Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Interview with Sinuhe Xavier, Filmmaker, Photographer, and Global Traveler

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Interview with Sinuhe Xavier, Filmmaker, Photographer, and Global Traveler · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm here with my co host
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Matt Scott. Hello, and we have a very special guest today,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: distinguished even I would say a little bit much for me.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: That's not good to know.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We have Sinway Xavier with us today. And this Sinwe
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: is a longtime friend and he is also had a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: significant influence on our industry visually as an artist, a
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: very accomplished traveler as well. And some of the best
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: adventures I've been on my in my life have been
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: with Sinway. So thanks for being with us today. Man, Well,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: thank you for having me.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: It's it's an honor and it's great to be back
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: in these offices after a little hiatus.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got some things figured out.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We all got to do that, man. Yes, that is
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a necessary part of living, right, is learning about ourselves
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: so much and I yeah, that has definitely been my
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: life for the last few years. And a special thanks
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to this week's supporting sponsor, ARB. The latest episode of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: AARB Experiences stars Land Cruiser aficionado and my good friend
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Kurt Williams. The Baja one thousand competitor has been a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: few places and seen a few things. His travels span Siberia, Greenland,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and the America's all the way down to Ushwaya, as
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: well as several crossings of Australia. Kurt says of his adventures,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: anything can happen out there. Just one part not doing
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: its job can ruin a whole trip. Investments in quality
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: components payback exponentially. You can watch Kurt's full story at
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: arbusa dot com. I would love to start off with
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the story of your life, because it's crazy. I've heard.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I've heard this, I've heard some of it, and it
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: also totally ties back into, I think a lot of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: why you're so great at what you do and your
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: experiences in your life. But kind of give us the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: start for how was how was Sinway made?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I mean I was born in the you know, the
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: illegitimate son of a Colombian drug lord, and my mom
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: didn't want me to grow up in that life, so
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: she ferried me off. I was hiding out in Mexico
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: City for a while, ended up in eastern Colombia for
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: a while, and you know, really ended up in Montana
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: to grow up. Yeah, and you know, my mom was
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: just this person that had this very big concern about
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: how her son grew up and knew that she didn't
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: want me growing up in this world that was evolving
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: in the early seventies. Sure, and so yeah, and she
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: was always a traveler too, and an adventurous person. So
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: it was just instilled in me to go out and
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: have fun.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great memory. But we you and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I were standing in the kitchen of our mutual friend
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Mitcho Escobar and where his dad is there, and this
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: conversation comes up about your mom and you being from Colombia.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The pieces start to come together, and Mitcho's dad, which
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I so apologize by forgetting his name right now, Billy Escobar. Billy. Yeah,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Billy's like, I think I know your mom and they
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: had actually met.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was wild because you know, twenty fourteen,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: you know, forty years after they were hanging out, gone
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: to school together. We're in the same social circles of Bogatah.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: You know, they'd known each other, gone their separate ways
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: or whatever. And it was wild because his mother and
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: my grandparents were friends at the country club and just yeah,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: sitting there in that small world explosion.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could I could feel that when we were
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: there in that kitchen, of just this connection back with
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: your family's past. I mean, and Billy is just like
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: one of the coolest guys on the planet, this amazing
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: architect in Columbia, and his son, of course is one
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of our closest friends. And it was just so neat
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to see that all come together. Now, how do you
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: feel that like Montana shaped you for the traveler you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: became and the creative you became.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Well, Montana, growing up in Montana was really special. I
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: grew up in Bozeman and it was being around the
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: college town, but also at a time when you know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: Alex Lowe lived down the street from me, Tom Youngster
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: was my ski coach. W Scott Schmidt was in and out,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: and it was this time of Gordon Wiltzee was there,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: National geographic photographer. It really opened my eyes to you
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: could do whatever you wanted to do.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: There wasn't this.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Hat this go to college, get a job, die. Yeah,
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: you know, it was go have fun, go have adventures,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: do whatever you want to do and everything else will.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Fall in place. And it's not the easiest route, but
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it was the route that I chose.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was really lucky that it it worked out, okay, totally, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And if I remember, you started snowboar ard as a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: snowboarder and then things evolved from there. Well, it's skiing,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: so I was it's probably an insult. I just I mean, no,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I snowboard, now snow I think that's a problem. Now, No, no, no,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you've always had toyotas right now, exactly what now? No.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I started off skiing, and I was really lucky that,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: you know, my mom found a way to get rid
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: of my little brother and I on the weekends. She'd
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: drop us off at eight thirty in the morning and
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: we'd go on our ski team, our Mighty Mites or
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: whatever it was, be gone until five o'clock that night
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: because she was always late picking us up.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: It was it was our way of getting rid of
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: us for the weekend. And it was great. You know,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I all winter along. I was on the mountain, learned
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: my independence there and I really blossomed as a skier.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: As an athlete, and.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: When I was probably my late teens, I was pretty
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: good racer, but my coach said I'd be an even
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: better Tom Youngster at the time i'd be an even
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: better free skier. And he introduced me to the ridge
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: at Bridger Bowl, which.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Is this section.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: At the time, it was you know, you go up
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: there and you had to have an avalanche beacon and
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: a shovel and a probe. And this was, you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: the late eighties. There's nobody up there. It was the
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: best snow on the mountain. And you know, at the
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: time they called it extreme skiing, and it opened my
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: eyes to this whole new world and it was incredible.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely incredible.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And you know, from that I became sponsored by the
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: North Face and I met Conrad Anchor, who was my
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: team manager at the time, and he really pushed me
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: from just being an extreme skier to being a ski mountaineer,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: which was going out and climbing mountains to ski. You know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: there's many first ascents in Montana, particularly some in Alaska.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: It was this new frontier of going out and doing
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: things that no one else had ever done before. And
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: that's always been important to me. Whether it's then that
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: was my creative outlet, was seen a route even with
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: binoculars or you know, we'd go out in little plains
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and fly these mountains in the fall or the spring
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: and look at these lines, and that was my creative outlet,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: was going, oh, we could put that together and go
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: ski that. And you knows, as I got older, it
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: became more and more dangerous. Had a lot of friends die.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Alex Lowe, who was a mentor of mine, taught who
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: taught me my rope work and a lot about mountaineering.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: He was killed in an avalanche in the Himalaya. Trevor
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Peterson from Canada, who was extream skier, very accomplished, was
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: also killed. Doug Coombs Montana Jackson guy was killed in.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Lagrove, And it just was this.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I was at an.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Age where mortality was becoming very I was becoming very
