Episode 239 - Avoiding Crowds on 4000 Footers, SAR Marriage Proposal, Baxter State Park, Black Mountain and Doublehead

[00:00:08] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org.

[00:00:31] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon. Search and Rescue teams, avalanche experts, and backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above treeline.

[00:00:51] You should too. Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Hello listeners! Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of July 18th, 2026.

[00:01:16] Friday, mostly in the clear trending towards clearing early under mostly sunny skies. High in mid-40s. Wind northwest at 50-70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph early, 40-55 mph with gusts up to 65 mph midday, and 30-45 mph later. Wind chill rising to 25-35 above. Friday night, mostly in the clear under mostly cloudy skies.

[00:01:42] Low, steady in the mid-40s. Wind northwest shifting west at 30-45 mph early, decreasing to 20-35 mph. Wind chill 25-35 mph above. And Saturday, mostly in the clear under mostly cloudy skies. Wind winds, trending into the clouds by midday. A chance of morning rain showers becoming likely in the afternoon. A chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

[00:02:02] High in the lower 50s. Wind west shifting southwest at 20-35 mph early, 30-45 mph with gusts up to 55 mph midday, and 40-55 mph with gusts up to 70 mph later. Higher gusts possible with thunderstorm activity. Wind chill 25-35 above, early then rising. So starting out pretty nice on Friday. Looks like things are getting a little bit rainy and potentially thunderstormy on Saturday afternoon. Stay safe out there. Happy hiking. Go Crush and Peaks!

[00:02:31] The Woodpecker Studio in the great live free or die state of New Hampshire.

[00:03:11] 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 and beyond.

[00:03:24] He just hit record. We're on episode 239. We gotta switch it up a little bit here. We had a little scheduling issue. One of our guests couldn't make it.

[00:03:52] So, which happens sometimes, but I think this is the first time in a long time where this has happened where we were not able to slot somebody else in. So it's just Mike and Nick tonight, right? Yeah, yeah. Life happens sometimes as they say, but you cranked out some content for us. So I think we've got enough to do a show. We do. Or more than enough probably. You were thinking about a history segment, I know, but it sounds like we're pretty crammed. Yeah, I got some stuff I gotta work on now, but we won't cover it in this show.

[00:04:21] But we've got a bunch of things here, but I wanted to start the show off. Just a reminder, Seek the Peak is coming up. So Seek the Peak is the annual fundraiser for the Mount Washington Observatory. So it's their largest annual fundraiser. It's been going on for 26 years. So it brings together hikers, adventurers, and people who care about weather science and the outdoors.

[00:04:48] So the annual Seek the Peak is coming up on Saturday, July 18th. So when we drop this on Friday, it'll be the next day. So it's, I guess, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Wildcat is the after-party event. But you can go ahead and register. So we'll put the registration link in the show notes. And then if you can't hike, but you want to help out, our friend Andy from the COG.

[00:05:15] And even the COG, and the COG just were involved in another rescue this week. They shuffled up a bunch of people. We're going to cover that. But if you want to donate to Andy's Seek the Peak fundraiser, he is, he's going to climb Mount Washington from Raymond Cataract. Do you know what that is, Nick? So Raymond Cataract, I believe, is the, I don't know, I guess it's a cataract. I'm not sure if I'm assuming a cataract. Yeah, it's like a geological feature. I know there's a waterfall you can see certain times of the year, but I believe it's that area.

[00:05:45] If you're looking, like, say you're on Square Ledge and Pinkham Notch and looking across, it's the area in between Tuckerman Ravine on your left and then Huntington on your right. So it's that, like, in-between sort of area. It's sort of like on the right shoulder of Lionhead, basically. Yes, I believe you're right. I'm not familiar with the Lionhead route, but that sounds about right. It's sort of that right, off the right side of Tuckerman Ravine, if you're looking at it, or I guess kind of the northern side of Tuckerman Ravine might be more appropriate to say.

[00:06:14] I think it's technically in Huntington Ravine, but to the far left. So Lionhead Trail goes up right on the edge of the two ravines, and then I think Raymond Cataract is a bushwhack for sure. Yes.

[00:06:32] There used to be some kind of a trail that there was some reference to a trail in the 1955 to 1970s that it was referenced in the AMC guides, but it's since been grown over. So it is a true bushwhack, but I think it's essentially just following, like, some kind of a drainage that has multiple waterfalls with one waterfall that I think is known as being more spectacular. But, so he's taking a crazy route up. Yeah, I'm like, it sounds very Andy-esque.

[00:07:01] I look forward to hearing about his adventure and seeing it. Right. I remember seeing, you were talking about waterfalls, but when I was up there one time, I think it had to be like late May, early June, looking across some square ledge up there. And there was like a waterfall you could even see with your eyes sort of like coming down that time of year. It was pretty impressive. And like zooming in with my camera, I was like, oh, that's like a massive cascade. Like it was huge coming down there. Right. It was really impressive. Yeah.

[00:07:25] And for listeners, I think just so that everyone can get their bearing, when you say square ledge, I think some people think of like, oh, the 52 with a view summit by all of the, off of Ellivary and Brook near Pass Conway. There's another square ledge, which is from Pinkham Notch, which is the main parking lot from Route 16 in Mount Washington. If you go right across the street from Pinkham Notch, there's a little trail that, what is it like? Maybe it's not even a half a mile, Nick, is it?

[00:07:55] Yeah. I don't, yeah. Maybe if that, it is a good up. I want to say it's maybe four or 500 feet, pretty short, but really spectacular wedges. I think there's a bit of rock climbing on one side of it. It's very, yeah. So if you're taking an intro, if you want to take an introductory rock climbing course that they run, like the guides in that area run training there all the time because it's a, maybe a hundred foot rock wall. Okay.

[00:08:22] And then you can climb up the side of it and then come up on top so you could rappel down or you can climb up it or whatever. So I think it's a perfect place for training. And it's also, it's like a 10 minute walk from the Pinkham Notch parking lot. So, but it's unbelievable because you get that sick view of Huntington and then you can see a little bit of Tuckerman as well from the boots, boots for a side. Yeah. It's really beautiful. That was one of my early forays into trying to get a sunset.

[00:08:48] And I didn't realize that that time of year, or I guess really any time of year, just because of how tall Mount Washington is and where you are in that ravine that like, or I guess in Pinkham Notch, not a ravine. The sun was already like below Mount Washington by like 730 or something like it well, well before sunset, the sun was already below on that side. So I'm like, well, this is pointless, but it was still really nice views. And then like off to the north and the right there, you can kind of see like Adams and Madison and that whole area. Right. Like you said, in really, really small effort to get up there.

[00:09:17] Like a short scramble and you're kind of there more or less. Yeah. We used to take the kids, we'd go, we would take the kids, do that, take them to Pinkham Notch to get like whatever ice cream or soda or something like that. And then we would walk up to Crystal Cascades and they could just sort of hang out by that bridge there and that waterfall with the staircase at the bottom of Tuckerman. And it was a full day. They would exhaust it. Yeah. Perfect afternoon activity. Well, morning activity. Yeah. Get Dairy Queen on the way back or something.

[00:09:46] So stop at one of the restaurants in North Conway. So it's a good day. Cool. Anyway, but shout out to Andy. So we'll put the link in the show notes if you want to donate. He's like, he has like a little over a thousand dollars. He wants to raise 1200. So we want to get him over the 1200. So I haven't put in yet. I'm going to, I'm going to toss him some cash, but definitely help out if you're interested. And then if you want to jump in to seek the peak, it's a great, great fundraiser for sure. Cool. Yeah. And good luck to all the other teams that are be out that day.

[00:10:16] Excellent. All right. Welcome to episode 239 of the sounds like a search and rescue podcast this week. Uh, we are a solo. It's a Mike and Nick show here. No guest. So we're going to cover a lot of New Hampshire news. We've got wild weather coming up. We've got Canadian wildfires. We've got New Hampshire rated the best state to move to Nick. So, uh, the aspirations we got to move to New Hampshire. Um, a hiker gets injured on Mount Kearsarge and then gets a wedding proposal. Well, in the carryout litter.

[00:10:44] So I sent that over to you and Stomp couldn't believe that one. That was a funny one. Well, not funny, like funny, weird. Yep. Um, hikers get in trouble near Huntington ravine trail again, Nick. They're going to shut that trail down on us. I'm going to be pissed. Crazy. Yeah. We got a Dave Schitts in the woods update. Um, this time he's entering new England folks. So, um, look out, hide your, hide your toilet paper. Uh, we've got New Hampshire lawmakers behaving badly.

[00:11:11] We've got a teenager doing a full send off of Glen Ellis falls. And he won a trip to the hospital. Plus the least crowded routes, uh, to hike the 4,000 footers. Grandpa gets launched in the air by an angry bison in Yellowstone, a preview of an upcoming trip to Baxter state park, and then some recent search and rescue news. So I'm Mike. And I'm Nick. Let's get started. Let's get started.

[00:11:45] Hooray. Okay. Woo. Very good here. So we talked about Andy from the Cox. So we have a bunch of New Hampshire news here, Nick, starting with wild weather coming into Northern New England tonight. So what's this all about? Yeah. So it looks like we've got rare, severe weather targets, New England with tornadoes, hurricane force winds triggering a level three to five threat, which apparently is just the strongest

[00:12:10] thunderstorm risk, um, says it'll be mostly a part, uh, across parts of Northern Maine, Northern New Hampshire, Northern Vermont, and New York's North country. Um, so it looks like, uh, things are getting maybe a little, uh, hairy later tonight. Apparently says that the storms will be fueled by the heat dome baking much in the Northeast, um, temperatures in the upper nineties and places like Plattsburgh and Syracuse are expected to reach near record highs. Uh, more or less a powerful storm system moving out of Canada will collide with this hot, humid

[00:12:40] air triggering thunderstorms beginning Tuesday afternoon. And it sounds like, uh, their greatest risk of those storms include the area that makes up a lot of the whites. So, uh, seeming like there's big potential for some really nasty thunderstorms, maybe some tornadoes, they're saying they could see up to EF two tornadoes, which is that I think it's, is it the Fujiyama scale? I forget exactly. Um, how that's how they measure sort of damage and wind speeds and whatnot. It's an egg sized hail and very intense storms.

[00:13:07] Um, so hopefully everybody up there is staying safe, uh, as we're recording this, cause that's pretty much the timeframe. Yeah. I'm looking at the radar right now and there is a, there's a cluster of thunderstorms going through Berlin over to Augusta right now, but it's looks pretty mellow. Uh, there is another group of storms that is developing over, uh, Ottawa coming down from Canada, but like right now it looks pretty quiet. So hopefully it will stay that way.

[00:13:34] Nick, what's the worst weather conditions you've ever been in that you can recall? Uh, hiking or just in, just in general, uh, in, in general, I don't, I don't even know. Uh, we, I mean a couple of years ago we had a tornado that touched down in Rehoboth and was in Seekonk. So that was a little hairy. We got like the full alerts on the phones and that that's probably the only time in my life I can remember. We actually went down and we have like a finished basement where our living room is the way our tri-level house is split up.

[00:14:03] And like, we actually like woke up and we're like, we're going to go down there just in case. Um, there was some really just nasty, like you could tell the thunderstorm was like right over us. Like you hear the crack and it's, or are you here? I should see her here. Wow. I can't talk tonight. I should say that you could see the flash and then hear like the crack basically immediately. Um, and yeah, that was probably only three or four miles from us. There was a tornado that touched down and it thankfully didn't do much damage, but, uh, kind of ripped up some fields and stuff. And you could, you could definitely tell where, uh, it had touched down in Rehoboth.

