Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Billy Creech on Overlanding Conservation and Remapping the Old Traction Road

Transcript

Billy Creech on Overlanding Conservation and Remapping the Old Traction Road · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your host,
0:09
Speaker 1: Ashley Jordano, and today I'm joined by a Billy Creech,
0:13
Speaker 1: who is the former president of the Mojave Desert Heritage
0:16
Speaker 1: and Cultural Association and Explorer's Club Fellow, a member of
0:20
Speaker 1: the Royal Geographical Society. In this episode, Billy and I
0:23
Speaker 1: discussed one of his latest projects, the Old Traction Road Expedition,
0:27
Speaker 1: and how Overlanders can contribute to conservation efforts during their travels.
0:31
Speaker 1: So sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoyed this
0:33
Speaker 1: episode featuring mister Billy Creech.
0:36
Speaker 2: I want to take a moment for a special announcement
0:39
Speaker 2: of our newest video series on the Expedition Portal YouTube
0:42
Speaker 2: channel that features exploring the Smoky Mountains and the East Coast.
0:47
Speaker 2: This multi part series is presented by Handcook Tires and
0:51
Speaker 2: is hosted by renowned explorer and photographer Sinway Xavier. This
0:56
Speaker 2: series will start at the end of September and run
0:58
Speaker 2: through all of October, featuring a trail Scout episode, a
1:02
Speaker 2: Cheap Gladiator feature, vehicle trip planning and preparation, and some
1:06
Speaker 2: installments showing the local artisans and places to visit. Around
1:11
Speaker 2: the Smoky Mountains. We appreciate Handcook's ongoing support of the
1:15
Speaker 2: Overland community and this podcast.
1:18
Speaker 3: Billy, thank you so much for joining me on the
1:21
Speaker 3: Overland Journal podcast. And before we get started, I have
1:25
Speaker 3: a question, Billy, William or Bill?
1:29
Speaker 4: What's your preference? Most of my friends know me as Billy.
1:34
Speaker 4: My name goes with how I've met you in my life.
1:38
Speaker 4: Billy is as a kid, high school close friends. William
1:42
Speaker 4: is my pissed off mother or Cornell professor. Bill is
1:48
Speaker 4: professional corporate stuff. But now I'm on a team with
1:51
Speaker 4: so many Bills that I just decided to change it
1:53
Speaker 4: to Billy at work because it was just easier.
1:55
Speaker 3: Love it so Billy creech awesome. So you describe yourself
2:00
Speaker 3: as a conservationist, an adventurer, an expedition leader, author, poet
2:06
Speaker 3: and dad. Is there anything we're missing that you'd like
2:09
Speaker 3: to add?
2:10
Speaker 4: Wow?
2:11
Speaker 1: Can I do that?
2:12
Speaker 3: And can you tell me where you're sitting right now?
2:15
Speaker 3: Because it's very ambient if that's the right way to
2:19
Speaker 3: some plants in the background and some maps, and it's
2:23
Speaker 3: very suited for that podcast.
2:26
Speaker 4: This is my work office from home. I'm in here
2:29
Speaker 4: sixteen hours a day and so I make it my
2:32
Speaker 4: favorite place to be. So whether I'm I'm working or
2:36
Speaker 4: doing nonprofit stuff, or expedition stuff or writing an article,
2:40
Speaker 4: this is where I'm at doing it all, So I
2:42
Speaker 4: make it my favorite room in the house.
2:44
Speaker 3: What are some of your favorite items in there?
2:46
Speaker 4: The typewriter was Michelle's grandfather's and the radio behind me
2:53
Speaker 4: that is a nineteen twenty two H and K that
2:57
Speaker 4: if you were a high end expedition, this would have
3:01
Speaker 4: been your receiver that you would have had on your
3:04
Speaker 4: expedition back in the nineteen twenties. If you were super
3:07
Speaker 4: well funded. This is the piece of kit you would
3:08
Speaker 4: have been carried. I've got my knives, some maps, journals.
3:13
Speaker 4: The one that doesn't get to stay here, it has
3:17
Speaker 4: to get sent back, but I have it right now
3:19
Speaker 4: because I just finished Another flag expedition is the Explorers
3:22
Speaker 4: Club flag sitting in the back. You can see the rosette.
3:25
Speaker 4: They manage and monitor those very hard, very rigidly, so
3:29
Speaker 4: those all get sent back. Nobody's allowed to keep them.
3:32
Speaker 4: So you can, if you're have a worthy enough expedition,
3:37
Speaker 4: get a flag award and carry it into the field
3:40
Speaker 4: and then you have to return it when you write
3:42
Speaker 4: the report and send it back in.
3:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very rare that the Explorers Club will give
3:46
Speaker 3: a flag out these days.
3:47
Speaker 4: Right in the one hundred and twenty year history of
3:51
Speaker 4: the club it was founded in nineteen oh four, only
3:53
Speaker 4: eight hundred explorers have ever carried the flag. It's only
3:56
Speaker 4: ever gone out on fourteen hundred total expeditions. This flag
4:01
Speaker 4: is pretty new, so last year when I took it out,
4:05
Speaker 4: I was only the second expedition to have it. This
4:07
Speaker 4: is a newer flag. The first one it was in
4:10
Speaker 4: an airplane doing microbial DNA in the air to find
4:13
Speaker 4: out how far microbes will travel various altitudes to impact
4:18
Speaker 4: other parts of an environment. So when I got it,
4:21
Speaker 4: this thing had only ever been in an airplane, so
4:23
Speaker 4: it was crisp and white, and I drug this thing
4:26
Speaker 4: all over through the desert and I used it as
4:27
Speaker 4: a pillow and the sand and the rocks. When I
4:32
Speaker 4: applied for a flag for this expedition, I requested if
4:35
Speaker 4: it was in the office. I wanted the same flag
4:38
Speaker 4: and so I could keep building to its history. And
4:41
Speaker 4: when I got it and I looked in the year
4:43
Speaker 4: that went by since I had it, it's been to
4:46
Speaker 4: South America, it's been to Antarctica and now it came
4:49
Speaker 4: back to the desert with me. So yeah, it's getting around.
4:54
Speaker 4: So it's building a pretty cool history.
4:56
Speaker 3: That's really great. I want to talk a little bit
4:58
Speaker 3: more about the expedition to the Explorers Club and that plague,
5:02
Speaker 3: but before we do that, I really want to talk
5:04
Speaker 3: to you a little bit about your background and how
5:06
Speaker 3: you got into overlanding and how you got into this
5:11
Speaker 3: world of exploration and adventure and off road recovery. And
5:18
Speaker 3: I love for the Jabi desert. So bring me back
5:21
Speaker 3: in time with you to the beginning part of this.
5:25
Speaker 4: Part of this is going to sound like an overland
5:27
Speaker 4: journal pitch because it's true. But going way back, I'm
5:31
Speaker 4: gen x right. We were to coin a phrase that
5:34
Speaker 4: I saw. We were the generation that was raised on
5:36
Speaker 4: neglect and hose water. We were latchkey kids. We were
5:39
Speaker 4: self reliant, self sufficient, We entertained ourselves all day. Plus
5:43
Speaker 4: I was knowingly child, so I could make up my
5:45
Speaker 4: own best friends and go on whatever and main sure
5:47
Speaker 4: I wanted when I was ten. When I was younger,
5:51
Speaker 4: my grandfather helped build the harbors and stuff at Sultan Sea,
5:54
Speaker 4: so we would go there and camp, and so we
5:56
Speaker 4: would travel a lot into the deserts and Sultan Sea,
5:59
Speaker 4: which is more the Orange Desert, but we would go
6:03
Speaker 4: and camp and do that. But mostly I grew up
6:05
Speaker 4: with drag racing, right, race cars, and I was a
6:08
Speaker 4: race car driver for a long time. Not anybody you
6:11
Speaker 4: had ever heard of. But it's expensive still. Let's see
6:15
Speaker 4: when I was ten. This is funny because we just
6:18
Speaker 4: drove through this area and I hadn't been through there since,
6:21
Speaker 4: and it just triggered flashbacks in my head. When I
6:24
Speaker 4: was ten years old, unbeknownst to me, my parents were
6:27
Speaker 4: having marital problems. My dad says, you want to go
6:30
Speaker 4: for a motorcycle ride. I was like, yeah, sure. This
6:32
Speaker 4: was August nineteen seventy seven, right, So no, it's not
6:35
Speaker 4: an adventure bike. It's a street bike. No no rear
6:38
Speaker 4: leaning bar or anything else. Just a straight seat. So
6:41
Speaker 4: put a helmet on. We just had sweatshirts on. That's it. No,
6:44
Speaker 4: Jack's not nothing. We get on the bike and we
6:47
Speaker 4: take off and five hundred miles later we're in lee Vining.
6:51
Speaker 4: So we leave from Riverside. We end up in lee
6:52
Speaker 4: Vining at night and it's August and there's no hotel
6:57
Speaker 4: rooms available, and it's freezing outside like in the thirties,
7:02
Speaker 4: and we don't have any jackets, no gloves, no nothing,
7:06
Speaker 4: and there's no rooms. So we are literally in a
7:09
Speaker 4: parking lot. And like I said, I just drove by
7:11
Speaker 4: this parking lot and looked right where it was. We
7:14
Speaker 4: are up against the wall trying to get the heat
7:16
Speaker 4: off of the cinder block wall, and our hands on
7:19
Speaker 4: the engine of the motorcycle to try to get the
7:21
Speaker 4: warmth off the engine. And around four o'clock in the morning,
7:25
Speaker 4: the guy that owned the laundry mat the wall that
7:28
Speaker 4: we were by opened the door and let us in
7:30
Speaker 4: so we could sleep in the laundry mat at least
7:32
Speaker 4: be warm. So I curled up on a laundry folding
7:34
Speaker 4: table and that's how we slept that night. And the next
7:37
Speaker 4: that morning we took off and we watched the sunset
7:40
Speaker 4: in Las Vegas, and then we're back in Riverside that
7:44
Speaker 4: afternoon thirty miles or thirty hours, and actually not even
7:48
Speaker 4: thirty hours, it was more like twenty two hours and
7:51
Speaker 4: eleven hundred miles. That was the first Somebody goes, do
7:55
Speaker 4: you ever do it? Adventure bike tripically yes, then right
7:58
Speaker 4: the Indiana Jones Movie's The Camel, the Camelman ads Bob
8:03
Speaker 4: back with the jeep in the river, the Camel Trophy
8:06
Speaker 4: stuff with land Rover. And then in nineteen eighty five,
8:10
Speaker 4: I graduated high school and I had turned down a
8:12
Speaker 4: football scholarship and said I was supposed to go to
8:16
Speaker 4: Alaska work on a crab boat, and the boat sank
8:18
Speaker 4: before I went, so that got shot. So I got
8:21
Speaker 4: a one way ticket and luggage to Hawaii and I
8:24
Speaker 4: moved to o Wahoo, had an uncle with a briefcase
8:26
Speaker 4: full of South African cougarants, and moved over there and
8:29
Speaker 4: explored the heck out of that island, came back, went
8:32
Speaker 4: to college, played football, met Michelle, my other half. We
8:36
Speaker 4: started dating in eighty seven, and her parents camped and
8:40
Speaker 4: they overlanded what you would call it today, but they
8:43
Speaker 4: had a pop up trailer and things like that, and
8:45
Speaker 4: their big trip every year was Death Valley, going somewhere
8:47
Speaker 4: in there, and so I went, oh my gosh, it
8:50
Speaker 4: was stunning, right, geologically incredible, And then I'm an idiot.
8:54
Speaker 4: So we broke up and we both went separate ways
8:57
Speaker 4: and have great kids in our lives. Then and funny
9:00
Speaker 4: how life works. And we ended up back together and
9:02
Speaker 4: she had always remained a camper and I had got
9:05
Speaker 4: back into the drag racing and went to Cornall to
9:07
Speaker 4: my MBA and all that. So I was doing Corporate America.
9:10
Speaker 4: I would camp at the racetrack right, sleep in a
9:12
Speaker 4: tent and all that at the racetrack. We got back
9:14
Speaker 4: together and we started camping again. And as we were
9:17
Speaker 4: camping and doing stuff, I was like, doesn't it get
9:20
Speaker 4: irritating always coming back to the same place, right, because
9:24
Speaker 4: the trailers in a camp in a campground and we
9:26
Speaker 4: leave and hubbing and smoking, going out, coming back, going out,
9:29
Speaker 4: coming back. And she really liked that, and I was like,
9:31
Speaker 4: I want to go further. I want to go see
9:33
Speaker 4: what else is out there. So one day we went
9:35
Speaker 4: to a Barnes and Noble and walking by the book
9:38
Speaker 4: rack and I see this round cover. I was like,
9:40
Speaker 4: Overland Journal, what the heck is that opened it up?
9:43
Speaker 4: And the letter from the editor was Chris Collar, and
9:46
Speaker 4: it just grabbed me by the throat and went, yeah,
9:49
Speaker 4: go do this. And so that's how it all started,
9:52
Speaker 4: and then it took off from there.
9:54
Speaker 3: It's really incredible how many people have picked that magazine
9:59
Speaker 3: up and a big journey, adventure, or career has started
10:03
Speaker 3: because of it. It's so many people have said that
10:06
Speaker 3: to me, It's pretty incredible. And it's also strange because
10:11
Speaker 3: they have the magazine is carried at the bookstore in
10:14
Speaker 3: my hometown. So sometimes I'm at the bookstore in my
10:17
Speaker 3: hometown and over lun journals on the shelves that I'm like,
10:19
Speaker 3: this is so weird.
10:22
Speaker 4: I'm the type that I don't want to waste my
10:25
Speaker 4: time with people who I don't think know what they're doing.
10:27
Speaker 4: If I want to learn something, I'm to learn from
10:29
Speaker 4: somebody who I think and reading the story is amazing.
10:34
Speaker 4: I emailed you he didn't know me. I'm like, Hey,
10:36
Speaker 4: you don't know me, or just got your magazine blah
10:37
Speaker 4: blah blah blah blah. You seem like you know what
10:39
Speaker 4: you're doing. Teach me how to do this, and to
10:42
Speaker 4: his credit, he replied, okay. And so what I started
10:46
Speaker 4: doing is because of his words that Overland Journal was
10:50
Speaker 4: we don't do advertorials. We're not recommending stuff that doesn't work.
