Unhinged Christian
Welcome to Unhinged Christian Podcast, where we dive deep into the stories and perspectives that challenge conventional religious thought. Join me, Caleb Parker, your host and fellow seeker, as we embark on a journey to explore spirituality, faith, and humanity from a refreshingly open-minded perspective.
In each episode, I sit down with guests from diverse backgrounds and walks of life. From artists to activists, scientists to philosophers, we engage in candid conversations that transcend the boundaries of traditional Christian discourse. Together, we unravel the complexities of belief, doubt, and the human experience in the context of modern society.
Whether you identify as a devout believer, a skeptic, or something in between, Unhinged Christian offers a space for exploration and discovery. No topic is off-limits as we challenge assumptions, confront taboos, and embrace the richness of our shared humanity.
Join us as we navigate the intersections of faith, doubt, and everything in between. Tune in to Unhinged Christian and open your mind to a new dimension of spiritual inquiry.
Unhinged Christian
018: Exploring Trail Tales and Triumphs: An Appalachian Odyssey with Nature's Majesty and Mayhem. With Ethan Schutter
Embark on a captivating escapade as we whisk you through the dense forests of the Appalachian Trail with Ethan, whose stories from the woods are as lush as the forest itself. Strap on your boots for a trek down memory lane with my own Appalachian Trail odyssey, a 5-month, 2,193-mile dance with nature's raw beauty and fury. From the highs of Clingmans Dome to the lows of 'Virginia blues,' our tales are a hiker's mosaic of grit, laughter, and the unexpected camaraderie found within the wilderness.
As the trail unfurls, we uncover the peculiarities and practicalities of long-distance hiking, where 'hiker hunger' becomes a badge of honor and surplus gear finds its way into 'hiker bins.' In the thick of the Appalachian woods, we encountered both the mischief of wildlife and the colorful tapestry of human characters. My moniker "Monkey Man" sprang from necessity turned into innovation—a testament to the resourcefulness that life on the trail demands.
Finally, our footprints lead us through the mental labyrinth of thru-hiking, where the wilderness is both a physical and psychological proving ground. The tales of close encounters with nature's less forgiving side serve as stark reminders of the risks taken and the resilience forged along the path. Whether you are a seasoned hiker or living vicariously through each step, our stories offer a panoramic view of the trail life, complete with the inspiring sense of accomplishment that comes from embracing the grandeur of the great outdoors.
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Hey, what's up, ethan, what's?
Speaker 2:up dude.
Speaker 1:I watched or I listened to that Amazon Rainforest episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Dude, that was crazy.
Speaker 2:Dude the treehouse.
Speaker 1:The treehouse and everything that he was explaining. I can't imagine the part where he's talking about how they would be walking on the tops of trees in the flooded area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can see all of the wildlife around him. Yeah, but yeah, what episode Do you know?
Speaker 1:what episode that was or not.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what number oh shoot, we're talking about joe roberts of amazon.
Speaker 1:I think it was podcast I would know it when I see it. Let me look at it.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna play it we're gonna play the whole thing on another podcast.
Speaker 1:Just kidding 2013 paul rosalie oh, yeah, yeah but that was just wild, makes me want to do it. I want to go now.
Speaker 2:Was that he?
Speaker 1:almost died in that one, didn't he? I want to say several times, but I know there was at least once the infections he talks about With the bot flies.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, then he goes back and then they have disinfectant stuff there In the states. They couldn't fix it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a natural, natural, natural yeah tree remedy which is crazy, that we have all this technology and then he goes there. It's just something that's been around yeah speaking of adventures, though you've been on a couple right yeah, so I did the appalachian Trail in 2017.
Speaker 2:If you don't know what that is, it is a 2,193-mile trail. It's only for hiking. It's actually the only trail in the US that's only hiking. What are the other ones? For biking and all that? Well, the PCT actually used to be a horse trail and you can do it with a horse. Pacific Crest Trail, I should say, instead of the short name of it, I don't know what. The Continental Divide. I think you can just take bikes on that one too. I don't know, but the AT is just hiking, that's it. You can't have a bike on it. You can't have a horse on it or a pack mule or anything Crazy. Can't have a boat on it because there's no water. I'm just kidding. Yeah, there's no water on it does it ever get flooded?
Speaker 2:yeah, actually I've gone. Actually that reminds me of one of my stories. I've gone down the trail and it was just literally water I have like a video of it and the trail was the river just going right down it. That's what the trail was because it overflowed or over over flooded yeah, it was raining that hard then it was just going right into it what makes you want to do something like a big hike on a trail because you were gone for how long for this one at I was gone for about five months 150 days which, like the average, for men is like 150 to 180.
Speaker 2:And then for women it's like 160 to 190 days is a typical time. Obviously people are less than that and higher than that, but for me it took 150 and, having no experience, I thought that was pretty good. I was also 21. So that kind of helps.
Speaker 1:In your prime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in my prime.
Speaker 1:But what made you want to do it? Was it just a random thought?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I got done I shouldn't say kicked out of college, I just failed some stuff in college I was doing some college for. So, kicked out, yeah, pretty much I was going to become a cop. But then I was like, ah, you know, it was kind of crazy. I was just working at the time doing flooring, and then I was just watching TV Every good idea comes from on the couch, okay and I was watching this documentary on this guy that was just doing a section of the Appalachian Trail and I was like, huh, so I just started doing research and I was like this was in 2016. So, before I did it, and I was just doing research on it and I was like I should go do this If I have the money to do it. I didn't even know how much money it was going to be and I was like, yeah, let's just go do this.
Speaker 2:I think also, I looked at my siblings and they were doing a lot of life event stuff. My brother went into the Marines, my sister went through her master's, my other sister went out to Glacier. I don't know if you want me to say their names or not. It's up to you. Okay, nah, it's fine, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Love you guys. How long was she gone in Glacier?
