Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1111 - White Water Rafting in Wisconsin? Yep! With Dan Camp

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Ep. 1111 - White Water Rafting in Wisconsin? Yep! With Dan Camp · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:11
[SPEAKER_02]: episode one one one one and cam on a white water rafting in northern Wisconsin.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindill.
0:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi friends, thanks for joining us today.
0:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of Chuck Lane, because I was thinking earlier today that when I produced the episode for tomorrow, maybe I should share some of the little mini adventures that I have done in the last couple of weeks, but I thought, I don't know, I don't want to talk about myself.
0:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But I also thought, you know, people maybe would appreciate knowing
1:00
[SPEAKER_02]: that I'm trying to kind of practice what I preach a little bit and that I do, try to get out there and do the adventures and have fun.
1:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So as I was pondering all of that,
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't remember what this episode was.
1:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And we recorded this episode about five weeks ago.
1:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So I decided when I was producing this episode just now, it's just too funny.
1:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have to tell you what I did in the last week because it actually aligns with this episode so much.
1:33
[SPEAKER_02]: A friend of mine heard the episode where I was talking about adventures for everyone.
1:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the adventures that I talked about was if you don't want to afford getting into scuba diving, maybe even try snorkeling in streams and rivers and things like that.
1:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Well this friend came to me and said we got to do that so I did.
1:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We went snorkeling down the Gunnison River and it's a class two most of the way with a few class three drops and so we're snorkeling class three white water.
2:06
[SPEAKER_02]: that might be a slight exaggeration.
2:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a ton of fun.
2:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Saw so many huge fish.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It was unbelievable.
2:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew they were down there, but they're very, very difficult to catch.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But man, I would kind of float over a hole or a low spot in the river.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And there might be a dozen of them.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were brown trout and rainbow trout and not small ones.
2:27
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about eighteen insurers that are thick and fat.
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, beautiful, beautiful fish.
2:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I also saw a lake trout in the river, which I did not expect to see, but this was a long lake trout.
2:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably twenty inches long, maybe twenty four.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I thought, did I just see what I thought I saw because they're down in the lake below the river.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, it was an amazing experience.
2:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And the best way to describe it is with the current, especially it was fairly shallow right now.
2:58
[SPEAKER_02]: you feel like you're flying and the bottom is just soaring right under you and then when you come to a rapid you'll kind of you don't see it until it's right on you you know and my funniest memory was when I lifted my head and I saw my friend just kind of swoop over
3:16
[SPEAKER_02]: or slurp over might even be a better way to say at a class three drop it was hilarious and it was a lot of fun it was not the first time that I've done something like this but it was the first time in a very long time and the illusion of flying might have been my favorite part on top of seeing all of the natural aquatic environment
3:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Well then yesterday, my son and I went up to Taylor Reservoir.
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how it is.
3:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It's probably ten thousand feet or something cold water.
3:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were looking for pike.
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And right now, the grasses and the reservoir have grown into kind of underwater jungles.
3:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were hoping to see the pike that liked to hide in the grass.
3:58
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, we probably spent three hours snorkeling in that high-altitude mountain reservoir cold water.
4:05
[SPEAKER_02]: We were shivering.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: We did have on wet suits, but it was still very cold.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We got in and out three different times, and the last time getting back in the water, man, I was like, really?
4:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm already shivering.
4:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna jump back in this icy bath, but we did it, and it was an amazing experience.
4:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have to bring that up just because didn't remember that we talked about it.
4:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But in this very episode, Dan and I talked about River Snorkeling, River Bording, the things that I actually kind of did this week so it cracked me up.
4:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, sorry.
4:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for bearing with me as I share that.
4:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope you are likewise getting out there and having your little mini adventures and having a lot of fun.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be a fun episode about adventure sports benefits in general, but also a lot about kayaki and white water rafting and all the beautiful white water sports.
5:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So here we go!
5:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, thank you again for joining the Adventure Sports podcast today.
5:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about several topics with the general manager of a wildman adventure resort.
5:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is Dan Camp, and I think Dan first of all, love the name.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It fits the vibe so much.
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people think I'm joking when I tell them that that's my name.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've had people be like, let me see your driver's license.
5:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It is truly my last name.
5:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I interviewed Moose the other day is the listeners probably remember and I said, come on, Moose is that real.
5:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, Dan Camp, Wildman Adventure Resort.
5:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's a subject matter.
5:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about northern Wisconsin because it's kind of surprising the adventures that are available up there.
5:54
[SPEAKER_02]: When I think of Wisconsin, I don't really have a context for what northern Wisconsin is.
5:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Dan's going to fill a sin on all of that and it sounds super cool.
6:05
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about white water because that's a lot of what Dan does.
6:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to talk a little bit about guiding and outfitting and what that's about and why it matters.
6:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But think of this show as one part travel episode to northern Wisconsin, one part white water, one part guiding, and you kind of have a feel for where we're headed.
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So Dan, welcome to the program.
6:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's on it to be here.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me, Kurt.
6:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's fun.
6:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are a lot of places in the US that surprise people when they go there and forgive me for being naive, but I've not spent hardly any time in Wisconsin, but when I thought of Wisconsin, I was not thinking about Northern Wisconsin, right?
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So describe what that's like.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a hidden gem.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of me really enjoys that.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, last week, we're mid-season right now.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So things are crazy here a wild man.
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But I had the opportunity to take my mountain bike out.
7:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some really world-class mountain biking trails.
7:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I can ride my bike from our outpost, hop on the trails, and I don't see another human being.
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great.
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't see me when I go over my handlebars either, which is a common occurrence.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think about the other places that I've traveled to and visited to and had the opportunity to recreate outdoors and typically you're bumping elbows with people, you're pushing people off, you know, you're trying to do your thing.
7:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And up here, it is kind of a hidden gem.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's because of what you just mentioned.
7:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't really think of this being like an outdoor recreation sports mecca.
7:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have a lot of the same things you would have in a lot of places like Colorado or West Virginia.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, people don't know about it.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So instead of it being like cheese and packers, we're like, you know, an hour and a half north of Green Bay, we have two different locations.
