Episode 132 - Danielle & Rebecca White Mountains Redline/Trace completion

[00:00:03] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org.

[00:00:32] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon. Search and Rescue teams, avalanche experts, and backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above treeline. You should too.

[00:00:54] Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Ok, here is your forecast for Friday, December 8th and Saturday, December 9th. Friday In the clear under partly sunny skies with a high in the upper teens with northwest winds shifting west at 20-30 mph.

[00:01:28] Windchill rising to 5 above to 5 below. Friday night In the clear under increasingly cloudy skies. Low rising to the mid 20s. Winds west shifting southwest at 20-35 mph. Windchill rising to 5 above to 15 above. Saturday In the clear under mostly cloudy skies. High rising to the lower 30s.

[00:02:02] Winds southwest shifting west at 25-40 mph. With gusts up to 55 mph. Windchill rising to 10 above to 20 above. Enjoy your weekend.

[00:03:07] And we are live Stomp. Hold on Mike, I just want to make sure she's rolling too. Oh yeah, you're good. Ok, take it from the top. Alright, we are live Stomp. Try that again. You missed my beer cracking.

[00:03:38] I always time it so that I open my beer up at the beginning of the show and you squirt it with my moment stomp. I'll keep it, I'll keep it. Alright, alright, don't edit this out. Let's just get the intro for Danielle out of the way right now.

[00:03:50] So Danielle is super nervous so we might as well just do the intro. So Danielle, what's your name and who are you? Uh, Danielle Norman. I'm a hiker. You're a hiker, oh wow. See, I told you you could do your introduction. You killed it already. That was complicated.

[00:04:06] That was, that was. But sit tight Danielle. Me and Stomp are going to riff for a minute and then we're going to get to you. And then we've got Rebecca here as well. So hello Rebecca. Hi. Welcome back. Thanks.

[00:04:20] Excellent, so Stomp, we've got a big storm coming in. First big one of the year. What do you think? Uh, a nor-incher? Is it going to be a nor-incher? Like last week? It looks like it's going to be 6 to 12 inches right now Sunday night.

[00:04:34] Where are you hearing that from? Because right here in Thornton we're looking at like an inch. Rain? Yeah. I read on Twitter today that it was going to be a potential for 6 to 12 inches on Sunday night. So maybe it'll be just like an inch of rain.

[00:04:50] On Twitter, okay. Twitter told me so. Must be a guy. So listeners need to put Twitter in their toolbox for weather forecasts moving forward. It was from the NBC affiliate guy on, um,

[00:05:06] So it was like, I got it from like Boston.com but then it clicked into like a Twitter post and the guy had 6 to 12 inches in his forecast for the mountains. Huh. Okay. Alright, I'll take it. I know the snowmobiling is coming up probably.

[00:05:26] We're doing orientation in about a week. Danielle, have you gone skiing yet? I have not. Because I went hiking. Where do you go early season skiing, Danielle? Well they're like all open right now. Like, uh, Pats opens tomorrow, Sunnapeet opened, Wildcat opened, Aditash opened, Bretton Woods is open,

[00:05:48] like Stowe's open, Okemo, almost all of them are opening up. I'm always curious, like what is it like to, so I've never skied very early season, I usually don't go until like February or March.

[00:05:58] What's it like to go to like say Bretton Woods or Loon or something like that? When it's open right now, there's only like a few trails, right? Well my friend Ashley went today and she said it was amazing. Really?

[00:06:06] They've been, they got a lot of snow and they've been making snow round clock just because it's been so cold they canned. Usually, usually December it's raining by this point. So they're all trying to jump on it. I drove by Cannon coming down here

[00:06:16] and they're grooming the front five which is not usual in December. Front five, Mike. That's a big deal. I mean, I'm not sure if it's a good thing but I'm not sure if it's a bad thing. Front five, Mike. That's serious ski talk right there.

[00:06:32] You know what that is? No, I don't even know what you're talking about. I pretended like I did. It's the little, it's the small like five trails that you can see from the highway of Cannon. Those. The front ones. Yeah, yeah. The ones right by Echo Lake.

[00:06:50] Sure, that include Avalanche? I don't know any names. Avalanche is the furthest south. So all those little ones on Tramsite, those are called the front five. Gotcha, gotcha. Wow, you learn something new every day. Yep, the front five. I'm going to throw that out there

[00:07:08] and now I'm going to feel like I know what I'm talking about there. But I've always wanted to do early season skiing and go up in the ski lift where there's no snow under the ski lift but then you get off

[00:07:18] and there's a bunch of snow on the trails but I've never done that. It's not terrible. It's weird when you get over and you're like, there's grass underneath me. I'm going to grass ski today. Excellent. And then Danielle, you're in the studio so you've got, that's not Zylo,

[00:07:36] that's the other one, right? That is Daphne. Luna's missing in action. I don't know where she is and Zylo comes and goes. He's just scoping things out. But Danielle's a hardened cat person. So Rebecca's a hardcore cat person and then Danielle, how many cats do you have, Danielle?

[00:07:52] I'm allergic to cats. So you're trying to kill her. No, my roommate used to have a cat. She passed away a few years ago but I lived with her for five years and I love animals is what it is. If I touch the cat

[00:08:06] and then I touch my eyes then I'll have a problem but I've learned over the years to not do that. Yeah, I would think. That's a true cat lover then if you're allergic but you still tolerate them. All right, well. Keep Daphne in a control stomp

[00:08:24] but welcome to episode 132 of the Sounds Like A Search And Rescue podcast. This week we are joined by the dynamic duo of Rebecca and Danielle to talk about their recent completion of the White Mountain Red Line slash trace and just so that we're clear

[00:08:40] they're a dynamic duo because they're here together but they've done all this stuff kind of separately but together a few times but we'll get into it. The Red Line challenge entails hiking every trail in the White Mountain Guide and is a feat that very few people complete.

[00:08:54] So they've both been working on their red lines independently for a number of years and have now completed their goals so we're going to ask them to reflect on their accomplishments and go through the planning, logistics, struggles and the triumph of completing what many consider

[00:09:08] to be one of the most challenging goals in the White Mountains. So in addition to this we'll talk about an incoming storm actually we already talked about that so pretend I didn't say that. We're going to talk about a lost dog story

[00:09:22] we're going to talk about what happens when your parachute doesn't open we've got some gear reviews we're going to talk about House of Dragons in our beer drinking segment we're going to do a deep dive on artificial intelligence that's helping to make IPAs we've got notable hikes

[00:09:38] all over the Whites and then we've got recent search and rescues on Kerrigan Mount Major, Monadnock and Mount Kearsar so I'm Mike and I'm Stomp let's get started! Applause Music This is Ben Pease from Hiking Buddies we are a 501c3 non-profit committed to reducing avoidable tragedies

[00:10:22] through education, impactful projects and fostering a community of support you can find out more at hikingbuddies.org We wanted to say thank you to those who have supported our mission and most importantly say thanks to those who speak up, who ask questions

[00:10:36] and who are willing to provide guidance and assistance on the trails when needed you embody what it means to be a hiking buddy and now for all my newer hikers out there here's this episode's Hiking Buddies quick tip Here's a tip to help you learn the features

[00:10:54] on a map. Can you remember Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing? The major features on a map are hill, valley ridge, saddle and depression. Again you can remember it as Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing Know these on a map to discern if the area is safe for your abilities

[00:11:14] Note the elevation, water crossings scrambles tent sites, huts, bailout plans and anything else that might be significant to your hike Alright so Stomp we got some housekeeping to do here so we're going to have Mike Cherum from Redline in next week. No show

[00:11:39] on the 29th, no show on January 5th and then we'll be back on January 12th Got it. Correct. Yes that's right But that's a nice way to end the year with Redline guiding Yeah yeah. It should be fantastic. It'll be fun And then Stomp you had a clarification

[00:11:55] so Ken from episode 131 had sent in a clarification for us. During the episode he misspoke at one point so basically the clarification is that when canine units are out on searches they will actually carry Narcan with them just in case they come across a batch of fentanyl

[00:12:15] so the handlers are carrying Narcan with them as opposed to fentanyl. Dogs are not carrying fentanyl or the handlers are not carrying fentanyl so just a misstatement there little clarification Alright Stomp so that's good Good to know Moving on we got a couple of news articles

[00:12:35] here so there is a volcano that erupted in Indonesia and there's 23 hikers that are presumed to be dead after a volcano in West Sumatra Indonesia erupted on Sunday December 3rd Officials say that about 75 people were hiking around Mount Merapi when it erupted So this is a 10,000 foot

[00:12:57] volcano and it's one of 127 active volcanoes in Indonesia The eruption lasted nearly 5 minutes and spewed ash 9,800 feet into the air Rescue workers evacuated 52 people to shelters Sorry I'm choking on my beer here. Did you sign the life insurance Mike? I didn't So yeah

[00:13:27] this isn't good. 23 people are dead Would you hike near a volcano? I feel like I wouldn't hike near one That's a bad day From what I understand we're near volcanoes anyway at the moment here in New Hampshire but no I wouldn't purposely do that

[00:13:45] not in the Pacific area anyway By the way this week has been unbelievable for earthquake activity in that area They had I think it was an 8 or 7.8 off the coast of the Philippines and then from there there's been reverberations all around the whole area with tsunami watches

[00:14:03] So it's tinderbox down there But no I would not do that. Would you do that Danielle? No Not at all I do the dormant ones Yes exactly I would do the same I did see there was a Netflix special I think we talked about this before

[00:14:25] People they do that cruise ship thing where they'll go on an excursion and they went to this little island somewhere near Australia and when they were there touring this active volcano the thing erupted some people died I remember that It's like nightmare fuel Absolutely

[00:14:47] So anyway it was updated yesterday 23 dead mostly climbers and hikers so they're presumed dead at this point So that's a shame Anyway Here's some good news Yup Next off we have a story here A dog went missing nearly 2 months ago

[00:15:11] and was found alive by a pair of hikers on a trail in Colorado So the two hikers spotted the Bernice Mountain Dog at a park on November 19th without her owner in sight and they decided to try to befriend the injured and scared dog

[00:15:29] in the hopes of bringing the pup down the mountain to safety They tried to carry it and the dog bit them So despite that the sheriff's office said both hikers refused to give up and one of the hikers remained on the trail with the animal

[00:15:45] while the other went down for medical help to give the rescuers the dog's location So then rangers and animal control officers were able to hike up on the trail and they brought the dog down to safety so I guess one of the rangers remembered

[00:15:59] a couple of months back that there was a lost dog poster in the park and they connected the owner with the dog All good And the dog's name is Nova 14 months and it was a service dog in training

[00:16:15] so I have a feeling that that dog is flunking out of service dog school Haha, every dog gets a free bite Well it survived though Yeah it sure did Tenacious little guy or gal I love these Bernese Mountain Dogs That's what it is I actually follow two

[00:16:35] Bernese Mountain Dogs on TikTok that I'm obsessed with They're called Walter and Gus I'll link them in the show notes They're amazing I think they're in Boston somewhere I think they're in Waltham or Burlington She does this thing where the owner basically Walter was the only dog

[00:16:57] and then they got the dog a puppy named Gus so they're both Bernese Mountain Dogs and the mother, she does like a voiceover she uses that Phineas and Ferb voice you know what I'm talking about Stomp? Uh huh, oh yeah sure do She uses the Phineas and Ferb

[00:17:15] and the whole thing about the social media channel is like Walter hates Gus and he's always complaining about how annoying Gus is and then you just sort of walk through a day in the life of the Bernese Mountain Dogs

[00:17:27] so I'll link it in the show notes if people want to watch I like it Alright, we'll keep a lookout You didn't sound very interested Stomp Well it's not as interesting as Danielle and Zyla at the moment so I drifted off for a second but I'm back

[00:17:43] Zyla was jumping up on Danielle's lap and Stomp's taking pictures Yeah You know how this goes it's not often we have guests here so Stomp, can we get to the news here? Alright thank you Oh this should be fun huh? Oh yeah, Stomp's gonna get mad now

[00:18:03] So we have an update on, there was a national park that they were trying to let I guess migrants take over and the House of Representatives passed legislation preventing The use of national parks Yeah so this doesn't even look like a national park, it looks like some abandoned

[00:18:23] island in New York, I feel like they should just let them all live there if they want to live there Yeah well it's a little more complicated than that but there's rumors now that they want to expand that whole effort to national parks

[00:18:35] across the nation because there's just so many people there's just no place to put them So yeah it passed the House bipartisan, there was six Democrats that joined apparently and now it's going to the Senate and we'll see what happens there I'm super curious about where all the

[00:18:51] eco-warriors are and whatnot everybody's silent on this like hey let's use the national parks Who knows, we'll see what happens so it's the latest on the national park saga Okay We'll post that in the show notes and people can check that out if they want

[00:19:07] Next up Stomp pulled the amazing story of Joan Murray So this is not a hiking story but do you want to give a recap on this one? It's unbelievable, does anybody know this story? Joan Murray? Do you? Have you? Alright

[00:19:21] Because I didn't want to put it in here for no reason but it was such an extraordinary tale I'll set this up Imagine all of us are in a plane we're at 15,000 feet Everybody with me? We're ready to jump out, we're parachuting out of the plane

[00:19:35] Is she parachuting with some guy strapped to her or whatever that is or is she by herself? That's tandem No I think she's solo in this one because the story reveals that later So she jumps she's flying through the air 15,000 feet, that's like what? 3 Mt. Washington's?