[00:14:33] So that was, that was a little scary in recent memory. Yeah. I was a kid. I definitely remember that, but nothing too bad. I think the craziest I can think of Nick is I was on my way. Matter of fact, I was on my way to hike Mount McGalloway and I stopped in Lancaster, New Hampshire to, I don't know. I think I was at Dunkin Donuts at Lancaster and, um, uh, hail storm blew up out of nowhere

[00:15:03] and it was like literally golf, golf ball size. Oh wow. So hail. So that was kind of crazy, but it was only for maybe like 10 minutes max, but I was a little, I was kind of locked in my car. I was like, there's no way I'm getting out. Cause I would get killed with, with the hail coming down. But, um, other than that, I think there's been some crazy, like there's been hurricanes and stuff that have come through New England that I, I guess I recall, but nothing too bad. So we're kind of lucky that weather wise, I suppose. Yeah.

[00:15:29] There was one, one time it made me, uh, think of when you were talking about hail, when Ash and I did, I had done one Washington by myself. That's like the only time we separated on our initial round of the 48, um, on Memorial Day weekend, the next weekend went up there and she wanted to do that. And we looped in Monroe and did the loop up ammo down jewel. And, um, it wasn't like really, I think there was maybe a risk of like just kind of rainstorms, but we actually got blasted by hail on top of Monroe ended up hiding behind a car with some

[00:15:55] guys, uh, that were doing a Prezi traverse and said that they were getting blasted on and off all day, but not like golf size hail, but it was, it was windy enough that it was like, it hurt when the hail hit you for sure. Even with a jacket on and stuff. Um, and, uh, yeah, that was kind of, that was kind of fun. You could see like the storm front sort of moving in on, you could see like sort of the rain shadow kind of coming in and then it passed over us and the rest of the day was fine. It was just windy, but it was just kind of a lucky occurrence, I guess, for us. I wonder if our umbrellas would protect us from the heel storm. I don't know.

[00:16:25] I don't know if mine would have got blown inside out. I think if you tried to tree line, so yeah, that's just go ripped around. Right. Well, all right. Well, anyway, wild weather's coming. Then we have wildfire. He's coming in from California, from Canada as well. So it's been kind of murky. Has it been murky where you are too? Yeah, you can see, uh, actually the sun is sort of orange out of the side of my window right now. It's funny too. Like every, when I say wildfire haze, everybody looks at me like I'm crazy. It's kind of one of those things that I feel like I've gotten to know. And I don't know if it's just a more common thing the last years.

[00:16:55] It certainly seems like it, but it happens a few times every summer where we get sort of, you get that orangey sun, um, that kind of is going to the, one thing here, I guess on a positive note, not that the forests are burning, but it kept the temperatures here, like not as hot as it was supposed to get to today. I think we're hoping it was supposed to get to like 93 and it looks like locally, we only hit like 85 or something. So yeah, we're, we're not 90 degrees here in Amesbury right now. So it's still, still a little toasty, but maybe it would have been warmer if they didn't have the haze. So yeah. Yeah. Very good.

[00:17:25] Um, all right, next up here, Nick, um, this is a New York post article. So, I mean, take it for what it's worth. Um, California plummets in rankings of worst states to move to as a surprising state takes the lead. The surprising state, Nick is, is, um, New Hampshire. So this is mostly about how California has, uh, dropped as far as, uh, the, the quality of life, the cost of living.

[00:17:52] And, uh, it's now, California is now ranked 48 out of 50 in the, uh, consumer affairs. So consumer affairs, I mean, that's legit, right? Consumer affairs is a legit source. They've released its annual report of the best and worst U S states to settle in. So California is ranked 48th. Yeah. Any idea who the, um, the worst state or what the worst state is, Nick? I don't, I don't, I'll, I won't read any more of the article. It's New Mexico.

[00:18:22] Interesting. Which I don't know. How they, um, yeah. And there's another report. California is not doing well. There was another report by wallet hub that revealed that California is home to six of the least educated cities in the entire country. I'm surprised about that. Yeah. California was, um, California ranks dead last in 50th in affordability. I do that. I'll tell you, like I hire a lot of people, Nick, and that was one of the issues with California.

[00:18:51] If you hire someone, you have to factor, especially these big tech companies, you got to factor in like the, the tax rate is insane. It's like double that of Massachusetts because you've got state income tax, you've got local taxes. So even though you make more money, it's still like the housing and everything is expensive. Um, but conversely, New Hampshire took the top spot as the best state to move to jumping into the top spot from second last year, dropping last year's win of Utah, Utah down to second.

[00:19:21] So Idaho, Virginia, and Maine round out the top five states to move to with Arkansas and Oklahoma rounding out the bottom five. So our Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, and New Mexico with the bottom five. And then New Hampshire, Utah, Utah, um, Idaho, Virginia, and Maine are the top five. That's pretty cool. We'll see New England getting represented in there. Yeah. Considering it's nationwide.

[00:19:50] I guess, I mean, it makes sense. New Hampshire has no state income tax. It's expensive, but like all things considered, it's more affordable than a lot of the other New England states. If you factor in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and then, uh, you got mountains, you got lakes, you got ocean. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a triple threat there. Yes. And it's funny. Like I was, I was texting you and stomp, but it even just personally, like I have probably like three or four friends. I had a couple of friends that lived out in LA.

[00:20:17] I had one in San Francisco and one that lived up in Portland, Oregon. And actually two of them, uh, interestingly enough, have moved back to New Hampshire since like literally within the past year and a half or so. And the other two just moved back to Rhode Island. Cause it's like the car, like they tried and tried to make it out there for like probably 10 years and like, they were just done with the cost of living out there is just astronomical. Like, unless you're making like, God, like probably median, like 120 grand a year. Like your household's pulling through. It's like hard to live in LA or I think really, if you, if you want to live in like a house

[00:20:46] and to have a house or something like that, you really need some money out there. Like it's, it's housing markets bet tough everywhere right now, but out there it's, it's really bad. I have a, I have a friend who is a, he does no longer, no longer works for SpaceX, but he became, SpaceX went public and he became a millionaire overnight. And I was texting back and forth with him and he's like, I still can't afford a home in LA. Yeah. It's insane. It's crazy.

[00:21:16] So, but it says New Hampshire here, it says the Granite state, um, is second overall for safety and quality of life. Third in the healthcare and education category. Plus New Hampshire does not collect state sales tax or individual income tax from its residents. Such well-rounded metrics and a 2.8% unemployment rate, the fourth lowest in the country, make the state attractive to movers. So, so that's, uh, that's pretty good.

[00:21:44] Let's see how Massachusetts ranks here. Massachusetts is number six overall. Not too bad. Not too bad. I'm surprised considering how high our taxes are, but I think, I think there's a lot. I will say, and I'm more moderate sort of middle of the road with things, but I do think there are a lot of government programs that mass has done fairly well. Yeah. Given the amount of taxes we have. Maybe I'll get raked for that, but. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not taking advantage of any of them.

[00:22:14] Nick, I think right now when I get a little older, I will. Probably fair. Yeah. So anyway, but, uh, anyway, good for New Hampshire. I mean, I'm, I'm, it's number one in my book. So yeah. Anyway. All right. Moving on to, um, Nick, when you proposed to Mrs. Nick, uh, how did you do it? Did we, have we talked about this before? What was your move for the proposal? Oh, maybe I didn't, I didn't have anything super suave. My original idea was, um, we were going up on vacation in Newfound Lake with, uh, my parents and stuff.

[00:22:41] And I was going to like propose to her, like on the lake at sunset, like one night, but then I got in my head and was like, I feel like I'm going to lose the ring or something stupid is going to happen. And I'm also just impatient and was anxious about it. So I'm like, Oh, I'll like leave it on the counter. Cause we're packing like our counter. We were in a condo at a time. And I'm like, surely she'll notice this ring box and be like excited. And then I'll like grab it and do the thing and drop to one knee. And it turns out that she just didn't notice it. Maybe she's just kind of not the most, uh, observant person or maybe she was packing,

[00:23:09] but she walked by it like, I don't know, like 10 or 12 times. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. So like finally I just grabbed the ring and kind of did the whole thing. But I just proposed to her like in our condo and it was just us. And we called some people and we're like, Hey, we're married. And everybody's like, finally. Okay. So you did a low key. So you guys are living together already. So you did a low key move. Yeah. We were, yeah, we were living in sin. As I say, we already had debt together. So we were, we were pretty locked in at that point. She couldn't say no. Yeah. What about, um, did you have to ask the parents? Did you, did you ask the parents ahead of time?

[00:23:39] I did, uh, do the whole, I asked her dad, my father-in-law who I'd also known forever. And he was like, of course, why are you asking me? But I just felt the need. Yeah. I don't know. I was just taught like, that's the respectful. And he's like, of course, he's like, what am I going to say? No. And I'm like, he's like, I'd be happy to happy to have you. He's like, I kind of considered this was going to happen already. Right. Right. Guys, if you're listening, I think the move is ask both parents though. Don't just isolate the father and ask if they're together, ask the. Yeah. I should say, I talked to both of them. Yeah. Right.

[00:24:08] It was like, it was one of those, like, she was out of the kitchen. I like asked in the kitchen or like, ah, and then she came back and like, well, no, no, I'm not talking about anything. It's fine. So. Yeah. All right. Well, the reason I asked Nick is that, um, we had a, uh, search and rescue news. I'm always monitoring the search and rescue news. And I, this came across the wire and, um, the title here is injured hiker gets engaged after fall on New Hampshire mountain carried down on a stretcher. Rescuers had to carry an injured hiker down from the summit of a New Hampshire mountain

[00:24:37] on a stretcher over the weekend, but that did not stop her from getting engaged. Alexis Hardy, a 29 year old from sand down New Hampshire was hiking Mount care Sergeant Warner Saturday with her now fiance Tim Dupier. Dupier when she fell and hurt her leg. The New Hampshire fishing game department said in a news report. So Dupier had plans to propose during the scenic hike, but now Hardy was injured and unable to walk. So they called for help and rescues who tracked down the couple on the Barlow trail brought

[00:25:06] a stretcher to carry Hardy off the mountain. The ordeal didn't stop Dupier from following through on his big plan. Nice ring here. Nice work here. That is a, that is a nice rock on that one. Yeah, that is not a nice cut. Cutting clarity and carrot. I think. Yeah, not bad, Tim did well there. Um, so he didn't stop him. So once the rescue efforts were underway to peer asked Hardy for her hand in marriage presenting an engagement ring.

[00:25:33] The department said, and she said, yes, the photos is pretty good photo photo show. The happy couple posing with rescuers and showing off the ring at the summit with Hardy on the stretcher. She was then carried down the mountain and taken to a hospital to be treated for her injury. So they look pretty happy. Uh, but it's pretty funny. There's like a, it looks like there's some good Samaritans and then there's an EMT and then there's some fire department folks. So, um, pretty good. Pretty good. Mount Kearsarge has an elevation of nearly 3000 feet.

[00:26:02] I'm surprised about that. Nick. It's a very short hike in my, my recollection. Yeah. I wouldn't have guessed it was that tall. I would have thought it was more around the 2,500 foot range. Um, nice hike. Yeah. Yeah. It's considered one of the oldest mountains in the state formed by glaciers more than 25,000 years ago. So, but this is good here. This is, um, I guess this guy, like, you know, he pivoted Nick. He did. I feel like, um, I do like those videos on Tik TOK. What, like what you said with Ashley, not picking up on what's going on.

[00:26:31] Like the guy taking the, the, the future wife to the beach to propose. And then the, you know, she's not paying attention or she's like running in front of him or they're fighting or some, some nonsense. And then he finally, like, she realizes what's going on. So those are always fun. Yeah. It's interesting. Uh, it depends on the relationship, I guess too, but a lot of people put in way more effort than I did at, I don't know, Ash kind of was low key, but I know it's like some people get a photographer and like all this stuff.

