#939 - Chris Cage

[0] Sound good?

[1] Yeah, we're good.

[2] Five, four, three, two.

[3] That was like, you didn't do the thumb.

[4] I wasn't sure it was their finger button.

[5] Chris, what's up, man?

[6] How are you?

[7] Good, man. How are you doing, Joe?

[8] Thanks for doing this.

[9] For people tuning in right now, Chris is the author of How to Hike the Appalachian Trail.

[10] And he's also, I've talked about these on the podcast before.

[11] This is his company, he's not a sponsor.

[12] This company, Greenbelly Meals, and these are these really delicious.

[13] bars that are they weigh like 50 pounds like a brick filled with nutrients and food and they're really good for people who do this crazy Appalachian trail thing these these bars that you sell have become very popular with hunters and and people that like to go on backpack journeys deep into the backcountry and I found out about you from Rich Cody Rich, Rich, Rich Outdoors podcast and that's where I listen to you on his podcast, and that's why you're here.

[14] That's why I got your book here.

[15] Thanks, Cody.

[16] Love the podcast.

[17] Yeah, it's a good podcast.

[18] So what the fuck possess, for people don't know the Appalachian Trail.

[19] We've talked about this on the podcast before, but it's a trail where people walk from Georgia, right, all the way up to Maine.

[20] Or vice versa, but yeah.

[21] Yeah, vice versa, if you want, if you're a madman.

[22] And it takes you, how many months?

[23] Five to seven.

[24] Took me a little over six.

[25] so you just hike for six months when you're at like month three do you ever go like what the fuck am i doing long story short yeah and by month three i was actually approaching wintertime and you know wintertime camping is just a fundamentally different experience so not only have you been hiking that long and you're tired and your body's just you know just done doing it every day of hiking but then the elements of the winter come in And that was a different ballgame entirely, you know.

[26] How many people have done this?

[27] Less than 10 ,000.

[28] That's a lot of fucking people.

[29] Yeah, it is.

[30] That's still a lot of, I would have said, like, 50.

[31] There's another thing called the Triple Crown, which is the, it's the AT Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.

[32] And I think less than 100 people have done all three of those.

[33] The Pacific Crest Trail.

[34] Is that the one that goes from, like, Mexico?

[35] To Canada.

[36] But it's through California.

[37] That's insane.

[38] How long did that one take?

[39] I think, so the Appalachian Trail is 2 ,200 miles.

[40] And the Pacific Crush Trail, I believe, is like 25, 26, 2 ,700 miles.

[41] But the trail gradient is a lot easier.

[42] So I think, like, on any given day, you can actually hike more miles, even though the trail is longer than the AT, but I think people actually finish it faster than the AT.

[43] I like how you call it the AT.

[44] That's inside lingo.

[45] with all you maniacs, all you hiking maniacs.

[46] What the fuck got you into this, man?

[47] I'd say long story short, Boy Scouts, yeah.

[48] I joined Boy Scouts later than most people.

[49] I joined when I was 14.

[50] And, you know, the kind of the pinnacle of the Boy Scout career is getting your Eagle Scout.

[51] Right.

[52] And I joined with that in mind.

[53] I was like, okay, I'm joining later than most.

[54] I joined when most people are quitting Boy Scouts.

[55] You know, they go from Cub Scouts to, like, 13, and they quit.

[56] joined and I was like, all right, I want my Eagle Scout.

[57] And we, you have to, in order to get your Eagle Scout, spend 20 nights in the woods, not consecutively, but you have to get your camping merit badge and get your camping merit badge.

[58] You have to spend the night, 20 nights in the woods.

[59] So, you know, that was in Georgia, and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains are in North Georgia.

[60] So the beginning of the Appalachian Trail is also, you know, right there.

[61] So we went on several trips up there in North Georgia and I got exposed to it you know and I think the just the idea of getting on this small trail and you know kind of looking down and understanding that this thing goes on for 2 ,000 more miles was just kind of like one that just seems crazy right you know there's no way I'm ever going to have enough time or kind of the the drive to do that but yeah there's definitely kind of the mystery I was like oh man that just just seems like an adventure I want to do.

[62] So, yeah, that was definitely the beginning of it when I was about 14 years old, going up there and hiking on it for overnight trips.

[63] Now, how does one fund something like this?

[64] Because I would assume you either have to be independently wealthy or you have to have squirled away enough money so you could walk for seven months and feed yourself in the process.

[65] Or did you work along the way?

[66] I mean, you can't.

[67] What do you do?

[68] I think there's a big misconception that, you know, like hiking AT takes a lot of money, But in reality, it's like, what are your expenses?

[69] It's just food, you know, and then gear ahead of time.

[70] So, you know, most hikers are kind of known as the, like, the athletic hobo, you know, like they are grimy.

[71] They're not spending money on hotels.

[72] There's no accommodation.

[73] There's no car payments, you know, they're walking.

[74] So you can really eliminate all expenses when you do that.

[75] But, I mean, for me, I had, I was an accountant.

[76] So I had been an accountant for.

[77] for about two years, and I saved up some money.

[78] And I basically knew that I wanted to hike the AT, so I started saving up some money.

[79] But any given through hiker, that's what they're called, anybody that does, you know, starts in Georgia, ends in Maine or Maine to Georgia, anybody that does that hike in one consecutive run is called a through hiker.

[80] But any through hike, I would say it takes about $5 ,000, from gear to sleeping in hotels, about once a week to resupplying food.

[81] So if you think about $5 ,000 for six months of living, like that ain't too bad.

[82] You know, you think about $5 ,000 for six months of living in the real world.

[83] Like I've never lived that cheaply, you know?

[84] Right.

[85] Well, it's not that bad, no. But like you're saying hotels once a week, so what would merit a hotel stay?

[86] Ferocious weather, like what?

[87] A lot of things.

[88] So you typically are within five to seven days of a town So the trail kind of, you know, goes along the mountains, and then about every five to seven days you come to a trail crossing, which is a highway, or anything that would lead to a nearby town.

[89] And every five to seven days, you're out of food.

[90] You know, that's the biggest thing that I think pulls you into town is you need to resupply.

[91] So you're not out there foraging for nuts and berries or hunting or anything like that.

[92] You're relying on getting to town, getting to a grocery store.

[93] and, you know, getting all your food.

[94] So every five to seven days you go into town and you get food, it's like, oh, man, I also haven't showered in five to seven days.

[95] I also haven't done laundry in five to seven days.

[96] And, you know, you're hiking with really one change of clothes.

[97] So you can imagine if you're hiking 20 miles a day, the grime and the dirt that can build up.

[98] So when you come to town, you want to do laundry, resupply food, you want to stay in a hotel.

[99] You want to clean off your body.

[100] your feet are starting to grow stuff.

[101] You know, you've been sweating, walking through muddy trails.

[102] There's just a lot of grime.

[103] When you get to town, it's like a big refresh, you know?

[104] But when you make that big refresh, do you ever go, why am I doing this?

[105] Yeah, it's kind of ironic.

[106] You make the intention of going on the trail to get outside of town and outside of society.

[107] But one of the biggest things you look forward to is getting back into town, you know.

[108] Yeah, and it's kind of, like you said, you know, when you get to town, it's like, why am I doing this?

[109] You are kind of, I was kind of dreading, getting back out on the trail a lot of times because it was just so, oh man, I have a hot shower, like I shaved.

[110] Like, it's just so nice.

[111] Yeah, the first time I did any camping in, since the Boy Scouts.

[112] Your Boy Scout.

[113] Yeah, I was a Boy Scout when I was 13 for one summer, but these fucking inner city creeps that I went to the Boy Scouts.

[114] with and Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which is like, now it's more gentrified, but back then it was kind of a shady neighborhood.

[115] Pick it on you?

[116] Well, they would tie kids up and leave them in the woods.

[117] They would tie you up to your bunk and then leave you in the woods.

[118] They put toothpaste all of your clothes, which you can't get out.

[119] They're just fucking shitty kids.

[120] It was like a total free fall for all.

[121] It was just really dang, because we went to the woods in New Hampshire.

[122] That's where the Boy Scouts would take you up.

[123] and I remember thinking like these fucking camp counselors are weird guys they're barely paying attention and it's basically like all these inner city teenagers street scouts yeah they're just running rampant like there was a rifle range where they would shoot 22s and there was an archery range and I remember I was at the archery range and I heard and I was like what the fuck is that and they go that's a ricochet and I went what all right check please and so I decided to just go fishing every day I was there I would avoid everybody.

[124] There was like all those, you know, these things on the agenda that you were supposed to do.

[125] Fuck you.

[126] I just took off and I went and found this pond.

[127] And I would go to that pond every day for the week that I was up there.

[128] My point being sent from that time, from the time I was 13 until 2012, I had not gone camping.

[129] And then I went camping in Montana in October.

[130] And it was really cold.

[131] It was like nine degrees.

[132] And we were out there for six or seven days.

[133] and when we went back, we went back to a hotel, and I remember thinking, this is the greatest shower the world has ever known.

[134] Like that feeling, you don't appreciate showers.

[135] Oh, no. Like, probably nobody appreciates a shower like an Appalachian trail hiker, right?

[136] Does that make sense?

[137] It's pure ecstasy.

[138] Yeah, it's like a shower's normal.

[139] Like, a normal shower's normal.

[140] But it's like, if you got a shower after you're hiking for seven days with muddy feet and your clothes stink and everything's gross and yeah you need that deprivation to appreciate it you know you do right because most people don't appreciate showers yeah i guess it's like the you know the starving kid needing you know when he gets food he's like uh you know yeah or like uh a guy who's just getting out of prison and get some sex assuming you're not getting any in prison um so what kind of weirdos do you meet on the trail you got to yeah you got to keep in mind anybody who's willing to take six months out of their life to go to the woods.

[141] Yeah.

[142] It's going to be a different breed.

[143] I mean, I think you definitely have your stereotypes.

[144] Some people are out there just kind of for the challenge and the, I dare I say, athletic side of it, but it's like.

[145] There is, right?

[146] There's an endurance side of it, right?

[147] Sure.

[148] It's kind of like, I want to power through this and see how much my body can handle.

[149] You get those kind of hikers, but you definitely get the hippie drop out of life kind of guys, you know, or it's just like, I just want to get out there and get a, and get away from society for a little bit.

[150] So that kind of stereotype, you definitely, those are, you can get some weirdos out there.

[151] Yeah, I would imagine.

[152] Have you ever had uncomfortable moments where you, like, scared to camp with people?

[153] No doubt.

[154] There was one time, no doubt, man. There was Pennsylvania.

[155] So Pennsylvania, you know, a lot of those ex -cold towns, their economy just plummeted.

[156] And the AT goes through a lot of those towns.

[157] So you'd have some people in New York town going out there for an overnight.

[158] and they're what are called shelters.

[159] They're like these three -walled wooden structures that are made by, well, all sorts of organizations make them, but in general they're about every 10 to 20 miles along the AT.

[160] So in theory, you can sleep in these every night and not need a tent.

[161] I wouldn't recommend that, but you do try to sleep in the shelters as much as possible.

[162] But the fact that there are these shelters, a lot of people kind of bottlenecked to them because they know they're there.

[163] So you will sometimes get to a shelter at night, and it won't only be A .T. through hikers there, there'll be people from town.

[164] But I remember one time in Pennsylvania, there were these, there's this couple.

[165] Yeah, they were literally, it was pouring rain, so we get there, and I was like, there's no way I'm camping out.

[166] There's no way I'm hiking on.

[167] Like, I'm sleeping in this shelter, you know, I was drenched to the bone.

[168] My gear was drenched, and I was pissed off.

[169] It was like midnight.

[170] You know, I'd been hiking all day.

[171] I was just exhausted.

[172] So I was so excited to get to this shelter, and there's a couple, and they are literally yelling at each other.

[173] You know, I can hear them for like a mile, like just furiously yelling at each other.

[174] And you get there, and they are, I never really knew, but I'm assuming they were cracked out.

[175] I saw some little glass pieces going in between their hands, and just the way they were acting.

[176] He kept, like, throwing up his fists at her.

[177] He smashed a bottle on the wall in the shelter, and yeah, he pulled out a knife at one point, And it was just like...

[178] So are these individual shelters or is a large shelter?

[179] When you say three walls, like how big of these things?

[180] I think they're usually maybe...

[181] Probably about the size, length of this table, maybe about 10 feet wide and...

[182] And there's only one of them?

[183] So, like, you're supposed to share them with those other people?

[184] Yeah.

[185] So you're in there with these cracked -out people.

[186] Luckily, I had three other hiking buddies with me, guys.

[187] And the people, like, granted, they were aggressive towards each other.

[188] Like, they didn't bother us.

[189] And, like, I think by, like, 4 a .m., they hadn't gone to sleep.

[190] And we were just like, we were like, dude, can y 'all please, please be quiet.

[191] Like, I got to get some sleep.

[192] And then, uh, um, that was the worst one.

[193] Other than that, I think everything was, everything was pretty safe.

[194] There's nothing too terrifying.

[195] How did it play out?

[196] Uh, we left the next morning.

[197] But did they eventually go to sleep?

[198] Uh, you know what?

[199] I don't even remember.

[200] I think at 4 a .m. I was so exhausted.

[201] I was just like, they were still yelling at each other.

[202] I was just out, you know, and that was that.

[203] Do you remember what they were yelling?

[204] Oh, is this one of those shelters?

[205] There you go.

[206] Yeah, that's one of them.

[207] Wow, that's a dope -looking little place.

[208] It's kind of cool.

[209] It's all made out of logs.

[210] Yeah, yeah.

[211] And it's got kind of a tin roof.

[212] Is that like a tin sheet roof?

[213] Yeah, they vary a lot.

[214] I mean, you'll get all wood.

[215] You know, you sometimes want to even get logs.

[216] Yeah, there you go.

[217] You can scroll up and see all the other kinds.

[218] And those are for the hikers?

[219] Is that what they're for?

[220] Yeah.

[221] So that's, so they've anticipated, there's so many people that do this trail that they've made these shelters.

[222] I've heard of these things in New Zealand.

[223] Yeah, New Zealand has them too.

[224] Yeah, they have them and they stock food in them and they leave a log so that hikers can write down.

[225] Like my friend Remy, Remy Warren was in New Zealand and he used one of those and like wrote in the log, you know, where he was from when he was there.

[226] And I guess it also helps identify if people are missing.

[227] Exactly.

[228] Yeah, I think it's a safety precaution, so you know, you can kind of track down where was the last person seen, you know, where were they last seen?

[229] So if they were, if they logged into, you know, shelter and then, you know, they can't find them, and they can say, okay, on this date, we know that they were here.

[230] So you can give a given radius and know that if they are missing, they're within, at least within a certain, you know, 20 miles of the walking distance of there.

