Pacific Crest Trail Documentary “Only the Essential”

Only the Essential- If this Film Doesn’t Inspire Wanderlust, Nothing Will!

"Only the Essential" Produced by Wild Confluence Films

I was sleepily sitting in my family room last night getting ready to head up to bed when I came upon a post on one of my favorite blogs, Hiking the Trail, describing a recently released documentary with a link for the entire film streamed for free. Produced by Wild Confluence Films, Only the Essential was filmed by two hikers, Colin Arisman and Luke Kantola, with handheld cameras as they hiked the entire 2,668 mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada over 5 months in the summer of 2013.

Wild Confluence Films

Feeling intrigued, I headed over to the Wild Confluence Films website to read about the film and found “Getting There” a poem written by Arisman.  Beautifully worded, Getting There describes what the trail experience was for the hikers and this quote especially struck me “Fellow thru-hiker Spoons and I scream wildly, we hug each other, we kiss the monument, we fall silent, our hearts still pumping with adrenaline, and all is quiet and still again. The journey is done and we don’t know what to say, what to think, or what to do. There is no great realization, no epiphany, no feeling of bliss – I understand that these moments rested in the life of the journey, not in its ending.” Wow.

Only the Essential

Well shoot, I guess I wasn’t heading up to bed then. And oh my goodness, this film is so wonderful and amazing and worth so much more than the 40 minutes of time it takes to watch the entire movie.  The scenery is simply spectacular and had this Ohio girl yearning to head west right that second. It is filmed so well you feel like you are right there with them hiking the trail. So do yourself a favor and watch it too.  Even if you were heading up to bed. You can just have an extra cup of coffee in the morning.  I promise, you’ll thank me later.

What did you think? Wanna head out west?

Happy Travels!

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