Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1213: Long Lost Thru hiking with Tami Asars

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Ep. 1213: Long Lost Thru hiking with Tami Asars · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So exciting, hey, the Growler is about to happen in Gunnison, Colorado, and if you don't know what that is, it's an amazing bike race.
0:33
[SPEAKER_02]: They actually have multiple races for different ages and lengths.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And, anyway, look up the Growler, it's super, super cool.
0:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's what may mean something else that may means to me as I celebrate my own personal holiday.
0:48
[SPEAKER_02]: May 15th is the Gunnison Sage Grouse Liberation Day, or maybe better said my Liberation Day because the gates open up.
0:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The Sage Grouse are no longer lecking, which means that the trails are open the woods are open for all the kind of exploration that we want to do and that's really super exciting.
1:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope exciting things are happening where you are.
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, a couple episodes ago, I announced that I got new stickers and that anybody who wants to have an adventure sports podcast sticker.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: All you have to do is email me at info at adventure sportspodcast.com and give me a mailing address.
1:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna send you stickers.
1:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want a bunch of stickers, maybe you're having an event or something, just let me know how many you need.
1:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, it'll give you a handful and half fun with them.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Pass them out, put them on your water bottles, whatever you like to do with your stickers.
1:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And thank you also to everyone who already sent in requests for stickers.
1:49
[SPEAKER_02]: They're on the way.
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll be there soon.
1:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And actually they're popular.
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people are asking for stickers, so that's fantastic.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have another announcement.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: It turns out that when I went from three episodes a week to two episodes a week, the distance between interviews and publication date for each episode, starting getting too long.
2:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't like that.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it's nice to the guests for them to have to wait for months to hear their episode.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes there's seasonal conflict.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's spring.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: People are talking about what they're going to do that summer and then you hear the episode in the fall when winter's coming on.
2:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It just doesn't make any sense.
2:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So the announcement is this, for a while, and I don't know how long, probably two months.
2:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to play flashbacks on Friday.
2:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of flashbacks, we're going to play new episodes on Friday.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That'll get the interviews out to you faster, better for the guests, better for the seasonality, the whole nine yard.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Fridays are no longer reruns, and actually the reruns do great.
2:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that we dig deeply enough into the past.
2:59
[SPEAKER_02]: that either people haven't heard the episode, or when it comes up, they're like, oh, I love that one, I wanna hear that one again.
3:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So the reruns actually do really, really well.
3:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But for a little while, we're gonna do brand new episodes on Fridays, brand new episodes on Tuesdays, and as always, the number one thing that you can do to help support the Adventure Sports podcast is to share it with a friend.
3:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks in advance.
3:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, on with today's episode,
3:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, we have Tanya SARS with us today and we were just chatting before we hit record here and having too much fun and we realized we're going to talk all day if we don't hit record.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So we finally hit record, but here's the fun part.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Tammy was on the Adventure Sports podcast on episode 384.
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're almost four times at many episodes now, not quite, but I mean, we have a lot of episodes since then.
3:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So she was on back in the early days talking about
3:58
[SPEAKER_02]: the Pacific Northwest backpacking, especially around Mount Rainier.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was super cool, but since then, she has done so much more hiking.
4:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And she is now a triple crown holder, which means she's done the Pacific crest trail.
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: She has done the Continental Divide Trail and she's done the Appalachian Trail.
4:20
[SPEAKER_02]: and those are the long trails, but she's done many of other long trails like the Colorado Trail in the Arizona Trail.
4:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And so anyway, she is a throughhiker and a half.
4:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But more than that, she's an author.
4:32
[SPEAKER_02]: She just last month, I believe, released her latest book, which is called Long Lost.
4:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can already tell I want to read it.
4:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about her journey hiking these trails.
4:44
[SPEAKER_02]: and she also has written more than five guidebooks for trails.
4:48
[SPEAKER_02]: She is a field data researcher for green trails maps and we're going to have a lot of fun.
4:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Tammy, welcome to the program.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks Kurt, I have to be back.
4:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we've had so much fun just chatting about this and the adventure sports podcast is not just a backpacking bond cast, but it's one of my favorite subjects just because I enjoy it so much and so every time we get to talk to somebody who loves backpacking, I get a little excited and I hope our listeners will too because this is super cool, but why do you love backpacking?
5:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You've done so much of it, why do you?
5:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just pure soul food.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think when in the Pacific Northwest there's so many people that backpack and I think we all are connected for many of the same reasons.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We get out there and we can unplug and detach and there's far less screens, there's far less mine noise that happens in the front country.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a beautiful place for the soul to rest.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: peacefulness.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: My cheesy cliché is like you can almost feel that peacefulness through your pores, like through your skin.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you come back, you're just this quieter, more relaxed version of yourself than you were when you set foot, you know, I don't know, and to your
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: work job office craziness that happens every day and yeah it's just nice to be out there and that scenery.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean you know you get one lap on this.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: My thing is always like you get one lap on this crazy planet that we have and why not just see what's behind the veil of a car where you can travel.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go out on foot and just get back in there and kind of take a prime
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And for everybody else, I think, you know, people love it.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just so pure.
6:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Tammy, I'll confess to you.
6:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never hiked a long trail.
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And that sounds crazy because I've done so much backpacking.
6:45
[SPEAKER_02]: But I became a destination backpacker.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
6:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would pick an obscure mountain lake where I thought no one's going to be there.
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe no one's been there in a year or two.
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then we would back back into that stay for a couple of three days back pack back out and So I've never done a long trail.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd my family and I my sons and I did a through hike Through a holy cross wilderness mostly off trail because there were no trails where we wanted to go Love that it was an amazing amazing through hike and when I talked to a Ranger about the best route the Ranger said well no one does that
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: See, these are the best kinds of adventures.
7:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that kind of thing.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go.
7:31
[SPEAKER_01]: See what's out there.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to know how to navigate, though.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Not everybody can do that.
7:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I was a little nervous about it.
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how long I spent on Google Earth staring at it and memorizing it and in the end, we never pulled out a map.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: oh my gosh well that's a lot of high country up there you can kind of sight navigate through there which is not right yeah it's not like you're in the jungle yeah right so you're right that's what we did but that's this is not about me doing that through hike I'm just saying you're the through hiker so we can talk about that right now amazing
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you through hike instead of destination hike or section hike?
8:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you've done section hike in two weeks.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done it all.
8:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done it all.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done all.
8:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Despite how they're different, so people will know.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I love them all.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, there are people that are like, no, I have to through hike.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: This is this being out there for months on end, really does something to my soul.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that that's me.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the section hiking aspect where you're going out.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I talk a little bit about that at the end of long loss, too.
8:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Just in the epilogue, what is it about this through hike that provides this crazy soulful filling adventure?
8:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're out there,
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: one of my kind of quotes is like it's like living life a full life in a short time frame.
8:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You have four to five months to experience everything.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You get the highs, you get the lows, you get the joys, you get the amazing views and this craziness that happens, but you also get these deep depressions.
9:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and you get the sadness and you get these moments where you're not sure you're going to continue and you have all this stuff hitting you in this short period of time.
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's why that through hike resonates with people.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's also this tremendous thing that happens with your body.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're getting all these endorphins and your body is changing.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You finish and you're like a whole different mental and physical version of yourself.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And you walk off those trails strong.
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, mentally change, they say that it takes three months to change a behavior when you do it every single day, so your mind rewires while you're out there on a long through hike.
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get done and you're just, you almost don't even know what to do with this energy at the end of these things.
9:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to train your mind.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people don't realize out of the end of a through hike.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be prepared.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: for the wave of strangeness that hits you when you enter your normal world.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And you think, oh, I'm just going back home, but it's not that, it's so complicated because of what has happened to you.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're out there.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And people might say, oh, it's only four to five months of your life, like how much could happen, but when you're out there doing the same marathon day day after day after day, and you're fighting with your,
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: mental internal dialogue and you're struggling with the physical aspect of your knee hurting or your ankle, whatever.
10:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a new ailment every day.
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like, but that's the through-high aspect and then you have the section hiking aspect.
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You have all that.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in a miniature form.
10:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I think section hiking is almost harder because you're working in your busy and then you're off the couch and you have a week to go out and do this tremendously
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: you're out there doing all this stuff day after day and then, you know, your body is like wait, we didn't agree to wearing 30 pounds, all of a sudden we didn't train for this or whatever and some people do train for them but it still works and then it's just a short of version and you get to come back to creature comforts and it might be a little less with the mental aspect of rewiring but it has the same like
11:14
[SPEAKER_01]: refreshment that you feel on a long hike.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Big fan of section hike so you can how you can get back to your deliciousness at the end of it.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Fresh produce and stuff the food aspect.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Fruit.
11:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Fruit.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Fruit is what it is.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah dairy bread all the good things that are fresh that we take for granted out there on the trail um that and then you know people doing short of versions of through hikes like the Wonderland Trail which is 93 miles where you're out there from eight to ten days and you're you know or whatever however long and then you get back from that you you have a similar feeling
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's all in the big clump under the title of Backpacking.
11:56
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just a little bit different.
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the difference when you're out there longer.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I first started doing this, I did a, you know, I have a book called The Hight The Pacific Crest Trail, Washington, which is all of Washington State.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, you could go all the way through to Canada and Manning Park and that whole stretch was 588 miles, give or take.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had done that several times, so I'd been out for a month or more.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I first did the PCT, I was like, yeah, what's another three months?
12:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done it for a month.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it can't be that different, but boy was I wrong.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It sure is different when you're out there longer.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You miss home, you miss a lot of things, but there's also a lot of joy to be found.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny how it just, it's just a whole yin and yang push and pull all the time.
12:43
[SPEAKER_02]: and it rewires your brain.
12:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's a question I love to ask.
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What are my favorite questions?
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: People that go into nature and spend time there.
12:51
[SPEAKER_02]: They find a new rhythm.
12:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I call it the rhythm of nature or whatever, but it changes the way you feel.
12:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Your whole routine is different, but to be in sync with that takes some time, because we're leaving the hustle and bustle of modern life.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always ask, how many days does it take to sync up?
13:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've been out there so many times, maybe you sync up faster.
13:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's my question for you.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: How long does it take for you to find that rhythm?
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great question.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you to clarify a little bit.
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you talking about like when your soul sort of starts resting, when you sort of feel that pattern?
13:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You're on nature time instead of artificial time.
13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And go back.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a boy.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a turkey one to answer.
13:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've had section hikes where after a couple days, you're kind of like, yep, I'm grooving.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in the groove now.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I've had through hikes where after a week, you're still like, yeah.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you kind of like you're still not quite sure whether you want to continue I mean it's honestly the beginning of any through hike is probably the hardest because you know how much further you have to go and you know like oh gosh, you know.
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This is 3,000 miles, 3,150 or whatever with the CDT and you're a week in and you're like, ah, this desert's hot, I'm already chafed out, I'm, you know, struggling already mentally, like, how is this going to go for the next five months?
14:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so it's harder to get into that group.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's harder for your mind to go, yeah, this is great.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe the first couple days, you're like, yeah, here's my, you know, I'm so glad I'm out here and then after,
14:28
[SPEAKER_01]: things start to settle in a bit.
14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost is harder because you know that you have much longer to go to whereas with the section hike where you're out, we'll just give it a week as an example.
14:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You're out two days and you're like, I have five more days of this glory and get to see all this stuff and your mind starts to rest because you can see the finish line a little faster.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so I guess it depends on the hike and it depends on what you're doing and also how you're responding to it like if it's really hard for you and you're not sleeping well and you're whatever it's it makes that that end goal a lot harder.
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter whether it's a week or longer and then I think it's harder to get into that groove.
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also this funny thing that is like the honeymoon period of any hike and the honeymoon period I call it is kind of like the planning.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: it's the excitement.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like I'm going to go buy new gear.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got this, you know, these polls didn't work well last time.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to go find new polls and you get online and if you're anything like me or obsessive about looking at what's the lightest, what's the best and what are people saying about this?
