Colin & Justin load up some rocks and take aim at their weekly turn through some of the more interesting headlines to come out of the outdoor industry and community from the past week.
On this weeks docket:
What is Justin doing this weekend? (02:54)
A trio of surfers were discovered dead in Baja, Mexico. Will Justin ever head south for a surf trip again? (08:12)
The charges against the historic Northwest Passage paddlers known as the Arctic Cowboys were dropped. How does this movie end? (13:39)
A collision at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort resulted in homicide charges. (18:06)
The busy news cycle out of Mt. Everest continues with two new stories. (23:20)
Olukai's new shoe marks the return of Pickleball Corner and a discussion on how this product is contributing to our stuff problem in the outdoor and active space. (29:13)
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Episode Transcript
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin. True and joining me today, he just finished running barefoot laps around the park and he's ready to pod. It's Justin Hausman.
Justin (00:26):
Is barefoot running still a thing?
Colin (00:28):
I bet it was for that guy we saw the other day.
Justin (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, so Colin and I were getting ready for a mountain bike ride the other day and we were by this little city park and there was the dude just running laps in this park with no shoes on. I will say few things feel better than bare feet on lush green grass though, right? I mean that guy was probably just like, honestly, he's probably just like this summer's coming and he was just so excited. He had to go take a few laps.
Colin (00:55):
He wasn't in full on workout regalia. I'm warming up before I do some burpees here in the park or something like that. He was in. I'm just going to run laps in the park with my hoodie on and that's cool,
Justin (01:05):
But that's kind of cool. I'm into that. I mean that seems like that should be right up our alley. Not doing stuff. Not in technical gear. I mean, I ride, I wear jorts and I ride my bikes most of the time. It's kind of nice to just, people just, you can go for a run in just regular shorts. They don't have to be made by, I don't know. I don't know any running companies. They don't have to be made by a running company.
Colin (01:26):
Alright, well today we're going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines to come out of the outdoor industry and community. But before we get to that, hey there, new listeners. If you've just joined the Rock Fight, please follow the show wherever you're listening, whether that's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast app. And please click follow. So you're subscribed and you never miss an episode. And then we want you to head over to rock fight.co and sign up for our newsletter that comes out every Sunday and includes stuff like our Justin Hausman retrospective, rose Colored Hausman, which we'll have a new issue of in this Sunday's newsletter, which you missed because it came out yesterday, but a bunch of other goodies as well. Go to rock fight.co and click join the mailing list. No outdoor history this week as David is bringing his daughter home from college. So no history this week. I know it's kind of a bummer. Lastly, do you want to pick a fight with the rock fight? Well, maybe you just send an email to say hi. Make a suggestion for something that Justin can do over the weekend. We love hearing from our listeners. So join the ranks of Tacoma Phil and send your emails to My Rock fight@gmail.com and then add to that,
Justin (02:28):
We should have a phone number. They can call and leave a message.
Colin (02:31):
Oh, fuck yeah, we should do that. Actually, I don't know. We've gotten some pretty crazy emails, but
Justin (02:36):
It'd be kind of fun because we could play 'em live.
Colin (02:38):
That's a good
Justin (02:38):
Point. Play 'em on the Air.
Colin (02:40):
Listener of the week, the rant of the week.
Justin (02:43):
Well they could just say hi to their buddy. Hey man,
Colin (02:47):
I'm listening to the rock fight.
Justin (02:49):
Hope you are too. See you. Hope you are too. See you. See you later. See you in the park barefoot.
Colin (02:54):
Alright, well we're recording this on Friday, May 10th. You're hearing it on Monday, May 13th, which means that in between then and now we had ourselves a weekend. And that also means it's time for America's favorite podcast segment. What is Justin doing this weekend? Presented by Long Weekend Coffee. So Justin, what are you up to this weekend?
Justin (03:14):
Pretty sure that my weekend is going to consist entirely of hiding around the corner and watching my five-year-old and two and a half year old go walking around the block without me. This is their new thing
Colin (03:27):
Where, oh, they're all independent. They're going to go for a
Justin (03:28):
Walk. Yes, yes. So this is two days now in a row where they'll come outside and we're going to go for a walk. And I'm like, all right, great. And then Olivia, the five-year-old would be like, dad, you are not coming. You cannot come, you stay right there. But we live on small town with small streets, but people whip around these streets, so I have to creep to the other side where they're going to come out on my bike and hide behind cars so they don't see me. They'll just get all mad. Have you
Colin (03:53):
Even busted yet?
Justin (03:55):
No, not really. I mean by the time they see me, usually they've had their independence long enough to where they feel okay about it, but it's pretty cute. I can watch them in a distance. That's amazing. In fact, I think today, because I'm sure they'll want to, I'll get binoculars out and actually get a real close look at 'em, but they're like usually barefoot and just kind of hair a kimbo and just investigating every plant. It's pretty cute. So that's probably going to be my whole weekend. It's pretty dang fun. And it's not really up to me what
Colin (04:21):
They're going to do. Well, I'm looking at just pickling up your house on Google, dude, they just go around the block with
Justin (04:27):
Yeah, exactly. But that's stretch on, that's
Colin (04:29):
Tiny. Come on. It's
Justin (04:30):
Fine. That part's fine except that cars fly around.
