- [Narrator] Production funding for "Outside Beyond the Lens" provided by, Visit Fresno County, home to unique attractions, California's fifth largest city and easy access to three nearby national parks.

(soft music) (wind whooshing) By Advanced Beverage Company, serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

By Hendrick's Chevrolet.

- We are proud to support the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

(soft music) - [Narrator] By Hodges Electric Inc, over five decades of delivering innovative solutions for residential, agricultural, and battery storage systems.

(soft music) By the Penstar Group.

Promoting opportunity and growth for the future.

(soft music) By Central California's Valley Children's Healthcare future's worth fighting for.

(soft music) By A-Plus Signs, we never stop innovating for you.

(soft music) And by Valley Air Conditioning & Repair.

Family owned and trusted for over 50 years, proud to support public television and the wonders of travel.

(soft music) (upbeat music) - There's just something about the desert.

It's harsh, empty, beautiful in a way that doesn't care if you notice and that's probably why I love it so much.

Out here in the Mojave, the land stretches wide and stubborn, unchanged by man.

This is how most of the American West used to look, untamed, unpaved, unapologetically wild.

(soft music) In the spring, if the rain's been good, something rare happens, this place blooms.

The colors explode out of nowhere.

Yellows, purples, deep reds like the desert's way of showing off before summer shuts it all down.

We have in the middle of the Mojave Desert, running water.

We've got no plan for this one.

Just a tank full of gas, cameras in the back and the freedom to turn wherever the road or lack of one, takes us.

We hit another little dirt road here.

What was it called again?

We chase old ghost towns, clinging to history, abandoned dreams wrapped in rust and peeling paint.

We hit side trails that look like they lead to nowhere, only to find that nowhere, is sometimes exactly where you want to be.

Zack says he sees campgrounds, I think he's hallucinating.

This is a trip where the wide angle lens, gets a workout.

Big skies, big frames, big laughs.

(Jeff laughing) And just when you think you've seen it all the land saves its best scene for last.

At dawn, standing in a sea of rock towers that looked like they were dropped here by some alien god, the rising sun melts golden light across the desert floor.

This is about as good an example as you can get of why you always take the turnoff.

It's quiet, still, spiritual in a way that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with being alive.

We shoot a lot of footage on this trip, frames we'll definitely be proud of, but the best part, it's not what happens in camera, it's what happens beyond the lens.

It's the time spent getting here together.

(soft music) - I dare you to open that thing.

- [Jeff] Come on Dave, where's your sense of adventure?

- That's a memorial.

- [Jeff] You think it's a memorial?

- It's a mailbox.

It's probably like an urn or something.

- I don't- - [Jeff] For some mailman or something used to come out here?

- Maybe, I dunno.

- When you travel, the world becomes a smaller place.

When you explore with friends like mine who share a love of photography, destinations come to life.

(airplane engine roaring) (Jeff laughing) We tell the stories of travel with our cameras, capturing the wonders of this world in every frame.

Day one of filming on island and it's like crazy.

But on every trip, the unplanned moments we film are the ones we remember the most.

Jordan, good to meet you brother.

- [Jordan] Good to meet you too, man.

- [Jeff] Now join David Boomer, Zack Allen, Jon Neely, and me Jeff Aiello as we set out on a new journey to discover the people, places, and food that all make travel life's never ending adventure.

This, is "Outside Beyond the Lens."

(upbeat music) (soft music) California is a place shaped by contrast.

(soft music) Towering redwoods drink from the coastal rains in the north.

(soft music) Waves carve away at the stone's spines of the central coast.

(soft music) And deep in the Sierra, glaciers sculpted the granite Cathedral, we now call Yosemite Valley.

(soft music) But there's another California, one that stretches wide and quiet, where shadows dance across endless earth and wind etches poetry into sand.

(soft music) This is the Mojave, (soft music) sprawling, austere and always beautiful.

(soft music) Highway 178 has been our road into this other world for years now.

A familiar path that connects the farms of the San Joaquin Valley to the freedom of the 395 corridor.

(soft music) A route we've taken often to film fighter jets flying low through the desert canyons, chasing sound with our cameras pointed skyward.

(soft music) For most of the year, this land is scorched by heat that drives everything into hiding.

(soft music) But now, in spring with the memory of winter rains still clinging to the soil, something ancient begins to stir.

(soft music) The desert wakes, (soft music) wild flowers bloom, where only dust lived before.

(soft music) Blue skies stretch with promise and the silence isn't empty, it's calling, so we answer.

