The Joe Rogan Experience - #939 - Chris Cage

Episode Date: April 3, 2017

Chris Cage is the founder of Greenbelly Meals and also the author of How To Hike The Appalachian Trail: A Comprehensive Guide to Plan and Prepare for a Successful Thru-Hike.

Sound good? Yeah, we're good. Five, four, three, two. That was like, he didn't do the thumb. I wasn't sure it was their finger button. Chris, what's up, man? How are you? Good, man. How you doing, Joe? Thanks for doing this. For people tuning in right now, Chris is the author of How to Hike the Appalachian Trail. And he's also, I've talked about these on the podcast before, this is his company, he's not a sponsor. This is his company, Green Belly Meals, and these are these really delicious bars that weigh like 50 pounds.

They're like a brick filled with nutrients and food, and they're really good for people who do this crazy Appalachian Trail thing. These bars that you sell have become very popular with hunters and people that like to go on backpack journeys deep into the backcountry. And I found out about you from Rich Outdoors podcast. And that's where I listen to you on his podcast and that's why you're here. That's why I got your book here. Thanks, Cody.

Love the podcast. Yeah, it's a good podcast. So what the fuck, for people who don't know the Appalachian Trail, we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it's a trail where people walk from Georgia, right, all the way up to Maine. Or vice versa, but yeah. Yeah, vice versa if you want, if you're a madman and it takes

you how many months five to seven took me a little over six so you just hike for six months when you're at like month three do you ever go like what the fuck am I doing long story short yeah uh and by three, I was actually approaching wintertime. And, you know, wintertime camping is just a fundamentally different experience. So not only have you been hiking that long and you're tired and your body is just, you know, just done doing it every day of hiking. But then the elements of the winter come in and that was a different ballgame entirely, you know. How many people have done this? Less than

10,000. That's a lot of fucking people. Yeah, it is. That's still a lot. I would have said, like, 50. There's another thing called the Triple Crown, which is the it's the AT Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, and I think less than 100 people

have done all three of those. The Pacific Crest Trail. Is that the Divide Trail. And I think less than 100 people have done all three of those. The Pacific Crest Trail. Is that the one that goes from like Mexico to Canada? It's through California. That's insane. How long did that one take? I think so. The Appalachian Trail is 2,200 miles.

And the Pacific Crest Trail, I believe, is like 25, 26, 2700 miles. But the trail gradient is a lot easier. So I think like on any given day, you can actually hike more miles, even though the trail is longer than the AT. But I think people actually finish it faster than the AT. I like how you call it the AT. That's inside lingo. All you maniacs.

All you hiking maniacs. Yeah. What the fuck got you into this, man? I'd say, long story short, Boy Scouts, yeah. I joined Boy Scouts later than most people. I joined when I was 14. And, you know, the kind of the pinnacle of the Boy Scout career is getting your Eagle Scout. Right.

And I joined with that in mind. I was like, okay, I'm joining later than most. I joined when most people are quitting Boy Scouts you know they go from Cub Scouts like 13 and they quit I joined and I was like alright I want my Eagle Scout and we you have to in order to get your Eagle Scout spend 20 nights in the woods not consecutively but you have to get your camping merit badge and get your camping merit badge you have to camping merit badge. You have to spend the night, 20 nights in the woods. So, you know, that was in Georgia.

And the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains are in North Georgia. So the beginning of the Appalachian Trail is also, you know, right there. So we went on, you know, several trips up there in North Georgia. And I got exposed to it, you know. you know several trips up there in north georgia and i got exposed to it you know and i think the just the idea of getting on this small trail and um you know kind of looking down and understanding that this thing goes on for 2 000 more miles was just kind of like one that just seems crazy right you know there's no way i'm ever going to have enough time or kind of the the drive to do that. But yeah, there was definitely kind of the mystery. I was like, oh man, that just seems

like an adventure I want to do. So yeah, that was definitely the beginning of it when I was about 14 years old going up there and hiking on it for overnight trips. Now, how does one fund something like this? Because I would assume you either have to be independently wealthy or you have to have squirreled away enough money so you can walk for seven months and feed yourself in the process. Or did you work along the way? I mean, you can't. What do you do? I think there's a big misconception that hiking AT takes a lot of money. But in reality, it's like, what are your expenses? It's just food, you know, and then gear ahead of time. So, you know, most hikers are kind of known as the athletic hobo, you know. Like, they are grimy.

They're not spending money on hotels. There's no accommodation. There's no car payments. You know, they're walking. So you can really eliminate all expenses when you do that. But, I mean, for me, I was an accountant. So I'd been an accountant for about two years, and I saved up some money. And I basically knew that I wanted to hike the AT, so I started saving up some money.

But any given thru-hiker, that's what they're called, anybody that does, you know, starts in Georgia, ends in Maine, or Maine to Georgia, anybody that does that hike in one consecutive run is called a through hiker. But any through hike, I would say it takes about $5,000 from gear to sleeping in hotels about once a week to resupplying food. So if you think about $5,000 for six months of living, that ain't too bad. You think about $5,000 for six months of living in the real world. I've never lived that cheaply.

Right. Well, it's not that bad. No. But you're saying hotels once a week. So what would merit a hotel stay? Ferocious weather? Like what? A lot of things. So you typically are within five to seven

days of a town. So the trail kind of, you know, goes along the mountains. And then about every five to seven days, you come to a trail crossing, which is a highway or anything that would lead to a nearby town. And every five to seven days, you're out of food. You know, that's the biggest thing that I think pulls you into town is you need to resupply. So you're not out there foraging for nuts and berries or hunting or anything like that. You're relying on getting to town, getting to a grocery store, and you know, getting all your food. So every five to seven days, you go into town and you get food. It's like, oh man, I also haven't showered in five to seven days. I also haven't done laundry in five to seven days. And you're hiking with really one change of clothes. So you can imagine if you're hiking 20

miles a day, the grime and the dirt that can build up. So when you come to town, you want to do laundry, resupply food. You want to stay in a hotel. You want to clean off your body. Your feet are starting to grow stuff. You've been sweating, walking through muddy trails. There's just a lot of grime. When you get to town, it's like a big refresh. But when you make that big refresh, do you ever go, why am I doing this?

Yeah, it's kind of ironic. You make the intention of going on the trail to get outside of town and outside of society, but one of the biggest things you look forward to is getting back into town, you know? Yeah, and it's kind of, like you said, when you get to town, it's like, why am I doing this? I was kind of dreading getting back out on the trail a lot of times because it was just so, oh man, I have a hot shower. Like I shaved.

Like, it's just so nice. Yeah. The first time I did any camping in, since the Boy Scouts. Your Boy Scout? Yeah. I was a Boy Scout when I was 13 for one summer.

But these fucking inner city creeps that I went to the Boy Scouts with in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which is like, now it's more gentrified, but back then it was kind of a shady neighborhood. Pick on you? Well, they would tie kids up and leave them in the woods. They would tie you up to your bunk and then leave you in the woods. They put toothpaste all over your clothes, which you can't get out. They're just fucking shitty kids.

It was like a total free fall for all. It was just really dangerous because we went to the woods in New Hampshire. That's where the Boy Scouts would take you up. And I remember thinking, like, these fucking camp counselors are weird guys. They're barely paying attention. And it's basically like all these inner city teenagers. Street Scouts. Yeah, they're just running rampant.

Like there was a rifle range where they would shoot.22s, and there was an archery range. And I remember I was at the archery range, and I heard, and I was like, what the fuck is that? And they go, that's a ricochet. And I went, what? All right, check, please. And so I decided to just go fishing every day I was there. I would avoid everybody. There was like all these things on the agenda that you're supposed to do.

Fuck you. I just took off and I went and found this pond. And I would go to that pond every day for the week that I was up there. My point being from that time, from the time I was 13, till 2012, I had not gone camping. And then I went camping in Montana in October. It was really cold. It was like nine degrees. And we were out there for six or seven days.

And when we went back, we went back to a hotel. And I remember thinking, this is the greatest shower the world has ever known. Like that feeling. You don't appreciate showers. Oh, no. Probably nobody appreciates a shower like an appalachian trail hiker right does that make sense it's pure ecstasy yeah it's like like a shower's normal like a normal shower's normal but it's like if you got a shower after

you're hiking for seven days with muddy feet and your clothes stink and everything's gross and yeah you need that deprivation to appreciate it, you know? You do, right? Because most people don't appreciate showers. Yeah, I guess it's like the starving kid needing, when he gets food, he's like, ugh, you know? Yeah, or like a guy who's just getting out of prison to get some sex.

Assuming you're not getting any in prison. So what kind of weirdos do you meet on the trail? You got to keep in mind, anybody who's willing to take six months out of their life to go to the woods, it's going to be a different breed. I mean, I think you definitely have your stereotypes. Some people are out there just kind of for the challenge and the, dare I say, athletic side of it, but it's like...

There is, right? There's an endurance side of it, but it's like... There is, right? There's an endurance side of it, right? Sure. It's kind of like I want to power through this and see how much my body can handle. You get those kind of hikers, but you definitely get the hippie drop-out-of-life kind of guys, you know, where it's just like I just want to get out there

and get away from society for a little bit. So that kind of stereotype, you definitely, you can get some weirdos out there. Yeah, I would imagine. Have you ever had uncomfortable moments where you're scared to camp with people? No doubt. There was one time, no doubt, man.

There was Pennsylvania. So Pennsylvania, a lot of those ex-coal towns, their economy just plummeted. And the AT goes through a lot of those towns. So you'd have some people near town going out there for an overnighter, and they're what are called shelters. They're like these three-walled wooden structures that are made by, well, all sorts of organizations make them, but in general, they're about every 10 to 20 miles along the AT. So in theory, you can sleep in these every night and not need a tent.

I wouldn't recommend that, but you do try to sleep in the shelters as much as possible. But the fact that there are these shelters, a lot of people kind of bottleneck to them because they know they're there. So you will sometimes get to a shelter at night, and it won't only be AT-through hikers there. There will be people from town. But I remember one time in Pennsylvania, there was this couple. Yeah, they were literally, it was pouring rain. So we get there, and I was like, there's no way I'm camping out.

There's no way I'm hiking on. Like, I'm sleeping in this shelter. You know, I was drenched to the bone. My gear was drenched, and I was pissed off. It was like midnight. You know, I'd been hiking all day. I was just exhausted. So I was so excited to get to this shelter. You know, I was drenched to the bone. My gear was drenched and I was pissed off. It was like a midnight, you know, I'd been hiking all day. I was just exhausted. Um, so I was so excited to get to the shelter and there's a couple and they are literally yelling at each other. You know, I can hear them for like a mile, like just furiously yelling at each other and you get there and they are, um, I never really knew, but I'm assuming they were cracked out. I saw some little

glass pieces going in between their hands and just the way they were acting. He kept, like, throwing up his fists at her. He smashed a bottle on the wall in the shelter. And, yeah, he pulled out a knife at one point, and it was just like. So are these individual shelters or is it a large shelter? When you say three walls, like how big are these things? I think they're usually maybe probably about the size length of this table maybe about 10 10 feet wide and and there's only one of them so like you're supposed to share them with those other people yeah you so you're in there

with these cracked out people luckily i had um three other hiking buddies with me guys um and the people like granted they were aggressive towards each other like they didn't bother us and and like i think by like 4 a.m they hadn't gone to sleep and we were just like we're like dude can y'all please please be quiet like i got to get some sleep and then uh um that was the worst one other than that i think everything was everything was pretty safe there's nothing terrifying. How did it play out? We left the next morning. Did they eventually go to sleep?

You know what? I don't even remember. I think at 4 a.m. I was so exhausted. They were still yelling at each other. I was just out. Do you remember what they were yelling? This one of those shelters? There you go. Yeah, that's one of them.

Wow, that's a dope-looking little place. It's kind of cool. It's all made out of logs. Yeah. And it's got kind of a tin roof. Is that like a tin sheet roof? Yeah, they vary a lot. I mean, you'll get all wood.

You sometimes won't even get logs. Yeah, there you go. You can scroll up and see all the other kinds. And those are for the hikers? Is that what they're for? Yeah. So they've anticipated. There's so many people that do this trail that they've made these shelters.

I've heard of these things in New Zealand. Yeah, New Zealand has them too. Yeah, they have them, and they stock food in them, and they leave a log so that hikers can write down. Like my friend Remy Warren was in New Zealand, and he used one of those and wrote wrote in the log, you know, where he was from, when he was there. And I guess it also helps identify if people are missing. Exactly.

Yeah, I think it's a safety precaution. So, you know, you can kind of track down where was the last person seen, you know, where were they last seen so if they were if they logged into you know shelter and then you know they can't find them they can say okay on this date we know that they were here so you can give a given radius and know that if they are missing they're within at least within a certain you know 20 miles walking distance walking distance of there but yeah and i think those things actually turn into like uh just fun you know some people just go write full-on poems in there some you know confess like life stories in there and it's like oh god yeah the trail log books are entertaining no doubt wow here warning what does it say harassing bear in camp night of 5 11 swiped claws in two tents stepped on my tent till it collapsed on me please be careful he didn't even try to get the food

hanging low on a branch oh look at her name passion flower passion flower with sad face and there's another one bear rip this is a different um this is a different person's handwriting bear ripped the bag hanging on my pack which was hanging on my hammock i was what does that say bouncing bouncing bouncing up and down he stole my toilet paper exclamation point what does it say subway that's his name subway eat fresh yeah p.s the pivvy is great what's a pivvy or privy it's the uhvy. It's just like an outhouse. Oh, okay. A compost toilet.