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: aware of it, and I just backed off and I
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: took a nice cushy job with K two Skis, who
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: was my sponsor at the time, and got out of
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: the sponsored skiing thing, and it was, you know, it's
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: when I started snowboarding actually back to that. So yeah,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: and it just growing up in Montana, that was a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: little bit of a digression. But growing up in Montana
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: it's a very bootstrap place. You just you know, before
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: I was sponsored by the North Face, I had duct
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: tape all over my my non gore tex kind of
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: waterproof stuff. It was just you did whatever you had
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: to do. I mean I remember a really good friend
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: of mine heat ski and car hearts, you know, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: You just did it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: It worked, Yeah, it worked. Yeah, I got a little
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: heavy by the end of the day, but it worked amazing.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: And I think that that carries through.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: And there's also you know a little bit of the
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: humbleness of letting your actions speak for what you do.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: You don't really talk about it. You just do it
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and let it. You know, you become that guy that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: did that thing, and.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah it was Yeah, it was really important to grow
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: up that way and have that in my back pocket.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And then that started to open up the opportunity for
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: some photography. Right being around photographers as I was as
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: as a professional skier, I was always exposed to it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: And once you're a professional athlete, you become pretty unemployable.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: You can't have a job. Like when I worked for
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: K two, I was the worst employee ever. I mean,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: there's still I'm sure there's still people in that corpution
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: that see my name come up and like God, winner
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: of ninety five, never again, I mean we because you know,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I was friends with all of the rows, whether they're
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: snowboarders or skiers like Glenn Plake, Adam Merriman, you know.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: And I had this Volkswagen van that I had all
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: full of skis and snowboards and by the end of
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: the Winner, you know, Glenn Plake had drawn on the
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: side of it and Adam Merriman, I think it's spray
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: painted on it, you know.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: And I returned it the K two van.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It was the K two van.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: Fla it's extra added flair that I got into a
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: lot of trouble, you know, but those were I mean,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: it was fun and but completely unemployable.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I figured out.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Pretty quickly that I could make money with photography. And
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: again back to my mom, she had always been a photographer.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: As a hobby.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Didn't know that, always had a dark room in my house.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: That's pretty cool learning from her, and I always thought like, oh,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Coop mom, crazy hippie moms in photography, like liter and
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: the chemicals, and you know, it was really a natural
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: progression for me to grab a camera and start making money.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: And I shot for Burton for snowboards and a trans
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: World snowboarding.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: That whole thing.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: And that's why a lot of people think, like, oh,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: you're a snowboarder, because my photography career was started with snowboarding.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Snowboarding was like kind of becoming a thing around that time,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and it was the news. It was huge, and I
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: was really lucky.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I was at a time in Bail, Colorado where Ninja
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: j Isaacs and Adam Merriman and Jay two and Steve
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Alters and Joe Curtis, like it was the epicenter of
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: snowboarding and those were my pals.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Can you say you were living like on a landing
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of like the stairwell or something like that in a
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: rental house. I mean, that's an amazing story too.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: The thing about this landing of the stairwell was I
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: took this place to live sight unseen on a chairlift
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: in Utah and my buddy goes, oh, I've got a
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: place opening up in Bail. And at the time I
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: was living in Boulder, Colorado working. You know, I had
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: my van, I could get up to any resort I
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: wanted to. I had you know, an expense account to
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: buy lift tickets wherever I wanted. But I had a
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: season pass at veil because all my buddies were there
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: and sway, I got this spot is loft opening up
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: and bail. It's right on the bus route. It's awesome
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: and I totally loft. I actually asked him, I go
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: it loft. Does it mean it has you know, three rooms?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, three walls. He's like, yeah, yeah, it's
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: got it's got three walls. It overlooks the living room,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: but it's got three walls.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Had no worries.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I get there. Literally the wide spot on the stairs.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Its footprint was a queen size bed, and I had
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: this van full of stuff that I'd moved in there
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: with and I didn't know how I was going to
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: do it, but I figured it out.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I ended up being there for like two and a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: half years, three years. Probably it was awesome.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's a good lesson though, I mean, you don't
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: necessarily always need a bunch of stuff and kept you outside.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: And yeah it was.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: I mean it was great, Like I had really fun
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: roommates and yeah, it was a time of you know,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I was getting my photography career going. I was, you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I was working in a snowboard shop. I was waiting tables,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I was working construction in the summer, like whatever it
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: took to keep the snowboard thing going. Yeah, back into
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: the Montana growing up exactly.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you just doing it. You're just doing it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it seems like you've never been really overly
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: attached to things. It seems like you've recognized, maybe from
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that landing in Bail, that that stuff really just encumbers you.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Stuff slows you down no matter and it goes back.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: It's funny when when I started making money, you can
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: see it through my Instagram or you see my rig
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: go from you know, I think it was a very
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: It was my five speed land Rover right out a rack.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: That was the first car I knew that you had. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the five because I don't even think I had a
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: driving license when I was watching you with that on
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: like expedition, exchange, portal and everything.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The number of people who bought a Discovery one
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: because its way, including both of us.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually pretty sure that I bought my first
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: camera because of sin. I don't even know you at
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: that point.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Love that, love that.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: So the thing is that you know, like you can
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: watch this evolution of no rack, no bumper, just this
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: truck and it gets the rack, it gets the bumper,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: it gets the lights, it gets the highlift jack that
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I never used. It's like in the most worst yeah,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the worst spot, totally rusted.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It doesn't work, like it wouldn't work,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: like those things are so stupid.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: And then there was my second discovery, and it just
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: had everything. I bought it built, Olivaris built, and it
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: was beautiful and it was perfect. That was the automatic one,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: right yeah, and it had everything off. Yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And then I got a motorcycle, uh huh, and I
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: realized I didn't all this stuff. Yeah, And I pared
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: it down and things were quicker. Packing was quicker, Traveling
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: was quicker. When I got to camp, I was relaxing
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: faster than anybody.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Else, you know.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: And that evolution goes to my D ninety. When I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: got to D ninety, it didn't have anything, yeah, and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I literally like would go in there. It was one
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: duffel bag with all my sleeping stuff, a box with
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: my camping stuff, and I was done. Yeah. You know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: if I couldn't fit it in my motorcycle panniers, I
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: didn't want to take it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: What bike did you have? Well?