Colin (04:32):
I'll cut out the address name, sorry.
Justin (04:34):
Cars fly around a couple of those streets.
Colin (04:38):
Really? Yeah, you're in the middle of a bunch of
Justin (04:41):
Other, you're surrounded
Colin (04:43):
On all
Justin (04:43):
Sides. But that little tiny connector where at the end of cars will just come around that too fast. There's people like delivery cars, people getting takeout or whatever. And then Peco, which you can see there, that street drives me insane because people fly down that to avoid downtown. So just have to make sure they're on the sidewalk. That's all. I mean, Harper's two and a half, she doesn't know what she's doing.
Colin (05:10):
This is where the technology has benefited us. One of my shop collar. Exactly. Did you get one yet? A big range from the remote. You can thought about it, they'll come right home that it hurts. I don't know.
Justin (05:25):
I don't know.
Colin (05:27):
No, we have a deli down the street and we live off of a busy road and my daughter's in middle school, but she likes to just walk down there because now they all have devices. They're older, but because of Life 360, the whole family's on life. 360, oh,
Justin (05:41):
I forgot about Life 360.
Colin (05:42):
It's pretty great. I think the kids really thought about it when they're like, oh, we should all be on. They're the ones who wanted to do it. They're like, okay, so I can just watch her and she's moving along. Then she's on her way back and at any moment I don't have to bug her, do the thing. She's allowed to have her independence, but I can track her on my phone, which sounds terrible, but it's also pretty great. So good
Justin (06:04):
Technology. A couple months ago I went down to Joshua Tree to film a gear shoot for Adventure Journal. And on the way back I was like, you know what? I'm going to stop in Visalia, a little crap town in Central Valley. Not even that little decent sized town, central Valley that I lived in until I was like 12. And I was just kind of driving around and trying to remember where stuff was. I don't really ever go back there, but at one point I was like, oh, I want to go find my old little league fields. They were really nice in my memory. And so I found 'em and I forgot that one of 'em was right next to the junior high I went to in seventh grade. And what's wild to me is that my mom would drive me to this school with my bike in the trunk.
(06:45):
I don't know why. Probably because I was too, I didn't want to ride that far in the morning cause it was cold or whatever. I don't know why it didn't just ride there. But she would drive me to school with the bike in the trunk and then I would lock the bike up at school. Then it was time to leave. I'd ride the bike home. And so I remember it being a long way when I was a kid, but I didn't want to ride the bus, so I would just do that. Just driving it. I was just like, holy shit, this is a long way many miles. And I was 12 and my mom would've had no idea where I was. None at any of those. She's just sitting in her office just tapping away at the computer.
Colin (07:19):
Assume she'd see you later tonight.
Justin (07:20):
Yeah, and I'm just here do a hugely busy boulevard. And I remember I'd ride in this little dirt path next to it and then I have to cross all these huge streets. I mean, I think you'd go to prison now if you let your kids do that. I mean, I can't fathom letting my kids ride their bike on that stretch now, but that's just how it was.
Colin (07:41):
Alright, well, what is Justin doing this weekend as presented by a long weekend coffee? Oh, we are taking suggestions for the future editions of Justin's weekend. If you want to start off your day's adventures and all your weekends the right way and the long weekend coffee, load up on a batch of beans like the secret handshake. Enter the promo code rock tanana checkout to get 10% off your first order long weekend coffee. More weekend please. And
Justin (08:04):
More coffee. More coffee please. And more coffee and more coffee.
Colin (08:06):
Can't have enough coffee. Yeah. All right, let's get into some headlines. Let's
Justin (08:10):
Do it.
Colin (08:11):
All right. So first we have, this is kind of a sad story. Three tours found dead in Mexico. They were shot in the head and their bodies were dumped in a well. Authorities have confirmed officials believe the men were attacked trying to stop the theft of their pickup truck. They were Australian brothers, Jake and Kalen Robinson, 30 and 33, and their American friend Jack Carter Road, who was 30. They disappeared on April 27th while on a surfing trip in Ensenada relative to the three men identified their bodies on Sunday after traveling to Mexico to assist authorities. We don't really get into the kind of, if it bleeds, it leads stories here on the rock flight, but I think we both figured this warranted a conversation. I mean, you've been on surf trips to Baja in the past. How does reading or hearing about something like this factor into your thinking? I guess for any just future trips
Justin (08:57):
Or, no, I'm not going anymore. I mean, this exact thing happened. I thought it was funny. I thought it was like two years ago, but I think it was eight years ago. But basically the same thing. Australians, I don't remember. I think it was just two, maybe not three, a murky circumstances. I think they were deeper into Baja, but really murky circumstances. They don't think they ever really figured out exactly what went wrong or what happened, but same deal. And they were missing for a lot longer. And so there was a little bit of a, it was dragged out, but yeah, I don't think I'm going anymore. It's not really worth it, especially not with a family. I mean, I've been to Baja, I don't know, three or four times on surf trips a couple times really deep into Baja and never felt unsafe at all.
