- [Announcer] 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.

By Advance Beverage Company, serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet.

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

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

- [Announcer] By Hodges Electric Inc, over five decades of delivering innovative solutions for residential, agricultural, and battery storage systems.

By The Penstar Group, promoting opportunity and growth for the future.

By Central California's Valley Children's Healthcare, futures worth fighting for.

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

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair, family-owned and trusted for over 50 years.

Proud to support public television and the wonders of travel.

(gentle music) - Fall in the Sierra feels different.

The crowds are gone, the boats are out of the water.

And the busy buzz of summer at Bass Lake, the place where I grew up, fades into a quiet stillness.

Up here, that calm comes early.

The black oaks hang onto their golden leaves as long as they can, while early morning storms brush the landscape with a hint of winter.

The "Outside Beyond the Lens" crew to work today.

Double duty here.

Okay.

On a cool overcast afternoon in California's High Sierra, I've returned to button up the cabin for the season.

But that's not the only reason we're here.

- Work?

- Yeah.

- Today, we're chasing a story that's been buried by time.

Somewhere in this forest off a road I've driven a thousand times, a military plane went down nearly 85 years ago.

The pilot never made it home.

And like so many pieces of history tucked away in the wilderness, the crash site is hidden in plain sight, waiting to be found again.

That was close.

Look right over here, you can see the impact crater, and you can see the engine block of the P-40.

There it is.

Not something you see every day up here.

These mountains shaped me.

My passion for photography, for adventure, for storytelling, it all started here.

And no matter how far I travel or how many places we visit, this landscape always calls me home.

It resets me, refuels me.

It reminds me why I do what I do.

But there are other places that do that too.

Like the wind-carved cliffs and crashing surf along California's Central Coast where Big Sur's rugged beauty meets the sea.

It's the kind of place where the camera doesn't just record what's there, it reveals something deeper.

- Oh, you hear them?

They're making all kinds of weird noise.

They sound like a pipe.

- [Jeff] See them over there getting up?

- [Tobbie] Like they sound like a sewage backing up.

(group laughing) - [Jeff] And then there's the island.

Far from home tucked at the edge of the continent, Key West is a favorite refuge when the road takes a break.

The island's vibes, bright light, and warm clear water help quiet the noise.

Hey guys.

- Gallon water too.

- [Jeff] Hey, what's up?

What's up?

Here, the mangroves are a playground.

The streets a canvas.

- Let's go for a walk.

- Okay.

This is where photography becomes a dance between color, character, and chance.

And sometimes flying a pirate flag is more than just fun, it's a reminder to not take life too seriously.

To let go, to breathe.

And there's fish starting to like chew on Jill's little feet down there.

- [Jill] Trying to eat my feet.

- Photography doesn't take a vacation for me.

It's not just a job, it's how I see the world.

And in the places I love the most when I feel connected, present, and whole, that's when the camera seems to capture something just a little more magical.

These are my favorite places, and this is what they look like beyond the lens.

I hope there's a takeaway for all of you in that today as we watch this and we kind of enjoy the day together.

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.

(plane zooming) (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 the 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.

- 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) (waves crashing) (gentle music) There are roads in this world that go beyond pavement and paint.

They carve through wilderness, they cling to cliffs.

They tell stories of impossible engineering and natural resistance.

California's Highway 1, as it winds between Monterey and Morro Bay, is one of those roads.

A ribbon of blacktop stretched across the ragged edge of the continent.

This is Big Sur, a place where mountains collapse into the sea, where redwood canyons meet crashing surf, and where the highway itself often disappears, reclaimed by winter storms and the relentless work of gravity.

For nearly two decades, Highway 1 has been closed and rebuilt again and again as nature reminds us that roads this dramatic don't come easy.

The sound of the ocean bouncing off these cliffs settles something inside me.

And in a state of 40 million people, this stretch of coastline still feels untouched, stubbornly wild, defiantly still.

It's one of the last stands of California as it was.

When Jill and I need to escape for the weekend, or when friends come to visit and ask where we should go to truly unplug, we often point the compass to a place called Ragged Point.

