Episode 187 - Veterans on the 48, Forest Service Staffing Cuts, and Trail Adoption Season is starting

[00:00:33] from the Woodpecker's studio in the great state of New Hampshire. Welcome to the Sounds Like A Search And Rescue Podcast, where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Here are your hosts, Mike and Stump.

[00:00:50] This is Episode 187. Super low for you. Oh, thank you very much. No more crispy critters.

[00:01:25] Crispy critters. What exactly does crispy mean? Stump's been yelling at me about my audio lately. It's really interesting. I think what's been happening is the gain on your microphone has been too loud. Not just you, but some of the guests as well. So when I receive the file, I can't get rid of it because it's embedded into the file.

[00:01:44] So if we go low, then I can actually boost the volume of everything and limit it and compress it and it doesn't clip, which makes everything louder without the distortion. It's just, yeah, it's a learning process, learning curve. Okay. Every mic's different. I will keep it low for you. So it sounds like if you start low, you can bring it up. Yeah, 100%.

[00:02:12] Excellent. Excellent. So you had just briefed me on the snowmobile season. So it sounds like the snowmobile season is continuing to be a better snowmobile season than the last four or five years. It's been really great. Yeah. I think we may sneak out another two or three weeks if we're lucky, but the trails are good. We're still getting snow. It's amazing we're getting snow despite the warm temps, but we are. Yeah. Yeah, it's warming up down here. We're in the big melt right now.

[00:02:41] So hopefully it'll stay warm here and then keep snowing a little bit for you guys. Well, actually, I think we're supposed to dip again into the super cold weather early this week. So everything will freeze, which will be interesting. All right. Well, yeah, stay safe out there. I know it's icy. Thank you. All right. So welcome to episode 187 of the sounds like a search and rescue podcast. This week, we are joined by Mike York, the founder and president of Veterans on the 48.

[00:03:11] Veterans on the 48 is dedicated to getting more veterans outside and onto the trails to promote healthy lifestyles, both physically and mentally. So this group leads hikes for veterans. They support veterans interested in participating in wilderness first aid classes. They provide hiking gear. They do volunteer trail maintenance, and they also partner with other veteran groups. So Michael will join us to share his story. Plus, we've got stories on staffing cuts that hit the White Mountain National Forest and nationwide.

[00:03:41] There's a recent rescue that happened on Mount Musilake, some avalanche activity on Mount Washington, options and timelines to talk about trail adoption if you're interested in doing trail maintenance and trail adoption. And then I've got a recap on a recent hike on Pleasant Mountain, and I did an ice fishing excursion in Western Maine. So I'll break that down. So I'm Mike. And I'm Stomp. Let's get stomp.

[00:04:19] All right. So now we're going to turn it over our friend Christina from Wild Raven Endurance Coaching. Hi, I'm Christina from Wild Raven Endurance Coaching. I work with athletes of all levels from hikers to triathletes, helping you reach your goals with personalized guidance.

[00:04:39] With years of experience hiking, mountain biking and trail running across New England, I also have a deep knowledge of the New Hampshire 4,000 footers and the surrounding trails. Whether you're a beginner hiker or a seasoned athlete, I'll guide you towards your goals, reducing injury risk and improving your performance through smart, tailored coaching. Are you looking to transition from hiking to mountain running? I'm here to make that journey easier, too.

[00:05:05] My approach combines strength training, mindfulness and life balance on and off the trail. Let me help you find more joy in your sport while getting stronger and healthier along the way. Visit www.coaching.christinafulsick.com and start your adventure today. Excellent. So thank you, Christina.

[00:05:34] Definitely check her out if you want to start your wellness journey. Absolutely. Speaking of wellness. Yes. Did you not sign up for the Mount Washington Road Race this year? I did not. I did not because I think that we have a commitment that weekend. Oh, interesting. Who's we as in the podcast or you? No, I think I have a family thing. Yeah. Oh, well, there's lots of heartbreak today.

[00:06:01] I'm hearing news that some people didn't get in, but you know, it's that bittersweet moment of realization. Like, well, at least I'm not running up a mountain. Correct. Yeah. I mean, as a fact, I say I have this family commitment, but now my sister-in-law, Marissa, shout out to Marissa. So she got into the race. So now I'm like, well, maybe I can bail on my family commitment and help her out and hike up and be support crew or something. But I will have to figure that out.

[00:06:31] I don't know if my plans are solid yet, but I did tell her that I would do a Memorial Day training run up the auto road with her. So I think that she's down for that. But yeah, a lot of heartache and a lot of happy people. Now Marissa has signed up for the road race six years in a row and did not get in. So this is her first year. So this is after seven tries. Wow. That's that's a lot.

[00:06:59] Speaking of Marissa, are you guys ever going to try that pit Prezzy Traverse again? You guys bonked out of that one. That's a good point. That's a good point. So for the listeners, as a reminder, there's a fastest known time for, I think, a mixed team. And Marissa and I, we didn't really like we kind of jokingly went after it, but we started a presidential traverse. She wasn't feeling so hot.

[00:07:28] So she had to bail out on Mount Jefferson. But yeah, I think that she's got to go back after that. I think so. It's a chip on her shoulder. It is. I think I went a little too, I came out a little too hot on that, that one for her too. I wasn't a good partner. Oh, geez. Well, Mount Washington will be a good warmup. Right, right. So I'll have to match pace a little bit better next time. We'll get there.

[00:07:55] So, but congratulations to everybody that got into the Mount Washington road race. Yeah. Anybody who have questions about training or ideas, feel free to reach out to Stomp and I. We've got some, we've got a resume when it comes to this race. That's right. That's right. You ran it with a broken toe. No, just kidding. I did. Oh, actually I didn't. I bailed out with the broken toe. That would have been great. Yes. All right. So Stomp, we have, we're going to pull the rescue news into the front here because we don't have much going on, but as far as rescues go.

[00:08:24] But two Massachusetts teens rescued from the snow while hiking in New Hampshire. So without snowshoes or headlamps, these two hikers had a hard time navigating the waist deep snow on Mount Musilak, a authority set. So two teen hikers who were described as unprepared were rescued Thursday evening from Mount Musilak. The hikers age 17 and 18 were on the snapper trail in an attempt to make the seven mile

[00:08:53] loop on Mount Musilak. This is the 10th, Musilak's the 10th highest 4,000 footer for people that aren't, aren't aware of that. So around, they started the hike around 1 PM, which is a late start. And then they called fishing game around 640 and reported that they didn't have any snowshoes. They didn't have any headlamps and they were having trouble navigating the trail. Um, so this trail that was covered in waist deep snow and they had low cell phone batteries.

[00:09:19] So during the initial call with the conservation officers, the cell phone batteries died and all contact was lost. So about an hour later, they were, I guess they were rummaging through their backpacks and they found a portable battery charger in their gear. So they were able to make another 9-1-1 call and they had made it to a better section of trail and were working to self rescue. So eventually officers located them around 830 near the ravine lodge.

[00:09:46] So, um, oh, so they made it. Lodge is closed. They made it out. They sort of did. They sort of got themselves out, but again, they started at one o'clock. They did have warm gear, but they didn't bring snowshoes or headlamps. Yeah. And, uh, the, the officials had commented, they said that would have prevented the need for a rescue call. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Um, add it to your data. I'll add it to my data. It's interesting.

[00:10:11] Cause I did see when I was on Lafayette a couple of weekends ago on that Monday holiday, there was two teenagers that came as I was getting to my car. I was like, I was actually where the, um, the, the outhouses are on Lafayette as you, before it even breaks off between falling waters and old bridal. First of all, there was one guy that was hiking up that was, it was no snowshoes and he was post

[00:10:39] holing and he didn't have snowshoes. And when he saw me coming, he sort of ducked in the woods and didn't want to have a conversation. Cause I could sort of tell that he, he knew that I knew that he was kind of like, I mean, he was post holing literally up to his thighs. It was so deep. Um, so I don't think he wanted to talk to me about it. And then I kept going down and then I saw two teenagers, both of them were wearing goggles. I mean, they were literally like right out of the parking lot and they were wearing goggles

[00:11:08] and they were post holing like up to their thighs. Hmm. Cause the trail hadn't been broken out really. But, um, I was broken out where I had come in, but because they were post holing, they sunk in super deep. And I sort of just looked at it and I was like, well, there's nothing I can really do. I just said, hi, how you doing? And I assume that they were going up falling waters to go to the waterfall and move on. But you definitely see people out there that are post holing and they don't have snowshoes and they're in a tough situation.

[00:11:37] So it didn't look fun at all. Sheesh. Post holio. Crazy. Post holio. It's not the winter for no snowshoes. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, I get it. People don't have them. They're expensive. They're, you know, people don't think about it. And they, they ideally in a perfect world, the trails packed out, you know, don't need them, but you got to take them. Mm hmm. Yeah. A hundred percent. I just saw this article here. It says, don't be a post holio. That's a real article. It sure is.

[00:12:07] I just pulled it up. It's called a PC trails by mountain trails. Park city trails.org has an article called don't be a post holio and it shows a Beavis and but head walking through the snow, believe it or not. I just pulled it up. Interesting. Wow. Okay. Well, send it over to me. I'll put it in the show notes with people. That's awesome. All right. And, and then there was a little something that happened on Mount Washington yesterday.

