Episode 175 - Welcome Amy - Hiking all of the Maine Mountain Guide, Dave finishes the NH Highest 100, Mt. Greylock

[00:00:08] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mt. Washington Observatory.

[00:00:18] Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads.

[00:00:25] Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at MtWashington.org.

[00:00:31] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mt. Washington Observatory

[00:00:36] Write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon.

[00:00:41] Search and Rescue teams, avalanche experts, and backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast

[00:00:48] to anticipate weather conditions above treeline. You should too.

[00:00:53] Go to MtWashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137.

[00:01:04] The weather above treeline...oh actually never mind, Stomp can do that part.

[00:01:16] So this is the Higher Summits forecast.

[00:01:20] So, high pressure will slowly retreat to the north tonight as a strengthening low pressure system retrogrades back into New England on Friday and Friday night.

[00:01:29] The influence of the high pressure ridge will keep the summits in the clear during the overnight with temperatures remaining slightly above average.

[00:01:37] As the high begins its retreat to the north towards daybreak, the deepening low over the Canadian maritimes will begin to nudge back westward.

[00:01:47] This will tighten the pressure gradient over New England, prompting wind speeds to ramp up across the higher summits into early Friday morning.

[00:01:54] Winds will remain gusty out of the north for most of Friday, with the summits remaining primarily in the clear as dry air wraps in on the westward fringes of the advancing low.

[00:02:04] As an intrusion of moist air noses its way in late Friday afternoon, periodic summit fog could become possible by nightfall.

[00:02:13] Precipitation chances have dwindled for Friday afternoon, but a stray wintry shower cannot be ruled out early Friday night with the low in close proximity to northern New Hampshire.

[00:02:24] Winds will shift around to the northwest and remain elevated through the night and into Saturday morning as high pressure over the Midwest pushes northward.

[00:02:33] Periods of summit fog and a stray wintry shower will remain possible through the day on Saturday, with temperatures hovering right around the freezing mark.

[00:02:42] Despite slightly above average temperatures on the higher summits, high winds Friday into the weekend will keep wind chills suppressed in the teens to single digits.

[00:02:54] So, Friday mostly in the clear, trending in and out of the clouds under partly cloudy skies, slight chance of a wintry mix early, possible snow and ice accumulations.

[00:03:05] Wind chill will be northwest at 50 to 70 miles an hour with gusts up to 85 and wind chill 10 to 20 above.

[00:03:12] Saturday in and out of the clouds under partly sunny skies, slight chance for a wintry mix in the afternoon.

[00:03:19] Possible snow and ice accumulations of a trace to less than one inch.

[00:03:23] The wind will be northwest 50 to 75 miles an hour with gusts up to 90 miles an hour.

[00:03:29] Wind chill will be 10 to 20 above early, falling to 5 to 15 above.

[00:03:36] From the Woodpecker's studio in the great state of New Hampshire, welcome to the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast,

[00:04:17] where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

[00:04:23] Here are your hosts, Mike and Stomp.

[00:04:26] Alright, episode 175 without Stomp. How you doing, Dave?

[00:04:51] Doing great. Doing great. You?

[00:04:53] Good, good. We've got our tech support issues taken care of here, so we're in good shape.

[00:04:59] Very efficient, very professional.

[00:05:02] It is, it is. Hey, let me ask you a question, Dave.

[00:05:05] Have you ever felt like you just wanted to, like, escape and just, like, fake your death

[00:05:10] and then escape to, like, a Caribbean island with, you know, maybe a little bit of money,

[00:05:16] enough so that you could just live out the rest of your life, just get away?

[00:05:20] Yeah, at least a few times.

[00:05:22] That's good. Do you have any plans on how you would actually accomplish it?

[00:05:27] Not that I could share, because, you know, I'd be dead and it'd be a complete accident

[00:05:31] and the insurance would go to the right people, so no.

[00:05:34] So, you're saying you would be able to do it successfully?

[00:05:40] I don't know. I mean, I guess if I didn't, I'd be dead. So, you know, if it didn't work,

[00:05:45] if I faked it, well, yeah, or they'd catch me, I guess is the other way to say it.

[00:05:48] Yeah, yeah. There's actually one case in the White Mountains. I forget the name of the guy,

[00:05:54] but there was a guy that went missing in Tuckerman Ravine probably about 10, 12 years ago

[00:06:01] that we have covered before where he was in the middle of a lawsuit with his business partner

[00:06:07] and he left the suicide note and people think, yeah, maybe he killed himself,

[00:06:11] but his body was never recovered and his ex-business partner seemed to think that he might have escaped the country.

[00:06:17] But the reason I ask you, Dave, is because I got a story sent to me about a guy in Wisconsin,

[00:06:24] this father, he has three kids, and he faked his own death, apparently.

[00:06:31] So, he went, he's married, 44 years old, and he's being accused of faking his own death.

[00:06:40] So, he went out on like a canoe or a kayak in this pond and the canoe or the kayak was found

[00:06:50] and he was not in it. So, it triggered a search and rescue, basically like rescue divers went

[00:06:56] and they were looking for the body for I think a couple of days and then come to find out that

[00:07:03] his passport hit in Canada. So, somebody in Canada had scanned his passport.

[00:07:09] So, they started thinking like maybe he actually wasn't gone. So, then what ended up happening is that

[00:07:15] a TikTok video came out that showed this guy being interviewed. Do you know those old Snoopy episodes

[00:07:23] where Lucy would put up like a five cents for a psychiatrist discussion and then people would come

[00:07:29] and tell their problems? Essentially, this person on TikTok does that on like a boardwalk. She just

[00:07:34] says like tell me your problems. So, this old video showed up of this guy on a bike that rolled up

[00:07:39] and she's like, I guess, I guess what she did is she'd say, let me ask me a question and I'll tell

[00:07:45] you an answer. So, he was like, should I escape the country and go to Uzbekistan? And he told this

[00:07:52] whole story about how he's like, you know, do you think I should just escape and go to Uzbekistan?

[00:07:56] And I, you know, meet a girl and start my life all over again. So, it turns out this was the guy. So,

[00:08:04] he had had this interaction with the lady on TikTok like six months before he went missing.

[00:08:08] And then the whole news report came out and the lady was like, I remember this guy talking about

[00:08:14] like going to Uzbekistan and it turns out it was the same guy.

[00:08:18] Holy crap. Yeah. So, now they're like- Was it Borat? I don't know, but he's apparently,

[00:08:23] he took out a life insurance policy and, you know, faked his own death and went to Uzbekistan to meet

[00:08:30] a girl. And the government officials, investigators think that they know where he is and they're telling

[00:08:37] him like, look, the gig is up and you've got to come home now. But he hasn't been, he hasn't fessed

[00:08:42] up yet. So, we'll monitor the situation. But I thought that was a fun story to start.

[00:08:46] That's a wild ride.

[00:08:47] Right? It's crazy. So, but it does make you think like it is more difficult to like,

[00:08:55] you know, you can't pull a DB Cooper anymore. Like DB Cooper was the guy that did that.

[00:08:59] You know, he hijacked the plane and jumped. You can't just disappear anymore. It's too,

[00:09:03] there's too much digital footprint.

[00:09:05] Too many cameras, too many everything.

[00:09:06] There is. But I thought that that would be a fun story to start the show. So, I'll link that in

[00:09:12] the show notes. The guy faked his own death and fled to Uzbekistan. And there's a TikTok video

[00:09:17] where he basically laid out the whole plan and probably never, he probably never thought

[00:09:21] that that video was going to see the light of day. And sure enough, it got him busted.

[00:09:25] See kids, TikTok is bad.

[00:09:28] TikTok is bad. Don't confess your sins on TikTok. So, anyway, welcome to episode 175 of the Sounds

[00:09:34] Like a Search and Rescue podcast. This week, Stomp is off. He is preparing for our live full

[00:09:41] conditions event at Reckless Brewing. So, we've got our friend Dave, otherwise known as Dave Schitts

[00:09:47] in the Woods, is joining me to co-host. So, welcome, Dave.

[00:09:51] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:09:52] Yeah. So, Dave recently finished the New Hampshire 100 or highest 100. So, he's going to talk about

[00:09:58] his experience pursuing this list, which is heavily focused on, well, not heavily, but it's

[00:10:03] like basically half standard hikes and then half kind of bushwhack. So, we'll talk a little bit

[00:10:07] about it. And then later in the episode, we're joined by our friend Amy Nimzura Sawa. So,

[00:10:17] I already talked to her. I told her I was going to kill her name. So, I apologize ahead of time.

[00:10:21] But Amy recently completed hiking all the trails in the main mountain guide. So, essentially,

[00:10:26] like we do the red line in New Hampshire, she's done the entire main mountain guide, which

[00:10:32] as far as we can tell, she's the only one so far that's completed it. One of the persons

[00:10:37] pretty close. So, we tend to focus on New Hampshire redlining, but our friends in Maine have their

[00:10:42] own crazy hiking pursuit. So, Amy's going to join us to talk about this accomplishment. And it's a

[00:10:47] pretty wild story. So, stick around for that. Plus, we got a little bit of White Mountain history.

[00:10:53] We've got some follow-ups on some true crime cases in addition to what we just talked about.

[00:10:57] We've got a recap of the Rescue Me 5K as a preview of the upcoming full conditions event at Reckless.

[00:11:05] And I was on a recent hike on Mount Greylock. And then I've done a little bit of work on updating

[00:11:10] search and rescue data for 2024. And then we'll wrap up with some recent search and rescue news. So,

[00:11:16] I'm Mike.

[00:11:18] And I'm Stomp. Oh, crap. No, I'm not. Actually, I'm Dave. Sorry. Yeah, my mistake.

[00:11:24] Let's get started. Let's get started. That's right. So, very good.

[00:11:47] All right. So, Dave, we're going to go into

[00:11:49] Wild Raven Endurance. So, let's hear from Christina for a second.

[00:11:54] Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da.

[00:11:57] Hi. I'm Christina from Wild Raven Endurance Coaching.

[00:12:00] I work with athletes of all levels, from hikers to triathletes,

[00:12:04] helping you reach your goals with personalized guidance.

[00:12:07] With years of experience hiking, mountain biking, and trail running across New England,

[00:12:12] I also have a deep knowledge of the New Hampshire 4,000-footers and the surrounding trails.

[00:12:18] Whether you're a beginner hiker or a seasoned athlete, I'll guide you towards your goals,

[00:12:22] reducing injury risk and improving your performance through smart, tailored coaching.

[00:12:27] Are you looking to transition from hiking to mountain running?

[00:12:30] I'm here to make that journey easier, too.

[00:12:33] My approach combines strength training, mindfulness, and life balance on and off the trail.

[00:12:39] Let me help you find more joy in your sport while getting stronger and healthier along the way.

[00:12:45] Visit www.coaching.christinafulsik.com and start your adventure today.

[00:12:57] All right. And we are back.

[00:12:59] She's fast.

[00:13:00] Yes. So Dave did not do the da-da-da-da, but we'll get him there.

[00:13:04] No, I feel like that's sacred ground. There's certain things I'm just, you know, that's stomp territory.

[00:13:09] That's human stomp, you know?

[00:13:10] True, true. So you'll get there. You'll get there.

[00:13:13] So, all right. Just keeping on with the scammers and grifters theme here.

[00:13:19] These four guys decided that they were going to do an insurance scam.

[00:13:23] Now, typically what you'll see with these insurance scams is that you will see people that will like,

[00:13:30] they'll purposely get into an accident and then they'll claim they hurt their back or their neck or whatever.

[00:13:35] These guys are taking insurance scams to a whole nother level.

[00:13:39] Because what they've done is they, four people in Southern California were arrested and accused of insurance fraud

[00:13:45] after they claimed that their cars were trashed by a beer.

[00:13:49] Which was actually turned out to be somebody in a brown bear costume.

[00:13:54] So the so-called bear was claimed to have entered and damaged a 2010 Rolls Royce ghost on January 8th

[00:14:03] while it was parked at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains.

[00:14:07] And there was a video that was submitted to the insurance company that allegedly showed an animal entering the car.

[00:14:15] Now, what was actually seen on the video, and I'll play it again here just so you can get a better view here, Dave.

[00:14:22] But what was actually seen was they went to a costume store and they bought like a grizzly bear outfit.

[00:14:30] And then they used garden tools that are like those little rakes.

[00:14:35] And they used those as the claws for the bear.

[00:14:38] It is the wrinkliest bear I've ever seen.

[00:14:40] It's ridiculous.

[00:14:41] There's no muscle on that bear.

[00:14:43] Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:43] So they submitted the video and you can see basically it looks like a guy in a bear costume crawling around inside the car.

[00:14:51] It's a furry.

[00:14:52] Yeah, it's a furry.

[00:14:53] It's a big furry.

[00:14:54] Yes.

[00:14:54] And it rolls parked out in the woods.

[00:14:57] Yeah.

[00:14:57] That's pretty typical.

[00:14:58] That story checks out.

[00:14:59] Yeah, it's pretty fun.

[00:15:00] So four people have been arrested.

[00:15:04] So I guess after they did the Rolls Royce, they ruined a Mercedes G63 and a 22 Mercedes E35.

[00:15:13] And each time they used a video with somebody dressed in the bear suit crawling around inside.

[00:15:18] And then they would take the gardening tools that had like five rakes to them.

[00:15:24] And they would use that to scratch up the car.

[00:15:27] And they ended up getting $140,000 worth of...

[00:15:33] What a jester signed off on that.

[00:15:35] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:15:36] And I wonder if it was one of them like the auto body company owner or something like that.

[00:15:40] Okay.

[00:15:41] But yeah, it was four guys.

[00:15:42] Ruben, Tim, Razian, Ararat, Cherkanian, Vani, Marrocking, and then Alifa, Zuckerman.

[00:15:52] And so these are all folks in Glendale, California that got charged with insurance fraud and conspiracy.

[00:15:58] So I thought that was pretty impressive.

[00:16:01] And the big thing was is that they basically picked a grizzly bear costume and there's no grizzly bears in the area.

[00:16:07] It's only black bears.

[00:16:08] Well, that's a problem.

[00:16:09] They should probably do a little bit of homework next time.

[00:16:11] Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:13] And now you see why bears have a bad name.

[00:16:15] Exactly.

[00:16:16] So justice for the bears.

[00:16:19] That's right.

[00:16:20] So there's that.

[00:16:21] And now the next story that I have here is, and I got this sent by a bunch of people.

[00:16:27] My friend Al sent this to me and a few others.

[00:16:30] Backpacker Magazine did a story on it.

[00:16:32] And then there was also a SAR team write-up.

[00:16:34] So two hikers brought 150 pounds worth of gear to hike Mount Whitney.

[00:16:40] So Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the lower 48.

[00:16:44] It's in California.

[00:16:46] And these two hikers, they apparently didn't have a lot of experience.

[00:16:49] They went to the REI or somewhere, I don't know where, to buy gear.

[00:16:55] And they ended up bringing 150 pounds worth.

[00:16:58] So 75 pounds each.

[00:17:00] And one of the things that they brought that was the heaviest piece of gear was they brought five gallons of water.

[00:17:06] So it's 75 pounds of just gear.

[00:17:09] They didn't bring like a grill or anything.

[00:17:10] This is just basic hikings.

[00:17:12] Like they didn't bring extras?

[00:17:14] I don't know what exactly is on here.

[00:17:16] I'd like to see a list.

[00:17:18] But essentially, between the two of them, they brought 150 pounds worth of gear.

[00:17:24] And then one piece of it's five gallons of water.

[00:17:28] So the five gallons of water weighs 42 pounds total.

[00:17:33] Where do you put that?

[00:17:34] Like I'm physically trying to picture like, thinking like Lord of the Rings when they're heading out and he's got pots and pans hanging off him.

[00:17:42] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:17:43] I mean, I have seen some crazy setups with through hikers before where they are, you know, really geared out.

[00:17:51] And they've got a lot of stuff on the outside of their packs.

[00:17:53] But this is crazy.

[00:17:54] They did, there was like a ranger that they interviewed where he said that he's watched people duct tape 30 packs of little water bottles to the outside of their packs.

[00:18:05] And he's also seen the same, but with a case of beer, which I think makes sense.

[00:18:09] But that's story.

[00:18:10] That makes a lot more sense.

[00:18:12] Yeah.

[00:18:12] And the rangers essentially, oh, maybe this is a guide.

[00:18:15] The guide that hikes in this area recommended two liters and then bringing like a Sawyer Squeeze or some other filter.

[00:18:22] He said, that's all you need.

[00:18:23] There's water sources of plenty.

[00:18:24] So apparently these two set out.

[00:18:27] And the other thing that's weird about this is they set out to hike at 6 p.m. on Friday, November 1st.

[00:18:38] So, I mean, I guess like you've probably done some backpacking where you've got there at night and hiked in a little bit, but you're not hiking far.

[00:18:44] Right.

[00:18:45] Not with 75 pounds.

[00:18:47] Yeah.

[00:18:47] So they, you know, 150 pounds between them.

[00:18:50] They had a plan to camp at Lone Pine Lake and then tagged the summit on Saturday.

[00:18:56] They made it 2.7 miles, which I think that's pretty impressive actually.

[00:18:59] That is impressive.

[00:19:00] That's, that's.

[00:19:01] Yeah.

[00:19:02] That's a side challenge.

[00:19:03] It is.

[00:19:04] Just to try to go that far with that kind of weight.

[00:19:05] It is.

[00:19:06] Took them nine hours.

[00:19:07] They were too exhausted and they stopped at 3 a.m.

[00:19:09] Um, one of the hikers had blisters and a bad headache and apparently.

[00:19:16] Was he dehydrated?

[00:19:18] How ironic.

[00:19:18] I don't know if it was a he or a she.

[00:19:19] There's a female hiker.

[00:19:20] Yep.

[00:19:21] Sorry.

[00:19:21] I assume we generally are the dumber ones.

[00:19:24] True.

[00:19:24] When it comes to this stuff.

[00:19:25] So it was just a, you know.

[00:19:27] That is true.

[00:19:27] That's true.

[00:19:28] Um, but apparently she said that she has a mass in her brain that was sensitive to barometric

[00:19:33] pressure.

