– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

(saw buzzing)

(mysterious music)

- [Climber] Yeah, go for it.

- Whoo!

- [Narrator] Mankind and the elements.

For some, it's an uncomfortable bond.

- [Woman] Good job.

- [Narrator] For others, when weather strikes,

inspiration begins.

- There are so many people in life,

they forget to dream because they're afraid to fail.

- [Narrator] These are the people who challenge nature,

seek out its limits, reveal its secrets,

and embrace its awesome power.

In this episode, we'll meet two pilots who circled the globe

by the power of the sun.

Climbers unafraid to leap into nature's abyss.

And a man who turns high altitude snowfall

into giant works of art.

These pioneers of the great outdoors ahead,

on That's Amazing.

(mysterious music)

- There are so many people in life,

they forget to dream because they're afraid of

going out of their comfort zone.

- [Narrator] 13 years ago, two enterprising pilots

shared a dream to achieve the impossible.

Their goal? To build the first solar-powered plane

to fly around the world, ushering in an aviation future

free of fossil fuels and pollution.

- Our goal is simply the most way that is feasible.

- Tango, X-ray.

- [Narrator] Their plan was ambitious;

to cross the globe in 17 legs over the course of a year,

logging 25,000 miles.

Taking turns in the cockpit, co-pilots Bertrand Piccard

and André Borschberg, knew that they would face

technical and operational challenges.

- [Engineer] We have to go back.

- [Narrator] While battling weather and the elements.

- It has been really a difficult moment.

- [Narrator] In an unprecedented bid

for adventure and glory.

(dramatic music)

- When I was a child, all the people I knew

were explorers, adventurers, and astronauts.

- You know when I was a boy I read a lot of books about

the pilots who opened the lines,

basically discovered the worlds through airplanes.

- [Television Voice] He's determined to succeed this time.

- [Bertrand] My grandfather was the first man

in the stratosphere, inventing the pressurized capsule.

Then my father made the deepest dive ever

touching the bottom of the Mariana Trench,

the deepest spot on Earth,

and showing that the deepest trenches in the oceans

had to be protected.

- And I was fascinating by the people who tried

something new, something different.

- I thought exploration was the only way to live.

I flew nonstop around the world in a balloon.

We burned almost four tons of propane gas.

It was pollution.

And I was thinking, “How can I do it with no fuel?”

And this is how the dream of Solar Impulse started.

Flying a solar-powered airplane

that produces its own electricity with the sun,

store the electricity in batteries,

so you can fly through the night,

fly to the next sunrise forever.

- And when I made Bertrand 13 years ago,

I immediately had the impression that my life was crossing

something extremely important.

- I found that André was the was the missing part of me

and I was the mission part of him.

He's the engineer, entrepreneur, jet fighter pilot.

I'm a medical doctor, I'm an explorer,

so I asked him if he would agree to

partner with me to do it,

and he accepted immediately.

Together, we could be the complete human being.

It's a very difficult airplane to fly,

maybe the most difficult airplane in the world to fly

because of its huge wingspan,

very lightweight, and sensitivity to turbulence.

So this you have to master completely.

- So at the beginning you would just over-control it;

it's a disaster.

Using the simulator allowed us really to

get the feeling about the personality of this airplane,

to know how to handle it.

- And I had the clearance from the tower.

- [Tower Control] You are clear to proceed.

- And I could put full throttle, no noise

from the engines, and the plane taking off.

And then just looking to stay in the air

as long as I can, no limit.

(light, uplifting music)

When we travel it takes three days

to fly where other people would fly with a jet plane

in eight hours.

But you know that you can stay there forever.

And what is magical is to look at the sun,

to look at the propellers on both side,

to see them turning without noise and without pollution,

and to think, I'm in a film of science fiction.

It cannot be true, but it is true.

So as soon as André can put full power

on the four electrical engines,

the around-the-world will start.

And I repeat, always, it's an attempt.

The around-the-world with Solar Impulse II

started in March 2015.

André and I, we took turns in the cockpit.

(light, pensive music)

Price Albert is next to me,

and he will give the official go,

and then the adventure will start my friend.

- It's a great pleasure to wish you all the best

for this fantastic crossing of the Pacific,

so you are clear to proceed with the takeoff procedures.