[00:12:33] So multiple avalanches, a skier was buried by an avalanche in the presidential range on what in the white mountain. So this is an article from WMUR. So this is off of Hillman's highway. There was a solo skier that triggered a large avalanche and was caught and carried and buried by this avalanche. So another solo skier in the path of the avalanche was able to get out of the way. And they saw a small part of the buried skier out of the snow and they were able to help luckily.

[00:13:02] So the skier was able to get out from the terrain with the help of bystanders. And I guess he wasn't injured, luckily. Uh, so very lucky that another skier happened to be right there because if they didn't see him, maybe they wouldn't have been able to get him out. Crazy. When was this? Yeah. And then it, this, this was, um, this was as of yesterday. So this was, this article was from last night. So I think this happened yesterday.

[00:13:29] And there was also at the same time in Huntington ravine, there was a group of skiers that triggered an avalanche in the fan of central gully. So these skiers were able to avoid it, but it was a close call. So basically the Mount Washington avalanche center wanted to get this out there to just say that conditions are dangerous and they expect the trend to continue with no new snow and a lot of wind loading going on over the next couple of days. So if you go on up that pink and notch side of Mount Washington, whether it's Lionhead

[00:13:56] or Tuckerman or Huntington, just be careful. Yeah. It's amazing. It's, um, after that avalanche happened over on Cannon, um, like a day or two after it was a low avalanche threat and now it's high. It seems so fluid. You really got to keep up on these forecasts. It's incredible. Yeah. That's weird because like right after the weekend after snow, there was like one day where you, I think you might've sent me or maybe I can't remember who sent me it, but somebody

[00:14:23] sent me a video of somebody skiing and they were like conditions are perfect. And I would have thought that around that time. That's when I looked up the report and it was, it said low. I was shocked. Like, wow. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's really day to day when it comes to this avalanche stuff. Yeah. Terrifying. All right. So stop next up. I pulled an article here. So I was going to cover this last week, but, um, I waited a week just because I wanted

[00:14:53] to see, I was supposed, I was going to cover the national forest staffing cuts last week, but I waited because I wanted to see if, cause it was such a, like a, um, um, a chorus of people pushing back on this. I wanted to see if there was any changes. And then in the meantime, I got this, I found this article or maybe somebody sent it to me, um, right after the show that had said, and this was originally in the Conway daily sun.

[00:15:22] So there's bigger staffing cuts, which I'll talk about in a minute, but specific to the white mountain national forest. There's 11 staffers that were in their probationary employment periods that will be basically what this means is that they were either hired less than a year ago, or they were promoted into a new position. And once you get promoted, you have to serve another probationary period.

[00:15:52] So it actually is kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of bullshit quite frankly, like that you, you get promoted and then you have to basically get lumped in with brand new hires. But, but anyway, there's 11 staffers, uh, that are working at the white mountain national forest service that, um, got impacted here. Now the, the news article says that this, this is provided by a source that asked not to be identified. The source says that, that obviously like a lot of these workers are in shock right now and

[00:16:22] they're still processing, uh, what's going on. So like, like I said, like essentially what's going on here is that the government is taking anybody that's in their probationary period. And I think it sounds like they're slashing most of them and it's hitting the forest service nationwide. And I don't think that, um, this is being done in a, in a way that's very, uh, um, I guess in a way that's sympathetic or empathetic to the workers here.

[00:16:50] It's just essentially like, Hey, you're on probation. You're getting cut. Um, so at this point right now, we know for a fact that there are 11 people impacted in the forest service. So this, this represents about 10% of the forest service. So it's not, um, although the overall cuts, I'm sorry, represent 10% of the forest service. I don't know what the percentage is in the white mountains.

[00:17:15] Um, but essentially like the local government has said that like these cuts have been made without any rhyme or reason. Um, and that they're going to, um, impact the, the operations of the white mountain national forest. And they're urging the administration to put forth a process to figure out how to re rehire some of these employees.

[00:17:38] Now this brings me to my next article, which is from NPR where, uh, so again, there's 11 that are cut in the white mountains. I don't know what their roles are or how significant of an impact that will be. I don't believe that this will impact anything to do with search and rescue because you've got the, um, conservation officers and then you've got the volunteer, um, search and rescue. Obviously there's always some forest service people involved in these things as well, but

[00:18:05] I don't think it'll impact search and rescue as much, but it may impact facilities for sure. But the next article is from the National Public Radio NPR. And they go on to explain that, um, this, this one's like a day old. So essentially you've stopped what ends, what's ended up happening here is that there's been layoffs of employees that are on their probationary period.

[00:18:30] Um, but, and then there was a lot of outrage over this and they, they put in a federal hiring freeze, but the, the, um, National Park Service has now been authorized to fill a total of 7,700 seasonal positions, which is about 1500 positions over their normal hiring. So it sounds like what they're doing rolling average. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:58] So it sounds like what they're doing is basically saying like, all right, let's, let's cut the people, the full-time employees that are on probationary status, and then we'll backfill them with a higher volume of temporary workers so that employees are not on the payroll. So it definitely sucks for the, uh, the people that are in their probationary period. The thing that really I don't like about this is people that, um, are promoted and then the

[00:19:25] clock resets. So you could in theory be working for the forest service for like 10 years, get promoted and then get swept up in this, this, this staff reduction. So, um, so it's not a great thing all around. I know Yosemite in particular got hit pretty hard and now it sounds like, um, a lot of these temporary seasonal headcount are going to go to places like Yosemite and, and, um, the

[00:19:50] Grand Canyon and whatnot. So it's just a lot of confusion and chaos going on around this with the, with the park service. Hopefully it gets sorted out. Uh, it does sound like they've got a little bit of a walk back here with these temporary staffing cuts or these temporary, um, hires where they're going to bring in more people, but still a lot of people are commenting that it's just, they don't like to operate under uncertainty and challenges. So we'll see what happens.

[00:20:16] Yeah. Well, that's, that's my stance in this. I actually researched this a couple of weeks back, but I pulled it from the script because a lot of the people yelling, um, are, you know, have biased interest, you know, in incentive there, there in the system or whatever else. And then when you dig into all the articles, the, the commentary are the taxpayers that are

[00:20:43] complaining that the government's too big and, you know, so yeah, it's, it's a wait and see, you got to wait and see. And, you know, the administration is modifying their decisions, but, um, we'll see, you know what I mean? Maybe some of the arguments are, it should be more state-based and volunteer driven. Um, so we'll see. What I do know is that 70, 70% of the, the country is on board with auditing all the government institutions and agencies. Uh,

[00:21:11] so we'll have to see how it all plays out. Um, I think one of the things that I've noticed, I've talked to some friends about it, like people, people are stressed out right now and concerned. And what I was thinking about this, I think that in, in situations where you're sort of feeling helpless or you're frustrated, I think the best thing that you can do is to take control for yourself. And what I thought about here was that, um, now is the time of the year where,

[00:21:41] you know, if you want to get involved and help out, I think this is the time of the year where you can start thinking about trail maintenance and, and trail adoption, because if you want to sign up, uh, is that way you can make an impact? Maybe, maybe that's where things are going to be, um, challenging in the White Mountain National Forest is they're going to lose some people in the, the, the forest service that do that trail maintenance work. So the more volunteers they get, the, the better that will be to offset that, that loss. But, um, now is the time to think about it.

[00:22:09] So essentially stump, I pulled some links around how to sign up for trail adoption. So essentially you can, I use the AMC because they have a list of available trails. So, and there's a lot of interesting trails that you can go to. So essentially what you do is you'll go to the AMC site for trail volunteers

[00:22:33] and, um, or basically trail adopters. And then you can look at the available trails and then you fill out a form saying like, I want to do this trail. And then they'll ask you to select the three trails that are your preference. And then they'll contact you to let you know which one you got. And then you go to a meeting where you get like certified to do your maintenance and they'll train you on what to do. I think typically that will happen in May. So, um, if anybody is feeling like frustrated, they want to

[00:23:01] do something, I feel like this is the best way to do something. And there's, there's some good trails here. Stomp, I was looking, there's, um, there's a couple of trails on Cardigan. There's the Holt trail, um, which is a, uh, in critical need. If you wanted to do that one, that's a little bit interesting. There's, um, Hancock loop, which is a good one. There is a Carter Mariah. There's the Davis path,

[00:23:27] uh, the sections of Davis path. There's sections of graft and loop. And then, um, there's in the Mahusik range, there's a bunch of stuff. Carlo Cole, goose eye, um, a bunch of sections in, in the Mahusik range, both on the North end and the South end. And then on the presidentials, you've got Mount Jefferson loop, you've got airline, um, sections of airline, and then you've got Webster

[00:23:52] Jackson, and then the bald face range has got the bald face circle, Eagle link, meter ridge. Uh, there's a whole, whole bunch of sections over there. So if anybody's interested, they can check this out. And then essentially, like I said, you fill out the application and then they'll, they'll contact you to, uh, to let you know when training happens. Yeah. Yeah. Where are we just talking about? Oh, we were just talking with Patrick recently

[00:24:22] about how mountains call you or trails call you and whole trail is, has been calling me like really hard lately. So I'm hoping to get back on that. It's probably going to be my first one once sledding's done. Really? Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I think it wasn't that your, that was your first one last year when sledding was done. I'm not quite sure, but it was definitely late winter or early spring. I remember you, there was snow on the ground for sure. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But I was thinking it would be really neat to do it when the snow

