Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

That was a day.

We did a crossing that like if DOOM wasn't

I would never have done it in a million ye

10 years ago,

I witnessed Iceland's massive glacial rive

from above for the first time.

I guess you could say that in that moment,

the seed was sown and I was obsessed.

There's something so captivating

about looking down on these river systems

that I spent the next decade capturing

and documenting their beauty from the sky.

It wasn't until about two years ago,

that I was driving back from Iceland's Eas

that the idea finally hit.

Would it be possible to cross this remote stretch of coast

on my bike, unsupported, in order to get u

and personal with these rivers?

What would it be like

to experience them on the ground level?

I spent the next year pouring over maps, talking to locals,

and most importantly, learning how to raft

the key ingredient to this crazy expeditio.

The obstacles to do this were massive,

but like most things with me,

once the idea is planted in my head,

it's pretty hard to get rid of it.

What do you think?

This part of the world is fabled.

It's home to some of the most remote stret

of black sand beach in the world,

and the environment is extremely dangerous

Atlantic storms have claimed countless shi

and sailors' lives along the southern coast of Iceland.

After hearing so much about the shipwrecks and deaths here,

it was easily the most daunting part of th.

On top of that, our route was intersected

by nearly 40 rivers.

We would need to cross them,

and those crossings would be our biggest c.

While I had done mini bike expeditions in harsh conditions.

Doing something like this

seemed nearly impossible and terrifying.

So I reached out to the one person who had the experience

to tackle something just like this.

Steve Fastbender, AKA Doom.

In some way,

riding with Doom was something I've always dreamt of.

A rite of passage basically, you know,

that experience of being with somebody

who knows and has seen so much.

He's an absolute legend,

highly experienced in most bike packing

and rafting disciplines.

And the way he reads water,

it's unlike anything I've ever seen.

He'd been on countless trips to Alaska, Pa

Tajikistan, South America, you name it, en.

This guy has packed his bike in every way

even on the back of a llama.

Cam, how we feeling, buddy?

Good, you guys ready?

Yeah.

Also joining us would be Cameron Lawson,

a legend in his own right,

an adventure photographer and Alaskan Bush

who had some bike rafting under his belt t.

He bike rafted the lost coast of Alaska,

and also floated 200 miles of the Yukon Ri

and it made sense that he would round out.

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

As the plan came together,

I knew I wanted to capture this story,

but it would be a huge challenge.

So I put out a few calls to people I knew

and enlisted my friend, Siggi.

Siggi grew up on the southern coast,

and knew the area like the back of his han

which would be critical for the mission.

Also joining the production crew were photographers

Ryan Hill and Jeremy Bishop,

as well as filmmaker, Brian Davis.

We established a series of meeting places along the route.

At a few instances where our route

would meet up with roads or towns.

This would be Vestrahorn,

a super scenic mountain peak on the ocean in the east.

Jökulsárlón, on the glacial lagoon where large chunks

of ice break from Iceland's biggest glacie

and flow into the ocean.

Vik, a quaint town along a long stretch of black sand beach,

and ultimately culminating in the crown je

the Thjórsá River.

Many of the rivers we'd be crossing were g

in their own right, cutting and winding th

through stunning landscapes and showing off strands

and fans of glacial sediment.

But of all the rivers,

the Thjórsá River stands out without quest.

It's Iceland's biggest river,

and it also happens to be glacial water.

The colors in this river

are the most vibrant and stunning of all.

This is the river that first captured my a.

The true reason why this project came

to life in the first place,

and it just so happened to be at the very

of very long route.

But with so many dangerous river crossings

between here and there,

I wasn't actually sure we'd make it to the Thjórsá at all.

Oh!

So what is bike rafting?

Essentially, it's the process of packing an inflatable raft

on your bike to allow you to cross bodies.

First, you break down your bike,

then you inflate your raft,

put your half assembled bike onto the raft

basically on the nose,

balancing out the weight of the raft.

