Latest / Go Wildly Podcast / Ep. 17 | Inside the PCT: What It's Really Like to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail... Twice

Transcript

Ep. 17 | Inside the PCT: What It's Really Like to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail... Twice · Go Wildly Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome welcome wildly wonders to another episode of the go
• 0:07
  wildly podcast where we dive into the stories of people whose
• 0:11
  lives are rooted in the outdoors.
• 0:14
  I'm Heather and together with my Co host Emily, we talked to the
• 0:17
  guides, the dreamers and the dirt covered doers who've built
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  their lives around the wild, whether they found it young or
• 0:23
  it found them later and never let go.
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  Each episode uncovers the moment that changed everything, the
• 0:29
  sparked that that turned a simple love of nature into a
• 0:32
  calling, a career, or a full blown obsession.
• 0:35
  From river Rapids to mountain Ridge lines, we follow that
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  thread that connects childhood wonder to adult purpose.
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  If you're drawn to stories of adventure, resilience, and what
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  it means to live life outside, you're in the right place.
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  So grab your coffee, your paddle, or your hiking boots and
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  let's go wildly together. Good.
• 0:56
  Morning. We'll talk online and and stuff,
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  but it's just a little far for me to take a plane over there
• 1:01
  too often. Yeah, totally.
• 1:03
  Well, let's do. Let's introduce him.
• 1:05
  Yeah, let's do a quick little intro.
• 1:07
  Go for it. Oh my gosh, you're going to put
• 1:09
  it on me this time. OK, fine.
• 1:11
  Well, maybe. Maybe.
• 1:12
  Hunter needs to introduce himself because all we can
• 1:14
  really say is this is Hunter Voris.
• 1:16
  By the way, is profanity. I don't want.
• 1:18
  Yeah, we. Cuss we Yeah, we make sex jokes
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  we swear part of. The I feel like that's.
• 1:23
  Part of our sex jokes. But I pulled up in the parking
• 1:27
  lot. Heather just got a new car.
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  I pulled up and I was like, hey, your license plate has 69 on it.
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  And she looked at me and she. Said you are a 10 year old boy.
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  I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, you see.
• 1:39
  It was same thing. I think, yeah.
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  I mean, since it's just a symbol, even if you don't even
• 1:44
  know what it means. Yeah, it's you recognize it?
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  Yeah. And soon it's going to be 6-7.
• 1:50
  Oh gosh. Have you seen all that I have?
• 1:52
  Heard a little bit about. It wait, what's 6/7?
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  It's just a meme. It's yeah, but it's something to
• 1:57
  do with like height or how something cool is.
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  How cool something is OK? They just made it my 9:00.
• 2:04
  Year old. Yeah, yeah.
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  Yeah, I think so. Anyway.
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  Yeah. OK, so welcome in to what
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  episode? Well, you never know.
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  We don't know. We don't know.
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  So this is just episode. This is this.
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  Episode This episode with Hunter Boris, whom we have been friends
• 2:21
  with since high school freshman year.
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  I've known you since middle school.
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  Middle school. Yeah, Yeah.
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  Really. Yeah.
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  OK. But you went to north, we went
• 2:32
  to South. Yeah, yeah.
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  But I. So yeah, how did you meet
• 2:34
  Heather? Through Josh and Cody.
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  Yeah, OK. I thought, I thought, I thought
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  we went back far though, anyway. But Hunter is special because
• 2:43
  he's been living the PCT life. Yeah, and like the.
• 2:48
  Outdoor for it. Yeah, but.
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  Well, just like we were thinking of people to interview and we
• 2:53
  were like, let's get Hunter on. I'm sure he's got some cool
• 2:56
  outdoor centered stories. And at the time you were on the
• 3:00
  PCT and we were like, oh, it'd be so cool to go and meet him on
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  the trail as he's like hiking by and be like, hey.
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  Buddy, some goodies. Come sit down with us.
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  Yeah, we were going to. Bring you snacks and.
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  What you call? It.
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  Yeah, yeah. We were going to bring a big
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  dose of that, but then seeing a new you were in town.
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  So yeah, here we are. Well, that and you got busy.
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  I did very busy. Busy.
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  So it just we kind of shifted gears and went on.
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  But yeah, we've been watching vicariously.
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  Yeah. Most of your stories.
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  Yeah, that's pretty much all. I've I have time to to put
• 3:33
  anything on, but eventually I'll probably like piece some stuff
• 3:36
  together like sections and put it on.
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  I have a YouTube channel with just random stuff that I've
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  done. Cool.
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  And so it'll go on there eventually.
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  Cool, yeah. And I know before that you were
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  doing wind. Yeah, so I worked on wind
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  turbines for, I mean, though I've been in the industry for
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  the last like 7 years, but I, I worked on turbines like I, I
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  mean, you know, turn wrenches for four, around 4:00 to five
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  years. And then I transferred over to
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  an instructor role. So I was mainly like safety.
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  And believe it or not, I'm pretty safe.
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  Wow. That's why they hired me.
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  And so I did that for a couple years and I, I just had the urge
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  to to go and be a bum in the woods again for a while.
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  And, and it just kind of worked out where my contract was coming
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  up and summer was coming and I scored a couple of permits.
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  So I made it happen. And now I'm back in the position
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  of going to have to hunt for a job here soon once I figure my
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  life out. But yeah, in the meantime, I get
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  to spend some time with family and friends and hometown and
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  life is good. Good.
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  Where do you reside? Portland's been home the last
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  couple years, OK, And then before that it was a travel gig.
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  I was like 6 weeks on, one week off so it was wherever I could
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  find a bed was home. Airbnb's mostly hotels.
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  Yeah, yeah. Does that gig pay pretty good?
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  It pays pretty good, yeah. It just, it's not like it's a
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  trade off like finding a balance of of I wanted to make money
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  obviously and I wanted to, you know, be able to.
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  Have a. Future but also I have like this
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  insatiable urge to to do things outdoors and and you can't do
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  both normally. So my my idea was just grind it
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  out for a couple years and then go on adventure.
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  Where did that insatiable urge come from?
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  Like thinking back to high school, I don't, I'm not like,
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  Oh yeah, Hunter was like always outside.
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  Like, it's not what I would pin for you.
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  So. When I was with Mikey on Monday,
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  he was like, oh, this one time we just like threw together this
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  backpacking trip down the road. Yeah, we did that.
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  It was crazy. In high school.
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  Yeah, so we were. We were in high school.
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  It was one random summer. Yeah.
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  So Zach joined us. So Zach Heck, Eric Stewart, Ryan
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  Carter, Mikey Cow and myself, we all like kind of ran.
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  I think it was like a or Thursday night or Friday night
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  and we decided to just go to Walmart and get as much
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  equipment together that we thought we needed to to backpack
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  and we had, I don't think really any of us have done any serious
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  camping, let alone backpacking, but but so I just got like a
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  little information online. We grab bags, sleeping bags and
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  like just some shitty stove that was, I mean, it was probably
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  like 4 or 5 lbs just itself in a giant fuel can.
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  And we tried bringing just cans of chili and we didn't do very
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  well, but we made it. And so funny thing, the second
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  night, I remember this and this was probably 15 years ago, but
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  Ryan Carter, he like stepped in a Creek by accident and his plan
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  was to dry his shoes off by the fire overnight.
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  And this was I think the first night.
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  So we put him by the fire, woke up in the morning and his shoes
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  were melted like the plastic was like now.
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  I mean, it melted down to just some hard material.
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  And he tried walking on those for a few miles.
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  So he ended up luckily, Eric Stewart was dropping Zach off at
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  Mariel Lodge. Or was it Paradise Lodge?
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  Which one's the one you? Can drive into Mariel.
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  OK, so that's the one. And so luckily Ryan was able to
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  leave with with Eric Stewart out of out of that that area.
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  But yeah, he was miserable. But he still had to hike like
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  like 15 miles, either barefoot or shitty shoes.
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  Yeah, I. Mean I don't think he could
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  really wear them. They were they were so bad and I
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  don't know how I didn't smell them or even think like this is
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  probably not the best spot. To put them by Yeah.
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  Mikey said that he like got a blister or something.
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  Oh yeah, yeah. And it like really sent him, you
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  know, to have a I don't. Think Mikey ended up finishing
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  the trip. I think it was it was me and
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  Zach that ended up finishing getting the foster bar.
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  He. Didn't he left that part?
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  Yeah, yeah. Well, he's all.
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  And then they they were messing with me.
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  I asked them to bring me some beer and they didn't bring me
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  beer. And they're always just making
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  fun of me and playing and pranking me.
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  I mean, he kind of, he did it to himself back then.
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  He would just put himself in these scenarios where it's like,
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  yeah, want us to just look away and not laugh.
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  Yeah, he was like they they know how to get me and I just let
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  him. Yeah, well, truly, like Mikey
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  would just set himself off for he's jokes and.
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  Almost like you hear the science drum roll before he does
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  something. But that's funny.
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  Yeah. So was that your first?
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  That was the first backpacking trip.
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  Did you catch like a backpacking buzz on that trip or anything?
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  Yeah, I think it was like sleeping outside for the first
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  time. I think by myself was probably
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  the time when I really caught the bug, because before then I'd
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  always have to go and do something, like find someone
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  that was crazy enough or willing to go and do this kind of
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  adventure. But I think the first time I I
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  slept outdoors on my own was like when I really felt
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  comfortable and got the itch. Was that separate from that
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  trip? Yeah, that was separate.
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  Yeah, I was with, I mean, we were, we, we had a tarp and it
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  did rain the first night too, forgot to mention that.
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  And so this tarp was our shelter and we, because we didn't expect
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  any rain. Sure enough.
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  Yeah. They always just popped up I.
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  Mean it's always. Like us today?
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  Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, you can't
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  bring one of these nice little gazebos with you.
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  No, not on a hiking trip. That's why I like rafting,
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  because you can float everything you.
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  Can bring a lot of stuff on it. I can bring a whole easy up on
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  the raft. Yeah, that's the way to do it.
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  The last rafting trip I went on with Zach at the AWAHI, I was
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  trying to like dial in my gear for the trail and I had just
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  purchased a new tent and is it's tiny, it's a one person tent,
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  but it's it's you stand it up in a trekking pole.
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  And I mean, I barely fit in there on my own, let alone like
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  with any gear. But I wanted to test it on that
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  trip. And we got rain every single
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  night and I almost didn't bring it.
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  It's always when you don't bring something that you need it.
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  Exactly. So even if it's just the tiniest
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  little shelter, baby sack it, it makes a big difference.
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  Yeah, that was the first trip. And then since then took like a
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  couple small trips until 2017 and in 2017 I, I was doing a
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  bunch of just research online and I found out about the
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  Pacific Crest Trail. So I scored permits then.
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  And that was the first time I hiked.
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  It was 2017 and I hiked from northbound.
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  So started at the Mexico California border and then hiked
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  N to the Canada border. So did you do the whole thing?
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  Most of it, it was like I probably did about 23 to like
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  2400 miles of it and total it's 26150 miles, give or take.
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  But there's fires, there's there's closures due to like
• 10:44
  invasive species or there's frog closures.
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  There's, there's all kinds of reasons.
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  Yeah. So there's some protected
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  species in the Sierra Nevadas of this, I forget what kind of frog
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  it is, but it's really only found in this one specific area
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  and they're trying to rehabilitate it.
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  And there's some more in Santa Cruz.
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  They have a center where they've been like able to breed them
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  now. So they're they're less
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  concerned about it. But that area has been closed
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  for, I want to say like over 1010 years on the trail.
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  I was going to say wow. They give people.
• 11:14
  Problems. Yeah.
