WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Snowmaggedon

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss some of their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they talk about Snowmaggedon, holiday traffic, skiing, and more.

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. Christmas edition. It's me Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Seguar Tau and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. We'll be your Christmas buddies. If you put the word Christmas before something, it makes it Christmas related. Did you know that? It makes it Christmas-y. Christmas Beach. Well, yeah, this is a Christmas episode. So Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope. you're having a wonderful holiday season with your family. Dude, we should edit in, like, some sleigh bells into the intro, music, the country little,

like, rift. We'll see. I'm the one who edits, so we'll see how creative I get. Some ho-ho-hoes in the background. Sure. Dude, I'm feeling festive. I don't know about you guys, but I, for a while, I was kind of like a, not a grinch, but just like a Christmas shouldn't start early, you know.

It is, I don't know, as of recording this, it's the first week of December. I've been in the Christmas spirit already for about three full weeks. I would agree. I think going to college brings it out of us because you feel the need to start early because you leave school by the 10th or 11th, whatever, maybe not that early. But you leave so early and you want to celebrate with your friends at college. So it's like, well, let's start Christmas two weeks before Thanksgiving, you know? Yeah.

My trail marker is I was driving in the snow, which is something that I have been trained to do. I did take a course, a safe driving course when I was younger when I was like 16 or something. Okay. And they had us drive on like a wet pad, like a slippery, like designed to make you like hydroplane area and like showed you what to do. So just all, anyone listening out there, maybe anyone in particular who is unconfident with my Southern boy driving abilities, I'm goaded. But my trail marker was being yelled at while I was driving outside in the, in the snow because people were like, you know. You need to not speed up after the turns. You know, I remember you.

Trust the method. Well, I remember you driving me in the snow one time. And you intentionally took a corner too fast. It was very purposeful. It was fun. But I was still like, whoa. I also, I've had lots of snow car stories here just before you do your trim worker. This is my main story.

But I remember, I have a very specific memory of me and Luke pushing a car out of a snow bank that got stuck in. Oh, I think you were there. I think I was there, but you know what? I don't think I was driving. No, no, I don't think you were. I think I was worried that you were going to get run over. We were pushing the car from the back. And I think this was my freshman year.

This was my first experience. This was freshman year, January, freezing cold. And the thing was, we were afraid that the person who was driving was going to accidentally put the car in reverse and then kill me. And kill both you and Jones. Fortunately, with my tremendous strength, my monumental Goliath muscles, that I definitely have. I was able to wrench the car free from the embankment and send us on our merry way.

Yes, that was a fun time. I think snow is becoming my weather nemesis. I don't like snow. I think that there are more cons than pros. I think very, very pretty is plus eight points, but all the other things are like negative 12 points. So my trail marker deals with how much I love the snow. The great snow debate.

Get ready, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, get ready because I was able to go across country skiing twice this week already two days in a row snow sports are also a big bonus would have would have gone today but I did get a blister and so I'm letting that heal so hopefully over the weekend I can keep going um but yeah no I went cross country skiing for the first time this season so I beat my dad to being on skis this year because the last two years he's beaten me while I've been at college and you were on skis earlier than he was the season yeah I was on skis earlier um now to be fair not like downhill skis which is objectively more fun I was going to say funner, but I'll be grammatically correct. More funner. It was, it was still a great time, though. You need to take education 101 English grammar. English grammar? I'm going to take it, I think. Actually? Not now, but like if I have time. I'm doing it this spring. I've heard. Anyway, so I went by myself on Wednesday, and then yesterday I dragged Andrew along, and that was really fun because he hasn't been cross-country skiing in a while. And he picked it up so quick, of course,

because of figure skating and whatnot. But it was great. And it was just, It's nice to be outside. No one... No, they don't. My hips are a little sore, I will say. I have to stretch them. Hips don't lie. But, no, it was a great time.

And no one's out there, so it's very peaceful, which I love. But, I mean, snow sports, like, that is the highlight of snow. Yes, it is pretty, but the things you can do on snow, I mean, downhill skiing is probably the best activity ever. Okay. Pretty. move snow and pretty plus sports is both really good and that would put snow in s tier but there's also ugly when it turns into brown sludge and then gross to be in so it's like messes things up and then annoying because you have to move it and cold bad cold i'd rather be hot than cold

any day of the week so i feel like that brings it back down to like c tier or like the the cold it depends on the cold. This morning, frigid cold. Very, very cold. It was negative. The feels like was negative two when I left the door.

