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

[00:00:31] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mt. Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and after. 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 MtWashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Greetings listeners! Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of September 19th, 2026. Friday. In and out of the clouds, trending towards clearing under decreasingly cloudy skies.

[00:01:20] High in the lower 40s, falling to the lower 30s throughout the day. Wind northwest at 30-45 mph, increasing to 40-55 mph with gusts up to 60 mph. Windchill falling to 15-25 mph above. Friday night. In and out of the clouds, trending towards mostly in the clear under mostly clear skies. Low around 30. Wind west at 40-55 mph with gusts up to 65 mph, decreasing to 25-40 mph with gusts up to 45 mph. Windchill falling to 5-10 mph.

[00:01:49] Saturday. Mostly in the clear under mostly sunny skies. High in the upper 30s. Wind north, shifting northwest at 20-35 mph, decreasing to 10-25 mph. Windchill rising to 20-30 mph. So there you have it. Looks like a nice start to the weekend. Going to be a little nippy up there on the rock pile. Fall's definitely moving in. Happy hiking. Stay safe. Go crush some peaks.

[00:02:11] We're broadcasting from the Woodpecker studio in the live free or die state of New Hampshire.

[00:02:52] 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. Occasionally including the counties of Belknap. I mean, Belknap. Um, Coos Coos? Wait. Or is it Coas County? What? Mike, Nick, and Stomp.

[00:03:23] It's alright guys, welcome to episode 246. So, uh, sorry I'm a little, we're recording late tonight and it's all my fault so I apologize. We forgive you. We're burning the 8.30pm oil right now. Yeah, it's for the listeners, we usually record at 6.30pm but, um, I'm a diva so I had to go out to a fancy dinner and, uh, Nick and Stomp, Stomp is back! Thank goodness. Oh God. Again, for it's becoming a regular thing. It's a crazy trend. Right, so, but um, you guys, I appreciate you being flexible, so.

[00:03:53] Yeah. No problem. It was a fancy dinner though. Yeah, where'd you go? Uh, I went to this place called Marker 34 in Amesbury, it's like right on the water. So. Okay. It's a fancy new restaurant. Yeah, I was talking to a patient about those, those places up in Amesbury and Newbury Point and I sort of missed that. Yeah. Nice spots. Yeah, they got a lot of old mill buildings and stuff on the water, so. Trying to make it nice up here, Stomp. It's not like the old gritty days.

[00:04:22] Yeah, I can tell. It's lost its grit. Even Lynn is getting nice, Stomp. Oh, it's hard to believe. Certain parts maybe? Certain parts. It's always the Lynn Field. Everybody, anybody that lives in Lynn, if they, they always have to specify they live in the Lynn Field line. Mm-hmm. The diamond district. The diamond district. Exactly. So, not you, Stomp. You live in the Lynn part of Lynn. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[00:04:50] Nick, Nick doesn't know what we're talking about, but it's, it's North Shore stuff. It's high level North Shore stuff. You wouldn't understand, Nick. Okay. Understood. Yeah. All right. So, welcome to episode 246 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast. Stomp is back again. What is this, Stomp? This is like four out of six episodes, I think, right? Yeah, I just miss you guys. That's all. I just miss you guys. Pretty good. Do we have to stay back again anymore? Because I think he's just here now. Just regular. Yeah, that's true. I was wondering about that. Like, you don't get to do that anymore.

[00:05:19] It's like, guys, he's been back for 20 episodes in a row. I don't know. Until you come back for 10, 10 total, I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep rolling it up. That's the number. This week we're joined by, we have a guest later on. We did a guest segment, our friend of the show, Matt, he goes by vertproject26 on Instagram. So Nick and Stomp, while I was out in my fancy dinner, Nick and Stomp, through the magic of audio editing, I got a chance to speak to Matt and they're going to, he's going to break down.

[00:05:47] So this guy does like a yearly elevation gain project. So he's got like a couple hundred thousand feet of elevation gain. Yeah, I think he's around 180-ish. Pretty good. He told us as of right now. Originally it was like his goal was around 100 and then he realized that his goal was too short. So he's raising it and just kind of getting out there and crushing some vert. Pretty good. Crushing peaks. So Nick and Stomp, we'll talk with him and we'll have that segment later on. Plus, we had a recap of last week's 9-11 Honor Summit.

[00:06:15] So with the Slasher crew was all over the place on this one. We were on Mount Crawford, Mount Sugarloaf, Middle Sugarloaf for that event, I think, right? Stomp, you Middle Sugarloaf? Middle Sugarloaf. Yeah, it was a nice night. Honestly, we'll get to it, but the best part was the sunset. Yeah, definitely. And then Stomp covered the race to the cog recap. We'll have that. He was there on Sunday. And then we've got some reminders for search and rescue safety.

[00:06:44] We've got a story about a dog walker in New Hampshire that keeps vandalizing trail signs in his local area. Police are on the lookout for this guy. I thought that was kind of fun. We'll talk about pooping in the woods. We've got more details on the full conditions event on November 21st. All this, plus some recent search and rescue news and hikes on Mount Monroe. We got a review of the new section of the Ammanusic Ravine Trail. Nick did a Twin Zeeland Hill traverse.

[00:07:14] And I got a little bit of a breakdown on hiking on some snowmobile trails in central New Hampshire. So I'm Mike. I'm Nick. And I'm Stomp. Let's get started. Let's get started. Hooray. And there was much rejoicing, right? There was much rejoicing. That's it. That was your line, Stomp.

[00:07:43] I stole that, but I do like it. Well, it was Monty Python's line. Yes. Yeah. They get the credit on that one. We'll give Stomp the credit there. And now for a quick update from our friend on the AT, Dave Shits in the Woods. I gave this a quick edit and I hope it all reads well. So here it is. Current Apostle standings as of 9-15. Jake, 4-000. Paul G, 2-500. Paul L, 22-50.

[00:08:13] Mike, 1-800. Peter, 1-600. Nick, 1-500. Steve Eat Shit, 1-500. And Jay, and last with 250. Paul G not looking to win this, but making a ton of points up in Maine for no reason. Can anyone catch Jake? Will anyone jump into the 100 mile wilderness where point values double? We'll see. I'm currently taking my first zero in about 28 days at the famous Shaw's located in Monson, Maine at the edge of the 100 mile wilderness. Most days were not huge miles, but they have been hard miles.

[00:08:41] Only in the last week have things leveled out and become more tolerable. I've decided that the AT in New Hampshire is harder because it's more relentless than the AT in Maine, but Maine's 4,000 footers are tougher individual climbs than New Hampshire's. I've had ideal weather with minimal rain, incredible undercast mornings, cold nights, stunning views, and my first moose sighting. Low water makes it tough to find for drinking, but has made fording rivers easier and the canoe ride across the Kennebec almost unnecessary.

[00:09:10] Almost, I say, as I would not take the chance, especially since they release the dam daily any time in the afternoon. Tomorrow, I enter the 100 mile wilderness and will be on and off the grid for a week or more as I make my approach to the final destination on this insane adventure. I hope the body holds up and the weather continues in my favor. Cue Europe's the final countdown, which if you really listen to the lyrics for the song, it makes absolutely no sense.

[00:09:34] So just like having a baby, one more good push should do it, but my hips will never be the same. And Dave leaving us with a little humor as always. We wish you all the best, Dave. You're absolutely crushing it out there. Katahdin is in sights. Good luck in the 100 mile wilderness. And let's get this thing done, buddy. Alright, so listeners, fall foliage is coming up. Nick, what do we need to know about fall foliage?

[00:10:01] Yeah, it looks like the leaves are starting, just starting to change up in those northern areas of New Hampshire. It's also really going off in Alaska, which my buddy thought was funny to point out that if you want to know the Alaska foliage is going. But around here in the northeast, yeah, it seems like things are kind of off to the start. I know we've had a couple nights even down here that have been, I think it hit like 47 or something last night. So I'm sure up in New Hampshire, it was probably almost down to frost level, which means those leaves are going to be changing.

[00:10:27] Here, it hit 40 in Thornton. Like we were hustling to get all the plants on the deck, like all hands on deck, let's go. Crazy. Yeah, and we'll, we will, I guess, look to, they got these online maps that you can get for foliage. So we'll take a look and we'll see what we can do to, to give people the timing on it this year. Do we know yet? Is it going to be like an early year or a late year or do we not know?

[00:10:57] My sense is that it's going to be early. I mean, Bretton Woods is popping already, driving to Middle Sugarloaf. There's patches through the notch. If you look, you know, driving north on 93, you look to the right, you see the mountains. It's like one, 2% maybe scientific, my science expertise, he's trying to estimate that. But I think it's coming in early for sure. Yeah. It's sort of weird.

[00:11:19] My map here says like the north country, like from maybe September 23rd through say the 27th will be peak foliage. And then starting like end of September into early October looks to be peak foliage for the White Mountains. So good stuff. Yeah. I'm always watching the weather too, weather nerd here.

[00:11:46] And it looks like sort of the, after we have, it looks like we've got a little bit of warmup coming, maybe like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday timeframe, but it looks like pseudo below average temps for maybe the next 10 days after that. So I think that'll probably speed things along going to the end of September. Yep. So we're all looking forward to foliage. We put our, we, everybody breaking out their long underwear. We're getting ready. Oh yeah. Yeah. We put the heat on the other night. We had a cranking. You did. It was cold.

[00:12:14] Do either one of you guys have overalls? Do you wear the Carhartt overalls? I was thinking about getting a pair. Uh, not anymore. No. Those days are gone. I can't say I do. I would though. I know you're a suspenders guy, Storm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Overalls are cool. You should go for it. We should all get Carhartt overalls and wear those to the full conditions event. All right. You down. Can we write them off as a business extension?

[00:12:41] Oh my God. We really like this three stooges. They wore outfits like that. They'll have a uniform. We'll have to really, you have to really look confident doing that though. Cause otherwise we're just going to look as Tom said. Yeah. You need to embrace it. Yeah. We have to, we have to look like it's legit. We can get, people can throw us in the audience with the overall. We'll have to get Andy from the coin. He's big enough to do it. So he's good. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Nobody's going to say anything to Andy. You don't like my overalls? Crush.

[00:13:10] Well, okay. So the first thing we got here is, uh, so the honor summit. So the, I was actually surprised at how much traction this, I mean, I wasn't surprised, but it was like, it was noticeable in North Conway, how much traction and how much interest there was in the honor lights on, on, on Mount Washington on 9-11. Cause I think it was like Thursday night was kind of like a rough weather night. And then Friday and Saturday were completely clear. So, um, Mrs. Mike and the whole family, they ended up going to that,

[00:13:36] like that outlook on route 16, right outside of North Conway. That's is a direct view of Mount Washington to get photos. Uh, but stop, you ended up going to, you would already suggested middle sugar loaves. So you actually mulled through with your idea and went, um, so can you just give a breakdown on how logistically, how was it parking and then hiking out there and then the crowds and all that? Yeah. So Mrs. Stomp and I went out and, um, got there around probably six and we started

[00:14:05] hiking in. There was maybe 30 cars at the middle sugar loaves trailhead. Um, trails are pretty dry, uh, mostly out of staters, uh, except for when we got to the top of the summit, all of a sudden it was like a reunion class reunion. Forrest was up there. There were like four or five Pemi members. Ken Bossy's up there with Dave and Ian. I'm like, thanks for the invite everybody. It was crazy. There was a, there was a lot of people that we knew up there. Uh, Marley, Marley, listener Marley was up

[00:14:33] there. And, uh, uh, so yeah, so it was a great time. Uh, not too bad, but the, the exit trying to get out of there, I called it Mike, all the people that must've been trying to travel on 302 past the Omni were coming back to Yaya's is it Yaya's? Yes. That junction. It took about half an hour to get from middle sugar loaves Zealand road to that light where you take a left. That's dude. It was a nightmare.

[00:14:57] Yeah. It's like a couple of miles maybe. Yeah. But it was a nice time. Um, I'm telling you with Ken Bossy behind us, sitting behind us, they were setting up a tent to stay overnight. Once those lights came on and those three are behind me giggling because it was very, it was not like Tron Aries holding the disc up in the sky with the laser beam. It was sort of ghostly pale and he's behind me giggling. And

[00:15:24] I'm like, Oh my God, he's going to say something funny. And he goes, uh, they're just getting warmed up. And then I hear them talking like, I think I found the name of my next book. They said it would be brighter. Yeah. It was killing me. That wasn't, I actually said to the guys cause I wasn't sure. And maybe it's a timing thing, but I will say that like to the visual eye, at least early on,

[00:15:50] it was like very dim. It was. Um, I was like, well, maybe the lights need to warm up for a certain amount of time. Then I was leading online. I was like, well, it's led lights. But then I started taking photos and like, definitely the photos, um, come through a lot clearer than the, the naked eye. Speaking of photos, I was, I tried every pro setting in my phone over and over again. Could not get an image. Alexander takes out her phone, takes one picture and gets it. Um, man, that's

[00:16:17] confusing stuff. So Android's terrible. The older ones, I don't know how you do it, Nick. You have a real analog, right? Or is that a DLSR? I was actually, I was actually out shooting some Milky Way photos Friday night while all of you were enjoying. You could see that almost better than the frigging summit lights. The Milky Way was incredible that night. Could you see it with your like naked eye that well? A hundred percent. Yeah. Could you see the lights though, too, with your naked eye? Or was it kind of like you guys were all looking at it? Okay. It was just

[00:16:44] very dimmer. I was expecting like, oh, the people saying in like in my area of, um, Massachusetts, they're like, well, you're going to be able to see them from a hundred miles away. And I, when they turned on, I was like, I don't think that they can see them from that far. Yeah. I would think too, just the light pollution. Cause you got, unless you're in far Western mass, cause that's a lot of the thing. It's like, even like I've learned with shooting the Milky Way is if there's like a bright like moon or whatever, like that washes it out. So I don't see if you guys were kind of barely seeing it from like what, like a couple of miles away. Like, I don't

[00:17:14] think you're going to be seeing it from a hundred miles unless it's, I don't know, but doubtful. And the sky was very hazy for some reason. I noticed that it was just a haze. Yeah. That might not have helped. Yeah. But anyway, good time. Don't, don't regret it. I, but I do think the sunset was incredible. Man, what a sunset that was. Yeah. Yeah. So good time. Yeah. We did, we went in from the salt. So we, we hiked up Davis path and I ended up staying at

[00:17:43] Crawford, Mount Crawford. And we were surprised. I was like, well, I figured there's going to be people up there, but wasn't anybody up there. We ran into a few people that were hiking down. But when we got up there, there was nobody else on the summit. It was very windy. Uh, so we were, but this Crawford's nice because it's almost, it's not a 360 summit, but it's got enough where you can duck under the wind. So we had our Helinox chairs and we brought up some beer and food. Jay showed up

[00:18:10] with cookies, which was nice. And we just hung out and the sunset was amazing. And, uh, I brought my sleeping bag so I could bundle up. So I was nice and warm. And then when the lights came on, it was cool, but like it was dim, but I will say like, when we left at about, we were there from about eight to about eight 40, I would say. And then as we were walking back, like when I was looking back, I could tell the lights were brighter. So I think that like, there might've been a little bit of

[00:18:36] just, it wasn't dark enough in the beginning, but I think that the air was, the, the conditions were a little hazy anyway, but I could definitely tell they were brighter. And then, um, as we were walking down those ledges on Crawford, like you could really tell that it had brightened up a little bit. How was it going down a Davis path in the dark down there? It's pretty steep up there. Yeah, it was fine. Yeah, no problem. The ledges were fine. And then going down was, was quick. You know, it's, it's a little, matter of fact, it wasn't, it wasn't foggy or anything like that. So the

[00:19:05] headlamps were really clear, which was helpful. So, and there was six of us. So you pay attention to other people's headlamps a little bit. You guys cross anybody else up there? Nobody. Yeah. Nobody. I mean, we're coming up, people were coming down at like seven at night, uh, before the lights. And, but, uh, after that, like, well, after we passed the last person, nobody else was there except for the six of us. Yeah. How many, how many people are up on the Sugarloaf's stump? Like 30, 40 years? About 15. No, like 15, 20.

