Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) it's time for a round of outdoor headlines!
Come along as Colin & Justin run through stories to come out of the outdoor industry and community including the following:
A new edition of More with Thermore! (08:03)
A 4 year old sets a record for the youngest hiker to hike all of New Hampshire's 4000' peaks. Badass or a little much? (15:05)
Patagonia develops an end of life solution for their wetsuits. (26:11)
Are you more productive working in a cabin or in an office? (34:02)
Head to www.rockfight.co and sign up for News From the Front, Rock Fight's weekly newsletter!
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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 Tru, and joining me today, there's only one firecracker I want in my life this 4th of July, and his name is Justin Hausman.
Justin (00:24):
I'm so ready to just not light fireworks on fire. Did you do that as a kid?
Colin (00:31):
Well, yeah. You grew up in California. Have you ever been able to have the home?
Justin (00:33):
Yeah, when I was a little kid, very little in the San Joaquin Valley, yes we could. So we'd go get the ground bloom flowers and the pistol Peets,
Colin (00:43):
But just the little sparkler kinds. You didn't have good ones, right? Well,
Justin (00:47):
I dunno. Ground bloom flowers are pretty dope. You remember what those are?
Colin (00:50):
They're the ones that spin. Yeah,
Justin (00:53):
Those are cool. And the ones that do big fountains of sparks and colored sparks didn't
Colin (00:57):
Get nothing
Justin (00:57):
That shoots into the air.
Colin (00:58):
Yeah, you didn't get anything like that. No bottle
Justin (00:59):
Rockets? No. No bottle rockets. I mean, you could have, I just didn't, but I still get a little thrill of seeing the shitty plywood stores that sell fireworks and stuff. I won't see 'em now because I'm not going usually. I usually go somewhere this week and on the way out of town after the valley, I'll see all those firework stores and I should stop. But yeah,
Colin (01:20):
So Pennsylvania was kind of similar. They had the only on the ground ones that were a little sparkler things. So my brothers and I would make homemade fireworks where we would dissect all the, we we'd take, come 'em apart and put all the powder in the various bottles or whatnot to see what would happen.
Justin (01:36):
And that's why you only have eight fingers.
Colin (01:40):
And there was this one year, my brother Chris took a old pert bottle or pert shampoo, which is, it has a very narrow, what's that? It was
Justin (01:49):
A two in one shampoo, air conditioner in
Colin (01:50):
One, a shampoo and conditioner. So he had it half filled. He spent days filling it with sparkler dust and the spinners and everything else. And then he stuck a sparkler in the hole where the shampoo would come out and lit it up and we had it in our street. And basically because whatever reason, it imploded because there was a lack of oxygen or we thought it was just going to melt and shoot stuff up in the air. The whole thing shot in the air and exploded in midair and it was the best thing
Justin (02:16):
Ever. Oh, like an actual firework.
Colin (02:17):
Yeah, but we had no idea it was going to happen. And then of course then we tried to recreate that and we could never make it happen again. So it was like a one of one, but
Justin (02:23):
That was pretty funny. So I tend to forget every year that people get super into blowing stuff up and I'll be like, oh, I wonder if we'll go look at the, around here. It's not super easy to get to a fireworks display.
Colin (02:34):
You don't have one in your town. They don't do a fireworks
Justin (02:36):
Display. Not in this little town they do in San Rafael, but it's kind of hard to get to it, I'm sure. Well, I won't be here, I'll be camping, but my wife might take the girls. I don't know. But I'm always like, oh yeah, when you start hearing all the regular illegal fireworks going off around town, you're like, oh, that's right. But also though, here it's like that doesn't really happen in the woods. We're so fire conscious. If anybody busts out a firework around here, the entire town would tackle them and beat them to death. It's not cool.
Colin (03:06):
But our town does a nice job. We'll probably end up going to this, the park nearby where they set 'em off. It's actually the park where they do their fireworks display is the same one that the San Diego Mountain Bike Association just opened. A giant new mountain bike park or bike park.
Justin (03:19):
You lucky bastard.
Colin (03:20):
Oh man, it's so dope.
Justin (03:21):
I have some good news to report on that front, which is that, so famously Marin County hates mountain bikes Mount Tam, the birthplace in some ways of mountain biking is almost completely closed off to mountain bikes. But after decades of advocacy work and honestly just like an aging out of the original sort of hiking lobbyists, the Mount Tamal Pius watershed, so that's Mount Tam is Mount Tamal Pius. And the district or the governing body of the watershed, just like a couple days ago, released a pilot program, which we knew was coming, opening up some of the existing hiking trails to bikes. But it's a pilot program, so we're just going to see how it goes. But nobody knew what the trails were going to be for a while, and most of us were like, oh, they're going to open the dumbest ones, right? Ones that nobody, but there's a few, there's a great one called Northside, one called International that are two of the most coveted pooches in the county. They're both on there. We're shocked. And there's like 15 trails that they're going to open in mountain bikes, most of which are the ones that you want to ride. And we are just like, holy shit is happening. That is such a huge deal. Huge deal. I mean, people ride those trails anyway. I do too. I mean they're poaches, but this is amazing. There's never been even a millimeter of ground seeded by the people that control the watershed to bikes ever, ever. So we're all just shocked. It's amazing.
