[00:00:00] And then Saturday, November 7th, we have our Full Conditions event. So join members of the Slasher crew as we... Oh, I messed that one up. Messing this up left and right tonight. Jesus, Nick. Sorry. Lock in, will ya? Lock in. I'm trying to. Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory.

[00:00:29] Weather above Treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org. Weather observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon.

[00:00:54] Search and Rescue teams, Avalanche experts, and Backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above Treeline. You should too. Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137.

[00:01:25] Hello, listeners. Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of October 10th, 2026. Friday, in the clouds with a chance of snow showers, possible additional snow accumulations of a trace to one inch. Highs starting in the upper 20s, then falling through the day to the lower 20s. Wind west shifting northwest late at 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph early, 50-70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph midday, and 55-75 mph with gusts up to 90 mph later. Wind chill falling to 0-10 mph.

[00:01:55] Friday night, in the clouds, trending towards mostly in the clouds under mostly cloudy skies late. Chance of snow showers mainly in the evening. Possible additional snow accumulations of a trace to less than one inch. Low upper teens above. Wind northwest at 60-80 mph with gusts up to 95 mph increasing to 70-90 mph with gusts up to 105 mph late. Wind chill falling to 5 below to 15 below. And Saturday, in and out of the clouds, trending towards clearing under mostly sunny skies. High in the mid-30s.

[00:02:25] Wind northwest at 65-85 mph with gusts up to 100 mph early, 50-70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph midday, and 40-55 mph with gusts up to 65 mph later. Wind chill rising to 10-20 above late. So we got some cold temps and some gusty winds up on the rock pile this weekend. So definitely take warning if you're getting out above treeline. Stay safe. Happy hiking. Hope you can go crush some peaks.

[00:03:27] Casting from the Woodpecker Studio in the great live, free, or die state of New Hampshire. Welcome to the Sounds Like A Search And Rescue Podcast, where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and beyond. Here are your hosts.

[00:04:04] All right, episode 284, Nick. Are you ready? You prepared? I think so. My computer keeps trying to follow me in my recording, but I'm smarter than it, I think. Nick was just having some technical issues here, so. You had technical issues, I had script issues, so we're even so. Welcome, welcome. It's fall foliage season here. Nick, anything interesting that you want to start the show off with, or do you want me to just do my intro? I don't have anything pithy to share with you right now.

[00:04:35] I don't know about pithy, but it's my eighth anniversary with Ash today, so that's kind of exciting. We're recording on my anniversary night, so she's letting me do a little flash recording. She's at dance class, so. She is. What kind of dance does she take? So she's actually, I should say, she's bringing Ryland to dance class, so they're currently, yeah, so it's a mix of tap, jazz, and ballet. And I was also informed that apparently there's jazz shoes, which are a separate shoe from tap shoes and ballet shoes, which we didn't know, we were informed.

[00:05:05] Yeah, all right. They get you coming and going for everything. Wait till recitals. Oh, you already did a recital, but yeah, recital season. Oh, man. Break out the checkbook. Break. Yeah, 19th, and then we pay for pictures again. But yeah, we got a Christmas recital coming up, but yeah, so we're celebrating our, we've known each other for 15 years we've been together now, just about. So I was going to ask, how long have you and Mrs. Mike, you guys just celebrated 25th wedding, right? We did, yeah. We did.

[00:05:32] So we got married in 2000, so we did our 25th anniversary. That was that trip to Hawaii I did last year. And then we celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary this August. And then we've known each other. It's funny, my wife, like, she'll tell me, she'll be like, today's Kelly Flanagan's birthday. So Kelly Flanagan was this girl that we went, I didn't go to high school with, she was younger than me. But Kelly Flanagan's birthday was when I met Mrs. Mike. We were at a bar in Boston called the Purple Shamrock.

[00:06:01] So I met her there while all of her friends were celebrating her friend, this girl Kelly, her 21st birthday. So we can pinpoint the day that we met. So that was our 30th anniversary of being together and then our, you know, 26 years of marriage. So pretty good, I think. Solid. I would say so. I think that's very solid. Yeah. That's kind of a cool, it's Kelly Flanagan's birthday today. Yeah. That's our anniversary of a meeting. Cool. Yeah. Kudos to Mrs. Mike for putting up with me.

[00:06:30] It ain't, look Nick, I don't think it's that easy for her. I'll be honest. I'm not an easy guy to live with. We do appreciate it, Mrs. Mike. I've only lived with him like overnight for a few days and it's a lot after a while. It's a little bit. It's a little bit of a handful. I apologize, listeners. So, all right. So welcome to episode 248 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast. No guests this week. We will have guests. I think we got guests coming up the next few weeks for sure. We got a good lineup.

[00:06:56] But we're catching up on recent hiking news and search and rescue activity in and around the whites. We got some event reminders. We're going to talk about this Bubba Backyard update that I don't know, Nick, I was looking at it around five o'clock. It was still going on. I don't know if it's ended yet or not. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah. I think it's still going on. Crazy. So this is, it's an ultra race going on. We'll talk about hunting, hunting seasons coming up, Nick. So we want to, we want to talk about hunters getting shot and it's not as uncommon as you think. So hunters are shooting each other by accident.

[00:07:26] It's crazy stories. So I put together a little database of incidents, Nick, over the last 20, 30 years. I got about 30 events that involve hunters shooting other hunters by mistake. Plus we got search and rescue news, including unfortunately two hiker fatalities this week. We've got a bizarre rescue story on Mount Washington of a hiker who kept quitting his hike and then unquitting it. And his hapless friends were not able to get this guy under control. So they needed to rescue him.

[00:07:55] Plus we got recent hikes. I was on Mount Katahdin this weekend on a perfect fall day. So we'll break down that hike. And this hike also inspired me, Nick, to look up some history so we can do a little segment on an early expedition to what is now known as Baxter State Park from the 1840s that I picked up on. And then Nick and family were on Mount Pemmigo Asset. They were on the double heads. They were on Black Mountain. They were at Diana's Bath. They were at Echo Lake. So we're going to break all this stuff down, talk about fall foliage. So all this and more. I'm Mike. And I'm Nick.

[00:08:24] Let's get started. Let's get started. All right. So we did the eighth anniversary for you. So that's all good stuff here. Talk a little bit about Instagram. So if you don't follow us on Instagram, you should check us out on Instagram. And then we're on Facebook too.

[00:08:52] It's under Slasher Podcast, S-L-A-S-R Podcast on Instagram. And then I think you can just search out. Sounds like a search and rescue podcast on Facebook. But we've got a lot of good content, Nick. I feel like our social media manager is really picking it up and doing a great job here. We're getting, I think we got one video that's got over 100,000 views now. And you've got some videos that are up there with like 40,000, 50,000 views. So all good stuff. So definitely follow us on our Instagram and Facebook.

[00:09:23] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, your video of Katahdin. I don't know when you consider a video viral, but 100,000 views to me is pretty damn close to viral, if not viral. But that thing went really well. And yeah, I got to do a better job to it sharing. Usually I tag Slasher when I'm sharing like hiking photos and stuff, but trying to get some foliage shots out there and things. And yeah, we're trying to post nice panning reels. And Mike's got his action videos slash history videos. But I did want to shout it again. Kudos to your video of Katahdin.

[00:09:51] The way you shot, that was super cool. So what's happening? Caroline coming across the knife edge. It was really epic looking. Spurred a lot of conversation and comments. I always love. So this is something I, a theme I always notice with the knife edge. When you look up research, there's always some dude from Colorado that chimes in talking about how it's not that narrow of a knife edge. And they talk about like these 14,000 foot type peaks and call it like we know the peaks out in Colorado exist. It's just the name of the trail. It's the name of the trail. It's not, we're not describing it as.

[00:10:23] And or anything like that. At least we're not specifically. I want to call that out. But it's always funny. Whenever you look up like Reddit threads or anything on the Katahdin knife edge, there's always some dude out from like Colorado or like out West. That's like, that's not a knife edge. And it's like, nobody like, I don't, I don't understand the. Yeah. Calm down. West coast. Yeah. We know there's bigger mountains out in Colorado and California and stuff. We're aware. Let us have our thing. Yes. It's like, great job shooting that video. I enjoyed it. Yeah.

[00:10:52] So follow our Instagram and Facebook if you want drama. So anyway, yeah, there's always, people always want to knock you down a peg or two. It's funny. They do like, that's not a knife edge. This is a knife edge. And I was like, okay, dude, we know. Okay. It's like, here's this video of a thousand foot drop if you slip and fall. And the guy will be commenting on it and be like, that's, that's, I didn't feel unsafe at all. It's like, yeah, you didn't feel unsafe. You're comfortable. But like, if you slip and fall, you're going a thousand feet down to the ground. You're going to die. Yeah. So. Oh man. Anyway.

[00:11:21] All right. So winter is coming, Nick. We've got our reports of the first snow of the season on Mount Washington with wind gusts of up to 110 miles an hour. So yeah, it's time to get, get your, your knickers out, Nick, and your warm clothes. Yeah. So this was actually this morning, but we had, I think it was like 0.7 inches of accumulated snowfall rymelice on Mount Washington. And it was very gusty this morning. Everything's caked in white.

[00:11:47] I believe some of the Adirondacks got a little bit of a taste of frost and snow too up higher there. So it's coming. We got sort of a chilly burst and then a warmup and then it looks like things are kind of cooling back down again. So yeah, shoulder season's coming, coming quick. It is. It is. So yeah, I swap out like I'm still using my smaller pack, but I do swap out some of my stuff. I'm putting in, I got hats and gloves. That's a no brainer. And then I'm also bringing like a sit pad with me.

[00:12:15] I've got my smaller sit pad because the ground insulation is critical. And then the other thing I'm bringing is I got a shell that goes in there and I've got my puff jacket non-negotiable. So those are all sort of the base things that I have. Hat, glove, shell, puff jacket. And then I'm switching over to pants versus shorts. I think if I'm going to be above tree line. Yeah, I'll probably go with shorts a little bit longer. I think I just run a little bit warmer.

[00:12:41] I'll also do the smart wool leggings underneath shorts before I go to like full winter pants, I would say. Just haven't found pants, I guess, that work really well for me and how I'm heated. But yeah, very similar with how I'll swap my pack over. I actually had tore my hyper light part of it, the loop that the ice ax or trekking pole loop. So I have that getting repaired. Should be back in a couple of weeks, but I have my other Osprey 33 that I've been using in the meantime. And I do want shout out to hyper light because they were very quick with customer service. I did this back at like Baxter when we were up there.

[00:13:11] I don't even know how I did it, but free of charge, they're going to fix it and they're going to pay. They've reimbursed me for shipping and everything. So that was pretty cool on them. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard nothing but good things about hyper light. Like they'll, they'll hook you up with repairs or whatever you need. So definitely worth it. They're expensive, but a hundred percent worth it. And they'll, they'll follow through. Yep. Good stuff. All right. So then in the, in the safety piece of it, fishing game, put out a reminder, like be

[00:13:36] prepared, be aware, be responsible when exploring the outdoors this fall and winter. And I think it mimics a lot of what we're just talking about here, Nick, but ultimately it's like, you know, even short hikes require awareness, preparation, self-reliance. People need to be aware of the physical limitation. We'll be talking about that in the search and rescue news. Be aware of your physical limitations. Understand that conditions change rapidly and that cell phone service is not reliable. You got unpredictable weather.

[00:14:03] You got unpredictable weather, extreme temperature fluctuations between the trailhead and the summit. And then you've got the reduction of daylight hours. So this means that, you know, you have to be prepared. You got to know when to turn back and you got to basically have the ultimate goal to make sure that you return home safely from the back country. So enjoy yourself, but don't put yourself in a situation where you're going to need a rescue or you're taking unneeded risks. So you got a map, you got your compass, you got your warm clothes. Nick, do you have a compass?

[00:14:34] I do have a compass. You do. I do too. Have I ever used a compass? Not really, but I have it. But warm clothes, food, water, flashlight, headlamp, fire starter, first aid kit, whistle, raincoat, and pocket knife. And then I say a splint and a wrap too. Yeah, I got to look at adding a splint and a wrap, but yeah, just chiming in on it is shoulder season.

