Episode 156 - Henry David Thoreau’s Misadventures and White Mountain Endurance Coaching

[00:00:02] Here is the latest Higher Summits Forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline and the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits Forecast at mountwashington.org.

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

[00:00:54] Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. And here's your forecast for Friday, June 14th and Saturday, June 15th, the Mount Washington Road Race Weekend. So Friday in the clouds with rain showers, possibly heavier times and scattered thunderstorms, possibly becoming severe in the afternoon.

[00:01:26] With a high in the lower 50s, winds will be 40-55 mph early decreasing to 20-35 mph. Higher gusts possible with thunderstorms. Friday night, mostly in the clouds under mostly cloudy skies with a chance of rain, possibly

[00:01:42] heavy at times, slight chance of thunderstorms early with a low in the upper 30s. Winds will be west shifting northwest at 15-30 mph decreasing to 15-25 mph. Windchill will be falling to 20-30 above. And then Saturday, in and out of the clouds early and trending towards clearing.

[00:02:06] Slight chance of showers early with a low in the 40s. Winds will be northwest at 15-30 mph and windchill rising to 25-35 above. It's going to be a great day for the race. And remember, there's only one hill.

[00:02:28] Broadcasting from the Woodpecker Studio in the great state of New Hampshire, welcome to the Sounds Like A Search and Rescue podcast, where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Here are your hosts, Mike and Stump.

[00:03:32] And we're doing it live, Stump. Episode 156. How you been? Pretty good. Pretty good. Just loving the heat. I think summer is finally making an appearance here. Yeah, a little toasty. A little toasty out with the air conditioning rolling on the Woodpecker Studio south.

[00:03:50] Yeah, you guys are always hotter than up here. I mean, right now we're rolling at about probably low 80s. Yeah, I'm in the basement right now, so it's not bad. But I'm looking at the weather for the weekend and it looks like Saturday and Sunday are

[00:04:06] going to be excellent, excellent weather for getting out. So hopefully the listeners are all planning their hikes for the weekend. Yeah, it's going to be mint. No rain in the forecast, maybe a little bit Friday night into early morning hours, but that's about it. That is it, Stump.

[00:04:23] So excited. All right. It's been a busy week, but we are energized and ready to get rolling here. Do you have you drinking a beer tonight? I do. I haven't opened it with my teeth yet. So please, God, don't.

[00:04:34] We had a big long, we had a huge long conversation about you and opening beer with your teeth on the trail this week. It's crazy. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But welcome to Episode 156 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast.

[00:04:51] This week, a recap of the 48 Peaks Alzheimer's event at Reckless and the Associated Hike that we took up Galehead Mountain. Plus, we are joined by our friend Christina Fulcic. She's back to discuss endurance coaching and training for those of you that may be

[00:05:07] looking to take your fitness trail running, hiking or general wellness to another level. If you're looking for a coach, need a little bit of accountability. She is available. So we're going to talk to her for a little bit. Plus, we have some White Mountain history.

[00:05:21] I picked up a story of the famous writer Henry David Thoreau and his misadventures on Mount Washington in the 1800s. I think it was like 1859, 1860, something like that. So it includes him starting a forest fire, getting lost in the fog and injuring his

[00:05:40] ankle, requiring like a three day rest in Huntington before being able to hike out of actually Tuckerman. It was Tuckerman Ravine. Plus, we've got the Mount Washington road races this weekend. We've got a story about Narcan for fishing game officers, a little bit of hydration

[00:05:57] advice on the trail. We've got dad jokes. We get stickers. We got search and rescue news, including two rescues on Monadnock, a rescue on Jennings Peak, one on Falling Waters. And then we had a rescue on Kearsarge North. So a lot going on.

[00:06:13] It's prime time for search and rescue. So I'm Mike. And I'm Stomp. Let's get started. Let's get started with our friend Andrew Barlow and the Hiking Buddies. And let's have him do a little drop here. Yeah. This has been Peace from Hiking Buddies.

[00:06:56] We are a 501c3 nonprofit committed to reducing avoidable tragedies through education, impactful projects, and fostering a community of support. You can find out more at hikingbuddies.org. We wanted to say thank you to those who have supported our mission.

[00:07:10] And most importantly, say thanks to those who speak up, who ask questions, and who are willing to provide guidance and assistance on the trails when needed. You embody what it means to be a Hiking Buddy. And now for all my newer hikers out there, here's this episode's Hiking

[00:07:25] Buddies quick tip. When backpacking and camping overnight, always hang your food at least 12 feet up and 8 feet from any tree trunk. Use a two-tree approach if no branches fit. 200 feet away from camp, include toothpaste, wipes, drink mixes, deodorant, etc., anything with a smell.

[00:07:57] Ba-doop-boop, they just keep on coming. Those tips. They're great. I love them. Yep. Very good. And now Stomp, I guess we just get right into the recap for the weekend. So we had the Alzheimer's group did their event at Reckless. So this is 48 peaks, the longest day.

[00:08:16] So in conjunction with the Reckless event, there was also a number of groups that went out and hiked. I went to Galehead, but I drove by Garfield and there was a whole crew of folks that familiar faces getting up Garfield.

[00:08:29] And then there was people that went up Wildcat and some other peaks as well. So it was a good day to get out. So I'm assuming if anyone was hiking this weekend, last weekend, they saw a bunch of purple shirts. Right. And how about rain?

[00:08:43] Did you see any rain? It was, sorry, I'm still dealing with this upper respiratory thing, so I'll be coughing a little bit, but it was a little bit off and on. So we had like two or three periods of like heavy rain that came in, but it

[00:08:57] didn't last more than five minutes. And then every time it rained, it was like followed by clearing. So it was like one of those days where it was like, okay, five, 10 minutes of rain, then it's like misting and then you're dealing with dripping off trees

[00:09:11] and then the sun came out. So it was like a weird day. But it was warm. And it was warm, yeah. Yeah. So it made it sort of enjoyable for the most part. You know what I did?

[00:09:20] I actually, for the first time ever, is I brought an umbrella and I used, I exclusively used an umbrella and it was actually, it worked perfect. Yeah, that's catching on. I think more people are doing that for certain occasions.

[00:09:33] I mean, it makes more sense to me because, you know, and I didn't deal with too much sweat, but I think if I had put my raincoat on, it was warm enough where, yeah, I would have started sweating on the inside.

[00:09:45] And that was warm enough where I had a t-shirt on and then I had the umbrella and you just have to kind of hold the umbrella, like tilt it over your head so that you're covering up your backpack. And then it worked fine for me.

[00:10:00] And there was plenty of room on the trail. It wasn't like, Gale Head's a pretty wide trail, I guess, or it's wide enough. So yeah, I had no problem. It wasn't uncomfortable holding my umbrella and I just had my hiking poles in

[00:10:13] my other hand and yeah, I'm definitely going to bring an umbrella from now on. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I've done that a couple of times and it really came in handy. Did your boots get soaked or no? No, nothing. No.

[00:10:25] My trail runners, I mean, they were wet because I was walking in the mud, but yeah, no problem. I think what I've read online is the, I guess the correct way to do it or the

[00:10:36] way that's dialed in is to get an umbrella and then get a rain kilt. A rain kilt? A rain kilt, which is like, it's basically like a plastic skirt to go around just your waist. And then that way it keeps like your lower body dry too. Oh wow.

[00:10:56] Never heard of that. Yeah, and it lets the airflow in because it's a skirt basically. Yeah. Can you send me pictures when you get one of these? I'd like to see. Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:08] I saw a video of a guy that had this set up, but I don't think I'm ready to commit to the rain kilt yet, but the umbrella was like just a, like a, I

[00:11:16] don't know, my wife, she keeps it in the back of her car as an extra umbrella. It was just one of those small, I think we got it at Kohl's or something. So it's not like an ultra light. It was just like a, yeah.

[00:11:28] It'll come in handy for the Highland games, laddie. Yes. Right. The kilt. The kilt here. All right. So, but yeah, so we got up Galehead. There was a group of like 12 of us and the craziest thing was like this Dave Schitt's in the Woods guy was there.

[00:11:48] The legend, the one and only? Yeah. Yeah. And we, you know, the first time I met him in person, I met him, I've talked to him a bunch of times, but I'm super great and super nice guy. The whole crew was fantastic.

[00:11:59] So, well, he was the original tooth beer opener. That's why he only has one tooth. I mean, he was a person. He has one tooth. It's unfortunate, but it's all right. You get used to it.

[00:12:13] Yeah, no, he, he was imitating you on the, um, um, on the hike. He was just basically recreating what you, you had done, but yeah. What a great, um, crew. I mean, like shout out to everybody.

[00:12:30] I mean, Eric, so Eric Todd sweet was in our group first time of height with Eric and he's such a great guy. Um, Julie was there. Jake's her wife, uh, shout out to Paul because Paul, um, you know, he, he killed it on the fundraising for the team.

[00:12:46] I think he raised himself like over $8,000. So amazing. And then Nabi Hikes was there. Um, you know, Nabi and Paul and Nabi have both lost family members recently. Um, dealing with Alzheimer's. So it's, it's been, you know, it was really touching to hear them

[00:13:02] sit, tell, talk about their stories. And, um, yeah, it was just overall great. And I was able to get out with my daughter and her boyfriend, Devin. So shout out to them as well. Uh, but, but great crowd. Nick, uh, joined us as well.

[00:13:17] So yeah, it was just a great crew. Yeah. That's awesome. And the event was fun. Yeah, the event was fun. Well attended. Well attended. Like what do you, what did you think? I mean, you were, you were killing it on the DJ side. It was, it was cool.

[00:13:31] I mean, it was weird weather though. So it sort of forced people inside. Um, but yeah, it was all good. I had a great time. I had my, my, my favorite time you had left at this point, but we all sat around

[00:13:41] a table and we were taking turns one after another selecting songs. So I was pumping tunes via my phone through my PA. Oh, nice. We did that for like an hour, hour and a half. It was so much fun. It was great. That's fantastic.

[00:13:54] It was just nice reconnecting with everybody and having a beer or two. Yeah. And Reckless is so great. Like I can't, I just can't like, I can't shout their praises like any louder than, uh, you know, they're just amazing. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're super gracious. Yeah.

[00:14:12] And the food's great. The facilities are great. They added like a new deck off in the back. So it's just, it's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of, uh, Rivendell. You have all these wooden platforms, actually, no Lothlorian.

[00:14:25] I'm going to geek out on you for a minute, but you know, wooden platforms in this beautiful forest elevated above the ground. Yeah. It's awesome. But I just like people, if you're out there hiking, like anywhere, like in that

[00:14:37] like twin mountain area or, um, over into the Pinkham Notch, I mean, Reckless is like a five minute ride from there, 10 minute ride. So it's, it's, it's definitely over there. You know what?

[00:14:48] We left a little bit early and I do apologize for that, but I had to get home. But we went over to that secret ice cream store next door and grabbed ice cream on the way out. And that place is fantastic too. Nowhere is this?

[00:15:00] It's like three, three houses down. Okay. Towards Pinkham Notch. Um, and it's the, called the, I think the secret ice cream. So Mike Masel had talked about it when he was on.

