A

In today's episode of BACKPACKER Radio, presented by the Trek brought to you by Topo Athletic, we are joined by Matthew Hengst, aka Masochist, an IT professional turned full time adventurer who over the past eight plus years has racked up 20,000 miles hiking nearly 3,000 miles, paddled 2.5 million feet of elevation, climbed and somewhere north of 300 diving sessions across multiple continents. Masochist walks us through canoeing 2400 miles down Mississippi, the time he fell 25ft in a remote part of the Sierra and laid there for 15 hours waiting for a helicopter catching COVID and norovirus back to back at 12,000ft on the CDT getting stalked down a ridge by a mountain lion in the dark, navigating, stealth camping across rural America, terrifying encounters with dogs, and his favorite parts of the Eastern Continental Trail. Matthew also makes a strong case for why the Florida Trail and the Condor Trail are two of the most underrated long trails and explains why he has no plans to stop adventuring anytime soon. We wrap the show with the devastating news that Timberline Lodge has ended its breakfast buffet, debating whether poop peas count as full peas, a sun hoodie review on a product that's maybe not even a sun hoodie, the triple crown of words for penis with Tron publicly soliciting micropenis photos and the best way to move Legos across the country. But first, a backpacker's most important piece of gear is their footwear. You can have the rest of your pack absolutely dialed in, but if your feet aren't happy, you aren't happy. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce today's sponsor, Topo Athletic. If you tuned into our footwear episode with Dr. Courtney Conley, a physician specializing in foot and gait mechanics, you already know that Topo Athletic was on her short list of brands she recommends for hikers. That's because Topo Athletic makes trail runners with a zero or minimal drop and a roomy toe box. The minimal drop promotes a more natural gait, while the wide toe box allows your toes to fully splay. Thru hikers have caught on the topos as well, according to the Trek's At Thru Hiker survey to Topo went from not even cracking the list four years ago to being the second most used brand in the Trek's most recent survey, narrowly missing out on the top spot. Topo Athletic is beloved by thru hikers for their superior durability and grippy outsoles. In addition to the minimal drop and wide toe box, our gear reviewers have reported getting anywhere from 600 to 1,000 miles out of a single pair of topos before needing a replacement. This can save you not hundreds, but more than $1,000 or over the course of a single through hike. All Topo shoes utilize their Vibram outsoles, which is both grippy and durable, a rare combination. Typically you have to pick one or the other. Tron and I have both been rocking Topo Athletic Tron for the Pursuit twos for the full Northville Passa Trail and many miles since. I put in hundreds of miles in my pursuit twos over the last couple of years, including a through hike up Tour de Mont Blanc without even an ounce of foot discomfort. I alright, here's the part you've been waiting for. The Discount Backpacker Radio listeners can score a 15% discount by using code TREK15TOPO at checkout at topoathletic.com Again, use code TREK15TOPO all one word and the number 15 at checkout@topoathletic.com for your new favorite pair of trail runners. This discount is only valid on full price items and is only good for a limited time, so do not wait. If you've listened to BACKPACKER Radio for any amount of time, you know that Chance and I are big fans of gossamer gear and today I want to talk about their newest pole, the FT3 trekking poles. These are ideal for fast packing and trail running, where the terrain changes fast and you need to go from pocket to pole and back again in seconds. No more choosing between carrying poles you don't need and scrambling for poles you can't reach. Stash them, grab them, go. At just 6.2 ounces per pole, carbon fiber shafts and a custom molded EVA foam grip keep every swing light. Their variation of the best selling LT5s dialed in specifically for when speed is the priority. If you're putting in big miles and the trail keeps throwing different terrain at you, the FT3s are your go to discount time. Backpacker Radio listeners can score a $20 discount for off these poles or the popular LT5s by using code BACKPACKER RADIO at checkout@gossamergear.com Again, that's code BACKPACKER RADIO all one word@gossamergear.com for $20 off your new favorite set of UL tracking poles. This deal is only good for a limited time, so do not wa. Welcome to Backpack Radio Summit, the trek brought to you by Topo Athletic. I am your co host Zach Badger Davis. Sitting to my right is I am

B

Juliana Chauncey AKA Chaunce.

A

We need some mic stands. These are getting a little janky.

B

I need a beer. I was thinking about it and you have a bit to talk about.

A

So yeah, go get a beer.

B

I heard your. I heard your soda crack and I was like, what am I doing? I've only got so many items left.

A

That's Pavlov's dog right there. The bell rang and Tron salivated. A few reminders before we get to today's interview. First is not really a seasonal reminder, but it's going to be because we're putting out a call for you to apply to be a Trek blogger. I realize we are now balls deep into summer, technically just one day as of the release of this episode, but that doesn't mean you still can't be a 2026 Trek blogger. If you're taking on a late season thru hike, we'd love to feature you on the Trek. You get 24,7 access to Jess, you get to be her best friend. You get included in our exclusive Trek Blogger Instagram chat group. You get a ton of exposure through the website and we're going to fly one person and put them up to join us on the podcast here here at the end of the year. So if any of that sounds enticing, you can apply to be a Trek blogger through the link at the show notes. Next is this is Top of Mind because we literally just wrapped filming this. Mostly Jess wrapped filming the next edition of Ask Andrew Skurka, a new weekly series we're doing via the Treks YouTube. These videos are awesome. This is some of the best response we've got from any content we put out via the Trek. Obviously, Andrew Skurka is a legend and he knows his shit. Some of the first subjects we've covered include bear safety, his favorite backpacking tents, mastering harsh backpacking conditions, and of course, how to use the backcountry bidet. By the time you hear this, we'll have released a slew of new episodes. So definitely go check that out and if you have questions for him, slide them in the comments on those videos. And we're going to do a few mailbag episodes as well.

B

Are these our beers?

A

I believe that's from Elise.

C

Yeah.

B

Okay. Because I don't know Broken Bow and Arrow Brewing.

A

I think Elise said that they did a like a beer trade.

B

Okay.

A

Like brewers will come in and we're

B

down to the IPAs.

A

Yeah, yeah. Four nose is gonna drop off some more booze eventually, I hope.

B

Nice.

A

But I don't think there's any alcohol in that fridge that doesn't belong to us.

B

I thought. I thought, but then I just didn't recognize the brewery.

A

There is a bottle of red wine in the very back of that fridge, and I think that's like the first thing that we put in the fridge. So it's six.

B

That's ours too.

A

Yeah.

B

Can't believe we didn't finish it.

A

Yeah, we could make. We could put that on the wheel and spin it and see who gets

B

to chug that reminder of any kind. Finish the line.

A

Next is. I hope you've already gotten your ticket by now because it's up against the wire, but this Friday is the live podcast, the Chaunce Send off. It's going down at the Skylark 6pm Be there, be square. Be there and don't be square. Technically speaking.

B

Yeah. We are kicking off my last 24 hours in Denver because after, after the live podcast and sleep, we're packing the truck and we are heading east. So this will be my farewell to the city and to you all. And it's timed exactly right before I leave, so the feelings will be feeling. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So you should come say hi. Well, no, because that would be terrible

A

to do with a hangover.

B

Well, I'm driving the night of the 18th because the 19th is a day off work.

A

So you're driving out there before the podcast.

B

18th, 19th, 20th, 21st. I'll get there and then we get the house on the 22nd, and then the painters are going to come that week. So I'm just going to work from an empty house, ideally set up WI fi so that that's fixed, but work from an empty house while the painters

A

paint with calming retreat or destiny.

B

Alabaster.

A

Okay.

B

And then when they're done painting, the handyman has to come.

A

How much time did you spend deciding your paint color?

B

None. I asked. ChatGPT.

A

Okay, nice.

B

And so then I'm flying back here on the 25th.

A

Yeah.

B

And then the 26th is the podcast. 27th. We're going to pack up the stuff and then it's going to start going east. Garrett's gonna drive either leaving the 27th or the 28th. I'm gonna fly because my car's already gonna be there from the weekend prior and I'm trying to not take off days of work. So in order to not take off days of work, the three day weekend is when I've gotta drive myself.

A

So you'll be hungover on a plane two days Later. Three days later.

B

Yeah. And I'll also be going home from the live podcast to an air mattress in an empty room. So that's going to probably bring out some feelings.

A

Yeah.

B

Sadness.

A

It's cue the gif from Fresh Prince of Bel Air where he walks into the house at the end and it's just empty and he's looking around.

B

Yeah. Or when Miley Cyrus is like up against the window and then waves.

A

It's probably a generational thing we're experiencing right now, but yes, please come. And last but not least, patreon.com backpackerradio is the place you can go to support us. You get every episode advertisement free. Gonna try to do some Badger Chaunce stuff after Chaunce has settled into her life in North Carolina. Maybe some Chon solo stuff. Yeah, maybe we're still figuring it out.

B

Yep. But that's where I will be gone but not forgotten. So if you do not want to forget me, you can find me on Patreon. If you want to forget me, boy, do I have good news for you. And yeah, I would love see you all at the live podcast and then continue to see you all on Patreon. And there's no ads.

C

No ads.

A

That's also true. Every episode advert free. Patreon.com backpacker radio okay, let's get to today's interview. I love the trail name masochist, AKA Matthew Henst. Did I say that right?

C

Yeah.

A

Might really be a masochist. Over the eight plus past eight plus years, he has hike, paddled and scuba dived, stoved, divin his way around the world, racking up 20,000 miles, hiked nearly 3,000 miles, paddled 2.5 million feet of elevation, climbed, and at minimum, 300 diving sessions. But probably way more masochist. Thank you so much for joining us here on BACKPACKER Radio.

C

Hey, thanks for having me. Sheesh.

A

That's a lot.

B

That's a list.

A

What is the story behind the trail name?

C

Because I like that it was a running joke from years ago. Before I did long distance hiking, I would do peak bagging and I would always try and get people to come out and do these like 17 mile butt kicker hikes on a Sunday. And it was, I just was like being flippant and saying, you can go to church on Sunday or you can come out and join first Church of the Masochist. And my fellow wilderness class instructor's response was, yeah, I joined her lady over the recliner. Not going to come. And it wasn't used as a trail name until my first thru hike was the PCT in 2020 which was kind of a weird year because there was nobody out there.

B

So.

C

So it was like me and about 500 people named Han Solo. Actually less than that because we only had like 200 some finish and so everybody was trying to give trail names and it eventually was like, yeah, okay, whatever.

B

Yeah, her lady of the Recliner would be an incredible trail name for someone. But that fits now because I saw the sticker on your water bottle and I was wondering about it. So that's the fastest I've ever had. A wonderful. Settled.

C

Yeah. It ended up being kind of fitting with everything that's gone wrong and the fact I keep going but you know, can't sweat the small stuff. Yeah, it's a thru hike.

A

Yeah. I want to talk about your background because your website is fascinating and the more I dug into you, your background is just so integral to who you are as a person and I think how you adventure. So what were you doing prior to all the backpacking?

C

Previously I was a IT person. I worked in IT for about 20 years. Started straight out of high school, did a whole bunch of stuff and then to keep saying I was climbing mountains on the weekend and went through a series of employers because I wanted something stable so I could teach my wilderness class and I could do all these other things. But the IT industry isn't like that. So it was a series of, okay, you work for a couple of years, then you get screwed over. I actually ended up making a huge change after my last employer embezzled our Social Security contributions, amongst other things. Yeah. You know how you're supposed to take money out of the paycheck, give it to the government. They did part one, not part two. And that was only the start, you know, Arrested Development. There may have been some light treason, like. Yeah, that was what happened.

A

What comes of that? Because technically you're paying into Social Security. It's their job to ensure that that part is getting filed.

C

It took two years. Having to petition to get it restored based on pay slips that were also messed up. Like it was a complete mess.

B

That sounds really stressful.

C

Yeah, it's the sort of thing that makes you want to just run off into the woods.

B

The IT background makes sense given the interactive map on your website is insane.

C

Hey, that was a. Hey, I'm going to play with this new cloud code thing. And I was supposed to be actually working on other stuff and I did that for like a few weeks.

A

So this is built with AI. Yeah, that's cool.

C

Yeah, otherwise I don't have time to do a full development cycle. I'm hiking all the time.

A

So you said you worked in it. What specifically?

C

Different types of development. I never really had two jobs that did the same thing. So like software engineer. I was a traveling consultant so I was on the road a lot. For the last 10 years I've worked on a bunch of different programming languages and products.

A

And yeah, it does seem like at least the developers who have been through the trek that that is a good profession to pair with backpacking. One, it's a high hourly pay rate and two, it does seem like you can just bite off like smaller contracts as opposed to having to be locked down into a full time gig.

C

Maybe theoretically. I mean I was always a full employee.

A

Okay.

C

And so like you don't get a lot of vacation time and if I tried to say hey, I've got three weeks of vacation, I'm gone for three weeks. Yeah, that job probably would have gone away. Yeah. So like most of my pre through hiking stuff I was lucky if I could get a couple of like four day trips in. I wasn't even able to do the John Muir Trail until I had a big project where I'd been out in Boise for five years end and I could use my boss and the client to kind of get out for. I think I did it in like 1112 days, something like that. So yeah, I know people that are independent and seem to like get contracts and things. I was full time working and every Friday I would take off. Actually it was worse than that. I worked in Boise for five years. Literally I would be in Boise, I would work at 5 o', clock, I would fly back to Southern California land at 5. By 7 I had swapped out clothes, gotten things off the store. I would meet a group, go up to the Sierra for two days or three days, come back Sunday night, I'd be on the 6:45 flight out of John Wayne to get back to Boise to go back to work.

A

Damn there.

C

I mean it was a little excessive

A

when I was rushing for that. There's worse places to be as a trail lover than Boise. Why the commute?

C

I teach a wilderness class in Southern California through Sierra Club and it's a really social thing. It's a 10 week thing. So we get 20 people a year. I've got 10 staffers that are all volunteers. So I get to do whatever feels like a better job instead of trying to make payroll. Yeah, and we get, we tend to like make a lot of friends and things off of that. And it's so cool. I had all these peaks out in the Sierra. I wanted to lead because I've done hundreds of peaks all across there. And I would come back because I could take them out and take these new people and show them these cool routes in, like, remote corners of the Sierra because people are, like, all excited for Whitney and stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Come on, we'll go over here. This is cooler.

A

Yeah, that's fun.

C

So, yeah, I was really engaged with that. I wanted to do that. I was still doing some stuff out in Boise. I would stay sometimes, but. Yeah.

A

Had you done much exploring in the Sawtooth Wilderness?

C

I did a couple when I was out there. They would give me the rental car because it was cheaper than flying me back. So I've driven kind of every direction from Boise. So I've done a little bit, but nothing too extensive. Yeah, I keep intending to go back for the Centennial Trail.

A

And with the guiding, is it. Are you literally just taking a, like a group up to a peak?

C

Like, it's not guiding because it's not a paid thing. It's volunteer. Sierra Club in Southern California has an outings end where, as a volunteer, they certify you at different levels. And I can take people out on the ones where a fall would be fatal. But we mostly do stuff that's like cross country out to a peak. So, yeah, we have people that have gone through the class. They're really excited, motivated to come out, and we take them in, set up a camp, go climb peaks, but they're doing it themselves because, like, for a while, REI Mountain School tried to, like, grab a couple of us out of that program, but kind of the. The focus was different. That's why I've done this program since 2009, and it's very focused on giving people skills and then having them go off and do their own thing. And that's really rewarding.

A

Yeah.

C

So then we do the trips, which kind of push them in different ways and take them into, you know, more remote areas.

A

Yeah. I also want to talk about your Google Sheet templates.

B

Oh, my God, that's so crazy you said that. Because I was literally about to bring that up and I was like, that's off topic. Let's just, like, see if Zach has anything more relevant.

A

No, this is, I think, so funny. This is what grabbed me about your IT background is your Google sheet templates. I'll have you describe them. But the, like, the level of detail and sophistication behind these is like it's beyond the average backpacker, just like tracking like their resupplies and stuff like that.

C

Well, I'm a software engineer, so it's just like iterate. I mean, I started that it made a lot more sense to track mileage by just recording from the end of Far out, right. And marking the mileage. And then it's like, I don't want to do math. I'm a computer science major who hated math. So, you know, you add one calculation and then it's like, okay, I'm going to do like my average pace. But that doesn't work. So I've just kind of changed it over time.

B

I think the nicest thing about it is that you have the link to download the sheet and then you also like the link. I was like, oh great, cool. He shares his link. Like, I could download this and use it. And then I scrolled down and I was like, you have a whole section on how to use it. And it's a step by step with photos that makes it so impossible to mess up.

C

I love this software engineer.

B

Yeah, I'm gonna go home and duplicate this.

A

Do you share any of your templates with other people?

C

I mean, I have them on my website.

A

Oh, you can download it. Okay.

B

And then look, he does a step by step of. Once you've downloaded it, here's what you should do to be able to make it work.

C

And I have, I do buy the number.

A

The amount of code that is going into these formulas is nuts.

C

It's not that much.

A

I mean, you're an IT pro. To the average dunce like myself, it

C

looks intense, but I do have the filled out ones. Cause that's how I track my entire year. Like for this year I have, you know, Australia, I have the Yukon and then I have the ADT finish. And so I have a sheet and that's how I track my daily. And I can keep track of what day I'm supposed to be in golden. What day I'm driving like hell for Seattle, you know.

A

So what is your routine with actually keeping up with these sheets? Like at the end of the day, are you entering all your data in?

C

I do it a lot. I mean, I have the sheet on my phone. So instead of doing any math with far out and remembering where I camped that morning, I just have to drop the one value in. And then it does all the math and I can kind of see, okay, I'm 17 miles in yesterday. I've been doing 25, 23 et cetera. And I also put notes because at the end of the trip, it's like, I know something happened in Oregon, but I don't remember what day. So if it's like, if it's notable, if something bad happens, if I have an animal encounter, like, you know, I almost got mauled by a pit bull. Oh, okay. I put that in the notes column and it helps me reassemble later if I'm trying to figure out when something happened.

B

Yeah, yeah. That's so smart. Some of your notes are drive, Delaware, arrive, Delaware camped. Start hiking. Heavy rain, flooding trail. Angel gen. Spring break. Set up for bridge. Bridge angel counselor. Rain, rain. Camped at church, Greenbelt. Major Storm D.C. trail, Angels Day, CNO Eclipse Day. Sick. Brian picked me up like that. That is nice for jogging the memory when looking back on it.

C

Yeah. And especially if I'm trying to figure out what like, okay, I know something happened. Which YouTube video was that? You know, it's just trying to capture what I'm doing so I can look it up if I need. Sure. Because I hate when somebody asks me a question and then I like, can't look it up.

B

Same.

A

Yeah. So between your extensive Google sheets and you now have over a thousand YouTube videos, like, during one of these adventures, how much time of your day are you spending? Documenting, editing, processing the data behind it. Like, is. It seems like a pretty big lift.

C

Yeah. I mean the Google Docs. Because I have some planning Google Docs too, to keep track of like future trails. And the sheet mostly that's prepped beforehand. On average day, I do everything in the morning because at the end of the day I'm just done. Especially if it was a rough day. I like hiking later. So I wake up pre dawn. I start making coffee in my sleeping bag. I drink three cups of coffee and that's when I do my video edits.

A

Three cups of coffee.

C

Anything else? Two to three. Okay. Unless it's a really bad day, then maybe more.

B

Yeah. That's a lot of coffee.

A

It's a lot of coffee.

B

How fast until you poop?

C

Depends. Usually when I'm out there. Sometimes that's before the first cup of coffee.

A

Yeah, sometimes just the, like the sound of grinding the beans can be enough to trigger me.

B

Really?

A

Yeah. I never get past like a few sips with coffee in the morning.

B

That's so funny.

A

What was my question? I had something good derailed. Now I want to go further back because it's interesting to me. Obviously you're very astute with the it stuff, but the fact that you're a volunteer or were a volunteer for the Sierra Club is also reflective of the fact that you're very dedicated to the outdoors. Did you grow up in the outdoors? Like, was your God? No, no, no.

C

When I was in college, I was working weekends and I was like full on software, engineer computers. That's all I did.

B

Where'd you grow up?

C

Between Texas and California. Was born in San Antonio, moved out to California, second grade sometime.

B

So I thought you were trying to say Arizona.

C

Oh, no, no, no.

B

I was like, okay, make me guess geographically between.

A

So at what point did you discover the outdoors?

C

Well, let's see. I was in college and you know how sometimes you're in like say a seven year relationship that had four good years and it like sucks the life out of you and then finally you get free of that and all of a sudden you got energy. And so I went kind of from couch to doing bike centuries, got an overuse injury, was injured, ended up not being able to go back to cycling. So I ended up hiking and just kind of went from there. Like, I found Sierra Club outings, was doing local hikes in the park, and literally in Southern California, the program goes from hikes in the park to like mountaineering peaks in the Sierra Nevada. So I kind of. I'm like the example of how bad your life can go. Like, I fell in with these people in the park and now I'm doing this like every weekend and out doing this. That.

B

Yeah.

A

So you've got a bad girlfriend to thank for discovering that.

C

Yeah, basically. Bad relationship.

A

That's fun. Speaking of relationships, you're in one now.

C

Yeah.

A

And it seems like you're girlfriend, partner, partner, whatever you want to call it.

C

Sister from another Mr. Yeah.

A

She's integral to your adventures as well.

C

Yeah. Everything's integrated with us. When we started doing this, we basically got rid of most things, combined everything else. And so we have a storage locker, two vehicles, and we make it work.

A

Yeah. How'd you meet?

C

Rock climbing class years and years ago.

A

That's a good place to meet someone. I feel like nowadays, like, it's all dating apps. I'm at my wedding, not throwing shade, but like, that's the story that you're after is like your hands grace each other as you're both reaching for the same rock. So at what point did it go

B

from like your hands grace each other as you're reaching for the same rock? Have you ever been to a rock climbing gym?

A

I mean, only when I'm trying to.

C

This was outdoor climbing, so it wasn't like, we pulled on the same piece of plastic.

B

Okay.

C

And she's a romantic, so she would say that, like, she saw me and the clouds parted and there was a light beam.

B

Wow.

A

Yeah, I guess. When did she start actually becoming, like, a part of your adventures?

C

She actually was doing trips with me the entire time, but we didn't fully move in and everything and kind of make a go of it till it's like, 2018 or fairly late was when we finally moved in, and then we got rid of the inn.

B

And how does the move in conversation work without the inner.

C

Well, at the time, we had an in, so it was like, okay, we're moving in together. And then the job thing where they were embezzling our Social Security and everything. That combined with. I had way too many friends who wanted to do things like hike the PCT at retirement, weren't making it, like, they were getting sick, a few people passed away, stuff like that. And I was kind of at a breaking point. And so she was actually the one that pushed me to quit the job that was going bad. It involved several spreadsheets because I'm like, I had to have a job. How else do you pay bills and things like that? So she pushed me to take three months off, at which point we still had everything. It was three months just going around in the summer. That turned into me going to Thailand for two months for Thailand Divemaster internship. I was on a boat in Thailand, which was all sorts of interesting, and then coming back, and I've got, like, a suitcase. I've been living out for two months, and it's like, what if we just kind of, like, everything's disrupted? What if we went and did the PCT? Because I'd wanted to do that for, like, 10, 15 years, but how do you put everything on the shelf, go do that, and then come back to a normal life?

B

Is there pressure in asking a new relationship to go do something like the PCT with you?

C

It wasn't a new relationship, and we were both fully committed.

B

Yeah, got it.

C

This isn't like, I do this and, like, she's just supporting me or anything. Like, we plan everything together. You know, we do the summer together. I just. She loves her job. When we made the plans for the pct, she says, okay, yes, absolutely want to do this, but I have one thing I want to talk to you about. I'm like, oh, that's never good words. She's like, I really love my job. She's a high school teacher, science teacher, loves it. I don't want to have to take a sabbatical. Maybe you just start solo, finish solo, and I'll be there for the summer. And it's like that is the best way that conversation could have gone.

B

Yeah, that's great.

C

So that's what we do. So, like, when I did the adt, I flew out to Delaware. She flew out for a spring break, flew back, did her job, and then joined me for the main part. And then I said goodbye to her in Pueblo and I finished the season out. So it works.

A

So you're doing a long distance relationship most of the time?

C

Yeah, kind of. It's different because we're in such like a non standard place, I guess.

A

Sure.

C

Because I mean, she literally, she teaches high school and sleeps in campgrounds at night, wakes up in the campground, teaches yoga at Core Power, goes in, teaches high school, and then sleeps in the campground at the end of the day. And that's the off season.