(09:44):
I mean, I'm talking really deep into Baja where it's like a 10 hour drive from the border. No GPS. Back in the olden days, you had a written description of how to get to where you were going, kind of a thing. You turn right at the third cactus passed this guy who might have gas in his truck by the old burnt out church or whatever. And you just kind of trusting it'll be fine. And it always was fine. And we never had any issues other than kind of normal shakedowns from the Pia around places like Ensenada and Tijuana. I did see a dead body on the road in Tijuana on one of her trips, which was gnarly Jesus. But yeah, it used to be you just didn't want to get arrested. That was the main thing. You didn't want to get arrested or say the wrong thing to the cops, so you'd always have money. But we were never worried about someone hurting us other than maybe the insane truck drivers on Highway one, because that is way more terrifying than anything else I've ever experienced in my life. But yeah, things have changed quite a bit. I mean, I guess the cartel violence has really spilled over to affecting everybody else. I mean, from what I understand, and I've done some digging on this story, it it's hard to say. It sounds like it's a
Colin (10:55):
Theft gone wrong is what it sounds like.
Justin (10:57):
Maybe. But I don't dunno. These guys, it sounds like they'd been there before and you're not going to fight off somebody with a gun taking your truck. That doesn't seem right to me. I've read before that oftentimes in these situations, they're just mistaken for either undercover agents or other cartel until they see them or something like that. But I dunno, it could have been something, it could have been as simple as a stolen car, but everything I'm reading now is just saying that it used to be that cartel violence, they would not screw with tourists because they didn't want to add the extra hassle. But now it just seems like it doesn't really matter anymore. But things have gotten a lot worse. I don't know why, but things have gotten a lot worse in Baha in the last two
Colin (11:38):
Years. So have they gotten worse or were you just kind of younger?
Justin (11:41):
No, they've gotten worse. They've gotten worse. I mean, there's State Department warnings about don't go to Baja, and that was never the case back in the olden days. And yeah, I mean your main concern in the past was, I don't want my truck to, or I don't want to get arrested. Nothing like it is now to the point where I was going to go last year for my birthday to do the surf trip on the East Cape of Baja, and I invited a couple of people. One of 'em said yes, and the other guy was like, Nope, absolutely not. It's just not worth it. There's plenty of places you can go where you don't even have to think about it, any kind of crime affecting you. So it's really sad because Baja is a pretty incredible place, and it used to feel like dangerous, but in a sort of a soft, dangerous way.
(12:18):
Like an adventurous, dangerous way. You might get stranded and have to figure it out. Nothing like this. I mean, the problem is you'll run into characters in Baja and you have no idea who they are, what they're doing. Even in the middle of the desert guys will walk up to you and be have little signs and you're like, I don't know what that says. I don't read Spanish that well. And they'll sort of basically tell you, oh, this is our family's land. If you're camping on it, we'd like you to give us some money. And you're just like, all right, fine. Here's $5 or whatever, and that's it. But never was I ever worried about that. But now every time if I went down there, anytime anybody approached me, I'd be freaked out. So nope, not going, these guys didn't do anything wrong. I mean, if you want to go, okay, but I'm not going to.
Colin (12:58):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean definitely condolences to the families and I guess time to start looking at Central America time for more Panama trips.
Justin (13:06):
I mean, it's funny you used to, didn't want to go to El Salvador like Nicaragua, but I've been to Nicaragua and it was super safe. I mean, there's places where you wouldn't want to go. I've been to parts of Panama that used to be completely non, you just couldn't go there at all. Now they're totally safe. So maybe Baja will be like that at some point, but I don't know. I mean, it's weird even compared to the rest of Mexico. Baja feels super if you've never been there. I mean, once you leave Ensenada, I mean it is literally the wild West.
Colin (13:39):
All right. Well, the next thing we had is a story about that we actually talked about a few months ago about the arc to cowboys who are a group of paddlers who made history last year with the first human powered paddle of the Northwest passage, and then had charges filed against them for allegedly violating the Canada National Parks and Migratory birds acts. Well, we got an update this week that all charges have been dropped according to journalists, Jeff Pier and covered in Paddling magazine. At a hearing this past Monday, prosecutors withdrew charges while the court offered no detailed explanation as to why the charges were ultimately dropped. Defense lawyer, Alison Crow commented that it's possible they didn't see a reasonable chance of conviction. So they had about, I think it was 43 or 45 charges per paddler, and it was four of them. So I dunno. Any thoughts?
Justin (14:26):
I don't remember. How did they know where they were? Not the paddlers but the authorities. That's a good question. We talk about that.
Colin (14:34):
I think we did. They were on the island for two weeks. They were iced out. They were.
Justin (14:40):
There can't be any, I mean, it's interesting. I don't think there's any doubt that they were there. So how could they not get convicted? That's weird.