[00:19:53] Right? Just above Mount Whitney Oh yeah yeah yeah Okay She reaches back for the first parachute and it fails Alright, so as she's falling she starts to tumble and she's out of control so she gets down to literally 700 feet which would be just for reference

[00:20:17] cannon cliffs are maybe hovering around 900 for the old man and then like 1200 somewhere in that ballpark so she's at 700 feet and she pulls her backup chute which releases but because she's already out of control it just basically fails to do anything so she ultimately smashes into the ground

[00:20:41] 15,000 foot drop, she's falling at what? 80 miles an hour? Or the speed of gravity I forget what that is exactly Fast So she's toast, right? Clearly not I would die of a heart attack the second my parachute didn't open up Yeah, well here's the extraordinary thing

[00:20:59] she hits the ground but she lands on an ant mound of fire ants and what happens, thousands of them start stinging her with their venom and the venom basically acts as a massive adrenaline surge into her body and she survives this fall this is an actual story

[00:21:23] Does she have bones left? I don't know about the recovery but I'm going to do some digging because I want to know this was quite a while back 2000s if I read that correctly but she just passed away 1999 so she just passed away in 2022 can you believe that?

[00:21:41] Yeah, yeah this happened in South Carolina Was it from complications? I would assume that she was pretty arthritic and messed up just long term after that What an amazing tale so we will add that story to the notes and do some digging

[00:21:59] I've never heard anything quite like that So Stomp, that was her 36 jumps so she was an experienced jumper Yeah Normally you can't jump by yourself without having jumped so many times I have a few friends that do it and they're like

[00:22:15] yeah I have to get so many in before I can actually do solo Yeah, it's a risky sport A little bit They said that the they said that she landed in a like a pile of fire ants and because the fire ants stung her that like

[00:22:33] shocked her heart so that she didn't die or something Yeah, wild So it's a miracle, that's in the category of miracles no question about it I feel like there's other stories about people not having their parachutes open I feel like there was a guy in Australia

[00:22:51] where that happened too so I'm going to do some more research and maybe we'll get another story Okay Alright, and then Stomp you pulled a story about a gear review something about a weight boot covers for mud and water crossings We've tried these Stomp though

[00:23:23] Yeah we sure did, well they work They do horrible Trash bags Well that's the thing I saw some posts from some friends of ours and they were tackling I think it was the Gale River Trail and they were using trash bags and it occurred to me that

[00:23:41] you know they offer farm boots that are made from mud and water Whoa! Attack of the kitty on Rebecca's camera It's Thomas, it's got to be Thomas So I just wanted to remind people that there are commercial options out there instead of

[00:23:57] trash bags but feel free to do the trash bags The thing with the Uline boots they're plastic but they don't have a long life They're good for probably a river crossing and that's about it maybe two They do fade fast but

[00:24:11] they're out there and you can get about I think it's maybe 25 or 50 for really dirt cheap But how heavy are they? They don't weigh a thing It's like having a gallon plastic bag sandwich bag Is it just an expensive bag? It's expensive plastic yeah pretty much

[00:24:31] but it's tailored to a boot, it's a boot shape Yeah What Stomp is talking about is they're called Uline waterproof boot covers and they're essentially just little trash bags where they pull up over your boots up to your right below your knee cap

[00:24:47] and then you can put them and walk in the water We use them on Lincoln Woods like the second section right below Bond Cliff Trail Yeah it was so muddy when we started that trip I think we tried them on that pemi loop

[00:25:03] I'm sort of of the mind that if it's going to be really muddy, if it's not cold I just get my feet wet and just I just get wet early on and then it doesn't bother me as much. Yeah I mean for a pemi loop

[00:25:17] though that would be a bad start 30 miles in wet boots True But no I get it Alright and I wanted to give everyone a heads up I caught this online, I think John Swindle heard so shout out to John He had posted this on

[00:25:35] one of the hiking groups There's a map that I'll share on our show notes called Gnar Map and this is a map that will show you snow depth So you can look at this and it'll tell you how deep the snow pack is in different areas

[00:25:55] This time of the year it's nice because you can kind of look to see where the heavier snow starts in New Hampshire and Vermont Gnar? N-A-R? G-N-A-R It's Gnar Gnarly man, Gnarly Yeah like Gary Gnew, Gnar Map And it's pretty good so far I've been looking at it

[00:26:17] and when you look at it it's really just like Mount Carraghan up to Lincoln Woods has like the deepest snow right now it's showing I think like 20 to 30 inches of snow on the ground Well Danielle will talk about her recent hike but she's saying there's

[00:26:35] a ton of Piedmonroe Yeah it's showing the same there, it's showing like 20 to 30 It's at least my leg length My leg? My leg, at least to my hip You're sort of tall so that's good That's like over 3 feet Yeah I would say That's more of a yardstick

[00:26:59] Danielle's a giant so She's taller than I am and I'm almost 6 What are you? You're probably 6 huh? No, I've gotten shorter I'm like 5'9 I was 5'10 once I must have been slouching then today Okay Alright and then this next one I'm interested in people's opinions

[00:27:21] on this one so I had to go into the office today Stomp so I was in Cambridge and yeah it was fun to drive in but Cambridge has a new initiative where they have added 2,500 Oh no actually they've added They had a vote of 2,500 residents

[00:27:43] that passed this initiative to add 70 new street signs in East Cambridge which will include translations into native American language so I guess the original was the Massachusetts tribe language so the way it's set up is you'll have like the stop sign and then under the stop sign

[00:28:05] is this little like smaller version of a stop sign that says Akwesh which is stop in Native American and then they have like street signs which is going to be like first street is going to be called Nikoni Takamako or something So I guess

[00:28:27] apparently they're doing this as a nod to the first people or the first in the native population that lived here before this area was colonized here so I don't know how much money this is costing. Exactly that was my question

[00:28:45] tax dollars. Well here's the other thing is that it's always interesting like I've learned through the years of doing this podcast when you research especially Native American words primarily when you come up with the spelling for these words what ends up happening is that the initial settlers

[00:29:03] who didn't weren't able to write they would pick up the language phonetically from the natives that they interacted with and then pass that on to the second generation of settlers who were more educated and could write so if you look at the early maps like Ancomangus, Mussolaki, Pemigawasset

[00:29:23] there's seven different spellings for all of those and over the years the spellings eventually just get settled on by whoever sold the most maps or books back in the late 1800s so the accuracy of these words is probably pretty dubious at this point but I guess

[00:29:45] it feels good to give a shout out to the Native Americans in Cambridge but I just thought it was interesting that they're going to do this It is interesting. What's the population of Native Americans in Cambridge? Like one? Right now? I couldn't imagine it's that big

[00:30:06] Well, hope somebody enjoys it anyway Yes Yeah, so but I'm going to go over to East Cambridge next time I'm in there and I'll check out some of the signs but I thought it was an interesting story. Does Elizabeth Warren live there? Sorry I couldn't resist

[00:30:24] Well, Elizabeth Warren does live in Cambridge but she lives over by Harvard Square I forget the name of the street because I've been over there before so I mean my family's from Cambridge and I've worked in Cambridge for years so I'm around there quite a bit but

[00:30:38] We try to keep this in the article Yeah, yeah I know where you're going with that Hey Hey, what's that sound? It must be time for the Pop Culture Segment with Mike and Stomp Alright So, well speaking of politics Stomp we've got House of Dragons Season 2

[00:31:12] trailers coming up Excellent. I'm so excited. What did you think of the trailer? I figured you could give us a little primer on what to expect Yeah, I thought it was good I was picking out a couple of the characters

[00:31:22] that I think are going to be involved in this so things are going to get ugly people are going to get killed and it's going to get really bad in this season so what you saw in Season 1 was pretty amazing and it ended on a violent tone

[00:31:36] the violence is going to amp up significantly there's going to be a lot of people get killed and then there's going to be a lot of new characters that show up to replace them and those characters are not going to be nice people

[00:31:48] Yeah, I need a refresher. Have you seen this show? I don't really watch TV much Yeah, you seem too busy You'd have to have like a TV strapped on your head I have a TV that I pay a lot of money for a subscription on Comcast

[00:32:02] That's about it How about you, Rebecca? Have you watched any of this stuff? I don't know what that means No, okay. Yeah, it's more nerdy stuff Anyway, yeah I'm looking forward to it. What's the name of that gigantic dragon? That massive old school dragon

[00:32:18] that they show in this preview Remember that? I forget. Is it like Dungeons and Dragons? No, it's like it's medieval type of it's like Lord of the Rings but it's more political It's high fantasy It's political in the sense that you have all these

[00:32:38] families trying to vie for the crown or the throne in this case It's complicated You'd call it high fantasy and then the political aspect of it is just so it's based on War of the Roses, which was like a political conflict in the British royal family back in

[00:32:58] I don't even know, 1500s or something like that. But the biggest dragon you're talking about, Stomp is Vhagar Looking forward to seeing Vhagar on screen Yes Oh boy, very good Next up, Stomp, you pulled a little update here. So Spotify is going to lay off 17% of the workforce

[00:33:20] They're not doing well apparently Yeah, that's pretty significant The article cites higher costs I'm not sure what costs they're talking about, whether it be electrical costs perhaps Their increased cost has to be on the content side That's the only thing I can think of

[00:33:40] is just acquiring the music and the content has to be more expensive for them Interesting, yeah, that's a good point So yeah, apparently in 2022 they had 8,000 employed, so 17% is a good chunk and they're expecting to lay off some more coming up over the next year

[00:33:58] Yeah, that's a big hit But I think tech companies in general are finding that they can continue to maintain their technical infrastructure with less and less people. They're getting more efficient They're figuring out ways to automate It's interesting right now in the tech market Yeah, alright

[00:34:16] I love it. I still love it. It's a great app Next we have the finale of Squid Games The challenge I'm done with 287. 287 can jump off a bridge Is that a person? Yes This is a new version of the Squid Games where actual people

[00:34:40] participated. They had like over 400 people start and it came down to three. Did you see the finale yesterday, Mike? Nope, I have not seen the finale Oh, alright. I will shut my mouth then. Yes, so it is very interesting and I think

[00:34:56] the last game they play will take you by surprise I'll leave it at that Okay I'm rooting for 451, so we'll see what happens I'll keep my mouth shut Okay. Good stuff So hey, we're moving on. We have free sticker reminder. You can get your stickers

[00:35:15] at the new shop of Ski Fanatics off exit 28 in Campton or at Spinner's Pizza Parlor in Andover off Dascom Road 93 Quick shout out to Reckless Brewing where you can get the best beer and grub just minutes from the 4,000 footers and the five corners and then thank you

[00:35:37] EMS, the Northeast go-to for gear, guidance and more We have a couple coffee donations this week and we love seeing those come in. They're really helpful We have one coffee that was sent by Pottery by Natural and then Lance and Camila donated 10 coffees

[00:35:57] so that was super cool. Thank you everybody for that Let's see We also have our Fieldstone Kombucha sponsor which is the latest sponsor. They're back for a round with us and we're glad to have them and I just lost the plug here in my phone

[00:36:21] so why don't you talk for a moment Mike Dead air, no dead air I'm gonna let you suffer Oh here we go, I got it So Fieldstone Kombucha, New England's premium craft kombucha company If you're in the heart of New England, you need to drink a

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[00:37:17] Mad River Coffee House in Campton, The Conquered Food Co-op and more Check out our website for the full list of NH and New England wide locations Use code SLASR on our website for 10% off an online order shipped straight to your door. And that's FieldstoneKombuchaCo.com Cool

[00:37:41] You did excellent Stomp. Thank you very much It's tough. It's tough reading for a minute straight without effing up Yes So this is the part of the show where we talk about what beer we are drinking, Stomp? Oh, do you want to start? Let's have a...