How about this one? Dat shit cray. All balls ghetto savior Baltimore. What does that even mean? All balls ghetto savior Baltimore. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Well, you're dealing with, like, fringe people, right? I mean, these are people that are just not fitting into the corporate module very well. They walked out on life a little bit, yeah. Yeah, a little bit. But you kind of did too, right? I mean, you said you were an accountant. Yeah, I was an accountant in Birmingham. So I was an accounting major and did that for about two years. I mean, the job was good. Everybody I

worked with I liked, but I definitely was able to recognize that that's not, I was not going to be an accountant, you know, for my life. So yeah, I think I knew I was going to do some transition, try to get another job, do something. And the ATU was kind of like, this seems like the right thing to do. And I'm single at the time, no kids, debt-free. I didn't have a mortgage. Time to go. So it just seemed like something this radical, because it's so crazy, committing to a six to seven month hike was going to force you to just change existence

change your your frequency the whole deal i mean you're a freak now you're you're wandering through the land you know with all due respect thanks joe tell me what you really think i mean it's not a bad for my best friends are freaks but it's i, it's not a bad freak. I feel like my best friends are freaks. But it's, I mean, it's definitely a freak move, right? I mean. No doubt. Yeah. It's a very strange subset of human beings that don't, not just drop out, but drop out. I mean, you're like committing to something.

That is, I mean, was there ever a time where you were like halfway there where you're like, maybe I'll just get a job in this fucking town? Uh, I know some people did that, you know, I think that was more for financial reasons. It was like, all right, I'm, you know, I'm broke, I gotta, I gotta get some cashflow. But, uh, no, man, I think I definitely had kind of like a grind mindset. Like I'm, you're going to make it, I'm going to make it, you know? And I think that, yeah. Did you go with a bunch of people?

No. I think like 90% of hikers go on the AT alone. And the fact that there are a lot of hikers out there, surprisingly, particularly going north. I think maybe 2,000 people try to go north every year. Wow. So when you're hiking, there's like a gang of people on the trail with you? But if you go south, it changes every year,

but 10-15% of people that hike the Atigo south, you're going to have much less social circles, stuff like that. But in general, people are hiking around. You're going to meet people. You talk about the shelters, you're going to stumble into people walking by, you're going to meet them in town, you're going to meet them at the shelters and they become your buddies you know like even

i think the first the first night i was on the at yeah i made good friends with you know two other people and um hiked with them for a couple weeks and then you know different paces you meet up different people you might hike with somebody for a month. So it's kind of like you just hike for a little bit with some people, you know, for some given time. Wow. What kind of weird stories are they telling you about why they're out there? I mean, how many people are out there just, like, ducking a murder rap or something? Was it Eric Rudolph? Which one was he?

Eric Rudolph. He ran out in the A.T. Yeah. He was hiding out there for like a long time oh yeah he was like the unibomber no no that's that's not the unibomber the unibomber is uh ted kaczynski he's that guy that was in olympic park bomber oh okay so i believe it was eric rudolph was found in a dumpster in North Carolina. He had been hiding out, like full-on hiker, homeless look, beard grown, but he had been, you know, hiding out on the AT. It seems like that would be a place where a lot of people get robbed

because you know that you have money on you because you have to make this trail. You have to have some cash to buy food. I never heard anything bad like that happen, honestly. I know that there have been a few murders on the AT. Oh, shit. But you think about any given city, the murder rate, you know? It's like if you have 2,000 thru-hikers plus, I mean, 100,000 weekend hikers a year, I mean, more than that.

It's like the probability, if you think about the AT hikers as a city, like a Murder every few years really it and it and bad you know that's the same logic that they use for those Fox con buildings where the people jump off the buildings where they're making cell phones in China I go well you got to think about how many people work here of course if you kill themselves It's just a game of numbers at that point right somebody's gonna do it I guess it is. So were you ever there when any of that went down, when they were looking for a murder or anything?

There was a famous case. I forgot her name, her hiker name. She had a hiker name? Like Passionflower? All right, Joe. That's what Passionflower was. That's called a trail name. Oh, Jesus.

Oh, Jesus. So they're like rappers? Yeah. So you get, you get your DJ Joe. Yeah. You get your trail name within, I mean, yeah, within a week of being on trail. Within a week. Usually you, it's usually if you do something monumental or stupid or something noteworthy is going to get you dubbed a name. Wow. Do you want to know my name? Yes. It was Smooth. Smooth? Smooth.

So I'd been in New Zealand prior to DAT, and I had talked about not showering for a week at a time. We're getting real personal here. But I had shaved my legs, and I had shaved my body hair so I could just wipe down. Okay. And so when I came on DAT, I wanted to do the same thing. I was like, I'm just going to shave my body here so I can literally wipe down at night. And like check out for ticks, like just makes sense to me.

And yeah, I was sitting around a fire early on, like a couple nights in, and I remember my like sweaty legs were like glistening in the fire and some guy was just like, dude, do you shave your legs? I'm like, no. And then, yeah, smooth just came from there. That's a funny one, man. When a man makes a decision to shave his legs.

Are you? No, I never have. I've shaved some body parts. I've shaved my butt. I'm sorry. Ladies and gentlemen. I've shaved my butthole two, perhaps three times. I just had this conversation with someone about this the other day.

I'm hairy. I'm a hairy dude other than the top of my head. I get hairy. It's not the best for keeping clean. One day I was shaving my package and I's not the best for keeping clean. So one day I was shaving my package, and I said, let's just get crazy. Let's go all the way down there. Finish it all.

And I did. And one of the things I was shocked was it changes the sound of your farts. Did we talk about this on the podcast before? I've heard it discussed on another podcast. Yes, I talked about it, right? Yeah. Yeah, it changes the sound of your farts They become more duck like Yeah, it's like there's something about your butt hair that muffles them not that that's the biggest issue in the world

But um also when they grow back, it's quite unpleasant Grow back process like the itching and stuff, you know, there's something that happens when your your hair starts growing back When you're like, hey, I didn't't think of this this isn't what I signed up yeah but that's where I end I don't go through the legs but I'm not opposed to it it's not it's it seems to me like there's a problem with why it's an issue you know like why is it an issue I don't know so there's something about is it a sexuality thing it's a taboo yeah well why is it an issue? I don't know. I'm sure there's something about is it a sexuality thing the taboo Yeah, well why why is it a back Joe? Why is it okay to shave your head? Why is it okay to shave your face? It's okay to shave all sorts of stuff

But if you start shaving like your armpits right dudes who shave their armpits like hey, what's going on? Why shaving your armpits you know, but why not? What do you like hair? You like hairy armpits? I got what's wrong with shaving your armpits you know but why not what do you like hair you like hairy armpits? I got what's wrong with shaving your armpits. There's something though if your friend yawned, and you're like hey, dude Uh where the fuck is your armpit hair? It would be an issue right you'd start calling. Hey, man She Mike's armpits dude weird. What the fuck's he doing right you know I? Know dudes that shave their legs though, but they're like super fitness they're like you know right you get if you shave your legs you want your legs look good right yeah yeah you don't want like big sloppy fucked up looking legs that are shaved also then you let highlight like if you

have like these big like blocky tree trunk sloppy legs you'd want to keep them hairy. That way you look like some sort of a bear. You know? Does that make sense? That's true. Note to self. Note to self. Yeah, there's something about... Here's another thing. Shave your eyebrows. Shave your eyebrows. Like, who the fuck shaves their eyebrows? That's weird, right?

If you decide to shave your eyebrows, people are going to just go, oh, you're one of those guys. Meanwhile, just a couple inches south, you shave your mustache, nobody gives a shit. Totally normal. Seems totally normal. There's something about shaving those eyebrows, right? That's true.

Yeah, or if you left your mustache and shaved your eyebrows, get the fuck away from me. I'm kind of a weirdo, Are you, we have weird rules. Um, what was the weirdest name that you heard anybody get other than smooth where to begin? Um, fart master. I think that's pretty self-explanatory how I got that one. Uh, one of my favorites was, um, I got a buddy of mine I hiked with for a while. His name was hover job, One of my favorites was my buddy of mine I hiked with for a while. His name was Hoverjob.

Hoverjob. Hoverjob. He went to – so you get out on the AT, and it's like most people aren't even that familiar with the woods, right? So you start trying to figure out tips and tricks on how to do things. So one of the things is how to use the public facilities. And he was saying he does the hoverjob. Oh, yeah, that's a good move. Yeah, everybody knows that one, right?

You stop at some gas station somewhere and you got to take a shit. You have to be really careful. Yeah, you don't want to test that seat. Now, speaking of ticks, you were talking about ticks. I know Lyme disease is a huge issue on the East Coast. I saw something the other day that was saying this year is going to be a record year. Some walnut hatching season something. And I don't know. It's terrifying stuff.

I did this show a while back on SyFy called Joe Rogan Questions Everything. And one of the things we talked about was mostly conspiracy theories. And it was really interesting to find the mindset of these conspiracy people and how they're all very similar, whether it's Bigfoot or aliens or what it's a really similar sort of bizarre mindset that the way they look at things they have this very compartmentalized fucked up way of looking at things but one of the ones that we studied that was really fascinating something called Morgellons Morgellons is a weird disease where people believe that they have these fibers growing out of their skin. And they start itching themselves.

And they create these, like, legions, these scratches. And then things get attached to them, like fibers from, like, perhaps, like, from a carpet or something like that. And they think that they're growing out of their skin. And most people think it's a psychosomatic disorder. But one of the guys that I talked to was a doctor who also had Morgellons. And he was really very objective about it. And he said, there seems to be some sort of a neurotoxic effect that's connected to Lyme disease.

And he said that one of the things that these people that have Morgellons have in common, they almost all have Lyme disease. And what he believes is that ticks contain not just Lyme disease, but a host of other different sort of diseases that you can catch. And so because of these weird different bacterias and different things, these toxins that these ticks potentially possess, when you get bit by certain ticks, you can actually hallucinate. And he would say— Good grief.

Yeah, he was talking about how he saw a thread moving across his eyeball. Wait, this is real stuff? This isn't sci-fi stuff? No, no, no. It's not sci-fi stuff at all. It's real people. Never even heard of this. Morgellons?

Yeah, well, it's generally thought to be a psychosomatic disorder. And that's why it was interesting talking to this doctor because he was saying yes and no. Because he was saying, well, there isn't, he believes there's a real issue, and that issue is Lyme disease. But that these pathogens that are in these ticks, it's not uniform. They're different

in all these different ticks. Some of them are more potent than others, and that there may be a host of different unidentified pathogens. There's not just Lyme disease, but several others, and some of them have a neurotoxic effect, and this neurotoxic effect can induce hallucinations, and some of those hallucinations can be that you think that your body is growing fibers out of it. And he said that he saw it moving across his eye. He goes, I know intellectually that it was not there. He goes, there was no, I examined it, I looked at it,

it was not there, but I saw it. He personally experienced the hallucination. Yeah, and the other thing is a lot of these people, they go undiagnosed for long periods of time because for the longest time, Lyme disease went undiagnosed and still does. I have a good buddy of mine, him and his son got bit by ticks when they were fishing. And he brought his son to the doctor. And by then that bullseye, you know, around that grows around, if you get bit by a tick that has Lyme disease, there's like a bullseye.

It looks like a red circle that grows around the area where the tick bit him. And the bullseye had gone away by the time he brought him to the doctor. And so the doctor was incredulous, and he's like, I don't believe that's Lyme disease. Kid's going to be fine. And then he started getting Bell's palsy. So half of his face was paralyzed. And that's when they really realized that this, oh, my God, this kid has Lyme disease for sure. Good grief.

Yeah, and they were in real bad shape. Like, my friend, who's skinny as it is, he wound up losing something like 20, 30 pounds. And it fucked with him for close to a year. The other guys that he was with, they got Lyme disease as well. Like, several people they were with got Lyme disease, and they were all fucked up for months. Several people they were with got Lyme disease, and they were all fucked up for months. I knew one guy that got it, and I think he went to the doctor and got some shots or antibiotics. I don't know what the treatment was, but he came back, like, full force and finished the AT.

Yeah, you can do that. I mean, if you catch it, like, really quick. Catch it early. We had a guy on the podcast, Steve Kotler, who got it, and he was undiagnosed for over a year, and he wound up being bedridden for three years. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, because the more it sinks into your system, the more you let it go without antibiotics and without treatment. And, again, what this doctor was telling me,

I'm just relaying what this one doctor who had Lyme disease was saying, is that he believes that there's a host of different pathogens there's not just one and he said there could be many that are undiscovered like Lyme disease is fairly recent in terms of its discovery or our diagnosis of it I feel like it's within the last two or three decades at the most so I would worry about that yeah we're out there. Yeah, when you're out there. The risk of Lyme disease on the Appalachian Trail is going to be high this year.

Trail life. Oh, my God. How do you read trail life when you're out there and you don't even have fucking cell phones? This article just came out today, though. Oh, shit. You're talking about the walnut hatching? I didn't say specifically that.

