Latest / Run Mountain Peaks / All Things White Mountains Hiking w/ Grid Finisher Andrea Wojciak

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All Things White Mountains Hiking w/ Grid Finisher Andrea Wojciak · Run Mountain Peaks

• 0:00
  OK, welcome back to another episode of Run Mountain Peaks
• 0:04
  Episode 19, and we have our first guest on the podcast.
• 0:10
  And a little reminder. The idea of this podcast is to
• 0:14
  cover the Northeast trail scene. We want to talk about and talk
• 0:19
  to trail runners, hikers, race directors, coaches, anybody
• 0:25
  who's doing big endurance feats in the Northeast.
• 0:28
  We'll talk to him and we want to talk about them.
• 0:30
  And lucky enough for me, one of these Northeast Trail crushers
• 0:35
  is my own mother, Andrea Wojack. She is a.
• 0:40
  Grid Finisher, she's done all or most of the lists in the
• 0:44
  Northeast that you can do. Some of the hiking lists.
• 0:47
  She spent thousands and thousands of hours hiking
• 0:50
  mountains in the last decade or so.
• 0:53
  And she's got a lot of good information and a lot of good
• 0:56
  stories. And we had a good interview with
• 0:58
  her. So we talked all things grid.
• 1:01
  We talked about some trails, we talked about some peaks.
• 1:04
  We talked about some of the other lists outside of the grid,
• 1:07
  outside of the 48, some of the things that she's done, she's
• 1:10
  worked on. We got some inside scoop on some
• 1:13
  good trails, some good mountains, maybe a little some
• 1:15
  overlooked things. And we also talked about my and
• 1:20
  her experience together racing and crewing some of these ultra
• 1:24
  events that I've ran because a lot of these are kind of team
• 1:28
  efforts and we've had some learning lessons, some
• 1:31
  takeaways, some stories for some from some of the races.
• 1:35
  So we talked about that. It was a good interview.
• 1:39
  Stick with us. Stay tuned to listen to it and
• 1:44
  I'm going to put I got a couple things to talk about first, but
• 1:47
  I'll put the time stamp of the interview.
• 1:49
  So if you're here to listen the interview, you can go ahead,
• 1:51
  skip ahead. But that's the the main part of
• 1:57
  the episode today. And we did not do the episode in
• 2:00
  the truck. I I think I mean, I'll
• 2:05
  definitely have people on and have them sit in my truck.
• 2:08
  I think it's kind of funny to make people just sit in the bed
• 2:11
  of my truck, especially in bad weather.
• 2:12
  Today it's snowing for the first time, but for the sake of
• 2:16
  getting good guests and making sure the interview sounds good,
• 2:20
  we'll, we'll go inside for some of these.
• 2:22
  I just kind of got a new set up the the timing.
• 2:26
  It was super cold only one time and worked.
• 2:28
  So yeah, we did it inside. It's all good.
• 2:32
  We we're we're not going to stick hold any all the guests to
• 2:36
  to the truck bed, but we will do some of the future.
• 2:39
  So it wasn't in a truck, but it was a good interview and yeah,
• 2:44
  what else do we have today? OK, a few things I want to touch
• 2:46
  on First, there were no ultra races last weekend to report on
• 2:51
  results wise, the Beast Coast runners, they had their Cubs
• 2:56
  cook 20K last weekend and I had it on my list of trail races,
• 3:02
  but there were no results. It was not timed.
• 3:04
  I think it was more of like a community get together.
• 3:07
  I think they did like a potluck after.
• 3:09
  So it was less competitive and I have nothing to report on it.
• 3:12
  I didn't go. Hopefully it was a fun event,
• 3:15
  but that was the one thing from last weekend.
• 3:16
  And then this weekend, the peak snow, the peak snow Devil
• 3:21
  snowshoe races, 100K and 100 mile are underway.
• 3:26
  So they started yesterday. They're still going today.
• 3:29
  Looks like they got a little bit of snow That is in Pittsfield,
• 3:32
  Vt and I don't really know the trail conditions up there but
• 3:35
  I'm sure people are running in snowshoes.
• 3:37
  Out there so. I think that's kind of a long
• 3:40
  standing race and it's a cool race.
• 3:41
  So we will look into who ran that last next week.
• 3:46
  We'll report on who ran it and maybe some finishing times
• 3:49
  there. OK.
• 3:51
  And then the one last thing before we get into the
• 3:53
  interview, I wanted to talk about the microphone debacle,
• 3:57
  which kind of happened this week.
• 4:01
  So we're going to do a little bit of like technical mic audio
• 4:04
  talk. What happened, the chaos that
• 4:07
  that ensued this week and me. So feel free to skip this part.
• 4:11
  But basically the mics that I was using before to record
• 4:16
  they're they're they're very good audio.
• 4:18
  Like they were high quality, but they really are more meant for
• 4:23
  like videos, like a YouTube video or something like that
• 4:26
  where you're mobile, you're on the move and it's good quality
• 4:30
  and it's small, but I wouldn't say it is top of the notch audio
• 4:36
  podcasting quality. And so that was kind of one
• 4:39
  thing that was always in the back of my head.
• 4:41
  And then the other thing with those mics, they are Omni
• 4:43
  directional. So pretty much they'll pick up
• 4:46
  sound from every direction, which you actually don't want
• 4:49
  that when you're interviewing somebody because you'll just
• 4:52
  pick up multiple sounds on the two mics in the room or wherever
• 4:56
  you're interviewing. So, you know, I, I, I, I do want
• 5:00
  to have people on. I want to, I, I really like
• 5:03
  doing the podcast. People are liking it.
• 5:04
  So I was like, I'm going to invest in a couple good mics.
• 5:07
  We're going to do it right. We're not going to fidget and
• 5:09
  try to edit the audio to get rid of the echoes.
• 5:11
  We're just going to get good mics.
• 5:13
  So I started looking into good mics and I pretty much, I was
• 5:19
  trying to, I mean, some of the stuff is a little bit expensive.
• 5:22
  So I called around, did my research and I go to basically a
• 5:26
  guitar store, Manchester Music Mill.
• 5:29
  Shout out, shout out my boy Thomas, he hooked it up.
• 5:32
  I'm kind of calling and I'm inquiring about a podcasting
• 5:35
  setup. And they're like, yeah, we don't
• 5:37
  really do as much podcasting stuff or mobile setups, but we,
• 5:40
  we can definitely get you a mic and kind of help you out.
• 5:42
  And for my research, I was going to try to get a good mic, wire
• 5:47
  it into a plug, into a converter, into a thing that
• 5:51
  would go into my existing mic. So I just have to get the
• 5:54
  microphones. And then I could use, you know,
• 5:56
  what I was using to record before.
• 5:58
  But on the phone, he's like, yeah, I've, I've never really
• 6:01
  heard of anyone doing that. Like, I don't know if that's
• 6:03
  going to work. I don't think that's going to
• 6:04
  work. But I also just don't have
• 6:07
  experience in the podcasting world.
• 6:09
  And I was just listening to Gemini.
• 6:12
  I was listening to what she was saying.
• 6:14
  And I was like, no, if I bring my stuff down, can I try it?
• 6:17
  And they're like, yeah, sure, bring it down.
• 6:19
  So I bring my stuff down. We, he gets the mic, he finds a
• 6:23
  little thing to find the thing. We plug it into the thing.
• 6:25
  You can barely hear it. It just doesn't work.
• 6:28
  And I had to make a decision right there.
• 6:30
  Do I get the whole setup? He was saying, you know, these
• 6:33
  mics really you have to plug it into, you know, some sort of
• 6:36
  thing or your laptop that reads. It.
• 6:39
  And so eventually I was like, you know what?
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  We're just doing it. I want 2 mics and I want I want
• 6:44
  the whole set. So I got this box because the
• 6:47
  mics can't just go into the computer.
• 6:50
  Like that's kind of what I was doing before.
• 6:51
  You just lug it in the files there, boom, you're ready to go.
• 6:54
  The mics can't just plug into the computer.
• 6:56
  So if anyone wants to start a business with me and we're going
• 7:00
  to create a a professional quality sounding mic that plugs
• 7:03
  into a USB, you have no editing. You don't have to edit the
• 7:07
  audio. It just comes in as one file.
• 7:09
  Beautiful audio. I think that is a huge market
• 7:12
  and I want to do start that business but no seriously.
• 7:17
  So you got to get this box before it goes into your laptop
• 7:20
  and then once it's on your laptop, you got to get the whole
• 7:22
  editing software and hook it up. And this software guys a billion
• 7:27
  buttons, not a million, a billion.
• 7:30
  There's you can't even put words on buttons because there's so
• 7:33
  many. It's just letters and little
• 7:35
  symbols, the whole thing. And it was just a little over my
• 7:39
  head. So I get this whole setup.
• 7:40
  It's complex. You got to download something
• 7:42
  that you know, just downloading the programs and installing all
• 7:46
  the drivers took an hour. So I'm in I'm in a lot of money.
• 7:50
  I'm in deep on this and I'm and I'm like, I'm trying to finally
• 7:54
  record and test it out. I record and the audio is
• 7:59
  garbage. I mean it's horrible echoey.
• 8:02
  It's just like. Really.
• 8:03
  Really bad. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh,
• 8:06
  now I'm going to have to figure out how to do filters and gates
• 8:10
  and high pass, low pass or whatever.
• 8:11
  I don't know what any of these things are to make it sound
• 8:14
  good. And I think I'm just, I'm
• 8:15
  getting frustrated. My tone with Gemini was getting
• 8:18
  a little bit a little bit dicey. You know, she was picking up
• 8:21
  that I was upset. She said, you know, calm down,
• 8:23
  we'll figure this out. I because Oh my God paid all
• 8:27
  this money. You want good audio this is
• 8:28
  horrible. So I go through it and
• 8:30
  eventually an hour later come to find out I hadn't even installed
• 8:34
  the mic driver on my laptop the right 1 and I was just
• 8:37
  listening. I was using my computer, laptop
• 8:39
  built in audio system and that's what I was playing back thinking
• 8:44
  this is the audio quality from all of this equipment and just
• 8:47
  being pissed. But in reality my mic wasn't
• 8:50
  even on. It was not even working.
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  So that was just a stupid thing on me, which was just kind of
• 8:56
  funny, a whole debacle. But we got it set up.
• 8:58
  So if you like, if this audio is just, you know, just music in
• 9:03
  your ears right now, beautiful. If it's not, you still don't
• 9:06
  like it, just tune out because this is the best we're doing.
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  I cannot go deeper into editing audio in this whole audio thing.
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  So hopefully it sounds good. And yeah, then and then so the
• 9:18
  the interview went good, got it sounded good.
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  So thankful for that. And then I recorded a little bit
• 9:25
  of an intro and I did that separately.
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  And when I did that, I get home because I did in my truck.
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  I get home, I listen to the audio and it's and it's coming
• 9:34
  through weird. And again, I didn't have the
• 9:36
  right my I wasn't using this mic.
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  It was something else that was going on with all these buttons.
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  So I had to come out here yesterday.
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  It was warm, it was sunny, it was glowing, it was beautiful.
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  And I had to come up back here today in the snow if this ruins
• 9:51
  all my equipment. I will be so distraught.
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  But hopefully, hopefully it doesn't ruin the equipment.
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  We're just going to keep it quick.
• 9:59
  That was just a story I want to tell you today.
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  So we're trying to we're trying to bring everything to you.
• 10:04
  We're we want to bring in good guests, lots of knowledge, cover
• 10:08
  everything top notch and make it sound beautiful.
• 10:13
  But that's all I got today. Hopefully you guys enjoy the
• 10:16
  interview and we'll we'll leave you to it.
• 10:19
  Talk to you next week. Peace.
• 10:22
  OK, Are you ready? I'm ready.
• 10:25
  OK, we have the 1st guest of the podcast.
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  She is a grid finisher, 67 four KS in New England finisher 99%.
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  Done the 4K every day. 4K every single day.
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  She's probably tougher than you. She probably hikes more than
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  you. It is my mother, Andrea Wojack.
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  Hello, Mother. Hi.
• 10:51
  Thank you for that. I don't know about the
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  toughness. Some days I'm not as tough as
• 10:54
  the others, but yeah, yeah. Comes and goes, yeah.
• 10:58
  All right, let's get the resume set in stone here.
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  Talked about the grid. So you're a grid finisher?
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  Yep, I finished the grid in April 2023.
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  What number? I am grid finisher #145. 145,
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  yes. Very nice.
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  So that felt pretty good. And then that fall I finished
• 11:18
  the 52 at the view I had. You know, when you hike the four
• 11:21
  KS, you get a lot of those as you go along.
• 11:24
  And then I was able to finish the rest of that list.
• 11:27
  Started working on the New England 67 that I think the
• 11:32
  highlight of that is Baxter State Park.
• 11:34
  Going there was a girls weekend trip was fantastic.
• 11:38
  How many 4K? So that's 67 four KS in New
• 11:41
  England? Yep.
• 11:42
  You know how many are each states?
• 11:43
  So it's 48 New Hampshire. 19 in Maine and five in Vermont OK Yep
• 11:48
  Yep and then that's it and then I also have completed the T25
• 11:55
  list was one that I just finished this year terrifying 25
• 11:59
  terrifying 25 the. Scariest trails in New England?
• 12:01
  Yep. And I always say they're almost
• 12:04
  none of them are truly terrifying, but they're they're
• 12:07
  pretty strenuous. And I think it depends on what
• 12:10
  you're comfortable with, whether or not terrifying is, you know,
• 12:13
  the right word. But I liked that list because
• 12:16
  when you're gridding, you tend to do the most efficient way
• 12:20
  possible to get all your peaks. And those trails tend to be a
• 12:23
  little more sporty. So getting out and and hiking
• 12:27
  some new stuff was a lot of fun doing those.
• 12:29
  Yeah, yeah. Feel like I don't know how.
• 12:31
  I don't know how many I've done. I think I've done a handful, but
• 12:33
  I haven't done too, too many of those ones.
• 12:35
  Yeah. No, they were great and the the
• 12:37
  ones in the presidentials are probably the favorite ones.
• 12:40
  Stephen King's Ravine and the Sphinx Trail 6 husbands
• 12:45
  Huntington. Huntington was Yep.