[00:15:12] Matter of fact, when we got to Gale head hut, um, Mike was there, um, with a crew of people that had, um, that were doing a Pemi loop and we ran into them. So I was able to say hi to him as well. Nice. Excellent.

[00:15:33] So good day overall. Yep. Yep. Another successful event by the 48 Peaks crew. Yep. Shout out to them for sure. Um, and then stomp the other thing that's coming up this weekend is Mount Washington road race is coming up. Um, so you're not running this year, right?

[00:15:51] No, no, I am. I'll be spinning. I'll be doing tunes from say seven till nine or so. That's going to be an early morning, but I'm so pumped to get everybody ready. That's Saturday. Saturday morning, Saturday morning. Yep. So from seven to nine, then it's a new setup.

[00:16:08] They, they have the announcer, um, who works the tent first and then he heads up to the summit. And then as they near the time for the start, they switch over to an entirely different audio system.

[00:16:21] But I think I'll be in that big tent, uh, to start from say seven ish to nine ish, uh, before the start. I'm so pumped. This is like, this is like what I've trained for all my life. All right. Yeah. This is like the premier event.

[00:16:35] I wish I could stop by, but I'm going to be swinging over to, I'm going to be hiking, uh, I think Saturday morning when my daughter, I think I'm going to be over by Appalachia.

[00:16:42] But, um, if depending on what time we leave, I may swing by and like try to say hi quickly if I can park maybe across the street and then run over. But we'll see. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. My, um, my folks are coming, uh, Mrs.

[00:16:53] Stomp's coming and then we're probably just gonna, I don't know. It's going to be a fun week. And we're thinking about doing like Liberty on Sunday, depending or maybe float floating time. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe ready to break out the tubes here. So, uh, very good. Runners. Yeah.

[00:17:09] Good luck to the runners from Mount Washington. And then the following weekend is race race, the cog, correct? Oh yeah. Yeah. Another great one. So a lot of the, um, top tier runners that run in the Mount Washington, uh, just by default do that, that race as well.

[00:17:25] And that is a great time runners run up the cog, which is roughly three miles to the summit and they literally race the cog. And, um, it's, that's a great time. So it'll be a similar format. I'll be there doing the music for that as well.

[00:17:38] It's a real, really high energy event. So yeah, two great weekends in a row. Yeah. Looking at you, you got all these gigs and I may, I'm probably going to swing by the

[00:17:46] race, the cog I'm up here with you there because, um, I think I'm going to be around. I'm going to, we're going to, I'm going to Puerto Rico, I think the week after, but, um, we should be up that, that other weekend.

[00:17:58] So I'll definitely hang with you for race, the cog. Yeah. You got to see it. There's nothing like it when the cog blasts its whistle for the start. That's how they start the race. So hopefully we'll see a good friend, uh, Andy boreal badass there too. Yeah.

[00:18:12] The yard master there. So, but yeah, it's going to be a great few weeks. So looking forward to it. Very good. So stomp is going to be out there DJing. If you want to go see him, check out the Mount Washington road race or race the cog.

[00:18:25] Um, all right. So we've got a few new stories here that we pulled in and not too heavy because we got some other stuff we got to get to, but, um, conservation officers. So stops favorite newspaper is the cowboy state daily.

[00:18:38] So he pulls a couple of articles from this. So, um, he pulled an article about the amount of fentanyl that's in Wyoming, which is a shame. Like at this point, you know, we've, we've gone from like the oxy issue and now it

[00:18:52] seems like we've jumped right into fentanyl and it doesn't seem like, you know, there was a little bit of a lull for a couple of years, you know, but now it seems like it's not much of a lull and it seems like there's not much that's being

[00:19:03] done to like really limit this fentanyl issue. Uh, but it's, it's pervasive in Wyoming and now all game wardens are packing Narcan just because as, as part of their job, I mean, it's not like, I think out

[00:19:16] there, it's not like here where we have definitive sort of rural areas where we just assume like, all right, there's not gonna be a lot of people in Wyoming. It's like everything's rural. So fishing game, um, department agents have, you know, started to, um, add

[00:19:33] you know, drug overdoses and fentanyl contamination into the mix of things that they got to watch out for. So do you want to summarize this article Stomp? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's gotten to the point, um, that Wyoming and I believe Montana as

[00:19:50] well, the fishing game departments, conservation officers are carrying Narcan, uh, just as a safety precaution for themselves because as you know, the, the drug is so potent that if it gets on you, it can do a significant amount of damage to you personally.

[00:20:05] So, uh, they're carrying it as policy and, um, it's interesting. Yeah. It's crazy. They're talking about like, basically like they're afraid if they pat a suspect down that, you know, you can get a little bit, you can generate a little bit of

[00:20:20] fentanyl powder and that can absorb in your skin or, um, you can, you can inhale it and then that can be as enough to really put you in a bad spot. So can you imagine people doing this stuff around like little kids too? Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:34] Um, so I did some research, um, not a deep dive on it, but AI spit back that, uh, fishing game here in New Hampshire do not have a policy as far as I could find regarding that. Um, who knows? That could be open for debate, I suppose.

[00:20:49] But looking deeper into the, the NIH numbers, man, holy moly. Like if you look back to 1999, there was like 19,000 drug deaths and now we're up to a hundred thousand, 108,000 a year. Brutal. Uh, yeah, it's crazy. It's really, and there was a spike beginning in 2015 where it just went

[00:21:07] exponential. So it's a big problem. Yeah. Yeah. I see some videos sometimes, um, especially out in the West coast, I think that they've been a little bit more lenient on the homeless population out there.

[00:21:19] And, um, obviously like it's a balancing act, like you don't want to put people in jail unnecessarily, but also if you give them free run, then, you know, things get out of control. So, um, we'll keep an eye on it.

[00:21:32] I know that, you know, parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont have always had some issues with, with different druggy, um, you know, drug problems. So we'll keep an eye on it out here, but that's, that's an interesting story.

[00:21:46] Yeah, it is actually just, um, to expand upon it one, one step further. So for us as hikers, what happens if we see somebody unconscious on trail? I mean, should we pack gloves? Should we be aware of that? I mean, I wouldn't be from my perspective.

[00:22:01] I would never like, if I saw someone passed out on trail, like my first reaction would never be that, Oh, geez, they're doing, they're a drug overdose. I would think that there's a medical issue there. So I think the odds are pretty low. Yeah. We hope. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:16] No. Yeah. Um, but anyway, we'll keep an eye on this one. And then speaking of drug stop our friend Dave shits in the woods sent us an article story. This is like the myth buster should be doing a thing on this.

[00:22:29] So the question is, will vaping attract beers to my campsite? So some Colorado wildlife experts weigh in on whether it's safe to vape. Cause I do think that those, I don't know much about vaping, but my

[00:22:40] understanding is, is like, it's like a fruity flavor or something when you vape. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I suppose. I mean, yeah, I would know that shit either. Yeah. So, um, apparently like the vaping, like has artificial food smells.

[00:22:58] So the idea is that like, okay, if you're vaping and, um, you're blowing this stuff, could, could you possibly attract a beer? So the articles goes on to say that beers can detect smells from up to two miles away.

[00:23:13] They've also been known to dig around through unattempted campsites, and they know when people are not around so they can go to town and have a feast. So anything that's smellable, they're saying that you should lock it up.

[00:23:27] And then they get into whether or not beers might be attracted to marijuana. And they've got some anecdotal evidence that indicates that, yeah, that may be the case. Um, but it's probably more likely that they would, they would focus more on food smells than, than just marijuana.

[00:23:45] So you may be safe. Yeah. But I think if you'd got a vape pen or you got pot or anything, I know some of you people like to have like, what did they used to call it? They had safety meetings, right? Yeah. Yes. They would have this.

[00:23:58] I've been for, I'm such a straight edge. Like I, like everyone's like, oh, we're going to have safety meetings. And I was like, what does that mean? I was like, well, yeah, we'll have a seat. But that means that they're smoking marijuana.

[00:24:09] So, um, but I think that you should just pack all that stuff in your beer hang and just hang it over for sleeping overnight, just to be on the safe side. Agreed. Agreed. All right.

[00:24:20] I think the only thing we have to worry about when it comes to drugs around here, Stomp is people taking LSD and climbing up on AMC, Hots Naked. Still my favorite story. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[00:24:32] So, um, Run Cash Run sent us a, um, a YouTube video that I haven't watched Stomp. So I'm assuming you've watched this, but this is, this is everyone's very concerned about Stomp opening a beer up with his teeth. Yeah.

[00:24:45] Um, so Run Cash Run sent us a video of an alternative option for Stomp to use. What exactly is this? Well, I'll tell you if you have a Sharpie, which means you're going to have to carry a Sharpie.

[00:24:59] If you have a summer brew, um, if you rub the Sharpie along back and forth the, the horse shoe shape of the, uh, beer can, you'll pop it open naturally without any effort whatsoever. So I don't know how it works. Pretty interesting.

[00:25:16] But the video was a pretty compelling. Oh, look at that. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just watching the video here. So yeah, basically what the person's doing is taking the back end of a Sharpie pen

[00:25:27] and just rubbing it by like where the perforation is on the can and eventually pops open. Yeah. Interesting. Maybe it's just, it just weakens the, uh, the metal or I don't know, but it pops up, which is interesting.

[00:25:41] So I guess it may be, it just like it pushes the, um, the metal that's around it a little bit below it. So it's kind of for perfect fit to go in between the rim and the, the perforation. So very good.

[00:25:53] Thank you, Ron Kastron, because I do not want to look like Dave with his one tooth. True. No. True. True. So, um, and then just thinking about the, um, the whole topic of beer, I just wanted to remind people cause it's getting warm out.

[00:26:06] Um, if you are going to bring a can of beer with you, um, on your hikes and you wanted to go to the summit, cause I did have a beer on the, on the hike and I didn't, I didn't have my, my setup correct.

[00:26:17] But, uh, what I recommend is a three liter water bladder. And what you should do is, um, you know, if you're not sure how clean the beer can is, you can put that inside its own little Ziploc bag.

[00:26:30] Um, and then what I do is I'll fill the three liter lap bladder up with ice and then a little bit of water, and then I'll insert the beer can inside the bladder.

[00:26:41] And then if you want to use like the, um, the straw to just drink water out of the, um, out of the bladder, then you basically have like your water for your hike. And then you've got ice inside the bladder that is keeping the beer can cold.

[00:26:55] And typically this will last for, you know, four or five miles until you get to whatever summit you need to. And by that time you've got a beer that is still cold.

[00:27:04] And, you know, if you put the beer inside like its own Ziploc bag, like none of the funk that's on the beer can will get inside your water. So, um, you know, from my opinion, that's a good way to keep your beer cold.

[00:27:16] The other alternative is that you can, you know, if you have a little bit of extra time, if you get to like a, a river or stream or something like that, you can put

[00:27:24] your beer inside the river or the stream to cool it down for a little while. Yeah, that's a good idea. And my 65 has a, uh, like a bladder space. I should configure something for that. Yeah.