[00:24:49] is heavy. Um, it might be more forgiving, I guess. I can't imagine it not being hiked and you know what happens, you know, you get, you get the foot paths up the slabs and whatnot. So it may actually be easier. Uh, who knows? Yeah. I would love to get a report. Yeah. Yeah. We'll keep an eye out. We'll check the trail, uh, trail reports. But the other thing, Stomp, that I was going to say is if you don't want to adopt a trail and you

[00:25:18] simply want to like volunteer for one day or two days or a weekend or something, um, I'll include links to the volunteer trail, um, opportunities that's on the AMC 4,000 footer club. And they, they break down essentially like the list of the trail association. So there's like Chikora mountain club, Cohos trail association, Dartmouth outing club, Randolph mountain club, Shelburne trails, Squam lake association, the trail rights association, Waterville Valley

[00:25:48] athletic and improvement association, the Juana Lancet outdoor club, and then, uh, the forest service. So they all have different types of trail work opportunities, whether it's like a one day volunteer opportunity, or it's a, uh, a full weekend amount of work. You can take a look at all of those websites to see what they have available. And I'll make sure that I include

[00:26:11] those in the show notes. Excellent. So get your trail maintenance going because spring is coming. Yeah, it sure is real, real quick. All right. Stomp. Stomp. How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Uh, twice generally twice. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Why? I just curious. Um, I got this news

[00:26:35] article that I pulled about a hiker in China and he, uh, got lost in the woods for 10 days and he used a tube of toothpaste to survive. So I don't know if I could swallow toothpaste. I might throw up. Huh? That's what, what, what are the deets here? So the deets are, uh, 18 year old kid or, or young man

[00:27:00] was successfully rescued after being lost for 10 days in the frigid mountainous terrain of Northwest China. So, uh, the guy's name is Sun Liang. He managed to survive on river water, melted snow and toothpaste. So he did a solo hike on February 8th, venturing into King Ling, a prominent East West mountain range in the, uh, Shanxi Providence known for its average altitude of around 2,500 meters. I

[00:27:30] think that's like seven or 8,000 feet, um, high. So he lost contract contact with his family just two days later when his, um, devices all ran out of battery and he was stranded in the wilderness. He started following a stream and a Creek and he ended up breaking his arm. So in order for him to get out of the winds, he took refuge around large rocks. And, um, I guess by a couple of days afterwards,

[00:27:57] his family had contacted local authorities who had, um, started to do a rescue. So he was on this like trail, which is 170 kilometer long, um, out tie line, which is a route that, uh, connects to the out and to buy mountains and is considered one of the five most challenging hikes in China. So essentially this guy, this guy was doing like the who's a traverse here in China. That's amazing.

[00:28:24] But I guess the kid didn't know, but he's over the past two decades, more than 50 hikers have been reported missing or have died along this treacherous trail. So they've never, out of those 50 people, they've never found any of them or they, they've, or they did find them. They, they were dead. So because of that in 2018, local authorities imposed a band on travelers entering the area. And so they were going to enforce administrative penalties against violators. Meanwhile, this guy's

[00:28:53] son had no clue what was going on. He didn't know that it was off limits. So, um, he just went in there, stumbled in, um, I guess he had a passion for hiking that he developed over the past year and had to climb like three renowned snowy mountains in the country, had no clue that out tie lines route was banned and he just wanted to do a, uh, a challenging hike. So essentially he, he ended up

[00:29:19] getting rescued. Luckily the, I guess he was able to start a fire and that's how they found him. Uh, but he did say that, um, the navigation was extremely difficult. There's no views. I urge everybody that thinks about trying to find this, that they should not go. Life is too valuable. And he got charged with, um, 80,000 yen, which is the equivalent of 11,000 U S dollars, uh, because he had

[00:29:45] to have 30 team members come out and rescue him. So, uh, quite a story. That's crazy. Yeah. But they said in the article that China, they said, we implement a fee to deter potential hikers. We also want to remind the public that hiking along this route could expose them to encounters with dangerous wildlife, including bears, antelopes and wild boar. Some of our rescuers sustained injuries during this opera operation. Uh, so yeah, they, they just want to put a warning

[00:30:14] out there to say to people, don't, don't go this route. So he got a, he got a root canal out of that deal. That's right. So, oh my God, that's crazy. That is crazy. So anyway, um, good luck to him. He's out $11,000. Yikes. All right. Stop. You want to talk about Appalachian trail through hiking? I've got some survey data I want to go through with the trip for this year.

[00:30:43] So, yeah, yeah. Well, no, this is, this is the survey that was done this year or the end of this year for hikers that has hiked in 2024. Okay, cool. This was a post-mortem survey. Got it. Got it. And just for starters, they had 389 responses. So, um, you know, a smaller set of

[00:31:09] people compared to who actually hiked. This is just who responded to the survey. So just starting off, just some demographic information here. So the, the youngest person to respond to was 18. The oldest to respond was 71. The average age was 39 years old for hikers. And when you look at the distribution, you can see the, the biggest bubble is between 21 and 30 years old. And then you get

[00:31:34] another little bubble between 55 and 65 years old. Huh? Big, huge discrepancy. Yeah. A little bit, a little bit. And then you've got a, uh, a gender distribution of 63% man, uh, or me and then 36% women and then 1% prefer not to answer slash other. So, um, definitely like two thirds men and then

[00:32:01] about a third women on this. So that, that's interesting. I would have thought it would have been a little bit more equally distributed. Oh, that's funny. It reminds me of last year on the Mount Washington Road Race. Remember I didn't pick a gender for the race and I thought I came in first place. That's right. That's right. Sorry, Stomp. Um, and then race distribution. So, um, through hiking

[00:32:26] shockingly is a very white endeavor here. So 94% of the hikers identified themselves as, uh, Caucasian or white. And then you had, um, the next biggest group was, uh, was multiracial. So not a lot of diversity in the respondents. Um, I feel like it's likely that there was a little bit more diversity among the actual, um, hikers, but probably not that much of a difference. It's a very white activity.

[00:32:53] I feel like through hiking or why that is. Yeah. Interesting. Any, uh, uh, information in there about trail disruption for the AT? Uh, nothing yet, nothing yet. We're getting down. We'll get to a little bit more. Um, we're going to get to relationship status to Stomp in a minute, but right now this is education. So, uh, through hikers, they tend to be very well educated. I'm not going

[00:33:23] to say, let me see. I'm going to do math. I got to do, um, 64 plus seven carry the one. So 73% of the overall respondents had, um, either a bachelor's degree or more. So 44% had a bachelor's degree. 27% had, um, a master's or a PhD. And then there was some, some additional professional

[00:33:49] schooling. So yeah, pretty smart. Only 1% of the hikers did not finish high school. And, uh, yeah, so, so that's really funny. That's it. Smart group. Well educated. And then, um, the, the distribution of what states hikers are from, uh, New England gets a big representation, about 50 or 60 of the respondents were from New England, pretty evenly, uh, spread out, except Vermont only had two, which is surprising to me. But the biggest state for representation

[00:34:19] was 29 with Virginia and then followed by 26 with Ohio, 25 from New York, and then 23 with Virginia. Hmm. So Colorado out West was, uh, the, the biggest representation with nine through hikers. So, and this is just for the Appalachian trail. Right, right, right. Yep. As far as occupations go, the most popular occupation was retired at eight and a half percent. Then you had

[00:34:49] engineers, students, nurses, sales and marketing, software engineer, teacher, healthcare, retail, and then a small number of unemployed. And then, uh, it gets, it gets down to miscellaneous after that. Okay. Okay. Um, 37% of the hikers quit their job to do this stomp.

[00:35:10] And then 20% were retired. And then another 15% were on unpaid leave. So that basically means they had a job where they said, you can go hike, but you know, you're not going to get paid, but we'll keep your job. That's part of the 1%, the non-educated ones, right? Yeah. This is interesting. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Um, and then hiking basics. So the experience

[00:35:37] before starting the Appalachian trail, um, this is always super interesting. There was 1% that have never done a day hike or done car camping. Um, there was 11% that only day hiking and or car camping, but never done backpacking. And then 26% only had one to three nights of backpacking and then 24%.

[00:36:01] So it's actually very rare that, um, only about 15% had like a real month or more worth of, uh, long distance backpacking. Hmm. Just to dive into it, dive into it like that is wild. Yeah, it is. It is interesting. And then as far as the distance height, uh, 71% of the respondents

[00:36:26] completed their through hiker survey. Now the Appalachian trail, um, the ATC, they, they compile a report where they estimate 28 to 31% actually finished. This population was probably more likely to have finished because they responded to the survey, but yeah, 71% completed it. 8% did zero to 500 miles. 5% did 500 to, so basically 13% made it less than a thousand miles. And then, um,

[00:36:56] um, it looks like, um, 81, about 90 or 85% or so did, uh, over a thousand miles. Okay. Uh, the reasons for not finishing stomp, um, there was a big group of people that only intended to do a section hike. Uh, there was 9% had family personal issues. 2% had financial issues. 20% had injuries.