7:50
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them's tucked along the Chikwama-Gan Nikolei National Forest, right on the Pesh-Digo River, and think like Pacific Northwest vibes with the river running through, delete the mountains out of the background, that's kind of the feel at this location on the Pesh-Digo River.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on the Menomani River, there's like the biography and there's truly a gorge through Pierce Gorge, which is a class four section of rapids and I didn't see class four in Wisconsin.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think of class four white water.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a short stretch.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about a quarter mile long, but
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very exciting stretch.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very fun people are often shocked that it exists there.
8:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So in a place maybe you would never have dreamt it to be is a spot for people to do a lot more than just fish or ride their ATVs or ATVs around.
8:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
8:39
[SPEAKER_02]: They end to be really candid with you.
8:42
[SPEAKER_02]: When I thought about white water and Wisconsin, I thought they're pushing class two maybe.
8:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
8:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have true class four.
8:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And matter of fact, there's some videos on your website, just, you know, at the banner at the top, it's big.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some big stuff in there.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We take guests that have gone coast to coast on some white water.
9:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been lucky enough to do a lot of river trips.
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm always impressed by the peer scoreage section on the manami, just being such a large rapid.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not as many undercuts or sives or the things you think traditionally would be very dangerous in that section of white water, which makes it really good for first timers.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of the draws for me to be here.
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can sure we'll talk about this more.
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love introducing people to the sport and having
9:31
[SPEAKER_00]: a stretch of river that's kind of perfect for that.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've run that section twice, so we actually will trailer a raft, drop it off above, run the rapid.
9:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the guides have a really unique opportunity to take their guests out of the boat, lead them on a little hiking expedition back up pierced storage.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk about hydrology, talk about history.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's a little different.
9:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have jokes.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not very funny.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I talk about the birds and stories and stuff.
9:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a cool opportunity for people to see the rapid and then do it again as opposed to running, you know, several rapids in a day.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a different feel entirely.
10:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and every trip down a river is different.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: correct.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's part of my my lessons to live by before our second trip through Pierce scores is you're never the same as you were last time and neither was the river so it's a good lesson to learn.
10:20
[SPEAKER_02]: You know that the rabbits may still be there but the water's constantly moving and shifting and your line is everything depending on what you hit and what you miss and
10:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoy doing things multiple times because of the way the experience develops.
10:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's cool.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never heard of a rafting trip where you can do it twice.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's unique in that way.
10:41
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, on.
10:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mentioned earlier just before I hit record that you think of where you are as the North.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Less than Wisconsin maybe maybe, you know, it's more like in your mind, this is the North.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean by that?
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in Central Illinois, just outside of Spring, for the Illinois little town called Rochester.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And my backyard was a corn field, or a bean field, depending on the year.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that's like the heart of the Midwest, right?
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Hot summers, muggy summers, the winters were kind of temperate.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: but it was like corn and beans and if you wanted to do anything like what we do up here like I always thought you know for me was Missouri my dad and always made an effort to get us outside and so we want to Missouri a ton but my very first trip is a little guy was around Lake Michigan so around some of the stuff that I've around now and that kind of like set the pace for the rest of my my life so far was
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: outdoors and doing stuff like that.
11:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the Midwest, you know, the true heart of the heart land, you know, they're an essential annoy.
11:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have mountain biking trails that I could just rat my bike to.
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have rivers that I could go jump in and swim or do you class, you know, two to four white water.
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think of this as kind of a separate base.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I think once you get north of Green Bay, like it kind of changes, people who have been to the UP of Michigan kind of get that feel of like it's the woods is kind of like this different space up here.
12:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I think once you get far enough north, we kind of like leave the Midwest.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you don't leave the Midwestern hospitality, which is really nice.
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That sticks around.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the landscape changes.
12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't know if I should even tell this, but I'm going to.
12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: My son went to college in Iowa.
12:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And he obviously found the hospitality wonderful, but he says, Dad, they're so nice.
12:32
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't get anything done.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: No one will ever make a decision.
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just like, what do you want to do?
12:36
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I want to do what you want to do.
12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It is like it just sometimes it became too much for me.
12:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It did too much kindness.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually a good buy.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good problem to have isn't it?
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It is absolutely a good thing.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You have good neighbors, you have great places to hang out.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't really complain.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, something's always drawn me back here, and that's part of it.
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So what types of sports would you say are pretty common up there?
13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We've already talked about white water, which, you know, I was surprised at, but I get it.
13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned mountain biking sounds great.
13:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what do people do in that area?
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, traditionally, it's not the things that we're doing.
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's traditionally fishing, whether it's ice fishing or going out on the boat and fishing that way.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think ATVs and UTVs are primarily what people think of when they think of recreating outdoors in this space, which is totally fine.
13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: There's definitely, I mean, there's a ton of space up here for all those different things.
13:37
[SPEAKER_00]: What we're doing is kind of offering the alternative to that, and that is, you know, like motorless trips and human-powered expeditions and things that, and not that fishing and you TV riding doesn't do this, but there's something special that is fostered during adventure sports that you connect with your family or your teammates, whoever you're with, during that adventure, bachelor of bachelor at parties, you know,
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: something happens when you're staring down the pipe of a class for a rapid or playing paintball or jumping off as a blind tower that is truly special.
14:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think what we do as far as, you know, our human power recreation sports up here is a little bit different than
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: what it has traditionally been in northern Wisconsin, which is like I said, a lot of UTVs, ATVs fishing, hanging out in the cabin, going out on the lake, we're offering something that's probably more on the verge of people's comfort zones.
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: probably a little bit easier to go out and grab your fishing gear and hop on the side of the lake and spend a day picnic, which is a beautiful, beautiful afternoon.
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But might not be as easy to convince everybody to hop into a sixteen foot raft and listen to a stranger they just met.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think we're offering that alternative and I think people are finding it and you know, enjoying mixing it up a little bit.
14:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, Dan, I totally get where you're coming from.
15:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in Northeastern Oklahoma.
