Guides Gone Wild

Today’s fabulous guest, Heather Kinal, is going to fuel our  PLAN-UARY mojo!

Heather is the organizer of the Rooted Women’s Mountain Bike Festival that will be happening in July; she’s one half of the super-terrestrial force behind Ride Cosmic Dirt, a new women’s mountain biking clothing brand that’s launching its Kickstarter any day now; she’s the founder of the Instagram community Sisters in Singletrack; and not surprisingly, she’s also an all around lovely person who loves connecting women to each other, and to new experiences.

Heather and I caught up right before she left her home base in the Buffalo New York area for a cross country traverse to meet up with Ride Cosmic Dirt’s co-badass, Ashley Duffus-Jambor. Even before her trip commenced, Heather and I covered a lot of ground - we talk about getting started in mountain biking, building confidence, yelling at the internet,  launching an apparel company during a pandemic, and why we need Rooted in our lives.

Along with the Ride Cosmic Dirt universe, you should obviously follow Heather in all her other places, she’s @heluvaheather, @sistersinsingletrack, and @rootedMTBfest on Instagram. 

AND - don't forget, it’s Plan-uary!!  Time to put some dates on the calendar for safe outdoor fun!:

• Snowshoe Camp with Sarah Canney (registration closes January 17th!)
• Ice Climbing with Laurie Watt
• Dogsledding with Polly Mahoney

More links and fun stuff:

• Rooted MTB Festival 2021 recap video on YouTube
• Loud Performance Bike Shop (Bemus Point, NY)
• Roam Fest (Knoxville - Fruita - Sedona)
• Clipless vs. Flat MTB shoes?
• Fingerless gloves 
• Under Armour Volleyball Knee Pads
• Vertical Even Recap on Guides Gone Wild (09.16.21)
• Heidi Myers on Guides Gone Wild (04.22.21)

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Happy New Year!
One of my 'resolutions' for this podcast way back when I first started it was to broaden the definition of adventure. I want everyone to reimagine what outdoor experiences look like, to bring a new appreciation of the small moments or unique connections with nature that you can have right where you are now, that can bring so much joy and fulfillment.

You don’t need to be 17 miles into the backcountry, surrounded by woods and megafauna, to have a fulfilling outdoor experience!

So to kick off 2022, I’m sharing my conversation with Emma Mitchell, who is a National Park Ranger. You might think that means Emma spends her days dodging elk in Yellowstone, or recommending day hikes in Acadia, but no - Emma is stationed at the Lowell National Historical Park in very urban Lowell, Mass.

If you’re not familiar with Lowell, it’s a mid-sized city along the Merrimack River that was one of the first planned industrial cities in America. In the first half of the 1800s, Lowell was an important center of textile production it’s canal-powered manufacturing became a model for urban development across the country, for better or worse.

Today’s Lowell benefits from the diverse ethnic and cultural makeup that is the legacy of employing successive waves of immigrants, but has had to grapple with the environmental disaster that was the industrial revolution, and the economic fallout of all of the city’s foundational industries moving south or overseas over the last century.

Emma’s chance visit to Lowell as a child actually set the stage for her applying to be a ranger at that park, as we’ll hear. But we talk about a whole heck of a lot more - so if you’re a jack trapper, get ready to rumble. And even if you have zero idea what I’m talking about, I know you’ll want to listen in to this fun one.

Make sure you follow @RangerEmma406 on Instagram, and check out some of the other links from our conversation:

• National Park Service
• Yellowstone National Park
• Mammoth Hot Springs
• Student Conservation Association
• Iditarod
• What is ‘jigging’?
• Boston National Historical Park
• Boston African American National Historic Site
• Boston Harbor Islands
• Faneuil Hall
• Charlestown Navy Yard
• Bunker Hill Monument
• Boot Cotton Mills Museum
• Kittery Trading Post
• Seashore Trolley Museum
• Petzl Headlamp
• Counter Assault Bear Spray
• Heritage Ice Fishing Traps
• Jack Traps

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I’m sharing something a little different with you today, to close out COVID Dumpster Fire Year version 2.0......

Back in November I had the awesome opportunity to be on the other side of the mic as a guest on the Lessons from The MAP podcast, hosted by Jamie Blackburn. 

Jamie is a somatic wellness educator whose mission is to help people decrease their anxiety and chronic stress by teaching them tricks to create a more Mindful, Active, and Present (MAP) life- that’s where the M-A-P comes from, Mindful, Active and Present.

I met Jamie through a podcaster Facebook group I’m part of (that was created by none other than Emily Holland, my guest on GGW back in May of this year). On her podcast, Lessons from the MAP, Jamie interviews female outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers about how adventures in the natural world have shaped their inner landscape - so of course I was honored to participate and share a little bit of the origin story of Guides Gone Wild!

