Let's pack our bags and venture into the great outdoors with my uncle, Clay Abney, a seasoned adventurer who has traversed five continents and counting. As we forge our way through captivating stories of his travels, you're promised a vivid memory lane trip to Peru, an appreciation for physical preparedness, and a newfound respect for the discomfort that comes with venturing into the unknown.
Our journey starts with the stirring tale of hiking the Inca Trail, where the awe-inspiring history of the Incas and the physical challenge of high-altitude trekking kindled my passion for medicine. Clay enlightens us with his meticulous strategies for such journeys, including resistance training with a weighted backpack, and how to prepare mentally and physically for altitude sickness. We then delve into the heart of outdoor adventures, where Clay shares the critical importance of understanding the culture and language of the places we visit and how local guides can make all the difference in safely navigating regions like Kilimanjaro and Nepal.
As we round off the journey, Clay regales us with his gastronomic escapades of tasting unique dishes like reindeer meat, muskox, and seal. We also discuss the relevance of travel insurance and risk management in outdoor adventures, drawing insights from his experience of breaking his ankle on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. And just before we unpack, we delve into a slice of history as we talk about the Vikings and their colonization of Greenland. Stay tuned for this exciting episode that promises to be a whirlwind tour of adventure, cultural appreciation, and lessons in exploration.
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Dedicated technology for medical schools, residency and health programs looking to optimize performance on in-service and licensure exams. Students get access to the content, questions, explanations, and all benefits of the SmartBank to help enhance their performances on high-stakes exams. TrueLearn provides national average comparisons, including score, percentile, and category weaknesses according to the exam blueprint.
Use code OFFWHITECOAT for $25 off your purchase.
Let's pack our bags and venture into the great outdoors with my uncle, Clay Abney, a seasoned adventurer who has traversed five continents and counting. As we forge our way through captivating stories of his travels, you're promised a vivid memory lane trip to Peru, an appreciation for physical preparedness, and a newfound respect for the discomfort that comes with venturing into the unknown.
Our journey starts with the stirring tale of hiking the Inca Trail, where the awe-inspiring history of the Incas and the physical challenge of high-altitude trekking kindled my passion for medicine. Clay enlightens us with his meticulous strategies for such journeys, including resistance training with a weighted backpack, and how to prepare mentally and physically for altitude sickness. We then delve into the heart of outdoor adventures, where Clay shares the critical importance of understanding the culture and language of the places we visit and how local guides can make all the difference in safely navigating regions like Kilimanjaro and Nepal.
As we round off the journey, Clay regales us with his gastronomic escapades of tasting unique dishes like reindeer meat, muskox, and seal. We also discuss the relevance of travel insurance and risk management in outdoor adventures, drawing insights from his experience of breaking his ankle on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. And just before we unpack, we delve into a slice of history as we talk about the Vikings and their colonization of Greenland. Stay tuned for this exciting episode that promises to be a whirlwind tour of adventure, cultural appreciation, and lessons in exploration.
Picmonic boosts confidence and grades. Our IRB study proved that with the Picmonic learning system students increase retention and test scores.
Years ago, psychologists and education researchers found mnemonics to be an effective tool in increasing retention and memory recall. Today, lots of different strategies for learning and memorization using mnemonics exist including keyword, phrase, music and image mnemonics.
Use code OFFWHITECOAT for 20% off
Dedicated technology for medical schools, residency and health programs looking to optimize performance on in-service and licensure exams. Students get access to the content, questions, explanations, and all benefits of the SmartBank to help enhance their performances on high-stakes exams. TrueLearn provides national average comparisons, including score, percentile, and category weaknesses according to the exam blueprint.
Use code OFFWHITECOAT for $25 off your purchase.
Hello everybody and welcome to the Off White Coat podcast. I'm your host, jordan Amney, and I'm sorry I may be feeling a little bit under the weather today, so please excuse my voice, but we didn't want to miss this opportunity to bring you an episode with such an interesting person. So my uncle, first and foremost, is an adventurer and he's spent most of his adult life traveling, experiencing new cultures, and he has actually bestowed a lot of that knowledge on me and I would be remiss if I didn't want to share him with you. So, everybody, this is my uncle, clay Abney. Hey.
Speaker 2:Jordan and I'm glad to be here. Super exciting to share some additional adventures and maybe even kind of recap a few that we've had together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so we are actually setting up at his house. He's been kind enough. I was in the middle of a second look in Myrtle Beach and so we decided to just do a little pop-up shop here with Clay, and I guess one of the first things I wanted to talk to you about is how you got into what you're doing now. So I know you began first you were like pre-med, then you became a biology teacher. He taught like half the people that did anything important in my hometown. It seems like he's taught some, a lot of people. So how many years were you a teacher?
Speaker 2:I was only a teacher for about four years but it was like after college, so I would go back a generation because I was actually. I took what would be called maybe called gap years now, but back then they were just called finding yourself. So I spent a couple years after college just roaming around the country and mountain biking and backpacking and those kind of activities and you know. Then a couple years later I went in and taught for a couple years.
Speaker 1:And so you were just backpacking and doing all the things that you love there and then you kind of traveled around. I know his wife's a news anchor, so he had to do a little bit of traveling with that and then. So what is your current role?
Speaker 2:I guess so well, I grew up like our family went camping every weekend to the lake and just pulled a camper. And then when I was in, like in the early 80s, I started. I was in Boy Scouts and got into and I was kind of in what was a high adventure troop and so I got involved in backpacking and, you know, got involved in rock climbing and then whitewater paddling and stuff. So then that just all escalated. So then as I got older and got into college, you know the opportunities just got greater and greater and I was able to just experience more and more and that just kind of escalated even further. And you know, fast forward a couple of decades and you know I've been snowboarding all over North America, I've been backpacking all over the world, I've SEACI Act and stand up pad awarded from Greenland to Antarctica and everywhere in between, and so it's just been a kind of a labor of love.
Speaker 1:So how many continents do you think you've ever that you've been to?
Speaker 2:I have not been to only two. I've not been to Asia and I got averted a couple of years ago I had ended up with a stomach bug 12 hours before, 12 hours before I was supposed to leave in Vlad A Japan, to go snowboarding on the North Island and I, and then Australia. So I've been to Antarctica and I've been to the other the other five but just not haven't been to those two, but yet I was supposed to. In 2020 I was supposed to hit those other two, but then, you know, covid kind of derailed, you know kind of grounded my proverbial plane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I I've heard that even now Australia is a little bit difficult to get into with COVID restrictions, everything. I think they've loosened it up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've lessened up the restrictions a little bit, but that's one of the reasons that COVID was so almost absent in New Zealand and Australia is because of the that they basically just shut it down. They just shut down no incoming or outgoing traffic coming into the country.
Speaker 1:And so your your trips to New Zealand and everything that was before COVID.
Speaker 2:It was. It was supposed to be in 2020, so it was supposed to be. I was supposed to hit 21 countries in 2020. I made it to Canada in January and then the whole world basically shut down and I got to do nothing Right. So I got to do one out of the 21, so I guess I can still count myself. Bless I still. At least it got one before the the whole world adventure circuit kind of collapsed.
Speaker 1:And one of the reasons that I wanted to bring him on is because he was part of a very instrumental moment in my life where I actually realized that like I knew what I needed to do to become a physician and the person I want to become, and that was actually during a hiking trip to Machu Picchu. So my uncle for when I graduated high school, he signed us up to essentially hike the Incan Trail and really explore all of Peru. But during that time is where I kind of found a lot of insight. I got to see a different culture and I got to see, you know, just a world outside of my own and it really like opened up my eyes and I was just curious to know, like what was your motivation when you were choosing like that trip? Was it just because you wanted to go on the trip to you and you needed a companion?
Speaker 2:I mean, of course, I mean if there's always something out there I want to do and you know, if I can find other people to go on and do those adventures with, it even makes the adventure even more monumental. So, yeah, so when you guys were coming up to, towards your graduation, and it was just an opportunity and I had not been to Peru and I wanted you guys to be able to be, I want to take you somewhere internationally. But I didn't want it just to be a beach in the Caribbean where we just hung out for a week. So instead I planned you know what I was almost a month long trip to Peru where we started in Lima and then did Cusco and then the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and stayed with the host family and stayed with the host family on Lake Titicaca and then we came back through through Arquipa and came back through Nazca and did some sandboarding and some dune buggy riding through the dunes and we actually got in a wreck on the dune buggies.
Speaker 1:That guy just hit us out of nowhere before we started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that trip was. I mean, it was monumental for me because it kind of established a love for travel and just I don't know. It made me calm down as a person and really understand other people and which I think actually helped me in my medical career. Like Peru is a very interesting place and so when we went I really had no idea when I was when I went, but now that I've been there I've seen so much like there's so much history and things that came from there in the ancient Incans and even like we walked through Sexy Woman, which we just thought was like the greatest name at the time, you know 18 year olds and 20 year olds.