Speaker 2:She was gone for the summer. That would be, rachel was gone for the whole summer, which was really cool.
Speaker 1:About three months, I think it was four. Spent four months in Glacier.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What was she doing there?
Speaker 2:She was working at one of the lodges there.
Speaker 1:As a DNR officer.
Speaker 2:No, no, pretty much doing like cleaning of the room. It's pretty much like a lodge that you can go stay at and you pay.
Speaker 1:You know it's like a hotel pretty much so she would do like the cleaning and stuff, and then did she work out there for the novelty of it yeah, you get paid board and I don't know if she got made some money.
Speaker 2:Maybe she made a little bit of money, but they house you and stuff and then you just get to. Yeah you get to chill and go on hikes and this is just like you work 40 hours and you get to do whatever in your free time sounds good to me.
Speaker 1:Did she ever encounter any grizzlies?
Speaker 2:actually I went out there halfway through the summer yeah to glacier and we encountered a grizzly together. It was pretty far away but we had the bear spray out and we were like, yeah, this is not good.
Speaker 1:Were you shaking in your boots?
Speaker 2:I wasn't, my sister definitely was. I was just like I guess if we die, we die, but it was like far away.
Speaker 1:Dude, grizzly death is not the way you want to go, though.
Speaker 2:But I think it would be pretty quick. It would just be like one swipe and you're dead.
Speaker 1:I think you need to read more about bear attacks, are you?
Speaker 2:sure I thought black bears it was slower because they don't even really want to kill you. They're just afraid of you.
Speaker 1:Both Grizzlies just immobilize you because they know that they can come back to you, so they just leave you alive, so you stay fresh oh and you're just ripped apart and all gross, and then 20 minutes later they come back and they bury you alive yeah, they bury you alive, six foot grave from the bears that's not what I meant.
Speaker 2:But don't they bury you and then come back to you to eat you, to preserve you I don't know what they, what they do I just know that they don't usually kill you the first time around yeah, they just badly injure you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, immobilize, they do that with deer too. But anyways, that was like my first hiking experience, because you're just doing I think it's skyline trail, I think that's what it is in glacier, and I did like 16 or 14 it's either 14 or 16 miles in one day, which was really cool and how long? Were you there for how long was I for glacier?
Speaker 1:we were there a week were you doing 14 mile or so long hikes each day?
Speaker 2:no, we were staying at the lodge, but we just went, we just drove up there and I just did one trail. Okay, just that one trail down from the top.
Speaker 1:People know that trail, yeah oh yeah, back to the at. You're sitting there watching tv and you just see this guy hiking part of it, and then instantly you come up with the decision that you're gonna hike that appalachian trail I did some research when I found out it was like typically between five and ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:It's typically what you're gonna spend. I'm like, hey, if I got the money next summer I should just go do this.
Speaker 1:I just made that decision what about the pressure to buy a house? What made you overlook that?
Speaker 2:I was with my parents, so I was like I, I don't know, I guess I was 21, I just didn't, I didn't, really just wanted to live the dream. Yeah, I just wanted to go do something. Great, I guess that pole was bigger than I guess you can always look further on and be like, oh, I can get married and have kids and then you have a house. That makes sense. But at this point I'm just single. So I'm like, ah, might as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what was the AT like? I mean, you were gone for, you said, five months.
Speaker 2:I can explain that a little bit. I thought that was a really learning experience, especially towards the beginning, because I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I'm not joking. I took a hammock, I started with a hammock and a tarp and I didn't know that you had to tie the a tarp up in a certain way, like a certain knot. I was like just regular shoe tying this knot, and this guy comes over he's like yeah, you got to do it this way, and so he teaches me this knot that I just had no idea I needed to know is there a reason why this knot is better than it pulls it?
Speaker 1:It?
Speaker 2:pulls it, it runs along the rope, then it pulls it tight instead of just trying to tie it. It's almost like a slip knot.
Speaker 1:Oh gotcha. So when you lengthen it, it strengthens yeah, it strengthens yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to do that. Another thing I didn't know how to do and I thought I knew how to do was build a fire. Didn't know how to do was build a fire. Didn't know how to do that at all, cause every time I built a fire it was with like paper right, cause I always had newspaper.
Speaker 2:That's why I would start the fire with in a lighter, which I had, the lighter, but I just didn't have the newspaper. So I was like I don't even know how to do this. So I tried starting a fire one night and it just went out instantly. And these two guys came along. They're like, yeah, you don't know how to build a fire, do you? And I was like, nah, I don't. And so then they showed me how and like pretty much got a bunch of wood together first and then divvied up like size, so really small, like a pea size, stick all the way up to I don't know a quarter, a little bit bigger than a quarter, I don't know 12 inches long about. And then they taught me how to with just leaves to start a fire, just leaves in a lighter dude, what would have happened if they never came around?
Speaker 2:I would probably still be stuck there to this day. To this day, I still can't start it you just walked in there, not knowing, oh dude any survival, because I feel like that's pretty important stuff to know no, yeah, I didn't know that stuff, for instance, but I did my research on like maps, so I had maps of every single section all the way up.
Speaker 1:You know how to read these before you left. Right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I knew how to read a map sort of. I mean, it wasn't that hard to read them. I actually still have all of them and I didn't know that you could just get a book and it would have everything like for 40 you can get this book that has like all of it, and I was like man that I didn't know. I've started buying these maps and they were like 60 bucks a map and I spent like between like I spent like 700 dollars on just maps.
Speaker 1:Yes, that you all the way, were these maps that you absolutely needed to be on this trailer? Were you just trying to be? No?
