WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Summer '25 Recap!

Episode Date: September 6, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss some of their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they recap all their fun outdoor adventures from summer break!

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 Sigiratau, and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week is our first week back from summer vacation. Guys, did Nicole do a good job while I was gone? I did like three episodes without you, and I will say it was a little lonely.

I'm kidding. I listened to all of them. She did a great job. Oh, thank you. I did miss having someone to like bounce conversation off of though. Send Nicole Love in the comments or I will hunt you down. What comments? There's a comment section on Spotify. Oh, well, I guess I don't look at that. Probably because I don't have any comments.

Good. This one guy in this one episode was like, she's so annoying. No, I'm kidding. I believe it with some things. If anyone's annoying, it's me because I'm loud and obnoxious. But I'm back due to popular demand. Due to popular demand. And because I need someone to talk.

to. This makes my life easier. And we did things in places that are outdoors this summer. Yes, this summer, because guess what? That's what this podcast is about. If you are a new listener every week, we talk about random outdoor stories. There is no bounds to our topics. You may say that we go off the trails and we talk about everything to do with the outdoors. So if you are a Hillsdale College student and you have some fun outdoor stories, please get in contact with us at our Hillsdale emails. Direct message, Nicole Siggyartel. Yeah, just look me up in the directory or something.

And if you can't spell that, neither can I. Yeah, no one can spell it. Or you could talk to Storm or talk to I if you see us around campus. You know me. I'm Storm Drexler. Everyone knows Storm. So, anyway, let's start off with trail markers. Yes, let's do that, I say putting on my smiley face.

Because Storm, every week never actually has a trail. trail marker, he just comes up with something. He actually did do his trail markers. Allegedly. No, for the most part he does. They are accurate, but he always forgets. So, Storm. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You first.

Me first? Yeah. My trail marker is actually one from California because a week ago I was still in California. This is our first week of school. So, like, I was at home. And I went surfing one final time before leaving my beautiful golden, golden state

to come to Drury, Michigan. and it was a very fun time going surfing. I went quite a bit this summer and I feel like I improved. I've been kind of stagnant my entire surfing career, shall we say. But, you know, the summer I went a bit and I really have been trying to like walk around on my board a little bit more to do things besides just standing there. And I saw a sea turtle. That was pretty fun. Yeah, it just poked its head up out of the water right by my surfboard.

and there were some younger boys close to me and they're like, oh my gosh, it's a shark. I was like, no, but I'm not going to tell you otherwise. I'll let you think it's a shark because that's funny. Silly child, look at that shell. Yeah, and then at one point they're like, oh, we see whales. And I kid you, everyone around them was laughing because they're like, there are no whales, young children.

Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, it was fun to go surfing one last time and I do miss the ocean. Yep. My trail marker is that I went in the ocean too. I went to the beach over the summer with my family, and we rode wave riders out in the ocean. Now, Storm, I hate to burst your bubble,

but that wasn't from the past week, and a trail marker is supposed to be... That was definitely seven days ago. Okay, look, I've been at Hillsdale for the past seven days. And this place is boring. It is boring. You've been here for three weeks, haven't you? Yeah, I've been here for a long time.

He took a class because he's lame. I'll talk about that later. Oh, sorry. No, you're good. But one fun thing that I did because I have done nothing in the past week except wait for my friends to get here is I went out in the ocean. And I wrote, I rode Wave Wonders. And I was like, wow, this is cool. Was this in Georgia?

Don't break my moment, Nicole. I won't. No, I won't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're good. This was in South Carolina. Oh, okay.

Nice. And were you with friends, family? Family. We went the whole family down there. That's been the time of the beach. And the one really fun thing stuck out was that we went out in the ocean with a waverunner. which are super duper cool. We got to the point

where the shoreline was just like a line in the distance. Wow, that's pretty far out. And there was like a big harbor bell thing out in the ocean and we... A buoy?

