WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Roads Less Traveled

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! On today's episode they share some off-roading mishaps.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. What up? I'm Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Segueratow and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week we'll be talking about some of our thrilling, off-roading adventures. But before we get into today's episode, we have a couple of announcements. Announcements? Yep. Terrible way to die. That's what I've heard. Okay. Number one, go follow us on Instagram. We have an Instagram account that I somehow am running, even though I know nothing about Instagram. Yeah, shameless plug from the one who is social media-ly inept. We're both social media leave.

Is that? No, but you said the same thing I said, so now it is. We are both not good at social media. However, if you want to follow us to see pictures of the stories that we're telling, it is at off. dot, like a period, the Trails podcast. Yeah. That's the Instagram. We don't really know how to use it.

But you can get announcements for new episodes. See exclusive pictures of where we were and the stories we tell. Right? We do some of those. Yep. So it's pretty cool. So that's the first thing. Our second thing is related to Instagram.

We are looking for guests on this podcast. We're trying to have one guest on every four episodes or so. So if you have any thrilling stories, that you want to tell that happened outdoors, shoot us a DM on Instagram, or you can send me an email if you don't have Instagram. My email is n.sig-h-I-A-R-T-A-U at Hillsdale.edu. That's n.sig-H-I-A-R-T-A-U. That's a mouthful. It really is. I, in kindergarten, had to sing a little song to remember how to spell my last name. Wow. You had a secondary alphabet song, basically. basically just so I can get the letters right that's crazy so yeah um please reach out to us if you

have stories that you want to tell and we can just adapt the episode to fit whatever outdoor adventure you've had dude that would be fun we can get people on here yeah so that's really exciting if you're listening right now yeah you let you sit down and if you're already sitting down lay down listen to me we want you on this show come talk to us it's really fun absolutely all right so storm What's your trail marker for this past week? My trail marker is a thing that I did. I was walking a place. And I was told I had to be non-specific about this for non-specific reasons.

But I was in a place here on campus. And we have a lot of construction going on campus right now. I don't know if you know this, Nicole, but they're building things. No way. Things. There was once ground and land and grass. And now there's a whole place. There's a whole, there's a new area.

Yep. Yeah, it's like we unlocked it. I'm aware. And so I was near there. How near does not matter? matter, but I was near there. Irrelevant. I was near there and you know how there's been snow recently? Oh yeah. And there's also, there was like a bunch of snow and then the snow in a way and made everything wet and muddy. And then snow came back. So I was near there and I was walking near there

and there was an area of there snow. And I was like, well, you know, I've been walking around all day today today. We have about what? Eight inches of snow max. What is this? Like four inches of snow, whatever it is. You know, it's under a foot. It's four to five, I would say. Yeah. If it's, If the wind blew it, maybe like a little more if it's accumulated, but it's... So I go, with my big boots, easy. Okay. I take one step into this area and I neglected to forget the... I neglected.

I forgot about the mud that was all that added about another, you know, that amount of inches. And I went like almost down to my knee in like snow and mud and I was like, oh. And then I pulled it out and I was like, wow. And I got my jeans all muddy. That is awful. I was big sad. Were you alone? Um, yeah.

Okay. Well, yeah, if it had been quicksand on campus, I ought to die. You would have died. Swarm wouldn't be here and I would be trying to find another person to host this podcast with. Yeah, that's right. That would be awful. Whoever's the next best guest supplants me. Okay, yeah, good idea.

Yeah. And then I'm finally free. Free. From this torment. Okay. I'm so sorry. No, I'm kidding. What's your trail marker?

Uh, my trail marker is also related to the snow. I went cross country skiing today. Wow. I took myself on a little Valentine's Day date because as we're recording, it is Valentine's Day. And so. Oh my gosh. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day.

Your Valentine is your skis? My Valentine is always my skis at this point. My Valentine is this rock I found outside. It's really cool. Does it have a name? It's like really shiny. Not yet, but we'll give her a name. Oh, her?

Well, it's my Valentine. It has to be. Okay. I guess my skis are at him. Yeah, of course. Okay. Yeah. You know how like boats are always.

women. Yes. Skies are always dudes. Skies are always dudes. Yeah, look at them. Those are dudes. Okay. Anyway, you were cross-country skiing. So I was cross-country skiing and we haven't had a lot of snow in a couple weeks now and I've recently learned how to cross-country ski. This is not a skill that I had possessed up until a couple weeks ago. But we have a park called Hayden Park and over there we have free cross-country skiing equipment. And so I got in touch with Wild Bill, who is the coach in charge of the Hayden Park area. And oh my gosh, what a sweet man. If you have not met Wild Bill before, you're really missing out on life because he is just so, so kind and has been so gracious and kind of helping me out and teaching me the ropes.