Colin (04:54):
Wow, man.
Justin (04:55):
Yeah, very excited about it.
Colin (04:57):
Marin County finally going to be a mountain biking spot. Well, we'll see. Insane until day one when some idiot mountain biker mouths off to the old
Justin (05:03):
Laker. That's the thing. They're all, so they're all be extremely cool over the next few months. That doesn't start until I think August or September where you can start legally riding on them. But everybody's just like, okay, they've also already said they're going to crack down way harder on poachers, not on those trails. The whole point is get people off the illegal trails. Yep.
Colin (05:21):
Play nice there. Northern California mountain bikers, please play nice man. Don't ruin it for everybody else.
Justin (05:27):
These are trails that are such a bitch to get to if you're hiking that. I've never seen a hiker on these trails ever. I I'm sure people do. Yeah. I mean you might see trail runners, but it's like miles of fire road walking just to get, they
Colin (05:40):
Made a good choices. And if there are already sort of low frequency like trails, then open those up first. It's
Justin (05:46):
Just a refreshing news. I mean, it's great.
Colin (05:49):
All right, there we go. Well, today we are going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines that come out of the outdoor industry and community.
Justin (05:55):
That's the most notable. That's it. That's we're
Colin (05:57):
Done. Done. Show's over.
Justin (05:58):
Show's over. That's it.
Colin (05:59):
Headlines we're going to talk about include a little kid who climbed a whole bunch of mountains and Patagonia's new wetsuit recycling program. But before we get to that, we want to ask you if you haven't yet, please follow and rate the rock fight wherever you're listening on any podcast app, please also leave us that five star rating. And if you're an Apple Podcast listener,
Justin (06:17):
What's six star rating?
Colin (06:18):
If you, you know what up ones and zeros. Zeros and ones getting in their that shit. Why does this one podcast have six stars and no one else does? How hard
Justin (06:25):
Could it be?
Colin (06:26):
Yeah, they're that good. But if you're an Apple Podcast listener and you left us a written review last month, your stickers will arrive and the next couple of weeks and if you didn't leave us a written review, we understand, okay, we're not mad about it. But you could do it now. There's no reason why you can't do it now. So please do it now. And I know, Justin, that you have the answers to how our listeners can follow along and reach out to us.
Justin (06:48):
Oh, I have the answers to a lot more than that, but that's what you want to hear right now. The
Colin (06:52):
Answers. Yeah, let's go with that. We'll start there and then we'll get into the bigger stuff.
Justin (06:55):
Alright, well you know what the kids are into these days, Colin,
Colin (06:58):
What's that?
Justin (06:59):
Social media. I'm hearing this more and more. You know what this is? This social media. Have you heard of this?
Colin (07:05):
This just came out.
Justin (07:06):
Well it is to me. Yeah, I thought well, okay. Yeah, we're over on Instagram. If you want to talk to us over there@rockfight.co, that's our Instagram handle@rockfight.co. You can also old school email us at my rock fight@gmail.com. We like a nice snappy subject line there. So don't our click rate's pretty good, but we will definitely read it if you have a badass subject line in there. And then you should read our newsletters. It comes out every Sunday. Once you finish with the Sunday New York Times, you put that down, put old gray lady away and then you go ahead and read the Rock Fight newsletter and you can sign up for that@rockfight.co. We have a little mailing list joiner of her and joiner of her joiner.
Colin (07:53):
See, you're catching my making up words disease.
Justin (07:55):
Yeah, you're right. Anyway, join the mailing list. You don't need to make up a fake word for that. You can just join the mailing list.
Colin (08:03):
Alright man. You know what it's time for, right?
Justin (08:06):
Is it time for more with Themore Colin? It's
Colin (08:07):
Time for more with Themore, our weekly segment presented by Themore, who's the original ingredient brand providing installation solutions from Middle Italy since 1972. So for this segment today, I was thinking paddling.com ran a story this week by guy named Tom Gaffey titled was Don't Be That Guy this summer where they ran through a bunch of paddling.
Justin (08:28):
Yeah, I saw that. Did you see that one? I saw that one, yeah. Yeah. They were
Colin (08:30):
Listing out paddling scenarios where bad decisions were made surrounding life jackets or PFDs. It kind of make you look like a dumb ass if you make those decisions. Things like just not wearing it or it's too tight or the zippers are broken or whatever. So I thought we could have some other examples of being that guy so we can shame these people. Throw a few rocks at some of these folks, not like it's a or a noob move that's defensible. You don't know yet.
Justin (08:58):
They don't know what they're doing,
Colin (09:00):
But it's when you know better.
Justin (09:00):
This is somebody who's willfully being kind of either dangerous to themselves or others or just being ridiculous.
Colin (09:07):
He clearly has been out here before and you're like, what are you doing? So don't be that guy. Why are you being that guy? Yes.
Justin (09:13):
Don't be that guy or that girl.
Colin (09:15):
Do you have a one off top of the dome or do you want me to kick it out
Justin (09:17):
Off the top of my head, yes. I mean you already have a surfing one on here, but this only applies to where you live in, well actually this probably applies to the east coast too. The black zone zone. But yes, and it's surfing related and it's don't paddle out at the one spot. There's other people. If you're at a beach and there's a million different sandbars and you see two guys sitting by themselves and you decide I'm just going to paddle right out to those guys. Don't do that. Never do that. Ever, ever. Go get your own peak.
