In this episode of the Backcountry Backpacking Podcast, Joe sits down with author and avid hiker Chris Johnson to talk about how to hike the Appalachian Trail. Chris talks about how he got into hiking the trail, what it's like to hike in the winter, and why he thinks it's a great way to get into the backcountry. He also talks about his book, "How to hike The Appalachian Trail: A Guide to the Most Amazing Trail in the World" and how he became an avid backpacker and hiker in the early days of his youth, when he joined the Boy Scouts at the age of 14. We talk about what it was like to be a Boy Scout growing up in the 60s and early 70s, and what it takes to be an Eagle Scout and hike the most famous trail in the entire country. This episode is sponsored by Greenbelly Meals, a company that makes delicious snacks that are great for hiking and backpacking trips. Green belly is a great snack for backpackers and backpackers looking for some good protein and good carbs to help get their day started on their backcountry backpacking backpacking trip. Thanks to Green belly for sponsoring this episode! If you like the podcast, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about how they can help support the podcast. I'll be looking out for you in the future episodes! Thank you so much for supporting the podcast! Cheers, Joe and Cody Thanks again for listening! - Your support is so much appreciated. -Your support is helping us make this podcast even better! -Cody and Joe and I are looking forward to doing more episodes like this in the next episode! - Thank you for supporting this podcast, and we really appreciate it! -PODCAST: -The Backcountry Outdoors Podcast! -Joe and Cody and the Crew at Backcountry Life Podcast -Jonotha and the podcast Crew! -Jonah and the crew at The Backcountry Podcast -- Thank you Jonah and The Crew at Outdoors podcast, Jonah & the Crew - Jonah is looking out there! -The Crew at the trail podcast! - & Jonah Outdoors Outdoors - - and Jonah's Podcast - and the Podcast Outdoors - and all the other Crew at Stoked Outdoors! - and much more!
00:01:09.000So, what the fuck, for people who don't know the Appalachian Trail, we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it's a trail where people walk from Georgia, right, all the way up to Maine.
00:01:43.000And by month three, I was actually approaching wintertime.
00:01:46.000And, you know, wintertime camping is just a fundamentally different experience.
00:01:51.000So not only have you been hiking that long, and you're tired, and your body's just, you know, just done doing it every day of hiking, but then the elements of the winter come in, and that was a different ballgame entirely, you know?
00:02:12.000I would have said like 50. There's another thing called the Triple Crown, which is the AT Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.
00:02:22.000And I think less than 100 people have done all three of those.
00:02:36.000I think, so the Appalachian Trail is 2200 miles, and the Pacific Crest Trail I believe is like 25, 26, 2700 miles, but the trail gradient is a lot easier.
00:02:48.000So I think like on any given day you can actually hike more miles, even though the trail is longer than the AT, but I think people actually finish it faster than the AT. I like how you call it the AT. That's inside lingo with all you maniacs, all you hiking maniacs.
00:03:23.000I was like, okay, I'm joining later than most.
00:03:24.000I joined when most people are quitting Boy Scouts.
00:03:27.000They go from Cub Scouts to 13 and they quit.
00:03:29.000I joined and I was like, alright, I want my Eagle Scout, and you have to, in order to get your Eagle Scout, spend 20 nights in the woods.
00:03:37.000Not consecutively, but you have to get your camping merit badge and get your camping merit badge.
00:03:42.000You have to spend the night, 20 nights in the woods.
00:03:44.000So, you know, that was in Georgia, and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains are in North Georgia.
00:03:53.000So the beginning of the Appalachian Trail is also right there.
00:03:57.000So we went on several trips up there in North Georgia, and I got exposed to it.
00:04:04.000And I think just the idea of getting on this small trail and kind of looking down and understanding that this thing goes on for 2,000 more miles was just kind of like...
00:04:20.000You know, there's no way I'm ever going to have enough time or kind of the drive to do that.
00:04:25.000But yeah, there was definitely kind of the mystery.
00:04:28.000I was like, oh man, that just seems like an adventure I want to do.
00:04:31.000So yeah, that was definitely the beginning of it when I was about 14 years old, going up there and hiking on it for overnight trips.
00:04:38.000Now, how does one fund something like this?
00:04:40.000Because I would assume you either have to be independently wealthy or you have to have squirreled away enough money so you can walk for seven months and feed yourself in the process.
00:05:20.000So you can really eliminate all expenses when you do that.
00:05:23.000But, I mean, for me, I was an accountant.
00:05:26.000So I'd been an accountant for about two years, and I saved up some money.
00:05:32.000And I basically knew that I wanted to hike the AT, so I started saving up some money.
00:05:38.000Any given thru-hiker, that's what they're called, anybody that starts in Georgia, ends in Maine, or Maine to Georgia, anybody that does that hike in one consecutive run is called a thru-hiker.
00:05:52.000But any thru-hike, I would say it takes about $5,000 from gear to sleeping in hotels about once a week to resupplying food.
00:06:02.000So if you think about $5,000 for six months of living, like...
00:06:25.000So you typically are within five to seven days of a town.