Speaker 2:I just didn't. Yeah, I was trying to be safe. So I was like you know, my mom was like you can do this if you're like well researched, and so I was like I'm going overboard and I still have a photo it's on my Facebook but I'm not going to pull it up but of all of the maps laid out and you know these tables, that we have, the two tables.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In my Georgetown house I had all the maps on every single table all the way back. That's how many maps I have and these are seven foot, like the two tables are seven foot, so 14 foot table all the way back. I mean there were some of them were open and some of them weren't.
Speaker 1:You know they close up.
Speaker 2:But right, yeah, that's something, so there's no way you're getting lost yeah, there's zero point in me getting lost, but you could just get either like now they have apps like it's so much different now compared to in the few years in between, because now you can just have an app on your phone. You don't even need a map or a book, where before people would either have a book or a map or I think they were just some people had the app.
Speaker 1:I feel like, if you're going to go out, hiking on a big trail like that. You'd want to have the paper map instead of the phone. Doesn't the phone ruin the whole adventure thing for people?
Speaker 2:yeah, and what if you don't have? So it's navigation. Well, you, they're off offline maps now oh so you don't need them you just load the map. You load the map when you're in Wi-Fi areas, which usually you are every seven days at town, which, by the way, that leads me to another point we do not carry five months' worth of food in our backpacks. Some people think that we do. No, we stop every seven days max. Usually, usually it's between four to seven days. I don't think I've ever gone seven days, maybe once.
Speaker 1:Maybe once on the AT how often do you come across a town on this?
Speaker 2:trail On the AT. It's very, very like a lot.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean every hundred miles there's a town.
Speaker 1:That's not really a lot in my book. That's pretty far spread.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if you're doing 20 miles a day, then it's five days. Yeah, you know, at the beginning that's another thing. At the beginning I had no idea how much food I really needed, so I had way too much. I knew I needed seven days, but I think I did the seven days in five, so I had like two extra days.
Speaker 1:Just to gauge that how much time is really hard when you don't know how time it's gonna take to get to the next town.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah now obviously I know, but how far and how much food I can do how much I'm gonna go through in a single day that would freak me out.
Speaker 1:Not knowing when the next town is gonna come. That would be way, way out of my comfort zone well, you know well that's where the research comes in.
Speaker 2:You research how far the town is, but still you're like I might eat a lot, I might eat a little. I don't know how I'm going to feel, but the first two weeks you don't really hit what they call hiker hunger. Until you're about two or three weeks in, you're just not eating as much as you think you would, because you're just not hungry, because you're full from just regular life food yeah, and your body's probably burning whatever fat you have in those two to three weeks yeah at first and then when you're it wasn't just me having that problem.
Speaker 2:Other people were like yeah, I got two or three days of food coming into town, which is not ideal because that's how much weight you had that you didn't need. Oh, we should talk about my weight, my pack. I started off with 42 pounds because you weigh them at akalomo, akaloma dang I can't say that word. It's the falls, that what's before springer. It's like the lead-up trail. But I weighed my pack there and it was like 42 pounds.
Speaker 1:That's what I started at which the pack weighed 42 pounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, do you think that's heavy or light?
Speaker 1:for me. It would be light if it were, if I were carrying it for a day, but it would be dude. I just got tacked by a book. Sorry, go ahead. I feel like it would be good for me for a day, but then eventually it would start to get real heavy. Yeah, is that the case for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had so much stuff in there that I just didn't need though.
Speaker 1:Did you just dump it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you dump it at the very first stop. They just have bins, they're like hiker bins and there's so much stuff that people just drop at the first one because they're like I can't carry this.
Speaker 1:What all did you have that you didn't need?
Speaker 2:Hiking soap. I didn't need that. To be honest, you don't need soap. 100%. Anybody that tells you you need soap, they're lying to you on trails. Percent anybody that tells you you need soap, they're lying to you on trails. Because think about, if you're going to a hotel or any hiker place, they're gonna have soap, and if they don't have soap, you go buy soap and then there's soap there typically and you're not gonna do it out. Are you gonna stop at a stream and use soap, which you're actually not supposed to do anyways, because it's a drinking source, so you're not really supposed to do? I mean so?
Speaker 1:also. That's for instance one thing I brought that I didn't need.
Speaker 2:I had hiker shoes. I didn't need those. I got rid of those.
Speaker 1:Not hiking shoes, camp shoes I felt like I didn't need those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some people that carry they like either carry crocs or like flip-flops and you don't need those. I sent a huge knife back. I had a strap-on knife actually it's still downstairs in my room a bar knife. It was like it's like the blade is like nine inches long was that your only? Weapon. It was strapped to my uh no, well, technically no, because I had another knife, a smaller knife, which I do believe you need is like a smaller knife, but the big one I didn't need, so I sent it back.
Speaker 1:I've sent that back home, though that was expensive knife what happens if you do encounter some sort of danger and you're weapon?
Speaker 2:you run. I don't know what danger you mean Bears, people pumas I mean I would say people are the biggest. To be honest, bears are not going to come at you unless they're invoked. And you have hiking sticks metal hiking sticks so hopefully you can use that. I've used that for loud noise to get a bear away from me did you see, a bear on the at yeah how close? 15 feet. 15 feet. Yeah, it was right in front of me, dude what was your initial reaction?
Speaker 1:I got. I got a video of it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I was racing and it was like a tween bear. So it was like not like a full-grown bear, you know, but not like a little bear either, but it was like I don't know, maybe 200 pounds I just clacked my sticks together and because it was right in middle of the trail I'm not kidding you, it was in shantadoa national forest and then I just clacked my what would you have done if it started running at you?
Speaker 1:It? Was like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just watched a video, like a reel, of a guy getting attacked by a small bear and he beat the crap out of it and I thought it was really interesting. I just posted on Facebook earlier. That's scary, dude. You just got to be loud. I think you got to act bigger than you are, Especially with black bears.