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  And I initially I never thought I was going to do the terrifying
• 12:50
  25 because Huntington's was intimidating to me.
• 12:54
  And then, you know, a little bit of social media was seeing a lot
• 12:57
  of other folks getting it done. And I thought, all right, I can,
• 12:59
  I can do that. And Matt had told me that that's
• 13:04
  one of his favorite trails to do.
• 13:06
  And we went out and we did that in August this year, me and two
• 13:10
  friends, and we had a fabulous. Day.
• 13:12
  That was the first time you did it.
• 13:13
  First and only. Yep, Yep, Yep.
• 13:15
  That was very good. I've got bullied off that trail.
• 13:17
  One time there was, I don't know if I had told you about this,
• 13:20
  but a couple years ago, I think it was AJ and Joe or somebody
• 13:25
  were trying to get that go do Huntington's one day.
• 13:28
  And I think, I don't know if it was like a little bit wet out or
• 13:31
  the day before or something like that.
• 13:32
  And I was just kind of like, not that I feel like I like the rock
• 13:35
  climbing stuff, but I think I was like, I don't know if I'm
• 13:38
  really up for it tomorrow, guys, but I'll do it eventually.
• 13:43
  Yeah. So the one thing I learned about
• 13:45
  that was so one of the, one of the people that I did that with
• 13:49
  was Stephanie, you know, Stephanie and my friend
• 13:51
  Stephanie. And she was, she was 21 weeks
• 13:55
  pregnant, I think when we were doing it.
• 13:57
  And we've had been trying to do it for over a year and could not
• 14:01
  get the weather and our schedules to align.
• 14:04
  And so we had a day picked and like you just kind of mentioned
• 14:07
  it was going to rain, potentially was going to rain
• 14:09
  overnight, but then the next day was going to be dry.
• 14:13
  And, you know, we're kind of like second guessing, should we
• 14:16
  go? Should we not go?
• 14:17
  And we reached out to someone who's who uses that trail quite
• 14:21
  a bit. And we're like, is it really a
• 14:22
  thing? You know, if we if it's if it's
• 14:25
  sunny and it's windy, do we really have to worry if it
• 14:29
  rained the night before? And, and he convinced us that it
• 14:31
  was worth trying and that in 99% likelihood everything was going
• 14:37
  to be fine and told us, like, where is the spot where you get
• 14:40
  to where you're going to make that decision and you're
• 14:43
  completely fine to make it at that point and you just turn on
• 14:45
  and go back if. Yeah.
• 14:47
  Isn't there just like a few? That's that trail, it's getting
• 14:51
  on the head wall and it was just the very first pitch where like
• 14:57
  a. Few moves that are kind.
• 14:58
  Of the three of us were kind of like, whoa for about a second,
• 15:02
  everybody give each other space, don't talk, let's get through
• 15:05
  it. And then that was really it.
• 15:07
  The rest of it was phenomenal. And I think it was a slight bit
• 15:11
  damp. And had it been completely dry,
• 15:14
  we wouldn't have even had that. Yeah.
• 15:16
  Yeah. Nice.
• 15:17
  Yeah, OK, so terrifying 25 Yep, we I briefly mentioned it, the
• 15:22
  calendar day for four KA day, right.
• 15:25
  Every calendar day, yes. So it's similar to a grid where
• 15:28
  you have X amount of boxes that you need to check.
• 15:31
  So every single calendar day, Yep, you just hike a 4000
• 15:34
  footer, right And you're 99.9% of the way.
• 15:37
  Done. I am.
• 15:37
  So this is, you know, Hiker Ed is the gentleman who kind of he
• 15:42
  runs the grid page and there's some other projects that are
• 15:45
  sort of incorporated into there in the 366 is one of them.
• 15:49
  So when I finished gridding, I had looked at, you know, how
• 15:53
  many days of the year because I knew about this, this particular
• 15:55
  project, how many have I done? And I think when I finished
• 15:58
  gridding, it was somewhere 260 maybe or 250 probably had no, I
• 16:03
  probably had over 100 go, maybe it was 220.
• 16:06
  But you know, you, if you're, if you're gritting, you're likely
• 16:09
  going to accumulate a lot of days as you go along.
• 16:11
  So that became I'm, I'm definitely a self admitted list
• 16:17
  driven person. It makes me, you know, I feel
• 16:20
  good about accomplishing certain things.
• 16:22
  And so that was the next list that was logical.
• 16:24
  And so the end of 23, like December is when I really said,
• 16:28
  OK, I, I really want to work on this list and plowed away at it
• 16:31
  through 2024 and 2025 was coming.
• 16:36
  And I didn't think that I was, you know, because that's so
• 16:40
  weather dependent, right? If you need January 15th and
• 16:44
  there's a three foot Blizzard, you're probably not going to get
• 16:47
  that day. So you got to wait for the next
• 16:48
  year. So I have 5 left to go and
• 16:52
  they're all in July because as you know, our family goes away
• 16:57
  in July and we go away the same weeks every year.
• 17:00
  And so those days we've always been gone.
• 17:02
  And I tried to do a little schedule switcheroo last year
• 17:06
  and it didn't work out so but I thought, well maybe I won't get
• 17:10
  all the days in the winter of 25, but I did.
• 17:13
  So now I finished my last day December 11th and I have to sit
• 17:17
  and wait patiently, which I'm not good at, until the end of
• 17:20
  July to finish that so. Well, there must be another list
• 17:22
  to work on. Are you working on anything
• 17:24
  else? So the other list that I'm
• 17:25
  working on is I have never done this in all the years hiking.
• 17:30
  I'm doing a single season winter and and I have not said that out
• 17:35
  loud. I.
• 17:36
  Didn't know about it till 10 minutes ago.
• 17:38
  Because I wasn't sure I'm kind of I, I first said I was loosely
• 17:41
  doing it because I want to have a good winter, I want to do some
• 17:45
  fun hikes, I want to hike with friends and I don't want a list
• 17:49
  to drive me from saying no, I can't hike something.
• 17:53
  But because I'm retired, which you are aware of.
• 17:56
  Yep, I have a lot of time on my hands and so I think I can I can
• 18:01
  chip away at that project and do fun stuff and help friends out
• 18:04
  at the same time. So I'm feeling good about that.
• 18:07
  And that's fun for me because when I look at all my winters in
• 18:12
  the past, I think the most number of peaks I've ever
• 18:14
  climbed in the winter is like 30.
• 18:16
  Like I've never even come close to doing all of them.
• 18:19
  And I've put a good chunk of them behind me so far.
• 18:23
  And it's only January 15th, so I have a plan.
• 18:26
  Very nice. Yes.
• 18:28
  Well, yeah, I asked you like this week.
• 18:29
  It feels like you're super booked up.
• 18:31
  You're you are more busy than me.
• 18:33
  A lot of people will ask me like, oh, do you get out with
• 18:35
  your mom a lot? And honestly, we don't get out
• 18:37
  too, too much. Well, there's a reason for that.
• 18:40
  We're not overly compatible on trail anymore.
• 18:43
  There's a couple of reasons, but also you have way more hiking
• 18:46
  plans than me. Yeah, you get out with
• 18:48
  everybody. Well, I, I look at what I have
• 18:51
  available and, you know, I, I'm happy to hike alone and I'm not
• 18:54
  afraid to hike alone in most conditions.
• 18:57
  In winter, there's probably a few that I would say I'd prefer
• 19:00
  to have company on, but I'm not afraid to go out there and I
• 19:04
  have all the gear and the, you know, knowledge to be able to do
• 19:08
  that. But I enjoy going with friends.
• 19:10
  So when I, when I see some time off, I'd like to, you know, see
• 19:14
  who's out there and who's doing what and connect.
• 19:16
  It's easier to get out with people, the motivation.
• 19:18
  It is, yes. Yep.
• 19:19
  And and when I have willing bodies, I think, OK, what's the
• 19:23
  what's the either the hardest or the worst thing that I wouldn't
• 19:26
  want to do by myself if I've got friends to come with me, Let's
• 19:28
  go get it. Yeah.
• 19:30
  Why are we going to Alice head right now?
• 19:32
  No, I like. I like Alice.
• 19:33
  Head. No, I like Alice Head too.
• 19:35
  Any of the list things. What are you going to do when
• 19:38
  you finish the 4K day? Because I know we talked about a
• 19:40
  lot of people are list driven. Yeah.
• 19:43
  I am not going to, I'll use the word tracing.
• 19:46
  I guess that's the, I'm not going to trace the White
• 19:49
  Mountain National Forest, but I would, I do enjoy seeing other
• 19:53
  trails. And I made a conscious effort,
• 19:55
  you know, that's more of like a summer fall project when
• 19:58
  everything's pretty good to get out and go into some areas that
• 20:01
  I haven't gone into. And a few of my friends have
• 20:05
  done that and we've been really enjoyed doing that, seeing some
• 20:07
  different things. You know, last fall we went up
• 20:10
  the rain, not the Rainbow Trail. The Wildcat trail up to up to
• 20:15
  Carter Dome in that back area was really, really pretty.
• 20:18
  Yeah, and it traces every trail in the White Mountains
• 20:23
  guidebook. The guidebook, yeah.
• 20:24
  So it's a lot of because the 4000 footers, I feel like
• 20:27
  there's people out there every day.
• 20:28
  You always see people, but the guide is very much you're out
• 20:31
  there alone on a lot of these. Trails, there can be a lot of
• 20:34
  aloneness out there and so that's something I'm not overly
• 20:36
  interested in being in completely the middle of nowhere
• 20:38
  because to be honest, I'll happily say what my weaknesses
• 20:42
  are. I'm not that great at navigating
• 20:44
  and I can't confirm and I have a few friends that will agree with
• 20:49
  that as well. So I prefer to be on trails that
• 20:52
  I'm comfortable with or, you know, that have some general
• 20:54
  markings. I understand how to navigate,
• 20:57
  but it's not my favorite and I'm definitely not a fan of
• 20:59
  bushwhacking. So completing the New England
• 21:03
  hundred highest as well as I've done all the the one other list
• 21:06
  that I've completed is the trail right 72.
• 21:09
  I've done the peaks. I haven't done the trail work,
• 21:11
  but now that I'm retired in the spring, I'm going to spend a lot
• 21:14
  of time helping with trail work there.
• 21:16
  What is that one? That is so it's the 48 peaks and
• 21:20
  then another 24. Some of them have trails to
• 21:23
  them. They're off.
• 21:24
  So I think mount height is on them, right.
• 21:26
  So it's it's just another list. The rules on that one are a
• 21:30
  little different than all the others in that you can only
• 21:33
  claim one peak per hike. So if you want to claim that
• 21:37
  you've hiked the bonds, you had to have gone out three times,
• 21:40
  right? So you can't, right.
• 21:42
  So, you know, so you're out there repeating particular
• 21:46
  hikes, like Mount Adams has four sub peaks to them.
• 21:50
  You would most likely not go to those.
• 21:52
  But this, it's Sam Quinn, you know, John Adams, Sam Quincy,
• 21:59
  Abigail Adams, Adams five. Yeah.
• 22:02
  So they're all kind of around. 72 highest peaks.
• 22:06
  I don't know what the criteria was that got them on that, but
• 22:08
  I, I think, I think it's primarily, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:12
  Like. Yeah, Clay, Clay height, the
• 22:16
  Adams's and then there's ones. So the ones that were hard for
• 22:20
  me that I needed friend support on were N Northwest Twin, that's
• 22:27
  a bushwack. No, Southwest Twin is a
• 22:30
  bushwack. Northwest Hancock Bushwack.
• 22:32
  Northwest Hancock. Yeah, so I have a good friend,
• 22:36
  Adam, who's great at navigating and loves to do that kind of
• 22:39
  stuff. He took me up the arrow slide of
• 22:42
  Hancock. I was just.
• 22:42
  Talking to Ryan about this. Room, Yeah, super fun, super dry
• 22:47
  summer last year. So it was, it was pretty good.
• 22:49
  We did have one little spot that I got a little, it was really
• 22:53
  loose and I stepped probably where I shouldn't have.
• 22:55
  But overall that one was good. And then once you get up there,
• 23:00
  you, you break out into the N Hancock viewpoint and from there
• 23:03
  there's a, there's a lead out into the northwest.
• 23:07
  Hancock how do you get down from there?
• 23:09
  We went down the Cedar Brook slide, Yep.
• 23:12
  And then ended up on the Cedar Brook Trail.
• 23:14
  Naively, I wasn't sure. I didn't see where we came out.
• 23:18
  So I thought we were pretty close to the Hancock Loop
• 23:21
  section. Yeah, the junction.
• 23:22
  We had a couple miles further to go.
• 23:25
  So it was, it was kind of a long out.
• 23:27
  We were pretty tired by the end of that one.
• 23:30
  Yeah. Nice.
• 23:31
  Yeah, cool. So that that was all your list
• 23:35
  stuff. That is my list.
• 23:36
  Stuff. Yeah.
• 23:37
  So I, yeah, I've talked about this with some people.
• 23:39
  Does the, how do you feel about the grid?
• 23:41
  Would you recommend the grid to anybody 'cause sometimes I'm
• 23:44
  sure you've been driving up to Cabot, which is like the
• 23:47
  furthest Dr. you know, every month, thinking in crappy
• 23:50
  weather, thinking this is interesting.
• 23:52
  So funny you say that 'cause I'll be on Cabot tomorrow, OK?
• 23:57
  I enjoyed the grid very much, so I started hiking in 2016 and
• 24:03
  when I did that I was a runner but had never really gotten out
• 24:07
  into the mountains much and did like Four Peaks.
• 24:09
  That first year did some of the easier ones with beautiful
• 24:14
  views, although I did Lincoln and Lafayette that I wouldn't
• 24:16
  consider that easy, but gorgeous views.
• 24:19
  And then the following year kind of started doing a few more
• 24:26
  getting out there and about, I got to about the halfway point
• 24:29
  and some of them were intimidating, right.
• 24:31
  You talk about Owl's head, you talk about the bonds isolation,
• 24:34
  like how the heck am I ever going to do those?
• 24:36
  And got out with a friend who I hadn't seen for a long time.