[00:37:20] 7% had, um, emotional issues. 8% didn't like the rain. 3% didn't like the heat. Uh, only 3% bailed out because of the hurricane Helen. So, yeah. So not too bad. Uh, 88% went northbound, which makes sense. And of the, the northbound distribution, the vast majority of them started sometime between

[00:37:44] late February and early April. Okay. Uh, the southbounders usually start around June or so. And then the, the finish date of the hikers, um, you see the bubble typically goes from about late July into

[00:38:06] middle to late September is where people, most people finish. So, uh, the average pace is about 13 and a half miles per day for through hikers. And then, uh, the average length is 152 days. Okay. Um, check-ins

[00:38:27] with the ATC. They said that 82% checked in at Amicalola Falls, 54% checked in at Harper's Ferry, and 42% checked in at, uh, Mount Katahdin. So these are official check-ins with the ATC so that they could keep track of things. So not a lot of them are checking in. So, um, then it talks about the amount of time, oh, the amount of, the amount of money spent on the Appalachian trail. So the average

[00:38:55] seems to be around $7,500. And, um, the most common amount spent was around 10 grand, but the overall average, you got some people that are doing it for like 2,500 to 3,000, but you got a lot of people that are doing it for 10 grand or above, but the average is 7,500 money spent on gear. The average was around 2,000. And, um, yeah, so that's it. It's quite a, quite an endeavor stomp.

[00:39:23] Yeah. So 3,000 people attempt to hike it yearly. I'm just trying to get a gauge on the size of this survey. Well, the survey's got 389 responses to it. Okay. So it's a, it's, it's like 10% of the overall. Yeah. Right. Okay. So it may be lacking some nuance, but it's pretty interesting. It's probably not perfect. Yeah. Wow. It's probably not perfect. Um, yeah. Then, then there's

[00:39:51] some additional survey here, relationship status. This is interesting. So, um, 6% were hiking with their spouse. They were married and hiking with their spouse and they, it looks like they all stayed married. 26% were hiking. They started hiking and they were married, but their spouse was not with them. At the end of the hike, only 23% were actually still married.

[00:40:14] So, um, sounds like there was a issue there. And here, but on the good news is 46% of the respondents were single at the time that they started the hike. And at the end of the hike, they were only 42%. So 4% of that group found a special someone during the hike. Hmm. Fascinating. There you go. Now you know where to go.

[00:40:39] People. Yeah, exactly. People want to know, um, how much time you spend all by yourself here. So the, the respondents said that, um, only about 34% of the respondents said that they, um, hiked alone 20, 25% or less of the time. So essentially it was pretty rare to be out there

[00:41:03] on your own. Uh, 27% of the respondents said that, um, that they had, um, more time, like a 75 to 100% of their time alone here. So I think I'm reading this a little bit wrong. So it's about more than half of them are saying that they spent less than half of their time alone. If that makes sense. I'm confusing myself. Stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's okay. I get it. Yeah. And then talking

[00:41:31] about sleeping by themselves, they said that, um, only about 25% of, so 70% of the people that responded said only about 25% of the time or less did they sleep alone. And, um, on average, there was about four to six days on the trail where through hikers said they struggled to find a space

[00:41:54] at a campsite or a shelter. So how much, what? 4%? They said, uh, six, no, only six to eight days overall on their trail hike. So if you're out there for 150 days, they're saying there was about six or seven times on average where they would get to a campsite or a shelter and not have space. They couldn't find a spot. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. This heard you. Wasn't it? Yeah. And then they reported to

[00:42:18] say that, um, there was cases, there was about 30 respondents that said that they had seen more than like 60 or 70 people at a campsite or shelter at one point in time. So I had no idea that it was that, that significantly crowded. So, wow. Let me see here. Um, yeah, the rest of this is they have a

[00:42:44] little bit of a summary on their tents and hammocks. So most people use tents. I was surprised about this stomp is, um, yeah, the 65% use tents like a standalone tent and then 30% use a trekking pole tent. So especially 95% of the people use a tent, 5% use hammocks. And they said that the most popular brands were Durston gear, big Agnes, Z-Pak, Nemo equipment, and then tarp tent,

[00:43:13] Gossamer gear and REI. So the two most popular tents with Durston gear, X-Mid one and Durston X-Mid Pro one, and then Gossamer gear, the one big Agnes copper spur, and then Z-Paks were the popular ones. Durston sounds new. It's not familiar. Yeah. Yeah. They're a newer product. I think I I'm not familiar with them, but it sounds like they're, they're popular. It used to be Z-Paks was, it was everything,

[00:43:40] but, um, the copper spur has been popular for a long time too. Okay. Okay. So anyway, if you want to get info on tents, I'll, I'll include the link in the show notes, but that, that's all we got, Stomp. All right, cool. All right, Stomp. Um, now's the time for a dad joke. You said toothpaste edition? Yes, I was inspired. Do you have one? Well, I've got two actually. I was inspired by our

[00:44:09] Chinese dissident who survived on toothpaste for X amount of days. Do you want to hear them? Okay. Yeah. I'm the, yeah, you do the dad joke this week. All right, here we go. Ready? Why did the toothpaste, toothpaste go on a hike? I give up. Because it wanted to get to the peak of freshness. Okay. All right. Here's number two. Why don't hikers ever

[00:44:34] forget their toothpaste? I give up. Because they always want to brush up on their trail skills. All right. It's so bad. Oh, that's bad. That's bad. So, all right. Um, now is the time of the show where we do pop culture talks. Stomp wants to talk about Casino Royale. Is this, isn't this a James

[00:44:58] Bond thing? It is. Yeah. I, um, I watched that the other day. I, I've come to find out that 2005, 2006 is probably my favorite time in movie making history. It's just, there was a vibe, uh, to the filmmaking. It wasn't quite CGI, but it was more mechanical and actual stunts. And, um, if you haven't seen this one in a while or haven't seen it period, it's unbelievable. It's in that

[00:45:27] same timeframe as say, um, war of the worlds or minority report. Uh, stunning. I think it doesn't get any better than this film, uh, for the Bond franchise with Daniel Craig. So check it out. Now I'm going through all the other ones and I'm telling you, nothing stands up to this movie. It's incredible. What's your goal? Stomp likes, um, 2005. I did watch, um, minority report. Have you seen that? Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Same. That was 2005,

[00:45:56] I think. Right. Yeah. It has a different feel about it. It's more natural and, um, I don't know. It's great. It's a great time in movie making history. Okay. Stomp. Stomp recommends 2005. Hmm. Yep. Absolutely. Okay. All right. Stomp. Um, well next up here, Stomp, we want to talk about coffee. So our, our friends from CS coffee, it's time for their, uh, their little plug here.

[00:46:23] That's right. So CS instant coffee, athlete ready, CS instant coffee. You can find them at www.csinstant.coffee. This is, uh, now's the time to take them on your through hike on the AT without question. Let's see here. Stickers. Oh my goodness. We haven't plugged stickers in a while. You can still get them

[00:46:49] at Ski Fanatics and Spinners in North Andover off of Dascombe Road in 93. Um, you can always advertise with the podcast. Just send us a direct message on Insta or Facebook. Uh, the bonfire shop is still on fire. Not literally, but, uh, those hoodies are still flying. So that's great. If you want a slasher hoodie, you can go to the link tree on Instagram. And this week we do not have any donations.

[00:47:19] Shame on the listeners. Shame, shame, shame. That's okay though. We forgive you. Beer talk. Uh, are you still like dry here or what? What's going on? I am. Yeah. Yeah. I got a big, I'm going, I'm going hiking on Saturday. I'm doing the bonds out and back on Saturday. So I'm trying, I'm trying to like, um, just stay healthy as best I can for that one. It's been like four episodes now. Are you trying to lose weight or, or, I don't know. I have been drinking stomp. I just have

[00:47:47] been drinking on the, I had a, I had a, I drank quite a bit this weekend on the guy's trip. So I'll talk about that. You're going to talk about that, right? I will. Okay, great. Well, I'm, I'm enjoying a zero gravity, uh, called it's my first double IPA in literally months and months and months. And this is from the, uh, what is this? Out of Vermont, Indy pale ale, Vermont green, zero gravity, what do you think? So zero gravity brewery, I guess. It's not bad.

[00:48:16] Very good. Very good. Um, all right. This is the part of the show where we talk about recent hike. Stomp is a retired hiker. So I've got to carry the load for us when it comes to hiking at this point. That's right. Three more weeks. So three more weeks, three more weeks. So I actually, I combined my hiking with a weekend trip. It was an ice fishing trip stomp, and I've never done this before. So it was a new experience for me. Sounds like a blast. I can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. I'll,

[00:48:46] so I'll give you the rundown. So we rented a house in Bridgeton, Maine on, um, Cedar road. I think it was such right on moose pond. And, um, it was 12 of us, 12 hardy fishermen. And we had two snowmobiles with us. So we were able to like, um, haul things out onto the lake with the snowmobiles. Cool. And then

[00:49:14] we had two gas powered augers. They use these augers or these like spinny things that you use to, to drill holes in the lake. Yeah. I like a basic job. And they had a table, like a table you would use for like, say bear pong or something like that. And we then had probably, I would say 12 or 15 of those like fishing rods. These things are like,

[00:49:42] they're little fishing rods. We put like, um, minnows or whatever those are shiners, and you put them in the hole and then you have like a, a flag and somehow the flag knows to pop up when the fish comes onto the fishing rod. So you don't have to actually sit there and hold the fishing rod. You just watch for a little orange flag to pop up when the fish happens. Okay.

