Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1206: Paragliding the Path of the Monarch Butterfly Revisited with Benjamin Jordan

Transcript

Ep. 1206: Paragliding the Path of the Monarch Butterfly Revisited with Benjamin Jordan · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for adventuring with us, as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts are doing all over the world.
0:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Today's Revisited episode is Mason Interviewing Benjamin Jordan.
0:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Benjamin has been on the podcast a few times, and this particular time was right after he had finished a 3,000 kilometer expedition tracing the migration path of monarch butterflies well paragliding.
0:51
[SPEAKER_03]: In this episode he talks about his adventures for that.
0:55
[SPEAKER_03]: as well as mentioning the documentary which he put together about that very expedition.
1:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really cool episode I hope you enjoy it.
1:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's Mason.
1:06
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, folks, we're talking to pretty pretty much a veteran of the show at this point.
1:13
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the coolest stories I've ever heard, and with the first episode being episode 524, now I'm expecting this one's going to be just as good as not better, and that is Benjamin Jordan, we're talking to Benjamin.
1:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the show.
1:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
1:28
[SPEAKER_02]: This is awesome.
1:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so so you mentioned this right before I had record that you're in Mexico and I always ask first where you're coming from and wherever that is is if that's not home where's home.
1:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So what what are you doing in Mexico?
1:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're kind of stuck here because
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The expedition that we're going to talk about when that ended in September, I crossed the border back into Canada, Lindsay couldn't cross into Canada because of the border closure that's been in effect for over a year now due to the pandemic.
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So we needed to work on editing a film and doing all sorts of publicity stuff for the expedition
2:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We needed to go to a place where we could both be.
2:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I couldn't be in the States, because I've used up my six months there during the expedition being Canadian.
2:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And she couldn't be in Canada.
2:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So Mexico was the closest place that we could both actually be legally.
2:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where we're at.
2:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know, the last time we talked, you were on a bus up in British Columbia.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Now we're talking in your index cow.
2:42
[SPEAKER_04]: How's the experience down there going?
2:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That's obviously an adventure in itself.
2:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: We picked a pretty remote little area to be because we just in the name of staying healthy in that.
2:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't want to cross the paths of too many people, but realize now that,
3:02
[SPEAKER_02]: That was kind of a recipe for going mad because we really don't see anyone other than ourselves.
3:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we do see people, you know, because they're just passing and our Spanish is not great.
3:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to really build any kind of relationships.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that.
3:19
[SPEAKER_02]: this time, you know, in the universe is really time to be building new relationships, strangers, anyway, right?
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of crazy.
3:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We kind of live in a bit of a shoebox here down in Mexico, just surrounded by coconut trees.
3:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been learning to surf.
3:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the reason for coming to where we're at, just have something to kind of stay fit, you know, not, you know, I like to eat
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, other than that, pretty much I edit, I've been editing this film, it's like a, it'll be like an 80 minute film and I pretty much do that like 12 to 15 hours a day.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of computer.
4:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, man, a lot of screen time.
4:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, I get it though.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I totally get it.
4:10
[SPEAKER_04]: This shows a lot of working people are like, oh, you get to talk to all these people all the time.
4:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, yeah, and if I'm not careful, that's all I do is talk to them.
4:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Not actually get out there, but for you, you're editing film of something you actually did.
4:23
[SPEAKER_04]: For me, I'm always editing stories for that other people that are telling me, like we're doing now.
4:28
[SPEAKER_04]: But tell us about this,
4:31
[SPEAKER_04]: This adventure you did, because the last one we had John, you did, that you were paragliding, the length of the Canadian Rockies, over this, the endless chain over places people had never even tried to do this.
4:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And for this experience was a similar concept, but for a totally different reason.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and the, just, you know, a big shot overview,
4:57
[SPEAKER_02]: This expedition makes that endless chain, which was the complete limits of anything that I ever thought I could do.
5:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes that seem small.
5:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And if I'm not mistaken, the limits of the sport.
5:09
[SPEAKER_02]: and the limits of the sport.
5:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the endless chain was, you know, North American record, if not a world record at 1,200 kilometers, and now we're talking closer to 3,000.
5:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me to really put it into perspective, though, I really need to take you back to the start where it all started, which was, in fact, in Mexico, as well, not too far from where we're at right now.
5:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Lindsey and I were we're pair gliding and we're about maybe 40 kilometers away from where we started and all of a sudden the clouds sort of overdeveloped and without the sun heating the earth there's no lift and we ended up landing somewhere we hadn't planned on up high kind of closer to this big volcano and so we're up there to about 3,000 meters and packing up and are kind of taken a back by.
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: The amount of insects and butterflies that are flying around is kind of alpine meadow.
6:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see that they're coming from this forest area, kind of coming from the forest and going to this little puddle of water, really no more than a puddle, but all kind of congregating around the puddle, going back to the forest.
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So we go into the forest and think of that, that's kind of crazy.
6:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And
6:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I look down and I see when I look down I'm looking at what I realize are butterflies everywhere dead on the ground and for moment like my heart stops because I'm just thinking like oh damn like where am I like like what's what's causing all these butterflies to die like this is this is this is weird.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I look up and look around look around us and I see.
6:56
[SPEAKER_02]: that all the trees, they kind of look strange.
6:58
[SPEAKER_02]: They look kind of like fuzzy, like some sort of strange fungus growing on them.
7:02
[SPEAKER_02]: The branches, they're all brown.
7:03
[SPEAKER_02]: They kind of have these same bumps.
7:05
[SPEAKER_02]: They look like it looks like fungus.
7:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the clouds that had chaded us and caused us to land start to kind of part and some sun starts coming to the forest.
7:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden, wherever the sun is, goes from this weird fungus, he brown bumps to bright orange.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden that bright orange starts flying around and I realized that all that brown bumpy stuff on all the trunks of the trees on all the branches is in fact butterflies that are overwintering at this very very specific spot in Mexico like specifically like the size of like a like a high school playground or like a public school playground millions and millions and millions of them so many that you can't even see the trees.
7:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So many that they're literally weighing the branches of the trees down butterflies are doing this.
8:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Such as that the branches kind of look like these big dreadlocks coming off of these trees, like a doctor seustine.
8:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And we realized that we're in one of very few over-wintering sites of monarch butterflies that have flown all the way there from Canada.
8:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can't believe our eyes.
8:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't hear the sound of traffic,
8:24
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole force is full of butterflies.
8:26
[SPEAKER_02]: All you can hear is the sound of millions and millions of butterfly wings, slapping all around you.
8:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my gosh.
8:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a blizzard of orange.
8:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, going every which way.
8:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, of course, I go back to where we're from, the hitch drive we get back.
8:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I start telling people, I'm like, oh yeah, the butterflies, you're over the butterflies.
8:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I start looking it up and I realize that these butterflies, the craziest thing, okay.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're not only the world's furthest migrating butterfly flying over 7,000 kilometers return trip, they do this over four generations.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And while that might sound like,
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: They make it all the way from a specific mountaintop in Mexico, all the way to Canada, takes them three generations, and then they fly back in one generation, they call it the super-generation.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Not just to Mexico, not just to the same state in Mexico, to the same bloody mountaintop where they're great, grandparent, overwintered one year ago.
9:43
[SPEAKER_04]: unbelievable.
9:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so bizarre.
9:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be, it can be explained how they have an understanding of where north is and where south is.
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They have an internal clock.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And so kind of like lobsters, I guess they always go north.
9:59
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I heard anyway.
10:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, I think the lobsters.
10:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The monarchs, they understand how they are able to pick a heading and keep it because with the sun's position and with their internal clock, they can figure out a direction.
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: sailors did back in the day.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But they've moved them off their course.
10:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They put stickers on them so that they're tagged and they can trace them.
10:23
[SPEAKER_02]: They've moved them off their course, say east, 1000 kilometers, as they were heading back down south towards this very, very specific mountain top.
10:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And expected that they would still go south, but not make the adjustment to go now south
10:42
[SPEAKER_02]: they actually changed their course as if they had like a legit internal GPS.
10:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And this phenomenon is something that science is not able to completely explain.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought to myself, wait a second, these little guys, these little orange posted notes is literally all the credit I gave to a monarch butterfly.
11:11
[SPEAKER_02]: is not just flying all the way to Canada and back to Mexico.
11:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It, over four generations, is able to communicate how to get back to this very pinpoint on a map.
11:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I've completely underestimated this tiny little life form.
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: What else am I underestimating in our natural universe and am I underestimating myself as well?
11:41
[SPEAKER_02]: do I as a human have, that is similar to this incredible thing that can't be explained by science, that the monarch possesses.
11:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So my whole life changed right then with that question.
11:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I became completely hell bent on figuring it out, not by becoming scientists and making some sort of, you know, new revelation in science, but by trying to emulate as best as I could,
12:12
[SPEAKER_02]: the, you know, the first person to try ever to fly from Mexico all the way to Canada, but without power, with only using, you know, natural elements, the same as the monarch does a wing that looked, you know, similar to a monarch swing in color, yes, yes.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I, I, I, I had to get, I had to get the custom colors for sure.
12:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Benjamin, it sounds like this just realizing all this, learning this, stumbling upon it, honestly, which is the most remarkable thing about it that you were just awestruck by this.
12:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's miraculous, but it's happening, it's not
12:56
[SPEAKER_04]: it's not a fairy tale.
12:57
[SPEAKER_04]: This actually happens every year, every day these things are making that journey back or two, Mexico or back from or two, Mexico.
13:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And so for you being, you know, having the history to do, you obviously thought, you know, I could also make this journey.
13:16
[SPEAKER_04]: what began to kind of, I don't know, what started happening there, what did it take, what did you start needing to get ready and to do for yourself to retrace this path that the butterflies do?
13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's a great question because what I want to say is that although I put a ton of prep into this expedition, I basically just spend
13:44
[SPEAKER_02]: four months in Mexico, completely saturated in planning this project from, you know, picking the, like I was saying the custom colors for the pair of glider to getting some sponsors to root planning and trying to figure out, you know, how much food I could carry, you know, where am I going to launch, where am I going to land, where am I going to hike if I need to, all this kind of stuff.
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: 99% of all that work.
14:12
[SPEAKER_02]: went completely out the window on day one, and that's something that I, I really want to keep in mind, and that I would really encourage anyone to keep in mind when they want to get going on an expedition that they think, well, I just need a bit more time to plan, I just need a bit more time to plan.
14:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so many of those things that you think you're going to need to
14:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you finally get to the start line, the real problems are that require solutions are problems that you couldn't even imagine because you just weren't looking at it.
14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So all of that to say, this mini moral inside of that is like, don't waste too much time planning because it's not gonna help you in the end.
15:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You just need to be out there trying and failing and figuring it out.
15:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That to say that we initially plan to start this expedition
15:09
[SPEAKER_02]: El Paso, Texas, and to essentially just follow the great divide all the way north.
15:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It seemed like the most obvious line.
15:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that a line that butterflies follow?
15:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I know they can, you know, go from all over the place to that specific spot in Mexico.
15:26
[SPEAKER_02]: They, they prefer to head more towards the Great Lakes region, because of a specific plant
15:39
[SPEAKER_02]: which is the only plant that they can lay their eggs on because it's the only plant that their larvae can eat.
15:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So they do spread out across a large part of the United States as they had north, but they do tend to go through a preferent area called the Corn Belt, which is further towards the Great Lakes, more, you know, sort of central U.S.
16:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've got to pick the mountains because I need to be able to launch from mountains.
16:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to hike up mountains and launch from them because I'm doing this without any sort of power without being towed up or any of that kind of stuff.
16:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a little bit west of them, but I want to be as close to them as possible.
16:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to take the divide.
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, the first big line of mountains, going up to the states.
16:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, that just seemed like a really obvious thing.
16:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, while I was sitting there, sort of doing some last-minute research in El Paso that I realized, like, you know, the mountains, they don't just go north.
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: They actually go kind of north west.
16:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And a huge problem that I've dealt with, for instance, on the endless chain was, you know, I was also going northwest,
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it just kind of feels like you're constantly battling a headwind and that if I was to start that far southeast of my final destination, which is just the north end of the continental divide in the United States, I was going to be pushing into a westernly wind pretty much the whole way and probably ending up having to walk a lot of sections heading west just to be able to contend with that kind of wind.
17:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So right then and there,
17:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, 50% of my planning went down the drain because I moved to just south of Tucson, Arizona.
17:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So that I would have more of a sort of a straight north line to get to to Canada.
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But.
17:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm kind of kind of rambling, but I'm saying like that, that was such a huge filetition idiot.
17:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was so certain, you know, I told sponsors, oh yeah, it's what we're doing.
18:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the map, this and that.
18:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And then on day one, I'm like, no, this is a horrible idea.
18:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Why would I have thought of that?
18:07
[SPEAKER_02]: But I couldn't, I just couldn't have figured that out until I was sitting there in El Paso looking at this.
18:13
[SPEAKER_02]: thinking like wait, the weather I would look for forever is like hell a strong west wind, I'm not going to be able to make it anywhere if I have to push into that.
18:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
18:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, good on you for for making that adjustment and having the humility to do so and you know, being able to just change your plans, you know, pretty last minute is is a skill in itself.
18:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Definitely.
18:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, it definitely, it took some meeting some humble pie.
18:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but I, you know, before I forget to mention, I wanted to just share that this expedition was going to be unique because where I typically do something like this completely autonomously, I was autonomous on this expedition, but I wasn't completely alone because this time I had the
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Lindsey Nicole followed me in her van with all of her fancy camera equipment so that in addition to the camera work that I was able to do and I traditionally do you know my vlogs my various cams that I run when I'm flying that she was able to follow me with some much higher on camera equipment including a really cool drone so.
19:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That was all in the name of creating a next level documentary, which I'm super proud to be, you know, almost finished out of thing right now.
19:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, often during this conversation, I'll say, we and who we is, is basically me doing my expedition and lensy cross in my path every few days, whenever she can get to me with, you know, with all the profanity camera stuff.
19:58
[SPEAKER_04]: When you decided to go, can you tell us, did you decide to leave?
20:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, when the butterflies typically left, like try to recreate the journey to that extent?
20:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally.
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: They fly from, let's just say Mexico City, which is halfway down Mexico.
20:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's crazy, that's really far.
20:16
[SPEAKER_02]: All the way to the border where I started, and then keep going all the way to Canada.
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't fly the Mexican portion for a number of reasons.
20:26
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, started at the border of Arizona and Mexico.
20:32
[SPEAKER_04]: What was it like to start at the border?
20:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty crazy.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, one thing I totally didn't forgot to mention is that the whole lockdown and all that stuff that happened like literally like two weeks before we started this expedition.
20:45
[UNKNOWN]: Oh wow.
20:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So we couldn't, we couldn't do the things like that we had wanted to do.
20:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was going to cross the border from Mexico into the United States.
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything was shut down.
20:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We actually thought we were going to have to to bail on the whole expedition and that was something that no one could have planned for.
21:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And literally like a day away from pulling the plug on the thing, we realized like, wait a second.
21:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if we go back to Canada and like quarantine in the school bus, you know, like we're going to be stuck in a school bus for goodness knows how long.
21:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we are out here in the middle of nowhere planning on seeing no one for the next
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, four, five months.
21:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this is actually the safest thing for us to do.
21:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was really scary for us because we weren't sure if what we were doing was even really legal in terms of recreating in this way during an unprecedented, at least in our lifetime's pandemic.
21:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's, you know, that's what kicked it all off for us, you know, was that basically all of the stores were like void of food and,
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: the streets are completely empty and any parks that we wanted to visit were completely shut down.
22:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had no idea, you know, this was the unknown within the unknown within the unknown.
22:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So day one of down there at this huge fence, it looks like something for medieval times.
22:24
[SPEAKER_02]: iron bars that stretch 25 feet into the air that dot the landscape six inches apart as far as the eye can see separating Mexico from the United States.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: This fence has been there apparently for like 20 years.
22:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not anything you know.
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's very intimidating and I reach my hand
22:53
[SPEAKER_02]: all of a sudden realize like way of second, like this is ridiculous.
22:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't fly 3,000 kilometers in one season.
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a good reason no one's done this before.
23:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Paragledings are very finicky sport.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: You need the right weather conditions to fly across country.
23:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was pushing it with the endless chain trying to fly 1200 kilometers in the Canadian Rockies.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm in the desert way outside of my element, and I'm going to try to pull off 3,000.
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place because I realized that I almost certainly can't do this.
23:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's the the logical part of my brain says that like every every ounce of me believes that that's that's the way it is.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I feel but the same time I know that if I start.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm going to finish it even if it kills me and so there's this scary dynamic at play.
23:51
[SPEAKER_02]: where I know that I can't do it, but at the same time, I won't allow myself to fail.
23:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've never really engaged in something like that where I have those two conflicting emotions.
24:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, I took the first step.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I took the first step, I'd love that fence.
24:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I left the fence and I walked straight towards a mountain that was about two kilometers north of that fence.
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I hyped up the backside of that mountain.
24:21
[SPEAKER_02]: There were border guards everywhere stopping me, asking me what I was doing.
24:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It was hard for me to explain like, hey, I'm trying to start the most logical thing to explain on a good day, much less during a pandemic.
24:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I've tried to pair a glide from Mexico to Canada, you know, are you American?
24:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, actually, no, I'm Canadian, you know, I'm just making my way back home, you know?
24:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm following these butterflies.
24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, I didn't tell them that part because I didn't want them to think that I was in that crazy.
24:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, and I'd like to say that, you know, I hyped up that mountain and then I, you know, cleared a launch from the cactus in the rocks and I flew on the next day, but, you know, that's not how it went.
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Not, not, not at the start anyway.
25:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I flew from that mountain
25:18
[SPEAKER_02]: really couldn't move, a paraglider flies at about 35 kilometers an hour.
25:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you're flying in the winds that are about 35 kilometers an hour, you're literally stuck like you're on a treadmill, like you're trying to paddle upstream in a canoe.
25:33
[SPEAKER_02]: At, you know, where this stream is moving as fast as you could possibly paddle.
25:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I was stuck there in this strong
25:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And that wind held up for an entire week.
25:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So after day one, I realized, and like, no, I can't fly in those conditions.
25:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to just basically sit there at the bottom of that mountain by this little stream and wait for an entire week.
26:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my gosh.
26:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you say that's what you did?
26:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's what I did.
26:08
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you do with your time?
26:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew you play a ukulele, don't you?
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, great.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So that for on this expedition, because I mean, I've definitely had put a lot hours into the ukulele on previous expeditions.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted a new challenge, not just in paragliding, but in in music.
26:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So I acquired a very small five string banjo.
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I figured that would fit well into the sort of Americana kind of theme that I was going for.
26:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And I practice
26:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I, you know, I downloaded some tutorials on my phone, and I spent, you know, a week, blank the banjo and waiting for the, the wind to get better.
26:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I also had a book of like, soup, soup, what is it?
27:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So Ducu, Sudoko, those puzzles to do.
27:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You get at the, yeah, I got at the grocery store.
27:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I did.
27:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the craziest thing here is that
27:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm alone on expedition.
27:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I have learned to deal with this feeling of like, what am I doing?
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm wasting my life.
27:24
[SPEAKER_02]: This is like valuable time.
27:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I could be doing something productive.
27:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I learned to just feel like, no, this is good.
27:30
[SPEAKER_02]: This is I'm growing inside, just be zen, just be zen, just don't move, just wait, be patient, you know?
27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: But to have to put my girlfriend through that too,
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, she's there to document what I'm doing.
27:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm literally just playing the banjo and doing so, you know, so Ducu puzzles.
27:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's not a lot to document.
27:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I, I am able to enjoy that kind of amount of quiet time, but I can't expect anyone else to.
28:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I felt so bad about the situation.
28:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I felt this incredible kind of pressure to get going and just to fly regardless.
28:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But no matter how much pressure I fell, I pair glider only flies at the speed that it flies.
28:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, it's not like hiking or biking where you can't fight the elements to a degree.
28:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you know, you can be raining and storming.
28:31
[SPEAKER_04]: You can still pedal.
28:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It's slower, but you know, you can still go.
28:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But for you, it's not just you can't fight the wind.
28:38
[SPEAKER_04]: It's also incredibly dangerous.
28:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you don't have a choice.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the other thing, and honestly, if it was just just dangerous, I probably could swallow that and then made a poor choice because of how bad I felt for like putting her through that maddening sort of weight period.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not just that it's dangerous.
28:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I literally won't get anywhere.
29:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll just end up on the ground if I'm lucky in one piece.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can't do anything
29:13
[SPEAKER_02]: semi-mart marginal day.
29:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm able to get off and I'm able to make about 60 kilometers north, which I'm stoked about.
29:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But then we end up at the smaller mountains now.
29:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all desert.
29:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The cactus is we're getting a little bit lower.
29:30
[SPEAKER_02]: The cactus is starting to appear at this point.
29:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's novel.
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm stuck on this little 250 meter bump for the better part of two weeks.
29:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And I tried probably, uh, I don't know, 10 times, 11 times to fly away from it from there.
29:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could never get more than about 10, 10, 12 kilometers before the incredibly strong wind would basically just ground me.
30:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and walking back to that same bump was my nearest next potential
30:12
[SPEAKER_02]: how far I was going to have to walk, people to access something that I can actually launch off.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, I'm stuck for two weeks.
30:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've got three weeks going by, and we haven't made even 100 kilometers out of 3000.
30:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And the time limit on this thing is basically five months.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to finish it in five months, because that puts me at the end of August.
30:35
[SPEAKER_02]: After then, you're not doing any cross country flying in North America.
30:42
[SPEAKER_02]: to windy, to stable.
30:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm watching my time just kind of take away, but my distance is not proportionate to that at all.
30:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Benjamin, I have to stop you there because when we talked to you last time on the Canadian Rockies, you would say that you would be stuck on a mountain for a week at a time for weather declared for smoke to clear and your stories from that are some of the most frequent stories I retell from the podcast to other people.
31:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And what you're telling me now is even crazier about the the the patience and the time waiting you know you mentioned some of the you know staying zen and not beating yourself up about something you can't control but
31:30
[SPEAKER_04]: That is almost just as fascinating as you flying is the ability to sit there and wait.
31:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, I don't know anyone else that has that chance in life.
31:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I'm saying?
31:43
[SPEAKER_04]: At your age doing what you're doing to say, I have to sit here for two weeks.
31:47
[SPEAKER_04]: That's, that's so wild to me.
31:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a Buddhist monk.
31:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say the only thing I can think of as a monk.
31:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's self-imposed, right?
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the craziest part.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the thing too, and again, this is, I think, really valuable for anyone that doesn't anything in their life sports or not sports, but like, I am not the best paraglider.
32:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not the best hiker, mountaineer survival, I'm not the best in any one area.
32:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But the reason that I'm able to do this,
32:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Is literally the difference between me and all these other people that may be better at all of these different things that are important to be good at to do something like this is that I'll just sit there and wait.
32:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't know I guess I'm stubborn or I don't have anything better to I don't I don't know what to say I feel like I'm just so dedicated to doing what it is I set out to do and I feel like.
32:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm having bad luck, but that good look, that good luck is right around the corner and if I'm not here ready.
32:56
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm not here ready for it, I'm going to miss it.
32:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the end, that was true.
33:02
[SPEAKER_02]: In the end, that that that that was true, but it didn't get good so fast.
33:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I flew from there.
33:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a maybe a 40k up to around two so on and then I had a huge flight for me at that point.
33:16
[SPEAKER_02]: because I had been having all these bad little flights of like 10 kilometers.
33:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I flew maybe 110 kilometers north of there.
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was so excited, I thought like, okay, this is it, you know.
33:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're at this area, basically it's the Healer River that goes through this small town called Winklman that was washed away by the Healer River like in the 90s.
33:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I think, you know,
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We're about to get going.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I'm stuck there now.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm stuck there for like a week and a half.
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the lowest point of the entire expedition, like elevation wise, I think it's about 500 meters.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It is hot as well.
34:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They're having a heat wave, the hottest, may that they've had in Tucson, since like I don't know, they started recording temperature.
34:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like 110 or something like that.
34:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Which may not sound like a lot to some people, but two Canadian boy, a boy, that's hot.
34:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never felt anything like it.
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I was in a sauna all day.
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And here I am, trying to hike up this dry ass cactus-leading mountain.
34:27
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where they got the Saguaro cactus.
34:29
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like telephone poles of death.
34:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And a gov-e everywhere poking you that had this poisonous sap,
34:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm trying to make one way up this mountain to this little area I cleared and I'm launching day after day in this heat and same thing wind and even though the sun is out, so desert, something about the insane amount of heat makes it such that the thermals aren't able to build and rise because there's not enough of a temperature gradient from low to high.
35:00
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you need for that heat to rise.
35:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It needs an incentive to go up into colder air.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's hot everywhere, it doesn't actually rise.
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So now I'm stuck in Winkleman sort of in this cactus salad, pulling off really short flights, almost dying on every landing, not by anything of the fact that I'm landing and cactus constantly.
35:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It's poking me with the sap.
35:30
[SPEAKER_02]: do what I didn't want to do, which is to walk.
35:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Not super far, I realized now, but I didn't realize what super far it was at that point.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: But I walked about 60 kilometers to get north of where I was basically just some mountains that are east of Phoenix.
35:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I should say that when I set out on this expedition, I had this question in mind, which is,
36:01
[SPEAKER_02]: what makes the monarch journey possible for the monarch?
36:05
[SPEAKER_02]: What wisdom do they have that allows them to against all odds complete this, you know, harrowing journey from Mexico to Canada?
36:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And what can I experience?
36:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And what can I learn from trying to pull that off myself?
36:31
[SPEAKER_02]: In this, you know, at first, I thought what I was learning was patients, and I, and I was telling myself, okay, that's, that's, that's one thing the monarch has to do there also flying a very slow aircraft.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: If it gets too windy, they have to land.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: They have to wait.
36:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what I'm doing.
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: that the objective is to move forward and it's not, I was really getting caught up in my own pride in terms of just wanting to have flown the whole way because I wanted all the pilots in the world and in the United States to hear about the story and be like, whoa, he flew the whole way.
37:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a big one for me to just sort of get over.
37:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And it really freed me up
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: from the superstition mountains, which are the big, bigger mountains, more what I'm used to, that are east of Phoenix, the expedition really got going.
37:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I was pulling off, you know, 50k, 60k flights, pretty much every second day, to my delight, the cactus went away, when we got a little bit higher.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, now all of a sudden I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona,
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: north of there east of the Grand Canyon just kind of flying over the Navajo lands and you know next thing you know I'm basically just knocking on Utah's door so.
38:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You know just kind of sucking it up and taking those those few steps just to get myself a little bit further along was really what I needed to be able to do and.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Although I was still behind schedule as far as distance covered for like percentage of the distance that I covered versus percentage of the time that I had left in the season, I was starting to feel a lot better and yeah, I mean Utah is just is beautiful like I had to walk some portions of that to which made the other walking seem like nothing because of the national parks and not able to fly across our fly fly within monuments or parks.
38:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So I walked across basically grand staircase and Zion National Park to get to an area just north of St. George, Utah.
39:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really where things got good.
39:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Utah is the epicenter of paragliding in the United States for a reason.
39:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just full of awesome mountains and awesome access to those mountains.
39:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'd never really been there before what I was stoked to be there and pretty much dead set on laying down some really impressive flights and that brings me to an important experience that I had we got to this mountain called Monroe Peak, which is near rich field Utah, maybe about 200 clicks south of Salt Lake City.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Monroe Peak is unique because of a couple reasons.
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: One, it's the first launch that I'm going to fly on the entire expedition where I'm not just clearing a tiny little patch on the side of a mountain and just throwing a hell of a mirror to get off.
40:06
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an established paragliding launch.
40:08
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a place where people have been flying for 30 years or more.
40:13
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a place where some of the longest flights in Utah or in the United States.
40:18
[SPEAKER_02]: have originated from.
40:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm up on Monroe Peak.
40:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like 3,400 meters, something super high, and I'm stoked.
40:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And because it's an actual launch and there's a road going up it, other pilots are also there.
40:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a little bit intimidated.
40:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want anyone to know what I'm doing, because that's a whole other story.
40:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I won't get into it.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But I
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of just casually launch and, you know, spin around and look to see what other pilots are doing.
40:51
[SPEAKER_02]: The other pilots don't really seem to be going anywhere.
40:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a bit windy, but the wind is from the south.
40:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's not going to hurt my north and travel, I thought.
40:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So I head north and to my surprise, I look behind me and there's another pilot and he's kind of chasing me.
41:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's on a similar glider to what I'm flying.
41:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm thinking, oh, this could be all right.
41:10
[SPEAKER_02]: This is kind of different.
41:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to fly together.
41:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this could be a really big flight.
41:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, we're going, and for a while, I'm doing a little bit better than he is.
41:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm kind of, you know, got a bit of a chip of my shoulder thinking like, yeah, that's right.
41:27
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've been out here for like two months now, flying, you know, every day I can, like, you know, of course I'm badass, you know, and I keep going, and, you know, he catch up to me and then he gets a climb and I join him.
41:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I keep going, but I'm kind of leading up front.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting lower and lower at some point and I look behind me and he is just getting screaming high in this climb and I turn around to try to get back to where he's at.
41:50
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not too far behind, but the wind is so strong now that I can't even get there.
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I realize I have to turn around and find my own climb, somewhere out front, somewhere further north.
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't find one.
42:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And up in this canyon, I end up landing backwards in this canyon because the wind is so strong.
42:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look up and I see him just a dot under the clouds and he's going north past me now.
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm feeling like a bit of a feeling like a lot of a failure right now because I was cocky and pushed out in front of him when I should have stuck with him.
42:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, he turned out to be sort of I guess the turtle that you know that peer to be winning their race.
42:40
[SPEAKER_02]: but the craziest thing was, now I'm hiking out of this canyon, found some water, hike out of the canyon, and I'm trying to figure out where I'm gonna launch from next.
42:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm thinking, all right, well, I've got to walk about 40 kilometers.
42:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't walk back to Monroe Peak.
43:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna walk to the next potential mountain that I could launch off, which because they're smaller in that area, I have to walk about 40 kilometers north.
43:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to take me all night.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look on my phone to see if he posted his track to this sort of, it's kind of like social networking for paragliders, but they share their tracks after they fly.
43:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And he posted his flight.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, keep in mind, I flew about 40 kilometers that day.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish I hadn't looked, he flew 160 kilometers.
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: He flew four times the distance that I've flown.
43:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was in this guy for another four hours.
43:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't need flown for about an hour that day.
43:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So at that point, my ego is just like reduced to like the size of a reason and it's bruised.
43:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm tossing and turning in my tent at the mouth of the canyon that I walked out.
43:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm trying to figure out like, all right, do I go north or do I go back south?
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: which is completely counterintuitive, I can fly again from Monroe Peak, and I can just delete my track log and never share that track log.
44:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe I can fly 160 kilometers myself, and no one will have to know that Benjamin Jordan flew a quarter of the distance of some local pilot when he came through Monroe Peak on his expedition.
44:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But if I do go north, if I do just keep walking,
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that that's the story and I realized that I'm stuck between this rock in this hard place because I part of me wants to to go back to erase this from history, but that part of I realized that part of me is so hell bent on trying to appear better than I am.
45:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not as good as I have to pile it.
45:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I appreciate wouldn't ego maniac on my sound like right now.
45:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just want to be honest about this experience because for me it was very real.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I was about to walk 40 kilometers back out of taking me an entire day, back on an expedition where I'm already behind schedule in order to hide my footsteps that I was ashamed of.
45:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Fortunately, I don't know what happened, but some sense got into me.
45:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And probably just because I couldn't, like legitimately tell Lindsey that that's what I was gonna do.
45:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I should have just freaked out.
45:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That I chose to go north.
45:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was hard.
45:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's the craziest thing.
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: From that next spot about 40 kilometers north, just south of the Wassach range.
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I had an amazing flight, north to around Provo, and then a couple days later, north to around Sandy and then again to Salt Lake City, then again to Bountiful and then again to Ogden.
46:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The flight's just kept stacking up from that point right, walked out 40 kilometers north.
46:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was during that walk to that point that I asked myself, okay,
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: How does this relate to the butterfly journey?
46:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what am I missing here?
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: That's making this so hard that could maybe be so easy.
46:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I asked myself if I could reframe this whole thing to be more like the monarch's expedition or migration.
46:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I realized that the monarch, when they applied to Canada, it's not just one monarch,
47:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, with a bunch of sponsors flying to Canada, it's a million or five million or whatever it is that year, monarchs flying to Canada, and they're not all going to make it, but they all do it anyway, and they're doing it not as individuals, but they're doing it as a community, they're doing it as a species, they're doing it because it's what moves their species forward.
47:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I asked myself, like, could I do this?
47:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Could I be doing this not just for me, but could I do this for all paragliders, not just in the States, but all across the world?
47:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Could I do this for all sportsmen and all sports women?
47:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Could I do this for our species?
47:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Is something that could inspire everybody?
47:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And as soon as I asked myself that, it felt a lot.