10:53
Speaker 4: We will tell you if it fails. I started going
10:56
Speaker 4: straight for the editor's choice in the Gear Review I
11:01
Speaker 4: was like, okay, that and even that's how I have
11:04
Speaker 4: an easy on tent that has We've been in that
11:07
Speaker 4: thing in sixty five mile an hour winds and everybody
11:09
Speaker 4: else is ten thousand dollars, tents are shredded and ours
11:11
Speaker 4: is still trucking because it's heavy canvas South African. But
11:15
Speaker 4: it was The recommendation was if you could only ever
11:17
Speaker 4: buy one tent in your life, that's it. They weren't kidding.
11:21
Speaker 4: It was ironic that one year I ended up on
11:24
Speaker 4: a trip with Chris and didn't know we were each
11:28
Speaker 4: going to be on this trip. And so when they're like, oh,
11:30
Speaker 4: Chris Caller, and I was like where, and then you
11:34
Speaker 4: spot the hat, So I was like okay. So I
11:38
Speaker 4: walked up and introdased myself and I said, we're about
11:40
Speaker 4: to put my money where your mouth is. When some
11:43
Speaker 4: things on that trip happened, and it started to really
11:46
Speaker 4: forged us into a really tight friendship that has lasted
11:49
Speaker 4: and grown, and I'm really happy to say that I
11:53
Speaker 4: consider I'm one of my best friends. He was the
11:55
Speaker 4: first person I called when I did the Flag expedition
11:58
Speaker 4: last year. He was the first person I called to
12:00
Speaker 4: be on the team so to have that kind of
12:02
Speaker 4: come full circle from his words, that kind of got
12:05
Speaker 4: me more into the overlanding piece of things, and then
12:10
Speaker 4: that morphed into the expedition and exploration side of things.
12:14
Speaker 4: To have him be on that team with me was
12:17
Speaker 4: just special. That's I don't know. People get inspiration from
12:22
Speaker 4: all over, right, and mine tends to come from I've
12:27
Speaker 4: always been drawn to things that other people, not a
12:30
Speaker 4: lot of other people see or do, right, And I'm
12:32
Speaker 4: the type that if I'm going to do something, I
12:35
Speaker 4: try to find out where my limit is, how far
12:38
Speaker 4: can I go, whether it's academically, professionally, exploration world, expedition world,
12:44
Speaker 4: where do I top out at? I've always been that way,
12:47
Speaker 4: and I just like to push things from that perspective.
12:51
Speaker 3: How did you move from recreational overlanding to more of
12:56
Speaker 3: the expedition side or the conservation inside.
13:01
Speaker 4: Roll back the clock to twenty sixteen and a half
13:04
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen. I was researching for a trip that we
13:07
Speaker 4: were going to do out in the Mohave Desert and
13:09
Speaker 4: I came across this reference It said EMHT and I
13:13
Speaker 4: was like, what is that? And I just I literally
13:16
Speaker 4: wrote it on the corner of my map EMHD question mark.
13:20
Speaker 4: And a few months later and I didn't think much
13:22
Speaker 4: more about it. And then a few months later a
13:25
Speaker 4: friend of mine was out in the Mohabi and he
13:29
Speaker 4: posted a picture on Facebook and I just happened to
13:31
Speaker 4: be on Facebook and this thing pops up and it's
13:33
Speaker 4: a mailbox out in the middle of the desert and
13:37
Speaker 4: it says EMHD on it mailbox three. I was like,
13:42
Speaker 4: where have I seen that before? And I was like,
13:44
Speaker 4: holy crap, my map. So I got my map. Yep,
13:47
Speaker 4: this is something. This is a real something, and so
13:50
Speaker 4: I pained him and I was like, send me the
13:51
Speaker 4: coordinates to where you are right now. And then the
13:55
Speaker 4: next weekend, Michelle and I trecked out there to find
13:57
Speaker 4: this thing and found the log book and it was
14:00
Speaker 4: the original log book from the late eighties. So I
14:03
Speaker 4: was like, okay, that started me, what really is this route?
14:07
Speaker 4: And so then I started doing some homework. Found that
14:09
Speaker 4: there were some guidebooks that you couldn't buy anymore because
14:11
Speaker 4: they had been non compliant with the Desert Protection Act
14:14
Speaker 4: in ninety four. I found a set of them and
14:17
Speaker 4: got my hands on him and started reading this thing
14:19
Speaker 4: and researching it. And found out that Dennis Kasebeer, who
14:22
Speaker 4: had created the Mahabi Road, he knew instantly that the
14:26
Speaker 4: Mohabi Road was going to get heavy use because it
14:29
Speaker 4: was a single throughout, and so he wanted to create
14:32
Speaker 4: something that would disperse people into the other parts of
14:36
Speaker 4: the desert. So essentially the tread lightly principles before it
14:39
Speaker 4: was a noun, back when it was a verb. He
14:41
Speaker 4: wanted to disperse that impact. So he creates this spins
14:45
Speaker 4: years creating this East Mohabi Heritis Trail that when he
14:48
Speaker 4: did it, it was six hundred and sixty miles long. They
14:52
Speaker 4: wrote the guidebooks. There's four segments. They completed it in
14:56
Speaker 4: late eighty nine, early nineteen ninety. By nineteen ninety one
14:59
Speaker 4: he started sending rumblings of the Desert Protection Act. He
15:02
Speaker 4: starts lobbying against it, unsuccessfully, and the Desert Protection Act
15:07
Speaker 4: happens in it and it takes away the route because
15:09
Speaker 4: it cut it in multiple places and made the guidebooks useless.
15:14
Speaker 4: So they quit selling the guid books because they weren't compliant,
15:17
Speaker 4: and he quit doing backcountry exploration at that point because
15:20
Speaker 4: he had given more than twenty years of his life
15:22
Speaker 4: at that point to doing it, and he was just
15:25
Speaker 4: like and plus he paid all the money to print
15:27
Speaker 4: the books. They spent over one hundred and grand on that.
15:30
Speaker 4: So he just focused on the history side of it.
15:33
Speaker 4: And here I come twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, and I
15:37
Speaker 4: start looking at it and I'm like, I'm I connect
15:39
Speaker 4: guts for a living. I work for Oracle and I'm
15:42
Speaker 4: a product owner.
15:43
Speaker 3: What does Oracle do for the listeners out there who
15:46
Speaker 3: don't know what we're work.
15:47
Speaker 4: You've run the planet seriously so cloud So we're one
15:50
Speaker 4: of the bigger clouds. We do enterprise level hardware software.
15:53
Speaker 4: So your Java applets that are on your phone were Java,
15:57
Speaker 4: so none of your stuff works without us. So we're
15:59
Speaker 4: we're one of the big hitters on the planet. And
16:02
Speaker 4: we have a really cool raceboat too, for the America's
16:04
Speaker 4: Cup and all that. When that used to be a thing.
16:05
Speaker 4: I started looking at this where this route was cut,
16:09
Speaker 4: and like I said, I connect dots for a living,
16:11
Speaker 4: and so I started looking at it and went, I
16:13
Speaker 4: think I could reconnect this. I think I could remap
16:16
Speaker 4: this and the wilderness areas the Mohammi Desert, right. I
16:20
Speaker 4: grew up in Riverside, California. So the Mohami Desert's my backyard,
16:23
Speaker 4: and there are thirteen endangered or threatened species out there.
16:27
Speaker 4: So most notably that most people would know is the
16:29
Speaker 4: desert tortous go first, Agassisi and the big horn cheap.
16:33
Speaker 4: There's several others, but those are the two most prominent ones,
16:36
Speaker 4: along with multiple endangered flora species out there. That's why
16:40
Speaker 4: these wilderness areas were put in place. And there's arguments
16:43
Speaker 4: on both sides about whether they took too much land
16:45
Speaker 4: or whatever. The point is, they did it, and it
16:48
Speaker 4: cut off the recreational routes, and what you had was
16:50
Speaker 4: because you had traces of a route, you still have
16:52
Speaker 4: people doing incursions into the wilderness areas. I figured, hey,
16:56
Speaker 4: I think I could remap this thing. I could do
16:58
Speaker 4: some good for the environment. I could do some good
17:00
Speaker 4: for the animals. I could help the federal land managers
17:02
Speaker 4: with their mission and charter out there, and I could
17:05
Speaker 4: provide something for not just recreationists, but for conservationists and
17:10
Speaker 4: field scientists to be able to get out there compliantly
17:13
Speaker 4: and do research and not have to pick their way
17:16
Speaker 4: through areas that are not supposed to be in We
17:18
Speaker 4: can get them close enough to where they can do
17:19
Speaker 4: it on foot, because nobody's walking one hundred and fifty
17:22
Speaker 4: miles across the Mohabi Desert to get to a particular area.
17:24
Speaker 4: Nobody's doing that. So that's how it started. And so
17:27
Speaker 4: as I started researching this thing, I went out to
17:30
Speaker 4: the BLM regional office, which at the time was in
17:32
Speaker 4: Renow Valley. I started talking to them about it and saying, Hey,
17:34
Speaker 4: I think I can do this, and are there any
17:37
Speaker 4: other projects out there you would like me to do
17:39
Speaker 4: since I'm going to be in these areas nobody's been
17:41
Speaker 4: in for thirty years. And so then it became a yeah,
17:44
Speaker 4: can document any tortoises that you come across, measure them,
17:47
Speaker 4: document their coordinates. My Lar balloons there was a project
17:50
Speaker 4: at the time. It was a really cool project, and
17:52
Speaker 4: I don't know whatever happened with it, but National Parks
17:54
Speaker 4: out of Death Valley was running the project where my
17:57
Speaker 4: lar balloons. People buy my lar balloons, they let them go,
18:01
Speaker 4: they fly forever. They land out in the deserts and
18:04
Speaker 4: the big horned sheep and the tortoises are attracted to them,
18:06
Speaker 4: they eat them and they die. And there's been lots
18:08
Speaker 4: in the crop seat all that the balloons are found
18:12
Speaker 4: in their stomachs because they're shining, and so they get attracted.
18:17
Speaker 4: So National Parks had this project where you took the
18:19
Speaker 4: coordinates of a mylar balloon that you found, and they
18:22
Speaker 4: would put it into a database and map that against
18:24
Speaker 4: prevailing wind conditions to find where that balloon likely originated from.
18:29
Speaker 4: Because they had very limited education funding, and they would
18:31
Speaker 4: target their education efforts in those areas to say, please,
18:34
Speaker 4: don't use a mylar balloon. It's horrible. They're literally killing
18:37
Speaker 4: the endangered animals out here. So and I have yet
18:40
Speaker 4: to this day. In fact, the last expedition that I
18:43
Speaker 4: just did earlier this month, I got six mile ar
18:46
Speaker 4: balloons and I have yet to go out there not
18:48
Speaker 4: get at least one.
18:50
Speaker 3: So you know something that I would think about as
18:53
Speaker 3: a you know, as a human, Oh, my milar balloon
18:56
Speaker 3: from my birthday party.
18:58
Speaker 4: Whatever.
18:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, drifting often is killing wildlife. It's these things that
19:03
Speaker 3: you don't even know are impacting wildlife or impacting plants,
19:08
Speaker 3: or impacting the earth in some way that you don't
19:10
Speaker 3: even realize. So it's good to bring that up.
19:13
Speaker 4: There was that, and then there was check on the
19:15
Speaker 4: conditions of sensitive cultural anthropological sites and archaeological sites and
19:19
Speaker 4: document right. So I ended up when I ultimately mapped
19:24
Speaker 4: out this route that I thought I could do compliantly,
19:26
Speaker 4: when I went to actually prove it out to drive it,
19:29
Speaker 4: I had six other projects with BLM that I was doing,
19:32
Speaker 4: things that they wanted me to check on. I ended
19:35
Speaker 4: up writing the report, and you learn a lot as
19:38
Speaker 4: you go. Experience matters a lot. So just a case
19:42
Speaker 4: in point, that route ended up being seven hundred and
19:45
Speaker 4: thirty three miles. The original was six hundred and sixty,
19:48
Speaker 4: so a pretty big increase to make it compliant, but
19:51
Speaker 4: pulled it out of over one hundred miles of wilderness
19:53
Speaker 4: incursion the balloons and documented tortoise and all that stuff.
19:58
Speaker 4: But the report that I I turned in for that
20:02
Speaker 4: was twelve pages long. The report to BLM was twelve pages.
20:06
Speaker 4: And I went and I presented to the archaeology team,
20:08
Speaker 4: and I presented to their conservation team and their land,
20:10
Speaker 4: their law enforcement and all that. When I just did
20:13
Speaker 4: the old traction road expedition last year, So fast forward
20:18
Speaker 4: five years and the difference in what I've learned that
20:22
Speaker 4: route was one hundred and twenty five miles long, so
20:25
Speaker 4: a fifth the length of the EMHT. But the report
20:30
Speaker 4: I turned in for that one was one hundred pages long.
20:35
Speaker 4: That's the that's the difference in the details of what
20:39
Speaker 4: I now know to look for and what I'm investigating.
20:42
Speaker 3: Who told you, like, what were you submitting? Was it
20:45
Speaker 3: to the Exporers Club or BLM and they said we
20:47
Speaker 3: need more details such as this and this, or did
20:50
Speaker 3: you just pick it up as you were going.
20:52
Speaker 4: Along to look for when you do a flag expedition.
20:55
Speaker 4: This was a flag expedition the Traction Road and it
20:57
Speaker 4: was also I was awarded the role exxs wor watch,
21:00
Speaker 4: so the Explorers Club and Rolex awarded me a watch
21:03
Speaker 4: to wear on this, which is a really rare thing
21:06
Speaker 4: and a really cool honor. But when you take a flag,
21:11
Speaker 4: you're obligated to write a detailed report on the expedition,
21:14
Speaker 4: right into the Explorers Club archives. Because BLM and the
21:19
Speaker 4: NBHCA were sanctioning the expedition, they also got reports, and
21:25
Speaker 4: the Royal Geographical Society because it was a geographic expedition,
21:29
Speaker 4: they requested a copy of it, so they got it.