[00:19:35] Okay. So not that crazy. Yeah. It wasn't bad at all. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. The cool event. You know, I don't know if it's a one-time thing or whatnot, but it was a, it was a really, I think it got a lot of attention. My, cause my wife was saying everybody in Maine and Western Maine and, uh, North Conway, Fry, there was a ton of people in Fryberg, ton of people in North Conway, I'm going to check it out. I think maybe the, for the 30th, but I don't see it being like a yearly thing. Yeah. But.

[00:20:02] Uh, but yeah, all good. So good, good, good job on the honor summer to then stop. You were able to get over to the, uh, the race, the cog. So you were DJing over there. And then, uh, it was questionable whether they were going to run this race, but they did it. Yeah. I'm glad they did. It actually wasn't too bad. You know, the warmer weather helped, but it was definitely pouring all day long. Um, started to break around one ish, two ish, got home and it was still rolling. It was just rolling in. Uh, but they had rescheduled this

[00:20:30] from earlier in the year. So had they canceled, it would have been a bummer. Um, the racers, uh, Joe Gray, who is the, uh, the favorite at the Mount Washington road race the last several years. He took the first spot for the one way, just making it to the summit. Um, and it's really interesting. He didn't beat the cog. He, he was at one point like several, several seconds ahead, but something happened up top where he ended up coming in behind the cog.

[00:20:56] So nobody beat the cog this year. Long story short, um, Amber Ferreira for the women. She's another Mount Washington favorite that, uh, wins a lot of those races, uh, came in, uh, first for the women. And, um, I mean, there's a whole bunch of other racers, um, I'll just save you the details, but, um, it's really interesting because Nobby started asking me questions about the race and he asked

[00:21:20] AI who won and AI basically said that Joe Gray won beating the cog railroad itself, the train itself, which is completely inaccurate, which is very strange. So like Nobby, where'd you get this information? And I got, I was there. Joe did not beat the cog. So AI is hallucinating on that event, which I find really funny. Um, you might have to get the shame drop ready guys. Cause the,

[00:21:48] the slasher pop-up tent, I had that out during the day and it was absolutely soaked. So I put it in the back of my truck, get home, open it up, set it low so it doesn't go rolling around. And, uh, the next day it dries out. I go to work and I come back and it's like 30 feet in the woods because of the winds, the winds. I didn't anticipate the winds on Monday, but it went flying. So there's like a

[00:22:13] little teeny tear on the top. Shame drop for sure. Shame, shame, shame. Um, yeah, I mean those things, I mean they're built, I think to take a beating anyway, so it should be fine. So yeah. Yeah. And we have to, uh, reseal the seams because water drops are falling on my mixer, which was really terrifying. That's not good. Yeah. That's not good. Yeah. That's not fun. Tape them up, I guess.

[00:22:39] But, uh, that's good. Any, so any other events coming up for you, Stomp? Uh, no, that's it for the moment. Yep. Okay. If you want to book our man, you know, email us. Mm. Yeah. Weddings. Keep you posted if anything pops up. Weddings, races, funerals. You do funerals, Stomp? Uh, yeah, sure. I'll give it a try. You can DJ my funeral. Yeah. I'll show up with the overalls

[00:23:06] on and. Right. Looking snazzy. Speaking of, um, AI here. So our friend Jen, she had, um, sent us this. Apparently there's an Appalachian Trail guidebook that, um, was written according to the Reddit. Who knows with Reddit? Reddit's a little hysterical about AI stuff, but, um, allegedly this, this AI based guidebook for the Appalachian Trail was written and it's

[00:23:35] got wrong information in it. So there's a thread on the Appalachian Trail subreddit. And there's also a petition saying that AI should never be used in writing guidebooks. So I think that I would say if you're looking at guidebooks, try to go with official stuff if you can. And if not go with credible, credible publishers, I would say would be the next one. So, but yeah, it's better to do the official, um, book. So I'll link in the official AT guide

[00:24:04] for people that want to check it out and then I'll put in the. The petition against it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much of this is like, yeah, is AI's got wrong information versus like people. Get angry people. It's the witch trials. Yeah. Oh, they want to point to just to the official channel. So, but anyway, I think you can't go wrong with going with the official channel. So stay away from AI for guidebooks on the mountains. Uh, all right. So then the stomp I, and Nick, I pulled an article here

[00:24:34] from outside magazine about search and rescue experts sharing their most valuable life-saving advice here. So I figured Nick, we've got stomp here. So we might as well get his reaction to some of the, the high level. Stomp reacts, stomp reacts. New YouTube channel. The first thing it says is it emphasizes that. So this is outside magazine and the name of the article is search and rescue experts share their most valuable life-saving advice. So if you listen

[00:25:00] to this segment, you may, you may not, you may, it may save your life. Nick. Yes. Yes. Uh, so we got some of the highlights here. We'll just call out. So some of these might be kind of obvious to us, but maybe not as obvious to others, but even rescue, even experienced hikers and climbers require a rescue rescue rescue. Can't talk to any rescue. Um, I think that that's kind of an, always an interesting thing. I feel like there, there's sort of that

[00:25:26] mentality of like, uh, what is it? The mountain spares all fools is kind of one of those old adages where it does seem like a lot of the inexperienced people tend to get away. And if like you sort of know enough to be dangerous, so to speak, to go out in the winter, or maybe like go out in these sort of crappy conditions and you get that confidence, like a lot of times it pushes you into a territory where you might be a little bit more unsafe than the average novice. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So stomp, stomp's agreeing reaction to that. We got that. I agree. I

[00:25:54] don't think that's like necessarily, I don't, I don't think I can mention any single person that I've met in the search and rescue community that has that type of mentality though. Thankfully, that's good. Yeah. Um, you don't have to pay for back country rescue. Uh, they specifically call out New Hampshire is charging for rescues, but only if state officials deem the person requiring rescue to be dangerously negligent. So out of those cases we see, like most of the ones in New Hampshire do not get fined, right? You have to be pretty overtly reckless.

[00:26:24] Well, there's two, two levels to it. So there's this, there's the civil, which is the, um, uh, what is it? Just the common, common negligence, which is what would a reasonable personal person do in that situation. But then there's the reckless standard, which, which is the criminal standard, which is basically putting others at risk. So that's, we've seen that I think a couple

[00:26:48] years ago with those two young individuals that were up on Eagle Crag. Um, I believe that was a criminal case if I remember correctly. So there's two levels. Um, yeah. Reckless, recklessly negligent, placing others' lives at risk for your actions. And the civil, which is more under the hike safe umbrella and all this stuff is just like, you know, the reasonable person standard, you know, oops, I didn't bring my headlamp, but you're not putting somebody at necessarily at

[00:27:18] risk in their life. That case at Eagle Crag, that was the two trail runners that barely got helivacked off, right? Um, they, no, they got pulled off, uh, with technical gear. They weren't. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was thinking, but they were stuck. They were stuck right up there. They couldn't move. Yeah. I think you're, you, the ones that Eagle Crag, he's talking about were, um, they were like teenage, they were like 20 something year olds. They were just kids. The,

[00:27:45] the runners I think were in Lafayette Brook years, a couple of years ago. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Blending my stories here. Yeah. Some of the other things in this article here, Nick, so they talk about like helicopters are only used in extreme situations, which I feel like, yeah, generally that, that, that lines up. It's generally true. Yeah. It talks about like, you should start your own rescue stomp. So I don't know what your opinion is on this. Like they basically say hope was on the way, but it's going to take hours. So you should just, um,

[00:28:13] do what you need to do to keep the situation from going poorly. Yeah. That's a huge part of education. You know, just what do I do if I have to get myself out? Can I get myself out? If I get in this situation, can I do it and how am I going to do it? I think that's a great idea. Yeah. If you can self-rescue, that's fantastic. This came up, um, actually in our apostles group, uh, someone was mentioning this, but, um, they were asking, so this was in, in regards to the woman in Huntington,

[00:28:40] uh, pretty recently that hiked like a half mile out with like, I think she had a broken ankle, right? Or a broken leg. Um, the, the whole stay put sort of thing. That's generally if you don't know where you are, right? Stomp or is that? Cause you should try. Correct. If you don't want to be a moving target, you know, especially if your phone is dead and you, and we have a general idea where you are, then all of a sudden you decide to start moving. Yeah. That puts your life at risk and makes

[00:29:06] it a lot harder to find you. But if you're moving towards the direction that, you know, rescuers are coming at, and does, is that generally a good thing or subjective? I don't think, I don't think most rescues and know, know what direction we're coming from. Generally it's a frantic call that, Hey, I'm stuck. I need help. Okay. Um, the, you know, if they call 911, they get a ping so we can generally know where they are, but we're not giving them the logistics

[00:29:33] of what we're going to do. Like, yeah, we're going to come up with this and that. Uh, yeah. Stay put. That's the bottom line. Okay. Fair, fair enough. You, you heard it here. Unless you can reasonably backtrack to a, uh, most proximate location where you were on the trail. Sure. Maybe, you know, reasonable distance out. Um, but generally you don't want to go moving.

[00:29:58] Cool. All right. And then it just talks about the importance of electronics, satellite devices, cell phones, um, make sure that you have those available. And, uh, they basically just talk about how, yeah, they're getting GPS locations from the cell phone calls or from the, the satellite devices. So keep your phone charged, make sure that, uh, you know, if you, if you are calling that you can, you can give them information about where you are if possible. So, um, but yeah,

[00:30:27] they just talk about like, you know, keeping that battery charged is important for all those devices. And then the other thing is they talk about always make sure you tell people where you're going. I still do that to this day. Mrs. Mike yells at me if I don't send her a text with all the info, where I'm going, where I'm parking, what time I'm going to be back, who I'm hiking with. Hmm. Yeah. I generally will, uh, let Ash know what trail head I'm heading out, what time I'm planning on getting there, what time I think I'll be back. Uh, usually I'll tell her later than I

[00:30:55] think I'm going to be back as well. Uh, do you leave plan B's like just in case, like I may go down this trail if weather hits or, and do you take it that far? It does. It does. It depends, I guess on the route. Um, like even like say like the Zealand, like the, the loop I just did, the hail Zealand twins thing. Like I had mentioned her, I'm like, I might head out to West Bond, which I just didn't have time kind of to go that day.

[00:31:22] And like, I'll mention that, or maybe if I, if I'm in the prezzies and I'm kind of like thinking, maybe I'll go up Madison or I'm going to go up this way. Like I'll tell her, like, I'm probably going to come down this way. Um, I feel like too, it, it even compared to like when we started hiking, like, I don't know, 10, 13 years ago, somewhere in that ballpark, like cell service in the whites is pretty solid above tree line, like no matter where you are. So I feel like usually I can kind of send her a text and be like, Hey, I'm up here. Um, Hey, I'm down here kind of deal. Um, so to kind of keep, let her know where I am, uh, I don't text her the whole time, but just kind of give her like, Hey,

[00:31:52] I'm on this summit at the end. One thing too, I think a lot of people don't, um, think of until you end up in this situation enough is that when you send a text, like if, and you know, someone's watching you or like the summit, make sure you send the time that you send the text. Cause sometimes I've had to happen before with those texts hang around, like on a garment or whatever. And they all send, like when you get to the parking lot and somewhere, I had this happen in the Adirondacks to me once where Ash was wondering where I was for like five hours. Cause it couldn't send cause a tree cover. And then she got all the text messages like 10 minutes

[00:32:19] before I walked through the door to the rental house we had. So she's like, I thought you were still up here. So I've kind of learned since then to be like, Oh, on, on whatever Mount Adams at 10 36 AM, like I'll make sure I send that. Uh, you don't know when those texts will send out sometimes. So that's annoying. I try to do it. Like, actually I usually will like sit on the porch and mean right before I'm leaving. Cause I know I have a cell connection and I'll text her, but that's a good

[00:32:44] point is just make sure that you got cell connection somewhere. So, all right. Um, have you guys ever been tempted to steal any like trail signs or, uh, any of those signs from kiosk or anything like that? I know that you guys are well behaved, but just curious, Stomp. Have you ever thought about like, I really want to rip this sign down? No, no. The, the, the, the, the closest, the furthest, the closest I've come is like, Ooh, I wish I could

[00:33:10] have that like blaze, that piece of bark with that blaze on. It's almost falling off. Should I just help it the rest of the way? Yank it. Yeah. That's probably the, the big temptation I faced. I can't, I can't say I've craved ripping off a trail sign before that hasn't happened yet. My kids have stolen like those orange traffic cones before, like those will show up in my basement randomly. At one point we had, uh, I think we had like a no parking sign or a one way sign somewhere.