A quick note before we dive into this conversation - you’ll hear us talking about the Guides Gone Wild Giving and Gifting guides - and guess what, even though the holiday season is winding down, there’s still PLENTY of time to make some year-end donations to a few more worthy causes! Or better yet, find a few organizations to support on an ongoing basis in 2022 - every little bit makes a difference, so whatever your giving goals are, I hope you’ll head to GuidesGoneWild.com/Giving to learn about the causes that are closest to our guests' hearts. 

Also be sure to check out Jamie Blackburn’s work at InnerMapProject.com - you can listen to all of the episodes of her podcast and check out the wellness programs and resources she has available there.

Listen in as I take the hot seat and talk about finding new purpose and inspiration through conversation. 

And while you're at it, let's raise a glass (bubbly, sparkly, kombucha, whatever) to 2022 - may this coming year create opportunities for all of us to forget, for a minute, what the potential viral load exposure of every freaking activity might be, so that we can grab a few friends and try something new - in community!

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Feel like you can't find any moments of rest in all the craziness leading up to the holidays? Craving some clarity around what you want your 2022 to look like?

Today’s guests might just help with that. A few weeks ago I aired an episode with Ava Baptiste, the founder of TriState Hikers based in Brooklyn New York, and I hinted that I might have a little surprise coming up related to that conversation.

Ava delivered on her promise to set up a Zoom chat with several of her inspiring friends and fellow hikers, who are now helping her build out the new, formal, non-profit organization that Ava has just created, to serve as a solid foundation for the future of TriState Hikers.

This was super-spontaneous and casual, so apologies for some occasionally wonky audio. Not all of Ava’s team was able to jump on the call, but you are going to get a chance to meet and hear from Ingrid Neverson (Director), Maurisa Adams (VP), Wendy Brown (Secretary), Eustecia (Tessa) Herman (Pro), and of course, Ava Baptiste (Founder/President).

Almost without exception, these women tell stories of putting themselves, and their affinity for being outdoors, on the back burner of their busy lives for far too long. This is the perfect time of year to remind ourselves that putting yourself, and your mental health, last in a long line of priorities is a recipe for disaster.

So we’re gonna do what Ava preaches - we’re going to stop and check in on ourselves. Alot. Feel the feels and go find some joy. Do the things that serve us, because we can’t take care of others if we’re not taking care of ourselves.

The TriStateHikers.com site is live and ready for building community, scheduling hikes, sharing amazing photos, and most importantly, taking donations to support TriState Hikers’ amazing work around mental health awareness and creating opportunities for adults and kids to get into nature more. 

Here are all the ways you can follow and support TriState Hikers!: 

• TriState Hikers
• TriStateHikers.com
•  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tristatehikers/
• Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/TriStatehikers/
• YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChPtAAwmvEtFQhKz86MIuJQ
•  TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tristatehikers

(And I'm sure they won't mind if you start harassing @Merrell about sending TriState Hikers some free gear for their winter hikers!!)

Don't forget to head on over to GuidesGoneWild.com, I’ve got some additional links to check out all the cool (and freezing cold) spots these ladies have adventured lately - and if you haven't already listened to my first episode with Ava, catch it there!

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Come along as Trish, Paula and I ease on into the Cedar Grove Sauna, head out to the plunge tub, and then get inspired hearing where Jackie Stratton of Waterways Guiding was back in January of 2021, long before she knew she’d be creating such a magical experience from the ground up for a bunch of Massholes. 

You can DIY this adventure too!:

• Cedar Grove Sauna
• Chicken Barn Airbnb
• Waterways Guiding
• Hills to Sea Trail
• Lake St. George Brewing
• The benefits of sauna (yes, Paula, just the hot part is good for you!)

And while you've got fun on your mind, it's not too late to stock up on fun gifts and experiences to share this holiday season - head to GuidesGoneWild.com/Gifting for a little something for everyone on your list!

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Today I’m delighted to be introducing you to Ava Baptiste, the founder of TriState Hikers.

Ava grew up in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and The Grenadines, where being outdoors year round was the status quo. But in adulthood, as a single mom relatively new to NYC, her busy urban existence started sucking her into a darkness that she was finding harder and harder to shake.

When she walked over to a local park one day to try to clear her head and get some fresh air with her young son, Ava realized that that tiny dose of nature therapy had started to let a little light into her again, and she wanted more. And connecting those dots between her mental health and her time spent in Prospect Park was just the beginning.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, because listening to Ava is like getting a warm hug and I know you’ll want to hear it all from her.

Suffice to say this is a woman who has built something powerful and important from nothing, all while working 6 days a week and raising her son. Ava’s still working on her official New York guide license, but let me tell you, she can light a fire under entire communities, any one, any time, no matches required.

