Good Luck, Kid, from filmmaker Renan Ozturk, follows Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold’s 2024 Devil’s Climb adventure. But instead of focusing on the two legendary climbers, the short documentary zeroes in on photographer Thomas Shaffer, the team’s youngest member.
As well as more conventional adventuring fare, Shaffer documents quiet, human moments like this one. Photo: Screenshot
This particular expedition was 3,000km of biking, packrafting, and trekking from Colorado to Alaska, culminating in a climb up the celebrated Devil’s Thumb. There was significant media hype for Honnold and Caldwell’s biggest joint undertaking yet. So why, Shaffer wonders in a taped interview, had they trusted an untried nobody in the crucial support role?
Honnold, for his part, says that they were looking for someone “young and hungry.” Shaffer fit the bill.
Caldwell and Honnold witness the effects of logging in British Columbia. Photo: Screenshot
Colorado to Alaska
They set off, minus their principal photographer, Ozturk. That leaves Shaffer in sole charge of driving the van and documenting the journey, while Honnold and Caldwell bike through wind and rain.
As they cycle through British Columbia, settling into a life on the road, Shaffer attempts to hone in on the pair’s goals for the journey: exploring the landscape and how it’s changing. Honnold admits that he’d expected the scenery to become wilder as they moved deeper into B.C. Instead, they’re continually confronted with scenes of logging.
From Prince Rupert, B.C., they ditch the bikes and switch to a sailboat. Halfway to Devil’s Thumb, they meet up with Indigenous activist Marina Anderson. She takes them fishing and shows them the forests, both what can be foraged and what has been lost to logging.
Honnold and Caldwell, usually filmed achieving heights of athletic performance, are here cast as novice students, who Marina must show how to harvest mushrooms and filet fish. Photo: Screenshot
The Devil’s Thumb
Soon, the two climbers will be back in their element, taking on the Devil’s Thumb. But first, they and Shaffer have to bushwhack through dense forest to reach the climb. It’s days of fighting through mud and tangled undergrowth before they even reach the glacier. It, too, is an obstacle, transformed by climate change into a maze of open crevasses and rotting ice.
As they pushed on through the night, unroped, Shaffer confessed that he was beginning to unravel. But the rest of the team didn’t give up on him, and they reached camp.
“These climbing stories really aren’t about the summit,” Shaffer muses. This is true, but never fear, we still get to see Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell do some climbing.
Caldwell and Honnold on the Devil’s Thumb. Photo: Screenshot
Meanwhile in camp, Shaffer, whose job is done, attempts to play a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, a song which he does not appear to know the words to. Soon, the climb is over, taking less than 18 hours out of a two-and-a-half-month journey.
A year later, Shaffer records his reaction when the National Geographic with their expedition article arrives. We see, in clear print: “Photographs by Renan Ozturk and Thomas Shaffer.”
Pretty good for the guy who was hired to drive the van.
