Hot Drinks - Stories From The Field

Born in Boston, raised in New York City suburbs, our guest today, Atila Monteiro, went to the University of California Berkeley to study in 1984 and instantly fell in love with outdoor adventures. He worked for Cal Adventures and guided with ARTA river trips before taking a white water Instructors Course with NOLS in 1992. Atila mainly worked paddling (raft, white water kayak, canoe, sea kayak), hiking and Spanish language courses. He started teaching wilderness medicine in 2002 with WMI.

Atila lived in Chilean Patagonia, working as NOLS Patagonia Program Manager from 1998 to 2002, and Asst. Director from 2002-2004. From 2004-2005 he was also the NOLS Mexico Director. He started the NOLS Amazon program in 2005 and was Program Manager there until 2009.  He now owns a small company named Backcountry Brasil that offers remote backcountry trips in the Brazilian Amazon and teaches full-time for NOLS Wilderness Medicine. Atila now lives in Bend, Oregon.

In this episode:

• (02:23) Atila starts the interview by telling us about his experience crossing to the Midriff Island. He talks about how he and his friends planned a trip to cross the Gulf of California in October 1996 and how an adventurous, fun trip took a drastic turn when the sea current started setting them back. After struggle paddling through it, Atila mentions how they neared an anonymous island where they were greeted with the colony of sea lions.

• (23:53) Moving forward, Atila shares stories from an epic canoe scouting trip to the Amazon with a group of veteran NOLS instructors to prepare for future NOLS courses.

• (30:42) He further tells us how they encountered a new experience when they paddled through the ‘Coca-cola water’ – a bizarre contrast of tannic acid and whitewater. Going forward, he shares their first-night camping in Amazon that turned into a nightmare when an army of ants and leaf cutters attack them. There were many more dramatic yet funny stories he shared with us.

• (52:40) Atila shares a near-drowning experience on Bile in Chile in 1995. 

• (01:05:00) We throw our quick, intriguing rapid-fire questions at Atila to dig deeper into his favourite locations to lead trips and his go-to gear to take along. He entertains us more when asked to share his favourite backcountry costume – to which he shares a humorous story.

MATT DEINES

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.  

This week’s guest, Matt Deines grew up in western Nebraska and completed his Bachelor’s degree in Natural Science from the University of Wyoming. He worked at NOLS for 12 years (1999-2011), leading backpacking and mountaineering trips in Alaska, backpacking courses in Wyoming, canyon courses in Utah, and lightweight backpacking trips in the southwest and Wyoming.

Matt is currently living in Orange County, California, with his wife Jamie, also a NOLS Instructor and their adorable twin daughters. He now works for the University of California, Irvine as a physical & environmental sustainability planner.

Matt and I completed our NOLS IC together out of the NOLS Southwest Branch in Tucson AZ. back in 1999 and it was great to catch up with him. 

If you appreciate the work we are doing here at the Hot Dinks podcast and want to support us, you can make a donation by clicking on the donate button on our website at www.thehotdrink.com. Anything you can offer is greatly appreciated!

In this episode:

• (03:15) Matt starts the interview by telling us about his father, who happens to be the boy scout leader and how he introduced the little Matt to outdoor adventure, wilderness, and backpacking trips. Matt further talks about the scout camp he attended in New Mexico called Philmont, where he overheard one of the instructors talking about NOLS being the most challenging thing he had ever done in life. At the tender age of 16, Matt couldn’t hold himself back and perked up to face the challenges. Soon after completing his undergrad degree, he joined NOLS semester and later on got inspired to work for them by his amazing mentors.

• (07:11) Matt shares with us one of the first love stories of the podcast, named "Pranking leads to marriage.” He reminisced about when he met the girl of his dreams in the Alaska range in Clearwater mountain, which later became his wife. Matt told us how the group was divided in two for the night, which turns into a mischievous act when Matt’s group pranked his wife Jamie’s group by hiding their pots which then turns into a series of pranks – it’s hilarious.

• (16:04) Going forward, Matt tells us about how his daughters took in the genes of both the parents and loves to go on wild adventure trips. He shares their camping stories and scrambling on long summer days and how they enjoy exploring canyons and going skiing. Matt talks about how his girls would be interested in joining NOLS someday – and how excited he is for it since the organization teaches so many different valuable lessons.

• (18:21) Deines yet again shares one of the funny stories back from his days in NOLS about his first day in the winds. He tells us how one of his co-instructor Joshua, blows his own trumpet by describing how he knows the place really well and would lead the entire group to the first X. All the bragging went in vain when after hour-long hiking, he dropped his bags, telling others they have lost their way and would need a map this time.