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it felt a lot less heavy and I didn't feel so much like I had failed inside of not being able to pull off a flight as big as, you know, Billy Bob.
48:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I was succeeding because regardless of the conditions, I was continuing to move forward, however I could.
48:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was so rewarded by this series of flights that followed.
48:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Almost every single day, now I'm hiking, flying, sleeping, eating, hiking, flying, sleeping, hiking, flying, sleeping, eating, kind of in this meditative cycle of doing this thing that I absolutely love and being completely immersed in it.
48:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe not flying 160 kilometers ever.
48:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I never did.
48:51
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I never flew further than that one big flight I did down in Arizona, 110 kilometers.
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Most of these flights are 50 kilometers, 60 kilometers.
48:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But now I'm flying every single day, or just about.
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: For a month, like for an entire month, for the whole month of July.
49:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So very quickly now, I'm an Idaho, and I've made up all the time I lost down in Arizona.
49:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And for the first time ever, I'm not thinking that I'm
49:22
[SPEAKER_02]: In the middle of some expedition that I'm not going to be able to finish for the first time ever it now, I've passed the halfway mark and I'm thinking like, okay, no, this could actually happen like this could actually happen, it's just a matter of mindset and it's a matter of not making this about me, but making this about everyone who can be inspired by this and also doing this out of respect for everyone who's inspired me.
49:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was just this really, really, really big page training moment for me in the expedition and really I think what set the whole thing on fire in terms of going from likely failure to likely success.
50:06
[SPEAKER_04]: This is incredibly inspiring and exciting.
50:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Does it just give you a totally new perspective?
50:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, obviously an appreciation for what the monarch butterflies do, but I mean, did it answer those questions for you as you got closer towards the end?
50:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
50:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the thing that I really started to glean from the, you know, imagining the monarch journey
50:37
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys, they're setting out on a journey that I then realized was a lot like how I felt in the beginning.
50:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Where I was leaving Mexico feeling like I needed to do this thing.
50:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It was inside of me.
50:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was nothing that I could do to get it outside of me of it then to just do it.
50:58
[SPEAKER_02]: But that my fate was certainly that I was never gonna succeed.
51:07
[SPEAKER_02]: that just seems so counter-intuitive to me is a human, I don't do that, I just, I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm missing something but for my whole life, I've just been trained to try to, you know, do things that I know I can do, or that I'm pretty sure I can do.
51:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this was something I was pretty sure I couldn't, but I realized then that those monarchs, they are leading Mexico for Canada,
51:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they're not going to make it, they have to procreate.
51:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They have to die in order for their children to be able to continue going.
51:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And those children, heck, they're not going to make it either.
51:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They can just keep going as far as they can keep going regardless of the conditions.
51:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It was best as they can, and then they got to procreate again.
52:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And so in many ways, that's what was happening to me, too, because the guy who I was when I left that fence in Mexico, that guy died.
52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy died, I don't know somewhere in Arizona, probably when I realized that I was going to have to walk so.
52:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he died, he died again, he died again, when he realized that this is not about him, that this is about everyone.
52:38
[SPEAKER_02]: about something even greater than everyone but that's as big as my little human brain can kind of imagine right now.
52:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there I am now in Idaho and I'm thinking like, all right, well, when is this be gonna die?
52:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Because this me is gonna have to die probably at least once more if I'm gonna make it the rest of the way.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I still got about, you know, 1,500 kilometers to go here
53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, I mean, Idaho, geez, you know, I thought I just, when I, when I hear Idaho, I just think potatoes, you know, I just think, well, I'm gonna have to get some koutine or, you know, some potato chips, you know, something local when I get through it.
53:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't realize how epic Idaho is.
53:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's one of the most underrated places in the country in the US.
53:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my goodness, I don't care what you do.
53:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care if you're a paraglider or a hiker or
53:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, just like knitting, like do it in Idaho because there's so many cool things to see the down further south.
53:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of these more undulating, but still very beautiful mountains, kind of grassy.
53:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's this weird flat area that I'll tell you about in the middle that I found by accident and then these incredible mountains to the north.
54:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the middle,
54:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I flew all the way to an area called black foot just south of Idaho Falls, the city of Idaho Falls.
54:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I couldn't relaunch because now I've got about a hundred kilometers stretch of just completely flat area.
54:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know why, but it's completely unpopulated in the middle.
54:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm trying to get to this town called Arco, north west of there.
54:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just going to be lying at basically right through the middle, taking some farm rows and then eventually just walk through the desert.
54:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And on my way, there is, by doing this, I'm saving several days of walking, by just going straight across the desert, even though it's a bit slower.
54:55
[SPEAKER_02]: In the middle, I realized that there's this like lone peak, looks like a bit of volcano.
55:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's only about 200 meters, but it's steep as all heck.
55:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I decide, well, I may be able to launch from there and be able to fly the remaining half of this flat portion to the Rockies.
55:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll just try to hit that in the way.
55:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm walking towards it, walking towards it.
55:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm kind of getting this weird feeling in my gut, but like literally a weird feeling in my gut.
55:36
[SPEAKER_02]: For whatever reason, my cell phone's not working, so I can't communicate with Lindsay.
55:40
[SPEAKER_02]: For whatever reason, my garment in reach isn't working.
55:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I am just walking towards this mountain.
55:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if she knows where I am.
55:50
[SPEAKER_02]: She usually tracks me on my in-reach.
55:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And then usually tries to meet me at whatever mountain I'm at so she can get the drone out and fly around while I'm watching.
55:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get to this mountain.
56:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got all these towers on top of it.
56:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That's weird.
56:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't I have any cell reception here because all these towers?
56:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I finally get to the top.
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not very tall, but it takes me a long time because of the how steep it is.
56:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm finally able to reach Lindsay and Lindsay is frantic because she can't get to where I'm at with her vehicle because it's completely boarded off.
56:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It says government property, no trespassing and although it's not marked on
56:33
[SPEAKER_02]: any of the maps that I've got, she finds a map that shows that I am smack dab in the middle of what's called the Idaho National Laboratory.
56:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know what this thing is, but she says there's like blacks of bourbons everywhere with like heavy tinted windows with government plates and people are driving slow pastures.
56:56
[SPEAKER_02]: She's pulled off on the side of the road.
56:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm
57:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking like, all right, well, I'm just going to try to fly out of here and, you know, worst case scenario, I'll just fly to the highway and then I'll just keep walking.
57:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I get my pair of glider out, clip in.
57:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Cycles are very strong coming up the hill, so I'm thinking like, okay, it's going to be good.
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And I lost the pair of glider and all of a sudden, everything just feels super weird.
57:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I've been flying every day for last month, almost.
57:31
[SPEAKER_02]: not very high off the ground.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a very small amount.
57:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I realize like I just need to get to the ground as fast as possible.
57:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Something is wrong with my my paraglider.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's going on.
57:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden the left side goes in like this is a wing that can fold up.
57:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So but it's kind of like the equivalent when you get a deflation on one side.
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like you're in an airplane and then all of a sudden you look up the left side and the left wing is gone.
57:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's not a good situation.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So fortunately, these pair of gliders they're designed to re-inflate, but then boom, I lose the right side.
58:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And it comes back, then boom, the whole center goes, it folds under.
58:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm just shoved off literally.
58:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think like, okay, I just gotta get down.
58:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gotta get down.
58:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not safe.
58:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm too close to the ground.
58:19
[SPEAKER_02]: This is how people get hurt.
58:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get to the ground.
58:23
[SPEAKER_02]: My flight lasts a total of a terrifying 50 seconds.
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hike out of there as fast as I can.
58:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just as I get to the highway, I pass this massive billboard underneath and then I look up at it.
58:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's got this huge sign with an arrow that points to where I was at.
58:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And it says nuclear waste or radioactive waste management site.
58:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I quickly realized that happened
58:59
[SPEAKER_02]: into one of the most secured areas that I've ever come across.
59:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the world's largest center for nuclear reactor testing the areas that in the world.
59:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But like it's the earth's largest nuclear reactor testing facility.
59:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the sick to my stomach feeling that I got,
59:26
[SPEAKER_02]: and all of the problems that I was having with my phone and my in-reach was entirely due to the intense amount of radioactive energy that I was being exposed to.
59:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.
59:38
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was just like the craziest, the craziest thing and you know, I could appreciate why there's nothing growing out there and why no one lives out there.
59:49
[SPEAKER_02]: The only town anywhere close to there is called
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I realize that there's really no one that lives there apparently there's 13 residents, but I didn't see them.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_02]: All you can see are these like what appear to be followed shelters.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, sort of on the side of the road.
1:00:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And, uh, and some interesting history no doubt.
1:00:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, Idaho, not just potatoes.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I eventually did make it north to Arco, actually the next day, and my God, what an amazing, amazing place, that was really the start of what I felt like would be the rest of the journey because, you know, I cut my teeth on the Rocky Mountains up in Canada, and now here I am finally at these mountains that I can see on my map, we'll ultimately connect to the Rocky Mountains of Canada, no more flats, no more munking around with little volcanoes, little bumps.
1:00:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, here and there, just big, long mountain ranges.
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, what I felt would be like a rocky kind of red carpet to my homeland.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Was it?
1:01:01
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_02]: No, in fact, it wasn't cheese.
1:01:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what story can I let me just say that it was epic.
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I landed, you know, at times way high up in the wilderness in some of these mountains in Idaho and would have to wait out, you know, a couple of days of storms, finally it started raining.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't rained the whole expedition before being able to fly along, but finally I made it to the continental divide.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was so, so excited.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And because of the pandemic and the raging wildfires down in California,
1:01:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Around the time that we got to the Idaho Montana border, Lindsey had to go back and help her family in California.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So she wasn't able to continue on into Montana with me.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_02]: She needed to be down in California helping it with some family stuff.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that had to happen.
1:02:17
[SPEAKER_02]: is that about two weeks into me being into Montana.
1:02:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm about halfway through Montana, getting literally within maybe 200 kilometers of Canada now, the wildfire smoke from California had blown all the way northeast to Montana.
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was literally just stuck underneath a sky of ash, unable to move.
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this how far I got, you know, is the moral of this story that, like, you just got to try and do your best and and am I supposed to walk from here.
1:02:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Or am I supposed to take the patience lesson and just sit here and wait and so kind of looked around me and I thought, well, I'm in stuck on this mountain here now for four days.
1:03:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm completely out of, or I'm almost out of food.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_02]: If I don't hike down this mountain and try to hike to, you know, a gas station or something, basically today, I'm gonna run out of food in about 48 hours and I don't know when this boat is gonna clear.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I was faced with this difficult choice because I knew if I hike down that I'd probably just keep hiking and I would just hike the rest of the journey.
1:03:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really not how I wanted to end the journey.
1:03:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, I just sort of ask myself, all right, well, like what would the monarch do in the situation?
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what would it do?
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost where it needs to go, but the conditions are not allowing it to get there.
1:03:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought to myself, well, the monarch is different than me.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The monarch doesn't have to go to the gas station or to the Costco or whatever to get food.
1:04:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The monarch just,
1:04:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, find some milkweed or some some nectar and it does it's thing.
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, this may just seem completely obvious to everyone, but it wasn't obvious to me in the moment that, you know, I'm not that different than the monarch, although I wasn't brought up, you know, foraging for milkweed and nectar, and I was brought up instead, you know, be taught how to earn a living so I can go to the Costco and buy what I need, that,
1:04:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a lot like the monarch in that I was, you know, born of this earth, you know, from our human natural desire to procreate.
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm a part of that same flow.
1:04:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, my ancestors would have just looked around them and trusted that mother nature would provide.
1:04:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I decided that I could try that.
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I could realize that like this smoke is not
1:05:06
[SPEAKER_02]: a problem, it's a natural occurrence, same as I'm a natural occurrence, same as this awesome lake that I found to camp beside is natural occurrence.
1:05:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just need to look around me a little bit harder and I'll be able to find what I need to be able to exist here in my the nature.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And that I can let her run the show instead of trying to run her.
1:05:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I did.
1:05:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of moved around a little bit
1:05:35
[SPEAKER_02]: There were certain areas where there was just an insane amount of blueberries growing.
1:05:39
[SPEAKER_02]: This is kind of late August in Montana in the Rockies.
1:05:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden, I'm a blueberry cleanser.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm eating like five pints of blueberries a day.
1:05:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And doing all sorts of things with them, eating them raw, heating them up, turning them into blueberry juice.
1:05:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing so much with blueberries.
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know what it means to be anti oxidized,
1:06:04
[SPEAKER_02]: the epitome of what it means to be anti-oxidized.
1:06:08
[SPEAKER_04]: You were so anti-oxidized.
1:06:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It was not even funny.
1:06:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It was not funny, no.
1:06:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And that worked really, really well.
1:06:19
[SPEAKER_02]: With the exception of some, let's say mild hallucinations, I was doing great on blueberries, and I lasted on blueberries for about two weeks time.
1:06:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And in that two weeks,
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess it was three medium length flights.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And next thing you know, I'm landing at the Canadian border.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And really feeling like that last me had died and the final version of me, the final metamorphosis of me made it in a state of complete surrender.
1:07:02
[SPEAKER_02]: to the natural world, to the greatness of this natural world around me, inside of realizing that, like, as much as I try to, you know, use my break tovels and use my brain and use my smartphone and use my forecasting and my interest to be in control of the situation, that the reality is that I was never once in control of this situation.