[00:19:35] So, which.

[00:19:37] I don't know.

[00:19:37] It's starting to sound like Mad Libs.

[00:19:39] Like, wait a minute.

[00:19:40] Maybe don't go uphill.

[00:19:42] She has a medical condition, carries this water, you know.

[00:19:44] Yeah.

[00:19:44] We need a noun.

[00:19:46] So.

[00:19:46] Brain tumor.

[00:19:47] It's crazy.

[00:19:48] But luckily, the peer, they, they recognized that they had reached a limit.

[00:19:51] They set up camp, or best they could, they set up camp in the middle of the trail

[00:19:56] and then they were able to use the iPhone's SOS setting to call for help.

[00:20:01] So by 10 a.m. the next morning, apparently they ran into a few other hikers that had

[00:20:05] told them like, hey, you guys are not really well prepared.

[00:20:08] You might want to turn around.

[00:20:10] And they didn't listen.

[00:20:11] Um, but search and rescue team was on the move by, um, 10 a.m.

[00:20:17] And they reached the couple at 1.45 and then got them out to the trailhead by about 3.15.

[00:20:23] So I'm assuming once the search and rescue team got there, they dumped out at least,

[00:20:28] you know, 40 pounds of the water and had them keep a liter and then hiked them down.

[00:20:34] So it, the rescue write-up said that it was clear that the peer was new to the trails.

[00:20:39] They had to buy all the gear for the hike and the sheer amount that they brought would

[00:20:44] give strong hikers pause.

[00:20:45] So, um, they did not include a map.

[00:20:48] They did not include a bear canister and they did not include a water filter, uh, which

[00:20:53] would have been helpful.

[00:20:55] Um, like I said, Mount Whitney has a ton of water sources.

[00:20:58] So maybe they were going to resell it.

[00:21:01] Yeah.

[00:21:01] The article just says like, get a guide if you don't know what you're doing, which is right,

[00:21:04] which is good.

[00:21:05] So anyway, I thought that was pretty funny.

[00:21:07] That's a lot of effort.

[00:21:08] That is a lot of effort.

[00:21:09] What's the most weight that you've carried into a hike?

[00:21:11] I've probably been close to 40 plus right around maybe, maybe 50.

[00:21:17] Um, but that was luxury jet boil, maybe, uh, a six pack that kind of stuff.

[00:21:23] When we, when I know I have not super long mileage, but a one day in and I'm going to be

[00:21:29] there for a couple of days without having to go to another camp, I've gone really heavy.

[00:21:33] Yeah.

[00:21:33] It's, it's paid off.

[00:21:35] Yeah.

[00:21:35] My heaviest was definitely my first winter overnight when I went to like crag camp and, uh,

[00:21:39] gray knob and I brought like 15 pounds worth of trail mix for the weekend.

[00:21:45] Feed all the squirrels.

[00:21:47] Right.

[00:21:47] Right.

[00:21:48] So, uh, anyway, so good luck to them.

[00:21:50] I guess they learned a lesson and, uh, whoever sold them all that gear definitely made some

[00:21:54] good commission, but, um, five gallons of water is crazy.

[00:21:58] I don't even know how you manage that.

[00:21:59] It's just the, the, yeah, the bouncing and the moving and like, yeah, nope.

[00:22:04] Yep.

[00:22:05] It's, uh, pretty crazy.

[00:22:06] But, um, one of the thing, so just changing topics here.

[00:22:11] I, um, have been working on my little spreadsheet in the data for search and rescue.

[00:22:18] So I'm going to cover, I basically pulled in all of the search and rescue media events for

[00:22:23] 2024 and I'm going to have updated spreadsheets and charts and a bunch of other things here.

[00:22:30] But I also was looking at, um, some trends and I think that there was a couple of days that were

[00:22:40] crazy clusters.

[00:22:42] So the 4th of July had a crazy cluster of like four different rescues.

[00:22:48] So I'll talk a little bit about that.

[00:22:50] Makes sense.

[00:22:50] Um, yeah.

[00:22:52] Do you do it like calendar year to count?

[00:22:54] Like, so you're November to November?

[00:22:56] I do it January to December, but, um, there's usually so few search and rescue events in

[00:23:02] November and December that it's, I can't update it.

[00:23:04] That really surprises me.

[00:23:05] Every time I hear that, you know, with the, the ice starting, I guess a lot of people just

[00:23:09] don't go out or they're more cautious and prepared.

[00:23:12] I think so.

[00:23:13] Yeah, I think so.

[00:23:14] I think, um, historically there's been, um, yeah, I think with shoulder seas, stick season

[00:23:22] and stuff like that, I think it's just been less common that, um, that people have needed

[00:23:28] rescues.

[00:23:28] January too is usually pretty slow, but there are anomalies.

[00:23:31] There was one year where January we had like a dozen, um, search and rescues.

[00:23:36] So it gets weird.

[00:23:37] Hmm.

[00:23:39] So, but, uh, let me see here if I can, anything that's of interest.

[00:23:43] Just give me one second.

[00:23:45] I always look at the categories.

[00:23:47] So I have these categories where I have one that's reckless behavior and those were always

[00:23:52] the most interesting.

[00:23:53] Those are the best stories.

[00:23:55] Those are.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:56] So there was, um, there was two Canadian hikers that had gotten in trouble in May.

[00:24:01] They had been hiking out in the great Gulf and they got off trail and ended up on

[00:24:05] Wamsuda and I think they were basically close to death, um, hypothermic.

[00:24:11] Uh, if I recall correctly, they were not in good shape.

[00:24:14] And then there was another one in last February that was almost a fatality of, um, a young man

[00:24:21] that hiked above treeline, made it to lakes of the cloud, had hiked with a couple of people

[00:24:25] and then they had, I guess, broken off.

[00:24:28] He got stuck on the West side trail and then the cog had to get up there and rescue him.

[00:24:33] That was an interesting one.

[00:24:34] Matter of fact, I think it was so cold that the cog was concerned that their, their fuel

[00:24:39] lines were going to turn to gel and they wouldn't be able to get down.

[00:24:43] So, uh, that guy was pretty lucky.

[00:24:45] Um, then there was another one on Huntington ravine in, um, oh no, that was last year.

[00:24:52] So, um, another guy brought three Cub Scouts up on Mount Flume and then they went down the

[00:25:01] flume slide trail in May and they were unprepared and they got stuck.

[00:25:05] So, but generally not too many reckless behavior ones.

[00:25:09] I got a few more that I'll go through and I'll, I'll cover it all in, in, on the, the full conditions.

[00:25:14] And then I'll probably do a deeper dive with stomp on a future episode.

[00:25:17] I think you take full credit for it because people are realizing they're going to land on

[00:25:21] your podcast and they don't want to.

[00:25:23] So they're, they're being more prepared.

[00:25:25] I hope, I hope they're being more prepared.

[00:25:26] And I will say that generally, like I don't include people's names.

[00:25:30] Uh, sometimes I do like some less they earn it.

[00:25:32] Yeah.

[00:25:33] If they're like out of new England or if they're like really insane.

[00:25:36] Every once in a while I've, I've included a name on the show, but generally I don't

[00:25:40] include names.

[00:25:41] I don't include names on the data or anything like that.

[00:25:42] And I've, I've definitely evolved over time where I used to tag things, reckless behavior

[00:25:48] a lot more, um, generously and I don't do that anymore.

[00:25:52] So there's very few reckless ones or ones that I say are negligent right now.

[00:25:57] So it's your discretion.

[00:25:58] It's my discretion.

[00:26:00] And I've become soft in my old age.

[00:26:02] Oh, I see that.

[00:26:05] Yeah.

[00:26:05] Um, all right.

[00:26:06] One more.

[00:26:07] I got an update here on a story that I did last week with stomp about this is enough.

[00:26:11] This is a weird one.

[00:26:12] So this was a murder case in Tennessee where, see if I can explain this.

[00:26:18] There's a criminal that had been on probation in Alabama.

[00:26:21] He had had an attempted murder in like 2012.

[00:26:24] So this is a bad guy.

[00:26:26] Um, and his name is Nicholas Wayne Hamlet.

[00:26:33] So he was a grifter.

[00:26:35] He was always trying to steal people's identities and credit cards and all this stuff.

[00:26:39] So he made friends with this guy that was, I think, kind of a homeless guy.

[00:26:44] Prior to meeting the homeless guy, he had stolen the identity of this other person.

[00:26:50] So he decided that he was going to steal the identity of this homeless friend that he had made.

[00:26:55] But what he tried to do is take the identity of the previous guy that he had scammed.

[00:27:01] He lured this guy out on a hiking trip, put the ID of the original person that he was scamming on the guy that he decided to murder with the idea that, um, and then he staged it to make it look like a bear attack.

[00:27:16] And then called 911.

[00:27:18] And the plan was essentially that the authorities would find this guy dead and they would assume that his identity was that of the person that he had previously stole the identity of.

[00:27:31] And then he could then take the ID and all the information of the homeless guy and use that to be, to basically be on his own and not get caught by authorities.

[00:27:41] Um, but this all fell apart and I don't know exactly how they cracked the case, but essentially they knew pretty quickly that the person that they found deceased that had supposedly been attacked by a bear had been identified by someone who knew him.

[00:27:53] Um, they did fingerprints and they verified that the ID that was on him was not associated with him.

[00:27:59] So then somehow they were able to understand that this, this guy that had been on the run had stolen that other person's identity.

[00:28:07] And then the whole thing came crumbling down.

[00:28:10] So the, the original murderer, Nicholas Wayne Hamlet was running around for about a month and eventually he had to go to the hospital for some issue.

[00:28:18] And that's when they realized who he actually was.

[00:28:21] He tried to pass a fake name, but authorities had him, um, ID'd.

[00:28:26] So now he's arrested and I don't think he'll be coming out of jail for a long, long time.

[00:28:32] That's a, that's a hell of an effort.

[00:28:34] Right.

[00:28:35] You know, what bothers me is that's two stories of bears getting framed.

[00:28:38] And I just, I just, I don't think it's right.

[00:28:40] I think they're going to revolt.

[00:28:41] I think they're going to be sick of it.

[00:28:44] Yep.

[00:28:44] Yeah.

[00:28:45] I just hope they don't take their anger out on us.

[00:28:47] Yep.

[00:28:48] Nope.

[00:28:48] That's yep.

[00:28:49] It's going to answer that question.

[00:28:50] The bear versus men.

[00:28:51] I feel like that guy, the guy should have just skipped the murder part and gone right to Uzbekistan.

[00:28:56] Right.

[00:28:57] As long as you don't talk to TikTok, you would have been fine.

[00:28:59] Yes.

[00:28:59] Stay away from it.

[00:29:00] Yeah.

[00:29:01] So anyway.

[00:29:01] But yeah, I just don't understand.

[00:29:02] Like, I guess bears are the escape for any kind of fraud or murder now.

[00:29:07] And like, cause they can't talk or.

[00:29:09] I don't know.

[00:29:10] It's not fair.

[00:29:10] It's not fair.

[00:29:11] So justice for the bears.

[00:29:15] All right.

[00:29:43] All right.

[00:29:43] So moving on, Dave.

[00:29:43] Um, the, the, the lakes region search and rescue team and the Pemi search and rescue team and

[00:29:48] fishing game had all, um, all came out and it was a great crowd.

[00:29:54] So a stomp actually saying the national anthem.

[00:29:56] So with no music or anything, he caught video of that.

[00:30:00] That's he.

[00:30:01] Yep.

[00:30:01] I was impressed.

[00:30:02] He did in, he did fantastic.

[00:30:04] So, uh, there's some video I think floating around out there of him, but he did amazing

[00:30:08] and it was a great moment and it was a great race.

[00:30:11] And, uh, it was great to see all of our friends that we, you know, we saw in the, the lakes

[00:30:16] region team and, and Kim and her whole team that had organized it, did an amazing job.

[00:30:21] After the race, we were able to go inside and do the, the raffle.

[00:30:26] So we were announcing the numbers and everybody won a bunch of prizes and it was a great time.

[00:30:30] Um, it looked like a cold day, you know, for that kind of turnout.

[00:30:33] It's impressive too.

[00:30:34] Cold day and windy.

[00:30:35] Um, I think they had a little bit of, uh, um, there w there was, I think the winning time

[00:30:40] came in around 20 minutes or so.

[00:30:42] Um, but I think, yeah, they had a little bit of a windy day on the course, but I think coming

[00:30:46] back, the wind was at their back.

[00:30:48] So that wasn't too bad.

[00:30:49] It was either of you run it.

[00:30:51] I didn't.

[00:30:52] I was going to, I was going to go early and just run the course, but I got there late.

[00:30:55] So I just said, forget it.

[00:30:56] I'll just hang out.

[00:30:57] And the plus it was so cold and windy.

[00:30:58] I just didn't want to run.

[00:30:59] It did prove the soft and so, but, but congratulations to the lakes region search and rescue team,

[00:31:06] because that was an amazing event.

[00:31:07] And I think next year they'll probably have over 500 runners.

[00:31:11] It's impressive.

[00:31:13] Yep.

[00:31:14] Um, and then just keeping the theme of events going.

[00:31:17] So this, this show will come out on Friday.

[00:31:21] So then the next day will be, um, full conditions event at reckless.

[00:31:26] So the event's going to start around, I think it officially starts at five o'clock, but our

[00:31:32] friend, Nick Sidla, who, um, hosts the, the PUDS podcast, he is going to be there at the

[00:31:39] Pine House and he will be playing guitar and some music and Stomp may join him.

[00:31:45] I think him and Nick have been collaborating on some music recently.

[00:31:48] They're like the new Milli Vanilli.

[00:31:50] Yeah.

[00:31:50] Hall and Oates.

[00:31:51] Hall and Oates.

[00:31:52] Oh, okay.

[00:31:52] Yeah.

[00:31:52] Well, yeah, I guess Milli Vanilli is maybe not the best example of music.

[00:31:56] Yeah, exactly.

[00:31:57] They're actual musicians.

[00:31:58] So, um, and then we'll start at five recording on the back deck of the pint house.

[00:32:05] And apparently they're going to have a heated tent, which will be nice.

[00:32:08] And then there'll be raffle tickets that will be sold throughout the event, uh, for some

[00:32:13] awesome items.

[00:32:14] And all the proceeds will be benefiting the New Hampshire outdoor council.

[00:32:19] And then the lineup we have is Ken Bossy is going to be doing a standup set.

[00:32:24] We've got the 48 peaks team.

[00:32:27] We've got reckless Steve.

[00:32:29] Um, we're going to have Andy, uh, Andy from the cog is going to be there.

[00:32:33] We're going to have the Mount Washington observatory there, Patrick from the Mount Washington state

[00:32:38] park.

[00:32:39] We'll have some folks from the hiking buddies there.

[00:32:41] And then Ty Gagne will be there.

[00:32:43] And then Stomp's going to do some DJ music to close out the evening.

[00:32:46] So it should be a fun time.

[00:32:47] That's a great lineup.

[00:32:49] Yeah.

[00:32:49] Are you coming?

[00:32:49] That's, uh, I, I, I have a ticket.

[00:32:52] Okay.

[00:32:52] Get a ticket.

[00:32:53] And I, you know, I'm thinking about if I can get the work to line up and, you know,

[00:32:57] sneak in and stay in the shadows.

[00:32:59] Yeah.

[00:32:59] I might, I might make an appearance.

[00:33:01] That seems noncommittal.

[00:33:02] Yeah.

[00:33:02] No, that's what I do best.

[00:33:04] Okay.

[00:33:04] I'll be maybe.

[00:33:05] Yep.

[00:33:05] Yeah, definitely.

[00:33:06] Definitely.

[00:33:07] Okay.

[00:33:08] All right.

[00:33:08] Well, I appreciate it.

[00:33:09] I appreciate the, the, the support.

[00:33:11] Maybe.

[00:33:12] Yeah.

[00:33:12] No, if I'm there, I'll just, you know, I'll have the fake mustache on.

[00:33:15] Okay.

[00:33:15] I appreciate it.

[00:33:16] Um, all right.

[00:33:17] So one other thing I wanted to, um, just throw out here is actually Stomp put this on here.

[00:33:23] So, um, there's going to be a conservation officer who is going to be running, um, Rob McDermott.

[00:33:31] He's going to be running in the Boston marathon, um, to raise money for the American foundation

[00:33:37] for suicide prevention.

[00:33:38] Um, and he's going to be running in memory of conservation officer, Levi Fry, who recently

[00:33:43] passed away.

[00:33:44] Um, so he is raising funds.

[00:33:47] He's got a $12,000 target.

[00:33:49] He's got about 8,000 raised already.

[00:33:51] So I'm going to put this out in the show notes and on our social.

[00:33:54] And if you want to go ahead and support Rob and his, his, his, uh, run to raise money for

[00:34:01] suicide prevention, then you can go ahead and donate in, uh, Levi Fry's memory.

[00:34:05] So that's a great cause.

[00:34:07] Definitely.

[00:34:08] Definitely.

[00:34:09] Yeah.

[00:34:10] All right.

[00:34:11] So, um, Dave, moving on, I pulled a little bit of a history segment and me and you had

[00:34:18] gone out, um, what was that?

[00:34:19] Like three, four weeks ago now.

[00:34:21] I think we, it feels like an eternity, but yeah, it was, um, it was, it was October, right?

[00:34:26] Still.

[00:34:26] Yes.

[00:34:27] Yeah.

[00:34:28] Yep.

[00:34:28] So, um, that was the hike that my fly was down and Dave noticed and didn't tell me.

[00:34:35] I don't remember that at all.

[00:34:36] I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:34:37] Yeah.

[00:34:38] He didn't tell, he made, he made fun of me for about a half hour and didn't tell me.

[00:34:41] And then it was a gentleman's way to bring attention to it.

[00:34:44] And then I realized it's more fun to keep bringing attention to it when you didn't get

[00:34:48] it and everybody piled on and it was just, you know, it wasn't like rocks in the bag kind

[00:34:52] of thing or yes.

[00:34:53] So every time I go hiking with you, I just, something happens.

[00:34:58] So it's pure coincidence.

[00:35:02] Let's dive into some white mountains history, shall we?

