“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” – Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

You don’t need a machine to travel back in time. And you don’t need a Holy Gail, nor windmills to tilt at, nor a magic ring to go on a quest. To travel back in time, you just need a canyon deep enough, a river relentless enough, and a path wide enough to follow as you peel back (in this case) nearly two billion years of geologic history. For a quest, you need only a noble idea, a few hardy and like-minded companions, and a good pair of shoes. This story is about five runners and their quest to travel in time, to descend on foot from the South Rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon to the canyon’s bottom, cross the Colorado River, ascend the far wall of the canyon to the north rim, then turn around and do it all again in the reverse direction. And it is about Beneath the Rim, the film that chronicles the runners as they tackle a quest that is equal parts communal and deeply personal. 

The true nature of any quest is more about the journey itself than the goal achieved. It’s more about the personal dragons battled, the lessons learned during the sixteen-hours of dancing with dirt, the baggage tossed over the edge and into the river, than it is the hardware. The film captures this as well, in eloquent soliloquys and even more eloquent closeups. Ostensibly, all quests are in service to a goal: bring home the chalice, slay the dragon, throw a cursed bauble into a volcano. Or in this case, knock-off a classic ultra-running route, the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim (R2R2R) a double traverse of America’s most epic natural feature. But all quests, too, are about community: the bonds between those dreaming the impossible dream, doing the difficult thing, forging bonds, sharing the burden of hardship and the liberation of joy.  Beneath the Rim captures it all, the physical and emotional highs and lows of the athletes set against the epic scope of the canyon, the impenetrable darkness of night in the wilderness, the shadows retreating as day begins and grows hot. To dilute so much power into less than fifteen enrapturing minutes of video is a feat unto itself. The five members of the rabbit community featured in Beneath the Rim seem both absolutely normal and larger than life. We instantly relate to them, recognize them as part of our community. The runners featured in the film are: Phoebe Chiang is an accounting professional, LA-based trail runner, and leader of @fridaydonutrunclub. Helen Payne is a Ph.D candidate at UCSB and a rabbit Elite Trail Team member. LA-based Victor Martinez is a rabbit Elite Trail Team member, and co-owns a wellness spa and yoga studio. Yatika Fields is an Osage, Mvskoke, Cherokee visual artist and trail runner from Oklahoma. Monica DeVreese is a mother, accomplished trail runner, and co-founder and CEO of rabbit. Beneath the Rim speaks for itself, so I will not encapsulate it here. I did, however, ask Monica a few questions about her experience with both the film and the run itself.