Episode 151 - Ongyel Sherpa from US Sherpa, Table Rock, Bear or Man debate

[00:00:03] Here is the latest Higher Summits Forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount

[00:00:13] Washington Observatory.

[00:00:20] Weather above treeline and 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] Dear observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory, write this elevation-based

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

[00:00:42] Search and rescue teams, avalanche 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

[00:01:09] And here is your forecast for Friday, May 10th and Saturday, May 11th.

[00:01:14] Friday Mostly in the clouds with a chance of

[00:01:17] snow showers early then a chance of mixed showers

[00:01:20] Possible snow accumulations of a trace to less than 1 inch

[00:01:24] Possible ice accumulations of a trace to a tenth of an inch

[00:01:28] High in the lower 30s with winds northeast at 15-30 mph

[00:01:34] Wind chill 15-25 above Friday Night in the clouds with a chance of

[00:01:40] snow showers Possible snow accumulations of a trace to

[00:01:43] 1 inch Possible ice accumulations of a trace to

[00:01:47] The low will be in the mid 20s with winds northeast at 15-30 mph

[00:01:54] Wind chill will be falling to 5-15 above Saturday Mostly in the clouds with a chance

[00:02:01] of snow showers Possible snow accumulations of a trace to

[00:02:04] 1 inch High in the upper 20s with winds northeast

[00:02:08] shifting northwest at 10-25 mph With gusts up to 40 mph

[00:02:15] Wind chill rising to 10-20 above

[00:03:17] Alright, we'll do it live.

[00:03:36] Episode 151, Stomp, the delayed episode.

[00:03:40] Should I?

[00:03:41] Do you think the audience cares, or should I offer up an excuse or do we just roll

[00:03:45] with it?

[00:03:46] Yeah sure, why not?

[00:03:47] Just roll with it or give my excuse?

[00:03:50] I'll give the excuse.

[00:03:51] A bit tardy but it's been a busy week for the podcast despite.

[00:03:55] Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:56] We've been, we have been recording a ton.

[00:03:58] We just like, we just logistically didn't time everything out.

[00:04:02] But we, yeah, so I get sick.

[00:04:04] So and I blame my, I got a little neighbor dispute going on here, Stomp.

[00:04:09] Stomp, do me a favor, like listeners, do me a favor, like if you ever have an

[00:04:12] issue with your neighbors and you think like, okay, and you hear this all the

[00:04:15] time from people, like oh, just go over and have a reasonable conversation with

[00:04:19] them before you, just call the police.

[00:04:23] Just call the police immediately.

[00:04:24] Like don't even hesitate.

[00:04:26] People are maniacs.

[00:04:27] Really?

[00:04:28] So you're getting to that point?

[00:04:29] I mean, it's just people that have older children, you know, that suddenly,

[00:04:38] you know, they don't seem to have a lot of direction playing a lot of music in

[00:04:41] the middle of the night and you go over there to say like, hey, you know,

[00:04:43] it's 1130 at night, can you just shut the music down and then it becomes

[00:04:47] this like.

[00:04:48] I wouldn't hesitate to call the cops for that.

[00:04:51] Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:52] So anyway, like I tried to have a reasonable conversation and went horribly

[00:04:55] around.

[00:04:57] So anyway, I think that this person got me sick.

[00:05:01] She's breathing all over me.

[00:05:02] So anyway.

[00:05:05] So I wasn't feeling great.

[00:05:07] We had we recorded the segment with Angel that we'll talk about on this

[00:05:11] episode like last week.

[00:05:13] And then we had the plans to record Andrew Drummond.

[00:05:16] So Andrew will be on next week.

[00:05:18] Yeah.

[00:05:19] So we did that segment on Thursday night and the plan was to do this

[00:05:24] afterwards, but I just didn't have the energy.

[00:05:26] And then I had graduation the next day.

[00:05:28] So we just we're recording this on Saturday.

[00:05:31] So I apologize.

[00:05:32] Yeah, I think we'll get it out this afternoon.

[00:05:33] Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:35] Yeah. No, Saturday night fun.

[00:05:37] Yeah. Anyway, so welcome to episode 151 of The Sounds Like a Search and

[00:05:42] Rescue podcast.

[00:05:43] This week, we are joined on a segment by Angel Sherpa.

[00:05:47] He is the founder and CEO of US Sherpa.

[00:05:51] They are an apparel and international trekking company that specializes in

[00:05:56] genuine Nepal made apparel.

[00:05:59] And then also, if you're ever considering touring Nepal, his company

[00:06:03] offers many options for trips.

[00:06:05] So we'll talk a lot about like his apparel offerings and also the trip

[00:06:10] options. And then we'll also learn a little bit more about Nepalese culture.

[00:06:14] His journey from being like a young Sherpa that was supporting Western

[00:06:18] climbers to his now home in Vermont.

[00:06:21] So it's a really interesting story how he came to be like sort of like a

[00:06:25] struggling young man in Nepal.

[00:06:28] And, you know, he got a lucky break and he was able to get over here into

[00:06:31] Vermont and he's made a made a business out of it.

[00:06:34] So it's a really inspiring story.

[00:06:37] All this plus we got solar flares, northern lights.

[00:06:39] We're going to break down the the bear or man viral challenge.

[00:06:43] So Stomp and I are going to mansplain the bear versus man viral

[00:06:47] challenge. So I'm sure that'll go really well.

[00:06:51] Yeah, yeah, it's going to be we're going to get canceled.

[00:06:53] Some real bear news.

[00:06:55] There's a recap of the White Lake Ultra event and then Stomp's going to

[00:07:00] break down. So Stomp's been carrying the load on the hikes lately.

[00:07:03] So I appreciate that he's going to break down some recent hikes on

[00:07:05] Table Rock, Red Hill Fire Tower in Franconia Ridge.

[00:07:10] Plus there's some recent search and rescue news, including some updates on

[00:07:14] the search for a missing Cambridge hiker.

[00:07:17] And then two Canadian hikers needed a rescue out of the Great Gulf

[00:07:20] the other day and social media is breaking out the torches for these two.

[00:07:24] So we'll break that down.

[00:07:25] I'm Mike and I'm Stomp. Let's get started.

[00:07:56] This is Ben Pease from Hiking Buddies.

[00:07:58] We are a 501 C3 nonprofit committed to reducing avoidable tragedies

[00:08:02] through education, impactful projects and fostering a community of support.

[00:08:06] You can find out more at hiking buddies dot org.

[00:08:09] We wanted to say thank you to those who have supported our mission

[00:08:12] and most importantly, say thanks to those who speak up,

[00:08:15] who ask questions and who are willing to provide guidance

[00:08:18] and assistance on the trails when needed.

[00:08:20] You embody what it means to be a hiking buddy.

[00:08:22] And now for all my newer hikers out there, here's this episode's

[00:08:26] Hiking Buddies quick tip.

[00:08:32] Get at least 200 feet, about 70 long steps off trail

[00:08:37] before having a bowel movement.

[00:08:40] Dig a hole at least six inches deep.

[00:08:42] Drop your poo.

[00:08:43] Cover it with dirt you displaced and rewild the surrounding area

[00:08:48] and pack out your TP in a baggie.

[00:09:00] Right now, you have on the on the script to talk about Sunday's forecast.

[00:09:06] So what are we what are we looking at right now?

[00:09:08] Yeah, let's just add it since we're a day later.

[00:09:11] So in the clouds with a chance of snow

[00:09:14] showers possible, snow accumulations up to two inches.

[00:09:18] So it's still winter up there.

[00:09:19] High around 30 degrees.

[00:09:21] Wind shifting east five to 20 miles an hour.

[00:09:24] Wind chills going to be still around like 15 to 25 above.

[00:09:27] So it's still snowing. We're in this cycle.

[00:09:29] That's why I tried to get out this morning

[00:09:31] because the next like week and a half looks sort of lousy up there.

[00:09:35] Yeah, that's the latest.

[00:09:38] Yeah.

[00:09:40] Well, you know, there's still a lot of snow on the ground up there.

[00:09:44] We'll talk about that in a little while.

[00:09:46] But the I guess I do want I want to do this story first.

[00:09:51] Let's just let's just do this one from the Great Gulf that came through.

[00:09:55] Yesterday, so two hikers needed to be rescued.

[00:09:59] They call it on Mount Washington, but it sounds like they were down

[00:10:02] in the Great Gulf. So this was on Thursday around five fifteen.

[00:10:07] Two Canadian hikers

[00:10:10] had become wet and tired and were not able to continue

[00:10:14] due to deep snow and limited visibility of the trail location.

[00:10:17] So three conservation officers were called in to rescue these two hikers.

[00:10:22] So around 10, 10 p.m.,

[00:10:25] the conservation officers located the hikers and they escorted them up

[00:10:28] the Wamsutta Trail to the auto road.

[00:10:32] So the auto road has been cleared and it's ready to it's

[00:10:34] I think it's opening up this weekend.

[00:10:36] So it's fortuitous for these folks that the auto road was open

[00:10:41] and that they were able to get.

[00:10:42] I mean, that must have been a nightmare climbing that trail.

[00:10:44] Oh, absolutely.

[00:10:45] I mean, it makes sense, though.

[00:10:47] Yeah, and I want to talk about the way out.

[00:10:49] I want to talk about the Great Gulf this time of the year in a minute.

[00:10:51] But so these hikers did not take into account winter conditions

[00:10:55] with below freezing temperatures and rain,

[00:10:58] and they also weren't prepared to deal with deep snow.

[00:11:01] So this one setting social media on fire, like tons of people are out there

[00:11:06] like, oh, these people should be fine.

[00:11:08] Fishing Game actually did respond

[00:11:09] to some people that were commenting on social media and said, look,

[00:11:12] this is like a three, four month process that it takes to review everything

[00:11:17] and that they'll make a decision at some point.

[00:11:20] So actually, we want to know.

[00:11:23] Yeah, but the thing the thing and we talk about this all the time,

[00:11:26] like I tell people like this time of the year

[00:11:29] where I tell people to go is check out the Belknaps,

[00:11:32] check out the Ossipese, even like the southern like sandwich range.

[00:11:36] You can get some good stuff, especially the suddenly

[00:11:39] southerly facing areas in the sandwich range.

[00:11:44] You know, stick to those areas like if you're going to go on the northern

[00:11:47] side of the presidential's like that Great Gulf area,

[00:11:51] you're going to get in big trouble with the Sphinx Trail, Wamsuda.

[00:11:56] You get into the Great Gulf.

[00:11:58] None of those areas get any sun whatsoever.

[00:12:00] So they're also mostly above 4000 feet.

[00:12:03] Like once you get into that, once you get past

[00:12:06] the Madison Gulf area and you go over that last bridge,

[00:12:08] like you're kind of at 4000 feet there.

[00:12:10] So wherever these guys were,

[00:12:13] if they didn't have snowshoes, it sounds like because they weren't

[00:12:15] prepared for deep snow. Yeah, you could assume that.

[00:12:19] Yeah, like stay out of the Great Gulf unless you're bringing your snowshoes.

[00:12:22] And I would say at least until the end of May,

[00:12:25] because the Sphinx Trail gets no sun, Wamsuda gets no sun.

[00:12:30] And then that deep inside inside the Great Gulf,

[00:12:33] the Great Gulf Trail that comes up into the headwall,

[00:12:36] that doesn't get any sun either.

[00:12:38] Yes, the northeast pocket, too.

[00:12:39] So you'd naturally get a lot more snow.

[00:12:41] I was noticing that today when I was hiking,

[00:12:43] just like the the same sides of Lincoln Lafayette were still covered in snow.

[00:12:49] But there was really nothing on trail or on the western side.

[00:12:53] It's just the way the snow falls.

[00:12:55] Yeah, and I have no idea how experienced these folks are.

[00:12:58] I didn't even say what age they are on the on the the press release.

[00:13:02] But I have to think that they just didn't know the terrain.

[00:13:09] Yeah, just ignorant about it.

[00:13:11] Yeah, maybe they looked at a map and said, like,

[00:13:12] oh, this is a cool way to go up Mount Washington.

[00:13:15] And they didn't realize that it was going to be an impossible

[00:13:18] endeavor for them if they didn't know what they would do

[00:13:20] when they didn't have snowshoes.

[00:13:21] So anyway, I thought that was an interesting one stop.

[00:13:24] And it's just a good reminder, like stay south.

[00:13:26] The bell naps are dry now.

[00:13:28] Ossipi range is awesome this time of the year.

[00:13:31] Yeah. And then down in your area, like Welsh Dickey

[00:13:34] and that whole sandwich range.

[00:13:36] Drys a bone across it.

[00:13:38] Yeah, it's fine.

[00:13:39] Yeah, even even the Franklin here, it just pretty much,

[00:13:42] you know, a couple little patches of snow here and there.

[00:13:44] But yeah, Monorail is not bad.

[00:13:48] So they have they picked a bad spot there.

[00:13:50] So, yeah, we can we can cross that one off.

[00:13:53] And then next up here, stop, you've got the sun is hot.

[00:13:56] The biggest CME in history. What does that mean?

[00:13:59] Oh, the old coronal mass ejection.

[00:14:02] How would I know?

[00:14:03] How would I not know that that acronym?

[00:14:06] Right. Exactly.

[00:14:07] Yeah. Astrophysicists, both of us, right?

[00:14:10] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:14:10] I mean, so far so good.

[00:14:12] I guess the solar flares are really

[00:14:14] potentially making a big splash here.

[00:14:17] But so far, the only thing that's happened is a dramatic

[00:14:21] aurora borealis last night extending all the way down to us in Plymouth

[00:14:26] and Thornton.

[00:14:27] So that was pretty amazing.

[00:14:28] But it's supposed to be the next 72 hours or so that may impact

[00:14:32] some communications GPS.

[00:14:34] We shall see. We shall see.

[00:14:36] See, we'll see if the Starlink holds up.

[00:14:38] You can have a tell.

[00:14:39] I did. I've seen like some amazing pictures of aurora borealis

[00:14:43] here in Amesbury.

[00:14:45] And I think really people posting from

[00:14:48] Tasha, who we had on.

[00:14:49] She had some amazing photos from like Arizona.

[00:14:53] My daughter down in North Carolina had said that they were able to see it.

[00:14:56] So, wow.

[00:14:58] The photos have been amazing.

[00:14:59] So I'm going to get out tonight.

[00:15:01] Maybe I think around 11, 12 o'clock at night seems to be like the sweet spot

[00:15:05] if there's no clouds.

[00:15:06] Oh, yeah, that's the that's the question.

[00:15:08] It's looking pretty cloudy up here at the moment.