[00:27:36] I found the three liter bladder works well just because, I mean, it's overkill. You don't need to bring three liters of water with you usually depending on the hike, but, um, it, it just has plenty of room to put the beer in there and then

[00:27:47] put, you know, have a liter of water and then fill up the rest of the space with ice. And then you're, you're, you're golden. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. It's nothing like a summer brew. Nothing like a summer brew.

[00:27:58] And if you get that ice cold beer on the summit, then it's, it's perfect. Um, it's magic. And then the other reminder that I had for people is now's the time of the year where you really want to break out your water filter.

[00:28:09] You want to think about like water strategy because you're going to need a lot of water when it's hot, but you want to take a look at the maps, take a look at the

[00:28:17] water crossings, get a sense on what the, what the options are and make sure that you sort of maximize, um, you know, your water filtration. I prefer personally to use the Sawyer filters, whether it's a Sawyer mini or the

[00:28:31] bigger Sawyer and, um, get yourself a smart water bottle, screw that on there. And then you can just fill up the smart water bottle with the dirty water and then filter it and drink from it. That that's my system. It works pretty well.

[00:28:45] I think the, some people don't like the, the, the Sawyer mini just cause you have to like suck on it a little bit, but I don't mind it. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, anecdotally we're in sort of semi drought conditions up here too.

[00:28:58] So a lot of these, you know, trickling Brooks are going to be really trickling. So definitely like Mike said, do your research about where you're going to get your water? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You got to do your, do your homework.

[00:29:10] Um, and you know, sometimes you, you do trial by error and you get, you find yourself having to like fill up through a puddle, which I've had to do before. It sucks. But, um, you know, you do what you do. That's rough. Yeah. Yeah. That's rough.

[00:29:29] We all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times. So here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it. But I'm bummed. This is the part of the show where I do a, um, a dad joke here.

[00:29:47] So thanks to Camilla and Lance, my friends for giving me the 365 days of dad jokes. So what does a bad carpenter make? Um, loose stools. Oh, bam. Yes. That's a PG 13 joke there. That I've done. Yeah. And moving on. That's too funny. Hey, what's that sound?

[00:30:24] It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp. So this is the part of the show where we talk about pop culture. The only thing we have here is that Stomp wants to put a public service announcement in that House of Dragons is back.

[00:30:39] When's it, when's it going? When's it releasing? I think it's this Sunday. So I think it's Elf Fathers Day. Oh, great. Yeah. So the second season is back and I'm pretty revved up about it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:52] No, I think this is, um, yeah, this is going to be great. The greens and the blacks are going to be fighting. Um, you know, I gotta, I gotta take a look and I think princess

[00:31:02] Rainier is going to be looking for her revenge now that her kids been killed. So it's, it's going to get ugly. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Yep. And, uh, let's see. We do have our first sponsor of the night Fieldstone Kombucha.

[00:31:16] Fieldstone Kombucha is New England's premier craft kombucha company. If you're in the heart of new England, you need to drink a new England style kombucha. Softer, less acidic and truly enjoyable. Our kombucha is naturally effervescent and both full-bodied flavor. Fieldstone crafts the best seasonal flavors.

[00:31:32] When we tell you there are strawberries in our garden blush flavor, it's like biting into a sun ripened strawberry. Women owned and operated. We brew in Rhode Island using locally sourced ingredients. Fieldstone Kombucha is the perfect replenishing drink after a day on

[00:31:48] the slopes or a trek in the woods. It's chock full of probiotics and healthy acids to keep you in top form. Find us at Sunflower Natural Foods in Laconia, La Tasse Cafe in Waterville Valley, the Concord Food Co-op and Granite State Food Co-op in Concord as well.

[00:32:06] And more. Check out our website for the full list of New Hampshire, New England wide locations and use the code slasher S L A S R on the website for a 10% discount on an online order, which is shipped straight to your door. So that's fieldstonekombuchaco.com.

[00:32:22] Thank you Fieldstone. Um, I just sent out a bunch of stickers by the way to spinners and, um, I think. I think a Ski Fanatics is all set for the moment, but you should get those metal holographic ones soon at spinners.

[00:32:37] I know people have come down, they were looking for them and they just hadn't been delivered yet, so they should be on their way. Yeah. Stomps been texting me in a panic. He's like, we need more stickers. We got to get patches. I like that patch idea.

[00:32:50] What do you think? I like it. Yeah. Do it. Well, think about it. People could stitch them or embroider them onto their pack. I think that's wicked cool. Um, and we still get sold. Okay. Yeah. Let's do some research in that.

[00:33:04] I think I have a couple of connections, but we'll keep you posted on that. Let's see. Uh, I, I sent out a supply of stickers to somebody named Joe, um, Joseph who lives near or on the AT in New York city.

[00:33:17] And what he does is he provides trail magic and he sent us a message requesting, uh, stickers to stick on his trail magic boxes and water things and whatnot. So I just sent him a package. So thanks for the request, Joe. And, uh, that's really nice.

[00:33:33] And, uh, yeah. So that's about it. And people are buying some, some bonfire swag for slasher still, which is cool. It's a little bit warm for some of those sweatshirts, but there are some nice t-shirts up there too. Yeah.

[00:33:45] There was a ton of sweatshirts at, um, at reckless this weekend. It was, it was, it was sweatshirt weather, honestly. So, um, go get your swag. It's a, it's on our bonfire. You can get it through our link tree on Instagram. Right. Right.

[00:34:00] And, uh, we also use the, uh, the buy me a coffee donation site if anybody wants to donate. And this week we have a donation from Jarrett who donated 10 and sent us a cryptic message saying that he doesn't agree with what we say all the time,

[00:34:13] but he's still going to listen. I don't agree with what we say all the time. I love it. That's the best. And now we get a couple more quickies before we move on to beer talk. So 48 peaks, Alzheimer's.

[00:34:28] And by the way, we, um, had a few of those, uh, ventilation frames donated to the 48 peaks event. So thank you, Bryce for that. And, um, they were raffled off and, uh, one of, uh, one of the raffle ease was knobby hikes, believe it or not.

[00:34:45] I don't know who the other one was, but anyway, super cool. So 48 peaks use your passion for hiking to help end Alzheimer's in one collective effort, 400 plus hikers will climb New Hampshire's 4,000 footers or create their own hiking challenge to advance the care support

[00:35:01] and research efforts of the Alzheimer's association hike anytime this summer. And help turn the white mountains purple to end Alzheimer's no fundraising minimums required, but you can unlock fun prizes as you fundraise. So visit alts.org right slash 48 peaks to learn more.

[00:35:22] And, um, just briefly a plug for CS coffee. Ian was kind enough to send us some compostable packets from CS coffee, Mike, so I'm going to save a bunch for you and you can, yeah, listeners stay tuned for a review, but we're sponsored by CS coffee.

[00:35:38] They make instant coffee, eco-friendly instant coffee, and it's perfect for anybody who loves the outdoors as much as we do. It's great for backpacking day hiking, camping, and even at home, learn more and get in touch at www.csinstant.coffee.

[00:35:56] Or email them at info at CS instant.coffee. Uh, yeah, cool. They're they're super small. They look like a small little tea bags full of coffee and you just add hot water and boom, you're ready to go. Sounds perfect. Yeah. Thanks Ian.

[00:36:12] Hey, um, speaking of stickers, I just wanted to give a shout out to, um, my daughter, um, my youngest daughter Megzi. She, uh, sent the picture. She's she works in downtown Newburyport and she sent a picture on her way to

[00:36:26] work of a, like a black Honda CRV and they have, they have the slasher sticker on. Really? Yeah. Oh, she's like, she's like, look, dad, somebody has your sticker. Can you believe it? She's like, I can't believe somebody actually put that on their car.

[00:36:43] Cause I have like a, I have one on my car, but I have it like stuck to a magnet, but she drives my car and she takes it off cause she's like, it's embarrassing. Yeah. Well, listen, this segues into the recent hikes because I just did Welch Dickie

[00:36:56] before recording tonight and there was a white SUV in the parking lot with two slasher stickers on the car. So the rear passenger and the rear driver's windows had a sticker on each window. So whoever you are. Props. Yep.

[00:37:14] And same with, if you were in, if you were in, you'd report on Saturday or Sunday in your black CRV Honda. Um, my daughter sent me the picture of the car. So thank you. Yeah. Word's spreading. I guess. I guess.

[00:37:28] So this is the part of the show where we talk about what beer we're drinking stomps. So what do you got? Oh, I just picked this like randomly. It's one of these stone, stone brewery. It's called FML, which means something in the slang, but it's fear movie lions.

[00:37:43] And it's a hazy double IPA. Um, at what is it? 8.5%. So it's actually pretty tasty. Oh, I like it. Yeah. Where are they out of? Um, I, I don't know where that they're out of, but it's tasty. What you got? I have, um, a beer by small change.

[00:38:08] It's called the little rain, which is like, it's basically themed with like my hike this weekend. Which is a perfect segue. It's got like somebody with an umbrella and, um, with a little bit of rain.

[00:38:18] So those pretty much, and it's American peel ale, which is a little bit unique, uh, dry hopped with mosaic. So it's a little bit different taste. So it's okay. Not my favorite, but it's okay. Yeah. That's a, that's a smart image for the show. That's great.

[00:38:35] I knew we should have gone left back there. Stop. Don't worry. I know it's this way. I've got a feeling in my gut. Uh, are you sure you're not about to have a bowel emergency? Uh, totally.

[00:38:46] We got this, but I just blew out my hip fell down that gully with my 40 year old micro spikes. Suck it up. Stomp. It's 4 PM. We're at 3,500 feet. We got nine miles back to the parking lot. Your leg may be broken.

[00:39:00] We got no cell connection and we can't feel our fingers, but we're finishing all of my list tonight. By the way, I need some water. I'm empty. I would, if I could see what I'm doing, but my headlamp batteries are dead. You gotta be kidding me.

[00:39:13] What a chump. This is the last time I hike with you. Whatever, Mr. Do you know me? I have a podcast. Whatever. Let's find out what Mike and Stomp have been hiking. Stomp. I already talked a little bit about gill head, but I just like

[00:39:32] summarize it essentially like, um, we did an out and back from gill head gill river trail, I think is what it's called. So really great hike. It is, um, probably I would say like super gentle, uh, elevation for the first, like two and a half to three miles.

[00:39:50] And then you've got like a little bit of a, like, um, you know, a bit of a climb to, to get up to the hut. Maybe about a thousand feet climb to get up to the hut.

[00:39:59] And then after that, you can take a little break, chill out on the porch of the hut, and then you've got the final, probably three, 400 foot climb up to the summit. I think when we did it, Stomp, you and Alvaro sat and ate or drank

[00:40:13] lemonade and whoopie pies. Well, I had to go tag the summit and, um, yeah, which was nice, but I went up cause my daughter and her boyfriend were, were grabbing it and I was like, well, I guess I'm gritting now.

[00:40:25] So I went up and grabbed it and I left Dave Schitt's in the woods in, in a few other people to watch my, my backpack, which was a fatal, fatal mistake, Stomp. What happened? Cause you cannot trust this guy, Dave Schitt's in the woods.

