Episode 142 - Welcome Sir Maps a Lot - Erik Hamilton

[00:00:00] Here is the latest higher summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount

[00:00:13] Washington Observatory.

[00:00:19] Weather above treeline in the white mountains is often wildly different than at our trail

[00:00:25] heads.

[00:00:26] Before you hike, check the higher summits forecast at MountWashington.org.

[00:00:32] Weather observers working at the nonprofit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation

[00:00:38] based forecast every morning and afternoon.

[00:00:42] Search and rescue teams, have a lunch experts and backcountry guides all rely on the higher

[00:00:47] summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above treeline.

[00:00:52] You should too.

[00:00:54] Go to MountWashington.org or text forecast to 603-356-2137.

[00:01:11] And here's your forecast for Friday, March 1st and Saturday, March 2nd.

[00:01:17] Friday in and out of the clouds trending towards in the clear under mostly clear skies with

[00:01:23] the high rising through the day lower teens above.

[00:01:27] Winds west at 55-75 mph with gusts up to 90 mph decreasing to 45-60 mph with gusts

[00:01:37] up to 75 mph with a wind show rising to 20-35.

[00:01:44] Friday night in the clear under partly cloudy skies becoming increasingly cloudy late

[00:01:50] with a low rising to lower 20s.

[00:01:53] Winds west shifting southwest at 45-60 mph decreasing to 30-45 mph with gusts up to 60

[00:02:04] mph.

[00:02:05] Wind show will be rising to 5-5 above below and we don't have any information for Saturday,

[00:02:12] so be sure to check back in as able before you head out for the weekend.

[00:02:17] Alright have a great time!

[00:02:47] Broadcasting from the Woodpecker Studio in the great state of New Hampshire.

[00:02:58] Welcome to the sounds like a search and rescue podcast where we discuss all things related

[00:03:04] to hiking and search and rescue in the white mountains of New Hampshire.

[00:03:08] Here are your hosts Mike and Stum.

[00:03:47] I'm not cracking a beard to the beginning of the show because I'm sick again.

[00:04:05] Can you hear it in my voice?

[00:04:06] Yeah yeah yeah I heard it the other night too when you're doing your presentation.

[00:04:10] Yeah I don't know what happened.

[00:04:14] I was sick when I did that.

[00:04:16] I wasn't sick, I was just stuffed up.

[00:04:18] When I did that Zeeland bonds traverse and now I am stuffed up again so I thought it

[00:04:24] was like early season allergies or something but I don't know.

[00:04:28] That's what I've been thinking too because I've been struggling as well the last several

[00:04:31] days.

[00:04:32] I started last weekend snowmobiling and the early part of this week was nightmare but I'm

[00:04:38] better now too.

[00:04:39] Yeah I think I'm just getting a little bit more.

[00:04:42] Next up.

[00:04:44] Well I had to go into the city today so there was no resting.

[00:04:48] No kidding how that go.

[00:04:50] Well it's fine, it's nice to see everybody at work in person but it's like I can't

[00:04:55] believe I used to do that five days a week without even thinking twice.

[00:04:58] I came up at five in the morning driving in a Boston at 6 a.m.

[00:05:03] Parking and then navigating my way out of there.

[00:05:06] Like how I did that for so many years.

[00:05:08] I felt like I was going off to roar or something today.

[00:05:11] Hey how's the traffic?

[00:05:12] Was it brutal?

[00:05:13] It's not bad, I take route one down so it was pretty much moving until I got into onto

[00:05:20] the Tobin Bridge.

[00:05:21] Back up onto the Tobin Bridge a little bit and then I got to get into Kendall Square

[00:05:25] and Cambridge so it wasn't too bad.

[00:05:27] I go early.

[00:05:28] Yeah yeah yeah if I waited until 18730 or 8 o'clock then it's a different story.

[00:05:33] Sure is.

[00:05:34] Yeah that's brutal.

[00:05:35] Well that's cool.

[00:05:36] Nice.

[00:05:37] Good yeah so that's about it.

[00:05:40] All right so welcome to episode 142 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast.

[00:05:45] So this week we are joined by Eric Hamilton.

[00:05:47] Eric is the author of the recently released new book.

[00:05:49] He's back.

[00:05:50] The other 52.

[00:05:51] Haker's Guide to the Lower 52 Peaks of the Nihamsher 100 Highest.

[00:05:56] So Eric's also a long time blogger along with his wife Alana and you can check out details

[00:06:01] of many of their adventures on their website.

[00:06:03] I'll talk in the woods so we'll include that as a link in our show notes.

[00:06:07] So we hope that you'll enjoy hearing from someone who knows where all the less traveled

[00:06:11] corners of the White Mountains are and we'll share some stories and advice about places

[00:06:15] listeners might not always think about to check out when they're but they're definitely

[00:06:19] worth knowing about.

[00:06:21] So along with Eric we have a review of the Vermont 4000 footers and we got a missing

[00:06:27] Hiker case and some drama in the snowmobile community so I'm Mike.

[00:06:31] And I'm stop let's get started.

[00:06:37] This is Ben Pee's from Hiking Buddies.

[00:07:02] We are a 501c3 nonprofit committed to reducing avoidable tragedies through education, impactful

[00:07:08] projects and fostering a community of support.

[00:07:10] You can find out more at HikingBuddies.org.

[00:07:13] We wanted to say thank you to those who have supported our mission and most importantly

[00:07:17] say thanks to those who speak up, who ask questions and who are willing to provide guidance

[00:07:22] and assistance on the trails when needed.

[00:07:24] You embody what it means to be a hiking buddy and now for all my newer hikers out there

[00:07:29] here's this episode's HikingBuddies Quick Tip.

[00:07:38] Leave no trace principles number three and four.

[00:07:43] Dispose of waste properly and leave what you find.

[00:07:49] Pack out what you pack in and don't pack out things you find on trail.

[00:07:54] You might disturb the fragile ecosystem.

[00:08:01] Alright, stop.

[00:08:05] So we get to we get drama in the snowmobile community?

[00:08:08] Oh hell yeah, yeah absolutely.

[00:08:11] I don't want to ruin it for everybody but yeah some stuff is happening.

[00:08:18] Yeah, stop do you have the shame drop ready to go?

[00:08:21] Sure do why.

[00:08:23] Alright well our congratulations to the Mount Washington Road Race lottery winners.

[00:08:28] Judy, her daughter Marley Tracy Morgan and two friends.

[00:08:32] Yeah congratulations.

[00:08:34] Did you get in?

[00:08:35] No I didn't even bother.

[00:08:36] Alright so she went multiple times.

[00:08:39] It's not that I didn't bother it said I forgot.

[00:08:41] Oh dude it's so busy with work that I forgot to put in for it so.

[00:08:45] Interesting.

[00:08:46] Yeah I was on top of it but I was too busy myself but I'm also nursing my right knee is

[00:08:52] a little funky and I just between being tight with time to train properly in my knee

[00:08:57] right now.

[00:08:58] I'm going to pass this year.

[00:08:59] Yeah and the crazy thing, I'm in like a tech group with like Judy and Marley who

[00:09:05] friends we did the Emily hike and they were talking about it like multiple times so

[00:09:09] it's not like I didn't get behind it on it.

[00:09:11] It just goes I just dropped the ball.

[00:09:14] Yeah well maybe it'll be good for your toe.

[00:09:17] Maybe your toe is not fully healed yet.

[00:09:19] No it's fine.

[00:09:20] I'm just stupid.

[00:09:23] Alright stop so we've got some crazy weather on top of Mount Washington so you just read

[00:09:29] the higher summit forecast so it is going to calm down it's going to get a little bit

[00:09:34] better but this is going to be crazy weather up there right now right?

[00:09:37] It's been pretty gnarly yeah we had that one weather and then this cold front rolled

[00:09:41] through Tuesday into Wednesday and we got a message from Patrick who was recently on

[00:09:47] the show Instagram handle top of the Northeast if you're interested he sent a message with

[00:09:51] a graphic with the gust gauge at like 120 miles an hour 120.3 and then he here's just chatting

[00:10:01] a little bit with me saying yeah let's see it's still beating us pretty well right now

[00:10:06] the mountain has been in a mood quote unquote since last night although it seems like

[00:10:11] the sun is almost breaking through it's trying but man is it brutal outside the doors

[00:10:16] right now been up most of the night to monitor the boilers and we've been on generator

[00:10:20] power since last night as well so I had to keep an eye on that so unbelievable it's a whole

[00:10:26] other world up there people yeah yeah crazy how quickly it turns up there so that's pretty

[00:10:31] wild thanks hopefully the crew stay safe yeah absolutely alright so next up you've got

[00:10:41] a congrats here to adventures of miles and smiles on completing the double

[00:10:46] busy grid yeah how cool is that so he has been doing the the double prezy which is the entire

[00:10:53] presidential twice regardless of where you start from whether it's up at Appalachia or down

[00:10:59] in Crawford notch if you start a Crawford you go to the the other end and then just backtrack

[00:11:04] so he's done this every month which is quite a feat it's pretty cool so we just finished his grid

[00:11:11] on that amazing hello oh sorry I was on mute so yeah edit that out because I'm blowing my nose

[00:11:33] so so I understand this then so he's doing a presidential traverse from whatever direction and

[00:11:40] then going back correct yeah and then he will yeah and then he's done that 12 months correct yeah

[00:11:48] alright that's impressive that's pretty cool yeah yeah yeah very cool and uh he uh took his dolls

[00:11:56] his Arlette dolls with him too so that's pretty neat if you do have one of those Mike I don't I

[00:12:03] need to order you really should she'll personalize it for you I mean Mrs. Tom and I have two

[00:12:08] and they're just really cool she does a great job looking into your photos and your image and

[00:12:14] she makes a doll that is really a great replica of yourself yeah so what Tom's talking about is

[00:12:20] Arlette land who I think she's out she's doing a some kind of a through hike so she sells dolls so I

[00:12:29] will I'll look to see if I can put a link to her her storefront in the show notes yes very nice