(people clapping)

- As soon as I took her from Japan,

one important equipment failed

and immediately the engineers told me

that I had to return to Japan to fix it.

But I looked at it completely differently,

that it was the first time that the weather

was improving over the Pacific.

(mysterious pensive music)

- I would say we have to go back

as we have the choice.

- The engineers never understood that,

they never understood why I was taking this risk.

Some of them wanted to resign immediately

and I decided to continue.

(mysterious, pensive music)

- There's only so much we can do to support you

from here from the ground.

You will be on your own.

- It has been really a difficult moment,

do we go, we don't go, but the weather is good,

the plane flies well, it's worth trying.

I did meditation; I couldn't sleep;

and slowly, at sunrise, I could throw this emotion

overboard, and I could go back

to what I've been dreaming about

to enjoy these days I was over the Pacific Ocean.

- I don't know how many records we were setting

in this flight, and it's the most difficult flight

of the whole journey around the world

that we succeeded.

(mysterious, pensive music)

(people clapping)

- [Bertrand] Inspiration is not only when you are successful

and you raise the flag of victory.

It's through all these moments

where you have the impression to lose control.

- The Solar Impulse II mission started in Abu Dhabi

with many stopovers.

Across Asia first, over the Pacific,

across the United States,

over the Atlantic, across the Mediterranean Sea,

all to get back here in the Middle East.

- I crossed the finish line over Abu Dhabi,

and I had one hour and a half in the air

waiting before landing.

I could be in the full

emotion of the success,

but still in the full emotion of the adventure.

And at that moment I thought everything is possible.

Everything is possible.

Why don't we dream more?

Why don't we try more?

- [Woman] Beautiful! Whoo hoo!

- And few hours ago I had to open the door of the cockpit,

I had to land.

And this flight around the world became memories.

(audience applauding)

- What we did here was really pioneering work,

and that's the slowly is understanding

the potential of these technologies.

In 10 years, we will use electric airplanes.

Maybe not solar, this will take more time,

but certainly electric.

- If you have an impossible goal,

the people who are going to support you are pioneers.

(light, peaceful music)

(mysterious music)

- [Simon] Making drawings on land, on quite a large scale,

is something people have been doing for thousands of years.

(mysterious music)

I'm Simon Beck, and I make drawings in the snow.

(light, peaceful music)

It started as a bit of fun.

I started doing it as an easy alternative

to hiking up a mountain when I wanted some exercise

and didn't feel quite energetic enough

to hike up a mountain.

It's a very temper and unpredictable thing.

You're very much at the mercy of the weather,

and really weather forecast.

And the best results are obtained by waiting

until conditions are right

and try and finish it in one day.

So what you're looking for is

a fine, solid day forecast for tomorrow,

and a not-too-bad-day forecast for today.

So you tend to make it today

in the hope of getting a photograph tomorrow.

We might just about get it done by sundown,

so fingers crossed we'll get a good result.

(rhythmic, determined music)

A ballpark estimate of footsteps,

about 5,000 steps in an hour.

Between one and two per second.

So a big drawing, two hours measuring,

eight hours work, you're looking at 40,000 steps.

(light, peaceful music)

You start with a drawing on a piece of paper,

or else a drawing in your mind.

Just treating it a bit like an orienteering map,

you're just going a certain distance in a certain direction

determining distances by counting paces.

It's a very physical exercise.

It's equivalent to a long day's walking

in the hills when you make one of these big drawings,

it's beyond what most people would be able to do

in one day.

It's quite a task.

(light, peaceful music)

I often get asked to compare it with

making drawings on beaches on the sand.

Fear thought to the snow is

is that there's not a time limit,

it's not that sort of game of when the tide comes in.

The great drawback of course, is you can't walk on it

without making a mark.

The ideal snow is about so deep

and really soft and powdery,

with a really firm surface underneath it.

That means you can walk through it quite easily

and you can walk all day without getting too tired.

You're never quite sure how it's gonna look,

so there's always a bit of sort of fingers crossed

and when actually you finally see it from above

for the first time.

(light, peaceful music)

At the moment I'm just about the only person in the world

doing anything like it.

(light, peaceful music)

- [Engineer] To be able to be doing science

while you're out there on a surfboard,

it's just such a fleeting moment,

it's incredible to actually be able to do it.