[231] But yeah, and I think those things actually turn into, like, just fun, you know, some people just go write full on poems in there, some, you know, confess like life stories in there and it's like oh god yeah the trail log books are entertaining no doubt wow here warning what does it say harassing bear in camp night of 511 swiped claws in two tents um stepped on my tent till it collapsed on me please be careful he didn't even try to get the food hanging low on a branch oh look at her name passion flower passion flower with sad face and there's another one bear ripped this is a different um this is a different person's handwriting bear ripped the bag hanging on my pack which was hanging on my hammock i was what was i say bouncing bouncing bouncing up and down he stole my toilet paper exclamation point was it say subway that's his name subway eat fresh yeah p s the pivis is great what's a pivvy or privy it's the uh privy it's just like an outhouse oh okay compost toilet how about this one that shit cray all balls ghetto savior baltimore what does that even mean all balls ghetto savior baltimore okay okay well you're dealing with like fringe people right I mean these are that are just not fitting into the corporate module very well they walked out on life a little bit yeah a little bit but you kind of did too right I mean you said you were an accountant yeah I was an accountant in in Birmingham so I was an accounting major and did that for about two years I mean the job was good I'm everybody I worked with I liked but I definitely was able to recognize that that's not I was not gonna be an accountant for you know for my life so yeah I think I knew it was going to do some transition, try to get another job, do something, and the ATU is kind of like this seems like the right thing to do, you know, and I'm single at the time, you know, no kids, debt free, like, you know, I didn't have a mortgage, like time to go.

[232] So it just seemed like something this radical, because it's so crazy, committing to a six to seven month hike, was going to force you to just change existence, change your frequency.

[233] the whole deal.

[234] I mean, you're a freak now.

[235] You're wandering through the land, you know, with all due respect.

[236] Thanks, Joe.

[237] Tell me what you really think.

[238] I mean, it's not a bad friend.

[239] I'm like my best friends are freaks.

[240] But it's, I mean, it's definitely a freak move, right?

[241] I mean, no doubt, yeah.

[242] It's a very strange subset of human beings that don't, not just drop out, but drop out.

[243] I mean, you're like committing to something.

[244] That is, I mean, was there ever a time We were like halfway there Where you're like, maybe we just get a job in this fucking town I know some people did that You know, I think that was more for financial reasons It was like, all right, I'm, you know, I'm broke, right?

[245] I got to get some cash flow But no, man, I think I definitely had kind of like a grind mindset Like, I'm going to make it I'm going to make it, you know And I think that, yeah Did you go with a bunch people?

[246] No I think like 90 % of hikers Go on the AT alone and the fact that there are just, there are a lot of hikers out there, surprisingly, particularly going north.

[247] I think maybe 2 ,000 people try to go north every year.

[248] Wow.

[249] So when you're hiking, there's like a gang of people on the trail with you?

[250] But if you go south, it changes every year, but 10 to 15 % of people that hike the ATGO south, it's like you're going to have much less social circles, stuff like that.

[251] But in general, you know, people are hiking around.

[252] You're going to meet people.

[253] You talk about the shelters.

[254] You're going to stumble into people walking by.

[255] You're going to meet them in town.

[256] You're going to meet them at the shelters, and they become your buddies.

[257] Even I think the first night I was on the AT, yeah, I made good friends with two other people and hiked with them for a couple weeks.

[258] And then, you know, different paces.

[259] You meet up with different people.

[260] You might hike with somebody for a month.

[261] So it's kind of like you just hike for a little bit with some people, you know, for some given a time.

[262] Wow, what kind of weird stories are they telling you about why they're out there?

[263] I mean, how many people are out there just, like, ducking a murder rap or something?

[264] Was it, is it Eric Rudolph?

[265] Which one was he?

[266] Eric Rudolph?

[267] He ran out in AT and, like, he was hiding out there for, like, a long time.

[268] Oh, yeah, he was like...

[269] The Unabomber?

[270] No, no, no. That's not the Unabomber.

[271] The Unabomber is Ted Kaczynski.

[272] He's that guy that was in...

[273] Olympic Park Bomber.

[274] Oh, okay.

[275] So I believe it was Eric Rudolph was found in a dumpster in North Carolina.

[276] He had been hiding out, like, full -on hiker, homeless look, beard -grown, but he had been, you know, hiding out on the AT.

[277] It seems like that would be a place where a lot of people get robbed because you know that you have money on you because you have to make this trail.

[278] Like you have to have some cash to buy food and...

[279] I never heard anything bad like that happen, honestly.

[280] I know that there have been a few murders on the AT.

[281] Oh, shit.

[282] But you think about any given city, the murder rate, you know?

[283] It's like if you have 2 ,000 through hikers plus, I mean, 100 ,000 weekend hikers a year, I mean, more than that.

[284] It's like the probability, if you think about the AT hikers as a city, like a murder every few years really isn't bad, you know?

[285] That's the same logic that they use for those Foxconn buildings where the people jump off the buildings where they're making cell phones in China.

[286] I go, well, you've got to think about how many people work here.

[287] Of course, if you kill themselves.

[288] It's just a game of numbers at that point, right?

[289] Somebody's going to do it.

[290] I guess it is.

[291] So were you ever there when any of that went down when they were looking for a murder or anything?

[292] No, there was a famous case.

[293] I forgot her name.

[294] Her hiker name.

[295] She had a hiker name.

[296] She had a hiker name?

[297] Like Passion Flower.

[298] All right, Joe.

[299] That's what Passion Flower was.

[300] That's called a trail name.

[301] Oh, Jesus.

[302] Oh, Jesus.

[303] So they're like rappers?

[304] Yeah, so you get your DJ Joe Yeah, you get your trail name I mean, yeah, within a week of being on trail Within a week Usually, it's usually if you do something monumental or stupid or something Noteworthy is going to give you You dubbed a name Wow Do you want to know my name?

[305] Yes It was smooth Smooth?

[306] Smooth.

[307] Smooth?

[308] So I'd been in New Zealand prior to DAT and I had Talk about not like showering for a week at a time.

[309] We're getting real personal here.

[310] But I had shaved my legs, and I had shaved my body here so I could just, like, wipe down.

[311] Okay.

[312] And so when I came on AT, I wanted to do the same thing.

[313] I was like, I'm just going to shave my body here so I can literally wipe down at night.

[314] And, like, check out for ticks, like, just makes sense to me. And, yeah, I was sitting around a fire early on, like, a couple nights in.

[315] And I remember my, like, sweaty legs were, like, glistening in the fire.

[316] And some guy was just like, dude, do you shave your legs?

[317] I'm like, I'm like, no. And then, yeah, smooth just came from there.

[318] That's a funny one, man. When a man makes a decision to shave his legs, that's how you?

[319] No, I never have.

[320] I've shaved some body parts.

[321] I've shaved my butt.

[322] I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen.

[323] I've shaved my butt hole two, perhaps three times.

[324] I just had this conversation with someone about this the other day Because it's you know I'm hairy I'm a hairy dude other than the top of my head But I get hairy And so it's not the best for like keeping clean So one day I was shaving my package And I said let's just get crazy Let's go all the way down there Finish it all And I did And one of the things I was shocked was It changes the sound of your farts Did we talk about this on the podcast before?

[325] I've heard it discussed on another podcast Yes I talked You talked about it, right?

[326] Yeah.

[327] It changes the sound of your farts.

[328] They become more duck -like.

[329] Yeah, it's like there's something about your butt hair that muffles them.

[330] Not that's the biggest issue in the world.

[331] But also, when they grow back, it's quite unpleasant.

[332] The grow -back process, like the itching and stuff, you know?

[333] There's something that happens when your hair starts growing back.

[334] When you're like, hey, I didn't think of this.

[335] This isn't what I signed up for.

[336] Yeah, but that's where I end.

[337] I don't go through the legs.

[338] but I'm not opposed to it It's not It seems to me like There's a problem With why it's an issue You know Like why is it an issue I don't know So there's something about Is it a sexuality thing It's a taboo Yeah well why Bring it back Joe Why is it okay to shave your head Why is it okay to shave your face It's okay to shave all sorts of stuff But if you start shaving Like your armpits Right dudes who shave their armpits Like hey What's going on Why shaving your armpits you know but why not what do you like hair you like hairy armpits like I don't what's wrong with shaving your armpits there's something though if your friend yawned and you're like hey dude where the fuck is your armpit hair it would be an issue right you start calling me like hey man you see Mike's armpits dude's weird what the fuck's you doing right you know I know I know dudes that shave their legs though but they're like super into fitness they're like you know right if you shave your legs you want your legs look good right yeah yeah you don't want like big sloppy fucked up looking legs that are shaved also then you let highlight like if you have like these big like blocky tree trunk sloppy legs you'd want to keep them hairy that way you look like some sort of a bear you know that's true note to self yeah there's something about like here's another thing shave your eyebrows shave your eyebrows like who the fuck shaves their eyebrows That's weird, right?

[339] If you decide to shave your eyebrows, people are going to just go, oh, you're one of those guys.

[340] Meanwhile, just a couple inches south, you shave your mustache, nobody gives a shave.

[341] Totally normal.

[342] Seems totally normal.

[343] There's something about shaving those eyebrows, right?

[344] That's true.

[345] Yeah.

[346] Or if you left your mustache and shaved your eyebrows, get the fuck away from me. Kind of a weirdo are you?

[347] We have weird rules.

[348] What was the weirdest name that you heard anybody?

[349] but he get other than smooth where to begin um fart master i think that's pretty self -explanatory how i got that one uh one of my favorites was um i got my buddy of mine i hiked with for a while his name was hover job hover job hover job he went to um so you get out in the AT you know it's like most people aren't even that familiar with the woods right so you start trying to figure out tips and tricks on how to do things so one of the things is how to use the public facilities And he was saying he, you know, he does the hover job.

[350] Oh, yeah, that's a good move.

[351] Yeah, everybody knows that one, right?

[352] You stop at some gas station somewhere and you've got to take a shit.

[353] You have to be really careful.

[354] Yeah, you don't want to test that seat.

[355] Now, speaking of ticks, you were talking about ticks, I know Lyme disease is a huge issue on the East Coast.

[356] I saw something the other day that was saying this year is going to be a record year, some walnut hatching season, something, and I don't know.

[357] It's terrifying stuff.

[358] I did this show a while back on sci -fi called Joe Rogan Questions Everything, and one of the things we talked about was mostly conspiracy theories, and it was really interesting to find the mindset of these conspiracy people, and how they're all very similar, whether it's Bigfoot or aliens, or a really similar sort of bizarre mindset, the way they look at things.

[359] They have this very compartmentalized, fucked up way of looking at things.

[360] But one of the ones that we studied, It was really fascinating, something called Morgellons.

[361] Morgellons is a weird disease where people believe that they have these fibers growing out of their skin, and they start itching themselves, and they create these legions, these scratches, and then things get attached to them, like fibers from, like, perhaps like from a carpet or something like that, and they think that they're growing out of their skin.

[362] And most people think it's a psychosomatic disorder, but one of the guys that I talked to was a doctor who also had Morgellons.

[363] and he was really very objective about it and he said there seems to be some sort of a neurotoxic effect that's connected to Lyme disease and he said that one of the things that these people that have more gelons have in common they almost all have Lyme disease and what he believes is that ticks contain not just Lyme disease but a host of other different sort of diseases that you can catch and so because of these weird different bacterias and different things that these toxins that these ticks potentially possess when you get bit by certain ticks you can actually hallucinate and he would say yeah he was talking about and we saw a thread moving across his eyeball wait this is real stuff this isn't sci -fi stuff no no it's not sci -fi stuff at all it's real people I've never even heard of this.

[364] Moregelons?

[365] Yeah, well, it's generally thought to be a psychosomatic disorder.

[366] And that's why I was interesting talking to this doctor because he was saying yes and no. Because he was saying, well, he believes there's a real issue and that issue is Lyme disease.

[367] But that these pathogens that are in these ticks, they're not, it's not uniform.

[368] They're different in all these different ticks.

[369] Some of them are more potent than others.

[370] And that there may be a host of different unidentified pathogens.

[371] There's not just Lyme disease, but several others, and some of them have a neurotoxic effect.

[372] And this neurotoxic effect can induce hallucinations, and some of those hallucinations can be that you think that your body's growing fibers out of it.

[373] And he said that he saw it moving across his eye.

[374] He goes, I know intellectually that it was not there.

[375] He goes, there was no, I examined it, I looked at, it was not there, but I saw it.

[376] So he personally experienced the hallucination.

[377] Yeah.

[378] And the other thing is that a lot of these people, they go undiagnized.

[379] for long periods of time.

[380] Because for the longest time, Lyme disease went undiagnosed and still does.

[381] I have a good buddy of mine.

[382] Him and his son got bit by ticks when they were fishing.

[383] And he brought his son to the doctor, and by then that bullseye, you know, around that grows around.

[384] If you get bit by a tick that has Lyme disease, there's like a bullseye, it looks like a red circle that grows around the area where the tick bit him.

[385] And the bullseye had gone away by the time he brought him to the doctor.

[386] And so the doctor was incredulous and he was like, I don't believe that's Lyme disease.

[387] Kids are fun to be fine.

[388] And then he started getting Bell's palsy.

[389] So half of his face was paralyzed.

[390] And that's when they really realized that this, oh my God, this kid has Lyme disease for sure.

[391] And then.

[392] Good grief.

[393] Yeah.

[394] And they were in real bad shape.

[395] Like my friend who's skinny as it is, he wound up losing something like 20, 30 pounds.

[396] And it fucked with him for close to a year.

[397] The other guys that he was with, they got Lyme disease as well.

[398] Like several people they were with got Lyme disease.

[399] And they were all fucked up for months.

[400] I knew one guy that got it, and I think he went to the doctor and got some shots or antibiotics.

[401] I don't know what the treatment was, but he came back, like, full force and finished the AT.

[402] Yeah, you can do that.

[403] I mean, if you catch it, like, really quick.

[404] We had a guy on the podcast, Steve Kotler, who got it, and he was undiagnosed for over a year, and he wound up being bedridden for three years.

[405] Oh, my gosh.

[406] Yeah, yeah.

[407] Because the more it sinks into your system, the more.

[408] more you let it, you know, go without antibiotics and without treatment.

[409] And again, what this doctor was telling me, I'm just relaying what this one doctor who had Lyme disease was saying, is that he believes that there's a host of different pathogens.

[410] It's not just one.

[411] And he said there could be many that are undiscovered.

[412] Like Lyme disease is fairly recent in terms of its discovery or our diagnosis of it.

[413] I feel like it's within the last two or three decades at the most.

[414] So I would worry about that Scary stuff, man Yeah, when you're out there I don't want that The risk of the Lyme disease on the Appalachian Trail is going to be high this year Trail Life Oh my God How do you read Trail Life when you're out there This article just came out today though Oh shit Are you talking about the walnut hatching?

[415] I didn't say specifically that There's another article on I googled Lyme disease From Connecticut that says that Testing on found ticks with Lyme disease Is higher this year more than normal Yeah they're fucking creepy You get bitten when you get bitten when you go hunting you can i mean i'm really careful real careful to check myself also real careful to keep myself covered up you know i wear gaiters i wear um you know uh long like marino wool it goes all the way down to my ankles and then i pull marino wool socks way up over that i don't have any exposed up to my wrists and i even wear gloves sometimes even in the heat i wear like a thin layer glove just to also it's good to protect your hands from the sun but also to protect your hands from animal seeing that white skin like you want to as little white as you can that's exposed but um i i think about that primarily about ticks it scares a shit out of me yeah i wonder what percentage of ticks actually carry because i feel like i've probably been bitten my 20 ticks in my life you know so i'm like i don't know what percentage of them were carrying it you know i definitely got bit by a bunch when i was a kid um but i never got lined but it wasn't around that much when i was a kid There was a thing about the New York, upper New York state area being unbelievably infested.