A

Yeah.

C

Or her employed season.

A

She must be the most interesting teacher at that school because that's pretty badass, I think. So do the kids all know that that's her setup?

C

Yeah, she doesn't make a huge deal of it, but she does talk about it and she's been, like, interviewed by their paper and things. But I mean, they're teenagers, so they're not like, oh my God, you're so cool. Yeah.

B

Have they found her online with the videos?

C

I know she talks about stuff in class. I've asked that because I worry about if I'm teasing her or anything. It's like, that would be bad. That would be like dirt on the teacher. But yeah, apparently they're not that engaged in that sort of thing really.

B

Oh, times are different.

C

I know. I think back to how it was when I was in high school and I'm like, we would have like, gone in for dirt.

B

We did. We would. Oh yeah, we would look into everyone.

A

Does my audio sound weird? I feel like this XLR cable is fucked up.

B

No, but you've been fidgeting with everyone today. You're in a fishy mood.

A

Maybe it's the headphones. I don't know, but something sounds weird to me. Okay, so the first backpacking trip was what year? I know you mentioned the pct, but I've got some notes of maybe shorter trips.

C

Before then I'd been peak bagging. I have hundreds of peaks across the southwest. I mean, I. I took the wellness class in 2008. I came back on staff in 2009, and that's when I started really, like Leaning into things. And I would literally get like 15 trips into the Sierra during the summer because when I was working I would go out every weekend. I'd do that five or six hour drive north to the Sierra. And you know, so I'd done a lot of stuff like that so that the mileage count is just kind of the bigger trip since we did this switch.

A

Got it.

C

So I don't really know how to count some of those stats.

A

Yeah. Uh, I also have a note potentially about a pretty serious injury that you sustained.

C

Which one?

A

The, a significant fall.

C

Which one? So yeah, I've been through a couple of things. I'm out a lot. Like just numbers wise when you're out. I was out for 302 days when I did the AT. I did the separate set. Stuff's gonna happen. Yeah, I took a 25 foot fall in the Sierra years ago. We were doing a nine day butt kicker peep bag thing. About as deep in as you can get in the Kaweah range. Had been kicking all sorts of ass. Was doing black Kaweah, really tough peak and everything. And then I was scouting, Jen was with me. I was scouting away down the rocks and something blew out on me. I wasn't able to catch myself and I went off into the air like couldn't hold myself or anything. And I remember thinking, oh shit, I'm going to break my legs and ended up landing. Messed up my knee pretty bad and we think broke a rib.

A

So did you land like on your legs, feet? Like what's the.

C

When there's kind of like I'm picturing

A

you falling backwards like off of.

C

But I probably caught it on my pack mostly because 25 foot onto a boulder field like that. Yeah, that would have been a more serious injury.

A

Yeah.

C

Like the hospital was kind of surprised because they heard they had somebody that fell 25ft. They're like, okay, get the scraper out.

A

Right. Damn. So your pack potentially saved your life.

C

Well, but I couldn't stand. My right leg was non weight bearing and I couldn't really breathe, which kind of a problem, especially when I was literally as deep in the Sierra as you can get. Like a day and a half out. So I would be like trying to breathe in and I'd have these attacks where I'd be going like. And I'd have to just try and relax and then like eventually I'd be able to breathe a little bit. And I was lying out on the rocks for like 15 hours before we got a helicopter to me.

A

I was going to Say this sounds like a satellite communicator situation.

C

It was the early days we had spot devices but everybody didn't have them. I was with Jen who was 19 in a day at the time. So she had to leave me up there and go not knowing if she was going to ever see me again. Like would I make it. She contacted some people at a lower camp who had been with us but had bailed off the later peaks and. And they came up, which was good because if you've ever had to lie out on like granite for let's say like 11, 15 hours, it gets really, really cold. Especially the shivering was triggering the rib and yeah, it wasn't that pleasant.

B

Damn. When we asked about the accidents, it might have seemed like there are more to talk about than just that one.

A

The fact that that didn't stand out

C

is my trail name.

B

Can you give me a. Not rapid fire. I like the level of detail you just gave for that one. Can you give me a run through of your accidents that you can remember as you remember?

C

Well, it's like there hasn't been many accidents. It's not like I've been hit by a car injuries but like I, I slid while I was on the cdt. At one point I slid and I ripped a calf muscle. And all of a sudden I go from. I'm three miles from a road in the middle of nowhere near one of the remote parts of New Mexico and I can't walk. And in that one like I did have an inreach. I contacted him. I'm like guys, please whatever you do, don't send a helicopter. I need like an ATV to get me three miles and I will hitch. But New Mexico State police have a really nice helicopter they really like using. So I got a helicopter ride to Santa Fe where I was then stuck because it was the International Bleepin Balloon Festival. I needed to get out of town and I was calling rental cars companies and they were laughing at me because there were no rentals for like weeks. I was stuck. I ended up taking a Spanish speaking bus out of there to finally like connect someplace else.

A

Is that. Cause your health insurance is like tied to a single state is why you couldn't get health care there or what?

C

No, no, I could get health care but it was a busted calf muscle. Like there was no health care. I needed a place to rest that wasn't an expensive hotel room in the middle of a balloon festival that brings people in. So I was trying to get someplace else and I couldn't get out of town. But yeah, there was that. I'd been sick a couple of times. The worst one was I ended up catching COVID on the CDT up at 12,000ft at Berthoud Pass. That was the whole thing. Managed to survive it on trail, managed to continue, and then like 15 days later, I caught norovirus. No idea how, but post Covid, norovirus is probably the worst thing I've been through on trail.

A

Sure, you're already weak and then just adding puking and diarrhea.

C

Unfortunately, it was a like, wind, ice storm the night it was happening. So, yeah, that was.

A

You're probably coughing and squirting diarrhea, like the combination.

B

How do you want to quit at that point?

C

I tend to be a little stubborn

A

when it comes to that stuff.

B

That's the trail name.

C

I had to get into town to clean up. And then I tried to go back and I was so wrecked I couldn't make it between water sources. But I tried, like, I fought tooth and nail to continue there.

B

Yeah, okay. What else?

C

I mean, I've been through, like, being sick just cause like, time on trail. Oh, I did mess up a rib on the American Discovery Trail. So rehabbed that went back out and then plantar fasciitis ended up taking me out. That's the crummy thing. It's like when you fight your way through something and you're like, yes, I'm continuing. And then something else stupid takes you out. That's the worst.

A

What is? The pain and sound sensation of ripping your calf muscle. That sounds like a bad one.

C

I don't wanna know that there wasn't something like that. It's just like I fell and I landed on my butt and I'm like, that's probably statistically the best place ever to land. But I just. It felt funny when I went down and I'm like, huh, that's weird. So I sat there for a second, got up, and like, I couldn't walk.

A

Is it the muscle getting pulled off the bone or is the muscle, like,

C

split, just some sort of a tear?

A

Okay.

C

When you go into the doctor on something like this and you're like, hey, I was hiking across the US I fell and I can't walk. They're like, okay, then go sit. For three weeks, they don't really tell you, like, what's wrong with you. Sure, it's the same. When I busted the rib in the knee, like, when I got into the hospital, the doctor didn't want to do X rays. And like, even when they did Couldn't tell me what was wrong.

A

Yeah, I feel like on every one of my major injuries, there's been a. Like, a discernible sound attached to it. Like, the first time I tore my acl, I was in gym class, and somebody said that they could hear it from across the gym. It's like a hollow, like. Yeah, it was. It was. The sound was actually more jarring than the pain itself. I just pulled my hamstring recently. There was a pop associated with that. So I go off of the audio cues as to, like, how badly I fucked myself up.

C

I guess I'm more into blunt force injuries. Like, you know, there was probably an impact sound when I fell the 25ft, but I don't really remember that. There's kind of a discontinuity in the middle.

B

Sure.

C

I probably made a quite satisfying slap on the granite.

B

What's the closest you've been to death?

C

Probably overall, that. The rib knee thing. Cause I remember lying there. Cause I was alone for several hours, getting colder and colder, and I remember looking up at an airplane flying by and thinking, there's somebody on that airplane. Like, probably sipping a gin and tonic, looking out the window, and I'm going to die down here with them looking right at me and they don't even know. And.

B

Yeah, that's fun.

C

So that was probably the worst. I mean, the worst injuries I've had to deal with were other people had somebody break a tibia fibia on one of my trips one time. And when you do wilderness first aid, they show you how to, like, splint and everything. And none of that worked real well. And you've got, like, a screaming person. And it was on a snow slope. Like, he had gone out of control. So I had to, like, go down underneath him, hold him into the slope, dig out a platform, and we had to work on him. And then the weather screwed us. We had major storms come in. Like, we saw the helicopter coming towards us three hours later, only to turn around as a major storm swept in. Like, I was taking handfuls of grapple off of him. That was way worse than any of the injuries to me. Yeah, it sounds like I'm the worst hiker ever.

B

No, honestly, we've had worse. Not worse, but we've had. We've had people. I'm thinking of Kwok. He was closer to death, I think, in many situations, probably.

A

But, like, I guess not too dissimilar,

B

but just you guys are probably, like, hiking together.

A

Yeah, you guys would be pals for sure. Yeah, he's Very like almost aloof about how the amount of risk that he's putting himself into. Not aloof is the wrong word. Just like it didn't faze him at all.

C

Yeah, well, it's kind of relative. It's like when you're scrambling and you're a fourth class. So fourth class means a fall would kill you. Right. It's like a thousand feet off. But it's not like you're just going, oh, I'm going to fling myself this way and kind of see if it works. Right. You're feeling and you feel in control. Thing I always tell people is you walk down the sidewalk and traffic is zooming by at 50 miles an hour. You're two feet from death. If you fling yourself two feet over, you know you're going to be splattered over the car but you don't feel like you're at risk. Right. It's when something happens out of your control, like an entire rock platform just kind of blows on you and all of a sudden you go from in control, everything's good to just the car came onto the sidewalk and hit you sort of thing. That's how I think of it.

B

He kind of just proved my point. He would be good at hiking with quacks.

C

Yeah.

A

How if you're at a cocktail party and maybe this is like not a real scenario or question, but how do you describe yourself? Because it sounds like prior to your thru hiking you had all this peak bagging and various routes. You've done a ton of through hikes, obviously diving and paddling. Like if you were going to define

C

yourself as an adventurer, I'm pretty self effacing. Hence like the hat world's most okay ish through hiker.

A

I like the hat.

C

Yeah.

A

Where's that from?

C

Custom made.

A

Nice.

C

I started joking about it when I was on the AT because you want to meet and make a whole bunch of people really entertained. Show up. Like when people are leaving Springer and everybody's like really into how hard it is and you're like, oh hey, I just walked here from Key West. But yeah, I'm just kind of amused by the entire thing. Like we've ended up in this really cool lifestyle where I get to be out like nine months a year, go back to teach a wilderness class and we get to do all this stuff. But it seems kind of just crazy that it's worked out like this. So I don't describe myself as big bad adventurer or anything. It's just kind of like, oh yeah, I do all this crazy Stuff. I like talking about the stuff when it gets people excited. Sure. So I mostly babble about the things I've done that gets people worked up.

A

Is there like a story or adventure that you've talked about that elicits the strongest response to your. The people that you're guiding? No.

C

Well, again, not a guide. Volunteer.

A

Volunteer.

C

Sorry.

B

You're going to get in trouble.

A

It's going to get fired from the volunteer.

C

They're going to volunteer me, in which case I can go back and do the Florida trail. The ones I talk about the most are like the Mississippi, because that's one that people are kind of aware of from Huck Finn. I canoed the Mississippi. You can actually put in and paddle for 2,400 miles camping the entire way. And that tends to kind of inspire people because they kind of know of the Mississippi or they've seen like Baton Rouge and Cancer Alley and all the barges and everything. And so that's the one that excites people. Or else they know the area and it's like, oh, wow, I've walked around like Tahoe. Oh, you did the Pacific Crest Trail. You walked from like Mexico to Canada. So it's not particularly like one inspirational story or anything. It's kind of played off whatever kind of perks em up.

A

Yeah.

C

But I probably talk about the Mississippi more than anything else these days.

B

Yeah, let's go there next.

A

Yeah, we've interviewed a couple people who've done that and the reviews have been mixed. I'd say. Yeah, I'm not a paddler.

C

So they did it badly. Maybe.

B

So one of them might have had like a Walmart kayak.

C

Right.

B

So there were different levels of preparedness and gear and there were varying factors that went into each one we talked about.

C

That actually makes sense because when I approached it, because we found out about it by accident and I looked at it and I planned it like a thru hike. It's like, okay, well we're going to have to portage around all of these different dams and things. So we're going to get a Kevlar canoe.

A

It's portage.

B

I was literally just thinking that I

C

have a graphic for this, but it's. That's the French Canadian pronunciation. The first one we did was up in like Vancouver island. And I refuse to change and it drives people nuts.

B

I really like it. I might start saying portatage.

A

Yeah, sounds more sophisticated versus portage.

C

Dragging the canoe over things. Yeah, yeah. So like we had gear that was set and I designed things. Like we had a big bill bag and we had one bag we could sling plus a water jug. So when we had to portage, we could do it in one go. The people who have so much stuff where they take like an hour to get by this one because they have to drag the boat and then they're portaging. Individual bag. Yeah, they're doing.

B

They're portaging.

C

They're mispronouncing it.

B

I think portaging is when you have to carry it and it's really heavy and it sucks. Portaging sounds like a lovely little. Let's go portage over there, you know?

C

Yeah. We had it pretty well down, so there were rough ones where we had to drag it through, like cross country stuff. At one point you do it a mile and a half through a city, which was really fun because you're seeing joggers and things. The like chief of police or the fire chief or something came over and was chatting to see what we're doing. Just like walking down the street with a 17 foot canoe.

B

Yeah, I've heard the canoes do better the more weight that you put in them. Someone said that once. If that is true or not true, fine. But do you. Do you ever put in like wheels?

C

There's a cart, so it's. There's a cart. Kind of like a furniture dog.

B

Oh, okay. So there is. I'm picturing, like how when you carry a kayak from the kayak bench to the water, how you and another person just hold the.

A

Just raw dog it.

C

No, no. They make these wheels. So I could basically. We had to have one person on the front of it. The wheels balanced the back of it, and we were able to walk it.

B

Ah. Because otherwise. Otherwise you do it with just one person. If you. Not that you did, but how many person?

C

Well, yeah, my partner was with me, so we had two on that.

B

Right.

C

And we also were careful about, like, what boat we did. A lot of people did kayaks. And like, I like the kayak paddling better because it's more satisfying. Like, it's a power move. Right. Versus J strokes. Kind of frustrating, but sitting in a kayak hurts for long periods. Like, I've got to get out. My knees will hurt, my back will hurt. And I'm like, we can't do this for 70 days. So we tried something out. We went to do the Swanee river down in Florida. We tried out a canoe and that worked a lot better. So I had a lighter weight canoe. The gear was kind of well set for it. We had challenges. We had rough times.

A

Yeah.

B

I am no expert But I feel like you get more wet paddling in a kayak. Like, I feel like the water splashes on me more than paddling in a canoe.

C

Well, it depends. If you have, like, the sea skirt, it kind of keeps it out because I have a touring kite. We had touring kayaks.

B

You would have. You've got it.

C

Okay. And then it depends, because if you're not getting along with your partner in the back, there's, like, water flying through the air. Stuff like that.

A

You know, I was gonna say.

C

And we had weather. I mean, we had historic flavors. Flooding in Kentucky.

A

Interesting.

C

Oh, I got a video of looking outside the window of our Nemo, and there is water rushing all around the

B

tent, and you're supposed to go into the water with your boat.

C

We couldn't, because we couldn't launch because there were these old wing dams, and they had. They ended up with, like, wood stakes sticking out of the water. So we couldn't launch and go through those because it was at night, and we were on an island, so we couldn't get to the mainland. And the storm came over, like, literally. We had lightning for, like, eight or 10 hours. And then all of a sudden, we start getting these weather warnings that say historic flooding is happening. Find a second story to get up to. Do not stay on the ground floor. And here we are in our tent going, oh, this is fun.

B

We have to portage.

C

Yes. Except there was nowhere. At midnight, we actually tried to make it to the little vegetation that was on this little sand island, and we couldn't, because you couldn't make it through. And it wasn't much cover, so we had to just sit there. I had PTSD from how much lightning was going off, because, you know, when lightning gets close, it's kind of like an electrical sound, and things just kind of go white.

B

Yeah. No, I hate that.

C

Picture that for, like, eight hours, and

B

you're just, like, next to water, sitting

C

on a beach, and then the flooding starts. And.

A

Yeah, so what happens once the flooding starts? Because I imagine being that close to a river during a flash flood is, like, the absolute worst place to be.

C

Well, the Mississippi's big, so, like, it did go up after that, but it's not like it shoots up like Buckskin Gulch, where you go to, like, flash flood. So it went up after that, and we had to watch it, and it sped up, up. But at the time, it was. Mostly we just sat there, and I was. I was really paranoid. Like, one of the problems some of the Mississippi people have is they'll leave their boat close to the water, and then they wake up and the boat's gone. Like, we were always paranoid, and if we were camped on the beach, the boat was above the tent because that way, if the boat's gone, we're already gone, and I don't have a problem there. So we were more careful on stuff like that. So we had it weighed down. So when everything started flowing around the tent A, I'd set us up on a slope because I've been through enough bad weather that if you're on the flats and water doesn't drain, you end up with a flooded tent. So we were sloped and I was on a slightly higher part of the beach. And that's ended up being what saved us from a major flooding event.

B

Do you have to wait a certain amount of time after the flood for the water to slow down? And part B, is there a way for you sitting there to measure the speed of the water? And do you use that for part A?

C

In Gaia, you can see what your instant velocity is. And we also had mile markers, so I could kind of tell it sped up for a couple of days. But the funny thing is you can actually look at river stats and you can see the surge coming. Like, if there was rain up in Minnesota near the headwaters, like, you could see the gauges going up where, like, online. Yeah, they have. The Corps of Engineers has the entire Mississippi river engineered, which is partially why it's so good for, like a long distance trip, because that means the land on either side, in general, is Corps of Engineer land, meaning you get to camp on beaches. So, like, for the 70 some days we were out there, we had some of the best camps we've ever done. Like, you camp on islands hidden out. We were sometimes, like, hidden near major cities and stuff like that. Sometimes just on a beach watching, like, the barges come by as the sun went down.

B

When you're doing beach camping, do you. Are there different LNT rules, or do you have to portage 100, however many feet away?

C

It's different with a big river. You know how, like, in general, you're not supposed to pee within, like 100, 200ft of a water source?

B

Right.

C

Unless it's something like the Green river and you can't get away from the water source, then you pee directly into the water. It's a.

B

That's what they suggest.

C

No, that's what they tell you. Like, that's on your permit on some of those.

B

Piss in the water.

C

Yeah, for a fast moving stream.

B

Really? Yeah, I mean, it Makes sense. So you just hang, you're, you know, you just out the side every time you had to go.

C

Yeah.

B

Would you stop the boat or would you just do it while the boat's going?

C

I didn't want to tip. We had a fairly stable boat, but I'm not doing any sort of acrobatics that might tip us because then we would have had all sorts of trouble.

B

Yeah, fair.

A

So give me the elevator pitch on canoeing or floating the Mississippi. You mentioned the cool campsites. That sounds nice. What else would be a sell?

C

Well, I mean it's kind of, it's like through hiking except instead of having a big pack, when you've got to do that seven day carry, you can load it into the boat, which is a lot easier. And the Mississippi is just so unique in what it goes through. There are these locks so they need to keep the Mississippi at a certain depth to make sure it's passable by the ships. So they put these locks and you actually get to go through the locks in your canoe. So at one point we were in this lock as they flushed 38 million gallons out all around us. Like the walls actually raised 38ft and you hear the water just kind of singing around you and you're like, holy crap. I've been using low flush toilets for years. And that was just so cool seeing all the infrastructure. Like we went through Baton Rouge and we went down as far as like you start out and the river is ankle deep and then it gets bigger as you go down. Then all of a sudden you see these barges that are like three wide, five deep, pushed by these little towboats down. And then you get down to the bottom and it's two miles wide, 200ft deep and you're seeing like eight story ocean going oil vessels. Like it changes so much.

B

Two miles wide is a long way.

A

Yeah, it's a big ass river.

B

It's a long width.

A

Yeah.

C

And like if you're through hiking, if you don't move, you don't go anywhere. Like at least we had the current going with us.

A

Yeah. What's your speed at rest?

C

On average it was a couple of miles an hour. We did it on a low water year so it was problematic. Like some of the back channels you couldn't take and we didn't as fast. If you're on a high water year, the water's moving faster and so they actually made a lot better time. And plus we were in a canoe instead of a kayak, so we had to work a little harder.

B

Yeah.

C

So I think we maxed out when the water was moving fast, probably around like five miles an hour.

B

How. What percentage of the day are you paddling versus chilling?

C

I tend to be the sort where if I'm not intentionally stopped, I'm moving. Same when I'm hiking.

B

Well, I know, but the boat's still moving, right?

C

Because it's. Yeah. Well, you can take a break and you can just kind of sit while it's moving. But most of the time we would be paddling.

B

Okay.

C

And since we had two, it would work. Because when I was doing videos, I could shoot while Jen was still like paddling. You know, teamwork. Yeah. You can stretch by leaning back on it. Like with a kayak, you've got to stop and get out with the canoe. I could actually like lean back on the bags we had and it was a lot more comfortable.

A

You mentioned that sitting was uncomfortable. That's something that you had to remedy. What's the top pain associated with like full days of paddling? Like, is it muscular with your back? Is it the related to sitting? Like what, what feels bad?

C

I mean, in a kayak it would be like my back and my knees. Because in a kayak you've got your knees out and kind of brace. So it's an awkward position. Like my feet would go numb and everything in the canoe. It was mostly like shoulder issues early on. Like, that was the worst. I probably had the longest, smoothest section of any trip on there. Just because we got into the middle. And for like, I don't know, 30, 40 days of the entire thing, things just kind of flowed. And because you're moving the entire time, like we were making 50 mile days. Like, you just eat distance.

A

Yeah.

C

And you're sailing along, you're seeing stuff on either side. We got to meet all sorts of people because we ended up in all these towns. We ended up due to a heat wave and some other things. We found a trail angel in New Orleans and I actually portaged down Decatur street with a 17 foot canoe and all, like the street hustlers were coming up and like fist bumping us. They thought we were like the most entertaining thing.

B

That's so funny.

C

It was such a cool experience.

B

Where do you put the canoe when you go in town?

C

That's the hard thing. Generally what we would do is we minimized our off downtime. So it was either like there was a hotel or something where we could drag it around the side. In one town, I think in Memphis, we found a. A boat dock that would watch it overnight. But most of the time, if it was just a resupply, I would sit and guard the boat, work on videos, and Jen would run in, get food, come back, and we'd keep going. We only had her summer, so we had a hard stop. And I hate hard stops because the universe just really wants to screw you over then.

A

Yeah.

C

So we wanted to make sure that we could go.

A

I wonder what the canoe theft statistics are.

C

In the US it's actually pretty bad along the Mississippi because there's areas where there's locals who will see people canoeing down the river because there's like 20 people that do it a year, and they'll specifically wait till they hide their canoe, go off into town and steal the canoe.

A

Damn.

C

Like, we got warned about that. So we were really paranoid, leaving our stuff.

A

How much is a good canoe?

C

We bought one used, but I mean, you buy them new, you're talking like 3,000 bucks or more. Okay. And you can get more. There's like carbon fiber ones that are more than that.

A

Yeah.

B

All right.

C

But it worked out because we bought a used one up at the north end. And by the time you paddle 2,400 miles, the canoe that we got up here was really rare down in New Orleans. So we're able to sell it and recoup.

B

That happened to me when I got. We had bought a pickup truck in 20 something and we bought it in Reno. So it had no rust because it doesn't really rain out there.

C

Yeah.

B

And then we road tripped in a while, put a ton of miles on it, sold it in Ohio a couple years later for double what we bought it for because they were just like, wow, no rust.

C

Yeah.

B

And like, yeah. It's amazing, huh? Crazy.

A

How do you decide? Is my next thing going to be a backpacking trip? A paddle? Like, are you just going off of what your gut is telling you what you're hungry for, or is there like a method to your madness?