[00:14:57] I think a lot of times when you see a lot of these crazy search and rescues happen, like even a harken back to Emily Sotelo, like this shoulder season part of the year, like October, November, really can fluctuate with weather and how warm that some attempts are going to be and how it is in the valley to how it is up top. So you really have to be prepared for what's going on. I mean, you're starting to get rime ice up high and you might have ice in the morning on certain trails if it's going below freezing at night, which can be a little tough to negotiate. Spikes aren't going to dig in, so you kind of just have to be careful.

[00:15:26] You get leaves covering parts of the trail, making things slippery. Like Mike mentioned, daylight is fading fast, especially this time here in September. It seems like we lose a ton of daylight really quickly in terms of minutes when sunset's coming on. So just definitely keep your wits about you and kind of be ready because it can be winter feeling up top pretty quick. I mean, talking wind chills in the 20s, I'm on Washington, so snippy. Yeah, don't press on the hikes. Like don't try to race the weather or do anything like that.

[00:15:55] Matter of fact, Nick, I'm going up. We'll talk about this later in the show, but I'm going up to Franconia this weekend. And this is the time of the year where we've had issues on a lot of the summits around people getting caught in bad weather and they haven't switched over their mentality from like the warm season to the cold season. So you just got to carry a little bit more stuff with you and you just have to be aware and don't take risks. Yep, absolutely.

[00:16:23] All right, Nick, moving on, you got a couple of things. We want to do some housekeeping here and talk about some events as well. So number one, our friend Dave Schitts, who is a sometimes co-host here. The one unfortunate part about Dave finishing the AT is he's probably going to be around a little bit more on the show, but we always love Dave. Just kidding. But Dave is going to be on, I think, I don't know. He's going to be on coming up soon. We're going to do a couple of episodes where he's going to recap his Appalachian Trail adventures.

[00:16:53] So we want to give him kudos. He definitely has the notable hike of the week where he finished the Appalachian Trail on September 25th, which is a, let me see here. That was a Friday. So yeah, he finished on a beautiful weather day on a Friday. And we're going to be having him on the show to celebrate his accomplishment. And then if any listeners have questions, shoot us a message over Instagram or our Gmail account.

[00:17:21] And you can send us whatever questions you want to hear from Dave, and we'll just ask those during the show. And make sure that they're as inappropriate and funny as you can possibly make them. Yes. Yeah. Whatever you want to hear, I'm sure Dave will oblige an answer to the best of his ability. So we're excited. He actually suggested that asking people questions too, which I thought was a fantastic idea. Right. So now's your moment. Ask Dave whatever you want to hear from him. So look forward to that. And he'll be showered too.

[00:17:50] He'll smell a lot better than the last time I saw him. I'm sure. I don't know. I'm curious if he's like trimmed the beard at all or his hair or anything yet. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to see how he looks. So all right. What else, Nick? A shout out from our friends at 48 Peaks Alzheimer's. They wanted to sort of mention they finally finished their fundraising season. So thanks to sponsors like you, this was a record breaking year for 48 Peaks.

[00:18:14] They raised $247,319, which is their highest total yet they've had during the fundraiser. Over 400 hikers and 114 teams came together to hike in honor of their loved ones. And none of it would have been possible without your support. So yeah, we help out 48 Peaks. They help us out a bit too. So happy to do it. It's a great event every year. I think we had a blast hiking Adams this year and it looks like it just gets a lot of people together. I think it's a great event in the hiking community, even besides the fundraiser itself.

[00:18:42] So yeah, it's pretty awesome. Very good. Very good. And then some events coming up here, Nick. So just want to remind folks of things coming up here. So what do we got on the docket? So on the docket first, if you want to go hang out with Stomp and check out a super awesome Halloween party, he will be DJing the Reckless Halloween party Friday, October 30th in Bethlehem, New Hampshire from 8 to 11 PM. So he'll be spinning some tracks. I believe he's going to be dressed up in some sort of costume.

[00:19:11] Um, and obviously it's always a good time at Reckless. So go check it out. Saturday, November 7th, join members of the Slasher crew as they MC the annual Rescue Me 5k in Lincoln. Um, so the Rescue Me 5k is something that's put on by Lakes Region Search and Rescue every year. Um, it's more or less a fundraiser. I believe there'll be an event at Base Camp Brewing afterwards right in downtown Lincoln. Um, have done the 5k a few years where I'll be in Acadia, so I won't be attending this year, but I believe Mike potentially and Dave and Stomp, I believe will be MCing.

[00:19:40] And, uh, yeah, Slasher is proud to help support the volunteers of the Lakes and Region Search and Rescue team. Then continuing and moving along our big event for the year, Saturday, November 21st, which is a Saturday right before Thanksgiving, before Turkey Day. We have our annual full conditions event at the Bethlehem Colonial Theater in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. I believe tickets will be going on sale soon. We'll be sharing out the post and details. I know that they had an Instagram post that went out pretty recently sort of advertising the event.

[00:20:08] Um, as soon as those tickets are available, we will be letting you know and we'll be sharing the links for sure. Um, but as far as what's going to be happening that night, doors will be open at 4pm. I'm going to be playing a solo acoustic set, 4 to 4.30. Stomp will be DJing from 4.30 to 5, spending some tunes. Um, then we have the movie My Ride or Die with Kate Ziliff. And then for guests, we've got Kate Ziliff, Ty Gagney, Lieutenant James Nealon, and Joe Roman of AMC and Paw Rescue. So we got an awesome lineup. It should be a great night.

[00:20:37] And then after the podcast finishes, we'll have an after party in raffles at the Pint House at Reckless. Um, so that should kick off around 7.30pm. Um, we're pretty, uh, pumped, I think. We got a babysitter that night, so to speak. So me and Ash will be having a few beers and hanging out. I'm pumped to play some tunes, pumped to hang out with you guys and interview. And it's always a great event. It's crazy to think that, what is this, like the fourth or fifth one you guys have done now? Yeah, I think it's about the fourth or fifth. Yeah, and I'm definitely excited to, uh, to check out this movie. So it's called My Ride or Die.

[00:21:05] And it's a, it follows, um, you know, it follows Kate Ziliff and, um, and, uh, another friend of hers as they ski out in the, uh, Tordrillo Mountains in Alaska. So cool stuff. I always love, like, um, adventure films and, and especially backcountry skiing and all that. So, uh, it'll be good times when we get a chance to talk to her. She's local, grew up in Jackson, so it should be a fun, fun night for sure.

[00:21:30] And I'm really looking forward to, um, Lieutenant Neyland and, uh, Ty Gagne and everybody else that's going to be there. Absolutely. A little nervous, Nick. A little nervous. We gotta, we gotta be very polished when we do this. Yeah, I'm a little, I'm a little nervous with Neyland in there. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I've talked with Ty Gagne and stuff before, but I haven't met Neyland formally. So I'm excited to talk to him in an interview, but he's just, I feel like he's a very iconic New Hampshire search and rescue figure. So. Right, right. It's like his art royalty. I'll throw him some, some fun questions to soften him up, Nick.

[00:22:00] Apparently, apparently he's, uh, quite funny. I believe we were told. All right. In addition to being very knowledgeable. So we'll see what happens. That's, that's great. So, uh, yeah, but with the tickets, so as soon as the tickets go, uh, go live, we'll be getting that out on our social. So keep an eye on stuff. And then, uh, moving on to New Hampshire news, we've got some search and rescue stuff and we've got some other trail updates. So number one, falling waters trail. Uh, we had mentioned this in the last episode, it is now officially open. So the full reroute is, is done.

[00:22:28] I think that they had done some partial reroute opening and, uh, the old section of the trail has been decon, decommissioned and, uh, will naturally be allowed to revamp it. And then, uh, we've got some of the new trail alignment. So, uh, the new trail alignment, uh, the forest service just sort of warns that the new trail alignment may not be accurate on online mapping platforms yet. So just be aware that you should adhere to all signage and trail markings.

[00:22:53] And over time, I'm assuming that like whatever, all trails and Gaia and all those other open street maps, they'll adjust to, um, to the new trail and the old trail will eventually go away. So it took about two years worth of work, thousands of hours and, uh, kudos to the AMC in partnership with the White Mountain National Forest to open up this section. I'm very excited, Nick.

[00:23:16] I mean, I, I always felt like the old falling waters trail was iconic and I love the challenge of sort of navigating those slippery rocks and going back and forth over the water drainage. But I understand based on the metrics and the data that, that, that we've been dealing with for what I've been watching for the last seven or eight years, ton of slip and falls, ton of rescues over there. What I'm really hoping for is that by this time next year, we take a look at like the, uh, the search and rescue media event news.

[00:23:41] And we see like very little activity on falling waters or Franconia, uh, because of this, but we'll see. Time will tell. Yeah. You'll be able to give us a fresh updated report. One, uh, funny anecdote when you said this is the word re-vegetate is so specific, but, um, there's a local wildlife refuge in Seekonk. I've been going to with Ryland and Ethan, um, the last few weeks. And there's a spot, one of the trails that's closed for re-vegetation and like every week Ryland asked me if we can go down the trail yet. I'm like, nope, it's not re-vegetated yet. And she's like, is it re-vegetated?

[00:24:10] Like, no, I think it's going to be a while. It's been closed for like months. I think at least this season, I don't think we're getting back on there, Ryland. Sorry. But it's funny what the little kids will fixate on. Yeah. I'm like, there's still plenty of other trails we can go to here, but she wants to go on that one real bad. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm planning on getting over to, I'm going to do the, uh, the Ridge this weekend. I think maybe on Sunday, I may avoid Saturday just cause I think it's going to be crazy. But, um, I don't know. I'm going up old bridal. So maybe I'll come down the old, the new falling waters. So we'll see.

[00:24:40] I was, I wanted to join you and I was thinking if you did it Saturday, but then I was like, I probably shouldn't go hiking if I have to wake up early and run a half marathon the next morning in Newport. That probably would have been a, which didn't occur to me that it was this weekend until like probably a week ago. Yeah. That's probably not going to be great for your legs. So I was going to go Saturday as well, but me and Mrs. Mike are home solo this weekend. So I think she was hitting around. She's got some yard work for me to, she got a honeydew list, Nick. So I got a. Yeah. There you go. I did one of those this week.

[00:25:06] It's a reason why I got a 26 year marriage resume right now is cause I can read the, I can read the, I can take a hint, Nick. Yeah. I know when to mow the lawn. Yes. I know when it's going to happen. Yeah. So anyway, but I wanted to just alert people to, I mean, this will be done by the time the recording comes up, but there's like a crazy ultra event going on right now. And it's called Bubba's Backyard Ultra. So Andrew Drummond and the White Mountain Ski.

[00:25:36] So Andrew's been on, I forget what episode I'll put a link in the show notes, but great guy. Obviously like a legend on when it comes to ultra running and backcountry skiing and all that stuff. But they run, they've been doing this for like seven or eight years now. There's a, it's an ultra event. I think it's, is it Andrew's father's house or something? They did. They run it and like, it's like a three and a half mile loop in somebody's yard, right? Yeah.

[00:26:01] I believe it's someone, it's one of his relatives, but it's a three and a half mile loop consisting mostly of four single track. Also some snowmobile trail fields and logging roads. And it's got 250 feet of elevation gain per lap. So not crazy for the whites, but the amount of laps that these people are doing. I mean, we're like, I think it was three, it hit three days deep today, right? Since they've been running it basically. Yeah. It's three days deep. It's, it's crazy. So they're on, um, three days and nine hours. There's two people running.

[00:26:28] So essentially what this is, is from what I can understand, I actually didn't know about this until we would chat about it, but it's been around a while. So it's a, um, three and a half mile loop and it has, I think about 250 feet of gain or something like that. Um, every loop, maybe it's a little bit more than that might be 600. And, um, the runners have to go every hour. They have to complete this loop and then they have to step on the line at the, um, every hour on the hour to do this loop.

[00:26:58] And it's basically a last person standing. And as of, um, I think yesterday, they still had two days into it. They had five people that were going, which was unprecedented. I think they benefited from really good weather, really favorable weather. And, um, as of now, like the, it's down to two people. Um, and the girl's name is Katie. Oh, I forget her last name. She is, um, shoot, I got to look it up. I'll look it up as we're talking, but it's basically down to, um, uh, uh, uh, a lady.