(slow rock music)

- [Inventor] Smartfin is a surfboard fin.

You clip it on the bottom of your board,

you go out for your surf session.

It has technology that measures ocean pH,

salinity, ocean temperature,

and very detailed wave characteristics,

so there'll be an enormous amount of data.

The reason these parameters are important

is because they are shifting directly

as a result of climate change.

We have detailed information about the deep ocean,

but very limited accurate information about the near shore.

Satellites can't be really accurate with data

in that narrow zone.

And the other way is ocean buoys,

and they're just not deployed at the coast.

Bingo, Smartfin can fill that gap.

- Collecting oceanic data is a very time-consuming,

expensive process.

This is like, you just need to know how to surf.

The data moves from your fin to your phone

and then from your phone is goes up to our servers

where everything is processed.

- So we've got a test tank set up now.

As a scientist it's pretty exciting to be able to get data

over these different time and space scales.

The fact that you can go out and surf

and contribute to understanding

what's actually happening out there is incredible.

- Surfers are very influential,

and care deeply about the environment

and want to be talking about it.

So Smartfin is just a tool to do that

in a more concrete way.

(water trickling)

- [Researcher] Every place in the world sounds unique.

These soundscapes tell us a story about that place.

They tell us the ways in which global warming

is beginning to change the natural soundscape.

(tense string music)

Just before the sun rises at first light

is the dawn chorus.

The birds beginning to sing,

and the insects and the amphibians,

and that's the time of day to go out and listen.

I'm a soundscape ecologist, I record animals for a living.

This is Sugarloaf State Park.

Every Spring I can probably be found there once a week

recording in the same spot,

using the same kind of equipment,

so that I can repeat these recordings over and over again

and compare them.

And I have quite a archive of material which shows,

over time, this habitat has been changing pretty radically

as a result of global warming

and the California drought.

(birds singing)

The first recording made in 2004

shows a very robust habitat with a signature of a stream.

In 2014, things were changing radically,

it was already the second year of a major drought

in California.

And in 2015, we had what I call a Silent Spring.

The question arises, what is it that

these soundscapes are telling us,

these biophanies are telling us?

My guess is that global warming is playing a role in this

because Spring is coming two weeks earlier

than it normally does,

certainly than when it did 10 years ago.

That's one of the things that is so unique

about my library is we can go back to these places

and we can compare currently

what they sound like with what they sounded like

20, 30, 40 years ago.

Over 50% of my collection comes from habitats

that are so radically altered,

they are either altogether silent

or can no longer be heard in their original form.

Here's an example from Costa Rica.

(birds and wildlife singing)

That's before logging, this is after.

(few birds chirping)

Same spot.

This is a coral reef, Vanua Levu in Fiji.

Part of it is dying and part of it is still living,

here's what the living part sounds like:

(water lapping)

Here's what the dying part sounds like:

Hardly any fish sounds.

We really don't know what this means in the long run.

In the short run, we're beginning to lose these soundscapes

because the habitats are just changing so radically 350 00:19:26,036 --> 00:19:29,675 and we're partly to blame for that.

When I first began to record almost 50 years ago,

I would go out into the field and just put on

a pair of earphones and sit and listen

because it made me feel good.

It made me aware of the living world around me,

and so I wanted to do anything that does that for me.

(swelling pensive music)

(mysterious music)

- [Swimmer] Everyone says that I'm mad.

And they ask me that question what draws me to the ice.

And what amazes me is how many people follow.

- [Narrator] High in the mountains of southern Africa

there are 15 fearless swimmers competing

in one of the most extreme races on Earth.

With no wetsuits, no protection,

they must swim a single kilometer

in water cold enough to kill them.

They call it a race, but most would call it insanity.

As founder Ram Barkai will tell you,

the members of the International Ice Swimming Association

don't just battle to the finish,

they're fighting to stay alive.

(mysterious music)

(saw buzzing)

(mysterious music)

- [Ram] Swimming cold water has become my passion.

Okay, we need another task force for these ones, hey?

The ice, was the icing on the cake.

I find the ice extreme.

I'm attracted to extreme challenges.

No doubt swimming in ice is a dangerous sport.