1:07:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Not on this expedition, not on my life, that at the end of the day, I just like the mark.
1:07:33
[SPEAKER_02]: in a gust of wind.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm along for the ride and that the best thing I can do for myself and the people around me is just be the monarch that is enjoying that ride and hoping for the best because this thing could have gone any way.
1:07:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But after 150 days, a whole hell of a lot of peanut butter
1:08:03
[SPEAKER_02]: flew and hiked, but mostly flew.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_02]: A total of, I think it was 282,835 calendars from Mexico to Canada.
1:08:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I got a pizza, I got a pizza.
1:08:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Best adventure meal available.
1:08:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I got a pizza that there's a gas station right there.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a pizza.
1:08:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I had to explain to the board of guard,
1:08:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Canadian.
1:08:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm coming home, you know, when he asked me where I'd been, it was, it was kind of difficult, you know, I just said, yeah, I just been paragliding.
1:08:47
[SPEAKER_04]: What a variety, too, on this route, you know, what a variety that the monarchs see because with the endless chain, you know, it's a lot of gorgeous Canadian rockies with this here.
1:08:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You're starting out at the border of Mexico, man, that's a desert and you're finishing eating pounds of blueberries out in the wild on these alpine mountains.
1:09:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, and going through Utah and Idaho and all the canyon lands and all of that, what a variety to see on that 3,000 kilometers.
1:09:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel, yeah, I feel, especially being able to just share it like I am right now with you and your listeners, but I feel like the luckiest guy I know to be able to have experienced this site, you know, I never remember how amazing it is just to be outside, to live outside like that until I'm doing it.
1:09:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so just try to, you know, keep that finger on my string or my string on my finger rather to remember to make sure that, you know, this summer, you know, this spring this fall that I get I got a good dose of that as well.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it seems like the pandemic was extra interesting for you.
1:10:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm totally different for totally different reasons.
1:10:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Could you explain to us or just tell us, I know you've got a film coming out.
1:10:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you talk about that?
1:10:14
[SPEAKER_04]: What to expect?
1:10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: What kind of answers or questions is the film answer?
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_04]: What do expect when watching that?
1:10:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And also maybe your last most vivid
1:10:25
[SPEAKER_04]: lesson you learned doing this.
1:10:29
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, cool.
1:10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so right now, and for the past really six months, I've just had my head down editing this massive, massive film project.
1:10:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a super fun, you know, action packed, but also lots of scary stuff, lots of funny stuff, documentary.
1:10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: that I've produced with my awesome partner, Lindsay.
1:10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That'll be coming out in two forms.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got a pre-release of the documentary that's gonna be coming out on May 6th.
1:11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That is kind of like your Kickstarter, get to see an early version of the film.
1:11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of those people will get to also download the final version in November of this year.
1:11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: or they can just wait for that.
1:11:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But then they won't get all the extra cool stuff.
1:11:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So check out flimanarka.com.
1:11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It has so many of the stories that I've shared with Mason today, but with crazy visuals that you will not believe, including lots of really great air to air stuff that Lindsay was able to shoot with the drone.
1:11:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And some stuff that I didn't say, because I got to say something for the movie.
1:11:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And also there you can find photographs, cool hand drawn adventure maps, track logs, if you're into that, if you want to see exactly where I had exactly where I flew, you can see all that kind of stuff too.
1:12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And something that's really important, we've got to call the action the hair is well, which is that we want to encourage people, especially people living in North America.
1:12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: to plant milkweed seeds because I didn't get into it, but essentially this whole project has a sort of environmental edge, which is that we want to let people know that this monarch's species that's been doing this incredible migratory root for millions and millions of years, any year now could be their last, if you look at their numbers, they've lost 90% in the last 20 years.
1:12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's all due to the monoculture farming that we're doing across North America and the eradication of milkweed, which is the only fruit that their offspring can eat.
1:13:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So the solution is very simple.
1:13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that everyone just planned a few milkweed seeds in their yard.
1:13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And side effect is that they get to have butterflies coming around their house and they get to feel awesome.
1:13:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And this inspiring species that has so much to offer, like I mean, look, look, look what it offered me.
1:13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, good just knows what it could offer everyone else.
1:13:25
[SPEAKER_02]: On top of them, just being an important part of our ecosystem, we'll get to live on and then our children get to see that and their children get to see that, and their children get to see that.
1:13:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is what's going on.
1:13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all at flymanarket.com.
1:13:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And that little bit about,
1:13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: taking care of things like planting, you know, if you milkweed seeds so that are great, great, great, grandchek children get to experience monarchs is really my big takeaway from this whole thing.
1:13:56
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that like monarchs, we humans can live, you know, life either as I was living, which is that I'm here for me because I need to record my greatness to leave my legacy
1:14:14
[SPEAKER_02]: so that people don't forget me or we or I can live like monarchs live, which is that I am here, yes, but I am here for we and I am here working as hard as I can, but all of that work is entirely focused on creating a better situation.
1:14:44
[SPEAKER_02]: for the next me, and all of their work is going to be focused entirely on creating a better situation, a better circumstance.
1:14:55
[SPEAKER_02]: In this case, it's just flying north, but that's not just, that's amazing, that they do that for the next version of them.
1:15:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And the monarch has really shown me that and has transformed me from someone who only thought about me, from someone who thinks about everyone.
1:15:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And not just everyone that's alive right now, yeah, they're important.
1:15:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's really important is everyone who's gonna be alive in a hundred years.
1:15:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And to really put that into perspective and to understand that that's what my life is about.
1:15:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not about me, it's not about us.
1:15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually about them that are coming and that if I can help people appreciate that fundamental feeling, then I feel like we're,
1:15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all a mate, a significant step closer to doing what seems to be the impossible task, which is taking care of this home that we all share.
1:15:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Wonderful said.
1:15:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Wonderful said.
1:15:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So we know where to check out for film.
1:15:58
[SPEAKER_04]: We know what to do and action step to take.
1:16:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Plants of milk weed is beautiful by the way.
1:16:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I saw a monarch recently and I remember we were talking and I thought it's unbelievable.
1:16:13
[SPEAKER_04]: All of that is inside that small little paper
1:16:20
[SPEAKER_04]: It's amazing.
1:16:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It is amazing.
1:16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It was absolutely amazing.
1:16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, Benjamin, it was another just complete grand slam episode of an interview.
1:16:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm inspired.
1:16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't even know what to do with this excitement, but that was, uh, I just can't even imagine the feeling of being able to fly like that and be able to be traced through the steps of one of science's most, one of the world's most mysterious phenomenon.
1:16:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, great.
1:16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I, I, I appreciate you saying that.
1:16:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, I'm so delighted to be able
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_02]: through your medium, so thank you so much for having me on and for taking the time to hear my stories.