- My name is Colin MacArthur.
I've decided that I am going to
hike a huge mountain this summer.
I want to do this because I care so deeply about my family.
And I'm a part of that right,
in order to do that well I've gotta take care of myself.
(Inspirational background music)
- You've never had the desire to do this.
- I want to do this workout about as much as I would want
to get a paper cut, like, in between my fingers.
People do this.
Davis can I get an Amen?
- Amen.
- So we're gonna do this.
(Inspirational background music)
- Probably some changes need to happen.
I guess we'll burn that bridge when we get there right?
(Upbeat intro music)
- (Narrator) It's nature's Colin, hey!
- I've hiked a little bit, but not
anything I would call mountaineering.
Mountains to hike in Washington.
Mount Rainier is considered one of
the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.
After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker
is the most heavily glaciated.
Let's look at Mount Saint Helens,
you'll never guess, another volcano.
It erupted hugely on May 18, 1980.
The deadliest and most economically
destructive volcanic event in U.S. history.
Man, this is all kind of making me somewhat nervous.
- (Colin) Welcome to my life.
I don't know if you can tell that
we have a kid by the mountains of toys.
The person that we have to thank for all that is Davis.
- Hi.
- (Colin) This is my lovely and talented
and beautiful wife, Dawn.
This is baby to be named later.
When I say that I am going to take
time out of my schedule to train,
- It's awesome
- (Colin) To, like, go meet with people about doing a hike,
like a genuinely, how does that strike you?
- Yeah, that's just really cool.
- (Colin) Is it really cool though?
- It's really cool, we got, no it,
yeah, no, it, this is great.
It's great, it's gonna be a fun adventure.
You're pumped, I'm pumped, we're all pumped.
- (Colin) Yeah, what are some fears that you have?
- Look, let's just say the man that I married,
twelve years ago almost, was not a big out...
- (Colin) It's almost thirteen years coincidentally.
- Almost thir... okay thirteen years.
He's not a big outdoors man.
So, I'm excited to see what this holds.
- (Colin) Is dad a man though?
- No!
- (Colin) (laughs) What?
We are kind of kicking off this
season of our life, of exercise.
So, it begins.
- (Dawn) Are we gonna go see a waterfall Davis?
- Yeah
- (Dawn) Yeah, what's a waterfall?
- Yeah
- All right, it's probably a good thing that
Colin is doing this, his like real hike alone
cause right now we have spent approximately
twenty-five minutes at the base of this trail
just trying to figure out where we're going.
I think we found the trail head.
- Sweet.
Going to North Fork Falls, say that five times fast.
- (Dawn) North Fork Falls, North Fork Falls,
North Fork Falls, North Fork Falls, North Fork Falls.
- Norfolk, Virginia, got her.
- (Dawn) All right.
- The easiest thing to do to work
on your cardiovascular health is...
- Like walk, run.
- Run, right?
Nobody is running and it's just like yes, ah.
What do people look like when they run?
Can you make this face Davis?
This is my kind of trail, little snack,
little, little slug of Joesph here.
- (Dawn) Yeah.
- (Colin) Is this our waterfall?
- (Davis) It's a waterfall.
- Yeah, it's a waterfall.
Now, this is made by nature.
- So I think we can cross a couple mountains off the list.
K2, can I, your, would you spring for a plane ticket to?
- Huh, maybe less about the springing for a plane ticket
and more about your preparation.
- 'Kay, Denali?
- How, dow do you feel about Denali?
- You know what else I was thinking?
- (Dawn) What?
- I was gonna see uh, if Dustin
wanted to do the hike with me.
- (Dawn) Really?
- Yeah, right?
So I'm gonna call my roommate from college, Dustin.
Who was a mountaineering guide for years
in the pacific northwest.
He'll shoot me straight
Hey dude.
- (Dustin) 'Sup man?
- Nothing, you uh,
you having a good night?
- (Dustin) Yeah, man, I'm in uh, San Francisco
for work, which is nice.
- Sweet, the reason I'm calling is, you might not believe
this, is I'm going to hike a mountain.
- (Dustin) Shut your face!
- (laughs loudly) I am nervous about certain things like
A, pooping in a bag on the side of the mountain and
B, the like physical toll this is going to take on my body.
- (Dustin) You know, I've known you for twenty,
- Twenty years.
- (Dustin) years, twenty plus years, but I think
you can do whatever you put your mind to, man.
I think as you get older it's kind of easy to just
do the stuff that is in your wheelhouse and there's
something really good about stepping outside
of what's comfortable and pooping in a bag.
- Oh gosh, well dude I am gonna need
some help from here on out.
I've gotta do some training, I've gotta do some,
like, serious kind of mental preparation for this, um,
I'm gonna be hitting you up from time to time,
uh, to talk me down off, not a literal ledge,
but a metaphorical one until the actual ledges come up.
- (Dustin) (incoherent on the phone)
- All right, see ya dude.
- (Dustin) Okay, all right, bye.
(Inspirational music)
- Colin is a renaissance man by
the very definition of the word.
He is good at so many things, he can try anything.
It fells like Colin and I made all sorts of
shared commitments to all sorts of things.
Our son, having a new kid, uh, both of us working full time.
And then Colin was like, "I wanna add some one
really, like, random thing that I never
expressed any interest for ever before."
This is maybe the most busy that
we've felt in our entire lives.
- Davis, Davis, Davis on the sidewalk.
We have dishes everywhere.
(Davis crying) Where does it hurt?
- (Dawn) And he's like, "It's important
to me to climb a mountain."
Yeah, I kind of feel like I am getting maybe
lassoed into somebody else's project.
Maybe my metal state will change a
little one this baby is outside of me.
- I'm certainly a tourist in the world of the outdoors.
But the beautiful thing that I'm realizing is that,
like, newsflash, the outdoors is for everybody,
but that I don't know if I ever really felt,
I don't think I felt that way.
I think I felt like there's like REI type people
and then there's a huge chasm,
and then there's me.
As I look at my life, I've got a beautiful wife,
I've got a beautiful son, I've got a baby on the
way any day now and I've only found myself enriched
by my, my time in the outdoors.
It might be shocking to some people that I'm gonna do this.
Timing's not perfect, but you know what,
there's no time like the present, so,
we're gonna make this happen.