Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Soren's Got a Mining Claim? | Ep. 337

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Daniel's brushing up on his Italian and looking for shortcuts, so he and Soren nail down exactly which phrases he's most likely to need on vacation in Italy with a newborn. And speaking of newborns, newborn prospector Soren Bowie shares an incredible story of love, family, and brotherhood involving his late father, who, it turns out, has left his sons a piece of mystery land deep in the Colorado wilderness.Thanks to Keeper for sponsoring this episode.Right now, Keeper is offering our listeners 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/QQ. This offer is only for podcast listeners!  That’s Keepersecurity.com/QQ for 60% off personal and family plans. Make sure you use our link so they know we sent you. Keepersecurity.com/QQThanks to ASPCA for sponsoring this episode.To explore coverage, visit ASPCApetinsurance.com/QUESTION.  The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

Good morning, I'm Danieli And I'm sorry I'm not I'm not Italian I'm very English, for Thank you, for favor. Ah, well, thank you.

Thank you. going to Italy soon, Soren. I think people will be listening to this. You'll already be there. I'll already be there. Perfect. I fucking forgot that you and your dog speak Italian. A little bit of Italian.

It's been pushed so much out of my brain first by time and then by the over 1,400 straight days that I've been doing Spanish on Duolingo. And this is not to say that the Italian has been pushed out by Spanish. They're both kind of pushing each other out. There's no room for either of them. But there's a couple of things, so I'm going to be there for a little over a week, and I try to really brush up in earnest, and then that wasn't taking. So I'm trying to anticipate what phrases I should have.

And my list so far is, my name is Daniel, very sorry I don't speak great Italian. Do you speak English? Yeah, it's wonderful. Thank you very much. much, and my baby is three months old. Do you think there are any phrases that I should completely commit to memory between now and then? Yeah. That's the, like, I don't speak English, I don't speak Italian, please help me.

That seems like I'm going to just drop that over and over again. And the three-month thing seems like we will get stopped by people in the streets who will ask us how old your baby is, because that's what happens in America. And I assume it happens elsewhere, too. I think you're going to, you maybe want to learn, is there a place to change my baby? Yes. Is there a place to change my baby?

That's, rather than just, is there a bathroom? Because, boy, we run into that situation before where I'm just on the, down there on the tiles of a filthy floor. So is there a place to change my baby? It's like a really helpful one to know in an emergency. And I'll have to make sure that change because like Gambiar in Spanish is often sometimes like make change

and there's like different versions of change so I have to make sure that they know I'm not trying to say like I don't want to exchange this for a different Yeah I want this baby to be less wet I'm also not looking to this to metamorphosize

into something else Yeah I don't I haven't been like tricked into believing that Italy is a fairy tale country. Change this one. Can you change this? Change this one.

Come on. Where do I go to make this different? Change it. I know you do it. Where's the witch? Point me. Point me in the direction. Tove la Bafana.

Is that it? Is that it? That's another one. People are going to wonder, as I give my list of phrases that I've learned, why I've also stealthily committed the phrase, where is the Christmas witch? That's just, that's an accident. It's just a thing I knew previously.

That's not part of this current experiment. That's a fun one to know. In the same way, I have like these little bits of language from other countries that I thought I would need at some point. Or that just seemed silly to me to learn. So for a lot of times, it was useful. Like when I was traveling to France, I was furious on the, I was just on the channel, like, figuring out how to say, escutcheo-a-vois, and then, like, pointing to what I want. Like, can I please have and then what I needed? And then other things, like I read Shogun, and so you pick up some phonetic Japanese in Shogun, and I'm just like waiting on an opportunity to say, what is going on here?

Or can you give me a minute? Or that's just fate. Shigata Kanai. That's the way it goes. It can't be helped. So it's really fun now when I run into somebody who is Japanese because I'm also at an age where this is what's expected of a middle-aged man to interject himself in other people's lives because he has some information to give. I'm like a less fun equalizer. I'm like a guy who's still want to inject myself in other people's lives, but I want to do it in a way that's not so violent.