[00:26:59] And I'm like, you're going to be doing plenty of that when we're having an actual wedding. So that was kind of my mentality, but right. Whatever floats your boat. Right. Exactly. I was a me. I would say, Nick, I did a medium production. Yeah. What'd you, what, what was your, uh, what was your approach? We just, uh, so yeah, I asked, I asked Mrs. Uh, Mrs. Mike's parents, of course, for the, her hand or permission. And then, uh, I did it up in Brownfield, up in the beach. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. So I waited till, um, like sunset.

[00:27:27] And then I forget she was out shopping North Conway or something like that. So I, we set up a bunch of candles and then made a walkway down to the beach and then she came out and then I popped the question. Of course she said, yes, Nick. And, and, uh, but the nice thing was her parents were there. Some friends had been, it was a week, it was like a, a party weekend. So everybody was up in the house so they could all watch what was going on. And then we had a party right afterwards and had some drinking and food. It was good times. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah.

[00:27:56] I kind of wish maybe, I mean, we did have like her, her parents came up to Newfound Lake and like with my parents and hung out for a couple nights. And I kind of thought about that ahead of time, but it's cool to have a little celebration with the family when you do something like that. We were also calling people after and like, nobody would answer. It was funny. We're like calling my mom and like, nobody, nobody answers. Yeah. I was like, what's going on? I'm like, we just want to tell somebody finally. Like, I think one of her sisters answered. Just funny. Yeah. Well, that's good memories. Good memories. Goes by quick.

[00:28:22] So congratulations to the, uh, the happy couple and looks like she injured her right ankle. So she'll be recovered in time to, um, walk down the aisle. And hopefully in this downtime when she can't do much movement, she can plan the wedding. So. Yeah. I was, I was thinking the only thing that probably could have made this article better is if he was like a fake boyfriend and then eventually he just kinda, he's, he's, he got sort of a fall in love type story. Right. You know, she was trying to like convince him to pretend to be the boyfriend.

[00:28:51] So her parents would stop pressuring her to go out on dates. I get it. Yeah. It's a good, good plot, Nick. Very good. All right. Um, this next one here. So we talked last week about, uh, the issues in Huntington ravine. So Huntington ravine trail is one of the steepest trails in the white mountains, uh, considered to be probably the most difficult trail and the fishing game has had it on its radar. There's been a number of rescues there over the last couple of months. Last week, um, there was a rescue.

[00:29:20] I think it was June, June 26th. There was a rescue of somebody that said, of going right. They continued up into the, uh, the rock climbing area where they should not have been and they couldn't get down. So they had to do a ropes rescue. Nick, stop me. If you heard this before, but another incident happened on July 12th. Uh, young, young man from Quebec. Yeah. A couple of people sent this to me other than even our hiking group and same situation.

[00:29:47] They got a hiker, got separated, got up to a point where he couldn't climb up or climb down and thought that if he tried to climb down, he was going to get injured. And then they ended up getting abs are involved. Right. Yeah. And this, this one here. So this is a young guy, 18 years old in Quebec. He was with a group and they decided to leave pink and notch at 1 30 AM with the intention of getting to the summit of Mount Washington for sunrise. And, uh, they called a fishing game for rescue at four Oh five. So pretty quick.

[00:30:17] I had to double, I forgot about that wrinkle in the story that they were trying to do a sunrise on Mount Washington. Right. Right. So my understanding from the, the online chatter, Nick is that they have a reblazed Huntington review. When I, when I had that recording in 2021, like there was blazed really clearly, but they've reblazed it. So, uh, but I, I suspect that these guys were in the dark and maybe their headlamp wasn't picking up the blaze on the rocks as much.

[00:30:42] And he, he went off on his own and then got basically got, I think to the point of where he couldn't get back down. He was stranded. So, um, interestingly enough, and I, I did shoot this message. I forgot to share it with you and stomp, but there was a reel that was floating around on Instagram and it was a view of someone climbing in Huntington. They had a video of some people in like sort of where the trail was. And there were two people that were, it seemed to be, um, decided from the comments. And even, I think there was someone from red line guiding on there and mentioning that

[00:31:12] these people were that they were shown on video were like totally off the trail. Cause someone's like, Oh, look how steep. And they're like, yeah, it is steep. Um, but these people appeared to be entirely off the trail. They were off the blaze route. So, um, I don't know, for whatever reason, it seems, it seems to be making its rounds and popularity and people keep losing their way up. So you really got to pay attention to those blazes. It sounds like. Right. Yeah. And this kid basically, he made his way up like a wet, slippery rock slab and he couldn't get back down. Yeah.

[00:31:39] And, you know, by 5 AM, Andrew Scoggin Valley search and rescue team began responding with mountain climbing gear, fishing game officers responded. Um, they had to hike up the mountain and set up ropes. And I think they had to repel down. They used the auto road to get up there. That is the one good thing is that you can get up there pretty quick with the auto road. So no injuries were reported, but, um, you know, I guess this kid just inadvertently

[00:32:07] got off the trail, which led to the situation. They were the fishing game said they were well prepared with good gear and we're in good physical condition, but that doesn't mean anything when you, when you, you can't stay on the trail. So is what it is. Young, young guys. Yeah. The 18 year old from Quebec. Um, they did give him a little bit of a shout out that at least he had extra gear, which, uh, helped him shelter in place for the five plus hours that it took between the call and when he was actually back on trail.

[00:32:34] So he did have layers with them and sound like he was prepared at least for the cold, chilly temperatures in the morning. So that was good. Yeah. He's definitely up in the scrub there. I don't know if I'd mess with Huntington honestly at night, Nick, just because the reason being is because even if it wasn't raining, if condensation was building up there, like I just don't, I want to be able to see that rock to get a feel for what it's like. So I can pick my route going up because if it's wet, even if it's hasn't rained, it can still be a condensation in there and you don't want to mess around with, with wet rock on there.

[00:33:04] Cause it's just dangerous. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Like even out on a, I was out on Friday morning and yeah, it was wet. It hadn't really rained much, but it was just wet and humid and everything's just sticky. Cause it's humid air and you get cold rocks and condensation and not great for traction. Yeah. I mean, I like a good sunrise hike, but I don't think I'm picking Huntington as my route. No, it was a lot, much easier trails to do up that for sunrise. Yeah. Cause you can see like even the pictures here on the, um, on the Facebook post from

[00:33:31] New Hampshire now, you can see just the wet streaks going up the rock with the rescuers are dealing with. So I'm not, I'm not playing around with that. So not a good call to hike Huntington in the dark, especially if you don't know what you don't. Nick, I'm going to have to do another point of view video, but this time in French language for the Quebecers. Yeah. I have to have a chat GPT translator or something where you can put it back out. True. So nice Parisian accent, Mike. Exactly. Maybe a Canadian accent, Mike. Exactly. I don't know.

[00:33:57] Um, I don't know if I can do a Canadian, I can't even do it like a regular, I can't even pronounce words, Nick, in my own language. You, you're, your North Shore, Massachusetts accent is beautiful, Mike. That's all you need. I can't say, you know, is it a beer or is it a beer? All right. Uh, Nick, I, we got to follow up here of an important story that we covered a couple of months ago. Do you know the singer share if I could turn back time and sunny and share? Do you believe in life after love? Do you believe in love? I think.

[00:34:26] And do you believe in love? Okay. I remember that. Those are absolute banger songs too, by the way. Um, those are good wedding songs out, by the way, they get the crowd going. So, um, but anyway, her son, uh, this is a weird story. So in the spring, her, so she had a son with a, you know, Greg Allman. You ever heard of the Allman brothers? I do know the Allman brothers. Yes. Greg Allman. He was, um, part of the Allman brothers, but he also had a solo career. Um, released a good album. I'm no angel. It's good. Good. Check that song out.

[00:34:56] But he, uh, was quite a partier back in his days, but share like the bad boy. So she was had a real toward love relationship with him, had a child who is now 48 years old. And, uh, oh, wait a minute. Is that right? Hold on a sec. Let me just say, um, there appears to be a link for the world cup and a link for share. Son was arrested. It looks like the wrong link. Uh, so, all right, well we have technical difficulties.

[00:35:21] So I don't know if he's 48 or not, but I can, I can do this one off memory here and, and I'll update the, the link here. But basically what happened is that share son went to school, he went to prep school in Maine and then he's some sort of a layabout as far as I can tell. Um, you know, he's like a, a nepo baby, uh, 49 years old. He is. That's correct. He, uh, apparently for whatever reason has gotten into multiple issues. He's been involved in drugs.

[00:35:49] Share has tried to get his, I guess, um, I don't know what that's called. Like you get, uh, custody. Like, you know, Britney Spears went crazy and her dad got custody of her. Like that's what share is trying to do with her crazy. Yeah. Adult custody sort of thing. Right. Right. Conservativeship. That's what it's called. Yes. Yes. Yes. So this guy, for whatever reason, when he has no connection to St. Paul's school in Concord. So St. Paul's is like this very hoity toity prep school. And, uh, he's wandering around St.

[00:36:18] Paul's on a Friday night. He told them that he was like thinking about sending his kid here, but then he starts like smoking cigarettes inside the buildings. He's threatening parents, threatening kids, all this weird stuff. So he ends up getting like trespassed and arrested from St. Paul's that makes national news. And then he goes, the next day he's then down in, I think Nashua or Manchester or something like that breaks into a lady's house on a drunken rampage and ends up falling asleep on her couch.

[00:36:47] So since then he's been in jail, he hasn't been able to get bail for whatever reason. And, um, yeah, he's still in jail. So he's been in jail for like the last six or nine months. And I guess share is trying to, I guess, get conservatorship over him, but it was, it, she's previously tried and it was denied because, uh, he fought it. But yeah, he's still sitting in jail and he can't get bail.

[00:37:15] Uh, so yeah, New Hampshire has been paying for this guy's, um, three square meals and a bed for, for the last six months. Interesting turn of events. Well, a famous singer, he's got all kinds of money. I don't understand why she can't just bail him out, but maybe she thinks he's better for him to be in jail. I don't know. Yeah. That's kind of a, an interesting thing. I'm like, she must've, I'm like, that's what I was saying is I'm surely she has the, the money to bail him out if she wanted to. But I guess she's going to be, uh, just letting the state pay for him for now. Yeah.

[00:37:43] Nick, do you have any family members that are criminals? Uh, not professionally. No, no, not that I know of. Nobody served time in your family. No, I have, uh, probably some people that have been arrested, some uncles and stuff and maybe for certain things, but nothing too crazy. What about you? Do you have any criminal masterminds in your family? Why Nick? I, it's funny you should ask. I actually do have some criminals in my family.

[00:38:09] So, oh man, shout out to cousin Jimmy. Oh boy. He's, uh, knocked over quite a few banks over the years. So, oh my gosh. Yes. So, he's a, um, he's reformed from what I hear. Well, that's good. I asked my mom to stop inviting him to family events. I was like, probably shouldn't invite the bank robber over to family events. But anyway, um, so. I'm trying to imagine making conversation. Do you have any good hits lately?

[00:38:39] Yeah, yeah. Best of luck to Jimmy the bank robber, my cousin. So, uh, all right, Nick, uh, moving on. We have a Dave Schitt's in the woods update here. So, what, where is Mr. Dave? I think he's entering New England, correct? Yeah. He's, he's, he's officially entering the Northeast now. He's knocking on the door. Yep. Uh, so this week started with Nobby meeting me in New York at the Appalachian market on Route 9. When I got there, it was raining. And when we left, it was pouring and continued all day with rain totals over two inches.