But I picked it up pretty quickly, and now I love it. I have not met Wild Bill. I'm ashamed to say. Is he like Old Man McGucket from Gravity Falls? I've never seen that show. But he's like the old prospector is like, he's an older guy but he's he's just so kind he loves to talk in the best way so it was really great unfortunately I think I've developed too much of an attachment to cross-country skiing because when all the snow melted a couple weeks ago I got pretty sad I was like I can't go out and do my new favorite activity but it's back but it's back and so tomorrow hopefully I'll go again but we'll see that's awesome yeah anyway do you have an off-roading story you want to

share with us? I do. This is, this was in Colorado, which if you listen to some of our episodes, I think I talked about one time about Colorado as well, when we were camping on one of the canyons. This is at the same time, or around that time. We were out in Colorado up in near Buena Vista in northern Colorado. It was great. Mountains are awesome out there. And we found this place that they have there that lets you rent these like side by side, like bigger armored four-wheeler kind of things. They have really big wheels that kind of like have those big springs on them so they can go over rocks. Yes and are super duper outdoorsy but it's it seats two instead of one which is the side by side idea and has the big like cage over and a windshield but no nothing else really

you know so you're kind of left to the elements so you kind of have to like wrap up for the dust and put on like you know goggles and everything and helmets but we went with me and my parents and one of my brothers or two of my brothers and my aunt and uncle who live out of in Colorado, which is where we were there. I didn't know you had an aunt and uncle that lived in Colorado. Yeah, we go a lot because my dad's brother lives out there. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

So does he live in the Buena Vista area? He does. He lives adjacent to the town. Okay. Like 30 minutes out, basically. That's really cool. But no, it was awesome. I was like, okay, cool, you know, four-wheeler, regular, whatever experience.

No, let me tell you, these things can reach like 55, 60 miles an hour. They go quick. Over rocky terrain. Yeah. Like you are flying. Enough that my mom would like scream all the time, you know, she's like in the passenger seat with me. My brother's even more of a daredevil than I am.

And she got out of his thing. She was like, we're switching it up. Nope. I'm with storm now, which was funny. But crazy stuff. And they had Bluetooth in them. So you could just like blare. Blast music.

Blast the best tunes, ACDC, all that great stuff. As you just race through the Rockies, the view all around you with the giant snowcap mountains. So are you like? going up over passes, like mountain passes, or is it pretty flat where you are? It's not over mountain passes per se, but it's not like, we're not like in a valley or anything. It's like a bunch of hilly, rocky, woodsy terrain with all this stuff. So there's areas that you like really have to like put it in higher gear and like work your way up through like boulders basically. Yeah.

Yeah, which is insane. And then there's other areas where the ones before you have like, there's like paths or some have that you have to stay on in certain areas. But there's areas where they have kind of like preview side by sides have like dug up into the dirt. So there's like there's like harsh turns and like things where you'll go over a hill really rapidly and then back down, which is like very rollercoastery. Have you caught air in one of these? I feel like I felt like I caught air.

You probably didn't. Probably didn't. Or just like an inch for a second. But you're like, I'm flying. Yeah. But anyway, it was awesome. We came to there was a herd of, oh my gosh, something. It's like cows or something.

Bison? No, no. It wasn't anything not domestic, but there was a herd of like, what were they? I think it was cows or like steers or something that were crossing one of our paths one time. We had to like snake and meander through them, which is funny. You didn't wait for them to pass? You know, in hindsight, we probably should have. But going from like 60 miles an hour to slowing down to like nothing, it's like, oh, come on.

We got to go. So we're like, we're working our way, winding our way through them, slapping them across the face. So they've got too cool, not really. It's just giving them pads. Okay. Yeah, but that was a great experience. That sounds awesome. You're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

So do you have anything else to share about this story? Hmm. I feel like a lot of fun stuff happened. We did stop for a bunch of good pictures at different shots and had lunch out there, which was really fun. But it was just a really good time. If you ever have an opportunity to do something like that, it's not insanely pricey. It's a little bit. but it's super duper worth it.

Okay. Especially if you're a big, just like, I don't know, fan of just having your, having control of your own off-road an engine. I see. It's very cathartic, honestly. Yeah, I've never been in one of those ATVs or side-by-sides, whatever they're called. I think they also have like ones that are called razors, which are even smaller. Yeah.

But I- They tear it up. Oh, yeah. They go really fast. Ooh, I have one more detail. I just remember something else that happened. My, we, there's a certain area that's kind of flat and dusty where you can, like, like do donuts basically.

