Get Out There Podcast

Spring Camping In The Oregon High Desert

Spring camping in the Oregon / Nevada high desert.

Rabbit hunting in Oregon

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

Get Out There | 08 Spring Camping In The Oregon High Desert

Produced by Billy Newman and Marina Hansen

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If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work, or  a podcast interview, please drop me an email.  Drop Billy Newman an email here.

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If you want to look at my photography, my current portfolio is here.

If you want to purchase stock images by Billy Newman, my current Stock photo library is here.

If you want to learn more about the work Billy is doing as an Oregon outdoor travel guide, you can find resources on GoldenHourExperience.com.

If you want to listen to the Archeoastronomy research podcast created by Billy Newman, you can listen to the Night Sky Podcast here.

If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography: you can download Working With Film here. Yours free.

Want to hear from me more often?Subscribe to the Billy Newman Photo Podcast on Apple Podcasts here.

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About   https://billynewmanphoto.com/about/

Camping In The Rabbit Hills

Eastern Oregon camping in the rabbit hills recorded live on the road.

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

Guest: Marina Hansen

Get Out There | 07 Camping In The Rabbit Hills

Gear that I work with 

Professional film stock I work with https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/photographers-photo-printing/film/color

I keep my camera in a Lowepro camera bag 

https://www.lowepro.com/us-en/magnum-400-aw-lp36054-pww/

When I am photographing landscape images I use a Manfrotto tripod 

https://www.manfrotto.com/us-en/057-carbon-fiber-4-section-geared-tripod-mt057c4-g/

A lot of my film portfolio was created with the Nikon N80 and Nikon F4

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/f4.htm

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/n80.htm

The Nikon D2H and Nikon D3 were used to create many of the digital images on this site https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond3 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond2h

Two lenses I am using all the time are the 50mm f1.8 and the 17-40mm f4 

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm

https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/17-40mm.htm

Some astrophotography and documentary video work was created with the Sony A7r

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a7r

I am currently taking photographs with a Canon 5D

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-5d-mark-iii

If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work or a podcast interview, please drop me an email. Drop Billy Newman an email here.

If you want to book a wedding photography package, or a family portrait session, please visit  GoldenHourWedding.com or you can email the Golden Hour Wedding booking manager here.

If you want to look at my photography, my current portfolio is here.

If you want to purchase stock images by Billy Newman, my current Stock photo library is here.

If you want to learn more about the work Billy is doing as an Oregon outdoor travel guide, you can find resources on GoldenHourExperience.com.

If you want to listen to the Archeoastronomy research podcast created by Billy Newman, you can listen to the Night Sky Podcast here.

If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography: you can download Working With Film here. Yours free.

Want to hear from me more often? Subscribe to the Billy Newman Photo Podcast on Apple Podcasts here.

If you get value out of the photography content I produce, consider making a sustaining value for value financial contribution, visit the Support Page here.

You can find my latest photo books all on Amazon here.

I am Billy Newman, a photographer and creative director that has served clients in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii for 10 years. I am an author, digital publisher, and Oregon travel guide. I have worked with businesses and individuals to create a portfolio of commercial photography. The images have been placed within billboard, print, and digital campaigns including Travel Oregon, Airbnb, Chevrolet, and Guaranty RV.

My photographs often incorporate outdoor landscape environments with strong elements of light, weather, and sky. Through my work, I have published several books of photographs that further explore my connection to natural places.

Link

Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/

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Get-out-there-07-Rabbit-Hills-Camping-trip_otter.ai.txt

Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast via is Billy new and I'm here today with Robert Vickery. How you doing, Robert? How you doing? I'm doing well. We're in a truck right now we're also here with Marina Hanson. Hey, how are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me on your show, guys. We're doing a truck podcast as we were driving up a mountain road in Eastern Oregon near plush. And the rabbit hills, right, correct. Yeah. So today's Saturday, we've been here. Robert, you got here. I got here Thursday on Thursday afternoon early. Sorry about that.

Yeah, it was it was a nice drive. And I got here the weather was nice. I kind of drove around for a bit. Kind of looking for somewhere to camp. Ended up heading up this, this kind of grassy knoll area and found a pretty remote spot. Anyway, set up camp. Nice day. went out for an evening rabbit hunt. No luck. And the weather's pretty nice, though, right? Yeah, the weather is really pretty nice. I mean, that's like, I couldn't ask for a better day for this time of year. Yeah, for this time of year. Same thing that it's really pretty nice. But so I go out for that rabbit hunt. And I come back. And as I'm coming back, it's getting like pretty windy, though. And whatever. It's dark. I decided I'm gonna go to bed because it's pretty cold out and the wind just took off and just beat the tent up. Yeah, there's all night long, man.

I mean, what you know and you guys go we when we showed up when you when you found us and brought us up to the campsite, man. Yeah, your tent was folded over sideways. Like the only thing that was keeping the car set up inside already. Yes. a sturdy piece. No, that's why I just started packing gear in there so it wouldn't float float away. Yeah, exactly. I'd be worried about that, too. I think we talked about it and before like Marina and I like we had that 10 break from the wind back and I was asked,

you mentioned that episode for like a broken arm. Yeah, I was just snapped at the angle of it. Not actually poking through the fly. The Fly.

It was a wrestler But yeah, I was thinking like something like that. I remember when I was a kid and I had a tent set up in the backyard even with whatever, a couple steaks, probably not a ton. And it was just one of those July windstorms give you like little summer thunderstorms. Yes. My tent like took off, blew over and got caught in the blackberry bushes. Let's just do that. Yeah. Is that normally? Oh, yeah, we did not come to that yesterday. I remember coming out and that's where we started jackrabbit. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

I like like Billy was saying we're out here. just west of heart mountain. North of plush and a place called the rabbit hills. We're just kind of driving around exploring right now just had a camp. did a pretty nice hike yesterday. We just passed one of the bridges. We have got to Yeah, okay, so wait, what's the Tell me about that first rabbit first, I went out went out too early. I went out at like 615 not dark enough yet. You know, they they don't really come out until the later evening just because of predators and stuff. So yeah, they're not not very visible during the day. Anyway, I went out there. Did a hunt I saw probably 10 or 11 jackrabbits, I couldn't get a shot at any of them because they're already that way. And you know, they're, they're about as tall as the sagebrush. So you see your ears. It's just kind of like flashing.

Yeah, it's pretty small. In the past, I really only like walked up on it. Yeah, I was like hiking around in the sagebrush out here. And you come around a corner. Correct the way we were talking about the grass too, when you come around a corner jackrabbit, just like, yeah, just Cz books. takes off. Yeah. And

yeah, so I went on that hot saw a ton of jagaran. I couldn't get a shot at any of them. I got back a little after dark. I got in around eight o'clock, I guess. Okay. Just about that last little bit of daylight that you could possibly see where you were. Okay. And then. Yes, not the night. It was a good night. I mean, other than, yeah, when did the weather shift? Like, like went crazy? Yeah. between six and seven, it really started picking up. But it didn't get real bad until I was just getting back. And at that point, it was just like, it was more than I wanted to be out. And that's why I went to bed at eight o'clock. I didn't even start a fire or anything. I just passed out.

Yeah. So like for us, like well, I remember talking to you about the forecast earlier in the week and we're planning out stuff for this trip. Yeah. And it was saying that today. I think like last night like Friday night, it was supposed Like be raining and then snow in that like cold night that we had we got lucky. I guess it's the snow level didn't drop it with the storm it did a little faster. And so we got the rain was the wave of the rain during the daytime. Maybe earlier like you got it. Yeah. You guys yeah. And we added like when we came over with Lana pass that was snowy. And then like it was pretty good. But we saw the snow line for a lot of the areas we came out to like 31 passport rock, and then like Silver Lake and summer lake and then a bit rim. And then once we got out here, it was pretty nice. Well, he was still super windy when he showed up to me you but it started getting like nicer and nicer. That's when they kind of threw that latter half of the day. So I was happy that we got a bit of that. I yeah, I

mean, this turnaround. I I'm really happy with this. Oh yeah, I'd be okay. If the weather stand just like me. Well, like we talked about, it's like this is the type of risk you take in March when you decide to go on multi day camping. You know, it's just like, what do you really expect when you go out? And well, I guess spring that might as well be winter

here. Yeah, yeah. Here this is about the same as it would be in winter. But I'm really happy to see like that, you know, it stays out later later. And yeah, nice relatively like it's gonna be April soon, you guys. I know. It's pretty nice coming around, man. Yesterday, we showed up to the camp. It's a really cool site. I like to say I would say pretty remote size BLM land up here us around that. Coyote hills, rabbit hills. I guess you're saying this is the rabbit hole. This is the rabbit hills and coyote hills. It's kind of a little bit yeah, yeah, I've seen him. I know like this range kind of fills in a little bit like over on the heart mountain side. When you're on the ridge. You can look back and look like just a little north. Really. But yeah, but yeah, you can see him really pretty well. It was crazy to remember over on Hart mountain is really the first time I learned about it, you can really kind of see it, especially that period, you start to look around like where the water level is out there. But yeah, heartlake is, I guess where was it? Crump Lake further south, down toward it down. And then I think it's like Flagstaff lake. Lake. Yeah, kind of all run through this area. But I remember learning that was like, like, around 500 years ago. And then I guess I further back in time before that, this whole area, that whole section was just one big leg like everything from the coyote hills, the rabbit holes over here all the way up to the base of current mountain used to be

used to be one big lake. That's what I understood to like, if you go up on Hart mountain, they have that placard.

She's the water level used to be up here. Look at the rocks and you see the erosion lines, and you go, Oh, she's

a trip. 100 feet. Yeah, it's a huge lake. And now it's just these seasonal wetlands that like even on some years, they won't get, you know, they won't fill up just because of low water. Oh, man.

Most of the years that I've been out here from like, I don't know, like 2003 four or 567 I think I've only seen water in these spots maybe once or twice. Really? Well. Yeah, like significant amounts of man. A lot of the times we come out like heartlake was just like dropped way, way back. It was almost just mud, like the Flagstaff like anything up here. All of this was just Marsh, really. So it's really weird to think like I was looking at the drainage basin from around here how a lot of the water comes off the Fremont National Forest, your heart mountain over here. And what is that? Like? I think like you see that one over there that that snowcapped. I think it's like, Drake's peak that drew me right, thinking of the wrong thing. But I think like, yeah, some of the creeks that run off of that hill and off of like, the Fremont national forest or Gearhart and whatever comes in over here, that draws like eastward, it fills in this water basin here, I guess, the watershed for it. So I don't know it's weird to think like how is just all these little creeks? There's no significant river in this area?

No, it's honestly it's crazy how things even water out here in the first place. Wasn't for small melt and just like occasional rain. I mean, this place is pretty bear with me. Oh, yeah.

I mean, not much going when we look out here. I mean, like, as far as I can see, the only lights are just the few that make up plush. Yeah, but a plush weren't here. Like there would be I mean, this this Yeah, it's absolutely plush this hardly anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Seriously, it's just like that little general store and like a couple homes. And that's it.

Yeah, like it's hardly anything. But yeah, one of my favorite areas. That's really cool.

So Alright, so you guys came in to camp last night? You guys met up with me? Yeah. What did we do?

Well, we took Oh, well, we tried to move camp because like the wind was coming through like crazy. Like we were still in the middle of that storm. Yeah. And we had a ton of wind blowing from the side. Southwest over there south east. man it was coming in so hard like I was probably I remember looking at the forecast is a 20 mile an hour winds I bet that it was probably it felt like more than that. I felt like man yeah that was yeah yeah they didn't seem like toy yeah it seems to me seemed like it was gonna rip that easy if apart Marina fine yeah we yeah yeah we move the easy app we move the test put all the stuff in the back of the truck bed and then we chucked it over. I was like 100 yards or so. Yeah, we got into that little draw there. Yeah, there's like a little a little draw. That seemed to be a pretty good windbreak from from the north and south side. And then we kind of park their cars around level a little bit of ground. Yeah. Put in a new little spot for the kitchen and stuff and yeah, it's a great set. I really dig that little Kim. Kim berry

it's been really nice man. I i right now we're in an area that I was kind of scouting yesterday for potential campaign to get out of that win. Yeah. And obviously didn't get a better appear. But no, we got a great spot. And I mean, the win is really kind of died down and it's just made this trip a lot more enjoyable

by the wind right now is great. Like last night, yesterday evening, like what once we got like, kind of down into that draw. It was a lot better. Even when we were shooting like I went up on the hill. We pulled out the 22 team, and we did some target practice. Yeah, side of the 22 for the hunt. That was cool, man. I had a good time doing that. But I hiked up on the hill with the with the camera and as soon as that guy just like above that draw, it was just like, beat me in the side of the face with wind. But, but I tried to get a handful of pictures and we came back down. We set it in the 22 marinas data. Yeah, we're gonna

Yeah, great. It's pretty cool. Sniper McGee over here. Scope before or gotten set up to be seated for shooting. So So how was that? Like, what did you notice by using the scope? I liked. I liked having that accuracy. It was really cool. Because uh, you Robert had your binoculars and you were telling me kinda where were my last one hit? Yeah. And I love that part of it. That was really cool. Getting to have like that. That confirmation of where it hit and then getting to readjust from where I tried decided the last time Yeah, to get it closer. And that's really cool. I like I like that. That kind of shooting

is cool. What do you think about the time? Yeah, like trying to steady yourself? Yeah, I like that part of you see where like the breathing plays a huge factor in it.

Yeah. Body the most still. Yeah. And exhale. It's really tough. Sometimes it is actually. It was like, during the first two shots it was it was almost hard or distracting trying to focus. Yeah, getting my breath. Right. Just to like, practice with those a lot of fun though. I liked was it the 17 that I use? Yeah, yeah, you're shooting? Oh, yeah. You did? Yeah. It's not the same as the 22. It's just like a better rifle. is something we took out last night?

Yeah. So we decided in the rifles. Yep. We set up evening. I was incredible. So the weather cleared out. got like, partly cloudy man. And out here. The view of heart mountain that no one's ever seen it. Like from the side of the hill. It's so cool. It's one of the most impressive. Like masons, they're like pop up and rise over the ground. It's huge on top. It's huge. It is really huge. On top, it's read have the land out here is because it comes out from one side and then it's shelf soft. You think about the Steen's it does the opposite, you know. Yeah. So it's like there's Warner rim out here. We look out we see like the ledge come up and drop off on the east side. Then we see heart mountain come up on the west side, and then slope off to the east. Yeah. And then we see the Steen's kind of slope up from the west. And then like drop off really steeply on the east side. It's really trippy, like how it kind of goes like around here but these little shelves of land that like tipped up they like rows or something underneath pushing up that one side.

Yeah, it's really interesting. topography it's Yeah. I mean, how wide across is hard, man? I mean, it takes you like an hour and a half to dry. It's a bit big. Yeah, that seems like a long time. Let's do it like 55 miles an hour on a gravel road, you know?

Seems like a ton of time on a gravel road. Right is really cool. Like the view from Arizona. Can you see that whole front face Yeah. of the other mountain set of apart mountain,

especially in the sunset in the morning. So cool looking. You guys got some cool pictures last night when we

went last night was easy. Light was so cool. But yeah, so we set up Marina can we take some pictures for a while and then Robert like we set up, we got the I have the 22 you had the 17. And then we went out for another rabbit hole, which is really cool. I was my first time that good i was i never I never done any hunting stuff before I went I got my hunting license just a couple of days before the trip. And it was cool work with a 22 bit it's cool talking with you for a few and going over what to do but at a really fun time. Like getting set up. Walking out kind of cruising through the stage. Yeah, and like you keep an eyes up but let's see what we we got packed up. We started. You went for what two miles or three miles yesterday saw him? Yeah. Didn't get a shot out. We started yesterday evening together, took off. What was what was that? What was our hanstone

we leave camp I give I give bill here quick little run over like rundown of what we're gonna do, you know, safety behind this net. And so we take off over out of camp. I don't know, what do we hike 200 yards, maybe? Maybe? Yeah, maybe maybe that'd be a generous assessment and then bam, all of a sudden, I don't know, probably 30 or 40 yards off and you see a jackrabbit kind of cruising across the sagebrush. And I just kind of pulled up on my song. And then I pulled up where I thought it would be.

I saw you do that. And I looked over I was like, what really? robber spotted something already? I wasn't even bored. like walking, walking around. Yeah, like, like when you're fishing. You're like, Oh, come on. Yeah, I've been. Yeah, it's been like, like, I haven't seen a jackrabbit forever. Like, there's no shot today, but then like, Yeah, what, like 130 minutes into the hunt. robbers posted out by the COVID. Once you see you over there. Robert, seas move. You said if you take a shot, take a shot Blaine. Got a beautiful shot to you. I'm not I'm not trying to be full of myself. It was a really good shot. Yeah, we cruise up. We cruise up on his up on them. Like that. The puncture was like

right in the breadbasket man right behind the shoulder and like, about an inch and a half, two inches back behind the shoulder. Wow. Which all the vitals are in there. So it got him he was dead instantly. Because I usually like when you get them drive to school. But yeah, usually when you get on I mean, there's you know, they'll kick around for a second or two. And you can usually see where they are. But he just dropped I didn't see him at all. Yeah, you know, so I ended up walking up over there kind of right where I thought I'd hit him. And yeah, so then we feel dressed them right there.

I've never not really like seen that. Done out there in the wild. Yeah. No, it was cool. Like it was. It was Yeah. Interesting to see what what you went through. And like, it's interesting to see like, also like, I mean, at least for Robin is a smaller size, but how quick you can go through and clear out an animal. Yeah, yeah. Be Done. Yeah.

It seemed like a pretty quick cleanup of you. skinning it and then taking out the organs and stuff. Yeah, prepared me. Well, it took about 15 minutes to finish it. Yeah,

it was really quick I thought but man for like, as big as it is like, when you when you get it down. Like that's a lean animal. And like without that, like the cap pounds. I like the ribs. There's no meat on the ribs. Which seems like a little bit of me. And like the the arms and legs or something or like kind of around behind but that's about it. Yeah, it was like the back around the spine and stuff like that for muscles but back strap on it. Like, a little bit bigger than a pencil. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, no. So okay, so we got that. I ran it back to camp, washed it. hung it up to cool. And then I met back up with you. Yeah,

that was what five minutes into? Yeah. So still. Still. I was like, Alright, let's go. Let's keep doing it. Yeah. So we ended up high. We hiked the good distance last night. Did you like it? We came over a couple of rises across that Creek. Yeah. And then like coming when we when we came around? It took a while to get back to that Creek, but we pass those Yeah, it's like a little bit but yeah, we had like, yeah, we just like walked around and kept cruising. I don't think we saw. We didn't we didn't see anything

else. Then we got back far after dark. Where I was pretty dry. There was a point where I was like, if this isn't the ridge, like I mean, I know where I was, you know, I was using this this Mesa kind of out here as a as a landmark. Yeah. And I could still see it kind of highlighted in the, in the waning sunlight of

the sun, you know.

Anyway, yeah. So I was kind of using that as my reference, but then it was to the point where I was like, man, I thought this was our ridge. Oh, yeah, like and the hill is rolling. enough that you're like, Well, I hope we just like yeah, it was a little ways down, but we just kept going. Yeah, I see we hit the road or something. I mean, yeah. There was no way we were lost. There was there's definite possibility that we weren't sure where we were. But there was no way we were lost. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, we ended up when we came out, like right on top of the truck. Yeah.

Yeah. It seemed like I felt like we were on track. But remember when we got there? Like, we stopped for a second. We hit the coyotes.

Oh, yeah. Because often that is that was cool, man. Like, you're crazy, man. Yeah. Yeah. They're smelling like, hey, these guys. Let's go rabbits. Let's go raid their camp. Oh, we gotta go see if those Cody's packed off that

pile. Oh, yeah, I wanted I was thinking they're gonna be trying to hunt that down.

Well, okay, so then. Quick little story. Last night. You guys didn't wake up to this, but I stick through it. I slept. I slept straight through. I can't believe it. Yeah, for 19 this morning, I'm waking up to some coyotes howling right near camp. And I'm listening to him. It was probably five or six of them. And they're going back and forth. And I've got Layla, my Australian Shepherd with me and she's in the tent. And I didn't know. I mean, I'm hearing all this. I'm I'm kind of like, you know, I don't hear anybody stirring. I don't hear her like growling or barking out here. Failure Marina and the 10 over. I'm like, I know this is really loud right now. But anyway, that these coyotes that come up and then the one was barking, like I mean, it couldn't have been 15 feet outside my head. Whoa, you know, and that's why I couldn't believe you guys. I wonder what else is cruise right outside? Oh, it stopped. And I've had that happen before on other hunting trips where they'll come up and it's like, I don't know if the wind was at its back and it can sent us or something. And it just got right there. And all of a sudden was like, whoa, I'm in camp because we had that honey one year with my dad and I were laying in our on our beds there. And they came right into camp, just like howling, howling Hill and all of a sudden, they all just stop. And then they bailed. They're just like, all of a sudden they figured it out that they're like in somebody's camp. That's kind of the vibe I got last night because he was just going nuts. And then Laila kind of started to freak out. Like, this is attack dog. She's I had to hold her wine.

Good.

Bye, but yeah, it took off but that was pretty neat.

That is cool. Yeah. Yeah, like who's in the camp? But so I was there coyote running crews bags camp. We got dinner going. Yeah, we had the fire going. We had that rabbit. hole we prepped that rabbit. You You butchered are you?

So I cut all the usable meat out of it. We discarded the carcass I guess. But then what we did is we well, salt and pepper did and then some garlic powder. And then Honestly, I just threw it out right over the fire. Yeah. And let that cook. Made sure it was definitely well done. But honestly, we had that first bite, which I think was part of like, what would be like the tenderloin part of it. Which is like as big around as your pinky. It seems like a pretty tiny. Me. But anyway, yeah, we we sampled that because that was the first thing that was, you know, fully cooked for us to sample. And that kind of had like, it was a definite game. changer. You know, like, it almost had a fish.

I swear. Like a little bit of fish flavor. Yeah. Well, it's a rabbit out here. I don't know.

I mean, it's just a little

I always hate that. You know, we spend so much time like figuring out the answers to really difficult questions and theories. And then you don't know what a rabbit eats carrots. Yeah, I know.

Yeah, let's go play and I don't know why. But yeah, I was like, why don't I like my state's like, the high desert.

Yeah, that's gonna be one of those questions like, kids ask you when you're older. You sound like a dumb ass just like one of the kid inquiries and you're like, I have no idea.

No, it was really it was cool. Getting the like the lace cooktop. Yeah, we got him The fire for a bit. I chewed on for a while you did or Yeah, I ended up a bit and I just got stopped out a bit but but it was really good. It was cool.

Honestly, I thought the legs the legs had a way better taste kind of fun thing was gone after that one. Yes. But yeah, I put a little bit of barbecue sauce on which I don't think hurt him at all. I don't think that that that you know I was actually pretty happy with that I

was like yeah for doing it just over the coals on the fire. I was really yeah, sounded like, rabbit. We got the ridge over for my camp and we have our well I guess it's a couple hours ago. Oh, yeah, we made a creative. Yeah, that was really that was cool.

That was really cool. I really appreciated that process of it of I've never had any kind of hunting experience before. It was cool. I can follow you guys. I was like 30 feet back while Yeah, I mean, I brought my camera, stop taking pictures, taking some pictures. And it was cool. Robert is a hunting Pro. As far

as everything in three minutes,

I definitely made it look like those are those. I'd like to say that happens all the time. That was one of those precious moments.

just gone out from Camp like your Santa and just catching a little rabbit in our feed for the night and Robert processing it.

cooking it on the fire or just kind of like you could you could slow cook it or boil it or there's probably some other ways to go about it. It's fun. Like just eat it like Yeah, okay. primitive form. Yeah, like the American Indian that used to live out in this area too. Like Yeah, they probably did a lot of the same kinds of things.

Well, we got to try again the night and if we do well we're gonna make a stew out of it. Oh, I'd love to do it. Yeah, get some boiling water going.

Yeah. cooked up in there and dig a little rabbit potatoes. Yeah, we got a bunch of carrots. a madman I think that's gonna be great.

It was makes me think of that Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know, there was like picking them up and putting the carrots in there. Eating the carrots.

Yeah. Or the Porky Pig one but I was always thinking like, why would you put a live pig in the oven?

Yeah, that's gonna create some complications. That's gross was not the way you do that.

Yeah, previous to this. That's like my experience with game with game. You need a big boiling. Why did you teach me while game prep? Yeah, I think it comes down to a lot about life. Oh, absolutely.

You know, and it's funny because I couldn't get it out of my head. It's just like the Elmer Fudd thought going into my head Oh my god. Why you keep practice you will start paying off your learning for

now but that's like that's one of the sweet moments of honeymoons like the way that worked out. Because there's so many times I mean, like perfect example the night before you guys got here. I was out for like, two hours and I got skunked. Big time. I didn't even meant I didn't get a shot off. I didn't even get a good look. I saw a ton of them. I mean, I saw 10 times the rabbit we saw yesterday. Right? I was surprised but I got one.

Yeah, that was an interesting part of hunting yesterday. Was the you got that one rabbit just immediately but then there were not any other I swear there weren't any Yeah. Did you know I didn't see any anything. I didn't see a thing I did I got the watch. Oh, boy.

Yeah, so we finished up the rally last night we packed away dinner we tried to suffer through the cold it cleared off did big time the wind stop to disaster was on which was really cool. That made a huge difference. Such a big difference. I mean, yeah, the night so much more comfortable to get through. But it cleared off. And it got really cold. We could see like it was cool. We started you can see a bunch of the winter constellations. Yeah, that was like over the ridge over here and then we stayed up pretty late and you saw Jupiter pull up over the top of our mountain. A few like the summer constellations that was kind of cool. And it's so dark out here like this. You can see a lot of the deeper like fire pits. I

love that. Zero light pollution. Yeah, you know, I guess plushes out there but Oh, three flashlights by eight miles was ruined.

Yeah, great, great view out here for skywatching. So it's cool. How much? How many more layers of stars you can see out in a really dark sky?

How many more? Yeah, we, Robert and I were talking about that cuz we were looking at the North Star. And we were looking at the Big Dipper. And we're kind of moving around a little bit and you're like, wow, there's like so many more stars right there that you can normally see. Like, yeah, a number of the stars in. In the Little Dipper. They're almost like too faint to see. And most in most situations for most people's eyes. I think it's like it's like a fifth or sixth magnitude star. And we can see it no problem when you're just like, oh, whoa, it's like, absolutely right there. You just see this like little tiny structures so much. Such a brighter way. Ben's really cool.

You guys got some great photos. I hope we got some good ones. Yeah, we did get some cool ones. We did some long exposure photos while we were there.

Yeah, we should get a new set of hot hands each. Those are super necessary. For easy like we saw the frost in the hood of the car.

Yeah, I didn't want the fire and then we decided to go do those photos. And when we lived by the truck, you guys pointed out that it is cool. That's

cool, man. Yeah, it was super icy out but that was cool. Yeah, we hiked down to the to the end of the little room where I can't set that. Set up the tripod with the camera on it. Yeah. And yeah, took a handful of photos of like, apart mountain as part of it. And then the stars and stuff above it. That was pretty cool. I thought that was pretty fun. That was awesome. So

below is push your photo. Yeah, so I'm sure you can check out some of those photos. Marina though. If you guys don't know her from other podcasts that she co hosts with Billy Newman, the night sky podcast. Check it out. Pretty interesting stuff. Space Marina is quite the photographer as well.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. It's

a little like, a little background on you. How long have you been doing photography?

I've been doing photography. Seriously since 2011. Probably. And I've always been really interested in Visual Arts. I guess I was really into drawing and painting.

Yeah, you're just artistic by nature, like so. Yeah, photography was bound to be good.

Yeah, I loved it. I had a lot of I was really into photography. When I was a kid. I had a lot of disposable cameras.

And some nice

little point and shoot cameras. Later on that were Yeah, you know, those little single lens ones? Oh, yeah. You put batteries in. Take your filming. Like still would feel like really extreme for me. Camera. So yeah, I was really into that. And then Billy and I did that first big road trip that we went on in the fall or end of summer and into fall of 2011. And that was my first time getting to use like real professional camera equipment. With detachable lenses and a body that was like made out of metal.

Yeah, and I know. You guys pack around. It's like it's so heavy. Glass. Yeah. glass and metal. is a bag full of glass. Yeah. Awesome. I want a couple fragile, expensive. No, like, last night like I had my backpack. You know, which is pretty. I mean, it's got some weight to it. But it's like it's pretty light in comparison to like what you're packing around following along. You know, maybe we don't even Honey, you just like just taking photos. Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah, you got a bunch of cool photos. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. It was so beautiful yesterday. Yeah, colors were amazing. And the clouds were just straight to

Yeah, this is really one of the nice nicer times I've been out here. It's cool having all the texture along the hillside. So yeah, one of my other favorite times a year out here and is it October in the early fall because the season starts to shift a bit. There's the Aspen cheese. I hear that a lot where we are at right now. But there's like a handful of groves closer to heart mounted up on Warner rim. And it's super cool because you get in those and it's just like bright gold and orange. Yeah, it's super beautiful. But yeah, like that's me here. I guess like this is the earliest I've ever been over here. Other than that had been like may like early May or something.

Yeah, I was gonna say I'm probably about the same time like late spring. Yeah, that's about Tom's I've made the trip out of here.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No,

I didn't really. I was gonna say it's interesting getting to be out here during different seasons where you get to experience the different weather. It only been out here or out in this area a few times that I've come with Billy. And it was really during very dry times a year. Yeah. And it's interesting being out here now and having there be a bunch of clouds in the sky and rain storms and, and there's water in the lakes. Yeah,

there's a lot more water. There's some green out here. I mean, that's obviously like alfalfa. No, we're gonna You and I were talking about that last night. We're like, you know, if you come out in the summertime to the same place, no matter where you are, or like, you come out of the same season every year. Like, that's all you ever know of that place. You know? Yeah. And if, like, if you really enjoy a place and want to, like experience it, I think it's good to kind of suffer through those wet windy days and really get to understand I

think it was so worth it. Honestly, it's like, I think even more beautiful.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, whether, yes, that it's that take on it that nobody else gets to see. Oh, yeah, I

think some of the extreme weather you get out here is one of the best parts of it. Yeah, especially Yeah, for photos or for dynamics, or just the visual part of being here that experience of like, I mean, cuz you know, like Eastern Oregon, like it seems arid, or it seems like maybe there isn't something here. But man it is like super interesting and has a really strong presence about it. Like just the way the way it feels being out here. A man teeming with life. Like I like Yeah, why don't come here in the Coyote. Yeah, here are like getting a rabbit here. Here in the rabbits. Yeah, classic. But yeah, it's this whole area is like is really full of a lot more life than you would first thing given that it's like 200 miles until you get to another small town.

Yeah, I know. It's It's crazy. Like Yeah, rock as far as you can see,

when you go north there. It's like there's nothing like there's nothing to to the west until the edge of a bit rim. Yeah, from here. There's nothing to the east. Like I mean, French glide if you can count that. But you can jump over to the Steen's there's nothing. The alvord there's nothing like out to McDermott. McDermott. Yeah. Who's heard of McDermott? Yeah. And then like from your north, it's like, all the way up to like highway 20 when you get up to wagon tire, and Riley and burns. Yeah. Like we're really kind of away from everything. Oh, yeah. Oh, here it is. Yeah, is really remote. I remember. I remember seeing like some fighter jet. Like tests out here. You'd see him come up. And yeah, you seem like whoa, coming out of Klamath Falls doing their like simulated dogfights and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You seem like both. I remember one time we sound like Bolton over Australia in between, like heart mountain in the scenes, but they came out that senate Bay is Yeah, a few seconds to get to the top. We came up to the north end here. And then like, shot back down this way south into Nevada. Okay. And then, you know, went on from there. But yeah, it's like, Wow, she's moving around all the time. I remember like we have when we were out in the Steen's for that ship like, and to the scenes and alvord. One of those days, maybe even two of them. There was like, one of the fighter jets that came over. Hey, do you see that afterburner, like roaring anywhere? And then you finally do spot it and it's like, just like a speck like small fingernail your pinkies Yeah, in the sky, you know, arm's length when you look out to there's just like some little black speck that looks like what got to be that just like, yeah, to do that. You know? Yeah. Just for the afterburner on you actually. bolt through half of Oregon in 10 seconds. Yeah. Your blast, man. Just like 15 minutes. Yeah, I'll be over Spokane in two minutes. from wherever in area 51. That was like kind of the old can see to like area 51 out in Nevada, you know, remote Nevada. But what's north of remote Nevada? remote or? Like pick up here? And like, if you look at the map, it's one of the most remote sections of the United States. We're really almost all this is a public land.

Yeah. It's awesome. When you look at the map like that, it's you get to see how much of this is just open. Like, that's what's cool is you're not like we're just going wherever we want camping wherever we want. I really don't have to worry about Yeah, trespassing. Yeah.

Part of it. Yeah, we were talking about that a little bit. Last night or yesterday, too. So how cool it is that there's so much out here that we just get to drive around and hike through any part of it that we want. Yeah. And I really, I really love that for outdoor stuff. I always have a hard time when you get into places where you really have to just stick to the designated

area. handle it, especially a couple of times I have to do this you know, I want to go cowboy. Truck over one. I know how to walk in the

ins I can get her. I just feel like a dog on a leash. Yeah, like, like at a rest stop. Yeah. All right, go use the ground, but not too much.

Yeah, I don't want to camp somewhere where there is a higher density of people then. Like the house that I live at in town.

Yeah, that's another thing that I love about you out here. Is there is nobody else out here. You can't be neighbors. Like, daddy. I love that. I love the generator. A lot of the day hope you don't mind. Yeah, let's march to right like this time of year. Oh, yeah. No competition besides out here.

Yeah, you can do anything out here right now. there nobody around like this. Yeah, zero competition. We should maybe even have to the hotsprings Oh, yeah. Yeah. What is that right now? Or it's a way of looking like right at the mouth.

Yeah, but it's

a three hour roundtrip? Yeah.