Then you ride the river,

send it over waterfalls, or whatever you n.

In our case, we use the pack raft as a too

and move to these massive river systems

and other bodies of water.

Some being 30 feet across,

some being thousands of feet across.

Some are rocky, some are fast,

some have different types of bottoms,

some have steep scary banks.

Easily, the scariest thing has to do with wind on the water

because you have no keel or fin or any kind of control.

You're getting pushed around everywhere,

sideways, even backwards at times,

and you don't know what you're gonna

encounter on the other side.

I'd say the most dangerous thing,

the biggest challenge really,

are trying to avoid the river mouths.

River mouths are kind of like the death zo.

It's where there's surf, there's waves,

and everything speeds up

and surges into this chaotic system.

It's creating sleeper waves,

undertow, and all kinds of hidden dangers.

We tried to avoid that at all costs.

So bike rafting is pretty simple in theory

but when you start to do it, it becomes complicated fast.

When you're thinking about crossing 41 riv

you're basically inflating and deflating that raft

and breaking down your bike 82 times.

It eats up so much time and you're just subjecting your bike

and all the pieces of it to salt water

and black volcanic sand.

It's brutal.

We felt so good to be finally off and ridi

but right off the bat, we encountered our first problems.

♪ I'm going ♪

♪ Way in ♪

♪ All in the moment ♪

♪ Out into the open ♪

♪ I'm going ♪

♪ Way in ♪

♪ Out in ♪

♪ To the open ♪

♪ Out into the open ♪

♪ Out in the open ♪

♪ Out in the open ♪

♪ Wild wide open land ♪

♪ Wild wide open land ♪

I really didn't know after the first day

when we'd see the production team again.

They had our GPS location

and were trying to track us from a distanc

and find areas where they can meet up with.

But the problem is waves and tides on thes

cause the sands to shift constantly.

Sometimes new islands are formed in a matter of days.

Other areas of the coast are separated fro

by impassable, volcanic terrain.

The most promising areas for coastal acces

are often private farmland that's guarded by farmers

who are protective and wary of tourists.

Nice.

The film crew was on their own,

and our focus was on the ride.

Our heads had to be in the moment

because the upcoming section

was going to be the first proper test of our approach.

What makes Iceland's glacial rive

so captivating is the unique process that creates them.

Pieces of rock come loose,

and the glacier pulls them along with it.

Water flowing along the bottom

of the glacier seeps down in the rock belo.

As the glacier flows down among them,

it gets warmer and starts to melt,

and as a glacier melts, the rocks fall to

and the material becomes a pasty mixture

of rocks, stones, sand, and clay known as.

The melted ice turns into melt water,

and flows downhill into a larger body of w

ultimately the ocean.

And as this glacial till fans across the r

something magical happens.

The colors contrast and textures seem to open a window

into another world.

We had just made our most challenging cr

and so far everything was looking good.

The weather had cooperated and our equipment was tight.

And now we were crossing a threshold

into a very remote section of the route.

This region was home to some

of the biggest dangers of the journey.

It was a place where some of the most raw

of nature collide,

and waves and wind create and destroy islands of sand.

They actively change the shape of the coast from day to day.

Here, the largest glaciers break off

into the Atlantic ocean.

Visually, this place is full of beauty

but I knew we couldn't be naive

to how fast the conditions can change for.

My friend Mumi, who is a local Icelander

joined us for a small section.

He said he'd been tracking our GPS.

As an experienced guide and cyclist,

I knew he was keen for an adventure.

It always blows my mind how tough Icelande

and then he was eager to jump on a ride li

at a moment's notice.

Being able to bond and grow closer with pe

through adventure is easily my thing in th.

There are a number of emergency shelters

along the route that we hunkered down in.

As I was planning the route,

I had learned their fabled history.

The remote emergency shelters are used

as a sort of hut system

that is designed to save you in case the shit hits the fan.

