Episode 133 - Welcome Mike Cherim from Redline Guiding

[00:00:03] Here is the latest Higher Summits Forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mt. 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 www.MtWashington.org.

[00:00:32] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mt. 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 MtWashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. And here is your forecast for Friday, December 15th and Saturday, December 16th. Friday, mostly in the clear onto partly sunny skies with a high in the mid 30s.

[00:01:21] Winds northwest at 60 to 80 mph increasing to 75 to 95 mph with gusts up to 110 mph. Wind chill will be rising to 10 to 20 above. Friday night is mostly in the clear under increasingly cloudy skies. Slight chance of snow showers possible up to 1 inch. Low will be around 20 degrees.

[00:01:48] Winds again will be pretty elevated. Wind chill will be falling to 0 to 10 below zero. Saturday, mostly in the clear under partly sunny skies with a slight chance of snow showers in the morning. Possible snow accumulations of a trace to less than 1 inch. High in the lower 20s.

[00:02:17] Winds northwest shifting north at 50 to 70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph early. 25 to 40 mph midday and 10 to 25 mph later. Wind chill will be rising to 0 to 10 above. Looks like winds are the big issue from Friday into Saturday morning and then getting better as the day progresses on Saturday.

[00:02:46] Alrighty, enjoy! Broadcasting from the Woodpecker Studio in the great state of New Hampshire, welcome to the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Here are your hosts, Mike and Stomp.

[00:03:58] Alright Stomp, episode 133, welcome, welcome. Welcome, good to see you again. Hey Mike. Hey Mike. So Mike, is this your first time on a podcast? No. Alright, so we expect big things of you then, you're an experienced podcaster. Oh no. Pressure's on. Nice. Right, right.

[00:04:17] Alright Stomp, so first thing we have here before we get into the intro is winter is coming up, are you ready for it? I think so, yeah. Yeah, based upon my performance on Mount Clem, maybe I need a little work but I'm ready for the 21st.

[00:04:31] So that is the solstice, right? 21st? I don't know. I think so. I think it's coming up. I think so. Yeah. Do you know the exact time? That I don't know because it does vary year to year so I'm not exactly sure. Mike, do you know that?

[00:04:46] Mike C? I'm going to say Mike C for this. No, but I would Google it. Yeah, it's a safe bet. Well, I'm not going to be able to get out on my winter hiking until after I get back

[00:04:56] from holiday so it doesn't matter but I'm excited for everybody else that's going to be doing their winter lists. Yeah, it should be good. It's tough to do the winter 48. It takes some gumption. I'm going to talk to you about that later on for sure.

[00:05:10] So I'm going to finish this winter in mind but it's taken like six years so it is hard. Yeah, and I'm like halfway through just from my first 48 finish but hoping to get the rest of them done maybe this year. We'll see. All right, Stonk.

[00:05:29] Well, you'll help me out but welcome to episode 133 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast. I'm cracking my beer and this week we are joined by Mike Cherum of Redline Guiding. So welcome, Mike.

[00:05:42] Mike has been a fixture within the White Mountains hiking community for many years. We're honored to have him join us to share stories of hiking in the Whites, talk about his guide service and we're going to get into his perspective on safety and preparedness on the trail.

[00:05:57] Mike's world centers around adventures, education and he can even hook you up with a cool wedding if you're interested. So get ready for some good stories and some helpful information with Mike.

[00:06:08] All this plus we cover a recent hike in the Belknaps and finally get to some recent search and rescue news. So I'm Mike. And I'm Stomp. Let's get started. This has been Peace from Hiking Buddies. We are a 501c3 nonprofit committed to reducing avoidable tragedies through education, impactful

[00:06:55] 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 and who are willing to provide guidance and

[00:07:09] 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. Every time you go hiking, you'll always carry your 10 essentials, right?

[00:07:32] Here's one way to make one of those essentials easier. Take a cotton ball and soak it in some Vaseline to create your own fire starters at camp. Fire starting is an important tool to have in every pack. Hey Mike, I actually had a question for you.

[00:08:02] We're going to interview you later, but like for the wedding stuff that you do, do you ever do wedding vow renewals? Yes. All right. So I have a theory about that. Like if you do your wedding vow renewals, that means your marriage is in trouble.

[00:08:17] So I feel like you should be doing the wedding vow renewals and then giving them marriage counseling secondarily. Wow. Yeah. I will not share that with you. Don't tell anybody that's a secret, but I wonder like if you look back at all the vow

[00:08:31] renewals, you should check to see if the couples are still together because I have a theory that a lot of them aren't. Yeah, I try not to look back. Yeah, true, true. Look forward.

[00:08:40] But anyway, Stomp, that's my advice is if you have to do a wedding vow renewal, usually that means something's going on. Yeah, unless it's associated with say like a 10 year or 25 year or something of that nature, I wouldn't worry about it. Stomp, there's an issue. I'm telling you.

[00:08:57] I'm telling you. Don't ever do a wedding vow renewal. Now all the listeners that have done wedding vow renewals are going to come at us, but I'm just saying. Yeah, you're in trouble, man. You're smart, Mike, because you just totally played Switzerland on that question.

[00:09:12] I'm falling for that trap. Exactly. All right, Stomp. So just some housekeeping here. So last week we had said that this was going to be our last show, but we had gotten our dates mixed up.

[00:09:24] So we'll have a show out on the 22nd and then we're going to take the 29th and January 5th off, and then we'll be back on January 12th, right? Correct. Yes, a little mess up on the dates, but we will be back next week.

[00:09:42] And we have a guest for, it'll just be me and you next week, and then we'll have a guest for the 12th, right? Right. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We have a nice surprise for the 12th actually. We do. Nice guest. We'll keep it secret. All right. All right, Stomp.

[00:09:59] So you wanted to just put together a list of presents for avid hikers for Christmas gifts? Yeah. Maybe we can sort of work on this together. I have five. So what would you get your avid hiker in your life? Top five.

[00:10:12] I would say, I'm trying to think what I got my... So I always, I go with the basics. So I would say I'm in winter hiking mode at this point. So I always feel like you can never have enough nice liner gloves for winter hiking.

[00:10:31] So I feel like a lot of times the fingertip things for the phones, those wear out. So I'm always down for a new pair of those for sure. And then I would say, I'm always looking for a new like head gaiter and neck gaiter. So I like that.

[00:10:53] I don't like to spend a lot of money on people. So I'm thinking like the accessories is where I would go. Yeah. Okay. All right. I have a couple ideas. I would definitely get somebody say the US Forest Service parking pass for a season. That might be nice.

[00:11:09] Yeah. I agree with the liners. Maybe wool socks. That was a number two on my list. Number three, batteries. You can't have enough of those double As, triple As for the winter especially. This is a classic stocking stuffer, toe warmers, hand warmers.

[00:11:26] And then one occurred to me for number five, I would definitely price it out and see if I could afford to give somebody a season pass to Eric Todd Sweets cabin. Okay. Okay. How about you Mike C? How about you? A Redline Guiding Gift Certificate.

[00:11:45] I'm sorry, I had to do it. Hey, there you go. Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would say like Valkloos, I've been telling people to get the Valkloos backpack frame because that's like, I feel like a lot of hikers like, can people say, oh, what do you

[00:12:03] want for hiking? They get me like gift certificates, like EMS and REI and you use them. But like, I feel like I have everything. So I feel like that's the Valkloos or like the gift certificate to Redline. Those are things that people don't think of all the time.

[00:12:19] So those are good ideas. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Cherum, are you familiar with the Valkloos frame? I am not. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's really interesting. It's just this spacer between your body and an older school backpack. So it creates ventilation.

[00:12:36] They're one of the sponsors, but they're flying off the shelves. It's a super cool product. Is it like an external frame backpack? It's an attachment. Pretty much. Yeah. It's basically like an attachment that goes on between your back and the backpack and it

[00:12:50] just gives like a, you know, maybe like a three eighths of an inch spacing separation and allows for the wind to flow between your backpack. It's really good in that like 25 to 35 liter backpack world. It allows for the airflow pretty good and it doesn't really let you swim.

[00:13:10] Let's just check it out. Yeah. It sounds interesting. Yeah, it's not too bad. It is. Yeah. So what else, Tomp? Anything, any other good ideas? That's all I got. Those are my five. Yeah.

[00:13:24] I don't know if you guys have any other ideas, let me know, but tis the season. Yeah, those are all good ideas. So we'll put those in the show notes and people can give those to you, Stomp, if they want to send you gifts. Yeah, I put it.

[00:13:35] You can always reach out to the Forest Service search and rescue organizations too, buy some of their swag, help support them. It's a nice gift. Yeah, that's a good idea. Absolutely. Yeah. Just saw some nice ones actually, some sweatshirts for the Mount Washington Observatory that looked really sweet.

[00:13:54] So that's a great idea, Mike. That is. They're not cotton, I hope. And then Stomp, you've got your first snowmobiling shift coming up? Yeah, yeah, we're good to go. I think their first bookings are for the 20th, but my first Saturday will be the 23rd.

[00:14:15] So we're just hoping for snow. As you can tell, the forecast has been a little wild and wooly lately. So a lot of rain up here. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. So fingers crossed. I want to hear more about this, but I guess after the podcast.

[00:14:30] Oh, guiding for snowmobile? Yeah, what you do. Oh, well, I'm a PT full time, but on the weekends, I guide snowmobiles. So anybody that wants to go venture through the forest on a sled for a day or a couple hours can sign up and purchase different packages.

[00:14:48] Who do you do that for? Northern Extremes. They're out of Bartlett. Okay, cool. I like them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Bear up over in. Oh, I love Bear. He hired me actually for the gig. Oh, did he? Yeah. Have you talked to him lately?

[00:15:05] No, it's been a while, but we've done a trip before where we've taken somebody up to Caps Ridge Trailhead on snowmobile. Excellent. And attempted the mountains like a multi-faceted adventure. Oh, yeah. It's funny you mentioned that.

[00:15:22] I wanted to do that on a sled one time, but it just never worked out last year. You know, the funny thing was that the trail was broken out. By Caps Ridge itself? Yeah, Caps Ridge Trail was broken out. Somebody had gone up there and broke it down.

[00:15:36] Maybe hiked up the road. No kidding. Yeah, that's a jaunt to get up to that one in the winter. Yeah. So maybe somebody did what we did and took a snow machine up there. Yeah, it's probably a good. Plenty of parking. Plenty of parking in the winter.

[00:15:52] That's right. Do you guys ever get asked to do that stomp, to just snowmobile off, like drop somebody off on a hike? No, that's never happened. Never happened. Yeah, generally they're renting them or we have a due date to get back.

[00:16:09] In theory, somebody could rent a sled for eight hours and do it, do that and pull it off. But I've not heard of it. We had actually a special arrangement with Northern Extremes to do this trip. Sure. It was cool. I'd love to do it again.

[00:16:26] Oh, that's great. If we don't put it out there, people have to kind of come up with it or tell us they want something different. We'll get creative. Oh, sure. But anyway, yeah, beer is the sweetheart. What a great guy. And Peter and the whole crew. All right.

[00:16:38] Well, winter's officially here. You're out on the sleds. And if you want Stomp to guide you, then we'll put the info in the show notes too. Thanks, Mike. Hey, what's that sound? It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp. All right, Stomp.

[00:16:51] So a couple of pop culture bullets here and then we'll get into some beer talking. Yeah. All right. So, Mike, what's up? I'm Mike. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter. I'm Peter.