Equalizer who seems very fun. That's for sure. And so I can say, I know how to say, wait just a minute. And I have, we have a Japanese school here in Culver City. So a lot of the kids on the baseball teams are Japanese. And so some of them don't have very strong English. But when I get to a moment where I can say just a minute in Japanese and like get to see their face, I get real excited about that. And then I also get to say, do you understand me?

which also feels so good to say. I don't understand what they say back to me. No, of course not. I was in a movie theater a couple years ago. Like my classic Tuesday in the middle of the day showing of something, and there's never anyone at those screenings. And I remember someone at the ticket ripper in front of me was using sign language. And had one of those.

that's your dream. Like you mount a screen kind of thing to read the words along with the movie. And I recognize what that device was and I recognized a little bit of sign language that the person was talking to the ticket person and the ticket person

19 year old was just like I don't know what's happening. I don't know what this is. I don't know what you can't, you're pointing at this device and I don't know what you want me to do with this. I cannot help you. And I was so,

So I was very moved because I thought like this is, because the person who was using sign language seemed, seemed very stressed. And I thought this is, this must be, this must be very lonely and this must be very hard. And you just want to see this movie. And it's, and I can't imagine how difficult it is to not be able to communicate. It just, it just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it breaks my heart every time I think about it just as, as a broad concept. And I really started marching up with, with sign language knowledge and then had to stop myself. because it's just like,

like I know how to say you see Turtle and naked and divorce and Christ on a bicycle and like a bunch of stuff that looks like well surely he's got if he's got naked elf he's got I can help you or this person speaks sign language

no I don't I picked up whale and I picked up a couple of other completely useless things spider spider spider's like I didn't get spider swords. That's bird. Spiders like that, I think. Sure.

Yeah. I'm with you where there are circumstances and I have to pause and ask myself, can I really help in this situation? Yeah. Or do I just want to demonstrate that I also know the thing? Yes. That's most of my life. Okay. Well, Daniel, let's get into the show.

Yeah. Quick question. I have a quick question for you. Okay. Pregunta rapida. Have you ever had a situation where, like in those mobile game ads, where you inherit a property out of nowhere and you didn't even know that the family had it and then you get to go see it?

You know those situations? I don't know the mobile ads. I mean, I should say no. Across the board. I'm not invested in this podcast. I don't. know the mobile ads you're talking about. I've never inherited anything.

Let me back up. I'm only using the mobile ads as a touchstone because it feels the most ripe in my brain. But there's the mobile ads for some game garden escapes or something like that, garden escapes. There's a very convoluted whole preamble to the game where this young woman inherits a property from her mother and then is arrested immediately. It's not really clear like what's happening or if she killed. the mother or what happened. Anyway, all the mobile ads I get, I have to dig a hole to save something like

freakishly busty queen. Oh, yeah, I know that one too, yeah. And I can't do it. It looks really easy, but I can't do it. It scares the shit out of me. I've seen the ads for that one too, where there's a queen or a king that's about to drown and if I don't save it. And I'm trying to dig a hole strategically. Not the game

for me. It's way too stressful. Anyway, that circumstance arose for me, your friend, Soren. Soren? Oh, I have so many accounts. I have the things that I use to stream the things that I watch.

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And because I don't want anyone to find my notes app and hack my passwords, I don't even write the actual passwords in the note app. I write a version of them that is like a code that my brain understands, that no one else will understand. It is a lot. And I'm getting older. Eventually, even I won't be able to understand the things that only I can understand. Logging in shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be a hassle. Keeper creates strong and

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So my dad died a couple years ago. And when I was visiting him before he died, his good buddy was there with him in his room. And they were talking. And his buddy said, oh, what are you going to do with the property? With Hawks property. And my dad was like, I don't know. He's like, well, you should give it to the boys, which means me and my brother.

And I was like, what are we talking about? When my dad was young, he graduated from college, came out to, Colorado and he and his buddies were trying to climb all the 14ers and then they just stayed in Colorado. Never finished the task, but stayed in Colorado. When they did that, he and his friends were like, how are we going to get property cheap? They were like, we were going to go. They decided if they bought property site unseen at auction, they could get some land. And that's all they needed.