C

It's more what sounds the most awesome. We've had certain things, like the Yukon that I'm about to leave for, we were supposed to do last year. I had some major medical stuff, so we had to delay it. And if I have an opportunity, I look and see. So there. The entire plan got thrown to this year. And so I had an opening and I looked around to see what I could fit. I almost went to, like, Ozark, Wachita, those. Instead, I came out of the hospital, recovered, and went and did the Vermont, Long Trail, Benton, Mackay foothills and stuff like that. It started out with. I wanted to do the pct. Right. So that was the big priority. Finished that. And all of a sudden it's like, well, we could actually make a go of this. We've disrupted our life to the point where we have nothing. I guess I could try for the Triple Crown. Well, I might as well get the AT out of the way. Which then turned into the Eastern Continental. And at that point, you're kind of, like, obligated to do the third trip, the third trail. Right. You don't just do two of them. And then after that, it was like, well, we got really excited about the Mississippi then because it's the big tent pole middle of the summer trip. That's the one I prioritize. Then I see what I can fit. So after having done the Triple Crown in the Mississippi, it's like, well, what would be the next coolest thing? Well, those trails all go like this. What if I walked across here? So then it was American discovery. Next year after next, I'm hoping to do North Country Trail, because it kind of fills in the map up there.

A

Sure. Yeah. And that is a cool feature on your website. Literally just seeing how much map that you've crossed off.

C

Have you looked on Google Photo? Google photo has a map heat map that shows where all your photos and videos are.

B

Yeah, I do.

C

So that's what I used to use. And then I'd be like, oh, I haven't done something here. Let's go do the mighty Lone Star Trail in Texas. You know, stuff like that that.

B

I can't believe that people don't use the map on the photo album more. Because that's how I find photos. It's like, oh, I've got to show you this picture. Instead of scrolling to when I think it was, I just go on the map to where I think it was. It's really helpful.

A

So you've done so much. I want to get to some of the more novel adventures that you've knocked off. Because we've talked about, like, the JMT a million times here.

C

Have you talked to anyone about the Theater Solomon Trail? That one's. Nope.

B

I don't know if I've ever even heard it.

C

Nope. Yeah, nobody's heard of it. This is why it's.

B

Who is Theodore Solomon?

C

So when I was doing the John Muir Trail, Theodore Solomon, I believe, was the guy that laid out the jmt. And at the time, there was a proposal for a west side one. So the idea is you have east side, west side. So I was partway through the John Muir Trail. And I hear about this and I'm like, well, I'm not doing anything next week. So I went and tried that. So it goes over through like Mineral King and everything, but you're going through these really remote areas that have been burned over. I went through Te Hepity Valley, which in the 50s based on a plaque I found there was actually like stone paths made back there that had been overgrown. So I'm climbing over like 6 foot of like blowdowns and things. So it was really rough, but I kind of made a loop. Like if you picture the jmt, I basically went from Happy Isles down to Whitney, came back in at Cottonwood and went up the west side to go back to Yosep.

B

Surprised I haven't heard of this trail more.

C

There's a Facebook group for it. It's one of those, like kind of the Trans County Trail and stuff, that it's kind of maintained by a few people who keep the flame alive, but there's not much information about it and fires have badly impacted it. When I got the permit for it, I asked the ranger, like, do you ever hear of people trying this? And he says, oh yeah, every year or two we get one or two. But mostly it's sections.

B

Interesting.

C

And it's rough because, like your resupply is Mineral King, which is mineral and of nowhere and stuff like that.

B

So despite being close, probably not a good alternate if you can't get a JMT pyramid.

C

No, because you have to cross the Kings, which is a major, like big river. So you can only do that at the end of the year. And because of climate change, like the fire seasons as they are now, that means you're hiking it at the end of the year when fires are so bad in the Sierra. So it's hard enough to even do the Pacific Crest Trail these days without fire closures.

B

So this is a good last minute. I've got time last minute if I want something rugged.

C

And I hate myself enough that I'd really like to bushwhack. What if I could go up sandy slopes that are ash? So I can't get like a good.

A

Yeah, you're not selling me out.

C

Yeah, it was an adventure.

A

Yeah.

C

You see the.

B

How long did it take? How long was it?

C

It's like 200 some miles. It was rough miles though, and I was having to rush.

B

Yeah, yeah.

A

When you crossed the Kings, how was that challenging or was it late enough in the season that it was late,

C

but I still had to wade. And there's not like Normally I think of Sierra crossings like you have to go up or down. You find logs and things. There was none of that. Like I just had to wait.

A

Yeah.

C

And it was fine. It was fine. And it was like the last 20ft was the problematic part. If I'd been there early in the season, you can't do it.

A

Yeah.

C

You'd be stuck at Tepidi Valley. That's why if you've heard of the Big Secchi Loop, that's why it doesn't go further.

A

Go ahead.

B

No, yours probably more on top.

A

Last question. On this trailer, if you had to estimate how much of the trail is actually on like single track versus you mentioned blowdowns and bushwhacking and hiking on.

C

Well, there's a single track under the blowdowns. I mean sure.

A

But like traditional hiking on a single

C

track, I don't know because there's been some bad impacts around Rattlesnake Junction and other things. So I'm out of date to like what the status of it. It's the same with the Condor Trail, like where I went through. There were things that were a real struggle that I know they've since fixed. But there's others where the trail was fine and it's now burned.

B

What is the desert trail border? It's 55 miles. I see. You did in 2020.

C

There's a old proposed desert trail. It was proposed in like the 60s. Dirt Monger has stuff on it on his website and I think him and Buck 30 have both done it. And so it's a Mexico to Canada thing that I was really excited by. I did that as a warm up to the pct. I did that in the first part of the Hot Spring trail proposal.

B

Wait, what do you mean it's a Mexico to Canada thing?

C

Like it is a old route that was designed as a Mexico to Canada.

B

Oh. But now it's only 55 miles.

C

I only did 55 miles out of that because that was PCT warm up.

B

Got it. Okay, got it. So it's not a 50. Got it. Okay. I've been looking. Well, a few months ago I was looking for a smaller trail. So the 55 miles was like.

C

No, that one buck 30 did it and I think he had to bury 32 buckets in the desert with water and food. Like that's way more coordination than I want.

B

Yeah, that's a lot.

C

Trans County Trail was like a better, shorter one.

A

Which the San Diego Trans County Trail.

C

Yeah, that's the one that goes Salton Sea out to the ocean.

B

Yeah.

A

Earlier this year.

C

Yeah, that one's pretty good, except it was a little sketchy at the western end for us.

A

Yeah, you mean in terms of camping? Yeah. It seemed to me that, like, you're required to stay in a hotel or maybe required is the wrong term. But it gets.

C

Well, it's like a lot of the things, right. Once you get off the big established trails, like on the American Discovery Trail or heck, even the Buckeye Trail. There's no legal camping on the Buckeye Trail. Beautiful trail, lovely people that work on it, but you're kind of on your own and so you end up stealth camping. It's only legal if you get illegal, if you get caught, that sort of thing. So you're hiding in the bushes. Same thing on the American Discovery Trail. I don't know that other than a few towns, any of our camps across Kansas were legal. You just hide and you try not to be found. Same thing on the Florida trail down in, like, the Keys.

B

I. I feel like we just talked about the San Diego. San Diego Trans County Trail. So I'm not going to ask too much about that. But the condor trail is two bullet points below that and it's 409 miles. I've not heard of that one.

C

The Condor Trail is awesome. That is one of those trails that deserves way more recognition. But the person that designed it, so it was proposed in the 90s and when I did it, I was like the fifth person ever to do it. And I had an unofficial fkt. Like that's how few many people had tried it.

B

Where is it? What is it?

C

Los Padres. So Los Angeles Basin, the mountains north of LA. There's a big long wilderness. So it's 400 miles and it crosses that wilderness. Absolutely beautiful areas. But when it was designed, they didn't design it where you could have easy resupply, like CDT in New Mexico. They designed it so you can get into towns right here. They didn't. So we had to like, bury buckets to be able to get stuff. And some of the areas are badly overgrown. The worst was Black Cone. I spent eight hours in brush over my head just having to like, force forward. I was so exhausted. I swore I was going to come back one day and like, chop that entire thing down. But spectacularly beautiful. I had tried it back in 2020 as a PCT warmup. And that was when Monterey closed the trails due to Covid, like they were literally patrolling. So I was only able to do section and it was so pretty it stuck with me. That and the massive Ticks that were all over me that I wanted to go back and do it, and I ended up doing it.

A

Are there longer stretches of this trail that are more approachable, single track and not brush? That's kind of.

C

Yeah. I mean, like, everything on the south up to Sesapee, which is absolutely beautiful, was pretty good.

A

Yeah.

C

So you get like that far and you're like, oh, okay, this is going. This is okay. I can handle this. And then it gets a little rough.

A

Got it. And I see that it ends at Big Sur, which is awesome. Is that. Are you like, what is the trail system? Are you. Is there a lot of road walking involved?

C

No, there's only a little. Los Padres has two separate wilderness areas that isn't really connected. So you're on PCH for a while on a really narrow section up near, like, Hurst's castle. So that was, like, sketchy when I was having stealth camp and things. But most of it you're on roads and single track. I mean, Los Padres has a really good forest association that does, like, working weekends. Jen's gone up and done those before, so they have some really cool people. There's a guidebook for it and everything.

A

Give us your top tips for stealth camping. It seems like you've got a lot of experience.

C

I'm more paranoid about it. I know people that'll set up on the side of the road and go, eh, it's fine. And, like, they don't get confronted. One of my pet peeves is when somebody does something that impacts, like, later hikers. Like, for example, I was on the adt, I got confronted by some people in this neighborhood, and I think it was Delaware because somebody else on the trail had set up in a stupid spot. And so the locals thought there was a homeless person. And then so all of a sudden I get confronted by angry locals because they were less than careful. So I always make sure I can't be seen. I have a Nemo Hornet two person tent. So it's also not very wide. And you can set it up by. It's semi freestanding. So I can set it up and I can drop it right where it needs to be. Because I've been like, in Canada, in the middle of, you know, when you come on or off a freeway, there's that big loop. Like, I had to camp hidden in the middle of one of those. Jesus. Like, keeping my lights down. And it was Canada, so it was nice. The one time I got caught in Canada, this old guy plops down and I'm like, oh, sorry. Sorry. Because I'd started out in like Alabama so I'm thinking it's like Mr. Smith and Wesson. This old guy is like, oh no, that'd. You're good. I just wanted to check on you. And he like chatted with me for 10 minutes and I'm like, oh, Canadians, that's so funny. Versus Alabama was stressful.

A

Yeah.

C

Because there have been issues there. Like somebody had a two by four thrown through their tent. What I think Jupiter ended up with like coming out to somebody with a gun on him. But again, so I always make sure that I am hidden in the bushes.

A

Yeah.

C

The other thing is when I pick a spot, I sit there for about 10 or 15 minutes because almost everybody has a story when you know the people that do this sort of thing where you set up and then the lights go down and you realize, oh crap, there's like a house right there. They might be able to see me. And it's not just I don't want consequences. Like reality is they're probably going to ask me to leave or anything. I don't want to make anybody else stressed out because they think they're scary, like scruffy homeless guy or anything.

A

So what are some of the worst encounters that you've had? I imagine that even with all of your work to go into actually be stealth.

B

There's.

A

I'm sure you've been spotted.

C

Like, I'm really, really paranoid about where I set. Like the biggest mistake I probably made was Shark Valley in Florida when everything was closed due to Covid. I thought I could set up behind the sign and I wouldn't be visible from the road. So okay, I get set up. There's mosquitoes everywhere, there's rain coming down. Turned out it was closed, but the rangers were there and when they locked the gate the way their car was parked, the headlights hit my tent directly. So my tent lights up and I'm hearing the car and I'm like, oh crap. Think I'm going to have to like pack up in pouring rain and everything. They left me alone fortunately. But like I didn't feel good about that. Most of the Keys was a nightmare between like the mosquitoes and how stressful it was because just lights hitting your tent at 11:30 at night when you know you're in an area where you're not supposed to be, like that stresses me out. So I will push on an extra hour or two to just get a place where I'm more secure. Oh, Florida. That spring. I was just eating dinner so I'm in my sleeping bag, I'm eating dinner. Some people show up and they start screaming. Like you could tell they were on something and they were trying to tip over a porta potty. Like they're screaming, flinging themselves, like against the porta potty. And I wasn't hidden enough. So I like packed up and got the heck out of there and hiked for like two hours in the dark.

A

Sounds like a episode of Jackass or something.

B

Yeah, sounds good.

C

Well, but when you're solo and you're in a bad area. Cause that's like the meth lands of Florida. Like, I couldn't even hitchhike because people are like, it's not safe.

A

I think I saw that in the most recent trailer for Grand Theft Aut I know you'd written. Maybe it was from your vlogs. No, I think this was from your website. You mentioned that the Keys was a nightmare. Did that put like a bad taste in your mouth to starting the ECT that like, just the camping was so untenable right out the jump.

C

It was worse than I expected because the research I'd done, the videos kind of softballed that whole part. I would say it was more kind of like a process though, because I don't know, at least for me, when I did my first big hike, not like JMT or anything, I did the Pacific Crest Trail. All of a sudden I dreamed about this for like 10, 15 years. Here I am, I walked Mexico to Canada. I was probably at my most confident as far as I knew what I was doing. Three months to the day later, I was in Key west and I was starting the ECT and I got humbled hard and humbled fast because all of a sudden all those things I thought I knew, like, I was back to zero and I was dealing with humidity and all the other special bits.

A

Yeah.

B

Which is so interesting because before we hit record, you said that the Florida section was your favorite section of the ect.

C

Including the at the Florida trail is not the Keys part. So the Florida Trail starts at Big Cypress, but when I started looking at it, I'm like, well, the ECT technically starts in the Keys. And I'm going to feel silly walking like, you know, just Big Cypress all the way. So I did 200 miles before I got to the start of the Florida trip.

B

Got it. Started in Florida. You meant the Florida Trail.

C

Yeah, Florida Trail was started out with 35 miles of like knee deep water. And that was great. Like Big Cypress. That was amazing. One of the campsites is called oh thank God. Because for 12 miles, you haven't seen any dry land. And you see a little mound, and that's where you can set up your tent. It was so unique.

B

I never want to go there.

C

Yeah, it's very controversial, but, yeah, just like the Okamics and everything else. I didn't like the Keys. I would not do the Keys again. Like, I want to do the Florida trail again. I want to take my partner with me, but I wanted. I would do, like, big Cypress up.

A

So what do other people that have done the ect, what do they do for the camping in that stretch? Are they all just.

C

Well, some of them planned more like, I decided I was doing the Eastern Continental Trail in the last, like, month of the pct and the campsites booked six months out. It was also the worst of COVID It was like the Delta variant or something. So some things were closed, others weren't. Some of the trail angels were gone. Everything was weird. So I didn't have as many opportunities. Even, like, the hotels were super expensive. I ended up paying. I had no other choice. I ended up paying $300 for this floating hotel room. That was the worst hotel room I think I've ever been in. Like, it smelled like a mix of mold and wet dog.

B

What do you mean floating?

C

It was literally, like, on a dock. I think it's probably sunk by now. Like, it was that bad. Like, I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag because the bed was that. And I paid $300.

A

Is that how expensive the keys are? Is $300 for the shittiest hotel?

C

Well, I decided that starting three months to the day after I finished the PCT would be cool. So I started, like, December 28th or 29th. I was in the Keys during New Year's. Tactical mistakes.

B

You keep going to towns during holidays.

C

I get stuck. I get trapped.

B

Yeah.

C

Balloon festivals happen. I did not intentionally inflict myself on the balloon.

B

Balloon festivals do happen.

C

Yeah. You know, timing just is what it is. But, yeah, if I had started on, like, January 3rd. Third, that's a lot smarter. And now I know.

A

But, yeah, I feel like most people I talk to love the keys. Not necessarily in a ECT context, but,

C

like, I went down there to dive, and it was fine. And it's real touristy. So, yeah, if you want, but it's not friendly for people. Like camping.

A

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C

And walking over the bridges. The first day was okay, but, like, you can't find bathrooms or anything else. And it's like you can't even find, like, Bushes to camp in. A lot of the times I'd look and it would be in water because of, like, tidal. At one point, I thought I had a good bush. I went in and there was a homeless guy who, like, got in my face and said, my bush. And I'm like, okay, okay. Another time.

A

That's my bush, bitch.

C

I started to go into one bush and it said, like, deadly snakes or something, like warnings about snakes. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I think I'm gonna back off.

B

I'm never camping in this state.

C

Florida's amazing, though. Like, when we went there for diving, we went looking because there is a breeding population of monkeys infected with herpes in the middle of the state, and we went looking for it.

A

Yeah, I think that's how aid started is what you're describing.

B

What were you gonna do when you found them?

C

Take pictures? I just found it amusing. Like, there are things that you assume don't happen in the US I didn't realize eastern Colorado didn't have safe drinking water for long stretches until I was walking through there. Like, I find that stuff interesting.

A

That's actually news to me.

B

Yeah, no, I find that interesting, too. But maybe from a. That further away.

C

West Kansas, eastern Colorado was an interesting section. Got a lot better once I hit Pueblo.

A

Is that just because it's agricultural runoff or.

C

Yeah, part of it. Yeah. Remember the, like, blue baby thing? That might have been a little early. They had an issue with, like, little babies that were turning blue and it was human babies. Yeah, yeah. They were turning into, like, little Avatar babies.

A

And that's how Blue Man Group was formed.

B

Did they turn back or are they blue people?

C

It was because of nitrates. I don't know.

B

Did they turn back?

C

I just know that they were drinking bad water. It's when they figured out that all the pesticides were getting into the water table and into the wells. So a lot of the water we drank going across Kansas probably wasn't really great. Like, Jen, the last couple of days she was with me, she was actually sick, and we think that was from some of the water. So I went into some little, like, nothing. So I go into some nothing town, and, like, I can't find any place open to get any water. And I had to, like, go into town hall, and I'm like, hey, do you have a water fountain? Do you have anything? And they had nothing. Like, it was all. Had to be bottles brought in. So we had to approach this. We thought we were going to go to this hotel, but it turned out there had recently been a shooting, a fire, and there was some meth activity around there.

B

Oh.

C

So we're like, yeah, we're not going to go anywhere near there. We had to go up the driveway of this remote house. Fortunately, my partner is smaller, has pigtails, and looks a lot less threatening. So we send her first and like approach a house and go, hi, please don't shoot us. Do you have any water we could have? And she gave us a whole bunch of water bottles through a chain link fence so we could fill up and have safe drinking water.

A

That's sweet.

C

The drinking water was like the worst part of crossing the plains.

B

Wow.

C

That and the heat waves.

A

Yeah. It sucks that we have to destroy our water in order to feed people. It seems like.

C

Well, it's just I. I'd heard about Flint, Michigan and things like that. I didn't realize how many areas and like rural areas don't have safe water coming out of the pipes. Yeah, same thing like down in Louisiana, Missouri. There were some areas where it wasn't safe safe. And we were lucky because somebody caught us when we were about to like fill our bottles. And you know, maybe you're okay, maybe you're not. Yeah. They have special filters for it. The Sawyer actually has an S1 filter that can take out pesticides, but that gets a little iffy. Like, do you really trust it?

B

Yeah, I don't know if I want. Even if it says it can. That's. That's an interesting thought.

C

But what do you do? That's the thing. Like in Florida, I had one of those with me. But the trail angels there put out water caches. Other areas, there's not always an option. Sometimes you can do an extra two miles into town or you can filter out of the Potomac and hope. I filtered out of the Potomac and hoped and I ended up sick for five days with some mystery ailment. Kansas, like, we had to approach farmhouses and sometimes they had safe water and sometimes it's not. Like the CDT where there are cow wells and they may not be the most pleasant because the cow's like looking at you and pooping. But at least the water's relatively safe. Yeah. Like there is nothing safe and everything tastes kind of off. Really makes it sound like a good place to hike. Yeah.

B

Yeah.

A

Can you give me your triple crown of worst water? Maybe you just gave us that.

C

But yeah, it was probably that. That whole Kansas section. I keep joking with Jen that we need to do the rectangle of regret. Like walk the entire border of Kansas. Cause our Videos did really well in Kansas.

B

That's a funny name for that trail.

C

It's no trail. We would make it.

B

No, I know, but you should make it.

C

Yeah. We would be the fkt.

B

Yeah. The rectangle of regret is something that sounds amazing.

C

I have a graphic. The guy that does the maps at the start of our videos, he's ready to make the map.

B

Yeah.

C

I can give you my partner's phone number and you can try and convince her to take her precious summer and sacrifice to Kansas again.

B

Sure.

C

It was actually kind of neat, like walking through all the farm fields and everything. Yeah, we met some neat people.

A

If you've driven through on 70, you don't like Kansas. That's my experience.

C

Here's the weird thing. I drove from Southern California out to Delaware, turned in the rental car, and then hiked from Delaware back across and like, Ohio and other things were way more interesting to hike through than they were to walk. Or they were more interesting to walk than they were to drive. I was bored out of my mind going across the plains. But out there, there was always something.

A

Yeah, I could see Ohio. Having stuff like it's Ohio is actually really cool.

C

I want to go do the entire Buckeye Trail. It's just can't spare the time yet. Too many things I want to do.

A

Totally. I mean, we can't yada yada. The Eastern Continental Trail. Is there more to why you like the Florida Trail than you describe Big Cypress? Like, what about the trail Is this pitch trance right now? And why she should hike the Florida Trail?

C

I'm not going. I think that's Alaska. I like the swamp aspect. I go for unique. Like, I liked the at. I really enjoyed it. It still felt like I went into the woods in Georgia and I popped out in New Hampshire somewhere and went, hey, little mountains. Cool. It was cool, but it wasn't unique. Like, the CDT was neater to me because of the transitions. Florida, going through the swamps where you're like wading through the water and everything, and it's this black swamp water that really makes kind of everything pop. It felt like hiking through Jurassic Park.

B

Nope, nope. I'm sure there are Florida.

C

So, like, you come out and at one point I come out and there was a ditch I was kind of thinking of using, and there was a city guy that threw a dead pig in it, looked over at me, looked at the water, looked at me and went, oh, hey, dude, you want some water?

A

I understand what you're saying. I understand your argument, and it makes sense. But it's not something I'm with Johnson.

B

What do you mean? You understand it? He just told us about dead pigs in a dish to try to convince me.

A

But the Jurassic park, maybe it's just. I like Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park.

B

It's a terrible argument. Well, and black water really lights up the place. No, it doesn't.

C

Also, it's a smaller trail. Like, I really love the trail organizations that give their all. The Florida Trail association. Like a Hurricane comes through 500 miles of trail are like impinged. And they send out an email, say, we're getting the chainsaws out on Tuesday. Everybody go. And like in little econ, I think it was. It was like cut through 10ft of logs. The channel that I was walking through. And there's just so much enthusiasm around it. They get you around the bad water by like water caches. The couple of the road walks are generally pretty small. There was only one I had to like camp on. But they've actually contacted all the churches. So, like, you know where you can get water and there's places you can stay. It was just. Overall, I enjoyed the vibe. And like I said, hiking through it was like nothing else anywhere in the continental U.S. and there's lots of areas in the U.S. i love.

A

Yeah. Do you know, is Jim Kern still involved? He was one of our first interviews. This probably like episode 20 ish. And he was the executive director at the time.

C

I didn't know I actually. I had people in the international at making fun of me because they only found out I was hiking the thing because they randomly ran into me in the woods and they're like, where'd you come from? And I'm like, Key west. It's like 4,000 miles back that way. So I didn't like contact anybody or anything. I had the map. I had the, you know, guidebook that kind of vaguely. And I just figured it out.

A

Yeah.

C

And when things flooded and everything else, I just kind of like put my head down and kept going.

A

Yeah. I feel like the ECT has really popped the last two or three years, at least in my realm. I feel like I've just seen a lot more people doing it. Do you know when you did it in 2021, how many people had actually completed it?

C

I don't know because I don't follow hiking stuff that much because I'm on trail all the time. It did seem like when I was doing research there was a lot less out there and that it got a lot more popular after that. It seemed like we ended up getting A lot of people who, like, knew what we were doing. Well, I guess it was me at that point because Jen didn't join me till the Alabama road walk just because it was, like, early season. So if you're ready to go out on the AT and you're excited. Right. You go and look on YouTube. But there's no AT hikers. But, oh, there's somebody here who says they're hiking Key west to Canada. So I think it's kind of like, entered popular culture through that. And by the time we get up to the at, you're meeting people in the shelter and kind of telling them there's something cooler.