[00:35:11] Anyway, well, during that hike, we had a little chat about the, uh, the pond of safety and

[00:35:16] a little bit about the history of that particular area.

[00:35:20] And I think on the last show I talked about it, I think I got two stories mixed up.

[00:35:23] There's like a, a story about Stark with some prisoners where prisoners of war were held.

[00:35:28] And then there's another story about the pond of safety where some revolutionary war

[00:35:32] soldiers hit out.

[00:35:33] So I got those two confused, but essentially the pond of safety is the one that ties to

[00:35:37] the revolutionary war.

[00:35:38] So I was going to do a history segment about the pond of safety, but there's really not

[00:35:43] much to, I mean, there's a little bit of detail there, but what I found actually was

[00:35:47] a more interesting story around the development of the Randolph town forest.

[00:35:52] And so the history and the background and the politics around how it came to be that the

[00:35:59] Randolph town forest exists.

[00:36:01] And the Randolph town forest probably like the Crescent Randolph range is, or hike is,

[00:36:07] and lookout ledge is, is part of it.

[00:36:09] And then you've got the ice gulch, and then you've got a couple of other trail systems that

[00:36:12] are back there.

[00:36:13] Uh, but essentially the Randolph town forest parallels route two to the north and then curves

[00:36:22] around by the pond of safety and then up to the Kilkenny range.

[00:36:27] Um, so it's a pretty big area and it's not actually owned, it's owned by the town and

[00:36:32] it's designated as a town forest.

[00:36:34] I think it's the largest town forest in, uh, in New Hampshire, if not New England.

[00:36:39] Um, and the history on this is pretty interesting.

[00:36:42] So the town actually purchased it in the early two thousands, late nineties, late 1990s.

[00:36:49] So it was owned by logging companies as most of the property up there that's not owned by

[00:36:54] the, um, the federal government is, uh, and there was always concern about the development

[00:37:01] of this particular area.

[00:37:03] And over the years there had been plans to try to build housing in certain areas, um, particularly

[00:37:10] close to the pond of safety.

[00:37:13] And fortunately, one of the things that kind of kept the development away was that in that

[00:37:17] particular area, the easiest way to get to the, to build an entrance to that area would

[00:37:24] be through Jefferson, New Hampshire, which is the neighboring town to Randolph.

[00:37:28] The problem is, is that most of the area that would be developed sits in Randolph.

[00:37:33] So you would have essentially a road where you can only access the, the, the area of Randolph

[00:37:41] by going through another town, which is not something that's usually easily managed.

[00:37:45] So for a lot of years, it sort of saved that area from being developed.

[00:37:50] Um, and, but, but by 1995 Hancock Lumber had decided that they were going to apply for the,

[00:37:58] what's called the forest legacy fund.

[00:38:00] And this fund is, I guess, set aside by the federal government to allow logging companies

[00:38:05] and other, uh, interested parties to purchase land.

[00:38:09] Uh, sometimes what happens is that the government will purchase the land back from a logging company

[00:38:15] and then sell it back to another logging company that's interested.

[00:38:19] Occasionally they'll do direct sales, but this, this is set up just so that, um, the government

[00:38:25] has a means to buy back forest as it, you know, as it comes up.

[00:38:30] Um, so essentially like you've got this big bucket of land from the Crescent range over to Kilkenny

[00:38:35] with the pond of safety is the main body of water.

[00:38:38] Um, now the pond of safety, the history there is that the pond of safety was named during,

[00:38:45] during the revolutionary war where four continental army soldiers were captured by the British.

[00:38:51] Um, and they were, as was pretty traditional, they were paroled on the condition that they

[00:38:57] returned to their families and not fight again, which was a common practice at the time.

[00:39:02] But the concern on the soldiers part was that if they returned to their home, they were afraid

[00:39:08] that they were going to get arrested as deserters.

[00:39:10] So essentially like they, they were fighting for the continental army.

[00:39:13] They got arrested by the British.

[00:39:16] The British said like, you can go home as long as you promise not to fight.

[00:39:20] If they go home, then the continental army was basically going to arrest them anyway.

[00:39:24] So they're screwed.

[00:39:25] Yep.

[00:39:26] Worst case scenario for them.

[00:39:28] So what they decided to do was, um, because they feared getting arrested by the continental

[00:39:35] army and they feared getting in trouble with the British, they fled into the wilderness

[00:39:39] and they settled at this pond of safety until the end of the war.

[00:39:43] And then eventually they were welcomed back into their community.

[00:39:46] So essentially that pond was named, um, as a pond of safety because it was the only recourse

[00:39:51] for these four soldiers to be able to stay protected during the revolutionary war.

[00:39:55] It's a lot of legends come out of that too.

[00:39:57] They do say that if you camp near the pond of safety, you can hear the conversations at

[00:40:01] night and you can, you can hear the soldiers talking around the fire and things like that,

[00:40:06] you know, if you believe that, but.

[00:40:08] Yeah.

[00:40:08] Yeah.

[00:40:08] We bushwhacked up over, I forget, what was that summit that we bushwhacked to?

[00:40:12] That was one of the Randolphs, right?

[00:40:14] West, East, West Randolph or something.

[00:40:16] Yeah.

[00:40:16] Yeah.

[00:40:16] I got a little bit of a ghostly vibe up there.

[00:40:19] It's a, it's a, you know, the name had changed back and forth.

[00:40:22] It's if for something that close to route to, you do feel like if you keep going, you

[00:40:27] could just go for miles and miles and miles until you hit the Kilkenny Ridge.

[00:40:30] I mean, there's nothing out there.

[00:40:31] Yeah.

[00:40:32] Yeah.

[00:40:32] And it's a huge track of land.

[00:40:33] It's kind of, it was a great area.

[00:40:36] Great views.

[00:40:37] Yeah.

[00:40:38] Worth the trip.

[00:40:39] Yeah, it is.

[00:40:39] I highly recommend it.

[00:40:40] So Crescent Mount or is it Crescent Mountain and Mount Randolph, right?

[00:40:45] Or is it the opposite?

[00:40:47] I'm flexible.

[00:40:47] I can't remember anything.

[00:40:49] You know, it's Crescent and Randolph.

[00:40:51] I keep it that simple.

[00:40:52] Yeah.

[00:40:53] That makes sense.

[00:40:53] So anyway, by the late nineties, you know, the word had gotten out that the logging company

[00:40:59] was interested in selling.

[00:41:01] So by the late nineties, a bipartisan group was founded.

[00:41:04] So they purposely, I guess they purposely found like the biggest conservative they could

[00:41:09] find.

[00:41:09] They found a guy that was on the New Hampshire state police and they got, they put him together

[00:41:14] with the biggest like environmentalists that they could find.

[00:41:18] And those two worked together with, they wanted two other stakeholders to figure out a

[00:41:23] way that they could, they could at least explore how they could potentially purchase the land

[00:41:28] for a town forest.

[00:41:29] And at first it looked like the available funds for the program were not going to be feasible.

[00:41:34] So they went back and forth for a couple of years with this like forest legacy fund.

[00:41:39] And, and it didn't sound like the, essentially the federal government will fund it at like $200,000

[00:41:46] per state.

[00:41:47] And then what's some states won't use the money.

[00:41:50] They can move it to different states, but it was not going to, it wasn't looking feasible.

[00:41:54] So essentially, eventually the forest logging company decided that they were going to sell

[00:42:01] the land directly to some stakeholders.

[00:42:04] And they were, I think they were thinking in terms of like, well, if the town's not going

[00:42:07] to buy it, we can sell it to some other logging companies.

[00:42:11] Fortunately, by 1998, when the company had decided to sell the land directly in January

[00:42:17] of that year, maybe it was 99.

[00:42:19] I'm not sure the exact dates, a huge ice storm hit the region and it damaged all the trees

[00:42:25] so severely that the value of that section of forest was, was basically decimated because

[00:42:32] it was going to take so many years for that area of the forest to recover from the ice

[00:42:37] damage.

[00:42:37] So the value of the land plummeted.

[00:42:40] And at that point, because the value of the timber there, it was impacted so significantly.

[00:42:46] The town was kind of like, you know, I think we can make this happen.

[00:42:49] So they were working a little bit.

[00:42:51] They first, they tried to pull Jefferson, New Hampshire into the deal to say like, all

[00:42:55] right, maybe we can split it and it'll be the Randolph Jefferson forest.

[00:42:59] Jefferson decided that they were not going to be interested in joining it.

[00:43:04] So Randolph was on their own.

[00:43:07] And ultimately, once Jefferson stepped aside, they took it to town meeting, they took it

[00:43:13] to a vote.

[00:43:13] And I think they settled on purchasing the land for around $2 million to complete the purchase.

[00:43:20] But they had to sort out a little bit of back and forth with the U.S. Forest Service who

[00:43:24] did not want the northern boundary of the land to be owned by Randolph.

[00:43:30] They wanted to have that buffer to connect with some existing land that they owned in

[00:43:35] the White Mountain National Forest.

[00:43:36] So, but ultimately the town was able to buy it and maintain it.

[00:43:41] And then I think that there's a, what did you call it?

[00:43:45] An interactive hike or something like that to describe?

[00:43:47] Interpretive.

[00:43:48] Interpretive hike.

[00:43:49] An interpretive trail.

[00:43:49] Yeah.

[00:43:50] So you can learn the history as you go along.

[00:43:52] And I think it has the, what is it?

[00:43:54] The Four Soldiers path as well.

[00:43:56] Yes.

[00:43:56] It tells the whole history and some story of the area and that.

[00:44:00] Yeah.

[00:44:00] So I thought it was an interesting history because especially like, we don't get political

[00:44:04] on the show, but like you just look at all the politics and it seems like people can't

[00:44:08] get out of their own way to get anything done nowadays.

[00:44:11] And the fact that over the course of four or five years, the townspeople were able to

[00:44:15] maneuver to get this land.

[00:44:17] It was pretty impressive.

[00:44:19] So I thought that was a fun story.

[00:44:20] Yeah.

[00:44:20] They timed it perfect.

[00:44:21] Bought it on clearance.

[00:44:23] Yes.

[00:44:23] Nice piece of land.

[00:44:24] Everybody's happy.

[00:44:25] And it's a beautiful area.

[00:44:26] It is.

[00:44:27] And I think the trees are all recovered now.

[00:44:29] So.

[00:44:31] We all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times.

[00:44:34] So here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it.

[00:44:39] Ba-dum-bum.

[00:44:43] Now's the part of the show where we do a dad joke, Dave.

[00:44:45] So.

[00:44:46] Oh boy.

[00:44:46] Buckle up.

[00:44:47] What type of dog loves to take baths?

[00:44:50] Ooh.

[00:44:52] A shampooodle.

[00:44:54] Wow.

[00:44:56] Why did the nurse need a red pen?

[00:44:59] You got me.

[00:45:00] In case she needed to draw blood.

[00:45:02] Oh, wow.

[00:45:03] Yep.

[00:45:04] Okay.

[00:45:05] Wow.

[00:45:05] That was good.

[00:45:06] Yeah.

[00:45:07] Those are textbook dad jokes.

[00:45:10] Yes.

[00:45:11] That's very good.

[00:45:17] Ready for Slasher's Ear Review?

[00:45:27] All right.

[00:45:27] We got a gear review here.

[00:45:29] Stomp sent this over to me.

[00:45:30] This is a pretty cool idea.

[00:45:31] I never thought about this, but this is a ear marker.

[00:45:35] It's called the Ear Marker.

[00:45:37] And what it is, is it's a little black plastic canister that you can take hiking with you.

[00:45:44] I don't know how much it weighs, but it doesn't look like it weighs much.

[00:45:47] And essentially what it is, is you pull the cover off and this little nylon balloon pops out.

[00:45:52] And then you twist the canister and it'll inflate the balloon with a little bit of helium.

[00:45:58] And then you let it loose.

[00:46:00] It has a 45 meter string attached to it.

[00:46:04] And then you can raise it up so that it gets above the tree line.

[00:46:08] And then it has like a little flashing light so that if you ever get in trouble and you're in like a deeply forested region,

[00:46:16] you can break through the trees and get your SOS balloon up there.

[00:46:22] And it's got a little blinking light and everything so it can be seen at night.

[00:46:25] So did you say ear marker or air marker?

[00:46:28] Ear marker.

[00:46:29] Okay.

[00:46:30] It's the accent thing coming through.

[00:46:31] So I was like, what's an ear marker?

[00:46:33] And then it was a balloon.

[00:46:33] I got confused how it affected your ears.

[00:46:35] But so how does that work when you're in thick, like overhanging brush or if you're above tree line?

[00:46:42] Well, if you're above tree line, I mean, it's going to be windy.

[00:46:45] Yeah, it's helium.

[00:46:46] So it'll float up.

[00:46:47] If you're under the trees, I'm assuming you would have to hold it down until you get to an area where you can at least pop it through the trees.

[00:46:55] Okay.

[00:46:56] But the idea is that it would signal to a helicopter or search and rescue or a drone that you were there.

[00:47:04] And at night it blinks.

[00:47:06] So it acts as a strobe light.

[00:47:08] The concept's cool.

[00:47:09] I was just curious how it would work because a lot of that's dense.

[00:47:12] It has to be like a really thick balloon.

[00:47:15] Yeah.

[00:47:16] Like a mylar or something, like really thick that it would get through.

[00:47:19] Yeah.

[00:47:20] Yeah, it looks like, and I'm showing it on the screen so you can take a look at it.

[00:47:23] But it looks like a pretty solid balloon.

[00:47:26] Oh, yeah.

[00:47:28] Yeah.

[00:47:29] So it inflates and then you can just let it roll.

[00:47:32] But yeah, you're right.

[00:47:33] If you're in the Great Gulf or something, like you'd have to basically go to a drainage so that you're close to a drainage so you'd have enough room to clear the trees.

[00:47:42] Yep.

[00:47:43] So, but yeah, that's the idea.

[00:47:44] And it goes up pretty high.

[00:47:45] It's like 45 meters.

[00:47:47] So that's, I think, 120 feet or something.

[00:47:50] The video shows it being inflated, but it shows it actually above the trees, but it never shows the process of going up.

[00:47:58] So it's a great commercial.

[00:47:59] That's how you sell it, right?

[00:48:02] That's right.

[00:48:03] Like before and after, but not during.

[00:48:04] Exactly.

[00:48:05] So, but I may have to buy this and test it out.

[00:48:08] That'd be fun.

[00:48:09] Yeah, it would be good.

[00:48:10] So I'll include that in the show notes.

[00:48:12] And then now's the part of the show where we're going to do a commercial.

[00:48:16] So CS Coffee.

[00:48:18] So CS Coffee is one of our sponsors.

[00:48:21] So if you like coffee and you need to stay awake, they are for you.

[00:48:25] So do more, wait less.

[00:48:28] CS Instant Coffee.

[00:48:30] So go to www.csinstant.coffee.

[00:48:35] Check them out.

[00:48:39] So this is the part of the show where you can get your free stickers at the full condition show tomorrow.

[00:48:44] And then patches will also be available.

[00:48:46] We'll be giving them away.

[00:48:48] And then I think we'll be selling a few as well.

[00:48:53] So bring some money if you want to get a patch there.

[00:48:56] And then coffee donations.

[00:48:58] We have, we got five coffees from our friend Alex M.

[00:49:02] So thank you very much to Alex.

[00:49:07] And now is the part of the show where we do beer talk.

[00:49:12] So what are you, what are you drinking tonight?

[00:49:15] I'm going to guess probably drinking something similar to what you're drinking.

[00:49:19] It's a Storm Along Happy Holidays holiday spiced cider.

[00:49:25] Yes, I'm having it too.

[00:49:27] And I'm not really a cider guy.

[00:49:29] No, I like the ciders.

[00:49:31] I'm not a big cinnamon holiday flavor, but the unfiltered, I'm enjoying it.

[00:49:35] It's, you know.

[00:49:36] Yeah.

[00:49:37] Getting in the season already.

[00:49:38] We're close enough to Christmas, right?

[00:49:40] This is the holidays I get.

[00:49:42] Yeah.

[00:49:42] Yeah.

[00:49:42] It's not bad.

[00:49:43] It's not bad at all.

[00:49:45] All right.

[00:49:46] So now's the part of the show.

[00:49:46] We talk about recent hikes.

[00:49:48] So I did get out recently.

[00:49:50] I did a hike on Mount Greylock.

[00:49:52] So I went with Nick and my friend Steve from the Cape.

[00:49:57] So we went out and we started in Cheshire, Mass.

[00:50:01] And then we did about eight miles on the Appalachian Trail.

[00:50:04] We got to the summit of Mount Greylock.

[00:50:05] And then we had spotted a car in Williamstown.

[00:50:08] So I was able to get out to Greylock.

[00:50:12] And then we hiked out to Haley Farm in Williamstown.

[00:50:16] So it was about a 14 mile hike.

[00:50:18] And awesome views.

[00:50:19] Awesome day.

[00:50:20] It was great to get on the AT to check out that lower section of South of Greylock.

[00:50:26] And, you know, Massachusetts has definitely got some good mountains out in the Western

[00:50:30] area.

[00:50:30] So we enjoyed it.

[00:50:32] And then we topped the day off with a trip to Jack's Hot Dog Stand in North Adams.

[00:50:37] That sounds good.

[00:50:38] Yeah.

[00:50:39] Which was fantastic.

[00:50:40] And we call North Adams the land that God forgot.

[00:50:42] And it's also the land that inflation forgot because we got seven hot dogs, two cheeseburgers,

[00:50:48] fries, onion rings, sodas.

[00:50:51] And I think the total bill for the three of us was 25 bucks.

[00:50:54] Holy crap.

[00:50:55] Yeah.

[00:50:57] Wow.

[00:50:57] So that was pretty impressive.

[00:50:58] That might be worth the trip alone.

[00:51:00] Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:01] It was worth it.

[00:51:01] I do have an anniversary coming up.

[00:51:02] Maybe that's where we'll go.

[00:51:04] I'll have to take her out there.

[00:51:05] But yeah.

[00:51:06] Only the best for her.

[00:51:07] Of course.

[00:51:08] Yes.

