#81 | Tommy Corey aka "Twerk" of Hiker Trash Vogue

In today's episode of Backpacker Radio presented by The Trek, we are joined by Tommy Corey, aka Twerk, sometimes known as Twerkinthedirt, sometimes known as the guy behind Hiker Trash Vogue. Twerk gives us a runthrough on his experiences backpacking the PCT, how the Hiker Trash Vogue project came to be, what doors this wildly popular photo project has opened for him. We also talk about his experiences of what it's like to be a gay man in the thru-hiking community. We close out the show with a Triple Crown of Autumn Ahhhhs, talk about how much it costs to pee on Chaunce's face every morning for the rest of her life, a one minute gear review, and we try to determine how much money Chaunce can make by selling foot photos. Gossamer Gear discount code: Use code: PoopStory for 15% off your entire cart at gossamergear.com . Backcountry discount code: Use code: Backpacker15 for 15% off your first purchase at backcountry.com/backpackerradio . Greenbelly discount code: Use code: Trek2020 for 10% off your first purchase at greenbelly.co How To Afford A Thru-Hike by Kelly Floro (use code "ipooped" to save $2!) [divider] 00:04:43 - Chaunce is back! 00:06:19 - QOTD: Non-traditional ways to track your mileage? 00:10:49 - Intro to Twerk! 00:11:01 - How did you get the trail name Twerk? 00:12:32 - How did you first get into backpacking? 00:14:19 - Did Chaunce and Twerk cross paths? 00:15:30 - Twerk's first backpacking trip through the Three Sisters Loop 00:16:05 - Did that trip build excitement or anxiety for your attempted thru? 00:17:39 - Do you think the fact that being close to where you grew up made it easier to get off trail the first time? 00:20:10 - Did you want to rejoin your friends on trail? 00:21:04 - Did you experience the same level of hardship in 2018 as 2017? 00:26:10 - Would you do the PCT again? 00:30:00 - Zach shares a poop story! 00:31:34 - Twerk's poop story! 00:34:30 - Can you tell us about your photography background? 00:36:24 - How did photography play into your 2017 hike? 00:37:28 - Do you think learning how to long-distance hike in 2017 helped you be able to work on Hiker Trash Vogue in 2018? 00:40:30 - How did you edit your photos on trail? 00:41:03 - What is Hiker Trash Vogue? 00:41:50 - Will you walk us through some of your favorite photos? 00:43:06 - Can you tell us some stories behind your photos? 00:45:47 - Do you have experience shooting high fashion/editorial photography? 00:47:01 - Was it difficult to get people to model? 00:49:04 - What is your pitch to get people to pose for Hiker Trash Vogue? 00:52"02 - Did you do any landscape photography along the way? 00:54:20 - How did you decide to evolve Hiker Trash Vogue? Can you talk about the books? 00:56:18 - Did you make your layouts in InDesign? 00:57:22 - How much does it cost to make a Hiker Trash Vogue book? 00:59:23 - Did the quality of the second book suffer because it was less of a passion project? 01:01:14 - Do you have limited runs of your books? 01:01:39 - Would you ever put your book on Amazon? 01:02:47 - What is your day-to-day like now? 01:03:45 - Have you gotten freelance work from your Hiker Trash Vogue series? 01:04:42 - Do people hit you up to do weddings? 01:05:39 - Is being a wedding photographer a coveted job or highly stressful? 01:07:17 - Where should people go if they want Twerk to shoot their wedding? 01:08:34 - Can you speak to what it's like being a gay hiker? 01:10:23 - Was there anything in the Gummy Bear episode that you could elaborate on? Or things you want to expand on? 01:11:37 - Were you at all concerned about it leading up to your hike? 01:12:51 - What were relationships like on trail? 01:15:42 - Did you see many other LGBTQ hikers? 01:18:10 - Why Representation Matters 01:19:03 - Were there resources you used as a gay man before hiking that you think would help others? 01:26:12 - Any recommendations for diversifying your feed? @switchbackshawty @lassosafroworld @rongriswell 01:27:44 - What is your Instagram? @twerkinthedirt 01:27:56 - What's coming up? What are you looking forward to? 01:31:16 - Anything you wanna plug? Tommycorey.com @twerkinthedirt How To Afford A Thru-Hike by Kelly Floro (use code "ipooped" to save $2!) The Triple Crown of Autumn Ahhhs Zach is having a baby (and rapid-fire questions from Chaunce)! Reddit Brain Busters 1 minute gear review: Chaunce: $5 Walmart Floaty Zach: Yeti Tundra Haul Mail Bag Five-Star Reviews Comment ______ to win a Backpacker Radio sticker! [divider] Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes (and please leave us a review)! Find us on Spotify , Stitcher , and Google Play . Support us on Patreon to get bonus content. A super big thank you to our Chuck Norris Award winner(s) from Patreon : Paul Packman Sealy, Jason Lawrence, Janelle L., Austen McDaniel, Andrew, Thomas Fullner, Christopher Marshburn, S11N, and Sawyer Products A big thank you to our Cinnamon Connection Champions from Patreon : Emily Brown, Jeffrey Miller, Mitchell, Zoe Jenkins, dcnerdlet, Jeff LaFranier, Mark Snook, Peter Ellenberg, Jacob Northrup, Peter Leven Follow The Trek , Chaunce , Badger , and Trail Correspondents on Instagram. Follow The Trek and Chaunce on YouTube. MEDIOCRE TRANSCRIPT In today's episode of backpacker radio presented by the Trek. We are joined by Tommy Corey, AKA twerk, sometimes known as Twerk in the dirt, sometimes known as the guy behind hiker trash Vogue to work. It gives us a run through on his experiences, backpacking the PCT, how hiker trash Vogue became a project. What doors this wildly popular photo series has opened for him and much more. We also talk about his experiences of what it's like to be a gay man in the thriving community. We close out the show with a triple crown of autumn ahhs. Talk about how much it costs to pee on Chauncey's face every morning for the rest of her life, a one minute gear review, and we try to determine how much money Charles can make by selling foot photos. Lastly quick aside in the Trek propaganda section of today's show, we introduce how to afford it through here. A new ebook from the Trek written by Kelly fluoro use coupon code. I pooped all lower case. One word to score eight, $2 discount on this book. Okay. Here are some ads. Today's show is brought to you by back country.com, a premier online specialty, retailer of outdoor gear and apparel, carrying thousands of brands and products for your everyday outdoor lifestyle back country's mission is to break down the barriers between humans and nature. Not only does that country have the widest assortment of gear and apparel, but the heart and soul of the company lies with their back country gear heads. These gear heads are former pro athletes, Olympians and all around experts that are available 24 seven by mail, email Kat for your one on one service product recommendations, and to ensure you have everything you need for your next outdoor adventure back country carries a ton of gear that both Johnson I used and love. A couple of examples include the Patagonia baggies. My go to short, the ultra lone peaks might go to trail runner. The ultra temps chances go to Trey winner. The big Agnes tiger wall. My favorite semi freestanding tents. 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I am your cohost, Zach Badger Davis, and sitting to my two o'clock is hi, I'm Juliana Jonsi AKA Chauncey. Hey, welcome back to the show. Thanks. I forgot I was gone. Yeah. Oh, it was nice. Do you want to do a run through on I wasn't planning on putting you on blast that just kind of happened. Um, I went to hike the JMT John Muir trail and the Sierra. We are going to cover it on a future episode where we catch up with me and Zach and Elise and the hikes that we've done. Um, and it was amazing. I started 50 miles further North on the PCT. So I started at Sonora pass, um, and hike South to Whitney and exited via the Whitney portal. Um, and I went with fireball from the girl stuff episode. Um, we did it in 15 days, I think. Or 16 days. What'd you call it? Her, her, Oh, it's Jaden name for it. Yeah, that was the one. Yeah. Um, yeah, so I went with fireball on her who ha and, um, I was so nice. I that's. I just, it was so nice. Yeah. Uh, the part that you weren't at the show was our wires got crossed on, in terms of timing, you were planning on pulling a 12 hour drive to get back for our six o'clock recording. And our recording was at 2:00 PM. So I looked into that. I was going to let this slide, I was gonna let you off the hook. Um, you changed the calendar notification while I was on my 10 day stretch without cool. You get to edit this out publicly. I, you and I had a conversation about it before you left. Did we really? Yeah. A hundred percent. Oh, Well, I'm done for next time. Today's question of the day. Is, does China need Gingko? Biloba? No. Uh, none. So non traditional ways to track your mileage. This was your one. So I'm gonna let you kick it off. Okay. So on the PCT, I used to track my mileage, like obviously by checking gut hooks, but then you want to stop yourself from looking at the map so that you don't constantly check your map. Um, so just. By nature of. Just noticing a pattern. I noticed that every five songs was roughly a mile when I was listening to music. Um, so I started tracking songs or tracking miles in songs. And so I had just like completely stopped listening to music just because I wasn't actually listening and it wouldn't skip a song if it was halfway through. And I didn't want to hear it. Cause I was like, what the hell? It'll mess up my account. Oh, their races. My mileage. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But on the JMT just now recently, um, I had a lot of jolly ranchers on me and I tried, what have I forgot what I was going down a Hill. And it was like a long downhill. It was like six miles. And I had nothing else to think about. And I was like, I wonder how long it takes to eat a jolly rancher, if you don't chew it. And it was like 30 to 35 minutes. So I started figuring out that a jolly rancher would roughly get me a mile. Um, cause I wasn't going particularly fast, but yeah. So if I ate four jolly ranchers, I was like, okay, I've gone about four miles now. Like that's four jolly ranchers. Does that incentivize you to eat more candy? Because the more candy you eat, the further you get by that metric. Uh, yeah, I definitely ate all of the jolly ranchers that I had. Um, I was rationing them towards the end though, because I ate them on the uphills. They helped for me to not like keep stopping, cause my mouth was dry. So I kept eating them on uphills. And then I was running low on the second stretch. Um, so I had to ration myself to three jolly ranchers a day, but I just saved them for them. Mmm. So two answers to this one. Mine is the first one's pretty basic time. And I feel like I'm getting pretty good at estimating. Like I know assuming the train's not either very easy or very difficult going to be able to pull a mile and about 20 minutes, three miles per hour, that's pretty much my standard pace. Um, and even if the train is in one of those two directions, I can usually mentally adjust for it. Like I know if it's been 22 minutes and I'm on a steep uphill. Probably about 0.8, 2.9 miles a point, I guess the other one, and this one is way more neurotic. This is from having a pedometer on my watch for the last six years or so is I know precisely how many steps it takes for me to do any amount of distance. So I know 500 steps as a quarter mile, 2000 steps as a mile. So you're counting to 2000 while you're walking. There are times where I will count. Like if, if I'm too in my head and I feel like the time's going slowly, it, it actually acts as a meditation for me. Not necessarily, it's, it's less so to actually measure my distance and more so to just distract me from my boredom of hiking. Is that not like watching, like the kettle boil, like you're literally counting to 2000 and then starting over. And then starting over and it's like, cool, I've done three miles. And it feels like 17 years. Yeah. It, it, it literally, I use it purely as like a meditative practice. So instead of like focusing on my breathing, I'll just focusing on, I'll just focus on counting. Wow. I did read the first page of one of your books and you did put like, You know, it was like 5 million steps. Then you put that, like, it was like 5 million steps to complete the trail or something like that. The first page. Yeah. And that that's not come from the pedometer math. I think that's an old AT idiom. You can also, you know, I think it's generally understood that. 2000 steps is about a mile for most people. You're in Julia and you're like, shit lost count drive back to Mexico or to Canada. I keep a running, uh, one of those little step counters. What's the, there's a clicky thing. They have them at Walmart's. Now I need to count how many people come in and out. Patent pending. Alright. Uh, skip the shirt reminder. Should we've mentioned it. I feel like we don't have any new merge, so it's not worth mentioning. I mean, you just mentioned that. Okay. Yeah, we have, we have merged. Cool. Okay. Let's get to today's main events. Gentlemen. We've been covering the, have on the show for a long time back in the day when we would, uh, Hold out for getting guests in person. I think I've been reaching out to twerk for the last year and a half about coming on the show and we just haven't been able to make it work. Um, but very excited to officially give him the warm backpacker radio. Welcome it. Is torque. Do you prefer your trail name or do you want to go by Tommy? What do you want to do here? I mean, first fine. Yeah. I like, yeah, let's jump right into the trail name because I think I can take a good guess at it, but I'm curious to get the full story. How did you get the trail name to work? I mean, it's a name you earn. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Think it was my first hike in 17 when I did, I dunno, like 900 miles and then quit. Um, I carried a little Bluetooth speaker with me on trail and at the end of the night, I would, uh, I would get all the hikers in a circle and we listened to music and I had everyone like go around and like do their own stretch. And one night we were doing it and I was up against the tree. So I said, Hey, everyone has to come to the tree and like go upside down and twerk. Um, and there also had been a rip the liner of my shorts and I wear very short shorts. So. I think one of the first names was bought back and I was like, I'm not writing home about that. So someone suggested work and I was like, Oh, that fits me a lot better. So yeah. Toric or boss act or indecent exposure. Yeah, exactly. I knew I just, I had a feeling I was going to get something stupid. So I was like, well, I'll just take it now. Yeah. Um, and I don't want to bury the lead here. Anyone who is familiar with the hiking community, Instagram has seen twerks Instagram posts. I feel like if you've been on Instagram in the last three years, I don't care who you are. You've seen hiker trash Vogue. So. We're going to get to that. Let's just, let's just put that as a hanging thought. Let's get to the background of how did you first get into backpacking? Mmm. I, so when I lived in Portland, my roommate, who was actually one of my good friends, they all, but he was just a, you know, I, my roommate slept and I needed a roommate. So I found a roommate on this. And as a kid, Andrew, who happened to hike the 80, a few years prior to moving in with me. And, uh, he was. Planning for a PCT 17 hike and had kept like, mentioning like, Oh, you should like do the PCT. And I was like, nah, I was like, I'm never going to fucking do the PCT. Like I'm not, you know, like, it just doesn't sound fun. Also quick background. My oldest brother, Joe, he ha he threw hike in 2011. So I already knew what the PCT was. I like kind of knew what it entailed. My brother did it on a high snow year, so I heard a lot of horror stories. Uh, And, um, so I was just like, Oh, that's like, when my brother did it, like, my family was like, he's fucking crazy, like theirs. So I was just like, there was no way in hell I'd ever do that, but he's, I dunno, my anyway, Andrew just kept like asking me and asking me. And one night we, he had, uh, the night he broke up with his girlfriend. Um, I brought over a bunch of wine and we just like sat on the floor and I just, I jumped in late, decided I was like, fine, I'll fucking do it. I'll go with like, I'll go with you. Um, and I'm, and I'm like very big on like, not backing down from things. Like, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm usually the kind of person that like shows up. So that's when I decided here you go. Uh, so, so your first PCT hike was 2017. Yeah. So Sean says here, did you guys cross paths at all? No, I don't think so. Where you going North? Yeah. When did you start? April 22nd. Okay. You probably passed me at some point. I started April 4th, but it was like moving at a snail pace. Okay. Oh no, I, I probably definitely did not pass it. I was, I was like 12, 15 milers. Okay. Yeah, maybe not. Then maybe we were just like to move the points. Yeah. Like 1250 miles a day, maybe 18 if I like had a good day and then like lots of zeros. Yeah. That sounds like my desert experience as well. Yeah. Yeah. So give us the full rundown on your 2017 hike. You mentioned that you're someone that doesn't back down from things. Um, this was, is this your first backpacking trip ever? Uh, I only did one, me and Andrew and my buddy did that sister's loop, which was my first backpacking trip ever in 2016. So we did 50 miles around the three sisters here actually right outside of bend. And. It was like super fun, but like I was limping to the car and I remember like, I remember being really pissed off cause my buddy camera and just kept being like, I think it's only a couple more miles and I'm like, I'm literally gonna fucking choke you. If you say that one more time. I just want to get to the car. Uh, so it was like really hard. Like I, and it was a four day trip, you know, like now it's like, you know, like that sounds super easy. We did like. You know, like 13 miles, I think 16 was the biggest day, like nine miles, you know? Um, so it's kind of funny to look back on that and think about how hard it was, but I kinda just like threw myself into it. Uh, so yeah, that was the first backpacking trip. And then I didn't do anything at all. Like anything physical really until I did CC. So did that short, I guess, short as relative, does that trip builds excitement or anxiety for your attempted through. Uh, I think it was a little bit, yeah, both. I was just like, fuck, like, this is really hard, but it's really fun. So like, I wonder how the PCT will be. Um, and then, you know, it's like as soon as you're on the, on the trail, like as soon as you get to the terms, you just start walking. I'm like, okay, well, yeah, this sucks. I have blisters and like things hurt, but they're like already out there. So there's nothing really to like, have anxiety about it. Just more like the daunting, like. Oh, man, I have to get up and do this again tomorrow kind of thing. But yeah, and I had a great year. Like he made a lot of friends in 17, we got the Kennedy Meadows and I was like, Nope, not going to the Sierras. So I skipped up to nor Cal and then like barely saw really anyone I knew and, um, ended up. Quitting like a couple of weeks later, just cause I was just like, Oh, you know what, this isn't for me. Um, and then I went, I went back to Portland like a week later, moved in with my old roommate, went back to my old job. They let me back. And like within a few months I was like, Oh, damn like, especially when all my friends started finishing and posting their photos, I was like, Oh shit. I like really wish I would have like, stayed out there. Um, and so I literally, I immediately just like stopped going out, stopped doing things and just started saving my money and was like, I'm gonna get a permit and I'm going to go again next year. I'm actually going to do it. Did the fact that in nor Cal, you were close to Redding, like where you grew up. Contribute to you wanting to get off the trail. Cause I know on the 80, when I got to New York, it was near home. That was like, eh, I don't have to go back out there. Like I was kind of getting those feelings of I'm comfortable here. Like I don't want to be uncomfortable again. Did that play into it at all? Yeah, honestly, I think that did have like a, I think it had like a pretty big part in it, but you know, a significant part like, Oh, like. I'm just walking around home right now. I mean, I haven't lived there in years. I, you know, been living in Portland up until I started hiking. Um, but yeah, it was kind of that comfortability I'm like, well, it would just be so much easier to go home and like, you know, like have a shower and like a bed. Um, so yeah, and I knew my parents like would like, come get me if I needed to. But I also