[00:33:39] So I don't know where these kids come up with this stuff, but I was never assigned stealer. But the reason I ask this is that Bedford, New Hampshire, um, police department put out a request for an assistant, assistance in identifying a male that was pictured, uh, stealing a trail rules sign in the Piscataug land conservatory. And they call it the Florence tar wildlife sanctuary

[00:34:05] trail system. Apparently this guy has stolen multiple, uh, signs, the sign they keep putting it back up and he keeps stealing it. Hmm. I have a really good picture of him. He looks like a 50 something year old guy. He's got two leashes around his neck. So online people that are commenting theorized that the sign basically confirms that people are required to keep their dogs on leash at all times. And this guy apparently likes to keep his dogs off leash. So that's

[00:34:34] where they think maybe he stole the sign because I don't know, maybe he wants to just keep his dogs off leash and he can say like, well, there was no sign saying that they have to be off leash. So, but it's a very strange story. But the warning here is that if you think that you're like in the middle of the woods and no one can see you and you're going to get away with something, don't kid yourself because there's trail cameras everywhere. No kidding. Yeah. For real. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, they've got a perfect picture of this. I can guarantee you that like he, this guy has seen him as his, his picture floating

[00:35:03] around and somebody has already tipped off the police who he is. Wow. Yeah. It's toast. And the second thing that annoys me, people that carve or graffiti on signs, that's just as bad. Right. God, that stuff annoys me. There was a sticker. Uh, it was like live free or some stupid, it's going to say some stupid shit, whatever we can bleep it out. Um, on the, on the trail, on the North twin trail sign when I was on North twin and I just like pulled it off. But I'm like, I wouldn't even like, I don't know,

[00:35:30] again, maybe it has to do with how we were brought into nature as a kid and adolescent and stuff. And what people teach you what's right and what's wrong when I'm like, I would never think to like graffiti or stick or something else. So it's very odd to me when you see people do that, just seems so stupid. That's amazing. I always get nervous about like, I know we give out the slasher stickers, but I always like, I think we've said that before. Like don't put these on like shelters or anywhere, just put them under a water bottle and don't put them anywhere that,

[00:35:56] uh, I'd be so sad and distraught if we just came up on like, we're seeing a slasher sticker on like the Appalachia sign or something. I'd be like, Oh God. Not good. Um, don't, let's not give the listeners any ideas here. So, um, all right. Next story here is a stomp. Would you pay for a bag that you could poop into when you're in the woods? No, I would not. But apparently there are some who will. Yeah. Yeah. We dig a hole. So what, what is the story about stomp? You pulled this from

[00:36:24] Cowboy State Daily. This is one of your favorite newspapers. It's definitely, it's a good glimpse into the West. But, um, so a study by a Colorado company shows that people who are willing to poop in plastic bags and pack it out of the wilderness are also willing to pay for the privilege. They'll buy the bags at Trailheads to maintain a leave no trace footprint. What do you think? I like this graphic. We missed this opportunity. We could have made millions.

[00:36:52] We could have. For listeners so they understand like this bag, essentially what it has, I like the picture of the guy. The bag has like some kind of a chemical inside of it that breaks down the poop so it doesn't smell. So there is like some benefit to it. Uh, and the idea is, is that like, okay, they're going to leave these out a kiosk and then they surveyed some people and they were like, well, we would even pay for this, which I don't think they will. Personally for me, like, I just feel like the environmental impact of having this plastic bag that you've got to carry around, like I would

[00:37:22] rather just dig a hole and poop in it. Yeah. But their point is that in some places like this Mount Elbert, it's rocky soil and you can't even dig a cat hole. So I guess that would make sense in certain locations. Right. But we really need to get the professional in here, Dave Schitts, to figure this one out for us. Get his take. And Lord knows he's pooped a lot of places by now. And the whole eastern seaboard. Yes. And the picture of this, it's like basically the guy's putting the bag over his

[00:37:52] posterior and then bending over. But like, I think feasibly, like, I feel like the, it's going to serve to block the entranceway and it may make more of a mess than it needs to be. So I would rather, I don't know, logistically, I feel like I would just maybe want to poop on something and then scoop it into the bag. I don't know. No comment. Think about this, Stomp. What's your strategy if you, if you're ever going to be a Mount Elbert?

[00:38:23] I doubt I'll be there. And I don't think I'll have this issue on the mountain. Have you ever pooped into a bag? I'm trying to think if I've ever pooped into a bag. No, no. It could be challenging. It could be messy. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of ways for that to go wrong. Yeah. The bag needs to be bigger. Nick, that's my takeaway. Yeah, I feel like this graphic seems like it covers a lot, but I just think too,

[00:38:49] of like you need a steady balance area and like you got to be able to brace yourself. You don't want to fall over while that's going. And I don't know, you need two hands, it seems like. Yeah, that dude just squatting like a half squat. Yeah. You should be able to do a wall sit for at least two minutes to practice to be able to poop in the woods like that. To qualify for a bag that you can buy? Yeah. I feel like one time I leaned against a tree and I almost fell over and it wasn't a good scene, so.

[00:39:17] I heard a friend who I won't mention, not outside of the apostles group, but was actually pooping once and they accidentally pooped on the back of one of their snowshoes and didn't realize they got some of it until they went to step away and you know how your snowshoes like fling up. So like the poop in the snow was like flinging up like behind them and just me. Yeah, it was a bad situation. I feel like I would take my snowshoes off before I pooped. Yeah, I get a spread. Make sure you spread. Yes. Huh.

[00:39:44] All right. Well, moving on here. So Stomp, what do we have here? USGS. There's a good elevation map option for us here. Yeah, just really quickly, we'll give you the link, but there's a 3D elevation program. They've mapped out New Hampshire, so basically it's a modern illustration of each state, but I just dug up the link for New Hampshire. It shows the landscape, elevations, differences in vivid details.

[00:40:12] So it's a free thing that you can print out PDFs, 8.5 by 11, pretty small files, 24 by 36. So yeah, it's a nice little resource for people that want to get the really detailed look at the mountains up here. And it's free. Yeah, looks good. Looks good. So we'll put this in the show notes. And then next up here, Stomp, we were always looking for good stuff to do in the fall. So it looks like something in your neck of the woods is coming up.

[00:40:40] This is something for Nick, right? Take the kids. When was the last time you guys did a haunted hay maze or anything like that? It's been a long time for me and I saw the ad for this and it looks incredible. So at Molten Farm in Meredith, they have a 250th corn maze. And when you look at the size of this thing, it's massive. So I don't know. I'm hoping to get out there and do it before the corn withers. That's fun.

[00:41:10] It's been a long time. It's a good time. Yeah, there's a couple down in your neck of the woods, Mike. I thought there was one north of Haverhill somewhere in that neighborhood. I can't remember the town. We always go to... We don't go around. We go up in Freiburg. So we go to Sherman Farms, which is in Center Conway, right by Freiburg. So they get a good one. And I don't know, Nick, have you ever go to these corn mazes? Do you have an opinion on them? The most recent one we went to, I think it was two or three years ago.

[00:41:39] I went with Josh and some friends and our kids. But we went to... There's a big one called Sauchuk's Corn Maze down in... I think it's Kingston Mass. Yep. And they do kind of the whole fair vibe. But it was fun. It was kind of withering. We went a little bit later in the year, so it wasn't too hard to get through it. But it was fun. Yeah, it's a great time. So you can spend an hour or two hours in there trying to figure your way out. Yeah. Yeah. So this one that Stomp had put in, it's Molten Farm and Meredith. So theirs starts on September 19th.

[00:42:09] And then Sherman Farms in Center Conway also starts on the weekends on September 19th. So $12 per person, $6 for each kid age three to six. So that's not too bad. That's a good inexpensive way to support a local company. All right here. So Slasher makes a top 10 podcast list. So we made a top 10 list of New Hampshire podcasts.

[00:42:38] So that's good. Congratulations. Congratulations to us. Yay. And then speaking of us, we have a big event coming up on November 21st. Do we know what tickets available yet, Stomp? I do not believe so, but it's coming quick. Okay. I believe they're working on the website and whatnot. It'll be rolling soon. Yep. So, and then we've got a good guest list here. So what are all the details, gentlemen? Nick? Anybody?

[00:43:09] I thought Stomp was going to take it. No, I'll take it. That's all good. All right. So we got Doors at 4 p.m. Just a reminder, this is at the Colonial Theater over in Bethlehem. Mike likes to say the wrong town sometimes. We want to make sure you go to the Colonial Theater in Bethlehem. Sorry about that. So that's Doors at 4 p.m. It's all good, Mike. Doors at 4 p.m. I'm going to be playing a solo acoustic set, 4 to 4.30 p.m. Stomp's going to be pumping some tunes. DJ mixes 4.30 to 5 p.m.

[00:43:35] And then it looks like at 5 in the start of the podcast, we get the movie My Ride or Die with Kate Ziliff. Going up first, some of the guests we've got. We've got Kate Ziliff, Ty Gagney, Lieutenant James Neyland, and more. I believe we just confirmed another guest. I don't know if we're allowed to say the other guest yet. Sure. Go for it. Yeah. Joe Roman. So Joe Roman, it was one of the instrumental people to form the Paw Rescue.

[00:44:03] And he's also involved with AMC. So this would be a really great conversation for those interested in what's happening with the dog rescues and whatnot. Yeah. It should be a great night. It was a great time last year. And then, of course, we've got an after party at the Pint House, 7.30 p.m. sharp after the show. Me and Ash got a babysitter. So we will be there having a few drinks and a few brews after the show. Look out. Hopefully we see you all there. Yeah. It's going to be a great time. Yeah. I can't wait. Yeah.

[00:44:31] And it's a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Outdoor Council, and they're shooting to increase the amount raised last year. So we need you people. We need you to show up for this one. It's going to be massive. Yeah. What are we looking at? We want to make $20,000 this year, right? Yeah. $20,000. I think we can do it. We can do it. Yeah. We can do it. We can do it. All right. And then continuing on to offense here. So we've got the Rescue Me 5K that's coming up in... Oh, this is a YouTube video.

[00:45:01] That is weird. I think somebody messed the link up. Oh, man. Oopsie. Hold on a sec. We'll edit this pause out. Over in Lincoln, New Hampshire on Saturday, November 7th. So this is the Rescue Me event that the Lakes Region Search and Rescue puts on every year. It's actually the seventh annual one. It's always a good time. You kind of get to run on Main Street in Lincoln, then you loop through some of the other neighborhoods and then come back by Loon.

[00:45:31] They usually do a nice little after show, or I should say like after party sort of raffle type thing at... What's the name of the brewery now over there? Base Camp Brewing. Base Camp Brewery. Yeah. Over at Base Camp Brewery, right in that little mall. So it's always a fun time. Maybe you'll get to see Stomp sing the national anthem again. Yeah, we'll be hosting it too. So I don't know if you're showing up, Mike, but I actually... I talked to Dave because he filled in for you last year and we had a great time.

[00:45:57] So I think Dave's coming to do the commentary on the mic before the race and then we'll go upstairs and do the raffles. But we definitely... Slasher has it covered for helping out. Yeah, I'll see if I can make it. I forget what I had going on last time. I think I have like... I got to go to North Carolina the weekend before, but I should be around for this one here. So... And I may run this one. I got to... I need a 5K to train, Stomp. I haven't run in a while. I'm running a race. Oh, really? Yeah. Huh. I will be in Acadia.

[00:46:27] So I'll leave it to you gentlemen to take care of it. All right. I'm on it. And then we want to move on to plug an event here. Stomp, I think this one you gave a heads up. So this is Jen's Friends. It's a non-profit in the central New Hampshire area here. So what's the story behind Jen's Friends? Yeah. So a listener reached out to us to see if we could plug this.

[00:46:50] So Jen's Friends is a 29-year-old non-profit in the Mount Washington Valley supporting residents and their families who are fighting cancer. So they currently have 90 families and are spending $1,500 per day in gas cards, food cards, heating assistance, and the like. They meet at the Cranmore Mountain in North Conway on Saturday the 19th.

[00:47:18] Oh, what month is that? Did she say that earlier? Well, let's look at the website. Can one of you guys open that for a second? So Saturday the 19th for a hike up the mountain. Yep. September. So it'll be coming up a week. It's actually this Saturday. It will be tomorrow. All right. There it is. Yeah, tomorrow when listeners hear this. So Saturday the 19th, Cranmore Mountain, optional chairlift ride down, lunch and music to raise money to support the community. So sounds great.

[00:47:46] In 29 years, they've raised and distributed over $5 million. Wow. And yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. So it's www.jensfriends.org. Yeah. Best of luck to you guys. That's cool. Yeah. That sounds like a great fundraiser. Awesome. We have one more fundraiser. We just wanted to plug here. So this is, and in fact, Nick had mentioned this one earlier.

[00:48:09] So Sydney Cox, she had been involved in a rescue in Huntington's, actually injured herself on approaching Huntington Ravine headwall and was able to sort of crawl and limper way back to down closer to like, I think probably by Harvard Cabin or whatnot. Basically made the rescue a lot easier. Sydney's an experienced hiker. I think she's moving along pretty close to a 4,000 footer list, if I recall from the media commentary and commentary online.

[00:48:37] But she is, she's hosting a hike on October 24th, Mount Shakora, which will benefit the search and rescue in the White Mountains. So she's a link to a fundraiser here. And then if you're interested in going on a hike, they've got, it looks like a decent group that's going to go. And then if you want to donate, I'll include the link in our show notes here. She's trying to raise money. I think they've raised about $600 so far. So it's early stages, but we wanted to give her a plug.

[00:49:06] And she definitely got a good kudos from the Forest Service for self-rescuing there. And, you know, she wants to give a little bit back. So we will help if we can. Yeah, absolutely. And who doesn't love hiking Chikura? True. True. True. So, all right. And then in the interest of time, I think we're going to skip these national stories here and then go into gear discussion here. So Oreo chicken sandwich here.

[00:49:35] What is this all about? This sounds ridiculous. Isn't that disgusting? When I heard about this, I almost vomited, but I thought it would be a funny joke. Like for hikers out there that are looking for, through hikers even, KFC debuts an Oreo flavored chicken sandwich. Gross. And fast food lovers are horrified. Like, what are you kidding me? It's a cookie flavored chicken sandwich. Sounds great.

[00:50:02] I mean, those two things on their own are fine, but when you mix them together, it sounds disgusting. It really does. But thankfully, it's only available in China at the moment. But keep your eyes open. It may make its way over stateside here. Ugh. It's so gross. So, yeah. A Reddit user said it sounds beyond terrible. The color of the buns looks just disconcerting, too. It's, I don't know.

[00:50:31] I wonder. I wonder how it tastes, though. I mean, you never know. It could be some weird, unique thing. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Such an odd mix. It is. Very odd. All right. Well, somebody go to China and report back on this. We'll put this in the show notes if you want to check it out. Are you ready for Slasher's Beer Review?

[00:51:05] Nick, it looks like you've got a new running vest. You've got a bottle on your shoulder that you're experiencing, I think, for the first time. What's going on with your running vest? Yeah. So, I wanted to buy a running vest for the Kilkenny race coming up. And I guess just if I do any sort of future things like this. So, I ended up buying this Salomon ADV skin 12-liter vest. Worked pretty well on its debut loop that I used it.