[00:39:06] My feet got destroyed, but we did get trail magic pizza at the end of the day for my friend in New York, Sean, who helped, who I'd hiked with in Georgia, North Carolina, but he had to step off trail to deal with his ankle. He joined us for the rest of New York starting the next day and spoiled us with drinks hidden in the woods, slack packing and Turkey club subs from a local deli. Sean's wife is a saint who helped with all of that. And she's also a nurse and helped make my feet tolerable for at least four days, which I didn't think was possible.

[00:39:34] Again, New York trail magic has been impressive. Hopefully we'll see what New England has soon. I think he's expecting trail magic in New England. I can take a hint. He's been dropping these little hints. I think we're picking them up, Dave. We finished up New York, which was definitely challenging at times, especially in the rain and unbearable humidity. Nabi and I continued on into Connecticut, which started lovely as states tend to do. Then it got much steeper and way more technical than I ever thought Connecticut could be.

[00:40:00] We hiked a few more days and had some great cramped sites, soaked in the river, saw a bald eagle and had great conversations. My friend Mike picked me up and took me back to his home, his house for a zero with my other friends coming to visit and deliver my new shoes while Nabi headed home. I got back on trail today and saw some great waterfalls. On my way, I talked to some people clearing the trail and they shared some secret intel on getting to my campsite where I'm currently dealing with the explosive diarrhea parasite or maybe just a normal day in my life. We'll see.

[00:40:31] That's not fun. No. Last week was one of my all time low points of the trip with the weather. Destroyed my feet with tough terrain, but the company and friends I've made made it tolerable and I'm on the other side of it providing this parasite thing works out quickly. Massachusetts, here I come by stock in toilet paper. So we hope you feel better soon, Dave. That sounds rough. Hopefully it's not Noro or something again. And it's just a random, maybe something he ate kind of thing. But yeah, he's in Connecticut.

[00:41:01] Sounds like it's quite difficult. Yeah, that surprised me. I was surprised he said that it's surprisingly difficult in Connecticut. So who knew? Yeah. Well, he's getting close. So hoping to get out with him maybe in a couple of weeks or something as he kind of approaches through New England. Yeah. Unfortunately, this update, I mean, it's great to get an update from him, but the update's not great for me, Nick, because I just doing the math on, I feel like he's going to be at

[00:41:31] Greylock when we're just getting to Katahdin, basically. So I can't take that amount of time off of work, unfortunately. So I'm going to have to figure out another time to get, um, get with him. So probably shift up to Vermont somewhere, I guess the following week. Yeah. I'm sort of in the same boat. I'll likely try to do a day trip if I do. But yeah, I think like you said, he's going to be with how he gave us an update like yesterday on mileage. And I think we're going to be unfortunate, well, fortunate to be in Baxter, unfortunate to miss Dave. Yeah.

[00:42:00] I would have liked to go up over Greylock with him, but we'll see what happens. Yeah. I mean the New York, Connecticut line to Mount Greylock is about 120 miles. So he's doing 50 in Connecticut, 90 in Massachusetts, give or take, you know, he'll probably take one or two zero days during that time period. So that gets him somewhere between the 21st and the 24th, which is exactly when we're going to be going to Katahdin. So. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I will skip Greylock with him and then figure out some time in Vermont to meet

[00:42:30] him or maybe that Southern part of New Hampshire. I do need to get that section from Hanover up to Dartmouth ski way. So maybe I'll do that with him. Okay. Yeah. It's like before you hit, is it supposed to be smarts kind of the first thing you hit over there? Correct. Smarts and cube in that area there. So. Cool. I might be able to get a couple of days to like slack pack him and trail magic him there. So we'll see anyway, but that congratulations, Dave, you are moving right along. Yeah. You're doing awesome, Dave. Yep.

[00:42:59] Speaking of moving right along, Nick, what's the fastest you've ever driven in a car, either yourself or somebody you've driven with? Uh, probably like 126, 120, something like that. It's oddly specific, but okay. Yeah. When I remember my car, my current vehicle, I'll say like mid, mid one twenties probably in your, in your, your, um, WRX. Allegedly. Allegedly. We'll say on New Hampshire state roadways. Allegedly. Um, did, did you feel like it had more in it? Absolutely. Yeah. Really?

[00:43:28] I'd say a little, a little bit. Yeah. I think that those things are governed pretty high. Yeah. Once you start going at either 80 or 90, you can feel it going again. That's in compared to like, if you were in like a, I don't know, like a Corvette or something, that's still like nothing, but it was, it was fast enough for me. Yeah. About the fastest I've gone in a car. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, I did one of those, um, I, I did one of the, the, the years ago, um,

[00:43:53] we, we did a car rental thing where you can rent an exotic car and my buddy rented a Dodge Viper. And then they used to like to drive up to Vermont in the Dodge Viper for the day and get up to like whatever, 125 miles an hour or whatnot. But he, he did about 120 with me in the car going under the, the tunnel on, on route 90 in Boston, the mass pike is before you went to 93, we got up to about 120. That was scary enough for me. I'm all set. That's that's best. Yeah.

[00:44:23] Just to double check my car is governed. If a Gemini is to be trusted at 145 miles per hour, which is way faster than you ever need to go. Right. Much faster than you ever need to go. And your, your room for error is pretty much like zero at that point. Yeah. I couldn't imagine doing that in the tunnel. That seems pretty scary. Right. So what is your, if you got pulled over doing that, like, I feel like you're immediately getting arrested. Yeah. You're, you're going to get, yeah, it's, it's one of those, like, I don't know.

[00:44:53] It was at a time where I didn't expect to see anybody. I would say that, which when you're up early or up late, sometimes that happens, but I wanted, I saw what it could do and I was happy and satisfied and that's about it. Okay. But yeah, you're not explaining your way out of that one. Right. And it would definitely like, even though with, we're talking hypothetically, hypothetically this happened outside the window of, um, what's that called? Um, statutory or, or. The statute of limitations. Statute of limitations. Yeah. So. I think it, it legitimately might be outside the statute of limitations with that.

[00:45:23] So that's good. You're good. Again, we're talking totally hypothetical and allegedly. Exactly. Um, but the reason I bring this up is the New Hampshire lawmaker was clock driving 107 miles per hour. Uh, and, uh, she had another speeding ticket going into the low nineties. These all happened in, um, I guess the 107 miles an hour happened in 2024 and then 92 miles an hour on the same highway happened in 2025. Mm.

[00:45:47] And this has just come out in the news because this lawmaker, her name is, let me see what her name is. Ellen Reed. She is a state rep from New Market. So New Market is like that area down by like Portsmouth and. The Seacoast. Seacoast region. Yeah. It's a nice little downtown there. Okay. Actually they got some nice restaurants and shops and stuff. So anyway, Ellen Reed, but here's her move is that, um, she's claiming that the sh,

[00:46:16] the sheriff's deputies who stopped her on interstate 93 had no authority to detain or charge her since the New Hampshire state constitution says lawmakers cannot be arrested while traveling to or from the legislature. So she. That is, that is such a specific law. Yeah. That's very odd. She's asserting legislative privilege to ask that the charges stemming from the two traffic stops be dismissed on account of the office she holds.

[00:46:42] She pressed her case all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme court, which declined in June to hear her appeal. So there's, they're telling her no. So, um, I guess her legal counsel compared her to a police officer or an emergency medical technician who might exceed the speed limit while responding to an urgent call for services, but they refused to offer up the circumstances that warranted her speed.

[00:47:07] So, uh, she wasn't arriving to the state house on in either, in either, um, incident. And it was 65 mile an hour speed zone. She was driving away from the Capitol to her work in Woburn. The craziest thing about this entire story is like, you'll never going to believe what the vehicle is. She's driving a Toyota Yaris, which is like, I think that like little golf cart car, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:47:33] Those are, it's like a compact compact type Toyota, which is kind of, I don't know. Yeah. That's probably about as fast as that thing could go. It must've been a downhill to be going the over a hundred one. I don't know. Is there even three cylinders in those cars? Yeah. So I'm like 107 and a Yaris. That's, that's quick. That's crazy. I actually didn't blow up the engine. Yeah. So anyway. That's such a weird specific law that you can't get arrested going to and from the legislature.

[00:48:03] Like again, like ambulances, things like that. I understand. But that seems like, seems like someone else was in the past was having some trouble with speeding tickets and decided that that was going to be a law. I guess in both arrests, she was, oh, so both incidents, she was not arrested. She wasn't taken to jail. She was summonsed. And then her attorney is a former state representative arguing that let us legislative privilege meant evidence was illegally obtained and the charges should be dismissed.

[00:48:32] But a judge presided over the bench file denied that motion. So her appeal to the Supreme Court came in April in the context of the second case, though it pertains to both. Um, I guess this lawmaker yelled at the deputy loudly and aggressively and claimed he didn't understand the constitution, didn't have any authority to stop. Oh my God. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the, the chips that some of these folks have on their shoulders that are in positions of authority. The level of entitlement is like crazy.

[00:49:01] But then again, I do the word I was looking for. I do feel like, I don't know too many politicians, but I do feel like all politicians like have that level of entitlement in there. You know, they want to, it takes a certain amount of hotspot to basically say, I got, I have the, just the, the, I just know, I know exactly the person that should be making up all the rules for everybody else. So, yeah, there's, there's probably a little bit of narcissism inherent to give you the confidence to get in that place. Right.

[00:49:25] Sorry if any, any politicians are listening to, uh, to this last podcast, but yeah, you know, look, it is what it is. So anyway, that's an interesting thing, but I guess she's, she's out of luck now. Supreme Court told her to pound sand. Yeah. I couldn't imagine just take even sitting like the judge sitting in that court case, having to take that seriously must be really difficult. Cause it's like, you're just, you're just trying to get off cause you're a politician. That's literally why we're here. It's 2026. It's two years ago now. So anyway, but you know who else is pounding sand?

[00:49:53] Nick is this, this young teenager from Massachusetts is pounding sand with his head after he jumped into Glen Ellis falls and didn't go well for him. Yeah, this is a, probably a Darwin award type thing, but apparently yesterday afternoon, someone tried to jump off Glen Ellis falls. So it looks like around 3 45 PM, New Hampshire fishing game, conservation officers received a call about a young man who had sustained significant, but unknown injuries after reportedly landing on some rock. Really?

[00:50:20] He landed on some rocks after jumping off Glen Ellis falls, which to remind all of you 64 feet tall top of Glen Ellis falls. So over six stories, about a six story drop, give or take. Um, caller reported that the man was seriously injured, but didn't really know how injured he was. Um, so the CEO requested a response from police and EMS that could get there quicker. It sounds like the conservation officer, um, on call was just unable to get there very quickly.

[00:50:47] Um, so it sounds like they sort of stepped in, uh, personnel from Bartlett and Jackson ambulance, fire departments, Jackson police, Bartlett police, New Hampshire state police, AMC members, Avasar fishing game all responded. Young man was quickly located and assessed by EMS. Um, he wasn't able to walk, but appeared that his injuries were non-life threatening. So I imagine maybe some broken legs, ankles, those types of things from impact and rocks. Um, yeah.

[00:51:13] And once the personnel arrived, they got them in a litter, clarity them to Glen Ellis falls parking lot. And, um, yeah, he got transferred, uh, to Memorial hospital in North Conway, 17 year old male from Massachusetts. Thanks for adding to our reputation. Now with people from Massachusetts, jumping off waterfalls in New Hampshire. Damn.

[00:51:35] Um, have you, I'm trying to, um, I'm trying to picture how easy it would be to get, get up there. Yeah. I don't know. I would think if you crossed over the trail, is it what? Yeah. Technically it's the bottom of wildcat Ridge trail where that starts. You probably could, it's probably a short walk to sort of bushwhack on that side. I think going over the wall, like if you're trying to do it from the side where like that trail that goes down to the falls would be pretty difficult, but I imagine you could probably bushwhack.

