Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - BRCC Roundtable with Evan Hafer, Jariko Denman, and Logan Stark

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Join us as Evan leads us through a Q and A about the most recent 777 Expedition, as well as countless other nonsensical topics that make these conversations so fun. Evan Hafer is the founder and CEO of Black Rifle Coffee. Prior to his current role he spent twenty years serving this country, first as a Special Forces soldier (Green Beret), then as a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency, completing multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. Logan Stark is the VP of Media for Black Rifle Coffee Company. A Michigander by birth, Logan joined the US Marine Corps shortly after graduating from Greenville High School. He trained as an infantry assaultman with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines out of Camp Pendleton, California, and later completed deployments to Okinawa, Japan, and Sangin, Afghanistan, as a scout sniper. After his time in the Marine Corps, Logan earned a degree in professional writing from Michigan State University. Jariko was born in Washington DC and as a military brat grew up all over the world. In 1997 he enlisted in the US Army. After basic training and Airborne School, he completed the assessment and selection process for the 75th Ranger Regiment and was assigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion at Ft Lewis Washington. Jariko went on to serve in the Ranger Regiment for 15 years. Jariko deployed to combat 15 times in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002-2012 as a Weapons Squad Leader, Rifle Platoon Sergeant, and Ranger Company First Sergeant amounting to 54 months of total combat experience as part of a Joint Special Operations Task Force. Jariko retired from active duty in 2017 after four years as the Senior Military Science Instructor at St. John's University in New York City. Since retiring he has advised on several major motion pictures, national ad campaigns, and television series as well as working as a freelance journalist in Afghanistan and Ukraine. He now works for Black Rifle Coffee as a Content Producer and lives in Salt Lake City Utah.

Okay, got the red smoke. Okay, gun runs, north and south, west of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, Evan, you called this meeting. What do you want to discuss? Well, I think before we get into really advanced,

heady intellectual conversations about, which is what this table of people are really known for, about how we can clearly differentiate between types of ghost rape and whether or not they are. I think we have to at least talk about triple seven to some degree, right? This could be the triple seven episode because you guys haven't technically done an episode about this yet, correct? I did an individual recap, but we have actually, we never got the chance to sit down and have everybody join us. I didn't listen to that either. I'm sure you lied a lot about stuff.

I did. Only the number of continents that we visited and the total number of jumps that we did. Basically the entire thing. We actually went to eight continents and jumped 11 times. Technically. I think New Zealand should be its own continent. You can say whatever you want as long as you say technically. What was your favorite continent?

What was your favorite jump, Jericho? My favorite jump was Barcelona. Really? Yeah. Just because I don't think we'll ever get to do that again. Oh, I've done that many times. Yeah. Your favorite jump was Barcelona.

You need to let him explain kind of what happened to Barcelona. We got to start at the beginning. Sure. I'm a sequential human being. I have to actually work in order for some reason. But first things first, you guys went to Antarctica. First, yes. Yes.

And I got to ask, were the polar bears big? I wish we had seen some. There are no polar bears in Antarctica. They're only in the North Pole. I know. We saw, there was no insects or bugs of any kind. There was no moths. There was zero life of any kind.

I love the fact that you guys went there first. Number two, the question is, were you surprised of anything that you saw there when you first got there? Because have you been there before, Andy? So nobody had been there. No. I have like, I have my. image of Antarctica what it is and it's if I'm thinking about it's really cold it's really windy it's really dark there's icebergs everywhere you know like

Shackleton ship is like crashed up on the rocks yeah and you know there's there's nothing out there it's it's essentially like a snow moonscape of nothing is that what it was except for the darkness part yeah there's light it's light 24 hours it's Really, really like that. It was way nicer than I was expecting. Okay. I was expecting to be like not super good conditions. I didn't think that we would be treated so well.

It was like a resort kind of. Really? It was like a camp resort. Yeah. Yeah, I took a lot of like snacks and stuff. Like jerky like, oh man, I might need this. Yeah. Yeah.

They had treats and stuff in my bag just in case. Yeah. Shower facility, chow hall. What? Library lounge area. packing area for us sat phone area if you wanted it shitters they pay somebody to come down and a couple people to do nothing but give lectures for entertainment yeah so you can learn a lot too yeah they do lectures like twice a day yeah different antarctica stuff i don't understand so who is down there

doing what billionaires billionaires or just down there so do they have like an alien base underneath the ice the chileans do just down the road from where we were. Drew, stop knocking the cameras around. I think the demographic of people that are there, you have people doing research. So NASA or people doing research for different companies that want to put their product

through the ringer. Like SpaceX. Starlink. Starlink was doing stuff there. And then you have adventurers. And I think a lot of those people are being sponsored by somebody. And then you have just super rich people.

that want to come down there. And actually in combination. Yeah. Like have you ever heard the name Conrad Anchor? Yeah, of course. Phenomenal climber. He arrived while we were there in a G650 direct to the Blue Ice runway where they had a twin otter waiting for him to take him to the other base camp at the luxurious resort they were

staying at before climbing the mountain. They were going to attempt. So there's a luxury resort down. Yeah. And for clarity. It wasn't for Conrad was there. understanding guiding owner of said Gulfstream. I'm not trying to say

most Conrans. He was there, but more than likely guiding somebody up one of the mountains. So it's a combination of hardcore adventurers and people with just absolute go fuck you money. One of the camps exists and was completely decked out

by Elon Musk, who never came. Yeah. Yeah. And that one is like, that one is like all top shelf shit. Like we got treated great. get me wrong the food was amazing but it was like a lot of like starch base with some kind of tasty gruel on top I don't know what those things mean like starch but it was it's pretty good well if you were into your health pods and you understood yeah health pods

we need to talk about before we get into health pods so that's the most surprising thing that that I've heard out of all this that there are resorts it was so that places you can go Dude, the camp for Elon Musk, he built it for his girlfriend at the time, Amber Hurd, who then changed her mind about going there. Something about shitting in somebody's bed. I don't know what it was. I just made that part up. It may not be true. So he was no shit dating Amber Hurd.

Yes. It was her idea. She was the one who wanted to, and I'm getting his stories from. Were they dating Johnny Dap and Amber Hurd at the same time? At that level, he really knows. I think that that was a possibility that was being thrown around. But like, he dodged a bullet about that. Multi-million dollars.

never actually set foot. What was that camp per week per person? 80? Yeah. Are you kidding me? $80,000 a person. Whoa. They had a full-time chef there that could be working at like any number of like

probably Michigan Star. Yeah, Michigan Star. Yeah. Yeah. Restaurants work there full-time cooking for the people that came into this camp. Wow. So this is way different than I thought it was. My image of Antarctica and what you guys are describing is very different.

What you're describing is kind of like a four-season type of experience on the ice. Yeah. Versus... They're open about that, actually. You know, ALE is not... They're not trying to say, hey, this is your budget option. And I actually think that price point separates a lot of the wheat from the chaff. Which is why there was people there with net worse that are mind-boggling.

And also why they never really have issues. You know, it's like a fob overseas, right? without a perimeter in in the respect that it's a communal place that you that are has a lot of rules and if a lot of people start to break those rules stuff will get gross there'll be poop and pee on things and and stuff like that and like a fob yeah yeah and it all kind of works out and I asked uh mike mcdell the the guy runs I'm like have you ever had like any serious issues down here like because also there's no real jurisdiction down there yeah like as far as if you do a crime So I was asking me, he's like, yeah, never really came up.

I was like, fucking really. So yeah, you're right. Like the price point does. It separates it. Hmm. That makes sense, though, because if you're going to spend $80,000 a week. That was just at that one particular camp. Right.

We were nowhere near that. We were in tents, which Logan and I shared a tent. I mean, but nice tent, though. Like, it was totally fun. They were warm. They were super warm. They were like 50 degrees. They had like two layers, so there was like a four inch space

between the two tents and it being sunny out all day for the majority i think what like five out of the seven days four of the seven days it was like a blazing sun yeah right before we did our first jump i was outside in a t-shirt it was way what's wrong with your dog Evan i i don't know come here here Evan just got a dog from um the tsa adoption program yeah and she's great what did you name her I don't know why she's... I don't... Why do you... You changed her name from Roxy to...

Rue. Rue. Yeah, because I have beans and potato. And I wanted something that would match beans and potato. And Rue is a base to a soup. So that's where we came up with that. Now, I could have named her, you know, anything, really, but it had to match, matchy. Yeah, I have the golden...

So the golden retriever that's 100 pounds. Yeah. who is one of the dumbest animals alive. Could be the. Could be. Like he got his name, not because he looks like a potato, because I thought maybe he had a potato for a brain.

Which is a rebrand, because his name was actually Max. Yeah. And we switched it to potato because I kept thinking maybe his brains were mashed potatoes or some type of full potato in there in his head. He was just operating under that. But I don't know.

she's she's typically great i don't know why she's she's whining and like wanting to go out i fed her a cup of coffee when we're at the shop earlier oh there we go so antarctica so getting back into antarctica what was the temperature like when you were down there it was between like zero and 20 most of the time right yeah yeah yeah hovering around the sun with the sun was it good i mean could you guys like lounge around and like flannels and shit? I would walk to and from like the bathroom in Ranger Pannies,

sandals and like a hoodie. Interesting. Because it's all like there's so much sun and there's so much like you look at it and you think it's like snow but it's actually just ice. Right. Tiny layer of snow on it.