Nice. My brother tipped his. Oh my gosh. He didn't roll it because it only just fell halfway over. But he turned around and hard braked on like the curb and tipped it and it went and fell over onto its side. And with him and I think my dad in it or maybe my other brother. And fully on its side and we were like, uh-oh.

And the, um, I think the tire popped on a rock or like had a heavy gash through it. Um, or something was like, something was off. So how did you. fix that. Well, we were like, oh no, because these are rented. They're not ours. We were like, oh, shoot. So we all get out. We all meet up with them. We get all the guys. So my dad, my brother, me, my uncle. We all pick it up and put it back onto the thing. But one of the tires is just like cooked. So we're like, what are we going to do? We're going to have to like pay for this whole thing. This is this like this change from like a, you know, whatever, $300 outing to like a

multi-thousand-dollar experience. We're done. Should have just bought your own at that point. Exactly. So we, we, this like, this is, like, this. We call the guy and we're like, hey, we might have popped the tire. We want you to come take a look at it. We were almost back around to like the area. That's good. At least you were like miles and miles away. And so he's like, yep, on my way.

So he comes up and pulls up in his own one and gives it a look over and he's like, just give me one second here. And he in, when I tell you, under two minutes, pulls, takes the tire off, gets another tire out of his, puts it on, and it's like, y'all good to go. We were stunned. Like the pit stops and cars? Yes, it was like Is it Guido?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, in that one scene in cars. It was crazy. He just locked in, did it, finished it, got the his tire into his truck, or the bad tire in his truck and was like, and was like, we were like, oh, wait, we don't need to like pay anything. He's like, no, I'm going to go. Happens all the time.

It probably does happen very frequently. Yeah. And we were like, yo, that's awesome. But it made it great for, made for a great experience because we were really worried for like the 20 minutes or whatever that it took him to get there. Okay. Well, I've been off-roading several times. I kind of started out when I was younger.

I mean, obviously my dad was driving at the time. But a lot through Death Valley National Park, there's, you know, an off-road trail up to... Death Valley? Is that in Nevada somewhere? California. There is some overlap in Nevada. Okay. But it's in California, and there's this long dirt road up to the racetrack.

And so that was kind of my first experience sort of off-roading. Now, it's not very strenuous on the vehicle. but it's very bumpy. But the real intense trails that I've done are up in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, which I talked about last week on the podcast. If you can't tell we love Colorado. We love Colorado. That's where I'm probably going to live after college.

I mean, I don't know where else I would go. Your heart beats in Tennessee, but your sun sets in Colorado. Yes, I love that song. I know. So we were up in the San Juan's, and this story took place. this past summer. And so we had our forerunner with us. My dad is big into cars. He's a mechanic. And so we have a GX470, which is amazing, does great on the off-road trails. And then we also have our trusty forerunner as well. So our foreowner is 20 years old at this point and has

350,000 miles or so, or maybe it's 30,000 miles. It has a lot of miles on it. But it takes care of us. And a lot of the trails and the San Juan's are actually pretty intense. Like there's different rankings, kind of. The worst pass over there is the Black Bear Pass, which you can only go up one way and go down one way because it's so narrow that there's no room to pass. This was not on that pass. This took place on Imogene Pass. Imogene Pass, you can take going up from, oh my gosh, Urey, going over. to Telluride or you can go Telluride to Urey. So we did this coming up, Uri, going over into Telluride.

And I was driving. And it's, I mean, it's strenuous. Like, there are many rocks all over the place and, you know, there's a lot of snow up in the San Juan's. And so the trail will kind of get big ruts in it from the snow accumulation. And this is in August, so there is no snow at this point. However, it's pretty serious and you kind of have to know what you're doing and you need a capable vehicle to be able to get up these passes because, I mean, imaging pass, I think it's up to 12,300 feet or so. It's very high. So anyway, I'm going uphill, taking my time, my dad's in the passenger seat, and we get to this really steep uphill portion, like on the general uphill of the pass. But it's extremely steep and there's kind of like two rocks that the front tires go over.

And then, so I get over with the front tires. So I'm giving it some more gas to get my rear tires over these rocks. So now the front of the car has gone up like this rock wall, basically. Very steep. The car is like super tilted and I'm giving it more gas to kind of get the rear tires over these rocks. finally that happens. However, the next thing I hear is a crunch. Oh, no. And I was like, what have I done to our baby, our forerunner, who is gorgeous and looks so great for her age? And I hear something scrape. And I look over at my dad and I was like, help. I think I broke the car.