A

Yeah, we don't have to talk about the at. Tell me about trail post AT on the et.

C

The first part's actually really cool. Everybody around me was just done when they got to Katahdin. They're like, I want to be out of here. And I'm like, see you guys. So I climbed Katahdin with, like, four days of food on my back and everything. So you go up and over. And the funny thing is, the Katahdin rangers swear to you that there's no way to connect with the iat. They act like there's a giant canyon. I'm like, well, there's trees. I'm pretty sure I can walk through trees. I'm good. But I had to pinky swear that I understand there's no way to connect. So you walk through, and then you're on a really nice section of trail that has shelters but no people. Like, I saw moose. I saw a bear. You get up to, like, Mars Hill and everything. I did have some long road walks up there, but I had, like, Amish people coming by asking me how I was keeping my phone charged. Like, it was really cool. And it was a palate cleanser after some of the, like, big tramily issues at the north end of the at.

B

How could they not know that it connects?

C

They know Baxter Park. My understanding exists to kind of control access to that area. Right. They have all these limits to prevent people from just going crazy and hiking. So they don't want to say that it connects. Officially, I'm going to get banned from Baxter street park at this rate.

B

They don't listen.

C

So people don't hike from the back north. Yeah. Because otherwise you could start at the border, walk through, connect, go over Katahdin and come down instead of having to screw with the whole. You have to arrive before 10 to park.

A

Yeah. Is the portion of trail after Baxter is that pretty well maintained?

C

It is. The Iat people up in Maine were actually really awesome. Like I said once I met him, because I randomly met him in the woods. This guy literally came out, he was doing some geological survey. They were really nice. And like I said, there's actually shelters up there. There was a big effort at one point to kind of make a trail. And then it hasn't been as popular, but it was like a single track. Good trail. Seeing Katahdin from the north was kind of cool because you see, like the Able Bridge or whatever it is approach. But seeing the other angle, getting up to Mars Hill, which I think is the first sunrise on the continental US or something, was neat. Once you get into Canada, ironically, it was mostly road walking. Like across all of New Brunswick, Maine,

B

gets the first sunrise in the continental.

C

It was something like that on.

B

Oh, in the U.S. yeah. God. I was like, I think Canada goes further east. No. Okay. Not including Canada.

C

Yeah, it's the first. It's like a hill right up by the border. And you get to walk the border stripe, which was cool, other than there was. So literally. Have you done the Vermont Long Trail? No. You see it there. They cut a stripe. So you can see where the US Canada border is.

B

What, like at the PCT where it looks like a power line?

C

Yeah, it's like that. But here you actually walk part of that. You get into the stripe, and you have to let border patrol know, hey, I'm gonna be walking the border stripe. And they're like, well, that's your life choice. Cause, like, I was waist deep in a beaver bog. It was somewhat of a debate whether it was Canadian beavers that were messing up the US Side or US Beavers that were encroaching on Canada. But, like, I had to wade through that at times. You're walking along and there's signs telling you, don't cross the border. Seriously, don't cross the border. Despite the fact that there's like, we mean it. A road that goes back and forth. Yeah. You could take pee breaks over there, steal a Canadian apple, come back. It was. That was neat. Like, at one point, I was between two border stations, like, in that no man's land. Like, looking that way. Looking that way. Yeah.

A

Aside from the road walking, anything you want to touch on about the Canadian section of the trail?

C

Well, it's road walking, I guess largely it's because of a forestry company up there that doesn't want people to see how it's like mass killing everything a little bit away from the roads. But it was really Pretty because the color change was happening and it's just like a riot of color. And I went up north through New Brunswick. I wanted to continue on Quebec because, like, Nimblewell, that was what he did. But Quebec is different. And they closed the trail due to, like, caribou mating season and hunting.

B

Yeah.

C

So I couldn't go across there. And so I ended up going across Prince Edward island, which was kind of neat. There's another trail there I wanted to do. And then continuing to Nova Scotia, which was kind of the coolest part, because you go up the Musical Coast. So they have this big, long ATV trail with all these, like, musical instrument emplacements along the way. You've got an ocean view. The people were really friendly. It ends at a really bummer of a spot. But at that point I'd gone like 4,920 miles and I'm like, I'm not ending at Sydney. So we figured out a way to get me to the very northern tip of Nova Scotia, the eloquently called Meat Cove.

B

Nice.

C

So I hiked up a highway for like 87 miles, got to a cliff where it literally ends, Camped there. My last night, nearly, like, got blown off the cliff at two o' clock in the morning and went, okay, I did Key west to Canada.

B

Can you break down basically, can you explain it? Because I don't understand the musical portion of this.

C

It has something to do with the history of Nova Scotia. I didn't have a lot of context because I'm, like, exhausted at this point.

B

There's ATVs and musical instruments.

C

They have an ATV trail that runs along the coast. So you're on, like a gravel ATV trail.

B

Right.

C

You know, like the AT trail outside of Harper's Ferry, where it's like a really nice pad and everything. So it's like that. But they have all these, like, emplacements and, like, signs and things like that with just spectacular ocean views and really nice trail angels. It's like they would have a giant piano thing with. Or. What's the. What's the one that you like?

B

Oh, like, along this path?

C

Yeah.

B

Oh.

C

And it was low stress because I could legally camp there. Nobody was going to bother me. There's less pit bulls in Canada, which I am a huge fan of. Sure. That was the worst part of Alabama. Like, the most worried I've ever been has been during the Alabama and Florida dog attacks.

A

I've heard that consistently, both for the ECT and I think also the Pinhoti. I can't. I Don't know.

C

Pinhoti wasn't bad.

A

Okay.

C

Because you do the Pinhoti as part of the ect. Yeah, it was the Alabama road walk before that. Some people will get barked at by a dog. Like, it'll come, like, right outside of the yard, and they'll go, oh, that's a dog attack. And then at one point, I had my trekking poles out, and I was fighting off pit bulls on either side going, this sucks, because in the middle of nowhere, nobody's come to help her.

A

Yeah, there was some hack for dealing with angry dogs. We don't have to actually have to harm the dog. But I think it was a taser. Just, like, the sound of it. You don't tase the dog, but, like, the sound of a taser is enough for them to, like, be like, what the is this?

C

Oh, I'd heard if they bite you, you're supposed to, like, stick your finger up their rear end.

A

I've heard that one.

B

I heard. I don't want to get to that back legs. You're supposed to pick up the aggressive.

C

My life goal is that the pit bull never gets a hold of me.

A

Yeah.

C

Like, if you yell and you step towards them loudly and say, stop, and you hold up your trekking pole, that stops them. But like I said, I've had to fight them off with poles on the inside. And the dog spray was useless.

B

I wonder if dog treats would help.

A

You had dogs like, is that like bear spray or like mace?

C

Yeah, it's a little small thing that you can carry. And the Florida trail was bad that year. It was prior to that sheriff's deputy that allegedly shot all the dogs along the Florida trail.

B

Sorry, what?

C

The story I heard from multiple people was there was some sort of a retired police officer that did the Florida trail a few years after I did and may have shot, like, four or five aggressive dogs. Basically, if the dog didn't back off, he pulled his gun, shot the dog, dumped it in a ditch, and it's Florida, so. And I know people that have done the trail since then, and the places me and others had issues were not an issue. So it's safer to do the Florida trail these days. But nobody did that in, like, you know, southern Montgomery and the scary parts of Alabama.

B

Well, that's a pitch.

A

I'm just having a.

C

Rural areas are kind of are distressing like that. Like, I had one part of the Pinhote where this dog was coming after me, and the owner comes out and is yelling, oh, don't worry, Just kick Him kick him in the face. If he bites you, don't worry. I'll put him down.

B

What?

C

I got so angry. I f there was no cell reception, I found a hill to climb and I spent like two hours up there talking to animal control, making sure she was reported.

B

Oh, my God.

C

Because she owned a farm on either side and she felt like she didn't need to fence in her dogs. They could do whatever they wanted, and they were notorious for coming after people. Kansas was even worse. Somebody who was. There was only like three people on the adt and somebody who was a couple of weeks ahead got mobbed by 11 dogs, ended up on top of a fence, screaming for help, getting bit multiple times. And when they. Once they got him down, turns out that part of Kansas, no rabies requirement and no leash requirement.

B

How do you have a rabies requirement?

C

Different parts of the country. I mean, you go 100 miles east, you don't have safe drinking water. It's very different in different areas. It's one of the kind of cool things about hiking. Different areas.

B

Yeah.

A

I've heard from a lot of experienced backpackers that, like, dogs are the scariest thing that they encounter. I think Pegleg said the same thing.

C

Some of them I know, like when Buck 30 went through Ohio on the Buckeye, he said southern Ohio was horrible, but it was actually way better when I went through. And sometimes it's just like I had on the Pinhoti. At one point, a door opened, and all of a sudden there's this like, torpedo of a pit bull that came. I didn't even get my trekking pole up. Like, fortunately, when it snapped at me, it missed the momentum, carried it past, and then I was able to fight it off on the other side.

B

Who's opening the door with a pit bull ready to attack?

C

It was just some random, not so great house that had a pit bull. And when he got control of it, it had a shock collar on. And so like 15 seconds later, when the dog is back at the house and has no context, the guy's like shocking the crap out of it. Like, it's bad people, not bad dogs.

A

Yeah, of course.

C

This is why I'm not real dog friendly. Like, I had somebody.

B

This is why I'm not real Florida friendly.

C

It happens all over, though. Like Kansas. I mean, I had somebody who was ticked at me at Vermont because they had an off leash dog. And when it got close, I had my trekking pole up and I was telling it to back off, and they're like, how dare you Talk to my baby like that, you know. It's a sweet dog. Yeah. And I get yelled at in YouTube comments all the time. But it's like I have had so many close calls with like dog attacks.

A

Yeah.

C

Bears and whatnot. You know, you got to respect them. But I don't worry about it that much. But rural dogs are a challenge.

A

So this is from Reddit, the gun subreddit. Yes. Most dogs are terrified of the loud crackling sound, bright electrical arc and ozone smell of a taser stomach. I think I've read that just firing the device in the air is enough to spook a stray or charging dog and cause it to retreat. But says it's not always effective. And again, this is, I'm speaking from a standpoint of using it as a warning, not shocking a dog.

B

Do not tase a dog.

C

Well, but also think of the logistics here, right? You're out on the Florida trail, which is like 1300 miles every day. Think about middle of the at, right. Are you going to have that taser out all the time? The dogs are on you fast. Like you hear a snarl, sometimes they almost sneak up on you. That's why I do the trekking poles. Like I had a little thing of, it's kind of like bear spray, but it's gel, it's about this big. And the idea is you can spray the dogs and they'll back off and it's like, you know, peppers. But the problem is when they're on you, you don't have time to like unzip your waste pouch, get it out, take the safety off, point it, spray it. Yeah, so same thing with a taser. So you're going to walk around with a taser the entire time. You're going to go up to some random trail magic and you're the guy who's like carrying the taser with.

A

Yeah. Patent pending taser built into your trekking poles.

B

I was thinking that too. Wow, we are on the same page today.

C

But also keep in mind, when you're road walking in some of these areas, like police can sometimes come to check you out. Like we had the cops called on us four days in a row walking through Kansas.

A

Is having a taser legal?

C

I don't know. Some places I think they just want to like hassle you. Like we got hassled out of one town in a remote area of Kansas. Yeah, most of them were nice, but

A

it'd be funny to get tased for having a taser.

B

Would you tase him back?

A

Yeah, Taser it. That Always ends well.

C

Yeah, Unfortunately, I think they have the work that can get you from a distance, so I don't.

A

Yeah, smart.

B

Where to?

A

That sounds like a fun summary of the ect. And then he did the Lone Star Trail. Rachel added the note. Why?

C

We had some days off at Christmas and I have family in Texas and that's like the one long distance trail in Texas, so why not? It'd be easy. We'd get like four or five days, you know, just cruise. And worked great. Got to see family. Caught Noro in the middle from, we think a bunch of hunters and spent Christmas dealing with Noro and then had to finish.

A

How many times have you had Noro?

C

I think only twice. I've had Gerardia more times because, you know, when I was mountaineering, I would be up high so I wouldn't filter for a while. And then you get a little lazier. A little lazier and then you get caught. Yeah, I think just the two times because I didn't get it on the at.

A

Do you always filter your water now? Like, I feel like.

C

No, I do. Really?

A

I was gonna say that's the story that I've seen most often is like you get a time or two and then you're like, I'm not gonna risk it.

C

Yeah, the Noro was way worse because Gerardia, it sucks. But, you know, once you get the medication, it kind of recovers. Noro, like, it leaves you, like, your stomach's hurting for a while after. And post Covid, Noro was the worst thing that's ever happened to me on trial.

A

Apparently Noro's notorious on the pct. I'm sure you've seen, like my sister sent me, I think like a USA Today article today about PCT hikers getting sick with Noro.

B

Really?

C

Yeah, it's more unusual out there. Like, that's my home trail. So I follow that one more. Just because you don't have the shared surfaces.

A

Right.

C

Like when I did the at, people were warning me, careful using the outhouses in the bottom hundred. Sure.

A

I feel like it's always around Uncle Johnny's. There's always like a big thing.

C

So I was really careful, like not to touch anything. And, you know, I mostly avoided hostels and I was careful.

A

Yeah.

C

But pct, I think it was just like a clump around wood. But see, cdt, I caught it in the middle of nowhere. So it had to have been like an infected water source or like a trail person people were shitting on.

A

Diddy. You watched that? Yeah. You were the one that told me about it.

B

Did you watch it?

A

I did end up watching it.

B

It was good.

A

It's very good. He's a monster. But there were some things I thought that were a little whatever. But the part where he's like, you're

B

just about to defend Diddy.

A

Well, no, the part where they're trying to cast blame on him for the people that died in the stampede, that felt like a stretch to me.

B

Even though he ignored the space limitations of the room.

A

I know, but like they're saying he's a murderer because he over promoted an event that is like, all right, you obviously have an agenda here. And then everything else happened. I'm like, this guy is a demon. I eventually switched my mind, but in the beginning I felt like they were stretching it a little bit. But the scene where he's like trying to go out and like rehab his PR by going out and like meeting people on the streets in New York and then like he gets in his limo and is like hand sanitizing himself. That feels like me at trail days. Just because I'm so worried about getting like. I can kind of relate to that.

C

Yeah. Because it seems like on the at it's every year that.

A

Yeah.

C

They say for sure.

A

And just I can't afford to lose three days to norovirus anymore.

B

So.

A

Yeah, I'm probably. I'm like Howie Mandel now. Did you like the Lone Star Trail? Aside from getting sick?

C

They again, like I met some of the trail crews out there and they're doing the best they can with what they have. It's 91 miles. It's. It's not the best. It was a nice way to spend a couple of days. I wouldn't do it again.

A

Yeah.

C

But you know, it's cheaper than. There's certain trails I've done that I wouldn't do again. And they were expensive. Sure. So you know.

A

Yeah. Apparently there's a new long trail in Texas, the X trail. I don't know like how established it is.

C

It's not. It's sometimes because I, I like these kind of new trail developments. Right. It's basically like a roadwalk that somebody kind of like drew a line. It's like the Hot Spring Trail where some random guy went, oh, here's a perfect. Probably where it goes. It's not on trail. Cuz Texas doesn't have that much private land.

A

Yeah.

C

So it's going to be a lot of just walking highways. And if you're, if you have fenced cattle land. Fenced cattle land. Stealth Camping is hard.

B

Sure.

C

On a bike it's a little easier.

A

I also sense in a state where people love their guns, that's probably a roll of the dice that I don't want to take.

B

I've never heard of this X Trail. You sound like you've heard of it multiple times. Maybe. Do you, being with your thumb on the pulse on this kind of thing, know of any other trails that are up and coming or on the horizon that people should be excited about?

C

There's something like the Bayou Trail down in Mississippi, Louisiana. I was interested in that. There's a bunch of these like lesser known trails. I don't know that they're really new or up and coming. Like the Condor Trail had been around since the 90s. It's way underappreciated and I like doing those. That's why I went out to the Australia trails because everybody was talking about the Teil Aurora. Nobody ever did like, you know, the Bibble mud.

B

So, okay, rephrase then. What are some underrated trails in the US or under known that people should have on their radar?

C

Like I said, I really like the Condor Trail. I think that with the amount of work that goes into like the one in Ohio, I just said what the name Buckeye. Buckeye Trail. Like that one I was really excited for. There was a connection between the AT and the Centennial Trail that would be a Mexico to Canada route that looked really interesting. I had actually tried to do that and then because Arizona hates me weather closes the Grand Canyon every time I try and do the att. So I jumped on the Grand Enchantment Trail. Oh. Which is one of my all time favorites. That's one that should be way more popular. If I ever meet Brett Tucker, I'm buying him all the beer he wants because that was like an amazing trail.

A

Rough, but how difficult is the navigation?

C

And I mean, do you really modern day nav. It's not like the olden days when people would meet on the PCT and they would spend time arguing. I'm going northbound. No, I'm going northbound. Right. We all have phones which show you where you are. It's more just making your way through like blowdowns and things like that. But the nav was fine. I mean it's. He has a really cool map set that includes water data, which is the big thing you're missing because like on the Condor Trail sometimes I had to walk 20 miles and I didn't know if there would be water behind the shot.

B

Keep going. Don't mind me.

A

Yeah.

C

And there he actually has this cool system with a Google spreadsheet. Like you want to see something really well done that has water beta so you know like where to expect water. And he's got the track and he's got all these notes and he compiles data from people who do it every year.

A

That's cool. Yeah, I've heard good things about it.

C

It's got some rough, like you've got to do some hard hauls for like, like five day sections where you don't have an easy bailout. Like one of your resupplies is Klondike, which is like way in the middle of nowhere.

A

Is that just a difficult hitch or.

C

It's like a dirt road that you've got to drive two and a half hours down. Like we dropped a box there.

A

Okay. Damn.

C

Yeah, it's not like these like the at where you have easy access to.

A

Yeah. But tell me about the San Mateo Canyon Wilderness Loop.

C

That was just something local I did like, that's not a set thing. I just figured out how to do a loop in my local mountains that was 70 miles and I could spend three or four days in and it was really cool. And then we had massive fires and you can't do it anymore.

A

What are some of the better, lesser known trails? Like even just like loops that you're making up like that in California? I love California. I've lived in. I lived in San Diego for a couple years. Lived in San Fran. I'd love to explore more backpacking out there, but I'm not a fan as much of like the blowdowns and the bushwhacking. So is are there lesser known, like good single track options that are not.

C

Personally, I think the Condor Trail is worth it. Again, the, the difficulty levels change and especially like Sesapee Wilderness and everything. I mean there's hot springs along the way. It's just the spectacular descent into the valley. You go up into pine trees. Some of the views are just amazing. That is one that is again, highly, highly underrated. And the bad part is the northern part where you're getting into like Big Sur and everything.

B

Yeah.

C

Which is a pretty area in and of itself, so it's worth it. You get those long views of all the like long breaking waves and everything. The Sierra Nevada has so much like. I'm a peak bagger, so I've been to all these like weird corners of the Sierra Nevada and that's what I tend to like send students out at. Because you can do like milestone and Midway Peak, way cooler area. Way better than Whitney. Doesn't have all the crowds and everything. Southern Sierra wilderness. No permit restrictions. Like, it's really easy to get permits. You can have campfires. There's plenty of water, spectacular meadows.

A

Yeah. Are there any, like, less competitive permits you can think of? Like, I remember when I was looking into potentially doing the jmt, like, is a plan B. I know the Ray Lakes loop is a popular one. Yeah, you kind of shrug that one.

C

I. I don't like the really busy areas because I don't like busy campsites. Ray Lakes is pretty, but there's so many people there, it kind of counteracts it. So when I go through there, I will go faster. To me, like the Southern Sierra, so like Kennedy Meadows, north until, like, south until, like, Cottonwood Pass. That area is highly undervalued. And also the western Sierra has all sorts of trailheads all the way up and down that are not used. We did a big loop out of Cherry Lake that was really cool. We also got down around Hetch Hetchy and we did some loops there that was kind of like, make work stuff just to kind of get out and get some longer loops. And that was, like, spectacular and remote. It's still maintained.

A

Yeah. You mentioned not liking camping next to people. I saw on your website that in the span of hiking the triple crown, you think you camped next to people probably fewer than 20 times.

C

Yeah.

A

Is that by design or is that just like. I know obviously you did the PCT during COVID so I'm sure that helped that quite a bit. But, like, are you intentionally separating yourself?

C

I'm weird that I'm really social. I love, like, meeting people. When I was on the at, I'd stop by shelters and meet people. I do not like sleeping in close quarters.

A

Yeah.

C

I would go out of my way not to stay in hostels. If I stayed in a hostel, it was a private room. It's just. It's a quirk with me. So, like, the PCT was great my year because. Yeah, you never had. Other than Southern Washington, there was never any contention. The 80 was actually great because with all the crowds, because that was the post Covid year. If I went a couple of miles past the shelter, most people were stopping at the shelter, so I was mostly alone. And the few times when I was like, yeah, okay, I guess it's fine if you set up next to me because I'd stopped early. I always get the guy who's, like, playing loud music or smoking and flooding my tent or something. I also I lived in a campground off off trail season for three years when we had a van and there's so many like obnoxious people that show up in a campground and like blare music. Yeah so I think I have PTSD around.

A

Sure. Yeah.

C

I like I like quiet

A

Serious backpackers know a reliable navigation app is an absolute necessity. Whether you're taking on a thru hike or heading into the wilderness for a few nights with friends, you need your routing to be dialed in. That's why we're thrilled to introduce today's sponsor, ONX Backcountry. ONX is built for all hikers and backpackers, but if you're the person in your squad who ends up building the route, picking the campsite and fielding the where the heck are we? Questions, you're especially going to love this app. The 3D mapping and LiDAR based topo give you a level of terrain detail most apps can't touch and the pre trip route building tools make planning for your group easy as can be. Their platform is intuitive and dare I say fun to use. One feature I especially enjoy is the Dispersed camping layer available through the Elite plan. It shows you exactly where legal dispersed camping is allowed so you can be confident about where you call it a day. At the end of the day this is awesome. While through hiking, on a short backpacking trip or even on a road trip and holy moly. Discount alert. You can score a 70% discount off a premium plan with Onyx Backcountry with code Trek Trek 70. That's T R E K 70 again that's 70 off a premium plan with code Trek 70. Download Onyx backcountry today and navigate like a pro. I'm reluctant to just move past the San Diego transcript. I know we talked about it a little bit and we I we recently just did like a 12 hour episode on it so we don't have to talk about it more. But it sounded like you liked it. Uh, we were a little bit split on it for a variety of reasons but I'm just quickly for the listeners standpoint, what's your elevator pitch on the sdtct?

C

Uh, it's a winter through hike and we have very few of those. If you want to hike off season in the winter and you have biases against the Florida trail, you got very little options. Yeah, Tucker has something that's interesting going between like the AZT and the pct. There's a few others but Trans County Trail you can do during that time period.

A

Yeah, that was my selling point.

C

I like the desert.

A

Okay.

C

It's got cool desert views. The worst part is when you get busy around San Diego.

A

Yeah, I'm not the biggest desert person, but I enjoyed the eastern half of that way more than the western half.

C

Yeah, right. When you're going through like the Badlands and everything, you've got nice views. The water's stressful, but yeah, like the

A

hiking through those giant washes, I thought. And the navigation was way easier than I was anticipating.

C

I. I've done a good amount of desert hiking. I like it. I would do that desert trail if I just didn't have to like deal with burying buckets and everything.

A

Yeah, this is a mouthful. Trans Sierra backpack. Cottonwood Pass to South Fork.

C

Oh, again, some of these are just like trails that I've done that I had YouTube videos, I added them. You know how the High Sierra Trail goes east to west? It's not one that I particularly want to do because it's busy and everything, but it's similar. You can pick a trailhead. Pick a trailhead. So I went across the southern Sierra and connected into some like Garfield Redwood Grove and some other things.

A

I imagine after doing the ECT you had an itch to do something wild and crazy. You're 20, 22. Were all these shorter hikes basically just, I mean, shorter condor trails over 400 miles. But is this all just like tuning up for the cdt?