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I started off with that KTM that.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I bought here.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you did.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I bought it here in Prescott. Cool bikes, the worst
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: bike to ride, cool, super cool bike. Like my hands
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: were numb. Yeah, you know it would be great as
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: a paint shaker at home.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Depot paint shaker, childproofer. Yeah, definitely surprised. I had a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: kid after that bike. And then I got the Triumph Tiger.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I also got.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I remember that one because we put all those parts
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: on it, right exactly. Yeah, you helped me out with that,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: that's right. That was a pain. That's when I learned
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: the importance of anti c's right. Yeah.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: But then I ended up is actually on that Columbia
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: trip that we were talking about Billy Escobar, I was
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: speaking to MITCHO and he's like, okay, what you know, what,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Mike would you like to have? And of course Colombians
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: their hardest people in the world to deal with, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: like I want an eight hundred. That's what I'm used
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: to riding. Show up, remember, do you remember?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, here's this GS adventure, the biggest it's the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: goal wing of adventure bikes.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You might as well have a goaling sometimes as well.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: And we were out for fourteen days. If we were
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: in fourteen days, we.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Would look like that going for our listeners or viewers
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: on atube.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: The one we stuffed into the back of a DC three.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I mean it's the biggest bike I've ever ridden. Remember
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: that you're basically doing, you know, close to thirty five
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: hundred miles, Oh yeah, from Bogota through through the.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Northern Andes out to Venezuela.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Yep. By the end of that trip, I was sold.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I mean I caught it on fire. I dropped it.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was stuffed to self. Don't let Sinnway
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: borrow my motorcycles.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Well it wasn't even your faulty. It was just like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it was filled with like grass and stuff.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was grass between the the engine bar, between
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: the engine protector bar thing and the cylinder head.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm riding along and Mitcho just starts waving his
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: head like this, and I'm like, well, what any points
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: he starts throwing dirt on my bike to put out
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the fire.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: That was so funny.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I do remember you successfully jumping over in like a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: like a water canal too, And I mean you didn't
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: stick the landing, but you did jump it I got
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it over you totally.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: But that's the thing, like I was sold on this
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: this idea of like, as long as you're moving on
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: those those big bikes, but BMW the twelve hundred, as
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: long as you're moving, they're incredible. The scariest thing about
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: those bikes is putting.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Gas in them.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there, I mean that was incredible, the mud
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: and stuff we went through on that trip, everything that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we and of course the only eight hundred that was
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: with us ended up in the bottom of the river exactly. Yeah,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that wasn't That was a hell of a trip, no doubt.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: That was incredible. Yeah, that was incredible.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it goes back.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a there's an old Messaiah saying that
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: another mentor of mine told me, the less you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: the more you carry on your back. Yeah, and it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: completely true. And mentor of mine, Brett Crystal, he walked
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: one time from Boulder, Utah to Santa Fe, Mexico, which
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: is about three hundred and fifty miles, nothing but satchel,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: buck knife.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And a bull blank, you know. And it was a
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: test to see if you could do it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: But I could do it because he knew how to
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: find food, how to find shelter, all those things.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to be that guy into it. I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: like my down sleeping bag at night and I like
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: my warm coffee in the morning. There's necessities, right, Yeah,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: there's necessities, but at least you know what those necessities are. Yeah.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: When you pare it down, you can go a lot faster.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, for those that are listening because of Sinway's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: time as a photographer, I think it would be interesting
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to talk about for a few minutes, just some things
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you would help, you would recommend to those that are
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: listening that want to begin to capture their adventures. Any
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just general advice.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: That you can give.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: We're not going to ask you what camera you use,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: but it's more like, you know, what are some things
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: that people can think about when they travel to take
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: a better photograph.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: The thing I hear most about people that are getting
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: into photography is they.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: Regret not taking a photo. And that's what I tell everyone,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: even you know, when I'm on a trip, like, oh, Sinwa,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: it's great that you're here, you're taking all the photos.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I'm like, take your photos. You've probably heard it from me, Yeah,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like, take your photos because I'm a
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: one perspective, you know, and my perspective is my trip.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And I hear it all the time. Even on those
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: where I say make sure you take your own photos,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: we get to the end of it and they say, oh,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: I wish I would have taken more, more photos.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And it goes for me too.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Even on my trip today.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: From Los Angeles, on my way back home to Colorado,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: there's some beautiful light with the Siguaros, but I was
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: trying to make it here and there's a couple photos
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: that I regret not taking today.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: But you can't.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: You know, there's that balance where you still have to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: get things done but never regret not taking a photo.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's a couple of double negatives, but it's always
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: a bummer when you get done with a trip of
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: any you know, whether it's a family trip to Sayulita
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: or it's a huge adventure across Africa. Megapixels are not
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: going to expire. You know, you're not going to run
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: out of them. Shoot, yeah, just shoot those photos and
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: edit when you get home. The other thing, you know
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: is I always say, don't be afraid to be that
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: guy that starts wide and moves in tight because.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: When you're home and you're editing, you're.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Able to decide which photos the best, which tells your
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: st worry the best, you know, and get back to
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: the old fashioned thing of the slide show when you
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: get home, you know, like, invite your friends over and
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: show them what they did. Don't just get lost in
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: this digital world of.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Sharing it on Instagram.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I like that one because I have like so many
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: photos of so many adventures that are just on a
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: hard drive somewhere and yeah, and you're like, who, what,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: why why did I even do that?
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's transcending the this digital world that we've
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: landed in where oh I put it on Instagram and
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: I got my likes, so I'm done. It's like, no, like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: invite your best friends over, have a dinner party and
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: row it up on the screen and have them do
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: it for you when they get back from their trip,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: even if it's their kids' trip to freaking Scottsdale. It's
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: a good way to share things and then you get
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: more of a story than some you know, two hundred
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: word caption.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: That's really good advice. And you know, it makes me
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: think about when I first started seeing your photographs. This
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: was about the time we were starting Overland Journal, and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing some of your images, I think on
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Expedition Exchange if I'm not mistaken, but I remember seeing
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: those photos and thinking, this is exactly what I want
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Overland Journal to look like, because you had this ability
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to introduce a vehicle to a scene but retain all
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of the wildness of the place. And I think that
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that's something that people oftentimes neglect, is that they get
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: so focused on the model, which is the truck that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: they that they forget to make it a part of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: its environment. And that's one of the things that I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: think you do so well. Yeah, I've always thought your
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: photos actually had a scene. I mean, yeah, so many
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: images that I see today. Let's use Instagram for an example.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: If I see another three quarter shot of a Forerunner,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: my head is going to explode, Like, what's sending pictures
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of your dog? I'm going to send them pictures of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: my dog, But like, what's the context? What actually was
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the trip? What did you do?
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Where were you?