- [Spectators] Go Ram, Go Ram!

- [Ram] It's not adrenaline junky,

polar bear type of experience,

you actually have to swim one kilometer extremely fast

in water under five degrees

in just Speedo, goggles, and a cap.

these are the rules.

I founded the International Ice Swimming Association.

I'd love it to become a proper international

recognized sport.

- It's a double hit physiologically,

it's an ice swim, which is challenging,

and you're at altitude.

Most of you have not been at altitude before.

- [Ram] I mean we're in Africa,

in the mountain of Lesotho, and we found ice,

and we have a International South African ice championship.

- Nowhere in Southern Africa you gonna find

water five degrees or below except for here.

- [Ram] Last year, we had about 13 national championship

like this.

We have now swimmers in 28 countries around the world.

- We're doing an ice swim in Africa,

which is a bit ridiculous if you ask anyone.

We also think it's ridiculous.

- It's a massive mental challenge to get in that water

and to perform physically for an extended period of time.

You keep going, takes a lot of mind power

and that's what I love, I love pushing the boundaries

in these conditions.

(intense, pensive music)

- [Ram] It's not a sport where

you have to be lean, mean, and beautiful to win.

You have to have around 20% body fat.

You have to be fit, you have to train

so your body and your mind know how to deal with the shock.

Panic is the number one killer.

(water lapping)

- Initially, you can't tell if the water is very hot

or very cold, it almost burns.

The first three minutes is painful,

and then you sort of settle in and everything goes numb.

- The body temperature starts to drop.

Getting into this water poses the hazard off hypothermia

to the athlete.

- [Ram] It causes havoc in your body,

to your blood pressure, to your heart rate, to your

oxygen, to your brain.

- [Woman In Black Coat] There's only one thing

that goes through your mind, breathe.

The ice takes your breath away,

and if you don't control it you can get

into a world of trouble.

- [Ram] The average time in the water is 15 to 20 minutes,

which is still safe.

It's a hugely mental sport.

For me, it's mind over matter.

- It's not you racing against someone else,

it's about you against the ice and the cold,

and basically competing against your own mind.

- This cold starts to affect the function

of the nervous system,

and so confusion, and delirium sometimes happens,

the athletes can start to hallucinate

or they could have amnesia.

- If you feel dizzy and disorientated,

you should get out.

It's such a hard decision to make,

you're so close to the finish.

(quiet, intense music)

(spectators applauding and cheering)

- [Ram] As you come out of the water,

the brain starts releasing blood from the core.

That process is what we call the after drop.

In 10 minutes and suddenly your core body temperature

can drop from 34 to 30,

and that causes a havoc.

If you haven't been there,

it's a scary experience.

- [Medical Worker] There you go, good job.

- Can you cover my legs?

- [Ram] We have a proper ICU, doctors and recovery unit

to make sure that no one goes over edge.

It's literally like going up the roller coaster,

you know, that feeling, slowly, slowly, slowly,

and suddenly, you get there.

When you get there, you see people eyes go like.

We call it the Devil's look.

They know everything that's going on,

they hear everything, they just can't respond.

You are in like a massive, sort of tunnel vision,

focused on hanging in there.

- [Worker] You want some more chocolate?

- Feel the life going back into me.

I don't know if that's a good thing though.

'Cause it's all a cough.

- I'm starting to turn the corner,

so I'm feeling better.

But life, and I wanna live.

- After the dust has settled you feel like a champion.

- [Ram] Before they start swimming,

everyone ask himself, why am I doing this?

What am I trying to prove to myself?

Guys, well done to all of you.

I know it wasn't easy,

and I know that not everyone finished.

I think it's part of the process.

(swimmers cheering)

Then after I finish I can't wait

for the next adventure.

And I'm high for days.

My big dream is to get into the winter Olympic Games

as a sport, it would be my legacy.

The beauty of what we're doing here today is

to show that if there is a will, there's a way.

(uplifting music)

(light, playful music)

- [Professor] I was the snowflake consultant

on the movie Frozen.

They wanted to get all the snowflakes right

and so they asked me how they grow,

and I was very pleased when the movie came out

they all looked like little snowflakes,

none of them were eight-sided, they were all six-sided,

and so, good job.

