Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map

by Rick Ridgeway

In 2006 I had another chance to visit what then was still the future Patagonia National Park. I was working at Patagonia-thecompany, and one of its surf ambassadors, Chris Malloy, proposed making a film inspired by the Fun Hog road trip that Yvon and Doug had made in 1968 from Southern California to Southern Argentina to climb Fitz Roy. Doug had convinced the others that they should make a movie “to pay for the trip.” They bought a secondhand 16mm Bolex camera and anointed one of the team, who was a photographer, to be cinematographer. The resulting film, Mountain of Storms, remained unknown to all but a few climbing aficionados until nearly four decades later, when Chris got hold of a VHS cassette inside a beat-up sleeve labeled “Fitz Roy.” Inspired by the movie, Chris’s idea was to have a group of young climbers and surfers repeat the trip, “not just climbing and surfing,” he added, “but searching for the souls of the sports, in the wildest places on the planet.”