[00:17:33] I'm Peter. So, Mike, let's get into some beer talk. Yeah. So, what do you want to talk about? Well, let's see. We, apparently there's a lawsuit that's being threatened by

[00:18:04] I didn't hear of that, but I did hear that in the so what we're talking about is squid games, which is a It's based on a challenge fictitious TV series out of out of South Korea, but they actually created like it's based on it

[00:18:19] Like it's a game show, but they've created like a real game show and the first season blew up on Netflix It's very popular. So my understanding is is the first game what they did red light green light They kept the contestants Standing up in this very cold

[00:18:34] Environment for about eight or nine hours and that like some of them let the whole idea is you move when it's green light and then you freeze when it's red light and if you move at all you get like

[00:18:44] Eliminated from the game and they make it seem like it's a five minute thing, but it really was like eight hour Thing that they made them stand there for and a lot of people got cold. They they didn't handle it very well

[00:18:55] So now I guess they're just suing for being tortured The elimination was by machine gun wasn't TV show. Yeah, exactly The TV show was like machine gun, but then they did the taught the the game show

[00:19:07] Which is just essentially they have like these little exploding pellets on your chest that that you get eliminated for but like they Apparently the room they were in or wherever they were was like ridiculously cold. So they were all freezing Yeah, yeah. Well, they're signed on for

[00:19:25] Season two already, so that's pretty cool. Yes, but yeah, so that's it Then I saw some clickbait thing about the winner actually not getting paid her money

[00:19:33] But then it ended up being just clickbait and the real story was that there's a payment plan and now that the season's over She'll get her money, but it's funny some of these stories out there Yeah, they probably wanted to make sure that

[00:19:47] she didn't like disclose anything across her NDA and then also that she did the You know the the promotions for the show afterwards so they probably didn't pay her until that was all done Yeah makes sense. And hey, I stumbled upon

[00:20:01] Cher's first ever Christmas album at the age of the young age of 77. Have you guys heard this? No It's absolutely amazing. It blew me away I'm not the hugest share fan, but this album is really really good

[00:20:17] It's up on Spotify check it out because the the production sounds like it was recorded in the 50s or the 60s However, they did that with the you know digital plugins and whatnot. So and it's all the classic songs, too

[00:20:30] It's not modern stuff. Maybe one or two songs, but very very good. Well done. She doesn't have any originals is it's just No, like I said, I think there are the newer ones are by her and there's only like one or two

[00:20:44] But she does a ton of covers that you'll recognize right off the bat and They're phenomenal. Yeah, all the standard Christmas Christmas tunes. I'll check that out. Sometimes we'll we'll put on the Christmas music on a Saturday

[00:20:56] So I'll check it out. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's the thing to do. It's great And then finally pop culture we have I stumbled on this it's called the cameo app anybody familiar with this one. I am oh really

[00:21:10] Mike no, this doesn't ring a bell. The name is familiar, but I don't know what it is. Well, it's actually really interesting So it's not so much For larger celebrities. It's more for like second-tier

[00:21:21] Celebrities less famous people comics actors things like that. But what you can do is you can purchase a Plug by them you give them what you want to say to somebody and they'll provide a video

[00:21:36] Recording of them saying those blurbs or whatever you want said to your friend or or gift receiver and the prices range from whatever $15 to $100. I saw one for like $400. It's a very cool idea. I had no idea what was out there. Very cool

[00:21:52] Yeah, and I'm familiar with this matter of fact This is blowing up on some social media because there's a congressman by the name of George Santos that got like kicked out of Congress

[00:22:01] And he's absolutely killing it on this cameo app and there's like these different social media channels where? He'll like I think he's like a I don't know. I think he's a Republican

[00:22:11] So I think that like people are sending like they're like, yeah, they're uncle like cameos from this guy. So it's pretty fun I'll tell you I'll include the link in the show as a matter of fact, I

[00:22:21] Hilarious I was going to do this for my daughter send her something. So I mean Anyway, that's funny. All right. So moving on to stickers You can get your stickers at ski fanatics and camped in New Hampshire right off of exit 28

[00:22:36] We're spinners down off of Daskam Road 93 in Andover, Massachusetts. Say hi to dolls and pops If anybody's interested in advertising with the podcast just reach out direct message us on the socials or email us at slasher podcast at gmail and We have some donations this week

[00:22:55] We have two coffees from Edith Sandoval and it's a listener from New Mexico So that's very cool. We got a couple long-distance listeners this week And then another one Edith and Matteo, I believe this is the same pair

[00:23:10] Donated a single coffee. They're enjoying the podcast. So thank you guys for listening solo hikes donated four coffees George and Christine donated ten coffees and then just today we got Steve from Cape Cod donating ten coffee. So it's super generous

[00:23:29] Donations lately and we really appreciate it very much Thank You don't eat stone Yes, thank you very much and we have our first sponsor fieldstone kombucha Fieldstone kombucha New England's premium craft kombucha company

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[00:24:43] So fieldstone kombucha co.com. Hey, that's another that's another cool gift idea right there. Yeah, excellent. Very nice. Very nice All right. All right. Stop. This is the part of the show where we talk about what beer we are drinking Are you are you drinking anything?

[00:24:58] Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's an oldie but a goodie I just went for a wizard by the Burlington Beer Company It's a double India pale ale. I've talked about this one before but I was just in the mood for something really tasty and

[00:25:11] This is the first sip yeah How about you Mike? I am finishing up my final beer from treehouse brewing and in Charlton So this is it so I got to go back down there and get a reef restock but it's pretty good it is a

[00:25:28] Very hazy. So these things are stiff so I may be falling off my chair by the end of the night Excellent, yeah and Mike see do you you just drinking water you drinking anything or just just very good

[00:25:41] Yeah, very good. So I I have mine too. So I may switch over Our stump this is the part of show we talk about what hikes we've been on recently so we didn't end up doing that hike on Saturday on Mount Washington, so we

[00:25:56] Foolishly decided to wait until Sunday because we hope that like maybe the weather would be okay and we'd see some views But that was a huge mistake Yeah, yeah, the forecast was sort of Little overcast and drizzly. It was like hiking in soupy soupy air

[00:26:13] It's just so thick and wet just dripping off the trees fog Unbelievable, it was a good time. So do you want to talk about it Mike? Yeah. Yeah, so I I Decided that I was gonna go hike the Belknap

[00:26:24] So I knew stomp had mentioned he was gonna be doing Mount Clem so I went on to my Maps and I just take a look and I was like well

[00:26:31] I'll do Clem with him and then cut over to Belknap and Piper and grab I think I've got that like gunstock Belknap and Piper left to finish up my Belknap list

[00:26:41] So I figured I would just head over there and grab those, you know be about a 12 or 13 mile day So we I met up with stomp we Headed over to Mount Clem, but I think about halfway up. I just was like there's no views

[00:26:55] I want to save those those peaks for a better day so I just decided to just head back with stomp and I'd end up being like a six mile hike, but Nothing too descript. I mean the only thing I would say that was

[00:27:07] Kind of cool was just the pawn go walking around the pond below Mount Clem is really good That's around pond. Yes Beautiful yeah, so that would have been that was 137 for my New Hampshire highest 500. So thanks for joining me on that

[00:27:24] I had some plans later in the day. So I had limited time, but I'm glad you came out Mike. That was fun But what was tough about it? I'm sure you guys have experienced this elsewhere

[00:27:33] It was just that that early winter snow that slushy wet every step you take you slide four or five inches So it was a mess up there, but it was a nice time out short and sweet. Yeah. Yeah, and I wore my you wore boots

[00:27:47] I wore my trail runners cuz I was like I can just throw on my spikes if I need them But my feet got really wet and they were pretty cold by the time I got back in so it was I was pushing

[00:27:55] I don't think I would have had fun at all Taking that that that route over to um to bellnap and Piper. I don't think that would have been fun Yeah, the old Piper Trail over towards Piper from where we were is a long haul that would use

[00:28:07] Yeah, and I wanted to get back early because I think it was gonna start raining at like 1 And I did yeah, it did so we got done around right on that money, which was fine Yeah, perfect

[00:28:18] So that's what we got and I'm assuming Mike see you've been out a million times A little bit in the office nowadays. Oh boy. Have you got anything recent? Went out skiing Oh great great Oh excellent I've been heading up a project up there. Okay

[00:28:43] Awesome, where'd you go skiing? Um off of Baron Autorode Okay, gotcha service down there. I don't wanna get too specific. Oh, yeah, sure. Don't give your secret spots away I'm gonna go to the beach Oh, yeah, sure. Don't give them secret spots away.

[00:29:02] I have, I've got plans. Matter of fact, Mike, I'm going to be up by your area. So I'm going to do Stanton over to Parker and then maybe get over to Stairs and Resolution and Crawford

[00:29:18] depending on we're going to spot a car on River Road or River Street, whatever that is and then Davis Path and then make a decision. But that'll be an interesting hike. I haven't

[00:29:28] done the hike from the Mount Stanton trailhead and done that section of Langdon and in that area. So I'm curious what it's going to be like. Yeah, Pickering. Yes. Yeah. And they're nice. Those are the Krippies, they call them. It's a bunch of low bush blueberries

[00:29:46] and a bunch of scotch pines, I think. Yeah. I think it's scotch pines up there. Yeah. So I'm going to do that, I think on Saturday. So that should be a fun hike. We're going with a little crew.

[00:29:55] And Parker, that's just going that direction and on Davis Path. It's freaking gorgeous. Oh yeah. That's a really pretty area. Yeah. So we'll see how the snow situation is. But Stomp, you got any plans this weekend or are you just doing your thing?

[00:30:09] I think I might be heading up to Lonesome Lake with my cousin and his son unless I get called into work at the last second. But that's the plan. Just something simple and fun. I got the invite. So I'm like, yeah, I'll go. Sounds good. Yeah.

[00:30:25] All right, Stomp. So next up is Vaucluse. Vaucluse gear. So do you have a sweat problem? Sweat can be extremely, extremely uncomfortable on the trails. Plus, sweat is a serious risk factor. As your clothes get wet, your core temperature can dramatically fluctuate.

[00:30:40] This can result in hypothermia, heat exhaustion and dehydration. So we've got good news at Slasher for you. There's a piece of gear that solves the sweat problem. Vaucluse's ultralight ventilation backpack frame. The frame is a backpack accessory that easily installs in your favorite pack.

[00:30:56] Size 15 liters to 65 liters and creates a ventilating airflow gap between you and your pack. It's also ultralight, weighing less than a pair of socks at just over three ounces. Whether you're hiking in hot or cold temps, the ultralight ventilation backpack

[00:31:10] frame is a real game changer when it comes to airflow and ventilation. So visit Vauclusegear.com to order an ultralight ventilation frame today. Use promo code Slasher to enjoy a five dollar discount and let them know that Mike and Stomp sent you.

[00:31:28] Yep, and Stomp while you were reading that, I just grabbed my backpack to show Mike what it looks like. I was wondering what that racket was. Sorry. I'll edit that out. Yeah, sorry about that. That's all good. It's time for Slasher's guest of the week.

[00:32:06] Very cool. Very cool. All right, so this is the part of the show where we're going to interview you, Mike. So you ready to go? Sure. All right. So I think I'll kick this off and just give a little bit of background on you.

[00:32:30] And then, Mike, I'll give you sort of my perspective. I mean, I've been aware of you since I started hiking. So I stepped on the mountains the first time in probably 2012 around that time. And then pretty quickly, I think I started doing a lot of research and learning.

[00:32:48] And I think some of your articles were critical to me around particularly winter hiking. So we'll get into that. But just to give the listeners some background. So Mike Cherum, he's the owner of Redline Guiding fixture in the White Mountains here.

[00:33:03] So his background, he's done many trips up Mount Washington. I think he's got a little under 100 trips up Mount Washington. Many rounds of the 4,000 footer list, 52 with a view, terrifying 25. Done the long trail. And then he's done the redlining tracing of all the trails in the White Mountains.

[00:33:21] Traveled to Europe and the Alps, the Dolomites. He's done national parks. He's done Mount Fuji. He's been around the Northwest. And then you started as a professional guide in what, like 2013, Mike? Somewhere around there. 2012, 2013. All right. So you got a pretty good resume. You've been busy. Yeah.

[00:33:40] So why don't you start off by introducing yourself and maybe talk a little bit about sort of your younger days and how you got into outdoor adventures and travel and then, you know, the White Mountains.

[00:33:51] Like a lot of kids, my parents liked the hike, so they dragged me along. My mother was the driving force, though my dad was the porter when I needed to be hoisted, which was the case.

