Snow, Fish, and Fire- Amanda Monthei

get ready to experience the pulse of the outdoor community as we dive into the stories of people's journeys into the outdoor world

hello and welcome to the outdoor pulse i'm your host mitch dean today we have amanda monthei she is a former hotshot and we are going to dig into her story and how she got into the outdoor world. How's it going? it's going well how are you doing? great going awesome excited to hear your story and how you kind of got into the outdoor world and your journey because it sounds like an awesome one. yeah it's been pretty great i feel like i need to offer a disclaimer for how i look right now because i just got off an airplane like an hour ago doing that for the viewers. yeah you're talking to a bunch of outdoor people we're all used to being in different conditions. pretty haggard. yeah so no one's gonna care but um so we're gonna jump kind of right into it and just initially talk about how you got into the outdoor world and what your initial kind of draw was um and what kind of initially caught your eye about getting out into the woods or exploring so yeah well i i would say like i was thinking about this and i feel like it started in college but i can kind of trace it back pretty far beyond like backwards from there um like i did i did high school ski team in in uh in high school cross country um and i think like kind of learning how to be uncomfortable outside in the midwest you know running in the fall in the midwest when it's like snowing and ski racing in the winter when it's like pure ice or it's raining or you know it's negative 15 degrees like everyone's kind of like am i gonna get frostbite today i think that all kind of like i think everything that i've done since then has stemmed from uh sort of the access that i had when i was a kid to uh those outdoor sports and you know i wasn't like a huge fan of team sports i like tried the basketball thing and i was like i don't know and um so yeah i was like i was really happy like i said to have that access because i came from a pretty small rural school that didn't have a lot of sports programs so the fact that we had a ski team was like pretty remarkable and uh when i went to college i chose to go to college a college where i could ski i went to northern michigan university where uh the skiing was a little better than heading down state as we call it in michigan um i grew up in the lower peninsula of michigan and you know the options were go up north go to northern go to michigan tech or go down to the city go to lansing go to ann arbor and you know those are those were better schools probably but i ended up going to northern because i was like pretty dead set on skiing uh and that i think that pretty much framed the rest of my uh outdoor what i've kind of been able to do in my outdoor career because you know within a week of showing up at northern i was like climbing for the first time i tried mountain biking you know my friends were all the the people i sort of fell into you know the my friends my first friendships there were really like rooted in the outdoors um so and it all kind of just continued from there you know like uh going on climbing trips with friends joining the climbing club um i was on the ski team like the intramural ski team and so yeah i mean all the relationships i developed early on in college were all rooted in the outdoors and now a lot of those people are doing insane things out like you know our athletes or you know biking mountain biking professionally or um working in some capacity in the outdoor industry and doing a really good job in their own sort of niche and so it's kind of fun to like watch where everyone's gone and uh and kind of like base uh kind of follow those those connections back to like the very beginning where we were all just like you know acquiring as much climbing gear as we could like the even no matter how shitty it was you know well not climbing gear but ski gear biking all that kind of stuff and just like you know borrowing gear from each other and uh you know it was it's it's pretty cool to see where everyone's ended up going on those bare bones trips where you had just enough gear to make it work just like yeah exactly um yeah putting together all of our gear like okay i think we can i think we have enough of a trad rack that we can you know we can we can do this route uh but it was it was a great community to be involved in and i like i don't climb anymore but i really like base or i really um the foundation of a lot of my outdoor sort of ambitions since college have i feel like we're really developed and climbing you know because it was like the first time that i felt like i'm deeply uncomfortable doing something because i've always skied and so skiing doesn't feel uncomfortable to me anymore it doesn't feel like i am you know it feels like i'm kind of at a point where i'm not challenging myself as much anymore but climbing was this thing that was like this is really scary i kind of feel like i might die like it's like this like you know you kind of learn to like live with this sort of base level of stress um while you're doing something and i think that really framed the rest of what i have pursued in the outdoor industry yeah climbing especially working up to that first whipper and actually take oh yeah yeah i have so much to like i have so much um to i guess like i just remember one of the guys that i climbed with a lot he um i got to the top of like you know one of the hardest routes that i'd done and he was like don't clip in just fall and trust me and he like made me take a whipper and uh and it was like you know just doing things like that and challenging yourself and having people around that you trust and that you can challenge yourself with and like kind of force you out of your comfort zone was huge and i wouldn't have i wouldn't have done that if i hadn't like happened to fall into those friendships when i was a freshman so yeah and uh what school did you go to again real quick it was northern michigan university marquette okay gotcha and then what year did you graduate from there 2013 2013. awesome yeah so after you kind of got into the outdoor community that seems like your big initial step of meeting people and really getting into it so after you graduated where did you kind of go after that and what were your next steps leading into your next journey in life yeah yeah i well i got out of college and my objective had always been to get out west to find a way to get out west um but i have you know i have a big family not a big family but um i have a lot of family and i have three little or four little sisters who were all at that time you know under 12 years old they're all they're all really young um and so i was really worried about leaving and not being able to see them as much so i kind of stuck around home for a couple years after i graduated did some um it was like kind of a good time to develop my freelance writing you know i i was like at that time kind of learning to fly fish um i was realizing that that i had a real strong niche in the fly fishing world because there weren't a lot of women writing about it and so i kind of um started writing about fly fishing and got into a different a few different magazines uh that way and i had actually previously in 2012 interned with the ski journal in the fly fish journal in bellingham where i now live um and that was my first taste about west and then from there it was like how can i get back out here yeah because i was only here for like five months um so you know through that internship i realized that uh there weren't a lot of women writing about fly fishing and i kind of tried to get into that niche a little bit more and worked for a couple different magazines just doing freelance stuff and i also kind of developed a lot of my writing ability through working as like a sports reporter for a couple local newspapers just going and covering basketball games and wrestling matches and you know community events sometimes news i did some new stuff as well and it was uh that was as much as i like look back on it and at the time i was like i'm so bummed to be in michigan still even though i'm with my family and i wanted to do that i look back on that time as being pretty formative because it gave me the space to sort of develop my writing a little bit more and not get distracted by you know the excitement of being out west and pursuing all the hobbies because that's what i do um so yeah just being in michigan and fly fishing and writing helped a lot for like two to three years yeah and michigan i feel like it's almost an underrated state for outdoor sports and like kind of the under the radar i i think it has the most ski resorts or like ski places of like any state almost oh i haven't heard that i know they have a lot up there they're not big but they have a lot of them so but it's also a beautiful state i i was able to get up there a decent amount i went to ohio state actually so um we were always kind of close and i was in the climbing and michigan's always one of those underrated places to travel to to go do stuff like backpacking and things like that and just getting outside so it's amazing and in marquette especially mark the