• (22:35) I asked Matt about his best and worst days in NOLS. He shares pretty exciting stories that involved navigating his group through a treacherous glacier that gave him a John Muir moment, to the moment when he maced himself with a bear spray that turned into one of the worst pains he had ever experienced.

• (31:47) We played our very own rapid-fire question with Matt, which he answered as gracefully as only he can, starting from his favourite gears and location to lead trips to his intriguing answer to his definition of the word 'adventure.’

Our guest today, Roger Yim, has over 430 weeks of leading and instructing wilderness-based expeditions, focusing on leadership, wilderness skills, personal development, environmental stewardship, and expedition behaviour. He started working in outdoor education in the early ’90s. In 1996 Roger began working for the Canadian Outward Bound School, and it 98; Roger took his NOLS River Instructors course and work 18 years with the school. He mostly worked on ski, mountaineering, rock climbing, avalanche, and whitewater courses but has led several rock climbing caving and sea kayaking courses. 

Now, Roger lives in Nelson, British Columbia and works as an ACMG ski guide in the winter. This summer, Roger is excited to return to NOLS, leading course in Alaska after a few years hiatus from the school. 

In this episode:

• (02:38) Roger talks about the day of the helicopter food drop on a Yukon mountaineering course and how the weather took a drastic turn, leading them to have no food for two days. But since desperate times call for desperate measures, before they completely ran out, the group shared whatever food they had left and ate it together, forming a strong bond between the members and help them survive during the difficult times ahead.

• (20:40) Roger shares the story about running out of coffee mainly to share the  “real truth.” This may not be a strange scenario in most cases, and everyone runs out of caffeine eventually but what makes it funny is that the rumour wasn’t even the real truth. While leading a hiking course, Roger explains that he had his final paperwork flown in with the last food ration. Everything seemed perfect until he realized that he forgot to include every evaluation. Coming closer to the pickup date, Yim had no choice but to compromise his pride to do a call from the sat phone, and instead of stating the ‘real deal’ he ended up complaining about the shortage of coffee and requesting them to send a few packs along with the folder he left in the filing cabinet – It’s even more hilarious in his narration.

• (26:11) Roger shares yet another funny story about his companion KG and the giraffe. KG being the most incredible and fantastic instructor, had an entertaining way to educate the students by stating facts about every big animal that walked the forest of Kenya – starting from giraffe all the way to rhinoceros. Not only leaving students hysterical but also the other instructors in the fit of laughter because this class on a NOLS course in Chile!

• (28:44) Roger takes us back to his experience of Denali Highway and some dog mushers. While his students were on their small group expedition without Instructors on an Alaska Mountaineering NOLS course, he and his pal Andy stumble upon a dog musher company owned by an ex-model. Not able to contain their excitement to meet a model in real life, they paid all their savings for the tour to meet the beauty – but end up disappointed when the model never shows up, and the short-lived tour turns out to be just visiting dogs.

• (38:35) In the end, Yim shares a story behind “Runaway in Vegas.” He tells us when one of the students was kicked out of the course for breaking the no drug rule, and he was left to take the responsibility to take the student back to the NOLS branch. He further explains how the rebellious kid runs away when hiring a rental car and was nowhere to be found. The story is filled with more thrill and suspense, but as they say, hard work only pays off when it meets the right plan of action – the same goes with this one.

We have a very special show for you this week on the Hot Drinks podcast! 

In this episode, I am joined by NOLS Instructor Jen Klewitz and 3 Abagrigional Austrailna’s from the  Bardi community who used to work with NOLS students during their cultural section semester courses. They are Irene Davey, a Bardi Elder, and leading voice in the Kimberly region, her son Russell Wasi Davey (goes by Wasi), and Irene’s Nephew Koji AhChoo 

A few weeks after I started the podcast Jen, who I had not known before, sent me this note. “For the nearly 15 years I’ve known Irene, she has always expressed her love of her NOLS students, told stories of the adventures she had teaching NOLS cultural sections, and in recent years has expressed an ardent desire to reconnect with her former NOLS students and former NOLS instructors from across the US and around the world. I thought this would be the perfect chance.”

I loved the idea and contented with Jen to learn more about Irene, her family and the Bardi community.  We discussed the best way to run the interview, and then Jen went to work trying to schedule a time that would work for the 5 of us to talk. 

Jen has created an email address for anyone who wants to reach out and be put them in touch with Irene and her family. 

