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

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

The description for the episode is Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! On today's episode they share their favorite campsites. 

We're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. What up? I'm Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Seguera Tao 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 favorite campsites ever. Ooh, I've been camping before. One or two times? No, more times actually. More times? Yes. I feel like the tent is my second home at this point. Oh, yeah. Or like the car, car camping is really fun.

Have you been car camping before? Is that just where your car is nearby? Well, okay, so there's like where you have to hike a mile or so to your campsite or more. There's that version of camping. And then there's the version of camping where you're like in a national park and there's designated campgrounds and your car is right next to your tent. But there's also car camping itself, which is when you sleep inside your car. Oh, I don't think I've done that. I think I've just camped and my car has been nearby.

I feel like I like all the way or not at all. Like I don't like to hike in my line in camp. Either want my car to be like 40 feet for my tent or I want to be like 14 days out into the wilderness. Sorry. A mile was a small measurement. I meant like multiple miles. Yeah. Like there are going to be a backpacking trip or I need to have electricity within 20 meters of me. Okay.

Well, sleeping in your car is fun. But before we dive into that, what's your trail marker for this week? My trail marker is when I did a goofy like 15 slip slip on ice. I walked out of one of the classroom buildings. I think it was Strosacker and there was a patch of ice and I was heading back home. Was it black ice or could you see it? I don't know. It was night time.

But I walked out the door and I was kind of at the like the security parking lot, you know, where you cross the street over to get back towards Simpson dormitory. And there was a big patch of ice and I slipped with one foot and then the other foot and then the first foot. And you guys was like, whoop, boop, bo, bo, bo, pooh. So you were like cross country skiing on ice. Yeah, but I was in the same spot. My legs were just moved back and forth. Yeah, I was just like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Like for like a solid full minute, I was like in the same spot like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then I landed. I was like, hell yeah. And then I left. If you've never seen Storm Walk, everyone says that he looks like he walks like a cartoon character. Wow. So I can visualize this. Docks in episode two, bro.

I can't believe that. No, but it's very accurate. Yeah, but it, this is, this was a, particular time. You should have your own cartoon show. Yeah, maybe I should. Storm's adventures. All right, Nicole, what was your trail marker?

My trail marker of the week was my run this morning. Impulsively last weekend, I decided to sign up for a marathon. So I've got that coming up in 11 weeks now. And so for the last week, I have been dedicating my time towards my training plan that I'm following. And this morning, Saturday morning, was my long run. And it wasn't a very long run today. It was only six miles.

However, I decided to go run through Hayden Park, which has like some hiking trails and lots of hills. Because the marathon I'm running is actually a trail running marathon. So I need to get used to constantly going up and down hills. That's really cool. It was a beautiful run. I've never ran on the trails through Hayden before. But it was actually pretty nice. In case the listeners don't know, how long is a marathon?

26.2 miles. I definitely did know that. You definitely did not know that. Well, wait, when are you running it? 11 weeks from now? It's April 26th, and it's in Gregory, Michigan, which is like an hour and 10 minutes away from Hillsdale. Okay.

And you're running there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my training run. If you guys want to pull up and see Nicole run the marathon. Oh, gosh. No. Yeah, if you beat her, if you get a better time than her, then we'll have you on the show. Actually, that's a good idea. But you'd have to sign up now. And also 11 weeks technically is like not enough time to train. I started training up. Okay, signing up for this is very impulsive. So I had 12 weeks as of the day that I signed up and I looked up online, how long do you need to train to run a marathon? And 12 weeks was the bare minimum. So I'm really pushing it, which means I'm probably going to get injured. Oh, are you worried? I'm worried about getting injured. Yeah. I'm not scared for the race.

I'll live. It's going to be fine. But I feel like I'm going to have some sort of knee issue or hip problem or whatnot. Oh, oh boy. Yeah. So every week there's like a built in strength training day, except for I hate lifting weights with a burning passion. But you have to. But I have to.

And so yesterday was my strength training day. And I went downstairs to our dorms gym. and I was like, I know what I need to do and I just don't want to do it. You knew what you needed to do, but you didn't know if you had the strength to do it. I had the strength to do it is just the mental desire not to.

That's fair. But I forced myself through it because I know that's really important to keep it. Just pop an iron? Yeah. How much you bench? I'm not benching store. I'm working on my legs.