Just north of San Simeon, perched on a cliff with views that rival anything in the world, Ragged Point marks the Southern gateway to the Big Sur Drive.

The resort itself is simple, peaceful, and perfectly placed, tucked between the soaring Santa Lucia mountains and the Pacific below.

This is the Jill Aiello and Tobbie Biglione, how they do mimosas.

- [Jill] You invented this because I swear I've seen it.

- [Jeff] And that's almost too much OJ.

That's how they.

- How about half that?

- That's how they do it.

- Okay, yeah, perfect, thank you.

- Beautiful.

But just south of Ragged Point, in a quieter cove, something even more fascinating happens, the elephant seals.

(seals grunting) It's not a zoo, it's not staged.

It's real raw nature, right on the roadside.

- Oh, you hear them?

They're making all kinds of weird noises.

That one that's up.

- They sound like a pipe.

- [Jeff] See them over there getting up?

- [Tobbie] Like they sound like a sewage backing up.

(group laughing) - That's one way to put it.

(gentle music) When we filmed this episode in May, the beach was alive with younger males.

Juveniles testing their strength, posturing, preparing for the future when they'll compete for dominance and for territory.

Watching them spar in the surf is like witnessing a prehistoric ritual unchanged by time.

For me, Big Sur has always been about contrast.

The brutality of the landscape versus the softness of the light.

The road's fragility versus the endurance of these cliffs.

The chaos of the sea next to the stillness I feel when I stand above it all with a camera in hand.

This place has always healed me every time.

Okay, we are starting our day.

Brian.

- Starting our day.

- Starting our day, Brian, Jill and Tobbie are back here, and we just left Ragged Point, the hotel on the edge of the cliff here along the southern part of the Big Sur coastline.

And we are heading north.

We are gonna take to our advantage today a short drive just before the road closes.

And we're gonna take a little drive up Nacimiento Road, which is one of these, there's not very many roads that go from west to east or east to west to this point.

But Nacimiento is a treasure, and we're about to show you why.

Yeah, there's the trail, and it's Mill Creek Trailhead.

There it is.

There's the little sign right there.

We're gonna hike right up that, but right now, we're gonna park over here.

- And we're the only ones.

- Yep.

So just go ahead and pull it in here.

Okay, so we got our blood pumping up the first 30 feet of the climb.

And come on, you guys, this is cool.

Check this out.

So as you approach on the Mill Creek trail, you get to this enchanted grove of trees.

And then we're gonna literally punch into this shady little notch.

And look at this, you guys, look how beautiful this is.

And this is one of those climbs or hikes that you would never know exist if you didn't have some tip or idea, there's definitely PO in here.

- Better than BO.

- Yeah, better than BO.

- Or not?

- No, it's not.

- Trust.

- So be careful the poison oak.

There's a lot of baby green poison oak in here.

There's also a lot of wild boysenberries and stuff.

(bright music) The terrain here is rugged, but the trail is surprisingly kind.

It weaves along the contours following the rhythm of the creek below, never asking too much from the legs.

As we move deeper into the canyon, the redwoods start to rise.

Canyon live oaks reach out over the trail like old sentinels, their twisted limbs filtered in the golden light.

The air cools.

The smell of damp earth and bay laurel lingers with every step.

And then just as I remember, we round the last bend, expecting to find that quiet grotto, the ferns, the flowers, the shade of towering redwoods.

But it's gone.

Jill, look how different it looks from the last time we were here.

The flood wiped out the trees.

- [Jill] Even all the ground litter?

- [Jeff] Well I'm just talking about how many trees are down and all log jammed in down here.

I mean the flooding rains we had here over the last several years did a number on this whole gorge.

This is geology in motion, a living classroom carved by water and time.

Nature doesn't ask our permission to change, it just does.

And while the scene isn't what I hoped to share with Jill, Tobbie, and Brian, it becomes something just as meaningful.

A reminder that wild places are always evolving, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once.

And that's worth photographing too.

You can see over here this big log jam.

This whole thing's been, it's been changed.

- [Brian] It opened up, that's for sure.