Past past 130 last night, so who knows? Maybe we'll have some time or something like that. Yeah. I mean, tomorrow, Sunday. It's kind of like,

do whatever we got to do tonight. Got to do. Yeah, it'd be really fun. I want to get a bunch of stuff done. I'm glad we're doing this podcast. I want to do some bonus stuff. I wonder who's shooting stuff?

Yeah. taking it easy.

Oh screws out somewhere. They can make a picnic lunch. Yeah, baloney down here at the plush store. Got a loved one.

You know what I was impressed though. When I started like you to fill up I paid 15 cents less and gown and I didn't tell before I left. Oh, but which always trips me out. It's like you get out to these remote areas where like, you got to figure the shipping to get it in here was so much more costly than what it was to bring him to a place that's five minutes off the interstate. You know? We never seems to be that way. Sorry. We dropped the phone. It rattled loose around a gravelly washboard road because he doesn't know I don't know washboard is very much like driving over a washboard it's the old cat tracks to get stuck in the road when they're paving them. I thought it was a natural erosion path also too and then I talked to a guy that was doing a bunch of machine work and he was saying that washboard was for older cats bringing leveling out when they

graded Okay, so I couldn't believe it but man I've seen it like get worse you know? Or does it is it does it start with the cat track and

then the erosion is like it's packing only certain areas and then as it rains and stuff it just like erodes out those areas that haven't been as heavily packed. Oh,

man, I've been on somewhere like it's been graded and it's alright but then like after a while like rains and stuff. Ah, man it just gets super bad. I think she's still back there. She's sitting here but you get on that watch for like going like 20 miles an hour that wrong frequency and it's just like rattles the whole car.

It'll like rally off the road. Have you ever felt out? Oh, yeah, you know, yeah. But honestly, the only way to really get through washboard like cuz I didn't really realize that was there until just now because I've been doing like 60 on it. I've driven out so far. She's like me, just like standing up with one leg on the rail and

it's freaks me out when he passed he bought like flat in the back or some word track and they're just like standing there. Yeah, like that. That's where you beg you guys just cruising through down the corners and stuff with your dog just standing in the back.

I don't know some people might have badass dogs man. Layla is a she's a city slicker man. She looks like a sea slugger. And she does face in the wind. Well, you know she's she's adjusting get a couple more ticks on her a little more does. She's gonna look like she's born. She's a wild dog. She's gonna look like can I now run off of Robin, thanks for doing this podcast with me. This is Episode Seven. Read it. Thanks for hanging out for joining us our first guest star Thank you so much. Yeah, you guys. Yeah, that's pretty cool. All right.

So yeah, we're gonna cruise into forgot keys in the big city plush. Yeah. Pick up a couple. I don't even know me but more water water. Water. That's why we're going out of water. We're gonna cruise into flash. We're gonna poke around some of the Larry's around the lakes out here for a bit. Yeah. Try figure out some more stuff. Do another podcast tonight. That'll be cool. We'll keep you posted. Thanks, everybody for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. Tune in again next time. We'll have some more stuff. Thanks. Bye bye

Winter steelhead fishing on the Alsea river. Navigating public lands. Mountian travel on forest service roads.

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

Get-out-there-06-Fishing-The-Alsea-River_otter.ai

Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. I'm here with Robert biskra. How you doing, Robert? Hey, Billy. I'm doing well. How about you? I'm doing good, man. Thanks for calling in doing Episode Five. We got we got the feed started. We got a couple episodes up. It's kind of fun. Thanks for doing the podcast. Yeah, we're moving right along. We're getting a couple in for the little bit of time that we've been doing it, but so we finished up a conversation. In Episode Four, we talked about some of our experiences backpacking, like I was talking about the wallflowers you're talking about that King range chip you had. And I know at the end of it, we spoke, we just kind of come up to that idea where we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the equipment that we brought with us, or like some of the breakdown that we had and the gear that we'd bring when we were backpacking. Or when we're doing other stuff. I wanted to break that that idea down with you a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty important it can make or break a trip kind of depending on what you have or don't have. Yeah, I've definitely miss packed before. Oh, yeah. So Oh, God, Robert. Oh, I was just gonna I was just gonna say you tend to overpack or under pack. Let's see, I think well, so I guess I've gone for backpacking. Originally, I was overpack. Now, it's probably still overpack, but I've gotten it. I've gotten a pretty tight when I'm in shape for it. I do an okay job. But what I noticed there was when you like you accidentally or you just mishap and don't bring something that you really needed, like the way it's always been for me is like a sleeping pad, or something like that. Like it's like that thing where it goes from like, it's like 30% less of a comfortable trip just because of that one thing that you don't have. Yeah, weighs so little. Yeah, you have you have everything else in association with it. But you don't have that one piece that I think that's happened a couple times before, like, I don't know, it's probably happening with like my stove, or food or something like that. Like we talked about Tabasco on our last chip. Yeah, that that just one ingredient. This would be rad. See, I'm

I'm the opposite. I always tend to overpack I, like I, I go overkill. I just start getting into that mindset of like, Well, okay, what if I had to make a splint? Well, okay, well, I need rope. Okay. What if I had to do that? And I just get into all these, you know, hypotheticals and then reacting for every situation I could think of, I've backed through way too many hypotheticals. Yeah. But you know, what's funny is, you do all that planning. And then the one thing that would happen would be the only thing you didn't compensate for.

It's really true. Sometimes that's, that's a real part of the compensation about the outdoors, you get, like, you can plan for a lot of hypotheticals. And I want to break this down with you to later probably, but like the idea of like, equipment that you bring, versus risk, like, How likely is that risk to happen, that you need the equipment? There's probably some different experiences we've had around that. But it's just kind of like a weird idea of how much how much effort goes into preventing certain types of things. When maybe like, a lot of that stuff can be handled with like a Leatherman, I guess, if you think or like, yeah, some some Swiss Army knife. Yeah, exactly. orbit, like some level of good bass gear, it seems like that's the thing that I've gotten the most comfortable about in the last, I don't know, a couple times a backpacking or like the longer times that we've done backpacking, when you get like, a little bit more focused in on just the few things that you need to do for that five day period, that you're going to be there. Because that's a really, that's the big thing. And the, it's weird how you noticed this, the longer that you go out, the less you you finally realize, the less you need to bring at all. Like, if you go for 80 days, you almost need to bring nothing but if you're going for three days, you seem like in your mind, you need to bring everything.

Yeah, that's that's funny, you bring that up, because that's exactly how that works. Isn't that like, I don't, I don't know if it's like the the complex of like, you just can't, you just can't really foresee 80 days in the future. So you just you kind of give up, you're like, well, I can't even plan for this, you know, yeah, I'll just bring my minimalist stuff. Or where I'm three days, you're kind of thinking like, well, this might happen. This might happen. day three, okay, this, I'll need this.

Yeah, you're trying to navigate every corner in every maneuver of this future map of circumstances that you might run into. And then you can

Yeah, you do the thing where like, you know, you're going for three days also and you're like, well, wow, I have so much room. You know, I only have three days worth of stuff, which is pretty minimalist. And then you end up going, oh, well I got this and this and then snacks before you before you know it. Yeah, you just pack.

Six Pack in the top. Yeah. Yeah. And that's happened a couple of times. I was trying to think about how that worked out for me. I remember early on when I did when I did like a couple early backpacking trips. We talked about this in that first episode, I think doing some stuff on the lower road. Maybe the second one. We're, yeah, that first chip, I did the 40 whatever, miles down the lower road. And it was just way rushed. And it was way too heavy and all the stuff you like, we brought a bunch of cans, we didn't have a can opener and like, like, What was this? What was the system that was going behind this, like, you get things that work in a kitchen, but there's no system and that that helps you? You know, do that in the backcountry, I guess. Or to keep things good or, like purify enough water to have a that's always that was always one having so otter with you. So that's something I want to ask you what kind of what kind of water purification? I have always been under, under attack about this. Like I really wanted more equipment for water purification, it's probably well, you know, I've been fortunate a lot of the time. But yeah, it's it's been risky, maybe one or two times, but I've only ever had this squeeze bottle charcoal filter, like you fill it up with maybe 12 ounces of water and you squeeze it out of this filter. What we would do Marina and I when we go backpacking, we were up in the well, ours we were up in the Trinity Alps, we were up in the Tetons, it was a lot of spots where it was like really clean snowmelt. So worked out on our favor a lot of times on the other hand, there was times where we were on the lower rogue in the canyon, and there's really no good you know, as mosquito puddles or whatever it is,

that's, that's where I caught Giardia. Oh, yeah, mosquito puddle. But that's Yeah, that was that was nasty. And that was my filter broke. And that was the biggest thing I learned was a, I don't know, you always hear an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yeah, like it's man, just maintaining your equipment, cleaning it after every trip doing, just doing the basic maintenance that your equipment requires.

That's something I've not understood for a long time. And yeah, that the system that we had for water was super, basically we just we'd fill up the 12 ounces, we put the top on and we'd like squeeze, you have to like kind of crush it through the charcoal filter to get it to those those moves slow to way slow. So you fresh it out. So we'd have like our Nalgene bottle, like between our knees and our hand just kind of like crushing down on this creek water that we were trying to push. We're trying to put an analogy, we had like three or four of them that we had to sit at the creek at to pump out you know, I don't know two or three liters of water to take back the camp with us or to go hiking with for the next rest of the day. So I used that I use just that one filter for like three years. I'm like, wait, you wait too many gallons of water, I think for that until the chocolate is finally broke off. Or you know, like the whole filter unit just finally broke off. I figured it's probably it's probably does it have that break off on a trip? It did? Yeah. That's when they always do. Yeah, well, I think it was. I know we were on a trip and we realized we really couldn't get water. So that was tough. But I think I think that was up in the Trinity app. So that was Yeah, that was in like Northern California. And we were fortunate enough that we just didn't get sick, but it was like it was snowing. I mean it was super, super cold. super crisp water like right up above the treeline.

So yeah, when you're the treeline, you're usually pretty safe. I mean, your your chances of having an animal defecate or die in the creek or something is pretty minimal. Yeah, but But yeah, I know. We're in Kings Canyon. There were a ton of places where I mean after the Giardia incident was kind of like you know I'm not taking any chances but sure the same time you know if if it was if I were ever in the situation where I needed to take the risk I couldn't really picture a better place to take it.

Oh yeah, it was like that. What do you do? Okay, like iodine tablets with you for water purification ever? No, I haven't. I've heard they've kind of got a funky taste. I don't know. I've heard that they do too. But I guess I've heard like well I think maybe this this situation like we're talking about is you said that maybe around for your your backup water supply? No, no would you not do it? I just GRT all the way man what's your what was the water filter that you picked or pick now?

Cuz I need to buy with this specific name of it, but it's a attitude or and I love it man. It's like It's like to two liters a minute. So it's actually pretty Yeah, it's super-efficient. And but it's got like a filter band on a hose. And then it's basically got like a hand lever like he would see the old the well pumps back at like the turn of the century how people would gather the groundwater. Sure, that makes the same same basic setup, and then it runs through a filter. as like a sediment trap that'll catch any large sediment coming in. And then it goes up through like a carbon disk. And then it comes down through a charcoal filtration system. And then back through an actual, like, I don't know, some kind of cloth filter. So it has three, three variants of filtration before it actually gets through to your

to your G Nalgene bottle or whatever your Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Has it worked out pretty well for you? Like, did you use that down river a lot? Or did you guys have other systems on the boat when you're doing?

You know, we carry all of our own water on the boat? Like, before we leave? We'll we'll load up, you know, five or six, five gallon cans of water. Yeah. Okay, that's bigger that makes, so we just bring all that? Yeah, I mean, when you're running commercial, stuff like that. It's just, I mean, any type of risk you can mitigate?

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't use it for commercial stuff. But I was wondering for you, or like, if you had, like, if you'd put it through a lot of repetitions of its pace, you know? Or what I guess what I was wondering is like, how long does it last? What's the kind of maintenance that you ran into with the issues you had with your Okay, so,

so what I didn't do, they have new gaskets that come with it, okay. They have new carbon discs, they have new charcoal that you put in there. You need to keep the gaskets lubricated. So that way, when you let it sit for a year and a half before your next trip, you don't pull it out. And those gaskets are cracked. Oh really. And that I just kind of had, you know, the hailstorm of all three of those things, where it was just like my sixth trip that I'd used it over the period of like three and a half years. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I just didn't maintain it, and ultimately ended up kind of paying for that.

Man, that's so sad. That stuff. Well, you know, lesson learned, though. Oh, yeah, sure. Hit that. Yeah. I remember there was a there was one ship that we did. She This is the nutty thing is that, like when in origin, it's great, because you have this luxury of just being able to carry a water filter with you and have this assurance that you're going to run into consistent water supply, for your whole backpacking trip through the wilderness. We have a lot of creeks and stuff, a lot of the places maybe you and I'll probably go are in like mountain areas where like we're talking about like going up into an Alpine lake or something like that. There's no way that Creek feeding off of that, or some kind of snowmelt system through that draw. And you're going to be able to pull water from that for the for the time that you're there. But what was tricky is, is when we were out further east, I think we were out in Utah, we went to Capitol Reef, and we did a backpacking trip there. And yeah, it's tricky because out there, when you get into Utah, or probably anywhere in the southwest region there, you have to bring all the water with you on a backpacking trip. So it's just part of the way you pack. It's pretty nuts. And it's I think it's like a ratio of about two gallons per person per day, which seems, you know, relative reasonable, really, but if you're doing just a couple days, that means like each person is carrying another eight pounds or, you know, eight gallons of water, which is a ton. Yeah, which is 64 pounds of water. It was I remember we did we did Capitol Reef. We had, I think, four gallons. So I think Marina and I both had two gallons, maybe I think I might add more gallons. But she probably cared a lot of gallons of water. And we get all this water up there, and it was a lot. It was ridiculous. But uh yeah, it was probably another 30 pounds each. Yeah, no, I believe it I mean water is super heavy and it takes up a lot of space. It takes up so much space. Yeah, there's a picture of me just kind of strapped and gallon jugs. We didn't even have like a system of like, we don't like even a camel pack. That's like you know two liters that's ounces. Yeah, you're gonna get an hour Yeah, so So yeah, you have that full that's on your chest and you have like three just gallon bottles of water kind of strapped around your back

Did you did you have like a like a pole strapped across your shoulders with

the big bucket side? I put over the top of my head is a high ground. Yeah, there that's like the environment that it seems like you'd need it but it was strange because they were I think they were a couple water sources around but they had dried up by that time in the year, you know, they're seasonal. I think they're like, in that area the desert and it's it's really remote out there when you get out the Capitol Reef because there's no big town near there. Really? Oh, you know what I mean? I mean even I guess Death Valley is kind of the same way but but Las Vegas is sort of close to it. But out in Capitol Reef, man, there was nothing out there. And it was just super dry and super. It was super caustic to your your being what you were out there. What kind of what time of year were you? We were there in October. And it was okay. And it was still pretty high. It was that it was still like oh man like in the day. This is kind of hard. To do, but we did, I think like a handful of miles in to this arch that was back there that we were at a camp by and we had a couple days out there. It was cool. It was really remote. It was interesting to see some of that landscape out there. But man, there was no water to be found. It was just high desert. Like, there was like a mud pit. There was maybe four or five miles further. You know that that was like the saving grace back in the 1800s. When you're a frontiersman in that area. Imagine that with no gear no water filter. No, yeah, you're out of water for a while, but there's a chance that there's this muddy pit. That's like a natural spring a few miles up this way. And you might be able to get enough water to survive to your next drop off. days, man, it'll days, that would have been terrible. Yeah, yeah. You think about what the frontiersman would have had to have George just get through to get through dealing with waterfalls, or, I mean, obviously, they're not filtering their water, but just dealing with the water sources that they have to encounter.

Yeah, I don't even want to think about that. They'd argue that we're probably live in the good old days. That's probably

But yeah, I don't think I've had like a big problem with the water filter before we've done what we because we'd always like have it so that we just have like a big store of water on it's where we were when we were moving. And then well, I was gonna ask you about like, if we were moving on from, from what we were talking about, I wanted to talk to you about like the stoves that you that you would bring. Have you brought like a stove with you much backpacking or or do you try like, not well, yeah, cuz you do. Just the jet bow food all the time. Right.

Yeah. So that's, that's my primary is my jet boil. I mean, you can really do just about anything in there. Yeah, it's great. I mean, they're there. And there's so many different ways to use it. Like, one thing you can do is just, I mean, if you have time, I mean, YouTube is such a vast Information Center. You can go in there and just look stuff up and just like ways to be creative with the Jetboil. I mean, they have they have instructions on how to how to bake in your Jetboil Oh, you can bake a mountain cake while you're up there.

I didn't know that I burned I lost. Like is it just like it just goes to like, hot right away? There's I don't know, I don't know how you bake in it. But that's really cool.

Yeah, it honestly it seemed like more hassle than it was worth, but yeah, so I have a slice. But I mean, but it is possible. That's cool. So other than that, I've just got this like this cheap little. What is that? It's like the isobutane. Is that what we run those?

I yes. I remember what it is. I don't remember that little stove. That's a cool one. That's a good backup stove.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, I think I paid like 30 bucks for it, man, the things tiny. Like, it's just a little backpack and stuff. It's awesome.

Sure. I think those are really useful. You know, we did. We did like our 50 day trip. We did that with just the Jetboil. And we did as much as we could with that, that second trip that we did for like 100 and 110 days or whatever it was. Yeah, we did that with the Jetboil. We had to buy like a propane stove. Like just a single kind of the same idea as a jet boil or a backpacker stove where it's just the burner that fits on top of the top of the tank. We had a buy one of those halfway through the chip. And it was nuts because like we just worn out the jet boil. It was nuts because like so I guess when you use one for 110 days straight. They have a hard time. Yeah, if you unscrew and screw back together, but we still cobbled it together to work because we like we needed to boil water. I remember it was out on the Oregon coast. I think it was a spot that we had taken you to after that. Was it like sisters rock area? Oh, you remember when we were there. That was really cool. That was a cool spot it was fun to so we were there the year before I took you guys there. And we had camped there for the better half of a week or so. And we were using the Jetboil to make coffee and do everything with it. But the the stove part, the threading that goes down where we connect to the gas candidate canister had started to wear out. So it would pop it would blow the stove off of the tank. Like the threading would just it would just pull apart and so it was like it was leaking and you couldn't get it to seal tight enough so that you could you could get a connection from the stove to the tank to draw to burn.

So that brings me to something I want to bring upon this. Yeah, is a big thing that I factor in when I'm packing is materials to fix stuff. Oh yeah. Like that's huge. I mean, like one thing that was good to have in your pack is that it's it's like the plumbers tape. It's like a thin nylon that you wrap around threading to to make a gasket essentially. They make it for for gas. So like propane. stuff. It costs like a buck 29 at, you know, your local plumbing store, Home Depot or something. And, and that's great to have in your pack for exactly that situation because those threads are like a thin aluminum, you know? Yeah. I mean, they're not meant to be taken apart and put back together 1000s of times. Yeah, I have a lot in a situation like that. I mean, that gives you, you know, it's going to create a seal. And you could probably, you know, milk it for another month or two. doing that.

Yeah, so that's, that's exactly what we did in the moment, when we were out there is we took, we took the electrical tape that was in the glove box, and we kind of like a slip of that, just like, we had to do this, like, all the time we, we've set it up on a new canister, and then we would not break it down. We wouldn't touch it until that canister was finished. But we use it for almost the rest of it. Like the part on his sister's rock on the coast. That was like day 15 of 100. So he's using the rest of the time. We had a we had to kind of supplement it with some other thing. Yeah, but But yeah, we just we had to put a little bit of electrical tape around the threading, and then try and like gently work it together. So that would hold enough so we can boil our water and cook our food. But we did that a lot of times, man, we ran through like another half dozen canisters of fuel before we finally probably retired that thing.

Yeah, well, that's great, man. I mean, that's that's what it's about. That's what's cool is like, being on those long trips, or you know, even just a trip or you're away from things, like it forces you to be resourceful and kind of, oh, man, I love that you're on what you can do with what you have.

Yeah, I can't broke our tent pole broke. At one point it was in the wind, a tent was set up, it was weighted down, the wind came in while we were hiking it, it crushed that time and it like it just torque that thing over. it snapped one of the poles. it snapped the one that was kinda under the the heavier tension load. There's a few that were, it was an interesting tent design. But there's there's, like, you know, one that was like, it didn't matter. There's the other one that was torqued around 180 degrees; it was almost like both points were almost touching each other. That thing just like crashed as the tent rolled over on its side. We were like, well shoot. And it was kind of a weird town, we couldn't really get a replacement pole in that length and that size. And so we had to like figure out a way I think what happened is if you would imagine now that the there's the aluminum piece, and then there's the peg of the next aluminum pole as it comes together with your template selection color. Yeah, that color. What had happened is that is that the it just broke out of that, like whatever piece inserted into the piece next to it, it just snapped out it kind of like broke out that that first top inch of a piece of aluminum. And so we went over to this can that we wasn't like a coke Can I think was just like some Tin Can that we that Chilean, something like that, or some canned tomato. And so we like clipped that down and had a roll that with a pencil to get like a little tube. And we'd like to roll that around the broken part to be a splint for our tent pole. So we could keep together on a camping trip. But we still I mean, the tents still like that we use that tent for like another lightning like we're saying, and they're like six or seven months. Way too. Yeah, that's awesome, man. What was that, like? On the 115 days, man, it was so cool. Well, that that goes back around to what we were talking about a little bit at the beginning, when we were saying It's nuts when you think about what you need to bring for three days, versus what you need to bring for. In this case, like 100 days, my thinking about it was not very clear, I was only thinking about like the first week it was really just bring everything, bring everything, have it in your car, be loaded down. I even did this the year before in the car. And I thought I like knew better. But I didn't know that I cut down a lot of stuff, it was a lot easier the second time around. But you really notice that almost everything you can leave home in a big way. As long as you're yourself and in some level of resources around you. You can probably get through or, you know, like survive most days and get to the next one in in a significant amount of comfort. You know if you don't put yourself through hell, I suppose. But it worked out really well. It's time like for it was strange because I guess what I would say is after maybe the first two weeks, first three weeks, I'd say after 15 days, your body acclimates. To do what it's doing in a kind of weird way. I don't know if you had the firefighting or, or if you've had it in like some other situation. But it seems like after maybe some number of days, it seems like you just get a little less dirty every day. Or you're you slam a little better at night. When you Yeah, there was no way you can sleep that well.

Exactly. But that's what happens, man. It's like your body just acclimating. Actually, I was talking about that with my dad yesterday. We were talking about how You know, where we live, it's pretty quiet. So like, we go and stay somewhere like in the, in the center of like a city or something and you can hear people talking and you've got street lamps on total and you'll, you'll lay wide awake for the first few nights, but then by night three, you know, it's like you just get used to the background noise and stuff and you just tune it out, you're just falling asleep. But it's the same thing with being on the road or being up in the hills. It's like, Alright, you know, you get past that initial Oh, I'm dirty feeling and then that's just the way you are. Yeah, it's really just, you adapt to what you do. And there's, there's physical

things to that happen. Like, I swear that I mean, maybe like a suntan is a good example of it. When you're on you have no exposure, and then you're put underexposure, a lot more than you're used to you get burned is sort of what happens so like, if you bet if you build up a tolerance to if you build up a tan, then you don't get burned. You don't get that caustic effect from the exposure, the sun, sort of the same way of camping or being out in the wilderness for a handful of days. It seems like he got a little bit a little bit better at it. Like I remember, I mean probably similar to a sunburn, but man, my lips would chap like crazy as soon as I got over into a different type of climate, or I guess, just a drier atmosphere or something like that. But yeah, as soon as you go east of the Cascades, man, my lips would chap immediately or if you went up in elevation, like up into like an Alpine area. Oh, yeah. But then after I know what, one week, two weeks or something like that, it just wouldn't happen again. And then just thing Yeah, where you get, or like I The thing that I remember the most, this is maybe more of just an awareness piece. I don't know if this happened to you. But I remember I would get cut a lot when I first went camping. Or Yeah, like now like at the beginning of the season, if I went out I'd probably like get, I don't know, some kind of weird, some number of Nicks. From circumstances I was putting myself in with a pocket knife or with wood or with something I had to do. But I my hands would get cut up more. And then, after a pretty short amount of time, I didn't run into any more injuries like that. Just the circumstantial injuries, the small like, Look, yeah, so you get into it just well stop. Yeah. And

that's, that's funny. It's the same thing like, so I work in carpentry, and I can I can count probably 27 cuts between the two of my hands, that, like they're just little one. I mean, a couple of them, you know, are there, you know, oh, yeah, you keep hitting them or hurt when you got them. But it's just like, they're everywhere. And you come home at night, you look at your hands and go What? Like, you're like, Oh, that's a pretty open wound. I didn't know about that, you know, that's just your body just stops interpreting that is like a distress signal. And it's like, this is the norm, this is just what happens. Yeah. And it's kind of like the scent, you know how, like a new smell will be really overpowering. But like, obviously, you go to the landfill, right? And then you spend an hour there and you can't smell it. Yeah, so what that that is, I'm sure you know, but it's a it's your body's defense, you know, it detects new sense and makes them strong, so you're aware of them. But once your body figures out that it's not a threat to you, and your livelihood, then it dissipates and just becomes, you know, a subconscious scent that you're not actively selling.

Yeah, I totally get that. I've heard that before about like different scents and stuff that come through. It's weird. Yeah, it's probably it's probably an effect. It's really similar to that with the stuff about cutting but but man, I remember it was so weird, because we were just in the Camry at the time this old 92 Camry. And like we would notice that we really just wanted to get rid of most of the weight of the things that were in the car, we only needed a backpack or two backpacks, you know, is just nuts. When you figure out like, oh, man, none of this stuff is really like what we need to get at. We really only do these two or three or four things. And we do this pretty repetitively. You don't need the rest of this stuff.

Yeah, no, you don't. And that's, that's what I always enjoy that. Like when by the time you get done with a backpacking trip, or a road trip or something, it really makes you realize how little you need to actually function in your day to day life. Yeah, absolutely. Just just how much excess stuff you just carry around for no reason. You know, you come off a trip like that. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, I live with nothing but a toothbrush and just like, you know, a lot of talking to you. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you come home and you're like, Well, what do I have all this stuff for? No. Yeah.

It's definitely happened. I wanted to ask you about like the downriver stuff that you did on the road. When you were like, Well, I know three or four day trips. Like what that was like and are like so how much gear Do you guys carry down? I mean, there's there's for the guests and stuff, but kind of cutting that out a bit like for yourself, how much gear would you think that is per person? Maybe

so much. Okay, so, so us as guides, pack, I don't want to say minimally, but we pack them, the necessities while staying comfortable. As you know, it's like, you don't want to, to under pack because we live down there, you know, 90 to 100 days out of the year. So it's like you start, you know, really trying to figure out what you enjoy, like good sleeping equipment. Nobody. Nobody goes light on that everybody brings great sleeping equipment. What's the best equipment to bring for the letter of dammit, man, I've got what's called a roller caught. It's like a nylon material that is it's like a rubberized head-on even that explain it. But it's like a measurement.

I saw yours. And I really want that look cool.

It's great. They're super durable. I mean, they're really strong. They're waterproof. You know, I couldn't ask for anything better. And they roll up to the the, you know, the length of your arm and everything's lightweight and aluminum. It's just a good caught. But anyway, that's called a roller caught. But yeah, we take that I take a sleeping pad to kind of create a barrier between the air beneath mean, and shaking bag. Yeah. Yeah, and bring yourself a nice pile of a sleeping bag. And you're good to go,

man that it looks like a really good setup. I like that that cart system that you had, and it says happened, like almost no time at all. Yeah, you

can have it put together in a matter of, you know, less than a minute.

And it seems super durable to like it's not really going to be affected by being weathered over a couple seasons.

Well, yeah, you get like fabric carts and stuff like that. No, you know, just between the Sun and the water and whatever else. What other elements are getting to them, they'll just kind of rip and tear eventually. Yeah. But now when we go on those trips. We the guides for the company pack a pretty happy setup, should we bring in? We bring a full kitchen. So we've got four, you know, stand ups those. We've got tables and pots and pans and jugs of water and coolers and you know, I mean, it's really it's really a big operation that we do. Yeah. And then you know, the guests bring whatever they think they need to be comfortable with. Over the course of three or four days. And like we were talking about when we can potentially overpack on a backpacking trip. People can really overpack when they're not carrying their own bag around. Oh, yeah. You know, they're like, and you get a lot of people do that are from, you know, really urban settings and getting down there and the candy and it's kind of really outside their comfort zone. Totally. I understand just got so much stuff. Yeah. But that's why they hire a gear boater, right.

Yeah, yes. Yeah. That's cool. So um, so like, probably a good amount of equipment. What if you and I just went on a trip, and we had to haul out to a different river, it was a little further away. So you're kind of trying to cut down a little bit? Like what kind of equipment would you bring a sort of a lightweight, single boat trip

with a lot of that would depend on what the fishability of the river was. If it was potentially eating fish. I would cut down on food a good deal. It depends on just how comfortable you want to be. I mean, if you're if you're interested in just having kind of a you know, a back to the basics really kind of fend for yourself experience. You can go really light. I mean, you could go backpacking and light with just a little isobutane stove. Oh, that'd be cool. I don't really want to do something like that. We should. Yeah. Well, I've thought about that a lot. I really want to do one of those. And I want to do like a high desert trip like that, too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, high desert rafting ship. Now, a high desert camping chip that was like backpacking, like that kind of

Alpine. cottontails and in streams, man. Oh, man.

Yeah, like hunt, hunt, and fish for all the food that you have. Or have a couple backpack meals or something? Yeah, yeah, obviously bring it back up. But yeah, that would be the idea. That's a cool idea. Yeah, well, I like the idea of doing it on the on the river that I thought that'd be kind of fun. I have it set up kind of like a like a backpacking ship with a raft. I was wondering how self sustaining Could you be from a raft on a raft ship like, like, how many days do you think you can do?

a raffle? Well, I just had some friends that went on the Colorado and they just did

33 days, 33 days, but they run into stores, right, or do they have anything like that? Like, it's it's probably planned that day.

I, I, from what I understand they packed everything because I Oh, wow, if you're not familiar with river guide culture, everyone's pretty poor. So it's not like, got a ton of money to spend on places. So, I mean, really, it's like you kind of go on the cheap. But I mean, you bring the biggest hang-up is what you need to keep cold. Like if you need to put stuff on ice and things like that. Yeah. If you can cut that stuff back, you can really be very self sustaining. Yeah,

yeah, I figured that was what we noticed car traveling to is man, like having a having a cooler was a constant liability, where we just have to keep doing it. I always lose. Yeah, and we're always losing energy. Like, it's always it's always going out. We're spending a hand like probably a good bit just on ice traveling around. And we finally figured out like one of the things we were talking about earlier, what you think about beginning versus what you think of the end, man cutting down on a cooler or cutting down on ice and things you have to keep cold constantly. That was the biggest improvement of the the maintenance that we had to do for like our trip travel. Yep. stuff. It was it was so frustrating to try and like always keep that and like you're always throwing away stuff that's gone rotten in some way.

Exactly. And then also, when you're in a car, you know, the heat inside the car generally is amplified when you're in? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But the big thing on like, if you're packing a cold cooler, whether it's rafting or camping, or whatever it is, keep it shut as much as possible. You know, every time you open it, you're gonna lose. It's gonna heat up in there. So I mean, just keep it shut. A lot of times, you can duct tape the seal. So you don't lose any, any cold air from there. And do that. And you can really keep food cold for a long time. Or just go to the store. If you know, you're going to be gone for 10 days, get a couple blocks of dry ice and put those into a cooler that just a cooler for your eyes. And then you keep that in there. You keep that wrapped with duct tape. And you only open it when you need to swap it into the cold. Cool. That's a smile. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you've got an icebox and then a cooler essentially.

Okay. I like that. I like that thinking that's kind of that's kind of interesting. You know, we finally invested in a Yeti cooler, like one of those thicker, lined coolers with like the rubber straps that come down. So like clamps itself down the lid. Yeah. How do you? How do you feel about that? They don't they don't sponsor us so I can talk. I can speak my mind. I think that they are I think that they are too expensive. I think that they do keep ice. Well, and it is. It's like one of the better, better ways I've seen of a cooler. What do you what's your experience with them?

Well, I have little experience with them. But I don't know. I mean, it just seems like I mean, yeah, they hold eyes really well. And if I was buying it, for the only reason is to keep ice cold. Sure, then then I could validate that but it just seems like your pain. You know, like 75 bucks on a cooler that it's interior area would hold a six-pack of beer, maybe? Oh, yeah. Yes.

That laid out. 20 court one that we have is small. Yeah. I think that the concept guide right. Nuts use device. Is that you okay? So first you have your cooler Of course, just in the back of your truck. You get a bag of ice. You put the bag ice in the cooler. You shake it around, you leave it there for a half-hour just to chill the cooler. Just because it's too hot inside. Right? Then you dump that bag ice completely. That's gone. Then you put then you put three bags of like, cold ice in there. I think there's like coal ore. What is it? Like? There's wet ice? Have you heard of that? Like, it's like around like, what? 32 or seven? It's like kind of Yeah, running in a liquid. It's what you get at every convenience store. Because they turn up their their freezers to like, as high as it Yeah. But then yeah, so you throw in another three bags of ice, like almost it's like three quarters full at that point. And then you can put in what you're talking about maybe a six-pack of beer in there to keep it in its system, you know, to keep as much ice in the ratios what it thinks you're supposed to. But at that point, it says at least you can keep that for like five days. If you keep the lid shut like you're talking about it's it's Yeah, really well so you can keep that for a long time. It's not often something I've run into as needing but okay.

Oh, that No, I was just saying I I find they work fantastic. I mean, we use them on the river. And I mean they're they're great for keeping eyes but I mean using them as a cooler but you need to get in and out of and that's where you lose that so much of your cold air and stuff is those leads all the time. Yeah. So it kind of doesn't really matter whether or not you've got a Yeti or Coleman or whatever it is. It's when you're in and out of them. You lose the axe. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I see. And that's just kind of what it boils down to. So in that case, I'd prefer to have something with a little bit more area to actually keep food and stuff.

