[barack] our country is stronger than it was when we started. and through every victory and every setback, i have insisted that change is never easy. we've still got more work to do. and that work involves a big choice this november. this is a more fundamental choice about who we are as a people and whether we stay true to this great american experiment in self-government.

♪ this is ridiculous. it's so steep. >> yeah. >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> oh! >> doing something that nobody's ever done before, there's no guarantee that your plan's going to work. >> once you commit, there is no turning around. >> we're entirely removed from civilization. >> look at this one!

>> we know once we get there, we're on our own. >> climbing. >> we've chosen to live a life that does have risks. >> oh, my god. >> one mistake, and you're dead. >> come on now. >> if you harness that fear, you can do something that you never thought possible. >> is the pursuit worth the risk? ♪ >> to be able to make a journey through a place so few other people have experienced is like maybe being the first person that goes to the moon or the first person that goes to the top of mt. everest. this is a place that doesn't

exist almost anywhere else on our planet. >> the llanganates mountains is a wild place in that it is completely roadless. it's vast, impenetrable jungle with 14,000-foot ridge lines going in, surrounded by a 20,000-foot volcano. the topography of this area is like none other. what we're attempting to do here is basically be the first people, the first known group to cross the llanganates via, the chalupas river. >> it's crossing this part of the jungle that's pretty impenetrable. some people have tried to cross there by foot, and it hasn't worked. we know it will be big and complicated and remote and continuous, and i think that makes it the highest difficulty

on the hiking scale. >> the one thing about this river objective, nobody's done it. there's no map. there's no information. you're moving through this huge national park that doesn't even have a park ranger. >> the challenge of crossing the llanganates is only made possible because of the whitewater kayak. and so that becomes some kind of life's accomplishment to have trained as a whitewater kayaker for more than two decades, to bring that to bear on one of the world's greatest river challenges. there's no other accomplishment that i can imagine that would match that for me. it's winning the world series. it's a sporting accomplishment on that level. since the plan is to spend at least two weeks in this river, we're going to have to utilize all of our experience and, you know, rely on each other for hopefully the different attributes we bring to the

table. we've done several rivers now together from one of the steepest river ever run in the united states, in the bighorns of wyoming. we did the first descent of the box canyon and tongue together. and it was in that steep-ass crazy river that we realized we had something really special and we all functioned well as a group. >> are we doing seven nights, eight days, or eight days -- >> i don't know if we're ready to make that decision, but it would be, i would imagine, eight days from the way we calculated it, right? >> try eight days of food, see how that feels, and then go from there. but that's about the maximum that i want to try to pack into my boat for weight. >> ben is probably the most experienced expedition whitewater kayaker there is.

his river records are just crazy. >> ben's reputation, on one side he's probably paddled more first descent rivers than anybody else in multiple countries all around the world. and on the other hand, he's also got a reputation as being a bit of a cowboy. >> i like to be the one who's going to push the issue to the very bitter end and never say no. i haven't had successes on every river, but i like to push it as far as it will go. >> the mission is on. not on the river yet, but it is still a mission just to approach the put-in. the weather is looking good, so i'm faithful that we can make it

over to our shelter tonight, the last possible shelter we could find. we've got a long journey all day, offroading. >> this is where the bit of adventure begins, just getting to the put-in to this river. we've got this mix of the local ranchers that are taking us into their land, some four-by-four specialists out of quito. guys that live for nothing more than to get their rigs super mudzy. this is a pretty unlikely group to get together here. >> i've never been in the hayek wa torial andes. to see cotopaxi, the tallest active volcano on earth right next to us and then arrive, finally sea the water that's going to be draining into the chalupas river that we had dreamed about for so long.