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: You can't tell? I think most days. And that's one
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: of the things I've always appreciated about your photos is
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: they have a motion to them, they have a place,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: they have a purpose. I don't know. I've always liked that.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: It's not about the truck.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, people hate hearing that because they put so much
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: of their own identity into this truck that they've spent
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: so much money on so much time build. But reality is,
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: truck's a backpack, truck's a carabiner. It's a tool to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: get us to a place to do things that we love.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: And whether that is, you know, for some people it's
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: sitting around a campfire and telling tall tales. For other
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: people it's going canyoneering and going rock climbing or you
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: know whatever it is peak bagging. But the tools just
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: a truck. You can go out and do that in
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: any manner of ways. And it's just like the truck.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: It can be any truck you want. It can be,
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: you know, a twenty year old Tacoma. You don't have
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: to sleep in it, you don't have to have some
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: fancy bridge that slides out. If you're in this place
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: that you love and you're psyched about it, like you
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: should be psyched, it's not about the truck, you know.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: It's never been about the truck for me, even though
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: I fell into that trap of all the gear and
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: building it up and doing it. It's always been about
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: how far away I can get from people. It's not
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: that I don't like people, it's just I like them
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: a whole lot more when they're not around.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: It's like, so how far away can I get? And
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: it's like, that's where I want to be.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to this week's sponsor, GCI Outdoor.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Whether you're heading out for a weekend of adventure in
• 23:18
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• 23:22
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• 23:26
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• 23:46
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• 23:50
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• 23:53
  Speaker 1: save ten percent off your first purchase when you sign
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: up for their email list. Thanks again, GCI. Well, it's
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: interesting because you drove up today. You're in a totally
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: stock rain drover Mark three and you take it off
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: road all the time. Well, yeah, it just don't need
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: you don't need anything else. It works exactly for how
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: you want totally. There's not a single drawer, not a
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: fridge in there. It's like it's not a rax and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: on that bombshell no Max tracks.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Hey, now no, I mean like you just like it's
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: all about you know, like whatever, that whole thing back
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: to your thing about these photos of trucks that are
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: totally built with a whole catalog on them.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's like I want everything in the
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: front Runner catalog.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Nothing wrong in front Runner. You guys are all right,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: but it's the.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Wrong way to go about doing things. Yeah, you know,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: start start from what do I love to do out there?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Is it climbing?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Is it mountain biking? Is it sitting around the campfire?
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: You know? Maybe you're my buddy Steve Garo out of
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: at a flag staff. He had a horrible accident. He
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: can barely walk, but he goes out and he likes
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: to just be in a place, sit around the campfire
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: and take star pictures and you write like, you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: it's like whatever it is, like, go backwards and build
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: your truck to the things you enjoy doing.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot about the vehicles that I've
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: built and the amount of money and time that I
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: can never get back. Yeah, putting stuff on it that
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't need, and right now, I mean the defender
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: out back.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I mean it's got a winch on it. That's literally
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the only thing it has on it. And you just
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: don't need much more than that. Oh not if it
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean don't ever do anything to your vehicle, because
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: there I mean, when we crossed the glaciers in Iceland,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: we needed the vehicles to be a certain way, But
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: for most places you don't. It isn't the priority. To
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: your point, let's make the priority about the experience.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: If we happen to have extra time and extra money,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: maybe make the truck look a little cooler.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: But to me, you know, it's like all that stuff
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: on it, it goes back to like all this gear,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: it's too it's too much these days.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well stuff it weighs you down, right, it slows
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: you down. Yeah, you know, So back to the thing.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: It's like my photographs have always been about the experience
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: where you are, what you're doing. You know, the Columbia
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: thing like stuff in those gs is into a DC three,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: putting them on a little little canoe across the Meta river. Yeah,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: it's about that experience. And I really hope that people
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: start getting themselves into these situations where they're out of there,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: pushing their comfort zone.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know where it's not.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: They're not following a GPS track. I mean, to this day,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I don't use a GPS, never have, never have. It's
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I love paper maps though.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Like to me, I think a large part of the
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: experience of traveling, you know, by vehicle or just traveling
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: is getting away and looking at my phone and looking
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: at the little little screen like that's that's not what
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: that is to me, No, not at all. And I
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: don't think you get better at navigation if you don't
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: just chew those kind of electronic a It's like, I'm
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: not saying that I don't have them. I'm not saying
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: that I don't have on my on my phone and
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I don't plan trips and to know where I'm going,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: but then I know where I'm going and I like
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to actually get cool. Well, I know, maybe like ten miles,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I need to make it right and let's see where
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: that goes. I mean, sometimes that doesn't always work out,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: but that's it's the adventure, you know, it's like adventure.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I think the definition is an undertaking with an unknown outcome,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: and that's the that's the fun of it.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: I think one of the interesting things you kind of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: said is like, you know, why are you doing this?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: You know, to paraphrase, like are you going hiking? Are
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: you going this? You know, whatever you're doing. I think
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of people that just go out
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: and drive, like that's all they do. Like, you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: like looking at some of my friends and I'm trying
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to think, like, man, what do a lot of my
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: friends actually do in this new thing, this new version
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: of overlanding? And the only thing that I can think
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: of is content creation because that's all they talk about.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Is they're talking about the gram, We're talking about getting
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: the photo of the truck. And it's like, is it
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: that dopamine or that serotonin hitt of the twelve schooling
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: likes or something? You know, like, what what are you
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: actually doing other than just sitting in your car for
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: twelve hours a day? I don't know that says maybe
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: something that's a little bit enlightening for me.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: But okay, so there's it's funny that you say the dopamine,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and I think that there's something to be said about
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the you know, that dopamine of the likes on Instagram
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But it's also something to be said about
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that dopamine, because there's nothing wrong with driving, yeah, to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: get to that spot, and then the dopamine that you
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: get with sunrising or the sun setting or getting through
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: that technical spot, you know, and you get out to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: this spot that I haven't seen a photo of, the
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: trail's growing over.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I'm weird because like sometimes I like lately I've found
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: myself like as I moved maybe a little bit further
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: away from you know, my primary career being in media.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I love to put my camera down. I love to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: actually like, oh, here's that sunset. Okay. I know when
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the light's going to be right, I know when I
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: need to take that photo. So I'm going to spend
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: the other fifteen minutes and just like enjoy the sunset.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Oh totally. I like that.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: No, Yeah, I mean I think that that's a super
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: important part of being and especially being a photographer is
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: knowing when to take something in for yourself and when
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: to take something that you're going to share with others. Yeah,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: because to me, and that's that's an important part of
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: being a photographer, is you're taking something that you're you're
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: going to share with other people to hopefully inspire to
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: get outside, take care of the environment a little bit,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: you know that sort of aspect of photography. You know
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: that the world's a wonderful place and get out and
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: do some things.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It makes me think about that idea
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of when you're taking a photograph, you don't get to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: experience it yourself. And maybe that balance you're talking about
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is what actually makes you a better photographer or helps
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: balance of putting the camera down for five seconds and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: just taking it in putting the camera down for five seconds, also.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Using something that you've never used before. So you know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: we're all used to using, you know, our digital cameras
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: these days. So sometimes it's like, oh, I'm going to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: shoot this with you know, I have Aleka m two.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Mmm, doesn't we can talk like as all day? Boy,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know much. I always think they're they're photographers.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Viagra It's like when when when you can't get your
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: kicks off with the five D or the nikon this
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: or that. It's just a different way of looking at
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: looking through that that rangefinder and being able to see
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: outside of a lens totally, it's different side of the
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: lens and then having to be manual taking a light reading.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: You know. The M two is like totally totally. It
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't even have a light meter. It doesn't it has
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: no light.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Meter, and it's fully I mean the things thing was
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: like in world too.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Probably yeah, on the wrong side. Yeah, I have no idea.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: The thing's so old.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't have anything.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: But it's using something that you don't normally use.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: It Also, you know triggers that, oh I have to
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: slow down, I have to figure these things out, and
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: brings you into the moment. Whereas when you know, when
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I have my sony, I know my settings, I see
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: what the image is going to be like when I
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: put it on the computer.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Screen back at home, but with THEIKA. Then I get
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: that film back in it, I'm psyched. Yeah, what are
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you going to see? One of my favorite photos that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you've taken, is you were I don't know. What you
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: took the photo with, but you were you were looking
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: down on the like a four by four or a
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: two in a quarter mamea or a auscil blot or something,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and it was the photo of the l R four
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: looking down and you can see the scorched earth and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the cracked planet and the tripod and yeah,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that totally captures that.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a mea five thirty five C I believe,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: and we were out there shooting the l R four
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: for you yep.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean that was a time. You know,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: that was a crazy day. Actually, let me tell you
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: about that day. That was a day I found out
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that I was going to have my son Cooper. Oh wow,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: so that photo is even more Yeah. Yeah, I mean
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I remember that day so crystal clear because you know,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: my ex wife Stephanie came down.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: And she's she's like, hey, I've got you know, I've
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: got some news.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Okay what and you know, she's like, you can.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Have a baby, And I was like, is that good?