There's another article, and I Googled Lyme disease from Connecticut that says that testing on found ticks with Lyme disease is higher this year more than normal yeah they're from last year creepy you get bitten when you go hunting you can I mean I'm really careful real careful to check myself also real careful to keep myself covered up you know I wear Gators I wear you know long like merino wool it goes all the way down to, long, like, merino wool. It goes all the way down to my ankles, and then I pull merino wool socks way up over that. I don't have any exposed up to my wrists. And I even wear gloves sometimes, even in the heat.

I wear, like, a thin layer glove just to—also, it's good to protect your hands from the sun, but also to protect your hands from animals seeing that white skin. Like, you want as little white as you can that's exposed But I think about that primarily about ticks scares the shit out of me Yeah, I wonder what percentage of ticks actually carry except I feel like I probably been bitten by 20 ticks in my life, you know some like I Don't know what percentage of them were carrying it I definitely got bit by a bunch when I was a kid

But I never got Lyme. But it wasn't around that much when I was a kid. There was a thing about the New York, upper New York State area being unbelievably infested. Have you ever seen a Lyme disease map? Like a map of Lyme disease infestations? It's in the Northeast, big time, isn't it? Huge, huge, huge in the Northeast and huge in New York State, like that upper New York State area. Just really, really devastating.

I wonder why that is. Is it related to mice? I don't know. Deer ticks apparently are a big issue. Here it is. Look at that. There you go, Northeast. That's in 2015.

But there's a few in California, especially you see northern California has a bunch. But look at that fucking northeast, man. That's just like a zombie plague. That's awful. Massachusetts is completely covered in it. Look at it. The whole state. New Jersey, too, yeah.

Ugh, covered. Yeah. But just a devastating disease if you don't catch it. But I guess it's spreading across the country. They're finding it in Florida now, new strains in Florida. What other issues do you have to deal with when it comes to, like, bugs and diseases and stuff like that? Giardia.

Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I was going to ask you that. How do you get your water? Like, what are you getting? How do you get your water? Like, what are you getting? There's a thing called basically fresh water sources, you know, so streams, lakes, ponds. Unfortunately, the East Coast is so wet, you know, you're going to cross over a water source very frequently.

Generally, several times a day, you're going to cross at least a stream. So you fill up your water there you carry two different containers two two bottles one for dirty one for clean so you fill up a liter of dirty water from the stream a ton of different water purification methods i don't know if you do it in your backcountry hunting but the big one i use is sawyer Squeeze. It's like a nozzle you screw on top of your water bottle so you fill up a dirty water bottle. Screw this water filter off and you squeeze out clean water. That's what I use. And it really works that well? You just squeeze it and the water comes out clean?

Yeah. The filtration system is that good? Yeah. Wow, it takes out Jardia? Yes, I think yeah i'm still standing but uh yeah and then they're like the droplets which are basically uh chlorine chemicals right you know um yeah i mean what else is there all sorts of filters and uh chemicals some people try to boil it that's just a pain you don't want to boil water all the time and then wait for it to cool down before you could drink it. Yeah. I will say though,

by the end of the AT, you talk about finishing in winter. Um, you know, it's like whenever you stop at these fresh water sources, you know, the water's flowing and I'm, you know, it's like 20 degrees out, 15 degrees. You know, I'm like, I don't want to stick my hand in that freezing water and get my hands cold. I can't heat them back up, you know? Right. So I'll, admittedly, not that I recommend this, but I was drinking it straight, man. Wow. Yeah.

That's risky. It was risky, but it was just like, I was so done by the end of it, you know? I was just like, I don't have the patience to stop with freezing fingers. Like, so numb. You know, the dexterity is just totally gone. I'm like, ugh. It's just like, ugh. Wow.

I'll see a doctor eventually. Yeah, I know. Now, when you got to the end, seven months, is that what it took you? I think it was. I got off trail for two weeks in between there for some family stuff. But if you took out that two weeks, it was six months I was on trail. So when you get off trail, did you go fly somewhere? Honestly, I went to France with my family.

Whoa, that doesn't count. Dude, and it was like, I was just a human trash can. I was just like cheese, wine, everything, man. I gained at least five, ten pounds that week, and i was just like cheese wine everything man i like i gained i gained at least five ten pounds that week and i was just like wow just pigging out and enjoying you must have enjoyed the shit out of that vacation though it was kind of like that it was like you know a lot of guys are getting off jokes they're like oh man i'm totally broke and everything like i'm going to france for a week or two so some people get off trail just because financially they can't hack it anymore.

Yeah, I mean, you've got a 19-year-old guy who's out of high school. It doesn't have any savings. It's like, oh, I'm going to go hack the AT. It sounds like a great idea. They haven't done any research, no planning, don't know anything about gear or anything. But they've read A Walk in the Woods, and they think this is a good idea. What is A Walk in the Woods? It's by Bill Bryson.

It's probably the most popular AT book out there. It's like, it's just kind of a funny story. He's a good writer. But he wrote that, I think in like the mid-90s. But that book,

if you look at like the Appalachian Trail Hikers, it was just like, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. A Walk in the Woods is released. It was like, pfft. Wow.

It was like huge publicity. And have you heard of. It was like, wow, it's like huge publicity. And have you heard of Wild, the book, movie, Reese Witherspoon? Yeah, I did hear about it. I never saw it. But yeah, that was was that a movie about the Appalachian Trail? Pacific Crest Trail. But that was the same thing. It was like the AT is so historic and iconic for long distance hiking trails that a walk in the woods did for the AT what Wild did for the Pacific Crest Trail.

But Wild was only released a few years ago. But, I mean, same thing. It was like Pacific Crest Trail was relatively unknown to hikers, and that book was released and movie, and it was just like, now Pacific Crest Trail is really hot right now. The Pacific Crest Trail, though, is the one that goes from Mexico to California. Or it goes all the way to Canada. Oh, okay.

To the top. There's not that much water there. No. Right. You talk about the East Coast being wet. So what do they do there? My understanding is they have big, I don't know the terminology, a big water reservoir, like a big concrete cylinder out in the middle of the desert.

And I don't know if it's rainwater or if somebody actually goes out there and fills it up, kind of like a trail angel kind of goes out there. Trail angel? That's another term, too. Trail angel? Trail angel. We'll take a sidestep into Trail Angel. Smooth is going to educate us on the Trail Angel.

Go ahead, Smooth. All right. Yeah, we'll get an AT dictionary going. But yeah, the Trail Angels, that term was, when you're hiking on AT, you come to towns and you're like, I need transportation to the grocery store. You know, the grocery store you know the grocery store is actually 10 miles away from the trail crossing like okay does that mean i hike 10 more miles down the highway to get you know some groceries then 10 more miles back no you hitchhike and then you

hitchhike in town that's kind of that that person then becomes a trail angel whoa but hitchhiking is fucking dangerous have you ever done it? Maybe in the younger days? I'm trying to think. I definitely got rides from people when my car broke down in Massachusetts. But I don't think I actually hitchhiked. I'm pretty sure. That was desperation without the intent, like, I'm going to get a ride from somebody.

No, I never went out there and put my thumb out and said, I'm going to get from here to there by hitchhiking. Never did that. You did. Yeah, I mean. But you did. You're a fairly young guy. How old are you? 28. 28, yeah, okay.

So you're talking about within the last 10 years you hitchhiked. A fair amount. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. That's like when people already know that hitchhiking is a good way to kill folks. Like if you want to kill somebody, what do you do? Kill some fucking kid with a backpack. That's the move.

Right. It's a great opportunity to kill, right? If you're going to be one of those psychos, I would just assume. Yeah. Everybody was pretty nice. But it's different parts of the country too. If you're going to go hitchhiking in, like, New York, you're going to run into some really weird people.

If you're, like, just outside of Manhattan, you got your thumb out, you're trying to get picked up, you might get picked up by a fucking complete psycho. But if you're in, like, Wyoming or something, and there's, like, no one out there, and you're hiking, and... Like, rural Alabama? Yeah, oof. Pennsylvania with those crackheads screaming at each other in every other weirdos everywhere but we'll say like uh so before the atos in new zealand and

new zealand is higher standard of living than the states and i feel like you there's very low crime right there and hitchhiking is not taboo there i always always heard that, you know, New Zealand was kind of like the States was in the 50s. And it was just like, kind of like a safe, happy place. You know, there's no crime, everybody's nice to each other, high standard of living. And in New Zealand, it was like they had some bus stops, like the equivalent of like a bus stop. And it was like a hitchhiking bench. so you would sit there and like people would drive on their way to work and somebody would be sitting on the bench like hey pick me up you know but it's like systemized you know it's like people hitchhike so it's like that

the taboo is kind of broken in new zealand it was like this is normal people or it's it's an economical it's efficient like why, why not, you know? It's not something I would ever do. But, man, I remember I got my car, rather, broke down once in a snowstorm. And these people took me back to their house. And they were so normal. They were really normal people. And they made me – I was on my way to visit my girlfriend. And her mom and her drove to get me at these people's house.

And I was in there I was driving up there, and we just got caught in a freak snowstorm car broke down and I remember thinking like what kind of person just pick someone up and take some to their house They're so nice. Must be a weirdo right? No they were really nice. They were really nice people They just took a chance. You know I guess the fear comes from that like 0.% right that's going to do something vast majority are why not I'm just going to help somebody out something with like Airbnb there was that fear it was like oh there's no way I could let somebody

come into my house or couch surfing you know what couch surfing is? it's like Airbnb for free essentially you put up your couch on this website and you offer yeah say, I've got a couch. Does anybody want to stay on it? And then you say, I'm coming through on these dates and you request the couch for free.

But it was like, I remember that when that website was like really becoming popular about 10 years ago, people had that same idea. It was like, no way. This is only for nut jobs. And then it was like, it's hugely popular now. And Airbnb and all that stuff's like, yeah, let somebody come and stay in your house. Stay with locals and meet travelers. Share authentic travel experiences as opposed to what? Fake travel experiences?

What the fuck does that mean? Authentic. Meet new people. Explore the world. Go on a rape binge. Find a couch. Oh, find a host. There's a couch. There's a. Find a couch. Oh, find a host. There's a couch.

There's a graphic of a couch. So this is, what is this website, Jamie? Couchsurfing.com, yeah. But that's what's crazy is that somebody decided to organize this. They decided to make a website. Every year we support 400,000 hosts, 4 million surfers. I love how I call them surfers. Imagine you're a real surfer and you heard this.

Like, listen, bitch, you're not a fucking surfer. You don't even have to balance. You're lying down on some dude's couch. 100,000 events. They support 100,000 events. This is crazy. I never knew about this. Yeah.

I mean, there are also like niche websites that have. So another one. Scroll down, Jamie, that image. Warm showers is another one that's for cyclists. Look at that guy. Up on the top of the world. Ready for your next adventure? Plan a trip.

Stay on my couch. It's very strange. In Paris, you can go surf in Paris. Look, in Paris, you've got fine food and wine and cheese and bread. You can afford that? You can't afford a fucking hotel room? That's like a fucking expensive meal right there. You're looking at some really delicious food. It's very, uh, this is strange because it's very romanticized. Like this is really organized. This website's super well done. Local hosts and they have avatars, they have images.

Reviews. Yeah. Oh my God. Look, it's Lewis. Join Couchsurfing to see Lewis' full profile. It's free. About me. Current mission.

Can I host one person only? Wow, this is weird weird you can put your couch up Joe no but it is interesting I mean it's like it's the good aspects of it are I'm sure far outweigh the negatives you know most people are just enjoying themselves meeting nice people meeting like-minded people, traveling around. Like my fear, obviously humor aside, but my fears are probably fairly unfounded, right? But isn't that kind of how it is with life? Like most people that you meet, like the vast majority of people, are really pretty nice.

Well-intentioned. Yeah, it's a really safe time to be a person. You know? I mean, almost all interactions you have with people on a daily basis are safe and fairly friendly. Even, like, rude people are like, what's the big deal? They say a word? You know, like, most-

They're not going to harm you. Yeah. Almost nothing happens most of the time. But we're so obsessed with the news where you tune in to any news channel, all you're getting is the collective bad news of 7 billion people because that's what sells. If it bleeds, it leads. Run with it, Mike.

And Mike runs with it. Yeah, you know, I mean, this is actually a very, when you really look at it that way, that's a very positive trend that people are doing this and hosting people. Shared economy. Yeah. That's really nice. You know, it's nice that people will offer up their couch for free.

Yeah. It's good stuff. It is good stuff. It's good stuff. It is good stuff. So do you ever stop and think, like, what if I hadn't gone on this journey of exploration and I stayed an accountant and you would be living that life of the droning existence where every day you're just fucking showing up at the same place and crunching numbers and hating life and wishing for some kind of adventure or something different.

No, I can't relate to that. I think no matter what, whether it's AT or something, I think I would have, you know, I'm too impatient. You know, I get bored too easily. You know, I would have done something. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people are like you, and they just never make that move. They never take that chance. So, yeah, I think when I talked to even a lot of my friends that are still doing, I'm not

going to call them crappy jobs, but you know, cause I think they do provide a lot of things that they like, you know, security. You can't, some people love that security, like getting a paycheck, you know? Um, but it's like, I don't think they view it like that. It's not like, Oh, this may not be the best thing, but I like it. You know, it's not like, uh, I don't think they view it like that. It's not like, oh, this may not be the best thing, but I like it. It's not like a, I don't know. It's like some people think this is so bad or I just can't. I just have to. I just don't think that threshold ever crosses most people. Yeah.