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  Snow, frogs, fires, elevation. And then on top of that, there's
• 11:20
  some areas where there's stretches where you really don't
• 11:23
  have anywhere to resupply for. I mean 100 plus miles.
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  And depending on how fast you're going, I could take people 10
• 11:30
  plus days. So you gotta carry just a lot
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  of. Food.
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  And that first time was, were you by yourself?
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  I started by myself, yeah. And I ended up meeting a few
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  people and and there they were my trail family.
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  You call it a trail family, but it's, it's basically just a
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  group of people that you meet and you get along with and and
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  you hike with. And so we after 400 miles, I had
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  met these people and and we hiked the rest of the trail
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  together. So that brings me to you just
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  prompted and I'm like there's so many trail like PCT specific
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  trail. Terms.
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  Yeah, yeah. What's your trail?
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  Nickname. So my trail name is Grimm.
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  I've had a few, but Grimm was the one that stuck and there's
• 12:15
  always a reason for it. My buddy Arlo or his trail name
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  is Rubber Ball. Yeah, long story, but for for
• 12:23
  me, it was I would. So most of the time when you're
• 12:26
  hiking like you want to do, I mean, it doesn't really matter,
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  but for us, we were doing like anywhere from 10 to 2025 miles a
• 12:32
  day. And most of the time, like, you
• 12:34
  hike at your own pace, you take breaks, you go to the bathroom,
• 12:36
  whatever. So we would kind of start all
• 12:40
  together and then we'd separate and just end up at the same
• 12:43
  point at the end of the day. But yeah.
• 12:47
  Oh, sorry. And where was I going with that?
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  So, yeah. So, yeah.
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  OK. So grim.
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  So throughout, like the day, occasionally I'd see things that
• 13:00
  people would call grim. Like I'd see like, yeah, animals
• 13:03
  that had passed away and we're, you know, decomposing or I'd
• 13:06
  see. Yeah.
• 13:08
  And I'd at the end of the day, I'd be like, hey, did you guys
• 13:10
  see that? Like that, that raccoon or the
• 13:12
  skull or whatever it was. And for some reason, like they
• 13:14
  wouldn't have seen it. And like they they made a point
• 13:17
  of it that I would point these things out that were
• 13:21
  particularly grim. I guess so.
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  But yeah, I don't really think I'm a grim person.
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  But that's just stuck. It's just an interesting thing,
• 13:27
  I guess. So another so there was another
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  trail name I got was Scooter and that was because so I was going
• 13:35
  to hitchhike. You come along a highway down in
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  or was it, it was like coming down into the desert after,
• 13:45
  after San Jacinto. So it's near like Palm Spring
• 13:48
  Desert and you come near a highway and there's a town that
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  was like maybe 5 miles off the highway.
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  So I was either going to hitch from the highway, which is not
• 13:57
  easy to do late at night or walk.
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  And I ended up walking and along the highway I found this little
• 14:03
  flag. It was like one that goes on
• 14:05
  ATVs so you can see them as they're coming up over a dune.
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  And I just stuck it in my backpack and it stuck up
• 14:11
  probably like 4 feet above my head as I'd hike.
• 14:13
  But it I just kept it and so people would see my flag like
• 14:17
  miles before they'd see me. So they called me Scooter for
• 14:20
  some reason. Like it was a scooter flag.
• 14:23
  I guess so, Like they thought it was like the disabled scooters
• 14:27
  you might see. And I have a flag on it just to
• 14:29
  make it more visible. I don't know.
• 14:31
  But yeah, But Grim stuck. But I mean, it could be for any
• 14:35
  reason. Like some people.
• 14:36
  Their trail name is like a tree that they really like or
• 14:39
  whatever but. Do people ever do like give
• 14:43
  themselves trail names or is it mostly?
• 14:45
  You can, I mean it doesn't matter but but normally the idea
• 14:48
  is like someone else gives it to you right it?
• 14:50
  Develops. Yeah, it's supposed to be like
• 14:51
  an organic kind of thing, but but it doesn't matter.
• 14:54
  Well, Emily has on the river. Yeah, the programs that we do,
• 14:58
  it's all nicknames. Also I'm MRO.
• 15:01
  MRO OK. Which came from my dad.
• 15:04
  And then I brought it into this, into this little container.
• 15:08
  Everybody operates in nicknames, like if people show up and
• 15:11
  introduce with their government name, we're all like.
• 15:14
  And can you? Don't tell us that name.
• 15:16
  Is it the same way that that you have to be given that name or is
• 15:19
  it Does it matter it's. It's kind of preferred to be
• 15:22
  given. So it's like, tell me about
• 15:24
  yourself, Like what do you do? Blah, blah.
• 15:26
  But if somebody shows up and they're like, oh, like I go by
• 15:29
  this nickname often or. Oh, we're taking it, yeah.
• 15:33
  Exactly. Like, oh, good, we don't have to
• 15:35
  think about what to name you. But usually it's like they show
• 15:38
  up and we just start talking and it's like, OK, there's your
• 15:41
  nickname. Like somebody's nickname this
• 15:43
  season was backseat OK, because they were sitting in the back
• 15:47
  seat in the shuttle van or something.
• 15:49
  Like, yeah, things just like come up in conversation and you.
• 15:54
  Don't have 1 yet, you'll have to get a good one.
• 15:58
  It was white girl for a long time.
• 16:00
  My God. How did you get that?
• 16:03
  The last name's white. All right.
• 16:05
  Yeah. I mean, that's that kind of
• 16:06
  fits, but. You don't remember in high
• 16:08
  school everybody calling me white girl?
• 16:09
  White girl. Don't you?
• 16:11
  I think I just called you Heather.
• 16:12
  I don't know. I think Matt Kensler and Kyle
• 16:15
  started white girl or Cody. I haven't that's I haven't seen
• 16:19
  either of them in a while either.
• 16:22
  Yeah. We talked to Cody not too long
• 16:24
  ago. How's Cody doing?
• 16:25
  Good, good, because I know he's a little rough patch there in
• 16:28
  the beginning. Yeah, I think he's doing good.
• 16:30
  Hood. I know Kyle's doing well.
• 16:33
  As far as I know he was doing some handyman work for me last
• 16:35
  summer and so we'd like chat and catch up and I haven't needed
• 16:40
  anything. He's one of my biggest.
• 16:42
  Good thing, yeah. He's one of my big fans, yeah.
• 16:44
  He's a big fan of us, yeah. Awesome.
• 16:46
  And I swear I saw Matt Kensler and Fred Meyer like a month ago
• 16:50
  that I like did a backtrack down the aisle.
• 16:53
  But I was like digging around. I don't know if he would
• 16:55
  remember. Remember Me?
• 16:56
  So I'm not going to walk up to him and just be like Matt
• 16:59
  Kensler. You would for sure.
• 17:01
  Yeah, next time. Next time.
• 17:03
  Yeah. So I think I even texted you and
• 17:05
  was like, I think I just saw Matt Kensler maybe.
• 17:07
  At least you're not, like, trying to take, like, creepy
• 17:09
  pictures of people. Yeah.
• 17:11
  I try not to do that. That's me.
• 17:14
  That's me that does I. Mean as.
• 17:16
  Long as they don't see it, it's not creepy.
• 17:18
  Right. Yeah, but I also like recording
• 17:20
  people without their permission is.
• 17:22
  It's not illegal, is it? I don't know.
• 17:25
  It's. Just a Gray area.
• 17:26
  There's a Gray area around. The pond, yeah.
• 17:29
  If they if they found it, I think they'd be upset about it,
• 17:32
  but. Probably, yeah.
• 17:34
  So your was your family outdoorsy like?
• 17:38
  Oh, really? No.
• 17:40
  Yeah, give us the rundown of how you grew up.
• 17:42
  Yeah, I mean, we were outdoorsy, like, just that.
• 17:45
  I mean, so growing up, my parents with six kids, you know,
• 17:49
  open the front door and as long as they're within eyesight,
• 17:53
  we're good. So we would just play outside.
• 17:55
  I mean, I'm sure we all did just play outside as kids.
• 17:58
  Did you grow up in the house that you lived in in high
• 18:00
  school? That's where, like, your front
• 18:02
  yard was basically a soccer field.
• 18:04
  Next to Lincoln Elementary, yeah, we had like the high
• 18:07
  school track field on one side and from the elementary school
• 18:10
  field on the others. That was cool.
• 18:12
  But no, we didn't grow up there. It was just my, my family moved
• 18:15
  there just out of convenience because we had like 4 different
• 18:18
  schools we were all going to and just center of town can fit
• 18:21
  everybody. There's room for friends, like
• 18:23
  cool. So it was just convenient.
• 18:26
  But we grew up and I mean, so I moved here when I was, I was 5
• 18:30
  or 6. I know I don't ever remember
• 18:32
  from, from Anchorage. And then we grew up on Foothill
• 18:35
  Blvd. in this small house. And then once my family became
• 18:39
  the size of eight kids and three dogs and a bunch of cats, and so
• 18:43
  we had to find more space. So they moved out to Merlin.
• 18:46
  Like out near Merlin. It was out off like Surrey
• 18:49
  Drive. So yeah, that's where we had,
• 18:53
  yeah, it was, we had, we had like 11 acres.
• 18:55
  So we got to play outdoors. We had a horse and pony and wow,
• 18:58
  just spent a lot of time just doing shit outside, making acorn
• 19:02
  guns, you know, throwing pine cones at each other, hiding in
• 19:05
  the woods. You and.
• 19:06
  Your sis's. Yeah, yeah, they would come too.
• 19:09
  So I guess like maybe that's where I got like the initial
• 19:12
  like as a kid, just interest in spending time outside.
• 19:16
  But I think it really developed as an adult just when I had, I
• 19:20
  mean, yeah, I had to kind of find out like what I like as a,
• 19:24
  as a person and, and yeah, found it out.
• 19:28
  I like, I like spending time, particularly like the mountains.
• 19:32
  That's, that's like where I, if I'm out on the weekends, like
• 19:36
  have a weekend off, I'm usually going up there.
• 19:38
  Especially like this winter, I'm excited to do some skiing and
• 19:42
  get on some mountains. Yeah, I feel like you've done a
• 19:44
  bunch of like. Mountaineering.
• 19:47
  Is that what it's? Called, yeah, mountaineering,
• 19:49
  hiking, stream hiking, whatever. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:52
  So I mean, we're along the Cascades and we have, I mean, we
• 19:56
  have so many mountains. So the the interest of mine the
• 19:59
  last couple years. Oh shit.
• 20:01
  Sorry. It's probably been like in my
• 20:03
  mouth the last couple minutes, but so have you ever heard of
• 20:06
  the the Mazamas? It's a mountaineering group that
• 20:09
  they're local, yeah, they're all over Oregon, but they've
• 20:14
  compiled this list of the most prominent 16 peaks in the
• 20:18
  Cascades. And it starts from Chassing goes
• 20:21
  all the way up to Glacier Peak or shucks in on the Washington
• 20:25
  like Canada border basically, and all throughout there and the
• 20:30
  Mazama 16. I mean, I could try and list
• 20:32
  them, but it it'd be hard. But so I have one left and it's
• 20:36
  Glacier Peak and I'm trying to knock that out this winter.
• 20:39
  And then, but then there's there's all kinds of lists of
• 20:42
  mountains that I'd like to start peeking off it.
• 20:46
  Having a list kind of helped me just organize like my thoughts,
• 20:51
  I guess, and that it was already kind of a goal that that that
• 20:55
  people had in the mountaineering community.
• 20:57
  I just saw like, oh, I should do that.
• 21:00
  I've already done a few of. Them and now did you get
• 21:01
  involved with that group up in Portland?
• 21:03
  Oh, I'm not really involved with the Mazamas per SE.
• 21:06
  It's just a list that they put together.