[00:51:08] Of course.

[00:51:09] Get large fries.

[00:51:09] Go nuts.

[00:51:10] Yes.

[00:51:11] But Mount Greylock is awesome.

[00:51:13] Great views.

[00:51:14] It's a little late in the season.

[00:51:16] So like all the stuff on the summit buildings is closed.

[00:51:20] But it was quiet.

[00:51:21] There wasn't too many people there.

[00:51:22] We did see these three guys that were, they had the helmets on and they were climbing the

[00:51:27] radio tower.

[00:51:29] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:29] They were getting ready to climb the radio tower.

[00:51:30] So we had passed them going up to the summit and then we came back and one of the guys

[00:51:36] said something to Nick and he's like, oh, you guys, you know, it's cold up there or whatever.

[00:51:44] And he's like, yeah, you guys, how long did you walk for?

[00:51:47] And we were like, oh, we came from Cheshire.

[00:51:49] He's like, you came from Cheshire?

[00:51:50] That's crazy.

[00:51:51] That's a, so he was impressed with us.

[00:51:53] And I was like, dude, you're climbing a tower in 60 mile an hour wind there.

[00:51:56] Like you, we're the ones that are impressed.

[00:51:58] Those guys are nuts.

[00:51:59] Yeah.

[00:51:59] So, and then when we hiked, we hiked around and we could see the, uh, the tower and we

[00:52:04] could actually see them climbing it from the distance when we got, when we got out.

[00:52:07] You sure he wasn't just trying to yell at you and tell you your fly was down?

[00:52:10] No.

[00:52:11] All right.

[00:52:11] I wasn't trying to be helpful, you know?

[00:52:13] That would have been weird.

[00:52:15] Yeah.

[00:52:15] You never know.

[00:52:16] Right?

[00:52:16] See?

[00:52:16] Now it's weird when you get told you can't win.

[00:52:18] Yeah, exactly.

[00:52:19] Did you see any AT stragglers?

[00:52:21] Anybody trying to run North and you're like, you're not going to make it.

[00:52:24] We didn't see anybody North.

[00:52:26] We saw a southbound hiker.

[00:52:27] Um, matter of fact, Steve had seen her, I think up in Grafton notch.

[00:52:32] And then he, he remembered her, uh, from, from where he had seen her previously.

[00:52:36] So she had made it up from, um, she had made it down from Maine or New Hampshire, wherever

[00:52:42] he saw her.

[00:52:43] So, yeah.

[00:52:43] Oh, good.

[00:52:44] Yep.

[00:52:44] Good dry weather.

[00:52:45] That's for sure.

[00:52:46] Very dry, too dry almost, but it's, um, good weather to be moving along Massachusetts and

[00:52:50] getting south.

[00:52:51] Yeah.

[00:52:51] Yeah.

[00:52:51] So she was, uh, she was cruising down.

[00:52:53] Um, so I don't know if she was, she had passed the, the last shelter before Cheshire.

[00:53:00] So I don't know if she was going off trail or if she was going to just keep going to the

[00:53:04] next shelter.

[00:53:04] I don't know where the next shelter is after Cheshire, Southbound, but she, she was moving

[00:53:08] along.

[00:53:09] Good.

[00:53:10] Um, all right.

[00:53:12] So, uh, Dave, any recent hikes for you that you want to share with the audience?

[00:53:15] Not super recent.

[00:53:17] Uh, you know, November is my busy month, so I don't get out a ton.

[00:53:20] Um, but I, I got out and did, um, the Percy's at the end of October, just did a sunset sunrise.

[00:53:26] So I camped out, watched the sunset, got up, watched sunrise and then headed back for work.

[00:53:30] Um, and then we did, I went with Liz on the 30th at the end of the month, we did the scars,

[00:53:36] middle scar and, um, East scar.

[00:53:41] Um, different, different angle approach.

[00:53:44] When I had done East, I could never find the canister.

[00:53:46] I had gone in March and it was absolute hell.

[00:53:49] The snow was brutal.

[00:53:50] The pack was hard.

[00:53:51] The scrub brush was like impossible.

[00:53:53] We came up through, what's the pond?

[00:53:57] East pond, um, that loop off Tripoli road.

[00:54:01] We went middle and then came in the back way to East.

[00:54:04] And it actually, it was pretty smooth sailing.

[00:54:06] Um, nice area.

[00:54:10] Excellent.

[00:54:10] So you've been getting out there and then, uh, do you have any big plans in the future

[00:54:14] that you're, any big hikes coming up?

[00:54:16] Nothing major.

[00:54:17] Like I said, I got to survive November.

[00:54:19] November is my busiest month.

[00:54:20] Um, and then it'll, it'll calm down.

[00:54:22] Um, I'll get out December and start chipping away at different, different lists or just different

[00:54:27] hike, whatever, whatever appeals to me at the time, whatever the weather is, whatever

[00:54:31] the snow pack looks like, if there is any.

[00:54:34] Now, will you be open?

[00:54:35] Like if I, you know, I'm like a, I'm like a standard 4,000 footer winter hiker.

[00:54:40] So I'm always going on the Prezzies and wherever the crowds are, I'm going like, are you going

[00:54:43] to join me this winter or are you going to avoid it?

[00:54:45] Well, I, I didn't get the invite for Greylock, but yeah, I mean, if, you know, if I, if I get

[00:54:49] the invite, I would consider it.

[00:54:51] Absolutely.

[00:54:51] I know.

[00:54:52] I'll be more committed on that.

[00:54:53] Yes.

[00:54:54] Yes, I would.

[00:54:54] That would be, I'd enjoy that.

[00:54:56] I should have hit you up on Greylock, but I, you know, you said November's busy, so I

[00:54:59] didn't want to take money out of your pocket.

[00:55:02] Yeah.

[00:55:03] Way to backpedal.

[00:55:04] There it is.

[00:55:04] Yeah.

[00:55:04] Nice.

[00:55:05] Yeah.

[00:55:22] It's time for Slasher's guest of the week.

[00:55:25] Very cool.

[00:55:26] Very cool.

[00:55:36] All right.

[00:55:36] So we might as well do your segment here.

[00:55:38] So Dave is joining us.

[00:55:40] So we, you guys know him as Dave shits in the woods, um, on his Instagram, he's Instagram

[00:55:44] famous, but, uh, we wanted to do a quick segment.

[00:55:47] So I appreciate you stepping in for stomp because I can't do this thing on my own.

[00:55:51] And, and, uh, you know, you could, it just would probably suck.

[00:55:55] That's all, you know, so you need someone to throw the blame on.

[00:55:57] So you probably need to be like, this guy's horrible.

[00:56:00] Don't be all over him.

[00:56:01] Be like, I look great now.

[00:56:02] Well done.

[00:56:04] Exactly.

[00:56:04] Well, you've got, you've accomplished some shit.

[00:56:06] So I gotta, I gotta give you credit for that.

[00:56:08] So you recently finished the New Hampshire 100 highest list, which is the list of the

[00:56:13] hundred highest peaks in New Hampshire.

[00:56:16] But, um, stomp confused me cause he kept writing 104 and I'm like, that's not how people reference

[00:56:21] the list.

[00:56:22] So it is not that that's my fault.

[00:56:23] I called it the 104 only because, you know, they, the hundred highest is technically not

[00:56:29] an AMC sanctioned list, so to speak, like your 48 and your winters and, and you, you know,

[00:56:34] those kinds of lists.

[00:56:35] Um, they do the 200 and the 500 and so on.

[00:56:39] So depending on what list you look at, there's four peaks that kind of are same elevation.

[00:56:45] So they interchange.

[00:56:46] So I just started calling it the 104 because I didn't want to not finish the list.

[00:56:51] So I just stuck with the 104 kind of like tongue in cheek.

[00:56:56] Got it.

[00:56:57] Yeah.

[00:56:57] It makes sense.

[00:56:58] Um, and the, I guess the, the motivation for doing this, you're, you're not necessarily

[00:57:04] saying like, all right, I was going to go after this list.

[00:57:07] This was part of doing the New Hampshire 500, right?

[00:57:11] Is that what you're, you're actively pursuing?

[00:57:13] Yes.

[00:57:13] And no, what it was is I had done the 48 and I finished the winter and I was kicking around

[00:57:17] what, you know, what's out there, what to keep me motivated.

[00:57:20] And I was looking at the 52 and I was like, well, yeah, okay.

[00:57:24] The 52, but then there was a whole bunch of these on the hundred, like the whole Kilkenny

[00:57:28] range, all the weeks and all the other ones.

[00:57:30] I'm like, you know what?

[00:57:30] I have a decent amount of these a hundred done.

[00:57:33] And so I started chipping away at a couple of those and I got more into the bushwhacking

[00:57:37] aspect of it.

[00:57:38] And I just kind of took off with it.

[00:57:40] Um, and then as things changed, I would bounce to the 52 list and chip away at that.

[00:57:46] Um, you know, when, when conditions wouldn't, or roads would close those kinds of things.

[00:57:51] Yeah.

[00:57:52] So I just kind of moved around.

[00:57:54] Um, and the 500 became part of the next quest in the sense that when I do a hundred, I'd

[00:57:59] kind of map out and be like, well, there's two other peaks in the area.

[00:58:01] Might as well try to hit those while I'm out there.

[00:58:04] Yeah, no, it makes sense.

[00:58:05] So essentially like if you've done the 4,000 footers and you've done the 52 with the view,

[00:58:10] I think that gets you somewhere around like 60 out of a hundred of these, right?

[00:58:15] Well, the 48 obviously is the beginning of the hundred.

[00:58:19] It's the other 52.

[00:58:20] I don't know that there's a lot of 52 with the views on the list for the, for the highest

[00:58:26] hundred.

[00:58:27] Yeah, that's true.

[00:58:27] Cause Chakor is like the last one and that's 3,500.

[00:58:30] So I'm assuming Chakor, a sandwich and maybe a couple more.

[00:58:34] Right.

[00:58:35] They're limited.

[00:58:35] Cause a lot of them quite frankly, don't have great views.

[00:58:39] And some of them do by accident, depending which way you go.

[00:58:42] But yeah, they're, um, it's, they don't really cross over, I guess is what I'm saying.

[00:58:48] Yeah.

[00:58:48] Yeah.

[00:58:48] And the, um, how long did it take you total to do, do, do the list?

[00:58:53] Uh, I would say almost 16 years if you count it, depending when you look at when I started

[00:58:58] the 48 and when I started chipping away.

[00:59:00] Um, once I got rolling on the hundred, I would say probably, you know, within probably five or

[00:59:06] six years as a guess.

[00:59:08] Um, like once I was actively saying, Oh, I'm actually doing it now instead of accidentally

[00:59:13] hitting them on different trips.

[00:59:14] Got it.

[00:59:15] Can we just go down?

[00:59:16] Like I pulled probably about 10 of these that I'm not familiar with.

[00:59:20] Can you just give a breakdown?

[00:59:21] So Hutchins in the pilot range, where is that?

[00:59:24] And what's the deal with that one?

[00:59:27] Uh, the pilots are, this is where I always struggle with locations, right?

[00:59:32] It is.

[00:59:32] It is.

[00:59:33] It's, um, kind of the unknown pond area.

[00:59:36] Um, you go in and instead of taking the trail, you just go straight back into the woods.

[00:59:40] There's three peaks out that way.

[00:59:42] Um, it's like Mary Hutchins and pilot or something, different names.

[00:59:46] Um, that one's a wild one without getting into too much detail, but there was definitely

[00:59:50] something I stumbled across out there that threw me.

[00:59:53] Um, it's one of those.

[00:59:55] If you go to the middle one, um, it was one of those things you find and you look around

[01:00:00] like, why is this out here?

[01:00:01] And who goes here?

[01:00:03] And it's pretty cool area.

[01:00:05] Um, the other side coming down, there's this, it's pretty thick, a lot of blow downs, but

[01:00:10] not a horrible area.

[01:00:11] It was one of the first, uh, overnights that I did out that way and went up and around.

[01:00:18] All right.

[01:00:19] Um, like you can't just leave me hanging.

[01:00:22] Like you found something creepy out there.

[01:00:23] Yeah.

[01:00:24] It's not creepy.

[01:00:25] Let's just say maybe, uh, a place where somebody could, could stay for long periods of time.

[01:00:31] Okay.

[01:00:31] Got it.

[01:00:32] Got it.

[01:00:32] That was very well furnished.

[01:00:35] Okay.

[01:00:36] And it's one of those like, what the hell is this?

[01:00:39] I'm not opening.

[01:00:40] I'm not touching shit.

[01:00:41] I'm out of here.

[01:00:42] Yeah.

[01:00:42] Like, you know, okay.

[01:00:44] Yeah.

[01:00:44] You don't want to piss off some locals.

[01:00:46] Now, what about blue mountain in Stratford?

[01:00:49] Uh, I think it's Gorin blue.

[01:00:51] Um, they're in the same area.

[01:00:53] Okay.

[01:00:53] Um, there's a ton of blue mountains, just like there's a ton of bald mountains.

[01:00:56] There's a ton of those.

[01:00:57] Gorin blue, I think are, um, somewhat near the AT, but up behind them.

[01:01:03] So you kind of jump off and go behind them.

[01:01:07] Um, and then, uh, Dartmouth mountain.

[01:01:13] Dartmouth is right, um, by, what is it?

[01:01:18] The, um, Jefferson.

[01:01:20] Okay.

[01:01:21] So if you're going to Jefferson, you park, you know, what's the trail?

[01:01:24] It's the highest starting point.

[01:01:26] Caps Ridge.

[01:01:26] See, my brain retains, but can't remember.

[01:01:29] Right.

[01:01:29] Um, it's across the street, basically.

[01:01:32] Really?

[01:01:33] It's, um, is it Miller mountain?

[01:01:38] And I think that's the one Dartmouth is the one that actually had really nice views.

[01:01:42] I'm going to try to bring up my app now so I can make sure I'm in the right area.

[01:01:46] My brain can't process when they're all around each other.

[01:01:50] But yeah, um, it basically is you park in the parking lot.

[01:01:55] You go straight across the dirt road.

[01:01:56] That's there.

[01:01:57] It has the high elevation and you go straight up and you just start.

[01:02:00] There's two peaks out there.

[01:02:01] One's on the 500 and this one's on the 100.

[01:02:04] And that was the one where we stepped off and you had a stunning view of the presidentials.

[01:02:10] And the gray J's just started hanging out with us and posing for pictures.

[01:02:14] And it was a cool area.

[01:02:17] I've never heard of it before.

[01:02:18] Uh, what about Huntington and South Huntington?

[01:02:22] The Huntingtons are right in the cank area.

[01:02:25] Yes.

[01:02:27] And there's, I think, five technically.

[01:02:29] There's only two that are on this list.

[01:02:32] And that was, uh, an anomaly because I set, I set a track where I wanted to go and where I thought I wanted to go.

[01:02:40] And let's just say I wanted to go in the woods and go right.

[01:02:42] For lack of bearings, it's easier.

[01:02:43] And I was going to go right and go up.

[01:02:45] And then all of a sudden we go up and there's, there's a full path that's flagged and everything.

[01:02:49] And I'm like, what is this?

[01:02:50] We start following it and it's literally a climber's path.

[01:02:53] It takes you right to a sheer rock face that you can go around and then climb the ridge and actually hit the summit easier and then come down the other way.

[01:03:02] When you're, when you're mapping out these bushwhacks, I mean, I've done a little bit of this where I'll look at, I've done a little bit of planning where I'll look at, um, I think I was looking at like, um, white, white wall one time.

[01:03:15] And I was basically, what I'll do is I'll look at the contour lines and I'll say like, all right, well, there's flat sections here, flat sections here.

[01:03:23] And you know, here's where the trail is.

[01:03:25] And then I'm going to connect, try to connect from the trail at the areas where I see the most flat section so I can get the most gradual climb.

[01:03:32] But I think I've been burned a couple of times that way because sometimes you're dealing with like marshy swamp stuff that you can't get through, but you generally do the same thing.

[01:03:40] Do you essentially just look for wide open forest that you can cut through to get to the summit or do you just not commit until you get there?

[01:03:50] Yes.

[01:03:50] And no, I call it old man hiking.

[01:03:51] So I'll find areas that like, okay, that's a straight climb.

[01:03:54] It's up.

[01:03:54] A lot of people take a track that way, but if I see something that looks a little easier on the knees, I'll go the other way.

[01:03:59] Um, knowing full well that as you get closer to water, you get closer to wet and growth, things can get thicker.

[01:04:06] Um, and just try to be aware that like, sometimes there's snowmobile trails, there's fire roads, there's other things that will get you where you want to be quicker.

[01:04:15] And then try to read like the hardwoods versus pines.

[01:04:20] Like if there's bigger birches and bigger glades, you can fly faster.

[01:04:23] You can make a lot better time.

[01:04:25] So yeah, you have more miles, but you're moving quicker.

[01:04:27] Um, so it's really reading the topography and the landscape, looking at other trail reports, figuring out what other people have done, trying to see if that's the best or just making your own path, which I like to do.

[01:04:39] I like to take pieces of everything and then try to figure out, okay, what works best for my style?

[01:04:44] Um, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

[01:04:49] Yeah.

[01:04:49] And I think when we did that bushwhack on, um, Randolph, I think like the, basically the land told us what direction to go in, in that way.

[01:04:57] Yeah.

[01:04:57] Yeah.

[01:04:57] A lot of times it will push you and, um, the flats will definitely give you logging cuts and old, old roads like that.

[01:05:04] Uh, and you can pick them up and in that case, it was a perfect example of like, if you get the ridge or the thumb, they call it the finger bridge or whatever.

[01:05:11] You can ride it.

[01:05:12] You can just climb it so much easier and you know, you're right.

[01:05:16] Cause if you go left, you're going down.

[01:05:17] And if you go right, you're going down again.

[01:05:19] So, you know, you're on the ridge, those kinds of things.

[01:05:21] Yeah.

[01:05:22] Makes sense.

[01:05:22] What about, um, middle and West long?

[01:05:25] Where are those?

[01:05:26] The longs are out in Nash stream area.

[01:05:29] Okay.