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Where? You know?
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: But I still had to go shoot that car?
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Wow wow.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: So we drove out to El Mirage and shot it.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Man, I brought all the gear out because I wasn't.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Sure how we wanted to shoot it, but it was
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: really one of those things where I wanted to do
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: something different.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so we did it with the mea. Yeah,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: that was such a cool photograph looking down on that
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: camera and seeing the vehicle in the viewfinder. I guess
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: it is yea, Yeah, that was so cool. That's amazing.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You got, man, I've got a lot of things I
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: was gonna talk aboutos, but we can.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Talk about I don't know much about likes I've got.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: To I don't know, I don't know. I mean, how
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: much does the gear matter? Can I also have a beer?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Is that something that we can ask for?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: We asked for beer?
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: I mean if the guest as first cool we got
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: we got to make sure we talk about the traverse though.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: That's a key key piece of this because.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You ta traverse. If you guys have heard of it,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's you's thing. Yeah, yeah, the Utah Reverse.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I guess we go back to what
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: we were talking about before we got into the cameras.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Is you know, for me a big thing? Oh beers,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: this is a little luxury.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: You know, you made it big. When a production person
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: brings you, Brian, you're just a production person now, big.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I'd like to point out that it's snowing now, Yeah,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: that's awesome.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: It's nice and cozy in here. It is March in Arizona. Yeah,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: anything can happen. Anything can happen.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Cheers guys here, trus Yeah.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I don't know.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: I just think it's so cool that we're doing this.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, the fotcetting gushy Sinway. I've I've like, I've
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: looked up to you know your work, and you I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: think for like more than half of my life. And
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: it's cool. It's just it's just interesting for me, Like
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: because you were you were fifteen, enjoyed THATXT question when
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I was fifteen years old. Hello, it's double a RP.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: There.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm the oldest in this room by a couple
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: of months. You can take that.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I'm the youngest in this room. There you go, I'll
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: take that. But no, I mean, it's it's just cool.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think in the same way that you
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: know you were talking about, you realize you could do
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: whatever you wanted. And I think there's just maybe a
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: personality mindset of that that explorer gene or or whatever
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: that is. It's just like, if you want something, just
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: go get it. You know, you can find a way
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to do it. And I don't know a little bit
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: of it's coming full circle to me, just you know,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: sitting around with like two guys that I've looked up to,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: and oh.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: And it's not easy, you know, making that decision that
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: you're going to not follow the path of the typical.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: You know, get a job, go to work nine to
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: five and work for somebody else and make money for
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: somebody else, like that's the easy route.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: But it's awesome that people don't work hard at that. No, no, no,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: it's not for me.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I mean it works for a lot of people. It's
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: it was a terrible employee. I'm I'm a terrible employee.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: You can ask Scott when I worked for Scott. I
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: was a terrible employee.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so was I cheer. Really, it's terrible.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I was just neither of you were taking I was
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: ninety one and.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Usually hung over.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: No, it's it's a it's a tough it's a tough
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: route to choose, but you know, you've you learn your
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you know, for me, it's it's always been the little
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: winds keep the momentum going. And you get those little
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: winds that get you to the big wins, and you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: and then you get back to the little winds and
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: you just got to keep.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Those little winds going. And it depends on what it
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: is sometimes.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: You know, it was always great working with Overland Journal
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: because to me, those were always little winds getting you know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: getting a cover and getting a story published and going
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: on these adventures.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, like it was this great thing.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: That kept me alive when I was stuck in advertising,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: sitting in some boardroom trying to sell a big car
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: company on why we had to go to Chile to
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: shoot their car. Because because you've been like all over
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: for these commercials, I've been super lucky.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: That way, super lucky. Yeah. And I'm not convinced that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: a life of convention is any safer or more predictable, actually,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: because you know, you always hear of the person they
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: worked for the job for forty years and they retire
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and they fall over a couple months later, or the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: company shuts down and all the business moves to another country.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And I don't I don't think that the life of
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: adventure or of you know, kind of going a skewing convention.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Even in your professional life, I think you actually maybe
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: have a better outcome in some ways because you're you're
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: better tuned, you're control, yeah, and you're better tuned to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: deal with irregularities and things that come up, and you
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: have more skills in the in the toolbox.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of times, I mean, I know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: like when I went out on my own, it was
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: terrifying to be like in your early twenties and you know,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: you're trying to figure something out. I moved to Australia
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: with like four dollars and fifty cents to my name
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: to work for a magazine, and I don't know now,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: the way I think of it is it actually terrifies
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: me to not have my future in my own control
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: working for some big banan you're about to retire and
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, well your benefits best tomorrow, so we're going
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: to fire you today or whatever it is, or the
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: accountants and bezzling the money and you're screwed and you're
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: just out of a job, honestly, employees or what yeah,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Like I don't know, I mean, I think it's like
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: these people that.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Go unguided overlaps.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: It's the weirdest.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: I was out in the Arizona Strip and I saw
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: this dust trail, like a dust trail I've.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Never seen, like the Baja one thousands.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: It was like the Baja one thousand was coming. Sixty
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: trucks all kidded, I mean, ready to go around the world,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Ready to go around the world. And they I don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: know how that's enjoyable. The outdoors is like such a
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: personal thing for me.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the bizarre. It was the most bizarre thing.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: And I was at this junction by the schoolhouse. Okay, sure, yeah,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: what's the Mount Trumble yep, yeah, Trouble schoolhouse. So I
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: was at this junk and I just kind of waited for.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Them to come because I wanted to see what this
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: is all about.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And they show up and it was a guy I
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: did tour and they were going to that ranch that
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: was down towards the Grand Canyon.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: An not the Phantom that's no, that's the one you
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: hike to. Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: It was like bar ten R ten right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: all sixty of these trucks were R ten.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Really, what are you guys doing? There were people from Florida.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Drove all the way from Florida from Washington, Alma from Chicago,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and I was just like you guys doing and they're
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: telling me, well, you know, we're on this guided thing.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go drive down to the bar ten then
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: we drive to the north rim of the Grand Canyon,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: then we drive to the south rim.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: What is this?