drove in one day, hit the shelter with a lot of hope, what we thought was perfect weather conditions. >> we are getting there. what's our elevation here? we're at like -- >> 3,700. >> 3,700 meters? >> woke up in the morning and made our way out to this peninsula that is two major tributaries that come together right as the alpine paramo ends and the highest jungle of the amazon begins. >> we've been gathering as much information about this river as we can, and we're just having to separate this into two sections, the upper and lower chalupas. the upper section looks like it's going to be eight days. from there, we're going to resupply and head down the lower section, which will take at least another 10 to 12 additional days. we're going to drop 10,000

vertical feet in 50 miles through this remote area, and it's going to be one of the steepest and most technical whitewater descents ever done. >> i thought we could put on and kind of start figuring it out, you know? that's what we're here for. >> well, the water's nice and cold, that's for sure. >> oh, god! >> it took us much long just to get to the put-in. we only had a few hours to get downstream. we're finally mendspending our t night properly on the river. we got really lucky. we're still in the paramo, and we found the very first grove of stout little trees.

so we're going to make it happen, get the hammocks up, get protected for the night. we've got some low clouds blowing up the canyon, but otherwise we're just so stoked with the weather. with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose works fast to eliminate migraine pain. treat it anytime, anywhere without worrying where you are or if it's too late. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. allergic reactions to ubrelvy can happen. most common side effects were nausea and sleepiness. migraine pain relief starts with u. ask about ubrelvy. learn how abbvie could help you save. at t-mobile, your business will save over $1000 bucks. what are you going to do with it? i could use a new sign. woooo! alright... ♪ soundproof windows. a new chair.

save more than $1000 bucks versus verizon. and now, get the new samsung galaxy s23 plus free with no trade-in required. ♪ enjoy $0 delivery on all your favorites through may 30th with ihop 'n go. ♪ download the app and earn free food with every order. from big cities, to small towns,

and on main streets across the us, you'll find pnc bank. helping businesses both large and small, communities and the people who live and work there grow and thrive. we're proud to call these places home too. they're where we put down roots, and where together, we work to help move everyone's financial goals forward. pnc bank. shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles

is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. a little bit [ bleep ]. >> so we definitely knew the temperatures were there, but i just did not think about a blizzard. we hadn't even barely touched the river yet, and it had

already spiked to what we would later find out was like a 20-year high. >> the best case scenario is, is that this lasts a couple days, and then it starts to dry out. we can reset and try again. >> so it became not an easy decision but like a mandatory decision to get out of there. we left our boats out at the confluence area. the plan was to go back to the shelter. we had left a food cache there. along the way, just these tiny little tributaries that i had hopped across with my sandals on, on the way in -- >> one, two, three! >> all of a sudden, they're like raging torrents. we hiked all day. it took us like 8 1/2 hours to get back to the shelter. >> this place is messed up, and we really need to be careful.

>> all of the information that we've gotten from weather forecasts, from our team back in quito, it seems like there's a big weather event that's coming here in three days' time and that the smartest thing for us to do is to wait it out and to wait to get into the river. >> i grew up in the potato fields of southeast idaho. i'm the youngest of two older brothers. the oldest one was a heavyweight wrestler for nebraska, and the middle brother was a professional football player, and they made me tough. >> he brings a different sort of kayaking style. he's at his best when it's most uncomfortable. think about some of these missions he's pulled off. the only circumnavigation of the world's northernmost island,

elsmere island. that sounded like the most horrific trip i can ever imagine. his partner went down from kidney failure. he got attacked by a walrus. >> i love this stuff. money is not what i'm chasing. it's the experience. >> the put-in is going to take us two days to kind of just start making progress. and after that, we still have, like, seven question mark box canyon to get to the landing zone, plus some whitewater. so there is no way we make this in eight days. i think realistically it will for sure be more like 10 to 12. and we can stretch two days and not eat for two days, and we'd still be fine. but ideally, there are a few spots that they could drop us food. >> yeah. >> i became aware of this little french girl. she was like running some of the biggest rapids. she just came out of nowhere.

i was intrigued right away. she has a real high voice, but she is one of the stoutest individuals i've ever met. >> i grew up in the french alps in a very small village, and i started kayaking in my local kw club when i was 5 years old, racing slalom. i was world champion in 2013. >> awarded to a female competitor. >> it was the ultimate goal that i set for the last 12 years, and i was just like, what's the point? it's been really good to have ben kind of like take me under his wing because without him helping me and inviting me on trips and then planning trips together, i would not be there today. >> for this type of mission, particularly this type of whitewater, noria is the best in the world, hands down. >> well, it's looking good. the rain has stopped.