just, like, at that point, I like really wasn't having that much fun either. Um, I don't know. I think if I would have, like, for me, like, I obviously love the hiking now. Like I know that, but for me, I was like, I wanted to go out there and like take photos, but I just didn't feel really, I didn't feel I was inspired in 2017 as I did going back in 2018. And I'm glad you mentioned, Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, and I think. I wonder how my height would have been different if I hadn't like done like hiker trash bow. Cause I think that had a big part of me really wanting to hike the entire trail and finish. Yeah. So I want to, I want to pin that point for a second, but I'm, I'm glad that you brought up. Your story in terms of you getting off and experiencing that instant regret, because I've seen that template so many times just through what I do with the Trek. If I had a nickel for every time, I've seen someone get off the trail and then, you know, within a month, the. There's a tidal wave of regret of their decision, and they're already plotting for how they can redo it the following year. Um, I think that's a really inspiring story and it just goes to show that, you know, even when you're not having the best of time on trail, you don't fully appreciate how much you're actually enjoying the experience or appreciating the experience or how much better, even like a not ideal time on trail is relative to. You know, the nine to five type of style life that we live on our day to days. I think it's really interesting that you realize that so quickly. Was there any part of you that wanted to just join back up with your hiking family? Or why did you decide on doing it the following year, as opposed to like, just piecing together what you could with the remaining time in 2017? Um, well, cause like I said, like I got back and I went back to work and I kind of went back to my old life and. Uh, in Portland and it took a couple of months time, like I was starting to like regret it is when people were starting to like, Finish and be almost done. So, I mean like the season was over, you know, unless I, I guess would go back down and go southbound or something, but I just, I dunno, I just, uh, at that point I was like, these like friends are my friends. Um, you know, I'll be friends with them still. So I want to, I want to like get the full experience. That's what I wanted. So that's why I waited until 18 to like start, start over from the beginning. Now let's jump to the 2018 hike. Did you ever experience the same degree of low that you experienced in 2017? Cause you mentioned that having hiker trash Vogue gave you a sense of purpose to actually finish the trail. I'm curious if you went through the same level of hardship during the course of the hike. Um, kind of, so the thing that was. The whole reason I'm here. Yeah. I quit in 17 it's because when I went to rehab, like in 2018 from day one, I was just like, Oh my God, I am so. Happy like I've I had, like, it was just happiness. Like, you guys know this, you guys are hikers. Like it's just happiness. You can never replicate. And I wouldn't, I don't think I would've had that if I hadn't had quit in 17. Cause I just knew so badly that I wanted to just be back there. And in starting at the Terminus again, I was like, okay, just get to camp tonight. It wasn't like, okay, like, let's go to Canada. It was like, Let's get to camp and let's just enjoy every fucking day that you can. And hopefully, you know, by the grace of God, you can make it up there. But I really wasn't. I really never thought about Canada until I like got to bridge of the gods. Like I was just like having so much fun, but sorry to answer your question too much detail. Um, uh, do you. Do you like my really low point within the Sierra? I was, I was alone for a lot of it. It seemed like, um, and it was, it's just a really hard section and I really didn't see like a lot of other hikers in the Sierra. I just saw a lot of like CMT hikers, which, you know, the majority of them are going the opposite way. So you're just like, Hey, what's up? Um, so I was really low in this year, but then like, I think it was maybe two Walla me or somewhere around there. I that's what I like. Met up with all these, like all my friends that have hiking, like maybe 400 miles with not with like, you know, probably my most significant group of people I hiked with. Um, but even in the Sierra, when I was at that really low point and like super lonely, I would still like enjoying it. You know, like, cause I, cause I just kept reminding myself. I'm like, okay, you're having a hard time. Where else do you want to be right now? Do you want to use this money? Like go on vacation. You want to go to Italy? What do you want to do? And the answer was always like, no, I want to be right here where I am right now. So even in the low point I knew I wanted to be there and it just felt, it felt right. Even though like I was having a hard time. Yeah, I think that's like super relatable. Cause I, I felt like those exact feelings when I was on the at T cause I had, I had done the PCT in 2017. I didn't think I wanted to do the 80 at all. Like I remember there was like, you could pull clips from this podcast where I'm like, I have no fucking interest in that trail at all. And like, and then I worked a year and a half at a desk job that I hated. Like I did not enjoy it. I sat through 2018 watched everyone that I was on trail with in 2017, or at least it felt like everyone posting photos with them starting a trail again. And it was like, I could do it. Elliot was starting a ball flap was starting the PC or the 80 that year. And like every day it was like, you put in your two weeks notice. Now it's not too late for you to start. And like, we just kept, like, I kept sitting there and like I was, I think we talked about this, how I would like play on like those lunchtime cries, where I would just like, be sad about my job. But then like in 2019, when I finally took the, you know, I left my job and I went to do the 80, it was like a cold snap below zero degrees at night in Georgia, it was snowing. Like people were quitting cause it was so cold and they were miserable. And I was like, all smiles. I was just like, happy to be there. You know? Cause I knew that I could be at home and I could be like watching other people do it. And you know, a bad day out there is a great day at home. So it's just like, I completely understand. Yeah. Having that year off, like you just make you like having the time off makes you appreciate it so much more. Yeah. I was like worried too though. And I'd get back from the aid too. It'd be the same way this year. And like, Not luckily, but the everything with COVID. I didn't have to get that FOMO again, watching everyone to part on a new trail. Luckily there was a parent. Thank God for that. No, I don't mean it that way, but I like, I didn't get that spring. Like you get like a reoccurrence of the posterial depression. I feel like in spring. Oh, absolutely. Like I like. Last year. I was like dreading through hiker season to start. Cause I'm like, Hey, here we go. This is the first year out. Like having to watch everyone else hike. And it was, it is hard. Like, but then it's cool. Cause it is kind of cool at the Instagram thing. Like watching all these people you're like, you don't know, but like seeing them finish, no, like here's another person you got to like experience something so fucking magical, you know, like if you like can't help it, like feel happy for people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's definitely something super cool. And it's awesome that you got to be able to get up there and do it again. Yeah, I know. I want to go again, but I mean, we'll see, I'm not gonna make any plans the same trail. If you say T again. Uh, I kind of want to southbound it before I think about other trails. Everyone's like, why don't you just do a different trail? I'm like, I fucking love the PCT. So let me South on it. And then I'll think about other things I haven't, I have not hiked the PCT northbound obviously, but I would venture to guess that doing it's outbound is basically doing a different trail because everyone I've talked to that. That's gone northbound and hiked through Washington, like without fail, they've had terrible weather throughout Washington. And I think we had maybe six hours of rain throughout the entire time, going through Washington southbound doing and the weather in the Sierra was perfect. We had no mosquitoes in Oregon. Um, I think the trade off in the area where people generally love the trail where, uh, I didn't particularly love this stretch nor did my hiking partner was the desert. You know, at that point for us, we were. We had just come out of this year, the most beautiful stretch of the trail, kind of getting to that point where we're ready to be done. Java had already done the desert, I think two or three times prior. So we were both kind of, you know, we didn't hate it, but it's certainly, if I had to rank the sections of the trail, it was my last, my least favorite. Um, so yeah, I think outbounding is a totally different experience. And I think just getting that. Good weather version of Washington is worth the price of admission. If nothing else, just Washington southbound and just do the state southbound in the state of, or in the month of July, we have to be had great weather finishing, and I was a late finisher. I finished October 5th. Oh, yeah. All my friends were like finishing like September 7th, December 10th or 15th. And they're like, dude, , you're not going to finish. It's going to get cold. But we had like two weeks of straight on through Washington, like going around, go rock around right here. And then it started to get cold in the North cascades, obviously. But like, we didn't have a shit ton of rain. There was just one night where we were in a blizzard and it was like below 15 degrees and. I was laying in my tent being like you fucking idiot. You took 39, zero days. You could have been done with it. You wouldn't be here right now. I just like kicking myself. And then at one point I was like, damn, I hope I just die tonight. So I don't have to hike tomorrow on the snow. The part of you that was like looming dread for the winter coming in Washington after seeing like the heavy snow year in 2017 and flipping around the Sierra. Cause I feel like part of me is always like. I like a little apprehensive whenever there's snow, because of that. Yeah. I, you know, I wasn't, Washington was really hard for me cause like, I, this is how I explained this. It's like, you know, when you, you know, when you have to take a shit really bad and you're like on your way home and like the closer you get to home to like more, you have to go yes. Coming down, Whitney. Okay, good. I was like, maybe that's so. Uh, I kind of related to that where like you get to Washington, you, you know, you're almost done. My body was just like breaking down. Like I felt like my legs were just gonna fucking snap in half, any day. So I was like, not really worried about whether I'm just worried that if my body was going to hold up for me to make it to the end. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. By the way, I felt like every day, like it was great and I was having a great time, but like the days are shorter. I'm not a super fast hiker. It's also a hard section. So it was like getting the camp past dark some of the time, which I really hate doing, but yeah, I'm glad you bring up that analogy, which I love by the way. This hits so close to home. It's happened to me maybe a month ago. Oh, that gets the Sarah Shera poop story. Here's my proof. He is smiling ear to ear as he is. It's so exciting because I honestly, this would have been out of my memory forever. Had to work, not just, and he liked fixed his pocket posture and his like bouncing. I'm old. I might shit myself. I'm so excited. You don't regret it. Uh, every morning I take my dog on about a two mile walk. Uh, one particular morning. I felt a little grumble in my stomach before I left, but I'm like, whatever, I'll just deal with this. When I get back, I got no more than three quarters of a mile from my house and the urge like struck suddenly. And I knew I didn't have a mile of walking in me and there's no bathroom between where I was going and my house. So I literally. Called my wife to come pick me up halfway between the point where I was in our home. And she drove me like three minutes back to the house being like, how old are you? Uh, yeah, and like legitimately I had to get out of the car as the garage door was opening and like scurry upstairs, it was a really bad situation. It was almost, it was terrible. It was really good. Um, I do, I want to get. Into the hiker trash Vogue thing. But since we're on the subject of poop, this is a very poop is choosing this hiker trash books. Yeah. I'm just dangling, dangling it for people. But yeah, I think this is a weird segue, but speaking of anger, trash Vogue, this one time at poop. So just generally, do you have any standout proof stories? It's been a minute since we've had one, you know, 18 did. I did pretty, pretty damn good. Uh, but. In 17, actually, the only time I ever shipped my pants while hiking was not even on trail, I was, uh, into Hatchapee and sharing a bed with my friend, Kathleen and woke up middle of the night. And, uh, I was also very sick after this. I think I had maybe gotten noro, probably got Nora, but I woke up at like three in the morning and like, shit, the bed and let's I was wearing my shorts. I like got new shorts. That's like the liner in them. So wait, there was definitely. Was this like a friend or was this like a, you know, a friend? Like what kind of stuff? Oh no, this is my, this is my friend, Kathleen, who I started the trail with. She started with me and Andrew. You want to know like what level of embarrassing this was going to be? Oh yeah, dude. If it was, uh, I would, I, you know, I wouldn't talk about it again. Um, uh, yeah, so I, I had to get up and like, I like got to the shower. I was not feeling well. And I like had to wash my shorts in the shower. Uh, and I was like, you know, lightly crying in the shower and I like come out and they like put the towel over the stain on the bed and in the morning, and in the morning I wake up and she's just like, why are you. So close to me and I'm like, Oh, sorry, mr. Rollover. I would have never told her this story. She doesn't know. No, I need to tell her, I might wait. Maybe I'll wait until like her birthday or something like that. Yeah. Or you could just send her this episode is for you in here. Yeah. It shouldn't be mad. It's just so long ago that like, I just. There's never been a good time. And now I'd kind of want to wait for the right time. It's like her wedding. Um, there, this reminds me of a good call back. So my friend came on and she told the story about her shitting. No, actually she didn't shit. Her friend. What was the story? She sinks shitter. This really was clogged and she took the. The toilet, the poop out of the toilet with a giant spoon and put it in the sink to try to unclog the toilet. And people walked in on her, like started calling her sink and she told this whole story about it on a past episode. And it was fantastic, but she was like, I want to stay anonymous. She told me that some guy from her job. Came up to her and he was like, I know your sink shitter. He was like, I listened to that podcast. I know, it's you. I heard your voice. I know. It's you? She does a very distinct, she was like, I looked at him and I was like, tell no one. Oh my God, that literally was just making me gag. I can't handle that. What was it? She was like, She has like transferring the shit from the toilet to the sink with a Spooner. Yeah. There was like a large spoon that like moves like the water into the sauna on the rocks. And then it was too clog to be unclogged. So she had to like, that's our next, that's our next t-shirt to clog to be unplugged. All right. Let's put this back on the rails. Let's talk about hiker trash Bogues so were waiting so long. Well, actually, let's start with your background as a photographer, because I know you were a blogger for the Trek in 17. I want to say, uh, it was readily apparent even then that obviously you were a phenomenally talented photographer. So give us a rundown on your background in photography prior to backpacking. Uh, it's not that I didn't, my dad just gave me his camera when I hit I 12. And so I shot film for like six weeks, seven years. And then, yeah, I made, as soon as I picked up the camera, I never stopped. So that's kind of, yeah, that's my background. I just, like, I just knew as soon as I picked up a camera, I just, like, I knew I wanted to be a photographer. Interesting. So trance is a pretty solid photographer. I am terrible. So you're going to have to speak to the lowest common denominator here. Do you think that starting with film photography for any reason is like a good white belt? Is that a good intro? Would you recommend someone who wants to get into photography start with film or is that just totally irrelevant? Um, I mean, if they want, I mean, like, I, you know, Because I learned that film. Like, I don't feel bad shooting digital, cause like I know how, like I do all my settings manually. Like I know how to do that. And I, I still shoot film for like personal stuff obviously. But, um, I don't know, like, I mean it's cheaper to do digital, but films really fun. Like I like kind of the genuine quality of it, you know, knowing that like, okay, I'm not going to take. 50 shots of the same thing when I own, you know, I only have 24 exposures in a role. So I mean, I think film's really fun. Um, and yeah, it's just, uh, so I, it just depends on, I guess, what kind of work people are wanting to produce. Okay. So now tell us about how did photography play into your 2017 night? Uh, not really. I mean, I brought my camera and I took portraits of people, but it was just. I dunno, I, I, in 17, like, I, I felt like I wanted to do something bigger than just like, Hey, just take photos of people and whatever. And so, um, I think maybe that was like a little bit of reason. I was disheartened with my like 2017 hike. I was like, Oh, I came out here and like, I'm hiking, but I'm like, you know, I'm not really like doing anything with my work that feels worthwhile to me at least. Um, So I think that was a part of the reason I quit as well. And then I am 18. I didn't start hiker trash bulb until like Wrightwood that's when I like got the inspiration to do it. Um, but at that point I was just having so much fun being back on trail that I wasn't even thinking about the photography aspect, which was really nice. It was nice to know like, Oh, I actually really love backpacking. Do you think that part of it had to do with the fact that you learned how to long distance hike? The first time. And then once you knew kind of what it took to pull a big mile day or to, you know, get to camp on time or to take breaks when you should, and not, when you shouldn't like that helped give you the free time to focus on that. When you, you know, the first time around you were just focusing on how do I do this and get to camp the next day and or at the end at night, and then hike again the next day. Yeah. You know, I've never even thought about that then. I absolutely like that. I think that's exactly right. That was, you know, it's, like I said, I mean, I did maybe like two or three 20 mile days in 2017 and I thought that was, I thought that was like endless for me. I was just like, Holy, okay. It's a long. But then when I came back in 2018, like my first day I did 20 miles to the Marina. Oh, that's kind of weird. Cause I got, I got to like, how's your Creek super fast. Like at like one 30 or two o'clock and I was like, Oh, that's that's what, 15 miles. And I was like, Oh, that's kinda weird. I was like, I feel really good still. And I don't like camp down here with like 30 people. It's the small area. So I started the hike up to, uh, Lake Morena and I got there. I was like, that's kind of weird. And then the next day I did the whatever 22 miles to, um, Mount Laguna. And I'm like, this is I'm done. I'm like, this has gotta be a fluke. So I just like one more 20 mile day after that, then I got to Julian and then I was like, I'm going to slow it down. So I did like. One like 15 mile day. I was like, okay, now I'm bored. So like, I guess I can do this. So it was kind of, kind of weird. I was able to do it right off the bat. Whereas the first year it was like dying. Just doing like 12 miles. Yeah. I remember like in the desert, I like, I remember I was going down to Cabazon that 19 mile downhill. And on that 90 mile downhill, I had done my first five miles consecutive without stopping. And I told the girls making with, like, I was like, I was amazed, blown away. I was like, I just did five miles without