15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm in Colorado now, but when people ask where I was originally from and I say Oklahoma, they start describing the planes and the wheat fields and, you know, the red carpet country, just red collider everywhere.
15:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's what everyone thinks of.
15:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say, no, that's not where I grew up.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because the northeastern corner of Oklahoma is in the foothills of the Ozarks.
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So everything that you just described about northern Wisconsin fits northeastern Oklahoma, only the winters are a little warmer.
15:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had to explain to people.
15:39
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's a part of Oklahoma.
15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You probably haven't thought of.
15:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we have small mountains.
15:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We have clear running streams and rivers and beautiful clear lakes.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: People go scuba diving in them because they're clear.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They can see and enjoy it and what's cool about it.
15:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it's close to areas where people don't have those types of experiences.
16:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to travel as far to go do something completely different.
16:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And so in the Midwest, you think about Northern Wisconsin, it might be way more convenient than trying to get out to Wyoming or Colorado or Idaho or something.
16:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So make sense.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: without a doubt.
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what our greatest, one of our greatest things that we can do for people is offer them that alternative to making that cross-country road trip.
16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's oftentimes in their backyard.
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So think of someone in Chicago, and it's four or five hours away from Wisconsin.
16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: For some people, that's like a really long drive.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I've lived in places where that's like going to the supermarket.
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, it seems pretty short.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: to have a resource where you can hop in and go do something whether it's a day trip or a multi-day thing where you're coming up and doing several activities.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I should also give credit to the rest of Wisconsin.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some really beautiful places in Wisconsin.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Bells are beautiful, devil's lake, the drift list.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of beautiful places to come see in Wisconsin.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do believe that ours is one of the least known of up here in the Northeast corner.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: People know dark county, people know green bay, but they don't understand exactly what
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of beautiful outdoor resources we have in this space that are unlike anything unless you travel like you said to Wyoming or down to West Virginia and it's a lot further drive for a lot of people who are centrally located here in the Midwest, whether it's Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of urban centers within a day's drive of where we are, where people can come in and leave the city lights a little bit and connect with a guide and someone who's trained to do it.
17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's talk about white water a little bit.
17:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, a lot of people have done white water rafting as, you know, something to do it on vacation or at summer camp or whatever, but there's a lot more to it than that.
17:56
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get started?
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great question.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I was listening to some of your shows like preparing for this and I was listening to a lot of there's so many Midwest to Colorado or to Wyoming or to Oregon like people that they find their way out there and they stay out there I think like I went out and came back which was kind of funny but my first time ever going white water rafting I was probably like
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: or teen my dad planned this huge trip for us to go to glacier national park and we went on the middle fork of the flat head and I just thought it was a coolest thing.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I never it never hit my head that I could like do that as a as a job.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it wasn't until I was graduating from college that I called my dad.
18:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the time, I'd want to be a park ranger.
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be the guy who stands on the side of the hill and tells people about what's going on.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: History or nature.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved that.
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I do a major in history and biology.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I had this whole path.
18:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got to the application process.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, man, this is dry.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: This is dry.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I started thinking about where in polyester pants every day.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if this is for me, so I'm calling my dad and getting ready to graduate.
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, dude, I don't know.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what to do.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, go be a raft guide.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll figure it out.
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, go via Raph guide for the summer, figure it out.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So it got on coolworks.com, which is a great resource for seasonal workers.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw a Class Four white water rafting northern Wisconsin.
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did the same thing that you probably did, which is as I said, no way.
19:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's class two at best, right?
19:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got on with the owner and we talked and I saw the videos.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, no, I've not pretended to get in as a rookie guide and guide Class Four my first year.
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's unheard of.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go do that.
19:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And came in and just took to it.
19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I just loved the water.
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I just loved being the back for raft.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved having like that captive audience for a couple hours and train them out for the next captive audience.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You can try your jokes out and find what sticks.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved introducing people to the sport and being a part of it.
19:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of me when I was a younger man back then, but I just loved like falling in and like having the exciting experiences too.
20:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's part of that.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't love that as much anymore.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But after that, I just, it just, it just, it, I couldn't fully scratch.
20:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw the power that happens in those moments on the river and the special places.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and since then, I've, I've done Grand Canyon trip.
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done, I'm, I'm getting ready for a middle for exam and trip.
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done tons of day trips, you know, across the country.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the same.
20:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same magic.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same types of people.
20:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same atmosphere, the excitement, and the general, like, respect of those natural places between the groups who love that is shared between the people and the places.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more immersed myself, the more I decided, like, I want to be involved with that as long as I possibly can.
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on a ride this out until I can't anymore.
20:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I've been able to do through a lot of luck and just knowing the right people, but it's been, I can't imagine not spinning a life that didn't have white water, you know, planted at the heart of it.
21:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was all because of polyester pans.
21:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he has your pants, man.
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't have done well.
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just kind of trying to imagine the lifestyle.
21:15
[SPEAKER_02]: What you're describing, I bet there are a lot of people who are like, seriously, that sounds so great.
21:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what is the lifestyle like?
21:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you get, I know when you do the same thing over and over again, it starts to feel like it's over and over again.
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But what does it like to be a raft guide?
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, this changed a lot for me since I stepped back behind a computer more than I used to, you know, in my, my rookie years, it was all about lifting boats and being strong and, you know, who could do the most pull-ups and push-ups.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: There were times where we would go drop all the boats off and wait for our guests and we would just rep out push-ups, you know, be covered in baby oil and the guest show up.
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like,
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: W-W-E wrestling match.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So for a long time, it was like the excitement, the body, mind, connection of working with your, you know, physically, being on the water.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there are afternoons where I just float through the water with a bunch of people I just met and then take them rafting through some class for water.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was pretty cool.
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I didn't know how it would get much better.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, anybody in the industry knows like you're not gonna get rich as a river guide.
22:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that was something that money's never been a huge motivator for me.
22:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand where it stands and what we need to do with it.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But for me, being wealthy is like having those in all months and those friendships and getting to do that on a regular basis.
22:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, my parents early on were like, when's he gonna grow out of this?
22:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then once they realized I wasn't going to, we kind of shifted gears.
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But as a Raph guy, I mean, it's just so freeing.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, I mean, you work real hard for a couple months, you know, being available, the more available you are, the more chips you can pick up, the more people you can take out on trips, money you can make.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You're living, you know, I lived out of tents, I lived out of broke down buses, I lived out of fans.
23:03
[SPEAKER_00]: mechanics.
23:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's truly very free.
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you need and you kind of drop the rest, which I know kind of sounds like an extreme for a lot of people to get rid of those things.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I could do it the way I used to anymore, but I still got my old man and, you know, those little bits and pieces.
23:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, I might have settled down a little bit from that.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think every no matter how long you do it, you're still kind of tied to the, the feral work in every day, hanging out with your friends every day, and doing work that you feel really matters.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but eventually got a transition to what I call pro guide mode.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So you go from my, this is, this is, you know, cultivated from my mentor, Ken Newman, who's the owner of the business here.
23:48
[SPEAKER_00]: He told me one day, you got to be as happy that the bus is leading without you on it full of happy guests than you do, waiting at the put-in for them to get there.
23:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought he was crazy when he first told me that.
23:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That was, you know, probably six or seven years ago.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I know what he means.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I can watch a bus load up and take off.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, there's forty people who are going to go meet their five guides and have an absolute blast the next three or four hours.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's taking that satisfaction that you once felt from rafting class for, being in the water, you know, all those bits and pieces, and transitioning to the same kind of feeling, but watching other people,
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: leave without you and go do it with other people, you know.
24:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know you're making it possible on some level and there's a vicarious joy.
24:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Brett.
24:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what makes this career field sustainable for people as you get older.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I was listening to the episode with Zab and he's talking about, you know, one of the workforce is like, sixteen to like, twenty four.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not dissing what we have.
24:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Our is probably average nineteen to like, twenty six.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after that, they go get their big boy jobs or whatever you want to call it.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And they leave because they don't see the path forward.
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's like,
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: pretty imperative in the industry right now for us to start finding those paths forward for people to continue living the lifestyle and building around it.
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think being in that pro guide mode, that really, you got to find that space because as you said, you're going to get tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you can find some enjoyment every day on that, kind of the same way the river's not the same every day, then you can get really good at it.
25:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say something, Dan, and I'm going to confess.
25:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I still wrestle with this, okay?
25:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to just throw it out there and see what your feeling is on it.
25:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I have so many acquaintances and friends who are struggling to save enough retirement so that they won't have to work anymore.
25:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I fear for them.
25:51
[SPEAKER_02]: because when they do retire, they just so many of them have lost the ability to do the things they love to do because they aged out and they aged out because they set it a desk for a lifetime.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Not necessarily because they're seventy or sixty five or whatever the magic number is, but because they just weren't doing it.
26:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I see other people that sometimes people frown on.
26:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You were just saying, you know, my folks are like, well, when's it going to grow up, you know?
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's like now they're living the dream now and yeah, retirement's not going to be so cozy maybe, but at the same time maybe it will be okay.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but the way that I've always thought of it is if you're not enjoying every day, then something's wrong.
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: that doesn't mean ignoring responsibility.
26:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It means choosing the lifestyle that is the most meaningful and rewarding for you.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But I still struggle with this, Dan, because there's the well, but people should have a retirement.
27:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You know?
27:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So reflect on that a little bit.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think about this often.
27:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, no one's really in this industry to go booku cash.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some people luck out in that happens for him, but the majority of us that are doing this are doing it because we love the work and if we can make some money along the way.
27:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cool.
27:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, for my, I can speak on my own experience.
27:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I have very little money like saved away like some of my friends do who started working, you know, great jobs right out of the college or picked up jobs out of high school and worked, you know, construction work or those types of things.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't have any of those people that don't tell me sometimes that they wish that they were in my shoes or see how much time I get out or the things I've gotten to do and
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: wish that maybe they had some time to do that, but you know, we're exposing and all that.
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What I do think, and you alluded to this, is that there's a right way for you.
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what's got to matter.
28:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it right for me?
28:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard to do sometimes go against the status quo or for me, you know, what people might have expected.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Your life to look like.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you go back and you read those letters to self when you were a kid and according to that, I was married now.
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I have kids and I play in the NFL.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously that didn't work out, but I still like to think that the young man could look and see how happy I am on a daily basis and the effects of the work we're doing here at Wild Man and the outdoor industry as a greater whole.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he'd be equally as proud that we're here and doing something that we're passionate about
28:47
[SPEAKER_00]: and something that makes us feel wealthy without it, you know, necessarily coinciding with a retirement account.
28:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that all sounds great.
28:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think there needs to be like financial literacy built in to leaders in the outdoor industry.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are constantly bringing up younger generations through what we've been through, especially the people who started off as guides and found themselves sticking around long enough to push paper.
29:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think...
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a obligation through us who have been lucky enough to find a column like a unicorn job where we can pay our bills and continue to do work that we find the matters, do be finding ways to educate people on how to start building retirement accounts earlier and how to manage your tip money.
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's real tempting to go buy a thirty rack a PBR when you get that twenty dollar bill at the end of the trip.
29:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe maybe don't do it every week.
29:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe don't need to do that.
29:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you can stash some in a jar and at the end of the year you put that into a Roth IRA.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what's a Roth IRA?
29:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
29:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Opportunity to learn something that I'd probably learn to late in life.
29:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I can teach them a little bit earlier, so.
29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the people who have been fortunate enough to live these lifestyles, find a way to make it work for themselves, stayed wealthy spiritually, and all of that, to pass along the things that took us too long to learn, to the next generation to make this sustainable amount.
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So when somebody's mom asks me, look, how do you stay for a time at, you can tell me, like an honest answer that's gonna make them feel better about their kids, maybe come to join us for a summer.
30:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, that's well said.
30:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of a big deal to me as the host of the Adventure Sports podcast, the co-founder.
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember the first year or so saying, I really believe in what we're doing here because when people get out, get active, connect with nature, have more fun, make friends, build a social life around it.