Colin (09:48):
There's other places, the ocean's, big other places
Justin (09:50):
To surf. The
Colin (09:51):
Ocean's very big.
Justin (09:52):
Yeah, we found that peak. That's where we're going to surf right now. You go find your own peak please.
Colin (09:58):
Yeah, and like you alluded, so we have on our busy beaches down here in the summertime and it's only between whatever, it's like nine and five is whenever the lifeguards are out, there are surf zones and swim zones and it's clearly marked and there's a million different things they put on the beach to indicate where you're supposed to go. And I don't care if you're a tourist, I don't care if you've never seen the ocean before in your life. So this is actually where I go back on what I'm saying. And if a K or new move here applies, there's a sign that says you're not supposed to be there. Now if you go dragging your rented foamy into the area that is just littered with kids and people that are just enjoying going out and enjoying the beach on a summer day and trying to start catching waves, you're going to hurt somebody. Don't do that. Don't do that. Bad idea. Go what you're supposed to surf.
Justin (10:44):
I'm going to read one that you already, well, I guess these aren't just for, they're not
Colin (10:48):
For everybody.
Justin (10:48):
They're up for grads. The hiking up mountains with zero gear provisions. I can't remember where we were, but I will never forget this. My wife and I were on a hike, I really don't remember where we were. It wasn't here. It was somewhere very mountainous and pretty remote. And we encountered these two people and we had day packs with water and stuff and food and a map. And it was a long day hike, like a 12, 15 mile day hike that required multiple junction navigating navigation points. Good lord I can't talk today. Anyway, and we encountered these two people and they asked if we had any water. That was the first thing they said to us, do you have any water? And we said, yeah, do you have any water? They had nothing. And so we let 'em drink a little bit of water and we were just like, where are you guys going? And they kind of had a vague idea
(11:44):
And we were like, well, okay, where you're going does lead that way. But it's like a long, long way from here. Do you have a map? There's no cell service, no water, no snacks. They didn't have any clothing for if it got cold. And we were like, why don't you the guys just come with us? We know we have a map, we have a place that we're going. It's mostly downhill from here and it's shorter. Like, well we just came from there. I'm like, yeah, but you dude, this is a bad idea. And they insisted they went and I
Colin (12:15):
Don't, maybe the kook can noob thing. We have to acknowledge that like, nah, don't be that guy even if you are a K.
Justin (12:24):
Also, at that point they stopped becoming noobs because I was explaining to them, look, you don't have water. This is a long ways to go. You're not going to find water any if you do, you don't have a filter. This is just a bad idea. They insisted this
Colin (12:35):
Is how you get on the news.
Justin (12:37):
Yeah, for all I know they were, I don't know.
Colin (12:40):
They didn't go with you guys.
Justin (12:41):
Nope. Nope. They kept going.
Colin (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, just don't be that guy.
Justin (12:46):
Yeah, don't be that guy. The
Colin (12:47):
Last one I had was the guy you see or the G you see climbing up the big steep climb on their mountain bike with their helmet off. I've never understood that. I guess you're like, I'm going uphill. I
Justin (12:57):
Do that. I do that.
Colin (12:58):
What
Justin (12:59):
If it's hot because it gets so
Colin (13:00):
Sweaty. What are you saving? Are you really Now it doesn't make
Justin (13:04):
That much of a difference always. I don't always do it, but I do it sometimes. But if it's something I've climbed a bunch and I've never fallen on this climb in my life,
Colin (13:13):
It's not even falling. If it's a one-way trail, fine. But if it's a two-way trail, somebody can come from reading on the corner and take you out.
Justin (13:20):
That's true. That's true. And the situation I'm thinking of is a one-way trail and so that is true.
Colin (13:25):
Well, we know about, you're not a fan of helmets, your anti helmet. I'm
Justin (13:29):
Not famous
Colin (13:30):
Famously anti helmet. I
Justin (13:31):
Don't wear helmets around town
Colin (13:33):
Where the cars are
Justin (13:35):
Where the big scary death machines are. Yes, yes. I let that flow, man. I got to let my hair flow.
Colin (13:43):
That's right. You guys should see Justin's mullet. The NHL playoffs really inspired him. Well today's episode of the rock flight is presented by the original ingredient brand thermo who wants you to get more out of your outdoor adventures and encourages you to not be that guy who forgets to pack a warm jacket during your summer trips. Thermo is the maker of products like Eco Down, which you'll find on the insides of the Mammot Albea in hybrid jacket. And look guys, we might be in the middle of a nationwide heat wave here in the US but there are plenty of places that you're planning to go where it gets cold at night no matter what season we're in, right? That's right. You're going high in the mountains this weekend. There's a heat wave in California happening actively. You're going to be cold if don't take
Justin (14:22):
Jacket with you, I'm going to be cold. Yeah, I think the last I saw the high was 48 on a couple of nights, which is not cold, but I'm going to be wanting a jacket. You
Colin (14:30):
Want to have a jacket
Justin (14:31):
Up, sit outside at 48 with no jacket on. So
Colin (14:33):
If you're like Justin and that's where you're headed this summer, pick up the Mammot a bula in hybrid jacket at REI. It's filled with Thermo Eco down, like we told you before. Eco Down is a sustainable alternative to down made from a hundred percent post-consumer plastic bottles. And wherever you find eco down, that jacket will keep you toasty warm on those frigid alpine mornings. And you know what else then you'll be ready for fall and winter. That's
Justin (14:55):
Right. You're ahead of the game. Multiple jackets. Yeah. Yeah.