[00:34:06] At one years old, I don't remember, but I'm told that I took a ride down Manadnock on my dad's chest. Nobody got hurt. I wanted to do it again or something like that.

[00:34:19] Mount Washington at two and then first time on my own legs was when I was four years old. And we went up Tucker River Venture. I might have some maybe vague memories of it. I don't even know. Just being boosted in some of those big steps.

[00:34:36] But the mountain was a lot different back then. Yeah. And was this like a did it was this continuous through your whole childhood? Did you grow up in the White Mountains or where did you grow up? My father was in the Air Force.

[00:34:47] So that's how we ended up in Japan. And we always called New Hampshire home base. And my mom was absolutely obsessed with Mount Washington. So while we did hike a few other things, it was always Mount Washington was always Tucker River Venture. She was just driven.

[00:35:05] And my dad was, you know, go along to get along. He was along for the ride and I didn't have a say in the matter. But I did develop early on an appreciation for the smells, the sights, the sounds or the lack thereof, even as a kid.

[00:35:19] And that stuck with me. That was kind of the addictive part of hiking. Yeah. And how common is it? Like, do you think like what do you think it was about your mom that she was so obsessed about Mount Washington? I mean, I get it. I am too.

[00:35:31] But it must have been like a kind of a unique thing to be that focused on hiking back then. Yeah, I don't know what it was about Mount Washington that was the driving force for her.

[00:35:46] Other than it's, you know, maybe the same mentality as a lot of people. They look at New Hampshire and they think we have one mountain or two mountains, Chikora and Mount Washington, you know, so they don't realize what's going on out there.

[00:36:01] And I think maybe my mom had that tunnel vision where she saw Mount Washington. She saw the only route she knew to Mount Washington. And that's what we did. I remember one time we really stepped outside of our comfort zone and did Lionhead. Switching up a little bit.

[00:36:17] And at what point did you sort of break away from mom and dad and start going off on your own? When I was a teenager, typical rebellious teen, but I still like to hike. So I would date. I remember taking one date to Greenup.

[00:36:36] She was really pissed on the way up. Man, first date, last date. I broke out back then the Mattoos Rose and the little trees up there in the Krumholz zone and the whole ambience, she just melted and just loved the experience.

[00:36:53] So you got a second date out of that one? No. I think I pursued it because of, I don't know. I don't remember. She didn't handle herself well enough on the trail, right? So moving along. You know, I asked her if she knew how to hike.

[00:37:12] It's a really good mountains. You know, Mount Adams is pretty tough and she was like, oh no, I'm totally good. And in a way, I was, you know, same as my mom. I had my focus. I did Mount Adams several times.

[00:37:24] I always went up Lowe's path because it's what I knew. And back then I, you know, you had jeans and a wool shirt and, you know, it was a mix and match.

[00:37:33] It was real kind of a crapshoot, not just because of the era, but of course my age at the time. So did you, was there ever a period in your life where you went away from hiking or were you always at all?

[00:37:45] Has it always been part of your life? Um, for about 20 years with my first wife. Okay. Um, she, if you were to hold a gun to my head and make me pick oceans or mountains, I'm a mountains. She's definitely an ocean.

[00:38:01] I compromised, became an oceans for 20 years and we boated as a family and it was great fun. And I love it. I will cherish those experiences and those memories forever. But when, uh, when that marriage ended, I got back into hiking.

[00:38:17] I stopped smoking butts and I got in shape and, um, poor your lungs regenerate if you quit. They do. I don't know. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's amazing. And I would probably have been a incentive for me to quit smoking sooner.

[00:38:32] I mean, I did it just to save my life, to prolong my death. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize I was going to, you know, read, uh, redevelop myself and, you know, find energy and strength and vigor. And as I got older, that's amazing.

[00:38:49] Like, so you did, so you, how long did you smoke for? 33 years. 33 years. Wow. And it is crazy. People don't realize, like, I think it's like there's some formula they talk about, but generally your lungs will reestablish themselves after about a year, all that tar

[00:39:03] and nastiness will, will get out of there. And then obviously they say seven, seven years for a complete regeneration. Okay. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's right. That's crazy. And you know, and I started feeling within three months, I was out hiking again. I was living down Southern New Hampshire.

[00:39:19] So I was, you know, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I hiked the tuckway six times back to back. It's like, I need a bigger mountain. Do you ever get like those, those cravings? Ever?

[00:39:33] Do you ever get those cravings ever? For bucks? Funny. Yeah. Or just, yeah. Smoking nothing. Not at all. Interesting. Not at all. Do not miss it ever. Because my background is. I was done with it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:47] I don't, I don't touch this stuff anymore, but when I was in music, you know, performance and bands and stuff, we were in smoky clubs for a decade. And when I got out of that scene, you got that, that craving.

[00:39:59] Just even from the secondhand smoke, it's just unbelievable. Very strange. To me, it sounds, it smells really nauseous now. Oh, that's horrible. That's like, that's really gross. Absolutely. Yeah. I smoked a little bit in my younger days and that's the same way.

[00:40:13] Like I stopped and like now the smell of it is just vile. Matter of fact, it's so rare to see anybody smoking that it's startling sometimes when I smell it. Cause I'm like, what's, what is that? So. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. They hide them now.

[00:40:28] So you made your way back into, so you, you know, your first marriage ends, you made your way back to hiking from those early days when you were hiking, even when you started back up again.

[00:40:40] Can you talk about like, from your perspective, how has the scene around the whites changed in the last like 10, 15 years now that there's so much access to information for people about hiking? Um, based on my earlier memories, it's just more, more people, more consumption of parking spaces.

[00:41:02] Some trails are getting wider. There's a photo I have me and my mom on Tucker River main trail, like I'll stretch my arms, touch both sides of the trail. You know, it's not like that now. No, it was, it was, it's, you know, driving snow cats. You're right.

[00:41:21] So, so it's just a lot more, um, I still get the same vibe, you know, that whole, that the pink and Knox experience, the log cabins and the whole, you know, the center for tramping and skiing. It still has that vibe. It still has that educational quality.

[00:41:39] I still like it. I mean, some will say that maybe the AMC has lost some of their focus over the years. I'm not going to comment on that. Maybe they had, maybe they haven't, but, uh, but they still have that.

[00:41:52] There's still that scene going on that mountain scene and that hasn't changed. That's stayed pretty consistent. It was just a lot more people floating around. Yeah. And you've taken the approach and we'll talk a little bit more about like the content on

[00:42:04] the red light guiding website and everything, but you've sort of taken the approach and me and Stomp, when we first started the podcast, like we got this from some people where they would say like, Hey, don't talk about that mountain. Don't talk about that place.

[00:42:16] And like, we still keep something secret, but we also, you know, realistically like there's certain areas where, you know, people are going to go. So we're not gatekeeping too much here. And I don't think you do that really either.

[00:42:27] Like you're, and especially for a guide, like you could, you know, you don't have to disclose like, okay, here's what my winter pack is going to, here's what, what are we going to provide for a winter pack for customers?

[00:42:38] Like, I remember going on your website and being like, I'm going to compare what he has for a suggested winter hiking setup to what I have and fill in the hole. So you've never been one to sort of like hold back information. Like you're all about education.

[00:42:52] Can you talk about like, did you struggle with that decision or was that a no brainer for you? Um, to me, that was a no brainer because Redline Guide is my second company. I had a mail order company for 20 years and we sold biological pest controls.

[00:43:06] When I started that company, you know what I knew about biological pest controls? Nothing. So I put my nose in the grindstone and became an expert in that and people love dealing with an expert. So we blogged about it, did the same thing I'm doing now.

[00:43:20] And this is, so I took the same approach. It worked before, why won't it work again? And it has. So we give the education away, but it's, you know, we get the notoriety, I guess, for sharing

[00:43:33] and people like to do business with it because we know, because we have some of this critical information. Yeah. And what was the, I guess, what was the original vision and what can you talk us through when

[00:43:47] you said, you know what, I could really set up a business here and make this work? So I came to the area, before I moved to the area, I came to the area looking for work

[00:43:59] and I talked to a guy agency in the area and I told him that I want to be a hiking guide. They laughed, literally laughed in my face and said, there's no such thing. Forget the Crawford brothers. We won't talk about that.

[00:44:10] So no such thing as hiking guides in the area. Fine. I'm stubborn. I'm going to become a hiking guide anyway. Avalanche training, L&T training, leadership school, just this, that, other thing. My medical certification is doing all this stuff. I'm thinking there's no formal track in New Hampshire.

[00:44:28] So I'm just thinking to myself, what do I need to do to become a guide? And then I got qualified and I went to work for somebody else for a few years and led

[00:44:38] a bunch of trips in Mount Washington and did some trips out West that got it on Rainier and Hood and shook sand and stuff and cool experiences. And then at some point, because of the sale of my other company and needing more money

[00:44:51] and stuff, I was in the position where I needed to start another company. So I did and started Redline Guiding. Our thought at first is we would be like everyone else. We would lead group tours.

[00:45:04] And if somebody wanted private, maybe we would add a little bit of money and they would make it private. But that's not the reality. The reality is we were giving one-on-one tours in small groups. And so we just kind of, we didn't create ourselves.

[00:45:19] We just became who we already were, if that makes any sense. Iskra, that makes sense. And then how long do you think it took for you to just get some traction where you went from? And obviously you've started businesses before, so you've got an entrepreneurial focus.

[00:45:34] Is there a certain point where you're obviously in that sort of storming mode where you're like, okay, I got to establish this and revenue is going to come maybe that first six to 12 months.

[00:45:44] How long do you think it took you to get to the point where you said, yeah, you know what, this is viable and we can make this work? Within the first year. Yeah, I mean, I started in October.

[00:45:55] So that particular year we didn't know, but by spring of the following year, even after the first winter, going into spring and summer, we were getting bookings and that became a busy season for us. It's like, yeah, this is totally going to work.

[00:46:09] It's a year-round business with a couple of shoulder seasons that get weird, slower, stuff like that. Yeah. And then, so you had wilderness first aid training, you had avalanche training. So you just took the perspective that I'm going to get as many certifications as I can

[00:46:25] just so that I have that on my resume. Yeah. So I could become a good guy. And I became a class one leader for the AMC and I did all of their leadership stuff.

[00:46:37] And I led for a couple of meetup groups, well-respected ones at the time because I wanted experience of dealing with people's personalities on the trail. I didn't know what that was going to be like.

[00:46:49] I was completely fresh to it, but it was like, you know, it's like, what do I want to do? I want to become a hiking guide. Boom. I'm going to become a hiking guide. There's like no stopping me. So that was just my decision.

[00:47:02] I don't know if it's luck, skill or some combination between the two that it's so far it's working. I'm able to pay my bills. I don't make hardly anything, but money isn't my gold. My gold is free time. And I do have a lot of that.

[00:47:19] I have unstructured days, which I like that. We'll call it executive time. Yeah, I get that for sure. With the initial interactions you had, I would think that all the technical pieces that you

[00:47:33] had, that's sort of like to me is a pretty, you can build a path and say, I've got to get these certifications and I've got to get this knowledge of hiking these areas. But the people aspect and the personalities you're dealing with, like I have to imagine

[00:47:49] there's a huge difference between you guiding two completely inexperienced rookies that just want to go out and learn about the White Mountains versus you guiding somebody that's been hiking out in Pacific Northwest in these huge mountains, but wants to just get some experience in the Whites.

[00:48:05] You've got to deal with inexperienced people are going to defer to you. Experienced hikers that just don't know the reason, the region are going to probably have opinions and you've got to deal with that.

[00:48:16] So what did you learn about people early on and how hard was it to pick that up? That was actually pretty easy. One thing that we noticed, I noticed as a guide is that when people come to me or they're

[00:48:31] doing something that's because they want to be there and that really changes the whole atmosphere. They're having fun. This is a day they're looking forward to. It's not like they're standing in line at the DMV. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't have to deal with too many difficult people?