[00:15:10] But yeah, it's amazing.

[00:15:12] Yeah, very interesting.

[00:15:15] It's been sunny here, but it looks like

[00:15:19] yeah, no, it looks like it'll.

[00:15:21] We'll see. Yeah, it's cloud.

[00:15:22] Now it goes.

[00:15:23] Yeah, but the pictures last night were amazing.

[00:15:25] Uh huh. Cool.

[00:15:28] Yeah. All right.

[00:15:29] And then the script here says thanks to Mike for a killer interview.

[00:15:33] So let's thank me.

[00:15:34] Stomp on. Yeah, this Sherpa fella.

[00:15:37] That was a great interview.

[00:15:39] OK. Yeah, it was very impressed.

[00:15:41] I was not part of this, by the way, listeners.

[00:15:44] So it's just Mike and Angel.

[00:15:46] Yeah, I think you had some issues.

[00:15:48] So we mean me and Angel just recorded it separately.

[00:15:50] So all right. Well, yeah.

[00:15:51] Thanks for hyping me up. I appreciate it.

[00:15:53] Yeah, that was great.

[00:15:54] And wait till you hear it.

[00:15:57] Yeah, it's coming up.

[00:15:57] It's coming up. Believe me.

[00:15:59] All right. So next up is Trails New Hampshire dot com,

[00:16:04] which definitely is a good site to check out.

[00:16:05] So they seem to be the ones that are most on top of road openings at this point.

[00:16:10] And I think we're having them on.

[00:16:11] Now we have them on.

[00:16:12] Yeah. Yeah. A couple of weeks.

[00:16:13] Couple of weeks out.

[00:16:15] Very good. So we're going to have them on in a couple of weeks.

[00:16:17] But they are on top of it as far as the road opening.

[00:16:19] So they made an announcement a couple of days ago that Bear Notch Road is open.

[00:16:22] So you can get over from Bartlett up to the Canc now.

[00:16:26] And the other ones that they're calling out,

[00:16:28] let me just pick the ones that I think that will be of most interest.

[00:16:31] So Mount Clinton Road is open.

[00:16:33] So that's the one that gets you down to Eisenhower.

[00:16:37] Success Pond Road.

[00:16:38] So you can get out to Mount Success and Sandwich.

[00:16:44] Sandwich Notch Road is open to Sandwich Notch Road is open.

[00:16:47] And then Basin Pond Crocker Pond Road.

[00:16:51] I'm going to pretend like I know what these...

[00:16:54] Oh, Passa Conway Road is open.

[00:16:55] So that connects from the Canc to Westside Road, North Conway.

[00:16:59] OK. Harriman Brook, which I don't know what that is.

[00:17:03] Hmm. Oliverian Boat Launch.

[00:17:05] I don't know what that is.

[00:17:07] No idea. Oh, Ravine Lodge Road is open too.

[00:17:11] OK, great. OK. Well, that's good.

[00:17:14] Yeah. So definitely like I don't think that the forest service

[00:17:17] is really up to date on their

[00:17:21] their road openings at this point.

[00:17:22] So you want to check out trailsneahamsher.com

[00:17:25] and they don't just do road.

[00:17:26] I mean, they do everything.

[00:17:27] So they've got all kinds of information about hiking

[00:17:30] and we'll we'll break it down with them when they come on in a couple of weeks.

[00:17:33] Yeah, sure. Looking forward to it.

[00:17:36] All right.

[00:17:38] So now we've got some...

[00:17:39] So we're going to talk about beers for the next probably 10 minutes here or so.

[00:17:43] So we'll first we'll start with

[00:17:45] this is pretty crazy.

[00:17:47] Some news. So this guy down in Springfield area, I think he's from

[00:17:53] I think it's like Hadley or Hatfield or something.

[00:17:56] Yeah, all right. So 31 year old Daniel Ducham of South Hadley

[00:18:01] was likely killed as a result of a car crash.

[00:18:04] So notice they say likely. They don't know.

[00:18:07] True, true. He was driving on 91 South in Hatfield

[00:18:11] and police say that evidence suggests that he was

[00:18:14] one either fully ejected, right?

[00:18:18] Or dragged or partly ejected and later dragged from the car by a beer.

[00:18:24] So he crashed his car

[00:18:27] sometime at night.

[00:18:30] And then another driver called police around 11 a.m.

[00:18:33] on Sunday when they noticed the car was in the woods off to the side of the road.

[00:18:37] So they don't really even know the timing of the crash. Mm hmm.

[00:18:41] But they found a heavily damaged 2016 Honda Civic among the trees.

[00:18:47] And then when the first responders got to the scene,

[00:18:50] the deceased male occupant of the vehicle was outside the car

[00:18:54] and a beer was observed in the woods in the vicinity of the scene.

[00:18:58] And then evidence suggests that the bear at some point

[00:19:00] had made contact with the victim's body. Mm hmm.

[00:19:04] And the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

[00:19:06] He was the only person in the car.

[00:19:09] Police say he somehow lost control, hit the guardrail multiple times

[00:19:13] and went off the right side of the road down an embankment.

[00:19:16] And police had said that the bear had left the area.

[00:19:20] Well, responders were on the scene.

[00:19:24] They were able to later find the bear and euthanize

[00:19:28] the black bear just out of an abundance of caution.

[00:19:32] So Hatfield is part of the black bears established range in Massachusetts.

[00:19:36] And they say there's an estimated four thousand five hundred beers in the state.

[00:19:40] So, yeah, yeah, it's one thing to just like have a car crash,

[00:19:44] but then maybe he did survive and the bear finished him off.

[00:19:49] That's what they do.

[00:19:51] That's kind of like I mean, the article leaves that open for sure.

[00:19:54] Yeah, right. It's got to be like that's got to be the worst.

[00:19:57] Yeah. Can you imagine last your last image of a bear coming up to your head?

[00:20:03] Yeah. I mean, we'll see what happens if it was just like,

[00:20:06] I mean, maybe it was just an honest car accident.

[00:20:08] He had mechanical issues or maybe something else.

[00:20:11] But that's scary. Yeah, sure is.

[00:20:13] Euthanizing him too is interesting as well, because the assumption is that

[00:20:18] this bear is probably going to do that again and start terrorizing the community.

[00:20:22] So they just take it out, take it off the board.

[00:20:25] Got a little taste of human blood that's not good.

[00:20:28] It's not good. Right. Interesting.

[00:20:30] Reminds me there was like a plane crash out of Miami in 1996

[00:20:34] that they crashed into the Everglades in the area that they crashed into.

[00:20:39] It was like so difficult to get to.

[00:20:41] It wasn't far from the airport.

[00:20:42] It was only like a couple of miles, but it was like so difficult to get to.

[00:20:45] And it was just infested with alligators.

[00:20:48] Oh, yeah. It's like, OK, well, maybe you did survive the plane crash.

[00:20:51] But then you don't survive the alligators.

[00:20:55] Yeah, right. Pretty slim chances. All right.

[00:21:00] Now we go over to Japan.

[00:21:02] Yeah, record number of bear attacks.

[00:21:05] In the past year, strange,

[00:21:08] turning to AI to act as a warning system, what is this all about?

[00:21:11] So I have no idea, but apparently there's been like 200 attacks

[00:21:15] over the last year in Japan.

[00:21:18] So something funky is going on.

[00:21:19] So they're looking at using AI to

[00:21:23] actually be like some kind of warning system.

[00:21:26] I'm not quite sure how that would work, but yeah.

[00:21:29] What's unusual?

[00:21:30] Well, the focus of the story is just the number of incidents.

[00:21:34] It's very unusual. And they're brown bear.

[00:21:37] Not black bear or grizzly. They're brown.

[00:21:41] Yeah, well, the article you link, it's a fail because it's behind a paywall.

[00:21:45] But I'll do some research on that and I'll try to find a non-paywall

[00:21:49] version of it for the listeners.

[00:21:51] But yeah, don't I guess if you're in Japan, look out for bears.

[00:21:54] It seems to be a problem.

[00:21:55] Yeah, stay home. Yeah.

[00:21:57] Don't go to Japan.

[00:21:58] Don't drive a car.

[00:22:00] Don't drive a car in Massachusetts.

[00:22:02] Just hike with somebody that's slower than you and then you'll be fine.

[00:22:08] All right. And then this seems this cowboy state

[00:22:10] daily seems to be like your go to new source here.

[00:22:14] Yeah, they're phenomenal.

[00:22:16] Yeah, it's a different part of the world over there.

[00:22:20] This is so this story is a Montana man shoots

[00:22:23] and kills a charging grizzly while out gathering gathering.

[00:22:27] So this is like so Casey likes to like Casey.

[00:22:29] He sure does.

[00:22:30] Like this, to me, sounds like the like most

[00:22:33] the most boring thing you could possibly do.

[00:22:36] Like until you find one.

[00:22:38] Yeah, he does the arrowheads too.

[00:22:39] But to find a big antler shed is pretty cool.

[00:22:44] I feel like I could buy those at the Freiburg share if I want one.

[00:22:50] Yeah, maybe.

[00:22:51] So anyway, it's shed hunting season in Wyoming.

[00:22:54] So for those that aren't aware, like shed hunts.

[00:22:56] So there's these people that like they go out and find antlers.

[00:22:59] So the antlers fall off an elk and deer and whatever.

[00:23:04] And this causes like cowboys to go out in the middle of the wilderness

[00:23:07] where grizzlies are and calamity is ensued.

[00:23:10] So essentially.

[00:23:14] A Montana man killed the 300 pound female grizzly.

[00:23:18] That feels like not a very big one.

[00:23:20] But I guess near Wolf Creek in central Montana, while shed hunting,

[00:23:25] according to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department,

[00:23:30] the man was shed hunting in the area when the grizzly charged him.

[00:23:34] Fish and wildlife is investigating the incident, however,

[00:23:37] experienced shed hunters see it as another sign of the growing threat

[00:23:40] to people in grizzly country.

[00:23:43] Their population is exploding and they don't have a natural fear

[00:23:46] for humans like they used to. Yeah.

[00:23:49] So I actually dropped another article here.

[00:23:53] And what it is, is that they're dropping these grizzlies off by helicopter

[00:23:58] into the cascades and different areas throughout the region.

[00:24:01] So they're they're trying to just increase the numbers in this region.

[00:24:06] But look, you know, obviously it's, you know, causing some trouble.

[00:24:12] Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, interesting.

[00:24:15] Well, yeah, this is a good article.

[00:24:17] So it goes on to talk a lot about

[00:24:20] the whole background of shed hunting, as well as the.

[00:24:26] I guess the policies around beer management in that area.

[00:24:30] So I'll include this in the show notes.

[00:24:32] You have this cowboy state daily stomp.

[00:24:34] Yeah, you love this. This is an interesting.

[00:24:37] I'm going to bookmark this.

[00:24:39] Yeah, they were always on point with the

[00:24:41] the nature stories and search and rescue in the region, too,

[00:24:45] which is always pretty interesting.

[00:24:50] Mm hmm. We're about to serve up some tasty hiking drama.

[00:25:01] This takes us into our next segment,

[00:25:03] so we're probably going to get canceled for this.

[00:25:05] I don't even know if we're supposed to be talking about this,

[00:25:07] but there's this viral thing going around on social media where it's like,

[00:25:11] I guess it's a it's a thought experiment

[00:25:15] where if you're a woman hiking in the wilderness on your own,

[00:25:20] would you be more afraid of a bear approaching you or a man approaching you

[00:25:25] if you're by yourself and overwhelmingly from what I can tell,

[00:25:28] everybody's like picking like they'd rather have the bear

[00:25:31] show up than the man with.

[00:25:32] And I guess the the indicate the implication is,

[00:25:36] is that a man is more likely to harm a woman alone in the woods

[00:25:40] than a bear is, which I guess you could probably do the math on that

[00:25:44] and figure what you need to do is figure out how many violent incidents

[00:25:49] have happened in the wilderness between men and women

[00:25:52] and then how many violent incidents have happened in the wilderness

[00:25:55] between women and bears.

[00:25:58] And then divide that by the number of total interactions,

[00:26:02] which I think would be an impossible number to determine.

[00:26:06] You could estimate it maybe, but I don't know what the ratio is.

[00:26:09] But I feel like ultimately like this is essentially like

[00:26:13] no one's interested in doing the math here.

[00:26:16] What people are interested in is essentially calling out men for bad behavior

[00:26:21] and using it as a way to essentially say like, you know, hey, man,

[00:26:25] you've got to do better and not be so violent and creepy

[00:26:29] because we're going to pick the bear.

[00:26:31] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's sort of silly.

[00:26:34] Which I don't know if that's fear or not.

[00:26:36] I mean, like I said, when I see people in the woods, I just say,

[00:26:38] Hi, how you doing?

[00:26:39] I always announce myself ahead of time.

[00:26:42] Yeah, looking at the meme superficially, it's you know,

[00:26:46] I did some research and there's plenty of bear attack document

[00:26:51] documented events over the years.

[00:26:54] I mean, just look at that Japanese thing.

[00:26:57] You do comprehensive AI searches on multiple different sites

[00:27:01] and there is nothing in terms of men specifically on trail

[00:27:05] or in the woods or forest attacking or sexually assaulting women.

[00:27:11] I couldn't find anything.

[00:27:12] So, I mean, just on the face of it, I don't know.

[00:27:17] There's nothing that I could find.

[00:27:19] I mean, I think we've done enough stories where

[00:27:22] and I think some of the stuff that we've done, like,

[00:27:24] I know that there's been

[00:27:26] the ones that stand out to me are like the couple in Concord

[00:27:29] that got attacked, like if you read you could read that to say,

[00:27:32] like, all right, they were in the woods.

[00:27:33] But really, that was a walking path.

[00:27:35] That's not like the wilderness, like me and you and our listeners think of.

[00:27:38] All right. But there's certainly like stranger crime

[00:27:41] that occurs between men and women.

[00:27:44] But I think if I just break this down for the White Mountains, which we

[00:27:49] which we I took a look back at some of my my data

[00:27:52] and there's two incidents that stand out to me.

[00:27:55] There's Sherry Roth in 1977 who was killed

[00:27:59] by a stranger man.

[00:28:02] And then there was Luisa Putt, who's very likely killed by a stranger man.

[00:28:05] I think she was like 2002 or something like that.

[00:28:08] And then on trail, a couple of on trail.

[00:28:11] Correct. Right. There's been a couple of violent incidents.

[00:28:14] The one that stands out to me is that that husband and wife

[00:28:16] situation on the Boulder Loop Trail, where the husband tried

[00:28:20] to throw the wife off of the cliff.