it seems like we've got a good plan to move downstream. >> it will be good to try to make a move and get back in there, kind of commit to it and get into this tight canyon, which is really exciting and really scary at the same time. >> we're moving. we're just already a week behind the schedule that we had set for ourselves. there was a lot of doubt. is it going to be easier? is it going to be harder? is it going to be impossible? are we going to get another snowstorm? this is going to be one of the bigger challenges on this whole river, is where this river starts to drop 900, 1,000 feet per mile. paddling and battling through the waterfall. >> once we started making some

mileage, we knew turning around was less and less of an option. >> by mid-morning, that's basically when we passed the point of no return. >> ha ha! first out of the trip. that was scary. >> when we realized that on that day one, we only moved 2 1/2 kilometers, it was pretty obvious we needed to move faster. >> we're probably getting into one of the steepest sections of this river. most of it is not runnable, so now we need to try to move, but

slowly and steady and carefully. >> this river's gradient, which is the steepness and how much it drops, the highest percentage is about 12%. there's a whole lot of 7%. and just to put this into perspective, most of the hardest runs in the world are around 4% to 5% gradient . >> whoo! >> cold start. noria has us at 3,200 meter.

we're within 50 meters or so, and we're going to hit this really steep stretch of river that we kind of anticipated might be at full two-day portage. >> the portage is basically a way around running a section of river. so you'll put your kayak on your shoulder and hike around that rapid. >> we hit this relatively short section of river, maybe only three kilometers, but it slowed us down to a crawling pace literally because we were like crawling over giant boulders, trying to portage sections of river that were completely unsurvivable. >> there's no point to even scouti scouting. when you see the gradient, you know it's not going to go. >> yeah. >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> hold on.

stop! >> [ bleep ]. >> hold on! >> nuria bobbles my boat for a second over a river that would kill you if you slipped in. there i just [ bleep ] lose my mind. i start cussing like a sailor. >> easy, easy, easy. >> when you're in these group dynamics, when somebody is pushing, somebody else is pulling. it's like a marriage on acid. it's so intense. >> it's really hard on the team to run such a stacked, scary, consequential stretch of river. >> i get that. i totally get it. >> for me, that's a situation i don't like being in, when the communication breaks down and you're in a dangerous place. >> being one as a team is what i want, one way or another, or we're not going to go down this river.

>> just hoping and praying that we have options to move through here because these rapids are becoming pretty deadly. >> we hit a place where the canyon turns into a full walled-in box, and it's going to go through its very steepest section. right there, there's a part of the river that will kill you. and so we go looking up on the canyon wall for some route around this section of river that looks probably unsurvivable. >> it looks like we have at least two miles from looking at the map before we have any chance of getting back into the river. that's going to take us at least two days. >> [ bleep ]. it's so muddy, i cannot even take my throw bag.

>> we're trying to keep our shoes on in knee-deep mud with this 100-pound kayak moving up. >> they're just like backpacks but 20 times more inconvenient and heavier. >> for sure we're not moving very quickly. probably about a kilometer per day of what we're doing, right? >> if we have to move through the jungle? >> yeah, especially with that gor gorge where there's that up and over, that portage might take us a while. >> the timeline is falling way behind. we're coming to the stark realization that we don't know 100% whether or not being able to actually move through this crazy terrain will actually work

out. >> don't leave me too much soup now. that's good. i've got that salt. over $1,4r on car insurance. start saving now. free. at experian.com or get the app now. i brought in ensure max protein with 30g of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uh... here i'll take that. -everyone: woo hoo! ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar. enter the nourishing moments giveaway for a chance to win $10,000.