[01:05:30] And it is one of the greatest, probably one of my favorite places to disappear into the woods.

[01:05:35] Cause you, there's nothing out there.

[01:05:36] You go way out on the road to begin with.

[01:05:38] Uh, there's some hunting cabins, a few things here and there.

[01:05:41] And then once you're in, you're out there, they're not super hard.

[01:05:44] There's not a ton of elevation.

[01:05:46] The thing with those is like you said, where it's flat, it's a lot of blow downs and it's not the typical, like you just go around it.

[01:05:53] Like sometimes you're like a 10th of a mile just to get around these things.

[01:05:56] Uh, then you got to readjust, get your bearings and continue on.

[01:06:00] But that's where your moose are.

[01:06:02] That's where, you know, there's a lot of great stuff out that way.

[01:06:06] What about, um, Stub Hill?

[01:06:09] Stub is way North.

[01:06:10] Stub is, um, kind of McGalloway area.

[01:06:16] Way up that way.

[01:06:17] Stub is one of the easiest bushwhacks you'll ever do.

[01:06:20] You follow the road.

[01:06:21] There's actually a parking area.

[01:06:22] The locals have a boat hidden out by the pond.

[01:06:25] Um, you can go in and the bushwhack is, I want to say it's less than a mile.

[01:06:30] It's not super steep.

[01:06:31] You just go up a hill.

[01:06:33] There's a canister.

[01:06:34] The only thing that was out there when I went was if you don't like spiders, then it's absolute hell.

[01:06:40] Cause I have some pictures.

[01:06:41] There were some huge spiders.

[01:06:43] They were everywhere.

[01:06:44] Uh, and the grouse that scared the crap out of me, but it's a nice area.

[01:06:49] Um, and then there's, there's three stubs.

[01:06:52] I hit two of them.

[01:06:53] The third one wasn't on a list, but it's also way out of the way.

[01:06:56] Um, pretty easy bushwhacks.

[01:07:00] Yep.

[01:07:00] Nice.

[01:07:01] And then, um, East Terrace is the last one I had that I've never heard of.

[01:07:08] There's a couple of terraces.

[01:07:10] Now you got me on that one.

[01:07:11] Cause even I don't remember.

[01:07:14] Um, I'll try to look it up.

[01:07:17] Well.

[01:07:18] Yeah.

[01:07:19] I know we don't, we don't need to.

[01:07:20] Yeah.

[01:07:20] I just don't remember off the top of my head.

[01:07:22] That's fine.

[01:07:23] That's fine.

[01:07:24] They all kind of blend together.

[01:07:24] I'm revoking your, uh, your, your patch for it.

[01:07:27] That's right.

[01:07:27] I never went.

[01:07:27] I'm good.

[01:07:28] I got to Google it.

[01:07:29] I've never heard of it.

[01:07:30] What about, um, so for gear advice.

[01:07:32] So I know when you, you finished on the captain with Stomp and Nobby and Liz, um, Stomp hurt

[01:07:38] his eyes because he was being stubborn and not wearing eye protection.

[01:07:41] So it's critical that you wear eye protection.

[01:07:43] What about, um, what do you do to protect your legs and your arms?

[01:07:46] Yeah.

[01:07:46] No, he's, he hikes like a squash.

[01:07:49] He was just, he was breaking branches with his face all day.

[01:07:52] Um, but yeah, uh, eye protection is a must.

[01:07:55] Long sleeves are highly recommended unless you like, you know, scars that they do cut out.

[01:07:59] Regular hiking pants.

[01:08:01] You don't need like Kevlar and night, you know, pants or anything like that.

[01:08:05] Um, basic, I wear hiking boots just for ankle protection and that there's a lot of moss

[01:08:12] covered rock holes and things like that.

[01:08:14] It's more comfortable for me too.

[01:08:16] Um, I wear a hat cause I don't have any hair, but also I like the hat and sometimes I wear

[01:08:21] like a, um, I don't know what you'd call it.

[01:08:25] It's almost like a bandana, but I throw it under the hat.

[01:08:27] So when you're going through a lot of the pine ears and they're dry, it just doesn't

[01:08:31] stick to your neck or fall down the back of your shirt.

[01:08:34] Little things like that.

[01:08:36] Yeah.

[01:08:36] I mean, it's, it's, you know, as a general rule, you're not going to run straight into

[01:08:41] trees.

[01:08:42] So you don't need like helmets or any of that kind of stuff.

[01:08:45] It's basic, basic protection for your arms.

[01:08:48] Like you're just walking through bushes.

[01:08:51] And, um, you've also, in addition to the hundred highest and the 500 highest and the 48th and

[01:08:56] 50th, you've invented your own list, which is what's, what's the name of the list again?

[01:09:00] It is the New Hampshire inappropriate 69.

[01:09:03] Inappropriate 69.

[01:09:03] So what are some of the peaks on that, on that list?

[01:09:06] Uh, let me pop that open real quick if you got a minute, but it's, it's all the inappropriate

[01:09:10] ones that you would giggle like a teenager at.

[01:09:12] Yeah, like bald knob.

[01:09:13] Yeah, exactly.

[01:09:14] Mentally is exactly where I am.

[01:09:16] It's like, you know, that's what my brain is, but, uh, let me pop up the list real quick

[01:09:20] here.

[01:09:21] Do you have it online?

[01:09:22] Yeah.

[01:09:23] Yeah.

[01:09:23] It's on Instagram.

[01:09:24] There it is.

[01:09:25] Uh, it's on where, if you follow any lists, if you use wilder list, it actually is a list

[01:09:31] where you can track your hikes, um, and check them off as you go.

[01:09:35] Um, let's see, there's all the Dixvilles.

[01:09:38] There's fire screw.

[01:09:40] There's the, uh, let's see, hardwood Ridge.

[01:09:42] Yep.

[01:09:43] The Johnson mountain, the bulge.

[01:09:45] Yep.

[01:09:46] There's, yep.

[01:09:46] The bulges on there.

[01:09:48] Let me see.

[01:09:48] Doublehead.

[01:09:49] Yep.

[01:09:50] Shatney, um, South doublehead.

[01:09:53] Yep.

[01:09:53] Cannonballs.

[01:09:54] And there's three Mount tugs.

[01:09:56] Is that on purpose?

[01:09:57] Yeah.

[01:09:58] There's a couple.

[01:09:58] One is, uh, technically a private property, but you're allowed to go up.

[01:10:02] He does have a tower.

[01:10:03] Okay.

[01:10:04] A viewing platform.

[01:10:05] He or she, the family that owns it.

[01:10:07] Um, you can go up there.

[01:10:09] Um, got it.

[01:10:11] The other two, I don't know if I've tugged.

[01:10:13] I don't know.

[01:10:13] I think I've only tugged once.

[01:10:15] Um, there's, there's the old white face.

[01:10:18] Yeah.

[01:10:19] There's a tumble dick mountain.

[01:10:20] There's a Victor head, which, uh, I went there.

[01:10:24] It wasn't that great.

[01:10:25] I mean, it was, you know.

[01:10:26] So essentially like the, the, the theme of this list is it's double entendres.

[01:10:30] Yeah.

[01:10:30] Pretty much.

[01:10:30] You know, they have like the juvenile humor around sex, but also it's, uh, you know, true

[01:10:35] mountains.

[01:10:36] So like you got Victor head and Van Dick mountain and tumble down dick.

[01:10:40] And so, yeah.

[01:10:42] And, uh, how long did it take you to research this?

[01:10:45] Too long.

[01:10:47] Way too long.

[01:10:48] Um, yeah, they, uh, these, in all seriousness, it is a legitimate mountain list.

[01:10:55] Like, uh, there's a lot of bushwhacks on there.

[01:10:57] Some of these are very challenging.

[01:10:59] Um, all the cocks, the hitchcocks and the Hancocks there.

[01:11:04] Um, some of them were tough bushwhacks for sure.

[01:11:06] Um, yeah.

[01:11:08] The inappropriate 69.

[01:11:09] I'll link that back on the show.

[01:11:10] Has anybody completed it?

[01:11:12] And then is there a mechanism to get a patch?

[01:11:15] The patch design has already been made.

[01:11:17] It is the logo that's on the Instagram page.

[01:11:19] Um, it, it is, um, it, it's out there.

[01:11:23] No one's completed yet.

[01:11:24] I don't think anybody wants to finish first in 69.

[01:11:27] So that, that kind of makes sense.

[01:11:28] I mean, we do want to make a shirt up for whoever does finish first.

[01:11:31] That says, you know, I, I, I finished too soon or, you know, I finished first.

[01:11:36] It has something to make it aware that, you know, they, they, they were successful in

[01:11:42] their endeavors.

[01:11:43] And what's the Instagram handle?

[01:11:45] It is, uh, let me look that up too.

[01:11:47] I think it's NHI.

[01:11:54] It is NHI 69 hiking list.

[01:11:58] Hiking list.

[01:11:59] Okay.

[01:11:59] So NHI 69 hiking list.

[01:12:01] It's on Facebook as well.

[01:12:03] Um, Facebook, we do kind of filter it.

[01:12:06] So, you know, for followers, cause you don't just want people following who don't hike.

[01:12:11] Instagram is wide open.

[01:12:13] A lot of people giggle.

[01:12:14] Um, I haven't really seen a lot of people tag or track anything yet.

[01:12:18] Yep.

[01:12:19] Um, I've been chipping away at some of the ones here and there.

[01:12:22] I do like that.

[01:12:24] Uh, I'm, I'm, uh, just looking through, I've seen a lot of familiar names who follow this

[01:12:28] one.

[01:12:29] So yeah.

[01:12:30] Well, you're the usual suspect.

[01:12:32] Right.

[01:12:33] A lot of people that you would, uh, very likely be found in grizzly bear costumes, damaging

[01:12:37] high-end cars.

[01:12:38] Those kinds of folks.

[01:12:40] So while you're leaving a legacy, Dave, I'm proud of you.

[01:12:43] Oh yeah.

[01:12:43] No, no.

[01:12:44] It's my whole family is so proud that they didn't.

[01:12:46] Yeah.

[01:12:46] I'm sure they'd be like, he did what?

[01:12:48] Um, one, so we got to get into Amy's segment in a second, but one question I did have for

[01:12:52] you.

[01:12:53] So you hike, we went hiking, we brought six of us on the hike to Crescent Randolph.

[01:12:57] And usually it's like just you solo or you and Liz going, or, you know, occasionally

[01:13:01] you'll go, I think your biggest hike was knobby and stompsy at a group of four.

[01:13:05] Now that you've started to like hang out with us a little bit, like there's more people that

[01:13:08] generally hike.

[01:13:09] So are you going to be okay hiking with six, seven, eight, nine people in the future?

[01:13:13] You know, it's, it's, yeah, it's not really my thing only cause it's just, I'm an awkward

[01:13:20] person in general.

[01:13:21] Yeah.

[01:13:21] Socially, it's just kind of, um, you know, we went, I was comfortable with that

[01:13:27] second hike because I knew you, I'd hiked with you, Nick and Paul from the previous

[01:13:31] one, I hiked with Liz a bunch.

[01:13:33] Jay was the new guy.

[01:13:34] And I think he said 10 words.

[01:13:36] I don't know how that man's in sales.

[01:13:37] Does he talk?

[01:13:38] What does he, what does he sell?

[01:13:40] Hearing aids?

[01:13:41] What do they call it?

[01:13:42] Or does he sell, you know, earplugs?

[01:13:44] Like, I don't know.

[01:13:45] He just didn't talk much.

[01:13:47] Um, but I did the Alzheimer's hike and that was, that was a trip, but it was like, kind

[01:13:52] of like the, the conga line that broke up.

[01:13:54] So you weren't really in a crowd all day.

[01:13:57] We met at the trailhead and that was awkward, but then everybody kind of did their thing.

[01:14:00] And then we, you know, we took off and hung on at rest reckless afterwards and just, um,

[01:14:05] so yeah, I mean, I, I enjoy group hikes.

[01:14:09] Like when I finished the 48, it was a group, but it's everybody that's known.

[01:14:12] It's always that, like, sometimes I feel like hiking gets competitive about time and distance

[01:14:18] and elevation.

[01:14:18] And like, you start benchmarking yourself against other people.

[01:14:21] And then you, you start to not respect your own successes and not appreciate your own failures

[01:14:26] and learn from them.

[01:14:27] Cause you're like, oh, well I suck at this.

[01:14:28] So-and-so did this faster or, oh, somebody did like, there's somebody that did the hundred

[01:14:32] highest in winter in a single season.

[01:14:34] There's two people that did it, which to me is just mind boggling.

[01:14:38] Yeah.

[01:14:38] Um, but somebody is always a better hiker, but I don't know how you define a better hiker.

[01:14:43] I say, if you're not dead and you haven't been rescued 20 times, you're doing fine.

[01:14:48] Yeah.

[01:14:48] And I think it, it really matters who you hike with.

[01:14:52] Like, I definitely, I think back in my younger days, I was a, tried to be a speed demon, but

[01:14:57] I was also like, Mrs. Mike needed me to get my ass home to take care of the kids.

[01:15:01] So it was a little bit different.

[01:15:02] I think like the last hike we did together, I think, what did we do?

[01:15:05] Seven miles in about seven and a half hours.

[01:15:08] So there was probably like seven times where we had like 20 minute stops where we were just

[01:15:12] laughing our asses off.

[01:15:14] So I loved every minute of that too.

[01:15:15] It was so nice just to be like, well, this is nice.

[01:15:17] It's a beautiful day.

[01:15:18] Oh, Paul's getting eaten by ladybugs.

[01:15:20] This is funny.

[01:15:20] I hope he doesn't fall off the edge.

[01:15:22] Yeah.

[01:15:23] Yeah.

[01:15:23] He has some weird DNA that attracts ladybugs.

[01:15:25] He was getting swarmed.

[01:15:27] It's so odd.

[01:15:28] I don't know what's in his book.

[01:15:29] But it's like trips like that, that I really enjoy where you just kind of take it all in

[01:15:32] and you, you know, you have moments and you're, it's more enjoyable.

[01:15:35] And then there's other days you just, you put your head down and you go.

[01:15:39] And that's that.

[01:15:40] I like the physical aspect of that too.

[01:15:42] Yeah.

[01:15:43] Well.

[01:15:44] Definitely.

[01:15:44] Definitely.

[01:15:45] You're becoming a Renaissance man.

[01:15:46] I'm proud of you, Dave.

[01:15:47] Yeah.

[01:15:48] I'm going to take up the guitar next and write some poetry later and maybe paint.

[01:15:52] That's good.

[01:15:52] That's good.

[01:15:53] Well, let's move on to the next segment.

[01:15:55] We're going to talk to our friend, Amy, who she is an amazing person.

[01:16:01] And she's done this accomplishment of like basically redlining the entire Maine mountain guide, which

[01:16:07] is insanity because I mean, the, the, the mileage distance is not that much different than red

[01:16:12] lining New Hampshire, but the driving and the like Maine is, I think she said that like

[01:16:18] the state of Maine is as big as the rest of New England put together.

[01:16:24] So essentially like think of hiking Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New

[01:16:29] Hampshire and doing a list across all five of those states.

[01:16:31] That's essentially the equivalent of what she did.

[01:16:33] It's a huge state and it's rugged.

[01:16:35] I mean, rugged, insanely rugged.

[01:16:37] And she's got a little harm.

[01:16:38] Those trails are tough.

[01:16:39] Yeah.

[01:16:40] She'll get into it.

[01:16:40] We got into it here.

[01:16:41] So why don't we, I don't want to ruin it.

[01:16:43] Yeah.

[01:16:43] So we'll, we'll drop into her segment and then come out on the other side.

[01:16:47] So hang on.

[01:16:50] Da da da da.

[01:16:50] Da da da da.

[01:16:51] Do.

[01:16:52] Woo.

[01:16:53] Oh, we gotcha.

[01:16:53] We gotcha.

[01:16:54] Yeah.

[01:16:56] You feed me beers.

[01:16:57] I can't, you know?

[01:16:58] True.

[01:16:58] True.

[01:17:03] All right, Amy, welcome.

[01:17:04] Are you, are you excited?

[01:17:06] I am so excited.

[01:17:08] I'm a super fan.

[01:17:10] All right.

[01:17:10] Well, we, so before we started recording, we were talking about, Amy didn't know that

[01:17:15] she was going to be on camera, but it's just, just us, but she, she wore the perfect podcast

[01:17:19] outfit.

[01:17:20] It's hunting season.

[01:17:20] So you went with the, with the, the hunting outfit, the orange.

[01:17:24] Yeah.

[01:17:25] Cannot resist a PSA or wear your orange.

[01:17:29] I actually wear orange 365 days of the year because I want to be visible whether, if anyone

[01:17:37] ever needs to find me.

[01:17:38] Yeah.

[01:17:39] Yeah.

[01:17:39] It makes sense.

[01:17:40] It makes sense.

[01:17:41] So, um, but so your name is Amy Nimesura Sawa, which we talked about.

[01:17:46] So she has an interesting name that, uh, I hacked up the pronunciation, but she taught

[01:17:50] me.

[01:17:51] So is it, is it, did I say it correctly this time?

[01:17:53] Perfect.

[01:17:54] Okay.

[01:17:55] Awesome.

[01:17:55] So, um, the reason that you are here is you're going to talk to the listeners about a project

[01:18:00] that you completed, um, where you hiked all of the trails and the main mountain

[01:18:05] guide.

[01:18:05] So in New Hampshire, obviously like we talk a lot about tracing redlining the white mountain

[01:18:10] guide.

[01:18:10] So that's very familiar to many of our listeners.

[01:18:12] Um, and then we did previously have, um, Carrie Kish on who is the, uh, the author of the main,

[01:18:22] um, mountain guide who had talked a little bit about hiking in and around Maine.

[01:18:27] And I, you know, I touch on some stuff in Maine as well.

[01:18:30] Um, so we have some familiarity with this, but my recollection is at the time that we talked

[01:18:37] to Carrie, he had said that he was close to completing all the trails in the main mountain

[01:18:43] guide, but that there was one other person that was working on it that he thought was

[01:18:47] going to complete it.

[01:18:48] So you must be that other person I'm assuming.