- [Jeff] Yeah, it opened it up.

It's pretty in its own way.

It's just a different kind of pretty now.

(bright music) If you've watched this show for a while, you know that sometimes the line between vacation and production gets a little blurry.

Especially when Jill and our best friends, Tobbie and Brian are along for the ride.

Not all good friends make good travel companions, but we hit the jackpot with these two.

They roll with the flow, embrace the unexpected, and most importantly, they don't mind when I bring a camera and turn a trip into a bit of a working adventure.

This time, we're headed somewhere new for them, but a favorite of mine, Key West, Florida.

After a day of planes, rental cars, and a long, but iconic drive down the A1A through the Florida Keys, we arrive at the southernmost edge of the continental United States, where the road ends and the island lifestyle begins.

We've rented a small VRBO tucked just off Duval Street, right in the heart of the island's eccentric, eclectic charm.

Out front, the smell of salt and sunblock.

Around the corner, t-shirt shops and bars with stories to tell.

- [Jill] Hang on, I'll do a picture real quick.

- You'll love the shop.

- [Jeff] There's a kind of cheerful wear and tear to Key West.

A weathered sun-bleached energy that feels like an old postcard come to life.

So this is how we decided.

Renting a golf cart gives us range to explore the lively downtown and more offbeat corners of the island.

One of those is an old cemetery, oddly peaceful in its chaos of tilted stone and weather-worn statues.

It's the kind of place that quietly tells you, life here has always been lived a little differently.

And that's what I love about Key West.

It doesn't try to be something it's not, it's raw and real.

It invites you to slow down, be present, and maybe stop trying so hard.

(rooster crowing) (Jill laughing) (upbeat music) - Let's go for a walk.

- Okay.

Morning walks here, camera in hand before the town wakes up, are one of my favorite ways to explore.

The light is soft, the streets are empty.

It's a kind of photo safari that starts with stillness.

(rooster crowing) But now, the water is calling.

I've chartered the Naughty Rooster for the day, and it's waiting clean, fast, and built for adventure.

We meet up with Captain John at the dock.

John did let us know that this boat goes fast, so you might need to go backward ball cap if we could pin it.

- Oh yeah.

- We load up and push off into a world where the road can't take us.

First stop, the mangroves of Mud Keys.

It's quiet here.

The boat drifts, the sky opens wide above us.

Mangroves arch over the narrow channels like green cathedrals, roots tangled and dripping into the shallow sea.

This ecosystem is teeming with life.

Birds, fish, crabs, and even baby nurse sharks.

- Shark.

- Oh yeah, nurse shark right there.

- [John] Oh yeah, like the box.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

See that, you guys?

Did you not see the nurse shark right here?

For a photographer, this is where focus shifts, where compositions get tighter, where the details matter.

Shooting here is like trying to bottle the soul of the sea in a single frame.

This is the Keys, laid back, unfiltered, a lifestyle that runs on its own tide table.

Jill and I are sitting here enjoying a cold beverage on a sandbar on the Keys.

And we've got a little summer squall starting to fall.

I can see that off in the distance there.

Starting to pick up some rain on us right now.

How great is this?

- It's awesome.

- It's pretty awesome.

- I got fish at my feet.

- [Jeff] And there's fish starting to like chew on Jill's little feet down there.

- [Jill] They're trying to eat my feet.

- [Jeff] Yeah, so that's kind of fun to watch, but we're digging it, man.

This is a great little way to watch the day go by in South Florida, huh?

(bright music) The skies grow dark, but the storm keeps its distance.

Like a reminder that even beauty can carry weight.

And it's in moments like this that I remember why it's so important to find the places that connect with your soul and keep going back to them.

Let them work on you, let them heal you.

That's what favorite places do.

Just as we're about to leave, the sea delivers something unforgettable.

A pod of bottlenose dolphins.

Coming right at us, they're coming up to check us out.

This is good stuff right here.

They are beautiful, look at this.

Right underneath this.

Hey guys.

- Shallow water too.

- [Jeff] Hey, what's up?

What's up?

Hi.

I just came to say hi.

Very cool.