Yeah, a harbor buoy. And it has a bell on it. Yep. Were there seals on it? No, but we got on it. We got off our things, swam over, climbed it, and then did backflips off of it.

That's so fun. So a lot of those in California that we have like outside of the harbors, first of all, they have a bell on them so boats can hear them if it's very foggy. So they're like, oh, the jetty is nearby and we may crash. So we should probably pay attention.

Yeah. But we have a lot of seals and sea lions that will get on top of these buoys. And they're vicious. You can't get close. Like, we used to sail out during sailing practice and would sail around these buoys. And the seals would kind of like hiss at you a little bit. Ooh. Yeah, they don't like you.

Seals, like, also really dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. My actual trail marker or something that happened this last week, I just thought of it. I saw a possum on campus. Was it, sorry, I have to ask, was it alive? I think so, but it was also just like sitting there. Oh, okay.

And they play dead, so I assumed a lot of. Yeah. Think about it this way. The odds are, one, it's dead, two, it's playing dead, three, it's just chilling. And two of those three things are live, so we're going to assume alive. Okay. But yeah, so I'll pass them. Very nice.

Did you name it? No, because that would have given me attachment, and then the 33.3% chance that it is dead. unfortunate that I am. Yeah, that would be rather unfortunate. Yeah. All right. So this episode, we don't really have a specific topic in mind because I figured first episode back. We just want to chat about the summer, catch up with each other because we've talked a little bit since being back at school, but not, you know, super in depth about summer. No, this is my first time seeing you. Very first time. It's not like I saw you earlier in the union. Nope. No. So do you want to give me like a summer recap? Yeah, other than the beach. That was a,

that was a blast. I rode a bunch of bikes when I wave runners. That was cool. But other than that, I kind of have been here for a little bit in Hillsdale, came back early, and popped on over to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for a week to do the Gettysburg summer course. It's pretty good. Dr. Jennings, shout out, great guy. Nice. I made the course a lot of fun. And Gettysburg was really cool. I actually, I don't think I had been really to Pennsylvania more than just driving through.

And I liked Pennsylvania. It's kind of the northern Appalachian Mountains kind of sloped down into the Pennsylvania. the roving hills. It was definitely more interesting topography than here in Michigan. And it was great. There was like all these hills and stuff that made walking around a lot of fun. Because like

I don't know, walking up hills, oh, tiring or whatever, give me hills and mountains any day of the week to walk around on instead of just planes and flat roads and cornfields. Absolutely. And what part of Pennsylvania specifically? Southern Pennsylvania near the border of Maryland and Virginia. Okay.

So, or one of the two, I think it's Maryland. So Gettysburg is like right north of the Mason-Dixie line. So we were studying the Civil War battle, obviously. And it was a crucial moment in the Civil War altercation. But the outdoor part was really cool because we got to walk the entirety of the battlefield. Oh, that's awesome. So we had learned the battle, and then we got to walk outside and spend basically four straight days just walking the whole thing. And out in, out in the weather, it was kind of hot, but it wasn't actually that bad.

And we got to see a lot of cool stuff, a lot of monuments, but also a lot of like wooded areas, woodlots and brickyards and cool areas where conflict occurred and battles happened. Or like little parts of the battle happened. And they had a really cool monument called the Eternal Peace Monument, which is this giant stone torch with a flame that has constantly being fed gas at the top that overlooked the, I think it was Oak Hill from Oak Hill that overlooked the north side of the battlefield.

So that was really cool to do. Little round top, I think, would have to be my favorite, though. On the very south side of the battlefield, there's a big hill with lots of boulders and rocks, and there's this area at the bottom called Devil's Den, and it's all this, like, this boulder field, and you kind of like walk through, and some of the thickest of the fighting was, of the melee, like, melee combat was down there. So it was really cool to walk around, basically just hike for four days straight. That's awesome. Did you have to memorize the Gettysburg Address?