Well, people vary. The personality types that go on that trail, I mean, that's like a very, very extreme personality type. But I think most people have a certain amount of, if not wanderlust, at least curiosity. It's just a matter of how much of it do you, how much of it do you nurture? How much of, how much of that, that needed to feed? Yeah. There's also, there's also a real problem than not recognizing the finite nature of existence. I mean, just when you're 20 especially or 21 or whatever it is, when you enter into these jobs, you don't realize, like, hey, man,

you've only got like a few decades of good times. You could do this for 40 years easily. Oh, easily, easily. And then we've all met those people that have done it for 40 years yeah easily oh easily easily and then we've all met those people that have done it for 40 years and they're just beaten down by life and they have that dull desperate look in their eyes it's just this sadness in their eyes where their life is just it's not it's not good it hasn't turned out well there's not a lot of joy there, and hold on to the vacations big time. Oh, you're scaring the shit out of me, Chris. Scaring the shit out of me.

So you're in the middle of doing all this, right? So you do this. You go on this crazy seven-month adventure. And when it's over, what was that like? When you hit the end and you realize there's like a bell you ring or anything like that? I should put a bell up there. So, I mean, going but there's there's like the there's like this epic Mount Katahdin it's like a beautiful big mountain one

of the like the most epic climbs that's in Maine so if you go south you end in Georgia and you end on Springer Mountain which is just not as not as epic not as dramatic you know you're right so but yeah I mean you finish it there's just a plaque and it's like dude you finished really and you touch the plaque you have to touch it what did you get right before it you quit it's like right before I got foot before the fuck this just collapse yeah like two for the plaque yeah no that's it so that's good that's the main that's the that's the finish and that's the finish and yeah bounders how many people fake it take a

picture of that dude dude you can go hike that in one day yeah for sure that's you at least i would probably do that i'd go hike it in a day and then get that weird feeling of watching these people that are covered in two inches of grime climb up that hill can you pull up spring that guy that motherfucker look at that guy that guy looks like he's been hiking for seven months hacker what's it called spring springer mountain look at that guy's face jesus christ he's just all hair and so um there you go yeah that's the uh That's where it starts? Is that the gateway? That's what's called the approach trail.

It's not the... It's like... I like how it has like an awning. That's the actual plaque on the end, but that's not a great shot of it. There you go. That's it. So that's where it starts. Yep. National Scenic Trail.

Now, who established this? So there's a guy named Benton Mackay. Imagine trying to talk people into doing that with you. Like, when you first started doing that, what year did this guy do this? I know these dates, but I don't think... 30s?

So, imagine, 1930s, fucking Great Depression, that old deal, those are the people back then. And this guy says, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to walk all the way up to Maine, and I'm going to start a whole movement. A bunch of other people are going to do it as well. They're probably like, fuck you, dude. Get a job, hippie.

Yeah, the CCC at the time was helping construct all the trails. Look at that. Springer Mountain, Georgia, 8.5 miles. Mount, how do you say it? Katahdin. Katahdin, Maine, 2,108.5 miles. Those.5 are a motherfucker. That last.5, oh. So when you did it and you touched the sign and you're like, all right, I did it. I cried. Did you? I did. I literally collapsed. Wow. Like you fell to your knees? It're like, all right, I did it. I cried. Did you? I did. I literally collapsed. Wow. Like you fell to your knees?

It was seriously one of the most emotional times of my life. I can imagine. I was just, yeah. Even like that morning, I woke up and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is ending. You know, it was like so much, just so long. I'd been thinking about it from, yeah, I mean, childhood, you know. And then it was like not only thinking about it for you know a decade but then it was actually hiking the darn thing for six months and it was just like

getting there was like by that time like i had stress fractures forming in my feet and uh yeah i was just in bad shape i wasn't sleeping well because you know at night it was getting down to zero degrees every night and my sleeping bag was not cutting it so it's just like it was just a lot man you know stress fractures in your feet huh yeah yeah yeah and i've had had stress fractures from cross country in high school so i knew what they felt like i'm like oh this is coming it's just a matter of time you know now what kind of hiking shoes did you wear okay it seems like your gear would be critical big Big time, yeah. I started off with a brand called Salewa. They're kind of like a technical climbing shoe, actually. But the fact that they are a little more stiff makes them good for some tough trail.

But I switched to trail runners. Do you run? Yeah, I started really, really recently, like a few days ago. I actually think I saw you post something on Facebook. You had a rough run. Fucking terrible at it. I'm a bit like a bowling ball. It's not good for running. I lose some weight and I want to keep doing this. But yeah, I've been running for a few days now.

But yeah, I switched to basically just running shoes with a little thicker tread. Like Solomon's? Solomon's is a great brand. Yeah, I got those for the very purpose of running up hills. You like them? Yeah, they seem good. They've got good traction to them, good tread, like a thick tread,

but yet they're still built like a running shoe, very light. Those are good hiking shoes, something that your feet can breathe and give you some cushion. And you don't need any ankle support, you don't feel like? You feel like that's overrated? It's more of a mountaineering thing? Yeah, I think there's kind of this theory that your ankles toughen up. I don't know if that's really true, but I think I kind of fell into that belief

that I was rolling ankles so much in the first, like, 100, 200 miles of the trail, and by the end of it, I was just like, just keep going, you know? Yeah, yeah, I've always wondered about that, because a lot of people that hunt, they wear these like really stiff, very tactical mountain hiking boots where they go up. I don't get that. Yeah. They go like 10 inches up the ankle and they lace them up tight. Yeah.

When I used to go hunting with my dad when I was a kid, we would wear those boots. And looking back, I'm like, I don't get it. Is it just because maybe the brush is just so thick you need something durable to crush through that brush? It's like, I don't think so. What do you wear when you go hunting? Well, it varies. I've never worn running shoes like those, like trail running shoes. But I know some people do wear those, and they like them.

And some really good hunters, they wear them exclusively. They were like lightweight trail runners. And even Solomon actually makes a gator for those trail runners. Yeah. So that you can, for people to know what a gator is, a gator's like a thing that you slip over your shoes and it cinches down tight so that rocks and dirt and stuff doesn't get deep into your shoe um and i think kuyu is coming out with a boot that actually has a gator built in which is kind of interesting but then you can see the solomon trail gators yeah see so the idea is to

make sure that you're not getting irritants dirt and pedals and shit and debris did you ever wear anything like that when you were definitely yeah definitely yeah is that a must-have uh some hikers might say kind of roll their eyes at it i started off rolling my eyes at it and then it was just like you're saying it was just good i mean five times a day i would get a little pine needle in my sock and it's just like oh damn it like yeah i gotta get something to keep that going out. I would imagine that you would have an incredible ability to test gear. Nobody would probably know what gear is effective and durable and really, really over the long term. Yeah, totally.

And it's like, you know, prior to the AT, I'd been backpacking for over 10 years, and I thought I was kind of, okay, I'm pretty familiar with this stuff. And it was like, no, I didn't know anything about backpacking and uh yeah you test everything you know and it's like even even after all your research you start realizing like hmm there's a little bit better stuff out there or yeah I can actually tweak this and improve this and that but yeah by the end of it it's like anybody who's through hike this can can get into some real nerdy backpacking gear talk you know well hunters get into real nerdy backpacking gear talk, you know? Well, hunters get into real nerdy backpacking gear talk when they talk about, like, deep in the woods backcountry hunting.

Because weight's an issue. Yeah, a huge issue. They chop the ends off of their toothbrushes, you know? That's a big issue. You did that too? Big time, yeah. Wow, that's so crazy. Like, the idea that the bottom of your toothbrush.

Every ounce, man. You won't. Ounces equals pounds, right? Yeah. One thing I got cody and i talking was cody was talking about cutting cutting weight from backpacking i feel like my impression at least you know when we were talking i was like thinking hunters were almost kind of the the chubby guy in the blind was kind of my idea i was like when my dad and i would hunt it was kind of just truly sitting there with blue jeans and it was just kind of like, oh, all right, there's a duck. You know, I was like talking to Cody,

I think the hunting I was doing was pretty amateur and Cody was talking about cutting weight significantly and that hunters have kind of latched on to some of the backpacking ethos, if you will, about shaving every ounce. But it's like, y'all carry so much more gear. You've got weapons, you will, about shaving every ounce, but it's like, y'all carry so much more gear. You've got weapons. Those things

aren't made to count every ounce, I would imagine. It depends on what you're carrying, but there are some lightweight rifles that people use that are carbon fiber barrels and stuff. But the issue with those is unless you're prone and you're laying down on something, they move a little

bit more, and a lot of people think they're not as accurate as a real heavy rifle. Like a lot of guys. Sacrifices. Yeah, they're like a heavy rifle, like a heavy barrel, thick, heavy barrel. And the same thing with bows. It's a weird thing.

Some people like heavy bows because you hold steadier. There's the thought behind it that you have something light in your hand and you're shaking a little bit, like maybe your little nerves, you might move around a little bit more. But if you've got something that's really heavy, you know, you'll have, like, more stability when you're executing the shot. Camera equipment, too. Yeah, a lot of guys carry spotting scopes and 15-power binos, and they have 8 to 10-power binos around their neck.

8 to 10? Yeah. Depends on what kind of stuff you use. You know, some people, they'll sacrifice, like, spotting scopes. They won't do that. They won't bring it. But some people also like to film all their stuff. So they bring tripods for filming and a tripod for glassing.

Glassing meaning you lock either binoculars or a spotting scope on a tripod so you get a real steady view because it really makes a difference. Like if you see more animals, yeah, if you're holding up like the binos in your hand, you've got to kind of like put your elbows on your knees and you sit down, but it's not as good. Like being on a tripod is the best way for sure. But then you got to carry that fucking tripod around. And there's, I think there's a big difference between people that they carry their stuff

in and then they make a camp versus people that keep their camp on their back all the time. There's a lot of that too. There's different kinds of hunting. Like, do you know the average, like, bag weight? I think Cody was mentioning it was like 60 or 70 pounds. Do you have any idea? Yeah, a lot of guys will carry in 60, 70 pounds.

That's pretty standard. But, again, these guys are not carrying their camp on their back. But if they do, like, if they know they have to go in deep and they have to live off their back, like they have a bivvy tent and they do the whole thing off their back most guys will try to drop it in the 40s but if you carry around 40 fucking pounds man like there's a company called outdoorsmans in phoenix and they make like a real high-end pack and one of the things that they've made that they actually just sent me it's a pack frame that has like an o an Olympic plate mount on it. So you can put, like, a 45-pound plate and another 45-pound plate, like a 90-pound plate, and you train with this fucking pack frame on.

So you put the pack frame on. Plate, you mean like literally a weight? Like lifting, like lifting plate. Yeah, okay. And it slides onto your back the same way it would slide onto the end of a barbell. And, you know, you use a clamp, of a barbell and it you know use a clamp like a like a barbell clamp locks the plate in place and then you go up hills with these fucking things on so these guys are just training yeah they're training to get ready for these back

country hunts i had the same idea as you did i thought hunters were like oh the duck dynasty guys they're all fat right and they just red're just rednecks. They're shooting at shit. Yeah. No, not Western hunting. There's a big difference between... Between the Southern hunter? Yeah, well, there's a big difference between blind hunting, like people that sit in these blinds. What a blind is, for people listening, is basically like a little structure that's covered

with camo, and you're hiding. You're hiding, waiting for the animal, and then you shoot them. Or tree stand, same thing. You're sitting in the're hiding, waiting for the animal and then you shoot them. Or tree stand, same thing. You're sitting in the tree stand, you're waiting and then you shoot them. There's a big difference between that and these western hunters, particularly like elk hunters because they're going into the mountains where these animals live or mule deer. They're going to the high country and you're climbing up.

You're going up thousands of feet of elevation every day, up and down, up and down, and you have to have massive endurance. So a lot of these guys start trail running. A lot of these guys start putting packs on their back with heavy weights in the pack and training, getting ready for these. Otherwise, you're fucking miserable. If you're not in, like, real shape, you're miserable. Yeah, got to get fit.

You got to get real fit. That's interesting. Yeah, it's not what people think it is well my friend cameron haynes he does a lot of ultra marathons he just he just did the bigfoot 200 which is 205 miles in washington state how long does that take 78 hours he ran for 78 hours wow fuck everything about that all right but but that just shows you i mean he's as extreme as it gets you know he's like one of the top bow hunters in the world. But the point is these people are athletes.

The group of them, the elite of the elite, there's so few. It's a really, really small club of individuals that get to that point. But the vast majority of them are in spectacular shape where they're constantly running trails they're constantly working out they're constantly in shape and the reason being is if you're not you're not going to be successful in the backcountry right and one of the things that really haunts them is when they can't get to an animal because they're out of shape and i've been there before i've tried that tried that. When I was last year, I was hunting with Cam, and we were trying to get to this elk,

and he ran up the hill like a fucking mountain goat, and I'm halfway behind him. Like, I thought I was in pretty good shape, and I am for the stuff I do. But I wasn't in good shape for running up hills. You know, you've got to do that to be in shape for running up hills. You've got to run up hills. And a lot of these guys they're there they have these uh events these uh trained to hunt events that

they do where they compete against each other and they put backpacks on and they they run and they they they try to get from point a to point b faster which a lot of people are criticizing i think it's kind of dangerous and it's because it's not really running weapons, what's dangerous about it? Wait, wait. You're talking still about the barbell. Yeah.