[00:40:42] I go and I like pick up my backpack and I was like, oh geez. Cause I put, I had no water. So I put water in my, my water bottle things. And I was like, oh wow. The water's really weighing this thing down. It didn't hit me.

[00:40:55] And then I had to go back in the hut to go to the bathroom. Then I come back out and I pick it up again. And then it hit me. It hit me cause nothing can get past me. Those, those bastards put rocks in my backpack.

[00:41:09] And so I opened up my backpack and there was two big giant rocks in there. That's so classic. And I immediately knew it was Dave Schitt's in the woods cause he's a prankster. So. Yeah. He's, he's as good as they come for that type of stuff.

[00:41:24] But they got some good pictures of me cause I was like, I was like outraged that they would do that. So I'm like holding the rocks and I'm like, how dare you? So. Nice try, but you couldn't get past me.

[00:41:34] The old put the rocks in the backpack trick. Yeah. Can you imagine if you just went along with it? Honestly, like if he had just put one rock in, I wouldn't have noticed, but he probably too. And I was like, wait a minute, something's off here.

[00:41:48] So it's like that Indiana Jones moment with the gold statue and the sandbag. He just went a little too heavy. He just went a little too heavy. So. Yeah. But then triggered the boulder. Can't get it past me.

[00:41:59] So, um, but no, we had a good laugh on that one. And, uh, we did a group picture on the porch and as we're doing it, like this lady had to have been a teacher cause she's like immediately, like we, we go to stranger, like,

[00:42:13] can you take a picture of us? And she's immediately like bossing us all around. She's like, you get over here, you get over here. And then the second she took the picture at gray Jay just dive bombed us. And we got the picture back.

[00:42:24] I don't know whose phone it was. And like, it was absolutely dead center in the middle of the frame, a gray Jay just flying right above us in the picture. So I'll post that on the show. Shows. It was pretty cool. Phenomenal. That's really neat.

[00:42:38] But I remember, can we talk about that for just a second? So when Alvaro, you and I did that, we were beat. And then of course that's, I want to talk about that a little more, but the Garfield Ridge trail is the heart of darkness.

[00:42:49] In my opinion, it's just so long and tedious. And I remember when we were heading towards Franconia Ridge, how it wiped out. We are. Yeah. Cause we weren't, we were, oh, we weren't. Hell yeah. And then what did you bailed out at? Where Haystack?

[00:43:03] Uh, was it Haystack or Lafayette? It was falling waters. Yeah. Haystack. Okay. Yeah. And then Alvaro and I, man, Oh my God, we were so tired. That was just the longest, longest four miles down Osseo I've ever experienced.

[00:43:17] And like going up Garfield Ridge was like a climb in a waterfall. It was crazy. Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. We should, we should cover Garfield Ridge trail exclusively for a segment soon, because it is very complex and very daunting at some points.

[00:43:33] I forgot how steep and dangerous it is coming off of the Galehead side of Garfield. Holy moly. Oh yeah. I mean, uh, yeah, I totally forgot. Like it's gnarly. It's a lot longer than people think too.

[00:43:49] You know, you think of it in terms of like, Oh, they're right next to each other, but like, it's, it's, it's a bit of a distance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The mileage doesn't make sense to me when you're in the heat of it.

[00:43:58] Uh, you know, the three miles on one side and two and a half on the other, it seems much longer, but anyway, good stuff. Yeah, but that's it. So then I'm getting out this weekend. I'm probably going to do Madison and Adams with my daughter.

[00:44:09] So if you're out there. Oh, that's great. We'll be, we'll be out there. So we'll see you on Appalachia. So, and then what have you, what have you been up to Stomp? I guess I've been just too busy.

[00:44:19] Um, I, you know, DJing that thing last weekend, but I did Welch Dickey today for a quick little loop. I did it counterclockwise still clocking in under two hours, which I'm pretty happy with, you know, with the heat, it's a little harder.

[00:44:32] Um, I mean, future plans we're doing Liberty Sunday for father's day. That should be fun. And, um, I really have a bucket list. I want to do Hazleton Brook. That's a chip on my shoulder. Uh, maybe the captain in the fall, uh, with Dave.

[00:44:45] I don't know those Hazleton's a big one for me. I just want to get in there and I have some ideas to tackle it and get it over with. But how about you? Do you have a bucket list that you want to do this summer?

[00:44:56] I don't really, um, I think I'm pretty much all about like whatever my daughter wants to do to finish her list. So like, she's going to get like the bonds. She's got to get Zealand, the twins. Um, she's got to get Cabot, Wombat, Wildcat.

[00:45:11] Um, and then I'm going to get like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, the Northern Presidentials, Jefferson. Okay. Monroe's got to get to isolation, carrying. So probably I'll be doing like 4,000 footer hikes with her. And then I would like to get out and do some backpacking.

[00:45:27] So we'll see. Hmm. That there's so much to do, dude. There's like no time. It's so much to do. I want to get dry river too. I want to do that nine miles and then come back out. Yeah. Dry river, wild river.

[00:45:40] I want to get into, um, I got to get to the Northern part of Grafton. No, it's a million things I got to do. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm feeling good about it too. I want to actually section the, um, the lodge to dodge.

[00:45:55] I want to go from ravine lodge to cannon. I want to do that section soon because I feel like I can do that pretty, pretty easily now. Yeah. I feel like I'm ready for it. Exactly.

[00:46:04] Like that, that, um, that section of the Appalachian trail, I haven't got to either. I just, it's just not enough time. Stomp. Yep. No, I hear you. Anyway, at least we're, at least we're keeping fit and getting out there as much as we can.

[00:46:24] It's time for slashers notable hike of the week. If you want to be considered for the hike of the week, simply tag slasher on your social media posts. All right. So this is the part of the show where we do notable hikes stomp. Yeah, let's go.

[00:46:42] So we get a bunch of tags for people that wanted to, uh, tell us about their adventures. We start with Kathy who had an attempt at Mount Jackson, uh, on a prior occasion with Andrew Balo, the posh voice that we hear doing the hiking

[00:46:55] buddies spot, and then finally completed the same, uh, hike with Andrew, Seth and Liz. So congrats. Very good. It's very good. At first you don't succeed. Get back out there. Yes. Sager, Sager, TJ, Ossie Ollis for 38 and 39. Yeah.

[00:47:12] Tim is like he's banging these out too, because I saw him over the winter on Adams and he's getting close. So keep going, Tim. And then we have Lauren Samson, uh, 54 who did Mount Stinson, which is off of, uh, it's, it's in the Romney location.

[00:47:29] That's a great little hike. Brady girl one. Hiked up Zealand and the twins. And now we have a new name. I'm not familiar to, to me. It's folk star kill Kenny Ridge tagging weeks, middle weeks, Terrace and Cabot.

[00:47:46] And then we have Rhonda Willett spring finish via wild river, rainbow trail, wildcat river, and bog Brook. Awesome. And Rhonda is going to be joining us as a guest in a couple of weeks. Oh, good. Yeah, that's great. Let's see. Liz Faye.

[00:48:02] Castle mountain West peak, and then also did downing and a rattlesnake in Romney and rattlesnake in Romney is not the, the rattlesnake that we know over in the squam's it's a whole different, uh, rattlesnake. So let's see. Moving on.

[00:48:16] We have Carrie Barrell doing a single day Prezi northbound. I think based upon the pictures, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Nice work. Little foot comes in with a sandwich traverse from pine bend Brook over the tri pyramids sleepers, white, white face past the Conway,

[00:48:34] taking them at 11 hours, 16 miles and 5,100 feet of elevation. Wow. Little, little foot is out there crushing it as usual. Uh, a Folsom up jewel to clay and then Mount Washington summit for sunset. That's a, that's a nice hike.

[00:48:55] I mean, yeah, it's sort of a long way out in the dark, but hey, it's. The beautiful sunset cut more Jennifer Collins, five, six, seven, eight. Did a counterclockwise Eagle Crag north and south bald faces and Eastman loop making her 52 with a view up to 46.

[00:49:15] I'm not familiar with any of those except the bald faces. Yeah. Yeah. No Eagle Craig and Eastman are all on the 52 with a view as well. So she looks like she banged out for four summits in one hike. Yeah. That's a great day. Yep.

[00:49:29] Um, in the woods, 29 Crawford path to RG, a car chook, uh, one back. Menta. So I G a car chook is obviously the, uh, the native American name from a Washington. So that's great work there. And, um, I apologize.

[00:49:48] Matter of fact, I was, um, when me and Jake were on the auto road, um, I was like spotting Aja cook, Aja cook. Crag, which is like a sub summit. That's like right below it's sort of like on that, you know, when it flattens out

[00:50:02] a little bit, like mile six and a half or seven over the left is, um, is Aja cook. Cook crag. Got it. Yep. Got it. Okay. I think, uh, okay, nevermind. Um, let's see here. So moving on, we have Jake ski 603, uh, Mount Paucus via the

[00:50:22] Olivarian Brook trail, Olivarian Brook. I have fond memories of that. It's a monster. Uh, if you like water crossings, that's the, it's haunted. It's also haunted. Yes. Boreal badass, Acadia hiking great head beehive and sand beach.

[00:50:42] Then ginger beard keen tagged us for three days and two nights at Glacier national park. Beautiful pictures. Um, Northeast discovery. Hiked Mount Paucus as well via the Kelly and Lawrence trails. Cameron, Casey three. Is it really? Yeah, I think so. Okay. I get to get over there.

[00:51:02] Oh man. Another thing to add to the list. Uh, let's see. Cameron Casey three was up in Baxter state park and hike North brother little and big Niagara falls by canoe. Sounds dangerous. Sounds like they weren't in a canoe going up the mountain.

[00:51:16] They were in a canoe getting to those areas. Okay. All right. Run casts run did a two night hut to hut. And then finally D delay, uh, finished the 52 of the view on Mount success. So that's a hell of a list. So yeah, I'm going to give delay.

[00:51:33] I'm going to give, um, I'm going to give it to them. Yeah. Congratulations on finishing and also congratulations on picking one of the best summits on the 52 with a view list to finish on. So yeah, who six a beautiful. So congrats. Let's dive into some white mountains history.

[00:51:55] Shall we? All right. Stop. So this is the part of the show where we do a little, little white mountain history. So what do you know about Henry David Thoreau? Uh, Henry David Thoreau with the author. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:13] This is the guy that lived on Walden pond and all that. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've read a lot of those books. I've seen the pond when I was a mass hole. Uh, so yeah, do tell, do tell, do tell.

[00:52:24] So this guy, um, he was basically, um, an American naturalist and essayist, a poet and a philosopher, and he was a leading member of what's called the transcendentalists. So, um, there was another guy named Ralph Waldo Emerson that was like a leading transcendentalist.

[00:52:43] So they had a core belief that, um, it is in the inherent goodness of people in nature. Um, and well societies in their institutions corrupt the purity of the individual. People are at their best when they're truly self-reliant and independent.

[00:52:59] So transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday rather than believing in any distant view of heaven. So basically they're, they're like live for today. Uh, humans are generally good. They get corrupted when they're involved in like larger society.

[00:53:18] So, um, Thoreau was most well known for his writing specifically Walden, which was a chronicle of the two plus years that he spent in a small 10 by 15 cabin near Walden pond and Concord mass.

