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We would have never hiked the Colorado trail if it wasn't for our 200 mile thru hike of the John Muir Trail in 2013. The Colorado Trail is perhaps the most incredible multi-use trail in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. After the JMT, we knew it was next on our list.
Andy and I embarked on the John Muir Trail in 2013 and at the time it was by far the biggest backpacking trip either of us had ever done. I had done one 3 day backpacking trip prior to the JMT and Andy had completed a handful of overnight backpacking trips. We headed out not knowing what to expect, and came back knowing that we wanted to do a longer backpacking trip once a summer. This was our longer backpacking trip for 2015. We always end the trips joking about how much we hate hiking. Kids have never written "Hiking" as their favorite sport on a 1st grade project. That's something to think about. An older gentleman from Houston joked, "Hiking is a great sport except for the walking." That idea pretty much sums up how we feel about it. The walking makes you sore. The sleep isn't like what you'd get at home. Sometimes difficult challenges come up. Despite all of that, we always look back on our experiences knowing that the time was totally worth it.
Enough about all that. Now some notes on the video itself:
This video is an experiment in storytelling for me. I've found it to be difficult to craft a really good story around a hiking trip where you have no idea what's going to happen ahead of time. Hiking seems kind of uneventful and any great story has to have a main character who experiences challenges, so how do you capture that naturally? In my Rocky Mountain National Park video, the hail, daily rainstorms, and big elevation gains just worked out. I felt those weather elements made it somewhat interesting to watch...but I didn't want to depend on "getting lucky" (or unlucky) with the challenges on the Colorado trail. I wondered if I could take my past backpacking challenges and work them into the Colorado trail video. By doing this, I knew what the challenges of the story would be ahead of time, so I could focus on the important elements while out on the trail. I picked 3 of my favorite hiking stories where I had some unfortunate events. I wanted to have it jump back and forth between Andy and I telling the story to show that we chose to remember (or forget) certain details, but both sides paint the whole picture. For example, I wanted to leave out that I fell in the river and have Andy be sure to highlight that detail. I wanted to make a subtle connection that bad things have happened in the past, and they could happen in the future. I thought this might build some tension.
There's a stark difference in color grading because I wanted it to be absolutely clear which stories were accounts of past events and what memories were being made currently on the Colorado Trail. The past events are desaturated, to symbolize an old memory. The Colorado Trail footage is overly saturated to symbolize a vivid new experience. The last time-lapsed portion, toward the very end, is somewhere in between to symbolize a fading memory flying by as we reflected about our time on the trail. I left out any significant stories that may have happened on the trail, because I wanted to leave it up to the imagination. What stories are there from the trail that you haven't heard yet?
The concept came into being after a call with my brother where I was trying to find what parts of backpacking were relatable to almost everyone. He mentioned the memories that you make with people outdoors tend to increase as you spend more time outside...And that the best stories happen when you push yourself and go further. The "Go further" part stuck and decided that I wanted to make a story about why we "Go Further" even after facing some harder times on past trips.
"The best stories come when we go further."
Thanks for watching (& reading if you're this far along). :) - Chris
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