But that was still better than two nights ago when it was windy and snow was blowing and my ears got so cold from a two-minute walk. Literally one building to another building.

I was frozen. So the cold can be bad but I think it depends on the amount of moisture in the air like if it's a humid cold or if it's a dry cold. because dry cold is fine that's whatever but it's still cold and bad but it's not it's a nice crispness to the air you know what i'd rather i'd rather humidity than that you'd rather sweat to death

yes because at least i can jump in a pool at least well at least you can go inside here it's still cold and then you bundle up in a blanket but then if you bundle up too much you're sweaty on the inside and still cold on the outside so there's nothing you can do whereas if it's really hot and you get in a pool everything's wonderful. See, no, I do love, I do love pools. I know. I'm convincing Nicole slowly but I love skiing more. If I, I don't remember what I ranked winter in our seasons episode.

Our seasons episode, but I think winter's the last, last place for me. I think that winter overall is the weakest season. I'm going to put spring above winter. I think spring obviously falls the best, summer's a close second. But I think that spring actually narrowly beats out winter in my, my mind. Just weather-wise, and actually overall-wise, December is like top three months, but January and February are probably the worst two months.

Well, you know what's funny? I think I also ranked winter last. Yeah. But that's because you can still go skiing in the springtime. It's just warm and beautiful. Humans are hairless creatures meant to live in tropical climates closer to the equator. We're designed evolutionarily to be like warm-blooded, like hunters. What do you call the Scandinavian people?

Are you saying they're not people? I call them glorious survivors who then moved south when they were like, wait, we should kill all those guys and take their land. And then that's what they did. Okay. Yeah. Well, this isn't very Christmassy. I thought you had a Christmas story to tell.

I do. But this is an extended trail market. That's fine. No, I like our little snow debate. Yeah, yeah, I get the great snow debate. Speaking of great snow, I have a little story about a Christmas time where I'm from, Atlanta, Georgia a few years ago. But I didn't mean like almost a whole decade ago, but it still stands out as one of the greatest snow Christmas events.

If you're from Atlanta or the surrounding area or from Georgia, you would recognize it as Snowmageddon was what the locals were calling it. And it was probably about just a regular snow, like what we have here. But for Atlanta, it was like, we're dead. Like everybody freaked out. The highways were like blocked up. And so I remember being coming home from probably from school, from grade school. I was a little guy. to school. I did. I actually did go to some schools. Believe it or not. You weren't just born like six

feet tall and then started college. Can you believe it? No. Additionally, I was actually really, really short until like sophomore year of high school. Yeah. So I was really short. So picture a little like three foot. Three foot. Yeah, yeah. Three foot tall storm in the back of his, in the back of the car, you know, got some of those, what are those baby food things? I don't know. That are like so, gas. Have you heard of these? These like little like, they're like kind of cheerio like

but they're not like round. Oh, the, yeah, I know you're talking about. I don't know what they're called. Dude, they're so good.

I am a 22 year old man. I would eat them now. I keep forgetting you're that old. They're so good. Yeah, monk. They're so good though. But so picture me eating some of those. I'm in the back of the car.

It's, I don't remember what year this is. It's 2012 sounds right. So a long time ago. But I was conscious then already because I'm of a, the ancient of days over here. Yeah. And,

And we sit on that highway in the snow for probably three hours because it's just backed up forever and no one's moving. When you say highway, do you mean like freeway or do you mean like too light in the highway? I don't know what it's like in Georgia. I mean like an eight lane. Okay, freeway. You mean a freeway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah.

And we're just sitting there. We get home eventually and they close school for three days. Oh my gosh. They like everything shuts down. The other problem is in a city, black ice forms a lot. Oh, yeah. bit of an actual issue. Like, it'd be one thing if it was just regular snow.

But also, regular snow is pretty bad because in the South, we don't have equipment prepared to clear it or combat it. So it's just, like, piles up. And, like, there's no plows or anything. So, like, there's some people that will come through and salt the main roads. But then if you're in a little neighborhood, you have to, like, walk four blocks to get over to where the school bus can be on a salted road. Yeah.

So, you know, they close schools. Nice. Which was great for us. Were your brothers in the car when you guys were sitting on the freeway? I don't think one of them was. I don't remember which one. Okay. But I just remember being there and being bored and then getting home and then having a five-day weekend of snow.