stopping for a break. And she was like, yeah, like that's like normal. And I was like, Oh my God, like that is not normal at all. And I think like the second round. Yeah. The second time around when you're not like, when you know how to like pace out your breaks, like the mileage feels familiar and you're not, it doesn't seem as well. Like you get places faster and you have more free time to swim in the lakes or do photography or pursue like something that you're passionate about. Whereas the first time you're just trying to make it through the day. Totally. Yeah. And like, it, it, it became so fun to like, it, people always ask me like, Oh, did it ever feel like work? And it was like, no, like it, I was doing, I was taking two things and like combining them, and then also like sharing my art with people I love by including them in my art. So, I mean, it was, it was a dream come true for me. Like, I felt like. I think for me, it was like the most meaningful work I've ever done because it was meaningful to me. And it was just a bonus that people liked it and in thought, but for me, I would have done it regardless. How are you editing your photos on trail? Are you using like polar or like we're using Photoshop on your phone? Um, I actually did everything on my phone and I used, um, Vesco and. There's another like Japanese app I had found, and it kind of adds that like grainy texture, um, called Calla, C a L L a. Those are the only two apps I use. Like, I didn't even like discover the Lightroom app until I finished the trail. I'm like, Oh, this would have been like, A lot nicer, but yeah, let's take a step back for a second and define what, what is hiker trash vote? Cause I think people who are the people who obviously follow you on Instagram, who, or who have seen your stuff, know the answer to this question, but assume that you're speaking to someone that has no clue what this is. Yeah. It's um, I explain it as an editorial style photography project that revolt that, you know, basically. It's making dirty new hikers, um, pretend like they're high fashion model. Yeah. And torque's not allowed to be, uh, braggadocious about his own work, but it's so good. It's so good. Not only the quality of the photography, but the things that you're able to get people to do that is the most fascinating aspect to get them to sit, still sit, still dump milk on their face. Like, so walk us, walk us through some of your favorite poses. One of my favorite photos eat. Like he poses like, yeah, that was good. Yeah. Whatever you're having your photography victims do for the shots. I mean the milk one yeah. Stands out to me too, just cause it's so fucking funny, but uh, I don't know, like I have different favorite photos for different reasons, you know? Like. Some of them, like, you know, that other people might not like, I really loved because I know whether I know that person, right. Like there's a story behind it. You know, something funny happened that day. Also like a lot, like, what I love about a lot of my work is I don't let, usually people smile, uh, But it's always funny because there's so many outtakes of people laughing and just like, I should post the outtakes too with them too. Cause it's like, it's really funny. Cause we get like one shot, but then it's them just being like awkward or goofy or like there's so many people that like, like you say, don't smile and what do they do? They start laughing and then, and then I get past them. Listen, you have to listen. So we can get the shot you're on a schedule. So you mentioned that a lot of your favorite photos might be ones that other people might not pick. Cause there's like funny stories or things attached to them. What are some stories you could tell us behind the photos that people might not know about? Um, what's one that stands out like my profile photo. I mean, I think everyone knows, like, if you follow me, like I got done by a wasp on my. Uh, I don't know, eyebrow. Um, and it's funny because we were just about to cross bridge of the gods. Like we were, I'm not even kidding you, 10 feet from bridge of the gods and all these loss start going everywhere. And I get stung on my eyebrow and we start crossing and like the three guys I'm hiking with, they're like having their, like, you know, Bridge of the gods moment. They're fucking like Reese would have been MoMA and I'm N and I'm hiking behind them holding my face, being like, fuck motherfucker, are you fucking kidding me? I'm like, I'm livid. Like, I don't even remember cause crossing the bridge. Cause I was just like, what the hell? Um, and then the next morning I woke up and I like asked my, my, the friend I was hiking with. It was like, Hey, is this something wrong with my face? He was like, Holy shit. The perks of known the Arizona trail. Yeah. Yeah, what's funny is that later that day, I was like, damn to see so many people a day. Like, and there's this like older Asian man. Yeah. Who was kind of hiking around us. Um, he, I don't think he really took zero. We'd take a zero and we'd pass them again. So I saw him, probably passed them like five or six times. And that morning I saw him again. Cause they recognize this walk and his like his little backpack and his hat he would wear. And, um, And I think it was hard of hearing. Cause like there was one time where he like, couldn't hear me move. So I'd be like, Hey, good morning. You know, somebody was like, I could like pass them. And so I was coming up behind him and says, hi, good morning. And he goes to turn around and he goes, Oh, he said he is, but I think it was my faith. And it was really funny. That is when I, I want to talk about. How are you getting people to do this? So people, again, who are not familiar with the hiking Instagram community, this became a really big thing, but obviously I had to start somewhere. So at some point early on in the process, Before anyone knew what the hell hiker treasure Vogue was. You had to convince them to dump milk on their face. Let's. Can we talk about kind of the evolution from the first people that you started to do for their portraits and then how that progressed? I'm imagining yet people coming up to you like. Begging you asking you to do this by the end of the hike. Okay. We take a step further back. Do you have any experience like shooting editorial photography or like high fashion photography? Or was this just something that you were like, I've seen magazines. I can make them post, like, how did you even know what to do? Great. Uh, so I, so I w did a stint of college. Um, I did a year and a half of that in San Francisco at the Academy of art. And I actually was going to double major in like fashion, just cause I wanted, like, since I was a kid, I was like, I'm going to be a fashion photographer. Like that's what I want to do. And then working with the fashion kids, I was like, I do not want to be a fashion photographer cause I do people. But so like, I've always, I love like I have. That's about fashion photography still. I just like, I love how like outrageous and like ridiculous it is. Um, and. I, so, yeah, I still I've. I feel like my work is, Oh, it's been a little bit like editorial also. I really like concept art where I kind of like create stories with an image. Um, so I like, that's my like hiker trash Vogue is my style. Like that's like, if you look at my other work, it's my style. Just like with hikers and in the outdoors. Makes sense. Uh, okay. Now back to back, back to the question of like, was it difficult to get people that are not models who are maybe even insecure about the way that they look bruises from the hip belt or change? Yeah. And obviously the ladies are not wearing makeup. Everyone looks like trash. Maybe that's an overstatement, but like, I didn't really everyone's dirty as fuck. Yeah. Like I can't tell you how many. Like girls, I would photograph and be like, okay, my hair is a mess. Right. And I'm like, yeah, that's the fucking point. But it's so funny. Cause you look at these pictures and I'm maybe just, cause I know most of these people and I with them and like, but I mean, you look at all these people and they look fucking gorgeous, but also like everyone on trail looks great because what are we doing? We're like, we're not going to work. Like we're not stressed about anything. We're literally just like. Do you want, like, you know, doing something for ourselves, that's just like, amazing. So it's like, how do you expect people not to look good when they're like the happiest I've ever been? I heard a joke in the beginning of the PCT from another hiker that was. Uh, it went, how do you, or wire through hikers? All so attractive. And the answer was because they walk the ugly off in the first hundred miles. And like in the first few hundred miles, like I, part of it like meant like, you know, like we're getting like muscular and in shape and everything, but I think it's also like, people just become happier. Like they become happier, like people that are just, yeah, the little moment the life comes back to their eyes. You can see it. Yeah. Well, and yeah. And here's the thing with, yeah. Kind of like going off, what you just said is. Like what, how do like happy? What do happy people exude exude confidence and nothing is sexier than someone who's confident. Like, I don't care how big or small or muscular or like, whatever you are, like, confidence is hot. And like when you're out there, how can you not. Feel good about yourself, despite the fact that we're like on showered and dirty, but here's the thing all of us are. So what are you saying to people early on to get them to do these crazy things? Yeah. What's your pitch? Um, so, well, when it started, we were in Wrightwood and I was sharing, um, I had gotten a house with. Like, uh, eight other people that had been hiking around and we were just like taking a day off and it was like, Oh, let's all, let's have a hiker photo shoot piece of gear and, well, it's like you stupid poses. Don't be really funny. And I posted it and then like all these like companies and people started sharing it and stuff. I was like, Oh, okay, well maybe this is my like, uh, I mean, this is like my project thing. So I just kept doing it every time. I'd like get to a town or like, like a place on trail boards. There was a lot of hikers. So it's, I feel like it started pretty like, you know, pretty lighthearted and then. As I went on, I just, you know, I'd get more and more creative and I try to add more prompts or just like, be as outrageous as I could. But the end of the trail, literally people were just like throwing themselves out. Maybe like, I'll do anything. Like what should I do? Like I'll get naked and I'll pour milk on my leg. You know, I'll ride this bear. Like, I don't know, like people were just like willing to do anything. I was going to say where people kind of like seeking you out, like where you just like filling up water at a stream and people go, Oh my God, it's twerk. Take a photo of me. Here's my tits. You know? Sorry. I mean, I think people, like, I definitely feel like there was moments there where people would just like, see me and they would, I feel like maybe they were like, Wanting to say something. I actually had a few insistence where like, people would write me later. They're like, Oh, I like saw you at camp or saw you it something, but I didn't want to like, bother you. I'm like, why are you bothering me? I'm just another hiker. You know, it's always weird when they, when they tell you after. And you're like, dude, just say something it's weird. They knew the whole time. And didn't say anything. Yeah. But there would be people who'd be like, Oh, can you, can you like take a photo of me? And I was like, well, you can't, I. I mean, it doesn't bother me that much. Like people ask, but if I'm like, sometimes I didn't want to take a photo, like all the time, you know, like I have to do it, like when I took photos because I felt inspired and I saw something or I saw someone and then I wanted to create something. I can't just, you know, it's just not like, Hey, like write a song or, Hey, do this thing. That's creative. Like. Right. Like, you gotta like, like what go stand by that tree. You know, how, how hard is it to think of an entire setup for a photo on the spot? Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, it's not that hard to just like take a photo, obviously. But like when I take a photo, I want it to be like, I want it to be genuine. I don't want to do it. Cause I have to, you know, I want to do it cause I want to. Um, and so, I mean, Sometimes I would just be like, Hey, here's the picture? And then whatever. But yeah, most of the times it's like, I would just like be stopping people on tour. I'll be like, Hey, I have this idea. You're going to do this right now. And they're like, Oh, okay. I'm curious. Did you do any landscape photography along the way or was it purely just these hiker trash broke photos? Uh, on my phone. It's funny though. I can't tell you, like, I could go through my pictures on my phone from like, PCT like landscaped. And like, I couldn't tell you where like any of them were. Yeah. Like, it'd be like, Oh, that looks familiar, but I haven't no idea where it was. I can go through all my PCP photos and tell you exactly the mile marker like exactly where, where, what happened that day. If I look, I don't know, I just associate people with memories and memories. Yeah, for sure. I remember hearing that early on in the eighties, and I even did a bad job with this after receiving this very Sage advice. But, you know, everyone wants to take the same picture of the same Ridge or the same sunset or yada yada yada, and like, you know, there's people out there with $3,000 cameras that are going to do a million times better job than you are. Take pictures of the people around you. Those are the things that you're going to remember. Those are the things you're going to miss the most. And I think at least I'm I'm victim of this. I am constantly taking pictures of the landscapes terribly and not enough photos of my fellow hikers. Yeah. Sometimes like, I feel awkward asking for people that'll give me a hitch or let me stay or whatever. Like, I'll feel awkward asking them, Hey, can we take a picture before I leave? But then like, those are the ones I look back on it. I'm like, Oh my God. And this was this family I stayed with, or this was this guy. They gave us this hitch that had this crazy story. And there's just so many more memories attached with it that a picture of a mountain has. Yeah, totally. I know. That's one thing I wish I would have done is take more pictures of like trail angels and like people I met that like weren't hiking, but I don't know. I just felt like it was just really like. Personal thing that I didn't want to like bother someone that already did something nice for me by being like, can I take here pose? You know, like I would've done more. Like, can I just take a picture of you? You don't have to do anything just like a snapshot, but I think I was just like more in my head, but like, if I'm going to take a picture, I'm going to have you do something crazy. You know, we can go big here. So, so hiker, trash Vogue means a lot of things. It started out as a concept. Through your Instagram photography, and then it evolved into a bigger project. Can you talk us through that? Um, which bro, what do you mean? Didn't you make a wasn't there, wasn't there a book? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I did two books. Sorry. I was like, I mean, that was the, yeah. Yeah. So at what point did you decide that the series was going to be made into a book and talk us through the logistics on that? Because I I've self published to self published, but the prospect of self publishing. Yeah, that sounds is it a hardcover? Yeah, they're both hard covers. Um, and I knew I was going to. Pretty much what I got to like nor Cal, I was like, okay, like done more than half the trail. Like if I finished. I'm going to like, make a book of this, but I was like, I was like, I'm not going to do a book if I don't finish. Like, I just felt like I had to finish. We're just stupid, you know? But like, for me, I just felt like I had to complete this to make the book you'll complete. Cause it won't feel complete to me. Um, if I don't like make it to Canada, um, which I did, no, it was like, like ridiculous. Um, but. It's in my head. That's how I felt. But so in nor Cal, I was already like, kind of making layouts in my head and like writing down, like things. I want to remember when I was done and off trail. And then like, literally like two weeks after I got up Charles, they came, no, sir. It's time to start designing, start writing. Um, getting other hikers to write. Yeah, it was a big project. Like it was. Um, it was actually like quite stressful. Like by the time I decided to do the second book and started design it, I'm like, Holy shit. I did not, I should have not signed up to do the second one. Cause like it's a lot of, it really is a lot of work and I, it was just, it was very stressful and the first one was so fun. Cause I was like, cool. I can dig like good to all my photos and like. I was like way more inspired. And then the second one made it feel like work. So at least that that's enough. Like, I should only do things. Like if I feel like it's good creative outlet, not like I'm forced to do it. Did you make it on InDesign or did you use like one of those photo bookmakers online? Um, Shutterfly, I think is what I'm thinking of. I used to make camp books for the, for the campers, with Shutterfly. Designed the entire thing via Photoshop. Oh wow. You did like spread my spread on Photoshop, everything I've tried in design. And I was like, I don't have time to learn this. Oh my God. We should have, we should have talked. Yeah. I know. All of my friends who are designers are like you did on Photoshop. What the hell? And I was like, I don't know. I was just like, I didn't want to learn something else new to like finish the thing. But I think I do have InDesign and I do want to learn it cause like, I probably will do some other sort of book. Well, if you ever want to like FaceTime for like 30 minutes, I could teach you the whole thing. I made our high school year book in it. And then that's what I made hiking from home on. Um, it's so simple. It's just, you just gotta know what buttons to click. Yeah. That's what my friends, all my friends who were like designers said, and I was like, okay, well I'll learn it for next time. Yeah. Well I'll, I'll show you. We'll play it on time. So I'm curious, what is the cost of making one of these giant photo color, rich books that, that can't be cheap. Yeah. Um, the first one I made, which was 11, um, 11 or eight and a half by 11 hot each book cost me like $82. Cause it was like, It was also like almost 300 pages. And I went with like the highest quality color, highest quality, uh, paper, you know? Cause I was like, you know what? I'm not like I'm not doing this to make money. I'm just doing it because I want people to like have my work. So if people want to pay for it, they'll pay it. So what were you selling them for? That makes sense. Which, which like, sounds like a lot, but. I the way I explain it is like I spent $8,500 on the PCP like that, like the work I produce, like it's not like me just like, Oh, I was like bought a camera and I'm going to be a photographer. It's like this, like there's at that point with 18 years of experience behind it, you know, there like so many years of like mastering my craft. And if you think about it, you sell a PR one print to someone like. Sometimes that's like two, $300, depending on how big. Yeah, so like getting a book of like all the work I, I had to like. Talk myself into it though. Cause I was ready to just be like, you know what, I'm just going to do, like everything cheap that people just have it. And I was like, you know what? I want people to like actually want my work. I feel like that's like the point of a coffee shop book though. Or I'm not a coffee, a coffee table book. Like one of those where you just flip through the pages, it's like, it's going to be expensive, but you're going to put it there and it's going to be enjoyable. The flip through, I think scout talked about it when he was talking about is Pacific crest trail book. Um, Not the one that he just put out in the last episode, but the actual photo album he talked about in the first episode, they were, yeah. Like the printing fees can be outrageous. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. But like, I mean, you pay for quality and like, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna have that thing. Like send people from like bullshit book, you know? Did you notice any. Negative impacts to the quality of the second book, because it wasn't as much of a passion project. Um, no, actually I, you know, what's funny though, is like, when I was sending out, I was like, God, I hope people don't hate this because like, for, in my mind I was like, I mean, I still spent the same amount of time working on that. On the second one I spent almost, you know, almost six months redoing it and changing it. So it was different from the other one. And, um, But I was nervous that people were going to get it and be like, Oh, this cause a lot of there's a lot of people that bought the second one too, that had bought my first one. So I was like, Oh, I've got so worried that people are gonna like, hate the second one. And like, I dunno, but no, everyone, I loved it. And a lot, I think a lot of people appreciated that. I made it smaller and cheaper too, because I had so many people reached out. Like I really want to buy it, but like, I can't afford it. And I still, that they'd be like, well here, like, I'll give you like. I'll send you like a discount code you can use if you do want to buy it. So what's the difference between the first book and the second book? Like what's the first book of what's the second book. First book is from my, my I'll just photos from my through hike. And then the second one I did was, um, I did a lot of trail magic last year on the PCT. So it was a lot of the photos I took in trail magic. So it's like a combination of. Um, 2018 and 2019, I added some like more stories. And then, um, I just doubt, I like did less pages and made it smaller. So that way it was more affordable for people. Cause a lot of people have been asking like, well you used to make, you know, make one that's cheaper. So it was kind of just like, yeah, how much is the second one? Uh, I was selling it for 60, cause it's still cost me like 40 something dollars to make. Okay. Do you do limited runs these books or is it something that you're constantly buying more inventory for? Like one by either of your first books or first depots? Well, I've been asking again, like, I mean, I sold out of them maybe like. I don't know, four months ago. Um, but then just recently people started asking about it again. So, uh, I might put in another order, maybe I'll just like revamp the second one and like add new stuff to it. I haven't decided yet. It's just, it's a lot of work and I want, I want to do other projects. Yes. Is it something that you'd ever put on Amazon? Like, is it something that you'd ever do like a pretend to be in service with that would distribute through Amazon? Yeah, so here's like, my thing is like, I. I kind of like, you know, I want to like start small and see how it goes first and be like, Hey, I'm going to go on Amazon. I'm going to sell a bunch of these. Cause I just don't. I just didn't think it was okay. I actually sold way more than I thought, obviously like, not obviously, but you know, like I was very stunned. I was like, Oh shit, like, okay, this is going to be a lot of work to ship these up by myself, which I signed up to do. But, uh, Yeah, I think, you know, maybe if I like do the 80 and then do the CDT and I released like, you know, like triple crown Vogue or whatever you call it, um, then maybe, you know, I, once I have a little bit more of a, of a reputation, I guess, and maybe I'd sell them, but I don't know for me, it's never about money. It's just like, I just want people don't like want to have it. That's why I don't want to skimp on the quality. I just. Want people to know, like I really put my heart and soul into my work and I hope that like shows in the book that they have. So what is your day to day now? Not a lot of chilling. Camping. Are you doing freelance? Photog? Yeah. I want you to come here and take photos of us for backpacker radius. Okay. Let's do that. Well, no, they don't be naked ones. I just want like some promo photos, like exactly. Like we could do something fun like that. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm not really what I have nothing going on right now. If you get in the car right now, we'll see you tomorrow. Let's just make that drive. Yeah, it's true. If I, if I could do it, you can do not that far of a drive 15 hours. How long ago? Probably 12 to 15 from bed. Oh, you're in bed maybe 15 to 17. Yeah, just a day. So we'll see you at lunch tomorrow. I'll bring the milk. It's a 25 mile hike in time. There you go. Measuring time. Non-tradition there you go. Uh, right. Do you have people hitting you up to do freelance photography work after running into your hiker trash folk series? Yeah, I mean, I've done. Um, I mean, in my book, I sold actually ads to a bunch of companies. Like I there's, cause I, I designed the book to look like a mock magazine, so I put their fake ads in there and then the fake ads are like, from like the town that'll be like, I don't know, to have to pee. And I'll be a picture from Tallahassee, but I'll look like a, like an ad with like a hiker, you know, like modeling. Uh, but then I sold. Uh, advertisement to a different, you know, um, outdoor companies be like, Hey, do you want to add in this book, which is kind of unorthodox, but I'm like, this is going to be sitting on people's tables. Like hopefully forever. Yeah. So it's like, you pay a bunch of money for a magazine and then people throw it away the next day. Yeah. Right, right. Do you get people hitting up to do weddings? Yeah, I do actually just got back from Michigan. Um, I just did. Uh, so Travis Avery, he's the marketing director for Sawyer. I just did. That's awesome. That, yeah. Travis is the man. Have you connected with whom at all? Nathan Bowman. Yeah, I was just hanging out with him in Michigan with blue blue parents of Luddington. So when I was there. She came in a pick me up and we hung out and it was his birthday and yeah, he's a good friend of mine. Yeah. We're both on wedding vetting. Like he got me on this wedding vending page in Colorado. Cause I do videography and he does the photography. So like, Oh yeah, it's funny. Cause I'll see him first on there and then I'll post on there. As someone. Yeah, he's got beautiful wedding work. Oh yeah. One who's been married. I know that the wedding photography thing is very expensive and we got a good deal. Quote, unquote is from the photographer standpoint, is this a highly coveted job because it's expensive or is it a nightmare because he know that you could potentially be dealing with a bride Zilla. I did one wedding. I'm sorry, you're asking Corey. I didn't want wedding. And I got too much anxiety. I can't do another photography. Videography. You can edit out errors, photography thinking what happens if it's blurry on the kiss? Like I could not handle the anxiety that day, but it's work. That, that question was actually for you. It was just tilt it towards me while he was saying it. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, uh, it, it used to be stressful, but I've done so many now. Like it's just. And also like people, like, since my height, people that reach out to me, like re they want me, because my work, like they know my work, so it's not like, Oh, well, I'm going to send you a big ass Pinterest board. And, you know, here's like all the shots we want people I, people now are just like, cool. Yeah. Just show up, like you do it, how you do it. And which is awesome. So then like now people are paying you what I want to be paid. And they're like, letting me have free reign like creatively. So I actually really quite enjoying weddings now. And I feel like super confident when I send the photos. And like, I'm like, these people are going to love these and that's a really good feeling. Cause before I would have a lot of, like you said, John's like a lot of anxiety around it. Even like, even if the photos are great, I'm like, God, what if like, For some reason they hate them or they don't like the style, like, yeah. But let's do make that quick. If someone listening wants the hiker trash Vogue treatment for their wedding, where should they reach out to? Uh, Oh, you can go to my website and all my information's on there. It's just Tommy corey.com. Cool. Um, I think I had one more wedding question, but Oh yeah. So is. The milk thing. Is that like your Freebird, like when you're doing photo shoots, do people like, all right now, when do we get to dump milk on each other? I haven't, I've only done it that one time. It'll be twice when you get to Denver, it'd be cool. If that became your thing where like people are begging, I'm going to stand on the table and don't, Millicom Zack. We're going to practice tonight, actually. Okay. Yeah. Like punch it's red. We're red. I'm going to the store right now. Yeah. Maybe I'll get people on different food all the time. That'd be fun. You should do the food that you associate with them. I don't want to know. Will you be like ginger beer or something? I don't know. I dunno what food I would be. Juliana carrots. I'd like to think like sour, gummy worms, but Julianne carrots are also a close second, I guess. Um, okay. I have a question. Um, we can edit this out if you're not comfortable talking about it, but I was wondering if you could speak to what it's like being a gay hiker. Yeah. I mean, that's totally up to you. Yeah, no, of course. Um, you know, this is it's. Honestly, it's hard for me to say what it's actually like to be a gay hiker because people know me now. And I feel like when I hiked in 18 people knew me. So like, there was almost this kind of like, I don't know if the privilege is the right word or just maybe a favor over my hike because people knew who I was. So, um, I mean, I generally, I think people on the trail don't give a fuck, like, you know who you are, but you know, it was really like that episode. You guys I did with, um, gummy bear. I think that out to you when you did that episode, cause I listened to that episode and. It was just, it was really enlightening, even for me as a kid, Hey man, to hear another gay man of experience who is, you know, different from me. And he, like, he had a completely different experience than I did. Um, and that was. Uh, so that was like, even I, like, I learned something from that episode, even being like another gay person. Yeah. It's like, it's hard for me to say, like, I had people reach out me all the time being like, Oh, what, what is it like the gate hiker? Like, I want to like hike too, but I'm like nervous about the small towns. And I dunno, I've been out since I was 16 Kane, like, so I don't know. I don't really think about. The fact that I'm gay, unless I'm like, you know, like having sex with a man when you were listening to, when you were listening to the gummy bear episode, ignore Zach. When you were listening to the game is there any like time during the episode where you thought like, Oh, this part could have been elaborated on or, Oh, like this, like there was something that they didn't touch on. Like, is there anything that didn't get touched on in that episode that you want to share? Um, Oh, from him, like what, uh, just like from your experiences compared to what you heard of his, like, is there anything different that you had or things that he left out that you'd want to include? You mentioned that your experience was totally different. So I'd be curious to touch on what some of those differences might be. Like, variance is different in the fact that I didn't have like an experience of being a gay hiker. Like I never felt at one point I felt scared or uncomfortable. Um, You know, I mean like the small towns can be, I guess, a little bit intimidating. Yeah. You know, uh, uh, a gay person or a trans person, or a person of color could feel really uncomfortable going to some of those small towns. But I don't know. I was always around hikers. I knew and liked. And so for me, I didn't really ever feel like me being gay. Was it like a problem or something that I had to be afraid of? Leading up to your hike in 2017. Was it something that you had any type of concern about? Yeah, actually before, yeah. I was a little nervous, um, going, like gearing up for something. I just didn't know what it, what it was going to be like. You know, I knew it would be like very like straight male dominated, which is fine. Like most of my friends are straight, so it's not that I am like afraid of straight men. It's just. You know, it's just like such a melting pot of different people, of like different backgrounds. You know, it's not like it's not like the Charles like this big liberal bubble, it's not, you know, but, um, I was a little nervous, but then I got out there and just like, start it, you know, it just was myself. And, uh, honestly, like, you know, I mean, I think most people can, um, Can testify to this, uh, like being on the trail, it's like the most yourself you're ever going to be. And it's so rewarding to be around others that are being, you know, that are having the same experience. And then they just like accept you for like all that you are so young, single people that I've talked to about their hacking experience, everyone kind of relays the same thing that they're all horned up. What's the experience. Did you have any. Well, I guess, without revealing too much more detailed than you're comfortable with, but, uh, was it a success from a romantic standpoint for you? So honestly, like while I was out there, I never really, yeah. I never thought about, I also. Eat that many gay men. I did. I don't know. I don't know if you guys want to include not, but it's funny to me. We're including it. Go on. Oh, I like looked up with another hiker and I'm not gonna say names obviously, but I can, I'll tell you guys later off the radar. Um, I, I did hook up with a hiker and Mount Shasta. Um, and then he, the next day. Was like, Oh, so does this mean we have a trail romance? And I'm like, Oh God, you know, like I was like, if lay laid on trail and like, that was not that important to me. Um, so I actually, like, we were in Dunsmere and I was like supposed to take another day off, but I ended up ditching him and hiking 20 miles out into the middle of the night. And then I did like a 36 the next day. And then I got. There you skipped it though. He was there and I'm like, no, I don't have any hookup stories, but this one time I hiked 50 miles to get away from this guy. So do you want like a band or a DJ at her wedding? You found a stage five Clinton of saying this guy's chasing you down, trying to plan your guys' future together. Oh, yeah, that gave me so much anxiety just cause like, I don't know, like I probably could have met the love of my life out there and I wouldn't have known cause I was just on this Epic, like solo journey. And I like, all I could think about was like, you know, doing, taking photos and hanging out with my friends and like that. So like none of that was really important to me, but I could see like why. That's a romantic place to like meet someone like there's so many people I hiked with that like met on trail and like, Built together, which is like really cool. Just like you start off seeing each other at the reversed kind of, you know, like I am at the worst. I will ever look, I am probably going to be in some of the worst moods I'll ever be in. Like, you're going to see me crying at 2:00 PM against the treat. And you're going to ask why not going to know. I will probably shoot myself in front of you. There's going to be so many weird things happening. And if that like is cool with you, then I think real world might be fine too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's exactly why if you meet on the trail and you can hike together, like you're probably gonna be really good for each other in real life. So I know you said and love my life. We'll see. Yeah. Backpack back country matchmaking hit up to work. If you think he's the potential love of your life. Um, I know you said you didn't see that met. That many other gay men on trail. Did you see like that many other LGBTQ through hikers? I know it's like, not all the same as like another gay person, but did you see many other people, um, who weren't straight on trail? You know, and that's the thing too. It's like, you can't just like, I mean, I have really bad guitar too, so it's like, I admit that we're gay. Phew. I, so, but I, they didn't really have any conversations with anyone that would like, said they were gay. I only met like a few gay men. I, I mean, I'm sure there were plenty of gay women maybe, but again, knowing that really like at anything and then as for trans people, well, I just, you know, I don't, I don't know. And that anyone that was trans because they never said anything. And also, I just, like, I don't know. I don't, I don't want to assume anything about anyone. Um, I, you know, also look up though for me, it's like, wasn't important. Like, I don't care. You're fucking just here to hike and like make friends. Exactly. I was friends with them. There were two people in our trail group in the desert and it was like a, it was a lesbian couple. It was two girls and they were super cool. Um, they hiked with the dog. They were just like, literally so cool. And we got to hike or town. Um, we had been hiking on and off together for a while. And one of them had told us they came to us at lunch and they were like, Hey, don't act weird. Next time you see, you know, the other person should, they were like, but we got to town and they wanted to transition back to being a guy. Um, so they got a haircut and all this stuff. I remember just sitting there and I was like, I had no idea. I had no idea, you know, cause it's just not something you think about and you're just like really comfortable with it. And like they came back and we were totally fine with that too. And it was just, yeah, no, I, you don't really ask people, but I was just wondering if you had like any type of experience with how many, you know, I don't know, just like what you saw on trail. Yeah, no, I, and I think that's another big reason why I want to hike again too, because I I'm hoping with, you know, the, with like the black lives matter movement and the influx of like, you know, um, Companies actually like paying more attention and hiring people of color. I hope we see like this big influx in diversity on the trail. Um, and I know that probably takes years, but I, I w I just can't, , um, theme that I've heard from my friends of color and other, you know, LGBTQ people is that. A lot of people are afraid to go and HighQ because they're not represented in the media. So it's like, why would I do this thing? If I don't see someone like me? And that was like, My initial fear of through hiking was like, Oh, I don't see a lot of other gay people through hiking. I'll probably be the only one, which is fine. Cause I fucking love hiking now. And like, I would just do it anyway, but I totally get that sentiment of if you're not seeing yourself represented, then you probably feel like it's not for you, which is like not true. So I really want to thanks again and hope for the note to like connect with more people that are. You know, people of color or LGBT and just that are different. Yeah. Did you have any resources that you went to that gave you more information or made you feel like you weren't going to be the only one out there that you think other people could benefit from knowing, you know, no. Like when I hiked, like I just went and like hope for the best. I don't, I think I only met a couple other gay people in 17 as well. Um, and so after experiencing it in 18, I didn't really. I don't know, like I just, um, like I said, I don't, I like kind of mostly my friends are our sisters, so I'm not, I wouldn't really say like, I'm very immersed in like gay culture. So for me, going back in 2018, I was just going back to like, to hike and just be immersed in like trail colors. Sure. Um, so yeah, like I said, like, I feel bad saying that, but I don't have any resources other than like, Following people online who are like LGBTQ hikers or like people of color. Yeah. I mean, I think even just saying it wasn't as big of a deal as you thought it might be, you know, that in itself could be helpful. Yeah, absolutely. But this is what I do. Tell people that reach out to me, as I say, my experience is my experience. I don't want you to go out there expecting to have the same experience, cause I don't want to be wrong and I don't want to be responsible for like you, you know, going out and like having a terrible life. Experience. Cause you know, obviously like obviously different people have different years too. Like you could be end up needing someone who's a fucking Dick. And like, it doesn't like the fact that you're gay or black or Asian or whatever. Um, so I try, I always had to like, let people know like my experience with my experience. I think the child communities insanely awesome. But who knows? Who's going to hike these other years. Yeah, for sure. But I do tell people, go experience it, go see if you like it. Like you will find friends. You will find people that just love you for you. And that's what map and other gay through hikers reach out to you and share their experience. I, cause I think I've heard you talk about this before that it was kind of a, that you didn't have any really bad experiences. So I'm curious if you've had anyone reach out to you to weigh in and be like, actually this was X, Y, and Z happened to me. Um, you know, not that I can think of, but I, I mean, I did the last person I talked to as a, um, uh, trans, uh, man. So I was female to male. Um, he's like as like transitioned and whatnot, but, um, Has like been wanting to hike. The PCT was asking about information and said that he had like, experienced some pretty, like scary run ins with people, but he's like from the East coast. And I think they were like out on the 80 actually, which seems from what I've heard is like, actually like a lot different kind of like trail culture than the PCT. Like, could you attest to that chance is currently in the bathroom, but I'll speak for chance a year. Hartford, like as a white guy, a straight white guy. It's hard for me to say, like, I generally don't have bad interactions other than people that don't like Ginger's. Um, but I mean, certainly the culture is very different Arab. It is. Um, I mean, yeah, you definitely see Confederate flags in the South. Uh, I mean even sometimes like in the mid Atlantic States, But yeah, again, my experience everyone's nice to me, but I understand that that's a very privileged experience. So certainly the culture is very different, but I also, in my experience, rural communities all over the country, kind of all have a similar vibe from that standpoint. So I don't, I don't want to differentiate too much, but the South is definitely its own flavor. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah. And just want to kind, kinda like kind of coming back to like, Being like gay and white is, you know, I mean, If you want to hide your gayness, you can absolutely hide it. If you're scared. I did it. I can't imagine what it's like to be a person of color on the trail when you can't hide the color of your skin. Right. That's that's gotta be even scary. Yeah. Yeah. I, so when we talked to Akuna about that, um, I was assuming obviously that the South would have been. His toughest experience is he, so he hit the triple crown. That was just, that would have been my guess. And he mentioned that his worst run in actually happened in Oregon of all places. So you just, you never know where it can happen. Like again, I think from what I understand, rural communities can be challenging regardless of where you are. If you know, you don't fit the mold. Yeah. And it's, so I love that. Like, people like. Akuna and, um, who Daniel Black Alation. I love him. Like, I love that these people are able to like, be like more media present and like companies are sponsoring them and like raising their voices. Cause I think in the next, I hope in the next five years, there's just like a big fucking influx of like people of color and LGBTQ. I just, I just think it would make the trail experience. So much more interesting. And also just like, kind of on that note, like when I finished the PCT outside magazine or outside online published hacker charge vote, they did fit. That was insane. Yeah. And I, yeah, which was like, I was so excited, like to me, that was like, you know, I knew it was like, this is so fucking cool. Like my work got feature on this like platform. That's so huge. And it's like outdoors and whatever, looking at the comments, there's a lot of great comments, but of course, what do we do we think about the negative? Um, there was a lot of people kind of accusing me like being racist because. Who was in a lot of my photos, a lot of white people who was on the trail, mostly white people. And I was like, I was, Oh, what's that? Oh my God. I remember just seeing stuff that and just being like, okay, don't think about it. That's the end of my head. I was getting like, in my head, I was like getting defensive and I was like, how do I like. Clap back at this. And I was like, I can't clap back at this because also that's just going to make me look like a racist prick. You know, it'd be like, someone's just trying to defend themselves, but it hurt because like, in my heart, I know someone that like tries really hard to just make everyone feel included. And it was just hard for these people commenting. Like they're probably people that have never through hikes, but I'm like, God, I just want people to know that like the trail is really white, but it's like, how do we, so it's like, how do we, you know, get. Make the trail more inclusive. Well, now we're starting to see it with brazing black narratives, which is great. But at that point I was like really at that, by, by that, yeah. For making the trail more inclusive, like, do you have a rapid fire we could do of your favorite people to follow on things like Instagram that wouldn't fit the typical mold and aren't the standard white hiker that people can go to if they want to see some more diversity on their feed. Do you have to do that? Like stand out to you that you could plug? Yeah. Um, let's see. I actually just last week I hung out or with, uh, two girls that were out here. Um, one of her name is, uh, Teresa. And her Instagram is a switchback shoddy. She's a photographer and she's awesome. We had so much fun. And then, um, her, uh, my other friend, Alexis, her Instagram is last lasso, daft row world. So L I S S O S a F R O world. Um, those girls are up. Awesome. I'm trying to think who else I follow, who I really like. Um, there's a guy named, uh, Ron grids. Well, he's a really good up door photographer, um, thinker as well is it's Ron. And then G R I S w E L L. Those are like some of my favorite people I've been following and like interacting with awesome. Yeah. And if you followed them, like there's tons of other people that you can like follow through them, or you could just even go through like, Mike, go to my Instagram page, see who I'm following and there's. Yeah. What's your Instagram, a torque in the dirt. I knew what the answer was. I still can't not know. I never think of you as toric. I always think of you as torque in the dirt. Yeah. I know a lot of people reference that. Yeah. Uh, before we wrap up here, what, what are you looking forward to? What projects? Adventures, et cetera. I know things are strange right now considering it's the apocalypse, but do you have anything on the agenda? Yeah. Um, I'm I'm really, I, this sounds weird. So like, uh, I think right now there's like a lot of tokenism happening, happening, which if you don't like, if people left me, I don't know what tokenism is. It's basically, you know, using a person for their race or sexual orientation to seem inclusive. So basically like a disingenuous use of like an underrepresented person. Um, and so, but like, I'm really trying to like make my work more diverse. Um, Which is kind of, you know, like weird to say, because they don't want to be like, I don't want to reach out to people and make them be like, Oh, we're only using me. Cause you know, I'm the person of color. Cause it's not like that we get the same feedback for the podcast. So it, we, yeah. Yeah. And it's hard because you like, it's this weird dichotomy of like, no, I want like, I want all types of people in my work. I've always, you know, I've even before I did the PCT, I, you know, Photographed all types of people for different projects and stuff. Um, so I, but I do have a couple of like trip. I'm meeting up with some, uh, like this weekend, I'm going to Washington with a girl from Seattle. She's a fly Fisher. She's um, Navajo. And so we're going to do some set of photos and I might be going Montana next week. Um, this guy, Nathan, he owned, um, An outdoor company called stallion it's S T a L Y O N. So black owned business, follow it and support it, but I we're gonna meet up. Um, and I want it, I'm going to do some photos for him, for, um, like of his like outdoor brand, which is going to be pretty cool. So those are kind of like the two little projects they have right now, but I'm hoping like I can keep doing this and like have the money to do it. Cause I just, I I've. I find it's really important that we are like amplifying like black voices right now with everything going on. Um, not just because it's going on, but like, you know, so that in the future people of color, do you feel safe going out on trails and, you know, knowing that they're going to be represented? Yeah, for sure. Black Alachua and especially that guy's on a fucking rocket ship right now, that guy is going to be, he's going to be bigger than. He's so funny. I love it. He's he's hilarious. He's hilarious. I love how he gives no fucks. He's smoking weed all the time. I fucking love that guy. I love it. But there's in between like him and then like, Akuna, who's like this, like just like sweet, soft spoken, like couldn't do it when Akuna did that video of through hiking through his backyard. I was into, yeah. Oh my God. So funny. Yeah. Yeah, those guys are great, but I would love to meet them. Yeah, I couldn't. It's got a giant heart. Uh, all right, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. Like I said, this was a long time coming. I've been trying to get you on the show for a long, long time. I'm glad we were finally able to make it work. Um, any parting words in terms of plugs or general messages or anything, you've got the red carpet to say, whatever, whatever you want to say. I don't think so. I think, yeah. No, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. Appreciate your guys' time and uh, yeah, maybe, maybe I'll be out there and we can do promo photos. Let me know. So that's very, that's very humble. Um, what is your website? Uh, my website is, uh, Tommy Corey and Corey is spelled C O R E Y. And that's where people can go if they want your book. Yeah. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta order more. So I'll obviously post about it on my Instagram and stuff. When like they come through again, I'll be ordering more here. And the Instagrams at torque in the dirt. Uh, yes. Cool. Work with a K torque. Thank you so much for your time. Really great to catch up and I can't wait to see more of your adventures moving forward. Awesome. Thanks so much. You guys appreciate it. If you've listened to backpacker radio, you know that both Chauncey and I are big fans of gossamer gear manufacturers of lightweight, backpacking gear and accessories, their packs carry comfortably. They're roomy shelters, protect in harsh weather conditions and the trekking poles. Or some of the lightest on the planet, gossamer gear is changing the perception of delicate ultra light. John and I are both users of gossamer, gears, packs and shelters. I use the gorilla there, 40 liter pack on the PCT and have rocked the light flex hiking umbrella on many hikes, including our trans Catalina trail hike. Chance through like the 18 drink using gossamer gears, the one shelter, which is both Rumi and light weighing in at less than one and a half pounds. It's the one you need, as you know, and good news listeners of backpacker radio can score an exclusive deal on gossamer gear products. Use discount code poop story for 15% off your cart@gossamergear.com. Again, that's poop story. All one word@gossamergear.com. Don't sleep on this deal as it's only good for limited. Get some. To the Trek propaganda portion of today's show. This first one is actually not an article on a new podcast, but it is an ebook. This is the first ebook we've released since I released an ebook in the form of Appalachian trails. I believe no, that's not actually not true, but anyways, uh, this one is from Kelly fluoro, who you've heard. Her name on the show? Many, many times Kelly is actually our newest editors slash lead writer. She's the one who got the trucks full time. Lauren? No. When, when is, where is she? She is in New Jersey right now. Actually. Yeah, she got the news that she got the job and she was like in the middle of the Colorado trail and pitching off Kelly. Yeah, Kelly's a baller. I was like, I think there's a hundred people that applied for it. And you had like lawyers applying? Uh, I don't know about a lawyer. We did have a former editor for a very respected magazine. I won't name names, but. They dabble in the same subject. Okay. Kelly's better. Yeah. Grads Kelly. Kelly's, he's a straight up baller. So, uh, if the site is good from here on out, you've got Kelly to think. And also to that point, she wrote a phenomenal ebook titled how to afford a through hike. There's a long subtitle, which I didn't include here. I don't remember it. But, um, basically this is a $7 ebook that has the potential to save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, especially if you're planning for your first long distance backpacking Trek that I know there's a ton of. Mistakes bear traps that people fall into the first time in terms of their, they try to save money and by getting the cheapest gear possible, and then they get 50 to a hundred miles into their hike and see everyone around them that has nice gear and is happier. And then it ended up. Throwing away that cheap either they buy it and then buying the expensive gear or they go to light and then they're not comfortable and they didn't put any emphasis on comfort and they injure out or they aren't happy. There's so many ways to mess. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to fuck it up. So Kelly did a great job running you through pretty much every possible scenario. She tells you how to budget. She tells you what things you should be spending money on and what things to skimp on, uh, how to. Or what gear you should be targeting for your specific budget, how to avoid the most expensive mistake most through hikers, where and when to shop for gear to maximum savings, use gear, shopping strategies, how to substitute inexpensive household items for costly gear, how to go ultra light without overspending, top gear items for through hikers are the top gear items, the Rikers waste money on. Okay. Best practices for making, maintaining, and repairing gear. The importance of saving for a through hike strategies for developing a through hiking budget and sticking with it, tips and tricks to save money in town and on trail and much more. If you want to check this out, obviously it will be in the show notes and I will include a. Coupon in the show notes. I forgot to create it before the show started, but it's, so the MSRP on this ebook is $7. Uh, I'll save you a couple of bucks on that and there's also, um, we got a bunch of very respected backpacking brands to offer discounts that. It will be available to people who buy the ebook, a gossiper gear, katabatic six moon designs, just to name a few. So if you already know everything that's outlined in this book, I think you'll get your money's worth just with the discounts by itself. You were going to say something I cut you off. Okay. Um, did not prepare for this at all. Did you? This might be a dead segment, but we'll maybe, uh, okay. Triple crown, our old trusty triple crown. This one is, do you want to read it? I like when you read these, because I'm dumb and you're human. This is the triple crown of autumn. Uh, that was really well done. Flip a coin because I think this first one is very low hanging fruit. You can intro, I could say, okay. Which is just that, like, I have gotten news from my job that we're probably not going back to the office until at least, well, they said September and it's September now. So we're obviously not there, but now it's, we're pushed back till March. We're not going back into the office until March. And so because of that, um, I just like, am completely unhappy with my, like at home. Work life situation like my. Home office is also my bedroom, but it was only intended to be a bedroom and was not meant to be a home office. And so I've been doing a bunch of other stuff, which you know about make it more both, but I feel like it's been nesting. Like, I feel like I've been like. Prepping for winter, because I know that I don't have to go out or shovel off my car or drive in the cold in the morning. And when it's icy out and the roads aren't plowed yet, like I know that none of that is going to be happening yet. So I'm one hoping for a really heavy winter and two just like getting my room ready so that it looks really nice that I'm happy just sitting in it all winter long. So I don't plan on leaving the house. Think about that as a certainty. So excited and I don't know why. Yeah. I don't know why either. I have the I'm dreading the winter already, aside from the fact that I'm going to have a kid, I guess I haven't talked about that on the show. I was waiting for you to tell me I was pregnant again, so I could call you out on it because every time you've told me I'm pregnant, I've gotten. Oh, close to being like, no, you are. I actually, well, I mean, I guess technically people, the guy can say that he's pregnant. I don't know how that works. It sounds weird. Yeah, it is. It's only me. Sorry. Generally. You're not involved, but having a kid, we can talk about that. Yeah. It's just graze over the fact that it's Zack is having a baby. Yeah. We can put that in right here. Right. Maybe aside, uh, I actually do have a fun idea for a show that parlays into it. Um, we'll talk about it after the show, cause I don't want to spoil it, but I think it'd be really cool. Okay. But you have to give. You can't just leave people on this book or give, like, I had sex with my wife and now she's having a kid. No, you spoiled the stork story. But apart from that, like, come on. What size watermelon cantaloupe melon. You asked me this last time. I actually don't remember. I can say the, yeah. The only thing that I do know we did the 16 week ultrasound. Or 20 week. I forget what it, even what it was. Uh, but our little boy was in the 65th percentile, so perfectly. Okay. So we're revealing the gender. He's a boy. He's a boy. He's going to be like, and guy, are we going to rebuild the name? No, certainly not. Uh, no, not even my mom knows the name, so she'd be a little bit upset if the backpacker radio audit it, get me more drunk. I tried last time we left the episode, we were walking out of here and I was like, I don't talk to anyone. You know, like, it's fine. You can tell me, but you were pals. You can just, you can just tell me confide and he wouldn't do it. Yeah. Uh, you're gonna have to pay me a lot of money. I mean, you named your dog Sierra so I could see your name and your kid, like cascade or something. I will say this, my wife is campaigning for the more outdoorsy name and I want a more traditional name, I guess, traditionally as long. Yeah. What does she want? Rainier? I can't say cause it's in the running, so it's not finalized. It's not finalized. We're between two, still look at his face first to know idea. She actually she's a pendulum. At this point, you ask her any given day. Her take is a little bit different. I'm a little bit more. That's what I want, but I'm open to you. You meet someone, then you name them. That's kind of how I feel about is she having any weird food cravings yet? No, but I can say with great confidence that the first trimester for her was a absolute nightmare. She was in really bad shape, nauseous all the time, tired, not the happiest person. And then she got to that. She turned the corner into the second trimester. And she was just so excited that she could eat that she's just started eating everything. It wasn't even necessarily that she had that level of hiker hunger, but I think she was just excited that she could actually palate food again. Uh, she, the craziest thing could set her off. She literally intimately had to put a head of garlic in a Ziploc bag. And then in another Ziploc bag, yeah, you were saying she couldn't stand the smell. Garlic, just like a head of garlic, not cooked, not exposed. Just. Normal garlic. And then she put the garlic in the garage and then that was 204. So she put it outside. And now we just have bags of garlic outside of our house. Yeah. She's uh, she's doing much better today. When's the baby. The baby is due at the end of December. So we're going to squeeze it out for all the tax savings, deductibles and all that stuff. But yeah, I have a feeling he's been, he's a very active boy. He's been punching it. Like I can actually see her stomach twitching from him punching from the inside. So, uh, if I had to guess he's, he's ready to get out and get on the trail. Excellent. Okay. Um, do we want to make like any predictions. Now that like, he's not here yet when we can't base it on anything. Like, what do you think will be his best sport? Nothing like his dad, none of them. Uh, he'll be good at gambling on sports. He'll be good at walking long distances. Um, I don't know, John is not all that athletic either, so he's probably not destined for the NBA. What do you think he'll be allergic to. Cuties girls for like the first 10 years. What about dogs? Ooh. If he's allergic to dogs, that's a problem. We've got a couple of those