Colin (14:45):
Well, and then I was hoping for more details in the article because it's like charges 45 charges, charges. Probably
Justin (14:50):
Don't want to say why though, because I remember talking about this and thinking, well, it's kind of bullshit. If it was like they didn't have a choice, they were off track or they needed to stay there, and I mean at the same point, you wouldn't even care if you got a ticket. It'd be like fine or a misdemeanor, whatever the charges were. But it's also, I could see the court just being like, well, we can't say that. It seemed like it was probably an accident or they had no choice. Then
Colin (15:20):
Everybody
Justin (15:21):
Would
Colin (15:21):
Say that didn't mess anything up while they were there. Probably.
Justin (15:23):
Yeah, but then everybody could say that. They just be, oh, we're going to do the same thing, and they just pretend like we didn't have a choice and true. So maybe that's probably why they don't release details about that kind of
Colin (15:31):
Thing. I mean, this crew was out trying to do this thing for the first time. They weren't looking to go camp on this island for two weeks. Yeah, they
Justin (15:36):
Can bring a bunch of beers to just go fuck up some migratory birds. I mean, they're the Arctic cowboys after all.
Colin (15:42):
Yeah.
Justin (15:43):
I do remember saying that. I feel like there should be a cooling off period for these kinds of things where you look at it and go, okay, this is bad. We're going to set their charges on the shelf. Okay, we're just going to leave them there, and then we're just going to kind of think about it for a while and see was there any lasting damage? Is anybody else doing it? Does it seem like maybe to just kind of cool off a bit and just see how we feel in a year or two, and I know it hasn't been that long, but maybe that's kind of what happened here.
Colin (16:13):
Maybe the judge got to, it seems, what are we doing here? Everybody does everybody go home? It's like, this is over. Maybe
Justin (16:18):
Some birds in, maybe they had some birds in on the witness stand. The birds were like, they were great. They were fine. They didn't bother
Colin (16:22):
Us. They breadcrumbs. It was a good time.
Justin (16:24):
They didn't lead me astray. I still got to mate. It was great. I really enjoyed meeting these guys,
Colin (16:29):
But I was thinking, is this the climax of the film? Adaptation of the story? They're in the courtroom. Yeah, we beja or is it actually them finishing the paddling of the northwest passage? Where does the film put the triumphant moment?
Justin (16:44):
Good question. I guess it depends on, it's a film about the trial or about the experience. It could be the kind of thing where you think the movie's over, but then it's like a weird 20 minute courtroom processional at the end. Yeah,
Colin (16:59):
Maybe it's like the social network where the whole time they're in the hearing, they're in the courtroom. Keep flashing back. That's what
Justin (17:05):
It'll be. That's what it'll be. Yep. That's scary. You're going to want to talk about the courtroom situation. That's exactly what it's going to
Colin (17:12):
Be like. Right? Then you show them triumphantly finishing the paddle, but then you end the film in the court and then, ah, we beat the charges.
Justin (17:20):
That's the only way you can make this film because nobody else, people wouldn't care enough. What are you doing? People paddle across horrendous things all the time. Critical. Should
Colin (17:30):
We do it? Should we make this movie?
Justin (17:31):
What's weird is, okay, this whole thing is really confusing. Who can write this screenplay and how that all works? We could just write a screenplay based on this story. Oh, sure. And maybe get it sold.
Colin (17:43):
Changes a few details. It was in, we're in Scandinavia instead of Canada. Right.
Justin (17:48):
You just have to beat someone else to it. It's so weird.
Colin (17:51):
Yeah. I mean,
Justin (17:53):
When I sold the rights to the Ralph Platon story I wrote, it's like, I didn't come up with that story.
Colin (17:59):
You know? Could just adapt this yourself.
Justin (18:00):
Right, but you can't, it's weird
Colin (18:02):
Because then you'd be like, I wrote that story and you could sue them
Justin (18:05):
Or whatever. It's so strange.
Colin (18:06):
Well, next thing we had a couple weeks back, we talked about a story coming out of California about ski resorts and the rise of skiing related ER visits. You remember chatting about that? I
Justin (18:14):
Do. Yeah.
Colin (18:16):
We wondered if that was a local thing. We're like, is this our state? Is this happening in California? Well, we have our answer because outside reported this week on a collision that occurred at Jackson Hole Resort where a 71-year-old ski instructor later died after the collision and homicide charges were filed against the uphill skier who caused the collision. In the article, Samantha Berman wrote about the rise of incidents at Colorado ski resorts and our collisions have become more common as ski participation increases coming out of the pandemic. Now I've kind of cheekily poked fun at resort skiing. I don't want to have to pay for my outdoor fun once my gear, I have all my gear. I tell you what, man, just more, and this kind of goes back to the previous story. Do I think I'm going to get killed if I go to a ski resort? No, but it definitely gives me pause about going,
Justin (19:02):
Yeah, you know what I thought about when I saw this was there's a bike path I like to ride that connects a couple of towns in Marin where I am down a little bit further south. It's a really pretty bike path. You don't have to deal with cars. It kind of snakes by, I actually didn't even know it was there for a long time. It's paved, but it goes by a little creek and then it goes by another bigger creek and then an estuary, and it's awesome, but not that long. I want to say maybe a year and a half ago, kind of a similar situation. An older man was killed by somebody on an e-bike that collided with him, and I ride that trail. I ride it with my E-bike occasionally, and obviously my main concern would be, I don't want to hit anybody, but the fact that you can be charged with a homicide for it is really interesting. I don't know what exactly that means. Does that mean manslaughter? Certainly doesn't mean murder charges, but that's a huge, huge deal. I mean, I presume that the courts will probably say that the guy that died knew the risks and he was out there.
