Mount Lawrence

Bear, bear, bear, bear!

Did you see it?

Dear dad.

I've been riding for six months

and there's a lot to say, so

I'm writing you this letter.

- I think the river's high because we had 12 hours of rain

If you don't believe me, you can look at him.

Yes, that's true.

Hi, my name is Chandler

and I'm doing a movie on my family's trip to the Brazos,

and we're doing the Upper Brazos,

which is right here.

Is that for me?

Oh, hi there!

It sure is a beautiful day here on the South Llano River.

It's a wonderful day to be out here with the family

This story is about you.

And what you passed on to me, through our adventures.

With those trips, came a deep love for wilder places.

They shaped who I am and my understanding of the world.

It seemed if I followed you, we could go anywhere.

And that's what I did.

For 19 years in life and adventure,

until you weren't there to follow anymore.

Suicide is a hard word to write.

I found it almost impossible to say.

It's so hard because it doesn't just define the act,

but the entire life that came before it.

Dad, it placed you into a darkness that's hard to overcome.

When I did say it aloud, the word itself

seemed to overshadow your life.

Even though I still loved you,

the way you had died hid you deep inside my memories.

I was trying to figure out how to get you back.

And there are things I'm trying to understand.

What I do know is that you suffered from depression.

Along with 10% of other Americans.

And like 30,000 other people that year,

you fell victim to suicide.

I haven't found talking about mental illness easy.

The sickness of depression is personal and individual.

I'm sorry you felt the need to battle it alone.

And I'm sorry every day that we lost you.

My quest now is not to lose the memory of you as well.

Seven years have past, and New York City is home now.

I love the urban jungle with all its excitement and energy,

but that doesn't mean

I've given up on my adventures and past.

I still find my ways to escape.

Five years ago, I discovered bicycle touring.

You didn't introduce me to it,

but it's a combination of everything that you loved.

The premise is simple.

Pack your bags called panniers,

load them onto your bike, and hit the back roads.

It's a way to find the quieter moments,

the kind you couldn't find in a car.

You sleep under the stars and live simply.

It can be tough, but,

it's the most rewarding way to travel and see the country.

I've always been drawn to the road.

It represents the promise of adventure

if you follow it long enough.

It's an extension of what you taught me to love.

And when I'm out there, I think of you.

But still, I struggled with how

suicide had altered that memory of you.

I kept thinking back on all those trips,

wondering if there was something to find,

a way that I could salvage that memory.

So the plan was to hit the road with my bicycle

and head west as far as I could go,

to the end of the road in Alaska.

I was taking the questions I had with me

and hoped to find my answer.

So this is my favorite view of the city.

And I just wanted to check it out

one last time before I leave.

I dunno, coming here, it makes me

almost question what I'm doing.

I'm going to miss this place.

We're at the very top of Manhattan

and we're sitting under the George Washington Bridge.

This is my dad's favorite beer.

And I left home really young

and I never got a chance to drink it with him.

I wanted to leave something for you at the end of the road.

Something so that you in your own way were always there.

I had heard of a way to give a name

to a geographic feature that had none -

streams, hills, valleys, even mountains,

which is what I'm going to do for you.

I'm going to reach the end of the road,

find the nearest mountain and name it after you.

I would be able to save that memory, I knew it.

The journey was supposed to be a solo ride,

but things change.

I had decided to film the whole journey

and I could only find one of my filmmaking friends

who wanted to come along and join the ride.

Connor would bicycle with me

and help me document the journey.

While he was a capable filmmaker,

he wasn't much of an outdoorsman.

In fact, he had never slept outside before, never camped,

never done anything physically strenuous

for more than a couple of hours.

But there was a fire in his eyes

when he talked about the trip,

he was up for the adventure, and that's all I could ask for.

- Are you really going to Alaska on a bike?

Yeah.

We're not even on the road yet,

and our first piece of equipment is already broken,

so, good things to come.

- Let's cut that. If we need to cut anything.

Let me see the other one.

This?

Cause I have I have -

And then what's that?

This is the one that should be cut.

Okay

Connor was nervous.

He was leaving everything behind.

His girlfriend, Lizzie, his friends, his entire life.

We're here in Battery Park City to do the

ceremonial tire dunk in the Atlantic ocean.

The next time we'll wet the wheel,

as they say, is in the Northern Pacific.

So I'm going to throw a bucket into this water

because there's no way to actually dunk the back wheel.

Our journey would take us through the Appalachians,

the Midwest, Great Plains, Rockies, Pacific Northwest,

Western Canada, and finally, Alaska.

The beginning of it all was in the heart of Manhattan,

where we would head west across the George Washington Bridge

Time would be a factor.

If we didn't make it before the early fall snow,

we wouldn't be able to make it up the mountain.

Ready?

Go!

About 10 miles down the road,

the added gear-weight was too much for Connor's bike.

The back wheel collapsed and his tire exploded.

We were stuck.

That is a much beefier tire.

Lizzie rode out to keep us company

as we walked five miles to the nearest hotel.

So needless to say, today, did not go as planned.

We are sitting in a hotel room,

not the middle of a campsite.

We had major bike problems today.

So we took it to a guy who fixed it up

and told us to stay off it for 24 hours

while this adhesive sets on all of the the spokes.

So now we're kind of stuck here till 4:00 PM.

I think we can make it up.

This is the end of day two and it has been

a miserable couple of days of biking,

not only were we basically stranded

in a mall parking lot for 24 hours,

but we also were having to deal with like,

not hospitable biking conditions.

Lots of turns, sidewalks, congested streets.

Luckily our producer remembered that he has a friend

who lived, very serendipitously, nearby,

where we were trying to go for today.

Early morning tomorrow, we're going to

bust out our first real mile day,

and I think that we're going to

really, really put some miles behind us tomorrow.

Agh!

You okay?

I am now.

- No, I do not have a Marriott rewards card.

It's just for tonight, yeah.

Okay. No, actually we're actually bicycling,

and we're just trying to figure out