♪ enjoy $0 delivery on all your favorites through may 30th with ihop 'n go. ♪ download the app and earn free food with every order.

we made it down to the river. we spent two days just doing that single portage. >> yeah, buddy. >> kind of like stage one complete. stage one of five. 2,000 vertical feet to here. 8,000 vertical feet to go to takeout. >> we're dropping into the unknown here, and the walls are

starting to close in. and, yeah, we don't want to get boxed out in here. so fingers crossed we can work down this boxed canyon at river level. >> there's only one way to know, and it's to kind of commit into this canyon. but it's scary, [ bleep ]. >> that's one of the reasons that we're here doing this river and other people haven't, is we have to drop into these gorges where we don't know how well we're going to be able to retreat. you don't know until you go, and hopefully you don't go too far. >> we had no other choice but to put nouri and i in our kayaks and just hope that one of us was going to get through. >> if you swim and you lose gear, it's game over. i don't even know what would happen.

♪ >> whew. >> here we are at camp six. we've dropped 3,000 vertical feet. we have 7,000 more vertical feet to drop. >> we were planning to do half of the river interview 8 to 10 days, but we haven't done a quarter of the distance that you were supposed to cover, and so that brings up a lot of questions for the rest of the descent.

>> it was pouring rain all night, and the river spiked up. >> right now it's like a foot higher than it was yesterday. >> i think it's -- it's too much water for -- to just navigate it safely. >> hopefully it doesn't rain again tonight. >> it's raining this afternoon a bit. >> hopefully it keeps -- >> but not as much hopefully. if the water's too high, it's harder to stop. we have less possibility of forging at river levels. we have no margin, and we need that margin because this river is just full on. >> even when the river was low, one mistake would be a life or death scenario with very few option for rescue. now that the river is high, forget about it. one mistake, and you're dead.

if we continue to have bad weather and the river stays high, we basically just can't go anywhere. >> we're going to need pretty much the next 16 to 18 hours to be pretty dry for us to get back on the river and running out of supplies. >> to communicate with aid, we had basically like a satellite texting unit. and initially it was working super well. every step we took downstream, it delayed the messages even further. >> you're so remote, and the fact that your unit is not working just makes you so much more vulnerable.

>> you felt a little bit touch and go yesterday because we were down to about one full day of food left. but we're super fortunate to have helicopter support on this, and we've got four more days of food dropped. i honestly think we're going to be dependent on probably one more drop to hit our halfway point on this river. >> if we can't paddle because the weather is too bad, that support is not endless and limitless in time. for me, i was like, we're in a really bad spot. and you have your friends that are just way more relaxed about it. and it was making me feel even more scared.

>> we've all been kind of saying that today is a make-or-break day because if we can't make some kilometers, make some miles today, we may not make it all the way down this river. a week ago we probably would have just stayed in camp on a day like this with the high water. but now we feel the urgency of getting downstream and getting out of here. >> every single horizon line is brand-new, and we're trying to stop for all of them. but inevitably, we're having to run a lot of stuff just, like, blind. >> this is ridiculous. it's so steep.

there's no pool. >> yeah. >> oh, [ bleep ], [ bleep ], [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> ahh! ahh! ahh! >> oh, man, i almost got totally [ bleep ] right there. that would have been the worst place to swim. we had another pause in the action due to a rainstorm that hit last night and brought the

river up 2 1/2 feet. >> it's definitely not what we wanted, not what we expected, not what was forecasted. not good. this incessant rain that has been coming through even in days that are supposed to be good has dampened our spirits a bit. so there's a lot of, you know, a lot of talk of what if and what's downstream. our goal is to move one kilometer down so that we have an air drop support position. this section, the drop is 300 feet in one kilometer .

♪ >> we're basically at like a food drop. possibly an evac point and the start of a big-ass portage. for me to go on, i'd want weather and continued support. that's me. if we get a forecast back and it's like ten days solid rain, like that would start to make me think twice. but i can still probably be convinced to be honest. >> for me, it was really hard because i was like we have all the red lights -- environment,

the steepness, the remoteness, the forecast. it's all against us, and they're still talking about going all the way down. but i was, like, starting to question if my partners and if my friends were still making the right decision. >> i'm pretty freaked out. we're a minimum four days away. it's going to be a lot of like high water. >> we're just putting it out there to our ground support to see if we even have an option to evac here. that will really determine what the next step is. >> i think that was an uncomfortable place for especially nouria to be the one for the very first time in her