[00:50:07] So you follow me, we got two snowmobiles, we got two augers, we've got 15 fishing rods, we got a table. We probably have about 400 pounds worth of gear between food and radios and 12 chairs and beer and hard alcohol and all the other miscellaneous food. And a beer pong table. So we're in this, so we're in this for a lot of money at this point. Yeah. You want to know how many fish we caught, Stomp?

[00:50:38] Did you get a goose egg? We caught one fish. It was like a eight inch perch. So it's the most expensive perch you're ever going to see in your life. So y'all starved, y'all starved to death, right? Well, we ate well, we ate well there, but no, but it was fun. It was fun, but it was just a, it was an interesting endeavor. It was a lot of work and a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff, but we had a fun time. Oh, I'm sure. The guys were good. Sounds like a great time.

[00:51:07] So, but I did head out early in the morning and I hiked up Pleasant Mountain, which is a great little mountain. So it used to be known as Shawnee Peak Ski Resort. And I took my friend Matt, who was not a hiker, and we went up the ledges trail to the summit. There's a nice fire tower lookout there. And then snowmobiles could actually take their snowmobiles up to the summit. So Matt wasn't pleased with me because I made him hike up the whole way.

[00:51:33] And he said like, look, we could have taken the snowmobiles up there and saved ourselves the headache. Right, right. So, but they weren't my snowmobiles, so I wouldn't have been able to take them anyway. But it was, it was still a good hike. Perfect views out to Mount Washington and the White Mountains. And then we even ran into a listener, listener Gabe. Shout out to you. We were talking to him on the summit, which was fun. Of all places. Right, right.

[00:52:02] So, and I'll tell you, Stomp, you have not lived until you've gone out bar hopping in Bridgeton, Maine on a cold Friday night in February. So where's that in relation to, say, North Conway? Ah, it's the 302, so it's basically like Bridgeton and then the next town over is Freiburg. Okay. And then Freiburg brings you into Conway, Center Conway and then North Conway's right there. So not far. Okay. Half hour maybe. Got it.

[00:52:33] So, but that's it, Stomp. So that was all I got. So I would say the hike on Pleasant Mountain was very pleasant. And it was good to get my friend out. He'd never done a winter hike. And he's a bodybuilder, Stomp. So for him, it was a little bit of a different thing to do all that cardio. Yeah, right. Hey, so what happened to this perch? I have no idea. Did you donate it? I have no idea. Just a local food pantry? I have no idea what they did with it. I think that they just put it back in.

[00:53:04] It's so great. Yeah, it was fun. So a lot of effort for a little bit of payoff. It's the journey that counts. It is. It is. But speaking of Journey, Stomp, I am going to put together my 48 Peaks team. I've got a couple of people that I've heard from already that want to join up. So I'll have more details on that in our next episode. But in the meantime, why don't we talk a little bit about our friends from 48 Peaks? That's right. You can use your passion for hiking to help end Alzheimer's.

[00:53:35] Join 400 plus hikers as they climb New Hampshire's 4,000 footers or create their own challenge to support the mission of the Alzheimer's Association. The annual hiker celebration will take place Saturday, June 21st at Tuckerman Brewery with raffles, food, and an amazing community. Hike that weekend or any day you want this summer.

[00:53:57] No fundraising minimums required, but those who raise $100 will receive the 2025 performance-grade purple t-shirt. Let's turn the White Mountains purple to end Alzheimer's. Visit alts.org right slash 48Peaks to learn more. Very cool, very cool. Very good, Stomp. Oh, dude, this is great. So for the last few weeks, we haven't had many notables, but all of a sudden we have a ton.

[00:54:26] So if you want to be considered for the Slasher Hike of the Week, just tag Slasher on Instagram or Facebook and we will add you to the list here. So we have a bunch. So Liz Fagan Izzy tackled New Boston and Russell Hill in Brookline, New Hampshire. Good friend Eric Hansen hiked Mount Monroe, Washington, and Jefferson. Stunning pictures, Eric.

[00:54:54] Gingerbeard Keen pulled off a solo up Carragane. That's impressive. Yeah, it always is. Carragane any time of the year is impressive. It's a commitment. Nick and Nature, the McIntyre Range and Street from Nye in the 80K. Hey, I'm not familiar with this. Are you? No, no, I'm not familiar. I'll find out. I'm getting together with Nick on Saturday, so I'll find out. He's in the Adirondacks.

[00:55:24] Yeah, yeah. Beautiful picks. Fit to hike 603 hiked North Hancock. Zach Camo also hiked North and South Kinsman's for 14 and 15 out of the 48. Rhonda Willett, 68, hiked the Osceolas. That's another killer winter hike. That's no joke either, especially if you're going counterclockwise. And then what Donna Hamilton photographs hiked Monroe and Mount Washington.

[00:55:53] And I'm assuming that Marlee Sue, too, joined her as well, also hiking Monroe and Washington. Then a good friend, Jakester, hiked Mount Sunapee. Seagothburg, a good friend, hiked Moosalock and posted some amazing pictures. That friggin' hiker hiked Lynn Woods all over the place. And boy, I posted a bunch of those pictures. I miss that place. It's such a special, special area in Lynn, Massachusetts.

[00:56:23] And then finally, Summit Snack Attack hiked South Moat. Your background there. Your favorite place. I like that. I like that. I've been trying to visit Summit Snack Attack on the weekends, but the weather hasn't worked out. So I'll try it. But this is good stuff. So let me see here. So, oh man. You got a winner. Mr. Keene did the Kerrigan solo. But then, like, I'd say, like, I'll give it to Donna and Marley for the Monroe Mount Washington.

[00:56:53] That's impressive. And then Eric Hansen added on Jefferson to his Monroe Washington and then Ginger Beer Keene. So congratulations, everybody. Right on. Honorable mention for the friggin' hiker Lynn Woods for Stomps' stomping ground. There you go. And there was much rejoicing. Much rejoicing. All right, Stomp, so let's jump into a segment here. We got a chance to talk with Mike York from Veterans in the 48. So let's talk with Mike.

[00:57:23] We'll move into the segment and then come out the other side. All right, let's go. All right, Mike. Welcome to the Slasher Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Excellent. So, Stomp, why don't you kick it off and give a little bit of background. How did we connect with Mike? Redux, part two. Let's do this over. We're taking it live. Yeah, we just simply reached out through Instagram.

[00:57:52] I've been a big fan. We've been reposting Vets on the 48 post for, God knows, like three years now plus, right? Yeah. So really keeping a close eye on you and thought it was time to get somebody in to discuss the good news. And here we are. Awesome. So, Mike, why don't you start off, why don't you introduce yourself, give a little bit of background and talk a little bit about Veterans on the 48. Yeah. Hello. Again, thanks for having me. My name is Michael York.

[00:58:20] I'm the founder and president of Veterans on the 48. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. And our mission is to get more veterans outside on the trails to promote physical and mental wellness. Awesome. And then can you talk a little bit about your own, so you're a hiker, you get out there just like we do. Can you talk a little bit about like your, I guess your early life and your introduction to doing outdoor activities?

[00:58:47] I didn't really have much of an outdoor activity life, I guess, as a kid. I mean, your usual playing outside, but I wasn't big into hiking or anything like that. And, you know, it wasn't until the military where you get the forced rocks kind of thrown down your throat. But short of that, yeah, and I wasn't really big into the outdoors. I wasn't a hiker or anything like that growing up. Well, at what point did you get into outdoor activities and hiking? It was after the military, after the Marine Corps.

[00:59:15] And, yeah, my father called me up one day and we randomly decided to do Mount Washington. That was kind of our first. Oh, so that, so there's a, so we'll link this in the show notes, but there's like sort of, you talk a little bit of the origin story of Vets on the 48. And we'll, you can get into more detail on that, but that was actually your first hike is Mount Washington with your dad. Yeah, my first, I guess you call it a real hike. You know, you've done some small things, but nothing to that degree before. Wow.

[00:59:44] And then you got the bug and do you, have you completed the 4,000, I'm assuming you've completed the 4,000 footers at this point? Yeah, I finished on isolation in 2017 or 18, I think. Okay. So you, pretty quickly after you, after you started hiking, you finished. Yeah. I did it probably within a year or so. So, so I was back and forth as much as I could to get it done. Wow. Well, why don't you, why don't you just get into the origin story?

[01:00:12] So it taught basically like veterans on the 48 and then your own hiking journey are sort of combined together. So why don't you tell a little bit about that first hike and what inspired you to start veterans on the 48? Yeah. Yeah. So I, again, I had no interest in hiking really. It wasn't, I hadn't found it yet. Yeah. I guess you could say. And my father called me up randomly one day and it was, he had just quit smoking.

[01:00:41] He was about his, I think he was at his one year kind of anniversary of being smoke free. And he called me up and he's like, Hey, like I want to do Mount Washington. It's been a year. Do Mount Washington. And I was like, I don't know what the hell is that going to be? You know, I've never done anything like that before. You're like, dad, your lungs are still, they're not fully clean here yet. Like, what are you thinking? Yeah. You know, you hear the stories and people die up there and you're like, I'm just thinking worst case scenario. Like, I mean, I don't know. But then like, why not? Let's do it. It'll be fun.