upper peninsula is it's like a miniature version of any state out west because you have pretty decent like downhill mountain biking even um you know you wouldn't expect it but it's rocky up there and there's some pretty you can get into some pretty gnarly stuff in the marquette area and then we have climbing i mean they're not it's not multi-pitch or like crazy tread climbing but um it was enough to sort of like peak my interest in it and then you have surfing and like superior um you can do almost anything in michigan that you can do out west you can just it's just on a smaller scale obviously and i think that's what builds i mean i really this is like a bit of a theory that i have but i feel like that builds a lot more passion in the people that come out of michigan um just just only looking at like the people that i know who have become uh professional athletes and stuff uh that went to school in marquette and like i don't know there's just like there's just something about having only uh these you know tiny ski hills or having only you know a couple pitches of 510 rock in the entire state that really just like i don't know it really like instills something in you i don't know what it is but it makes you it makes you really appreciate it when you come out west i i feel this i feel like that's just like a general statement on all people that get into outdoor sports from the midwest because you have so little to work with sometimes i came from cincinnati where i skied on a bump called perfect north slopes and i got out west for the first time and after skiing on ice my whole life it's like there's there's more out there than just ice like yeah so yeah it and you just appreciate it just that little bit more that someone born into it uh kind of can't experience because they were they've lived it their whole life absolutely yeah i am a i'm a strong advocate for like growing up ski racing on ice and then going to the mountains and like skiing power for the first time when i was like 26 i was like whoa what have i been missing this is ridiculous it'd be amazing to grow up in that you know so after you moved back home for a few years you did your writing and uh you were working kind of with that what kind of drew you out west for the first time what was the first big uh pool to get you to finally make that move i was fighting fire actually i had a couple girlfriends in college who fought fire and i was always sort of uh interested in in their jobs and their instagram posts you know they had like crazy photos of you know huge smoke columns and helicopter rides and all these crazy images that i was like a little infatuated with i was like okay if i'm this interested in this i should at least consider it and maybe look into it as a potential because i didn't have much else going on at that time i was just freelance writing so i took a few classes and i got a job in 2016 in idaho on an engine on a fire engine and um i you know that was like my out that was my that was my gateway so and uh and my parents weren't you know it was like an easy way to be like i'm going out west to fight fire so it's it's fine like it's not like super selfish and uh and so they were cool with it and well more or less of course my mom was like really after all of the like adrenaline fueled you know [ __ ] that you've done you this is your next step okay yeah um so moved out worked on an engine realized i didn't really like engines too much it was um it was just like not really enough work especially in northern idaho it doesn't really burn very often uh and it didn't really burn that summer so i got on a hand crew in salmon idaho the next summer did some fly fishing there got on a really a couple of really cool fires in that area because it was close to the frank church wilderness and like the middle fork of the salmon so that like opened my eyes to idaho being an amazing place that i'm probably gonna have to move to at some point um yeah just like fighting fire on these like beautiful blue ribbon rivers and i don't know i just am obsessed with that area now the frank church is like has a holds a very dear part of my heart but i ended up you know we still didn't get a ton of work i was like okay i really want to get on a crew that's going to be working on a lot of fires so i applied for some hot shot crews and i got on with a crew in portland or near portland uh based at the base of mount hood really and i worked with them for the last two summers i didn't work in fire this summer though i um you know i loved hot shotting and it was amazing and i like probably would want to do it for another couple years but it was getting to the point where i was moving so much and i was going from bellingham to portland um ten times a year because you know i had friends up here that i wanted to see and i s you know so on my days off i would have three days off and i would drive the seven hours from mount hood to bellingham and it was it was exhausting um and so decided to take the summer off to sort of reassess and see if i could maybe make a go of things without uh working full-time on a crew so yeah that's that's where i'm at now gotcha so uh talking about getting into hot shotting and the firefighting if you want to dive into that a little bit and just talk about your experience during the firefighting and all of that that would be awesome yeah it was um it was great like i said i got on the on a hot shot crew because i was really interested in seeing more fire um whereas on a lot of cruise you end up going out three or four times a season um on shot crews you can expect to go out like seven eight times a season and then you're kind of working pretty much from june to october and constantly sort of engaged in something whether it's like um actively working a fire fighting fire or kind of like staging and being in places where there's potential for fire or doing prescribed fire prescribed burns um training you know it was it was like a good level of engagement for me and i really liked it it was just it was just not conducive with like maintaining relationships or like maintaining sanity and like i miss it so much though and i you know i'm jobs are coming up here in the next week or so i'm probably going to apply to some for next summer because i i do miss it but we'll see what i end up actually doing yeah so for most people i feel like listening to this probably do know the hot shot is but if you just want to explain the difference between a hot shot crew and another crew real quick just for people that don't understand exactly what you're talking about right now yeah well it's they often are called elite hand crews and i hate the word elite it sounds it's like really like i don't know pompous or something but it really is like it comes down to the kind of assignments that you are often tasked with working um it comes down to qualifications and training and uh you know often people hotchat crew collectively has 75 to 100 years of fire experience on it um and often you have you have people that are dialed and your leadership is is really really strong and they've been in the fire world for 10 15 20 years um and so that all kind of of course i was just like low the lowest you could get rookie and then uh you know a second year crew member so you know i wasn't anything i didn't have an insane amount of qualifications but um it was enough to get on the crew and then you're just surrounded by people people that really know what they're doing and can handle almost any situation that's kind of thrown at them so whether that's uh you know a tough assignment where we are doing like a huge burnout you know for example burnouts or something are one of the most uh i guess one of the assignments that we're most commonly used for is where we're kind of fighting fire with fire we're uh we're using fire to sort of take the fuel away from the main fire uh and those fight those those assignments and then you know digging direct line where you're right on the fire and you're sort of like digging a trench where you know hopefully the fire isn't able to cross it it's usually just a ground fire not something that's in the trees um so yeah we're often tasked with just working um some of the harder assignments some of the assignments that might be more complex might be in tougher terrain um might be you know something that maybe sketched a different another crew out a little bit or maybe they weren't as qualified to handle it it's often a qualifications thing it's usually not like a sketchy thing um it's often like you know we need a we need people with this qualification in order to get this assignment done and you know sometimes other crews don't have those that sort of breadth of experience so uh yeah i mean that's the base of it you're just working all summer often you're kind of just chasing fire seasons the southwest burns first so you're often spending june and a little bit of july maybe even may in um in arizona and new mexico and then i spent every july in utah that i worked in fire so utah's next and then it kind of moves into like the traditional northwest season where you're in oregon in washington for august and september and then california if you're on in october that's usually where you end up getting sent so it's