Speaker 1:I think Especially with black bears, especially with black bears. Um, I don't think that works with brown bears.
Speaker 2:I think you're just dead of. Manliness says to fight back when it comes to black bears. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like a fight back type thing, but it was more just annoying. It kind of just turned around and was mad at me and I'm like what? And then just kept on running forward because it was like well, you're annoying. And then it ran away finally and I was like you know, yeah the other time I saw a bear was like it was far away.
Speaker 2:It was a really small bear and it looked like it was eating. I'm not gonna lie, it looked like it was eating a bag of doritos. I'm not even lying, it was. It probably sounds like a lie, dude, dude. It sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not. And it was just like ripping this bag apart and it was like I don't know, like 150 feet to my left and I was like I'm just going to keep on walking. I don't want to mess with that because it was a small bear, so I don't want to see its mom, you know.
Speaker 1:So I'm like I'm just going to keep on walking. Cubs aren't scary, but when they're with their mom, yeah. When it's over, would you ever encounter any creepy people that you thought might have been?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's this guy. He looked like a pirate out of water. I'm not even joking. He had like he had like a staff. He had longer hair, he had like tattoos all over, like you wouldn't believe, yeah, and he definitely a poor-ish person. Of course, a lot of people out there they call a hiker trash, so we all kind of look like trash anyways. But he had like a big knife. He was just kind of creepy to be around and you could just tell he's a little bit off or he's trying to find himself, you know, yeah be around and you could just tell he's a little bit off, or he's trying to find himself, you know, yeah, you know what I'm saying, like follow you around.
Speaker 2:No, he didn't necessarily follow me, but I just talked to him like one time and I was like, yeah, I don't think I want to hang out with this guy he was creepy enough for you to remember him all these years later yeah, people get outed really easily though, because, even though we all kind of look the same, you can tell when somebody's a little bit off If there's like somebody sitting in a spot for too long.
Speaker 2:Like you roll into a camp or a shelter and, sorry, a shelter is like three walled and it has a roof and we stay in them. They're every like 10 miles on the trail, every like 10 miles on the trail. But if you roll into a shelter and there's a, it looks like that guy's been there for a while and then when you go to leave, that person's still there. That person's a little bit off. And we have like books at each shelter. Word gets traveled so much faster than your phone on the trail. It's. It's weird I don't even know how just word of mouth talking to people and be like, yeah, that guy's weird or whatever. Or you just find out information like, hey, this is a good town to go to. Don't go to this town. That's the other thing. I did all that research right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But really the information that you get is on the trail, because everybody is always looking at oh, what's the next store to go to, what's the good water source.
Speaker 1:What's next store to go to? What's the good water?
Speaker 2:source, what's you know. These are in the books. You're saying they can't be on the books. People can write, write that information on the books too, but usually it's just like a diary that and you can talk to. People like that are behind you. So if I'm traveling with somebody, then they get stuck behind me, then I can write a little note to them, which is really cool. That's so you can follow people and if there's somebody that you've already met and they're in front of you, then you can get their notes. Then you look through the logbook and we all have trail names.
Speaker 2:So and your trail name oh yeah, my trail name is monkey man is there a reason there for that?
Speaker 2:okay, yeah, let's go into that story, dude um at the beginning. So, like I said, I had a hammock right. I think it was like the third night I come up on the shelter and it looks like it's gonna be packed out. I think I came up on a 12-1 but I just decided to stay. I was pretty tired. I just decided like, hey, I could, I could hang my hammock up in these rafters, because the shelter had rafters up top. I was like, yeah, I can just hang my hammock up there. Then it frees up a spot on the ground, you know, for other people to sleep in. I put my hammock up there and then some big guy comes along. He's like, oh man, you look like a monkey up there and I was like I don't know if I can just go with monkey. That sounds weird to me come here, monkey, yeah, yeah it's weird.
Speaker 2:It was like six feet up. I had to like jump to get to where my hammock was and then pull myself up, but they had like little pegs on the. It wasn't that hard, but so I was like I could go with just monkey man and that sounds cooler. So that's what I did and it it just stuck. And it's weird, when you get a trail name it seems like everybody just instantly knows. Like I said, that word of mouth is just so much quicker and like 70 people just knew because like about 70, 40 to 70 stayed at the shelter that night yeah just people knew.
Speaker 2:And even when I would walk up to people like hey, what's up, I'm monkey man, and they're like, oh yeah, you got your trail name yesterday, you know like that and it's like the legend of monkey man.
Speaker 1:I guess I don't know, was there people that knew who you were that weren't at that camp?
Speaker 2:you would say hey, I'm monkey man well, people that I didn't meet but word of mouth just went ahead or behind, whatever. I was like, oh, that's weird.
Speaker 1:It's kind of cool at the same time and does it transfer to other trails that you've hiked on the name?
Speaker 2:yeah, yep, I, I. I would say that's kind of like a name that you keep, you can. I mean, I've heard of people transferring names, like different names for each trail, that they do, or they can change year to year, but I I would rather keep it, just because it's a cool one. I think people change when they don't like theirs, if it's maybe something inappropriate. I ran into this one girl and her name was man eater oh, yeah, I was like yeah, I don't think that's a great trail name.
Speaker 2:No, do you want to know how she got that name? Maybe I?
Speaker 1:shouldn't say you can, you can explain that well in a clean way I don't know if I can. Maybe we can't. You can tell me off off air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trail names are pretty cool, but I don't know. I want to talk about a little bit how hard it is to make it through the AT, because there's some. Well, I can also give you examples of why so many people get off the trail One. They probably didn't want to do it anyways, but they might have started a through hike and they figured out it wasn't for them, which is fine. If you get two, two, three weeks in, it's like it's not for me, you know. You just go back to the regular life. Only one fourth of people that start a through hike actually make it.