And so he and his buddies all kept talking about it. And then their one friend, Hawk, did do it. He went, I don't know how much he bought property for it. It couldn't have been more than like $400. But he bought a big piece of land at auction. And then they all went and saw it. And then tragically, my dad and Hawk run a climbing trip. And Hawk died on that trip.

And I think that that like informed kind of who my dad was in general after that. But my dad, that property went on to Hawk's family. When Hawk's family all passed away, they passed it on to my dad because they were like, I know this was important to all of you. My dad and his other friends went and built a shrine up there to their friend. And then every subsequent trip where they tried to go up there, they could not find it. They couldn't figure out where it was. And here's why.

This property exists above timber line. It's out in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. It is no water, no power. There's no structures around it or anything like that. It is, it's a mining claim, basically. Yeah. And I guess technically we have the mineral rights to it. it as well. We wanted to dig around for some gold or silver.

Sure. But it is just this chunk, this big square of land up there that apparently is somewhat elusive in that my dad and his friends couldn't find it after a little while. So in inheriting this from my dad, we also got, I'm like going through all of his old stuff, I found maps and things like that. It's old USGS maps where like that was they routed their trip. And I was like, oh, okay. That's cool. That's interesting. So I kind of know where this, I have like a vague idea of where this place is. And just recently the property tax, there's property taxes on it because it's property. And it was really cheap because this is not developable land, I don't think. I guess maybe you could build like a cabin out there all alone if you wanted to. But it's not developable land.

Then all of a sudden the property, the property taxes jumped like 600%. To the point. To the point. where it's no longer just like a fun thing to own. We're just now like, well, what the fuck is this thing? So, I'm in the middle of planning a trip with my brother and his son and my son, where we're going to go to Colorado and we're going to go try and find this place. That is very exciting. And go see what it is. It sounds like a movie.

It sounds dangerous. Yeah. It sounds really funny. fun. Yeah. What? How? How are you going to find a good?

Yeah. Great question. Great question. When I, so I went to the assessors for that particular county, I called the assessor. And I was like, hey, can you just give me the geo coordinates to this? They were like, no, we don't do that. I was like, well, how would I, if I found this, how would I even know where it ended at the property ended and stuff? They're like, we got to get a survey done. And I was like, oh, will a surveyor even go up there?

And they were like, no. I was like, okay. So I have it. Obviously, there's no record that a survey had been done under Hawks. I think they're, I think in, when they auction the property off, they had to do a survey. But that was in 1972 or whatever. Okay. Yeah.

We're all busy being sad about Serpico. Right. And the 70s, four square yards. I mean, that's like 20 square yards today with inflation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I think that this is, it's, I think it's probably. like an acre or something like that. It's up in the middle of nowhere. But I'm just looking at maps and stuff and I'm trying to figure out that I have the square plotted on a map. I know where it is more or less based on a topography map.

But you know, the difference between actually being there and seeing it on a topography map is very different. You can't orientate yourself on a much up there, especially since it's above timber line. The contours of like where I am and everything, there's no creeks around it. You can't get a good lay of land easily.

I don't even know. There's, there is what is considered, I guess, an access road very close to it. But for all I know, this thing is unpassable. So, we will. I'm getting some sort of, I know I say things like this a lot, but I'm getting some real city slickers to Legend of Curley's gold five years. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I'm realizing how far a field I've come from my upbringing when I'm thinking about doing this. I'm talking to like the National Park and are the Forest Service. And I'm like, Hey, so can I, is it cool if I camp on my own property? They're like, yeah, it's your property. And I'm like, okay, okay, cool. And what would the rule be in your home, Soren? Can I, can I do a, there's, I see there's a stream. It's about a quarter mile away. Can I use that for water? And they're like, I wouldn't just drink out of the stream. I'm like, no, no, no, I know. But can I, am I allowed to take some of water and treat it. And they're like, yeah, man, that's, it's all fine. Are you sure you want to do this? But I'm thinking what we have to do is get a like a high clearance vehicle. My, my, the