[00:37:57] Well, we know Rebecca is teetotaling, right? You don't drink alcohol, correct? Alright Let's go to Danielle and see what she brought tonight. Can you see that? Yeah, Out of Order It's a Double Mango Sorbet which is an American Sour Out of Cambridge, Maryland Cambridge, Maryland

[00:38:29] Did you bring that yourself, Danielle? I did. Found it in my fridge I bought it a little while ago Still there Do you prefer the sours over the IPAs and other types of beer? IPAs are terrible I cannot do IPAs I like sours

[00:38:47] They've grown on me over the last three years What do you got, Mike? I have Cloud Candy which is a New England IPA by Night Squirrel Brewing Company. I think I had these a couple of weeks ago That sounds like a sour, but then it's an IPA

[00:39:09] I would have bought that thinking it was a sour and then I'd have been very disappointed You could have given it to me I am drinking a Woodstock Brewery beer It's a benefit for the New England Disabled Sports

[00:39:29] I saw that and I was like, oh that's super cool It's a New England India Pale Ale It's called Breaking Boundaries IPA It says here, the Woodstock Inn Brewery will donate $1 from each four pack sold to New England Disabled Sports Enjoy this hazy, hoppy New England IPA while

[00:39:49] raising money for a great organization It tastes really good. It's good stuff Remember when you used to make Mai Tais and all kinds of fancy drinks? Those are the days, huh? It's too busy. I can't do it Gotta wake up fresh in the morning

[00:40:07] You've got some stuff here about artificial intelligence creating beer recipes or something This is really interesting Mr. and Mrs. Stomp, we went away this last weekend to the Indian Head Resort just for a random mini vacation Super funny Way to go really far away

[00:40:29] We have a heated pool That's why we went. We needed a sauna We need the pool It was really fantastic On the way we hit Wayne's Market which is in Woodstock I grabbed a four pack and it was called AIPA It was a beer that was created by

[00:40:47] a brewing company in Everett, Massachusetts called Night Shift Brewing It was labeled as the first beer to be created by AI It made the recipe, it made the graphics It actually brewed it, if I remember correctly I'm like, oh that sounds intriguing They used chat GPT

[00:41:07] to make the recipe The beer was absolutely fantastic so I went down the rabbit hole and did some more research There are others out there I don't know if Night Shift Brewing in Everett was the first because there were others Deep Liquid New Orleans

[00:41:25] They had some press in June 2022 Detroit based brewery is maybe February 23 and then there's Rio Bravo Brewing, March 23 and then the last one I found was Intelligent X I have some news articles about them dating back to like 2019 So this AI brewing thing is really interesting

[00:41:52] I can't imagine anything in 2019 would have been notable for artificial intelligence but who knows Keep a lookout for it, I've had some chats in the background with Reckless Steve and he's aware What's the deal with Indian Head?

[00:42:08] Can you go up on that tower there if you're a guest or is that just open on certain times? I really don't know We didn't venture into that area It looks as though it's accessible but nobody was on it when we were there

[00:42:20] You would think that somebody would be on it if we were there It was a huge wedding I stayed there once for a wedding but it was snowing out So they didn't have it open We also were not probably in the right state of mind

[00:42:34] to start climbing something but I don't think it was open because of the weather Okay, I mean it looked like it was open but we didn't try And I don't think you need to be a guest there to go up Interesting

[00:42:46] It's not like there's somebody there standing there being like, room? Right, right, yeah Well even with the huts and the pool there was really nobody supervising that either Somebody I know who used to live around here said that locals used to go there knowing they wouldn't check

[00:43:04] and then they started doing bracelets Right, we got a green bracelet They didn't have bracelets back in 2011 when I stayed there And we didn't know there was a pool that was heated We didn't even know that until we left But honestly Mike, it was a good time

[00:43:18] We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere 20 minutes away from home and it was so much fun The gift shop is amazing We got some cool stuff because it's where the Betty and Barney Hill historic marker is So everything's themed with the UFOs

[00:43:34] and we got a magnet with that observation tower with a UFO on top of it hovering Stuff like that, really cool schlocky stuff But it was great Yeah I love the roadside stuff You know what I was thinking too this would be a cool place to stay at

[00:43:50] but I also have always had my eyes on that Adventure Suites in North Conway because they have the haunted room or whatever Have you stayed there Danielle? No, I just drove by there myself and a few others stayed at a 5999 motel up the road

[00:44:10] That was quite nice actually But I drove by and I was like huh They have a room that you can stay in and I don't know if it's just around Halloween but it's literally like a house of horrors where it'll wake you up

[00:44:26] and it makes all kinds of noise and a drawer will open up and close It's this weird experience that you can stay there I've always been curious about that I've never taken He stayed there before and taken his son there

[00:44:46] He was the one that inspired us to try Indian Head because him and Jenny swear by it and it was great, it was a good time Alright well that's good stuff So now is the part of the show where we talk about recent hikes I have nothing

[00:45:00] I traded my boots for a bathing suit last weekend so I got nothing. How about you? I had to pay the wife tax This is a hiking podcast Clearly I don't know if you can appreciate this but my wife's pretty good

[00:45:18] She lets me go hiking, I do my weekends but every once in a while she'll start on I have to get this done or that done She's wanted to get the kitchen painted for a long time and it honestly needed to be painted

[00:45:30] It was kind of crappy weather and I was kind of regretting it Camilla and Lance who were nice enough to give us the coffee had reached out and they were like, we're going hiking on Mt. Jackson I was like, I really want to go

[00:45:42] but I had to stay home and paint Mrs. Mike has to stay happy or I can never go hiking Now what did you paint exactly? I painted the kitchen so I had to do a ceiling and then the walls of the kitchen

[00:45:56] It's hard because there's no big wall so it was a lot of taping a lot of prep, a lot of plastic around the cabinets and a lot of edging Gotcha, gotcha So it wasn't like I could just roll it on It was just a lot of detail

[00:46:14] Gotcha, well good job So no hikes Why don't we just get into our listeners notable hikes here Stomp, we've got a bunch Yeah, oh Daniel did Monroe Did you want to talk about that briefly? Because it sounds pretty epic with the snow

[00:46:31] Just to touch upon the snow depth Yeah, so I started I did snowshoes from car to car I could have probably spiked I don't know, half a mile, a mile up but I had enough that my snowshoes weren't going to break and I'd rather not carry them

[00:46:49] Everybody barebooted because I only know that because I had to make a path at some point wider than the path, like it was just footpath and then once you got up to towards the top crossing, before you start really heading up and there was probably one to two

[00:47:09] foot post holes there Wow, and I'm like how do you even keep going? And then I got up even further and then there were some spruce traps before the hut and then I saw a bareboot going to Washington still

[00:47:23] so there was somebody who still continued to Washington with bareboots but when I went up Monroe there was no Prince anymore so it was so windy that the ground was moving pretty much and then I was trying to I met the one guy who had snowshoes above me

[00:47:37] who kind of just put them on not long before me before I saw him and I got tried to turn because you know how Monroe it kind of switchbacks which you can't see anything when there's snow but I hit a spruce trap

[00:47:51] and it went up all the way to my hip and I was in snowshoes with my televators up and I was like oh, popped out of that and I was like, televators down, light feet light feet so I was surprised how much snow was up there

[00:48:05] I don't know if it was drifting or it just filled all the crevices and everything but yeah That is the north side, I mean you would think that there'd be more there perhaps but even coming up to it it was pretty deep Well that's encouraging

[00:48:21] Yeah, I'm hoping for a good winter here How about you Rebecca, anything for recent hikes? I went on I think Tuesday or Wednesday I just did Unconunic, I've been getting into running so I've been more doing that I haven't really been hiking as much I've only been going

[00:48:39] I think that was my first hike in two weeks and prior to that I did Pierce and I've been working a lot I need to replenish my funds after taking basically 16 months more or less off from life, that's like adulting so responsibility

[00:48:59] so I've been really busy, not on trail Gotcha, gotcha, awesome What's Unconuncunc? Unconunic Unconunc They're the Gothstown boobs Isn't that what that means? Yes Is that a trail-less or trailed? They're trailed Interesting, so south Yeah it's right in Gothstown Gotcha, okay

[00:49:27] It's literally right next to where I live so it's like 10 minutes away I just drive over and do one of the peaks or two of them depending on my mood and it was more or less an impromptu decision to go do a hike after doing a run

[00:49:39] Yeah, good for you That's great Now what's your solution for running with the snow and the icy conditions coming onto the local roads and things? I run on my treadmill or at Livingston Park and currently there has not been any snow there

[00:49:57] I don't run on a road, I live in Manchester on a very busy road It would not be a good choice to run on It would force me to run off the road and probably get hit because it doesn't have any shoulder Yeah, yeah, yeah, no it's sketchy

[00:50:17] I'm trying to figure out the whole traction thing for running, I haven't been able to run recently because it's so icy here already and I don't feel like running It's not enough to put on my crampons like my katulas you know what I mean?

[00:50:31] You could get the Yaktrack thingies Yeah, I could look for those I feel like they would hurt with the pounding Yeah, it's really frustrating this shoulder season for runners in a sense Hey, before we move on to Notable Hikes Danielle, I'm curious, did you come back down

[00:50:45] Ammonusic or how did you come down? I did, I was gonna go over to Washington but with the wind was just so strong that I was like I don't need Washington I'll be good So I just came right back down Ammo How bad is it going down Ammo?

[00:51:05] I slid once or twice but I ski, you know, so I know a lot of people, there's a few people they're like, how are you so comfortable with that? I was like, well I ski so it's almost like you're skiing down at times but it's not terrible

[00:51:19] I would prefer not to go down Ammo but I've done it a few times Is that sheet of glare ice just below the hut there yet or is it covered? Covered. Oh good I could see a few spots but there's still snow on top of it

[00:51:35] They got some fresh snow probably an inch or two over the last night or two That can be intimidating trying to get down that glare ice when it's there Stomp, are you going on Saturday to that hike? The weather doesn't look great I'm appending because tomorrow my truck's

[00:51:55] getting inspected and Mrs. Stomp's car failed inspection last week so I have to do her rotors and pads this tomorrow being Friday or today when this episode comes out so we'll see how it goes If it bleeds in the Saturday then no

[00:52:09] I just gotta get this stupid car stuff done I'm looking forward to it though I haven't hiked with that crew We'll see how it goes Notable hikes here, we got a big list We gotta get to Daniel and Rebecca Let's cruise through this

[00:52:27] Notable hike of the week if you want to tag Slasher do so and we may consider you for the hike of the week, it's been a few weeks I'll just zip through these quickly Maybe Daniel and Rebecca can pick their fave, okay So pay attention

[00:52:41] Solo Hikes did Lonesome Lake before Reckless Show Pretty cool Zoe the Dog hit Lonesome Cannon and Mount Hail for 7 out of 48 Mr. Connelly Hikes did the Moats IW Tett did the Eaglet and Watcher and I recall pictures being somewhat snowy on that adventure That Friggin Hiker

[00:53:05] did a wintry Mount Tecumseh Eric J72 also did Tecumseh Sea Gothberg, saw a sunrise from Sawyer Mountain on the Connecticut River Beautiful pictures, I reposted some of those Ginger Beard did South Peak and Moose Lock Brady Girl 1 Table Rock, another one that I'm dying to get up to

[00:53:29] Rhonda Willett Single Year New Hampshire 48 Round 3 on Wildcat D Let's see We have another one from Ginger Beard Keene Fliberty Fliberty meaning Flume and Liberty For those that aren't aware Full Strength Coffee made it out to Owl's Head to Mount Martha This is not the Pemme Owl's Head