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It's all in Google.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like why are you why are.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: You paying somebody to suck someone else's dust? Yeah, and
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: like there's no advantage you played Devil's advocate here is.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: You know, we've all been doing this for a long time.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: You guys more than me that first time you go
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: off road, like I still have. You know, I'm one
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: of those dudes from Chicago and I remember.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Like nothing wrong with Chicago, like the Windy City. Yeah, yeah,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's all right, go cubbies. But you know
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: for somebody that a young person that was from Chicago.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I remember remember like going to Mexican Hat in Utah
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: my first time as I was, the first time I
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: drove to the West coast is when I was moving
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: here to you know, start at Oja, and that was scary,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: you know, it was it was just something that I
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: had never experienced before. And where I don't have a
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: problem with those trips is if those people take that
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: experience and they realize this sucks, this actually isn't that terrifying,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: then they go out on their own. I think one
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: of the problems I'm seeing in the industry is it's
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: all about group runs.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: It's group this. It's all of these like massive amounts
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: of people going and you know, you have to move
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: away from that stuff, I feel.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: But that's just also my opinion. Man, the trails can't
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: take that kind of abuse. I mean, it needs to
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: be small groups otherwise. I mean, imagine, I can't even
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: think about what sixty trucks would do to a campsite.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's now a giant campsite. I guess.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: I think that they were staying at the bar ten
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: of the property, got it, that's good, you know, And
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: then when they were going to the Grand the norm
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: and they were probably staying some you know, I can't
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: sixty trucks wouldn't fit.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: It's a BlimE. That's wrong.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's another you know, that's another point is
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: you know, like this whole group thing. I think Jack Quinlan,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: who is a mentor of mine within the overlanding world.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: You know that he has a really strict rule of
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: no less than three, no more than five.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's right. And I think impact the.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Camp sites, like you were mentioning, is that's super you know,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: because you see these these groups of fifteen twenty trucks
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and they show up somewhere and everybody wants to be
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: They want to be together, but they want to be apart.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it just spreads.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and well, you know, this sage brush won't mind
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: too bad if I drive over it, or these bushes
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: won't mind too bad.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I'm the boots. Wasn't me, That was me go. I mean,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: no one's gonna you know, no one's gonna mind if
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I do it.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: But then the next time you go, oh, someone drove there,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: I'm going to drive it. But I think we've seen it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, I think like the UTV guys
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: catch a lot of flak, but I wonder, you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: they maybe catch more flak for the condition of trails.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: But it's not going to be long before overlanders start
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: catching flak for condition of campsites off trail use you know.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: I know, like we spent some time in Colorado this
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: summer in the San Juans Like I used to live
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: in Ridgeway. I know the San Juans like the back
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: of my hand. And I'm going to places and there's
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: like here comes like a Crown VIC coming up. You know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I forgot where I was. But there's I don't know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I there's a lot of use right now, there's a
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: lot of use. And I've set up before like somebody
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: from the Forest Service please contact us or something, because
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: there needs to be more management or overlanders. Like right now,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody knows where to kind of put
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: these people. Are they our veers? Are they recreational for drivers?
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: What are they? How do we treat them? And it's
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: it's going to become an issue. I mean, this industry
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: is doubling every year and we're just seeing more and
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: more vehicles. We're going to have the Bronco come out,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: We're going to have we just had the Defender come out.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: We're having these like purpose built vehicles and you're getting
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: people that in the same way that maybe VS and
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not picking on UTVs, but it brought a lot
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: of new blood into off roading. Well, we're having the
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: same thing happen, except now it's with seven thousand pound
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: vehicles and we're actually destroying habitat. We're destroying parts of
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: the environment, and I think that's something that we all
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: have to be a little bit sensitive to. Well, of course,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: you never even you won't tell anybody from what I remember,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: like where the photo was taken, isn't your rule? Like,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I'll show you, but I'll never tell you.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Pretty strict rule. Yeah, I mean, there's not very many
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: exceptions of that rule at all, unless maybe it's a
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: well known Yeah it's a well known location.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Like I just did like a week long trip in
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: the Earth Roamer, and I don't even want to say
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: where it is because it was so wonderful. I didn't
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: see a single rooftop tent for a week straight, and
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: it was beautiful and pristine and you could drive for
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: hours and not see a structure. And unfortunately now where
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I'm at as I'm like, I don't want to talk
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: about it because all of these places, I'm not saying
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: that we're influencing this or I don't want to be
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: that conceded. But once these places kind of get out there.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: It's that Instagram me too culture. It's like, how what
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: what's the bend in Arizona? Or be whors you been
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: the first time I went there, Like it was a
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: dirt parking just a couple.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Of years ago. Yeah, and now you have to pay
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to get into it.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: And there's like at the last time I went it,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: took a friend friend from Chicago. They went to school
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: with there's a parking lot filled with tour buses. You know, like,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: at what point, and maybe this is a different discussion,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: but at what point can you just stop talking about
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: those places?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a it's a tricky it's a tricky thing
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: because we're we're in the business of inspiring people, you know. However,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: with that comes the responsibility of teaching them how to
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: do it in a style it doesn't hurt the environment,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't you're not geo tagging. There's a little bit of
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you know, in mountaineering where I come from, there's different styles, Right.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: There's the alpine style. Ryan hold Messner goes without oxygen backpack.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe he has a shirpa, like the guy's insane, right,
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: and then there's the full l on hiring the guides
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: with twenty Sherpas, straight mountaineering, the walls mountaineering. You know,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with how you climb a mountain. Everyone's
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: going to climb that mountain.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So how do we take that mountaineering kind of perspective
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: and bring it to overlanding where I think myself the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: way I do it, I'm on the very alpine side.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I'm very minimalist.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: I don't hardly ever set up a tent, even let
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: alone a top tent when I'm with my kid, I'm
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: in a sprinter van.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm super minimalist.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I'm alpine style.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: And then you go to the other side where it's
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: got the rooftop tent, you've got the porta potty tent,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: you've got the changing tent, you've got the spare rood.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And those things all get thrown out into places that
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: are like habitat for things, and shouldn't that's not the campsite?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Sure it always does.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: How do we as an industry educate those coming into
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: it that there's a proper style and not so proper style.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: And I hate to say.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Wrong, Usually it just comes from not knowing, well, those
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: are all really important points. And I think you're right,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: So we it does come back to gaining understanding, helping