[00:52:05] Like down the other side, um, pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah. That is if like the water crossing isn't too bad. Yeah. I mean, it looks like the flow rate on the, um, at least I'm just looking at the PV river here. Maybe that's one of the closest one. I mean, it looks like the flow rate is dropped quite a bit over the last, um, couple of weeks. So maybe it's just not as high, but yeah, you gotta be careful. I mean, I don't know, Nick, what's the, what's the highest that you've ever jumped into water? Do you remember?

[00:52:34] Uh, probably, I don't know how many feet, like if I had to guess, probably like 15 or so feet, there was a converted sailboat schooner that my buddy Gerard worked on, um, like college age, like probably like early twenties. And we'd go up, it was actually in Rockland, Maine. Um, and we went out and we'd volunteer me and my buddy Rob, and we got to like basically stay there for free, but we'd like help out with like the crew with what they needed. And Gerard knew us. So we were kind of cool. Um, but they basically would take people out on vacation for like a good amount of money and sail around the islands and stuff.

[00:53:04] And we jumped off, like, I think the, did they call it the bow spread? Basically like the long sort of boom that like goes out off the bow. Yeah. We jumped off that into the water. Um, which I would get, it was probably like 15, 20 feet. If I had to guess, it was, it was a definitely the highest I've jumped into water before. Yeah. I've done around that height too. Like there's a, there was an abandoned ship in Turks and Caicos that you can, it's like all rusted out and stuff, but you could jump off of that thing. That was probably like 20 feet, but I've jumped off a higher bridges.

[00:53:30] I feel like in different places, like matter of fact, in Rhode Island, I feel like I jumped off some bridges one time, but, um, I've done some quarries and Gloucester and Quincy that are pretty high. Uh, I've dumped, jumped off like the higher part of Fry's leap in Sebago as well, but I don't know, maybe 30 feet would be the top. So 64 feet is, it sounds crazy to me. Yeah. You're a, you're a lot more experienced than I am.

[00:53:55] I feel like you have this closet adrenaline junkie sort of thing going on where didn't you, didn't you do like a backflip on one of your vacations in the water recently? That's what I did. I did a, uh, I did a gainer off of that ship. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, no, I used to, we, we would, I mean, that was Gen X. We would like always find, matter of fact, we had a, we had a bridge in Middleton that we used to jump off of in the middle of the night, Thunder Bridge. We would all just be drunk in the woods and then we would all, somebody would be sober and we'd all jump in the back of the pickup truck and go jump.

[00:54:24] And Thunder Bridge. And, uh, you know, so we were always jumping in water back then, but nothing super high, but I'd say probably Fry's leap, like the high part of Fry's leap. I did do that. And that's probably over 30 feet. I would guess. Now you may have mentioned a police encounter. Was that before you jumped off it or after? The high, the high incident was when I was in high school with my friend. He had a place in Long Lake. Okay. I mean, we got, we got in trouble with the police when I was taking my nephew and my daughter a few years ago. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I was the adult. I was like, let's go jump off Fry's leap.

[00:54:55] But, uh, yeah. Awesome. Statue of limitation is now run out on that too. Yeah. What coming out in this episode? Yeah. What dirt. Yeah. So anyway, but well, I hope the kid learns a lesson. I hope he's okay. I'm sure that his parents are worried sick about him, but, um, I guess lesson learned, I'd say, just don't jump into watering holes unless you know what you're doing, I suppose.

[00:55:20] So this, uh, jogging my memory of a story when Ash and I were up there, probably one of the first times we ever went to Glen Ellis Falls, probably 10 ish years ago. There are posters up and it looked, um, like someone lost like their dog over the falls. Like there were little posters up and stuff like a, a medium sized dog, I guess maybe got off leash and went over it, but we were both looking at that thing. And I'm like, there's no way that thing would have survived going over that waterfall with the rapids and stuff. Sad. Any hoots? Yeah.

[00:55:45] Nick, I was always obsessed with, um, the idea of like going over Niagara Falls and just like, cause there was people that would, they would go in those crazy contraptions. They would build like a, a barrel. Barrel. You'd see people going. Yeah, with like breathing apparatus and then they, you know, some of them died, but some of them did survive, so. Could recreate it. Yeah, maybe that kid should try jumping off in a barrel next time.

[00:56:11] Anyway, but Nick, I have the, um, hiker, uh, taught hiking topic of the week here. Oh, what's, oh, I get to use the hiking topic of the week drop. That's exciting. That is right. I'm excited. Slashers hiking topic of the week. This guy on one of the 4,000 footer groups. I was just looking at it. I don't know when, maybe yesterday or today.

[00:56:41] He asked a good, he asked a good question for a dumb reason. So let me explain. He was like talking something about like, he has a dog and he's like, I want my dog to hike all the 4,000 footers off a leash, but I want to be respectful, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, whatever, dude. Just like, if you want to keep your dog off leash, just like, let them run off leash, like, and deal with the consequences. Cause you know, you can do it. But his question was, um, I don't want to disturb any other hikers.

[00:57:07] So what is the, um, what is the route on each 4,000 footer that is least likely to have crowds? So it got me thinking and I was like, well, I could do a few of these. So I wanted to get your opinion. And, uh, just to give an example, like, uh, so the least, the route that's least likely to have crowds on it.

[00:57:28] So if you're going to hike the Hancocks, you would do like out and back, you would do East side to Cedar Brook to the Hancock loop and then back out that way. That way you're avoiding all the normal people that would come up, um, Hancock notch, right? Yeah, that's for sure. Not a common route. So actually last time, um, I was doing the Hancocks, I went past the Hancock or one of the junction where Cedar Brook, I guess, continues on. And you branch off onto the Hancock loop. And I was kind of thinking, I'm like, I noticed right away.

[00:57:58] Cause it was grass growing in the middle of the trail out there. And I'm like, this is weird. And it took me like five minutes. I'm like, oh, I missed this. And I don't know this route, even though I've been out here four times now. Right, exactly. So I listed off a couple of 4,000 footers, Nick, that I thought would be like, uh, some of them are busy,

[00:58:43] but some of them are not. I picked that trail that we don't know what it is. Well, I think I wouldn't take that trail because that's the Appalachian Trail, but I would take... That's fair. I would go... Yeah, I would go up Shelburne Trail from that Route 2 side to Kandusky Trail out and back. So you'd basically go over Shelburne Mariah and then over to Mariah and then back over Shelburne Mariah and out. Rattle River. Rattle River. That's it.

[00:59:13] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I forgot that that's fair for being an AT. Yeah, I'm sure that side doesn't get a lot of traffic. And I think even hearing Peter and like Jake talk about it, I think they'd hit that and it doesn't get a ton of love over there. Yeah. And then I have Mount Whiteface. I had Downsbrook from the Kank to Cage Sleeper. That's a good one. I don't think that that gets any travel. No, for sure.

[00:59:42] Yeah, so coming off that like basically the middle trail between Pinebren Brook and then what's the other one? Olivarian Brook. Right. So that kind of runs up the middle of the Kate Sleeper Trail. Right. Yeah, I mean that's... I mean going across the sleepers too is really pretty and you're not going to see many people in there. And certainly not a popular way to go to Whiteface. And you can make... I mean if you get a car spot, it's really not a bad loop if you want to go up that and out past the Conaway, Olivarian Brook or something. Yeah. And I was thinking about Mount Washington. What would be the least likely route to find?

[01:00:11] I mean not including a bushwhack. Like I think Andy from the Cog is not going to see anybody on Raymond's Cataract. But like a realistic route to a normal hiker. Not a lunatic like Andy. I mean so this... The mileage is crazy and it's not a normal thing. But Davis Path. I mean if you came that way past stairs going up all the way. Like going up towards Glen Boulder Pass. I mean I guess though once you hit isolation you're probably going to see some people. So maybe that's not the best option. But...

[01:00:43] What's your pick for a way that you wouldn't see many people? I had Dry River. Go up Dry River. Oh just come up like you guys want up. And then you come up above Lakes of the Cloud and then you hit those like... I mean obviously the problem is you're going to hit Crawford Pass. So that last section no matter what you do you're going to see people. But my thought is that like the least likely to see crowds before that is Dry River.

[01:01:09] And yeah because we've done that and like we didn't see really anybody at all. But the other route that I had that is kind of like overlooked. But I do think that you can do it and it won't see as many crowds as Nelson Crag. So Old Jackson to Nelson Crag. I don't think a lot. I think sometimes people come down that. I've come down it before. But I rarely have ever seen anybody on that trail. Isn't it a nice trail? I think so. I think it's really nice. Yeah. Yeah I mean you're above tree line.

[01:01:37] You sort of go along the auto road going up. Okay. Now if you were to come in from Great Gulf Trail is that generally considered like that's way longer than most of a day hike people want to tackle usually. I don't think that's... I think Dry River would be a longer day. Okay. Interesting. So but yeah same idea. Great Gulf could be... I just feel like Great Gulf gets more traffic. Okay. Yeah. So. I had Lafayette Nick. What do you think about Lafayette?

[01:02:07] How would you get out there with no crowds? I mean probably I would say probably Skook or Greenleaf. Right. Skook is what I had. But also you could go up the Watcher and then go across Eagle Cliff and then get with Greenleaf that way. Have you done both of those two up to Lafayette? I have not done Skook and Chuck. Okay. Yeah. I saw pictures that one of my friends posted. Maybe a couple weeks back from Skook and it looked really nice. Like you go through. I think it's like if it's Eagle Pass over there that you kind of go through.

[01:02:37] It's almost like a little notch. I know. Or maybe it was Greenleaf. It was either Greenleaf or Skook and it looked really pretty. And I'm like oh that's not what I expected it would look like. It looks like you have some views kind of even down lower before you bust out to Lafayette. It looked really nice. Right. Okay. What about Carriage Road? I was Carriage Road. Moose-a-Lock. You had Carriage Road here so I screwed that up. Yeah. Moose-a-Lock. Yeah. I put Carriage Road. I mean you got Glencliffe which is the AT so I don't think you'd see a ton but I think every other route.

[01:03:04] Like you got the AT going across with Beaverbrook, Glencliffe and then you got Gorgebrook which is kind of the popular one from Ravine Lodge and Snapper. So I think if you didn't you're probably going to see a bunch of people once you do it's similar caveats like Washington. Like you're going to see people I'm sure on Moose-a-Lock if it's a nice day once you get up to Treeline. But I suspect you wouldn't see a ton of people until you get to that point where Carriage Road sort of hit Snapper. You probably would be pretty quiet. Yeah. I think that's fair. Honestly I think Benton Trailhead would be better.

[01:03:34] Where's that? That's the one. It's to the north. Okay. So yeah I think that that's like a lot. I feel like only locals go that way. All right. It's off of Tunnelbrook and then Benton Trail. Okay. Yeah definitely not a common way to go up that. Yeah there's like Tunnelbrook Road and then there's like a couple spots on Tunnelbrook. I've come out that way before. So. Right. All right.

[01:04:03] What else do we have here? Oh Kinsman's Nick. I have no idea about the year. You have more knowledge of this area than I do. Yeah. It was. So. Franconia not side I go to imagine is going to be busier. You got the Mount Kinsman Trail. One reason I. You might see a little bit of traffic on this depend on the day. But with that fee there I think it does turn a lot of people off. It's a great way up. That being said. And then you got real Brook Trail. That's really not commonly taken. I think the road to that can be a little bit shoddy.

[01:04:32] Kind of use caution if you're going there. But that's definitely not a way that most people are looking to get up the Kinsman's. I think 90 percent. 90 percent of people are probably. Especially during the summer in the popular months. Are going to be going up from the Franconia notch side. And go like fishing Jimmy. And go by Wonsome Lake. Right. And then we had Mount Kerrigan here. Yeah. So. Kerrigan. There's a couple different ways coming in here.