[00:48:46] Nope. Nope. Very, very rare. Yeah, very, very rare. Couple times we've had a couple of people that came to us that were, one guy was cheating on his wife and there was somebody else that was clearly a bigot and we just completely zapped those people. You're done.

[00:49:06] Zero tolerance. I get that. As far as how you work, so the initial process, if I'm a potential client, what happens? I know you have an intake form on your website that people can go onto, but what's the general

[00:49:22] sort of rundown on how people can work with the guide service? So we look at it. Sometimes people will contact us and ask a few questions. That's totally fine and understandable and we will send them to the booking form.

[00:49:35] It's not a payment gateway and that starts the process. The booking form is long. It has a lot of medical information and stuff and it's a commitment. So when people have filled that out, even though they haven't paid anything, they're invested in this.

[00:49:49] We reach out to them, find out exactly what they want, get their experience level, find out some other pertinent facts and details and that's when I say, okay, I have enough information now.

[00:49:58] Let me go see and assign one of my guides to it and I'll talk to, I'll usually cherry pick the guides and say, I want you on this because I think you'd be a good fit with this person or whatever.

[00:50:11] And once that is established, I reach out to the guest, which is what we call them instead of clients. I reach out to the guests and I send them an email. I CC the guide and I put the two together and let them communicate.

[00:50:23] Right after that email goes out, I send an invoice for a deposit on the activity, whatever adventure or educational opportunity that they're doing. That's the general phase. Obviously, the weddings are handled a little bit differently.

[00:50:38] They don't use the regular booking form and then we do have a few things like wilderness first aid, which is done through solo instructors and that has its own registration form and stuff like that. But pretty much it's manual.

[00:50:53] I don't have an online checkout and I don't plan on adding one at any time soon, even though we do have a shop page and you can order stuff for bookings and stuff. I want to talk to people.

[00:51:03] This is our chance to get it right and to find out what people really want and what they're after. And we get all types. We get people that are very experienced. We've guided people who have already completed their grid because they wanted somebody that

[00:51:20] was a companion for the day that had a good personality, had a good technical understanding and wasn't going to become a liability to the person hiring us. To them, it's worth it. And if they're really knowledgeable, they're doing Adams in the wintertime.

[00:51:35] They're hiring a guide because they know they shouldn't be doing it by themselves and they don't have a buddy that day. You know, so they're hiring us for that reason. Yeah, that makes sense. To back up.

[00:51:45] With the adventure side, how does it usually play out with the guest? Do the guests typically come to you to say like, I have an idea, I want to hike this particular area?

[00:51:56] Or do you find that frequently you or the guide that you assign to the guest has to make a decision or make a suggestion to say like, hey, here's like two or three areas that we could go hike. And what do you think? Probably half and half.

[00:52:11] So some people will come to us and say, hey, I want to bag Mount Washington or I am working on my winter 48 and I would like help with this mountain or this mountain or I want to do a backpack or something like that.

[00:52:22] So these are people with an agenda. And then we have other people that are, you know, I just did a took a couple of women out on a half day hike from England and based on their fitness level and what they wanted

[00:52:39] and I gave them some options for the day. Not that I gave them actual options, but I had options based on answers to specific questions and based on everything they told me.

[00:52:50] I said, well, Willard would be a good choice for a half day hike and it was actually perfect for them. And we were fortunate because one thing they did really want were crowds.

[00:53:00] And I told him, well, Willard is probably going to have a bunch of crowd, you know, a bunch of people up there and it wasn't bad. So we lucked out in that regard. They had a really lovely time.

[00:53:10] So a lot of times that's, you know, it's dependent on timing, depending on whether we'll sometimes play a factor. Sometimes we'll have an agenda at Mount Washington being the case. A lot of times where that is our focus for the day, but how we get there is variable

[00:53:25] based on conditions. Yeah. And I'm curious how, I'm assuming though you must be an expert at this at this point, this almost never happens, but is it pretty easy through the intake process with the

[00:53:36] guests to sort of suss out their fitness level and make sure that there's not a mismatch before you get on trail? Yeah, we asked two questions. One is their self-proclaimed fitness level. And the way we ask the question, it's one of these tricky survey things where there's

[00:53:55] an even number of choices, which forces the part participant to lean one way or the other. And I find that very telling. Okay. So we get an idea of what their fitness level is and then we get a subjective opinion of

[00:54:10] what we, what they want their day to be like. And sometimes we tell them, it's like, you know, you're going to have to readjust your things here because this is not going to work. You're not going to have a relaxed day on Mount Washington when you're somewhat fit,

[00:54:25] you know, giving us these answers. It's like, this is not going to be a relaxed day. This is going to be a big day for you. You're going to have to dig deep and push hard. So having these subjective questions tells us a lot.

[00:54:36] Now we can get an idea for their experience talking to them on the phone. Yeah. Yeah. Because you want to like, you have to find that like Goldilocks, like that sweet spot where,

[00:54:47] you know, you push them enough and you take them on a cool adventure, but I would assume you never want to have a situation, I'm sure you do, but you've had this, but like you

[00:54:55] want to avoid a situation with a guest where, you know, you've got to turn around halfway because the fitness isn't fit. And it does happen. Things like Washington where a lot of turnarounds on that mountain because of either fitness or weather. Yeah.

[00:55:13] If people are good with their self-care, usually their gear doesn't present a problem like blisters and stuff can be dealt with before they become blisters with good self-care. But yeah, we get some of that people turning around.

[00:55:24] It's, you know, we have to, we do private tours by default. So generally we'll do like a one-on-one. So if that person wants to turn around, it's like, it's your day. It doesn't affect anyone.

[00:55:35] So when we start mixing people together of all, you know, flavors and stuff like this, one person's might be really slow and one person might be really fast. The fast person is going to feel like they're being stifled and held down all day.

[00:55:51] And the slow person is going to feel like they're being pushed all day. So our solution to that is put the slow person directly behind the leader and have the leader slow things way down. That way the slow person isn't taking the heat from slowing down the group.

[00:56:06] And the speedy person is just like, just go back to your shut off. Yeah. Yeah. Go take a rest. And one of the things that, one of the other things sort of, I picked this up from you

[00:56:15] on either social media comments or like you might've put an article out about this, but like it was specific to Mount Washington and I always took this advice.

[00:56:24] And I think you were the one that sort of tipped me off on this is like the same thing you talk about how your mom always went up Tuckerman and that was how she knew.

[00:56:31] And then you too, but I mean, Bootspur, Nelson Craig, I mean, those are, if you want to avoid crowds in Mount Washington, like there's absolutely no problem doing that, but you just have to keep an open mind about the route that you're going to take.

[00:56:46] And you've posted that a few times. So I'm assuming, do you still like, will you still tell people like, Hey, you know, let's avoid the craziness and go up Bootspur? Do you still? Yeah. And Glenn Boulder is another one. Glenn Boulder, yep. Climb Mount Washington.

[00:56:59] It's kind of a cool way to do it. I've done it that way before. Yeah, we have an article on our blog. It's called the Bootspur option and that article gets a lot of traffic, a lot of hits for some reason. Yeah.

[00:57:11] That one, that article is encoded in my brain. When I tell people I'm on Washington, I'm like, there's don't just do Tuckerman. There's another trail on Mount Washington. You're going to encounter people at some point at the ends of this trail, but it's Raymond Path.

[00:57:28] Which runs from Tuckerman Bean Trail to the old Jackson Road. There's moss on the rocks in there. You get on that and if you can't hear the auto road, you don't even know you're on Mount Washington. This is, it's almost like wilderness. It's really cool. Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:41] I've been on, I've been on Raymond Path before. So it is a cool area and it's not well traveled. I like that particular area because that's, I think that's the area that they came up in the original ascent when Belknap and that whole crew came up Mount Washington.

[00:57:58] The first time that they came from- Like Darby Field's first ascent of Washington? Well, Darby Field was before, but this was like another, this was an early ascent. Darby Field, I think came up through isolation and- Yeah, I don't know.

[00:58:11] There's so many, there's so many clues to that and all the clues seem to point to different things. It's frustrating because I want to recreate his journey with somebody at some point. This is a television idea we had. It would be a cool idea.

[00:58:27] I mean, as far as I know, what I've read in the early history is that he came up through maybe, matter of fact, where I'm going, everything I've read says he sort of ascended, he ascended from the Montauban range and- Montauban range, yeah. Maybe through Stanton and-

[00:58:46] Yeah, it could have been Davis Pell, it could have been Bootspur, it could have been Glenn Boulder. They all kind of point to that segment. Most of them point to that segment anyway. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I've read different accounts and different accounts lead to different conclusions.

[00:59:02] But I've definitely, the Montauban Ridge, that is one of the very viable options. We'll never know for sure, I don't think. We'll never know, but if you need an extra for the TV show, I'm in, let me know. Okay, all right.

[00:59:16] I'll put the old fashioned suspenders on, you know what I mean? With Little House on the Prairie clothes, we'll- One of my guides is Native American. What's that Mike? Nice. One of my guides is Native American. Oh, okay. And there was a Native American guide with Darby Shields.

[00:59:31] Oh, very true, very true. We'll get him on there. That would really bring this thing home. So that's a good segue is like with your guides, do you have guides that like special,

[00:59:41] like I know Arlette and like I've seen, you know, she does like a lot of backpacking overnight stuff. But do they all have like different specialties or strengths or do they all pretty much have, like are they all pretty much- They do.

[00:59:52] Some are climbers by heart, some are skiers, and there's some people who can do it all. But yeah, there's definitely some specialties in the group. And then I have one guy, he's a split boarder, snowboards in the backcountry.

[01:00:07] But I have other guys that have skis and ski in the backcountry. Right, that was one of my questions. So do you venture out into backcountry bushwhacking and- Yeah, we'll do anything. Not just hiking, other modes, skiing? Oh, that's fantastic. Pretty much anything.

[01:00:23] I love doing that, just going out in the woods with Nordic, backcountry Nordic gear. It's great. Explore areas that's really kind of wild. You can see animals and stuff that you don't normally see. Oh, sure. That's fantastic.

[01:00:38] On the education side, so you teach, I don't think you do this all the time, but you'll have, is it one day classes or are they weekend classes? Or how does the education piece of this work?

[01:00:49] So aside from the adventures, you also bring people in the classroom environments and then take them out in practical training, right? Well, like one class we offer is wilderness navigation. It has a couple of half day segments, which aren't great unless it's just refresher.

[01:01:06] But we have a full day class and we have a two day class. And that's pretty much what we do with all of our stuff. Most of our stuff doesn't have two day classes, but we do have it for some things.

[01:01:16] At Glacier Travel, we have a two day class for that because it's so involved. Even the one day is just like so full of information because there's a lot to it. So with the Glacier training, is it a lot of people that are doing like high mountaineering

[01:01:33] that they want to get ready for rain or they want to get ready for like the Himalayas? Yeah. And they'll usually come to us in the spring and we will take them up like Black Mountain ski area with their permission, of course, and we'll conduct training there.

[01:01:45] It's perfect because it's nice and wide so they can learn rope travel, learn how travels a rope team on a glacier type of environment. And then we teach crevasse rescue, teach them how one person in the hole, one person out of

[01:02:00] the hole, a team outside the hole, one person in the hole and then self extrication. So you learn how to climb a climbing rope basically with an ascender. You guys use an ascender, right? Wow. So that's interesting. I tend not to use Pro 6, which is a friction hitch.

[01:02:18] It's just so hard to move. I think the weight of an ascender is worth it if you think you're going to have a real probability of having to climb out of a glacier or out of a crevasse.

[01:02:30] The navigation piece of it, this is, I've always been like, I guess I'm curious, like I've dabbled, like I've checked out like YouTube videos on like compass and map and stomp I think is much more accomplished in this area, knows way more than I do because

[01:02:43] he's a bushwhack guy. But I've heard and I've talked amongst like my friends and things like this and we're always like, and I've heard like, oh, it's tough in the whites to just rely on like a compass and a map.

