[00:00:00] Mike, we're gonna change this episode to explicit, okay? Yeah, we're gonna have to, this is disgusting. That was the line? That was gross. Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory.

[00:00:27] The 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.

[00:00:50] 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.

[00:01:18] Hello listeners, Nick here, freshly back from a hike in the Northern Presidentials with your forecast for the weekend of October 17th, 2026. Friday in the clouds with a wintry mix transitioning to rain. Little to no additional snow accumulations. Possible ice accumulations of a trace to half an inch. High in the lower 40s. Wind south shifting west at 45-60 mph increasing to 60-80 mph with gusts up to 100 mph. Wind chill rising to 15-25 above.

[00:01:48] Friday night in the clouds with rain transitioning to snow. Snow accumulations of a trace to 2 inches. Low in the upper teens. Wind west shifting northwest at 65-85 mph increasing to 75-95 mph with gusts up to 115 mph. Wind chill falling to 10 below to 20 below. And Saturday in the clouds trending towards in and out of the clouds under partly cloudy skies. A chance of snow in the morning. Possible accumulations of a trace to less than 1 inch. High falling to around 10.

[00:02:18] Wind northwest 70-90 mph early decreasing to 60-80 mph with gusts up to 100 mph. Wind chill falling 15 below to 25 below. So there you have it, looking pretty gnarly. High on the rock pile this weekend. I can attest to there being quite a bit of ice on the north facing summits at least in the Adams-Madison area. So definitely be careful. Maybe not a great weekend to get up high. The way things look, I'm not sure what is going to be happening Sunday, but definitely keep an eye on it.

[00:02:47] Maybe a good weekend to stay low. So hopefully you can get out there and crush maybe some peaks down lower. And not necessarily up on the rock pile. Stay safe. Happy hiking. Enjoy.

[00:03:32] Broadcasting from the Woodpecker Studio in the 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. Occasionally including the counties of Belknap. I mean, Belknap. Um, something like that. And Coos County Wait. Or is it Coos County?

[00:04:02] Whatever. Here are your hosts, Mike, Nick, and Stump. All right. That'll work. All right. We're going. Try not to touch stuff because I get yelled at when I touch stuff. We'll do it live. Okay. Episode 249. This is the show that, uh, this is Dave's show here. So welcome back, Dave. Um, I don't have any, any, um, any good, um, any good, um, any good ideas other than I will say that I was home this weekend for the first time in about five months.

[00:04:32] So Dave, in some respects, I'm very similar to you. And that the fact that, um, I, I had like a four or five month journey where I wasn't home a lot on the weekends at least. So I did like an Appalachian Trail weekend hike. That's, it's almost the same. It's very similar. Except I had a bed. Yeah. In a shower. In a shower and food. And just trying to steal your toilet. Toilet. That's all right. I'm basically the same person. It's like, it's like looking in the mirror. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Same adventure.

[00:05:02] Yeah. So anyway, but Stomp's here with us too. So Stomp is, is back. So we're, this is Dave's whole episode here, but Stomp, how was that? You were, you were taking one for the team and babysitting everyone at Artist Bluff. So what was that like? Oh my God. Yeah. It was wild. So we were out there for the five days, the weekend prior than this three day weekend. And it was great last year I was there all the time, but we broke it up into crews of three and four. Um, had like, you know, four or five different little mini missions and stuff yesterday was

[00:05:32] absolute awful. It was raining and just pouring and drizzling and misting pretty much all day. Uh, the, um, historically the lot would fill up around six in the morning. Uh, yesterday it was half full and it stayed sort of half full. So the rain kept most of the people away. Uh, but what the rain did the night before with all that traffic was made it a complete ice skating rink.

[00:05:58] It was like slick clay and your boots just did not have purchase on it. It was just absolutely horrendous. We had one mission yesterday and at the very, very end of the day we're packing up and it happened. Um, but yeah, we survived. So, um, we have this big rainstorm now, hopefully that'll kill the leaves and get everybody out of here. Nice. So for the listeners, if you're not familiar, Artist Bluff is like this little, um, outcropping that overlooks the like cannon parking lot. And, uh, what is that?

[00:06:27] Echo Lake or profile Lake? I can't remember which one it is. Echo. Echo Lake. So it's just iconic. Like it really just drops you right into the foliage and like, it's a, it's all over social media now. So everybody's found out about it. So it's just chaos up there in Franconia and then stop you and your crew. You basically just, what do you do? You stand at the like entrance and make sure people go in a certain direction. We, it was less of that this year. It was more just sitting and waiting and, uh, which was really cool. It was really a fantastic time getting to sit with all the team members and just chatting,

[00:06:58] you know, sharing more stories. But, uh, in previous years we would tell them, you know, go top of the steps, take a right. It's a one way loop. Uh, you see, you'll see the viewpoint. Then you come up and over, you'll come to another view and then you come back down. Um, so it was more hands off this time around. But what was interesting was they added, uh, a coffee trailer, um, two separate food trailers. So next year I anticipate like, you know, Ferris wheels and stuff. I'm just kidding. Must've made a killing.

[00:07:27] It seems like a whore. I suppose. Like give them some brand muffins and send them up the hill. Go on your way. I'm going to open a little, uh, a little stand on the way that sells TP and maybe a $5 board. Get them all primed up with coffee and caffeine and then stuff. And stuff like I've seen the video here. Like, it seems like everybody's like stocking like a, like a way. So there's, is there a protocol when you get up on that ledge itself? Like that you only have a certain amount of time to sit there or can you just sit there

[00:07:56] forever long and how many people can actually fit up there? Oh man, I would guess at least a hundred safely. Yeah. You had, you, you had forest rangers and park staff stationed at the cliff and bald mountain. So they had radios and they would call down if there were any issues. Um, for the first weekend, it was mostly forest rangers, U S forest rangers, and then park staff took over yesterday.

[00:08:20] But in my estimation, I think you can maybe at, at this unsafe and squeeze a hundred on there, but you gotta remember there, they're not all on the granite slab of the cliff face. They were in the woods, like 30 feet thick behind. Sounds terrible. Yeah. It's pretty wild. Uh, I was telling you. Does anybody fight? Are there any, any like arguments? Anybody like, like basically elbowing for the best shot? Not that I'm aware of this year. Um, we had, you know, the, the team chat in the background was funny.

[00:08:50] I've, I was checking in with one of the crews at the end of the day and I'm like, any missions? And, uh, one of the team members wrote back, no, but we saved a few marriages. I mean, they were like lost kids, you know, stuff like that. Do you recommend going? Like, it sounds terrible. Um, I was thinking about that quite a bit yesterday. I'm like, what is the draw? And I was thinking, um, a lot of these nationalities that show up have probably never experienced

[00:09:19] something so magical. So a lot of foreign. So I was, I was cutting them some slack big time yesterday. Like this must be amazing for these people. Right. Um, so I sort of reframe the way I was thinking about the whole experience. Uh, so yeah, if you've never seen the foliage, yeah, I would put up with it. It was funny. Mrs. Stomp showed up yesterday with her friend, Steph, and, um, they came for the mac and cheese truck, but I'm like, are you going to go do the loop or what? You got to do it. You got to do it.

[00:09:47] I was trying to talk them into it, but it really is a standstill queue. You're not moving fast. Oh yeah. They're like stuck in the woods. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it's interesting when you're carrying a person down because you have, you occasionally I look behind me and there's like a hundred people behind me all looking at us like the walking dead, you know, it's like, uh, following us down. Oh, it's wild, man. But, uh, yeah, it's, um, it's a social media phenomena.

[00:10:14] And what's interesting is I'm hearing rumor that on Tik Tok and other places, they're giving directions to people how to skirt the whole one way loop. And, you know, at the bottom of the bluff side, there's a sign that says trail closed, but people are parking at echo and just zipping right up. And it's a, it's a circus, but it's a well-managed circus. You know, you do the money in your budget for tasers. That'd be nice. Learn behavior.

[00:10:44] Yeah. Right away. Well, to your point is talking about culture and national, you know, not to jump ahead, but one of the stories was we were hiking and it was Pennsylvania. There was about 15 people coming up, big, huge family, whole train of them. And they asked, you know, is there a view? And we're like, what are you talking about? We're in Pennsylvania. There's nothing. It's asked. There's no views unless you like trees, farms and rattlesnakes. And they kept saying, well, there's a view of this view. It's gotta be.

[00:11:09] And she takes out his phone and he brings up Google and shows a picture of Katahdin and says, is this up here? It said it's on the Appalachian trail. Well, no, it is, but you're well over a couple thousand miles away from there. And so I think people use the phones and probably get artist bluff. And then they're like, oh, that's where everybody goes. And that's where everybody goes. I have two other things to add that you guys gotta hear.

[00:11:34] So the fashion trend this year, I think I told you guys, was knee-high suede, three-inch heel leather boots. That was really popular. So we were bagging people and saying, hey, you might want to consider getting some shoes that are better for this terrain. That was wild. But there was one guy that came over to us and he's like, I just finished this loop here, this 1.5, and I'm gonna go do Mount Washington now.

[00:12:03] And yesterday, you know, they probably got like, what, .6 or... They got something anyway. He's like, how best to go up Mount Washington? He was gonna go and it was two o'clock in the afternoon pouring out. Oh, man. It was just insane. A lot of folks like that would just come over and say, what can we do next? And first of all, everything's gonna be packed. So I was thinking like middle sugar loaf or even go to the Galen Bridge or go down the basin or go to Waddle maybe.

[00:12:32] But people were just on fire for the hills yesterday, man. It's wild. Was anybody heading up to Bald's or is it like 90% people going to Arkansas? Oh, yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yep. Cool. You need to put out videos. The Pemi or somebody, the safe is the new sexy. And a whole fashion display of like, you know, the correct shoes and... Right. Right. I don't hike in three inch heels anymore. We're thinking about stuff like that. Not since it's 2022. Long story.

[00:13:01] Short guys could use some three inch heels, but... Right. I'd be like 5'8". Yeah, that's nice. So... We'd actually like to do a... Sorry. We'd like to do like a content thing that says, you know, like, here's the reality versus the TikTok. Because people, like I said before, people are getting half the story. So we're trying to develop something that might get out there and... I have seen like a lot of people give those videos of like, you know, this is like, like, they have the saxophones playing and they're like, this is the reality. It's like people just standing in line being miserable. So... Good, good. Yeah.

[00:13:30] So stay away from artist bluff unless you want to say hi to stomp and get some coffee and mac and cheese. So... But welcome to episode 249 of the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast. This week we are joined by friend of the show, Dave Schitts in the Woods. So Dave is here to recap his Appalachian Trail hike that he recently completed. So he has had a couple of weeks to reflect on the achievement and will share his fond and not so fond memories. And we're going to get him down on who he felt gave the best support on trail amongst our friend group.

[00:14:00] So spoiler alert, I'm sure he's going to say I did, but we will, we'll see about that. But all this plus Maine and New Hampshire hiking updates, recent search and rescues in and around New Hampshire, including a fatality this week on Mount Major, recent hikes on Franconia Ridge. And then we just talked about stomp being large and in charge at artist bluff this weekend. Listener questions for Dave. And then we'll find out, we'll talk a little bit more about all the happened to innings with peak foliage season upon us in stick season.

[00:14:29] We're staring down the, the, the eyes of the stick season coming up here. So I'm Mike. I'm Nick. And I'm stomp. Let's get started. Let's get started. Let's get started. Ooh. And there was much rejoicing, right? Stomp. Yay. Hooray. I don't know how I feel about that.

[00:14:59] Okay. I have a question for the panel. Question for the panel. Does, does anybody wear cologne or aftershave? I do. What's aftershave? Yeah. So Dave's a no. Dave, Dave is getting into deodorant again. Yeah. That's a whole new frontier. Yeah. I work only on, only on like only on dates. Yeah. What about you, Nick? Um, I don't know.

[00:15:27] Probably like, I'd say occasionally I wear cologne. Um, not all the time. I wear deodorant. Yeah. I've never smelled you cologne on you, Nick. I usually don't clone up before I go. And next time we go, next time we go, I'm just going to make a point of that. Next time we go, I'm going to like blast myself. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I was reading a book about this guy and he was like, he was very, he was like, uh, getting women. And he, she, the woman, when the book was talking about how he has woodsy cologne. So I got it in my head.

[00:15:55] I was like, I'm going to get some woodsy cologne. So I got woodsy cologne. And then I just tried it on before I came down here. I like dab some on, uh, cause it came in the mail. And, uh, I just was like hanging out by Mrs. Mike and I'm like waiting for her to say something about my cologne. And she didn't even notice. So I guess I didn't. She's probably going to call to get the basement check for mold. Probably. What? I was like, I was like, I was leaning up against her, waiting for her to like get a reaction to what my smell was like.

[00:16:25] And she just didn't even react. What's the woodsy cologne? What does outdoorsy smell like? It's a, hold on. Let me look at this. Like cedar wood and sandalwood or something? Yes, cedar wood and sandalwood. Bourbon. All the woods. My experience is bad onions and ass. That's usually what it smells like. Okay. Well, anyway, I'm going to get you guys. Mike smells like a, I'm going to get you guys woodsy cologne, but I don't want you to

[00:16:51] get the same scent as me because if, if Mrs. Mike gets used to that scent and then she sees one of you guys, like, I don't know what could happen. Yeah. Yeah. That could be dangerous. That's right. I wouldn't. It's almost pretty good looking dude. I smell. Anyway, if anybody has any good suggestions for aftershave of cologne that would make you woodsy and manly, send it over to us. We're going to buy Dave some. I will wear it. Keep track. Just rub pine sap on your neck. Zero plus zero equals zero.

[00:17:20] Carry the zero. I don't know where that came from, but anyway, um, enough cologne talk. So we've got upcoming events here, Nick. What do we have coming out? Stomp actually. Why don't you do this one? Because this involves you. So Friday, October 30th, Stomp DJs the reckless Halloween party. What is this? Hey, yeah. So from eight to 11, Friday, October 30th, I'll be spinning. Um, got my brand new lights. It's going to be fancy.

[00:17:46] Um, there is expecting a really great crowd and, uh, it's in the pine house in the back there. So that should be a lot of fun. So it's costume party and, um, there'll be costume awards and I guess apparently a costume walkway and all kinds of stuff. So that'd be a good time. And, uh, Mrs. Stomp's helped me make my set for this. So I'm very excited. Are you, um, coordinating your, your costume with your set?