[00:28:24] That was a preacher son from Pelham, New Hampshire.

[00:28:27] I think Todd Spain, I believe, is the kid's name.

[00:28:30] They divorced. The wife didn't want to testify.

[00:28:32] And I think he got off with a wrist slap.

[00:28:35] Other than that, I mean, there's probably been some violent incidences

[00:28:37] that we've heard of.

[00:28:39] But maybe you could say in the last 30, 40 years in the White Mountains,

[00:28:42] you're talking maybe a dozen violent incidences that I'm aware of or not even.

[00:28:49] And then with bear attacks, I think

[00:28:51] there's probably been like six or seven attacks that

[00:28:55] or at least interactions with people that I'm aware of.

[00:28:57] I don't know how many women, how many were women.

[00:28:59] But it's it's a question that really

[00:29:04] it's not the greatest example, I think, of what they're trying to achieve

[00:29:07] with with asking that question, just because the likelihood of either

[00:29:11] scenario happening where it harms you is infinitesimal.

[00:29:15] Right. I think the greater the bigger point is it's a way

[00:29:19] to sort of call out that, hey, men's behavior, for whatever reason,

[00:29:23] from some people's view, makes it so that they would fear

[00:29:26] men more than an unpredictable wild animal that can easily kill them.

[00:29:31] Which is a shame

[00:29:33] that it shouldn't be that way.

[00:29:34] And I actually feel bad for women that are actually taking this to heart

[00:29:39] and being super paranoid on trail now because of this.

[00:29:43] I think it's just overkill and it's a shame.

[00:29:46] Yeah, well, I think what you'll the answer you'll get is like,

[00:29:48] you know, well, you don't you don't know my life experience

[00:29:51] and maybe they were attacked by somebody, but it wasn't on trail.

[00:29:55] I can tell you that if they were attacked and they're thinking out about men.

[00:29:58] It happened somewhere not on a hiking trail in New Hampshire at this point.

[00:30:02] And yeah, it's tough.

[00:30:04] There's a balance there.

[00:30:05] Like, you know, men have to be held accountable for bad behavior.

[00:30:07] But like, you know, we all have young, you know, the young boys

[00:30:10] that I think are getting lost here.

[00:30:13] Well, there's bad actors in every frigging group.

[00:30:17] Sex, whatever sex, gender, race is bad.

[00:30:21] Actors everywhere. You know, it's like, you know,

[00:30:24] not all Catholic priests or pedophiles, et cetera.

[00:30:27] You can go on and on and on and on and on.

[00:30:30] So I don't know.

[00:30:32] Yeah, it's an interesting one.

[00:30:33] But we'll we'll bring this up again.

[00:30:34] Like, well, I want to get it like a female perspective.

[00:30:36] Next time we have a female guest on.

[00:30:38] Yeah, Mrs. Stumpf is tied up.

[00:30:41] Well, yeah, we're going to get Mrs. Stumpf,

[00:30:42] but she probably didn't want to touch this one with a 10 foot pole.

[00:30:45] Yeah. But if you do feel that way, there's things

[00:30:48] you can do to protect yourself on trail.

[00:30:50] I mean, get some pepper spray then, you know, whatever it takes.

[00:30:53] I've actually seen some things like cell phone cases

[00:30:56] that are actually those tasers.

[00:30:59] I mean, there's stuff out there that you could protect yourself

[00:31:01] if you're that paranoid about getting assaulted on trail.

[00:31:06] So interesting stuff.

[00:31:08] Yep. I'm trained martial arts.

[00:31:10] I think that, you know, a lot of like I feel like if you

[00:31:13] if you want your your daughters to have like a good

[00:31:19] self-defense background, like I feel like putting them in judo

[00:31:22] or you like youth wrestling for girls right now is exploding.

[00:31:26] So those are two areas like judo, youth wrestling.

[00:31:29] Like you could get them into that and they can they'll be able

[00:31:31] to handle themselves pretty well.

[00:31:32] Yeah. If I had a choice between like a UFC female UFC fighter and a bear,

[00:31:38] I'd pick the bear.

[00:31:41] I don't want to get my ass kicked by some female UFC fighter.

[00:31:46] Because the bear hopefully you I mean, the move with the bear

[00:31:49] is that you're going to punch him in the nose and hope they run away.

[00:31:52] And then if they don't like you're dead immediately.

[00:31:54] Have you seen the revenant?

[00:31:56] Yeah. Have you seen cocaine beer?

[00:31:59] I haven't seen that one, actually.

[00:32:01] So anyway, but we'll put a list of gear that you can use

[00:32:04] to defend yourselves against the bear or the man in our show notes.

[00:32:08] And hopefully we don't get canceled for this one.

[00:32:11] I think we did all right.

[00:32:12] OK. All right.

[00:32:14] So White Lake Ultric recap stop.

[00:32:16] What happened there? Were you you mixing on that one?

[00:32:19] Yeah, I was mixing that one.

[00:32:20] That was the last one that Rem and Christina hosted.

[00:32:23] And now it's being taken over by Aerovapa.

[00:32:26] And there's a whole other series of races coming up.

[00:32:29] But yeah, can you imagine 50 miles?

[00:32:32] And it's a three mile loop around White Lake.

[00:32:34] So you're talking X amount of laps to get the 50 miles in.

[00:32:37] But that's pretty impressive.

[00:32:40] Weather was beautiful. No bugs.

[00:32:42] It was just a great time.

[00:32:44] It was packed. I mean, a couple hundred people for sure.

[00:32:47] So really nice time.

[00:32:49] Music went off pretty well, I think.

[00:32:51] And yeah, just looking forward to the rest of the summer.

[00:32:54] Awesome. Yeah, I like that area.

[00:32:56] I've only run in there a couple of times just for Reach the Beach.

[00:32:59] We do like a segment through there and I've done that segment

[00:33:01] a couple of times, which is fun.

[00:33:02] But yeah, it would be awesome to just run run loops and just,

[00:33:05] you know, have the party atmosphere there.

[00:33:07] So that's good. Yeah, for sure.

[00:33:09] Yeah, nice. What time do you have to shut down the music?

[00:33:12] I actually left.

[00:33:13] I started playing at seven.

[00:33:15] It was May the fourth.

[00:33:16] So people were dressed up in Star Wars garb.

[00:33:21] And played a lot of Star Wars music for the start of the races.

[00:33:24] But I think it took off like around two thirty ish

[00:33:27] because I had my daughters coming up for a nice visit.

[00:33:31] Did you play that like, you know, that Star Wars

[00:33:35] mix from like 1978 or whatever?

[00:33:38] You know what I'm talking about?

[00:33:40] What, like a pop remix or something?

[00:33:42] Yeah, it's like a Star Wars.

[00:33:44] I vaguely remember.

[00:33:45] I think it's like the the Star Wars and Galactic

[00:33:48] Funk or something like that.

[00:33:51] I'll do some research.

[00:33:53] OK, yeah, it's pretty good.

[00:33:55] That's funny. Anyway,

[00:33:57] we all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times.

[00:34:01] So here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it.

[00:34:06] But I'm bummed.

[00:34:10] All right. Now, this is the part of the show where we do a dad joke.

[00:34:12] Stop. I was I spent a little bit of time

[00:34:15] like trying to pick a good one here because there's a lot of bad ones.

[00:34:19] Thanks again to my friends, Lance and Camilla for getting this.

[00:34:22] So why would you smear peanut butter on the road?

[00:34:29] Peanut butter.

[00:34:29] The answer is to go with the traffic jam.

[00:34:33] So you put in peanut butter on the road and it goes with the traffic jam.

[00:34:39] I know I love how you spent time on this one.

[00:34:42] Seriously, I've picked through like I was like, no,

[00:34:44] if that one's not good enough, I said I'm in this one.

[00:34:46] But 365 days of dad jokes.

[00:34:49] And I don't think I've overlapped yet.

[00:34:51] But every week I say, I'm going to like mark it off so I don't remember.

[00:34:55] Because I remember not to do it again.

[00:34:57] I'll do a repeat at some point.

[00:34:59] And that was bad.

[00:35:01] That was bad.

[00:35:10] Hey, what's that sound?

[00:35:12] It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp.

[00:35:25] Pop culture talk here, Stomp.

[00:35:27] So the hunt for Gollum is just something new.

[00:35:29] Holy moly. Yeah, apparently it's slated for 2027.

[00:35:35] Andy Serkis is teaming up with Peter Jackson,

[00:35:38] the whole crew from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[00:35:41] And apparently this is a fan film that's based upon the

[00:35:47] what was it?

[00:35:48] Not the anecdotes, but the notes in the Lord of the Rings,

[00:35:52] the ancillary notes.

[00:35:54] And it takes place between Bilbo's 111th birthday to when

[00:36:03] Aragorn comes back to the Prancing Pony

[00:36:05] somewhere in between there.

[00:36:07] But this is exciting.

[00:36:08] It's obviously it's like, what, 20, 30 years later?

[00:36:12] But we have some new stuff coming.

[00:36:15] Yeah, and these are always interesting to me because you've

[00:36:18] essentially like Tolkien, like essentially he died

[00:36:23] and left like a ton of like notes and scribbles and all the stuff.

[00:36:28] And his son, Christopher, essentially.

[00:36:30] So Christopher Tolkien spent his entire life

[00:36:33] trying to catalogue and publish.

[00:36:37] He did a great job.

[00:36:39] The notes. Yeah, exactly.

[00:36:40] So most of this stuff is, you know, and I think I don't

[00:36:43] the thing I don't know and I think a lot of people don't know

[00:36:46] is, you know, did Christopher ever take it upon himself

[00:36:48] to add to these notes to try to flesh them out?

[00:36:50] And I don't know enough.

[00:36:51] I haven't done enough research on it to know for sure.

[00:36:56] But yeah, I mean, these things are up for interpretation.

[00:37:00] But J.R.R. Tolkien, like he never really fleshed the story out.

[00:37:02] But yeah, it sounds like they're going to they're going to take it

[00:37:05] and run with it.

[00:37:05] But when you look at the actually the way they did the movies too,

[00:37:08] like there was a lot of stuff that they skipped or that they they

[00:37:13] they enhanced that wasn't in the book.

[00:37:14] So hopefully it'll be good.

[00:37:16] Yeah, I'm curious to see if Aragorn, but I wonder if he'll come back.

[00:37:20] Like it like again, he's 30 years older now.

[00:37:23] Yeah, it'd be interesting.

[00:37:24] We'll see.

[00:37:26] You know, and then just want to give a shout out

[00:37:28] to the Tom Brady roast on Netflix.

[00:37:30] It's been a long time, Stomp, that I've sat down and laughed

[00:37:34] for like three hours straight.

[00:37:35] I couldn't believe it.

[00:37:37] Yeah, yeah, I became a bro for that night for a change.

[00:37:41] It was really funny.

[00:37:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:45] Even me know that not real money talk that one.

[00:37:49] They're talking about like Tom falling for the Bitcoin scam

[00:37:52] and Gronk's response.

[00:37:53] Oh, it's dying.

[00:37:54] Yeah, it was great. Fantastic.

[00:37:56] Yeah.

[00:37:57] Yeah. All right, Stomp,

[00:37:59] you've been doing some stuff on social media.

[00:38:00] So you're on.

[00:38:02] So X is that's that's what they call Twitter now, right?

[00:38:05] Is Twitter's changed X?

[00:38:06] Yeah, it's the new Twitter.

[00:38:08] It's just a new name.

[00:38:09] But there's I was just thinking and we can flush it out and develop it.

[00:38:12] But I was thinking that their live, they call it spaces,

[00:38:17] but their live spaces

[00:38:20] app within the platform is phenomenal for just instant communication.

[00:38:24] So we could fire up a spaces

[00:38:27] and then anybody that would want to just chime in and chat with us

[00:38:31] about whatever can do so without any gear or anything.

[00:38:35] You just need your microphone.

[00:38:37] So I was thinking like, hmm, maybe we could do like

[00:38:39] maybe like a hiking debrief or something intermittently

[00:38:43] and have people just live chatting with us.

[00:38:46] It wouldn't be part of the show on the podcast,

[00:38:49] but it would just be posted on that site.

[00:38:51] I was thinking of some different ways to incorporate some other

[00:38:57] hiking stories from listeners that may not do the notable thing or whatever.

[00:39:02] So, yeah, yeah, I'm doing some research about it.

[00:39:05] Could go terribly wrong here.

[00:39:07] Possibly mean I have to I have to like

[00:39:08] do I need to like create a Twitter account or something?

[00:39:10] Um, yeah, I think you might have to.

[00:39:13] Yeah, I think you would have to.

[00:39:15] Are you are you against that?

[00:39:17] No, I'm not against it.

[00:39:18] I just have it like, I don't know, like the whole

[00:39:20] social media stuff I've been trying to avoid.

[00:39:22] But oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:39:23] Maybe we'll see if you can log into the account.

[00:39:26] Let's just start with that.

[00:39:28] OK, yeah, I think that might be good.

[00:39:29] And like, I think so.

[00:39:30] It sounds like Twitter is not going to disappear.

[00:39:32] Like the last I heard, like everyone's like, oh, it's going to fall apart.

[00:39:34] But it sounds like it's it's it's good.

[00:39:36] Yeah. And the space thing is really impressive.

[00:39:40] It's really cool.

[00:39:41] Yeah. So we have a first sponsor here, correct?

[00:39:45] Yes. 48 Peaks Alzheimer's.

[00:39:47] Use your passion for hiking to help end Alzheimer's in one collective effort.

[00:39:52] Four hundred plus hikers will climb

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[00:39:59] The annual hiker celebration will take place Saturday,

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[00:40:27] You can get stickers at ski fanatics.

[00:40:30] Speaking of stickers, we'll probably bring a bunch of stuff

[00:40:32] to that reckless show there.

[00:40:34] So if anybody wants stuff, just come over to the tent.

[00:40:38] But yes, stickers are at ski fanatics in Campton or Spinners

[00:40:44] Pizza Paula down off of Dascombe Road in Andover, Massachusetts.

[00:40:48] And the bonfire shops up with a bunch of swag.

[00:40:51] If you want to get some shirts and sweatshirts,

[00:40:54] they're still selling pretty well.

[00:40:56] We've got a whole bunch of them sold, which is super cool.

[00:41:00] And we have another sponsor.

[00:41:04] We'll just get through a couple of these here.

[00:41:06] C.S. Coffee podcast is supported by C.S.

[00:41:09] Instant Coffee, makers of premium compostable coffee.

[00:41:13] It's straightforward and eco-friendly, perfect for anyone

[00:41:16] who loves the outdoors as much as we do.