[01:02:55] If you don't have like a guide point to point to, you're always in like a green tunnel and it's just tough to navigate that way. But if I took your class, would you completely discount that or and change my mind or how does that work?

[01:03:11] If you took my class, the one day class, you would learn how to navigate anywhere in the whites. Okay. So it doesn't matter. You don't want to do, you can be as accurate as you needed to, or you could loosen up.

[01:03:24] It all depends on the situation and that's part of the classes. And we use actually Al's head is a perfect example. Pretending that there's still like a bushwhack from black pond.

[01:03:35] I think it's more of a herd path now, but we talked about black pond to Lincoln Brook trail, put your hand in your pocket and just go for it. Go north-ish. You're there. If you go too far to right, no problem. River, follow the river.

[01:03:50] You go too far to left, you're going to go uphill and you're going to notice that. So going in, you don't have to be accurate hardly at all. Going out, you're aiming for a little pond in the middle of flat. Yuck. It's hard to find.

[01:04:02] It's easy to miss that. So that's when we, so we employ various techniques and we tell people about bushwhacking in the whites and you know, especially if that's their focus for taking a class, we talk about

[01:04:14] the reality and reality is, you know, often I'll talk about slide a peak above the nubble and how we did that. It was a multi-pronged approach. We use seven different forms of navigation to get to the top of that.

[01:04:27] It was easy peasy, but this is what we did. And this is the reality. You're using a compass sometimes when you're in that green tunnel, when everything's the same and you don't know what direction you're going. And sometimes, you know, you're not doing that. You're just, you know.

[01:04:42] Yeah. Because one of the articles in your blog, like you talk about the realities of like your battery is going to die and you know, you need to be, you need to have a plan B and a plan C for that occasion. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:04:55] I, my, all my friends use GPS's when we go out bushwhacking and stuff. I never do. I, I guess I have a couple of them, but I don't really use them. But I just, a lot of times we're using landforms. It's probably the biggest thing that we're using.

[01:05:11] And we just, we pick our routes to take advantage of these features. So instead of going into some flat area, we try to avoid that and try to get to a ridgeline or something like that. So we actually have something to follow. There's two, there's two rules.

[01:05:28] You need to know where you are and you need to know where you're going. If you don't know both of those things, you could be lost. Um, so, but it's easy to do, especially if you have an altimeter.

[01:05:39] If you have an altimeter, now you have a pretty good idea of where you are in terms of elevation and that is incredibly helpful. Yeah. Well, assuming you have a map. For the magnetic base plate compasses to get off trail and use the bathroom and make it

[01:05:53] back to the trail, which if you're on a hill, that's easy to do. The, you know, the uphills on my right, when I go back, the uphills on my left, no problem. And I just stay at that level. But if you don't have that, uh, right. Right.

[01:06:06] Altimeter is awesome. Yeah. And I would say that is probably, it's funny you say this and I don't think about this too much, but I would say like, you know, you evolve as a hiker. Like I'm, you know, 10, 12 years into this now.

[01:06:18] And I've done like, you know, a lot of distance at this point. And there was a point where I transitioned from thinking in terms of like distance as miles to now. I only think in terms of like, if I've got to go a certain distance, I'm going from

[01:06:33] one elevation to another. And I don't think of mileage anymore. I only think of like, okay, I've got 300 feet of elevation gain coming up versus, you know, I don't really think too much in terms of, you know, actual mileage anymore.

[01:06:48] So I don't know when that changed, but maybe that's, you know, the altimeter is like, it's my number one go-to item and that's where I can sort of tell where I am. Yeah. Yeah. I use mine all the time. It's a great tool. Yeah.

[01:07:01] It's a tool that is not required that people carry, but it is very useful. If people understand, if they have a map, whether it's a topographical map and it's contour lines on it, every time they pass a contour line, they know where they are on

[01:07:16] that trail if they have an altimeter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The contour lines are huge. The flume slide trap is what we call it when we talk about search and rescue is everyone

[01:07:25] looks at the flume slide trail and they say like, oh, that's a short hike, but they don't see the contour lines. The amount of gain. Yeah, for sure. Wow. This is interesting. So just, I wanted to ask you about the wedding services as well.

[01:07:38] And then I do want to get back into sort of some hiking advice for you. But so the wedding business, like talk about that. When did that come to fruition? Was that something you always planned or is that something you stumbled on?

[01:07:49] When I worked for the other company that I worked for, I thought it would be a good idea. So I became a JP and we never did anything with it.

[01:07:56] And then when I broke out on my own, I said, oh, I got to make this one of the things that I do. I don't know if it really fits, but you know, it works. How many weddings have you done? It's a lot of fun.

[01:08:06] I highly recommend it to couples because it's dirt cheap compared to some options. Right. And talk about grandeur. I mean, I've done a wedding and hunting in a ravine before. And it's like, we're on the top of the fans where we did it. It's like beats any cathedral.

[01:08:25] Right. I would assume that the biggest issue you run into is the bride trying to manage like, okay, I want to get on the floor. I want to get into Tuckerman Ravine and get that view.

[01:08:37] But Aunt Bertha can't hike up to Tuckerman Ravine to make it all that way. So you've got to balance like you've got to pick some lower elevation stuff so that people can get to the wedding. Right? Yeah.

[01:08:49] And there's a lot of places like Elephant Head that are just super pretty. Glen Ellis Falls, which I have no idea what that is going to look like when they are done. They're doing some major construction over there. They've clear cut the whole parking lot. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:05] Big things going on over at Glen Ellis. Interesting. And sometimes, you know, these mountains like Wildcat and Loon and Cannon and Washington offer great options for people that have friends and family with mobility issues, but they still want that mountain experience.

[01:09:22] Yeah, we could stop on the auto road where Nelson Crag Trail crosses and get everybody over there and just tell them to stay on the rocks, folks. And it's a real flat short walk next to, you know, we're standing just outside the state park actually.

[01:09:37] And, you know, have an amazing wedding in an amazing place. So those are good options for people who, you know, want to still have a mountain wedding, but they want people there that aren't going to, you know, hike.

[01:09:51] And do you find like, is it a lot of like second marriages? Is it a lot of people that do their first marriages? Like what's the profile? Probably about 75% are first time marriages with younger people. I've done some vows, renewals and some older person marriages.

[01:10:14] But yeah, mostly just young people. Yeah. First marriage. Do you have your like spiel down? Like, do you have to memorize like a lot of words? Like I know I've been to a couple of weddings where people got like deputized to be JPs just for that specific wedding.

[01:10:27] And it's like, it was a mix bag. Like sometimes these, you know, they don't do that well. So. So I have a couple of scripts that I offer people and I will sometimes insert a prompt and stuff like that into the scripts.

[01:10:39] But it's a funny story when I first became a JP about a week before my first wedding. It's like, oh, shoot, I got to say something. Right? Yeah. I was completely new. You know, fake it till you make it.

[01:10:51] So I went online, I found some wedding vows from the state of Florida. I call those my basic vows and I still use them. I have since written my own ceremony and some couples will choose that.

[01:11:04] Most people will just go with the basic or the custom vows and then they just, a lot of mobile and sort of prompt. And I suggest that I think it's a nice touch. Other people will do weird, you know, hand binding ceremonies and candle lighting,

[01:11:18] unity candles and sand mixing and some stuff out there. Some of it is not very well suited for mountains. But that's okay. I do weddings at venues too. People say, hey, I'm getting married at Eagle Mountain House in Jackson. It's like, okay, I can do that.

[01:11:37] Oh, hell yeah. Awesome. And then how does, how's music handled? Do they just bring like a, no music? I maybe have had one person bring background music and they just did like a portable speaker. Okay. All right. So not much of that going on.

[01:11:55] And I've shot some videos. Sometimes we'll do that. I did one wedding on Bond Cliff and they hired me to video the whole thing and put together like a 20 minute video or something. Real nice memory for them. Yeah, that's cool.

[01:12:08] Stomp, you and Mrs. Stomp should renew your vows. Hey, we're doing fine kid. We're doing fine. Okay. All right. Oh yeah, we don't want you renewing your vows. We know what that means now. Mike has informed us. Now that you know. Yeah, it's a bad thing. Trust us.

[01:12:27] Anyway, but we'll just keep that between the three of us. So back to the hiking, Mike. So another thing that you, actually it was interesting like when I was researching for the show, I was like, you know, I've gone to this damn site like quite a bit.

[01:12:42] So a lot of stuff I'm referencing when I'm talking to Mike is on the Redline Guiding website. So there's a blog section on there and there's all kinds of information on there. It's fantastic. But you advocate for 13 essentials and not 10 essentials.

[01:12:55] So can you, it's so funny, like I'm going to be giving away some of the stuff I talk about on the show is like directly because of you. But anyway, can you talk about like your, why is it 13 and not 10?

[01:13:08] So I just felt for up here that the 13 was more realistic. The 10 essentials is nice, easy to remember, even though most people actually don't remember the 10 essentials. If you ask a person on the street, most people will go plank on you after just two or three items.

[01:13:25] But the 13 essentials, we added basically a pad to get the patient off the ground. Some sort of sheltering, whether it be a tent, bivy, tarp. It doesn't have to be fancy. So that's 12. And then the 13th essential is indeed a wild card.

[01:13:43] And that changed originally when it came up with 13. I felt that sun protection was so important that it should become an essential item. And then on some day when there was a lot of black flies, it's like, what about bug spray?

[01:13:57] And that's when I realized they needed to transform the 13th essential to make it a wild card item. So we call it protection. It could be sunblock. It could be insect repellent. It could be a harness and all that jingly stuff that climbers carry on their racks.

[01:14:19] So it's a wild card. It's defined by where you're going, by who you are, what the situation is going to be. Because there is going to be usually something that would be essential that's actually not on that essentials list.

[01:14:37] And there are certain items from the 13 essentials that we consider mandatory. If you don't have these mandatory items, then you really could be in trouble. If you get into trouble, you could get fined. And that would be a map.

[01:14:53] Not necessarily a compass because most people don't know how to use it anyway. But a map they can usually figure out, especially if they start right at the trailhead and have their map folded out to where they're going to be and keep doing that as repeating at

[01:15:07] every junction and stuff throughout the day, then they can stay pretty good. Extra clothing required. You need to have your layers. Extra food and water. Yeah, required or water. You don't necessarily have to carry it, but you have to have a solid plan to filter it

[01:15:23] or to deal with it. Headlamp with spare batteries required. You cannot hike in the dark. First aid kit. So, Mike, I've always said with the headlamp, I always have advocated for people to just carry two as a backup because I've just seen too many things happen with headlamps.

[01:15:42] Well, plus it's hard to change one if you unless you have another one, if you're like by yourself. So, yeah, I carry a headlamp, spare batteries, and I also carry a little petal headlamp as a drawstring headband. The thing is tiny. It's like the size of a quarter.

[01:16:00] Great for a spare headlamp, though, and it's instantly ready. So first aid kit is one of those items where it's like I'm not going to say that that's required, even though it's an essential item, because the reality is usually the boo-boo

[01:16:14] is so big that that first aid kit is not going to do much to help you or that first aid kit is, you know, the first aid kit is just woefully inadequate for what you're going to have. Or the thing is just so superficial.

[01:16:28] It's like just suck on that for the day, you know, for a moment. The bleeding will stop. You'll be fine. Yeah, I find that with snowmobile guiding because those accidents are generally pretty traumatic.

[01:16:38] You don't come out of a snowmobile crash and be able to treat it with a little first aid kit, generally speaking. Fortunately, you have a machine to carry a big first aid kit with, you know, tracks and splints and all kinds of cool stuff.

[01:16:54] So knife multi-tool, required, not required. Whistle, noisemaker, not required. Lighter matches, fire starter, not required. Cord rope, not required. Rain jacket, rain protection. Yeah, that's really required. So we went through this and the rest of this stuff, varied protection, put an asterisk

[01:17:14] next to that saying that is required too because it's probably going to be something that's really key. When we guide people, we would like them to have those really important items and they don't even need a map.