30:39
[SPEAKER_02]: They start teaching their kids an active lifestyle instead of being couch potatoes, you know, they get off the screens and start experiencing the reality of nature.
30:48
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many positive benefits, I just go crazy, you know, I geek out over this stuff because it makes such a difference.
30:55
[SPEAKER_02]: But, and here's the butt, you know, it was like, are we just being hedonist?
31:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we valuing fun over responsibility that we really ought to be dealing with?
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, you know, and I'll say it this way.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's not a tension there, then you might need to think it through a little bit.
31:12
[SPEAKER_02]: There should be a tension there, right?
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, well, you were mentioned before, and I didn't touch on this, but the fact that a lot of people who are doing these jobs are creating these stories and this life experience that, you know, a lot of people wait till they retire to do.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've all been around someone who went too soon.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I think everybody listening to this would
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: as lost somebody too soon.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we can always talk about people who are at the end of their days and they always wish I had done blank.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I had done more, right?
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I had loved more.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I had spent more time with my people.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think it's a dual edged sword.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's two very important parts of this.
31:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Such yourself up for, you know, a sustainable future for yourself, but also like, don't forget to look up while hiking.
32:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but look at your feet so much and see what's out there.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to the birds.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Take a breath.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a expression.
32:08
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend Maddie told me not too long ago and she said at the end of the day it's just rafting.
32:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'll find myself like bent out of shape about something or something's not going the way I wanted it to and it's like, hey, it's just rafting and at the end of the day.
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so like that is like been my mantra.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Take a deep breath and you can do that with anything.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, hey, this is just accounting.
32:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, this is just blank.
32:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just allows you a second to reset, be grateful to be in the moment that you're in.
32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And not everybody's going to be a whitewater raster or want to be a guide.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think everybody can find that in like their day to day.
32:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's what serves you, then that's great.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love, I love your point of don't wait until you can't do the things that you want to try.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's the thing.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't go back.
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: exactly and you know I'm publishing an episode actually for tomorrow and so that's going to be several weeks ago by the time this football's but a big part of that episode is how great adventure sports can be for families.
33:12
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's easy to think of it as selfish even if I'm just going out to have fun all the time.
33:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But whenever you realize that you can teach your family how to enjoy nature and be active and healthy and have that outlet, I think most of us work jobs that hopefully we were okay with, but sometimes we're a real drag and you know, but if you have an adventure sport that you can do in the evenings or on the weekends or
33:40
[SPEAKER_02]: on holidays, then it can enrich your life so much.
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It really helps to get out of the daily grind.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We get caught in these loops, I think.
33:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So easily, go to work, go home, go to work, go home.
33:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Go to work, go home.
33:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, life's not really meant to be that.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I maybe I'm pontificating a little bit here, but teaching your kids to value activity with other people outside.
34:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I listened to one of your episodes.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I was telling it, talking about your son and the adventures you had been through that kind of shapes their lives.
34:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just gigland.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun to hear those stories.
34:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of them have a moment that wasn't so fun in the middle, like, where's this kid at?
34:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that those moments, it's pretty easy.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: In this day and age, you get caught up in, like, what's dangerous?
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's dangerous.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: life is dangerous, getting in the car to go anywhere is dangerous, you know, there's scary things out there.
34:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, a wild man, we focus intensely on that feeling that people are feeling around their kids, whether it's they're coming with a camp or they're coming with
34:55
[SPEAKER_00]: they're coming with a different family or an extended group.
35:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Or just coming with mom and dad, I think that you have to have dirt on hand moments as a child to like continue learning that the world isn't as scary as everybody wants you to think it is.
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to, a lot of people show up and they don't think they can fall into their rapids.
35:15
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the best example I can think of.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, first of all, you didn't read anything for a guy here.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty standard.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, falling into a rapid is an inherent risk of white water rafting.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you didn't have that risk, you probably wouldn't go.
35:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think about it.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, yeah, I guess that is part of what makes it fun that I could fall in to the rapids.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're kind of like explaining the people that these are things that are inherently little risky or little dangerous.
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you put people out there and like I said, our focus is very intensely on this part of putting people out there in the best possible conditions to thrive.
35:53
[SPEAKER_00]: in that space and that's having what well trained guides but like the hard skills are great so swift water rescue training you know days on end of flipping rafts and getting back in them and how do I cross the river and how do I save people and get them back to their boats but also empathetic people.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: people who are going to see you as you.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to love on you for being out there.
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a guide named Casey who's helped several people from panic attacks.
36:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of our guides could do this, but he's the best.
36:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's because this guy cares.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like a big grizzly bear.
36:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And he cares about the people.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And they feel that.
36:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the culture that we've worked really hard to create is a space where people can come in, be a little bit afraid of that.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think parents can rest easy when they see that our guides are taking care of their kids in a way that's really thoughtful.
36:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And meeting them where they are and it's a challenge by choice situation.
36:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And rather than it being like a flips for tips and we'll catch you down river kind of thing.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really like a situation where you come in and we want you to come back and do it again with us or somewhere else.
37:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't get that if you're not being people and especially children where they are.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's that's formative.
37:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a bad time as a kid, man.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the river's scary probably never going back.
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You lose that person to the outdoor recreation space.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you can show them that like there's empathy and love and all that tucked into these sports that they'll come back and be better for it as adults.
37:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I used to teach sport repelling.
37:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Just for fun.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And you guys have high ropes course there, right?
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Ziplines and the whole nine yards.
37:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Boy, talking about challenging people.
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You put them in a situation where they are safe.
37:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not no risk, but there's very little real risk, but it feels so risky.
37:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You find out what you're made of.
37:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a way to test your metal, but it's not only that.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Iron sharp and Zion.
37:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, when you have those experiences, you become it.
37:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I bet you have hundreds of stories, especially about young people who found out something about themselves that they didn't know before.
38:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It is truly the crucible of self exploration out here.
38:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the river and the woods and you kind of hit it on the head there like the high ropes and zip lines when you look at it technically.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: is pretty controlled.
38:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You're under pretty strict guidance there.
