Hot Drinks - Stories From The Field

Our guest this week, Trevor Deighton, was born and raised in the Washington DC area. He currently lives in Victor, Idaho and teaches 8th-grade Physical Science at the Jackson Hole Middle School. Trevor is a passionate backcountry skier and has been teaching and guiding in the backcountry for over 30 years on all seven continents. 

He has worked for many organizations over his outdoor education career, including Adventure Quest, NOLS, Naturalists at Large, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Exum Mountain Guides, American Avalanche Institute, Alpine Ascents International, and the US Antarctic Program. As senior NOLS Instructor, he Instructed climbing, mountaineering, caving, backpacking, backcountry skiing and snowboarding, and various whitewater courses. These days, when he is not teaching, he works as an Exum Mountain Guide in both summer and winter.

Our guest today Jared Spaulding has worked in the outdoor education industry since 1999. He has worked for NOLS for over 20 years as a field instructor and now mixes his time between instructing and an administrative program supervisor role at the Rocky Mountain branch.

Jared has instructed courses in Wyoming, Utah, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, India, and Patagonia. Most of his fieldwork has been leading mountaineering courses and rock climbing camps, although he has worked several horseback courses and a few hiking-specific courses in the past five years.

Jared was speaking to me from Lander, Wyoming on the traditional and present lands of the Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Crow peoples.

Anjeanette LeMay is a mother and educator living close to the forest, lakes and ocean of Mi'kmaki (Nova Scotia). Raised in Southern Ontario, AJ has relished the opportunity to work in outdoor and experiential education for 25 years throughout Canada, South Africa and the United States. Over this time, she has worked for outdoor education programs South Africa, Voyageur, and the Canadian Outward Bound schools. AJ is currently, an Instructor Trainer for the Outdoor Council of Canada, a sea kayak Instructor for Nova Scotia Sea School, and a co-Instructor for the women’s mental health programs at Cape LaHave Adventures. Paddling, hiking, winter trips are still faves but say her kids might get her out climbing again next season.

Moose Mutow has over 30 years of traditional and alternative education experience around the globe. He has course directed 58-day Outward Bound instructor trainings in Appalachia, been a deputy headmaster in the Kalahari Desert, managed a beach concession on the Mediterranean, slogged through Australian rain forests with middle school students, juggled as a street performer in too many cities to mention, has more than 2000 days of field instruction in a wilderness setting.

Since 2002 Moose has been a member and senior trainer of Yosemite Search and Rescue, working as a technician and within Incident Command, at one of the busiest SAR operations in the world. 

Moose currently works for NatureBridge in Yosemite National Park as the Senior Projects Director for planning, design and construction of the National Environmental Science Center.

(This week we share a REWIND of a popular episode with Marc Randolph. Check out this new video about Marc's time working for NOLS - https://bit.ly/3nxK9uL) #TheTrailToSuccess Our guest is a former NOLS Instructor and Chair of the NOLS Board of Trustees, but he is best known as the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, Marc Randolph. His incredibly successful career as an entrepreneur span more than four decades. He's founded or co-founded half a dozen other successful startups, including, most recently, Looker Data Sciences, which was sold to Google in 2019 for $2.6B. 

He is currently mentoring a handful of other early-stage companies, has advised hundreds of other entrepreneurs, is an active seed investor in startups all over the world. In 2019 he wrote the internationally bestselling memoir That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, and now is the host of the new podcast called, That Will Never Work, where he dispenses advice, encouragement and tough love to struggling entrepreneurs.  

When he's not surfing, mountain biking, or skiing, Mark often speaks at industry events and actively participates in programs targeting young entrepreneurs. He also sits on the board of an environmental organization 1% of the planet.