My name is Ken Libbrecht, and I'm a professor of Physics

here at CalTech, and I also grow snowflakes.

Well I got into physics very early,

I've been doing that most of my life.

Maybe about 20 years ago I just got interested

in how crystals grow, and that sort of led me to ice,

and to snowflakes.

We still don't exactly understand why they look like they do

so it's kind fun to think about.

To make a snowflake in the lab you start with water

and water vapor, you gotta get it really cold.

And basically start a crystal growing,

and I'll kind of blow moist air down onto it,

and it just absorbs water vapor from the air

and starts to grow, and I can do this on a piece of glass

and so just watch it grow.

I'm the only one that makes snowflakes like this in the lab.

When you start to look really carefully

at how a snowflake works,

you find you don't understand it

and there's a lot going on.

You dig deeper there's more and more stuff,

and it's really very interesting to me anyway.

I love to go out and hunt for snowflakes

because these beautiful works of art are just falling

all over, and you pick a few of them up

and photograph them, and the rest of them

you just trample on.

At the end of the day, I'm trying to understand

how atoms and molecules fit together to form crystals,

and by studying snowflakes slowly you figure things out

that are, that are useful.

One snowflake at a time.

(chuckling)

(intense music)

- [Man] In my career I've never met a single person

with his passion, ever.

And there's not even a close second.

- I get bloody, I put my body into the capture, the hunt.

- [Man] The guy will go anywhere,

climb any mountain to catch a fish in a stream.

He's doin' basically the work of a biologist,

just as sort of a volunteer.

- [Steve] Science is important because it's gonna help us

protect more populations of these fish that are

some are only in one creek, some are in one river.

It may be just another trout,

but it's a special trout, and they're all special to me.

Already been through Mar's collection ditch,

look at this baby right here.

Look at that sucker.

My name is Steve MacMillan, trout enthusiast.

It is truly my goal to catch a fish

at every stream in Nevada.

There's over 600, I've been workin' on this for years.

I'm a little over halfway there.

(light, playful music)

Very few people understand the Nevada that I see.

- [Chris] When most people think of Nevada,

a general picture comes into mind of hot, dry, desert.

We're the most mountainous state in the U.S.

In these mountains, we've got a number of streams

that are primarily fed with snow mountain runoff.

- [Steve] Nevada is actually home of some of the most

diverse native species of trout on Earth.

It's definitely a passion; it's definitely a obsession.

It's both, and there's probably four other words

they haven't invented yet to describe

what I think about this fishing

and what it does to me.

- [Interviewer] Steve MacMillan, what's the first impression

you get when you meet him?

- Nice. - That looks like a

brookie there. - Yeah it does.

- [Chris] It's almost difficult to understand him

on the phone because he's so excited about fish

and he talks so fast.

The one word to sum up Steve is passion.

- I work in the big city, work long hours,

I take a lotta work home with me,

I have a lot of stress at work.

In fact on weekends I find myself in these hills

walkin' long mountain trails to go up there and

try and catch a fish.

I feel like I own the place,

and many times I do own the place.

- About four or five years ago

was the Nevada Native Slam program.

A challenge to anglers in Nevada to catch

every native species, that includes Lahontan Cutthroat,

the Bonneville Cutthroat, Yellowstone Cutthroat,

Red Bands, Bull Trout, and Mountain Whitefish.

- [Steve] So I began trekkin' the state

to catch these six species.

- [Chris] It's not easy.

You need to travel great lengths to catch

some of these species of fish

and they're in extremely remote, rugged locations,

well Steve did it in two and a half months.

- For me to be the first to achieve it,

it was very humbling.

The last fish was probably, for most people,

the easiest one to catch, but for me,

I drove almost 3,000 miles over 5 trips to catch it,

and when I caught that thing it was like

winning the Super Bowl.

(fast, playful music)

My fishing technique is called ultralight spinning.

I'm using small weight lines,

usually two to four pound test,

I'm using a very small pole, small reel.

I can tell you that I go fishing,

I don't always go catching.

I'm learning every time I go out.

23 years ago, some of these places,

I coulda never caught fish, I never did,

and I've learned how to be more patient with the fish,

I've learned to be more subtle,

I've learned to read what time to fish,

morning, evening.

