THE INVISIBLE WALL 

Years back while travelling in Southern Arizona I learned of the Tohono O’odham tribe. I was told of the tribal rite of passage known as the Salt Pilgrimage. A trek spanning many hundreds of miles in which a young 

male would run from the center of his village outside of Tucson through the harsh desert, to the salt flats at the mouth of the Gulf of California in Mexico and retrieve sacred salt for the tribal elders. The centuries old route zig zagged the Mexico-US Border. However, now the wall and other physical impediments have complicated the journey. 

I conceived, pitched, produced, and photographed the next iteration of The North Face’s infamous “Walls Are Meant For Climbing” campaign: “The Invisible Wall.” In collaboration with VICE, three North Face ultra-distance trail runners and myself traversed the majority of the US-Mexico Border, from West Texas to Tijuana. 

Using the Salt Pilgrimage as inspiration, we set out to run a large section of the border to explore the incredible scenery, to learn from communities nestled along the border, and to craft an intimate narrative of the three runners, who had never met, and have very different feelings about what the wall means. 

“The Invisible Wall” looks not at just how to “climb” walls, but how to look beyond them through the shared joy of running.