Colin (20:07):
They cited a few other instances of this happening, and any other time it happened, it was usually someone that had spent 90 days in jail and they were fired or something like that. It's not like youre going to go to prison for a life if something like this happened, but I mean apparently it was like a blue square. It was an intermediate trail. The person coming downhill. It's like you're on terrain where you need to be aware of who's in front of you at all times anyway. I mean have,
Justin (20:31):
Are you not supposed to go uphill in that? I mean, that seems kind of weird. So someone was skinning up the downhill
Colin (20:37):
Section or something? No, meaning the skier that was uphill. Oh, that
Justin (20:39):
Was above him. Uphill
Colin (20:40):
Above him. It was above him and caused the collision, but my daughter was hit by a snowboarder. Once it happen, especially on busy days, usually there's space. I don't know why you'd be skiing so at such a speed or that much out of control that it could even be a risk that you could run insane into somebody's and cause any sort of injury. Well,
Justin (21:04):
I've wondered often at what point or will I ever have a collision with somebody on a mountain bike trail, whether it's a hiker or another mountain biker and it's never happened. It's never really even come that close. Thankfully, most of the time the trails around here are relatively directional, and so it would be weird if it did, but there are times where you come tired or tired with somebody like holy smokes, but it's never that close, but I have a hard time imagining trying to hold somebody liable for that. You both know that when you're out there that there's going to be other people on the trails. I mean, this is kind of going on in surfing a little bit where people will sue each other for colliding in the water and causing damage to their board or injuring them, and I don't know. Part of me feels like unless you're doing, if you're doing something, I mean, if you're bombing down a hill at a really high rate of speed and you shouldn't be there and you shouldn't be doing that, then I just feel like, yeah, there's a reason to hold you accountable, but for the most part, I tend to think,
Colin (22:02):
Yeah, you sign up for this when you're out there.
Justin (22:04):
Yeah, it
Colin (22:05):
Can happen.
Justin (22:06):
This is dumb risk, right? This is something you can't really plan for this. I guess you kind of can in skiing, you just be more aware, but for the most part, totally, yeah. It's not like these are freak risk things that you can't really prepare for.
Colin (22:20):
Yeah. I think the big takeaway from the skier one is just the rise. I mean the California story now hearing about this and it's just like there are more of these injuries starting to happen, and I don't know what the solve there is. I mean, on the surface you'd say more people skiing better for the economy, good for the snow sports industry. All that's not a bad thing, but there needs to be probably some level, some way to address it, whether it's a crackdown on the mountain from ski patrol of people who are out there. Maybe it's more patrollers. I mean, God, everyone's paying so much for passage. What
Justin (22:49):
About is no skiers?
Colin (22:52):
Well, now that's my
Justin (22:53):
Language solution. That's the solution. I'm trying
Colin (22:55):
To extend an olive branch you, you're drawing me right back into fun ski. That's the solution uphill only if you want to get to the top, you got a skin, skin only. Ski
Justin (23:06):
Resorts the only way.
Colin (23:09):
Yeah. Well, I feel bad obviously for this person's family. I feel bad for the person. He obviously wasn't intending to hit this guy. Yeah, totally. I'm sure. But anyway, we'll see how this plays out. We got a couple Everest updates. It's been a particularly busy Everest season, so two updates this week. First is from Explorers Web who reports that despite last week's high winds and which decimated tens at camps, one and two more challenges continue to crop up as ice collapses in the Icefall and rocks were falling off the load sea face, which is slowing progress. I've
Justin (23:43):
Heard that that will happen more with climate, like the rocks falling off the face. Yeah, that's crazy.
Colin (23:49):
That's nuts. I guess Camp four had also had dealt with some high winds in the last week. The second story was also on outside and the cost. It was about the cost of removing dead bodies from the mountain there. I should have asked you this as a quiz. There aren't estimated 200 dead climbers on Everest and mounting a recovery mission to get one off the mountain can cost anywhere from 75 to $85,000 per body.
Justin (24:14):
How is that possible?
Colin (24:17):
My only real takeaway from these was I just kind of wish, can we just stop covering the climbing season so then maybe it can go back to being a destination for actual alpinists instead of just rich people who want to brag about climbing a mountain. We've talked about it before. I don't get the Allure 200 bodies and that article. They're kind of quoting like, yeah, it's really tough pudding. It's really, people have a tough time with it and you're like climbing up a mountain. It's a dead body over there.