In this Episode:

•   [04:00] Mr. Randolph talks about his first camping trip where he was 15 years old, and he made a mess with his macaroni noodles on the campsite, which was left unnoticed. After hiking to the next camp, Mark and his tent-mates were told that they had to hike back to the last camp and clean up the mess they made. This event taught him the lesson of how everything has consequences and everyone is destined to take responsibility.
•   [07:20] Mark further shares his backpacking trip where it started raining, and his sleeping back was drenched in the rain. He beautifully continues this story and tells how this event alone taught him a lot about personal development. Since that day, Mark says that he has never left his car without a sleeping back properly covered and a raincoat even if it is sunny outside.
•   [14:30] at the age of 17, Mark talks about a classic situation where he learned that no one should judge things based on their abilities and qualities – if you are in a group, your strength should be based on the group or your team. Leading this moral, Mark beautifully recalls how they were descending a mountain through a tightrope, and it looked pretty easy to Mark, but this trip turned out to be many hours long when the team wasn't on the same level as Mark of how easy It was.
•   [33:50] He shares his climbing experience, which was led through a very narrow ridge. They ended up losing their rope and had another one stuck above them. So they had to spend the night on a ledge where people could only sit and not lie down. The rest of the story holds more mystery and adventurous spirits, and for that, you have to watch the podcast.
•   [50:07] Marks further shares how his transition was from the field to the entrepreneurship life and how everything fell right into place for him.
•   Later in the podcast, Mark plays a fun round of rapid-fire questions and interesting answers added to his wholesome personality.

This week on the Hot Drinks podcast Shari Leach interviews me about an epic I experienced while leading a NOLS course in the Himalayas of India.  Shawn is an international leadership consultant, professional speaker, bestselling author, podcast host, Ironman and Ultramarathon competitor.

Shawn has a bachelor’s degree in Experiential Education and a Master’s in Leadership. He devoted 15 years to leading teams on wilderness expeditions around the world into some of the harshest environments, and, most recently, ten years consulting with corporations on leadership and team development. His first book, Teams on the Edge: Stories & Lessons from Wilderness Expeditions, was an instant bestseller and won a bronze medal in the Global E-Book Awards.

Shawn is also the founder and director of the International Vegan Film Festival and World Tour. He started the festival in 2018 to inspire, educate and entertain audiences with vegan-themed films from around the world.

Shawn lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with my wife and 3 daughters. 

Hey everyone, welcome to the Hot Drinks podcast. I am your host Shawn Stratton. Each week I sit down with an outdoor educator to hear some of their best stories leading students on wilderness expeditions around the world. 

Dave was born in Simsbury, CT, and grew up in Maine. He graduated from the University of Maine BS in Wildlife Biology and started working in outdoor education in 1979. He hasn’t stopped working in the field since. Dave currently lives in Las Vegas, NV.

Along with working for NOLS, Dave have at taught at many colleges and outdoor centers including the Roaring Brook Nature Center, University of Maine, Whitman College and Westminster College. He has also worked for Acadia Mountain Guides, Green Mountain Guides, Alaska Wildland Adventures, and his own company “LittlePo Adventures” which he started with his wife in the last few years.

These days his focus is on teaching natural history, photography, while continuing to write for several different publications.

Accompicshed photoraper.

IVFF

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I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Shari

Please subscribe to Hot Drinks wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to follow the show on twitter or Instagram we are @morehotdrinks. we also have a Facebook group called Hot Drinks Podcast, where I am most active with updates about discussions about the pod. To get in touch by email, the address is [email protected]. 

This episode was produced and edited by Dustin Mijares (MEHARES)and our theme music created by Darin Welch.

In this episode:

(2:20) Dave starts the podcast by sharing a story from a mountaineering Alaska course in the summer of 2001. He begins by telling us how the course's main focus was to travel over the McLaren glacier, and things got more accessible when they found the river was frozen. But later on, after some lousy weather hit them, they ran out of food when their plane, which was carrying their resupply, couldn't land. Then, it took a drastic turn when things started going sideways.

(26:50) Later on, Anderson tells us about his trip to China. He talks about how he found out about some amazing peaks to climb while reading an American Alpine Journal and took a leap of faith into trying them out, which was located in Sichuan, China. He tells how the drivers who took him and his wife and other clients nudge them for more money in the middle of nowhere. After dealing with that, he was greeted by hundreds of monks, that took them in and greeted them warmly. The whole experience still warms his heart, even now.