Speaker 1:But then I came to realize too that they think and now you know historians and everything it just was amazing how they set up those blocks to be perfectly set. It honestly seemed too good to be true and that the history like we don't really know everything about the history, because they were saying they just dripped water on the rocks and it made it perfect and these are huge stones and so I don't know, you've probably never dove into the history of it or Machu Picchu, but they start to think that you know that there might have been other civilizations even before the Incans, and the Incans were just living in those Built upon their civilization. Yeah, they were even before then. So it's actually really cool and every time I hear it it just immediately sticks in my brain because we've been there and so it was a really cool chance to see the world really meet new people and so, honestly, it was a huge blessing.
Speaker 2:You know, I've had so many trips and people always ask me what's my favorite trip I've ever been on, and you know I always go back to that.
Speaker 2:I'll break it down into categories, and you know, one of my favorite trips was with you and your brothers, because I was able to experience all these decades of experience I had, but then to be able to share them with you guys and you know, and be able to, you know, to basically outfit you guys from underwear to outerwear, to sleeping bags, backpacks, and be able to share that adventure with you guys and you know, I know that there were many times that we would get to camp each day and your twin brothers would go take a nap, you know.
Speaker 2:Then you and I would out of the 16 people, I think, in our hiking group, not counting our porters and our guides and our cook you and I, and maybe one other person, would just go, go kind of hiking around the area, and then you and I, pretty much every afternoon, would go, like you know, go off, and we would watch the sunset, you know, and then be able to see the Milky Way. So I think my favorite part, though, was was truly just being able to experience that whole adventure through you guys eyes and being able to just be able to share that moment I mean we had three weeks together and likelihood of that ever happening again, of all four of us being able to do that trip, of something like that is probably just not realistically going to happen because, of you know, life gets in the way. So it was just, it was a moment in time I think that was just forever captured by just a period of time that allowed us just to just to spend time with one another. And we traveled by bus and by plane and by boat across one of the highest navigable leaps in the world, you know, and sand boards and dune buggies, and I mean we, we pretty much trains just say trains have buses.
Speaker 1:I mean we pretty much did the everything we can and everything throughout southern Peru and it was during the World Cup, so that you know we got to see like the passion that they were having for that and it was so fantastic and I can see what you mean now by like getting to see it through our eyes, because it really was just like eye-opening the whole time. Now my brothers they were having to take naps. They probably should have prepped a little bit, done some some hills before they started hiking the control. But how do you prepare and plan for like a trip like that, like if you're going either one week or three weeks in a different country, like do you have a different way of preparing?
Speaker 2:yeah, depends on the trip. Like January of 24 I'm doing Kilimanjaro and so that one will involve in here living at sea level, then going to the highest, the highest freestanding mountain in the world at over 19,000 feet. So you're going from I think we live here, I think our house it's at about 34 feet above sea level. So I'm gonna go to 19,300 and change above sea level. You're talking that's a. It's a huge height difference.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, when I get ready to go on a trip like that, I will go, grab my pack and throw some weight in it and you know. Then I walk around the neighborhood and sometimes I'll go to the one of the local stadiums, one of the schools, and I'll just walk their bleachers. Sometimes I'll go to a condominium or a hotel that will let me have access, always ask and then I walk the stairwells and just up and down and then I'll add more weight as I go along. Even though I may not be carrying that much weight, it still it's just a good resistance training to get ready for and it's just preparing your legs and your mental status. Sometimes it's it's as much mental sometimes as it is physical, because sometimes when you want to quit, you know. But your body will is capable of doing a lot more than it's our mind. Sometimes that intervenes, but you know the body's machine were made to keep being perpetual motion. Sometimes it's the mind, it's the war between the ears. Sometimes you have to fight that.
Speaker 1:That sometimes gets the better of you, yeah that's the hardest part is fighting that war between your ears and when you've got like, when you're just used to a certain thing every day and then you try to mix it up. It's really hard for a lot of people, so it's really good to, yeah, like just envision yourself going. When you're going on trips with high elevation and everything. Do you take something that maybe, like, increases your red blood cell count? Or in Peru they had the ink and tea, or not the ink and tea, they had the coca tea, the coca tea. Yet that on the coca leaves as well, and I mean it cured, I mean, besides giving you a little bit of a head rush and I never, I don't think I ever chewed on the coca leaves, but I did drink the coca tea every morning.
Speaker 2:When they bring it around to our tents and knock on the, the tent say you know, they're trying to get us up, to get us started, and I drink the coca tea every morning. And out of the four of us, only one of us really ex.
Speaker 1:Out of the, your brothers and myself, the four of us, only one of us experienced and it was one of your twin brothers experienced, you know, altitude sickness and that was before we were even going into high elevation, like we went into Cusco, and that was when it hit him, as opposed to like on the trip Right, he didn't really he was okay once, I think he got a little bit past it and you know our highest was a little over 13.8, crossed over Dead Woman's Pass and he really didn't experience it after that.
Speaker 2:But once you start descending, altitude sickness a lot of times it's like sea sickness. As soon as you get your feet back on the dock you're okay. But in the same way with altitude sickness you come down and the symptoms alleviate because it's just based on oxygen deprivation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I chewed the leaves and I don't recommend it. It tasted like chewing a regular leaf that you find on the ground. It's not enjoyable. So if you're going to like, let's say, kilimanjaro or something like that, like, do you take anything that would emulate, like or simulate?
Speaker 2:I did take with us. I got a prescription for diamox or acetazolamide, which is an altitude supposed to help with altitude sickness, and I think your brother took it. I didn't take it as a preventative, I don't think any of the other of us did until he started showing symptoms and then I think I made him take whatever the prescribed dosage was and just to kind of help him just to get over that hurdle. A lot of times it's acclimating, it's just going slow. That's why we spent three days in Cusco. To roll over 10,000 feet is to acclimate to the altitude. So if we were at 10,000 feet and then we're only going up to just below 14,000, you know we were hopefully acclimated. But you know, once you're going from Lima at sea level, flying into Cusco at 10,000 feet, I mean you're jumping, almost. You're jumping over two miles above sea level. You know pretty quickly.
Speaker 1:Is there any meds that you always have to take? Like, I didn't even think about the acetazolamide, but anti-diarrheals I do take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, usually in my if I'm traveling internationally and I'm traveling on a back country trip or something I usually take just like a broad range antibiotic, take something for an anti-diarrheal and, you know, depending on the country I'm going to, I'll take something that may be like an anti-mallarial or maybe go ahead and get the typhoid vaccination or cholera, depending on you know what the water situation is like and or any vaccinations always make sure I have my tetanus shot is always up to date. But I don't think we, I think cholera. I can't remember if we took cholera but I know we took a typhoid vaccination and you know I made sure my tetanus shot was up to date.
Speaker 1:I think I remember getting like two or three yes, everybody that's listening. If you're going to another country, you should really check the travel guidelines.
Speaker 2:You can check like I think the US State Department actually, or the Andrew or the CDC, has like recommendations and especially because usually they'll keep it up to date as to like if there's a water situation or something in one of the countries you know, they'll have it on their website and you can ask your doctor. You know, maybe even if you have a good relationship with your pharmacist your local pharmacist ask them because they can probably check for you as to what recommended vaccines are and a lot of times you can get those you know locally or you can go to your doctor's office and schedule that. But make sure you do it ahead of time, because some require one dose and then some require like a second dose, you know, a couple of months later. So make sure that you plan ahead accordingly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember there was something where it was like two doses and I had to store one in a fridge or something like that. Well, we talked about what you do to plan and prepare, but what makes a good travel companion?
Speaker 2:What makes a good travel, I think having people with the same mindset you want to, having everybody on the same level of expectations. You want to have somebody that you know. If one person wants to, let's just say, climb Kilimanjaro, if you want, somebody wants to do the eight day trek and then somebody wants to do the five day trek. Well, you either got to settle on somewhere in between or you've got to find another travel partner, because that can make a huge difference in your success rate. Some people can do it and easily in five days.
Speaker 2:We're going to plan on doing like the seven or eight day. I mean, I would be okay doing it in a shorter period of time, but the people I'm going with won't to have the highest chance of success and they don't have mountaineering experience. So I'm actually just going to downgrade my expectations to some degree and just go with both, and of course it gives me an opportunity to just experience more of the mountain and the culture and just spend more time, you know, experiencing all of the different ecosystems and bombs that will go through, you know, and covering over 12,000 feet of elevation, going from the base all the way to the summit.