(soft music) (gentle music) After a full day on the road, we find ourselves waking to the cool stillness of morning in the Panamint Valley.

(soft music) Just west of Death Valley National Park, this basin holds its own kind of magic.

The light here arrives slow, filtered through ridge lines that glow pink and gold as the sun rises.

(soft music) - Mornings, evenings, it's always like this.

It's great.

- Yeah.

I've backtracked along Highway 190 to revisit a place I haven't seen in a while.

Padre Crowley Point.

It's a dramatic overlook perched on the edge of Rainbow Canyon, better known in aviation circles as Star Wars Canyon.

(soft music) There's a paved pull out here, interpretive signs, a place designed for awe.

(airplane engine roaring) For years, this spot was a magnet for photographers, aviation buffs and travelers all hoping to catch a glimpse of fighter jets slicing through the canyon below in breathtaking low level passes.

(soft music) But that changed in an instant.

(soft music) In 2019, Navy pilot Lieutenant Commander Charles Walker, lost his life, when his F18/E Super Hornet crashed during a training run here.

Since that tragic day, the low flights have stopped and while jets still carve through these skies, they fly higher now, more distant.

(soft music) The canyon feels quieter, but the memory of what once echoed here still lingers in the rocks and we hold onto hope that one day, the roar will return.

(airplane engine roaring) In the meantime, there's beauty in what remains.

(soft music) Spring paints the desert in fleeting color.

Blushes of gold, violet and crimson bursting between cactus and creosote.

(soft music) Every turnoff, every dusty road becomes a portal to a different canvas.

A place where the lens, becomes a brush and the soul finds light in the quiet.

(soft music) All right, so Zack, Dave and I are just driving right down the heart of the Panamint Valley north to south.

We turned off a 190 onto 178 and taking this road south to Trona and sort of the end target for today are the Trona pinnacles in that site.

Which Zack you've been to before.

- Yeah, I spent a night out there before, it's really cool.

- Okay, so we have a guide.

- Yes.

- Alright, cool.

- Pretty much to it.

- Alright, so yeah, so we're gonna have a little fun out there at Sunset tonight.

Is it a better sunset or sunrise location?

Be honest.

- It's kind of both.

It's right in the middle of the whole like valley, so you can get a sunrise and sunset.

- Okay, that's good too.

(soft music) The road drops into the vast expanse of the Panamint Valley.

A place tucked between rugged mountains and time itself.

(soft music) Just over the ridge, lies Death Valley National Park, one of the most visited deserts in the American West.

But here in Panamint, the silence is thicker, the crowds are gone, and what's left behind is the raw, unfiltered beauty of the desert, stripped down to the bones.

(soft music) This is a land of extremes.

Heat, distance, solitude, and it demands respect.

(soft music) Out here, help is measured in hours, not minutes.

So you come prepared, with water, with supplies, with a plan.

But most of all, with the understanding that nature, not cell service runs the show.

(soft music) But there's magic in that, out here, the desert becomes a canvas, not just for your lens but for your spirit.

The light plays tricks across the salt flats.

Wind, carves whispers into the canyon walls and the stillness makes room for thoughts that never find space back home.

(soft music) When you're on a road trip like this, the itinerary should be more of a suggestion than a schedule because somewhere out there beyond the dotted line on the map is a dirt road with a strange name and no guarantee.

(soft music) And turning down it, that spontaneous choice is often where the best memories begin.

(wind whooshing) (soft music) Okay, so we were on the Panamint road, heading south, and we hit a stop sign to take a right, toward Trona.

And quickly after that, we hit another little dirt road here.

What was it called again?

- Indian.

- Indian.

- Ranch Road.

- Indian Ranch Road.

And often the distance, we can see it has like an oasis effect.

I see a lot of green.

- [Zack] Ton of campgrounds too.

- Zack says he sees campgrounds, I think he's hallucinating.

And we're right below Telescope Peak, which has a lot of snow on it, so there's runoff, there's some deep canyons here we're spying.

So there's definitely water coming down the hill this time of the year.

But I'm seeing green.

(soft music) Just when we thought, we were already off the beaten path, we found a path that looked even like the beaten path had given up.

Indian Ranch Road isn't so much a road as it is a suggestion winding through the kind of landscape that makes you check your gas tank, your tires, and your life choices.

(wind whooshing) But the view from above, that's where things get strange.

Our drone picks up what looks like a mirage, an oasis of green in the middle of California's rugged badlands.