Yeah, no, the the Yeti one that you see like maybe at all right? Yeah, that was a pretty tiny one. Have you seen the big ones like are? Well, probably stuff that you guys would have figured it'd be the same. Yeah, same size coolers. We have the really large Eddie's Yeah. And I've seen the stuff that goes on, like the commercial fishing boats. Like the batches like is huge. Why? Like, I mean, like, see seafaring boats, like these giant, like, bench size Yeti coolers that they build into the side of the thing that they're supposed to throw in fresh catfish. But that's got to be expensive. Oh, yeah. It's got to be an insane custom order, like $5,000. I mean, I guess at that point, it's just like, Well, yeah, we'll make whatever cooler you want. You know, it's just like plastic and styrofoam at some point. So Exactly. There's another company. There's like this other company called Arctic. Like, I think it's our T IC. And they do knockoff Yeti coolers. They they I don't know, drop shipping from China or something like that. But they're like, they're like maybe 100 $150 cheaper than the Yeti cooler price. So it kind of brings, it brings him back in that range of like a Coleman cooler, or like something else that's, you know, more real. Yeah.

And that's, that's the thing, and you start price and coolers, and it doesn't really matter what level of cooler you want to get. Honestly, I mean, for anything decent. You're looking around the 100 bucks. Yeah, yeah. It's really charming. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's just kind of like, you know, your average. Yeah. I mean, with the

Yeah, snaps on the side that you take to the to the tailgate,

you can get those guys for like 39 bucks, or something, you know, but it's like, but if you get into like a steel-belted cooler, or anything that actually supposed to function correctly, right when you're out on a trip. Yeah. I mean, you're kind of looking at a minimum of 100 bucks.

I figure that's, that's definitely true. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's what that's that's another thing too, is like how much money you can invest in your equipment like that? Well, we were talking about that boat, you know, getting a custom Yeti cooler. It's five grand. Yeah, I know. But yeah, man. I don't know. Do you have any other stuff to bring upon this? I'm sure we're going to talk way more in the future about like hiking equipment.

Well, I did I did want to touch on you. Aside from like, your basics, like a water filter, your freeze-dried foods, things like that. What are some things that you bring in your pack? Not on a car trip, but on a backpacking trip? That you know, just just the important things aside from the the obvious?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. So I mean, I know. I try and keep my pack under 40 pounds. is what I've done it Yeah, each of the tabs. Well, yeah, I really try to keep it pretty light, which I guess is a little bit what we're talking about. I don't know what to bring at a point. I got my tent. Which is a it's just a couple pounds. I got like the stove. You know, the I got, let's say like, three of those or you know, like a handful of backpacker meals and some Clif Bars. I've got a way to start a fire. I've got Yeah, I've got like my iPod, or you know, like my phone or something like that charged up. Yeah. And so I'm trying to think of the other stuff. I mean, it's probably close that I bring, that's always been the spot where I bring more weight than I need to because it's always like, some kind of like, it's it's like cotton t-shirts, or another pair of jeans or something like yeah, oh man. And the worst one is like another pair of shoes. That's been the, I mean, cuz you want that. Like, like, at least like a pair of boots. And then like a pair of like river sandals. Like there's always been a situation where I want that. I know that's been for you. Like when honestly that's

that's been huge for me. I did that on a king strip, you know, bring sandals. I mean, if even if you're not getting into the water, it's just nice to let your feet breathe and, and just give your feet some type of different support than the hiking boot that you just put 20 miles on.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I noticed a turn that Yeah, I really needed to switch back and forth between the two, but I was always frustrated cuz you got to like store the pair of shoes somewhere. Yeah, which isn't that much way it's fine, but they're always kind of an awkward sort of bulky size. I was trying to think other stuff see, like when I go out or I think I was looking at a picture from the flowers. And I was thinking back to that ship of like special things that I brought or like different things. And what I would do, I think like we talked about last time, I always bring the camera bag with me so is the there's the backpack of whatever it is. But then like around the front, there's like the camera bag with a couple lenses. And that's just not glass. So there's really no economy of weight going on there. Yeah. And, and yeah, there's like a tripod, which is like metal, legs and stuff you don't need To be carrying, but it's just like a lot of weight that you have to like heave up to the top of the mountain. The other thing that I was gonna say that I brought was like a keyboard. This is and that thing probably in your mind. Yeah, yeah, you're losing me here. Go ahead and explain. Yeah, I brought a keyboard that I connected to my phone, and like to my iPad, so that I could do some of the like editing stuff that I was trying to do. Yeah, which is silly. And I probably wouldn't do it again, if

you guys did want a lot of editing and stuff. And a lot of journaling. When you guys were out there

was what we were trying to do. Yeah, so it was a lot of like, there's a lot of stuff, it was a weird job where you go like out in the woods, and you take a bunch of photos and you try and like file and write about the photos while you're there. And I'm like this kind of thing. You see it on Instagram, every once in a while, like these, these cool tent offices, you know, somewhere on the back entry and someone you know, hanging out in the in the tent with the window up and out to wherever and they just got their, their like iPad, or their, their MacBook or something like that in the tent on top of the sleeping bags as they're working through and editing, whatever, but you kind of think about like how light some of these things are. And you can haul them up there and work with them pretty easily now, but the problem is power. So is the thing about like a MacBook or a laptop. I couldn't support that. I couldn't power it up there. But what I did do, and I think your dad turned me on to this for the first time it was that gold zero. Solar Panel kit. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I bought one of those. It was just like that. And I use that thing a time on those backpacking ships if you workout for you. Yeah, I, it was the first time I've been using solar power. And really the only thing that it does, it's like two panels, maybe about about the size of your, you know, your two open palms or so, you know, it's like the size of like a good book. So it's really not very big at all for like solar energy. And all that it produces is enough to run out to a USB charger. So you can charge your phone. And that was really what I was going for. So it was cool that you could just be out for a week or indefinitely if you wanted. And you could keep your phone or your iPod on. And you know, when you turn it into airplane mode, the battery lasts for really quite a long time. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we use that we had a couple apps on it that we're using the donor to connect anything, but it's you can use that to file stuff or to write stuff or to record a video or to do whatever else. And and so we could do that as much as we wanted to. And then just recharge it the next day. Yeah, the sunlight on the solar panel. It was cool.

That's great. Yeah, we when we did Joshua Tree, I was taking like a photo journal or sorry, a video journal of the whole the whole trip. And that was eating up a lot of battery and I was I always use airplane mode for that. Just to save that battery, but we took with us a little charging station, which is actually kind of cool on those road trips. It has enough amperage to actually jumpstart your vehicle. Yeah, I've got one of those. And then yeah, you've got you know, you got USB ports and stuff like that in there. And I think those are greatly useful. Yeah, yeah, super great. I mean, because honestly, sometimes you get out there and it's just like, man, if you woke up with a dead battery and you're just 15 miles from anywhere Oh, yeah, see another person? It's been a huge concern a number of times Yeah. And with the way vehicles are going anymore, everything's in automatic. So it's not like you're gonna compression start your rig. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it was it was scary. I remember there was a couple of texts I was driving around that Oh, camera you man. You remember that? Like that was not that was not always reliable car. Especially. It was it was the best guy but I remember there was a him like had this problem you know, if you left it in an accessory or with with over that your lights could be on mode was it would kill the battery in like a half-hour or less. Like if you if you left if you just left it on accidentally or you know, the the stereo was on while you were away or the door was open or something like that. It would it would kill the battery. It was like you walk into the gas station. Yeah, I mean, you probably could do that. It did that. In fact, a number of times, man, little things you had to do. But so how many how many 1000s of miles did you put on that car when I sold it? When I bought it? It was 250,000 miles, which is a lot to buy across just the spring chicken at that point. Just a smooth quarter million. And then when I sold it, I sold it for the same price. I bought it and that was with 367,000 miles on it.

Yeah, you're the only person I've known that made money on a vehicle. You just put 100,000 miles on it and made money off that car man you to drive it that Camry That was great. No. It's

a cool car. It was a blast in free as basic of a little sedan as it was. It really did a lot of stuff. And yeah, it was it was really fun. But it was scary though. Yeah, sometimes I remember being at this campsite. Where like the battery, I think died. Unfortunately, I think there was someone around that helped us like jump it right then. But yeah, there was always like something about that in my mind. And I think the next trip that we went in, I did have one of those jumper kits in the car. And it works pretty well. Most of the time, I would recommend, I think what you were talking about earlier of, of, would you say like keeping up with and maintaining your equipment, man, maintain that charger, because it's got to keep that thing charged, kind of in the wheelhouse of the same season that you might use it in, because it does kind of lose it after a little while like I had one. Like you know what, I don't know that next winter after it went from 100 degrees out to freezing out that battery is toast. And it's not really going to give you the amps. You need to jump your car. I think I ran into that one time. Yeah. Or I don't know. I did what I drained it on the charger my cell phone,

something like that. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. That's a one thing I can say in especially is like, I don't know, for me anyway, as I get into better equipment. I'm more motivated to take care of it. Oh, yeah. Then really maintain it. You know, when you're starting in your, in your teens, and whatever, you kind of just Oh, yeah. 30 $30 sleeping bag, not a big deal or whatever. And then, you know, you just ruin things I burn through unintentionally. But yeah,

I mean, those things that they don't hold up the same way. And so it's like, that's, I think a good bit of why they've been replaced over time is that burned through a couple $30 sleeping bags? And you know, season two in the zippers are twisted and split. And you know, what, what's going on? Right? stuff with the 10 stuff stoves, stuff with filters. So

yeah, and, and honestly, when it comes to outdoor recreational equipment, you really do you just get what you pay for. Oh, yeah. Man, I, I, I just got to that point where I was, like, do I want to buy the $30 sleeping bag three times? Or do I want to buy $120 the bag once? Yeah. And you know, and that's just what it came down to. And so I started getting a little more picky when it came to choosing my equipment

I've been trying to buy. Yeah, and there's a there's a range of equipment, there's some equipment, like you're talking about, I want to be specific. I want to get the good stuff. I want it to work. And then there's another class of it. I don't it's kinda I don't know if I've really honed it down well, but I almost want it to be as cheap as possible because it's so likely to break or likely to get lost. Yeah, I don't know what that is. So yep. I know. There's like a handful of things that I've gone out. And for unfortunately, for me, it's sometimes like, well, it's not always pocketknives but it's like some sunglasses. sunglasses are perfect when travel sunglasses for me. Exactly. River sunglasses. I go for the cheapest ones. If they blow off my head, and you know, you know in water, whatever. There's nothing gone I don't care. It's funny. I don't want the best gear.

And unfortunately, the only way to come to that conclusion is to live through that situation multiple times.

Man I've lost Yeah, I've lost some stuff that wasn't super valuable. But it was just like Ah, it's just at the bottom of the river now. Like even if it wasn't really expensive, you're still like, Oh, I was 20 bucks. Yeah, I don't have it anymore. Yeah, it's a bummer, so there's that there's a handful of those things that have that oh, this is probably just gonna get damaged and get brought blown out whatever that is. I'm trying to like cut down on a few of those things but but yeah, I think that I remember the time I learned that was sleeping mats. You're talking about your sleeping bag I've learned so many times from a sleeping mat of not investing enough in that every night like two or three the hour and a half after I finally fallen asleep after blowing up my my bad excuse for a little camping that bed at two hours after that I always wake up in the sleeping bag kind of on the rocks under the tent you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. It's that like thing where you're still asleep and coming into awaking when you know you just have a rock in your kidney anything and now only spent 15 more dollars on this mat.

You know what I disagree with you there? Like I've spent good money. Oh, several times on ads. And better. No, you know what I got to the point like so well, first off, when I'm when I'm backpacking. I just got to the point where like, I'm probably going to be comfortable no matter what. Yeah, I yeah, I've been there. But man, I was just like, I'm going to use the cot and use as little of the sleeping bag. had his I can't because I have had nothing but bad experiences with sleeping pads. But they always seem to they last a trip or two and then they've got a hole in them. You got to patch them, or they just don't seem to hold air. I don't know, man. I mean, I guess you could you can get into some I've seen them, you know, there are $200 sleeping pads. One I got,

I got it, I got a Thermarest like, like an M, or one that didn't have a lining on it. Some of them like the Rei, when you get it's got this nylon lining that makes it a little tougher. This one was just sort of the rubbery inside lining of that. But I had one of those it was I think, less than $50. That's the one that I still have packs down to almost nothing. It's kind of cool. I don't, I've never turned it down, like on the rocks, as it were, or you know, something like that. So it's always had like a tarp or some kind of lining under it and the ground. But I've slept. I mean, I don't know. Not to say that it's been inflated all these nights, but I've probably put about 250 300 nights on that on that mat over the last handful of years. And it's been working out pretty well for No, it's like it was it was deflated, maybe maybe three or four weeks after I got it. But anyway, you gotta you gotta like, it's just sort of you come to this point where you're like, Oh, no, I just wake up at 215 and a 410. And it's 635. And I just reflate the mat, and then I go back to bed. It just becomes part of your nightly routine. Yeah, it's just just what you do. Yeah, just like getting up to take up the old air mattress. Yeah, it's a Yeah, it's on the same schedule. It's like, it's like auto timing. When when I needed to get up and but yeah, it was it's it's been silly. I got that's on the list for this year for 2017. I'm gonna try and get a new mat. Yeah.

So she got to do man figure out what's important. It's like, yeah, every year you try to buy like two things that will make your camping experience much better.

Yeah. Yes. Have you seen around with those, those like, it's not foil, but it's just like a dense foam mat that sort of collapses down into a little block. I've seen that like strapped to some backpackers. Kids before, but it's just sort of like this light foam mat that they crunch down into a little, little deck. I don't know, it was weird. I've not I've never really used anything like that. But I bet it probably works really well for him. Yeah, I've

kind of been curious about those. And the other one I've heard good reviews on this is from some people that I backpack with that had one. But it's like, it's it kind of contraries your body in a way that it kind of holds you inside the mat. It's inflatable. But it's got this kind of like it's almost the same shape as your mummy bag, but the sides kind of like protrude upward to keep you in it. Because I don't know. I mean, I'm sure you know, man, you get the lightweight sleeping pads and stuff. And you find out really quickly that you just roll off of them in the middle of the night. Yeah. Or whatever. You know, it's just like, they're hard to stay on. I mean, yeah, like, I'm not a large individual by any stretch of the imagination. And like, they're narrow, though. They're like, yeah, they're super narrow and thin. And yeah, I guess this guy Jimmy that I was backpacking with was telling me that he loved it. And I forget the name of the producer. But anyway, yeah, I guess it was really great. That's sweet.

Um, I'm away I'm probably way under-educated to really get in deep about like, a lot of different gear, the different manufacturers of outdoor gear, you know, and yeah, like that. That catalog of equipment is sort of swimming around in my mind. But I can't really pin down like a ton of different things. I'd be like, oh, what about this? Robert, what about this? What have you talked about the feather day? I don't, I don't have anything really? I don't know. I think we've probably talked about a lot of it. Man. I'm a basics kind of person. I don't really care if it's like North Face, or Patagonia or Acer tech, or Marmot or something like that. You know, it's not really like super important. And I know you're kind of most my gear, most of my layers are from goodwill. That's Yeah, they're old to men. And actually, that's one of the best pieces of advice I might I might give to anyone who's bothered to listen to this point deep in our podcast, which Thank you, by the way. But it's not so like, it's, it's one of the best values that you can get for outdoor equipment was cruising through and having a really specific clear agenda of the of the types of things you want to get out of goodwill. depends on your area. And you got to go like I did in Corvallis. Man Corvallis was a goldmine for Hey, don't be giving away. All the hardships Corvallis, goodwill, I pulled out I bought like a great North Face fleece out that fit me. Yeah, it was pretty It was $8 boom, there. Go Marina got me this, this Marmot shell, this blue Marmot shell for like less than 12 bucks. It was awesome. That's like a $200 jacket. I replaced it with a new one. And it was it was like 200 bucks at Rei.

It was so expensive even like, yeah, I mean, yeah, you're getting quality. But man, there's got to be some point where it's just like, Ah, it's too much money. Yeah, I like I go in there and I'll shop the like the clearance rack with my gift card that I get for like a birthday or something. You know? But you're still like, wow, this is a $60 flannel or something.

I don't see the value in some of it. Like we were talking about, there's like good things and bad things. Man, I went big on a rain jacket. I'm a work outside all the time you like you You have big on like the boots that you have for for fire season. And like, there's like sometimes it's like, oh, that's I need that. I need that thing. A lot of the time. Maybe you don't need a new one of those. Yeah, or whatever, whatever it might be. But I go big on rain gear. Yeah, that's what I'm your big. I put my money in having a having a good thermal layer. And I got a pretty expensive but like a nicer rain jacket, like a GoreTex rain jacket to go over. And man that thing is saved me like being out here in Oregon. I don't need really any other layers Other than that, and I've noticed that you can go from like snow, to warm weather to like really intense rain. And you can pretty much keep that same, like set of layers go in that whole time. And it worked well. Like Yeah, but it's rad when you finally like get something and say, oh, this is like this is what I need. This is good enough to answer for all these different situations will be in.

And that's what yeah, I won't go light on on anything that keeps you warm and dry. I'm sure yeah. First off, I don't even know if this is a really good way around. Going. You know going getting around the expensive stuff on that. Oh, yeah, it all seems to be pretty steep no matter where you go. But yeah, like I mean when it's hot, you can always shed layers like you can always remove clothing sure cooler but when it comes to being cold and wet, man that that's the difference between a good trip and a bad trip or a good trip and a serious change

right my experience a ton I mean just just kind of working outside of gigabit through the day. Like data coming through with like some snow on the on the hills like a little bit higher up in the elevation right on the valley floor. It's nothing, but it's it's pretty lousy. Winter weather. It seems like right now. But it's like it's just waves of rain. Like every 45 minutes or so. It's like 45 minutes on 45 maybe 10 2030 minutes off. Then back on to just kind of this drizzle this light rain drizzle. It's coming down all the time. And if it weren't for the like, whole head cover hood and an GoreTex like outfit I've caught on. I'd be soaked all the time. Oh, man. Yeah. shoes. Shoes are a huge one. Like, we should talk about hiking shoes sometime. Like cuz you gotta like Well, what's it What's it the boot that you go for a lot. Mine are the marrow. Yeah, the marrows. Yeah. Yeah, I like those man. I I've never had Merrill's. But they seem pretty.

They're a great boot. They've got you know what, honestly, when you price shoes, shoes are expensive. They're expensive when you're looking for, honestly, so I'm not even gonna say these are expensive. The $150 range.

Yeah, but same as a pair of Jordans. Yeah, exact same as a pair of weigh less. weigh less than Yeezys. Uh, yeah, no, they're great boots, man. I love them the mid top. But we'll save that for another podcast. Oh, yeah. Hey, um, so, you know, we always talk a lot about electronics in the field and things like that in different ways that you take your stuff out there. And that's because you are a photographer Billy extravert you take great photos. So for anybody listening if you want to check out Billy's photography, I believe what it's Billy Newman photo comm.com you

got it right man I appreciate all right. Yeah, check out check it out photos, check out this podcast there. It's it's hosted on that site if you want to check it out. And yeah, the get out there podcast, the feed is up and going. We've got information about that Billy Newman photo comm you can check it out on iTunes. That's what I recommend. If you're hearing this, you probably already figured out how to get into the podcast app and look for this but if you are, give us a review, or rate it or subscribe to the podcast that helps us out a lot in the first eight weeks. We read that those numbers are going to be three and then two of them are you and I Probably it's probably you and me and our girlfriends respectively. But it's but but we have passed. And this is great news, and it's under a week, and we're under five episodes. In total. We've had 100 downloads. Whoa. Which is big time. It's again, mostly me and you I think. I think it's like, yeah, we've got around 11 listeners a show. Maybe some I know, but it's all it's all. It's all ephemeral at this stage. You can't really tell for a long time. But but overall though, man, it's really fun I did doing a podcast with even if it's zero people that that are listening to it. It's still been a blast. Yeah, but you say, Hey, you know about the outdoor stuff, man, you get to talk to you about this stuff.

No, it's great. I love I love picking your brain to you because you've spent, I mean, just as much time as anybody I know. doing various types of camping. Yeah, so it's good. I like I like speaking with like minded people about these topics. It's cool, man. It's great. Hey, um, sounds like we might have a trip planned for this weekend. We don't know. Oh, yeah. Harley what it is. Yeah, but we got some things in the works. Maybe we'll do a do a little podcast from wherever we are.

We got to do on Yeah. If we if we meet up in person, we'll definitely do a live podcast. It'd be cool.

Absolutely. So hey, for those 11 listeners out there, you guys. Stay tuned. We got a little something for you.

That's gonna be a special treat. Episode Six. Yeah, it's just like, Hey, we hung out today. There you go. No, but we'll, we'll put it together. It'll be fun. That'd be cool. But yeah, Robert, thank you very much for doing this podcast in it. Yeah. Thank you, Billy. It's been good. I appreciate it, man. So on behalf of Robert bisca rap, my name is Billy Newman. And thank you guys very much for listening to this episode. of the good out there podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Backpacking equipment conversations | Gear to pack for backcountry travel | Camp stoves and water filters

How to source inexpensive jackets and layers.

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. I'm here with Robert biskra. How you doing, Robert? Hey, Billy. I'm doing well. How about you? I'm doing good, man. Thanks for calling in doing Episode Five. We got we got the feed started. We got a couple episodes up. It's kind of fun. Thanks for doing the podcast. Yeah, we're moving right along. We're getting a couple in for the little bit of time that we've been doing it, but so we finished up a conversation. In Episode Four, we talked about some of our experiences backpacking, like I was talking about the wallflowers you're talking about that King range chip you had. And I know at the end of it, we spoke, we just kind of come up to that idea where we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the equipment that we brought with us, or like some of the breakdown that we had and the gear that we'd bring when we were backpacking. Or when we're doing other stuff. I wanted to break that that idea down with you a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty important it can make or break a trip kind of depending on what you have or don't have. Yeah, I've definitely miss packed before. Oh, yeah. So Oh, God, Robert. Oh, I was just gonna I was just gonna say you tend to overpack or under pack. Let's see, I think well, so I guess I've gone for backpacking. Originally, I was overpack. Now, it's probably still overpack, but I've gotten it. I've gotten a pretty tight when I'm in shape for it. I do an okay job. But what I noticed there was when you like you accidentally or you just mishap and don't bring something that you really needed, like the way it's always been for me is like a sleeping pad, or something like that. Like it's like that thing where it goes from like, it's like 30% less of a comfortable trip just because of that one thing that you don't have. Yeah, weighs so little. Yeah, you have you have everything else in association with it. But you don't have that one piece that I think that's happened a couple times before, like, I don't know, it's probably happening with like my stove, or food or something like that. Like we talked about Tabasco on our last chip. Yeah, that that just one ingredient. This would be rad. See, I'm

I'm the opposite. I always tend to overpack I, like I, I go overkill. I just start getting into that mindset of like, Well, okay, what if I had to make a splint? Well, okay, well, I need rope. Okay. What if I had to do that? And I just get into all these, you know, hypotheticals and then reacting for every situation I could think of, I've backed through way too many hypotheticals. Yeah. But you know, what's funny is, you do all that planning. And then the one thing that would happen would be the only thing you didn't compensate for.

It's really true. Sometimes that's, that's a real part of the compensation about the outdoors, you get, like, you can plan for a lot of hypotheticals. And I want to break this down with you to later probably, but like the idea of like, equipment that you bring, versus risk, like, How likely is that risk to happen, that you need the equipment? There's probably some different experiences we've had around that. But it's just kind of like a weird idea of how much how much effort goes into preventing certain types of things. When maybe like, a lot of that stuff can be handled with like a Leatherman, I guess, if you think or like, yeah, some some Swiss Army knife. Yeah, exactly. orbit, like some level of good bass gear, it seems like that's the thing that I've gotten the most comfortable about in the last, I don't know, a couple times a backpacking or like the longer times that we've done backpacking, when you get like, a little bit more focused in on just the few things that you need to do for that five day period, that you're going to be there. Because that's a really, that's the big thing. And the, it's weird how you noticed this, the longer that you go out, the less you you finally realize, the less you need to bring at all. Like, if you go for 80 days, you almost need to bring nothing but if you're going for three days, you seem like in your mind, you need to bring everything.

Yeah, that's that's funny, you bring that up, because that's exactly how that works. Isn't that like, I don't, I don't know if it's like the the complex of like, you just can't, you just can't really foresee 80 days in the future. So you just you kind of give up, you're like, well, I can't even plan for this, you know, yeah, I'll just bring my minimalist stuff. Or where I'm three days, you're kind of thinking like, well, this might happen. This might happen. day three, okay, this, I'll need this.

Yeah, you're trying to navigate every corner in every maneuver of this future map of circumstances that you might run into. And then you can

Yeah, you do the thing where like, you know, you're going for three days also and you're like, well, wow, I have so much room. You know, I only have three days worth of stuff, which is pretty minimalist. And then you end up going, oh, well I got this and this and then snacks before you before you know it. Yeah, you just pack.

Six Pack in the top. Yeah. Yeah. And that's happened a couple of times. I was trying to think about how that worked out for me. I remember early on when I did when I did like a couple early backpacking trips. We talked about this in that first episode, I think doing some stuff on the lower road. Maybe the second one. We're, yeah, that first chip, I did the 40 whatever, miles down the lower road. And it was just way rushed. And it was way too heavy and all the stuff you like, we brought a bunch of cans, we didn't have a can opener and like, like, What was this? What was the system that was going behind this, like, you get things that work in a kitchen, but there's no system and that that helps you? You know, do that in the backcountry, I guess. Or to keep things good or, like purify enough water to have a that's always that was always one having so otter with you. So that's something I want to ask you what kind of what kind of water purification? I have always been under, under attack about this. Like I really wanted more equipment for water purification, it's probably well, you know, I've been fortunate a lot of the time. But yeah, it's it's been risky, maybe one or two times, but I've only ever had this squeeze bottle charcoal filter, like you fill it up with maybe 12 ounces of water and you squeeze it out of this filter. What we would do Marina and I when we go backpacking, we were up in the well, ours we were up in the Trinity Alps, we were up in the Tetons, it was a lot of spots where it was like really clean snowmelt. So worked out on our favor a lot of times on the other hand, there was times where we were on the lower rogue in the canyon, and there's really no good you know, as mosquito puddles or whatever it is,

that's, that's where I caught Giardia. Oh, yeah, mosquito puddle. But that's Yeah, that was that was nasty. And that was my filter broke. And that was the biggest thing I learned was a, I don't know, you always hear an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yeah, like it's man, just maintaining your equipment, cleaning it after every trip doing, just doing the basic maintenance that your equipment requires.

That's something I've not understood for a long time. And yeah, that the system that we had for water was super, basically we just we'd fill up the 12 ounces, we put the top on and we'd like squeeze, you have to like kind of crush it through the charcoal filter to get it to those those moves slow to way slow. So you fresh it out. So we'd have like our Nalgene bottle, like between our knees and our hand just kind of like crushing down on this creek water that we were trying to push. We're trying to put an analogy, we had like three or four of them that we had to sit at the creek at to pump out you know, I don't know two or three liters of water to take back the camp with us or to go hiking with for the next rest of the day. So I used that I use just that one filter for like three years. I'm like, wait, you wait too many gallons of water, I think for that until the chocolate is finally broke off. Or you know, like the whole filter unit just finally broke off. I figured it's probably it's probably does it have that break off on a trip? It did? Yeah. That's when they always do. Yeah, well, I think it was. I know we were on a trip and we realized we really couldn't get water. So that was tough. But I think I think that was up in the Trinity app. So that was Yeah, that was in like Northern California. And we were fortunate enough that we just didn't get sick, but it was like it was snowing. I mean it was super, super cold. super crisp water like right up above the treeline.

So yeah, when you're the treeline, you're usually pretty safe. I mean, your your chances of having an animal defecate or die in the creek or something is pretty minimal. Yeah, but But yeah, I know. We're in Kings Canyon. There were a ton of places where I mean after the Giardia incident was kind of like you know I'm not taking any chances but sure the same time you know if if it was if I were ever in the situation where I needed to take the risk I couldn't really picture a better place to take it.

Oh yeah, it was like that. What do you do? Okay, like iodine tablets with you for water purification ever? No, I haven't. I've heard they've kind of got a funky taste. I don't know. I've heard that they do too. But I guess I've heard like well I think maybe this this situation like we're talking about is you said that maybe around for your your backup water supply? No, no would you not do it? I just GRT all the way man what's your what was the water filter that you picked or pick now?

Cuz I need to buy with this specific name of it, but it's a attitude or and I love it man. It's like It's like to two liters a minute. So it's actually pretty Yeah, it's super-efficient. And but it's got like a filter band on a hose. And then it's basically got like a hand lever like he would see the old the well pumps back at like the turn of the century how people would gather the groundwater. Sure, that makes the same same basic setup, and then it runs through a filter. as like a sediment trap that'll catch any large sediment coming in. And then it goes up through like a carbon disk. And then it comes down through a charcoal filtration system. And then back through an actual, like, I don't know, some kind of cloth filter. So it has three, three variants of filtration before it actually gets through to your

to your G Nalgene bottle or whatever your Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Has it worked out pretty well for you? Like, did you use that down river a lot? Or did you guys have other systems on the boat when you're doing?

You know, we carry all of our own water on the boat? Like, before we leave? We'll we'll load up, you know, five or six, five gallon cans of water. Yeah. Okay, that's bigger that makes, so we just bring all that? Yeah, I mean, when you're running commercial, stuff like that. It's just, I mean, any type of risk you can mitigate?

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't use it for commercial stuff. But I was wondering for you, or like, if you had, like, if you'd put it through a lot of repetitions of its pace, you know? Or what I guess what I was wondering is like, how long does it last? What's the kind of maintenance that you ran into with the issues you had with your Okay, so,

so what I didn't do, they have new gaskets that come with it, okay. They have new carbon discs, they have new charcoal that you put in there. You need to keep the gaskets lubricated. So that way, when you let it sit for a year and a half before your next trip, you don't pull it out. And those gaskets are cracked. Oh really. And that I just kind of had, you know, the hailstorm of all three of those things, where it was just like my sixth trip that I'd used it over the period of like three and a half years. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I just didn't maintain it, and ultimately ended up kind of paying for that.

Man, that's so sad. That stuff. Well, you know, lesson learned, though. Oh, yeah, sure. Hit that. Yeah. I remember there was a there was one ship that we did. She This is the nutty thing is that, like when in origin, it's great, because you have this luxury of just being able to carry a water filter with you and have this assurance that you're going to run into consistent water supply, for your whole backpacking trip through the wilderness. We have a lot of creeks and stuff, a lot of the places maybe you and I'll probably go are in like mountain areas where like we're talking about like going up into an Alpine lake or something like that. There's no way that Creek feeding off of that, or some kind of snowmelt system through that draw. And you're going to be able to pull water from that for the for the time that you're there. But what was tricky is, is when we were out further east, I think we were out in Utah, we went to Capitol Reef, and we did a backpacking trip there. And yeah, it's tricky because out there, when you get into Utah, or probably anywhere in the southwest region there, you have to bring all the water with you on a backpacking trip. So it's just part of the way you pack. It's pretty nuts. And it's I think it's like a ratio of about two gallons per person per day, which seems, you know, relative reasonable, really, but if you're doing just a couple days, that means like each person is carrying another eight pounds or, you know, eight gallons of water, which is a ton. Yeah, which is 64 pounds of water. It was I remember we did we did Capitol Reef. We had, I think, four gallons. So I think Marina and I both had two gallons, maybe I think I might add more gallons. But she probably cared a lot of gallons of water. And we get all this water up there, and it was a lot. It was ridiculous. But uh yeah, it was probably another 30 pounds each. Yeah, no, I believe it I mean water is super heavy and it takes up a lot of space. It takes up so much space. Yeah, there's a picture of me just kind of strapped and gallon jugs. We didn't even have like a system of like, we don't like even a camel pack. That's like you know two liters that's ounces. Yeah, you're gonna get an hour Yeah, so So yeah, you have that full that's on your chest and you have like three just gallon bottles of water kind of strapped around your back

Did you did you have like a like a pole strapped across your shoulders with

the big bucket side? I put over the top of my head is a high ground. Yeah, there that's like the environment that it seems like you'd need it but it was strange because they were I think they were a couple water sources around but they had dried up by that time in the year, you know, they're seasonal. I think they're like, in that area the desert and it's it's really remote out there when you get out the Capitol Reef because there's no big town near there. Really? Oh, you know what I mean? I mean even I guess Death Valley is kind of the same way but but Las Vegas is sort of close to it. But out in Capitol Reef, man, there was nothing out there. And it was just super dry and super. It was super caustic to your your being what you were out there. What kind of what time of year were you? We were there in October. And it was okay. And it was still pretty high. It was that it was still like oh man like in the day. This is kind of hard. To do, but we did, I think like a handful of miles in to this arch that was back there that we were at a camp by and we had a couple days out there. It was cool. It was really remote. It was interesting to see some of that landscape out there. But man, there was no water to be found. It was just high desert. Like, there was like a mud pit. There was maybe four or five miles further. You know that that was like the saving grace back in the 1800s. When you're a frontiersman in that area. Imagine that with no gear no water filter. No, yeah, you're out of water for a while, but there's a chance that there's this muddy pit. That's like a natural spring a few miles up this way. And you might be able to get enough water to survive to your next drop off. days, man, it'll days, that would have been terrible. Yeah, yeah. You think about what the frontiersman would have had to have George just get through to get through dealing with waterfalls, or, I mean, obviously, they're not filtering their water, but just dealing with the water sources that they have to encounter.