paddling career that wanted to evacuate. i'm fully committed to going downstream. i'm not really there to consider backing down. >> yeah, the clouds over there and the mountains are starting to open up. everything's pushing out, and the east side is looking clear, but it's not going to last forever. there is another front coming in, so we get, like, one shot, i guess, this afternoon, hoping that it stops raining out there, but realistically, if we don't do it today, we may not do it for a couple days. so this is our shot. >> every time you bring in a helicopter into any kind of rescue, everything can go wrong really fast. we have some very unique

conditions, which involves temperature and high elevation. >> we can barely hover here. it's too unstable to get any closer to the beach. >> heli-extraction here is too risky. we're just going to do a food drop and get out of here. >> this is not good. the only thing that they can help us with is just for supplies from the sky. extraction is not possible. if someone gets injured, that's game over, and nothing will happen. and so it just had a whole other level of commitment. >> that's only when it's clear to the whole group we have to go downstream to leave the river. to the broadest, most reliable network of sales and service dealers. we lead.

others follow. ♪ enjoy $0 delivery on all your favorites through may 30th with ihop 'n go. ♪ download the app and earn free food with every order. i have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. so i'm taking zeposia, a once-daily pill. because i won't let uc stop me...from being me. zeposia can help people with uc achieve and maintain remission. and has been shown to reduce symptoms in as early as 2 weeks. zeposia is the first and only s1p receptor modulator approved for uc. don't take zeposia if you had a heart attack, chest pain, stroke or mini-stroke, heart failure in the last 6 months, irregular or abnormal heartbeat, if you have untreated sleep apnea, or take maois. zeposia may cause serious side effects including infections that can be life threatening and cause death, slow heart rate, liver or breathing problems, increased blood pressure, macular edema,

swelling and narrowing of the brain's blood vessels, and increased risk of pml-- a rare brain infection that usually leads to death or severe disability. tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to be. don't let uc stop you from doing you. if you're living with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, ask your doctor about once-daily zeposia.

we any from our map research that just but low us here is this massive waterfall that's unrunnable, so the only way for us to move downstream is to take our boats and to hike. that's going to take us at least two days to get around this canyon. >> i was doing good until the spiking went and slapped me in the face and in the nose. hopefully we get out fast enough

that it doesn't get infected. i want out. i'm not against risk-taking, but i want to control the amount of risk that i'm willing to take. and at this point i didn't have that control. >> we're dropping into a section of river with unknown vertical gorges. we don't know what's around any corner, but we just have to do it because there's no other way to get to the lz. >> not only are you playing this life-or-death chess match against the river, you're also trying to do battle with the demons that have really developed in all of us that said, you might not even make it to the lz.

>> when you're moving in this type of whitewater, we'll send one person ahead, and then the group really needs to trust whether that person says it's a walk or if it's, like, good to go, there needs to be a serious amount of trust. >> communication is just totally critical out here. if one of us is powering through a hard section of whitewater, you can't have somebody dropping in on them. it's literally a matter of life and death. >> [ bleep ]. >> yeah, you fired up?

yeah, you fired up? good. get fired up. all right! you're out here alone. don't worry about it. you're alone. don't worry. >> you still watch while i'm going in the rapid because you don't hear those guys, then you [ bleep ] lost it. you scare me. i don't want to be on this [ bleep ] sketchy-ass river with you because i don't believe you guys are making the right decisions. i want out. i want out. >> i just told her, like, if she doesn't want to look at anybody else, then that's fine. she's just dropping into shit without like even -- >> she scouted it, and she waited for a while up there. >> oh, did she? >> yeah. >> okay. but nobody's talking to each other or anything. >> i was like, hey, guys, nou's getting ready to go. maybe you didn't hear it.