Did you? Well, so I'm stuck at this point. Like the car's not moving and I'm giving it gas. But I was like, just keep stepping on it. So I am and the engine's revving. And I was like, it's not going. You weren't a big enough step-o. I guess not. But I was like, it's not going up the hill. And so I stop, put the car in park.

And mind you, the car is like almost vertical. I know it's not almost vertical. But it was so steep that we were like fully laying back in our seats. And it just felt like we were going to slide down this mountain, even though we were stuck. Also, there was kind of like a cliff off to our left, which was not good, because if we would have gone over that, it would have been really bad. It's a luny tune situation. Yeah, it was really very scary for me. So I'm sitting there and I was like, I don't know if I can get out of my seat and switch so my dad can hop into the driver's seat without the car rolling down the hill. Because even though

the car is in park, my foot is still on the break. And so my dad was like, it's okay, we'll put the break on, you can get out. And so cautiously, I'm taking my foot off the break and thankfully the car doesn't move. And then I open the door. And I'm not even joking. I have to jump to get out of the car. That's how like off the ground we are with our front tires up on this rock wall. Like jump down? Like jump down out of the car. I can't step down. I have to fully hop. Yeah, you're not a big enough step-a. I guess not. So then I'm out of the car. I'm now recording my dad because I'm at the vehicle and our bumper is wedged like in front of rocks. There are rocks up against our bumper. And so I thought, oh my gosh, our exhaust pipe is going to get dented. The whole rear bumper is

going to get dented. It's all my fault because like we can't go up this thing. We don't have enough momentum at this point. And I don't know how my dad's going to back this up without crushing the whole rear of the car. So I'm standing there thinking, oh my gosh, we're stuck like at 10,000 feet, 10,500 feet, and we're not going to be able to get down without wrecking our vehicle. I'm not joking. It took my dad maybe 30 seconds to get the car out of there. He said light work. Oh yeah, he said light work. I don't know even what he did. Like watching the video back, he must have somehow gone forward a tiny bit and then managed to scooch the car back over these rocks.

I don't even know, but I thought I had broken the car. So it was a little traumatizing. Sometimes dads just have dad power. And you just don't know how he pulls it off. My dad has the most dad power. Yeah. I'm not even joking. It's insane.

Also, like, I know he's very good at driving vehicles. But I just thought that we were stuck and that there was nothing we could do. So I'm going to have to ask him how we did that. So that way in the future, if I'm, ever in that situation, I can save myself and not be stuck on a mountain. Do you expect to be in a situation like that again soon? You never know with me. Yeah, that's fair.

You know, with all the stuff I do, it's good to start developing these skills by myself and not just hope that my dad's going to be there to rescue me. Fair. Yeah. You're off the trails too much. Oh. Yeah. But after we got unstuck, we went all the way up to the top of the pass, and it was

beautiful, great experience. However, if you are going to go over into the San Juan's, I would highly recommend making sure you have a capable vehicle so you don't get yourself in a sticky situation. Or a dad. Or a dad, yeah. But even if you have like a Subaru, some of those Subarus will not make it over those passes. And a lot of people think Subaru's are great off-roading vehicles. I'm just wondering when I unlock Dad Power. Why have that kid? Probably. It's not like when you hit a certain age. I don't think so.

I think you need children because then you just, you know you need to save them. Yeah. I'll have kids and I'll be like, I'm hulking out. And then they'll just become super strong for no reason. Like you don't look strong what you are. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Or you look like you don't know things, but you actually do.

Because that's like, I would say my dad is very smart, but he probably doesn't come off as a smartest person. Just like, well, that makes him sound done. Wow. Mr. C.R. Tau, I'm sorry. My dad is very smart. But he doesn't look like a professor or anything. You know what I mean? Wow. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I know what you mean. So, but I think dads just have that innate ability. Mm-hmm. Go on a hike with your dad. Yeah. Do you have any fun dad stories that are short? Hmm. Do I, I don't know. Well, my dad's really outdoorsy. Okay. Like, he's probably the reason we'd go do crazy stuff. Well, yeah, it's the same with my dad. So, yeah, I mean, I've been on hikes upon high.

of him. He's the one that like gets everyone up and is like, we're going on the hike. Nice. He's usually the plan put her together. The mover, the shaker, the mountain breaker, all the above. Yeah. Yeah, I think my dad, he definitely had that influence on me when I was younger. But now I've, I've adapted. And if anything, I'm the one who's like, okay, come on, let's go. The mountains are calling. We got to get up there. Heck yeah. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us this week on Off the Trails on Radio Freehillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great upcoming week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We'll see you out there. Happy trails. Go get some dirt onto your boots.