So the sun is bright. It's also the ozone layer down there is kind of fucked up. So it's even warmer. If you believe in it. Coming through. And then it's bouncing off the ice and like reverberating.

So it's pretty fucking like you couldn't hang out out there for a while and like not need another layer, but if you're just walking to and from stuff, it feels warm. Yeah. Question. What did you say the light just did when it hits the ass? Bouncing off stuff. Well, there was a word you used that started with an R. Refracting?

You said reverberating. Reverververting? That's fine. That's not the right word. Reflecting, I believe, is what you were looking for. I'm fine. I'm fine with your usage of me. Reverberating is more up for sound.

Yeah. Yeah. But when that cloud. contract and that cloud cover comes in technically i think light does come with sound if we if we really do nobody in this fucking room is smart enough to have the answer to that absolutely not so you're down there it's sunny it's got some snow the conditions are much nicer than what you thought they were going to be it is cold first jump what are you guys jumping what kind of plane twin otter okay yeah and before we get into that is this something that is this something that is

fairly normal for people to go go down there and actually do a parachute jump is it something that is offered by by a company or a service which is not some kind of indirect stump for some weird company i'm just saying is this something that that people do on a regular regular cadence no no but we also were not the first they had done jump operations before so it was actually cool we sat down with one of the uh quarter shareholders you know mike mcdowell and i had i had I had estimated there probably been like 100 people who had jumped in Antarctica. Right. He said less than 25 including our group.

Whoa. Are you kidding me? I thought you said 40. So you're a liar. Yeah, I guess so. Okay. I think less than 25 to include your group. Yeah.

In Logan's offense, I was saying 40 as well because I wanted to like make it seem more. Wow. I was like, I know he told us 25, but I was like, really, man? And he also, Mike is one of the jumpers. now because we we hugged him out of a plane too. He had never jumped there and Nick was like, hey, well, it's kind of like your aircraft and your choice. Right.

Would you like to go up any other? Because, yeah, that's what I mean. You look at it just from our jump alone. There was, what, 12 people? Yeah, but it's not that common that they'll bring a group down there of that size. That size, yeah. There was the two ladies, which almost became one. Yeah, that was interesting.

You ever watched a Cyprus fire from the? ground we have yeah so what happened we'll get into that so it's sunny no wind you guys go up a little bit of wind there was like a knot of wind okay at our back when we landed the first one

because my canopy came forward instead of going backwards interesting so you go up to I think we got out a 10 5 AGL which was about 13 MSL and then how How cold is it when you step out and what's it feel like when you're when you're in the air up there? It was noticeably cold, but not anywhere near what I thought.

And like the big thing that I heard was like, be sure you cover all your exposed skin, which yes. But as soon as I came out, my balaclava got pulled off my face. And I didn't really realize that until I was under canopy and was like, oh, it's down. I was like, it doesn't feel that cold, though, it's fine. And then I went up to do, you know how I like to lick my mustache when I jump? Oh, absolutely. Well, you like to lick your mustache all the time. Yeah, I love it.

Don't castones. When I went up there to do that, my whole mustache was covered in ice. Huh. So it was cold up there, but it wasn't like going to give you frostbite in five seconds cold. Yeah, because that's what I think. That's what I think. If you wanted to you could do a naked jump in Antarctica. No.

Yeah. Are you serious? You would not die. You would not die. Huh. Okay. I'd like to make an admission for about my first 10 years in the military, I called Balaclava's Baklava. Baclavas.

Delicious. Delicious. I would actually talk about it in briefs. Like, hey, you know, we're going to do some breaching. Make sure you bring your baklava. And not a single motherfucker corrected me. To be fair. To be fair.

To be fair. To be fair. I am almost certain. I didn't know what Baklava was. like bala claba i had no idea either these are terms that uh were i thought they were interchangeable i know i i did too news to me i didn't know there were two different they're two very distinctly different words there are also there are also there are also things that i didn't know until recently either right which is like when we're thinking kale growing up i didn't

know what kale was like about what it's what they garnered salad bars with but then it's not like when we went out to a fancy restaurant when i was growing up up, Sizzler, they had kale cruising around there, you know what I mean? That's not a, that was not a thing. My parents later in life. No, they did. Yeah. Fuck, yeah, they did.

At the buffet? Well, my dad was a chef and my mom was a waitress. Did you just use the term chef for Sizzler? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you mean Michael Ray oven operator. Absolutely not. Line cook, chef. My dad was a chef at Sizzler.

Are you the chef police? Andy. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. I'd like to speak to the chef. We don't have one. Can I speak to the chef?

The fried okra bin is empty. I need to speak to the chef. Pardon me. It appears my steak. Is it a tad bit undercooked? Could we send it back? They're like, no. You eat that.

You eat that. We charged you $3.79 for that. Fucking eat it. That is horse meat, sir. Do you like your horse meat medium rare? What is that? Is that a true story, Logan? Yeah, yeah, it is.

For those that don't know me that well, that it's probably way less enticing than those that do. But my dad, he's such a dork. He used to do this. He called it the Tutsy Rule. This is probably how he got. No, this is probably how he got my mom. He would, he developed a formula

to go to every single pop or soda at the machine, at the fountain machine, and he did it, he figured out a way so that he could layer it so that you could see the pink lemonade, the root beer, and that was like his thing. So he is a chef.

Yeah. He's a drink chef. Tushay. Michigan Star right there. He's a Michigan Star chef creating Tootty rolls. Oh, fuck. So we're back in Antarctica.

We're back in Antarctica, which, by the way, I fucking love these conversations because they're so fucking random and they go in different directions all this is more. It's very black rifle. It's so fucking great. And so you're down there. You do your test jump. I think all three of us were wearing far too much. So what you were. Describe to me what you were wearing?

So what were you wearing? Oh, you were not? I was good to go. I had too much. I had three underlayers on. Oh, yeah. Okay. So you had like a base thing. Yeah, I had like a wool, a polyester, and then, I can't remember what the Sitco ones were.

And then like waterproof, windproof pants over that. Waterproof, windproof pants. So like Gortex? They were the arctic ones that we got. I don't remember. Okay. So. Anyway. I would have tried to wear like a wetsuit. That'd be cool. Yeah, that would have been a three-mill. Like a three-mill. If you wore a wetsuit and then just like a, a, like, a lanker. layer over it, you'd been fucking perfect.

Yeah, so it's not a bad idea. Also, didn't you end up getting a onesie later? I did. You got a one's. And I was like, why, not the sweatpants onesie, the other, like somebody else had a. Oh, Nick was jumping that. Nick was jumping at. That's right.

That's like he was documenting. Why did we not get the memo on a freaking one piece jump suit? Why didn't we all just get issued one of those for us to jump? Because obviously you're created, it was. very well stitched together. It was obviously designed for that. Had fucking branding all over it. It was wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like a, like a snow suit. Yeah, like it's essentially like a one piece snowboard. Yeah. Or a snow machining thing. So you were sweating on the first jump too? Yeah. I was way too hot. I had a battery heated gloves. Like I went I went way over. But you don't know. You

don't know until you do it. No. Yeah. And this was the like question mark jump for me. I was like all the other one's like I feel like we can get by or it'll be a situation similar that we've experienced before Antarctica. No. Like this was this was new new territory. I felt like I was jumping in a space suit. The feeling that I hate more than really any other feeling in the world is being hot from wearing too many clothes. Like I think we talked about this new.

And it's it is a product of when I was jumping in Ranger Regiment you would be on an airfield doing manifest call and fucking around for like two or three hours. So you had to be warm. And then you would rig and load aircraft or load aircraft. And then the dickhead flight crew would kick on the fucking heaters. And then you're sitting there just like, sweating your balls off because you're wearing snow gear on a plane. Hate that feeling.

So I had the same, pretty much the same setup Logan had. And I stood in front of it right before we were getting ready to go. And I made like a game time decision. I was like, I'm not fucking wearing all that shit. And I just wore one set of windbreaker gloves. My layering was,

uh, the smart wool kind of intermediate level smart wool bottoms and then the cry G4 pants just the wind cutter pants that was all I had my bottoms and then top I think Andy told me he's like just if you just cut the wind you're going to be fine so when we were in Punta Arenas I went to an outdoor store because I looked at my gear then and was like there's just something missing I don't think so I bought a windbreaker that was probably two sizes too small so I could wear it under everything

So I wore the same smart wool Intermediate kind of like base layer top That windbreaker and the jacket that I'm wearing today Hmm that's all I wore Perfect no issues Yeah I just had three layers on to begin with And the pants and jacket that I sourced up here Was far more insulated than I thought

And I also thought we were going to be closer to the open door on takeoff There was they pushed us pretty far far forward, like the worst people that got ate most of the wind were the tandem pair, but they were well dressed for it, you know, and I stripped off two layers and the second jump, but it couldn't have been better. I'm really glad we did that first jump because we were like him and in a haunt a little bit, like, oh, you know, like, should we be doing this? Should we wait? You know, because it could have potentially started the clock for us had we not gotten a second jump. And I think everybody was really glad we did the first one because just about

everybody made gear modifications. Right. And we got some entertainment. So I was some really sweet landings on the LZ. The other thing that exposed was the performance of camera batteries during freefall. Yeah. That was one thing that cold did affect big time. Yeah. Was the Insta 360 camera I had just totally fucking shit the bed. Didn't work.