around the house. Yeah. Would you get rid of the dog first or the kid? This is a sad story. So when a Jenna's friends just came over today, they have a two year old and they have a pit bull mix. And, uh, the, the dog bit, the kitchen. Oh, that's not where I thought this was going to go to put the dog down. No, because I don't like this store. Yeah. The adoption like fostering process, I guess, is crazy right now because of COVID. Um, the dog always had like an aggressive side to it, but you know, it. When there wasn't a kid involved, they were able to train it and keep it in check. But you know, when you've got your little toddler roaming around and the dog was not only, not only did it in the face, but it was aggressive about it. Like the dog went up to the kid and bit the kid, it wasn't provoked. You're going to have to put Ruby behind the gate. I am a little bit, Sarah doesn't love kids. She doesn't have an aggressive bone in her body, but it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out. Uh, Oh, um, What color do you think their hair will be? Will they be a ginger? John doesn't have any ginger in her family I've got in mind. Yeah, seriously. I mean, my great, great grandfather allegedly was a ginger, but he died before he got to see his ginger coughs. Both of my grandparents had red hair. Uh, I've got two cousins on my dad's side, three cousins, two cousins on my dad's side with red hair. So I it's definitely in my DNA matrix. Um, we're predicting a Blondie. Oh, that'd be kind of nice. Yeah. Mmm Hmm. How tall do you think you'll be? What do you think is best subject be in school? Hmm. Uh, Best subject. Let's go with that one. I'm going to go with math. Math was my strength growing up. I always did really well. What do you think you will be most disappointed in him for between now and 18? Uh, I won't be disappointed about anything. I'm gonna love him for who he is, as long as he's exactly like his dad. What are you going to do when you catch him drinking? I'm going to, I'm going to take the European approach. And when he's 14, he's going to have his first beer with me. And we're going to talk about responsible drinking because, uh, my parents were very strict with drinking about me. And I don't know if you know this about me, but I like to drink. And like when I got to college, it was, I didn't drink. I hardly drank in high school. And then when I got to college, it was, uh, I went off the deep end a little bit. That was me in high school. Yeah. Um, so what happens when he takes your 14 year old talk and completely ignores it and comes home and wasted one night? Ooh. Um, what's your parenting strategy gonna be? Don't murder him. I don't know. I haven't. These are the questions I haven't thought through, but this is, I just want him to have something to go back and pull from when he's here. Yeah. Parenting from the past, but dad, you said you wouldn't get mad in that episode. I will say. This is a focus that I've had with training Sierra. And I think this is true for psychology in general is I believe that positive reinforcement is the most effective strategy. I don't think punishment generally is as effective granted, the way you raise a kid and a dog are different, but I think generally speaking, the brain learns better when you're rewarding someone as opposed to punishing them. How old is he going to be when it gets for a cell phone, this is something that John and I have talked about. I'm more so I'm less concerned about the cell phone and more so concerned about the social media thing. I think social media in general is kind of a bad thing, especially for young kids that, you know, they haven't like formed a self esteem. No Instagram until you're 16. I dunno. I'm also opposed to the prohibition strategy. Cause I feel like that always backfires so well at baby Davis run by his mommy and daddy. Uh, I, one thing that I strive to not be as the parent, who's constantly posting their kid on. Social media channels because the kid doesn't get a say in that. You're going to think they're so cute. It's going to be like me looking at Harper. And I'm like, everyone wants to see this. And no one does. I post so many stories and photos of Sierra on my Instagram. That's a dog. Exactly, exactly my point. So those words. I don't, I don't know. Maybe my wife will feel differently about it, but, um, you know, I feel like you should have to, you should have the ability to sign off. There's a lot of times where Vikings posting things of me that I haven't signed off on, on the Instagram and that pisses me off. I don't want to be Viking in there. I like when Viking sends me unsolicited, unsolicited videos of you and I'm like, I've got such good blackmail. Yeah. He's a terrible person. There's a reason than that. I don't let them into my life too much because he's a terrible, terrible person. Yeah, we've got to have him back on. Okay. Triple crown of automize. Okay. Yeah. So I'm nesting for winter because I can't wait to just go indoors. Um, and I hope it's yeah, the press and winter, I get down in winter, big time, but I have to be outside and I'm cold and I'm uncomfortable, but you know, when it's like a snow storm and it's on a Saturday and you don't have to leave the house, I mean, you never have to cause you work for yourself, but it's like, you're watching the heavy snowflakes through a window, but you're warm because the fireplace is going. Yeah. That's going to be my whole winter. The fact that you've got a fireplace does make me a little bit out there, a fireplace. And I did the math the other day to see how much I was spending on Starbucks and realized that if I just got a coffee cart and like assembled that and like got all the stuff for it, it would pay for itself after two weeks. I like how hard of attorney took into the coffee world, but now I can make mochas. I can get little mini marshmallows. Like it is the perfect transition. Yeah, the cold weather, you should. It's a little bit, cause you mentioned that last night we did a, uh, intern dinner with Elise. That was a lot of fun. It was fun. Uh, that you mentioned last night that you didn't know how to make coffee. No Elliot makes it every day. Yeah. That was the deal. Is he had to make the coffee. Yeah, you would cry if you saw how easy drip coffee is. No, but you know, what is I've, I've learned, I've worked at restaurants for more than five years, five to seven years, probably five restaurants. And every time they have taught me how to make coffee and there's just no retention in my brain for it. And I've tried, like we have a French press and I stress is a little bit more involved, but that's the direction I was going to go. I tried putting the stuff in it and putting the water in and it just. The reviews where it was not palatable. Yeah. Fresh press is a little bit more tricky because you have to get the ratio is exactly right. The timing you have to get the water to the correct temperature, which by the way, Denver is actually a great place to make French press coffee, because water boils at the same temperature that you want to steep the coffee yet. Oh, that's a fun fact. That is a fun fact. Um, no, so I just like, I, you know, know your strengths. So my strength was ordering everything on Amazon. Elliot strength is knowing how to make the coffee. So in an ideal housing relationships. And so he leaves for work at five, 6:00 AM. And I wake up for work at 8:00 AM. He makes the coffee, like I provide all the, I provide all the tools. He gets the coffee and makes it in the morning. And then there's enough in the pot where it's still hot for winter. I wake up and then I don't have to do anything. Is he just using an auto drip? Coffee machine. Well, we have a grinder too, and I don't know anything about buying coffee beans. So Weezer will hook us up with beans from her place. But if we're at a coffee beans, I'm just like Elliot we're out of coffee beans. Is that a yes to. What device is actually making the coffee, but that's out of the pot that goes in and out. Yeah. So it's a, just a drip coffee filter. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? He's not as good as it is. You think either, because the other day he was complaining that the button in the middle said brew off and he was like, what is this? I brew off. Like, you're brewing it. You know, like it's not off. Why would it be brew off? And I was like, Elliot, it's Bruce slash off. Like it's either brew or off. There's a learning curve with these different devices. For sure. It's not totally intuitive. Yeah. Okay. Triple crown of Baltimore. Uh, are we calling that one of them? No, that was just the, I guess that's more winter than anything I'm out of. I'm out of summer. My head is up to summer. What's your favorite season? Fall. Okay. I'm a little bit concerned when I meet someone who doesn't have that answer at this point. I don't know. Maybe when you're a kid summer because there's no school. Yeah, no, you have to at least have some sort of preference. Like you dread one and you. Get excited for another. You just have to, I just feel like falls objectively the best. Oh yeah. Cause like summer's just beat the shit out of you and you're way too hot and sweaty and you want it to cool down. And then it's got that smell. Like there's that crisp leaf smell and Ugh. So slow down, slow down now. I love fall. Okay. Starting candles. Wow. Burden. I've been burning candles all week. I've got pumpkin harvest going. I've got fall harvest. I've got harvest fall. Um, every variation of those words, I've gotten my house burning. So today's September 2nd. I feel like burning the pumpkin candle on September 2nd is a kin to playing Christmas music on like Thanksgiving day. Let's, you know, what's on my record player on Thanksgiving. Yeah. You know me? Well, yeah. You're just, you're living one day at a time and you know what? I'm happy about it. Yeah. I can't not take it because it's so obvious the fall foliage. Yeah. That one is just too good. Yeah. It's going to start peaking in September and it's in Colorado. It's so nice. The Aspen trees are so pretty. I'm actually curious to get your take on the Colorado foliage versus New York, because everyone tells me new England is the best, right? Like here, it's a lot of yellow and it's a lot of like, you get those white, gray, Aspen trees, the bright yellows and oranges. And it looks really pretty like in contrast. In New York, it's like red leaves, like bright, vibrant red leaves, like bright orange leaves even leaves that look perfect. And so like, when I say fruity pebbles, cereal, it's cause you see like those different colors all next to each other and that's something you don't see yet here. Yeah. But it's, they're different. But they're both really good. Yeah. Yeah. When I left the long trail last year, it was just before the people age. And I was a little bit upset with my timing. As I have discussed in the past a snake draft, I'm going to go with it. I don't, you're going to not like this one football. No, I love that one. I've been excited for them. Um, when was it that I got it? Cause it was my draft pick. No, I wouldn't have thought of that, but yeah, when they play that NFL song. Yeah. Like I , yeah. I get that like flashback of like sitting in my living room, there's a fire going in the fireplace. My dad's complaining about something and like, there's like some chestnuts. It's just so nice. I love that song feeling of not leaving your house on a Sunday and having a full day of things to look forward to. It's just very sad. You got maybe some chili cooking in the background. It's just weird to get, like, my mom's making a stew. My dad's yelling at the TV in the background and it's just like a nostalgic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Football football. Sundays is the best. We'll see if that actually happens this year, but, uh, as of today, at least it looks like they're going to try. There is a very huge part of me that is upset this year because the bills are finally playing in Denver. And the past couple of years, they haven't. And I was so excited when they announced it like January or February. And I was like, it was like, Oh my God, this is going to be the highlight of my December is when they play here. And now I'm probably not gonna be able to go watch it. There is talk of them trying to rush through the vaccine by early November, obviously for political purposes or to say it seems, uh, so maybe things will be different. It probably won't be different. Yeah. If I can go to the Bill's game and watch it I'll smash table. Cool. Sweet. I mean, they couldn't stop us from tailgating. She could do a backpack, radio tailgate. We were saying when's our next through hacker meetup. It'll be a socially distanced. Outdoor culdesac type Bill's tailgate. Here's the thing is those fold-out tables are actually kind of expensive. I wonder if back country or Sawyer would like to sponsor some full out tables, we will spray paint their company name on the table, and then we'll both just dive onto it. Then we'll get to work the documented. Yeah. So the whole thing happening here, they'll probably insist we set the table on fire cause of like the aesthetic and then put it out with milk. I'm. So in on this, we figured out our fault. Um, great pick, uh, up. Ooh, I'm gonna say the smell. Yeah. There's that smell? I have a note here. That fucking smell was mine. So yeah, family feud, I think in the air, you walk out of your door, you open a window and you're like, Oh. It's fall. And I just like nothing beats that it is what is it is the, it's gotta be the leaves, right? It's just like something there there's a distinct fondness happening. Yeah. It's like a little crisp, but a little like the sun, like the sun feels warm, but the air feels cold. Yeah. Perfect. Flannel weather. Yeah. Um, okay. Snake draft, uh, Wearing less revealing clothing so you can eat more cookies. I mean, I'm kind of always there. So sweater, weather, um, yeah, primetime cookie eating soup. Is this a weird comment, but I feel like you've got some guns right now. Is this a new thing? Have you been, I just hiked. Uh, the John Muir trail. I don't know if you know. Yeah, but were you doing it? Were you curling your backpack along the way? No, but I was carrying a pool float. They do look really good. I don't know if I've ever seen a bicyclist kind of. Damn isn't feel strong. Fuck. Alright. No one fuck with Sean's. She's good. She's good. So will the desk, well, actually I built a desk. I was doing a lot of heavy lifting. You built all and Harvard got spade. So they said she couldn't go up and down the stairs. So I've been carrying her up and down the stairs every time she has. She's what, like 40 pounds now, 38. There you go. Seven carrying her up and down the stairs every time. Um, so yeah, you know, just. Working out. And then in a month and a half, you don't have to worry about any of that season cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie is, I feel like anytime before Thanksgiving is a little bit earlier. No, you need to S like it's, it's one of those things where good things are worth waiting for. You need to wait for your pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, because it will taste better. Than it would otherwise, if you don't eat it until then. Yeah. I feel like if you're eating pumpkin pie in October 15th, it's just going to taste stale. No, it's like, you have to, like, that's breaking the seal is the nostalgia. And like then warm and fuzzy Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie. And then once you've broken that seal, then you can have free random pumpkin pie until Christmas, a pumpkin pie with, or without whipped cream. Honestly, either like if there's a pumpkin pie sitting there, I will be like sneaking slices. Um, but if there's a cannabis cream, they're like, I'm going to pour it on the side of the plate and go back and forth just cause like, yeah, I am a whipped cream who were, I can go through an entire canonicity do people put ice cream on their gram come by? Oh, I thought the ice cream would probably be too dense and would actually. Make the pie dilapidated, but I'm just guessing. I don't know. I can't say that. Um, I'll throw in the pumpkin pie category, also Apple crumb cake and like those Apple pies with the crumb topping with like the caramel you're actually getting close to my next one. So I'm just going to say it. I'm gonna do a two for one, uh, Apple donuts. Um, I don't think I've ever had one. No, if you go, I feel like every Apple orchard has this it's Apple flavor donuts and it's, uh, it's kinda like the. Grainy texture to it. Like there's sugary texture. I don't know how it's made what they look like. I just, like, I was always on such a beeline for the caramel apples and like the candy apples. Oh, caramel apples are so good. Yeah, shit. I should have taken that. And then I'm going to lump that together with Apple orchards, just in general. Yeah. Um, do you think you add portraits in Colorado? Like in New York? They're huge. Like we have, like, there are less out here and I, I would guess fewer varieties of apples. I have never done it, but I've looked into it. They do exist. Like he didn't like the basket pickers. I haven't gone since then, like 40 apples. And you're like, and you're like, you fill your bag, but then you also feel your hood and you feel like you're asleep and you're like, feel so sneaky going off with like for sure. Yeah. And you're so sick of apples by the time that you leave there, that those apples just sit in. Yeah. And then like three weeks later, you're like, fuck, I need to make good apples. Yeah. It's the only way I can eat apples in donut form. Oh my mom, you're going to be so mad at me. Um, we have Apple trees that are upstate house and like a lot of them are just like, Oh, we don't have pesticides or anything like that because they're just like wild Apple trees until a lot of them have holes in them from like worms. And a lot of them fall on the ground or like there's a bite out of them deer. And they're just like not attractive apples. And my mom used to make applesauce with them and it was disgusting. And me and my brother, I remember there was one time we were sitting at the table crying, cause we didn't want to eat this Apple sauce and she wouldn't let us leave the table until we'd finish eating, eating. It probably cause she put so much time and effort into making it. And we were just sitting there like it tastes like. Throw up and like, I don't know why I can never forget that memory of like us just like wanting to vomit from this applesauce. And we couldn't get up from the table until we finished a plate of it. It's scarred applesauce for you in general love applesauce. It's just like those apples taste like shit. Yeah. Sorry. Uh, okay. You're I think you get the last two. Last one. We could probably go forever with this one. Let's make it the quadrant. I agree, watch Gilmore girls every fall expecting, he gave me a hundred guests. So nice. Like you get that like, like that soundtrack, they were just like LA LA LA, LA LA. Like, it's just like this, like. Nice homey, warm soundtrack. And the story is always the same and it's just so happy and warm and fuzzy. Yeah, they did a revival season. Um, I get the point of it. Okay. Let's just say, I don't know. I'm excited to rewatch it. Yeah. Um, let's just go. One on one, I'm going to go soup season. I love, I fucking love soup. I haven't forced soup into me a couple nights ago. And like, it was a high of 90 in the afternoon when Panera starts doing their autumn squad. That is, that's a great time. Are you a bread bowl gal? Um, if I didn't care about how I looked, I would eat every dreadful, well come October when it's hoodie season bread balls all day, right? Or is it still, does that cross your line? Uh, I don't know. The last time I've had a bread bowl, it's probably, self-conscious probably like a thousand calories just in that loaf of bread. I just like it. It's not worth the guilt. I feel afterwards. I just beat myself too much. Yeah. I like to cheat. That would not be the way that I would do it. You felt like you've always looked the same shape. Your shape has never been. It's like slightly soft, like married, married. He looks married by practicing my dad, bud. Okay. You got any more? I'm just like, I'm just like, thinking about leaves falling on the ground. Leaf piles was one of mine. I bet your dog would get down on some leaf piles. I don't know. I just think it's like a nostalgic time of year. Like I just think like everyone's like getting kind of warm and fuzzy feeling and. The weather's getting colder. So you're getting a little more like snugly the analogy that I like to use for fall. Is the, like when you're roasting a marshmallow, it goes from, I am a freshman though. One's a marshmallow, but it goes from perfect to terrible, very quickly. That's how I feel about the transition from fall to winter. Yeah, but like, you never think about