[01:17:27] But we also try to educate others that we're not guiding just general list. This is what you should bring when you go hiking. Yeah, and I think the biggest thing, and I've said this so many times on the show, but that

[01:17:39] foam sleeping pad, I think with the Kate Matastrova situation, like the thing that really hit home for me was there was some discussion on social media around it, but the need for you to buy eight to 12 hours of time if you're injured in a winter hiking situation.

[01:17:58] And I solo hike in winter a lot and the foam sleeping pad is ideally like a light tarp or a bivy. That's what's going to buy you hopefully eight hours, 10 hours to get a rescue because if

[01:18:12] you don't have that and you're sleeping directly on the ground, like that's it. It's going to be game over very quickly. Yeah. I think the first time I did my wilderness first responder course, they told us in the

[01:18:23] opinion of the instructor that the foam sleeping pad was the most important piece of safety gear. Yeah. Not just for getting a patient off the ground, but also using it to pack splints and whatnot. Yeah. I have a couple of kits.

[01:18:37] If I'm going and we're going to be experiencing a lot of exposure to traumatic injury, I have a trauma based kit with a lot of cravats and things that are designed to deal with that type of injury.

[01:18:51] Normally when I'm guiding, I just carry a multi-use first aid kit. It can handle myriad things okay. It's not going to be great for any one thing, but you know, sometimes all people need is a plan.

[01:19:01] Okay, you don't have a foam pad, but you are going to be hiking in a forest with fir trees and you brought a sharp knife and you intend to cut fir boughs if you run into trouble. That's a plan. That's solid. That works for me. Yeah.

[01:19:15] It's like, obviously if you can bring a fir pad, then you don't have to cut down the national forests to get off the ground and that's probably ideal. Yeah. But if people are thinking ahead, that's the MacGyver in us. Yeah.

[01:19:28] And you have on your blog, you have basically two conflicting stories, the anatomy of a rescue story, which sort of talks about the foam pad and the person and these are fictional stories, but you talk about sort of the anatomy of rescue around the person being able to

[01:19:46] keep themselves safe and reasonably comfortable for eight to 12 hours so that a rescue team can come find them. And then you also talk about the fast and light hiker that basically forgoes a lot of

[01:20:00] the essentials in a winter situation and ends up dying of hypothermia because they've chosen sort of go fast and light and they didn't have what they needed to wait out that amount of time for a rescue to come to them.

[01:20:12] And you're talking about the how I died hiking? Correct, yeah. How I died hiking and then the other story is the anatomy of a rescue story. The impetus for that particular story, by the way, was actually my own experience up there. I didn't get encased in ice.

[01:20:29] That did happen. My trekking poles were an inch thick. It was pretty wild. My hood became a helmet. But it was up there with some of the things are going through and it was an uneventful day for me. I went up, I summited, I came down.

[01:20:42] I was the only one on the mountain. I checked in with some people on the way up. I checked in with some people on the way out and it was all cool.

[01:20:48] But I did stand there at the top of Charkner Ravine, ice forming on the rock saying should I go up and kind of having that inner dialogue. So I don't necessarily going fast and light that day or something but there's another

[01:21:07] story I can think of which was somebody else from the hiking community. I did a story on an incident that he got into trouble. The name of the story is not here, not now. The Epic of Dan McGinnis. And he was kind enough to share that story.

[01:21:21] He's a great guy. He's prolific. I haven't seen too much of him lately but I was following him closely for quite a while. Yeah. Great guy. He got into trouble because he didn't have his compass available. He had and he knew how to use it.

[01:21:35] It was at the bottom of the pack. He decided to not do it and ended up getting disoriented up there. Yeah. If I recall that story, I think I read that a long time ago.

[01:21:45] He got into some kind of trouble maybe between Monroe and Eisenhower or something in that area. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It was right before, right after you dropped down before you hit Eisenhower and that's about 700 feet down.

[01:21:57] We went in the summertime to try to find like the approximate elevation where he was and it's just like it's way thick. We couldn't do it. We got down there as far as we could. We dropped maybe three, four hundred feet and that was it. Impassable. Yeah.

[01:22:12] It's probably been the that's probably the last time anyone's been in that ravine section since you guys went down there. I bet that's never gets true. Yeah. So yeah. So that was a foam pad was not going to help. Yeah. Yeah. I get that.

[01:22:28] It's just that just the conditions were just so totally off the hook that whole period of time, those few days with the winds and the cold. People weren't going to the grocery store because it was too cold. Yeah. Yeah. And you are involved in search and rescue.

[01:22:46] So you do help in some of those situations. Can you talk and you don't have to get any details, but can you talk sort of about your search and rescue background and how long you've been involved in that?

[01:22:59] I was asked the last week we had an annual meeting. I think it was last week. I was asked how long I was in search and rescue and somebody said 11 years because I didn't know.

[01:23:10] I'm somebody who knows and keeps track and I think they were in it for 12 years a year more than me. But I was part of that recovery with Kate and there's been a few episodes out there. Yeah.

[01:23:25] Do you get like a sixth sense on when you know the rescue is going to come? No, not at all. No, you don't know. No, we have no idea when that phone is going to ring and other than probably a weekend, probably in the summertime.

[01:23:43] That's when most of the calls come in. But we do have a sense for how things are going to play out sometimes. In that particular situation, I think we all kind of knew what we were getting into, what we were going to expect because we just couldn't.

[01:24:03] The concept of survivability was completely foreign. Yeah, yeah. I think everybody knew that weekend was not the weekend to be out. Yeah. Thoughts on newbies getting into hiking? What's some basic advice that you tell people if they don't have any experience like, you

[01:24:22] know, basic gear and info for people? Just go on Google and find some basic. There's a ton of information out there to kind of point people in the right direction. They have to understand that they don't know what they don't know, that there's things

[01:24:38] out there that might be obvious to somebody that they are completely missing. They have to understand that there are things like that. So to seek the, you know, to spend an afternoon with a guide and just, you know, when you're

[01:24:52] starting out and to get filled in on some of the details is great. I mean, it's money well spent. And a lot of people have done this as they've progressed. They continue to hire us because they're upping their game.

[01:25:04] They're going for something else and they need a new level of training. Yeah. And then as far as places to hike, like I mean, our standard sort of advice to people like, OK, if you want to do a 4000 foot or like start with Mount Pierce and work your

[01:25:20] way up, like, do you have any sort of sage advice that's different from that? Or is that pretty safe? No. And Pierce is usually the one we recommend. We do have an article on our blog about hiking the 4000 footers in New Hampshire, in which

[01:25:31] case we do offer some information on once to start with and once to end with. And the rest of the stuff's just in the middle. Got it. I think some of the lists are really cool.

[01:25:42] So one key bit of advice I have offered to new hikers is keep track. You don't know it now, but you may want this information later when you decide that you're going to hike all of the trails described in the White Mountain Guidebook or something.

[01:25:59] So keep track of what you hike and just kind of think in that way. I think the lists are all great things. The 48, the 52 of the view, the terrifying 25. My advice would be to do the terrifying 25 is do all of them. It's like 34 mountains or 34 trails.

[01:26:18] Do all of them. And then you could then I would say get the patch. Oh, no, I didn't. I didn't do the Devil's Patch, but I didn't do the Devil's Path. But I got the patch, Mike. I got to do that spur.

[01:26:31] I just like I had done a Kilkenny Traverse and I got to the end and I said, I'm not doing it. The Devil's Hopyard is really nice too. It's very prehistoric in there. Yeah. Yeah, it's very prehistoric.

[01:26:43] When you get to the end of the trail, it says end of trail. So what is over done was the long trail. Okay, you liked it. It wasn't 21 days of no adulting everything I needed. I carried on my back.

[01:26:59] I thought about eating, sleeping, pooping, doing it all over again. I was that was a really quite the experience. I would say I would recommend anybody, all your listeners. If you want to do something really cool, do something like the long trail. Do something epic like that.

[01:27:17] You have to plan it well, otherwise, then you're fighting for your life. But if you plan it well and you send food ahead of time and just think things through, it's like it's so much fun. All right, that's on my list for sure.

[01:27:30] What about places for so for experienced hikers? We get a lot of people that are pretty seasoned hikers. Where do you suggest they go to avoid the crowds and to go to places that they may not think of? Do something like red line or trace the trails.

[01:27:46] Okay, by default, that is going to get you into places. And just one example, Caribou Speckled Wilderness. Not as many people over there. That's our sixth wilderness in the White Mountain National Forest. And it's wholly in Maine. And it's got a different vibe. They all have different vibes.

[01:28:06] And that's something else we have in our blog. It's an article called Finding the Wilderness. We talk about the different personalities of this various wilderness areas. Throwing in things like Kilkenny and Mohussix, which have some of those qualities but aren't federally designated.

[01:28:22] Yeah, we had Danielle Norman and Rebecca Sperry on last week. And we were talking about the idea of like, I feel like with red liners and tracers, like you could probably blindfold you, drop you into a particular piece of wilderness without telling you where you are.

[01:28:37] And I bet you most of you guys could find, you could sort of correctly guess where you are after a little while. I would think so. As soon as we get a couple pocket views, I think that would be all it would take. Yeah. I know Danielle.

[01:28:49] I've hiked with her a few times. I was with her when she finished her New England 100 highest. Oh, nice. She's very cool. I like her. She's great. She's a great crowd. Awesome. What about cool things to do? You got any advice that's not related to hiking?

[01:29:04] If people are going to go up into the whites and tour around, what's your favorite thing to do? You like Storyland, Santa's Village? Storyland is cool. It's not something, not my thing now. I think I can now, but I think it's cool. It's something unique.

[01:29:20] I don't necessarily, I probably shouldn't say, I wouldn't necessarily go to the new aquarium. Yeah. It just seems out of place. And then the anchor, it's an anchor for an Italian restaurant. It's like, at least do a seafood restaurant. It's an aquarium. You know? Good point. That's great.

[01:29:42] Great. One of the things that I've done here that I never see anybody doing that almost has marketing ability, it would be a real pain in the butt for someone to do it. But one of these companies that sells the tubes could probably get it done.

[01:29:57] And that's to get a bunch of wetsuits. You got to get like a full on wetsuit. But the float, the Socko mask and snorkel, snorkeling. Oh, that's a good idea. I think that would be a lot of fun. If you're going with current, it's clear water.

[01:30:13] You can see trout and... Find all kinds of relics. Where you're basically, you're probably crawling along with your hands on the bottom as you're going over into the next area. That just, that could have some potential.

[01:30:28] I have a friend that found a Rolex doing that floating down the Pemi. Nice. That's not a bad find. No, Rolex. Big money. What about, so what's future plans for Redline Guiding? You just, you're going to keep going with what you're doing because it's working?

[01:30:44] Or are you got any new plans? We're just going to kind of stay the course, I think. We'll slowly add this, that or the other thing as, maybe demand will request something or we might do some events. Sometimes those are some good points and bad points about events.

[01:31:06] The good points, you got to, you can get a bunch of people in and make a bunch of money. But the bad side is you got to get the, you got to make a commitment upfront and it takes a while to get the people. So there's challenges.

[01:31:19] And you get enough guys. What we do do right now has been a metamorphosis to arrive where we are. So we've, like I said before, is we've kind of figured out who we were and just, we're going with the flow.

[01:31:33] It's like, we thought we might do this and this is the direction we might take, but that was not the reality. We meandered here and we decided, okay, this is what's working for us. So we just go with that.

[01:31:44] So I guess, you know, it's just self-awareness and identifying where we are at in respect to the business that we do and the feedback that we get. What about the guides? Do you have enough right now or are you looking for new ones?

[01:32:00] I am, we had one guide just make the news in a very negative way. I think you guys might bring his accident up later on in this particular podcast. I believe I saw that in the notes. Okay. But he's this backcountry skier.

[01:32:21] So right now, I am looking at another person to take his place as a backcountry skier primarily. So. Okay. It's weird because it's, you know, we have these niches and it's, you know, it's why I don't have employees. Why these guys are contractors because I have no control.