The barbell thing is a completely new invention by the outdoorsmen. It hasn't even come out yet. But most people just pack heavy weights like sandbags and strap them down to their backpack. But it's a different world as far as the perception of what these people are versus what they're actually doing. And there's a real ignorance when people are talking about hunting. They think of it as this really easy thing. You just go shoot this animal and they think hunters are cruel because that's the thing that killed Bambi. You know what I mean?

There's these weird ideas that people have in their head about what hunting is. And I think in general that was kind of my impression of the, I guess, I don't know if easy is the right word, but yeah. Not physical, certainly not physical. No one would think from the outside without really examining it and looking in that you're talking about elite endurance athletes. No. But if you took the average person that thinks they're in shape, and I have friends that have done this before, taking people that think they're in shape and take them on these hunts, and these people break down. Slug.

Yeah, they just can't make it. They can't do it. They're just not prepared for it. And it's hard to prepare. And they say there's very few things you can do other than put weight on your back and go up and down hills. Other than just do it. Yeah. Some people say boxes, you know, steps.

You know those things like when people step up with one leg at a gym, you know, and they do that over and over again. Some people say that that's a good way to prepare for hiking as well. Just box steps over and over again. Like commit to. Just get that. Yeah, just get those quads. Weirdly in some ways, trail bikes are apparently very good.

Like doing dirt bikes because you're constantly pumping one leg at a time. And apparently that is very good for mimicking the type of strength that you need to get up and down hills. Hmm. I guess it's back to what you said about just doing it, though. It's like, just do it, you know? It sucks, though, man. I did it's back to what you said about just doing it, though. It's like, just do it, you know? It sucks, though, man. I did it the other day. I did a five-mile hike or a four-mile hike, and one of the miles,

I did it with my daughter, who's 50 pounds, and for a mile up the hill, I carried her on my back. There's your workout. She got tired, and so I put her on my shoulders, and I carried her one mile straight uphill on my back. And, oh, my God, I was drenched. I mean, my hoodie, I was wearing a hoodie. It was soaked to the bone.

Sweat was pouring down my head. I was heaving as I was carrying her, you know. It's really interesting how difficult it is because just the hike is kind of difficult, but i could do it because i'm in pretty good shape but the hike with a an you know 50 pound kid on your shoulders fucking a thousand times harder i bet yeah it's hard but i but i used it as a workout and she's like if you're too tired you can stop like no no it's a good workout it's good it's good for me you know it's probably freaked her out here may go Carrying her like thinking I'm gonna fall or something like that But it wasn't wasn't dangerous like it wasn't like I was about if my legs were failing, but I was breathing fucking heavy That's for sure so you got to imagine these guys that are carrying 20 pounds more than that and

They're carrying their weight deep into the mountains. Or they're pack out. That's the other thing. When you kill an animal, you've got 100 pounds in your pack now. You've got to slowly but surely make your way. A lot of guys get seriously injured doing this. What do you do, drag it? No, you put it in your backpack. 100-pound animal?

Mm-hmm. No, much more than a 100-pound animal. Usually, any deer you shoot is going to be more than a hundred pounds and an elk is way more than a hundred pounds. So what you're doing is you're making multiple trips with a hundred pounds on your back. Does it hack it up? Yeah. You have to chop it up. Now when it comes to like backpacks and things along those lines, like how do you choose what kind of backpack you need? And like you must have like a weight consideration as well.

And as far as volume, like how much stuff you need. You said you carry one change of clothes. So you basically have one pair of socks, one pair of underwear, one pair of pants, other than the stuff you have on, right? Do you bring a change of shoes? You typically break it up by activity. So you have hiking and sleeping so you have your hiking set of clothes and gear and you have your sleeping um so hiking clothes are usually like

uh just like maybe like workout clothes like a synthetic short sleeve top maybe even running shorts um and you know a set of socks to hike in and then your trail runners to hike in. It's kind of like your hiking attire. It's certainly not like the pant hiking boot kind of image. I think that's going away. And then you have your sleeping set of clothes, your camp clothes, which is typically like a very minimalist camp shoe. It's all about weight because that piece of footwear is on your back.

Right. So you want to make sure that one's light. A lot of people even use Crocs. I know they use Crocs because it's super light, right? It's just light, and it's waterproof. You can walk around camping on them. And then some kind of wool. Honestly, I love this.

Merino. Merino wool. Something warm to sleep in something dry like that those clothes like get your hiking clothes wet dirty all day long but when you come home or when you get to camp at night it's like keep it make sure it's comfortable make sure it's dry because that's your saving grace if you have to go to sleep in wet clothes in winter time like that's no good yeah now why why synthetic why do you choose synthetic uh so i know a lot of people choose merino for for hiking as well because it regulates temperature well and when it's wet you can still stay warm uh i think you i mean you can have

arguments on both sides uh i personally like synthetic just because i feel like it dries faster um and it's a little more durable like Like this would just tear, you know, and it's like I like getting down and dirty when I hike. And like a synthetic shirt, even just from Walmart, you know, nothing amazing, just a lightweight synthetic shirt. I think it's just going to breathe and, yeah, dry faster. But, I mean, Merino, yeah, I've hiked in Merino too. And what kind of pack are you using? Oh, man, I could totally nerd out on packs. I used an Osprey on the actual AT hike.

I don't want to talk bad about Osprey. I like Osprey a lot, but I would not hike with them again. How come? I hate to be kind of from aesthetics, but I just don't like the way they look. They've got this, like, they've got this, like. That seems like the last thing you consider when you're wearing Crocs. That's true.

But they have this... They kind of pride themselves on a breathable back. Do you know what I'm... They have like that concave back. It just feels like a turtle shell. I just can't stand it. It's like... I feel like I'm falling back with it on.

Oh, okay. So the weight's not tight to your back. Yeah, I want something snug on my back. I guess that's not, I mean, that's a little utility. But that's a big issue for utility. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you just think they look weird too? Well, exactly. It's like, I don't like it. It just looks bizarre.

What's the name of the pack so we can pull it up? Osprey Exos 58. And so that's 5,800 liters? Is that what it is?'s 58 liters 58 liters 58 liters yeah and then um but i mean if i were to do it again they're a handful of like pretty badass ultralight pack companies it's kind of you got this like bell curve of like osprey is like the majority of backpackers and it's like you get into like that that niche ultralight and then you've got

like a handful so there it is right there. Competing. Yeah, that's it. So that's, it just looks like a. Yeah, you see that space in between the back? Right. I'm not into that. So that's just for breathability? Yeah, but it's like, man, you're a sweaty pig no matter how you look at it. Right.

I just don't see the argument for breathability back there. Do some people like it? Definitely. So it's just a, it's maybe personal preference. Yeah. So what is like, what's the elite of the elite? Uh, I could, I would probably say like four. There's, um, Hyperlight Mountain Gear. Uh, they make, what's, uh, Cuban fiber. Do you know Cuban fiber, the material? Cuban? Cuban fiber. It's called Dyneema now. Okay, I've heard of Dyneema. Dyneema.

They use that for bow strings. Oh, yeah? Yeah. But it's lightweight. It's strong. They're super expensive. Hyperlight Mountain Gear makes, I like their packs. Gossamer Gear, they make great packs.

A little more affordable. Super lightweight. Granite Gear is another one. And then ULA equipment. Those would probably be the four pack companies I'd want to use for the next hike. What if there's a cost, not an option, best one? Or is it just all four of them are really similar? Even the Gossamer Gear Mariposa, that's a model,

they're probably more affordable than some of the other options. I'd probably like it the most. So, yeah, even if money wasn't an issue, they're still one of the more affordable packs and make the best. What's interesting about packs is a lot of it is, like, where it centers the weight on you. And you can make one pack with the same amount of weight would feel lighter than another pack just by the way it's designed and the way the load lifters work and all that chance your torso

length like you know what you might not fit me right yeah it's like yeah I went backpacking with my girlfriend I gave her some of my packs and her torso just so much shorter than mine like the hip belt wasn't working properly so she couldn't rest the weight on her hips. And then it's all on her shoulders. And then she's like, God, this pack sucks. And I'm like, man, that's one of the best packs out there. You know, like.

So do you have to, can you adjust it for her? Or is it just effect, just needs a different pack for her frame? You need a different size. Hmm. That's interesting. So how do you know, like what to choose? You have to just try them out? I would, yeah. Yeah. I would have to try them out.

It's hard to do because, like, your local REI, I don't know. REI, yeah, okay. They don't carry those kind of niche ultralight packs. You can't go try them on. They'll carry Osprey. Yeah, go try them on. Measure your torso length. Some of those online retailers have, like, ways to, you ways to measure your torso length, make sure it fits right.

But still, at the end of the day, it's like a pair of shoes. You've got to try them on. It's interesting because hunters in general do not use the same packs that backpackers use. Yeah, but you probably have more holsters and all sorts of stuff you need. Your needs are different, I'd imagine, right? Yeah, for the most part. But a lot of it is, like, certain things you strap to the pack. Like, you strap your bow to your pack. And some of them have, like, rifle holsters or rifle, you know, sc a tripod or maybe the top compartment you would keep your binoculars

or something along those lines. But I would think that there would be a lot of crossover, and there's not. There's an exclusive sort of segment of the population, or of the market, rather. Why is that? Is it just marketing? Is it just targeting a different audience? I don't know, because I wouldn't think that that would be the case because it's not the case really with boots that much. There's a lot of people who use, like, Solomons and really standard hiking boots.

There are hunting boots, like Crispy and Canitrac, and there's a few of those that are, like, specifically designed Schnee's. Schnee's, like, people use them for other things, too, but they're, like, really, like, well-known in the hunting world. Maybe the markets will start blending. I wonder, but I'm just wondering like you would think you would go to those guys, the backpackers,

the, the, you know, Appalachian trail people, like they would have already done the work. I would think like that's the people to contact. They know what's good. Yeah.

They're traveling for seven fucking months. You, you know, no, do you take like a Nalgene bottle or something like that with you? Smart water bottles, man. Smart water. That's it?

Really? Yeah. I mean, these water bottles are fine. But I like smart water because you talk about that filter. That's all your squeeze we're talking about. It matches water bottle threads. But the problem with this bottle specifically is it goes around, what around what like two and a half maybe one and a half times around right it's like smart water bottles this piece is about that long and it's just

like much much better it's much more secure right so it's like more threads more threads to secure itself so there's not gonna be any any leak or anything it's crazy to think that that all you have to do is squeeze the water through it. How long does it take to do a one liter thing of water? That's the biggest con with that specific type of filter is the fact that you have to manually do it and it can take a while. So if you had a group of, let's say you wanted to go with your kids backpacking, I don't know if I'd recommend that filter because you're going to have to squeeze all their water through that one little filter. But if it's just you and you're trying to squeeze

a half a liter or a liter at a time, it's fine. It might take a minute. I've seen those gravity filters too. Yeah. If you're going with your family or something and you have to do more volume of water, I'd probably go gravity filter. So here it is right here.

Okay, Sawyer Squeeze water filtration system. There's a video of it. Oh, okay, and it squeezes into a bag. So you fill the water bottle up, and then you squeeze it, and then it fills that bag. So do you use one of those? That's their manufacturer bag. Oh, I see.

Do you use one of those tubes? Oh, so what's going on right there? That's the clean water coming out. Oh, I see, I see. Oh, so that's it. Huh. So you fill the bag up and you squeeze that thing and then it comes out the end. Wow.

That's pretty good stuff. That's amazing that that's all you have to do. I would think there's a bunch of bears shitting in that water. What are the odds that you could just do that? That seems crazy. I think they're marketing more towards Africa and stuff now. Oh seems crazy. I think they're marketing more towards like, you know, like Africa and stuff now.

Oh, right. If you get, if you have a water source that's polluted, like you can start, you got water for village, you know, it's like just squeeze it through

and they have like a warranty of some insane amount of water can go through there, you know. And then what do you do? You have to change the filter or throw it away? Just throw it away

and get another one. They're like, I don't know, $40. So it's like get another filter every 10 years, like God forbid. That's it? I think their warranty is like, I don't even want to throw out a number, but it's like a million gallons or just something ridiculous. Whoa, that little thing can go through a million gallons of water. What does that filter smell like after the end?

You're supposed to back flush it. Like my back flush and you back flush mine so you're right you got the one way the dirty water goes through this way and you're supposed to push through the crap right out the other way and yeah when you do that on mine like there's just black water coming out oh it's like it's interesting to think like all that black water is just filtered out of what looks like clean water clean water yeah well that is interesting well it's also like you know? Yeah. Well, that is interesting. Well, it's also like, you ever, like, especially in Los Angeles, this is a great example of this. Have you ever gone to the hills and looked down on the basin of the L.A. area and you see the brown air?

Yeah. It's fucking disgusting. But when you're there. You don't see it. It looks normal. If you're walking around Hollywood, you're like, oh, look, air. I can see right through it. Your lungs are doing the same thing that filter's doing.

I know. It's just like. Brake dust. That's the other thing. The brake dust apparently is a real issue with New York City and places where you have real congestion in tight areas. You're breathing in a lot of dust from the brakes of the cars. I had no idea. Yeah, I didn't either.