00:06:29.000So the trail kind of, you know, goes along the mountains and then about every five to seven days you come to a trail crossing, which is a highway or anything that would lead to a nearby town.
00:06:42.000And every five to seven days, you're out of food.
00:06:45.000That's the biggest thing that I think pulls you into town is you need to resupply.
00:06:49.000So you're not out there foraging for nuts and berries or hunting or anything like that.
00:06:54.000You're relying on getting to town, getting to a grocery store, and getting all your food.
00:07:00.000So every five to seven days, you go into town and you get food.
00:07:03.000It's like, oh man, I also haven't showered in five to seven days.
00:07:07.000I also haven't done laundry in five to seven days.
00:07:09.000And you're hiking with Really one change of clothes.
00:07:14.000So you can imagine if you're hiking 20 miles a day, the grime and the dirt that can build up.
00:07:19.000So when you come to town, you want to do laundry, resupply food.
00:07:47.000You make the intention of going on the trail to get outside of town and outside of society, but one of the biggest things you look forward to is getting back into town, you know?
00:07:56.000Yeah, and it's kind of, like you said, when you get to town, it's like, why am I doing this?
00:08:01.000I was kind of dreading getting back out on the trail a lot of times because it was just so, oh man, I have a hot shower, like I shaved, like, it's just so nice.
00:08:18.000Yeah, I was a Boy Scout when I was 13 for one summer, but these fucking inner-city creeps that I went to the Boy Scouts with in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which is like...
00:08:29.000Now it's more gentrified, but back then it was kind of a shady neighborhood.
00:10:35.000Yeah, or like a guy who's just getting out of prison and gets some sex.
00:10:40.000Assuming you're not getting any in prison.
00:10:43.000So, what kind of weirdos do you meet on the trail?
00:10:47.000You've got to keep in mind, anybody who's willing to take six months out of their life to go to the woods, it's going to be a different breed.
00:10:54.000I mean, I think you definitely have your stereotypes.
00:10:57.000Some people are out there just kind of for the challenge and the, dare I say, athletic side of it, but it's like...
00:11:07.000It's kind of like, I want to power through this and see how much my body can handle.
00:11:10.000You get those kind of hikers, but you definitely get the hippie, drop-out-of-life kind of guys, you know, where it's just like, I just want to get out there and get away from society for a little bit.
00:11:22.000So that kind of stereotype, you definitely, you can get some weirdos out there.
00:11:38.000So Pennsylvania, a lot of those ex-coal towns, their economy just plummeted.
00:11:43.000And the AT goes through a lot of those towns.
00:11:48.000So you'd have some people near town going out there for an overnighter, and they're what are called shelters.
00:11:53.000They're like these three-walled wooden structures that are made by, well, all sorts of organizations make them, but in general, they're about every 10 to 20 miles along the AT. So in theory, you can sleep in these every night and not need a tent.
00:12:07.000I wouldn't recommend that, but you do try to sleep in the shelters as much as possible.
00:12:12.000But the fact that there are these shelters, a lot of people kind of bottleneck to them because they know they're there.
00:12:19.000So you will sometimes get to a shelter at night, and it won't only be AT-through hikers there.
00:12:28.000But I remember one time in Pennsylvania, there was this couple...
00:12:33.000Yeah, they were literally, it was pouring rain, so we get there and I was like, there's no way I'm camping out, there's no way I'm hiking on, like I'm sleeping in this shelter, you know, I was drenched to the bone, my gear was drenched, and I was pissed off.
00:12:44.000It was like midnight, you know, I'd been hiking all day, I was just exhausted.
00:12:48.000So I was so excited to get to this shelter.
00:12:50.000And there's a couple, and they are literally yelling at each other.
00:12:54.000I can hear them for like a mile, just furiously yelling at each other.
00:14:54.000Yeah, they have them and they stock food in them and they leave a log so that hikers can write down.
00:15:01.000Like my friend Remy, Remy Warren was in New Zealand and he used one of those and like wrote in the log, you know, where he was from, when he was there.
00:15:09.000And I guess it also helps identify if people are missing.
00:15:14.000Yeah, I think it's a safety precaution.
00:15:16.000So, you know, you can kind of track down where was the last person seen, you know, where were they last seen.
00:15:20.000So if they were, if they logged into, you know, shelter, and then, you know, they can't find them, they can say, okay, on this date, we know that they were here.
00:15:27.000So you can give a given radius and know that if they are missing, they're within, at least within a certain, you know, 20 miles of walking distance of there.
00:15:35.000But yeah, and I think those things actually turn into like, just fun, you know, some people just go Write full-on poems in there, some confessed life stories in there.
00:17:32.000Everybody I worked with I liked, but I definitely was able to recognize that I was not going to be an accountant for my life.
00:17:39.000So yeah, I think I knew I was going to do some transition, try to get another job, do something.
00:17:44.000And the ATU is kind of like, this seems like the right thing to do, you know, and I'm single at the time, you know, no kids, debt free, like, you know, I didn't have a mortgage, like, time to go.
00:17:55.000So it just seemed like something this radical, because it's so crazy, committing to a six to seven month hike.