[00:27:28] And a guy and they're running and they've done 283 and a half miles so far. And they're going three days and nine hours. So they haven't barely slept. I mean, they probably get like 15, 20 minute sleep breaks. I would think Nick. Yeah. And I mean, that's only if you are finishing the loop early enough to get a break. Cause they have to be at that line. It sounds like every hour. So it's insanity. Right. So, and it's like, we, we've definitely had like Nick and we're going to have your, we're going to have some guests on that have done like the Jigger Johnson.

[00:27:57] And then we've had our Viper on, but we've had ultras people on, but I think Nick, we don't focus on it as much. We're more general hiking. And then one of the things that I've noticed is like, there's a ton of podcasts out there that really do what does it. They do a great job on covering like the ultra scene in the white. So obviously the white mountain endurance podcast, and then run the whites podcast. And there's a few other ones out there. But if you're interested in learning about this, like those podcasts have some great guests

[00:28:22] like Larson, who's been on our, our show before he's been doing a ton of awesome stuff. He's got like this young kid that's like, I don't know if it's a relative or not, but they did like the white mountain hundred mile challenge. 17 year old kid. I think that he just completed that. So there's a ton of interesting stuff going on. And when it comes to ultra running in the whites. Yep. Um, actually I'm looking, Oh, yep. There's still. Yeah. The feet's down right now. Um, I just got on it.

[00:28:50] It actually says one person stood. It says one men still going. I wonder if they finally had a finisher. This is like a live, live update as we're talking on here. Um, but yeah, as of right now, they're 82 laps, 105 people started one. Apparently is left. We might have a finisher. I'd wish this feet, the feet is kind of frozen for me too. Um, but 287 miles they're at and 20,500 feet of vertical. Yeah. So holy moly. Yeah.

[00:29:18] It's, it's very, uh, exciting here. So we'll see. I'll, um, I'll try to do a little bit of research as we're going along in the show and see if I can, um, get the names of the, the runners here. Yes. Yeah, for sure. All right. Uh, so moving on here, Nick, we've got, um, a reminder. That hunting season's begun. So the fishing, fishing game wants to, uh, throw out there that you can report any wildlife climb.

[00:29:48] So if you go, if you go, um, you come across like a, uh, a legal bait, uh, store or something like that out in the wilderness. I've seen those before where people drop corn or whatnot. You see that on the, on the, um, Northwoods law as well. And then, you know, anything that's illegal that you witness, there is a, uh, there's a hotline that you can call. So I'll put this in the, the show notes. Confidentiality is guaranteed and they will pay rewards. So if you want to like turn in a, an illegal hunter, Nick, you can get some money.

[00:30:20] Yeah. Yeah. I never got, is, is the deal with corn is like fish can't digest and it just kills them. I remember seeing that there was like a reservoir near where we lived too. Then I know it was like, people would try to fish for carp with corn. And I know like you were not supposed to do that. I also know growing up, you can't fish for trout with corn either. I think the deal from, from what I, um, what I remember on like just Northwoods law, I, um, I think that it just acclimates the deer to, to knowing there's a certain location that

[00:30:49] they can obtain food. Okay. So the idea is, is that you set up like a deer stand and then you put the bait in an area that is a clean shot from the deer stand so that you're sort of guaranteed to have a deer come by. Yeah. I knew that for, so I knew for deer and actually it's funny you mentioned deer stands, but in our yard, when we moved in, someone must've been like illegally hunting deer because there were deer stands and also like just bait places in the backyard that we had. Like you could have like where they were, you could have just shot from like our house almost

[00:31:18] at a deer. Right. Um, um, I guess the deal with corn for fishing though, is that it actually, um, mentions basically rotting piles of corn can actually deplete oxygen levels in the water, which isn't good for fish or any of the organisms living in it. And it can actually alter water chemistry and trigger, trigger, um, harmful algae blooms. So that's why you're not supposed to use corn for bait. Okay. That makes sense. Uh, and just going back to, um, Bubba's backyard ultra, um, it's corn, Kwasnick and, um, Katie Melsky.

[00:31:48] I knew that was the name. I knew that was Katie Melsky. So, um, yeah, they've been, they both run it. Like I think Katie last year had run 168 miles. She's now up to, um, geez, it says 283 on the feed that I'm looking at. So it's, uh, it's crazy. And she had broken the record last year, but I think that they, I do think the weather's definitely playing a part in this, but also I just think that like these, these people are just animals, Nick. Oh, it's insane. Just built different.

[00:32:16] I mean, it's kind of, I feel like when I cross some of those people doing the hundred for the jigger, it's just, it's, it's such a, I mean, it's an amazing physical thing, but I got to think a lot of it becomes mental, especially as you're just sort of shoving yourself along into the throes of another lap and something like that on day three. But I couldn't imagine not sleeping for three days enough is that's really rough. Right. Right. Okay. And then as we're going along here, um, I'm seeing in our chat group here. So it sounds like Katie had tapped out this last lap.

[00:32:43] Uh, but we're trying to figure out like the feed went down on me. So corn would need to, I think the deal is, is corn does the, um, the final lap and then, uh, then he'll, he'll win. So either that or like, she just, she wasn't on the start line in this, this one. So he's moving on. So, um, but amazing. So we'll do a little bit more of a deeper, um, recap on it next episode, Nick. Yeah, absolutely. This was a super, and the fact that, uh, yeah, if you, if we were watching this, if

[00:33:12] you're curious, basically on white mountain, uh, ski.co, um, which would be, I think just drumming sort of website. Um, and the company website, there's actually a live feed for Bubba's backyard ultra. So we've been following it for like, I mean, I've been watching it like on and off for the last two days. So it's been kind of cool to follow along. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on the, uh, the YouTube. So their YouTube channel, white mountain ski co, um, they've got the live feed on the YouTube channel as well. The other cool thing about this is that they put out a Venmo to raise money for the finishers.

[00:33:40] So they've raised $4,200 on Venmo for the prize money, which is not a huge amount considering the effort, but it's still nice. It's solid. It's better than doing it for nothing. Yeah. All right, Nick, back to hunting. So we just talked about safety reminders. Um, so fishing game put out safety reminders or they put out like basically like you can turn people in. Then they also put out safety reminders. So the big thing here is, uh, you want to wear your hunter orange. You want to control your firearm muzzle at all times. Safety glasses. You want to know where your hunting partners are, Nick.

[00:34:10] That's going to, we're going to, we'll go back to that in a second. Shoot only within your zone of fire. Be sure of your target and what's beyond it. And then always keep your hunting dog under control. And then wear hunter orange on your head, back and chest. Okay. So I think for us, Nick, we're mostly non hunters. We just got to wear the hunter orange. Yep. Yeah. Like a vest or an orange hat or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So Nick, this got me curious about like, um, I hear these news articles about hunters

[00:34:38] that accidentally like shoot, uh, shoot people. And, um, I did a little bit of research and I actually started finding a lot of stuff, a lot of cases. So there was recent case in Madison, New Hampshire in 2025, her two Turkey hunters separated, ended up on, on opposite sides of a clearing. And, um, I think that they shoot these with like shotgun pellets. So, um, one of the hunters shot his partner in the face and upper torso, uh, in 2023, a 77 year old man was accidentally shot with Turkey hunting with his friend.

[00:35:08] He was able to walk out of the woods and drive himself to the hospital. And then in the early 2010s, it was a bunch of issues. Um, one man shot his cousin in Dunbart in New Hampshire cause he thought he was a church. Turkey hunting seems very dangerous, Nick. I'm, I'm, I'm seeing a pattern here. Yeah, for sure. I, I remember the one in Madison. I think we covered on the podcast last year. That one sounds familiar. I don't remember the Goffstown one or some of these other ones, but yeah, Turkey hunting

[00:35:37] seems the first three of these are all turkeys. Yeah. Yeah. I remember too, there was a story we did maybe a year or two ago about, um, a guy that it was, he had his gun in his truck and he had like a gun rack, I think. And he shot his friend while putting the gun in the gun rack or something. Yeah. Not to completely take, I mean, we like make here, but, um, the real life story. So where I grew up in Cumberland, our neighbors across the street were related to, um, I believe it was the person, the, the guy that lived there or the dad that lived there.

[00:36:06] It was his brother, but his brother actually shot his son and killed him. Like this happened, like probably like 2000. I have that story. It was like national news, but, um, they lived across the street from us and it was basically around Christmas and stuff. Like they did like now they'll put up a tree, but for like years after they never would really decorate for Christmas or anything. Cause it was just, it was a horrific event, like just awful. Crazy story. So I have that story ready. I'm going to talk about that one.

[00:36:33] Um, but I also have, um, a, um, a crazier story, Nick, but, uh, which is even worse than the father son one. Um, but let me just go through these a little bit more. So here's an, here's another one on November 9th, 2011. There was a fatal shooting, um, in Lisbon, New Hampshire. Um, Kenneth Brunel of Marlboro, Mass was hunting with his father and brother when a, when a hunter

[00:37:02] from another party shot him in the neck. Um, I guess the other party mistook Brunel for a deer and, uh, was later convicted of negligent homicide and reckless conduct. And, uh, Brunel was carrying a video camera rather than a firearm when he was killed. So imagine being with your, your father and brother, and then you randomly get shot. Like what a scene that must've been. Yeah, it's horrible. And the crazy thing is on that, on that same day in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, um, there

[00:37:32] was another hunter that was shot in the buttocks by, by a fellow hunter and survived. So two shootings in one day. Uh, it goes on and on, Nick. Like I've got like 25 of these, like Huntington, Vermont, Reedsboro, Vermont. Um, but the two cases you're talking about is I have both. Both of those. Uh, let me just see the father and son here. All right. So Derek Henriquez and Jose, um, Henriquez from Foster, Rhode Island.

[00:38:01] 19 year old Derek was pushing, tracking a deer through the brush brush after concealing his orange vest. His father heard what he thought was a deer and fired striking his son in the chest from roughly 80 yards away, almost a full football field away. Yeah. That was, that was rough when that happened. I think a lot of people kind of knew the family and stuff too, but just it's all. Yeah. And I remember that for whatever reason, he didn't have his hunter orange being displayed or whatever. I think that's what I remember hearing in the news back then too, but. Right.

[00:38:32] Awful. And then Nick, as awful as that case is, this store, something about 2011 was brutal. This story on November 30th, 2011, uh, this happened in Vermont. So two Reedsboro men are dead after a deer hunting accident near Howe Pond Road last, on, on a Saturday morning. So what happened here is 39 year old Benjamin Birch was accidentally shot by a guy that he

[00:38:59] was hunting with a guy named Tim Bognani. Uh, they were chasing a deer. So Bognani, um, after he realized that he shot Birch, he then decided, he just freaked out and shot himself and killed himself. So he killed his, his hunting buddy and then was so distraught over it that he shot himself in the head and killed and killed himself. Imagine walking up to that scene.

[00:39:25] Well, here's the thing is they were with a third man, the third guy, Mark Colford. Um, he was, he was hunting them. So at some point, I guess Birch who had been the original guy that got killed, shot a deer and the deer continued to run. So that happens sometimes like you'll, you'll hit a deer and then everybody's chasing him. Because they're trying to find the blood and whatnot. So Birch was tracking the wounded deer. The other two guys were helping out, um, but they were also still hunting.

[00:39:52] So, um, I guess the, the, the Bognani heard some noise and fired his rifle. And then Birch ended up like crying out. Um, and then they realized that he was dead. And then Bognani freaked out when he realized that he was dead. He used the rifle to take his own life. So the third guy sitting there like, what the hell just happened? But here's the crazy thing is that the guy, the guy that killed himself, his daughter,

[00:40:20] 18 year old daughter had been killed in a snowmobile accident the year before in Vermont. So this family just had some tragedy. So the guy had lost his 18 year old daughter the year before accidentally kills his hunting friend. He's probably not in a good mental state, but what a nightmare. Wow. Yeah. That's nuts. Crazy story. So, um, the, the, the, the point of this Nick is like, be very careful if you're out hunting. Yeah.

