Okay my first thoughts started with "is this going to be toxic masculinity?" Are they going to boast about being manly outdoorsman? Or are they actually going to talk about manhood as some form of being responsible for yourself and for others... being able to do the things that need doing because it's the right thing to be done.

Well it wasn't either of these, it was I suppose much dumber. My experience on describing this is being a two time Philmont veteran from my years in Boy Scouts. I did a 60 something mile trek when I was 14 and an 80ish mile trek when I was 16. I've had training and experience as those were 10 day backpacking trips with two to three adults and other kids your age. Young teenagers.

The majority of "new" backpackers in this docu were mid 20s some looking older. It's hard to tell many of the details of this as they don't give you much actual information. How long is this trip? How many miles are they hiking? How many miles a day do they have to go? Are they going up one mountain or just what are the difficult terrains they'll have to traverse? Do they pack what they bring or is there some instruction from the elders as to what to do? The docu started with some very inexperienced packers and very little information on what was happening at the start. This is important because the difficulties faced will help gauge the mental stress brought. There was a scene showing them pumping water but they didn't say why, no IRL explanation they just said filtration.

I would like them to describe what manhood is. The very most that was told what "being a man" was described as "married, a member of the church, and paying your bills." That's a very low bar set for manhood. Maybe they could have incorporated the aspects of the backpacking trip and described that despite the physical challenges you will push on and you will support your crew in their problems. You will be responsible for yourself and for the safety of others. You can surmount these challenges and handle your emotions in a positive manner. But no... they just say their legs hurt, their feet hurt, they have soooo far to go, they have to hike thru the rain, woe woe woe is them. On top of that the maturity displayed of the group was the same as when I was 14 with a bunch of boys the same age.

On top of not describing what manhood is they talk a lot about how good it feels to be out camping. Essentially how draining the 9-5 job is, how the toils of dealing with adulthood, and handling your responsibilities is just so draining that it's great to get away from that all. Well while I can say yes backpacking and camping like this is good for one to experience it's more for the accomplishments in being able to mentally and physically survive and learn in fact that you can take care of yourself and feel accomplished. The way they present it sounds like they can't handle the day to day reality and need to recharge in some "manly" setting. Oh look we're over half way through and still don't know what they mean by being a man.

At one point they almost mention how far they hiked in a morning but it was more a visual showing and not a gauge of difficulty. I don't think they should mention to boast but to give a relatable idea of distance and difficulty. Being out of your normal zone and put into situations like these can be physically and emotionally tasking. Especially when physically tasked and you have more to do you can easily shut down mentally. Talk about that and how acknowledging your challenges and moving forward is "a manly" thing to do.

They finally show some signs they can express emotions with the ending affirmation circle. It's still a bit lacking as all they're doing is giving each other affirmations. No critique, no acknowledging any bad, very little talking about emotional content just giving base observations. Again back to my experiences we did thorns and roses. Each night we talked about one bad thing in the day and one good thing. It was easy to give a stock answer of aching muscles or something but giving each other time to talk about the good and the bad was meaningful.

I was hoping, especially for a 2018 documentary, for there to be some deeper content of a bunch of men in the woods. I was sadly let down not only in the content but the direction shown. There was too much boasting about "the difficulty" without actually giving a good idea of what that was. Be a man and learn that getting married, going to church, and paying bills is not all that defines manhood.