Justin (24:41):
Yeah, I mean, of course it's off budget.
Colin (24:44):
Right, and then, oh,
Justin (24:46):
Go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, I saw something the other day about the numbers of permits like this year and last year and everything like that, and it just still continues to just kind of climb. At some point, something's going to have to be done. I mean, I guess, yeah, obviously they're doing a bit about you can't poop there. They're doing more trash pickups. Everybody has to bring trash with them, all that kind of stuff. But what happens here? What's the ultimate thing? I mean, I think it actually probably be what I've kind of laid out is at some point they're going to have to just close it for a while and just kind of let it
Colin (25:18):
Recover. I'm on board with that. I mean, I got to think for you as the same when I was a kid, hearing about somebody climbing Mount Everest was not even, it was an absolute equivalent as like, oh, that person went to the moon.
Justin (25:29):
Totally. That was
Colin (25:30):
Like, oh my really? Oh my God would be That's Buzz Aldrin. Yeah. Now it's just sad. It's sad because I don't know why you want to go do it. Just like
Justin (25:44):
If you're a mountaineer. I'm sure it holds all lure even despite all the stuff that we've just said. I mean, it's probably something you fixated on for your whole life. I met any serious mountaineer probably attempts ever since some point. Right. What's interesting is about humanity that you can hold two totally different and equally true thoughts in your head at the same time. Because thinking right now about how western culture for the most part doesn't really have a sacred space, a space where you just do not go. I mean, I don't think that really exists.
Colin (26:14):
Detroit I think is,
Justin (26:17):
It's a sacred place. Sorry,
Colin (26:18):
Detroit.
Justin (26:19):
That was a blow. Blow. I mean, there's places where you're like, oh, I don't want to go someone else's bedroom, but I mean an actual
Colin (26:25):
Sacred, not for sacred reasons. You just say, oh, you don't cross that line a plane.
Justin (26:29):
Certain parts of certain churches maybe. I don't know. It's not my thing, but for the most part, and I kind of think that's cool. I'm sorry. The concept of a sacred space is cool. I wish we did have these places that are like, this is reserved for, nobody needs to do this. Nobody needs to go here. This place is too important for people to screw up or whatever. For whatever reason, we've just decided that no one's going to go there and that's going to be for the gods or the spirits or anything. I think that's awesome. At the same time, I get why you would feel like I get to go wherever the fuck I want on this planet. I have one life to live. Nobody owns the land. Well, they do, but you know what I mean. Nobody has a right to the top of the world. I deserve to go there and I don't really care what you have to say about it. I can also understand that argument, so it's just interesting. I mean, I do really think that they should probably shut it down for a while because it's also weird. Too much
Colin (27:33):
Money.
Justin (27:34):
How is it? Well, of course, but it is kind weird that we just have this sort of belief that I deserve to go anywhere. Well, it's very
Colin (27:42):
American belief.
Justin (27:42):
It's very American. It's also a huge thing in the outdoor community, and I don't necessarily love that about us. This view. I mean, I kind of have that. We were talking about it over the weekend where I live. It's almost entirely open space that's open to the public, but there's places that aren't, and I really want to get up there like, no, fuck you. I can go everywhere, but not your hill. That's not cool.
Colin (28:01):
Right?
Justin (28:01):
But at the same time, it is a bit, this is something I think about with the Overland community a lot, which is like you shouldn't be able to drive anywhere you want. That's not cool. Yeah, cool that your rig can drive over lots of crazy stuff and out in the middle of the deserts and stuff, but maybe you shouldn't be. Why do you think that you get to do that? And I do think that it's, at least it's worth reflecting on that we have this in the adventure outdoor space. We have this belief that we can go anywhere like the Arctic Cowboys, maybe the crime there was just going, you know what? There's a chance that we're going to end up in this migratory bird area if we do this, and maybe we won't, but we might, and that's not cool, and so we're just not going to go. I do think there should be more reflection generally speaking about things like that.
Colin (28:48):
Sure. No, I agree with that.
Justin (28:49):
Ever is obviously a big part of it, like you know that you're going to be causing more harm to one of the most fragile places in the world just so you can have your moment on top of the peak.
Colin (29:00):
I don't know. All right. Well, let's leave Everest alone, everybody,
Justin (29:03):
Even though we've covered it just now.
Colin (29:05):
God, I know God damnit it. I did
Justin (29:07):
Exactly. Someone's email. Someone's going to email. You
Colin (29:10):
Said you don't want to
Justin (29:10):
Cover Everest, but you just talked about it for 15 minutes.