Oh, oh. Wait, what are you lifting then? Like what positions? I'm doing, so I'm doing lots of step-ups because it said those are good. And then lateral lunges. And then where you like walk with a band around your legs and you walk from one side of the gym to the other. Okay.

Like a crab. Yeah, you got to buy one of those steps that they have on Amazon. I'm not buying anything. You know, like just a step? We have steps in the dorm. I know, but I think it's funny that you can also buy a singular step. I don't think. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

But I've used like the lifting bench thing. This is probably, I don't know the terminology. but I'll do my little step-overs. So I have like one foot up and my left, my right foot up, my left foot down. And then I'll step over with my left foot back and forth. And that's supposed to help with knee stabilization. So who knows if I'm actually helping my knees or not? I should be.

Or they're just going to go out when you're 54. Gosh, that would suck. Then I couldn't ski. 47 years from now. I don't think that math is accurate. Well, today we're talking about our favorite camps. sites. Yes, yes. But in the meantime, you're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, and we got some stories for you. Yeah. So I'll go first with my favorite campsite,

because I think I've got a couple and Storm. You only have one or so. I've been to one place ever. You've been to one place. Okay. Well, my favorite, this, okay, so this is a car camping location. And my dad and I found it coincidentally. We didn't actually know this place existed. So this was two years ago, end of June. And we were up in the San Juan Mountains, which is in the southwestern part of the state of Colorado. And we love the San Juan's. We've been so many times, probably every year since 2020 in the summer. We just go there. It's fantastic. fantastic for dispersed camping. Dispursed camping? Dispursed camping is when you're on BLM Land, Bureau of Land Management Land, and you can park your car or your RV or whatever and camp in one spot off of a road for up to 14 days and then you have to move.

So you can basically move around, not staying on designated campgrounds, but like if there is a, you know, a dirt road and there's a little fork off to the. the side that you can park on. You can park there and you can camp and, you know, it's not a real campsite so there's no toilets or anything, but you know, you provide for yourself and you can do it for free, which is really nice because campgrounds are getting so, so expensive these days. So we're up in the San Juan's and we're with our trusty forerunner. We love our forerunner. Does it have a name? No, it's my parent, so it doesn't have a name. However, when I have a forerunner, I'm going to name it.

Oh my gosh. Franklin. Franklin, the forerunner. Like the character from Peanuts? I did not think of that when I came up with a name. Have you ever read Peanuts? No, I haven't. Shout out my boy, Charles Schultz.

Yeah, maybe I should read some of those. But there you were. Yeah, so we're kind of by Telluride, which is a ski resort. But we go up this dirt road, off-roading trail up towards Alta Lakes, because we have dispersed camp there in the past and we decided to go there again. However, it was a Friday afternoon and everyone in Colorado just goes camping every single weekend. Like that's just their hobby. They go camping. And so we get up to Alta Lakes and it's packed. There is no room at all. We're like, well, shoot, we need to find somewhere to stay because the sun's going to set soon.

And we want to sleep up at elevation as well because we were training for a 14er wetter horn. which is also in the sandalons. And sleeping in a higher elevation would help you acclimate? Yes. Okay. Yeah. It helps create more, I think it's either red blood cells or white blood cells. The ones that carry oxygen, it makes more of those.

That's with red blood cells. Yes, red blood cells. So we saw this road that forked off from the Alta Lakes Trail. And so we go down that and it kind of dips down a little. And then we enter this basin. with these mountains in an arc behind us, and we're looking westward. And it's just like there's a lake and it's completely open. And it was stunning.

I mean, it was late June, so there was still snow all over the mountains. And we actually saw people skinning up with a dog that was just running behind them. Skinning up? Yeah, yeah. What does that mean? So when you have, there's these skins that you can stick onto your skis. and so when you glide uphill, they're kind of like fish scales. So you can glide up, but as soon as you stop your glide, they grab the snow so you don't

slide backward. And there's special bindings where only your toe is clipped into your ski, but your heel can move up and down like you're walking. So you can go uphill skinning and the skins catch the snow so you don't slide backward. That's really cool. Yeah, I've never done it before, but I really want to. So they were skinning up and they get to the top and ski down with their dog. It was just beautiful because where we were, there was grass and all these wildflowers,

but yet we also had the element of snow. And then it was westward facing, and we got the most spectacular sunset. I mean, the whole sky just lit up. There were clouds, which makes for really beautiful sunsets. And so they all turned reddish and orangish. And the light was reflecting off of this lake. was there as well. I don't think I really want to share the name of this place because it is kind of a hidden gem. However, if you go up towards Alta Lakes and you see a fork off to the right, you should be

able to find it. Ooh. Yeah. And you buried treasure there? I did not. However, there are like mining ruins because mining operations were really big in the sandwallants and still kind of are. So there's lots of different huts that they had for mining all over the place. Are you telling me there's gold in them Varhills? I don't know if it was gold, but there was, maybe it was silver. Maybe gold. I'm not exactly certain. Nice. Yeah, it was a special gem and I had a really great time camping there for a night.

