Monday at 8 p.m. PST, cable channel NatGeo Wild will showcase Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands in an episode titled “On The Rocks” in the show Going Wild. Heidi Hagemeier, who works on the Campaign for the Owyhee Canyonlands, intends to watch, even though the reality TV take on one of her favorite places might be taking things to the extremes.
Photos by National Geographic Channels
Without even trying, Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands brings the drama.
A sojourn to Oregon’s southeastern corner conjures up all manner of superlative-laden prose, meant in earnest: The Milky Way bursts across the night sky spilling out endless stars. Remoteness so potent you can smell it cleanses you, as that smartphone becomes a meaningless piece of plastic. And a feeling pervades that forces larger than humanity are at work: weather with bipolar tendencies, terrain both beautiful and formidable, and animals that move with more ease than man can possibly muster.
That all said, there’s drama, and then there’s DRAMA!! And a NatGeo Wild reality TV show airing Monday called Going Wild — featuring the Owyhee Canyonlands — promises to bring both.
For those who haven’t seen television made by National Geographic since childhood, I’m here to tell you that it’s no longer exclusively the realm of Egyptian pyramids and cheetahs taking down wildebeests. As I write, shows like Croc Catchers, Man vs. Monster and Shark Attack pepper the lineup.
According to the NatGeo Wild website, the Owyhee Going Wild episode, called “On The Rocks,” features an unusually attractive couple on the brink of divorce. Show host Tim Medvetz, a former Hell’s Angel whose job it is to take folks waaaay out of their element, brings them to the Owyhee Canyonlands for a backpacking trip during what is likely July, judging by the temperatures quoted in the video clip. (For the record, it’s not when we would say it’s best to plan such a trip. Carrying 30-plus pounds in 105-degree heat? Ummm …no.)
Will climbing down into an Owyhee canyon rip the duo apart or bring them back together? Will they survive the rattlesnakes? The cougars? The heat?
Can you hear the melodramatic music in your head?
The clip plays up any possible scrap of danger, skirting reality even as it’s purportedly showing it. Sure, cougars roam the Owyhee country, but you could spend decades there and never actually see one. If you did have an encounter, the cat would undoubtedly be more scared of you than you of it. Rattlesnakes are most certainly part of the Owyhee landscape and getting bitten would indeed be dangerous given the area’s remoteness. Yet statistically, more people get into trouble in desert country due to dehydration than a snake bite.
The camera can’t help but show the beauty of this place, but the clip fails to capture that wonder of being somewhere so close to what it was hundreds of years ago.
Does this kind of DRAMA!! cheapen the Owyhee Canyonlands? It’s possible. But I for one am going to watch. I want to know if this couple walks away marveling at how spectacular the Owyhee truly is. And I hope the natural drama of the Owyhee Canyonlands is allowed to outshine the reality veneer.