[00:18:14] Like if your set has a theme, are you going to be have your Halloween costume match that theme? No, not at all. No, no, I do have a Halloween-y type of look going on, but it's, it's comfortable because I'll be pretty active moving around up there. So. I picture you in like, I don't know, like, um, you know that, um, magician, Dave, you know that magician, the, uh, the guy, he always wears like eyeliner and he's like goes out in the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think the Stomp, like that type of look for Halloween.

[00:18:44] I could do some mascara. What do you think? It looks like I have it on now. You give that vibe. I think you should go full Devo. Yes. Oh, hell yeah. The red hat. Yeah. No, I actually found this shirt on Amazon. It has a, like this 3d ghost. It's like the three 3d colors and it's spinning a DJ platform. But it was funny was it has a, like a sort of a low scoop neck. So that was an interesting conversation with my wife and I'm like, do you think I should wear this? And she's like, yeah, yeah.

[00:19:13] I love V-necks anyway, but this is a little bit of a low V-neck. Nice big gold chain and some woodsy cologne. Like Stomp's like, yeah, yeah. You know what? I, I have it. I have the idea. It's been more than records. It's like that Lost Boys movie, the vampire movie. Stomp can do something like that. Oh yeah, yeah. All right. But that's, you can get tickets on the Reckless event page. We'll include that in the links in the show notes and you can come party with Stomp and, and, and see his, his cleavage. It'll be great. That's good.

[00:19:41] Um, and then on Saturday, November 7th, you can join members of the Slasher crew as they emcee the annual Rescue Me 5K in Lincoln, New Hampshire. Uh, Slasher is proud to support the volunteer efforts of Lakes Region Search and Rescue. And then you can also support that by signing up for the Rescue Me 5K and we will include that in our show notes. So, uh, you can check that out. Um, and then on Saturday, November 21st, the annual Full Conditions event at the Bethlehem

[00:20:09] Colonial Theater, um, Bethlehem, New Hampshire. This is going to be a ticketed event. You can, uh, check out the link to the tickets here in our show notes. I'll include that. And then you can also check it out on our socials. We've got it pinned. Um, I don't know, Stomp, you've been keeping an eye on this. How many tickets are left? Sorry, I was going to turn down the heat. What? Oh, how many tickets are left for, um, full conditions? It's, it's officially half. It's like hovering right at half. Yeah.

[00:20:39] Tickets just came out. So it's, it's selling quick. So go ahead and grab those. Uh, doors will open at four. Nick is doing a set here. I think he dropped a preview on his own personal social media about his set. Stomp is DJing from 4.30 to 5.00. And then the movie My Ride or Die, um, which is features Kate Ziliff, who was going to be one of the guests along with Ty Gagne, Lieutenant James Nealon, Joe Roman of AMC and Paw Rescue. So it's going to be a great night. And then we have an after party and raffles at the Pine House at Reckless.

[00:21:06] So, uh, definitely go ahead and get a ticket and you can help raise money for search and rescue in New Hampshire. Dave Schitts in the Woods will be there as a guest of honor. And then he'll be also writing jokes for me and I will be taking all the credit. A lot of cleavage jokes coming up. Yes. That's a good one. Very spontaneous. That was great. Yes. All right. Uh, okay. So now we've got some other updates here. Uh, Mon Katahdin is closed for stick season. So, uh, there's a couple of videos that went around of, uh, groups of people that went up there on the table lands and

[00:21:35] it was kind of snow covered and frosted, but that's it for Katahdin. Uh, if you want to go and hike Katahdin this winter, winter reservations open on October 15th, there is an in-person lottery on November 1st. And then all other applicants for winter camping reservations will be reviewed on a first come first serve basis. And you'll hear from the park staff, um, if you're interested in there, but I would get on this sooner rather than later. Uh, and if you are going to do winter camping, just remember, it's like an eight mile walk on the tote road from Togue Pond.

[00:22:04] And then you've got a 3.3 mile walk into Chimney Pond. So it's over 11 miles in the winter, relatively flat miles, honestly, but it's still a long way to go, uh, before you even get to the base of the mountain to hike. So it's a, it's a long haul. Any idea how that in-person lottery works? That's interesting. I don't know. You have to like go up there? I don't know. I think it's, it's just a one day, uh, in-person lottery that if you show up, uh, they, they draw it. And then I'm assuming that that takes up a lot of the spots.

[00:22:32] And then after that, they just do first come first serve based on, I guess your app. I think I'm assuming they do some sort of, um, assessment of your background and you've got to disclose sort of your experience level and intent on what you want to do before, uh, they will consider you. Yeah. It makes, makes sense. It's a pretty big thing going in there in the winter. So it makes sense. Very good. And then, uh, next up, Stomp, you will be interested in this one. So Falling Waters Trail, we had talked about this last week. It's officially opened.

[00:23:03] Um, and I have a review. You guys want to hear my review? I, I hiked it on Sunday. Absolutely. Let's check it out. I've heard good things. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple of thoughts on this. So Falling Waters is the trail. It's part of the Franconia Ridge loop for listeners that aren't familiar. So this loop is 10 miles total. And, uh, the, the historic Falling Waters Trail, I think had like, I'm trying to think it probably had like three or four, um, water crossings down low.

[00:23:32] And then there was one steep climb up from Cloudland Falls up above. And, uh, that, that section there tended to get where it tended to be the place where a lot of people got in trouble. They either got too close to the edge or they would slip and fall. Tons of rescues. If you look at the data over the last six or seven years, Franconia Ridge and Falling Waters Trail is the, is the busiest hotspot.

[00:23:53] So, uh, Forest Service, along with the AMC, uh, sponsored a project that's been going on for about four years to re rewrote the Falling Waters Trail. I had previously said that, and Nick, I think me and you both would have a point of confusion on this. I had thought that they rerouted the trail from the, to the South. It's actually rerouted to the North. So it's actually closer to, um, the, uh, the parking lot than it is going away from it.

[00:24:19] Uh, but it, it, it basically comes away from the old trail around 2,200 feet. So it's about a three or 400 climb from the parking lot. Then it, it, it takes a sharp 180 turn and then heads up from 2,200 feet and it goes very gradual. There's a bunch of stairs that are already built there. There's like no rocks, no roots, uh, nothing really to, uh, other than like a smooth trail. So it's really beautiful. It takes a gradual climb up to about 2,700 feet over the course of, I don't know,

[00:24:49] maybe about a mile, mile and a quarter. And then, um, you basically get to the ridge at 2,700 feet and you gradually go up another a hundred feet or so, about a half a mile sort of flat right along that elevation line at 2,800 feet. And then you get to that top water crossing and that's the only water crossing. So this is one water crossing. There is a spur trail to get back over to Cloudland Falls. I didn't hit that. I was just making my way down.

[00:25:14] My thoughts on this is number one, I'm even more like convinced that like, I definitely think people should consider up old bridal and down falling waters. All the arguments to go down, not to go down falling waters basically are, they don't stand anymore because there's no issue. You're not in any of that water drainage anymore. And honestly, like that, that section of trail, which I think it's maybe about a two mile reroute, uh, is absolutely a trail runner's dream.

[00:25:43] So if you're a trail runner and you're looking, I'm very curious to see what the FKTs will be on this loop moving forward because you can absolutely rip down that trail. There's not a rock. There's not a route. There's stairs down there. Like you could fly down that two mile section with, with no, the only problem you would have to deal with is just people on the trail, but even then it's wide enough where you can pass people. So it's really a nice trail. The drawback is, is that I'm wondering whether or not you're still going to get the crowd.

[00:26:13] You're still going to get the inexperienced people. Now that they built this new trail, are they just pushing people up higher? The people that would have gotten in trouble before would have basically turned back and got discouraged because they were dealing with so many of those water crossings and the sketchy sections. Now there's no, there's no impediments for anybody. You can go right up to 3000 feet, no problem. And then are we pushing the people that would have otherwise gotten in trouble down low? Are we now pushing them up on the ridge is the question.

[00:26:41] I don't know, but that's, that is the drawback is that now you've got a nice, easy trail, very easy for people to get up to three, 4,000 feet and get on that ridge where otherwise those people that would have gotten in trouble would have gotten in trouble much lower down. I don't know. That's sort of interesting. If you think about the people that get lost because of poor visibility on haystack or they're

[00:27:07] approaching Lafayette and they're sort of gassed out or injured, what I can say it definitely gets rid of are the slip and falls on that gully. 100%. Yep. 100%. Especially that, that, the famous spot, that little, you know, 10 foot drop where people would slip and slide and crush their, their spine. That should hopefully be mitigated big time. I don't know. I guess I'm in the camp that says it probably won't change too much because you're still

[00:27:36] going to see those situations up above with the people that luckily made it through the slip and slide. Right. Right. Right. And I think that the, you'll have the purists too that are like, you know, I liked a traditional route. I do like, I mean, as a more experienced hiker. As a more experienced hiker, like I do like the old traditional route and the intro, you know, it's interesting to me to be able to navigate across like tricky sections and know where I'm going and like that climb up the side is, it's fun.

[00:28:05] But now it's sort of taken it away. It's just more generic. It's like non-nondescript, but I will say that like walking through that trail with the foliage was like magical. Like you get down to like 2,500 feet and you're in the foliage. It was like a beautiful, but it's going to be just like any other basic trail most of the year at this point where it's falling waters was unique. Yeah. It's definitely an argument to say that old bridal would be worse now because of the agonies,

[00:28:33] you know, the red rocks and certainly the whole green leaf section with the hairpin and all the craziness there. Yeah. Yeah. I will say old bridal, they put wooden stairs in at that, the lower section below the agonies, they put wooden stairs in one section and then they've got a load of material in to put another set of wooden stairs. They're not as far up on the red rocks, which that section is sketchy as hell, but they are

[00:29:02] right below the agonies. Basically that hairpin turn, that, in that section there, they've got wooden steps and then they're going to build another set of wooden steps up there. So they're also working on that area to make it a little bit safer. Yeah. And to your point, Mike, too, about how like the old adage of like going up falling waters, I've actually never gone down falling waters. I don't think in what all the times I've gone and done that loop, but going down the agonies in that red rock section is a hundred percent got to be worse now. Like it's probably recommended to go up old bridal path and go down.

[00:29:33] Well, they were sending everybody up falling waters. Oh, really? Interesting. They were, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they, and it rejoins right above where you cross, like the drainage above cloudland falls is where it reconnects. It looks like. Right. Okay. Yeah. So it's, it's still before you're hitting like the really steep shit going up that side. Yeah. But what about this? There is a spur to the falls. There is. Yeah. There's a spur right to the, there's like a, yeah, it's a, the spur is at like maybe 2,500 feet or so. So it's like halfway up.

[00:30:04] Okay. So. Did you do it? I didn't. I didn't do the spur. I just wanted to get home. Okay. Gotcha. I did do, I did, you know what? I went over to Shining Rock and I set up my Helinox chair and I was chilling out for like a half hour. So I was burning a lot of time. Gotcha.

[00:30:46] Gotcha. All right. So next up here, we got a couple of rescues. I'll just, I'll just go through these. So the, most of them are nondescript or just kind of basic. There was two on Shakur this week. One of which was a, an injury off of Champney Falls. So this was like a 22 year old kid from New Hampshire and Champney Falls. It's a tricky spot to get injured on because there's no cell connection.

[00:31:12] Um, so that's why I like, I'm not a, if you're going to go up from the kank side, just remember that like you got no cell connection. So you want to make sure that you've got a Garmin or some, some ability to, uh, to text via satellite because you're really in trouble up there. But this one came in at like three 30, nine one one. So somebody, somebody got a call out. And, um, I guess, I guess the, a third party had called. They said they came upon this injured hiker, he was unable to walk.

[00:31:41] There was no cell phone. So, um, this guy waited till he got to the summit to get a cell signal and called nine one one. So that's the problem. If you're in trouble on Champney Falls, you either got to go up to the summit to get over the mountain to get a cell connection, or you got to drive all the way down to Conway. So it's kind of messy. Uh, but yeah, he, I guess he couldn't walk. He injured left knee and couldn't bear any weight. So, um, he was getting helped by some other hikers that were assisting him and they splinted his knee.

[00:32:09] And, um, eventually he was able to walk out with assistance from the rescue party. So, um, all's well that ends well, he got out around seven 30 or so. But, uh, yeah, I'm not a fan of going over on the Champney Falls side unless I got, I got some kind of a Garmin with me. Was that, uh, the foliage weekend or one of the foliage weekend? Yeah, it was just, um, it was. Can you imagine all the people? Well, it's probably a lot of people there. Yeah. So it was Sunday. Hmm. Wow.

[00:32:37] Uh, and then sticking with Mount Chikor, there was just a, uh, a medical emergency on the Piper Trail. 72 year old guy from Raleigh, Mass. Um, two miles up from the Piper Trail. So it doesn't really give any details, just a late afternoon call at 515 and they got him out around eight and he was able to get to Conway for evaluation and treatment. So, um, busy, busy on Chikor. And then they had a similar incident on, uh, well, they had a slip and fall incident on

[00:33:06] Mount Willard about three tenths of a mile from the trailhead. So that's an easy one, right? Stomp, you get, you get a call for that one, Stomp, and you're like, okay, I'll be there in, um, two minutes and then I can go have a beer at Reckless. Yeah, true. Super, super quick and easy. So that was actually one that we were suggesting people go to try Willard. Yeah, go to Willard. It's a good view there. So, uh, but this next one, this is like, so we had talked about this last week and, um, unfortunately there's another hiker fatality here.

[00:33:36] So this is the third one in like the, the, this month's stomp of, um, hiker fatality. So this is on Sunday morning on, um, Mount Major on the blue hiking trail. 46 year old from Portsmouth, New Hampshire was a little under a mile from the trail. And had some kind of a medical incident. CPR was being administered by hikers. And then, um, they were able to get to him, um, and get him down, uh, via, uh, I guess a

[00:34:05] UTV vehicle and get him to the trailhead where they transferred in the ambulance. But unfortunately, um, he was pronounced deceased well at the hospital. So sad, sad story there. Yeah. Too young. Too young. Too young. So we don't know what happened, but again, last week I talked about like, uh, getting a calcium, um, scoring check and then also a lifeline scan. So I'll include those in the show notes again. Like who knows, I don't know what happened with this, this, this hiker, but, um, I always

[00:34:33] think about like heart health and strokes when, uh, when somebody, something happens on trail like that to an older or a middle-aged guy. Yeah, for sure. All right. Um, what else do we have before we get to Dave here? British man completes a walk around the earth for over 28 years. Who, who pulled this one? This is crazy. Everybody's crickets. I don't know. Oh, I did. Yeah, I did. Yeah. That sounds like a stomp story. Yeah. This is a stomp story.