[00:12:39] yeah great stuff well next we have a review of the hiking buddies presentation that happened last

[00:12:48] night hiking buddies asked Mike to present his search and rescue data for 2023 and I was lurking

[00:12:57] in the background they are watching and it was great I thought it was fantastic it was well attended

[00:13:03] a lot of good questions and a lot of good information and uh yeah what do you what did you think Mike how

[00:13:09] do you feel it went over it was good I expanded the present so this is I think if you check out

[00:13:14] I think it's like episode 123 or something it's the one where Jack daily was on and we had

[00:13:19] civilly a patrol we did it's it's on our YouTube as well um I did a presentation but this is

[00:13:25] like the second version of it I put in the 2023 data so um key takeaway is just for people that don't

[00:13:31] want to listen to the whole thing uh there's no secret patterns to this stuff um you know search and

[00:13:37] rescue calls are relatively rare it's basically one one out of 25,000 hikes results in a search and

[00:13:43] rescue call that puts a person in the in the newspaper so it's pretty pretty rare younger people

[00:13:49] are slightly more likely to be involved than a search and rescue call uh older men typically are

[00:13:55] more likely to be involved in fatalities I think uh 50 plus year old men should be proactive about

[00:14:02] getting cardiac uh checkups and scans and things like that but the other stuff we've always talked

[00:14:06] about here is there's a lot of lower leg injuries so add a splint in a wrap for your 10 essentials

[00:14:15] not just for you but for other people in case you run into them and they need help

[00:14:19] uh we always talk about carrying an extra headlamp I always carry two headlamps one nice one

[00:14:23] and one cheap one so I can give the cheap one away to somebody if they don't have one uh

[00:14:28] and then I also think you got to fake it factor in at least three hours minimum that's minimum

[00:14:32] for a rescue team to arrive yeah so in winter season especially you've got to make sure you get

[00:14:37] ground insulation hot liquid and bivvy add that to your 10 essentials so that you can weight it out

[00:14:43] and the winter you might you might have to wait out you know eight 10 12 even 24 hours in some cases

[00:14:49] oh yeah hold different ballgame yeah yeah and then I think the other thing that sort of top of

[00:14:54] mind for me is you got to operate with uh the mountain will be there another day mindset so yeah

[00:14:58] yeah it's easy I think we've done a lot in Eric you know you've hiked a lot of uh areas so I

[00:15:04] think it's easy it's probably easier for all of us to just sort of take that perspective to say like

[00:15:09] yeah the mountain will be there another day but I think a lot of people that are pursuing

[00:15:13] list and their newer hikers are goal oriented and it's probably harder for people to turn around

[00:15:18] so they're gonna they're gonna press sometimes and you just when you're pressing and you're in a

[00:15:22] risky situation that's when you gotta stop and just say you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna bill

[00:15:27] come back another day yeah and when you get to the top of a mountain that's usually where you

[00:15:30] get the most extreme weather when you're closest to that peak you know and that's your objective

[00:15:36] and it's that makes it you know tenfold hard to uh to turn around and bail for another day when

[00:15:42] you're that close yeah yeah that's the problem is sometimes like once you've gotten to the sum

[00:15:48] you've already walked past that line where you're in trouble and you know sometimes there's no going

[00:15:52] back if you have loads of ability and things like that so it's it's hard to you know when you're

[00:15:58] in the moment especially when you've committed so much time and effort it's tough to make that

[00:16:02] decision but we all have to operate with that so but it was good so we talked through

[00:16:07] there's a lot of data in here I'll link the presentation there's a YouTube video that the

[00:16:12] buddies put up that I'll link into our uh socials and the show notes and yeah you can check out

[00:16:19] this one's cool data in here there's like the the total visitors into the white mountains

[00:16:23] there's some summaries about rescue numbers that have been posted by fishing game from 2009 to 2019

[00:16:32] and then uh there's just a lot of summaries the hot spots you know frankonia rich mount

[00:16:36] washington chakora manadon can and well stay it's always the surprise to me yeah so

[00:16:42] well I mean it's great the trillhead stooage program has everything covered basically yeah

[00:16:47] you know they they've they have all the hot spots covered true true yeah so there's some good stuff

[00:16:53] in here uh we talked about a couple of different patterns that I had spotted which I thought were

[00:16:58] kind of interesting so there's there's probably in the last five years or so there's like

[00:17:06] six or eight cases of clusters of young people um so these are usually like you know teenagers

[00:17:13] are 20 something year olds that will go out and hike together in groups of like five six seven

[00:17:18] eight people and they end up getting lost or um in trouble without lights and things like that so

[00:17:24] there's been two four so yeah the seven of them that I've I've tracked in the last five years or so

[00:17:30] where you know these large groups of young people so I think if you're out there hiking you see a

[00:17:34] group of young people it's probably a little bit easier for you to just say hey how you doing what

[00:17:38] are you guys up to you join your hike and then you know poke a little bit if it turns out do you

[00:17:43] feel like they might be a little out of their element you know ask them some more questions so

[00:17:48] yeah and a good opener is hey I've got a podcast I got a podcast yeah they'd be like what

[00:17:57] the turn around and walk as fast as they can away from you yeah yeah I was I was looking at

[00:18:04] like some of the old uh rescue stories and the one that really just stands out to me like

[00:18:09] talk about the worst luck is the kid that would decide it in the spring to stand under the snow bridge

[00:18:15] on talkerman right and the snow bridge just collapsed on them like oh talk about like the worst

[00:18:21] luck Darwin award right that's gonna be the like dumbest I mean he survived he's okay at that time

[00:18:29] and stuff happens but yeah come on I'm gonna get a cool picture but not good

[00:18:36] yeah it's good stuff yes so anyway but we'll link that all in the show notes and then

[00:18:42] stomp you pulled an article here uh we've got another situation yeah like uh Pierce Brosnan who

[00:18:47] was the actor the play James Bond yeah he had gotten in trouble because he was in what yellowstone

[00:18:52] and he went off trail correct yeah yeah he pulled a so I've been calling it the Pierce Brosnan syndrome

[00:18:59] where rules don't apply to you and apparently this happened in what looks like to be Mount Rainier

[00:19:04] National Park but uh in Instagram account posted pictures of somebody that went off trail

[00:19:09] and they were just trampling on the sub alpine meadows and uh it's a very delicate ecosystem

[00:19:15] and the national park service uh of course is reminding everybody to stay on trail especially when

[00:19:21] you have millions of people walking these trails and you know occasionally going off trail the risk

[00:19:26] of damage to these ecosystems is dramatic so another Pierce Brosnan syndrome uh case

[00:19:33] out dear that it's spreading yeah people have to remember those that you know you step on these delicate

[00:19:40] vegetation it can take years and years and years to grow back yeah just stay on the trails

[00:19:44] right very simple concept yeah unless your pierce Brosnan yes uh so we have a birthday shout out here

[00:19:55] we take it with you yeah uh request now stop uh we sure are so uh this is a very special

[00:20:00] birthday shout out and then we have uh quote here let's say we would like to wish a belated happy

[00:20:06] happy birthday to a dedicated listener and hiker rob McCarthy of old lime Connecticut on behalf of

[00:20:14] alley dandy micimuself we hope you had a really great day rob and uh we appreciate your listenership

[00:20:22] happy birthday happy birthday rob and i i please forgive me i know i've been bashing

[00:20:28] Connecticut drivers for the last couple weeks so i apologize i'm not talking about you i'm sure

[00:20:32] you're an excellent driver right yeah sure um and then we want to give a shout out to Justin

[00:20:39] and the dad venture crew suggesting his kids um had posted a uh a couple of awesome videos on

[00:20:46] instagram that they put together uh that are is an homage to the uh hook set uh common man rest stops

[00:20:55] both northbound and southbound they did they did a uh review video when they used the the slasher

[00:21:02] music background so it's very well produced oh yeah yeah it was really well done so really appreciate

[00:21:08] that though it's fun slasher's hiking topic of the week

[00:21:22] all right stop and then now you want to talk about the four thousand footers and Vermont we don't

[00:21:26] talk about these very yeah we don't so here's a little brief review and this comes on the heels of

[00:21:31] a notable hike tag by real hashtag jb who tagged us for her camel's hump um hike which brings

[00:21:40] her to four out of five so there are a five four thousand footers in Vermont we'll touch upon them

[00:21:45] at a moment and uh that was with her dog mookie and uh apparently they have killington left to

[00:21:51] finish the four thousand footers in Vermont so there are five and uh here they're listed

[00:21:59] by height so it begins with mount mints field at 4,300 feet killington 4,200 give her plus

[00:22:08] camel's hump 4,083 mount ellen 4,083 and then mount abraham 4,06 so these five peaks um apparently they

[00:22:20] all sit in the green mountains and are part of the well are they on the appellation trail which is

[00:22:26] the long trail or are they on the long trail they're part of the at correct

[00:22:33] i don't know i think that the at splits off before it gets up to those summits okay i could be wrong

[00:22:38] about that it splits off right around killington yeah okay all right interesting so um let's see

[00:22:45] down to the water mass so let's touch upon mount mints field for a moment here so um this is again

[00:22:52] 4,393 feet and it's the tallest in the state a lot of secondary peaks and it makes the

[00:23:03] it includes the nose the forehead and the atoms apple hmm interesting they're all named as body

[00:23:11] parts because some say the ridge line of mints field looks like a face when viewed from the east

[00:23:17] interesting so along with camel's hump and mount abraham uh there are the only three mountains in

[00:23:22] Vermont with alpine tundra that survive the ice age so that's a neat little take away mount

[00:23:31] kilniton we all know as a ski resort and that is at 4,235 feet and they call it the beast of the east

[00:23:41] the long trail and the appellation trail both cross the summit and if you're traveling south on the

[00:23:46] at you won't reach another 4,000 footer until virginia wow that's pretty interesting stuff

[00:23:54] let's see camel's hump number three 4,083 feet it's the highest peak in the group is the third