Speaker 1:That's going to be such an awesome trip. I'm very, very jealous. First off, like you said, these people, the people that you're traveling with don't have any backpacking experience, right? So is there some things that you have to prepare for on top of just packing the right gear? Oh, of course, when traveling with newbies, because we were newbies too, right?
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to spend a year, and one of those people is my wife, and one of them is the meteorologist at her TV station where she is the evening anchor, and then his wife, and so you have to be careful what he says here. Yeah, my wife is in our over 20 years together, she's never been camping. So these are things that we're going to, you know, and so camping is second nature to me. So spending time in the outdoors is, it's like looking, you know, it's like the palm of my hand. I know exactly what it's like and what to expect.
Speaker 2:And you know, sometimes you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I mean, you know you don't want to. You know to the point where your fingers are freezing off due to frostbite, but you want to. Sometimes you got to deal with a little bit of level of discomfort at times. You know whether it's you know your legs are burning just due to lactic acid because you've you know you've climbed so much. Or maybe a little bit of a headache could also be a sign that maybe I just need to hydrate a little bit more and drink more water.
Speaker 2:And it's knowing what your body's doing, but it's also having that skill set, being able to I think sometimes I think they do a summit bid early, like a little after midnight on the final day, and so it's also being able to be able to get dressed and put all that on and be able to hike in the dark with a headlamp, and you know those are things that you can practice, because we can, you know, do it around our neighborhood or just go, you know backpacking, and then, you know, walk around in the woods at dark so that you get used to, you know, walking with a headlamp and being able to navigate roots and rocks with a headlamp versus, you know, just the light of day.
Speaker 2:So it's about just having those different preps and being prepared, knowing how to you know zip your jacket up and you know knowing how to layer based on your own, how to thermoregulate, so based on you know if you're hot or cold natured, making sure that you don't want to be so warm that you're comfortable at the start, but knowing 100 yards up the trail you're going to be sweltering and then having to stop and to change clothes. And if you remember from Peru, every morning in camp it was like in the, you know 20s or 30s and I'm standing there in shorts and a short sleeve shirt and, you know, some wool arm warmers, and you guys were standing there a lot of times in your, your travel pants and your down jackets, with your pack zone, and I'm like you know, guys, you're going to be, you're going to be, you know, really hot in about 100 yards.
Speaker 2:And so you were comfortable standing there before we got started, but then you got a little warm, you know, at the get go. So it's it's all about just learning. But that was your first trip and so you guys really navigated that really well and you know, you know, and I know that a year later or so you went to Ecuador and spent like a month. So you know it's been, you were able to take a lot of those, you know skills and gear that you had taken, you know or learned to use the year before.
Speaker 2:So a lot of it's just becoming comfortable with that and making it second nature where it's not. It's not something new to you. So for this trip, yeah, we'll, we'll. Actually we're going to do a car camping trip and make sure everybody's okay, you know camping, and then we'll move up to an overnight backpacking trip and then we'll do a like a three night, four day backpacking trip. So because if you can't handle that, you're not definitely not going to be able to handle a camping trip on the world's highest freestanding mountain in the third world country.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and honestly, it was such a blessing having you as an uncle. And then I go to Ecuador and I was like outfitting half the other people with whether it was a pack or whatever they needed. It seemed like I had at least that. And yeah, he's a big proponent also of the zip away pants, like the ones that zip out into the shorts. That way he he doesn't have to stop what he's doing. If he gets, if he gets a little warm, he can just break out. When you go to places like Kilimanjaro and Nepal or any of those like, how much do you focus on understanding, like the cultures of the places around you and everything, before you actually go and like the language, because I assume they're not going to speak English correct?
Speaker 2:Well, the language barrier is always one that you're never going to be able to close the gap on all of it. I mean, a lot of times, like for even Kilimanjaro and Peru to do the Inca Trail required having a guide, because they they control the number of people that are on the Inca Trail every day and they control the number of people that go up and down Kilimanjaro just for that's for safety's sake as well, as you know, making sure that people are doing things you know right, and then that way they can control the narrative. And it's smart on both of those countries. And they do the same thing in Nepal at the, with the Everspace Camp track and stuff. So you have a guide and a lot of those guides speak English. English is a is an international language, so a lot of times they're catering to tourists and so they'll have somebody that can speak English. And or there are Tanzanian guide services, but they're also US based ones that will then hire Kenyan I mean Tanzanian porters that will actually carry a lot of the gear up so that the guest can actually focus on the actual experience.
Speaker 2:But, as you remember, I made you guys carry packs on the Inca Trail. Oh yeah, and there were only four or five, six of us that carried packs out of 16. The other 10 were carrying like little day packs. But you know, your first backpacking trip you know anywhere in the world was actually in the Andes. So I wanted you guys to. I didn't want you guys just to think that backpacking involved just carrying a day pack which is some snacks and water and a camera.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and it actually prepared me very well for Ecuador, because I had to walk around Ecuador with either a pack or I was carrying around this spectrometer 3,000. I could walk around there without even budging, just because I was so used to just all the trekking that we had done. Are you all going to carry all of your gear when you go to Kilimanjaro?
Speaker 2:I don't think, and I think Kilimanjaro, I think that they to ensure the highest rate of success for guests.
Speaker 2:I think that you only carry like maybe a small day pack and you know, like your personal, you know stuff, and then a porter will carry a lot of your other gear which you'd have to put into another bag and then it would be waiting at your tent every day. So, because you'll start in almost like in a tropical type environment, it could be like 80 degrees, but then when you get to the summit it could be any, it could be as low as negative 20. So you're going almost 100 degree temperature gradient. So you have to the close, you pack, you know like we may be starting out in the zip off pants, the convertible pants, and then you know at the top you may be in a down jacket and you know in gloves and mitts and you know more polar type gear. So you got to go from one extreme to another and so, yeah, I think that with that trip it will be, we'll be carrying a small amount, but it will mostly just be stuff that we want as convenience, like snacks and water and personal items.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean I would think that, especially since I mean Kilimanjaro, I guess, is technically a dangerous climb like it's, people definitely die. I think 30,000 people attempt to climb Kilimanjaro each year and there's three to 10 deaths every year. So that's not a high statistic by any mean, but I can see where they would want to kind of keep it, I'm sure, if they let everybody carry up their own stuff and just go up free willy nilly and be even more Right.
Speaker 2:And there are some of the guides and porters on Kilimanjaro that have been to the summit hundreds of times. So I mean, why not at you know, why not leverage their experience to get you know? And why not? I mean, it's one of the seven peaks, it's one of the highest, it is the highest peak on Africa, but it's also one of the seven summits which is the highest peak on every continent. So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's something that is sought after. People love to say they've climbed Kilimanjaro or you know they. If you've climbed Kilimanjaro, then what's next? I mean, they're always those people that want to push the envelope and you know, but Kilimanjaro is one of those seven summits.
Speaker 1:So with Kilimanjaro. Would a porter be considered? A porter is somebody that carries your like a bag. Essentially, would they be considered Sherpas.
Speaker 2:No, sherpas is kind of, is an actual group of people that actually live in the, the region around Nepal. So it's an actual, it's a, it's a group of people Like I know. I sometimes say I'm a Sherpa with you know, carrying around all my wife stuff, but but I could be, you know, a porter or a Belman or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, so it just sounds.
Speaker 2:It just sounds more exciting to say I'm a Sherpa, but a Sherpa is an actual group of people in that region and the Himalayas. But a porter would just be somebody that actually carries and the there's a there's limits to what they can carry. As far as the weight, I think that there was a restriction, so I think I forgot what it is, but it's like it's like less than 50 pounds, which is it's good, and that means that they're carrying everything. I think I read one that there was a group of X number of guests and then there was like three times that for the support staff, for, you know, a trip.
Speaker 1:They must have been pushing it in Peru, because those guys were carrying bags that were probably double their whole entire body mass and they were running down. There was one time I was just tiptoeing down thing down like a slope and somebody with a way bigger bag than I had just ran right past me Wearing sandals. Yeah, wearing sandals. It's crazy how much. But I mean they have all the experience and everything when you're, when you're doing like these trips and everything gets the gear over the years has changed drastically. How much has it changed over the years for you? Because you said you started, I guess I get 16 or so when you really started.
Speaker 2:I started backpacking when I was 12 and that was, you know, we didn't know what. We didn't know we were, you know, cotton underwear, cotton shorts, cotton t-shirts. We wore cotton socks. Now I might wear a buff, but you know, we just wear a good old cotton bandana. But you know, as I've grown and, you know, have gotten more involved in the outdoor industry and the gear realm, I've also expanded my gear closet and you know, as you know, when I outfitted you guys and that was almost a decade ago, it's kind of hard to believe next year it'll be 10 years since we did that trip.