No, but I did memorize it in the fourth grade when I was a little. kid. I don't know if I could still say it. Four scorned seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty. And dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. Testing whether that nation or this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure. Yes. We are met in a battlefield of that war.

Okay, now that was just, but Gettysburg Address Podcast. I can't believe I remember that much though That was a long time ago That was like half of it That was good It's not that long We went to the cemetery Where he gave the speech

Apparently some guy came Who we don't remember that much about And gave a two hour talk Wow And everybody was like whoa that was awesome And then it was like And now the president And everyone was like

Oh my gosh An even better talk And he got up there and talk for two minutes And left Because the Gettysburg dress Is notoriously extremely short Yes But it was really cool

It was consecrated hollowed ground And we did go off the trails a lot of the time because Dr. Jennings wanted to take us to little spots where Hillslow College students had fought because we had Hillsdale College students fight and die in the battle. Yeah, wow. So it was it was hollowed ground indeed. But that was a pivotal moment of the summer. I was also here for a while.

Part of the class was actually just back here at Hillsdale. So coming back early was really interesting. I forgot that it's like actually hot here a little bit, at least in August, which is interesting because you kind of go home and remembering just. the cold, especially going back to Georgia and you back to California. It's like, man, I got a pack some extra coats for next year. And then you do so and you get back here and you're like, why is it 90 degrees out? I forgot that it's a little bit warm. When you get back, it is rather toasty, which is kind of shocking. Yeah. You're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale

101.1.7 FM. And let's keep hearing about Storm Summer. No. No. That was it. No, no. Yeah. But yeah, it's It's very warm, and I'd forgotten about that. And then I was like, I lookie forgot my shorts. You forgot shorts? No, I have shorts. I have one less pair of my love, forgot my favorite shorts back home. Oh, your favorite shorts. Yeah.

That's a bummer. Can I borrow your shorts? I don't think so. What size are you? They would be way too short on you because Storm is very tall. I'm the length. Yeah, there'd be some short shorts. No one wants to see that.

Well, how was your summer to call? My summer was great. As you guys know, I was in Hillsdale for the first month of summer break doing a summer class, so I took a business law class. And it was very great. And in my month that I was here, I did a lot of biking, which I feel like I mentioned. I did a lot of walking and some running, and I went to Bobby's Lake, and I swam around there for a little bit.

So that was kind of my out. By yourself? By myself. And then also with my boyfriend for some of it. Wow. Wow. We also went to... That's not me, by the way.

No. Just so non-listeners don't know. We're platonic friends. We are very platonic friends. No. Andrew Hawkin is my boyfriend. Crazy. Full name drop.

He was on the podcast at one point. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, we also went to... The listeners are like, yeah, we ship them. The long-term following. I'm sorry.

I'll keep going. Anyway, at one point I went to Windsor, Canada for Memorial Day, and that was very fun. But as soon as I landed back home in California, the very next day my dad and I went up to Mammoth Mountain, our ski mountain, which is like six hours away. And because Mammoth is fantastic, and they do not have to close because of national forest closures for like elk migration, they were still open and they still had snow. So my dad and I went skiing for a few days. Oh, my goodness.

skiing in August. In June. Yeah, it was June. But that was really great. And one of the days we actually did a little day trip up to Yosemite National Park. Yosemite. I've never been. You've never been?

No. Okay, so I have been twice, but when I was younger. Once when I was six years old. And then the other time, I think I was seven years old. Did you see Old Faithful? That is Yellowstone, my good friend. Oh. Wait, where is Yersemite?

Yosemite is in California on the western. inside of the Cierras. Everything west of the Mississippi kind of bleeds together for me. West is the best. So there's just a whole lot of good going on over there. East is the beast, dude. East is the beast, man. You can't beat the east. I beg to differ. But it's okay. That's an argument for another day. We got the Gulf of America. You know, I am rather envious of that. You guys have the frigid, ice cold Pacific Ocean. It gets warm by the time August rolls around. It gets warm at the very end of the summer when you have to leave. No, it's so sad actually.