[00:53:53] This is the one up by Twin Mountain and Cherry Mountain EC Banks is now at 321 and a little over 576 for his grid on Owl's Head He was reporting thin snow These go back a few weeks And a couple more here Hiking Feeds My Soul

[00:54:13] North for 20 out of 52 of the view Miles the Dog Miles the Dog I put 4 miles Miles the Dog, oh yeah it's a dog Jake and Julie Mount Crescent in Randolph Mount Crescent, oh yeah, it's a cold Tim Trotter 58 Mount Mitchell the highest peak east of the Mississippi

[00:54:39] at 6,684 feet That's impressive I didn't know we had some big ones out there Robert Boyd hit Avalon AFolsom 33 Adams via Craig Camp Nick Hikeson plays guitar Tackled Middle Sister and Chacora An epic bushwhack including Mount Oscar, Rosewood, Stick Me and Echo for like 10 miles bushwhacking

[00:55:05] So that's your list Any favorites out of that list? I'll go with Mount Mitchell I would say Mount Mitchell That was Tim Trotter 58 That's my pick Have you been there? Yeah, I would say that's down in North Carolina North Carolina North Carolina, I think it's that one

[00:55:31] Because Clingmans Dome is the tallest on the AT And that's in technically Tennessee Like on the line Okay, cool Yeah, we'll get to that So let's jump into their segment Mike Because I can do some ads a little bit later Before we do Search and Rescue

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[00:58:14] So, we've met through Some social media We've met on Trail We've done a triathlon I know you know Stomp as well So, that's all Good stuff Rebecca obviously, you've been on the show 3 or 4 times now So, we've kind of followed your journey So we're looking forward

[00:58:40] To catching up With both of you Yeah, yeah, she is. So we'll let you guys introduce yourself in a second, but we're gonna be talking about the redline slash trace. So I thought that I would just throw the smelly fish

[00:58:55] out on the table, as we like to say in the business world. The elephant. And just talk about like the, so this redlining and trace is essentially like the goal is to hike all the trails in the White Mountain Guide.

[00:59:08] Up until like about a year or two ago, everybody was settled on this being called redlining. And then there was a little bit of a controversy where, you know, there was a group of hikers that had pushed to get the name changed

[00:59:22] because they felt like the term redline was an offensive term that was used in segregating back in the civil rights era or pre civil rights era and that it had negative connotations. And if you wanted to get into deep dive, we covered it on like episode three.

[00:59:40] And back then I was sort of the, a long time ago, but I was always of the perspective that like, okay, well, we should be respectful and I'm gonna change the wording from redline to trace. But in the last three years or so,

[00:59:53] I've sort of seen like the kind of vibe around like this language policing and things like that. I don't necessarily think that it's actually a good thing to sort of seed some of this wording anymore. I've seen just seen a lot of bad things happen around it.

[01:00:08] So from my perspective, I think you could call it redline and you can call it trace, you call it whatever you want. But I don't know, Danielle, Rebecca, Stomp, if you guys have any perspective on this. I mean, we'll use the term redline,

[01:00:19] we'll use the term trace interchangeably, but I don't know if anybody has any sort of postmortem on this that they wanna talk about. Anybody? Yeah, I mean, it's sort of complicated. The English language, every word has five different meanings. Right, that's my take on it too.

[01:00:36] Redline, like you can redline a car. Redline a car, you can redline on Microsoft. You can, there's so many different definitions. Yeah, that's my take on it more or less. I am interested in the current take on it by the hiking community. So what's going on out there

[01:00:56] in some of these more popular social media sites, Mike, or anybody? I don't know to be honest with you. I think that there was a group that was dedicated to redlining and tracing. I don't know if they're still on Facebook.

[01:01:11] I think that like the end result of this was that I think that they sort of closed up shop and they've just sort of been like, I don't want the headache. I don't wanna get hassled about it because I just wanna go out and do my thing.

[01:01:23] So I think at the end of the day, it just turned into sort of like a way to sort of push people that were engaged in online communities to just say like, I'm not gonna dive into it anymore just because it's too much drama.

[01:01:39] I can say that group still exists. That Facebook group? Yeah, it actually says redlining again. Cause I'm on it. Yeah. It was traced for a while and then they just put it to White Mountain National Guidebook. And then I think it, I'm almost positive it's back to redline.

[01:01:57] Is it hyphenated or just one word? Who knows? I can look it up. No, I'm pretty sure it's two words. The woman who runs it now, Rachel, she pulled the group a couple months ago maybe and decided that it was gonna be something

[01:02:17] that they wanted to call redlining again. Basically, there's, you can read the comments if you wanna know like more information about what it says. But yeah, she basically is the admin on the group now and made it kind of like a group decision

[01:02:34] where we all decided to vote on what we wanted the name of the group to be. And the interesting thing is that there's at least two other groups that are on Facebook, Southern New Hampshire Redlining and the Mad Knock Trail System calls it redlining.

[01:02:50] And neither of those groups were targeted in the, I don't know what you would call it, the attack on the term redlining that occurred back in 2020. It was only the White Mountain Guide that was canceled basically for calling it redlining.

[01:03:10] The other two groups were left out of that. Here's a question, I don't remember what the maps look like in the guide. Are the maps, are the trails red themselves or are they different colors? Red. Okay, I mean, that's the answer right there. It's-

[01:03:26] I was gonna say redlining, one of my friends who lives out in California, I said, I was like, oh, I'm redlining. He goes, oh, that's sweet. We have that too. And I went, well, what do you, what is it for you?

[01:03:35] And he was like, oh, it's all of the red lines on the map. It's actually all the county lines we call it redlining. And I was like, everybody's good for meaning. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, to me, I mean, certainly no hikers are advocating

[01:03:46] for like racism or anything like that. And I'd like to see words that really capture what people are doing and what the founding source is. And you're telling me that the trails are marked red. I mean, it just seems like the proper word despite the history.

[01:04:08] And I can't imagine people being offended by that. I really can't, especially this far out. Yeah, anyway, so we'll be, I mean, we'll be talking about it. I may throw in redlining tracing. I mean, it is, it's a lot of weird drama here. Moving on. Moving on.

[01:04:27] So Danielle, why don't you introduce yourself? Why don't you give a little bit of background about your hiking and outdoor sort of experience as you were a young person? And then can you guide us to how you got into sort of more of the- You're no longer young.

[01:04:44] More of the hardcore hiking stuff. All right, when I was young, I'm from Rhode Island originally. So me and my family used to come up here and camp and everything like that. I thought I was a hiker. Cause you know, you walked out in the woods

[01:04:56] and you're like, ah, I can hike. This is great. And then I went to college at Plymouth State, which is up in the White Mountains. And I joined the outdoors group and I was like, of course I'm outdoorsy. Cause I walk in the woods.

[01:05:08] And they took us up Welsh Dickey. Didn't know that at the time. I hated it. It was terrible. I hated life. And I said, I was never hiking again in my entire life. I did rattlesnake and hook in Holderness a bunch of times,

[01:05:21] but I didn't consider that hiking cause it was like 15 minutes, 20 minutes to the top. And then back in 2012, myself and three of my girlfriends were all like, we're bored. We should do something. And they're like, we should hike. I'm like, I don't think so, but okay.

[01:05:37] So we did Mount Major and I died going up it obviously. And after that I was like, I need to hike more. That was great. And my roommate at the time, love her to death. She's one of my best friends.

[01:05:51] We push each other clearly, but I was like, I'm gonna go do a 4,000 footer. There's this thing called the 4,000 footers. And she was like, you do know that Mount Major is like 1200 feet, right? Like you just died up that. What do you mean you're gonna go do this?

[01:06:03] So obviously I had to prove her wrong. And then I started with Mount Pierce, hated it all the way up, loved it all the way down, got no view. And then after that, like obviously my first year I did seven and failed on Eisenhower because of snow sideways

[01:06:25] in the beginning of October. And then the next year I was like, I'm gonna do them all. So then I finished my 48 within 13 months total. And then I was like, I'll wait a little on the 67. And that's kind of, that's where my list issue went.

[01:06:40] So the more I started hiking, the more gear I got, like obviously I was in cotton with Jansport backpack on my first seven with cotton gloves and cotton everything. Thinking about it now, we were like, oh, that wasn't smart. But there was also not as many people

[01:06:56] on the trails back then. Like I go midweek now, I saw one guy today, I saw 12 people yesterday, midweek. If I went mid week back in 2012, trails wouldn't have been broken, I wouldn't have seen anybody. So kind of just spiraled from there. And I now go every week.

[01:07:15] So you graduated from Plymouth State and then decided to stay up here. So my parents moved back, moved to Massachusetts when I was in school, when I was 20, I moved back home with them. My great grand idea was I'm gonna move to Ireland.

[01:07:31] And me and my friend were gonna get like an Irish husband and we're gonna, because we saw PS, I love you. So that was our grand idea. My dad said no. And I went, what do you mean? He goes, well, I paid for undergrad.

[01:07:46] So you can pay me back with interest if you wanna do that. And I was like, oh, okay, I guess I won't do that. I'm curious though, so what is your, what's the move to find an Irish husband?

[01:08:00] Do you just go to like the Black Rose in Boston and act confused or what do you do? I vaguely remember it. PS, I love you is a movie out and there was like, they were here, the husband died

[01:08:16] and he actually like left all these things for his wife. And then the wife went to Ireland, met his best friend, ended up marrying him. The guy who had died was Irish, Gerard Butler. Okay. Man crush right there. So therefore we're like, this is gonna be great.

[01:08:33] We're gonna go and be like waitresses and we'll just find a guy and it'll be great. Because that was, you know, 21 year old brain. That's wild. Yeah, instead you find a short King from Manchester. I'm single so I have nothing for Manchester. But no, I went back home.

[01:08:52] I ended up going to grad school in Boston, went to Suffolk and then two weeks after that moved to Manchester and I've been there for the last 14 years. Okay. Wow. And as far as your evolution on hiking, so you hit some snow in October in those early days.

[01:09:07] Did you like do the winter hiking thing right away or did you take like a year or two to learn to do that or how did that evolve? So I did, like I stopped after, like we failed on Eisenhower, me and my friend Adam

[01:09:22] who had gone out with me for those few hikes. We went and did Moose Lock, it was cold but not enough snow, it was just freezing. And then I started hiking in March, like two days after winter ended. And that's when I learned how to snowshoe

[01:09:37] by myself in the woods. Because my mom was like, hey, you need snowshoes? And I was like, yeah. So she gave me ones with crampons but they didn't have televators back then. That's when I learned what poles were

[01:09:49] and I went out and did my first solo hike to Wombat not knowing I was breaking trail the whole time. Can you explain what a televator is? Televator is what you put under your heel, you can flip up. So when you walk uphill, it's not like you're using

[01:10:04] all of like your Achilles and your calves don't get stretched. It's almost like you're on stairs. They're like high heels. The cog approach, cog railroad for snowshoes. Yep, so I kind of just went into it and like I Googled everything

[01:10:20] and back then I used 4000footers.com, the website. I think it's still up. One of my friends, I became her friend. She's the one who actually created the site but I used to like go on there and be like, what's the easiest route? I bought all the books.

[01:10:39] I bought the guidebook. I bought the 4,000 footer book. I bought maps. Back then it wasn't like watch YouTube videos. It was just, hey, read up on things. I used to check everything. I would check the weather. I would check, I don't think I checked New England trail conditions

[01:10:54] that time. It used to be just the New Hampshire trails and just research everything because I went about half solo and half not. What do you think flipped, what flipped in you where you went from I hate this well sticky to I kind of like this mountain major

[01:11:15] to I'm going to do the 4,000 footer list? What do you think in your, was it your personality just changing? Was it your life situation changing? What was it that sort of flipped that switch for you? I guess more of it was a good workout.

[01:11:31] I really hate going to the gym and it was something like, hey, it gets you outside. You get to see stuff. Even if there's no views, you get to still kind of see stuff. And back then I didn't know that I would just pretty much meet everybody

[01:11:45] that I now hang out with from hiking. Back then I didn't know anybody that hikes. So like my 4,000 footer finish, one of my best friends came on it and she had sneakers on and I gave her a pole to come down, Kerrigan.