Speaker 2:You know, there's the like rain. If we had a rain gear when I was 12 years old, it was a poncho that you threw over your backpack and you had all your, you know, your sleeping bag and all your clothes thrown in either ziplock bags or a garbage bag inside of your pack and then you had a poncho over all of that and if it started raining, you know, you just put the poncho on and kept on going. And you know, now there's, you know, high-tech jackets like Gore-Tex and the event, you know, and it allows you to, you know, they allow it to breathe and they keep the water out, but they also allow the sweat and the heat to escape, you know, so that it doesn't accumulate inside of you and you know you're starting just to, you know, to just to sweat, just to accumulate, and then, because then it can do the reverse, you know, if you sweat too much then you can get hypothermic even on a hot day, because you know you would start to overheat and then you start to chill off and you get the reverse effect. So, yeah, gears, gears change drastically and I won't say that it's I mean because there's still some great products like wool has become, like has come back really strong in recent years, not the, not you know, the wool that I grew it with, but like merino wool, which is it?
Speaker 2:Almost you can't even tell sometimes the difference between wool and a synthetic, because it's so like the merino wool is just so soft down, still prevalent, you know, and I use all of those and I use even synthetic. Now, fact, now I don't even think only only wear cotton when it's, like you know, for casual wear, just like around town, or even when I'm traveling, like just going from point A to point B on a plane, I still mostly wear synthetic, which is crazy to think about because it used to be such a prevalent, I guess, way to make material, and so that is, and everybody wore cotton, and then now we're slowly moving away.
Speaker 1:When you're, when you're doing so, going back to the gear and everything, the drastic change in it is it mainly just clothes? And do you think that the changes that have been occurring are because companies are starting to realize that there's a lot of money in adventure, like making the best adventure products, or just technology has improved to the point that they're able to make the synthetics? Yeah, I think that it's. I think it's both.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have a lot of companies out there that that started with the advent of people wanting to get involved in these activities. You know whether it was when Hillary sorry, when Hillary uh summited Everest in the early 50s, you know, and then it kind of brought that onto the world stage. And then you know other adventurers have accomplished reaching the North and the South Pole, and then you know people are just wanting to push the envelope. You know, I think that companies realize that they're hey, you know we need to come up with, you know, better gear and I even even just in recent years, the even backpacks and stuff are even becoming. There's even an ultra light movement where, you know, they make even gear, even super light, and people are, instead of carrying a third of your body weight on a backpack, you know, now they're trying to get away with, trying to get it down as little as 10, 15 pounds for a backpacking trip.
Speaker 2:You know I still like a I'm old school I like a few luxuries and I don't want to skimp too much. And, you know, just make it a necessarily a suffer fest and I want to have a few of the things. So if I want to necessarily, I like to like to have my rain jacket. So if it does become like a monsoon, you know, and it's just a gully washer, I just I want to be able to put on my, my nice, expensive Gore-Tex jacket and be able to, you know, be able to stay comfortable, exactly, or get in my nice tent and get in, you know, a nice sleeping bag and you know, but you're not having to be wet, exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, even in the time that I've been around, it has changed drastically. Like everything is becoming lighter, which is for one thing, but just more accessible, like everything has, which I'm a big fan of. I want my like a pack to have a bunch of different pockets and things that I can readily access, and it's not just one big burlap sack that you could just pull off. So that's one thing. What is an essential gear that you'd like to carry? So in Peru, I remember so he was. He was a gear editor for a couple of magazines Correct, right, yeah and so I remember he was testing out one piece of gear in Peru where he was. He had solar panels on the back of his pack and he would flip it over his back and it would actually charge the tour guide's phone, which he really loved. But you look kind of like you were trying to attract some rays or something.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, yeah, we had the. It was like a, like a folding solar panel, that kind of. I just strapped to the top of the pack and then it just unfolded and rolled down the back. But I mean, why not? We had such high elevation, we, you know, had you know no tree cover, so we were exposed, so we had a lot of sun.
Speaker 2:I had a, the solar panels plugged into an inverter and the inverter stored the charge and we're able to charge phones and camera batteries and other people's phones.
Speaker 2:We had a satellite tracker that allowed our family back home to follow us, so they were able to. We were able to keep that charged so we probably could have carried battery packs that would have charged all that for that entire period of time. But if you're going for even a longer than a four day backpacking trip, sometimes you have to look at the long term goal, like I'm going to do, like a two week trip later this summer and it'll be a first descent on standup paddle boards down a river up in northern Yukon territory Just south of the Arctic Circle, and so we'll have to carry the battery packs would never last that long. So for us to keep charging you know, our camera I mean our camera batteries and and drone batteries and stuff like that. So we'll have to use solar to capture the you know, the sun's energy and to be able to store it and be able to keep those things charged up so that we can document this trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it was super neat tool. It looks like one of those things that the women used in like 1970s or whatever to suntan, like the little aluminum things, but in reverse and it was on his back, but it was super neat. So if you had to choose one piece of gear that you thought was like the most essential for your trip, what would it be besides? Like your cotton underwear or whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, I think good foot I always say good footwear because you know your footwear, the foundations of your, of your, our body's machine, you know that's the, the foundation of our entire machine is our as our feet. And if you don't have good footwear and you don't have good socks, and aside from that, I would say, a good multi-tool, whether it's a Swiss Army knife or just another leather man or something like that, is always great to have, because you never know when you're going to have to. You know, pop something open, are you going to have to cut something open as well? So it's always great to have those.
Speaker 2:And then a headlamp I really like to have a headlamp, I mean, and back in when I first started backpacking, you know we carried a flashlight. But then, you know, but then that required the use of your hand. So you know you only had one hand free. So the headlamp is just a great way. It gives you hands free. Whether you're I keep one in my car, just in case I would have to stop and change the tire on the side of the road or whatever I have hands free. You know, whether I'm backpacking or even just around the house, the power goes out. I can put it on and go open up the you know the electrical panel and be able to flip the circuit back on. So it's been able to have that. You know that flexibility.
Speaker 2:So those three things you know, some type of a knife or a multi tool, a headlamp and then good footwear. The rest of it you can modify and you don't have to go out and buy thousands of dollars worth of gear just to get involved with it. I did it for over a decade on utilizing cotton apparel and, you know, external frame, boy Scout pack. I still built the skill set you know, and now I just appreciate those days more because now I have, you know, I have, you know, the top of the line gear and I still test top of the line gear for other outlets and for companies and so. But now I'm not having to necessarily pay for it, you know, out of pocket, but I'm actually still, you know, getting that gear and testing it and you know being able to review it and then you know, giving my feedback.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean it's super nice to have nice gear. It's better to have free nice gear, that's true. But I remember like just being related to you and you bestowing some headlamps on me and then I think I've kept like everyone. So I remember, even in like college and growing up, like people were like why do? You have so many headlamps.
Speaker 2:Like what?
Speaker 1:like some of them didn't even work, but I still have them, like I'm gonna put the batteries in them soon, you know. And but they came in clutch whenever something you know power went out and all of a sudden I was walking around with a headlamp and they thought I was ridiculous in college but showed them wrong, but yeah. So like, have you ever had to deliver any care or anything to anybody Because you were mentioning footwear and I know that you have injured yourself on your trips have you ever had to help anybody else that was injured on a?
Speaker 2:trip, nothing drastic or anything. I mean people have been. You know most of it's just blister care or you know people getting, you know altitude, sickness and you know just, you know making sure that they have enough hydration and maybe enough you know electrolytes and stuff like that. But yeah, I've not actually had to. But, with that being said, I do keep up with like wilderness medicine and keep up with like wilderness first aid, and you know I'm certified in a lot of different things because you just never know.
Speaker 2:You know what you're going to experience. If someone got struck by lightning, it's good to know. You know how to respond in that situation. Or if somebody did break up a leg or something like that, been able to respond. And I do carry a sat phone. On these extreme back country adventures like the one I'm going on later this year, I will have a sat phone and that will be one of the reasons we'll have the solar as well as to keep that charged, because it will actually allow us to stay in communication so that we could actually call for assistance if we needed it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, because that's the reason I asked is because he has. He has all of the wilderness medicine books and he stays up to date with all that. So well, it's good to be at least prepared. Now you you've injured I don't know, you've broken your leg once when you were out in the middle of, in the back country or wherever.