00:18:03.000Was going to force you to just change existence, change your frequency, the whole deal.
00:18:30.000It's a very strange subset of human beings that don't, not just drop out, but drop out.
00:18:38.000I mean, you're like committing to something that is, I mean, was there ever a time where you were like halfway there where you're like, maybe I'll just get a job in this fucking town?
00:21:06.000I know that there have been a few murders on the AT. Oh, shit.
00:21:10.000But you think about any given city, the murder rate, you know?
00:21:13.000It's like if you have 2,000 thru-hikers plus, I mean, 100,000 weekend hikers a year, I mean, more than that.
00:21:21.000It's like the probability, if you think about the AT hikers as a city, like...
00:21:25.000A murder every few years really isn't bad, you know?
00:21:28.000That's the same logic that they use for those Foxconn buildings where the people jump off the buildings when they're making cell phones in China.
00:21:37.000They go, well, you've got to think about how many people work here.
00:23:42.000It's not the best for like keeping clean so one day I was shaving my package and I said let's just get crazy Let's go all the way down there finish it all and I did and one of the things I was shocked was It changes the sound of your farts Did we talk about this on the podcast before?
00:24:00.000I've heard it discussed on another podcast.
00:27:27.000I did this show a while back on SyFy called Joe Rogan Questions Everything.
00:27:32.000One of the things we talked about was mostly conspiracy theories.
00:27:36.000It was really interesting to find the mindset of these conspiracy people and how they're all very similar, whether it's Bigfoot or aliens.
00:27:44.000They're really similar sort of Bizarre mindset, the way they look at things.
00:27:51.000They have this very compartmentalized, fucked up way of looking at things.
00:27:54.000But one of the ones that we studied that was really fascinating is something called Morgellons.
00:28:00.000Morgellons is a weird disease where people believe that they have these fibers growing out of their skin and they start itching themselves and they create these like legions these scratches and then Things get attached to them like fibers from like perhaps like from a carpet or something like that and they think that they're growing out of their skin and Most people think it's a psychosomatic disorder But one of the guys that I talked to was a doctor who also had Morgellons And he was really very objective
00:29:28.000Yeah, well, it's generally thought to be a psychosomatic disorder.
00:29:31.000And that's why it was interesting talking to this doctor, because he was saying yes and no.
00:29:36.000Because he was saying, well, he believes there's a real issue, and that issue is Lyme disease.
00:29:41.000But that these pathogens that are in these ticks, it's not uniform.
00:29:46.000They're different in all these different ticks.
00:29:49.000Some of them are more potent than others.
00:29:50.000And that there may be a host of different unidentified pathogens.
00:29:54.000There's not just Lyme disease, but several others.
00:29:57.000And some of them have a neurotoxic effect.
00:30:00.000And this neurotoxic effect can induce hallucinations, and some of those hallucinations can be that you think that your body's growing fibers out of it.
00:30:08.000And he said that he saw it moving across his eye.
00:30:11.000He goes, I know intellectually that it was not there.
00:30:13.000He goes, I examined it, I looked at it, it was not there, but I saw it.
00:30:18.000He personally experienced the hallucination.
00:31:38.000We had a guy on the podcast, Steve Kotler, who got it and he was undiagnosed for over a year and he wound up being bedridden for three years.
00:31:50.000Because the more it sinks into your system, the more you let it go without antibiotics, without treatment.
00:31:58.000And again, what this doctor was telling me, I'm just relaying what this one doctor who had Lyme disease was saying, is that he believes that there's a host of different pathogens.
00:32:39.000There's another article when I googled Lyme disease from Connecticut that says that testing on found ticks with Lyme disease is higher this year, more than normal.
00:36:20.000Some people try to boil it, but that's just a pain.
00:36:22.000You don't want to boil water all the time.
00:36:24.000And then wait for it to cool down before you can drink it.
00:36:26.000Yeah, I will say though, by the end of the AT, you talk about finishing in winter, You know, it's like whenever you stop at these freshwater sources, you know, the water's flowing and I'm, you know, it's like 20 degrees out, 15 degrees, you know, I'm like, I don't want to stick my hand in that freezing water and get my hands cold.
00:36:54.000It was risky, but it was just like, I was so done by the end of it, you know, I was just like, I don't have the patience to stop with freezing fingers, like, so numb, you know, the dexterity is just totally gone, you know, I'm like, ugh, it's just like...
00:37:21.000I got off trail for two weeks in between there for some family stuff, but if you took out that two weeks, it was six months I was on trail.
00:37:29.000So when you get off trail, did you go fly somewhere?
00:37:33.000Honestly, I went to France with my family.
00:37:56.000A lot of guys are getting off trail because they're like, oh man, I'm totally broke and everything.
00:38:00.000I'm like, I'm going to France for a week or two.
00:38:03.000So some people get off trail just because financially they can't hack it anymore.
00:38:07.000Yeah, I mean, you've got a 19-year-old guy who's out of high school that doesn't have any savings.
00:38:12.000It's like, oh, I'm going to go hike the AT. This sounds like a great idea.
00:38:14.000They haven't done any research, no planning, don't know anything about gear or anything, but they've read A Walk in the Woods, and they think this is a good idea.