really just like one after the other you really don't have time for anything else in the summer it's really um consuming i guess you could say it's like you're you're on for 14 days you get two days off um and that can last four months straight where you're only getting two three days off a month and you're just working really hard so it was a good level of work i really enjoyed it um in it and it kind of fostered a lot of writing projects that i'm really proud of and um and that i'm still working on as well and it actually kind of developed into an interest to like to pursue fire journalism a little bit because it's something that's often not really there's just not a lot of people writing exclusively from the perspective of somebody that's actually been on the ground um and i'd like to kind of get into more of like a science journal like a science environmental journalism realm where i'm writing exclusively about wildfire and sort of disseminating information to people who maybe don't have a firm understanding of what it looks like on the ground gotcha so what was one of the harder uh experiences while being a hot shot like one of the harder assignments you were on i would say immediately when you said that i had one night one night come to mind and there's a lot of nights like this but this one was the worst you know we were we were burning off of a road we were doing a burnout late at night it was like 10 30 and we had been waiting all day to do it and prepping for it you know where you're you're going out and you're kind of getting rid of any of like the low branches or or or brush along the side of a road that you're going to burn so we prepped all day and at like you know eight we started a burnout and everything was looking really good the the wind was um we had good wind direction the wind was pushing into the fire and so it wasn't you know pushing all the smoke back at us and then at about 10 o'clock um maybe it was like the inversion or something but um but it just the wind switched and we suddenly had you know a huge fire that we had started pushing the road and we were all on the road and i've never sucked so much smoke in my life and we were about maybe three quarters of a mile from the buggies our crew carriers and we just had to basically sprint back to the buggies with our with all of our gear i was the lead lighter on that so i was like the very last person off and i was just like i don't know like just i've never had that bad a smoke exposure i don't think and i i had a headache for days after that and i was like all snotty and my eyes were running and i'd ash like i had like you know my uh my backpack had gotten burnt with ash and um the next day we came back out and the fire had crossed the road that we had spent all day prepping and burning so then then we took another i think it took us three days to get the other side of the road wrapped up so it went from like being a really good night we were like sweet this is all going really well to like now we have three more days of work to wrap up our our fire on this on this uh failed burnout thankfully nothing was at risk it was kind of just like a a critical like sort of corner area where we needed to like wrap up this corner and then when it got out we just had you know another 700 acres to go and figure out so um with the packs how heavy is a normal pack for a hot shot when you're going into a situation like that um i was pretty proud of mine i only had i think mine was like 39 pounds regularly 40 pounds depending how much water i was carrying um that changes when you add uh last year i was i was on a saw a little bit last year and then you add so you add like some of the saw stuff you know tools to fix the saw and you add a little bit if you're uh you had a lot actually if you're an emt um our emts carry first aid kits uh pretty and pretty like a 10 person first aid kit essentially which can be up to like 10 12 pounds so you know emts can carry up to like 52 to 53 pounds uh my pack was generally in like that 40 to 45 range 45 is pretty much the general generally what you're carrying but uh you we carry like five quarts of water with us at all times and we try to keep those we try to keep those full you know i can go through five quarts of water and a half a day of of hard work but we often carry big things of water with us uh and that's like not a fun assignment to get or not a fun task to have when you are already carrying 45 pounds and then carrying like another 40 pounds of water um and then chainsaws and tools but um yeah the saws are you know 20 pounds and then one of the and then the saw partner has to carry the fuel in the oil which is like 25 pounds of um yeah fuel and oil gotcha so uh what was the most surprising part about being a hot shot to you like something that like getting into it you weren't expecting really but kind of caught you off guard i guess i could have probably assumed this but you know you get into it and you're expecting the work to be hard and you're expecting to like you know be fully engaged all summer and to not really have a lot of time off um that was all expected and kind of part of the par for the course um i didn't for some reason anticipate how difficult it would be to um sort of develop relationships with everybody when you're like as a rookie i remember just feeling like uh the first couple months i think all the other rookies on the crew can probably end on any hot shot who really can probably attest to this but you just feel like you're an idiot and nobody likes you and there's no way you're ever going to make it as a hotshot because the first two months of being a hot shot are just like a cluster and you just feel like you're failing left and right and you're doing so many push-ups punishment push-ups because you do stupid [ __ ] and uh and then you work out of that and everyone you know you start you know you go out on hard assignments with each other and you're basically living with each other every day for five months straight and even on your days off you can you end up hanging out with each other and so by the end of the summer you're you're really tight and you've developed some really strong relationships but i think like those interpersonal connections that you have to first develop and then maintain through a summer of like being with 20 people the same 20 people all summer and not getting into fights and you know i i didn't get into any any crazy fights but it's certainly like something that happens not not like fight fights but um where you have to do a little bit of conflict management as the summer rolls on and everyone gets really tired and mad and they want to be at home with their families and you throw in like a little bit of hunger and sleep deprivation and things get can get rowdy so obviously you have to sleep near where you're working do you guys is it more of a camping or do you guys have like you said that you're in the buggies do you guys have like a staging area usually that you go back to each night or yeah it's uh essentially fire camp uh we call it fire camp it's the sort of incident base and that's where we get our briefings like our daily assignments we'll come from there that uh from fire camp and that's where we'll get our food it's where we sleep um if we're really lucky we get to spike out which is where we get to camp closer to the line a lot of the time fire camp is an hour or two from the line because you're on forest roads and buggies go slow and it takes a while to get out to the line so um sometimes if you luck out you get to sort of just go camping with your crew and go camp on a ridgeline somewhere or find a you know find something closer to the line itself uh and that's always pretty fun except that it often requires you to eat mres or some other weird food concoction that they come up with but it's much better because in camp you know you're dealing with a lot of people there's floodlights there's generators it's kind of tough to sleep sometimes car horns oh my god car alarms sprinkler systems that's a funny a funny thing that always happens because we stay in like fairgrounds or soccer fields or uh places that often have sprinkler systems and they wake us up and like at like three in the morning uh we're all just getting drenched i've that's happened a couple times but um yeah so it's much more it's much more preferable to be out and closer to the line and kind of doing your own thing gotcha so moving on a little bit from that aspect of it what was i guess your favorite part about being a hot shot then and what kind of drawing you back to possibly applying again like what is the draw to you i think it's it's hard but i would say definitely the camaraderie you know you develop really really strong relationships with all these people and you're just like like i was saying earlier you're working hard with a big group of people that uh you become something like family with after a certain point um miss that i miss uh i do miss just constantly being sort of engaged in something and like it's it's you know you don't have time to do anything but work and sleep and eat and i love that i i really like thrive on environments where i'm i'm just digging line all day i like kind of love that i'm a little 80d and i feel