that when you're like, I didn't think about that at all, until you just said that and kind of ruined my assault. I realized that really pulled me from it. I'm I'm unusually dreading winter this year. Cause I feel like the ski resorts are either gonna be closed or fucked. They, I think they already announced that they're not going to close them. They're doing reservations only. Yeah. Or first they're doing reservations for pass holders first and then for like open buyer tickets. Yeah. But I just know, you know, restaurants are going to be a no go. This is going to bite us again because bless how we didn't. Corona predictions. We have to pull it. If we go on the dark side of things, at least, you know, we can compensate. I think it's going to get bad again. I think like, I think like how flu season pops up and gets people worried. I think Corona, season's going to pop back up and people get sicker in the winter and like the cold, just like any time you sneeze, you get worried. And I think that everything's going to close again, and that is why I am making my bedroom. Is. Homey as possible. And the house has much of something I don't want to leave as possible is because the majority of me does not expect I'll be allowed to leave it. I think people are mentally preparing for kind of an isolated winter, at least my circle of people. Yeah. Like I. Me and Harper will close the doors and shut the blinds. And we'll see you in the spring. Does he, does your alcohol consumption go up in the winter? No. My alcohol consumption goes way down when I'm by myself. Cause like I, yeah, but I'm like a social drinker and it's like, yeah, cool. The two of us could drink. And then what, you know, like we just sit here, you know, like it's, there's nothing fun to that. Spoken like a true, not alcoholic. Alright. I don't. I think that's actually not a non sarcastic statement cause I'm not, I don't drink by myself. No, I, I was more so poking fun at myself. Oh, I thought you were telling me that was being an alcoholic. I was like that. I only drink socially. No, no, no, no, no. Um, I'm uh, rubbing myself here. Okay. That was a triple crown of automize. Email us, let us know what we missed podcasts at the Trek Patsy. Oh, okay. I am very excited for this one because we got a, we got a taste of it last night and it was pretty much it dominated the entire conversation. Do you want to intro what we talked about last night? I'm not going to do it justice, but I'll give it my best shot is this scenario is you're aware of a snail that exists. It is the smartest life form on earth that is smarter than anything else that exists. And it is it's sole purpose is to kill you and to kill you. All that it has to do is make contact with you, touch you. Um, The question is how long do you have to live? Yeah. Like how long are you going to survive? We should definitely do that one sometime, but I want to do one that I'm not prepped for. I want to, I want to fully forget that whole center. Yeah. So this is the segment call, tentative working title. You can message us if you have a better name, because we haven't thought of one yet, but it's like Reddit brain busters. So these are things that we find on Reddit that are just like brain busters. Subreddit is that the terminology ask Reddit R slash ask Reddit. Okay. Um, so this one me and Elise looked at and we had the same answer, but I'm curious if Zach's would be the same and if he would have the same reasons for why that's a little bit of a story, which is why it's different than the question of the day. The question and then I'll explain the backstory. But the question is how long would you let someone pee on you for $300 a day? Um, hypothetical scenario, an anonymous billionaire is privately funding. This, you will never meet them. They're not filming, you're recording any aspect of this. They simply enjoy knowing they have this kind of power each day. You are woken up by a man peeing on you. This man has been hired by the billionaire to pee on you. They are regularly checked by doctors to make sure they are healthy and infection free. Regardless. Urine is sterile, stinky, but harmless, as soon as the pee hits your face and Oh yes, he'll aim for the face. You can jump out of bed and go into the shower while you are showering. The man who pees on you will switch your mattress. Put on new sheets and leave $300 in cash and your dining room table. The above situation will happen every single day for the rest of your life. Until one evening you decide you do not want to be peed on the next morning and cancel, then it can never start again, ever. A few conditions you may have as little or as much interaction with the man who pees as you want. The man who pees will act as an alarm clock slash wake up call. You can tell him to begin peeing at 6:30 AM. And that's exactly when he will start. If you share the bed with someone, he will be aiming for you. But splash back on the sleeping partner is a possibility. If you go on vacation, he travels as well. He will typically stay in the hotel room next to yours. The question is, how long would you say? Uh, yeah. Truthfully none days, zero days. So quick math, that's $110,000 a year. You obviously don't have to work. That's a good, you can live off $110,000 pretty easily. Um, but I'm married and I don't know how my wife would feel about her getting splashed back here. And even if this is quote unquote, Clean sterile urine. Um, also I couldn't imagine a worst way to be woken up. Wow. Me and Elise had the complete opposite reaction. We were like, yeah, forever, because they, okay. Think about it this way. One like, yeah, he's paying on your face, but you're going to get used to it at some point. It's going to go in your mouth. You're drinking, piss. You're drinking. Think about the benefits, you know, how nice it feels to get into clean sheets and how annoying it is to change. Do they cover. This guy is changing your sheets for you. You're getting in fresh sheets every night. You were sleeping on clouds every night. Cause your sheets are brand new, fresh, fine clean sheets because yeah, you're climbing into clean sheets, but you're climbing out of piss soak sheets. No, it just says he changes them. He washes the chair. Yeah. But you also wake up with him, pissing all over you. So as you're waking up, there's piss all over these shoes. You gotta get up. Anyway, you go shower. Yeah, but you're starting off with this. Like I would way rather get into sheets that are two weeks old of not being cleaned that have no piss potential, or I should say very little, you could work eight hours a day. And make it half of that, or you could just wake up to some pee on your face and then do whatever you want to do that day anywhere you want, because you'll travel with you. I guess it would pay for my therapy for having to confront the fact that I've chosen a life with pee my mouth every morning. Yeah, but like, if it ever gets unbearable, you can say stop, but you can like save a bit first and like, you know, you can, he's probably a cool dude. What makes you think this guy's cool. He doesn't have STDs. It sounds boring to me. He's obviously never been to burning, man. I think he'd be like a family friend. It'd be like a, like, you know how you have the. I don't think a billionaire, if the billionaire is doing this to no, no, it's not the billionaire. It's some of the billionaires I know, but like, he's calling the shots. If he's trying to entertain himself, he's not like hiring your friendly neighbor. He's getting some guy that is like a sketchy character. Who's barely passing this. You have to be test, but once you get through that hard exterior, shallow, they're probably just a big softie and they're going to be with you every day. So they're going to be spending holidays with you and vacation. So it's probably like endearing where it's like, ah, now you open your present, you know, it's surprise it's new anywhere. Cause you pee on me every day, you know? In the winter, when you get the annual cold and your nose get stuffy and you have to breathe through your mouth, he's aiming for your face. You're waking up drowning as someone who's not good at waking up early. I think it would be great to be like, Hey, wake me up at five 30. I literally can't snooze this alarm. If you would like to pay me half of that, I guarantee you, I could wake you up with very little pice. Okay. But the thing is, I'm not paying him, he's paying me. Sure. Okay. I'll do it for free. How about that? No, but the point is that he's paying me, but you're, you're excited that they are not excited about the P I'm excited about, but you also just said that you're excited to wake up early and well, no, I'm just looking for the silver lining. I'm like seeing the pros in this area, we could probably get a Patrion boost for me to come with you. He wants to pay me $300 a day to piss on my face every morning. Mom, close your ears. DME. Here's the question. This could actually be a little moneymaker for you. What would the going rate be? If someone wanted to buy foot photos? I have someone in my DMS right now that wants to pay $200 for five to 10 foot photos. And you wouldn't do that. They don't like can wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't. It's like me and Weezer involved. Lapse answered as a joke. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So let me get this straight. For $300. You are, you are very willing to have some stranger coming to your house every day, pee in your face. He's only a stranger at first. Sure. We're going to have years together and your face for $300. That's good. For $200. You're not willing to send feeder dumb and gross. You take one snapshot. Everybody wants five photos, 10 photos. You said, I mean, part of it is like, it's like a funny joke, like responding, but then like part of it is like, listen, if anyone wants to pay any amount of money for my feet, I don't care how many pesos you're offering. I will. Okay. I'll read it. Can, do you want me to read the conversation? Um, So Ellie ball flap helped me craft the replies. So February 15th, 12, 13:00 AM. This guy says any chance you would sell sexy slash nude or feet content. I pay in all caps very well. February 16th, 5:25 PM. This is Elliot. He said, can't do the nudes, but depending on the price I can consider the feet, foot emoji. Would you like them clean or XX? Extra dirty. He said definitely clean Elliot, put money, same money. Same question Mark. February 21st, 7:38 PM. He said you have cute feet, right? I didn't answer it. Cause I was like, I wasn't with Weezer, Elliot. So it like, wasn't fun. Cause I wasn't with them. And then at 10:31 PM, he said I've been working 60 hours the last three weeks. So I've been absent from social media. I'm sorry. I didn't answer again cause I wasn't with them. And I was like, this is like us having fun again. Soliciting news is apologizing for how long it took the okay. 28th, 12, 19:00 AM. He said a hundred dollars to start. Um, we said for how many photos? And then no answer. And then August 21st. So we went from February to August. We skipped all those months in between, out of nowhere. How about $200 for five to 10 picks, XX, extra dirty for us few pigs and clean for a few more. And I never answered. Cause it was like, I dunno, we were just like, we were just like having like a, we do X, X, X, foot photos. This is out of my wheelhouse. Here's the thing it's like, I don't want to like spoil it for the guy on your toe or something. No, I would probably just send him pictures of my feet from the trail or they're like really disgusting, but it's like, they're already on the internet. So I, would you pay me for them? Yeah. You know, like you've already got access to those. It's the thing I understand. It's real. Everything's real. Everyone's got a thing. So I'm not, would you pay someone for photos of their feet when their photos of their feet are. Like in photos on the internet already. Same reason why porn stars makes that much money with that only fans thing. They want like a personalized, they feel like, Oh, she's foot photoing for me. This is a personalized foot photo. Do you stop at the ankle? Like where does the foot end? That's a great question. Now we're out of my pay grade. And like, do you put like a different background? Like my foot in the grass, my foot in the dirt, my foot in some water. Yeah. Like what angle? You know, like how do we hike trash? Both my heat. Preferences for like, do you want side boob on your boob? Yeah. Like what's, what's the corollary with feet. Like, do you want the top of the feet? Do I need to get a pedicure or do they have to be painted? Yeah, I was actually surprised that they wanted it very clean feed. I figured if you're going to go in the foot, if I'm the one you're asking, surely like you probably are expecting it. Yeah. Yeah. Right there. I have some questions, six. So they're like, I mean, here, I'll give you a free show. This is my foot. These two are kind of webbed. They're fine. I actually have the same thing. Maybe that's a gender thing. And then that one fell off that toenail fell off on the trail. So it's kind of always a little might start high too. That might be a red head thing. I got scabs. I don't even know what the scabs are from. I got another one here, although no one's clamoring to buy my feet. And it's like, do you want like a side angle? Do you want portrait? Yeah. Like, are you gonna have one toenail that's partially paying. Um, so the Polish, no, the Polish rubs off of all the other toenails first and the big knit, the big toes, the one that retains the Polish, the longest. Cool. I'm overdue. Whoever that gentlemen who slid into your DMS is very jealous of the shots I just got. Apparently he probably listens like, Hey, give me some insight. Cause I, well, somebody, someone were just laughing at this, but like, I think like I would probably send you a photo of my foot for some money. Sorry, mom. Close your ears again. Can someone email us anonymously and make a new email address, call it footGuy@gmail.com or whatever it might be. I, and so just explain to me the foot thing. Cause I'm so curious. I just don't maybe there's no way to explain it. I don't know. But I'm curious, is there a part of the foot that's like the, like the heel is the sexy part. Like it's like a, girl's like, you know how they were like shoulder blades they're in, is it like. Thank you. Pinky toes are in what's in right now. I just remember seeing that on like a cosmic, the magazine when I was in middle school. Yeah. Um, yeah, maybe it's like the toes or the hot part or the like, Arch. I don't know. I wonder if there's like a certain toenail length that is ideal. Oh yeah. I've seen people get like, fake, like how they get like fake tips on their fingernails. I've seen people get like fake nails on their toes and I don't get why you would want any sort of an overhang off your toes, like a bear claw. Right? Like that just seems like it's kind of into, I mean, there's people that are legitimately into furries. There are a furry convention, you know, about this, right? Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's something for everyone. I just want to understand this something. Yeah. I wonder if he's specifically into ginger feet or if it's just like whoever's beat. No, because I don't have to like ginger hair. You probably have ginger hairs on your feet. Yeah. See, so you would know that yours is a ginger foot or it's. Mine is just like a naked mole rat, but some of them are even gray. I you're getting older. Your foot is great. Ah, yeah. So that's a Reddit brain busters, uh, email us. What would you do about the $300 piss in the face? I have a feeling we'll get a lot of people agreeing with you. I liked that we were opposite ends of the spectrum. I was worried that you would just be like, yeah, I'll have him pee on my face every day. And then it would be like, Oh, it's an easy answer because all of us would just rather that. So here's the deal is I have a depends on the day that you asked me, but I have a job that I like. I would rather make half as much money having some degree of honor to my day. Like your job a lot more. If you didn't have to worry about the money aspect of it. I mean, if I had a hundred thousand dollars coming in, you'd have an office built off of your portrait. Right? Well, he wouldn't stop working. I would just read and cook all the time. I become a dad of the year, so much happier with the other 23 hours and 59 minutes of your day. The emotional scarring I think would be too deep for me. Yep. Alright, ready to bring busters. That's a good, this is a good segment. This one's going to stick. I can, I can feel it already. Yeah, I, yeah, I, I had good feelings, so yeah. Uh, alright. One minute gear review. Okay, awesome. Do you have yours? Yeah, I'm going to start with my Yeti cooler. You just hiked. So this should be easy for you. Um, I'll do a Gary of you right now. I brought a $5 Walmart floating on the JMT. It was one of the ones that has like a rainbow Stripe going up the big part. Like you can lay your whole body flat on it, but it also had a head rest to it. Yeah. It actually kind of looked a bit as zebra gum when you're talking about, does it stop it? Did you bring some. Is that a canteen canteen holder. It's a fashionable woven bag, which is really hard to find stuff in getting a passport. Let's make a segment. What's in transit. Oh, nice. Hell yeah. Is this as bad as you remember? Uh, so the colors obviously corresponded with the flavor, right? Yeah. They all taste the same, you know, I'm going for pink, you know, I am, and they got the little, um, tattoos on them of the zebra doing different sports. And they're gonna run out of flavor in literally three seconds about the tattoo there's instructions written on the label. I got to look into, if this was always a thing, because it was, I was in my porch balancing on a kickball while putting one of these on my wrist. When I was like five, I love temporary tattoos, but I don't know. I always fucked him up. Like half the time I fucked him up. So they'd be like in Tupelo, it'd be like a smeared tattoo and I always lived. Right. So moistened skin slightly. So just look your hands then please tattoo color side down. I can't read the next instructions. Cause I already put my tattoo down. Please press firmly for 15 seconds. One, two, three. Where are we going to bang now? What do you think the tattoo will go on first or the gum will run out of flavor. That's why they have you do the tattoos to distract you from how quickly the flavor where's the flavor count. You're putting it next to your real tattoo. Are you worried that people are going to compliment the fake tattoo? I'm getting it on my hand. Do you have that force tattoo right in your wrist? Yeah. This is a good radio. Uh, your, uh, your five minutes. You're listening to us, to the gums. Gotta be the worst. We're at that point of this room where you guys just have to deal with those. Yeah. It happens every time it's at the deal with us. Um, so the lakes in the Sierra were so beautiful, but they were also so cold and Mims was so okay. Like farewell was so okay with jumping in every single one. And me as a cold person could not do it. I could not get past my knees in half of these lakes. So I brought an inflatable Walmart floaty because it was more buoyant than the X light, which was what our debate was. And I'm so glad I did because I was more above water than I would have been had. I used an inflatable sleeping pad. It like weighed a bunch, but like who cares if it was worth the joy? And it was just so nice to lay out on those lakes and not feel cold. Cause like I could actually enjoy being on the Lake and just like getting bounced by the little windy, rapid not Rapids. What are they called? The little windy bumps in the Lake waves like waves. Okay. Leaves. It's not, it's not terrible. This is, I mean, well, it was like, you have a disease that looks like it looks really bad. I mean, it does look like a Bain popped, but you can look at, like, if you look at mine really closely, you can see the, Oh yeah. How'd yours. Turn out so much more sharp. I stayed really still. Yeah. See, this is, this is my history with temporary tattoos, people cancer. So I won't belabor that, but that's a good one. You went into the high Sierra with some world class gear. And your takeaway was the $5 floater that you got to walk. Yeah. Uh, this one is kind of a reflection of just how not hiker trash. My summer has been, just been a lot more car camping than backpacking. And, uh, I've been given the good fortune of testing, a Yeti Tundra hall, uh, which is one of the normal Getty coolers, but it's the one that you can actually pull. Is it the one with the two handles or the one with the one lifting up? Yeah, one lifting up handle. Okay. So I was actually kind of bummed out to be testing that one at first. Cause like that's just not what I associate with a Yeti cooler in