C

Yeah, I knew the CDT was going to be really rough. It's, you know, they embrace the brutality thing. So I'm like, well, if I go do the Condor Trail and if I get out of that, like bloody and shredded, I'm going to get on the CDT and no matter how bad it goes, I'm going to go. Well, at least it's on trail. Like having to go through Colorado, but it'll be easy.

A

Did the CDT feel easy relative to what you'd put yourself through?

C

No, because I was one of those weird people that like I did the Black Hills, like I did the 3,000 mile red line that people like to pretend doesn't exist. And Colorado is brutal.

A

Especially like for the monsoons or what specifically?

C

Well, like the San Juan, you're at altitude for like 100 some miles when you go through that southern section. So you're getting like rocked by weather. You wake up and you've got a couple inches of snow. There's a moose huffing at you from like 2ft away. It's just sustained like the early sections. I thought I was rolling, doing pretty good when I got To Colorado. That was exhausting. New Mexico felt like a breath of fresh air by the time I got down there.

A

Yeah. Would you think Colorado was easier had you southbound and done it like in September? Like was most of what made it difficult weather related?

C

I mean, I was southbound, you were southbound.

B

Yeah.

C

That's the only way you can really do it and make it through the San Juans without like being really lucky.

A

Yeah. So what time. So you were you in the San Juans in what, like September?

C

Yeah. So it was like fall season and because. Yeah, because I got hurt down in New Mexico. So I finished the CDT on like December 11th.

A

Oh, wow.

C

So I got chased into Silver City by snowstorms.

A

Yeah.

C

And things.

A

I see that you also prior to the cdt, had a couple of paddles. Is that just cross training? Do I have the timeline right? The Green River Utah paddle and the Suwannee river paddle.

C

Yeah, some of those. Like Suwannee was a Christmas thing and that was supposed to be really easy. And we had the coldest Christmas in 40 years. We had a white Christmas paddling the Suwannee because it got below freezing and a bunch of pipes busted on vacation homes along the Suwannee and was spraying the bushes with like frost. But that was just kind of finding something to do over Christmas. Green river was a cool one because you can rent and you can spend like a week paddling down these really cool canyons. It's like the maze labyrinth area of Utah.

A

Okay. I was going to ask if that was the Green river in Utah. It says Utah. Nevermind.

C

Yeah, so some of those were things we wanted to do. It's like Buckskin Gulch. Paria.

A

Yeah.

C

Which I don't know if I remembered

A

to add that I don't have it here.

C

But see, that's a short one. It's like, what do you add?

B

Yeah.

A

So I have the CDC in both 22 and 23. Did you do it twice or was it recleaning up miles?

C

No, I had. What happened is I got down to Colorado and I caught Covid. So I was actually pushing hard because the weather window is very tight between Glacier and the San Juans and I was doing great. And I got up to Berthoud Pass at Winter park and I started to have a tickle in my throat and I had Covid that kicked the ever living crap out of me. Was stuck. Tried to stay at the 12,000 foot pass. Couldn't. Went into Winter park after a 700 hotel bill. Tried to go back to the pass. 10 days later I Was able to

A

like, how long were you there to rack up a 700.

C

That was like three or four days.

A

Okay.

C

Like it was the cheapest hotel we could find. It's Colorado. And after 10 days, I was able to continue. And all of a sudden Instead of doing 20 something, I'm able to do 15 something. But I'm like, I'm still in my window. I'm finishing this if it's kills me. Weather started to turn, continued and then it was the noro that took me out and I got noro. I went in town to clean up. I got a ride back out to trail, tried to continue for three days. And I was having trouble getting like water source to water source because I was. I was wrecked for like three months after that.

A

Yeah.

C

So, yeah, I went back the following year. Backed up so I could do like the high routes and things rather than just like start right where I'd stopped.

A

Yeah.

B

Talk about. And correct me if we talked about this in entirety while I went to the bathroom. I don't think we have. But animal encounters.

C

Yeah.

B

Have you had any good ones? Any scary ones? Any fun fuzzy ones? Like what are, what are your go to animal stories?

C

Usually when somebody is saying, oh, aren't you afraid of bears? One time when I was with a group in the Sierra Nevada, I was walking along talking to the leader and. And heard a noise and looked left and it was baby bear. Looked right and it was mother bear.

B

Oh, no.

C

Wasn't aggressive. Like we backed off. Like we backed off and we waited about 45 minutes for her to wander off, but then we ended up thinking we were clear and she ended up passing us again. Bears, like, they're giant raccoons. People think bear and they think that DiCaprio movie where he was like fist fighting with the grizzly bear. The revenant.

B

The revenant.

C

And that's not it. Like they're food motivated raccoons.

B

Funny aside about the Revenant. My brother, I think got it as a DVD for Christmas one year. It's got snow all over the front. You know, my mom wanted to watch it that night because she was like, oh, snow and it's a Christmas movie. Yeah. She really want. We're like, all right, mom, let's watch the Revenant. So we watched the Revenant on Christmas one year and she realized it wasn't a Christmas movie. But I feel like you do need like a number of bear encounters to get the vibe that they are raccoons. Because someone who's going into the Backcountry to hike that has not experienced bears yet typically faces some level of fear apprehension around it. So to get to the their giant raccoons mindset, you must have a number of experiences where that's proved the opposite for you.

C

Well, I mean, I cut my teeth in the Sierra Nevada backpacking. So bears were around and like the first time you're like, oh my God. But when it's just like rooting around over here, like, they're really cool to see.

B

Yeah.

C

There is a thing where you come around a corner and like 200ft off, there's a bear bigger than you, like staring at you and you're staring at him and you're kind of like, oh, I'm not top of the food chain. Yeah, but they're just cool to watch. Like the most common encounter. I say this in the wilderness class. I have a when animals quite possibly attack. Where we address this is, you know, the group's coming around the corner, the bears coming around the corner. They both see each other, poop themselves and run the opposite direction. Like that's the most common interaction. Unless you get to the busy areas, like, you know, the smokies.

B

As someone who's cut their teeth in the Sierra, what about mountain lions?

C

They're rare. Like, I have seen three, and that included getting stalked down a ridge by one after dark when I was solo, a friend of mine.

B

That's rare.

C

With all the hours, all the times I've been out, I have seen three mountain lions like that. I would call that rare with that mountain.

B

Lionel, tell me about when they stalked you, because that sounds. You're making it sound a lot calmer than it.

C

Well, it was kind of stressful at the time. A friend of mine was at like friendsgiving and got a call from me saying hi. So I'm staring at a mountain lion like 20ft away. FYI, if it sounds like I'm being mauled to death, my body's out here. Now I'm going to stay on the phone with you. And she's explaining to the friends that, yeah, it's Matt. Yeah, he's got a mountain lion staring at him.

B

And you said it was dark.

C

Yeah. So there's a mountain range out there. Rabbit and villager. It's like a big butt kicker. 20 mile, like 8,000 foot hike or something. Went and did them. I was coming down and it was getting dark. Happens a lot if you're pushing to the peak. So it was getting dark, getting dark. And then after dark, I'm with my headlamp I'm solo, which is always a little unnerving. But it's just go down this ridge and then I see these eyes up ahead. And you see eyes. Like, I've run into cows at night. Cows look like a demon. I just about crapped myself one time because I came around the corner and was face to face with a cow. And with like the big eyes, deer look like some evil creature. So, okay, I see the eyes and I'm like, oh, it's probably like a fox or something. And then I could see it go between bushes and I could see that it was feline and it was big. And I'm like, oh, that's not good. And I'm like, okay, what do they say to do? What do the rangers say to do? Get big. So I'm like, up and I'm waving my hands. That's not working. And then it's like, okay, throw a rock near it. So I grab a rock and I throw it near the mountain lion, and its eyes snap to the rock and snap back to me. And I'm like, oh, that's creepy. This isn't good. So I call my friend and eventually, like, I'm standing it down, it's not getting any closer, but it's not leaving. I managed to, like, inch my way around the ridge and go down, and after about a quarter of a mile, it disappears. So now I'm in the dark. But you actually go down into an area where you can't see the highway or anything. And my mind's, like playing all sorts of tricks on me because now I've lost cell reception and everything. And it's like, what if his den is down there? And he's like, you don't go pick up the takeout. You wait till the takeout arrives and then you jump. And it was the weirdest night because I finally get to the car and I'm like, I lived. I'm getting the heck home. Had like a two hour drive. I was so tired. I pull over at one of these rest stops, fall asleep just in the front, wake up, and there's some guy with his head cocked, like, directly in front of me. My car at the rest area. I'm like, that's creepy. I pull out to the other edge, I pull back in, fall back asleep. I wake up and he's in front of me again. And I'm like, axe murderer time. So I get on the freeway and I'm like, trying to drive home. Then I get pulled over because apparently I'm driving Erratically. And so the police officer thinks I'm like drunk in the middle of the night. I'm like mountain lion. There was an axe murder.

B

Murder. Ooh.

C

When I got home I was so dead.

B

But I imagine sleep is good at that point.

C

I, I made it inside, closed the door and I slept on the ground. Cuz I wouldn't even like I didn't have any energy to shower.

A

Was any of your fatigue post mountain lion due to like the adrenaline of the fear of the situation? Because I had one kind of spicy mountain lion encounter and like for the next probably hour after that until we got to the campsite, like I was on high alert. Like my adrenaline was spiked. And then I slept harder than I've ever slept in my entire life. I'm wondering if that's what happened here.

C

Yeah, I mean the weird thing there is it wasn't like I was on a busy trail or anything. Like I was the only person out in that desert. And because of how it works, you drop off this ridge where you can at least see traffic. So you're like, okay, I can see people to where you're kind of in a depression where you can't see anything. Like it's hard to even nav out to where the cars are. And so it's after dark. It's completely like, you know, dark. There's nothing out there. I think I was singing the Gilligan's island theme repeatedly because that was the only song I could think of. Just so it would know I'm human. Yeah, yeah. That one was kind of stressful.

B

What happened in the other two?

C

One of them was when I was a teenager and I was mountain biking and there was actually a mother that had been separated from the babies. So we come up on this guy that had this little like kitty thing trailing after him. And me being the brilliant like high minded person I am, I'm like, is that yours? He looks at us with this oh shit look and goes like. And we can hear mom like crashing around in the bushes. The rangers were in the area though, and it wasn't an issue. They just didn't want us to like pick up the mountain lion babies. But animals aren't like, you know the shark and Jaws two that went like two states away to attack people? No, animals don't generally. Great movie. You should watch it. High value animals don't generally do that. Right. So if they're not threatened, if you're respectful. Like the other time I was just riding my bike along and the mountain lion came out in Front of me casually looked over, made eye contact, and just trotted off. I mean, they're around. I've probably had 20 of them looking at me at various times, but they hide.

A

Yeah.

C

Yeah.

A

I think the saying is, for every mountain lion you've seen, there's. I Forget the number 100 that you haven't like. Yeah, they don't make themselves.

C

I will bet you money if I'm ever killed by an animal, it's going to be a rural dog. Than instead of, like a bare mountain.

A

Yeah, statistically, that sounds right. In your triple Crown statistics blog post, you had just, like, a minor footnote about, like, all the hellacious weather that you'd hike through, and you highlighted the hurricane being the worst, but you just casually dropped in that you hiked in. An earthquake?

C

Yeah. Whitney Portal got closed because of an earthquake. When we were there, we heard the rock fall and somebody had been sitting and noticed it was an earthquake. But it's not like you have the building moving, so you don't really hear it.

A

Okay.

C

Because I've been out before. But, yeah, it just seemed like I was lucky. Like, at one point, we had a hurricane hit us directly on the at. That was fun because everything was flooding. But at one point before that, there were actually, like, three tropical storms, and the area they were all intersecting was right where we are. It's like, that's not fair. In Australia, there was a cyclone that was coming across the north, and it actually swung around and hit me in a weakened form. So, yes, occasionally I feel like I've got a target on my back. I told you, Florida had the coldest Christmas in, like, 40 years when I was there.

A

Yeah.

C

It was the highest water year in like, 15 or 30 years when I did the Florida trail.

A

Yeah.

C

It's all part of the fun.

A

Yeah.

B

How do you keep it fun when you keep doing stuff like this and you keep having. I'm not saying you don't have good experiences, but you've had a lot of trying ones and you've gone at a rapid pace for a long time. How do you maintain that? Because there's always, like, at the end of the at or at the end of the pct, there's a part where I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of ready for a nice bed.

C

You know, it's actually one of those things I'm paranoid about because, like, I've been out a lot the last however many years, and I'm always afraid. Like, I've. I've met people who have kind of Fallen out of love with this. Like, they really enjoy doing the pct or they did really enjoy doing these, and then they kind of went back to a more normal life. And I don't really know what I'd do if I had to do that. I just. I really enjoy being out. Like, when I get to the monument at the end, I take my, like, requisite picture because I need to. But the cool part for me is that middle part. You've been on trail for a couple of weeks and you've got, like, months to go, and I'm just existing. Like, that's what I'm always chasing. This is why I like the longer trails, because you get that for longer. So you have bad experiences in the middle. But I mean, sometimes you're having, like, the worst day ever, everything's going wrong, you're feeling sick again, et cetera. And then you come over a rise and the storm clears and there's a rainbow. The coolest experiences I've had have just been random ones that happened out there. And I inherently like being out and just moving, so I take a joy in that. So when it's bad, I mean, I have had plenty of bad days, but once I get to the tent, as long as I'm, like, off by myself, I have a nice time in the tent and I wake up the next morning. Except when I had fire ants in the tent that one time. That was not a good morning. We're in Florida again.

B

Ah, yes, our favorite state.

C

I was out of the flooding, but so were the ants.

A

Did you get mauled?

C

I woke up getting bit by fire ants, but I couldn't move anywhere because of where I was. So I just had to kind of, like, kill as many as I could, zip up the tent as much as possible, get in the sleeping bag and go back to sleep.

B

That's.

C

I mean, sometimes there's something like you just can't do anything. So years ago, I've done some caving. Also very, very little because my knee issues due to the fall. So we're outside of this cave. It's the end of this trip. We've done a bunch of cool stuff. One o' clock in the morning, I am woke up by some slightly panicked screaming.

B

Ah. Ah.

C

Matt, it's biting me. It's biting me. Dead sleep, creepy trailhead. I'm zipped up in a sleeping bag and I'm like, weird nightmare. Like, what the heck's going on? Make it over to my friend. He's not screaming, and he's got, like, a Little bit of blood right here. And we're like, what the heck happened? He's like, I woke up out of a dead sleep and it was like something was biting me. And then we're like trying to figure out what's going on. And we're all like dead asleep, tired. We've been doing this trip and then we hear a noise. And we like look over and there's like a skunk over there. It backs off with the light. We look over there and there's like another one. Like, I thought I was gonna have to like combat drag him to get out of there. And then so they back off as long as the lights are on them. So we're like sitting there kind of arounded, you know, like apes, strong together. And then so we're cleaning him up and then all of a sudden, like the cutest little baby skunk you've ever seen hops up on the foot of his sleeping bag. My friend gives a very manly flings a gallon jug of water at the baby skunk, which just kind of goes like. And like trots off. We didn't get sprayed.

A

Do can baby skunks spray? When do they get that ability?

C

Well, there were adults also.

A

Yeah, sure.

C

At the time we were just wondering, like, what the heck is going on? And does he have like face rabies? And us being modern people, we did the only logical thing, which is we stood around on rocks till we got one bar and then we started googling. Bit by a skunk in a face by a skunk. What do we do? And what we found was you need to get into an emergency room, but you're good for like 24 hours before it's gonna kill you. So we dragged our stuff like 100ft away and went back to sleep. And it was fine. Nobody got bit by a skunk after that. That night.

B

Would you rather get bit by a skunk or sprayed by a skunk? I was solid on the bit before he mentioned the rabies.

C

And then all I would rather be bit. The rabies shot sucked. But that smell. Yeah, it was a nine and a half hour drive home. I would have been really sad if I would have had to tie my friend to the top of the jeep to get home.

B

Because, yeah, you just don't bring him home.

A

And what do you. I've heard, is it like tomato?

B

Tomato?

A

Yeah, like, how long does it take to get rid of that smell?

C

A friend of mine had to do that to her dog and it didn't like get rid of it. The dog was really sad because it kept coming up and trying to be a good dog and she didn't want to like interact with it. So. No, that would have been bad. The bite was better. My brother, not good for him once,

B

but I don't remember. I don't remember how it smelled. I just remember he was, I think I've said this before, he was in the garage and he thought it was our cat under my dad's car. So he was reaching his arm under to try to get it and pet it. It was a skunk. Stupid idea, but yeah, I don't remember the smell.

C

They're really cute. I know. I've seen people who have them as pets.

B

I. There was a school fair once at my college where they had like random animals and they had one that had its stink bladder removed or whatever they call it. And so I held it and it was really soft and adorable.

C

Yeah, if you look at YouTube for the baby ones, they like stomp aggressively at you and it's like the cutest thing.

B

Baby anythings are cute.

A

And apparently baby skunks can spray. Their spray is less potent, lower in volume, and they lack the pinpoint accuracy. But they can still fuck you up apparently.

C

So I don't know how they didn't because like I said, he flung a gallon jug at it.

B

Yeah.

C

And also the parents. So what we figured out is there was probably a family of skunks that was going by because like his flip flops had been chewed on and he was cowboy camping. Started to wake up. Mom went into defense mode, latched on here instead of spraying or doing anything else. That was why they were kind of scattered and they kept trying to get back together. Except there was us in the middle.

B

Have we considered she was just giving him a little goodnight kiss?

C

I used to have that on my blog and I had a picture of somebody kissing a skunk. Cause when we got him to the emergency room, they kept breaking up laughing when we said what had happened. Yeah, but it's not on my blog anymore because some French copyright troll tried to sue us over it.

B

For say you got kissed by a skunk?

C

No, for using a like stock image of a baby skunk on a non monetized blog. Just telling about this story. Fascinating, but yeah, they're cute.

B

Oh my God, stop. I won't.

A

Yeah, it looks like a little chipmunk.

B

I love him. I love baby animals.

A

We could obviously do a full episode on the American Discovery Trail and we have whatever the Brianna Desantis episode number is, but yeah, give us your Relative highlights and lowlights from that. And I know you still have more to do.

C

Yeah, because I ended up injured. So despite everything, I ended up hiking with plantar fasciitis for like 600 miles, getting worse and worse, and finally had to accept. So after I get back from Alaska, I'm doing Moab over, but I've done the red line from Delaware to Moab. And it just seemed like, okay, I'd done the Triple Crown. Like, I'd already accomplished way more than I'd ever thought. Like, I just wanted to do the PCT here. I've done all these and I've done like the at 5000 mile superset. So, okay, like, logically, east, west, that seems like it would be cool. And then you look at it and it's only like 3,000 miles east, west, driving, doing the direct route. So that was the appeal. I knew there was going to be a lot of stealth camping. I knew that would be stressful. I also knew, like from the Florida trail that a lot of the road and like the international it that a lot of the road walking had actually been pretty memorable. Like, I met a lot of people. There's something cool about walking, like in and through cities. Like everybody told me, East St. Louis, we were going to get killed. We got fist bumps from some nice locals and things like that. You know, it's just a different feel when you're driving through a place. You don't get as much of a feel. Yeah, you see the scenery, but you don't take it in as much. And it connects so many different things. Things like you get to see the CNO, the canal path out of D.C. i didn't get to go to D.C. as like a field trip. My partner did, but I never did. So I got to actually like walk through D.C. and that was a really cool thing on foot.

A

Does the route go through DC or is this a side trail or.

C

It. It goes through D.C. they used to route it through the main mall. They have some way that avoids that, but we went through them all.

A

So I imagine it's a psychological adjustment because a lot of what you're describing is like very remote backcountry like the Condor Trail, where you're dealing with blowdowns. Now you're hik on roads mostly.

C

Yeah, I think the stats are it's like two thirds road, but a lot of it, it's more remote. Not all of it is, but most of the time the roads were pretty doable. There were some bad spots out here. Woodland park to Manitou springs, there's like 42, which is this windy road. I had to walk that. That was kind of terrifying because there were high speed cars like shooting around corners and things like that. I think I got them to reroute that section. But like the Florida trail kind of changed my opinion of a lot of that stuff because the road walks had actually been fairly pleasant up in Canada. A lot of the road walks were really memorable. Like, was it as good as hiking through the Sierra, being up going to Meek Cove? No. But again, I met a lot of really cool people. I got to see cool scenery. And there's something cool about doing something that people think so unreasonable. Like hiking across Kansas. Yeah. I mean people think it's crazy like hiking Mexico to Kansas. So then when you talk about going there, I literally got to my parents out here on foot starting at the Atlantic Ocean. That's a cool thing that has a bunch of appeal. And it seemed like the logical thing to do after the Triple Crown because I'd done, you know, three times across here, once in a canoe.

A

Gotta fill in your map for sure.

C

And it hits a bunch of like smaller trails. Like it kind of stitches them together. So you're on the Buckeye for a while. You're on like various rail trails. And that was just. I liked getting to see all the cool stuff.

A

I think probably my last question about ADT is you just have a little footnote that there's a decent chasm between the ADT data and the Hiking America data. I know this is probably in the weeds, but if anyone's planning to hike the American Discovery Trail, what's the difference between the two?

C

There's two different map sets. There's one maintained by the organization and the organization folks are awesome. That's the, the coordinators, that's people who like get you water going across Utah, stuff like that. There is another guy who maintains a private data set called Hiking America which you get access to a Gaia map set and he takes hiker data. So you know how like far out you got comments and everything. You don't have that but. Oh, Matt found out that there was a water source here. If you go off into these bushes. Oh, Matt stealth camped here illegally. The official organization isn't going to show where you're legally stealth camped. Hiking America did.

B

Got it. Is that a helpful supplement or is it like distracting and misleading and confusing to have two different.

C

I primarily use the Hiking America data. I had both because I bought both when I was looking into it because there just wasn't that much information there. Of the two, most people seem like they were using the Hiking America data just because when you're walking through rural U.S. like, you want to know where you're going to be able to to camp.

B

Right.

C

Like, that's the most stressful thing. When I got out back to the east coast last year, it's like, okay, I'm on the Vermont Long Trail. Trail goes up, trail goes down boulders. But I can camp anywhere where I can find open ground, and I'm good at finding that. But if you're in farmland and the sun's going down and you're getting eyed from, like, you know, various farm properties and things, and you don't know when you're going to be able to pull off. So having some amount of information was highly useful.

A

Are you using different footwear for something like this? Like, I imagine I'd want more cushion. I'm less concerned with the tread on the shoe. Like, how are you just deciding what you're using for your footwear?

C

I have horrible feet. I probably shouldn't be hiking. I got bad knees. You know, I had, like, hip flexor issues. My shoes are problematic. I wear size 14 wide. Small children can hide in them when they're inside the 14 wide.

B

Well, show me the 14 wide. Hold her up.

A

A New Balance.

C

Nice. Yeah. So I was. Yeah. Oh, you show it next to, like, my partner's foot and she's like, you

A

could probably fit two of Chance's feet in that shoe.

B

Wow.

C

Yeah.

A

Like, not exaggerating.

B

That's amazing.

C

And you know how like, a pound on your foot is like five or five? Yeah, yeah. So, like, I started out the PCT and I was wearing approach shoes because that's what I was using for, like, the JMT and everything, and that didn't work. I found Ultras Altras were great, like the Lone Peaks. But was that the old 2.5 model where you could actually get like 700 miles on it and then all of a sudden, like, I'm on newer Lone Peaks and they fall apart in like 200 miles for me. Altra stopped taking my warranty claims after that. I switched to the Olympus, trying the same thing, same issue, tried topos as drop in. That didn't work. New Balances were the only one. I bought like seven or eight different shoes that the Internet told me were wide, including some that were completely wrong. Like Brooks Cascadia. Won't even, like, fit my foot in them.

B

Yeah.

C

And New Balance were what worked.

B

I think Gummy Bear hiked in New Balance because he had big, wide feet, too.

A

Yeah. I did the majority of the AT and New Balances because this was before, like, wide shoes for through hiking was even a thing. And they weren't even hiking shoes. They were just like the dad New Balances. And to your point, I think they're made for, like, bigger older guys that have. They just want comfortable footwear.

C

Well, like, this is their hiking shoe. This is the heroes. And they actually. The one that's nice.

A

It's got the.