[00:53:32] Now back in these days in the mid 1800s, Concord was considered sort of like the wilderness. So, um, he had set up property, he was on property that was owned by another well-known transcendentalist who I talked about Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[00:53:47] Um, and then Thoreau is like, he's familiar, I think as an arch type to many hikers. So the sort of idea that we've touched on stomp a few times with different cases where people yearn to sort of like just get rid of the, rid of the trappings of

[00:54:00] civilization and, um, go back into a state where they survive within nature. So, um, the reason why I'm talking about him today is that I found an interesting summary of Thoreau's two trips to the white mountains. And in both cases, he, um, he had climbed Mount Washington.

[00:54:24] So credit for this goes to Chris Stewart, who essentially did like a summary of some of the writings of, um, of Thoreau in order to, um, you know, basically give a, give a summary of what he did. I thought it was interesting.

[00:54:39] The thing that made me most interested in this stomp is that this guy was a disaster on the mountain, you know, as much as he had like the street cred to be like this naturalist and stuff, he's total train wreck, total train wreck. So, um, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:54] So I've given away the plot a little bit here, but essentially, so Thoreau first visited the white mountains in 1839 with his brother. And this, this, this trip was pretty solid. I gotta, I gotta give him some credit.

[00:55:07] So basically what they did is they paddled up from Concord to up the Merrimack river and then to the Pemagoacet river to the source. So they were looking to, um, up river. Yeah. Yeah. He just got a little street cred back in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:28] So he was, he was basically paddling up the river and, um, you know, he essentially made it to Pinkham notch and they were able to climb up Crawford notch. He really didn't, uh, he wrote a book about this called the week on the

[00:55:44] Concord and Merrimack river, but he really didn't give a lot of reference to the climb. Basically it was like a cloudy day. They went up the Crawford path and he didn't really talk much about it. So, um, but fast forward 20 years later, uh, Thoreau had developed a larger

[00:56:00] interest in botany and, um, had decided he was going to visit the region again with a friend named Edward Hoare. And his goal was to collect like wild flowers in the Alpine garden. So prior to the trip Thoreau, um, he seems like a bit of a curmudgeon type

[00:56:15] of guy, to be honest with you. He had been locked in a disagreement with one of his magazine publishers over an edit to one of his stories that he had insisted didn't, didn't have, he didn't want it to happen.

[00:56:25] They edited it anyway, and he had been arguing with them. So the magazine was sitting on his payments and Thoreau actually wasn't making a lot of money selling writings. He didn't become popular until after his death.

[00:56:37] Um, so as he was heading to New Hampshire, he was under some financial stress and he relied on Edward, um, Edward Hoare to fund the entirety of the trip. Hoare was able to acquire some horses for the ride up and Thoreau was generally

[00:56:53] like in a stress mood in the early stages of the trip. So they set off on July 1st, 1859 to, um, to leave the Concord area and head up to the White Mountains with a goal of getting to Pinkham Notch to climb Mount Washington.

[00:57:07] So, um, I can't believe that just in and of itself, right? It's crazy. Like you think of a, like, you know, they're taking a horse up there, but, um, so they made their way up. They went through center Harbor and they stopped around center Harbor and climbed

[00:57:23] Red Hill, which has views of Chakora. And then the next day, the fire tower, the fire tower I do all the time with Mrs. Stomp. Yeah, wow. Exactly. So they got views of Chakora from there.

[00:57:35] And then, um, I guess the next day or two, they made their way through Tamworth and North Conway and Jackson to get up to Pinkham Notch. And, um, upon arrival, they stayed at the Glenn house. Now Thoreau generally disliked these sort of luxurious grant hotels, but Hoare had

[00:57:53] arranged, he's like, we really don't have any other options here. And he had arranged for them to meet a guide by the name of Wentworth that was going to take Thoreau and Hoare up to the summit via the, the basically half built road that goes to the summit.

[00:58:08] So they had chosen to take the carriage road and this apparently put Thoreau in a foul mood because he had no love of like these man-made trails. So that was one of the things I think that Hoare made a mistake about.

[00:58:22] Um, but anyway, they made their way up. They went about 4,000 feet. They got to the halfway house and stayed there overnight. Um, but by the next morning, I think Thoreau was basically done with these other two that he was with.

[00:58:36] He decided to head up on his own to the summit. His timing was better because he got a little bit of a view, but it very quickly sort of started rolling in fog.

[00:58:45] He's on his way back down to Tuckerman because he's got to meet a couple of friends of his in Tuckerman that are going to help him with like going back up to the Alpine Garden over the course of a few days.

[00:58:57] They were going to camp down in Tuckerman and basically hit the Alpine Garden to collect some flowers. So after he summits, he tells Hoare and Wentworth, I'm going to head down. Wentworth is like, dude, you better wait for me because you don't know where you're

[00:59:11] going. Thoreau ends up like heading down. He's got a bearing on a compass apparently, but it's all foggy. So he gets turned around. Eventually Wentworth and Hoare end up running into him and they all hike down into Tuckerman Ravine.

[00:59:28] So Wentworth was kind of like, yeah, you know, I saved your butt there from getting lost and then split in the group, split in the group. So they get down close to Hermit Lake. They pick their campsite. Wentworth decides he's going to make a fire.

[00:59:41] Thoreau's looking at him saying like, you know, dude, you better be careful as a little bit. It's it's a little dangerous here for a fire. So sure enough, Wentworth writes a fire and then he sets off a forest fire.

[00:59:54] So Thoreau's telling him basically like, hey, don't light that fire. Wentworth's telling him like, screw you, I'm going to do what I want. And next thing you know, they had to abandon their campground because there was a forest fire starting. So they get to Hermit Lake.

[01:00:09] The friends are approaching and they're like, hey, you told us to look for a fire, but like we didn't think it was going to be a forest fire. So they're basically and then it starts raining out. So that helped with the forest fire.

[01:00:22] So then five of these people are stuck under a canvas for the night because they left a lot of their stuff by the campsite because it was burning. So anyway, it's pretty much a disaster at this point.

[01:00:38] Eventually Thoreau decides that the next morning he's going to climb back up the headwall to the Alpine Garden to collect flowers. That was reasonably successful. But on the way back, he suffered a bad ankle sprain returning to camp.

[01:00:55] He needed to yell for his friends to help carry him back to camp. He was then immobilized for three days by Hermit Lake where he was forced to sit in camp and soak his ankle in the cold water.

[01:01:06] And eventually he was mobile enough to get back down and head home. And he later wrote about the trip and summarized it. But a lot of it was lamenting about the amount of development that had occurred in the mountains from the time that he had visited 20 years earlier.

[01:01:21] So it's kind of a strange choice for him. You would think that he would have tried to get to like a more, I guess, abandoned area. But just to summarize, basically, he doesn't get along with his guide. He can't afford to pay for the trip.

[01:01:37] He doesn't listen to his guide. He gets lost. His guide starts a forest fire. He breaks his, he almost breaks his ankle and he's stuck there for three days. And I guess he did collect his flowers, but pretty much not a super impressive showing for Henry David Thoreau.

[01:01:54] Wow. Could he be the original Mass Hall? He could be. He could be the original Mass Hall. The 1800s. Yeah. Now what shape were the trails on Mount Washington back in the day at that time? Were there trails or was it bushwhacking or what?

[01:02:13] Well, you had the carriage road going up the mountain. So that was clearly done. Crawford Path is established from that side. And then I don't know if Tuckerman Ravine Trail is set up the way we think of it, but I'm assuming maybe it was. I don't know.

[01:02:35] Fascinating. Wow. That's interesting because we put these people on pedestals. Like I thought this guy was like God's gift, you know what I mean? He's like, he's like, he's a clown. He's like you, he's a clown. That's right.

[01:02:52] Opening beer with his teeth and taking off from his group. So anyway, Mr. Walden Pond. Interesting. He needs to take a wilderness first aid class. That's amazing. But props to the canoe trip upstream. Good job. That's impressive. That's impressive. And yeah, thank you.

[01:03:11] This was some additional reading from the Appalachia book that I have, which is cool. So anyway, I will try to find that essay and see if I can link some of Thoreau's writings that reference this in the show notes.

[01:03:22] So this is the part of the show where we're going to do a segment with our friend Christina Folsick and talk a little bit about the and talk a little bit about her coaching offering. So if you're looking for some coaching services for hiking, running, wellness,

[01:03:39] whatever, she is going to fit the bill for you. So why don't we move into this segment now and then we'll come out the other side. All right. It's time for Slashers guest of the week. Very cool. Very cool. Hello, Christina. Welcome back. How are you doing? Good.

[01:04:25] How are you? You have you absorbed that New England glow back into yourself being back in the Northeast? Oh, man, I'm like totally loving the rugged terrain again. I'm going to miss it, but I'm not. But I'm going to miss it.

[01:04:40] You like the the canopy, the trees over your head. But then you get up a tree line and you're like, wow. Every time. Yeah. Have you been anywhere cool recently? Just my Washington a bunch. Yeah, it was a bunch of those before we leave. Yeah. Do you what?

[01:04:56] What direction do you typically go up Mount Washington? We've been doing lion's head. It's a beauty. And we love tux and we love the Alpine Garden. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That whole side is great. What's your favorite?

[01:05:10] My favorite, honestly, lately has been like I like going up the auto road, so I'm a little weird, but regardless, like I I like going down Bootspur for whatever reason. I just like I've been like going down Bootspur

[01:05:28] and then hitting like those like you got to hop on rocks because you don't want to step on like the rock hopper like you can. Yeah. Yeah. So you can. Exactly. But you can get to like these over these outlooks where you can like look straight into Tarkamen.

[01:05:41] And I feel like that's that's just a cool view. And you're above treeline for so long in that descent coming off of Bootspur is just mind blowing every time. Yeah, yeah. It changes like my in the winter.

[01:05:52] I like ammonius, but it's just the whole the whole area is just fantastic. But but anyway, welcome back. And I'm glad that you're getting up on Mount Washington a lot. Are now are you doing more trail running or are you doing more hiking when you get out?

[01:06:07] Trail running trail running. OK. Yeah. Excellent. So I mean, really, it's there's high. It's hiking trail running in the White Mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like if you can if you can get a couple of hundred feet worth of a real run, then you're you're in good.

[01:06:22] You can call it a run. Yes, exactly. But but we wanted to welcome you back and you've had a little bit of change. So, Christina, we've had you on the show a few times now and, you know, for the listeners that are familiar with you

[01:06:37] or not familiar with you, just a quick background and you can fill in the gaps here. But so used to be rock hopper racing and White Mountain Endurance. And then you you basically been responsible for creating and promoting and running a number of different races

[01:06:56] through our trail running races throughout the White Mountains. You've since partnered with our Vipa. And then what's the latest update? So you mostly transitioned away from that and then you're moving into coaching. Yeah, so we have decided we want to have more flexibility and we're moving out west.

[01:07:12] So it doesn't mean I can't coach New England athletes. And I don't I still want to be a part of this area. And we are still doing some behind the scenes help with our Vipa. But we decided we wanted to try something new and we might be back.