• 21:08
  I'd like to, but they're, they're mainly like just a
• 21:11
  mountaineering group that puts information out online and, and
• 21:14
  beta for climbers. And they have a, I'm sure they
• 21:18
  have an organization where you can contribute to it.
• 21:20
  And they, because they replace equipment on, on rock like bolts
• 21:24
  and chains so that after years they corrode and they're just
• 21:27
  dangerous for other climbers. So they'll replace those things.
• 21:31
  But yeah, I have no affiliation with them.
• 21:33
  I just, I just appreciate what they do and and like to get up
• 21:37
  in the mountains too. Yeah, that's.
• 21:39
  Awesome. But McLaughlin, like that's in
• 21:40
  our backyard. That was the first one I think
• 21:42
  I'd ever done, and I did. It to not this summer, that last
• 21:47
  summer, yeah. We were trying to make it there.
• 21:49
  Yeah, we had a bunch of goals, but they just got.
• 21:53
  They've just been moved to a later date.
• 21:54
  Yeah, they're not time sensitive goals, totally there's, but
• 21:57
  they're still there. Yeah, it's not going anywhere.
• 21:59
  Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think it's getting taller
• 22:02
  too, so. Probably, yeah, with erosion
• 22:04
  down below and you're doing Thielsen this weekend.
• 22:07
  Yeah, yeah. So my uncle and my cousin
• 22:11
  earlier in the summer, he was texting me while I was on the
• 22:15
  trail and and said when you get to Oregon, if you're interested,
• 22:18
  we should climb Thielson when you come through.
• 22:20
  And because I didn't hike through Oregon this summer, I
• 22:24
  asked him if he wanted to try and get it in the next coming
• 22:26
  weeks. And so we planned for this
• 22:28
  coming Saturday and my dad is going to tag along too.
• 22:33
  And he's not like said, well, I don't actually know if I
• 22:35
  mentioned that, but my parents are not like super outdoorsy
• 22:38
  people. When my dad was younger he was,
• 22:40
  but they're just always busy. So do.
• 22:44
  They still own the liquor store. Yeah, OK, cool.
• 22:46
  Yep, still doing their thing. So yeah, he's going to go and
• 22:50
  we'll see if we make it up to the top or not, but I'm excited
• 22:53
  to. How does the family?
• 22:54
  Always own the liquor store. Not always know my dad that he
• 22:58
  was a distributor for years and he ended up with the opportunity
• 23:04
  to purchase the liquor store in Ashland.
• 23:07
  And and the previous owner was retiring and he had he was a
• 23:11
  representative there for a long time.
• 23:12
  So he applied through the state and the state approved and and
• 23:16
  he got the the license for it. And then because he had the
• 23:18
  Ashland store when Grants Pass store came up, same thing that
• 23:23
  owner was going to retire. He.
• 23:25
  Yeah. Because your mom also, what did
• 23:28
  she do before? So my mom's done all kinds.
• 23:30
  She's she's, I mean, you name it, she's done it.
• 23:33
  But she she did a lot of volunteer work when we were
• 23:37
  younger because we lived out of district so that we could come
• 23:39
  and go to schools in the district.
• 23:41
  She volunteered there. And yeah, I mean, so she did a
• 23:45
  lot of that. She was, she worked in the
• 23:47
  service industry for a long time.
• 23:50
  She actually shuttled at Gliese for a couple years.
• 23:52
  Summers she would do right shuttles with the the rafts over
• 23:56
  to Foster Barn back. She's got some wild stories
• 23:59
  about that. I bet, I bet.
• 24:01
  I got to know your mom when I was doing my catering company,
• 24:04
  the Little. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that.
• 24:06
  Yeah, And I was like, oh, I'm friends with Hunter and and
• 24:09
  Madison and like, and then we made the connection and she's
• 24:12
  like, I think I might remember you, you know, I'm like.
• 24:14
  But then we formed her like a new relationship through
• 24:17
  ordering booze. And she's so sweet.
• 24:19
  Yeah, she's. I know that my dad had a
• 24:21
  relationship with your parents too and I'm guessing it's
• 24:24
  started at glace with your mom running shuttles and then and
• 24:27
  then he was custom ordering or like special ordering Scotch
• 24:30
  through the liquor store. Yeah, definitely.
• 24:33
  If you're looking for good Scotch, give him a call.
• 24:35
  Yeah, yeah. How did they choose Grants Pass
• 24:40
  from Anchorage to grants? Pass They really chose it.
• 24:44
  My grandparents moved from Anchorage to Grants Pass.
• 24:47
  They wanted to get away from the winners in Anchorage and my
• 24:51
  parents were desperate for any help they can get with us kids.
• 24:55
  So I think they just kind of, I heard or migrated with him.
• 24:59
  I don't, I don't really know. So we ended here.
• 25:01
  Yeah. And, and I mean, I'm super
• 25:03
  great. My grandparents were a big
• 25:05
  influence on all of my siblings lives and myself.
• 25:08
  So we were lucky. That's how I got into rafting
• 25:11
  was my grandpa. He was big on just getting in
• 25:14
  the water. He tried packing for a while,
• 25:16
  but he didn't like rolling. So he's like, I'm still going to
• 25:19
  rafting. Yeah.
• 25:21
  Do you kayak also? I.
• 25:23
  Just started I mean, I kayaked when I was a kid, when I was
• 25:26
  like 10 and younger. My dad got me into kayaking
• 25:29
  because he was a kayaker. He was a kayak instructor in the
• 25:33
  70s and 80s. And then I was, I was scared.
• 25:36
  I was like 10 years old. So it's like I was a nervous
• 25:40
  kid. It's.
• 25:41
  Just a plastic down that rapid there.
• 25:44
  Upside down and rocks in my face.
• 25:47
  And so after like 11 or 12, I moved into a rap and I was
• 25:52
  strictly in a raft. So much better.
• 25:54
  But now then. Yeah.
• 25:56
  Like, yeah, pros and cons to both.
• 25:58
  But a raft is comfortable and relaxing and you can fully
• 26:03
  stretch out and you can have lots of things with you and, and
• 26:07
  you can go alone in a lot of cases.
• 26:10
  And it's still safe, right? But now that I work for a kayak
• 26:16
  school, I'm like getting into kayaking.
• 26:19
  And this summer was the first time since I was like 10 or 11
• 26:23
  that I actually paddled downstream in a kayak.
• 26:27
  And the first day I did it, I was like, you guys, this is
• 26:30
  crazy. I'm like really scared and.
• 26:33
  What's the like, have you have you flipped it since you've been
• 26:36
  guiding or have you been not keeping it up on accident?
• 26:39
  So when I'm like working, I'm in a raft.
• 26:42
  So it was just like a play day, a staff day to just go out and
• 26:47
  start strengthening my skills in it.
• 26:50
  And then I would do role practice with some of the other
• 26:54
  instructors. So and apparently I got a role.
• 26:59
  I came up and they were like, Oh my God, you did it.
• 27:02
  I was like, really? Like you didn't what?
• 27:04
  What You sure you didn't help me?
• 27:06
  Like it didn't feel like I did, but.
• 27:08
  Yeah, I remember my grandpa. So he had a pool, and he would,
• 27:11
  in the summers, he would be in the pool for hours just flipping
• 27:15
  over and you'd see him like digging out of the kayak and
• 27:18
  getting back in after a while. And that's funny.
• 27:20
  Yeah, it was. But he'd have a glass of Scotch
• 27:22
  on the side of the pool the whole time.
• 27:24
  So I think it's like if you're on the river, you have to have
• 27:26
  at least some sort of either NA booze or some kind of alcoholic
• 27:30
  beverage. Yeah, it's pretty.
• 27:33
  That's part of what like held me back from being a guide for so
• 27:36
  long. I was just a private boater
• 27:38
  because I was never, was never. And I'm still not into alcohol.
• 27:43
  And I felt a big disconnect between myself and other
• 27:46
  perspective guides or active guides.
• 27:48
  So it's like, I can't, I'm not like in the guide party culture.
• 27:52
  I can't. Like, yeah, I can't keep up with
• 27:54
  that. Yeah.
• 27:56
  I mean, there's a lot of like outdoor sports kind of have
• 27:59
  that, but I mean, I feel like all outdoor activities have
• 28:03
  there's so many different niche like groups.
• 28:05
  And. Like in climbing, for instance,
• 28:07
  or even in hiking, like you have some people that like ultra
• 28:10
  running, like you could almost consider that like extreme
• 28:13
  hiking totally. But but, but then there's people
• 28:16
  that get out and do a mile and they'll do that every day And,
• 28:19
  and I mean. It's any less.
• 28:21
  Yeah, it's, it's they're, you're all doing the same thing.
• 28:24
  It's just just different extremes, I guess.
• 28:27
  But that's the same way with being, I mean, a guide in any
• 28:30
  sport. I feel like you can be someone
• 28:32
  with a lot of experience that you've, you've just been through
• 28:35
  it, so you don't really have that urge in you.
• 28:38
  But you could also be a young kid that has a lot of experience
• 28:41
  and still has a lot of party in them.
• 28:44
  But I mean, that's the, I don't know, that's kind of what's fun
• 28:47
  about getting out there. Like one of the coolest people
• 28:49
  that I met on trail this year. I don't oh, what was his?
• 28:55
  It wasn't cramps. He was a really, he was an older
• 28:57
  gentleman and he's actually from Klamath Falls area.
• 29:01
  And I met him in the middle of nowhere California mountains.
• 29:04
  And we just got to talk and we were at this like little spring
• 29:08
  and filtering water and asked him where he's from.
• 29:11
  He said he's from clam if he got to telling him, oh, I worked
• 29:13
  there, lived there for a few years and told him I got into
• 29:17
  hiking through like just getting in the mountains.
• 29:20
  And he had told me that. So Mount McLaughlin, he's
• 29:23
  climbed that over 100 times. He's been to Mount Chassis He's
• 29:27
  climbed close to 80 times, but he's just a serious Mountaineer
• 29:32
  that's well into his 70s that still gets up there.
• 29:35
  He Backcountry skis. He's still like doing new routes
• 29:38
  like just someone that that if I hadn't stopped at this spring
• 29:42
  and talked to you, I but the coolest person I met on trail
• 29:45
  this year. I don't know I don't and I'm
• 29:49
  trying to remember his name. It was something like gramps.
• 29:51
  I don't remember, but he didn't have like a trail name, so his
• 29:54
  wife just kind of gave him one. But he's probably doing more
• 29:56
  miles than like most through hikers that I met.
• 29:59
  And yeah, but but he was hiking southbound and not a lot of
• 30:04
  people hike southbound. So it's one of those things
• 30:06
  where you'll see probably 20 people hiking north in the day
• 30:10
  and you'll see him for 10 minutes and then they're gone.
• 30:14
  But yeah, some people do that, some hike N, but majority are
• 30:17
  northbound hiking. How?
• 30:18
  Many people do you run into average while hiking.
• 30:21
  Like even if you're by yourself, I feel like you're going to run
• 30:24
  into something like it's so popular to do these big PCT
• 30:27
  hikes now there's. Certain hundreds of people,
• 30:31
  right like. So there's thousands that do
• 30:33
  the, the through hike every year, or at least like start it.
• 30:37
  But then there's like the John Mirror Trail, it's one of the
• 30:39
  most hiked trails probably in the world.
• 30:42
  And, and it's, it's a lottery system.
• 30:44
  So they limit the amount of hikers, but you still see
• 30:47
  hundreds of people. And, and the main reason they
• 30:49
  limited is, is just impact on the trail.
• 30:51
  And then there's limited amounts of of disperse camping, but but
• 30:56
  as a PCT hiker, some days you might see no one.
• 31:00
  Like you might go three days without seeing anyone.