C

Yeah. So it needs Vibram on the bottom. The previous one I did had less foam here, and so that would be where it wore out. I had to push a pair to 700 miles, and I could feel every little rock going through Ohio as a result. But they hold together way longer than, like, the ultras or anything else. And, like, when I did the PCT and particularly the AT, it was during the post Covid shortage. And size 1415 is special. Like, they don't have that many. So, like, when we were doing the whites, I couldn't find shoes in my size. I did the whites in, like, some keens that just killed my feet. And we had people calling, calling, like, nationwide, trying to find, like, shoes that would fit me. So now I'm paranoid. So I think we bought $1400 of shoes before I started the ADT because I'm like, I'm not ending up in Kansas without any sort of footwear.

B

Yeah.

C

I am so jealous of, like, the barefoot hiker guys.

A

And what's the model of that shoe?

C

This is the Hero V9.

A

Okay.

C

There's always, like, 50 different models, and you can never get them all right. But they work well for me, and they hold up really well.

A

Nice.

C

And like, the larapenta that I just finished a couple weeks ago, supposedly shred shoes, and they were fine.

A

Okay, I'm looking at 2025. Now. Of these three trails, which one should we talk about? I've got the Robinson Lake Loop, the Kibby Cherry Lake Loop, the Big Secchi Tooth Abort, Valhalla to Baxter. I know that's some qualifiers, but so

C

I got really sick in 2025. So I went from doing the Yukon to being in the hospital to being on prednisone and unable to do anything for several months.

A

What happened?

C

I had something. So one day I was out hiking. I was trying to rehab from the plantar fasciitis that I'd gotten at the end of the season. Thought everything was good. And then I had a stomachache, and then I thought I had food Poisoning. And then I was in so much pain, I had to be taken to the ER and like, injected with like, strong opioids. And then I had to keep going back to the er and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. And then they're like doing scans of my gut. They can't figure out what's going wrong. With, like, colorectal cancer rates these days. I'm like, terrified. Eventually they start having to, like, do surgery. Like, they're. None of the scans show anything. We're going to go in laparoscopically, see if we can see anything, because we can't figure out what's going wrong. That's a bad state to be in. And what they figured out is there is a ligament that impinges a vein or artery. And so my organs weren't getting perfused enough. And the end result was basically hollow, stabbing, unending pain that I couldn't manage. Like, I went to the ER multiple times at 3 o' clock in the morning because I was just like overwhelmed. Wow. Finally they figured that out. I ended up at Scripps down in La Jolla. They fixed it. Then I had an immuno complication that required. That was back into the er. So I was like three weeks in the hospital or something like that. That ended up being under control. But then I got put on prednisone for a couple of months. Prednisone is a nightmare. Couldn't sleep. Made my tinnitus horrible. Like it was a nightmare. And it just wasted away all my muscles and everything really.

B

They give it to me when my asthma is really bad.

C

Mass amounts. Like, you get a moon face. Yeah. Everything faded when I went out to hike. After I was finally cleared, I made it like a mile and a half with breaks. And so I fought my way back hard. Like when I got cleared and I wasn't gonna do any ligament damage. Cause you're in danger of like messing up tendons or something while you're on it. I basically was going out as much as I could. We were at a place down in Warner Springs. So I was out on the PCT in that stretch. And then I ended up going out in the Sierra. That worked. So I did the only logical thing. It's like, I'm not actively hospitalized. I'm going to go out and hike. So I did. I went. I flew out east and I did the Vermont Long Trail, the Benton Mackay, the Bartram Trail, and the Foothill in a loop before that. My last prep trip was supposed to be big seci loop, big loop in the Sierra Nevada. Got through the harder part. I was going to meet somebody to do some peaks up there. Was eating jelly beans and all of a sudden there is a tooth in my jelly beans. And I'm like, they sold me jelly beans with a. Oh, no. So it turned out I had a crown that I'd forgotten about. Turned out the tooth had rotted away. I found this out in the worst possible place because to bail out, to be able to figure out what was going on, I had to go over Baxter Pass, which is the worst pass in the Sierra. Overgrown stinging nettles, whole thing. And then they couldn't fix it. So we did the only logical thing. They couldn't fix it till the following week. So we went back up, climbed the peak, brought me back down. And I had to have the tooth extracted in like eight pieces. So I had like blinding pain. But we don't have a permanent place in Southern California and it was supposed to improve. So I actually went out to Vermont while I actually had the hole with all the pain. So I had to abort out of the big secchi. But it worked.

B

What, what do you do for health insurance?

C

I have it through my partner.

A

That's.

C

That's how we make it work.

B

Can you do that if you're not married?

C

Yeah. Are you married paperwork wise?

B

Yeah. Okay.

A

I knew it. Why are you reluctant to say that you're married?

C

Just personal stuff. I know people that fixate on, like, the big wedding and everything. We wanted to be together. We had the life we wanted, so

A

that was the priority. That's valid.

C

But yeah, the only way this lifestyle works because, like, our YouTube channel's small. Like, we make enough to supplement. She has a job that she loves in one of the best districts, I think, in the US So we can't really get out of Orange county, but she has enough benefits and we've minimized everything down.

B

Well, I was thinking it when you were. I was like, I wonder how he does the health insurance part. Because he said that she was just his partner and so he couldn't be on hers. And then I was like, I bet he's married to her.

C

Yeah. We tried to do a domestic partnership, but they don't let you. No, you have to be over 65 or the same gender.

A

Turns out, I think different states and like, different insurance companies even will make that easier or harder.

C

But no, I get people who ask, like, how I managed to be out all the time and the health insurance would sink it.

B

Yeah.

C

Because like, Cobra, I was on Cobra initially during that summer where I was off work. And it was horrendously expensive for, you know, somebody who's healthy and young and God help you if you actually have to use it.

A

Yeah. This is a repeat of Traunce's question, but I think with added context, I'm curious to get your take on it is dealing with all these injuries and ailments and everything like that. Does the idea of quitting this stuff or at least putting the pause button on it to just like relax and let your body recoup a little bit, does that ever enter the equation?

C

Well, like, I was forced to be off trail last summer, honestly, like, I, I've had long term, like, mental health, depression, anxiety issues. I am, I feel way better on trail. The sense of progress, the sense of exercise. I mean, being out on the PCT where you wake up, you look at a mountain way over there and you hike to it, like that just felt good. I enjoy existing out there. So when people say, oh, why don't you like, take time off? That doesn't seem like an improvement. I mean, I worked in a cubicle for 20 years. I don't look back at the cubicle and go, that's what I really want to be doing. I have thought though, like, with how bad the CDT got with like the COVID Nora, like, if I'd known when I left glacier it was going to get that bad, would I have gone out? And I always think that at the start of a trail when you don't know how bad it's going to get, I'm apparently kind of dumb and like, stubborn.

A

So masochistic.

C

Yeah.

A

So do you, do you struggle between adventures or is the stint brief enough that you know, like, the next one's right around the corner?

C

I do struggle and I find it kind of interesting because people talk about post trail depression, but it's a much bigger thing. Like if you're going back to all your, like, struggles and anchors and good things and all that. Like, I generally know that I'm going out again in three months. I just, I don't sit still. Well, I'm at my happiest when I'm moving. Like, I'm pretty high energy now. Even though I came like off of Australia and I've been driving for days and all that. As long as I've got inertia behind me, I tend to do better.

A

Does something like having a home base and knocking out day hikes, does that scratch the itch for you or do you need, like, A bigger, longer adventure.

C

It doesn't like, that was one of the things I wasn't prepared for when I did the pct. I used to love doing, like, short backpacks in the Sierra. Now I'll go do them, but I basically tell my partner, like, plan whatever you want and I'll go. Because I'm like, I did this, doing this. Like, that's not the same. So I'm kind of interested. Like, some of the trails I've done, it's like, okay, is this long enough where I can lose myself? Like, I went up to Vermont, and however long the Vermont long trail is, is that going to be long enough?

A

Yeah.

C

And it was. Yeah. I still prefer the really long ones.

A

Yeah.

C

Because it was so much simpler leaving Delaware and knowing, okay, get to the Pacific Ocean. Until then, just, like, keep walking.

A

Do you have a threshold in terms of, like, planning adventures where you feel like the itch is going to get scratched, like, a number of miles or days or, like, however you want to quantify it?

C

I honestly have just found that I enjoy, like, the existing out on trail. Like, I like waking up on trail, doing my videos, drinking my coffee in the sleeping bag, walking all day, listening to books, stuff like that, watching the sun go down. So that's the state I'm really chasing. Like, even when I got to the end of the, like, Triple Crown, I'm like, down in Mexico. Mexico on the cdt. Like, I wasn't really excited screaming, like, I took pictures because you want to have, like, a reasonable picture. Mentally, I was already onto the next thing. I was already planning, like, Delaware and the ADT and stuff like that. So I seem to just enjoy that part. And I hope I don't lose that spark because it keeps me healthier and happier. This off season was actually the easiest for me. And the thing I figured out is I just needed to be exhaustingly busy. Yeah, I went to a person because I have bad knee issues. So I went to a trainer for three days a week. Jen teaches yoga through Core Power. So I started going to some of those classes. Plus, I was teaching the wilderness class and I was teaching. Taking ukulele lessons. And I was planning my butt off because I had to plan Australia, UConn and the ADT finish. So I feel like I didn't have a chance to catch my breath. Happiest off season I've had.

A

Yeah.

C

Nice. Also, it was post recovery, so maybe the whole, like, last year scare thing made it easier, but.

A

Yeah. So it doesn't sound like you're going to be slowing down anytime soon.

C

No, I mean, when I look at stuff, I mean, I feel like people kind of ignore the fact we all have such limited time. That's what drove me out on trail. Like I had friends who, when I retire, I'm going to do the Pete ct. When I retire, I'm going to do this. And they weren't making it to those milestones. They passed away, they got sick. We don't know how much time we have. My list of things I want to do, it's not like I had a list of 10 things and now I'm through seven of them. Like, I keep finding new things. Like, I was just looking at what I'm going to do next year after the European stuff and I'm like, well, that time of year, can I go to Scotland? Can I do this? And so many things share the main season. If I'm doing this another 30 years, I'm still going to get ripped apart by a dog in the middle of nowhere. Having things I wish I had done. So stopping, like, if I had to because it was like survival need to make money, work at McDonald's or go back to it or something.

A

Yeah.

C

I mean, the evolution thing is really interesting and like, part of me would go work for that part, but yeah, there's too much stuff to do and not enough time.

A

Okay, so this year, based on what we've got here, is this your first cross continental or different continents international.

C

Yeah, I mean technically I was in.

A

That's what's going to say is Canada didn't want to.

C

Yeah, I've been in Canada. I've been down in Mexico a couple of times for peaks and the diving stuff is like Indonesia and a bunch of other stuff. Stuff. So like I have a volcano and a couple other things out in like Indonesia. But this was the biggest international thing.

A

Yeah, yeah. So why the Bibbulman Track for a US based hiker is typically not the first one that someone's going to go for.

C

People haven't heard of it and that's what struck me as interesting. It's like 580 miles. That's cool. I kept having people that kept getting all worked up about the Tay Aurora and yet people I know that have done it don't exactly speak super highly of it. Like one of the islands is good, but like it's discontinuous, the roads and everything.

B

Yeah.

C

And I'm like, but there's a big trail down in Australia. Nobody like talks about that. And they'd all call me an idiot. And say everything in Australia wants to kill you. And so yeah, every time somebody would start talking about the ta, I'd think about that. And then I was in the recovery thing last year. I was trying to plan out spring because we knew we were canoeing the Yukon. That was the tent pole. I needed something to keep me busy when the class ended in March until June started. June, because it's cheaper to be on trail than to be in civilization, having to find stuff. Yeah. And I was going to do another Brett Tucker trail, muggy on rim or something like that. And I'm like, you know, don't know how much time I have left. I've been wanting to do this Australia thing. What if I just said screw it and manage that? And so I, you know, using like Patreon money, et cetera, it's like I could cover the over cost, make it work in budget, and then in typical fashion made the plan to go out there. And I'm like, well, I can spare a little more time. I can probably do the Cape to Cape too. And then we looked at it more and we fit in the Larapenta also. And then the Cape to Cape went from southbound to a Yo, yo.

A

Is that, Are those the three is like the triple crown of Australian trails. I know that.

C

No, I mean they call the triple crown of everything. Like they have that triple crown on the at. That's like three random bumps in.

B

Yeah, the Virginia ones.

C

Yeah. No, they have a bunch of trails. What I did is I knew I wanted to do the bib. I looked at all the long distance trails in Australia and I tried to figure out, is there a way to section them up. Most of them are like Tasmania and out east. So I figured if I wanted to do the bib, what else could I fit? Cape to Cape, same area that kind of cleaned out that Perth section. Lara Pinta was off in the middle in like the center of the outback. And I'm like, that would be cool and different. It's only like flying from, you know, Los Angeles out to Denver to hike. It's no big deal.

A

So pound for pound, which of these three Australian trails do you think is the best bang for the buck?

C

The bib.

A

Yeah.

C

Yeah. Because it's built on the 80 model, so it has shelters and things which I didn't really care for. But it had water and it's just, it's a nice hike. And it goes from like coastal where you're looking at all these waves. You got the wind like coming in from Antarctica. So you Got like really cool weather coming. You go into forests that are kind of like the Everglades. Then you go into like the deeper forests and it just, it changed. It was cool. It just kind of went. It wasn't super difficult. Like, I love the northern part of Vermont on the long trail. I love like the New Hampshire section of the at, but like, that's knee punishing. This I could roll through. I had 20 some mile days and they were great. Plus met a bunch of people. It was neat getting into a new area, figuring out how all that worked.

B

How many snakes did you see?

C

Not as much as I thought. Like, I saw probably two dozen or so. Most of them on the southern end of the day.

B

24.

C

Yeah, but they just slither off. I. I run into like four or five rattlesnakes every year up here.

B

I know, right?

C

Doing enough miles and they're angry, they're hissing, they're right there, you know, they can do. Damn.

B

Sometimes you say everything so nonchalantly. You're like, no, not the many. I'm like, okay, what two? Like, yeah, I get upset about things,

C

but I'm like, you remember when they made skittles and they put in like green apple instead of lime? I get upset about stuff like that. It was a, it was a horror show for years.

B

Snakes, it's terrible.

C

But like I got out there and like the first day, like I had my poles, I was being really careful. I'm like not touching any brush. Like everything out here can kill me and like, I'm cautious anyway. There were people around me on the AT who got Lyme disease that were reclining in like long grass. I'm careful where I sit, stuff like that. So it kind of naturally worked. But most of the time, like I didn't even get a picture because they were slithering off. Somebody had a picture of like a 10/foot python. I was really hoping to see that because, like I could get a selfie with it for grandma, but.

B

Right.

A

Did you have any wild animal encounters?

C

Yeah, some emus tried to come over to my tent a couple of times. I think they'd been fed. They were cool. They looked kind of like dinosaurs. The kangaroos were shyer than I thought. But Donnelly river has an area where they're fed by hand so they'll actually come up close. So I got a selfie with one that my partner thinks is the cutest thing in the world. I went to Rottnest island and I saw quokkas, the little like really cute things that the Internet Said threw their babies at predators and everything. So I saw things like that. I had a couple of ticks, but it was no big deal. Like I'm used to tick checks. I've been in way worse areas. The AT is more terrifying when it comes to ticks because of the little guys.

A

I can imagine that.

C

But yeah, I mean, I saw some snakes but they slithered off. I only came close to stepping on one once. And they're poisonous, but when you talk to people, it's not like, oh yeah, three hikers this year got bit and all died. That's what that pile of rocks is there. Like the only person I talked to who had been involved in a snake bite, he got bit in a kitchen and his wife, completely deadpan, just looked at me and went, I told him to stay out of my kitchen. And that's what he called Jesus.

B

Oh my God, I'd burn my kitchen.

C

But I mean, they're around. It's like out here there are rattlesnakes. Right. Like you have to do aversion training for dogs in areas but you don't get common bites. I know more people that have been bit by rattlesnakes than I met.

A

Sure.

C

Who are concerned out there.

A

Yeah. Someone died not that long ago. A few years ago, just over on Mount Galbraith. Got bit by a snake.

C

Like there were two rattlesnake fatalities in SoCal this year. The weirdest thing. And I know another person that got bit. It's just statistical weirdness.

A

Yeah.

C

Cool.

A

Well, so you mentioned you've got a lot of Europe on the plate moving forward.

C

That that's next year. So Australia was the warm up for this year. The tent pole is. I'm leaving for Australia in a couple of days. Or Alaska. Sorry. They all run together. This is why I have everything on

B

the Australian Yukon, our favorite.

C

So I'm driving up to Alaska and we're going to be canoeing 1800 miles, similar to the Mississippi, except more grizzly bears and moose and more remote. Like it ends where there's no roads.

B

Have you done Alaska yet?

C

Never been to Alaska.

B

Really?

C

I didn't get to travel much growing up.

A

So you're making up for lost time.

C

I, at the moment I'm still just trying to keep my head above water because like two weeks ago I was in the outback and then like the travel back and jet lag and everything and I've got to get everything because I have to stack these trips. Right. So I had to prep the Australia hike, had to get everything out here. Have this ready, and then once I come back, I've probably got less than 10 days, and then I'll be in Moab continuing on the adt. So I'll relax and I'll be excited once we're in Whitehorse and our paddle hits the water.

A

So you mentioned. Obviously, you are. You love adventure. You're addicted to adventure. You got bad knees, bad feet. Usually. That's a prototype for somebody getting on a bike and doing some bike packing.

C

I. I did bike centuries. I started hiking because I got injured. I overdid it. Like, I got a distance bike, and I did, like, 13 bike centuries in, like, six months. Ended up in an overuse injury.

B

It's a bike sentry. 100 miles.

C

Yeah.

B

Okay.

C

And it was fun. So I did another. So I did another. And then overuse injury, and next thing you know, the physical therapists are making fun of me. And, like, I would love to do that. I actually bought a touring bike, but it takes a bunch of, like, gear to get, you know, the racks and everything. And I've kind of been stuck on that because we have to balance to make this work. Like, we get a little bit of money from the YouTube videos we have, you know, the salary of my partner, but this all. And we don't have rent, but, you know, it's a balancing act.

A

Sure. Yeah.

C

So I would love to be able to do that, because I wouldn't really do, like, the ADT again, but maybe biking across would be fun.

A

Okay.

C

And there's a lot of other things that would be more doable.

A

Now's a fitting time. Let's plug your YouTube, your Patreon. Like, where should people go?

C

YouTube channel is First Church of the Masochist, which is the least marketable YouTube channel name. Because when you're in the middle of nowhere and somebody asks, like, do you have a YouTube or anything? And you say that the religious people think you're weird, the weird people think you're religious, and nobody's happy. But website is masochist hikes. And that has a link to, like, Instagram and YouTube and stuff.

A

Yeah, Right on. Well, before we let you go, we have our sponsor question, the peak performance question presented by Topo athletic use code Trek15. Topo. Or is it 15?

B

There's a 15 in it.

A

Oh, God. I'm going to ask the question, then I'll get the correct code.

B

Yeah, you ask the question. I'll find the code.

A

Uh, do you have. This one's interesting, considering all that you've done. Do you have a top performance enhancing or backpacking hack. And we can call paddling just adventuring in general. But like, do you do anything with your diet or PT or stretching? Like what do you do to keep going aside from just being a masochist?

C

Um, honestly the best thing that has worked for me any of the on trail stuff. I can't keep up with any sort of stretches and everything. Um, doing heavy gym workouts off trail like with a trainer has helped fix the knee issues as well as I can. That's about it because food wise, I burned out of so many things. A lot of the things I did on the at I can't do anymore.

A

Yeah, awesome. Well, masochist you certainly are. Very interesting story. People should go keep up with you and your adventures. That sounds like they're going to continue for many decades to come. And thank you for joining us here on BACKPACKER Radio.

C

Hey, thanks for having me. This was fun.

A

To the Trek propaganda portion of today's show. I'm going to double plug it. This is going to be annoying, but it's okay.

B

I got a beer. I'm drinking the last beer in the fridge. So make it last for me. Make it last for me.

A

Well, I was just going to say I'm going to start off with our sponsor code because I whiffed during the peak performance question. But yeah, the topo athletic code is Trek15Topo. I always get the order of Trek and 15 reversed. Trek15Topo 15% off at Topo like that Come the Trek propaganda is going to be short and sweet, but more sour than sweet unfortunately. Shout out to James for picking this story up quickly. This is that the Timberline Lodge ends breakfast buffet which was obviously popular with PCT hikers. I just feel bad for every PCT hiker from 2026 and beyond. They will never know the joy of that buffet breakfast.

B

I feel like we could have predicted this and we probably should have.

A

It does seem like potentially through hikers are the ones that and not for any ill will. It's just like they have massive especially northbound hikers. Even southbound haven't gone through as a southbound hiker. The appetites are not good for a restaurant's bottom line cuz you can go through and do some real work.

B

Yeah, I was going to take it in a more selfish route which is that that's where we first crossed paths.

C

Oh sure.

A

Yeah.

B

In a hiking context. Take the camera story aside. And now that I'm leaving to move east, they can't continue to do the breakfast.

A

That's right.

B

Because that's where we high fived that.

A

That the. The chapter of Badger and Chaunce can be defined precisely by the Timberline Lodges breakfast buffet.

B

Yep.

A

Yeah.

B

Yeah.

A

Although I will say, I think Jabba and I got there too late for the breakfast buffet that time.

B

You did.

A

We both did. They also have a lunch buffet. I don't know if the lunch buffet.

B

I just remember you were talking about the breakfast buffet for sure. So long leading up to it. And then it was like, all right, like, we'll see you for the. Like, I. That. It got to the point where it was like, if I'm going to cross paths with Zach, it should be here. Because if we cross paths anywhere else, we could happen to just miss each other. I could be taking a break or sleeping or whatever, you know? But he will be at the breakfast buffet because he said it 18,000 times. So I was like, yeah, that'll be the easy spot.

A

I think what happened was I was meeting my buddy, Teabag.

B

Teabag.

A

His. You met Teabag? And his wife is Paulie's sister.

B

Is it?

A

Yeah.

B

Did I know that?

A

I'm sure it was brought up was

B

that was his wife, Paulie's sister, when we were in Wisconsin.

C

Yeah, they've been.

B

Yeah, I definitely knew that then.

A

They're high school sweethearts.

B

Really? That's sweet.

A

Yep. But, yeah, I think Teabag and his family weren't able to get to Timberland Lodge until after the breakfast hours, so we did the lunch. The lunch is. The lunch buffet is awesome. I hope the lunch buffet is still going, because I've since done the breakfast buffet when I did the. The Timberline loop, Timberland Trail. They're both amazing. If. If the lunch buffet persists, go do that. It's more expensive, I think, because you're getting, like, prime rib and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's good.

B

Yeah. I. I don't do well with buffets. I. I'm not saying this in a she's so dainty kind of way. I get full so fucking walking fast.

A

Yeah.

B

And I. And the reason I'm not saying it in that way is I also get hungry really fast. So, like, I. I've been having a late night PB&J in bed the past week. Like, you know, I'm not saying this as a picture of. No, she's a waif. We can't see her in the wind, you know?

A

Yeah.

B

I just don't do well at buffets because I get full fast and then I sit for like an hour and I leave the Buffet. And then I'm hungry again when I get home because I got full fast. And so whenever I go to a buffet, and this worked once or twice on the bcd, I will try to talk to whoever is selling the buffet tickets at the front or wherever you go in, and you tell them we're doing the buffet. I'm like, listen, if you will let me plead my case, I really think I should get the child's buffet ticket.

A

Yeah. There should be, like, a wait because

B

I'm not refilling this plate. I just want to try a little bite of everything. I'm going to sit there and watch everyone else.

A

Yeah.

B

And then I'm going to go home and I'm going to be hungry, and I'm gonna want to eat something else. And so it's not like I'm, you know, she's not the vision of Finn in doing this, but she is full quick, and it's not a value add, and it's a waste of money. And then I just feel bad about wasting the money.

A

A buffet is definitely a young man's game because I no longer. Woody's has an awesome pizza buffet, and every time I go there, I don't get the buffet just because I know I'm not gonna get it. Makes way more sense to get a pizza and take home your leftovers.

B

Well, the problem is you probably couldn't talk them into giving you children's buffet. No, I mean, you.

A

I'm two children.

B

Put your children on the buffet and have them go get it. Yeah, but because I'm five' one, I kind of sometimes look like a child.

A

Do you get away with it?

B

Yeah. I told you twice on the pct, they gave me the children's buffet.

A

Oh, yeah.

B

I was just the other one, the adult. No, the buffet is the same. They just charge you less.