[416] Have you ever seen a Lyme disease map?

[417] Like a map of Lyme disease infestations.

[418] It's in the Northeast, big time, isn't it?

[419] Huge, huge, huge in the Northeast and huge in New York State.

[420] Like that upper New York State area, just really, really devastating.

[421] I wonder why that is.

[422] Isn't it related to mice?

[423] I don't know.

[424] Deer's, deer ticks apparently are a big issue.

[425] Here it is Look at that There you go That's in 2015 But there's a few in California Especially you see Northern California has a bunch But look at that fucking Northeast man That's just like A zombie plague That's awful Massachusetts is completely covered in it Look at it The whole state New Jersey too yeah Covered Yeah But just a devastating Dissease If you don't catch it But I guess it's spreading across the country They're finding it Florida now, new strains in Florida?

[426] What other issues do you have to deal with when it comes to, like, bugs and diseases and stuff like that?

[427] Giardia.

[428] Oh, yeah.

[429] So, yeah, I was going to ask you that.

[430] How do you get your water?

[431] Like, what are you getting?

[432] There's a thing called, basically you, all freshwater sources, you know, so streams, lakes, ponds, unfortunately the East Coast is so wet, you know, you're going to cross over a water source very frequently.

[433] Generally several times a day, you're going to cross at least a stream.

[434] So you fill up your water there.

[435] You carry two different containers, two bottles, one for dirty, one for clean.

[436] So you fill up a liter of dirty water from the stream.

[437] A ton of different water purification methods.

[438] I don't know if you do it in your backcountry hunting, but the big one I use is Sawyer Squeeze.

[439] It's like a nozzle you screw on top of your water bottles.

[440] you fill up a dirty water bottle, screw this water filter off and you squeeze out clean water.

[441] That's what I used, but I mean, a lot of people use.

[442] And it really works that well to you just squeeze it and the water comes out clean?

[443] Yeah.

[444] The filtration system is that good?

[445] Yeah.

[446] Wow, it takes out Jardia?

[447] Yes, I think.

[448] I'm still standing.

[449] But, yeah, and then they're like the droplets, which are basically...

[450] Chlorine.

[451] Chemicals, right?

[452] Yeah.

[453] Yeah, I mean, what else is there?

[454] All sorts of filters and chemicals.

[455] Some people try to boil it.

[456] That's just a pain.

[457] You don't want to boil water all the time.

[458] And then wait for it to cool down before you get drink it.

[459] Yeah, I will say, though, by the end of the AT, you talk about finishing in winter.

[460] You know, it's like whenever you stop at these fresh water sources, you know, the water's flowing.

[461] And I'm, you know, it's like 20 degrees out, 15 degrees.

[462] You know, I'm like, I don't want to stick my hand in that freezing water and get my hands cold.

[463] I can't heat them back up, you know?

[464] Right.

[465] So I'll, admittedly, not that I recommend this, but I was, I was drinking it straight, man. Wow.

[466] Yeah.

[467] That's risky.

[468] It was risky, but it was just like, I was so done by the end of it, you know, I was just like, I don't have the patience to stop with freezing fingers, like, so numb.

[469] You know, the dexterity is just totally gone.

[470] You know, I'm like, oh, it's just like, wow.

[471] I'll see a doctor eventually.

[472] Yeah, I know.

[473] now when you when you got to the end seven months is that what it took you i think it was i got off trail for two two weeks in between there for some family stuff but uh if you took out that two weeks it was six months i was on trail so when you get off trail did you go fly somewhere honestly i went to france with my family whoa that's not doesn't count dude i and it was like i was just a human trash can i was just like cheese wine everything man I gained at least 5, 10 pounds that week, and I was just like, wow, just pigging out and enjoying.

[474] You must have enjoyed the shit out of that vacation, though.

[475] It was kind of like sad.

[476] It was like, you know, a lot of guys are getting off -trail because they're like, oh, man, I'm totally broke and everything.

[477] I'm like, I'm going to France for a week or two.

[478] So some people get off -trail just because, financially, they can't hack it anymore.

[479] Yeah, I mean, you got, you know, a 19 -year -old guy who's out of high school, it doesn't have any savings, and it's like, oh, I'm going to go hike the A -T, that sounds like a great idea.

[480] They haven't done any research, no planning, don't know anything about gear or anything, but, you know, they've read a walk in the woods, and they think this is a good idea.

[481] What is a walk in the woods?

[482] It's by Bill Bryson.

[483] It's probably the most popular AT book out there.

[484] It's like, it's just kind of a funny story.

[485] He's a good writer.

[486] But he wrote that, I think, in, like, the mid -90s, but that book, if you look at, like, the Appalachian Trail Hikers, it was just like, a walk in the woods is released.

[487] and it was like, It was like huge publicity.

[488] And have you heard of Wilde, the book, movie, Reese Witherspoon?

[489] Yeah, I did hear about it.

[490] I never saw it.

[491] But yeah, was that a movie about the Appalachian Trail?

[492] Pacific Crest Trail.

[493] But that was the same thing.

[494] It was like the A .T. is so historic and iconic for long -distance hiking trails that a walk in the woods did for the A .T. What Wild did for the Pacific Crest Trail.

[495] But Wild was only released a few years ago.

[496] But, I mean, same thing.

[497] It was like Pacific Crest Trail was relatively unknown to hikers, and that book was released and movie, and it was just like, now Pacific Crest Trail is really hot right now.

[498] The Pacific Crest Trail, though, is the one that goes from Mexico to California.

[499] Or it goes all the way to Canada.

[500] Oh, okay.

[501] At the top.

[502] There's not that much water there.

[503] No. Right.

[504] You talk about the East Coast being wet.

[505] So what do they do there?

[506] My understanding is they have big, I don't know, the terminology is a big water reservoir.

[507] like a big concrete cylinder out in the middle of the desert.

[508] And I don't know if it's rainwater or if somebody actually goes out there and fills it up, kind of like a trail.

[509] Trail Angel kind of goes out there.

[510] Trail Angel?

[511] That's another term, too.

[512] Trail Angel?

[513] Trail Angel.

[514] We'll take a sidestep into Trail Angels.

[515] Smooth is going to educate us on the Trail Angel.

[516] Go ahead, Smooth.

[517] All right.

[518] Yeah, we'll get an A .T. Dictionary going.

[519] But, yeah, the Trail Angels, and that term was, so when you're hiking on AT, you come to towns, and you're like, I need transportation to the grocery store.

[520] You know, the grocery store is actually 10 miles away from the trail crossing.

[521] Like, okay, does that mean I hike 10 more miles down the highway to get, you know, some groceries, then 10 more miles back?

[522] No, you hitchhike.

[523] And then you hitchhike in town.

[524] That's kind of, that person then becomes the trail angel.

[525] Whoa, but hitchhiking is fucking dangerous.

[526] Have you ever done it?

[527] Maybe in the younger days?

[528] I'm trying to think.

[529] I definitely got rides from people when my car broke down in Massachusetts.

[530] But I don't think I actually hitchhiked.

[531] I'm pretty sure.

[532] That was desperation without the intent.

[533] Like, I'm going to get a ride from somebody.

[534] No, I never went out there and put my thumb out and said, I'm going to get from here to there by hitchhiking.

[535] Never did that.

[536] You did.

[537] Yeah, I mean, you did.

[538] You're a fairly young guy.

[539] How old are you?

[540] 28.

[541] 28, yeah, okay.

[542] So you're talking about within the last 10 years you hitchhiked.

[543] A fair amount.

[544] That's fucking crazy.

[545] Yeah.

[546] That's like when people already know that hitchhiking is a good way to kill folks.

[547] Like if you want to kill somebody, what do you go kill some fucking kid with a backpack?

[548] That's the move.

[549] Right, it's a great opportunity to kill, right?

[550] If you're going to be one of those psychos, you know, I would just assume.

[551] Yeah.

[552] Everybody was pretty nice.

[553] But it's different parts of the country, too.

[554] You know, like, if you're going to go hitchhiking in, like, New York, you're going to run into some really weird people.

[555] If you're, like, just outside of Manhattan, you got your thumb out, you're trying to get picked up, you might get picked up by a fucking complete psycho.

[556] But if you're in, like, Wyoming or something, and there's, like, no one out there and you're hiking and...

[557] Like rural Alabama?

[558] Yeah, whoof.

[559] Pennsylvania with those crackheads screaming at each other in the car.

[560] They're weirdos everywhere.

[561] I will say, like, so before the ATO's in New Zealand, And New Zealand is higher standard of living than the States.

[562] And I feel like there's very low crime right there.

[563] And hitchhiking is not taboo there.

[564] I always heard that New Zealand was kind of like the States was in the 50s.

[565] And it was just kind of like a safe, happy place.

[566] You know, there's no crime.

[567] Everybody's nice to each other.

[568] High standard of living.

[569] And in New Zealand, it was like they had some bus stops, like the equivalent of like a bus stop.

[570] and it was like a hitchhiking bench.

[571] So you would sit there and, like, people would drive on their way to work and somebody would be sitting on the bench like, hey, pick me up, you know?

[572] But it was like systemized, you know.

[573] It was like people hitchhike.

[574] So it's like the taboo was kind of broken in New Zealand.

[575] It was like this is normal people.

[576] It's economical.

[577] It's efficient.

[578] Like, why not.

[579] You know?

[580] It's not something I would ever do.

[581] But, man, I remember I got my car, rather, broke down once in a snowstorm.

[582] and these people took me back to their house and they were so normal they were really normal people and they made me that I was on my way to visit my girlfriend and her mom and her drove to get me at these people's house and I was in there I was driving up there and it just got caught in a freak snowstorm car broke down and I remember thinking like what kind of person just picks someone up and takes them to their house they're so nice must be a weirdo right no they were really nice they were really nice people they just took a chance you know I guess the the first the first the first fear comes from that like 0 .01 % right that's going to do something it's like vast majority or you know why not I'm just like going to help somebody out it was like something with like Airbnb there was that fear it was like oh there's no way I could let somebody come into my house or couch surfing you know what couch surfing is it's like um Airbnb for free essentially you put up your couch on this website and you offer um yeah say like I've got a couch does anybody want to stay on it and then you say I'm coming through on these dates and you request the couch for free.

[583] But I remember that when that website was like really becoming popular about 10 years ago, people had that same idea.

[584] I was like, no way.

[585] This is only for nut jobs.

[586] And then it was like, it's hugely popular now and Airbnb and all that stuff.

[587] It's like, yeah, let somebody come and stay in your house.

[588] Stay with locals and meet travelers.

[589] Share authentic travel experiences as opposed to what?

[590] Fake travel experiences?

[591] What fuck does that mean?

[592] Authentic.

[593] Meet new people.

[594] Explore the world.

[595] Go on a rape binge.

[596] Find a couch Oh, find a host There's a couch Is a graphic of a couch So this is this website Jamie, couch surfing?

[597] Couch surfing .com, yeah How, but that's what's crazy Is that somebody decided to organize this They decided to make a website Every year we support 400 ,000 hosts 4 million surfers I love if I call them surfers Isn't you imagine you're a real surfer And you heard this Like listen bitch You're not a fucking surfer You don't even have to balance.

[598] You're lying down on some dude's couch.

[599] 100 ,000 events.

[600] They support 100 ,000 events.

[601] This is crazy.

[602] I never knew about this.

[603] Yeah, I mean, they're also, like, niche websites that have, so another one.

[604] Scroll down, Jamie, that image.

[605] Warm showers is another one that's for cyclists.

[606] Look at that guy.

[607] Like, up on the top of the world.

[608] Ready for your next adventure?

[609] Plan a trip.

[610] Stay on my couch.

[611] It's very strange.

[612] In Paris.

[613] You can go surf in Paris.

[614] Look, in Paris, you've got fine food and wine and cheese and bread.

[615] You can afford that?

[616] You can't afford a fucking hotel room?

[617] That's like a fucking expensive meal right there.

[618] You're looking at some really delicious food.

[619] It's very, uh, this is strange because it's very romanticized.

[620] Like, this is really organized.

[621] This website's super well done.

[622] Local hosts, and they have avatars, they have images.

[623] Reviews?

[624] Yeah.

[625] Oh, my God.

[626] Look, it's Lewis.

[627] Joint couch surfing to see Lewis's full profile.

[628] It's free.

[629] About me. Current mission.

[630] Can I host one person only?

[631] Wow, this is weird.

[632] You can put your couch up, Joe.

[633] No, that's not going to happen.

[634] I have kids.

[635] But it is interesting.

[636] I mean, it's like, the good aspects of it are, I'm sure, far outweigh the negatives.

[637] You know, most people are just enjoying themselves, meeting nice.

[638] people meeting like -minded people traveling around like my fear obviously humor aside but my fears are probably fairly unfounded right but isn't that kind of how it is with life like most most people that you meet like the vast majority people are really pretty nice like this is well intention yeah it's a really safe time to be a person you know i mean almost all interactions you have with people on a daily basis are safe and fairly friendly.

[639] Even, like, rude people are like, what's the big deal?

[640] They say a word?

[641] You know, like, most...

[642] They're not going to harm you.

[643] Yeah, most...

[644] Almost nothing happens most of the time.

[645] But we're so obsessed with the news where you tune in to, you know, any news channel, all you're getting is the collective bad news of seven billion people because that's what sells.

[646] If it bleeds, it leads.

[647] Run with it, Mike!

[648] And Mike runs with it.

[649] Yeah, you know, I mean, And this is, it's actually a very, when you really look at it that way, that's a very positive trend that people are doing this and hosting, hosting people.

[650] Shared economy.

[651] Yeah.

[652] But that's really nice.

[653] You know, it's nice that people will offer up their couch for free.

[654] Yeah.

[655] It's good stuff.

[656] It is good stuff.

[657] So do you ever stop and think, like, what if I hadn't gone on this journey of exploration and I stayed an accountant and you would be living that life of the droning existence where every day he just fucking showing over the same place and crunching numbers and hating life and wishing for some kind of adventure or something different no I can't I can't relate to that I think no matter what whether it's AT or something I think I would have yeah I'm too impatient you know I get bored too easily something you know I would have done something but a lot of people don't a lot of people who like you and they just never make that move they never take that chance I think when I talk to even a lot of my friends that are still doing I'm not going to call them crappy jobs but you know because I think they do provide a lot of things that they like security you can't some people love that security like getting a paycheck you know but it's like I don't think they view it like that it's not like oh this may not be the best thing but I like it's not like I don't know it's like some people think this is so bad or I just can't.

[658] I just have to.

[659] I just don't think that that threshold ever crosses most people, you know?

[660] Yeah.

[661] Well, you know, people vary.

[662] You know, the personality types that go on that trail, I mean, that's like a very, very extreme personality type.

[663] But I think most people have a certain amount of, if not wander lust, at least curiosity.

[664] It's just a matter of how much of it do you, how much of it do you nurture?

[665] how much of how much of that that needed to feed there's also there's also a real problem than not recognizing the finite nature of existence you know i mean just when you're 20 especially or 21 or whatever it is when you enter into these jobs you don't realize like hey man you've only got like a few decades right of of good times you could do this for 40 years yeah easily oh easily easily and then we've all meant those people that have done it for 40 years.

[666] And they're just beaten down by life.

[667] And they have that dull, desperate look in their eyes.

[668] It's just this sadness in their eyes.

[669] Where their life is just, it's not good.