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're reading all the reviews just to buy like $100 per polls.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like that fun excitement of like I'm going to get to use these and like in your example, like in the
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: excitement of like if you can compare it to a wedding it's like I'm going to go you know the wedding is the start day to the trail and then you have that and you're on the trail for a couple days and you've got this honeymoon period going on and then all of a sudden the honeymoon period ends and you know the poo hits the fan so to speak and things get real here.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Things are hurting, and you're not sleeping well, and you're kind of moody, and the sky opens up a tantrum, and you're like, gosh, the sounded fun, when I was sitting at my desk, drinking my coffee, surfing for those poles.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But now.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah, I think that was a really long way to answer your question.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I went down a roll.
16:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I appreciate it.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: That's...
16:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very good insight.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one other difference.
16:34
[SPEAKER_02]: is if you're through hiking, you have to cover a certain distance in a certain period of time.
16:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a, you know, the mind that would be a driver, you know, it changed the whole experience knowing I have to get in my miles or else I'm not going to complete this thing.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, um, that is a huge part of it.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And you wake up in the morning and there's days where you are not feeling good.
16:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And that alarm goes, I sent my alarm so that, you know, get up getting up early.
17:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, you know, I got to knock out 27 miles today.
17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're done with my old one going, uh,
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: 26 more of those you know and it might have been that you started with the giant climb or whatever and you're just wiped out because you're not sleeping well and mental fractures and all that stuff and you're on that going okay I've got another four months this another three months of this
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: and it really, really is tough to motivate yourself every day to do those miles.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing that I think people that don't through hike or haven't done a big trail don't understand is you don't necessarily can't put your mind saying I've got 3,000 miles to complete.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to go,
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's only 75 miles until the next town, so if I do 25 today and I do 25 tomorrow, then I'll be there on Thursday, and it's funny.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You just kind of do math through the entire trail.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Your brain every day is like, okay, so I've done three, so if I do another 25, then that puts me, wait, I can maybe get into that town on Wednesday if I do 28 today, and then I, so you start spinning
18:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really getting from town to town or getting from resupply to resupply that you look at us opposed to the whole thing.
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at the whole thing every day, you'll just quit.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You just won't want to do it.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too big.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mind can't comprehend it.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too much to say I'm going to be out here for four months.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you break it into small chunks, then it makes it a lot more manageable.
18:37
[SPEAKER_02]: There's another aspect of this that I find very curious when I talk to people who like to be in nature and do big things.
18:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to use 14ers as an example.
18:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You get to this summit of a 14er and there's usually a small group of people up there who arrived around the same time you did.
18:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And some of them are excited to come up to you and say, I'm on number 37.
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: How many have you done?
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's some of them that are sitting on a rock by themselves, looking at the view, right?
19:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you find out that there's a whole bunch of people that don't even climb 14ers anymore, because they just love to climb.
19:11
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't care about the numbers.
19:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're on the 13ers, because it's quiet.
19:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And I celebrate all of these perspectives.
19:21
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no criticism.
19:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You do it for what you love, right?
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
19:26
[SPEAKER_02]: and but i think through hiking turns into the numbers game like you just described into some degree it has to but i could imagine there are people out there who are thinking i don't care how long this takes and if i get weathered out in the fall i'll come back in the spring you know and i imagine there people out there they're just kind of centering along the trail i don't know do you meet people like that
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, absolutely, and it's not for everybody, it's hard, and it's not always fun.
19:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people are like, wow, I'd love to do that, you know, that it's not always the picnic that a lot of people make it out to be, and I think that's important to know too, just like anything when you're finished, you're like, that was great, but then you look back and you take, you dissect it a little bit and you have days where you're just like, why the heck?
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I out here spending my life this way, you know, because the views are great, but you've seen very similar, especially like on that when I did the Appalachian Trail, it's like, there's a lot of green tunnel that's known for that, you know, and so The day is kind of blended, no one another.
20:26
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of beauty to be found and something beautiful in every day for sure, but you get into some of those states and it's like, okay, here we go, walking through deciduous mixed conifers again, yay.
20:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And you love it because you're out there and you're breathing fresh air and you're getting those endorphins and doing all that but one day blends into the other and you start your mind starts wandering about all the things you could be doing or the things that are happening at home or how you're missing out on the annual family barbecue or whatever it is and it becomes it becomes kind of hard you know to stick with it.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, there are people that do all kinds of things.
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Section hiking is great for that reason.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a friend who was inspired to start doing the Pacific Crest Trail in really large chunks.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: He started out doing slow and then it was so fun.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched him transform from being like, um,
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He really just did small overnight high back packing trips to doing these big then he did a week long and he was like yeah and then you did like a month long pretty soon and like you are you are a through hiker you're speaking a language you're doing all the things like there's you you know the people you get the the culture you're there and it's been just so fun watching him transform but recently when we were chatting he was like
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I want to do these huge long things.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think being out there like a month that most works well for me.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So you kind of start to understand what that is for you that is the balance.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Because being out there for four to five months is a big chunk of your summer.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big chunk of your life.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, there's people doing all kinds of stuff.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The week long hike for a lot of people is a massive, massive achievement.
22:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's huge for some people and, you know, even beginners that go out for one night and get that experience, that's to them, that's a bucket list and that's cool too.
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just people doing all kinds of stuff.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And some people like you said, the reason of being, you know, having solitude and you're not going to find that on these big busy trails.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people on them.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There's many reasons for doing it.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I like you.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I love to celebrate people that are doing these shorter trips or or doing a through for their first time or doing a, even a first time overnight or it makes my heart happy when I hear these stories and people are celebrating the beginnings because, you know, you become OCD with it and then you turn into me.
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't do that.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something that I've talked about a couple of times on the podcast over the years that I call the Quarter Mile Camp, and the reason is because it's so rewarding, especially with young children, and the whole idea is that you drive out on a forest road, you park your car, and you go a quarter mile perpendicular to the road.
23:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You will have that wilderness to yourself for weeks if you want it, because no one's there, because everyone's on the trails, but the point is, the commitment was not the distance.
23:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You still have to carry your loads.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna learn how to put things in a pack and manage way it a little bit and learn how to cook in the woods and you're still only a quarter mile from the car.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if things get really bad, you have it, you have it easy escape.
23:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mentioned that to people because it's a beautiful way to get started.
23:55
[SPEAKER_02]: yeah yeah it's just go put on a pack don't worry about the distance just go get into nature find this spot and live large there for a while and little kids just love it they're not gonna want to do it through hike no yeah but they they just love the idea they're out with mom and dad or mom or dad or why however it works they're out there just experiencing nature which children love to do anyway enough of that it's a great way to start that's the
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is a great way to start.
24:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, manageable chunks for whatever skill you're at.
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
24:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So one other thing you mentioned was culture.
24:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of people don't realize that through hiking is a culture until they try it.
24:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a subset.
24:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just okay.
24:45
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a whole bunch of people on a trail.
24:46
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's something that develops there.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you describe that to us?
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, trail culture is, it's like being dropped into a foreign country and not knowing the language, not fully understanding what happens.
25:02
[SPEAKER_01]: it's really a fun little learning curve for new beginners who haven't done it because the way I describe it is like okay well take the Pacific Crest Trail or there's quite a few people it's like you're all on a race track and the towns are the pit stops so like you're on the race track and you're like passing somebody and then you don't see them again and then you get to a town and you're doing your pit stop and all of a sudden they show up and you're like hey
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw you it's such and such and then pretty soon you're getting to know them better and then you get back out on the racetrack and you're doing And there's a I using racetrack not because it's competitive or anything but just because it's a loop and it seems easy to compare But but it's fun because you get to learn that there's a language that goes along with it like people will just drop Yeah, I took a zero yesterday and if you don't know what that is people are like you took a what?
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You did a what?
25:53
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not constipation talking about
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a wet, yeah, but no a zero of miles zero mile day, you know, and then or they'll say Neuro, which is like an almost a zero.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nearly a zero, so it's a Neuro.
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so there's a little language that goes along with it, and there's this pattern, and there's this.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: People get each other a little bit better when you're all out.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They're suffering.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's trauma bonding and it's purest form I mean everybody is suffering from something whether it's mental anxiety or their ankle hurts somebody has something going on every time you meet somebody Whether they're sitting on a rock crying or they're limping along or they're just got a big smile on their face
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to hide what's going on behind the scenes.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something going on behind the scenes with every single person you meet.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so fun to not only share in the challenges of it, but also to share in the victory.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why did you decide to do this?
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you from?
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's another thing which is super fun with through hiking and I encourage people that section hike or even just stay hike to do this too, which is trail names.
27:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So, trail names are the identity that happens to you when you're out there and you either are named from a fellow hiker, which is usually what it is.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You can name yourself, there are no official rules, but if you do name yourself stay away from the really like.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: cool names like you don't want to give yourself the name like wonder woman or ninja or something like that because you know that's a it's a I mean you do want something that's pleasant but maybe maybe not so like
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Hard to live up to, if you have to pop off to ale or whatever, but it's fun because You all have an identity that is not your identity at home So you're not known like as the fireman or the police chief or I mean you could those could be trail names But for the most part, it's not like the podcast host.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You're you know you become like
27:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know cowboy or you become something that something you did and I'll just give you a couple of fun examples of trail names like so I hiked with my youngest trail brother and the word Tramely is used a lot to you that's trail family the trail by the nature of your pace and your start date and all that usually assigns you people that's the cosmic
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The cosmic way of bringing people together and you have no control over who it assigned you.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And that becomes fun to watch too, because sometimes it assigns you people that aren't necessarily that people you would pick, and you either embrace them and learn to just go with their quirks and flow with it, or you like, have to...
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: speed up your pace a little bit too.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I did it, you know, make that work.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But the trampling I was assigned, I had just super fun trail brothers.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And my younger trail brother, he got the train name wrong tent because, yeah.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because in 2016 he set up his 10 at Warner Springs, there was like this big, they don't do this anymore, but they had this big community meadow, and everybody stopped at Warner Springs Community Center, they offered a meal, and they had a hiker box, and you got to resupply there, so Warner Springs was like this place to stop and camp.
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So we all set up our tents, so it was a sea of tents, and it was a lot of tents, and that many of them had like the same dynamic tent from the same company.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and he was half asleep, and when he came back, he was lost.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was like trying not to wake people up, waiting through a sea of tents.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So he found a tent that he thought was his.
29:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And he unzipped it, and he was like half asleep, going, and he looked inside, and there was someone sleeping in his tent, and his brain went, why is someone in my tent?
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So he starts yelling at this guy.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: you in my tent and the guy's like, this is my tent.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, no.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's looking around and he sees it.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a quilt that's not his and all the gear in there is not familiar and he was like, oh, I'm sorry.
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's upset back after he's like walking around until he finds his tent.
29:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the morning, it was super fun.
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We were getting ready to go and I have an older trail brother and a younger trail brother that I was hiking with.
30:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were all standing under the shelter because it was raining and the younger one unloads this tail, right?
30:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, oh,
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And my older trail brother, there's like, that was me, you tried to climb into my tent, you're lucky I didn't come to you.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So he ended up with the trail name wrong tent.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's usually like a trait, something that happens like that or a trait you exhibit.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's that's super fun to you.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like we're all just one big dysfunctional workplace out there trying to hold it together and we all have these fun names.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so everybody calls each other by your trail name.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You really don't know the identity necessarily unless you bond really tightly with the person you're hiking with.
30:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fun.
30:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a nephew named Sam, and we went on a few backpacking trips together, and he's kind of kid that would never tie issue laces.
30:51
[SPEAKER_02]: His shoes were always just flopping everywhere.
30:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how he kept from spreading his ankles, but he never would tie his laces.
30:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I would try to get him to tie his laces on his boots, he would overstretch, and he would break his laces every time.
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just started calling him laces when we were in the woods.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It was always
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's perfect.
31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a perfect example.
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So five star.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is five star?
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Five stars, my oldest trail brother.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: He, I say oldest, he's not that much older than I am, but I call him my older brother.
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a closest thing I've ever had to a real brother.
31:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He and I have hiked so many trails together.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We met on the PCT, and then I got sideline because of blisters.
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up doing most of the PCT by myself, but we kept in touch because even that time we were together, which wasn't very long.
31:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was wrong, tent, and five star.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I became songbird on the,
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: the Colorado Trail, which we hike the following year, but
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, he is, um, he's just a lovely human.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a lot of, he's an interesting guy.
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a wilderness EMT.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's a good one to have a long for things to coincide with.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's just great.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We're similar in age.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very similar in our distances.
32:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We like to hike per day.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We have kind of developed, you talked about it, rhythm and a pattern.
32:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He and I developed this rhythm and pattern.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We hike very well together.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We both like the quiet spaces,
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: often during the day and, you know, reconnect for lunch and reconnect it at meal at in towns reconnect and, um, you know, at night for camping together and stuff.
32:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've had a ton of experiences together and we've had each other's backs through some gnarly stuff.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We've both gotten neurovirus and COVID and stuff on the AT.
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The AT tried to kill me, which is part of what long lost is about.
32:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a victory lap of doing the triple crown.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I barely made this thing, and it wasn't even really a goal at any point I was ready to just go.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, that was enough of these co-sanks for playing, but I just stuck with it and managed to triple crown, which I'm still sort of in shock about, but I decided to write this book because I felt like that was a really good way to tell the story.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people that triple crown are super athlete.
33:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's amazing too, and I'm always in awe of those people.
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that that's me.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm just stubborn enough to stick with it, even when it gets super hard.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, there's power in that too, and just being obnoxiously stubborn.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: probably getting myself in potential trouble but just staying with it and having that mindset and that applies to everything in life.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not whatever your quote-unquote trail is, that applies to that and that's something the trail has taught me, but back to your question, five star hiked with me on the AT and we did.
33:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So we met on the PCT.
33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I hiked solo, most of the PCT met met a bunch of people, you know, here and there, but I lost my official
33:59
[SPEAKER_01]: on the PCT with my blister situation.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the following year, five star reached out to Ron Tent 9.
34:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We went and we hike the Colorado Trail together.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And shortly after that, Ron Tent, he met the love of his life and kind of stuck away from the longer trails and ended up
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: being a really great dad and busy with this work and so five star and I went on to do other trails together.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did, we did the Arizona Trail together, we did the Wonderland Trail together then we did the Continental Divide Trail together in 2020 and then we did the AT in 2022 and part of the fun of the book Long Lost is the dynamic of five star and I because he is
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Very introverted.
34:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very quiet.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's so hard to read.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a tough nut to crack and Even though by the time we started the AT, you know, we'd hiked but almost 6,000 miles together He probably more actually he I still there was still time so when I was just struggling to understand Yeah, you know get what is wrong or whatever and and I'm I wear my heart of my sleeve I talk a lot as you can tell and so
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: it was just we are constantly in this like really interesting dynamic of me being silly in him like not you know he's he's a the best way to describe him as he has this graphic exterior and he'd probably kill me for saying this but he is just
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So pure inside his heart is so kind and he's such a good guy But he doesn't release that and he definitely doesn't release that easily So when you see when I shouldn't say he doesn't release that he's not a good guy He just holds his emotions very tight to the vest and he he has this sort of
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: stoic external facade.
35:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So you see that and it's hard to penetrate that.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so people don't really get a chance to know him very well.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you're back to back and belly to belly on these big trails all the time, you really do get to know him.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel very blessed that I have gotten to know him and he's opened up to me like he has.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's still a struggle.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I still when I tease him about it, I'm like, this is I have no idea what you're thinking right now.
36:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And
36:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And he very gives me very little work with so there's there's a lot of that push-in pull in the book to where the dynamics is pretty funny and he gets frustrated with me I get frustrated with him.
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We know how to push each other's buttons.
36:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some days where we are not the best versions of ourselves and in the book I wanted to share it.
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to share it like it happened and like the dynamic is on through hike because
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think a lot of people paint, like I said, a little roseier picture than sometimes it is out there.
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just mentally fractured from not sleeping enough and your body is worn out and you're not doing recovery days, like you probably should and you're different people and you're hiking and it can be challenging.
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote all that in the book.
36:57
[SPEAKER_01]: and you and I were talking a little bit before we started recording about the book and someone had given me kind of a negative review about not putting enough of the trail in the book.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many really great, big-hearted people that were like, this book is so fun to read and I was bummed when it ended, but it's really a human story and it's wrapped in a trail.
37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Is what it is.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: and so people that aren't hikers have been enjoying it equally as much as those that are just because it's it's the push and pull of being human and the struggle when you do hard things day after day after day with a person that you know is as close as blood but not blood to you.
37:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well and I noticed that it is a full-length book it's not a it's not one of the little short hundred and twenty-five page books that some people put in good for them but
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's 308 pages.
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, yeah, I wanted, like I said, I wanted to tell it like I felt it.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't tell it like you felt it and you're just, then you're writing a trail guidebook, which is great too, but I've done a lot of those.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, this book, the memoir was the only format that could hold what all, the motion and the crazy things that happened in the stories and all of that.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I decided to write this memoir.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is a big book, it's a lot of fun, there's a lot of flashbacks to the other trails.
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not a trail guide, like if you're looking for trail data, it's best to pick up a guide book or, you know, some memoirs like I highly recommend a walk in the woods if you haven't read Bill Bryson's a walk in the woods, man is that a fun great book.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: he goes into a lot of the history of the A.T. he talks a lot about that kind of thing and and those books are wonderful too.
38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to focus my book on sort of the humanity and the emotional side of things because I feel like maybe that's a little bit of
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: where there aren't a lot of memoirs that really talk about the struggle as much and I sure felt that and I sure felt a lot of struggle and it was a difficult thing for me to do.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: This did not come easy to me even though I'm literally a professional hiker for work.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You would think, oh, you know, well.
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she'd go out and knock out these trails without issues, but that was not the case for me.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that was also good for people to hear.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, even this person who does this for a living is struggling with this, okay, I'm not alone in this, or alone in whatever hard thing I'm doing.