Yeah, I don't even want to think about that. They'd argue that we're probably live in the good old days. That's probably

But yeah, I don't think I've had like a big problem with the water filter before we've done what we because we'd always like have it so that we just have like a big store of water on it's where we were when we were moving. And then well, I was gonna ask you about like, if we were moving on from, from what we were talking about, I wanted to talk to you about like the stoves that you that you would bring. Have you brought like a stove with you much backpacking or or do you try like, not well, yeah, cuz you do. Just the jet bow food all the time. Right.

Yeah. So that's, that's my primary is my jet boil. I mean, you can really do just about anything in there. Yeah, it's great. I mean, they're there. And there's so many different ways to use it. Like, one thing you can do is just, I mean, if you have time, I mean, YouTube is such a vast Information Center. You can go in there and just look stuff up and just like ways to be creative with the Jetboil. I mean, they have they have instructions on how to how to bake in your Jetboil Oh, you can bake a mountain cake while you're up there.

I didn't know that I burned I lost. Like is it just like it just goes to like, hot right away? There's I don't know, I don't know how you bake in it. But that's really cool.

Yeah, it honestly it seemed like more hassle than it was worth, but yeah, so I have a slice. But I mean, but it is possible. That's cool. So other than that, I've just got this like this cheap little. What is that? It's like the isobutane. Is that what we run those?

I yes. I remember what it is. I don't remember that little stove. That's a cool one. That's a good backup stove.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, I think I paid like 30 bucks for it, man, the things tiny. Like, it's just a little backpack and stuff. It's awesome.

Sure. I think those are really useful. You know, we did. We did like our 50 day trip. We did that with just the Jetboil. And we did as much as we could with that, that second trip that we did for like 100 and 110 days or whatever it was. Yeah, we did that with the Jetboil. We had to buy like a propane stove. Like just a single kind of the same idea as a jet boil or a backpacker stove where it's just the burner that fits on top of the top of the tank. We had a buy one of those halfway through the chip. And it was nuts because like we just worn out the jet boil. It was nuts because like so I guess when you use one for 110 days straight. They have a hard time. Yeah, if you unscrew and screw back together, but we still cobbled it together to work because we like we needed to boil water. I remember it was out on the Oregon coast. I think it was a spot that we had taken you to after that. Was it like sisters rock area? Oh, you remember when we were there. That was really cool. That was a cool spot it was fun to so we were there the year before I took you guys there. And we had camped there for the better half of a week or so. And we were using the Jetboil to make coffee and do everything with it. But the the stove part, the threading that goes down where we connect to the gas candidate canister had started to wear out. So it would pop it would blow the stove off of the tank. Like the threading would just it would just pull apart and so it was like it was leaking and you couldn't get it to seal tight enough so that you could you could get a connection from the stove to the tank to draw to burn.

So that brings me to something I want to bring upon this. Yeah, is a big thing that I factor in when I'm packing is materials to fix stuff. Oh yeah. Like that's huge. I mean, like one thing that was good to have in your pack is that it's it's like the plumbers tape. It's like a thin nylon that you wrap around threading to to make a gasket essentially. They make it for for gas. So like propane. stuff. It costs like a buck 29 at, you know, your local plumbing store, Home Depot or something. And, and that's great to have in your pack for exactly that situation because those threads are like a thin aluminum, you know? Yeah. I mean, they're not meant to be taken apart and put back together 1000s of times. Yeah, I have a lot in a situation like that. I mean, that gives you, you know, it's going to create a seal. And you could probably, you know, milk it for another month or two. doing that.

Yeah, so that's, that's exactly what we did in the moment, when we were out there is we took, we took the electrical tape that was in the glove box, and we kind of like a slip of that, just like, we had to do this, like, all the time we, we've set it up on a new canister, and then we would not break it down. We wouldn't touch it until that canister was finished. But we use it for almost the rest of it. Like the part on his sister's rock on the coast. That was like day 15 of 100. So he's using the rest of the time. We had a we had to kind of supplement it with some other thing. Yeah, but But yeah, we just we had to put a little bit of electrical tape around the threading, and then try and like gently work it together. So that would hold enough so we can boil our water and cook our food. But we did that a lot of times, man, we ran through like another half dozen canisters of fuel before we finally probably retired that thing.

Yeah, well, that's great, man. I mean, that's that's what it's about. That's what's cool is like, being on those long trips, or you know, even just a trip or you're away from things, like it forces you to be resourceful and kind of, oh, man, I love that you're on what you can do with what you have.

Yeah, I can't broke our tent pole broke. At one point it was in the wind, a tent was set up, it was weighted down, the wind came in while we were hiking it, it crushed that time and it like it just torque that thing over. it snapped one of the poles. it snapped the one that was kinda under the the heavier tension load. There's a few that were, it was an interesting tent design. But there's there's, like, you know, one that was like, it didn't matter. There's the other one that was torqued around 180 degrees; it was almost like both points were almost touching each other. That thing just like crashed as the tent rolled over on its side. We were like, well shoot. And it was kind of a weird town, we couldn't really get a replacement pole in that length and that size. And so we had to like figure out a way I think what happened is if you would imagine now that the there's the aluminum piece, and then there's the peg of the next aluminum pole as it comes together with your template selection color. Yeah, that color. What had happened is that is that the it just broke out of that, like whatever piece inserted into the piece next to it, it just snapped out it kind of like broke out that that first top inch of a piece of aluminum. And so we went over to this can that we wasn't like a coke Can I think was just like some Tin Can that we that Chilean, something like that, or some canned tomato. And so we like clipped that down and had a roll that with a pencil to get like a little tube. And we'd like to roll that around the broken part to be a splint for our tent pole. So we could keep together on a camping trip. But we still I mean, the tents still like that we use that tent for like another lightning like we're saying, and they're like six or seven months. Way too. Yeah, that's awesome, man. What was that, like? On the 115 days, man, it was so cool. Well, that that goes back around to what we were talking about a little bit at the beginning, when we were saying It's nuts when you think about what you need to bring for three days, versus what you need to bring for. In this case, like 100 days, my thinking about it was not very clear, I was only thinking about like the first week it was really just bring everything, bring everything, have it in your car, be loaded down. I even did this the year before in the car. And I thought I like knew better. But I didn't know that I cut down a lot of stuff, it was a lot easier the second time around. But you really notice that almost everything you can leave home in a big way. As long as you're yourself and in some level of resources around you. You can probably get through or, you know, like survive most days and get to the next one in in a significant amount of comfort. You know if you don't put yourself through hell, I suppose. But it worked out really well. It's time like for it was strange because I guess what I would say is after maybe the first two weeks, first three weeks, I'd say after 15 days, your body acclimates. To do what it's doing in a kind of weird way. I don't know if you had the firefighting or, or if you've had it in like some other situation. But it seems like after maybe some number of days, it seems like you just get a little less dirty every day. Or you're you slam a little better at night. When you Yeah, there was no way you can sleep that well.

Exactly. But that's what happens, man. It's like your body just acclimating. Actually, I was talking about that with my dad yesterday. We were talking about how You know, where we live, it's pretty quiet. So like, we go and stay somewhere like in the, in the center of like a city or something and you can hear people talking and you've got street lamps on total and you'll, you'll lay wide awake for the first few nights, but then by night three, you know, it's like you just get used to the background noise and stuff and you just tune it out, you're just falling asleep. But it's the same thing with being on the road or being up in the hills. It's like, Alright, you know, you get past that initial Oh, I'm dirty feeling and then that's just the way you are. Yeah, it's really just, you adapt to what you do. And there's, there's physical

things to that happen. Like, I swear that I mean, maybe like a suntan is a good example of it. When you're on you have no exposure, and then you're put underexposure, a lot more than you're used to you get burned is sort of what happens so like, if you bet if you build up a tolerance to if you build up a tan, then you don't get burned. You don't get that caustic effect from the exposure, the sun, sort of the same way of camping or being out in the wilderness for a handful of days. It seems like he got a little bit a little bit better at it. Like I remember, I mean probably similar to a sunburn, but man, my lips would chap like crazy as soon as I got over into a different type of climate, or I guess, just a drier atmosphere or something like that. But yeah, as soon as you go east of the Cascades, man, my lips would chap immediately or if you went up in elevation, like up into like an Alpine area. Oh, yeah. But then after I know what, one week, two weeks or something like that, it just wouldn't happen again. And then just thing Yeah, where you get, or like I The thing that I remember the most, this is maybe more of just an awareness piece. I don't know if this happened to you. But I remember I would get cut a lot when I first went camping. Or Yeah, like now like at the beginning of the season, if I went out I'd probably like get, I don't know, some kind of weird, some number of Nicks. From circumstances I was putting myself in with a pocket knife or with wood or with something I had to do. But I my hands would get cut up more. And then, after a pretty short amount of time, I didn't run into any more injuries like that. Just the circumstantial injuries, the small like, Look, yeah, so you get into it just well stop. Yeah. And

that's, that's funny. It's the same thing like, so I work in carpentry, and I can I can count probably 27 cuts between the two of my hands, that, like they're just little one. I mean, a couple of them, you know, are there, you know, oh, yeah, you keep hitting them or hurt when you got them. But it's just like, they're everywhere. And you come home at night, you look at your hands and go What? Like, you're like, Oh, that's a pretty open wound. I didn't know about that, you know, that's just your body just stops interpreting that is like a distress signal. And it's like, this is the norm, this is just what happens. Yeah. And it's kind of like the scent, you know how, like a new smell will be really overpowering. But like, obviously, you go to the landfill, right? And then you spend an hour there and you can't smell it. Yeah, so what that that is, I'm sure you know, but it's a it's your body's defense, you know, it detects new sense and makes them strong, so you're aware of them. But once your body figures out that it's not a threat to you, and your livelihood, then it dissipates and just becomes, you know, a subconscious scent that you're not actively selling.

Yeah, I totally get that. I've heard that before about like different scents and stuff that come through. It's weird. Yeah, it's probably it's probably an effect. It's really similar to that with the stuff about cutting but but man, I remember it was so weird, because we were just in the Camry at the time this old 92 Camry. And like we would notice that we really just wanted to get rid of most of the weight of the things that were in the car, we only needed a backpack or two backpacks, you know, is just nuts. When you figure out like, oh, man, none of this stuff is really like what we need to get at. We really only do these two or three or four things. And we do this pretty repetitively. You don't need the rest of this stuff.

Yeah, no, you don't. And that's, that's what I always enjoy that. Like when by the time you get done with a backpacking trip, or a road trip or something, it really makes you realize how little you need to actually function in your day to day life. Yeah, absolutely. Just just how much excess stuff you just carry around for no reason. You know, you come off a trip like that. And you're thinking to yourself, you know, I live with nothing but a toothbrush and just like, you know, a lot of talking to you. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you come home and you're like, Well, what do I have all this stuff for? No. Yeah.

It's definitely happened. I wanted to ask you about like the downriver stuff that you did on the road. When you were like, Well, I know three or four day trips. Like what that was like and are like so how much gear Do you guys carry down? I mean, there's there's for the guests and stuff, but kind of cutting that out a bit like for yourself, how much gear would you think that is per person? Maybe

so much. Okay, so, so us as guides, pack, I don't want to say minimally, but we pack them, the necessities while staying comfortable. As you know, it's like, you don't want to, to under pack because we live down there, you know, 90 to 100 days out of the year. So it's like you start, you know, really trying to figure out what you enjoy, like good sleeping equipment. Nobody. Nobody goes light on that everybody brings great sleeping equipment. What's the best equipment to bring for the letter of dammit, man, I've got what's called a roller caught. It's like a nylon material that is it's like a rubberized head-on even that explain it. But it's like a measurement.

I saw yours. And I really want that look cool.

It's great. They're super durable. I mean, they're really strong. They're waterproof. You know, I couldn't ask for anything better. And they roll up to the the, you know, the length of your arm and everything's lightweight and aluminum. It's just a good caught. But anyway, that's called a roller caught. But yeah, we take that I take a sleeping pad to kind of create a barrier between the air beneath mean, and shaking bag. Yeah. Yeah, and bring yourself a nice pile of a sleeping bag. And you're good to go,

man that it looks like a really good setup. I like that that cart system that you had, and it says happened, like almost no time at all. Yeah, you

can have it put together in a matter of, you know, less than a minute.

And it seems super durable to like it's not really going to be affected by being weathered over a couple seasons.

Well, yeah, you get like fabric carts and stuff like that. No, you know, just between the Sun and the water and whatever else. What other elements are getting to them, they'll just kind of rip and tear eventually. Yeah. But now when we go on those trips. We the guides for the company pack a pretty happy setup, should we bring in? We bring a full kitchen. So we've got four, you know, stand ups those. We've got tables and pots and pans and jugs of water and coolers and you know, I mean, it's really it's really a big operation that we do. Yeah. And then you know, the guests bring whatever they think they need to be comfortable with. Over the course of three or four days. And like we were talking about when we can potentially overpack on a backpacking trip. People can really overpack when they're not carrying their own bag around. Oh, yeah. You know, they're like, and you get a lot of people do that are from, you know, really urban settings and getting down there and the candy and it's kind of really outside their comfort zone. Totally. I understand just got so much stuff. Yeah. But that's why they hire a gear boater, right.

Yeah, yes. Yeah. That's cool. So um, so like, probably a good amount of equipment. What if you and I just went on a trip, and we had to haul out to a different river, it was a little further away. So you're kind of trying to cut down a little bit? Like what kind of equipment would you bring a sort of a lightweight, single boat trip

with a lot of that would depend on what the fishability of the river was. If it was potentially eating fish. I would cut down on food a good deal. It depends on just how comfortable you want to be. I mean, if you're if you're interested in just having kind of a you know, a back to the basics really kind of fend for yourself experience. You can go really light. I mean, you could go backpacking and light with just a little isobutane stove. Oh, that'd be cool. I don't really want to do something like that. We should. Yeah. Well, I've thought about that a lot. I really want to do one of those. And I want to do like a high desert trip like that, too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, high desert rafting ship. Now, a high desert camping chip that was like backpacking, like that kind of

Alpine. cottontails and in streams, man. Oh, man.

Yeah, like hunt, hunt, and fish for all the food that you have. Or have a couple backpack meals or something? Yeah, yeah, obviously bring it back up. But yeah, that would be the idea. That's a cool idea. Yeah, well, I like the idea of doing it on the on the river that I thought that'd be kind of fun. I have it set up kind of like a like a backpacking ship with a raft. I was wondering how self sustaining Could you be from a raft on a raft ship like, like, how many days do you think you can do?

a raffle? Well, I just had some friends that went on the Colorado and they just did

33 days, 33 days, but they run into stores, right, or do they have anything like that? Like, it's it's probably planned that day.

I, I, from what I understand they packed everything because I Oh, wow, if you're not familiar with river guide culture, everyone's pretty poor. So it's not like, got a ton of money to spend on places. So, I mean, really, it's like you kind of go on the cheap. But I mean, you bring the biggest hang-up is what you need to keep cold. Like if you need to put stuff on ice and things like that. Yeah. If you can cut that stuff back, you can really be very self sustaining. Yeah,

yeah, I figured that was what we noticed car traveling to is man, like having a having a cooler was a constant liability, where we just have to keep doing it. I always lose. Yeah, and we're always losing energy. Like, it's always it's always going out. We're spending a hand like probably a good bit just on ice traveling around. And we finally figured out like one of the things we were talking about earlier, what you think about beginning versus what you think of the end, man cutting down on a cooler or cutting down on ice and things you have to keep cold constantly. That was the biggest improvement of the the maintenance that we had to do for like our trip travel. Yep. stuff. It was it was so frustrating to try and like always keep that and like you're always throwing away stuff that's gone rotten in some way.

Exactly. And then also, when you're in a car, you know, the heat inside the car generally is amplified when you're in? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But the big thing on like, if you're packing a cold cooler, whether it's rafting or camping, or whatever it is, keep it shut as much as possible. You know, every time you open it, you're gonna lose. It's gonna heat up in there. So I mean, just keep it shut. A lot of times, you can duct tape the seal. So you don't lose any, any cold air from there. And do that. And you can really keep food cold for a long time. Or just go to the store. If you know, you're going to be gone for 10 days, get a couple blocks of dry ice and put those into a cooler that just a cooler for your eyes. And then you keep that in there. You keep that wrapped with duct tape. And you only open it when you need to swap it into the cold. Cool. That's a smile. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you've got an icebox and then a cooler essentially.

Okay. I like that. I like that thinking that's kind of that's kind of interesting. You know, we finally invested in a Yeti cooler, like one of those thicker, lined coolers with like the rubber straps that come down. So like clamps itself down the lid. Yeah. How do you? How do you feel about that? They don't they don't sponsor us so I can talk. I can speak my mind. I think that they are I think that they are too expensive. I think that they do keep ice. Well, and it is. It's like one of the better, better ways I've seen of a cooler. What do you what's your experience with them?

Well, I have little experience with them. But I don't know. I mean, it just seems like I mean, yeah, they hold eyes really well. And if I was buying it, for the only reason is to keep ice cold. Sure, then then I could validate that but it just seems like your pain. You know, like 75 bucks on a cooler that it's interior area would hold a six-pack of beer, maybe? Oh, yeah. Yes.

That laid out. 20 court one that we have is small. Yeah. I think that the concept guide right. Nuts use device. Is that you okay? So first you have your cooler Of course, just in the back of your truck. You get a bag of ice. You put the bag ice in the cooler. You shake it around, you leave it there for a half-hour just to chill the cooler. Just because it's too hot inside. Right? Then you dump that bag ice completely. That's gone. Then you put then you put three bags of like, cold ice in there. I think there's like coal ore. What is it? Like? There's wet ice? Have you heard of that? Like, it's like around like, what? 32 or seven? It's like kind of Yeah, running in a liquid. It's what you get at every convenience store. Because they turn up their their freezers to like, as high as it Yeah. But then yeah, so you throw in another three bags of ice, like almost it's like three quarters full at that point. And then you can put in what you're talking about maybe a six-pack of beer in there to keep it in its system, you know, to keep as much ice in the ratios what it thinks you're supposed to. But at that point, it says at least you can keep that for like five days. If you keep the lid shut like you're talking about it's it's Yeah, really well so you can keep that for a long time. It's not often something I've run into as needing but okay.

Oh, that No, I was just saying I I find they work fantastic. I mean, we use them on the river. And I mean they're they're great for keeping eyes but I mean using them as a cooler but you need to get in and out of and that's where you lose that so much of your cold air and stuff is those leads all the time. Yeah. So it kind of doesn't really matter whether or not you've got a Yeti or Coleman or whatever it is. It's when you're in and out of them. You lose the axe. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I see. And that's just kind of what it boils down to. So in that case, I'd prefer to have something with a little bit more area to actually keep food and stuff.

Yeah, no, the the Yeti one that you see like maybe at all right? Yeah, that was a pretty tiny one. Have you seen the big ones like are? Well, probably stuff that you guys would have figured it'd be the same. Yeah, same size coolers. We have the really large Eddie's Yeah. And I've seen the stuff that goes on, like the commercial fishing boats. Like the batches like is huge. Why? Like, I mean, like, see seafaring boats, like these giant, like, bench size Yeti coolers that they build into the side of the thing that they're supposed to throw in fresh catfish. But that's got to be expensive. Oh, yeah. It's got to be an insane custom order, like $5,000. I mean, I guess at that point, it's just like, Well, yeah, we'll make whatever cooler you want. You know, it's just like plastic and styrofoam at some point. So Exactly. There's another company. There's like this other company called Arctic. Like, I think it's our T IC. And they do knockoff Yeti coolers. They they I don't know, drop shipping from China or something like that. But they're like, they're like maybe 100 $150 cheaper than the Yeti cooler price. So it kind of brings, it brings him back in that range of like a Coleman cooler, or like something else that's, you know, more real. Yeah.

And that's, that's the thing, and you start price and coolers, and it doesn't really matter what level of cooler you want to get. Honestly, I mean, for anything decent. You're looking around the 100 bucks. Yeah, yeah. It's really charming. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's just kind of like, you know, your average. Yeah. I mean, with the

Yeah, snaps on the side that you take to the to the tailgate,

you can get those guys for like 39 bucks, or something, you know, but it's like, but if you get into like a steel-belted cooler, or anything that actually supposed to function correctly, right when you're out on a trip. Yeah. I mean, you're kind of looking at a minimum of 100 bucks.

I figure that's, that's definitely true. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's what that's that's another thing too, is like how much money you can invest in your equipment like that? Well, we were talking about that boat, you know, getting a custom Yeti cooler. It's five grand. Yeah, I know. But yeah, man. I don't know. Do you have any other stuff to bring upon this? I'm sure we're going to talk way more in the future about like hiking equipment.

Well, I did I did want to touch on you. Aside from like, your basics, like a water filter, your freeze-dried foods, things like that. What are some things that you bring in your pack? Not on a car trip, but on a backpacking trip? That you know, just just the important things aside from the the obvious?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. So I mean, I know. I try and keep my pack under 40 pounds. is what I've done it Yeah, each of the tabs. Well, yeah, I really try to keep it pretty light, which I guess is a little bit what we're talking about. I don't know what to bring at a point. I got my tent. Which is a it's just a couple pounds. I got like the stove. You know, the I got, let's say like, three of those or you know, like a handful of backpacker meals and some Clif Bars. I've got a way to start a fire. I've got Yeah, I've got like my iPod, or you know, like my phone or something like that charged up. Yeah. And so I'm trying to think of the other stuff. I mean, it's probably close that I bring, that's always been the spot where I bring more weight than I need to because it's always like, some kind of like, it's it's like cotton t-shirts, or another pair of jeans or something like yeah, oh man. And the worst one is like another pair of shoes. That's been the, I mean, cuz you want that. Like, like, at least like a pair of boots. And then like a pair of like river sandals. Like there's always been a situation where I want that. I know that's been for you. Like when honestly that's

that's been huge for me. I did that on a king strip, you know, bring sandals. I mean, if even if you're not getting into the water, it's just nice to let your feet breathe and, and just give your feet some type of different support than the hiking boot that you just put 20 miles on.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I noticed a turn that Yeah, I really needed to switch back and forth between the two, but I was always frustrated cuz you got to like store the pair of shoes somewhere. Yeah, which isn't that much way it's fine, but they're always kind of an awkward sort of bulky size. I was trying to think other stuff see, like when I go out or I think I was looking at a picture from the flowers. And I was thinking back to that ship of like special things that I brought or like different things. And what I would do, I think like we talked about last time, I always bring the camera bag with me so is the there's the backpack of whatever it is. But then like around the front, there's like the camera bag with a couple lenses. And that's just not glass. So there's really no economy of weight going on there. Yeah. And, and yeah, there's like a tripod, which is like metal, legs and stuff you don't need To be carrying, but it's just like a lot of weight that you have to like heave up to the top of the mountain. The other thing that I was gonna say that I brought was like a keyboard. This is and that thing probably in your mind. Yeah, yeah, you're losing me here. Go ahead and explain. Yeah, I brought a keyboard that I connected to my phone, and like to my iPad, so that I could do some of the like editing stuff that I was trying to do. Yeah, which is silly. And I probably wouldn't do it again, if

you guys did want a lot of editing and stuff. And a lot of journaling. When you guys were out there

was what we were trying to do. Yeah, so it was a lot of like, there's a lot of stuff, it was a weird job where you go like out in the woods, and you take a bunch of photos and you try and like file and write about the photos while you're there. And I'm like this kind of thing. You see it on Instagram, every once in a while, like these, these cool tent offices, you know, somewhere on the back entry and someone you know, hanging out in the in the tent with the window up and out to wherever and they just got their, their like iPad, or their, their MacBook or something like that in the tent on top of the sleeping bags as they're working through and editing, whatever, but you kind of think about like how light some of these things are. And you can haul them up there and work with them pretty easily now, but the problem is power. So is the thing about like a MacBook or a laptop. I couldn't support that. I couldn't power it up there. But what I did do, and I think your dad turned me on to this for the first time it was that gold zero. Solar Panel kit. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I bought one of those. It was just like that. And I use that thing a time on those backpacking ships if you workout for you. Yeah, I, it was the first time I've been using solar power. And really the only thing that it does, it's like two panels, maybe about about the size of your, you know, your two open palms or so, you know, it's like the size of like a good book. So it's really not very big at all for like solar energy. And all that it produces is enough to run out to a USB charger. So you can charge your phone. And that was really what I was going for. So it was cool that you could just be out for a week or indefinitely if you wanted. And you could keep your phone or your iPod on. And you know, when you turn it into airplane mode, the battery lasts for really quite a long time. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we use that we had a couple apps on it that we're using the donor to connect anything, but it's you can use that to file stuff or to write stuff or to record a video or to do whatever else. And and so we could do that as much as we wanted to. And then just recharge it the next day. Yeah, the sunlight on the solar panel. It was cool.

That's great. Yeah, we when we did Joshua Tree, I was taking like a photo journal or sorry, a video journal of the whole the whole trip. And that was eating up a lot of battery and I was I always use airplane mode for that. Just to save that battery, but we took with us a little charging station, which is actually kind of cool on those road trips. It has enough amperage to actually jumpstart your vehicle. Yeah, I've got one of those. And then yeah, you've got you know, you got USB ports and stuff like that in there. And I think those are greatly useful. Yeah, yeah, super great. I mean, because honestly, sometimes you get out there and it's just like, man, if you woke up with a dead battery and you're just 15 miles from anywhere Oh, yeah, see another person? It's been a huge concern a number of times Yeah. And with the way vehicles are going anymore, everything's in automatic. So it's not like you're gonna compression start your rig. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it was it was scary. I remember there was a couple of texts I was driving around that Oh, camera you man. You remember that? Like that was not that was not always reliable car. Especially. It was it was the best guy but I remember there was a him like had this problem you know, if you left it in an accessory or with with over that your lights could be on mode was it would kill the battery in like a half-hour or less. Like if you if you left if you just left it on accidentally or you know, the the stereo was on while you were away or the door was open or something like that. It would it would kill the battery. It was like you walk into the gas station. Yeah, I mean, you probably could do that. It did that. In fact, a number of times, man, little things you had to do. But so how many how many 1000s of miles did you put on that car when I sold it? When I bought it? It was 250,000 miles, which is a lot to buy across just the spring chicken at that point. Just a smooth quarter million. And then when I sold it, I sold it for the same price. I bought it and that was with 367,000 miles on it.

Yeah, you're the only person I've known that made money on a vehicle. You just put 100,000 miles on it and made money off that car man you to drive it that Camry That was great. No. It's

a cool car. It was a blast in free as basic of a little sedan as it was. It really did a lot of stuff. And yeah, it was it was really fun. But it was scary though. Yeah, sometimes I remember being at this campsite. Where like the battery, I think died. Unfortunately, I think there was someone around that helped us like jump it right then. But yeah, there was always like something about that in my mind. And I think the next trip that we went in, I did have one of those jumper kits in the car. And it works pretty well. Most of the time, I would recommend, I think what you were talking about earlier of, of, would you say like keeping up with and maintaining your equipment, man, maintain that charger, because it's got to keep that thing charged, kind of in the wheelhouse of the same season that you might use it in, because it does kind of lose it after a little while like I had one. Like you know what, I don't know that next winter after it went from 100 degrees out to freezing out that battery is toast. And it's not really going to give you the amps. You need to jump your car. I think I ran into that one time. Yeah. Or I don't know. I did what I drained it on the charger my cell phone,

something like that. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. That's a one thing I can say in especially is like, I don't know, for me anyway, as I get into better equipment. I'm more motivated to take care of it. Oh, yeah. Then really maintain it. You know, when you're starting in your, in your teens, and whatever, you kind of just Oh, yeah. 30 $30 sleeping bag, not a big deal or whatever. And then, you know, you just ruin things I burn through unintentionally. But yeah,

I mean, those things that they don't hold up the same way. And so it's like, that's, I think a good bit of why they've been replaced over time is that burned through a couple $30 sleeping bags? And you know, season two in the zippers are twisted and split. And you know, what, what's going on? Right? stuff with the 10 stuff stoves, stuff with filters. So

yeah, and, and honestly, when it comes to outdoor recreational equipment, you really do you just get what you pay for. Oh, yeah. Man, I, I, I just got to that point where I was, like, do I want to buy the $30 sleeping bag three times? Or do I want to buy $120 the bag once? Yeah. And you know, and that's just what it came down to. And so I started getting a little more picky when it came to choosing my equipment

I've been trying to buy. Yeah, and there's a there's a range of equipment, there's some equipment, like you're talking about, I want to be specific. I want to get the good stuff. I want it to work. And then there's another class of it. I don't it's kinda I don't know if I've really honed it down well, but I almost want it to be as cheap as possible because it's so likely to break or likely to get lost. Yeah, I don't know what that is. So yep. I know. There's like a handful of things that I've gone out. And for unfortunately, for me, it's sometimes like, well, it's not always pocketknives but it's like some sunglasses. sunglasses are perfect when travel sunglasses for me. Exactly. River sunglasses. I go for the cheapest ones. If they blow off my head, and you know, you know in water, whatever. There's nothing gone I don't care. It's funny. I don't want the best gear.

And unfortunately, the only way to come to that conclusion is to live through that situation multiple times.

Man I've lost Yeah, I've lost some stuff that wasn't super valuable. But it was just like Ah, it's just at the bottom of the river now. Like even if it wasn't really expensive, you're still like, Oh, I was 20 bucks. Yeah, I don't have it anymore. Yeah, it's a bummer, so there's that there's a handful of those things that have that oh, this is probably just gonna get damaged and get brought blown out whatever that is. I'm trying to like cut down on a few of those things but but yeah, I think that I remember the time I learned that was sleeping mats. You're talking about your sleeping bag I've learned so many times from a sleeping mat of not investing enough in that every night like two or three the hour and a half after I finally fallen asleep after blowing up my my bad excuse for a little camping that bed at two hours after that I always wake up in the sleeping bag kind of on the rocks under the tent you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. It's that like thing where you're still asleep and coming into awaking when you know you just have a rock in your kidney anything and now only spent 15 more dollars on this mat.

You know what I disagree with you there? Like I've spent good money. Oh, several times on ads. And better. No, you know what I got to the point like so well, first off, when I'm when I'm backpacking. I just got to the point where like, I'm probably going to be comfortable no matter what. Yeah, I yeah, I've been there. But man, I was just like, I'm going to use the cot and use as little of the sleeping bag. had his I can't because I have had nothing but bad experiences with sleeping pads. But they always seem to they last a trip or two and then they've got a hole in them. You got to patch them, or they just don't seem to hold air. I don't know, man. I mean, I guess you could you can get into some I've seen them, you know, there are $200 sleeping pads. One I got,

I got it, I got a Thermarest like, like an M, or one that didn't have a lining on it. Some of them like the Rei, when you get it's got this nylon lining that makes it a little tougher. This one was just sort of the rubbery inside lining of that. But I had one of those it was I think, less than $50. That's the one that I still have packs down to almost nothing. It's kind of cool. I don't, I've never turned it down, like on the rocks, as it were, or you know, something like that. So it's always had like a tarp or some kind of lining under it and the ground. But I've slept. I mean, I don't know. Not to say that it's been inflated all these nights, but I've probably put about 250 300 nights on that on that mat over the last handful of years. And it's been working out pretty well for No, it's like it was it was deflated, maybe maybe three or four weeks after I got it. But anyway, you gotta you gotta like, it's just sort of you come to this point where you're like, Oh, no, I just wake up at 215 and a 410. And it's 635. And I just reflate the mat, and then I go back to bed. It just becomes part of your nightly routine. Yeah, it's just just what you do. Yeah, just like getting up to take up the old air mattress. Yeah, it's a Yeah, it's on the same schedule. It's like, it's like auto timing. When when I needed to get up and but yeah, it was it's it's been silly. I got that's on the list for this year for 2017. I'm gonna try and get a new mat. Yeah.

So she got to do man figure out what's important. It's like, yeah, every year you try to buy like two things that will make your camping experience much better.

Yeah. Yes. Have you seen around with those, those like, it's not foil, but it's just like a dense foam mat that sort of collapses down into a little block. I've seen that like strapped to some backpackers. Kids before, but it's just sort of like this light foam mat that they crunch down into a little, little deck. I don't know, it was weird. I've not I've never really used anything like that. But I bet it probably works really well for him. Yeah, I've

kind of been curious about those. And the other one I've heard good reviews on this is from some people that I backpack with that had one. But it's like, it's it kind of contraries your body in a way that it kind of holds you inside the mat. It's inflatable. But it's got this kind of like it's almost the same shape as your mummy bag, but the sides kind of like protrude upward to keep you in it. Because I don't know. I mean, I'm sure you know, man, you get the lightweight sleeping pads and stuff. And you find out really quickly that you just roll off of them in the middle of the night. Yeah. Or whatever. You know, it's just like, they're hard to stay on. I mean, yeah, like, I'm not a large individual by any stretch of the imagination. And like, they're narrow, though. They're like, yeah, they're super narrow and thin. And yeah, I guess this guy Jimmy that I was backpacking with was telling me that he loved it. And I forget the name of the producer. But anyway, yeah, I guess it was really great. That's sweet.

Um, I'm away I'm probably way under-educated to really get in deep about like, a lot of different gear, the different manufacturers of outdoor gear, you know, and yeah, like that. That catalog of equipment is sort of swimming around in my mind. But I can't really pin down like a ton of different things. I'd be like, oh, what about this? Robert, what about this? What have you talked about the feather day? I don't, I don't have anything really? I don't know. I think we've probably talked about a lot of it. Man. I'm a basics kind of person. I don't really care if it's like North Face, or Patagonia or Acer tech, or Marmot or something like that. You know, it's not really like super important. And I know you're kind of most my gear, most of my layers are from goodwill. That's Yeah, they're old to men. And actually, that's one of the best pieces of advice I might I might give to anyone who's bothered to listen to this point deep in our podcast, which Thank you, by the way. But it's not so like, it's, it's one of the best values that you can get for outdoor equipment was cruising through and having a really specific clear agenda of the of the types of things you want to get out of goodwill. depends on your area. And you got to go like I did in Corvallis. Man Corvallis was a goldmine for Hey, don't be giving away. All the hardships Corvallis, goodwill, I pulled out I bought like a great North Face fleece out that fit me. Yeah, it was pretty It was $8 boom, there. Go Marina got me this, this Marmot shell, this blue Marmot shell for like less than 12 bucks. It was awesome. That's like a $200 jacket. I replaced it with a new one. And it was it was like 200 bucks at Rei.