[00:51:31] My biggest problem with this was just trying to figure out how to fit all the gear that I wanted to and needed to that day in it, which was a bit jarring coming from using like a 25- to 33-liter pack most of my hiking career. Came with some little, those like squeezy bottles, which kind of fit in there and like flesh against your sort of chest, I guess. Yeah, but worked pretty well with it. I think there's just going to be sort of a learning curve for me getting used to using it like any sort of new piece of gear.

[00:52:00] Was able to fit a pretty good amount of stuff in it. The back's pretty stretchy. Had my sort of 10 essentials. Was able to fit like a couple changes of shirts and like a hoodie and like a rain jacket in there. I think on like a good weather day, I think I'd be pretty comfortable using it. But I think it, question how to be comfortable using these, I guess, if the weather's a little bit more inclement. But it worked well. And then I got this stow bottle that's actually by this company called, so it's basically by this company called Hydra Pack. It's a one-liter stow bottle.

[00:52:30] So it's kind of a rubber bottle that folds down. Why I ended up grabbing this is basically it folds down nicely within the pack. And it also fits the, like the thread size or I guess the screw size on top fits the Sawyer Squeeze. So I was able to fill that up to be able to filter water and push that into my squeeze bottles and also put it into my pack. And the stow bottle actually kind of fits neatly in the netting that goes against your back within that vest. So that's kind of where I kept it. The one downside I will say with this thing, and maybe it'll go away after I use it more.

[00:52:59] But the plastic-y taste was like pretty bad after water being in there for like several hours. Like it's drinkable, obviously, but it didn't taste. It was a weird flavor with like I had some like grape liquid IV in there mixed with like plastic. And it was just kind of weird. Like a hose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something to that effect. I haven't really, honestly, I haven't been able to find plastic bottles like that that don't continue to have that plastic-y taste.

[00:53:27] Like I have kind of given up on them. I use, I just get like a water bottle from Cumberland Farms or something. And I use that instead now because it just tastes better. Yeah. I kind of figured since messing around with it, the way that Salomon pack is, I think I could fit like a smart liter, one liter bottle like sideways, like horizontally at the bottom of the pack. So I might do that next time instead of taking that thing. But I will say it worked nicely to fold down. It doesn't take up a ton of space.

[00:53:53] But, and the other, the other thing, maybe I was just missing it too, but it seemed like there's almost kind of a little trick. Like if you had to, if you had to fill it in stationary water, I was able to sort of fill it up in like the Zeeland River near like up from Zeeland Hut where the water is moving pretty good. So it pushed like the, I guess the, the plastic bottle outwards. It seemed like it'd be difficult to get the thing to fill up fully if you were just submerging in like a puddle or not moving water. So I don't know if you could squeeze the air out of it and try to like let it suck back in. But that was another sort of difficulty I had with it.

[00:54:23] I had to like get it like right under almost like a little falls to try to get it to expand and fill out all the way. But again, just new gear, learning curve. Sorry about my camera. I don't know what's going on with that. No, your camera's fine. No, it's okay. Oh, you're back. Nick, what's your strategy? So the race is on Saturday? Yes, it's on Saturday. And then so weather's not going to, weather's going to be kind of overcast and cool, but it doesn't look like you're going to get too much rain or anything like that. But what's the, what's the strategy for you?

[00:54:51] My strategy is to probably just try to make good time. So I'm doing the 25K, which is around 15 miles and change, 4,000 feet. But I'm pretty much going up and over Cabot from York Pond out over to South Pond. So over Rogers Ledge. I haven't done the section between Unknown Pond and Rogers Ledge. So that'll be sort of an unknown for me. But kind of just to probably power hike on the ups, probably try to, I guess, jog slash trail run where it feels good on the way down. But I'm kind of looking to be, I think six hours is sort of my goal time.

[00:55:21] So we'll see if that's achievable or not. I think it should be within my wheelhouse, especially if I'm not moving and I'm feeling pretty good. But I'll just be happy to get out there and do it. You know, it's, I think you got to try new things every once in a while. And we've, I've listened to the episodes with Marilyn on for a while now and kind of excited to try it. And I'm sure it'll for sure be easier than pacing Jay through the Jigger Johnson for 30 miles through the night. I mean, going through the weeks is a grind. I will tell you that like the. So I won't be doing, I won't be doing that.

[00:55:50] Oh, you're not doing that. That's true. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. If you're doing the 25 miler, I'll be doing that. But I think it, because really what's the section from like unknown to Rogers Ledge, like they're just wet. Unknown to Rogers Ledge is like, no, it's fine. There is like that bog bridge area there that used to be really nice, but the, but it got taken out by a beaver. So it's a little bit of like log walking that you got to get through. But otherwise, yeah, you hit the low point there and then get up to Rogers Ledge. So it's not bad at all.

[00:56:21] Trails are pretty nice. Yeah. I've been trying to hit some hills and I'll be probably hiking doing other stuff this weekend, but did get a bit of a cold last week, which is kind of a bummer. But that's just having kids in preschool. So. Right. Yeah. It's a little ferny after unknown pond before you get to that little like unnamed bog area there. But it's, it's, it's a nice, nice run. You'll have, you'll have fun. And then Rogers Ledge and that, that area is, I remember being kind of wet, like the drainage needed to be cleared on a lot of those trails, but I don't think it'll be too bad for you.

[00:56:51] Yeah. I'm pretty stoked. I've only been out to Rogers Ledge once and didn't really have the best view. So South Ponds, I remember just being blown away by how beautiful that whole area was. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Saturday that looks like it'll be okay, but I don't think it's going to be spectacular. Yeah. As long as it doesn't rain, I'll be happy. Right. We all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times. So here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it. Ba-dum-bum. Stomp. All right, here's Stomp.

[00:57:21] So Stomp, I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down. I love it. Yeah. That was the dad joke. Man, he stuck that one up on us. Yes. I was like, what? What? Yes. That was that one?

[00:57:52] Hey, what's that sound? It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp. Anything pop culture, Stomp or Nick, anything interesting that you're watching? Nothing. Got nothing. We're just watching The Pit still, which has been really good. I mean, yeah. Oh, I actually do. My National Kill Me If I Don't Mention This, but there's a really popular new horror movie out that I'm going to look up really quick. Okay. Well, you do that. I need a bunch of indie movies.

[00:58:21] I will say that tonight is the Dancing with the Stars premiere. So all the Mike, Mrs. Mike and all my daughters are upstairs. Well, my two daughters, the other ones in North Carolina, but the two that are home, they're upstairs very excited with Dancing with the Stars. Hmm. I'm used to watching that. Who are the celebrities? The only one that I know that's noteworthy is Julia Stiles, who was in that movie, 10 Things I Hate About You, back in the 90s. Hmm. Okay. Okay.

[00:58:50] So, but otherwise it's just like influencers and Love Island type people. Got it. Got it. Okay. So I'm not letting Ash down. The new horror movie that she picked for our movie night that we did a few Sundays ago was Obsession, which I don't know if you guys have heard about that. It's kind of like it had a really small budget. It's like raking in the cash. And we watched it. It was good. It was pretty good. It was random. It was definitely good. It was good. Andy Richter's in it, which was kind of random for like a supporting role for like two minutes

[00:59:20] of Conan and Andy Richter. But yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't particularly go to watch horror movies like by myself. That's more Ash's genre, but I do enjoy watching them with her. And there was a lot going on. It's one of those you could like read Reddit afterwards and there's like a whole bunch of like stuff going on behind the scenes. Yeah, that's pretty wild. So maybe we'll watch it at some point. Good stuff. Very nice. All right. And then what do we got next here? So I did the dad jokes. We did the pop culture stuff here. So all right.

[00:59:50] So if you want stickers, you can get stickers at the Mountain Wanderer in Lincoln, New Hampshire or Spinners Pizza Parlor in Andover, Mass. So you do that. And then if you want swag, you can check out our bonfire shop. You can choose between super popular hoodies, classic or V-neck T-shirts and more. Color selection is great and they are priced to move. I have to put in a big order and take some Slasher gear down in North Carolina with me for my daughter and her friends stomp. Oh, yeah? Yes. They've been in there. Awesome.

[01:00:19] So anyway, and then if you want to donate to Slasher to give us money for equipment and all kinds of stuff, web hosting, all live events, whatever, you can do that by going to Slasher's Buy Me a Coffee and you can donate, which would be great. Very, very appreciated.

[01:00:49] Hey, hold my beer. It's time to find out what Mike and Stomp are drinking on this week's Beer Talk. This is the first show we talk about what beer we're drinking. I had a gin and tonic for dinner earlier and I didn't even grab a water for the show right now. So I had my drink already, but I don't know, Nick or Stomp, have you been drinking anything? You're ready for bed, huh? Yes. I'm ready for a nap.

[01:01:17] I have some Cabernet, little Cabernet that I pilfered from my mom's. Thanks, mom. Love you. I like the idea of you taking it out onto your shirt or something. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not exciting. I just have a polar seltzer that's raspberry lime. Sorry, guys. Oh, there you go. Yeah. And it's empty. Not bad. So my mouth is dry. Not too bad here. So, all right, we'll get back to the...

[01:01:46] I did go to Ledge Brewing, I will say, before my Crawford hike and it was really good. There you go. They had good beer there and they had good tacos. Ooh. Hmm. I knew we should have gone left back there. Stomp, don't worry. I know it's this way. I've got a feeling in my gut. Uh, are you sure you're not about to have a bowel emergency? Uh, totally. We got this.

[01:02:15] But I just blew out my hip. Stomp, fell down that gully with my 40-year-old micro spikes. Suck it up, Stomp. It's 4 p.m. We're at 3,500 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. 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.

[01:02:46] I have a podcast. Whatever. Let's find out what Mike and Stomp have been hiking. And now the part of the show where we talk about recent hikes. So I can start here. So I took my daughter Caroline and my nephew JT and Caroline's boyfriend, Devin. It was a young people hike. And then me, we did the Ammanusic Ravine Trail and went up to Mount Monroe on a windy day. Like not last weekend, but the weekend before.

[01:03:16] I would say I did a little review of the Ammo Trail on the Slasher Instagram. And I would say that not much has changed. I think I exaggerated the elevation loss a little bit. I think it's probably more like 150 to 200 feet that you got to go down and then back up. But overall, I think the new trail is nice. I just, I preferred walking along the drainage. I feel like that was a cool sort of environment there originally when you just go on the water. But, you know, they basically take you south of the drainage now.

[01:03:46] And there's some nice switchbacks. And generally, there's some muddy sections. But for the most part, it's pretty dry and well built. So can't complain. It is a little bit of like additional pointless up and downs because of it. But overall, it's fine. That's not like the, that section of the Ammo Trail is not the main event anyway. It's the section after the gem pool that gets cool that you care about. So this is just the approach section. Nice. Probably easier for rescuers as well, I would say.

[01:04:16] I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little wider. Yeah. We love that new old bridal path, super highway. That's a nice one. The only other thing about the Ammo Trail that the redirected is they, they redirected it away from that plaque that commemorates the Dartmouth College kid that had passed away in like the 1900s. So I don't know what they're going to do with that. If they're going to move that to somewhere else or if they're just going to leave it there. And that might be a cool little like a bushwhack adventure to try to find it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:04:45] They could always do a spur out there. Right. True. Oh, interesting. And then otherwise I just did a little exploring in Wakefield, New Hampshire, and my family's new horse farm out there. And I got out to New Hampshire snowmobile corridor in 19 and I was able to hike around for about three miles, four miles in there. Snowmobile trails, Stomp, are like crazy. Like I actually got turned around. I had to use my watch to just track back to where I was because I got turned around. There's so many spur trails off of the main. They're everywhere. Yeah. Crazy.

[01:05:15] It's amazing. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. So you can like go across the state basically on them, right? I think so. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And I didn't realize like the snowmobile trail literally connects to the property in the farm. So the snowmobiles, if we did get snowmobiles, we go right out onto the main corridor, which is cool. That's awesome. Oh, you're getting me all itchy for snowmobiles. I can't wait. It's going to happen soon. My goodness. Nick, you've been out adventuring. Where have you been? Yeah, a couple.

[01:05:45] This is a couple of weeks back now, but on August 29th, I got out and did a loop of Hale, Zealand, and the Twins. So I went up, parked at North Twin Trailhead, went up Fire Wardens to Hale, cut over to Zealand, up Z Cliff and over to Zealand. And then hit the Twins, just testing out that new vest. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I think we had a bunch of friends out hiking. I actually crossed Cindy, who was going out to the bonds with Rhonda. Rhonda crossed quite a few times hiking. It's kind of funny. Kind of popped out.

[01:06:14] And I was like, someone was like, hey, Nick. And I'm like, who's talking to me right now? But it was nice to see them. Congrats, Cindy, for sort of getting the bonds. Always good to see Rhonda. Did go up to North Twin. I was hoping that, or South Twin. And I was hoping, while I was hanging up there for a little bit and having some food, that I'd maybe hit Paul and Sarah, who were doing a Pemi loop. It sounds like they rolled through a little bit later. But absolutely gorgeous day. Pretty stunning. Tons of people coming. I sort of hit the bubble of people coming down North Twin. And I don't even know if I sent the picture to you guys.

[01:06:43] Maybe I sent it to the Apostles group. But when I was coming down maybe a mile out on North Twin Trail, there's a group of people that passed me, like a family. They were wearing sweatshirts and hoodies. And they had like Poland spring water bottles. And one of them had a parrot on a tree branch that he was carrying. I think I saw that, yeah. On his shoulder. So I don't know what the hell was going on there. At that point, I just wanted to get back to my car and didn't want to ask any questions. So I don't know if someone's hiking the 48 with a parrot or what's going on there.

[01:07:11] But not something you see every day. Just when I thought I'd seen everything. But other than that, I'm doing just some local stuff around here, like the State Forest. And did a loop of Beaver Tail, sort of the lighthouse. And out over there, maybe a couple mile loop with my mom and Ethan and Ryland over this weekend. We were in Jamestown staying for my sister-in-law's wedding in Newport. So I had some fun down there. That's about it. What about you, Stump? Oh, you had to ask. I did. Mid-Sugarloaf.

[01:07:41] That's it, boys. Shame drop. I'm just in the busiest freaking cycle of my life right now, which is crazy. But Mrs. Stump and I are really making a pledge to get out together. She is in the same boat, so she hasn't been out in a while. And Mid-Sugarloaf reignited the spark. So I want to get out hiking with her more than anything, to be honest with you. It's always nice to get out with her and share that magic.

[01:08:10] So that's the plan. Again, we did cancel a Lowell shoot for this weekend. I was planning that with Chaga and another. We'll just leave it at that for now. Don't want to reveal plans if it's a sensitive topic because the shoot is sort of crazy. But we're going to do it right, though, with all the technical gear and stuff. It's not going to be a free climb. Hell no.