And right next to it, a scattered collection of trailers that might have once been an RV park or a Doomsday commune.

(soft music) If Charlie Manson had a summer home, it might look like this.

Rusted out campers, sun faded flags and the kind of decorative lawn art that makes you speed up just a little.

(soft music) We slow roll past it all, eyes peeled on the road, the rocks and anything that might start moving on two legs.

(soft music) There's a wild energy out here, something untamed and just over the next rise, we're about to find what's been feeding that ribbon of green we saw from the sky.

Call it curiosity, call it recklessness but when you're this far gone, turning back just isn't part of the plan.

Alright, so Indian Ranch Road, we've stopped as we've approached and gotten into this green belt.

And as predicted, we have in the middle of the Mojave Desert running water, clear, fresh running water that's coming from Telescope Peak and the High Peaks that sort of separate Panamint Valley from Death Valley.

Death Valley's just on the other side of these mountains right here.

So yeah, let's check this out, man.

We just saw a raven over here drinking in the water.

It's just so cool to be in the desert, if you were hiking for miles and needing water.

(Jeff laughing) You'd be happy to see this.

But it's not super cold, it's been running over some pretty shallow, warm desert terra escapees here for a while.

But man, you've got water in the desert and because of that, (soft music) you've got green.

(soft music) The ribbon of water cutting through the sand and sage leads us to something much bigger.

Just beyond a low rise in the landscape, the desert opens up into a wide basin.

A shimmering body of water stretches across the valley floor.

At first glance, it almost doesn't seem real.

We've stumbled onto a temporary lake nestled in a place called warm sulfur springs.

This isn't your average desert mirage, it's the result of snow melt from Telescope Peak, high above us in Death Valley National Park.

Every spring, the snowpack begins to thaw here, water flows down through hidden gullies and washes collecting in a rare seasonal oasis.

Still, the lake's presence is more than just a visual reward in a region where water is scarce, even short-lived pools like this become lifelines.

Migratory birds rest here, amphibians lay eggs, insects emerge, drawing in lizards and foxes.

This brief explosion of life revolves around the simple presence of water.

Water that may only linger for a few weeks before vanishing back into the earth.

Excited by the fine, we decide to get outta the car and photograph this surreal scene.

But we're quickly reminded of the desert's talent for deception.

And for plants and insects that typically can draw blood.

Within seconds, we relearn an old lesson, the desert always wins.

One of the things I'm gonna warn you about right now that we've encountered, and David Boomer, unfortunately he found out the hard way.

Filming here in this area, there are some huge horseflies here, big, black, gnarly, I don't know if the camera's picking 'em up.

I mean, I'm gonna go, well, I can't, forget I did that.

These horseflies are really buzzing us, they seem to be attracted to the white color of the vehicle and to David Boomer's back meet.

He got bit three times.

(David laughing) And that ended the shoot, the guys came running for the car.

I was flying the drone from inside the rig but they seem to be pretty rowdy out here, these big horse flies.

So just check that on your list before you come here.

(soft music) There's a rugged beauty to the Mojave Desert that doesn't shout for attention, it whispers.

Out here, the obvious fades and it's the subtle things that grab the lens.

(soft music) But it's not just what we see that brings us here after all these years, after 50 episodes, after planes and ferries and winding roads through far away places, like Croatia and Iceland, it's not the passport stamps or even the perfect shots that stay with me the longest.

It's the spaces between the moments, the quiet laughs on long stretches of highway.

The shared silence after a sunrise shoot.

The constant unspoken rhythm that's built between three guys who have traveled the world together with a camera in hand and a sense of wonder that hasn't faded.

Photography brought us together, but brotherhood that's what keeps us going.

(soft music) - Dave, I think you should I dare you to open that thing.

- [Jeff] Come on Dave.

Where's your sense of adventure?

- That's a memorial.

- You think it's a memorial?

- [Jeff] It's a mailbox.

- It's probably like an urn or something.

- Is it some mailman or something needs to come out here?

- Maybe.

I don't know.

- [Jeff] It's a weird thing to see, just a mailbox with solar uplighting.

- Yeah.

Here.

I feel like I should fix this one.

- [Jeff] Yeah, let's do some good around here Zack.

Little community service.

But it's- - There also like a solar pond pump or something.

- Yeah- - [Dave] No, that's just a electric roll.

- I wouldn't touch it.

I think you might unleash a whole bunch of bad.

- What if this is where all the burger horns come from?

They're just all coming out of this?

- [Dave] No, Zack, they're not.