The emergency shelters and the hut system

really was designed specifically along the south coast,

not for travelers or tourists, but for sai

who over years and years of traveling here

had lost their lives trying to get to the

specifically the south coast,

where putting your boat through some of these waves

was absolutely the most dangerous thing you could ever do.

Knowing the purpose of these huts, you understand clearly

that you're submitting yourself to an area

that human beings are just not meant to ex.

Siggi had found a local

who was as crazy as the route itself.

He was eager to help them gain access to u.

Yeah, yeah.

Fantastic.

Easy for you.

Against all odds,

Siggi and the crew were making it happen.

I honestly couldn't believe it.

But their time with us was short lived,

just a few hours.

We were on our own for the next section,

a series of seven big river crossings

and we didn't know it was gonna be

one of the scariest parts of the trip for.

This was the point that Mumi decided to pa.

When you're out here in such an exposed pl

where the elements are so raw,

things can get serious really quick.

After hours of riding being beaten down by the elements,

we finally made it to the lighthouse,

but the shelter was gone.

We soon realized it had been buried in eight feet of sand.

We were standing right on top of it.

I knew there was another shelter,

but it would require three more huge river crossings.

Yeah.

We were all processing

what we'd just gone through in our own way.

It was not fun.

Cam was pretty beat down.

We were destroyed that day,

and that last crossing,

it was a little too close for comfort.

The wind and the water was just total chao

and it could have been really bad.

On top of all that, Cam's knee was pretty.

He was laboring over his decision whether

or drop out because this was one of the on

that he could exit the trip safely.

It was a bummer to see such a strong perso

and a friend leave the expedition.

But we all knew it was the right decision.

The hope of us all finishing together was.

We did still have the Thjórsá River in our sights though.

Doom and I pushed on.

♪ I went walking ♪

♪ The great unknown ♪

♪ Now I'm running home to you ♪

♪ Through the icy dawn ♪

Oh.

♪ And a gypsy queen ♪

♪ Laid down in a shallow grave ♪

♪ That she dug for me ♪

♪ Now I'm running home to you ♪

♪ In the rising sun ♪

♪ Til my feet go black and blue ♪

♪ Oh, I will run ♪

My good friend and pilot Arnar s

on the last day with a flyover in his Pipe.

It was an inspiring gesture,

because it was with him just a few weeks e

that I had scouted many of these rivers from his plane.

Arnar.

Oh, yes.

So awesome.

It's moments like this that make you reali

why these kinds of expeditions are meaning.

Here we were with nearly 300 miles

of the hardest sand riding in my life,

and close to 40 river crossings behind us

with our final approach to the Thjórsá Riv

and a friend comes to wave you on.

♪ Come on ♪

♪ You easy rider ♪

Like abstract paintings, Iceland's glacial rivers

meet something profound in the human soul,

and experiencing them firsthand

has changed my perspective of the world ar.

It's hard to describe or even sum it up in

so I won't even try.

My love for these rivers has only continue

to grow deeper with time,

and my hope is to share that beauty with o

so that hopefully they will want to advoca

for these wild places just as much as I do.

♪ You easy rider ♪

♪ You daughter of Magritte ♪

♪ Tell me what you see ♪

♪ But it's no use, there's no excuse ♪

♪ Your lover can lend ♪

♪ Say you'll try ♪

♪ To come and see me again ♪

♪ Come on, you easy rider ♪

♪ You children of the sand ♪

♪ Your home's in northern lands ♪

♪ Just go and find it, you easy rider ♪

♪ All you've got to do is start ♪

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

♪ Come and see me again ♪

♪ You come and see me again ♪

♪ Come and see me again ♪

♪ Come on, you easy rider ♪

♪ You misbegotten son ♪

♪ Tell me what you've done ♪

♪ Go on, you easy rider ♪

♪ All you got to do is start ♪

♪ But that's the hardest part ♪

♪ That's the hardest part ♪