(34:40) Dave shares his trip to India, where he ran into many travellers discovering places where not many have gone to. It turns out the track to reach those places usually closes in winters, so the locals wait till the river freeze  to cross it, which takes them several days to reach their destination. The story gets more interesting when Dave reaches Zenskar in northern India.

Our guest today, Michel Raab, was born in Santiago, Chile. He has always been fond of nature since childhood. Swimming, sailing, mountain biking, hiking, and slowly venturing in the Andes as a teenager – these things were what grew Michel into all that he is today. He currently lives in Coyhaique, Chili’s Patagonia region, with his wife, Betsy, and their two children.

Michel joined the outdoor education industry in 2002, working for NOLS, instructing mountaineering, hiking, and climbing courses in Patagonia and North America. He has also worked for several seasons at NOLS Patagonia as a Spanish Programs Coordinator and Operations Manager. He is now the Director of the Chilean Programs for Alzer School.

Clemencia Caporale belongs to East Coast but currently lives in her Kimbo Camper and instructs for NOLS Wilderness Medicine and Prescott College. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire's Outdoor Education Program, attended the Audubon Expedition Institute's travelling master's program, and earned a Master in Environmental Education from Leslie University.

Clemencia completed a NOLS semester in Baja, Mexico, where she learned backpacking, kayaking, and sailing skills. She has worked in many universities in outdoor education programs over the past 20 years. Long-distance hiking is one of her passion and has hiked more than 10,000 miles. She can ruin her shoes in three weeks!In this episode:

•   [3:51] Clemencia talks about her meeting with Paul Petzoldt, also known as the founder of NOLS and one of the first Outward Bound Instructors in the USA. She was a freshman in collage when a woman told her about having a job where she had to sleep out in the open, so after the class, she talk to the woman where she gave her some number and told her to call Paul. After going back to her dorm, she called him, and he later told her to come to his house to talk about the job further. After drinking a couple of hot beverages and sharing some stories and advice, they went to get lunch together. After a few more hours had gone by, he autographed two of his book and gave them to her without answering any sort of job-related questions. A few days later, in her outdoor class, Dan Garvey asked a question about everyone's weekend, and she told him that she met Paul Petzoldt when he immediately asked her that had she read his books and recommended her to read them.

•   [17:34] Caporale tells about the thru-hiking course where she took eight students on Appalachian Trail, about 100 miles. They had Privy not far away from where they were camping, but it was a rainy day and was very foggy. They were going to camp for eight days, and on the 6th day, one of the students named Kate went missing. The story gets more interesting when she finally finds the missing girl.

•   [30:32] Clemencia shares the story when they were heading to Wyoming and got stuck in Jack's Canyon. So they were on their way to Wyoming, and they spotted a great spot to camp, but to get to the location, they had to go through and muddy road. They thought the road was frozen and could drive over it, but it was not frozen. Both of the van's front wheels got stuck in the mud. Later on, there was no choice but to get everyone out and head over to the camping spot on foot. After spending the night, she, alongside two more people head over to the van where the mud got frozen overnight, and they pulled out the van easily and parked at a better spot. 

• [34:31] Clemencia Caporale narrates a tale but still to this day warms her heart. She was in Edinburgh, and some of her friends knew that she was a hiker and convinced her to do a very short hike known as Arthur's Seat. After spending a couple of hours there, she saw a man lying across the trail. She recently completed her medical training, so she rushed to him and checked to see if he had a pulse. To know how Caporale saves the day, head over to the podcast now.

This week’s guest is Phil Henderson. A native of California, Philip has worked in the outdoor industry for almost three decades, mostly with NOLS. His passion for outdoor recreation, education and climbing has provided him with opportunities to travel and climb around the world. He has been on several major expeditions including Everest, Denali, Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya. 

As an educator, he has assisted in training guides, rangers and porters on several expeditions. In 2012 Philip was a member and team leader of the North Face/National Geographic Everest Education Expedition, became one of few African Americans to summit Denali in 2013 and led an all African American ascent of Mt Kilimanjaro in 2018. He is the recipient of the Outdoor Afro 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.