• 31:03
  And there were sections where we didn't see anyone for multiple
• 31:06
  days. And then there's some, like
• 31:07
  especially the John Muir Trail, where you're coming across so
• 31:10
  much traffic that that it's just, it's just different.
• 31:14
  There's like traffic jams of people.
• 31:16
  Sometimes, yeah, wow, yeah. Especially like switchbacks, you
• 31:21
  can run into traffic jams, but typically it's like if if
• 31:23
  someone's coming uphill, they have right away.
• 31:25
  So you just get out of their way and and it just depends.
• 31:29
  But you, we did come across some groups like in the Sierras, they
• 31:32
  try and limit your groups to 18 and you'd see groups of 18.
• 31:37
  So it's like if you're going to pass this group, you have to
• 31:40
  have all of them or I mean, so it's it just depends.
• 31:44
  Did you have any? I have a few like Youtubers that
• 31:47
  I follow that are being into like hiking and 1 gal did the
• 31:51
  I'd. Probably follow them, guarantee
• 31:54
  it well. Maybe she's kind of like a one
• 31:56
  off. She just went into the
• 31:58
  Appalachia. Yeah, Appalachia.
• 31:59
  Show she did a couple sections with some friends and she was
• 32:02
  saying that this not guide that they hired but somebody to like
• 32:07
  shuttle them to the trail or whatever gave them this rundown
• 32:10
  of like a warm up in the morning.
• 32:12
  OK. Did you guys ever do any like
• 32:14
  you know? Like how do you start your day
• 32:17
  on the trail? So morning, Rich it depends on
• 32:20
  how the night ended the night before, but meaning like most of
• 32:24
  the time, 90% of the time I would cowboy camp, which you
• 32:27
  know, you know what cowboy camping.
• 32:29
  Is just like lay on the ground. Yeah, you just lay on the
• 32:31
  ground. I had like a little Tyvek tarp.
• 32:33
  I bought some of my stuff, but it's just a little tarp that
• 32:37
  you'd lay out. And then I lay my sleeping bag
• 32:39
  on it with my thin foam pad and that was that was home for the
• 32:43
  night. So when you get up in the
• 32:45
  morning, if you do that, it's quick and easy to just pack your
• 32:47
  stuff up. But usually I'd I'd sleep with a
• 32:52
  buff over my eyes. So in case I slept past the sun,
• 32:56
  I could just, you know, still still be dark.
• 32:59
  So I pull that off. I get up, I'd roll over and make
• 33:02
  a cup of coffee on my Jetboil. Just while laying.
• 33:05
  Yeah, while laying there I drink that might roll joint or
• 33:08
  something depending on how I'm feeling.
• 33:12
  And then yeah, yeah, but, but I'm not a Big Breakfast person,
• 33:17
  so coffee is like pretty much what I would do until around
• 33:19
  like 10, but mornings usually got up.
• 33:23
  That probably saved you time. And yeah.
• 33:26
  Time for sure. And then like, yeah, wait.
• 33:28
  I mean, you know, it's one of those things, like it's one of
• 33:32
  the easiest things for breakfast when you're hiking, but it's
• 33:34
  just. I just can't.
• 33:35
  I'm so pronounced over it. But there's a number of things
• 33:38
  that. Yeah, but so I've just never
• 33:41
  been a breakfast person. So coffee is an essential.
• 33:44
  I I always carry a lot of coffee and it's just instant
• 33:48
  crystallized coffee. Like no one would enjoy it, but
• 33:51
  but it gets the job done. It's caffeine, it's hot and it's
• 33:54
  good. So yeah, I do coffee and then
• 33:58
  I'd get my things together. Anywhere from like 6 to 830
• 34:03
  would be like normal time for us to get up and moving.
• 34:07
  But then it depends on who you're hiking with.
• 34:09
  Some people like to get up before the sun comes up and get
• 34:12
  in a a fair amount of miles before it gets hot, so they're
• 34:15
  not hiking through the heat and it I'm.
• 34:18
  Sure. That matters on like where
• 34:19
  you're hiking to where on the trail you are.
• 34:22
  If it is going to be a hot exposed section, yeah, get up.
• 34:26
  Sooner, I mean some in the desert.
• 34:28
  When I first started it was, I mean 100 plus degrees.
• 34:32
  I have some clips of cramps that I had in my cast where it's just
• 34:37
  spazzing so bad because it was so hot you couldn't get enough
• 34:40
  water. And, and yeah, you really like,
• 34:44
  you can only drink so much electrolytes.
• 34:45
  So, so yeah, I had some bad cramps at the start.
• 34:48
  And then your body just kind of gets used to it.
• 34:50
  But but yeah, in, in the desert, you, you have to change the way
• 34:54
  you hike. You hike in the mornings and in
• 34:57
  the evening or night, like I did a lot of night hiking.
• 35:00
  So you got to make sure you keep your headlamp charged and that
• 35:04
  way you get to avoid the heat. Keep your headlamp charged.
• 35:07
  Battery bank, so you just carry external battery banks and I'd
• 35:10
  carried 20,000 milliamp hour battery bank which is you could
• 35:14
  charge like a phone like that. There is probably 10,000 so it's
• 35:17
  about twice the size but it keeps only electronics charged
• 35:20
  and everything I had which wasn't much, I haven't.
• 35:23
  You get to a spot where you can play.
• 35:24
  Until you get to a town, yeah. So you bring an outlet, a couple
• 35:27
  small cables, and then you just charge your battery bank and
• 35:30
  phone. Whatever did like the solar
• 35:32
  spread. No, they're really not that
• 35:34
  efficient. Like you can, you can, I can get
• 35:36
  them, but I, I didn't need to carry one and and I'd have
• 35:41
  plenty of battery just charging into town and then conserve it
• 35:44
  as I as I hike. But yeah, I mean, you use your
• 35:47
  phone for everything. So you need to make sure you can
• 35:48
  charge that headlamp I had. What else did I have?
• 35:53
  I had a Garmin, it's AGPS device for the start of it.
• 35:56
  My coworkers bought it for me. Thank you guys.
• 35:59
  But I ended up ditching it because I didn't want to carry
• 36:02
  it because my phone is GPS and it so I couldn't justify
• 36:06
  carrying it. So I sent that home.
• 36:07
  It's all. So then I was down.
• 36:08
  Yeah, exactly. So I really only had like 2
• 36:11
  electronic devices. Trying to think if there was
• 36:14
  anything else, but yeah, that's pretty much it.
• 36:16
  So I just had to make sure I could charge that.
• 36:18
  Wow, what do you do in your like, like I know there's not a
• 36:21
  ton of like leisure, but like leisure time.
• 36:22
  Did you bring a book? I know some people bring book
• 36:25
  and then they. They.
• 36:26
  RIP the sheets out. Yeah, a lot of people would do
• 36:28
  that. Or they'd ditched like half the
• 36:31
  first half of the book in a hiker box, and then they'd take
• 36:33
  the other half with them and ditch that in the next hiker
• 36:35
  box. So you could like find the first
• 36:37
  half, read that, and hopefully find the next half in the hiker
• 36:39
  box. That's cool.
• 36:41
  But I did Audible. I'd listen to audio books all
• 36:43
  the time and yeah, just pay for a subscription for that.
• 36:47
  There's a ton of free books on Audible 2.
• 36:49
  If you're someone that likes podcasts or audiobooks, you can
• 36:52
  get a lot of free ones. So I do those and then yeah,
• 36:56
  just music just near the end of the day when you're running out
• 36:59
  of energy, just it's kind of a cheat code, boosts you up a bit.
• 37:03
  But yeah, mainly podcasts and audiobooks.
• 37:06
  A lot of. Those and you mentioned Kindle,
• 37:07
  did you bring a Kindle? I had a paperwhite for a while
• 37:11
  but I I found I just mainly listen to audio books while I'm
• 37:15
  hiking and I could read it on my phone if I wanted to so I just
• 37:18
  didn't need a kindle paperwhite. But because you can have the
• 37:21
  Kindle app on your phone, right? And that operates and that's one
• 37:24
  less electronics, yeah. Did you find that your PCT 2017
• 37:29
  versus your PCT 2025 were like you refined some things and it
• 37:35
  was a better hike? Yeah, I don't.
• 37:36
  Compare. Yeah, I mean, that's fair.
• 37:38
  Kind of like the one of the, the cool things about when in 2017
• 37:42
  when I threw hiked was that I had very little experience with
• 37:46
  actual backpacking. Like I'd done a couple weekend
• 37:49
  trips, but but I just threw shit together and, and threw it on my
• 37:53
  back and, and yeah, and made it. But this was serious.
• 37:57
  And there were areas where like if you don't have the right
• 38:00
  equipment, things can get, things can go wrong.
• 38:04
  So it was, it was definitely like a lot more time and for
• 38:08
  preparation then and a lot more research.
• 38:10
  And this time around, I just kind of did what I did before to
• 38:14
  start shit together because I already had it.
• 38:15
  You knew. Yeah.
• 38:16
  And I experience. Yeah.
• 38:17
  And I, I know like what works and like what I'll need.
• 38:21
  So I really like not much changed.
• 38:23
  It was just had to replace some things and, and as like really
• 38:27
  one of the main things you want to do as a hiker is just make
• 38:30
  sure you're carrying as little as possible or as light as
• 38:33
  equipment as possible. So there's some things that I
• 38:35
  swapped out for lighter gear that's just changed over almost
• 38:38
  10 years. But other than that, it was the
• 38:40
  same shit, same trail, different day.
• 38:43
  Yeah. Do you have any?
• 38:45
  Let's get into some story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the.
• 38:48
  Most insane story. Stories OK, as far as the trail
• 38:55
  this year, they're really like we didn't have anything too
• 38:59
  crazy, but the Sierras, I would say like that's if I could do
• 39:05
  the trail again, I'd probably just do the Sierras and just
• 39:08
  yo-yo back and forth until they kick me out of there.
• 39:11
  Cool. But but it was, I don't know.
• 39:14
  I mean, we had a, we had a, we had a lot of days where we'd
• 39:17
  just wake up and we know like we've got food for five days and
• 39:24
  the amount of trail we have is going to take us five days.
• 39:27
  But this is the coolest spot we've camped yet.
• 39:30
  So we should just stay here for the day.
• 39:32
  And we had a lot of those where we're at like AI mean an Alpine
• 39:36
  Creek or Meadow with a lake next to it and fishing license and
• 39:40
  just some literally just a reel and and hook.
• 39:42
  And so we'd just throw them in and fish and see what we could
• 39:45
  pull up and. You did end up hanging out.
• 39:47
  Yeah, some. Yeah, we can get more food a
• 39:49
  lot. Yeah.
• 39:50
  Fish for your food. A trout is is a nice meal,
• 39:53
  especially if you cook that with some Noor like rice side or
• 39:56
  something and a little bit of lemon pepper.
• 39:58
  That's a good treat for, I mean, you don't get a lot of good
• 40:01
  protein when you're out there. So.
• 40:04
  Fresh, fresh caught. Alpine lake trout?
• 40:09
  Yeah. Hell yeah.
• 40:10
  I'm trying to think of like a good story that I'm not good at
• 40:13
  storytelling you. Actually, yeah, you're doing
• 40:16
  great. You're doing great.
• 40:18
  I'm trying. To think of like something that
• 40:20
  that would stand out in particular, but I mean.
• 40:24
  Like. Scary.
• 40:25
  Yeah, scary wildlife. Or like, shit your pants.
• 40:29
  Or lose something important. Or.
• 40:33
  Yeah, I mean, I've, I've definitely, I mean, you'll lose
• 40:36
  things. I mean, people lose things.
• 40:38
  Some people lose things every day, it seems like they'll lose
• 40:41
  their spoon or their water filter, or they'll leave a sock
• 40:43
  behind or a jacket. And you find a lot of I.