like that really like calms my uh my crazy sort of sometimes chaotic mind uh just sitting there and doing a monotonous task since i say monotonous but really it's it it's it it's usually like a spectrum it can be very monotonous it can also be like this is crazy like we're running a gun and doing crazy stuff but um but yeah there's something about manual labor that just like it's really uh it's really conducive with writing i feel like i feel like i have to have a mix of both in order to be to do my best writing i have to sort of have a mix of both i have to be able to go out and get all my like physical energy out somehow yeah so moving on to the fact that most hot shot crews are obviously it's a little bit male centric and being a female in that world if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about uh you know being a female and kind of a male dominated sphere of the hot shot world that would be awesome well i had a privilege i had the privilege to be on a crew that was you know that was really progressive and they hired a lot of women and um i was really grateful for that because i think being like the token female on a crew would have been really hard and there's a lot of women that that fill that role on a lot of crews across the country where there's only one woman and they're kind of like you know the girl on the crew and i really appreciated having four women on the crew because it felt like we were all we weren't just women on the crew we were like crew members we were part of that we were part of the crew i think i mean i think any women will tell you that that is hopefully how she feels on their on her crew um i i hope but at a certain point you know if you're doing the work and if you're um and if you're training hard and if they recognize that you are you know fit enough and that you've done your work to be there and that you you know have a good head on your shoulders like they respect you just like anybody else um on my crew at least and there's definitely a variance of experience in that realm i think for a lot of women you know but i i was grateful to be on a crew that yeah like as long as you were keeping up as long as you were doing what you needed to do as long as you were uh volunteering for you know volunteering for things and and proving that you wanted to be there they they treated me like everybody else which was great um so yeah i was really i was grateful for that but i think in general you know there's there's only i don't really have any qualms with being a woman in fire i think the one thing i can say is you know a lot of the time the guys will be like let me fix that for you and it's or you know like let me do that for you and it's like oftentimes i'm i get on my little high horse and i'm like no i want to do it i want to learn how to do it myself or uh you know if i don't do it myself this time then what am i going to learn so whether that's fixing saws or um you know whatever it is uh doing something like lifting something heavy you know it's just like let me at least try let me do it and let me see if i can do it um you know the only way that you guys learned how to do it was by trying it so uh so yeah i think that's you know that's like one very little qualm that i've recognized in the fire world that um that i often like had a little bit of like a i definitely said i definitely had him got my high horse about that a little bit sometimes like yeah but other than that you know i don't know i what were you gonna say oh i was just gonna say that's an awesome like thing to kind of go after because there's not many females that would even want to even be up for the task of trying to get onto a hot shot crew or even think that they even have a chance of even being on one so kind of going out there and showing that you belong is an awesome thing to kind of show and uh kind of to be like a little bit of a role model to other like girls out there and show that you guys can do just the same thing as all these guys out there on the crew yeah yeah and i think you know in speaking with a couple uh women who have done this job for a long time and who were doing it back in like the 70s i've done a couple stories on women who were fighting fire in the 70s on hotshot crews were some of the first women to do so and i think it's often overlooked what women bring to the table too you know like where we what we might lack in brute strength or like the ability to lift heavy logs we make up for in other areas whether that's um you know these sort of soft skills that everyone always talks about like maybe i can't lift a 45 pound log while holding it while you know i have a 45 pound pack on um but i think there are sort of like those interpersonal skills i think there's uh maybe an added about a added amount of like maybe empathy for uh everybody's condition you know i think i think women leadership especially in fire kind of recognizes that you're doing hard work and you're doing it you haven't seen your family in a long time and you're often sleep-deprived or hungry or exhausted or in some way maybe not working at your highest level and to recognize and to sort of work around that and to not expect um you know ex hi have high expectations but maybe set your crew up for success by um kind of providing a little bit of that empathetic like maybe we shouldn't be doing this specific assignment today maybe we shouldn't be uh burning off this line that's really super steep or that is like really high consequence um you know we're on day 14 maybe we need to um maybe we need to reassess and take things a little easier or whatever it might be but i feel like i feel like women kind of bring these soft skills and and certain things to the line that are often overlooked as being beneficial when in reality you kind of those are really really necessary and that those those things can contribute to better decision making and maybe a little less ego and things like that that's an over-generalization like women can have ego too and women can be very unsympathetic but uh yeah i think that's a general sort of a generalization of women in fire yeah i i get where you're coming from with all that then obviously yeah it depends from person to person you know we're all different but in general i i would agree that i can see exactly how that would you know guys can have a little bit more of egos and think yeah we can definitely do that today in reality it's like nah yeah and i think it's consistent across anything outside it's consistent in biking it's consistent in climbing it's consistent in mountaineering in avalanche training uh or in um you know in backcountry skiing i think those sort of human elements we call them are a critical thing that every person in the outdoor industry should look at and consider and um you know consider bringing a woman along gotcha so do you have anything else that you want to kind of talk about with the hot shop before i move on to your skiing and fly fishing and other parts of the outdoor world that you are into uh no i would just say you know it's like hot shotting has brought more value to my outdoor experience into my life in general than anything else i've done and i've been really grateful to have that and to be able to have had those experiences um whether or not i continue doing that in the future but i've been really grateful to have that sort of on the ground experience and um and see the sort of the west in a different way i guess it's been pretty awesome yeah so moving on to the next do you want to start with skiing or do you want to go into fly fishing first we can do fly fishing first how can the fly fishing first sound good yeah why not so when when you got into fly fishing uh when was that exactly i would say like 2011 maybe 2010. yeah i had an ex-boyfriend who was really into it and i was like fine i guess i'll fly fish and i like kind of hated it for like three years um but then i got that internship at the fly fish journal and kind of recognized um i like really enjoyed the culture like the fly fishing culture once i kind of got into it a little bit more and of course when i came out west too i was like oh oh i see now i get wife i mean michigan fly fishing is amazing and actually that's that's where i learned everything i know about fly fishing so i can't i can't say anything bad about it i love it but um yeah coming out west for the first couple times and fishing in montana and fishing in idaho i was like oh i get it okay fishing is cool so getting into fly fishing you got in was that right after college for you then or was that like right before you end it it was like during college yeah like 2000 2011 i think yeah like the summer of my maybe junior year i kind of got into it a little bit more gotcha so what are some of your favorite parts about fly fishing and what were some of the harder steps of like getting into the intricacies of it and kind of like your initial journey into learning it because you said that you got that internship at the fly fishing journal and i'm sure that forced you to have to learn a lot of the you know intricacies of everything totally yeah i i would say the most difficult part was learning from i'm like i learned a lot from the boyfriend who taught me how to fly fish and i like