[01:32:40] It's like, you know, this person knows this, this person knows that. Most of these people work, have jobs and stuff like that. So it's kind of a juggling act. Yeah, no, it makes sense. Interesting. But they're all really awesome. I will say that.

[01:32:53] They are all like really devoted to the company and just, I'm blessed with the people that I have of the team of Redline Guides. They are amazing. You know, we've had Mike Mason on and, you know, we know Arlette and, you know,

[01:33:09] I've run into Howard locally hiking around. So yeah, you got a great crew. Yeah. Yeah, they're awesome. All right. So how do people get in touch with you and any other information you want to share with the audience in case they want to hire you guys?

[01:33:24] I mean, check us out online at redlineguiding.com. We break the site into three sections. We have our adventures, our education and it's just one page, but weddings. So and then if you click on those, you'll see the various individual things that we offer.

[01:33:47] I think pricing is probably pretty good. We're probably somewhere, you know, middle of the road. I don't want to be like the lowest price in town. I don't want to be the highest price in town. We do not want to treat my people fairly.

[01:33:58] Of course, we have to pay the Forest Service to work on public lands and stuff. Yeah. And then you sell merchandise on the site too? Yeah, a little bit. It's never been a driving force for me. We have bus, a couple trucker caps.

[01:34:14] We used to have some t-shirts. When people sign up for us, we give them stickers and stuff. I see the trucker hats around more often than you'd believe, actually. I see them around quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah, there are people love them. It's not my particular thing.

[01:34:30] I'm more of a, as you guys probably know, I wear buffs. Yes. So are you, speaking of the buffs, like, are you ever, are you a big Survivor fan? Do you, would you ever reply to go on Survivor? I feel like that would be right in your zone.

[01:34:44] Um, no. You'd kill it. You'd kill it, Mike. I, um, people think that I'm very public and very gregarious. And I'm actually quite the opposite. Um, so I wouldn't want to be on TV or anything like that. This is fun though. And I love you guys.

[01:35:05] Oh, that's nice. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I appreciate, you know, we, we appreciate you coming on. And like I said, like you, you, it may not be readily apparent to you, but like,

[01:35:15] honestly, like a lot of the sort of the safety and the education stuff that we pass on. I'm just plagiarizing what I found on your website. So I, you know, I want to thank you for not hiding this information and making it so public because it's, it's critical.

[01:35:29] And I think you probably, you probably see the numbers on how many people check these articles out, but I think a lot of the information around safety is, is gotten out through, through all the articles and blog posts that you've written over the years. It's all selfish, Mike.

[01:35:43] I'm a search and rescue volunteer and I was just want to stay home. Exactly. No kidding. All right, Stomp. Anything else? I do. I have two quick questions, Mike. First one involves setting expectations for your, your guests in regards to the inevitable turnaround that can happen.

[01:36:04] Have you had any cases of summit fever where you just had to just drop the hammer and say, no. So personally guiding once I had a group that I was going to have to turn them around, but I did give them a choice.

[01:36:21] I said, we could, we can hit the summit and we are going to immediately turn around and go down this mountain until we get down below tree line and you can turn, you know, down lower, you need to take a break. So that was one time.

[01:36:35] Had another where father, daughter, daughter wanted to quit. I get the second switch back on Tuckerman Ravine Trail. And I talked to her and put her right behind me and stuff like that. And I got them up to Lionhead, which was nice.

[01:36:50] And they turned around and they were just completely ecstatic. So, well, you know, because I was setting the expectations where I just changed the focus. I heard her, you know, starting off as hard.

[01:37:02] If I ever quit hiking, it's probably going to be in the first 20 minutes of a hike. It'll be buggy, hot, sweaty, you know, I just won't be having fun. So, and that was the case of the girl.

[01:37:13] Once she got her head out, got out of her own head and started going up, you know, she was fine. Okay. Well, I just had a second question. I'm assuming that you've had your share of high wind above tree line. And this weekend's forecast is pretty gnarly.

[01:37:31] Friday into Saturday, probably early morning to midday is looking at 90 to 100 mile winds. What are your suggestions or advice for folks that are contemplating going into that? Or what they could be experiencing if they do?

[01:37:47] So, if the wind is to their back when they're going up, they need to turn around a lot. And imagine, try to get a sense for what it's going to be like when they come back down to make sure that they come back down.

[01:37:57] And some of this is going to depend on the trend. If the forecast is calling for increasing winds or decreasing temperatures as the day wears on, this has to be factored into the decision making. It's like, it's not getting better, it's getting worse.

[01:38:12] So, if you're going and you're facing, going to face the wind, go into it. Just go up to the mountains, see what it's like. All right, the winds in my face, I'm okay with this. And then get better, especially like Mount Washington, once you get past Lionhead,

[01:38:27] then you get a little bit of a reprieve from the wind, the normal prevailing winds anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess the overall thing is be prepared and fully aware that you might have to stop and turn around and just come back another day.

[01:38:45] And if you don't think, if somebody doesn't think that they have the willpower to do that, they're going to be so driven that they're going to summit regardless once they've started, they probably shouldn't even leave the house and just pick a different day.

[01:38:57] Because if they're going to be aware of themselves and how they operate, they know that they could get themselves in a dangerous situation. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Just one additional question. Somebody had told me that the winter route for Lion's Head,

[01:39:14] they're not going to open up this year and they're just going to use the normal Lion's Head route. Is that correct? I had heard that they're going to have both, that they're not going to close the summer route

[01:39:25] and allow people to go up that way if they want to take chances with avalanches. Looking at that route over the years, that avalanche chute near the bottom is so grown in now that I don't know that it's still really a legitimate avalanche hazard. But I don't know.

[01:39:46] The aspect on that is to the southeast and if there's going to be wind slab formation, it would be at the top of something like that. So I don't know. They're called, they're the experts when it comes to avalanches.

[01:39:58] I'm assuming that they're making a decision here that is not going to become a detriment to the hiking community or cause any fatalities. I seem to recall some rescues where people have gone down, in the spring they've gone down the winter route and gotten lost or needed rescue.

[01:40:19] So I wonder if they're just thinking like, okay, if we de-emphasize that winter route, maybe it'll be better for spring rescues. But I don't know. I haven't been in that area in the winter, so I don't know. It's pretty easy.

[01:40:33] Mount Washington is pretty easy to rescue down compared to some. True, true. True. All right, Mike, well, we've learned a lot here and we appreciate all the work and everything you give back to the community.

[01:40:48] And we'll make sure that we plug all your information so that listeners can check out the website and we'll definitely encourage people to get those wedding, the gift certificates. And then if they're getting married, we'll have them call you. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, guys.

[01:41:05] I really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. And if you want to stick around with the search and rescue news, you can. If you want to drop off, that's fine too. I know you got stuff to do. I will actually stick around and listen to you guys. Okay.

[01:41:15] All right, cool. Excellent. So all right, so moving on to search and rescue news here. We've got a hiker that got rescued under a 6,000 pound boulder. I feel like this happens like occasionally. Wasn't there a guy that got his arm cut off because of this?

[01:42:05] Yeah, they made a motion picture out of it, I believe. Yeah. So would you wait for a rescue? Would you cut your arm off first? How long would you wait under a 6,000 pound boulder before you just cut your arm off? I have no idea. That's a good question.

[01:42:22] I think I would probably give it maybe max 12 hours. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, nobody was looking for that person in that movie. I'd give it eight hours. Then I would find a dull rock and cut my arm off and get out of there.

[01:42:40] I can't imagine you being able to do that. I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. I would just die. So forget it. Oh boy. All right. So this is in California. A hiker was rescued after getting stuck under a 6,000 pound boulder.

[01:42:53] I feel like as far as boulders go, that's not that heavy. I mean, it's heavy, but that's not like Glenn Boulder. That's not even close. True. Oh, good point. Right. So all right. The hiker was... Let me see here. So this happened in Inyo County, California.

[01:43:14] The hiker who was not identified in the press release was found in great pain with his left leg trapped under a rock which rescuers estimated to weigh between 6,000 and 10,000 pounds. They got a... After arriving by helicopter and car, members of the rescue team used a system of ropes,

[01:43:34] pulleys, and leverage to shift the boulder enough to free the hiker who was then airlifted off the hillside via a Navy helicopter. The Navy repelled down to the scene to help hoist him up and he was taken to the hospital in Fresno. Yeah. I read the article.

[01:43:50] There's no mention of boulder activity or a slide or anything like that. So I think this is clickbait. He just got his leg stuck under a rock. Am I correct? Yeah, it looks like in the picture they just used a big metal rod to lift the rock up.

[01:44:06] And it doesn't look that big. The boulder doesn't look that big. Yeah, big talus field. So I don't know how that happened. He must have slipped under some scree and then it just resettled on him. So possibly, yeah. All right. So now we know...

[01:44:22] The size of the car. You're 12 hours, I'm eight hours. Would you use a dull rock to cut your arm off or would you use something else? I would just start chewing because that way I'd feed myself and get stronger and keep on going with the chewing.

[01:44:36] It's like this circle, circular thing. That's creative. I like that. So if me and you were together and I needed you to cut my arm off, would you do it? Yeah, for sure. But I mean, you're a pretty thin guy. There's not much meat there. Okay.

[01:44:58] I wouldn't hesitate. But I would do it. Within an hour, I'd want to get out of there. I'd just be like, slice it off, Stomp. We're leaving. All right. Oh my God. A new course for Redline guys. Yes. Extract yourself. Yes. Lunch is included. So all right.

[01:45:22] That's great. All right. So a hiker is lucky to be alive after following a fake trail on Google Maps. So again, Mike, if they had taken your class, this would not be an issue. So all right. What's the worst situation your phone's GPS has ever led you to?

[01:45:39] Maybe you wasted an hour looking for a long closed restaurant, blah, blah, blah. It just goes on to talk about this issue where it looks like this happened in Scotland. A hiker had attempted to follow the Kennedy Falls area to the summit of a peak.

[01:45:57] And the hiker, I guess this was a rescue from Mount Frome, and he followed a trail that doesn't exist. And a third hiker had previously died. So there's no evidence to suggest Google Maps played a part in that particular incident.

[01:46:12] But in this case, it looks like Google Maps had screwed up this person. So in Scotland, they had to rescue this guy. Interesting. It's kind of a weird. It happens for sure. Yeah. So that's another reason not to rely on Google Maps or to rely on Gaia.

[01:46:34] So I guess they were able to rescue him and take him in a helicopter to get freed. Or all trails. Yes. Yep. All right. So this was an article that our friend Al had sent in.

[01:46:49] So this is a story about a rescue that happened up in British Columbia, I believe. So this was a hiker that was rescued nine hours. After nine hours, he was stranded in a gully in Mount Seymour. And this was a situation where it was a meetup group.

[01:47:06] Hiker was hiking with a group of people. They were going too slow. He separated and ended up in a gully. And he had to call for a rescue around, I guess, 715 at night. He called 911. Again, this is in Canada. And then he ended up getting rescued by about 330.

[01:47:27] But the group they put together online, so they weren't good friends. The group dynamic doesn't work. And they didn't really jibe together right away. So apparently, they split up. And the person that ended up getting rescued was going too fast. He took a fall. The group didn't see.

[01:47:44] And they just went on. They got separated. And this guy ended up needing a rescue by himself. Another reason to take a guide, because I'm assuming, Mike, you guys don't ever leave your guest, right? Nope. Nope. No, if there's a turnaround, everyone's turning around.

[01:48:01] Or we'll have a second guide for that purpose. Yeah, yeah. I feel like meetup groups in the Whites have gotten a lot. Obviously, the AMC groups. And there was another meetup group that was really rigid around making sure that they were OK.

[01:48:16] There's been some other meetup groups that have... Random group of hikers. Random group of hikers, correct. Yeah, with Michael Blair. Yes, exactly. So Michael had a really good structure. And then I think that there was some attempts to get different meetup groups going.