general, or like a nice cooler and then. I realized that this thing empty is heavy as fuck let alone, when you've got 20 pounds of ice and, you know, 24 beers in there, it's legitimately like a strongest world or like the world's strongest man competition to carry this thing. Any distance. It is a feat. Yeah. So, uh, and moral of the story is I'm very happy to have the hall it's called the Yeti Tundra hall. The hall is the one wheel portion of it. It's one wheel. So there's the handle on the one side, it kind of like angles up and then you are able to, Oh wait, I don't think we're talking about the same one. I'm talking about the handle that goes up over the middle and they can't open it. It's not that this is more, how big is it? Use your hands. The cooler itself. That's the 65. So, Oh, it's probably this. Oh, it's the size bigger than the one I have. Yeah. I can pull it up. Are you one of those guys? That's like, yeah, I'll bring my Yeti whenever he goes somewhere so that people know you have a Yeti. You know, I've seen, I've been to the Getty headquarters in Austin. I've seen people. It's like rave about their Yetis. So I was expecting, you know, you just put a bag of ice, you put a warm 12 pack in there and it's just going to keep the ice forever. And my first few experiences with it, I was actually really disappointed. Cause the ice melted out pretty fucking quick. Yeah. Interesting. It's a baby. It, so like the instances that I use it, it was nine degrees outside. I left it in the sun. I put like beer that was borderline hot and with not enough ice. The thing is good at insulating. So if you put something that's hot in, it'll insulate the hot thing. And if you don't have enough ice in there, it's just gonna, it's going to get to an equilibrium pretty quickly. So they do like, they have like a whole fucking set of instructions to actually maximize how to use this thing. Like they want you to pre-cool it. They say that you should put a bag of ice in there first and like actually get the inside space cold and then put your. Wow. Belongings in there. Like no one goes through that length, unless like, you're actually, you know, you're hunting or you're using it for something where like, if a parish is a really bad situation. Um, but yeah, I did learn that, you know, it is still just a cooler, like it's not, it's not fucking magical, but if you do everything right, yeah. You'll keep ice in there. Even if it's hot outside for like three or four days. It's pretty fucking cool. Yeah. I got mine. Like they're expensive. So I don't know about validating the price, but I got mine because. REI had seen a picture when I was on the PCT in 2017 of my legs, just like in, in some water, it was like those shittiest Poe picture I posted, it was just my feet. It's in water, but my toes were bare. So maybe, you know, you never know about who passage, Nate's probably the same person reaching out or like, Hey, can we have permission to use this photo in exchange? We'll give you a $300 REI gift card. And I was like, my least liked photo on Instagram. Yeah, sure. Um, I never saw it in any sort of ads, so I don't think they actually ever used it damn, but I was like, I don't know what to get with this. I guess I'll get a Yeti. And so I got it. Cause I was like, I don't know what else I would ever, I think to buy one. And I remember I came home from work one day at my housemate had like completely transformed the freezer into like an ice freezing machine. And he was just like freezing cubes and cubes of ice trays. And like I opened the freezer and like, it was like, Not even ice in the ice trays, but it was just loose ice all over the freezer. And I was like, what is going on here? And he was like, I'm trying to make as much ice as possible. I want to put it on the Yeti and close it and see how long it goes. And like the lane thing. And he just sat in the living room for like weeks. And they were like doing science experiments on it. Cause they were fascinated. And how long did the ice keep over a week? Over a week, let me, we only opened it every now and then to like, look at it. Like you were looking at baby chicks to see if they were going to have. Yup. Yeah, it is. It is crazy. Like I was surprised when you open it for the first time is the cooler itself is huge, but there's so much of the space that it's actually just installation. Like the use of the space is way smaller than the cooler itself. It looks big. And then you put like some beers in it and you're like, shit, I need to rearrange this more smartly. That's that's the trade off. But you know, when it's. Fucking summer. That's, uh, that's a trade that you should be. I'm just going to say my gums, that of flavor. Yeah. Oh, it's bad basically right away. Um, yeah, so that's my big Yeti cooler. Uh, I'd say really good. If you've got money, it's probably worth the spend. If you're, if you don't just get like a Yeti knockoff. I see. Like, if you fish. Like if I like was one of those people that like went out on a boat, like onto the open season, like fished and needed to put my fish somewhere. So it would stay cold. Like I could see having one of those big Yeti coolers and I imagine that's where getting made they're killing. And then there's always the spillover effect. Like, so there's the long distance backpackers that buy the hyperlight mountain gear backpacks. And then there's the. Weekend warriors who use it for like, there's the Patagonia and then there's the frat Agonia right. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, uh, yeah, I probably wouldn't buy one. I probably wouldn't either, but Hey, we both have one now. Yeah. Cheers. Kara views. A mailbag this first one. I'll let you take Kelly Hall. Okay. Deep in the heart. Emoji of Texas. Well, East of the heart. Hey guys, I've been binge listening to the podcasts at work, obviously working very hard at, for weeks. And it's been an inspiration while biting my time before Texas is out of this heat. That rivals hell and camping is not like sitting in a sauna all night. I am fairly new to backpacking and appreciate the great content interviews and reviews on y'alls podcast. Plus the bantering is pretty entertaining and I find myself laughing often out loud as a wife and mother of three boys. I consider myself a weekend warrior for now. My longterm goals are to hike the PCT P N T and walk the entire trail of tears with my husband parentheses. I'll let him know about that at some point. But for now it's the L S H T. It's all we got in the East, in East, Texas. Oh, that's the loan. Yep. That's our next trail. Or maybe a future trail, hashtag gossamer gear. Um, it's all we got in East Texas, but it's beautiful in its own way. I feel like that's what people say about their kids when their kids aren't cute. Yeah. If you don't, if you don't think your kid's cute, then your kids are going to have a tough time. Are you going to admit if your kid's not cute? Are you going to be one of those people that it's like, it's beautiful. My wife looks like Jennifer Aniston, even as he gets a lot of me, it does look pretty good kids going to be beautiful and it's not going to be because of you. Um, y'alls podcast has helped me get through these crazy times all while keeping the backpacking hiker stoke alive, and I greatly appreciate it. Anyway, keep up the great work. I look forward to new episodes. Kelly all peace sign. Thanks. P S Oh, wait. There's a PS. PS. Y'all should check this guy out. That's the daily guy we messaged, right? No, it was different. Oh, he seems legit. Plus you hiked across Texas and hit like all the state parks in the process, which we have a lot of, like to hear an interview of him today mentioned he started all this at the age of 72, a shout out to David Owen, Roberts, who you might hear on a future show I to find him first. Yeah. I don't know. Remember this email, so I'll have to follow up with it. Uh, this next one is from switches. Somehow it has my email address, but says from switches anyways, sex emailing fan mail to us. I finally have a poop story. I'm a truth through hiker now. Right? Alright. Here it is. I completed my first through hike that is over 80 miles this summer with my SIS on the Colorado trail. I've been. I'm confused. That is over 80 miles. Got it. His previous hikes were all under 80 miles. Been dreaming of the CT for over three years and put so much time to research shakedown hikes. Sort of the PV or came up and dialing in my gear. In addition, I work at REI and listened to BPR, which means I know how to through hike, right. I felt super prepared and confident when we found ourselves at Waterton Canyon, beginning our Trek South, my sister and I got to our first campsite near South Platte river hangout with other through hikers and the infamous nosy facts. Does that ring any bells? I think it's literally just a Fox that's dipping around their stuff. I don't think they called it the intimacy. There's always like a, there's always like a Fox it's like snow around. I would assume I've never had one of those, but yeah, I don't recall any infamous nosy faxes, but when a huge gust of wind comes out of nowhere and flattens my tent and breaks a pole on my sister's tent, 20 minutes later, I went down to the river to wash up and I was. As I was washing my face with river water. I take a step back in a moment of pure bliss. Finally, on the CT and clean cold Colorado river water on my skin. I stepped on my glasses. I think that's a, uh, There's a scene in the Twilight zone where a guy, all he wants to do is just read his book. Yeah. He wants to read the books and he's in that like world where it's just stacks and stacks of books, apocalypse that kills everybody. He's like, I don't get how this is the Twilight zone, because like, this is heaven for me. And then he turns around and steps on his glasses. And you just see like the cameras zoom out. Yeah. It was a great episode. Uh, we're not off to a great start in the morning. We wake up early and start the dry and hot segment two. I get my number two business done first poop on the trail. That is always a pretty exciting moment. You're first when you break the seal, uh, the first time terrifying. Well, I don't think this was his first outdoor group ever, but like the first one on the trail, I dunno. Oh my God. Yeah. I was like running for it. I was like granting for it. I was like, this is going to be so good. Yeah. You've got some poop stories, which I can't wait to get to for the episode. And I was feeling confident again with last night's events behind us, I was feeling great. I remember thinking how awesome it was to be literally living my dream. Looking around at the mountains and just being overwhelmingly happy and content. At this moment, I felt a fart coming on, having just pooped and being back to feeling confident. I did something that I could never take back. I farted, but it was not a fart. I kept walking for about another minute and complete. Now I've done it before. We're like, You fart and you're not sure it's like a coin flip and the way that you figure it out is like you slap your shorts against your butt to like, see if it's a way that's to like, test, to see if it's wet. Like if it sticks and it's like, you get that cool. Unsure. Oh yeah. I've had many of those moments. There've been a lot of times you don't feel it until you slap it and it sticks. There are, there have been legit moments where I'm like, I definitely just shoot myself and then I slap it and there's no poo and there've been other moments where I'm like, I might've shot myself. This happens to you way too frequently. Yeah, there was no way. I just shit, my pants on the first morning. And I'm the dry section in hundreds and hundreds of miles, but I know deep in my shorts, there was wet shit, lighting my underwear. I cleaned up as fast as I could. As I knew another through hiker was somewhere behind me and ended up buying a day system. The next time I had service, I failed BPR. If I've learned anything from you it's to never, ever trust a fart. That's very true. Yeah. I hope this makes you feel good. It does. But when I feel finally accepted the inevitable shift uation I immediately thought of Badger saying never trust a fart. I mean, we did warn you, uh, Ryan, I won't reveal your last name cause he didn't include it in your email, but not as from Brian A. Case, which is, and that was a wonderful purpose story. I star reviews another man. We're poop heavy today. Do you put these in here? Does lease 100% Elise. Wow. She's on your side with the poop. Oh yeah. Um, this one's by nickname one, two eight four nine two Oh two. It's probably a sick social security number. I pooped out on public Hill one time. I swear every time I'm questioning whether my family and I should proceed with something, anxiety, inducing, parentheses trip, financial moves slash prestigious, et cetera. I come across an episode that makes me realize we shouldn't hold back from pursuing our dreams. We are putting people in debt. Yeah. I don't know if taking advice from backpack. Radio is a wise decision. It's not, but we haven't gone bankrupt or been sent to collections yet. So I suppose it's a good thing. Anyway, keep up the good work. I love listening while I work from my desk and living vicariously through this podcast, it's provided me with ideas and inspiration for future endeavors. Also one time in college Prince sees this is how every awesome story starts. Uh, me and some friends were on our way to the bar. This walk included a traffic attrac up Jeff Hill. Hopefully there's some Ohio university alum listeners. I was halfway up when I was unexpectedly hit with a case of the runs. And my only choice was to poop my pants or poop in the woods. So I did the ladder and tried to wipe wood leaves didn't work. And I was forced in quotes to leave poopy undies in the bathroom at the bar. Good news is I didn't have to go home. Where'd you go? I think he just hung out at the bar with some poopy shorts, but he left his undies in the bath. There's some honest and a question I answer. You're gonna have to fill in some of those poop gaps for us. Uh, yeah, I'm not gonna name nickname, social security number. Uh, this next one is from do Beto. Five star review question. I love these. If you have a question for us, this is the way to get your question right faster. Listen to back to radio for excellent interviews. And to hear the answer to five star review questions, if a backpack or pantry or other meal package indicates it contains two and a half servings. How many through hiker meals would that translate to John's is trying to remind his answers are going to be very different. Started the hike, pre hiker hunger. That's two dinners, uh, anywhere, middle towards the end of the hike. Anytime after a hiker, hunger has hit. That is one dinner. Yeah, one container. Yeah. If it is one in one bag and sealed, it is one man. So here's my primary issue is even if I'm full halfway through, which has happened a lot of times, once you hydrate it, that becomes very heavy. You can't discard it, that your options for getting rid of it are to either carry out this heavy meal that tastes delicious or to consume it. I'm a frequent. Pawn it off on other people in the moment type of person where it's like, not, Hey, carry my trash or carry this leftovers. It's like, I can't finish my dinner. Who here can finish it. And there's usually someone hungrier than me around who will volunteer. Yeah. But like, I get really worried, like when it was just me and easy hiking together, he would not want to finish my food for me. Which is understandable, but like, I would get worried when I'd make dinner. Cause I was like, what if I can't finish this? And then I have to find somewhere to put it and then I feel go a certain distance away and then I have to bury it and like, it would just give me anxiety. Um, but once you have hiker hungry, you're going to eat a bit. I pack her pantry in one setting for sure. Yeah. Uh, for as much as I talk about food on the show, I'm actually not that hungry of a person. And there are times where like I'm pointing off my food to other people in the group. Unfortunately, generally speaking guys will just eat until there's no more food left, so someone will help me out. But yeah, I'm not always that guy. Okay. A shout out to back country.com. If you're in the market for some new hiking gear, use the link we include at the top of the show that's backpack or back country.com/backpack or radio, and our coupon code, which is backpacker radio 15. Right. Backpacker 15. Fuck. You know that? Hold on. Talk about backend. Yeah, but also after you use our code, I want to say it's backpacker 15, backpacker 15. Yeah. You just go to backpacker 15 for 15% off@backcountry.com. Correct. New customers. You want to give them the, uh, the rundown on what new customers are member email address. Wink wink. Oh yes. If you are using our code on back country.com, um, send them a message, send them a message, send us a message. What do we want them to do? So when you're using our coupon code and you already have an account@backcountry.com create a new email address so you can score 15% off with our code. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause it's for new people. Yeah. Um, and then also. Uh, if you send us a picture or a screenshot of you using the code, uh, we've been sending out stickers to anyone who's been doing that. We had someone recently use our code and then I followed up and like, Hey, cool, thanks for that. Send us your address and we'll get some stickers on your way. He's like, no, you probably need the money for the, I know times are hard. You can save the money and middle East just made fun of Zach. We're like, yeah, you need that two bucks, two bucks 55 cents. Stamps cheap. Uh, but no shout out to that guy who used the code and then refused our sticker, need any sort of gear in it, something that you could purchase on back country. And you could do that and take a screenshot and show it to us and use that code. It really does help this podcast continue to be able to stay. Yeah, well, and also fuck helping us help yourself save 15%. That could be a lot of money that's money that you could spend on ice cream. Like let's be real. Yeah. I don't know what the fine print is. I don't know. Like if you can get something on sale, 15% off, but give it a shot. What do you have to lose? It's a crazy world out there. And like, you could use that 15% of ice cream. There you go. Thank you to our Chuck Norris award winners on Patrion. That is Andrew Austin McDaniel, Christopher Marshburn, Darnell L Paul Paquin, Sealy S Lebanon Sawyer products, and Thomas bolder. You can follow us on social at backpacker radio and Instagram at backpacker pod on Twitter, facebook.com/backpacker radio. Oh, we have to do a . We do whatever our code word is for free. Oh yeah. Uh, Instagram old faithful. Yeah on Instagram comment on this episode, uh, on this episodes, promo art comment, um, your price that you'd pay for a foot. Hmm. I like that a lot. Yeah. And what angle you'd want it from? And do you have to indicate who's feet? You'd rather buy, I want to at least get one person out of this. Yeah. Yeah. Um, whose feet do you want? How much would you pay for a photo? Angle angle. Do you want it out? Yeah, so like for instance, Zach's feet are very sexy and I need to see Zach's feet. I would pay $10,000 for the next page randomizer to pick the winner. Like, it's not like we're putting this into a generator and picking a username. Alyssa's literally reading all these comments and pigging the ones that she laughs at the most. So just like appeal to her, like, you know, know your audience. Pander to release to your demographic. Yeah. I will give a shout out to the Facebook comment people, or maybe if this was buttering her up, they know they knew that you're really going to use your photos are so good. We love you. You're so sexy. People are smart. They pick up. Yes, Sean's on social media. Find me on Instagram at Juliana underscore Chauncey. Um, I'll plug the YouTube cause I'm finally posting videos. Uh, Juliana Chauncey. And most importantly, you can buy my book, hiking from home, a long distance. Hiking guide for family and friends on Amazon. John's had two cocktails tonight, which is usually you said it about that ebook. Subtitles are long, you know, like I actually don't know this subtitle for Appalachian trails, although it might affect you to read it off your own book. I wrote that eight years ago, it's a psychological and emotional guide to successfully through. Can the eighties, apparently I do know a subtitle suck. I'm Zach, Zach and I can't log into my Instagram. Yeah. Oh, I did a demonstration Instagram won't let me out. I've been trying to log out. I'm I'm in an antisocial media mood of late and Instagram. Won't let me do that. But if you want to see me struggle against my Instagram, it's at zero Davis. Anyway, anyways, I said, thanks so much for listening. Happy hiking.