am immensely grateful to him for teaching me how to like you know double haul and spay cast um but it was difficult because it was it was a lot of what i was saying earlier where i um you know he was like tying my flies on for me and kind of doing all my knots for me and setting my rod up for me and i didn't learn anything about setting up my own stuff uh when i was you know in those first couple years and so um in like 2013 or 14 when i started kind of fishing on my own i was like i was kind of starting out from ground zero i was like i don't know anything i don't know how to set up a rod i don't know what what fly to put on i don't know uh you know how to fish this specific area um and so it was a lot of just like kind of starting out uh from the beginning and it was empowering though to learn it on my own finally and that was ultimately what made me stay in it was that i had i was forced to sort of learn it on my own terms but yeah other than that i would say uh the technicality of it is certainly intimidating at first um so i was really grateful to have somebody that knew what they were doing and was a guide and was kind of able to help me out in that way and show me what sections or what what what kind of looks fishy and uh what sections of like our home rivers were best and all of these various techniques and stuff um but from there i since then it's been hard to living in bellingham it's really hard to actually fish a lot because the fishing over here is kind of tough it's the west side of the cascades it's kind of all steelhead and salmon water and so it's fun to fish for steelhead and salmon but you're just not getting that reward very often you know like you need it's like a a blend you know you need to have you need to be catching fish every now and then in order to like continue wanting to do it yeah and i've found that that's been a bit of like a plateau for me lately is uh being on on rivers that are like super fishy but just pretty tough to catch those fish um and i don't travel super often to fly fish anymore so um i'd like to change that i mean that's really been a direct result of being in fire for the last four summers is not being able to fish as much so what makes a difference between like uh so you said that uh the the rivers are fishy but it's harder to catch the fish what makes it that way specifically well the fish are a little pickier you know um there are fewer fish vastly fewer fish and they're bigger fish um and so they got big because they're picky and because they um they know they you know they are pretty smart fish and i mean on on my home rivers on the next and the skagit rivers uh you know those are traditionally those traditionally had huge runs of salmon and steelhead and now those runs are depleted by insane percentages that i don't even know off the top of my head but a lot um like on the nook sack last year i think they had like seven steelhead returned to the hatchery on uh on the knucksack so numbers are insanely low and you don't even want to fish for those fish because there's you know a lot of them are wild fish that have i mean you just you don't want to you don't want to hurt those fish you know there's so few of them that it's like you start to wonder if it's worth it um and so yeah i mean so so these fish these rivers are are they're beautiful steelhead rivers they're beautiful they have they have beautiful fish it's just that the fish are so few and far between that you're it's it's tough it's tough to catch them and when you do catch them you almost you just like feel bad you're like oh i'm sorry that i'm doing this to you like you're such a beautiful fish and you've been through so much and i don't want to hurt you is it just the overfishing or is it a mix of that with like dams or other things like that or what's causing the uh decline more than anything else yeah it's like an overfishing hatchery

uh bad like uh decreasing habitat dams um a whole blend of things and yeah i wish i could get into the more intricate my friend bridget my friend bridget works at a couple different is like super into the fishy the fish world and i wish that she could be here right now to to tag in and talk about that yeah no i was just wondering if you knew it like i i'm sure it's a mix of a bunch of things along with a lot of like that kind of stuff and you know things disappearing usually it's not just one thing it's usually a mix of a lot of things going on at the same time that causes this decline in populations that we see in these um populations yeah exactly what's been some of your favorite places to fish so far with fly fishing and what's been your favorite kind of like experience in fly fishing i guess um well i'm actually going out on a steelhead trip on wednesday this week or thursday this week and that's my favorite trip that i do every year i do it i've done it the last five years now it's like my only actual fishing tradition and i go down to the grand ronde river which is in southwest or southeast washington like the exact opposite corner of where i'm at right now actually uh and i go down there and i link up with um these women that i met on the river a couple years ago and they're like in their 70s and they're like super cool and they're they've been fly fishing for like as long as i've been alive and uh and i happened to meet them on the river after my first summer fighting fire i like somebody told me to go to the grand run to fish for steelhead and i was like okay i don't i don't know anything about this but i'm gonna go try it out and i was in the parking lot at a campground making dinner and i was like [ __ ] i don't have a can opener and so i went over to this lady's trailer and i asked her for a can opener and she was like what are you eating and it was like canned chicken and rice and she was like what why are you eating that like come eat some chili and uh and so i met them they took me in they fed me really well and i was like okay i'm coming back next year and i've come back every year since then and i've written about them actually um and we can't wait my friend like i said my friend bridget and i are going there on thursday and we are so excited that's awesome so is steelhead your favorite fish to fly fish for or do you have a favorite fish to kind of go after i i mean steelhead are just so difficult they're just complicated fish so i would say my favorite are um i love fishing for browns i love fishing for like browns rainbows or cutthroat on dry flies that's like i'm such a sucker for that you know fish eating uh a fly off the surface like there's nothing quite as fun as that in the fly fishing realm for me anyway um steelhead when you do hook up i've only ever caught one steelhead i'm hoping to change that this week really hoping but when you do actually hook up with a steelhead it's amazing it's like an amazing experience and they're really strong fish and they're beautiful and they're you know just like colorful and it's they're amazing and uh so those are really fun and of course what makes them most more amazing is that it takes so damn long to catch one um i've been fishing for him for years and i've only caught up i've only caught one so it's like such an elusive fish so that makes it really enjoyable but when i just want to get my kicks you know i go out and catch cutthroat on dry flies i love that [ __ ] gotcha so what's the for you personally what's your favorite thing about fly fishing like what's the draw um what's the is there like a feeling or is it just like the environments that you get to go to or i think the draw is i think it's kind of just the culture you know no matter who you end up meeting in the fly fishing world they're they're usually pretty rad and uh and then you just it's such a small world that you just keep running into people along the way and um it's fun to like go to a new river and be like you know reach out to one of your friends on instagram and be like hey you want to fish with me i'm down on the provo or i'm on the shoots or um you know whatever is that really loud i can barely hear it you're good and i'll be able to get that with post so oh okay cool um my roommate's renovating his van downstairs right now so i was hoping that he wouldn't be using the saw but we'll see um anyway i think uh i think it's the the culture of it i think um especially having worked to the fly fish journal and written for them it's it's something that i kind of keep an eye out for now is like all these like quirky little elements of of the fly fishing world all the peop the quirky people you meet like these 70 something year old women who just like feed me prime rib and like homemade brandy on the river every year like it's i just like i love how quirky everybody is and how it's kind of just this weird nerdy world and everyone everyone's such an i mean yeah everyone's nerdy in this world it's kind of weird because i feel like that's like most uh sports and like kind of like the outdoor world like when you really get into it everyone's kind of like once you really get into it you realize how weird and like intricate like the whole community is because i'm a climber and i go down to the red all the time red river gorge down in kentucky i don't know if you ever got to climb there but i