39:25
[SPEAKER_02]: you know a lot of people have a stereotype is what i'm gonna call it that well why did you go hike three thousand miles through the woods you have to find yourself or something you know that's a common theme but i think it's i think it's a reality for some people on the trail there's so many reasons to hike the trail and you're talking about the humanity of what goes on there what kind of motivations did you discover as you met people he's a wire you doing it why are you doing it what what what are the
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, there's so many.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the PCT in 2016, when I did that, the movie Wild had been out for a couple years.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a huge one.
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And you probably experience this too when you talk about backpacking to people that don't do it a lot.
40:13
[SPEAKER_01]: They're always like, oh, you're just like that movie.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the name of that movie?
40:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And you always know the answer to that question.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But I met what I was calling the Wild Hikers on the trail.
40:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And one person in particular comes to mind.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: from back east on the PCT had this giant backpack.
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: He had this huge hydration reservoir, like water bladder on the strapped onto the top and the thing was like swishing water to the side, this backhole backpack with all the paddy bumpers sideways.
40:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was, he could barely get up these hills.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was a big kid too.
40:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all the odds were seemingly stacked against him.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was young.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when we got to,
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: see Mount Laguna, you know, I saw him smoking and I thought, well, you know, sometimes nothing gets smoking because a lot of people do that, but I thought that's another challenge is that, you know, you're having to pack cigarettes and it's not, you know, it's not the healthiest thing when you're out on the trail and I know there's a ton of people that do that, but I couldn't help but think yet another
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know contrast, you know, this poor kid is trying everything and so I had talked to him I went out and just visited with him a little bit and asked him about like, why are you doing this?
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was the, I saw this movie wild and I've been through a lot of struggle, I've been through a lot of things lately and I wanted to sort of see if I could make that my change.
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I left him, everything inside me thought there's no way.
41:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to believe in you, but I'm struggling with all, everything I'm seeing is pointing to your packs, to begots, to heavy, you know.
41:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that great.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and I was wanted to talk at the time.
41:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I was all blistered out and chafed, but I thought I was, oh yeah, I was just sure I had the world by the tail.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was funny.
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really humbled on the PCT.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That trail humbled me a ton.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but, you know, so I was like, oh, this kid, I'll be surprised if he gets like another hundred miles.
42:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be shocking.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, 700 miles later, I heard someone calling my name and I turned it looked, and here he was.
42:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And his pocket, his pocket bin, shrunk,
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He had gotten a brand new pack.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: He learned how to pack it.
42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He updated his gear.
42:27
[SPEAKER_01]: He quit smoking.
42:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He was hanging out with a whole group of people that were supportive of him.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: He had lost so much weight in 700 miles.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to take a double take.
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is that really you?
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was super cute.
42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, yeah, when I met you, I didn't, you know, I didn't know that this was going to be the outcome.
42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, yeah,
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He was just, I don't know, he's just such a changed version of himself, and I realized this works.
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: This can work.
42:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to stick with it.
42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It can work for you.
43:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but not everybody is fighting a battle.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I read a recent funny post on one of the Facebook groups where the person was like, I went out there expecting to change everything.
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I came back.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I sat in my desk at work and went, well, that was fun.
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing changed.
43:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like they just came back to their job and did their thing.
43:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So some people, it doesn't, you know, and they're not this big transformation.
43:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's just you step off a trail and you go back to life.
43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think for a lot of people, they are rediscovering who they are, and the trail just naturally does that.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you're not really trying to do that, if you open your heart up to what it can do for you and how it's gonna, it's gonna reshape your physical everything.
43:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So then the mind just naturally kind of follows.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard a health expert, the other day, talking about how what he called rucking, meaning carrying a backpack, but how it had been shown to be one of the healthiest exercises for, and he gave benefits in every facet of life for carrying a pack.
44:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, well, I really like to hear that because that's what backpackers do, you know, is a really great thing to do.
44:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes I've wondered, it's it's hard on your joints and your your posture screwy because you're leaning forward and, you know, all those sorts of things, you just said it'll transform your whole body.
44:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So what would you describe to people who have no idea what we're talking about?
44:26
[SPEAKER_02]: How would you describe that?
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're always, almost always on these big trails at a calorie deficit.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't eat enough food.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You're pushing, you're trying to eat as much as you can, but you're burning 4,000 calories a day.
44:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe sometimes more and you just can't eat that.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Even at home, like if you try to eat that much food, your stomach is gonna push back on you.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You get to town and you get super excited about food.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: All you can think about is like, are we going to pizza or burgers or what are we going to eat?
44:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then you go and you think you can eat all this, but you're stomach shrinking and you're like, dang it.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to eat all this pizza.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people can really put it away though.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been surprised how that theory of mine has not worked on.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people are like, no, I ate that whole pizza and then I ordered another one.
45:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, wow.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're always at a calorie deficit.
45:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You're always trying to catch up with what your body is burning.
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you do lose weight, especially when you stick with, I've heard of people losing 10 pounds in a week, just because they can't eat enough.
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Or there are sometimes there's something that happens with trail food too, and people just struggle to get it down.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always, you know, it's loaded to salt, or it's loaded with preservatives or whatever, and it's just not like they're normal diet, and so they struggle with it.
45:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you lose weight, you gain muscle, your body is constant.
45:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like going to the gym for 10 hours a day.
45:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what it is.
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You're walking on a treadmill, up and down on steep inclines, on hard stuff carrying weights.
45:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you start finding muscles you didn't know you had that are popping out on you, that stuff happens.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And
46:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's a transformation in your body physically.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And you look in the mirror and you're like, wow, I've...
46:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, at three months in, I remember one specific thing where I looked in a mirror and I was looking at my face and I was like, who is that staring back at me?
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen that, you know, the cheekbones popping out like that or whatever, in a while and it's interesting and then you come back and, you know, within three months you're back to where you are.
46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So if anybody's looking at this as a way it lost plan, you're starving by the time you get off the trail and you'll eat everything inside and it's funny how many people are like, oh I'm going to keep this, I'm going to keep this physique, that's why I did this and
46:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, three months later, how you do it?
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And how's everything going there?
46:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, I did the treadmill for like a month afterwards, and then it's hard.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to keep it off.
46:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people are successful with that, but if that's your weight loss plan, it's not always the best one.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But you do come off it, looking great, and feeling great.