It was so expensive even like, yeah, I mean, yeah, you're getting quality. But man, there's got to be some point where it's just like, Ah, it's too much money. Yeah, I like I go in there and I'll shop the like the clearance rack with my gift card that I get for like a birthday or something. You know? But you're still like, wow, this is a $60 flannel or something.

I don't see the value in some of it. Like we were talking about, there's like good things and bad things. Man, I went big on a rain jacket. I'm a work outside all the time you like you You have big on like the boots that you have for for fire season. And like, there's like sometimes it's like, oh, that's I need that. I need that thing. A lot of the time. Maybe you don't need a new one of those. Yeah, or whatever, whatever it might be. But I go big on rain gear. Yeah, that's what I'm your big. I put my money in having a having a good thermal layer. And I got a pretty expensive but like a nicer rain jacket, like a GoreTex rain jacket to go over. And man that thing is saved me like being out here in Oregon. I don't need really any other layers Other than that, and I've noticed that you can go from like snow, to warm weather to like really intense rain. And you can pretty much keep that same, like set of layers go in that whole time. And it worked well. Like Yeah, but it's rad when you finally like get something and say, oh, this is like this is what I need. This is good enough to answer for all these different situations will be in.

And that's what yeah, I won't go light on on anything that keeps you warm and dry. I'm sure yeah. First off, I don't even know if this is a really good way around. Going. You know going getting around the expensive stuff on that. Oh, yeah, it all seems to be pretty steep no matter where you go. But yeah, like I mean when it's hot, you can always shed layers like you can always remove clothing sure cooler but when it comes to being cold and wet, man that that's the difference between a good trip and a bad trip or a good trip and a serious change

right my experience a ton I mean just just kind of working outside of gigabit through the day. Like data coming through with like some snow on the on the hills like a little bit higher up in the elevation right on the valley floor. It's nothing, but it's it's pretty lousy. Winter weather. It seems like right now. But it's like it's just waves of rain. Like every 45 minutes or so. It's like 45 minutes on 45 maybe 10 2030 minutes off. Then back on to just kind of this drizzle this light rain drizzle. It's coming down all the time. And if it weren't for the like, whole head cover hood and an GoreTex like outfit I've caught on. I'd be soaked all the time. Oh, man. Yeah. shoes. Shoes are a huge one. Like, we should talk about hiking shoes sometime. Like cuz you gotta like Well, what's it What's it the boot that you go for a lot. Mine are the marrow. Yeah, the marrows. Yeah. Yeah, I like those man. I I've never had Merrill's. But they seem pretty.

They're a great boot. They've got you know what, honestly, when you price shoes, shoes are expensive. They're expensive when you're looking for, honestly, so I'm not even gonna say these are expensive. The $150 range.

Yeah, but same as a pair of Jordans. Yeah, exact same as a pair of weigh less. weigh less than Yeezys. Uh, yeah, no, they're great boots, man. I love them the mid top. But we'll save that for another podcast. Oh, yeah. Hey, um, so, you know, we always talk a lot about electronics in the field and things like that in different ways that you take your stuff out there. And that's because you are a photographer Billy extravert you take great photos. So for anybody listening if you want to check out Billy's photography, I believe what it's Billy Newman photo comm.com you

got it right man I appreciate all right. Yeah, check out check it out photos, check out this podcast there. It's it's hosted on that site if you want to check it out. And yeah, the get out there podcast, the feed is up and going. We've got information about that Billy Newman photo comm you can check it out on iTunes. That's what I recommend. If you're hearing this, you probably already figured out how to get into the podcast app and look for this but if you are, give us a review, or rate it or subscribe to the podcast that helps us out a lot in the first eight weeks. We read that those numbers are going to be three and then two of them are you and I Probably it's probably you and me and our girlfriends respectively. But it's but but we have passed. And this is great news, and it's under a week, and we're under five episodes. In total. We've had 100 downloads. Whoa. Which is big time. It's again, mostly me and you I think. I think it's like, yeah, we've got around 11 listeners a show. Maybe some I know, but it's all it's all. It's all ephemeral at this stage. You can't really tell for a long time. But but overall though, man, it's really fun I did doing a podcast with even if it's zero people that that are listening to it. It's still been a blast. Yeah, but you say, Hey, you know about the outdoor stuff, man, you get to talk to you about this stuff.

No, it's great. I love I love picking your brain to you because you've spent, I mean, just as much time as anybody I know. doing various types of camping. Yeah, so it's good. I like I like speaking with like minded people about these topics. It's cool, man. It's great. Hey, um, sounds like we might have a trip planned for this weekend. We don't know. Oh, yeah. Harley what it is. Yeah, but we got some things in the works. Maybe we'll do a do a little podcast from wherever we are.

We got to do on Yeah. If we if we meet up in person, we'll definitely do a live podcast. It'd be cool.

Absolutely. So hey, for those 11 listeners out there, you guys. Stay tuned. We got a little something for you.

That's gonna be a special treat. Episode Six. Yeah, it's just like, Hey, we hung out today. There you go. No, but we'll, we'll put it together. It'll be fun. That'd be cool. But yeah, Robert, thank you very much for doing this podcast in it. Yeah. Thank you, Billy. It's been good. I appreciate it, man. So on behalf of Robert bisca rap, my name is Billy Newman. And thank you guys very much for listening to this episode. of the good out there podcast.

Get Out There | 04 Backpacking The Wallowa Mountains and King Range

Backpacking stories from the Wallowa mountains in northeast Oregon.

Robert talks about his experience backpacking through a thunderstorm.

Billy Newman Robert Biscarret

Hey, what's going on? This is Billy Newman, and I'm here with Robert Bisca. rat. We're recording the get out there podcast. How you doing, Robert? Hey, I'm doing good, Billy. How are you? It's cool, man. I'm doing good up here. And yeah, thanks for calling in tonight. Recording Episode Four of the get out there podcast. It's kind of cool, man. I like like doing this. It is. Yeah. It's been a great time. How are you liking this rain? Oh, man. It was kind of well, you know, as we said today, for part of it. It was all right. Like I was getting through the day. And then the last half of it was just like a ton of rain. How was it

going? Man, it was a it was pretty good for us the day it's started raining pretty heavily now. I've actually been working out in, in Northern California this last week. So I mean, the weather has been a little bit different kind of getting outside of the valley. Typically a little bit more sunshine than we get here in the valley. But But yeah, now that I'm back in the valley, it's rainy.

Were you were you out pass this excuse over there in that part of Northern California?

Yeah, yeah. Up there in the hill area.

Oh, I've been out in the hill area a couple times. Yeah. I think I went out there with Tyler once to the to the Buddhist temple. Oh, been out there before? No, as far as I knew, all that existed there was a liquor store. Well, the liquor store I mean, that's what's in Hill, but I think

freeway exit, not where you would see a Buddhist temple. But no, there's, I think there's a road it's, it's whatever that first exit is once you get over the scuse. And into California, as you come back down that backside is that first exit, it might not Oak Hill, but it was right right there. Right in that area. You take that and, and you cut back West, along along the ridge of the South line of the mountains and you go back a little ways and you kind of cut up a bit. And it's like nowheresville out there. There's just like, there's like a couple like ghost town Aries out there, it looks like and like, I know, like one of those kind of short railroad sections, like where they stack up cars, something like Yeah, but then yeah, you just turn there you go up into the woods a little further and you end up at this pretty impressive Buddhist temple. Like it's been there for years. Yeah, I guess like that the Ashland hippies kind of bought it and set it up. And, you know,

I was gonna say is that a hotspot like that, that weird 150 miles between readin and Ashland that nobody lives in is that just like, I

think it's, it's for its tranquility. It's, it's been, it's intense. Like, you go out there, I think we've taken pictures of it before, but they like have all the Buddhist flags of flower. You know, like on the on the side of the hills that you can watch. It's got it's kind of cool. It's like a pretty impressive structure that they build out there. Like it looks like an orange a Chinese building, and then lower down. There's like these columns that are all painted red with like, you know, ornate symbols on it. And they like spin in this like, pretty big, like, drum system that goes and there's like 12 of them. And they like all spin as you go into this temple. Wow. Yeah. is a pretty heavy duty template for just out in the backcountry. Nowhere. Have you been out there much like out into some of the stuff in the skews?

No, not really. I mean, you and I did kind of on point with this podcast, but we did. We did the hike up pilot rock. Oh, yeah. I was thinking about that. That is up there. Yeah, I mean, that's that's really like and I mean, other than snowboarding up on Mount Ashland. That's kind of my only experience with that area.

Yeah, that's right. You know, the six keys is what I want to get into more like pilot rock is cool. I think. I think a pilot rock more as like something of Eastern Oregon or more like Table Rock. You know, when you think of Kind of, yeah, that side of it. But I remember hiking pilot rock with you. That was like, late last week of July 2008. I remember gas was 525 a gallon. Oh my God. He's like 550 a gallon when you went over to Ashland it was

isn't that when Tyler hit that rock in his Camry hatchback. And oh yeah. Ended up pushing that hole in his oil pan. Or it was his transmission pan? Oh, yes. It was he was leaking transmission fluid everywhere.

I remember that night there was thought that like it might be the end of the Camry and the guy now, but yeah, it was I remember that. Yeah, like the whole drive back, like loaded down with people and yeah, just I guess it dripped out over the trip. But yeah, it's too bad. I remember Dawson came with us on

that. That was Dawson that that turned us on to that and for those of you that may be listening Dawson was our was our high school. English teacher and still still a good friend to this day. So I did, but yeah, he took us out there showed us showed us around the area and ended up being a great hike. I recommend that anybody that has access to that area

Yeah, it is a it's kind of a challenging hike and sometimes I mean there's there's a little pirate, you know, you gotta you gotta kind of get up up No, you just, you just got to get up. But there's a couple challenging spots in that hike. I remember getting there thinking like, Oh, this is like 30% rock climbing or like not like actual doing but like in difficulty sometimes. It's like this greatest Steve This is like crumbly rock that's coming around. But it

was it's not someplace you would take like your your little kids. But I mean any any able bodied individuals would be able to get up there, you know? Yeah. And do it do it. All right.

I remember the the the geocache that was up there at the summit.

I don't know I never was able to kind of like do that with you guys. In fact, that whole geocache movement passed right? I mean, just kind of like the whole Pokemon just to two major things that just never affected my life in any way.

I hear you the geocaching, I hope a little different than Pokemon but, but I remember we found it. We weren't looking for it. But it was on that hike when we were there. At the summit. I think it was like one of those things. It was challenging enough to get up there that it was sort of obvious where it was located. But yeah, there's a there's just the geocache at the summit point of pilot rock. It was like some little film canister to kind of sign your name. But yeah, one of the guys we were with pulled it out. Okay. Look, I found this geocache stashed up here. Let's sign it. And remember, we like stashed up there again. Just honestly, have I ever taken you to the cave up out of waters Creek area? You did one time? Yeah. Okay. Nice. I'm not gonna go into great detail about that. Because it's kind of like a Yeah, I get a special a special place. But yeah, that's kind of neat. That little peanut butter jar therewith. It's been in that cave for 17 years. Wow. Boy, more than that. It was 17 years when I took you, so probably 20 years now. Yeah, yeah. And only one other person assigned it. That is nuts was pretty insane. Yeah. People don't find too. Yeah, I think about that, like how few times people have been in some areas, or you know how many years it takes before someone gets back to that spot?

Yeah. You ever wonder that when you get rid of it really out into remote places? And I thought about this a lot when I was firefighting? Oh, yeah. You know, you get out into those areas. And you're, you know, you're 1012 miles out into it, looking for a lightning strike. And it just kind of dawns on you. When was the last time that anybody was out here? You know, like, I mean, how many hundreds of years ago? Could somebody potentially walk along this area? Yeah, it would have been so long ago. Yeah. The likelihood of that happening the frequency? Yeah. I mean, what is what's the likelihood of somebody being up on this ridge at? You know, I don't know. 7000 feet out and assist us? Right. Yeah. It's just kind of like, I don't know. Yeah, that's a deep wilderness. Because, you know, yeah, it might not mean you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what I mean, you could probably count the people throughout history that I've taken that path that you're walking on, probably on one hand.

Yeah, I gotta think about that, that there's really some super remote areas. I mean, even still out here in Oregon and Southern Oregon, especially like, some of it's still kind of the frontier. It feels like, Oh, very much. So. You know, yeah, it feels like what's left to the frontier in the in the 21st century? Yeah, there are some some pretty significant locations or wilderness or stretches a wilderness out there that I guess yeah, like, just don't have a lot of people moving through it at all.

Well, and honestly, that's what that's what keeps me in this area. I mean, oh, yeah, absolutely. It definitely is an economy. That is it's just kind of that unexplored wilderness and what the area has to offer as far as

I know.

No, it's really cool about that and how much I miss it. Now that I'm up here. Still in Eugene still with a lot of nature around me. I mean, gosh, is like so much the Macan Willamette wilderness to go into but I think back to just like behind our high school, you know, if we if we just wanted to skip class and go back to school, it was like this awesome mountain road that would go up, you know, into this like crazy, endless maze of mountains that goes like deep into southern or Northern California. It just Yes, it like that whole like mountain range just started right there. And that was just like mountains and wilderness, back for for miles and miles out into the next day.

I know it You always just kind of like, yeah, whatever is behind the mountain, but then you start thinking about what's behind the mountain. You just go. Oh, wait, this

is it for a long, long way. Yeah. You know, and we're lucky. I mean, a lot of people don't have that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That, you know, and they'll never be able to experience that. Yeah, I

think I think some of that stuff of doing things where you're removed from, from a population for a long time is really cool. And it's something where you, you really feel like you get back. Not back to nature so much. I mean, I always have like, some kind of technology, like always been cameras and stuff like when I'm going out. So I understand like, it's not a naturalists approach. Or maybe it's not what I mean, but just the kind of the thing of preparing yourself as a person having all your equipment or you know, having your gear, having some steadiness to you and then going out away from people for a while. I always think that's a really cool Yeah. I didn't do I want to do more backpacking stuff with you? And

so Cinnabon point, yeah. So that's, that's what I was getting to. Oh, yeah. Kind of on point with people that may not have that opportunity. I want to talk to you, Billy, oh, maybe some good opportunities, places to go hike. I know that you've hiked in not only the lower room, but I don't want to get too hung up on that. I think we've focused on that a little bit. And the whole world and I would like to touch on it. But but there's so much more out there beyond Yeah, dairy, and that wilderness. And so I want to talk to you about I know you did a hiking trip through the walls, and that's up in Canada, North Eastern Oregon.

Yeah, that's a great spot. Yeah. And I kind of wanted to hear your take on that. Man. I really want to get you up there. In fact, actually, that's one of the spots that we should plan on going this summer if we're able to make a couple trips out to some spots together. But the allow is is awesome.

Yeah, I've I've I've heard nothing but Oh, okay. So actually, here's kind of an interesting anecdote.

I today I learned that will allow, and I'm assuming it's spent spelt the same way. I was listening to an Alaskan. Okay, Hunter, kind of, uh, you know, telling stories about his hunting situations. And he was telling me that, oh, williwaw, which was spelled w i l l o w A, which is the same way as the walau is correct. I there's an A in there. But a real close. Okay. Yeah. Right. So so maybe I'm maybe I am confused. But he was saying that what it is, is unpredictable winds winds that are constantly changing. So if you're out there hunting and stocking the animal, Willow. I believe that's how you pronounced it will potentially give your center away. Oh. And I'm wondering if maybe the shape of those canyons and in mountain ranges don't don't create some maybe unpredictable winds. That'd be interesting. I

wonder if that's where the etymology comes from? I remember Yeah. So that area is really cool. I want to get you there. It's it's one of the only glacially formed areas in Oregon. Like it's sort of getting into some of the stuff that we see a little further north when we get up to Glacier National Park. Yeah, further into to to Canada and into the Columbia range. In fact, if you look at a wide map of the Northwest, you can kind of see that the terrain, how it sort of comes down from the Rocky Mountains, if you kind of trace that up into Canada and Columbia range, as that kind of comes down. This is sort of the westernmost edge of something some of the mountains that would be down on the the edge of the panhandle of Idaho that go up into Columbia and then in the summer stuff that goes further east over to the Colorado's, but it's not really connected, but it's like one of the last thing that's over there, and it is really an unusual piece of land for that area. Like you've been over in Eastern Oregon plenty of times. Everything around there like Pendleton La Grande, everything up into Washington. It's all super flat grassland. It's just like rolling hills for really long. Yeah, like you get down to the Chico's of the Blue Mountains. There's there's terrain out there. But it's really not like the allow mountains. And so I think that will allow mountains used to be a Nez Pierce like an Indian city-state, or I don't know if that's what that would be. But it was like, it was kind of like a like a section of the Nez Perce tribe that stretched up into Washington and Idaho and Montana. And I think they they had like one of their last outposts there. And like the Oregon American or Oregon, Native American Indian Wars back in 1870, something like that. That's that was big here in Southern Oregon to during the 1850s. Yeah, I bet it probably was everywhere. But that's where we get Chief Joseph and the town of Joseph up there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So So Joseph is that small town? That's right outside. of the allowance. And when we went there, I think the first time I went there, I did a solo backpacking trip. I got there with my dad when I was a kid. But when I when I got to the point I was on that trip to do that photoshoot back in 2011. It was fall, kind of like mid late September. It was really a nice time of year to go through. I was worried about doing Alpine hiking, as it was getting like later into September, because I really didn't want to get caught in a freeze because I didn't have the equipment for it. But I got to Joseph, I park the Camry. I said everything. I've had the backpack and like a couple days worth of supplies. And I took off I think I did nine miles up to a spot called ice lake. So is about four miles in a canyon. That was a pretty pretty easy grade. And then it was another like four miles. A switchbacks big. Yeah. Every hiker loves it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a lot of switchbacks. It breaks it up. Well, but But yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty steep incline like you do you do most of the canyon. And then you really just have to get up the side of this hill for a long time. But it's really rewarding. You get out there, you get to this. I mean, have you done? Well, yeah, you probably have definitely in in some of the firefighting stuff that you did, but probably in a lot of the other backpacking stuff you might have done. I was wondering if you'd been up to budget like that Alpine level? Or that the Alpine lakes, that sort of atmosphere terrain?

Yeah. Something I want to talk to you about a little later. Is my experience down in Kings Canyon near Sequoia National Park? Oh, yeah.

I want to break that down with you in a bit. But yeah, that Yeah, that's a cool area. And so yeah, you know, like when it's like when you get up above the tree line, and you're in those, the snowmelt lakes that show up kind of high in those those areas, in the mountains there. But it's really cool, because in the world, Lao is probably like what you find in other areas where you come back back into, but in the allow is surprisingly, for naturally beautiful as they are they're really under-populated. I think they've got a lot more popular recently. But it was so cool. Because when I was there in September, I was the only person at this lake. Oh, I absolutely believe it. Yeah, see, just that kind of, um, the amount of solitude that you get, I mean, I think I saw one other person walk through a day later.

Well, what's so cool about that is when you get up to these remote areas, what you've done is you've eliminated about 95% of the people that are willing to go off of the the natural path, you know, they have the the tourist center, you can drive your car up for they're there for the day, take some pictures, do things of that nature, but very few people are a going to find the time or be even have the willingness to really spend the time to actually get out there and explore. And that's the beauty of doing these types of trips is you can really find that solitude and find yourself in situations where you haven't seen anybody for days on it. That's that's what I really loved about it. No, it

was amazing when I was up there, because that was that was really the first experience I had of solo backpacking. That's the thing I recommend to I mean, you've probably done some other version of that before I don't really, I'm not really done things like that much before. But so completely solo there was nobody else with you. The first time I went, I went backpacking out there. Yeah, it was, it was just me, Marina wasn't there for that part of the chip. So it was just me and man, I swear. Okay, so break part of the story down. I got lost the first night. It was kind of bad. And it's probably the thing that I've made the most mistakes at in something related to the outdoors, like closest to a cascade of events that would have ended in Where's Billy? Yeah, right. So yeah, there's a few points that I got concerned. It was late September, I was walking up. I had started because I had a drive to the allowance. And I got a map from from like, the local spa, I had to put in a little permit thing and just said like, this, this is me, I'm gonna be gone for these many days. It's so so did did you have to get a permit to go do that. Not really a permit, but you just,

but just kind of like a notification that you were going to be out there. Yeah, I think it's just a well, they would have found your body at some point.

Yeah, at some point. It's like this guy was supposed to move his car last week. I think that's about all the signal that it gives you is like, Oh, this guy was supposed to get this car a couple of weeks ago. He's probably he was just like an ice lake. So I was going out there. I made it all the way up the straightaway like Remember, if we imagined kind of an L shape we were going up the canyon or kind of the draw with the creek I crossed the creek. And that's about the time that that the sunset. So it was dark, I probably should just stop there.

So now you've now you've entered into water made yourself saturated with

water. That's a good thing because a little wet, and then I cross over, and now it's dark, and I just got the switchbacks as I rise 4500 feet in elevation to the top of the lake to get to. Okay, so yeah, it's easy, right just like it's, it's how you want to get set up for a long backpacking trip.

It was kind of I typically like to hit my switchbacks at nightfall after midnight, what I shoot for him? Yeah,

yeah, at the witching hour. Let's go for it. I've heard of people doing this before I had my little headlamp and stuff. So I see I go, and it's relatively easy is what I'm expecting what I had to deal with myself, alright, like, I'm going to stop if it gets weird. Like, I'm not going to just like, like, scale across and escarpment of rock together as a way to, you know, end up to the, whatever their side I was supposed to go to. So I was just gonna say like, I'll stay on this easy trail, I can see it pretty well. It'll be pretty regular. I'll just get up here. And you know, I'll finish when I do or when I can. I'll try and make everything go easy. So a cruise that that I do the switchbacks I get to this zone. I cross like another really small creek. It's just when you kind of leap over pretty much, but it's it was an area where like the I guess the snow had come through. And it made like a big drift. And then now there's like, there's meltwater that's flowing through it. And when did it done? Was it in a race where the trail I was supposed to take was? So there's this whole zone in front of me that was washed out? where and what time of the year was this again, you said this was later in the fall, September 18. It was a nice evening, but it was cold out, and it was dark out. And then this was the next thing. So I stopped there. And it's like dark. There's no moon that night, really. But I have my headlamp on. I remember I had like Michael Jackson thriller playing in the chest pocket on my iPod. Because I was just by myself, right? I just had nothing to do and us. Nobody Yeah. And so I'm sitting there. I think I ate like a Clif Bar. I had my headlamp on, and I was just kind of poking around and kind of looked up, and then boom, what catches splendid eyes over there. 50 feet 10 o'clock. What's that? eyes? Wait, what's that? Well look, Lion lions like Michael jack. Another set of eyes at 12 o'clock. And so I'm looking at you like, whose eyes are these? like big eyes? Like they're not like really tight together? You know, when you see a cat or something like that. But yeah, yeah. Something predatory. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard in a way. So what they told me is that there was no bears. There's no wolves up there. There's some wolves. But it really, really no rules. But there's like, there's like sheep, I guess, which I really don't want to run to it either. But yeah, it's Yeah, better news than the other thing. So I was just really banking that they weren't interested. But you just looked down the hill, and you just or maybe deer, I guess. But you sit down the hill, and you see like these little yellow eyes, look at it and you go. This is great, especially for your first time. And it's like this is not not the type of thing you want to get into. But I ended up losing the trail right there. But it was confusing, because I had this map in front of me. And I was standing at the creek. And so what the map showed was, well, the trail is just to the south of this creek. So if we just crack if we're at that the trail and we just crossed the creek to the to the south side, the trail will be right there. I'm assuming it's running east to us. Yeah, let's see. Yeah. East to West progress. Yeah. So I hop over, hop over this little creek, but there's no trail over there. And so I'm like, Oh, well, it's got to be just like a little further over here, a little bit up here. And so I kind of like cruise back and forth. I was trying to find this trail. I couldn't find the trail. So I was like, This is weird. So I ended up getting myself into kind of this weird spot where it's sort of like up higher in this rocky area where like, because there's really like nowhere flat to camp by that point where I was at. Because you're just going up this hill, right? Yeah. So I just like laid out the the stuff there. And I just like crashed until morning where I could see where I was. I was like 10 feet from this like really big drop off.

But I had no idea. But yeah, I woke up that morning just kind of wedged between these like two little trees on what was the least of a slope. Just trying to hold myself in between these little rocks. I don't kind of roll down in my sleeping bag at night. But I woke up the next morning and then I found out like okay, this was a fake Creek. That wasn't even on the map. And I supposed to look at this other Creek way over here. And that's where the trail was. Okay, it was great. Yeah, but that was most of it. When I finally got up to the lake. It was great. Everything else in the trip really went fantastic. There was no one up there at the lake. You just got to go around it super pristine water. Like really cool. Great to do photos. That was really fun. Oh, yeah. And I decided when I was up there, I just should do two days. By Gosh, I should add another day because I already did all the work to get up here. And I was kind of Yeah, yes. So I thought like, well, I'll just, I'll just hang out here for another day, I got my food. And I kind of rationed it out a little bit. And I had a little extra stuff that I could cook up to. So I ended up just like, split my meals up and spent more time up there. But yeah, man, that was one of the best trips that I've done. Because what I really like about backpacking, I don't want to hear your take on this is, I like the exercise portion of, of like, doing outdoor wilderness stuff, I think that's important. Man, there's a lot of work to do. And I've definitely done it. But what I what I dig in as doing photography stuff, is I carry my camera with me in the tripod. And I like getting out to stuff with and being able to take pictures of things that, you know, I normally don't get to see just kind of around the more pedestrian stuff around town. And so it's cool to get out to a spot and set up like a base camp. This is kind of the strategy I've liked a little bit. So there's a lot of trips like the lower row where we were talking about earlier, where it's just sort of 10 miles each day, you do that until you complete the circuit, and then you're you're done with it. But I like it, where it's a little more flexible, where you go into the backcountry, you know, 10 or 12 miles or something like that you set up a base camp, and when you operate out of there with the resources that you brought in for like a couple days. Yeah. And that that's been really fun for us to do. We've done that a couple times. Man, it made it, it made it a lot more comfortable to do. But you just get to you just get to familiarize yourself with that area of the outdoors, which I think is cool, because it's tough when you just walk through a spot, and then it's gone. Yeah, man.

Well, it's a little like traveling, you know, hey, I did not not the same type of backpacking, but I backpacked around Europe for a bit when I was in my early 20s. And you find that you go to all these cool places, but you only spend a day or two in those places. And when you leave, you realize that you never really utilized your time there and got to understand the area, culture, the people. And it's a lot like that with backpacking, when you're hiking for a destination, you kind of in a sense, forget to enjoy the time that you're spending in that area, and you're focused on the pain and what you got to get through the mental, you know, push through mentally and get a lot of mental Yeah, yeah. And in sometimes you kind of forget about the beauty that you were just passing by, and not to sound cliche, but it becomes that stop and smell the flowers situation. Yeah, you know, and but don't get me wrong, there are those there are others great points where you find, you know, that beautiful little Brook that's kind of cruising through the area, and it's a great spot to take a nooner and, and eat an apple and sit there and put your feet in the water because they're so sore. And, and those are the little moments that you end up remembering,

yeah, that's the stuff I love about about that area. And it's really cool.

But I would love to do something like that I've never actually had the opportunity. Just kind of based on the hikes that I've chosen to do something like that, where I've had the leeway to just say, you know what, we're going to go in X amount of miles, we'll see what happens when we get there, we'll find a place we like. And, you know, we'll find our tentative destination, set up a base camp there and then explore the area. And I think that's a really cool approach to the backpacking because a lot of people, I think, take backpacking as well. We're making the loop we're doing the circuit, this is the trail or Yeah, yeah, there's 40 miles, we got two days. Yeah. And so I think, I'd like to do more of that. And I think I'd like to encourage more people to do things like that as well,

it was, you know, it made it a lot easier for the first couple times that I did it. And that's what I've done with Marina a few times, it's been super rewarding, because you just like, I guess a good example of this was the second time that we went up to the willows went to ice Lake the first time to smaller Lake really beautiful, you might have seen some pictures that I took of it. The next time we went up, we went a little further down that Canyon. So the first cut off-trail is up to ice lake. If you go further, there's a whole number of other mountain lakes that there are trails to cut off to i've i've only explored really a very small percent of what there is to offer up here in the willow mountains. In fact, I've thought before, if I could, I'd spend like 15 or 20 days, up in the mountains like that, you know, and have like a cache or get the resources again, one time, go back to town and then yeah, but I've only been to a couple little spots. So the second time Marina and I both went, we went one leg further over to an area called the lake basin. And this was cool because and this is what we should do. Maybe if we go up sometime, because there's so many things to do in that area is we went up to the first Lake, we set up our campsite there. And then from there, there's there's kind of a number of spoke trails that go off to different lakes that are further up in that chain. So there's like a, like a number of lakes that are kind of connected all along these these glacially formed mountain ridges that look really dramatic and really steep as they kind of cut-up along up to the top of this mountain. That's all really just sort of one thing with these big gouges carved out of it from the ground. flow. But yeah, cool area up there. Well, you know, I've

seen it in pictures, and you know, you always know that pictures never really do the area justice. Oh, yeah, it's totally true. But I mean, even even from the pictures, and Okay, so I just do want to touch really quick not to get off-topic. But Billy, you and Marina both do something pretty awesome. I mean, you talk about packing a camera around a lot. I think you should tell people that. You know, kind of what you guys do. I mean, you guys are photographers that yeah, that's, that's your hobby. That's your passion. And I think our field time. Yeah, this outdoor exploration is just kind of like a catalyst to what you guys love to do.

That's, that's the way I remember seeing it. You know, I remember watching. I remember watching 127 hours, I was still in college. Yeah, I was like, Man, I'm gonna set my camera up. With the $500 I'm able to scrap together for the summer, I'm gonna go do some kind of thing. There was also another photographer guy that I followed. And I liked I liked a lot of the images that he had. He got like an old Land Rover, or Range Rover, you know, Range Rover, like an old forum and like a like a left hand drive one. Yeah, and and like set that up with a like a tent and stuff and did this whole circuit of national parks, three parts of the West, I was like, oh, man, that is really cool. I want to do something like that I want to go through. And I was just getting out of school, I wanted to, like figure out a bunch of stuff about photography, which is what I was most interested in. And that's where I was like, man, I gotta figure out a way to travel for a long time and get a bunch of photographs taken at the same time. And that's when Yeah, that's how like Marina and I like first started doing more seriously some of the outdoor travel stuff that we got into. And I've been liking doing it. I mean, I guess it's like six years later, of just that sort of stuff. But yeah, you guys, you guys have really put out some incredible stuff, dude. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I got it. I got to collect it more. I got to put it out.

I mean, like all the art in our house is is photography from the two of you? Oh, yeah,

man. Thank you. Thanks for putting up all our prints that we dropped. Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't do it. Because I like you. I do it because it's good pictures. Thanks, Robbie. I'm down here. Yeah. Man, that was that was one thing I always thought about is, is how cool some of these spots are that? That it seems like people don't really get to go to, you know, that's the part of photography I've always been most fascinated with is that ability Where is ice photography asserted this, this opportunity to go find the coolest looking thing in the world, and try and capture it somehow and show us? Absolutely. And so that's so part of that was kind of my drive my interest to nature into the outdoors, where that's where I always think the coolest things are. And so that's why, you know, I wanted to go out there and, and do as many types of landscape photos as I could. But backpacking, I mean, it really provides so many opportunities that are separate from what you get on that track, that tourist track of photos that you could go on if you're going to see. Yeah, natural places, like the bison in Yellowstone. Yeah, yeah, the drive by bison, in Yellowstone. Yeah, you know, whatever, whatever that shot is in, in Yosemite, are very beautiful. And I've taken those same pictures and they're great. But backpacking is super interesting, because it really makes the perspective different probably like how it is, you know, when people go skiing or snowboarding or something, you know, you take the lift up to the top of the mountain. And just that, that work of getting to the top of the mountain, you see such a different perspective on the landscape, and sometimes seems so much more dramatic.

And so that's something I wanted to touch on also is and and I'm not a photographer, but I would have to imagine if you were just a photographer, and let me know what you think about this, but you're a photographer, okay? And you're gonna go photograph the Eiffel Tower. Okay? Perfect. You're the 15,000th photographer to go take a professional photo of the Eiffel Tower. It doesn't have that much meaning to it. Okay. spot, you've, you've taken a great picture. Excellent, but somebody else has done it. But I think when you get out there and you, you really separate yourself from things that people are photographing, and not just about photographs, but you put in the work, you put in the time, the effort, the planning, and you get out to a remote area, you can find beauty in the simpler things, because you can appreciate that. And photography ends up being this, this, this expression of art, right? Yeah, that's what is this artistic expression? Yeah. And so I think a lot of that kind of pushes through in your guys's photography. And I mean, one that sticks out in my mind is you guys, you guys were shooting tin cans, you know, oh, yeah. out in the desert. And there's this, there's this picture of these cans lined up. And it really just kind of captures a time far beyond this. You know, I I mean, it feels like it feels like 18. You know, 70, it doesn't feel like we're running rampant it does. And, and but what's cool about that is you guys were living that moment. And that really is kind of what pushes through in that. And, and you feel that through the picture, because you guys were there and, and you being there and taking a picture of something that you guys thought was important. It really portrays to the person that's looking at that,

man, that's a big part of it. I mean, like it is like working on music or doing a lot of other types of creative expression. It seems like so much of it, probably like 10 years of it is just trying to figure out how to get through an app and try and figure out how to communicate or how to put the pieces together. And after that it tries to show so that that seems important. But yeah, I'd like that picture. You're talking about the one of the cans in Yeah, in eastern California. Those are all cans that we found out there. That had been, you know, it looked nuts to because like in the top seven, you can see where the the can opener tool was used on them. Yeah, the old church keys, they probably were from 1870, I had wondered about that. You might know about it. My grandpa told me you're like that you could, like tin cans would would kind of I guess what it would be oxidized, you know, rust out back to the earth and about 10 or 15 years? Yeah, I wasn't sure if that was true or not. Or like it would just be stuck out there forever. But yeah, it looked like they were old cans, like old old tin cans pop with the church key and left out there.