did yes beautiful beautiful area um i never really got into tread climbing because i had that amazing sport climbing right in my backyard like two to four hours either if i was in columbus or cincinnati but you i met so many awesome people down there and it's it's getting a little bit more like busy at miguel's but yeah i remember the days when it was just like 100 people crammed under this small little and you meet these people that are this guy i remember the craziest one was this guy quit his job over in spain was doing a climbing trip across the u.s and this was one of his final stops so i love it we exchanged alcohols and just sat there and drank and talked about climbing all night and those are the i feel like that's such a prominent part about like so many parts of the outdoor community and it's one of those awesome things that i feel like everyone should get to experience but totally but uh yeah so did you ever go to horseshoe canyon i did not i need to i need that was where we always did our climbing trips my first two my first two spring breaks in college were at horseshoe canyon a lot of my outdoor isn't it the experience of canyon the horseshoe canyon isn't that the ranch where they have like the 24-hour horseshoe hell yes yeah okay okay that's right i've always wanted to kind of do the horseshoe hell just to see what it because it would be terrible but awesome but it's such a cool area and we met so many awesome people there and same with the red river gorge i did the same thing like in 2000 i think 12 or 11 i went to the red river gorge and oh yeah did you see anything else i did yeah okay good yeah yeah yeah girls is i mean i feel like you have to if that that's where you're going for just there's so many other spots i've camped other places down there but miguel's is like the the hub of where everyone's at so exactly and uh so getting into fly fishing though uh for people who are possibly thinking about getting into it what would you uh suggest uh like first steps to kind of entering that world honestly i think uh well first of all you can get a kit a fly fishing kit for like 200 bucks um i think like getting over the idea that it sort of requires all this gear is a big part of it um it doesn't require as much as you think and if you're just fishing in the summer you don't need waders you can just go out and you can you can go out in your sandals um it's a good excuse to go out and explore maybe sections of river that you've never seen before it's um and and you can do it for 150 200 bucks and i think a lot of people over uh don't understand or don't um i guess don't yeah i guess don't understand that it's it's that cheap to get into so not letting that be an inhibiting factor i guess and then i think like i like anything i think if you just like start learning about it and you start talking about it with people and the more you talk about it the more you're developing an understanding of the of the community of the culture of the intricacies of it um even if you feel like you're out of your element when you're talking about it i think like that's something i i would recommend for anything when you're getting into it is just like talking to people about it because you learn so much uh you you just if you can connect over it even if you're brand new if you can connect over a shared passion of something whether it's fly fishing or climbing or surfing it's always really fun to hear what other people's experiences are like and it kind of broadens your worldview and at least from my experience in the outdoor community everyone's so so more than willing to help with information and like helping you get into it and they're more than willing to especially in the climbing world hey i don't have any gear and you're just like hey come with us i got rope i got gear and we'll get you on a wall and exactly getting that person out there and then watching them go from wide-eyed to like a year later having their whole rack because they fell in love with it after that first time is a great great thing and that's so common in the outdoor community i think yeah that's not seen in some other sports like you don't see that in like you know this team sports like soccer and things like that i feel like um yeah and it's it's something because i grew up playing soccer and getting into the outdoor community that's definitely something that i see is a big difference in like the the willingness to kind of like really help somebody not just like help someone but like really help them yeah yeah cause it just takes once and i think that's another thing to get over is like don't feel bad about asking your friends to go out with them because they're probably psyched to get you interested in interested and introduced to something that they're passionate about like i love teaching people how to fly fish um and it's never a chore it's never an issue like i i really try to like make it clear that i would love to take you take people out so yeah don't feel like you're you know stepping on any toes or that you're being annoying by asking people to go out with them because they probably are pretty psyched on teaching you with your skiing though you said that you started skiing up in uh michigan and how old were you when you started skiing was that kind of like the outdoor sport that was your youngest uh kind of exposure to getting out and being in the elements yeah i was i my dad introduced me to it when i was like three or four so i like don't remember a time when i wasn't skiing which is amazing i'm really like i feel really privileged to have that experience um and it just turned into like going to ski club on thursdays my elementary school in middle school had a ski club and we just like ate that [ __ ] up we loved it and uh and then we would uh we would mostly just go and we got really into like riding the park because that's pretty much all you can do in the midwest is park skiing and racing so i kind of did like my racing during the week and then on the weekends i'd go and ride the park with my friends and so i was just i don't i wasn't home like after my life after i got my license in high school i was like not home at all i was always riding i was always skiing um and so your home what was your home uh hill or mountain whatever you want to call it up there in michigan because i know it's called perfect north slopes down cincinnati but it's a it's a bump in the land yeah ours was nubs knob uh 600 feet of elevation pretty great pretty great um it was actually like i think it's one of the better places in the midwest to ski i would say i mean i might be biased because i grew up right riding there but i i hold i am holding to that i think it is one of the better places just culture wise too it's like a local spot um it's not corporate it's like everyone you know every everybody knows everybody and i don't know i just i love the culture there i've loved going back there i love going back and you know seeing seeing some familiar familiar faces even to this day um and then just like riding the same trail as i did my entire childhood and uh yeah it's always fun it's always like a fun little nostalgia so with uh i was gonna see since you were skiing up and uh i'm trying to remember the name of it have you ever gotten to ski at mount mount bohemia i think it's i have yeah that was my college sort of stomping grounds i guess i don't know we went to market mountain most of the time because that was right in town um but bohemia on the weekends and potter days if there were any in the middle of the week we would definitely skip class for that but it was like a two and a half hour drive um in the winter anyway it's about two and a half hours because of the crappy roads but bohemia is amazing i've looked into it i've always wanted to make a trip to mount bohemia to ski because it just looks awesome like for like a midwest spot it has the feel of like yeah it just looks like and from what i've heard it has the feel of like almost being out west and it's so quirky it's the weirdest place ever like for a while they only had yurts they didn't have any like buildings and then like they built like a sauna and they built like a pool there's like a giant hot tub there now it's pretty funny um and the people that are there i mean it's just like straight up it's so amazing um and you're in the middle of nowhere like there's nothing there are no amenities and i feel like people that travel there are often very surprised how far out of the way it is like it's like a good seven hours from the nearest airport to get there in the winter yeah that's why i never was it going there is the equivalent it would have been a hard trip for me to make and i was i had to choose between that and going on my yearly trip out west in college because you know poor college student you have to make your choice between what yes you do and where about your times so well if you ever make it yeah get it get up there it's like very worth it it's such a funny place um you'll have a great time i guarantee it uh yeah i don't know it's it's the weirdest place i've ever been but i love it up there it's awesome so you started off skiing at places like that and then obviously in college you just said that so and did you con did you continue