The email is: [email protected] can’t thanks Jen enough for presenting this idea and making it happen. If you appreciate the work we are doing here at the Hot Dinks podcast and want to support us, you can make a donation by clicking on the donate button on our website at www.thehotdrink.com

Ray Zahab is a Canadian explorer, runner and founder of the impossible2Possible. A recent recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada, Ray is an Explorer in Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was named one of Canada's best explorers by Canadian Geography in 2015. He has run 17,000+km across the world's deserts and unsupported expeditions in some of the coldest and hottest places on the planet, including the South Pole, Siberia, the Sahara in North Africa and the Atacama Desert in Chile. His run across the Sahara Desert, which took 111 days and more than 4,300 miles, was made into a feature-length film narrated by Matt Damon.

In 2008, Ray founded impossible2Possible – an organization that aims to inspire and educate youth through adventure learning, inclusion and participation in expeditions.

Today, he continues to live as an adventurer and volunteer with the "impossible 2 possible". The transition from an unhealthy lifestyle to a super runner in the Sahara Desert started a lifelong journey of discovery for Ray. 

This week on the show we have our first NOLS co-instructor interview. Shawn speaks with Rebecca Raynord and Gary Thompson who worked two epic canoeing courses together, one in Utah and one in Yukon.Rebecca started whitewater kayaking with a program at our high school on the Potomac River near Washington DC. She began teaching kayaking during the summer in college. After graduating from college with no firm plans, Rebecca decided to take a NOLS semester as a student in search of wilderness skills and leadership. She then continued teaching kayaking in the DC area for two years until returning to NOLS for her River Instructors Course in 2001.

Rebecca worked for NOLS in the field and a program supervisor full time until August 2012, finishing with 231 weeks in the field. She mainly worked whitewater courses and some sea kayaking in Baja. Now Rebecca works as an emergency medicine doctor in an ER in Virginia.

Gary grew up in South Carolina and has worked in outdoor education since 1998 including about 9 years instructing for NOLS. Currently living in McCall Idaho, he works as an instructor at the University of Idaho's McCall Outdoor Science School. A career highlight for Gary was going back to Brevard College to lead the Voice of the River's expedition across Argentine Patagonia. In 2014 Gary began a leadership consulting business, Redfish|Bluefish, INC  that continues to expand his leadership experience and knowledge.. Most of his field experience comes as a boating instructor, river guide, and trip leader in Idaho, Utah, Peru, and Argentina

In this episode:

•   (03:07) Gary starts by telling us the story behind the low water in the Yampa River. It was his first NOLS course as an Instructor. They were leading a five-day canoe section of a month-long NOLS Paddling course. When they reached the river, they found the water significantly lower than expected, and there was just enough water that could be best described as a “foot deep” and “two canoes wide.” From leaving all the extra accessories behind and packing light, they had it bad when they looked downstream and only found boulders blocking their way – making them walking and dragging the canoes. The story gets funnier when they share the experiences of their students and what was their reaction towards it. But in the end, their optimism carried them off the edge.

•   (27:18) Rebecca talks about the early season Naval Academy course in Yukon mighty Hess river, where they had a group of midshipmen coming up ready for adventure and challenge. They explain how the course has a very challenging start. Long before they get to the Hess, they have to drag their canoes up a creek, hop on a tributary, go through the beaver pond, again hop on a tributary, then down make their way down into the river.

•   (32:13) Rebecca tells us that after reaching the Hess, they wanted the group to learn their Whitewater skills. While practicing upstream ferries, and got a student boat flipped, and the fast-moving water took it away. While Rebecca and her partner were chasing after the floating canoe, they ended up paddling far away from the group before they got the runaway boat to shore on an island at the end of a whitewater section. It quickly becomes very apparent that they were a long way from the group with four people’s worth of stuff. Gary intrigued us more when he shares his part of the story where he is left to lead the rest of the group and find their missing mates with the canoe. 

•   (42:30) Moving forward, Gary and Rebecca share how survival skills and quick decision-making helps them overcome most of the hardships they faced on the Yukon trip. They explain how they have learned the wide range of lessons and outdoor skill-building and how the strength to move forwards comes from within – all it takes to survive and thrive in the world is a little know-how and ingenuity.

David Yacubian has been working in Outdoor Education for more than 20 years and has over 15 years of risk management and emergency preparedness experience. He has worked with NOLS as an instructor and advisor on four different continents around the globe. Dave has also run over 100 NOLS Wilderness Medicine courses in the San Francisco Bay Area through his company, Ready SF. Ready SF also offers risk management consulting and emergency preparedness training to schools and businesses in the Bay Area.

David is a member of The Crossroads School's, Environmental Traveling Companions risk committee and Outward-Bound California's safety committee. Dave enjoys spending time with his two lovely girls, when he is not teaching. He is often found on or in water, as well as participating in other sports on his bike, foot, or skis.