[01:11:57] So like it just kind of kept building. It was more goal oriented, kind of gave me like a, I guess not purpose, but like, hey, see if you can do this. Hey, see if you can do this. Hey, can you do it faster now? Hey.

[01:12:14] So just kept building. Yeah, and at a certain point you started getting into backpacking and I know that every year you go on a long section hike for the AT. So can you talk a little bit about how that started and where you're at with the AT section?

[01:12:31] Yeah, so the reason why I started section hiking was my friend Trish and Alex were going on the AT and I was like, that is awesome. Like when I was hiking, I knew the AT existed, but didn't think about it that thoroughly.

[01:12:48] Like I did the 67 and I was like, oh, those are through hikers. Like not thinking anything of it. And then myself, my friend Suzanne and Ed, we're all like, hey, we're gonna meet you guys in August. Wherever you guys are, we're gonna find you,

[01:13:02] we're gonna meet you and we're gonna hike with you. If we can keep up, cool. If we can't, we're gonna hug you and say bye, but still go out. So that's kind of how that started. We went out and we met them in Pennsylvania.

[01:13:14] Anybody knows about AT in Pennsylvania, it's terrible. Really? It's called Rocksylvania. And like, it's just terrible. Interesting. It's like the Northern part of Pennsylvania, but after that kind of just got hooked. And Ed was, he jumped off trail there from the previous year.

[01:13:33] He had hiked half the trail, jumped off right where we jumped on. And then Suzanne and I hadn't done anything. So we kind of, we all started doing sections like a week at a time. And every time we would do it, they're like, can we do more?

[01:13:46] And I'm like, I don't know if I wanna do more. I don't know. And then they would talk me into like merging into the middle. And then the last few years, myself and Suzanne have added a Southern trip too. So we were going Northbound from that PA part.

[01:14:03] And then myself and Suzanne jumped down to Georgia, the start of the trail and kind of have like two sections kind of going now. Wow. Yeah, I actually, until you had mentioned it, I had forgotten, but when I was on Katahdin,

[01:14:16] I had actually met up with Trish and Alex on the night they finished, or the day they finished. So they had come down into A-Ball and we'd all hung out. That's actually how they, cause I messaged them and I was like, when are you guys finishing?

[01:14:30] And it was the, what was that called? The Northeast Backpacking Group or something like that. So they were telling me when they were finishing, I'm like, you think I'm gonna be able to get into Baxter on Columbus Day weekend? What do you, you think there's sites available?

[01:14:44] And then I was like, wait a second, there's already sites taken for the group. And I knew everybody and that's- So you just told, dropped their name or something or? No, it was Phil, right? Phil and Pat were the ones who did it and I knew them.

[01:14:58] So I was like, hey, you guys still have room? They're like, yeah. And I was like, sweet. So I jumped in and then I told the girls, I'm like, I'm gonna park my car down at Katahdin Streams. When you jump in my car, drive to A-Ball,

[01:15:10] come camp with us, we'll give you food. I'll give you a different backpack. I'll give you blankets and sweats and whatever you want and sweets. And then we drove my car back. No, we got a ride in the morning to Katahdin Streams.

[01:15:26] We finished, came down to A-Ball and my car was there and then I drove them out. So. Oh, I didn't even know you were there. I was there the whole time. Sorry. Yeah, no, I went on to the top with them.

[01:15:37] I got them that good old viewless summit. Yeah, wow. Well, in your opinion, so when you think about the AT, what's your thoughts about that Georgia section down there? Because I'm interested in doing that in the future. Beautiful, it was really cool.

[01:15:52] It's weird because there's 4,000 footers in Georgia. Blood Mountain, it's different. It's for sure different. I remember going down there and we were just like, huh, there's woods in Georgia. You just don't expect it. And I will give it that if you tell people down there,

[01:16:13] they all just started. A lot of them have just started. But if you go down there during, I don't know, February through May, we went down there in May and we still had some people and they were all like, you're from New Hampshire? How are the whites?

[01:16:28] They were all awed by us. We're like, oh, they're fine. They're cool. It's cool down here too though. Take everything in. And they were just very, everybody seems to be scared of the whites. We're just over, I've got like 1,100 miles now in

[01:16:48] on the AT, so I'm just over halfway. Yeah, it's really funny. Where are you gonna land when you pick it up again? For this coming year? We jumped out at Grayson Highlands in Virginia where the ponies are. So we jumped out there.

[01:17:07] We jumped out a little early this time because it was raining and it was like 40 degrees and miserable. And section hiking life means that you don't have to be miserable if you don't want to. You can just go home a half a day early and get a shower.

[01:17:21] It's kind of what we've learned. So we'll jump on there. I don't know if, myself and Susanna have been talking. I don't know if we'll be able to get one or two weeks in. If we can get 200 miles. I did map it out. 200 miles is like 13 days

[01:17:37] and it jumps us right below McAfee Knob. So ultimately, she can get your iconic picture and then move on. It wouldn't get us there yet. But we would be able to start next year's right at that. So you're a list junkie though, huh? Super. Super list junkie.

[01:17:55] You and I tackled some 500s together. That's been fun. I'm still working on that one. Oh my God, I'm assuming. Yeah, me too, me too. All my other lists, I have priority lists. You have to prioritize them. I can imagine. You'll never finish them all.

[01:18:11] Or you will, but it will be like all at the same time. Oh, can you imagine lining that up? My friend did that. My friend Joe finished his 48, winter 48, 67 and New England 100 highest because he saved Mariah in the winter. That's epic, huh Mike? Yeah, that's impressive. That's impressive.

[01:18:35] You know what I wanted to, and we gotta get to Rebecca too, but I wanted to just ask you one more thing. So you had taken the trip to Yosemite with a crew this year. Matter of fact, it was helpful because I could look at your pictures

[01:18:45] and sort of analyze where I was gonna be going because I went about a month after you guys. Can you talk a little bit about your perspective on Yosemite and then talk a little bit about like have you done any other national park trips

[01:18:56] that stand out to you? Yosemite was cool. But so I've done Yosemite, I've done Glacier, Tetons and Yellowstone. And I went to Rainier as well. I will say as much as I love those areas, national parks are so swamped. There's so many people everywhere.

[01:19:20] I know when we hit Yosemite border because we were hiking the JMT, the John Muir Trail, it like there was nobody cause it's so far out. But once you started getting into closer on roads, you just started seeing lots and lots of people, lots and day hikers.

[01:19:34] It's almost like you're seeing Mount Washington on top. People drove there. But it is epic though there. Like you look out and like you did Half Dome this time, right Mike? Yeah, yeah. And I think my biggest thing about Half Dome

[01:19:50] was it was just so freaky going up those cables because you had no idea of the skill level of the people that were above you or below you. So I've done it twice now cause I did the JMT last year and this year I did half of it.

[01:20:01] And I got Yosemite Half Dome permits for both years. Doing it in the morning, I will give it, definitely was nice because you didn't have that many people coming. Like when you started coming down, there wasn't people like massive amounts of people aligned going up.

[01:20:20] And of course, when I got to it last year, I had 200 miles on a set of shoes that were already pretty worn down and I was like, I'm gonna slide. I'm gonna slide all the way down this thing. It was great. How would you rate Teton versus Yosemite?

[01:20:36] Cause that's on my radar for the next trip. I was with the boyfriend I had at the time. We did a glacier, Yellowstone Teton all in one trip in 12 days. And Tetons is more backpacking, I would say. Like not as many day hikes.

[01:20:49] We went on day hikes, but they were very, very short. Like I spent a day and a half in the Tetons. I spent, what's it? Nine days in glacier. I love glacier. Glacier was beautiful. Tetons was cool, but we also had the fires.

[01:21:03] So I didn't know the mountains were there until you got there and you're like, oh, oh, they're right here. So it was very, it was different. I know Dolores has been out onto the Tetons and she's backpacked out there. And she had a little altitude wheezy,

[01:21:22] I believe she said when she was like, I didn't feel right. And like when you were in Yosemite, it wasn't that high as much as it was high compared to us. Once you get up to that 10,000 feet, you really start feeling it.

[01:21:35] And I know the Tetons are up there for any of the backpacking areas. So I would say I like Yosemite just because I've backpacked more in Yosemite. Yeah, yeah. And I agree with you about, like we were in Mono Meadow

[01:21:48] and like it was the first two days we didn't see anybody. And then once we got into like little Yosemite and by Half Dome in that area, there was, it was very crowded coming down the Mist Trail. But I was okay with it.

[01:22:00] I kind of expected that, but yeah, you're right. It is, it's a scene. It is. And we had to, I was gonna say this year when we came out, it was making sure Dolores got down safely. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. I wanna get her on the show someday.

[01:22:19] So I'm gonna hold that story. But you guys had a little bit of a rescue there, but I'm gonna try to get her on the show at some point. So we'll do a deep dive on that, but just sit tight Danielle. I'm gonna come back to you,

[01:22:32] but Rebecca, I just wanna come to you for a second and reintroduce yourself. So you've been on the show a couple of times and I know that like when we initially talked, you were sort of talking about your, sort of your medical journey

[01:22:43] and your goals of attempting a red line in like a single year. And then that got put on hold due to your medical challenges, but you're sort of back and relatively healthy. You wanna reintroduce yourself and sort of talk about what you've been up to.

[01:22:57] And you've got a new sort of hiking platform that I wanna hear about too. Sure, so in 2020, I was at about 23% redlined and decided I wanted to try doing it in a year. So I zeroed out my spreadsheet and started over at zero.

[01:23:18] I got 7.4% done in about two months and then COVID hit. So I had to stop, started again in August of 20, or June of 2020. And got till August of 2020, 18% done and then had to stop again because I got diagnosed with cancer. I went through cancer treatment for 19 months.

[01:23:40] And my last day seeing my oncologist and being discharged from treatment was in March of 2023. Up to that point, I had continued working on redlining and I was about 56 or 7% done for my whole life. Cause I kind of just kept my data, obviously.

[01:24:02] Every time I reset my spreadsheet, I would still keep a copy of what I had done. And then in June of 2022, I don't know if I just said March of 2023, I ended treatment. If not, if I did, what I meant was March of 2022.

[01:24:21] My calendar is a little messed up because I've been hiking so much that I lose track of, I honestly have lost a few years of my life sort of in my head. So anyways, so June of 2022, I started redlining again and my goal, hold on,

[01:24:41] was to do it in 15 months. So I, and I was also going to do the 100 highest. So I had set aside this time as kind of a gift to myself for going through cancer treatment. And I was working part-time, but also I was mostly hiking.

[01:24:58] So I hiked about three to four days a week. So from June 19th, 2022 until October 29th, 2023, I did 97.6% of the trails. I had four hikes left to complete a timed attempt. And at that point, I actually finished the guidebook in its totality

[01:25:19] because I had that extra 56% I had already done. So I was redoing a lot of trails throughout this 16, or it ended up being 16 months. So I finished on Franconia Brook Trail on October 29th and I decided it would be very anticlimactic to keep going

[01:25:37] and do the four remaining days of hiking and decided I'm done. And also at that point, I was more than burnt out and needed to get back to like being an adult because I have a household, like I can't just step away from all of that forever.

[01:25:53] So I decided it was where I needed to end this journey and I ended it that day. And since then, I have gone on a few hikes, but I've mainly been working and working on building a website

[01:26:06] that is kind of a little bit of what I wanna work on after, like now that I'm done. It certainly isn't the only thing I wanna do with my time or my life, but it's one thing that I've wanted to do for a long time.

[01:26:18] So I'm finally taking the time to do it. Yeah, and what's the rebranding? So you've had a couple of iterations of different social media personas. So my name is Socktonhikes on Instagram and that's my personal Instagram. So that still is what it is.

[01:26:33] I have no change to that. That's just my personal Instagram that I post on. But I have had a website since 2020 that I've always just kept as like a blog and it was rebeccasperry.com. And I've mentioned, because I write for a few different outdoor brands,

[01:26:53] I've mentioned to them that it would be really interesting and something that they should think about is targeting the day hiker population because most of these websites tend to target through hikers, at least the ones I've written for.