pretty seriously like i know it was just like the skeet uh racing like uh the intramural but uh what was it still pretty serious for you with the racing and everything no no it's just just kind of just a fun i oh my gosh i only did it my freshman year because i it was it was kind of spendy you know we had to pay for hotels and tickets everywhere and um it was it was very spendy and what i ended up doing was being a college freshman and just like getting too drunk to race effectively and missing gates and being too hungover to race and any number of things and i you know i just was normal it was it was like an excuse to party um and i had a blast i will say it was very fun i just didn't get a lot of really good ski racing no i know from uh the ski club and the ski team at ohio state it was uh alcoholics that skied every now and then yeah we're more of a drinking team than a racing team whatever that yeah yeah but i think it's still uh you know i met a lot of people through that that um you know i'm still friends with and uh i think it gave me like the foundations i'm just glad i ski race because i feel like it really gave me a strong foundation for um skiing out west and just having like you know good form and you know feeling strong and feeling confident i guess yeah so after you got out west how long was it before you finally got your first taste of like back country skiing because i know that's one thing i'm looking forward to really getting into and getting the experience because i've i've skied like the steep steeper stuff in bounds but i'm looking forward to actually being able to get out to those areas that are a little bit harder to get to take some work and yeah my season after my first fire fire season out here so uh 2016 2017 i got a mountain collective pass i felt like i was just rolling in the dough i was like oh my gosh i get to get a pass out west and i'm gonna like travel around um and i was able to use that to go ski a bunch of different areas and kind of get a taste of where i wanted to in sort of land um i didn't end up landing in any of them i ended up in bellingham but nonetheless i uh i spent a month in canada skiing like rebel stoke and like louise and whistler and uh and just like farting around up there and it was really funny i went up there with some girlfriends for a week so it wasn't a month it was like it was like three weeks but i went up there for a week with some friends from seattle and then as when i was up there i ran into some college friends in uh rocking no where was that golden i think i don't know anyway somewhere near rebel stoke i ran into some college friends and they were like living in their campers and just skiing rebel stoke and uh kind of farting around in that area and so i just like tagged on with them and like slept on one of my friend's bench seats and their camper next to like the table and uh and stayed for another week and a half and they kind of they all had their sleds up there and so we got into some backcountry that was my first time skiing the backcountry um it was like really mellow you know really mellow zone they kind of gave me like i hadn't taken an avi class at that point so they kind of gave me they gave me a book to read and they're like okay read this while we drive to the mountain and uh and so i did some i did some light reading and they gave me like a little a little refresher and um gave me a beacon to borrow and basically gave me yeah intro to backcountry skiing in like a really mellow zone uh low avalanche danger day uh near rebel stoke that we that was sled accessed and uh i did so bad i remember just falling all over the place like the the i don't know i don't know if it was maybe the skis that i had but they were definitely not wide enough and um i was just i was just going like head over heels all day like i kept just like tumbling i couldn't get used to deep snow and it was kind of wet snow too so i was just like out of my element and then from there i went to visit some friends in missoula and bozeman and i went and skied bridger on a day when they had like three feet of snow it was like a monday so there weren't any there weren't that many people up there and i think that was my first time skiing powder and actually being like oh this is why people ski powder because the first time i skied in revelstoke i was like uh i don't like this and then epidural was like light like beautiful it wasn't the wet snow like the first time it was beautiful and it was like so deep and my friend knew where she was going and so we went out and uh and skied uh my it was like kind of my first time skiing powder and it was amazing and that kind of like got me getting hooked and then i went and spent a month and a half working at alta because that was also in the past and so i went and visited a friend at alta from college of course and she convinced me to just stay there and get a job working as a barista and so i got a job and slinging coffees and uh got a free pass out of it for the last month and a half of the season and it was like time in my life so much fun and then i ended up in bellingham the next uh the following winter because i took a job with the ski journal and then what uh kind of skiing is there up in that area of the country that you're in this i'm at but i'm up or i'm near mount baker and it's not baker okay yeah it's uh i love it up here it's definitely the most like when i first showed up i was like oh my gosh because i had not really skied that much powder that's like all we get here and it's kind of cascade concrete you could call it a little it's a little sticky a little wet but um you know we still get our rare like champagne beautiful pow days but also you know getting used to that initially it was tough and then you know learning the sort of ins and outs of work of traveling the backcountry and getting my avi training and kind of working more into the backcountry realm because the back entry access at baker is really good um that i'll i just kind of continue transitioning into that and i think i think i like baker the most out of any place i've ever skied and it's kind of why i'm still here it's very challenging to rain when you first show up after being from the midwest and kind of skiing a lot of areas that aren't super cliffy you know like alta is like pretty wide open there's not a lot in the way of tree well potential or cliff bands to avoid and baker is just like if you don't know where you're going there's a good chance you're going to get clipped out and have to hike out which i've done like three different times now but i feel like i've got a better idea of where i'm at at baker now after three seasons i i hope i don't ever get clipped out again um yeah it's just really challenging it's like it really humbles you when you first show up after thinking you're i don't know thinking that your one season of skiing at west was enough to prepare you you're like oh gosh this is way out of my element yeah i'm looking forward to my first full season in the mountains i got passes to a basin and loveland right in the mountains so nice plenty of plenty of big train and good time waiting for me and i know um a basin's already said that they're not i don't i think they're going to limit the number of passes that they're selling but they're not going to have a uh what's it called like a um reservation reservations yeah yeah i won't have to worry about that there and they they made the new they got the new lift which it goes the same speed has the same number of uh the pali lift the palo beachy so oh nice i've not skied at a basin yet all my skiing so far has been at uh aspen uh copper and steamboat so far here in colorado so have you gotten to colorado at all for any skiing there or has it all been in alta or up in where you're at now i went on my very first ski trip ever at west when i was 14 with by a friend of mine and they we drove all the way from michigan and we went to breckenridge and it was a blast uh definitely to this day like a good uh it was kind of like the reason that i wanted to move out west was that trip you know i was like oh okay i get it now mountains it was my first time seeing mountains i was like just blown away um and then i went to aspen that winter that i um had the pass i went to aspen antellia right actually i went and skied um one day at telluride and then a couple days at aspen and visited some friends what what part of because aspen's a collection of like four different you got snowmass you got aspen you got aspen highlands and then you got buttermilk snowmass and aspen it's like right in the town about i mean like you're right in town he's the one right in the town snowmass is the one that's slightly out and yeah and you have to take like a gondola i think over there and snowmass is like the big like i think the acreage air is mass like huge and then yeah aspen has the glades in the back yeah and i skied highlands when i was there highlands just has the steeps you got highlands bowl that you have to hike to the top of which is beautiful i think it's a 12 8 which was i remember it was my first time being like you know what i've never been this high before i'm just gonna peek out and i'm i just want to get to that height just to say that i was on a peak out here yeah i made myself hike to the top of it with it was brutal