In this episode:

• (02:23) David shares the purest moment of joy he has ever experienced in his life, with the exception of the birth of his daughters. He tells the story of a young female student on his first summer working in Alaska, and how the concern of the little girl’s disappearance was more alarming than her eating disorder. Yacubian explains the details of Amy’s missing – and what leads them to find her in the end.

• (14:27) Yacubian talks about an executive leadership Ilama packing, NASA course in the mid of August, five or six years ago while working along with Lynn Petzold, Rick Rochelle, and many others. He tells us one of the funniest stories about a bear sighting when one of the students ran after the black bear to get his food bag – it is even hilarious in his narration.

• (20:13) Going along he tells us how they were missing a llama when they woke up the next day, after the bear chasing incident. David talks about the disappearance of the largest llama they had namely Summit, and since there was no trail or signs to track it down – they were left dejected for the rest of the trip.

• (28:44) David terrifies us with a near-death incident in spring 2015 while running the wilderness medicine course. He tells us a story about a panicking experience that took place in their 10 days CPR course, when a young woman had a cardiac arrest in front of the whole group – without proper treatment and a hospital nearby. 

• (42:00) Moving forward, he gives us great advice on how it's important to learn survival skills. He tells how you never know when you might find yourself in a real-life survival situation – Survival courses aren’t for everyone, that’s for sure, but you’d be surprised at just how much you can achieve by simply giving it a go.

• (48:03) In the end, we play a rapid-fire question with David that intrigues us to the core – telling us the importance of adventure in his life, and how the excitement and happiness we experience during the adventure take us away from normal hectic life to a new happy life within a matter of seconds.

Please consider making a donation to help keep the lights on here at the Hot Drinks Podcast. Any amount is greatly appreciated but for all donations of $50 or more, I will send you the audio edition of my book Teams On The Edge. Donations can be made just by clicking the donate button on our website www.hotdrinks.com. There you can set up a monthly or one-time donation.

This week I am thrilled to speak with my friend Elizabeth Hammond Born in California and raised in Washington State, Elizabeth (also Liz or Lizzie!) has led expeditions on land and sea in Mexico, the Western U.S., Alaska, and India.

She sails, backpacks, sea kayaks, and often migrates like whales and birds – spending most of the year with her partner Carlos in Baja Mexico and heading north to Alaska during summers. She has worked in outdoor education since 2005 and in the field since 2008 - with NOLS, Ecology Project International, Baja Expeditions, Big City Mountaineers, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur

This year she is on the deck for post-quarantine trips with Alaska Alpine Adventures.

In this episode:

•   (03:16) Elizabeth shares how California sea lions are rather friendly than dangerous and are extremely gregarious, and form large aggregations when on land. She later jumps on an infamous “sea lion nugget story”, where she took us back to the date of August 2009, exciting us with her trip to a busby island on a rainy summer. She tells us more about her paddling through a successful uneventful crossing, and barging in the territory of sea lions. She further adds our amazing guest Oscar (If you haven’t heard his podcast, now is the time), her dear friend and the designated course leader describing the dominant male sea lions that have the big bumps on the head – while the mammals themselves make their presence known, as the whole groups padded away for their dear lives.
• (15:30) Going along she tells us what is “FFU on VHF”, in which she mentions how they were sailing on drascombe longboat, with a very fun-loving group of students on the waters of Baja California, where they took a quick trip to a nearby town stocking up on packaged baked cakes, chocolates, chili candy, and brown bubbly sugary soda pop water. And on their way back to the beach, a bunch of fluently British accent students came up with the efficient idea of each vessel having its own independent number – in the behavior of sugar kicking in and wackiness, that turn out to be a memorably happy day.
• (26:28) Hammond talks about her first 30 days wilderness backpacking course in Alaska, which requires one of the things that they've made sure to add to the instructor's backpacks were as many leopards printed items of fun clothing from the costume banners they can find. Which paid off in the multiple birthday celebrations during the course.  
• (31:43) Moving forward, Elizabeth shares how as one day they were coming down to Burt's Creek, close to the toe of the glacier, they were looking for a good place to cross and in order to do so, they decided to be parted in 3 small groups. Adapting a technique to hold on to one another's backpacks, sort of in a train and then do a step and step coordinated, choreography crossing the stream – which turns out to be the scariest moment of her life.
• (37:48) Later on, Elizabeth terrifies us with the incident of her co-instructor and one of her students falling into the deep hole while crossing the river that turns into those slow-motion minutes of life, where you see many things flashing before your eyes and imprinting its images forever in your mind. 
• (49:40) She entertains us more with her hilarious funny stories filled with adventure, boat trips, and a great tip to be out in the wilderness. 
• (1:09:00) Elizabeth shares some intriguing stories about her favorite gear, and why is it the chosen one.
• (1:10:43) Lastly, she tells us her best backcountry costume and how it's accompanied by a statue, and prom dresses – making it all better with a bright red shade of lipstick with a fancy photoshoot.