The last time I went in the ocean, I was so depressed. I was like, why is it so warm and I have to leave tomorrow? But anyway, so we did a little day trip to Yosemite. If you've never been, I'd highly recommend. However, you do need to technically make reservations, unless if you enter the park. Illegally. Well, my dad and I did something a little questionable.

We, well, not questionable. We just... We have confirmed Yosemite Park Rangers in our audience. We just played the game. If you get into the park before 6 a.m. you don't need a reservation. And if you leave a park after 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. They don't check.

You stayed for 14 hours? Yeah, we were there for a while. Wow. So we drove through the park gates technically at like 5.30 in the morning. So we didn't have to pay for a national park pass. And then we left. I think we like drove out of the gates at 7 p.m. or so. And once more, they didn't check to see if we had to.

a pass so we didn't have to pay. So there's a national parks pass, but then there's also like reservations for very popular parks. So Rocky Mountain National Park, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, Yellowstone. Yeah. So it's becoming rather common for that to be a thing. But no, we went and we had our bikes and we biked around. It was, it was really great. It was just fun to be back in the valley for a day. And let's see here. So that was kind of like our first little trip of the summer. And about three weeks later, dad and I went back to the Sierra's and we went to Mount Williamson, which is the second tallest 14er in California, I believe, and it's in the eastern Sierra Nevada range. And I've never climbed it before. So I climb a new 14er every year. So my dad and I were like, all right,

I am older and stronger and more capable. Let's go do a tough one, which I was really happy about because I haven't done like a pretty tough 14er in a while. So that was a great. experience. It was just my dad and I. Um, I do have a very fun story from that, but I do want to share it for like a full episode. Yeah. Because it was just, it, it was serious, you know, starvation. Oh, oh. Oh, there was some mild starvation. No one was eaten. Don't worry. Mild starvation. Mild starvation. I'm pretty sure that's just called hungry. You know what, storm downplay it. Go ahead and downplay it. But that was good, it was a good time. It was a very good time.

climbing the mountain? Yeah, we did climb. Yeah, spoiler, we climbed to the mountain. It was great. Did you find William? Is he at the top? No, we didn't. Oh.

But actually, there's a camp, not a camp. It was a, oh my gosh, what's this called? It's called Manzanar. But it, during World War II, when all the Japanese were put into, like, concentration camps. Were they called concentration camps? Prisoner of War camps. Yeah, that's what it is. Prisoner of War camps. I don't think we did the concentration camp.

No, no. I think that was the access powers. Yeah, no, no, no. Sorry. But we had like prisoner of war camps, I guess, if that's the proper terminology. And so we had a lot of Japanese down there. And I believe there's one guy who escaped and he climbed up Williamson. And apparently his bones are up there. I don't think his name was Williamson.

That's tough. The mountain is named after someone else. But apparently his bones are up there. We did not see his bones. Stories from the POWs. Yes. And then let's see here. After Williamson, I went to the beach a lot this summer, got my beach time in.

You got to get away. Yeah. Well, they say what they're going to say. Exactly. My dad and I did Mount Baldi actually as training for... Mount Baldi? Mount Baldi. It's our Southern California peak.

It's like 10,000-ish. Yeah. And lots of trail runners. Oh my gosh. As we were hiking up, there were all these people just running by us. And I was like, oh, wish that was me. Not really. Yeah.

It's a very, very steep hike. So that was like a fun little day trip my dad and I did as training. Like I said, went surfing a lot, did some snorkeling, just hung out at the beach. And then closer to the end of summer, Andrew actually flew out to California to come visit my dad and I. And so we took him up, Mount Langley, another 14er, took him to Mammoth, just hung out there for a little bit. And then explored the White Mountains, which is the mountain range on the other side of the Owens Valley. So you have the Sierra on the eastern side. Oh, no, sorry, on the western side. And then you have the White Mountains on the eastern side.