Colin (14:58):
Alright, so do more in the outdoors this summer with Themore.
(15:05):
Alright, well first up, today according to outside online, 4-year-old Lydia Pearson has summited all 48 of New Hampshire's mountains that are 4,000 feet or higher. Over the course of doing so, Lydia traversed more than 300 miles and over a hundred thousand feet. Her mother started carrying her up these mountains when she was a baby and as soon as Lydia was able to walk, she started hiking them herself. And according to the Appalachian Mountain Club, she is indeed the youngest person to accomplish this feat, which is a peak bagger list. The people in the New England area typically pursue, I think longtime listeners will probably know where I'm going with this that maybe 30 years from now Lydia is a well-adjusted and accomplished adult who looks back on these adventures as formative to her success. But I think there's a few red flags in this sort of endeavor. What are your initial thoughts before I start going off
Justin (15:53):
On? First of all, Lydia is a good name. Good name. And I wish I would've thought of that when we were naming our daughters, although I'm pretty happy with their names, but Lydia is good. Yeah, it is a good name. Okay. Considering I have a five-year-old and a two and a half year old right
Colin (16:07):
Now. Yeah, you're right there.
Justin (16:09):
My first thought is Jesus Christ. I don't know how I cannot imagine this. I really can't. I mean, my five-year-old is pretty game and is love running around and stuff, but dude, she's not climbing anything. I mean, I can't, well a hundred thousand feet. I mean
(16:33):
I just can't imagine my daughter doing it, but I'm not quite as convinced as you that this is going to, she's being dragged against her will or this is going to result in some sort of future trauma. I don't know. Some kids love doing shit before other kids do. I mean, there's a part of me that's like, gosh, the cool thing, I wish that the only thing I started doing at four years old is throw a ball and I'm really good at that now, but it would be awesome had I learned to surf or learned to mountain bike or all these sorts of things at four. I mean, so I don't know. There could be some good stuff here. And can you imagine dragging a 4-year-old up a mountain shows that want to go up? She probably wanted to, don't you think?
Colin (17:18):
Totally. And according to what they talk about in the article, yes. I think the red flags to me are less that this happened. I think if the facts laid it out, she's been going up since she was in a kid carrier. This is what they do. Her mother is an ultra runner, so this is a big part of what they do. And this is, I think the same thing I said the last time we talked about this, which was well over a year ago when I saw a family who was out in central Utah with doing an incredibly burly mountain bike ride with some young kids.
(17:50):
Her mom's quoted in the article saying the outdoors as all Lydia knows, and basically implying that this is also her choice. And I'm like, well she's four, so all kids know is what the parents have them do. Of course this what's her choice. Listen, I'm not trying, there's a lot of nuance here. I'm not just saying nothing's all bad or all good. I understand the good parts of the immersion in nature, the exposure to it, being comfortable with these things, of course all that will pay off. And I look back, I'm like, I probably could have done a little more of that with my own kids, but I do think there is something to be discussed of what she's not doing because they're doing this. I think. No,
Justin (18:30):
That's true. That's true. Because I will tell anybody who asks, I'm not planning on teaching my girls to surf If they want to learn, if they approach me and say, Hey dad, I'd love to learn how to surf. Okay, we can do that if they, same thing with fishing, but I mean I might offer it, Hey, would you like to try this and see what they say? But it's not something I'm going to decide, okay, now we're going to do this. And I see this a lot with accomplished surfers having their kids. They're like, can't swim on their board in the ocean. And I'm like, I get the impulse, but I dunno, I don't want to be that kind of parent. But I also, I dunno. I guess I feel, I guess I feel like there's not a lot of downside to this, but I do know what you're getting at.
(19:16):
Whereas the kid doesn't have a choice. I'm an ultrarunner, so therefore you're going to do all this stuff too. Yeah, I don't know that's, that's not how I choose to go about introducing my kids to stuff. We talked to Brendan the other day about how I had all these grandiose plans to go backpacking with my babies and stuff, and that's really hard. I mean, that's a big, big deal. Sure, lots of people do it, but I mean I realize quickly that's actually not as much of a priority as I thought it would be. And so for me, it's hard to imagine being so single-mindedly focused on a thing that my toddler's going to do it with me no matter what. That's hard to believe. It's hard to imagine, but I don't know that it's a bad thing. It is just so far from how I would approach it.
Colin (20:00):
It's a weird thing because anytime you're talking about parenting and kids and everything, it becomes touchy and everybody has their own journey they have to go through and no one wants to hear you weigh in on their parenting techniques. So I even thought about that when I was adding this to the outline of like, is this too hot? Is this one we shouldn't even touch? But I do think it's on us. My philosophy, personal philosophy is exposure to a lot exactly what you said. If my kids all want to end up mountain biking and do the things that I like to do because of the nature of what my wife and I like to do, they're going to get some of that, right? You like to go surfing, eventually your kids are going to end up at a beach while you're surfing because oh, we're just all going to go to the beach today.