[01:27:08] And none of them really took me up on the idea. So I'm like, well, why am I giving them an idea and just assuming I'm not good enough to do it myself sort of? So I decided I'm gonna do it myself and that's essentially where I decided to,

[01:27:23] I took my personal blog website and renamed it the newenglandhiker.com and it is geared towards mostly, I would say day hikers in the New England area looking for advice on everything from gear to different routes to try to just hiking basics and things like that

[01:27:47] because I'm certainly not a ultra athlete and I could see myself as a person who isn't an ultra athlete being intimidated to approach someone who is perhaps an ultra athlete for advice on routes and things like that. So, and since I've hiked every trail in the guidebook,

[01:28:06] I feel like I have now finally gotten to a point where I'm worthy of presenting my information for the public. I feel like I'm not just some influencer who's posting funny videos on my social media. I actually have kind of something to back my information.

[01:28:25] Yeah, you got a resume. Yeah, I've done the trails in the guidebook now over one and a half times. I'm working on round two and my goal is to finish round two at least. So I don't think I'm a complete moron at this point.

[01:28:39] I think it's a little bit valid for me to present information to the public. So basically right now I'm just trying to build content on the site and post every week. And I also have a master's in fine arts to finish, which is a whole other thing

[01:28:54] that I need to start doing again. So I'm pretty busy. I have a lot going on right now and I've been on a few hikes, but mainly I've been enjoying not hiking as much. And I love that I get to just sit back

[01:29:07] in my nice warm house and watch as Daniel's out there breaking trail and know that I don't have to join her. Nice. Yeah, do you, as far as like the format of the New England Hiker, so I've gotten a few videos

[01:29:22] that have popped up on my social media. So it seems like you're segmenting out some of the videos by the red lining tab. So you'd be like the Waterville Valley area, it's got X number of miles, X number of trails. Is that how you're gonna approach it?

[01:29:39] Or are you still sort of feeling it out and trying to figure out what the format's gonna be? So I write a post on the website and I have a whole outline all the way through May of what I'm posting once a week on the website.

[01:29:49] And each post I'm breaking into about five reels on Instagram just so I have something every day to post, but it's depending on the content. So like I was doing, I did the first three tabs in the guidebook

[01:30:01] because I was just like, what do I put on this website? How about I start with this? I started with that. And I did one, I did three different tabs in the guidebook. So like the Kerrigan area and the moats, I did the Chicoroa and East sandwich,

[01:30:16] and then I did Waterville Valley and regular sandwich. Those were the three areas I've covered so far on my website. So if you go and you look, you'll see there's a post on each of those areas, breaking them down.

[01:30:30] And then this week I'm focusing on holiday ideas for people, but specifically local stuff. So I went online and researched and I pulled Instagram for local brands. So what are some New England based brands in five categories? And then I wrote up a post with all of them.

[01:30:50] I have them all like what they offer and like their hand, like a link to their website. And then next week I'm gonna do winter hiking here. Like every week I'm doing a different post, but I did start with the red lining

[01:31:05] simply just because I didn't know what else to start with and I needed to get some content. It's cool. Got it, so I'll link this in the show notes here. So you can go on to the New England Hiker website

[01:31:18] and then you exist on what YouTube, Instagram, TikTok? I use mostly just Instagram. I do have a TikTok. I don't have YouTube, but the TikTok is like, they're all the New England Hiker. Anything that, if it's that, that's my handle. And I am gonna do like another idea

[01:31:35] that I have a bunch of ideas, but I can't roll it all out at once because it's a lot. I wanna put up GPX tracks and routes that are developed already because I have the GPX tracks for a bajillion different hikes,

[01:31:50] but I'm gonna have those behind a subscriber paywall because I'm gonna try and make money off of this and there's only so many ways to make money off of a website. And then the other thing is I'd like to, I didn't originally think I was gonna do this,

[01:32:02] but somebody instantly wanted stickers. So I might do stickers or something like that at some point. But yeah, it's mostly, it's just another thing that I'm working on. I have so many things going on, it's not even funny. Yeah, yeah. And then when we,

[01:32:22] I think when we first talked to you, you were in like a, you know, I think you were in the middle of sort of the medical issues and the challenges. You were kind of coming out of it,

[01:32:29] but I think it was still sort of weighing deeply on you. And if you don't wanna talk about this, just tell me to shut up. But where are you at as far as, are you just sort of at the point where you're living your life and you're not,

[01:32:40] I mean, obviously you gotta worry about it. You know, it's always there, but where are you at as far as medically and emotionally when it comes to sort of where you're, you know, where you've been? So I have, so you're always at risk and because I stopped treatment,

[01:33:01] I didn't finish my treatment. I am doubled my risk of recurrence. So I am at a higher risk of recurrence. You are, so you see your oncologist usually every six months. So I last saw my oncologist in January and I had,

[01:33:22] this is the fun part of being in medical stuff. So I have this appointment with this person and meet with her, talk about hiking. And she takes like my blood pressure, silly stuff like that, does like a little bit of a physical exam.

[01:33:35] And then I get a $524 bill. And so I fired my oncologist basically after that appointment and have yet to return because I am not paying $500 for you to ask me about my hiking and take my blood pressure. So expensive. It is the most ridiculous thing

[01:33:51] you've ever seen in your entire life. So I have a surgeon that I still see and I'm still, I have to get for the rest of my life, I will be getting six months scans. And so I go in in January, I think to get my MRI.

[01:34:05] I had a flag on my last MRI. So I had a biopsy last February to make sure I didn't have cancer again. But basically it's always there. There's never not a risk. I just have, it's like once you have cancer, you have cancer.

[01:34:23] You never get to step out of that world. You just have to, you don't know what's going on in your body, but you assume you're okay. That's why you don't ever say, oh, she's cured. You say there's no evidence of disease

[01:34:37] because you don't know, you can't see a cancer cell. So basically I saw my surgeon in September, I think for my mammogram and it was okay. And then I have to go in again in, I think it's February

[01:34:51] for my MRI and then I go back again in six months. It's like forever. Do you find when you're doing the red line? So, I mean, I think you and Danielle definitely hike together before. I've seen a few posts and things like that.

[01:35:05] But I think for the most part, you guys are kind of going solo. And Danielle, you can jump in on this too. But Rebecca specifically, like you're solo, you're out there hiking. Like I know I do a lot of solo hiking too.

[01:35:16] And I think a lot, a lot of my thoughts are around work and family and things like that. But it's like, you definitely get inside your own head. Do you find that like the hiking solo and the thinking about things, like is it therapeutic for you

[01:35:31] or do you sometimes just sort of dwell on things that you shouldn't be focusing on as much? I listen to a lot of podcasts and music and honestly it's very therapeutic for me. And I don't tend to get, I'm not gonna go out into the woods

[01:35:52] and like work myself up and be like, oh my gosh, well maybe I have this thing that's happening. It's actually a lot less of that there than in the real world. Like my back's been bothering me the last few weeks

[01:36:07] and I'm gonna, my instant thought was I have bone mets. Like I have cancer in my bones. And it's like not just a little, oh, that's, it's not like the way you would think about it. It's like a legitimate fear because I have friends who have bone mets

[01:36:21] that had my cancer. And like, I have to talk myself out of calling my doctor. And honestly, I'll be completely honest, I should know better than to do this, but I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know if I have it. Because it's like, even knowing

[01:36:36] that the worst thing you can do is not know, I don't wanna know because it's terrifying. So I actually spiral a lot more in the real world than out in the woods. Danielle, what about you? Yeah, so I can imagine like for me personally, Rebecca,

[01:36:53] I feel like I just put everything aside and I'm in the woods and I'm happy. But Danielle, what about you? Do you think about like work and life or do you pretty much just chill in the woods? When soloing? Yeah, everything. I think about everything.

[01:37:12] I go solo more or less because I figured out what I wanted to do an hour before I got there. Or sometimes it's easier going solo being like, oh, I only have to go my pace, I can push myself, I can do this.

[01:37:31] But I do think about, like I think about everything, but I don't try to dwell because you do like redlining kind of got me to the, hey, it doesn't matter about the peak, doesn't matter about the view, it's the trail. Hey, you're out on trail.

[01:37:45] You're usually around like-minded people. It's very rare that I've met somebody on trail and they're like mad and angry. Usually like, oh, hey, how are you? Talk about the most random things ever. So it kind of, it shows also like the better of humanity out on trails.

[01:38:08] So it's compared to like work wise, like it's the opposite of work. I can go out there and just be a hiker and enjoy. Yeah, and do you, when you talk about planning, Danielle, do you, and I see you post sometimes,

[01:38:25] you'll be like heading north, not sure where. Do you literally just make a decision as you're driving or do you have a little bit more planning than that? So because I have all of my different lists, I always have options. So at the moment I have grid

[01:38:41] and then I have 4K a day, which is hiking any 4,000 footer in the Northeast on a certain calendar day. And then I have the New Hampshire 500, the highest 500 in New Hampshire. I think that's the main three left that I have

[01:38:59] because I've kind of, I finished five lists this year. So I won't be finishing anything for quite a while, but I have an idea. So like this month I only need eight more peaks. So those are the peaks I wanna get,

[01:39:13] but if I can't, I will still just get out just cause I know I need to. And like, I'm going to Baxter in the beginning of January and we're trying to go for Katahdin again in the winter. So now all my brain is train for Katahdin.

[01:39:27] You want, you're in snowshoes. You're gonna be going 16 miles into Chimney Pond. I need to train. So this is now like training mode. And then I have to ski cause it's winter cause I'm going to California at the end of January. Yeah.

[01:39:45] I need to jump in real quick. Danielle, you left off the most important list. What is it called? Oh, Scoops and Loops. Thank you. What is that? So there's views and brews. Have you heard of that one? No. I sadly know a lot of lists.

[01:40:04] So views and brews, I actually finished at Reckless right when they opened, but there's also Scoops and Loops. Both have the same idea. So views and brews, it has to be a brew pub, has to have food. Scoops has to be a new,

[01:40:18] it's like homemade ice cream of that place. So you have to hike one mile 24 hours before or after visiting this place. And you have to do so many in each. And there's a patch, cause there's always a patch. That's so cool. So this is a real thing?

[01:40:39] I have the views and brews patch. I haven't finished my Scoops and Loops yet. How have I done this much hiking and I've never heard of either? Rebecca, why haven't you told me about these? Scoops and Loops is hands down the best patch

[01:40:50] and it is the patch that I want more than anything else. Cause it's ice cream. I need to look this up. Well, Rebecca, what do you do for planning? I feel like you're more like, so if I'm understanding this Danielle, essentially you've got like these four

[01:41:06] or five different lists and like the grid right now is primary for you before it was red line. So you sort of just look and say like, okay, here's my options and pick an option. Rebecca, I feel like you were more, I don't want to say scientific,

[01:41:18] but like you had like a plan for your red line. But I feel like that, I'm guessing that probably all fell apart and you just, at the end, it was just like, I got to pick through my certain list. But how do you do your planning?

[01:41:31] Well, it's hard for me to do. So that whole situation was extremely planned. It had to be in order to get them done in a set amount of time, especially because of the weather window being what it is up here.

[01:41:45] So like, I feel like that almost shouldn't even, it's like a moot point unless you're planning on doing it in a set amount of time. I was extremely planned for that. I had to be. But in general, okay, like I will say, oh, I feel like doing this

[01:42:01] and I'll go do it the next morning. But I don't typically, I'm more like, not quite to the point of like, I'm gonna drive and figure it out as I'm driving, but I don't plan ahead for a hike if it's just like me having fun in the woods.

[01:42:17] It's more like, well, what kind of mood am I in? So like, oh, I kind of feel like doing an easier hike today or I feel like going and just walking in the woods or I feel like doing this or that. Like, I don't,

[01:42:29] if I'm hiking and it's not because I'm working on a ridiculous goal, I just do what I feel like doing. But I won't get in the car and drive and plan it as I'm doing that. Unlike me. Like Danielle, she's definitely a little bit, she's a little bit,

[01:42:47] I'm pretty neurotic. I'm a very type A personality. Like if I could plan out every moment of my day and every moment of my life, I would. And yeah, it's, I'm very much that person. Yeah, I relate to that. I relate to that.