GoPro's were amazing. I think I was going to get, I was showing over an hour worth of battery life on just a standard new GoPro battery. It was pretty awesome. Yeah. The 11s were amazing. Yeah, that white battery actually set up for cold weather. The earlier models did not handle it.

it very well. So it's a white battery? Yeah. No, that makes sense. I think it actually comes labeled as a cold weather battery and it performs well. But as far as the free fall, it felt like free fall. Really? Just same same.

No worries. The topography was fucking amazing. Like it was really cool. Yeah, that was the thing I was going to ask you. You didn't like it. I'm just like shaking my head like, holy shit. It was fucking crazy. It would look like you're jumping into a fucking different planet.

Yeah. That's the one thing. Like, I can't imagine like stepping out and then being. and free fall looking around going what the fuck yeah and if you're like sirelli after 15 seconds of gaining stability yeah you could have that experience right he really is sky trash i love your mike but jesus your sky trash yeah i was rewatch you posted the he was an officer the eighth jump and like you just you like you watch him like what are you doing i thought you guys I thought you guys had made some type of make a wish for a novice jumper.

If you're like, yeah, come and jump with us. And you're like, what the fuck? That would be a good way to look at that. It would be a more charitable way. Yeah. I was like, that's sick. You guys are just throwing fucking randoms in. That's rad.

My favorite part about it is that when presented with clear evidence. And by that, I mean video of himself jumping. He goes, no, I'm good. I don't do that shit. No. I'm like, this is you. Yeah. This is you and me putting it to,

Titanic music slowing it down and you on your back roll he's like no I'm good dude I fix that yeah fixed it totally fixed it's fucking awesome so how many days between the practice jump and the real jump the one that counted I think it was five yeah it was it was why did you guys have so many days between it was it weather or was it just that's when the aircraft came in and and oh yeah there's basically a rotator and you get a hitch in a hitch out and that was our timeline now okay that makes sense but I mean those guys really hooked it up. Like, we basically jumped through our bags on a plane and left.

Right. Like, so the clock was as close as you could get it to take it off as possible. It was real tight. So five days, what are you doing down there for five days? What are you doing? Glenn described it pretty well. You remember the old deployment days when it's like, eat till you're tired, sleep until you're hungry. Yeah. It kind of felt like that. That makes sense. Yeah. They did offer some cool, like

we got out and like they offer a little miniature excursions from the base camp every day because they had those really cool like half track bands and all that shit that you could hop in and fat tire bikes you could ride on a 10K course you can cross country ski yeah they would do an excursion per day they would do

lectures they would do a movie every day but most of the time it's just like hanging out in the chow hall and that's where we kind of rubbed elbows with a bunch of other people like we missed Alex Honorable was out there at the same time we missed meeting him by like a day but who Alex Honnold. Don't know who that is. Free Solo.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Got it. That's interesting. And a variety. I mean, everything from like active doctors, there was that veterinarian doctor, I think was talking. Yeah.

Yeah. Like very, very wealthy people, guy who worked for Starlink. There was a woman out there that she was like, I'm developing AI technology for the 2028 mission to Titan. Oh, I'm like, that's cool. Wow. Yeah. I was really into that story, too, until I saw the device that she was like had to get out and install. And it was just a fucking kestrel.

It makes sense. How many fucking years did you go to college to go install this fucking kestrel? They could have sent a guy that fucking, they just found it Arby's to come from here. Kestrel is a handheld wind indicator device. It was. It was a kestrel with a fucking thumb drive. It was. the fact of data.

Hey, you know what? Scientists need jobs, too. I, so five days, you get out, everything goes without a hitch on that one. Then the next place you go, so you, what was the plane that flew you out there? What size? Iceland Air 57?

Oh, okay. Like a normal commercial airliner. Commercial airliner. And then the runway, is it ice? Ice. Blue ice. Blue ice. Which if I remember,

That means it doesn't have oxygen or as much oxygen as well as that blue view. All the air bubbles over thousands and thousands of years just worked their way out. And the whole region that the Union Glacier Camp was where it was was because of that blue ice runway. It isn't because of the alien base is located below Antarctica. We don't talk about the alien. That was underneath the Chilean camp. Gah. Okay.

The Chilean, they actually had tunnels. Yeah. Do you know that? That's cool. I wanted to go check that out. Look at them. But yes, apparently they had like some above ground structures and then a huge tunneling system. Wow. That's super cool.

Yeah. I got a good top-down version of their camp too on that first trip. Oh, yeah. Oh, you went out a little late. Sometimes you should pull higher, look down. Sometimes. I made it back. Yeah.

But still. We made it back just fine. I was on my rear risers the whole trip back, but made it. So you fly from Antarctica to where? Punta-Iranius, back to where we took off from? So you're, and then where was the DZ located from Putta-Aureanus? We had to get another flight to, Santiago. We red-eyed it. We repacked a bunch of parachutes in the airport.

You repacked in the airport. Yep. Okay. Some people at this table, I don't want to name names. Didn't pack their own shoots. Yeah. Jerko and I didn't pack shoes. Yeah. Which is totally fair. We barely had enough jumps to do this damn thing. First off, I'm glad that you guys didn't. I don't mind doing it at all. And yeah, I'd rather have you guys like focus on the jumps than worrying about the pack jobs. Oh, so you pack. You were the pack. Surrelli would start a pack job and then it would be taken over. by somebody who knew what they were doing. Oh, got it. Yeah. Okay.

And I will say Andy's packs are beautiful. Are they? Oh, so soft. Oh. Soft but also fast. Yeah. Interesting. I like what's called a positive opening.

Yeah. I don't like him and hae down there. I'm wondering whether or not shit's going to open up for me. Yeah. Yeah. So fly in. Santiago. Then how far away was the DZ from?

Hour drive? Hour drive. So did you fly? Did you land? Did you? Yeah. We flew. from so basically we left Antarctica got off that plane went back through the terminal

checked into a flight because it's not a normal like TSA run flight to Antarctica and back so then had to go through security and all that in Punta Ranias to fly to Santiago like any it was it was like we got in at like four in the morning kind of thing yeah it's actually thinking back on this trip it's been hard for me sometimes to remember like what time of day we arrived. But on this one, I think we were met by that guy and they got us on a small van, which got us into a bigger van. There was some weird, fucked up baggage shuffling and we weren't all in the same flight. So there was another flight that came in like an hour after, commercial Latam Airlines, I believe it was. Le Tom. That's where Andy and I were debating the

health benefits of airport sushi. Yeah. We wanted to play sushi roulette. Yeah. And every airport we went into we had to eat sushi. Oh, that's a great game. Especially when the things are on the line. Yeah. You know, like, I got tight timelines. We talked a lot more about sushi roulette than actually played sushi roulette. So actually, it wasn't, it was saviche.

Saviche roulette. Yeah. But you'd think about it. How many people there were for us to get 100% people out the door at every single one of these jumps? Yeah. How many people were on this whole thing? Nine jumpers, eight canopies.

Oh, okay. The shi-stiness. of the varying different airports that we were in and the food that they provided. There was one Burger King in Cairo that was, I was like, I don't know if I should do this, but you're like, some food's better, like bad food's better than no food, you know?

Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. But none of us got sick. Well, I was kind of the, because of Aaron Blevins, who was like kind of coaching me and Logan through this thing the whole time,

nutrition-wise. Like, hey, just get electrolytes in your system and all these different things to kind of try and keep us running on cylinders. And I ran into a thing where all I wanted to do was drink mimosis. I just wanted orange juice and champagne. Yeah. She's like, you have to eat. I was like, well, we're here.

She's like, oh, fuck, don't let anyone eat any produce at all. And then we go and the guys are like, oh, Burger King's safe. And dudes are like grabbing whoppers. I'm like, pick all the fucking lettuce off of that. There might be human shit on that. You know, so there are ways to, you know, you've been around the world. There are ways to eat shape. food but like mitigate the risk yeah you know like don't eat anything that grew out of

the ground here right yeah don't don't eat anything that hasn't had a conserve of one a heat on the exterior yeah yeah yeah yeah I get that yeah so we drove got to the DZ and they do they laid out the red carpet for us that was such a banging barbecue that we had there so you guys have barbecue and then jump or did you jump first okay well we had breakfast they had like amazing breakfast made to order breakfast ready to go good coffee fruits yeah that's great any anything mentionable with the jump like anything cool just straight up cool scenery cool scenery caravan jump off of a grass runway take off and land or the plane landed on grass runway we obviously did under canopy super professional

operation i mean it was like up to all to do get the fuck out what i think what was it the what was it the happiness factory but in spanish i don't remember what was their factory day happiness oh yeah That's right. That sounds good to me. Felice. Sounds right. Markado or something like? Feliz.