[01:01:09] So we just kind of got the ball rolling and started playing and playing in the weekend. You know, we owned no gear. I didn't even own hiking boots or anything. So we had to go to, you know, the different outlets, REI, Eastern Mountain Sports. And we were probably their favorite customers because we didn't know what we were doing. So they could just give us anything and we would, you know, we bought it. So we spent a ton of money, bought everything that you could think of. I remember we looked at like the AMC recommended list for the three season hikes and we just bought everything on it.

[01:01:39] And that's what we brought up the mountain with a short of like a sleeping bag and a sleeping pad. So it was, we really didn't know what we were doing. Yeah. Do you remember what route you took? Yeah, we went up Lion's Head and then we came down Tuckerman's. Okay. That's a good, that's a good choice. And then what, what do you remember about that?

[01:02:02] So you have a good story about this, but like he kind of, I read it earlier and you sort of got in your head a little bit on the hike, but you were successful, right? Yeah. Um, so prior to the end of my military career, I had some things kind of transpire that I carried with me for a long time. Um, you know, kind of a loss of self, you know, I didn't have, didn't have much confidence in things and I had a lot of anger, um, the way things played out. And I just really never got over it.

[01:02:32] Maybe I thought I did, or I just buried it. It just, you know, it went away. Uh, and it started to kind of resurface around that time. Um, I had a new job that was similar to the military. And, uh, so we started doing this hike and we're working our way up and, you know, we had gone out the night before, so we didn't prepare very well either. So kind of a backstory went out and we celebrated before the hike by going to the Tuckerman's, uh, bar near where we were staying and had a little too much to drink. So we already started out kind of in the red.

[01:03:01] You're supposed to do that after. Yeah. I know that now. So that's live and learn. And, um, so that was stupid, but you know, it adds to the story and we laugh about it today, but you know, so we're going up and we're not feeling that great. And we have way too much gear with us. Uh, we weren't dressed accordingly. I had the pants I wore to do that hike. It was September. I think it was like in the sixties when we started, maybe in the thirties, the top, whatever. But the pants I had on, I don't even wear now unless it's like negative 15 degrees. They're just, I didn't know what I was wearing.

[01:03:31] I didn't know what I bought. But so anyway, so we have all that going on and, you know, we're enjoying the hike and we're making fun of each other and we're just laughing and, you know, it was a great time. And then you get to points where you're just, you just kind of physically out of it. You know, when you don't want to talk, you just, you just get quiet and you just walk behind the guy in front of you. And my mind started just spinning and it would go to these places that I just hadn't thought about in a while.

[01:03:55] And I was kind of reliving this kind of toxic self thoughts about me. And it just, it was making the hike a lot harder. And then you'd come out of it and, you know, we had gained some ground and, you know, really aware of the distance. And I was just spacing out and, you know, you go back into laughing and, oh, this is great. And what the hell are we doing up here? Dad, this was a horrible idea. Like you suck. No, you suck. And, you know, it was great.

[01:04:21] And then some time would go by again and you get tired and you lose that kind of motivation and your mind gets the best of you. And it started going back to those places and it just, it was beating me up. And, you know, it, it just started taking away from the day. And then you get closer to the top and we're like seeing what we thought was the summit. And, you know, you're coming over the rocks and you're like, holy crap, we're there. Like all of a sudden this feeling of, you know, accomplishment and pride and just, oh, we did this together. And I did it with my dad.

[01:04:50] And, you know, like all of a sudden just like that, everything changed. And it was, it turned into this positive moment. And, you know, I felt great about myself and what we had just done together. And, you know, we get a picture at the summit sign and, you know, we had a quick little lunch in the summit building there. And it was just, it was awesome. And, you know, it was like a feeling I hadn't had in a while about me and about what I could do and what I could achieve, you know, when you really push yourself.

[01:05:19] And it just reminded me of stuff I had done in the military. So it immediately stuck and it was just something that I wanted to keep doing. But, yeah. And then from there, it sounds like based on what your timeline is that you gave me. So you made it down, you and your dad. Did your dad have the same experience? Did he keep going as well with the hiking? Oh, yeah. He's part of my board. He's been with me since the very beginning. And that's, you know, that's something that I really appreciate. And it's a cool bond that we have together.

[01:05:49] Yeah. Yeah. So you got down off the mountain, you and your father. So did you immediately start planning on your next hike? Yes and no. So we had no idea about the New Hampshire 48 at the time. You know, Washington was the big thing we did. And I think I started looking into Katahdin with a few friends. And, you know, we'd pick out a couple of different mountains along the way. Sometimes we'd get together to do them together. And then all of a sudden I found the New Hampshire 48 website. And I'm like, what is this thing? And I started researching it. And I'm like, Dad, we got to do this.

[01:06:17] We have to get this patch. We got to hit all these mountains. It'd be awesome. So we started doing that. You know, and again, it was some solo, some together. But the more we did it, just the more I kind of started to feel like myself again. And I just kept getting more and more out of these hikes. And I just look forward to going each time. You know, we had one planned. Yeah. Do you always like a goal-driven person? Like I'm the same way.

[01:06:43] I like the list because there's always something that I got to keep going on. And that way I don't have to think about like, oh, geez, what am I going to do next? I have a bunch of options. So I don't stress out about it. I think it was just because it was a goal-oriented, mission-oriented task that it kind of resonated with me. And again, that's kind of like a military thing for me as well, where you have the goal to achieve. You know, you've got to plan. You've got to prep. There's a lot that goes into it. And then you achieve it. And now you get the next one.

[01:07:12] You can just kind of keep doing that. So I fell in love with it immediately. That's awesome. And then do you remember, I'm starting to remember back in like, it was 17, 18. Like the social media was still around, but it wasn't as big of a deal, I don't think, right? Because you had to do more of your own research with books and things like that, right? As far as what, like developing our social media? No, just planning like your hikes when you were doing the 48. Yeah, I would use these own apps. I mean, we had obviously the internet and everything. And most of the stuff was there for us.

[01:07:41] You know, all trails and the different apps. But, you know, I have the old AMC books and the 4,000-footer book and all that. So we'd read those and prep as best we could. At what point did you and your father decide that, you know, we could be on to something here with veterans and let's start a group and make this happen? Yeah, so it was right after I found out about the 48 and I started kind of pushing towards it. So it was 2017, 2018.

[01:08:09] I got the idea of, you know, there's that patch that you get for the AMC 4,000-footers club. And I just thought, like, how cool would it be if we could try to get them to adopt? Because this was my original plan was just to see if I could get them to adopt a patch for veterans. So you have a goal-oriented, you know, mission-oriented task where you get veterans to go and do the New Hampshire 48. And they'd have this tangible patch that they could carry home with them after they achieved it. You know, because we're big in the challenge coins and the patches and all that.

[01:08:37] And, I mean, I spent months putting together this proposal for the AMC 4,000-footers club. You know, I reached out to their archives. And I was just, my plan was to, one, to show the benefits associated with outdoor recreation and how it relates to PTSD and anxiety and depression and all that. And, you know, the positive aspects that are there. But also I wanted to try to make the AMC synonymous with service members and veterans.

[01:09:05] So I dug through the archives and I came across hundreds of AMC members who were either currently veterans or that would later go on and serve. And it was actually really interesting. And I kind of get, like, fascinated with the whole process. And I came across some, like, real notable veterans and service members. You know, you have Joe Dodge, who's a Navy veteran, and was instrumental in organizing or, you know, implementing the HUD system and the radio communications.

[01:09:35] And throughout the huts, you had Earl Schaefer, the first Army veteran to, or first anybody, really, to do the whole Appalachian Trail. He was an Army veteran. The most interesting one that I found was Salvatore Pagliuca. I may have butchered his last name, but he worked at the Galehead Hut in 1932. And he was the one that was up at the observatory and recorded the 231-mile-an-hour wind speed. And he would later go on and join the Army.

[01:10:03] Unfortunately, he died in a training mission, but, again, he went into the service after his time with the AMC. And I just, I kept finding him and finding, you know, the plaques in Lakes of the Clouds that they're, dining hall is dedicated to a veteran. You got the 10th Mountain Division plaque on the top of Mount Washington. And just the more you looked, there was just service connection everywhere. You know, the Water Nomi bomber crash site there, that's, you know, it was just really interesting.

[01:10:32] So that was my plan. I was like, hey, like, you know, veterans and the service members are really connected to the AMC. And they have been since the beginning. And, you know, I enjoyed the research and presenting it and everything. And, you know, the AMC 4,000 Footers Club was very receptive. They were very positive. And I was very grateful for their feedback. And ultimately, we weren't able to do the patch just because I think of the doors that would open for everyone else that made money.

[01:11:01] And now you're becoming, like, subdivisions. And it just, it would take away from the overall mission there. And you had additional groups that would want to get into it. I was grateful for the time. And I learned a lot just from the research, which kind of motivated me to go further with it. But I just, I didn't want to take no for an answer. I knew I had something. And so I was just like, you know, I'll do it myself. And I'll come up with my own patch. So I began, you know, designing a logo with a friend of mine. And the logo we have now is what we came up with together.