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
46:59
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah and you have a lot of vitamin D from being out there in the element so much you know there's just you just feel you feel pretty good you do have to watch your your calories though and your protein intake and you have to watch your vitamin intake too because it's hard to get everything you need from from the food you're eating.
47:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, where we could do a whole show just on food and we have before.
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
47:23
[SPEAKER_02]: On the adventure sports bot, guys, we've done that.
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But why I just love to hear everyone's opinions on things like this because food on the trail is, it's a big deal.
47:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I, and that's an understatement.
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
47:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Getting the food right is so hard and I'm just curious, you've done so much of it.
47:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Watch your angle, Tammy, how do you do it?
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, I'm a terrible one to ask this question too, because I just go straight to sugar.
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm terrible because what happens to me is I have great intentions.
47:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I think this happens to a lot of people, where you start out and you're like, okay, so I've got this great protein bar and it's got these vitamins and it's got this and it'll...
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's got a lot of protein and it's packed with fiber and all these good things that I'm going to need.
48:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to send myself like five of those at every resupply and I'll have one per day and you have this whole.
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a spreadsheet that had all my different things on it and all the, you know, things I needed.
48:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And that went out the door by like the third resupply.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I was packing those protein bars to a hiker box and sticking them in it.
48:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Now hiker box, by the way, is like I take some leave some box,
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: For one, I don't know if other people have this issue, but for me, I have good intentions when I'm eating at home like on a normal balance diet and then I get out there and my diet is all wonky and you're craving different things and you're wonky.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you get to your resupply and you're like, why did I think I would love these nut bars?
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: These things, I just am not they're not sitting well.
48:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't swallow it.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't swallow it, yeah, it's like dry and you're, you know, 40 miles in between water sources or some crazy thing and you're like, okay, I can't eat these things and so I go I go to my thing is go to whatever works with your tummy if you're struggling with that and a lot of people do and you're going to you're probably going to end up donating to the hiker box at some point because you're going to struggle with what you packed.
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That has been my experience.
49:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, on one hike, I'm like, all right, guess what?
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Chips a Hoi every morning for breakfast.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That will just be what it is because this works for me and it's calories.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't think about like, oh man, you know, I shouldn't be eating the stuff it's junk food because you know you need the calories and it's sitting well in your tummy and it's working well for what you need, which is just getting calories in your body.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: you just have to roll with whatever it is that your body is craving that you're needing and try to do your best.
49:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like beef turkey or nuts or something like that or find but after months on end of eating that that's yeah or the sloppy the worst is when people are like how many oatmeal packets it's
50:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, it feels to me, especially the instant stuff that's like maple and brown sugar.
50:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I get the gag reflex going on that because it's just a big, it looks like paper machete.
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a big lumpy, clumpy, gross thing.
50:18
[SPEAKER_02]: When people love it, some people don't.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I admire the people that love it.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I did because it's easy, but it's not for me.
50:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and then you have your freeze-dried foods, and you dehydrated foods, and you know, the different brands, and they're not all the same.
50:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's worth trying a lot of different ones, but what you like in home, you probably won't like after a few days on the trail.
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you'll get sick of them.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But I started making my own, and that was a really good strategy, because I was, and I just dehydrated them.
50:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would take like vegetarian chili, and I'm not a vegetarian, but,
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: the meat is hard to dehydrate and you have to do that correctly and make sure you're doing and oily meats especially is hard so I just purposely stayed away from that while I was out there and um but I did this really great vegetarian chili a big pot of it and then there's these like trays you can buy for your dehydrator and I did that and then it turns into like fruit leather after you let it sit long enough and you can yeah it's kind of cool and you can flip it over
51:19
[SPEAKER_01]: and then I crunched it up into, once it got, you know, like, pliable enough, I was able to put it in little packets and then reconstitute.
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So I had a tie dish that I did, a soup that I did like that and and spaghetti.
51:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I did my own spaghetti, too, and that was really good.
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was looking forward to getting a few different things in my resupply that I knew where it came from, I knew what was in it and how I made it.
51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So
51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: that worked out well for me so anybody with a little extra time it's a labor of love it's so hard to do in your kitchen's a complete mess but it's fun to kind of have that aspect of it too and that all goes into that honeymoon period that fun planning part.
51:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to share one that I've shared a couple of times already and even recently but I'm going to say it again because it worked for me so well not that it will work for everybody.
52:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But I heard about this from a thru hiker and I forget who it was, but you take a stick of butter and you take about the equivalent amount of peanut butter and you put it on that stick of regular butter and then you add enough water to make it squeezable so it's not like trying to swallow peanut butter, right?
52:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You smash it all together and you add water until it becomes this almost drinkable paste, squeezable paste.
52:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you can add whatever sweetener you like, whether that's a little bit of jelly or syrup or honey.
52:37
[SPEAKER_02]: What I was blown away with is I would put that in a squeeze tube.
52:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we didn't have time to stop and make a real mill, I can hike 7-8 hours off a squeeze tube of that stuff.
52:48
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's just so many calories and it's down easily for me.
52:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's already hydrogen.
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of fat in it, protein, everything.
52:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, and I can swallow it on the trail without having to chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it, it looks like something's dog left in the yard, right anyway.
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You think you're out of it?
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I think make a pretty good frosting for like a cupcake or something, you know, if you want to do it.
53:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Help your cupcake.
53:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, might be good or something to dip your chocolate bar in.
53:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
53:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Or celery.
53:32
[SPEAKER_02]: yeah for sure the book is long lost and I love it because it's not a trail guide it is the human side of doing this and I I'm gonna read your book thanks Kurt yeah whenever I get to it I'm this is the this is one that I want to read and your trail name is song bird for fun maybe there's a good story behind that trail name
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, on the PCT, when I was solo, I was just going by my name because I didn't, I didn't yet have a trail name and I met a hiker.
54:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was super excited in this one campground that I stopped at.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There were bluebirds everywhere.
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was just sitting on a picnic table watching all these bluebirds land on all these beautiful pine trees and it's just really cool moment.
54:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had no one to share it with and a long comes this person I never met.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was super nice and I was like, did you see all the blue birds?
54:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was pointing them all out and he goes, he looks at me and he says, you're just one zippity away from a dude arch you, you know what that is like.
54:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was funny and it was cute and we were talking about it and he's like, what's your trail name?
54:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I don't have one.
54:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, well, you should just call yourself, why don't you just call yourself dude off?
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay.
54:50
[SPEAKER_02]: to start.
54:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
54:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went by Duda on the PCT which was never quite right because then I never saw him again that person and normally when you get a training name not always but sometimes it's a person that you end up hiking with or you have a little history with you know so it was like I just would introduce myself as Duda and everybody to ask what is it or they would sing the Camptown lady sing the song you know Duda and so nobody really
55:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it and I would always write it in in the trail logs and all that and it just never quite felt right and I was always a little embarrassed Tell what it was and how I got it.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like okay, I'll get off the trail and I just won't have a trail name for the next trail and see what happens But then of course my trail brothers realized that it was the bird theme so they were like well We need to make sure you you have you know a trail in that has the bird theme in it because that was like the original But we don't want to stray too far from it
55:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So originally they were teasing me and they are like oh, we'll just call you big bird and I'm like no No girl wants the name big in their trail name.
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It all and they were joking around and then one of I I singing a band but also I love singing and so
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I sing on the trail a fair amount.
56:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not usually good because I'm out of breath and I'm tired and you know whatever but it's fun and so they had heard me singing and then they were like I know it's songbird songbird's your name we're calling you songbird and of course the you know loving birds as I do so that seemed to fit so we agreed on songbird and by the way you can accept or decline a trail name so if someone tries to name you something that is less than flattering
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Always opt for something later on that will fit you better.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so songbird became the name and that's what I went with and it has a nice ring to it.
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems to fit me, so that's what I am.
56:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, some people say what's in a name.
56:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I say there's a lot in a name, a lot in a name.
56:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've even interviewed people who, when they were trying to change the direction of their lives, they said, I'm going to go buy my middle name instead of my first name.
56:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And because it was enough of a disruption, it was like there's an identity shift here that I need.
57:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
57:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was a healthy thing for them to do.
57:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
57:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
57:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's something about that that, I don't know, it's important to me.
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I, in my book, Tammy, I have a chapter on not letting people name you, but it's not assigning a trail name that I'm talking about.
57:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm talking about people describing you to you in ways that may not be fitting.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you start to own that, you become something that you never needed to be.
57:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
57:38
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have the right to do that to you.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but when someone gives you an encouraging fun, playful nickname, that's different, you know, that's a lot of fun.
57:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, yep, your identity is your own, um, and the kind of the fun part about the trail name thing is when you get one that seems soothing, then it feels like in the future everybody that calls you that, it resonates with you and it doesn't have a bad connotation, but there are some people walking around with trail names like Skidmark and they have to explain that one every time.
58:12
[SPEAKER_01]: or captain underpants or whatever, and some of them are really funny, and the stories are great, but yeah, poor, wrong tent, he accepted it, but he had great, great sense of humor, so he just told his story with a laugh every time, and the part of the fun of naming him not was that every time, he had to share that story, because people are like, how did you get wrong tent?
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't get away without telling your story when someone meets you on that one.
58:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's a good way to get to know people.
58:41
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of fun.
58:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're singing on the trail, not everyone likes to sing, and maybe not everyone wants to hear people sing.
58:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But I have had so much fun singing whole hiking and backpacking.
58:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why.
58:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you just work?
58:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you a singer?
58:55
[SPEAKER_02]: a little bit.
58:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, for instance, I have a small collection of mountain songs and if I'm climbing a mountain, then sometimes I just have to sing one of the mountain songs as I climb and sounds like you enjoy that too.
59:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I apologize for everyone around me who has put up with it.
59:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a hiking playlist and yeah, it's just that inspirational moment.
59:18
[SPEAKER_01]: of pulling those songs up and hearing of.
59:21
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, that's the reason this book is called Long Lost, because there's a section in there while I was sitting above.
59:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It was late in the evening and I couldn't sleep.
59:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a grouchy knee.
59:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There was this beautiful owl calling above in the tree somewhere.
59:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I'm going to see if I could find that owl.
59:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it sounded like it was right above my tent.
59:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got my phone out and I got my headphones and I wasn't really tired for some reason.
59:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got out and I was looking in the trees for the owl and I couldn't find them.
59:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But I discovered that the ridge I was on, and it was pitch black, had this beautiful view of some distant town like twinkling like stars, way, way beneath where I was sitting.
1:00:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just way up high in this ridge.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And the stars, the moon, everything was just like this perfect night time.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, this was like a storybook.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went and sat underneath this tree and I just decided to be still for a minute and just let that moment
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_01]: feel you know how it felt and accept that moment and it just felt like a gift and after sitting there for a couple minutes I thought I'm going to just pop in a headphone and sometimes my favorite thing is when life is choreographed to a song by accident it's happened in several times but in particular so I just hit
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_01]: hit my hiking playlist to see what song was on there.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I had been listening to it earlier, something, but the hiking playlist came up.
1:00:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And the song by Lord Huron, long lost, came on, and that song, every line in that song felt like,
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It was that song's very ethereal and beautiful and soulful as it is and then it was playing and I was like oh my gosh This is like this is going bypassing my ears and going right into my soul in my heart and it was just that moment of like I was right where I was supposed to be in that very moment and everything all this stars physically and emotionally We're lining up in that moment.
1:01:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so I thought like that was the name of the book.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It just needed to be
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_02]: nice.
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_02]: That's so beautiful.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
1:01:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a perfect place to stop.
1:01:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So long lost is the book.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Get it.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be great.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I can tell.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't read it, but I already know it's going to be great.
1:01:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know why I know it's going to be great because Tammy, you know how to tell a story.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You have other guide books, which we didn't really talk about, but if you're looking for a guide book, then go on Amazon, I would assume and search for
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Will that bring up your guide books?
1:01:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It will, yeah.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The first name is TAMI, but people probably know that.
1:01:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So Tanya Sars and songbird, thank you so much for sharing with us today.
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a lot of fun.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Curtis.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a blast.
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you having me on.
1:02:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you bet.
1:02:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone, until the next show, get out there and have some fun.