[00:35:03] Yes. Yeah. It appears legit. I pulled this one like two weeks ago. You guys would like dropped a so you want her on me like ages ago. So this one's sitting, this is old news. He's on a second round now. Yeah. 50,000 kilometers through 29 countries. I'm always interested. Like, how do you survive like Mongolia and Siberia when you do this stuff? But. Well, the most interesting part of the story is he had to finish it by crossing the English channel. Isn't that right?

[00:35:33] That sounds like from Hull. Sounds like quite an adventure. He had to go through the Darien Gap, which is that section like the, it's like Columbia or in Central America where there's all these gorillas and stuff in there. So that's kind of crazy. But I don't know. I mean, look, 28 years, he's on the road. Like Dave, could you do that? I mean, you, you were on the road for seven months. No, that's a lot. And gorillas scare me, but both the kind that shoot you and the ones that throw poop at glass and stuff at the zoo.

[00:36:09] That's a good point. Well, good for him. 20, that's like half of your life, a little less than half of your life. And you're just roaming around. Yeah. That is weird. I wonder if you know what's going on in the world when you get back, like 28 years you've been away. Like you didn't even have friends anymore. It's the next 28 years franchise movie thing. That's sort of like, you know, if a kid, you know, if a kid was living in like a, you know, you have those kids that are raised by wolves and nobody contacts them until they're like seven or eight years old.

[00:36:37] Like this guy, you've got to be like, have some weird tendencies if he's doing this. Cell phones, computers, so much would be different. That's really fascinating. But he would see it sort of in real time as he was going to, I guess, in certain. It depends what country he's in too, right? Yeah. Yep. 28 years. All right. Well, good for him. Not my cup of tea. I like to, I like to sort of stay grounded, Dave. But we'll talk about that.

[00:37:21] Hey, what's that sound? It must be time for the pop culture segment with Mike and Stomp. All right. So pop culture talk here. So I just want to throw out a couple of things. This is just in case. I know we have a lot of lady listeners. I just want to like give an idea of what the ladies are into right now for pop culture. So this is what's going on in my house. There's Dancing with the Stars. There's a show called Traitors. Have you guys ever heard of Traitors? It's a real show.

[00:37:48] Okay, Nick, you better pay attention because you got some women in your house and Stomp, you do too. Also, we are eagerly anticipating the Netflix dating show Love is Blind Season 11, which is the Boston edition. And that drops tomorrow night on Netflix, October 14th. You know a lot. You're hiding behind Mrs. Mike on this. This is all shit you watch. Well, you just said we. Yeah. You just said the collective we. This is we. I'm into this. I'm into Love is Blind.

[00:38:17] He's standing up screaming at Dancing with the Stars. No, I don't like that. I don't watch Dancing with the Stars. So, um. Mrs. Stomp is always watching this stuff, but it's, I've watched some of them, um, but it's hard for me to get into them. We watched that Waka thing. That was fun. But the romance stuff and the dating and it's a little much for me. Come on, Stomp. I will 100% be watching Love is Blind when that is on. And I'm sure I will end up watching some of it. If any listeners have any connections to people from Love is Blind Boston edition, let us know.

[00:38:47] They're all crazy. Yes. Even if they seem normal. What do you got for pop culture, Nick? Um, so we had a movie night, um, last Friday. Uh, my daughter was over my mom's house and we just had, uh, my son. So we put him down and I got to pick a movie cause she picked, uh, Obsession last time. And I picked The Departed. I was kind of looking for like a mafia type movie and I don't know if we wanted to go like as long as Casino. That was like my first choice. So I don't think I had seen The Departed probably since like it came out when, and I was also

[00:39:16] like 17 or 18 probably last time I watched it. So I didn't remember a lot of the plot, but it was a, it was a great movie. It's Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio. Um, I think it won like best picture and a bunch of awards when it came out too. The Boston accents at times are a little crazy, but for the most part, it's not too bad. They always overdo it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, the FBI guy, John Connolly, he was a Linfield. Oh my. He lived in Linfield. My, my, my buddy pulled him over like as in the middle of his trial, he was like speeding

[00:39:46] through, uh, North Redding and my buddy pulled him over and it was like, yeah, I pulled over John Connolly. I can't think of a Mark Wahlberg's character's name in that. Like he's like the Sergeant or whatever. He has some of the best like one liners in that movie. Yeah. It's just so great. Yeah. That's a good movie. The Town is another good one. If you want, if you want to keep going on that same theme there, Nick. Boston mob. Yeah. It's like a heist movie, but, uh, okay. And then Stomp recommends Carrie. Is that on Amazon prime? Oh, Carrie. Yeah.

[00:40:16] We started last night. It's actually pretty good. So it's a deep dive on, uh, Carrie herself. And, um, it's, it's really good so far as by the guy that did, uh, oh my God, he's done a bunch of horror things, but the most notable one was, uh, Hill House, Haunting a Hill House, which was terrifying. That was fantastic. So it's, that's that fella. It's good stuff. All right. Excellent. So we will check that out. I have that on my to watch list.

[00:40:42] So I'll commiserate with you over text Stomp once I start watching it. So. Yeah, it's good. Great acting. Very good. All right. Next up here, uh, get your stickers. You want to get your slasher gear at a mountain wanderer. You can go say hi to forests, uh, for us, or you can go to Spinner's Pizza Parler in Andover, Mass and, uh, pick up stickers. They've had a few visitors lately. Yeah. Yeah. They've been getting in there, which is good. And then, uh, what else here? Get your swag.

[00:41:11] Go ahead and, uh, get your slasher swag at our bonfire shop. Choose between super popular hoodies, classic or V-neck tees and more. The color selection is great and they are priced to move. So help spread the word about slasher and represent. Got to put in an order, Stomp. I am, uh, I'm traveling for the next couple of weekends to DC and North Carolina. So I got to bring some slasher gear with me to, to give out to the friends and family. Hmm. Yeah. I want to grab one of the hoodies actually. You need a t-shirt gun.

[00:41:40] Oh, we need a t-shirt gun. That's a good idea. Can we buy one of those? Can we procure one? We could. Well, we could. If people donate to our slasher, buy me a coffee, then we could, we could purchase. We could use that for, um, a t-shirt gun. So if anybody wants to, we can pick people off artist bluff. We could. We could. Make some room. Shoot the t-shirts off of artist bluff. Shoot them at 93. But yeah, if you want to donate to us, donations help pay for web hosting, distribution, live events,

[00:42:10] and, um, deodorant for Dave Schitt's in the woods. Yeah. That sounds like a, like a full condition segment, you know? Yes. Yep. So you can get your polo cologne. Hey, hold my beer. It's time to find out what Mike and Stomp are drinking on this week's Beer Talk.

[00:42:44] All right. Now's the part of the show. We talk about what beer we're drinking. I'm not drinking any beer. I'm sober October-ing. I got water today, but Nick, you got anything good? Uh, no. I had a beer over the weekend, um, from Ragged Island. So that was good. And now to Newport post-marathon or half-marathon. But, uh, that's it. I just had, I've had one beer so far in October. So I'm about, I'm at Mike level of sober October, right? Very good. It's a shame job. Just one beer. And then, uh, Dave, anything good? Yeah.

[00:43:13] Well, I firmly believe that a sober October leads to bend in November. So, uh, yeah, I'm drinking, uh, Teeling. It's a, uh, Irish peated whiskey, small batch. Nice. I don't know what any of that means. It's just really good. Very, uh, very fancy of you. And then, uh, Stomp, anything good? Yeah. I've got some San Pellegrino Chow, blooded orange. It's just a seltzer, but I'm going to break into the old Stowe's latest here.

[00:43:42] Stowe's cider has, uh, a double dry, super dry, hard cider coming in at a raging 8.4. Dave and I were talking about that. That, that, that, that's almost like a wine. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Like a P-needy stuff. Double IPA level. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It's cool. So when I start talking backwards, you know what happens. My wife always says that you're talking in cursive. I don't understand a word you're saying. Not always, just sometimes.

[00:44:19] 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 p.m. We're at 3,500 feet. We got nine miles back to the parking lot. Your leg may be broken. We got no cell connection and we can't feel our fingers.

[00:44:47] 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. Psh, ha. Whatever, mister. Do you know me? I have a podcast. Whatever. Let's find out what Mike and Stomp have been hiking. All right.

[00:45:16] And now is the part of the show where we talk about recent hikes. So, um, Dave, have you hiked at all since you've been back from Katahdin? From, uh, Appalachian Trail? Uh, if you call it, what is it? Kilburn Crag in Littleton? Is that a hike? That's good. Close enough. That's about it. Any desire to hike? Yeah, definitely. I do. I do. I want to do some small stuff, obviously, and just get the joints going, but, um, there's nothing major I want to do. I have seen enough of the whites for a while. I bet.

[00:45:45] So, all right, we'll get into that in a little while, but, uh, Nick, anything interesting this weekend? Uh, I haven't been hiking, but I did the Newport half marathon, so I was pretty stoked with my time. It was around an hour and 44 minutes. Pretty good. It was a good time. I was, I was definitely sore, uh, more today than I was the day after, which seems to be a thing with my body when I'm doing these endurance type activities, but it was a beautiful day. It's like low sixties, kind of foggy. Um, really nice course that first half. A lot of people have told me the second part of it.

[00:46:14] If you're doing the full marathon, it's not a scenic. Um, but the first half is beautiful. It goes down to Brenton point around like all the mansions and stuff. It starts and ends at first beach or Easton's beach in Newport. Um, but other than that, just been doing some local hikes around and hoping to get up for trail maintenance soon and maybe some fall peaks, but I've been on the, I've been on the bench here. What about you, Mike? I know you were up pretty recently. Yeah, I did. Uh, I did Franconia Ridge over the weekend. So I'm sort of like, um, I'm gritting it. I didn't have it for October. And then I also wanted to do some content.

[00:46:44] I was, I'm, I'm, I'm digging into this Michael Miller case. So I did some on the ground videos and I'm going to work on a little project to, um, to get that, get that, that case highlighted, but more, more info will be coming out on that around the anniversary of it, which is in October 23rd. So I got to splice together some video and, and, and do a little series on the slasher socials on it, but it was good. It was going up there.

[00:47:08] Um, I, I got to the parking lot around 615 or so, and it was almost full, probably had like 20 cars left. Okay. Yeah. And then, yeah, I went over there. I saw, um, some friends at the kiosk working the, um, the little safety advisory there. And there was a bunch of hikers that were getting ready to head up there. And I, I basically said goodbye to everyone, went over to old bridal and I didn't see a,

[00:47:37] I saw, I passed two groups on old bridal. And then I didn't see a soul on trail until I got to Greenleaf hot. Greenleaf is still open. And I went in there to just basically top off my water. And then I boogied up to the summit. Didn't really see too many people, uh, until I got to the summit. And then from the summit of Lafayette down, down to Haystack was an absolute madhouse, but did have an interesting situation when I got to North Lincoln.

[00:48:05] Dave, you don't, I don't think I told you that maybe you saw it on the, um, the text group that we were talking about, but got to North Lincoln and I was, I was heading up to like a little outcropping. And there was a kid walking around the corner that had a backpack on his front and then a backpack on his back. And I was like, Oh, he, maybe he's carrying it for his girlfriend. Right. That's immediately what I figured is he's like carrying two packs for his, his girlfriend, young kid.

[00:48:32] And then behind him was another kid that was like hobbling along. And then they stopped when I came past them. Um, and I just kind of stopped and I look and I was like, this isn't right. And I usually don't bother anyone. I don't, I barely even said hi to anybody on the, on the way down. But I would, with this one, I was like, I is, uh, I didn't feel right about it. So I actually asked the kid, I was like, you guys okay? And turned out that the kid was like, you know, no, I felt, and when I looked at him, his whole back of his, um, his shirt and pants was like all dirt.

[00:49:01] So he must've been laying on the ground. And, uh, he said, no, I hurt my ankle. And, um, you know, we, we get another, another group of hikers that helped gave me a splint and a wrap and it's all set, but I'm, I'm really hurting. So I was like, well, do you need anything? And he's like, well, and I was like, I have another splint and another wrap. Do you need more, another piece of a splint? Do you need a wrap? They're like, we'll take the wrap. We're going to like wrap it up a little bit tighter. Cause I did see the, like he showed me the splint and it looked like it could use some

[00:49:31] wrap up top. So, um, gave him that, gave him some zip ties, gave him some Advil and some Tylenol. And I was like trying to figure out like you're on North Lincoln. So basically you're in the dead middle of Franconia. You can beer, you're hobbling along like this kid. The only good part about this was that the weather was fine and it was 10 in the morning and he had all day to basically go. He did, they did have headlamps and all that stuff. So I, I was talking by time I started talking, the more people started stopping and they will

[00:50:00] ask him what was going on. One guy came up and he was like, I'm a nine one one dispatcher. And, um, we basically told him the same thing. We're like, look, you know, if you want to go for it, try to go to the hut. That's your first option is to get to the hut. And, but I did say to him, I was like, look, you know, if you feel like you can't continue, I'm like, don't be afraid to call. Um, and I said, really like the weather's going to be okay for a while. But like, if you're not making progress and you're not even close to the hut by like,

[00:50:27] say two o'clock, that's when you want to think about like really calling and saying like, I need some help here. But, um, but that was it. So I wanted to go check out the new falling water. So I was going the opposite direction. So I kind of felt bad, but at the same time, there was some other hikers that were staying with him and they were starting to head on. Cause he sat down and I even said to him, I was like, buddy, I don't think you want to sit down. I said, I think you should just keep moving as slow as you can, because if you sit down and rest that thing, it's going to feel worse over time. So I don't know.

[00:50:58] They didn't, they didn't, uh, there's nothing on the fishing game report. So I'm assuming that the kid made it out, but he was in rough shape. He was like really hurting bad, uh, making it across the ridge like that. So it was kind of an interesting thing. I mean, did what I could do for him. I usually don't talk to people, but it felt like that, that case, I was like, this kid's in trouble. So, no, were they, were they making their way clockwise and he had fallen? So like, he was going to North Lincoln or were they like doubling back to the hut back over Lafayette?