(20:37):
So through that there might be some osmosis that leads them wanting to surf or you take them biking and maybe they eventually want to do it. I think if my thing is all I want to do with my time is go to the mountains, it's like, well, I also should recognize that, hey, there might be some other things I should have my kid doing totally instead of just this. And you can tell me that you do those things and I guess I would believe you the mother of this child or the father of this child, but I also know the trails that you're on, the undertaking you took and how short amount of time this kid has been alive. You've done very little else in the last four years. I was making a concerted effort to do these mountains in winter when we lived there.
(21:16):
I think I got to like 23 now. I mean I was an adult, I had a job and eventually the kids came along and that kind of stuff a lot. It's basically this takes a lot of time to do and especially with a 4-year-old, they say in the article about how they had multiple 12 hour days and multiple overnights if they couldn't get it done in a day and those kinds of things. So you can't tell me that you're doing a whole lot of other stuff if this was your goal. I don't know, just this one. I guess ultimately the last thing I kind of want to say about it that really is maybe the point is that these things just get celebrated automatically without any sort of, there's more to it than just like, oh my God, isn't that amazing? Well, it is amazing. I'm not saying it's not amazing, but come on man. There are other angles to this besides just That's cool.
Justin (22:02):
So I feel like I've talked about the show on the podcast all the time, but I was watching Dark Matter last night and there's this Apple TV show that I really like. There's this great line where this guy's literally gone through, he's literally created a device that allows him to exist in multiple universes at once so he can go into the one that he thinks he really wanted to be in, where he marries this woman that he didn't marry in his own timeline and she's starting to feel like he's replaced the actual him himself from that timeline.
(22:39):
So he's a different person. He has different ideas about what is good and what is bad and stuff like that. He's not the same guy, even though he is the same guy anyway, and his wife is starting to notice and he's doing all these big grandiose romantic things and he's just completely different and he does this one thing that she really hates and he's like, I thought you, I just wanted you to be happy. And she says, no, you want you to be happy. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of in this sort of situation where it's like there's no way, the kid was like, I want to climb all 48, 4,000. They wouldn't know what that means. So you're clearly kind of doing this so that you can brag about it or whatever. Having said that, I would be so stoked if my five-year-old daughter Olivia had climbed all 48 4,000 foot beats.
(23:21):
Of course, that would be so badass. Or she's like, yeah, dad, I want to run to the top of Mountain Tam at five. I'd be like, dude, that's amazing. I'd be so proud and so stoked. So I get it. I totally get it. I mean, we love the outdoors, we love the things that we love and wanting to share with your kids is one of the reasons that you have kids. So I kind of get both sides of it. I think there's also something to be celebrated by the fact this kid's done that. I mean, that's amazing. Mean you haven't, you know what I mean? I
Colin (23:48):
Think that it is worthy of celebration. I think the, and look, she's four and was presumably three through most of this Must have
Justin (23:56):
Been, yeah, must.
Colin (23:57):
If the kid was outright rejecting doing it, I can't imagine you would've continued to do it. So like I said, I'm not just trying to completely look down my nose on it, but I also No, but
Justin (24:07):
It's more like the unquestioned. This is obviously an unmitigated good without even going. Can we dig a little bit? Yeah, I get
Colin (24:14):
That. Has the kid taking a swim lesson. I get gone to a little art class and made cool things with other kids. I think those things hold value as well. That's all.
Justin (24:24):
Yeah, yeah,
Colin (24:25):
I get it. Appreciate. Now I do want to address the fact that dark matter, if I had a device like that, I don't think I'd be searching for anything marriage related. As much as I love my wife feels like a vast underuse of that technology.
Justin (24:36):
Well, that's the thing though is that he, in his timeline, he's super rich and can have whatever he wants and he realizes that what he wants is that woman that I guess he knew or dated once or something and it didn't work out. They actually haven't really explained yet why he knows that he loves that woman so much.
Colin (24:51):
What would you use that device show though, where I'd be like, I think I'd go to the timeline where I'd be like, I'm too
Justin (24:55):
Claustrophobic. Getting inside the Cuba would be no way. Oh, he gets in a cube. There's this huge cube, and as soon as you close the door, it's infinite hallways or a corridor with infinite doors and each one you open is a different universe in that exact same spot, but they're all wildly different. Some of them it's in Chicago, some of 'em, they open the door and it's like a desert wasteland because this the other thing, I mean it's like every possible thing that can happen happens. That's what quantum physics says. So this allows you to sort of tap into that. It's pretty fascinating.
Colin (25:27):
Okay, well, we'll continue our dark matter recap show in a few minutes, but I will say the show's
Justin (25:31):
Now called The Dark Matter highlights or headlines. Headlines of Dark Matter. Well, this Weekend, dark Matter,
Colin (25:36):
The Outdoor Industry and Dark Matter, that's what we cover here.
Justin (25:39):
Show has nothing to do with actual dark matter, by the way, which kind of pisses me off. That's a, it's just annoying they came up with. Yeah.