Speaker 1:And what is a through hike?
Speaker 2:A through hike is 2,193 miles, doing it in a seasonable year. A year starts in January, ends in December. You know that's a season.
Speaker 1:They would start in January and then go to the end of the year.
Speaker 2:No, they can start whenever they want, but I'm saying like they complete it in that time.
Speaker 1:A full 365 days.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, well, yeah, but like that's why I say it starts January, ends December and then the next season starts. You're not considered a thru-hiker if you do half of it and then a year later you do the other half.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You're not a thru-hiker. You're actually like you'd just be a long.
Speaker 1:In other words, it's doing the whole trail in one go, yeah long. In other words, it's doing the whole trail in one in one go. Yeah, okay, I didn't know. I thought you were just saying like you had to do it in a certain amount of time you sort of do you have to? Do it within a year, yeah within that calendar year gotcha.
Speaker 1:Where are you going with that? Sorry, you were saying that the at was really hard for a lot of people and one in four people only make it yeah, so about I think the year that I did it, about 10 000 start and you could be going either direction.
Speaker 2:I went south to north. You can also go north to south. South to north is considered northbound, or nobo what they call it northbound, and then same thing.
Speaker 1:Sobo.
Speaker 2:Yeah or Sobo, there's 10,000 people that started and I think it was 2,800 that I saw on it that actually finished. It's maybe a little bit over. That one-fourth amount makes it, but a lot of I would say 50 don't make it past the first three weeks just because it's they found out, it's not for them. Or, to be honest, I got injured about two weeks in and so I I understand that people quit you. You got injured, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the elevation I'll lead up to this, but the elevation gain is 515,000 feet of gain, which means you're having pretty much the same amount of decline too. Just saying in the whole trail. It's very up and down all day. So I might do 7,000 of gain in a single day, which is quite a bit, but I'm also going down that. I got to two weeks in and I was coming down a really hard trail and just the impact was hurting my knees and that's where I would say it's actually harder to go downhill than uphill. Like uphill you're just using your muscles, which downhill is harder on your joints. I injured, I wouldn't say it's like an injury, but it's like you can work through it, you know. I mean I just took a couple days off yeah, I was just in town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I took a couple of days off in town and I started taking fish oil, which helped my joints a lot. But I understand how people would hit their ankles, their knees, just maybe even their hips if they have a hip problem, that they would get injured from that and just go home instead of actually pressing through. I took two days off and then I was still injured going out. But I'm like I'm going to tough it out. I'm going to tough it out and keep going.
Speaker 1:What happens if you get seriously injured where you're not able to tough it out?
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean like, yeah, that does happen, your trail season is over. You can't really come back from that. Depends on how bad it is if you really break your leg. I don't. I don't think you should keep on going how do they get off the trail?
Speaker 1:does somebody need to support them all the way to some town or hopefully a road is close by, yeah, somebody would help you.
Speaker 2:I I've heard of some injuries that were pretty bad, yeah, and where you have to walk three, four miles to get to a road, crossing on whatever broken leg and hopefully somebody's there to help you. I've heard of people break usually it's their hand. Because they fall. They put their hand down and usually it's like, oh, freaking, broke my hand or something like that, or your wrist, and then you can at least walk with it and maybe somebody else can carry your bag.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but yeah, that is scary out there, not gonna lie, and I I've thought about that before. Or it's like if I get injured I'm crawling, you know, I guess I'm crawling back, crawling to the closest area that's safe, you know yeah there's also we also have.
Speaker 2:I had a spot device or garments that are sos, and if you're actually injured then you can hit that sos, but I don't know if they would charge you, so usually it's like ten thousand dollars if you hit that sos because they have to, they have to get a helicopter to you right either you're gonna pay that I don't know if they would make it you pay if it. If you're actually injured though it might just be like taxes pay for it.
Speaker 1:Sounds like death would be the better option.
Speaker 2:Dude. Okay, death might be I'm dipping into PCT a little bit but a Python byte might actually be cheaper, just to die, because if you get hit by a python it's like a million dollars when the day's done to pay for the venom and the treatment to get off the trail, yeah. Yeah, I looked at it. There was some posts on Facebook on it and I was like that is stupid, that it's it's that high that it's a million dollars to pay for it how often are python bites?
Speaker 2:I don't think they're that. They're not that often you would have to put that one you would have you would have to really try hard to get a python bite or a cobra like those out there you'd almost have to be going out of your way to get bit yeah, because I've had them rattle at me before on the trail and they never launched. But I almost stepped on one one time and that's pretty scary.
Speaker 1:What was your heart rate at that time?
Speaker 2:180. I think the craziest on the at though with animals was the craziest animal I saw. I was just walking along on the trail, doesn't you know? Just my own business, whatever and I kind of sensed something was following me. Like, before I even saw it, I was sensing something was following me. I got to a trail intersection where to the left of me, there was a shelter 0.5. So I was like, ah, I'm not going to go to the trail because me there was a shelter 0.5. So I was like, ah, I'm not gonna go to the trail because that's extra miles right so I'm not gonna go that extra 0.5 just to go to the shelter for lunch.
Speaker 2:It was right at lunchtime I was like, well, I'm just gonna stop here. So I sit down, have a. I get a snickers because, dude, I had so many snickers on the trail but I just get a Snickers because, dude, I had so many Snickers on the trail but I just get a Snickers and I can still sense like something's looking at me. So I'm just like looking like just in an area and then I see it, it moved, man, and I was like I kind of like had to adjust, like it blends in A mountain lion blends in really well to its surroundings, even though it's one color, would you would think that it would stick out. It doesn't, bro? And it was 25 feet away from me. I'm not not joking, it's just 25 feet away. And I see it. It's like probably 120 pounds, 120 pounds, but even 120 is like that's a big dog.