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[00:41:21] And here's a little bonus for our listeners.

[00:41:23] If you want a free sticker, just shoot them an email at info

[00:41:26] at C.S. Instant coffee.

[00:41:29] And that's www.C.S.

[00:41:32] Instant coffee.

[00:41:35] Very cool, very cool.

[00:41:37] I'm assuming you're not drinking any beer, right?

[00:41:39] Yeah, stop. This is the part of the show

[00:41:41] where we usually talk about what beer we're drinking,

[00:41:43] but I just have water.

[00:41:45] And then I'm assuming it's Saturday afternoon and, you know,

[00:41:50] you're not a big boozer other than like once in a while.

[00:41:53] So I'm assuming you're just drinking coffee or water.

[00:41:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:41:56] I just got off of the ridge.

[00:41:57] So I'm trying to rehydrate with some of those

[00:41:59] non noon tablets and tablets and water.

[00:42:04] So yeah, nothing at the moment.

[00:42:06] All right. Well, this is the part of the show

[00:42:08] where we do recent hikes.

[00:42:09] So I haven't gone.

[00:42:10] I was on the bell naps last weekend and then with Mother's Day weekend

[00:42:13] and just not feeling well, I'm not getting out this weekend.

[00:42:17] So Stomp luckily has been on fire lately.

[00:42:21] So we've got Rankonia Ridge you talked about, Welch-Dickey,

[00:42:26] Red Hill Fire Tower and then Table Rock.

[00:42:29] Stomp, you already did Black Mountain.

[00:42:30] We went through that one before.

[00:42:32] So you had that on the list.

[00:42:33] Yeah, I've done it since then again, but I just.

[00:42:36] We did it twice.

[00:42:37] Yeah, I've been hitting it after work.

[00:42:38] It's just quick and easy just to get there.

[00:42:42] So I've done a lot of Welch-Dickey, a lot of Black Mountain just for exercise.

[00:42:46] But the big ones.

[00:42:48] Yeah, Mr. Stomp and I went out to Red Hill Fire Tower,

[00:42:50] did that counterclockwise.

[00:42:52] And that's I believe that's Center Harbor, New Hampshire.

[00:42:56] And it's just a panoramic 360 view when you get to the top of this place.

[00:43:01] And it's a two mile hike up either way you go

[00:43:04] counterclockwise or clockwise.

[00:43:06] But the view is stunning from the tower.

[00:43:08] And at each corner of the tower, they list out what you're looking at

[00:43:12] on different boards so you can see pretty much everything.

[00:43:16] It's amazing. Great place.

[00:43:20] Bugs are nasty, though.

[00:43:22] Bugs are so nasty, dude.

[00:43:24] Oh, I swallowed.

[00:43:25] I swallowed a gnat. That was fun.

[00:43:28] I hate that.

[00:43:30] Are you using anything?

[00:43:31] You get bug spray?

[00:43:32] Not yet. Like today, there was nothing.

[00:43:35] You know, it's just hit or miss right now, just based on the temperature.

[00:43:38] Depends on how warm it is.

[00:43:40] Yeah, so before that, she and I actually did

[00:43:45] that table rock thing and oh my God, that was hilarious.

[00:43:49] We just had a nice opportunity to get to get up there

[00:43:52] up in the Balsams.

[00:43:54] That hotel is pretty wild.

[00:43:56] Very cool spot.

[00:43:57] So this is for the listeners.

[00:43:59] This is a terrifying 25.

[00:44:01] It's a

[00:44:03] short a hike, but it's up in Dixville Notch and it's that

[00:44:06] people have seen it.

[00:44:07] I'm sure it's gives that panoramic or that view down into that

[00:44:11] classic New England

[00:44:15] Grand Hotel Resort.

[00:44:16] Yeah, Grand Hotel view.

[00:44:18] And it's really like it's an amazing place,

[00:44:20] particularly in the fall to go check out.

[00:44:22] But it just is like this ledge that you walk out and then you

[00:44:25] what do you think?

[00:44:26] It's like probably at least a thousand foot drop if you go over the edge.

[00:44:29] Right. Yeah, yeah, at least.

[00:44:31] It's terrifying.

[00:44:32] I mean, the trail was muddy as hell going on the way up there.

[00:44:35] And there was a lot actually a lot of trash.

[00:44:38] And I'm assuming that was from the eclipse, the totality,

[00:44:40] because I hear that place was just swamped with people.

[00:44:45] Yeah. So that was a bummer.

[00:44:47] But the view was wild.

[00:44:49] I couldn't get anywhere near the edge.

[00:44:52] I just was so sick to my stomach.

[00:44:55] And Mrs. Tom was just like, yeah, no problem.

[00:44:58] And the rock for soaked.

[00:45:01] I got to say, I'm there.

[00:45:02] I'm concerned about your marriage because of this stuff,

[00:45:05] because I mean, the dynamic of her just waltzing right out there.

[00:45:10] No problem. And then you were like, I mean, she must have had the ick.

[00:45:15] She has to look at you and been like, you know, oh,

[00:45:17] he's sort of not manly for not being able to go out there.

[00:45:21] I was like, oh, no, this is not good.

[00:45:23] Like, stop showing real weakness here.

[00:45:25] It's very strange dynamic because on the way down,

[00:45:29] she was basically butt sliding on just wet granite and mud

[00:45:33] because she's terrified of walking down trails that are slippery.

[00:45:37] So it's just this weird dynamic.

[00:45:40] So you both you both had your moments and then you both shine.

[00:45:43] So hopefully you just made a pact to just even it out at this point.

[00:45:47] But right. Yeah.

[00:45:49] You could have gone on a little bit stop.

[00:45:52] I got within probably 20 feet, but I couldn't go beyond that.

[00:45:56] It was just the arms of death were surrounding me

[00:46:01] and calling me ever closer.

[00:46:03] When you get out on that ledge, it literally drops left and right down to nothing.

[00:46:08] You've seen it.

[00:46:09] Yeah. You know, it's weird is when you get out there like for me,

[00:46:11] like I can go out, but for whatever reason,

[00:46:15] like I need to kind of drop close to the ground,

[00:46:17] like standing straight up and going out like I start to get dizzy.

[00:46:20] Oh, yeah. I don't see everything around me.

[00:46:22] But if I get lower and kind of like I don't want to say I crawled out,

[00:46:26] but I was sort of like I would have to do this section in there

[00:46:29] where you can drop down into a crevice that you're sort of at like

[00:46:33] waste with some of the rocks and then you can kind of make your way

[00:46:37] across to the end on your knees.

[00:46:39] That seems to be a little bit more comfortable to me,

[00:46:41] but like I don't know about walking right out there on the edge.

[00:46:44] No, thanks.

[00:46:45] I actually bushwhacked down to a little sub cliff just north of it.

[00:46:49] I saw that.

[00:46:50] That was pretty cool.

[00:46:51] And that's like more of my cup of tea for sure.

[00:46:53] I could handle that.

[00:46:55] But now you're not getting me up there.

[00:46:57] No, thanks.

[00:46:58] Yeah, well, Stomp's a wimp.

[00:47:00] So now we know.

[00:47:01] Yeah. And then finally, Frank Ridge today, I just I started

[00:47:04] I pulled a mic like super early five thirty.

[00:47:06] I was out the door.

[00:47:08] I got on trail by six thirty.

[00:47:10] Is there any cars in the parking lot?

[00:47:11] There was one other car that was idling and that was it.

[00:47:15] So I started those.

[00:47:16] I saw nobody up Falling Waters, nobody across the actual ridge.

[00:47:21] So our one trail runner coming as I was coming down.

[00:47:24] And then I actually bumped into Eric Hansen, our recent guest,

[00:47:27] as he was coming up.

[00:47:28] So that was pretty cool.

[00:47:30] But it was just a beautiful day.

[00:47:31] And I was shocked that nobody was out there.

[00:47:32] Like, what the where's everybody?

[00:47:35] And then you went up Falling Waters and then down Old Bridal. Correct.

[00:47:39] Yeah. OK.

[00:47:39] I thought I made pretty good time.

[00:47:41] I felt good.

[00:47:42] They're getting ready to open up Greenleaf Hut,

[00:47:45] doing some renovations and cleaning up the kitchen.

[00:47:47] I noticed that. Oh, by the way, the two hairpins

[00:47:52] as you're descending Greenleaf from the summit of Lafayette are not signed.

[00:47:58] There's no new signage there.

[00:47:59] So I don't know what people are talking about, but I have pictures.

[00:48:03] I'm planning on maybe posting them just to say like these are the two spots.

[00:48:07] Be careful. Yeah, we've posted those before.

[00:48:10] So what Stomps talking about is essentially like there's been

[00:48:12] multiple incidents where when you're coming down from Lafayette, especially

[00:48:16] like we're coming out, Emily Sotelo, I think, is the one that thinks

[00:48:19] that comes to mind.

[00:48:21] But like basically, if you're coming back down,

[00:48:23] it's very easy to miss this like 90 degree turn on the Greenleaf trail,

[00:48:28] which is right below Lafayette and then continue down into that drainage.

[00:48:32] So I think that there was some discussion around either signage

[00:48:36] or trying to fix that area.

[00:48:38] And maybe there still is something in play.

[00:48:40] But yeah, I think last time I was up there,

[00:48:44] there wasn't much and I got to get back up there soon.

[00:48:46] My friend Felipe wants to go out there.

[00:48:48] So I'm going to try to get up there in the next couple of weeks, hopefully.

[00:48:50] But yeah, you just need to really pay attention when you're going down.

[00:48:55] If you're going down from Lafayette, Greenleaf and if there's

[00:49:00] a low visibility, it's tricky.

[00:49:02] Yeah, no doubt.

[00:49:04] Other than that, there are some new signs they're putting up.

[00:49:07] They're mostly just calling out, you know, be careful for the vegetation.

[00:49:10] I did notice those tall plastic.

[00:49:14] I don't know what they're called, but they're marking out certain areas

[00:49:17] like when you're coming off the summit of Haystack down to down into falling waters.

[00:49:21] There's just those plastic poles that are roped off.

[00:49:25] So, yes, there's several of those that are actually pretty handy

[00:49:28] in bad conditions. Those are new.

[00:49:31] But yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:33] And I think too, that's a good reminder for people that if you've got your dog

[00:49:37] and, you know, I don't judge really that much, but like if you've got your dog

[00:49:40] and they're good off leash dog,

[00:49:42] but they will stray a little bit, then just remember, like once you get up to

[00:49:47] you break above treeline on falling waters, like just put the leash on the dog

[00:49:51] and make sure they're not wandering around those areas.

[00:49:53] Because I have seen that with the dogs will go under those little plastic

[00:49:58] stanchions. Those are called stanchions, Snob.

[00:50:00] OK, yeah, you seem like in the winter to just mark off certain things.

[00:50:05] OK, stanchions. They're trying to regrow that vegetation there.

[00:50:08] So, gotcha.

[00:50:10] All right, stop.

[00:50:11] We got to return for another sponsor here.

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[00:51:21] So that's www.FieldstoneKombuchaCo.com

[00:51:27] Very cool. They're really getting out there in a lot of retail sites.

[00:51:30] Yeah, yeah, it's definitely starting to stick around here, which is great.

[00:51:34] Awesome. Yeah. Awesome.

[00:51:36] So, yeah, we will.

[00:51:38] We'll look forward to continuing to remind people about Fieldstone for sure.

[00:51:43] Yeah.

[00:51:50] It's time for Slasher's Notable Hike of the Week.

[00:51:53] If you want to be considered for the hike of the week,

[00:51:56] simply tag Slasher on your social media post.

[00:52:04] And stop here now.

[00:52:05] We're going to the Notable Listener Hikes of the Week here.

[00:52:08] So we've got a handful.

[00:52:10] Yeah, we got a couple.

[00:52:11] So people can tag Slasher on your hike to be considered for Hike of the Week.

[00:52:15] And this week we have Littlefoot who is out in

[00:52:19] the lower Midwest there, Texas, I guess.

[00:52:21] Guadalupe Peak.

[00:52:23] It's the highest peak in Texas at 8,751 feet.

[00:52:28] So she's out there crushing, crushing peaks.

[00:52:31] Yeah, and there was a good I watched a video on there.

[00:52:33] I'll see if I can pull that for the show.

[00:52:35] So it was interesting, like the terrain up there.

[00:52:37] So it didn't look like a super hard hike, but it looked like a long hike.

[00:52:42] Yeah. Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the area at all, but pictures were cool.

[00:52:47] Let's see. Hiking feeds my soul and Miles the dog completed the Belknap 12.

[00:52:53] Very cool. Jude hikes the whites, hike Pierce.

[00:52:58] Marley Sue was up on Crawford Cliff, Gibs Falls and Mount Pierce.

[00:53:04] And then Gingerbeard pulled off a rainy Squam traverse just recently,

[00:53:08] and Carrie Burrell tagged us for that same trip as well.

[00:53:13] Brady Girl one did Whiteface.

[00:53:16] Sea Gothburg climbed Mount Cardigan.

[00:53:19] And then on another trip, Mount Cube.

[00:53:23] I'm telling you, dude, I got to get out to Cube.

[00:53:25] Those pictures I keep on seeing his in particular.

[00:53:29] It's beautiful out there.

[00:53:30] Cube looks stunning.

[00:53:32] We should do that.

[00:53:35] Yeah, we should do that as an overnight stay at Hexa Cube.

[00:53:37] So we'll talk about that.

[00:53:39] Yeah, it sounds great.

[00:53:40] It reminds me of the ascent up to Algonquin from Sandwich Notch Road.

[00:53:45] Just that untrampled vegetation and it's just beautiful.

[00:53:50] Yeah, I mean, it got knocked off of my top of my list

[00:53:53] because of the the undercast that I experienced on Madison and Adams

[00:53:57] this winter. But like before that, the undercast that I saw on Mount Cube

[00:54:01] with my buddy Tom was like the best undercast I've ever seen in the White.

[00:54:04] So that like northern summit area.

[00:54:07] Yeah, it's unbelievable.

[00:54:09] That's awesome.

[00:54:10] Okie dokie. So a couple more.

[00:54:11] So Lauren Sampson, 54, hiked Pierce and Eisenhower

[00:54:16] for 11 and 12 for the New Hampshire 48.

[00:54:19] Jakester D2 hiked Mount Metre trail to Eagle Crag,

[00:54:25] Wild River Trail to Basin Trail, then out Cold River Campground.

[00:54:29] That's quite the adventure this time of year, wouldn't you say?

[00:54:32] Yeah, yeah. Jake and Peter went out there.

