This one stuck, even though I heard it almost fifteen years ago.

I’d been following Cam Hanes around the mountain in Alaska looking for moose. He’s hunting. I’m filming.

I wake up early one morning and look outside the tent. There’s six inches of fresh snow on the ground and it’s still coming down. Visibility is shit. I close the tent door and climb back in my sleeping bag.

I’m dozing off when Cam shakes my tent. Snow slides from the roof to the ground.

“Hey, this is pretty bad out here,” he says through the tent walls.

“I know, I just looked. What are you thinking?” I ask.

“I think we’ll just walk up the ridge here from camp and see what it looks like on the other side,” he says.

“Be right out,” I say.

I’m wearing down, Gore-Tex, and gaiters. My hands are in thick gloves I have to remove every time I change a camera setting.

We walk to the top of the ridge and look over. It’s the same. We move down and spend the next few hours walking through the snow.

I film Cam navigate some rocks and approach the camera.

He says,

If you could think of the worst conditions possible to be on the mountain, this is probably it. Especially in big, open country where you want to use your optics. You can’t see anything. It’s windy. I don’t know how cold it is, but it feels pretty cold. We got a lot of snow last night. But you still want to get up and get out here, if nothing else to look for fresh tracks. I keep waiting for a big bull moose to materialize out of the fog. Because the truth is, I’ve killed a lot of animals I maybe didn’t deserve, just because I was out there. You never know what can happen in the wilderness. If you’re out, crazy things happen. I killed those animals not because I’m a great hunter, but because I’m stubborn, out there trying to make something happen when logic says stay in.

Ever since that moment, when I’ve wanted to stay inside. When the weather’s been cold, or windy, or too hot. When we haven’t seen an animal for days. Whatever it is, I remember that crazy things can happen if you’re out. Nothing happens if you stay in.