Colin (29:14):
Well, funny you mentioned listener emails because today we're answering the bell with the return of Pickleball Corner. It's back because multiple listeners have asked when we're going to poke the pickleball pair, and so this week a story came up that I thought was appropriate because this week's sandal maker Ode Kai announced the release of their new pickleball shoe. Yes, the pickleball shoe. Now, I have two thoughts on this one, pickleball players could play barefoot. You barely move when you're playing, so don't tell me they need specific shoes. All right. This an attempt. This is a category cash grab. I played
Justin (29:47):
Barefoot tennis. It's not
Colin (29:49):
There. That's tennis. It's not
Justin (29:50):
Particularly fun,
Colin (29:53):
So the number two thought on this is just stay in your lane. Akai, we talked about this. We recorded our new beer and gear yesterday. We mentioned it on that as well. Even if we need pickleball shoes, I don't think we need them from Akai. I mean, you could give Akai a 10 year headstart on owning the pickleball shoe market and a Nike or an Adidas would show up and just blow them out of the water. It'd just be like, Hey, I have my Oli Kais. Oh, Nike has them now. Oh, nevermind. I'll go buy my Nikes. I think this is a perfect example is one of the reasons why I want to bring it up as much as I want to make fun of pickleball, but when we say we make too much stuff, this is the best example of it because Akai is an established brand. They've proven themselves. They're like, Hey, we want to make really good high quality sandals,
Justin (30:33):
But they make other shoes though. They make shoes and boots.
Colin (30:36):
Probably they shouldn't. They should probably make really good
Justin (30:39):
Flip. I didn't know that until 30 seconds ago. I assume they only made examples,
Colin (30:43):
But it's like that's why this is how we end up with new stuff Akai has proven of as a concept for one thing, and they're like, Hey, we're going to do this thing now. Now they're going to make pickleball shoes. I and I guess look, even if they get established, they're still just making all, I guarantee you, it's going to be a lot of unwanted shoes selling at a discount. Just be who you are, man. Why can't people just be who they are?
Justin (31:04):
We need to make it, I don't know how we were going to do this, but we need to make it cool to wear things that aren't necessarily designed for what you're doing. You know what I mean? We need to make that cool again, remember when you just had, well, we don't remember because we're not old enough. You just have a pair of Chuck Taylors and you might be a Wilt Chamberlain and you might be a kid down the street, but this is the shoes that you had same shoe, and you wore that shoe to ride bikes and a play basketball,
Colin (31:30):
And then you had a pair of dress
Justin (31:31):
Shoes and people were fine,
Colin (31:33):
And it was okay.
Justin (31:34):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I
Colin (31:36):
Get the fashion aspect of footwear and I definitely played, I see shoes. I'm like, oh, that'd be cool. I'd like to have those shoes, but I don't believe for a second that we need pickleball
Justin (31:47):
Shoes. I know for sure that you don't need pickleball shoes. I mean, you do not need them. I played competitive tennis and I owned one pair of actual shoes made for tennis, and they were a little bit better than just regular athletic shoes, but not a ton. It wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't like win matches. I had the right shoes.
Colin (32:07):
Are you looking at the new pickleball? I'm looking. I'm looking at it. They're hideous. By the way. That is a pay less Nike knockoff from 1992.
Justin (32:17):
Also 140 bucks. Dude,
Colin (32:18):
Fuck that. Come on. Come
Justin (32:21):
On. It has breathable sport mesh. Oh,
Colin (32:23):
Shut
Justin (32:23):
Up and soft lining for all day wear and a high grip, durable outsole.
Colin (32:29):
These are terrible.
Justin (32:32):
What I was excited about until now was I just assumed that the Akai pickleball shoe was a sandal.
Colin (32:38):
Oh, see. Missed opportunity, Akai. That's exactly what it should have been.
Justin (32:42):
I just assumed, I was shocked that it was just a closed towed shoe, but I also didn't realize they already made closed towed shoes. I thought they just made sandals, but yeah, could have been a badass. That would've made sense. I guess still we wouldn't need it, but at least it was a differentiator.
Colin (32:57):
It's the same look at Chacos line. This is where we talked about on gear and beer when we did Bedrock. It's like, don't expand anymore. I said, it'd be great to have a flip flop from Bedrock. I still would like to have that. If they don't want to make it great, don't start making shoes. Just be bedrock. Make the most awesome sandals that are out there. Taco is making Chelsea boots and stuff like that, and it's like, anyway, okay, I'm going to settle down
Justin (33:24):
Now. It's funny because the AJ podcast, basically at the end of most of them, it's like I always felt like we're just a few minutes away from just advocating for Buddhism because so much of that podcast ends up being about just being happy with whatever, and I feel like ours ends up being at the end of it is like, well, anyway, comrade, I'm going back to the communist because we don't know. I mean, the thing is, is we don't really know enough about what happens if Achie just made sandals. I mean, a lot of people would lose their jobs at a certain
Colin (33:55):
Point, but if they never made 'em in the first place, those jobs wouldn't exist.
Justin (33:57):
Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah.
Colin (34:00):
No, look, I am,
Justin (34:01):
There's been a lot of good commentary about the shit, the Ene movie from Patagonia, which I still haven't watched, but on LinkedIn, and it's basically the same argument that we have with each other when we talk about Patagonia in general, because plenty of people who are too many skews and other people that are like, yeah, but they're effective altruist stuff works really well, but at the end of the day, nobody has any idea. A lot of times people end up saying, but you know what? It's like if we change all this, millions of people lose their jobs in overnight without obvious solutions to
Colin (34:32):
That. I dunno, millions, but
Justin (34:33):
Honestly, probably. I mean, think about how many things don't need to exist at all, whether it's an actual physical product or a software package or whatever, and it's like if we start pairing things down to what we actually need and all of a sudden we need nine people, I mean, that's kind of what the AI revolution's all about, right?