• 24:39
  And she, she got me along on a Garfield Galehead Twins loop.
• 24:45
  Needed a car spot and that's a good 15 mile hike.
• 24:49
  And, and you know, I talked to her about I'd like to do more,
• 24:53
  but I don't know if I can do them all.
• 24:54
  And when we got done, she just looked at me and she and she was
• 24:57
  girding at the time and she said if you can do this hike, you can
• 25:00
  do all of them. So I kind of went through it
• 25:02
  from there and finished my 48. I think it took two years.
• 25:06
  I think I finished in 2018 on Boncliff, which was fantastic.
• 25:12
  And then by that point Dad had started joining me on hikes.
• 25:17
  He likes winter more than any and we had, we had chipped away
• 25:20
  at quite a bit of the winter just by doing the initial round.
• 25:24
  So I thought, well, I'd like to do them all in winter.
• 25:27
  So that became kind of a focus for the next couple years.
• 25:31
  Finished the winter list in 2020 and then thought, well, I wonder
• 25:36
  how many I've done in spring, summer and fall.
• 25:38
  This is how it, this is what I'm, this is what I'm saying.
• 25:41
  Yep. So then I said, well, I
• 25:42
  definitely want to do The Four Seasons.
• 25:44
  I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, make a conscious effort to
• 25:47
  do all the seasons. And I started working on there.
• 25:50
  And then January of 2020, I, you know, kind of was looking for
• 25:56
  more folks to hike with and got lucky enough to connect with
• 26:00
  Stephanie, who I've mentioned. We didn't know each other at
• 26:03
  all. She's considerably younger than
• 26:05
  me. But graciously we agreed to hike
• 26:10
  together and, you know, really kind of became pretty good
• 26:12
  friends. She had, we had time off that
• 26:15
  was the same and, and really hit it off.
• 26:17
  And she was pretty early on, but said she was grinning.
• 26:20
  And I said, Oh yeah, I'm not doing that.
• 26:22
  Oh, you did. I'm working on the, I'm not
• 26:24
  working on the seasons, but I'm definitely not grinning.
• 26:26
  I knew what it was, didn't want to do it.
• 26:28
  And I would say by August of 2020, you can look at my hikes.
• 26:33
  And that is when I agreed that I am in fact yes, because now I'm
• 26:38
  not orphaning peaks that I that I had done before.
• 26:41
  So I started in August of 2020 consciously working on the grid
• 26:46
  and finished in April of 23. So about a little, almost three
• 26:50
  years, like 2 years and eight months.
• 26:51
  That's pretty quick. So 576 peaks.
• 26:54
  But by the time I started I was probably in 180190I had quite a
• 27:00
  bit already. So the reason why I'm even
• 27:03
  saying all this is I never felt a lot like the grid was a chore.
• 27:07
  Like I think some people if you if it, if you let it take too
• 27:10
  long and you're thinking about it for six years and seven years
• 27:13
  and eight years. I think some people get to the
• 27:15
  point where they're just sick of it.
• 27:17
  I never really got sick of it. I didn't because I was and I was
• 27:21
  doing it with. I say there's like grid
• 27:25
  clusters, like clusters of people.
• 27:26
  So like you kind of pair up with people.
• 27:29
  I think you need that. You need people around you
• 27:31
  gridding so you can especially like in the winter.
• 27:33
  I always say in the winter people link up more and kind of
• 27:36
  sink more. And obviously the grid, you have
• 27:38
  all these peaks that you need to get in the winter, right?
• 27:39
  So I think it's always good to have critters around you and
• 27:42
  then you all kind of finish and then sometimes people go and do
• 27:45
  separate, you know, they. Start cycling different things.
• 27:46
  Yeah. And so funny about that was the
• 27:48
  winter of, say 21 into 22, I had found a really great group of
• 27:54
  women to hike with and they were going to finish sooner than me.
• 27:57
  And so that winter it hit me one day and I was like, I, I have to
• 28:02
  go with you every time you do isolation.
• 28:04
  Like if you guys are doing isolation, I'm coming, I'm done.
• 28:07
  If you're doing Kerrigan, I'm in, you know, like I really was
• 28:11
  like, cuz who am I going to hike with next year when you guys are
• 28:13
  all done? And so I really made a good
• 28:16
  effort of doing that. They finished.
• 28:18
  I still had another year to go, but I found more people and so I
• 28:23
  still those girls are still my friends.
• 28:25
  We still hike together quite a bit, but I was able to branch
• 28:28
  out and find some new folks and just to really grew my community
• 28:33
  of people that enjoy hiking as much as I do.
• 28:37
  Yeah. Well, a couple of things I was
• 28:38
  thinking one, yeah, I think obviously you're list driven,
• 28:42
  but you do love just getting out and walking on agey trails.
• 28:44
  So I feel like you, like, I don't know, you're always trying
• 28:47
  to get out on the mountains. You really just love being out
• 28:49
  there, which makes it easier. Yeah, and then the other thing
• 28:52
  too, I feel like it's getting so popular now, which there's
• 28:55
  always groups of people doing the list now.
• 28:58
  So which kind of like how did, how did you hear about the grid?
• 29:01
  It's just like when you start hiking with people.
• 29:03
  I think it was when I met Priscilla.
• 29:05
  So so I mentioned I'm doing that.
• 29:08
  Garfield Galehead twins. So Priscilla Floyd, who you may
• 29:11
  remember from as a kid, we hadn't seen each other in a
• 29:14
  while and I ran into her and she explained to me what that was.
• 29:18
  And it didn't sound overly appealing because I hadn't even
• 29:21
  done a bonds yet. And don't even talk to me about
• 29:23
  doing it 12 times, you know, the same as all the others, but you
• 29:27
  just start to hear about it a little bit more.
• 29:29
  I think COVID in 2020 got a lot more people out.
• 29:34
  And, and so I think there was a group that started.
• 29:36
  So that's when I started because, you know, at that point
• 29:39
  there was nothing else to do, right?
• 29:41
  And I felt confident pretty early on that I wasn't going to
• 29:44
  get sick being outside, so I might as well get out and go
• 29:47
  out. And you didn't have a lot of
• 29:50
  social obligations to keep you home anymore, so I got out quite
• 29:53
  a bit. Yeah.
• 29:54
  Now I feel like that's lots of people started ramping up the
• 29:57
  hiking. You think it's died down a
• 29:58
  little bit since then, or you think it's about the same?
• 30:02
  I think, I think there was an extreme scenario the summer and
• 30:06
  fall of COVID and I can even tell you about a day I hiked
• 30:11
  with a friend, Sherry, who I think it was the either 4th of
• 30:14
  July day or 4th of July weekend. But the observatory was opening
• 30:19
  for the first time that season. And, and we decided we were
• 30:23
  going to hike Monroe in Washington.
• 30:24
  We were going to go early, wasn't sunrise, but early kind
• 30:28
  of get ahead of the crowds, which we did.
• 30:31
  And then we were, you know, basically heading off of
• 30:34
  Washington. Say it.
• 30:35
  I don't know, 10:00 in the morning, we were already heading
• 30:37
  down, down the Jewel Trail. I have never seen anything like
• 30:41
  it in my life. Oh, you could just see for a
• 30:45
  mile and there was like, I've never been claustrophobic
• 30:48
  outside and I was almost claustrophobic on a trail with
• 30:51
  no trees. Like there was so many people.
• 30:54
  So that doesn't happen as much anymore.
• 30:57
  And my tendency is to hike in the morning anyway, so I tend to
• 31:01
  get out mostly ahead of the crowd.
• 31:04
  And if anything, I'll see folks on the way out so it doesn't
• 31:08
  feel as bad to me. One of the things I'd like to do
• 31:11
  that I haven't done often is I do shy away from hiking kind of
• 31:15
  later in the day. And I'd love to be on some of
• 31:19
  those, you know, like a Franconia Ridge or something at
• 31:21
  sunset. Sunset.
• 31:22
  Yeah, I'm sure you've seen a lot of sunrises.
• 31:24
  Sunrise. I've seen a ton of sunrises,
• 31:26
  only 1 sunset. What 2 sunsets?
• 31:29
  How is that even possible? Well, because I feel more
• 31:32
  confident hiking in the dark when the day is ahead of me than
• 31:36
  I do if I'm going to be up there.
• 31:37
  And now the day is, is ending, right.
• 31:39
  And now I've got 10 hours of darkness and, you know, you
• 31:42
  don't know what's going to happen.
• 31:43
  But I did a sunset with a group of women on Kerrigan once.
• 31:48
  I think there was four or five of us.
• 31:49
  That was really fun. Great hike.
• 31:52
  And, and with that many people going out, it wasn't
• 31:54
  intimidating, but it, you know, it's a long trek out.
• 31:56
  And then one time I stayed at the Lake of the Clouds Hut and I
• 32:00
  got to witness sunset on Monroe and that was really great.
• 32:03
  Yeah, yeah, I think. Prezi Prezi sunsets.
• 32:05
  Prezi sunsets are good. Pretty good, yeah, yeah.
• 32:09
  What was your, what was your grid finish peak?
• 32:13
  I don't even and I do remember, but tell the people.
• 32:15
  I finished on Mount Moose Lock and that was on purpose.
• 32:19
  So as you're going through the grid, you start to get a feel
• 32:23
  for like what month your finish is going to be.
• 32:25
  And at some point, you know, you kind of look at it and say, OK,
• 32:29
  what am I going to sort of save for last?
• 32:32
  Because ideally you like to have people come with you to
• 32:35
  celebrate. And I in in April.
• 32:37
  So my finish was in April. That's not always the best
• 32:39
  month. It can be shoulder season.
• 32:42
  So I wanted something that dad would be happy to come to and
• 32:46
  you know, more people would want to come.
• 32:47
  So Moose Lock fit that fit that bill.
• 32:50
  I missed out on that. You did.
• 32:52
  You did. We had some we I forget.
• 32:54
  What? I don't even know what I was
• 32:56
  doing. We had some family things going
• 32:57
  on at that time and I thought I had the entire month to finish
• 33:01
  the grid. I only needed four hikes, so
• 33:04
  Moose Lock would be the four. I think I needed six peaks for
• 33:07
  hikes, something like that, and then all of a sudden we had a
• 33:10
  time crunch and I had to finish. I think Easter was on Sunday
• 33:14
  that year on the 9th and I had to finish before then.
• 33:16
  It was, yeah. You would finish earlier.
• 33:18
  Than I had finished earlier than I thought.
• 33:20
  So we you know, I got my three peaks that I3 hikes that I
• 33:24
  needed in and then it was like OK, Thursday's the day or
• 33:27
  Wednesday and you weren't able to come.
• 33:29
  But Dad, Matt and Alyssa came, and my friends great friend
• 33:33
  Stephanie and Kathy came, and then I had another friend who
• 33:37
  couldn't hike with us but met us afterwards for a celebration.
• 33:40
  So it was good, very nice. Well, I have a little, I have a
• 33:42
  little game we'll play real quick.
• 33:45
  I got to make sure. I just make sure I remember it.
• 33:48
  Do you know how many grid finishers there are right now?
• 33:49
  I probably should have had this stat, but 200 and something. 200
• 33:53
  and something I probably did check not that long ago.
• 33:55
  It didn't resonate, but I don't think it's 2:20.
• 33:58
  If anything, it's just right about there.
• 34:00
  I was actually on maybe the second most recent grid finish a
• 34:04
  week ago. Oh wow, there's one of the
• 34:06
  gentlemen. So my friend Molly, she finished
• 34:09
  her grid on January 6th. Congratulations, Molly.
• 34:12
  Congratulations, Molly. She, that girl fought hard.
• 34:14
  She had a lot of stuff that I was working against her, but we
• 34:18
  finished. She finished on Jefferson and
• 34:19
  Washington on an absolutely stellar January of a day.
• 34:25
  Yeah. 20°, no wind, blue skies. Was it a Saturday?
• 34:30
  It was a Tuesday. There's been some really good
• 34:33
  days out there recently. There have been, yes.
• 34:35
  Yeah, it's been nice. Yeah.
• 34:36
  We saw that forecast coming and we we jumped on it.
• 34:39
  Nice. Yeah, Well, nice.
• 34:42
  What would you guess? So here's the little trivia.
• 34:44
  What would you guess is the most popular Finnish peak out of all
• 34:48
  of them? I have the top three, so we'll
• 34:50
  say the top three, but. I think Moose is going to be one
• 34:53
  of them. Moose is #3 which I thought
• 34:55
  would be #1 because it's a nice one.
• 34:57
  It's pretty easy. There's two more above it, so
• 35:01
  moose lock was done 17 times. OK, I'm just gonna guess.
• 35:05
  I don't know. Is Washington one of them?
• 35:07
  No, but Jefferson is number 2. OK, which I was kind of
• 35:11
  surprised about. Maybe it's a solo peak.
• 35:13
  Yeah. And then number one, I would not
• 35:15
  have guessed this at all. I don't think you would either.
• 35:17
  Canon. Yes.
• 35:18
  OK. Yeah.
• 35:20
  Is that because the gondola that you can go up?
• 35:22
  Or I think some people do that. Yep.
• 35:24
  I think so, depending on what month it's working, right.
• 35:26
  Family members that don't hike can come.
• 35:28
  Yeah. I think a similar concept of me
• 35:31
  like Moose is a fairly easy hike.
• 35:34
  So if people that you're friends with hike but aren't, you know,
• 35:38
  over the top, those are good ones.
• 35:39
  So Canon can be one that's fairly.
• 35:41
  And obviously it's a good view like Frank Coney Ridge is very
• 35:44
  nice, but it's just wouldn't isn't one that I would have
• 35:46
  thought of. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:48
  But that was the number one. So that was 22 all.
• 35:50
  Right, so I got. Two.
• 35:51
  Yeah, that was no, that was better than me.
• 35:52
  All I had was moose. OK.
• 35:54
  And then on the other end, I said which one is the least
• 35:58
  finished? So there were six peaks that had
• 36:01
  no finishes, that's had no grid finishes.
• 36:04
  So this one's going to be a little bit tougher.
• 36:05
  We don't. I'll give you a little bit of
• 36:07
  hints. A Carter has to be one of them.