• 40:45
  Find a lot of stuff like I'm pretty aware of like when I I
• 40:49
  could buy a campsite, I'll just quickly I the whole thing and if
• 40:54
  I see anything that doesn't look like it's in nature, I'll check
• 40:58
  it out. So I found like 3 or 4 spoons.
• 41:00
  I mean I found a couple cook pots.
• 41:03
  I found at least like 3 earbuds, like single earbuds that people
• 41:07
  had lost all kinds of stuff. Nothing like valuable cool, but
• 41:13
  but I mean, and it doesn't do me any good having it, but you just
• 41:16
  carry it to the next town and put in a hiker box.
• 41:18
  Have you ever heard of those? Do you know what a hiker box is?
• 41:21
  I read Wild. Ohh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 41:25
  yeah. I, I, I didn't know about that
• 41:27
  book until after I finished in 2017.
• 41:31
  But yeah, that's, I watched the movie too.
• 41:33
  It's. Good.
• 41:33
  Yeah, it's a good movie. One of my one of my homies is
• 41:35
  one of the extras in it. Really.
• 41:37
  Yeah, it was filmed. In Ashland.
• 41:39
  Yeah, when it was filmed in Ashland.
• 41:40
  He's one of the, like, dreadlock hippies in the scene.
• 41:44
  He actually, he passed a couple few months ago, six months ago.
• 41:49
  And I'm working on getting his girlfriend on as a guest this
• 41:52
  weekend to, like, kind of talk about him and her.
• 41:55
  She like, she like used to live on a sailboat and they like run
• 41:59
  a farm and she's in Rogue River or Gold Hill now.
• 42:02
  Awesome. But yeah.
• 42:05
  Yeah, he was. He was on my list of people I
• 42:07
  wanted to interview. And then he tragically lost his
• 42:10
  life. So don't worry.
• 42:12
  Rest in peace, Dylan. But but he still lives on in the
• 42:16
  in the Cheryl Strayed movie. Yeah.
• 42:18
  Cool, awesome. Did you notice a the 2017 versus
• 42:22
  now hike? Was there more people on the
• 42:25
  2025? Yeah, I mean, so it's, it's a
• 42:29
  lottery system with the the permits for the for the trail.
• 42:33
  So there can only be. Is it so many are allowed to
• 42:36
  start per day or like per section?
• 42:39
  Per day and they they limit it to there's because some people
• 42:43
  don't start from the southern terminus like I did.
• 42:46
  Some people will start from the northern terminus.
• 42:47
  Some people will start in like Tahoe.
• 42:50
  So it's at the terminus is I know they would have a limit of
• 42:54
  I think it was 50 persons a day that could start the trail from
• 42:57
  there and you have to start on your starting date.
• 43:00
  So they're really particular about that and you have.
• 43:03
  To get a certain distance or you just have to like step foot and
• 43:07
  you just. Have to start, yeah.
• 43:09
  Did you notice anybody patrolling that?
• 43:11
  Yeah, yeah, they definitely, Yeah.
• 43:12
  They have people at the Terminus at least like when I was there
• 43:17
  they did. And they're just there mainly to
• 43:19
  make sure like you're going to be OK, because when I started it
• 43:23
  was 100 plus degree heat. In Mexico, yeah, there's no.
• 43:28
  Water like you have stretches where there's 26 plus miles
• 43:31
  where there's no water and when you do get to that water source,
• 43:33
  it's a cow through. So it's like green algae.
• 43:37
  Like you see mosquito larvae swimming around and that's what
• 43:39
  you're drinking for the next three days.
• 43:41
  So wow, I mean. You have to filter.
• 43:44
  You have to boil. You have to, I mean no.
• 43:46
  One's there to make sure, but you should, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:49
  There's, there's some areas like, I mean, I think you should
• 43:53
  always filter your water, but there's some areas where you may
• 43:55
  not necessarily have to like in the, in the Sierras, yeah, in
• 43:59
  the Cascades when you find spring water and stuff.
• 44:02
  But most of the time, like you're taking a big chance.
• 44:04
  And if you're through hiking, if you get sick, you're stuck in
• 44:08
  your tent wherever you are for a couple days and it just doesn't
• 44:11
  sound fun. So I'd, I filtered my water.
• 44:14
  No, I never really got. I definitely had some days where
• 44:17
  my body was in a funk like. So when I the first day I
• 44:20
  started, I started the trail with a friend of mine, Gavin,
• 44:23
  who I met working on wind turbines and he keeps a
• 44:26
  Mountaineer friend of mine. So we've been out doing
• 44:29
  adventures for years. So he started with me, but he
• 44:32
  only was able to get a couple weeks off work.
• 44:34
  So he was kind of like, I'm going to try and do 300 miles in
• 44:37
  a couple weeks and, and we'll just start On this date.
• 44:41
  So when we started, we, we left San Diego in the morning.
• 44:45
  We took a shuttle that takes you from San Diego to Campo, which
• 44:49
  is where the the terminus is. And we got there at the southern
• 44:53
  terminus around noon and started our hike.
• 44:56
  And we were just anxious to, to get going, but it was hot as
• 45:00
  fuck and definitely wasn't drinking water.
• 45:04
  I was still in my like civilian drinking water stage where I
• 45:08
  drink like maybe a liter a day. So I'd probably sweat that out
• 45:12
  in the first half hour. So we, we get to this spot where
• 45:14
  there's a bunch of boulders and there's like one small shrub.
• 45:17
  So we're hiding under this shrub and we're like, fuck, man, like
• 45:20
  we should just stay here the rest of the day.
• 45:22
  Like this is rough. And slowly I just start falling
• 45:27
  apart, like I'm getting full body cramps, spasms.
• 45:31
  And then at one point, like my my cast were locked up to where
• 45:36
  it was. I mean, I'll show you a video
• 45:38
  after it was bad. So for the next three days I had
• 45:41
  like, I think I had heat stroke or I had some kind of heat
• 45:45
  sickness. Definitely dehydrated.
• 45:47
  Yeah, Oh yeah, for sure dehydrated.
• 45:48
  But I was up the all night just getting sick and trying to drink
• 45:52
  a little water and getting sick and it was like that for the
• 45:55
  next two days. Oh my God.
• 45:56
  So finally when that like cleared and we still, we tried
• 45:59
  to do some miles between that, but it was just, it was tough.
• 46:02
  But finally once I felt better, we were able to start busting
• 46:05
  out some serious miles. It was rough.
• 46:08
  I definitely underestimated it. How much water do you have to
• 46:11
  drink? I think like for me I'd say
• 46:15
  about one liter every 5 to 10 miles.
• 46:18
  But in the desert you should drink like 1 for sure every 5
• 46:21
  miles. But it depends on your your
• 46:23
  speed too. But I mean, there's some
• 46:26
  sections where you're carrying 6 liters of water and it's heavy.
• 46:30
  One liter weighs 2.2 lbs, So it's an extra like 16 lbs of
• 46:34
  water that you have to carry just to make it to the next
• 46:37
  water source. So yeah.
• 46:39
  And then you're selective about when you're drinking it.
• 46:42
  Like, I don't want to just chug all this at night and then get
• 46:45
  up in the morning and have nothing to make coffee or make
• 46:47
  breakfast. And then.
• 46:48
  Yeah. So it's a.
• 46:49
  Little math game you. Got to be careful with when you
• 46:52
  consume your water. Did you do any like because I'm
• 46:56
  assuming you're anticipating that you're probably going to
• 46:58
  like lose weight on the trail, you're going to be eating less.
• 47:01
  Did you do any like pre trail bulking to prepare your body?
• 47:05
  I mean, I probably had a little extra body fat that helped for
• 47:08
  sure. But I mean, within like probably
• 47:11
  a couple weeks, you're anything that you consume is getting
• 47:15
  burned that day definitely. And you can't get enough
• 47:18
  calories. So when you get to a town,
• 47:19
  you're kind of making up for it. So you consume a lot of extra
• 47:22
  calories and you feel like, you know, you might feel a little
• 47:26
  lazy, but then you have to think like for the next 5 days, you're
• 47:30
  going to be hiking 20 plus miles a day.
• 47:32
  So it's, it's, it's a balance too.
• 47:35
  But I'm, I'm one of those people where I always bring plenty of
• 47:38
  food. Like if I know I have a 80 mile
• 47:42
  section, let's say I'm, I'm playing for, let's say 7 to or 6
• 47:47
  to 8 days for that section, I'm going to bring food for 9 days
• 47:52
  or 10 days. So that way I know if something
• 47:54
  happens, I have an extra meal. And I, I learned that through
• 47:59
  trial and error because I've ran out of food before.
• 48:01
  Damn. And yeah, it was, it was tough.
• 48:04
  What's your favorite go to trail meal?
• 48:07
  Oh, they're all bad. It's all bad but but.
• 48:10
  What's the least? Bad.
• 48:12
  Oh, the least bad is probably like if you get lucky, you can
• 48:15
  find like a a freeze dried meal in a hiker box that someone
• 48:19
  left. But I I'd never buy them.
• 48:21
  But but occasionally, like especially on the John Muir
• 48:24
  Trail, you have people that send themselves a resupply box to an
• 48:27
  area where you can't buy food and they end up not making it
• 48:30
  there. So they just put this stuff in a
• 48:32
  box for hikers. And so if you can score one of
• 48:35
  those, that's probably the best, but it it in the morning you're
• 48:38
  going to pay for. It.
• 48:39
  Yeah, yeah. Freeze dried food like you can't
• 48:42
  drink enough water to rehydrate it in your body.
• 48:45
  So it's just yeah, I'll leave it at that.
• 48:48
  What's your? Sucks you dry.
• 48:51
  What are you? Okay, so that's your fave, but
• 48:53
  what are you mainly eating then? A lot of ramen, a lot of instant
• 48:57
  mashed potatoes, any like sort of rice like nor I don't know if
• 49:02
  it's just a cheap bag of rice that comes with seasoning, but
• 49:05
  you can boil that. Yeah, I know.
• 49:07
  Or just even like boil the water and dump it in and let it
• 49:09
  rehydrate. Those are always good.
• 49:12
  Anything that you can just eat out of a bag that you don't have
• 49:15
  to like boil water, you don't have to like wait for it to
• 49:18
  rehydrate. A lot of chips.
• 49:20
  Like anytime I leave in town, I'd grab a family size bag of
• 49:24
  either Doritos or Fritos or something because the salt in
• 49:28
  chips is and like the crunch it's oh dude, chips are by far
• 49:32
  with like the most one of the best things to eat when you're
• 49:35
  hiking. But yeah, you can't just.
• 49:38
  Live off, right? Now do this.
• 49:40
  And they're lightweight, and like when they're empty, the
• 49:42
  trash of it is pretty. Yeah, it's pretty compact.
• 49:45
  Not a lot of trash either, but I mean most of the time with your
• 49:48
  food too. If you can, you'll transfer them
• 49:50
  to Ziploc bags, especially if it's anything that you need to
• 49:53
  rehydrate. So you can just dump the water
• 49:55
  in the Ziploc and then use all. Right, we were before the
• 49:58
  battery died. We were talking about trail
• 50:01
  meals and what you what you typically are eating.
• 50:05
  Yep. Chips, ramen, rice.
• 50:08
  Yep. I mean, jerky occasionally, but
• 50:13
  it's so expensive that I couldn't afford it like.
• 50:15
  So back to the hiker box thing. I don't want to sound like a
• 50:18
  complete dirtbag, but there's a lot of things you can find in
• 50:22
  these hiker boxes as far as like food that you can eat and and
• 50:25
  that saves you from having to find it in a town.