[01:18:51] Yeah.

[01:18:52] So I finally met Carrie Kish for the first time, like a couple of weeks ago at an event.

[01:18:59] Um, and that was, that was a huge moment for me because I have been, you know, reading

[01:19:07] all of his descriptions and he's another person I'm a huge fan of.

[01:19:13] Um, so that was a real, that was a real thrill to finally meet him.

[01:19:18] Um, and yeah, yeah.

[01:19:20] The triple crown, which is super exciting.

[01:19:23] Yeah.

[01:19:23] Yeah.

[01:19:24] He was, uh, halfway through the continental divide when we talked to him.

[01:19:27] So he's, uh, yeah, he's a great, he's a great guy, but, um, we wanted to, yeah,

[01:19:32] I wanted to connect.

[01:19:33] So my friend Dolores, who you're friends with had reached out and said like, you know, we

[01:19:37] had connected us.

[01:19:38] So I'm excited to have you on, but why don't you just start off?

[01:19:41] Why don't you introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your early life and then talk about

[01:19:45] how you got into outdoor activities.

[01:19:48] Okay.

[01:19:49] Well, I am a lifelong Mainer.

[01:19:52] I have lived in so many different parts of Maine.

[01:19:57] I call a lot of different parts of Maine home.

[01:19:59] Um, for the first 11 years of my life, I lived in Norwich Walk, which you may have driven

[01:20:05] through if you've ever driven up to like Sugarloaf, the Bigelow's, um, that area.

[01:20:11] It's just this little town on the Kennebec River.

[01:20:14] Um, my parents moved there, bought an old farmhouse with 80 acres of land.

[01:20:20] And so I had this kind of feral Maine childhood exploring, you know, the Back Beaver Dam, Brooks,

[01:20:30] Porcupine Tree, et cetera.

[01:20:32] Um, and then my family, uh, moved to Ellsworth when I was 11 and Ellsworth, you would have driven

[01:20:41] through when you drove to Acadia.

[01:20:43] It's like that last, uh, town with a strip mall before you get to, uh, Bar Harbor.

[01:20:50] Um, so those were my two towns that I grew up in, in Maine.

[01:20:57] Uh, and then I, I went out, I went out West to go to college.

[01:21:01] I went out to the University of Vermont.

[01:21:04] Okay.

[01:21:06] And then, you know, did those kind of finding myself years after college.

[01:21:11] And part of the finding myself years were spending a lot of time on the Appalachian Trail.

[01:21:19] Um, I had, as a teenager, I had section hiked various parts of it in Maine.

[01:21:25] I had section hiked the hundred mile wilderness, the Bigelow's, the Moothics, uh, all those sorts

[01:21:30] of things.

[01:21:31] Uh, but then after college, uh, one year I went southbound from, uh, from Katahdin.

[01:21:43] And I only, this is kind of something that I have a lot of self-loathing about.

[01:21:49] Um, but I only did about 2,100 miles of the trail that year.

[01:21:56] Um, in part because I was distracted by love interest of all things.

[01:22:03] Um, and.

[01:22:04] What do they, they call that?

[01:22:06] That's called pink blazing, right?

[01:22:07] Blazing.

[01:22:08] Yeah.

[01:22:08] I was totally guilty.

[01:22:11] Um, and then the next year I, you know, I should have gone back and, you know, finished those

[01:22:17] miles that I missed in Virginia.

[01:22:20] But instead I went back to my favorite part of the trail, which is New England.

[01:22:26] Um, and so I started at the New York, Connecticut border, re-hiked New England.

[01:22:34] Um, so I have, uh, done, I'm, I'm familiar with, very familiar with the main AT cause I've

[01:22:45] spent a lot of time there.

[01:22:46] I'm also familiar with the New Hampshire AT, but I also know that there's a whole big wide

[01:22:55] world of trails in New Hampshire, uh, that I have not hiked, uh, that I hope to get to

[01:23:03] someday with my now six year old son.

[01:23:07] Um, because so after I kind of decided I couldn't live on the AT for the rest of my life.

[01:23:16] And also I wanted to hike things other than the AT moved back to Ellsworth temporarily and

[01:23:23] actually decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my twenties on Mount Desert Island,

[01:23:30] edge of Acadia National Park, rented a little cottage next to the giant slide trail, um,

[01:23:37] and kind of bounced around the Island.

[01:23:40] Cause it's really hard to find even 10 years ago or 15 years ago, however long ago it was,

[01:23:44] it was hard to find a year round rental.

[01:23:46] In 2015, I ended up buying a house surrounded by Acadia on three sides where I could hike

[01:23:54] Sargent Mountain from my backyard.

[01:23:57] Um, and I just found myself hiking the same trails over and over again, having a lot of

[01:24:05] fun planning routes in Acadia, um, and doing all those sorts of things.

[01:24:11] Then I met my husband, uh, bought another foreclosure, um, in inland Maine, in more farm country,

[01:24:21] Maine, in Northern Waldo County, had a child, sold the house on the Island, which gave me

[01:24:27] a lot of financial independence.

[01:24:29] And then I'm in a whole new region of Maine to hike, um, which is the mid coast area.

[01:24:35] I was very close to the Camden Hill estate park.

[01:24:38] Okay.

[01:24:39] Um, and stop me if you have any questions.

[01:24:43] Well, so it sounds like you, so you, you got into hiking and through hiking in college

[01:24:48] and then you, you've never really stopped.

[01:24:49] It sounds like you've always, um, it's always been part of your life.

[01:24:53] Is that true?

[01:24:53] I'm an addict.

[01:24:55] I'm a full blown addict and I have no plans to stop.

[01:25:01] You know, what's interesting to me is, so you're telling your story about, so you grew

[01:25:04] up in Maine, you're like your social media, like you can follow you on Instagram and then

[01:25:09] your blog page is, you know, Maine is, um, the, the way life should be is the state

[01:25:15] motto, your social is the way life turned out.

[01:25:21] So, which I feel like is the most sort of new England ish, like way to spin things.

[01:25:27] It's, it's just like the most, it's like a realism that only exists here in new England.

[01:25:32] I think it's just, it's, it's kind of funny.

[01:25:34] Did you, did that just come to you one day or how did you come up with that?

[01:25:37] That turn of phrase?

[01:25:38] There's a story behind that.

[01:25:39] Um, so when I was 17 and my sister was 19, we did the Maho six together for the first

[01:25:47] time.

[01:25:48] Um, you know, went from New Hampshire to Maine.

[01:25:54] And when we got to the main border, there used to be at the main New Hampshire border,

[01:26:00] there used to be a sign that said, you know, Maine, the way life should be.

[01:26:06] This is in around 2001.

[01:26:09] There was a sign there that said that.

[01:26:11] And my sister and I get to this border and she said, cause in my family, we love to play

[01:26:17] around with the main accent.

[01:26:19] And she says, Maine, the way life turned out.

[01:26:24] And it was just, it was so perfect at the moment.

[01:26:29] And since then she's said, you know, if you ever make any money off that, I want royalty.

[01:26:38] Maybe, maybe you would know that.

[01:26:39] I laugh when I saw that.

[01:26:41] I was like, that's the most New England realism term I've ever heard.

[01:26:44] So, um, so can you tell us, how did you come up with this, uh, crazy idea to, so I can

[01:26:54] tell you from my perspective, I've done like all the list in New Hampshire and I've kicked

[01:27:01] around with like, okay, maybe I'm going to grid the seasonal grid.

[01:27:06] I was like, that's realistic.

[01:27:07] And then I've, I have a friend, Peter, who's currently doing the red lining tracing for New

[01:27:11] Hampshire.

[01:27:13] And, you know, I'll, I'll go with him when it's, when it makes sense.

[01:27:16] But logistically, I just think about like some of these hikes that I've done.

[01:27:20] Like I always talk about like, um, Mount success, like there's a, there's a ledge that you have

[01:27:25] to go out.

[01:27:25] And then on the paralleling that ledge trail, there's another trail that you, that goes on

[01:27:30] for about a half a mile behind it that I've skipped over both times.

[01:27:34] So for me, the idea of going back to hike, you know, go to success pond road, go out,

[01:27:39] do that hike, skipping the ledge or looping around the ledge to do that extra section, like

[01:27:44] is insanity to me.

[01:27:45] So that always comes to mind when I think about, do I really want, do I want to do this,

[01:27:51] this red lining stuff or trace stuff?

[01:27:53] Um, so to me, it's a little bit of a, like a screw loose type of situation just to do New

[01:27:59] Hampshire.

[01:28:00] But Maine is so much, I mean, is like probably double the size of New Hampshire.

[01:28:06] So it's got the same amount of like mileage.

[01:28:08] I think it's like 16, 1700 miles worth of trails, but the driving and the distance between

[01:28:13] those trails is significantly more than you have to deal with in New Hampshire.

[01:28:18] So with that setup, what got into your crazy mind that you said, you know what, I'm going

[01:28:23] to, I'm going to hike all these trails in the main mountain guide.

[01:28:26] Um, so you are spot on.

[01:28:28] Maine is half is the size of the rest of New England combined.

[01:28:35] Um, and it's, it's a huge area and it's a huge area to drive.

[01:28:43] And I have to say it was very much, it was first getting into hiking projects, which is

[01:28:50] a phrase that even though I had done the AT, even though I had spent all this time in Acadia,

[01:28:57] I had never heard that phrase hiking project until I started listening to podcasts when I

[01:29:05] was home with a baby.

[01:29:07] And it was like, everyone's talking about their hiking projects.

[01:29:12] And I'm like, I don't, I've never had a hiking project.

[01:29:15] Like, what can I do as a hiking project?

[01:29:19] I go hiking with my baby in the Camden Hills, but what can I do as a hiking project?

[01:29:24] So I started with the trail in my backyard, which is the Hills to Sea trail that goes

[01:29:30] from Unity to Belfast.

[01:29:33] I think it's around 47 miles.

[01:29:35] And I did a section of that like every Saturday morning in the spring of 2020.

[01:29:41] And then I did all the side trails off of that.

[01:29:45] And then I took my baby and we went down to Ragged Mountain that I had never climbed before.

[01:29:51] It's where the Camden Snowbowl is, if you're a skier.

[01:29:56] But so my baby and I did all the trails on Ragged Mountain.

[01:30:02] And then it became my next hiking project is going to be doing all the recommended hikes

[01:30:10] in the main Atlas and Gazetteer, which is that blue book they recommend you buy.

[01:30:16] It's the highest because it has like, I'm sure New Hampshire has the same equivalent.

[01:30:23] It has all the back roads in it.

[01:30:27] But it also has all these, I think it was 59 hikes, I believe, in the edition that I had.

[01:30:33] They revised the list.

[01:30:35] So I start working on this Gazetteer list and there are little blurbs, but there's no

[01:30:42] like trail descriptions.

[01:30:45] There's not enough trail info.

[01:30:46] I'm asking on social media, you know, where do I go for more trail descriptions?

[01:30:52] And they all say, oh, you should get the main mountain guide.

[01:30:58] And I say, I have the main mountain guide.

[01:31:01] I have my father's 1985 main mountain guide.

[01:31:05] But I had no idea that it had become this.

[01:31:12] And gosh, I do have.

[01:31:14] Let's see, how many pages is the 11th edition?

[01:31:18] The 11th edition was to do 588 pages compared to how many was this?

[01:31:30] 85.

[01:31:32] Wow.

[01:31:34] Gosh.

[01:31:35] So anyway, yeah.

[01:31:38] So the 1985 edition was 301 pages.

[01:31:43] So anyway, I'm just blown away.

[01:31:47] I'm using the 11th edition not only to work on the Gazetteer hikes, but I'm also I had two

[01:31:55] main 4Ks that I needed to finish out of the 14 main 4Ks.

[01:32:01] I'm exploring all sorts of things in Baxter I'd never been to.

[01:32:06] I'm just going.

[01:32:07] I'm going up to Jackman, the Switzerland of Maine.

[01:32:11] I'm I'm just going wild with this 11th edition.

[01:32:15] And that went on for a couple of years.

[01:32:19] And are you recording everything that you're doing?

[01:32:23] I'm just writing it in the margins of the guidebook because I don't know about spreadsheets.

[01:32:33] So you're just marking them off in the book.

[01:32:35] This is the 11th edition.

[01:32:37] Yeah, this is the 11th edition.

[01:32:38] So we get to the end of 2022 and I'm meeting characters like Dolores on the Internet.

[01:32:45] There's a spreadsheet, you know, like all these people on the Internet of spreadsheets.

[01:32:50] And I'm like and they're encouraging me.

[01:32:53] Amy, you know, you've hiked so much.

[01:32:57] You should get a spreadsheet.

[01:32:58] You should find out what percentage you're at.

[01:33:00] I'm like, I don't have a computer.

[01:33:02] I don't have Excel.

[01:33:04] And my husband, you know, hooks me up with a laptop he found in a dumpster.

[01:33:10] And I anyway, I fumble through this spreadsheet.

[01:33:15] I find out that I'm around 53 percent and I'm like, oh, you know, I'm encouraged by that.

[01:33:24] Now, was the spreadsheet.

[01:33:26] So in New Hampshire, they have you can download a spreadsheet that will calculate everything.

[01:33:32] Did they have the same thing in Maine?

[01:33:33] Yeah, they had there was an archived.

[01:33:38] There was a Maine Mountain redlining group that had been archived during the whole redlining controversy, I believe.

[01:33:49] And OK, add the 11th edition spreadsheet.

[01:33:53] And so I got it from this archived Facebook group.

[01:33:58] And I felt encouraged by that.

[01:34:02] But I also.

[01:34:06] Well, I knew the 12th edition was going to be coming out sometime in 2023.

[01:34:15] So it was like, do I really want to start the 11th edition of the 12th edition is about to come out?

[01:34:20] I don't have a high clearance vehicle.

[01:34:22] I just have my little Honda Fit.

[01:34:24] And even though I have hiked all over Maine, I have never hiked a guidebook.

[01:34:30] And I.

[01:34:32] You know, so I am Googling and there's no I'm Googling how to hike the White Mountain guide because there.

[01:34:44] Well, because it's it's much more well established.

[01:34:46] Like there's a whole community.

[01:34:47] It's been done a lot.

[01:34:49] Exactly.

[01:34:51] But it really the big learning curve for me was learning how to read a description, learning how to hike all the mentioned distances, learning how to hike the spur trails.

[01:35:05] Even the, you know, unmarked spur trails with a distance off of there's one on like Red Rock Mountain.

[01:35:17] Were you always were you a person that was very like attuned to like I'm definitely like a person that's like spreadsheet attention to detail organization is it was that in your nature when you started this or is that something you had to develop because of this?

[01:35:32] I was a list writer.

[01:35:36] I was not a list follower, but I was a list writer.

[01:35:40] I love writing lists and being organized.

[01:35:45] But I did not become more attuned to I didn't start cooking to recipes until I was in my 30s.

[01:35:55] And I think once I learned how to cook following a recipe, it makes it easier to follow a description.

[01:36:04] Yeah, makes sense.

[01:36:06] That makes sense.

[01:36:07] Makes sense.

[01:36:08] It's like, OK, let's do this step by step.

[01:36:14] But it was not in my nature to take every side trail.

[01:36:18] So essentially, once I realized I was going to have to spend a lot of time rereading the book, going back through, making a list of all the spur trails that I had missed.

[01:36:38] Did you just hit like a reset button on this?

[01:36:41] Did you just say like, all right, the 12th edition is coming out.

[01:36:43] I've hiked a bunch of places, but I don't know what I have and have not hit as far as spur trails.

[01:36:49] So I'm just going to start from zero.

[01:36:50] Or did you already take into account the places that you knew you'd been?

[01:36:58] I somewhat.

[01:37:00] So the white blazes of the AT.

[01:37:04] You were like, I know I've done those.

[01:37:06] I knew I did not bushwhack around.

[01:37:11] I also, you know, there are a lot of there are some lean to spur trails that I also like the pleasant pond lean to.

[01:37:21] I know I've done circles around and accessed from every direction and gone down to the beach.

[01:37:27] And, you know, so I kind of knew the white blazes and the lean tos were good.

[01:37:38] But then all of the campsite spurs, of which there were many, and including on the Grafton Loop Trail.

[01:37:47] So at this point I had done, I had hiked all the blazes on the west side of the Grafton Loop Trail, but had not hiked the east side.

[01:37:56] And I had to go back and do all the campsite spurs on the west side of the Grafton Loop Trail.

[01:38:06] And if I were smart, which I am not, I would have just rehiked the west side and hit all those campsite spurs.

[01:38:16] But I said, oh no, I'm just going to hike certain sections, which ended up being more distance.

[01:38:24] I had just rehiked that darn west side.

[01:38:29] So I am not going to pretend that this was the most efficient way to hike a guidebook.

[01:38:40] The most efficient way is to start at zero percent and probably move from area to area.

[01:38:50] But I spent a tremendous amount of gas mileage chasing spur trails just because I wanted this to be a serious attempt.

[01:39:07] Did you, I mean, even now, like I've done a lot of hiking at this point.

[01:39:13] So for me, I'm not really chasing a lot of things and I tend to sort of have a last minute approach to say like, all right, here's like five or six things I know I want to do in the near future.

[01:39:23] But, you know, I basically decide like the night before, a couple of nights before.

[01:39:28] Did you treat this the same way?

[01:39:30] Like you've got a list of 20, 30 places you need to go.

[01:39:32] And depending on the weather you're feeling and the drive, did you just do it that way?

[01:39:39] Or did you focus on like, all right, I have to hit Oxford Hills and close it all out?

[01:39:44] When I got to the end game, which I really, so I gave myself a year from roughly around July, 2023 to July, 2024.

[01:39:56] I decided I wanted to finish either the 11th or the 12th.

[01:40:02] And my end game really started somewhere around February, 2024.

[01:40:09] When I realized, you know, I was closing in and I came up with a calendar.

[01:40:19] I called it my masking tape calendar because so the other piece here is that I have the six year old or I guess so at that point, he's five years old.

[01:40:29] I have a limited amount of child care.

[01:40:32] I know what days I'm going to be available to hike.