[00:40:46] Do you, do you assume I've never done any hunting is the assumption that like people just kind of get jumpy and they're not paying attention and they kind of are ready to fire at anything that they see move. I'm assuming. Yeah. They're out there looking for, um, animals and you know, they, they, these animals will like animals have like a sort of a hair trigger. They run away quickly. So I think that like speed and being able to react and line up your shot as quickly as possible

[00:41:13] is an important thing, but you can't be reckless about it. Yeah. And I'm sure statistically, I mean, there's a lot of people out there hunting that aren't getting into trouble. So I'm passing no judgment, but I was, it's just a genuine like kind of curiosity of like, how does that happen? Yeah. I mean, a human looks a lot different than a deer. Exactly. I mean, I was able to find about 30 or 40 cases, but when you, if you, if you divide that out over time with the volume of people out hunting, then percentage wise, it's, it's the same thing as like search and rescue.

[00:41:41] It's like your odds of having a search and rescue are tiny, but when it happens, it's like, it gets a lot of, a lot of attention. Yeah. I mean, we'll go out in the four, one of the forests around here. You can hunt in, it's like a state forest and I'm just be sure like we wear bright clothing. And I think generally like the time of day or dust that we're out, like you're, you're not out when people are out hunting, but there are, it's not uncommon around here to see people like driving around with like deer in their truck or whatever. There's a, there's a like general country store that I'll actually clean deer still around here. So yeah, you see it occasionally.

[00:42:11] Yeah, exactly. So anyway, um, be safe out there if you're hunting and if you're going anywhere, just wear your orange and then, uh, you know, just be careful. Pick, pick who you're going hunting with carefully and to make sure you, you have an agreement not to shoot each other. Yes. Yes.

[00:42:51] All right, Nick, moving on to some recent search and rescue stuff here. So unfortunately, uh, two fatalities this week and, um, one of them was, uh, Squam range. So I don't know if you've, have you hiked rattlesnake? So it's across from Morgan and Percival. No, I've never, never gotten over there. I've only done Morgan and Percival and that's it. Me too. So this is, this is like the same, it's the same parking lot. But so, uh, the, there's an old bridal trail that you can take. There's two trails from that parking lot.

[00:43:18] I think that you can split up and, um, yeah, you can, you can take either one of them. So on Saturday, October 3rd, um, and it's an olderness, it's right by the Squam, Squam range. So local fire department, uh, got a call, um, of a, um, 64 year old man from Tingsborough, approximately three quarters of a mile from the trailhead. Uh, he was being administered CPR by some other hikers.

[00:43:44] I mean, that area, I have to imagine on Saturday at 11 in the morning, like it's probably very busy, although that parking lot gets full. Yeah. So anyway, and I wonder, like, I think a lot of the people in that parking lot are going to Morgan and Percival. They're not going to rattlesnake, but probably a decent enough volume. But anyway, some good Samaritans basically started to, um, help this, um, this hiker with CPR.

[00:44:10] Uh, and despite valiant efforts by the, uh, the first, the good, the citizens and the first responders, they weren't able to revive the, um, the hiker. So he was carried to the trailhead and, um, yeah, it's unfortunate. They don't really give any cause of death or anything like that, but, um, you know, it's a sad story. So condolences go out to the family and then, um, there was another fatality on Mount Willard. This one I did pick up online.

[00:44:37] So this was a, um, this happened on Wednesday, the 23rd, around three o'clock, um, medical emergency on the Mount Willard trail in, um, um, Crawford Notch. So passing hikers being in CPR call was made to 911, Twin Mountain, uh, fire and EMS, uh, arrived at the scene. It was only about a quarter mile in and, um, they began life-saving efforts.

[00:45:02] And then there was some AMC personnel from the Highland Center and volunteers from PEMI Search and Rescue, um, that responded. All life-saving efforts failed. Um, hiker was 69 year old, uh, gentleman from North Woodstock, New Hampshire was going on a short hike with his wife. Um, I did catch online. The wife is a, is an avid hiker, um, was involved in like one of the, the, one of the, the big hiking groups. So condolences to, uh, to the family and to her and, you know, terrible news for sure. Yeah.

[00:45:31] We never like to hear about fatalities in the mountains. Yeah. Um, so yeah, thoughts, prayers with the families. Yeah. It's sad, Nick. And I think that, uh, and again, that we don't know the cause of death for either one of these, but I do know that based on, um, a lot of the media reports that I've seen over the last six or seven years that, um, uh, sudden deaths on trails do tend to happen in the, the sort of that 50 to 60, 70 year old, um, male age group.

[00:45:59] And it's sort of top of mind for me right now, Nick, and I just want to throw out for the listeners, even if they like can get to one person that might make a difference here. There's a couple of things that you just want to be aware of when it comes to cardiac and heart health. And I think that if you're in your fifties or sixties and you're going to get a physical, uh, definitely talk to your, uh, your medical provider about options above and beyond just sort of the, uh, the normal cholesterol blood test.

[00:46:23] So I think that my understanding is probably the best thing that you can do just for preventative, um, and, and get an understanding is a cardiac calcium score. They're usually not that expensive, not always covered by insurance, but like 150 to $300 usually. And the, the, the cardiac, uh, the cardiac calcium score will basically scan, um, the arteries and, um, in the, the, the, the, the chambers of your heart and then give you an overall score.

[00:46:52] So it's a, it's a CT scan. Um, and then you can come away from that knowing whether or not there's any like plaque or buildup inside your heart chamber. There's also something called a life scan, which is a sort of a heart and stroke, um, scan that you can take. Like it's a little bit more of a sort of a wider view and it won't catch specifically, um, some of the things that, uh, that, uh, um, a cardiac calcium score will, will pick up, but it's also worth getting it.

[00:47:19] It'll scan the carotid artery and, and see if there's any blockages there. So definitely something to think about. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I mean, I, I'm obviously younger than you, but I mean, even I, I definitely have cardio in mind with my dad passing of lung cancer and it granted it was a lot of it. They think wasn't related to anything necessary lifestyle, but he certainly wasn't the most fit person. He definitely could hike and stuff, but he probably pushed it a little bit more with the stubbornness than just being in good cardio shape.

[00:47:49] But, um, yeah, I mean, you, you need lungs and a heart to be able to hike. So I think it makes sense. I think too, it's like, as I've gotten even a little bit older, like I definitely don't like going to the doctors. I probably have a bit of white coat syndrome myself, um, even at my age, but, uh, it's better to figure out that those things are going on before you're laying on a trail and nothing can be done about it or somewhere remote. So it's, it's good to get that like yearly checkup. And I, these are kind of pretty interesting tests too. I'd never really heard of either of those two.

[00:48:16] You just kind of brought them up, Mike, but it seems kind of like a no brainer. If you're getting out there and you're, you're in a lot of these too, it's like, you can be in really good cardio shape and maybe genetics just aren't on your side. So it's worth knowing about those things. Exactly. That's one of the questions. So I'm going in for this calcium score test, I think in a week or two, but, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know genetics versus lifestyle. My father had a triple bypass when he was a little bit older than me, like cup 57, 58. Uh, but his lifestyle was not great. He was a smoker and a drinker for a lot of years. And you know, he was a type two diabetes.

[00:48:46] He was a little overweight. And so he had to get his, um, his health back in order. He's still alive now, but, um, it makes me wonder like, all right, do I have some genetic, um, tendencies around this? So we'll see. Yeah. I mean, worst case you do. And they're like, Hey, you're fine. Or I guess best case, but it's better to know about those things. Like you wouldn't know until you know. Right. Right. And, and again, this is not a reflection on these two cases.

[00:49:07] We don't know what happened with those from a medical perspective, but, um, it's just a, you know, whenever I think, see these fatalities, I do think about people just thinking about like sort of their heart health. And there are some proactive things that you can do. And again, not saying that they, you know, you can do everything right. And this can still happen. So, uh, but it's worth, worth considering. And if I can get one or two people to hear about it and, and they get checked out, then it's worth it to throw it out there. Yeah.

[00:49:34] I mean, and, um, any, I want to, for, before I say this, I want to preface it with like any sort of smartwatch manufacturer is going to tell you not to like rely on what a watch data tells you, but the things that watches can give you nowadays with between giving yourself an ECG or EKG basically on your watch, um, and monitoring your HRV and your heart rate and all stuff like that. And kind of getting a baseline for what you are like in a, in a common week or month or whatever with your fitness.

[00:50:01] Like, I think, um, having smartwatches and stuff too, gives you all this like plethora of data that really wasn't available 10 years ago where it's like, it's a simple thing. But I mean, if you feel kind of shitty and you're like, oh, my HRV is out of whack and I have no idea why, then, um, it's just another kind of way to monitor yourself a little bit other than just how I'm feeling. Right. Right. So, all right, Nick. So, moving on here, uh, there was a rescue on Artist Bluff. Um, I saw a bunch of like, um, news reports.

[00:50:28] So, for people that aren't familiar, Artist Bluff is like the, it's basically like the, the ledges above the parking lot at Cannon that overlooks, uh, what is that? Uh, Echo Lake. Is that what they call that? Uh, that, that's, yeah, that's Echo Lake. Profile Lake is the one that's a little bit lower down. Yeah, yeah. Um, profile lake for the old man. But yeah, Echo Lake, it's like that top, basically the top portion of Franconia notch. If you're driving north, um, it's the ledge up on your left and then Bald Mountain's a little bit behind it. Yeah. Very popular spot for foliage.

[00:50:55] Again, the deal with foliage is the more you can be, you want to be on a, on a, on a ledge, but you want to be down and immersed into the foliage for the best pictures. So, um, Artist Bluff is actually like perfectly situated with that. Cause it's only like a couple hundred feet up, but I got some pictures from some friends in our little tech group. And, um, I think it was like six 30 in the morning. Uh, Artist Bluff was completely filled with people. And then, oh, I saw some videos of just people waiting in Congo line.

[00:51:23] So I don't understand the appeal at all of this, but I, I get it that like some people don't know any better and they just look and see something on social media and they got to go there. So. Yeah. I saw like a video, I think someone sent to me and it was like literally people just like, like hundreds, like a horde of people just headed up to Artist Bluff, which I was like, that seems like a version of some sort of hiker hell with like beautiful foliage. And you just like, can't get to the ledge to actually poke out and see the thing.

[00:51:48] And, um, it's probably worth mentioning while recording this, like in the central whites, a lot of those areas, like it, it kind of peaked already or we're right at peak right now. So you're going to see that foliage starting to move South, probably the lakes region. Um, and in between will be sort of the, the, where it'll be popping this weekend and probably moving down through the lakes region, Southern New Hampshire over the next few weeks after that. So it goes quick. The North country is definitely already past. Well, I don't know, Nick.

[00:52:12] Like, I, I, I don't, I mean, by the time this records for sure, but like I was there on Saturday and it was on, that's one thing I will say is this foliage season. I don't know. Um, I don't have a great memory, but I feel like it's like one of the better ones that I can recall in the last few years. So it's funny. You mentioned that, um, my mom said on the local news that they were saying that it was one of the most vibrant foliage seasons that Vermont and New Hampshire and mass, um, is supposed to have. I mean, Western mass is having it. We're not having it down here as much yet, but it's supposed to be one of the most vibrant seasons.

[00:52:42] We've had in 30 years, which leads me to question how they measure foliage. But, um, I don't know how you measure like, do we measure the luminosity of the leaves? Like what's, how do we actually measure that? But, um, apparently it was like a notable thing this year. So I don't think it's just you, Mike. I think it's actually very vibrant this year. It was vibrant when we were up like three weeks ago, even in spots. So yeah. Yeah. I do think like people that are hiking this weekend, you're like, you'll get some good colors for sure. But like you said, like, I think the lakes region and the bell naps will be like the prime time. Yeah. By no means am I saying like, you're not going to see fall colors.

[00:53:11] Like even when we were up two weeks ago, like especially around Jackson and I know driving from Pemi, um, to where we were staying in Bartlett, like Crawford notch and Franconia were popping pretty good, but it's not like you're not going to see anything. It's just not peak, so to speak. Exactly. Um, all right, Nick, this got me to thinking like artist bluff. You couldn't pay me to go there, but like, what are the worst places to go during foliage season? Obviously the kank is number one and then anywhere around Franconia is number two. But what, what do you, uh, what else do you have to add to it?