[01:05:01] Signal Ridge is your popular way. But I go to imagine if you're coming in from like through Nancy Pond. Or you're coming in from the east side trail through the Pemi. Similarly to where you guys just went through on your big Pemi journey. Or if you even you could come in from like sort of the north. And come through like Zealand notch that way. Long mileage days. I think you're probably more looking at either a really long mileage day. Or maybe perhaps a really good backpacking trip. But I would suspect you probably wouldn't see a ton of people in there. Most of the time. Yep.

[01:05:31] I think that's good. So. And then last but not least. The Wildcats and Carters. Nick. Yeah. Wildcats were tough. I was thinking about this one. I guess some of the Carter routes. Which were mentioned in a second. Could apply. Since the Wildcats are adjacent to them. But the few times I've been up the Wildcat ski slopes. In sort of the spring or the summer months. It's not crazy. I think it's a lot of locals. That kind of end up going up there. Maybe for exercise. And not necessarily a ton of people.

[01:05:59] I go to imagine the Wildcat Ridge Trail most of the time is getting some traffic. Because it is the AT. But there's not really. It's not like a back way in there. Like you got 19 mile brook. You got the ski slopes. Or you got Wildcat Ridge Trail. Or you got Perkins Notch though. Don't forget. So Wild River Trail does connect back there into Perkins Notch. But that's like. Oh. I don't know if that's a day hike though. That's a backpacking trip. Yeah. It might be kind of a long day. It's not. Certainly not a standard. No. Distance day hike. No. No.

[01:06:28] It's a bit more of an adventure. So. But yeah. There's no easy way. But I think the. The Carters. You know. The Dry River. Black Angel Trail. Those areas there. It's a. There's no easy quick way. But if you're looking to avoid people. Like just coming in from Wild River. Either direction. You can make your way back there. Yeah. For sure. And then. I did ask Chachi Pt. Chachi Pt. You already touched on this Nick. You already got this one. But they said that. I asked them to pick the top one.

[01:06:58] That they would. They would recommend. And they said Davis Path to Isolation. As their number one. 4,000 footer. That they would recommend. With least crowds on Davis Path. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting one though too. Because you are probably going to see people. Going past like. Because it's the access to like Crawford Resolution. And stairs. Stairs. But I feel like with each of those. You're going to see less people. The further out you go. With stairs being the last. And after that. I don't think you'll see anybody. Yeah. Most of the time.

[01:07:27] It'll probably just be you and your friends. Right. That'll be it. And then the second. I asked Chat CPT again. I was like we'll do one more. And it said Cabot via Unknown Pond from the north. So basically the route that you took to meet us. It said to do it that way. Yeah. Well Unknown Pond Trail actually continues to the. So it goes past Unknown Pond north to the end of the other road over there. So you can actually take it in to go to the.

[01:07:57] No. I gotta. I gotta look at that map. I think. I think Unknown Pond continues to the north like past. Like I. When. I'm thinking of that route is like when I did the horn. I came from the north. From that side. And actually like. Basically hit the Kilkenny Ridge Trail. From it. And then actually went. Out and back to the horn. Oh okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's check.

[01:08:32] Yeah. I mean the other option is. Millbrook Road. Yeah. Millbrook Road. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. That one over there. But I do think in general that area doesn't get as much activity. But yeah. So to recap. So we said. So this is the full list Nick. Is. If you want to go the least likely to have crowds. Hancock's you go east side to Cedarbrook. Mariah. Basically approach it from over Shelburne.

[01:08:59] And Mariah via the Shelburne Trail off of Route 2. White face start on the kank. And go Downsbrook to Kate Sleeper. Mount Washington we said Dry River or Nelson Crag. Lafayette we said Skookumchuck or Greenleaf. The only reason I said Skookumchuck's a little better Nick. Is because once you get to the Greenleaf Hut. Then you're in the thick of it. So Skookumchuck kind of avoids that. Until you get to the very summit. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. A lot of these it's just tough with some of those popular summits.

[01:09:28] Like you're not truly going to have it to yourself. Like once you get above tree line. Right. I mean really the correct answer is to not do the 4,000 footers to avoid tree. But Moosalock. You had said Carriage Road. I had said coming in from Benton Trail. Kinsman's. We had done Mount Kinsman Trail. Real Brook. Bald Peak. Kerrigan. Anything that hits Desolation Trail. And then Wildcat Carters. Anything through the wild river wilderness there.

[01:09:59] And then ChattyBT said Mount Isolation via Davis or Cabot via Unknown Pond from the north. So it's pretty good. I think that those are all good recommendations Nick to avoid crowds. Yeah. I mean you got some nice trails in there. I mean like that whole north section of Unknown Pond. I remember being really nice. You kind of ascend through a valley. I did in the fall. So sometimes it pays to take the path less traveled. Though you probably are going to hit more spider webs. Right. Depending on what time of year. Right. And I think if you're going to let your dog off at least that's fine.

[01:10:27] But like just make sure you got something to carry them if they get hurt. And then bring some like pliers and what. The biggest thing I get scared about dogs Nick is the porcupines. I've seen enough porcupines on trail. Like I get horrified about a dog getting hit by porcupines. And you know that's just it's really not a good look for the dogs. Yeah you got some quills in the face or something. Or God forbid they stumble upon a moose or something like that too. Like I'd be more worried about that really with a dog being off leash than necessarily like your dog can't behave and it's going to like bother people. Right.

[01:10:56] It's the kind of wildlife like it might cross. You never know. Right. Right. So. All right. Here we go Nick. Moving on. We've got. Oh Baxter State Park. So me and Nick and a group of about 10 of us are going up to Baxter State Park. So I just thought I would quickly give a rundown on the logistics here in case you're planning a trip. So first of all Nick if you're going to go to Baxter Hiking Katahd need permits. So we got our permits in what April or May.

[01:11:25] Yeah I think it was back in April. They they changed it a little bit where it used to be I think three or four months in advance it opened to the day that you're staying there and you could get sort of your permits but they open it all in one day now and we had we had quite the time getting parking just parking permits is what we needed this year. And I think Peter or someone ended up finding out that it worked through like the mobile app but like their website crashed which wasn't super surprising since I think it's the first time they've done that and just got inundated with requests. We're all like trying all day. Right.

[01:11:52] So we got permits for Friday a third third Friday and Saturday right. Yes Friday and Saturday. Yep. So we're going to pick like the the best we're going to pick the best weather day to do Baxter and then I'm assuming like from a route perspective we had talked about um we're only from Roaring Brook and then we had talked about going up um oh crap I should have had this ready here Nick.

[01:12:20] Yeah basically to the the knife edge so we're kind of heading up towards I believe like um kind of towards Helen Taylor or something. Yeah the Helen Taylor trail I believe it is um and heading up to sort of Pamela Peak I think you head over there and then start of the knife edge and going across over to Baxter Peak and then we'll be going on sort of across the tablelands to Hamlin and then the plan is to come down sort of the Hamlin Ridge Trail um and loop down that way.

[01:12:47] Right and then I suspect that there'll be some of us that won't um want to go all the way over to Hamlin and we might drop into um one of the I don't think we'll go down Cathedral Trail but we'll go down one of the um one of the other trails there so we'll see how it goes. Yeah it should be fun I mean we're kind of we're kind of uh at the mercy of the weather. Yeah and it looks like Helen Taylor Trail basically up to Pamela Peak um and then you got Pamela

[01:13:17] and Chimney Peak over there across the knife edge. Then you end up hitting Baxter and we'll be coming down looks like Saddle Trail more or less. Yeah Saddle Trail will be across the tablelands. Saddle Trail will be the one we if we if we're dropping we'll we'll drop before Hamlin and then if a group wants to go to Hamlin Ridge and then we'll meet up somewhere um I would assume somewhere on uh on the way back to Roaring Brook would be my guess.

[01:13:46] Yeah I'm stoked to check it out um when I had been up there before we went up I know you've been you've been up the opposite side that I have Mike but we actually came up through Chimney Pond we went up Saddle Trail we did the out and back up Northwest Basin over to Hamlin Peak and then we went out and back to Baxter and then we came back down and went uh down the Saddle Trail to Chimney Pond Trail and out so um we kind of did a little out and back deal um and you had been up from like the

[01:14:14] Southwest right? I came up A-Ball so I stayed at A-Ball Campground and then um came up the A-Ball Trail so I thought it was very similar like climbing Mount Washington wasn't too crazy at all and uh this was looks like a little longer approach but maybe not as steep but obviously going over the knife edge will be pretty epic um and then yeah we're staying outside the park so

[01:14:34] we're staying let me just see here we are staying near Compass Pond in a rustic cabin so no electricity no heat uh no water just a gray water sink and uh like uh it says detached vault toilet so I don't know what that means I think it's just an outhouse so um there's gonna be 10 of us so we've got like with with talking through logistics we got propane tanks for our grills we've got uh we're gonna get

[01:15:03] a keg for beer so that we can we can just deal with that instead of a bunch of cans and then we will be cooking we're gonna do breakfast we got steak we got uh chicken we got sausages we got all kinds of good food we're gonna be dealing with here oh yeah it's I think it's gonna we're gonna be eating in in style um we got a lot going on I'm bringing a little portable generator for charging stuff so we should be good yeah I got I think I'm gonna bring up my guitar I'm working on a couple new tunes

[01:15:32] Nick's gonna jam out around the campfire yeah there's a campfire there so we'll have to get some wood I'm gonna bring the bike so we're gonna entertain ourselves by watching Nick learn how to ride a bike and it looks like there's six bunks here very rustic it's just wooden bunk beds so we've got to put our sleeping pads on there and then I don't know Nick I was thinking about sleeping outside just getting my hammock set up and then crashing outside in the hammock if if the weather is uh appropriate yeah I'll see I was almost I might throw my tent in just because

[01:16:01] it doesn't take up uh a ton of space but I was thinking if it's like a little bit warmer at night it might be nice to sit outside but yeah I don't know yeah um we we did forget to mention too on the opposite day of what whichever day is I guess the quote-unquote worst weather day um as long as it's not too bad we're planning on trying to get out to the brothers um do north brothers so one of the new england 67 peaks yep um that one takes off from looks like it's the marston trail um and you

[01:16:30] kind of got the option whether you want to go up to north brother by itself you can do south brother north brother which I had done in the past um there's a couple I think hundred highest out there fort mountain I know is one of them that a lot of people try to get to so see what happens that day and then that one's got really nice views out to katahdin from the top of north brother so it's kind of cool to be able to look back at it yeah and it looks like the cabin that we're at has uh nice views as well of um of katahdin so we're looking forward to it looks right over uh right over

[01:16:57] baxter state park so very excited yeah I'm stoked um hopefully the the weather looks good and yeah it should be a fun time yep very good so all right so on to a couple of national news things one national news thing this video has been going around Nick this was insane oh my grandpa gets launched absolutely launched eight feet in the air by a bison uh when the beast charges him so this is

[01:17:21] um yeah grandfather tossed in the air by yellowstone bison comes out of surgery with a surprising message for the animal so this is a grandfather he looks like a grandfather Nick he's got a big bushy be looks like santa claus a little bit he does he does he looks like a midwest grandfather for sure yeah he reassured everyone he's okay he's a typical grandpa he's like don't worry about me 65 years old

[01:17:43] thrown eight feet in the picture Nick this is just unbelievable he's just like ragdolled absolutely ragdolled so he broke his femur with the strongest bone in the body in four places near his hip but was able to stand Monday after having surgery the day look he's 65 you need a hip replacement anyway so um yeah this picture is incredible incredible this looks like a big guy too Nick yeah no that bison