[01:40:35] So I took my pieces of masking tape that had every spur trail, every trail, every campsite spur left on it.

[01:40:45] And I put them on the calendar on the dates that I know I would be available to hike.

[01:40:49] And if something happened, if there was a snowstorm, I would move them around.

[01:40:57] But I had started just by writing in my spreadsheet like, oh, yeah, this hike I want to do in May, this hike I want to do in June.

[01:41:05] And then I had this panic of am I planning too many hikes for May?

[01:41:09] Like the part of me that wanted to be able to visualize and see, yes, I'm going to be able to finish Evans Notch Mother's Day weekend.

[01:41:22] I'm going to be able to finish the Kennebec Valley.

[01:41:24] Like I just started setting deadlines for myself to move myself forward, if that makes any sense.

[01:41:38] Yeah.

[01:41:39] And then I think for the listeners, we should probably break down when we think of the White Mountains, there's like six main maps and they break it down into sections.

[01:41:48] You know, Franconia, Sandwich Range, Evans Notch, et cetera.

[01:41:52] For the main mountain guide, there's 12 sections.

[01:41:56] And I think our listeners would be familiar with Baxter State Park, Mount Katahdin and that whole area.

[01:42:02] They would be familiar with Mahoosik Range and Grafton Notch.

[01:42:07] They would be familiar with the White Mountains, Evans Notch area.

[01:42:12] They would be familiar with Acadia National Park.

[01:42:14] So that's like four of them.

[01:42:16] And then you've got, you know, Western Lakes and Mountains and you've got Southwestern Maine.

[01:42:21] So I think is Southwestern Maine, is that like that's Pleasant Mountain and Burnt Meadow and that whole area there?

[01:42:28] Exactly.

[01:42:29] Yeah.

[01:42:30] That is Southwestern Maine.

[01:42:31] And a lot of Southwestern Maine is super easy.

[01:42:36] Yeah.

[01:42:37] Like Cutler Mountain.

[01:42:38] It's a breeze.

[01:42:39] It's like a candy dish of all these little small hills.

[01:42:43] And then you have Pleasant Mountain, which I'm sure your listeners just do like the Bald Peak Trail as a warm up and that's nothing.

[01:42:56] But it's steep to me.

[01:42:59] Oh, they are.

[01:43:01] Pleasant Mountain is not easy.

[01:43:04] It's a good workout.

[01:43:06] And there's a pretty big trail system there.

[01:43:08] So it's not like you can do it in a day, but it's a long day.

[01:43:10] Anyway, so those are the familiar ones.

[01:43:13] But then the other ones, can you talk a little bit about like, and I'm sure that in the whites, I feel like the sandwich wilderness has a certain personality.

[01:43:21] And then you get up into Evans Notch, the forest has a certain personality.

[01:43:27] And then you get into the Great Gulf and you've got a different vibe.

[01:43:30] So all of these different sections of wilderness and forest have different vibes.

[01:43:34] So the ones that I think that the listeners would be less familiar with is Kennebec and Moose River Valley, Oxford Hills, Midcoast, Down East, and Aroostook County.

[01:43:48] So can you talk a little bit about what are those areas like, like starting with, say, Oxford Hills and then talk a little bit about Aroostook County?

[01:43:56] Because I don't think any of our listeners would be familiar with those two areas.

[01:44:00] So Oxford Hills.

[01:44:04] So fun.

[01:44:06] The other thing is I like the older main mountain guides.

[01:44:10] Evans Notch used to be in Oxford Hills.

[01:44:14] OK.

[01:44:15] But they have since been split.

[01:44:18] And so Oxford Hills are all those little hikes next to Evans Notch.

[01:44:22] And I call them lots of bang for little buck hikes.

[01:44:29] Because they're short little climbs like up to Buck's Ledge, which is just south of Bethel.

[01:44:36] And then you get this great view that's like out of an L.L. Bean catalog.

[01:44:44] And I think your listeners could definitely hit multiple of those in a day easily.

[01:44:53] What other sections did you ask about?

[01:44:55] Aroostook County.

[01:44:56] Aroostook County, of course, or as we call it here, the county.

[01:45:02] That has two distinct sections.

[01:45:05] The eastern part of that is kind of the population center.

[01:45:10] And that's where the Mars Hill Ski Resort is and Quaggy Joe State Park.

[01:45:18] All kind of there's not a lot of mileage there.

[01:45:24] The bulk of the mileage in Aroostook County is in the western side of Aroostook County in the North Main Woods, Inc. land.

[01:45:38] And that is I think I actually wrote down the number for that somewhere because it's like three and a half million acres of timber land.

[01:45:53] And they also allow recreation on any kind of recreation from hunting to snowmobiling.

[01:46:01] And there are some so you have to pay to get in there.

[01:46:04] And then you also have to pay to camp in there.

[01:46:07] And there are some smaller fire tower hikes in there.

[01:46:10] But the big mileage grab in there is at Dabouli Public Lands.

[01:46:19] And this is a recreational hub in Aroostook County.

[01:46:22] There are 30 miles of trails, no elevation over 2000 feet.

[01:46:30] But all these gorgeous little ponds.

[01:46:33] And then there are all these slides.

[01:46:36] I think Dabouli means tumble down if I'm not.

[01:46:40] OK.

[01:46:41] So there are all these gorgeous slides over the ponds.

[01:46:46] And but the feature that really stood out to me that I was not expecting when I went in there

[01:46:53] and I did all the mileage is there are also these huge walls where you can actually see climbing hooks like rock climbers will go in there.

[01:47:06] And it's just it can be really busy if you go in the middle of the summer, which is what I did the first time.

[01:47:13] But if you can see like the contour lines like around the ponds and stuff are like they just squeeze together.

[01:47:18] So it looks like there is a lot of climbing in that area.

[01:47:20] It's it's totally unexpected and wonderful.

[01:47:26] And but I would recommend going in either spring or fall because it can be really busy.

[01:47:35] But it's it's something that would be well paired with Northern Baxter State Park.

[01:47:40] OK.

[01:47:41] If you were going to do both.

[01:47:44] Can you talk a little bit about so you're I don't know exactly where you're you're somewhere near Bangor,

[01:47:50] I think, is your your your area where you live or any of these require overnights or were you doing all day hikes and in getting home at night on most of your hikes?

[01:48:03] Um, because I have a child, I was trying to do them as day hikes.

[01:48:10] But like a Rooster County, I ended up taking five days to go up there just because it didn't make sense driving wise.

[01:48:22] I really wanted to get all that done.

[01:48:26] Some of the things in Baxter I did as backpacking trips when I went into I did a couple of backpacking trips into Russell Pond.

[01:48:35] Um, I did a backpacking trip in the scientific forest management area.

[01:48:40] I did a backpacking trip in, um, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument,

[01:48:48] which is it's actually in the Baxter section of the book.

[01:48:53] But the International Appalachian Trail runs through the monument.

[01:48:58] Um, and so over 4th of July, my my buddy and I did an overnight through there.

[01:49:07] And not only did the section of the IAT, but we also did this mountain in the monument called Lookout Mountain,

[01:49:20] uh, which is this, uh, these gorgeous ledges that are essentially on the boundary between the monument and Baxter.

[01:49:30] And it's one of the best views in the main mountain guide.

[01:49:34] Wow.

[01:49:34] So, um, were you, that's actually a good point is were you doing most of these hikes solo or were you bringing friends with you a lot of the time?

[01:49:41] In remote places, I was bringing friends.

[01:49:45] Um, I have some really great friends.

[01:49:52] Yeah.

[01:49:53] You know, they're solid if they're being dragged around into the, into the crazy backwoods of Maine.

[01:49:58] Well, I have a friend in Greenville who actually writes a guidebook for the Greenville area.

[01:50:04] His name is Chris Keene.

[01:50:06] He writes a guidebook called Northwoods Walks.

[01:50:08] Okay.

[01:50:08] Um, you can't find it on Amazon cause you can only buy it like in the Greenville area.

[01:50:13] It's like one of these things, but, uh, he was revising his guidebook at the same time that I was trying to like get into Namakanta public lands.

[01:50:26] So it was very convenient to have someone to hike with, have someone who had high clearance.

[01:50:33] And then he also went really above and beyond for me because like, so Allagash mountain, um, which is up at the Allagash wilderness waterway.

[01:50:49] Um, it's a fire tower site, but it also has a great view.

[01:50:54] Um, and he, the first time we tried to go up there, he got a flat tire.

[01:51:00] Um, and then he got 10 ply tires.

[01:51:04] Oh, that's right.

[01:51:05] So you have a small car.

[01:51:06] So you also, not only do you need friends, you need friends that have like four, you know, a four runner or a Tacoma or something.

[01:51:12] Like you need clearance friends.

[01:51:14] I need clearance friends.

[01:51:16] Actually, I did end up buying a Rob.

[01:51:19] You don't need a good personality, but you need a high lift in your car.

[01:51:23] I ended up, uh, my husband and I bought a Rob for $800 from someone who wanted to like give someone a blessing.

[01:51:34] And I think they thought, you know, oh, this person's going to use it to go to work or not like this person's going to use it for their trail addiction.

[01:51:46] But I think you also asked me about the Kennebec Moose River Valley.

[01:51:50] Oh, yes.

[01:51:51] Up in Jackman, which is the Switzerland of Maine and my favorite region to hike in.

[01:52:01] Yeah.

[01:52:01] Why do you call it that?

[01:52:02] What?

[01:52:03] Oh, well, they call themselves the Switzerland of Maine because it's so mountainous.

[01:52:09] It's big snowmobiling country.

[01:52:11] Actually, a couple of the hikes in the Maine mountain guide are also snowmobiling destinations.

[01:52:19] There are a couple of 3,500 footers up there.

[01:52:23] Boundary Bob, Coburn.

[01:52:27] And they just, yeah, they have, they have great views.

[01:52:33] Uh, and are you, are you going full time and over the winter as well?

[01:52:37] Or are you sticking closer to home in the winter?

[01:52:41] Uh, well, so my last winter when I'm trying to finish this up.

[01:52:47] So my, my one big rule for this is hike the coast in the winter and in the summer.

[01:52:56] But I had hiked everything on the coast.

[01:53:00] So I am in the position where I'm like, what can I hike inland in the winter that's accessible?

[01:53:08] Um, and that was a real challenge.

[01:53:13] Yeah.

[01:53:14] Challenge.

[01:53:14] Challenge.

[01:53:16] Did you, um, at any point, did you, I'm just thinking about this morning.

[01:53:24] So I've been a runner my whole life.

[01:53:25] I've been running since I was like 15 years old.

[01:53:29] Um, I used to wrestle.

[01:53:31] I had to lose weight.

[01:53:32] So I'd run.

[01:53:32] And then I just found that like mentally it just helped me.

[01:53:35] So I've, there's been periods where I've stopped for like a few years, but for the most part,

[01:53:39] this morning it was 29 degrees and I had to put like my hat and my gloves on and it's cold.

[01:53:45] And there's something about like, I just have to open the front door.

[01:53:48] And once I stepped through that threshold, I'm all, I'm, I'm out and I'm good.

[01:53:51] But all the mental struggles of, you know, Oh, I got to get my sneakers and I got to get my gloves

[01:53:58] and I got to get my hat and let me check the weather.

[01:54:00] And I got to get my ear earbuds in and pick a podcast listening.

[01:54:05] There's a million things that I'm doing to delay that.

[01:54:07] And then, you know, there are some mornings where I'll say like,

[01:54:09] yeah, forget it.

[01:54:10] I'll do the treadmill at night and then I never do it.

[01:54:13] Did you ever get to the point where you were struggling to get out,

[01:54:16] walk through that threshold and get out the door to do this?

[01:54:18] Like, did you have doubts?

[01:54:20] Oh, totally.

[01:54:21] That's why I needed to hike with people.

[01:54:24] Um, and then especially towards the end,

[01:54:28] I needed to hike with really enthusiastic people.

[01:54:32] Um, I had this, so that same crazy,

[01:54:37] 4th of July weekend.

[01:54:40] I, this is the wildest road trip I did during the whole main mountain guide.

[01:54:45] I did the backpacking trip in the monument.

[01:54:47] I went up to the Allagash waterway to do a paddle hike on Round Pond Mountain.

[01:54:55] And that was like one of, and the water was really high and fast.

[01:55:02] And it was a challenge to paddle back so much so that I had an encounter with a ranger.

[01:55:09] Um, and, and that was all exhausting.

[01:55:13] But I had planned to meet a friend at the right trailhead so that I could do this hike I concocted called a Mahoosic Transact.

[01:55:27] The Mahoosic Transact is when you start at the Goose Eye Trailhead on the success pond road.

[01:55:36] And then you hike up to the Goose Eye Summit and then down the right trail.

[01:55:41] And that involved, you know, and there's an hour and a half of driving between these two trailheads.

[01:55:47] Yes.

[01:55:47] To say the least.

[01:55:49] Um, after, uh, after all the excitement of the previous days, I did not want to drive to Bethel.

[01:55:58] But I had my friend Chris who had, uh, my lady friend Chris, who was like, oh, I'm sleeping at Frenchman's Hole the night before.

[01:56:12] And I'm not going to have cell service.

[01:56:15] And I'll see you at six o'clock in the morning.

[01:56:18] And, and it was an incredibly hot July day.

[01:56:22] And I just think I'm going to die.

[01:56:25] But she had so much energy, you know, she's bounding up Goose Eye ahead of me.

[01:56:33] Um, and we just had the best day up there.

[01:56:39] I had never, you know, when I was back, I had backpacked a Mahoosic Traverse three times,

[01:56:47] but I had never tagged that Goose Eye Summit because it's point one off.

[01:56:53] Yeah.

[01:56:53] Yeah.

[01:56:53] It's a little bit like you, you get up that, well, when you do in the Mahoosic, you climb up that like ladder section and you're like, you know, it's, it is an amazing view.

[01:57:00] But like, it's, you look at that 10th of a mile and you're like, yeah, you know, this is a good view here.

[01:57:05] It's no big deal.

[01:57:06] Yeah.

[01:57:06] So I had never taken that 10th of a mile.

[01:57:10] And I finally got to Goose Eye and I was like, ah, this is one of the most gorgeous spots in Maine.

[01:57:16] And we're just, man, descending the right trail.

[01:57:20] It's totally one of those sound of music spots.

[01:57:26] Yeah.

[01:57:26] It's a good, it's a good piece of advice not to skip the, I think what happens is everyone's like, well, you know, I want to get to full goose and I'm going, I want to get to like the Mahoosic notch part.

[01:57:35] And that's the, that's the cool part.

[01:57:37] But Goose Eye is like, don't sleep on it.

[01:57:38] It's, it's worth it for sure.

[01:57:41] Yep.

[01:57:43] So, um, all right.

[01:57:44] So then you, um, you just had some crazy stuff here.

[01:57:50] So the other thing I want to ask you about is there are three hikes and you touched on this a little bit that require you to paddle to get to.

[01:57:57] So essentially like the only way to get to the trailhead is to canoe or kayak, correct?

[01:58:02] Yes.

[01:58:03] That is how the description in the book directs you.

[01:58:08] So if you're following, if you're doing things by the description, um, and that's, so that's Lobster Mountain, which is North of Moosehead, um, Estee Mountain, which is almost to Lubeck, um, in the down East section.

[01:58:25] And then Round Pond Mountain, which is in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in the Aroostook section.

[01:58:33] And then I also want to mention that Sally Mountain in the Kennebec Moose River section is a paddle optional hike.

[01:58:46] Um, Kerry Kish describes it as, uh, he describes the paddle route and the railroad track route.

[01:58:54] And, you know, a lot of these things are up to interpretation, but I was just like, well, I'm going to do both.

[01:59:02] Like I'm going to have the paddling experience.

[01:59:05] The thing I love about the paddling experience is you get a view from the water as well as from the top of the mountain.

[01:59:13] Um, and you also get an adventure from the water as well as from the mountain.

[01:59:19] Um, and all three of these were adventures and it would, it would be hard.

[01:59:27] I would be hard pressed to say which one was the most adventurous, but the one in Washington County, um, I did with my 70 year old father.

[01:59:40] And five year old son.

[01:59:44] And the big surprise, we knew we had to, you know, paddle this kind of sinuous stream to the orange river and I'm following the directions.

[01:59:55] But almost right out of the gate, we hit a beaver dam.

[02:00:02] Which are just the things that you can't expect.

[02:00:06] Well, beavers are scary to me.

[02:00:07] Like we had a beaver dam in our pond, uh, my father-in-law was in Brownfield and like they kick, when they kick the juveniles out, like the juveniles will hang around and they get nasty.

[02:00:17] So you got to be careful with those things.

[02:00:19] I didn't know that.

[02:00:20] All I know is that, you know, my 70 year old father is not, he, he used to be, you know, cross the knife's edge in winter, refuse to climb Mount Washington in summer kind of dude.

[02:00:38] And are there still dudes like that in New Hampshire that refuse to climb Mount Washington in summer?

[02:00:44] Well, yeah, there's, there's definitely people that will, what you'll hear is they'll say like, oh, I'm not, it's, they feel offended that there's so much like tourism and stuff up there.

[02:00:55] So they'll like refuse to go up there.

[02:00:57] But yeah, I look, I like a hot dog and a Coke in the middle of my hike.

[02:01:02] I'm all for it.

[02:01:03] So anyway, my dad has a lot of outdoor experience in his past, but at this point he's 70 years old.

[02:01:13] He's not as agile.

[02:01:14] He's up to his hips in muck for us, this beaver dam.

[02:01:20] And we have driven two and a half hours with the canoe on top of his Prius to get to this canoe launch.

[02:01:30] And I say to him, do you want me to call 911?

[02:01:34] Like, is this our search and rescue moment?

[02:01:38] Yes.

[02:01:38] And all he says is, I want to control the social media write up for this.

[02:01:48] I want to write my own description.

[02:01:51] So, um.

[02:01:53] Yeah.

[02:01:53] At the end he'll be like, and he was otherwise well prepared.

[02:01:58] Uh, but we, believe it or not, this, the unlikely threesome of us made it to the trailhead.

[02:02:11] My son, uh, was kind of kicking and screaming to go up to the cliffs that had this amazing view, but it's a, one of my favorite hikes in that section.