[00:51:25] No, no, they were, they came up falling waters and they were coming across and they were like, uh, basically the dead middle of like the ridge. So in my view, like getting to the hut was going to be the best move. Cause worst case scenario, if they're going to self rescue, the hut's the closest to them and it's going to suck going down the agonies in that, that red rock section. But it's also like, it's going to suck going down falling waters in that top section anyway. So you need no good choices. Yeah.

[00:51:54] Was there any ice or anything up there? No, there was some, there was a couple of small spots, but like everything was basically melted. It was warm. Yeah. I was curious cause Washington's definitely white right now, right? Yeah. But no, there wasn't any ice or anything, but. It's coming in Thursday from what I understand. Yep. Like 0.7. Yeah. Yeah. I know Thursday day looked nice, but yeah, I saw Friday, Saturday looks pretty, pretty awful right now. Yeah. I was kind of watching the weather to get up there, but. But it was interesting. I mean, like the, the crowds, you know, the other thing is, is like the reality of this

[00:52:24] thing just hit me. Like no matter how much we get the word out, like 90% of the, the hikers on Franconia Ridge are not like crazy passionate hikers. Like we are, they're not like living and breathing and thinking about this. They're going out maybe a couple of times a year. They're, you know, a lot of them, you know, they're wearing book bags. I saw kids with like duffel bags over their shoulders. I saw a lot of people with no, you know, string bags or no backpacks or whatever, or the boyfriend's carrying the backpack for the girl.

[00:52:53] We're never going to get the message out to these people. It's just, it's just the reality of, of what you get for the crowds. Like we're just a little bit overpassionate when it comes to hiking. But like, I think that the, the kiosk in the front, like that, the, the, um, the safety crews that, that sort of give people advice. I think that that's good for sure. Like that gets the message out to people that like, this is a legit dangerous thing that you could get yourself into weather wise, but it's just like, I don't want to say it's

[00:53:22] a clown show, but I don't, I just don't think we're ever going to get the message out to the majority of the people that are going to places like Franconia Ridge. Yeah, no, it's too popular. Pessimist. Yeah. Yeah. Get a hijack the highway signs. Yes. I'd be curious how aggressive those folks are at the kiosk. Like I know some of our friends that either work with the AMC or whatever and do that. Like if they'll straight up tell people to like turn back or you can't really stop people, right? Like, I think that they do tell people they're like, you're not prepared.

[00:53:51] Like you should, you shouldn't do this, this hike. You should go to, I think what they do is they send them to Lonesome Lake. They say you should do Lonesome Lake instead. Yeah. I'd be curious how many people still are like a F it and they just are like, I'm going to go up anyways. Yeah. Cause you're like a 20 something and that's just how you feel about it. It's tough too. After driving up for three hours and then someone tells you like, Hey, like this is a shitty idea. You shouldn't go up. Yeah. I mean the flip side of it is almost all of them make it without incident. Yeah.

[00:54:19] So that quote mountain spares all fools, right? It's crazy. True. True. And then Stomp, you already gave your, um, your adventures, right? Yeah. I really haven't been out doing much. I just been grinding. And it should slow down. Any well doing that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw something. I think you shared some foliage pics that look beautiful. Probably, probably like a week back. Oh yeah. It's so great. Yeah. So the trick with that mountain is to go at about three o'clock because the bubbles way on the other side coming down.

[00:54:49] There's nobody up there. It's just yourself. It's just so great. It's right there, you know? So, yeah, no, no big four K's yet, Mike, but, uh, I've just been too busy, but it is what it is. I was going to ask how, how's your hip status? Good. Except for the carry on yesterday. Yeah. Uh, I thought it was going to explode on me. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I know my limit.

[00:55:16] I, you know, it's like we talked about this with the, the amount of force you can put into these prosthetics, but, um, certain weight limits definitely cause micro trauma over time. So I got to watch out for that. It's just not worth it. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely want to get out hiking with you. So we got to take care of that. Yeah. No care. That lost pass. We got to get there. Lost pass. Yeah. Whenever you get back, whenever you get back to your fight and weight, you let me know. You got, you got new snowshoes too, right? Right. Yes. Yep. Oh, yeah.

[00:55:46] Oh, lefty. Oh, ready. I want to bring the extra one for spare parts. What's that one for? Yeah. I'll be gone this month. I'll be, I'll be looking forward to winter hiking soon, but. 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.

[00:56:16] All right. Well, next up is, so Dave, actually, I wanted to ask you this. So you won notable listener hike of the week. Was it last week or the week before? What? Yeah. No, I was in tears. I had to give a box of tissues. I couldn't. I was calling my family. I knew like, what the hell are you talking about? I knew that you were coming on and I wanted to make sure that you like, um, you had a good, good feeling towards me when you were talking about like everybody that supported you on your hike.

[00:56:44] So I figured I could see this is some impossible ass kissing. I can see where this is going. It took the AT days. Think about it. So maybe if you like like the PCT or the CDT British around the world. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no triple crown. I'm done. I can die now. Yeah. It's going to go right on my epitaph. I guess we're not going to hiker. I guess you're not going to get any more notable hikes then. That's all I'm saying. Be nice to get two. No, no, no. Oh my God. All right.

[00:57:13] Not a notable hiker whore. All right. Well, notable listener hike of the week list here. Nick, why don't you take it away? Sure. Let me, uh, let me jump on that in the notes. I wasn't prepared. We've been having too much fun. Um, all right. So first up we've got, um, I hate picking a new username. Our friend Jen Coons. And I do love her username. She did Willard for 30 out of 52 with a view. And she mentioned it was her first hike out in the whites since a torn meniscus. Ouch. Uh, back in May. So, uh, she didn't want to note that they didn't have a dog with them, but they did meet and encourage a ton of trail pups.

[00:57:43] So Mike's reputation for picking notable hikes with dogs precedes him. Um, Liz Fay, Mount Monodnock redlining. Um, I haven't even heard of these trails where I had to look on the map, but she did like do drop side foot. Um, she ended up going over throws seat in bald rock. And she mentioned she found a metal coffee pot hanging in a tree that was actually a summit register. Um, so that's pretty neat. Um, and she remarked that there was great foliage and she only has two more planned hikes to finish redlining Monodnock. So nice job, Liz. There's a lot, a lot of mileage on that mountain considering it's a smaller mountain. Pretty cool.

[00:58:11] Um, Dr. M hikes sunrise on Welch Dickey with Steph. So she was in Stomp's neighborhood. She mentioned she had trash legs and needs to do more training. I was going to go out with them the day before, but I didn't work out. Oh, okay. Um, 12 out of 52 with a view. Um, and she mentioned that the trailhead was absolutely mobbed when they got back down from sunrise, which probably not surprising this past weekend. Um, Jennifer Collins, 5678 camping at Moosebrook, um, which I believe is sort of right off route two before you enter Gorham.

[00:58:41] And then, uh, she did a Shelburne Mariah traverse up Stony Brook and down Rattle River. Um, I've done a traverse over, um, from one side, not up Stony Brook and separately over that, but Shelburne Mariah, man, it's like just such a gorgeous peak. That's a great kind of made me want to get up there again. Um, Laura Ely Kinsman's in Bronson Hill, Bronson Hill. I'm not familiar with, do you guys know Bronson Hill at all? Actually. Okay. What's a fine. That's right about apparently. Um, apparently it's a fun place.

[00:59:08] Um, she mentioned that the Kinsman's in that area were less crowded than a lot of spots this past weekend. Yeah. I'm like, I bet if you went up the backside of the Kinsman's of some other areas like that, like you're probably not going to see as much even during peak foliage. Um, JH Black 1970, this guy, our friend Jay, he did the bald faces. Um, he was mentioning how he had to bail on an attempt last year due to bad muscle cramps. I think Mike left him to die on the ledges. I cracked him. Um, when he proceeded to do trail maintenance. He was hiking with me. I was like, hurry up. I got maintenance to do. That day was like hot as hell too. Super hot. Yeah. Right.

[00:59:38] Yeah. Yeah. Um, so he went back and he got them successfully this time. So good job, Jay. And he remarked that the trail between North and South bald face was the best he's seen. Hashtag brownie points. Yeah. Folks star bushwhacked to elephant and then old blue mountain for 98 out of the a hundred new England, a hundred highest. Um, and he remarked that, uh, he thought the bushwhacked elephant would be worse than it was, but actually wasn't too bad. So nice job folks. You're getting really close and enjoy it. You're always sharing some great pictures and stuff out there.

[01:00:07] Arlo the beagle, um, didn't have a notable hike, but they did chime in on Jay's hike to say that we should give Jay hike of the week, which I thought was kind of a cool angle. They tagged us and they chimed in for Jay. So, um, uh, Meg's Oh six 82. It looks like from the pictures they didn't mention in the tags, but, um, I'm going to say North twin. They had a picture of that lookout with Gail headhub below for 20 out of 48. Um, I believe that we met Meg's Oh six eight two and her partner at the mountain wanderer back in April.

[01:00:35] Um, and she was also a fellow Rhode Islander is what I remember, which I was pretty stoked on. That's a mark against her. So be it. We don't mind. We're from Rhode Island. Um, that frigging hiker redemption rock to Crow Hill on the mid state trail, Massachusetts. Um, so he mentioned it was a beautiful foliage day. I think he was actually up there, uh, yesterday on a Monday. Um, and this actually reminded me with my buddy, uh, Mike C we did a really long day when we went from the Audubon, Wachusett meadow area.

[01:01:04] We went over Wachusett and we went on the mid state trail all the way up through, uh, to Crow Hill ledges. Um, nice out in back day. If you want to get out in mass, that's pretty scenic with like a bunch of viewpoints and it's like 15 miles, 4,000 feet of gain, but it's a nice area. Unfortunately, a lot of the mid state trail that I've done, um, in venture to doesn't really have great views. That's kind of the peak of it right there. So in Crow Hill and sort of watch use of itself, but, um, it's still nice. Uh, Brady girl one, the watcher and Eagle cliff and they crossed somebody finishing their

[01:01:33] new hundred, New Hampshire 500 on Eagle cliff, which I got to think is a pretty rare thing to cross by happenstance. So really cool. And congrats to the person finishing the New Hampshire 500. Um, so who's got it this week, Mike? Um, Hmm. Damn it. I can't give it to Jay. Anyway, I'm going to give it to the, um, he's long suffering. Welcome to my world. Jay. Absolutely not.

[01:01:58] He beat me into the new, he beat me in our football pool that I have with the guys this weekend. So good thing. There's no bias in this. He's in my dog house. Not letting our personal, our personal shit get in the way. It dogs and assholes. Those dogs win. Where is the Shelburne Mariah? Oh yeah. Jennifer Collins. Jennifer Collins. She puts in quite a bit. That's a cool. I like Shelburne Mariah. So we'll go with that. And there was much rejoicing.

[01:02:28] All right. All right. Congrats. Screw you, Dave. I mean, Jay. I mean, Dave. I mean, Jay. Wow. I mean, both of you. Jay is the new Dave. Is that an HBO series? Yes. So.

[01:02:58] It's time for Slasher's guest of the week. Very cool. Very cool. All right. So welcome, Dave. It's your segment. It's your moment. It's your guest of the week. Nick would put the drop in there. Does he get a drop? He does get a drop. So Dave, why don't you introduce yourself and just remind the listeners who you are?

[01:03:28] Wow. Dave. Dave. It's so awkward. It's been three weeks since my last drink. No. Sorry. I'm not making fun of anybody who goes through that. That's just what I, you know. No. Dave Schitts. Just. I don't even know how to describe myself. I like to hike. I hike different stuff. I like to bushwhack. Done a bunch of stuff in New Hampshire and just finished the Appalachian Trail. That's the shortest version.

[01:03:55] Dave was a listener and somehow we, he weaseled his way into our little hiking crew. And I don't know. That's a fanboy. Yes. He's like been, been in our hiking crew for years now, which is fun. But so you did the Appalachian Trail. So can you refresh our memories on, so when did you decide to do the Appalachian Trail and what was the motivation behind it? It's funny. Cause it says that right here in the script reminder why he decided to hike. I was hoping you guys would remind me. Yes. More than me remind you. Cause I don't know.

[01:04:21] But I, well, the way it started was, is ridiculous, but I was snow blowing a path out back to get to the propane tanks and all that stuff. And when the snow hit the tree, it made a perfect white blaze. So I just took a picture and I put it on Instagram and the number of people that came out and said, you have to hike the trail now was crazy. And there was a couple, and I think it was a, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. And I apologize. Gillis, I want to say it's part of it, but he had hiked the trail and basically broken his back and he couldn't hike anymore.

[01:04:50] And he's like, dude, you gotta go. He's like, if you get a sign and you have the time and things line up, your life can change in a heartbeat. Don't miss your opportunity. That's amazing, dude. And it kind of hit home. I was like, he's not wrong. And you do that whole thing in your head where you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're like, why the hell wouldn't you? So I literally was like, I just went to Mrs. Schitt's and I was like, let's get shot down. Let's get this over with. And she's like, yeah, why wouldn't you? I was like, oh, damn, what? And I was like, well, now what?

[01:05:16] And I just went down the list of the kids. They're caught. One's in college. One's 24. They're like, whatever. Just give us money. Leave us alone. My parents, my dad's very healthy. My mother is not necessarily super healthy, but healthy enough, I guess, the way we'd say it. So I talked to my sister and basically just went down the list of the people closest and how it would change if I did this and everybody green lighted it.

[01:05:45] And then I wrote a list of why I would and why wouldn't I? And the why wouldn't I won by a lot. So then I was like, what? Why the hell wouldn't I? And that's kind of how it went. And then everything just from the moment I made that decision to the time I got home, the amount of things that fell into place are just mind blowing. It just works out. It really does. Not to give you the ending before the story. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that. I mean, you finished. So we'll definitely get the spoiler here. But as far as. Good night. Yeah. Thank you. Good night.

[01:06:14] But you also, the thing that I found interesting is like you had a real realistic idea of what your pace was going to be and the timing of this thing. So you weren't going out there to be like, you know, I got to get this done in four months or X amount of days. And you were pretty realistic and said like, you know, I'm going to be starting early and then I'm going to be finishing late and not rushing. But you had a pretty good idea of what you were going to need to do to stay healthy and get this done. And it wasn't going to be a fast hike. A hundred percent. Yeah, that is.