[01:18:12] makes him look like a ragdoll I was thinking the same thing like he doesn't appear to be small and it's fine I had so many people that sent this to me oh yeah as well yeah but I'm glad I'm glad he's just alive like the way you look at how he got whipped in the air like that and I'm like man there's a lot of it's a lot of force a lot of physics going on with that thing right yeah so the go-to place so anytime a bison is involved in anyone you want to go to taurons of instagram or taurons of

[01:18:36] yellowstone instagram so it's it's a um I don't know what they call that but it's a combination of two words a tourist and a moron so they combine those into tauron and then this is all about um video videos of um I guess park guests who get too close to animals so in this guy's defense I think I read online that people were commenting they said this guy was three times the recommended

[01:19:05] distance from um from the bison so he was way far away him and his grandson were and they were apparently at this campsite and um they were just minding their own business walking back to wherever they needed to go and turned out that like this bison just charged them from a long distance away so it really wasn't um wasn't a case of grandpa getting too close to this one because there's like if you look at this taurons of yellowstone there are multiple pictures of people literally

[01:19:33] standing right next to giant 2,000 pound bisons that would kill them if it if it decided to charge but this guy was walking pretty far away and he got charged so um and they were trying to I guess hide behind some trees but it didn't work out it does seem like nine times out of ten with these situations you see like people trying to get a picture like a selfie with the bison and then it like gorged them from behind so at least he was using his noodle he wasn't being reckless or anything it sounds like it just was an aggressive bison and he didn't like him in his space or he felt

[01:20:03] threatened or whatever and he taught but the power of these animals is just so unfathomable like I think as a human I'm like they're just so strong that they can whip like a 200 whatever pound man in the air like nothing yeah a sack of potatoes it's crazy Nick like I'm looking at this there's a picture of this girl that's like your daughter's age that's just literally standing right next to what 2,000 pound bison that could just kill her instantly yeah people are dumb and I see another

[01:20:29] video here on um you know how we every once in a while you'll hear these stories about um people that like fall into the um the acid pits because they don't stay on the boardwalk like there's multiple videos of people just walking around these uh hot springs in these acid areas just just on their own like people are just crazy yeah I think I talked about on the podcast too I had

[01:20:55] my own tour on moment when we're in Joshua tree and I actually got some cactus stuck in my ankle so I had a bit of a stupid moment but nothing that aggressive luckily I just had to pull some cactus quills out of my ankle but um yeah you got to read those signs you got to heed the warnings I think a pit of acid though or a 2,000 pound animal would scare me a bit more than a cactus so yeah yeah people are nuts there's a bunch of videos on this of people just um getting out there to just get pictures and they're going off the boardwalks going into these areas with like hot hot springs are

[01:21:25] exploding all around them so good luck acid bad don't want to go to the boiling pits of acid anyway well good luck to grandpa hope he's feeling better and and all is well here so hey what's that sound

[01:21:52] it must be time for the pop culture segment with mike and stop all right we're gonna skip the gear review here nick because you're gonna get to work but um uh pop culture talk just one thing I'll give a little plug I went to the noah kahn concert um at fenway it looked like a blast from the stories that I saw shared um it was good times you're quintessential new england yeah yeah it's tough not to root for this guy he's just a very likable guy it's a sort of I don't know if it's a rags to riches but it's

[01:22:22] an unlikely celebrity story I would say yeah yeah I enjoyed I enjoyed my text conversations with my time like that evening as well I was ripping my yeah so we got we got seated at the cask and flag in and yeah I ripped a couple of my ties and cask and flag in excellent I'm glad glad you had fun it looked like a good night look like a lot of fireworks and stuff going on too at the end yeah at the end they finished up there they know how to throw a show on there so it was just nice to see a new

[01:22:51] england boy make it big yeah all right nick story cinderella story cinderella story so um all right nick uh if you want stickers for the slash if you want slasher stickers you can go and get those at the mountain wanderer or spinner's pizza parlor in andover um if you want swag you can go check out our bonfire shop which is between our super popular hoodies classic or v-neck t-shirts do you ever wear a v-neck t-shirt nick I can't remember I don't think I've ever worn a v-necks t-shirt I'm not a v-neck

[01:23:18] guy I think my chest is too hairy for me to want to wear to be to be a v-neck guy I don't know I think you got to be like chiseled and you got to be hairless that's my opinion I don't know maybe I'll try it and maybe I'll try a v-neck on the trail one day oh for two nick yeah stuck I'm one for two I'm hairless but not not chiseled all right nick if you want to donate to

[01:23:43] us to um pay for nick's electrolysis treatments you can go ahead to and get slashers buy me a coffee and uh your donations will help us pay for web hosting distribution and live events as well as nick's cosmetic surgery so that he can wear a v-neck t-shirt uh and if you want to be a monthly supporter you can tick a small box by making it a regular monthly donation and you'll become part of

[01:24:04] what's called slasher senator so yes yes hey hold my beer it's time to find out what mike and stomp are drinking on this week's beer talk and now it's part of the show where we talk about what beer we are

[01:24:33] drinking nick i'm not drinking so i've got na beer i've got athletic tonight which is my week type mood but i was riding the uh the cloud candy train this weekend again the uh cloud candy light train i should say like that so yeah i brought the thunder so hard at that concert on friday night that i've been drinking water ever since it's still hydrating well you gotta bring the thunder sometimes mike it's gonna happen well so i was drinking the mai tais i had a couple a few of those

[01:25:01] and then we got into fenway and my daughters were like oh i want the sun cruisers or whatever they are you know the seltzers and you stand in line there's only one place that sells them and then i was looking like you could get a bud light for 14 i think so i was like well i can get a vodka lemonade drink for 17 so i just got a couple of vodka lemonade drinks for me so

[01:25:24] very nice so i wasn't doing too well on saturday yeah yeah yeah the my the mai tie to vodka lemonade seems like a risky risky well my you can't start with my ties i think that's rum to rum to vodka so yeah i knew we should have gone left back there stomp don't worry i know it's this way

[01:25:52] i've got a feeling in my gut uh are you sure you're not about to have a bowel emergency uh totally we got this but i just blew out my hip fell down that gully with my 40 year old micro spikes suck it up stomp it's 4 p.m we're at 3500 feet we got nine miles back to the parking lot your leg may be broken we got no cell connection and we can't feel our fingers but we're finishing all of my list tonight

[01:26:18] by the way i need some water i'm empty i would if i could see what i'm doing but my headlamp batteries are dead you gotta be kidding me what a chump this is the last time i hike with you whatever mr do you know me i have a podcast whatever let's find out what mike and stomp have been hiking anyway nick all right um that was a part of the show where we talk about uh recent

[01:26:46] hikes so you've got a little bit of uh work you you've got a little bit of hiking detail i got nothing so what do you got so um was up to you when i this started as like a father's day sort of gift idea because my father-in-law is super into golf and we're always like oh we should go to myrtle or go somewhere which we haven't done after talking about it for 10 years so i finally was like i know somebody with a place up in new hampshire like let's go for the weekend and golf um he approved and i got uh

[01:27:13] it's i could say my uncle paul but ash technically my uncle-in-law on my uncle paul and uh my buddy josh from the puds podcast up but that's that was our normal golfing for someone we more golf like we used to golf probably almost every weekend for a good period of a couple years together so it's nice to get the gang back together um but long wraparound story that um friday morning i had taken the afternoon off and uh drove up early i'm getting itchy to hike which probably isn't super surprising to most people that know me but i actually went up and investigated how viewless black mountain was in

[01:27:43] jackson earlier in the morning um it was foggy it looks like maybe you could see mount washington from the very summit out this little window of trees but it's pretty damn viewless um that being said a really nice trail nice hike um if you want to check it out it was just some pretty woods and ferns and stuff a lot of moose pooping spots there's a cabin up there too which i didn't realize on sort of the ski trail i'm up the back side which is kind of cool and then uh later in the afternoon

[01:28:07] after some work and some meetings and stuff um got out with josh for his first mountain a super long time and we did the double heads um which i think i've done four or five times now and we ended up going up old path um over to the south peak and then we ended up coming back towards north and then down the ski trail um saw a group coming down in the morning that must have been staying at the cabin i would take that was like eight or nine people um but we didn't see like anybody up there really for a friday afternoon and it even though it's hazy in the morning i didn't have views it actually clear

[01:28:37] up pretty nice by the afternoon um could see out to washington and the surrounding area so that was cool and then uh did some golfing at wentworth um golf course in jackson on saturday and then sunday morning we hit the omni resort we we were big spenders and played their championship 18 whole course and it had absolutely phenomenal views of washington the whole area it was killing me a little bit not being able to be out hiking because i'm just that's what i'm probably a little bit more i enjoy golf it was a lot and it's about being with the the guys and kind of hanging out and

[01:29:06] we had fun but i was like man i hope someone's getting like a prezzy traversing because sunday morning was absolutely gorgeous um it was was the golf course of the omni crowded or was it was a pretty move along pretty well no we moved along pretty nicely we we teed off like really early like i think at wentworth we teed off around seven and then kind of the same situation situation at the omni so we kind of got there and hit some balls and we teed off like i don't know 720 or something like that um but yeah not super packed which i was kind of surprised um maybe in the afternoon it'll

[01:29:35] speed up but it was it was fun and nick won't brag on the podcast but he did he would but he was bragging on the uh the guy's chat group that i think he shot in the low 90s which i think is pretty good i don't think i would be able to shoot in the low i'd be probably between 100 and 110 if i was out there yeah i get that that's like i would say it's subjective that's good for me like i've broken 90 a few times but i think i got down to around a 17 handicap probably at my lowest um but yeah i played for not playing for like literally about a year i did hit the range on thursday night

[01:30:05] um but shot a night like a 91 at wentworth and like a 94 at mount washington so i was pretty i was happy with that pretty good to break 100 and get out there yeah we had we had fun didn't lose too many balls not too many casualties and didn't flip any carts over on any of the uh hilly parts though we walked wentworth so we couldn't flip anything but the resort um we ended up taking a cart just to get out earlier but it was fun all right well good good for you i didn't do any i'm still recovering from my uh my muscle strain here so i've been just playing it safe i'm just not

[01:30:34] going to push it because yeah how's the strain have you felt anything but i haven't run i haven't done anything i just rested so i have been up to my brothers and my sister-in-law's farm in wakefield uh doing a bunch of work there like they've made a ton of progress they've cleared some fields we've got like uh the fencing guy was in there to put i think he's got three paddocks that they're going to be fencing off next week and then we got the four the four horses are up there and then um

[01:31:01] we've done like a lot of like we filled like a couple of dumpsters it was a hoarder situation so it's it's a lot of like um old trash and stuff like that that that we had to move out of there but now he's got most of the basics cleaned up and the horses seem happy so that's all that matters and then he's got nothing but time on his hand to get this thing set up yeah i mean from what you shared the property looks absolutely beautiful i mean yeah oh it's gorgeous junk aside like i mean

[01:31:27] just from what you've said it looks like it looks like a picturesque just new england farm like what i'd imagine yeah yeah you guys will have to come up and check out the horses and whatnot but yeah it's it's i mean it's going to be a labor of love for sure and it's going to take them some some time but um they will they'll get it done i mean they're passionate about it and they love the horses and um yeah keep an eye out for it i think that they'll be eventually they will be boarding so if any listeners want to board their horses there then um it'll be a pretty nice i mean

[01:31:53] one thing i will say is the places need some work in some areas but the the main indoor training arena and then the um outdoor training uh area and the the paddocks are awesome so they'll be good for the horses i'm learning a little bit i don't know much about horses but i'm learning cool cool so yeah i know nothing about horses i have a i have a cousin that like actually boards a horse and does all that and she's done like competitions and stuff and yeah jumped what jumped on them i've seen her jump on

[01:32:21] horses which to me is like that's that's a whole different level it's interesting there's like there's four they have four right now three young horses and then one older horse the three young horses all stick together like they move in a single unit the whole time so whenever they move they move together and they're always kind of like touching each other and then the other horses the older horse is like an alpha mare they're all female horses but the older horse like controls them so she wants to