Let's go. Yeah. That's awesome. What about you? What was your favorite campsite? I had a really cool one actually pretty recently. Last summer, me, I say, me and my family were out in, Colorado as well. Great state.

Great state. And we were in Salida, Salida. Salina? Salida. Salida. Salida. Salida. I don't know where that is, actually. It's a town, a pretty high elevation in Colorado.

I don't know the exact elevation. Do you know what it's close to? It's near BV, Buena Vista. Okay. North, I think, of there. I haven't really explored that part of Colorado. It's cool. They have a lot of canyons.

It's very like, I don't know. Lone Ranger feeling. There's lots of big sandstone bluffs and kind of stuff like that. Really neat. But we went rafting down a river through Browns Canyon, which is a really cool place there, where it just looks like an old west, like train heist would have occurred or something of the sort. And we camped off the side of the river and then continued the second half for the next day, rafting to our destination.

The camp spot was awesome because there was no one else around, which I think is something that I really appreciate. And, like, I don't really enjoy camping if there's a lot of other people there. No, the feeling of isolation is what really makes it special. Yeah, it's great. So we camped off to the side there where the river, the big river running through the canyon was to the left. And the canyon walls on the other side. So me and my brothers could hike up the side of the canyon and, like, you know, free climb, basically up to the top of the bluffs.

And now, how tall are these bluffs? Like, you know, I mean, I don't know. What's the scale? that I'm supposed to be going off of. Off of feet? I guess. I don't know. From where we were at our campsite,

a couple thousand feet? Thousand feet? So you were free climbing up thousand feet? I say free climbing. Not like free soloing. I mean, like, we were... You were making your own trail. We were making our own trail and like jumping rocks.

So you're not on a cliff and could die? It was pretty steep. Okay, it was steep. But it wasn't to the point where we were rock climbing, but to this point where, like, they wouldn't, They couldn't have made a trail there. Have you seen the documentary free solo?

I have seen free solo. Very good. I remember watching it and I thought, oh my gosh, sign me up. Not for free soloing, but I just want to get into rock climbing. It's super cool. It was mind boggling. And scary. I couldn't imagine doing that.

I would just get stressed out 10 feet off the ground and be like, I'm going to die. We thought it was funny that his, like, didn't his girlfriend leave him? Yes, I think she did. She got so freaked out. You're going to die. I'm leaving you. That's a pathetic girlfriend. Yeah, honestly.

She should have been supportive. She should have been supported and been like, go for it. I believe in you. Like, realistically, if you leave him, you're losing your man. But if you stay with him, 50% chance you're losing your man. So it's like, at least, at least give it a shot. If he dies, then, like, think of the cool story. I don't know.

Not cool story, but I don't know. It would be awful, but it wouldn't be, like, the worst. Wait, did he die? No, he's alive. He's still climbing. I watched another documentary about him. He went somewhere like, I don't know, up in Iceland, I think. It feels like he has just like an itch. He's like, I have to go and put myself in this super dangerous situation. Well, I think some people are just like that. They're adrenaline junkies and they just need to get that thrill. They need to get off the trails. Boodam! Sorry. Yeah, they have to push themselves in ways that, you know, other people have it. That's true. But anyway, to continue myself.

story. We got to the top of the bluffs where kind of there was like very little trees and you could see across the other side of the canyon and then like way down into the river where there was like occasionally other people that were rafting by and there were, you know, microscopic looking in like the wood is now the tiny little snaking river. And then you could turn around and you could see the town. You could see Salida and then in the very, very distant Buena Vista and then like the big rockies to the other side. Wow. So it was like you can't see the mountains from down in the canyon, But up on the bluff, you could see all the different crags and shapes off in the distance, coated in purple light and looking just gorgeous.

So very nice little spot. We got to a point where there was like nowhere higher we could be in a long radius around us. So how high up from the floor of the valley were you? I mean, you said a couple thousand feet, but like, are you, is that an accurate statement? I think so. I don't know distances that well or heights of mountains. Okay. I just kind of walk up things.

