How Your Favorite Adventure Documentaries Get Made, Ethical Dilemmas In All

Getting the Green Light

There is a considerable cost to undertaking a feat worthy of documentation. Whether it’s climbing and skiing a remote mountain in Pakistan, rafting a river in Chile, or running a trail in California, expeditions take time and money. Although brands are reluctant to share how much money they put into such projects, available figures suggest they might provide anywhere from $10,000 for a local trip to $200,000 per climber for a far-flung alpine adventure, and, sometimes, upwards of a million dollars for journeys heavy on logistics that require the employment of vessels, as in ocean crossings or Antarctic expeditions. In return, they hope to receive enough credibility and exposure to justify what they put in.

The trade is mutually beneficial in theory, but a brand-sponsored athlete in a content-rich climate is under certain obligations to create footage that gets eyeballs. At the extreme—where expedition storytelling often thrives—the result can be a zero-sum game of increasingly daring first ascents, descents, and exploits.

“At the end of the day, what is seemingly driving most of the higher-end athlete careers these days is how much of a marketing tool they are for these brands,” Leo Hoorn, the director of Trango, explained to me over a Zoom call.

Chris Benchetler, an artist and skier who directed the trippy, multisport showcase Mountains of the Moon in partnership with Arc’teryx, believes the best versions of this relationship are symbiotic. “A well-defined creative vision gives sponsors something tangible to rally behind and market," he told me via email. "However, the best partnerships happen when brands believe in the vision first, not just the deliverables. The film may unlock doors, but alignment and authenticity are what keep the doors open.”

For an athlete, getting the green light for an expedition requires pitching it to the companies, even when those companies already sponsor them. It takes a certain amount of wrangling to make it happen. For Morrison and Lustenberger, the idea of a documentary didn’t really crystallize until they had made it all the way to the granite spire in the sub-range of northern Pakistan's Karakoram the first time and realized the potential of what they were attempting. Despite failing in their initial try, which is part of the story told in Trango, they felt it was worth securing funding for another go.

“It was through a lot of hard work on Christina’s part, and also my part, to convince [The North Face] to help us go back and send other people to make this documentary,” said Morrison. “We knew what we had here, and we knew we wanted to achieve it.”

Even for athletes of the caliber of Morrison and Lustenberger, the vision is considered against that of other athletes vying for funding for their own trips. The athletes that make up team TNF are all world-class, making competition for funds fierce. “We have a team full of a whole bunch of Ferraris," Morrison said, "a whole bunch of really exceptional athletes, and they have a limited amount of gas to fuel those Ferraris.”

For brands to decide how much cash to dole out and to whom, they assess the potential value of each trip. But value can be a broad term.

“What we’re really evaluating is alignment,” explained Kaki Orr, The North Face’s brand narratives director. “Climbing, and mountain culture more broadly, has always had an anti-commercial ethos. That tension is real, and we don’t try to ignore it. When we make a film, it’s not a disguised product piece; it’s because the story itself deserves to exist at its highest level.”

Once an expedition is agreed upon, the two parties hone in on the details.

“Every expedition or film has its own contracting structure and expectations,” explained Orr. “In terms of formalization, expectations are clearly outlined in agreements, but we try to leave creative flexibility where it matters.”

Orr, a former professional freeride skier, knows that expeditions don’t always go according to plan. “Mountain environments are unpredictable. The best storytelling often comes from what isn’t planned. The structure provides accountability; the flexibility protects the integrity of the story.”

A Storytelling Tradition

When it comes to protecting the integrity of a story, authenticity is paramount. For decades, mountaineers prided themselves on getting by with a minimum of gear and a maximum of resolve, coming home with only a tale to tell and perhaps a few scars. The lucky few might get their stories photographed and put in a glossy magazine.

The current generation of outdoor athletes sees itself as continuing that tradition. “I would call us storytellers, and that goes back to the very first generation explorers,” said Lustenberger. “That's exactly what we are. We're exploring pieces of terrain that haven't been traveled this way before.”