biggest fear I have is that we're just going to get stuck up there. But it's either going to be a thing where we get up there, we get to the airport and then we get up there in an hour and a half. Or this is a three day walk hike in. And I don't know which it is yet. I'm, I can't, just from satellite. imagery and stuff. There's no way to tell. There's no way to tell if this is an actual passable road or not. That's so bizarre. It's so, and I feel like, didn't your dad fly helicopters? No. Oh, he didn't. He did. He was a mountain rescue. Yeah, he was in Mount Rescue. So he was riding in those, but he was not the pilot of those. He couldn't just get one for a day to like buzz up and be like, okay, there's the, there's the shrine. I got it. Yeah. No, I don't

think he can do that. He, the shrine that they made is very cool. It was like, They had this whole plaque for him, and it was like, Hawk was a guy who loved neat things, and he liked to do neat things. It's very, I love the way it's written. It's very funny. And then they said they could never find it again. I don't know if somebody pulled it apart or if they just could struggle to find the area. Who would do such a thing? No one pulled it apart.

Come on. I don't know. I don't know. So you don't know if it'll be an hour and a half or a three-day hike. Do you have any sense that you will have clarity on that before you go? Okay. You are enough things are moving that you will not be completely blind. Yeah.

So right now what I'm finding are closest towns. And what I know these are definitely towns that we can drive to. Planning on getting maybe a campsite near the town that would be like an actual structured campsite. Right. and then kind of assessing the road situation beyond that town and understanding, okay, well, from the town, it's only going to be three miles. So we can do that. Of course. Or it's going to be four miles or whatever it is.

And just deciding which town to go from and then just pouring through off-road blogs or off-road communities where they're talking about areas that are either there or nearby and what they're doing to the road blogs or off-road communities where they're talking about areas that are either there or nearby and what they're doing to the, their tires and everything. Like what sort of lift they needed on their vehicles. They're constantly talking about deflating their tires. Like, you've got to do that. Fucking course. You've got to deflate your tires. So your tires are softer, I guess.

Sure. Stuff I just don't understand. I don't want to understand. I mean, even when you're talking about the mileage, it's very funny to me. My brother and I go backpacking. We used to do it with a bit more frequency. Now we will let a couple of years go by when we're planning those trips. and enough time goes, when you're in the hike, you are so aware of everything.

You know how to read maps and you know what you're doing, you know, what is a safe distance for you. When you let some years go by and you're planning a trip, just looking at it, you're like, how many, what is, what is a lot of miles? I do not. I know what, like, what driving or running a lot of miles is, but what can I do up? Right. And also the little like twist and turns of a switchback trail. Yeah. You're like, well, I'm just going to do that as the crow flies. Let's see. That's only about a mile. But in truth, when you're doing it, it's more like three. And then, and you can kind of guarantee that in a, when you're hiking, as long as it's not really steep elevation, you could do about a mile an hour. You can kind of guarantee you could do that. And every once in a while you get into a situation where you fucked up, where that's not the case at all, where you, you're, you're, you, you're, you, you're, you, you're, you, you, you, you're. looking at the topography map and you're like, well, that doesn't look that steep. The lines aren't that close together, but then you get there and it's just a sheer face. And you're like, oh, okay, okay.

Our last hike I might have thought like, let's, we'll do, 30 miles is the loop. And if we need to take three days, we could take three days. But maybe we'll be able to get like 17 miles the first day and then have a lighter day the second. day. And then we won't need the whole three days. And then as we're doing the first day, it was like, maybe we call a helicopter and free us from this. Yeah. We either call a helicopter or we call home and tell them we're going to be out here a week because there's just no way. Hey, everybody, or should I just say pet owners, everybody else that you can sit this one out. Pet owners, have you ever had an experience where you think, oh, my pet is so much like me? He thinks he's a human. he's so great my cat or my dog is just like me

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when weird stuff just starts coming out of their body It's terrifying. You don't know what it is. A viscous clear fluid sometimes. Every time they sit down. What is that? How do they make in puddles everywhere? And how?

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And I used to do, I used to lead trips. When I was younger, it was trips in the backcountry too. So it's not on a trail. You're just scouting a route on a topography map and being like, oh, okay. this is the way, this is the best solution. And then when you're on it, you're finding it on topography map.

And that skill has just atrophied in me. There's no way. I'm going to plot out a route on this topography map that I have from the USGS map service in the 1970s and be like, this is the creek I want to follow until we get to this ridge and then I want to go through this saddle. There's just no fucking way. Especially with my children. Yeah. With my son there too.