(soft music) - It's just normal.

- [Jeff] I just don't.

What now?

What's that?

- Roswell, New Mexico someone put their stick.

- Oh, that's alien stuff right there, dude.

(soft music) One of the undeniable charms of road tripping through the forgotten corners of the American West is how quickly the unexpected becomes the unforgettable.

(soft music) We are deep into nowhere, when a shimmering glint of 10 rooftops catches our eye in the distance.

At first it looks like a mirage metal reflecting in the heat, rusted out vehicles leaning into the desert wind.

But as we get closer, the scene becomes clearer and stranger.

(soft music) Without really meaning to, we've stumbled into what looks like a ghost town.

And in a way, it was.

But Ballarat isn't just a ghost of the past, it's still clinging to the present.

Tucked into the Panamint Valley, just outside Death Valley National Park, Ballarat was born in the mining boom of the late 1800s and like so many desert towns, faded just as fast.

(soft music) But today, it's not entirely abandoned.

(soft music) As we circle slowly through the dirt streets, we see scattered RVs, trailers, and off roaders using the place as a desert base camp.

A few souls still pass through or never left at all.

(soft music) Cautiously, we approach what seems like the town's last standing general store.

No one comes out to greet us, but inside, the silence tells its own story.

(soft music) Rusted tools, faded photographs, bizarre taxidermy, cracked bottles, and desert memorabilia sits frozen in time.

And in the corner, an ice chest, cold drinks for sale on the honor system.

No cameras, no signs of supervision, just a scribbled note and a jar for the money.

(soft music) Had we stayed on the main road, we would've never seen this place, we never would've felt it.

(soft music) And for all the sweeping desert vistas we've come across, it's detours like this that remind us why the journey matters just as much as the destination.

This is about as good an example as you can get of why you always take the turnoff.

We were on the main road, we saw the turnoff, we said, "Where's that go?

"Look at that green stuff off in the distance."

We took it, here we are now in Ballarat, in an old ghost town that's about as weird as they come, but about as cool of a place as you'll find out here.

And it's been a really interesting wrinkle to the story that is exploring Panamint Valley today.

When I woke up this morning, I did not think I would be kicking back here on the porch having a cold soda pop.

(soft music) - Keep that in my pocket.

(soft music) - [Jeff] After a good night in nearby Ridgecrest, Zack and I are back on the road.

Just 30 minutes into the desert, chasing the first light of the day.

This strange and silent place, these jagged towers rising up from the earth, like something left behind by another world is called the Trona Pinnacles.

Out here in the Searles Valley, time has had its way with the land.

These two spires were born thousands of years ago when this desert was still underwater, formed for mineral springs, bubbling up through ancient lake beds.

(soft music) Now, all that's left are the bones of that forgotten sea.

Zack and I split up, giving each other space to see it with fresh eyes.

We chase the angles as the sun crests, the distant Argus range.

(soft music) Light spills across the land like it's been revealed for the first time.

The wind is soft, the air is cool, and somewhere beneath the surface of it all the desert begins to bloom again.

(soft music) Tiny flowers wake from the sand, a moment of rebirth, subtle but strong in a place most people might call empty.

(soft music) It's easy to think that you have to go far away to find moments like this.

But sometimes all it takes is a turnoff, a half tank of gas, a camera, a good friend.

(soft music) Because road trips like this, simple ones remind us that the world is still full of wonder.

You just have to slow down long enough to see it.

(soft music) The travel isn't just about the places you visit, it's about the parts of yourself you uncover when you get there.

And when you're out here in the middle of nowhere watching the light change, watching the world breathe, you start to feel something shift.

Maybe it's your perspective, maybe it's your priorities, maybe it's just your soul catching its breath.

Either way, you're better for it.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Production funding for "Outside Beyond the Lens," provided by Visit Fresno County, home to unique attractions, California's fifth largest city and easy access to three nearby national parks.

(soft music) (wind whooshing) By Advanced Beverage Company, serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

By Hendricks Chevrolet.

- We are proud to support the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

(soft music) - [Narrator] By Hodges Electric Inc, over five decades of delivering innovative solutions for residential, agricultural, and battery storage systems.

(soft music) By the Penstar Group, promoting opportunity and growth for the future.

By central California's Valley Children's Healthcare, future's worth fighting for.

By A-plus Signs, we never stop innovating for you.

And by Valley Air Conditioning & Repair.

Family owned and trusted for over 50 years.

Proud to support public television and the wonders of travel.

(upbeat music)