But once you got to the top, everything down there looked pretty small as what you were saying. Oh, like microscopically small. How long did it take to climb up this bluff? Um, an hour. Okay, okay. So it is, it is a ways away. Yeah. It's not super close.

But you could see still the campsite in the distance. That makes sense. And like the river and everything. Um, I have three little brothers and all, all four of us just decided to team up and go tackle it. That's so fun. Yeah. It was an absolute blast. Got up there.

Um, and then we did feel like the temperature. and the pressure drop as we were like a storm was definitely going to come in in the next bits we're like we might want to get down from here it started raining what time of year was this um this was in late summer yeah afternoon thunder showers they'll come and get you randomly in colorado um it's around like 4 p.m you'll just get like soaked out of nowhere or like a thunderstorm will approach rapidly it's because you know the evenings are pretty cool in Colorado like it still gets down to, you know, 30s, 40s at night, depending on the time of the year, I mean, in the summer. And then it heats up a lot during the day, you know, it can get 70s, 80s, even warmer.

And then just that temperature difference and the wind that is created from the change in temperature brings in those storms. We were like, right. So we ran down. And fortunately, it wasn't actually nothing rolled in, but we could feel it cooling off. We're like, hmm, that'd be best to not be at the highest point for, miles around. Yeah. And what time a day was this? Like afternoon? Mid-afternoon, yeah. So did you guys raft in the morning

and then you would camp at different points along the river and then... Just one point. We rafted until like, I don't know, 3 p.m. Set up camp, went and hiked it, came back down, dinner or whatever, sleep. And then next morning, after the rest of the way until you know, noon 3 p.m. Okay, cool. And so is your parents

and your brothers? Yeah, and my brothers. And there was a couple, there was like one other group with us who wanted to do the same kind of like little stint with us. We got to meet them. They were cool. Awesome. I've only ever been water rafting once and it was kind of lame. It was in August, so the water had calmed down quite a bit from the snow melt. And it was down in Durango, which is outside of the San Juan's as well. And the river that flows through Durango is the Anamis River. And that starts all the way up in the mountains further away. The Anamis River. The Anamis River. That's cool. Yeah. And so,

So we rafted the animus and we were there with my family from Texas. And so I have two little cousins. And they had a blast because I don't know. They were eight and ten at the time or something like that. So it was super fun, but not extreme at all. It was very mild. So I just know that in the future I want to go on like a real rafting trip. It really depends on the river and the time of year for it to be like actually a blast.

I've done the Nantahela and the Acoi. Where is that? rivers down in kind of the southeast United States. They pass through Georgia, where I'm from. Okay. And they're really, really great. They're very, very cold, at least in proportion to where we are in the country. It's pretty warm outside, and those rivers are freezing all year round.

But they have some whatever the class, higher class rapids, like four class or whatever. Yeah, class four, class five. Class four, class five rapids that are a lot of fun. But no, I've been on the lazy river that's just like, all right, well, what a we don't hear. This is just a... Yeah, that's what it was pretty much. There was like one portion where it got a little more aggressive. I've tubed rivers. I've tubed through Bend, Oregon. We went there for the solar eclipse in 2018, I believe. And we had friends in Bend. So we stayed with them and we went tubing there. And I also tubed this summer in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We have the Yampa River.

And so I used my aunt's tubes and my best friend and I, we went tubing down. the river. So rivers are fun. Oh yeah. I don't have any close to where I live, so I feel like I only ever get to experience that when I go places. Did you miss the solar eclipse because you went over a waterfall? No. This was the day after the solar eclipse. Yeah. So we actually, the eclipse didn't hit totality and bend. So we had to drive like 40 minutes out to, I don't remember the name, but somewhere further away and then we got to see it in totality. So yeah, it was a really great experience. But you know, rivers. While you were there, I was like literally at the opposite corner of the country. Were you in Maine? No, no, no. Opposite corner. Oh, okay. At my grandparents' house, which was in the

area of totality. That's so cool. And watching it just the world turned to twilight for... So we've both seen two eclipses. We've both seen two full eclipses because we saw the other one last year. Yeah. We'll have to share that story another time because we're running short here. But that, that was super fun. We went to Ohio. Oh, yeah. Eclipse buddies. Absolutely. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors.

We'll see you out there. Happy trails. Touch grass. Bye, guys.