[00:53:40] Crawford notch, Pinkham notch. Any of the notches. You don't want to be anywhere near those. You don't want to be any of the trailheads coming out of there. Um, probably at least after I'd say after Columbus day weekend, you're probably getting a little bit safer. Um, but it seems like foliage now, especially, and I mean, I'm glad people are out enjoying it, but it seems like foliage season now in New Hampshire is like people are going up there from like mid September to like mid November, like looking to see leaves. Um, yeah, I don't know the kank, obviously I think just link the hubs of Lake Lincoln

[00:54:10] and North Conway anywhere around there is just going to be mobbed probably, especially if it's nice weather. Um, but like Mike mentioned, I mean, there's, and we talk about enough on the podcast, there's plenty of places to disperse and find, uh, somewhere that's not bombarded with people. If you just get a little bit off the beaten path. Yeah. So, um, and I always wanted to find, like, I'm looking for a nice long dirt road to drive down Nick. If I'm looking for, you know, a cool vibe, I want to drive down.

[00:54:38] That's why I like, and I'll talk about this when I was in guitar and like one of the highlights of the day for me was dry, you know, the hike was amazing. And I'll talk about that, but like driving that eight or nine miles out of the, out of Roaring Brook along the tote road at the end of the day at like three 30, like the, the, the, the yellows and the oranges and the reds were just unbelievable. It was like, it was like you're in a movie. It was crazy. Yeah. That's, that's cool. Yeah. It's so, it's quite the thing.

[00:55:06] Long, long local dirt roads, not the kank. Like that's what I suggest. Yeah. I'm trying to think some of those cuts, like, I mean, bare notch road is off the kank, but that's probably a good one. I think if you go past the kank, like past Woodstock in that area to where it kind of ends going into Western New Hampshire, that's really pretty. Evans notch. That's a good one. One 13. Um, route three. I always forget. It's a one 14, one 15. The one that connects like three to route two. That's really pretty to drive. The one that goes by like Owl's head and the trailhead for that. That's a really pretty one to go on.

[00:55:36] Um, yeah. Those roads that like, um, remember we were talking about about smarts and cube, like all those roads out, um, that sort of go along the Vermont border. 25. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a long dirt road over there that cuts through, um, somewhere around there that I was on one time that goes like from the Dartmouth ski way down towards like, um, cardigan and, um, and Monadnock. That's like really a beautiful, I've driven down that during full eight season before. Yeah.

[00:56:04] I mean, I feel like honestly too, if you just, if you don't want to do the kink, but you just want to get out for a ride, like just doing like a big loop with like route two and three and three Oh two, like go through Pinkham and Crawford notch and like come back. Like that's kind of a nice area. And as long as you're staying north of North Conway and north of woods of a Lincoln, you can kind of get through it. All right. Uh, so moving on to our last search and rescue story, Nick, this isn't a weird one. Like this guy, I'm going to, this is crazy. Yeah. I mean, this guy's a weird, so I'll give this guy's name. We usually don't give names, but this is a, this really going to give this one, Nick,

[00:56:34] is he's going to be impressed. Nagarajan Tirichupala. Tirichupala. Tirichupala. That's the name. So I'm good with the Indian names, Nick. I'm impressed. Many years of, um, uh, working with, uh, folks from India. So, uh, but Nagarajan, um, Tiruchupala. Polly, he, uh, 48 year old from Jersey city was hiking on Saturday, September 26th, around

[00:57:01] 10 PM fishing game gets a call and, uh, they have to activate the Androscoggin Valley search and rescue, um, hiker with an unknown physical ailment from the boot spur trail. So apparently the hiker was, um, hiking with his group. It looks like there was like three other folks that he was hiking with. They started early morning up Tuckerman ravine trail, but he was struggling to ascend. So his hiking partners told him to turn around and not attempt the hike.

[00:57:30] He turned around and somehow ended up taking a shuttle to the top of Mount Washington where he met his companions. So after taking a break at the summit, the three who had hiked up plan to hike back down and, um, Chirikupala decided to hike down to the bottom with them. So he had already struggled to get up Tuckerman. His other friends had hiked down and had made it to the summit by 1130 in the morning. So that's pretty good time. I think.

[00:58:01] Yeah. I mean, certainly seems like they were moving at a reasonable pace. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess according to one of his companions, it took their Chirikupala like two hours to go about a half a mile and they're going downhill at that point. Um, so at this point he was told by his companions to turn around and return back to the summit for a ride down, but he refused and chose to continue on. Can you imagine what the, what is the vibe in that group there, Nick?

[00:58:28] So you get three hikers that were like relatively fast going up Tuckerman and then they had to send this guy around. Then he shows up on the summit and then he's like, no, I'm going to keep hiking with you guys, but he's slowing you down. Like I'd go crazy. Yeah. I don't know. It's weird. Like they say companions. I'm like, I wonder if this was sort of like this guy's like third wheeling along kind of, and he's like the friend, like they didn't want to say no to, but they know that he can't hike and like, but what's wild to me is just the fact that he took the shuttle up there and then he could, he made it two hours for half a mile.

[00:58:56] Like even it's Rocky up on Washington, but like, that's really, really slow. Um, yeah. And then he wouldn't turn around again and he kept going down with them. I'm like, I, it must've been like you said, just a super awkward dynamic, or maybe they were yelling back and forth at each other. And like, like, what are you doing? You idiot. Like you need to, you need to go back up to the shuttle. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. I don't know. It's like, uh, yeah, I would think I would be too embarrassed. I'd be like, well, look, I'm slowing you guys down. I feel bad. I'm going to turn around, but he just didn't, uh, didn't get it.

[00:59:24] So, um, apparently, like I said, it took him two hours to go a half a mile. The companions are trying to turn them around to send him back to the summit. But so, all right, they started 1130. It takes him two hours to go a half a mile downhill. Then he's got to go another half a mile uphill. It's 130 in the afternoon at that point. He's lucky if he would be able to get up there by four o'clock anyway, and maybe there's not even an option for him to get down. Who knows? Um, but anyway, so there's 911 calls that go on.

[00:59:52] Uh, so there were several 911 calls later in the day and multiple attempts by his companions to get him down, including carrying him on their backs. So after, I guess, after they, um, they attempted this, a rescue crew was called. They reached him around 1230 on Sunday morning and assisted him down the Sherbourne ski trail where he was placed on an ATV and driven down to Pinkham Notch, arriving at 2am.

[01:00:16] And then he was evaluated, um, by medical personnel and ultimately transported to Andrews Skoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin for precaution. I don't know if they're going to charge this guy or not, but it seems like a whole bunch of bad mistakes. Yeah. There's a pretty clear pattern, I think, of negligence here. Yeah. One thing that did come to mind is that if we were in a situation with like our hiking crew, would we call search and rescue before you debated carrying someone on your back down up mountain? Oh no.

[01:00:44] I would immediately, I would definitely care. I mean, it depends if it's like Peter or somebody like that. It's like, you're going to have a problem because he's too big. But, um, no, I think we would, I, we would make the person crawl before calling search and rescue. Yeah. I was thinking that I'm like, I'm like, good on these guys for trying all the options, but I was thinking logistically, like just trying to carry someone on your back without any like, um, extra gear to do that is like really difficult. Like I couldn't even imagine trying to do that going downhill on Washington. Oh yeah. Like hold onto my neck kind of deal like a child.

[01:01:14] Yeah. It is funny though. Like I see. So when me and, me and Jake were on boots for a couple of years ago and there was a family that was going up and we saw like, it was like the mother and a son and maybe like another son. And you could tell they were like, they, they were not frequent hikers. You could just tell by looking at them, but they were nice enough. You know, we were coming down the summit of boots spur and then we took boots spur, whatever that steep boots spur cut over is that gets you to Hermit Lake. I forget what that was boots for link.

[01:01:43] So we were heading to boots for a link. And then we, by the time we got to boots for a link, there was a guy, very heavyset guy that was leaning against a rock. And, um, he had asked us, he's like, Oh, did you see my wife and sons up there? And they were, you know, all the way towards the summit. And this, we were at boots for a link. We're like, Oh yeah, he, we were there. So he was waiting there, but so people do leave their loved ones and go up and like hike. And then this guy, you know, he had a ways to go to get back down, but he was just

[01:02:11] waiting by a rock and he didn't look good, but we just went on our merry way and said, good luck. I'm assuming you get back. Yeah. That's split up dynamics. Always kind of tough. I think it, there are situations where it might make sense if you want to like, I think the only time I've split up really and left someone is I left Ash at a junction in the Adirondacks doing Phelps, but it was like a half mile up and she just wasn't feeling it. And we had walkie talkies. We could act the way that it worked out. We actually could talk to each other. And I think I was maybe separated from her for 40 minutes before I caught up.

[01:02:41] So, um, but it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's a tough, tough thing to call. Generally, you always want to stay together, but like if you're hiking companions, like cool with chilling, like, um, one of my buddies, uh, other halves kind of isn't, isn't always doing as many pieces we've done in the past. So like, she's chilled out on like Crawford when we've gone to stairs before or something. It's like, if the person knows what they're doing and like, they've been up there before, like, I think it's plenty safe, but if you're in a situation where people are unfamiliar, it's a little bit tougher call sometimes to do that. Right. Right. Yeah.

[01:03:08] I mean, I think that we had that dynamic when you did your winter 40, uh, 48 finish on it and you went over to West Bond. Yeah, that's fair. Me and Peter had to turn around at different points and we were, you know, we're pretty capable winter hikers and we had already done the route. So there was no weather concerns or anything like that. So, you know, Peter had turned back and we'd all agreed, okay, you know, we'll, we'll be back. And then I, I, I had to tap out. So it happens, but I think that you gotta, you gotta have a good group dynamic to understand what everybody's plan is and what their capabilities are. Yeah.

[01:03:38] There seems to be a trend in our hiking group too, that when people are looking to finish things, it's like the craziest weather day or like the hottest weather day ever. Hopefully whoever finishes their net though, I think Jake had a nice day to finish. Yeah, he did. Um, build a baseball park in Grand Teton National Park, um, or hosting a game. Yeah.

[01:04:06] So basically, I don't know what the, what the details are, but they want to host a game at a national park and they're scouting locations in Grand Teton National Park to build a baseball field that could host this. A couple of people are familiar with, uh, with this that had leaked the news. So, um, I think this is pretty cool. Major League Baseball official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, uh, anonymity, um, because he wasn't authorized said the league approached the administration about the success of Major League Baseball's other standalone events.

[01:04:36] So they do this field of dreams game in Iowa, which is in the cornfield. Um, so the idea of playing in a national park was one of several that Major League Baseball is exploring. So I think this is a cool idea. Yeah, it's neat. I mean, they call it, it did come from MLB entirely. There's no sort of Trump administrative involvement. They just kind of, it's a little clickbaity, the title of the whole, uh, the article here, which is just typical nowadays. But yeah, I don't know. Um, I don't really have a strong opinion either way on it.

[01:05:04] I mean, I don't think it's going to completely ruin the park or anything. I mean, there, there's plenty of like, there's playgrounds and national parks and things like that. So I don't know if it's that different. I mean, it's a bigger stadium, but yeah. All right. And then this next one here is, uh, all right. There's a deadly avalanche in Nepal. I didn't do my research ahead of that one. So I'm going to skip that one for now. Uh, I ditch my big bucks corporate job for a dreamy, simple new life in a national park. My rent is now just $96 a month.

[01:05:32] So this is a 26 year old who quit her well-paid corporate career in Chicago for an idyllic new life living in a national park. So Zoe de la Paz was making $75,000 a year as an early career mechanical designer in the windy city when she decided to throw it all in to become a seamstress working inside Yellowstone national park. So she was burnt out and she started, Nick, she's 26 years old. What is she burnt out on? I'm sorry.

[01:05:59] I was, I was thinking that even as a 30 soon to be 36 year old, I'm like, how can you be that burned out? She's probably only been working for like four years. Right. Right. I don't know. Maybe she has a crazy job, but that seems like a very short span of time to get burned out already. Yeah. I mean, 75 grand in Chicago, that's not a well-paid job. That's like, that's scraping by. Taking the exact thoughts I had, I'm like, I feel like in Chicago, I got to imagine the cost of, I'm sure it's not like living in Boston, but I'm sure it's not cheap to live in Chicago. I would think. I don't know.