[01:08:36] So we canceled that because you really need a dry period of at least a month to even consider that. And it's going to pour this weekend. And then Lost Pass, when Dave gets settled in and wants to get out and bushwhack again. I'm really looking forward to that. That'll be your third time you guys have headed out there? Third attempt. Yeah. Yeah, I should say. We've done it twice. And we were basically there the second time within like maybe 20 yards.

[01:09:05] But it was just, you know, Navi was on his, he was ready to go. And it was so thick and crazy. And we're all starting to get wet. So we just bailed. And we're like, this is not worth it. Let's get out of here. Cool. Yeah. Looking forward to hearing about that trip when that happens again. Yeah, for sure. Excellent. And then, yeah, Stomp, I'm worried about the Lowell chute. Stay safe. But keep us updated. I'll live vicariously with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:09:33] Honestly, the plan really was to make it a two-dayer to go the first day up, secure ropes, all the ascenders and everything we would need to do it safely. And then the second day, just bang it out quick. But you can't mess around in there. It has to be dry as a bone. So anyway. It's time for Slasher's Notable Hike of the Week.

[01:10:02] If you want to be considered for the hike of the week, simply tag Slasher on your social media post. Excellent. All right. And then Notable Listener Hike of the Week segment. Nick, this is your favorite segment here. Yeah. So it's been a bit since we've rolled through this. So I just went back like a week or so. So hopefully I got everybody. 802 Trail Pups 6. Burnt Rock Mountain in Vermont. This looks beautiful. I didn't get a chance to look up where it is, but it definitely will be on my Vermont list

[01:10:31] because it'll look like a nice open summit there. Jakester D2, our buddy Jake. This is just mentioning partially what Mike already talked about. But Jake did some rock climbing with his climbing partner on Whitehorse Ledge, which looked really cool over in sort of the Conway area in the morning. And then he actually went to see the lights on Mount Crawford with Mike and the gang on Washington. So that was cool. Meg's 0682, North and Middle Sugarloaf off Zeeland Road. And they also did Star King and Wombeck.

[01:11:00] So they had a busy couple of days. Arlo the Beagle, Cascade and Porter in the 80Ks. And then, yeah, Mike met Arlo the Beagle in person on Monroe and Washington. I did. That was their 4,000-footer finish too? I didn't realize that. Yeah, so we were coming down from Monroe and immediately the second I saw her, I was like, that's Arlo. Because I kind of came around a little corner and he was hidden behind a rock. It was windy, so it was a little hectic. It wasn't as easy to talk up there. But immediately I was like, that's Arlo. I think that's Arlo.

[01:11:29] So then I was talking to Arlo's mom and dad. Super nice. I guess they're local to where I live. And, yeah, so we took some pictures and we were just chatting. And I was like, so nice to meet you. Thanks for listening. And then they went up to Monroe and then we went back down to the hut. And then as we were leaving the hut, Arlo's mom and dad were there with Arlo sitting outside. And they were sort of going back and forth about like, I think we're going to probably go for Washington. And they were worried about his pause, I guess.

[01:11:59] They wouldn't really talk about it to me. But after they had posted, they were worried. You know, they want to keep an eye on his health and make sure that he did it safely. And I think that he was doing well. So they decided to go up. And that was, yeah, that was Arlo's dad's finish, 4,000-footer finish. So that's pretty good. And I would say if you're in the Notable Listener Hike of the Week this week and you're looking to get a hike, chances are slim to none that you're going to win it outside of Arlo. But continue, Nick. Noted.

[01:12:29] Noted. We should just stop here. No, keep going. Next, we got our friend Dan over there, Robo. Robot, I should say. Nook 603, continuing his rowing on the peaks 4,000-footers with Passa Conaway for 16 out of 48. So he's a third of the way through. And that was actually during the Flags in the 48 event. Then he also was up kind of up north a little bit doing the Percy Peaks in McGalloway. And that got him to 36 out of 52. Jude Hikes the Whites.

[01:12:58] Flags in the 48 on Pierce. That our buddy C. Gothberg did a figure-eight double traverse of smarts with Sir Mapsalot. Sir Mapsalot, one of the beast individuals who I believe did the 100-miler Jigger Johnson as well. So give him a shout-out for that because that's pretty wild. Dr. M. Hikes did Gale Head for Flags in the 48. She mentioned it was a repeat for herself, but 14 out of 48 for Steph. Peaks in places with Lib.

[01:13:24] 67 finish on Hamlin Peak, which is already looking substantially nippier than when we were up there in July. Yeah, there might be competition there, Mike. Think about your decisions here. Whoa. All right. So our buddy Paul Gamel, Paul P. Gam Jr., Bigelow's with Dave. He was racking up those Dave points. Liz Fay did a bunch of hiking in Maine with Dave along the AT, notably Sugarloaf and Spalding. And she did a hop-off trail before the Bigelow's. She had to get back.

[01:13:55] Then Karen 220. Bonds for 42 out of 48. Looked like she had a great day out there getting close to finishing the 48. So who is going to get it this week, Mike? Arlo gets notable hike of the week because he's a beast. And then I'll give a co-winner to Peaks in places with Lib because finishing in 67, that's legit. And there was much rejoicing. Congratulations. Very good. All right. So now we're going to go into our guest of the week here. So we're going to drop out of this and Stomp.

[01:14:25] And Nick are going to talk with our friend Matt and learn all about his Vert Project and a little bit about, I guess, talk about Evans Notch and some other topics. So we'll move on to that, gentlemen. Then we'll come back with Search and Rescue News. All right.

[01:14:57] It's time for Slasher's Guest of the Week. Very cool. Very cool. All right. So we're here with Matt of Vert Project 26. Maybe some of you know him and follow him on Instagram. Wanted to have him on tonight to sort of discuss his Vert Project, as it were. And it sounds like he's got some interesting stuff to talk about.

[01:15:27] Kind of familiar with sort of the, maybe the other part of the whites that a lot of us don't get to, sort of the Caribou Speckled Mountain Evans Notch area. I know Mike talks about Evans Notch a bunch. And we've got Stomp with us, who's gracing us with his dulcet tones once again. So, Matt, you want to maybe introduce yourself to the listeners and maybe give some background how you got into hiking and trail running and all that fun stuff? Sure. Sure. Yeah. First of all, thanks for having me on. This is great. Yeah.

[01:15:55] I kind of first ran into your crew up on Adams one day. You guys were up there for the Alzheimer's hike. And just such a positive crew. And, you know, everybody was just having a good time. And, you know, I want to start out telling the story of, you know, like my perception of your crew. So we were up there for Adams Vertical Day. Right. And it's Scott Daly.

[01:16:22] I don't know if you know of him, but, you know, he's out of like Randolph, Gorham area and was really doing a lot of the vert endurance stuff. Like before even Drummond and that crew, you know, back 10, 15 years ago, I remember reading his blog in my office in Boston, you know, kind of pining to be in the whites. So anyway, we're doing the Adams Vertical Days. And it's basically how many vertical feet can you get in 12 hours?

[01:16:52] And they put boundaries. You can go all the way from Brookside. Right. But you can't go up Adams and you can go all the way to Castle Ravine. Right. And you can go up and down as many times you can. You know, you don't have to summit every time. You don't have to go back to Appalachia every time. You just you need to get vert. So my son and I signed up for it. And my son's an endurance monster, to be honest.

[01:17:17] You know, he's 15, run cross country, runs tracks, ski races like he he's got an engine. He's got more of an engine than I ever had. So. He takes off. I don't see him until the Madison hut after like the second time he's summited. And he comes down and we catch each other at the Madison hut. And he's like, Dad, I was up there and I was bonking and I was in a bad headspace.

[01:17:47] And this woman was up in the wind, in the clouds, hula hooping. Right. Yeah. Right. So it was one of your crew that was up there hula hooping. Right. He was like, if she can be up there hula hooping, like I can get a couple more laps in. Like it was that positivity that kind of drew me to your group. And like, you know, there's something like really off the wall that like, you know, made his day and made him push a little bit harder.

[01:18:17] And I was like, I know exactly who that is. I follow her on Instagram. You know, we got up and down one more time. Yeah. It was. Yeah. So, you know. So is this like a, so when you say sign up, like what, is this like an event? Like just some like sort of, I guess, endurance folks in the whites are putting on. Is it, I know you mentioned sort of him being a Randolph. Is it anything related with the RMC or it's just sort of like a bunch of people getting together for like a crazy vert day and just getting out there?

[01:18:45] No, it's, it's, it's an organic thing. He started with, there's some history behind it that I don't know, but he's been running it for a while and it's just basically off Strava. It's who, you know, on Strava, to be honest, you know, if you follow him on Strava, he, you know, he's like, you know, meet us at six o'clock at Appalachia. And there was like 30 plus people there, maybe 40, something like that. Just going up and down. They had one guy, right?

[01:19:12] He went up the airline, went to Shemda Dam and went up and down Shemda Dam 15 times to get his vert. That's insane. That's just bananas. Right? Like that's a fit. In the best way, but yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Like my son and I were coming down. So we did one more lap together and, you know, I was coming down and the guy's like, I was like, how's it going? And he didn't have a backpack.

[01:19:39] Like he was just going up like, you know, raw dog and Shemda Dam. Right. And I was like, how's it going? He's like, just going up and down this all day, you know? Yeah. 15 times. Like didn't summit Adams. Didn't like just went down to the ravine, came back up, down to the ravine, came back up. So I think the winner had somewhere around 20K. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's insane. In 12 hours. That's insane.

[01:20:08] It's a lot on your body. In 12 hours. Yeah. And it's just, I'd never done anything like that. And I was just like, you know, how much can I do? Yeah. So. So, and my son beat me. How many, how many laps did he get him that day? I think he summited five times. Holy moly. I summited four. That's, that's a lot. Yeah. There were other people that was just, they were lapping Adams, like the summit cone of Adams. They would go down to Gulf side and go back up and getting that like five or 600 feet.

[01:20:39] Um, it was interesting. I went into, I went straight up to King's Ravine, went up Great Gully, up to Adams, came back down, came back up. So basically I went up and down King's Ravine all day. Um, you know, my son Jeffrey tapped out right around one or two o'clock. Um, and I met him up with him for the final climb in. And then we went over to the Madison hut. That's when I saw you guys.

[01:21:08] And, uh, I think the vert queen herself, Amber constant was over there. She's trying to, you know, break the vert world record now over in Stowe. And, uh, that was kind of a cool scene there. Yeah. It was a, it was a beautiful day to you back then. We were all our crew is kind of doing the 48 and there were some of us that started Appalachia. And like you said, like Amy, she usually hoops was up top and some of us split off and kind of went up their own ways. But that's, that's awesome that like he saw her up there and was like, well, I can, if she can hula hoop up here, I can, I can definitely get a few more laughs then.

[01:21:38] Yeah. Like he was like that first, that first summit, he was like, it's blowing like 40, 50 up there. There's no view. And this woman's just hula hooping. Like it was nothing. Yeah. She's a free spirit, man. She's great. That's awesome. Yeah. Right. So that's the positivity that led me to you guys. Awesome. Um, so, um, so, oh yeah. So I was going to say like, um, so what kind of got you into like, obviously we're looking,

[01:22:05] you're looking and doing these monster vert days, which leads me to believe that it's probably not your first rodeo doing something like that. And you're probably going and trail running and doing some pretty big days in the whites, but what got you into, I guess, hiking and sort of led you to get doing this whole like crazy vert sort of project. Yeah. So two different things, like just getting into hiking, like, um, you know, raised my family down outside of Boston and the South shore. And, uh, my kids are like four and a half years apart.

[01:22:35] And my daughter, who's my oldest, um, she just, she had a tough time adjusting to, you know, a younger sibling after being an only child for four and a half years. So we were looking for things to do. Right. And, you know, in the wintertime we'd ski together, you know, just turn our eye like a dad daughter thing. Um, and then, um, you know, so I'm a physical therapist. I was working at a mass general at the time. Right.

[01:23:01] And it was on the cardiac floors and this guy had an external cardiac pump. It's called a ventricular assist device, right. That was pumping his heart. You know, they have a little holster that has a couple of batteries and it's got this driveline that goes in and, you know, it's like a little, it basically looks like a little airplane engine that like pumps blood through your heart or through your body. And he was one away from getting his 48.

[01:23:28] And, you know, we sent him back out and I'll be honest with you, you know, it's like 15 plus years ago. I don't remember what he was missing, but he went out with this ventricular assist device and finished his 48. He did the final 48 and like, you know, it was a big thing. It was on the news down there. And I was talking to my daughter about it and she's like, so there's 48 mountains that we can climb that are like a drive away. And I was like, yeah.

[01:23:57] He's like, can we try that? Right. So, you know, I was just, the kids and I always hiked in the blue hills or the Middlesex fells or things like that. You know, nothing, nothing spectacular. And we ended up, we did the total noob thing. And like, we went to, we did a Fliberty and, you know, in sneakers and like a school backpack and it turned out to be awesome.

[01:24:24] You know, we had a beautiful day and it's funny. I see these, you know, these people on the trail and, you know, like those are the people you need to be positive, right? Like they're trying it, they're getting out there, they're doing something and, you know, like they might not have the wherewithal for like the equipment or even the leave no trace and like things like that. But like, they're getting out there and, you know, 95% of America is not getting out there kind of like that.

[01:24:53] And they're, you know, they're getting out in nature, they're getting out in the national forests. You know, it's, it's kind of awesome. So I kind of think back to where I started and like, you see people when you hike all along that timeline, right? Like, you know, some people are out there gridding and some people are out there tracing or, you know, hiking the AT or something like that. So it's interesting when you go out and hike now to kind of after 15, 16 years to see that kind of, um, that kind of spectrum.

[01:25:24] Um, so I was always an endurance guy. Uh, I've run the Boston marathon nine different times, a couple other marathons on top of that. Um, you know, trail running just kind of came together. I didn't really start doing it until the last two or three years. Um, when we moved up to Maine, um, you know, Evans Notch is essentially out my back door, 15, 20 minutes away.

[01:25:50] Um, you know, so that's kind of my stress relief. Um, as for the project. So I, I don't know if you're familiar with ledge brewery, it's up in Bartlett. Um, you know, sure. Oh yeah. Been there, been there before. Yeah. Right. Maddie runs a tight ship up there. Right.

[01:26:14] Like, so they had, uh, ski, the whites or white mountain ski company, whatever it's called now. Um, they had Noah dines up there talking about his, uh, you know, million, uh, vertical feet skinning, um, from the year before. And, uh, I just remember thinking that, and I just turned 50 and I was just like, you know, like here's this guy out there, like he was grinding, right.