So this will be his first backcountry trip. I think it's going to be my brother's son's first backcountry trip as well, which is exciting for them. Mostly we're going to try and solve this mystery. I'm not sure we'll ever get resolution to it. But even when I look at the satellite imagery, I can see the satellite imagery is from years ago. So I don't know why this property value would have jumped. We might get up there and maybe there's another mine somewhere nearby and we're like, oh, they're finding something up here. You could find something that would explain the, the, the, the,

increase and it's and it's not just that's what mainly we're going up there for if there's structures up there now or there's the sense that we see telephone poles or something there's electricity there i think any of these things would start to help me understand why it would be that much more now i'll tell you my the fantasy part of me yeah thinks that we would get up there there it is nothing else up there but it is a beautiful little area it is near creek and that Busty Queen from the cartoon. She's free And she's just waiting for you. She's waiting because I saved her. Yeah. Because I saved her.

And there's, but there's like, my kids don't, there's, there's room for us to be alone. The kids don't have to watch. Yes. Yes. Yes. We, another hole. We dig another hole. That's right. For the kids. For the kids in the hole. My dream is that what if, uh, there is an access road. It's an easily, that road is drivable. What's stopping me from fucking putting together a Colorado cabin up there? Wow.

That I just go visit every summer. This is not a money-making thing. The dream is not to make a lot of money. The dream is just like to be a guy who owns land in Colorado and has a little cabin. What if I lived in there? What if when my children get older and they don't need me anymore and I might as well be dead if I just move here. Jesus, H. Christ. Soren, it's almost Father's Day. It's almost my first Father's Day. We're like a week and a half away from it. Good Lord.

What if I built a cabin? I don't know how to build a cabin. First, let me say, let me preface this. You can figure out. You can find out how to build a cabin. Yeah, I got YouTube. Yeah. If I had just, there's a hut system all around Colorado that these 10th Mountain Division guys did that are, I've stayed in these huts.

growing up and they don't have water to them, they don't have power to them. Some of them have power. But the system, it seems like if they could build something like that, I could get that done. I wouldn't do it alone, obviously. But I could have my own a frame up there that I just go visit. You can do anything that another person has done. That is my full belief in you. Booy exceptionalism.

I, what do you think? Do you think that I could do this? You think I could make a cabin out in the middle of nowhere that is only accessible by hiking into it? What a dream that would be. That would be so cool. I wonder, I think you could do it. I wonder how, would you be stressed thinking about it

when you're living your life in the real world where your kids still need you? Would you be monitoring weather in Colorado and worrying what the storm is doing to, you know, you wouldn't store valuables in there. Some treasure, of course. Yeah, I got a certain treasure. But you'd be storing like. My stones, obviously my stones. You know, you'd have furniture in there.

You'd have some stuff that needs to stay there static. Would you be worried about it getting destroyed by the elements? Well, yeah, I guess I would. I think I would be worried about it. It depends on how much I would sink into it. That would scare me. And now that I'm thinking about it, most of the cabins in the hut system are all below timber line.

Probably for that reason. Yeah. Like, I worry about my basement whenever I can't see it, which is most of the time. Yeah. I feel like I'd want to set up a ring camera on my Colorado cabin and just stare at it always. Yeah, it would be a new way.

a new thing for me to worry about constantly. You're absolutely right. I'm not actually too worried about critters and stuff. Ordinarily I would be because an area that's unoccupied for most of the year would get a lot of, if not mice, then like PICA or something else that lives up there. Sure, PICA. And then on top, I think it would be more worried about people breaking into it. Ah. The noble PICA chew.

It's cute. Look, is it adorable? It's a relative of the. rabbit. Get out of town. Very soft fur. They're so adorable. They live at high elevations,

and they make the most, very territorial, so they scream at you, but their scream is just adorable. Hamsters. Yeah. Oh, someone has already done Pika, Pikachu.

Yeah. Fuck me, whatever. I'm just learning about it, so it's pretty quick. You came up at that. I was quick, too. You get credit. Thank you.