Speaker 1:Just imagine a big dog, I guess is it looking at you at this point?
Speaker 2:And yeah, it's stone statue. Just looking at me, dude.
Speaker 1:What's your reaction at this point?
Speaker 2:My heart is racing. I'm getting chills just talking about it. I'll be honest, really. Yeah, I mean, it just started walking. It looked at me and then it looked away and kept on walking. But I was just watching it and I was I like got out my knife but I was like I don't know what I'm getting to do with this. I have the equivalent of a butter knife, pretty much, and maybe I'm like, actually my sticks probably would be better hitting it, but even then I it's crazy yeah, because they're fast probably way faster than me.
Speaker 2:Probably by the time I like bring them up there, it's already on me, you know for sure. But then it just started walking away and I was like all right, that's it. But that was the craziest animal I've ever seen. It looked exactly, I don't know, like joe rogan explains on a couple of his like. It looks exactly like that, like like a pumpkin head. Those things are crazy.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine seeing one in real life. In IRL, yeah, In IRL yeah, I've seen them at the zoo, but obviously that's the zoo.
Speaker 2:Dude, yeah, I don't think I've ever told that story to anybody, except for on this podcast. Exclusive content Maybe my parents maybe, but that's about it.
Speaker 1:And was there any part of you that thought you were going to die at that point?
Speaker 2:No, not really. To be honest, If I die, I die. I don't know. That's the whole experience is like. If I die, I die, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Going on. That was like all right.
Speaker 1:You kind of have to have that mindset before you even go on the trail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which some people just don't't. Those are the people that don't usually make it. Oh yeah, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:they die, no, I mean they're the ones that quit. Oh yeah, they just go back to regular life. Yeah, within two to three weeks, because if you're not prepared to die, you're not. Yeah, I feel like you're not in the right mindset.
Speaker 2:I mean as dark as that sounds a lot of, so a lot of other people would quit. They would get to the halfway point and they would quit.
Speaker 2:I have no idea why you've made it no idea yeah, like you made it a like over a thousand miles. A thousand, was it 1100 miles? Ish, why would you quit then? Or I had a guy. It was funny, it was right after 4th of July. We were probably 500 miles away from finishing. We're getting back on the trail and he slips on cement, hits his leg and his leg is all bleeding and we're like, hey, we're just going to keep on going. He got back up. He was an older guy, but he's like gosh, dang it. I always slip on the stupidest things. I'm on Smet right now and I just slipped. I'm getting off Next town, I get to, I'm going home and he is already 1,500 miles done. He's already that far and he wants to call it quits Because he just slipped. Yeah Well, he said it happens all the time.
Speaker 1:That he trips all the time.
Speaker 2:No, he wasn't injured. I mean, he was injured. He had a cut, but he wasn't injured. Injured he's not gonna die, right he's, he's fine, imagine biting your tongue 50 times.
Speaker 1:It's gotta be like that if he's slipping all the time, but also.
Speaker 2:I'm like he's kind of older, so maybe that's why he's just sick of doing the same thing every day. I don't know. I ran into a lot of people that were like that too. They would get sick of eating the same food every day, which I totally understand, because it takes dedication to eat the same thing did I do that in regular life yeah, that's true, it's just easier. I'm just saying like think about it. You can't just go out to eat whenever you want.
Speaker 1:You can't just you know right, there's a little bit less freedom, right.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like the same dry food chewy bars.
Speaker 1:Peanut butter, tortillas, peanut butter tortillas.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, if you want to mix it up, you just go Nutella. Most people that's. Another thing that's weird about me is I don't have a cooker, which a lot of people do I would say 90 to 95% do. I do not because it's extra weight and I don't cook at home. So I'm like why would I cook out there? It doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1:I'm just weird. A cooker? How big is a cooker?
Speaker 2:It's like if you put both your hands together.
Speaker 1:It's about that size, gotcha About like this size, and where can they even cook on that? It seems really small, is why I asked.
Speaker 2:You have like a little cup thing. You ever been in man, you need to go to Cabela's bro. So I was at Cabela's.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I do. They have like little cup things and it's hard to explain. If you're a hiker, then you'd know what they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I probably would. But you didn't bring it because it's just extra weight. So you ate all cold dry food.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of tortillas, bagels with peanut butter. Sometimes I'll get bagels. They are so good, bagels are so good, but at the same time they just take up a lot of space. They're not super heavy, though. They have a lot of air in them. Take up a lot of space.
Speaker 1:They're not super heavy, though they have a lot of air in them. Did you ever think about just getting a stick and then cooking it on the fire?
Speaker 2:Warm it up, get a little crispy, I didn't, but I did that on the PCT a lot.
Speaker 1:I did that with hot dogs. I would pack out hot dogs and just put them on the. How did you keep hot dogs not rotting?
Speaker 2:I would hit a town every four days. So I mean hot dogs doesn't go bad thatting. I would hit a town every four days. So I mean hot dogs doesn't go bad that quickly. I looked it up and I was trying to figure out how bad, how quickly they go bad and they said usually they last between four and seven days outside the fridge.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, oh, that's good to know.
Speaker 2:Same thing with the summer sausage you don't even have to refrigerate. That I never thought you did.
Speaker 1:That's freaking awesome. Yeah, I never thought you could. That's freaking awesome. Yeah, you can buy that on the shelves. Usually that stuff is so good.
Speaker 2:Same thing with cheese. I would pack cheese, a lot of people would pack cheese and you can do that, but at night it's like colder, so I mean, if you're hanging your food, it's pretty much like a fridge temperature anyways.