Yeah, a lot of those that I find. I always find myself out hunting or hiking and I find an old candy shop or something I end up searching through it. A lot of times I'll find cans that are typically from, like, the early to mid 60s. That you

know, that makes sense. It seems like the construction of it the way it's built. It's different than a modern one a lot of the time. Yeah, but yeah, I'd seen a few that seemed like they were around the 60s.

I mean, they're so oxidized though. you'd swear there from the beginning of time. Yeah.

The Indians. Yeah. Exactly. dropped in Arrowhead and this beer bottle. Indians love their canned corn. Yeah, it's pretty funny. But, but that's Yeah, that's some of the some of that that backpacking stuff that I'd done. But you were saying you're in the Kings range. I want to Yeah, about that.

Yeah, it's done, uh, almost bordering the Sequoia National Forest. And it's about, boy, this is just me throwing a number based on driving. But it seemed like it was about 65, maybe 70 miles east of Fresno. Oh says yeah, yeah. And the reason we went down there is my cousin was getting married. And as the only family member on the trip, Amber and I were able to go down and witness their marriage with just a couple friends. And really, it was kind of neat. They drew the permit for the area. And they brought along a friend of a friend and then a friend of that friend, so really, nobody knew anybody. Oh, wow. Okay, on this trip, and it became It was a fantastic trip. But I mean, such a place of grandeur. It was just, it was so beautiful. But it was the Great Lakes loop for anybody that may be interested in this. And if you are, I definitely suggest checking it out. And I really promote, you know, put yourself out there and try it. But it was it was cool. It was a I think was 55 miles. That's a long trip. That's like a good set of miles. Yeah, no. And, I mean, it was it was great. And, you know, I've done I've done several hikes, you know, multi-day hikes. But this was the first one that I This was the first time I'd ever really been tested. You know, I mean, the first day, we climbed like, 6500 feet. And that was the first day. That's significant. Yeah. And so I mean, you know, everybody's pretty beat and 6500 views and that bad when you don't have anything on your back, but it was just like, the first day was like this quick little trail through the forest. It was pretty, and then before you know it, you're just like, switchbacks for like four hours. You know, and you've got 4550 pounds on your back. But anyway, we made Basecamp up just below the Alpine level. The mosquitoes were terrible.

There.

But I mean, talk about the most pristine country, and I don't know if you've ever been to Fresno, but you're down there, and you're just thinking to yourself. Well, at least I was, you know, yeah,

presidents maybe not the most pristine.

Yeah, President and they're like, yeah, it's just east of Fresno. Oh, great. I'm like, there's not National Park anywhere near I saw pictures. This is not what this place looks like. But no, it was great the first night went up there we made camp. And yeah, I think it we were on the North Fork the Kings river, as I believe. And oh my god, what an impressive river talk about an angry pissed off river man this thing is just frozen. I mean, like you go down to wash your face or fill your water bottle or something like that. I mean, in one One false move, man. You're gone. And that's the end of you. That is that is not a river to play around? For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like 50 miles of class five. is nasty.

Is this lower down? Or is this up into the hills? Like once you made the Alpine level?

Well, so there's a when you come into the Kings Canyon National Park area, there's there's a bunch of different stuff. or excuse me, there's much different campsites or campgrounds, I should say, around the area. And there's the river kind of just meanders through there. And then you're always just kind of near the river. You kind of saw like the Rogue River Trail where you kind of, you're near it, and then you end up in the hills, then you come back near it. It's always nearby, though. Oh, sure. If you head downhill, you're gonna find the river. And so there was a lot of that. But

how many days did you guys take up here for the for the 55 mile chip? We did five, five, and then you guys are pretty sad doing what is that? Like about 11 miles a day? Yeah.

Our first three days were our longest days. We did like 15. We did 15 miles like the first three days. Now we did 15 miles the first day we did 12 the second day, you know, but somewhere in that ballpark. But our last two days were our shorter days. Okay,

yeah, that's probably the way to do it. Man. I remember being so exhausted of there. Do you ever tell me? Well, it might be different for you. You guys are more healthy. I'm ever going out there. And I remember craving these weird foods. I talked to some other hackers about this before too. Like, were you just like, like, Oh my god, I just want this foods so much right now. But I wanted to ask you if there's anything like that, that came to mind, I got a couple of months. If you need,

you know, not really, I mean, what I mean, don't get me wrong. We all sat around, like fire eating are like, you know, in and I'm gonna complain about Mountain House meals. Like, like they're not good, but there's so much better than what you used to. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're so spoiled. Like, that's actually I mean, that's just the that's like what we used to college, you know, that was like, Yeah, absolutely. No,

I'm pretty happy with a mountain house meal. Well, maybe not a home but but man when you're out it like it really inspired. You've been hiking 15 miles, and you've done a 6500 foot elevation gain. Mountain House meal, if it's beef stroganoff, it's gonna work.

Oh, stroganoff, beef stroganoff, the best meal that's in you know, my biggest tip of advice is bring Tabasco or tap to with you. I don't care if you're a weight hound, and you're worried about all those extra ounces in your backpack? Do yourself a favor. Get rid of a pair of socks and pack a bottle of Tabasco. Because, yeah, it just it livens up the mouth. And also, you can sell the basket of people while you're there because everybody else didn't think of it.

Tabasco, five bucks.

Yeah. Everybody, everybody sees you pull it out goes, Oh, yeah, that's what I should have done. No, I

think hot sauce was the thing that I was spicy, was the thing that I was really missing the most, like in succession after a number of days.

Well, and so I you know, I, I joke around and I get the Mountain House meals a hard time. But I mean, they really are good. I guess. The biggest thing is, is that you they're all kind of on the same palette. Oh, it's this I don't know how to say that. It's just, they're all kind of like the same level of flavor. Nothing like really stands out. They're all good. But I mean, they're all just, I mean, it beats the hell out of an MRI.

I had an MRI a couple of times and then I did I didn't really enjoy the experience. I'm way happier with the the freeze dried stuff, though. Yeah, boiling water to now.

Yeah, but you know, you get hungry enough, and it's all pretty good. Yeah, I totally believe that. Remember when everyone ever moved into the house. I had this box of Mountain House meals that I had for hiking and And, like, I don't know, one night I came home from work and she's just eating one. Like, what do you do? Like? Well, I've been I've been eating these for dinner the last couple nights. I'm like,

No, say they're pretty good. Yeah. I mean, they are good. Yeah.

Every day you need you need like something different. That's where it's just nice to have that space. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's

totally true. But man, I remember that. I remember I went to cupcake so bad. What was what was it? What was it like out there in the Kings range? We're going to wrap up in a minute. But But yeah, what was it like out in the in the Kings rage zone?

So, man, it was it was awesome. It was just such a beautiful area. And I've never really, I've never actually been to any real national parks before. I've always just kind of been, you know, in our own backyard and type of thing. Yeah. It's been out, but that was, that was my first experience like really am just like, you know, some of those public lands that have just been preserved through conservation. And it was fantastic, man. So that was day one. We played some dominoes stuff like that camped out. But one of the coolest things that I was able to experience was

somebody brought powdered Lipton tea. Okay, okay. Phone and, and vodka. Say you mix a little bit of this tea with water. You know, it makes your team x. You know, you mix a little vodka in and then you've got them you've got cocktails up there at the Alpine level. And, and, but you know what, it's so great at the end of the day. Oh, man, I'm sure it is. Yeah,

everybody just relaxes. And it's not an excess, because you can only rush it so much at night. But Nah, man, it was it was great. But so that was day one. I mean, kind of the same thing. Day two, we did 4500 feet of elevation on day two. And that's when we got up above, like into that Alpine level. And what I found that was interesting is you actually you can't burn. You can't have fires up above the Alpine line. Okay, or above the tree line. Excuse me. I've heard it. Because like erosion issues. Yeah, we're just uprooting trees, the small trees saplings and things like that. And then people were just stripping the few trees around the area of firewood. So they just kind of established a no fire above the tree line rule. So no fire that that was a cold night. Um, but we got by, you know, and that's the other thing too is your, your body kind of goes into that. biological clock mode where you're, you're in bed when it's dark. And you wake up when it's light. Yeah,

that happened pretty quick for me when I was out, getting used to it. Yeah.

Do you notice how much better you feel when that happens? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's just, it's like your body actually feels. You know? Like, it's been efficient. Yeah. I've noticed. Yeah. But anyway, so we did that. Day three was the most impressive of all the days. And that was when we went over Glen pass. So Glen pass, the summit is at 11,990 feet. Wow. And it was my first time actually being up into like, glacial you know, areas, I don't know. But we hiked up that day, we got into the snow. I mean, there were like snow spots here and there on the hike up. But at this point, we, I think we did like another, you know, 3000 feet in elevation that day. But we really started getting up into the snow. It started snowing quite a bit. And it was the first time that I've just like seen these glacial lakes. And it was absolutely so impressive. Yeah, they're beautiful. I know. I mean, the first time I saw and I just had to stop and just kind of really take it in to take it into account of what I was seeing. But so we get up there, and we're for anybody that's not familiar with Glen pass, if you get a chance, look it up and try to find pictures in the late spring on a good snow year. Anyway, the week before, they were actually requiring crampons and ice picks to go over. Wow. So we had purchased all these things. But last-minute we were told that we didn't eat them. So and by no means am I a mountain You know, I love the outdoors, and I'll take on about anything. But this this was a little outside of my comfort zone. Yeah, I understand. So we get up there and, man, it was it was just, it was crazy. You're looking at it, and you're just going all right, you know, one foot in front of the other. We're gonna take this one step at a time. Cuz honestly, by the time you're hitting the summit of that, of that pass, I mean, if you fell, you're on such a steep grade, like, you're going all the way down the hill, and you're gonna be cartwheeling down. You're gonna accelerate quick. It's just gonna be way too much, way too fast. Yeah. Yeah. And and we didn't have Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, we had crampons. We put them on before we went over the past. But, I mean, we all made it up. It took us about an hour and a half, I guess. Just being careful and cautious. Yeah, you're moving very, very slow at this point. Yeah. Because I mean, room for air is so marginal. So anyway, we get up there. It was like the last 15 feet was the most sketchy area that we countered. And there was there is that point where you're just thinking to yourself, you're like, I can't do this. I can't do it. And at that point, you're way too committed to start thinking like that. Absolutely. That's the worst. I hate feeling. Yeah, I remember I was just like, Hey, man, shut up. Your eight steps away from being done? Like, push through? Let's go. And so, so we did it. And I mean, my biggest concern was amber up there. You know, I know my footing is, yeah. And I've had a heavy pack on my back before, but I wasn't sure how she was doing. She did great. She killed it. did a great job. No,

it's awesome. It's really cool. That you guys are opposite to it's awesome to like, get up.

Yeah. And you know what, we get to the top and we're all celebrate, and everybody's like, so happy. We take some pictures and stuff. And then there's like this storm moving. And you can see, and when you're up at 12,000 feet comes in fast in the Sierras. Yeah. You see these things coming off in the distance, and you can see lightning and everything. And, and you can tell that it's moving towards you. And it's and I mean, the very real situation of it is you need to get off that. Yeah. You don't want to hang out there. So I decided to push off and head downward. And at this point, we kind of realized that going down is probably worse than the way up. Oh, yeah. It's the same grade. Now. You're just going downhill with all the weight on your back.

Oh my gosh, are you guys going like straight down? Nice. First, are you guys backing down the mountain? Well, so

you're backing down the mountain? Pretty much you've got your two crashes, right? Yeah. You've got your hiking poles. And, and also, before we went on this trip, I thought hiking poles were just for, like, old people and Stacy's not true. They're so helpful. They really are. I

mean, I remember you know, and you notice this I bet you guys are probably in better shape. But I noticed like just the my my ankles, like they just weren't in shape for four and a half straight. They are, you know, 30 or 40 miles of hiking, and they get fatigued, and you'd like you get closer to like losing it. But those hiking or the hiking poles, man, they just totally stabilized you.

Yeah, they did. And honestly, it kind of makes you feel like, like you got four-wheel drive or something you almost feel like a dog like you can. Honestly, though, I mean in, and I was having problems with my back. I don't care how much you situate your pack and think about how it needs to be set up and things like that. Your pack always hurts you. You're just not used to it always carrying that kind of weight around your hips and on your shoulders surgery and but the ability to use those hiking sticks is just kind of like something to take the weight off. Oh, yeah. Something to lean forward with. I mean, that helped out immensely. And especially on the way down off of Glen pass. I have kind of a pre existing knee injury that I had happened to me snowboarding several years ago. And on the way down, it kind of just kind of irritated that injury. And that nice it actually became pretty serious and it started raining and it started raining and raining and raining. And I felt quite a bit behind and Amber was cold and I told her to go on you know, I'd figure out where everybody was. And so there was this take situation of separation between everybody that's what you want. Yeah, Amber amber waited up for me because, you know, I hurt my knee. And then and then you know, somebody waited up for then my cousin waited up for amber and then somebody waited up for Matt and But anyway, it just ended up being this scattered group of people. And then we made our way into camp. That night, which I won't get into detail, but that was a long, long situation to find where we're gonna stay similar to this to Yeah, yeah, I mean, we set up camp that night and we experienced one of the most pro storms ever really, when you're up at that Alpine level, I mean, everything is intensified, like we're, we got there and it was just dumping, you know, retired. And so we set up our tents as quick as we can try to keep things as dry as we can, I guess, should get into the tents get into dry clothes, get into sleeping bags, try to get your body temperature up again. Sure. And then, you know, weathered the storm for about three hours and then it broke and we came outside it was beautiful and sunny, and we all hung out and had a good time for about an hour and a half. And then the storm came back. And we all went back to bed. Dark nightfall came perfect. And I mean, just this the most intense storm came in. And I've never experienced Thunder lightning like this. And I love thunder and lightning. But this, this was to the point where you're like, Okay, I can lead up through this one. Yeah. I mean, it was was it insane? Six hours.

Yeah. Really? And yeah. And you see those you see those pictures are like the the video real? Like, you know, lightning strikes in the distance and that purple cloud as it hits the desert. That picture you always see that? That's

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Or like, or like, mountaineers on Everest, and they're huddled up in their tents in their tents just flapping around. It looks like it would just sail away if they weren't inside of it. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was all of that, you know. And you would lay there and the lightning would hit and I mean, it was, this is no exaggeration. It was almost as when the light was dissipating. The thunder would start, and I mean, it was so directly on top of us. Oh, my gosh, it was just a it was absolutely incredible. I was so happy to be able to experience that.

Yeah, that sounds so cool. And then it asked and you guys got through the rest of the night was it was the hike out after that. All right.

Yeah. The next day. We dealt with the rain. Yeah, day. That was a long, tiring day. We got into camp, same thing soaking wet. Get into whatever you have. It's dry. And you know, and I left my I left my rain fly from my pack at home because I didn't think I'd need it. Yeah. and ended up doing the trash bag thing. Okay. But yeah, anyway, I mean, the big morale booster for that was we spent about 45 minutes trying to get a fire going with everything we had. Finally, Amber came up with some sappy pine cones that were Oh, rock over here hadn't been permeated by the water yet. And we were able to get a fire going and

getting the fire going when it's wet is not easy. Yeah, it's nuts.

No, it's not. And I and I've, like I've studied different ways making fire, things you can do and different tenders you can use and man when it comes down to it, and you're actually shaking, because you're kind of at that hypothermic stage. Yeah. And you're trying to just rationalize what's best. And how do I do this most efficiently? It's just never as easy as when you practiced it in your yard in the middle of summer. It's totally true. You know? Hey, yeah, yeah, absolutely good. Yeah. Yeah, they're freezing. But anyway, yeah, I had a great fire had a great time. Last day, we hiked out now we all ended up going getting pizza and

hanging out. That's the way to do it, man. Celebrate with a big meal. Man every time Yeah. Go for a burger, or a big spread of Chinese food. You got to come back and just get like, whatever. Whatever it is you like needed?

It was it was so funny to we're all like, yeah, this this we get to the pizza place in each purse. There was like, six or seven of us, right? And each of us ordered a large pizza. Like we're gonna eat the whole thing. And we ordered like for milkshakes yourself. They're nice. You know? You drink like a third of the milk. Yeah, third of it. slices of pizza, and you're like, I can't do anymore. That we had leftovers. We had left.

Three different pieces of leftovers, man. That's a great story. Robert, they should tell me the the the Kings range. There's a couple others I want to get to too. We got to break these up, and we'll stretch them out over a bunch of podcasts. It's good thing we're doing a bunch, you know

Yeah, no I yeah, like I talked about there's a couple things that this this one actually brought up to me that I'll talk to you about later and maybe it will be the next episode. Stay tuned.

Thanks for doing this. This podcast with you man. We did a we did a solid hour. Got a couple of good backpacking stories in I think that a sweet Yeah.

So So hey, maybe I mean tentatively we talked about these hiking trips we had, but what do you really bring on a hiking trip? Ah.

Oh man. Yeah, that might be a point of the bait. I want to I want to talk to you about that stuff. Yeah, we should go in like a whole episode of like the gear. We think cuz I know you pack a heavier bat. You're used to it. I'm not I'm scared to heavy packs. When it comes. They suck. Yeah, I try. I try and steer every well cuz I also get stuck with the tripod and the camera bag.

Which is a That's true. You guys, you're you're already ahead. Yeah. Not ahead. But I mean, just the head weight. Yeah,

yeah. So that's where it's a bulk. Yeah, I try. And I try and wrap that down a little bit. But But yeah, we should talk about that. I want to break down some of the different gear that that you're into for backpacking, or for some of the outdoor stuff. I think that might be a good another good couple of episodes to break out to. Absolutely, man, that'd be pretty cool. We got some material. Well, thanks, man, for reminding so much good outdoors material, man. It's great. I've got a feed app. It's on iTunes. You guys should check it out, review it or read it. If you end up hearing it. That'd be great for us. But hey, thanks for doing it.

Absolutely, Billy. So we talked about doing your photos. Is there anywhere that people could go if they wanted to find your photos got to go to

Billy Nieman photo.com. You can go to App Billy Newman. If you want to check out my Instagram page. All the photos make it up there. They make it up everywhere else too. You can find me at Twitter or Facebook or any of those things. But But yeah, man the website, see my portfolio. All the photos stuff up there. Bunch of landscapes. My kidding. It's a beautiful stuff. Thanks, Robert. I appreciate it. I have it. My house. shrouded it's beautiful plastered in Billy's photos. I appreciate it, man. Well, Robert, thank you very much for doing this podcast with me. Anytime. Let's, let's do it again soon. Thanks for doing a long one with me too. I know we went a little over but but it was great, man. Yeah. You know, we

always set a time limit. But I'm never opposed to going over under you know, it's I think it's all subject to conversation.

I dig. I like it. I think it's great. And, you know, in podcasts, they're built to go long, really, so it's not bad. But yeah, Robert, I really appreciate you doing this podcast. We got Episode Four out of the way coming into that. That next stretch of five through 10. Man, so be good. We got we got the big growth. The big growth ghanimat podcast right there, man. So yeah, man. On behalf of Robert Miska rap. My name is Billy Newman. I want to say thank you guys very much for listening to this episode. of the get out there podcast.

Get Out There | 03 Black Bears In Southern Oregon

Hosted by Robert Biscarret and Billy Newman

Robert tells his story of navigating the technical rapids on the lower rogue river.

Get Out There Podcast

billynewmanphoto.com

get-out-there-03-3-1-2017_

Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. I'm here today with Robert biskra. How you doing, Robert? Good, Billy, how you doing? I'm doing really good. Thanks a lot for doing another episode of this podcast. I think we're doing episode number three today. We are. That's pretty cool, man. Yeah, I was gonna say I wanted to talk to you about some stuff that will probably be in a few more weeks as we get into the nicer weather. But I wanted to talk to you about some of your past bear experiences. I was wondering what that was like for you, because you were doing guide stuff down on the lower Rogue River. And I know in Grants Pass really a lot of time, we didn't have a lot of bear boxes, or a lot of bear concerns about the wildlife or the wilderness right around the area of town there. I think like if you go south, into the rescues, or over into the coastal range, there's probably more stuff over there. But it was seemed always like a lot lighter than it was further south. Like when you got into California. I remember like when we went just a little bit east to like reading in the Mount Shasta area. And like up into the whiskey Lake area, there was like tons of bear boxes, it seemed like I was like a big thing that they had to protect against all the time. And it was sort of strange, because it wasn't really that much exposure for me when I was doing a lot of camping stuff in Southern Oregon or in Eastern Oregon, especially, I guess Eastern Oregon to have much exposure with like bear encounters out there. And I think it wasn't until I got into like go into the lower rogue before I even saw like the electric fences. So I was gonna ask Yeah, like, Yeah, well, what kind of stuff you had to run into when you're checking out or like when you're doing low rub trips? Well, yeah, I

mean, we have plenty of barren counters down there. And I think one of the big contributors to that is just the just the amount of people that are down there all the time. I mean, the bears really, really know when people are around, you know, there's food, you know, a bunch of new smells, they have an incredible sense of smell. So you know, that traffic down there really kind of brings them into the area. And not to mention, and I could be a little off, but I'm fairly certain that the lower road Canyon, I know about 10 years ago was the highest black bear population in the lower 48. Really? Yeah. Wow. 10 years ago. Yeah. I'm Well, I mean, think about it. I mean, the road going out there to gold beach and Agnes that's a that's bear camp road. I mean, you see bear fences over there all over the place. But uh, yeah, I believe Forest Service did a study and like a flyover and found that in that Canyon, there's more bears per square mile than anywhere else in the lower 48.

Wow, I wouldn't have really thought about that. But yeah, I do understand like bear, bear Creek and bear camp road. Seems like a lot of beer references. I knew that there was a lot of bear activity in Southern Oregon in the past, like if we go back 100 years or so I think 150 years there's a lot of talk about the bear population over in Oregon and over in this section of like the forested areas like a lot of the gold miners had to deal with them up in the up in the hills. And those areas I think even like in the like, what was it isn't? Isn't bear camp road. Park goldmine is you go up? Have you seen? Yeah, a lot of mining claims up there. Yeah, that's what I had seen. I knew like up on Mount Baldy in Grants Pass. There's a lot of a lot of claims in that area. And I'd heard about some bear encounters that happened up there like up by some loop and then over further into the hills like past Mount Baldy, kind of over in the Applegate area. It was like way back stuff or like, do you remember the story? We heard about this in high school? I think we went to the gravesite for this one time. But it was like this piece of local Yeah, rants past history, Laura. We went to this, the oldest gravesite in Grants Pass. It's like in this little park. Now. It's a really strange thing. But you go up and you see this tombstone. And it's from 1856, like sometime before the Civil War. And there's this tombstone that says that this man, bH Baird, died of a grizzly bear attack down by the Rogue River and what would today be River Park? Or like just the park downtown? Like, isn't that nuts?

I've seen that gravesite. Yeah. Back in elementary school. We used to walk over there on Well, we went over there on a field trip one time and we had to do like, you know, like crayon transcripts, you put the piece of transfer paper on the tombstone and do and then I and so we all had to make a rub of that of that tombstone. And but I mean, it's crazy. I mean, if you're going back that distance and time. I mean, at that time, what 1856 Oregon isn't even a state yet. Yeah, a few years. Yeah. And so you've got California, the bear state, and I mean, Grizzlies used to be down here and pretty prominent in the area. I mean, it wasn't until kind of like that, that settled. thing that happened was that that we

started kind of driving them all out. I was wondering about that, like how it was that we was, is that an extra patient when when you remove an animal from its range? Because it seems like we don't we don't even talk about grizzly bears in Southern Oregon and Oregon at all, right?

They're not even acknowledged. And so that's the thing is, I believe it was an Well, I know it was an Ashland, but I think around the it was like in the early 1900s. And I don't know, the year for sure. But um, the last group actually was taken out of that area. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was actually roaming around up in the hills, and was having some major confrontation with people in the area.

Yeah, that's, that seems like it would be a huge issue. Like as all those people moved in, and what I mean, like seven or eight, in every town in Oregon, it was a new town, like 1850. So yeah, sure. Yeah. You just had to think like, how many generations is that, that the animals and the wildlife that's used to like go into that area to feed or to, you know, get access to the river or whatever it is, like whatever their, their natural range is, like how long it takes before those conflicts with people push them out, or kind of just where those animals get eliminated? Because of the people in the area?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty mind boggling when you think about it, it really doesn't take that much time. I mean, between 1858 and, you know, 1900, we eradicate pretty much all.

I think, like nuisance animals like that. You almost have to I mean, or it seems like at the time, you would have you would have had to in that frontiers mindset. My goodness, man, if I moved out here from the east coast, and I just had to be put plopped down in the mountains of Southern Oregon. fighting off grizzly bears coming through town, eaten a guy in the park downtown. Yeah. conservation.

Well, and that's, that's the thing, too, is back then, you know, everything was just, you know, as far as they were concerned, just an infinite resource. It wasn't like we're running out of anything. Yeah, the whole the whole West was fairly untouched. You know, I mean, I'm sure back then. Native peoples. But what's funny is I just I just think of like current day ash lenders, you know, the, the say the same people that had a city council meeting about aggressive deer in the area, you know, dealing dealing with grizzly bears in the 1990s. Did they do that aggressive deer? Yeah, yeah, they're having a big deer problem with with deer kind of taking over the city. And they had a city council meeting about how they were going to acknowledge these deer because they had kind of just lost their fear of people became very tame. Oh, wow. And, yeah, so this was just like, a year ago.

Yeah. No. So I mean, I mean, I always see are for the last few years, definitely, I'd see. Deer just kind of cruising through in big numbers in that Ashlyn lithia. Park. There, you just see, like, I'm just hanging out with everybody. But even that seems to be even like it is in Grants Pass. I remember, I swear, back in 2000, 2003 2004, I didn't see deer at all in the neighborhood that I grew up in, like over it was, it was a recession. So they were were they they were drawn back during that time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're financially unstable. But no, before that, like in, I talked to my grandpa about this, too. He, you know, he's lived here all of his life. And he would talk about Yeah, like, we really never saw a deer come through the yard until the year 2004. Like, that's the year they had to put up, like a high fence around the garden to keep it safe. They said, yeah, we just never had a problem with it before. We had like one or two come through. But it was never in these big groups that they had, like now, I guess they were saying that, like the population in town, it just exploded over the last two decades. And see, I wonder what that is. Because that could be that could be

you know, deer moving down to populated areas for for lack of predators, you know, you're never typically going to see a lion in the area. I mean, there's occasional sightings, but I wonder if they kind of come into these rural areas in these kind of urban settings to kind of escape that find gardens that are out and about, but I don't know what, you know, 2004 you know, that would have how that would have correlated. You know,

it's interesting, I guess that was the time that there was probably the most new development in that region that there had been in a long time so I bet it probably pushed out or disturbed some of the area that that that part of animals lived and then probably got pushed over another mountain range to VR, but then it seems interesting you know, if you stay in an area for long enough, you notice about some of the animals the kind of traffic, your backyard out there, but you notice that they're kind of on a schedule like it seems like they they wander around, they have a range they kind of travel through, but it seems like that animal comes back around through the yard or something in the same way. Every day, every couple days, we see that with a with a family like a group of, of like dough. Oh, it goes through my parents yard. And they just come through, like every morning at 10am. And they just kind of cruise across the street and they go on their way. And I don't know, they may make some kind of loopback through some some time. But it's kind of funny. It's readable.

Yeah, just kind of stuff. And it's and that's how it is, is just like they they have they've lost that kind of instinctive fear of people in this area. You know, we're not we're not an immediate threat to them. In his city setting. You know, same with turkeys. You see him in your backyard all the time. Oh, yeah. Or you're driving down the road? Yeah, I mean, the Oh, yeah. So tell me about those turkeys. Yeah, so the other day I was driving through downtown Medford which is, you know, very populated. And I actually had to stop for a crossing of turkeys. And, and I mean, traffic just came to a complete halt. And we all just sat there and let these turkeys cross for about a minute and a half. Wow.

And then then everybody went about their day. How big was the group? What do you what would you call that? gaggle.

I was wondering, it's like a gaggle of geese. Murder flies, a flock of seagulls. Birds of a feather. Right? Yeah, you know, I don't know, all these. The avian types. They all have their own kind of segregated names that they really need all those different words to describe being in a group. So that they do. But good, how many are in a group that I mean, I've seen maybe like 20 or 30 or so. And I agree.

I would say this was about 20. I mean, it wasn't a good size. Well, you know, yeah, yeah.

I've seen like little geese. It's kind of funny. I like you know, when they're really little they stay together. Like, what is it? I guess not like, I've seen the Partridge Family. Blake quail, Riley quail, like, yeah, groups of quail those families, like all stick together, you see, like, pods of those that are around like 12 or 15 in size? It's kind of funny. Oh,

well, you know, what's funny, we're talking about the way animals move in and out of areas. Yeah, I'm where I'm at now. My grandparents lived out here. And I used to come up this area all the time as a kid. And there used to, we used to see tons of coil up on the driveway coming into our place. Oh, wow. But with the development of people kind of moving into the area. And this place is, I wouldn't say blown up. But it there's definitely an influx of people living out here now. Right. And with that has come some cats, you know, domestic house cats that people have brought in kind of let run wild and then they breed of feral cats. And at this point, now, I haven't seen a quail out here in probably 10 years. Really? Wow. Yeah,

that's interesting how that changes, you know, I've seen like that kind of move around to I remember when I was a kid, this seems like a silly thing to notice. But you probably believe me that I didn't notice it. When I was a kid in the 90s. And maybe after like 2001 2002, there was every evening in the summertime, this, this stream, this Murder of Crows, this huge group of crows that would move south at like sunset, like every night, it seemed like they would come out from from like some section kind of down by the river, or like maybe like a mile or two south or something like that. And they'd come up that, that kind of draw around like Hamilton road or something like that. And they cruise up, they go right over our house over my grandparents house every night. And it seemed like they had been doing that for years. I talked to my grandparents about it. They said, Yeah, we've been watching him do it for decades now as we sit out here and in the evening and water the garden. And then for maybe the last 810, eight, nine years, maybe 10 years. They're not there anymore. Not like they used to be at offices, we'd have a I mean, they might have just moved over, you know, boxes for whatever reason. But yeah, why are they like that? Yeah, for me, it's like the air quality. It must be like, it must be new houses or new places. Or maybe they get disturbed at a you know, wherever they would they would go to whatever place they would, or trees. Well,

yeah, I mean, the housing developments really blown up in this area. And I think that, I mean, there's there's no denying that that's going to have some kind of effect on wild, wild animals in the area.

You know, the one that my grandpa pointed out was a fox. I don't know what we used to see. But he said that like when he was a kid, and all the way up through through him growing up and being out here. He had never seen a fox out in that area, like out over on clover lawn. And he said like you saw when maybe six or seven years ago. He was like wow, that's like the first Fox like that we've ever seen out here. Do you guys see fox is that you know, I've

seen you know, not out here and I think that's probably because we have dogs

Yeah, so we've got, we've got dogs in the area, which I think kind of keep a lot of probably Fox out of the area also makes sense. But yeah, I've seen a couple Fox down near the Applegate. And then another thing is we have coyotes that show up. I was curious. Do you see coyotes pass through that area? much? Not not frequently, but there has been. Okay, so when we first got Layla, our little Australian Shepherd, right, yeah. Um, and she was just a puppy. She would bark. And there was this. There's this little pack of coyotes that was up the hill from us. And they were it was a little spooky, but a little cool at the same time. They would have one, and I watched this, they had one coyote, sit up the hill and respond to her barking. Ooh, I've heard about this. Yeah, she would bark and it would bark back to her. almost kind of enticing her to kind of go up the hill. Hey, come hang out. Do you want of us? Yeah, one of us. Were just were some dogs up here. I mean, she's about the size of a coyote. Yeah. So you know, she's gonna get up there, and there's gonna be 20 of them. And she's gonna be in trouble.

Yeah, do they go for dogs? Is that what they do? Are they are like, because they're not their own? Or? Or how's that work?

Yeah, so you kind of got to worry about that situation. You know, there's a pack of 20. And they're obviously going to take advantage of a domesticated animal. And a lot of times in urban settings, you'll see kind of the way coyotes and other different predators will actually prey on these domestic animals, because they're so familiar with humans and have kind of, in a sense, lost their natural instinct to find fear from these animals. Oh, interesting,

huh? You know, I've heard a story about, I think, maybe kind of similar to the dynamic, you were talking about how there was a pot of coyotes, there's one that came out, and it was kind of calling out, you're enticing the dog at this guy's house. And it's like, I don't know, they had like a dog conversation. And this coyote kind of convinced the bad attitude out of this domesticated dog. Like there's chickens in the property. And so this coyote kind of like, talked to him for a couple days, like the kind of sound like get a little closer, a little friendlier with each other as like different dogs. And then a couple days into it, the house dog like attacked a chicken. I think like the coyote got into and they both like got chickens and then like, took off and hung out together. And like, killed the chickens. Now you think like, Oh, that's a nuts thing like this. This guy, coyote, this other wild dog came in, and then like, taught like a new kind of behavior to a domesticated dog. Like, you know, got away with a bunch of livestock. It's crazy.

That's funny. It's just like, yeah, invoking that that natural predatorial sense. In a house dog.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, follow with the pack or something. But yeah, it was like, Yeah, kinda like, Hey, come here can be with us. We're crazy. Wild. Yeah. Got it to you real fast. Some of the bear stuff that we're talking about. So like, even in your backyard there where we're talking about the coyotes, you seen bears out there, right. Did you guys have one out there? Like even right now? We're not right now. But like within our last year, don't you see? Where that kind of roams that area?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. Like, so I'm out. He's a pain man. So basically, I don't have a trash service out here. So we keep all of our, our trash. Yeah, all of our trash cans. And then, you know, once a month or so, I'll take it down to the landfill and then pay your fee and take care of that. But the problem with that is, is these bears with incredible sense of smell, smell all of your waste, and they want to come in because they're curious animals. ager, and they want to get a little, little taste of what you've been cooking in the kitchen. And so it's great, you know, you'll go to work and then you come home and you'll just find like three trash cans dumped over and you know, three trash cans worth of garbage just spread around your property. And that's great. Yeah, so you get to spend the next couple hours sitting outside just picking up trash that you already so carefully placed into a garbage bag a week

before, that'd be so frustrating. So what do you guys have to keep it inside or something? Or is there like a what do you do?