Okay. And so there's like some off-roading trails up there. So Andrew got to drive. He had a blast. Saw a beautiful sunset. And then the day after that, we went to Death Valley National Park. Oh, my gosh. The desert desert.

The desert desert at the end of July. So the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was there. Thank goodness we were not there for that. Yeah. Like, when was that? It was years ago. It was years ago, but it was like 132. Golly.

Yeah. We were there for 108. The highest, like, natural temperature. Yeah, yeah, yeah, natural. Because like lava is higher than that. Yeah, okay, yeah, no, no. We're talking about, like, air temperature. Yeah.

Gully. Yeah, so we're there for like 108, which was pretty bad. bad, but it is a dry heat. 1.08, that's my work. I'm from Atlanta. I know. You're used to your humidity and you're just suffocation of heat over there. Great.

But yeah, we did that. Went back down to SoCal. Went to the beach. Took him to San Diego. So. San Diego. I've not been to San Diego. Really?

But I've heard they're known for their pristine rocks and fake beaches. Have you seen the movie Madagascar? Oh, yeah. No, I know. She's a reference. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it goes, pristine rock.

Take me, this must be San Diego. I know about San Diego. I need to rewatch that. Oh, and I remembered one more thing. We did a little family trip with my uncle and his wife and their daughter, and we went up to Carson City, Nevada. You mean your uncle and your aunt? Yeah. My uncle and his wife.

Yeah, I guess. We came up with a word for that. I guess my uncle and his aunt. His aunt. Your uncle and your aunt. Yes, that's what I meant. tune in for Nicole does know how family works. And their daughter, so your cousin?

My cousin. Yes. My cousin. And we went up to Carson City, Nevada because my parents are looking to maybe buy property there. Oh, did you know Carson City is actually the capital of Nevada? Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't for a while. I thought it was New Vegas.

No, it is the capital. We walked by the Capitol building, actually. So we were in Carson City for like a day and a half, did some hiking. there. It was nice. I like it. If they moved there, fine by me. Drove through Reno and then we went to Lake Tahoe, which I have never been in my life. Yeah, I've never been to Reno or Lake Tahoe. And it was absolutely beautiful. The water was just like so pristine. And I loved it there. I could actually live there genuinely. Oh, not close to the beach. Not close to the beach. But the water, like, I'll do a whole episode on that.

One other thing I want to mention, I went to the Donner Party Pass. What is that? You don't know what the Donner Party passes? No, but say it one more time. Okay. The Donner Party was this group of people who were, you know, migrating across the country. They started in Missouri or something. So like covered wagon, Delio, okay? Think of Little House and the Prairie people.

And they're trying to get to California and they get stuck in the Sierra in the winter. Oh. And they eat each other. Whoa. However, however. However, the little memorial thing over there was a little shy about that and did not like to talk about it. Okay. So.

Because cannibalism, not the play. Not the play. Not the play. I thought that it was going to be some sort of pass up in a mountain where Santa lost a reindeer one deer. Oh, really? Donner. Donner. And Vixen.

That's one of the reindeer's. Oh, it was Blitzin. There's also a blitzin. Pryson. Doner. Dude, I bet the Vixen Reindeer. crazy looking. Okay.

Well, we'll get it more into these specific stories later on in the semester, but thank you for joining us for the first episode. It's so good to be back. It is so good to be back. New semester. New guests coming up. New guests coming up. New topics. Lots of fun.

New adventures. Storm and I have an adventure planned. We do. We do. With some friends. We are actually going off the trails together with. with a group of friends, and we'll tell you all about that in a few weeks. Yeah, that'll be in a couple of weeks.

Yeah. So thank you for listening to 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. Farewell, brave adventurers. Happy trails. Bye, guys.