21:32
Speaker 4: They got submitted to report as well, and it's right
21:34
Speaker 4: for future researchers to use, and you never know how
21:38
Speaker 4: things are going to get used. After I did the
21:40
Speaker 4: e MHT and when I got into the Explorers Club
21:43
Speaker 4: and the story got out there, I had written a
21:45
Speaker 4: couple articles in the internal publications. A guy reached out
21:49
Speaker 4: to me who is a Navy oceanographer. He's also in
21:52
Speaker 4: the Exports Club. But he was a Navy oceanographer, but
21:55
Speaker 4: he's also a geologist who specialized in the Mohabi Desert,
21:59
Speaker 4: and he he had this really cool He had spent
22:03
Speaker 4: fifteen twenty years mapping out the geology of the whole desert.
22:07
Speaker 4: And so what we did we took his research and
22:12
Speaker 4: overlaid it on top of my remap of the compliant route,
22:17
Speaker 4: and we just handed geologists a compliant roadmap of how
22:21
Speaker 4: to go find specific soil types that they're looking for
22:24
Speaker 4: and not have to go across sensitive wilderness land to
22:27
Speaker 4: do it.
22:28
Speaker 3: Or about you were talking about compliant, like the root
22:31
Speaker 3: being compliant, What does that look like?
22:34
Speaker 4: When the federal government creates a wilderness area, it's restricted access.
22:40
Speaker 4: You cannot take any mechanical advantage in their whatsoever. No
22:43
Speaker 4: vehicles of any type, no machinery on the ground, of
22:47
Speaker 4: any type. You can't even land a helicopter in there
22:50
Speaker 4: because the skids can't touch the ground. You can take
22:53
Speaker 4: anything natural your feet, a horse, a camel. Believe me,
22:57
Speaker 4: I was looking at doing a camel expedition in then
22:59
Speaker 4: Mohami Desert for another one. Turns out they need really
23:03
Speaker 4: soft sand. They can't do rocks very well. But when
23:05
Speaker 4: they do that, you're now taking big swaths of land
23:10
Speaker 4: and saying vehicle can't go in there. So when it
23:14
Speaker 4: cuts off a previous open route, right, so here's the route,
23:20
Speaker 4: here's the new boundary. You can't go in there anymore.
23:23
Speaker 4: So that route is no longer compliant. And the way
23:27
Speaker 4: the federal government works this is backwards. I've had lots
23:30
Speaker 4: of conversations about this with them because I completely disagree
23:34
Speaker 4: with the approach. They have to specifically tell you something
23:38
Speaker 4: is open, Otherwise you are supposed to assume that it's closed.
23:43
Speaker 4: If you don't see a sign that says it's open,
23:46
Speaker 4: you have to assume it's closed. And I said, who's
23:48
Speaker 4: going to be driving through the desert? One sign and
23:51
Speaker 4: then twenty miles later you don't see any other signs
23:53
Speaker 4: that you're just supposed to assume that it's closed. Nobody's
23:56
Speaker 4: going to do that. You need a sign that says
23:58
Speaker 4: Willberness area, don't go in here, or the route. A
24:02
Speaker 4: better approach that I've taken with signing the EMHD because
24:06
Speaker 4: I got grants to do that, is EMHT with an
24:09
Speaker 4: arrow that way, so you're not going straight ahead on
24:12
Speaker 4: the old trace, you're following the new route. Those areas
24:15
Speaker 4: are very heavily restricted. The problem is the budget for
24:22
Speaker 4: the Federal Land Managers is such that you have roughly
24:26
Speaker 4: one ranger per one million acres. To put that in perspective,
24:31
Speaker 4: and I talked about this when I was at the
24:33
Speaker 4: Explorers Club because on the east of the Mississippi River,
24:37
Speaker 4: they really don't have a concept of what the Bureau
24:38
Speaker 4: of Land Management is because it's mostly west of the Mississippi.
24:44
Speaker 4: But to put this in perspective for them, if you
24:47
Speaker 4: took all of New York City, all of the boroughs,
24:50
Speaker 4: not just Manhattan, but the Bronx, Queen's everything, Brooklyn, multiplied
24:56
Speaker 4: it by five point twenty five, that's one million acres,
25:00
Speaker 4: have one cop for the whole thing. That's what you
25:04
Speaker 4: have with our federal land managers. That's their budget and
25:08
Speaker 4: so what you have today in these areas, you have
25:11
Speaker 4: not a lot of policing, you have not a lot
25:15
Speaker 4: of people, and that creates a situation for bad guys
25:22
Speaker 4: to go set up shop. We go grow farms and
25:25
Speaker 4: arco trafficking net labs because they will bring in water,
25:28
Speaker 4: they will bring in soil, they will bring in all
25:30
Speaker 4: these things. Because they don't really care about the environment.
25:32
Speaker 4: They want to set up shop where nobody can see them.
25:35
Speaker 4: And so that's why it's important to establish these routes,
25:39
Speaker 4: sign these routes so it's obvious that people are coming
25:42
Speaker 4: out here and the one thing they don't want is
25:44
Speaker 4: a witness. If they're like, hey, people are going to
25:46
Speaker 4: be coming through here. This is not where we want
25:48
Speaker 4: to be. And that's another purpose for doing this. Unfortunately,
25:52
Speaker 4: it's actually a real thing in today's day and age.
25:54
Speaker 4: It's a real consideration. And in fact, a guide that
26:00
Speaker 4: was doing I was with him a couple of weeks
26:01
Speaker 4: ago and he was doing the EMHT This past Sunday,
26:06
Speaker 4: he diverted off the trail to go climb up the
26:08
Speaker 4: top of a mountain for the view, and there's a
26:10
Speaker 4: microwave tower up there and he came across somebody that
26:13
Speaker 4: was trying to break into it, and they rammed his
26:15
Speaker 4: vehicle to get away. So there are bad guys out there.
26:21
Speaker 3: Part of the premise of remapping the old traction trail
26:24
Speaker 3: is to get people onto these trails for a variety
26:28
Speaker 3: of reasons, and that's one of them and from what
26:31
Speaker 3: I understand, and also to make the trails clear so
26:35
Speaker 3: that people will stay on the track so that there
26:39
Speaker 3: isn't damage done too.
26:40
Speaker 4: For yeah, so it's to re establish the route. So
26:43
Speaker 4: the traction road, let's talk about that one for a second,
26:45
Speaker 4: because another part of the main thing that I like
26:49
Speaker 4: to do is find the history of a route, find
26:54
Speaker 4: the history of an area, and combine that with the
27:00
Speaker 4: practical experience of traveling on that route, and educate people
27:04
Speaker 4: on what that history is so that you're actually reliving
27:07
Speaker 4: that history. If you're on the Mojave Road, like most
27:10
Speaker 4: people know what the Mohabi Road is, do you know
27:13
Speaker 4: that you're actually on a Native American trade route. Do
27:16
Speaker 4: you know that you're on the original wagon trail west right?
27:22
Speaker 4: Do you know that you're on a route that Jedediah
27:24
Speaker 4: Smith did, one of the early pioneers of this country,
27:29
Speaker 4: and Western expansion. When you start looking at that and
27:32
Speaker 4: along that route, you're in the e're when you go
27:34
Speaker 4: through government holes. That's the place of the last gunfight
27:37
Speaker 4: in the wild West. Two gunfighters met up there and
27:41
Speaker 4: the one was had his wife and kid in the car,
27:44
Speaker 4: and it was a rancher hired a guy to bully
27:47
Speaker 4: his way around the area, and the other anchers hired
27:49
Speaker 4: this other guy to make sure that didn't happen anymore.
27:52
Speaker 4: And they met up there and the guy gets out
27:54
Speaker 4: of the car, leaves his wife and kid in the cart,
27:56
Speaker 4: goes inside. She hears a gunshot, and nobody comes out
27:59
Speaker 4: of the house, goes in, and they're both laying on
28:01
Speaker 4: the floor dead because they were both just as fast
28:02
Speaker 4: and they were both just as accurate, and they took
28:04
Speaker 4: each other out. So when you're doing these routes, that
28:10
Speaker 4: kind of stuff you're traveling through. The traction road was
28:14
Speaker 4: developed in So in the late eighteen hundreds Borax Smith,
28:19
Speaker 4: So you know what Borax is, right, So your laundry
28:21
Speaker 4: detergents and all this stuff. Francis Marion Borax Smith. He's
28:26
Speaker 4: the guy that was the main borax mining magnate of
28:29
Speaker 4: the day. And you if you're buying anything with bor Accident,
28:33
Speaker 4: you're still getting it from his company today. The town
28:35
Speaker 4: of Boron, that's what it is named after. And he
28:40
Speaker 4: gets his hands on this mine called the Wila Sea
28:42
Speaker 4: just outside of Death Valley. But they had they had
28:45
Speaker 4: to get the minerals to a railhead in order to
28:48
Speaker 4: get them to market to process them. And when you're
28:50
Speaker 4: one hundred and ten miles out in the middle of
28:52
Speaker 4: a desert, that's a challenge. And so they were using
28:54
Speaker 4: what were called twenty mule teams. They were slow, they
28:57
Speaker 4: took a lot of resources and a lot of manpower.
29:00
Speaker 4: So he decides that, hey, I'm going to use I'm
29:04
Speaker 4: going to revolutionize the transportation industry. I'm going to utilize
29:07
Speaker 4: this new technology called gasoline, and we're going to build
29:12
Speaker 4: but we have to have this road. We're going to
29:13
Speaker 4: do this traction engine that this diesel engine spends motors,
29:19
Speaker 4: spends gear drives that turn motors that generate electricity on
29:22
Speaker 4: each of the wheels. For these orcards sound familiar. This
29:26
Speaker 4: is in nineteen hundred. That becomes the precursor to the
29:30
Speaker 4: diesel locomotive. It also becomes the precursor to what you
29:33
Speaker 4: know today as a hybrid, and this is one hundred
29:35
Speaker 4: and twenty years ago. So he spends three years, three
29:40
Speaker 4: million dollars in today's money to build this route and
29:45
Speaker 4: the technology doesn't work. It completely fails before it even
29:48
Speaker 4: gets there. So then he gets a he's okay, I'm
29:52
Speaker 4: going to try a steam traction engine, same concept but
29:55
Speaker 4: with steam, and tries that. The thing makes it fort
30:00
Speaker 4: miles and blows the boiler flot So then he screw it.
30:02
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go build a railroad and he gives up
30:04
Speaker 4: on it. That road was such a prominent piece of
30:13
Speaker 4: potential industry transformation because it was literally going to transform
30:18
Speaker 4: how these minerals all got to market. That it was
30:21
Speaker 4: in the press all the time, like there were articles
30:24
Speaker 4: after articles on the progress of this thing. And so
30:27
Speaker 4: the USGS put it on their maps as a road.
30:31
Speaker 4: This is the road, and it was on those maps
30:33
Speaker 4: up until nineteen twelve, and then they took it off
30:36
Speaker 4: once it was like, hey, this thing's not coming back.
30:39
Speaker 4: And when I started looking at this, so Dennis K. Speer,
30:42
Speaker 4: when I remapped the EMHT, he asked me a couple
30:45
Speaker 4: of things if I would do for him. One was
30:47
Speaker 4: save his organization. So did that. The second thing was
30:52
Speaker 4: would I map remap the old traction road, because I
30:55
Speaker 4: was the only person that was successfully able to remap
30:57
Speaker 4: the These Mohave Heritage Trail spin a lot of time
31:01
Speaker 4: figuring out because these things take a long time, right years,
31:04
Speaker 4: figure out where the maps are. He thought it was
31:06
Speaker 4: on maps up until the nineteen forties. Couldn't find it,
31:08
Speaker 4: couldn't find it. I had to go all the way
31:09
Speaker 4: back to nineteen twelve to find it and then start
31:12
Speaker 4: to retrace, and then you start finding where it's in.
31:15
Speaker 4: Now there's a freeway. Now there's a solar farm. Now
31:17
Speaker 4: there's wilderness areas, Now there's cities. There's all these things
31:21
Speaker 4: that you now have to deal with. And as I
31:24
Speaker 4: remapped this route, I start talking to BLM about it,
31:27
Speaker 4: and BLM was interested in it. Right, Hey, we can
31:29
Speaker 4: get another compliant route out here. We can get something
31:31
Speaker 4: for people to do. My goals were it's historically significant,
31:37
Speaker 4: it can be another compliant recreational route, long distance route.
31:40
Speaker 4: It's one hundred and twenty five miles now to connecting
31:44
Speaker 4: significant historical points of interest. And it also would the
31:51
Speaker 4: remap would remove fifty three miles of wilderness incursion across
31:56
Speaker 4: these lands. A partner with BLM brought their field scientist
32:00
Speaker 4: because they hadn't been out there because the area is
32:01
Speaker 4: so remote and rugged that they hadn't been out there,
32:05
Speaker 4: and their vehicles are stock and they can't carry extra fuel.
32:09
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so when we did this, and now they
32:14
Speaker 4: have rubicon, so they're very capable, but still stock, and
32:18
Speaker 4: so I brought they ponied up resources for me a geologist, biologist,
32:23
Speaker 4: an archaeologist, and so I had these field scientists on
32:27
Speaker 4: the team, plus the field manager, plus my own guys
32:30
Speaker 4: Chris Collard, Will Corbett, Sean Holman, because I needed expert
32:34
Speaker 4: drivers because we did not know what we were in for,
32:37
Speaker 4: and thankfully we had that. Because it was rugged, we
32:40
Speaker 4: were using a lot of pick and shovels. It took
32:43
Speaker 4: us ten hours to go ten miles and just digging
32:48
Speaker 4: and picking the whole way. And the route itself though
32:53
Speaker 4: when and again my lar balloons, it's a thing. But
32:58
Speaker 4: the route itself is pretty spectacular because you get into
33:03
Speaker 4: this time travel, and what I mean by that is
33:07
Speaker 4: geologically this Earth is four and a half four pointy
33:13
Speaker 4: eight billion years old, somewhere in that range and The
33:15
Speaker 4: oldest exposed rocks on this planet are about four billion
33:18
Speaker 4: years old. They're up in Canada, right right up in
33:22
Speaker 4: the Novus. So anything over a couple billion years old
33:26
Speaker 4: that's exposed is really old. Right this route and one
33:29
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five miles, you get rocks that are
33:33
Speaker 4: four hundred thousand years old all the way to two
33:35
Speaker 4: point eight billion, So you're traveling two point four billion
33:41
Speaker 4: years in time and only one hundred and twenty five
33:43
Speaker 4: miles geologically speaking, So pretty.