Colin (25:44):
Well I will say, as we often do when we talk something a little contentious here in the rock fight, anybody if Lydia's mother or anybody else who knows about this would like to come on the show and talk to us about it, you're welcome to do so. I'd rather
Justin (25:53):
Talk. Can we talk to Lydia? I
Colin (25:55):
Would love to talk to Lydia. I'd
Justin (25:56):
Much rather talk to Lydia. She's
Colin (25:58):
Just going to be like, yeah, I like hiking because she's four. That's what she's going to
Justin (26:00):
Say. Yeah, I bet she's cool.
Colin (26:03):
I bet you she's definitely cool. I have a feeling this kid's going to go on do some pretty amazing things for
Justin (26:08):
Some tips, some hiking tips. What do you like to wear?
Colin (26:11):
So next up, Patagonia, this week they announced that as it has co-developed an end of life solution for their wetsuits. According to some loser writing for shop eat surf, Patagonia's partner Boulder Industries has a process that will break down natural rubber at the molecular level to increase recyclability and circularity. Oh look, the author is sitting right here with us right now. Oh my God. It's Justin House.
Justin (26:32):
Hey, that's me. I'm that loser.
Colin (26:35):
What do
Justin (26:35):
You want to know? Tell
Colin (26:36):
Us a little more about this breakthrough. It sounds pretty cool.
Justin (26:38):
Yeah, it does. So actually I went down to Patagonia last year when they were releasing these new suits and they've made suits with UL L for a really long time. And if you don't know what UX is, it's actually the brand name of a natural rubber basically. But they used to be made from a plant now's made. Now it's from a tree that used to be, but it's still called ux, but it's a natural rubber. Neoprene is very, very awful in terms of its environmental footprint and these sorts of things. So it's a great, and a lot of wetsuit brands are moving away from neoprene. Pretty much any wetsuit brand is now trying to figure out, okay, how can we use UX or things like it. That's important because this boulder black thing requires the suit to be made with natural rubber. It can be made with neoprene.
(27:23):
But basically what happens is, well, I've written about this a ton, so the Lord knows how many wetsuits, I've probably owned an astonishing amount over my life, a couple hundred, honestly maybe not that many, a hundred, something like that. I don't know where any of them are. I've probably thrown some in the garbage. I've given some away I've sold. There used to be these sort of nascent wetsuit recycling programs where you could go to a surf shop and throw your wetsuit in a bin and maybe some company will make coozies out of the neoprene or something like that. But it's never been really possible to make a new wetsuit from it. I finnair the British brand. They make really high end wetsuits in a very sustainable way. They were really trying hard to come up with a way to make a wetsuit recyclable. I don't think they've figured that out yet.
(28:09):
I can't quite remember, but it's a cool brand is a cool idea. Anyway, so what this program does is basically as close as you can get to that, so when your suit is done, you can send it back to Patagonia or you can even take it there if you want. It doesn't have to be a Patagonia suit, any suit made from natural rubber and they ship it to this place called Boulder Industries, which is in Colorado, but I don't think it's in Boulder. It's B-O-L-D-E-R, like Bolt, like brave, not like the rock. And they basically just, I think incinerated it and just basically break it down to its essential carbon, this and that material is called carbon black. And carbon black is used in a whole lot of products to basically make things black or it can also add stability or rigidity to plastics and things like that.
(28:55):
But primarily what they can do with it now is they can use it in new wetsuits. So they take the basically incinerated version of your old wetsuit and they put it in a batch with the natural rubber for the new wetsuits and it forms part of the rubber that goes in the new wetsuits and it dyes them black. It's a much better dye than a normal chemical dye would be, I guess. But it's a cool system. There's not really been end of life options for what suits, unless you wanted to figure out how to DIY something to reuse that neoprene. But this is a cool way where you can actually, it requires less virgin materials to use because you can actually use this old stuff. And that's always been one of the benefits of Patagonia is wetsuit stuff. Again, you can send any brand's natural rubber to them and they'll do it. It doesn't just have to be Patagonia and they'll repair other brands of wetsuits too. Patagonia is a really good job of trying to make a product that's traditionally been really hard to deal with in terms of sustainability and make them last longer and then give 'em a second life. It's pretty cool.
Colin (29:54):
So this isn't a full on circular solution in that because there is, I'm sure there's an impact to the burning incineration process and you're not getting a one for one. It can go back towards wetsuit, but it has the,
Justin (30:06):
It's not forming a whole new wetsuit,
Colin (30:08):
But it's better than just throwing it in a landfill. It's far better the point, right? Far
Justin (30:13):
Better. And forgive me for not remembering exactly what the details are. I'm fairly certain that the way Bolder Black does it is pretty eco-friendly. I think whether it's the energy that uses that they use to burn things is, I can't quite remember all that. They gave us a presentation on it and it was enough to where think, wow, this is actually a really cool system. This is a cool idea, and I didn't know what carbon black was. I mean, anybody who's in certain kinds of materials will know what that is instantly, and that's normally a thing that you buy that's made from petrochemicals. So it also eliminates the need to buy that sort of stuff to D wetsuits black and to add whatever the filler carbon black does.