00:38:59.000It was like the AT is so historic and iconic for long-distance hiking trails that A Walk in the Woods did for the AT what Wilde did for the Pacific Crest Trail.
00:39:08.000But Wilde was only released a few years ago.
00:39:36.000My understanding is they have big, I don't know the terminology, a big water reservoir, like a big concrete cylinder out in the middle of the desert.
00:39:48.000And I don't know if it's rainwater or if somebody actually goes out there and fills it up, kind of like a trail angel kind of goes out there.
00:41:42.000But it's different parts of the country, too.
00:41:43.000You know, like, if you're gonna go hitchhiking in, like, New York, you're gonna run into some really weird people.
00:41:49.000If you're, like, just outside of Manhattan, you got your thumb out, you're trying to get picked up, you might get picked up by a fucking complete psycho.
00:41:55.000But if you're in, like, Wyoming or something, and there's, like, no one out there, and you're hiking, and...
00:42:09.000But we'll say like, so before the ATO was in New Zealand, and New Zealand is higher standard of living than the States, and I feel like there's very low crime rate there.
00:43:05.000It's not something I would ever do, but man, I remember my car broke down once in a snowstorm, and these people took me back to their house, and they were so normal.
00:44:10.000And then you say, I'm coming through on these dates and you request the couch for free.
00:44:14.000But I remember when that website was really becoming popular about 10 years ago, people had that same idea.
00:44:19.000I was like, No way, this is only for nutjobs, and then it's like, it's hugely popular now, and Airbnb and all that stuff's like, yeah, let somebody come and stay in your house.
00:47:19.000Yeah, almost nothing happens most of the time.
00:47:22.000But we're so obsessed with the news, where you tune in to any news channel, all you're getting is the collective bad news of 7 billion people, because that's what sells.
00:48:01.000So do you ever stop and think, like, what if I hadn't gone on this journey of exploration and I stayed an accountant and you would be living that life of the droning existence where every day you're just fucking showing up to the same place and crunching numbers and hating life and wishing for some kind of adventure or something different?
00:48:45.000I think when I talk to even a lot of my friends that are still doing, I'm not going to call them crappy jobs, but I think they do provide a lot of things that they like.
00:48:54.000Security, some people love that security, like getting a paycheck.
00:49:00.000But I don't think they view it like that.
00:49:02.000It's not like, oh, this may not be the best thing, but I like it.
00:49:41.000There's also a real problem in not recognizing the finite nature of existence.
00:49:47.000When you're 20, especially, or 21, or whatever it is, when you enter into these jobs, you don't realize, hey man, you've only got a few decades of good times.
00:49:59.000You could do this for 40 years, easily.
00:50:04.000And then we've all met those people that have done it for 40 years, and they're just beaten down by life, and they have that dull, desperate look in their eyes.
00:50:13.000It's just this sadness in their eyes where their life is just, it's not good.
00:51:32.000I'd go hike it in a day and then get that weird feeling of watching these people that are covered in two inches of grime climb up that hill.
00:53:39.000I'd been thinking about it from, yeah, I mean, childhood, you know?
00:53:43.000And then it was like, not only thinking about it for a decade, but then it was actually hiking the darn thing for six months, and it was just like getting there.
00:53:51.000By that time, I had stress fractures forming in my feet.
00:55:25.000Yeah, I think there's kind of this theory that your ankles toughen up.
00:55:29.000I don't know if that's really true, but I think I kind of fell into that belief that I was rolling ankles so much in the first 100, 200 miles of the trail, and by the end of it, I was just like, just keep going, you know?
00:55:41.000Yeah, I've always wondered about that because a lot of people that hunt, they wear these really stiff, very tactical mountain hiking boots where they go up.
00:56:36.000So that you can, for people to know what a gaiter is, a gaiter's like a thing that you slip over your shoes and it cinches down tight so that rocks and dirt and stuff doesn't get deep into your shoe.
00:56:47.000And I think Kuyu is coming out with a boot that actually has a gaiter built in, which is kind of interesting.
00:56:52.000But then you can see the Solomon Trail gaiters.
00:57:36.000And it's like, you know, part of the AT, I've been backpacking for over 10 years, and I thought I was kind of like, okay, I'm pretty familiar with this stuff.
00:57:43.000And I was like, no, I didn't know anything about backpacking.
00:57:46.000And yeah, you test everything, you know, and it's like, even after all your research, you start realizing like, hmm, there's a little bit better stuff out there.
00:57:53.000Or, yeah, I can actually tweak this and improve this and that.
00:57:56.000But yeah, by the end of it, it's like, anybody who's through hike can get into some real nerdy backpacking gear talk, you know?
00:58:03.000Well, hunters get into real nerdy backpacking gear talk when they talk about, like, deep-in-the-woods backcountry hunting.
00:58:24.000Yeah, one thing that got Cody and I talking was, Cody was talking about cutting weight from backpacking.
00:58:31.000I feel like, my impression at least, you know, when we were talking, I was like thinking, hunters were almost kind of the...
00:58:38.000The chubby guy in the blind was kind of my idea.