33:47
Speaker 3: Cool, very cool. That's really cool, so fun. What do
33:53
Speaker 3: you think is? I have two questions. First one, what's
33:56
Speaker 3: the importance of knowing the history behind these trails? Like?
34:03
Speaker 3: Why is it these trails You're gonna go in your
34:07
Speaker 3: four by four or go camping or over letting along
34:10
Speaker 3: these trails? Why is it important to know the history
34:12
Speaker 3: behind them?
34:14
Speaker 4: Because it's going to change your experience, Right, anybody can
34:17
Speaker 4: drive down a dirt road. If you're just driving down
34:20
Speaker 4: a dirt trail, okay, I'm enjoying nature. If you know
34:24
Speaker 4: the history of it, now you can look at it.
34:27
Speaker 4: What was it like if you were in a buckboard wagon?
34:30
Speaker 4: What was it like if you were on a horseback.
34:33
Speaker 4: What would it be like if you what were they seeing? Right?
34:38
Speaker 4: And when you're looking at the rocks, you're seeing the
34:40
Speaker 4: exact same things. You look at the rocks and the
34:42
Speaker 4: night sky and you're seeing the same stuff, you're feeling
34:45
Speaker 4: the same heat. There's a lot of really cool things.
34:49
Speaker 4: But for me personally, I have this belief that if
34:54
Speaker 4: people understand the history of an area and the routes
34:58
Speaker 4: that they are recreating on or exploring on, then it's
35:04
Speaker 4: going to naturally make them care about it because they're
35:06
Speaker 4: going to have done some research. Right. If you're going
35:08
Speaker 4: to understand the history, you're going to have done some reading,
35:10
Speaker 4: you're going to done some looking things up, and that's
35:13
Speaker 4: going to take some effort, and it's going to make
35:15
Speaker 4: you want to then care about that area, and you're
35:19
Speaker 4: more likely to want to conserve it so it doesn't
35:21
Speaker 4: end up with people dumping trash out the window or
35:23
Speaker 4: throwing a sofa out there. Because the idea is if
35:27
Speaker 4: we can get people to think in those terms when
35:34
Speaker 4: they're out there, if you understand the history and you
35:36
Speaker 4: appreciate the area that you're in, and you take care
35:38
Speaker 4: of the area that you're in, you can start turning
35:41
Speaker 4: that into the majority of the people, and peer pressure
35:45
Speaker 4: is a real phenomenon, and people won't be as likely
35:50
Speaker 4: to disturb it and tear it up, and they're more
35:53
Speaker 4: likely to care for it and conserve it if they
35:56
Speaker 4: understand it and appreciate it. So that's how I think
36:00
Speaker 4: about it, and so far I've had a lot of
36:04
Speaker 4: success with people going. I had no idea that that
36:07
Speaker 4: was out here. I had no idea that this place especially.
36:11
Speaker 4: Just think about this, the slipper of the Mohave Desert.
36:14
Speaker 4: That's between the fifteen Freeway and the forty freeway. So
36:18
Speaker 4: the forty goes from La to Flagstaff, the fifteen goes
36:21
Speaker 4: from La to Vegas, right, So all of that desert
36:25
Speaker 4: around that is the Mohave Desert, but just that high
36:29
Speaker 4: piece between those two. Think of all the millions and
36:32
Speaker 4: millions of people that go by there every year that
36:36
Speaker 4: all they see is a brown wasteland. They have no
36:40
Speaker 4: idea of the history that's out there and the really
36:43
Speaker 4: cool things that are right there and within the reach.
36:47
Speaker 4: And here's something that's really cool. On the last flag
36:50
Speaker 4: expedition that I just did, which was a follow up
36:53
Speaker 4: to the Traction Road, because the traction road expedition was
36:56
Speaker 4: supposed to be eight days. I got told the night
37:01
Speaker 4: before we were so we're camped and we're leaving at
37:04
Speaker 4: five am, and at eight thirty pm the b on
37:07
Speaker 4: and field manager tells me, Hey, there's a looming government
37:10
Speaker 4: shutdown on Monday, and if that happens, we all have
37:14
Speaker 4: to leave your team. So I was going to lose
37:17
Speaker 4: my sanctioning government body. I was going to lose all
37:20
Speaker 4: my field resources. I was going to lose my scientists.
37:23
Speaker 4: I was like criminy. And I was going to lose
37:26
Speaker 4: the stock vehicles that we were trying to make it
37:28
Speaker 4: passable for to make sure they could do it in
37:30
Speaker 4: the future to inject conservation resources into that area. So
37:35
Speaker 4: I had to replan this whole expedition between eight thirty
37:37
Speaker 4: pm and five am to do everything in three days
37:41
Speaker 4: instead of eight. And mind you, I had been planning
37:44
Speaker 4: this expedition four months because when you're doing that, when
37:48
Speaker 4: you're planning an exhibition, it's everybody on the team has
37:50
Speaker 4: a job, right, everybody's got a role to play. It's
37:54
Speaker 4: not necessarily fun. You're there. Fun is in the success,
37:57
Speaker 4: and fun is in the camaraderie, but you're there for
38:00
Speaker 4: a purpose. You have a job on this team, and
38:03
Speaker 4: I had to do for the Explorers Club because I
38:05
Speaker 4: had a flag. I had to do medical plans, blood types,
38:10
Speaker 4: evacuation plans, and venomation plans. Because there's a really nasty
38:14
Speaker 4: little snake out there called the Mojave Green that it's
38:18
Speaker 4: a rattlesnake, which those are hematoxic, cobras are neurotoxical. This
38:23
Speaker 4: one has both and so you get two for one.
38:26
Speaker 4: It's bonus prizes out in the Mohave. And but so
38:31
Speaker 4: we had to hurry, so anything we came across we
38:34
Speaker 4: would have to document it, and then not we couldn't
38:37
Speaker 4: didn't have time to stay and investigate. So on this
38:40
Speaker 4: trip we found three sites of interest. One was a
38:44
Speaker 4: Native American spirit portal, one was an anomalous cave complex,
38:49
Speaker 4: and another was another ground sleeping complex. But none of
38:53
Speaker 4: them were documented at all. There's no record of them.
38:56
Speaker 4: So I labeled those for follow up. And so this
39:00
Speaker 4: expedition that I just did, this flag expedition, was a
39:02
Speaker 4: follow up to go investigate that cave complex up in
39:04
Speaker 4: the side of the mountains. And what we found, interestingly,
39:10
Speaker 4: where we thought, oh, that's for sure going to show habitation.
39:13
Speaker 4: The main complex that I was my target did not
39:16
Speaker 4: show any habitation at all, but on the perimeter of
39:18
Speaker 4: it there was a couple of caves that did have
39:21
Speaker 4: smoke up in them, and a gabi roasting pits and
39:23
Speaker 4: things like that. I'm documenting all of that for BLM
39:27
Speaker 4: and for the Explorest Club and stuff. But what I
39:31
Speaker 4: think I found of interest is these caves looked to
39:34
Speaker 4: have been formed by water, and some of the pictures
39:37
Speaker 4: I took show material being pushed out of them. And
39:40
Speaker 4: then this little guy I got. This is about six
39:42
Speaker 4: hundred feet above the desert floor in the cave, and
39:46
Speaker 4: this is the inside of it. So that is a
39:48
Speaker 4: crinoid fossil. So think from a sea lilly. So this
39:52
Speaker 4: would be like a vertebrae cross section of a stem, right,
39:56
Speaker 4: so like vertebrae stack. It's like that. So you're looking
39:59
Speaker 4: at it on and it would be like a lily
40:03
Speaker 4: flowers like a sea urchin, but somewhere around five hundred
40:07
Speaker 4: million years old. But this is six hundred feet above
40:12
Speaker 4: the desert floor, and this is a sea creature. So
40:16
Speaker 4: this is just more evidence that was all under an ocean.
40:18
Speaker 4: Because I'm a former master diver and rescue diver, and
40:22
Speaker 4: I spend a lot of time in the ocean and
40:23
Speaker 4: people were like, how do you go from the ocean
40:25
Speaker 4: to the desert, And I'm like, the exact same terrain.
40:28
Speaker 4: One just has water on it, the other one just
40:30
Speaker 4: hasn't lost water yet and the But this what's important
40:35
Speaker 4: about this is this rock is fossiliferous limestone. Well you
40:40
Speaker 4: only get limestone with water, and looking at the shape
40:42
Speaker 4: of the caves and looking down you can see the
40:45
Speaker 4: water was coming out of them. So I think, I
40:48
Speaker 4: don't know, So this report's going to have to go
40:49
Speaker 4: to somebody who's now an expert in caving and geology.
40:55
Speaker 4: But I think that mountainous hollow, I think it's a
40:58
Speaker 4: limestone cavern sys them because all the signs are there
41:04
Speaker 4: that it is. And there's only what's significant about that
41:07
Speaker 4: is there's only one other limestone cabrim system in the
41:09
Speaker 4: California State Park System, and that's at Mitchell Cabron's also
41:12
Speaker 4: in the Mohabi Desert. Could be interesting, but these are
41:14
Speaker 4: the things when you stop and you start looking at
41:16
Speaker 4: the details, and you start when you start looking at
41:18
Speaker 4: the project side of what a Overlander could do. You
41:23
Speaker 4: start finding that you could do a lot of good.
41:24
Speaker 4: You can help in it. It's a feel good it
41:27
Speaker 4: really is that you help out, you help an animal.
41:30
Speaker 4: It's desert tortoises. They're cute little guys, right, They're really
41:34
Speaker 4: They're fun because they're faster than you think and when
41:37
Speaker 4: you come across them in a trail, a lot of
41:38
Speaker 4: them will just stand there and they just look at
41:40
Speaker 4: you like, I'm not moving and I'm federally protected and
41:43
Speaker 4: I know it.
41:44
Speaker 2: And special thanks to Overland Explorer Vehicles also known as OEV,
41:50
Speaker 2: or their generous support of this week's podcast. The OEV
41:55
Speaker 2: is one of the most respected camper builders in our industry,
41:58
Speaker 2: using premium four season construction and the highest quality components
42:03
Speaker 2: to manufacture campers capable of traveling around the world. Even
42:07
Speaker 2: The Overland Journal podcast host Ashley Giordano uses one of
42:12
Speaker 2: their trade modeled pop up units on their Tundra for
42:15
Speaker 2: traveling throughout Europe and Northern Africa.
42:18
Speaker 3: It's just hanging with the Rebel Rally and there were
42:21
Speaker 3: specific days where Emily Miller, who's the founder of the event,
42:26
Speaker 3: gave a talk and demonstration. If you come across one
42:32
Speaker 3: of those desert tortoises. What you should do, because it's
42:35
Speaker 3: really important that they are taking care of properly.
42:40
Speaker 4: You shouldn't so number one, I will tell people you
42:42
Speaker 4: shouldn't do anything if the tortoise is safe. If it's
42:47
Speaker 4: not in a safe place, then you pick it up
42:51
Speaker 4: from the side very slowly, from behind it, and you
42:54
Speaker 4: keep it parallel, low to the ground, and you move
42:56
Speaker 4: it very slowly. If it's like heading across the road,
42:59
Speaker 4: then don't make it where it came from because it's
43:01
Speaker 4: just going to go across the road again. Move to
43:02
Speaker 4: the other side where it's going to put in some shade,
43:06
Speaker 4: and be really careful. A lot of people I've heard
43:09
Speaker 4: people say, oh, they'll say it pete on me. No,
43:12
Speaker 4: it's not. That's it holds water. It stores water, and
43:14
Speaker 4: what it's doing is you scare it, and it's dumping
43:16
Speaker 4: its water when it gets scared, and then they dehydrate
43:19
Speaker 4: and die. And desert tortoises they take a really long
43:23
Speaker 4: time to sexually mature, like fifteen years, so they have
43:27
Speaker 4: a high mortality rate when they're young because of ravens
43:30
Speaker 4: and other predators. And their shells are soft, so they're
43:34
Speaker 4: easy to eat. Anything that kills a desert tortoise is
43:39
Speaker 4: really hampering the population growth.
43:43
Speaker 3: So if you're pulling along the road and when in
43:45
Speaker 3: the middle of the road, you're basically like.
43:48
Speaker 4: You wait, I stop and wait the longest. I waited
43:53
Speaker 4: for one for forty five minutes before and just when
43:56
Speaker 4: I was in a hurry. But I was like, you
43:57
Speaker 4: know what, I'm gonna let you your thing. And I
44:00
Speaker 4: sat there, took pictures of him hung out ate lunch.
44:04
Speaker 4: He's still sitting there looking at it. But I've come
44:07
Speaker 4: across them before where one. So there's a lot of
44:10
Speaker 4: there's a lot of rules that people don't know because
44:12
Speaker 4: they don't need to know them. But when you see
44:15
Speaker 4: graded stuff through the desert, right when you see like
44:17
Speaker 4: power line roads that are graded and things they have
44:21
Speaker 4: to buy a law they have to grade those with
44:24
Speaker 4: a certain angle on the edges so that desert tortoises
44:27
Speaker 4: won't fall and roll. So it has to be a
44:29
Speaker 4: climbable grade for a desert tortoise. And we came across
44:34
Speaker 4: one last year. I was out and it was bladed
44:39
Speaker 4: straight up and down, no angle to it. The desert
44:41
Speaker 4: tortoise had come down and it was on its feet,
44:44
Speaker 4: but it had come down on a rock and so
44:46
Speaker 4: it was high centered on the rock, so its feet
44:49
Speaker 4: weren't on the ground, and so it was just sitting
44:50
Speaker 4: there struggling. So I moved it and then I documented
44:54
Speaker 4: that road and I drove the full length of it,
44:57
Speaker 4: and it was bladed that way the whole way, and
44:59
Speaker 4: I drove. My first phone call when I got a
45:02
Speaker 4: signal was to the BLM field manager to say, this road,
45:06
Speaker 4: they bladed it with a vertical angle, and I already
45:09
Speaker 4: rescued one desert tortoise off of it, and you guys
45:11
Speaker 4: need to get them back out here, and they do.