i bet especially coming from the west man i still have my midwest lungs and now i live at sea level so i'm i'm hopeless uh after being out here for a couple months i go into the mountains every weekend so i feel like i'm finally like after being next to people that came from the midwest and seeing how i like how i'm faring compared to them during hikes and they're like having headaches and having to stop for water all the time and it was really affecting uh my one friend over the weekend but i mean just seeing the difference and i remember when i first moved out here how terrible my first like couple trips out into the mountains were and it's like take some time to build up that blood so and i like lost all of it i lived at elevation for a couple seasons and then now i've i've been at sea level for like three years two years now three and a half or two and a half years um yeah so my lungs are i went to tahoe and did them uh and did like a run in tahoe last fall and i was just losing it and tahoe's not even that high like i am a baby at elevation um what uh so i know for me at least for skiing same with climbing the reason why i love those sports is uh just the exposure and getting those views at the top of the mountain they're at the top of a cliff uh what what is it about skiing for you that kind of keeps you coming back

um i think it's just that's an interesting question that i hadn't considered before um because for me i know it's it's that you when when you get to the top and you just have that serene landscape just covered in white and it's just this amazing white view i i it has to be a part of my life like yeah after experiencing it once i my first trip was my freshman year and i remember after that i'm like this has to be a part of my life like every year yeah so it's such a blend because you know i think about like skiing at baker how amazing the snow is how awesome it is to like the culture up there is really strong and so you know you'll be skiing under the chairlift like first run and like you'll have people like hooting and hollering above you and you know when you're on the chairlift you're like hooting and hollering at everybody um and i love that sort of community feeling at baker and how it's pretty far out there and so it's tough to it's tough to get to and there's not a ton of it it ends up being a really heavily sort of like local scene i guess and so you just run into friends all day you just like tagging on with groups of friends uh throughout the day and no matter what you can just go and like find i mean they just get so many good storms up here and the powder is amazing the feeling of powder is amazing doing it with your friends is just like makes it all the better yeah and then the end of the day you know you're absolutely like drenched because you always get drenched at baker it's always like on the cusp of raining but you're just like drenched and you're tired and your legs are sore and drinking a beer in the lodge um with a big group of like throw to get like a throw together group of friends that just happened to be at the lodge at the same time as you like i don't know i love that i love the feeling um the views are obviously awesome too and i love backcountry skiing i love the challenge of of going out and doing like longer progressively longer missions throughout the winter and just getting stronger and um skiing new i think another thing at baker's skiing new and challenging lines like there's always kind of something more something bigger that you can kind of push yourself on so it's always kind of like a stepping stone there's always more and i love that about baker um on like you know low avalanche days there's always kind of like some big missions you can go out and do and there's more than enough there's just so much terrain and so many options there it's awesome awesome um then just ending on like two questions real quick do you have a dream trip uh or a dream kind of excursion or dream place that you want to get to for any of these activities that you do oh boy okay i've always wanted to go to iceland for fishing to fly fish they have huge brown sea run browns um and iceland just in general seems really cool i can get down with the hot spring vibe i just feel like i would fit in there well um skiing

i should think more about this i don't know i think um a dream not a dream trip but a dream that i have in skiing is to maybe try to do a free free ride world tour event at some point just kind of like see how it goes and kind of push myself in in that way um whether that's like in canada or somewhere in the states um i think lately i've been like daydreaming a lot about surfing i like surfing a lot so right now i'm daydreaming about going up to like tofino to surf because it's so close to me but so far because the border is closed how long have you been surfing for only like two years three years i'm terrible at surfing yeah i don't make any presumptions about how good i am surfing because i'm not but i love it and it's like probably the first hobby i've gotten into that has been relatively easy to progress in because it was fun from the very beginning like fly fishing was kind of tough to get into because it's not super fun when you don't know what you're doing i don't remember learning how to ski so that doesn't apply but in mountain biking wasn't super i was like at first i was like i don't really know if i need to get into this this seems expensive and kind of bro um now i love it but but surfing was like right from the get-go i was like i was like i don't even care how destroyed i'm getting in the waves i this is really enjoyable somehow so yeah i'm kind of like trying to get as many surf trips in as i can while i'm still living on the coast because i don't know how long i'll be living on the coast for yeah so is that like your only like uh i guess ocean sport so to say yeah i don't have any water sports really um yeah yeah i think when i get older i'll probably get into sea kayaking but i think i'm too young i don't know i've got too many other things going on right now for that too many hobbies yeah and then mountain biking you've just been kind of doing this dabbling yeah dabbling since college yeah since moving to bellingham really because spelling i i recently moved into this house and it's like two minutes from galbraith which is like a an insane biking trail system and then of course there's tons of other trails in this area really close by uh so it's been kind of like a requisite part of living here is like you kind of kind of get into into biking and i've been i've been really enjoying it i don't know i'm close to the trails it's been fun and then uh just as a final question i'm going back to the hot shot and uh wyoming firefighting uh just to end with a question of if there's anybody looking to kind of get into it what kind of advice would you give to them and what are the first steps that they should take into getting into that line of work that kind of line of uh outdoor uh that outdoor community specifically um get some manual labor experience get some medical experience whether that's like a wilderness first responder or an emt um and start applying places in call places i think same with anything talking to people is huge and that's the only reason probably that i got my job on the crew that i get the hot checker that i got on was because i called them and i sort of developed a relationship with the hiring manager over the phone you know we we kind of developed a we had a little bit more i think i had a little more stake in the game just because you know i was able to talk with him and we got along well over the phone and i think that's really important for any of these jobs because you're spending a lot of time with these people and they want to make sure that you're going to um be able to you know be nice to everybody and that you're going to be enjoyable to be around so talking is is huge and they're applying uh applications temporary jobs are going up in the next week so jobs.gov is the is where you would get hired for a federal fire position say that one more time you actually kind of cut out just as you were saying that usajobs. is uh is the place the hiring platform uh for federal fire jobs so that was i i only worked in federal federal fire uh you can also find jobs on state crews like washington dnr oregon department of forestry or something like that but i preferred i liked working for the feds it was a yeah it was i liked it a lot gotcha cool and then do you have anything else that you kind of want to end on and say i do not we touched everything yeah we got us we we covered all the bases good awesome well it was great getting to hear your story and how you kind of got into all the different niches that you are in the outdoor community which is kind of a little bit of everything it feels like i know all of it i have too many things going on too many hobbies i really need to start cutting things out not a bad thing it's a good thing so but yeah i was really happy to have you on so thank you very much and uh thank you all for tuning in and i will see everyone else on the next episode so thank you for having me yeah no problem