[01:48:30] I know the hiking buddies have gotten really good about making sure that everyone sticks together. And overall, it seems like that message has made it through where there's a lot... A few variations. Allison, I want to say her name now is Drexel or something like that.

[01:48:46] It used to be Allison Nadler. She had a group, Northeast Peakbaggers, that were... They took safety pretty seriously. Those are the two groups I tried to dabble in. These people splitting up and getting into trouble, just FII, that's a common thread.

[01:49:05] When big groups split up, I mean, resist the urge, folks, because that is a time when things tend to go awry. I've seen it so many times. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we do these articles and I keep track of the rescues and stuff

[01:49:20] and we do see it the same thing. It's like they just... One hiker loses patience and they separate and then they get in trouble and it just doesn't work. All right, so this next article was out of Hawaii Stomp.

[01:49:36] The Kauai County Council has moved forward a bill to require visitors and residents that are rescued to take responsibility and pay for the extreme cost of both ocean and land rescues in Kauai. This is proposing to charge all individuals involved in search and rescue

[01:49:55] over $1,000 the cost of the rescue. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. And my daughter, she was out there for 10 weeks or something like that for college and she was saying that it's very, very muddy trails, slick trails, dangerous. We've done a ton of these stories about tourists going out there

[01:50:16] and just not knowing the terrain and getting in trouble. So again, Mike, this is one of those situations we see in the whites too. Like people will come and they've got experience hiking all over the world,

[01:50:26] but they come to the whites and they just don't know the terrain. And the local knowledge is critical because that's, you end up overextending yourself and you don't know the terrain and you can get in trouble very easily, even if you are experienced.

[01:50:39] Remember that person that complained to the Manchester Union leader about the state of our trails a few years ago? Was that the lady who wrote the letter complaining about like Mount Jackson and that they needed to... To Jackson trails? Yes.

[01:50:51] People have no idea how rugged our trails are. But I, you know, I blame it on Yankee frugality. Do you want me to make a trail up this mountain? How am I going to make it? I'm going to go up. Well, there was an attempt.

[01:51:05] I think it was, matter of fact, it was like Raymer Edmonds. He had gone out west and had seen the switchbacks that they had developed out there and he had tried to bring that to the whites, but the rest of the trail builders were like, you know, traditionalist

[01:51:22] and they didn't want those switchbacks. So he lost out. You know, I'm sort of thankful because I kind of like our rugged trails. I do too. I am totally with you on that. Right. All right. So this next story brings us to South Africa Stomp.

[01:51:39] And this is a trail runner. So Tom Evans, he was training for an ultra trail run in Cape Town and he became a victim. Apparently they got some criminal activity going on. He was on Table Mountain and he ended up getting mugged right before

[01:51:56] he was doing a training run right before 100 mile marathon. And he ended up getting mugged and I think stabbed. So he decided to withdraw from the race. But apparently Cape Town has a lot of criminal activity going on right now. Hmm. You know, that's great training incentive. True.

[01:52:16] So he was yeah, he was just running the local road and they got attacked. So we don't have to deal with that in New Hampshire, thankfully. Yeah, for sure. Can I backtrack for two seconds about that Hawaii story? Yes.

[01:52:31] I just want to mention that they are slammed by helicopter extractions. That's a huge part of the reason behind this bill. And I remember Caroline talking about that as well. Search and Rescue being heavily dependent upon helicopters versus foot travel. Just wanted to add that. Yeah, yeah.

[01:52:53] She said that like there's so many helicopters out there and that that's sort of the go-to option because it's so difficult to get into some of the mountains there. And they just prefer to do the helicopter rescues when they can. Yeah. All right, going local. Going local.

[01:53:10] All right. So this is this first one here is a skier was rescued from Mount Washington after an avalanche. So this happened on December 9th. So a New Hampshire man suffered a life-threatening lower leg injury after triggering an avalanche while skiing in the Great Gulf.

[01:53:29] So 30-year-old man from Bow, New Hampshire was skiing down Airplane Gully with a friend when the incident happened. So I guess the friend and another unrelated skier skied over to assist this person after he triggered an avalanche and sustained the lower leg injury.

[01:53:51] So the two other skiers gave aid to the victim. They called 911 and this triggered a rescue process. So it worked its way through to the Forest Service Snow Rangers. It was outside of the Snow Rangers direct jurisdiction. So they ended up passing this off to Fish and Game.

[01:54:09] And the conservation officer who took the call spoke with Forest Service Snow Rangers and together they worked out a plan. The Snow Rangers cover the Cutler River drainage, but they are always willing to assist in any way they can.

[01:54:24] So I guess they started making calls to get a helicopter in and the Snow Rangers started getting like Mountain Rescue Service. So this was yeah, so this is the Great Gulf on Mount Washington.

[01:54:39] So I guess the helicopter was mobilized and then Mount Washington Parks and the Auto Road coordinated a group effort to get a snowcat up there to transport the Mountain Rescue team up the Auto Road to the summit where they could trek over the ridge and rescue

[01:54:58] the skier if the helicopter could not. So I guess both of the skiers that were helping the victim gave aid and did a great job considering the conditions and then they were waiting for the helicopter to arrive.

[01:55:09] They were able to shovel out an area on the side slope so that the paramedic and litter would be lowered down there. So it looks like the helicopter crew located the victim and then they were able to get a medic and a litter down to that location.

[01:55:26] And they flew off to let the medic do his job. And then eventually it looks like they were able to fly him out of here, out of there and get him to Dartmouth-Hitchcock.

[01:55:42] So that's not a great spot to get rescued but I don't know what the snow situation is on the Great Gulf at this point. I think they've got about 25-30 inches of snow there but apparently it holds a lot of snow.

[01:55:54] It's usually one of the last skiable gullies in the whites in spring. So it collects a lot of snow in there. For what it's worth, the skier, they dotted their I's and crossed their T's and they put

[01:56:10] everything into doing this safely and it just reminds the rest of us that stuff can happen. Yeah, it's the equivalent of just twisting your ankle or blowing out your knee when you're hiking. There's nothing you can do about it. Those things just happen occasionally. Right. Amazing.

[01:56:28] Amazing video too that followed. Yeah. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes so people can check it out. All right, the next rescue we have here is... Oh, this goes back to November 4th, Stomp. We haven't done Search and Rescue that long. Yeah, shame. Shame. Shame. Shame.

[01:56:53] Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Wow, so Kyrsarge North. So this is a 45-year-old female hiker from Durham, New Hampshire. She was hiking with her husband and a companion. They went up to Kyrsarge North.

[01:57:20] She slipped and fell, injured her ankle and was unable to bear weight. So they called 911. That's not a bad place to get injured. She was injured at 5.45 PM. And then Lakes Region and Anderskog in Search and Rescue assisted with the carry out.

[01:57:38] So she's about two and a half miles from the parking lot. So probably right below the summit at that point, because I think it's 3.1 miles to the summit. So they were able to arrive at the trailhead around 11.25. So not horrible.

[01:57:52] So maybe two hours to get to her and then two, three hours to get her down. She would have been up around 2,600 feet or so. Yeah, right. And she had a hike safe card. So kudos to her. And then this next one is on the Desolation Trail.

[01:58:12] So where's that? That's on the backside of Kerrigan. Is that right? Correct. This is an interesting story. Yeah, this is November 11th. So 22-year-old hiker from Newport, New Hampshire. You know what I like, Stomp, is that these are all New Hampshire people. Thank goodness.

[01:58:27] There's no shame on us, massholes. It's just a temporary thing. Just temporary. All right, so these hikers, again, they became separated by a short distance on the Desolation Trail near the summit of Mount Kerrigan. Not good cell connection on there.

[01:58:47] So I guess the hiker called 911 while he was separated from his hiking partner. The hiking partner eventually returned and got the hiker moving. But rather than hiking the shortest route back to the trailhead over Mount Kerrigan,

[01:59:00] they hiked an eight-mile loop in the opposite direction, which kept them in front of the rescuers who were hiking to assist. And then the victim and his friend arrived at the trailhead shortly after 530. So that probably was a little frustrating.

[01:59:16] So it sounds like they went back down Desolation instead of going Signal Ridge. The rescuers were coming up Signal Ridge and they never caught up to them. Amazing. Lucky, I suppose. Yeah. That's going to be frustrating. Feet were frozen. Yeah. Not a good situation. Not good.

[01:59:39] Now, how frustrating is that for the search and rescue teams? Oh, super. I bet. Super frustrating. I bet. All right, so this next one, hiker in distress on Mount Major. So this is November 16th at 1030 AM.

[01:59:55] This is a 70-year-old hiker from Dover, New Hampshire, hiking with his nephew. He was suffering a medical condition on the Boulder Trail in the area of Mount Major. So typically when this happens on Mount Major, you'll get the lakes region, but you'll get the local fire department.

[02:00:12] So they were able to get him up one and a half miles from the trailhead. And they attempted to get him to walk out on his own, but eventually they put him in a litter.

[02:00:23] Major's nice because you can get an ATV up there pretty easily, so they were able to transport him out. So call came in at 1030, he got out at 130. Not bad. It's always a great place for a rescue if it happens. Yeah, those are nice wide trails. Yeah.

[02:00:39] And then we had a November 21st around 1115 AM, Mount Monadnock and Jaffrey on the Marlborough Trail. 70-year-old hiker from Keene, New Hampshire had collapsed on the Marlborough Trail and was non-responsive, was hiking with a close friend. They immediately called 911 and began CPR until assistance arrived.

[02:01:06] Unfortunately, the life-saving measures were not successful and the hiker succumbed to his medical emergency. So fatality on Mount Monadnock. Okay. So that's going to be tough on the friend just being there doing CPR and being with his friend when he passes away.

[02:01:27] And this next one is an injured hiker rescued in Nelson, New Hampshire. So this is an 82-year-old hiker from Cambridge, Mass. So okay, the Massachusetts people are here. Parked in this wood trail. Finish the show. Yeah, exactly. We'll finish up there.

[02:01:42] Four of the hikers when she slipped and fell in wet snow. And I think this is, I don't know where Nelson, New Hampshire is, but they were able to get her in a litter and carried her out. Keene Fire Department helped her out. So it's western New Hampshire.

[02:01:55] Sure. Southwest. Yep. But that's it, Somp. It's been pretty slow. I mean, November had like four or five rescues and we've had one or two in December. So not too crazy for you guys. Not too crazy at all. Yeah. It's welcome. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully.

[02:02:14] That's one of the things the data has told us, Mike, over the years is like when you look at the Forest Service does surveys on the volume of visitors in the White Mountains and hikers, and it's gone up significantly.

[02:02:26] But the search and rescue numbers year over year have stayed pretty flat. So I think given the volume increase in overall hikers versus the volume you see in rescues, even though it hasn't gone down much, it stayed flat, but there's more people out there.

[02:02:41] So I think that the education and the message is getting out there. I've got no peer pressure from social media. Yeah, right. Yeah. You must feel that too. Like there's no way you could ever get injured on a trail and call for a rescue.

[02:02:57] I will just crawl to a rock and die. That's the same with me. I won't even cut your arm off, just die. Yeah, just die. It's so true. Yep. All right. Well, Mike, this was awesome. You did amazing. This is your second podcast and you killed it.

[02:03:14] We definitely want to have you back again. Yeah, anytime, Mike. We need to follow up with Arlette, so maybe we can get both of you back together or something. Oh, that'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's got some good stories. Awesome. All right. Well, we'll end it here.

[02:03:28] And thanks again. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. All right. Yeah, you bet. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[02:03:51] If you want to 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. We hope you'll join us next week for another great show.

[02:04:12] Until then, on behalf of Mike and Stump, 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. Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning.

[02:04:35] 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, and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. And there's three roads that describe this race.

[02:04:48] Do we all know what they are? Only one hill! Lieutenant James Neelan, New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lieutenant, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading

[02:05:02] out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire? It seems to me the most common is being unprepared. I think if they just simply visited Hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items

[02:05:10] and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.