45:13
Speaker 4: They follow up on that pretty aggressively.
45:17
Speaker 3: That's great. That's great. Yeah, those are really interesting things
45:21
Speaker 3: because some people are coming into the Mohaba, they haven't
45:24
Speaker 3: been there before, but they know it's a great place
45:26
Speaker 3: to go, or those little kind of minutia that you
45:30
Speaker 3: would know because you've been there so many times.
45:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I was in New York and at the
45:36
Speaker 4: Exports Club, people were telling me like, until we talk
45:39
Speaker 4: to you, we didn't even know there was anything in
45:41
Speaker 4: the Mohave desert worth conserving. And I'm like, that's understanding
45:46
Speaker 4: the history understanding what's out there, and it's a communication thing, right,
45:49
Speaker 4: because it's really sexy and you'll know this based on
45:52
Speaker 4: what you've done. It's sexier to say I want to
45:55
Speaker 4: go to Africa. Okay, it's sexier to go he go
46:00
Speaker 4: to Australia versus day I'm gonna go out in the
46:02
Speaker 4: Mohabi Desert. The Mohambe Desert is the size of the country. Right,
46:07
Speaker 4: you want to say you overlanded a desert, it's the
46:09
Speaker 4: size of the country of Jordan. If you want to
46:11
Speaker 4: do the East Mohave hairt Trail in one go, like
46:14
Speaker 4: I did it when I remapped it, that's seven hundred
46:16
Speaker 4: and thirty three really rugged miles. I welded my truck
46:20
Speaker 4: back together on that route twice. Survivability is a thing.
46:25
Speaker 4: It's not necessarily technical, but it's very rugged, very remote,
46:29
Speaker 4: and you need to be able to repair, recover and survive.
46:33
Speaker 4: It need be because people die out there on that note.
46:40
Speaker 3: What do you what advice do you have for overland
46:49
Speaker 3: travelers that are they want to take their first steps,
46:53
Speaker 3: They want to do more of this stuff, like they
46:56
Speaker 3: want to look into things or help or participate in efforts.
47:02
Speaker 4: Their first steps as far as being an overlander, are
47:04
Speaker 4: their first steps as far as doing a project.
47:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess. I'm sure there are very different levels
47:11
Speaker 3: in terms of wanting to contribute to a conservation effort
47:15
Speaker 3: or learning about the history of a place. Because I
47:17
Speaker 3: think the basic overland skills are pretty well documented. But
47:21
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say that it's easy to know how to
47:24
Speaker 3: get involved in certain conservation efforts as an overlander. Like
47:28
Speaker 3: how the two kind of meshed together.
47:30
Speaker 4: I would say, first off, most let's be careful with
47:34
Speaker 4: the term overlanding, right because a lot of people say it.
47:38
Speaker 4: I don't use the term off roading. I use the
47:40
Speaker 4: term backcountry exploration. A lot of overlanding is done on payment,
47:44
Speaker 4: it never leaves pavement. A lot of it is done
47:46
Speaker 4: on fire roads. So a lot of the stuff that
47:48
Speaker 4: I do is if you're going to remap a historic route,
47:51
Speaker 4: it's a historic route for a reason. It's remote and
47:54
Speaker 4: it's right, it's not a fire roade. But people that
48:01
Speaker 4: in general, the overland community, they have the equipment, they
48:04
Speaker 4: have the skills, they have the vehicles, they have the knowledge,
48:09
Speaker 4: most of them to one degree or another, of how
48:12
Speaker 4: to operate and behave responsibly in the back country. Most
48:17
Speaker 4: of the people in this community are not knuckleheads. Some are,
48:20
Speaker 4: but not most or not. That's why when you and
48:23
Speaker 4: I were talking before, I was like, most Overlanders are
48:26
Speaker 4: conservationists at heart. They're out there to enjoy nature, not
48:29
Speaker 4: to destroy it using what they already have. Then it's
48:34
Speaker 4: a matter of you got a cell phone, you got
48:36
Speaker 4: the internet, call your local BLM office, call your local
48:40
Speaker 4: national park. A lot of Overlanders are solo travelers. Contacting
48:44
Speaker 4: those federal land management groups is a great way to Hey,
48:48
Speaker 4: I'm going to be in this area. Is there something
48:50
Speaker 4: you want me to look for. Is 're something you
48:52
Speaker 4: want me to do? Or just what we were talking
48:55
Speaker 4: about with the mil or balloons, pick them up, document
48:57
Speaker 4: where they are, and then contact the federal land manager. Hey,
49:00
Speaker 4: I just want to let you know. I'm going to
49:01
Speaker 4: send you an email that I was out in this
49:04
Speaker 4: area and I picked up these balloons at these coordinates.
49:08
Speaker 4: And then you start a relationship with them, You start
49:10
Speaker 4: a dialogue that they can trust you. The reason that
49:13
Speaker 4: there's rigid permitting requirements and stuff for groups and events
49:16
Speaker 4: is because they don't trust everybody, right, They're not sure
49:18
Speaker 4: why you're there. You ever heard the phrase here's your
49:21
Speaker 4: public lands keep out That happens in a lot of
49:24
Speaker 4: places because they get sick of dealing with people that
49:26
Speaker 4: are just out there tearing it up. I literally had
49:29
Speaker 4: the conversation with one of the federal land managers. They're like,
49:33
Speaker 4: we've got people that are utilizing trails, mostly motorcycles that
49:39
Speaker 4: are not compliant. They're going into wilderness areas. How do
49:41
Speaker 4: we stop them? And I was like, well, you need
49:43
Speaker 4: to put up put like a natural rock barrier or
49:45
Speaker 4: something there that naturally keeps them on the right round.
49:47
Speaker 4: We were thinking about stringing a cable and I was like,
49:53
Speaker 4: you want to string a cable across a trail the
49:55
Speaker 4: motorcycles are using? Can we talk about what could go wrong?
50:01
Speaker 4: But most people that I've run into out there don't
50:05
Speaker 4: know they're in the wrong spot, because again they don't
50:08
Speaker 4: they do that if we don't tell you it's open,
50:10
Speaker 4: you have to assume it's closed. And most of the
50:14
Speaker 4: people I have run into did not know they were
50:17
Speaker 4: doing something wrong. And it's just a polite conversation that hey,
50:21
Speaker 4: just so you know the routes over there. But I
50:26
Speaker 4: think Overlanders have this untapped skill set and this untapped
50:31
Speaker 4: desire to be out in the wilds in the first place,
50:34
Speaker 4: that if they just they got together, just collectively and
50:39
Speaker 4: started doing this, getting involved, looking for what are the
50:43
Speaker 4: nonprofit groups in the areas that are that are chartered
50:47
Speaker 4: with protecting those areas. What are some even like I said,
50:50
Speaker 4: most Overlanders aren't traveling in groups, but there's a lot
50:54
Speaker 4: of I'm going to use the term because it's going
50:57
Speaker 4: to be descriptive of them off road groups, jeep groups,
51:00
Speaker 4: four ward drive groups that are out there to explore
51:04
Speaker 4: and do trips. Okay, so throughout they're going to do
51:07
Speaker 4: a trip. What's wrong with joining the trip and then
51:08
Speaker 4: bringing up, hey, could we do some cleanup while we're
51:10
Speaker 4: out here? Contacting a national park and saying, hey, do
51:14
Speaker 4: you have an area that needs to be cleaned up?
51:15
Speaker 4: We have a group that's interested in getting together and
51:18
Speaker 4: going out there and helping you. There's lots of ways
51:20
Speaker 4: you can do it. I started doing when I was
51:22
Speaker 4: the president of the nonprofit. We would have an event
51:25
Speaker 4: and we would do educational field trips, field runs. And
51:28
Speaker 4: I contacted Dave Druck who owns Trash Route, and said, hey, Dave,
51:31
Speaker 4: will you give me I've got eight trail runs going
51:33
Speaker 4: out there, Will you give me eight trash roots and
51:35
Speaker 4: the person who picks up the most trash we give
51:37
Speaker 4: them a trash root as a reward. Is yeah, sure, absolutely,
51:41
Speaker 4: that'd be great. And doing stuff like that, people are
51:44
Speaker 4: out there having fun, they're and join nature and they're
51:47
Speaker 4: trying to get a prize and at the same time
51:49
Speaker 4: they're cleaning up a trail. My guys will do trail
51:52
Speaker 4: repair work also, right, we were authorized to do pick
51:55
Speaker 4: and shovel work. If it involves heavy equipment. We're writing
51:58
Speaker 4: a report and submitting that because I go to environmental
52:01
Speaker 4: compliance and all that. But we're authorized to do minor
52:04
Speaker 4: stuff to keep people safe and keep people from widening
52:08
Speaker 4: the trail, because that's the other thing that they'll do. Right,
52:10
Speaker 4: a Joshua tree down across the trail, people will go
52:12
Speaker 4: around it instead of pulling the tree back, and so
52:16
Speaker 4: they start widening the trail, and that's not a good
52:19
Speaker 4: thing either. Instead, it could just take you fifteen minutes
52:21
Speaker 4: to move the tree to the side and then continue
52:25
Speaker 4: on your way and the next person would stay on
52:26
Speaker 4: the trail. So there's a lot of things overlanders can do.
52:31
Speaker 4: But I would say if somebody wants to get more
52:33
Speaker 4: serious into the project world. It's a slippery slope because
52:36
Speaker 4: it starts small and then it gets big. You start
52:39
Speaker 4: wanting to do more, and.
52:41
Speaker 5: Pretty soon you're in the Explorers Club and the RGS.
52:47
Speaker 5: It's a very slippery slope, but you can make it
52:52
Speaker 5: as smaller as big as you want. Me I saw
52:55
Speaker 5: something that interested me, saw something that caught my eye,
52:58
Speaker 5: and then a buddy posted a picture, and that's how
53:00
Speaker 5: it all started for me. And then I just started thinking, Hey,
53:04
Speaker 5: there's a whole bunch of wins here. And that was
53:05
Speaker 5: how I got the government relationships. Was I found what
53:09
Speaker 5: the win was for everybody involved, and there was no
53:11
Speaker 5: downside to anybody saying no to me, right it was
53:15
Speaker 5: they're all going to benefit. So it took away the
53:18
Speaker 5: know and they all supported it.
53:20
Speaker 3: We chatted before for another article that will show up
53:24
Speaker 3: in overland journals soon and the project it's really cool
53:29
Speaker 3: because it's like you're saying, encompassing. The outcomes of it
53:34
Speaker 3: were so well rounded for so many people, and I
53:37
Speaker 3: think that was one of the things that I thought
53:39
Speaker 3: was just really incredible about that project.
53:42
Speaker 4: It hits in ways that are obvious and then it
53:44
Speaker 4: hits in others that are not right so obvious compliance, preservation, conservation,
53:50
Speaker 4: but then you start getting into the nuts obvious. Now
53:53
Speaker 4: you have an opportunity for historical education, you have an
53:56
Speaker 4: opportunity for practical experience. You have an opportunity to do
54:01
Speaker 4: additional scientific field work, which is what I just did
54:04
Speaker 4: with this follow up one right was geology into the
54:06
Speaker 4: caves versus the original one was the geographic expedition to remap.
54:11
Speaker 4: You get there's you can. Really it's almost like tentacles
54:15
Speaker 4: on these things that when you look at a project,
54:17
Speaker 4: you can almost do this and go, Okay, here's my
54:18
Speaker 4: main project, and then you start looking at everything else
54:20
Speaker 4: that starts coming off of it, and it can go
54:24
Speaker 4: as far as you're willing to take it. I have
54:26
Speaker 4: been working what was an idea for me in twenty sixteen,
54:30
Speaker 4: the East Mohabbe Heritage Trail. I'm still doing it, and
54:35
Speaker 4: here it is eight years later. I'm still doing I
54:38
Speaker 4: got a grant from the State of California and a
54:40
Speaker 4: grant from General Tire to sign that route because there
54:43
Speaker 4: was no proper signage, so seven hundred and thirty three
54:46
Speaker 4: miles and four hundred miles of that as bordering wilderness land.
54:50
Speaker 4: So we I designed a logo, I designed the signs,
54:54
Speaker 4: got the Carsonites all approved by BLM, worked with them,
54:57
Speaker 4: and we just had some of them, more famous overlanders
55:02
Speaker 4: in the world do the route. And they were like,
55:04
Speaker 4: this is the best signed route I've ever seen in
55:07
Speaker 4: my life because they're cool, they're nice to look at. Right,
55:10
Speaker 4: it's got a cool logo, it's got the general tire
55:12
Speaker 4: logo because they paid for it. And we did reflective
55:16
Speaker 4: decals so people can see them at night. The segment
55:18
Speaker 4: decals are color coded so you know what segment you're in.
55:21
Speaker 4: It's color coded to the books for the guide books.
55:24
Speaker 4: And what I did not do. I'm not a fan
55:28
Speaker 4: of what they call confidence markers. Right. Oh, we're going
55:33
Speaker 4: to let you know you're still on the right route
55:35
Speaker 4: even though you've been on a straight trail with no
55:37
Speaker 4: diversions for twenty miles. There's no way to get lost
55:39
Speaker 4: and there's no way to turn. Every mile you will
55:41
Speaker 4: see a marker because they want you to feel good
55:43
Speaker 4: that you're on the same route right now. People need
55:46
Speaker 4: a skill. That skill is navigation. They need to know
55:49
Speaker 4: how to navigate. You know, this navigation is important. I've
55:54
Speaker 4: watched you grow in that skill and the So what
56:01
Speaker 4: I do as I only put markers where they have
56:03
Speaker 4: a decision to make. I don't give people a confidence
56:06
Speaker 4: marker if that route. If you have a marker and
56:09
Speaker 4: then you don't see another marker for ten miles, it's
56:12
Speaker 4: because you didn't have a choice. You should not have
56:15
Speaker 4: gotten lost, and if you got lost at that point,
56:17
Speaker 4: you shouldn't be out there. And that's how I do it.