Speaker 2:Hanging your food Isn't that kind of a recipe for disaster when it comes to animals. No, you're required pretty much oh, I guess that's another thing we can talk about you're required to hang food because they don't want it, like in this tent with you, because if you have it with you then the animal is going to come and you know, a bear or whatever, but you so you're supposed to have a stone. You can take a stone and you take a the, the string that you have for the bag, and you throw it up over the tree, the limb of the tree, not like the end, not like the end, but not like the trunk part of the tree either, kind of like the middle. When you throw the stone over, you hang the bag, pull it back up and then you tie it to the tree. That's how you have to hang food. You didn't know that no, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I did not know that at all. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:What's awesome that you just didn't know that, that you just didn't know that I was like oh, teaching new people.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm here to learn, bro, I know, Is there any? I know the AT because it's the Appalachian Trail. It goes through the mountains, but did you ever hit any mountain peaks on it, or is?
Speaker 2:it just straight through On the AT. There's a lot of peaks that you go over A lot More than I could name, the tallest one being Clemens Dome, which is in Tennessee.
Speaker 1:Is there a flag on top or anything that let you know that you've made it? There's a tower on top.
Speaker 2:You can actually drive up to it if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:That's neat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in the Smokies.
Speaker 1:Smokies. Yeah, it's in the smokies smokies, mountains.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's in the smokies. I was trying to think if it was or not, and it is smokies is Tennessee Kentucky area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the highest point it's.
Speaker 2:I have it written down 6,643 feet is the highest point of the AT and where is the Appalachian mountains?
Speaker 1:is that more of?
Speaker 2:it's the whole mountain range, all the way up. It's the whole mountain range and then there's different sections of it.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay.
Speaker 2:So the Shenandoahs is one area, for instance. Is the Virginia area?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are they in? New Hampshire? That's not the Smoky Mountains too, is it?
Speaker 2:Mount Washington is that's the White Mountains, the White, Mountains. Okay, okay, those man, those are to die for. If you have a good like clear day, some of the best views I think I've ever seen, I mean including the pct.
Speaker 1:I've taken the lazy route and have driven up mount washington. My family yeah, that's really lazy. I always hated those people because you, I got up there and I'm like yeah, you hiked the top mount washington yeah, yeah, it goes, yeah, the at goes up to and that's not taller than the other one that you mentioned no, the mount washington is like 6200, but everything around it it's cooler because everything around it is way lower.
Speaker 2:Where clemens dome is like, everything around is kind of close to that same height. Yeah well, even the, even the lower parts are still like at 5 500, so it's not that cool we made it to the top of mount washington.
Speaker 2:There was just clouds oh, yeah, we were in the clouds I mean that's always cool, because I was in a cloud, but you couldn't see anything I had it on a clear day. It was really cool, and it only has a clear day every. I think it's like 30 or 40 times a year. That's it.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, that's wild other than that it's pretty much covered, or you just can't see the bottom, so like maybe the top will be clear but like you can't actually see the land below because there's clouds below it, which is because of the wind pretty much also recorded highest wind speed on mount washington in the world ever recorded there yeah, because of the design of it, the building on top is chained to the ground. It's also cemented to the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's got to be both, but it's just funny because it's crazy up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because when we were up there, the winds were strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and that's probably only below 60 miles an hour. Yeah, what I mean, and that's probably only below 60 miles an hour yeah, what's the fastest that's been recorded um? They just had a new recording. It broke its previous record. The record before was like 190 miles an hour I don't know what the new record is. I'm guessing it broke 200, though it's like 212 or something crazy. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you get blown off the mountain, especially me weighing only 140. There we go.
Speaker 1:Hopefully I have a parachute and you did hike the whole at yeah, yeah, all the way through, yeah, so you were a through hiker.
Speaker 2:I was a through hiker.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Class of 2017.
Speaker 1:What state does it start in?
Speaker 2:again. It starts in Georgia. Springer Mountain is typically the start point, but I did the approach trail. Technically I did a couple more miles added to it.
Speaker 1:Look at you more accolades Seven and a half more miles.
Speaker 2:I think the other worst part that like gets people is how long virginia is. So virginia is, uh, 550 miles, which I I actually wrote down all the miles on here, but it's 550 miles, which is the most which you get the virginia blues because you're in it for so long.
Speaker 1:Yeah is it just the same thing? Is that why?
Speaker 2:no, you're just in the same state. So when you get to a new state you're like yeah, we got to a new state. You know it's like, yeah, it's like a mini achievement yeah, it's like you know, if you're playing your cod game, you get the one before gold, and then you get gold and then you get diamond, anyways right.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying now, but it's so when you're in virginia for miles, you're like man.
Speaker 2:This is so long Cause you're. That means you're there a month and a half in the same state. Virginia is hot right and humid. It's? Yeah, it's hot and humid, but the year that I did it it was in in May and the typical rainfall fall, fall, fall in Virginia is like four inches of rain right in may. We had 14 and a half inches of rain in may and it didn't stop. Pretty much we were. It didn't stop raining for a whole month.
Speaker 2:I think we had one clear day talk, and so you're just blues yeah, you're just wet all the time and it got a lot of people to quit and a lot of people to just jump forward to be like I'm out of here, I don't want to be in this rain anymore, which you can do. I don't recommend it because I'm a purist and what I mean by that is people jump around a lot, they go to different states and they just do that state and then come back to it later. I just want to go from point A to point B.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:So that's what I mean by purists and I want to carry everything on my back. Some people they'll do what's called slack packing and they'll give their pack to somebody to drive forward for them and then they're not actually carrying the weight weight of the bag, they're just carrying like a day pack and then they, you know, get to that person, take their stuff back. I call it cheating, yeah for sure you're gonna hike, you gotta do.