Speaker 2:Where were you at? I was in. I was actually in Colorado, outside Estes Park, and I was doing a summit on one of Colorado's 14ers Longs Peak and we left early that morning and we got to the summit. Everything's going well. And you leave early because you want to get off the mountain before afternoon, because that's usually when the storms roll in. So you always try to do a summit bit early and then so you can get back off the mountain before the thunderstorms or the lightning strikes and stuff, because usually a lot of those higher peaks you're exposed because there's no, you know, there's usually a lot, not a lot, of trees, because you're alpine, so that means you're above the tree level.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I was coming back down there's only a couple of hundred feet below the summit and stepped between two rocks, and then the rock that was supporting those two rocks shifted and I heard a loud pop in my leg and first I thought it was just a sprain, but then I got that overwhelming sense of nausea and then, after the nausea went away, then I kind of realized it was just felt a little tender. And then I stopped and took off my boot and looked at it and I could tell. It was like getting a little bit bruised and a little bit of swelling and I thought, still, I still thought it was a an ankle sprain, because sometimes those can feel pretty painful as well If you've ever rolled at playing basketball or football, you know and sometimes those can actually take a long time to recover. And so, yeah, but I got it, got it wrapped up, put my boot back on, laced it up and walked about seven and a half miles out of Rocky Mountain National Park back to the trailhead and still thought it was a sprain. And it wasn't until the next day that I went to the emergency room, or actually I got to go see an orthopedic doctor there and took some x-rays and showed me it was a like a two and a half inch fracture running up my fibula, which was non-weight bearing, and that's why I was able to continue walking on it and it was just, it was just uncomfortable and it really wasn't super painful, it was just kind of like. It was just like an uncomfortable feeling and so, yeah, how?
Speaker 1:far did you walk once you realized you had hurt your ankle to the point where you were back at About seven and a half miles?
Speaker 2:Oh nice, oh yeah, I walked because I literally no, and I had a guide that day and I was supposed to travel with him the next day to do a via ferrata, which is like a means, the iron road in Italian and so we went and we were supposed to do that on a, so I broke it on a Wednesday. I was supposed to do that with him on Thursday and I was supposed to fly home on Friday after two weeks in Colorado. And so I went and got it and I well, I called him that morning after I went to the doctor and said, hey, I'm not going to be able to do the via ferrata. I did break my ankle. So you know he was completely understanding.
Speaker 2:And you know, after I walked seven and a half miles out of Rocky Mountain National Park, he didn't assume the same thing. He didn't assume that it was broken either just because I was able to walk on it, but because it was a non-weight bearing fracture. Then he didn't I mean, that's why I was able to walk that period. But then I came back to my cabin and took a nap and then I iced it and took a shower and put back on my Choco sandals and walked around downtown that's just part and had dinner and well, let me say, I walked around, I hobbled around but still walking around on it.
Speaker 1:Being able to see all the bruised ankle with the Choco Exactly with Choco, with my sport sandals on Nice, is there any place that you've been or that you want to go that you think is like kind of risky? Like, is there any places that you think have been that are almost like too risky to go to, or maybe besides the Ukraine?
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's any place that I wouldn't go. I mean, you know, if there were, if there were, like you know, civil unrest or something, I might would avoid it at the time, you know. But a lot of times those are just, they happen in waves and you know, and it may be in passing. So if there were, like a, an outbreak of some type of infectious disease, and I might would. But one of the things I always do is I always get travel insurance and not the travel insurance that you buy from the airline that just reimburses you if your airline gets postponed or whatever else. I get one with, like world nomads or something similar, which allows, let's just say, when I was on a cruise ship, an expedition cruise ship, antarctica, let's just say that I'd had something, as you know, just I don't say minor, but as like a appendicitis or something like that. Well, that travel insurance would have actually paid to have me extracted from Antarctica, flown back to South America, or fly usually will fly you back to the closest place for medical care, and in that case it would have been flying back to Chile or Argentina, and then they will actually get you back to your home country. So I always, you know, buy that, that travel insurance plan, because, for example, like you know, we'll be in a backcountry trip in northern Yukon later this year. Let's just say I did fall in broken arm. Well, it's hard to paddle if you've got a broken arm, well, same thing. I could call from the sat phone and then they would. That company will then make arrangements to get you flown out, because this will be a float plane in will paddle for like 10 to 12, 14 days and then a float plane will pick us up on the other end. So it will be that remote. So that's why a sat phone is necessary and you would want to have, like a, a backup plan, because you never know what can go wrong. I mean, it could be appendicitis, it could be, you know, broken arm or leg, it could be, you know, a concussion.
Speaker 2:You can't be paranoid that something's going to happen, because otherwise you're going to miss out. Yeah, you can't worry about doing something or not doing something because of fear, that you just have to kind of, you know, be prepared, have the skill set, have the you know, and have that you know, the mental and physical preparedness and you're have your skill set, you know, know your gear, know you know. Don't just show up and run by RAI the week before your trip and buy a bunch of stuff that you haven't become familiar with. You know. Make sure that you know your gear inside now, have spent time with it. You know you know. Make sure that you're sleeping bag. If you're, you know six feet, you know six two. Or make sure that the sleeping bag that you bought is not like a short, make sure you got the long one so that your shoulders aren't sticking out of it on a cold night.
Speaker 1:So you know you want to make sure that you're always prepared and have the right, the right gear that's something that you also taught me is to always test out your gear before you set sail, and that was actually really beneficial like even like getting in the sleeping bag and making sure you know how to roll it up and doing all this stuff. That travel insurance has it been around, yeah, for a long time?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's multiple companies out there that.
Speaker 1:I think there's one thing to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's there's world nomads and there's like a thing. Another one at one time was called ripcord. I think it was founded by some former navy seals and I mean. So there's several. I mean I just I've done some editorial work with world nomads so I just tend to go back with them each time and just because they're just they're familiar there is, there's something I'm comfortable with. I know that if I need them, I've I've not had a need yet, but I just like it's like. It's like any type of other insurance that you hope that you don't need it, but it's there if you do, yeah, and do you pay for the amount of time that you?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah and a lot of it's based on like I have to type in my age, I have to type in which country I'm going country or countries I'm going to and then have to type in how long I'm going to be there and then what activities.
Speaker 2:So you can get like a basic plan or I think the other one's an explorer plan, so you can get it based on like the explorer plan would be like for certain activities and a lot of times I get the explorer plan because I'm usually participating in those activities you know that could be there. There can be inherent risk, I mean, but there's inherent risk, you know, anything we do. I mean there's inherent risk in driving to the airport for me to fly out, you know as, but you know. But then there are risks, you know, if I do fly into the backcountry, you know, and do a 12 day or longer trip, there are inherent risks, but I mean those are risks that that are calculated because I'm I'm prepared for them yeah, I mean it seems like that would be a very essential tool to have, but like at least a good safety net.
Speaker 1:Is there any places that make you a little nervous that you would to travel alone, to like you've got a group going with you to Kilimanjaro? I'm sure you'd be fine doing that alone, but is there certain activities or a place that you would be a little nervous traveling to alone?
Speaker 2:most of the trips I travel on as a travel writer, I've traveled to solo. I mean, a lot of times I've met up with people on the other end, but a lot of times though, I've still I've still traveled from point A to point B solo. Then sometimes people are there and sometimes but I've had to navigate. You know, I'm sure that there are places in the the world that I would be a little bit more hesitant about, but I can't really think of any. I mean, again, you would check to make sure there's no civil unrest or there's no infectious disease outbreaks, but then again, it's just taking precautions, like you know, only using purified water, whether you're purifying it yourself or you're, you know, buying it purified, making sure that you know you're not consuming. You know getting caught up in a cholera outbreak, and sometimes those things can happen while you're abroad, not necessarily before you go. It may be good, but you know if you're going long enough it can happen.
Speaker 2:You know, while you're there, and it's a lot of times you know brushing your teeth and not like you would at home and go in you know sticking out of out of habit, just putting it back under and rinsing it off in your sink, making sure that you're rinsing it off with the bottled water or the purified water, not rinsing it off in that sink and then possibly contaminating your toothbrush and then next time you go to brush your teeth you're contaminating. You know transferring those contaminants to your mouth. You know, and then you know getting. You know ingesting the. You know the bacteria, the protozoans or something like that that could actually cause that.
Speaker 1:You know GI issues yeah, that was one of the essential parts of Ecuador was having to use your water bottle on your toothbrush and stuff like that. And then we went to a resort, me and my Marybeth, my family and everybody. We went to a resort in Mexico and I saw them sticking their toothbrushes under the sink and I was like, what are you doing? And then nobody got sick. I was the I was, but obviously they had like a filter system and everything at the resort, but my instincts were I was still putting, taking the water bottle and using it and I just walked away from the bathroom when I'm brushing my teeth and that way I don't get caught up and I don't, you know, accidentally, out of habit, stick it under the under the faucet and rinse it out afterwards.