56:20
Speaker 4: I don't want it to look like a freeway. I
56:22
Speaker 4: want people to keep that natural experience. But I also
56:25
Speaker 4: a big purpose for doing it is to keep people
56:27
Speaker 4: out of the non compliant areas, the sensitive wilderness habitat areas,
56:32
Speaker 4: and so I have to put a sign there and
56:34
Speaker 4: that's that's how I do it.
56:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait to do both trails one day.
56:40
Speaker 3: I really want to. I think it would be.
56:44
Speaker 4: I'm saying nothing. Yeah there. Honestly, what I recommend to
56:53
Speaker 4: people for the Mohave Desert, specifically, if you're new and
56:57
Speaker 4: you're afraid, is the bad Workcause every red said I'm
56:58
Speaker 4: not afraid. But if you're new and you have some
57:03
Speaker 4: trepidation about getting into that environment, because the Mohabi Desert
57:06
Speaker 4: is consistently listed is one of the top ten most
57:08
Speaker 4: hostile environments on the planet. Death Valley is part of Mohabi,
57:12
Speaker 4: and what I tell people to do is cut your
57:14
Speaker 4: teeth on the Mohabi Road, right. It's not technical. It's
57:19
Speaker 4: east to west. It's pretty much a straight line. It's
57:21
Speaker 4: really hard to get lost, and it's well trafficked enough
57:25
Speaker 4: that if something happens to you, somebody's coming by within
57:27
Speaker 4: a day or two. The East Mohabi Heritage Trail, on
57:31
Speaker 4: the other hand, gets you into areas. It's seven hundred
57:34
Speaker 4: and thirty three miles. It's a loop trail. It goes
57:36
Speaker 4: all over and it gets into every type of terrain
57:40
Speaker 4: there is in the Mohabi Desert and it can break
57:43
Speaker 4: you off it. I also would not call it very technical.
57:46
Speaker 4: It has some technical sections, but not rock crawling technical.
57:51
Speaker 4: But you need to be able to navigate, you need
57:54
Speaker 4: to know how to survive, and you need to know
57:56
Speaker 4: how to repair and recover your vehicle because you can
57:59
Speaker 4: get into some stuff that help is not coming for
58:02
Speaker 4: eight months ten months. That's where skill sets matter, and
58:07
Speaker 4: there are ways for people to get out there into
58:09
Speaker 4: that environment and build those skill sets and build their
58:12
Speaker 4: comfort level and be able to go Okay, I can
58:14
Speaker 4: tackle this thing. The other thing they can do is
58:18
Speaker 4: because of the way the Mohambe Desert is laid out.
58:20
Speaker 4: You've got major population centers around it. You've got Las Vegas,
58:24
Speaker 4: you've got the Inland Empire, you've got Barstow, you've got
58:28
Speaker 4: Lake Havasu. So you've got major population centers around it,
58:32
Speaker 4: and you've got major freeways that run through it the
58:34
Speaker 4: fifteen to forty. So you can tackle these things in
58:40
Speaker 4: segments and in bits and pieces while you build up
58:43
Speaker 4: your confidence level and skill level before you head off
58:46
Speaker 4: into the really remote areas. I think people this community
58:52
Speaker 4: specifically and Overland Journal tends to attract the more serious
58:56
Speaker 4: because it is it's a very high end publication. Sky
59:00
Speaker 4: and Jonathan and Chris and everybody, Tina, Stephanie, everybody has
59:05
Speaker 4: done a great job with consistently putting out a very
59:09
Speaker 4: high quality, high end product that is appealing to a
59:13
Speaker 4: more serious that country explorer and overlander. The folks that
59:17
Speaker 4: are going to be hearing this, I would say, you
59:21
Speaker 4: have the skill sets, you have the discernment to figure
59:24
Speaker 4: out what kind of project you can do first, what
59:27
Speaker 4: kind of project you may want to do, and reach
59:31
Speaker 4: out to the federal land managers and make a pitch
59:34
Speaker 4: and just ask them where they can help. And if
59:35
Speaker 4: you don't want to call them, or you don't know
59:37
Speaker 4: who to call, you can call me. And it doesn't
59:39
Speaker 4: have to be the Hombie desert, right. It could be Hey,
59:41
Speaker 4: I've got an idea for something in Connecticut. Okay, let's
59:45
Speaker 4: talk about it, and I can help you figure out
59:47
Speaker 4: who to talk to make that project happen. Because part
59:51
Speaker 4: of this one of the reasons that I'm I spend
59:53
Speaker 4: a lot of time on the phone and on messenger
59:56
Speaker 4: with people giving them advice because they're doing what I
1:00:02
Speaker 4: did years and years ago with Chris Collar, right, and
1:00:05
Speaker 4: so Chris did that for me. I am absolutely going
1:00:09
Speaker 4: to do that for whoever asks, because that's what this
1:00:13
Speaker 4: is all about. And I just did the Expedition Flag
1:00:19
Speaker 4: expedition for the two little girls that have an interest
1:00:22
Speaker 4: in history and archaeology, and so I was like, you
1:00:25
Speaker 4: know what, We're going to take their little spark and
1:00:27
Speaker 4: we're going to ignite that in a big way and
1:00:30
Speaker 4: maybe they will do something with it. Maybe they won't
1:00:32
Speaker 4: but at a minimum, they're going to have a really
1:00:34
Speaker 4: cool memory. Absolutely hopefully they do. And that's what this
1:00:39
Speaker 4: community is all about, is helping and assisting and passing
1:00:45
Speaker 4: on the knowledge that you have to help people build
1:00:49
Speaker 4: their own skill sets and get out there and do
1:00:51
Speaker 4: some good.
1:00:53
Speaker 3: Absolutely, very grateful for everything that you've shared and done.
1:00:59
Speaker 3: And yeah, you've been a busy. Guy asked you earlier
1:01:04
Speaker 3: when you sleep, and you said that you don't. And
1:01:07
Speaker 3: I can see that you're always like onto the next thing.
1:01:10
Speaker 3: What keeps that energy going for you? What underlies all.
1:01:14
Speaker 4: Of that eternity is long, I'll sleep when I'm dead.
1:01:18
Speaker 4: I had this conversation right because I don't sleep a
1:01:21
Speaker 4: lot that my job mandates I deal with all the
1:01:24
Speaker 4: time zones so I can work crazy hours. And then
1:01:28
Speaker 4: running the nonprofit was thirty hours a week on top
1:01:32
Speaker 4: of my job, plus than my own expedition work, plus
1:01:35
Speaker 4: their own families work. And I said this to somebody
1:01:37
Speaker 4: the time. I actually did the math. Somebody if we
1:01:40
Speaker 4: were born at exactly the same time and died it
1:01:42
Speaker 4: exactly the same time, and they did the prescribed nine
1:01:45
Speaker 4: hours a night of sleep versus what I get when
1:01:48
Speaker 4: we both die. I will have actually been conscious and
1:01:51
Speaker 4: lived almost twenty years more than they have what.
1:01:56
Speaker 3: I need by nine hours.
1:01:58
Speaker 4: Still, you know, Okay, so you're but you were a
1:02:02
Speaker 4: lot happier, you're well rested. But that's just how that's
1:02:08
Speaker 4: what works for me. And I'm the type that once
1:02:11
Speaker 4: I latch onto an idea, my brain starts going and
1:02:14
Speaker 4: I can't shut it off. So then I'm up and
1:02:15
Speaker 4: writing or working or doing whatever I've had a lot
1:02:19
Speaker 4: of in the middle of the night, trying to figure
1:02:21
Speaker 4: out how to make a remap work, and then wake
1:02:23
Speaker 4: up at two o'clock in the morning going that's it,
1:02:26
Speaker 4: and get up and pull out the maps and start
1:02:27
Speaker 4: drawing lines and go, I got it, and then go
1:02:29
Speaker 4: back to bed two hours later. Yeah, it's just it's
1:02:33
Speaker 4: what works for me.
1:02:34
Speaker 3: And that sense of curiosity as well.
1:02:37
Speaker 4: That's a common trait for anybody. And I will call
1:02:42
Speaker 4: most people are explorers, and people get hung up on
1:02:46
Speaker 4: terms and terminology and all as of the overland. Just
1:02:49
Speaker 4: say what's an overlander and you will get a gajillion answers,
1:02:53
Speaker 4: most of them very heated and almost all of them
1:02:55
Speaker 4: very wrong. If you're moving overland foot, bicycle, motor cycle, vehicle.
1:03:02
Speaker 4: You're overlanding. That's the very definition of it. You are
1:03:05
Speaker 4: doing something overland. But explorers people, what I try to
1:03:13
Speaker 4: tell them is like, oh, that you're not an explorer.
1:03:15
Speaker 4: You're not at this to other people when I hear
1:03:17
Speaker 4: them saying that to somebody, I look at exploration as
1:03:20
Speaker 4: when you're somewhere for the first time, you're there for
1:03:24
Speaker 4: the very first time, you're seeing it with your eyes,
1:03:28
Speaker 4: with what your life experiences have been, and with what
1:03:30
Speaker 4: your purpose is. That's an exploration for you. And the
1:03:37
Speaker 4: difference between exploration and an expedition is an expedition has
1:03:42
Speaker 4: a specific purpose, a specific goal, It has tasks. Exploration
1:03:46
Speaker 4: you're out there to see what you can find, and
1:03:48
Speaker 4: typically an exploration leads to an expedition, right, oh hey,
1:03:52
Speaker 4: I'm out here, I saw this. I'm want to come
1:03:54
Speaker 4: back and follow up on that specific thing. And to me, everybody,
1:04:02
Speaker 4: especially the overland community, everybody's an explorer because you're out
1:04:06
Speaker 4: there searching for things to see the first time. And
1:04:11
Speaker 4: that's where if you go back over and over again,
1:04:14
Speaker 4: maybe you're not exploring or now you're more adventuring. What
1:04:16
Speaker 4: was clay Croft's saying, adventure is the intentional pursuit of trouble.
1:04:20
Speaker 4: I put it that it's an adventure when something goes wrong,
1:04:23
Speaker 4: and because something always goes sideways and then it's on.
1:04:27
Speaker 4: But this last one, I put a knife through my leg.
1:04:30
Speaker 4: There you go, seven staples. But the terminology that people
1:04:36
Speaker 4: get hung up on it makes people miss the point.
1:04:40
Speaker 4: I don't want to say I'm on an exploration because
1:04:41
Speaker 4: I don't want somebody to go, ooh, you think you're
1:04:44
Speaker 4: an explorer. You're out there exploring an area. When you're
1:04:47
Speaker 4: out there for the first time, you're checking it out,
1:04:48
Speaker 4: and you're seeing, and you're bringing your own perception to it.
1:04:51
Speaker 4: You're bringing your own point of view, and you may
1:04:54
Speaker 4: connect dots that nobody else has. I can tell you
1:04:57
Speaker 4: right now. I did not know this at the time.
1:04:59
Speaker 4: Thenns Case, he who created the East Mohowe Heritage Trail.
1:05:05
Speaker 4: When I remapped it, I had talked to him. He
1:05:09
Speaker 4: never said a word about it. But I found out
1:05:11
Speaker 4: after he died because I have the two notebooks sitting
1:05:14
Speaker 4: right over there on the shelf. He tried to remap
1:05:18
Speaker 4: it twice two thousand and eight and twenty eleven. He
1:05:21
Speaker 4: had people try to do it, and they could not
1:05:23
Speaker 4: put the dots together. They couldn't figure it out. Me
1:05:26
Speaker 4: I look at it with my eyes and my brain
1:05:29
Speaker 4: and able to figure it out. So you never know
1:05:33
Speaker 4: what somebody's going to come up with. Right, they can
1:05:35
Speaker 4: go to a place that a million people have been
1:05:37
Speaker 4: before and see something that nobody has ever considered.
1:05:41
Speaker 3: A lot of people say there's nothing else in quotes,
1:05:45
Speaker 3: there's nothing else to be discovered, or that place has already,
1:05:49
Speaker 3: We've already seen it, We've already been there. There's so
1:05:51
Speaker 3: many people that have passed through there already. So I
1:05:54
Speaker 3: like this idea that and I agree even if you're
1:05:58
Speaker 3: writing an article or you're making a video or et
1:06:03
Speaker 3: cetera like that. The list goes on and on. But
1:06:07
Speaker 3: you could say that article has been written about that
1:06:10
Speaker 3: place already, but they haven't seen it. You haven't written
1:06:13
Speaker 3: the article through your perspective before, you haven't created a
1:06:16
Speaker 3: video through your perspective.
1:06:18
Speaker 4: Like you're saying two things right. One, we're coming back
1:06:22
Speaker 4: to the article thing and the detail thing, the curiosity thing.
1:06:27
Speaker 4: Though I wanted to close out, I wanted to finish
1:06:29
Speaker 4: the thought on that, because curiosity is why we all
1:06:33
Speaker 4: do this. You're curious, you want to see if you said, hey, Ashley,
1:06:37
Speaker 4: you want to get married and sleep on an airpad
1:06:40
Speaker 4: in the back of a cold truck forever, and the
1:06:43
Speaker 4: answer is no. But you're curious enough of what you're
1:06:48
Speaker 4: going to see and what you're going to experience when
1:06:49
Speaker 4: you do that, So you're like, Okay, Richard, yes I
1:06:52
Speaker 4: will do that, and then we're going to get a house.
1:06:56
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know that was always my fight with
1:07:01
Speaker 4: Graham and Louisa, Right, They're like overlanding and I'm like,
1:07:04
Speaker 4: I will stay in my vehicle, but I am not
1:07:06
Speaker 4: living in my vehicle. I am nostalgia, right, I still
1:07:10
Speaker 4: I still have some of my toys from when I
1:07:12
Speaker 4: was a kid because I'm nostalgic and sentimental. But curiosity
1:07:19
Speaker 4: is what drives all explorers. It's what drives scientists, it's
1:07:24
Speaker 4: what drives expedition, it's what drives discovery. And I was
1:07:29
Speaker 4: at an event. I think you and I may have
1:07:31
Speaker 4: talked about this Josh Gates, right, you know him, Expedition
1:07:35
Speaker 4: unknown all that he's an Explorers Club member and this
1:07:40
Speaker 4: little girl and I have four four daughters, so whenever
1:07:44
Speaker 4: there's a girl involved with something, I take particular note
1:07:47
Speaker 4: of it. This little girl, she's probably twelve. She gets
1:07:52
Speaker 4: up in front of this entire theater of people and
1:07:55
Speaker 4: asks him, what gives you the courage to go on
1:08:00
Speaker 4: these adventures around the world. I would be so scared.