Speaker 2:You gotta go all in and there'd be people trying to set records and they would do the same thing, except they're slack packing the whole trail. So they have a they've. They stay in a camper every night every night yeah, but they're doing 40 or 50 mile days, but then they're staying in a camper. It's more of like an achievement of doing it as quickly as possible instead of actually like doing it more of a pierced way where you're carrying everything on your back that sounds like it defeats the purpose.
Speaker 2:I would want to enjoy what I'm seeing while I'm hiking yeah I don't really care about speed at that point yeah, yeah, unless there's a million dollar reward, then I can see why you do it, but something tells me there's not yeah, I mean there is purist hikers that do that, where they go for the achievement for quickest while just carrying what they can on their back. They can't get any special treatment of help from other people which, the year that I did it, some guy I, some guy actually have a picture with him. He was doing that, he was beating the record, which is pretty cool. I don't remember how many days it was. It's something stupid dude like. I mean 52 days, that quick to do the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is crazy and it took me 150. So half the time, more than half the time, one third of the time yeah, 52.
Speaker 2:Well, 52 days is about a month and a half, almost two months yeah, like really quickly yeah, that would not be enjoyable to me and that means you're doing like 100, not 100 mile days, but you're probably averaging what is that? 65 miles a day, maybe, I don't know. In some days you're probably doing 100 at some points and other days you're probably doing 50 ish on the hard hard part, parts, parts. Yeah, I don't know. You have any other good questions?
Speaker 1:No. So what's the? We can go to the PCT, which is the Pacific crest trail. Oh no.
Speaker 2:I didn't write anything down for that.
Speaker 1:I didn't think we were going to get to it. Oh, that's totally fine.
Speaker 2:I have one more, one more different story. So I was in Virginia and they have the highlands. They're called the Badlands, I think they're called the Badlands or the Highlands, I don't know One or the other. This is the highest part in Virginia and let me see, I think it was in June. I'm coming up to the highest point in Virginia and it's raining, I'm soaked or whatever. It's the theme of the whole trail at this point, because it went through a whole month of May of rain. So it's kind of like I'm over rain, it doesn't matter, I'm just coming up on the shelter. I'm kind of late at night, it's like eight o'clock and all of a sudden there's just this fricking horse.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie, I thought I was, I was imagining it but, there's just this horse, just sitting there eating off of a tree and I was like that's weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a wild horse. There's wild horses. Yeah, there is in the badlands, there is in virginia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in virginia, which is weird, I'm just like, whatever I go past it, I'm almost to the shelter. I get to the shelter. I did a lot of night hiking so I think it was 10 in between 10 and 11 o'clock, so everybody's sleeping. Obviously I'm just a weirdo that gets there late. It's funny because I still live my life that way, like later in the day. I just go, we just go to bed and the temperature drops. It's in. Did I say July? Yeah, july June. No june, no june, sorry june you were in.
Speaker 1:I thought you were in virginia in may it was right after well or was it towards the end?
Speaker 2:it was towards the end okay but anyways, yeah, june, right, and in middle of the night the temperature starts to drop and it snows. Because we're at 5 500 feet.
Speaker 1:It snows in middle of june, not middle of june, beginning of june, but which sounds crazy for virginia, because virginia is known as a warmer state yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:Well, this, this shelter had an upstairs and a downstairs, and the upstairs the window was open and there was just snow coming in. It snowed like two inches that night, obviously just on the top. Obviously, down low it probably didn't snow at all, cause it was probably 40 degrees down low. I wake up and people are like, yeah, I'm not going to go anywhere, blah, blah, blah. I was like I look at them like you get that, it's like it's probably going to be 60 to 70 down like lower. Why would you stay here in the snow? That doesn't make sense. I get ready and packed up and, plus, when you're moving, you're warmer anyways right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you just sit there, it's just going to be cold, you're just going to be miserable. We start heading down and I roll out with these two guys that had been there before. Luckily so lucky, because it's foggy, there's snow on the ground. It's foggy everywhere. Can't see where the trail is because the snow is covering where the trail is and so I got imagine if that mountain line was actually that didn't happen yet, but that's all right, oh that was later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was later. That was way up north. We're going down this mountain. No, can't see anything. I got lucky.
Speaker 2:These two guys had been there before. I think they were just day hikers, and so they were going down and I was just following them. But I was like, dude, if I lose these guys, I do not know where I'm going right. All of a sudden craziest thing these guys just start coming running up. Different guys just start coming running up. And they come up and they're like where's the trail? And I look at I'm like I don't know, dude, I'm on a trail and you're on a different trail coming up towards me, right, and there was a.
Speaker 2:What I didn't know is there was a race going on. It's like some kind of either a 5k or maybe it's a 10k, whatever, but they had a race in that same area and they didn't know where they were going either. So it was just a weird occurrence, like. And then, finally, yeah, we got down the hill and sure enough it was. It was 65 when I was eating lunch down at the bottom, no snow, and it ended up being a nice day. It actually cleared up, but it was just like a weird occurrence of these runners just come out of nowhere. That would freak me out, I would think they're running.
Speaker 2:I saw two then, 10 minutes later I saw seven more just coming by, I was like I don't know. I don't know who was in the right way. I don't know where they're going. I don't think they know where the trail is. I don't know where the trail is and it's all ice on the way down. And it's all ice on the way down too. It was all ice on the way down, cause it like froze. It was like frozen water, cause it rained. And then it froze. Yeah, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:That's a wild story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I was just looking at what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think we can end it here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So yeah, trail Stories with Ethan yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually like this. I think I want to do more, yeah, episodes that are just one-on-one. It's really interesting to hear people's stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, next time we can do the pct a little bit. I think I have more from the at, though, than the pct, but probably because it's just been more years I can remember it better.
Speaker 1:For sure, but well, everybody thanks for listening, until next time all right.