A

No, I'm saying you said you had two children's buffets.

B

Oh, I don't remember. I remember one clearly, and then I remember one partially. I don't remember which one either was. I just remember where I was standing, and I remember the look of the counter, and I remember, like, the shame of having to say the story, but it being like, I'm tight on cash, and I promise you I'm not. You can watch me eat. Yeah, I'll get like. And you could watch me regret later if you have to go boxes. I'll pay full price if I can have a to go box.

A

Yeah.

B

But otherwise, I just don't get my bang for my buck.

A

Yeah, well, you Know who else is not getting a bang for the buck? Is future PCT hikers wanting breakfast at Timberland Lodge.

B

Yeah, If I can't have it, no one can.

A

Pour it out for the homies. Question of the day. This is mine, as you probably would have imagined.

C

Yeah.

A

I don't remember what inspired this, but we'll probably get there. Do poop peas count as full peas? I think, like, if you had to go to a doctor. This is a hypothetical. I don't know if this actually happened and you had to tell them, like, how many times you urinate in a day or you've urinated that day. Do you get to count the poop pee as one of your urinations?

B

Yes. If liquid comes out of a hole, your poop and your pee come out of different holes. I understand that if liquid comes out of the hole, that's not the poop hole. That is a pee.

A

But I just feel like there's a lot of times where I do a poop pee and it's just like three seconds of pee is released and it's done. It's not like it doesn't feel like a.

B

Did the liquid come out of the poop hole?

A

Sometimes it does, but did it.

B

Did it exclusively come out of the pool?

A

No.

B

You peed.

A

Yeah.

B

Congrats.

C

You peed.

A

But, like, if you laugh really hard and you pee your pants, like, you do a little squirt, is that a pee?

B

You just said you peed your pants.

A

I'm just saying, like, so you put

B

pee in your pants.

A

But I wouldn't count that as, like, a. The same type of urination of, like, I'm waking up in the middle of the night and draining it for 15 seconds.

B

Okay, let. Let me. Let. Let's look at it through a different lens. I sit down to poo and only, like, one or two little, like, rabbit pellets come out.

A

Yeah.

B

Did I poop?

A

I think a great debate. I don't know that I would.

B

You can't say no.

A

I mean, poop.

B

There's a brown circle in my toilet that wasn't in there before. That came from my butt.

A

But if it was a small. If it was like a little nugget that came out and someone asked you if you pooped, I would give the contextual answer of, like, sort of have sort of I pooped.

B

Would you put it in your pants and walk around all day?

A

If I have a good reason to.

B

If you don't have a good reason to. Well, why? Because it's poop.

A

I'M just saying it's poop, but that's having a little nugget in your pants is far superior to having, like, a full. I just absolutely unleashed a diaper's worth

B

of in my pants for the YouTube with your fingers, show me the difference between a dingleberry and poop.

A

A dingleberry is a great thing. If you get a dingleberry, is that a poop?

B

Well, that's what I'm saying is. So a dingleberry would be, like, a very small size. Yeah.

C

Would you.

B

And it would be poop. You have poop on your butt.

A

Would you say that's a full poop? Like, I took a full in my pants?

B

No, because you didn't push out that one dingleberry and then stop pushing. You pushed out a full poop and you missed someone. You wiped.

A

But I think that's a great comparison because a dingleberry is like a little slip where. Like a tiny.

B

But it didn't slip from your butthole. It slipped from your toilet paper when you wiped a previous poop. That's what I'm saying. If just a dingleberry came out, we'd be having a conversation. But just dingleberry doesn't come out. A dingleberry is leftover toilet remnants.

A

So if there was the equivalent amount of poop that left your butt, would you count that as a.

B

That's what I'm literally the question I'm asking.

A

I wouldn't count that as a.

B

Would you count it as poop?

A

It is poop. It is poop.

B

Left your butt.

A

By definition, you poop pooped. But, like.

B

But you pooped.

A

If you're like, I poop 20 times a day, and each time you're just dropping a little pellet, I'd be like, like, not really. You're not doing that.

B

No, I would say, yes, you are, and you should see a doctor.

A

Well, that's true. That's absolutely true.

B

You should see a doctor. And yes, you are pooping 20 times a day. It sounds like you're backed up, and it sounds like something's very wrong.

A

I just think, yeah, if you were talking to a doctor, you would. You wouldn't be like, I'm taking 20 full poops. I'm taking.

B

If I problematic shifts, I wouldn't specify. I would go to a doctor, and I would say, I have to poop 20 times a day. Only a pellet's coming out each time. And help me.

A

The doctor will push up his glasses, and he's like, are you ma'.

C

Am.

B

You've actually never pooped.

A

Yeah. You've had. Not a real poop.

B

I would literally report him to the board.

A

You'd have. You had shit.

C

That's.

B

If he was like, that's not poop. You. You're not pooping. I'd be like, this is a severe medical condition apparently, that I think I have.

A

You dropped a raisin. Poop left your body, but you didn't take a dump.

B

Poop left your body, but you didn't poop.

A

You didn't take a dump.

B

Okay. So it feels like we have different scales of how we're rating things on this. So I don't know if we'll ever come to a conclusion. What do you think?

A

I would say most poop peas count as full peas, but there are some where it's just like. Just like if a second of urine leaves your body, that's a fractional pee in my book.

B

I just don't know how many times you're on a toilet where like that small amount of pee could consistently be leaving you that you would wonder, should I stop counting it?

A

I mean, like, if I had just taken a full pee five minutes prior and then I go to poop.

C

Poop.

A

A little bit of pee is gonna. Whatever's in there.

B

Why are you getting it? Just do both.

A

Sometimes I don't have to.

B

Such a waste of time.

A

Sometimes the poop comes suddenly.

B

This goes back to my thing about boys in the toilet. I just think you guys are really taking advantage of. Yeah, this space.

A

I think we're divided here.

B

Yeah.

A

Can't wait to see this one go through social same. At least you'll have some fun comments to handle. Okay. Oh, I have a sun hoodie review which I forgot to do in the last episode. Episode.

B

Lovely.

C

Is this it?

A

This is it.

B

I thought you reviewed one in the last ep. Well, we did things out of order.

A

This is nice color. The Fjall Raven, which is not a brand that is popular in the through hiking world.

B

When I did the pct, one of the four guys I hiked with had a backpack that he carried the whole.

A

A Fjall Raven. Was he international?

B

Nope, he was from New Jersey.

A

Okay, sounds like he's probably.

B

You met him at the at At Trail Days. What's his name? Joe Buzz. He went by a different name. Yeah, the time he was hanging out at our booth a lot. Anyway, he carried a Fjallraven.

A

So this is the Fjallraven Abisco wool hoodie. I'll give the fast facts price 140 bucks. Fabric. It's half polyester, half ZQ merino wool. I don't know the difference, so I should look that up right now. Mine weighs seven and a half ounces. I'm going to quickly look up zq, ZQ Marino wool and regular Marino wool share the exact same natural, ultra soft and temperature regulating fiber. The difference lies in how the wool is produced. ZQ is a strict premium certification guaranteeing 100% traceability to the farm, not mules, sheep steeped and the highest standards of animal welfare and environmental sustainability. So sounds like it's a more ethical type of wool, which is good. I'm guessing that helps to account for the price tag, which we will get into again. Mine weighs in at seven and a half ounces, which is pretty light. The listed weight for a medium is 8.25 ounces, so I'm not sure how my large weighs less than the stated medium. The UPF is actually not listed for this one, which is in my book problematic because if you're going to get a sun hoodie, that's kind of a really important feature. And the standouts for this is it has a fixed hood, no zipper, no buttons, no way to adjust it. It has thumb holes, which I'm learning is a probably necessary feature, or at least having the sleeves be long enough to cover a good portion of your hand. Has underarm gussets, shoulder seams, blah blah blah blah blah. Odor resistant because it's got the wool. It says packable. That's from the website. I don't know exactly what that means. My overall take on this one is I really like the feel compared to the Paca, which is the other merino sun hoodie that I've tested thus far. I felt like this one was more breathable. So I feel like without having the upf, I'm not getting the full picture because if it has a lower upfront, you know, that's maybe not a good trade off. Depends on you as an individual. The hood size on this one compared to God, what was the pre. What was the one that I was complaining about?

B

The REI one?

A

The REI had. That's right. Had a smaller hood. That one fit tightly. This one had space to roam in the hood, but it's not like helmet hood size. So I think the hood size on this one is about perfect. I would like it if it opened at the bottom so I could get more flexibility, but that's probably hard with a merino fabric. The cons I still think this one's too Warm for summer backpacking or on trail. I will warn you, I have not washed that since wearing it. So you would think for being half wool that it wouldn't get stinky.

B

It feels warmer than the one last week that wasn't Rei the Pakka the really soft.

A

Oddly enough, I've. It's tough to compare cause like you're in different conditions. But this one felt more breathable to me. I felt like when it was breezy, I could feel it through the fabric, which is for what this is supposed to be. I felt like that was a good feature while you were in the bathroom. I mentioned that on the website. It doesn't list a UPF rating, so I don't know what it's doing. If this is like a 15 UPF,

B

I think that's like a.

A

Like if you're a defining feature of a sun hoodie.

B

Of a sun hoodie.

A

Absolutely.

B

Okay. I'm not weird for wondering. No.

A

That it makes me wonder if this is like a true sun hoodie or

B

if that's just like a fun word

A

or if it's like meant more as a mid layer. So I will say when I reached out to brands, I'm like, I gave them the conditions that would. I would. I would be testing it in. I'm like, send what you think is applicable. Not all people are necessarily the most astute with like, did they call it

B

a sun hoodie or did they call it a wool hoodie?

A

It is just called a wool hoodie. So I don't. I don't think that this is maybe even intended for the purpose of being a sun hoodie.

B

They just sent you a hoodie. Yeah. You wore it out in the sun and not reviewing it as a sun hoodie.

A

But I will say compared to the Pakka, which is marketed as a sun hoodie, this. This felt more breathable to me.

C

Really.

A

I think that this would be less warm than the packa.

B

Huh.

A

I think at $140, it's probably not even in the conversation of something that along the. Since backpackers should consider because I think the previous most expensive one that we had mentioned was the north face at 120. And I thought that was far superior to this.

B

Yeah, I. Well, that was the thing about the guy that hiked with the pack was that the reason I don't have any of their stuff is you go to the store and you realize this stuff's really expensive.

A

It's so expensive.

B

I mean, it's well made. Like I get why, but.

A

And I learned again, while you were gone. That the Z Cube Marino wool is just like a more ethically sourced merino. So. So some of the price I'm assuming is in that. Which is a good thing.

B

Yeah.

A

Because not all merino wool is sustained or harvested in a sustainable way ethically. So in summation, this is not going in my triple crown of sun hoodies by any stretch. I don't even know if it is a sun hoodie.

B

Does it get Chon's boobs?

A

Chon's boobs. I'm gonna give it. Gosh, if it wasn't so expensive, I would give it a higher rating because it's 100%. $40 for a sun hoodie. I'm going to give it 4.5, which

B

I think is the lowest. Not many chalk boobs.

A

Yeah, that's the lowest that I've given thus far. But I do think that this would be like a nice mid layer piece. But yeah, as a sun hoodie, it just doesn't do the job.

B

So off you go. Away with you.

A

That's that one Overall, like if someone gifted you that and you're not a through hiker, you'd be happy with it. It's a good piece, but you have to keep, keep the context.

B

Well, that's how I got my Packa. Well, technically not, but my mom ordered Paca, like one of their. You see me wear it on flights. The, the, the gray one. It's gray.

A

Okay.

B

Anyway, she ordered one from them.

A

Is that a hoodie?

B

No, it's a crew neck. It's just like one of their alpaca crew necks. But she accidentally had my address as a shipping. I don't know how that happened. Yeah, she's never seen got there. I was like, thank you. It's great. And she was like, it was for me. And I was like, it fits great. Thank you so much. And I wear it all the time.

A

The Paca, the high Tencel fabric is nice. It's like really soft. Like.

B

Yeah, it's a good plain sweater too.

A

But that one's also not a good sun hoodie in my book.

B

No, definitely. That would be a fucking terrible sun hoodie.

A

I do know people that use merino sun hoodies on trail pretzel. But I'm testing. I'm excited for this one. It's a far point. Actually paid for it with the cottage stuff. I don't want them to send me stuff. I want to pay for it.

B

Right.

A

So that'll be a future one. I haven't actually received it yet, but that I Put a call out on Instagram for people to recommend it. And Farpoint was one of the most recommended. So I'm excited to give that one a sp.

B

Never heard of them.

A

Yeah, very cottage right now. I think they're blowing up. This is the Triple Crown sponsored by Onyx. This says through Memorial Day, I believe our code is still valid. I'm almost. I'm test it. I'm almost positive. Trek 70 for 70 off a premium planet. Onyx backcountry. I've been using Onyx Backcountry a ton. It's awesome. This is the. They're gonna be stoked around this. The Triple Crown.

B

Wait, before we say Triple Crown, quick thing. If it is not the right code for any reason, let us know on Instagram if you DM us. We usually get it rectified really quickly, but every now and then we've gotten a DM and we've been like, oh, thanks for flagging that. And let me get it fixed quick.

A

Yeah.

B

So let us know if you notice something's up.

A

What happens with big companies is sometimes there's a disconnect between our contact and the person that manages the coupon. So sometimes they get shut down without us getting notified. But I'm like 99 sure track 70 is going to work for you now. This is the. They're going to be stoked on this. The Triple Crown of Words for penis. And this is against all odds. Your suggestion?

B

Well, because we did Words for Boobs and the pom poms was so fun, I took a video and I didn't send it to you, but I have it so I can show it to you still. And it's from one of the ABS games. Rest in peace. Them this season. Yeah. But from one of their earlier playoff rounds we went and there was a big sign on the Jumbotron that said wave your palms. And everyone was waving the pom poms that they put on the seats. And I have a video of it that I have to show you or send to you. I didn't.

A

To flash the crowd.

B

No, I just wanted to send you the video to be like, haha, boobs.

C

Yeah.

B

But my phone was dead, so I had to take the video with Garrett's phone. And so because I took it with Garrett's phone, I'd never actually took it. My phone was dead. And I don't know your number by heart.

A

That could have been your Oiler's girl moment. It would have been great press for the podcast.

B

Enjoy my boobs.

A

Yeah, you saw the video Right. It was in the playoffs two years ago. There's an oil. I think it was an Oilers fan. But a gal just whips out her pom poms and became, like, instant celebrity on the Internet for very obvious reasons.

B

Well, if you haven't gotten your tickets for the live show yet, there you go. It won't be happening, but the live show will be happening. My tits coming out.

A

Well, yeah. Although that would be a fun way to.

B

If I didn't have a husband, I'd probably be more like, you know, like you said, I'm very. No, you didn't say that. You said I'm very gullible. I'm also very easily swayed into flashing peer pressure.

A

Have you publicly flashed?

B

Not to my knowledge.

A

Okay, that's not a no.

B

I mean, like, there's been times that, like, me and Mims have been somewhere and, like, I can see that no one else is looking. No, no, I'm saying we've been somewhere in public, and I know that no one else is looking because everyone's distracted. And then I'll show her a quick nipple.

C

Sure.

B

But no one else sees.

A

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, that's good. Fun girl stuff.

B

Okay, I want to go first because I want to see my first one.

C

Okay.

B

I like this one. Dong Ah.

A

That was literally number one on my list.

C

Really?

B

So my friend Nian, who went to my wedding, and he's the one that. For the. For the longtime listeners of the podcast, you'll remember this story or you won't. And then, you know, you'll have to go back and re. Listen. When I was on the 80, my friend Nan brought me North Carolina barbecue to Max Patch. Literally went and got it, drove it to Max Patch, met us parked in the parking lot. It's still, like, 0.2 to the summit. So, like, he had walked point two with two trays of barbecue because apparently I look like the type of person that would need to eat two trays. He brought everything the store had, and it was fantastic. And I don't remember what I was saying. Oh, Neon.

A

And then we showed you his Dawn.

B

No, his last name is Don. Ah, this is the funniest person alive. Okay, let me tell you another funny story about Neon. Quick, just because if we're doing a separate Thursday segments episode.

A

Beef it up.

B

Nian was born in China, lives in America. Like, his parents moved over with him. Funniest tattoo I've ever seen on a person. I, unfortunately for Nian, have made him show his butt to more people than I think he probably would have showed his butt to. Had I not made him show his butt to all these people. But he has a tattoo on his ass that's a tag, like a Beanie Baby tag or like a tag that you would find on like a stuffed animal.

A

Like a plushie heart tag. Right.

B

Well, not heart in that it's specifically Beanie Baby, but you know, like a tag on like a stuffed animal.

A

Okay.

B

He's got a tag on his ass that says Made in China.

A

That's funny.

B

It's really funny.

A

That's good.

B

But dong is a funny word for penis.

A

Yeah.

B

And he also has. Here's another neon story, has a current running joke that he told us that I thought was hilarious, that if he has a kid. Not if, but when he has a kid, he wants to make their middle

A

name Ding ding Dong.

C

Fuck.

A

Yeah.

B

I don't know. He's the funniest guy I know. And so I love the word dong.

A

Yeah.

B

I love it because of him. I love it because it's funny and it's a great word for penis. Dong.

A

Number one, dong is a volume play. I've definitely said dong referring to a penis more than any other word. And number two is not even close.

B

What's number two?

A

Number two is hog.

B

Ew. Ew.

A

You've never heard hog before?

B

I don't. I mean, I never say never. I'm sure I have, but not often.

A

And hog is if you've got an either small or even average sized penis. You don't have a hog?

B

No, obviously not. A hog is a big, sweaty, dirty, gross.

A

Like you. John Ham has a hog.

B

What? How would you say it? In a sentence?

A

I just did.

B

Yeah. Okay, how about a different sentence?

A

Did you see that guy's hog?

B

No, I don't hear this phrase often.

A

Yeah, hog is.

B

I think that's one that boys keep to themselves.

A

You've been blessed. And backpacker radio, you've been blessed if you are walking around with a hog.

B

I don't know.

A

Oh, I know. I mean, I don't know.

B

What do you mean?

A

I mean, I know for the people that know.

B

Right. Okay, so you're saying you don't have a hog.

A

I imagine that guys appreciate hogs is the same way that, like, girls appreciate when someone's got really nice tits.

B

The same way girls appreciate when someone's got really nice tits.

A

Yeah.

B

Oh, oh, oh. I get what you're saying. Got it. I got it. I got it. Got it.

A

Like, it's not a sexual thing. You're just admiring.

B

Yeah. I have a specific friend that has really nice boobs.

A

Yeah. Comment on it. Maybe even touch him.

B

I haven't touched him yet. She's not that close of a friend, but she's close enough where they're. They're. Yeah. Hog is disgusting. Could ever say a different one take my mind off that? I don't like that.

A

Next is. This is more fun high school, but I'll whip this out from time to time. Not literally just the phrase or the word rod. Just simple three letters.

B

Yeah.

A

I just like saying rod. It's. It gets the point across. It's kind of charismatic.

B

It's a little boring.

A

I like the simplicity. Three letters. Kidding me. Kidding me. There's not another penis word that both puts, like, a vision in your mind? Because a rod is a thing, obviously, in three letters.

B

Yeah, but rod seems like. Like I think like a lightning rod. Like, I think like a long, skinny. No, you want a Twizzler dick.

A

I mean, if my dick is 12ft

B

long and as thin as a. As thin as a wire. Yeah.

A

I want that.

B

You are not pleasuring a single woman.

A

I mean, you're reaching places that, what,

B

my throat through my. Through my vagine?

A

Just saying. It'd be a fun story.

B

That is a long journey to me with no pleasure to me.

A

I mean, not all rides are thin. You can have, like, a more girthy steel rod.

B

Wow.

A

You're going to beat someone over the head with a rod. I'm not picturing, like, a little, like, whippy.

B

If you're describing a pleasurable experience to me, starting with a steel. A large steel rod doesn't make me.

A

I'm going for fun. I'm.

B

Puts me in. Yeah, but it doesn't put me in fun mode. It puts me in fear mode.

A

Yeah. As it should.

B

A large steel rod.

A

Yeah.

B

Coming towards where it could whip you anywhere. I don't want to be whipped anywhere by that. That sounds very bad. Yeah. Okay. No, I'm out on rod. That one's not good.

A

Rod Stewart.

B

Nope. My next one is peen. P, E, E, N. Peen is my go to that. I say penis is just like. I'm not in a science class. I'm not saying the medical peen to

A

me is like a bashful woman that doesn't feel comfortable saying the word penis.

B

Peen to me is the person that says the word breasts or not penis. Sorry, sorry. Penis to me is the. Is the person that says breasts. Like, why are you saying the full word? Why are you saying it in its medical Form.

A

Yeah. Penis is like what your doctor says. No one says penis.

B

Right. But peen is a fun alternative because you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying, like. Like, I'm not saying hog or anything. Like, where I'm trying to be funny or gross or hip. Just saying peen, and you know what I mean? And that rhymed. And that was cool.

C

Nice.

A

I believe that was Dr. Seuss.

B

I think he wrote that after redfish. Bluefish.

A

Yeah. Green eggs and ham.

B

Yeah. Peen. You know what I mean? That was the book that came next. Yeah. So peen is maybe not the funniest, but we didn't put triple crown of funny words.

C

No, we just put words.

A

Words that you like.

B

So that's probably my most spoken.

A

Not even on my list.

B

Doodle is my third.

A

I've never heard that.

B

I think Bart Simpson says it. But doodle is a real funny one. This is weird. The sentence I was about to say. Let me catch that. I worked at a camp for a while.

A

You're saying that rod is rare, but doodle.

B

Rod's just not enticing. Doodle's funny.

A

Is a doodle enticing?

B

No.

A

Like, I laid with him and then he instead.

B

No, but it's intentionally. Not. Like, it's almost demeaning. It's fun. You talk to a grown man about his doodle, and that's funny.

A

I feel the same way about peen. Both of these are, like bashful women speaking about penises.

B

Yeah. If I'm. If. If I'm talking to you about your doodle, you feel silly and childish.

A

Oh, yeah. And you're belittling my penis.

B

Right. But I'm not gonna be like, hey, Zach, how's your hog? It's disgusting.

A

No, that's a guy on guy.

B

No, but a doodle is a nice, safe way to talk about it. I worked at a camp for a long time, and I'm not saying I would talk about doodles to kids, because I wouldn't talk about doodles to kids. But if you did, every now and then, doodles would come up amongst staff and just saying doodle feel safer.

A

So that's the official camp terminology, is dude.

B

No, that's not true at all. Because it didn't stem from there. It just. It's just an easy word to say. And it's so safe. It's very safe. Easy word.

A

I'm pretty sure I've never heard no

B

one can get offended. What do you. I can't believe you've never heard it. I Don't even watch the Simpsons regularly. I think that's where it stemmed from.

A

I'll look it up.

B

You've never heard doodle.

A

Does Bart Simpson call penises doodles? If you just type in disbart Simpson, that auto finishes to have ADHD say doodle. Yes, Bart Simpson does say doodle is one of the most iconic and funniest lines from the Simpsons movie. When Homer dared to ride a skateboard down the street completely naked, Bart stands at the edge of the crowd, covering his private parts with a sign. Homer shouts over to Bart, prompting the following hilarious exchange. Hey, I can see your doodle.

B

Yeah.

A

Bart says, girls might see my doodle.

B

I've never seen this movie, but I think I've been around people who have, because I didn't. Like, I didn't. I can't say I created the word because that isn't even close to true. I was just around people that said it, and then I adopted it.

A

Yeah. Okay. I haven't watched a Simpsons episode.

B

No, me neither. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying you don't need to know it. I just, I know that the group of people that were saying it, I was like, where? Why are we saying that? And they said it was from that. And then I started saying it. Proximity and volume.

C

Okay.

B

And now it's just kind of funny. It's very safe.

A

Yeah, it is.

B

If I have a boy kid, I'm gonna tell them that they have a doodle.

A

Yeah.

B

And I think I've said the word doodle to my nephew because Garrett's got a. Well, I guess I do. I do, too. But Garrett's bread.

A

You have a doodle.

B

No, Garrett's. I was gonna say Garrett has a nephew. And then. Ipsofaxo. I have a nephew, but said nephew. I did bath time over Christmas one time. And I still, to this day, me and Garrett both have never changed child diaper. Yeah, I've never changed an adult diaper either, but we've never changed a child diaper. And so, like, we're at this point, we're out on that. There was a point in life where it was like, yeah, if I'm babysitting or something, I'll change one. And now at this point, we're both kind of like, those days are coming. You'll get your thoughts.