00:58:41.000When my dad and I would hunt, it was kind of just truly sitting there with blue jeans, and it was just kind of like, oh, all right, there's a duck.
00:58:47.000Talking to Cody, I think the hunting I was doing was pretty amateur, and Cody was talking about cutting weight significantly, and that hunters have kind of latched on to some of the backpacking ethos, if you will, about shaving every ounce.
00:59:02.000But it's like, y'all carry so much more gear.
00:59:06.000Those things aren't made to count every ounce, I would imagine.
00:59:11.000It depends on what you're carrying, but there are some lightweight rifles that people use that are like carbon fiber barrels and stuff.
00:59:17.000But the issue with those is unless you're prone and you're laying down on something, they move a little bit more, and a lot of people think they're not as accurate as a real heavy rifle.
00:59:38.000Some people like heavy bows because you hold steadier.
00:59:42.000There's the thought behind it that you have something light in your hand and you're shaking a little bit, like maybe your little nerves.
00:59:49.000You might move around a little bit more, but if you've got something that's really heavy, you'll have more stability when you're executing the shot.
01:00:35.000Like if you see more animals, yeah, if you're holding up like the binos in your hand, you've got to kind of like put your elbows on your knees and you sit down, but it's not as good.
01:00:45.000Like being on a tripod is the best way, for sure.
01:00:49.000Then you've got to carry that fucking tripod around.
01:00:52.000I think there's a big difference between people that carry their stuff in and then they make a camp versus people that keep their camp on their back all the time.
01:01:14.000But again, these guys are not carrying their camp on their back.
01:01:19.000But if they do, if they know they have to go in deep and they have to live off their back, like they have a bivvy tent and they do the whole thing off their back, most guys will try to drop it in the 40s.
01:01:29.000But you carry around 40 fucking pounds, man.
01:01:32.000There's a company called Outdoorsman's in Phoenix, and they make a real high-end pack.
01:01:36.000And one of the things that they've made that they actually just sent me, it's a pack frame that has an Olympic plate mount on it.
01:01:44.000So you can put a 45-pound plate and another 45-pound plate, like a 90-pound plate, and you train with this fucking pack frame on.
01:02:29.000Yeah, well, there's a big difference between blind hunting, like people that sit in these blinds, and what a blind is, is like, for people listening, is like, it's basically like a little structure that's covered with, like, camo, and you're hiding.
01:02:43.000You're hiding, waiting for the animal, and then you shoot him.
01:02:47.000You're sitting in the tree stand, you're waiting, and then you shoot them.
01:02:50.000There's a big difference between that and these western hunters, particularly like elk hunters, because they're going into the mountains where these animals live, or mule deer.
01:02:57.000They're going to the high country, and you're climbing up.
01:03:00.000You're going up thousands of feet of elevation every day, up and down, up and down, and you have to have massive endurance.
01:03:06.000So a lot of these guys start trail running.
01:03:08.000A lot of these guys start putting packs on their back with heavy weights in the pack and training, getting ready for these.
01:04:23.000Last year, I was hunting with Cam, and we were trying to get to this elk, and he ran up the hill like a fucking mountain goat, and I'm halfway behind him, like...
01:04:33.000I thought I was in pretty good shape, and I am for the stuff I do, but I wasn't in good shape for running up hills.
01:05:13.000But most people just pack heavy weights, like sandbags, and strap them down to their backpack.
01:05:19.000But it's a different world as far as the perception of what these people are versus what they're actually doing.
01:05:27.000And there's a real ignorance when people are talking about hunting.
01:05:30.000They think of it as this really easy thing where you just go shoot this animal and they think hunters are cruel because that's the thing that killed Bambi.
01:06:00.000But if you took the average person that thinks they're in shape, and I have friends that have done this before, taking people that think they're in shape and take them on these hunts, and these people break down.
01:06:44.000Weirdly, in some ways, trail bikes are apparently very good.
01:06:48.000Like doing dirt bikes, because you're constantly pumping one leg at a time, and apparently that is very good for mimicking the type of strength that you need to get up and down hills.
01:07:07.000I did a five-mile hike, or a four-mile hike, and one of the miles, I did it with my daughter, who's 50 pounds, and for a mile up the hill, I carried her on my back.
01:08:06.000Carrying her like thinking I'm gonna fall or something like that, but it wasn't wasn't dangerous like it wasn't like I was about my legs were failing But I was breathing fucking heavy.
01:08:15.000So you got to imagine these guys that are carrying 20 pounds more than that and They're carrying their their weight deep into the mountains, you know or their pack out That's the other thing when you kill an animal like you got a hundred pounds in your pack now and you got to slowly but surely make your way and a lot of guys get like seriously injured doing this and I was going to say,
01:08:58.000Now, when it comes to backpacks and things along those lines, how do you choose what kind of backpack you need?
01:09:05.000You must have a weight consideration as well.
01:09:08.000As far as volume, how much stuff you need.
01:09:10.000You said you carry one change of clothes, so you basically have one pair of socks, one pair of underwear, one pair of pants, other than the stuff you have on, right?