[01:43:04] This question for either one of you can answer this, but like, I feel like, and again, I haven't done, I don't know what last time I checked the red line, I was close to 50%, maybe somewhere around that area. But I do feel like I've done enough hiking

[01:43:17] where when I look at an area like the Northern Presidentials versus like Cabot Wombat versus the Sandwich Range versus the Pemme, like I feel like those different areas and those different wilderness sections have their own personalities. The way, the types of trees and the way that,

[01:43:38] even the way the trees are spread out amongst each other, that the rocks and the roots and the volume and everything like that and the rivers. Do you guys get that same vibe? Like you must feel it even more acutely than I do around, you know,

[01:43:51] I feel like we could sort of blindfold you, drop you into a wilderness section in the whites and you would kind of know where you are. Like, do you get that attuned to it? Interesting. I would say yes, for sure. Like,

[01:44:04] I would say I know that you think that I didn't plan for redlining, but I definitely had my last 30 hikes planned out and I would just pick. Okay. Which one I needed to do, but every area is the same. And it's the same well, every area is different.

[01:44:18] The dry river is its own beast. The Northern Prezzy is its own beast. The Randolph part is completely different than the Cog side or the Tuckerman side. Everything's a little different, but it's cool because once you do it all, you're like,

[01:44:34] ha, I know of every cool secret ever. I can go back there and I can camp here and I know where the water is because I had to go there and I know where the campsites are. That's like the luxury of actually finishing it now.

[01:44:47] I know where all the cool places are. That's amazing. Yeah. That would be like an amazing game show is to take like 10 or 12 hikers that have completed the redline and sort of drop them into areas without telling them where they are

[01:45:02] and then try to guess where you are, what part of the wilderness. I like to look at other people's Instagram stories and try to guess where they are based on their video without knowing. Yeah, me too. And do that a lot. It's good. It keeps it fresh. Yeah.

[01:45:18] Yeah, absolutely. Couple of gear questions for you guys. So how has your gear evolved over the years and what is your advice for people that sort of are just starting off hiking and where should they focus? Is it on the backpack? Is it on the clothing?

[01:45:36] Is it on the safety gear? What is your opinions about gear? I'm gonna say Rebecca, you wanna go first and I'll go after you? Sure. So I would say that, and we're talking day hiking, I'm assuming. Well, the most important things are gonna be things like your shoes.

[01:45:57] You definitely wanna have shoes that are comfortable and do not be that person who's out there in flip-flops or some kind of sand. Well, okay, there are the sandal hikers, but more than likely if you're brand new to hiking,

[01:46:10] you're not gonna be one of those people who hikes, what are those things, Chacos? Chacos. You're probably not a Chaco hiker if you're brand new to hiking. So some kind of proper footwear is really important and honestly, I would say that most hikers,

[01:46:29] it's better to be in a trail runner than a boot. I have chronic plantar fasciitis and I cannot wear anything that goes above my ankle because it's gonna cause my Achilles to be too tight and then I get like a flare up.

[01:46:44] So you need to know your body and you need to be able to pick proper footwear and definitely a backpack that fits properly. I was improperly fitted for my first real backpack and it ended up causing me to get a cyst on my spine

[01:47:02] that caused me to have foot drop and it pinched my sciatic nerve. It was a whole nightmare. So make sure you're getting properly fitted and that you're getting a pack that fits well on you. I would say those are like the two biggest things

[01:47:18] because honestly, yeah, you shouldn't hike in cotton and you shouldn't hike in sweatpants and things like that but you're not gonna be... Those items, I think you kind of pick up along the way and same with safety stuff. I mean, please don't just go out there

[01:47:37] with a 16 ounce water bottle in your hand and no backpack and hike Mount Washington like I've seen so many people do. It's just, I think that we're a night... There's a lot of naivety and because they don't know any better, they're not knowing what they're doing is dangerous

[01:47:53] and putting other people's lives at risk. So many times I see people that I'm like, you do realize that if they have to do a rescue, it's gonna take what 15, 20 people, what five hours at least to go rescue you. But I definitely think the most important things

[01:48:12] are gonna be your footwear and your backpack, at least in my opinion. Danielle, your thoughts? From starting to now, I went with obviously what I had available. My backpack was not fitted, I bought it online. It was a Gregory and it seemed awesome and I still have it

[01:48:30] but it was kind of just trial and error is how I went. I had Wolverine boots, big clunkers from Bob's store which were the grippiest things I've ever had in my life. Super cool. But I now wear ultra superior running shoes.

[01:48:45] They're trail runners, I do not trail run. I am a klutz so I fall and I trip and I bruise things. But over the years I found trail runners as much as I go through them, they're more comfortable, they're lighter.

[01:49:01] You can walk through water and they dry out. Safety gear, I've done over the years, like I've gone soloing. Should I have stuff back then? Yep. Do I have different things now? I have an inReach, I have a satellite, was it the GPS locator beacon?

[01:49:20] I have that one. But I always carry that one in the winter. inReach I got only because I started soloing when I was in Glacier. And there's things that can kill you in the woods there. Compared to here, I came back home and I was like,

[01:49:35] ah, black bears, they're nothing. Grizzlies out there will kill you. No kidding. So it's just kind of, you gotta, it's trial and error is how I had gone over the years. Like just even my layering system, what I had even insulated boots from winter when I started.

[01:49:55] I used to do my regular boots with a toe warmer on top and then on the bottom, I now have insulated boots. But I know that Rebecca, she does trail runners almost all year, but everybody sweats different, everybody does different. And just be smart, look up weather

[01:50:14] and always have a map. And first aid kits have always changed for me. I used to have a really big one. I went to a really small one to then whoever gets into different accidents over the years, you keep adding.

[01:50:28] So now I have gauze that can wrap around heads. So it is a lot of trial and error. That's hilarious. I feel like I've added, I've slowly added different band-aids to my first aid kit. And now I look at the other day and I was like,

[01:50:45] why do I have 97 band-aids in my first aid kit? I need to get those out of there. I actually have a question for Stomp. Oh. So I've noticed recently, there's been a lot of back and forth in the Facebook pages comment section about not carrying a map

[01:51:07] because if you're on a summit and it's windy, it's not gonna help you to get out your map because it's gonna get blown away or blown around. And it's better to use a GPS, like some kind of all trail type app.

[01:51:21] I'm just curious what your thoughts are on it. Don't use all trails. Oh yeah. And don't use all trails also, just like Daniel just said. I know. Yeah. I'm definitely adverse to all trails for sure, but you definitely need a map.

[01:51:36] I mean, you can always get off below tree line or just cower behind a rock to pull a map out at all times because if you're relying upon electronic devices, you have that risk of them shutting down on you, running out of batteries.

[01:51:50] So it's always good to have a map, a compass, especially in low visibility or whiteout conditions. They can save your life for sure. I mean, from a bushwhacking perspective. As long as you know how to use a map if you don't know where you are.

[01:52:05] So if you're in the middle of the woods and you don't know which way is north. Yeah. Oh, they go together. No question about it. As long as you can read one, you know, the topo lines. I don't know. I will always have a map. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:52:19] I also think like, honestly, having a map in those high wind conditions on the summit is probably a good thing because it's sort of like a kick in the ass. Like I would rather pull my map out and have the wind blow it away

[01:52:36] and remind me, oh darn, I need to make sure that I'm like keeping an eye on things versus pulling out like my gloves or a jacket or something like that and having that get whipped away. So I do think that, you know,

[01:52:49] the worst case scenario is your map gets blown away and it's sort of a reminder to say like, hey, hold on to all your other stuff while you're up there if you're putting on gear. So it's a better thing to lose

[01:53:02] than it would be like gloves or hats or a jacket or something like that. For sure. Yeah, you should have the map, which is fundamental to hike safe. You should screenshot your route. I generally will have, you know, Caltovo or one of these apps

[01:53:18] that will give you an image with North at the top. So I screenshot them. So that's in my phone and you can expand them and shrink them as you need to. And then I also generally, if I'm bushwhacking,

[01:53:30] if I'm on trail, I will not go half as far as this. But if I'm bushwhacking, I have a hardened Garmin GPS unit that's built for harder weather and whatnot. And those three things should serve you well. Thank you, Stomp. Thank you.

[01:53:54] Well, the other reminder I think of is in this cold weather, I always use two, I break out two hand warmers and just have those in my pocket with my phone. Oh, no doubt. Just to limit that. Not that I rely on my phone that much,

[01:54:09] but it's just, it's one other sort of safety device to keep your phone a little bit warm. Sure, sure. I have a thing called Fousey. Yeah. It's called a phone Fousey. It's called Fousey, that's what I use. I don't actually put warmers in them and it-

[01:54:23] You've had that forever, like hangs right here. Yeah, it's probably my third one because the bigger the phones, the bigger case I need, but it's like NASA stuff. Like so it's actually- I'm learning so much. Scoops and loops, Fouseys. Yeah, I love Fousey just because like,

[01:54:39] so like today it was six out when I started. My phone had probably 92% when I finished my hike and I tracked it. I took videos, I took pictures. I looked at my track. Awesome. I'm wearing one right now. I have a question for you both.

[01:54:59] I don't know if this applies to either of you or not, but the 31st edition of the White Mountain Guide came out in 2022. 30th came out just before that and it's been out for quite a while. Did you have to really like revamp your plans

[01:55:15] or do you have to add trails or spurs or anything? Did anything dramatic change when the 31st came out? I finished the 31st. I think Rebecca, you did the 30th. Yeah, so I randomly, I knew the 31st was coming out

[01:55:30] and I wasn't gonna finish in time for the- Like you can do any guidebook. Okay. You don't have to do the current one. You could do the 76th year guidebook. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so you're redlining or tracing whatever guidebook you want.

[01:55:44] Oh, so they keep it coming back for more. I ended up randomly seeing new trails over the years and been like, I'm gonna need this one year. And so I'm gonna need this later. So I would go down them and I probably added like,

[01:55:59] so I looked when they actually added it last year and I only had like two or three that I actually needed to add on because I had already done them. That was how I worked. But I know she obviously made her plans last year for the 30th and-

[01:56:14] Gotcha, okay. Rebecca, any comments on that? Yeah, so I have about, so I'm working on the 31st edition now. So like I already did Mad River Path, which was in the new guidebook and I believe that's a new one. So I did that one towards the 31st edition

[01:56:36] just because I just threw it on one day when I was hiking in that area. But I'm trying to, I don't know what else is new. I can't remember off the top of my head. Oh, I know there's some up in the Coas,

[01:56:47] the Coas Trail area, right Danielle? Is that the one that we talked about that was like a 2.7 mile extra bonus fun time that we get to go do? That one's still not a- Is that in the guide? Grade area. Oh, it is, okay. So there's-

[01:57:04] No, it's not a grade area. Oh, it's not, okay. Sanguinary, I can never say it. It's right across from Table Rock in Dixville. It's on the Coas. Oh wow, okay. Yeah, it's, I don't, that one is controversial. Yeah, it's a controversial one. Really? It's a controversial trail.

[01:57:21] Well, because they decided to add a 2.7 out and back that's part of the Coas Trail that is literally just like the most random place in the entire world to add an extra 2.7 miles kind of. So it's, and it's like, is it on- It's on the spreadsheet.

[01:57:38] Somebody added it, somebody added it on the spreadsheet but then didn't, the spreadsheet came from somebody who was working on the Red Line years ago and somebody took it and revamped it this last one or two years ago and have never said, hey, thanks.

[01:57:54] I know the person who did it and like who actually made the, it's not made for you to Red Line. Like, hey, if you finish the spreadsheet you Red Lined, that's not true. You got to go through the guidebook because the spurs are on,

[01:58:07] there are certain things that are not on there and they've just started to like add things. Gotcha. That they choose to. Yeah, when I started Red Lining, like for my attempt, I didn't know that part. Like, well, okay, back when I made my first edition

[01:58:21] of my version of the spreadsheets, I didn't realize that all of it isn't on there. And I ended up having to sit down and go through the entire guidebook and add, create my own version with all the extra stuff. And that's why when people say like,

[01:58:36] oh, there's 653 trails and there's 1,420 miles of trails. No, that's not accurate. It's not an exact amount because you're pulling that off a spreadsheet that's not exact. So, and you have to also take into consideration if you want to get really, really specific

[01:58:54] all the spurs to every single view that is named and has a mileage add or a distance attached to it in the guidebook descriptions, the words underneath the little boxes. If you add every single one of those up and add that into the amount,

[01:59:11] like that's not gonna total the amount in that spreadsheet because not all of those are added to the spreadsheet. So there's a lot of gray area and a lot of misinformation out there. And it's interesting when you are in the fourth or the redlining Facebook group,

[01:59:27] sometimes every now and again, you'll see comments and it's like, this person is not aware that the spreadsheet is not the end all be all. And even though there is a person who has currently been working on updating the spreadsheet over and over again,

[01:59:41] I've still found missed things when I'm going through because I've had to go through it with a fine tooth comb about 8,000 times and like add the things that they've missed. But there's like the one that we were just talking about.