[00:24:01] highest peak in the green mountains and this mountain is featured on the us ferment quarter because of

[00:24:07] the distinct appearance of the mountain and what's notable about this one in 1944 during world

[00:24:13] were two b 27j bomber plane on a training mission crashed into the side of the mountain near the summit

[00:24:21] so most of the summit's been removed uh the summit wreckage has been removed but parts of a wing

[00:24:26] are still viewable about point four miles from the summit so that's pretty cool um and we have

[00:24:33] a couple more here so number four is mount ellen at 4,083 feet as well and let's see the long trail

[00:24:40] traverses the summit ridge of mount abraham uh the mountain is situated between cut peak to the south

[00:24:47] and general stark mountain to the north um ah this is interesting mount ellen as well as Lincoln

[00:24:54] Peak provide the slopes for sugar bush ski resort in mad river valley apparently there are no views

[00:25:01] at the summit of this mountain and then finally mount abraham which is named after

[00:25:07] guess who abraham Lincoln comes in at 4,017 feet and um it's the fifth tallest mountain in Vermont

[00:25:16] and the tallest in addison county it has views on the summit that look towards champagne valley

[00:25:23] in the adorondack mountains that's pretty neat and again like i'd mentioned it was named after

[00:25:28] the 16th president the mountain used to be called potato hill in the late 1800s and his

[00:25:34] and the name is stamped on the benchmark of the summit so pretty cool stuff so this comes from

[00:25:42] the 4,000 footage dot com website and within these uh links to these five mountains there's actually a

[00:25:49] plain crash site page that you have to check out i didn't know they had that but that is available

[00:25:54] as well they list several sites where you can go to see wreckage and uh they do include the

[00:26:00] what turn to me site here up in woodstock too so that's what i got

[00:26:06] not bad have you gone to any of these? I have not no i've driven by them and some of them are

[00:26:10] really impressive looking but i've not had a chance to get out there yeah i haven't done much in

[00:26:16] Vermont what about Eric have you been out there you you've hiked all these right yeah i grew up in

[00:26:21] New York so that was a stopping ground um man's field when i was a kid my parents would bring us there

[00:26:27] all the time um yeah they're they're great hikes um i found out that it's not really broken out in

[00:26:34] wintertime if you go long trail south to um Mount Ellen okay Alana and i had uh interesting day

[00:26:41] that time but um yeah the trails are beautiful out that way yeah do you prefer to go in winter or

[00:26:47] like is there time that you feel like is better than than i love winter yeah winter you know bush

[00:26:53] whacking is great because you have the snow if you can time it right and get a nice you know

[00:26:57] crust on that snow um but there's also no bugs i cannot stand nets and black flies and mosquitoes

[00:27:07] all the biting bugs and there's just less people it's quieter it's you know all the snow just

[00:27:13] silences a lot of things so i like winter bird yeah navigations easier too

[00:27:19] yeah especially yeah going on you can just follow your own track back to your car exactly

[00:27:25] that's great when you push back and i know that like this year is probably not that big of a deal

[00:27:29] but like i found i don't break trail that often but i definitely um ran into some challenges like

[00:27:36] on trail sometimes you can step into um you know like a pine trap and a spruce trap things

[00:27:44] like that and when you're doing the bush wax do you have any tricks like can you just tell at

[00:27:48] this point because you've been doing it so much in winter like how to avoid those deep traps are

[00:27:53] you just is it just come with the territory it's hit or miss sometimes i mean i still go up to my

[00:27:59] my armpit sometimes and ball some fur and spruce but uh usually you know you start to get a knack

[00:28:06] you know for picking the little uh you know two inches of uh the tip of a spruce um you know sticking

[00:28:12] out of the snow and you kind of start to feel when snow gets soft and what to avoid and

[00:28:17] and you know things like that just comes over the experience yeah yeah i still get unlucky all

[00:28:24] all the time oh yeah it's brutal i i i i've found i was like all right i just have to remember no matter

[00:28:30] how tempting it is it looks like the snow is a little bit lower on the side of the trail like don't

[00:28:34] you know stay in the middle because you're gonna fall in but i think with bushwhacking

[00:28:39] i guess once you've got your path on the way up and you fall your way down then you're all set

[00:28:43] but on the way up it might be tricky if it's not broken out yeah so it it's always comes in handy to

[00:28:48] have um breaking poles or a lot of times depending on winter conditions i carry my ice axe and i use

[00:28:54] my ice axe um but i've used both of those to get myself you know just a brace um and then to pull

[00:29:02] myself out of its brief strap which is some tricks and things you learn throughout the

[00:29:07] it's always easier with two people but you learn out of necessity um if you're solo

[00:29:14] yeah now when you go with your wife do you guys have like your roles and you switch it up like

[00:29:17] do you lead sometimes and she leads sometimes or is it do you have both both have you system

[00:29:23] maybe a couple times but our our introduction to or first but introduction to bushwhacking was

[00:29:30] from those spur uh which was a hernd path to to get up there that was fine and then um we bushwhacked

[00:29:38] over to carigan um which the AMC guidebook describes as one of the hardest bushwhacks in the white

[00:29:47] mountains um it's tough yeah for sure there's lots of really thick low balsam fur about knee height so

[00:29:58] it's hard to see down to the floor the forest floor and then a lot of that forest floor is rotting

[00:30:03] or moss so when you do take a step it's imperative that you you know you're able to put some weight on it

[00:30:11] um yeah you guys just kind of accept that you're gonna get torn up anyway right yeah yeah we

[00:30:19] we shed some blood that time um and a lot of sweat and a lot of you know a couple choice words

[00:30:26] and then we you know had a great time and good food afterwards and uh but no we mostly

[00:30:32] you know we'll go trail running we'll go snow-shoeing and enjoy you know it's

[00:30:38] we're usually not too much in a rush or you know we'll just go as far as we want and once we

[00:30:45] we have enough and you know we're satisfied with our trip in the woods we'll turn around

[00:30:51] you know it's not always imperative that we make it to a summit you know we'll start with

[00:30:57] that as maybe a goal and a objective but you know a lot of times we'll be out for a couple

[00:31:03] hours see enough do you know just look at plants and wildlife and things like that yeah we'll just

[00:31:10] have enough I noticed that like stomped us out a lot too stomped you you'll like

[00:31:16] you'll go out and do research you'll do research and then you'll go out and do half a hike

[00:31:21] and then you'll come back all excited to be like oh I think I found the way and then like you'll

[00:31:26] the third time you'll end up actually doing it it seems like sure yeah there are some cases where

[00:31:30] you get befuddled by the the geography or you run into a strainer system of water and

[00:31:37] you just got to call it and say oh next time maybe I'll take a different route or whatever

[00:31:42] but yeah it's a learning process I'm actually impressed that your partner there enjoys bush

[00:31:47] whacking Eric because it's not for everybody that's super cool that you have that to share

[00:31:54] we'll see if I can get her back out on uh I have a couple you know open hardwood

[00:31:59] ridges that I have in mind to bring her out to when that's not what's pretty good right now oh yeah

[00:32:04] we'll see maybe this week that's cool we all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times

[00:32:12] so here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it but um-bum

[00:32:22] all right well stomped this is the part of the show where I do a dad joke you ready uh

[00:32:25] I'm always ready I remember I nailed last weeks all right oh you did okay you came close you came

[00:32:31] close to Eric if you want to try this so all right which hand is better to write with

[00:32:36] which hand is better to write with the right hand neither it's better to write with a pen

[00:32:44] stomp so and actually we have breaking news Eric is a crazy cat lady I just saw a cat walk

[00:32:53] into the screen yeah I'll cat guy whatever you're a cat guy you're a crazy cat guy

[00:33:01] like stop to crazy cat lady oh my goodness I think half the audience is gonna send you hate mail now

[00:33:08] including including Mrs. Stubb we have three because actually you are a crazy cat lady you've got

[00:33:16] three cats well it's really funny um all of your own personalities never know who who wants to

[00:33:23] enjoy your company yeah totally yes or with with day they will actually decide they want to

[00:33:28] like tolerate you that's where it goes all right stomps so this part of the show we do a sponsor here

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[00:34:43] we just got our new order of holographic car stickers for the podcast i have no idea how we're

[00:34:50] gonna get them to you but what i what i'll do is i'll start by giving a bunch down to spinners

[00:34:56] in and over mass spinners pizza pilar off dasken road root 93 and we'll also give a pile to ski

[00:35:03] fanatics which is a great store right here on exit 28 in canton so you can check those out they

[00:35:11] came out really nice mic they're cool um yeah i like them they have like a reflective like thing

[00:35:18] going on is that what yeah from certain angles so it's it's really neat they're cool just something

[00:35:23] different uh let's see if you want to advertise with us we get a lot of good feedback from the

[00:35:28] advertising options that we do here and you know we're not making any jinger on this but um it's

[00:35:34] helping us pay the bills so if you do i have something you want to plug just get a hold of us

[00:35:38] and we will tell you what is available and now let's see we did have some coffee donations

[00:35:44] uh which are also very helpful for us uh this week we had uh James Landoli who donated four

[00:35:52] coffees on the bimia coffee website platform that we have Warren we lock donated five and Warren

[00:36:00] is a member of the waterville valley athletic and improvement association in waterville and they do all

[00:36:05] kinds of great activities for the uh the local community um thank you Warren and Ellen donated

[00:36:13] five coffees as well so thank you very much everybody we really appreciate it thank you thank you

[00:36:19] everybody hey hold my bed it's time to find out what Mike and stop a drink on this week's beer talk

[00:36:35] and I'm assuming you're not drinking any beer tonight right Mike there's a time of the show

[00:36:46] where we talk about beer i'm just drinking water still up my apologize yeah i just couldn't do it

[00:36:50] tonight yeah it's all good how about uh you Eric anything i am drinking some homemade chagatee

[00:36:58] oh sweet homemade chagga as in you find the chagga in the forest yourself are do you purchase it

[00:37:03] from local vendors i found the chagga i harvested the chagga um and i made the tea in the instant pot that