Speaker 1:That's how you then you just have toothpaste dripping all over the room. So when you go to these countries, like, what is your? What excites you the most about traveling to a different country? Like I know, for me it is for one I love to see how other people live, like seeing how they experience the world and what they're given in their environment, and then also I love to try the food that is associated with those cultures. So, like, what is your?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's, it's similar. It's a lot of times it's just getting off the the beaten track and being able to experience. You know it's one thing to go to an all-inclusive resort but yet you're kind of also protected from seeing what the real life is outside of that compound. And I, you know what. I have been to an all-inclusive resort I was trying to think if I had but. But I like to get out into experience the, the true culture and the, the actual real life of a, of a country and the culture, so that I'm actually seeing what it's really like there, not what I'm allowed to see because of you know.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of times people fly into the all-inclusive resorts and don't get me wrong, I mean I'm, they're great and you know it's great for people just to get to those countries and to see it, but a lot of times you're only getting to. You know they have like walls around it and you know you're not really getting to see the true culture and to getting out and tasting some of the real food. You know it'd be like going and going to your local Chinese restaurant and eating you know, quote unquote Chinese food, or going to actual China and actually eating food in China, which would be Chinese food, but I they're home cooking, though. That's right. That's right. It would be, you know, indigenous to the, to the country, not like what you know. It's become commonplace, you know. And even food in Mexico is different thing going to Mexican restaurants, you know, it's just.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are similarities, but then there's also differences, so it's all. I like the culture, I love to see off the beaten areas, I like to get off the beaten path and not just see the, the touristy sites. Those are what excite me. Even though we did the Inca Trail, if, if you guys have been a little bit more backpack savvy, we might have done like one of the other more remote trails instead of one of more of like the most prevalent one is the Inca Trail, but there are some other ones that you can actually take and arrive at Machu Picchu, and but then again, I wanted you guys to experience it and then, you know, if we ever get the opportunity, maybe we do it again, we go do another and come into it from a different angle.
Speaker 1:That would be awesome is so, with all these other countries, that you've gone to and experience. What is the best food that you've ever had and what is the most exotic food? What is the best?
Speaker 2:food, best food I don't I've eaten. I went on, actually I did a food tour through Norway for Eating Well magazine and wrote, just like, on the Norwegian diet, and so I spent 10 days just traveling throughout Norway eating. You know which? The Arctic current and the Gulf Stream current meet and they form like this cornucopia or this bread basket of the seafood realm, because it's the perfect temp of the cold water meets the warm water current of the Gulf Stream and it creates this perfect conditions for seafood. And then they go down and hand pick the scallops off the bottom, and so I tried. You know everything from oysters to to shrimp and and scallops and then a whole bunch of different things and I've, you know, reindeer meat and how is reindeer meat reindeer meats.
Speaker 2:You really can't tell the a big difference in it and probably like venison. But you know, but it was because I had it with. They ate a lot of. I was there in October so I had a lot of like root vegetables and stuff like that. I've never really been a beet person but really started eating beets after that trip because they, they I guess maybe it was just I was used to them here and like they're coming out of a you know, a can you know, but they're they were canning them, but they were canning them in jars after the last harvest so that they were prepared.
Speaker 2:So a lot of that type of stuff and so the best food it would just be. You know, trying. I mean, every place has always got something different. Their, their culinary habits are just much different from from. Greenly was a very it's a very protein based diet because there's not a lot of there are actual not many trees in Greenland. It's a very low shrubs and ground cover. That is the vegetation, but so it's a very protein based diet. And you know, you, of course, they, they fly stuff in now so you can get potatoes and vegetables and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I didn't really have. I've eaten muskox. I've eaten what is a muskox? A muskox is like a. It's like a large woolly cow, but it's a wild animal they have like the. They'll form like a circle when there's a predator approaching and they'll put all the young ones inside the circle and then all the adults face outward with their horns. So I've eaten that and maybe it's more like buffalo, but it was a little bit fattier because they grow, they live in a very cold environment and Probably the worst thing of every.
Speaker 1:I can see it now. It looks kind of like a buffalo, big, wooly yeah, but a lot of hair, a lot of fur, a lot of hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Probably the worst thing of every and was in Greenland. It was Seal, and they look at, seal is just being. There's millions of them around Greenland, which is the world's largest island, and it kind of to me, if I had to explain it, it had the texture of steak but it tasted like fish. Yeah, it just wasn't. I don't know, I don't, I Didn't really have, I don't really have a Another way of describing it. It just wasn't, just wasn't very palatable. But yet they, they eat it, because there's so many of them around the Greenland that they, you know, they, they use their hides and then they, you know, and part of it, they call them out too just to keep them from overpopulating. And the same thing is Greenland's one of the few countries that hunt whale. There each family is restricted to a certain portion each year and they use it for delicacies. They use it for special occasions, holidays and like special family meetings and gatherings. So they, they eat that so they like divvy it out between each family.
Speaker 2:Each family gets X number of kilograms or whatever their, their quantity is, but yet there that's. So it's very, it's very, it's monitored very closely so that it's they're not just Killing them, you know, just for the sake of killing them, so that they're like they die from, whether it is like way like they are going out there to hunt them.
Speaker 1:I guess, yeah, they are actively hunting them.
Speaker 2:Okay, there's only 50,000 plus people on the entire island, so, but not everybody may eat Well, so not every family may even want their allotment. So I don't know, I don't know how many whales Greenland harvest each year, but yeah, it's a it's a very restricted Market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Did you have whale in your England?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did, I had it and I didn't. I didn't know it until Afterwards and I'd been, I'd seen it in Norway before and I just kind of bypassed it because I have kind of like a moral Dilemma there. You know, being a large marine, he's a lover of animals.
Speaker 1:Well, I've seen him catch spiders and release them outside and I was like I want to kill that thing yeah, so yeah, I didn't, and so I.
Speaker 2:but I want to offend the family that I was having dinner with in. Greenland. So it was just a. If I'd not known any different, I would just thought it was just like maybe reindeer or caribou or or Something similar, but it you know. But afterwards it wasn't like you know, I felt like that I was, I was in their home, I was, I would never offend anybody, and that's another thing about traveling, as I never would like.
Speaker 2:If you ask about Researching before I go on a place, I always just try to find out like how to. It's not about learning the language. A lot of times it's just learning how to not Culturally offend somebody. You know what we're used to in the US may be different than what somebody's you know used to in Greenland or in Japan or in Africa you know, in a country in Africa. So you always I think it's important to learn that maybe a few key words and phrases, but for the most part just making sure you don't do anything that's going to, you know, maybe offend somebody in a different culture. That you know you're in again there and you're in there. You know you're in their backyard, not in your own.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and you would think that if they're making something very precious to them for you, you would need to. Yeah, you wouldn't want to offend anybody like how do you find out what is the Social situations and how?
Speaker 2:I mean I, I mean fortunately, when I first started traveling, we know we had to, like resort to travel guides and books. Now, I mean pretty much, you can find everything that you want on your phone or on your, your computer and you can just look it up. You know what are the, you know cultural faux pas that we want to avoid. You know, while in traveling a certain country, you know like in Japan. You know using chopsticks, you know you're not supposed to. You know Leave them in a certain position on the table and you know you want to, you know. So it's just different things that I think that it's sometimes it's just it's just sometimes it's just being smart, like watching other people around there.
Speaker 2:You know it's not the difference between traveling between you know Georgia and Montana. We're still the United States, but you know, if you're going from you know the state of Georgia to the Republic of Georgia over in Europe, then you want to make sure that you're actually you know. You know the cultural differences.
Speaker 1:Hey, there's even some odd cultural differences between like states in the United.
Speaker 2:States, exactly.
Speaker 1:You had mentioned that you kind of felt morally Conflicted when you were with like whale. Is there anything that you absolutely refused to eat when I'm in the States?
Speaker 2:yes, there's a lot of things I refuse to eat. Yeah, it's just a lot of Chick-fil-A, that's right when.
Speaker 2:I travel abroad, I tend to. I tend to be a little bit more experimental. I'm always grew up a picky eater. But yeah, when I was in I was working on a primate research project in Argentina back in the late 90s. One thing that they ate was blood sausage. And I'm not saying I wouldn't try it now, that was 30 something. I say yeah, yeah, over 20 something years ago. I'm not saying I wouldn't try it, I wouldn't try it now, but in 97 there was no way I was gonna eat, like a you know, a bunch of cow blood that had been, you know, coagulated inside of a like a little tubular sack and like a hot dog and it was just basically just you know, coagulated blood, mm-hmm. Yeah, I wasn't gonna eat that then. And and I'm not saying I Wouldn't eat it now, but it doesn't sound very Pallatable even 20 something years later. But again, I'm also much older and wiser, so I might, at least would, try to down it.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, I'm pretty sure I've had blood sausage. I don't think it was Too terrible about it. I didn't leave a lasting impression on it, so. But I don't even remember what was the situation. I was just like, oh, I thought it was just salt, like just sausage. I didn't think it was like the blood and the coagulated.
Speaker 2:Well, when we were in Peru, I mean, you know.