- [John] I've never seen them in shallow water like that before.

- Isn't that great?

They're in the shallow sea grass ahead playful and curious.

They come right up to the boat, gliding just beneath the surface, turning on their sides to look at us.

For a while, they swim alongside, as if inviting us into their rhythm.

- [Jill] We got a tail slap.

- It's a gift.

One of those rare encounters you don't plan for, but never forget.

Oh man, that's so cool.

(gentle music) As the year draws to a close and the sun sinks lower into the arc of each passing day, there's a shift in these mountains I've known all my life.

(cows mooing) The high country grows quiet.

Wind rattles the last clinging leaves of oak and aspen.

And winter begins to whisper its return.

The crew and I, Zack, David, and Jon, are home again.

After a year of travel that's taken us thousands of miles from these familiar ridge lines, it's here, not far from my cabin, where our last story of the year will be told.

But this one is different.

This one starts with a mystery.

One I first heard as a teenager growing up in these woods.

A tale passed between hunters and hikers and old timers.

A plane, a pilot, a crash, somewhere above Bass Lake, lost in time in granite.

The plane was said to be a P-40 Warhawk, one of the workhorse fighters of the Second World War.

But for years, it was just that, a story.

I never met anyone who had actually seen the wreckage with their own eyes until now.

So I'm just going off of memory of being here one time before.

I remember this log deck over here, and I think we're gonna park right here.

It's getting late in the day.

Yeah, that little road.

See that second road right there?

Yeah, that's kind of how I remember where to go.

So this crash site is down here a little ways.

Yeah, so we're gonna just hike down to this hill.

A friend who asked to remain unnamed shared the coordinates with me on one condition, that I wouldn't reveal the exact location.

Not to protect the mystery, but to protect the memory.

General direction's right down here.

Yeah, just pick your way through this.

Just beyond the bend in a faint use trail, the forest opens slightly, and there it is.

Look right over here, you can see the impact crater, and you can see the engine block of the P-40.

- Sure enough.

- There it is.

Not something you see every day up here.

I mean those are the cylinders of the motor, pieces of the airplane have been- - This was on the plaque.

- Have been collected here.

- [David] That's definitely aircraft aluminum.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

Lieutenant William H. Birrell was just 23 years old when he took off from Muroc Army Air Field, what is now Edwards Air Force base in 1943.

Flying solo in his P-40 Warhawk on a routine navigation training mission, Lieutenant Birrell never returned.

What happened next isn't entirely clear.

A navigational error, bad weather, a sudden mechanical failure.

What we do know is this, his plane struck the earth here with such force that the impact scattered debris for hundreds of feet.

Recovery teams never fully cleared the site.

And for more than eight decades now, a monument to his life has remained here, wrapped in the trees and time, largely unknown to the outside world.

He was someone's son, a classmate, a friend, and a soldier answering his country's call during a war that would shape the world.

What's left here in the forest is not just a wreck, it's the echo of a promise unfulfilled.

And in a season when the land lets go of its colors and turns towards the sleep of winter, I'm reminded that stories like this, quiet, tucked away, almost forgotten, deserve to be seen.

Not for spectacle, but for honor.

Because every place has its ghosts, and sometimes finding them helps us see the forest and our past with a little more clarity.

(gentle music continues) Sometimes we chase the far corners of the world looking for something new to capture.

But often, the places that mean the most are the ones closest to home.

(birds cawing) So find your favorite places, photograph them, walk them slowly, let them teach you something.

Because the real power in photography isn't just in where you go, it's in how deeply you see the places that already hold your heart.

- [Announcer] 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.

By Advance Beverage Company, serving Bakersfield and Kern County for over 50 years.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet.

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

Every journey has a first step.

Adventures start here.

- [Announcer] By Hodges Electric Inc, over five decades of delivering innovative solutions for residential, agricultural, and battery storage systems.

By The Penstar Group, promoting opportunity and growth for the future.

By Central California's Valley Children's Healthcare, futures worth fighting for.

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

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair, family-owned and trusted for over 50 years.

Proud to support public television and the wonders of travel.

(bright music)