Colin (34:48):
It is. I think though, but you're kind of, then at some point it is because everything's snowballing. My point about this isn't to tell people at Akai, they shouldn't have a job. It's to say, why does Sierra get to open 30 new stores? It's because people were making pickleball shoes, and it's like if AKA just had stayed being Akai, what made them great? Yeah, I'm sure they'd have less revenue. Yeah, they'd employ fewer people, but why? What's wrong? They'd probably be, I don't know. Maybe they'd be less profitable. I don't know. I don't know the inner workings of this. I just see this as an example of the inner workings of Akai. I just see this as an example when you see these expansions that really don't make much sense and probably won't work. I could be wrong. We could be two years from now, I could be eating Kro going, holy shit. OCA is owning the pickleball market, and
Justin (35:33):
It still would be annoying. I hadn't thought about this until just right now. What's interesting is, okay, so if you're a shoe designer and you work for Akai, you have to be advocating for new shoes. Otherwise, why do you have a job? Absolutely, and all the people that support that too have to be involved with it, but in the same way that we have meetings once a week. Okay, what are we going to talk about on the pod this week? It is. It's not any different than someone going, oh, shit, we have to design a new shoe. It's been a month or whatever. It's been 18 months. We don't
Colin (36:01):
Pollute a river to produce a podcast, but yes,
Justin (36:04):
I just had never thought about before. What do you do if you're, it'd be interesting to see, okay, so if it was with a boot maker or there's really no reason to change, you could probably just contract out your shoe design once every year or two if you want to make an iterative change. It's interesting. I never thought about
Colin (36:23):
This before. Look at feral wetsuits, right? We talked about on gear and beer, how they are like, Hey, it's Alex and Buzz.
Justin (36:27):
Yeah, yeah,
Colin (36:28):
Right, and they're fine, but they're making one thing with a few iterations of one thing, so it makes sense. No, I'm actually, this is a great way to tease it because recording some Friday, I haven't even started writing it yet, but Wednesday's episode next week I'm titling it the so what of sustainability because they, not to spoil it and you're going to hear us on Monday, come back on Wednesday. Here are my full thoughts on it, but consumers can't be relied on to fix this. We are.
Justin (36:53):
No, we're
Colin (36:54):
Value driven, right? Brands really, we can be critical and I will continue to be Mostly, I'm critical though. It's less about even the ethical bit of making too much stuff. It's just like this doesn't make much sense from a brand point of view for me, and it's just like I tried a clear cash grab than it is a really good strategic decision for Akai. Brands are businesses. Their motivation is to make money. That's why they exist. We ended up putting probably more on them than we should in the outdoor space. We want them to fix things and not do the dumb things that they do, but they're like, that's what they exist to do, that the only way any of this really gets fixed is through regulation and legislation. That is the only way this changes, so I'll talk more about that on Wednesday.
Justin (37:41):
Are you going to sponsor some legislation?
Colin (37:44):
Well, it's just if you're going to spend your time getting angry about stuff or posting about things and Oh, a brand should do less or people should do better. It's like, ah, maybe write some letters to your senators or work to get people elected. That has been proven to work in the past. There has been change in the past. Now it's difficult, but it's really the only thing that has worked
Justin (38:05):
Previously. Yeah, that's all part of Pickleball Corner. That's what you see. We could have had that whole conversation while playing pickleball.
Colin (38:10):
Yeah, and you know what, actually, I'll go full the other way on this. If Croc starts making pickleball shoes, because
Justin (38:17):
At that point how do they not do? Should we check? You can get pickleball charms or whatever. Anyway. Well,
Colin (38:24):
All right. I guess we can wrap it up there kind of a downer of a show today, everybody. We had a
Justin (38:30):
Lot of rough stuff in the news this week. It's our fault. We get what the news serves us.
Colin (38:34):
That's true. That's true. Hope you enjoyed it. What's going on with you and a new AJ coming out soon, right?
Justin (38:39):
New AJ coming out? I think we got the proofs yesterday, so it probably goes to the printer for real, real next week.
Colin (38:46):
That's crazy. I feel like I just got the last one. That's awesome.
Justin (38:49):
That's how it works, man. Four year.
Colin (38:51):
All right, well that's it for the day. Thanks for listening. The rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight LLC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening and here to take us out. I think he's here. Is he here, Chris?
Justin (39:02):
How he came in?
Colin (39:04):
Come on man. They're waiting for you. Krista MAs going to sing the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock fight.
Chris DeMakes (39:10):
Rock fight. Rockside. Here we go into the rock fight where we speak our truth, stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power outdoor activities. They're pick bikes about topics that we find interesting. Black, my culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas for the, this is where we Speak Truth. This is where we speak Truth. Bike. Bike. Welcome to the.