Modern means of documentation also provide modern advantages. The ability to capture high-quality footage in the most inhospitable climates with more portable and more durable cameras has brought the summit to the suburbs, building interest in outdoor sports and the exploration of Earth's distant landscapes.

“The GoPros and drones just bring you that much closer to the experience of the athletes living on those walls and faces,” said Trango director Hoorn. “If it inspires somebody to go hike into a base camp or see the country for themselves, I think that's amazing.”

“I think film is a powerful gateway,” agreed Benchetler. “A single story can spark someone’s curiosity, expand their idea of what’s possible, or inspire them to spend more time outside.”

Documentaries also provide a more visceral and realistic sense of the athlete experience. “It's offering a glimpse into this world that I think is often pretty mysterious,” said Liz Derstine, a Mountain Hardwear athlete and the subject of Ridgeline, a documentary about her attempt to set the fastest known time on the Pacific Coast Trail. “With a documentary, you can peel back the curtain and show what goes into something like this. I gobble up those documentaries because I want to know what’s actually happening out there.”

The Pressure to Perform

Of course, for a story to inspire, it has to be a tale worth telling. With contracts signed and cameras rolling, there is always the possibility that an athlete’s decision-making will be impacted, with potentially disastrous results. With a camera trained on them, an athlete can feel increased pressure to complete the mission.

Granted, this pressure has always been part of the media-adventure equation. In a recent conversation with NPR marking the 30th anniversary of Into Thin Air, the classic adventure book about a disastrous series of events during the 1996 Everest climbing season, Jon Krakauer admitted that his presence as a writer for Outside may have had an unintended effect on decision-making. “I feel responsible in large part, because I was there as a journalist, and Rob had an incentive to get as many clients to the top as possible," he told NPR.

Yet one journalist with a notepad isn’t nearly as intrusive as a film crew or a contractual obligation to provide live social media updates to an audience of thousands.

“It can add a level of stress to feel like you’re under the watchful eye of the camera,” said Derstine. “There is this responsibility because it's something you agreed to do. It adds another layer. I hate disappointing people.”

“There's this pressure that you could perceive as needing to perform, needing to deliver success, in whatever form people portray that as,” said Lustenberger. “You have to recalibrate and tell yourself that you're not going to maneuver differently because of the external factors. What will keep you alive and able to have a really long career in the mountains is to make calculated decisions, not emotional decisions.”

Allow for Failure, Embrace New Frontiers

For Lustenberger and Morrison, the film got its sought-after denouement—the first ski descent of the Great Trango Tower, in satisfying hi-def, with epic drone footage. But that kind of conclusion isn’t guaranteed. For Derstine, the story took a different shape.

“When I was out there, I did not make my goal,” recalled Derstine. “I had to deal with that in real time and decide, do I want to keep going? It was a pain point. But I still think there's a story there, and I still believed in the journey to do this thing I set out to do.”

To see the disappointment dawn on Derstine in Ridgeline and hear her work through the motivations for continuing is inspiring in a different kind of way. A way that gets at the heart of why we seek out transcendent nature experiences in the first place. Derstine has suffered through harsh weather, monstrous blisters, and getting her period on trail with no glory to justify it all. Yet she plows on.

“In a monstrous act of rebellion,” she tells the camera not long after realizing the math won’t add up to an FKT, “I decided I’m going to sleep. I’m going to sleep as much as I want. I just want to have one morning where I feel like a normal hiker.” The fact that there's space for a story that isn’t about success is part of the reason an amplified story ecosystem, despite the occasional money grab, is one worth supporting.

“Content partnerships and documentary platforms have created space for more diverse narratives: different geographies, different bodies, different motivations for being in the mountains,” said Orr. “The traditional prioritization of ‘firsts’ and grade-chasing has expanded to include stories about mentorship, failure, access, environmental ethics, and the psychological terrain of the climb.”

All the more reason to stay tuned.