[01:06:28] Anyway, anyways, that's besides the point of the story. Anyway, de la Paz, she moved to Wyoming or so Yellowstone and she's making $19 and 25 cents an hour, repairing uniforms for thousands of employees in the park, which spans parts of Wyoming and Montana. She's employed by a contractor, Zantara Parks and Resorts, which operates multiple businesses in the park.

[01:06:53] She lives in the village where she pays $96 a month to live with up to two roommates. She's currently bunking with one other woman where the two were given a sparsely decorated space with Cotser. So I experienced a little bit of this when I was in Yosemite, like the worker's village, you can see it. And yeah, they just basically share those bigger tents with a bed in there. So I think it's fun. I got a feeling that if she got burnt out on a corporate job, she's going to get burnt

[01:07:20] out on living the sort of nomadic, seasonal subcontractor at a national park life soon enough too. But it's good. I mean, the point is, if you can adjust your life so that the amount of money you need to spend is limited, then you can adjust your life and have a great time. And you know, if not everybody has to chase every dollar and cent that they want to earn, you don't have to be a millionaire to live a good life.

[01:07:47] No, they kind of brought to mind, I was like surf scouting a little bit on Sunday, which I'm just getting used to into forecasting and looking at swells. And I was down sort of in the little Compton area, which is like that hidden area of Rhode Island. But there's a little sort of trailer park open area at one of the beaches. And there was someone that was just like living there seemingly with like their trailer and they kind of had a Tacoma and they like had, they were actually looked like they were setting up like one of those solar showers and stuff like that. And I'm like, that's kind of, kind of just caught my eye. Like, that's an interesting sort of way to sort of be living and doing that. It seems maybe not too bad.

[01:08:17] Like I envious of people that can do that. I just don't, I don't think I'm secure enough with, especially once you have kids and stuff like that, it sort of locks you in a little bit to what you need to try to do. So, yeah. So she's saying that she's able to save money. She's got an $11,000 emergency fund. She's got some money in a 401k. She plans to move to LA or New York after her contract expires. So she's not in this for the long haul, but it's just an example of, you know, the decisions that you can make. I mean, there's something romantic about that life. I know that that's a lifestyle.

[01:08:45] Like people will go from like, they work at a ski resort in the winter and then go do like a lifeguard job somewhere at a resort in the summer and, you know, or restaurant or bartender job. So, I mean, you can, you can do that lifestyle for a while, but I think eventually it's got to get old. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like you said, Mike, I think I kind of romanticize it in my head and good for you. If you can do that, I just don't think I can do it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:11] That doesn't pay the mortgage and the tuition bill and the car bills. No. But if you, I mean, not that everybody has to do that in life either. We're not saying that. I am. I am. People need a lock and be responsible. I do. I do think it's a little funny that she said she was burned out after like four years of working at a job. Yeah. Burnt out. Yeah. Yeah. Try going into Boston every day from Amesbury for 20 years. It's like that took years off my wife.

[01:09:40] Ready for slashers. All right. Moving on here. So we got some gear talk here, Nick. So what do you, what do we have here? Sure. So stomp through these in, but I thought that these are very cool additions. So first we have this thing. It's actually called it's, it's called find a spring. Spring.

[01:10:08] So it's this neat little website and it actually has a map of all springs all across seemingly the world. And there's some different thing I was poking around like New Hampshire. Like you can see like the spring around Gio and stuff, but kind of just places if you want natural, nice, clean spring water. Presumably you can go to these sites and go get it. So it's actually kind of neat. Kimball farm near me. That's pretty cool. Yeah. There's, there's some places that I did not expect that are in here, like in the whites, uh, that are pretty neat.

[01:10:38] There's none near me except in Newport. Oh, nope. I lied. There's actually one up in Easton. It looks like, so that's kind of cool. Conway mineral spring. North Conway has got a spring. Pinkham notch. It's got a spring. Giot. Uh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Actually, that's a cool website. Actually. Yeah. Yeah. I thought this was pretty neat. And then we've got a new weather app that seems to be focusing on hikers safety. So it's called hikersweather.com.

[01:11:07] Um, so we have this new weather app that advertises instantly know the best days to hike. And it looks like they're available on Apple and Android and the Google play store. Um, and it seems like a pretty personable, uh, customizable kind of, I guess, hiking related forecasting tool. Um, these things are always tough. I mean, this looks cool, but I always kind of wonder what their angle is versus the things that already exist, which I'm not seeing anything that, um, the personalization seems really nice.

[01:11:35] Um, and I think people like the idea of having a one sort of click app and know everything. I think I've just gotten used to over the years of looking at like weather.gov and mountain forecast and the higher summits forecast maybe, and then like AccuWeather or Wonderground or whatever, and kind of just compiling those things and using your best judgment. Um, but if you want a single app, then maybe check out this hikersweather.com. Yeah. Yeah. I always start with the Mount Washington observatory summit forecast, but then like you said, like rolling that other stuff.

[01:12:01] And this may be another tool that you can just add into the, uh, the mix here. I think the wet taking consideration of the weather is like not a one-stop shop. It's a, it's, let's look at these six or seven different sites and figure out what's going on. No. And then you can get like me where I like to send you guys those little line graphs of like the 48 hour thing that just like, you're like, what are these lines? Exactly. We can't see in the screenshot. Um, all right. And then, uh, the only other gear thing I have, Nick, is I, I, I bought a new pair of winter hiking boots.

[01:12:30] So those arrived in the last week. So I got a new pair of keen rebel fours. Nice. So you went with the, uh, the same, you had the rebel threes, no rebel fours. Same exact, uh, boots. Oh, it's the same kind. I just don't take care of my boots well enough. And, uh, I just figured six years is enough. I was going to, yeah, I was going to ask you how many seasons, I think I've got three or four on mine. So I might be, I had to super glue the toe last year and I do try to use like the Nick wax, but I think the waterproofing and seams of just, they get beat up over time,

[01:12:59] especially wearing snowshoes and things. So maybe, maybe next year I'll be in the market for them, but cool. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to use my old, uh, boots for just working on the farm this winter and like, um, snowshoeing around there and clearing whatever we have to do. So I'll have an old crappy pier and then I get my new pair for hiking. Very nice.

[01:13:33] Hey, what's that sound? It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp. All right. And then next up here, pop culture. So Stomp at throwing this in here. So Chris McCandless, so Chris McCandless is known for, um, he was the, uh, the vagabond sort of hiker kid that went out to Alaska and tragically died. He had, uh, uh, stayed in a van. Um, and it became like a, uh, a place where people would pilgrimage to, but a lot of

[01:14:02] people got in trouble cause it's a really difficult place. Got a water crossing that you can get you in trouble. So, uh, there was a movie made into, into the wild, I think it was, um, it was the movie. So, uh, pretty well, well known, uh, story there, but apparently his, uh, his diary was for sale on Amazon and, um, you could pay, I guess, $600 to it's called back to the wild. So it's photographs and writing, um, of Chris McCandless.

[01:14:30] The book contains original photos, postcards, and journal entries during his two year journey through the Western U S Mexico, Canada, and Alaska. And, uh, yeah, if you want to buy it, it's about $600. There's only one left in stock. And Stomp mentioned that he would be rolling in his grave. And I think a lot of this is sort of just because he was like all about getting off grid and like not, uh, conforming the fact that his, basically his diary and like all these entries are being sold on Amazon.

[01:14:57] Um, just kind of a weird full circle moment there. Yeah. Yeah. It's very weird. And then the only other thing we got for a pop culture talk here is Stomp put in Wonka's golden ticket reality show, which is on Netflix, Nick. And I'm actually watching this right now. What is it? I'm not familiar. It's a reality show where, um, these couples are, um, sent into, they get a, do you know Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory? You know, the movie Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe and the whole deal with, they get the golden

[01:15:27] ticket and then they go into Willy Wonka's candy factory. Yeah. Oompa Loompas. Oompa Loompas are in there and, uh, all that stuff. So anyway. The trippy scene where they're like on that boat. Yes. Yeah. Going through the tunnels and stuff. Exactly. So the idea is, is that like one, one of the contestants wins a golden ticket, they can bring a friend with them. So it's a, it's a whole, it's a reenactment of the movie essentially. And then there's this Willy Wonka voiceover, but that uses the same voice as Gene Wilder's character in the movie.

[01:15:57] And, um, they go through a bunch of different challenges in the chocolate factory. And like one of the challenges is like, they have to spin to like, um, make like a chocolate thing. And like one of them will spin around and then if they let go with it, it's like a survivor type challenge. It's really a dumb show, but it's just, it's just mindless entertainment, but it's, it's interesting. They gave it a good try. Okay. So there's Oompa Loompas there. Well, I think one of the Oompa Loompas is like the original Oompa Loompa that was in the movie too.

[01:16:27] So it's kind of cute. That is such like an off the wall idea for a show, but I'm intrigued. I'm not going to lie. It is a weird reality show. There's another Netflix reality show. I think it's called outside. It's like British, like influencers and they have to live in a, it's not really, it's not really like that rough. It's like shipping containers, but they're outside and then they, they have a bucket of money that they can spend on luxury items. So like, if you want a cup of coffee, you have to spend like 1500 pounds for a cup of

[01:16:55] coffee and the money comes out of the prize money. So if people are spending a lot of money for food and stuff, like people get mad because they're like, look, that's our prize money that you're spending. Huh? That's interesting. And they're the most insufferable people. They're like, every one of them is like an influencer on TikTok and they're just insufferable. The only one that's like recent that I'm familiar with is Love is Blind because Ash has run through that. And I feel like no matter what, like the people always end up turning out crazy, even if they seem like they're not crazy.

[01:17:23] And apparently there's like a Boston one that's been filmed or whatever, that's going to be one of the next seasons, which I'm just, I feel like that's probably going to be just like a hot mess. Oh yeah. My, my daughters are all over it. Like everybody knows someone who knows somebody who was on the show and all this stuff. So yeah, it's very exciting around here. Big news. All right. Now, uh, Nick's music minute here. We were on the, we're on the time crunch here, Nick. So we gotta get rolling. Well, this is very, this is very quick and this is related to the anniversary thing. So, um, me and Ash were looking for something.

[01:17:51] Usually we'll like go out to dinner or we were like debating overnight, but, um, it turns out a band we both like called brand new, who some of you might be familiar with, um, is actually playing in Boston in, uh, on the 18th. And they're doing an anniversary tour for one of my favorite albums by them called the devil and God are raging inside me. And Ash was a pretty big fan of them too. Um, so we're going to be doing that going out for a night on the town, probably have dinner, go to a concert. We'll probably be exhausted the next day cause it's a Sunday night, but, um, it'll be worth it. So we're looking forward to it. Well, that's good, Nick.

[01:18:21] I am into, I got a new group I'm into here. Let me just breaking news. Mike hasn't, Mike discovered a new group, uh, or a new singer. I don't know what this is. Uh, hold on a sec. It's got a good beat. I can dance to it, Nick. Uh, team Impala. Do you know team Impala? Oh yeah. Yes. I'm, I'm familiar. I think I, wow. I just said familiar. Um, team Impala and team Impala. Yes. I am familiar with team Impala. I'm into them.

[01:18:49] Who actually is like the creative vehicle of someone who's maybe a producer or something like that. Is it a group? Is it a person? It's a group. Dracula, but it's, it's the, here we go. It's psychedelic music project of Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker. Okay. Um, so he's actually, he is team Impala, but they've got good stuff. Their song, uh, the less I know the better. That's what I, that's what I've been jamming to. Yeah. It's a great song. That's probably like, I think one of their most popular songs, but that's, that's a great thing.

[01:19:18] Look at me being hip on the new stuff. I know. Look at you, look at you, Mike. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Breaking out. It's called team Impala. Yeah. That's great. So proud. I discovered this new, I broke this band just now. So anyway, go listen to team Impala people. Okay. So moving on housekeeping here. So if you want a slasher stickers, go to mountain wanderer bookstore, uh, in Lincoln, or you can go to a spinners pizza parlor. And if you go to mountain wanderer, you can buy Nick's photography, right? You still sell, have some stuff there. Yep.