Yeah, I saw some of that smoke coming into L.A., and I connected it to Mexico City when I was coming here, and Mexico City was the same way. Mexico City was just like... Oh, the worst. Oh. Mexico City is like L.A.'s going to be in probably 20 or 30 years. What's going on with the politics over here? I figured it would be clean air and organic. There's not much we could do.

I mean, when you get the volume of people that are here, the amount of humans in LA, apparently, though, the basin, especially like the valley, has always been like that. It's always been kind of like a dust bowl, just by the way it's shaped. Even back before there were cars, people always complained about the brown air

just literally from dust and dirt and wind and the dry air and the lack of moisture. So the dirt kicks up easy with the wind. But then you add that with pollution as well. Gross. But, you know, we have 20 million plus people in this tiny little area. Yeah. You know, I mean, literally we have as many people as the entire country of Australia in the L.A. area.

That's crazy. Fucking really crazy. That's just too many. And now Trump has lightened the EPA protection standards, and they're changing the standards of automobiles, what automobiles need to achieve. Supposedly to help business, but fuck, man, at what cost? Yeah, I think that seems like a short-term solution to a long-term problem. It's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea.

I mean, there's a reason why people, why they've set those standards, and they're trying to achieve cleaner and cleaner standards. If you go back, apparently the 1970s in Los Angeles, the traffic was, pollution was way worse. Because when you're around those cars, you ever been around like old, old cars, like, you know, 1970 car? Not particularly, no. When you're around them, apparently just an old car like that, just sitting around produces

pollution, not even driving because the gas tank is not airtight and fucking fumes leak out into the environment just the oil those things are always leaking oil and shit when they drive they're just traps they're just disgusting there's just fire i mean they're basically just burning gasoline it's coming out the back and so why are they different now that regulations that's manhattan from 1966 it's crazy yeah well that's those old cars, man. Old cars were fucking terrible, and regulations fixed a lot of that stuff. And, you know, that upper right-hand corner is Los Angeles.

Look at that. Ugh, fucking smog in L.A. And it's going to get worse now. I mean, it was getting better, but it's going to get worse. and it's going to get worse now. I mean, it was getting better, but it's going to get worse. I mean, if he really does succeed in lowering the standards, the emission standards, look at China.

China's awful. I was just about to say, Beijing, have you been to China? No, I've not. I've watched a documentary. I literally, like when I was in, this is years ago, but when I was in China, I was just like sick, literally sick. Like I was talking with a gravel voice. It was just like people live there, you know, like every day. Yeah.

No thanks. Well, that has got to be one thing that's positive about doing the Appalachian Trail is that you're constantly in nature. And you're constantly around all those trees and walking through the mountains and the clean air. Yeah. You're drinking like, well, I'm not going to say that all stream water is clean, but, I mean, yeah, you're drinking river water. You're surrounded by trees all the time. You're not near city lights, air pollution.

And you're exercising every day, all day. It's a pretty healthy way of life. In a way, right? Yeah, unless you start talking about stress fractures, right? Well, so when you quit your job, you didn't just do the Appalachian Trail. Like, you kind of became a world traveler, right? Yeah, and I still kind of am, honestly. Yeah, I'm in Guatemala right now.

What are you doing in Guatemala? Working online. You know, I do a lot of green belly online uh so you live in guatemala kind of a loose term you know living there's like have you heard the term digital nomad is that what you are i don't know if i identify myself as that but that kind of movement of of working online and working remotely so i can truly operate um most of the business on online um so from that point of view it's like nowhere off limits, you know, as long as there's decent Internet connection. So, I mean, my girlfriend and I are in Guatemala for three months right now.

And then we'll be in Europe and then, you know, Asia. Do you keep an apartment anywhere or anything? Airbnb. Wow. No possessions, truly. Wow, you're a renegade. You're out there fucking thumbing your nose at society. It's a growing movement, man.

There are a lot of people. You'll go to these cities. Chiang Mai, Thailand, is where I was pretty much all of last year. There are thousands of young international people running businesses off their laptop. And there are hubs all over the world, like Chiang Mai, where they'll have these co-working cafes. It's booming right now. People are all over the world, 20s, 30-year-olds, just starting off a business that just makes $1,000 a month income, and then they'll slowly grow it into $2,000 a month.

The next thing you know is they're replacing their old salary at their old gig. Yeah. I know people have done that in Hawaii. I've heard of people doing that in Hawaii where they move to Hawaii and try to operate out of there, and you're essentially still in the United States, but you're living a beach life. Yeah, yeah I mean look if you can do it

It's probably better than being trapped somewhere. Yeah, no doubt Yeah, and it's like no car like no car payments. No more. It's like I don't know I mean, I I like it. I do you know I don't know about in a few years about having kids if that's the way to Go yeah, I think like some some in a few years about having kids if that's the way to go. Yeah. Because I think like some sense of stability in an environment would be good. But for now, it's fantastic. It's definitely good for the kids.

Yeah. I mean, you're an adult. You know, it's a different animal, you know. I mean, I think also you get a lot of people that do that kind of stuff. You get really attached to this idea of being free. About you could just pull up stakes, throw your shit in a backpack and you're gone like how many bags do you have one I literally fit everything into one bag Wow two pairs of shoes Wow it's like this it's like this extreme minimalist living you know but I know a guy who does that. He's in his 60s.

My friend Steve Maxwell. Yeah. He's a personal trainer. He's a famous trainer. Does he live in California? Lives everywhere. He doesn't have a place. He lives in hotels.

Yeah. He hasn't had a place since I met him. When I met him, he had a van that he lived out of, like a big camper van. And he slept in that thing. Then he sold that fucking thing. He's like, I don't care. I don't need this. And he just has a bag.

He has a bag that's about that big, and he gets everything down to that bag. He travels all over the world. Less is more. Yeah, I mean, and he's a guy that's done the opposite. He had a gym, and he had a house, and he had a family, and the whole deal. And his kids grew up.

He got divorced. He's like, fuck this life. And just became that kind of nomad type person. It's a fascinating idea that, I mean, people are so attached to the idea of permanence when it's not real. I mean, no matter what happens, you will die. And all this stuff that you've nestled. Acquired. Yeah.

Feathered your nest with. It's not real. It's like you've nestled, you know. Acquired. Yeah, feathered your nest with. It's not real. It's like you're not going to keep it. Guatemala, huh? Come on down, man. How'd you choose that? Cost like five bucks a year. That's a plus.

Yeah, it's close to home. My dad's not in the best of health right now, so I do like the idea of being somewhat close to Georgia. So if I need to come home, you know. How far is the flight from Guatemala to Georgia? Four and a half hours. Oh, so you can get there almost the same as like living on the East Coast and flying to the West Coast. Yeah, and the same time zone. It's cheap, and it's like all these volcanoes around.

You can hike all day long. And it's like the coolest thing about um i'm in antigua right now antigua is like uh there are several south american cities like this or central american cities and they have um they're close to the equator so you have hot temperature all year long kind of like i guess california you're spoiled with it right yeah um antigua specifically is at several thousand feet of elevation. So you have that consistent weather year long. However, it's not 100 degrees every day.

So it's very similar to here. It's like 75 degrees every day. It's like 60 at night. Do you speak Spanish? Un poquito. Really? I would think you would learn. Do you speak Spanish?

No, but I live in California. Yeah, my Spanish is horrible. I've only been down there like two months. You know, like I'm not, I haven't picked it up that much. I just got back from Cabo and I felt bad that I didn't speak Spanish while I was down there. I tried. You know, I did the whole gracias. How long were you down there?

Just a week. A week. Yeah, but I would like, I would think like if you stay there just a week but a weekend yeah but i would like i would think like if you stay there for any length of time like i have a friend who has a house there he keeps house there and they go there every month this motherfucker can't speak a word of spanish that's crazy like you should learn it's their language i know it's kind of like a guilty like american privilege like i'm not gonna wait i was in thailand for a year last year i don't know 10 words in Thai.

Wow. That's a shame on me, but it's a commitment to learn something that fundamentally different. Oh, yeah. Thai, especially. You have to learn a whole new alphabet. Totally. You can't even read it, right? It's like you've got to start way back into kindergarten in Thai, you know? At least Spanish, they use the same letters.

Yeah, Thai is like that crazy language. You look at it, it's like, it's almost like music. You know, you're looking at like musical notes or something. Yeah, and it's like, other than being in Thailand, there's no advantage of knowing Thai, you know? Right. I don't mean to bash on Thailand, but it's like, Spanish is much more of a sense, like, okay,

a lot of people speak Spanish. Yeah. That would be a great thing to know on Thailand, but it's like Spanish is much more of a sin. It's like, okay, a lot of people speak Spanish. Yeah. That would be a great thing to know. Yeah, that makes sense. Spanish is probably next to English, maybe the most popular. What is the most popular language? I'd say Mandarin, maybe. Oh, that's right. It's like a billion people.

But I don't know the numbers. Spanish is huge. That seems like a grind, learning Mandarin. Oh, Jesus Christ. Then you have to learn symbols. It's not even letters yeah right fuck right their grammar structure everything yeah how do they text how did Chinese people text oh my god how do they text how is it possible that's like a really that's a really

good point watch it well I should know this I should have already asked this question how do they text have I asked this question. How do they text? Have I asked this question? Well, I know in Thailand you can switch your keyboard. In Thailand, they switch their keyboard to, I don't know. But they don't have the same numbers of keys, so I don't even. Yeah, but with Chinese characters, how the fuck would you send a text? You know?

Like if you sent a late night booty call this is just like emojis you know smiley face here now yeah smiley face hard dick exclamation point thumbs up what is this oh my god there they go they have they text. Hmm. But how many characters? Do they just simplify? Okay, what does a keyboard look like? What does a Chinese character keyboard on a cell phone look like? Hmm. Yeah, but that's a keyboard on a laptop.

What about a cell phone? Limited amount of keys. How weird. Oh, wow. wow they have options it's Thai oh wow it's Korean hmm so do they piece them together and make I'm asking way too many questions we're not gonna get the answers to these either. Out of all the places that you have visited, why did you choose Guatemala? Close to the United States. Hiking.

Oh. I was in a place called Lake Atitlan, which is just, man, go to Lake Atitlan. That place is gorgeous. It's like this massive thousand foot deep lake

surrounded by volcanoes, just like tiny little villages around there. I think we just did a little bit of Googling, and it was kind of like, hey, why not? Let's go down to Guatemala. So did you go as a visit and then decide to stay, or did you just go, say, let's see if we could live here for a few months? Yeah, pretty much. I like the idea of going three months at a time.

It's enough to kind of like find a gym, find your restaurants, settle into apartment, like doing every few weeks. It's just way too many logistics, you know? Right. So I think, yeah,

we committed. It was like three months down there. I think we're going to commit to Eastern Europe for three months. And then, yeah, commit back to Asia for three months after that. That whole expat lifestyle, it takes a very different kind of person,

you know, to just say, let's try living in another country. Like when you say you find a gym, like what kind of gyms they have in the little village in Guatemala? A couple of coconuts attached to a stick? Right. Dude, they did literally mention that they had paint buckets with cement in them. For real? With PVCs and like, but I wasn't working out there. That was Lake Antigua,

but Antigua's. Wait, they really did? It's like super ghetto stuff. So they had paint buckets filled with cement that are attached to sticks. Yeah, literally. And that's how you worked out.

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. But Antigua's different. That's like a more, it's a bigger town city. Like they have a proper gym

we go to, yoga classes, the whole nine yards. Oh, so it's almost like America. Totally. So when you're using these paint buckets with sticks. I'm not using these. You didn't use them? That was only in Lake Atitlan.

So I'm in Antigua now. Lake Atitlan, I was only there for a month. And Lake Atitlan is like maybe like seven small villages scattered around the lake. And they're actually indigenous. It's like they're directly Mayan. Oh, wow. So those people, Guatemala, interesting, is of all the South American and Central American countries,

has the highest percentage of indigenous people. So it's like 30% indigenous. So they don't even speak Spanish. Whoa. It's crazy. And they like- What do they speak? It's Quechical, Quechicales.

I don't know. So is it a Mayan dialect? I believe so. So they're totally different people. Wow. And they dress traditional everything. That's intense. Well, they have a very strange, well, at least Mayans did.

They had a very strange language where it's like the letters or the images represent sounds. And so the sounds like you would have like an eye. Like this is how Terrence McKenna described it. You'd have like an eyeball, a saw, an ant, like a bug, and then a rose. And that would be the way you say, I saw Aunt Rose. How do you know this? It's just from Terrence McKenna, him talking about it. Because he was a crazy psychedelic adventure character.

Do you know who McKenna is? Maybe I should. Yeah, he's a fascinating speaker who was a psychedelic lecturer. He was a botanist and just did way too many drugs, or the right amount, depending on who you ask. And he got really deep into the Mayan culture. And he was one of those guys that was thinking that December 21, 2012 was going to be some crazy event. Apocalypse, right?

Well, not necessarily. More of a shifting of consciousness because it was the end of the long count of the Mayan calendar. Yeah. So, well, the Mayan calendar. Yeah. So, well, the Mayan calendar is a really tricky thing, man. Like the sort of various different decipherings of it and the people that are attached to all these different meanings to it that don't necessarily jive with the original meanings. It's very hard to tell what the Mayans meant because they're not around anymore. You know, so it's not like you're studying ancient Russia where people are Russian scholars and there's a direct lineage between them and the people now. You know, when you...