• 36:09
  Like a Carter. Dome and S Carter's on there,
• 36:12
  which I will say I finished my 48 on Carter Dome, so shout out
• 36:16
  Carter Dome. But yes, Carter Dome, no one's
• 36:19
  finished on Carter's S Carter. And then honestly these.
• 36:23
  Three of them are on good hikes, but they're peaks that like
• 36:28
  they're not there's other peaks around them.
• 36:30
  So I. So you don't tend to get land on
• 36:32
  it. Yeah.
• 36:33
  So can you guess that? Is Flume one of them?
• 36:34
  No Flume. Is not one of them.
• 36:39
  One of them is crazy. Oh geez, now you're putting me
• 36:43
  on the. Spot I'll give you a hint, it's
• 36:46
  one of the longest hikes so. Not OWL, no people have.
• 36:51
  Definitely finished it Owl you already talked about the longest
• 36:53
  most into. I won't do that 12 times.
• 36:55
  Oh, oh, so like a bond bond. Yeah, so West bond, right,
• 36:59
  Because people. Never finish on.
• 37:01
  Bond, right. Yes, right.
• 37:03
  Bond. OK.
• 37:03
  Yeah, that's totally. But that is so crazy because
• 37:05
  that's one of the best peaks, right?
• 37:08
  Another one, South Kinsman. I think the Kinsman's are great,
• 37:11
  but no one will ever go from the other side, right?
• 37:15
  But but that's interesting to me because you have to cross N
• 37:18
  kinsman to get to South, so then nobody's finishing on north.
• 37:24
  Oh, and wait, maybe I have. This wrong?
• 37:27
  Maybe it's North Kinsman. No, but I don't know.
• 37:29
  Maybe it is. Yeah.
• 37:31
  Maybe it must be N kinsman because in my in my head, I was,
• 37:33
  I had them switched. I was thinking N kinsman, but
• 37:36
  OK, that one's on there. I just maybe fluffed that one.
• 37:39
  E Osceola. E Osceola, which is weird
• 37:42
  because I get I don't know I I get you fit Osceola is like a
• 37:47
  better peak EC Osceola doesn't really have much going for but a
• 37:50
  lot of people do that hike from triple I so it's like.
• 37:53
  That was kind of weird. And then Hancock.
• 37:56
  Yeah, but someone has finished on one of the Hancocks or South
• 38:00
  Hancock. So interesting my friend.
• 38:02
  So I, so there's a, there's you have to be on either team North
• 38:06
  or Team S for Hancock. Oh, oh, this is so we talk about
• 38:10
  what your. Team is team N, your team N all
• 38:13
  the way. My friends are divided.
• 38:16
  She's talking about which way do you hike the Hancock Loop.
• 38:19
  Do you go up the north or do you go up the South and you always
• 38:21
  go up north? I like N, I've gone up S twice,
• 38:24
  once because I did it for a friend, once because it was in a
• 38:28
  shoulder season and South was more ice like.
• 38:31
  I knew heading into it S was more icy and I definitely want
• 38:34
  to go up that versus down, but I will every other time go N 1st.
• 38:39
  So that's interesting. So I think you maybe have bred
• 38:41
  that in me a little. Bit because I've.
• 38:43
  Probably been on them like maybe 10 times at this point and I
• 38:46
  think I've always going up north, but last weekend I was
• 38:49
  out with Ryan and we went up South.
• 38:51
  And how did you feel about that? I actually loved it because the
• 38:54
  the descent down N was easier because it's a little bit less
• 38:57
  steep because we don't really care about extra.
• 39:00
  Like your thought process is you don't like the final climb back
• 39:03
  up to north or whatever. So I don't like descents, so
• 39:08
  you're a good descender and my friends that like South, so I
• 39:12
  would rather go on the shorter. So coming down South is shorter,
• 39:17
  so if I have to go down something, it's steeper.
• 39:19
  But it's shorter. I would rather go less.
• 39:22
  OK. Yes, that makes sense.
• 39:23
  I see. Yeah, because for me, North was
• 39:25
  just a little bit easier grade and there were a few spots where
• 39:28
  we kind of got a little bit, the truck conditions were awesome.
• 39:30
  So we flew down and I think it took us 6 minutes.
• 39:32
  It was awesome. I just did North Hancocks this
• 39:35
  last week too, and we were able to get down South pretty quick
• 39:39
  too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:41
  Without it, without even. I don't even think I, I don't, I
• 39:44
  know I did not butt slide, but I had on, we were able to the snow
• 39:49
  was so powdery that we could like basically stand up skiing
• 39:51
  almost the whole way down. That's what it was on North.
• 39:53
  Yeah, it wasn't. There were a few patches of ice
• 39:56
  I felt like going up South and on north, but there you kind of
• 40:00
  just like we just jumped over it and the rest was just nice
• 40:02
  slidy. So it was good conditions.
• 40:05
  What? What is the biggest hike you've
• 40:07
  ever done? I think is it the Pemi loop?
• 40:08
  You did a Pemi loop, Is that your biggest day?
• 40:11
  The Pemi loop and. A single day Pemi loop.
• 40:14
  A single day Pemi loop and then I did the GRT and the
• 40:17
  Adirondacks. So the great range traverse and
• 40:20
  a Prezi. I would say the the the Pemi and
• 40:25
  the great range traverse were harder than the Prezi and the
• 40:30
  time on feet I was the longest was the Pemi.
• 40:33
  The Pemi, Yeah, but that's still a good little hike there.
• 40:36
  I never thought I wanted to do a penny, was never on my list of
• 40:41
  things to challenge I and then life happened and went through
• 40:48
  some stuff and decided that I wanted to show the world what
• 40:51
  for? For myself.
• 40:53
  Yeah. And, and so in June of 2024, it
• 40:58
  was on my radar, but I thought I would do it more like, excuse
• 41:03
  me, in like August, September, right when the, when the
• 41:06
  humidity starts to come down. And I had a friend reach out to
• 41:11
  me probably the third week in June and she knew it was kind of
• 41:16
  on my radar. And she's like, hey, you want to
• 41:18
  do a Pemi on Friday? And I think the weather that day
• 41:21
  was going to be 9000% humidity and 80°.
• 41:23
  And I was like, absolutely, positively no.
• 41:27
  But I do want to do one with you.
• 41:29
  If we got by the weather. And then like 5 days later, the
• 41:32
  forecast came out for like a 60° day. 0 humidity in June and she
• 41:39
  was off and I was off and we went and grabbed it and it was a
• 41:43
  phenomenal day. Phenomenal day.
• 41:45
  Yep. And I'll say that was one of my
• 41:47
  better walks out of Lincoln Woods.
• 41:49
  Like I was riding a high. It wasn't the death March.
• 41:53
  I I just had a death March not too long ago, but that
• 41:56
  particular day was a good day to walk out.
• 41:59
  Yeah, very nice. Yeah.
• 42:00
  And what was the didn't Larson text text you after you finished
• 42:02
  that? What?
• 42:03
  Did he he? Did he suggested something?
• 42:06
  I forget what, oh what did he say to me?
• 42:08
  I forget what he said. He said Hut to Hut next right.
• 42:11
  Hut to Hut next. Yes, yes.
• 42:13
  I had seen an article about him. So I texted him and, you know,
• 42:16
  kind of gave him some good, good thoughts and and then said, hey,
• 42:19
  by the way, I just did this. And that's what he he jumped
• 42:22
  right on. And he's like, oh, what's next?
• 42:23
  The Hut to Hut? Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 42:26
  I'll leave that to you. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:28
  Yeah, that might that might be on my plans this year.
• 42:30
  Great We'll see Yeah, we'll see Yeah, any from all your hikes
• 42:36
  and stuff I feel like are there any underrated like obviously
• 42:41
  the 4000 foot peaks are pretty well known.
• 42:44
  A lot of people know the good ones, but any non 4000 footers
• 42:47
  or just hikes that you think are underrated that people maybe
• 42:51
  don't get out to that are kind of more casual hikers that they
• 42:54
  should? Sure.
• 42:56
  So I really enjoy doing the 52 with the view.
• 42:59
  And I think so. I am on social media, like I'm
• 43:03
  on some of the Facebook groups and a lot of times people are
• 43:06
  asking, you know, what should I do for my first hike or
• 43:08
  whatever. And people will often say like,
• 43:11
  oh, don't do a 4K, do a 52 with the view, which there's validity
• 43:15
  to that in some points. But some of those 50 twos are
• 43:18
  equally if not harder than a 4K. But you know, like getting out,
• 43:23
  like the bald faces are just a gem of a hike.
• 43:27
  And I think people that know know that those are great.
• 43:32
  They're fur, they're as furthest E as you can go.
• 43:35
  So they're a little bit off the beaten path and maybe not on
• 43:38
  everybody's radar, but loved that Percy Peaks another like
• 43:42
  spectacular hike in the same in somewhat of a same general area.
• 43:48
  I love Table Mountain. I think Table Mountain's
• 43:50
  beautiful. All right, I did that once.
• 43:53
  Well, I did it once and maybe. Is it on 52 with?
• 43:57
  The view it is on 52 with the view.
• 43:58
  Yep Yep I did it once and it just it probably didn't register
• 44:03
  as as well with me. Is it?
• 44:04
  Well, it wasn't. Maybe not a full hike, but
• 44:06
  that's one of my little like. I feel like.
• 44:08
  Small views where you're just in the mountainside.
• 44:11
  Like the Crawford, Mount Crawford is a great one.
• 44:14
  I've been on Willard like a handful of times recently,
• 44:17
  bringing people that aren't big hikers on it.
• 44:20
  And that is such a great, especially, like in winter.
• 44:22
  It's so nice. Yeah, I've been up there.
• 44:25
  I I love that. Have you ever been up to what is
• 44:29
  it Dix, Dixfield, Knox so. Notch doing the T25, the
• 44:33
  terrifying 25, I'll say, forced me to do that because it's a
• 44:37
  really long drive. Yeah, it's like what, 4 hours?
• 44:40
  From here, I think from here it's like 320 maybe.
• 44:42
  OK, so on that list though, the way I did that was this trail
• 44:48
  called the Ice Couch trail. It's not a peak at all.
• 44:50
  It's just a trail in Randolph, so not far from Valley Way for
• 44:55
  off of Route 2. That's on a mandatory trail on
• 44:59
  the T25. So we did that.
• 45:01
  I had two friends come with me that day.
• 45:03
  And then from there it's maybe a 45 minute drive to Dixville
• 45:06
  Notch, maybe almost an hour. And I just said I'm just going,
• 45:10
  I'm going to, we're going to, I'm going to do ice Couch and
• 45:12
  I'm just driving up there. And one of the one of Kathy came
• 45:16
  with me to do the second hikes was Table Rock.
• 45:19
  Table Rock. Is that the one that everyone?
• 45:22
  Yeah. And you see pictures from that.
• 45:25
  I will tell you, for me, outside of Huntington's in that one spot
• 45:28
  and then one spot on, I think the Great Gully Trail in King's
• 45:33
  Ravine were the only terrifying ones.
• 45:37
  That Table Rock for me is terrifying.
• 45:40
  The trail is not terrifying. We got there.
• 45:42
  We parked. Oh, just the rock itself.
• 45:44
  The rock, OK. It is.
• 45:47
  So I think it literally took us 21 minutes to get to the top.
• 45:51
  I'm like, I would have driven 3 1/2 hours for a 21 minute hike.
• 45:54
  Like that's crazy. So, you know, we paired it with
• 45:56
  something else, but we got to the top.
• 45:58
  The trail is just straight up dirt.
• 46:00
  You're in the woods, but when you get to the top, you walk out
• 46:04
  onto this flat area and the beginning, I don't know if it's
• 46:09
  50 yards maybe in total, but I could get to the 45 yard line.
• 46:16
  I could not go the last because the the end of it is a 270
• 46:23
  degrees, 700 feet straight drop all around and I can go out on
• 46:29
  bond Cliff. I was just going.
• 46:29
  To say, haven't you been on the bond Cliff?
• 46:31
  Road Cliff. I've been on Bond Cliff more
• 46:33
  than a dozen. There's a crack you got to get
• 46:35
  over on that one. There is a crack, but I don't
• 46:36
  know, mentally I can do it. I could not.
• 46:39
  I my knees were, my legs were gel.
• 46:42
  No. Yep, Yep.
• 46:43
  So it was beautiful. And I think, you know, if you're
• 46:47
  up there, it's great to combine it with something else.
• 46:50
  But I would never tell anybody. Like don't drive 3 1/2 hours.
• 46:53
  Just incorporate something else into it.
• 46:55
  Yeah. Yeah, no, that's interesting.
• 46:57
  I've one day, I think it had popped up on some sort of thing
• 47:00
  I was looking at. I was like, what is this in in
• 47:03
  New Hampshire? I hadn't heard about it, but.
• 47:05
  Yeah, it used to be the the Balsams used to be a pretty big
• 47:09
  destination place and it's a shame what's happened there.
• 47:12
  But so I don't think isn't not as many folks get up there at
• 47:16
  all. Yeah, it's really pretty, Yeah.
• 47:20
  OK, you talked about the Facebook pages that I know that
• 47:23
  I think we had talked about this a little bit previously, but
• 47:25
  what kind of what tools would you say for people getting into
• 47:28
  hiking or like trying to link up?
• 47:29
  Obviously like there's lots of groups and stuff.
• 47:32
  Yeah, but what like tools like where do you go to find
• 47:34
  information whether cuz one thing that Jocelyn has said to
• 47:38
  me, like she doesn't have a really great place that she can
• 47:41
  go if she feels like online and find out like what hikes do
• 47:44
  people do together? What is kind of like, I feel
• 47:47
  like a lot of the grid and the 48, you know, websites are kind
• 47:50
  of like older and there's some, there's some great info out
• 47:52
  there, but it's not like they're readily available.
• 47:56
  So I should, I should have brought it out 'cause I could
• 47:58
  have shown. So I started off #1 My first
• 48:01
  resource that I got was Steve Smith wrote a book on hiking the
• 48:04
  4000 footers. That is, it's a maroon book.
• 48:08
  And Matt used to say, oh, I forgot you have that red book
• 48:10
  because that was my Bible. So I would tell and, and to me,
• 48:14
  I like it better than the White Mountain Guide.