Well, so this past spring, I got really fed up with it. I actually built a little like 10 by 12 shed. Oh, that's this man. Yeah, yeah, and Yeah, so now I keep all the cans in there under lock. So I Yeah, and that's, that's honestly that's cut down significantly, I actually haven't dealt with him knock on wood for about a year now but for a while there was like every other night about three o'clock in the morning you wake up to the sound of you know, trash cans get knocked over and stuff.

And then furthermore, let's go ahead. Oh, you go ahead.

Oh, for the most part, you know they're pretty skittish you go out there and yell at them and kind of charge them, and they'll take off. But this particular bear that I was dealing with kind of got to the point where it was really standing its ground with me. That's, that's, that's a rough one. Yeah, I wasn't really a big fan of it. I mean, one one account that I can really sticks out in my mind. It's about three o'clock in the morning, and we got a heavy snow and this is two years ago. And you know, the area Southern Oregon. That's, that's not real typical of a winter. Right? But he must have been hungry, and you know who bears hibernate in the winter? Well, no, they just are less active in the winter. But he must have been hungrier for some.

You know, I grabbed my shotgun and run out in the yard. I'm just, I'm in my boxers and my boots. And I run out there with just my, my iPhone flashlight. You know about how powerful are nothing? Yeah, and I just and I just meet him in the yard. Standing there, you know, he's about 20 feet away, and I'm yelling at him and stuff. And he's just kind of like, what are you gonna do? You know, what do you get? Yeah, every every hour of the day, you would have done something by now. matted. Exactly, man. That's tough. So no, he stood his ground on me. And if you've been around bears that are getting fairly aggressive, they'll kind of do like a bark. It's kind of a grunt. I mean, it doesn't sound like a like a dog bark, but it's just kind of like a low grunt. Yeah. And so I kind of extra snowball out of my thing. You know, and he kind of, he grunted at me, and then I yelled at him again. Yeah, you get out of your bed. They will snowball.

So I was gonna ask you, I said a snowballs What? What's, what would you use as a bear deterrent? Like, did you have to bring a bear to turn with you down on the lower road to?

You know, and when we guide? were discouraged to bring firearms with us. Yeah, I figured I won't name any names, but some some of us do. Um, just because these bears have been so introduced the people that they've really lost that instinct of fear. And they're really kind of become quite a nuisance down there. So some of the guides, definitely not me, will carry a firearm down there.

So as I said, like, lethal deterrent? What do you think of the bear spray, like the pepper spray canisters that you pick up?

You know, I mean, we're not Grizzly country and black bears by nature are pretty skittish. I mean, they don't. They don't really want anything to do with you. They just want.

That's what I've seen before, too. I mean, like, I've seen a black bear maybe three times. And as soon as it even noticed, we were 100 feet around there just bolt as fast as it could, it was just scrambling up the side of the hill. And you think, Oh, my God, I can climb like that so fast. But

so there's a couple of points on that. I want to I want to answer your question, but then I also kind of want to talk about Oh, yeah. So to answer your question. Okay. Yeah, so to answer your question, um, when we're down there in the canyon, a lot of times, what we'll do is, you know, you want to make yourself large and loud. Typically, we'll take our coolers full of food, we'll stack them in a pile. Okay. And then we'll stack pots and pans on top of them. And then so that way, if they're getting into them, we can hear them. We would take everything out of the boat because we don't want them getting in there pop in a raft or anything like that. Yeah. But then what we'll do is we all go to sleep with like a couple of Dutch oven lids next to our cots. Oh, really? So yeah. And you got your headlamp ready so when you hear that that rustling in the pots and pans falling and stuff, you know, all the guides jump up and everybody grabs their lids and starts cleaning them together and yelling at them and and they'll take off.

Yeah, so the noise is enough of a deterrent. And yeah, and you said you had like a nuisance bear one night that like had come up and was like snapping Yeah, story. Yeah. What happened was that, Oh, well.

We had a we had a philan guide, she guides for another company on the rug. And she was with us. And this is funny too, because we cook this big salmon dinner. Nice. And you know, we have salmon drippings everywhere and all we got salmons skin everything all over the camp. And, and so typically, one of us always sleeps in the kitchen to kind of watch over everything. And that was me that night. And it was a lazy night. I think we probably had too many beers. And, you know, it was like, I'm not gonna pick this up. I'm just gonna play the odds and say, we're not going to get a Baron camp tonight. So I go to

do that. Yeah. So I've done it. Well, yeah, you have to I mean, it's, you know, if you can

I never run into a bear. I think we did it. Like, when we were doing a backpacking trip, we had to put our food into a bear safe container, and then like, put it hoisted into a tree, more than 50 metres away from our tent, something like that. And I think like we pulled in, we set up super late and we put it out always, but man, we did not do whatever we whatever absolute thing we were supposed to do for our bear Food Protection.

Well, you know what I mean, most of the time, I mean, you're gonna see very less times and you will, or

you're going to not see bear more than you will see bear. Now that seems like it's been how it is in my life. I mean, if we're talking about the most bears in that area, I mean, that was kinda like where we grew up in that area, Southern Oregon. I have only seen a bear a couple times in that area. I mean, I think I saw it. I think on two of the hikes I did down on the lower road. I think I saw another one out in the Applegate or out you know, past Applegate lake. That was California and the skis. I guess we saw a black bear out there. And then maybe one other time on the road while I was driving. That's it. That's really all I've seen. So I hardly ever see or have a black bear counter at all. But you're down there more so so Okay, so we're back. We're camping. There's salmon spread across this campsite. It's nighttime. Robert played the odds.

Yeah, so return over the next Cod. Yeah, no. Man. Next thing I know, I'm getting woken up not by a bear, but by a dove. And she's kicking me. And she's gonna wake up wake up and I got a flashlight in my face. And I'm like, What are you doing right now? And she's like, this bear just came over was sniffing my face. Oh, see, weighs in her face. And so she jumps up. She smokes the barrier runs off a few yards. And she's yelling at it, I guess. And and so she's yelling at it throwing stuff at it. And if if you've kind of provoked provoked the bear enough, they'll do this. This kind of like jaw grinding, they'll grind their job. This is this is kind of fast, the little barking stage that they'll do. And that's that's really a situation where you kind of need to be on point. Wow. So anyway, somehow she got this bear to kind of lose immediate interest. And she's waking me up. And honestly, the times that I have slept through bear situations and camp are way too many

eggs. wake up the next morning, and they're like, oh, man, where are we?

Robert faded again. Rob is gonna be back in just one second. We're having trouble with Robin come back into what you're talking about. I want to reset it but but so we're seeing like, Where were you last night? When are you you were just coming into that how many times you slept through a bear walking through camp?

Yeah, yeah, there's been multiple times that people have, you know, other guys were just like, Where were you last night? We had that bearing camp. And most most of the time, you know, stop.

We just dropped out for a second. But Robert, I was gonna ask you to come back with that story that we were talking about. Where the bear was sniffing this girl's head she woke up she moved back she got your attention you woke up? What happens next?

Well, at that point, she had got it to leave, and she was freaked out you know she wanted anybody awake with her? Yeah, absolutely. I guess I wouldn't know man and she she was so pissed off because I'm laying right next to the trash and all all this salmon skin and everything. And I never got bothered and she's she's sleeping on the outskirts of Captain Roberts face So, yeah, anyway, it left me alone. But But you're saying it started snapping? Did you see it snap? No, I was snapping at her. Yeah, and not not necessarily snapping but doing like a jog or jog. Right? Like it's john and almost like grind its teeth.

Oh, and I first see that. No, I especially in the dark when you can't see it. Yeah, I feel so.

Yeah. So anyway, it was it's just one of those things, you know, you got to get people awake, make noise, do stuff. But you know, the problem is with with people being with with barren, high populated areas like that, you know, they're they're losing that instinct of fear. And that can that can

nuisance dire situation. Yeah. And I hear like, you see the signs of the say, like nuisance bears will be destroyed. Yeah. Oh, man, that is a final sentence that's like,

zero. That's the Bureau of Land Management. You know, that's what their signs are all down there. Right. Yeah. You know, a Fed bears a dead bear. You know, as you start feeding these bears and leaving food around, they're gonna start showing up more and more. And then as a nuisance bear, they have to try to relocate. And if that's not going to work, then they have to exterminate that bear.

Man. That sounds so tough. I just like we were talking about Stephen Ellis podcast earlier, I just listened to an episode from a bear scientists that works at Yellowstone National Park studying the bear population there. Okay, they were talking about this big upset that happened years ago, when the I think the the establishment that we're in Yellowstone, like the restaurants and the lodges, and the towns just outside of Yellowstone, that were part of that ecosystem, they would all have these food dumps where they would like they would just throw it, they would have like a pit that we put all the food that people didn't need in the park or whatever went bad. And it would be this feeding frenzy or this feeding area for all the bears that were in that ecosystem, they all kind of worked off of this. And it was just kind of like an attraction for a while where bears would come in and eat the food. And so they made a decision that they were going to stop the food drops, as it were like and like change, it wasn't really intentional. At first, it was just like a dumpster is like the, you know, the area that that the trash was gonna go. I think it was kind of like the trash area of Yellowstone, which is kind of weird to think that there's such a thing, but I guess without the people that go through, there would be something like this. And this is way back to book they so they stopped these feeding sites. And then a big part of that population of bears like died off or had other types of conflicts that happened when he was trying to seek out different places to get food that had now become more scarce. But really interesting others conflicts Come on

see that. That's what happens is you've got you've got bear coming into this to this, you know, infinite food source that they keep coming back to you because we leave all this waste. And what happens is, you know, not that generation, but a generation or two down the road, these bears are used to feeding off of our waste, and then don't really know how to fend for themselves in the wild. And it's all fun while it's a tourist attract tree, and then people get to snap pictures. But then you've got these bears that are dying in the wild. And also you're getting your carwin

Alright, we're back now we faded out for one second with with Roberts call his Skype call and for us. But we were talking about that last little bit of how, how there's there were the bears in the Yellowstone range that had difficulties a couple generations after they've become dependent on these food sources, these food drops. And it's really weird this types of conflicts that happen when people enter an area that's just been wilderness and wildlife before. It's interesting how that goes for us. But there's always been types of conflicts.

Yeah, and as long as there's people, there will still continue to be that, that conflict between natural wildlife and, and us.

Yeah, it'll be interesting. You know, I think in future podcasts we should talk about, we should talk about some of the wildlife management stuff that we've learned about some of the ways that BLM works or fishing game or some of these other departments and how they they manage some of that stuff. That's a lot of that's a big learning curve for me. I'm a pretty simple hiker. Yeah. But I think part of it prior to this podcast, I think is really interesting. To learn a little bit more about some of those, maybe more serious aspects or just more, the more the governance side of how wildlife and outdoor recreation management goes. This kind of interesting stuff. I think it's, it's cool to talk about, it's been fun talking about with you to the new school.

Yeah. And I think that'd be something great to elaborate on. I think that's something that more and more people need to understand and acknowledge the way our national parks and public lands are run. Yeah,

I think it'd be cool to talk about some of that stuff and maybe give me a chance to learn about it a little bit more. But thanks for thanks for doing this podcast. Talking about some bear stuff in the past, and we have way more stories to go through. Maybe we need to make more stories to bat. I think there's a couple we can talk about in the future that be kind of fun. But thanks. Oh, yeah, looking forward to it. Yeah, I think there's some of those some of those lower rogue encounters that are kind of cool, or even like some of the stuff on an old backpacking trip that we were on. I think we had like a couple Bear Bear sightings at that one, too.

So yeah, we've, we've had our share of backpacking adventures, not just in the lower road, but other places do, I'd like to talk to you more about that feature as well?

Oh, yeah, I want to do that, too. I think that'd be really cool. Thanks, Robert. I really appreciate you doing this podcast with me. We're, we're coming together. We're finally putting together I guess, what might be, you know, like a pretty consistent outdoors podcast. It's pretty sweet, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm hoping it works out. It's cool, man. No, it's, it's just the beginning. But but we got to keep doing them. And I appreciate you doing it with me. Every week here, we got to get the site going the the the stream map, it's really cool. And anybody that's bothered to listen to, to these episodes, it's, it's great. I really appreciate you taking the time to do it. Yeah. And,

and, you know, as I think, I think as time develops, and we continue doing this more and more frequently, you know, we're gonna have more more pressing topics and things that, you know, very entertaining.

We're going to be the most entertaining really, Robert, and I mean, you probably learned this a little bit about going through the podcasting. There's not that much entertainment in some podcasts out there. I mean, like to kind of breakthrough, it seems like at least it was talent-wise, or to be entertaining, we would be, I think in the in the running for it. So I think I think it's it's cool that we're doing a podcast about this stuff together. So Robert, I wanted to say thank you very much for doing this podcast with me and on behalf of Robert discret. My name is Billy Newman. And I want to say thank you guys very much for listening to this episode. of the good out there podcast. Thank you.

Get Out There | 02 Hunting In Eastern Oregon

Robert Biscarret and Billy Newman Robert tells his story of deer hunting in eastern Oregon. Get Out There Podcast billynewmanphoto.com

Get Out There Podcast billynewmanphoto.com

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Hey, what's going on? My name is Billy Newman. I'm here with Robert Vickery. How you doing, Robert? Hey, I'm good. We are recording Episode Two of the get out there podcast, podcast about the outdoors about outdoor adventure tourism is about travel. I don't know anything else, probably just that we want to talk about. But Thanks, Robert, for doing this podcast with me today. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's been cool, man. But yeah, what's been going on? It's been not a whole lot. It's been a week since we last did this. Yeah, we were talking about the lower rogue stuff on our our pilot episode. And that was a crazy story. I was thinking about that, like through the week, singing about that, like, I just kind of took it as a novelty that you were telling us about that story. But then I was kind of playing it back like, man, there's a lot of situations of different moments in that chain of events that seemed like it was going to be pretty, pretty tight to get out of. Yeah, thanks for talking about it. But yeah, Robert, if you didn't listen to last week's episode was a raft guide for a number of years on the Rogue River and lower row River. Which is pretty cool, man. I think it's a it's no small no small task.

Yeah, no, it's a ton of fun. And it's, it's opened a lot of opportunities stuff to me, and you know, it's a passion So, so it's a win-win.

Now that but I've known you for a while. And I know that you haven't always been on the river. In fact, I remember like when we'd go out we had the worst gear we had like, the little biomart Tahiti that you'd play with a little yellow, yellow. Yeah, we just we just try get by going down for what like hogs to go lease or something like that. We just see that thing taco in the center a few times.

Yeah, it would be popping. Because we have like a 30 rack at the back sitting on top of our life jacket.

You know, I remember Jeremy jumping off of his kayak onto the back of my kayak and a rapid to flip it upside, you know, and roll it over anything. Oh, this is great. This is this is these are the brilliant river people that would one day guide Yeah, you know, and you wonder how I yeah, it's it's amazing that they do. But Robert, an avid outdoorsman, has been on the river for a good bit of time skilled in that. But before that, Robert, I wanted to talk to you about some of the old experience you had learning how to hunt, or learning how to do some of those some of those other types of outdoors things like, like I was thinking about trips that my dad and I did Eastern Oregon and I wanted to ask you about yes to like, because my dad and I, I think we started going in like, I don't know what 2001 2000 or something like that. And that time we go out in the early fall, we were just campers and we just dug that time of year over in that part of the country but we would always cruise out east to Klamath Falls east to Lakeview. And we go up into the mountains over there near Warner rim and plush and heart man, that's beautiful. I dug that area super cool. But we so we've gone out there like a number of times to do like photos and camping and hiking stuff. But that time of year was also I think a bit or well there's there's a few different seasons. You could probably explain that over time. But but there's always like different groups of hunters kind of coming in through that area because it was a lot of it was a big public land out there. I think it was BLM land in that section at least. I think there was a season for antelope through that area. But I'm sure

Well, you've probably seen tons of antelope out there. Yeah, tonight. Are you are you familiar with I mean, just how incredible their eyesight is? Not really no, do you know? Okay, I mean, crazy tangent, but I mean, antelope, their eyesight is the equivalent of a 10 power binocular. So I mean, imagine you're looking through 10 power binoculars and something that's what an antelope sees. So I typically like when people hunt antelope Well, I don't want to typically generalize everyone but I know there are a lot of hunters that will use like radio communication and kind of like us to people you know, over like the the radius of a mile and a half two miles. Oh, wow. And have somebody go way around and have somebody almost set up and one person tries to herd them towards

said Hunter. Oh, like someone that's like stationary, or is that is that Yeah, get into the ghillie suit kind of thing. Where they're like,

yeah, I mean, I don't I don't know if they're, like, you know, full on snipers status. But I mean, really close, you know, I mean, it's really, you just want to stay still in, you know, because, I mean, they just have such incredible

eyesight. That's amazing. Yeah, I've wondered about that. You know, we've we spotted him out there. Because, you know, in those areas, it's so flat welds, there's contour to the land, but you can see for miles and miles and as you lookout, you can you can see packs or you know groups of three or For and sometimes big pack, I think we saw maybe a brown 20 move through an area one time. Yeah. And you just go, yeah, they heard up they cruise. Yeah, it was, it was really interesting to see. And it was cool too, because in the way that the land was, you could see where hundreds of years before the Indian tribes in that area had also been to hunt probably what might have been some of the same game.

But well, isn't that cool to when you're out there? I mean, you're just like, you're coming across all those like obsidian areas where, you know, the Indians would sit there and like chip their chips ship their arrowheads and spearheads and everything.

Yeah. So cool. Yeah, really interesting. When you get to kind of reflect on how long people have been in the area, or when you get to see the natural elements still just remain there. because nothing's come by to disturb that sense. It's, it's really remote territory that we end up being in a lot of time.

It's amazing. Yeah, you're out there. And you're so disconnected from people. I mean, but there's still roads around. And so I mean, you just assume there's people everywhere. But it's amazing that you can walk, you know, 100 yards off of a main highway and find these just completely undisturbed. obsidian deposits, were just a, you know, 150 years ago, or even longer. There was there was some, you know, just, yeah, they're chipping chipping arrowheads?

Yeah, there's been a there's been a handful of areas that I think we've seen. there's a there's a museum in Klamath Falls and my dad and I went to on a trip back. I think it was the Fayetteville museum. I think it was downtown, but it was it was this guy back in the I don't know, like 20s 30s 40s 50s probably, excuse me, not not in his age, but the 1920s 1930s 1940s I think for a good portion of his life. What he did all the time was go out to Eastern Oregon just to all sorts of different places across Oregon and collect obsidian and arrowheads and spear tips and knife tools. And it was the biggest collection of things across like the Columbia River area and like things from the pirate over in Eastern Oregon and Central Oregon and stuff from bend in the in the lakes that were around there. There's like this beautiful piece. They had one from Nevada. That was an opal Arrowhead. That was like the most famous one. Yeah, it was it was almost like a like a decorative ceremonial Arrowhead. But okay, but it was like yeah, cuz it was just such a pretty jewel like kind of Arrowhead. But it was like, yeah, this opal made Arrowhead that came out of Nevada from somewhere, I guess from some open mind area. Wow. Yeah. You think about like, Wow, that's so cool. But he had some of the most most rare pieces in that area. But it was really cool. You could walk through you can just see all of these different, different pieces that were collected before the times change. And those things were, you know, restricted in collection but but at the time, yeah, it was set up and now it's just, it's just set up into a museum where you can observe a lot of the ancient history and ancient Paleolithic tools. It's cool stuff. That's, that's great. I'd love to go check that out. It's cool. We're about there. We actually we should Yeah, that'd be a fun one to check out. But I wanted to talk to you about like where you guys used to go hunting or like where you guys would would first go out when you were younger? Yeah. Was it over to Eastern Oregon at first or were you guys more local?

Well, yeah, I was out in the open the fort rock unit and Cod, as long as I've been out there, I still can't really explain that the significance of that area and I'm sure you could probably touch better on that. Maybe. But, but for for rock or the Yeah, the Yeah, Fort rock.

Rock is really cool. What is that area? That's like, I think it's in like the Deschutes area.

It's not quite it's like okay, so yeah, you would head south of like, of boy, what is that Ben? You know, cruise down through lupine on 97. And then you cruise down through Shilla Quinn and out that

Yeah, I remember Sheila Quinn and cutting ease or cutting East then because I remember coming up on highway 58 I guess I'd figure Ah, or that diamond Lake cut off. Remember that super straight road that cuts. It goes past mouthfeel soon I remember it was just like 30 miles on an absolutely straight road. I was blown away when I first saw it when I was a kid, which is silly now it's probably just pretty normal. You get out to highway 140 and then you take that that lower highway that cuts out and I remember going out there yeah going out to to Fort rock first and then there's like Silver Lake. And then further you go out to summer lake. Or you can go out to Christmas Valley out in that area. There's a whole bunch of cool little spots out there.

Yeah, tons tons to explore. You know, I mean, just an Oregon there's so much and it's it's so cool because it's just such a vast change of environment you know, it completely is Yeah, yeah. You come from the west coast side of Oregon, you know, and everything's kind of green and lush that you get out there and you're in the high desert. Just sagebrush and just that ground palmists from all that volcanic activity. Yeah, yeah, it's a neat area I have I have a lot of love for that area.

Oh yeah, me too. Yeah, that area is always been really cool and really really close to me But yeah, for rock is really cool. That's that's a really interesting geological feature where it looks like a crater almost, you know, where like, like if a meteor came down and like kind of punched out a section like I was just hearing about it was it like our, you know, that meteor crater in Arizona or is that big giant circle, and sort of brings up that image in your head, but this one's different. It's it's built like a fortress almost as it was, but what I've understood is that it was sort of like Smith rock in a way where there was an aqua offer, and then there was like an active lava flow. And I guess this type of rock came up and and created that shape. However, it was all at one time, and I guess the area around it eroded away. But that area was okay. I don't really know if that's true. Yeah, it's

kind of the same. The same idea is what is that Devil's Tower? And like, in Where is that? Is that like, North Dakota? I mean, North Dakota? No, actually, it's I think you're right. Or Wyoming? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think that was kind of the same thing. We're just like, you know, everything eroded away from it. Slept was that hard material?

I remember on a field trip the said that about Table Rock over in Medford?

Oh, no, I was just I was just gonna say that. But I'm just kind of talking out of my ass. I don't really know what I'm actually.

See. I don't know that. I don't know. But I'm not a geologist. But I remember that on that on the field trip in seventh grade, they said that the RO rivers erosion through the area is what created or you know that that waterway of erosion is what created much of that valley there, which is interesting. I was wondering about that because the Rogue River was from Mount mazama. I was wondering if the Rogue River exists, would the Rogue River have existed in the same channel, before Mount mazama would have blown and become Crater Lake?

You know, I don't so it comes from boundary springs, which is just off the left or the left off the west side of Crater Lake. Okay, about seven miles or so. But I mean, I've gotten like a little bit of a geology lesson from a couple people down there since I've been in the canyon. Yeah, I wanted to hear perspective. And actually, I got a book called, like the portrait of the rogue, which is really kind of a neat read, especially if you're from around the area. But one of the experts in there talks about how the coastal range like the coast used to be over near the Blue Mountains in the flowers. I've heard that that's where the coast was, you know, you'd walk out there to your little steamboat and go trawling for grabs. Just Just a couple billion years ago,

and I've heard that that was the case. I saw an animation one time that sped up time by a million years a second, but you could see the old coast being I guess what would be kind of a remnant of the Rocky Mountain played that kind of comes down from Canada where the wallflowers are and it would be that sort of section, and then it showed these clumps of different different landmasses sort of landing into into ours. Isn't there a subduction zone like some of the stuff that causes all the trouble for earthquakes down in California? There's sort of similar stuff up here where where Yeah, it was a couple of different land or types of landmass that came together.

Well, can you imagine I mean, this area had to be such like a geographical hotspot when all this when these tectonic shifts and volcanic oh my gosh, I turmoil was going on. Could you imagine this had to be like the most inhabitable place you know, like it would be horrible.

What isn't? Isn't it known as sort of an interesting geological area because of the way the redwood curtain acts or looks as a piece of land like I heard that it was it was really like mountainous and rigid because it was kind of well I don't know, it's just the nature of that that coastal zone that's come in was like a really rocky kind of lumpy, crinkled piece of land that was coming and it was like unusual for the rest of the area around the United States. It doesn't have that type of land formation. But I don't really know anything about we started to Tyler. He's got he's got he's got a degree. At least he's taking classes in this subject. So that bro Yeah, well, you know, I remember going up on a drive With my cousin Laura, we'll get back to the rogue and the mazama stuff in a second. I remember going out on a drive with my cousin Lauren, we went up to the top of us. Well, I guess was one of the top sections of the Cisco's we did that road that I think you and I had been on before. That's south of Applegate Lake as you go into California, and you can take that road a long ways back, it goes up and up and up and up and up that mountain and you can actually take it all the way through the end out on that Happy Camp highway. At the other end, maybe what is that the Klamath River? I don't know what that other?

I didn't. Didn't we do that drive one time? We did do that over the road. We came we came from a different direction. But yeah, similar.

Yeah, yeah, that same thing. Yeah. But I remember, I think that might have taken a lower pass. But I remember this when we came up to a point and it was just it was a super high elevation I looked at it later was almost 7000 feet above sea level. When you get to that point, then you walk out, you can see Yeah, you can see up to up to Crater Lake ec McGlothlin really well from that spot. But when I looked later, to kind of find out some information about the geology of that area that I mentioned how it was interesting, because the reason it was so high is because it was a different piece of land, that it kind of come in to that area. But it was just weird to think that you know, you're standing on something that was I guess another piece or played a land that came in and then kind of joined the coast, a rising elevation at a time, like you were saying how the coast used to be over toward Montana.

Yeah, it's okay, man, I could trip out on the way mountains and everything were formed just like a trip out on space. Time, Man, I wish there. It's like, it's I mean, we know so much, but still so little, you know, and we can't really wrap our heads around the magnitude of how it all formed. Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, I

have absolutely no way of holding, in my mind the understanding of more than 1000 years, probably, I mean, even 1000 years, it seems like a stretch to kind of imagine truly that much, or to keep track of it. But when it goes into million years, or 10,000 years, or, you know, any any number of millions of years in the past before that when things like this and our landmass would have been formed. It's just like, oh, completely beyond me. What was it 5000 years ago, they say Mount mazama blue, you see that? That the river comes out of the boundary springs, I just remember like all the lava flows, and all the you know, the what, what do they call that? Just the the cinder blocks or the I guess it would be lava flows, where you just see all that kind of piled up for miles and miles and miles around there. I always would have thought that would have diverted some of the water flow. But you said you you would talk to some people about the river and like how it how its channel was further down.

Yeah, this is actually I guy I would love to have on this podcast. His name is Bob Ruffalo. Vich. And he's a saltiel College. But can I be so cool? Ah, he's great, man. And he's actually the guy that you know, founded road wilderness who I now cool work for. Yeah. So that was his business for a number of years. And now it's come full circle. And now he's just an employee at his old business. That's that's the way to go. But you know, he's been on the river for 40 years. Like the guy knows everyone and everything. And he has such an array of information. And I think I think maybe getting him on some time would be really, really great. That'd be so yeah. Good to talk to a guy like that. Yeah, it he'll go for hours. I mean, put on your, you know, put on a cup a pot of coffee. comfortable. Three party. Yeah, exactly. So, so. Yeah. So what did you know about the the low? Rep. Well, yeah, sorry. Yeah, he, he just, he's taken down several geologists that that all really told him the same thing. And he had told it to me, and you know, it's just Bob hearsay at that point. Sure. Until, you know, I did a little bit of reading and stuff. And yeah, I read the same thing. I'm just horrible at handling information the way it was actually displayed. And so anytime I try to, you know, repeat something that comes out a little skewed. I won't do it any justice. But from what I read that that was that was actually a situation at one point. Wow.

That's cool. Yeah, I was I was always curious, like, the way that the coastal range on Oregon works is kind of kind of interesting. Like we don't see it, you know, much further down like in California. I think as you get past Northern California like past San Francisco seems like it's pretty flat up until you get closer to what I thought was part of the Cascades or the Sierras as it comes out in elevation. So it's kind of interesting, like up here. We have that coastal range that kind of runs up Probably up into Canada. But yeah, kind of nutty stuff. So we were talking about timing Eastern Oregon stuff over by fort rock. That's where you that's where you started when you were younger.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, I guess I mean, I can really kind of attribute my whole love the outdoors to my first time going hunting. You know? That's cool. Yeah, my dad was always all about getting me out there. I mean, my first hunting trip with him actually going east. I was eight years old. I was gonna ask how old were you? Yeah, yeah. Um, no, he used to go every year, you know? And I was always so bummed because dad leaves for two weeks, you know? And like, I can't go. And his friends are there and all the guys are going and. And so when I was finally eight, I got to go over there. It's also where I learned to drive. Oh, nice spot. Yeah, spot for it. Yeah. So anyway, got out there. And like I said, such a cool environment. And it gets so cold out there at night. But oh, yeah,

man, especially in the fall like that. It gets so cold at night.

Well, I remember always wake up, you know, we'd have the pot of coffee, we would make the pot of coffee the night before, so we just have to heat it up in the morning. and nice. You know, every morning, The coffee is just like a block of ice, just a solid block inside your coffee pot. And you know, there's there was always ice on the inside the 10 the the what is that the air mattress is all laid in from the cold air always deflated. And always then you know, you get up. And it's like, it's like seven degrees. You know, you get up, you're freezing. You're shivering just uncontrollably because you're up at the coldest part of the day that like 15 minutes before sunrise. best time to be out. Well, you know, that's when you got to do it. You know, catch catch up the deer when they're up? Yeah, absolutely. Start moving around in the early morning. But yeah, then you get out there, man, and the sun comes out. And then you always dress in layers. Because by 1130 You're sweating and you're in a T shirt. You've got your pants rolled up into shorts. Oh,

I totally remember that. Especially Okay, yeah, by by even 8am in the summertime, I remember the atmosphere just totally changing from being like in all of my coats just trying to stay warm a little bit. And then just like stepping down to just just having a T shirt on again, but I remember that so much about but so you when you were eight, the first time you get out that's cool. Wow. That's pretty Yeah.

Um, you know, my dad gave I had a little 22 that he gave me 22 rifle. And I was allowed to just kind of playing can target practice around camp and stuff. I could pack a real deer rifle, you know until later. But I remember my first confirmed kill was a bluejay that was like really? You shot a bluejay and and so I still got the picture. But we you know, we've always had it on you. You know you would you kill. Oh, yeah. So I killed this bluejay and my dad made me skin it out. Clean it up. And I bluejay breasts for dinner. Wow. Yeah, that was that was my first it was a it was a trophy game is pretty good size.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I just didn't have the cash flow to get out of this. shoe. You missed that. What was? What was bluejay breast-like, was like chicken.

And I can barely remember like, last week in my life, let alone maybe the flavors

of a camping trip in the cold. 20 years. Yeah, that's

cliche as it sounds. I'm just gonna say. I mean, it was just a white poultry, a white beaded poultry. I mean, I kind of remember it being like a gamey chicken.

That's that's what I that's what I'd suspect. That'd be something like

yeah, so not even really gaming. Just kind of like lean. You know, it wasn't sitting in a little Foster Farms. pumped with steroids.

Blue J. Then you got a bigger rifle. You're a little older. Yeah. When when it's time you go out? Yeah.

When I was 13, my grandpa gave me his 30 odd six. He bought it when he was like 19 years old. It was a model 1903 really cool rifle. I so I started packing my rifle when I was 13 took the hunt. Some safety course that I went through all that kind of made it official. And then I hunted, and we hunted and we hunted and we hide. And pretty unsuccessfully. So when we were out there in that fort rock area, it became a victim do a lot of logging. Oh, really? So, you know, this is where my dad and his buddies have been going forever. They've been pulling these big, big mule deer out of there, you know, got all these great stories. You know, everybody gets a deer every year. I come of age, and there's just not a deer to be found in this area. No. Yeah. And that was because the hunting in the area of poaching. There Well, there was a combination, there was a lot of clear-cutting, and a lot of poaching. And so between those two, you know, a lot of the deer moved out of the area, just due to clear-cutting, and a lot of work killed off with the poaching. Oh, wow. So I became pretty scarce there for like a for about an eight year period. And then I guess, when I was about 16, we moved over to, to what's called the Sprague unit. And we've been hunting that area ever since.

I know the Sprague river, and I know Sprague mountain that I've been to is that is that kind of the same area you would say is kind of the Yeah, that was it. chilla Quinn kind of shinik and pass that area. Is that spread? Yeah,

there's a Sprague River. Yeah, that spring. And you know, we're the Williamson rivers. No,

I don't think so. Actually, is, is that over there. It's

Yeah, it's right out in that area. There's, there's a big casino off 97. And there's in between. Boy, in between, like shallow going in Klamath Falls. Okay. Anyway, out there is Williamson, and we're kind of over in that area now. And it's really beautiful. there's a there's a water Wildlife Refuge out there. I bet that's a cool spot. And just absolutely gorgeous area. Yeah. So you know, kind of same, same landscape and everything. And we've been out there for Well, for, I don't know, 12 years now. And, you know, I've actually still never taken a deer out there as bears as that is. Oh, really?

Well, so. Okay, so yeah, go back to when you're 13. You got your 36? Is that when you got your first year that year? No. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I like to like to assume that you just kind of walkout and just take a deer and just blast it. And that's like, a good day of hunting. No, no,

it's, it's supposed to be by I feel if I understand, right, I think it's supposed to be like, one in five times you might get it. Is that would that say about right?