I do watch moon phases, it does affect the fishing

and, for me, it's basically finding that spot,

knowing they're there, watching and observing

instead of just being in a rush.

I practice a technique I've named CPR;

capture, photograph, release.

Here we go.

I think that's a good shot for posterity.

- [Chris] He documents everything that happens that day

and he gets stream temperature, air temperature,

lengths and weights of fish and pictures of that

and he'll prepare a report and send it to us.

He'll be out at a stream that we haven't been to

in 50, 60 years

and he'll grab fin clips for us,

and that fin sample is used for genetic analysis

to determine if that population is genetically pure

or hybridized.

He has found species of fish in places

that we had no idea about.

So he's doin' the work of a biologist

just as sort of a volunteer.

(dramatic, swelling music)

- [Steve] The final icing on the cake

is taking that fish, give him a kiss on the forehead,

putting it back in the water and watch it swim off,

and thanking the fish for being kind enough

to give me a chance to document its life

without killing it.

(mysterious music)

- You know, drought, specifically in a state

as dry as Nevada, can be very problematic.

We're seein’, you know, the wetted length of a number of our streams

decreasing dramatically.

- It's recording what I think is a disappearing

part of our heritage.

These trout are disappearing due to global warming,

efforts of mankind,

I believe that in my lifetime,

half these places I've caught fish will be gone.

As a kid I had a very large interest in biology,

so it's kinda the school child biologist

coming through as an adult.

It doesn't pay for itself,

hundreds of miles of gas,

sometimes thousands of miles in a weekend

to catch a fish, but to me, that's what drives me.

The rewards of having biologists

and people that are enthusiasts contact me

and say, "I saw your story, I've read about ya."

that makes me feel like a superstar,

and all I am is, is just a guy going fishing,

and I know my story is pretty lame to most people,

but to me it is the, it's the top of the hill.

It's the glory.

(light, playful music)

(slow, peaceful music)

- [Narrator] The largest insect migration in the world

ends each year in Michoacán, Mexico.

Cold winters are deadly to these beautiful butterflies,

so when the chill of winter descends on the northern half

of their range across the United States and Canada,

they take flight en masse,

in search of a warmer winter home.

(light, peaceful music)

An estimated 100 million Monarch pass the cold months

of the winter hibernation period

in the towering trees of this beautifully protected

nature reserve in western Mexico.

On their incredible journey,

the butterflies travel an average of 2,500 miles,

relying on air currents and thermal drafts

to carry them long distances.

The Monarch is the only butterfly known

to migrate the same way that birds do.

At night, when the temperature drops,

they cluster together in tight groups

to conserve heat and energy.

This survival tactic produces some of the most

stunning formations across the insect world.

(rhythmic, intense music)

- [Narrator] While canyoneering is a brand new sport,

it starts with an old school leap of faith.

Its participants hold their breath

as they repel down seemingly bottomless canyons

formed by centuries of wind and water,

through oncoming waterfalls, around blind turns,

and dangling over cliffs,

the sports pioneers take on natural wonders

the rest of us would never dare.

Kitt Turner is one of those pioneers.

He and his team are about to enter Canada's Box Canyon

for the first time,

a place that will make their knees quake.

- [Kitt] I got started running canyons in Hawaii.

I started rock climbing and eventually made the progression

into canyoneering.

Jenna's my girlfriend, she's a Hawaii girl,

born and raised.

We've been dating now for almost two years.

We met climbing.

- Kitt always pushes me

to go outside my comfort level a lot.

(mysterious music)

- [Kitt] When you're talking about canyoneering,

the process of descending a canyon,

you have to decide how much rope you wanna bring along,

you wanna decide if the rock quality is gonna be good enough

to set up anchors for the repels.

You also have to find a good crew

that is good under pressure.

- You're just dealing with lots of complexities of nature,

rocks, waterfall, it's just constant problem solving

using your brain, using your body.

- [Kitt] Canyons are very fickle,

and they're very weather-dependent.

Conditions in a canyon can change from one day

to the next, from one season to the next.

(dramatic music)

For this particular canyon, Box Canyon,

you have to cross the Squamish River.

- [Jenna] Kayaking across the river, it was an ordeal

because you just really have to paddle your heart out

just to cut across that current,

and then you have to make a sharp U-turn into this

little tiny beachfront.