Speaker 1:Your brother's house, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're, and we never got to try the kooie, which is the the guinea pig, while we were there, because it we never found it in a. We found some of the live ones in a market but we never found the cooked versions. But you know, I think you and you and I would have tried them. I think your, your brothers, were looking for chicken fingers and and fries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they in Peru it's like a delicacy where they essentially they like spit the Guinea pig, essentially it's a guinea pig, and they love to present it almost like it's running, like it is like fully in display and you have to it, pick off the pieces, and so it's a very interesting to see them even carrying around like their saute. Like I remember a lady that had like a tub of Dead guinea pigs, all like that she had they had all the fur off of them and she was just carrying them around. I was like, oh, that was gonna be somebody's lunch. But yeah, every culture is very, very different. So, yeah, I don't know what, where I would draw the line Is there. So you said you would try that. Now, is there anything now that you?
Speaker 2:know, I mean I still, I mean I'm still big believer in, you know, protecting the large sea mammals like the whales and stuff like that. So I'm not going to actively seek out, like I said, I'd seen it in Norway before I ever went to Greenland and Norway still does hunt and I could, you know, could get whale sausage and stuff like that. But I didn't try it there because it was actively. I would have had to go up and bought it from a little vendor and stuff like that at a market and I think we were in Bergen and I just couldn't. I couldn't pull myself to it.
Speaker 2:But when I was in another family's home and they were cooking dinner for us, you know I ate it then. So I mean, yeah, usually when I travel abroad I'm really not a big fan of oysters, but when I was traveling in Norway I did own that food tour. I mean you can't be a food writer if you're not trying the food. So I had to try a lot of things that you know, whereas I'm pretty set in my ways on a daily basis because I tend to eat you know, the I pray have a regimented diet. But you know, when I travel abroad I tend to be open up, my become a little bit more experimental.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Have you ever seen the documentary Blackfish? I have. Yeah, that's a crazy documentary where it just it just shows how intelligent some of those larger marine life creatures are and it makes you very, very sad that, because I used to love SeaWorld and, you know, go into a big aquariums and seeing, just getting to see them period was really cool. But now I go there and I'm like, oh no, you're in jail, you know so yeah, exactly, I'd rather see them in their natural environment.
Speaker 1:Exactly One. And if you see a whale, if you're swimming in a whale's ribosogy, you should be a little concerned. But thinking about that, is there any like I know you've swam with, like manta rays or stingrays?
Speaker 2:And I've swam with penguins and Antarctica and Okay, Was that the most exotic animal you've?
Speaker 1:I mean penguins, pretty exotic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. Well, when I say swim, I was in the water for, maybe you know, three to five minutes because the water temp was like 32 degrees and the outside temp there at half moon island was about 30, the outside tent was about 32 and the water tent was about 32. So we're equal, but the sun was pretty intense. So when you're standing there on the beach I just walked in with just a swimsuit on and it's like every nerve ending just kind of goes numb and then all of a sudden they all come rushing back really quickly and it just feels like thousands of needles stabbing you. But it's no different than a polar plunge. You do it and you get in and get out, but then you could feel the the little chin strap penguins just kind of coming through. You didn't actually feel them, they didn't touch you, but you could feel the water column move past you. Where they went. They kind of just swam by you so quickly like little torpedoes. You could feel the water column push by you. Yeah, that's super interesting. So I think that that was. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And of course I've been sea kayaking and you know, had seals pop up and sea turtles and you know I've had sharks and stuff like different you know well, of course, dolphins, you know I've had different animals you know pop up while I've been stand up paddle boarding or in sea kayaking, different places.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes when you get off the beaten path is when you, you tend to see cause. Animals tend to act in a normal, you know, in a their normal behavior, as opposed to an adaptive behavior that they become accustomed to from like just having to evolve and having to kind of acclimate to their surroundings, like the deer in the wild act differently than the deer you know in your neighborhood because they've become acclimated to people. They've become acclimated to cars going by. I mean they, you know they haven't adapted enough to avoid them all the time but they have, but they have adapted to seeing that you know coming up and eating your plants. You know your flowers and stuff out of your, your pots and your flower beds, so they've learned to come in there.
Speaker 1:but the deer in the wild act totally different than they would and you know same way with you know bear and you know big cats and yeah, it's really interesting, especially deer, because if you're in a protected area where there's no deer hunting allowed deer are they'll just hang out in the open, no trees, and then if you're in a totally different area, they usually hang by the trees in a good way that and they'll escape in a second. Exactly, and if it's in a very protected area, they're not worried about the predators until the other side, one day where they decided to have the hunting party in the protected area and then Right, well, I was standing up paddle boarding in the Yukon and it was late at night and we heard something rustling in the bushes.
Speaker 2:And we had a like a campfire.
Speaker 2:And we were paddling down the Yukon River and we heard something rustling in the bushes and we just all just kind of turn around and look, and I think there were five of us in our, in our group, and we just kind of turned around and out popped this little porcupine and you know, he probably maybe had experienced people in the past, but probably not likely and he just kind of rummaged along the the shoreline of the river and then just kind of went back up into the woods and just kind of went on about his merry way.
Speaker 2:Had no, you know, didn't come begging for food or you know, didn't. You know he did, but he wasn't, he wasn't really afraid of us because I mean, he's got his little armor, his little, his quills and and so he just it just kind of went off on its own and just didn't scurry off but acted in a very normal behavior. And usually, you know, bears are the same way. If they've been habituated, they will, sometimes they will become used to, like you know, raiding garbage cans and stuff like that, but bears in the their natural environment that haven't become habituated or acclimated to human existence. You know they're just as afraid of you as you are of them, and that's the way you want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's super interesting to think about, like an animal that's never even seen a human, while you know we might read about them and there's plenty of animals that I've never seen, like not in captivity, you know, like we get zoos so we're like, oh, we've seen almost every animal, but you don't really know how a lion's going to act in the wild as opposed to in its captivity. What is the most interesting place that you've ever been and what did you do?
Speaker 2:there Most interesting place I've ever been, you know it's I would say Greenland would rank way up there. Only because I saw less people in Greenland than I saw in Antarctica, because I was on an expedition cruise ship and I had about 300 people on board that cruise ship, you know, at the bottom of the, you know the world, whereas there are 50,000 people in Greenland. That was for the most part of my trip. I saw the two photographers that roamed that trip, myself and then our guide. So there were four of us, you know, camping on a remote fjord for multiple days and that was. I saw less people on the world's largest island than I saw on the seventh continent, because we were on a large cruise ship.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was a. It was just funny to and to be able to see a land that Vikings founded a thousand years ago Well, I'll say founded, though it wasn't lost because the there were indigenous people living there, but the Vikings colonized it and their westward expansion from Scandinavia and then from Iceland. They came over and we actually stayed near, we actually passed by a settlement that Eric the Red, who was Leif Ericsson's father, set up and then Leif was, I think was maybe born, but he grew up in Greenland and then from there he came over. You know, history is kind of showing us that maybe he even made it to North America. That's what.
Speaker 1:I've heard is that they that he made it all the way to North America, which that's such a interesting thing to even begin with, is that the Vikings actually called Greenland. Even though Greenland was covered in ice and Iceland was covered in green or grass, they switched the name so that people would want to go to Greenland. It was more of a marketing ploy, but but and now we're so.
Speaker 2:stick to the name, yeah a thousand years ago, though, greenland was a little bit warmer Okay, it is now so but it still was still predominantly covered in a large ice sheet, like it is now. But the, the habitable areas were just around the coastline, like they still are now. But there's a little bit, a little bit, probably a little bit more of it back then, because they brought sheep over and then they were farmers, and then they were. You know, they were ranchers, for lack of a better term, but they were, they were farmers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you know that the Bluetooth? He's a big fan of Viking stuff, so did you know that the Bluetooth emblem is actually Viking ruins? He was a Viking king. Yeah, harold Bluetooth, harold Bluetooth yeah, obviously, man knows his facts. But yeah, the Bluetooth emblem is like Harold and Bluetooth and it's the Viking emblems for or runes would be what they called, and they're like stuck together. Yep, it's a. It's quite interesting, which I know the Vikings didn't have any wireless capabilities, but it's which makes it weird, like that they would even call it that, but it is very interesting that they did that to begin with, which I also love. You know, evidently he had a, very had a, had a blue tooth, that's right, very odd color tooth is what it was said. So, yeah, and I guess one of the only other questions I had to ask you is that is there any other place that you want to go? I know that you said that there were some other countries that you hadn't been to in continents. Where is, like, on the top of your list, where you want?
Speaker 2:to go Top of my list. I have so many.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's got a list. That's why I had to switch up the question.