[00:37:12] i have and um it's delicious all right let's instead of talking about my dumbbell can you tell us a

[00:37:19] little bit more about how you yeah what's the recipe this process what's the process oh sure

[00:37:24] it's it's pretty easy um i mean if you know what to look for which i'm not going to get into

[00:37:31] harvesting and finding the two i don't worry about that you know time um just do a little research

[00:37:36] and it's it's all over the internet now you can find videos and things and talk to you but um

[00:37:42] yeah i usually best do harvest it when it's as cold as possible so winter time is best

[00:37:49] i usually have an ice axe that comes in very handy um to to harvest it this stuff is like rock art

[00:37:55] on to on the trees so you just break it off and then usually i'll um break it even further because

[00:38:02] it can come in a pretty good size you know like the size of a hiking boom so i usually just take a

[00:38:08] hammer or a mallet and you know with some eye protection um just break it apart into like

[00:38:14] marble size and then do a batch of tea with low pressure you know for about an hour and from there

[00:38:22] the chaggle will just break down um you can use it if you were three

[00:38:26] bad bits or so it's supposed to be healthy do you put oh yeah do you put anything in it besides

[00:38:33] just the chaggots you put any like um honey or cinnamon or anything like that no i suppose

[00:38:38] you could that would be pretty good but um now this is not it's not very earthy like a mushroom

[00:38:44] it's it's almost kind of like it's not roasty like coffee but it's maybe it's not really like coffee

[00:38:52] but i guess some people use that as an alternative um it's not caffeinated so it's it's just regular tea

[00:38:59] but yeah it's easy drinking and something you know that if you don't want soda or whatever

[00:39:06] i have a i know some people that make the tinctures as well so they're fermented there's

[00:39:12] what a some degree of percentage of alcohol do you know anything about tinctures

[00:39:17] um a little bit um yeah i mean my my other half Solana knows a lot more about that

[00:39:24] doing tinctures and things she's going to school test it all so she is leagues ahead of me

[00:39:31] on that as far as yeah all that um but yeah you're really cool if we i think there is either

[00:39:37] glycerin or or alcohol involved uh we both don't do alcohol so we don't yeah

[00:39:44] root will me you know she'll make tinctures for clients and things but we don't consume that

[00:39:51] gotcha the drink of the devil

[00:39:59] awesome well i'm just having a burlington bear works but we'll just move on right

[00:40:04] all right yeah um jealous i knew we should have gone left back there stop don't worry

[00:40:11] i know it's this way i've got a feeling in my gut uh are you sure you're not about to have a

[00:40:16] bowel emergency uh totally we got this but i just blew out my hip fell down that gully with my 40 year old

[00:40:23] microspikes suck it up stop it's 4 p.m. we're at 3500 feet we got nine miles back to the parking lot

[00:40:31] your leg may be broken we got no cell connection and we can't feel our fingers

[00:40:35] but we're finishing all of my list tonight by the way i need some water i'm empty

[00:40:40] that i would if i could see what i'm doing but my headland battery's a dead you gotta be kidding me

[00:40:45] what a jump this is the last time i hike with you

[00:40:49] whatever mr do you know me i have a podcast

[00:40:52] sswhatever

[00:40:57] let's find out what my can stop have been hiking

[00:41:00] so this is the part of show we'll talk about recent hikes so um eric i actually want to start with

[00:41:06] you i was checking out your blog you and i was thinking about this when i was on ze cliff the other day

[00:41:12] i was looking at white wall and i was just thinking about how much i want to like climb up that

[00:41:16] slide but you actually went on a i think it's a recent hike where you went up the you didn't go

[00:41:22] up the slide in the winter but you came up from like like mount tom in that area and then connected

[00:41:26] onto white wall would you be willing to sort of share the details of that hike with the listeners

[00:41:30] absolutely yes so and if you could just if you just speak towards your your microphone you drop

[00:41:36] it off a little bit when you turn your head sorry um yeah so white wall it's down in zealon

[00:41:42] notch it's you know the iconic mountain that has the big west facing gash um you know there's a big

[00:41:50] fire in that area you know from all the logging and everything the logging railroads all the

[00:41:56] cinders flying out so they essentially just burned the area there's a lot of history to do that

[00:42:01] but um that's white wall mountain and i've tried it once before i've always assumed i was going

[00:42:08] to climb it by the slide that's all the research i've ever done for like the past four or five

[00:42:13] years um yeah i tried once i ended up getting side tracked with a gentleman a team of people uh

[00:42:22] somebody was having a medical emergency so i had to literally run over to um zealon hut

[00:42:29] to help with that um but the weather was trash that day anyway i wouldn't have wouldn't have done it

[00:42:34] so i've been waiting for the the weather opportunity and in the meantime uh what was it a week and a half

[00:42:40] ago i just i i had this epiphany one day looking at maps like i do so often every day um i went from

[00:42:50] Crawford notch uh up the aze trail over the tomfield call to get to west field last year in the winter

[00:42:58] time and i had a blast like i've heard nightmares of shoe sucking mud and i just had really

[00:43:06] frosty snow and just beautiful woods um so i had the idea why don't i why don't i just keep going on

[00:43:14] i've never been past like in that area of the wilderness so i thought why not

[00:43:19] why not keep going on there's uh west no eight from the east so you went on to the mountain

[00:43:25] right east yep so up and over the tomfield call and then i kept going down pretty steep down um

[00:43:33] and then you come across an old forest service road but it's repurposed as like a snowmobile trail

[00:43:42] i guess it fits one sled it's really brushed in and kind of tight um that was my first time on

[00:43:48] on that snowmobile trail and it was really beautiful it goes through a nice it was frozen over

[00:43:55] kind of boggy area uh really open and kind of birch glades off to either side it was for somebody

[00:44:03] that loves forest it was beautiful um and then you get off well i kind of cut too early i ended up

[00:44:10] hitting the side of west field took a couple extra minutes gained a couple extra feet

[00:44:16] of elevation no problem um so then yes so on the actual course going up white wall um i've always

[00:44:25] heard and i've seen pictures in other warmer months of the birch glades a top white wall um

[00:44:33] i'm assuming that's from you know residual from the wildfires up there or the fires from the

[00:44:40] railroad essentially um yeah and so i was you know a little bit of sick woods led into a cleared area

[00:44:50] then that led into the birch glades i was really surprised i didn't see moves but somebody else

[00:44:57] like two weeks prior mentioned that they were surprised they didn't see moves tracks either

[00:45:04] perfect setting there's a little pond up there um oh yeah no wildlife and it was open woods

[00:45:13] a little windy so i didn't stay too long but beautiful beautiful views there's

[00:45:19] at the summit of white wall you know there's maybe four or five good

[00:45:24] not all from one centralized location but you kind of have to like radiate out from the summit area

[00:45:29] and you get views um oh yeah perrigin

[00:45:33] uh on that's absolutely yeah because just looking at the map like you're exactly right like

[00:45:39] AZ trail and then you get to around you know the 3200 elevation mark and then you can go

[00:45:47] i see how you can cut off into that that snowmobile trail and then it's it's much more open

[00:45:53] compared to anywhere else it seems like you can navigate is the is the forest really thick there

[00:45:57] or did you find it was pretty open uh getting off the snowmobile trail you know where it had grown in

[00:46:03] the last 30 40 50 years that was a little thick spruce twigs just watch the eyes bring eye protection

[00:46:11] um that was a little thing but what you know what is it maybe 40 feet or so once you get through

[00:46:18] that and you know you do a little dance to try and not break twigs and things and you know

[00:46:23] not leave them mark in the forest but once you get through it it was it was completely open

[00:46:28] and beautiful snow-shoeing beautiful do you so i'll do this sometimes like especially when i'm

[00:46:36] scoping out like okay where could i potentially do like a camping site and say you know you always

[00:46:39] look for the the big spaces between the contour lines and you start getting excited like

[00:46:45] do you i'm assuming you do a lot of that where you're sort of scoping out and saying like all right

[00:46:49] if i'm gonna approach this i'm looking for the big green spaces where it might be a little bit

[00:46:54] flatter for me to navigate uh do you when you're thinking about this and you actually see it on a

[00:47:00] map and then you get out there and it it works out do you just you must you must get cites right

[00:47:05] oh yeah yeah i mean there are times when i don't expect to run into blowdown patches like on

[00:47:11] castle peak way up north um that was that was devastation at its finest and that was that was a

[00:47:18] lot of time consuming up and over down and around all the blowdown oh when you do a lot of research

[00:47:26] and you know study different maps old maps new maps aerial footage imagery you put it all

[00:47:33] together and you're on the trail and you are just strolling through nice opens you know any kind

[00:47:38] of open woods it's that's very rewarding to find yourself there yeah yeah i know um stop you

[00:47:48] spend a lot of time poking through maps and trying to figure out like the best routes to connect

[00:47:53] the things right oh yeah sure absolutely yeah and it um it ties in with experience on trail i

[00:48:00] think over time um it just becomes easier and easier to find potential routes that'll work and

[00:48:06] just the contours and whatnot so it's it's a fun experience trying to figure it all out well

[00:48:12] i did not do any bushwacking but i got out this weekend and i took my daughter Caroline and her

[00:48:17] boyfriend Devon and my friend Peter joined us and so the four of us did uh cannons for

[00:48:23] Caroline's uh 4,000 footer list so she's at 27 now so we went up oh nice look we went up

[00:48:28] loan some lake and um we ended up taking loan some lake trail and then we connected on the back

[00:48:36] side of kinsman ridge that section was super steep oh yeah super cold like we started getting hit

[00:48:42] with the wind and i don't think i've ever been that cold in my life oh sure that's the

[00:48:47] west coast side right oh brutal it was really cold and then you know we got up there and

[00:48:53] Peter was like yeah let's go in and get you get warmed up so we were able to get warmed up

[00:48:56] and then we headed down high cannon and uh gluten for punishment yeah yeah yeah we went down the

[00:49:05] ladder so Caroline fell down the ladder oh for like father of the year here wow yeah it was a little

