If you’ve watched outdoor documentaries, you know they’re not always pretty. People fall, they bleed, they suffer. But sometimes, says Niskayuna native Tyler Barhydt, that’s the point.
“We don’t seek comfort, right?” he says. “We seek discomfort because it pushes us beyond what we think we’re capable of and what we can do.”
You can see “Mission 46” online at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw-8VYJk8Ys__;!!Ivohdkk!lq64EVeXNMgpmx_IRQ34LIegfEDGT8AMn9zAhQYSoNZUMeMGdH6hF0cGTbMpEgOSgOKQMRwMLSddmlfrkFQoGEw$
Donations for the “Mission 46” project can be made at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://citymission.com/mission46/__;!!Ivohdkk!lq64EVeXNMgpmx_IRQ34LIegfEDGT8AMn9zAhQYSoNZUMeMGdH6hF0cGTbMpEgOSgOKQMRwMLSddmlfru47d8a8$
Barhydt released his documentary film “Mission 46” this summer at a premier at Proctors in Schenectady. The movie follows Guy Waltman, then a health and wellness coordinator at the City Mission in Schenectady, as he attempts to break the speed record for thru-hiking all 46 Adirondack High Peaks (those mountains with summits of more than 4,000 feet in elevation).
More than just a personal quest, Barhydt and Waltman decided to use the effort (and the filming of it) to raise $46,000 to start a program at the mission that will help homeless individuals learn to drive and earn their driver’s licenses, providing a skill that could help them find work and create more stability in their lives.
“We decided instead of doing this for the purpose of breaking a world record, we wanted to do it for the purpose of walking symbolically in the shoes of those in crisis,” Barhydt said. “What we wanted to do with the documentary is show Guy is just some guy who loves his athletics and who works at a homeless shelter. He’s not some world-class sponsored athlete. He’s just another one of us.”
And if an ordinary guy with a paltry budget can pursue the lofty goal of beating a world record, he says, maybe that could serve as inspiration for people at the City Mission who had few resources themselves.
“I can recall sitting in the City Mission with (Waltman) planning out this route and then going outside and helping some of the homeless folks,” he said. “It was so intertwined that we wanted to make sure that regardless as to whether or not he finished, this wasn’t some guy with tens of thousands of dollars going in and doing something.”
The current world record for a supported Adirondack 46 High Peak thru-hike, which encompasses about 200 miles of hiking (Barhydt put Waltman’s route at about 215 miles) and more than 50,000 feet of elevation gain, was set by Ian Schouten in 2018, who completed it in seven days and 11 hours.
Waltman’s training for the effort, some of it shown in the documentary, included lots of walking and hiking, long hours on a Stairmaster, as well as doing “Murphs,” a crossfit workout that involves running a mile, doing 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and then running another mile with a weighted vest.
As “Mission 46” shows, though, nothing quite prepares you for the actual event, which for Waltman included injuries, unexpected bad weather, hypothermia, extreme fatigue and more. To an average hiker (such as myself), it might look like a fairly miserable experience.
“When I see miserable things, as long as they’re miserable for the purpose of high achievement, it’s usually inspiring to me,” Barhydt counters. “I’ve done so many ridiculous things in my life that you wouldn’t even believe, like for a video that I made with my friend, I scuba dived to the bottom of the ocean to play a 45-minute game of chess. I do crazy things like that and the reason why is because that’s where we feel truly alive.”
Barhydt graduated from Niskayuna High School in 2018, going on to study at Syracuse University. He “walked the stage” there in 2022 but deferred his graduation so he could finish the hour-long “Mission 46,” which was part of his senior thesis. Now that the movie is done and he has his degree, Barhydt says he is on the road about half the time, making films for two production companies he started.
Barhydt says during the filming, he and five other runners did miles of trail running to support Waltman. They would run gear up to spots where Waltman would take a pit stop, grabbing food and water and whatever else he needed.
“I ended up running 40 miles with 30 pounds on my back and never reached a single peak,” he said. But it was all for a good cause. When I interviewed him last month, Barhydt said the film had already raised more than $10,000 to establish the driving program at the City Mission.
The story told by “Mission 46” isn’t always pretty, but the results could be beautiful.
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