I'd be worried about people breaking into it, And I think I would be, yeah, I guess the avalanche danger is a real concern since I rushed all no trees around it. I guess maybe I would also be going up there to see what the grade is, see if I think this is a slide area. And if it is, then it's completely unusable. And I don't know what I do with it. Other than this is the only thing keeping me tethered to Colorado. You like this dream enough that you will, you don't want to shake loose this.

high property tax burden? You don't want to find out what this is and then sell it and then just not have an extra bill? Yeah, I mean, that'll be what happens. I'm sure that it'll be what happens. If I'm really being honest with myself, that's exactly what's going to happen. I mean, I like your dream too. I think it's neat. Some conglomerate will call me and be like, we're gobbling up properties all over Colorado.

Can we buy yours? And I will say, yes. That's my guess is what will happen. But I don't know. I need to just put my eyes on it. Yeah. See if the shrine is still there. See if you could put a shrine to your father as well.

It seems like a good use of time. That hadn't crossed your mind? Oh my God. No. But, you know, I saw his buddies, his other friends who were all, these guys that were all climbing during around this time. I invited them. I invited them to go with us. Very sweet.

And unfortunately, they're not going to be able to at the time that my brother and I are going. But it would be a great idea to put something to my dad up there. Yeah. What a brilliant idea. Okay. Now I got to get to work on this. Sure. I need a Mason.

I think that's where you start for sure with this whole project. Mason first. You got to line him up first because they're booked up. They're like a wedding venue. How pumped is your son? Does he... Yeah, he's very excited. He's aware of like the...

Just how cool of a thing this is? Like, I don't... Like, there's a little kid excitement of we're gonna... We're taking a trip just the guys. I think that's... What is the coolest part of this to him? It is that he's going on a trip without his sister. That it is the idea of backcountry camping and you have to age into it.

That he's aged into something, even though he doesn't totally understand necessarily what it is. He's into all of that. I don't think that the, His excitement for the property matters at all. I think that he's not feeling anything like a sense of ownership or excitement about seeing something that is his. But that's fine. That's all right.

I don't know about my brother's son. I'm sure that he's feeling sort of the same thing where it's just like, oh, it's just the boys. The boys are all going. Yeah. I just don't know what it's going to be. nine. Well. Because I don't know if you've spent time above Timberline.

Have you done, you've done peaks before? Yeah. So you get above Timberline, it's not just like you ease on to little meadows, soft grass out there above the trees. It's all rock. Yeah, that's certainly true about here. I didn't know what it's like in Colorado, but like the Appalachian Trail is all, it's all rock, baby, the 18. It's all scree up there. which means I don't even really know if we're going to even be able to camp on it.

When I've looked at the satellite imagery, there's some green up there, which means that there is some grass growing up, like some tundra grass or something growing up there. But I don't want to gamble on that. I've been above Timberland. And camping above Timberline is not also very fun. Unless you have some sort of topography to protect you. It's windy as shit up there.

And the storms are dangerous. It's so... I don't even know if we're going to be able to camp on it, let alone build this mansion I want. You can have a snack on it. You can get there and look at it and toast some whiskey and give the boys some whiskey. Get our kids drunk up there?

Yeah. Well, you're not going to hurt anything up here. Go ahead. Get drunk. Here's a gun. I also bring maybe bring like a little spade or something, just do a little digging. See if I can come up with some ore right off the bat. Yeah. That would be pretty huge.

See if the land will tell me, if it speaks to me and tells me there's ore under there. I would really love it if you found some precious mineral there. If for no other reason, then what a fantastic way that is to end your promising, comedy writing career. You leave American dad because you just found gold. Yeah. Up in them hills.

I think, yeah, what I'm really doing this trip is, is looking for any reason to keep this place. Yeah. Deciding if there's any reason why we should still hold on to it. It seemed like it would have been a great thing to have forever before the property taxes

shot through the roof. And maybe it is these conglomerates that force that. all these, because we do get notifications now all the time. Now that the property belongs to me and my brother, we'll get cold texts all the time that'll say, like, hey, we're interested in this property in this county. And would you be interested in selling it? I think that those, I don't know what their end game is other than to just own every piece of land there is. Sure. And maybe they've done that for other people up there.