• 48:16
  I did get that one afterwards. I find Steve's book a little bit
• 48:21
  easier to understand just navigating trailheads, that kind
• 48:25
  of stuff. He's got great sections in there
• 48:27
  on what winter looks like, like what's the, you know, the
• 48:31
  preferred winter approach. Where do you park for winter?
• 48:35
  So and I actually recently somebody had asked me about one
• 48:39
  of my hikes online that I posted in a group and a gentleman kept
• 48:42
  asking questions and it clearly he, he didn't have a lot of
• 48:46
  information. And what I felt comfortable with
• 48:48
  was saying to him, go get this book because this book is going
• 48:51
  to help you like better than anybody else.
• 48:53
  So I started with that book. I get a get a lot of information
• 48:59
  from the Hiking and Climbing 4000 footer page to hike the
• 49:02
  4000 footers. When I first decided that I
• 49:06
  wanted to hike in winter, I did not hike the first winter that I
• 49:10
  was hiking. I basically sat here and read
• 49:14
  every Facebook post that anybody put out there to learn what are
• 49:18
  people hiking together? Where do they go in from?
• 49:22
  If somebody asked a question, I smartly just sat back and read
• 49:25
  the answers instead of, you know, putting yourself out
• 49:29
  there. Sometimes people will be a
• 49:30
  little snarky on on some. Yeah, sometimes some of those I
• 49:33
  hear about, some of the stuff gets a little bit spicy.
• 49:35
  On it, it can. It can get spicy.
• 49:37
  I don't. Have Facebook but.
• 49:38
  I hear about something, yes, but I learned a lot by by looking at
• 49:41
  what other people were asking and reading the responses that
• 49:44
  they got. Yeah, I don't know how long it
• 49:48
  took me, but newenglandtrailconditions.com is
• 49:51
  an excellent source of what are people actively hiking right
• 49:56
  now. What does that trail look like?
• 49:58
  You know what are the obstacles? And in the winter when like
• 50:02
  obviously the snow is a huge factor, like in the summer, it
• 50:05
  kind of every, you know, it could be similar, but in the
• 50:06
  winter it's very nice that people are when's the last time
• 50:09
  someone out there, what did it look like?
• 50:11
  Right. And I, I try to do, I do post, I
• 50:13
  do write a trip report almost every time unless I go on and
• 50:15
  look at it and somebody just did it the same day, then I'm not
• 50:18
  going to do one too. And in spring and summer, it's
• 50:21
  good when you have a big rainfall because people will
• 50:22
  really key in on water crossings and stuff like that, which is
• 50:25
  important. So I use that trails.
• 50:29
  Newhampshire.com is kind of like a, a sourced page where if you
• 50:35
  put in the peak that you want, it'll give you, it'll connect
• 50:39
  you to the NOAA forecast, which I use quite a bit.
• 50:44
  And then it also gives you, you can click there and there's a
• 50:47
  trip report section that pulls in from other things, not just
• 50:52
  New England trail conditions. So people are posting a trip
• 50:55
  report on all trails. It'll, it'll come up on that.
• 51:00
  So I use it more for the weather than anything else.
• 51:03
  So if I'm looking at a high weather peak, then I am looking
• 51:07
  at the weather in the town that I'm going to.
• 51:09
  I'm looking at that trails. newhampshire.com.
• 51:12
  I'll go in and pull up the NOAA forecast.
• 51:15
  It gives you hour by hour. What the temperature, wind
• 51:18
  chill, winds, gusts. There's a an ability to click on
• 51:23
  visibility. I think it gives a six day
• 51:26
  window, but the visibility in the ceiling height is only like
• 51:30
  a 24 hour window. If you try to go out further
• 51:32
  than that, it won't tell you. So like if I want to do a
• 51:34
  sunrise, I'll be looking at it to see that it gives you cloud
• 51:38
  cover. So you're kind of going to know,
• 51:41
  you know, where it where are the clouds?
• 51:42
  Mountain Forecast is another tool.
• 51:45
  That when I go on, it's just kind of like an easier, probably
• 51:47
  a little bit less. It's it's you have to take that
• 51:50
  a little bit with a grain of salt.
• 51:51
  Sometimes it nails the forecast where the other ones don't.
• 51:55
  Now they want you to pay for subscription.
• 51:58
  I know it gets it's getting crazy.
• 51:59
  Out there. So now you only get a 24 hour
• 52:01
  detailed look. Yeah, you can still see further
• 52:03
  than that. I always just use that one,
• 52:05
  honestly. Yeah.
• 52:05
  But you have to play because sometimes, yeah, you only have
• 52:08
  those 3. And you have to like, be like,
• 52:10
  all right. It says in the morning it's
• 52:11
  gonna be fine. But it overnight, it's gonna be
• 52:13
  -30 wind chill, it's gonna be cold if you start early.
• 52:15
  Right. Yeah.
• 52:17
  And then anything that I'm doing in the presidentials, I'm gonna
• 52:19
  use Mount Washington for sure. Yeah, that one is like, I feel
• 52:23
  like, obviously, I feel like I trust that one the most.
• 52:26
  Like they are extremely precise but it's more like the Prezis.
• 52:29
  But I think it applies to higher peaks sometimes.
• 52:32
  Sometimes if they say that, you know, like so some of the words
• 52:36
  that they use are cloudy but out of the clouds, right?
• 52:41
  So that means that there's a high cloud ceiling, but the
• 52:45
  summit is not going to be in the clouds.
• 52:47
  That can be true for Washington and not true for anything.
• 52:49
  Everything. Else, right, you can be stuck in
• 52:52
  a cloud and and I've been on Washington looking down at
• 52:54
  Monroe and thinking, oh boy, that peak isn't seeing the light
• 52:58
  of day today, you know, But if you go another half mile up
• 53:03
  trail, you're in this gorgeous, beautiful undercast, right?
• 53:07
  So yeah, now I feel like the weather is definitely, I don't
• 53:12
  know, in the winter you have to pay more attention, but it can
• 53:14
  change and be a little bit different and you just gotta
• 53:16
  kind of like make good decisions.
• 53:18
  Yep, gridders and people that wanna get out hiking become semi
• 53:21
  meteorologists if I wanna hike a big peak or a big day.
• 53:28
  If someone were to look at the history on my phone, I have
• 53:30
  checked that weather 95 times before I've gone.
• 53:33
  If I want it to be in my favor, I keep checking to see if it's
• 53:35
  getting better. Watch how does not get.
• 53:38
  Worse. Yeah, a meteorologist and a
• 53:40
  layerologist. I feel like in the winter I
• 53:42
  really dial in. All right, If it's 17°, I'm
• 53:45
  wearing this. If it's if it's fifteen, I'm I
• 53:48
  need. Whatever.
• 53:49
  Yeah, and funny about that. So, you know, we had a pretty
• 53:52
  cold stretch for a while, right? So you get all the layers and
• 53:55
  the day that from Molly's grid finish, you know we're all
• 53:59
  excited and it was going to be a nice day and three of us women
• 54:04
  as we're hiking up the Jewel Trail were like, Oh no, we wore
• 54:07
  2 layers on our. Blades, yeah, don't.
• 54:10
  Give Why do we have the second layer?
• 54:12
  We're so hot. So in 20° in sunshine on Mount
• 54:15
  Washington, you will sweat. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:18
  That's one thing I learned. Like last one, obviously
• 54:21
  December was very cold, but last winter there was a few weekends
• 54:24
  in a row, maybe 3 or 4, where it was negative 20s plus every
• 54:28
  weekend. And I got out and then when I go
• 54:31
  the next weekend and the wind chill is 15, I'm in AT shirt and
• 54:35
  like, yes, I have layers. It is a drastic change.
• 54:38
  It is a drastic. Change.
• 54:39
  So we kind of got maybe used to that cold in December and now,
• 54:43
  yeah, temps have been better, yeah.
• 54:45
  But I think one of the things, so I think you had talked about
• 54:48
  like some things that I've learned, one of the things that
• 54:52
  I've learned like with Prezi's is you know, you can get a
• 54:55
  forecast that says it's going to be windy in the morning and then
• 54:57
  midday things are going to improve.
• 55:00
  And that's kind of, you know, there's a little bit of element
• 55:03
  of risk there, right? Of what are you going to do?
• 55:07
  I have had probably 5 different times where I had a forecast
• 55:11
  that looked like that, that I really wanted to hike Madison
• 55:15
  and Adams. And I did every single time I
• 55:18
  went. And I love that, having those
• 55:23
  peaks for that forecast because you hike 3 1/2 miles up in the
• 55:27
  woods, you're fully protected and you can stick your nose out
• 55:30
  at the Hut. And if it doesn't look good and
• 55:33
  you just hightail it right back out of there.
• 55:35
  And if it is, then you've kind of, you know, kind of grabbed
• 55:38
  that, you know, kind of like threaded the needle of the
• 55:40
  window forecast. And I've been able to do that
• 55:43
  successfully a handful of times and gotten such beautiful days.
• 55:48
  But as I'm hiking up, like one time Kathy and I were hiking it
• 55:51
  and it was a key peek for her cuz she needed to do it to
• 55:54
  finish her grid. And we left the house and Mount
• 55:58
  Washington was 90 miles an hour and we're driving.
• 56:01
  But it's supposed to like it's intimidating.
• 56:03
  It is. And you know, we're sitting in
• 56:05
  the parking lot and like, what are we going to do?
• 56:07
  Maybe we should just go hike Mariah.
• 56:09
  But what if the forecast, right? And we sit there and I'm like,
• 56:12
  all right, well, it's 65 now. If that's what it's supposed to
• 56:16
  be doing, let's walk. Let's start walking up.
• 56:19
  Yeah. And every half an hour we're
• 56:20
  checking in. I'm like, OK, now it's 58.
• 56:23
  It is doing what they said it was gonna do.
• 56:25
  By the time we get to the summit, it was probably 17 miles
• 56:29
  an hour in Mount Washington and just fabulous, beautiful,
• 56:31
  beautiful. Yeah.
• 56:32
  Yeah. So having that information right
• 56:34
  there available is is great. Yeah, now it is a game changer.
• 56:38
  Yep. And like you mentioned to me
• 56:41
  before we started today, you said obviously you've learned a
• 56:43
  lot, but also you learn something new every time you go
• 56:46
  out there, which is a good take. Yes, Yep.
• 56:50
  I think I've honed in on like and I think some of it probably
• 56:56
  started hiking with you. Like in winter, you have to have
• 56:59
  your stuff dialed in. Like you need to know if you
• 57:02
  don't need, you know when you're hiking up, you're you're going
• 57:04
  to be hot, you're going to be sweating.
• 57:05
  You don't need all the layers, but when you need that next
• 57:08
  thing like you can't be messing around with where is it?
• 57:12
  Yeah, you got to know where it is.
• 57:13
  You got to want to be able to get it quick.
• 57:16
  Because if you stop for a minute or two in the winter when you're
• 57:19
  sweating and working, it's I don't think people understand.
• 57:23
  And that's what when we did. And I think honestly, this is
• 57:25
  another thing just between me and you.
• 57:29
  I think it was good for both of us.
• 57:31
  There's kind of like sometimes there's a little bit of a hiking
• 57:33
  community and a little bit of a trail running community.
• 57:36
  And sometimes people have different views or different
• 57:39
  styles. But I feel like we see both
• 57:42
  sides of it. And we've learned, like I've
• 57:44
  taken some trip tricks from you and you've maybe taken some
• 57:47
  tricks from me and like can see kind of, yeah.
• 57:50
  Because there are like there is value to different things.
• 57:52
  Because I feel like some people will look at me when I'm on the
• 57:54
  trails running in the winter, very lightweight.
• 57:57
  And they're like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing,
• 57:59
  but like, I am a technician of where everything is.
• 58:02
  And I know when I need to do certain things like the, the,
• 58:07
  the almost like the weight of decisions, like you need to put
• 58:11
  this on or do this right now before you know what I mean,
• 58:14
  Right. So yeah, it's just a balance.
• 58:16
  Yeah, and even like I forget which one of the hikes that I
• 58:19
  just did recently, it was it was cold.
• 58:22
  It's super windy. Like, you know, you're like, and
• 58:25
  I'm with people, OK, when we get to X, we're going to stop.
• 58:28
  You have to have your plan already in your head.
• 58:30
  I need to do these three things and I can't mess around and if I
• 58:35
  don't do them or if I take too long doing them, I'm going to my
• 58:39
  hands are going to get too cold. I'm not going to be able to do
• 58:41
  XY and Z. So that's been good.
• 58:43
  One of the other things that I adopted, I used to always have
• 58:48
  my food in my pack and there was one hike that I did so 1 Owl's
• 58:52
  head. I had an absolutely miserable,
• 58:54
  it was a winter hike with a group going up Brutus.
• 58:58
  I was just toast. And every time they, this whole
• 59:03
  group was waiting for me. And every time I caught up to
• 59:05
  them immediately. I'm just back and we got to the,
• 59:09
  you know, so we got to the summit.
• 59:10
  We all got there and they waited for me every time they needed
• 59:13
  to. And I had something to eat.
• 59:15
  And I said, Oh my God, I was, I was, I was low.
• 59:19
  I needed fuel. And why, why didn't I eat well
• 59:24
  at the bottom of Brutus? Everybody was, you know, getting
• 59:27
  a drink, having a snack, maybe changing a gear.
• 59:31
  And, and I had to, I had to use the ladies room.
• 59:35
  I took too long. And by the time I got back and I
• 59:38
  was, everybody was ready to go. I hadn't grabbed my food and it
• 59:43
  was in the depths of my pack and so I adopted.
• 59:46
  Since then I have a Fanny pack and all of my food is in that
• 59:50
  pack and then I will never not be able to get my food again
• 59:53
  because all I needed was to eat. Yeah, that's, I mean, most of
• 59:56
  the time if you're feeling crappy, you just need to eat
• 59:58
  right. Yeah, that's one reason I really
• 1:00:00
  like, I mean, I just like Tailwind or like some sort of
• 1:00:03
  mix, whatever sugar mixer is like.