[01:32:48] move them from one area to another she'll just like start walking towards them and then they'll move but yeah the three horses all just move with one unit it's kind of crazy that's cool yeah i know they're they have a pretty interesting sort of social structure at least i just know loosely through talking to my cousin i don't really know that much about horses there's a couple places in rehova too that board horses like not far from our house and i'll i always feel like they're mocking me when i'm running they'll like run up along the fence and run faster than me right

[01:33:14] but yeah it's time for slasher's notable hike of the week if you want to be considered for the hike of the week simply tag slasher on your social media post all right so moving on here we got the notable listener hikes of the week here nick so what do we got yeah so we're catching up a little

[01:33:39] bit uh hopefully i got you if you're up for the last few past week or so uh just tag us on instagram not on facebook um and we'll try to get you so go ask brian semi pemi went up the old osseo trail up whaleback uh and went up to gale head and then down gale river trail so sort of half the pemi loop um arlo the beagle our frequent flyer here mount crawford for 42 out of 52 of the view folk star was busy he did a tremont and sawyer pond loop which looked really interesting kind of back

[01:34:07] way out to tremont and then hit the dicks range in the 80ks which i believe our friend steve was recently on and uh had a little adventure out there with him last september so 19 out of 46 congrats it seemed like a lot of white mountain hikers that i know we're getting out to the 80ks the last two weeks that's kind of cool to see um then he was out doing cannon with great views of franconia ridge from lonesome lake so he's busy out there great pictures 802 trail pup six i thought this was funny that our two dog people were both doing 42 out of 52 with a view but they did cardigan and fire

[01:34:37] screw um and then do that did the horn by unknown pond um kind of that route we were just talking about from the north uh for 42 out of 52 with a view so nice job there and then uh melie maruzelli my apologies on the pronunciation that but she was busy out doing and working on her 48 in her northeast northeast 115 so she did the tries this was across a couple days but the tri pyramids white face past economy and carrigan 41 out of 48 and then 98 out of the 115 so she's getting kind of close

[01:35:05] she's knocking on the door there nice work liz faye our friend liz exploring some rmc trails in the north of the prezies i believe she got some joking flack about redlining because this was like a red liner route but she claims to just be exploring rmc trails she was not redlining um yeah i don't know if i believe that but in any event she did amphibrock coldbrook falls spur trail hinks she visited grain up cab and then she did randolph path visited the perch then she came down falls way with tamma salrock and gordon falls and i always get a double i kind of forget i just know from the

[01:35:34] frequent evaluate but it's always crazy to me to think that randolph path like goes that whole way from like where edmund's coal is to like freaking by falls way and kind of joins valley way down over there and then keeps going to like aptal hb um but nice job liz some pretty pictures too on west that's another area you're not going to see a lot of people in if you want to go on any of those trails pretty much any time of year um cecil on the trail who i crossed on moose lock way back in the spring finished his new england 67 on north brother in baxter where we'll be heading pretty shortly

[01:36:04] idavia narragansett trailed down in my home state of uh rhode island in hopkinton um he said it was scrambling and pretty relatable to new hampshire so maybe i'll have to go check it out one day i mean they did mcgalloway way up north uh northern most 52th view marley sue too did eastman for 46 out of 52 with a view jh black 1970 um this guy that we i think we know him right monroe and washington loop and he said that his legs were pissed at him basically yeah afterwards but great job jay

[01:36:31] yeah he's really come a long way yeah crushing it um that freaking hiker lynn woods then our friend summit snack attack this was a really recent one sucking smog on the osceolas with riley m bailey look like they were on the osceolas today uh with that wildfire haze that was very evident yeah um so who who gets it this way i think shout out to all the people that are getting close on their 52 with a view so the dog the two dogs and then marley sue are getting close so we'll definitely

[01:36:57] give them a shout out and then also shout out to meli for getting uh that's a pretty epic the tripyramids whiteface pass conway carrigane for uh the 48 and they're getting close to uh the new england 115 but i would say um cecil on the trail gets it for finishing his new england uh or his northeast um or new england 67 on north brother so shout out to him right on cecil and there was much rejoicing and there was much rejoicing

[01:37:47] all right nick to wrap up the show here we've got um some search and rescue news here so it looks like we got one two three four five uh search and rescues that happened so i have tallied up our search and rescues and um i think that we're pretty much on pace for what we were the last few years so there's nothing too outstanding it does seem like the volume's higher but the volume's typically high in july anyway so yeah these are all the man they all came in i was i was thinking

[01:38:14] maybe this would push us over the bubble i was genuinely curious with how much we had last show and kind of yeah with this i'll take another look i mean the volume is definitely high because we've already covered two or three press releases but we had two on uh mount chakora on july 13th so this first one is or actually the press releases came out on the 13th but this one was on saturday july 11th 12.06 this was on the piper trail on mount chakora so this was a local new hampshire person that was

[01:38:41] hiking with his wife on the piper trail the summit of mount chakora when he slipped and fell and got a knee injury unable to walk or bear weight on his knee so um he was about three miles up on the trail from the parking area so that's not great trail steep and rocky with multiple switchbacks to difficult terrain which delayed the rescue efforts he was carried in the litter the whole 3.2 miles from the trail to the trailhead parking area so call came in at 12 they got him back down a little bit before eight

[01:39:09] o'clock and he was transferred off to the hospital so that's not a fun rescue so that's 3.2 miles that's got to be up on the ledges like pretty much yeah almost to the summit ways yeah that's a ways for sure um not i mean we had a couple uh last week we were talking about people like a mile out or or whatever kind of getting an ankle injury and this is generally what you don't want to happen uh right yeah not a great spot not a great spot hopefully he was a light guy i don't know

[01:39:39] about three miles so then the night before that at 6 55 p.m fishing game go notified same area different side of the mountain on chapney falls trail uh in albany uh a 24 year old hiker from lincoln rhode island nick answer for this um was hiking with a companion and slipped on a wet rock in champney falls so not too far up he continued hiking for approximately three hours until he couldn't

[01:40:05] continue due to his injury if he's at champney falls and he's maybe he was going up i don't know yeah maybe he kept going up and then it got a lot worse or something like that maybe the adrenaline kind of because i would think even if you had like a yeah and a rolled ankle like you're you can make it down pretty close to the parking lot that's exactly what happened here because he was located around three a little over three miles from the trailhead parking area he was obsessed and

[01:40:31] stabilized and carried down the trail to the parking area at 2 15 a.m and then transported to north conway hospital so that's what happened he must have injured himself kept going up and then finally couldn't do it anymore and then um call for rescue so two three plus mile carryouts on chakora so

[01:40:52] that is tough lakes region had a rough weekend yeah they got their workouts in for sure yeah so um and i'll do one more nick and then you can wrap up here so this one was on saturday july 11th this was a hiker that had fallen and suffered non-life-threatening injuries near the bottom of the green leaf trail while descending lafayette uh 64 year old hiker from massachusetts unable to continue at the time

[01:41:18] so um our resurgence were responding to this other issue in lonesome lake that nick's going to talk about they redirected some of the crew to green leaf trail to locate and assist this hiker once on the scene they were given medical aid and she was able to walk the remaining distance to the end of the trail so all's well that ends well on that one sounds like easy peasy nick but what was going on at lonesome lake as this was going on yeah so around 4 35 p.m that day uh conservation officers were

[01:41:46] notified of a hiker was experiencing severe fatigue-like symptoms at lonesome lake a 56 year old from norfolk mass hiked up the basin cascade trail with friends but could no longer continue to hike um right around the dam at lonesome lake so sort of that i believe that's on sort of the southern side of the lake not too far from the hut i mentioned that the hiker had spent two hours in the degraded state um while she was assisted by her hiking companions um personnel from the amc lonesome lake hut and good samaritan hikers decided to place a call for help due to the severity of

[01:42:16] her symptoms um and a rescue effort was started so it looks like our friends on pemy search and rescue conservation officers and the fish and game department um responded to the lonesome lake trailhead and began to hike up to lonesome lake um and fortunately at that time the hiker was actually able to start descending the lonesome lake trail with assistance from amc personnel and members of our hiking party um so the rescuers reached her around 6 p.m um approximately 8.8 miles excuse me

[01:42:44] above the trailhead so not too far right into those steep switchbacks um and the hiker continued uh with assistance or the rest of the way the trailhead reaching it safely at 7 0 5 p.m um it sounds like she was just released to linwood amulets at the trailhead um so sounds like just sort of maybe maybe sort of an exhaustion one and then maybe she got some electrolytes and water or food in her and then kind of got some energy and a lot of times that can change your attitude i know personally even when i you start bonking or whatever i don't realize like it's happening and then

[01:43:11] you kind of realize oh maybe i just needed a cliff bar or something get you sort of moving again and change your attitude a little bit a little lemonade and a chocolate chip cookie from the hut will do it nick oh yeah yeah those that's that will definitely hike in clutch so next up we're heading over to kind of a bigger day on mount washington so this was also on saturday um personnel from multiple rescue teams uh teamed up to help an injured injured hiker off of mount washington to seek medical treatment

[01:43:40] so approximately 7 45 a.m new hampshire fishing game department co's were notified that a staff member at the amc lakes of the clouds had taken a serious fall of the hut and was left unable to walk so fishing game subsequently mobilized a search and rescue personnel to help evacuate the young hiker from a remote location by 10 a.m members of avsar pemisar the amc and fishing game would gather at the base station of the cog railway the cog generously donated room on their trains and rescuers

[01:44:10] and equipment were given rides up mount washington to the west side trail which allowed for a shorter and less strenuous 1.6 mile hike um the only other alternatives would be going up ammo likely in this situation to go up jewel so would take quite a bit more time of the cog didn't assist there um by 11 20 a.m rescuers were at the hut with the patient so an hour and 20 minutes later so after they kind of started so not bad at all with that that cog right up um the patient was subsequently packaged in

[01:44:36] a litter and prepared for a overland carry out back to the cog tracks so by 2 50 15 p.m they had made it back across the west side trail and onto the train tracks um the cog pretty much picked him up from there and brought him back down the mountain um patient was evaluated by personnel from twin mountain fire and rescue and was ultimately driven from the scene and taken to memorial hospital north conway for further evaluation and treatment um sounds like just multiple injuries related to the fall

[01:45:03] um the hiker was identified as a 26 year old from willimantic maine um and fishing game just wants to shout out i i think this story too is a perfect example of how well um all these different rescue groups in new hampshire work together from volunteers to fishing game um you got the cog a private company sort of getting in there and getting involved um we'll say it again and again but people always have mixed feelings on the cog and stuff but they are the first to step in and help whenever search and

[01:45:30] rescue needs a lift up to west side trail even when sometimes when the weather is borderline safe enough for them to even run their trains in the winter so um shout out to the cog for helping out there again too yeah yeah that's that's always they're always there to help out so uh good to see andy had posted a couple of photos uh there was like 20 people yeah out uh out in front of the cog getting all set up and whatnot so uh good to know that they're out there and nick i think that does it

[01:45:57] for us today yep i bid you adieu nick's gotta go to work and i gotta go um put together a bureau for my daughter so until next time we will see you again all right bye everybody thank you for listening if you enjoyed the show you can subscribe on apple podcasts spotify podbean youtube or wherever you

[01:46:24] 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 slasher podcast dot com that's s-l-a-s-r podcast dot com you can also follow the show on facebook and instagram we hope you'll join us next week for another great

[01:46:46] show until then on behalf of mike and stomp get out there and crush some mega peace 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

[01:47:14] 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 James Nealon from new hampshire fish and game lucerne 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

[01:47:40] i think if they just simply visited uh hike safe dot 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