Is this an official term you're referring to? It was on our that. So also those guys were. Oh, they made us jerseys. They made us jerseys. They made us jerseys. That we were getting to you. Yeah.

Which was really cool. They made us triple seven jerseys to wear on the jump. And but they had that on the sleeve. Oh, yeah. The, the owner of that place was really cool because he ran the DZ. Owned it, but he would also fly and also jump. So he went out with us on our jump. He lands a plane.

He goes to do both at the same time. Oh, okay, got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Administratively checking people in while simultaneously jumping. So you go from there to where? Where is your next spot? Miami. Miami.

So how was that? The jump was fine. The notification that the FAA no-tam system and our flights were canceled was a little challenging. That's, that's, yeah. Like right, I think. We were driving when the notification started rolling in. In the van going to...

Oh, get that coffee. Your favorite. Going to skydive. Skydive. It was a spaceland in... Cluiston. Cluiston, yeah. Heading there, my American Airlines app.

Bling! Like, your flight's canceled. I was like, oh, shit. And, yeah, so then we just... Not we. I did nothing whatsoever to help that situation. Yeah. You have probably never played around in that world.

No, I have. Yeah. Yeah. So we had to figure out how the fuck we were going to get to Barcelona. Yeah, right. It's super rapidly the conversation switched towards private. And then it's a matter of finding an aircraft in a short period of time. What's the cost going to be, can we pay it for it?

Right. Let's go. So we got through that conversation pretty quickly. Was able to find a plane. And, uh, yeah. They donated it to, right? No. Oh, okay.

They did not. I have whip her. I wish. It had been sweet if they had donated it. No, it started with basically standing around in a group like, I'll pay this much. And then other people outside of the network started donating in and that it ended up covering the cost of it. Okay. But it's a process.

I mean, you guys have all flown private at this point. Yeah. It's a, as somebody who used to fly the airplane private, there's a lot that goes into it. First, it's like, hey, we had this potential trip coming up. Do we even have a fucking crew nearby that can make it? Right. So we were actually able to find that and make it happen. And yeah, they rolled up.

And it's pretty, pretty fucking amazing. Yeah. The customs sucks, you know what I mean? Because it's tough to get through customs in the countries that you're flying through on private. They really, you know, put you through the ring around that one. Oh, yeah. When we got that alert, like made me, he made you, my passport. Fuck.

God. And where do you land? We landed at the Barcelona airport. Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, how far away was it? DZ. 90 minutes?

Oh, okay. That was the real tight turnaround one, right? That was the least amount of time we spent on any continent. So we landed on that private flight, I think, within 20 minutes of when we were supposed to land commercial. And that was it as far as the private. We went right back to our fucking economy class seats because it certainly wasn't an economy class in the way over there. It was awesome. I think that that happening saved us.

It's the only way we would have gotten there. Because if we'd had to wait for bags, go through customs, through the regular terminal, all that in that tight turnaround that we had and then have to check in, you know, X number of hours early on the way back out. I don't know that we would have made it. Well, they rerouted us to New York, right?

To get over, didn't they? As we were trying to decide, Evan, whether or not we're going to go private, we started getting notifications like, hey, new flight plan. Cool. Because we were going to go Miami direct to Barcelona. It's like, but what if you wanted to stop in JFK first?

I looked at Mike. Sirelli, I was like, no. Like we've already made our decision we have to go. And then we ended up putting two people on that flight. We met them in Cairo a few days later. Oh, yeah, nice. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they got fucked about quite a bit.

Yeah, and that would have been us trying to. We would have actually ended up, not that anybody would do this, but we would have ended up skipping a continent but still claiming it. No, I'm not saying the flight that we caught saved us. I'm saying if, I'm saying that flight getting canceled saved us. Yes. Had we just gone with a normal plan? We'd have been fucked.

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Agreed. And how is, and why is Barcelona the, the coolest jump? Yes, we've arrived at your favorite jump, which I'm shocked at that answer. I am too. It's so cool.

I think, um, it also had a lot to do with like kind of my physiological state at that point. I was, I was starting to see the wizard. Oh. You know what I mean? I, I was, I was on like that, that time and in place when you're, you're, sleep deprived and you're just, you're now running kind of on autopilot. You're like not tired anymore. Right.

I hit that there. Coupled with, we definitely were able to see the DZ. Like, you spotted it. Yeah. Yellow building. I remember that. But there was a hundred percent cloud cover. And the cloud deck ended at about 1,500 feet.

Yeah. So it was in the U.S. This jump would have been illegal. The beauty of this is the governing body. in the US that might be upset about us talking about this. The first two letters of that are United States. This occurred in Barcelona, so eat dicks. Yeah.

And we used to do this shit all the time in the military as well. It's not that it can't be done. We'd go off a GPS spot. It was a 100% cloud cover over a location that none of us had ever seen. Oh, cool. But it was, were you nervous? Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit. Also, that one was extremely comfortable for me because we jumped out of a porter on that one. Yeah, the one. And I was the first one in. I was like, oh, fuck. I was like, like, twisted and like, I couldn't pick my head up straight. So you're just like grinding elevation. Get me the fuck out of this thing. I remember now, I have memory. I'm like, you were cranky on that flight. Yeah. Yeah, I was. Like trying to hit people's buttons on their GoPro and like, guys were showing you, the GoPro's like, is it on? You're like,

fuck. That's the jump where I turned my off right before exit. I'm like, here you go, beep. And Exit. Like I was in a position so like my one of my legs fell asleep, you know, in the 15 minutes. Also, that pilot took us up to 15K when she was supposed to let us out at like eight. Oh, cool. Yeah. Awesome. Michael dragged that picture. So grinding grinding you up to elevation is you're like smashed in like a sardine can. And I was trying to like my legs didn't work when I first tried to get out of here. Oh. And I'm like, way back in here. Way back. Andy's comfy. Look at how comfy. You know how comfy is.

And a cameraman behind me. The interior of that plane is about the size of an astrovan. You know what it's the size of? It's the size of this table that we're sitting at. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We had 10 jumpers in there. That's great.

Yeah. I don't see a problem with that. And a pilot, a pilot that took about 58 fucking minutes to run through a pre-flight check. Oh, nice. So good. I loved that job. It was my favorite. Well, our plan on this jump was that we get out one at a time and doing this from 10 or whatever we were supposed to jump from.

We get out one at a time and then track opposite directions until you pull. Well, I'm looking at my altimeter and I'm like, where are we going? Right. Why are we adding? We're going to go. Like 30 seconds of track time. Like, I'm going to go. I'm going to end up in the ocean.

I'm not even land in spate. Like, why? And like that, it's such a surreal feeling because Jericho jumped out right before I did. And I just see, like, you can barely keep an eye on him against the contrast of the clouds below. And you're just tracking and trying to like, oh, he's still there. I can still see him. I can still see him. And then he got out of his track.

And I'm like, okay, don't need to do this anymore. Yeah. Let's just pull and deal with this cloud cover situation. Yeah, and then, I mean, that jump was, well, Antarctica as well, but that jump really showed why we did a lot of the train-up that we did. There's Jericho right there going out. Yeah, this is, this is from my camera. Oh, nice crosshairs, tight ass. Yeah.

That looks like space. Look at my hamstring. That looks like space. Yeah. And let's note the footwear, perfect for jumping. Yep, yep. Air Jordans. Air Jordans.

That actually, that picture actually does no justice to the thickness of that. Yeah. Because that makes it look like maybe you could see through it. You can't. You couldn't. But being under canopy above those clouds with the mountains in the distance and the sun bouncing off of it, it was that combined with some serious sleep deprivation. Oh, right. It was fucking awesome. Yeah, I can see that. It's, it's interesting those those moments when you get on. I'm sure Andy was like, yeah, whatever, this is this one was fucking done. But for. If I'm being honest, I was worried about not myself, but you guys. Yeah. Yeah.

It was a varsity jump. So we were at that DZ. We actually made like a little short video clip as we were leaving. What were we there? 60, 90 minutes tops. That includes arriving in the bus, getting your shit out of the bus, walking to the DZ. I'm not sure if we signed a waiver for the purpose of this. We did not.

We will say we of course did. DZ brief. Individual brief for us. Get in the plane. Land. Pack everybody's shit up and get out of there. And that stuff doesn't bother me. There was, of course, a major freeway in between the DZ and the other side, which the three of us landed on.

Cool. I was the first person out. I'm like, to me, my theory is this. The world is a drop sound, and I'll figure out a good place to land. Sure. We talked about clouds on the way up, and we, like, in the plane, we're like, hey, base of the clouds is this, top of the clouds of this. You know, go into a break setting and just, you know, consistently do a nice turn, so you're not going to hit each other. And again, I'm like, fuck, I don't care.

I'm going to be fine. I knew the experience level of some of the people on the jump. I don't know if they're going to be fine, but I hope that they will be. And we went out and actually everybody at this table made a very smart decision. As soon as I came through the clouds, there was like the DZ was over here, big road. And I was over here. I was like, nope, not even going to try to cross it. And I actually landed right by a little tunnel that the bus went through.