Colin (30:50):
Carbon black I think is the spinoff series from Dark Matter. It's
Justin (30:53):
A cool name. Carbon black is a
Colin (30:55):
Great name. What
Justin (30:57):
If you're just
Colin (30:58):
A chronic wetsuit pier? You always pee in your wetsuit. Just fuck it all
Justin (31:02):
Up. Everybody's a wetsuit. Everybody's a wetsuit pier. You pee in your wetsuit. They're not, of course, dude, anybody says they don't is lying or it's
Colin (31:08):
Your first line. I try really hard not to. Why? I don't know. It feels it's going to make it stinky eventually.
Justin (31:14):
Well, you should wash your wetsuits
Colin (31:16):
With what?
Justin (31:17):
Oh boy. I'll send you some articles.
Colin (31:19):
Why I don't pee in my wetsuit, just rin
Justin (31:21):
It off and dry it out. You got to wash your wetsuits anyway. They'll last a lot longer.
Colin (31:24):
I just try not to pee in my wetsuit. I'm a standup guy. I don't pee in my wetsuits.
Justin (31:29):
Everybody pees in their wetsuits. I mean, I
Colin (31:30):
Have, like I said, I have,
Justin (31:32):
But I try not to. Would you get out of the water to go? You just stop
Colin (31:34):
Surfing pee? No, that's just when I like, okay, fine, fuck it. I'll do it. But I try not to go.
Justin (31:39):
I mean's best. That's one of the little joys of surfing. It's like the water's cold sitting,
Colin (31:44):
Soaking in your hot urine while you can flush it flushes sea water.
Justin (31:49):
It flushes out in seconds.
Colin (31:50):
It's a solid 90 seconds where you're like, I am just sitting and piss
Justin (31:53):
Right now. It's so sterile. Ura sterile. What do you think? You're sitting in the ocean. What do you think whales are doing in there all the time. Oh, that's
Colin (31:58):
Fine though. Whale piss is glorious.
Justin (32:01):
It's like the chemical and dune that the water of life or whatever. Yeah,
Colin (32:04):
It's the blue shit. That's she, yeah. Well, back to the carbon black thing. I mean these are the developments we need across the board and this is where I glad I read your article. I'm glad to hear about this. It's like Patagonia, promote this. This is a real solution. I would rather see more juice put behind something like this.
Justin (32:26):
Yeah, they don't really, Patagonia doesn't really promote the wetsuit line very much. I mean you'll see ads in Surfers Journal and I guess maybe in a few other places,
Colin (32:36):
But I don't even care that it's a wetsuit. The fact that you identified a problem that is especially the dirty world of wetsuits where traditional neoprene we know is not great and it's a hard thing to make that is very impactful and it's not good. You don't want to just ditch it. We have partnered with someone to create a solution and more coverage on this is I think, incredibly important because it's like you need to highlight this. It's great that you're doing all the work you do environmentally, but it's like show the other brands that this is the stuff we actually need. This will make the category
Justin (33:03):
They actually do. So one of the things that's cool about Patagonia is when they came up with, they didn't invent UL, but when they started working with UL, oh gosh, it must be like 10 or 12 years ago now. The first thing they did was make it available to other brands. Here's how you do it. So they are pretty good about that kind of thing. But you're right, they don't market that very well, and I truthfully think it's just the nature of their surf side of the business. They don't seem to, it's very small.
Colin (33:26):
It's a little, a bit of their redheaded stepchild. It's
Justin (33:28):
A very small part of what they do. They are not anywhere near the top five. I mean, I don't even think they're the top 10 of,
Colin (33:35):
Well, that's what I mean terms of wetsuit sales, even if it's one of your smallest categories is historically known as a sort of dirty sort of apparel arm of the fashion industry and you've created something that helps mitigate that. It's just shows your capabilities and shows what you're willing to do. So it's a great thing to put on a pedestal. But otherwise, that's just my own little, and that's not me taking a shot at Patagonia. I'd say that about anybody. Everybody needs to highlight this stuff so that everybody does better. That's kind of what I'm getting at, but well, last thing we want to talk about, it's, you could tell the holidays upon us, not a ton of news this week, but according to adventure.com, yoked, which is not a company that makes you less ripped on 40. Oh,
Justin (34:15):
That's what I'm looking for. I need that. I need to be yoked a little bit.
Colin (34:18):
You're so huge. It's an Australian company that operates a collection of cabins and they ran an experiment to see if employees were more productive in those cabins or in the office. And apparently 86% of employees claim they found new ways to work in the cabins. 63% claim to feel less stressed coming back to the real world. Employees use their laptops less that pen and paper more. They went for walks that inspired breakthroughs. They slept longer and felt more relaxed. It's kind of interesting. It was a little vague in the press release in terms of why they had these cabins. Why a cabin? Yeah. I mean I assume this is something related to what Yos does, but I thought the data was interesting. I didn't think it was anything, I wasn't surprised reading it. But I mean, does it necessarily need to be a cabin? I mean, we both work from home and coffee shops and like you said, you're camping and you're going to have full internet access if you wanted to do some work while you're at your campsite. Could I think it's more, I look at it as more like the versatility of a different environments that leads to that productivity. But I don't know, were you like, yeah, I want to go be in a cabin after reading this?