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to educate your fellow travelers as travelers that we take
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: the time to learn about the sensitivities of a place
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: like cryptobiotic soil and moab like learn about those things.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: So that way if we don't take responsibility for ourselves
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: as an industry and as travelers, and the government's going
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: to do it for us, and they never do it anywhere,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: and we don't want that anywhere near as near as elegant.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: So but along those lines, that's kind of the spirit
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: also of your Utah Traverse is this is kind of
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the way you go, but you can pick your other
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: routes if you want. Well, you know, sorry, jeez, give
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: it to the ginger. That is the first time I've
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: done that the podcast. You realize that everyone that has
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: been on the podcast says you're a ginger.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Really, I mean, like my beard's kind of ginger.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Nothing want do anything, you know, Prince Harry got kicked
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: out of the monarchy not because his child because.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: He was a ginger.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Well consider me royalty.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Then the Utah Traverse really got started when I was
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: traveling from Baile, Colorado to Los Angeles, and I was
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: in the transition from snowboard photography into commercial where not
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: that snowboard photography was a commercial work. It's kind of
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: a joke and the I seventy to fifteen shuffle is
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: really it's a greasy way to go. But I started
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: breaking it up and I was really fortunate. I was
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: really fortunate with Steve Kasimiro to drop in on a
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: national geographic job in Boulder, Utah, back in ninety nine
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: or two thousand. Our assignment was wild Roads.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It was basically like, go shoot photos of the roads
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: surrounding this new national monument that we have, the Grand Staircase, Sesscalonne,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And I think we drove three thousand miles in ten days.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: We were based out of Boulder, and so when I
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: started this commute, I started kind of dipping down, dipping down,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and I was always camping, trying to find the different campsites,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and I'd mark it on this Google map, and as
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I started looking, the dots had this route, and as
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I got more and more into canyoneering two thousand and five,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six turned into oh, there's this canyon here,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: there's this canyon there. But then this route just kind
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: of zigzagged, hit all these high points, the Grand Staircase
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of Canyonlands, O Lab Area, all the way over to
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the Plateau. To tell your ade, and I think you know,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: we're probably it's probably.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Twenty ten, twenty eleven when you and I, Scott, we
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: started talking about to travert.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: So it was this little idea of great idea.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: You know what this route could be because.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: It basically goes from Skee, Nevada all the way to
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: tell your ide with nine hundred miles total and ninety miles.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: That's pavement, and even the pavement is magic, the pavements superman,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: super good, super good, super good.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: There's not a bad way. Everything south of I seventy
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: and DIVI fifteen is magic.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: That part of the world has to be one of
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the most beautiful and varied parts of the world. We've
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: all had the pleasure of seeing a lot of the world.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I always go back to Utah, Like
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: if somebody was putting on spot, what's the most beautiful
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: place in the world, Utah always comes.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: To mind, certainly in my top three, Yeah, for sure.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So what is your kind of your vision for that?
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: And tell the those that are listening, how they can
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: find out more information about the Utah Traverse. What are
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: some of your goals around that that you'd like to share,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and how can people find out more information about what
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: you're doing with that project and maybe what your future
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: plans are around it. So ultimately, I mean, in a
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: wish come true type of situation, it would be, you know,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: a national scenic byway.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they designate here these points And that's the key
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: is it's it's not a route. It's not this line
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: that you can not a GPX file, it's not it's
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: these different points that you want to get to. The
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Mount Trumble's Schoolhouse is one, you know, Powell Point is another.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Will Run Gorge is another, you know. But it's how
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: you get to those points in between spaces. It's up
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: to you, you know, and it's choose your own adventure.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you need gas, sometimes you need food, you know it.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Sometimes you need a shower, and it's that's okay. There's
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: no right or wrong way to do it. But if
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: you want to have the true experience of the Utah Traverse,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: you hit certain points, you spend the night and you
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: watch the sunrise from Powell Point because that being the
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: highest point of the Grand Staircase escalone, it's a spot
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: you should see the sunrise from. Yeah, and that's all
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: there is.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: To it, you know.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: And now that I'm living back in Veil, I want
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: to take it all the way from tell your Ide
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: and extend it the Continental Divide all the way up
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: to Wyoming. No. I did the route with and Rover
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: when we did the twenty fifth Anniverse of the Great
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Divide Tour. That route that Tom Collins put together, it's magical.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: I'd like to put something similar together that connects to
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: where you could ride your motorcycle, drive your car truck
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: from Steamboat all the way to Mesquite.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Nevada and have minimal pavement.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: But there again, it's there's no right or wrong way
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: to do it. It's just hit these points. Here's here's
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: these highlights.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: You should hit.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: Hit those highlights. You're going to have a great time.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I think
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you add, because there's there's other routes that are similar.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: But it seems to me that like if you look
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: at the Trans America Trail, for example, it's just it
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: had the one goal of just crossing as much of
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: the country on dirt as possible, whereas it seems like
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: you had the time and the desire for it to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: be these very intense visual experiences that you'd have in
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: these different locations, and that is very different. That's what
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I noticed when we rode the transit of the Utah
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: for verse on the BMW's is it is just gorgeous,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Like it's so stunning. That was the difference. It wasn't
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: just about let's stick to a dirt route or let's
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: make it super challenging. It was just visually incredible. Well,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I think that comes from me being a photographer.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I think visually oriented and when people ask, you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: because I get private messages, I get emails all the time,
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: and I get the route I can.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I go from tell your ride to Mesquite and you
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: do it anyway you want. This is the way I
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: suggest doing it. I suggest doing it ski to tell
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: your ide because I personally like sleeping in the light,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: when you're riding in the camp is usually gorgeous. Yeah,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not your back lit. The sun's behind you.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Sun's gorgeous.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: You're not riding into the sunset, driving into the sun.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Something I never would have thought of it. Really.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you can go from tell you know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: you can go from east to west, but the second
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: half of your day is going to be say, totally
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, and that we did a little article
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: on that for Overland Journal a few years ago, and
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: I think that the imagery turned out so great on that.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's a kind of a basic thing.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: You know, take a photo class one oh one. They're
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: like half the sun behind your back at thirty degrees
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: and Okay, that's going to be a pretty decent photo.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: So while you're driving or riding your motorcycle, here you
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: are with this, you know, one hundred and eighty degree view.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: That's gorgeous.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, through one of the most gorgeously the Colorado Plateau.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: It gets no better. Have the light good?