Oh, that's awesome. And I think it was like right before Christmas because it was great. And we had a really good time and stayed indoors a lot. You're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Christmas edition. Christmas edition. And we did tobogging too. I think that I briefly told the story one time or mentioned to it about how we toboggins down our hill.

our house is like flat but then the road that is on is a hill that slopes heavily down to the right and so we would toboggin down the hill all the little kids in the neighborhood we grew up in a little neighborhood that had a lot of other kids our age especially my little brother's age

and so all the children were running around outside snow was falling it was awesome and you know good times not so bad actually now I wish I had a good Christmas story, but I really don't. The way my dad's work operates is around Christmas time, they can't take time off of vacation for vacation. So we really don't go anywhere.

He's a holiday marketer. Yeah, no, he's a mechanic, but people need their cars worked on year round, I guess. So we'll go on a little ski trip like two weeks before Christmas. That's as close as I can get. But in high school, we would go up to Mammoth. And I remember the first time, we went skiing in Mammoth, actually. My parents had went quite a bit before I was born. But then this was the first time that we had gone back for them in like 14, 15 years. And so we didn't really have a good operation down. We learned a lot.

But I remember we left after, I had like a little school play or something. So we leave. Yeah, in like eighth grade. So we leave at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, which is peak traffic in California. Peak traffic on Friday. Sounds right. We sat, I mean, you were talking about sitting in the car. We sat in the car on a stretch of drive that normally takes an hour and a half to get up to this pass.

We sat there for three and a half, almost four hours. Traffic stories. See, snow bad. Well, but no, this was in Southern California. It's just like the way the freeways merge. Although where I was, it was a little different because it was a stretch that would have taken about five minutes. Oh, that's really bad. As opposed to an hour and a half to three hours.

Yeah, but it was still rough. And I remember just sitting in the car, we were listening to Christmas music. And I was like, oh my gosh, we're not going to get to Mammoth until like midnight 1 a.m. Sure enough, we got there that late. And it was the first time I had been there in the winter. We'd been to Mammoth in the summer before. But we get there 1 a.m. next day, wake up at 7 or whatever to go skiing. And it was so big. The mountain was so big. I'm just recalling my first time going there because I was

shocked. I grew up skiing in steamboat because we have family friends there. But the mountain was just massive and there was so much to ski. And when I was younger, I loved getting the little trail maps and highlighting like all the runs that I had done. So we were there for three days and I remember looking at my parents and me like, we still have to do all these runs that we keep missing because there's something like side shoot runs, like little ones you keep missing. But it was a great time and I think they had like a little fireworks show that we didn't go to because my dad was being a grinch and was like, I don't want to walk over there because there won't be parking and then we're going to get back home late and then it's going to be

hard to wake up the next morning to go skiing. It's like that's so lame. We're on vacation. I don't know, man. Sometimes those parking spots, if you park four million miles away that can ruin the entire experience. Well, we would have just left our car at like the motel that we were sitting at and walked. Oh, well, then just go. Well, exactly. No, exactly. And we've never gone. Like, we've been there several times. We've been there several times on the weekend that they have the fireworks show. We've never seen it. I remember one time we were so close and then my dad was like, nah, we're not going to go. So if you're ever in mammoth for the Night of Lights. Go and enjoy because I won't be going. That sounds like super

romantic too. Romantic. Night of Lights did take your partner to go see the fireworks show and a ski also I've heard I've never done this but I've heard that like going skiing with a romantic partner with like a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a wife or a husband is like top tier. Is it? I don't know but that's what I've heard. I've never done it but I've always I've always wanted to do that. Yeah. No, I haven't, but I'll drag Andrew along. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bucket list item. Watch him fall off the chair left.

He's not going to do that. You'll push him off. Oh, God. Hopefully Andrew's not listening. Does he not want to go skiing with you? No, he does. He does. He likes skiing.

He's only been a couple times. So I do kind of doubt his abilities, actually. I've been seeing a lot. My dad is so good. He's insane at skiing. my dad is my dad is pretty good i'm pretty good sorry dad you're i mean you're pretty good but he'll go to i'm midlatter he'll go too fast sometimes where he should just chill and then also he's not really good with like moguls i'm not either he's great at like the downhill yeah and i'm good at control

but like my knees hurt dude you're the moguls that's what my dad says you're old i know i'm we've been over this i'm grandpa over here uh i'm so excited to go skiing So I get home the 11th, six days from now. And we were supposed to go skiing this weekend, but currently in Mammoth, it's been in the 50s and 60s. So there's like no snow, so we can't go skiing, which is a huge bummer. This is extremely not it. I know. All your finals are in the first half of the week?