[01:07:25] We might not. And walking away from race directing, which was basically every single day you're working, I have a lot more time to take on more athletes and do some different things with my coaching. One of which is I've been starting to help people with hiking goals.

[01:07:40] And, you know, an endurance coach doesn't just mean triathlons and ultra running and things like that. It also is hiking and that's part of an endurance sport. And then the personal training I do with mostly senior citizens.

[01:07:55] But I do online personal training as well, which has been going really well. Awesome. So as far as the coaching goes. So it sounds like there's like so there's the ultra running. There's I'm assuming, you know, general wellness.

[01:08:09] It sounds like with some of the the older clients that you work with. Can you talk a little bit about sort of the benefits of coaching and then who might might be a good candidate to work with you? Pretty much anybody that wants to make a life change,

[01:08:27] improve their overall health and well-being. You know, my goal is to help people think about we're all going to get old someday, unfortunately. I like to call it more experienced at life, but we're going to get old.

[01:08:36] And things that can happen is you lose bone, you lose muscle mass and you start to lose your posture and all these bad things happen. And when I started working with senior citizens out in Arizona where we winter at this gym that I work at part time,

[01:08:52] I realized their goals are I want to hold my grandchildren. I want to stand up and get off the couch and do some exercise. And I want to stand up and get off the toilet without help. I want to put my shoes and socks on in the morning

[01:09:02] without having to press myself against the wall and throw weights in their hands and getting them to start walking. It was amazing to see the changes. So it started kind of getting my wheels turning with how can I change

[01:09:16] my coaching to focus on not only improving you as an athlete, but teaching you how important it is to maintain active throughout your life so that when you are in your 80s, then actually there's a 94 year old woman

[01:09:28] I'm working with that, you know, you can still do this stuff for the rest of your life. It doesn't mean you can't. Yeah, and it seems like it's a continuous theme on on, you know, we've had a number of guests that have talked about similar ideas is that,

[01:09:43] you know, the idea, I think, is to continue to push yourself so that you're you know, continuing to stay in shape. But ultimately, the end goal is to stay healthy. Don't, I guess, overtrain or, you know, you don't want to get injuries by over

[01:09:58] training in the end goal is to continue to be, you know, out there and doing things into well into your your older years. So and I would guess that a lot of people don't like I definitely in my younger

[01:10:11] years had it and we've talked about this before, but like overtraining and pushing yourself too hard, especially people that just recently got the bug with hiking, like I see people just try to they go overboard and and they get injured.

[01:10:23] But can you talk a little bit about like how you do your intake with with clients and assess where they're at? And so we would meet for about an hour and have a conversation about their training

[01:10:34] goals and obviously make sure we're a good match, because personality wise, you have to be a good fit when you work with somebody. And I have over 20 years of hiking experience. And I started trail running in 2011. So I had a mountain running.

[01:10:49] So, you know, whether it's your goal is hiking the 48 doing the NE67. I know these mountains here in the White Mountains. And I also know a lot of the mountains out west from my mountaineering background

[01:11:01] and, you know, really find that there's a place to help people achieve their endurance goals, whether it's running, biking or hiking, especially here in the White Mountains to do it safely. And so they don't have injuries. And also, I mean, you guys know this.

[01:11:17] I am a huge advocate of safety, teaching people safety skills and talking to them about where do you look for the weather forecast and what's a wilderness first aid course and why should you take it? I still partner with my coaching with Redline Guiding to bring the wilderness

[01:11:34] first aid classes four times a year to Pinkham Notch and just go over some basic, you know, oh, you're going to go do this long day. This is what you should have in your pack. So helping people do this safely and learn how to do it properly.

[01:11:48] When I learned, I just went out there and I'm lucky I'm not dead. My first hike, I should have been dead. I got all my advice from Stomp. I probably shouldn't be alive at this point. I was the king of close calls myself. So, yeah, you're right.

[01:12:05] Me and Stomp were trying to figure out how to navigate it. It was ridiculous. It's like the blind leading the stupid. Crazy, crazy. But so what's the format? Do you have to be in person or is this I'm assuming you do a lot of remote and

[01:12:19] you could do it over Zoom or you could do it over email or whatever. It's all remote. And I just was telling Stomp I partnered with Team Run Run. And the main reason I'm still White Mountain Endurance Coaching.

[01:12:32] I still have my own business, but I'm a contractor with them. And what they do is bring a bunch of coaches together. So now I have other coaches to network with and talk coaching, which this is a fairly lonely profession if you don't have that.

[01:12:45] So, you know, I would be working in conjunction with them, but anybody working with me would be working solely with me. And I have two options. One is we do no Zoom meetings. We just do everything through an app called Training Peaks and text messaging and phone calls.

[01:13:03] And then the other one would be Zoom meetings. And the Zoom meetings are pretty popular because you would meet with me once every other week and we would talk about your training. And, you know, I get to see you.

[01:13:15] And one of the things is making sure, are you eating enough food? Are you getting enough sleep? I can see if you're fatigued or, you know, we can just have a little bit of a deeper conversation when we do the Zoom calls.

[01:13:27] But I am offering a no Zoom call thing now too, which is kind of nice for people that are like, I just want accountability. I want somebody to keep me going. And we still communicate every day, but it's through an app, which is super easy to use. Yeah.

[01:13:42] And how do you deal with like, because like, again, I'm not signing up for coaching at this point, but like I could just imagine being like a huge pain in the ass for

[01:13:52] someone because like I would be like, all right, I like to eat what I want to eat and I like my own routine. And like, how do you work with people that are a little bit difficult? Like, like I probably would be if I was a client.

[01:14:06] There's no such thing as a difficult person. What I do is I educate. I never make anybody feel bad about what they're doing, especially their diet or if they miss a workout. I'm not going to yell at you. I can still eat my Cheez-Its. I eat.

[01:14:19] You should see what I eat. You know, but we if people do want guidance with nutrition, whether it's disordered eating or just a little bit of guidance about how to fuel on the trail and before and afterwards, I am a certified nutrition coach.

[01:14:34] So we can talk about that, but we don't have to. I can be uber technical if somebody is all about data and stats, but I can also be very simple and basic so that it doesn't have to be this confusing.

[01:14:46] Oh, my goodness. You know, what's what's cadence and you know, how many steps am I getting? And you know, what is my HRV? We don't need to know those things. It's more are you sleeping well? How are you feeling? What's your mood like?

[01:14:59] I'm just asking basic, simple questions that can be answered and kind of a little spoiler alert. Rem and I are partnering with Kelton to create an app that's going to manage things and make this stuff even simpler.

[01:15:13] So instead of training peaks is the one I use right now. We're going to have this like bomber app that is simple and not confusing for people who are looking to to use it. So, you know, yeah, it's kind of cool stuff. What do you not do?

[01:15:29] I hear anything you haven't done yet. Now you're in the tech sector. Hey, you only live once. That's great. And then how do people go about signing up if they want to if they want

[01:15:47] to reach out to you to to talk about potentially partnering as a or hiring you as a coach? Go to my website. It's coaching dot Christina Falsick dot com. My name really difficult to spell. The first name is with a K and the last name, F.O.L.

[01:16:03] C.I.K. And you can take a look on there and I have everything that I do listed and the packages and how much everything costs. And you can even get some cool discounts on Thor nutrition, which, you know, I saw off my website, too. So.

[01:16:19] Awesome. Yeah. So we'll put those in the show notes and make sure that I put all the links up there for sure. As far as like in-person activities, like going out and running with you or workout activities and things like that.

[01:16:29] So you're going to be moving in the near future. But like for clients that are in the area now, is that something that you typically do or is that just something you do on your own to get out? I used to.

[01:16:40] I can't because I gave up my you have to have permits and insurance to do that. So I don't have that anymore. So now it's more of a just virtual coaching, which works really well for people.

[01:16:52] People are super receptive to it and I get to see your workout as soon as you load it. And then we'll usually talk about it. Some people work out in the morning, some at night. But I'm super responsive. I usually get back to you within a couple hours.

[01:17:03] Yeah. And I'm most like aware of the sort of the coaching just because I have a lot of friends and I was in the marathon world for a while. And, you know, the Boston qualifiers and like my experience is a lot of my friends that

[01:17:14] went through the marathon coaching, they would have like the intake calls and they, you know, maybe once a week or once a month they would do an in-person or a Zoom type of thing. And then they would get their training plan either for the week or daily or

[01:17:28] whatever. So I'm assuming it's similar with once you find out what the goals are and you're in agreement, then probably similar, right? Yeah. And some people just want the accountability. Some people want to sit here and talk.

[01:17:41] I also have a big mental health program that I do to help people have healthy relationships with themselves. Overcome PTSD and have a healthy relationship with their sport and their food. And that's a totally different experience where we do more in-depth Zoom meetings.

[01:17:54] But majority of the people I work with like to do the Zoom meetings. Some people, they want to just kind of be here's a schedule. Let's talk every day about how things are going. They don't have time for meetings. I used to just make everybody do meetings.

[01:18:08] And then what I found was some people literally don't have time for the meetings. So it's easy to just sit there and talk. Or just go through emails or the app.

[01:18:16] Yeah, yeah. I would think some of the older, do you find like, and I feel like this is a more and more of a trend is that like there's a loneliness factor out there with

[01:18:24] people, you know, especially as you get older, it's harder to make friends and things like that. So I'm wondering, do you find with like some of the elderly clients, is it like, is it, is it easier to just be around them?

[01:18:37] Is it easier to just be around them? There is. And we talk about that. We talk about finding the right place to go recreate with other people because socialization is a big part of life.

[01:18:47] And that's one thing that a lot of people give up is, you know, they raise their children. They sometimes friendships just aren't as solid as they once were because you were focused on raising kids. They don't want to be around you.

[01:18:59] And so I think that's a big part of it. And I think that's a big part of it. And I think that's a big part of it. And I think that's a big part of it.

[01:19:05] Friendships just aren't as solid as they once were because you were focused on raising kids. They leave and you're like, oh my gosh. And some people never put effort into finding a sport or a hobby and creating those

[01:19:15] friendships again. So it's finding a place that they feel safe and comfortable. And I've even had some people start their own group runs, which was amazing. And, you know, I'll guide people through that whole process on how to start a group

[01:19:28] run in your community or a group hike or personal training. You know, everybody meets at the gym or with the Zoom one. Some people just meet in a common area and we work together as a group. And I can't believe how fun personal training is remotely.

[01:19:43] I thought it wasn't going to be. It's amazing. Yeah, that's great. And I think it's like these active pursuits are actually one of the benefits that I find is that there is a lot of opportunity to meet new people and make friends, either it's ultra running or hiking.

[01:20:03] Like there's a, even though the last couple of years I've just met so many great people and made a bunch of new friends. So, and then me and Stomp obviously met through our shared interests.

[01:20:13] So it is a good way I think that people can break through if you are lonely or you're like unsure about hiking, like you start with Christina should give you the lay of the land as far as where

[01:20:24] to start with hiking. And then once you get out there, you can engage with like groups like the hiking buddies or just meeting friends on trail. And, you know, that's a good way to, I think, expand sort of your social network as well.