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty good? Right, Yeah, it's super good. And so
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: what's what's coming up for you?
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: What are some things?
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: What are some trips that you've got on your horizon?
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, COVID's kind of screwed some things up. Yep,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: Right now, I'm hoping to get back down to Columbia
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: with Elephant Expeditions and Joe I'd love to get He
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: has a he's expanded from motorcycles into I think he
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: has a fleet of land cruisers or something along those
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: love proos maybe. So I'd really love to get down
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: to Columbia again.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just itching.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: A year ago at this time, I was in the
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: Azores of Portugal, and I haven't been anywhere. I've been
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: on a plane and over a year and I'm like,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: itching to go somewhere. Sure, it's a huge lifestyle change, right,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's insane. I mean, going from flying two
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: hundred thousand miles a year zero wild wild, super wild.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: But I mean, let's just it's wild. But it's also
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: made me appreciate the local stuff and I've had to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: explore some things that I kind of have taken for
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: granted for the last five six years.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: While I've had the luxury of going to Australia and Chile,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: in Alaska and Europe multiple times a year. It's like,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: all right, back to the Utah Traverse. I've been doing
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: that again, you know, like I've driven sections of it
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: on these trips that I've.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Been doing, you know, back and forth.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: It's crazy, yeah, you know, and a really interesting thing
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: happened when I was out on the Arizona Strip last November.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: I ran into a ranger from Borrow Weep and he
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: grew up there.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, his grandfather was a logger up on the trumble
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and we ran into each other.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: And he's the nicest guy, the nicest ranger.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Been a ranger there for twenty years.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: And it's like I'm coming back making it macro again
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: and being out in the world. It's a new appreciation
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: for the Southwest. You know, where to me is my
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: that's my home.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like the right place to be.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How can people find out more about what you do?
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: How can they follow you on the Instagram and your website?
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: And how do people find out more about you and
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the work that you do best?
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Players website is super boring because it's just commercial work
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: and stuff that big corporations paid me to do.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: So that's boring, you know, and those corporations are lame
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: or ring. Uh.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Instagram is kind of cool, but it's kind of curated
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: and curated lives are boring. Yeah, but both Sinway Xavier
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: dot com, Sinway Xavier Instagram.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And how do we spell Sinway s I why do
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: you want to make fun of my hippie mom. I'm
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: not making my life.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: I know how to save my life life.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: S I n h u E. No, it's not h
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: u e. It's not just blew it.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: You guys know me for fifteen years.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: Blew it.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: It's s I and u h E s I n
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: u h e x A v u.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: It's pronounced sinway. I don't know where these white people
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: are up this stuff.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I grew up surrounded by corn. My name is matt
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and I have three first names. Sorry, don't look at
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: me like that. What's your three first names?
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Matthew, James, Scott. I think it sounds kind of presidential.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I should run.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you could be the president of the Prescott
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Rotary Club. That'd be a good, good start. So, now
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: that I've told you not how to spell his name, sorry,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: and I guess I think on kind of parting thoughts,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: what would you what kind of advice would you give
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: to someone just getting started in all of this? They
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: want to they love photography, they took it in high
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: school and they see the world in a different way.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Or they want to be a traveler or an overland like,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: what are some basic things or what's your kind of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: the things that you've learned the hard way that you
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: would want to share with somebody that's just starting to
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: take the same journey that you did decades ago.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: You used to eat sardines, and sardines will keep you
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: alive for can of sardines will.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Keep you alive for two days.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, Now you know.
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: The thing is is if you want to be a photographer,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: shoot doesn't matter what you shoot on. It's your iPhone,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: it's your sam So you use your phone like shoot,
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: find your point of find where your point of view.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Is, and the stories you want to tell. Everybody has
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: a story to tell.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: Everybody has experiences things in different ways and telling that
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: story is important, you.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Know, And everybody's going to find you.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: There's an audience out there for your story, but nobody's
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: going to that audience isn't.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Going to be there if you don't tell it. So
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: tell it.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Start somewhere for me within the overland community. It was
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: a stupid bbs on expedition exchange. I mean it was ridiculous.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: The Plumber, I mean it was one of the legendary,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: legendary I mean it was the most ridiculous thing I made.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: I made it. I'm sure you did.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: You made it, I'm sure I did. Every everybody made it.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: I think I made it when I was seventeen, you know.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: And the thing is, it's like you just have to
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: tell your story and then it develops and things don't
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: happen overnight.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Have to gain that experience. Go out there, shoot, learn
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: from your mistakes. Don't be a afraid to reach out
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: to your mentor or who you want to be your mentor.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: Everyone's accessible these days. Yeah, and if you're a dick,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: you don't answer.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I have people reach out to me
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: all the.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Time, and I'm like, hey, yeah, cool. Like if I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: have time, I engage. If I don't, I say I'm sorry,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I'm super swamped right now. And deal ye, tell your story,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: shoot your photos, learn from your mistakes, and keep pushing it.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: And the main thing is, don't get caught up in
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: all the stuff. Go out.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: If you've got a Toyota, Tosell, go car and you
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: want a car camp, go car camping doesn't matter.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: You don't need the winch and the roof rack and
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the max tracks and you're staying in my house.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: You know, just like go out do it, have fun,
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: sleep under the stars, and you don't even need the
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: you don't need the cortex.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or the expensive camera you can get away with.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: You can take some really great photos with something simple too,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: exactly art secret, you know, by the disposable camera at
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the gas station. Yeah, Sinoay. Thanks so much for taking
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the time to day to get on the podcast with us.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: It has been such a pleasure for me to have
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: had in my life and the places that we've been
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and the things that I've learned from you. I'm just
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: really grateful for you. Thanks for being us today.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. And I'd like to take this
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: opportunity to tell a little story about Scott Brady. This
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: guy I got dropped off on the wrong side of
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: the Mexican border one time, and he could have crossed
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: without me, and I was standing in this line all
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: by myself, no clue I was going to get to
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: the other side. I mean this line, this line was huge.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: It was like a vaccine line. Today, Scott Brady comes
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: walking up after about twenty minutes and goes, I couldn't
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: leave you here, and that to this day that's always
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: stuck with me. Scot Brady's all right, I'll be on
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: your podcast anytime.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Thanks one. Now we got to dinner, I think to go.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it right on.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks, I appreciate it, And on that note, goodbye everybody.