38:22
[SPEAKER_00]: The gear is inspected daily.
38:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all rated up to thousands of pounds.
38:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you got to take the step off, is it line platform and just trust that everything is there and that there's someone on the other end ready to receive you?
38:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen kids all the way up to people in their nineties take this on and there's always that hesitation moment right there at the end some longer than others but the ones that push through it and make it to the other end you know I can just see their confidence building and it happens like I said from kids to adults
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There's that chest puffs out a little bit after you get a chance to prove to yourself and maybe to your social circle, like, hey, I did that.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cool.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not in that pro guide mode, you might not even notice.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, all right, next year.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're watching your people and they seeing them grow and congratulating them on that.
39:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's where growth happens and I think that's like the most beautiful thing that we could offer anybody is like a chance to walk away from their trip feeling like they did some cool.
39:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask you about this and I'm not expecting that you're the expert at this one.
39:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not expert at anything.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But you might surprise me.
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So I grew up in water literally water was everything.
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And so very, very comfortable in water.
39:35
[SPEAKER_02]: When I started kayaking years ago, learning to manage the boat was a bit scary.
39:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't like the idea of hanging upside down in a river with rocks going under my head and, you know, you can bail out of the boat, but then it's so much work to get back in.
39:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did not have a bomb proof roll.
39:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
39:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a roll, but not bomb proof.
39:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And it seems like it failed me when I most needed it to work.
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was over a class for drop.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I was in the wrong headspace.
40:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, this is not even fun right now.
40:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Dan, I parked the kayak on the shore, and I jumped in the water, and I swam it.
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did that because I'm not uncomfortable swimming rapids.
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
40:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It was uncomfortable in the boat.
40:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I sounds nuts.
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, it worked for me, and it's kind of backwards, and a lot of people would say, oh, but I didn't feel like the boat was my safety.
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like the boat was my toy.
40:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And so anyway, all of that said that really helped my attitude, but here's the big question related to this.
40:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I recently started looking into riverboarding just a little bit.
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: We're actually swimming the rapids with like a boogie board, something like that, you know, and I thought, oh, now that might be, have you ever done it?
40:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know anything about riverboarding?
40:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, this is really funny and timely.
40:59
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our longtime guides, Angela, was telling me about his new riverboard that he was using last weekend.
41:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought he was crazy.
41:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've seen people, I've seen people do it.
41:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not uncommon out here.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: People love riverboarding on these rivers.
41:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But for some reason, maybe it's mental.
41:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I like being in the kayak more than a riverboard.
41:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
41:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not my say.
41:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels, I probably felt the same way you did in your experience.
41:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
41:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have been nervous on a riverboard.
41:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
41:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, another thing that my son and I are talking about starting to do is, uh, and this one's going to sound really weird, snorkeling rapids.
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, not for the sake of the rapid, but for the sake of what you can see on the bottom of these rivers.
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
41:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And these are clean running rivers.
41:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you put the snorkel on, you know, put on your wet suit, put on a snorkel, and you do a float trip.
41:51
[SPEAKER_02]: where you're really under the water instead of above the water with your vision anyway, right?
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
41:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, huh, let's see, you combine that with riverboarding to get through the really bad stuff.
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
42:03
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and he put it that way, because I have snorkeled rapids, and it's, uh, I love the treasure hunt, you know, find everything from, uh, GoPro's to wedding rings down there.
42:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But a riverboard would be a great, uh, great way to do that.
42:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe you just shifted my paradigm on, on riverboarding.
42:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it sounds, and looks fun.
42:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But not as fun as a kayak.
42:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess it's kind of like why I've never gone skiing.
42:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I love snowboarding too much.
42:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sacrifice a day to do that.
42:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I just had never have done it.
42:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe maybe I need to broaden my horizons.
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's kind of fun.
42:38
[SPEAKER_02]: When we started the adventurous sports podcast ten years ago, many of the modern day adventure sports didn't exist yet, or they were just getting started.
42:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you've been around keeping this for eleven, twelve years?
42:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it no more like ten and a half, almost.
42:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So we started on February, twenty eight, ten years ago.
42:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess that's four were a third of the way through our eleventh year.
43:02
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.
43:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah.
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about how much has changed in the industry since then.
43:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, and a lot of the people we interviewed back then, have aged out completely, and other people, they were in diapers almost.
43:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, now they're starting to get, you know, they were young teens and now they're doing the adventure sports.
43:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just think it's a beautiful thing to think, wow, that we actually have multiple generations that have been exploring the out of doors, exploring adventure and coming up with all new ways to experience it.
43:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
43:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a lot of fun.
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so my latest thought is riverboarding is young.
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, sup, stand up out of warning.
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That was just barely a thing when our pod cast started.
43:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And now it's everywhere.
43:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I can't escape it, it's everywhere.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Or the hydrofoil kite surfing.
43:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
43:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that kind of thing.
43:52
[SPEAKER_02]: That didn't exist.
43:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's so many new ways to do things.
43:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was thinking, hmm, could we snorkel and riverboard in rapids?
44:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And what would that be like?
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I need another decade to look back on this moment and decide how it went I guess.
44:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think we should do it.
44:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
44:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
44:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
44:11
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of the things that we used to do
44:15
[SPEAKER_02]: here in Colorado is we'd wait into wintertime and then we'd find a mountain that wasn't too huge and we drag our kayaks up the mountain and then we would toboggan in the kayaks down to the river and drop off of whatever bluff there was and splash into the water and keep on going on the white water run.
44:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course it's a little chilly in the wintertime but combining kind of combining like snowboarding
44:40
[SPEAKER_02]: with white water all in the same trip.
44:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a hoot dude.
44:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So fun.
44:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen some really incredible athletes who will, you know, do that same thing.
44:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll like stand up to the side of the mountain, drop through like seas on the back of their kayak, run it down like you guys did or speed down.
44:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And then yeah.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like a multi-sport day.
45:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's not for everybody, but those who are crazy enough to chase those multi-sport days, there's like nothing.
45:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you feel the same way.
45:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, those days doing those, by kind of crazy intense, you know, not ideal weather condition runs or some of the best times out there.
45:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, get your poggies, dry suit, you're doing a whole, I call it like a Taylor Swift outfit change, you know, you got to change everything out and start out over.
45:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are special days.
45:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's not a lot of those out there.
45:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to point something out.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: We're just kind of goofing off talking about all different types of outdoor sports now, but we both have these huge grins on our faces and just remembering that, you know, there is this time I did this thing.
45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: That's part of what it's about.
45:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why people should say, you know what, I'm going to go up to Northern Wisconsin.
45:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to try out class rapids and Wisconsin because I'm not done it.
45:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you stay home, you'll forget that day.
45:54
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go in the northern Wisconsin and have a life experience, then you will remember it for the rest of your life.
46:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you'll be talking and smiling.
46:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I heard someone say the other day, people are getting stretch marks in their face for smiling so much.
46:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
46:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
46:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a beautiful thing.
46:14
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot older now than when I started this salt turn thirty to the summer and uh... i have i've crossed feet you know and crouching on the corners of my eyes now and yeah it reminds me my dad and uh... and my mom that both just left so much and i still do and and uh... i looked at those as i can badge of honor and i look in the mirror and i'm starting to get them to and
46:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me think back, like you said, of all the smiles and love and the intense and fun experiences I've had.
46:41
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them here, you know, I've spent most of my adult life in and around Wisconsin and around Wildman, you know, I started working here in, in, in, in, in.
46:52
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's been incredible.
46:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And to see so many other people start forming those memories together, whether it be off the high robes course or paintball or rafting, you're watching the families go home closer than they were when they came in.
47:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had parents talking about the haven't seen their kids, look up from their phone and three hours straight.
47:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on the rafting trip, and they see the photos and they're like seeing the side of them, they haven't seen it a long time.
47:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty easy to just, I always say it's better off sideways and downriver than on the couch.
47:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that means even if the day goes awry and your boat flips and you're swimming, you know, you could have been stuck at home.
47:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a different kind of stretch mark when you're just eating potato chips on the couch all the time.
47:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I can do that for my smiles and grinning and share that with others, I think that is the key to a life well lived.
47:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And getting to like share, like you said, we're both this grinning.
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: talking through our experiences and kind of living it through each other.
47:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I know how you feel, you probably know how I feel about those things.
47:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a pretty cool, like, universally shared experience between adventurous.
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It is fun.
48:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Super fun.
48:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of, you said Grand Canyon.
48:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I did.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Dude.
48:06
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
48:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So not many people have voted the Grand Canyon.
48:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But since you have, what is that like?
48:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, that was like my Everest, you know, uh, uh, yeah.
48:18
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as I started getting into white water and realizing that I was in love with it the way it was, I was watching these videos with my friends, you know, on a broke down school bus on this old TV, we got YouTube on somehow to even know how we did that.
48:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd just be watching kayakers and rafters do all these crazy cool things.
48:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'd look at them like, man, if one day we could do that.
48:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one of those guys that I grew up doing that with called me and him and his wife pulled a permit.
48:46
[SPEAKER_00]: First time they applied really.
48:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when it hit me that I was going to go down twenty five days in the big ditch with some of my best friends and people that I had like dreamt of this moment with for a really long time.
48:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: any amount of explanation, I would give it would be a discurtacy to the actual trip because it is truly grand on a spectacle scale that I can't ever put into words.
49:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped journaling at times when I was down there because I was like, I won't even know what I was talking about, you know.
49:17
[SPEAKER_00]: there.
49:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it is the river in the landscape and the history and the how lucky we are to get to have that space and how sacred it is and how much we need to be thinking about water as we continue to enjoy that space and that's all great but then you know you're on day like seventeen in your realize you have to answer to an email for three weeks
49:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And even you might be on groove or duty, but you know, care, you know, it's good and you're with your friends and you're laughing and playing music and you're silly and you realize that like this is the whole point of everything, right?
49:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to get lost with your pals and like a beautiful wilderness and be silly.
49:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I've joyous moments, you know, your abs hurt from laughter, playing music together, cooked together, cleaned together, scout rapids together.
50:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.
50:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I can very, very clearly remember the stress and anguish we felt at a couple of rapids scouting it and then watching your friends go through that.
50:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had never rode an eighteen foot boat until that trip.
50:22
[SPEAKER_00]: For more than, you know, a small portion.
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea of going to an eighty one miles, uh, rowing a boat that I was responsible for was like super intimidating.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea if I could even do it.
50:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember after day one, I was like, I'm not cut out for this and not.
50:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But by, you know, uh, the land of the giants and the gems and all that stuff kind of in the middle of the trip, I was kind of like, hey, man, you're doing it.
50:45
[SPEAKER_00]: This is great.
50:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had such a great support crew with people I trusted and loved that, uh, it made it truly, truly incredible.
50:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess the point of that whole entire rambling is if you ever have a chance to do it, clear your schedule, quit your job, go do it.
50:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's totally worth it.
51:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, you know, one thing about rafting this super cool, and I'm contrasting with kayaking here.
51:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, at least white water kayaking.
51:11
[SPEAKER_02]: you don't have a lot of room in a kayak for stuff gear and you know so you're pretty much doing day trips in a kayak unless you have a support wagon which is the raft right and you can do these extended how long do you do say twenty eight days we did twenty five twenty five twenty five days twenty five days twenty five days so you can support that kind of a trip out of rafts
51:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, we still had ice for cocktails on day twenty four.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, we, uh, outfitted, uh, through a company called Moncopy, and uh, phenomenal, they did a phenomenal job.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we, like salmon planks and stakes, and it was great.
51:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you can, you can do things out of a rafting trip that make it feel, uh, very comfortable.
51:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a beautiful sleeping pad.
51:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we had,
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: multiple musical instruments, we had like light up lights for our campgrounds, everybody had nice chairs, and that's the beauty of a rafterip is whatever you put in there, you can generally take.
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's different, that's why I don't backpack because I've been spoiled.
52:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, right, I've been spoiled.
52:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to defend all the backpackers out there just a little bit.
52:22
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an element to backpacking that is learning how to be comfortable with much less.
52:28
[SPEAKER_02]: That is actually part of the enjoyment of it eventually.
52:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, at first you think, oh, I'm rough on it.
52:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's not comfortable.
52:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever it is, but then it kind of turns into nature provides.
52:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Finding just the right place to sit down.
52:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds so small.
52:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you get good if that is a backpacker, it'll change the whole experience that you could just, oh, I can be really comfortable right there.
52:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember even thought of that, but that is a beautiful moment.
53:00
[SPEAKER_00]: See, this is why it's important to have inter sport friendships, right?
53:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I myself probably am not going to plan like a backpacking trip, but I have a lot of friends that love it.
53:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so I need one of them to grab me by the hand and drag me out there because I envy the experience you just share to finding the perfect place to sit.
53:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I in my head right now I'm thinking I need to chase that.
53:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it is a thing, and it's not a thing that people talk about a lot, but I really like the idea of how little can I take and be completely at ease.
53:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's part of the sport.
53:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would love to do a raft trip with your stakes and your salmon planks and a nice full chair.
53:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Why go with a guide?
53:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I've asked that question of a few guides.
53:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But why should someone if they're getting into an adventure sport say, you know what, I know I could probably figure this out or I could learn from some buddies or you know what's the advantage of going to the guide and saying, you know, I want to do my first trip with you.
54:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I highly, highly, highly recommend if you're interested in a sport, curious about it, want to go bring your family, your friends with you to do it through a guiding service, through an outfit or through a professional guide.
54:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You are introducing yourself to something that has a fairly large barrier to entry most of the time.
54:25
[SPEAKER_00]: When you think about these sports, I mean, the cost of equipment, the cost of rafts, just the cost alone for a lot of these things, it's pretty huge.
54:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's like that barrier of how am I going to afford to do this on my own?
54:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That I think is important to make sure that you like what you're doing before you do it.
54:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's like step one.
54:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I like this thing?
54:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I actually want to spend money on it?
54:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There's that barrier.
54:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The next barrier for most things is a skill barrier.
54:52
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to go with a guiding service, you're going with a company, a reputable company that has guides who are well trained.
54:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I mentioned earlier, maybe doing swift water rescue trainings, doing first aid CPR, maybe even woofer training, schoolerness first aid.
55:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
55:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
55:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Where you are with people who understand how to make things happen well and can react when things don't go as planned.
55:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Which we're in nature.
55:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Please rather unpredictable at times.
55:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to have someone there that you can trust to take care of you through thick and thin.
55:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are the two kind of things I think of right off the top of my head is make sure you like it before you invest into the sport.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And then go with somebody who knows what they're talking about.
55:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're gonna have a lot better time than trying to put all these random pieces together on your own.
55:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you can ask questions.
55:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love when people show up and they are asking people, how did you get into this?
55:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What skills do you need to have?
55:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I know personally if I'm guarding, I'm taking that person under my wing and I'm showing them.
55:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I told, we start hiring a December.
55:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're ready to come learn, you know, I've got a great place for you to learn with great leadership that's going to help to get there.
56:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding the people that are going to take you and not just because they're getting paid to, but because they love what they're doing is a totally different experience than picking up a raft off a Facebook marketplace and deciding to go run numbers on the Arkansas.
56:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be a tough day.
56:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You're bringing it home to Colorado now.
56:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I thought I might give you something that, yeah, that's just over the ridge from us, man.
56:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I figured I'd give you something fun.
56:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love that stretch of water too.
56:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I'm short, you know, take go, go with somebody who's going to care about you and show you before you make that, you know, leap into a sport that you're not totally sure about.
56:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll probably learn a ton before you do that on your own.
56:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the idea of accelerating the learning curve is that alone.
56:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everything you said was was good.
56:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But that one, I think, man, it takes so long to learn how to do some of this stuff.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, you can learn how to do it safely, do it well, do it fun, so much faster if you have an expert.
57:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, inherently dangerous, right?
57:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everything that we do as that era of Mother Nature in it.
57:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't know how to handle that, if you don't know how to swim a rapid, you shouldn't be in it, you know?
57:18
[SPEAKER_00]: If you grow how to do that first, and I'll tell you any outfitter across the country that does racking trips and their first part of that trip is going to show you how to swim a rapid.
57:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to be a beneficial learning moment for you.
57:30
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to continue doing white water related sports,
57:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's awesome.
57:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And why not?
57:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
57:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they were running out of time.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I enjoyed this a lot.
57:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we didn't go into a deep dive into just one sport.
57:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we did is talk a lot about the why of doing adventure sports.
57:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And finding out a little bit about Northern Wisconsin.
57:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I, uh, I didn't know.
57:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad I know now.
57:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've got a spot for you whenever you're ready.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's do it.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: wildman adventure resort uh... the website is that the same w w dot wildman resort dot com
58:09
[SPEAKER_02]: wildmanresort.com, you are Dan Camp, the General Manager.
58:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's manned.
58:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Name the rivers again.
58:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The Manomani River, class two to class four, I think big rafts guide in the back.
58:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we have the Pesh to go river, which during the summer is actually more like a duck-y trip, class two to class three, but really pretty much non-stop fun on that trip.
58:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you're really adventurous, are like big water season is in like the end of April.
58:37
[SPEAKER_00]: and we'll run our bigger rafts on the Peshugar River for about five miles.
58:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not stopped fun.
58:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really great.
58:44
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
58:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you very much, Dan, for your time.
58:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we can keep going.
58:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I love talking to you.
58:49
[SPEAKER_00]: This is great.
58:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like I can judge a good conversation by how I feel I can run through a brick wall afterwards and I'm ready to run this brick wall.
58:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you make me want to go jump in the river real fast here.
59:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: it's a beautiful thing so thank you very much for sharing with us and for all the watchers and listeners out there and thank you for being a part of the adventure sports podcast community and make sure I don't know how you know what sport is going to be but make sure you pick one and you get out there and have some fun