• 1:00:05
  I think they're mostly the same. Especially in the winter
• 1:00:08
  because, yeah, it's harder to get things out, so I don't want
• 1:00:11
  to stop and get snacks. So I just load up one of my
• 1:00:13
  bottles or two of my bottles, so I always have calories right
• 1:00:15
  there. Right.
• 1:00:16
  Yeah, which is easier. And my friends tend to like they
• 1:00:19
  some of them have a pocket in their jacket and so they just
• 1:00:22
  keep it. Yeah.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah. You want that stuff closed
• 1:00:24
  because you don't want to be digging for it.
• 1:00:25
  Yeah, yeah. Anything I go on on a hike that
• 1:00:28
  I am planning to use like a non-emergency thing is within,
• 1:00:33
  like I can just do it while I'm running, like it was certain
• 1:00:35
  stuff. Yeah, yeah, cuz.
• 1:00:36
  When you feel that cold, and obviously you've felt it, but it
• 1:00:40
  is that is something where when you get that -20 negative 30
• 1:00:44
  windshield, it is brutal. Yeah, it's crazy.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah, so Dad and I, I think it was last winter, we hiked with
• 1:00:51
  my friend Rebecca and it was one of those, you know, we probably
• 1:00:54
  started in -10 and it was obviously going to be more than
• 1:00:57
  that. We were doing Garfield so great
• 1:01:00
  sheltered hike. And it was, I think it was going
• 1:01:03
  to be a nice, I think we were going to have views that day.
• 1:01:05
  I can't remember that part, but you know, you're only going to
• 1:01:07
  pop out for a minute and then get back down.
• 1:01:10
  So we, you know, made our way along the trail and got to the,
• 1:01:15
  the, the junction where you've got that, you know, .2 pitch
• 1:01:19
  left to go. And we stopped and we got a
• 1:01:22
  drink and we all decided not to gear up at that point because we
• 1:01:27
  had some more climbing to go. And we're like, we're going to
• 1:01:28
  gear up at that one segment, like just below the summit, like
• 1:01:32
  we're going to gear up there. So we we all go up there and we
• 1:01:37
  get to that spot and we realize immediately that was too late.
• 1:01:42
  We should have done it down lower.
• 1:01:43
  We should have just went slower on the up.
• 1:01:46
  So now we're all trying to put our gear on.
• 1:01:48
  And another, Stephanie ISM, is you put your stuff in your bag
• 1:01:53
  the way that you want it, IE if you take a jacket off, don't
• 1:01:57
  pull the sleeves through, right? Because when you pull that
• 1:02:00
  jacket out the next time you want to be able to put it on.
• 1:02:02
  Oh, I've been there with a flapping jacket upside down,
• 1:02:05
  thinking, Oh my God, the zipper's not going.
• 1:02:08
  Yes, so Rebecca was struggling with her jacket because it
• 1:02:11
  wasn't in the way it should have been.
• 1:02:13
  And when you're cold, it gets so much harder.
• 1:02:16
  Everything is harder. Yep.
• 1:02:19
  So dad and I got geared up mostly she was having a little
• 1:02:23
  bit of a trouble. She finally did.
• 1:02:26
  And we all and and you know, I like to take pictures.
• 1:02:28
  So Dad says to me, we're going to do one picture, so be ready.
• 1:02:32
  And then we're getting the hell out of there, right?
• 1:02:34
  Yeah. So we get up there and and
• 1:02:37
  Rebecca was maybe 30 seconds behind us, so we had to wait
• 1:02:41
  maybe maybe one minute longer than we thought.
• 1:02:43
  She comes up, we take our picture and we go back down and
• 1:02:48
  and then we just scurry, right? We scurry down the steep back to
• 1:02:52
  that that landing spot and she says to me, your nose is white.
• 1:02:58
  So I had that skin surgery before where the skin up here
• 1:03:03
  because we were only going to go on the summit for like a minute.
• 1:03:07
  I had like I had the right jacket on, but I didn't bother
• 1:03:10
  to get a neck thing to and to cover my face because I was
• 1:03:14
  like, oh, it'll just be fast. We'll just get in and out and my
• 1:03:19
  skin hits. I did not get frostbite, but I
• 1:03:22
  think had I stayed one or two more minutes, I would have had
• 1:03:25
  the beginnings of frostbite. So.
• 1:03:27
  And that was just being, I'll say, like, not prepared where we
• 1:03:30
  should have done it sooner. And then a little bit lazy,
• 1:03:33
  like, oh, I don't need it. It's only a minute.
• 1:03:36
  And that was in when the meteorologist talk about if it's
• 1:03:40
  -20 or -25 wind chills, how fast it can happen.
• 1:03:43
  They're not kidding. Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  So. No, it is.
• 1:03:46
  It is crazy out there. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  And we're in the midst of it, January.
• 1:03:50
  Yes, we are. Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  Winter. Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  Yeah. I've adopted goggles and are
• 1:03:55
  really. Alyssa got me a really nice
• 1:03:58
  Skida neck warmer. Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  And so sticking that under the goggles, the goggles come over.
• 1:04:04
  I have neck. Warmers.
• 1:04:05
  I have a good system for everything to be covered now.
• 1:04:07
  Yeah, I don't know what goggles. If I have to wear them, I just,
• 1:04:11
  I'll do a peek in the trees or something because I don't like
• 1:04:13
  wearing them. Yeah, I don't.
• 1:04:14
  They just can't. They just get bogged up for me.
• 1:04:16
  Maybe I don't have a good one. I the pair, I don't even know
• 1:04:19
  what the brand I have and I'm going to tell you, I know I
• 1:04:21
  didn't pay more than $60.00 for them.
• 1:04:23
  They have been serving me very well.
• 1:04:25
  I can't wear my glasses with them then they'll fog up.
• 1:04:28
  But I have been able to wear them and this winter I've worn
• 1:04:32
  them three times already, which I probably haven't worn them
• 1:04:35
  three times in another winter ever.
• 1:04:36
  Yeah, yeah, it's been a tough winter.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah. Nice.
• 1:04:41
  Another thing I kind of want to talk to you about was so
• 1:04:44
  obviously you've helped me in a lot of my races and race efforts
• 1:04:49
  and you've seen kind of the evolution of my running and
• 1:04:52
  you've crewed it all. So I want to get some of your
• 1:04:55
  takeaways and maybe some stories from crewing cuz maybe I'll
• 1:04:57
  start off with the story. I do remember the first run that
• 1:05:01
  I did, the 50 mile thing, the. 50 mile 1 here.
• 1:05:04
  Here, I think that was my I mean, that was my first time
• 1:05:08
  doing an ultra marathon. Yeah, but you, I wouldn't say
• 1:05:10
  you crewed me because I just came back here, but you were
• 1:05:13
  encouraging. And then you paced 17 miles.
• 1:05:16
  Yes. Right.
• 1:05:16
  And I think me during that, there was one time that I
• 1:05:20
  remember it being like, Mom, you have to stop talking right now
• 1:05:24
  because I am in pain. I have a headache.
• 1:05:26
  This is horrible. Please stop.
• 1:05:27
  Yes. Probably not in the nicest way.
• 1:05:30
  I apologize. It's OK.
• 1:05:31
  But I think I've come a long way and I think we have together,
• 1:05:36
  like, you know, what I need and how do I crew things?
• 1:05:38
  So what? What are some crew tips that
• 1:05:41
  you've learned to keep me from? Keep me going?
• 1:05:44
  Well, so I'll start with I'm always nervous to crew for you
• 1:05:47
  because I don't want to let you down.
• 1:05:49
  It is a nerve wracking thing just in general crewing or
• 1:05:51
  passing somebody. Because you are like when you do
• 1:05:54
  your ultras, you, you are in it to win it, so to speak, whether,
• 1:05:58
  whether you really think you're going to win it, but.
• 1:06:00
  You have my best. You want and so you are about
• 1:06:03
  the minutes like other people. People are like, OK, I'm going
• 1:06:05
  to take a breather. You don't want to do that.
• 1:06:07
  Like you want to keep going. I'll do that every.
• 1:06:09
  So learning that, you know, having everything as ready to go
• 1:06:14
  as possible for you is important.
• 1:06:16
  And I remember with the hellbender when that hailstorm
• 1:06:20
  came, that was such. I was so upset because prior to
• 1:06:24
  that it was not sunny, but it was fine and I had everything
• 1:06:28
  laid out for you. Everything was going to be like
• 1:06:30
  what? Here is your shopping list to
• 1:06:32
  tell me what you need. Which is perfect when you have
• 1:06:35
  things, you have the media and everything.
• 1:06:37
  Because you, when you come into a pit stop like you don't always
• 1:06:41
  want everything. Like, you know the thing that
• 1:06:43
  you want. And I think it's frustrating
• 1:06:45
  maybe for crudes and you could say a lot of the times if like
• 1:06:48
  certain things are working, I actually don't want 90% of what
• 1:06:52
  you have. Available, but it's like.
• 1:06:54
  In case I needed. It yeah, you want your options
• 1:06:56
  and then, you know, on that given day, what like is feeling
• 1:06:59
  good for you So yeah, so I had everything there for you to see
• 1:07:03
  everything. And then I had to scurry and put
• 1:07:05
  it all away 'cause it's all getting wet and I felt more
• 1:07:08
  discombobulated there. So.
• 1:07:10
  But that's, I mean, that's Weather Hill.
• 1:07:12
  Yeah, right. Yeah, Yep.
• 1:07:14
  So having everything organized, ready to go, you've, you know,
• 1:07:18
  encouraged and and drilled that into me.
• 1:07:20
  Like, you know, this is what I'm probably gonna want.
• 1:07:23
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do.
• 1:07:25
  That is a good point. Like there are things that I, I
• 1:07:28
  noticed and I can't predict for sure, I'm pretty sure.
• 1:07:30
  But then when I get there, I know exactly what I want and I
• 1:07:32
  just need to get it and kind of get going, right?
• 1:07:34
  Yeah, yeah, the hellbender one. I was just that was the last
• 1:07:38
  week. I don't know if.
• 1:07:39
  You'd listened, but I talked about the.
• 1:07:40
  Hellbender. Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  And the hail storm that ruined it, That rainstorm.
• 1:07:43
  Yes, yeah, Because then it was night and it was dark and now
• 1:07:47
  it's cold and everything's wet and yeah.
• 1:07:50
  That's where it all went wrong for me yeah yeah and then you
• 1:07:54
  and then obviously you paced the Jigger Johnson 100 which that
• 1:07:57
  was a bigger endeavour I think probably easier in the fact
• 1:08:00
  that's why I think there were less stops.
• 1:08:02
  There was more time in between but you knew where you were
• 1:08:05
  going kind of thing yeah I think that one went fairly well
• 1:08:09
  crewing, right yes. That was 2 pacer, 3 pesos, which
• 1:08:13
  is kind of a lot and there was more gear because it was 40
• 1:08:15
  hours but. Yeah, Yep, yeah.
• 1:08:18
  I felt good about that one. I don't think we had any any
• 1:08:21
  snip snafus or anything in these stumbles.
• 1:08:24
  That one went smooth. Yeah, I loved the fact that you
• 1:08:27
  had Pacers for the second-half as your mother.
• 1:08:30
  That made me happy to know that you had company to keep keep you
• 1:08:34
  moving and keep you your spirits going.
• 1:08:36
  Yeah, I the, the Pacers really helped.
• 1:08:38
  I think I did Hellbender without a pacer and I kind of was like,
• 1:08:40
  well, now I don't have to kind of like worry about somebody
• 1:08:44
  else, you know, and I can just kind of run.
• 1:08:46
  But that hellbender night was probably I was just, you know,
• 1:08:50
  when things were good, I was doing good, but when I wasn't, I
• 1:08:52
  was, I was not making good decisions and.
• 1:08:55
  Because you, you're hard on yourself when you feel like
• 1:08:58
  you're falling behind. But I mean, and I know you
• 1:09:00
  didn't meet like your goal of 24 hours, but you were, you were
• 1:09:03
  not that far off. Yeah, and you, I think my A A
• 1:09:07
  goals were more like closer to 22.
• 1:09:09
  So I had fallen off and it wasn't like I wasn't moving, but
• 1:09:11
  I just wasn't move it like. Yeah, so having somebody who
• 1:09:15
  could have just supported you and boosted your spirits.
• 1:09:17
  Or been like eat something and take this caffeine and get and
• 1:09:19
  stop. Being a baby, you just.
• 1:09:20
  Literally stop. This is like one thing I've
• 1:09:23
  learned. Just if you just stop talking or
• 1:09:25
  complaining or like mentally complaining and just go, it's
• 1:09:28
  somehow you just go faster. Yeah, but lessons learned.
• 1:09:32
  The Jigger Johnson 100, the one not blip, but I think the thing
• 1:09:36
  that I actually, I don't know if I've clarified this with you.
• 1:09:38
  OK, I remember you said towards the end when you were expecting
• 1:09:43
  me to come in, so I just had up and over Tecumseh left to go.
• 1:09:46
  Yeah, that you. I was a lot later than you
• 1:09:51
  thought and I thought you said something like you got faulty
• 1:09:53
  information. I was meant to ask this, but oh
• 1:09:56
  was that I? We thought, we thought you were,
• 1:09:59
  I think we thought you were at the summit of Tecumseh and maybe
• 1:10:02
  you were just starting. And then those miles, like I
• 1:10:06
  always think, oh, once he hits Tecumseh, you know, you've done
• 1:10:09
  the jigger twice. Once you hit, he just has to
• 1:10:12
  come down. Like I'm not appreciating the
• 1:10:14
  number of miles from the end of the trailhead to the center of
• 1:10:18
  town. Like what is it like 5 or 6 more
• 1:10:20
  miles still that? You have, there's a few, yeah.
• 1:10:22
  It's it's a longer time and we were like and and that just was
• 1:10:26
  like. And I was not moving well,
• 1:10:28
  right, Because the one thing that I, I think there, I
• 1:10:31
  remember, I think Larson had driven by me on triple I road.
• 1:10:36
  And I remember down Osceola, I was having a horrible time going
• 1:10:39
  so slow. And then on Triple I, it's like
• 1:10:41
  flat and no rocks. So I was running like fairly
• 1:10:43
  good. And I was like, was he like, oh,
• 1:10:45
  he's moving good. He's ready to go.