Justin (35:18):
Not necessarily, but that could be the fact that I've always only worked remotely. And so I don't necessarily love being crazily isolated. I mean, I will if I need to. If I'm going, I've done this before where we do family trips and I used to do a lot of work from a mobile hotspot. I don't even know if they make this anymore, but an actual little, the
Colin (35:39):
One that you plugged into your laptop bus. Yeah, I used that one
Justin (35:41):
Of those. No, no, it was like a little puck and it worked from I remember those. Yeah. If you had LTE, you had basically pretty fast
Colin (35:49):
In and now this is built into your phone.
Justin (35:51):
Right, exactly. And so I would do a lot of this. This is before we had kids, so my wife and I would just go to Crater Lake for a week and I would just four hours, hours a day find a campsite or just sit in the truck. My wife would go hiking. I like doing that. But I like working in coffee shops. I love working remote, but I really like being around other people, which is weird.
Colin (36:13):
I like the
Justin (36:14):
Don't need to go to an office. But yeah, the white noise helps you feel more productive. You feel like you're more a part of commerce. I agree. So if I was writing novels or something and I couldn't be distracted, sure, a cabin sounds amazing, but I think I would end up going, oh cool, a cabin. And then I'd be googling nearest coffee shop with wifi and just going to work from there. I mean, I probably spend maybe two hours a day at the most at home when I'm working. I'm either at coffee shops or the library or a friend's house that also works remotely, that kind of thing.
Colin (36:44):
Now even moving around in the house, I'll go sit outside for a little while or sit in the I'm now I'm at a desk where I'm at the kitchen table. Just I have the same experience. I do think it's an interesting thing, the whole remote work debate, which seems like there's been these wild fluctuations through the pandemic then after the pandemic and now people are like, ah, fuck it. I got to come back to the office. I understand the importance of having people in an office, having worked in offices and even when I was always working remotely, I always got value of going to the office. Yeah, totally. But also, yeah, I mean I think the versatility of being able to move around and all the things you're saying, I agree with. I think eventually if I was in a cabin, I'm sure there'd, I'd probably be pretty great. I think the silence would probably, if I wanted to work get to me, would kill me.
Justin (37:30):
I'd
Colin (37:30):
Be calling you like, Hey man, what do you think of this? I need to have that kind of at that level. Just some other, I don't know, a little chaos I think goes a long way, I guess.
Justin (37:40):
But there is no doubt to me just from watching my wife's career that, I mean, I think if you're younger, and especially if you're younger and you don't have a family, I could totally get why you'd much rather work in the office. I completely understand that. Or if you have the kind of job where you have to be doing something on a computer all day than
Colin (38:04):
Data entry stuff.
Justin (38:05):
Yeah, sure. Although maybe then you really don't want to be in the office. You'd rather be somewhere prettier. I dunno. But I've just noticed that my wife is very successful in her career. She's the head of her organization and she loves it. She doesn't have to go to an office. I mean, it's been years now, and her and her colleagues will meet and go for a hike in the redwoods and they'll take the ferry to San Francisco. They don't even need to. They'll just go in and walk around and have walking meetings. And you see this a lot around here, just it is a small town and you walk around and you see everybody. I mean people are outside washing their cars with their air pods and you can tell they're having a meeting. People are doing gardening while having a meeting. I mean, if you have the kind of job where mostly you just need to communicate with folks, it just seems like I can't fathom wanting to be having to work in an office at that point. I mean, it would feel like it would, you're being punished in some way or something like that. Almost like detention, like, Nope, nope. You got to stay here. But again, there's plenty of reasons why you would. And if I would love to have access to an office a couple of days a week, I think that'd be great. And I used to do the WeWork thing and stuff, but it's not the same.
Colin (39:16):
So would you want to work in a cabin?
Justin (39:20):
Yeah, I would rather work in a cabin than an office, I guess.
Colin (39:25):
Yeah. You say pick one or the other. Of course, I like all these things you're saying, they went for walks, they did these things. The one thing I'd like to hear a little bit more about is I'm using my laptop less. What does that mean? What are these people
Justin (39:35):
Doing? I love you about that too, I guess. I think there is sort of a, I've never worked in an office, but I would imagine that you probably feel compelled to always have your goddamn screen on or else it looks like you're not doing anything.
(39:46):
Well, that's true. My wife doesn't have her computer open that much unless she's sending an email or writing a report. Most of the time she, or actually that's not true. She'll do video calls, but she's rarely just typing stuff in. She takes notes by hand for some ungodly reason. Mostly just, she's going to leave 'em all over the house so I can clean 'em up. But I think that's cool. I have my computer open when I don't need to all the time it feels like I'm being productive, but if no one's watching you or whatever, you probably would.
Colin (40:12):
Alright man, we can wrap it up.
Justin (40:14):
Okay,
Colin (40:14):
Let's wrap it up. Well, the rock fights production and rock fight LLC. Our producer today was supposed to be David Carat, but he had car trouble. Yeah, where was he? He had car trouble. His car apparently died, so that's why we were a little meandering. It's his fault. I'm going to blame him for that. Art direction provided by Sarah Genser. For Justin Hausman, I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening to the Rock fight. He's here to take us out like he always is. It's Krista makes the rock fight fight song will see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock
Chris DeMakes (40:41):
Fight, rock fight. Rock fight. Rock. Fight into the rock bike where we speak our truth. Stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and pick bites about topics that we find interesting like my culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas in for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock through the rat.