Dead culture. Yeah. The language is gone. Hieroglyphics. Yeah. There's like some translations that took forever to figure out, and there's things that are similar in some ways to a Rosetta Stone, where they're trying to match up what it used to be to what it is.

We try to figure out how you would say these words in the context of the culture that existed 2,000 years ago as opposed to today. Like how would you even, you're talking about the way they viewed things,000 years ago as opposed to today. Like how would you even, you're talking about the way they viewed things, the way they communicated was incredibly different. That's interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating stuff. There was a great documentary called Decoding the Maya that was, I think it was a Nat Geo.

I was going to say that sounds like Nat Geo. I feel like I'm going to see that. Yeah, I think it was. And it just detailed how difficult it was for these people to try to figure out. See these symbols and say, all right, what do these mean? Yeah, what the fuck do they mean? And apparently there was a really recent breakthrough where they found a bunch of, I don't think they call them hieroglyphs.

I don't know what they actually call them. But they found a bunch of previously undiscovered Mayan language that sort of filled in some pieces they hadn't hadn't filled in before then you look at some of their amazing murals that look like a guy seated in a spaceship with fire below his seat you try to figure out what the fuck this meant like a lot of those ancient alien alien theorists right oh you ever seen that one there's one is really crazy this looks like a guy who's leaning back in like a like a spaceship it looks like he's leaning back in a cockpit chair and he's looking through something that looks like a telescope and he's moving some levers with his hands. And it looks like there's fire beneath him.

Really bizarre, fascinating stuff. It's like that was drawn a long time ago. Oh, yeah. There it is right there. That's the, I guess. Yeah, there's it. Go full screen with that one right there that you got right there. Yeah, see?

So below him is fire. He's moving some stuff with his feet. He's moving some levers, and you see how he's looking through that thing, and it looks like he's got a gas mask on, like an oxygen mask. And all those people that, like the Von Daniken guys, they believe that what this showed was a man sitting in a cockpit using the the levers and machines to operate some sort of a spaceship so where was that spaceship from most likely it didn't exist most likely these guys were high as fuck on mushrooms and

they were probably imagining the future i mean if i if I had to guess, I would say that these ideas were probably very psychedelically based because they were really into psychedelic drugs. They had found a lot of different drugs and a lot of different vines that contained lysergic acid. I did a trip to Chichen Itza, which is really cool, a bunch of years back, and I had a professor that was a guide. It was really cool because you could hire people for a guide. And we got this guy who was a professor in Mayan history. And when he knew that I was really into it and I asked all these questions, he was super psyched. So he went way deep into it. And we had for like six hours.

And he took us on this grand tour but one of the things he showed us is this area of one of the pyramids where they used to do these psychedelic rituals and he was talking about these vines that they used to take these these vines that had some sort of lysergic acid in it and they would have these psychedelic rituals and that's one of the one of the things they used to do when they were studying the stars and you know looking at obviously no no light pollution back then right so these guys are tripping their balls out on acid staring at this beautiful starscape and what's the do you know are the vines still around i don't know i don't remember it was so long ago that i went i went in like early 2000s 2002 or something like that I think we went

but it was amazing like to think that you're standing on the ground where these people existed and they had this bizarre culture that we don't understand that was aligned to the cosmos like all their structures were based on constellations. Like the maps of these structures mirrored constellations. And they were really into astronomy in some sort of a weird way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right over your head. Like how the fuck did they?

Apparently there's evidence that they knew about the procession of the equinoxes, which is a 20-something thousand year cycle of wobble of the Earth. Yeah, because the Earth doesn't just spin, you know, it doesn't just spin perfectly. It spins with like a little bit of a wobble. So the night sky changes and goes into this 26, I think it's 26,000 year cycle. And they apparently knew about that. What? How? How?

No idea. Yeah, I guess if you have a lot of time back then and there's no iPhone to constantly distract you with checking your Twitter. Yeah, look at the stars, man. Oh, look at this picture on Instagram. You know, instead you're just looking at constellations. I just don't know how they would market. I just don't know how they would mark it. How they would, I mean, I guess that they would see that there's some sort of subtle changing of the night sky in terms of, like, how it would move a little bit all the time.

Not just move. Obviously, the night sky moves with the seasons. You're looking at a different image as the sun moves and the planet spins. But it's just the idea that these people had figured out all these different things in terms of mapping constellations so long ago. Wild. Yeah, amazing. It's fucked up that we don't know what they were saying. We've never heard their language.

Like, it's one of the things about one of these other documentaries that I watched was that they were trying to mimic what the sound of these Mayan languages could have been like, and they really, it was kind of guesswork, but they didn't know. See if there's something that you find, or something where they hear what the Mayan language could have sounded like. You know, there was some sort of really bizarre clicks or something.

Well, it was just a weird language, but they don't even know if that's right, because there's no one around. Total guess. They just died. They just went away. You know, it's weird. And then their language got absorbed. And obviously these people that you were talking about probably have some sort of a dialect.

Yeah, and I have no idea what the correlation is between the current descendants and what you're talking about. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, what's really bizarre is it's not that long ago in terms of human history. Because if you look back on like human history in europe like there's places in europe you can visit that are 2 000 years old right you know i mean isn't there a fucking bar somewhere in europe that's like almost 900 years old or something something crazy like that so these i believe the mayan civilization they think was not more than 2,000 years

ago. Here it is. Sean's Bar is a pub in Athlone, Ireland. The oldest pub in Ireland. Goes back to 900 AD. Older than 900 years old. Jesus Christ! 2,900 years old, essentially.

Oh, 900 AD. AD. Oh, okay. But think. A.D. Oh, okay. Duh. But think about that. That's 1,000. Well, it says oldest pub in Europe, so what's the oldest pub in the world? That's a good question. But just think of that, 900 A.D.

So that's 300 or 400 years before Genghis Khan. The old trip to Jerusalem, 1189 A.D., 900 A.D. So that seems like the oldest. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? 900 A.D., wow. More than 1,100 years ago. Fucking A, man. Just crazy that... Much older than America, right?

Yeah. So when was the Mayan civilization? When was the decline of the Mayan civilization? See if you can find that. It is pretty amazing when you stop and think about it. Think about the bizarre history of the human race and that there are these civilizations that had these... They lived in these sort of isolated environments where they developed, in many ways,

parallel sort of building techniques, but different than other parts of the world that were also based on constellations, like very similar to a lot of the hypothesis about Egyptian cultures that they had done that. Collapse. There it goes. Wow, 900 AD. That's insane. Right around the bar time.

Right when that bar was built. Maybe that bar fucking caused it. They all went to Ireland, got hammered. Wow, that's amazing. What a coincidence. 900 AD right there. 900 AD up and down. But what a bizarre and complex civilization the Mayans were.

See if you can find out this is what the Mayan language sounded like. I found a video, but it's like a woman living currently. It's like this is what it could have sounded like. I don't know if that's the best choice. Let's hear what she says. Maybe. I mean, maybe there's some of it left. This is Yucatan.

I don't know if that's the same. Oh, Yucatan. Yeah, that's the Yucatan. That's where the... It's a you could happen. It's That doesn't sound like anything that I've ever heard before. I feel like I heard a few Spanish words dropped. It says what Yucatec Maya really sounds like. What does the description say? This guy had his housekeeper describe what this older woman was saying. Go back to that.

It says, attention Mel Gibson. Yeah, she saw that movie apocalypto and had a hard time understanding the mayan that they were speaking in that movie if you listen closely you can hear a few spanish words mixed in where there are no mayan words huh wow interesting that's really interesting maybe he claimed that they were speaking it or something like that well what movie what could he have done in apocalypto i mean really interesting. Maybe he claimed that they were speaking it or something like that What could he have done in apocalypto? I mean you're talking about a dead language How could you he's gonna guess to yeah, what did he do with apocalypto? Did he use Spanish?

Did he mix it in with stuff? But imagine he would hire some sort of language experts But who knows he might have been busy getting drunk and yelling at Jews. Cursing out his ex-wife. This thing that I pulled up off of Mental Floss is that, if like 15 fun facts about the movie, it says that he was a stickler for authentic language, and all of the dialogue is Yucatec Maya language. Oh, wow.

That's where the discrepancy is in that maybe he said he used it all and she's saying i speak it and i didn't recognize much what you were well she's not saying that she spoke it if you read what she said she was saying that she had given this woman a massage and the woman was speaking to her and that she recognized a few words in spanish but she didn't yeah i don't think there's a bridge between that language. I don't think there's anybody who knows that language and also speaks English that can... Crazy, man. That whole part of the world is so... And then you go back to, like, the Olmecs. They don't even know who those people were.

Those strange, almost African-looking faces. Those gigantic stone structures that they found that could be thousands of years old. You're talking about off of the coast of like Ecuador and yeah the Olmec are they're almost like a hypothetical situation or a they don't they don't necessarily know where these people came from they don't know who they were and some people have said they look a lot like really strong featured South American folks. And some people have actually compared the way the Olmecs were depicted in these statues and things that they look more like Africans. You know, there's been like speculation that these are people that might have come from Africa on boats.

That's been widely criticized too. But the point is they don't really know much about the Olmecs. You ever seen images from the... See, pull up Olmec statues. O-L-M-E-C, I believe is the way they spell it. But again, that's just phonetic. They don't even know what language these people spoke. And these are some statues and things that they found in South America. Look at these. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You seen that? I remember that from Legends of the Hidden Temple. Did you ever see that show? I thought it was a joke. You said that. I thought I was going to pull up the Nickelodeon TV show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm thinking of.

No, the Olmecs. Like, look at that one, the third one over from the top. Look at that. I mean, that looks very African, doesn't it? I mean, really thick lips, wide noses, large nostrils, really interesting. I mean, these people, they don't exactly know what their culture was. They don't exactly know who they were. It's hard to carbon date as well because you're dealing with stone. So until they find, date as well because you're dealing with stone so until they find you know things that are around there that they can back date i think that the estimate is like 6 000 years i might have made that up though see see if you could find out like what how long ago were the olmecs you could see it

back where you just were what does it say there 900? 900 B.C. 900 B.C. Jesus, everything is 900 B.C. That was A.D. before. Oh, B.C. 900. Yeah, why am I screwing that up? Dealing with this. I'm in pain right now.

Dealing with this. How's it doing? It's better, but fuck, man. I was in Mexico this week, and I got severely sunburnt on my back. Put sunscreen everywhere. But my back, I had young Jamie in a very non-gay way lather on this aloe vera anti, but I'm very distracted. It's just like almost like I have 100 bee stings all over my back.

No bueno. So that's 900 B.C. they think the Olmecs lived? What's that estimate based on because I saw something that was like it thought it was they were way older than that Wonder if they know they date from at least before 900 BC yeah see that's though they see I think there's like a conventional Way of thinking and then there's an alternative Theory and the alternative theory theory was that they were way way way older than that but I don't think they know. They don't know who the Olmecs were.

But cool shit. You know they left behind these giant stone heads. And like alright. Why'd you even do that? No one knows. Have you seen that thing? I was watching this one documentary or one television show, rather, on the Amazon.

And they've recently, because of satellite images, found a hidden city. Well, they found what they think is evidence of hidden cities or evidence of ancient cultures. No, in the Amazon. And I think it was Brazil. I don't think it was Honduras. But they found what appears to be irrigation structures and things that are carved into the ground and things that look like grids

where they might have had cities and streets. That was the lost city of gold. Remember there was a lost city? El Dorado. Yeah, yeah, that people were looking for and that one European explorer went looking for and wound up dying and they believe got eaten by cannibals. They're making a movie about that, right?

We talked about this recently. Some movie about the lost city of gold that's on its way. I think it was Disney did one. Did they? Animation one like 20 years ago that was a while back well there have always been rumors that there was these lost cities in the amazon but now thanks to satellite imagery they're starting to see things they never saw before and starting to find patterns and structures and it's cool man it's cool what's what's really crazy is like if we

didn't have this stuff like how long would it be before there was no evidence? Would it be another thousand years? So, like, if you go back to when were these structures? Were they 2,000 years old? Were they 1,000 years old? So, if we think about it, like, who knows what was there in the Amazon? Who knows what was there 5,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. I mean, it could have been completely lost civilizations that we just will never know.

We'll never have any awareness of. You're freaking out, man. Look at you. Freaking out. Never going to know. Do you have any plans other than you said you were going to visit Eastern Europe? You're living in Guatemala now. Are you going to live there for a while? Do you have any other wild than you said you're going to visit Eastern Europe? You're living in Guatemala now. Are you going to live there for a while?

Do you have any other wild plans or places to go? Talking about Thailand again at the end of the year. Other than that, no. That's about as far ahead as I've thought. Honestly, I came to – my buddy was in Ojai. I don't know if you know Ojai. It's a tiny town. We went surfing yesterday up there.

And I was just like, I liked it. And we went surfing around lunchtime. And then we went for a hike in the afternoon. It's just gorgeous. Yeah. The fact that you can go surfing in the day and then for a gorgeous hike. It looked like these trails just snaked on forever. I was like, California.

I was like, okay, maybe California is on the radar. California is pretty badass. It is, yeah. Northern California is really intense. Like, the rainforest area where the redwoods are. Have you been up there? Yeah, yeah. Metacino and up there.