[01:20:38] Yeah. And I also will bring runners and hikers together if they're in the same community or want to meet up, I'll make introductions and friendships have formed that way too, which is super cool.

[01:20:48] Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have you here. Do you have any, I know you said you like, you know, you were up in the, the presidentials, but if you, if we wanted to go in the whites, like to just hit like flat sections to do trail running,

[01:21:02] do you have any like go-to places that you recommend? Oh, there's a couple of spots that are amazing. One is the Southern Presi phenomenal. I mean, that is just great running. The other area is, I don't know if you're familiar with Whitewall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:21:17] That flat section there is beautiful and the running is bomber and it's not at the base of Whitewall. Okay. Yeah. That, you know, that trail when you're doing a hot traverse and you go by Whitewall and you're on that flat, like,

[01:21:32] yeah. Ethan pond or whatever up in there. Yeah. Yeah. It is phenomenal. How about a Frank, Frank, one of your Ridge man, that, that Ridge is, that's a, that's a classic. That's the bomb for sure. Yeah. That Ethan pond is a great one.

[01:21:47] I'm lazy. I live closer to Washington. Yeah. Never get to that side. Yeah. I've actually found this like, like Lincoln woods out to like the lower portion of bond cliff before it starts getting steep is like, that's you can get some major miles.

[01:22:04] Like you can do like a 10 mile out and back in that load without any elevation gain at all. It's just trails. So I know people don't like Lincoln woods, but you get to that bond cliff section or even you get to Frank Coney Brook out

[01:22:17] to like Owl's head. That's a good, good running section too. That's flat because I just slow down when I go uphill. Everyone does. Yeah. You'd be weird if you didn't. Yeah, I know. It's just like, I'm thinking of like in terms of like sustained sort of flattish running.

[01:22:33] Obviously the Hancock's before you get to the climb is like another good one too. So yeah. And kind of the secret to running fast in the white mountains, it's really, it's not even a secret. You know,

[01:22:42] you take advantage of the runnable sections and you run those and what you need to practice most is that transition from running to power hiking, to running, to power hiking. And that's how you go faster is you run when you can and then the second it gets

[01:22:56] too hard, you're better off just breaking into a power hike. But when you make that transition, if you're not trained for it, you're like winded and out of breath and you don't feel good. But if you can kind of make that smooth,

[01:23:05] like you're shifting gears driving a stick, you'll get right off that super efficiently. Yeah. And I think, I mean, this is just me speaking, but like from my experience, like the transition from running to power hiking,

[01:23:15] I think the mistake that a lot of people make is they don't shorten their stride enough and they don't find that sort of low, the, you know, the quicker cadence and the shorter stride is where you can sort of change gear

[01:23:26] and like you're not running, but your feet are moving just as fast, but it just feels weird in the beginning. So people don't get used to it. I see that a lot of times where people will,

[01:23:37] they'll keep that long loping stride and they're going uphill and they burn out quick. And you're not using like ideally you want to use your glutes, your hamstrings and your quads. And you're not using those when you're striding out going up a big hill and

[01:23:50] then unique in the white mountains, step ups, ups and downs at the gym with weight. That makes that process a lot easier, especially in the Northern prezies. Stomp. You're going to sign up for coaching. You need to, you need accountability. Plenty of a step up and step down.

[01:24:09] I'm good. We'll see. We'll get, we'll, we'll convert him, Christina, cause he needs, he needs accountability because he's bugging me all the time. So I need, I need someone to bother him. I'll just sign him up on the app and send your workouts right to your email and

[01:24:24] you can sign up for text message reminders to do your workout. Oh, can you, if, if you signed him up, could I get CC'd on his workout so that you could really keep the double accountability? You know what, with the app rems building probably. Okay. That's good.

[01:24:41] Now do you get hit, hit like tagged and cell phone all day long by people or do you have set boundaries or what? How's that? How's that work? Well, I mean, you got to shut your phone off sometime or another, but how's it work as a coach?

[01:24:56] I work a lot. I'm, um, try to make yourself accessible. Yeah. And that was a sink that I had when I worked with a lot of coaches was like two days ago by I'm like, Hey, I don't feel good. What should I do?

[01:25:08] So you're proceeding with your workout. I'm super responsive. I do take like a week or two of vacation a year, but when I have access to my cell phone, I can at least once every 24 hours take a look at it. But I check it. Um, I get notifications.

[01:25:21] I make sure I definitely check three times a day and respond to everybody. I don't want to leave people hanging on the competitive end. Like I'm assuming you probably still work with some ultra runners and people

[01:25:32] that are gearing up for races and stuff like that. Do you, um, do you still get like a lot of, uh, excitement and energy, you know, seeing how those like those higher end athletes do in their races? It's all amazing. It's um,

[01:25:47] cause I have some that are training for a sub three hour marathon and I celebrate everybody. It is literally just as exciting to watch somebody like meet their running goal as it is to watch somebody like,

[01:25:57] I can't believe I just hiked up this mountain and this is really amazing. And my coaching technique is focused on recovery, which means you're not totally annihilated and tired all the time. You feel good during your training.

[01:26:10] And I really like make sure that you're not over training so you don't get injured. And again, that you don't become neurotic and have an unhealthy relationship with your sport because your friends and family and your job matter. Yeah.

[01:26:26] It's a balance. Not, you know, you can't let things consume you. And I think I'd been there before. Like I just, you know, you get overly focused on like, Oh, I want to run a Boston qualifier or whatever.

[01:26:35] So it is good to have a coach that like will keep you balanced and say like, Hey, you know, keep an eye on the kids, keep an eye on the, you know, the relationships as well. It's not all, it shouldn't be all consuming.

[01:26:47] So REM's building this baby, huh? That's cool. He's a smart guy. You don't be wild. I know this is like Tesla territory, but imagine like if you could wear a headset and you as a coach have beamed into their ear as they're doing the race by satellite,

[01:27:05] you could talk to them the whole time and you have a little camera. You could see exactly where they are. Let's have REM work on that one. Don't be wild. Too much. Too much. I can like tease them if they're like, you're going too fast.

[01:27:18] You need to watch it. Your heart rate is too high. Exactly. So I'm big until I'm into European cycling and like, that's exactly what they all have, you know, their heart monitors and their, their cadence monitors and their,

[01:27:31] their, their, their right on top. You don't want to believe me. That's all about the race where you chase the wheel of cheese down the hill. Have you Googled that? Yes. That was insane. Matter of fact, I was fascinated because I watched the,

[01:27:44] there's a girl who's, she's an American. She's won it two out of the last three years. And she, I think she's from North Carolina. So she just travels specifically. It's amazing that they don't like no one gets paralyzed though, because they're just crazy.

[01:27:59] It's like ragdolling right down the hill after the roll of cheese. So for the listeners, for what Christine is talking about is there's an event in, I don't know, it's somewhere in the UK, it's either Scotland or Ireland or somewhere in England where it's

[01:28:13] the top of this hill and the hill is probably what, like 300 feet, 400 feet, something like that. It's not crazy, but it's crazy enough where you can get injured. And what they do is they have different categories.

[01:28:24] I think they have like kids and then adults and it's male, female. And they throw a wheel of cheese down the hill and then everybody just flips and flops. And like, it's a very steep hill. And it's just insane. There's a documentary, I think on Netflix about it.

[01:28:40] So I'll pull that up on the show notes, but yeah, I'm obsessed with that. It's so interesting. And I watched the girl because they did the video and I would like did it in slow

[01:28:50] motion just to see them. And they're, they're really good tumblers is what I've noticed. It's crazy. So would you do that if you had the chance? You wouldn't do that. I'm not that, I'm crazy. I'm not that crazy.

[01:29:01] The other one is the running of the bulls in Spain. Like that's another one that I would never do. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. I'm over here considering it. Would you run the bull or would you? I think I would. Yeah, I would. I would. Yeah.

[01:29:19] All right. Maybe we can, maybe we can, we can do a tax write up for that. I did Mount Marathon in Alaska. That was the only race I actually questioned whether it was going to die or not. If you don't know what it is, Google it.

[01:29:31] It's a three mile race that is pure madness. And the whole entire town comes out to watch this thing. I'll take a look at that. The most insane thing I've ever done. Honestly, any form of like running downhill to me is like, cause I did,

[01:29:47] I did like the, um, I used to do the Mount Cannon race and that's like a double loop and like running downhill. Like I had never really done that. And I was getting passed by a bunch of people and I was like,

[01:29:59] these people are lunatics. I think you have to have a switcher. I just was too nervous, but you have to have a screw loose, I think to really run fast downhill like that. Take some practice, but some of the stuff around here is kind of gnarly.

[01:30:12] It's crazy. It's crazy. These guys were like just flying down. And this was like the, the national championship. So I think some of them were probably lapping me at that point, but it's still crazy anyway. But anything else stopped that we want to cover with Christine?

[01:30:27] Could you tell us about a success story from your coaching? Oh, success. Well, personal training. One of the clients I work with lost 60 pounds and she has some muscles and she's psyched and she feels really good. That's cool. And then there's just so many accomplishments I've had people

[01:30:46] PR multiple distances, a hundred mile distances. Somebody recently took 20 minutes off their marathon PR, which was super cool. Yeah. Watching somebody who couldn't run more than five miles a few months ago, absolutely crushing it now doing 25 miles up in the white mountains. So yeah, a lot of,

[01:31:09] a lot of really cool success stories. Wow. That's awesome. Well, there you go. So how do I, well, you know, you're an author, you're a tech, um, tech oligarch, entrepreneur, tech oligarch.

[01:31:24] Rem does the tech stuff. I just look at it and I'm like, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. Why don't you let us know how we can get ahold of you, how we can sign up and anything else you want to plug?

[01:31:39] Yeah. Um, check out our wilderness for a safe classes that, um, Mike Sharon with red line guiding. And I do, I think those are extremely important to save a life. You can save your life, somebody else's, or just be safer in the mountains.

[01:31:52] I just, we need to help all the search and rescue people out there. Um, you can go to coaching.christinafulsic.com. I have Instagram, Facebook, which is white mountain endurance coaching. I'll soon be on the team run run website. And,

[01:32:08] um, yeah, I think, I think that's about it. Oh, I just joined tech talk. Oh, you did. Okay. I did. It's, um, you can make fun little videos. Oh, sure. Coaching content. Nice. I'm on, I'm on tech talk. I'll follow you for sure. Cool. Um, this is good.

[01:32:31] So I'll pull this all together in the show notes and make sure that we put it on our social. So we have everything and listeners, if you need some motivation or you need some accountability, Christina is here to help you out in whatever your needs are.

[01:32:45] Awesome. Thank you, Christina. Thank you. And we're back. And we're backstops. So are you, are you ready to sign up? Um, I think I could, but I'm so, I don't know. I don't know if I, if I were to ever try like a, uh,

[01:33:06] to go for a 50 or a hundred miler, I think she's the way out. I'll sign up. So yeah, I think Christina is great. It's great to catch up with her again. And, uh, you know, hopefully somebody, you know, she can help somebody else that's listening.