1:08:03
Speaker 4: I would never be able to do that. And he said,
1:08:09
Speaker 4: he was very poignant. He said, curiosity. Curiosity gives me
1:08:15
Speaker 4: that courage. I am so curious about what's out there
1:08:18
Speaker 4: that I have to go see it, and that gives
1:08:20
Speaker 4: me the courage to go on these adventures to go
1:08:23
Speaker 4: see them, because I just can't not do it. And
1:08:26
Speaker 4: she sat down, and I wondered, I'm just sitting there
1:08:29
Speaker 4: looking at her more than him, and wondering, does she
1:08:34
Speaker 4: realize that's exactly what she just did. She just displayed
1:08:38
Speaker 4: enough she was so curious about that answer to that
1:08:41
Speaker 4: question that it gave her the courage to stand up
1:08:44
Speaker 4: in front of this entire theater of three thousand people
1:08:48
Speaker 4: and asked that question. And she's already doing it and
1:08:54
Speaker 4: doesn't even realize it. And people do that every day,
1:08:57
Speaker 4: and they don't realize how much courage they have because
1:09:00
Speaker 4: of their innate curiosity. On your perception thing, I wrote
1:09:06
Speaker 4: an article for I think Tina put it on Expedition Portal,
1:09:11
Speaker 4: but it was called did you see That? And essentially,
1:09:14
Speaker 4: we were out in Arizona and it was winter and
1:09:18
Speaker 4: it was snowy, and we're going out this area. We've
1:09:21
Speaker 4: got two vehicles in front of us and US and
1:09:23
Speaker 4: I see this vehicle parked on the side of the
1:09:25
Speaker 4: trail and this is a well traffic go EACHV area
1:09:29
Speaker 4: and the kids were just wanting to go out to
1:09:31
Speaker 4: tow their snowboards behind their jeeps. I see this vehicle.
1:09:34
Speaker 4: It's a two wheel drive Chevy and it's in the snow,
1:09:38
Speaker 4: and I'm looking at it and something wasn't right. So
1:09:41
Speaker 4: we drive off and we're parked about a quarter of
1:09:43
Speaker 4: a mile away and I we're on a rise, so
1:09:45
Speaker 4: I keep just looking at this vehicle. And the more
1:09:48
Speaker 4: I looked at it, the more details were popping out.
1:09:51
Speaker 4: There were no tire tracks, the vehicle had been there
1:09:54
Speaker 4: before it snow. So I looked when it was last
1:09:55
Speaker 4: time in snow Wednesday, This was a Friday. I looked,
1:09:59
Speaker 4: and there's no footprints coming out of that vehicle. And
1:10:03
Speaker 4: so right I started looking at more and more and
1:10:05
Speaker 4: as I'm watching this for a couple of hours, like
1:10:07
Speaker 4: thirty vehicles went within eight feet of that car, and
1:10:10
Speaker 4: nobody even slowed down, nob even stopped. And so I
1:10:13
Speaker 4: called the kids over and said, hey, we need to
1:10:14
Speaker 4: go look at that vehicle and dust. And my now
1:10:17
Speaker 4: son in law goes, why why would we do that?
1:10:20
Speaker 4: And I said, because I think there's a dead guy
1:10:22
Speaker 4: in it, and here's why. And so I laid out
1:10:25
Speaker 4: all the stuff, and of course them, being young and
1:10:28
Speaker 4: I've been in police reports before, the allure is lost
1:10:32
Speaker 4: on me. So they go flying over there, and all
1:10:35
Speaker 4: of a sudden, I hear him screaming, there's that dead
1:10:37
Speaker 4: guy in here and he was frozen to death. And
1:10:40
Speaker 4: the lesson there is pay attention to the details. Right,
1:10:44
Speaker 4: there's people just when you want to do exploration and
1:10:49
Speaker 4: you want to do especially an expedition. But if you're
1:10:52
Speaker 4: doing project work or any of that kind of stuff,
1:10:54
Speaker 4: paying attention to the details really matters a lot. Because
1:11:00
Speaker 4: I've been doing these projects and stuff for so long,
1:11:02
Speaker 4: my eyes just started picking up on things that looked
1:11:05
Speaker 4: not right to me, and my brain connected those dots
1:11:09
Speaker 4: and went, something bad has happened here. And as you
1:11:13
Speaker 4: do this enough, that's how you'll start seeing things You
1:11:16
Speaker 4: start picking up the details and going, oh, that doesn't
1:11:19
Speaker 4: make sense, or that does make sense, you know. And
1:11:23
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the benefits of the overland
1:11:25
Speaker 4: community because at least the more serious ones, you have
1:11:30
Speaker 4: to pay attention to details. On your vehicle, right, any
1:11:33
Speaker 4: little change in the sound of your vehicle, something just changed,
1:11:36
Speaker 4: something's not right. You stop and you find it and
1:11:38
Speaker 4: you fix it. So it's that kind of attention that
1:11:41
Speaker 4: applies to all aspects when you're out in nature, and
1:11:44
Speaker 4: especially if you're going to be doing projects. So it's
1:11:47
Speaker 4: a good skill set that agreed.
1:11:50
Speaker 3: I think it's something that we're losing as well because
1:11:54
Speaker 3: we're distracted, we're on our phone, things are happening quickly.
1:11:58
Speaker 3: We're becoming over stimulated. And the other thing too, is
1:12:02
Speaker 3: that if to take notice of the details no matter
1:12:04
Speaker 3: what you're doing, takes extra time. We're such a time
1:12:08
Speaker 3: sensitive culture. We want everything faster or faster. Things are
1:12:12
Speaker 3: taking too long time as money, but slowing down you
1:12:16
Speaker 3: have to if you're going to notice the details. So
1:12:18
Speaker 3: that's a good it's a good thing to practice for sure.
1:12:21
Speaker 3: For sure.
1:12:22
Speaker 4: It is always use a paper map, always have a compass.
1:12:25
Speaker 4: You just did the rebel, So you understand the value
1:12:28
Speaker 4: of that there.
1:12:29
Speaker 3: I can't take credit for all, but I was there were.
1:12:36
Speaker 4: You were covering the value of being able to navigate
1:12:41
Speaker 4: with paper and compass is really beneficial. Electronics go bad.
1:12:46
Speaker 4: I work in the tech industry. Electronics go bad. I
1:12:49
Speaker 4: have a in my avalanche. I've got not just my iPad,
1:12:53
Speaker 4: but I also have a low RANTS because and I
1:12:57
Speaker 4: put stuff in cards and put it in there as
1:13:00
Speaker 4: a low Rants is shotproof, dustproof, waterproof, because they're made
1:13:02
Speaker 4: for boats, and that's why Baja race trucks use them
1:13:06
Speaker 4: because they're not going to fail. And it's got thirteen
1:13:09
Speaker 4: satellites locked on it, and it updates ten times a second.
1:13:13
Speaker 4: Could threat a minefield with it. But people get too
1:13:17
Speaker 4: reliant on the easy technology and and that can bite
1:13:21
Speaker 4: you in the butt.
1:13:24
Speaker 3: Super important.
1:13:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I force myself to slow down because we
1:13:28
Speaker 4: all get we're all I think. One of the biggest
1:13:33
Speaker 4: I don't know what the right word is vices of
1:13:36
Speaker 4: overlanders is distance. How many miles can I cover? They
1:13:41
Speaker 4: measure a trip and how long was it versus what
1:13:44
Speaker 4: did I see or what did I do? What did
1:13:47
Speaker 4: I feel? It's how far did I go.
1:13:50
Speaker 3: How many countries did I?
1:13:51
Speaker 4: How many? Yeah? And it's and I'm guilty of that
1:13:56
Speaker 4: also because I will be like, hey, if I'm driving
1:13:58
Speaker 4: two hours to get to a place, I want to
1:14:00
Speaker 4: try to see everything in that place because I don't
1:14:02
Speaker 4: know when I'm coming back, And so I become guilty
1:14:06
Speaker 4: of that as well. And one of the things I'm
1:14:08
Speaker 4: doing right now to force myself out of that is
1:14:10
Speaker 4: I'm building out in nineteen ninety six Landover Defender, no
1:14:14
Speaker 4: electronics and right the top speed on it's about sixty.
1:14:18
Speaker 4: That's probably downhill with a tailwind. It's going to force
1:14:21
Speaker 4: me to slow my role and take my time because
1:14:25
Speaker 4: I do have a tendency to my avalanche really with
1:14:29
Speaker 4: the gearing and everything else, really likes about fifty seven
1:14:31
Speaker 4: to sixty miles an hour, but I drive it at
1:14:33
Speaker 4: about seventy two because I want to get there, and
1:14:36
Speaker 4: the Landover is going to force me to say, hey,
1:14:38
Speaker 4: that fourteen hour drive is now two days. Yeah, slow down,
1:14:46
Speaker 4: it doesn't break. It could be a week. It's breaking
1:14:48
Speaker 4: enough in the garage as it is. So my conversations
1:14:51
Speaker 4: with Nigel, it's Nigel named him after a guy to
1:14:56
Speaker 4: keep the two girls in the garage from battling it out.
1:14:59
Speaker 4: That's not working out so well.
1:15:02
Speaker 2: I also wanted to take a brief moment to thank
1:15:05
Speaker 2: all of you for listening to the Ovalan Journal podcast.
1:15:08
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1:16:02
Speaker 4: Overland community can do so much good if they just
1:16:11
Speaker 4: stopped and thought about the skills they bring to the table.
1:16:15
Speaker 4: Because I guarantee you most of the people in this
1:16:18
Speaker 4: community if they sat down and wrote down their skills
1:16:22
Speaker 4: versus sat here and just talked to you about them,
1:16:25
Speaker 4: if they really thought about them, and then you talk
1:16:27
Speaker 4: them through how they actually did something, and you start
1:16:30
Speaker 4: pulling skill sets out of them, the list of what
1:16:32
Speaker 4: they think they have versus what they really have, night
1:16:38
Speaker 4: and day. Different people have way more skill sets than
1:16:41
Speaker 4: they believe than they understand that they do. And then
1:16:44
Speaker 4: once you pull it out of them and they say
1:16:46
Speaker 4: this is how you can apply that, then I think
1:16:49
Speaker 4: this community really could rally around. I don't want to
1:16:56
Speaker 4: say conservation because as too many people in the back
1:17:02
Speaker 4: country exploration communities equate conservation to trail closure because that's
1:17:08
Speaker 4: what they're used to. When I say, routes around conservation
1:17:12
Speaker 4: for the purpose of keeping trails open, right, you want
1:17:16
Speaker 4: to help. So you help keep people on a compliant route,
1:17:20
Speaker 4: You help clean up those routes, You help show the
1:17:22
Speaker 4: federal land managers that the majority of the people can
1:17:25
Speaker 4: help you with your limited budget, and your budgets are
1:17:29
Speaker 4: driven by people using your routes. The routes stay open
1:17:32
Speaker 4: by people using them, because routes that aren't used get closed.
1:17:36
Speaker 4: This community has a tremendous number of people in it
1:17:40
Speaker 4: and a lot of resources. And I don't mean that
1:17:44
Speaker 4: just financially and mentally and physically resources that they can
1:17:48
Speaker 4: bring to the table when it comes to trail conservation,
1:17:51
Speaker 4: land conservation, historical preservation, all of those things. And it
1:17:56
Speaker 4: starts with understanding that they actually can do something. They
1:18:01
Speaker 4: just need to take the first step. A federal land
1:18:04
Speaker 4: manager is not really going to reach out to them, right,
1:18:06
Speaker 4: They're too busy now. But if you reach out to
1:18:10
Speaker 4: the federal landmanager, say hey, I'm going to be out
1:18:13
Speaker 4: in this area. Anything you want me to keep an
1:18:15
Speaker 4: eye out for anything you want? Do you want a
1:18:17
Speaker 4: trail report? Do you want do you want me to
1:18:19
Speaker 4: look at anything for you while I'm there and give
1:18:21
Speaker 4: you a report on it. If it's a good federal
1:18:24
Speaker 4: land manager, they'll say yes. They may require some follow
1:18:27
Speaker 4: up conversation because they want to get to know you
1:18:29
Speaker 4: a little bit. And that's where for mine, I drove
1:18:31
Speaker 4: out to their office and introduced myself and sat down
1:18:33
Speaker 4: with them, let them know how serious this really was,
1:18:36
Speaker 4: that I was going to do this, and would they
1:18:39
Speaker 4: like me to help them when I did it?
1:18:42
Speaker 3: Yeah?
1:18:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, And now now zoom is a really popular thing.
1:18:48
Speaker 4: So this makes it a lot easier for people. Right,
1:18:50
Speaker 4: So zoom or teams or meets or whatever. That's where
1:18:54
Speaker 4: I think Overland journal worse. Scott has brought a lot
1:18:57
Speaker 4: of people to the table. Clay and Shelley brought a
1:19:00
Speaker 4: lot of people to the table. Clay is an amazing cinematographer, right,
1:19:05
Speaker 4: and his skills have really translated to inspiring people to
1:19:08
Speaker 4: get into the community. They don't understand that a lot
1:19:12
Speaker 4: of the stuff he's using is because he's driving camera trucks, right,
1:19:15
Speaker 4: He's got to have positive air pressure and all that.
1:19:17
Speaker 4: But they have brought and recruited a lot of people
1:19:22
Speaker 4: into this and now this community has the ability to say, okay,
1:19:27
Speaker 4: it can rally itself and do a lot of good
1:19:31
Speaker 4: because it's global and everywhere on the planet can use
1:19:35
Speaker 4: some help.