[01:11:33] You know, from there, it just kind of became a hiking group. I just wanted to see if I could get other veterans together and come hike with us. And, you know, I scoured the internet and social media. And I tried to follow like-minded groups and organizations and just try to find other vets that were hiking in the White Mountains. And in 2019, I was able to put together our first group hike, which happened to be the flags on the 48. And so we put together a team of 12 people. It was 11 veterans.

[01:11:59] And we had one civilian support member that came with a buddy of his. And we did North Twin. And, you know, I organized the day. We got all the flag, the tools and everything. We got shirts made, which I screwed up and got cotton t-shirts, which live and learn. That's kind of not to wear. But, I mean, it was a great day. And no one knew anybody. So it was just we were all meeting for the first time. It was pouring rain that year. And it was like freezing rain with high winds.

[01:12:28] So we get to the top and we raise the American flag. And we're all huddled together shoulder to shoulder trying to stay warm and dry. And, you know, we're sharing drinks. And, you know, we brought up a little speaker to listen to some music. And it was just a great time that, you know, we did it together. And it was as miserable as it was, it was, you know, it was just that military bond. And it was like we knew each other forever. Yeah, it's interesting, too, because if you don't know each other, then, you know, logistically, that's not like the easiest first hike to deal with the flags on the 48 because you have a bunch of extra equipment.

[01:12:57] Who's going to bring this pole? Who's going to carry this? Who's going to bring the flag? Who's going to bring the support structure? So it's not like it's a simple like, hey, meet at the trailhead and go to the summit and come back down. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just nice because now that's our anniversary. Every year we do flags on the 48. That's another year in the books for our organization. So it's kind of a cool date to share with that. Do you switch up the summits every year? We do, yeah.

[01:13:25] So the goal is in 48 years, you have to have every summit. Yeah, eventually. Whatever we hand it down to and they hand it down and they hand it down, eventually we'll knock them all out. Take all the good ones now while you're young, right? Yep. So that's awesome. And then, so the group has evolved. So essentially you started from that hike in 2019. And at what point did you start getting like pretty consistently getting group hikes going?

[01:13:53] And then can you talk a little bit about like, I'm assuming that in some scenarios, you know, you're getting referrals from people that are like, hey, you know, I think that this person is not a hiker, but they could really probably use the opportunity. And I'm assuming sometimes you just have these situations where it's a one and done shorter hike. And then you also probably have scenarios where people get the bug like you did and they want to stay forever. So can you talk a little bit about like the, the dynamic that developed around the group hikes? Yeah.

[01:14:22] So again, that 2019 hike that flags in the 40th, that was, that was the first one we did. We were able to do it one more that year with a small group. There's only three of us. And then 2020 hit, which was COVID. So, you know, I got this great idea. I want to move forward with it. And COVID shows up. So that year we owned, we were only able to do four different hikes. You know, it was slow moving. It was what it was. You know, I remember when we did the flags of the 48 that year, we all had to wear masks and it was just ridiculous.

[01:14:52] Yeah. But because of what COVID was and we didn't have anywhere to go or we couldn't do anything, it gave me the opportunity to get the 501c3 status done. So I got all the paperwork ready and, you know, I wanted to go from a group hike or, you know, just being a group of veterans to a nonprofit where we could not only just do day hikes, but we could make, kind of expand on their experience. We could take them to a hut for the night.

[01:15:15] We could do the dinner and the breakfast there and break bread to just, I don't know, just, you know, share a sunrise or a sunset in a different setting they may never have seen before, like up on a mountain, which, you know, how cool is that? And for 2020, you know, I couldn't do it by myself. And so I knew I needed help, especially wanting to expand and get a little bigger. So we started those four hikes we did in 2020.

[01:15:40] I started meeting, you know, more veterans and you start developing that core group. And of that core group, I found people that shared my kind of dream and my vision and easy to get along with. And everyone else seemed to like that, too. And I asked them to come on as fellow board members, which was Jessica Bryant, Yuma Haidera, Mike Bassett, and my father, Greg. And we became the initial board and we started planning hikes and, you know, different events.

[01:16:09] And then you move forward into 2021 and we went from planning four events. And now we have a nonprofit status. So we were able to do 15 hikes. Some of those incorporated the MC huts. We were able to do willingness first aid classes and start educating veterans on, you know, what to pack, what not to pack, what to look out for, you know, different scenarios and how to treat them if you get hurt or if you come across other people that get hurt.

[01:16:32] You know, we were able to purchase gear for vets, take them to REI or whatever and get them the boots, the pack, the water source and just whatever they need to get on the trail and be able to safely and effectively, you know, reach the summit and hike again with us. Then we started even expanding even more. And in 2022, we brought up our trail crew. So we started doing work on the trail and kind of giving back and volunteering, which is important, you know, especially in our community. Service to others is something that, you know, has always driven us.

[01:17:01] It's really what led most of us to go into the military. So let's keep that as part of our core values. So we brought the trail crew into it. But, but yeah, I mean, we've got up to, we're at 153 different veterans now since we started that have come out and hiked with us and, you know, whether they come back or it's a one and done type deal.

[01:17:25] But, you know, we're able to facilitate that experience for more and more veterans now, now that we have the nonprofit status and we're able to raise funds and money. I've seen you guys out a couple of times. I think I ran into you, a crew on Mount Pierce last winter. I know Jeff was in that group. So it is nice to see you guys get out. But I'm assuming at this point right now, you're doing a lot of hikes annually, right? Yeah. So we're, like I said, we started out with the two and then the four.

[01:17:52] And now we're anywhere from like 18 to 22 different events every year, whether it's a hike or like we just did something in January with Ty Gagney where we, you know, it's just like a seminar type deal. We try to do as many as we can. But yeah, we're up to anywhere from 18 to 22 different events here now. Yeah. What about you personally? Are you still getting out as much? Yes or no. So with work and family and the nonprofit, I'll get out as much as I can. Luckily through this nonprofit, I made a lot of close friends.

[01:18:21] So what were, you know, like when I'd go out prior to the nonprofit and I would get my own hikes in. Now I'm able to go out and hike with the nonprofit, but at the same time, I'm hiking with a bunch of buddies and really close friends that I've made. So it's still like just as therapeutic and just as beneficial for me as it was before. I mean, there's a little stress in the planning aspect of it now. But, you know, I'm able to get out pretty often, which is nice.

[01:18:49] You got to start the veterans on the 52 with a few next. Yeah. Yeah. You know, early on, I was very focused on the 48 for profit, obviously the name and what caused me to start it. But realizing that to be as inclusive as possible to get maybe some older veterans or some slower veterans, some first time veterans, we realized that, you know, we did need to change that. And so now, you know, we just did the women's group just did Mount Willard.

[01:19:17] We're going out on Willard again in May and June with the VFW. And, you know, we're just opening it up to more peaks just to get as many veterans in there as we can. Right, right. Do you have any memories of like any close calls or wild hikes that you went on with the crew? You ever get in over your head with some new hikers? We've been very fortunate where we haven't really had anything too crazy.

[01:19:46] When I think it was our second or third hike, we did the Hancocks and this was early going and, you know, we weren't, it was just the group hike. It wasn't a nonprofit yet. And we had a guy who actually wasn't a veteran, but he was, he came with the vet who was a little kind of wary of coming out, you know, and he wanted to know if he could bring his friend. And we're like, you know, whatever it takes to get you out with us. And yeah, absolutely. You can, you can bring them. And so his buddy decided not to let us know that he had been putting off this hernia surgery for years. And we're walking out.

[01:20:15] We still have about two miles left and all of a sudden he keels over and he holds his stomach and he'd be like, what the heck is going on? This guy's dying on us. Put his shirt up and he had just this like massive, like goiter thing sticking out. And he's like, oh yeah, I'm burning out. We're like, son of a bitch. We do. So my father just, you know, he rolled out the duct tape and we pushed that thing in as deep as we could. And we taped them up as tight as we could. And we carried them out and, you know, walked them out together.

[01:20:44] And that was that. But short of that, you know, we've had some people take some diggers where they fell 15, 20 feet down the trail. And we will kind of jump on them and grab them before they end up in Ty's next book. But, you know, we've been pretty fortunate so far. Knock on wood and everything else that's around. Not the two crazy things happen. That's good. The trail maintenance piece of it, are you specifically, are you involved in that? Or is that something that your father manages more of? So he's our trail crew coordinator.

[01:21:14] He plans the dates. He coordinates with the Forest Service and all the paperwork and documentation that goes in with that. So he's the head of that. He runs that. I've gone out a couple times with him. But usually scheduling wise, I just, I haven't been able to get out to those. But that's his thing. And then how can the listeners, if they want to support you guys or partner with you or something, how can they, first of all, how can they give you money? And then if they want to partner or get involved, if they know a veteran or something, like how can they reach out?

[01:21:45] Yeah. So to donate to Veterans on the 48, you can go to our website, www.veteransonthe48.org. There's links there for our PayPal. You know, there's other options such as checks and our addresses in there and all that. That would be the most direct way, I guess, you could support. Being a smaller nonprofit, that's fundraising is usually one of our biggest hurdles. So that's definitely the most direct way. Other ways is you can just simply refer a veteran to us who you think may benefit from hiking.