01:09:26.000So you have your hiking set of clothes and gear and you have your sleeping.
01:09:31.000Um, so hiking clothes are usually like, uh, just like maybe like workout clothes, like a synthetic short sleeve top, uh, maybe even running shorts.
01:09:40.000Um, and you know, a set of socks to hike in and then your trail runners to hike in.
01:09:46.000Um, it's kind of like your hiking attire, you know, um, It's certainly not like the pant, hiking boot kind of image.
01:10:46.000Because I know a lot of people choose merino for hiking as well because it regulates temperature well and when it's wet you can still stay warm.
01:10:54.000I think you can have arguments on both sides.
01:10:57.000I personally like synthetic just because I feel like it dries faster.
01:12:28.000But if I were to do it again, there are a handful of pretty badass ultralight pack companies.
01:12:34.000You've got this bell curve of Osprey is the majority of backpackers, and you get into that niche ultralight, and then you've got a handful competing.
01:14:11.000So yeah, even if money wasn't an issue, they're still one of the more affordable packs and make the best.
01:14:16.000What's interesting about packs is a lot of it is like where it centers the weight on you and you can make one pack with the same amount of weight would feel lighter than another pack.
01:14:28.000Just by the way it's designed and the way the load lifters work and all that jazz.
01:16:01.000Little packets or areas where you could strap down a tripod or maybe the top compartment you would keep your binoculars or something along those lines.
01:16:10.000But I would think that there would be like a lot of crossover and there's not.
01:16:13.000There's like an exclusive sort of segment of the population or of the market rather.
01:17:37.000More threads to secure itself so there's not going to be any leak or anything.
01:17:42.000It's crazy to think that all you have to do is squeeze the water through it.
01:17:46.000How long does it take to do a one liter thing of water?
01:17:50.000That's the biggest con with that specific type of filter is the fact that you have to manually do it and it can take a while.
01:17:57.000So if you had a group of, let's say you wanted to go with your kids backpacking, I don't know if I'd recommend that filter because you're going to have to squeeze all their water through that one little filter.
01:18:06.000But if it's just you and you're trying to squeeze a half a liter, a liter at a time, it's fine.
01:20:05.000Well, it's also like, you ever, like, especially in Los Angeles, this is a great example of this, have you ever gone to the hills and looked down on the basin of the L.A. area and you see the brown air...
01:20:46.000Yeah, I saw some of that smog coming into L.A., and I connected it in Mexico City when I was coming here, and Mexico City was the same way.
01:21:06.000I mean, when you get the volume of people that are here, the amount of humans in L.A. Apparently, though, the basin, especially like the valley, has always been like that.
01:21:15.000It's always been kind of like a dust bowl just by the way it's shaped, even back before there were cars.
01:21:20.000People always complained about the brown air, just literally from dust and dirt and wind and the dry air and the lack of moisture so the dirt kicks up easy with the wind.
01:21:31.000But then you add that with pollution as well.
01:21:50.000And now Trump has lightened the EPA protection standards, and they're changing the standards of automobiles, what automobiles need to achieve, supposedly to help business, but fuck, man, at what cost?
01:22:06.000Yeah, I think that seems like a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
01:23:51.000Well, that has got to be one thing that's positive about doing the Appalachian Trail is that you're constantly in nature and you're constantly around all those trees and walking through the mountains and the clean air.
01:24:03.000You're drinking like, well, I'm not going to say that all stream water is clean, but I mean, yeah, you're drinking river water, you're surrounded by trees all the time, you're not near city lights, like air pollution, it's pretty, and you're exercising every day, all day, you know, it's a pretty healthy way of life.
01:25:57.000People are all over the world, 20s, 30-year-olds just starting off a business that just makes $1,000 a month income, and then they'll slowly grow it into $2,000 a month.
01:26:08.000The next thing you know is they're replacing their old salary at their old gig.
01:29:09.000There are several South American cities like this, or Central American cities, and they're close to the equator, so you have hot temperature all year long, kind of like, I mean, I guess California, you're spoiled with it, right?
01:29:21.000But Antigua specifically is at several thousand feet of elevation, so you have that consistent weather year long.
01:29:29.000However, it's not 100 degrees every day.
01:35:34.000Well they have a very strange, well at least Mayans did, they had a very strange language where you, it's like the letters or the images represent sounds.
01:35:47.000And so the sounds, like you would have an eye.
01:35:52.000This is how Terrence McKenna described it.
01:35:55.000You'd have an eyeball, a saw, an ant, like a bug, and then a rose.
01:36:01.000And that would be the way you say, I saw ant rose.
01:36:15.000Yeah, he's a fascinating speaker who was a psychedelic lecturer.
01:36:21.000He was a botanist and just did way too many drugs.
01:36:25.000Or the right amount, depending on who you ask.
01:36:27.000And he got really deep into the Mayan culture, and he's one of those guys that was thinking that December 21st, 2012 was gonna be some crazy event.
01:36:45.000So, well, the Mayan calendar is a really tricky thing, man.