[670] It hasn't turned out well.

[671] There's not a lot of joy there.

[672] Yeah, and hold on to the vacations big time.

[673] Oh, you're scaring the shit out of me, Chris.

[674] Scaring the shit out of me. So you, in the middle of doing all this, right?

[675] So you do this, you go on this crazy seven -month adventure.

[676] and when it's over what was that like when you hit the end and you realize is there like a bell you ring or anything like that I should put a bell up there So I mean going northbound there's like there's like this epic Mount Katata and it's like a beautiful big mountain one of the most epic climbs that's in Maine so if you go south you end in Georgia and you end on Springer Mountain which is just not as not as epic not as dramatic you know you're right so but yeah I mean you finish there's just a plaque and it's like dude you finished really and you touch the plaque do you have to touch it what if you get right before it and you quit it's like right before like a foot before fuck this just collapse yeah like two feet before the plaque yeah no i'm good that's it that's it's in main that's the finish and that's the finish and uh yeah northbounders how many people fake it take a picture of that dude you can go hike that in one day yeah for sure you at least i would probably do that i'd go hike it in a day and then get that that weird feeling of watching these people that are covered in two inches of grime, climb up that hill.

[677] Can you pull up spring?

[678] Look at that guy.

[679] That motherfucker.

[680] Look at that guy.

[681] That guy looks like he's been hiking for seven months.

[682] Hiker.

[683] What's it called spring?

[684] Springer Mountain.

[685] Look at that guy's face.

[686] Jesus Christ.

[687] He's just all hair and.

[688] So, um...

[689] There you go.

[690] Yeah.

[691] That's the, uh...

[692] That's where it starts.

[693] Is that the gateway?

[694] That's what's called the...

[695] approach trail it's not the um it's like i like how it has like an awning that's that's the actual plaque on the end but that's not a great shot of it there you go that's it so that's where it starts yep national scenic trail now who established this uh so the guy named bitton bitton mackay imagine trying to talk people into doing that with you like when you first started doing that like what year did this guy do this i know i know these dates but i i know these dates but i I don't think the 30s, 30s?

[696] So imagine, 1930s, fucking Great Depression, that old deal.

[697] Those are the people back then.

[698] And this guy says, I know what I'm going to do.

[699] I'm going to walk all the way up to Maine.

[700] And I'm going to start a whole movement.

[701] A bunch of other people are going to do it as well.

[702] They're probably like, fuck you, dude.

[703] Get a job, hippie.

[704] Yeah, the CCC at the time was, you know, helping construct all the trails.

[705] Look at that.

[706] Springer Mountain, Georgia, 8 .5 miles.

[707] Mount, how to say it?

[708] Katad.

[709] Katadden, Maine, 2 ,1008 .5 miles.

[710] Those 0 .5 are a motherfucker.

[711] That last 0 .5, oh.

[712] So when you did it and you touch the sign and you're like, all right, I did it.

[713] I cried.

[714] Did you?

[715] I did.

[716] I literally collapsed.

[717] Wow.

[718] Like you fell to your knees?

[719] It was seriously one of the most emotional times in my life.

[720] I would imagine.

[721] I was just, yeah, even like that morning, I woke up and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is, this is ending, you know?

[722] I was like so much, just so long.

[723] I'd been thinking about it from, yeah, I mean, childhood, you know?

[724] And then it was like not only thinking about it for, you know, a decade, but then it was actually hiking the darn thing for six months.

[725] And it was just like getting there.

[726] It was like, by that time, like, I had stress fractures forming and my feet.

[727] Really?

[728] Yeah, I was just in bad shape.

[729] I wasn't sleeping well because, you know, at night, it was getting down to zero degrees every night.

[730] And my sleeping bag was not cutting it.

[731] So it was just like, it was just a lot, man, you know?

[732] Stress fractures in your feet, huh?

[733] Yeah, yeah, and I had stress fractures from cross -country in high school, so I knew what they felt like.

[734] I'm like, oh, this is coming.

[735] It's just a matter of time, you know.

[736] Now, what kind of hiking shoes did you wear?

[737] It seems like your gear would be critical.

[738] Big time, yeah.

[739] I started off with a brand called Salewa.

[740] They were kind of like a technical climbing shoe, actually.

[741] But the fact that they are a little more stiff?

[742] Stiff, exactly.

[743] makes them, you know, good for some tough, tough trail.

[744] But I switched to trail runners, and I don't, do you run?

[745] Yeah, I started really, really recently, like a few days ago.

[746] Actually, I saw you post something on Facebook.

[747] You had a rough run.

[748] Fucking terrible at it.

[749] I'd be like a bowling ball.

[750] It's not good for running.

[751] I'm going to do some weight if I want to keep doing this.

[752] But, yeah, I've been running for a few days now.

[753] But, yeah, I switched to basically just running shoes with a little thicker tread.

[754] Like Solomon's?

[755] Solomon's is a great brand I got those for the very purpose of running up hills You like them?

[756] Yeah, they seem good They've got good traction to them Good tread like a thick tread But yet they're still Built like a running shoe Very light Those are good hiking shoes Something that your feet can breathe And give you some cushion And you don't need any ankle support You don't feel like I feel like that's overrated It's more like a mountaineering thing Yeah I think there's kind of this theory That your ankles toughen up I don't know If that's really true but I think I kind of fell into that belief that I was rolling ankles so much in the first like 100, 200 miles of the trail and by the end of it, it was just like just keep going, you know?

[757] Yeah, yeah, I've always wondered about that because a lot of people that hunt, they wear these like really stiff, very tactical mountain hiking boots where they go up.

[758] Yeah, they go like 10 inches up the ankle and they lace them up tight.

[759] Yeah, when I used to go hunting with my dad when I was a kid and we would we would wear those boots and looking back I'm like I don't get it is it just because maybe the brush is just so thick you need something like durable to crust through that brush but it's like I don't think so what do you mean what do you wear when you go hunting well I it varies I've never worn um running shoes like those like trail running shoes but I know some people do do do wear those and they they like them and some really good hunters they wear them exclusively they were like lightweight trail runners and they and even Even Solomon actually makes a gator for those trail runners.

[760] Yeah.

[761] So that you can, for people to know what a gator is, a gator's like a thing that you slip over your shoes and it cinches down tight so that rocks and dirt and stuff doesn't get deep into your shoe.

[762] And I think Kuyu is coming out with a boot that actually has a gator built in, which is kind of interesting.

[763] But then you can see the Solomon Trail gators, yeah.

[764] So the idea is to make sure that you're not getting irritants, dirt, and pebbles and shit and debris.

[765] Did you ever wear anything like that when you were?

[766] Definitely.

[767] Yeah, definitely, yeah.

[768] Is that a must have?

[769] Some hikers might say kind of roll their eyes at it.

[770] I started off rolling my eyes at it, and then it was just like you're saying, it would just get, I mean, five times a day, I would get a little pine needle in my sock, and it's just like, oh, damn it.

[771] Like, I've got to get something to keep that going out.

[772] I would imagine that you would have an incredible ability to test gear.

[773] Like, nobody would probably know what gear is affected, and durable, and really, really, like, over the long term.

[774] Yeah, totally.

[775] And it's like, you know, part of the AT, I'd been backpacking for over 10 years, and I thought I was kind of, okay, I'm pretty familiar with this stuff.

[776] And it was like, no, I didn't know anything about backpacking.

[777] And, yeah, you test everything, you know, and it's like, even after all your research, you start realizing, like, hmm, there's a little bit better stuff out there.

[778] Or, yeah, I can actually tweak this and improve this and that.

[779] But, yeah, by the end of it, it's like, anybody who's through hike this can get into some, real nerdy backpacking gear talk you know well hunters get into real nerdy backpacking gear talk when they talk about like deep in the woods backcountry hunting his weight's an issue yeah huge issue they chop that ends off of their toothbrushes you know that's like it's a big issue with you did that too big time yeah wow that's so crazy like the idea that the bottom of your toothbrush every ounce man that's fine you won't ounces equals pounds right yeah it was one thing i got cody and i talk about Cody was talking about cutting weight from backpacking.

[780] I feel like my impression, at least, you know, when we were talking, I was like thinking hunters were almost kind of the chubby guy in the blind was kind of my idea.

[781] I was like when my dad and I would hunt, it was kind of just truly sitting there with blue jeans.

[782] And it was just kind of like, oh, all right, there's a duck.

[783] You know, I was like talking to Cody, I think hunting I was doing was pretty amateur.

[784] And Cody was talking about cutting weight significantly and that hunters have kind of latched on to some.

[785] some of the backpacking, you know, ethos, if you will, about, you know, shaving every ounce.

[786] But it's like, y 'all carry so much more gear.

[787] Yeah.

[788] We've got weapons, you know, like, those things aren't made to count every ounce, I would imagine.

[789] Well, it depends on what you're carrying, but there are some lightweight rifles that people use that are, like, carbon fiber barrels and stuff.

[790] But the issue with those is they, unless you're, like, prone and you're laying down on something, they move a little bit more, and a lot of people think they're not as accurate as, like, a real heavy rifle.

[791] Like, a lot of guys...

[792] Sacrifices.

[793] Yeah, they're like a heavy rifle.

[794] Like a heavy barrel, thick, heavy barrel.

[795] And the same thing with bows.

[796] It's a weird thing.

[797] Like, some people like heavy bows.

[798] Because it's, you hold steadier.

[799] You know, there's the thought behind it that, like, you have something light in your hand and you're shaking a little bit.

[800] Like, maybe your little nerves, you might move around a little bit more.

[801] But if you got something, it's really heavy, you know, you'll have, like, more stability when you're executing the shot.

[802] but camera equipment too yeah a lot of guys carry spotting scopes and 15 power binos and then they have eight to 10 power binos around their neck and yeah eight to 10 yeah yeah depends on what kind of stuff you use you know some people they'll sacrifice uh like spotting scopes they won't do that they won't bring it but some people where some people also like to film all their stuff so they bring tripods for filming and a tripod for glassing lasting meaning, you know, you lock either binoculars or a spotting scope on a tripod so you get a real steady view because it really makes a difference.

[803] Like if you see more animals, yeah, if you're holding up like the binos in your hand, you got to kind of like put your elbows on your knees and you sit down, but it's not as good.

[804] Like being on a tripod is the best way, for sure.

[805] But then you got to carry that, you got to carry that fucking tripod around.

[806] And there's, I think there's a big difference between people that they carry their stuff in and then they make a camp versus people to keep their camp on their back all the time.

[807] There's a lot of that too.

[808] There's different kinds of hunting.

[809] Do you know the average bag weight?

[810] I think Cody was mentioning it was like 60 or 70 pounds.

[811] Do you have any idea?

[812] Yeah, a lot of guys will carry in 60, 70 pounds.

[813] That's pretty standard.

[814] But again, these guys are not carrying their camp on their back.

[815] But if they do, like if they know they have to go in deep and they have to live off their back, like they have a bivvy tent and they do the whole thing off their back.

[816] Most guys will try to drop it in the 40s.

[817] But if you carry around 40 fucking pounds, man, like there's a company called the outdoorsman's in Phoenix and they make like a real high -end pack.

[818] And one of the things that they've made that they actually just sent me, it's a pack frame that has like an Olympic plate mount on it.

[819] So you can put like a 45 pound plate and another 45 pound plate like a 90 pound plate and you train with this fucking pack frame on.

[820] So you put the pack frame on.

[821] plate you mean like a literally like a weight like lifting like lifting it slides onto your back the same way it would slide onto the end of a barbell and it you know use a clamp like a like a barbell clamp locks the plate in place and then you go up hills with these fucking things on so these guys are just training yeah they're training to get ready for these back country hunts I had the same idea as you did I thought hunters are like oh the duck dynasty guys they're all fat right and they just rednecks they're shooting it shit no not not Western hunting.

[822] So there's a big difference between the southern hunter.

[823] Yeah well there's a big difference between blind hunting like people that sit in these blinds when what a blind is is like for people listening is like it's basically like a little structure that's covered with like camo and you're hiding you're hiding waiting for the animal and then you shoot them or tree stand same thing you're sitting in the tree stand you're waiting and then you shoot them there's a big difference between that and these western hunters particularly like elk hunters because they're going into the mountains where these animals live or mule deer they're going the high country and you're climbing up you're going up thousands of feet of elevation every day up and down up and down and you have to have massive endurance so a lot of these guys start trail running a lot of these guys start putting packs on their back with with heavy weights in the pack and training getting ready for these otherwise you're fucking miserable if you're not in like real shape you're miserable yeah got to get fit you got to get real fit like that's interesting yeah it's not what people think it is well my friend cameron haines he does a lot of ultramarathons he just he just did the big foot 200 which is 205 miles in washington state how long is that take 78 hours he ran for 78 hours wow fuck everything about that wow all right but but that just shows you mean he's as extreme as it gets you know he's like one of the top bow hunters in the world but the point is these people are athletes the the the And the group of them, the elite of the elite, there's so few.

[824] It's a really, really small club of individuals that get to that point.

[825] But the vast majority of them are in spectacular shape, where they're constantly running trails, they're constantly working out, they're constantly in shape.

[826] And the reason being is if you're not, you're not going to be successful in the backcountry.

[827] Right.

[828] And one of the things that really haunts them is when they can't get to an animal because they're out of shape.

[829] and I've been there before I've tried that where I was like when I was last year I was hunting with Cam and we went up we were trying to get to this elk and he ran up the hill like a fucking mountain goat and I'm halfway behind him like I thought I was in pretty good shape and I am for the stuff I do but I wasn't in good shape for running up hills you know you gotta do that to be in shape for running up hills you got to run up hills and a lot of these guys they have these events these trained to hunt events that they do where they compete against each other and they put backpacks on and they run and they they try to get from point A to point B faster which a lot of people are criticizing and think it's kind of dangerous and it's because it's not really running with weapons what's dangerous about it wait wait just you're talking about it still about the barbell yeah like usually the barbell things is completely new and ventured by the outdoorsman's it hasn't even come out yet but most people just pack heavy weights like sandbags and strap them down at their backpack but But it's a different world as far as, like, the perception of what these people are versus what they're actually doing.

[830] And there's a real ignorance when people are talking about hunting.

[831] They think of it as like this really easy thing.

[832] You just go shoot this animal and they think hunters are cruel because that's what the thing that killed Bambi.

[833] You know what I mean?

[834] Like, there's this weird ideas that people have in their head about what hunting is.

[835] And I think in general that was kind of my impression of the, I guess, I don't have easy to right.

[836] word but yeah yeah not not physical certainly not physical no one would think from the outside without really examining it and looking in that you're talking about like elite endurance athletes no but if you took the average person that thinks they're in shape and i have friends that have done this before taking people that think they're in shape and take them on these hunts and these people break down slug yeah they just can't make it they can't do it they just they're just not prepared for it and it's hard to prepare and there's they say there's very few things you can do other than put weight on your back and go up and down hills.

[837] I was going to just do it.

[838] Some people say boxes, you know, steps, you know, those things like people step up with one leg at a gym, you know, and they do that over and over again.

[839] Some people say that that's a good way to prepare for hiking as well.

[840] Just box steps over and over again, like commit to.

[841] Just get those quads.

[842] Weirdly in some ways, trail bikes are apparently very good.