[00:49:12] scary but she uh she was fine now why didn't you take kinsman ridge trail from the tram lot

[00:49:19] because that's like a absolute gem in the winter well because we were i didn't want to be

[00:49:27] i didn't want to like go out into that exposed cliff area there because i was figured like we'd

[00:49:31] stay in the trees but oh i see what you're saying yep yep the cool so and then we just figured

[00:49:36] we'd park a um lofty at parking lot so matter of fact i parked on the north side

[00:49:43] and uh there was there was a trail trail stew it there okay so i immediately like had to unpack

[00:49:49] all my stuff i'm showing them all like look i got my headlamps i got a map i got everything

[00:49:54] i'm ready to go so he gave me a stamp of approval so i was all happy yeah so excellent cool

[00:50:01] yeah but it was it was a fun day we did a little bit a little bit of sledding down

[00:50:05] lonesome lake trail at the end which was good um it's a good trail i miss it up there it's

[00:50:11] such a beautiful view at the top yeah yeah matter of fact i like going up the lonesome lake trail

[00:50:16] because i could sort of connect i could see where um the cliffs kind of tear off like

[00:50:23] wait remember that time you push back to up on the cliffs and you came up yeah you can kind of

[00:50:27] see how that connects back out to the lonesome lake trail a little bit through the woods yeah for sure

[00:50:34] jagged what about use what about you stop oh any hiking you don't hike anymore no i'm not a

[00:50:39] hiker anymore but that'll be starting up probably this weekend because snow wheel is uh i think it's

[00:50:44] done there's no way that they can recover from this next week of rain in high 50s temps at a coming

[00:50:52] so i really doubt it'll come back for this year but um yeah so i'll be back i can in no time

[00:50:57] but interesting stuff going on in the community as you know there've been multiple deaths within

[00:51:03] the last month or so a lot of them were rentals so this has caught the ears of the executive

[00:51:11] commissioner of co-os county and the article that we'll post is pretty interesting apparently

[00:51:18] this commissioner wants to look into uh potentially having an education course that's required before

[00:51:25] you're able to rent a snowmobile subsequent to that the rental company that has experienced some

[00:51:31] of these issues and was interviewed defending their practice and how they go about renting to people

[00:51:36] so it's really it's an interesting time for the snowmobile community i don't know i think it's

[00:51:41] i think it's time for um the rental places to come up with some kind of plan to force people

[00:51:48] into to more guided tours because it's like these companies are either going to get sued or the

[00:51:53] insurance is going to get so incredibly expensive that they won't be able to do rentals anymore so

[00:51:59] something's going to happen but i don't think that um the legislature necessarily has to get involved

[00:52:04] at this point i think it will work out in the companies themselves but

[00:52:09] i clearly something's got to be done um i'm a guide i think guiding is probably the only thing that

[00:52:14] makes sense um an education course and internet video is not going to teach you uh how to be safe

[00:52:21] on these damn machines because they're dangerous as hell you know uh you need the kinesthetic awareness

[00:52:27] and muscle memory that comes with a lot of time for real uh so it's i don't know i'm passionate about

[00:52:34] it and we'll see what happens but uh a lot of stakeholders involved with this issue yeah i wonder if

[00:52:38] they could like limit the um limit the areas where rental drivers could go until they get like

[00:52:46] certified so i don't know i mean i think you're right like just going with a guide at minimum makes

[00:52:50] the most sense because at least then if something happens like you know you're gonna be with somebody

[00:52:54] but was this lady that would this lady that died from westward mass as she she was in a rental

[00:53:00] vehicle but she wasn't with a guide correct it yeah these are all rentals uh coming out of

[00:53:04] uh company up in the north um so it's really so yeah

[00:53:08] so it's really so yeah and sending people on their own yeah i mean you can read the articles

[00:53:13] and judge for yourself but what they would do was apparently send people out for a mile or so

[00:53:18] and just put them actually on the machine let them get used to it and is it mile enough

[00:53:25] in my opinion probably not but then again it's like this the commissioners idea that is

[00:53:29] to do more of an education i just it's just not gonna work you've got to get on these things with

[00:53:35] safe company and the um the commissioners comments in the his article they're interested because he

[00:53:41] basically makes the case for guided tours because he goes on to say how he had gone out himself

[00:53:47] as somewhat of an inexperienced normal be able to with people that knew what they were doing

[00:53:51] and it was so safe i'm you know yesterday as well hopefully everybody stays safe there'll be

[00:53:56] normal fatalities but um on two sponsors here yeah valkyrie skier does your backpack not provide

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[00:55:15] plus let them know that Mike has stomp sent you oh you know what do you want to skip the

[00:55:21] notals this week Mike and tack it on to next week yep yeah we will um and i'm still thinking

[00:55:28] you said you wanted to spice up a little bit of the other notable son thinking about that okay

[00:55:32] yeah next week it's just you and i so i think uh we can put it to next week and have a good time with it

[00:55:45] it's time for slasher's guest of the week very cool very cool

[00:56:00] all right all right so now we are on to our guest of the week here sir maps a lot Eric Hamilton

[00:56:16] right welcome welcome thank you so stomp why don't you kick this off all right so we uh we got a

[00:56:24] message from one of our listeners uh regarding uh Eric and um this was Mike Latavaya i hope i say

[00:56:33] that right i doubt it but that's the name of the listener who's forwarded your information on

[00:56:39] to us and um simple enough i reached out to Eric and he was willing to come on and talk about his

[00:56:44] adventures yeah i i sold on sold a book and that's that's thrilling that you reached out

[00:56:51] ah i owe him a big thank you so now i know what a thing uh yeah

[00:56:58] yes sir the book has been out for about four weeks now and uh what a what an adventure that's been

[00:57:08] yeah did you um did you have you got in a chance to get a lot of feedback from readers and um do you

[00:57:16] feel like uh the books getting a fair amount of traction at this point uh i haven't really actually heard

[00:57:25] all that much um a little bit from you know some close friends uh who who got to see you know

[00:57:31] copies and things um from sales and things i actually haven't really um there was a review

[00:57:39] that went in the Conway Galey Sun um Ed Parsons i believe he liked it very much that was a great

[00:57:47] that was a good article um yeah there's been you know overall very good feedback about it and

[00:57:54] you know thank thanking me for um you know creating such a project for the white mountains when

[00:58:01] this really didn't exist before this yeah yeah and i will get into the book in a little bit more

[00:58:08] detail error but why don't we start off can you give us a little bit of background about your early life

[00:58:12] and uh education and you know your career and then how you go into hiking absolutely so um i'm

[00:58:20] gonna start with hiking because my life has pretty much always been revolved around mountains trails

[00:58:26] things like that so um my parents well i have a sister she's about four years older than me um

[00:58:33] yeah and so we um as a family when i was you know four or five

[00:58:38] with my parents would get my sister and i and we'd we'd go hike at the state park

[00:58:43] local state park eventually um well i grew up in the southern Adirondacks so naturally um

[00:58:50] you know my dad was all about the high peaks and the Adirondacks and a little bit into Vermont the

[00:58:56] greens uh the cat skills but most of my time as a child was really spent um in the Adirondacks

[00:59:06] the you know feral lake wilderness outgonquin larsey cascade all you know the

[00:59:15] the ones that have become you know accessible and easy for most beginners now

[00:59:20] that's what more of my parents now is my playground as a kid so um we did that for a while we

[00:59:27] hiked in backpacked and you know we would go on weekend trips um that would revolve around camping

[00:59:35] and backpacking and you know we didn't do disneyland but we would go backpacking and camping in the

[00:59:41] in the Adirondacks that was my childhood um so i pretty much you know around the time of age 10

[00:59:51] my parents decided and they um didn't want to be together anymore and that really kind of pulled

[00:59:59] my life apart you know as the ten-year-old i really didn't go into the mountains much you know

[01:00:06] as soon as they told me i ran or remember that i they told me and i ran to the my local trails right

[01:00:14] behind the house i grew up in um because that was the only you know place i could get away and

[01:00:20] you know so yeah um i did that and then fast forward a little bit i got back into the mountains

[01:00:26] on my own and luckily um my father wanted to restart the 46 you know in 2015 um him and his

[01:00:36] hiking friend um my hiking mother Wendy um they wanted to well if you got hooked on hiking the

[01:00:43] 4,000 footers of the Adirondacks and i still lived in in the area there in New York so of course

[01:00:50] i started i was along for the ride hiking all these new peaks and um my father really didn't have

[01:00:57] much faith that we would be able to tackle these uh trailless peaks you know there's uh quite a

[01:01:04] few are just heard paths and you know we were we didn't really know much about that or you know

[01:01:10] what to so we just tackled them one at a time when we came out of time and before we knew it we

[01:01:17] June 4th 2016 we three of us in tears so the top um haystack mountain in the Adirondacks and

[01:01:25] we became 46ers together and that was that was a monumental moment uh definitely you know

[01:01:33] crafted in in shape sculpted the direction of my life i'm sure um that moment so

[01:01:41] shortly after um i ended up moving to my did my first cross-country road trip and then at the end

[01:01:48] of that i hiked uh mousalock and that was my first first hike up any new hamster peak and i was hooked

[01:01:58] going walking through those alpine grasses in september, october was just beautiful as like

[01:02:06] i mean we have alpine in the Adirondacks but that was just a vast open mountain top

[01:02:14] i never experienced anything like that and that i wanted to call home um i wanted to visit more

[01:02:23] a perfect first mountain too like you know you it's the same with the through hikers like that's

[01:02:27] they're usually their first mountain that they really get to see like okay this is the whites and then

[01:02:32] you can just see everything laid out in front of you oh yeah i can see how it can be like a

[01:02:36] spiritual moment for someone that's already in the hiking and it's found a new place yeah yeah

[01:02:41] i i felt like maybe i exhausted the Adirondacks needed a new place and i could even see the Adirondacks from

[01:02:48] you know the summit of uh mousalock on that day it was very clear i remember um so a couple months