[00:54:35] They invited me, but I couldn't make it just because I had some other plans.

[00:54:38] And yeah, he said that it was it was pretty easy going in the beginning,

[00:54:43] but then they hit some deep snow.

[00:54:45] So slow going even with snowshoes.

[00:54:47] I can imagine that's another area you got to watch out for.

[00:54:50] Boreal Badass hiked Algonquin trail via Sandwich Dome

[00:54:56] as well via the Algonquin.

[00:54:58] So he was one that told us that Sandwich Notch Road is open.

[00:55:01] And I guess his report is that there was a ton of blowdowns.

[00:55:06] You know, it's to be expected.

[00:55:09] Cut more Megs 0682 did Mount Kiersage and then Folk Star.

[00:55:14] That's a new name for us.

[00:55:16] Hiked Mount Wambach, Star King and South Weeks.

[00:55:19] So thanks for tagging us, everybody.

[00:55:21] What do you think, Mike? Who's the winner?

[00:55:23] So I'm going to go with Carrie and Gingerbeard doing the Squam Traverse.

[00:55:28] And the reason I'm going with this one, you know,

[00:55:31] I know a couple of other people like Tim had been on that trail as well

[00:55:35] on that hike as well.

[00:55:36] So I know some of the folks and I just think back to our attempt

[00:55:39] Stomple movement on a similar day.

[00:55:41] Yeah, kind of like the same vibe where it was like a tough

[00:55:46] it was tough going in the like sort of rainy, dreary weather.

[00:55:49] And we actually went out and bailed out.

[00:55:51] So I think shout out for them for sticking through it the whole way.

[00:55:54] So that's why I give it to them.

[00:55:55] That's a that's a lot of ups and downs.

[00:55:58] And it's a much more challenging hike than people would assume on the Squam range.

[00:56:02] Yeah, for sure. All right.

[00:56:04] Cool. Congrats. Nice work.

[00:56:05] Congrats. All right.

[00:56:07] So stop this is now we're going to move into

[00:56:09] you've already hyped up this interview is the greatest thing ever.

[00:56:11] So hopefully the listeners will agree.

[00:56:13] But I got a chance.

[00:56:15] So well, Stomp and I got a chance to meet with meet on Gail Sherpa

[00:56:20] at the AMC 4000 footer celebration.

[00:56:25] And I actually bought a hat off of him, which it's really cool.

[00:56:28] Matter of fact, the only thing I'm bummed out about is that it's too warm

[00:56:32] to wear like a nice warm hat like I have now.

[00:56:34] But I'm excited for the winter.

[00:56:36] But on Gail was born and raised in Nepal as a Sherpa,

[00:56:40] whereas entire family worked in the trekking and mountaineering profession.

[00:56:45] He is the owner of US Sherpa, where they produce functional,

[00:56:49] natural fiber products handcrafted in Nepal for the active,

[00:56:54] carrying an outdoor lifestyle, which directly creates jobs

[00:56:57] and income for the Nepalese communities.

[00:57:01] In addition to producing and distributing these products,

[00:57:04] US Sherpa also offers guiding services in Nepal.

[00:57:07] So we'll talk about some of the treks and the dynamic

[00:57:11] about getting over there if you're a Westerner and you want to climb.

[00:57:14] And just to give people like a little bit of a spoiler,

[00:57:17] we talk a lot about like, you know, Mount Everest is not the end all be all.

[00:57:20] There's a lot going on over there where that doesn't involve Mount Everest

[00:57:24] that you can do and see. And it's amazing.

[00:57:26] So, you know, open up your mind a little bit when you listen to this.

[00:57:31] But yeah, he basically offers services for trekkers,

[00:57:34] mountaineers and cultural tourists who want to experience authentic journeys.

[00:57:39] On Gail lives in South Burlington, Vermont with his wife.

[00:57:42] They met in college.

[00:57:43] She's got an eight year old daughter and a five year old son.

[00:57:46] He continues to travel.

[00:57:47] Matter of fact, he was on his way out to Nepal, I think,

[00:57:51] right after I had spoken with him.

[00:57:54] So he's I think traveling right now, but he essentially does

[00:57:57] at least one trip every year for sourcing products,

[00:58:00] helping to guide trips and meeting with family members and friends.

[00:58:03] So really interesting discussion and stuff like that.

[00:58:06] The stuff that I didn't cover with him, like we definitely have to get him

[00:58:09] back in at some point. But this is like this is like a taste of it.

[00:58:13] If you ever want to know what it's like to be a Sherpa in Nepal,

[00:58:16] he's going to give you the whole breakdown.

[00:58:18] So let's let's get into it.

[00:58:19] All right. Here we go.

[00:58:21] Be loopy.

[00:58:39] It's time for Slashers guest of the week.

[00:58:42] Very cool. Very cool.

[00:58:54] All right, on Gail.

[00:58:55] So welcome to the Slasher podcast.

[00:58:57] Have you ever done a podcast before, by the way?

[00:59:00] No, no. All right.

[00:59:02] So new experience for you. Yes.

[00:59:06] All right. So for the listeners, I have got a radio,

[00:59:09] you know, just a radio, but that's it.

[00:59:12] OK, great. Well, for the listeners,

[00:59:15] we had talked about this, I think, like two or three episodes before,

[00:59:17] but we met on Gail at the AMC Awards.

[00:59:22] You were at a table like kind of diagonal from us and

[00:59:25] immediately, like I was looking at your products.

[00:59:27] He owns an apparel in a in a guide company

[00:59:31] based out of Vermont that sells Nepal based products.

[00:59:36] So I had I had bought a hat that I've been wearing around the house.

[00:59:40] So it's so very comfortable.

[00:59:41] And then we wanted to just connect and have you come on,

[00:59:44] because we thought that the audience would be interested in your story.

[00:59:47] Yeah. Yeah, it was really great meeting you, Mike,

[00:59:52] and your team at the AMC event.

[00:59:58] Yeah, it was I had first heard about your podcast

[01:00:04] through a friend of mine from my hiking group, Dan Vanderbilt.

[01:00:11] And you know, it was really cool to see right there

[01:00:15] in front of, you know, the table. Yeah.

[01:00:18] Yeah. Yeah. So I appreciate you coming on.

[01:00:20] I guess we're going to talk about your background,

[01:00:23] how you came to come to the United States.

[01:00:25] We'll talk about your company and all that fun stuff.

[01:00:27] But the first thing I want to ask you is

[01:00:29] I've always had this question about so you come from Nepal,

[01:00:32] where everybody knows sort of Mount Everest and the Himalayas

[01:00:35] and things like that.

[01:00:36] And then the Sherpa people people are known as the,

[01:00:40] you know, the couriers and the guides

[01:00:42] that help a lot of Western climbers.

[01:00:45] The question I have for you, and I've never dug into this, is

[01:00:48] typically when you introduce yourself.

[01:00:50] So your name is on Gail is your first name,

[01:00:52] as we would think of it in the West.

[01:00:54] And then you go by the last name Sherpa.

[01:00:56] But all Sherpas seem to use Sherpa as their last name.

[01:01:01] So I'm curious in Nepal, how do you

[01:01:04] because I'm just thinking in terms of sort of how we

[01:01:07] handle names in the West.

[01:01:08] I know it's different in many different areas, but

[01:01:11] how do you if everybody's last name is Sherpa,

[01:01:14] how do you differentiate family connections and

[01:01:19] and if people have the same first names,

[01:01:21] I'm curious about how that works.

[01:01:23] Yeah. So Sherpas are the literal, literal or direct meaning of Sherpa is

[01:01:32] Eastern people, Eastern people, so people from the East.

[01:01:37] So that's really the origin.

[01:01:40] So they actually the right word is Sherwa.

[01:01:45] Sherwa. OK.

[01:01:48] Now, so Sherpas are this ethnic group of people

[01:01:53] who originally they came from Eastern Tibet.

[01:01:59] So their origin was Eastern Tibet.

[01:02:03] And they crossed the Himalayas,

[01:02:06] the pass that's between Tibet and Nepal.

[01:02:11] And most of them came from this pass called Nangpala Pass.

[01:02:17] So that was kind of the how a lot of these Sherpas came inside Nepal.

[01:02:24] And a lot of them ended up

[01:02:27] living in places like the Everest region of Nepal.

[01:02:31] Right. So somehow, you know, they like the

[01:02:36] the mountains, you know, some of it

[01:02:41] also have to do with their belief system, like the religion.

[01:02:47] So, you know, there is that Tibetan Buddhism associated with it as well.

[01:02:56] And then, yes, you are correct.

[01:02:59] There are Sherpas, right?

[01:03:02] With many of them, I would say there is probably maybe

[01:03:09] 100,000. It is very it is an indigenous group.

[01:03:15] OK, so it's one of those kind of rare, you know, it's slowly it's kind of.

[01:03:21] So but yeah, and so they all have you are right.

[01:03:26] You know, the first name can be also same and last name can be same.

[01:03:30] And really, you know, how you kind of distinguish is oftentimes

[01:03:35] you want to find out where they are from, like their village.

[01:03:40] Right. So that's a kind of great way to, you know, know.

[01:03:44] Oh, OK. And then they end up, you know,

[01:03:48] the making that connection.

[01:03:50] Oh, like, yeah, I know your dad's friend, uncle were, you know,

[01:03:55] and because it's such a smaller again, that small community.

[01:04:00] Yes. Yeah. That's that answer.

[01:04:02] So it sounds like then like the population is not big enough

[01:04:07] for you to necessarily need to distinguish last names

[01:04:11] as long as you can establish the geographic region where the person's located.

[01:04:16] So, yeah, yeah, it is.

[01:04:18] Yeah, definitely.

[01:04:20] You know, and and, you know, also the fact that,

[01:04:24] you know, they when they left Tibet and then came in Nepal, right?

[01:04:29] Again, you know, most of them were living

[01:04:33] in places like the Solukumbu district, which is the where

[01:04:39] these national park is when people go trekking, hiking,

[01:04:43] mountaineering, Sagar Matha National Park.

[01:04:46] That's where it is located.

[01:04:49] And, you know, some so most of them

[01:04:53] primarily lived in the mountain Himalayan

[01:04:58] villages and things like that.

[01:05:00] And over the years, they kind of, you know, migrated or went to different places.

[01:05:05] Yeah. Got it.

[01:05:06] Now, your your story is interesting.

[01:05:08] So you grew up in Nepal in your early days.

[01:05:11] Can you can you talk to us a little bit about like, you know, growing up

[01:05:15] in Nepal and then you were able to,

[01:05:19] I think, come to the United States as a young person and go to college here.

[01:05:24] So can you can you tell the listeners a little bit about your story?

[01:05:28] Sure. Yeah.

[01:05:30] So growing up in Sherpa household

[01:05:34] in my family's case,

[01:05:38] my family is from the Kumjung area, which is the

[01:05:43] village that is on the route to

[01:05:46] base camp and Everest and some of these big peak, the Himalayan peaks.

[01:05:52] So I grew up in the Sherpa where our family worked in

[01:05:57] primarily in trekking and mountaineering profession.

[01:06:01] Right. Where pretty much, you know, my grandfather worked in the

[01:06:06] trekking and mountaineering profession that later my dad.

[01:06:11] So I, you know, so having that

[01:06:15] kind of background, I didn't know much in terms of where I would end up,

[01:06:22] you know, down the road.

[01:06:24] But really, you know, in the case with Nepal,

[01:06:28] the job, right, it really, you know, the opportunities for jobs and things like that.

[01:06:35] So trekking them that the tourism plays a huge role.

[01:06:41] You know, many people, you know, in my case with my parents,

[01:06:46] they never had an education.

[01:06:50] So then, you know, oftentimes people there, right,

[01:06:54] they learn by doing, you know, they, you know, my case with my dad,

[01:06:59] like, you know, not knowing, you know,

[01:07:03] English or even, you know, yeah, he spoke Nepalese, but

[01:07:07] he could, you know, he never went to even a first grade school in Nepal.

[01:07:13] And then, you know, again, like getting a job in trekking.

[01:07:16] So where my dad and mom both worked as a porter, you know.

[01:07:22] So they kind of built that and slowly.

[01:07:26] And, you know, so the way when, you know, I went to school in Kathmandu

[01:07:32] and for them, for giving us that opportunity to go to school,

[01:07:38] you know, so that in a sense, they kind of like, you know,

[01:07:41] we really had nothing.

[01:07:43] And so I got that opportunity to go to school

[01:07:48] and I started going trekking with my father

[01:07:53] and then later with other agency trekking outfitter.

[01:08:00] You know, and seeing that really, you know, and for me, it was a job.

[01:08:04] OK, so like back then, same thing.

[01:08:06] It was a job for my dad, you know, like.

[01:08:10] And how old were you when you started

[01:08:12] doing the actual work to to to be?

[01:08:16] I want to say, yeah, like 16, 15.

[01:08:22] And so that, you know, so getting that again,

[01:08:28] you know, it was a job and building that experience

[01:08:33] and learning about it kind of, you know,

[01:08:38] then I'm like, you know, I want to be independent, you know,

[01:08:42] and I don't want, you know, my parents to worry about me

[01:08:50] because again, you know, by then, you know, in Nepal,

[01:08:55] by 15, 16, you know, things are different now.

[01:08:59] But back then, you are somewhat a man, you know,

[01:09:04] and you got to go work and make money.

[01:09:07] So there is a lot of that kind of, you know, cultural.

[01:09:12] There is that pressure.

[01:09:13] So and, you know, I kind of started like really,

[01:09:18] like, you know, again, I want to be able to support myself.

[01:09:22] The last thing I want is my parents, you know,

[01:09:25] having to bring enough money for our whole family.

[01:09:28] I should be able to take care of myself the least.

[01:09:31] And when you start working with these outfitters,

[01:09:33] do they give you obviously there's not like a formal training,

[01:09:37] but do they give you a rundown on how you're expected to interact with the clients?

[01:09:42] And I'm assuming you get a mix of clients like you'll get Western climbers,

[01:09:46] you'll get climbers from India, you'll get climbers from Japan, China, whatever.

[01:09:51] Do they give you like a rundown to say like, hey,

[01:09:53] this is how you're expected to be act around these folks?

[01:09:56] Yeah. So generally,

[01:09:59] so they have a different level of interaction, right?

[01:10:06] So depending on what your ranking is, right.

[01:10:10] So then, yes.

[01:10:11] So if I were to work as, you know, basic Sherpa guide or assistant,

[01:10:18] then I'm going to be supervised or there is somebody,

[01:10:22] you know, higher above me that I'm supposed to report to that person.

[01:10:27] So he essentially is the person like say, hey, these are the yes.