And I looked over and saw both of these guys had made that same decision. And they landed in the middle of open fields. There was power lines and shit. but they did a great job. Like, for their experience level, that was a varsity level jump. Yeah, that was another part of it. It was cool.

It's always nice to, like, use the training that you go through to, like, work up to something, you know? Like, if everything had just gone normal the whole time, but, like, ran through that whole checklist of the stuff you said, like, came out of the clouds, located the drop zone, looked at all the weird shit between me and that, and was like, I don't want to land on any of that, so I'm just going to fucking land here.

And then, Yeah, on the way to the drop zone, we drove through a tunnel right before a creek. And I was like, oh, I recognize that tunnel. So when I hit the ground, I can call someone and say, I'm by the tunnel we drove through. I chose it to land by because I figured the bus would have to pass me on the way out. Worst case scenario. Exactly. But it's really interesting, I think, why Jericho likes it so much is because there is not having done it before with the thickness of that cloud layer.

like there's something that happens when you go on the other side of fear like when you're like I haven't done this before this is kind of scary okay but when that situation happens there's a calmness and there's a peacefulness when you're suddenly going through the essentially kind of like a worst case scenario and I remember acknowledging that as I'm cruising through these clouds and sitting in half breaks I'm like I feel like I should be kind of terrified or at least like a little bit hesitant or stressed and I was just like, this is awesome. Like this is so rad.

Holy shit. I can't see anything. I'm flying. Oh my God. It feels like a dream. Right. Yeah. Could you guys feel the clouds?

You guys notice the difference in like viscosity? Yeah. Yeah. Like a little if that one felt like a little bit more humid to it. So you're down with the thickness. That would be another way to put it. But dude, we were like in out. Hey guys, thanks for coming back on the bus.

Because we were right back to our commercial flights. So you get back to Barcelona and then you're where? Next. Cairo. Cairo. So now we're in Cairo. Yeah. Or Blade Runner Middle East, as I like to call it.

Blade Runner Middle East. Yeah, that place is a trip. Yeah. The sprawl of that city. There it is. So this is one of my favorite photos. we've ever, we've ever participated in as a company. And I think this needs to be a high-deaf, really big photo in every one of our coffee shops.

I get another one that's pretty good. There's another one that's also pretty good. Because Andy was lucky because there was a really awesome videographer, photographer that jumped with his group. This one doesn't suck either. Yeah, that one's pretty good. So the guy, it's funny. the guy that took that the kind of the photo that will be iconic yeah if not already would you guys agree that that changed the trajectory of people paying attention on the trip absolutely fucking yeah i think

so yeah i mean look at that it's hard to deny it there's three people nailing that jump and then fucking doctor stiffness up there on the old 12 o'clock position yeah are you down with the stiffness he's down with the stiffness see yeah the thickness yeah but the fact he caught the pyramids in the negative space. Yeah. So cool. And it's not like he has a gunside up there that he's looking through. That guy, I counted, had seven cameras on his helmet.

Yeah. The guy who shot that is the aerial videographer, photographer for the Mission Impossible movies. Oh, okay. He is? Yeah. He's one of them. Craig O'Brien is like one of the main dudes.

One of them. So that pyramid is which, which pyramid? The Great Pyramid of Giza is the one that's down in the seven o'clock position. Mm-hmm. I don't know what the middle one is. And the other sure are the pyramids that are next to the great. Right. And our landing area is also 7 o'clock further out.

Oh, so it's down on that golf course, right? Yeah, and you really can't see this. This is like a 100 foot ledge right below the Grand Pyramid here. And so the wind started getting interesting a little bit over here as you made your way over here. But the problem is that you want to stay over here. Yeah. There's like moments of awe that you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm flying next to the pyramids. I went just like Andy Sweta like went directly over top of the grand pyramid and you got to see it from the top down and how the tip has been formed away from time and how wide it actually is.

And then you're catching all sorts of weird winds over here. But if you don't make this portion, if you mess that up, it's bad day. yeah that's a super bad thing because then our our landing pattern came over and then we landed back facing the pyramids which also provided amazing video i just followed logan did you get that video that just came oh yeah skip for just a touch just a scotch just hit play on that bitch i think you can see it here too this is the first jump i've done where i'm over kind of a major metropolitan area so it's almost like doing a demo oh yeah it's i mean why is that guy holding on to that other guy Well, yeah

Why are you holding on to? Who is that? One of those is Glenn, right? That's maple syrup. There's Captain Stiffness. Actually, I'm sorry. Who's coming in here? That's Captain Stiffness.

Okay, and then who's this? That's Andy. That's you? Yeah. So you have Captain Stiffness, Andy, and then who else? That's Glenn. Glenn Cowan? Yeah, and Freddie Williams.

Oh. Okay. But this video is where that picture came from. So this is the dude, like, snapping still flying around. So cool. Oh my God, that's so cool. This is actually the jump where Glenn started his trend of almost killing himself at Polar Intitude as well. He got the yips.

Yeah, you got the yips. Why? Captain stiffness, he's like, this is the best track anybody's ever seen. I was like, you realize that cameraman's flying in the other direction from you. Like, you probably didn't move and the cameraman was getting away from you. Like, go anywhere. But this is a good shot, right? Like, look at the.

of outs. You could nail any one of those. Any one of those. Any one of those. I mean, Cairo, the good thing with Cairo is it's not very dense. It doesn't have a population density.

Really good sources of water. Yeah. Lots of water. The Nile is there. Question. Did you guys, when you made the jump, were you able to make a direct connection with

the aliens that actually built the pyramids? No? I, for a moment. The Anonaki? No ononokis? I told Leah the story. So GoPro's obviously, they fuck with your death perception. So I'm flying that black rifle canopy, like, around these fucking pyramids and had a very brief internal monologue of, I think I can land on top of this.

And it was probably about double the size of this table and it was flat. And in my head, I was thinking, okay, that's definitely me getting arrested, but great press for the rest of the rest of the tribunal. Really good. Totally worth it. Yeah, totally worth it. And then I was like, no, I can't do it. It just fine. Well, there was a legitimate conversation that I had with myself.

If I want to send this video to, is it Andy's MacBook Air or Andy's Mac? IMac. IMac. They asked us after we landed. And you could tell after we landed there, everyone had a little bit more excitement to him. I remember Mike was a, this is amazing. We're going to do this every year. And I was like, really?

He's also known as Captain Excitement. Oh, yeah. It was. I mean. There you go through, Michael. There are only two jumps that I was jealous of, Antarctica and Cairo. I thought Antarctica was going to be the top of the list. And we actually all sat down in Putterrainius and did a podcast before we went.

And we went down the row. And I think almost everybody said, Antarctica, Cairo fucking blew it away. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the golf course. Yeah, this is wonderful golf course. This is my... Didn't you just want to wrap up and play a quick nine when this is... Then go stand the Marriott across the street.

This is my camera. I did. My landing. But you can see Logan kind of zipping in in front of me. Or who is? Or he should be kind of right in front of me. Right there. There you're at. Is it 540 feet?

Got it. No, that turns way too early. That's right. Well, we also did. Dog boning it a little bit there. I wasn't actually. We also did an altitude displacement on this one. Yeah.

Was that the right term? It's 100% not. We always do that. It's an offset. If you'll notice, I hit closer to the landing market. Well, the interesting thing, you can see in the background where the river actually came down where the plateau was above that. And so this is actually where the river would have been, correct? Yeah, right at that, part three.

Yeah. Quick, quick par three. Was Graham Hancock there when you guys were there? He was, wouldn't that be cool? He was there. He was taking ayahuasca. Graham Hancock was taking. iwaska in the pyramid.

How cool is it though that we have all this just from shit that's on our helmet? We can sit here and actually talk about the experience. So cool. I get such a cool video. Wow. But I think the cool thing about Look at you. Yeah. World records got out.

Multiple world record. Yeah, multiple. Those two jumps are two jumps that you can absolutely do. Right. They're super attainable. They're not. I mean, they're very exotic, but very. doable. Yeah. Very, very exotic.

Pretty sure Nick's going back to Antarctica next year, right? Probably. Yeah, I'm sure they wanted to come back. Yeah. So, Cairo, where to go next? UAE. UAE. Next continent after that was Australia. It was a shit show, dude. It was a shit show. I heard it was kind of a shit show, but that was from Logan, so

I was it sure if he was not a truth. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, that, it was a shit show and then also like, for me, at least when I kind of started to hit the wall a little bit, when that sleep deprivation started to catch up. We left Logan. Yeah, they just forgot me. We didn't forget you. We just didn't have you in the bus when we left.

Yeah. That's fine. I was like, we ate breakfast, and I was like, I got to go take a shake, guys. Who'd you tell that to? You? That's not true. I would not have forgotten you. We were rumored this the whole time.

It's called that five point contingency plan. I feel like you just, in a day, has walked off into the bathroom, said nothing to anybody and then we all just stumbled onto the bus and took off fucking drone in man speaking of Logan being there was a there was like a through line joke the entire time that was Jim yeah Jim Wigington the tandem passenger who was the guy that possessed the world record before right yeah right that guy was like a fucking ninja he disappeared all the time he's also hard his fucking nails yeah yeah he's like 70 years old or something yeah he's no he's older than that He's my dad's age.