[843] like doing dirt bike truck because you're constantly pumping one leg at a time and apparently that is very good for mimicking the type of strength that you need to get up and down hills I guess back to like what you said about just doing it though it's like yeah just do it you know it sucks though man I did it the other day I did a five mile hike or a four mile hike and one of the whole one of the miles I did it with my daughter who's 50 pounds and for a mile up the hill, I carried her on my back.

[844] So she got tired.

[845] And so I put her on my shoulders and I carried her one mile straight uphill on my back.

[846] And oh my God, I was drenched.

[847] I mean, my hoodie, I was wearing a hoodie.

[848] It was soaked to the bone.

[849] Sweat was pouring down my head.

[850] I was heaving as I was carrying her.

[851] It's really interesting how difficult it is.

[852] Because just the hike, it's kind of difficult, but I could do it because I'm in pretty good shape.

[853] But the hike with a, you know, 50 -pound kid on your shoulders, fucking a thousand times harder.

[854] I bet.

[855] Yeah, it's hard.

[856] But I used it as a workout.

[857] And she's like, if you're too tired, you can stop.

[858] I'm like, no, no, no, it's a good workout.

[859] It's good for me. You know, it's probably freaked her out of here.

[860] I'm going to go, carrying her, like, thinking I'm going to fall or something like that.

[861] But it wasn't dangerous.

[862] Like, it wasn't like I was, my legs were failing.

[863] But I was breathing fucking heavy.

[864] sure so you got to imagine these guys that are carrying 20 pounds more than that and they're carrying their weight deep into the mountains you know or their pack out that's the other thing you kill an animal like you got 100 pounds in your pack now and you got to slowly but surely make your way and a lot of guys get like seriously injured doing this let's say what do you do to drag it no you put it in your backpack a hundred pound animal yeah well no much more than a hundred pound animal usually any deer you shoot is going to be more than 100 pounds and an elk is way more than 100 pounds so what you're doing is you're making multiple trips with 100 pounds on your back.

[865] Does they hack it up?

[866] Yeah, you have to chop it up.

[867] Now when it comes to like backpacks and things along those lines like how do you choose what kind of backpack you need and like you must have like a weight consideration as well and as far as volume like how much stuff you need you said you carry one change of clothes So you basically have one pair of socks, one pair of underwear, one pair of pants, other than the stuff you have on, right?

[868] Do you bring a change of shoes?

[869] You typically break it up by activity.

[870] So you have hiking and sleeping.

[871] So you have your hiking set of clothes and gear, and you have your sleeping.

[872] So hiking clothes are usually like maybe even like workout clothes, like a synthetic short sleep top, maybe even running shorts.

[873] and you know a set of socks to hike in and then your trail runners to hike in it's kind of like your hiking attire you know it's certainly not like the pant hiking boot kind of image i think that's that's you know going away um and then you have your sleeping set of clothes your camp clothes which is typically like a very minimalist um camp shoe it's all about weight because that's that piece of footwear is on your back right so you want to make sure that one's light you know so a lot of people even use crocs i know they use crocs because it's super light right it's light and it's waterproof you can walk around camping them and then um you know some kind of wool like honestly this i love this right like uh marino marino wool um something warm to sleep in something dry like that those clothes like get your hiking clothes wet dirty all day long but when you come home or when you get to camp at night it's like keep it make sure it's comfortable make sure it's dry because that's your saving grace if you have to go to sleep in wet clothes in wintertime like that's no good yeah now why why synthetic why do you choose synthetic uh so i know a lot of people choose marino for for hiking as well because it regulates temperature well and when it's wet you can still stay warm uh i think you i mean you can have arguments on both sides uh i personally like synthetic just because i feel like it dries faster um and it's a little more durable like this is this would just tear you know and it's like i like getting down and dirty when I hike and like a synthetic shirt, even just from Walmart, you know, nothing amazing.

[874] Just a light weight since that synthetic shirt I think it's just going to breathe and, yeah, dry faster.

[875] But I mean, Marino, yeah, I've hiked in marino too.

[876] And what kind of pack are you using?

[877] Oh, man, I could totally nerd out on packs.

[878] I did, I used an Osprey on actual AT hike.

[879] I don't want to talk bad about Osprey.

[880] I like Osprey a lot, but I would not hike with them again.

[881] I do...

[882] How come?

[883] I hate to be, you know, kind of from aesthetics, but I just don't like the way they look.

[884] They've got this, like, they've got this, like.

[885] That seems like the last thing you consider when you're wearing crocks.

[886] But that's true.

[887] But they have this, they kind of pride themselves on a breathable back.

[888] You know what I'm?

[889] Do you know what I was great?

[890] Like they have like that concave back, and it just feels like a turtle shell.

[891] I just can't stand it.

[892] It's like, I feel like I'm like falling back with it on.

[893] Oh, okay, so the weight's not tight to your back.

[894] Yeah, I want something snug on my back.

[895] I guess that's not, I mean, that's a little utility.

[896] But that's a big issue for utility.

[897] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[898] But you just think they look weird, too?

[899] Well, exactly.

[900] It's like, I don't like it.

[901] It looks bizarre.

[902] What's the name of the packs that we could pull it up?

[903] Osprey XOS 58.

[904] And so that's 5 ,800 liters?

[905] Is that what it is?

[906] It's 58 liters.

[907] 58 liters, yeah.

[908] And then, but I mean, if I were to do it again, there are a handful of, like, pretty badass ultralite pack companies.

[909] It's kind of, you've got this, like, bell curve of, like, Osprey is like the majority of backpackers and it's like you get into like that that niche ultralight and then you've got like a handful to there it is right there competing yeah that's so that's uh it just looks like uh yeah you see that space in between the back right i'm not into that so that's just for breathability yeah but it's like man you're a sweaty pig no matter how you look at it i just don't see the argument for breathability back there do some people like it definitely so it's just uh it's just uh it's just It's a personal preference.

[910] So what is like, what's the elite of the elite?

[911] I could, I would probably say like four.

[912] There's Hyperlite Mountain Gear.

[913] They make, what's a Cuban fiber?

[914] Do you know Cuban fiber, the material?

[915] Cuban?

[916] Cuban fiber.

[917] It's called Dyneema now.

[918] Okay, I've heard of Dyneema.

[919] They use that for bow strings.

[920] Oh, yeah?

[921] Yeah.

[922] So, but it's lightweight, it's strong.

[923] They're super expensive.

[924] Hyperlight Mountain gear makes, I like their packs.

[925] Gossamer gear.

[926] They make great packs, a little more affordable, super lightweight, granite gear.

[927] It's another one.

[928] And then ULA equipment.

[929] This would probably be the four pack companies I'd want to use for the next hike.

[930] What if there's, is there a cost, not an option, best one?

[931] Or is it just all four of them are really similar?

[932] even the gossamer gear mariposa that's a model they're probably more affordable than some of the other options i'd probably like it the most um so yeah even even if money wasn't you know money wasn't an issue they're still one of the more affordable packs and make the best what's interesting about packs is a lot of it is like where it centers the weight on you and you can make one pack with the same amount of weight would feel lighter than another pack just by the way it's designed and the way the load lifters work and all that chance.

[933] And your torso length, like, you know, what might fit, you might not fit me right?

[934] Yeah.

[935] It's like, yeah, I went backpacking with my girlfriend.

[936] I gave her some of my packs, and her torso was just so much shorter than mine.

[937] Like the hip belt wasn't working properly, so she couldn't rest the weight on her hips, and then it's all on her shoulders.

[938] And then she's like, God, this pack sucks.

[939] And I'm like, man, that's one of the best packs out there, you know?

[940] So do you have to, can you adjust it for her or is it just a different pack for her frame?

[941] You need a different size.

[942] Hmm, that's interesting.

[943] So how do you know?

[944] know like what to choose you have to just try them out uh i would yeah and yeah i would have to try them out and like it's hard to do because like your local r i don't know you get r i yeah they yeah they don't carry those kind of niche ultra light packs you can't go try them on they carry they'll carry osprey yeah go try them on measure your torso link some of those online retailers have like ways to you know measure your torso link make sure it fits right but still at the end of the day it's like a pair of shoes you got you got to you got to try them on you know it's interesting because hunters in general do not use the same packs that backpackers use yeah but you probably more holsters and all sorts of stuff you need your needs are different i'd imagine right yeah for the most part but a lot of it is like certain things you strap to the pack like you strap your bow to your pack and some of them have like rifle holsters or rifle you know scabbards you can kind of contain a rifle and like a lot of them have little packets or areas where you get strapped down a tripod or maybe the top compartment you would keep your binoculars or something along those lines but i would think that there would be like a lot of crossover and there's not there's an exclusive sort of segment of the population or of the market rather why is that is it just marketing you're just targeting different audience i don't know because i wouldn't think that that would be the case because it's not the case really with boots that much there's a lot of people use like solomons and really standard hiking boots.

[945] There are hunting boots like Crispy and Cannotrack and there's a few of those that are like specifically designed Schneys, like people use them from other things too, but they're like really like well known in the hunting world.

[946] Maybe the markets will start blending.

[947] I wonder, but I'm just wondering like you would think you would go to those guys, the backpackers, the, you know, Appalachian Trail people, like they would have already done the work.

[948] I would think like that's the people to contact.

[949] They know what's good.

[950] Yeah, they're traveling for seven fucking months.

[951] You know.

[952] Do you take like a Nolgine bottle or something like that with you?

[953] Smart water bottles, man. Smart water.

[954] That's it, really?

[955] Yeah, like, I mean, these water bottles are fine.

[956] But I like smart water because, like, you talk about that filter.

[957] That's all your squeeze we're talking about.

[958] It matches water bottle threads.

[959] But the problem, like, with, like, this bottle specifically is it goes around, what, like two and a half, maybe one and a half times around.

[960] Right.

[961] It's like smart water bottles, this piece is about that long, and it's just like much, much better, it's much more secure.

[962] Right.

[963] So it's like more threads.

[964] More threads to secure itself.

[965] So there's not going to be any leak or anything.

[966] It's crazy to think that that all you have to do is squeeze the water through it.

[967] Like, how long does it take to do like a one liter thing of water?

[968] That's the biggest con with like that specific type of filters, the fact that you have to manually do it and it can take a while.

[969] So if you had a group of, let's say you wanted to go with your kids backpacking, like, I don't know if I'd recommend that filter because you're going to squeeze all their water through that one little filter.

[970] But if it's just you and you're trying to squeeze a half a liter a liter at a time, like it's fine.

[971] You know, it might take a minute.

[972] I've seen those gravity filters too.

[973] Yeah.

[974] Like if you're going with your family or something and you have to do more volume of water, I'd probably go gravity filter.

[975] So here it is right here.

[976] Okay, Sawyer Squeeze water filtration system.

[977] There's a video of it.

[978] Oh, okay.

[979] And it squeezes into a bag.

[980] so you fill the water bottle up and then you squeeze it and then it fills that bag so do you use one of those that's their manufacturer bag oh I see do you use one of those tubes oh so what is it what's going on right there that's the clean water coming out oh I see I see oh so that's it huh so you fill the bag up and he squeeze that thing and then it comes out the end wow it's pretty good stuff that's amazing that that's all you have to do.

[981] I would think there's a bunch of bears shitting in that water.

[982] Like, what are the odds that you could just do that?

[983] That seems crazy.

[984] I think they're marketing more towards like, you know, like Africa and stuff now.

[985] Oh, right.

[986] If you get, if you have a water source that's polluted, like you can start you've got water for village, you know?

[987] It's like just squeeze it through and they have like a warranty of some insane amount of water can go through there, you know?

[988] And then what do you have to change the filter or throw it away?

[989] Just throw it away and get another one.

[990] They're like, I don't know, 40 bucks.

[991] I was like, get another filter every 10 years.

[992] Like, God forbid.

[993] Really?

[994] That's it?

[995] I think their warranty is like, I don't even want to throw out a number, but it's like a million gallons or just something ridiculous.

[996] Whoa, that little thing can go through a million gallons of water.

[997] What does that filter smell like after the end?

[998] So you're supposed to backflush it.

[999] Like my backflush, when you backflush mine, so you're right, you got the one way.

[1000] The dirty water goes through this way and you're supposed to push through the crap, right, out the other way.

[1001] and yeah when you do that on mine like there's just black water coming out oh wow it's interesting the thing like all that black water is just filtered out of what looks like clean water yeah well that is interesting well it's also like you ever like especially in los angeles is a great example of this have you ever gone to the hills and looked down on the basin of the LA area and you see the brown air yeah it's fucking disgusting but when you're there you don't see it it looks normal if you're walking around Hollywood, you're like, oh, look, air.

[1002] I can see right through it.

[1003] Your lungs are doing the same thing that filter's doing.

[1004] I know.

[1005] Break dust.

[1006] That's the other thing.

[1007] The brake dust, apparently, is a real issue with, like, New York City and places where you have real congestion in tight areas.

[1008] You're breathing in a lot of dust from the brakes of the cars.

[1009] I had no idea.

[1010] Yeah, I didn't either.

[1011] Yeah.

[1012] I saw some of that smog coming into L .A., and I connected into Mexico City when I was coming here and Mexico City was the same way.

[1013] Mexico City was just like...

[1014] Oh, the worst.

[1015] Mexico City is like L .A. is going to be in probably 20 or 30 years.

[1016] What's going on with the politics over here?

[1017] I figured Joe would be clean air and organic and...

[1018] There's not much we could do.

[1019] I mean, when you get the volume of people that are here, the amount of humans in L .A., apparently, though, the basin, like, especially like the valley, has always been like that.

[1020] It's always been kind of like a dust bowl just by the way it's shaped even back before there were cars.

[1021] People always complained about the brown air just from literally from dust and dirt and wind and the dry air and the lack of moisture so the dirt kicks up easy with the wind but then you add that with pollution as well gross but you know we have 20 million plus people in this tiny little area yeah you know i mean literally we have as many people as the entire country of australia in the l .a area that's crazy yeah fucking really crazy.

[1022] It's just too many.

[1023] And now Trump has lightened the EPA protection standards, and they're changing the standards of automobiles, what automobiles need to achieve.

[1024] Supposedly to help business, but fuck, man, at what cost?

[1025] Yeah, I think that seems like a short -term solution to a long -term problem.

[1026] It's terrible idea.

[1027] It's a terrible idea.

[1028] I mean, there's a reason why people have, why they've set those standards and they're trying to achieve cleaner and cleaner standards.

[1029] If you go back, apparently the 1970s in Los Angeles, the traffic was, it was, pollution was way worse.

[1030] Because when you're around those cars, you've ever been around like old cars, like, you know, a 1970 car?

[1031] Not particularly now.

[1032] When you're around them, apparently just an old car like that just sitting around produces pollution, not even driving, because the gas tank is not airtight and fucking fumes leak out into the environment.

[1033] It's just the oil, those things are always leaking oil and shit.

[1034] When they drive, they're just traps.

[1035] They're just disgusting.

[1036] They're just fire.

[1037] I mean, they're basically just burning gasoline.

[1038] It's calming out the back.

[1039] So why are they different now?

[1040] Regulations?

[1041] That's Manhattan from 1966.

[1042] It's crazy.

[1043] Yeah, well, those old cars, man. Old cars were fucking terrible, and regulations fixed a lot of that stuff.

[1044] And, you know, that upper right -hand corner is Los Angeles.

[1045] Look at that.