- [Kitt] So once you cross the river,

there's a mosquito-infested hike

into the bottom of the Box Canyon stream.

And then you hike upstream for awhile

before you get to the technical part of the canyon

which involves rope.

- [Jenna] The first thought was, “Is this man made?”

This is not real.

It looks like a Disneyland ride.

- One, two, three.

(dramatic music)

- [Kitt] Box Canyon is considered a Class C canyon.

(water rushing)

Most of the repels, if not all the repels,

you're going straight through the water course,

which is straight through the waterfall,

and you're getting pounded by the water,

it's hitting you in your face.

You're slipping, you're sliding all over the place.

- [Jenna] My favorite thing about dropping into a canyon

is the rush of getting over the edge.

- This is my passion, man, I don't get more pumped

than when I'm in a canyon.

- [Kitt] It kinda adds that element of excitement

where you can't see where you're gonna end up.

- [Jenna] When you're on the edge of an adventure,

when you feel like I could die doing this right now

but I can't back down, and then you do it,

it's like the most amazing feeling.

- Whoo, yeah!

I don't get the people that are like,

why would you do that?

I'm just like, “Why not?”

(chuckling)

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

- [Kitt] For someone who's looking

at doing what we did, which is dropping everything

and pursuing your dreams,

I would say that it's definitely a leap of faith,

and maybe you crash and burn.

But the highs are incredible and you're never

gonna get those amazing moments and see if you

can really achieve your dreams if you don't try.

(dramatic, inspirational music)

(loud bing)

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
elements /ˈelɪmənts/ B1	noun - the basic natural parts of something
inspiration /ˌɪnspəˈreɪʃən/ B2	noun - the process of having ideas
afraid /əˈfreɪd/ A2	adjective - feeling fear
challenge /ˈtʃælɪndʒ/ B1	verb - to test someone's abilities noun - a difficult task
limits /ˈlɪmɪts/ B1	noun - the furthest extent or degree
secrets /ˈsiːkrəts/ B1	noun - things kept hidden
power /ˈpaʊər/ A2	noun - the ability to do something
pilots /ˈpaɪləts/ B1	noun - people who fly aircraft
globe /ɡloʊb/ B1	noun - the Earth
abyss /əˈbɪs/ C1	noun - a deep, immeasurable space
pioneers /ˌpaɪəˈnɪərz/ B2	noun - people who are among the first to explore or develop something
ambitious /æmˈbɪʃəs/ B2	adjective - having a strong desire for success
logging /ˈlɒɡɪŋ/ B1	noun - recording systematically
technical /ˈtekɪkəl/ B2	adjective - relating to a particular subject, art, or craft
operational /ˌɒpəˈreɪʃənəl/ B2	adjective - relating to the running of a business or organization
battling /ˈbætlɪŋ/ B1	verb - fighting against
unprecedented /ʌnˈpresɪdentɪd/ C1	adjective - never done or known before

Key Grammar Structures

• Their goal? To build the first solar-powered plane to fly around the world,

  ➔ Infinitive of purpose

  ➔ The phrase “to build…” explains *why* they had a goal. It functions as a noun modifying 'goal'. The structure is 'Noun + to + base form of verb'.

• Taking turns in the cockpit, co-pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, knew that they would face technical and operational challenges.

  ➔ Participial phrase as an adjective

  ➔ “Taking turns…” modifies 'co-pilots', describing what they were doing. It's a reduced relative clause (e.g., 'who were taking turns').

• While battling weather and the elements, inspiration begins.

  ➔ Subordinate clause of time/concession

  ➔ “While battling…” introduces a subordinate clause that sets the context for the main clause. 'While' indicates that the inspiration happens *during* the struggle.

• These are the people who challenge nature, seek out its limits, reveal its secrets, and embrace its awesome power.

  ➔ Relative clause with 'who'

  ➔ “who challenge nature…” is a relative clause modifying 'people'. It provides more information about the type of people being discussed.

• There are so many people in life, they forget to dream because they're afraid to fail.

  ➔ Result clause

  ➔ The second clause, 'they forget to dream...', is a result of the first clause, 'There are so many people...'. The 'because' introduces the reason for the result.