Wow. And yeah, I don't want to give up his medical history on a podcast, but that dude is fucking tough. But it was funny as shit. And it actually kind of made everyone pay more attention, like, because we had to find... The running joke was where's Jim? Yeah. Because he was always gone. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. On the plane to Antarctica, Nick, the tandem master, who was responsible for his passenger, legitimately lost track of him. on the plane before we had taken off because he like boarded and went left and Nick came up and boarded and went right five minutes into the board and Nick's just like where the fuck is

Jim where's Jim? Like dude it's your TANN passenger that's funny so you a you guys you guys jumped where the you guys jumped in in where that big palm tree island thing is right no no we jumped at sky dive I know that

UAE right it's gotta where the fuck was it no it's skydive Dubai Skydive Dubai or Scott up Oh, no, it was Skydab Abu Dhabi. Yep. Because Skydive Dubai, which a lot of people is iconic with UAE. Yeah. They have the palm jump, but I think you now need like a D license.

2000? Seriously? Yeah. Why? Very tight landing area. Uh, yeah. Okay. And water.

Water is a risk. Oh, yeah. Yep. Because water's hard. Yes. So, yeah, Abu Dhabi, we were supposed to jump in a place called the Corniche, which I think that just means beach, doesn't it? I don't know.

It was a beach. we'd never really laid eyes on the on the drop zone and they're like oh you don't need to go see it it'll be fine we're like well we have time to go see it why don't we go see it and we went and saw it and google maps uh imagery of this drop zone does not portray something that we found when we got there which was a fucking building in the middle of it so it took the jump and that's a problem yeah a little bit of a problem it can be it doesn't have to be but it can be but it can be but it took the jump from being a little sporty because of the winds and you know there's ocean drop zone road skyscrapers right which that's okay but then we put this building there that basically cut the drops

the landing area into maybe a third maybe so it became pretty yeah right like we'll probably be okay but there were it wasn't like safety wasn't the biggest fact that but it was like safety wasn't the biggest fact that but It was like, if your parachute goes in the water, you're fucked. We can't make the next jump. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Just a lot of stuff that like, yeah, I'm willing to risk, you know, getting a little banged up here. But I'm not willing to risk the success of the overall mission. Right.

Yeah. So we just went and jumped in the middle of the fucking desert. It did an 8,000 foot hop and hop for lack of the better term, landed, which broke the sixth continent record. Mm-hmm. And then right back to an aircraft. for a relatively long flight. Can we watch Jericho's exit on that, please, before we move on? Okay.

Jericho's exit is... Let me find it. It's rather wonderful. I did it on purpose. He did it on purpose, but it's funny. I think somebody described it as in a movie, like, when a cartel throws, like, one of a dead body out of a plane is what it looks like. Oh, it was good.

I told everybody like, hey, do your best impersonation of Mike exiting an aircraft. Oh, Mike. know him but I fucking love the fact one he was an officer correct yeah yeah so that's fine you you get a pass because you're unless you guy for the majority of your career but majority

so for everybody else I said hey do your best impersonation a mic and a mic was like hey man just do you he's like fuck you okay here we go here we go I like this I like this already yeah I like this setup that's maple syrup yeah there's just head and change

it was pretty windy who's maple syrup Glenn Cowan. The Canadian, right? Yeah. Here comes, I think this is. The Tumblr.

Yeah, that was the tumbler. I didn't bother watching. Here's Jericho. I knew you'd like that. Yeah. Who's that, Logan? Yeah. Yeah.

That's pretty much every exit I do. So that's fine. Nice little gainer. I was trying to tell the cameraman, I'm like, go, your turn. Oh, okay, five, my turn. That's sweet. My turn.

On this. You did? Oh, yeah. Sometimes I do. Oh, lame. So you're done. You're in the plane. To Australia.

To Australia. To Perth, right? We flew out of Sydney to come back home. We flew Abu Dhabi to Dubai to Perth. Oh. That's right. We did pass back to Dubai. What was that?

Airport that we went to, that was awesome. Was it? Doha? Was it? It was. We passed through Doha both times. Doha. Doha.

Not. by. Doha is also the airport where I had to like kind of rain a few people in. People were getting very grumpy, mostly kind of the support guys. They were like, bitching out the fucking like, sir, can you please take your hat off? And they're like, fuck you. I'm taking my fucking hat off. I'm like, hey man. Yeah. I know you're cranky, but that guy can make you sit in a room in the fucking airport for the next fucking 12 hours. Shut the fuck up. Right. Um, that was an amazing airport though. Agreed. Like, it was like going to, the super mall or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. They had like a whole jungle inside. Oh, this is Perth. Yeah, this is Australia. This is really the only thing that matters from the Australia jump. Yeah. Yeah, because you guys, you guys went out and the winds were, what, 30?

The winds almost doubled from the time we took off. They were spicy for sure. That's the aircraft already back on the ground. 25 gusting to 35 as well. 25 to 35. Yeah. And then who all landed in the trees? Just one person.

Just one guy. Who was that? Mike. Oh, interesting. His canopy skills are. Glenn had a little bit of a low pole here. Whoa. Yeah.

Okay. There we go. What I love about this, there's only, like, two trees that are 20 feet or higher. Yeah, right? And, like, the acres surrounding this. Mike found the only ones. So Glenn got away with the turn that you would not be able to get away with, absent those.

That's so spicy. Wow. That turn was incredible. It worked, though, because of the wind in his face when he, He actually came out. Yeah, because it just stalled him, right? Hard stop right there? Yeah, he just stopped.

But that's fucking wild. If he hadn't have finished that turn, yeah, he would have been. It would have been rough. He would have still had the world record when he's in the hospital, though. That's fine. That's true.

I mean, technically he landed it. Yeah. As soon as we exited that aircraft, I was like, fuck yeah. Like, so stoked. So I was like, I can break both my legs and we still hit it.

Right. It's fine. Yeah. So at that point, you know, you're, you're forever going to be, well, not forever because somebody else can,

I mean, but technically forever. You will be a world record holder. It's just a matter of time now. That's true. Because somebody else can break it, but that doesn't mean that it takes it away. So.

That's right. It's forever ours. And then our celebration jump in Tampa. Yeah. So on the ground back here, so all you guys are like cruising around, you know, having a blast,

like I'm flying and, you know, private jets and stuff. I was, um, jet. Oh, sorry. So we were, we were kind of piecing all this stuff together,

you know, and so you're like getting information and it's being pushed back. It was, it looked really fucking cool. So the imagery and things like that that you guys were pushing back was like, man, this looks really cool. It looks like a lot of fun.

It looks like you guys are just out there like just full send, having a blast. Like it wasn't really that hard. It was just like a good fun jump time. And that's what it was, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if only we'd have been able to sell some T-shirts commemorating it.

I think, I mean, I have a hard time finding a negative out of this. So, like, to say it was anything but fun. It wasn't hard. It wasn't hard. And I think what I have come to the realization of is we got ridiculously lucky. We didn't lose any bags on all this civilian. That's crazy. That's crazy.

miss any flights other than the one that got canceled nothing got crazy delayed nobody got sick i don't remember any foodborne type illness stuff like the amount of luck involved doing it was pretty crazy no one turned an ankle on a jump wow yeah that's wild yeah that's that's fucking wild like talk about like good luck that i mean yeah luck is in your favor yeah we kind of had to acknowledge this at a couple moments in the middle of it glenn maple syrup was a big, like, he was very vocal on it, but it almost felt like, you know, you're getting a little bit of help from the boys, you know?

It's hard not to like acknowledge that somewhat as you're working through this. And you're like, how did it go better than we ever imagined with zero problems that ever happened? Yeah, and I think a lot of it, right, is, because other people will try, other people will go out and when they put things together, they'll think it looks easy.

So when you make really difficult things look easy, that means that you've just acquired the right people to participate in the event. Because, I mean, I truly believe this. Like, luck is the benefit where, you know, it's like we're skill and experience. You're capitalizing on that. So it's like you kind of make your own luck to a certain degree.

Yeah. Because a lot of people are like, oh, it's fucking lucky. I'm like, eh, it must be nice. Yeah, it's the, The coincidence of skill and experience where they collide is oftentimes it's mistaken as luck. Oh, that lucky son of a bitch. And you're like, eh, really? I mean, the fact that he was a fraction of a second ahead of that guy on the fucking draw,

might have been he did a lot more dry firing and shooting than he did, right? Yeah. You know, so yes, there's a certain element to it. It's luck, but more importantly, it's probably just the acquisition of the appropriate people to, organize and execute against a very complex task because that's really where professionals separate themselves from amateurs where you make something very difficult look easy and it feels easy like oh yeah it feels pretty easy yeah yeah there's a Greek term for it like we don't really have a word for what you're

describing in the English language but the Greeks called it Cairo's right which is like the perfect intersection of timing plus momentum and the balance of that it's like a wing It's like a winged guy balancing scales when he's walking on a tight rope. And that's what the Greeks used to describe what you're talking about. Did you just make that up? No. If you did, it was amazing. I know.