[01:02:55] when i pie and i ended up moving um i've moved a couple to a couple times for different reasons

[01:03:02] most of that was that i lifted a bus for a little while but um that's a little while

[01:03:10] later so um started hiking the new hamster peaked the 4,000 footers with people but i was mostly you

[01:03:19] know just you know mostly with myself honestly um i met some people and there's a really

[01:03:28] interesting story about a friend who i met in the Adirondacks um his name is Ryan Mitchell and

[01:03:37] i'm not sure if he's actually still in new hamster it's been probably a year or so but

[01:03:43] crazy story is i i ran into Ryan Mitchell in the Adirondacks he was finishing his new England

[01:03:50] 115 um a top mount Mitchell so that was my first time ever running into him and then i moved to new

[01:03:57] hamster i started hiking and i was you know getting ready um i was getting ready to finish the 48

[01:04:05] the 67 and the 111 15 there's 115 peaks in the new England um yeah so i was getting ready to finish

[01:04:14] and i went forward a top mount carigan um cold snowy you know end of october beginning of november day

[01:04:25] so i i stood on the summit of carigan for my finish those three all alone nobody else was at the

[01:04:31] top of carigan i had a blast it was beautiful lousy and and all of those just covered in a nice

[01:04:40] dusting of frost and snow and it was just peaceful so on the way down from carigan who do i run into

[01:04:49] Ryan Mitchell um he was there for somebody's grid finish that i didn't i didn't know them but

[01:04:55] it was so good to see a familiar face um so i talked to him for like 15 minutes um

[01:05:03] and then we parted ways and then he messaged me out of the blue and then when i was finishing my winter 48

[01:05:13] little two years later or so he actually ended up joining me for my 48 peak atop um isolation

[01:05:21] so it was the two of us just trail running with snow shoes and just having a blast in the snow so

[01:05:27] that was really the first time that we got to hang out and then um

[01:05:32] he actually messaged me again and the most recent time that i saw him um he wanted to go for the first

[01:05:40] day of spring um so we ended up doing a presidential traverse and i would say winter conditions but

[01:05:48] it was technically the first day of spring um through that was just a blast um six hours and four

[01:05:55] minutes i never thought i would do a presidential traverse like that but we just had a ball and we ran

[01:06:00] and laid it as safe as we could and we got done in 11 30 in the morning and said wow

[01:06:09] that was fast what's next wow yeah and i think it was so stop i don't know if you know the name

[01:06:17] but Ryan Mitchell i'm familiar with him i think i think i may be connected on on social media but

[01:06:23] he is the fk t-holder for the winter hot to hot oh okay got you yep yeah so epic uh i don't know if

[01:06:31] he's still around i think i feel like he might have moved out of the area but uh yeah good dude

[01:06:37] anybody know what his time was yeah it was about 18 hours nice so he must have been moving light

[01:06:43] and fast oh yeah in the winter uh sure can i yeah before we move on Eric can i get your take on

[01:06:49] the whole light and fast thing and how to pack if you're trying to do something like a hot to

[01:06:54] hot in the winter well what's your take on that how to i've been thinking a lot about hardening

[01:06:59] the pack for light and fast runners so that they don't get into trouble out there

[01:07:04] yeah it's i mean i think it's honestly better if you go with more people that way you can

[01:07:08] bring the right amount of gear appropriate gear and spread it out between more people

[01:07:15] good point good point i used to be one of those that you know i would go run the white

[01:07:21] mountains with a running vest in winter you won't catch me doing that these days i i like my gear

[01:07:29] i like knowing that i have enough on my back that i can start a fire i have three sets of clothes

[01:07:34] and i can spend the night even if i'm going on a two-mile hike in the winter i'd i just like to be prepared

[01:07:41] these days yeah yeah for sure nice point though i like that yeah hey i was curious you talked about

[01:07:48] like living in a bus for a while like what's that all about did you have to

[01:07:53] did you just buy the bus so that it was like livable or did you have to do the work on it and

[01:07:58] i feel like that's one of those things that feels like a romantic idea but the reality of it is

[01:08:02] like it's so much work and it can be a lot of a headache so what's your verdict yeah my verdict

[01:08:08] it was it was uh i would never take that back i it was brutal um it was a good learning experience

[01:08:18] it was very cold in the new England winters um so it was a 34-foot school bus a flat nose from

[01:08:24] Maryland uh a radius owner had it brought up from Maryland um so he was he gutted the bus

[01:08:34] and put in a floating wood floor so it was an insulated wood floor and that's where i bought it

[01:08:41] um yeah and i just started you know i could well my background as far as education you know i

[01:08:48] have a college degree in uh blueprinting and drafting computerated design so i am a very

[01:08:56] visual sort of planner um artist also i've always you know combined that into my my art and everything

[01:09:05] so um yeah i was able to you know come up with a layout and of course the layout changes every week

[01:09:12] um but i i think i owned the bus for two or three years or so before i ended up you know committing

[01:09:19] to getting a refrigerator i put four solar panels on it at the time soon upgraded to six

[01:09:27] um so i had electricity in it and um and the time just came and you know i it was in an old

[01:09:37] logging lot and didn't really have power it didn't have wifi and i just started staying in the bus um

[01:09:44] you like christmas candleless is older brother does that story resonate with you or what responsible

[01:09:50] all the brothers yeah you're you're you've read the story you're familiar with it i'm assuming right

[01:09:57] yeah yeah yeah yeah um so i ended up moving i moved the bus a couple of times um i put six new

[01:10:06] tires on it thinking that i was going to drive across country and all this and that i was going to

[01:10:11] you know it's going to be my art studio um for the record six tires on a school bus will cost you

[01:10:18] over three thousand dollars oh wow and that was an investment uh oh it was a great it was a great

[01:10:26] project it was you know i ended up getting some rough cut wood and i did all the work myself and

[01:10:32] the entire interior was rough cut wood and um it was a real like it was my my apartment my cabin

[01:10:39] you know for two and a half years and everything all my hiking gear i mean everything i owned

[01:10:45] was in the bus and so it was just myself contained little apartment and man let me tell you driving

[01:10:52] that thing was fun it was scary but once you get the hang of being that large it is just

[01:11:01] it's i mean it takes a lot of responsibility not you know hit the gas too hard or you know

[01:11:07] it's very top heavy it was you know big old steel tin can um but yeah yeah there was my first

[01:11:15] winter in that bus um i can tell you for three months it did not get above 52 degrees

[01:11:22] i had a body heater and i had i installed um a cubic mini wood stove they're out of Canada

[01:11:30] Beth and kicked out some heat and but you know it's a school bus those windows are not insulated

[01:11:36] it's a raft to get in the wall i inserted the steel walls you know i put rock wool insulation in there but

[01:11:42] i don't like goes so far you can only put so much um yeah i bet you wouldn't trade those memories

[01:11:47] for anything dude not at all oh yeah that's epic yeah i never really uh you know it was into meditation

[01:11:54] or anything but that was my you know when two and a half years when i was in that bus house

[01:11:59] figuring out who i was a lot of days and a lot of time by the wood stove meditating it was all

[01:12:08] beneficial and i would never take any of it back because it got me to where i am today on your podcast

[01:12:16] nice shangry lot really made it far hey uh another question i had for you was just go back so

[01:12:23] your dad was skeptical when you like read when you read did the uh the 46 like is he now like is

[01:12:28] if you want him over is he like okay you're uh we had a bad ass hiker now oh yeah we had a blast

[01:12:35] doing all the trail is peaked and everything he was actually i kind of took on the role

[01:12:39] since moving to new hamster but oh he was a he was a riot every Wednesday before we would hike

[01:12:46] you know on the weekends he would send out email the weekly invite email of you know what

[01:12:53] route we're gonna take and you it you know come up with the elevation gain and the mileage it was

[01:12:59] it was fun just to be alone for the ride and i guess i kind of i learned that from him but he's seen

[01:13:05] he's seen me move on to a lot of different climbing and things and he's still he's still in the

[01:13:13] outer endaxe doing his climbing he's um he's kind of vowed to never do any of the 18 mile like

[01:13:20] any of the long you know out to basin or haystack or alain mountain it's like 23 miles so he doesn't

[01:13:27] want to do that but um him and wendy his hike and partner that we finished with um they still he

[01:13:34] picked up kayaking last year so he's very passionate about that um but they still hike you know

[01:13:41] they do their five six mile tracks to waterfalls and you know peaks and things here and there

[01:13:47] he's he's still getting out he just hit 70 so i only hope i can do that at that age well you got a good

[01:13:55] it sounds like you get a good role model to uh to to fall there um writing can you talk about that

[01:14:02] like have you always been a writer or did you use that something you picked up later in later in life

[01:14:06] yeah um i mean middle school high school i'd loved doing the writing portion of those tests and just

[01:14:14] to get into like that trance like state of just flowing with words um you know that always

[01:14:22] requires a little editing to get it right but just to sit there and just groove with the keyboard

[01:14:29] and just you know put a couple thoughts together beforehand but let it let it go um i always liked

[01:14:36] writing it's interesting going back like six years to read some of my early like trail reports

[01:14:42] and things it's atrocious um so i kind of developed my own style i like using old um you know hiking

[01:14:51] guidebooks i have some you know going back quite a quite a ways for the Appalachian Mountain Club

[01:14:58] guidebook so i like to dig through those get historical facts and find out what different trail

[01:15:04] corridors were used for and just try and make my writing a little bit more substantial than just uh

[01:15:11] it's a rocky trail you take a left and then a right and then a left and then you're there

[01:15:16] that's boring to me so i want i like a little more substantive so you know some history some

[01:15:23] contacts um so i always try and provide that for the reader and i think that's how i kind of

[01:15:30] stand out i don't know if i do yet but hopefully someday that'll be noticed so that's what i'm

[01:15:37] going for and it's very satisfying to sit down and and just get into that writing state

[01:15:45] yeah and i tend to do similar like uh i always go for then like okay we we did this name come from

[01:15:51] that's where i always start everything it's like what's the name origin and then you can end up