Well, that's the thing too. Yeah, that's, that's very accurate. And the thing is over there, it's such a short season. I mean, if you come over here to a Western deer, you're you're looking at a 30 day season. You know, they're you're looking at a 90 Oh, Rana. So I mean, yeah, and also, the Klamath Indians are in that area, and they have full hunting rights all year long. Oh, interesting. Okay. So it's, it's, it's frequently hunted, you know, so I mean, the deer, the deer, I understand that people are, are not a good, a good sign, you know, so they're pretty skittish and hard to come by. Yeah. And mule deer are interesting. And the way they kind of sleep and watch your, their, their predator is cool. So the way they the way they set up is they like ridges, little kind of areas that they can sit just at the top. And they like to sit with the wind of their back, looking down the hill. Oh, interest. So what they're doing is they have the view down off this ridge to the flat area below so they can see anything coming from that way. Okay. And they also have the wind at their back. So they're smelling anything coming from behind them. Oh, rich. Yeah, that's

an interesting thing. You know, I've heard of types of maneuvers the animals do that seem far more strategic than what than what laypeople might place on an animal to do in the wild like that. But I've heard of some really interesting things like that, like the experience that a buck will have over a doe or over, over younger, male do deer the same time like how it'll go in and the buck will be the one in a group of deer as a predator comes in, and it'll scare the rest of the deer out but the buck will stay still in that same spot and not move because it's seen that before or knows that as it goes out. It's gonna expose itself to more danger than whatever was there, but it's just kind of interesting. These little behaviors like what You're talking about how they know how to evade their predators that are around them. Yeah, nature scary man. Gotta get smart out there that way. Yeah, it seems like it'd be pretty cool otherwise. Yeah. Well, that's, that's really cool, though. That's interesting. So is that? Is that where you guys try and find them? Well, you guys are out there in the Sprague area.

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, we go out there and we beat the brush and dry out there, you're making so much noise as quiet as you try to be. And a lot of times, you jump there, you never, they can smell so much better than you can. And these mule deer are called mule deer because of their ears, they have these these large ears that are larger than other deer species. And in fact, they're much larger, other deer species. Okay. So these these ears act is like, you know, the old man and like the the horn-like, hey. Yeah, that's what they're doing. They're just amplifying everything. And, and they can hear so well. And so, I mean, you're really talking, you're trying hard. And, you know, so a lot of times you jump them and you just hear him, you know, going off to the brush. Oh, yeah. And then that promise you can kind of feel like in the ground, you know, just kind of like it's got that base, he kind of Oh, wow. feel to it. And yeah, so no, I've never had any luck out there. My luck actually has been over West, which I just kind of started hunting over here again, this last two years. And these last two years, I've been really fortunate.

Now, is that white tailed deer over here, or is that LaSalle black too. So what's the difference? So there's mule Tam. Or there's there's whitetail, where do you find those is that the Midwest and Canada are so whitetail?

You know, I'm not sure how our west I think, I know that I know their whitetail or like an East Coast deer loci, you know, like, Arkansas. Alright, that makes sense. Yeah. And then you get the black tail over here on the west, and then the mule deer are more like Arizona, Utah. They like that. deserty Oh, interesting stuff.

Is that why they're a little bigger as it comes? Or they're, they seem like they're they're a little bit larger for their environment out there. Is that what are it seems like they're out in the higher desert area. But you said they were a little bit of a bigger animal. Is that right?

Yeah. In fact, they're I yeah, I mean, a mule deer is generally going to have about you know, 40 to 50 pounds on a on a good side. blacktail. Oh, really, you know, they're, they're significantly larger. Yeah, even. It's crazy to because after being over there hunting for so many years, you see these big O's, you know, they just have a big body on. And then you come over here, and you get a nice buck over here. A nice black tail on the left side. Yeah. And, and they're smaller than, like, you know, 85% of the dose You see, over in Eastern Oregon. It's unreal. Really? Wow,

that's so what's it like? have like, has people in your party had each of our average got one of the deers are like I was, I was gonna ask you, what's the difference in like, the meat or the quality of the way that it tastes when you have it? Does it seem any different, like deer to deer? Or is it about the same?

Um, so I can't I can't really find any quality difference between a black tail and a mule deer. But there's the definite difference between a young deer and an old deer. Okay. Yeah, I could. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Um, you know, we we first hunt for food. We secondly, hunt for, you know, a trophy size. I mean, ideally, everybody wants to get that big buck. You know that one? Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Oh, awesome. But when it comes down to it, you know, if you shoot a fork in Horner spike or something, you're gonna have great meat when you get into that older box that have been out there for seven, eight years. That's an old gear. You know, the me's kind of gaming is just kind of chewy. Doesn't have really good flavor. I was gonna Yeah, it's been a season that a little bit more.

Sure. Sure. That makes a good bit of sense that I've heard that before and, and what does it what is their diet? This is just, they for

mushrooms, they eat a lot of mushrooms. That's a good way to track them. Really, these spots in the pine needles will that will use their hooves and kind of pop these mushrooms, okay. And so you'll find them in these like shady areas underneath the trees. The pine hills lobby torn back and they dig through that Duff layer on the forest floor there, and they'll find These mushrooms that haven't even surfaced, they smell them through the pine needles of the Duff. And in those high moisture areas, they'll pull them out and eat those. I mean, they're grazers. So I mean, whatever they can pick off of the floor in the area. Huh? That's pretty interesting.

So you and then on the, on the west side of the Cascades, it's black tailed deer. And where do you guys try and hunt now? You said it was like the last two years or so? You've been over here on the west side?

Yeah. And in fact, I've been hunting in the rogue Siskiyou National Forest. The last couple years. That makes sense. And yeah, I mean, I've been spending a lot of time in that area, kind of getting the lay of the land. And beautiful country. But man, that's the difference to the terrain over here on the west side is so steep, it's so steep. Yeah. Ah, I mean, over in Eastern Oregon, if you knock a deer down, you know, it's gonna run, but it's predominantly flat. Sure, you can track it, and you can, you can get it back out to a road or something somewhere in a short amount of time, you need to but what you find over here is, it might run, you know, 600 yards down into a ravine Oh, man, you're spending all day long, trying to pack it out, you know, hundreds of feet.

What's that work? Like? Are you know if that happens? I mean, yeah, you see, you have to you go down, and like, what's the process even forgetting that packed out.

So I always take rope with me, you know, in your pack, you take more than what you need, because you never know what you're gonna need. One thing is cool, I use one of those river systems where you can make a three point pulley out of your rope drag. So you can have a three to one pull ratio, anchor off a tree, you've got 100 foot rope, you can take it up 100 feet at a time. And you can do that by yourself pretty easily. Oh. Another option is you can just kind of just throw it on your back and hike it out at slow going.

And that's what I've heard. I've heard just like these health stories of these guys that like shot one in a canyon and they had to like climb down to the canyon and then and then walk this creek bed out to the road with I think they had a pig or their you know, okay, like Yeah, what is it? Like, for wild boar or something? Yeah, boy. Yeah. But yeah, so they had a pack out this pig-like, yeah, however long down that just this terrible crappy ravine of a creek. And it just sounds like a hell story of like, you know, carrying hundreds of pounds on your pack to try and get it out. Yeah, just as exhausting.

Well, yeah. Okay. So just today I was listening. I was telling you a little bit. Oh, yeah. Tell me about that, too. That, that Joe Rogan podcast? Yeah. And he was talking about a buddy of his, during his podcast, and his buddy hiked in 12 miles on this hunt, right, just by himself. ends up knocking down this Alec out there. So first off, you figure it out, because you know, 900 pounds. I mean, it's a big animal. And so he's 12 miles. And so he he quarters this thing out, and he bones it and everything. And now he's packing it. He he packed it out piece by piece. Of course of four days. Wow. Yeah. And it was just in, in. later on. He goes on to say, you know, it was just the most hellacious experience like yeah, it would have to be. You're walking a minimum of 24 miles a day. Oh, my goodness. It just but I mean, but not easy walking. It's not like you got a day pack and your camel pack on, you know, yeah, you've got you've got 80 to 100 pounds of meat on your back.

Is there a system or a technology like, you know, there's like technical backpacker backpacks and stuff are there or is there some kind of meatpacking? Like gear you get for hunting? Or is it just is it just old school?

Uh, you know, I? I don't know if I've never been in that situation. We've always just kind of, you know, thrown it on our packs and just gone. Yeah, sure. Yeah, secure it somehow and, and just pack it out?

Yeah. I felt I don't know. I've heard people will sometimes in those remote situations, though. Or at least I needed clarification on this. They'd like they got the animal there. And they, I guess, like just prep the meat and then they leave the remains as after they cleaned it. Does that make sense? And then they just pack out the meat itself instead of the whole animal?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So when I say deboning, you know you Removing, I mean, you're cleaning off the rib bones, you're cleaning everything off taking all the usable meat. And you're just you're essentially just leaving the waste parts, the parts that the crows and the yellow jackets and things like that will come take care of coyotes, that things of that nature.

How long does that take to, to debone? or What is? Is that dressing an animal? Or is that different?

Yeah, there's there's very variations of that. So there's, there's field dressing, which is just a quick, you remove the vitals. And you know, and you, you can do what's called caping, which some, some, like trophy hunters will do if they plan on having the animal mounted. And that's where they'll take the entire hide off of the deer, or whatever animal it is. So you can take it down to the carcass like that. We've always just feel dressed, you know, removed the vitals, cleaned out the inner cavity and then pack the deer out like that. And then once we get back to camp, that's when we'll go ahead and actually skinned deer. Sure that makes sense. Then remove those pieces. It seems like that's what I've seen before. Yeah, and it really depends on your terrain. Oh, that makes it so how are you going to keep the animal cool, like, you know, things like that. And all those things play a factor as soon as you do that. Sure. Yeah.

That's pretty interesting. So what's the hunting hunting experiences for you like Ben over here? Over in the the Rogue River area.

They've been great. They've been great. I've had some really nice deer. My first one was a young buck, but it was really, really great deer. I mean, we were still eating it. You know what? I mean? I had it made into like, I got 65 pounds of hamburger out of it and some tenderloin and stuff

you see is wow. Is it good? Yeah. Is it good for steaks at all? would you would you never do that you would just always go.

It's just not really big enough for steaks. tenderloins are like little steaks, they're like almost, you know, a little flaming yarn. You get this little bacon wrap sirloins or something you get sure they're about that size. And those are great man, you pan fry them up with like a little salt and pepper, a little garlic powder. I bet that's Pam serum and a little butter. It's fantastic. really tender. That's why they called the tenderloin. Okay,

for sure. So most of the time when you're preparing theme and you're kicking, are you guys making like, like burgers? Is that? Is that the kind of thing? Or what do you guys?

Yeah, I mean, I will make like spaghetti out of it. You know? Oh, yeah, definitely. That or, I mean, anything that you would use, like ground beef or ground turkey for? Yeah. You can. You can use medicine the same way and it looks very much like beef. That's cool. That's really yeah. And it's, it's great. And you can taste the difference. You know, you can, it's so crazy. You can taste the difference between a farm animal and a wild animal.

I must be really strange. What do you notice in it? It's just, I don't know, I know. It's kind of Yeah, it's strange to describe what another senses is able to experience, but I was just trying to figure it out. Because I've kind of had that experience to at least at least like on a smaller scale. Or maybe like with eggs you can say even if you kind of notice the difference between like a store-bought egg and then one from a farm like where it's been out picking through bugs and grass and all sorts of different things that the chicken eats and consumes and then has those nutrients to make the egg from It's so weird this to notice how much of a different flavor or a different consistency that has when you when you put in just the pan to eat. Let's go absolutely

i mean i mean color, texture. Everything. Yeah, it's like milky white,

versus like orange like this dark Auburn color and yeah, that's the same thing even animal could have made that

makes you wonder man going in it. What What is different about this? Why does this look taste and smell different?

It's Yeah, it is. It is kind of nuts. But so do you think that just kind of comes from having a natural diet or a natural

diet and it's just the healthy animal shares? They're out there and they're they're moving around and staying active. I mean, they're eating natural, you know, natural fully off the land. Yeah. Yeah. How

old are these deer I was trying to put that in my mind a little bit too about how big an in mass these animals are. But also like how many years they are like, you know, I see him grow up pretty quick in my backyard when I when they kind of run through and after. I mean, what is it like the one you you got? How old? Would you have said that was

this? Oh, the the one that we currently have? He was I would say about two or three? Yeah, maybe. I mean, a long life for a deer is eight or nine years.

That's what I was thinking it was it was like a dog or something like that. But you also think about the size of the animal. I guess this may be true with horses sometimes to be really big animals, these animals that are able to take on a ton of mass and be pretty enormous, really quite quickly. But yeah, I was thinking about that, that me you're saying is what? Two or three years old? It's like, it's just been grown? It doesn't really seem like it'd be that old at all.

No, not at all. Yeah. And and that's, you know, they'd haven't had that chance to, to I mean, they. I'm sorry, did you? Did you say something about I guess I misunderstood that.

Oh, well, no, not too much of a question. But I just thought it was interesting, though. Yeah. Like, the deer you got is just a couple of years old. So it Are they really don't live very long. These deer, you know, when they when they come to maturity and then are available to be part of the the public trust of food to be shot at?

Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, they've, they're really into maturity after their brilliant stage. You know, I mean, they're already reproducing, they were pretty, you know, contributed to, to the development of more species. More of the species, not just species in general.

But yeah, it's kind of nutty, though. That Yeah, they're able to come about so quick, I guess. Yeah. It's kind of like a dog's timeline to I just saw is, you know, you get kind of caught up being people centric. Sometimes we you think like, oh, man, like, a one year old? Like that. Isn't that much meat on it?

Yeah, are you are you put this almost like, is human-like characteristic with it? Yeah, sure. You know, you're like, Well, I have a child. That's too. Like, what if? What if somebody shot that? You know, it wouldn't know any people? Yeah. And

let alone that it's their nature to come out of the womb walking. They're kind of different than we are.

Yeah, man. I mean, they come out and they're just like, let's get something to eat. Yeah, let's go. We're already at it. When we got 24 months left. And right away, I can't I can't wait around. Babies. I gotta go now. Got you ever think about that, like a cat. Terrible. We are as people. Oh, yeah. Like,

how do we ever survive? Like, who was the first person that survived nature? I mean, like we go out with, with nice, like, GoreTex and waterproof boots and stuff. And you get out in the elements on like, a 40 degree, or let's say, like, a 35 degree day and it's raining. It's kind of like that. sleet, the wind blowing. It's nasty. Yeah, you're like, I mean, I've been in some situations, and I'm smart about being outdoors, where you're thinking, like, I gotta get out of here.

Oh, yeah. It's like, this is too much exposure. This is weird. Yeah, I've had that a couple of times too. And heat and cold and and you're like, oh, oh, it's like a weird signal your body gives you like, yeah. Oh, no, too much, too much.

How do you put like a newborn? Like the first baby? Like, how do you put the first baby out there? for like, the first?

I don't know, the first life. Yeah. Oh, you know, after I was reflecting on this, it's been one year since we got we went to Hawaii. Marina and I that was the first time I was in an island atmosphere, a tropical climate. And then you think it dawns on you, all of a sudden, like, oh, people didn't get born in North America. It's cold up there. Like people, people. Everywhere monkeys grow people grew where they could grow with no clothes on. That's where that's where the populations, but yeah, no, 40,000 years ago when the first I don't know, people were coming over the Bering Strait from China, or what is that part of, of Asia? Coming over into America and you think I'm just cruising through through Kamchatka and Alaska and down and through British Columbia into Oregon and then settling all the way down to the southern tip of South America and you think man, like walked that?

And only that like I I mean, I love this area now. Oh, yeah. You know, I love this area. This always be home, but I don't know, man. If I'm coming over the Pangea land bridge or something. And I'm walking into Oregon in the winter. No one's gonna say that bad choice. Let's go somewhere else.

He goes south. There's more. Yeah, let's let's try. We're just a few more days. Just Just two more months of walking. We could be in Santa Cruz.

Let's do it. boardwalk.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know how they would have done it back then. It's amazing at all. But and it's also amazing that there are still native people kind of living the way they would have in really harsh conditions or harsh climates, kind of. So, I don't know, it seems like people adapt to it.

And you know, it's interesting, like when you're on these long these, like long hunting trips, and you're out in the woods for days on end, or, you know, you're out on a fishing trip or something. Right? It isgives you such an appreciation for what life would have been like back then First off, Oh, absolutely. You haven't showered in several days, you know, like, you've gotten to that point where you're like, man, I need to clean up, and then you know, you're cold. You're a little hungrier than you'd normally be. And then the thing that gets me is any little cut. I mean, you Nick, your knuckle on Sunday. Oh, that's just something here you go. Whatever. No, totally. I totally understand. You're talking. But yeah, I mean, infection it so quickly. Yeah. And that's a big time deal when you don't have access to any medicine or any way to really clean that wound. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, our survival rate must have been horrible. Just horrible back then.

I yeah, we should count our lucky stars. We were born this century. Ways ways. We just get the podcast in our houses. And then like 200 years ago, on the spot, this was just like jungle land. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was, it was just wilderness and probably, you know, the area you live in the area. I live right now. There was nothing here. So yeah. How is that? What 1817? Like? Yeah, what would have been going on in the Willamette Valley in the in the Rogue Valley during that time is like there's no development out here. So it's just yeah, it's amazing that it's just now So recently, we have all of it. I read a lot of like, EDM festivals and things like that. Oh, yeah. There's tons. Yeah, back in like 1799. This forest raise. We're going crazy out here. Yeah. That's pretty funny. Well, Thanks, Robert. I really appreciate you doing this podcast doing Episode Two of the get out there podcast. digging out the stuff. I want to get in deeper with you about hunting stuff. I know these podcasts kind of combine time passes, but I really appreciate you hanging out with doc. No, absolutely. And I was a little rambley tonight. It was great. It's fun. You know, it's just yeah, it's for podcasters

exactly diggin it. I think 90% of the podcast I listen to her nothing but just you know, rambles for like three hours you know my Wow, it's a great podcast. Yeah.

Baby, we're gonna do a bunch more of them, and it's gonna be pretty cool. But yeah, Robert, I really appreciate it. Thank you for for doing the podcast stuff with me. Absolutely. It's great man. So on behalf of Robert Fisker at my name is Billy Newman. And thank you guys very much for listening to Episode Two of the get out there podcast.

Get Out There | 01 Navigating The Lower Rogue River

Robert Biscarret and Billy Newman

Robert tells his story of navigating the technical rapids on the lower rogue river.

Get Out There Podcast

billynewmanphoto.com

Hey what’s going on this is Billy Newman i’m here today recording a test podcast with my friend Robert biscarrat Robert how you doing go well how are you doing doing good man i’m happy that we’re trying out this FaceTime audio call and it sounds like it’s working pretty good so we’ll try and we’ll try to work it out over time to see if it works alright but I feel the my idea is coming over to you well yeah everything is coming in loud and clear excited to do this should be fun ya know because if we can kind of get a rhythm down doing it it would be pretty easy I mean gosh man just got your phone right now is that cake but yeah we never do a podcast with you maybe about what i figured it’s just like a lot of the outdoor topic so we’re both interested in you know are just some of the other stories or camping trips that we’ve done in the past it would be cool to talk about yeah yeah I I don’t really know anything about anything outdoors related but yeah but I know like the cock oh man you know plenty I’m sure but yeah i was thinking of well you should tell us a little bit about some of the raft guide experience that you had in the past because i think i’d be kind of just thing to start to break down a little bit like see you when did you start guiding stuff uh you mean like season or what did I just start I guess just like rowing or anything like that like yeah when did you start in general yeah I started like a four years ago and you know I kind of fell into it was something I wanted to do for a long time but the opportunity really presented itself at the time it did and and wow man what an experience it’s it’s really interesting and learning that you know you take it for granted or you know you just kind of a shame that it doesn’t take much to do and then you get behind the oars and then all of a sudden it’s just really eye-opening really gain a respect for the people that are good at it yeah I can only imagine really cuz uh like I had that job down the river on the Rogue River for a while so I kinda understand the atmosphere of what’s going on down there but like even the times that you rep lemme row just for a few minutes ago my gosh I’m out of it because this is where I got a talent or if this was a skill to build definitely but suit you so you started this season you did like the day chips like the river trips of the normal the Rogue River and then out second-year eyes when you moved into the wild and scenic section it was at that first year uh you know that first year I kind of got some got some training experience down there they wanted me to come down and learn and it was really nice I I was fortunate enough to really learn from some great oarsmen but yeah so I got down there wasn’t really working down there but I was experiencing it kind of getting a vibe for what it was like and just kind of getting you know cutting my teeth down there so it was good learned a lot but you know even though you learn a lot now and really prepare you for for working down there full time and that was my second season when when I was asked to come down and do that full time and that was that was crazy man yeah I were him I had a question about that like I wanted to know about one of those first experiences of like because there’s a couple of in the Downriver section on the Rogue River there’s the wild and scenic section of the river to catch people up and that’s how long is that is that like 42 miles 35 roughly roughly River miles always vary from shit the BLM marked trail miles but yeah it read in that ballpark okay yeah something like that so there’s this the Wild and Scenic section where there’s really no development or no modern development and there’s a limited amount of rafts that go down through the section each day right yeah absolutely there’s a permit system through the BLM Bureau of Land Management and essentially what they do is they allow 120 people down per day I know that sounds like a lot but in reality I mean it’s really sparse you really don’t know very many people it can be as many votes as you like I mean it could be a hundred and twenty votes right okay but yeah but there’s a limit of 120 people John and typically you’re running two to three if you’re a private boat or provoke us as a guide company we’re running you know six people for both so right okay the kind of come consolidate a little bit yeah I don’t have that works well so I know that there’s like a couple of those features on that lower rogue section that are like pretty heavy like blossom bar and I wanted you to remember you told me a story about that i think was it like perfect i’m where that where you were you were like learning how to navigate blossom and like yeah i guess for background like what how dangerous or like what is blah as a feature in there blossom is this is this rapid that used to be a full day portage around it commercial cheers have been running down there since the early 20s in back then they used to you know camp just above it take a full data portage and that was it and the 40 is this guy Glen wooldridge who is really the Rogue River pioneer you know I mean that really just you know commercialize this river and just did so much down there well he ended up dynamiting it out you know three separate attempts he blasted massive channel in this thing why Satan it’s not massive at all actually it’s just it’s a technical tiny channel but anyway he does it in the way that the flood water will send debris off to the side keep the channel that he blasted clear and allowing a tricky maneuver through it we are totally doable it’s entirely dependent on having that move correct right it’s it’s a move that it’s not that hard we always say it’s a class to move with uh with classified consequences yeah the first thing I thought I because that I hadn’t really got to raft the lower rogue section that many times so the first time I saw it I think was years ago and then a second time when you and I did that backpacking trip down the lower rogue trail so my first exposure to blossom bar was only ever seeing it kind of from up above I remember the first ever the first time was like what 2010 something like that I was on that backpacking trip in September with Jeremy we got down the block sand bar we waited maybe five minutes it was cake and we saw this pontoon come through and he’s like yeah man watch this it’s going to be like pretty gnarly because this is one of those scariest rapids that are out there and we saw this pontoon guy come up and he just like slipped it perfectly just went right in and out and it was nothing and I was like else that’s that looks easy like from up here 480 feet away so everybody say this is going to be like a giant terrible trauma to try and float through and then you don’t really realize until like when you and I did the trip later I think what to play two years ago a year ago now yeah yeah you’re an ass ago and I’m looking at a picture right now from of a kayaker coming in right in the pocket of that spot in blossom behind i remember now being there with you how what was it an 18-foot raft that was just edge to edge against the rock that you had to kind of here all right swing it right in between yeah so it’s a tight boat for anything I mean well wouldn’t you were there that kayaker got this is pretty serious man that was scary to what I was a hairy situation yeah that definitely kind of solidified again that it’s a pretty big dealer it’s like a a dangerous spot yeah it’s you know it’s one of those Rapids you know an expense from a lot of people are that bit of you know rapid big class 5 water they kind of look at it with this like you know oh that’s your big scary rapid approach and it’s not a big deal you know it’s not a big deal until you mess it up and then when you mess it up you you learn how quickly it changes the game and I mean what a humbling experience to go from like oh yeah it’s nothing and then you find yourself in very serious trouble very quickly so tell me about that Robert so when was it that you first you first navigated blossom as a guide your rather I just said voting yourself so yeah I guess that was 1 2014 yes I’m sorry ah yeah so I get out there you know I’ve been running for all of two weeks I kind of got this job just kind of saying yeah I know what I’m doing and on the on the premise that I would just be able to figure it out in a short amount of time so anyway I get down there I’m shadowing a great ortmann that I was stoked to learn from yeah and so he’s taking me down you know kind of giving me the overview of all these Rapids before we get there yeah and just to mention quickly I mean it’s not like the first thing on the rivers blossom there’s a lot of things to get through the said I wouldn’t want to do for my first time oh yeah and so that was that was the cool thing is a you know I had this awesome day running with him I can you know you can see him up about 60 yards up in the distance and your kind of watching what using a mimic unit and you know the first day was great man I it gave me a really false sense of confidence I can’t do that per se just feel like man I’m I’m pretty good you know so so day two you know we make it to mule Creek Canyon which is a really tight testing area we get through there when we get down into blossom and he’s like yeah this is the one man you know good luck to you in the unfortunate part of about that is you can’t really see what the oarsmen in front of you is doing oh really when they go tonight you have to cut it you have to Eddie out above it I remember the perspective they kind of drop away what are you guys yeah gone yeah it’s it’s really it’s just like they drop off and kind of disappear and you just kind of have to I mean you count the 10 and hopefully you see them you know kind of a peek out from behind the rocks so finally you know I count to 10 he comes through and I go okay you know and I guess I just had a terrible interpretation of what I was supposed to do there and I made the mistake that I’ve seen a lot of people make since then standing up on the bank and watching other boaters oh yeah and uh you know it’s a really big it’s a heavy pull move in there you’re pulling you need all that strength there’s you’re working against the current in there right I remember and remember you prepping us for it I like when we get it yeah oh we gotta pull back pull back yeah yeah yeah so you know it you’re trying to catch us Eddie to slow you down because you’ve got a lot of momentum going through there you know I was I was taught to push push on the oars rather than pool so I come in trying to push it obviously not strong enough um I missed that major that major move just the you know that pivotal move coming in there i miss it i get slammed up against what’s called the rap rock on the picket fence and for anybody listening the picket fence is a series of rocks because of the dynamiting that kind of sit up almost like fingers out of the water with just about enough space for a person to get wedged in there just right in tune stuck in yeah a lot of SIDS in there and just a place you absolutely don’t want to be a movie right you know long story short I get that I get pushed up against there the boat is you know listing I’m trying to throw I’m trying to get it around get my channel 4 and a just an idea of how strong water is you know I’ve I’m not a big guy but I’m throwing all my weight onto these oars and just doing everything I can I’ve got adrenaline going everything and I mean the current just grabs Azure and just shoots it in the air like 10 feet like a rocket I don’t even know how it happened but it just launches it at this moment I go oh no dad I need that one yeah it’s amazing how like you know time slows down in those scenarios but it grabs it grabs my upstream tube it sucks it under the boat starts to flip I don’t know how this ended up happening i ended up scrambling up over the raft as it’s flipping and I land on to this rock called the rap rock my boat flips it goes down in the channel and I watch it go right by a lack of experience made me think I would be safer not jumping on the boat in retrospect I don’t know why I didn’t jump back on the boat that’s amore you know yeah I think things you learn SAA well mr. yeah yeah and so I end up on this rock you know and to give you an idea of the size of the rock it’s about two and a half feet by two and a half feet and I’m standing out there you know on this rock in the picket fence the most dangerous part of boston bar and no way out yeah well i’m not going to jump in the water here yeah absolutely you know a bittersweet situation came up I mean it was fortunate for me unfortunate for the other boaters but some private boaters had come down and they had wrapped their boat far elastic defense and really i mean i i’m fairly certain they lost that boat entirely oh god but fortunately there was a guy on the bank with a throw rope he was able to throw a rope out to me and pull me back across to safety but I mean the whole thing from start to finish ended up taking about hour and a half really uh uh yeah who’s not long of a time that you were like figure out they’re just stuck well yeah you know you’re out there and first off they’re dealing with their situation which is pretty high stress situation yeah but then he comes out to me it’s a it’s a forest row it’s you know you got to be careful you’re not slipping or something yeah you know but it took like 20 throws to get me the rope and then each time you got to bring the Rope back in coil it back up get it flake back out and then try it again and okay yeah it was a an experience oh my gosh yeah i’m looking at the picture of the zone where would it happened right now and i’m just kind of spotting like the picket fence the rock where the people were to the left of the river that sounds like a crazy time though but so if love so your raft went down river or like was it did it deflate no I got so lucky oh my gosh everything back the oars ended back with it you know the only thing I lost was my cot which I was getting a lot of a lot of flack for anyway just because it was a super heavy cumbersome cot need to get rid of that you’re really i think its back here yeah that’s the river time yeah man that’s enough Norina that’s a crazy thing have you ever like how many other clothes cause did like your team have that season or like or since then or is that is a kind of often that you guys aren’t into that um you know I didn’t think it was a very very frequent thing until you go down and you watch people that aren’t down there every day right and you can stand there for an hour and if there’s boats coming through you know I would say one in ten both has a run the way it’s supposed to go through oh my god i would say ninety percent of the boats that go through they either get really lucky and the river smiles on that day and they get to move on yeah or they end up in trouble and flip a boat or rip a floor out or something i watch the guy rap is kayak man i was thinking about it though in like 2012 and you probably know these guys back in i think it was 2012 and marina and i were camping down there for two days that was like the beginning of october the fishing season has started I’m abandoned out there with a camera watching this like beautiful like hardwood polished terrific I just cruise right through there like it’s like it’s just nothing like you just yeah bus or something like it’s easy about yeah you just like see that guy float right through and like pull out to the side in the right spot and you just think well how does that guy do that with such like a fragile machine you know the drift boats are really such an art and I’ve been fortunate enough I got to run a season down there with it with mine this year no it’s a boy you really increase the stress by you know tenfold you don’t have the luxury of bouncing like you do with a rubber raft right em so I mean any mistake is really a potential boat sinking experience so it’s you know by the time you’re rowing a drift boat down there you really understand what you’re doing and where these channels are and the other neat thing about it your code is the way to design is there like a Ferrari not I’m not downplaying the difficulty of what’s going on and then yeah you know they’re easier to maneuver but the stakes are higher and so it’s just important that you make those moves like that and it’s it’s an art to watch your photos go down there it’s absolutely beautiful yeah I seems seems amazing like how they just able to hit that line so perfectly just move right yeah it’s really cool but yeah that’s pretty nuts time though that sounds like a crazy first time and then what sense then how many times you’ve done a lot of rope after that oh man I wouldn’t arrest member like yeah I was trying to figure that out i would say 70 times maybe Wow several rounds of the river just even like so like that’s just a couple years to that’s probably a ton of experience it is I mean it’s still there’s still so much to learn every time you go down you learn something new or some some scenario that you never planned for or even thought about happens you know just the most obscure thing and you go wow okay I’ve learned something from that you know it’s pretty cool man I’m really glad you finished up this season and they that you got that drift boat to and a trailer I did ya checked in here got into the fishing gig you know Rowan down there some really great older than and I mean really getting that drift boat experience down there yeah yeah nerve-racking but so rewarding yeah it sounds really cool we got to find a mellow spawn of water that you and I can go out on some time on your trip though I wanna check it out yeah I want to take you guys out I’d like to do some fly-fishing I mean you know that’s what I want to do though Oh have you get together out there and actually give you guys a fishing trip man I’ll be so fun I’d love to do so you know yeah yeah those trips are expensive so I mean I got to capitalize on those gotta capitalize unknown a good god man that’s gonna be great yeah you set up man you got all the gear so it’s going to be cool look forward to a there yeah right after your honeymoon this summer you can just you can just put us on a fishing trip I think it’s a good idea that sounds great to me the fall time that’s where it’s at well you know the honeymoons gonna happen and then I’m just not going to want to work at all i’m going to be out of it you know it’s gonna be like I want to go back to work we should just go fishing so that’s a great man i’ll be in are you gonna great i’ll be acclimated to time off as much as i can monopolize your time that’d be great man man i think it’d be fun but yeah we gotta playing some good camping trips this summer and I want to get you back back east in like Eastern Oregon or you know some some other River I don’t how we do it but we should just get out get out and go camping somewhere else you know I’d like to get the raft and get out there on like the Hawaii or John day or something like that be cool I know I don’t know anything about him I don’t know what a ratchet was like out there but it just seems cool till I go out to a different spot Scott so maybe we’ve camped before so you know this we’ve got river access and we just never never gone down a Terry story seems like it yeah there’s a lot of neat rivers other I love that area i mean you know we’ve always gone out there but yeah those rivers are both have known for just being incredibly scenic you know Oh class threw water at best you know not very techincal water just a really like an awesome experience from what I understand my god yes I got to do a little homework on it but well study up and then we gotta plan a trip out to summer now let’s go blind well the shit will just jump in get supplies it’s a river cut having a good time man well thanks Robert you’re doing a podcast you really appreciate it hanging out for if yes talking about that back story that’s that’s a amazing story it’s just like a crazy time ok guys you pulled it off maybe yeah I think it work everybody no man it’s really cool well yeah I really want to get you back on and i want to set up a few more of these to do to do some shows like this where we get to talk about some of the outdoor stuff that they’ve done even just that man like going through a cool story that you had of like some kind of tense situation i think that’s going to be really fun well yeah and you know i mean the cool thing is we’ve done enough of these uh these things together that i don’t think we have any shortage of stories to share i was thinking the same thing about it having it be cool alright i’m looking forward to it yeah Thank You Man I’m gonna let you go and I wanted to say thank you very much Robert and thanks for i guess anybody that ends up listen to this podcast on behalf of robert booster at my name is Billy Newman and thank you very much for listening to this podcast