[01:06:44] Because I didn't have an end date other than when Cantatten closed and that was a key. And I started early on purpose because I do have two bad knees. I've had meniscus surgeries on both knees. I've had them both, you know, basically cut out, so to speak, a good chunk of both of them. I had cortisone shots in the hip. I have a, I don't appreciate these words, acetabular femoral impingement and a labral tear in my left hip, which creates a little bit of, not a little, a lot of pain. And it will lock.

[01:07:13] So when the cortisone wears off, it's not a treat. So I knew at certain points, one of the dashboard lights would come on and the pace was going to be consistently slow. And who knows what else was going to happen. So I was just trying to be realistic about who I am. You know, middle-aged guy with a lot of issues heading in, but I can still go. So I've always said I hike like a bulldozer. It's like, I'm not going to get you there fast, but I get there. And I just try not to lose sight of that.

[01:07:42] There were days it was hard because you do hike with people, so to speak, and you try to keep pace. And that's one of the biggest mistakes you make right out of the gate. And you adjust. Yeah, it was something, I think I was looking through like pictures to edit or videos or something to post. And I came upon one of the videos from when we were going up and did the overnight in March up to like the up to Greyknob cabin and stuff.

[01:08:09] And I remember talking pretty distinctly with Peter and Jake and about your pace and stuff. And I think it kind of hit me. It was cool. Like when he finished, I'm like, you did exactly what kind of you were planning. I'm sure there's shit that happened that was not planned. But as far as your pace and like what you did, you did exactly what you planned, which I think is probably a testament to the sort of the mental planning and capacity and everything of it. Like the fortitude, I don't know what you want to call it, but sticking to that plan and doing it your way and you did it. It's so cool.

[01:08:37] Yeah, the hike your own hike gets killed to death, but it was more of just knowing your limits and having pushed your limits and being realistic about who you are. And if you're going out there to set a time, that's one thing. And if you're going out to impress somebody, that's your own deal. If you're going out for adventure and you know what you need to do to get to where you're going, you do. It's just like running the marathon. It's just like peak bagging. It's like anything else. You know you're not going to go hit 10 peaks in the same day, most likely.

[01:09:04] So you've got to be realistic about rest, about everything. Everything that goes into it that everybody says, it's all cliche to some degree, but it's all very true. But a lot of people lose sight of that or they set a deadline and they kill themselves to get there. They lose the fun or they don't finish the journey. When you look at the people that set out the fastest known times of the three, none finished. The 91-year-old guy and myself made it to Katahdin. And it's all about, it was about pace and it was about enjoying the trip to me.

[01:09:33] I'm not saying, you know, people can shit all over my hike all they want. That's fine. I did it the way I wanted to do it and I got it done. And I enjoyed better than 90% of it. Just like life, there's things that you're going to have to deal with. And there's things that you're just not going to enjoy. And to say that from beginning to end, I loved every minute. No, that's bullshit. You love it as much as you hate it. And someone told me that and that's very true. Your highs and lows, I just try to stay in the middle at all times mentally.

[01:10:01] And physically, when things came up being like, you know, the different colors, the green, keep going, yellow, watch out, red, oh shit, deal with it. The, yeah. I mean, it's as much mental as it is physical for sure. When you were planning on this, so you went through the whole, like, I'm going to, you had the epiphany, I'm going to make this happen. You got the permission. Everything fell into place. From a timing perspective, you did start pretty early. You were March 1st.

[01:10:29] So you've got to consider like there's going to be some serious weather challenges that you're going to be dealing with early on in Georgia. Did those come to fruition or was it not as bad as you had expected? I would say they're pretty much what I expected. It's just the weather was, it wasn't bad. There was definitely cold. There was a couple of teen nights, 18, you know, 15 to 18 with wind chills, especially where you tried not to camp on the top. It didn't matter where you wound up. There was always wind and it was freezing several nights.

[01:10:58] We had one day of snow, which we had to come back on trail and deal a little bit with. But it was, when you're from New England, New Hampshire, when they say snow, it's a couple inches and it wasn't like horrid. The trick was to be smart about like, we got into Franklin, North Carolina and we took a zero because we knew there was, there was a first schedule zero. It had been 10 days, I think. And we were saying, and with forecast was heavy thunderstorms at night. And then it was going to freeze the next day and go to snow.

[01:11:27] And the brain just basically was like, why would I go out in that? Like, yeah, it's going to be 15 degrees. I can hike in 15 degree weather. I've hiked in 15 degree weather, but not in trail runners and a pair of wool socks. I didn't have winter gear. It's like common sense that don't, why not take the extra zero? You're on day like 15 or 20. There's no point. And we even asked Graybeard because we actually met Graybeard. He was staying at the cabin down at a shelter in Georgia and we talked to him. And we had said, would you go out? Would you go out? He was very funny about it.

[01:11:55] He was just kind of like, kind of made fun of us. Like, why wouldn't you? You know, like toughen up. And then he kind of joked, he's like, don't go out. Yeah, that's funny. Like, that's pretty extreme. He's like, there's no point. If you don't need to do the miles, don't do the miles. And he was right. So we dealt with that in that sense a couple of times. There was a little bit of snow, the thunderstorms. But for the most part, it was what I expected and what I trained in, which, you know, doing your shakedown hike in the right kinds of weather makes a big difference too. Yeah, I was going to ask you that, Dave.

[01:12:25] How did that correlate, you know, doing the Tripoli Road adventure and everything else? Any parallels? Yeah, absolutely. It was probably the, it was the make or break hike. If I did not complete that hike or I had major issues, it was out. The trip was off. No plane tickets. We're done. And you were a big part of that. I appreciate the help on that and get me set up. Let me park and, you know, doing some trail magic and hiding some nips in the woods. That was pretty fun. I didn't even know you were there. It's a whole other story.

[01:12:52] But I woke up and there's nips on the rock. I'm like, what the hell? Did I lose a tooth? Did that tooth get coming? I like broke into Russell Pond and I couldn't find him and he wasn't going to get out of his hammock. So I just left the package. No, he's like, I put you in. They're like, no, you didn't. And I was like, how the hell did you get in here? Like, you opened the gate? Like, the gate was open. It couldn't have been open. Yeah, the gate was unlocked. There was nobody in there. So I just drive up to Russell Pond looking for, you know, rangers. They're going to arrest me.

[01:13:22] And yeah, I dropped it off and made my little trail magic for you. Yeah, I get that creepy text. Trying to make it realistic. I'm up by the gate. I can't find you. I'm like, what? What the hell's going on? But it made a huge, huge difference. What he's talking about is I did like, it was from, like, I did the Grand Traverse, dropped down, went up Tripoli Road, bushwhacked a couple mountains up that way, camped in the woods, then came back and went up over, was by sandwich, crossed the river, and then came back down the other way.

[01:13:53] It was like four and a half days. And it was crappy, rainy, raw weather, hailed, freezing, water crossings, like up to the thighs. And even though it was like, I hesitate, should I do it? Should I do it? What are you going to do? Are you going to turn around? Like, you know, test everything. And that, it made all the difference. I figured out like, okay, a rain poncho works better than a raincoat. A rain poncho over the raincoat works way better than the rain, you know, poncho under because you sweat so much. And the waterproof sock, they worked incredible.

[01:14:21] Later, they didn't, but that's another story. It was all those little, little things that pushed limits or tested, made sure things were there. Temperature, gear, knowing your stuff inside and out, getting wet, getting cold, getting dry, absolutely made a major difference in getting to the end and enjoying it. As far as that preparedness, were you in the minority? You think of the people that were going outside like the AT, like knowing their gear inside out like that? Or was it like 50-50?

[01:14:51] You know, it's hard to say. I think a lot of people were shell-shocked. I think a lot of them got out there and said, shit, this is cold. And they were right. And I think a lot of people adapted quickly. A lot of people learned their gear quickly. A lot of people made it that I didn't think would. And that's not me being judgy. There was definitely times where I was like, you know, they couldn't figure out how to get inside the tent or whatever. And it was like, oh boy. But they figured it out. As far as being prepared, I don't know how a lot of people, like how does somebody from Florida who has flat ground

[01:15:20] prepare for something like 18-degree weather or going through the Smokies when it's 20? Yeah, I wouldn't even think of that. I mean, you kind of had the perfect thing in your backyard, so to speak, to test like perfect hypothermia conditions like you went out in it. Right, right. And you're in the Smokies and it rains and then it freezes the next day. Where do you go to get ready for that? If you're anywhere in the southern state or... So I definitely had an advantage as far as temperature training went. What got me was the flat and the...

[01:15:47] I didn't do a lot of flat training because the snow and a lot of incline. So I had trouble with adjusting to just longer sections of flat trail. So I think my advantages outweighed other people's advantages in some areas, but my disadvantages offset theirs just as much. So when they cruised in certain areas, I struggled. They had lighter gear. They were faster. Did you have... Was there...

[01:16:15] In those southern states, and we'll move on to New England soon enough, but those southern states, obviously Pennsylvania has a reputation for being sort of monotonous, and I think Virginia obviously is a long... Is a longer state. But like, what were your... What were your impressions between, say, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and up into Pennsylvania? Georgia... Georgia's... It's full mountains. It's basically up and over mountains, but they're not huge. And you go over a mountain into a gap constantly.

[01:16:44] That's pretty much what Georgia is. It's not a ton to see. It's nice. It's fairly uneventful. You're getting your legs under you, but everything's exciting, which makes it great. When you get into North Carolina, you start to get... It gets much harder. You don't really summit a lot of mountains. You kind of wrap around a lot of mountains, a lot of fire towers, a lot of beautiful views. Where we have like fall summits where you climb a plateau and it's flat, then you go to the next one. There's a more rippled... Like the ridges, they're more like... They have ridges that come down.

[01:17:18] So they find like an elevation and it walks around a mountain and then it'll go up another couple hundred feet at a time and then go back around the mountain. You do a lot of circling. Beautiful views. Really nice. I like North Carolina. It's very nice. Very challenging. More challenging than you think. When you get into Virginia, everyone talks about, oh, Virginia, you know, it's boring. It's the blues. I had no issues. It was nice. It was...

[01:17:47] They make it a little more exciting. We had a couple that blocked the gate on us that wouldn't move. And then there was a cow on the field that I just started calling to, just mooing at it and it started coming over. And the guy I was hiking with, Dr. J, is like, what are you doing? I'm like, it's a cow. You pet cows. Cows are friendly. The cow got closer and closer and I kept coming closer. It was probably within 10 feet and we realized it was a bull. And it was definitely a moment where we're like, well, this one doesn't seem as nice. And we had a standoff for a couple minutes and it went one way, I went the other.

[01:18:16] We took a few pictures, but we stopped talking to the animals after that. But they blocked the gate too. We couldn't get through a certain gate. So we just, you know, I was using cow language again to get them to move. But that's... Virginia had the... Virginia, the Triple Crown of Virginia was amazing. I really enjoyed that. That's worth going to see. And what's the Triple Crown again for people not familiar? It's Dragon's Tooth, which is a giant rock formation. And it doesn't look that big. All the pictures online, you'll see, they don't...

[01:18:46] I expected this tiny little rock. It's pretty massive and it's gorgeous. The view is great. McAfee knobs, the other one's the classic. Everyone's seen that picture. You sit on the ledge. That was the less of a highlight for me. I just... It didn't... Just didn't draw as much as I thought it was going to. And Tinker Cliffs, which are amazing. We actually... A big group of us sat there and had a dinner. And then just kind of went separate ways from there. And that was a really nice outlook. Really nice view. You walk along the cliffs for a bunch of miles.

[01:19:15] I like that a lot. And then you get into Pennsylvania and it's just... It's ass. I guess there's nothing about Pennsylvania I liked. It's... You know, Virginia prided itself on the rocks. Everyone has this challenge. Like we have the roller coaster. The original roller coaster was a bunch of peaks. And I feel like they route you kind of like the whites do. They send you over every stupid peak they can find just to be like, that's what they do. Virginia kind of does that with the roller coaster. And Pennsylvania does that with the rocks.

[01:19:44] It's like you could have just gone around it. But they send you over all these rocks to try to make it harder for some reason or something. Everybody, I think, each state wants to have their own badge. Dave, you set us up with... At the intro with some of your orthopedic issues. How early on were you starting to find physical challenges with your body? I had done... Back to the training too. I had done a lot of training.

[01:20:14] Knees over toes type stuff. A lot of building of the quads. And a lot of things to take weight off the knees. A lot of stretches for the hips. Excuse me. It was probably within the first two or three weeks I started to... You know, knee braces kind of went on and off. Then eventually they fell off. Then they became an on-off thing. But for a good stretch in the middle, they went away. It wasn't until probably about 500 miles in close to Damascus where everybody gets taken down by something.

[01:20:43] I had a calf that tightened and actually started to either tear or strain. Turned a little bruisy. And I struggled with that. I took a wrong step. Felt like I got shot in the calf. It might have been the Achilles as well. And that slowed me down quite a bit. I had to rest. I had to lower my mileage. I had to kind of work that out. Because of that, I had to walk differently. I started walking differently. The knees came back. So at one point, it looked like I had prosthetic legs. I had these calf guards on with knee braces on.

[01:21:13] And then the hips kicking in once the cortisone wore off. It wasn't. And I don't mean to sound like it was miserable. It was just inconvenient. It was like little aches and pains here or there. And then when you step certain ways, it would be you get those aches. And then once I got past it, things got better. But yeah, it was fairly early on. But not to the point it was on the other end. On the other end, it was a daily occurrence, I guess you'd say.

[01:21:42] Yeah, it's overuse. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you beat that, even with all the calories. And it's just overused. Any body's going to fail over time. And you have to make that decision. Medication, yeah. How much medication do you want to take every day? Do you want to rot your stomach out so your knees don't hurt? Just so you can get a sticker? So it became a balance. And it wasn't to the point like how much pain can you take or how bad do you want?

[01:22:11] It wasn't a Rocky movie for me. There was no pride, no shame lost whether I finished this or not. It was an adventure. And if I got there, great. I wanted to see everything. That was the goal. If I saw everything up to the point I had to quit, then that's what it would have been. But I didn't want to hurry up and get there and say I did it and not see anything. That's cool. Dave, the interpersonal aspect of the trail. So you're kind of a funny guy. I feel like you're very outgoing and talkative.