• 1:10:46
  It must have been Larson that maybe passed that on, yeah.
• 1:10:49
  Because I as soon as I got off triple and hit the trailhead, I
• 1:10:52
  started just being do doing horrible again, being so slow.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah. And that I think the guy in
• 1:10:58
  front of me, Steven Young, I think he did become so like
• 1:11:01
  probably an hour quicker than me, like he.
• 1:11:02
  Was just, Yeah. So yeah, I think we thought you
• 1:11:06
  were going to be an hour faster than you were.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah. No, that was that was my fault.
• 1:11:11
  I just I just cratered. You're entitled after 111 miles
• 1:11:16
  to have a little slow spot. Yeah.
• 1:11:20
  And then the lodge to dodge this year, that was very much.
• 1:11:24
  Before we get to that, the one thing that I think you didn't
• 1:11:27
  point out to people that we learned from your.
• 1:11:30
  I don't know if I fully learned it yet, but.
• 1:11:32
  Well, number one, the first year in the Jigger Johnson, we didn't
• 1:11:35
  have another pair of shoes for you to put on.
• 1:11:39
  What is that true? Yes, you.
• 1:11:41
  We needed you to. We did not have slides for you
• 1:11:44
  to put on. Oh, after, after.
• 1:11:47
  OK after the race when? The race was over not having
• 1:11:50
  like, yeah, warm stuff for you to wear and the right like shoes
• 1:11:54
  to get your feet. Off a ton of layers and warm
• 1:11:57
  stuff like puffies even in the summer, and then some sort of
• 1:11:59
  shoe that you don't have to cram your foot.
• 1:12:01
  Right. That you can just slide exactly
• 1:12:04
  because you want to get your feet out of the shoes.
• 1:12:06
  Yeah. And then you always say this and
• 1:12:08
  you did say this on the logic to dodge to Jocelyn when she said
• 1:12:12
  what do you want for food afterwards?
• 1:12:13
  Oh, I don't want anything. You do want food afterwards.
• 1:12:16
  You, it takes you maybe about an hour or so, but then you are
• 1:12:19
  starving and you want like, you don't want snacks, you want like
• 1:12:24
  pizza or you want like one year we had to drive you to get you
• 1:12:27
  chicken Nuggets. Yes, and eating with a lot of
• 1:12:29
  calories. Midnight in the in the middle of
• 1:12:31
  the night like yeah, you needed food that is real that.
• 1:12:33
  Is another good one, substantial food, real food and yeah, it
• 1:12:36
  does your stomach's kind of mangled, but eventually your
• 1:12:38
  body comes catching up. And the other thing that I was
• 1:12:41
  mentioning that I've obviously told you and stuff, but yeah,
• 1:12:45
  your body's just so crave for all those calories.
• 1:12:47
  So you need calorie dense, like fried stuff, whatever it is,
• 1:12:50
  right? And then that morning we woke up
• 1:12:52
  in the motel room. Yes, probably one of my favorite
• 1:12:54
  meals of all time, just because I'd never been in that.
• 1:12:57
  Like my body hadn't been that hungry before.
• 1:12:59
  I probably, yeah. You brought up what was it just
• 1:13:02
  like kind of crappy. It was like eggs, bacon, I don't
• 1:13:05
  know, sausage and home fries. Bacon and home fries with a
• 1:13:08
  tooth. Just from a buffet, Yeah, and I
• 1:13:10
  need and it was the best. I ate it so.
• 1:13:13
  Fast I went. I went and got you on the plate.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah, yeah. I remember that being that meal
• 1:13:17
  being one of my favorite meals of all time.
• 1:13:19
  Yes, yeah, that was good. And then the pizza after the
• 1:13:22
  lunch dodge was a good idea and I needed.
• 1:13:24
  It, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So go ahead.
• 1:13:26
  You were going to talk about that for a bit.
• 1:13:27
  Yeah, no, the lunch dodge, I was saying that one was a first FKT
• 1:13:31
  like a non race. So I think I rely on you guys
• 1:13:35
  more because there's no one else.
• 1:13:36
  Out there, we are your aid station.
• 1:13:38
  There's no other option. You are the aid station, Yeah.
• 1:13:41
  And I think that went great. And I think.
• 1:13:43
  I, I was a little nervous about making sure because I saw you at
• 1:13:48
  Falling Waters and geared you up.
• 1:13:50
  And then I had to drive to Galehead and then hike up to
• 1:13:54
  Galehead and be there before you, which I felt like I could
• 1:13:57
  do. But then it was like, oh boy,
• 1:13:59
  I'm on a clock. Well, I told, I told you I was
• 1:14:01
  like, this is I'm going to be moving pretty fast and and I was
• 1:14:04
  too and I think it was going to be fine.
• 1:14:05
  But yeah, that was the one thing I was nervous about, but it was
• 1:14:09
  ended up being fine. It was and, and it was funny
• 1:14:12
  because I was, I obviously I could track you and I thought
• 1:14:15
  that was accurate, which we kind, I found out later.
• 1:14:17
  So this is not accurate. Gonna say yeah.
• 1:14:20
  But as I was tracking you, I could see you were on Garfield.
• 1:14:24
  So I, as I'm sitting there approaching Galehead, I knew I
• 1:14:27
  had, I was, I was going to get there ahead of you.
• 1:14:29
  But I hadn't hiked Galehead yet that year.
• 1:14:32
  And I was like, oh, while I'm here.
• 1:14:35
  Peak bragging mindsets. I just want to grab the summit
• 1:14:37
  while I'm here. Do I have enough time before he
• 1:14:40
  gets there? And I decided if you were on
• 1:14:43
  Garfield then I most assuredly could get up from the.
• 1:14:47
  I hope so. From the Hut of Galehead and and
• 1:14:50
  get back down again before you arrived.
• 1:14:53
  And just so you know, like I PR Ed that segment for you.
• 1:14:56
  Good job. Appreciate it.
• 1:14:58
  You're welcome. No, that was good to see you out
• 1:15:01
  there. No, I think yeah, everything
• 1:15:03
  went smooth. But yeah, the debacle with the
• 1:15:05
  GPS, which is what we learned a good learning lesson.
• 1:15:07
  Yes. And I know this because I'm a
• 1:15:09
  dot watcher, like I've watched people's trackers before.
• 1:15:13
  So I had an in reach that was on 10 minutes, right?
• 1:15:16
  Yes. Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  Yeah. A 10 minute signal pulse.
• 1:15:19
  Yeah. So every 10 minutes it would
• 1:15:20
  update the dot and those things are great, but sometimes they
• 1:15:25
  don't send that ping every 10 minutes.
• 1:15:27
  They can for hours and hours, but sometimes you don't get a
• 1:15:31
  couple pings. And for whatever reason, because
• 1:15:34
  I've watched people and be like, no, they're stopping or
• 1:15:36
  whatever. And then an hour later I check
• 1:15:39
  in like they were moving fine. So what?
• 1:15:42
  Happened and the thing that went along with that was you had a
• 1:15:45
  problem that you were experiencing and I expected you
• 1:15:50
  to be slower, slower. So that is why that was the
• 1:15:53
  other part of it. Because usually when you tell me
• 1:15:57
  to be somewhere, I am there at minimum 30, if not 45 minutes to
• 1:16:01
  an hour earlier. Because you #1 you are very good
• 1:16:05
  at mapping out like your consistency.
• 1:16:09
  Like I I tell people all the time when you say you're going
• 1:16:12
  to be at something, like you're almost always within 10 minutes
• 1:16:14
  of when you said you were going to be somewhere.
• 1:16:16
  If it's if something hasn't gone wrong, I'm pretty good.
• 1:16:19
  Yes. So I would have normally been
• 1:16:21
  out 30 to 45 minutes sooner, but I was believing it because I
• 1:16:25
  knew I thought you were being slower.
• 1:16:28
  And lo and behold, you had. Yeah, worked things through and
• 1:16:31
  we're moving faster than. Yeah, I had that section around
• 1:16:34
  Galehead where I really couldn't run that much.
• 1:16:35
  And I, I told the story or whatever and it took me a while,
• 1:16:38
  but after like Go Zealand, I was feeling really good.
• 1:16:42
  So I was moving fast again. So what had happened is you guys
• 1:16:45
  were meeting me at Crawford Notch and we were just planning
• 1:16:48
  on meeting in the parking lot. And I thought I had sent AGPS
• 1:16:50
  points with an exact kind of whatever and the GPS stops
• 1:16:56
  didn't send a couple pings. So you guys thought I was coming
• 1:16:59
  up A-Z still. And you were like always 45
• 1:17:02
  minutes out and you told them, I don't even know if he's gonna
• 1:17:04
  finish. He might come here.
• 1:17:05
  And. Drop.
• 1:17:05
  I just said there's a chance that there was gonna be a
• 1:17:08
  problem. If things weren't going good and
• 1:17:11
  the GPS doesn't send a couple signals, I run 10 minute miles
• 1:17:14
  out from the A-Z trail. Like I'm back, I'm back on pace.
• 1:17:19
  I come out to the parking lot in the Prezis and I'm running like
• 1:17:22
  an 8 minute mile on the road too, because I'm feeling good in
• 1:17:25
  its road. And I get up to my pin and I
• 1:17:28
  don't see anybody. I don't see cars, I don't see
• 1:17:31
  anybody. And I, I was like, I didn't know
• 1:17:33
  what to do because I didn't. And I just started screaming in
• 1:17:35
  the park. I was like, hello, Because I
• 1:17:37
  didn't know if I went to the wrong place.
• 1:17:39
  I thought I looked. I know.
• 1:17:40
  And then finally some guy came out and just a random guy up to
• 1:17:45
  hike at the, at the Highland Center.
• 1:17:47
  And I grabbed him. I was like, you cannot leave me.
• 1:17:48
  I need your phone. I need you to help me fit.
• 1:17:50
  And he's like, and I'm, I've been running for guys.
• 1:17:53
  Yeah, I've been running for 15 hours.
• 1:17:55
  I'm like, and so you guys just weren't ready because you
• 1:17:59
  thought I wasn't going to be there.
• 1:18:00
  We had just, we had all agreed like, OK, we're going to go out
• 1:18:03
  now. So my crew.
• 1:18:04
  Of three were all at the Highland Center.
• 1:18:07
  They just were just eating. Ryan was going out and I went to
• 1:18:10
  the ladies room and then was coming back and then Jocelyn was
• 1:18:13
  like, he's here, he's here. I'm like, Oh well, Ryan.
• 1:18:15
  Came out and when he saw that I was talking to that guy, he
• 1:18:19
  started running and he was like, Oh my God, he's here.
• 1:18:21
  Yeah. Because we would have like the
• 1:18:23
  truck opened, we would have the bed like everything laid out
• 1:18:26
  again, like for like, we didn't have any of that.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah. So I would say that the learner
• 1:18:29
  lesson is just those in reaches are not always accurate.
• 1:18:33
  Yeah, and I will go back to be where he says he's gonna be 30
• 1:18:37
  to 40 minutes before he's to be there.
• 1:18:39
  But everything else went really smooth.
• 1:18:40
  Yeah, that was a good. And it was on that one, I was,
• 1:18:45
  you know, as your mom, I'm always like a little anxious for
• 1:18:47
  you. And you had, you had said like
• 1:18:51
  the Prezi section was going to take you, I think, I think 6 1/2
• 1:18:54
  hours and I said 6. And a half, maybe 6 or actually
• 1:18:57
  maybe, I don't know actually. Somewhere in that the range.
• 1:19:00
  Yeah. And I and I said to Ryan, I'm
• 1:19:02
  like, I don't know about that. And he's like, Oh no, I think
• 1:19:04
  that's valid. I'm like you do.
• 1:19:07
  And then he explained to me you guys weren't summiting things,
• 1:19:11
  right? You didn't, you were doing the
• 1:19:12
  Hut, you were connecting the huts, but you didn't have to go.
• 1:19:15
  And so, so much elevation came off of your plate by doing that.
• 1:19:19
  And I was said, oh, all right, like I didn't.
• 1:19:22
  So I wasn't, I wasn't even comprehending like the fullness
• 1:19:26
  of like what that really entailed.
• 1:19:28
  And like, oh, no, we don't have to.
• 1:19:29
  We don't have to summit Washington.
• 1:19:30
  We don't have to summit Jefferson.
• 1:19:32
  We don't have to summit like all these.
• 1:19:34
  All these pieces were just going right by them.
• 1:19:36
  I was like, oh. Because you're basically
• 1:19:38
  connecting myths but a lonesome to Madison.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, it's like the AT. It's like the Hutch.
• 1:19:43
  The AT right, yes yeah, no, I didn't I didn't comprehend that.
• 1:19:45
  So I was thinking that you guys were out of your minds, but that
• 1:19:48
  made me feel better yeah. And then you even.
• 1:19:51
  Those sections like those sections I did all faster I.
• 1:19:53
  Yeah, you crushed that. Crushed.
• 1:19:55
  Yeah, until like maybe towards the end of the Wildcats, which
• 1:19:57
  is so good. The descent off Wildcat was.
• 1:20:00
  One of my best descents. I told but that was.
• 1:20:04
  Yeah, when I came to. That I couldn't believe it.
• 1:20:06
  I said, wow, that's the last part of the trail that he's
• 1:20:09
  gonna do and he's gonna be exhausted and that's the trail
• 1:20:12
  he's going down. Yeah.
• 1:20:14
  I think I got on the of a leaderboard on that.
• 1:20:16
  I don't know if that's actually true, but I did.
• 1:20:18
  I was like, I remember I didn't get to that ledge.
• 1:20:21
  Like, I don't know if you know. It very the beautiful ledge,
• 1:20:23
  yeah. Because before that, it's just
• 1:20:25
  regular, wait, mountains trail. And I'm like, God, these guys,
• 1:20:28
  they don't. And I get to the ledge and I
• 1:20:29
  look straight down. I'm like.
• 1:20:30
  And then the rest of the I was like, Oh my God, yeah.
• 1:20:32
  You're going to, I mean, the normal people that are coming up
• 1:20:35
  that are, you know, hands and knees and legs and yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:41
  So that was the lodge to dodge stuff, yeah.