01:36:48.000Like, the sort of various different Decipherings of it and the people that are Attached all these different meanings to it that don't necessarily jive with the original meanings It's very hard to tell what the Mayans meant because they're not around anymore You know,
01:37:05.000so it's not like you're you're studying ancient Russia where people are Russian scholars and they can there's a direct lineage between them and the people now You know when you did culture.
01:37:15.000Yeah, it's the the language is gone and hieroglyphics Yeah, there's some translations that took forever to figure out, and there's things that are similar in some ways to Rosetta Stone, where they're trying to match up what it used to be to what it is.
01:38:10.000And apparently there was a really recent breakthrough where they found a bunch of...
01:38:16.000I don't think they call them hieroglyphs.
01:38:19.000I don't know what they actually call them.
01:38:22.000But they found a bunch of previously undiscovered Mayan language that sort of filled in some pieces that they hadn't filled in before.
01:38:33.000Then you look at some of their amazing murals that look like a guy seated in a spaceship with a fire below his seat, and you try to figure out what the fuck this meant.
01:38:42.000A lot of those ancient alien theorists.
01:38:45.000I was just about to say, alien theorists, right?
01:38:49.000It looks like a guy who's leaning back in like a spaceship.
01:38:54.000It looks like he's leaning back in a cockpit chair, and he's looking through something that looks like a telescope, and he's moving some levers with his hands, and it looks like there's fire beneath him.
01:39:27.000He's moving some stuff with his feet, he's moving some levers, and you see how he's looking through that thing?
01:39:33.000It looks like he's got a gas mask on, like an oxygen mask.
01:39:37.000And all those people that, like the Von Daniken guys, they believed that what this showed was a man sitting in a cockpit Using the the levers and machines to operate some sort of a spaceship.
01:39:57.000Most likely these guys were high as fuck on mushrooms and they were probably imagining the future.
01:40:02.000I mean if I had a guess I would say that these Ideas were probably very psychedelically based, because they were really into psychedelic drugs.
01:40:12.000They had found a lot of different drugs and a lot of different vines that contained lysergic acid.
01:40:17.000I did a trip to Chichen Itza, which is really cool, a bunch of years back.
01:41:29.000To think that you're standing on the ground where these people existed and they had this bizarre culture that we don't understand that was aligned to the cosmos.
01:41:40.000All their structures were based on constellations.
01:41:44.000The maps of these structures mirrored constellations.
01:41:47.000They were really into astronomy in some sort of a weird way.
01:41:57.000Apparently there's evidence that they knew about the procession of the equinoxes, which is a 20-something thousand year cycle of wobble of the Earth.
01:42:08.000Yeah, because the Earth doesn't just spin, you know, it doesn't just spin perfectly.
01:42:13.000It spins with like a little bit of a wobble.
01:42:15.000So the night sky changes and goes into this 26,000 year cycle.
01:42:28.000Yeah, I guess if you have a lot of time back then and there's no iPhone to constantly distract you with checking your Twitter, oh, look at this picture on Instagram.
01:42:37.000Instead, you're just looking at constellations.
01:42:44.000I mean I guess that they would see that there's some sort of subtle changing of the night sky in terms of like how it would move a little bit all the time.
01:43:18.000It's fucked up that we don't know what they were saying, you know?
01:43:23.000Like, we've never heard their language.
01:43:25.000Like, it's one of the things about one of these other documentaries that I watched was that they were trying to mimic what the sound of these Mayan languages could have been like, and they really...
01:43:37.000It was kind of guesswork, but they didn't know.
01:43:41.000See if there's something that you find.
01:43:45.000Hear what the Mayan language could have sounded like, you know, and there was some sort of a- Like really bizarre like clicks or something?
01:43:53.000Well, it was just a weird language, but they don't even know if that's right because there's no one around.
01:44:04.000You know, it's weird and then their language got absorbed and obviously these people that you were talking about probably have some sort of a dialect and- Yeah, and I have no idea what the correlation is between the current descendants and what you're talking about.
01:45:52.000It is pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.
01:45:54.000Think about the bizarre history of the human race.
01:45:59.000And that there are these civilizations that had these...
01:46:02.000They lived in these sort of isolated environments.
01:46:06.000Where they developed, in many ways, parallel sort of building techniques, but different than other parts of the world that were also based on constellations, like very similar to a lot of the hypothesis about Egyptian cultures that they had done that.
01:49:02.000That's where the discrepancy is in that maybe he said he used it all and she's saying I speak it and I don't recognize much.
01:49:09.000Well, she's not saying that she spoke it.
01:49:11.000If you read what she said, she was saying that she had given this woman a massage, and the woman was speaking to her, and that she recognized a few words in Spanish, but she didn't...
01:49:20.000I don't think there's a bridge between that language.
01:49:23.000I don't think there's anybody who knows that language and also speaks English that can...
01:53:27.000But they found what appears to be irrigation structures and things that are carved into the ground and things that look like grids where they might have had cities and streets.
01:53:43.000Yeah, yeah, that people were looking for and that one European explorer went looking for and wound up dying and they believe got eaten by cannibals.
01:53:53.000They're making a movie about that, right?