Other people have similar situations where somebody bought land at auction at one point, or they were speculative miners. And then somewhere in their family and has been inherited. and now they're just like, let's get rid of this. And so all the property values have jumped up because of it. No, it's someone from Silicon Valley who's going to level Long's Peak and build a data center on it. Good poll from you, Daniel. Thanks. What a great one, Longst Peak, man.

You know, you know Colorado. I do. Did you climb Longs Peak? No, my brother and I were going to, and we had a trip planned for October. And that was the only time our schedules were. would allow for it. And we had it all mapped out. And we, my brother was calling the,

the Rangers like weekly and then daily, uh, to check on conditions to make sure they could safely do it. And every day the Rangers were like, today you can. I'm not going to, I'm, you're not going to get anyone who's going to commit to saying like,

yeah, Saturday and Sunday it's going to be fine. And then, you know, we get there and, and literally day of, they're like, oh, you can't, you cannot see up there.

And so we had to, to, youthful ignorance come up with a completely brand new two day, maybe three day hike in the parking lot of the park because you can't go up there because it's like it's complete white out conditions and we're like, okay

and I think my first instinct was like, damn, well, I bet that motel we stayed in last night I got some vacancies still so we could just do that again a couple of nights and then go to Denver and drink and my brother just like came up with a beautiful non-14er involving hike that we could just, we were just out in the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park doing beautiful, amazing hikes. And it, you know, we wanted to do a 14er and we didn't get to do a 14er, but there was still something cool about being seen with our like definite backpack

in gear while everyone else who's hiking that day is like clearly doing day stuff and we are going out deeper into this thing and everyone we met on the the trip was really cool and when we were coming home on our last day passing people they who were going in they would say oh you were the ones who were backpacking like like word about us had spread and that was very exciting that like yeah in those conditions incredible in october camping in october oh yeah that's no camping baby um So as somebody who's climbed 14ers, 14ers are just, for anyone who's listening, 14,000 foot peaks, there's not a ton of them in the United States.

There's one in California, and then there's a bunch in Colorado. I don't think there are any in Montana, are there? I don't know. I don't know. I think Colorado and California might be the only places they haven't. But they're overrated. Getting up a 14-ner doesn't mean any different.

It's nothing. It's like you climb a 12,000-foot peak. You get the same feeling. It's so cool being up there. You're above everything else. It feels the same. It's awesome to climb to just be in Colorado and climbing something and then getting to the top of it feels wonderful there.

But what it is and why people do it is because it has a name. Even though we all like even though we can all think of numbers bigger than 14. I'm not going to bore you with them now, but we can all do it. And if you tell anyone, as I did, when I first started backpacking and climbing in in my 20s, someone will say, have you done a 14er? It's just like one of the things that you ask other climbers. And so it becomes this thing to aspire to. The same way that like a marathon is is the distance because that's how long the run was in marathon Greece, the whatever, like one run that they had to do a million years ago for whatever thing that I'm barely remembering.

26.2 miles is not like the best distance to run and it's not the most impressive distance to run but if you start running someone will say have you done a marathon 26.2 does not feel better than 26.1 doesn't feel better than 25 doesn't feel better than 24 there's not like an additional rider's high runners high that clicks when you get to a certain point in fact I would say the last 6.2 miles are are pretty repetitive and they're pretty much dog shit. Most of running is bad, but really after mile 20 is very bad. That's really particularly bad. Yeah, 14ers are tough in a way that I'll say like a 12,000-foot peak. In terms of the aesthetic of it of getting to the top and being like, oh, this was fun. A 14ers generally, I guess depending on which ones you do, they're not fun when you get to the top of them. It's like it was rough.

It was rough and a little scary on some of them. Like Capitals, one that I did that is a very scary. Gary Klein. And then you get to the top and it's like, okay, well, I did it. And now I can tell people I did it, but I'm scared to be up here. Yeah. It's time to come back down. I looked it up. There's Alaska and Cal, I mean, well, Alaska

obviously has a bunch. But Colorado, California both have 14ers and then Washington. I didn't realize that they also have two peaks. They've got Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. For anyone who is screaming at us just now. Yeah. Well,

was scary about being, is it like super narrow knife sedge when you're up there? It's funny. You say that. It's got an area called, Capitol's got an area called the Knife Edge that is complete exposure on both sides. It is just, it is like two inches of rock that then slant down in each direction. And the fall is thousands and thousands of feet. Generally, people rope up for that area, but you don't have to. There's nothing is stationed.