[01:26:44] Like every day to get, you know, kind of a big goal like that done. And I was like, I could do like a 10th of that. Right. So I was like, you know, next year I want to do a hundred thousand feet. Right. And that's really how it started. Um, you know, and I just made the Instagram account, honestly, to just keep me like on the hook. Like, you know, sometimes you make these goals and you don't follow through with them.

[01:27:12] Um, you know, I was like, I'll just throw an Instagram account. That's kind of off my personal account. And that'll keep me honest. Um, and I had no idea it was going to grow, you know, a couple hundred people, let alone like two or three people that I didn't know looking at, you know, what I was doing. Um, you know, I don't limit it to hiking. Um, you know, if you'll look at my Insta, you know, I've done everything from rock climbing

[01:27:42] to ice climbing, did a ton of skinning over the winter, really didn't, uh, didn't transition to hiking until, you know, ski season was over. I was skinning up black late into the season and bear late into the season. Um, I kind of like the ride out when you skin, right? Yeah. It's, I can see that's probably a little bit more thrilling than just sort of potentially jogging down. Um, walking out. Yeah. And yeah, you're, you said, I think it's funny too.

[01:28:11] You're like keeping yourself accountable and yours is like literally, literally it's called vert project 26. So it is very on point on the nose of what you're trying to accomplish and what you're being held accountable for by the masses. So. Right. You know, so I had this a hundred grand goal and like, I blew through that fairly quickly. And I, you know, I, I think the first month I had like, I don't know, 30 or 40,000 feet and I was like, well, you know, I'll just hit a hundred grand and, you know, kind of see what happens.

[01:28:41] And it was funny. I was skinning up the cog after February break or at the end of February break in February. Um, and I don't know if either of you ever skied down the cog. No. Um, so, so I'm skiing down the cog and you know, like I love skiing. Um, and you know, I'm a half decent skier. So I'm skiing down. It was kind of an icy day.

[01:29:10] I got through the icy part. It was fine. It was like, I don't know, a couple hundred yards from Marshfield station. Right. I could literally see my Jeep and I was like, oh, I missed. So at the bottom, if you're on skiers, right, you have to go under the tracks. There's a little spot to go under the tracks, kind of like a tunnel to pop you on the right side to get out to the, to the parking lot. And I was like, oh, I missed that. Right.

[01:29:38] So I go to go over the tracks. And then I was like, oh, my God. All of a sudden I'm rail grinding the cog, um, not on purpose and land down on my side, broke ribs, bruised ribs. Oh my gosh. Right. Like, so I was halfway to my hundred thousand goal. And then I lost six weeks. Cause like every time I go out to do something, like you just can't breathe. Right. Every time you take that deep breath, like your ribs are killing you.

[01:30:07] Um, so that, that set the project a little bit back, but, um, you know, I think I crossed a hundred thousand in April. I said, you know, quarter a million would be nice. Um, I'm several weeks behind on my posts cause I'm out doing stuff, not prioritizing Instagram, but, um, you know, I think I'm up to 185,000 now. I think I'll get 250, no problem. And, you know, maybe it's going to be a third of a million.

[01:30:36] I, you know, it's, it's funny. Well, up front when I, I, I realized fairly quickly that I didn't set the goal high enough. Um, but that's a great thing about goals, right? Like you reassess, you figure out, you know, do I, you know, did I not shoot high enough? Right. And it wasn't like a hundred grand I'm out new dealer. Right. Like, so, you know, you kind of keep pushing and that's the nice thing about the social media aspect that kind of kept me pushing.

[01:31:06] Right. And there's days that I haven't wanted to do stuff. And I was like, I gotta get out there. Right. Like, and again, you know, it all came from this talk that Noah Dines gained. And it was like, I could do a 10th of that. Right. And then I see Amber constant, like grinding away at, in, uh, at Canon with the bears and then over at stone, you know, she's doing amazing stuff. She's going to get like, she's going to get the world record. If things go right here over 3 million feet of vert, that still blows my mind.

[01:31:35] Yeah. And I mean, so, I mean, I can speak to, there's like a sort of a challenge that I do for, it's actually just started this week for, um, genetic lung cancer every year, but it's vert based. And I can, I can attest at least personally that like I hit it almost 30,000 last year in about four weeks. And that's, that's like a lot, that's a lot of elevation gain. Like, it's a lot more. I always think of it as like, Oh, it's not ton. It's achievable if you break it out. But like, that's, that's quite a bit. So I'm saying like, you're doing like what Amber's doing is bad. And even what you're doing is like, that's, I think maybe people don't necessarily realize

[01:32:05] like how much, like you're saying, like Adams and Madison's like a 5,000 foot day. So that kind of gives you a little perspective of like what even hitting 20 or 30,000 feet in a month looks like. Um, so to be hitting like 300,000 and I think it's super cool. Like you're just kind of self-motivated. You just set this goal for yourself and you're like, okay, like I'm just going to try to get as much as I can. And you're sort of adjusting it, which I think is really cool. Yeah, it just, it's kept me going, you know, and I was always fairly healthy, but you know,

[01:32:33] I've been healthier than I've been in ages, right? Like, I don't know, something hit me when I turned 50 and I was just like, you know, again, I'm a PT. Like I see it when things go bad, when you rest your rusts, right? Like, and people slow down and they get, you know, right around this age, they, you see a kind of precipitous decline sometimes when people aren't moving around. And I was like, you know, I got to do something. And the great thing is that, you know, my, my son's been in for a lot of it.

[01:33:03] You know, my wife, Mrs. Vert. That's awesome. Mrs. Vert. My son's Vert Jr. But like, they've all popped in. Like, you know, all of a sudden my wife said, like, she's interested in doing the 48th, you know, 4,000 footers. You know, we did, we did Pierce yesterday on a plus day and she was a trooper, right? Like, you know, so it's not like, it's not like all me. And, you know, I like to bring the family into it.

[01:33:31] I like, you know, friends, you know, I've done Vert with friends. You know, I've got a couple of friends where I can call them up. Like I did this hike last, two weeks ago to finish all the trails in the speckled wilderness. We went out haystack notch, came up miles notch and then across Red Rock, speckled. And then back down in Evans notch.

[01:33:59] That's like an 18 mile day around 5k. But like, people are willing to sign up for that stuff and come along with you. We didn't run, you know, and that's just fine. We had a great day. Yeah, it's fun to see sort of like connections that hiking sort of fosters between people. And I kind of, I don't know if I've talked about the podcast. I've definitely talked about it in person with people hiking before, but I was very much into golf. Like my father-in-law got me into that.

[01:34:26] And like, I think golf and like hiking are like the two things you can do as an adult where you really see this age range and breath of people that you probably wouldn't see in like any other hobby you can sort of get into. And sort of the different perspectives and backgrounds that that brings together and the conversations that happen because of that sometimes I think are some, it's not my favorite part of hiking, but it's one, it's for sure one of my favorite parts of hiking with other folks out on the trail. Everybody's just nice.

[01:34:55] They all want to be out there. Nobody's getting dragged out to take a hike, you know, unless they're young children and that's a different story altogether. They're probably not in the big whites, but you know, I think that's, people are out enjoying themselves throughout exercising and they're just, they're happy to be there. Right. And you know, it's just a positive vibe. Yeah, for sure. All right. All right. So I need this broken down at the elementary level.

[01:35:22] So is this a, this is a community or personal endeavor or both or how do people? Is it a community? It's just personal for me. It's personal. Okay. Got it. I got it. Yeah. It's, it's definitely personal, but like, got it. Like I was saying, you know, I was able to bring in my son, bring my wife, bring in friends, friends of friends. Like everybody just, you know, they're like, Oh, you're doing that. I come along for a couple of thousand feet. It's great.

[01:35:50] You know, I'm catching up with people that I haven't caught up with in ages. Do you think this has the foundation to, to become some kind of community, competitive community? You know, that's something I've never considered stump. Never at all. From the brain of Mr. Lodge to dodge. It's going to have a stand. You can't have a competitive vert project league now. Yeah. I don't know.

[01:36:19] It's yeah. I, that's not something I've given a thought to beyond like, you know, how many feet can I get this year? Right. Yeah. Interesting. It's an interesting concept. Like I, I, I think, you know, I look at all the fundraising you guys are doing. Like, I feel like there's a fundraiser in there somewhere. You know, I worked with kids and adults with cystic fibrosis forever. And, you know, that's, I, I ran all those marathons for charity.

[01:36:50] Um, you know, I've, I've, that's, that thought is definitely creeped into my mind. Like, sure. Maybe not this year, but going forward, like, how can I make that a fundraiser and help some people out? Yeah. I think that'd be a really fun time. And it's, I mean, obviously it's great to get out hiking, but you get that when you get that little competitive edge, it's like, even though the thing I've been doing every year, it's like, it's funny how like people will see you. Like I kind of learned even on Instagram, like not to share if I was going out getting my life. Cause there was a, there was one of my competitors that lived in Maine, which I'm just down in

[01:37:19] Southeast mass. So I'm hiking like this 400 foot hill over and over again to get some gains. And like, she has a mountain or back. So like, she would see, like, I'd knock a thousand or 2000 out. And then like, before I know it the next morning, I wake up and like, she's getting out at like eight o'clock at night and knocking out 3000 feet or whatever. So, but it's funny stuff like that. It's like, it's not when people see you doing that, if you're just like, why the heck are you just going up and down King ravine 50 times today? Um, but it's, it's super cool. I think he's lost.

[01:37:46] I was, I was just going to say, um, before I lose the thought, but so coming from that running sort of background, I do a bit of run to myself. I've never ran a full marathon, but what are sort of the, some of the parallels with the endurance stuff in the mountains? And what are some of the things that are just totally different from like, say if you're like just full-time road running? Yeah. I mean, the fueling is, is important for both.

[01:38:13] I think the fueling is much more important from, you know, anything with a significant amount of vert on it. You know, people point to the Boston marathon and they say that, you know, there's heart break kill, but that's just a couple of hundred feet, honestly. Right. Like at the worst time, you know, metabolically for your body, but you know, here just any 4,000 footers, at least, you know, 2000 feet of vert, you know, kind of depending on what you do.

[01:38:43] You know, I think fueling is so important, you know, every 30 to 40 minutes, you know, taking some type of carbohydrates in or you bonk, or at least I do, um, you know, the road running, there's a lot less concentration, right? Like I can put my headphones in or, you know, my ear pods in and I can just go and pound out miles.

[01:39:07] And, you know, I could think about X, Y, and Z and, you know, really get deep into thought on something. In trail running, if you do that, you're going to end up on your face. Yeah. You know, like there's so much concentration with roots and rocks, especially in the whites. Like that's why I think, you know, it's, it's really interesting on Instagram.

[01:39:33] I'll, I'll post like, you know, this was beautiful running with, you know, a soft foot bed and good elevation gain. And people have come out of the woodwork and were like, you know, I, I would never thought of that area or things like that. You know, it's, it really tells me it's really rare to have those like soft pine bed, you know, pine needle footbeds, you know, without roots, without rocks. Like that's so rare in the whites, right?

[01:39:59] That you can kind of turn off a little bit and not have that super concentration. Everything is so technical here, right? Like, especially on the prezzies, especially, you know, on the ledges, you know, you've, you got to be careful where you put your feet coming down is not the easiest thing. I think that's the biggest difference. It's the amount of concentration. Gotcha. Yeah, it's a good point.

[01:40:26] And I guess I want to ask you some questions about sort of the amazing Evans and Atras, which Mike's always talks about and sort of that area of the whites. But I'm curious. So I'm maybe sort of beginning my pseudo trail running journey, or at least, I don't know, power hiking, whatever you want to call it. I just invested in a Solomon vest, one of the 12 liter ones, kind of give it a test run. And actually, first of all, I was like panicking because I felt like I couldn't fit anything. This was maybe like two or three weeks ago. And I'm like, how the hell do people do this? Like, I don't even understand. And like, those things are pretty stretchy is what I did learn.

[01:40:56] You can fit like a surprising amount of stuff. But I did have some, and this was, I guess, a personal curiosity, but I'm sure some of our listeners would be interested too. But what's sort of your, I guess, your pack for like gear? Like, what if you're going for like a 5,000, 6,000 foot day? Like, what are you carrying with you as far as like a vest pack? Maybe like favorite footwear? Like, kind of, I guess that wheelhouse. Yeah. So, you know, I've gone through a lot of things.

[01:41:25] You know, I was using some Solomon Trail Runners at the very beginning. Really, when I got into it, though, you know, I used Hoka Trail Goats. And then I went away from them. I used the Normale. Got a pair from Ski the Whites or White Mountain Ski Company. And they were the most comfortable shoes I'd ever worn.

[01:41:52] I think anybody that touches those Normales, you know, will say the same thing, that they're super comfortable. Unfortunately, the pair that I had kind of fell apart in under 70 miles. You know, the Vibrant Soul started to come off. And they were great over at that shop and, you know, switched me out with a new pair of Trail Goats. And they've been great. I actually, just before I came on, I just bought a pair of Mount Coast M1s. I'm going to try those out.

[01:42:21] I've heard a lot of good things about those. A couple people on Instagram has been, you know, had reached out and was like, have you tried these? So, giving those a shot. Not that my Trail Goats are, you know, failing in any way. They just, you know, I've got 100 miles on them. And the Talos and the Whites just eat them up. The miles eat them up up here. As for a pack, I've gone through a couple of different ones.

[01:42:49] I started out with a 10 or 12 liter with a hydration pack on top of that. The hydration pack's okay for me. I like the soft bottles, honestly, a little bit better. I go between a 12 and a 20. I know that's like, whoa. But the 20 liter is great. Like, you know, if you're going to be like that Adams Vertical Day, like you're going to be in the Prezis for, you know, 10, 12 hours.

[01:43:18] You're doing a Prezi Traverse or something like that. Like, I think that's perfect for that. You know, you can put a raincoat, you can put a puffy in there. You know, if I'm just out for less than 10 miles, I'll take my 12 liter. You know, I've got a couple of, I get a Nathan 12 liter and a couple of soft packs for waters. I'll use that. You know, I have my 10 essentials in a small pack that I put in either one of those packs.

[01:43:46] If I'm going to be anywhere near the AT, I bring extra Stroopwafels and applesauce because those things go like hotcakes to the through hikers. And you can make a lot of friends that way. That's cool. So, I was, I did a couple of weeks ago, I did Adams. I had to work in the morning and I got on our trail at like two o'clock and I went up Hawker Ridge

[01:44:10] and, you know, I'm up at the top of Madison around four o'clock and there was just one northbound AT hiker. I think his name was Flat Tire. You know, we were just sitting talking. I was like, you want any snacks? He's like, what do you have? I was like, I got a couple of Stroopwafels. I got some applesauce packs. He's like, yes. I was like, how much do you want? He's like, how much do you need? I was like, I just need one Stroopwafel to get me down.