[01:10:32] And they will give us that overview or duties like these are what you are expected to do.

[01:10:40] And then it kind of follows, right.

[01:10:44] So oftentimes again, that they would have, right.

[01:10:49] Porter, right.

[01:10:50] So you got Porter and then you have kitchen staff on other title ranking.

[01:10:56] And then you have Sherpa and then you have Cook.

[01:11:00] Then you have some time, you know,

[01:11:04] multiple Sherpas depending on the size of the group.

[01:11:07] And then also to, you know, Cook also is pretty high level like up there.

[01:11:13] And then you have they call Sardar.

[01:11:16] Sardar is like the main leader.

[01:11:20] Yeah. So yeah.

[01:11:23] And then how did you how did it come to be that you

[01:11:26] ended up with the opportunity to come to the United States?

[01:11:31] Yes. So super, super wild, you know, like how I ended up in the US.

[01:11:39] You know, so, you know, by 16, 17, I was really again, you know, OK.

[01:11:46] I think for me, you know, going abroad, right, is going to be the big

[01:11:53] thing that's going to really change, you know, my life and, you know,

[01:11:58] and I was trying to find it, you know, again.

[01:12:01] Yes, the trekking mountaineering job is seasonal over there.

[01:12:05] You can do quite well with that job.

[01:12:09] But again, you know, when you are starting out, it's not easy.

[01:12:14] And so, yes, you have a job, you get some

[01:12:19] group signed up and then you go in spring season and in fall.

[01:12:24] But for me, you know, and then I was like, you know, going abroad

[01:12:29] is going to be, you know, what I would really in a sense, I kind of wanted that.

[01:12:36] And US was on my top list, like, you know, like dream country.

[01:12:44] But, you know, I didn't know that many people from US,

[01:12:49] you know, working with as I was there, people from England,

[01:12:53] France, Germany, Japanese, but not many Americans.

[01:13:00] And yet then I met this doctor and climber.

[01:13:09] Also, he's a humanitarian doctor, Jeff Tabin.

[01:13:14] He had submitted Everest in 1988 with one of my uncles,

[01:13:20] again, who worked as a Sherpa climber.

[01:13:24] And he had been in the US, I believe, once, you know, through his like help

[01:13:32] sponsorship and then I had kind of heard about this doctor when I was in

[01:13:41] Nepal. And, you know, again, you know, I think by then I still remember a lot

[01:13:48] of these little things. I was, you know, trying to get a job at this hotel

[01:13:52] and, you know, no job, you know, it's like, you know, there will be like

[01:13:57] five jobs opening and 300 people will apply, you know, and either.

[01:14:02] So no, not there. Yeah.

[01:14:05] Yeah. And it's funny you say that, Angel, because I think like that whole

[01:14:08] stress of like you're a young person and you're trying to find, you know, a job

[01:14:13] opportunity. And it seems like it's so competitive.

[01:14:15] Like I feel like that's a universal story, even in the US.

[01:14:18] Like we have, you know, we have that challenge and it can be a dark time.

[01:14:22] And you question yourself and you're like, you know, where am I going to go

[01:14:27] from here if I can't get this job or I'm not going to be successful?

[01:14:30] So it's got to be a dark time.

[01:14:32] Absolutely. And that's exactly, you know, the dark times.

[01:14:35] Like I felt that, you know, again, you know.

[01:14:39] So trying these jobs and not getting any of the jobs.

[01:14:44] And then, you know, I even was, you know, selling posters on the mountain,

[01:14:49] you know, waking up at four in the morning and then go to the peak

[01:14:54] at the summit because that's where people come there to see this amazing

[01:14:59] sunrise. And I'm there, you know, photograph.

[01:15:03] So and really, my hope is like maybe someone would be kind enough to say,

[01:15:09] hey, maybe I'll help you. You know, and I was like, my piece line was,

[01:15:12] can you help me go to, you know, US or Japan or whatever?

[01:15:17] And then, yeah, I applied to go to Japan.

[01:15:23] Right. And I mean, my family, we were very sure

[01:15:30] I would get this job, you know, and where I would go to Japan for a couple of years,

[01:15:35] work as a, you know, the labor job migrant worker or whatever.

[01:15:41] And I was like, wow, you know, they pay quite well.

[01:15:44] I can go there for a couple of years, come back all that.

[01:15:47] But did not go well. Same same story.

[01:15:50] They said we had like 10 openings and you got filled.

[01:15:55] Yeah. I was so crushed, you know, came home.

[01:15:58] I remember pretty much everything is still that was 26 years ago

[01:16:04] and came home. You know, my mom and I had gone there that morning,

[01:16:10] came home and dark times.

[01:16:13] I was literally just super sad, like just depressed.

[01:16:18] And that afternoon, I we had a telephone in Kathmandu

[01:16:24] and at home, the phone rang.

[01:16:27] I happened to pick up the phone call and I spoke English.

[01:16:33] My English was pretty bad.

[01:16:36] However, you know, it was the call from Dr.

[01:16:39] Jeff Tabin, you know, the one who had submitted Everest.

[01:16:42] And he said, oh, we have I brought a small gift for your family,

[01:16:47] you know, from the US.

[01:16:50] Can you come here?

[01:16:51] Pick it up at this hospital where he was working.

[01:16:55] And I understood, I said yes.

[01:16:58] And, you know, I told that to my dad, that what my dad was working

[01:17:03] as a sherpa, you know, getting ready for the upcoming season.

[01:17:07] That meant getting tents ready,

[01:17:11] checking all the cooking equipment, you know, mattress,

[01:17:15] all of the expedition gears.

[01:17:17] And I told him that he almost went on his own.

[01:17:22] However, he changed his mind.

[01:17:25] He came home. He asked me, hey, do you want to go with me?

[01:17:28] I said yes.

[01:17:30] I still remember what I wore that day.

[01:17:33] You know, I was wearing these clothing, like trekking gears

[01:17:37] that I got from this

[01:17:41] clients from England, the shoes, you know, like all

[01:17:44] of like bigger size clothing.

[01:17:47] I went there and the moment I met the doctor, he just was,

[01:17:54] you know, super like energetic.

[01:17:58] He just needed me up.

[01:17:59] He was like, hello, how are you?

[01:18:02] You know, all this and it cheered me up so much.

[01:18:06] And then, yeah, we, you know, as we had this little conversation,

[01:18:10] me and my dad, we asked in a very shy manner, you know,

[01:18:15] you help me America.

[01:18:18] Yeah. And

[01:18:21] and then he asked me a couple of questions, you know,

[01:18:25] can you do this that pretty normal thing?

[01:18:29] Well, and I said, yeah.

[01:18:31] And right then he wrote me a sponsor letter saying

[01:18:36] he's going to help me come to the US.

[01:18:39] And, you know, I just couldn't believe what had just happened.

[01:18:46] So but then also the reality is so.

[01:18:49] So when he so he called your father,

[01:18:52] did you and your father travel to the US to meet him initially?

[01:18:55] That's when you know this is this was all over the phone.

[01:18:58] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:00] So my uncle had been in the US once.

[01:19:03] It wasn't my dad.

[01:19:05] And I had it was my first meeting with him.

[01:19:09] OK. And

[01:19:13] yeah, so it was all happening, you know, that morning

[01:19:17] I got rejected to go to Japan and, you know, US.

[01:19:23] And then I came home, you know, my mom was needing

[01:19:29] right there on the front porch.

[01:19:31] And that's when some of the products, you know, kind of comes to be right.

[01:19:35] Yeah. And, you know, we were just jumping with joy.

[01:19:40] Just like I can't believe this is happening.

[01:19:43] Yeah. And then once you were able to get approved to go to the US,

[01:19:46] then what was the logistics behind that?

[01:19:49] Like I'm assuming he was located in Vermont.

[01:19:52] So that's how you ended up there.

[01:19:54] Yes. So he yeah, it was in Vermont, his family.

[01:19:59] And so I would be helping his family,

[01:20:05] you know, with kids like I would be babysitting or helping as a nanny,

[01:20:09] his daughter and helping cleaning, cooking.

[01:20:14] And for me, you know, that just is like beyond

[01:20:19] like my wildest dream that I have that kind of chance, right?

[01:20:23] Opportunity. Yeah.

[01:20:25] And I came

[01:20:29] yeah, to the US, like not taking flight ever in my life.

[01:20:35] And again, had met this daughter once and I came straight to Burlington, Vermont.

[01:20:41] Wow. And then how big of an adjustment was it for you?

[01:20:47] Oh, huge, you know, it's like so yeah, I was 18 when I left there,

[01:20:53] you know, and, you know, it's really interesting.

[01:20:57] Even when I left there, you know, I was like,

[01:21:02] you know, as all my relatives came to see me say, you know, goodbye,

[01:21:06] you know, in Sherpa culture again, it's very common.

[01:21:09] They are very social in the sense, you know, community, right?

[01:21:14] They all gather for anything like this.

[01:21:17] And, you know, and I still even then when I left there,

[01:21:23] I was like, I'm not coming back until I get what I want.

[01:21:26] You know, I remember one of my aunts saying, OK, go there,

[01:21:30] and come back, OK?

[01:21:31] And I'm just like, you know, I don't think so.

[01:21:36] Then I came here, you know, then the reality is different, right?

[01:21:40] You know, it's almost like sometime makes you want to think,

[01:21:43] you know, be careful what you wish for.

[01:21:46] Yes. Your wish can come true.

[01:21:48] And are you able to write as a young man, you know?

[01:21:52] Yeah. Yeah, you're going to face those dark time moments again

[01:21:55] where you're like, OK, where am I going to earn income and things like that?

[01:21:58] But it sounds like you settled in.

[01:22:00] Eventually, you ended up enrolling in college and then meeting your wife

[01:22:06] and settling in.

[01:22:08] Can you, before you get into that piece of it, my background is,

[01:22:13] so I work with a lot of people in India and there's cultural

[01:22:17] differences between the US and India.

[01:22:19] And I think the way I describe it is that the US from a hierarchy

[01:22:25] perspective, like it's, you know, I have no problem having a

[01:22:28] conversation with the CEO of the company and giving my opinion or,

[01:22:32] you know, a doctor.

[01:22:33] I have no problem sort of interacting with them directly.

[01:22:36] In India, it's more of a hierarchy.

[01:22:39] So if somebody has a higher title than you or a higher status than you,

[01:22:43] then you're not as always open or free to discuss that.

[01:22:46] So I'm assuming you, I'm assuming Nepal is similar to that.

[01:22:49] And guessing you might have struggled with that a little bit to say,

[01:22:53] like, all right, well, I can be on the same level as this doctor

[01:22:56] who brought me over here and I can give him my opinion freely without,

[01:23:01] and I'm assuming it probably took you a long time to adjust to that.

[01:23:04] Oh yeah, totally.

[01:23:05] You know, and that's a really great point.

[01:23:08] Like, you know, so for me, you know, imagine, right?

[01:23:11] Like the, you know, I was, you know, taught, right?

[01:23:15] Again, you asked me earlier about, you know, for job in the trekking

[01:23:21] and mountaineering, the overview, different ranking, you know,

[01:23:25] and there is no, you know, it's like you have to earn it, right?

[01:23:30] You have to go, like you have to be out there, right?

[01:23:35] And then kind of build your reputation.

[01:23:37] And then so they don't just teach you, you know, here you have like job description,

[01:23:43] you know, they'll say, okay, these are the tasks you're going to do.

[01:23:48] So over there, like, so it takes a, you know, like somebody then will kind of

[01:23:54] mentor you, like kind of like take you on.

[01:23:58] So it's a very old school, right?

[01:24:01] Very old tradition.

[01:24:03] And for me, yeah, like, you know, having that, having been taught that,

[01:24:10] you know, like I, my role is to serve, you know, the clients,

[01:24:14] Western clients, you eat food after that.

[01:24:17] You always, when you are entering, you know, you have to talk to them softly,

[01:24:23] like always smiling, all of these.

[01:24:26] And then I come here to the U S you know, and I'm like living with the family,

[01:24:33] like being with them on the table.

[01:24:37] So those that's just a little piece, you know, like, you know, now how do you know,

[01:24:44] and here, you know, and there is, you know, plus and minus, right?

[01:24:50] The, you know, I do like that culture of the respect, you know, how, okay,

[01:24:58] you know, kind of like, so, but yeah, it took me definitely a while to understand

[01:25:05] the whole, you know, day to day and even, you know, you may speak English in Nepal,

[01:25:12] but if you, when you come here, it's to understand their daily,

[01:25:18] you know, everybody has their own way of speaking fast, slow.

[01:25:23] So I want to say it took me at least a year just to kind of understand,

[01:25:28] like just to go having a little conversation.

[01:25:32] And so you, you know, you see you ended up like going to college,

[01:25:36] meeting your wife.

[01:25:38] At some point, you had to make a decision around, you know, your career and you took

[01:25:44] the path of becoming an entrepreneur versus what we would typically view in the U.S. as

[01:25:52] maybe the safer path of like, okay, let me find a job where I'm working for a company.

[01:25:59] So you were willing to take that risk.

[01:26:02] And then in addition to that, you found a path where you could give back

[01:26:07] to Nepal from the perspective of your company.

[01:26:11] You basically have like two product lines.

[01:26:14] So the name of the company is U.S. Sherpa and you can check out the products at,

[01:26:19] you know, ussherpa.com is the website.

[01:26:22] So you have, you have two products, essentially, you have apparel products,

[01:26:27] and then you have the trekking services.

[01:26:28] So can you talk about the apparel products to start with?

[01:26:32] And we'll get into trekking services afterwards.

[01:26:35] Yeah, sure.

[01:26:36] So, you know, the whole thing for me is the that opportunity, right?

[01:26:43] How I was given that opportunity.

[01:26:47] And to me, that was once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to come to the U.S.

[01:26:54] and, you know, when I didn't know where I was going to go,

[01:26:58] you know, I just know that, wow, I'm going to my dream country

[01:27:02] and you cannot fail there.

[01:27:05] You cannot fail.

[01:27:06] And then, you know, having that environment where you had this doctor's family,

[01:27:14] you know, who I ended up living with for like four and a half years.

[01:27:19] And this family calls me their son from Nepal.

[01:27:23] And I beyond my wildest dream, I thought that I would be able to go to school here.

[01:27:29] They helped me go to school for a couple of years, high school.

[01:27:35] And then I went to college here for four years.

[01:27:37] So I think, you know, when I felt like I had the sense of responsibility,

[01:27:43] you know, being that like I got, you know, like one out of a million kind of like that,

[01:27:49] you know, of course it came with a lot of hardship, you know, but I stuck to it.