• 50:28
  So a lot of the times if I could find something edible in there
• 50:32
  with, I mean, you'd find mystery bags of white powder, you'd find
• 50:35
  mystery bags of like just granulated food and smell it.
• 50:39
  Fuck it, I'll bring that. Oh yeah.
• 50:41
  I mean, at some point I'll probably eat it.
• 50:44
  But yeah, I mean, just just just like cheap, easy rehydrated
• 50:50
  food. But a lot of bars too.
• 50:52
  I hate bars, but they're just easy.
• 50:54
  And I'll have like pop Tarts. Oh, I didn't, I didn't even
• 50:57
  mention pop Tarts. A lot of pop Tarts.
• 51:00
  What's? The same thing.
• 51:02
  I mean I don't like any of them anymore, but probably the smores
• 51:05
  is like the consistently like just easiest to eat.
• 51:08
  It's right good. Do you have a favorite pop tart?
• 51:11
  That's smores. Yeah, we're all in the same
• 51:13
  boat. That's like the only one worth
• 51:15
  buying. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:16
  Cherries. Alright, I'll say that.
• 51:18
  Yeah, it'll get the job done. Yeah, if I'm going to I'll eat
• 51:22
  the s'mores one like untoasted. If I'm going to toast it, it has
• 51:26
  to be a fruit 1 though right? Yeah, granted I have not eaten a
• 51:28
  pop tart in. I haven't toasted a pop tart in
• 51:31
  my 10 years, but I'd be I've probably had more pop tarts this
• 51:35
  year than I've had in the last 10.
• 51:38
  But so most of the time the pop tarts too.
• 51:40
  Like it's nice if they stay in shape in like a pastry form, but
• 51:44
  most of the time, like when you just throw them in your food bag
• 51:47
  bag in the bottom of your backpack, yeah, it's you're
• 51:49
  dumping them in there and it's getting sprinkles.
• 51:51
  So yeah, but but they're easy getting around calories.
• 51:56
  So did you ever have any crazy wildlife encounters any like
• 52:00
  there in your? Not so actually this year.
• 52:03
  What's weird is in for the first, I'd say 900 miles, I
• 52:08
  probably saw one or two deer the entire trail.
• 52:12
  When we got to closer to Yosemite, we saw, I mean, in, in
• 52:15
  this year as we saw a lot of deer and we saw a lot of elk.
• 52:19
  But yeah, it was strange that Southern California like had no
• 52:22
  deer. And you actually, you talk to a
• 52:23
  lot of locals or trail angels and they'd say they see them all
• 52:26
  the time. But like, I've been out here all
• 52:29
  day long walking and I haven't seen any.
• 52:31
  But I'll take your word for it. I did see a desert fox, which
• 52:35
  was super cool. I was night hiking by myself
• 52:39
  right past the wind farm and I saw like a pair of glowing eyes
• 52:42
  and it looked pretty small. So I walked a little bit further
• 52:45
  and it walked towards me and just kind of cut around me and
• 52:49
  hid behind this Bush like it was stocking A prey.
• 52:52
  But but it had no interest in me.
• 52:54
  But I was like, I'm just going to sit here and take some
• 52:57
  pictures of you because this is the coolest thing.
• 53:01
  But a lot of owls. Oh, my buddy Pierce joined me
• 53:06
  for a portion of the trail. Oh, I'm sorry, through through
• 53:09
  the Sierras. And so he's from Texas.
• 53:11
  He's a Texas guy, not ever been in the mountains of California.
• 53:14
  So I was like, you got to come out here, dude.
• 53:16
  So rock your world. He loved it, but so the first
• 53:20
  day I told him that you have to night hike your first day.
• 53:23
  It's just kind of like a rite of passage.
• 53:26
  So we hiked for probably 6 hours in the dark and a couple hours
• 53:30
  in he's walking under there's a bunch of oak trees and a rat
• 53:36
  fell from one of the trees and it's head was severed off its
• 53:39
  body and nearly fell on top of them.
• 53:42
  So it's I mean the grim like it kind of like this.
• 53:45
  It speaks to me at this point too or it just happens to me but
• 53:49
  almost fell on top of his head. So he like jumped and screamed
• 53:53
  and I asked him like what happened?
• 53:54
  And I look down and see the rat. What the fuck?
• 53:57
  And so we look up and there's this tiny little owl hanging out
• 54:01
  in the tree. And then maybe maybe 10 or so
• 54:03
  feet across from him was another one.
• 54:05
  So it was like a pair of owls that were chewing on this rat.
• 54:10
  And I guess Pierce must have spooked him enough to for him to
• 54:13
  drop it. But that was pretty funny.
• 54:15
  I got that on video too. Cool.
• 54:18
  But but yeah, I mean, just you see a lot of cool animals, but
• 54:21
  but but things that, you know, they're there.
• 54:25
  It's just it's always a surprise when you actually get to see
• 54:27
  him. Yeah, it's all, it always like
• 54:30
  amazes me just how aware animals are of, of humans and like how
• 54:34
  unaware we are when we're out there.
• 54:36
  They can hear and see and smell on a different spectrum than we
• 54:40
  can. And I, I think that they can
• 54:41
  pick up on like, I mean birds like you, they don't notice when
• 54:45
  other birds quiet or become quiet and they'll know something
• 54:49
  is out there, even if they don't see it or smell it or or hear
• 54:52
  it, like none of their senses pick it up.
• 54:53
  They can tell that other animals do.
• 54:55
  But I mean, the more time you spend out there, the more like
• 54:59
  that you kind of get in tune with it as well.
• 55:01
  But I mean, it'll never be on the level of the the animals
• 55:05
  you'll see. Yeah, let's talk about your
• 55:08
  gear. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:09
  Well, we got yeah. Actually, I bought some some
• 55:12
  stuff which I mean, it's all really gross.
• 55:15
  Don't put it anywhere near your nose.
• 55:18
  But yeah, so I have my backpack, which this is like a bag that, I
• 55:24
  mean, it's super popular on the trail.
• 55:25
  It's really minimal. It's just a big tube and this.
• 55:30
  Is a popular setup. Yeah, this bag at least is hyper
• 55:34
  light, but. How much are those?
• 55:36
  How much are those run? They're expensive, yeah.
• 55:38
  It's mainly just because of the material.
• 55:40
  But you can get like, I mean, they make knockoffs of all kinds
• 55:44
  of bags, like this one. You could get, I mean, a pretty
• 55:46
  cheap one that would do essentially the same thing.
• 55:48
  It's just not as well built, might not last as long and the
• 55:51
  material isn't as adorable. But but yeah.
• 55:54
  So this is a nice bag. I got it second hand and I've
• 55:56
  modified it a lot just by cutting some straps all over the
• 56:01
  place. I have some patches that I
• 56:03
  wanted to add like I put the flag on.
• 56:05
  So this here is you have to have a a badge on your backpack just
• 56:09
  to show your PCT hiker and a permit.
• 56:12
  Even if they see this, Rangers are going to stop and ask you
• 56:15
  for your fire permit and your hiker permit just so they know,
• 56:18
  like who's out there essentially.
• 56:19
  But but yeah, so the bag itself, this is a this is a big bag for
• 56:24
  most hikers, but I got it because it, that's what they had
• 56:27
  on sale. And and it, I know I can have
• 56:30
  all my things in it without issues.
• 56:33
  But yeah, like I said, it's just a big dynamic tube.
• 56:36
  Have one trekking pole. This is what I'd use.
• 56:39
  I had two and I started, but one of them broke, which is kind of
• 56:42
  a funny story. I was my buddy was hiking with
• 56:45
  me and we're going it was it was in the Sierras.
• 56:48
  There's a bunch of snow or I'm sorry, the Sierra Nevadas and
• 56:52
  and I was stepping down onto this like lower snow bank and I
• 56:55
  told my friend, like, watch your step here.
• 56:57
  It's slick and as I said that I slipped 8 shit and just heard
• 57:01
  something snap and I was worried that.
• 57:04
  That was you. That was me, but luckily it was
• 57:06
  one of my trekking poles and I kind of repaired it enough to
• 57:10
  like use it for another couple 100 miles, but I threw it away.
• 57:13
  So I'm down to one. But this I need for my my tent,
• 57:16
  so I have to have that dual purpose.
• 57:20
  Yeah, it's nice to have dual purpose stuff.
• 57:22
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 57:23
  And some people love using tracking poles.
• 57:25
  I'm someone that I mainly just use them going uphill and going
• 57:30
  downhill. I don't really need them.
• 57:32
  Some people love them for like their knees.
• 57:33
  It helps with impact, but I don't need them.
• 57:36
  And then you need a water filter.
• 57:38
  So this is like how I'd filter my water.
• 57:40
  This is a Sawyer squeeze. You just basically fill this up
• 57:43
  with dirty water, screw this guy on and press it through.
• 57:46
  But you could also screw this on to like a smart water bottle,
• 57:48
  which is what a lot of people do, but it's just a little
• 57:52
  faster with something like this. And so that's water and then
• 57:57
  I've got a couple other things in here, but.
• 58:00
  I love the designs, yeah. You get bored.
• 58:04
  I found like stencils at the Dollar Tree and got some of
• 58:07
  those and I had some sharpies. So, OK, so we're.
• 58:10
  Great leisure time activity. Yeah, you get, I mean, you have
• 58:13
  you have downtime. So there's a couple things you
• 58:17
  can do for food as far as like how you carry it in certain
• 58:21
  areas. They require you to have a bear
• 58:23
  can, which is basically just a bear proof canister to prevent
• 58:26
  bears from getting your food and.
• 58:29
  Smelling it, mostly. And they can't.
• 58:31
  They can't get into it. They.
• 58:33
  Can't get into it. I mean, I'm sure grizzly bear,
• 58:35
  if it really wanted to, could find a way, but for the most
• 58:37
  part, they're, the idea is to prevent them from getting your
• 58:40
  food. So they rely on providing for
• 58:42
  themselves because they used to feed bears all the time.
• 58:46
  So they want you to have one of those.
• 58:48
  It's required in certain sections, but then it's a good
• 58:50
  idea to have not just for bears but for rodents.
• 58:53
  And that's why I bought this. This is a Kevlar food bag that I
• 58:57
  could fit like probably 8 days of food in here, but they can't
• 59:02
  chew through this and I've had so many.
• 59:03
  I mean, you've probably, you've probably both had some occasions
• 59:07
  where rodents got your food. I just had, well, not so much
• 59:10
  food for me, but they I just had to throw a bunch of rafting
• 59:13
  equipment away because a rat got into my shed and ate through dry
• 59:17
  bags, ate through tents, ate through pads like.
• 59:20
  Save you thousands of dollars if you can prevent them from
• 59:23
  getting in. So that's at least this made it
• 59:25
  to where my food was safe. So I have one of those, but I
• 59:28
  also have like a bear can that had to use certain areas.
• 59:31
  And then for like for clothing, like you always want to have
• 59:35
  like a puffy jacket, just something to keep insulate you
• 59:39
  keep your heat in. And then like if you'd wear it
• 59:41
  in the mornings and evenings and use it as a pillow, but you need
• 59:44
  some kind of a rain jacket. And, and a lot of people will
• 59:47
  buy like expensive, like crazy expensive rain jackets.
• 59:50
  But frog togs is like a company that makes they're just,
• 59:53
  they're, I mean, they're made of plastic, but it's, it's cheap
• 59:56
  $20 rain jacket that comes with rain pants.
• 59:59
  And this is what every single PCT hacker will have.
• 1:00:02
  I got the cool camo one but it's just literally it's just like
• 1:00:05
  it's, it's like a tie back sheet but but they're cheap.
• 1:00:09
  So light and you. Can get them anywhere.