[01:33:20] No doubt. Yeah. They have the experience you need for sure. Yep. And then stop. Uh, this is the part of show where we do, uh, Valkluse. Yes, here we go. So does your backpack not provide enough ventilation? Does your back sweat too much when backpacking as you know,

[01:33:35] sweat can be extremely uncomfortable on the trails. Plus sweat is a serious risk factor in both hot and cold climates. As your clothes get wet, your core temperature can dramatically fluctuate. This can result in hypothermia, heat exhaustion, and dehydration. Let's not forget just very uncomfortable,

[01:33:54] especially now that the warmer weather's here. Today's your lucky day because we have good news for you. There's a piece of gear that solves the sweat and ventilation problem, making your backpack more comfortable. Valkluse gears ultralight backpack ventilation frame.

[01:34:10] This ultralight frame is a backpack accessory that easily installs in your favorite pack size 15 liters to 45 liters and creates a ventilating air flow gap between you and your pack. It's also ultra light weighing around three ounces. That's equivalent to a pair of wool socks or a pool noodle.

[01:34:28] As I like to say, whether hiking in hot or cold temps, the ultralight backpack ventilation frame from Valkluse gear is a real game changer regarding airflow and ventilation. Visit valklusegear.com to order an ultralight ventilation frame today. Use promo code slasher to enjoy a $5 discount.

[01:34:47] Let them know that Mike and Stomp sent you. That's right. All right. So Stomp just starting off, we're going to go with a story in Utah. This is, this is horrible. Oh my goodness.

[01:35:46] This is so a Utah hiker found dead after phone showed her being swept into the river. So a missing hiker whose phone was found on Friday near horsetail falls had a video showing her being swept away in a river and she's since been found to see.

[01:36:05] So she's a 19 year old. She was found below the waterfall. Um, the search began Friday after the sheriff's officer received a report of finding, um, a hiker that would, or a report of a hiker, um, reportedly in the dry Creek Canyon area of horsetail falls. Um,

[01:36:25] another hiker had found a phone that had been set up to record and the hiker viewed the footage and reportedly saw a woman get swept away in the river. So she was recording herself, um, going into the river and I guess she must have like underestimated the,

[01:36:43] the force of the river and got swept away. That's horrible. You gotta be so careful on the edge. You gotta be so careful. I mean, no joke. Yeah. So that's a sad story. 19 year old. I mean, she's probably just trying to get some footage for like her, um,

[01:37:00] you know, social media or whatever. And it's just terrible. So yeah, that's really sad. Yep. Be careful on the edges of those rivers. Yes, for sure. Um, all right, stop. This one, um, was on Saturday, I think during the hike. Oh, look at the army of people.

[01:37:17] I think I see, I see some familiar faces actually on this picture. Which one are you looking at? I'm looking at the Jennings peak. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. There's a picture of like, let me see here. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. This is about 18 people in this,

[01:37:36] in this, uh, picture here. And I'll, I'll put this response, huge response, which is impressive. So Saturday, a 21 year old. Yeah. So if you're going to need a rescue, do it on a Saturday afternoon, you'll get a, you'll get an army. Um,

[01:37:48] 21 year old Hollis man needed to be carried down Jennings peak in Waterville Valley on Saturday after falling and injuring his leg. Um, the hiker was unable to continue without help. The first rescuers reached him around 4 PM and started the three and a half mile trek to the trailhead.

[01:38:09] So the team included conservation officers, Waterville Valley, um, department of safety and volunteers from Pemi and Lakes search and rescues, Pemi SAR and then Lakes region search and rescue. Um, they ended up reaching the trailhead around seven o'clock. So, Oh yeah,

[01:38:25] this is like a, a huge carry out, but like that's those trails are narrow stop. There must be a pain to carry somebody out in those ones. Yeah. You've done Jennings haven't you? Yeah. I did it with you.

[01:38:36] So the summit is, is like what 0.1, but it's, it's what, 60 degrees and it's, it can be sketchy as hell. So I, yeah. Yeah. I don't know if he fell there or if he fell like somewhere like on the way up to

[01:38:48] it or who knows. Right. Right. But you know, there are a couple of easy ways up Drake's brook, but uh, this picture is really cool. I mean, that's a killer response. It was not an easy mission by any means. And, uh, I just want to pinpoint, um,

[01:39:02] person in the slime green on the left first person with the big grin. Yep. That's that is Chris Wright and he's been a guest before. And I just want to say that Chris's smile there, uh, embodies the spirit of New Hampshire search and rescue right there.

[01:39:21] That one little picture. I mean all the teams, all the conservation officers, they, they love what they do. And hikers that are in need of help are really fortunate to have this crew of people out there helping them because they,

[01:39:34] they love it and they're going to get you out. So cool. I'd even be happy to see Chris in that, in those circumstances. And would that smile? Yeah. Hey, yes. Great guy. So yeah, but that's a good army that came out there.

[01:39:53] So, all right. So these next two, there's two on Mount Manadnock. So, um, we have one from June 3rd. So this goes back a little ways, 33 year old, um, woman from South Deerfield, Massachusetts was hiking with friends when an incident occurred.

[01:40:09] Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team were training on the mountain. So that's always a rule of thumb. Whenever search and rescue teams are training, somebody gets injured. So yeah, which is, I mean, that's the perfect time to get injured here.

[01:40:22] So, um, Upper Valley and Manadnock Park staff were able to put the victim in a litter and carry her down the white arrow trail, uh, to the top of Old Toll Road. And then a conservation officer responded to the top of Old Toll Road,

[01:40:42] where it intersects the white arrow trail to assist. Um, the victim was put in a waiting ambulance for further evaluation and eventually refused an ambulance transport and was transported from the state park by her friends. So said that they were well prepared for the day hike,

[01:41:02] but it's an important reminder to know your limits and to take environmental factors into consideration before heading out. Yeah. Yeah. Manadnock's been busy. Yes, it has been. Um, and then another one happened a week later on June 10th at 1150 AM. Fishing game was notified by, um,

[01:41:24] the fire service about a hiker that had fallen on the white cross trail near tree line. So this is like, there's a section there that's like really steep, little chimney that you can get down. So, um, the victim was suffering from severe and potential life threatening injuries.

[01:41:43] 18 year old hiker from Ann Arbor, Michigan was hiking for the first time with a family member. So two conservation officers responded along with the department of natural and cultural resource, mountain patrol Rangers and members of upper Valley wilderness response. So the call came in 1150 around 1 PM.

[01:42:02] The conservation officers met the victim who was already in the care of mountain patrol Rangers and in stable condition. So they were able to get the victim in a litter down the white cross trail to the white dot trail arriving at the state park headquarters around three 30

[01:42:19] and they were able to transport him via ambulance for further evaluation and treatment. So, um, indicate that the hiker wearing this hiking partner were well prepared for a day hike. So, okay, good, good, good stuff. There it is. Next up is, uh, Mount Kearsarge North's trail.

[01:42:42] So this was on June 1st. That's right. Cause we skipped search and rescue last week. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. 21 year old from Rhode Island had slept in the fire tower the night of May 31st. So that's a good choice.

[01:42:55] She was hiking down in the morning when she injured her left leg. So yeah, there's a bunch of slabs coming down that trail and you know, it's wet in the morning. So 7 44 AM conservation. She called at six 30 by seven 45 conservation officers arrived at a trailhead

[01:43:12] and began hiking up by eight 53. They made contact with the patient, they evaluated her condition and they decided that they were going to have to carry her out in a litter. So she was placed in a litter and carried out,

[01:43:26] um, starting around 10 15 with the help of lakes region search and rescue and Andrew Scoggin Valley search and rescue reached the trailhead around 11 45 and then was transported to Bartlett Bartlett Jackson ambulance to Memorial hospital in Conway.

[01:43:43] So she was well prepared with all the essential gear and she just slipped and fell. So yeah. Okay. Feely typical for this time of the year, but good news. The trails are feeling dry. Yeah. It's getting hotter. It's getting hotter. And then some of our favorite location here,

[01:44:00] we got a falling waters rescue that happened on June 1st. 25 year old from New Hampshire was hiking with his father and their intended hike was a popular nine mile Franconia Ridge loop. They began climbing falling waters and it hiked about 2.3 miles when the 25 year olds, um,

[01:44:20] gentlemen suffered a potential life threatening medical emergency. So that's scary. So the father was able to call nine one, one doesn't say what the medical emergency was, but I always think like, you know, some, some sort of cardi, cardiology, uh, or, you know,

[01:44:35] some issue or stroke heart attack, something like that. But who knows what it was? Um, so New Hampshire army national guard, Blackhawk was requested to respond due to the severity of the emergency. Um, this goes back to my Pemi loop actually the same Memorial day weekend. Yeah.

[01:44:53] Yeah. This was going on. So they were able to extract him. They got to him by 1130 using the jungle penetrator, hoisting him into the helicopter where he was brought to Dartmouth health in Lebanon for further evaluation. Again, they go on to say that the, um,

[01:45:09] the hiker and his father were well prepared for the hike. They had done this loop several times in the past and knew the terrain carried the proper gear to alert the New Hampshire army national guard or their location

[01:45:19] during the rescue and had purchased hike safe cards at the beginning of the year. So definitely I'm ready to go. So I think, you know, things to think about for this. So we've had the New Hampshire army national guard on as you know,

[01:45:31] flashing lights, things like that are always good to help them. Bright clothes, anything you can do to just sort of make yourself stand out in the wilderness is good. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. And then our last one stop is a, um,

[01:45:47] May 30th, a 62 year old hiker from Massachusetts was hiking solo. She realized that she was off the trail and continued hiking downhill and attempt to get out of the forest cell phone service in the area is poor.

[01:46:02] So she was hiking iron mountain and which I haven't been on this one. This is on my list to get to because it's one of the retired 52 with the views. I got to wrap up, but now where is this? This is iron mountain in Jackson.

[01:46:15] Okay. So when you, when you get into Jackson, like right past like, um, story land in that area, it's off to the left off route 16 as you get up to head up to Pinkham notch. So, um,

[01:46:27] I guess the coordinates were attained by her calling nine one one and placed her about a mile off the trail. So a conservation officer was able to access the area through a gated forest service road and hiked into her location.

[01:46:42] She was found uninjured and was able to hike out under her own power and they were able to get out by like seven o'clock. So she called at three 30 and they, they were able to connect with her. So she must've just got off trail.

[01:46:54] And then like that area there's got like forest roads and all kinds of stuff going on. So I think it was, they were able to get them. Good. All right. Not too bad. And that's it. Stomp. I'm just about lost my voice. Yeah, no kidding.

[01:47:08] So happy father's day and good luck to the Mount Washington racers and uh, yeah. Enjoy the beautiful weather. We'll see you again. Cheers. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, pod beam, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:47:36] If you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information at slasher podcast.com that's S L A S R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.

[01:47:54] We hope you'll join us next week for another great show until then on behalf of Mike and Stomp, get out there and crush some mega heat. Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites. Chris staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever.

[01:48:13] Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian trail when the weather started to get worse. Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a

[01:48:28] wind chill of minus one degree. Lieutenant James Nealon, New Hampshire Fish and Game. Thanks for being with us today. What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire?

[01:48:48] It seems to me the most common is being unprepared. I think if they just simply visited a hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.