Our guest today Oscar Manguy was born in Baja, Mexico, and grew up exploring the Sonoran desert. At the age of nineteen, he participated in a 15-month long photography expedition where he developed a passion for outdoor photography. The "adventure life" led him to Alaska, New Zealand, Patagonia, USA, and Scandinavian Arctic leading expeditions for NOLS. Oscar is an outdoor educator and spends most of his time in nature. Nowadays, he lives in a remote cabin in Eastern Finnish nature.

Today, we will discuss what an outdoor professional photographer with 18 years of delivering life-changing experiences worldwide, founder of 360N Photo Collective, has to share about his life.

In the Episode:

•   (3:20) Saying "I think something happened" just because his gut said so, Oscar explains how he had a feeling of the strongest earthquake of his life. With a missing passport because of the fallen building where his paperwork was being processed, Oscar talks about how his stay got delayed for the course.
•   (7:25) Oscar shares his story about the orcas in Alaska. Being 3-4 meters away from the orcas, as they scratch their bodies on the pebbles, Oscars tell us about the beautiful experience he witnessed for almost an hour.
•   (13:51) In 1999, Oscar did a 461-day photo expedition around the Baja peninsula, he shares the time he first learned about NOLS. He further adds how it was the best trip, course, and experience of his life.
•   (16:30) In the widest part of Baja, Oscar describes the story of where his group witnessed a flock of condors. Being spread out and stretching your arms out, Oscar talks about how the condors started gliding 5 meters away from them in a narrow place. Half an hour of nervous admiration of wild beauty, Oscars gives shares a beautiful story.
•   (25:15) A 30 days course of island hopping, being hosted in a secondary school of the town, Oscars shares the time where his group slept in hallways and floors of the school. Having no information, google being the backup, he describes how they were faced by a whirlpool. He later talks about how they witnessed the milky way, along with a part where they saw the oldest fish trap in the water made of arrowheads and sticks like the old times.
•   (50:30) Oscar later reveals his favorite costume, gears, and many other things during our round of rapid-fire. Along with his best friend, a camera, Oscars puts down some great things at the end.

Instagram - oscar.manguy

Web - https://oscarmanguy.com/

360N - https://www.360n.fi/ View more photos and video from Oscars stories in the Hod Dinks Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hotdrinkspodcast 

Being the Talk of the town for her professional diversity and multi-faceted spirit, today we present you our amazing guest Sarah Harvie. (she spent a decade of work with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), leading month-long backpacking, backcountry skiing, whitewater canoeing, and rafting expeditions internationally. 

Seeking the road less traveled, Sarah found great healing and wisdom on her long wilderness journies and in the practice of deep inner yoga. Today she lives in Canmore, Alberta, and is a Yoga instructor/trainer, massage therapist, and has completed Advanced Training in Cranio-Sacral Therapy & Visceral Manipulation (Upledger Institute). She is all that a professional woman of this generation has to be.

Here is my conversation with Sarah Harvie 

In this episode:

•   (2:20) Sarah gives her side of the story on the amazon trip. If you guys haven’t listened to Jim’s. side of the story, go ahead and listen to that first. Sarah describes her side with the start of a two-day drive on a dirt road. While building boats, Sarah talks about how she saw a tree floating on the river next to her. She nervously talks about how the thing that she thought was the tree was an anaconda. Being sleep-deprived at their nights on the beach because of thunderstorms, Sarah hints toward how they shifted to jungle camping. She talks about finding the perfect spot for yoga and then how suddenly hearing the news from Jim about his encounter with a Jaguar shook these people.
•   (35:20) She casually talks about how her super idea of making pizza on her trip was ended by the monkey’s invasion.
•   (37:50) Sarah talks about her memorable trip to Alaska where her group accidentally found the treasure - William mammoth tusk.
•   (50:00) Sarah in awe, talks about her other trip in the snow where their ration was delayed because of the storm for 48 hours. Spending 2 days with no food and 2 with minimal food, she talks about the fun and tough times of her adventure.
•   (01:01:00) Sarah at the end reveals her favorite trips, backcountry costume, and many other things during our round of rapid-fire. Her jolly, fun, and passionate personality revealed some great insights on the show.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahjharvie/ Web: http://www.sarahharvie.com/