I hope you’ll follow TriState Hikers on Facebook and Instagram. And I really hope that after the holiday chaos subsides, when you start planning and organizing your trips and adventures for 2022, you’ll clean out your gear closet and dig out all those things you’ve used a few times (but maybe not lately), that have plenty of life left in them, and send them Ava’s way…. along with a big fat check to help her get more kids out hiking this winter.

Contact [email protected] to arrange donations, or you can PayPal Ava and her TriState Hikers team using that same email.

And check out some of the other great stuff Ava and I talked about:

• Ava Baptiste on Girl Gotta Hike Podcast, hosted by Melissa Goodwin of Girl Gotta Hike
• (You can listen to my episode with Melissa Goodwin here!)
• Where is St. Vincent and The Grenadines?
• #prospectpark
• Cultured Forest
• Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
• Van Cortlandt Park (Bronx)
• Bear Mountain (NY)
• Breakneck Ridge (NY)
• Gear Forward
• NYC Hiking and Backpacking (FB group)
• Black Diamond headlamps

And don't forget to shop and give early and often this holiday season!:
GuidesGoneWild.com/Gifting
GuidesGoneWild.com/Giving

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I had the monumental good fortune to meet today's guest, Sandy Noble, at the Vertical biking and fly fishing weekend I went to a few months back in the Northeast Kingdom (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, make sure to listen back to the recap episode I did with my friend Trish on September 16th, it’ll make you want to join us next year for sure.)

This was the classic case of meeting someone, and hearing a little kernel of back story that piques your interest.... once upon a time, I would’ve left that weekend thinking Sandy was cool and a decidedly bad@ss biker, and would have wondered about the rest of her story, but left it at that.

But now I have this podcast (aka excuse to be aggressively nosy with strangers) so I dove in all guns blazing and stalked her online to hear more - that’s what I’m sharing with you today. And I definitely wasn’t disappointed, I think you will enjoy this deeper dive with Sandy too.

Sandy and her husband Tom were pioneers responsible for building some of the first skate parks on the East Coast, back when skateboarding was considered a fringe activity, and skateboarders were the pariahs of urban centers and suburban downtowns. So that was already cool enough.

Then I find out that Sandy isn’t just a recreational mountain biker, but has raced the 12 Hours of Temecula, has raced cyclocross, and even dabbled in enduros and hare scrambles on motorbikes - I had to Google that last one, but holy crap, did I have even more respect for Sandy when I saw some of those videos online!

But wait, there’s more!!!! Sandy has also managed to raise four kids to functioning adulthood in her spare time. And by functioning, I mean they all have pursued their passions and achieved extraordinary individual success, while being amazing humans as well.

We cover a lot of ground in today’s episode - loss, grief, recovery, legacy, the power of the little guy, perseverance, parenting, flipping off the patriarchy….. And of course, Sandy telling me how she didn’t think she was that interesting. Seriously…

Lots of fun links from this conversation, here's a sampling (come on over to GuidesGoneWild.com for a complete list!):

• GuidesGoneWild.com/gifting
• GuidesGoneWild.com/giving
• TransWorld Magazine
• Noble Racing - Ellen Noble (Bicycling profile)
• #bunnyhopthepatriarchy (video)
• What is cyclocross? 
• What is an enduro?
• What is a hare scramble?
• Kingdom Trails (location of Vertical event)
• 12 Hours of Temecula
• Caroline’s Dream (hand-crafted skincare)
• Strava
• The Smith Preserve (Kennebunkport, ME)

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GuidesGoneWild.com/Gifting
GuidesGoneWild.com/Giving
Nuff said....

Except....ok, for SEO purposes only....
For today’s episode, in honor of #WomenLedWednesday that's just gone by, and the onset of the holiday run-up madness, I did NOT stalk some new amazing woman on the internet for an interview, but instead, reached out to all of the amazing women I’ve already had the privilege to get to know here on Guides Gone Wild, and I asked THEM how we might be able to support their businesses and the causes they love this season and into the new year.

The response I got was fantastic, so THAT’s what I want to tell you about today - I’ve got two giant lists of amazingness compiled at GuidesGoneWild.com/Gifting and GuidesGoneWild.com/Giving. We are not making it hard for you, you now have the single link you need so you can perform a surgical strike and save your fingers from all that scrolling.

What do you remember most from 10 or 20 or 40 years ago - the random thing from Toys R Us, or your first camping trip, your first rope swing, or your first time trying something new and hard that you accomplished? I'm guessing it wasn't the EZ Bake oven.

Ok, maybe that's an unfair comparison, of course you remember your first EZ Bake, but you know what I'm getting at here.