Yeah, yeah. I've been up there. Those big redwoods. It's gorgeous. Pacific Northwest looks beautiful, too. I've never been up there. Yeah, it is. It's really interesting.

And it's super dense forest up there. Yeah, it is. It's really interesting. And it's super dense forest up there. Like really dense because it's constantly raining. And what's really interesting about the forest is the, there's so many pine trees and there's so many leaves fall that the forest floor is really soft. Yeah. Like you like step into it. It's like almost mossy. Yeah. Like you're stepping on this like cushion everywhere you walk. It looks beautiful though. It is. A lot of ferns and. Yeah. It's very, very alive. What do you do up there?

It's very green. Yeah. I've hunted up there before. I also went up there looking for Bigfoot. That TV show that I did. You did? Yeah. Yeah. We went, we went Bigfoot hunting up there for a week.

Did you find him? No. We found a lot of white guys out camping looking for Bigfoot. Really? Yeah. It was a joke that I said, here's what you don't find when you go looking for Bigfoot. Black people. You're more likely to find Bigfoot than you are black people looking for Bigfoot.

This much of white guys camping? Exactly. And it was interesting. It was one of the guys that we talked to. He was like, hey, look, even if we don't find anything, at least we're out here camping. I was like, okay. That's an interesting way to look at it. The worst case scenario is pretty good.

But there's a lot of people out there that claim they've seen things but i just think they're seeing bears because there are bears up there there's a lot of black bears up there and you see them in the distance and bears do walk on two legs all the time and i think if you see one in the distance and you see that image and you convince yourself that that's a bear or that's a bigfoot rather not a bear and after a while your memory starts to bleed memories are so bad like the human memory is so inherently shitty i mean a few people have like very clear distinct memories from the past but i think even those you're sort of repeating them to yourself and then ingraining them in your head until you believe it until you believe them

but i think like what what our memories are good for is like recent events like or things that are catastrophic like don't go near the snake the snake will kill you you know that spider's got venom oh i remember the spider you know but like as far as like seeing things and being around especially unusual events that are very unique like seeing a seven foot tall monkey in the woods or believing you saw that thing. Yeah, no doubt. I think you've seen those studies where they'll have a criminal break into a room, and then they'll ask all the witnesses, how tall was he? It's like, was he black? Was he white? All these specific characteristics, and they're all over the place.

All over the place, yeah. Yeah, human memory is unbelievably bad, And we count on it so much. And people are always telling you stories about their childhood. I remember when this happened. And you're like, do you really? How much do you really remember? It's like you might really. And how delusional are you?

That's the other part of the problem. How much do you remember of things? How much do you distort reality to fit within your narrative that you enjoy make a good story right yes enjoy yeah you must run into a lot of those people when you're out there on the on the at as it were what is this sasquatch chase deer onto highway woman tells deputy well she sounds pretty fucking legit she's 50 50 year old tensed-old tensed. What is tensed? Tensed? It's a city, I guess. Tensed woman. 50 years old.

She's probably on pills. Whacked out of her mind. Maybe drunk. What happened last week in Idaho? So legit, dude. But it's in Idaho. Again, Idaho. High bear population.

Idaho has fucking grizzly bears. She's probably out there, whacked out on fucking pills. She sees a bear. She can't wait to call the police. Finally, my life has meaning. At 50 years old, I'm the first one in my town to see Bigfoot.

She goes and tells people. Did you run into any wildlife that was weird when you were out there? I don't know if bears are considered weird. A lot of bears? There was... It was 2013. They were like,

you know, Congress seems to shut down about once every decade for you know budget disagreements yeah and in 2013 they shut down and um uh yeah so they shut down the whole national park system so you you know the at goes through a lot of national parks so when they shut down the national park system nobody's allowed to go into the park meaning so it's like what the hell are we supposed to do? We've been hiking for four months, and now you're just going to say you can't go through these sections? So in the end, everybody just kind of kept on hiking. But the rangers would kick you out, so what you had to do is you would hike at night.

Oh, God. So you're hiking at night, but the best thing about hiking at night is the wildlife. You know, because it's like you start and so like specifically shenandoah national park um it gets a ton of visitors and so when they shut down the national park the only people in there were us it was like three hikers for this hundred mile section of park whoa so it was like and the shenandoah national park i believe is one of the highest concentrated black bear populations in the country oh jesus. So you have like no disturbance and you have all these bears. So, you know, we'd be hiking at night. I was actually alone at this point.

But, yeah, I was hiking through the night one night and, yeah, like the sun was rising. And, you know, like bears will go up to sleep at night in the trees. And when you pass by them, you tree a bear and they'll come out of the tree and they'll, you know, claw their way in the trees. And when you pass by them, you tree a bear, and they'll come out of the tree, and they'll claw their way down the tree and that's to slow their fall. But it was like, I think I saw 15 bears that morning. That was just cool though. That was just cool.

It was just like, poof. Now when you're hiking, are you using headlamps? Are you just going by the moonlight? Both, I mean, yeah. Moonlight if you can. It're you know your eyes adjust in the night and a lot of times but if you're under like heavy trees you know that's not gonna work but yeah headlamps definitely and how long was Congress how long did they shut down the national parks I remember who went too long there's

a couple weeks something I mean some hikers we knew like literally hold up in a hotel for a couple weeks until they settled it committed just like What is it was a ranger really gonna arrest you and like throw you in jail for like hiking? Through hike like hiking through the park. It's weird that they tell you can't go anymore I mean isn't this like public land I know I I think we all kind of rolled our eyes or most of us rolled our eyes at it like dude come on I'm just walking through here, you know. So this company that you have, Green Belly Meals, which I've enjoyed these things very much.

You came up with this because you needed more nutrition while you were out there. It's hard to find good stuff to eat. Yeah, exactly. And prior to the AT, I was doing, I was doing the term cycle touring. It's backpacking on a bike you hop on a bicycle and you you cycle you know 50 100 miles a day and then you camp out at night so i did that new zealand for like three or four months and it was the same thing it's just like burning a ton of calories man um and i needed everything to be light ready to eat um and then

yeah i came over um to the states and right after eat. Then I came over to the States. Right after that trip, I did the Appalachian Trail. The backpacking food consisted of those dehydrated freeze-dried meals that you add hot water to. Those things, I don't like stopping and cooking at all. If I can keep going, particularly at meals like lunch, just keep going. You know, like it's like if I can keep going, particularly at meals like lunch, just keep going. And like the meal options were bars, other bars. Bars usually cap out at like 200 calories, 250, even meal replacements.

The highest calorie meal replacement bar on the market was a 400 calorie, I believe, MetRx. You know, some of those workout high protein bars. And not to mention they're like heavily processed, you know. I was like I just didn't want to put a bunch of that crap in me. And to add another thing, just balanced nutrition. Some bars would have fiber, some wouldn't. Some would have protein, some wouldn't. Some would have carbs, some wouldn't. And I was like, dude, I need nutrition.

I'm really burning up to 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day. So that kind of idea of the need for a big nutrition, ready to eat, fast, kind of eat and go kind of meal was something that had been forming in my mind as I hiked. A lot of times we were drinking olive oil practically and drinking honey and drinking peanut butter. It's just like anything you can get to load in the calories. So I'm not a big dude. So I couldn't afford to lose that much weight, and I was losing weight. So Green Belly kind of came up with the idea when I was hiking,

like, let's make something that packs in some calories, you know? And how did you do that, though? How did you, like, these things are super dense. Like, for people that are listening, I'm holding this bag, and it has two bars in it. And, dude, I eat, I've eaten these before. I've eaten two bars, and I'm good for bag and it has two bars in it. And, dude, I've eaten these before. I've eaten two bars. And I'm good for fucking a day.

I mean, it's just a normal day, like not hiking or anything crazy. But it's really dense. They're heavy. Like, you hear that, folks? Listen to that. It's a brick of food. It's a lot of food. How did you figure out how to do that?

I knew nutritionally. I had an idea of where I wanted to be, or, you know, there's a concept for like this kind of ultimate backpacking meal. And then I worked with a food scientist. So I knew that I knew nothing about nutrition. I just kind of knew, kind of, I wanted to scratch my own itch, you know, I had an itch and I wanted, I wanted a better backpacking meal. So I knew conceptually what I wanted it to be. And then after playing around in my mom's kitchen trying to get something, I was like, this is way over my head. You know, like trying to get the nutritional profile where I want it to be, get it to taste good, get like ingredients that don't react with each other and spoil. And then trying to get like it to literally form together and not fall apart it was like you start like having this really complicated stuff um as i try to just find

her you know um search around and see you know what kind of person could help me i was looking around nutritionists and chefs and all that kind of stuff and ended up coming with the term food scientist and food scientist helped me really formulate the meal. And then it was just kind of a feedback game from what he could do from a nutritional point of view, from a shelf life and flavor profile. Then it was just making sure the darn things tasted good, you know. So I went to like a hiking festival and handed out hundreds of samples, just got a bunch of feedback from hikers, and then, yeah, kind of ran with it. And, yeah, it's been doing well well they're good man and i eat them all the time so uh i i'm uh i'm i'm impressed

i really they're delicious you know my favorite one is a chocolate one though what is that which one dark chocolate yeah dark chocolate banana yeah we have banana chips in there but good shit dude for real it's got i'm trying to stay on a ketogenic diet. That's what was so funny, Joe. When you were talking, I was like, yeah, man, we got high carbs. Yeah, that's not going to work. But on a cheat meal, these are good, or if I'm desperado for food. But also, see, you can think about ketogenic diets is you can every now and then fuck up

as long as you're pretty consistent with a high-fat content diet. And then what I'll do is I'll take an exogenous ketone. I can take drinks that you mix up that put you in a ketogenic state. You can drink a whole Coca-Cola and then drink one of these ketogenic drinks and it knocks you back in a state of ketosis. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty scientific shit. This guy Dom D'Agostino invented it. He's a scientist out of theosis. Wow. Yeah. It was pretty scientific shit. This guy, uh, Dom de Augustino

invented it. He's a scientist out of the university of Florida. Interesting. Yeah. There's, there's ways you can manipulate your metabolism in that way where it specifically burns fat. There's a lot of benefits. One of the big benefits is your, um, your appetite, appetite suppressants. Amazing. Cause if I go on and I did, I do switch over, like if I cheat, like if I go on and I did I do switch over like if I cheat like if I go on vacation or something like that and I just started eating tacos or whatever when you your body goes in a carbohydrate burning state you get way hungrier like you burn through that carbohydrate pretty quickly it's quick burning fuel and then your body doesn't have the carbs anymore so you go into this real hungry state whereas if you're in a ketogenic state your body doesn't have the carbs anymore and so you go into this real hungry state. Whereas if you're in a ketogenic state,

your body's burning fat, you're eating fats, and then when there's no more food, your body starts burning its own fat. And so you don't get that crazy hunger craving that you get when you're on a carb-based diet. There's arguments for both sides and I'm going to bring in some people that are anti-ketogenic diet as well

so get a balanced perspective on it i listened to um i don't remember his name but it was a nutritionist he had written a book he was on your podcast a while ago chris kresher maybe gary tobs the case against sugar but he's not a nutritionist this is pretty recently but rob wolf maybe real recently honestly it was real recent wired Wired to Eat, Rob Wolf. That sounds right. Yeah, it must be Rob. But the level of nutrition that that guy knew, I was fascinated. That's Rob.

Yeah, that must be Rob Wolf. Oh, man, he was just, whoa. That was impressive. He's the actual guy that invented the concept of, quote, unquote, bulletproof coffee. That guy kind of stole it. Rob Wolf's concept came first, and he wrote about it in 2005, the idea of adding MCT oil and butter to coffee to give healthy fats with coffee. Yeah, Rob is a scientist, and he's, like, way ahead of the curve when it comes to nutrition.

Impressive, dude. Impressive. Like, his conversation was just interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of those guys out there now. It's really a fascinating time when it comes to nutrition. And also what's really good about him is he's constantly experimenting. He's very honest and very open about his experiments. And he's also really adamant about the possibility, not the possibility, but the reality, rather, that people are very different.

And everyone's nutritionally different. Variability, right? Yeah, the variability is very wide. So what is healthy for you might not necessarily be healthy for me. And what changes your blood sugar levels is not going to change mine. It's very, very different. Interesting stuff. I remember when y'all was conversating, I was thinking,

is there not something out there, just a simple blood test or something, where it's just like, what do I need? What's good for me? What's the simplest way to find out is this good, is this bad? What do I need? You really just have to experiment. And on top of that, there's a lot of other variables like how much sleep are you getting? What's your cortisol levels?

How much stress are you under? And those factors also have to be taken into consideration when you formulate a diet because it will vary depending upon your stress levels it's complicated stuff very very complicated but these delicious the shit so i wish you well with this my friend thanks man yeah i'm really glad you go buy them you fucks and the book uh how to hike the appalachian trail this is available everywhere right? Yeah, that was just a fun side project. Truly just wrote that in about a month. Just kind of sat down and

cranked out how to hike the AT. So it's gear talk, whole bunch of stuff, you know, a few trail tales in there. Listen, I really enjoyed talking to you, man. You've lived a fascinating life and you continue to do so. So good luck to you and thanks again. Thanks, Joe. Good talk. Christopher Cage, ladies and gentlemen. No relationship to Nicholas. See you soon, folks. Bye.