[02:02:22] And, um, sorry.

[02:02:25] I don't want to go on and on about beaver dams and then to have you have to, I mean, you're going to have to edit so much of this out.

[02:02:31] I'm sorry.

[02:02:32] No, we don't.

[02:02:32] We'll go with this one and done.

[02:02:34] This is great.

[02:02:34] So, um, it's very interesting because we talk about New Hampshire so much, but the idea that, you know, in order to get to a trailhead, you have to paddle.

[02:02:44] Like that's just a new concept, but it's a, it, I understand that Maine is just, it's so much more rugged.

[02:02:49] And I think just to wrap this up, the, um, the other questions I did have for you is wildlife encounters and logging roads.

[02:02:56] Like, did you have to spend a lot of time navigating like down complex logging road areas to get to trailheads?

[02:03:03] And then did you ever run into any crazy wildlife situations?

[02:03:07] So I'm going to answer the logging road question, which is, this is what you learn from the Greenville natives.

[02:03:15] Yield to the logging trucks.

[02:03:17] What do you have to do to the logging trucks?

[02:03:20] Like I have seen him do a two mile backup to find a place to pull over, to get out of the logging trucks way because they will not stop.

[02:03:32] They will not slow down.

[02:03:35] Um, I, so that was him and his truck and he makes it look so easy.

[02:03:42] Uh, and then there was the time that I busted an oil pan on the golden road, driving my Honda Fit, trying to, I had, you know, there was a greater coming at me.

[02:03:58] And so I, in the wrong lane.

[02:04:01] So I had gone over to the wrong lane and then a logging truck is coming at me.

[02:04:06] I have to drive over the greater strip.

[02:04:10] And, you know, the noise did not sound good.

[02:04:14] Couldn't immediately see that I was losing all the oil.

[02:04:18] So we went on with our hike on the, uh, what is that?

[02:04:24] The rainbow loop trail.

[02:04:27] Um, there's a trail off the golden road.

[02:04:31] Um, but anyway, we go on with our day.

[02:04:39] And then it wasn't until the end of the day that I realized, you know, there are all these lights going on in the dash.

[02:04:48] And I'm like, I hope I make it to Millinocket because a, I don't have service.

[02:04:53] And B, does a tow, will a tow truck even come out to the golden road?

[02:05:00] Um, so there are just, you should be prepared for flat tires for sure.

[02:05:09] Um, but you should also, there are a lot of people, um, that when they're driving up in that North main ink land, they have these MERS radios.

[02:05:22] They're using the same radios as the, uh, as the logging trucks because there's no cell service for, I don't even know how many miles.

[02:05:36] So that's what I have to say about logging roads.

[02:05:40] Um, you know, moose, I don't know how many moose I've seen in my life.

[02:05:46] I have never seen a bear on trail in Maine.

[02:05:49] Huh.

[02:05:51] I've seen lots of bear scat.

[02:05:53] My wildest, and you're, you're not going to believe this actually, uh, if you have a family camp in Brownfield, my wildest wildlife encounter was actually in Hiram.

[02:06:10] Okay.

[02:06:11] I don't know if you've ever been to Mount Cutler.

[02:06:14] Oh yeah.

[02:06:15] Yeah.

[02:06:15] I've run, run that all the time.

[02:06:17] It's got awesome little ledges that look right over the, the Hiram center there.

[02:06:21] Yeah.

[02:06:22] It's, it's great.

[02:06:24] I can't even, uh, I mean, it took me, I hiked there like four times to get all the trails.

[02:06:33] Um, I have, yeah, somebody went wild with the trails making in that section.

[02:06:38] Yeah.

[02:06:39] Um, and there's also this, I don't know if you ever did the old Saco Ridge trail.

[02:06:45] I don't know.

[02:06:45] I don't think so.

[02:06:46] I don't know.

[02:06:46] But like the top, um, there's a new Saco Ridge trail there, but it's supposed to be, it used to be like super sketchy, like sketchiest trail on there.

[02:07:00] And now just the top hundred feet or so are a mentioned distance in the book.

[02:07:07] And it took some doing to find that, uh, to find where that started and find that hundred feet.

[02:07:16] But, um, my wild, uh, wildlife encounter there was my first time that I tried to hike there.

[02:07:25] Where I was trying to do the Barnes trail on New Year's day, 2021.

[02:07:36] And, and I was not fazed by the fact that like, you know, there, there's maybe like a dusting of snow, a little bit of ice.

[02:07:44] And I was like, Oh, maybe I'm going to use my micro spikes and the Barnes trail.

[02:07:48] I think they've reblazed it since, but at the time the blazes were kind of faded.

[02:07:53] I'm looking for the blazes in the boulders.

[02:07:57] And there's this small little mammal that dashes across the boulders in front of me.

[02:08:06] And I'm just like, what the heck, what the heck was that?

[02:08:13] Um, like, was that a bobcat?

[02:08:17] Um, and then I, then like up on the cliffs, there's this thrashing.

[02:08:25] There's like the mama is up on the cliffs, um, brushing up against all these saplings and making a racket.

[02:08:34] And I don't know a lot about wildlife, but I do know, like, don't get between a mama and a baby.

[02:08:41] Yeah.

[02:08:41] And I just kind of, I just make a beeline for the railroad tracks.

[02:08:47] I just gave up at that point.

[02:08:50] I don't know if you've ever had, um, bobcat encounters in, uh, near Brownfields or in Southwestern Maine.

[02:09:00] I haven't seen many, honestly.

[02:09:03] Um, I hear them sometimes, but I haven't seen them, but yeah, I know they're around for sure.

[02:09:08] And I would imagine that, you know, there's the Saco rivers right there.

[02:09:11] So water source is easy for them.

[02:09:13] So they're probably poking around.

[02:09:14] Well, the other thing I read what I was like, but I'm so close to town.

[02:09:18] Why is there a bobcat here?

[02:09:19] And apparently they live close to like livestock, uh, chickens and things.

[02:09:25] Um, but what, what other questions do you have for me?

[02:09:29] So I think we're, we're at time.

[02:09:31] So this is amazing, but I do want to, um, find out.

[02:09:34] So there, are you giving any more talks where people can come check out and get more details

[02:09:38] about the, about this project?

[02:09:40] Um, the one that I have scheduled is in Augusta, Maine, uh, at the Lithgow library on March 31st

[02:09:50] at 6 PM.

[02:09:51] I'm open to doing more talks.

[02:09:54] Um, but I'm also, you know, I work 40 hours a week to pay off my trail debt.

[02:10:01] I have a kid.

[02:10:02] So, you know.

[02:10:03] Yeah.

[02:10:04] Life is busy.

[02:10:05] Life is busy.

[02:10:06] But if something was really enticing, I would hit you up.

[02:10:11] And then, um, so I'll include your, um, blog on the show notes and then your Instagram.

[02:10:18] And then what's the plans for the future?

[02:10:20] So are you going to continue on hiking in Maine?

[02:10:24] You're going to check out New Hampshire.

[02:10:26] Is Carrie going to ask you to help him with the 13th edition?

[02:10:29] Like what, what's, what's in the future for you?

[02:10:30] Um, the future for me, um, I, you know, if I'm going to commit to a project, I'm going

[02:10:40] to go full on.

[02:10:41] So I'm, I'm not committing to a project, but there are things that interest me like doing

[02:10:47] all of, I've done, you know, sections of the Maine International Appalachian Trail.

[02:10:53] I'm interested in doing all of it.

[02:10:55] Um, I also really, really love the 50, the New England 50 finest list, uh, 20 Maine mountains

[02:11:06] on there.

[02:11:07] I just hiked one of them on Sunday.

[02:11:10] That was a bushwhack that I am like absolutely in love with.

[02:11:17] Cannot believe I hadn't hiked before.

[02:11:19] Um, and I would recommend to your listeners if they're like, Oh, that sounds like a lot of

[02:11:25] driving.

[02:11:25] I don't want to do the whole Maine mountain guide.

[02:11:28] Um, I would recommend checking out where the Maine mountain guide and the 50 finest list

[02:11:36] overlap.

[02:11:37] Um, cause those are some of my favorite hikes in the book.

[02:11:41] Um, Baker, Boundary Bald, Moxie Mountain, which is this moonscape, um, off of 201.

[02:11:50] Once again, in that Kennebec Moose River, um, Valley section, I think your listeners would

[02:11:58] love Jackman.

[02:12:00] I think they would love the Switzerland of Maine if they ever.

[02:12:04] Yeah.

[02:12:04] It's, it sounds amazing.

[02:12:06] Um, and I, I, you know, it's so easy for me to just go up to my in-laws and just go like,

[02:12:11] all right, I'm going to hang around and, you know, Brownfield and Denmark and hire them in

[02:12:14] that area.

[02:12:15] But I, I, I gotta get North.

[02:12:17] I gotta get farther North.

[02:12:18] It sounds like based on what you're telling me, there's, there's all kinds of gems out

[02:12:21] there.

[02:12:21] Yeah, for sure.

[02:12:24] Yeah.

[02:12:25] Awesome.

[02:12:26] Well, um, and then the last question I have for you is, are you the only one that's done

[02:12:29] this or are there multiple people that have completed it so far?

[02:12:32] Cause I feel like Kerry had said that he was like getting close, but that there wasn't many

[02:12:36] people that had ever done it except for you were pursuing it.

[02:12:40] So I have searched and by searched, I don't just mean Google searched, but I've also,

[02:12:48] I went on the peak back cause I think like, well, maybe not everyone is, no one has announced

[02:12:55] they've finished any edition on social media, but maybe there's somebody on peak bagger.

[02:13:00] Cause there are all these, there are a couple hikers on peak bagger who don't seem to be active

[02:13:06] on social media.

[02:13:07] But so on peak bagger, I went and I searched three obscure Aroostook County hikes, um, round

[02:13:18] mountain, uh, Norway bluff and, um, not rock, uh, horseshoe.

[02:13:29] And I wanted to see if there was anyone on the peak bagger website who had done all three

[02:13:34] because that could have mean that they had done, you know, all of a guidebook and I didn't

[02:13:42] find anyone.

[02:13:43] And I've, you know, I would, if there's someone else out there, um, but I don't know of anyone

[02:13:50] else who's finished the guide.

[02:13:52] The thing about finishing the guide is it's not just, you know, hitting peak bagging and

[02:13:59] hitting the peaks.

[02:14:00] It's also doing every trail, doing all the main huts and trails or not all of them, but

[02:14:06] doing all of the main huts and trails that are in the book and doing, there are a lot

[02:14:11] of flat trails and Baxter and, um, pond trails, that sort of thing.

[02:14:18] And there are people who are just like, no, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to

[02:14:25] drive all the way to Lubeck to climb these little nubbles.

[02:14:28] Um, but I think there's a lot of potential here for someone to do it all in a single

[02:14:36] year.

[02:14:37] I would love to see that.

[02:14:39] Um, I've, I am by no means suggesting that I did this in a speedy fashion.

[02:14:46] I definitely don't want any of your listeners to think that I was, you know, did it all right

[02:14:53] the first time.

[02:14:54] It involved a lot of going back over and over and over again and rereading descriptions

[02:14:59] and, um, yeah.

[02:15:02] So there's a lot of room for creativity in Maine and doing projects that no one has done

[02:15:09] before.

[02:15:11] Yeah.

[02:15:11] Yeah.

[02:15:11] And it's, it's incredibly impressive that you did this and, and I can't stress enough,

[02:15:15] like the size of Maine compared to the rest of New England and New Hampshire, where most

[02:15:20] of our listeners are is it's enormous compared to what we're used to.

[02:15:24] So for you to be able to navigate through, um, and I love, like, you don't probably don't

[02:15:28] even realize it, but like you have the encyclopedic knowledge, like you're just banging these

[02:15:32] off at the top of your head, the mountains and trails.

[02:15:35] So, um, it's super impressive and it's really interesting.

[02:15:38] And I think, well, definitely, uh, I think in the future, I'd love to get maybe you and

[02:15:42] Carrie back on together, uh, to talk, do another feature on this.

[02:15:46] But I, I, again, I appreciate your time, uh, tonight.

[02:15:50] And, uh, like I said, I will make sure that I share all of your social media and your blog

[02:15:54] posts for the listeners to check out.

[02:15:56] And I'm sure that you'll get hit up with some questions because I think people are interested

[02:16:02] in Maine and it's just, it's a, it's a huge frontier that we don't talk about enough.

[02:16:07] I love questions.

[02:16:08] Thank you so much.

[02:16:09] I hope you're prepared to get a lot more, um, Maine listeners.

[02:16:15] Yes.

[02:16:16] Including search and rescue groups in Maine who are like, there's a search and rescue

[02:16:22] podcast.

[02:16:24] Yes.

[02:16:24] Yes.

[02:16:25] We'll, uh, we'll, uh, we'll be happy to get everyone.

[02:16:28] And like I said, I'll do my part.

[02:16:29] I'm, I'm in Evans Notch.

[02:16:30] I'm in, I'm in Western Maine.

[02:16:32] So, uh, but I got to get back out to the, uh, the, the other areas for sure.

[02:16:37] Cool.

[02:16:38] Well, thank you so much.

[02:16:42] Right.

[02:16:43] So, um, welcome back Dave.

[02:16:44] So that was pretty interesting.

[02:16:46] So Amy is, um, an amazing person and it's quite an interesting story about how she went

[02:16:52] about completing the list.

[02:16:54] So, um, kudos to her.

[02:16:57] And, um, I, I can guarantee you that as one accomplishment I would never even consider doing.

[02:17:04] I just did.

[02:17:04] And I'm not going to do it.

[02:17:06] Yes.

[02:17:06] I considered it for that one second.

[02:17:07] I'm like, nope, she did it.

[02:17:08] I don't, I don't want to be second.

[02:17:10] Yeah.

[02:17:10] I mean, we talked to, I talked to Amy about this a little bit about like this idea of

[02:17:13] going back to grab these like little spurs that I missed in the past to round out my red

[02:17:18] lining.

[02:17:19] And my friend Peter's doing it and he, I get it.

[02:17:21] He's pretty far along, but to me, going back to do these little sections that I've missed

[02:17:28] just doesn't appeal to me at all.

[02:17:30] I'd rather do other, other hikes, but I understand a lot of people do it.

[02:17:33] And it's amazing, um, the perseverance that it takes to do that.

[02:17:37] That's what it is.

[02:17:38] They get driven and they just stay on it.

[02:17:40] And, you know, it's a lot like the grid.

[02:17:41] It's a lot like any of the other massive accomplishments.

[02:17:45] You just get driven to keep doing it.

[02:17:47] And that's your thing.

[02:17:48] Yeah.

[02:17:48] Yeah, exactly.

[02:17:50] But, um, I think our thing is going to be that we're going to wrap up.

[02:17:52] I was going to do the search and rescue news, but I think I'm going to punt that to the

[02:17:56] next episode because we're running at time at this point.

[02:18:01] Um, but anything you want to plug?

[02:18:03] You want, you want people to follow your Instagram or anything?

[02:18:06] Uh, they're welcome to, um, it's just a lot of hiking porn.

[02:18:09] It's a lot of pictures and a lot of that's about it.

[02:18:12] Um, but yeah, you're welcome to follow it, you know, and read my boring stories and reviews

[02:18:16] and maybe you won't find them boring.

[02:18:18] I don't know.

[02:18:19] I guess I shouldn't judge myself.

[02:18:20] That's good stuff.

[02:18:21] Dave shits in the woods on Instagram.

[02:18:23] Yeah.

[02:18:23] There's no pictures of any shit.

[02:18:25] There's no, I'm not, you know, it's all none of that.

[02:18:28] Yes.

[02:18:28] Yeah.

[02:18:29] You just do that in the woods and don't take pictures of it.

[02:18:31] But, um, so you completed the show with me.

[02:18:33] You've done shows with, uh, with Stomp before.

[02:18:36] You don't feel pressure to answer this, but like who runs a better ship, me or Stomp?

[02:18:41] It's tough because when I, when I was with Stomp, it was like, you know, there was three of

[02:18:45] us.

[02:18:46] So it was more of a casual conversation, whereas this is like on the spot one-on-one and, you

[02:18:52] know, I have responsibilities to, to, to be here.

[02:18:54] And, you know, you said, what was, you said, uh, sounds somewhat interesting and don't comment

[02:19:00] that the place looks like a sex dungeon.

[02:19:02] Cause it is, I can't, I don't even know what that means in the notes, but anyhow.

[02:19:05] Um, yes.

[02:19:06] So yeah, I, I, I, at this point I need more information before I pick.

[02:19:11] All right.

[02:19:12] All right.

[02:19:12] Well, anyway, you got to see what the Woodpecker Studio South looks like and we appreciate you

[02:19:17] coming in and taking the time to, to join us.

[02:19:19] And, uh, we will, I'm sure that this won't be the last time you're in.

[02:19:22] So thanks for covering for Mr. Stomp.

[02:19:24] Yeah.

[02:19:25] I appreciate it.

[02:19:25] Thank you.

[02:19:26] Awesome.

[02:19:32] Thank you for listening.

[02:19:33] If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube,

[02:19:41] or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[02:19:44] If you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the

[02:19:48] show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com.

[02:19:53] That's S L A S R podcast.com.

[02:19:58] You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.

[02:20:01] We hope you'll join us next week for another great show until then on behalf of Mike and

[02:20:07] Stomp, get out there and crush some mega peace.

[02:20:13] Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites.

[02:20:17] Chris staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever.

[02:20:20] Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning.

[02:20:27] He was hiking along the Appalachian trail when the weather started to get worse.

[02:20:32] Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a wind chill

[02:20:36] of minus one degree.

[02:20:38] And there's three words to describe this race.

[02:20:41] Do we all know who they are?

[02:20:45] Lieutenant James Neeland, New Hampshire Fish and Game.

[02:20:48] Louisiana, thanks for being with us today.

[02:20:50] Thanks for having me.

[02:20:51] What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on

[02:20:54] the trails to hike here in New Hampshire?

[02:20:56] It seems to me the most common is being unprepared.

[02:20:58] I think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items and

[02:21:03] had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.