1:19:36
Speaker 3: For sure. Yeah, we were just in Bosnia and I
1:19:41
Speaker 3: think a few months ago. I don't really know time,
1:19:43
Speaker 3: what is it, but yeah, we spent a lot of
1:19:46
Speaker 3: time picking up garbage in beautiful camp spots, picking up
1:19:51
Speaker 3: a lot of cigarette But that's what we do. And
1:19:54
Speaker 3: I know that statistically, they studies have been done the
1:19:58
Speaker 3: show that if you roll up to a clean camp site,
1:20:02
Speaker 3: you're more likely to leave it clean. So just continuing
1:20:05
Speaker 3: that is good, and I appreciate the tips that you've given.
1:20:09
Speaker 3: I think that's going to give people, if they're interested
1:20:11
Speaker 3: in some of the stuff we've talked about, some great
1:20:14
Speaker 3: first steps for me as well. So yeah, that's those
1:20:18
Speaker 3: are such great tools for overlanders use wherever they are
1:20:23
Speaker 3: in the world, So I think, yeah, people are going
1:20:26
Speaker 3: to have a good start there.
1:20:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wish. Unfortunately, it's the twenty twenties and everybody
1:20:35
Speaker 4: has trademarked what used to be practices. So you've got
1:20:40
Speaker 4: tread lightly, leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out.
1:20:42
Speaker 4: You got all these things that used to just be
1:20:45
Speaker 4: descriptions for how you behaved, not the name of some
1:20:49
Speaker 4: that I think has been lost. Right when you go
1:20:52
Speaker 4: back and you read books from the nineteen seventies, guide
1:20:55
Speaker 4: books and things like that, Literally the words are in
1:20:57
Speaker 4: there tread lightly, leave no trade, pack it out right,
1:21:02
Speaker 4: because it was a behavior expectation, not an ideology or
1:21:07
Speaker 4: a trademark. And so I think that has been lost
1:21:10
Speaker 4: a little bit because right as soon as you say
1:21:12
Speaker 4: leave no trace, people think of an organization tread lightly,
1:21:16
Speaker 4: think it an organization versus the practice of doing it,
1:21:21
Speaker 4: and that's something that I think this community could be
1:21:25
Speaker 4: better at understanding and getting back to its roots of
1:21:29
Speaker 4: why you're there in the first place, Why do you
1:21:30
Speaker 4: want to go out there in the first place, and
1:21:33
Speaker 4: then treat it that way.
1:21:35
Speaker 3: That's a really good question to ask yourself. Yeah, why
1:21:39
Speaker 3: do you want to go out there in the first place?
1:21:41
Speaker 4: Yep? And then go just go? That was my thing.
1:21:45
Speaker 4: Chris's words, right were quit wasting time and go just go,
1:21:52
Speaker 4: and I was like, okay, and so I went and
1:21:58
Speaker 4: been going.
1:21:58
Speaker 3: Ever since and love Now we're here.
1:22:03
Speaker 4: Now we're here, Now we're now, We're we're here, and
1:22:06
Speaker 4: it was really cool. I was talking to Michelle earlier
1:22:08
Speaker 4: today about the podcast for tonight and I was like,
1:22:12
Speaker 4: it's just kind of full circle with Chris, and this
1:22:14
Speaker 4: is full circle with oj is me diving into this
1:22:18
Speaker 4: level started with picking up that Overland Journal issue at
1:22:22
Speaker 4: a Barnes and Noble and going, what is this here?
1:22:27
Speaker 4: We are being somebody that Overland Journal actually wants to
1:22:31
Speaker 4: talk to and listen to my opinion on something is
1:22:35
Speaker 4: actually pretty special for me To say that this whole
1:22:40
Speaker 4: journey has been meaningful because you hear this stuff all
1:22:45
Speaker 4: the time. It's not that it's not the destination, it's
1:22:48
Speaker 4: the journey. It's really yeah, okay to a point, I
1:22:53
Speaker 4: would say journey more than the destination. Unless it's an expedition,
1:22:56
Speaker 4: then your destination is the goal. But it's the people
1:23:00
Speaker 4: that you meet and the relationships that you form, and
1:23:03
Speaker 4: the friendships that you build, and the bonds that get
1:23:07
Speaker 4: just becomes so strong given some of the circumstances that
1:23:11
Speaker 4: you find yourselves in. It's amazing and I wouldn't trade
1:23:14
Speaker 4: the relationships that I've built through this community for anything.
1:23:18
Speaker 4: So I ag I've got my best friends, people that
1:23:22
Speaker 4: I could call for anything on a moment's notice. So
1:23:25
Speaker 4: that the traction road, the second expedition, the Cave one
1:23:30
Speaker 4: that came off with like literally five days notice, because
1:23:34
Speaker 4: it just came out of the blue of the opportunity
1:23:35
Speaker 4: in the Explorers Club, I applied for a flag and
1:23:37
Speaker 4: they literally got it to me within five days. The
1:23:39
Speaker 4: normal process is at least two months, and they took
1:23:43
Speaker 4: every day of that two months. The first time, and
1:23:48
Speaker 4: the guys on my team from the year before when
1:23:50
Speaker 4: I sent out that hey, I'm getting down there, and
1:23:53
Speaker 4: to do this and they're like, Okay, when are we meeting.
1:23:55
Speaker 4: I'm like, we're not. I'm already on my way. They're like,
1:23:58
Speaker 4: what do you mean we want to come? You should
1:24:01
Speaker 4: have just just call this right now. It's those kind
1:24:04
Speaker 4: of friendships and those kinds of relationships you can't replace,
1:24:08
Speaker 4: and this community because you do have that self reliance,
1:24:11
Speaker 4: you do get into adverse situations fortunately and unfortunately, and
1:24:17
Speaker 4: your skill sets are constantly on display for everybody around you,
1:24:22
Speaker 4: and you're either in this world. You're either learning from
1:24:26
Speaker 4: somebody or you are teaching somebody. You're never stagnant ever,
1:24:32
Speaker 4: And I don't know. For me, it's special that you
1:24:35
Speaker 4: asked me to do this particular podcast. I've done a
1:24:37
Speaker 4: bunch of other podcasts and stuff, but OJ was always
1:24:40
Speaker 4: the full circle one for me.
1:24:42
Speaker 3: Ah, I'm so glad to hear that, And thank you
1:24:45
Speaker 3: so much for coming on and speaking and talking about
1:24:49
Speaker 3: Explorers Club and your history. And I think the projects
1:24:52
Speaker 3: you're doing are so fascinating and really important and making
1:24:59
Speaker 3: or will drive youvehicles as a tool for conservation essentially
1:25:04
Speaker 3: and discovery. Yeah, because it's pretty special. Yeah, try to change.
1:25:12
Speaker 4: Before world drive vehicle is tearing up the landscape rather
1:25:15
Speaker 4: than the opportunity to actually get out there and protect it.
1:25:18
Speaker 3: That's why I love this story so much, because I
1:25:21
Speaker 3: hike a lot, and you there is the narrative out
1:25:27
Speaker 3: there that these vehicles are associated with harm and in
1:25:32
Speaker 3: all different ways. Yeah, that's another reason why this story's
1:25:35
Speaker 3: been so fascinating.
1:25:36
Speaker 4: So it's it's educating. And I know we had a
1:25:40
Speaker 4: conversation with somebody who's very anti vehicle about tire size, like, oh,
1:25:46
Speaker 4: you're gigantic tires, and I'm like, the bigger tire, the
1:25:49
Speaker 4: wider tire, we reduce air pressure and it actually does
1:25:52
Speaker 4: less damage than a skinny tire because it spreads the
1:25:55
Speaker 4: weight of the vehicle out over a broader footprint, so
1:25:58
Speaker 4: it impacts of soil. So as you start talking and
1:26:00
Speaker 4: they start going, oh, I didn't know that, Oh, but yeah,
1:26:03
Speaker 4: and we reduce the air pressure so we don't spend
1:26:05
Speaker 4: the tires so we don't dig up the soil. And
1:26:07
Speaker 4: so as you start educating people on this stuff, but
1:26:09
Speaker 4: you use the transfer case to use the mechanical advantage
1:26:12
Speaker 4: so you're not on the throttle as much. And as
1:26:15
Speaker 4: you start talking to people that don't understand or even
1:26:19
Speaker 4: if they have an adversarial viewpoint of it, they start
1:26:23
Speaker 4: understanding that, oh, maybe these really aren' as bad as Okay,
1:26:26
Speaker 4: how do you expect to get conservation resources out here?
1:26:32
Speaker 4: If not by vehicle? Our vehicles can go out here
1:26:35
Speaker 4: because they are we have a permit with fish and
1:26:37
Speaker 4: wildlife or whoever. And okay, what does your vehicle look like?
1:26:41
Speaker 4: It's a stock vehicle with they start describing like, okay,
1:26:44
Speaker 4: so you have seven and a half inch wide tires,
1:26:46
Speaker 4: you're digging into the soil, I'm floating on top of
1:26:49
Speaker 4: the soil, right. So you start doing the comparisons and
1:26:52
Speaker 4: they start instantly I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
1:26:56
Speaker 4: And it's an education process and so importation, and the
1:27:01
Speaker 4: more good behavior that they see, the more likely they
1:27:06
Speaker 4: are to internalize those viewpoints and that education versus you
1:27:12
Speaker 4: talk to them about it. And then the next thing
1:27:13
Speaker 4: they see is somebody ripping and tearing up an area
1:27:16
Speaker 4: that they're not supposed to be in, or they see
1:27:18
Speaker 4: a vehicle commercial that's ripping through sand, dudes and stuff,
1:27:21
Speaker 4: But they don't clearly say, hey, this is an OHV area,
1:27:25
Speaker 4: not a trail. I don't know I think there's a
1:27:28
Speaker 4: lot a long ways to go still. But I'm in
1:27:31
Speaker 4: the exports club and I do expedition work, and I
1:27:34
Speaker 4: get asked to be on other expedition teams, which I am,
1:27:38
Speaker 4: and one of the next ones after I finish up
1:27:40
Speaker 4: the traction road stuff is trying to find a woman
1:27:44
Speaker 4: missing World War two pilot that's in debt. I think
1:27:47
Speaker 4: is in the ocean, and several expedition teams have looked
1:27:52
Speaker 4: for her before and they've all come away empty. I
1:27:55
Speaker 4: got asked to look at it, and I started connecting
1:27:58
Speaker 4: the dots and pulled together other information that they hadn't
1:28:01
Speaker 4: found in ten years, and I went, I think she's
1:28:05
Speaker 4: over here. I don't think she's over there. And they're like,
1:28:07
Speaker 4: how did you come up with that? And so I
1:28:09
Speaker 4: laid up when they're like, we've been on this for
1:28:11
Speaker 4: ten years and we didn't know that you've been on
1:28:13
Speaker 4: it for three weeks. How did you do that? I
1:28:15
Speaker 4: connect dots for a living, so you asked me to
1:28:17
Speaker 4: be on the team. But seriously, when you start looking
1:28:21
Speaker 4: at more than just the surface level, you start getting
1:28:25
Speaker 4: the backstory of things, and other dots start making sense,
1:28:29
Speaker 4: and that's how you have to do it with the
1:28:32
Speaker 4: backcountry Exploration, right, you start connecting dots that are all
1:28:35
Speaker 4: around it and go, here's the actual picture, here's the
1:28:39
Speaker 4: actual history, here's the actual route. And I think I
1:28:43
Speaker 4: can give somebody a really cool experience and at the
1:28:45
Speaker 4: same time do a lot of good for the animals,
1:28:47
Speaker 4: for the land managers, for conservation in general, because now
1:28:52
Speaker 4: BLM can get their vehicles out there, they can now
1:28:54
Speaker 4: get people out into those wilderness areas to investigate them
1:28:57
Speaker 4: and check them.
1:28:58
Speaker 3: Really looking forward to seeing what's next for you and
1:29:03
Speaker 3: following along on these projects, and yeah, it's great. Can
1:29:07
Speaker 3: you tell us where the listeners can find you on
1:29:12
Speaker 3: the internet if.
1:29:13
Speaker 4: They are trying to, you can find me on Instagram.
1:29:17
Speaker 4: It's Fractal Dot Exploration, the first Overland Journal. Senior editor
1:29:21
Speaker 4: Jonathan Hansen, co founder, he coined that phrase. I, with
1:29:26
Speaker 4: his permission, champion that concept, which is breaking things down
1:29:30
Speaker 4: into detailed level and getting more intimate with them so
1:29:33
Speaker 4: that you understand more of it. So Fractal Dot Exploration
1:29:36
Speaker 4: on Instagram, on Facebook's I'm boyd preach and you'll find
1:29:42
Speaker 4: see the guy with the cafe and the tarantela on
1:29:44
Speaker 4: his head and that's me the.
1:29:48
Speaker 3: UH.
1:29:49
Speaker 4: I also run an Esmo Hobby Heritage Trail group on
1:29:52
Speaker 4: Facebook so people can the whole point of sharing information,
1:29:55
Speaker 4: sharing knowledge, and helping people do this safely and responsible.
1:30:00
Speaker 4: I manage that page and people can get a hold
1:30:02
Speaker 4: of me anytime. They can email me. I have an
1:30:06
Speaker 4: old school email address because too many people have it.
1:30:08
Speaker 4: I can't change it and Gmail won't let me merge it,
1:30:11
Speaker 4: but goll create at SBC global dot net. I hate
1:30:14
Speaker 4: that email, but it is what it is, and anybody
1:30:18
Speaker 4: can find me. I'm not hard to find. They can
1:30:20
Speaker 4: call me, they can email me, they can DM me,
1:30:22
Speaker 4: they can text me, they can whatever. I will answer questions.
1:30:25
Speaker 4: I will help people with help them with projects, help
1:30:28
Speaker 4: them with ideas, because that's what this is about. And
1:30:32
Speaker 4: like I said, if Chris hadn't been there for me,
1:30:35
Speaker 4: I don't know what I would be doing. But he
1:30:37
Speaker 4: was there for me, and he helped give me the
1:30:40
Speaker 4: confidence of my choices and that I was on the
1:30:43
Speaker 4: right track and gave me the mental lift to just
1:30:47
Speaker 4: go do it. Just go.
1:30:50
Speaker 3: Thank you so much Billy for coming on the Overland
1:30:53
Speaker 3: Journal podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for listening
1:30:57
Speaker 3: to this episode of the Overland Journal podcast. We hope
1:31:00
Speaker 3: you enjoyed it and we will catch you next time.