[01:22:39] But also I've seen you in groups where you will sort of fade into the background and not be as open. And you do have a little bit of a shy aspect to yourself. So making friends and introducing yourself and getting to sort of connect with people that you could find. Like, okay, obviously pace matters when it comes to like making friends on the trail. Like you're not going to be friends for long with somebody that's banging out 25-mile days if you're doing five or six miles a day.

[01:23:03] So how did that work for you and did it take you a while to get a groove or were you with a little crew pretty quickly? Right out of the gate, I connected with the – he was 23, 24-year-old, just a graduate student. He was going to start work for the military at a fellowship. He's designing current – super smart, long and short of it. Like different armor for bullet piercing and all – words that I can't even pronounce. Super smart.

[01:23:31] I hiked with him for a couple days and then he's like six feet tall and 24, so that didn't last long. And then there was another couple that we had connected with for a couple days and they slowed down. So people came and went. So there was a small group of us that knew each other for definitely the good couple months. There's probably 10 or 15 of us that got to know each other. And it's funny, the people you met in the first month or two, it's just a different connection than anybody you met after that.

[01:23:57] You know, it's kind of like your first day of school when you really get to know these people and you feel safe in these groups. But on a daily basis, I walked alone. And yeah, I mean, I come across as an asshole sometimes and I do know that. And because I get uncomfortable, that's where I start to make jokes. And sometimes the jokes go over well and sometimes you can't always read the audience.

[01:24:22] So when you're on trail, so many different backgrounds, people you don't know, I tended to just not say a lot until I knew people. And it was just, it was awkward. But again, I wasn't out there for a tramway. I wasn't out there to meet people. The way it was going to go was the way it was going to go. If I connected with people, we had the same pace. Awesome. And there was big sections where I did hike with people off and on.

[01:24:48] But even during the day, it was like we'd catch up for lunch, we'd catch up at camp, and then we'd be gone again the next day. You weren't really hiking with people. The people I hiked with were the people I knew who came out to hike with me. So yeah, it was, I didn't connect with a ton of people. I am an awkward person at times. I do know that. Yes, I definitely talk a lot, which probably increases a lot of people's speed. Like, oh God, this guy doesn't shut up. So I probably helped a lot of people finish, which is, I'll take credit for that. True, true.

[01:25:18] Because they just want to get away from me. Were people coming to you to ask for advice because you were like a little bit more seasoned of a hiker and you knew New England? In the beginning, there was a couple where definitely, you know, the younger kids, like Dr. J I was talking about, he was newer to hiking. So he would ask different questions. It was just kind of like, why'd you do that? Or what's that? Once the word got out about the goal bond, I told you that story in a previous episode. I put my name out there for that one.

[01:25:44] So when it got to the whites, yeah, I became, you know, kind of like that guy's from New Hampshire. I mean, people wanted to know how to get through it. And the amount of fear mongering is disgusting. We talked a little bit about that on Trail 2. We'll get to that later. But what people told other people based on experience they don't even have or the one time they went was gross. But yeah, I think, yeah, no. I mean, experience is relative.

[01:26:16] You know, knowing what I know based on bushwhacking and the things I've seen or whatever, backpacking is not my wheelhouse. It's not my strength. And I'm in a hammock. So it's like, I do things a little bit different. So when someone's setting up a tent, I can't really say, oh, this is how I would do it because I have no idea. But if something got wet or something, you know, like, hey, throw it in a, flip your dry bag inside out, throw it at your feet, it'll dry out quicker at night. They're like, oh, good idea.

[01:26:45] Well, I'm glad that you made some friends, Dave. I would have been, I would have felt terrible if you were all by yourself. And you were able to sort of teach some lessons. I met a lot of people. And you could teach some lessons to some of those folks, which is good. Right. Now, I wanted to, can you spill the secret? So I've always wanted to devote this. Like, so when I'm hiking, I'll run into these two hikers and I'm always trying to give them some candy bars or whatever. But like, do they talk a lot of shit about us day hikers?

[01:27:12] And are they like, is there a lot of that vibe there where they're like, oh, these freaking weekend warriors coming in here and taking up room on the trail? Like, what do they say about us? Well, they, we can smell you as well. Not we. I can smell my cologne. I'm watching a woman's television show. My wife's presence. No, but you can always tell when someone went by. We just, you know, it was kind of a joke. They walked by and like, they smell real good. Must be day hikers. You know?

[01:27:40] But I think everybody that's out there hiking, everybody's doing a section. It's almost like a tiered thing. If you're through hiking, people are like, oh, you're a through hiker. It's like, I'm just, I'm just dumber than you. I'm just going further. Section hikers, it's like, it's the same respect. I think anybody that's on the trail, there are certain groups of day hikers that's no different than Artist Bluff. There are, sure, there's wonderful people that hike, and I'm not judging anybody that does it. But there are groups that just, they're newer to it, and you don't know what you don't know. Right.

[01:28:07] And they're just, they're up super late at a shelter, and you just want to be like, shut the hell up and go to sleep. You know? There's certain etiquettes that people just don't know. So, yeah, some day hikers definitely kind of perpetuate the whole day hiker suck mentality when they're out for weekends, and they do something like that. For the most part, people just want to, they talk to everybody, everybody talks to everybody, and there's no judgment.

[01:28:37] Like, oh, you're hiking for two days? Like, oh, I don't have time for you. I've hiked 600 miles. And someone's like, I've hiked eight? I'm a triple crowner. You're always going to get that. But for the most part, you don't, is what I guess what I'm trying to say. There's always one or two that will do that. I remember when I finished my winter 48, I was doing the whole Z-Bond thing, and I was dying. And somebody said, oh, he's finishing. And they're like, oh, that's great. You're finishing your 48? Yeah, yeah, that's great. And they said, oh, he's single season? And I said, no.

[01:29:07] And they're like, oh. And just walked away, and I was like, you've got to be shitting me. Like, I felt like it didn't have value anymore. And then I realized, like, who cares? I'm not, if that's your level of success and you measure it by that, then go nuts. For me to get it done, I'm getting it done. If I live through this, then that's, I give myself the sticker on my chart when I get home. No one else will. Nice. I'm curious, too, about, I have a couple of questions here that I wanted to do.

[01:29:31] So there's always, like, a big drama on the AT, either, like, a creeper hiker or somebody getting into an argument or a breakup or whatever. Like, what was the big drama on the AT this year that you can recall? That's a good question. I'm trying to, there was a lot of, it wasn't really drama. There was a couple of reroutes. And there was a couple of younger kids that decided to do the reroute. And it's like the school playground telephone where it's like, oh, I heard that they're rerouting.

[01:30:00] I heard the reroutes dangerous. I heard they're out there with chainsaws. I heard there's a sheriff down there giving out tickets. And the kid's like, well, I'm going anyway. So, of course, I'm like, I heard they're shooting kids that go in the woods, you know. But, yeah, that was kind of what somebody did that. He did the whole beginning and he did the reroute. And he was like, yeah, there's nobody out there. It was no big deal. As far as couples go, there was none of that drama. There was a lot of groups, you know, there's stoners. There's everything.

[01:30:29] No real drama. There was the story I'll tell is the guy that we met. His name was a listener. He was at Black Rock Shelter. I believe we're still in North Carolina. His claim to fame was that he had done the AT a bunch of times. And he was 11 years old and went to Woodstock or something like that. He's basically just lived in the shelter and made reasons why he didn't hike. And he, by his standards, I did not have any, but he has the best weed around. And he was higher than this guy.

[01:30:58] He was out of his mind. And his big thing is he just tells you, he's like, hike your own fucking hike, man. And he would just keep saying it. And he's like, what number are you? And I think I was 558 or something. He's like, wow, why are you so far behind? I'm like, because I'm hiking my own fucking hike, man. He's like, right, right. So he goes to bed. We're all up camp. It's all quiet. And you hear him in the shelter by himself. And he rolls over and just lets out this noise out of his backside.

[01:31:27] And it goes through all the stages of matter between solid, liquid, and gas. And it's just this horrific, like, he's alienating everybody. Everybody's afraid to go near him. And now you hear those guys basically shat himself in the shelter. I'm like, no, I didn't hear that. And then you see the red headlamp come on. Like, oh, yeah, I did. And then you see the headlamp go into the woods for about 20 minutes. Like, oh, yeah. Yeah, we got full shatage. And he came back. So the next day we were talking about that. Like, do you hear that? Oh, dude, everyone heard that. And it was like, we kind of joked about it. But there's no real drama.

[01:31:57] A lot of stories like that. We met some interesting characters for sure. What would you say is your darkest hour? I think I have an idea of where you're going to go with this one. But what was the darkest moment? Did it involve nobby hikes? Oh, yeah. There were three low points. That's good. The first one was Mother's Day. I caught, partially caught, or noro. I basically was on the toilet for almost a full 24 hours of Mother's Day.

[01:32:25] And I'm making all these phone calls, trying to pretend everything's fine. And I'm talking to my mother, like, yeah, I'm great. Everything's great. Then I find out my sister had been in a car accident that day. She was okay, but she had broken her sternum. My brother-in-law was on blood thinners because he had heart issues. And he had to be taken to get examined. And I'm just stuck in this hotel room in Virginia, stuck. You just felt a billion miles away from your life and your family. And you realize you can't do anything. It just sucked.

[01:32:54] It was like a low point where I was like, why am I doing this? But then the realization, like, being home wouldn't have changed any of those things that happened. And I still was able to talk to him and everybody's okay. But it definitely was like a long, long day. And it was tough. The other one was knobby. Went the first monsoon when I destroyed my feet. My seal skins, which I loved, which now I hate. Once the water started getting in, they just destroyed my feet.

[01:33:22] And I ripped the whole tops of both my feet off. I had to wrap them for about four days and kind of keep them from getting infected. It was miserable. Yeah, it was horrible. It was just nasty. How many? Was that just one day of rain or was it multiple days of rain? It was one, a day and a half. And it was about three inches of rain. Solid. So that's just nonstop. So from your perspective, like, keeping your feet dry, like, it would have been much better off just bunkering down in a shelter and waiting it out. Or trying not to keep them dry. Just let them get soaked. Let them get soaked.

[01:33:52] And then when they get wet, stop and wring them out and call it a day. Like, the minute you started to feel it, I thought the socks were holding up well because they had been holding up well. And then when they failed, the water got in and it was just, it was hell. I equate it to, like, when you go to the beach and you burn the top of your feet really, really bad, and then you get sand on it, and then you put them in the sandals and try to walk to the car. So the sand's just grinding on top of the sunburn. That's what it felt like for about, you know, the whole next two days till I could get everything.

[01:34:20] I had to get up about four o'clock in the morning and start putting Neosporin and Band-Aids and wrap it. And then I'd hike two days, cut it off, soak it, and do it again for two more days. That's brutal. So that was like, that was the physical. The mental part got me that first time. The physical got me in New York. That was with Nobby. And I started to feel better after that. I got sick again in Massachusetts. I had some bacteria that I had picked up or something. They put me on some parasite meds and all that. I had to get off trail. I had been sick for three days hiking.

[01:34:49] I'm like, it'll go, it'll pass, and it didn't. So I had to take a blue blaze, got a shuttle, had to go to the hospital, get tested, came back with bacteria and possible parasites. They had me on antibiotics. It just sucked. But I got back on trail. That wasn't as bad. It was just more inconvenient. But then from there, I went into Vermont and it just rained twice as much. Liz was made, we call her rainy day fate, which she hates, but I'm like, she has a 100% track record. When she gets on trail, it rains.

[01:35:17] And she made fun of Nobby because it was a three inches of rain. She came out, we got almost five inches of rain. I'm like, you're killing me. So we got five inches of rain in Vermont. I'm like, not this shit again. And Vermont was just not what I remembered when I hiked the long trail. Yeah. No, it poured. But to your point, that's when I stayed in the shelter a couple of nights because I'm like, there's no point trying to set up a hammock. We stopped. I rang out my socks. Like it was a different approach, lesson learned.

[01:35:47] But I was a mental and physical low point because it was just exhausting. And Vermont used to have views. Last time I was there was five years ago and they let them grow in. And the rock garden that used to be there, somebody threw it all, like dispersed it because leave no trace. And they used to have that like really cool structures, cairns and mosaics people made with the rocks that were already there. And somebody just decided that's not appropriate or whatever. And it was just blah. So I was tired, defeated. What's that?

[01:36:17] You haven't mentioned ticks. I didn't have too many problems with ticks. I had a couple behind the knee that just came off very easily. The only one that was, I found one under my armpit on my ribs, like kind of down, down somewhere in my ribs. And so when I get rid of ticks, I don't, I'm a little under, I usually nail clippers and everybody get ready to cringe. I put it underneath the tick and I clip and I take the skin with it until it bleeds. It's a quick pinch.

[01:36:45] So I basically took my phone out and I clipped it and pulled it off and I was bleeding and realized I missed it. So I went back and I missed it again. And so by like the third time I was like, all right, that's when I was hiking with Mighty Mouse, Lori. She had been on the podcast. And I was like, can you, can you do me a favor? I know you don't know me that well, but can you help me get this thing off? And she's like, what do you want me to do? Get tweezers? And I'm like, we got to, this is what I do. And she's like, are you kidding? I'm like, it's fine. She's like, it's going to hurt. I'm like, it's fine.

[01:37:16] She's like, well, how do you clean? I'm like, I'm going to put hand sanitizer off. And she's like, what is wrong with you? Like I'm not getting lime disease. And that's what it was. So I just, she pulled it off. That was the only one that I pulled it off, put hand sanitizer off. And I had no issues after that. There was a couple of people that did get lime and more than a few people that had ticks that they had to deal with. But I didn't have a lot of problems. Okay. Well, that's good.

[01:37:43] Surprisingly, there's a lot of grass out there and a lot of CDC signs and a lot of the trailheads, newer ones about ticks. When you were having some of the skin issues and the feet and all that, were you starting to get nervous about the end date? You know, Katarton closing. Were you thinking about that towards the end? Or was there like a, oh my God, I gotta, I gotta go. Was it a driving force? Worse, I was thinking about, is this going to take me down? I didn't even start thinking about the end. It was funny. It was right around the time. It was closer to Father's Day when some of these things were happening.

[01:38:11] I think that's when Paul was, Paul Lamar was throwing out the father's, the Alzheimer's finish date. And as soon as he threw it out, I was having calf issues. I was having foot issues. I was having like all these low points. And I was just like, he's going to put it out. I'm going to bail like two days after. I'm going to bail before he even gets the stupid, you know, final date. Um, so let's say it closed on Friday was the last date to put your bed in. I was thinking like, I'm not going to make it to Wednesday.