[1046] Dude, that fucking smog in L .A. And it's going to get worse now.

[1047] I mean, it was getting better, but it's going to get worse.

[1048] I mean, if he really does succeed in lowering the standards, the emission standards, look at China.

[1049] China's awful.

[1050] It's just about to say, Beijing, have you been to China?

[1051] No, never not.

[1052] I've watched a documentary.

[1053] I literally, like, when I was in, this is years ago, but when I was in China, I was just, like, sick, literally sick.

[1054] Like, I was talking with a gravel voice and it was just like, people live there, you know, like, every day.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] No thanks.

[1057] Well, that has got to be one thing that's positive about doing the Appalachian Trail is that you're constantly in nature and you're constantly around all those trees and the walking through the mountains and the clean air.

[1058] Yeah.

[1059] You're drinking like, well, I mean, not going to say that all stream water is clean.

[1060] But, I mean, yeah, you're drinking river water.

[1061] You're surrounded by trees all the time.

[1062] You're not near city lights.

[1063] Like air pollution.

[1064] It's pretty, and you're exercising every day all day, you know.

[1065] It's a pretty healthy way of life.

[1066] In a way, right?

[1067] Yeah, unless you start talking about stress fractures, right?

[1068] Well, so when you quit your job, you didn't just do the Appalachian Trail.

[1069] Like, you kind of became a world traveler, right?

[1070] Yeah, and I still kind of am, honestly.

[1071] Yeah, I'm in Guatemala right now.

[1072] What are you doing in Guatemala?

[1073] Working online.

[1074] You know, I do a lot of Greenbelly online.

[1075] So you live in Guatemala, kind of?

[1076] A loose term, you know, living.

[1077] Have you heard the term digital nomad?

[1078] Is that what you are?

[1079] I don't know if I identify myself as that, but that kind of movement of working online and working remotely.

[1080] So I can truly operate most of the business online.

[1081] So from that point of view, it's like nowhere's off limits, you know, as long as there's decent internet connection.

[1082] So, I mean, my girlfriend are in Guatemala for three months right now.

[1083] And then we'll be in Europe and then, you know, Asia back in later on.

[1084] So do you keep an apartment anywhere or anything?

[1085] Airbnb.

[1086] Wow.

[1087] No possessions, truly.

[1088] Wow, you're a renegade.

[1089] You're out there fucking thumb on your nose at society.

[1090] It's growing movement, man. Like, there are a lot of people.

[1091] Like, you'll go to these cities.

[1092] Like Chiang Mai was where, Chiang Mai, Thailand was where I was pretty much all of last year.

[1093] there are thousands of, like, young international people, like, running businesses off their laptop, you know, and, I mean, they're hubs all over the world, like Chiang Mai, where they'll have these, like, co -working cafes, booming right now.

[1094] Like, people are all over the world, like, you know, 20s, 30 -year -olds, just starting off a business that just makes $1 ,000 a month income, you know, and then they'll slowly grow it into $2 ,000 a month.

[1095] You know, next thing you know is they're replacing their old salary at their old gig.

[1096] Yeah.

[1097] I know people have done that in Hawaii.

[1098] I've heard of people doing that in Hawaii where they move to Hawaii and try to operate out of there.

[1099] And, you know, you're essentially still in the United States, but you're...

[1100] Living a beach life.

[1101] Yeah.

[1102] Yeah.

[1103] I mean, look, if you can do it, it's probably better than being trapped somewhere.

[1104] Yeah, no doubt.

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] And it's like no car, like no car payments, no mortgage.

[1107] like, I don't know.

[1108] I mean, I like it.

[1109] I do.

[1110] You know, I don't know about it in a few years about having kids if that's the way to go.

[1111] Yeah.

[1112] Because I think like some sense of stability in an environment would be good, but for now it's fantastic.

[1113] It's definitely good for the kids.

[1114] Yeah, you're an adult.

[1115] You know, it's a different animal, you know?

[1116] I mean, I think also you get a lot of the people that do that kind of stuff, you get really attached to this idea of being free about you could just pull up stakes throw your shit in a backpack and you're gone like how many bags do you have one i literally fit everything into one bag i have two pairs of shoes wow it's like this it's like this extreme minimalist living you know but wow i know a guy who does that he's in his 60s my friend steve maxwell yeah it's a personal trainer is he live in famous trainer he lives California lives everywhere he doesn't have a place he lives in hotels yeah he hasn't had a place since I met him when I met him he had a a van that he lived out of like a big camper van and he slept in that thing and he sold that fucking thing he's like I don't care I don't need this and he just has a bag he has a bag that's about that big and he gets everything down to that bag he travels all over the world less is more yeah I mean and he's a guy that's done the opposite he had a gym and he had a house and he had a family and the whole deal and his kids grew up he got divorced he's like fuck this life and just became that kind of nomad type person you know it's a fascinating idea that i mean people are so attached to the idea of permanence when it's not real i mean no matter what happens you will die and all this stuff that you've nestled you know acquired yeah feathered your nest with it's not real it's like you're not going to keep it Guatemala huh come on down man how'd you choose that cost like five bucks a year yeah that's that's a plus yeah it's it's close to home my dad's not in the best of health right now so i do like the idea of being somewhat somewhat close to georgia so if i need to come home you know how far is the flight from guatemala to georgia um four and a half hours oh so you can get there almost the same as like living on the east coast and flying to the west coast yeah and the same time zone it's it's cheap and it's like all these volcanoes around you can hike all day long and it's like the coolest thing about um i'm in antigo right now antigo is like uh there are several south american cities like this or central american cities and they have um they're close to the equator so you have hot temperature all year long kind of like i mean i guess california you're spoiled with it right yeah um antigo specifically is at several thousand feet of elevation so you have that consistent year long, however you, it's not 100 degrees every day.

[1117] So it's like, it's very similar to here.

[1118] It's like 75 degrees every day.

[1119] It's like 60 at night.

[1120] Do you speak Spanish?

[1121] A bit bit, though.

[1122] Really?

[1123] I would think you would learn.

[1124] Do you speak Spanish?

[1125] No, but I live in California.

[1126] Yeah, my Spanish is horrible.

[1127] I've only been down to like two months, you know?

[1128] Like, I'm not, I haven't picked it up then.

[1129] I just got back from Cabo and I felt bad that I didn't speak Spanish I was down there.

[1130] I tried.

[1131] You know, I did the, you know, whole Grasias.

[1132] How long were you down there?

[1133] Just a week.

[1134] A week, and...

[1135] Yeah, but I would, like, I would think, like, if you stay there for any length of time, like, I have a friend who has a house there, it keeps a house there, and they go there every month.

[1136] Motherfucker can't speak a word of Spanish.

[1137] Like, that's crazy.

[1138] Like, you should learn.

[1139] It's their language, man. I know.

[1140] It's kind of, like, a guilty, like, American privilege.

[1141] Like, I'm not going to wait.

[1142] I was in Thailand for a year last year.

[1143] I don't know 10 words in Thai.

[1144] Wow.

[1145] It's like, it's a commitment to learn something that fundamentally different, you know?

[1146] Oh, yeah, Thai, especially.

[1147] It's like, no offense.

[1148] You have to learn a whole new alphabet.

[1149] Totally.

[1150] You can't even read it, right?

[1151] It's like, you've got to start way back to kindergarten and Thai, you know?

[1152] At least Spanish, they use the same letters.

[1153] Yeah, Thai is like that crazy language.

[1154] You look at it.

[1155] It's like, it's almost like music.

[1156] You know, you're looking at like musical notes or something.

[1157] Yeah, and it's like, other than being in Thailand, there's no advantage of knowing Thai, you know?

[1158] Right.

[1159] I don't mean to bash on Thailand, but it's like Spanish is much more of its sense.

[1160] It's like, okay, a lot of people speak Spanish.

[1161] Yeah.

[1162] That would be a great thing to know.

[1163] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1164] Spanish is probably next to English, maybe the most popular.

[1165] What is the most popular language?

[1166] It's like Mandarin, maybe.

[1167] Oh, that's right.

[1168] It's like a billion people.

[1169] But I don't know, the numbers.

[1170] Spanish is huge.

[1171] That seems like a grind.

[1172] Learning Mandarin.

[1173] Oh, Jesus Christ.

[1174] Then you have to learn symbols.

[1175] Like, it's not even letters.

[1176] Yeah, right.

[1177] What the fuck?

[1178] Right.

[1179] Their grammar, structure, everything.

[1180] Yeah, how do they text?

[1181] How do Chinese people text?

[1182] Oh, my God.

[1183] How do they text?

[1184] How is it possible?

[1185] No idea.

[1186] That's like a really, that's a really good point.

[1187] I should know this.

[1188] I should have already asked this question?

[1189] How do they text?

[1190] Have I asked this question?

[1191] Well, I know in Thai you can switch your keyboard.

[1192] In Thailand, they like switch their keyboard to, I don't know.

[1193] But they don't have the same numbers of keys, so I don't even.

[1194] Yeah, but with Chinese characters, how the fuck would you send a text?

[1195] Like, you know, like if you sent a late night booty call, this was just like emojis?

[1196] You know?

[1197] Smiley face here now.

[1198] Yeah, smiley face, hard dick, exclamation point, thumbs up.

[1199] What is this?

[1200] Oh my God, there they go.

[1201] They have a text.

[1202] Hmm.

[1203] But how many characters?

[1204] Is they just simplify?

[1205] Okay, what does it a keyboard look like?

[1206] What does a Chinese character keyboard on a cell phone look like?

[1207] Hmm.

[1208] Yeah, but that's a keyboard on a laptop.

[1209] What about a cell phone?

[1210] Limited amount of keys.

[1211] How weird.

[1212] Oh, wow.

[1213] They have options.

[1214] It's Thai.

[1215] Oh, wow.

[1216] It's Korean.

[1217] Hmm.

[1218] So do they piece them together and make?

[1219] I'm asking way too many questions.

[1220] I think we're not going to get the answers to these either.

[1221] Out of all the places that you have visited, why did you choose Guatemala?

[1222] Close to the United States, hiking.

[1223] Oh.

[1224] It was in a place called Lake of Tiet Lawn, which is just, man, go to Lake of Teetlawn.

[1225] That place is gorgeous.

[1226] It's like this massive thousand -foot deep lake, by volcanoes, just like tiny little villages around there.

[1227] I think we just did a little bit of Googling and it was kind of like, hey, you know, why not?

[1228] Let's go out of Guatemala.

[1229] So did you go as a visit and then decide to stay?

[1230] Or did you just go, say, let's see if we could live here for a few months?

[1231] Yeah, pretty much.

[1232] I like the idea of like going three months at a time.

[1233] It's enough to kind of like find a gym, find your restaurants, settle into an apartment.

[1234] Like doing every few weeks, it's just way too many logistics, you know?

[1235] Right.

[1236] So I think, yeah, we committed.

[1237] It was like three months down there.

[1238] I think we're going to commit to Eastern Europe for three.

[1239] three months and then yeah commit back to Asia for three months after that that whole expat lifestyle it takes a very different kind of person you know to just say let's try living in another country like when you say you find a gym like what kind of gyms they have in the little village in Guatemala a couple of coconuts attached to a stick they did literally mention that they had um paint buckets with cement and um for real with pvc's and like but all right i wouldn't work out there That was Lake Etienne line, but Antigua's...

[1240] Wait, they really did?

[1241] It's like super ghetto stuff.

[1242] So they had paint buckets filled with cement that are attached to sticks.

[1243] Yeah, literally.

[1244] And that's how you worked out.

[1245] Yeah.

[1246] Whoa.

[1247] Yeah.

[1248] Wow.

[1249] But Antigua was different.

[1250] That's like a more...

[1251] It's a bigger town city.

[1252] Like, they have a proper gym we go to.

[1253] Yoga classes, the whole nine yards.

[1254] Oh, so it's almost like America?

[1255] Totally.

[1256] So when you're using these paint buckets with sticks...

[1257] I'm not using these.

[1258] You didn't use them?

[1259] That was only...

[1260] in Lake of Tietlan.

[1261] So I'm in Antigua now.

[1262] Lake of Tietlan.

[1263] I was only there for a month.

[1264] And Lake of Tietlan is like, maybe like seven small villages scattered around the lake.

[1265] And they're actually indigenous.

[1266] It's like they're directly Mayan.

[1267] Oh, wow.

[1268] So those people, Guatemala, interesting is, of all the South American and Central American countries, has the highest percentage of indigenous people.

[1269] So it's like 30 % indigenous.

[1270] So they don't even speak Spanish.

[1271] Whoa.

[1272] It's crazy.

[1273] And they like...

[1274] What do they speak?

[1275] It's Kechical.

[1276] Kichales?

[1277] I don't know.

[1278] So is it a Mayan dialect?

[1279] I believe so.

[1280] So they're totally different people.

[1281] Wow.

[1282] And they dress traditional everything.

[1283] That's intense.

[1284] Well, they have a very strict, well, at least Mayans did.

[1285] They had a very strange language where you, it's like the letters or the images represent sounds.

[1286] And so the sounds like you would have like an eye.

[1287] Like, this is how Terrence McKenna described it.

[1288] You'd have, like, an eyeball, a saw, an ant, like a bug, and then a rose.

[1289] And that would be the way you say, I saw Aunt Rose.

[1290] How do you know this?

[1291] I was just from Terrence McKenna, from him talking about it.

[1292] Because he was a crazy psychedelic adventure character.

[1293] Do you know what McKenna is?

[1294] Maybe I should.

[1295] Yeah, he's a fascinating speaker, like who was a psychedelic lecture.

[1296] He was a botanist.

[1297] and just did way too many drugs, or the right amount, depending on who he asked.

[1298] And he got really deep into the Mayan culture, and he was one of those guys that was thinking that December 21st, 2012 was going to be some crazy event because that was, well, not necessarily more of a shifting of consciousness, because it was the end of the long count of the Mayan calendar.

[1299] Yeah.

[1300] So, well, the mind calendar is a really tricky thing, man. and the sort of various different decipherings of it, and the people that are attached all these different meanings to it that don't necessarily jive with the original meanings.

[1301] It's very hard to tell what the Mayans meant because they're not around anymore.

[1302] So it's not like you're studying ancient Russia where people are Russian scholars and there's a direct lineage between them and the people now.

[1303] It's a dead culture.

[1304] Yeah, the language is gone.

[1305] Harroglyphics.

[1306] Yeah, there's like some translations that took forever to figure out, and there's things that are similar in some ways to Rosetta Stone, where they're trying to match up what it used to be to what it is.

[1307] We try to figure out how you would say these words in the context of the culture that existed 2 ,000 years ago, as opposed to today.

[1308] Like, how would you even, you're talking about the way they've viewed, viewed things.

[1309] The way they communicated was incredibly different.

[1310] That's interesting.

[1311] Yeah.

[1312] It's fascinating stuff.

[1313] There was a great documentary called Decoding the Maya that was, I think it was a Nat Geo.

[1314] I thought it was.

[1315] I thought it sounds like Nat Geo.

[1316] I feel like I'm going to seen that.

[1317] Yeah, I think it was.

[1318] And it just detailed how difficult it was for these people to try to figure out.

[1319] See these symbols and say, all right, what did these mean?

[1320] Yeah, what the fuck do they mean?