A

Whether you like it or not, we're

B

not taking on any extra. So my, my, my thing with my nephew is I, I, I'm down for bath time. I'm not changing a diaper. So I had to tell him before he got in the bath that he had to sit in the toilet and use the toilet before going into the bath. Because that's my rule. I don't care what the rules are. My rule is I have to hear a sound coming out of you on that thing before I'm going to touch water that you're sitting in.

A

Yeah.

B

And I had to say, wipe your doodle.

A

Yep.

B

And it felt appropriate to talk to a child that you made him wipe

A

his penis before he got in the bathtub.

B

I'm teaching him proper hygiene.

A

I've never.

B

He sat, he peed and pooped. Wipe them both.

A

Yeah. I mean, your butt, obviously, but wipe your doodle.

B

Wipe your pee. Wipe your. Wipe your butt. Wipe everything. Wipe it off. Don't go in with dripping pee.

A

I mean, okay, I. I have to

B

put my hands in that. I'm pouring that water on your head. I'm about to shampoo your hair and pour the water onto your head.

A

It's a drop of urine.

B

Yeah. I mean, I'm not like, she's not crazy. I'm not gonna be like, don't you dare. Yeah. Drop one drop of absolutely from your doodle.

A

But you're a girl, and wiping after peeing is a part of the thing. But guys don't wipe their penises.

B

Well, you know what? Maybe they should.

A

Maybe they should.

B

Maybe they should.

C

Yeah.

A

If you wipe your penis. Podcast at the track co, I want to know, but it's more of a shake, Shake the hog sort of deal.

B

Ew. Ew. Yeah.

A

If you go to a urinal, there's no toilet paper there.

B

Disgusting. Yeah. I mean, no, I can't say that. I can't say that. I'm such a hypocritical liar. I shake when I. When I. When I backpack.

C

Yeah.

B

Okay. I don't like Cool o'. Clock.

A

It's the better.

B

Right? And I agree. I completely agree. But I don't do it town. But I'm just saying I have to catch myself there because to say ew there. I am a hypocrite, and I'm lying, and I can't lie. Y. I don't like to lie.

A

Yeah, Guys don't lie. Do you have one more?

B

Well, I said three, but I can give you four.

A

You did peen Dong. Okay. Doodle my last one. I will have some honorable mentions. Unit.

B

It's not a specific word for your peen.

A

It definitely is.

B

No, because some people will just call a person a unit, like, he's an Absolute unit.

A

Yeah.

B

I mean they're not calling him an absolute penis.

A

A hog has different meaning also.

B

If I said he's an absolute peen, we know I'm calling him a penis.

A

Sure. But a unit referring to a penis as a unit is just funny. It's a standalone thing that operates independently.

B

I feel like a hog is an out of shape penis. Like a large penis, but like one that if it were. If we're looking at just like a standard body would be considered fat. A hog is a fat penis.

A

A hog is a fat anything.

B

Yeah. Whereas I would consider a unit to be a strong penis. Like a GI Joe penis. Like a must muscular penis.

A

Yeah.

B

So a hog I would consider like fear. I would consider large but like like a sumo wrist or like a. Like just a flop weight. Heavy. Not.

A

You're thinking like Ron Jeremy penis versus

B

like Ron Jeremy penis.

A

No, that would be a hog. If you're describing it as like a fat.

B

I don't want to think about Ron Jeremy's penis at all.

A

That makes one of us.

B

I'm not thinking about his penis. No. I'm thinking about something completely adjacent to people penises, which is just people that are statistically large. Like sumo wrestlers and the way they fall, which is just like a. I

A

bet sumo wrestlers have more of the doodle situation.

B

Well, when I think. When I think about. When I think about units, I think about that picture of a hippo I've seen where it takes off the skin and it shows you how it's all actually muscle and not actually fat. Yeah, that's a unit.

A

No, no, no. For sure. Aaron Donald as a person is a unit. But he probably also has an impressive unit. If I had to guess. A unit with an impressive unit.

B

Right. But you can't choose if you're gonna have a hog or a unit because you can't do penis exercises. So you're either blessed with one or the other.

A

There are Kegels, which doesn't impact the size. It's more of a strength of erection situation.

B

Could you make it where it's like you just try to flex like when it. Okay, let's say it's hard. Could you try to flex it like so they're just like perks a little bit. And flex, flex, flex. And that you think that built. That builds muscle? It makes it more.

A

Oh, definitely does. Yeah.

B

Have you noticed difference?

A

I don't. I'm not a Kegel exerciser by any stretch.

B

Is that what your Kegels are when.

A

Yeah, when you flex the penile Muscle. You're doing Kegel exercises and, like, over time, you are building a muscle.

B

Well, girl Kegels are like. It's like a clench, unclench kind of thing. You can't see anything happening.

A

Right.

B

With guys that changes the grip, I imagine. You can't make it move unless it's hard.

A

No, you can make it move. You're not gonna get, like, too erected.

B

If it's soft, you can make it move.

A

Oh, yeah?

B

How much?

A

Enough that you'd see it. Like, the way that, like, if I flexed my boob.

B

Can you stand up? Can I? Well, I see it move.

A

This will be on the other jeans. Through the jeans, potentially.

B

And let Jenna know this is in the least sexual way possible. I have no attraction to your husband whatsoever in the slightest way. I just am a curious child on a playground.

A

I would have to have the right, like, in more kind of thick and stiff material. Like.

B

Like how in. In 50 First Dates, how Sam Gamgee does the. He makes his boobs move.

A

Yeah.

B

You can make

A

probably, like, not like the rock flexing his tit. Like, that's a full experience, but there's movement that is discernible for sure.

B

Can you control. Can you tell it to go left or right, or does it just go right?

A

It's just. You're just hitting the button and it's going where it wants to go insane. I would love if somebody out there can control their direction like a joystick. That would be awesome.

B

This goes back to the. Maybe it was a question of the day where it was like, I think I asked you and Jabba if you would rather boobs or a vagina. For me, it's like if you. If I had the opportunity to have a penis for a day.

A

Yeah.

B

Oh, my God. I'd run out of hours. I'd go in the bath, I'd see if it floats. I'd put a little bow tie around it. I would see if I can move it left and right. There's so many things you could do

A

with it, and guys like doing those things.

B

Have you put a bow tie on it?

A

I haven't, but what have you put around it? No, I'm trying to think. I think it was Howie Mandel. I heard him in an interview.

B

That's the second time referencing this one episode.

A

I know two Howie Mandel's in one day. One for being a germaphobe and the other for having hilarious pranks. It was something like he put glasses over his penis.

B

That's so funny.

A

It looked like it was like A nose with a mouth.

B

Yeah. That's so funny.

A

Yeah, it is very funny. Howie Mandel is actually very funny.

B

Yeah.

A

Every interview I've ever heard makes me laugh.

B

How many interviews have you heard?

A

He was.

B

Are you a fan?

A

I probably heard a couple of interviews. I think he's been on Stern a bunch of times. I think he was on Shane Gill's podcast.

C

He's.

A

He's out in the circuit. He's a comedian.

B

Yeah, I just. You've never mentioned him before. I'm not years.

A

I'm not content.

B

But you seem like you're kind of obsessed right now.

A

Yeah, right now I am.

B

Okay, cool. So those are penises. I love the word. Okay, if we're going to honorable mentions. Chode. Choad is a funny word.

A

Unfortunate.

B

Penis only applies to some. But, boy, is it a funny word.

A

Or tuna can is a form of chode.

B

A two people call a penis a tuna can.

A

If you've got a really. If you've got a. It's like a double chode penis, basically. It's twice the girth of as the land.

B

Sounds like a micro penis.

A

No, because typically micro penises are just, like, short and thin. It's like a really unfortunate situation.

B

So it's a fat micropenis.

A

I mean, you don't want to chode. No one with a toad is happy. But like a.

B

But a tuna can. Yeah, that's. That's.

C

That's.

A

That's bad.

B

I could live with the chode. If I had. If. If someone looked at me and said, you have a tuna can, and they were talking about my penis, I would just go and I would find the nearest paper cutter and I would slice.

A

Yeah, I've never seen one in the wild. I think it's more of like a Bigfoot situation where, like, people like to hypothesize about it. But it's funny.

B

I think I've asked you this before, which is such a weird thing to say. Have you seen a micro penis?

C

No.

A

I'm in the locker room often, but you can tell the guys that are doing a really good job of trying to conceal.

B

I would really like to see one. I mean, and I don't mean in an unsolicited way.

A

You got Google under.

B

Here's the thing. I had an unsolicited. Well, I've had several. But the last unsolicited dick pic I got. I tried really hard to find. The mom's. The man's mother. I tried really fine, really hard to find her on social media. So I Could send her. It be like, FYI, your son's gross.

A

Yeah.

B

Couldn't find her. So I don't. I don't like when they're unsolicited.

A

Right.

B

But if anyone listening right now, if anyone listening has a micro penis and you want to send me a DM and be like, hey, I have a micro penis, would you like to see it? That's, like, a very kind offer and, like, a very respectful way to say it. I'd probably say yes for at least the first one. If I say. If I say no or I don't respond, it means I've already seen one. I really want to see one. And I don't think Garrett would get upset with me because I don't think. Think that he would think that that's in, like, any sort of a.

A

It's like a natural National Geographic type of penis.

B

Yeah.

A

It's not, like, a real.

C

Right.

B

I just. I want to see one. I probably won't. And. And then you might send me one, and I probably won't respond because what do you say? To respond? So, like, don't take that weird, but we'd love to see it.

A

Yeah. Pour one out for those guys. That's a tough situation.

B

Yeah. They probably have really good personalities.

A

They must.

B

And they. They're probably, honestly, really good partners, I'm sure. I imagine that they are very good partners.

A

They munch a tremendous box for certain.

B

Didn't even mean it that way. Well, they do that way. I. I believe that, too.

A

You gotta compensate somehow.

B

I just meant they probably don't need to be asked twice. They probably do their fair share. They probably don't have a inflated ego that, like, came from nowhere and is, like, unsubstantiated.

A

Strong tongues, for sure.

B

Yeah.

A

Package Johnson is just old school. And then the one that makes me laugh is this only works in context, but lizard.

B

Ew.

A

No one says, like, I. My lizard itches or whatever.

B

My lizard itches.

A

It's funny. But no one says. That is the point. But an expression for peeing is I gotta go drain the lizard. And that's always. That'll always get the boys going.

B

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.

A

Yeah. Draining the lizard is classic.

B

No.

A

Yeah. So. Well, this will be another between the words for penis and pee poops being full poop or pee poops being full peas. Elisa's got her. She's earning her paycheck this week. Mailbag.

B

Is this. Oh, it's a selfie. Oh, my God, that's so fun. Wait, I think I said this a while. Oh, and a selfie, as requested. I did say it. I knew it. Okay, mailbag, what did you just do to the camera?

A

No, I threw my Zen at the trash.

B

Oh, okay. Lobster here. Not a doctor, but I'm going to sprinkle LMNT on any leeches. They hate electrolytes. Right. And a selfie, as requested from Carl Hood, the girl that wrote into us complaining about us preaching the benefits of electrolytes is gonna hate.

A

Yeah.

B

This propaganda about leeches hating electrolytes, but I kind of feel like we should perpetuate it.

A

I wonder if that would work if you poured element on a leech.

B

I only want my way to find out. Also, Carl, you look so fun. I like your. I like your. Your polo.

A

It's a nice polo.

B

It's a great green.

A

Kyle Lobster Hood, Our guy.

B

Yeah, it's. Well, because. Okay, as requested. I think it's so nice to put a face to the name.

A

For sure.

B

Because I. We read these names all the time, but I don't know what most of you look like and so I can't visualize you. And so I just picture you as the little mnemonic device I create in my brain. But it's fun putting a face to the name.

A

I like it best when they show up to live podcasts, which has happened a number of times.

B

Yeah.

A

In Austin, Denver, many times. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B

Not by me.

A

But by me.

B

Yeah. Zach's the one on that department. Five star review.

A

This is from Marcus Ear it.

B

Earl Turt.

A

Marcus. That's an L. Ear light lit.

B

Anyway. Yeah.

A

The dopest pod ever. Chaunce and Zack, bring the ruckus. A plethora of entertaining guests. Rando rants plenty in this one. Pungent pontification, Creative criticizing, deep discussions, true story trip reports and generous general shenanigans. Thank y' all for hooking up us, Arkansas and listeners everywhere with a block of solid programming. Later, alligator. Early bird, the 83rd.

B

Thank you.

A

I bet this guy raps.

B

I was going to say thank you for. If you are a frequent listener, thank you for realizing that I do the mailbags and Zach does the five star reviews and for giving him rando rants. Pungent pontification, Creative criticizing, deep discussions. Those are all, you know, thanks for giving him the hard words. This is fun for me. I think if you go back, way back in the archives there, there has been a few pleas for me for people to give him really big words in what he has to read. And so this was really nice.

A

Yeah.

B

Thank you.

A

I forgot what I was gonna say. There's something to do with chosen now. I blocked it out.

B

Okay, we're going back.

A

Yeah. Where did that come from?

B

What did I want to say about shows?

A

I'm gonna let this ruminate for a second, but yeah, you guys can have your five star reviews. Run this podcast, Head on over to Apple Podcasts and just leave us any number of stars.

B

Not 1, 2, 3 or 4.

A

Shout out to today's title sponsor, Topo Athletic. Their trail runners are the best. I have used them exclusively over the last couple of years on trail and I love them. I've been rocking the pursuit twos. I'm wearing some new running shoes. I don't even know the model of these.

B

But you switched back to the pursuit twos. You're wearing other ones. No, you wear it. You wore a different model.

A

No, I've been only in pursuit. I'm in a new model of pursuit twos.

B

I thought you tried it.

A

Or maybe it's the threes.

B

I thought you tried the traverses or something.

A

I've tried a few. The Pursuits are my favorite.

B

Yeah, but you're back in the Pursuits.

A

I've never, I. I haven't done extensive backpacking. I'll do like short day hikes and other stuff just because I want to find the magic for me.

B

You're making me feel crazy as if you never tried different versions.

A

But I've been. I haven't strayed from the Pursuits in a hot minute.

B

Okay. My endorsement is. I still have my original pair from whenever it was they originally started doing their gig with us and sent them. And you would think, hey, she's about to move to North Carolina. She should milk this while she can. Ask for another pair before you leave so that you have one for when you're out there. You should. I should. I've thought about that, but I really don't think I need to because they're still kind of good. Yeah, I would rather just message you in a year and be like, hey, any chance you can get them to send me a pair?

A

Hook it up and I'll be like.

B

Or use.

A

Who is this?

B

Yeah, literally, you'll leave me on red or be like, haha, I hated you the whole time. Stupid. One of the two will happen. But I just, I haven't, I haven't. I haven't felt like I need to replace them. And I, I told this to. It wasn't you. I talked to someone about this recently and it wasn't you. I think if it was stop me. But I think that everyone has a hard time throwing out something specific.

A

Sure.

B

Because they think they could get more use out of it. Yeah. For me, it's shoes. For me, I have a really hard time throwing out a pair of shoes because even like the pair behind there that have the blowouts in both sides, I'm like, well, what if I want to do a really middle, messy day hike that's through mud and I want to not wear nice shoes? I could wear those. So I have a hard time replacing shoes if. Unless I absolutely need to. And I don't. Absolutely. I don't need to. Yeah. I'm not going to. I'll wait. I. I will risk you ghosting me. I don't need new ones yet. And I. I feel really good about that.

A

Yeah. I'd be more of a shoe hoarder if it wasn't for my wife who complains that I have like 400 pairs, which is accurate. It's a fair complaint.

B

Well, do you see the runners? Do you see the shoes the runners have? The people that do runs, you've never seen, like, the general population of runners in general, you've never seen, like, any of their shoe collections?

A

I don't think so.

B

Some people post them on the Internet. But a lot of shoes. Yeah, a lot of shoes. Yeah. Yeah.

A

And I feel like running in particular is like my doing a trail run. Am I doing a road run? Am I doing a mix? Am I doing.

B

I've worn through them faster because I went more miles stuff.

A

Be sure to use our code to save 15%, which is Trek15TopoTopoWalletic.com. They are awesome trail runners. Super big thank you to our Bob People's award winners on Patreon. That is Alex and Misty with navigators crafting. Alex kindle, Andrew Austin McDaniel. Bill Jensen. Brad Blair from 13 Adventures. Brent Mullins, aka Kruzy. Brian Allop, Carl Lobsterhood. Our guy. Christopher Marshburn. Clint Sitler, Coach from Mar Outdoors. Eric Casper.

B

Ghost.

A

Eric Hoffman. Ethan Harwell.

C

Done.

A

Jillian Daniels. Greg Knight. Greg Martin Griffin. Hey, would you bring me a beer? Haley Buckingham Palace Jackson Storm Trooper. Jared not from Subway. Jason Kaiser. Jason. Zach is a little donkey.

C

Girl.

A

Girl Snailer. Luke Natchez. Maddie in Arizona. Patrick cnclo. Randy Sullivan. Rebecca Braveheart World juror.

B

Sorry, I thought I was saying hurt there. I never want to. No, it's okay.

A

You can.

B

Rebecca brave two more. It's fine. You say it. I just.

A

What's even the point?

B

Literally, what's the point?

A

Point Rural drawers, soy products. The St. Louis Shaman Travis is in town, by the way.

B

He said outside my Travis. The is wrong with him. He hasn't texted me. I'm gonna text him right now.

A

St. Louis Shaman Timothy, Han Solo Tracy, Trigger Bonds.

B

Sorry.

A

There you go.

B

That was a. Oh, that. I don't know where that one came from.

A

Your bowels.

B

That was a demon. I said it wrong the first time because I'm angrily typing Travis into my phone. And then I corrected and I just. Like a little puppy dog that let out their first bark. I don't know where they came from.

A

Thanks to our guy Paulie at Oldman Murph's Copy roasters, go to omm.com, get yourself some delicious beans. Also, if you're in the Northwoods, check out his Instagram. I think it's Polly Boy Sh Cross. Polly Boy Sh Cross.

B

Did we figure out his handle? No, he changed it, remember?

A

No, I think it is Polly Boy Sh Cross now.

B

He's doing that tour.

A

Yeah, he's touring through September 24, so if you're in the Northwoods, check him out. Polly's exceptionally talented. You can follow us on social at Backpacker Radio, on Instagram, TikTok threads, Backpacker Radio on Facebook, all the places Johns.

B

Yeah, it sounds like it. I'm on YouTube at Juliana Chauncey when I can find the motivation to finish these two Town Crest Trail videos. I'm on Instagram at Julian Chauncey. You can get my book Hiking from Home, a long distance hiking guide for family and friends on Amazon. And I'll throw one more in here because I'm leaving soon. So where can you find me? Recently, I've been having a lot of fun on an ins. It's a tick tock account I made for Garrett. It's called Garrett Eats.

A

I think you've mentioned this before.

B

Garrett underscore Eats is his first bites of things.

A

He's very appreciative of all the food

B

that he enjoys, like, strongly so. But the problem with Garrett Eats is I just have been posting just in general, just fun videos.

A

It's your sandbox. Yeah.

B

It's like Patreon for us.

A

What's the terminology of burner? It's a burner account.

B

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. But I have been wrapping his Legos for him because I don't want. And when I say this, it sounds like I'm dealing with, like, a husband with anger issues who's going to, like, be mad at me and like, I'm in a scary situation. I don't mean it like this at all. Garrett will be very upset when we get to North Carolina if his Legos are broken. Not in a way that's that way, but in a way where it's like, I don't want to see him upset, especially if it can be prevented.

A

And the man transport him.

B

I've been, I. I've been posting time lapses of me wrapping them aggressively in bubble wrap and shit on Garrett eats. Yeah, it's just time lapses of me just mass rapping. I've. I've posted four already. I did helmets, I did characters, I did small ships, I did medium ships. The problem is he didn't trust me at first. So he was like, you can't touch them. And then I was like, what's your least favorite helmet? And he gave me Leia because that was his least favorite helmet. And I wrapped it really nice. Then he gave me one more, and

A

then he gave me one more, earning his trust.

B

So then I earned characters, and then I earned small ships, and then I earned medium ships. But his current plan is he wants to take the Millennium Falcon, which is a 9,000 Lego piece set. This is what I got him for the wedding. This is a $900, like a Lego set. Yeah, it's this big. It takes up our whole dining room table. Right now he wants to put it in the back seat of his car.

A

I mean, if it's accessible. I have a feeling he'll baby it very well. But.

B

And what if you stop short?

A

Yeah.

B

And then what? The pieces go every. Where are you going to find them? Under your seat? You're never going to find them. You're never going to find them. You're going to be. You're going to arrive mad. You're going to never find them. You're going to be upset. This thing is going to be incomplete. It's always going to bring up bitter memories. And God forbid we ever have to move again. This will be your memory of moving.

A

He'll have to like, definitely Tetris. It put pillows.

B

I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. So I have been wrapping like a day into night. It doesn't end. There's so many of these. There's so many of these. And I have been wrapping and wrapping and wrapping and like, excessively. So there's no way they could break even if they wanted to. They couldn't break if they tried. And I first, I Saran Wrap them so that if anything does break, it can't Leave because it's saran wrapped. And then I go through with all the padding and then I Saran wrap again. Anyway, I'm trying to build trust to get to these bigger vessels. I don't remember the point of this.

A

The Tick Tock.

B

Oh, the Tick Tock. Yeah. So where can you find me? You can find me in all these usual places, but Tick tock at Garrett Eats. Garrett underscore Eats. It's all videos of Garrett eating, plus some Legos. It's like me posting them, being him. It's really fun for me.

A

Yeah.

B

So if you would like to go there. It's not a hiking channel. If you comment on and say, I thought this was a hiking channel, I'm gonna get mad and block you. Don't do that. You do that on my Instagram enough. But if you do that, if you want to go there. That's just where I've been having fun lately. Yeah, Just been having little spurts of fun.

A

Not that I would encourage this, but there is something character building about Legos breaking. Because Leo is a die hard Legoist now every time he gets a present from a grandparent or aunt, uncle, whatever, it's a new Lego set and he fucking loves it. But his younger brothers, the twins, love destroying stuff. So they've destroyed everything that he's built. And at first it was a meltdown. And like last week, one of the twins came over and broke like the Mario Kart that he had just built. Like there wasn't even like a day where he could enjoy it. Came over and just like chucked it on the floor. And he didn't even like respond. He's so callous to the twins being destructive. He's just like, well, I guess I'll rebuild that later.

B

That sounds like Jenna's jeans. I mean, he's after the golf ball story.

A

Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, definitely. Jenna can get a temper, but I definitely, definitely more temperametic than she is. But shout out to a five year old for having Buddha like response to that.

B

See, I would trust that. But the problem is Yoda. Yoda fell off the bookshelf months ago. And Yoda had some pieces that came off when he fell off the bookshelf months ago. Of course, Yoda has still not been put back together. Yoda is a dark topic. We don't bring up Yoda and his anymore. Yeah, the pieces are apparently all together somewhere in a bag. Ready? But we don't bring him up anymore because he brings up sad thoughts.

A

So it's not as fun to rebuild.

B

Well, I posted a video of Garrett going through his 700 page booklet of this Millennium Falcon. And, like, it got a lot of views and people were commenting, and the LEGO Star wars community is so kind. And they were commenting videos of theirs, and then they were saying, like, oh, I built it in 24 hours. I built it in 48. I built it and I unbuilt it and then I rebuilt it. I love doing that. And I read them to Garrett and Garrett was like, I could never in my entire life fathom the idea of unbuilding. Because his mindset is once you put the pieces together, if you then take them apart, they don't stick together as strongly the next time. He thinks that the Legos have a stronger first stick together than separate sticks. So he might not be wrong.

A

But, like, if you take a. A piece apart, let's say a hundred thousand times, it's gonna like a puzzle, like a microplastic.

B

It makes sense. I'm not saying the guy's crazy. Yeah. I'm saying he is. He is not in the, like, the people in the comments that were like, I love taking it apart and rebuilding it. That's not the specialties he has.

A

Yeah.

B

His is one that I build it. It stays together. It does not come apart.

A

Just call it special.

B

Yes. And that. But that's why I need to bubble wrap these so well.

A

Yeah.

B

Yeah.