[01:38:38] Um, in my head, I was like, it wasn't, I wasn't ready to quit, but I knew I might have to go home. And it was, it was, I was getting ready to be done because it was, I wanted to be done and I felt like it was going to take me down, but it was a day-to-day thing. It was like, Hey, go to sleep, see what tomorrow's like. And every day was okay. It was never like a day where I'm like, I can't do this. This sucks. The pain's too much. I hate this.

[01:39:07] It was always like, well, what are your options? You know, you don't have to do, I did not hike over 20 miles a day for the entire trip. My average was not big, but the small steps out of the big miles. Um, so yeah, I didn't really, there was a couple of times I called it the main math where I would just break things down and it was like, Oh, I got to do X miles a day to get by this date. And I said, but you got till October 10th was my target date, the worst case scenario.

[01:39:35] And once I took that on off the table and stopped worrying about it, it all went away. And I didn't worry about a lot until I started to run into this. The calf got my attention first. I was like, Oh, we're going home. And I was like, Nope, I think we can do this. Then I get sick. I'm like, Oh, we're going home. Like, Nope, we're fine. You lose all that weight. You can't put the weight back on. You get so weak. And then you just, it does get in your own head, but I'm not being the brightest man and being very simple. I'm able to kind of entertain myself and keep myself going, but it does creep in.

[01:40:04] Like, this is it. We're not going to get there. Um, but it passes. It's like everything else. Like, it's just, you go to bed and you don't think about it. You kind of just, you don't pump yourself up. You don't, you know, you don't fire yourself up. You just kind of accept what it is. I, this is what I did. I accepted what it is, you know, and be realistic. Like, yeah, that might be the case, but see how you really feel in the morning. And if you felt better, you kept going.

[01:40:34] Dave, what's, what stands out to you when you think about hostels, hotels, and trail towns across the AT? Uh, loved, loved, uh, hot springs was great. Um, green dragon hostel phenomenal four pints, great food. Um, sterling inn was nice. The barn hostel up in New Hampshire was great. Um, there's a couple of shit shows down in Tennessee. Good luck getting through there. You come out of the Smokies.

[01:41:03] It's just the standing bear is a nightmare. We talked about that. Um, that's where the, the cocaine bear, I told you that story. That's where they came from. And the lady that was supposed to pick us up, she was bipolar. Um, she was crazy. She was screaming about standing in the road and she went and told another hiker that I was an idiot cause I was in the road cause someone else gave her a bad review. She thought it was me. Well, she was right, but not because you were in the road. Oh yeah. No, she's not wrong, but I mean, she can't, you gotta have facts. You can't just go by what other people say. But she was, she was crazy.

[01:41:32] She stuck us there for about two and a half hours, just sitting on an island, um, on a highway, just waiting. It's not a highway. I mean, we saw three cars, I think in two hours, but, um, she was nuts. What's your take on, um, trail magic and all the folks that like sort of followed the bubble, like the, um, the van crews and all that stuff. What, what's the deal with all that too much or is it good? Or what do you, what do you, what was your experience? It's, it's, it's a good, good point.

[01:42:01] I look at it as, you know, the popular kids always get the attention and the, the, the straight A students always get the rewards or the bigger groups always get the, it's, it's kind of that. So as a guy who didn't really keep up with the bubble, I missed a lot of that. But when I did start to connect with it, it's pretty awesome. When you come out of the woods on a crappy day and someone's got chicken and dumplings or something, you're like, you're kidding me. Or someone's like, oh, you want some French toast and sausage? Like, yeah.

[01:42:29] Like it's better than the honey buns I'm about to eat, uh, which I'm still going to eat. Um, I loved it. It was nice. Um, Miss Janet was awesome. Um, sir stops a lot. There's another guy. He, uh, he's got a big van, which now has a slasher sticker on it. Nice. Yep. Yep. But he was at one of the hostels one night cooking the, uh, the roadhouse. No Patrick Swayze, no fighting. Um, but the roadhouse up in Maine was awesome. That was a great, awesome.

[01:42:56] He made a bolognese, pasta bolognese and all that. And it was like, wow, worth the heartburn. I have a question. Um, so how, what, what was the class, the starting class number size wise? And did you have a sense along the way of how many people may have dropped out? Or do you have that type of sense as you're going along? You do kind of. And what I don't know is how many officially signed up. I tried to look at that.

[01:43:24] They'll put all the numbers out at the end of the year. Actually, probably, probably December. I think they tally it all up. But everybody who registers at Amicola gets a number. Excuse me. And then when you get to Harper's Ferry, you check in and you get a different number. Then when you get to Katahdin and you register there, you get a third number. So it's kind of, it was fascinating to see. I was like 558 and then I was 321. And I can't remember what I was.

[01:43:51] I think I was three or 400 when I got to Katahdin. And so it kind of, what it tells me is it was like the 558th person to leave Georgia. But I was the 321st person to get to Harper's Ferry. And I was like the 400th person to get to Katahdin. Knowing that people had caught up to me, obviously, the really fast group, the bigger bubble, was in the, I want to say, 1200s, which was a smaller class this year. It's usually in 1600 range, I think. And it was around 1200.

[01:44:21] So I'm going to guess it's 12 or 1300 this year. And you had like the regular bubble. Then you had the party bubble. Then you had the dirty bubble. And the regular bubble is just like basically your rockets, your younger kids, your stoners. They move, they fly. They'll bang it out in four or five months, whatever. They're not slow. Then you have the party bubble. It's like, they'll get there. They're going to get drunk. They're going to get stoned. They might skip huge chunks of the trail. They just keep moving.

[01:44:50] Then there's the dirty bubble. And they're usually so trashed, they can't even catch up to the party bubble. And by the time they get to New Hampshire, like hell no. This might be a good segue into some of the listener questions, Mike. But like I parallel it to doing the Saka River canoe trip. Over time, it just got so dirty and just, you know, people leaving trash and shitholes.

[01:45:18] I mean, year after year after year, all these people. Did you get a sense that the trail itself is getting, becoming Saka-wise or just too dirty? Or like, what are the trails like? Depending on the state. For example, Connecticut was hit with a microburst. And a lot of their trails were not closed, but they had blowdowns. And they were just, when I say blowdowns, they were massive.

[01:45:46] They had almost 90% of that trail. In Connecticut, it's not a long mileage state. They had 90-something percent of it cleared within 48 hours. Whereas other states just forget it. It's like, do they even know there's a trail out here? The trail is love to death. It is absolutely beaten. Like you're walking sometimes like a foot and a half lower than the grade on the left and right side as you walk. Because it's just, it's so eroded and it's so beaten. You will get all the people that come out on weekends and party.

[01:46:14] And either other people are like, hey, your trash is just, you know, my trash becomes your problem kind of mentality. They just leave. They don't care. And people just shit where they want, which I, you know, as a professional shitter, that's disgusting to me. You know, you got to make the effort. And a lot of people don't. And that's sad. You're always going to have that. Because for some people, when they stay at that spot, it's the last time they're ever going to be there. It's your problem now. I don't care. I got to finish this hike.

[01:46:44] It's still a small percentage of people. But because that percentage includes a large volume, a large number of people, the impact is still great. I wonder if the incidence of the stomach issues in Nora when everything else has increased statistically over the years. I'd be really curious to see some data on that. I would too. Because I know it's, every year it's when and where, not if. And as soon as they do, it becomes like Leper Island. Daleville was this year.

[01:47:13] And we were actually ground zero where, you know, the guy started puking in the bathroom. We look around like, shit, who was that? Was he? Oh, shit. Did I eat dinner with him? Where is he? And he's puking in the one bathroom like, you're killing me. Like, dude, go puke outside. So he's done puking. We go outside like, yeah, everyone heard that. Of course, that's the big drama. There's your drama, Mike. Like, did you hear? Turtle was puking. Oh, yeah. Or snail. Snail was puking. Yeah, I heard that. I'm like, glad it was only him. Like, oh, no. Emily's sick. Like, oh, Emily's got Noro too? Like, oh, no.

[01:47:43] So two people at our hostel get sick. And you're like, you laugh it off. But then you're like, you don't trust a fart for like a week. Because you're like, what was that? Well, I'm going to shit myself. And then you go through the woods. And there's a tent with people hanging out puking out of it. And you're like, oh, shit. This is real. And they're just dumping everybody in Daleville at the microtel. Like, yep. Dump them all in. And you're going to stay there in like three days. You're like, this doesn't end well. Yeah. I don't know what the statistics are.

[01:48:09] But I would be amazed to see where it is every year. It almost seems like when you get to Pennsylvania, it stops. So, Dave, let's talk about the most important stuff here. So you had given some really good advice. Actually, I think that people should like, we should repeat this for anybody that is like going to help somebody out on the Appalachian Trail. Like, I actually, most of the stuff that you had given us, like, I didn't even consider.

[01:48:36] But like, number one, you said like, so if you're going to connect with somebody on the AT to help them out, obviously, like, if you can slack pack them, that's huge. If you can get them into town for resupply, that's huge. You want to make sure that you're not like, you're not getting them out of their sort of routine at all. Like, you want to phase yourself into the hiker's world. You don't want to make them have to like wait a day or two here or there. But what other advice did you have as far as like, you know, if you're going to go meet somebody out on the trail to support them?

[01:49:07] Bring them power. No power. Give them battery power. Take the trash and try to coordinate your own rides. So like if you can meet them, get on trail at X and meet them or get them off trail. So you both start at the same starting point. Where it gets tricky is when you're trying to figure out like, okay, I'm probably going to be here by this date and say, look, well, I'll slow down to catch up with you. Or like, hey, you know, like, can you meet me here? Asking them to meet. Someone said it best is like, I can tell you exactly where I'm going to be and exactly when I'm going to be there.

[01:49:37] But I can't tell you both. Because you just don't know. It's such chaos at times. And some days you don't feel it. So putting your plans on their schedule is just don't do that. It would be my advice. You don't want to inconvenience them at all. I'm like, no, offer a plan, but just say, here's what I'm thinking. Does it work on your end? Because a lot of times I was thinking like, well, if I did this, then I'm like, wait a minute. I'm going out of my way to convenience somebody else, but it's going to cost me a half a day. Whereas you just got to say no, like, sorry.

[01:50:08] And there was a couple of times where I had to tell people like, yeah, no, it's sorry. You got to catch me another time or something. I know. But I'm grateful for everybody that it did work out. I caught a lot of people, you know. So I would love to list them all. There's just a lot of people that came out, which was awesome. And logistically, like you didn't have too many bad experiences. Everybody sort of weaved into your plan pretty well. Very well. Yeah, absolutely. Everybody, yeah, whether they just day hiked or went along.

[01:50:35] And that was also the benefit of just knowing what my plan was. And the people were very agreeable. Like, hey, I'm only going to here today. It's like, what if we met you here and went to there? And like, sounds perfect. Can we do this? Can we, you know. Not telling, but asking. Right. And then not overwhelming, but just saying like, what about this idea? What if we go to, you know, let's go dancing and let's go into town and we can catch a movie. And it's like, whoa, stop, stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a mission. It becomes a lot. The logistics get harder, especially when you get further north sometimes.

[01:51:02] Yeah, no, I definitely got that sense when we connected with you. You know, ultimately, like, at the end of the day, like, you wanted to get into town, get a resupply, and then get back on trail so that you could get to a point where you could get to a shelter and sleep that night. So, it made total sense from that perspective. And I thought it was interesting just sort of watching you. And then we had one of your friends, Tenacious, as well, just getting off trail.

[01:51:30] And then it was kind of interesting going shopping with you guys just to see how you guys think through your resupply. And it was a lot of ramen. It was a lot of, like, high-calorie stuff to go through. But it was very interesting to just see how you guys operate. You got a good cross-section because she and I were very different. Very different hikers, to say the least. We took very different approaches on everything. And, yeah, when you start reading labels, you're looking for fat and calories.

[01:51:58] And it's very different shopping. It's a Jenny Craig nightmare. Weight Watchers, like, you want all the points. And even at that, keep your weight on is really hard. Right. And then going out to eat and getting a nice meal obviously gets you started. But I feel like you were really just – Oh, yeah. I think we met up with you at Grafton Notch, and you were kind of – you could smell the ending. And I think that it was – my sense from seeing you man on a mission was sort of what it felt like to me.

[01:52:27] I was in my rhythm, and I had kind of – the people that I had met on trail had kind of all scattered and realized that, like, they're going to be so far ahead that it's just – it's all kind of dispersed now. And this is just going to be my hike. And I also made a point in Vermont to say enough of this shit. It's – the business part is just no fun. I'm going to start having fun. If I want to go swimming, I'm going swimming. If I want to stop at a river and go in. I want to – whatever I want to do, I'm doing. And I stuck to that as well as the mileage and kind of coupled them both.

[01:52:55] And instead of stressing about anything, which I never really stressed, but it became – you listen to everybody talk about, you know, the oohs and ahs, and you start getting caught up in the drama – not drama, it's not the right word – but the feeling of, like, as you get closer, it gets more stressful for some people. And it doesn't have to. And I realized that's just dumb. It's just – it's kind of like going to work. And I have certain projects when I do at work. If I got to do a floor or I got an addition or a kitchen or whatever I'm doing, it has a start and it has a general end.

[01:53:24] You can't sit there and say, I'm going to start today. You can pick that date. That's great. But you can't say, I will be done exactly this day at that time because it never works that way. It just doesn't. So you have to kind of go with the flow and say, you know when you need to get done by. And you know if you do all the things in order that you're supposed to do the right way, you'll get there. And don't worry about taking a day off. Yeah, that's fair. And then I think when we left you, you were heading into the 100-mile wilderness and the end at Katahdin.

[01:53:51] So before we get to listener questions and wrap this up, Dave, what was your take on the 100-mile wilderness and just the whole experience at Katahdin? I have a skewed version of it because I go way back to Pennsylvania. I met Black Bear and Batman. They live in Maine. Excuse me. And they had offered to help me when I got to Maine. And that's where Paul Gamela had come up. I believe it's Gamble. I learned that over there. I learned a lot about Paul. I learned a lot of things I want to forget. Sorry, Paul.