Anyway - please think twice about your holiday spending this year. As the sun sets on COVID Thanksgiving 2.0, with supply chain issues being talked about every day on the news, guess where I want my holiday focus to be? Small, local businesses! Bonus points if they're women-owned! I hope you’re with me!

Also - because I’ll probably still be doing dishes from today on Tuesday, I’ve early dropped my Giving Tuesday link. Head over there to check out all of the causes that mean the most to the extraordinary people we talk to on the Guides Gone Wild podcast. Every little tiny bit counts, so I hope you’ll join me in reconsidering where you direct my end-of-year donations.

So that’s it. I hope you’ve had a restful, fantastic day, I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend to come, and I look forward to bringing you another fantastic guest next week. But until then, stay the hell out of the malls. Please, please spend the weekend with the most important people in your life, getting a little wild.

XO - Jen

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Whether you’re an aspiring guide or aspiring adventurer, today's episode has something for you - my guest is Shay Bellas, the founder of a travel technology company called Navitour, based out of Portland, Maine.

I first reached out to Shay because I wanted to hear about her long-ago decision to jettison law school and found a professional women’s football team, the Maine Freeze. But when we started talking about her most recent venture, Navitour, I completely lost my initial train of thought, because Shay’s applying her serial entrepreneur skills to a cause near and dear to my heart - supporting and promoting local guides.

Navitour is developing an app that hopes to elevate the experiences of both the adventure participant AND the guide. From a traveler’s perspective, Navitour will be a go-to resource for all kinds of experiences that will allow an interested participant to get a good overview of the adventure and get to know the guide or leader before committing to the trip. But the part that’s super exciting to me is the way Shay and her team are building out the guide support.

Navitour aims to provide guides with the resources and tools they need to build out a liveable business around their adventure passions. Instead of spending time monkeying around trying to get a website up, or figuring out how to do online payments, or finding a place to get insurance, a guide can spend their time creating and delivering an awesome experience, and let Navitour help them with the rest.

One of my main goals with this podcast has been to introduce you to some fabulous guides, so the idea of this multi-faceted tool for building a guide business has me stoked. I’m excited to support Shay and the Navitour team as they ramp up their business and get the app launched this fall!

If you’re a guide or thinking of becoming one, I hope you’ll check out Navitour at MyNavitour.com and see if their model makes sense for you - even if you aren’t looking to guide as your primary profession, it seems like Navitour will provide some great exposure and access to tools, marketing, and clients that will help you maximize the impact of the time you DO want to spend on guiding.

Look for the Navitour app coming very soon in the Apple store, with an Android version right on its tail. And if you’re not a guide, and you don’t play one on TV, you can still reap the benefits of Navitour - sign up to be a tour tester now, who knows, you might find out about something fantastic you never knew about, and you’ll get to vet it and recommend it, so others will get the opportunity to enjoy it too!

Other links from my chat with Shay:

• Dan Brown
• TripSchool - Campfire
• Portland Paddle
• Maine Gear Share
• Wabanaki Nations
• State Theatre
• Indigo Arts Alliance
• Maine Historical Society
• Just Capital
• Maine Office of Tourism
• Visit Portland
• Maine Technology Institute
• Roux Institute
• Live & Work in Maine

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Today, let's break through the darkness that has descended upon our days since the end of Daylight Savings Time with some inspiration and motivation to get outside and PLAY from Jen Hazard, author of The Maine Play Book.

When Jen first transplanted to Maine and had a young family, she started a blog to track and share all the fun adventures she went on with her kids. Fast forward a decade or so, and her kick-butt women’s writing group convinced her to share all that amazing content with the rest of humanity by curating it all into a super-duper easy to use guidebook, filled with creative ideas for day trips, activities, food stops, you name it, all over Maine.

The Maine Play Book is in its second printing already, and since we’re about to dive into the thick of holiday gift giving season, I think it’s the perfect time to introduce you to this amazing local author so that we can keep the positive momentum going. I also see myself Santa-ing a few of these guides into stockings this year, everyone I know could use a reminder to get out there for some post-pandemic fun!

Be on the lookout for more from Jen Hazard at JenHazard.com, and by following @JenHazardMaine on Instagram. And of course, pick up a copy (or 10!) of The Maine Play Book through Islandport Press, your local independent bookseller, or even Amazon if you must.

Links from today's episode:

• Jen Hazard on The 207 with Peggy Keyser
• Green Acres (NJ)
• Southern Maine Paddling - authors Kim Bennett and Sandy Moore on Guides Gone Wild
• If You Give a Girl a Bike - author Hayley Diep on Guides Gone Wild
• Dahlov Ipcar
• Kate Christensen
• Teens to Trails - TtT Executive Director Alicia Heyburn on Guides Gone Wild
• Thompson’s Point (Portland, ME)
• Portland Children’s Museum
• Bissell Brothers
• Rosemont Market

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