>> at the end of the day when we had our worst blowup and we had our worst communication, when it just felt like this 5-year-old really precious friendship to me had totally deteriorated, i walked into the jungle to try to clear myself. because i was trying to dry out my feet, i slipped and took a machete to the finger. >> oh, no. shit. ah! i cut my finger real bad. >> i saw ben cruising down the river with bloodst streaming do his finger. his pants were stain. his feet were deep red with blood. >> i felt like in cutting my hand, it was like this physical karm attic manifestation of the issue that had developed between nouria and i. >> you're out here alone. don't worry about it. you're alone. don't worry.

>> oh, she's a bleeder. >> yeah. >> a sliced finger in day-to-day life isn't such a big deal. but in extreme class 6 whitewater kayaking, your life depends on your hand. it was pretty clear that my clock was ticking in terms of an infection. >> it's bleeding the same as it was. this is going to have to do. >> in scouting the river, we knew that maybe the most committing portion, maybe the most dangerous section of river that we had seen on the entire thing was situated almost just upstream of the actual lz. so for over 2 1/2 weeks, we always had that in the back of our mind of between here is

peppered with areas completely unrunnable or unsurvivable. >> picked a shitty day to go in with a [ bleep ] up hand right off the bat. just a really scary boxed canyon. we've got a few options. kind of none of them are that great or easy. hopefully we won't have to do some craziness in the vertical jungle. my intuition tells me to catch that eddy over on the left. but my hand's >> this ferry is one that i have like 100% confidence in. but like for mere mortals like me who make it some of the time, but ten times, no. i think you would have it ten times no problem. >> you know you're at the top of the highest rapid. i had decided to run it.

i'm 100% sure that i will get it. i'm not a gambler. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

maya, do you want to talks? >> i've got to just, like, i can't do that. even if there is a mistake, i can't do that. >> i'm trying to tell you -- >> i know, i'm sorry, sorry, sorry. i'm going to work on that. >> good thing that this team, it's ability to just, like, acknowledge that stress and move past that and be like, oh, yeah, i know actually you're not angry at me, you're just scared. and kind of accept that everyone has those swings. ♪

download the app and earn free food with every order. at pnc bank, you can find us in big cities and small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. because you call these communities home, and we do too. pnc bank. when the davises booked their vrbo vacation home, they didn't know about this view. or the 200-year-old tree in the backyard. or their neighbors down the hill. but one thing they did know is exactly how much they'd pay. because vrbo is different. you see the total price up front. of course, it's good to leave room for some surprises. boo! ♪

the future is here. we've been creating it for more than 100 years. from the most advanced technology to the broadest, most reliable network of sales and service dealers. we lead. others follow.

he's got his cut finger, his foot raw, he's, like, limping around. he's kind of [ bleep ]ed up right now. >> wait, so you're not going to la nun ga azule? >> we'll see. we'll get there, then we'll see. there's enough food and stuff to just sneak on the river, that could be awesome. i feel like those big rapids, like you said, they were kind of cool. >> yeah. >> big water. >> at the end of that day, ben and boomer were still talking about making it all the way downstream. >> up until this point, like, i was just like, no way, i'm going

to stop willingly. no way. but it's been such a monster undertaking, i can't imagine going the next 40 kilometers to the finish line right now. i can't speak for the rest of the group, but i know personally, like -- i'm going to be looking to call it good. not what any of us wanted, but it's what we're -- it's what we're going to get. and man, i feel, like, lucky to get there. what a [ bleep ] river, huh? >> it's only now becoming fully clear to me what an accomplishment it was just to get to lz. we dropped 70% of the almost two

vertical miles of gradient in not even half the distance down the river. >> i'm so proud what was we did. and i'm proud of how we did it. you know, safely, moving through those dangerous zones, and descending one of the hardest sections of whitewater that's ever been done. i mean, i don't know how you measure these things. i'm not much for records. but yeah, it challenged the team to go out and paddle that thing. i mean, i think the numbers speak for itself. >> i'm really thankful for the opportunity to be able to put myself in this situation, even if that means that it gets really hard and uncomfortable at times. that's what i live for. >> there's a part of me that only truly exists and thrives in these river canyons with the unknown in front of us and hard work behind us. anywhere else, i'm a lesser version of myself.

on may 24th, 2022, a gunman walked into robb elementary school in uvalde, texas, and killed 19 children and two