[01:54:21] I won't tell him everything, though. What stays in the 100 miles happens there. What you share. It's all safe. But Paul was awesome. He was a huge support, too, as was everybody else that came on. I don't want to just single anybody out. But he jumped in. He was my ride home. So he gets bonus points for that for sure. But Black Bear and Batman said, when I get close to him, I said, I don't know what that means, that they're going to help me. And what they do is they kind of pick certain people they connect with. And I got to know them. They were really nice. And she followed me.

[01:54:49] And they actually have access to all the different roads in the 100 mile. There are a lot of roads, not just the one. Most people do four days of food. Shaw's will drop in about $85, $90. Bring your food to you. You get fed. And then you do that another four or five days. Then you get to A-ball. Last couple of days. And up and down you go. They offered to slack pack me every day. Oh, wow. Or resupply me every day. And I was like, we don't need to do that. I'll do it every other day. She was in the area. So we would come out of the woods after a day and a half.

[01:55:18] And she would be in the road. We'd sit and have lunch. I'd grab my food out of my bin, resupply myself for another day and keep going. And then some days we would slack pack. So I definitely have a skewed version of the 100 mile. It's not physically ridiculous. It's a lot of root, a lot of rock, a lot of gorgeous ponds, a couple of decent mountains that would really kick your ass, but nothing crazy. As far as remote and like, I didn't feel the remote. There was one, we stayed at Antler Pond, which is gorgeous. Amazing sunset.

[01:55:48] I got up to take a leak and there's a spotlight off in the distance. I'm like, what the hell is that? Like, why is there a searchlight going off in the sky? And then I climbed back in the hammer and started sleeping. I could hear, it sounds like a machine. It was like a wood chipper out in the distance running all night. I'm like, it's not really very wildernessy. I did not feel as remote and out of touch as I have on some bushwhacks up by Nash Stream and up in that area of New Hampshire. Wow. That's interesting. But I can see where you got to carry eight days or you're doing four and four.

[01:56:18] I can see the weight being a huge pain. Yeah. I always picture the hundred mile wilderness as like, you know, you don't have any options, but it sounds like you actually do with the roads there. You really do. You can get this a bunch of ways to get out for sure. Wow. And then what about Katahdin? What was the experience like? That was amazing. We had a gorgeous day. Again, these people hooked us up. They got the lean-to at Katahdin Stream. It was the one right on hunt trail.

[01:56:46] So we basically woke up 3.30, packed up by 4.30. We just walked straight up, right out of lean-to and started hiking up. Sunrise, broke treeline. The wind was ripping. Hunt trail is pretty challenging. If you got little legs like me, it's definitely some of those, some of those scrambles are pretty beastly going up. When we broke treeline, it was breezy. It was cold. And then all of a sudden it just stopped. The wind stopped. It was sunny.

[01:57:14] We sat around and had lunch at the top for probably an hour and a half, took pictures. We hung up. There was a crow that kept coming by. And then we just took our time coming down, had snacks. When we got down, went to dinner, the day was, I could not have asked for a better day. And to have a ride waiting and then a ride home that night, it was perfect. I was kind of hoping you were going to wait another week and do October 3rd because I got a perfect weather day when I was up there as well. And that crow was still up there too, by the way. It was still up there. We call him Larry.

[01:57:44] He was still there. We just had that, what was it, the nor'eastern between. That would have been a little rugged to get through that week. I bet. But this is good. So, Nick, we got listener questions for him. What do we got? Yeah, so we did shout out. If you had questions, then give them to us. So these are mostly from Instagram. So here we go. Abom Graham asks, how many times did you, in fact, shit in the woods on your journey?

[01:58:13] I ran into him at the notch there. It was a Mahusik notch. We were talking. It was so cool to run into him. Random. But not that I kept statistics, but hypothetically, let's say there was possibly 281 shits, with the worst of them being probably in Connecticut, Massachusetts. Those had the most shits because of stomach issues. There were 139 wood shits, which is about 49% of my shittage. I hit 71 toilets because I had privies and hostels.

[01:58:43] The privies were 57. The porta-potties were 14 because some of the hostels, and then when you find them, you take them. This one is the standout. Zero pants. There were no pants shittage, which some people say you didn't really hike the AT if you didn't shit your pants. But hey, I held it. I made it. It was close. It was close. But yeah, that's a pretty good breakdown. I got pie charts. Most of it's brown, but you can still break down the chart.

[01:59:10] This kind of answers our next question from Megs0682. She wrote, did you log all your AT shits? That's a yes. Did you create a spreadsheet? Sounds like a general yes. It's called a spreadsheet. But yeah, it's a spreadsheet. She was curious about cat holes versus privy, camp shits versus off-trail shits. She did ask how much toilet paper did you bring, and how do you store it post-wipe, or did you carry it? And did you ever use a backcountry bidet? There's a couple of things there, I guess. She's got a lot of shit questions.

[01:59:40] I like it. I like it. A lot of angles. We're probably going to cross paths in the woods. All right. Here's my professional. Now that I'm off-trail, I'll share it. When you get to a camp, go dig your cat hole the night before and put a stick in it so you can find it in the morning. And then you can just take care of your business, bury it, and keep going. So yeah, I would bury it. I think that was the first question. And toilet paper, I would say I probably went through at least a roll and a half because you got to figure... It's hard to say. It could be more.

[02:00:07] I carried an extra roll with me after the incident in Pennsylvania where I almost ran out, but there was a guy who was constipated, so he wound up giving me his toilet paper. We made a deal, and I bought him breakfast afterwards. That's such an interesting question. I thought I told you the story. I was crossing the ridge, and all of a sudden, I had a shit's moment. I'm like, oh, this is go time. So I ran through the brambles, and I was like, ooh, that was close. And then I got to camp, started setting up, and I was like, oh, shit, it's twins.

[02:00:34] And so I ran in the woods and took care of that, and I was like, I'm getting really low on paper. I'm like... So I started taking some of my hand wipes, dried them all out. I'm like, this is not good. Cleaned up. We're eating dinners, two of us, Indiana, and I can't remember, four score. And we just started talking about, yeah, stomach issues and all that. And the guy's like, I haven't shit in four days. And I'm like, so you have a lot of toilet paper, don't you? He's like, yeah. I'm like, let's talk. He wound up having an extra roll, which is great because right after dinner, apparently I

[02:01:03] had triplets, and in the woods I went again. And then the next morning I decided to adopt a child because there was another one. And luckily he had that, or otherwise it was like, I don't want to know what would have happened. But yeah, I went through quite a bit of toilet paper. What were some of our other questions there? She was asking if you had to store it at all post-wipe. I don't know. Is there any... No, there was no... You were allowed... I buried everything in a cat hole or left it in a privy. Good. Yep. No, I...

[02:01:33] No carriage. And she just asked about a backcountry bidet, which I don't know if it would be like kind of like sticking your butt in a waterfall or something, but... Well, they have... They actually a lot of them have adapters for their water bottles. It has a nozzle that you can actually... Oh, okay. Yeah. I was a big fan of the gold bond and the wet wipes. So there was sometimes I had to do a little maintenance. That would work really well. So... All right. Um, moving briefly away from the shit questions.

[02:02:00] Um, our friend Paul Lamar, who joined you on trail too, but he said, looking back, what is the one thing you did on trail that even grossed you out? Oh. So grossest moment on the AT? That's a really good question. I don't know if it'd be food related. Yeah, I think anything. You just said basically what was like just the grossest thing that like even... Like surprisingly gross to you, maybe? I don't know.

[02:02:29] I gotta think on that one. Okay. I'm trying to think. I mean, probably one of the grossest things was like I said, when my stomach became upset and I had to go in the woods the one time and it just like it was... I didn't have time to plan or dig anything. And I basically just... I turned some foliage brown. Like I just sprayed and like just trying to clean that up and, you know, went through everything I had and wipes and everything else. Not to get too graphic, but it was... That was pretty nasty. But I didn't have a choice.

[02:03:00] There was some spam I dropped that I definitely picked up and ate at points too, which is pretty nasty, but it wasn't as gross. I was surprised you didn't mention... And this is like because I watched like Nobby's video of you guys when you're like suffering in the rain, but like your... The wounds you had on your feet, like your feet were annihilated. Like did that... Does that gross you out at all? Like not tending to your wounds or anything? No, that didn't. I was getting nervous for Dave. Yeah, that didn't bother me. Probably gross if I had to take care of Nobby's feet. I probably would have vomited on him, but...

[02:03:31] Fair enough. I got a line. I'm like, hell no. It trips over. All right. We have a couple more here. So we've got R-V-R-T-C-L-T-L-D. I don't know if I didn't trigger my name there. We have a... Where was your most scenic shit on the whole trail? These questions. I see a pattern here. I told you guys. Our listeners are idiots. Our listeners are based. Oh, they're funny. It's a lot like Kearsarge has ones.

[02:04:00] North Kearsarge has a similar... They have the lookout shit where you're based on an open platform. Smartest one too. You just have these beautiful vistas. Yeah, there's a couple of those beauties that I was just, you know... You know, just brown sunrise as I call them. All right. And we got our last question. We had some other questions here, but we'll probably get back to them. I mean, courage listeners, if you want to ask us more questions... Not shit questions. We've covered it all. Yeah, maybe not... Please don't cover anything. As funny as... I mean, there was...

[02:04:29] Like you said, when I was sick, I guess... Probably the grossest thing... That was it. When I got sick was probably the grossest thing too. But I went through so much... I had carpal tunnel. I wet my ass so much that week. Oh, Lord. So our last one, which I believe came to you directly, Dave. So you can message us on Instagram slash or message any of our direct Instagram accounts with these Dave questions because these were awesome. And we love listener participation. Even if y'all just want to talk about shit apparently. I do have math stats too if anybody's interested.

[02:04:59] We can get into that maybe the next episode if there is one. Yeah. Mileages and states and elevations and all that boring stuff. I mean, I can tell you. A brief aside too. When I joined you in the Smarts Cube Day and you were talking about main math, it was insane how you could tell you had gone over this in your head. To be like, if I do this many amount of days, it's going to be this day. And then I arrived then. And I was like, this is impressive. I know he's been on trail a lot, but the fact that he has all this just in memory right now,

[02:05:25] a down low of his pace and everything like this to reach Katahdin is pretty crazy. I forgot how to speak the English language at a certain point too because I just kept repeating things. I actually came up with a way to the minute where I could do the 3-2 or the 2-3 method. So if you said like, how far are we going today? I could multiply by three, divide by two and tell you exactly how long it would take me. Or if you told me any miles, I could say multiply by two and divide by three the other way or whatever. And I could tell you how many miles I could go if you told me the hours. And like, what?

[02:05:54] Like I've been in the woods way too long. You're like a rain man. It kind of was. From here, something like that. Definitely three and a half hours. Definitely three and a half. So moving away from underwear, we got Marie D66. She said, easy answer, but here's a loaded question for tonight. How many pairs of socks slash footwear did you wear through? Socks, I didn't go through. I threw out both my seal skins. They did fail.

[02:06:23] And I also do have a gear grades. I've graded all my gear. I took everything out of the bag and gave it a grade, which is again, another topic for another time, but the darn tough socks from Georgia to Maine all held. I had one pair that I basically wore through all seasons and I did hike in all four seasons, which is wild. So in the winter, I would have like some smart wool and then I would send them back and get different types of darn toughs and then brought the smart wools when I got closer to Maine.

[02:06:51] All the socks made it except for the seal skins, which get tossed or sent home for the winter. I would say I had always one main pair wore and two pairs of socks ready to rotate if they got wet. I could always kind of have a half dry pair if I needed them. And as far as shoes, excuse me, it was five pairs total. The first pair had a couple hundred miles on it heading in from training. They made it all the way to Damascus.

[02:07:19] I think it was the first time I changed shoes. Then the second pair was at Harper's Ferry. Then the third, I can't remember if I did this right, but the third was around Vermont. And then those were uncomfortable. So I picked up a fourth. I picked up a third in Connecticut. Those became uncomfortable. Grab the fourth. Those were starting to wear out. It was five total. Three of them completely worn out. Three were just gone. One was uncomfortable. So I switched for the last one, which would be the fifth pair.

[02:07:51] Awesome. All right. Well, Dave, congratulations on the accomplishment. We're at two hours. So we got to take this home. We're proud of you. I would say I never, unlike Stomp, I never doubted you for a moment. It was a little locker room billboard material, what they call it. The material that I get a little statues, the little AIs, the jokes. And I was like, yeah, it's all good. It's all right. You can have your jokes. I'm going to keep going. Fuel the fire.

[02:08:20] For now on, Dave, I'm going to be your Samwise on our bushwhacks, okay? That's right. Yes. Yes. So no more long hikes for you, though. You're home for good. The burden is so heavy. It's so heavy. Take my pack. But no, I wish I could honestly go on and at some point, you know, I did reach out to everybody. I could if I forgot anybody. I hope I didn't.

[02:08:43] But so many people, just the littlest things, the littlest text messages, all the communication, people jumping on trail, you know, other than Stomp, who really didn't do shit. But that's fine. Except for those nips. That's right. He killed my liver and made me doubt myself. But that's fine. I almost froze to death. And I stayed awake all night because some psycho was like in the woods tramping around leaving ooze on rocks. But that's fine. You're welcome.

[02:09:14] Don't mention it. But I mean, I could, like I said, everybody, people came on hikes with me. The whole crew, the apostles, people I didn't even know reached out. And I've met a lot of people through, you know, social media that just, and even, like I said, the people in Maine that just out of nowhere wanted to help for no reason. Probably saw me struggling like this bastard's not going to make it. We got to help him. Which is fine. But it's all appreciated so much. Well, congratulations, Dave.

[02:09:42] And now that you're back, I'm sure that you'll be on the show more frequently, which we're happy to have you. Hell yeah. And I'm sure we've got more questions for you in the future. But back to normal life. Back to the 9 to 5 for you. And no more fun and nonsense, Dave. Yeah, no shit, right? Back to reality. Whatever that is. I don't even know what that is. Here it is, Dave. You'll figure it out. Yeah, it'll figure me out. It'll be our 250th episode next episode. Better be a good one. Look at that. Wow. That's huge.

[02:10:12] Until next time, folks. That is huge. Later. Bye, everybody. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[02:10:38] 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-heats.

[02:11:07] 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 to describe this race. Do we all know who they are?

[02:11:37] Lieutenant James Neeland from New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lucenton, 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. If you've ever simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the ten essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.