dramatic music) Oh, we did it.

- [Harun] Yeah, not bad.

- [Baratunde] Quite a meeting spot you picked.

- [Harun] It's good, yeah.

Where we're standing here is one of the last remaining pristine night sky places that we have left in America.

So when we're looking at most to this park, especially towards the north from here, we're looking at about 100, 150 miles without artificial light.

- [Baratunde] Over 100 miles with no artificial light is a big deal.

It means that the skies here are exceptionally dark, a sight that Harun has cherished since he was a kid.

- I grew up in Bosnia.

My dad's family is out from the country, and part of that lifestyle was telling stories.

So you would gather at night, and you'd have a feast, and you'd eat, and all that sort of good stuff.

(tranquil music) That was a pretty dark place, so you could see the Milky Way.

That experience of actually seeing the night sky and the wonder of it, it was very important sort of from an imagination standpoint, for me.

- Thinking about being able to actually see the stars and the universe, it kind of takes the limits off the world, right?

It opens up the lid on that box.

This was a major reason why Harun, after moving to America, decided to get into nighttime photography, which he sees as much more than just an art form.

- [Harun] You know, with astrophotography, you become an activist in a way.

- [Baratunde] How so?

- Because when you take images of pristine night sky, everybody's going to immediately ask, "Is that real?"

Because we don't see it anywhere.

So if you just take these kind of images, you are already telling a story of something that we're losing, or we have lost.

- 'Cause most people don't have that experience.

They can't look up and see those stars, so they're like, "It's a fake."

- It's amazing how much we have now become separated from the nature.

- Turns out astrophotography is all about reconnecting with nature to an extent that I might not be so crazy about.

Oh, man.

(Baratunde and Harun laughing) - [Harun] Every time you take a step on a sand dune, you lose half a step.

It is a workout.

- [Baratunde] It's like a dance move I didn't sign up for.

- [Harun] Yeah.

- [Baratunde] This is not graceful.

(Harun speaking indistinctly) I do not feel good about you right now.

Oh, good, you slipped.

That makes me feel better.

- [Harun] All right.

- Yeah, I do that all the time.

(Harun laughing) - (sighs) Geez.

So what was your first impression of these sand dunes?

- Yeah, so the first time I got out here, it was quite a few years ago.

It was incredibly windy.

I remember we left a couple of things on the dash, and we went out, and when we came back, they were melted into the dashboard.

- [Baratunde] Oh, that's hot.

- Yep.

- Okay, lesson learned.

- Lesson learned.

- [Baratunde] It was perhaps not the best first impression, but Death Valley would get a second chance to win over Harun when he visited for an overnight trip.

- When I came back and I stayed overnight, I looked up and it was unbelievable.

(tranquil music) You can see the, this incredible universe out here, and really, that's what got me in many ways into taking shots of the night.

- [Baratunde] More and more of our dark skies are being lost to light pollution, and that loss can disconnect us from the ways our ancestors experienced the outdoors.

- It's really important to almost every population you can think of, there's a night sky element to it, and sometimes it's actually practical.

- There's an old spiritual that escaped slaves used to sing that excites- - Drinking gourd.

- Yeah, the drinking gourd, which is the Dipper.

- [Harun] The Big Dipper, exactly.

There is a value to the night sky.

It's a spiritual value, but also it's the source of religion and of science, and it's the sort of source of all key questions that we have about where we're at and who we are.

- Harun ultimately became a Death Valley artist in residence.

And while it's clear that he embraced the artist part of that title, I'm curious how he found it being a resident.

Do you come out here alone?

- I spent months at a time here alone, in fact.

- Months?

- Yes.

- What's that like?

- Incredibly peaceful because at night there's gonna be hours upon hours of nobody being around, not a single lot of car, not a single lot of person, not any light, nothing.

And the beauty of the star gazing is that it actually forces you to be in a meditative state.

Like when you looking up at it, you are meditating.

- So if someone's having a hard time meditating, your prescription?

- [Harun] Is star gazing.

(tranquil music) All right, so this will be one of our spots for tonight.

We're looking for always some kind of an interesting foreground, and the foreground should be something that tells a little bit of a story of a location.

You always wanna add a little context.

- This is why you're the professional.

- I don't know.

(Baratunde and Harun laughing) (tranquil music) When you look at the stars, you're looking at stars that have died sometimes many, many, many years ago.

We can't even grasp the idea that some of the things we're seeing up there were created billions of years ago and they'll last billions of years past us.

- I love the idea of your light lasting beyond your life, that's cool.

Above me, the same sea of stars that Harun saw as a young boy emerges.

It's not hard to understand why he and his family, like so many others before them, have seen fit to tell stories about sites like this, stories that seem to transcend time and space, that help explain who we are, why we're here, and where we're going.

Whoa, it's happening.

There's so many more stars.

(tranquil music) I'm starting to see how the outdoors can help us understand and center ourselves, which is why the next morning I decide to head to my last stop alone.

This place is Badwater Basin.

At 282 feet below sea level, it's the lowest point in North America.

(dramatic music) It feels like the epitome of why this location has long been called Death Valley.

This vast, empty expanse feels otherworldly.

It's covered in salt crystals that resemble snow.

It seems completely lifeless, and yet I can't help feeling utterly alive.

(uplifting music) When I started this journey, it was hard for me to imagine why anyone would wanna come here.

Now I know this is a place where people can chase dreams, push themselves to their limits, marvel at nature's beauty, and uphold an unbreakable bond with the land.

(uplifting music) Death Valley might seem like an apt description for a place that looks like this, but there's a whole lot of life out here for those who are willing to look.