I was like, I want to get a carous tattoo. I have to check it. I have to check it now. Like, I'll have to check it. Yeah. And that was the triple seven. That was the triple seven. And then everything, obviously all the proceeds who are donated, folds of honor.

And then specifically folds of honor. And then specifically Folds of Honor does what? And I know, but I think the audience will benefit from maybe another. Go ahead, Lennon. Yeah, they basically, you know, they help and support Gold Star families through scholarships and funds.

And it's really cool. And I think this was a recent addition to their mission statement, but they opened it up to law enforcement and first responders as well. So anybody that loses someone in the line of duty domestically are also available to receive funds from Folds of Honor. And I really like it because you can,

can see this second third order effects happening through this organization as far as, you know, you're helping these kids who lost something incredible that they'll never be able to have again that should for, you know, completely change their lives for the negative. And then all of a sudden they're not only getting these funds, but they're getting a support network as well, right, to where they can interact with these other Gold Star families if they wish and through the folds of honor organization and fundraisers, they're able to like tap into something that's much larger than what they previous were able to. And you start to see the long-term effects of that.

And it's like, this is really incredible. And I don't think that, like, if we had just done this without an incredible organization attached to it, it wouldn't have meant anything. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have meant anything if it wasn't, if there was an altruistic specific mission associated with it, it would have just been an exercise and ego and ultimately something that you guys would have accomplished, which is great. Don't get me wrong. I think there's

part of this, which is the direct benefit is inspiration. So leadership and inspiration. So I think what I've talked to a lot of people about it, folds of honor is part of the conversation. But we were a shot show, right? So you guys were out still doing this. You just also as inspirational. Yeah, very, very inspirational. But people are coming up to me like, hey man, that's freaking awesome. I can't, you know, I can't thank you guys enough. I'm like, Why are you thinking me? Let's, because a lot of people thought that I was on this jump. Well, you were just reposting.

For clarity. For clarity purposes, I would have loved to have gone, but I just couldn't take that much time away from the office, my desk. And I would have loved to have gone. Like, because for two jumps, I would have really liked those two. Everything else would have been like, yeah, whatever. It's a jump. Yeah. But I think a lot of people, they need to hear that.

It's like, hey, man, you guys went out and did this really complex task together. You accomplished it. And ultimately, I think that does inspire a lot of people to go out and do something completely, what most people look at is maybe unachievable. And then for you guys to inspire other people, you know, just, we're all out of bed and, you know, go to a fucking ice bath or a health pod. That's more of a troll in a sense. But it is, it's true, man.

People really do. Like I was talking to my buddy John Knight from Magpull. was a former SF guy, and he's like, that's fucking awesome. He loved it. He was like, this is fucking so cool, like seeing you guys out there doing it. I mean, your brother even was very complimentary, I think,

which is like, I think that's completely, it's a warning sign. Yeah. Whenever my brother succeeds, I get pissed. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah, as you should. What surprised me the most,

I've talked about this before was how emotionally challenging it was for me, listening to, like, Logan speech you gave about Abate. fucking powerful Jericho speech like it's just like god damn it like good thing for mirrored sunglasses

yeah man that's something we didn't really like going back to the Santiago jump every jump we jumped in honor of a buddy of one of the members of the team so in Santiago we jumped from my buddy Dave McDowell and like I was not expecting it like Dave's been gone a long time I'm at terms with it right it's

fine but I made a little speech and that climbed to altitude I was like we hit the ground I told Logan I was like fuck man I'm like fucking emotional I was like it was choking me up

it's choking me up right now thinking about like that feeling and I was like what the fuck is happening this is stupid they're called emotions Jericho but whatever it was like the the gravity of the event the thing we were pushing

towards helping all of that came together on that jump and I was like holy fuck yeah this is important And that's when I kind of, because I'll admit, too, I didn't think we were going to pull it off. And I was, as far as the seven days. The seven days. Jerko and I were in. I thought it was.

You were a secret skeptic as well. I thought it would take about 10 days. But I was, Logan and Andy were tentmates in Antarctica. And then we just kind of kept that roommate thing going for the whole trip. Who is your roommate? Glenn Cowan, maple syrup, the Canadian. They had me keep an eye on him. But I was like, man, I don't think, I don't think this.

He's like, really? Like he was so surprised that I was skeptical about the timeline. I was like, yeah, man, like zero. This is going to take zero points of it. Like zero failure. Like one, not one thing can go wrong. And he's like, I disagree, bud. They're up there helping us.

Those guys are helping. I believe in karma. Those guys are up. They're going to help us out. I was like, all right. Fucking weirdo. He was right. I tell you what, nothing really did go wrong.

Like the record, of course, could be broken. And I think you could shave time off if you spend an inordinate amount of money on a private aircraft the entire time. But good luck. Yeah. Because you just need a weather day and you're fucked. Right. I mean, good luck. And also, you have to go to drop zones that are like in fully support of you.

Yeah. Yeah. Barcelona could have been like, sorry, guys. Yeah. Fuck off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We get a few loads we need to put up before you guys. So just hang out here for a few hours. Right. So Abu Dhabi could have done the same for the wins. and then Australia could have done the same for the winds. So like all those spots. So like I don't think that, well, I don't know. If it's some guy with money is no object guy that's like, really, there's a weather day?

What if I slide this across the desk? Right. So. Yeah. But it would, it, it'll be years and years and years before someone breaks us. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

And now we have to focus on our health and recovery. Yeah. Yeah. The health and recovery plots. Yeah. The health and recovery. Wellness quadrants. Yeah, wellness quadrants.

For me, something that was really cool as well was that touched back into the military that I haven't experienced in a long time. Like it happens at Black Rifle, right? Like we fill in each other's gaps really well, figure out how to work in team capacities, you know. Why is that funny? Where's why is that funny? We're a cohesive unit. Yeah.

But typically, you know, and when you're doing business stuff, like there's no physical element to it at all, right? Like there's not a performance criteria when it comes to physically doing something outside of showing up for work and being there. And so all these things that touched in, whether that's like, you know, you're doing a jump, a static line jump. And, you know, everybody's got to be left, see, right seat to make sure that that's accomplished. And like, we all had to individually make sure that we were squared away. way, but also you could, you started to see this team of guys that never knew each other before are from all different age demographics, from different branches, from different countries, and how we like figure it out a way to work really cohesively as a team.

That was really rewarding to be a part of again. Like we, we split up into essentially like what we, chalk one, chalk two. Chuck two. Jericho and I were chalk two with Mike Barker. And we, it kind of. Boots. Boots. And this kind of just happened naturally because, you know, it, in Arctica, just flowed really well.

So we're like, hey, let's just stick with this. Let's not overcomplicate it. So you get these like really tight bonds, Jericho, Mike and myself jumping that are only able to be accomplished when you're doing something like this, you know. And I think that where I'm getting with this is I think it's worthwhile for vets to pursue something like this that's got a fit. Physical performance where it's like getting the buddies together and going out for a hunt or you know name X activity that you can do for me. I got that that was a really cool thing that I got out of that trip I also haven't laughed that much in a long time. It got fucking vicious at points. Yeah. Yeah You mean you mean our subculture can be savage at times?

Interesting like is that a chink in the armor? Did you just respond negatively to my sarcastic call? comment, stand the fuck by. Fire for effect. Being like, you're about to make him break. Keep going. It's like just picking and picking and picking. Oh, God.

Which is interesting, right? It's like the subculture and the way that we behave around one another. But it honestly makes me so happy. Makes me so happy. It's completely unacceptable in society and we all miss it more than anything else. Oh, my God. We're so inappropriate. which flows into like a meaningless conversation for me right now because like I'm getting beat up a little bit by like social for comments that jokes that I had made like six years ago.

The commercial that you told me yesterday still haven't left my brain. I think about it about every 15. A commercial that you made? Well, I like to carry concepts to the point of absurdity and also to the point of which it is not acceptable for public. consumption. I've said this a lot. Like I'm not I'm not okay for public consumption most of the time, but inside like the corridors of our friendship, yeah, we, we get, we can open things up a little bit. We can, you know, feel a little bit of free reign. And, you know, when we were first starting the company, it was a team room environment, right? So like some of those jokes, which were happening

every day all day long was very much a team room. And so when you're saying things like, hey we need to butt fuck this like that's typically what we what you would say and like at least you weren't saying like I'm going to go shoot that dude in the face or we should go put those fucking people in body bags or whatever it is right but there's lots of different things that you're you're talking about throughout the day that to a general civilian they might not necessarily understand it but you know Logan and I have been together for a long time so he understands kind of the the lingo right and sometimes civilians can take offense and that's fine like hey you know what being politically correct is not something that you can do 24 hours a day seven days a

week and when you're fucking joking around with people and they they don't have fucking like skin like a rhino that's the that's the that's the environment we grew up in like we just fucking trash can people on a regular basis for any and all things any any any sign of weakness like it was a dog pile and you like we've all been in that team room and it took a while it took several years for me to be able to adjust to understanding kind of how and when you can appropriately populate those forms of communication there's a learning experience no we'll say that I I think like edit room having thought through that like the The environments we were in in back then.