[1321] And apparently there was a really recent breakthrough where they found a bunch of, I don't think they call them hieroglyphs, I don't know what they actually call them, but they found a bunch of previously undiscovered Mayan language that sort of filled in some pieces that they hadn't filled in before.

[1322] Then you look at some of their amazing murals that look like a guy seated in a spaceship with a fire below his seat and you try to figure out what the fuck this meant.

[1323] A lot of those ancient alien theorists.

[1324] I was supposed to say alien theorists, right?

[1325] Oh, have you ever seen that one?

[1326] There's one, is it really crazy.

[1327] It looks like a guy who's leaning back in like a spaceship.

[1328] It looks like he's leaning back in a cockpit chair, and he's looking through something.

[1329] It looks like a telescope, and he's moving some levers with his hands, and it looks like this fire beneath him.

[1330] It's really bizarre, fascinating stuff.

[1331] It's like that was drawn a long time ago.

[1332] Yeah, there it is right there.

[1333] That's the, that's the, that's the, I guess.

[1334] Yeah, there's a, go full screen with that one right there that you got right there.

[1335] Yeah, see, so below him is fire.

[1336] He's sitting, he's moving some stuff with his feet.

[1337] He's moving some levers, and you see how he's looking through that thing?

[1338] And it looks like he's got like a gas mask on, like an oxygen mask.

[1339] And all those people that, like the Von Daniken guys, like they believe, that what this showed was a man sitting in a cockpit using the levers and machines to operate some sort of a spaceship.

[1340] So where was that spaceship from?

[1341] Most likely it didn't exist.

[1342] Most likely these guys were high as fuck on mushrooms, and they were probably imagining the future.

[1343] I mean, if I had a guess, I would say that these ideas were probably very psychedelically based because they were really into psychedelic drugs.

[1344] They had found a lot of different drugs and a lot of different vines that contained lysurgic acid.

[1345] I did a trip to Chechnica, which is really cool a bunch of years back.

[1346] And I had a professor that was a guide.

[1347] It was really cool because you could hire people for a guide.

[1348] And we got this guy who was a professor in mine history.

[1349] And when he knew that I was really into it and I asked all these questions, he was super psyched.

[1350] So he went way deep into it.

[1351] We had it for like six hours.

[1352] He took us on this grand tour.

[1353] But one of the things he showed us is this area of one of the pyramids where they used to do these psychedelic rituals.

[1354] And he was talking about these vines that they used to take, these vines that had some sort of lysurgic acid in it.

[1355] And they would have these psychedelic rituals.

[1356] And that's one of the things that they used to do when they were studying the stars and, you know, looking at it, obviously no light pollution back then.

[1357] Right.

[1358] So these guys are tripping their balls.

[1359] out on acid staring at this beautiful starscape and what's the do you know are the vine still around I don't remember it was so long ago that I went I went in like early 2000s 2002 or something like that I think we went but it was amazing like to think that you're standing on the ground where these people existed and they had this bizarre culture that we don't understand that was aligned to the cosmos like all their structures were based on constellations like the maps of these structures mirrored constellations and they were really into astronomy in some sort of a weird way yeah it's oh yeah right over your head like how the fuck did they they apparently there's evidence that they knew about the procession of the equinoxes which is a 20 something thousand year cycle of wobble of the earth yeah because They can foresee that?

[1360] The earth doesn't just spin, you know, it doesn't just spin perfectly.

[1361] It spins with like a little bit of a wobble, so the night sky changes and goes into this 26, I think it's 26 ,000 -year cycle.

[1362] And they apparently knew about that.

[1363] What?

[1364] How?

[1365] How?

[1366] No idea.

[1367] Yeah, I guess if you have a lot of time back then, and there's no iPhone to constantly distract you with checking your Twitter.

[1368] Yeah, look at the stars, man. Oh, look at this picture on Instagram.

[1369] You know, instead, you're just looking at constantly.

[1370] I just don't know how they would how they would market how they how they would I mean I guess that they would see that there's some sort of subtle changing of the night sky in terms of like how it would move a little bit all the time not just move obviously the night sky moves with the seasons you're looking at a different image as that the sun you know moves and the this the planet spins but it's just the the idea that these people had figured.

[1371] out all these different things like in terms of like mapping constellations so long ago wild yeah amazing i just it's it's fucked up that we don't know what they were saying you know like we've never heard their language like it's one of the things about one of these uh other documentaries that i watched was that they were trying to mimic what the sound of these myan languages could have been like and they really it was kind of guesswork but They didn't know.

[1372] See if there's something that you find.

[1373] There's something where they hear what the Mayan language could have sounded like.

[1374] You know, there was some sort of a...

[1375] Like really bizarre, like clicks or something?

[1376] Well, it was just a weird language, but they don't even know if that's right.

[1377] Because there's no one around.

[1378] Total guess.

[1379] They just died.

[1380] They just went away.

[1381] You know, it's weird.

[1382] And then their language got absorbed.

[1383] And obviously, these people that you were talking about probably have...

[1384] some sort of a dialect and yeah and i have no idea what the correlation is between the current descendants and what you're talking about yeah i don't know i mean what's really bizarre is it's not that long ago in terms of human history because if you look back on like human history in europe like there's places in europe you can visit that are 2 ,000 years old right you know i mean isn't there a fucking bar somewhere in europe that's like almost 900 years old or something something crazy like that.

[1385] So these, I believe, the Mayan civilization they think was not more than 2 ,000 years ago.

[1386] Here it is.

[1387] Sean's Bar is a pub in Athelone, Ireland.

[1388] The oldest pub in Ireland, goes back to 900 AD.

[1389] Older than 900 years old.

[1390] Jesus Christ.

[1391] 2 ,900 years old, essentially.

[1392] Oh, 900 AD.

[1393] Yeah, AD.

[1394] Oh, okay.

[1395] D. But think about that.

[1396] That's a thousand...

[1397] What's his oldest pub in Europe?

[1398] So what's the oldest pub in the world?

[1399] That's a good question.

[1400] But just think of that, 900 AD.

[1401] So that's three or 400 years before Genghis Khan.

[1402] The old trip to Jerusalem, 1 ,189 AD.

[1403] So that seems like the oldest.

[1404] Yeah, it does, isn't it?

[1405] 900 AD.

[1406] Wow.

[1407] More than 1 ,100 years ago.

[1408] Fucking A, man. Just crazy that...

[1409] Much older than America, right?

[1410] Yeah.

[1411] So, like, when was the Mayan civilization?

[1412] When was the decline of the Mayan civilization?

[1413] See if you find that.

[1414] It is pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.

[1415] Think about the bizarre history of the human race.

[1416] And that there are these civilizations that have these...

[1417] They lived in these sort of isolated environments where they developed in many ways parallel sort of building techniques but different than other parts of the world that were also based on constellations like very similar to a lot of the hypothesis about Egyptian cultures that they had done that collapse there it goes wow 900 a d that's insane so right around the bar time right when that bar was built maybe that bar fucking caused it they all went to ireland got hammered and that Wow, that's amazing.

[1418] It's 900 AD right there.

[1419] 900 AD up and down.

[1420] But what a bizarre and complex civilization the Mayas were.

[1421] See if you can find out this is what the Mayan language sounded like.

[1422] I found a video, but it's like a woman living currently.

[1423] It's like this is what it could have sounded like.

[1424] I don't know if that's the best choice.

[1425] Let's hear what she says.

[1426] Maybe.

[1427] I mean, maybe there's some of it left.

[1428] This is Yucatech.

[1429] I don't know if that's the same.

[1430] Oh, Yucatan.

[1431] Yeah, that's a Yucatan.

[1432] That's where the...

[1433] It's near Guatemala.

[1434] That doesn't sound like I've ever heard of these Spanish words dropped.

[1435] It says what Yucatec Maya sounds really sounds like what is the description say?

[1436] This guy had his housekeeper describe what this older woman was saying.

[1437] Go back to it.

[1438] It says attention Mel Gibson.

[1439] Yeah, she saw that movie Apocalypto and had a hard time understanding the Mayan that they were speaking in that movie.

[1440] If you listen closely, you can hear a few Spanish words mixed in where there are no Mayan words.

[1441] Huh.

[1442] Wow.

[1443] Interesting.

[1444] That's really interesting, man. Maybe he claimed that they were speaking it or something like that in that movie.

[1445] What could he have done in Apocalyptic?

[1446] I mean, you're talking about a dead language.

[1447] He's going to guess, too.

[1448] What did he do with Apocalypto?

[1449] Did he use Spanish?

[1450] Did he mix it in with stuff?

[1451] I would imagine he would hire some sort of language experts.

[1452] But who knows?

[1453] He might have been busy getting drunk and yelling at Jews.

[1454] Cursing out his ex -wife.

[1455] This thing that I pulled up off of mental flus is that if like 15 fun facts about the movie, it says that he was a stickler for authentic language.

[1456] And all of the dialogue is you could tech Maya language.

[1457] Oh, wow.

[1458] That's where the discrepancy is in that maybe he's saying.

[1459] He said he used it all, and she's saying, I speak it, and I didn't recognize much what you were talking.

[1460] Well, she's not saying that she spoke it.

[1461] If you read what she said, she was saying that she had given this woman a massage, and the woman was speaking to her, and that she recognized a few words in Spanish, but she didn't, yeah.

[1462] I don't think there's a bridge between that language.

[1463] I don't think there's anybody who knows that language and also speaks English that can, crazy, man. That whole part of the world is so, and then you go back to, like, the Olmex.

[1464] They didn't even know who those people were.

[1465] Those strange, almost African -looking faces, those gigantic stone structures that they found, they could be thousands of years old.

[1466] You're talking about off of the coast of, like, Ecuador?

[1467] Yeah, the Olmec, they're almost like a hypothetical situation, or a, they don't necessarily know where these people came from.

[1468] They don't know who they were.

[1469] And some people have said they look a lot like really strong -featured, South American folks, and some people have actually compared the way the Olmecs were depicted in these structures, these statues and things, that they looked more like Africans.

[1470] You know, this has been like speculation that these are people that might have come from Africa on boats.

[1471] That's been widely criticized, too.

[1472] But the point is, they don't really know much about the Olmecs.

[1473] You ever seen images?

[1474] See, pull up Olmec statues.

[1475] O -L -M -E -C, I believe, is the way they spell it.

[1476] But, again, that's just phonetic.

[1477] They don't even know what language these people spoke.

[1478] And these are some statues and things that they found in South America.

[1479] Look at these.

[1480] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1481] I remember that from Legends of the Hidden Temple.

[1482] Did you ever see that show?

[1483] I thought it was a joke.

[1484] You said that I thought I was going to pull up the Nickelodeon TV show.

[1485] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

[1486] No, the Olmex, like, look at that one, the third one over from the top.

[1487] Look at that.

[1488] I mean, that looks very African, doesn't it?

[1489] I mean, really thick lips, wide noses, large nostrils, it's really interesting.

[1490] I mean, these people, they don't exactly know what their culture was.

[1491] They don't exactly know who they were.

[1492] It's hard to carbon date as well because you're dealing with stone.

[1493] So until they find, you know, things that are around there that they can back date, I think that the estimate is like 6 ,000 years.

[1494] I might have made that up, though.

[1495] See if you could find out, like, what, how long ago were the old mechs?

[1496] You could see it back where you just were.

[1497] What does it say there?

[1498] 900 BC.

[1499] Jesus, everything is 900 BC.

[1500] That was AD before.

[1501] Oh, B .C. 900.

[1502] Yeah, why am I screwing that up?

[1503] Dealing with this.

[1504] I'm in pain right now.

[1505] I'm dealing with this.

[1506] How's it doing?

[1507] It's better, but fuck, man. I was in Mexico this week, and I got severely sunburnt on my back.

[1508] Put sunscreen everywhere.

[1509] But my back, I had young Jamie in a very non -gay way.

[1510] Lather on this aloe vera anti -but I'm very distracted.

[1511] It's just like almost like I have 100 bee stings all over my back.

[1512] No, Bueno.

[1513] So that's 900 BC, they think the Olmex lived?

[1514] What's that estimate based on?

[1515] Because I saw something that was like, they thought they were way older than that.

[1516] I wonder if they know.

[1517] Does they date from at least before 900 BC?

[1518] Yeah, see, I think there's like a conventional way of thinking And then there's an alternative theory and the alternative theory It was that they were way, way, way older than that But I don't think they know.

[1519] They don't know who the Olmex were But cool shit, you know, they left behind these giant stone heads And like, all right, why'd you even do that?

[1520] No one knows Have you seen that thing?

[1521] I was watching this one documentary or one television show rather on the Amazon and they've recently, because of satellite images, found a hidden city well they found what they think are, the thing is evidence of hidden cities.

[1522] Liberis?

[1523] Evidence of ancient cultures.

[1524] No, in the Amazon and I think it was Brazil.

[1525] I don't think it was Honduras.

[1526] But they found like what appears to be irrigation structures and things that are carved into the ground and things that look like grids where they might have had cities and streets.

[1527] That was the lost city of gold.

[1528] Remember there was a lost city?

[1529] Alderota.

[1530] Yeah, yeah, the people were looking for and that one European explorer went looking for and wound up dying and they believed got eaten by cannibals.

[1531] They were making a movie about that, right?

[1532] We talked about this recently.

[1533] There's some movie about the lost city of gold that's on its way.

[1534] I think it was Disney did one.

[1535] Did he?

[1536] Animation one like 20 years ago.

[1537] That was a wild bag.

[1538] Well, there have always been rumors that there was these lost cities in the Amazon.

[1539] But now, thanks to satellite imagery, they're starting to see things that they never saw before.

[1540] And they're starting to find patterns and structures.

[1541] It's cool shit, man. It's cool.

[1542] What's really crazy is, like, if we didn't have this stuff, like, how long would it be before there was no evidence?

[1543] Would it be another thousand years?

[1544] so like how if you go back to when was when were these structures were they 2 ,000 years old were they a thousand years old so if we if we think about it like who knows what was there in the amazon who knows what was there 5 ,000 years ago 10 ,000 years ago i mean it could have been completely lost civilizations that we just will never know we'll never have any awareness of you're freaking out man look at you freaking out never gonna know do you do you have any plane other than you said you were going to visit Eastern Europe.

[1545] You're living in Guatemala now.

[1546] You're going to live there for a while.

[1547] Do you have any other, like, wild plans or places to go?

[1548] Talking about Thailand again at the end of the year.

[1549] Other than that, no. That's about as far ahead as I've thought.

[1550] I mean, honestly, like, I came to my buddy was in Ohio.

[1551] I don't know if you know, Ohio.

[1552] It's a tiny town.

[1553] And we went surfing yesterday up there.

[1554] And I was just like, I liked it.

[1555] We went surfing around lunchtime, and then we went for a hike in the afternoon.

[1556] It's just gorgeous.

[1557] I mean, it's the fact that you can go surfing in the day, and then for a gorgeous hike, it looked like these trails just snaked on forever.

[1558] I was like, California was like, okay, maybe California is on the radar.

[1559] California's pretty badass.

[1560] Yeah.

[1561] Northern California is really intense, like the rainforest area where the redwoods are.

[1562] Have you been up there?

[1563] Yeah, yeah.

[1564] Medicino and up there.

[1565] Yeah, yeah, I've been up there.

[1566] Those big redwoods is gorgeous.

[1567] Pacific Northwest looks beautiful, too.

[1568] I've never been up there.