[01:44:39] Like, I'm going to go over and have a hot snack in a second. Like, so like I ended up giving him all my snacks, right? Like, so I'll throw a couple extra if I'm going to be on the AT everywhere and, you know, Trail Magic here and there. I think that's kind of a unique thing that you can do here about pay your trail running and, you know, making people's day that have already hiked over a thousand miles for three months, I think is a very cool thing. I have a question.

[01:45:05] So we are experiencing a very sudden shift into the fall and we're heading towards winter. So how do you alter your current gear for the winter? Or are you just a warm weather vert fiend? No. Well, so usually, yes, I would be warm weather. This is the first time that I've really, I'm going to push it in the fall. Ah, okay. I've got to push it until the snow flies, right?

[01:45:31] Until I can start doing sure blaps and, you know, getting in tucks or whatever, or, you know, skinning up wildcat, whatever it takes. Until that really starts, you know, I'm just figuring it out. It's funny. Yesterday I hiked with Mrs. Vert and, you know, it was Puffy's ring gear. Like I brought the 20 liter, you know, it's like, you know, you have to adjust and it's, it's layering too.

[01:45:59] I sweat like, I sweat like you read about. And so, you know, making heat is not the biggest issue, but, you know, when I go slower, I definitely get cold on the way down. I'll get cold, you know, so it's all layers. Good. That's good to hear. Yeah. You have to modify and adjust constantly now in particular. Yeah. And I think the other thing is like just having some dry, like since I sweat, right.

[01:46:27] And when I'm coming down in cold days, I'm going to get a chill, like just having a, a dry, you know, tech shirt that you can throw on, you know, at some point below tree level before you go down. So you're not cold. There's nothing like a pair of flip-flops and a cotton t-shirt in your, in your car on the way out. Right. Like, you know, changing out of a sweaty shirt, getting out of the foot prisons and, you know, having a cold beverage waiting for you in your car on the way out.

[01:46:56] I think that's, that's the biggest thing I've learned with this. Hmm. Cool. So let's get into this, this Evans notch kind of area. So what are, so for people not familiar, so Evans notch is really the far, it's kind of the far Eastern side of the whites. It's like before you hit Sunday river in that area, right? Like, yeah. So it's notch kind of, if you're looking east to west, I guess, like you got sort of pink them and then you got Evans and then graft them. Yeah.

[01:47:26] So it goes pink, um, the wild cats. Yeah. And then really the bald faces are the next, you know, the Carter's and wild cat range. Yep. Then the next range over is, you know, the bald faces, Mount meter, the Royces. That's really the start of Evans notch. You've got the wild river wilderness in between. And then when you hit there, it's right along the, the new Hampshire main border. And actually, if you go up Evans notch road, you know, you go in and out of Maine and New Hampshire.

[01:47:55] Um, then, you know, in Evans not property, you cross over into Maine, you know, and that takes you all up, all the way up to Gilead and, and Bethel. Um, but Evan, you know, the speckled wilderness goes from there, you know, all the way over to Bethel, almost to Albany notch. Um, and I, I just, the area is special because there's nobody in there. You can, you know, I was telling you, I did that 18 mile hike.

[01:48:23] We were the only peoples we saw all day. Right. And that was on a, that was, that was Memorial day weekend. That was on a Saturday or Saturday of Memorial day weekend. Like, you know, everywhere else is packed, like beyond the bald faces. Like there's not a lot of people up there. You can get, if you're looking for solitude, that's the place to go. But like, there are these places that are untouched and like just magical.

[01:48:53] Like, I don't know if you've been to the Royces, but there's just, oh, there's a, so the Royces come right out of Evans notch proper. There's a couple of trails is the East Royce trail that takes you. You it's rugged, it's straight up. And then there's laughing lion that's just South of it. And that's like 1.1 miles. And like, you're getting 1500 feet of vert or something stupid like that.

[01:49:19] Like you go from Evans notch road, you go down a couple hundred feet into this drainage, and then you're straight up. And you get to these two peaks that have fabulous views, right? East Royce has a better view than West Royce. But in the middle is this little coal. It's flat. It's very moosey. Like I haven't seen a moose up there, but like there's all kinds of moose sign up there. But it's just, it's beautiful. There's just like running stream through there.

[01:49:49] Burt Mill trail comes up from Wild River Road as well. You know, and it takes you right up to West Royce. And there's just something about, you know, the main New Hampshire line kind of runs right through that little coal. It's, I can't adequately describe it. It's just, it's in the middle of nowhere. There's nobody ever there. And it's just, you, you can see the two mountains on either side of you.

[01:50:19] And it's just, I don't know. It always just hits me different. You know, it's, it's log bridges and moss, you know, for tents of miles there through there, you know, and then you get out of West Royce. And you can take that ridge all the way to the bald faces and it's gorgeous. Yeah, it sounds beautiful. I think to, uh, you're jogging my memory on, we were sort of, we're doing a delisted 52

[01:50:44] with a view, um, section, maybe, I don't know, nine, 10 episodes back, but the Royces famously, uh, still apparently have beautiful views and it's kind of unknown why they got ripped off the list. Like a lot of people speculate, um, there just was the bald faces in that area. So like, maybe they were trying to spread people out a little bit more. I don't know exactly the behind the scenes, but I'm like, I wonder if someone got some pull and was like, Hey, we need to like, we need to keep an ixnay on the Royces over here. Like we need to keep these sort of special, but apparently like, and from what you're

[01:51:11] saying, you're like the fourth person I've heard tell me is like, Oh, they still have amazing views over there. Yeah. West Royce, I think was on the 52. Their view isn't as good as East Royce. Yeah. East Royce. It's like, you could see all the way to the Prezis over Wildcat and the Carters. You could see all the way down the Valley to, to the, you know, all the way to Cursage and Black Cap. Um, you know, there's a little peak out to the North where you can see the Mahusics, um,

[01:51:41] and that whole range. If I were had to guess, and this is a hundred percent speculation, I think it's what they, they probably changed it like they did with Iron Mountain. Uh, remember they delisted Iron Mountain because it was for the trail was all kinds of eroded. Gotcha. The East Royce trail is rough. Gotcha. It's eroded as anything. Um, it's just straight up. There's no switchbacks. You know, it's typical like white mountain trail.

[01:52:10] Like, yeah, you're going straight up. Um, and it's just so stupid. I think if I had to guess, I think it's the erosion portion of the trail. Um, although shout out to Iron Mountain, like that new trail there is awesome. That is some fabulous trail running there. Okay. I might, I might have to get up there now that's been out again. I've heard, heard really great things about iron as well. Um, yeah.

[01:52:36] I mean, just the start of it, you're, you're running through somebody's field into a birch forest. It's gorgeous. And, you know, you get to the top and you're like, no, this isn't all that great. But the views are a couple of tents beyond there's a, there's an old iron mine down there, you know, big giant hole, which is kind of cool to see, but the views are spectacular. You can see, you know, all the ski resorts downtown to North Conway. It's, it's gorgeous.

[01:53:04] So one of the other areas, this really intrigued me too, because I, I'm again, I'm not familiar with the Mahusics and I've done, I guess, success in Hayes. That's really about as far as I ventured in there, but you're mentioning a bunch of rarely talked about trails in Shelburne. Um, do you want to give us a little insight in there? We don't want you to blow up any of your spots, but I'm intrigued by that area. Yeah. So the one thing I'm not going to do is gatekeep. Cause I think, I think these trails, people getting on these trails are going to help other trails, right?

[01:53:33] Like, you know, and you know, again, it's our national forest, right? Like get out there and see it. I kind of fell in love with Shelburne this summer. Um, you know, I'm trying to trace all the, the trails of the white mountain guide and it took me up there and I'm going to tell you Mount Ingalls and Mount Cabot, not the 4,000

[01:53:58] foot Mount Cabot, um, out of the Shelburne trail system is unbelievable. Great running, but like the views are insane. Um, you know, you get these ledgy views. It's very much like speckled and caribou, you know, very similar to ledgy views, but without a lot of work. I think Ingalls is just over 2,500 feet or something like that. Cabot is much lower. Um, but they're really, they're really accessible.

[01:54:29] Um, you know, there's, uh, old logging road, Millbrook road. There's a couple of places to park on those. There's, there's a cable car to cross a stream at one spot. Oh, that's neat. Right? Like literally like you get on the cable car, there's a rope with knots in it and you pull yourself across. Is that like an, is that an AT section that you go across on that? Or is it just, it's totally just a random? Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. I feel like I've seen videos of like sections like that before, but that's pretty wild. That's really cool.

[01:54:59] Yeah. Yeah. It's, if you look at it, it's on the yellow trail, right? The trail is just called the yellow trail. Uh, that trail takes you over Mount Craig and then hooks into the Ingalls and, uh, Cabot system. Uh, it's only 300 feet up from the trail. There's signs all over the place. They're like cable car this 300 feet this way. Um, but the cable car is very cool. It was out of service for a couple of weeks this summer, but they just fixed it.

[01:55:24] I just saw somewhere that they had had the cable car working after this weekend, but that's like one of the coolest things I've seen in the whites is like pull yourself across. You could rock hop it if you want, but why would you? Right. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Why would you negate the need to take a cable car? I feel like you can't really say that too much when you're doing river crossings. That's really neat. Right. Um, the other spot up in Chuddern is, um, a little bit beyond that is the Peabody Brook trail.

[01:55:53] That does hook into the AT. It hooks into the Masusek at Dream Lake. Um, Dream Lake is Dream Lake and right next to Dream Lake is the ball cap ledge. Those are some of the best views in the whites that aren't presidentials, to be honest with you. You, you're right across from the Mariah range and Selbro, Sheldon, Mariah. You can see Madison Adams, uh, Washington, Bootspur, like all that range.

[01:56:21] It's just so much exposure, so much drop off there. Really not a lot of work. That's like a 1500 feet foot climb ish. Don't quote me on that, but, um, you know, up like a really chill road, except for there's one part with a ladder, which is I think kind of cool. There's a bunch of waterfalls, uh, with some side quest trails that are great up there, but Dream Lake is this lake at like 2,500 feet or higher from the East end.

[01:56:51] It frames Mount Madison like perfectly. Um, you can see Washington off to the side, but it's this, you know, it's this tracing part of the vert project that's kind of morphed into that's gotten me to places like this. Um, you know, I did this hike where I went up to Dream Lake, Bald Cap Ledge. There's a short little trail, the Dryad Falls Trail that has Dryad Falls that, you know, in late August, isn't really running.

[01:57:21] It's been so dry up here. Um, but took that over to Genshin Pond, right? And Genshin Pond's like a 10th or two off the AT. It's got a beautiful camping area run by the AMC, Privy, Bear Box, you know, lean to all that stuff. I, you know, I've got a picture on my Insta of the view out of the shelter. Like it's just active beaver ponds, like in the middle of nowhere.

[01:57:46] And there's some, that's another kind of magical spot that off the beaten trail, right? Like literally off the beaten trail, but you know, it's these, it's these areas that are a little farther to get to, right? Like Speckled Caribou, Evans Notch, Shareborn, like all those little tougher to get to, but like the rewards are there.

[01:58:11] Um, you know, I feel like, you know, people spend a lot of time on the 48, 4,000 footers. And I, I think that's awesome. That's like, that's like your gateway drug to the whites, right? Like, right. Yeah. Right. Or the 52 with a view or something along like that, you know, and then it's just like, you know, it's what's the donkey and Shrek leg. It's like a parfait, you know, you start to pull the layers off the parfait and, you know,

[01:58:40] you, you hit these hidden gems. Like I, I go back up there in a second, you know, like I'm going to spend some time in Shelburne where I really don't have to with the tracing project anymore, but like I want to, cause there's some really cool stuff up there. Very cool. Well, Matt, we, we appreciate you kind of sharing sort of your story about vert project and kind of sharing. So I really like, I'm actually going to be going up this weekend. So maybe, and I'm staying in Gorham. So maybe I'll actually try to head over to that area.

[01:59:09] I won't have like a four and a half hour or five hour ride home. Maybe that Shelburne or Evans not sure. We'll, we'll see what happens. I'm really good at saying I'm going to get up there and that I don't, but really appreciate your time, Matt. And it was super fun talking to you and hopefully we cross you again on the trail sometime. It's great crossing you that day. Yeah. Anytime. Thanks to you guys. Oh, sorry. Oh no, you're good. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. This was, I'll talk hiking invert anytime, but you know, just a quick plug, go to check

[01:59:37] out some of these folks that are doing some amazing thing. Amber, Amber Conson breaking the world record. You got people like socked in hikes that are, you know, going for the second round, trying to be the first woman to do the second round of tracing. Yeah. There's, there's a lot more people than me doing amazing stuff out there. So, you know, certainly check those peeps out. Yeah. Well, you're doing some pretty freaking amazing stuff too. In my opinion, you're, you're certainly doing more, more than the average folk in the

[02:00:06] whites is doing and I love the passion and everything behind it. So it's pretty, it's pretty awesome. Much appreciated. Thank you guys so much. Posted and up to date. Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, guys. Good segment. Good segment. Interesting topics and a nice, nice guy. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad that materialized.

[02:00:33] Stomp, did you, was it like riding a bike, getting back into it with guests again? Well, yeah, Nick did most of the work on that one, but I had a nice chat with him before we actually started rolling and he's a professor of physical therapy in Boston. So that was pretty cool. So we chatted about that a bit, involved with a lot of cardiac work and he had done some rotations in town and that I had done and it was sort of neat. It was nice.

[02:01:01] But yeah, he's just out there trying to crush the elevation and he has a history of hiking with his family and he's, yeah, a really nice guy. And he's going to keep us posted because I was curious if he was going to maybe broaden this out to a larger type of fundraising endeavor or like a community type of challenge, maybe much like Straffer or something like that.

[02:01:26] And yeah, it sort of lit up a bulb in his head there. So we'll see what happens.

[02:01:53] So now just moving on here to recent search and rescue news here. So we've got a few articles to go through locally here, Nick. So where do you want to start? Sure. So I guess we'll start back. We get a little backlog here. So we'll start back on September 5th. So this was an injured hiker on, it's funny how we were talking, we had this whole discussion on the So You Want to, but Cardigan Mountain, which I believe is usually referred to as Mount Cardigan.