[01:22:13] You know, we've had spouses reach out to us via email or whatever and just say, hey, I came across this. And I think my husband may benefit from this. Can you reach out? And we reach out and they hike with us and, you know, we go from there. And, you know, it's a good thing. And, you know, they've been back with us a few times now. Other things you can do too, you know, if you're not a hiker, if you don't have the money to donate, something simply just is following us. As weird as that sounds, you follow us on social media, whether it's Facebook or Instagram.

[01:22:42] That helps us reach a large audience. So if we post an event and you see it, you can just simply share it. And maybe you have a veteran that follows you and they'll see it that way. And when we apply for grants too, for, you know, whatever reason they want to know how big your following is, the bigger our following is, the more likely we are to have grants be approved when we apply for them. Okay. And we'll include all these in the show notes, including it will include your Instagram and your Facebook. Stomp's always back and forth with you guys on the Instagram. He loves the Instagram. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:23:12] It's, I don't know. It's the, what do you want to call it? The devil, you know, I'm so sick Instagram and the internet and all that, but it's so necessary for what we're doing. Like that's where we post all our events and hikes. So if you're a vet and you want to come hike with us, you got to follow Instagram. You got to follow Facebook at Veterans on the 48. And then we post them all on our website as well. The Veterans on the 48.org. Yeah, no. And you guys got some good photos on Instagram for sure. So I prefer Instagram over Facebook just for the photos and the less nonsense for sure.

[01:23:42] But that's great. And then as far as future plans, so you guys will stay involved in the flags on the 48. So definitely people can probably keep an eye out for you. And then the few times I've seen you, typically there's usually like a photo op when you get to the summit. Sometimes you'll bring like a little banner or something. So you guys are easy to spot. Yeah, we bring our flag with us on all our hikes, whether it's one of the black ones.

[01:24:07] But that's our summit photo and that's kind of how we get our name out and get people to know who we are. Nice. And now have you been out recently? I did one in January with the group. And we're actually set to go out on the 8th to do Mount Adams. So we're going to shoot for Matt Adams. And Madison, everything cooperates and we get the time and the weather's on our side. And we'll see how that goes. But yeah, Adams is the plan for the 8th. That's a good one. That's a good one.

[01:24:33] Hopefully the weather will behave and you'll get a nice undercast and some sick views. Yeah, fingers crossed. We've seen it all. Right. Right. Wow. Well, Mike, it's been great getting to talk with you. And I think Veterans on the 48 has been a great story to follow. And I feel like you guys have grown significantly. Stomp, I don't know, do you have any questions before we let Mike get back to dinner?

[01:25:01] Yeah, I was curious if you could just share maybe a testimonial or two anonymously as to how it impacted a service member via hiking. Yeah. Well, I'm not prepared with an exact quote or anything. We do send out surveys and we get messages. But... No, no, no, that's fine. You know, there was one time, you know, I get stressed out or overworked or whatever. And I actually have a message that I saved that came from one of our veteran hikers.

[01:25:31] I won't go too much into detail because, you know, people can probably figure out who it is if I share the story. But he basically told me that the organization and what we do and including him saved his life. Nice. There you go. That's what it's all about. No, that's great. I got some money on it right now. But, um, so I still have that and, you know, I read it now and again, um, especially when I'm kind of losing focus. Because it is a lot sometimes. So you read that and it grounds you and you're like, well, this is why we're doing it. Excellent.

[01:25:59] And, uh, we're going to keep doing it. So, um, and actually, actually leading to that, I feel like I'd be doing a disservice too if I don't thank a few people, um, before, before I leave. Uh, we've had a lot of support since we've started. Uh, you know, I did start it myself, but it would not be what it is today or where we are today without a lot of different people. Um, mainly first the board, uh, Jess, Yuma, Mike Bassett, uh, my father, Greg, Josh King, and Melissa, Jeremy. Uh, they've been awesome.

[01:26:29] And without them, I wouldn't be able to do what we do. Um, we've had a ton of sponsors that have really stepped up and have become real close with us. Uh, Subaru of New England. Uh, they donate to us every year. They provide vehicles for transportation. The Appalachian Mountain Club has been amazing. They hook us up with hut stays and discounts. And, you know, as a smaller nonprofit, it goes a long way, uh, knowing that we have them in our corner. Uh, the Homebase program's been great. Uh, we partnered with them many times for the adventure series.

[01:26:58] Uh, you know, they work with us and they bring our group to different Red Sox games and things like that. So it's, that's been really nice. The DAV, uh, we partnered with them. They brought us to Africa, which I'd never in a million years would ever thought would happen when I was designing my patch in 2019. You know, um, yeah, that was, that was a wild trip. Uh, Soldier Sox. They've, they're, uh, an organization that makes socks and for every pair that's sold, they donate a pair to a service member overseas. So it's nice to partner with someone like that. Hiker Hunger.

[01:27:28] They've been giving us free trekking poles for years and now we get them at, you know, pretty much half off whenever we need them. Law Enforcement Officer Support Foundation, uh, which is run by my buddy, Mike Best, who's another veteran. He's been a sponsor for our 9-11 hike every year and is always there for us. Worldwide trekking. Steve Smith at the Mountain Wanderer has been great. You know, he gave us a shout out in his most recent book, which was a great surprise. We had no idea it was coming and someone bought it and sent me a picture of it and was like, dude, you guys are in this book. It was pretty cool.

[01:27:58] Uh, Sherpa Ant, who everybody knows. Yep. Every year she donates, uh, different prints of the summits we do for the flags in the 48. So we have essentially they become like collector's items for our group. So like, you know, every year you do one, you get the new print and you can collect the cards, which is pretty cool. Uh, the National Forest Service has been great to us. Uh, they got us all trained up in the trail crew, um, qualifications that we needed. Um, and then also the American Infidels Veteran Motorcycle Club out of New Hampshire.

[01:28:27] Um, in 2021, they reached out to me. They pitched a bunch of different nonprofits that they were going to raise money for. And ours was one of them. And, you know, again, we had no idea. It went through their process and voted on and they ended up selecting us. And, uh, they held a fundraiser for us. It raised $3,000 in three hours. Yeah. And for me, that was kind of like the realization that, you know, we're no longer just this hiking group. We're now kind of established and we have people that see what we're doing and care about what we're doing and believe in what we're doing.

[01:28:56] And they want to help. And, uh, it was just a very, I guess, kind of surreal moment for our group to all of a sudden be the beneficiary of a fundraiser like that. So it was pretty cool. Um, and then, you know, last but not least, definitely my wife, Angela. Um, since I found the 48 and running back and forth to the mountains and disappearing and having my head in the books or heading the maps or doing radio shows or Zoom calls or whatever.

[01:29:22] Um, I know it's a lot and, you know, she's been great and it's not always easy, but I can't do what I do without her. So thank you, Angela. Uh, I love you. So, yeah. Thank you, Angela, for giving this guy a pass to go. Does she go hiking with you or is she, she kind of like, yeah, that's your thing. No, I, she's done a few of the 4,000 footers with me. Uh, we hike a lot each year in Acadia up in Maine. Um, we're actually going to Scotland for our 10 year anniversary in August. Oh, nice. I may be saying it wrong, but we're hiking, uh, Ben Nevis, which is, yep. So we're going to put that in.

[01:29:52] We're going to do Washington prior to it as a test run. Um, but that's the plan to do that together. So that'll be pretty cool. Right. Well, that's good. It's always, um, it's tough sometimes to like leave. You know, I feel that sometimes, but I also know that she knows like, okay, it's, it's, he's a bear if I, if he doesn't get out in the woods and, and, uh, clear his head out. So I'm sure that's probably the same way it sounds like. So it's good. Very good. Well, this is, this is great.

[01:30:19] So we are, we'll definitely throw a link in for all the sponsors and partners that you guys have, have gotten. It's really awesome to see the support. And I think it's an important thing. I know that, you know, I've got a lot of friends that are veterans. I'm not a veteran myself and everybody has their own journey, but I think that in particular, um, men, I think right now there's a, there's a challenge with men in particular where we're not supposed to show our emotions.

[01:30:43] We're not supposed to, um, you know, really, it's not encouraged necessarily to like talk to people. And I, I still don't, you know, people don't always talk, but just getting out in the woods, I think, and, and having an outlet, like you said, like your, your first hike, when you were thinking about how you were pondering things and you were holding on to anger, like instead of you exploding on a, on a human, you know, you can release it slowly in the woods, I think sometimes. And I think that that's, that's the best thing to do.

[01:31:11] So it may not always be hiking, but you got to find something. And I think that hiking in particular offers people a great outlet. Yep. I agree a hundred percent. Um, I felt more and more like myself every time I came back because of that, because, because of the mountains and the outdoors. And that's all I want to do is share it with people. So that's what we're doing. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing your story with us, Mike. And, um, like I said, we will definitely share this with our audience and hopefully some folks will throw you guys some donations. I appreciate it guys. Thanks for having me. Thanks Mike. Awesome.

[01:31:45] Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com. That's S-L-A-S-R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.

[01:32:15] We hope you'll join us next week for another great show until then on behalf of Mike and Stomp, get out there and crush some mega heats. Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites, Chris staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever. Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when the weather started to get worse.

[01:32:45] Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. And there's three words to describe this race. Do we all know what they are? Holy one! Here is Lieutenant James Neeland from New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lucinda, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire? Seems to me the most common is being unprepared.

[01:33:12] I think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.