[1569] Yeah, it is.

[1570] It's really interesting, and it's super dense forest up there, like really dense because it's constantly raining.

[1571] And what's really interesting about the forest is there's so many pine trees and there's so many leaves fall that the forest floor is really soft.

[1572] Yeah, like you step into it.

[1573] It's like almost mossy.

[1574] Yeah, like you're stepping on this like cushion everywhere you walk.

[1575] It looks beautiful, though.

[1576] It is.

[1577] A lot of ferns and.

[1578] Yeah, it's very, very alive.

[1579] What do you do up there?

[1580] It's very green.

[1581] Yeah, I've hunted up there before.

[1582] I also went up there looking for Bigfoot, that TV show that I did.

[1583] You did?

[1584] Yeah, we went Bigfoot hunting up there for a week.

[1585] Did you find them?

[1586] No. We found a lot of white guys out camping looking for Bigfoot.

[1587] Really?

[1588] Yeah, it was a joke that I said, here's what you don't find when you go looking for Bigfoot.

[1589] Black people.

[1590] You're more likely to find Bigfoot than you are black people looking for Bigfoot.

[1591] This much of white guys camping.

[1592] Exactly.

[1593] And it was interesting.

[1594] It was one of the guys that we talked to was like, hey, look, even if we don't find anything, at least we're out here camping.

[1595] I was like, okay, that's an interesting way.

[1596] The worst -case scenario is pretty good.

[1597] But there's a lot of people up there that claim they've seen things.

[1598] But I just think they're seeing bears, because there are bears up there.

[1599] There's a lot of black bears up there, and you see them in the distance, and bears do walk on two legs all the time.

[1600] And I think if you see one in the distance and you see that image and you convince yourself that that's a bear, or that's a big foot, rather, not a bear.

[1601] And after a while, your memory starts to plate.

[1602] Memories are so bad.

[1603] Like, the human memory is so.

[1604] inherently shitty.

[1605] I mean, a few people have, like, very clear, distinct memories from the past, but I think even those, you're sort of repeating them to yourself and then ingraining them in your head.

[1606] Until you believe it.

[1607] Until you believe them.

[1608] But I think, like, what our memories are good for is, like, recent events, like, or things that are catastrophic, like, don't go near the snake, the snake will kill you.

[1609] You know, that spider's got venom.

[1610] Oh, I remember the spider.

[1611] You know, but, like, as far as, like, seeing things and being around, especially unusual events that are very unique, like seeing a seven -foot -tall monkey in the woods or believing you saw that thing.

[1612] Yeah, no doubt.

[1613] I think you've seen those studies that have like a criminal break into a room and then they'll ask all the, you know, all the witnesses, how tall was he?

[1614] I know, it's like, you know, was he black, was he white?

[1615] Like all these specific characteristics and, like, they're all over the place.

[1616] All over the place, yeah.

[1617] Yeah, human memory is unbelievably bad.

[1618] And we count on it so much.

[1619] And people are always like telling you stories about their childhood.

[1620] that I remember when this happened.

[1621] And you're like, do you really, how much do you really remember?

[1622] It's like you might really, and how delusional are you?

[1623] That's the other part of the problem.

[1624] Like, how much do you remember of things?

[1625] Like, what is, how much do you distort reality to her to fit within your narrative that you enjoy?

[1626] Make a good story, right?

[1627] Yes, enjoy it.

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] You must run into a lot of those people when you're out there on the, on the AT, as it were.

[1630] What is this?

[1631] Sasquatch chased deer onto highway, woman tells deputy.

[1632] well she sounds pretty fucking legit she's 50 50 year old 10 said what is 10 said tensed it's the city I guess 10 said woman 50 years old she's probably on pills whacked out of her mind maybe drunk in Idaho so so legit dude but it's in Idaho again Idaho high bear population Idaho has fucking grizzly bears it's probably out there whacked out on fucking pills she sees a bear she can't wait to call the police finally my life has meaning.

[1633] At 50 years old, I'm the first one in my town, let's eat big.

[1634] She goes and tells people.

[1635] Did you run into any wildlife that was weird when you're out there?

[1636] I don't know if bears are considered weird, but yeah.

[1637] A lot of bears?

[1638] There was, um, I was 2013.

[1639] They were like, you know, Congress seems to shut down about once every decade for, you know, budget disagreements.

[1640] Yeah.

[1641] And in 2013, they shut down and, um, uh, yeah, so they shut down the whole national park system.

[1642] you, you know, the A .T. goes through a lot of national parks.

[1643] So when they shut down the national park system, nobody's allowed to go into the park.

[1644] Meaning, so it's like, what the hell are we supposed to do?

[1645] We've been hiking for four months, and now you're just going to say you can't go through these sections.

[1646] So, um, ended up everybody just kind of kept on hiking.

[1647] Um, but the rangers would kick you out.

[1648] So what you had to do is you would hike at night.

[1649] Oh, God.

[1650] Um, so you're hiking at night, but the best thing about hiking at night is the wildlife, you know, because it's like you start and, so like specifically Shenandoah National Park, um, it gets a ton of visitors.

[1651] And so when they shut down the National Park, the only people in there were us.

[1652] It was like three hikers for this 100 -mile section of park.

[1653] Whoa.

[1654] So it was like, and the Shenandoan National Park, I believe, is one of the highest concentrated black bear populations in the country.

[1655] Oh, Jesus.

[1656] So you have like no disturbance, and you have all these bears.

[1657] So, you know, we'd be hiking a night.

[1658] I was actually alone at this point.

[1659] But, yeah, I was hiking through the night one night.

[1660] And, yeah, like, the sun was rising.

[1661] and you know like bears will go up to sleep at night in the trees and when you pass by them you tree a bear and they'll come out of the tree and they'll claw their way down the tree and it's a slow their fall but it was like I think I saw 15 bears that morning I was just cool though it was just cool you know it's just like now when you're hiking you using headlamps are you just going by the moonlight or both I mean yeah moonlight if you can And it's surprising, like, you know, your eyes adjust in the night, and a lot of times.

[1662] But if you're under, like, heavy trees, you know, that's not going to work.

[1663] But, yeah, headlamps, definitely.

[1664] And how long was Congress?

[1665] How long did they shut down in national parks?

[1666] I don't remember.

[1667] It wasn't too long.

[1668] It was a couple weeks.

[1669] I mean, some hikers we knew, like, literally hold up in a hotel for a couple weeks until they settled it.

[1670] Committed.

[1671] It's just like, what is it?

[1672] It was a ranger really going to arrest you and, like, throw you in jail for, like, hiking, a through hike or, like, hiking through the park.

[1673] It's weird that they tell you can't.

[1674] go anymore.

[1675] I mean, isn't this like public land?

[1676] I know.

[1677] I think we all kind of rolled our eyes, or most of us rolled our eyes at it, like, all right, dude, come on, I'm just walking through here, you know?

[1678] So, this company that you have, green belly meals, which I've enjoyed these things very much, you came up with this because you needed more nutrition while you're out there.

[1679] It's hard to find.

[1680] Good stuff to eat.

[1681] Yeah, exactly.

[1682] And prior to the ATI was doing, I was the term cycle touring, you've, like, it's backpacking on a bike.

[1683] You hop on a bicycle and you cycle, you know, 50, 100 miles a day and then you camp out at night.

[1684] So I did that in New Zealand for like three or four months.

[1685] And it was the same thing.

[1686] It's just like burning a ton of calories, man. And I needed everything to be light, ready to eat.

[1687] And then, yeah, came over to the States and right after that trip at the Appalachian Trail.

[1688] And the backpacking food consisted of, you know, those dehydrated freeze -dried meals that you add hot water to.

[1689] those things like I don't like stopping and cooking at all you know like it's like if I can keep going particularly at meals like lunch just keep going and like the meal options where bars other bars bars usually cap out like 200 calories 250 even meal replacements the highest calorie meal replacement bar on the market was a 400 calorie I believe MetRX you know some of those workout high protein bars and not to mention that like heavily processed, you know.

[1690] I was like, I just didn't want to put a much of that crap in me. And, I mean, to add another thing was just balanced nutrition.

[1691] Some bars would have fiber, some wouldn't, some wouldn't have protein, some wouldn't, some wouldn't, some would have carbs, some wouldn't.

[1692] And it was like, dude, I need nutrition.

[1693] Like, I'm really burning up to five to six thousand calories a day, you know.

[1694] So that kind of idea of the need for a big nutrition, ready to eat, fast, you know, kind of eat and go kind of meal was something that had been forming in my mind as I hiked.

[1695] You know, a lot of things.

[1696] times we were drinking olive oil practically and drinking honey and drinking peanut butter.

[1697] It's just like anything you could get to load in the calories.

[1698] So, you know, I'm not a big dude.

[1699] So it's like I couldn't afford to lose that much weight and I was losing weight.

[1700] So Greenbelly kind of came up with the idea when I was hiking like, let's make something that packs in some calories, you know.

[1701] And how did you do that though?

[1702] How did you, like these things are super dense.

[1703] Like for people that are listening, I'm holding this bag and has two bars in it.

[1704] And, dude, I eat, I've eaten these before, I've eaten two bars, and I'm good for fucking a day.

[1705] I mean, it's just a normal day, like not hiking or anything crazy, but it's really dense.

[1706] They're heavy.

[1707] Like, you hear that, folks?

[1708] Listen to that.

[1709] It's a brick of food.

[1710] It's a lot of food.

[1711] Like, how did you figure out how to do that?

[1712] I knew nutritionally, I had an idea of where I wanted to be, you know, it was a concept for, like, this kind of ultimate backpacking meal.

[1713] and then I worked with a food scientist so I knew that I knew nothing about nutrition I just kind of knew I wanted to scratch my own itch you know I had an itch and I wanted I wanted a better backpacking meal so I knew conceptually what I wanted it to be and then after playing around my mom's kitchen trying to get something I was like this is way over my head you know like trying to get the nutritional profile where I want it to be get it to taste good get like ingredients that don't react with each other and spoil and then trying to get like it to literally form together and not fall apart.

[1714] It was like you start like having this really complicated stuff.

[1715] As I try to just find or, you know, search around and see, you know, what kind of person could help me. I was looking around nutritionists and chefs and all that kind of stuff and ended up coming with the term food scientist.

[1716] And food scientist helped me really formulate the meal.

[1717] And then, you know, then it was just kind of a feedback game from what he could do from a nutritional point of view from a shelf life and flavor profile then it was just making sure they're doing things tasted good you know so I went to like a hiking festival and handed out hundreds of samples just got a bunch of feedback from hikers and then yeah kind of ran with it and yeah it's been doing well well they're good man and I eat them all the time so I'm impressed they're delicious you know my favorite one is a chocolate one though was that which one dark chocolate yeah dark chocolate banana yeah we have banana chips in there but good shit dude for real it's got i'm trying to stay on a ketogenic diet that's what's so funny joe when you were talking i was like yeah man we got we got high carbs yeah that's not gonna work but on a cheat meal these are good or if i'm desperado for food but also see you can the thing about our ketogenic diets is you can every now and then fuck up as long as you're not you know as you're pretty consistent with a high fat content diet.

[1718] And then what I'll do is I'll take an exogenous ketone.

[1719] You can take like drinks that you mix up that put you in a ketogenic state even after you.

[1720] You can drink like a whole Coca -Cola and then drink one of these ketogenic drinks and it knocks you back in a state of ketosis.

[1721] Wow.

[1722] Yeah, it's pretty scientific shit.

[1723] This guy Dom de Augustino invented it.

[1724] He's a scientist out of the University of Florida.

[1725] Interesting.

[1726] Yeah, there's ways you can manipulate your metabolism in that way where it, specifically burns fat.

[1727] There's a lot of benefits.

[1728] One of the big benefits is your appetite.

[1729] Appetite's presence, it's amazing.

[1730] Because if I go on, and I do switch over, like if I cheat, like, if I go on vacation or something like that, and I just start eating tacos or whatever, when your body goes into a carbohydrate burning state, you get way hungrier.

[1731] Like you burn through that carbohydrate pretty quickly.

[1732] It's quick burning fuel, and then your body doesn't have the carbs anymore, so you go into this real hungry.

[1733] hungry state.

[1734] Whereas if you're in a ketogenic state, your body's burning fat, you're eating fats, and then when there's no more food, your body starts burning its own fat.

[1735] And so you don't get that crazy hunger craving that you get when you're on a carb -based diet.

[1736] There's, you know, there's arguments for both sides.

[1737] And I'm going to bring in some people that are anti -ketogenic diet as well, so get a balanced perspective on it.

[1738] I listened to, I don't remember his name, but it was a nutritionist.

[1739] He had written a book.

[1740] He was on your podcast a while ago.

[1741] Chris Cresher Gary Tobs The Case Against Sugar But he's not a nutritionist It's just pretty recently But Rob Wolf Really recently I don't say it was real recent Wired to eat Rob Wolf That sounds right Yeah But the level of nutrition That guy knew I was fascinated That's Rob Yeah that must be Robb Oh man He was just Whoa That was impressive He's the actual guy That invented The concept of quote unquote Bulletproof coffee That guy kind of Stole it Rob Wolf's concept came first, and he wrote about it in 2005, the idea of adding MCT oil and butter to coffee to give healthy fats with coffee.

[1742] Yeah, Rob is a scientist, and he's, like, way ahead of the curve.

[1743] Impressive, dude.

[1744] Impressive.

[1745] Like, his conversation was just interesting.

[1746] Yeah, there's a lot of those guys out there now.

[1747] It's really a fascinating time when it comes to nutrition, and also what's really good about him is he's constantly experimenting, he's very honest and very open about his experiments, and he's also really adamant about the possibility, or not the possibility, but the reality, rather, that people are very different, and everyone's nutrition.

[1748] Variability, right?

[1749] Yeah, the variability is, it's very wide.

[1750] So, like, what is healthy for you might not necessarily be healthy for me, and what changes your blood sugar levels is not going to change mine.

[1751] It's very, very different, and so...

[1752] Interesting stuff.

[1753] So it's like, I remember when y 'all's conversation, I was thinking, like, is there not something out there, just a simple, a blood test or something where it's just like, what do I need?

[1754] You know, what's good for me?

[1755] What's the simplest way to find out, is this good, is this bad?

[1756] What do I need, you know?

[1757] Really just have to experiment.

[1758] And on top of that, there's a lot of other variables, like how much sleep are you getting?

[1759] What's your cortisol levels?

[1760] How much stress are you under?

[1761] And those factors also have to be taken into consideration when you formulate a diet because it'll vary depending upon your stress levels.

[1762] It's complicated stuff.

[1763] Very, very complicated.

[1764] But these delicious shit, so I wish you well with this, my friend.

[1765] Thanks, man. Yeah, I'm really glad you.

[1766] Go buy them, you fucks.

[1767] And the book, How to Hike the Appalachian Trail.

[1768] This is available everywhere, right?

[1769] Yeah, that was just a fun side project.

[1770] Truly just wrote that in about a month.

[1771] Just kind of sat down and cranked out how to hike the AT.

[1772] So it's gear talk, a whole bunch of stuff, you know, a few trail tails in there.

[1773] Listen, I really enjoyed talking to you, man. that you've lived a fascinating life and you continue to do so so good luck to you and thanks again thanks joe good talk christopher cage ladies and gentlemen no relationship to nicholas see you soon folks bye boom