[01:19:49] Yep. I've got, I think like seven or six of the 10 that I gave for us. I got to swing by and see forest at some point too. Um, but yeah, they're, they're for sale up there. So go check them out. And there, obviously there, there's just a ton of awesome stuff. Mountain wanderer is staple in the white mountains community for maps, books, um, all informational stuff. And then there's actually sort of a, um, interesting sort of, I wouldn't want to say general store, but his, his, uh, his other half there is doing some awesome stuff. Yeah. His wife, Caroline. So, um, yeah, Caroline's get great stuff. They're right across the way. Yeah.

[01:20:17] And a shout out to, um, friend of the show, Susan Moro. She had given me like a really nice pebble art thing of me and my friend Tom. Oh yeah. But she's been expanding. Like she's in like the Omni hotel. She's at mountain wanderer. She's in a few other places too. So, um, I'll put some stuff on the show notes if I can remember to just put links to some of the places that she's at, but those pebble are the, um, the holidays are coming up. That's actually would be a good idea for a gift for people that are interested. So. Yeah. Shout out again to Susan Moro. She, yeah, she gave us, um, both.

[01:20:46] I have a, I have a cool pebble art of like me with Ethan on my back and then Rylan and Ash like, and that she gave me. So I'll share a picture of those at some point and like we can tag her, but it's incredible stuff that she like goes out and finds these perfectly shaped pebbles and items in the forest. Yeah. Creates works for them. It's really neat. Very cool. So, all right. Um, so moving on here, um, uh, if you want to get swag, you go to our bonfire shop. You guys know the deal. If you want patches, you can send us a note over, uh, the Instagram and then the two 50

[01:21:14] each and you can send them, send money to our Venmo. If you want to donate to the show so that we can buy cool stuff for ourselves, we're going to take, we're going to go to Vegas, Nick, if we get enough money and we'll gamble. You know, hiking in Red Rock. Red Rock. Red Rock and Black Jack. That's right. That's right. So if you want to donate to the show, uh, donations help us pay for web hosting distribution live events. You can go to slashers, buy me a coffee. Um, and then we got a, um, sounds like we got an anonymous five coffee donation this, this month. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're on our way to Vegas, Nick.

[01:21:45] Yep. One step at a time. Hey, hold my beer. It's time to find out what Mike and Stomp are drinking. On this week's beer talk. All right. It is sober October. I did break the sober October rule, um, on the first day of the month, but I'm back on

[01:22:14] sober October now, Nick. So, um, are you drinking anything? Uh, so I have a technically, I guess I haven't drank in October yet. No, I'm not. I'm planning on having, it looks like at the, the, after the half, they give you a voucher to ragged Island brew and co, which is a brewery in Newport. So I'll definitely be having a beer after that, but, um, yeah, I'm just having some bubbly sparkling water cherry tonight. Nice. Nothing that exciting. I'm drinking water. You want to know what I broke my sober October on? Uh, so October 1st, I went out to Lucky's Lounge in Seaport.

[01:22:43] I had a work thing, so I, I had to be social. Uh, but I got a Velvet Elvis. What, what is that? It's Jack Daniels, um, and then Raspberry Liqueur, which I think is Charmonde or something. And then lime juice and then, uh, like Sprite. So it's called a Velvet Elvis. It was actually not bad. Yeah. Back when I was doing like mixed drinks, probably, which is like a couple of years back now, pre-children, like Jack was one of my, uh, weapons of choice. So that sounds pretty tasty.

[01:23:14] You either like that flavor or you don't. A lot of people don't like the flavor of it. Yeah. I'm not a huge whiskey guy, but I, I did enjoy this. Oh yeah. Nice. Velvet Elvis. Velvet Elvis. I guess, I guess we can give you a pass on that just cause the name. Very good. And then being in the seaport. You got a note here that you went to a ledge brewing on a family weekend. Oh yeah. What's that all about? Yeah. I almost forgot that, but a ledge brewing that's over kind of in that Bartlett area. Um, we got over there, uh, after we did, or we just got out, I think it was on Sunday

[01:23:42] after we went to, uh, the living shores aquarium over there. That's near Storyland. Cause Storyland was closed cause it was raining, which was unfortunate, but it is what it is. But we poked around North Conway a little bit. Um, found the Willie. And actually this reminds me too. I found the, uh, Willie gravestone. Oh yeah. That's right. So the Willie gravesite, which is sort of its own listeners. You can go down and sort of rabbit holes on Reddit and stuff. It's in a very weird location for a piece of history. Like that is all I'll say. Um, I had did some research and then our friend Jake actually helped me confirm where it was.

[01:24:11] Cause I kind of just asked him, I didn't want to like know, but I wanted to like confirm. It was where I thought it was before I took a walk out there. Um, but yeah, we got over to ledge after they had their alleged tober fest. So their version of the October fast, they also had like a sessionable October fast, which is like 3% and they had some good stuff on tap and we caught the end of the Patriots getting smoked, um, over there, over there, which was unfortunate, but, uh, but yeah, go check out ledge if you're in that area. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were there.

[01:24:38] Um, we went to ledge, um, right before we did the, the Crawford hike to view the, uh, the honor lights and yeah, it's awesome. The beer is fantastic there. And then the, the, the tacos are really good. Yeah. We had some, uh, just like chips and salsa as like an appetizer over there, which were really good. You can tell they were like homemade Tostito, homemade Tostitos, homemade tortilla chips. They're really good. Yeah. Yeah. I really like it over there. So, um, and then I'll, I'll talk a little bit.

[01:25:05] About, uh, knife edge brewing when I, when I get to that. 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. But I just blew out my hip. Fell down that gully with my 40 year old micro spikes. Suck it up, Stomp. It's 4 PM.

[01:25:35] 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. Ha, whatever, mister. Do you know me? I have a podcast. Whatever.

[01:26:05] Let's find out what Mike and Stomp have been hiking. I guess just to start off with, so now we're moving on to recent hikes here. So I guess actually I will talk about my Katahdin hike. So, um, I got up to Mount Katahdin this, this weekend. So the deal with this one was I had had trouble getting, we had to get a permit for June or July or whatever. And we had a whole episode on April 1st between there was like four of us trying to get passes for Roaring Brook.

[01:26:33] And, um, we couldn't get the website was broken down and all this stuff, but somebody had figured out that like, if you go onto the mobile phone and you go through the, the browser on the mobile phone, you can book. But I had been fiddling around with my desktop and for whatever reason I had just said like, you know what? Let me grab a pass for foliage and I'll see what I see. Maybe Dave will finish or maybe we'll just go up there. So I was sitting on this October 3rd, which is a Saturday. I had a Roaring Brook, but you never know. You don't know if the weather's going to be crappy.

[01:27:01] You don't know if like the park's going to be closed. You don't know if anybody's going to want to go with you. So the whole time I was kind of casual about it. Had a great trip in July with the guys and we had perfect weather. So I was like, I'm not really going to go unless I know that it's going to be like good weather. And my daughter, Caroline and her boyfriend, Devin wanted to go. And I was like, yeah, it's epic. You should definitely go. Originally I was planning on getting a hotel room up there by Millinocket and then driving. But like my daughter and her boyfriend couldn't get back to Amesbury until like seven o'clock

[01:27:31] at night anyway. So I'm like, what's the point of driving up there, getting up there at like 1130, 12 o'clock, getting a hotel room to sleep for like five hours. I'm like, I might as well just go to bed early and then get up at two in the morning. So that's what we did. We drove, I don't recommend this, but like I was saying to you guys on text, Nick, like it's no different than what Rhode Island and Connecticut hikers do on a weekly basis to go up to New Hampshire. It's like a, it was a four hour drive to get there.

[01:27:59] Um, and it was like, it was about an hour waiting at the, at the, at the gate, which sucked for sure. Yeah. I'm sure. Especially at that point and doing a day trip there, you're like raring to just get in there and start hiking. Like that's definitely tough. I don't remember Nick when we, when we were at the gate, when we did our trip, like I do not remember them lining up standby cars. When we went past. No, I don't remember that. No, I don't remember that. That's what they were there for maybe like 20 minutes ish. Yeah.

[01:28:28] This was an hour and they were lining up all the standby cars. So we were there a little earlier though. So maybe that's why, um, standbys and they had no parking reservation. They had no reservation, but they wanted to go to Roaring Brook. So there must've been like probably a hundred cars just lined up that we, and then there was a lady coming up and she'd be like, all right, you have a pass, go to the gate and you drive past them all. Um, but I didn't get through the gate until about seven. And then we got to Roaring Brook at like seven 30, the parking lot was like not even a quarter full.

[01:28:58] And then we went out and signed in, you know, did the whole deal. And then we did the same route that we did in July. We went up Helon Taylor, Roaring Brook, like that whole area there, it was dark still when we were driving in. So we didn't get a sense of what the foliage was like, but once we got out hiking, I could tell that the foliage down by the Roaring Brook was like amazing. And then, you know, you pop above treeline pretty quickly and Caroline and Devin very quickly, like the views out to the Eastern section from, from Helon Taylor trail were like amazing foliage.

[01:29:28] And then, you know, we did our ascent up to Pomola and then Caroline and Devin were a little bit nervous about coming down Pomola and going up the chimneys, but ultimately they made it through no problem. And then there wasn't too many people around. There was some, some crowd, but it wasn't too bad. And then we just made our way along knife edge. You know, we had that, that narrow section that I got the video on and then Devin and Caroline were sort of crawling across some sections that I was just like skipping along.

[01:29:58] I didn't even think twice about it, but, but the same thing about the rocks, Nick is the rocks are super sticky. It was pretty easy to navigate. The crowds were way less than what we dealt with. I think when we were on there until we got to the summit, we got to Baxter, there must have been like 50, 60 people there. Yeah. I was going to ask how the crowds were like compared to July. Cause we saw quite, I mean, there were a lot of people like not a lot compared to Franconia Ridge, but there were a good amount of people on the knife edge when we're on it. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely more people in July when we were there.

[01:30:25] Um, more people on the summit this time than more, when we were up there and we were pretty crowded. We did see an AT through hiker finish, which was pretty cool. Oh, that's awesome. So, and nobody like, I don't think anybody realized what was going on except for like I did. And I was like, there's an AT through hiker finishing. So, um, which was kind of good. He was with a couple of friends of his young kid. He's, I think somebody had said he started in May. Um, when I, in the text chain, when I said I wasn't envious of you guys in the whites,

[01:30:53] I wasn't envious of the whites, but I was definitely envious of you up on the knife edge. And that's the meant that I was showing Ash some of your pictures and video. And she's like, I a hundred percent want to do that now. So April 1st, we're locking in. We're going to get a bunch of passes up there. We're going to get again. But, um, yeah, unbelievable. You know, we did the clockwise route. Like I said, went over the table lands, down saddle, went to chimney pond, Carolina, Devin, must've been beautiful down there with, was the foliage still like kicking like up higher around chimney pond and stuff too?

[01:31:22] Or is it, I kind of forget a sense of it was like evergreens around there. Yeah. That wasn't as, that wasn't as, um, as popping as, um, like to the E, the lakes, the, those lakes regions were all surrounded by like orange and yellow and red. Unbelievable. Really like the, the most, uh, amazing foliage was after you cleared chimney pond and you, you got past basin pond from basin pond to roaring brook, which is about a mile and a half or so.

[01:31:51] Then you, uh, you, you got a lot of foliage and also shout out to, uh, I ran into listener Tyler, um, in the woods 29. He was up at Baxter for like four days. I just ran into him randomly. I was like, Hey, how you doing? And, uh, he had finished his 67. So we'll, we'll probably throw him into the, if he's in the notable hikes. Um, uh, so he just happened to be finishing his 67 on the, on the week that Dave has finished his 18th or so sorry about that, but it was good to see a listener there.

[01:32:17] Um, and then yeah, deriving back on the tote road was amazing. The foliage. And then we went to knife edge brewing and, um, I was talking up the pizza the whole time to Devin and Caroline and they were like, wow, this, you, you actually did not oversell the pizza at all. It was like amazing. Um, good pizza, good beer. Like I love that place. Yeah. They're, uh, they were great. Especially the fact like you have that view of like Katahdin, like across like whatever lake that is like just from where you're sitting and you can also, evidently you can also

[01:32:47] shower there and do everything else. So it's pretty, pretty neat spot. Yeah. It's great. And then, yeah. And then on Sunday we went to the, so then I had to drive back down to Brownfield, which is another three and a half hours. So it was two in the morning. We got off trail at three o'clock. So that was already 13 hours. And then we got out of Baxter and knife edge around like four 30 and then got back to Brownfield around nine or so. So it was a long, long day, but I wouldn't have traded in for anything. And then the next day we woke up, went to the Freiburg fair, um, had an awesome time.