[02:02:20] But in any event over in Orange, New Hampshire, Saturday, September 5th, just before 11 PM, conservation officer made aware of an injured hiker on the Clark Trail in Orange. Hiker suffered a lower leg injury. They couldn't walk on it. Canaan Fire Rescue, along with members of Grafton and Enfield Fire Departments had responded to the West Ridge Trailhead, where they were soon joined by Fish and Game COs and volunteers from the Upper Valley Wilderness Response Team. First school rescuers arrived with the injured hiker just after midnight.

[02:02:49] They stabilized them around 1.15 AM. There were more rescuers and finally litter that arrived on scene. 1.35 AM, they actually started moving with the injured hiker to the trailhead one and a half miles away. They did mention that unfortunately the rescue was hampered by steady rain, which caused slippery conditions. There was some serious rainstorms I know moving through even down here that day. So unfortunate and bad timing there. They did get back to the trailhead at 4 AM and Canaan Fire Rescue transported the injured

[02:03:19] hiker to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for further evaluation and treatment. The individual was a 47-year-old from Grantham, New Hampshire. I've never heard of that town before. And just mentioned that he had been out on a night hike of Mount Cardigan with friends. Slip and fall occurred, resulting in the injury to his lower leg. Um, they just mentioned that the hiking party ended up calling 9-1-1 by cell phone and, uh, just did want to shout out that they were well prepared for a night hike and they actually hike this mountain frequently. So they were, uh, all on the right there.

[02:03:49] Just slip and fall. Yeah. And Grantham is like right by itself of Lebanon. So, um, sort of from the, the Western New Hampshire side. So makes sense, Nick, that we wouldn't have familiarity with that area. Cause we're not out there too often. Yeah. All right. And then, uh, next up is, uh, there was a rescue on Mount Monadnock. So this one happened on, um, Sunday, September 6th, around 1230, 53 year old Massachusetts hiker,

[02:04:18] uh, suffered a serious but non-life threatening injury near the summit. And, um, I guess they were able to engage with the Monadnock state park staff and then, uh, New Hampshire fishing game conservation officers and upper Valley wilderness response team and some good Samaritans as well. So, um, they were able to carry the victim to the base of the mountain and arrive around 430. And, um, I guess actually it was a, it was a, uh, 53 year woman.

[02:04:48] I thought I said, man. So, um, the, uh, press release says that the, the hiker was well prepared for a day on the mountain. So it just happened to be a, um, a bad accident for this person. Yep. And then, uh, moving back up North and also on the 6th, um, we got distressed hiker rescued from Mount Washington. So, uh, Mount Washington, uh, excuse me, a group of rescuers responded to Mount Washington to assist a man suffering from an unknown medical condition.

[02:05:17] Um, so shortly after 4 PM fishing game, COs received word that a 29 year old man was at Lake of the clouds AMC hut and experiencing symptoms that were concerning. Um, and based on the information that they provided a small team comprised of COs and members of the AVSAR rescue team responded in an attempt to walk out and assist the young man. Um, so the rescue team ultimately hiked down from the hut from the summit of Mount Washington and made contact with the patient around 7 30 PM.

[02:05:43] Um, they evaluated the patient and agreed that it would be best to try to hike slowly back to the summit of Mount Washington to get a ride down to the hospital. Um, the initial rescue team moved slowly, but steadily up Crawford path, um, until shortly after 9 PM. Uh, at this point, they mentioned the patient's condition changed to be experiencing new symptoms. Um, and out of an abundance of caution, additional rescuers were called to help carry the patient the remaining 0.9 miles to the summit of Washington, uh, while waiting for additional personnel to

[02:06:10] arrive, the initial rescue team sheltered in place to protect the patient from 37 degree temperatures and fog driven by 50 mile per hour winds. So it was pretty nasty up there. Not a very nice night. Yeah. Um, and then shortly before midnight, um, a larger team consisting of more AVSAR personnel and COs being carrying the patient up the mountain. Um, eventually they got safely to the summit at 2 AM on the morning of September 7th. And, uh, the patient was placed in a vehicle and driven down from Mount Washington auto road where he met a gore ambulance.

[02:06:39] And then he was taken to Androskongan Valley hospital in Berlin. Um, patient was identified as a man from Washington, DC. Um, didn't just, they were very grateful for the rescuers. So pretty nasty weather night. It sounds like up there, but they got them down. Yeah, I, I, we were, I think we, we made it down. We were there. We were up there on that day. I think we started heading down around like 1230 or so. And the wind was whipping. It was like probably steady 30 mile an hour winds.

[02:07:08] And then I'm assuming that later in the day, there got to be some gusts. So not, not a great afternoon to be up there. I think, uh, as it was getting dark. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely a rough one. Um, and then also on the 6th, we've got hikers injured on Mount Osceola. Um, so this was around 4 PM. COs were notified of an injured hiker close to the summit of Mount Osceola. Um, they were identified as a 57 year old from North Redding. What? Um, what? I believe that's Mike's hometown. You've got to be kidding me. Somebody from North Redding needed a rescu-

[02:07:37] That's never happened before. Probably one of Mike's best friends. Let me see. Hold on. Let me see this guy's name. See if I know him. The townie? Gasser? I don't know. I don't know the name. I don't know. No, no. That's a different person. So, um, yeah, no. I mean, that name, that last name is common, I guess, but I'd have to find out where he lives. He's probably not living in the Looney Hill area like I grew up in. I grew up in the poor section of North Redding.

[02:08:08] Huh. All right. Sorry. I didn't mean to derail you. No, it's totally fine. Uh, I got excited, Nick. I could tell. Hopefully we don't get too many more North Redding people being rescued. Hopefully not. Pornits, behave yourself. All right. So, hopping back in line, um, the 57-year-old from North Redding, Mass., was descending from the summit of Osceola when he slipped on the mucky section of the trail and sustained an injury.

[02:08:35] Um, the hiker's family called 911, um, and they mentioned that other hikers on the trail were able to help stabilize the injury and guide his family back down to the trailhead where he awaited rescue. Um, due to the location of the injured party, a call to fish and game was placed. Um, upon notification, conservation officers met members of the Pemi Valley Search and Rescue Team responded to the location. Um, and they mentioned that given the Rocky Mountain train, Cook was carried back down to the trailhead where he returned to his family and personal vehicle for transport back to his home.

[02:09:02] Um, he did state that he would seek medical care at an emergency care clinic the following day. So, that trail too, I did it twice this year. I forget how rocky and rugged the bottom of the Mount Osceola Trail is. Like, I'd honestly rather go up and down from Tripoli Road than go down that again with it fresh in my memory. It's just like, there's no good footing on all of it. And even at night, it's even worse and nevermind if it's wet. So, good on the rescue teams for getting them down there. Well, I don't know.

[02:09:30] Hopefully, hopefully that Hornet will feel better soon enough. But, uh, the next one here was on, uh, Monday, September 7th, uh, two 30 afternoon. So, 79 year old hiker from Massachusetts, 9-1-1 called the four miles up on the, uh, Glenn Boulder Trail. So, that's a gasser. I was reading the wrong report. Yeah, you exactly get the wrong one here. But, yeah, so this one, I mean, four miles up on Glenn Boulder. So, you're well beyond Glenn Boulder at that point.

[02:09:56] You're up at like the, uh, you're at the Davis Path Junction, I would assume, uh, somewhere around there. But, uh, 79 year old hiker. So, already an elderly, older hiker, uh, having climbed. I mean, that, that's gotta be like probably you're at 29, 3,000 feet of a gain by that point. And apparently, uh, this, this hiker fell and had suffered head and neck injuries and could not move, didn't have any feelings in the extremity.

[02:10:22] So, the, his companion called 9-1-1 and reported this. And because of the, the age of the victim and the, uh, the distance that would be required, fishing game, uh, requested a helicopter from the New Hampshire Army National Guard. And clear skies, it was windy on the, the ridge that day. So, there was no guarantee. To you that a helicopter, Stomp, what happens when you like, it's 50-50 whether the helicopter can get to the, the, the rescue teams, they, they get, they continue to move, right? You send them up. Yep. They're on their way. 100%.

[02:10:52] Yeah. Absolutely. So, must be a good feeling when you're on your way and then you get the call off. It's like, nope, the helicopter got them. Woo-hoo! Oh, yeah, that's a good feeling for sure. Yeah. Yeah, but we're always moving. It's like, there's no guarantee. Right. Right. So, uh, but anyway, so as the helicopter was trying to make their way up there, Andrew Scoggin Valley Search and Rescue Lakes region responded to the call. Um, so there was some question, um, I guess conservation officers were, uh, working to

[02:11:20] relay volunteers up to Sherbin Ski Trail to Hermit Lake Shelter on ATVs and then cut across Bootspur, Spur Link, which is a climb to Bootspur. So, they were basically going to go in through Hermit Lake if they had to. Uh, luckily the helicopter was able to land, uh, close to the victim. They assessed him and then placed him in a litter and got him in the helicopter. So, even with the helicopter situation, they still had like 25 volunteers and six conservation officers that were getting ready to roll.

[02:11:49] Luckily, they didn't have to, uh, which is, which is good news. And then no word on the, um, the status of the, the victim here, but hopefully he's on the mend. Yep. Yep. And this next one here, I got this one here. So, Monday, September 7th was a busy day. I'll have to look. I'm always interested in cluster days. There's a cluster. Sounds like a big cluster weekend. Yeah. Um, for sure.

[02:12:15] Uh, 9.45 PM fishing game notified of a hiker struggling to make it down the Jewel Trail. This is a very common, I feel like this has gone on over and over again for the last two years with the Jewel Trail. Um, initial call came in from a third party and then a second call came from the hiker's wife who was with her husband. Uh, 58 year old hiker from Madison, New Hampshire was descending the trail with a wife and daughter, had a medical condition, having trouble getting down the trail.

[02:12:44] So, two conservation officers were sent up to assist this hiker. Um, the hiker's brother drove up several hours away to also help us help assist. Conservation officers reached the hiker and with support and motivation from his brother, um, the hiker was able to start moving with assistance from the group he was able to make it so they didn't have to do a carry out. The brother drove up a couple hours to get to this guy and help him out with the conservation officer. That's, that's kind of cool. Brother of the year right there. Yeah, that's epic.

[02:13:14] I'm trying to think if my brothers called me and they were struggling. I, I think I would try to talk him out over the phone stomp. I'm fine. Yeah. I'd be like, you can do it. Yeah. Um, all right. And then the next one here, Nick, we've got Thursday, September 10th, uh, 1245 PM. This was on the Carter Mariah trail, about two miles up from the parking lot.

[02:13:43] Uh, 39 year old hiker from Ormond beach, Florida was descending on steep granite slab when she slipped on a wet section and suffered lower leg injury. Couldn't put weight on it. A hiking companion splintered the injured leg and called 911 rescue was initiated by, uh, Andrew Scoggin Valley search and rescue responding to conservation officers. Um, the hiker's companion was able to carry her on his back nearly three quarters of a mile down the trail. I wonder if they were on a date.

[02:14:15] Ooh, that's the move, right? I mean, like that's the opposite of an Alpine divorce. That's like an Alpine rescue. Alpine love. Yes. Yeah. That's pretty badass. So true love, true love. So, um, waiting for a rescue. He cares. So he carried her three quarters of a mile down the trail. Um, oh, okay. Both the victim and her companion were Appalachian trail through hikers and had been on the trail since April.

[02:14:43] So they were, they were, they were ready to go. So that explains it. Yeah. Do you think Dave, if, if, um, if, um, what's Dave's hiking companion's name? Tenacious. If Tenacious got injured, would Dave carry her? Um, with the shape of his toes? Probably not. Yeah. Probably not. But anyway, this, uh, this, this, this couple had, uh, goods carry.

[02:15:10] So basically they, the, the companion had helped her out and then eventually, um, she was able to get close. The rescue team was able to get an ATV about a little over a mile, uh, from the parking lot. So essentially like they were 2.2 miles up. The friend carried her three quarters of a mile and then the, the ATV was one point. So basically they only had to carry her like not even a half a mile because of the, the friend that helped out. So that's pretty good.

[02:15:37] They said the hiking partner and the victim were well prepared for a hike of this magnitude to have the gear and supplies to stay out for several days if, um, necessary. And she had possessed a hike safeguard even if she's a through hiker. So, uh, that's pretty impressive. Hmm. I'm surprised they could get an ATV in on that. It's been a little while since I've been on that. Yeah. I can't remember that, that area that well. Yeah. So, and then this last one here, a hiker injured on Mount Lafayette.

[02:16:05] So this one was on Saturday the 12th and then we're up to date. 62 year old hiker from Le Prairie, Quebec. Do you think I pronounced that correctly? Oh, a hundred percent. You think? Probably not. I think it's Le Prairie. I don't know. Uh, but the Greenleaf Trail from the summit of Mount Lafayette. Um, so she, 62 year old hiker, she slipped on loose rock and sustained an injury.

[02:16:31] She was helped by fellow hikers to the hut where it was determined to carry out would be necessary. So that's another good one. So I would assume like somebody's at the hut, you guys can sort of like, there's no rush, right? Well, here's my advice. Here's my advice. If you're going to get in trouble and need a rescue, do it on the statewide search and rescue training day when there's 130 rescuers about a mile away. True. Yeah. So that's a good point. Stomp that reminds us.

[02:17:00] So there was a, there was a big statewide rescue, uh, training going on event. So, uh, yeah, pretty easy to get to this person. That's a good plan B. That one there. You're like, you have to figure out like, okay, we can't send 130 people up. Like who gets to go? But you know what's crazy about that? 130 people would go. Oh yeah. Because these people, and these people are nuts. They love it. They could literally just pass her down the trail. Yeah. One big pass. Right.

[02:17:29] Chain down the agonies. Right. That's hilarious. Yeah. That's pretty good. But anyway, all the rescuers were utilized during the, so they, they carried her out. They had a bunch of rescuers and, uh, um, yeah, over 50 rescuers responded to the incident because many were just departing from a day long sour event on Canon. And we've had like the, the solo people on too. And they always say that like, we have training classes and we almost know there's always going to be a rescue call for us to go on. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt.

[02:17:58] So that's a good, good story. Yep. And there was much rejoicing because we are done with episode 246. Yep. The legacy continues. Here it goes. All right. We'll stop. It was great having you back. And Nick, I appreciate you putting up with my diva behavior again and pushing out the start time. Some of us have to work for the podcast and some of us don't. It's okay. Some of us have to go to swanky dinners before the podcast. So yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we are in the trenches until next time.

[02:18:28] Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

[02:19:01] Bye. Bye. follow the show on Facebook and Instagram. We hope you'll join us next week for another great show. Until then, on behalf of Mike and Stomp, get out there and crush some mega 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

[02:19:29] Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when the weather started to get worse. Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. There's three words to describe this race. Do we all know what they are? Lieutenant James Neeland of New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lucinda, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me.

[02:19:57] 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. I think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the ten essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.