Shorts: Near Death In The Gila National Forest

It’s 1971 and a university art instructor has just been informed that his contract won’t be renewed. His life is spiraling out of control. He decides to set out on a solo hiking trip across the U.S. Two men, offer to pay him $50,000, to set up a drug deal in Mexico. He agrees to do it, with the hopes that he will finally be financially secure. In 4,500 miles, he encounters a 7-day rock festival in the woods, an invitation to a lynching, Mexican drug dealers, near death in the wilderness, a spiritual awakening and a ride with a Hell’s Angel. His exploration covers homelessness in Haight-Ashbury, an urban, mega-warehouse commune, a bizarre New Year’s Eve and a stabbing in a cheap hotel. He learns to cope with vigorous hardships of nature and living off the land; hitchhiking and sleeping in strangers’ homes. After the drug deal fails, his designs for a unique energy-efficient building system score him a collaboration with a prestigious, San Francisco architecture firm. He unsu