• 1:00:11
  Yeah, but that's I mean, if you're if you're getting into
• 1:00:13
  backpacking and you're looking for a nice rain jacket, just get
• 1:00:16
  one of these at Walmart. Perfect.
• 1:00:18
  So I got one of those and then I think all I have in here now.
• 1:00:22
  Oh, OK, so sleeping bag, I have a quilt.
• 1:00:27
  You know what a? Sleeping quilt that's really
• 1:00:29
  popular. Yeah, they're, they're lighter
• 1:00:31
  and they don't have a zipper. I mean, that's mainly why
• 1:00:33
  they're lighter, but they also don't have like the the mummy
• 1:00:35
  bag style hood. So it's it's it's really it's
• 1:00:41
  it's rated to 30°, but I'd say it's like closer to like 35 that
• 1:00:46
  it should keep you warm. But you can always wear your
• 1:00:47
  clothing to, you know, to add to that.
• 1:00:51
  And then just a bivy sack, which is just a semi waterproof layer
• 1:00:56
  that I could put my sleeping bag in that keeps it kind of clean.
• 1:00:59
  This stuff probably already smoked so bad.
• 1:01:01
  Sorry. But yeah, that's it's good.
• 1:01:04
  Good to have. Good thing we don't have
• 1:01:05
  television yet. I, I had this, I used this for
• 1:01:10
  like a couple 100 miles, but I popped it and I tried repairing
• 1:01:13
  it and it worked for a little bit.
• 1:01:15
  So I'm going to come back to this at some point and fix it.
• 1:01:19
  Pad Nemo air yeah, so or neo air, but it's an inflatable
• 1:01:22
  sleeping pad. But the easiest and like by far
• 1:01:26
  the cheapest is just the the collapsible like xylophone style
• 1:01:30
  foam pads get on for like 40 bucks.
• 1:01:33
  And I mean, I've got one that I've had for 10 years and I
• 1:01:36
  still use it, but yeah, they're they're awesome.
• 1:01:39
  And you don't have to blow it up and then deflate it at the end
• 1:01:41
  of the day and roll it up. So I highly recommend, I mean,
• 1:01:44
  if you can sleep on those, get them.
• 1:01:47
  And then I so one thing that you want to do, even though they,
• 1:01:50
  they say that you're, even if they advertise that your bags
• 1:01:53
  waterproof is you want to just put some kind of a liner in and
• 1:01:57
  it's basically just a big trash bag.
• 1:01:59
  So you can use a contractor bag or something, But essentially
• 1:02:02
  you'll just shove everything in here that needs to stay dry and
• 1:02:06
  close this up. And then anything that can
• 1:02:09
  potentially get wet can go on top.
• 1:02:11
  So that way you have, I mean, you know, at the end of the day,
• 1:02:14
  you're going to survive if it rains because your sleeping bags
• 1:02:17
  dry. Yeah.
• 1:02:18
  And then just a tiny tent in here.
• 1:02:19
  That's pretty much all I have besides like maybe another pair
• 1:02:23
  of socks and some food. How many?
• 1:02:27
  Like what do you bring for clothing?
• 1:02:31
  So that's this is a topic where it can change a lot, but I just
• 1:02:36
  wore shorts. I had a pair of like long Johns
• 1:02:38
  or thermals, like plastic thermals and I could put on just
• 1:02:41
  for extra warmth. And then rain pants, but they're
• 1:02:45
  mainly just to block the wind on cold days.
• 1:02:48
  And then a synthetic T-shirt or smart wool or Marina wool
• 1:02:52
  something. Just some shorts and.
• 1:02:57
  And that's all bring like a chain.
• 1:02:59
  Plushy jacket. You don't bring like 2 sets,
• 1:03:00
  that's what's. Kind of gross.
• 1:03:01
  Yeah, I have one pair of shorts and I didn't care.
• 1:03:05
  I don't carry underwear. That's another gross thing.
• 1:03:08
  It's just more things you have to wash.
• 1:03:10
  Yeah, more things to wash, more things to carry.
• 1:03:13
  More things to I did carry stink 3 pairs of socks at one point
• 1:03:17
  though, so I had like clean socks most days.
• 1:03:19
  But for that, I mean, you're just rinsing them in a Creek at
• 1:03:22
  the end of the day, bringing them out and then drying them
• 1:03:25
  overnight, and that's your pairs.
• 1:03:26
  For like in the PCG it would be like like very minimal.
• 1:03:29
  Oh yeah, you get rid of so much shit, especially like the first
• 1:03:31
  two weeks because you're like, I don't want to carry this
• 1:03:34
  anymore. Like I just want to, I want to
• 1:03:36
  have my sleeping bag and food and I'm set.
• 1:03:39
  So you get you get to a point where like you have comfort
• 1:03:43
  items and, and those things usually are the first things to
• 1:03:46
  go. You are just what is essential.
• 1:03:49
  Did you like? Are you one of those that, like,
• 1:03:51
  cut their toothbrushes so you have just like.
• 1:03:52
  Yeah. I am one of those, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  So there's actually, I wish I had got it too.
• 1:03:58
  So my spoon, it's this long handled spoon so you can reach
• 1:04:01
  into those like Mountain House bags, but they came out with
• 1:04:05
  this thing where you just clip this onto the end of your spoon
• 1:04:09
  and you brush your teeth with it, dude.
• 1:04:11
  So it's not even like 1/2 toothbrush.
• 1:04:14
  It's like a quarter toothbrush, but you're sticking a metal, but
• 1:04:18
  you already. Have this for your spoon.
• 1:04:20
  So why exactly? Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  Double. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:04:22
  So the more you use the. Billion dollar idea.
• 1:04:24
  Yeah. I wish I would have came up.
• 1:04:26
  I got it for $2.00, so you're gonna have to sell a lot of
• 1:04:30
  them, but they're pretty sweet. Yeah, and but yeah, toothpaste,
• 1:04:34
  like you can buy those tablets. Have you ever used the tablets
• 1:04:37
  before? They're pretty cool.
• 1:04:38
  They are pretty cool. You can just chew them and put
• 1:04:40
  some water in a brush. What do you like your butt with?
• 1:04:43
  So that's another topic. I talked about this to my
• 1:04:45
  coworkers and they were so disgusted with me.
• 1:04:48
  You know what a bidet is, right? All right, So I don't have it
• 1:04:52
  with me, but so I bought this little thing.
• 1:04:55
  It's Kulo. I think it's.
• 1:04:57
  Kulo, get it on Amazon. Yeah, but basically it's made by
• 1:05:00
  the same company, but you just put it on your water bottle, you
• 1:05:04
  just pop it in there and it's got a couple small holes and
• 1:05:08
  it's so when you squeeze the bottle, it's pressurized.
• 1:05:11
  So essentially I'll show you the technique too.
• 1:05:14
  You think you think you'd want to go from the front with it
• 1:05:17
  like this, but then it it'll drip down onto the front of the
• 1:05:21
  bottle. So what you want to do?
• 1:05:23
  Is you come back here and spray like, yeah.
• 1:05:27
  Yeah, everybody shits. Yeah, but and then you bring a
• 1:05:31
  tiny bit of toilet paper just so you can dry off, but.
• 1:05:35
  That doesn't feel like a waste of water of like this water you
• 1:05:38
  don't need to drink. OK, Yeah, it's just any kind of
• 1:05:40
  water. You want to do it not obviously
• 1:05:42
  not by a water source, but where you can get water.
• 1:05:45
  So otherwise, like if you don't have the bidet, I mean you can
• 1:05:49
  just use toilet paper and you can just use like whatever, but
• 1:05:53
  it's just so much easier and like reduces the amount of waste
• 1:05:56
  or things you have to carry and and it weighs like maybe a
• 1:06:00
  couple grams. So it was like no brainer.
• 1:06:02
  Brilliant. But yeah, it's kind of a weird
• 1:06:04
  topic, yeah. I.
• 1:06:07
  Mean no, truly. Like that's a big question for a
• 1:06:09
  lot of people who do and don't hang out outdoors.
• 1:06:12
  It's like, yeah, what do you do outside to this shit?
• 1:06:16
  You know what wag bags are? So it's basically a bag that you
• 1:06:20
  like for for for a lot of areas, they don't want you to bury your
• 1:06:23
  waist, so they want you to carry it.
• 1:06:26
  Yeah. Jesus.
• 1:06:28
  And it's you got to pack it in, pack it out.
• 1:06:31
  Exactly. Leave no trace.
• 1:06:32
  So you're taking this plastic bag and they usually come in
• 1:06:35
  like a kit. So it comes with like a small
• 1:06:37
  roll of toilet paper. It comes with a couple plastic
• 1:06:40
  bags, and then the main bag that it's all concealed in is a
• 1:06:43
  sealable bag. So the idea is you have one big
• 1:06:46
  trash bag, you go in there, close that up, put your paper in
• 1:06:50
  there, take all the air out of it, and then you stuff that in
• 1:06:54
  another plastic bag and close it up in the zip lock.
• 1:06:57
  So when you're on the lower Rd. you have to.
• 1:06:59
  We, I remember this was horrific for us because we had to carry a
• 1:07:03
  big Home Depot 25 gallon bucket and we just put our stuff in
• 1:07:08
  there. And that was the first time I
• 1:07:09
  knew that was a thing. But yeah, it's the first time
• 1:07:13
  you do it. It's like, man, that's.
• 1:07:14
  It's a little unsettling and then it's like, whatever, like.
• 1:07:18
  But low. Key I keep a WAG bag in my truck
• 1:07:22
  because you just never know. I went camping a few weeks ago
• 1:07:26
  up in a mountain with somebody and I was like, well, I'm gonna
• 1:07:29
  have to shit in the morning. I'm not gonna wanna just like
• 1:07:33
  leave it because leave no trace, right?
• 1:07:36
  And so I had a wag bag and just set it down on the.
• 1:07:39
  Stage I'm and my dad always taught me being out in the
• 1:07:43
  woods. He always brings a little
• 1:07:45
  gardening shovel. Yeah, dude, a trowel.
• 1:07:47
  Yeah, I. Got a nice trowel.
• 1:07:49
  I carried one of those too. Some people use a stick, but
• 1:07:52
  it's so much easier to have a nice little garden trowel, yeah.
• 1:07:55
  Yeah, or one of those spoons that you'd find along the way.
• 1:07:57
  Yep Yep, an extra spoon just takes you a little longer but
• 1:08:02
  does the job. You could even eat with your
• 1:08:03
  trowel. Yeah, yeah, if it's clean, it'd.
• 1:08:06
  Be weird, but yeah, don't tell people what it's for.
• 1:08:09
  Yeah, digging for shit. All right, we're going to ask
• 1:08:13
  our little wrap up questions because we got to wrap it up.
• 1:08:19
  If people want to find you and like learn more about you or
• 1:08:25
  talk to you or go hiking with you, where could they find you
• 1:08:29
  if they wanted to if you want to be found?
• 1:08:31
  I'm on the Internet on I mean, I've got like Facebook and scram
• 1:08:36
  YouTube would probably be like if you're interested in like
• 1:08:38
  seeing maybe some of the things I've gotten to do.
• 1:08:42
  But but yeah, you can just type in Hunter Voris and you'll
• 1:08:45
  you'll find it. You're the only one.
• 1:08:47
  You're the only hunter, Boris. We're more up there, but you'll
• 1:08:50
  find it. It shouldn't be too hard.
• 1:08:52
  We'll drop a link in the show now.
• 1:08:54
  I don't. Know like my specific like URL
• 1:08:57
  or anything like that. But yeah, that'd probably be the
• 1:08:59
  easiest way. And what?