[01:15:55] falling down a rabbit hole pretty quickly once you start digging around for the name origin then

[01:15:59] you can find all kinds of interesting history tidbits yeah and i for planning trips i'm always going

[01:16:04] through old maps new maps like i said you know and looking for old logging roads old forest roads old

[01:16:13] you know old ski roads just or old ski trails i suppose but just anything that i might run into in

[01:16:20] the woods you know a corridor is always going to be easier to stroll than you know spruce if you can

[01:16:29] find yeah and then what's the what what what what's the premise of the book and when did you

[01:16:37] start writing it sure uh so i've i finished the new England 100 highs uh i'm out for

[01:16:45] port mountain in backstreet state part september or so after i got back from the most recent

[01:16:51] cross-bought future in the long um so i had a lot of notes overlapped there in the new England

[01:17:00] 100 highest and the new hamster hundred highest which is what the book is all about um i kind of

[01:17:07] got the idea from i saw a book in the adorandax by spencer morisie and i've since you know message

[01:17:15] him and we've become friends and we chat all the time he's great um but he has a book called uh basically

[01:17:21] the similar from us to mine um the other fifty four because they have forty six high peaks so it's

[01:17:30] you know 100 highest minus those forty six high peaks same with ours we have 48 so that that

[01:17:38] leaves us fifty two uh i've i've talked to kenmy gray he was a little concerned about my title so

[01:17:45] i reassured him you know unfortunately it just worked out that there are 52 peaks in the 100

[01:17:52] highest below 48 but i reassured him there is there's nothing to do with you know the

[01:17:58] fifty two of the view he's the author of those books anyway um yeah yeah so i think just just

[01:18:05] double click on that so obviously the over the hill hiker's gang group had created the 52 with

[01:18:13] a view as a compliment to say you know if you want to do 100 total hikes you can do the 52 with

[01:18:19] the views so the premise of the 52 with the view is four thaw they're below 4,000 feet into hamster

[01:18:26] they have nice views what you're talking about is essentially like it's the extension of the

[01:18:33] another list which is called the the hamster hundred highest and um that happens to have 52 additional

[01:18:40] yeah yeah some it's on it the peaks more or less go you know it just happens that they end around

[01:18:45] 3500 feet but they go up to what is it um sandwich i think is 39 92 or so whatever they measured

[01:18:55] it at most recently it's right up near to kumso actually um so i think that's you know the

[01:19:03] the first one that's not a 4,000 footer but you know some of them have fantastic views some of them

[01:19:08] have trails a lot of them don't have trails um so that was the research that i would had to do

[01:19:14] to you know figure out how to even get my vehicle to some of these trail or you know they don't

[01:19:20] have trail heads um just doing the research of you know how to access without hitting posted

[01:19:29] property and luckily i really didn't run into that issue with these peaks much mostly up north but

[01:19:38] i do give some some detail and you know just to give the the reader a heads up that

[01:19:43] hey historically hikers have had some issue in this area so try the other side of the mountain

[01:19:50] um so and what would you say what are some of the um the premiere hikes that you cover in the book

[01:19:59] from your opinion uh well there are you know that some peaks with with trails sandwiches in there

[01:20:06] um yeah so a lot of those that do have the peaks there's a lot of books out there you know

[01:20:13] obviously the AMC guidebook the mountain guidebook um goes into great detail about all the the

[01:20:18] trail hikes so those i you know i gave the options obviously i'm not going to leave those high and dry

[01:20:27] so i did give um some of the trail information but i didn't go into you know i basically just

[01:20:35] pointed the the reader to some of the other textbooks that give more concise trail information

[01:20:42] what are some of the like if you go into the far north country like what are some of the the hikes

[01:20:50] that you would recommend to start with up there um well right now in the Nash stream uh wilderness

[01:20:58] Nash stream road um yeah that's a snowmobile road they don't really get it as far as i know but

[01:21:05] it's a free part of the snowmobile road it seems uh so as there's that opens um there's a lot of

[01:21:12] good hiking up there the purses a lot of people know that by you know the two bald uh little domes

[01:21:20] the Percy mountains those are gorgeous fantastic um you can access those right from the Nash stream

[01:21:26] road there um but sugarloaf is that's actually a 52 with a view the one in my book that is the

[01:21:33] two with a view that has a trail um so i mean that's if i had to recommend anybody um visit a peak

[01:21:43] that's probably one i would suggest or stand which you know they have trails work trails

[01:21:49] Nash stream is you know that's above cabbage so that might be a little drive for a lot of listeners

[01:21:56] yeah i know it's a great area there um and i've done i've done the sugarloaf hike but i didn't get any

[01:22:06] views so that's the one um that's the one that i do need to get back to at some point to get some

[01:22:14] views up there because i'm curious to see what it looks like i've done the Percy peaks and gotten

[01:22:17] some amazing views up there yeah it's a name it was very intimidating before i'd ever

[01:22:27] been up because i knew how remote the cabin feel cany area feels and then to know you're going

[01:22:32] even further oh this this is like remote main territory in my opinion but it's it's been really

[01:22:39] nice you know there's um the old trail systems are kind of hard to find on some maps but

[01:22:47] i give tips and tricks on how to kind of look for and how to spot you know on maps old maps

[01:22:55] and things or aerial footage just ways to help the hikers get to these destinations yeah what would

[01:23:04] you say is the most difficult hike in the book that you highlight who or some of the more

[01:23:11] difficult yeah um i mean like west castle castle mountain up north that just has a lot of

[01:23:18] blowdowns so when i i did that i did it it's kind of like shaped like a glacial

[01:23:24] cert kind of like a bowl there is uh gore mountain castle mountain and west castle uh so i hit all

[01:23:33] three of of those uh gore and west castle or in the book castle has been but i i don't think it has

[01:23:41] the prominence i think that's why a lot of listen do not include that some do okay um but that

[01:23:47] whole summit it looks like it got hit by um a micro burst it's just matchsticks just stacked um so

[01:23:56] that was tough to get through you know it's just time consuming you know and

[01:24:02] being time consuming if a person person were to rush through that i could certainly see uh

[01:24:08] twisted ankles and things so yeah there's some treacherous terrain um i know

[01:24:15] self hitchcock was on my mind earlier today i don't know why i was driving in that mountain came to my

[01:24:20] mind that was one peak i remember i wasn't even at the peak i was on the shoulder and i stood there

[01:24:27] and i looked all around and i was in a position

[01:24:30] there was no easy way out because just the twiggy spruce was so thick and uh it didn't want you know

[01:24:40] moved i mean ducking you know through every sort of dance known to man just to uh get through

[01:24:48] the stuff so i mean nothing that wasn't dangerous but it was just like oh i'm here and

[01:24:54] i can't actually just run out of the wilderness because it's so dense it's just so

[01:25:01] behind consuming i think stomp you bit up in that you went after hitchcock like once or twice didn't

[01:25:08] you didn't you have to go back to that a couple times now oh no i've done um oh my goodness wait

[01:25:15] steve smith's white whale he calls it his white whale um i forget which well hitchcock is the one

[01:25:23] that you go in from here handcock not right when you're on the kank you see the cliffs i think

[01:25:29] the the clips are the hunting tin clips yeah yeah that's what it is it's i know yeah yeah i haven't been to

[01:25:35] the other ones the hitchcock mass um i used the discovery center um because that's plowed year

[01:25:42] around okay so i use that in the winter and went up the south peak and then over the main and

[01:25:50] then over to west um this beautiful beautiful route but i um certainly found some very very dense

[01:25:59] growth so eric um how can we get the book yeah how can we buy the book if we want to all right so

[01:26:06] my book the other 52 it's available in some stores mike dickerman of boncliffe books has been

[01:26:14] um stellar at getting the book in north conway that's in the r e i north conway ragged mountain

[01:26:22] equipment white birch books all in north conway um in little tin it's in little tin village toys

[01:26:29] and books little tin food co-op um steve smith store in Lincoln the mountain wanderer he was one of

[01:26:37] the first carry copies of my book um yeah it's in a few more i got i got it in a couple for

[01:26:43] Mont stores but most importantly you can find my book right on my website where my blog is

[01:26:51] a lot of dozen writing on there i do a lot of my writing that is www.a talk in the woods.com

[01:27:00] yeah and and listeners this um so eric's website is really good he's got a like trail reports in

[01:27:09] here and he's got a ton of them and it's it's it's i've been like scrolling through them over the

[01:27:15] last week week and a half and uh it's really worth checking out for sure because he's got a lot of

[01:27:22] really interesting um reports here so um if you're looking for ideas on hikes you can literally just

[01:27:31] go onto your blog and just get some ideas yeah i had somebody just message me um a couple days ago

[01:27:38] said she was recovering from knee surgery or something and so she can't get in the hills

[01:27:43] but she found my blog which is pretty much essentially bringing her

[01:27:48] into the hills which that's that's a huge compliment and be able to bring joy

[01:27:57] my job's complete yeah and are you doing is it are you pursuing high points state high points or

[01:28:03] is that just um yeah um is that just something all like uh if you're around that area you

[01:28:09] just happen to get a high point i am yeah alana and i we both are um i met 31 she's not too far

[01:28:16] um i was able to why went in 2022 she encouraged me to go cross country and i was able

[01:28:24] my objective for that trip was mount hood um so i did i summited mount hood

[01:28:32] just before sunrise march 25 so that was fantastic um but yeah we're i'm slowly i'm working on

[01:28:42] state high points but um so this past summer i went cross country with alana finally had somebody

[01:28:50] going with me um we i ended up winning a grant a climbing grant from the american health

[01:28:56] flying club that called the uh live your dream grant i've been applying for a couple years and

[01:29:02] you know basically just said i can't wait if i don't try so i've been applying and um

[01:29:09] we were going camping in main and i ended up somehow getting an email come through um

[01:29:17] and it was an email from the american outlying club that i won their grant um so we were

[01:29:22] planning on hiking the long trail and for a month and so our our plans changed uh drastically so