01:54:08.000Well, there have always been rumors that there was these lost cities in the Amazon, but now, thanks to satellite imagery, they're starting to see things they never saw before, and they're starting to find patterns and structures, and it's cool shit, man.
01:56:06.000Like really dense because it's constantly raining.
01:56:08.000And what's really interesting about the forest is there's so many pine trees and there's so many leaves fall that the forest floor is really soft.
01:56:56.000And it was interesting because one of the guys that we talked to was like, hey, look, even if we don't find anything, at least we're out here camping.
01:57:02.000The worst case scenario is pretty good.
01:57:04.000But there's a lot of people out there that claim they've seen things.
01:57:07.000But I just think they're seeing bears.
01:57:28.000Like, the human memory is so inherently shitty.
01:57:31.000I mean, a few people have, like, very clear, distinct memories from the past, but I think even those, you're sort of repeating them to yourself and ingraining them in your head.
01:57:52.000But as far as seeing things and being around, especially unusual events that are very unique, like seeing a seven-foot-tall monkey in the woods or believing you saw that thing.
01:58:20.000Yeah, human memory is unbelievably bad and we count on it so much and people are always like telling you stories about their childhood I remember when this happened and you like do you really how much do you really remember?
01:58:33.000It's like you might really and how delusional are you?
02:00:51.000But yeah, I was hiking through the night one night, and yeah, the sun was rising.
02:00:56.000You know, like, bears will go up to sleep at night in the trees.
02:01:01.000And when you pass by them, you tree a bear, and they'll come out of the tree, and they'll, you know, claw their way down the tree, you know, to slow their fall.
02:01:10.000But it was like, I think I saw 15 bears that morning.
02:01:59.000I think we all kind of rolled our eyes, or most of us rolled our eyes at it, like, all right, dude, come on.
02:02:03.000I'm just walking through here, you know?
02:02:05.000So, this company that you have, Green Belly Meals, which I've enjoyed these things very much, you came up with this because you needed more nutrition while you were out there?
02:03:34.000And I was like, dude, I need nutrition.
02:03:36.000Like, I'm really burning up to 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day, you know?
02:03:40.000So that kind of idea of the need for a big nutrition, ready-to-eat, fast diet, You know, kind of eat and go kind of meal was something that had been forming in my mind as I hiked.
02:03:52.000You know, a lot of times we were drinking olive oil practically and drinking honey and drinking peanut butter.
02:03:57.000It's like anything you can get to load in the calories.
02:04:15.000How did you, like, these things are super dense.
02:04:17.000Like, for people that are listening, I'm holding this bag, and it has two bars in it, and, uh, dude, I eat, I've eaten these before, I've eaten two bars, and I'm good for fucking a day.
02:04:30.000I mean, it's just a normal day, like, not hiking or anything crazy, but it's really dense.
02:04:59.000I had an itch, and I wanted a better backpacking meal, so I knew conceptually what I wanted it to be.
02:05:06.000And then after playing around my mom's kitchen trying to get something, I was like, this is way over my head.
02:05:12.000Trying to get the nutritional profile where I want it to be, get it to taste good, get ingredients that don't react with each other and spoil, and then trying to get it To literally form together and not fall apart, you start having this really complicated stuff.
02:05:28.000I tried to search around and see what kind of person could help me.
02:05:33.000I was looking around nutritionists and chefs and all that kind of stuff and ended up coming with the term food scientist.
02:05:40.000Food scientist helped me really formulate the meal.
02:05:43.000Then it was just kind of a feedback game from what he could do.
02:05:48.000From a nutritional point of view, from a shelf life and flavor profile, then it was just making sure the darn things tasted good, you know?
02:05:55.000So I went to a hiking festival and handed out hundreds of samples, just got a bunch of feedback from hikers, and then, yeah, kind of ran with it.
02:07:17.000One of the big benefits is your appetite.
02:07:20.000Appetite suppressants are amazing because if I go on, and I do switch over, like if I cheat, like if I go on vacation or something like that, and I just start eating tacos or whatever, when your body goes into a carbohydrate-burning state, you get way hungrier.
02:07:36.000Like, you burn through that carbohydrate pretty quickly, it's quick burning fuel, and then your body doesn't have the carbs anymore, so you go into this real hungry state.
02:07:44.000Whereas if you're in a ketogenic state, your body's burning fat, you're eating fats, and then when there's no more food, your body starts burning its own fat.
02:07:52.000And so you don't get that crazy hunger craving that you get when you're on a carb-based diet.
02:07:58.000There's arguments for both sides, and I'm going to bring in some people that are anti-ketogenic diet as well, so get a balanced perspective on it.
02:08:07.000I listened to, I don't remember his name, but it was a nutritionist.
02:08:57.000Like, those conversations were just interesting.
02:09:00.000Yeah, there's a lot of those guys out there now.
02:09:01.000It's really a fascinating time when it comes to nutrition, and also what's really good about him is he's constantly experimenting.
02:09:09.000He's very honest and very open about his experiments, and he's also really adamant about the possibility, not the possibility, but the reality, rather, that People are very different.
02:09:57.000And those factors also have to be taken into consideration when you formulate a diet, because it'll vary depending upon your stress levels.