• 1:09:01
  What's your? Oh yeah, that was pretty much
• 1:09:05
  it. I mean, I, I on the weekends or,
• 1:09:08
  or whenever I have time, I'm, I'm trying to get outdoors and
• 1:09:12
  either I'm hiking or I'm climbing something and I'm
• 1:09:15
  always looking for new partners or people to go with.
• 1:09:18
  So I'm I'm always open to it. What's your one big advice to
• 1:09:23
  somebody looking to get into mountaineering PCT?
• 1:09:27
  Like, how do they get in that like extreme world of this
• 1:09:32
  backpacking and mountaineering? So I think it's, it's kind of
• 1:09:36
  like you said, extreme. And I feel like I am not
• 1:09:39
  especially because like once you're involved in something
• 1:09:42
  like to other people that aren't interested or or aren't involved
• 1:09:45
  in that, they see you as like, oh shit, like they're doing it.
• 1:09:49
  But then like the person that is involved in that group, they
• 1:09:52
  have like these people that are 1020 tiers above them.
• 1:09:56
  So I mean, I don't consider myself extreme in any way, but
• 1:09:58
  I, I just have, I like to have fun, but but the easiest way to
• 1:10:02
  like how I got involved was just to go and do it like the I, I
• 1:10:07
  think like the first hike I did, like I said, I got everything at
• 1:10:10
  Walmart and we, I would have second hand, I would have
• 1:10:13
  probably had everything I needed in my room at the time.
• 1:10:17
  I just didn't know. So I think like through trial
• 1:10:20
  and error, you just figure shit out.
• 1:10:22
  So so. Just get out there.
• 1:10:24
  Yeah, just get out there, find someone that I mean, having a
• 1:10:27
  good mentor is always important. And and sometimes you you can't
• 1:10:31
  find that. But I mean, there's, there's a
• 1:10:32
  lot of people in the outdoor, I mean, community that are just
• 1:10:36
  looking to share and, and they're friendly and they're
• 1:10:38
  welcoming. And, and that's, I mean, I was
• 1:10:41
  lucky to have some, some friends that kind of took me under their
• 1:10:44
  wing and taught me a lot and lucky to have them.
• 1:10:48
  So, yeah, if you can find someone that can kind of take
• 1:10:51
  you under their under the ropes and show you how to do it.
• 1:10:54
  Otherwise, just get out there and and make mistakes and figure
• 1:10:57
  it out. That's how you learn is by
• 1:11:00
  messing up and boundaries and figuring out what works and what
• 1:11:04
  doesn't, right? Awesome.
• 1:11:06
  And when your body expires and you leave this plane of
• 1:11:12
  existence, how do you want to be?
• 1:11:13
  Remembered. I don't know how do I want to be
• 1:11:19
  remembered? I guess friendly, loving,
• 1:11:27
  caring, adventurous, forgiving. I love that.
• 1:11:37
  I don't know. Yeah, hopefully all good things,
• 1:11:40
  but there's a lot of shit that mixed in, I guess.
• 1:11:44
  Yeah, I don't know. You've never been asked that
• 1:11:47
  before, huh? Not really, no.
• 1:11:50
  It's a great, I mean, whatever your answer is is a great
• 1:11:53
  answer. That's a great answer.
• 1:11:54
  It is a great answer. Wonderful.
• 1:11:58
  What are our Do we have other? Do we?
• 1:12:02
  We're rusty because. We it's been a few weeks since
• 1:12:04
  we've been, we've been out doing this.
• 1:12:06
  No worries. That might be that might that
• 1:12:10
  might be them. So I got you two.
• 1:12:12
  Well, so I didn't like because I didn't know that this was going
• 1:12:15
  to happen until like a couple. Well, so I got a couple of.
• 1:12:18
  Just an hour. Ago Helia for the trail, but
• 1:12:21
  it's a patch and A and a pin and you guys can do whatever you
• 1:12:25
  want with them. But I figured you could put them
• 1:12:26
  on the chairs maybe or something.
• 1:12:29
  But yeah, Oh my gosh. For honorary PCT you'd.
• 1:12:34
  Be surprised like if you see just the logo of the PCT, not
• 1:12:39
  even like the Pacific Crest Trail wording, you'll see that
• 1:12:41
  that badge all over the place like along the PCT goes through
• 1:12:45
  Oregon. I mean, so there's a lot of
• 1:12:47
  trails that you'll see that on and you might not recognize it,
• 1:12:50
  but. I ran into a section of the PCT
• 1:12:52
  and I was like, Emily, this is where we should try to meet
• 1:12:55
  Hunter because it was a really cool spot.
• 1:12:57
  And like Dr. Uppable, yeah, like we could just drive there and
• 1:13:00
  hang out. And it was.
• 1:13:01
  Like in the woods, too. It's right there.
• 1:13:03
  That's we were at Little Hyatt Lake.
• 1:13:05
  OK, Yeah, yeah, there's like a dam that crosses my.
• 1:13:07
  Sister was just talking about Hyatt Lake.
• 1:13:09
  Yeah, so we were right there and I was like, this is the spot.
• 1:13:12
  So cool. It'd be so awesome to just sit
• 1:13:14
  here and wait for people. Next time I do it, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:18
  We'll coordinate more or we'll just go do it someday.
• 1:13:21
  We'll make it early next time. Who runs into US?
• 1:13:23
  Yeah. Yeah, I definitely have a bucket
• 1:13:26
  list of doing since I read the book.
• 1:13:27
  Wild Yeah of doing the PCT one day.
• 1:13:32
  Sean's not super keen on that idea.
• 1:13:34
  Like ever doing the whole PCT. Even just sections, like I've
• 1:13:38
  met a ton of people that just do like 1 section every year, like
• 1:13:42
  one week worth every year and they've been doing that for the
• 1:13:45
  last 10 years. And it's like, that's a cool way
• 1:13:47
  to do it. Yeah, because you gives you a
• 1:13:49
  lot of time to like, plan and prepare for the next one.
• 1:13:52
  My mom ended up hiking the whole Camino Trail in Europe by doing
• 1:13:55
  that, doing like, yeah, yeah, she like, OK, this year I'm
• 1:13:59
  going to do this country section.
• 1:14:01
  And then the next year went and did another one and.
• 1:14:03
  I met a few people that had done that too.
• 1:14:05
  They said it was amazing. Yeah, Spain would be really
• 1:14:08
  cool. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:10
  That'd be cool to do a group trip.
• 1:14:13
  Yeah, he's sick. Hey I'm up for it.
• 1:14:14
  If you guys want to hike some of the trail, let me know.
• 1:14:16
  OK, OK, we'll do it. I guess my last question would
• 1:14:21
  just be like, what's next for you?
• 1:14:23
  I'm. Going to find a job if you're
• 1:14:25
  hiring. No, I'm just kidding.
• 1:14:27
  I've got some things that I'm going to do.
• 1:14:30
  And then, yeah, start working again.
• 1:14:32
  Cool. Save up for the next big
• 1:14:34
  adventure. Yeah, yeah, whatever that might
• 1:14:37
  be. Cool preference to be working
• 1:14:39
  outside like yourself. Do you see yourself being like
• 1:14:42
  an outdoor guide or like what kind of work?
• 1:14:46
  Yeah. Are you?
• 1:14:47
  So the last couple years I was an instructor.
• 1:14:49
  So it's kind of like, I mean your classroom for two weeks and
• 1:14:53
  then the third week you're out in the lab or doing like hands
• 1:14:56
  on with the equipment and and that was fun, but for.
• 1:14:59
  The wind turbines, yeah. But but yeah, it wasn't enough
• 1:15:03
  time outdoors like I would be in a classroom staring out the
• 1:15:06
  windows just like a dog trapped indoors.
• 1:15:09
  So I I'm looking for something that has a better balance.
• 1:15:12
  Like I thought about wildland firefighting, but I think, I
• 1:15:15
  mean, time for that. I'm going to have to wait for
• 1:15:17
  next year. But I like skiing or well, split
• 1:15:20
  boarding, snowboarding, and there's a lot of mountains
• 1:15:23
  around here, so I might just end up working a run or working a
• 1:15:27
  lift for a winter and figuring it out from there.
• 1:15:29
  But cool. Yeah, not too worried.
• 1:15:32
  Good fun. Yeah, that's what matters most,
• 1:15:34
  is living life on your terms, having fun and go where you want
• 1:15:40
  to go, wherever the trail leads. Yeah, Yeah, I.
• 1:15:43
  Like that? OK, awesome.
• 1:15:45
  Yeah, Thank you, Hunter. Thank you for for saying yes and
• 1:15:49
  for does it. Feel like we're leaving a big
• 1:15:52
  question out. Do you feel like?
• 1:15:53
  Yeah. What do we normally I'm?
• 1:15:55
  Not going, you can always ask me.
• 1:15:56
  Yeah, we can do a follow up. But I'm like, we're just so
• 1:16:00
  rusty, so. Yeah, it's been a minute, but
• 1:16:03
  but this has been an awesome conversation.
• 1:16:04
  It's been awesome to like catch up with you, but also like, get
• 1:16:09
  to know you. I would have done this even if
• 1:16:11
  we weren't filming anything. Honestly I would probably have
• 1:16:13
  rather because the camera kind of makes me nervous but.
• 1:16:16
  You've done so good and yeah, like totally crushed it.
• 1:16:19
  People are going to love this and it's been.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah, it's really good. It's definitely enough.
• 1:16:24
  They're like faction of the outdoor, yeah.
• 1:16:28
  Like, yeah, I don't think we've interviewed anybody yet who's
• 1:16:31
  like. Through hiking, Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:16:33
  Through hiker, Yeah. We know people, but you're our
• 1:16:36
  you're our first chat with. Awesome.
• 1:16:39
  Yeah. Especially through hiking.
• 1:16:40
  Virginity. It's gone.
• 1:16:43
  From the podcast and then, yeah, we'll come out and join you
• 1:16:46
  sometime somewhere. Yeah, I definitely want to get
• 1:16:48
  actually out on the trail. That's really fun.
• 1:16:51
  Yeah. Cool.
• 1:16:51
  Cool. Thank you very much.
• 1:16:52
  Yeah. Thank you, Hunter.
• 1:16:53
  Thank you. Yay.
• 1:16:55
  Bye. Bye.
• 1:16:58
  Please follow us on YouTube and all your listening platforms
• 1:17:02
  like. Subscribe Follow Share.
• 1:17:07
  Comments Review. Share it with the buddy.
• 1:17:10
  Yeah, go hiking. Actually get out now.
• 1:17:12
  Yeah, like share, but also just like, go outside.
• 1:17:15
  Hide man. All right, wildly wonders,
• 1:17:20
  that's a wrap. Thank you, thank you, thank you
• 1:17:22
  for hanging out with us on the Go Wildly podcast.
• 1:17:25
  Seriously, your ears, your energy, your vibe, aiming the
• 1:17:28
  world. And hey, the pod is usually
• 1:17:31
  going to drop on Mondays, but let's be real, sometimes it's
• 1:17:34
  Tuesday and sometimes laugh be life in and the river calls
• 1:17:37
  louder than our calendar, baby. We out there adventuring either
• 1:17:40
  way will show up in your feed with stories that make you want
• 1:17:44
  to lace up your boots or paddle out.
• 1:17:46
  So please go ahead and do all the things like share, comment,
• 1:17:49
  subscribe, smash the buttons, click all the bells, throw us a
• 1:17:53
  bone on YouTube and come play with us on socials.
• 1:17:56
  That's how our little adventure family grows.
• 1:17:59
  Now quit staring at your phone or whatever you're doing and go
• 1:18:02
  jump in a river, a touch a tree, climb a tree, howl at the moon,
• 1:18:06
  or whatever gets you out there. Until next time, stay feral.
• 1:18:09
  Stay curious. For the love of dirt, go wildly.
• 1:18:13
  We're going to meet you out there.