• 1:20:43
  Yeah, no, I've always, I really enjoyed being part of your crew
• 1:20:48
  and being part of your accomplishments and happy that
• 1:20:51
  you always want me to kind of be part of that.
• 1:20:53
  Yeah, I I definitely want you and I definitely need you so.
• 1:20:57
  I love doing. It I mean, I trust you the most
• 1:20:59
  out of everybody now. So to know, like spoiler alert,
• 1:21:03
  what if you sign up for the jigger this year?
• 1:21:05
  I'm not going to be able to come.
• 1:21:07
  Why? We'll be at the Cape.
• 1:21:10
  I don't know what I'm doing this year yet, so all right.
• 1:21:12
  So you haven't decided? Yep, but.
• 1:21:13
  Yeah, good to know. Yep.
• 1:21:14
  Spoiler Spoiler. You Jocelyn's a very capable
• 1:21:18
  yeah person as well. Yep, Yep, she's good.
• 1:21:20
  Yep, Yep. Yeah, no.
• 1:21:24
  And yeah, I do appreciate you cuz honestly, I tell people, I
• 1:21:28
  don't know, some people tell me like I would love to help you
• 1:21:31
  out or whatever. And I like non runners, maybe
• 1:21:35
  some of my close friends that are non and I kind of tell them
• 1:21:37
  that it is not a fun gig. It is.
• 1:21:40
  You have to really believe in what I'm doing and want to help
• 1:21:43
  me because it is. That's right.
• 1:21:44
  Most of the time it's not. It's not happy Andrew Day.
• 1:21:47
  Well it's not Happy Andrew Day and it's just hours and hours
• 1:21:50
  and hours and then 5 minutes of frantic and then we got to drive
• 1:21:54
  an hour to the next. I have happily given up sleep
• 1:21:57
  for you multiple times in order to ensure that you're
• 1:22:00
  accomplishing your goals. Yes, I appreciate that.
• 1:22:03
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:22:05
  Well, we don't have the clock. It's getting closer, but I yeah,
• 1:22:10
  I guess. Anything else you want to share
• 1:22:12
  with the people? I appreciate you coming on the
• 1:22:14
  1st guest. I can foresee you coming on
• 1:22:16
  again in the future. OK, cool.
• 1:22:18
  Yep. No, I love talking about hiking.
• 1:22:22
  I love hiking. I love talking about it.
• 1:22:25
  I'm happy to, you know, I, I try to get some of my maybe non
• 1:22:29
  hiking friends and family to do a little bit.
• 1:22:33
  You know, I've got your Aunt Carrie out on a few trails and
• 1:22:36
  she's been enjoying that hiked with your cousin Danielle.
• 1:22:40
  She's getting into the hiking with the Adirondacks.
• 1:22:42
  I love being with people that are seeing some of these things
• 1:22:45
  for the first time. Yeah, you're willing to hike
• 1:22:47
  with anybody? Yeah, my friend, my friend
• 1:22:50
  Sharon has some things that she has going on in her life and
• 1:22:53
  getting out there with her. And I don't, you know, when I
• 1:22:56
  know I'm going with somebody, I don't care what the piece is
• 1:22:59
  going to be. If that's our agenda for the
• 1:23:01
  day. We're going to go out, we're
• 1:23:02
  going to do something. We're going to, we're going to
• 1:23:05
  go do it. We're going to have a great day
• 1:23:06
  doing it. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:07
  And this is what I was saying before.
• 1:23:08
  You do, just like you love hiking.
• 1:23:10
  Yes, yeah. And I am, if I'm around other
• 1:23:13
  people like I've hiked, it's what is it January 16th.
• 1:23:16
  I think I've hiked 13 of the 1st 16 days of this year.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah. And every single hike I'm like a
• 1:23:23
  blubbering it area. I love it.
• 1:23:25
  It's so beautiful. Yeah.
• 1:23:26
  It doesn't matter. It's just every time and the
• 1:23:29
  conditions are different and I just.
• 1:23:31
  There's something about the air up there when you get up on
• 1:23:34
  those higher peaks. Yep.
• 1:23:35
  Oh, I meant to ask this. What's that?
• 1:23:37
  Are you, are you, are you? Do you have a second grid sheet
• 1:23:40
  going? No, no, no, no.
• 1:23:43
  And it killed. Do you have any stats?
• 1:23:45
  I don't know if I don't have stats, but the stats it's.
• 1:23:47
  OK. Talking about SO G2, right,
• 1:23:50
  that's what you're talking about.
• 1:23:50
  That's what they call the grid 2G.
• 1:23:52
  Two grid 2. So I am refusing to document
• 1:23:56
  anything that hasn't checked off boxes on those other lists that
• 1:23:59
  we talked about. The trail ride 72, the T25, the
• 1:24:04
  52 with the view, the New England Hundred, highest keep
• 1:24:08
  track of any hike that applies there.
• 1:24:10
  My 366, if I'm hiking something and it doesn't fall into one of
• 1:24:14
  those buckets, I'm not writing it down.
• 1:24:16
  It is making my friend Rebecca absolutely bonkers.
• 1:24:19
  I, I think it's kind of making me bonkers, I feel like.
• 1:24:21
  She's so my what I am telling people, so I'm 55.
• 1:24:26
  There is a list for senior grid finishers and you become a
• 1:24:30
  senior when you're 60. So May 6th, 2030.
• 1:24:33
  Mark it on your calendar. If I'm still physically capable,
• 1:24:37
  I will start grid 2. Heard it here first people.
• 1:24:39
  I am. Not starting it before.
• 1:24:41
  Then yeah, I, I. Don't want to do it so like this
• 1:24:44
  year I'm doing the single season winter like so it doesn't matter
• 1:24:47
  what peaks I've done in January before.
• 1:24:49
  I want to go get what's good. Well, I think it not.
• 1:24:52
  I mean, for me it's not. Well, I guess you have
• 1:24:54
  everything on your watch, right? For the most part, yeah.
• 1:24:56
  My watch so I don't have Strava and I stopped.
• 1:25:00
  I used to keep a spreadsheet, but now that I have my watch, I
• 1:25:02
  have that. It's a pretty clunky way for me
• 1:25:05
  to do things. I did before you asked.
• 1:25:08
  I actually was curious because I think I saw someone else post
• 1:25:10
  like what did I hike last year? So last year I would say was
• 1:25:14
  probably, I don't know, not moderate, but maybe moderate to
• 1:25:19
  I don't think it was a high year for me for hiking, probably
• 1:25:21
  moderate. And my, and I don't, I'm not
• 1:25:24
  technology savvy, so I don't differentiate between my runs
• 1:25:28
  and my hikes. So it's just one data point.
• 1:25:30
  You did ask me how to sign APDF yesterday after working in an
• 1:25:34
  office for 30 years. But I didn't have yeah.
• 1:25:37
  Anyway, so when I when I just pull my data for last year, what
• 1:25:42
  did I run or hike or walk, I got 337,000 feet of elevation.
• 1:25:49
  So if I think about what are my, what is my running, my running
• 1:25:53
  at Max is probably like 700 feet per week.
• 1:26:00
  So I think pretty close to 300,000 is probably elevation.
• 1:26:05
  I think my probably my biggest hiking year of all was 2022.
• 1:26:11
  So I might have had more than that then maybe I was in the 400
• 1:26:14
  thousands. I probably have never hit
• 1:26:16
  500,000 of elevation. I don't think I have.
• 1:26:20
  And from a mileage standpoint, I am.
• 1:26:23
  I guarantee you for however many years, I've been over 2000
• 1:26:28
  miles. Yeah, between the running and
• 1:26:30
  the hiking, yeah. For sure, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:32
  I'd be curious about hours. That's kind of my biggest metric
• 1:26:35
  that I just track, like training hours.
• 1:26:37
  Yeah. Because you're probably because
• 1:26:39
  obviously hiking you do longer days.
• 1:26:41
  Yes. So for me, I probably on the
• 1:26:45
  grand scheme of life, I probably do average 2 mph hiking.
• 1:26:50
  Oh, I mean, yeah. So how many miles I've done is
• 1:26:53
  probably 2 hours, but you know, some days are slower and some
• 1:26:57
  days are faster. Yeah, I was gonna say you're
• 1:26:59
  probably definitely over 1000 hours a year, which would be
• 1:27:02
  yeah, 2000 / 2. That makes sense with with more
• 1:27:05
  running miles. Yeah, 1000 hours of yeah, it's.
• 1:27:08
  Pretty. And now that I'm retired, it'll
• 1:27:09
  be more. I assure you it will be.
• 1:27:11
  More. Yeah.
• 1:27:13
  Yeah, it will be more. Yeah, because if I've hiked 13
• 1:27:15
  days already this year, then if I'm averaging 5 hours a hike,
• 1:27:20
  that's already, you know, 65 hours.
• 1:27:23
  And yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, my only
• 1:27:26
  thing is just like, I really loved you.
• 1:27:27
  Have you ever been on Chris Daly's blog?
• 1:27:29
  No, he just has, you know, Chris Daly.
• 1:27:33
  No, you don't know Chris Daly. No.
• 1:27:34
  Wow. He's just a Washington guy.
• 1:27:37
  Like he lives up in near Conway or wherever, somewhere up there
• 1:27:41
  and he just hikes a ton. Like he's a grid multiple grid
• 1:27:44
  finisher. I think he's done Washington
• 1:27:46
  like hundreds of times and he just tracks everything.
• 1:27:51
  His blog is actually like one of the best sources of information
• 1:27:56
  in the whites, but he tracks everything.
• 1:27:59
  So every peak he has dated, like he's not just tracking grids,
• 1:28:03
  he's just tracking how many times he's hiked.
• 1:28:05
  And it's just, it's just funny to, I love going on and looking
• 1:28:08
  at some of that stuff. But but I mean, it's a lot to
• 1:28:11
  track. Too, I think I know that 2022,
• 1:28:15
  like I said, was that was the year I did the most 4 KS in a
• 1:28:17
  year because I had the most. I was the most fit for my grid
• 1:28:21
  or the fittest I had been and then I had the most grid peaks
• 1:28:24
  to do. I think I hit 170 something that
• 1:28:27
  year. I've never had more than that
• 1:28:29
  from a grid peak standpoint and now I'm not tracking.
• 1:28:33
  I'm not tracking it the same way anymore.
• 1:28:35
  Yeah. I mean, I don't I'm, I'm doing,
• 1:28:38
  I'm almost at 50% of the grid, but I'm not AI just go like like
• 1:28:42
  you're saying, I just go with whoever like I've but I, I
• 1:28:45
  track, I just like to know how many 4000 footers I've done.
• 1:28:48
  So I'm on, I'm on grid. I'm on grid sheet like 6 for
• 1:28:53
  Osceola because I've done it a million times in August.
• 1:28:56
  Well I'll just to track, I'll come clean in that.
• 1:28:59
  Doing the 4K everyday, my friend Tecumseh, that's like, Yep.
• 1:29:04
  So I, I probably have at least gridded Tecumseh out another
• 1:29:08
  time in addition to probably grids, you know, just multiples.
• 1:29:13
  Yeah, when because I used Tecumseh for that four KA day
• 1:29:17
  when I either was short on time, so I only had, you know, 1/2 of
• 1:29:21
  a day to do it. Or any kind of extreme weather I
• 1:29:26
  can pretty much bang out unless it's an ice storm, a massive
• 1:29:30
  thunderstorm, or a Blizzard. Hike and hike to come.
• 1:29:33
  So yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's, I mean, similar to me, like,
• 1:29:36
  right. All the ones close to Lincoln.
• 1:29:38
  I'm I'm pretty. I've used Canon Canon a lot for
• 1:29:40
  that. And then so I deliberately try
• 1:29:43
  to when I'm not pinched for time and don't have bad weather, I
• 1:29:46
  don't wanna hike that right. I wanna go hike other stuff.
• 1:29:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would make sense.
• 1:29:51
  Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm sure this will
• 1:29:53
  be another big year for you. It will be because I'll have a
• 1:29:56
  lot of time on my. Yeah, we'll see.
• 1:29:58
  Yeah, I'm taking. Full advantage.
• 1:29:59
  I am, I am retired, and this is one of the things that I want to
• 1:30:02
  do when I'm retired. We've got our new place up
• 1:30:04
  north. Yeah, that puts us centrally in
• 1:30:07
  all these peaks and mountains and taken full advantage.
• 1:30:10
  Yeah, we'll love to see it and we'll have to.
• 1:30:12
  We'll have to get out. Yeah, we'll do our little winter
• 1:30:15
  absolutely at some point soon. You tell me when I'm allowed to
• 1:30:18
  come with you. Well, this is I'm kind of Yeah,
• 1:30:21
  we can, we can talk after, but I kind of do something.
• 1:30:24
  Sounds good. Yeah.
• 1:30:25
  Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having.
• 1:30:26
  Hope you guys all enjoyed a mountain Crusher.
• 1:30:29
  If you see on the trail, say hi because she will say hi or talk.
• 1:30:32
  To I talked to almost everybody. Yes, very.
• 1:30:34
  Nice of you. OK.
• 1:30:36
  Thanks, mother. You're welcome.
• 1:30:37
  Goodbye. I.
• 1:30:50
  Guess Testing microphone close to my mouth.
• 1:30:54
  Testing a couple inches away. Testing 6 inches away.
• 1:30:59
  Tell me about your day. Yeah, what a boring question.
• 1:31:03
  Or maybe I need to think about a way to talk about my day.
• 1:31:06
  That was interesting. Yeah, make up a lie.
• 1:31:11
  No, seriously, at the gym. Tell us about almost falling on
• 1:31:15
  your butt in front of everybody at the gym stairs.
• 1:31:18
  No one was around actually, so it would have been worse because
• 1:31:20
  I would have fallen to my death and who knows when I would have
• 1:31:25
  been found, yeah. There you go.
• 1:31:27
  Because I was at the top stair and I was looking at my phone
• 1:31:31
  and I almost missed the next step down.
• 1:31:33
  And the top stair is over. It's kind of like one of those
• 1:31:36
  circus ropes right where either side it's fire.
• 1:31:41
  So no. There's walls on both sides.
• 1:31:45
  Oh, I'm thinking of a different gym.
• 1:31:47
  Sorry, I'm just thinking of a different gym.