[01:27:54] Right.

[01:27:54] I stopped living with the family, helping around the house,

[01:27:58] going to high school full time, college full time.

[01:28:02] But I got introduced to all these outdoor world, right?

[01:28:07] The out, you know, how the family was super active, you know,

[01:28:12] going hiking every weekend, running, skiing, you know, climbing.

[01:28:18] And I started getting, you know, living with that kind of family.

[01:28:23] I was like just, you know, the whole like, you know,

[01:28:26] you asked me earlier about the culture, how and I'm like, I started seeing opportunities, right?

[01:28:32] Because the doctor was also when I first met him, he was just starting this

[01:28:37] non-profit organization in Nepal where they would partner up with this eye hospital in Nepal.

[01:28:45] And that meant that there were going to be a lot of traveling going back and forth

[01:28:49] between doctors, medical students to Nepal.

[01:28:53] And that meant for me, wow, jobs, jobs, jobs for my family back home,

[01:28:58] for my dad, for my uncle, my nephew, you know, my cousins,

[01:29:02] because they are often like that's what they want.

[01:29:06] You know, they want to have a job.

[01:29:07] They want to be good.

[01:29:08] And so that kind of made me, you know, that whole I'm like, wow, I can't, you know,

[01:29:13] and same thing, you know, and that was a huge part of this U.S. sherpa,

[01:29:18] you know, getting that opportunity living with that family.

[01:29:21] And I started again, the entrepreneurial sense.

[01:29:24] Wow, I want to build this.

[01:29:26] There is a big market, you know, I can open up doors, you know, make Brahman my home,

[01:29:33] again, Nepal my home and help them, you know, this make this travel more organized

[01:29:42] so that they have somebody in Nepal also to help them put together

[01:29:48] and so that and then the handcraft side, right, where the products apparel my

[01:29:57] how that came to be was that, you know, again, back home in Nepal,

[01:30:03] when my dad worked as a Sherpa guide going in the mountains,

[01:30:07] you know, sometimes he would be gone for three months expedition,

[01:30:11] you know, and I like we like he would be gone.

[01:30:14] Like, we don't know, you know, there's no phone, you know,

[01:30:17] and out, hopefully he's good.

[01:30:19] And so then as he went out to make money for the family, my mom did some needing,

[01:30:28] like she would need winter hats and gloves and socks.

[01:30:33] And it was really interesting back then, my mom would get an order from outfitter,

[01:30:39] right, that tracking expedition outfitter, they would say, oh, you know, we have 20

[01:30:45] people coming for this fall to go to tracking.

[01:30:49] And we're going to need, you know, 40 steps for that.

[01:30:52] And we need to have warm hat and warm socks.

[01:30:56] And my mom were making essentially these products for my dad, you know,

[01:31:03] so, you know, that and then seeing that here, I started seeing, wow,

[01:31:08] in Vermont, you know, people like these kind of products,

[01:31:11] you know, like these hats and gloves.

[01:31:14] And so that really was kind of my big, you know, like, okay, I can connect,

[01:31:21] you know, Nepal and Vermont through these, like the trips.

[01:31:25] And so that's kind of really how we started, Mike, like, you know, I was, yes.

[01:31:31] Yeah, it makes sense.

[01:31:31] And so just for the listeners, so the apparel products, and these are actually,

[01:31:37] they're very reasonably priced.

[01:31:40] Look, I got four women in my house and I already showed them the, you know,

[01:31:45] I showed them the hat that I bought at the AMC.

[01:31:47] I've shown them like the bags and the wraps.

[01:31:50] So there's hand or like shoulder bags.

[01:31:54] And then there's wraps, what we would call them, you know, potentially scarves as well.

[01:31:58] And usually like the price range for these is like, you know,

[01:32:01] in the mid 40s to mid 50s, maybe $60 for product.

[01:32:05] And then you've got headbands and hats for hiking.

[01:32:09] I mean, I actually, I have a hat, but I actually am going to get a headband too,

[01:32:12] because I prefer the headbands when you go hiking, because you can just pull it down

[01:32:16] around your neck if you get too hot and then put it back up.

[01:32:19] And then there's socks, slippers and mittens.

[01:32:23] And then you've got a felt collection.

[01:32:25] So these are all, these are all made in Nepal and then shipped here to the US.

[01:32:30] Yeah, all made in Nepal.

[01:32:33] So again, you know, going back as I started going to high school, even in high school,

[01:32:40] you know, I started selling products, right?

[01:32:43] You know, I would have some of the again, you know,

[01:32:45] some of the folks who went to Nepal, you know, I, you know,

[01:32:48] back then I would use a calling card and say, hey, can you send this, you know,

[01:32:53] and, you know, the guest who went trekking or stayed at my family's home estate,

[01:32:58] they would bring a small, you know, this or that.

[01:33:01] And I would kind of go around and they started selling.

[01:33:04] And so then after I graduated, I went to Chaplin College in Vermont.

[01:33:11] And then after I graduated, you know, the senior year of my high school was when I really

[01:33:18] started like saying, okay, I want to start a business.

[01:33:21] I want to build this business and did this project in my senior year.

[01:33:27] By the way, like we'll have you back on in the future.

[01:33:30] Just like the experience of a kid from Nepal going to like US high school,

[01:33:35] it's going to be crazy.

[01:33:38] We don't have that much time, but we'll get into that in the future, I think.

[01:33:41] But the stories you must, it's like dropping like,

[01:33:44] you know, somebody out of space into a new planet or something.

[01:33:47] Oh yeah. Yeah. Like going to grocery, you know,

[01:33:49] I remember went to the grocery store for the first time with the family

[01:33:54] and we are putting all this food, you know, and I'm like, oh my God,

[01:33:59] all for us. And it's like, yeah, this is, well, you start throwing everything in the car.

[01:34:05] We're going to definitely have you on multiple times.

[01:34:07] So we'll talk more about that stuff.

[01:34:10] But anyway, just going back to the apparel, like I said,

[01:34:12] like the price range on these things is like, you know, $20 on the low end up

[01:34:16] to maybe like 60, 65 for some of the bags, but very reasonably priced.

[01:34:20] And then you have a Mother's Day sale going on right now with 20% off.

[01:34:25] Yes. Yeah, we have a Mother's Day sale going on 20% off.

[01:34:30] Yeah. I'm actually heading to Nepal next week or actually Tuesday.

[01:34:35] Tuesday. Oh, so coming up soon. So, so yeah. So for the listeners again,

[01:34:38] it's ussherpa.com. We'll include the link in our show notes and then we'll push it,

[01:34:43] push it out on our social media as well. I bought a hat.

[01:34:47] I definitely checked out some of the socks and slippers. I got Mrs. Mike, my wife,

[01:34:51] she's up there on the computer right now picking out some stuff, I think, for the kids.

[01:34:56] So definitely, I think quality stuff that I think hikers would love.

[01:35:05] What is your philosophy around like switching up the products?

[01:35:08] Are you always bringing in new stuff or do you pretty much stay consistent?

[01:35:13] Yeah. Great question. Right. Because the products, right, Nepal again, right?

[01:35:20] You know, and I think, you know, I feel beyond proud and to have this very grateful for

[01:35:29] what I've been able to do. And then also the lifestyle that I had chosen.

[01:35:37] You know, yes, it didn't come easy. You know, when I, you know, after finishing college,

[01:35:45] I worked full time for a different company, but then I kept building my business on the side.

[01:35:53] It was only 2012. I went to US Sherpa full time. So now it's been, I think, 12 years.

[01:36:02] But, you know, and that was, you know, big decision like, you know, oh my God,

[01:36:06] is this going to work or not? You know, and but I think that has been one of the best

[01:36:12] decisions I've ever made. You know, I think the love and the passion, I felt like

[01:36:18] the energy that I was kind of giving to my job, to my business after going a full time job,

[01:36:27] I felt like that's not right. You know, I because I was like, I'm giving my tired

[01:36:33] energy to this something I love. And, you know, so that's, you know, been kind of like the journey

[01:36:43] for products. We and it again, I the the we look at the how the talent right these incredible

[01:36:55] hand skills, you know, the job in Nepal, like there is still not many machine there.

[01:37:03] People are working in very traditional way. You know, again, what I'm doing now, you know,

[01:37:09] after all these years is still same thing like what my mom was doing, right? She was needing

[01:37:16] to bring income for her family and there are still thousands and, you know, thousands of

[01:37:23] people who want to work. And so that's kind of what I'm doing, you know. And yeah, so that

[01:37:31] journey working, you know, going back home and to work with the needers, you know, we do some

[01:37:37] of the designing here, we work with product designer come up with a pattern design for

[01:37:43] these products and really showcasing some of these, you know, cultural products to like say,

[01:37:52] you know, the hats, for example, we use our traditional Sherpa pattern, right? Like how do

[01:38:00] we show some of these color pattern? And then we kind of say, okay, you know, this

[01:38:07] Tangding that Sherpa people wear with this wool kind of almost like this apron thing that a lot

[01:38:15] of the folks wear up high on the mountains, we wanted that pattern put on our hats, you know,

[01:38:21] and we have those like Kunjung hat, the Vera hat, those hats, some of that on actual product.

[01:38:30] So we create new patterns and then bring it to folks there, you know, like when I go

[01:38:35] next week on Tuesday, I'll be meeting with them to just finish their samples. We have

[01:38:42] bunch of new pattern coming out which we are super excited about and yeah.

[01:38:49] Yeah, yeah, well definitely, I bet our listeners will be interested in this because you know,

[01:38:53] we're all walking around with like this, you know, the REI, the Columbia,

[01:38:56] the North Face, like forget about that garbage, like we're going to get

[01:39:00] the real deal stuff from you, which is nice. And then on the other side of the product offerings

[01:39:07] and we're going to have you back on to talk about this in more detail because I think we

[01:39:11] probably want to do a full episode just about like climbing and the Himalayas with you in

[01:39:16] the future if you'd be open to doing it, but the trekking services, so you do offer

[01:39:21] if groups wanted to get together and I think you basically will customize depending on

[01:39:27] what the interest is for the climber or the group like to easy treks to strenuous

[01:39:37] and then some high mountain area, like you're not taking anyone up Mount Everest but like

[01:39:41] you'll take like 25,000, 23,000, 24,000 feet maybe and that's about it. But talk a little

[01:39:48] bit about what the offering is and how customizable the offering is.

[01:39:53] Yeah, so yeah, you know, the, yeah, so the treks we offer are super one-in-one

[01:40:03] customized trips and these are, you know, smaller group size. So I call this

[01:40:13] super small outfitter, right? We are that and then back in Nepal, so the folks same story,

[01:40:21] the people who some of my family relatives, we are still doing same stuff, the guiding,

[01:40:28] trekking. So it can be, yeah, you know, I want to say the shortest one we have is we call

[01:40:39] easy trek can be seven days, right? It can be seven days in Nepal and then so the days kind

[01:40:49] of, you know, number of days are super important and then the elevation, right? So those two play

[01:40:59] a big role and it can go up to three weeks, you know, like being in Nepal for 21 days.

[01:41:08] But yeah, we really work with the individual, you know, on one-in-one basis. We have one-in-one

[01:41:17] direct support from here in Brahman all the way to Nepal and, you know, and that's what I have been

[01:41:24] able to find or known is over this last 26 years, you know, hundreds of trekkers, travelers

[01:41:35] who went to Nepal, you know, that, you know, what I had been able to do opening, you know,

[01:41:40] yes, I, you know, I got brought to the U.S. and I was able to open doors for many people back home,

[01:41:48] but I want to do that for, you know, travelers, somebody from here and I feel like people from

[01:41:57] the Brahman, New Hampshire, you know, New England, like they should use that resources

[01:42:03] that you have right here, right? To just kind of guide you step by step. So that's really what we do.

[01:42:13] Yeah and I think for listeners if you're interested in this and we talked about this a little bit at

[01:42:17] the AMC awards but I think like everybody thinks of Nepal like they think it's the same

[01:42:21] thing in New Hampshire like oh I'm gonna go climb Mount Washington. It's like yeah that's great,

[01:42:24] you know, Mount Everest and the high Himalayas are great but there's a million other interesting

[01:42:30] places that don't require you to go at, you know, up to insane elevations like you can just trekking

[01:42:39] across the different regions and going through different mountain passes and

[01:42:43] experience in the villages. I mean that's, that in some ways is probably better and more

[01:42:48] reasonable for a lot of the people that enjoy hiking in New England to do a trip like that

[01:42:53] and you can say like all right I want to do a 10-day trip or I want to do a 14-day trip.

[01:42:57] Matter of fact I'm looking at a picture of me and my friend Tom who we went up to Yosemite and I'm

[01:43:01] like this is, we're going to be calling you and thinking about doing something like this in the

[01:43:06] future because especially as you get older like you only have so many weekends left. You only

[01:43:12] have so many days left in your life and experiencing something like this living in

[01:43:17] New Hampshire and being able to go to Nepal it's definitely, it's not for everyone,

[01:43:21] it's probably not cheap but you're here and we wanted to offer that up to the listeners so

[01:43:28] that they're aware that like there is a path and there's somebody local that can connect

[01:43:33] the understanding of what it's like to be in New England or going to Nepal.