[01:59:57] And then also if you wanna get even more nuanced about it, the descriptions at the beginning of each section, there are trails like, what are those ones up in Northern New Hampshire, Danielle? The Devil by Nash Stream. There's a couple trails. The Devil's Pool or something.

[02:00:14] Oh, I've been there. Jacuzzi. Yeah, Mrs. Stump and I went and it was so ridiculous. She went in, it was absolutely freezing cold. As you would expect. And it was like room for one. And I just sort of like perched on a little rock

[02:00:29] and watched her and said, are you having fun? Yeah, it was, yeah, it was tough. The descriptions at the beginning of each section, I actually asked Danielle because I didn't know. And she asked her friend who said, I believe that they did do those,

[02:00:42] but it's not, it's like a gray area again. Whether or not you have to do all these other, there's a whole bunch. I made, I have them in a spreadsheet that are not in those, they're in a different part of the guidebook sections.

[02:01:00] Because there was somebody that said, well, I had to do, they're like, well, they listed the Cohoss Trail with the mileage, so I thought I had to do that whole thing. And I was like, oh Lord. Like it's just, it's a lot of own interpretation and.

[02:01:14] Wow, I didn't know it was that like, I just assumed that the spreadsheet is the Bible, but I guess that's not the case. No, no, no, no, no, no. That is a very, very wrong. You have to read the guidebook. Yes, and that's part of why,

[02:01:25] like originally when I started this whole nightmare slash exciting journey. That's great. It was like very much something that I didn't want to ever publish my versions publicly of what I did. Like for example, if I wanted to submit for the fastest known time,

[02:01:47] if I actually did finish it, I would have to submit every GPX track and I have them all, but it would be made public. So anybody could download them. And I was like, there's no way I'm doing that because that would give it,

[02:02:00] anybody could go on their website and just click download, download, download, download, download, and then not even have to look at the guidebook. And I'm like, no, this is way more than that. I did not spend three years slash four years of my life doing this exclusively

[02:02:18] for somebody to just download it off of a website. Yeah. Hey, there are, final question from me. Are there awards by AMC for this effort? No. There aren't. Not for AMC. This, so if you like the grid, so 48 times 12, that website, it's on there.

[02:02:38] So Ed Hawkins sends them out and it's through a fund. It's just like the fire tower list. The hundred number fire tower list. Yes. It's, you actually don't get, AMC doesn't do anything about the grid either. It's all of that website's done by them.

[02:02:54] So at the awards dinner next year, do you want to join me and we can protest out front of the auditorium? Well, I'll be there to get my other stuff, but. Oh, can you come out and join me for the protest? Yeah, absolutely. All right, cool.

[02:03:05] All right, sounds good. Can we glue our hands to the- To the middle school? Right. Last question from me. So I feel like there's an interesting parallel here. So like Danielle, you're cruising along and you're like, all right, I got the red line now.

[02:03:21] I'm going to go for my grid. Rebecca is sort of like, I got to get back to life here and need a little bit of time away. What about the burnout? What about the sort of keeping it so that it doesn't feel like a job?

[02:03:35] Can you talk about your perspective? I feel like you both have two different perspectives on this. I'd be interested in hearing. And Rebecca, maybe if you want to go first, because I think, and I definitely picked it up on social media,

[02:03:47] like some of these last hikes were a grind for you. So can you talk a little bit about it? And then Danielle, I want to contrast her perspective with yours afterwards. So basically from, I would say mid-June through till the end, it was very, very difficult.

[02:04:07] Not only because of the fact that I was a year into doing this, but because of the weather. So we had the worst rainiest, was it like the rainiest summer on record in years? And a lot of the hikes I had to do

[02:04:21] were hikes that were in areas that it was just like, I'm not going to do this because it's not safe or I can't cross that river cause it's over my head. So that was a very difficult, it was very demoralizing

[02:04:36] and it was demoralizing to have to go out in the rain. And I do see a lot of the Facebook comments too about, oh, I wish I could hike every day. And I literally want to be like, no you don't, because I did not every day,

[02:04:54] but on a very regular basis. And it's one thing I think I've never through hiked, but I will say that having to do five hours a day of driving on top of a full day of hiking, and it's your job where you don't have the choice

[02:05:10] to stay home is very, very hard. And I put 46 or 7,000 miles on my car in 194 days driving back and forth. Cause I have a life, like I have to go home, I can't stay up there. And it was really, really hard, especially at the end.

[02:05:32] My knees are just were destroyed. My feet I had ended up, Danielle actually saw, she was there probably one of the worst days I had on trail cause she did my car spot and I ended up coming out of the woods. My feet were rubbed beyond raw.

[02:05:49] And I was like, I need to stop. Like I didn't spend or have a million dollars worth of medical bills and I'm not over-exaggerating. That's how much it costs for me to go through cancer treatment if I didn't have insurance to beat my body up like this.

[02:06:04] So it was really, really hard at the end. I didn't want to keep doing it. I took 10 days off in a row in, I think October. And then I got a second wind and was like, okay, I have enough time.

[02:06:21] I have a weather window to get these last three, I think Northern presidential hikes done before the winter really hits. And I somehow managed to pull it off. But there were a few times where I was like,

[02:06:35] I'm done and I'm going to put the rest off till next summer because I can't do it anymore. It was just really, really, really hard. And at that point I was still, I was working. Like I had, I couldn't say, okay,

[02:06:49] I'm not going to go to work today. I'm going to go hike cause I have a responsibility. Like I had to work too. But yeah, it was, it was a lot. It was something that I would never do again because it was just, it's not,

[02:07:06] it wasn't fun to put myself through that at the end. Well, I think two things, Rebecca, one is your calves must have been absolutely jacked by the end. And then two, clearly like, you know, I think there's something to be said about like

[02:07:24] just continuing to grind to complete a goal, even though it's tough. Like there's something about that. It's all about, I don't know what it is. No doubt. And now meanwhile, we've got Danielle who's like, yeah, I finished the red line. Now I'm going to grid.

[02:07:38] Like it doesn't seem like you've lost the bug. So like she had a timeframe, my timeframe I wanted to finish last year, but then I hiked the JMT and I did something else. And I did, I like vacations. I like traveling.

[02:07:56] I like to see different places over the years. I've been like, what, what else am I adding to my bucket list? What other things can I see? So like the grid, like I have 138 left. And it's just because I've been kind of wheeling away at everything.

[02:08:11] And so like red line, I was like, I am finishing it this year. So like anytime I had, like I have three days off a week unless I pick up overtime. And so I get the same question that Rebecca gets of the do you even work?

[02:08:25] And I'm like, you think I post about work? Why would I post about work? Like that's a terrible idea. So I'm on more of like the, hey, again, I don't wanna go to the gym. Why don't I go hike a mountain?

[02:08:40] Hey, what can I do on this list? What can I do on that? Where can I see differently? Like I've not redlined Monadnock yet. So there is also that. I have, you know, there's just a bunch of things that I can continue to do.

[02:08:52] So I didn't really get burnt out on it. I know the driving, like I put 30 to 35,000 miles a year on my car and it's not only from work. It's mostly from hiking and skiing and traveling. So her time restraint was definitely,

[02:09:10] I don't know if I could do that for sure. Like that's hard for anybody to be like, oh, well you have a job. You have like, you want this goal and your goal is to finish it.

[02:09:19] So you have so many days a week you have to go out. Like I hiked a lot in the rain this year, but it was more of like, if I don't go out in the rain, I'm not gonna hike.

[02:09:29] So like, I don't know how many times I hiked while I'm back in the rain this year. Cause I'm like, well, I need it for the grid. Might as well just go out and hike it with an umbrella. Like- It's a purist.

[02:09:39] Yeah, it was just, it was to get out, but I knew which ones I could do with the umbrella. Like I knew I couldn't go out and be like, hey, let's go do the buttress trail in the rain. It's funny you mentioned that.

[02:09:50] You're the one that got me into umbrellas. I love that umbrella. Yeah. When the AT did, they're like, why do you have rain gear? You're gonna sweat through it. I was like, yes, yes I do. And they're like, how about an umbrella? I was like, Mary Poppins, perfect.

[02:10:01] Let's do that. It works great. It does, as long as you're not bushwhacking, cause trees. But yeah, so there's, I guess my, I didn't really get burnt out just because of, I've been working on so many different things.

[02:10:16] Like I did my New England, no, my Northeast 111 this year. Like I only had one hike left for that. Like it was, I kind of pieced together a bunch of things. Yeah. It was easier for me to continue on. Yeah, you're not rushing.

[02:10:31] Honestly, that whole point you made about like, you know, the travel and getting outside of the area. Like even like I went out to Mount Greylock and it was like a new experience for me. I do feel like it sort of refreshes you a little bit.

[02:10:43] Like, and I know it's not, you know, not everyone, it's expensive to take these trips, but it is good to get out of New England or get out of New Hampshire, do some hiking in some other areas. And then when you come back, you appreciate it even more.

[02:10:56] So that may be one of the tricks. You ever do the Adirondacks? Any of the Adirondacks I came home and I was like, the trails are amazing. Who thought of these here? Yeah, when I get a little jaded, I go to Indian Head Resort. Come back.

[02:11:11] Yeah, clean slate, baby. All right, Stomp. Well, we ran out of time, so we're going to miss the search and rescue news, but we'll catch it up on the next episode here. But this has been interesting. I'd rather go long and talk about this stuff

[02:11:24] than get to the search and rescue. We'll cover that in the next episode. So I apologize to the listeners. Yeah, so how do we get ahold of you two online? Rebecca, what's the best way? I would say just my Instagram really, Sockton Hikes.

[02:11:40] I think I've plugged it on here before. And then the new one is the New England Hiker and the website's thenewenglandhiker.com. Okay, awesome. And Danielle? I'm on Facebook and Instagram, but I would say more Instagram, which would be 72belowd. Yeah, made that up a few years ago.

[02:12:04] I am private, I am not public. So as long as you're a hiker, I usually add you. If you're some random person, I tend to not. Gotcha. Yeah. All right. That'd be great, Danielle. You meet some creepers from the Slasher podcast while we're on. Sweet. Yes, right?

[02:12:23] All right, so before we close, I wanna just recap here. So we've got two new lists that we found out about here. So we've got the Scoops and Loops. And then what is the other one? It's something Brews and what? Views and Brews. Views and Brews.

[02:12:38] I'm gonna link these. And then we've got the Fousey Phone Case. Yeah. And then Rebecca has the most jack calves in the world. Yeah. And Danielle used to be young. I used to be young. Thank you, Mike. I'm sorry, what is that? 29 forever. What is that?

[02:13:02] I missed that part. Oh, you can re-listen, you'll catch it. Okay, all right. 29 forever. And then the cats have thoroughly crawled all over Danielle and poisoned her. So she'll be blind when she touches her eyes, but this has been great. So thank you ladies.

[02:13:21] And we'll have this out on Friday. So we'll look forward to catching up again in the future. Awesome. Thanks for having us. So cool. Yes, thank you. You bet. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean,

[02:13:44] YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you wanna learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com. That's S-L-A-S-R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.

[02:14:06] We hope you'll join us next week for another great show. Until then, on behalf of Mike and Stomp, get out there and crush some mega heat. Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites, Chris Staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever.

[02:14:26] Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when the weather started to get worse. Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots,

[02:14:40] and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. And there's three words to describe this race. Do we all know what they are? Only one hill! Lieutenant James Neelan from New Hampshire Fish and Game presented, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me.

[02:14:56] What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire? Seems to me the most common is being unprepared. I think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com

[02:15:06] and got a list of the 10 essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.