Speaker 2:I'd love to knock off those last two continents. And then, you know, africa is so large I would love to explore more of it. I mean even going to Tanzania and climbing Kilimanjaro next year. That's really only one of of a lot of countries in Africa. You know, when people always refer to Africa, they always call it Africa. They don't really. Africa is a continent, you know, and it's made up of a bunch of countries. You know, north America is made up of a whole lot of countries, but we have we refer to them as the United States and Canada and Mexico, and so, yeah, some of my top countries that would be on my top of my list being Nepal, tibet, bhutan, some of the Southeast Asian countries.
Speaker 2:Of course, there's not really, you know, given the opportunity, there's not a country or a place that I wouldn't go to. You know, again, making sure that there's no civil unrest or, you know, mass outbreaks or something. But all that aside, yeah, there's really no place that I wouldn't go and love to explore. And then, you know, love to be able to, to write about and just to, you know, just be able to experience, because, you know, just life, we only get one spin around in this life. You know you want to make sure I get to do and to see as much at the you know. So, when I'm sitting back reflecting years from now, and be able to well, not just that, just to be able to share it with other people, like you know you and your brothers, or share it with you know my wife, or you know those different adventures, being able to, being able to have those adventures and share them with somebody you know else is it's always great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the best things that you taught me as well, and and it wasn't, I guess, necessarily even teaching me but when we went to Peru we had to write articles for whether it was he told us to write about for one of our experiences, and also about, like, the different gears that we were using and how all that interlaid. And now every time I go somewhere I keep like a log and I was searching through my notes today and I found like a bunch of other, like when I was in Columbia, and I would just write down like, oh, I did this and I saw this today, and today I went to, you know, even when I went to California, and taking that time for introspection actually allows me to remember everything a lot better for myself. But then later on, other people can, you know, see what I've done and I'll be able to relay it better.
Speaker 2:Well, you're definitely going to forget if you don't write it down. And you know we have. You know our phones in our are usually in our possession, so it's always a great you don't have to have a notebook. I mean, you've got that little note thing. You know you can take notes or you can send yourself emails or you know that are just little snippets of information that you might forget otherwise or might just you know.
Speaker 2:It's not that you will forget them, but you might forget the order of events. You know when did this occur, when did this happen? But if you, if you take and write the date on it and then write down your notes, then they'll always be there, so you'll always have that information. So it's it's good because it's a glimpse into your trip, and so you know, 10 years from now you might still remember the facts, but you might not remember the order of the facts. So if you have those notes and you keep them in a you know ultimately put them in a photo album or a you know a photo book, like a Shutterfly photo book or something like that, then you always have, you know, a record so that you can go back and reflect on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I keep. I even found my journal, which is a written journal of my time, for one in Peru and one in Ecuador, and I was just like smirking at all the stuff that we did. So, clay, taught me a lot of things growing up, whether it be for adventure or whatever, and I didn't know if you had any ridiculous stories of me as a child that you would like to share. Since you are my uncle, I'll give you this one free shot.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I do. Well, I always enjoyed because when you know you and your, your brothers, were just a couple of years apart in age, so it was usually I always had the three of you. Whenever you guys would you know, come you know during the summer and visit or for other visits. But I always tried to give you guys opportunities to us to explore together and to try different things. You know, I think you guys were had you guys see kayaking, you know, when you were like four or five years old.
Speaker 1:I remember I almost fell out of it first and you were like get in the kayak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and your brothers were just picking up seaweed as we were passing it and they were just putting it in the boat with them. You know, and I talked, all three of you guys how to ride your bikes without the training wheels, and and then you know, I remember one time I was, that was the story you were going to tell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then here it comes, and so there was like this large mound of pompous grass and you know, jordan was coming around and he's riding and long, and all of a sudden he just kind of loses like control of the bike and it's like it almost like it was like a Venus fly trap, almost like he. He just kind of went flying into this big mound of pompous grass and it's like it just swallowed him whole because he just disappeared into it and like the pompous grass just kind of like came around and like covered him up and then yeah, and I nailed the center of the I guess it's like the stalk or whatever it is and I went flying forward on the bike and racked myself in the center of the bike and it was.
Speaker 2:It was not a great experience, but it definitely well, I mean, was a fun one, well, and that you were learning to ride your bike and you know, we lived at the beach then like we do now, but in a different place.
Speaker 1:Which leads me to my. I figured that was the Joe or that was going to be the one you told what is the difference between a pompous grass and a pompous ass? I don't know the bike in between them. That's right, exactly, yeah, so that that was a great. Honestly, though, taught me how to ride a bike, so can't even can't even complain about that. Yeah, I, I forgot. I didn't know really how to brake yet, so we were going down somewhere and I was like uh-oh, lost control, and then I did what every kid does and just picks their feet up off the pedals, went straight into a tree, exactly. Well, we've reached about an hour at this point, maybe a little bit longer. So, you know, you're getting old. At this point, your tinge span is probably fading, so we're going to wrap this one up, but is there any advice that you could get that you want to give to younger people growing up that want to either get into adventure or, you know, traveling, or just advice to anybody, that's, you know, growing up in these times?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean sure there's. You know always take a. You know dare to do greatly. I mean, you know there's always. You know a ship is safe in the harbor. But that's not what ships are made for. They're made to go out and explore. They're made to go out, you know, and beyond the reach of the beach and beyond the reach of the harbor. And so I remember my mom gave me a plaque Maybe it was after college or during college and it read something along the lines of you can't reach second base if you're afraid to take your foot off first.
Speaker 2:So you know, and it's kind of like that whole thing of you know, shoot for the stars or shoot for the shoot for the stars and hopefully you'll land among the trees. You know, it's kind of that same thing. You know, to get somewhere, you sometimes you've got to be willing to. You know, think about the early explorers, you know the, the Columbus's and the Magellans and stuff like that, when they were talked about, like hey, the world's flat and you're going to float off the end of it and there are sea monsters and stuff like that. You know, if, if everybody had that mindset, we wouldn't have that ability now to to understand things. I mean we, like we've been, you know humans have been to space.
Speaker 2:So I think sometimes you have to get outside your comfort zone and you know there's there's nothing. There's so much that we have in reach, in our hands. You know well like we can research now. I mean before those were, those were pre-computers and you know, even I didn't have computers, you know, growing up, not the access that we have now. So a lot of mine was going and looking in books and trying to find maps and stuff of places I wanted to to go, backpacking and stuff. So you know, now you have access to it. So watch, you know, if, if you're uncomfortable with you know a particular skill set, like starting a camp stove or something like that there are YouTube videos and or there are probably clinics at some of your camping stores, or join, find a group online that you know that you can tag along with and you can, you can get those. You know.
Speaker 2:Build up your skill set, you know, before you go out and maybe do a three hike on the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Coast, pacific Crest Trail, you know, build up a little bit of skill set before you. You know, head off on a six month backpacking backpacking trip, you know. But build those skills up, you know. You know it's the, just put one foot in front of the other and just, you know, head out the door and you know the skills will come.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to have, you know, like I said, thousands earlier. I said you don't have to have thousands of dollars worth of gear because you can still get by, especially in the spring, summer and fall. Winter requires a whole different, you know, level of skills and gear just because of the temps. But you know the rest of the time, you know, start out in the summer where it's, you know, even if you fail, what's the worst that's going to happen. A lot of times you're going to get wet, they might be a miserable night's sleep, but it's not going to probably, you know you're probably not going to, like you know, get injured or get hurt greatly, but you will. You know, you'll learn from it and the next time you go out you'll take that experience and then you'll build upon that experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they say that the differences in skill levels between two people, two sets of people, are usually just based off the amount of practice and the different scenarios you put that practice into, and between that there's nothing really different between two sets of people.
Speaker 2:I'd say watch how fast you can change a car tire and then watch the guys on a NASCAR pit crew, you know, watch how fast they can change a tire. And it's all about because it's repetition and it's practice. It's just over and over. I mean, do you want to? And we'll kind of circle back and go full circle here. You know, do you want a doctor that's performed one procedure? Do you want a doctor that's performed 200 procedures Exactly Of the same procedure? You want somebody with that, that repetition, because they get better with it, with everything you know. And it's the same way with everything you know. Running's the same way you. Running's just about repetition. You know, you get better with the more times you do it. You, you know, every day it's all about just perpetuation. You know, if I run three miles today and then I run three and a half the next day, I'm going to get better with each, with each day If I keep doing it and I put forth the effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the key things is just to go out and put one foot in front of the other, like you said, and just wing it. Practice and you'll get better. And I think that's a great place to end the show. Clay, you've been such a monumental influence to me and also just a wealth of knowledge, and so I hope everybody has enjoyed this as much as I have. So thank you so much for entertaining me.
Speaker 2:Well, this life's not over yet. We still got some other adventures to have, so hang on tight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, baby. So we'll be back with y'all with the next adventure.