Well, I'm taking one early. So I take two Tuesday, two Thursday, and then I'm out of here Thursday night. They ran me with Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So many people have Saturday exams this year. They're ruining the Christmas spirit. I'm okay with it. actually. Have you ever been anywhere on vacation at Christmas time? Yes, right after Christmas, we set them to go places, like randomly the day after, or like the day after New Year's.

We tend to like try to visit our grandparents out in Texas. Oh, nice. But one year, I lived abroad for all of that time. Oh, okay. When I was overseas, when I was in Israel and Jordan on that trip. That's so fun. I have some stories. I think I told the salt story. Did I? Did I? Maybe enough coming episode I'll talk about next year in the year 26 year of our Lord

I will get to talk about the people of our Lord and my time visiting them over the holiday season and New Year's that's a good New Year's story

I think I've heard this but I don't think you've shared it on the podcast I'll tell it soon stay tuned guys we have another full year of exciting stuff coming to you

unless I don't know Nicole decides to kick me off the show I cut it yeah yeah we're cut this will be sticking around I love this show I'm excited for 2026.

I think that 2025 was an extremely solid year. We had some solid adventures. We talked about them on here. We talked about some of them on here. We're going to talk about some of them in the future. Yes. And I don't know. But I feel like more than anything, 2025 teed up a phenomenal.

2026. I know. I can be amazing. 2025 was the start of the year was rough. And then early spring, fantastic. amazing. Early summer. Crazy good summer. Summer was pretty good.

Fall, okay. Fall was fun. Just now it's gotten good. Fall was fun. October? No, November was bad. October. I don't know about that one. I think November was where it got good. Okay, well, yeah. We have a difference of opinion here. That's what it started to get good. It started to ramp up. Uh-huh. But no, we're being set up for a good 2026. I'm so funny.

Our first episode back, by the way, is going to be a yearly recap of 2025. So that'll be fun. Just a kind of a way to really celebrate the year. 2026 kickoff party. Yes. Do we should pop champagne on the show? I can't drink. That's right.

I forget that I'm doing the show with a youngster. Yeah. I was going to say a minor. You want to say a minor? I'm not a minor. No. We're both full adults. Yes.

Drinking responsibly, or at least one of us is. Gosh. um i had one more little christmas side note i because i've never been anywhere for christmas you've never been anywhere ever no for christmas yeah but i think it would be so fun to just go to like a little cabin in the woods and be away from people for christmas what are you why are you that's not what this is so strange laughing at me you just want to leave you know what sounds fun guys going away from you that's right you listening to this right now We don't want to be as far apart from you as possible.

I just think it would be fun to be, like, isolated. See how you're laughing at yourself saying. But, no. I don't think this. I want to meet each and every one of you guys. I want to be surrounded by friends, family, and community this holiday season because I'm better than you. Okay. No, I do love being around people.

I just think it would be fun to, like, snowshoot out to a cabin, stay there and read books and watch Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate. chocolate and go cross-country skiing or like back country skiing oh my gosh i want to go back country skiing back country skiing what's the interest in that and cross-country skiing uh well you have skins on your ski so you can like skin up a mountain then you take the skins off and you can regular down so that sounds really fun but i've that's not i want to do that maybe in like five years 28 5 years from now I don't know

Can you believe we're like Can you believe we're 10 years out from 2016 now basically? Oh my gosh A decade out from Imagine Dragons being popular Donald Trump being elected president in the United States That was a decade ago

This is a Christmas episode Why are we talking about pop culture? Who knows? We're out of our minds We're off the trails Anyway, thank you so much for listening this year the next time we'll talk to you will be 2026. Like I said, we'll do a yearly recap.

Maybe talk about some Christmas stories, if anything fun happened over the holidays. Merry Christmas, guys. Leave the door open so your fire alarm doesn't go off. That's my advice. This holiday season. Leave your door open while you're cooking. Oh, I just thought you meant in general. And happy new year. And happy new year. Thank you for listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great holiday. season and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors with your family. We'll see you

out there. Happy trails. Dump-a-thum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. Look at Frosty Go!