[01:43:37] Yeah and you know we offer, you know, we go hiking together here in Vermont, you know,

[01:43:44] like I had right now somebody from Vermont she's trekking up to average base camp and again you

[01:43:52] know I worked with her from day one, you know, saying sometimes they okay you know going hiking

[01:43:58] together on some of the mountain peaks around Vermont or New Hampshire and I have done that

[01:44:04] whether going on to Mount Adams or Jefferson and back here in Vermont so you know I truly

[01:44:15] believe right the trekking and in the case like with hiking it's like the most powerful

[01:44:23] form of traveling right where you get to learn so much you know and it's you know and it's

[01:44:32] authentic right that's what the real deal is you know and trekking it's a long journey by

[01:44:38] foot right that's the dip and so that is the experience that we are offering you know um

[01:44:47] so and then in the case with people you know here in New England hiking to the white peaks or

[01:44:56] the mountain in Vermont yes so I think you know you have that opportunity right to go

[01:45:04] yes you can practice and do hiking here but I would say you know and I think living in a

[01:45:13] you know developed country so advanced you know with jobs and I truly feel

[01:45:20] you know that's like the least you should do you know it's like you why not right get out there

[01:45:26] experience new things yeah it and that's the beauty go there come back seeing that you know

[01:45:33] and that's I feel like really one of the like it should be like a requirement you know it's

[01:45:39] like go you know because again why not the I think the money you know it's nowadays with

[01:45:45] also the you know airlines all of that there's so many different deals also um so yeah um the

[01:45:56] you know and like going yeah traveling you know you have places in Europe and all that

[01:46:01] you know Europe getting there is I think somewhat easier right you can get there even

[01:46:07] you know later on when you are older but you know but going to these bigger peaks where

[01:46:13] you are keep putting it off like good experience now yeah yeah yeah so I think I'll link in a show

[01:46:20] notes the the list of the different options that you have and then again it's customizable

[01:46:24] so you can get in touch with on gail to talk about what you're interested in and then we did

[01:46:28] you know we're up against time stomp promised me to keep it at 45 minutes but um we definitely

[01:46:34] want to have you back on you know oftentimes we'll talk about sort of the culture around

[01:46:38] climbing Mount Everest in the the Himalayas and I'm assuming you'd probably have some really cool

[01:46:44] insights so if you're open to it and you think that this went well hopefully you'll get some

[01:46:49] seals through this um and then you know we'll have you back again in the future for sure

[01:46:54] awesome thank you so much mike for having me all right thank you very much thank you

[01:47:03] all right what do you think stomp is pretty amazing huh yeah he's his sweetheart I gotta

[01:47:08] say yeah have there's no such thing as a lousy naples person or you know what I mean they're

[01:47:15] like the sweetest most amazing or you know authentic people ever that I've it's nice so

[01:47:23] stop I'll just in my my life experience I have a theory that bad people are evenly

[01:47:33] distributed throughout the world so I think that there's probably some mean

[01:47:38] sherpas but like we just haven't met any yet yeah I don't know they could break that's my

[01:47:43] philosophy but you know who knows who knows uh but no angel is a great uh great guy and

[01:47:49] you know we didn't really get into talking about like his local hiking and you know

[01:47:53] I even said to him I was like you know you could do like a whole like HBO series on like

[01:47:57] the the kid from Nepal going you know being dumped into a like a high school in Vermont

[01:48:02] in Burlington Vermont like it just went wild oh it's a great story just the whole transition and

[01:48:08] certain doors open up and you just you just do it you just go for it it's awesome super

[01:48:13] inspiring inspiring excuse me yeah yeah and the products are awesome like really priced reasonably

[01:48:19] and like a great option for people that want to get like authentic gear and like I you know I

[01:48:25] was sampling some of the stuff at his table and it's like really quality like the hats were

[01:48:29] amazing uh the socks were really uh really good and then like the handbags for you know if you're

[01:48:35] if you're a guy and you're listening you want to get your wife or um you know your your whatever

[01:48:40] woman in your life like I think that those bags will really be appreciated and like I said

[01:48:44] like it's all reasonably priced stuff and it goes through a good cause yes yeah um all right

[01:48:52] stomp so um moving on to recent search and rescue here I think we've got one more

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[01:49:15] wet your core temperature can dramatically fluctuate and this can result in hypothermia

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[01:50:57] all right stop so um yeah definitely like uh take advantage of voclus if you don't want to sweat

[01:51:04] for sure yep it's that time of the year this so we'll move it on the search and rescue news

[01:51:10] here so this first story is out of georgia so two hikers were hiking along um this trail called

[01:51:19] to rainbow falls so 20 and 23 year old hikers and they were family friends so 23 years old

[01:51:28] and 20 years old uh they live in kahata georgia and birchwood so uh this is close

[01:51:36] to signal mountain area so they were very close family friends apparently the older man oh no the

[01:51:44] older woman had reportedly attempted to cross the creek and fell into a hole in a drop off

[01:51:50] and then went underwater that then prompted the younger um man to go in and try to rescue

[01:51:59] her and then they both fell so this is a this is a good reminder like i think like

[01:52:03] this is where hiking poles really play a part stomp and uh you know i'm always kind of probing

[01:52:10] the depth that's terrifying man crossings with the hiking pole so even if you don't have hiking

[01:52:14] poles like just grab some sticks and just make sure that you've got some stability going on so

[01:52:19] that you're not surprised by something like this and obviously you know the most obvious

[01:52:23] thing you want to be able to do is make sure that you can see the bottom if you can't

[01:52:26] see the bottom on something then and it's moving fast and you need to reconsider where

[01:52:32] you're going absolutely yeah this is a terrifying story it can happen it doesn't have to be uh

[01:52:39] something major i mean just even these shallower crossings that we deal with

[01:52:44] something like this could happen so oh yeah awful it's terrifying it could be that they

[01:52:48] didn't know how to swim but they weren't strong swimmers and it's tough to really

[01:52:51] tell from this article how strong the water was but certainly they they went into a deep hole

[01:52:57] and couldn't get out so a good reminder to uh to be careful here and then uh the next one here

[01:53:07] so this is a a sad story about an Adirondack forest ranger by the name of Robbie Mark

[01:53:14] Micas and i got this sent to me by a couple of people i guess Robbie was pretty well known

[01:53:19] 52 years old was an Adirondack forest ranger involved in a ton of rescues so this was a person

[01:53:29] that had given a lot back and worked for the department of environmental conservation i guess

[01:53:37] is where the forest rangers work under so 25 year career with the DEC involved in a ton

[01:53:48] of rescues the quote is Robbie was an incredible person a pillar of strength always there for the

[01:53:53] most difficult rescues and crises and a tremendous leader for the lgbtqia plus rights i feel

[01:54:02] fortunate enough to know her so yeah a really interesting background here apparently

[01:54:11] Micas or Martin yeah Robbie Micas was climbing with a partner by the name of Melissa

[01:54:18] Wozniaczowski in Denali National Park so they took a trip to Alaska yeah they were climbing

[01:54:24] on Mount Johnson matter of fact i remember seeing the news articles about this that route's hard

[01:54:29] core named the victims yeah yeah it's crazy hardcore so it's 8400 foot peak in Denali

[01:54:34] National Park they were ascending a route on Mount Johnson known as the escalator

[01:54:40] which is a steep and technical 5000 foot climb and unfortunately the pier fell about a thousand

[01:54:48] feet which was witnessed by another climbing party so that's good news at least that there

[01:54:52] was another climbing party on the route that witnessed it and was able to get to them

[01:54:56] quickly but unfortunately when the climbers reached both of them Micas had died in the

[01:55:06] fall the other climber was airlifted out on friday and was in critical condition receiving

[01:55:10] medical care in Anchorage so wow again this is basically i think the equivalent of like a

[01:55:17] conservation officer for New Hampshire so but she they had said she was part of hundreds of

[01:55:24] search and rescues over the career most recently had played a role in finding a

[01:55:29] hypothermic and frostbitten hiker during a snowstorm in the high peaks last month so

[01:55:34] this was the first responder that would get out there all the time wow yeah apparently

[01:55:38] the pictures are pretty prolific that's a shame yeah yeah so rest in peace yeah

[01:55:47] all right so now moving on to local stories here stomp so we already covered the two

[01:55:53] Canadian hikers so i am gonna skip that one here so there was an overdue trail runner that

[01:55:59] was found safe this was on April 26 fishing game was notified that an ultra runner was overdue on

[01:56:07] his trip in the pemmy so the runner was reported overdue by his family they believed that he

[01:56:13] planned to finish the 26-mile trek around 4 p.m people still going out there and banging

[01:56:18] out pemmy loops this time of the year it's impressive but also wild wild yeah so well i

[01:56:27] guess i guess he wasn't doing the pemmy loop he was on the east side trail and then he was

[01:56:32] going to return via thorough falls to Lincoln woods so he's traveling an area that like isn't

[01:56:38] doesn't get a lot of a lot of traffic so uh he was overdue he um i guess conservation

[01:56:47] officers and volunteers from pemmy sarr responded to Lincoln woods and um around

[01:56:53] a conservation officer located him with an atv along east side trail he had lost his light

[01:56:59] source and was trying to navigate the dark uh in addition based on the conditions of the trail

[01:57:04] the run took him longer than expected so otherwise he was uninjured so yeah he just

[01:57:09] lost his light source so hmm so that's funny so that's the rubs like when do you call

[01:57:14] when your acquaintance family member whoever doesn't show up on time they did the right

[01:57:21] thing yeah i mean he was supposed to be back at four and my family called at seven and that's a

[01:57:26] good amount of time eight thirty so and there's no there's no cell connection out there so

[01:57:30] correct i mean that's a good chunk of change four and a half hours after his expected arrival

[01:57:35] i mean that's probably a good time to pull the plug and call yeah yeah i think that's

[01:57:40] pretty good timing on the families and it is a tough area like there's no there's nothing

[01:57:44] out there from the time from where you get from uh you know you come down bond cliff

[01:57:49] and then you lose cell connection and then you don't get it back until you get into like

[01:57:52] bilune mountain right so that's a really tough area yep um okay and then this is another

[01:58:01] another rescue in the great gulf so ike was reported missing by his employer and they

[01:58:09] indicated that the last contact with him was well off trail in the vicinity of the buttress

[01:58:14] trail oh my god that gives ptsd to mrs tom what a nightmare that's a tough one like any of these

[01:58:22] like you hear the buttress trail you hear wamsuda you hear spinks like you do not want to be down

[01:58:27] in that area this time of the year if you don't know what you know what you're doing

[01:58:32] even if you know what you're doing like it's it's dicey just rugged yeah big boulder steps

[01:58:39] yep 38 year old from farmington new hampshire he was attempting a northern presidential traverse

[01:58:47] which began on monday morning intention of completing on wednesday i guess he became

[01:58:54] turned around on um yeah star lake trail and headed down the buttress trail which is seldom

[01:59:02] used so rescue was initiated and they were able to track him down on the peabody river

[01:59:10] and they found him in his tent attempting to stay warm wow so all his gear so stomp this may

[01:59:16] be a repeat i'll double check and make sure but i think we covered this one in the last

[01:59:19] episode so if we did we may have to pull this one out hmm okay no i'll double doesn't ring a

[01:59:25] bell yeah it does to me but we'll see but that's uh it's great to talk about what he

[01:59:31] had in his pack that's phenomenal just to have the shelter yeah he was there he was ready

[01:59:38] to go for an overnight which worked out well for him yeah no kidding yep planning in action

[01:59:46] yep um and then uh additional there was an additional press release put out related to

[01:59:52] the search for william donovan so this is the gentleman from um cambridge massachusetts

[01:59:59] that had been reported missing his vehicle had been found by crofford path and just a press

[02:00:09] release that went out that indicated that they had done some additional searches on friday may

[02:00:14] third they had looked through eisenhower and pierce drainages they had done a section of the

[02:00:21] dry river wilderness and k-9 teams had searched the area around crofford path edmund's path and

[02:00:28] mount clinton road and drone teams have also continued the search but there's no sign so um

[02:00:36] if he's out there he'll turn up at some point but unfortunately right now

[02:00:39] um you know he hasn't been located okay yep tough time of the year and the weather's been lousy

[02:00:47] yep and then uh let me see here march 7th stomp fishing game conservation officer responded to

[02:00:55] pisca state park in hensdale how do you how do you say this pisca i would assume so

[02:01:02] yeah pisca pisca i would i would think so yeah the listeners will let us know don't call me

[02:01:10] yeah they will they're gonna let us know on this one so uh 24 year old of hensdale

[02:01:15] new hampshire was hiking the john summers trail and she suffered a lower leg injury

[02:01:20] um her brother and another hiking companion were able to call for assistance and they

[02:01:24] were able to get some rescue teams out to her get her in a litter and carried a short distance

[02:01:30] to the kilburn loop trail where they were able to get onto a utv and she was driven out um

[02:01:35] to the trailhead so 150 the call came in and she arrived at the trailhead around 4 10

[02:01:41] and transferred to uh an ambulance and transported to brattle borough memorial hospital so

[02:01:47] um all's well that ends well there and this last one here stomp is a lost hiker in fremont

[02:01:59] new hampshire so he's lost in the woods 71 year old older

[02:02:02] gentleman lost his bearings went off trail somewhere in the yeah it doesn't say like

[02:02:09] he was on a real trail it's just somewhere in fremont new hampshire um the fremont police

[02:02:16] department was able to establish contact with him by using a siren um the gentleman said that

[02:02:22] he was too tired and dehydrated to continue on so the call came in at 5 30 they found him at 6 30

[02:02:28] not bad and then they were able to um i guess assist getting him out by using a um

[02:02:35] utility terrain vehicle to transport him to a staging area where medical personnel did an exam

[02:02:41] and then he ultimately declined for the medical treatment so yeah older gentleman just went out

[02:02:46] for a side quest and uh took him took him a little bit a little side quest that's great

[02:02:54] all right well that's everything huh that's everything stomp so i appreciate uh the audience

[02:03:00] forgive me for my causing a delay this week but we'll we'll get this out on

[02:03:05] saturday evening sunday morning and um next week we'll be back to our normal schedule

[02:03:10] yeah we got a bunch of cool stuff coming up andrew drummond next week and uh in the future we have

[02:03:16] carrie kiss trails nh and then jen kunz kunz is coming back uh from uh what is it antarctic the

[02:03:23] antarctic our antarctic chef so that's gonna be really interesting so yeah we got a lot coming

[02:03:27] up on the uh the plate yeah and remember i'm mike and if you're ever stuck in the woods

[02:03:35] choose between stomp and a beer we're always going to pick the beer

[02:03:41] well wait a minute it gets confusing because my last name in the old germanic

[02:03:45] means bear so that's that's a problem i'm picking the furry animal over you

[02:03:53] all right we're out later thank you for listening if you enjoyed the show you can

[02:04:04] subscribe on apple podcasts spotify podbean youtube or wherever you listen to podcasts

[02:04:13] if you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show please check out the

[02:04:17] show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com that's s-l-a-s-r podcast.com

[02:04:27] you can also follow the show on facebook and instagram we hope you'll join us next week

[02:04:32] for another great show until then on behalf of mike and stomp get out there and crush some mega

[02:04:41] peaks now covered in scratches blisters and bug bites chris staff wanted to complete his most

[02:04:48] challenging day hike ever fishing game officers say the hiker from florida activated an emergency

[02:04:54] beacon yesterday morning he was hiking along the appalachian trail when the weather started

[02:05:00] to get worse officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a

[02:05:05] wind chill of minus one degree and there's three words to describe this race do we all know what they are

[02:05:15] lieutenant james dylan new hampshire fishing game lusenda thanks for being with us today

[02:05:20] what are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on

[02:05:23] the trails to hike here in new hampshire seems to me the most common is being unprepared

[02:05:27] and i think if they just simply visited hike safe.com and got a list of the 10

[02:05:31] essential items and had those in their packs they probably would have no need to ever call us

[02:05:36] at all