[01:33:14] Saw the animals, saw the RV, saw the tractor, saw the antiques, the wood splitters had some shitty food and, um, yeah, overall the Freiburg fair was amazing. Cool. Cool. Great, great fall weekend, Nick. What about yourself? You had a bunch of hiking adventures. Yeah. So this is, it's two weeks back. Um, we kind of, we did this like last year too, but we sort of went up in mind for like Ryland's birthday to just get up there and do weekend.

[01:33:40] And I think with both of our kids, like having September, October birthdays, I'm kind of hoping it becomes like a tradition of like going up for a weekend and just hiking and hanging out together. Um, but we stayed up around Bartlett. Um, and yeah, we got out just the way it works. Ash had like a region meeting that she couldn't miss on the Friday. So I kind of opted to take a half day. I was in the office then picked up the kids, like, I don't know, around like 10 30, 11 at home. Um, my mom just kind of was watching him in the morning and grabbed Ryland from preschool. Um, and we headed up on our own.

[01:34:08] Um, and then we opted to do Mount Pemi, Joe was it, um, hadn't actually gone up there. I don't think with Ryland in the pack. So that was her first time in Ethan's first time on there. But, um, we got there maybe like, I don't know, like two 30 timeframe. We kind of hit traffic and conquered, but there was nothing after that. Um, and it was like gorgeous. It was like 70 degrees. Um, foliage wasn't what it was say like this past weekend, but it was a lot better than I expected. Um, kind of around the Franconian notch area.

[01:34:35] Um, Ryland crushed her first 52 of the view peak. That was her first one. She, I think we were out on the trail for like two and a half hours, maybe. Um, including like a break and stop at top. So she was hauling, going up and hauling, coming down. She was doing super well. It was really proud of her. She was having a blast. Impressive. Um, we were like hearing about like woodpeckers and, uh, just talking about it. She was asking me lots of like nature questions and it was kind of crazy too. It's like, you have these moments where like, I was remembering going there with my parents when I was like four, we'd be going to the flume gorge.

[01:35:04] And now like I'm back with my kids and we're hiking up Mount Pemi. Like, I don't know. It was just a really neat feeling. Um, then Saturday, uh, as a family hiked up the double heads, which was pretty close to where we were staying. Um, that's the third time incidentally I've been up the double heads since like February of this year. So getting pretty familiar with that one. Um, Ryland did super well again. Um, Ash hadn't been up there probably in like five or six years. So she kind of had forgotten like how amazing the views on the double head, like the South double head ledges were. Um, and just a beautiful day.

[01:35:34] We were on Saturday, even though it was funny, everybody's like talking about the nor'easter down here and it was still beautiful up in New Hampshire. Like it really didn't rain and get cloudy even until like I'd say five or six o'clock. It was just like a blue sky day. Um, breezy, really good temperatures. Um, so that was a ton of fun. So Ryland, my daughter's officially two out of 52, which was kind of, kind of cool. Um, maybe she'll be tackling a 4,000 footer coming, uh, next spring, summer. We didn't want it. I almost thought of doing wildcats by the ski slopes, uh, on Saturday, but with the

[01:36:03] weather and then I just want to keep it fun. I don't want to push her like too much and her to be burned out. I think by the time we were coming down double head, she was like ready to have M&Ms and like chill out. So yeah, take it slow. Kind of worked out plenty of time. Um, yeah, uh, Peter was joking. He's like, she might finish her 52th of you before you do. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe, maybe I'll wait and see, save like Eagle Craig or something and can finish together. I'm kind of in no rush, I guess there. I do want to get to the bald faces before then though. I'm not going to lie. Um, and Sunday kind of the rain finally moved in.

[01:36:33] I just wanted to get out to get some gain in and it wasn't raining too bad earlier in the morning when I woke up. So I went up black mountain on the X 52th of you list in Jackson. Um, some nicer foliage up high, but it was just windy, rainy, um, got up there, got up and down pretty quickly and just kind of was a getting out thing. And then on Monday, um, we checked out again, like Monday, it rained Sunday night, but Monday morning again, it wasn't really raining up there. So we went to Diana's bath, which I hadn't been to in quite a while. I haven't been back there since they repaved the trail.

[01:37:01] I think last time I did, it was like doing the moats in like 2021 or something like that. So it'd have been a while. Um, and we checked that out. It was running kind of low, I think noticeably, which is just kind of a trend up there. I'm not sure if they've gotten rain to catch up on everything in New Hampshire now, but that was really nice. And then we went to just, um, the echo Lake trail in North Conway, which is like right down the street. Um, and that's like a mile loop around echo Lake, which is really pretty. So, uh, so yeah, we had fun. It was kind of, it's kind of nice just checking out some of those like more mellow likes sometimes too. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:37:31] It's kind of enjoyable. You did, you did well there. And did you, um, any besides ledge anywhere else good that you ate North Conway? Um, so I'm trying to think where else did we, we kind of cooked in and then we, oh, we got a, we got takeout from Tucker, Tuckerman restaurant. Nice. So that was really, yeah, that was really tasty. Yeah. The, yeah. The one that's like kind of close to Jackson, like a, one of the back roads off 16 or whatever. So, so that was really good. Um, yeah. And we want, I think I, we ended up going to that like chance grants shop and saving

[01:38:01] Glenn, like every day for some reason, which they have a lot, they have a lot of good stuff in there. Yeah. So, and then you got a half marathon coming up in Newport. I've done that race a couple of times. That's always a fun day. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be my first half. Uh, the weather looks great. I've done a lot of the course before doing 10 K's around there, like on Bretton point and stuff, but I'm stoked. It should be, it should be a fun day. Very good. Very good. So that's, that's everything that we got going on. We're always very busy here. The host of the co-host of the slasher podcast. We're always up to nonsense, Nick.

[01:38:32] Yeah. Yeah. We try, we try to keep it busy. It's time for slasher's notable hike of the week. If you want to be considered for the hike of the week, simply tag, slasher on your social media post. All right. So let's close out the show with a notable listener hike of the week. So we gave Dave, we already gave Dave the notable listener hike for finishing up the

[01:39:00] AT, but this will be the, this will be the, uh, the supplemental note of notable listener hike list here. And we got some, well, this one's going to be a little, I've already gotten, I think I've already got my person. I got a couple of people picked out already. Yeah. I do want to, I mean, I do a good job getting through these. I want to, I apologize if I didn't get your notable this week. Cause like we got tagged a bunch between story tags and post tags this week. And I think now too, if you like add us and tag us to a post, we can like add it to our grid.

[01:39:29] So we get a mutual beneficial, uh, eyes on stuff. So definitely tag us if you want to. Um, so first off we've got a bomb Graham, Adrian, who was on the podcast, not too long ago, Mariah for grid peak number five 39. So he's getting close and he got his 200th new England, 4,000 footer in 2026. So he's been crushing it. Um, Meli Marzelli had her Northeast one 11, AKA Northeast one 15 finish on South horn, Bigelow and Avery peak up in Maine.

[01:39:57] Um, that's the peaks that me and Ash want to finish on, but big congrats. Um, way to get it done. And kind of chatted back and forth in the socials with her every now and then she's, I think more Adirondack focus. So like, I think I've seen her posts maybe in the head questions in the past about conditions or something. Um, but great job. Isaiah hiked that the caps clay ton traverse, which is, uh, they did caps out to Washington and back. So that's kind of a cool. We did that. Remember you with us when we did that?

[01:40:24] We did, we didn't do out and back, but we did, we did a traverse across that. Yeah. A jillion. Um, so yeah, that's a good one. It was like weeks of photos. Um, Liz Faye, our friend Liz of Dave and Liz and Liz Faye, um, uphill Brook trail on Mount Mansfield with her son, um, Nick face skiing. So, uh, it looks like after they did that, Nick went up to hit Mansfield and Liz hit the Adams apple, which is sort of a little further North from the formal summit of Mount Mansfield, which is actually the chin.

[01:40:54] Um, and I guess hell Brook trail, I know it was kind of gnarly, but it does. She said it does 2,300 feet and one and a half miles of pretty steep. And she was mentioning, um, that really just the fact that it's wet in spots really makes it difficult. There wasn't anything super technical. It sounded like, um, that frigging hiker middle sister for 24 out of 52 with a view. Um, and got up Shakura along on that hike and mentioned for the, he said it was the first time in 20 years and he was sort of blown away and forgot who he was. Yeah. Car, especially with foliage, like Shakura's a sick foot. Yeah.

[01:41:24] Car ledge is a perfect foliage hike. Yeah. And they did Carter ledge, which made nine out of terrifying 25. Some nice job. That frigging hiker, Christopher Haley, 96 weekend trip up in the whites with the hiking club. Um, works through, uh, they said they worked through showers on Friday. Not sure where they got up to, but they did do moose lock on Saturday. Looked like a beautiful day. And they, um, called out too. They had a presentation from Pemi saw on Friday evening and they said, thank you to Pemi. Um, and said that they did a great job. So cool. Folks star.

[01:41:54] Um, not sure exactly what it was hiking. It looked like around Jefferson, but crazy undercasts on the presidential range with like a bowl of fog, um, hanging out in the great Gulf, uh, live trails, finishing the 48 on owl's head. And from the pictures, it looks like she didn't overnight from Gale head. So I'm going to call it like nice job on that one. Just cause you did it the unconventional way to go out to Gale head and then hike down towards 13 falls out to owls head and then back up like good on you for getting out there and doing it that way. I think that's, that's kudos.

[01:42:23] Um, fit to hike 603 Hunter mountain in the cat skills. Um, and they got sunrise from the fire tower. Um, and then we got a second tag from them for a frosted, uh, tree scene on Mount Moriah. So that must've been, I take it this morning or pretty recently with all the snow and rhyme ice moving in 802 trails, pup six foliage and Groton state park, Groton state forest, excuse me in Vermont, ace hikes, ace of hikes, our friend who we met a little while back in the mountain wanderer, uh, show that we did. So peak foliage and Crawford notch. Um, and also thanks ace of hikes.

[01:42:53] You said we did a great job on the smarts are smarts. Yeah. I think it was a smarts episode or smarts and cube. Um, and thank you very much for the compliment. We tried to do our best in those. So you want us. And I think we do enjoy them. Um, PA tell your 20 and 21, 21, 21, uh, the terrifying 25 with great golf to six husbands to Sphinx trail, um, which is sort of that whole, um, Western bowl side of the great golf hiking feeds my soul. Moose a lock with miles, the dog who is rocking his slasher patch.

[01:43:23] I saw in the pictures. So, um, who's got, we get a lot. I mean, Dave, like you said, gets our, uh, superlative notable hike of the week, but who gets the secondary notable hike. Oh boy, miles, the dog, my buddy with the slasher patch. So, but sorry. So I think, um, Millie, um, Millie for sure with the, the, with the Northeast one 15 and then, um, live trails with the 48 finish on owl's head. Um, those are the two that I would. And you had your friend out on Baxter, right? That finished their 67.

[01:43:53] Tyler too. Um, is he on here? No, I don't think I saw a tag from, like I said, there was, there was a lot this week. Yeah. So I would give Tyler as well. So three-way tie there folks. Okay. So I will say folk star, I was looking at folk stars, um, undercast photos as you were talking and it is pretty, you had a pretty good day there. He did. He did. It was beautiful. And there was much rejoicing. But that's good. That's the notable hikers, Nick.

[01:44:21] And then, um, we had 140 minutes left on our recording bank and we're at 138. So I think we're going to call it a day, a day here and then we'll be back next week. All right. Good night, everybody. Goodbye. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[01:44:49] If you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com. That's S-L-A-S-R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram. 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 peaks.

[01:45:18] Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites, Chris Staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever. Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when the weather started to get worse. Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. And there's three words that describe this race. Do we all know what they are?

[01:45:47] The only words! Lieutenant James Nealon, New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lieutenant, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire? Seems to me the most common is being unprepared. I think if they just simply visited Hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all. We'll be right back.