You're allowed to do whatever you want. So you can just, you could try to balance on top of it and walk it. people do that. People put their hands on it and then shuffle their feet along one of the edges of it. But yes, that one is one where there are a few 14ers, no, I'll rephrase that. There are a lot of 14ers in Colorado that you can do everything right and something can still go wrong. You can be proficient at climbing or hiking and just the type of rocket is and everything. Something can happen that you didn't anticipate or weather-wise. And Capitol is one of those. I took Colleen up one. Colleen and I did Castle Peak. And she is notoriously afraid of heights. And that was a rough, rough hike for us.

But she did it. She can say she did a 14er. And I think there's a amount of pride in that. I hope so. I hope it was worth it. It was worth it. Yeah. It's

There's a place called Mount Sopris And you're right near Where I grew up And Mount Sopris We've done like 20 times maybe It was with the first climb

I did with my dad And it's so fun It's like an It's a It's definitely feel Some sense of accomplishment At the end It's hard

While you're doing it It's hard Yeah Like getting above Timberland Getting into the areas That are really steep inclines You're like Oh

Oh I forgot how difficult This is And you get to the top You feel good And honestly it felt I would rather do soperous now than any of the other 14ers I've done. But anyway, so I have this property. Yeah.

I don't know what to do with it. It's very exciting to just go see it. It is very exciting. I can't wait to get some resolution from this story. Yeah, I'll talk about it on the podcast. I'll tell people what it was and my plan. And hopefully my plan will be, oh, you know what? It was so cool.

We're going to build. Yeah. We're going to build a summer cabin. And we're going to go up there every summer, both families. And we're going to go live off the land kind of. Yeah. We're going to eat, we're going to go eat PICA. Absolutely.

And tarmigans. Little fuzzy little screaming meatballs. That sounds wonderful. As I'm researching all of this, trying to figure out how we're going to do it. The one thing that I'm constantly charmed by is anyone from the Forest Service, anyone from the county assessor's office or any of these places, they are more than willing to talk to me on the phone for as long as I want. When you deal with small town time frames, this is the one time where it really benefits me, where I need their time. I don't understand what I'm doing. I need all the help I can get.

And they'll just sit on the phone with me for 45 minutes. That's their whole day. It's just, I don't know what they were doing before that or after it. But when I call, I'm their top priority. Excellent. I really love that. All right. Well, wish me luck.

I hope that we don't die. I've been on, this is not actually one of those trips. I've been on trips before where I have said goodbye to Colleen. Sure. I've been like, I am a little worried about this one. I have, too, but just owing to my own clumsiness when I've done, there's like a very well-populated hike in New Jersey called Giant Steps. that I

this was before Shea and I started dating and I just told another friend of mine I was like hey just because I need to tell someone look for a text from me in like three hours and if you don't get one I might be dead

I'm pinned under a rock somewhere yeah as I'm doing a hike with like children and dogs and stuff just because I'm a clumsy idiot I did yeah I did that trip once where we were looking for that anesthesia well ancestral Pueblo city and I knew that I was going to, I was the one who's going to be responsible for free climbing it.

And I was like, as I was preparing for that trip, I told Colleen the night before, I'm, I'm genuinely scared. I love you. I hope that I see you again. This isn't one of those trips that you're doing. This is not going to be one of those. I would not bring my kids on one of those trips. This will just be fun. And it also might be anticlimactic.

It might be that we just can drive the entire thing. and then we get there. We look around and there's like, well, fuck, there's nothing up here. And then we don't know what else to do. But fortunately, as I'm doing this research, I'm finding the towns that are closest that have some actual stuff going on around them. There's one that has what looks like a glacier

and then a couple of alpine lakes and stuff. And I'm like, oh, we'll do some other hikes and things like that. Be a fun trip, yeah. All right. Well, that's it for us. Thank you for listening to Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. If you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex. If you want a video version of this podcast,

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