[01:29:31] um i had pitched the idea to go hike mount ridder out in the sear in avadas um because i was doing

[01:29:38] a lot of studying on john mere reading about john mere um my father actually my parents i guess

[01:29:45] uh when they were together they hiked mount dena out there and they had fantastic stories

[01:29:52] so i wanted to go visit that area that they love so much well i i won the grant and so um

[01:29:59] the weather window is basically august um and then the snow starts back in september so

[01:30:06] um we ended up going uh we drove and we hit a lot of state high pount high points on the way out

[01:30:14] so we ended up driving down the appalachias we hit Maryland west for jenny on the couple you know

[01:30:21] all the way across uh and then we we went out and um camped at the base amount ridder that's uh

[01:30:30] 13,1143 feet um a couple technical gear issues kept us from submitting but that was all

[01:30:43] very good um because the snow as soon as the sun came up the snow was trash so we would have been

[01:30:50] in a very very very precarious position had we pressed on and been able to summit so that worked out

[01:30:56] perfectly um but on the way back we yeah we we were hitting state high points um i hiked

[01:31:04] mount elbert and calorado we poked around the teetons and just found a lot of places

[01:31:10] washington um just mountain ranges that we want to go back to you know we we we were spread thin

[01:31:18] and drove fast to visit a lot of places and and peaks um we found a lot of

[01:31:27] depressing areas of the united states that you know both clearly avoid next time but a lot of

[01:31:33] beautiful places that you know now that's on our list and we want to go back to some of these places

[01:31:38] for a week two weeks at a time and set up a base camp and just um you know focus on on some of

[01:31:45] these areas that really touched our hearts yeah i just i encourage listeners to check out your

[01:31:52] blog and the trip report so again it's a talk in the woods calm and you've got like

[01:31:56] yeah it's really like if you're looking for ideas for hikes like this is a great place i mean

[01:32:02] you've got like some of the 52 with the view the 4000 footers but you've got so many unique

[01:32:07] places and the whites and a lot of them yeah they don't have views necessarily on the summit

[01:32:11] but like you'll get views in different areas um so it's it's definitely worth checking out because

[01:32:17] you've been you've been to some places you've been in that you've been in the um the

[01:32:22] the the far corners of the whites for sure yeah i feel like i've certainly been in some places where

[01:32:28] you know there may not have been a foot place of you know a footstep placed

[01:32:37] ever or maybe for a hundred years i don't know but certainly a lot of places that are remote and

[01:32:43] do not see a lot of traffic not human traffic anyway a lot of moose territory out there

[01:32:50] yeah yeah all right stop any any questions you want to go for Eric?

[01:32:55] no not really i mean honestly we could probably spend a whole episode on just bush-wrecking alone and

[01:33:00] i think we should probably do that if you wouldn't mind coming back again um come back for

[01:33:06] that specifically i think we really need to do a deep deep dive on the how-to's the what-ifs and

[01:33:12] the you know just all of it i would love to give tips tricks gear that i carry you know i'd yeah

[01:33:21] i would love that that's awesome yeah i appreciate that we'll talk

[01:33:29] awesome um so i guess from here stop if we don't have anything else for Eric so we'll just

[01:33:36] remind people again we'll put the links in the show notes on where to buy the book

[01:33:41] i'll make sure that we put the the details in the blog and you know Eric has been interesting

[01:33:46] i love hearing the story about the bus i love hearing about your hiking adventures and then the book

[01:33:51] is um it's called the other 52 hikers guy to the lower 52 peaks of the nehamshire 100 highest

[01:33:59] it's in r.i. it's in stevesmiths bookstore mountain wanderer and a bunch of other different places so

[01:34:05] will include the list of where you can purchase it as well so this has been great

[01:34:10] i just have to um if you don't mind i just have to give a shout out to my uh running partner because

[01:34:16] he's already got this cute up um to listen on his drive in the work

[01:34:20] right when this comes out um oh nice yeah my good friend mr christ gothburg um and uh of course a

[01:34:27] lot of um we're all good good hiking friends and all right showed out to chris and a lot of ashore

[01:34:34] for hell i'm sure they were like your support crew during writing the book too absolutely

[01:34:38] yeah chris where where are some wacky guys that like to get up at two in the morning and go

[01:34:44] back down you know sun sunrise views from new hamster 500 highest ledges and stuff and we just

[01:34:52] like to feed off each other and go find what's out there it's cool um hey that's not wacky to me but

[01:34:59] i mean i think it's wacky to know you know we're amongst friends here but i think everybody else

[01:35:03] thinks we're wacky so yeah all right so uh next up we got a sponsor here yeah 48 peaks all

[01:35:12] timers use your passion for hiking to help end all timers in one collective effort 400 plus

[01:35:18] hikers will climb the hamsters 4,000 footers or create their own challenge to support the mission of

[01:35:25] the Alzheimer's association the annual hiker celebration will take place Saturday June a that

[01:35:31] reckless brewing company in Bethlehem with raffles food and an amazing community like that weekend

[01:35:38] or any day you want no fundraising minimums required but those who raise 100 will receive this year's

[01:35:45] performance grade purple t-shirt let's turn the white mountains purple to end Alzheimer's visit

[01:35:52] alts.org write slash 48 peaks that's a l z.org write slash the number 48 peaks to learn more

[01:36:22] uh

[01:36:26] uh

[01:36:46] stumped you have a um favorite flower

[01:36:50] uh let's see no i don't i love them all Mike i love them all okay okay well this is a story about

[01:36:59] hikers that got in trouble hiking in the place called linville gorge wilderness that leads to

[01:37:05] daffodil flats so it's in north carolina and it was hiker had to get pulled out of a difficult

[01:37:13] situation they were um i guess they need 40 volunteers to help get this hiker out so

[01:37:21] yeah all this for daffodils yeah i guess so they will hike in into this like daffodil area and

[01:37:29] uh they ended up i guess like the song of the siren yeah wow interesting yeah very weird

[01:37:38] so anyway all is well that ends well in that that group so i guess they were

[01:37:44] it i guess it was a group and they were able to get to the patient and eventually carry

[01:37:50] her out but this is called linville gorge so if you're gonna go pick and flowers go to a place

[01:37:56] it's a little safer wow that's interesting very good um all right this next one here is two lost

[01:38:08] hikers and raiment so two hikers this is a local one raiment in here i'm sure so two hikers

[01:38:15] mentioned into a conservation area and raiment behind their residents so this is just like a local

[01:38:20] hike here um so it looks like a man and a woman they had never hiked the area before they were

[01:38:30] relying on boundary lines distinguished by an old rock wall as a trail when they lost track of the

[01:38:35] wall causing them to become lost so they had to call police they were able to get 9-1-1

[01:38:42] used gps coordinates and from there they were able to have the fought local fire department

[01:38:48] the low-capable subjects and they've they've got them only atv so i don't even think that

[01:38:53] even counts as hikers yeah probably not yeah yeah and then this last one is a fatality so this

[01:39:04] was just a missing woman they said stop what what is this i didn't read this one before the show

[01:39:08] yeah it's an interesting story so it's a missing 31 year old woman from richman um it's an

[01:39:15] interesting story so there's an update this is an updated post there was an original post that

[01:39:20] they put out and this is dated the 27th um so a woman was found in richman who had passed away

[01:39:28] sunday february 25th and she's a woman from richman nehamshire so on the 25th there was a response

[01:39:39] for a report of a missing female and um she was reported missing by her family on the 24th

[01:39:47] at 10 45 a.m. on the 25th the missing woman was found in the woods by nehamshire fishing game and

[01:39:55] k-9 team actually approximately one mile from her residence and she was in critical condition

[01:40:02] and in need of serious medical attention so apparently it sounds like it may have been

[01:40:08] cold weather injuries which is just an interesting story a team of conservation officers

[01:40:17] and richman fire department personnel carried her in a litter a short distance back to root 119

[01:40:24] and they met a vacther away from this the area to u-mass memorial by life flight helicopter

[01:40:33] so unfortunately she did not survive and they mentioned specifically cold weather injury so

[01:40:39] yeah i guess uh it's a strange story but it doesn't take much even if you're a mile from home

[01:40:45] yeah yeah this is like on the southern border so it's right on the mass border by like

[01:40:49] athol and guard during that area there so it's not really in the mountains but that's just a sad story

[01:40:54] it sure is but i mean you can you can get turned around and lost you know right out your back door

[01:41:02] so you got to play it safe out there and i guess it goes back to having things with you to survive

[01:41:07] situations who knows the context of this one but um yeah yeah well i mean it's been a quiet hiking

[01:41:15] incident um week here so that's good i know we've had a couple of busy weeks with search and rescue so

[01:41:20] yeah um but yeah condolences to the family for sure and hope everybody stay safe out there this weekend

[01:41:26] yeah right on all right stop anything else i think we got good i hope you feel better

[01:41:33] try some chagga mic or some kombucha yeah i gotta add the chagatí Eric chagatí i'm gonna try that so

[01:41:39] all right cheers nice later

[01:41:45] thank you for listening if you enjoyed the show you can subscribe on apple podcast spotify podbing youtube

[01:41:54] or wherever you listen to podcasts if you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show

[01:42:00] please check out the show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com that's s-l-a-s-r podcast.com

[01:42:11] you can also follow the show on facebook and instagram we hope you'll join us next week for another

[01:42:17] great show until then on behalf of like and stop get out there and crush some mega heates

[01:42:27] now covered in scratches blisters and bug bites christav wanted to complete his most challenging day

[01:42:33] hike ever fishing game officers say the hiker from florida activated an emergency vehicle yesterday

[01:42:39] morning he was hiking along the appellation trail when the weather started to get worse official say

[01:42:45] the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a wind shell of minus one degree

[01:42:59] ten of james deelyn your hamster fishing game those end of things we're being with us today

[01:43:02] thanks for having me what are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're

[01:43:07] heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire seems to me the most common as being unprepared

[01:43:11] i think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the ten essential items and

[01:43:16] had those in their packs they probably would have no need to ever call us at all