Yeah. And how we were talked to. Mm-hmm. Versus the environments that people, they think they want to be in it, in an environment where they never get offended. They never get told they're a piece of shit. I love. Boring. Well, super boring.

Super lame. If I went into a work environment every day where I was just being told basically nothing other than you're doing great, cool. Yeah. I'd be terrified to be like, what the fuck is going on here? I like to be told, oh, you're a piece of shit so that I know what I need to work on. So then I can constantly be value added to that team rather than these people that want to just show up and never hear anything that, that like offends them or like puts them on their heels. Like to me, that feels unsafe. I had to get naked in the barracks with a trash can lid as the senior NCOs through beer bottles at me.

down the hall while yelling really gratuitous openly fucking homoerotic things like the group of us right and i considered myself lucky because they weren't putting me in a sleeping bag and hanging me outside the third floor uh putting you in a wall locker and filling it up with water correct like i'm i'm getting off i'm getting off fucking easy taping you between two duct taping you between two mattresses and throwing you off the second floor. Yeah, like 12 feet. At least it wasn't the third. You know, hey,

duct taping your feet together and trying to hoist you up the flagpole. Like, hey, you felt like good. I'm getting off easy. I feel good about this. Like, my previous generation, I remember talking to guys from Vietnam.

And like, there's a group of MacVee guys I was having lunch with. And they used to buoy trap their bunks with real grenades. With real grenades. Like, that's fucked up. It's weird.

It's very fucked up because it's like if you fucking get cut slipping and it's like oh there's a grenade and you've got to jump out of there it's like ah man it was underneath the bunk

and we lined it with fucking black jackets it wasn't big deal you know like that's what the fuck is going on man bad story like and you're like oh yeah we consider ourselves

lucky you know good good good job but we'd have it no other way like but what are they what are they pulling out of the the uh the yonder

years in coming after you for what'd you say this time oh i i didn't say anything it's just like the this claim uh there's a claim filed like years ago and uh the guy's attorney put in a bunch of shit that was just like made up there's just like fictional horseshit to get us to respond because we weren't responding to it so just a claim right and we ended up making amends he only wanted was severance and i was like yeah he was going through a hard time you remember like and i was like yeah give him severance let's to fucking move on with our lives so it wasn't It was like literally nothing. But of course, the internet likes to like dredge things up

and try to make a big deal out of them. And it was like, hey, and it was like one of the comments was like, we should go butt fuck or something. And it was like, I'm sure as we were like sitting in a fucking the team room with a group of us, there were probably 150,000 jokes that were put around within the first three years around things like this. Right.

But there was like taking narrative and kind of taking license where like everybody laughs, but not this time. Like you can say this one wasn't acceptable. Well, the other one was like, like, you know, being at least a descendant of Jewish descendant. I used to say things about like the LDS church because the LDS church reminds me sometimes of like Judaism.

They're like, hey guys, look, you know, my mountain Jew homies, you know, like fucking putting my fucking fist bump together. And that somehow has been turned into. to something that I was saying derogatory, which I wasn't. It was like, that was more of like a, a moment of kinship, if you will. It wasn't like derogatory.

But of course, these things can all be twisted now, right? It's like any and everything that you've ever said can be either twisted or conform to mean something negative. When in all reality, you're just like fucking around. And it's a, we don't speak to people in that way. that we don't like. Yeah. We don't even talk to them.

Yeah. They don't even talk to them. To be spoken to you that way is a sign of endearment. Not a sign of like, we don't like you. My favorite is still that you're the Manchurian Canada. Right. Yeah, I know. Or the, or, you know, what is it?

Like, um, the act blue stuff, you know, where it's like, yeah, I donated Tulsi's campaign. Yeah, she's a fucking great human. And now she's on, you know, co-host for Tucker Carlson's show. So that. If you had to wager, what's she going to do politically? I mean, I hope she runs. Which party would she run with? Are she going to try to go in the middle or she pick one?

I think in this country, and I've honestly gotten kind of like sick of politics just in general because I think it's just fucking insidious and weird. But I think if you're a third party, I think you're screwed. And I think you have to pick a left or a right. And I think she'd obviously have to pick a right. and go for it. I still think, like, the third-party apparatus, like, you know, Ross Perrault proved it,

you know, in the Ross-Perrault Clinton-Bush election, if you split the boat, if you split the vote on the conservatives, it's going to go to the other side, right? And so if you do that, you know that you're automatically splitting the boat on one side or the other, and you have a greater chance of moving it to the other side.

So, you know, third parties are, It's tough. You kind of have to have the buy-in by one or the other. That's the unfortunate thing. I don't think she's going to go for a couple terms either. I think she'll see how this one plays out, get some good experience under the belt, pay attention for a long time.

It'll be interesting. I mean, what do we got another year before election season gets off? This one's going to be wild, man. Yeah. Some wild shit's going to go down. Yeah. It's wild.

It's all wild. And honestly, it's like it's so fucking toxic. You know what I'm saying? Kind of like disconnected from the whole thing. It'll probably be at war with Russian and China. of by then too so that's fun yeah that's I mean it's just kind of like a distraction to what actually we should probably be concentrating our efforts on like it's just kind of wild that we focus so much

on stupid bullshit no we I don't think anybody at this table does but Americans are like so easily distracted by just nonsense yeah like politics have become reality TV combined with like professional sports Like everyone has their team. They love to go to work and talk about how their team's doing. Yeah. Instead of like talking about issues. Like I think I hate politics too. I think we shouldn't vote for people anymore.

We should just vote on issues. But that doesn't work with our system. What do you guys have next for Black Rifle? Like what's the next big thing? Well, we just opened your shop. Yeah. Which I think was a huge success. I think.

Thank you guys for coming up, by the way. It was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Like fucking shop looks amazing. Like if you get a chance to stop in and check it out, obviously, you know, Andy's here, but the place is beautiful. And I think in the summertime, it's summertime is going to be pretty fucking wild. It's going to be so fun. It's going to be amazing. Well, I want to do a bunch of test bed shit. Like I was telling you before, I want to be like the skunk laboratory. We're like, hey, well, what if we try this special? Does this work? What if we try it like that? Like, we can fuck around with all that stuff. Definitely want to do a jump on of the real. for your shop. It's fair?

We can do that. Yeah. Like I think. That's what we should. Okay. When are all four of us going to go jump? Yeah, we need to go to like San Diego. That's the move.

We hit a brand. San Diego is the move. Yeah. We spend a weekend probably crank out eight to ten jumps. Yeah. Not too many. Not too few. Like four a day.

I like four a day. Yeah. Four days is a good number. Four days is great. Four days chill. It's really nice. Have you decided if I can pop out on one? Not a big deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I feel pretty good about it. San Diego, that's the move. Because it's super fun. We just have to find time mostly on your calendar. Yeah, I don't know. We'll figure it out.

Do you think we should do a shop in San Diego? I kind of feel like it needs one. I was thinking Berkeley would be a great thing. Berkeley. I would just get a lot of window insurance. Yeah, because they'd be like breaking the windows out of it every day. That does bring up something that, like, we got to travel. around the world and meet a lot of people.

And we were all obviously wearing black rifle coffee stuff. The amount of people that said, oh man, I love black rifle. Yeah, it was awesome. That made my head turn like a fucking confused puppy. That happened like every, like there was a... Every continent. There was a woman in Antarctica that was there doing this crazy expedition. She went to Berkeley and lives like Berkeley adjacent.

And it was like, oh, yeah, I love you guys. Yeah. What? Well, there were people in the coffee shop yesterday that were like, oh yeah, we're from the Bay Area. Yeah. There was people from the East Coast. People drove up from California,

the Seattle area. Greg Anderson came out just for the opening. Yeah. He's a great dude. Don't believe the hype. About what? Greg Anderson? That people hate us.

Oh. Some people do hate us. Yeah, that's fair. I just don't care. No, I don't think we can care. I think at the end of the day, it's like we just keep doing what we do. It's like the people come,

Do you know that it says black rifle coffee on the door? And it's like, yes, I'm actually aware of that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Dumbass. Maybe they just learned to read and they're being, they're bragging. I can hear you mouth breathing from three blocks away.

I can feel your fucking, I can feel and hear your mouth breathing and you logging into Twitter right now. Okay. Are you guys driving today? Yeah, we're out of here. Let's get you on the road then. Thanks, guys. All right. Closing thoughts.

Hold on by. Evan Hafer founder, CEO, visionary male model. Oh man, I think the closing thoughts to this is go to Calisbell, get a cup of coffee, experience Montana, I think,

the way that you should, which is an incredible place. Maybe coincide it with a glacier, you know, Glacier National Park, hang out with Andy, make some coffee, get a pour over.

This place is very sentimental to me because this is where I'm, Matt, Evan. That's right. And Matt and Jared. Eight, nine years ago, whatever it was now. And then Evan got thrown into white fish lake.

Yeah. And I miss those days. I miss those days when he would let us throw him into a lake for a video. Just do it non-concentually. Sprain me in the face with bear spray, get thrown into a lake. The good times. Yeah. Yeah.

The good old days. Fucking waterboard me. Throw me in a lake. Sprang me the face with bear spray, you know. All right, boys. Yeah.