Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) it's time to run through some headlines that have come out of the outdoor industry and community over the past week.
Colin & Justin run through the following topics:
Ethical concerns for our backyard trails (06:56)
A new welcome to basecamp sign for Mt. Everest (09:30)
A lawsuit over the ability to use cash to enter our National Parks (14:20)
The 2024 Barkley Marathons (21:13)
Pouring a little out for David Breashears who passed away at 68 (28:23)
This all of course after America's favorite podcast segment What Is Justin Doing This Weekend presented by Long Weekend Coffee (02:04)!
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Episode Transcript
Chris Demakes (00:07):
Here we go.
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak out 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 got fired for betting millions of dollars on someone else's podcast. It's show
Chris Demakes (00:22):
O.
Justin (00:28):
Maybe it's time to crack a beer even though it's Friday morning.
Colin (00:31):
Wait Justin, what are you doing here? Show's supposed to be here.
Justin (00:34):
Yeah, he he's a little tied up. Literally vice buy some bookies and enforcers somewhere.
Colin (00:40):
Some guy's breaking his thumbs.
Justin (00:43):
I was so excited for baseball season. I was so excited.
Colin (00:47):
I'm excited to have a scam. We haven't had a good scandal in a
Justin (00:49):
While. Do you think there's something fishy about it being like, oh, we just happened to be dropping. Not an opening day generally, but on the Dodgers opening day, you don't think that's like, come on.
Colin (00:58):
Oh, you're saying that it's like a conspiracy because of the, what are the
Justin (01:01):
Odds of that? I don't know. It's just like it's a little too, I mean there's 365 days in a year. You couldn't have picked one of the other 360 4 to have this news drop on opening day
Colin (01:12):
As a someone who used to be very passionate about the New England Patriots. That's how we all felt in 2007 with Spygate. So I understand how you feel.
Justin (01:21):
You guys cost the Rams a Super Bowl. You spied on the Rams in whatever with the ary kick. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Not that one. The one, I guess it was the one in the more recent one in 2018 or 2019 didn't
Colin (01:33):
Spy on them then.
Justin (01:35):
Or maybe it was a Kurt Warner of yours. Either way. One of the two times the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. Yeah, no, that's known now. It's totally known that they were filming the practices. They
Colin (01:43):
Were doing what everyone else was doing.
Justin (01:46):
Yeah, but they were doing it worse.
Colin (01:48):
I sent you that. My team cheats link didn't I? About all the times Your football team
Justin (01:52):
Sheets. Yeah, but the Rams were way low on it.
Colin (01:54):
Remember had the most Catholic schoolboy idiot. Good boys. They don't cheat. Everybody else got two infractions.
Justin (02:02):
Aaron Donald gone. They're going to have to start cheating.
Colin (02:04):
Well, we're recording this on Friday, March 22nd. You're hearing it on Monday, March 25th, which means that in between we add ourselves a weekend, which means it's also time for America's favorite podcast segment. What is Justin doing this weekend? Presented by Long Weekend Coffee. So Justin, what are you, I guess what did you do this past weekend? It's
Justin (02:27):
Monday now. Oh man, it was so rad. So on Saturday,
Colin (02:30):
Start making it up.
Justin (02:31):
Yeah.
Colin (02:33):
Saw your bookie down in San Diego. Gosh,
Justin (02:37):
Colin. This weekend. This weekend.
Colin (02:39):
What are you doing this weekend? What's the plan?
Justin (02:40):
This weekend I should come up with a plan. Even though we do this podcast every week, I never come up with a plan beforehand and I'm struggling to think of one now. Rain. It is going to rain. Yeah, it's girls night tomorrow night though though. My wife has taken our two little girls out, so you know what? I don't know. Probably rain. You know what I haven't done a long time is just have a full on rainy surf day. That was probably what I'll
Colin (03:03):
Do. Oh, there you go. So
Justin (03:04):
It's bitching. I love surfing in the rain. That's probably tomorrow's plan.
Colin (03:08):
Is there anything to that when you go on surf flying, it's like don't go into the water. 72 hours.
Justin (03:12):
Oh yeah. Yeah, but only usually at the beginning of the, well, it depends on where you live, but usually we only worry about that the beginning of the,
Colin (03:18):
When it kind washes everything out
Justin (03:20):
That happens. I've been really, really sick from that kind of thing. I mean I've always lived and surfed in more rural areas and more than once at a spot. I used to love surfing in Cacus near where I grew up to be dead cows floating. Oh god. Because there's a lot of ag land around there and so a cow would get washed into a creek and drown or I don't know.
Colin (03:45):
I mean, what if it was a dead whale? I mean I guess it's dead animal
Justin (03:48):
In the laundry either. It's way you're just like, oh shit, twice that happened. You see it sucks. I love cows. You'd be like, what is that? Is that you just see the belly roll over and the hooks come on like, oh my god. And there's the smell as it rotates.
Colin (04:05):
Did you get out of the water?
Justin (04:07):
I don't, no. Actually no, I don't think so. That's happened with a seal around or a big elephant seal drifted through the water when I was surfing Belinas nearby, which is already kind of a white shark hangout. So I got out then because
Colin (04:20):
I'm just listening to, well, if it's going to be rainy this weekend, you could watch the last episode of the 50. Did you watch that yet? I haven't
Justin (04:25):
Watched
Colin (04:25):
It yet. No, I watched it. It was pretty good. Yeah. I had one criticism though because they, this approach and then some people drove up and then other people were on mountain bikes. He had a crew for this last ski, like Michelle Parker. That's cool. His wife was there and stuff. They should have been on Rigid Bikes. That's all I got to say. It was basically fire.
Justin (04:42):
Oh, it was? Well, yeah,
Colin (04:45):
Probably
Justin (04:45):
Rocky Spots rigid. Were bikes, man. We're the minority.
Colin (04:47):
I know, because the reason I thought is because getting on, they've got all their ski stuff on their back, so they've got heavy packs on it. Oh, it's going to suck to, and immediately even with lockouts suspension be like, I'm like, oh yeah, you should have just been hauling ass up that road on a steel bike.
Justin (05:00):
So I think it'll go live on Monday, but we did a AJ podcast with Kurt Ref Snyder, who's a bike packing. He's a huge name of the bike packing world, but he helped found bike packing route, which is a pretty cool site that kind of, it's like an education site. It shows you all these amazing routes that you can do. It has a bunch of resources you can use to figure out what you need to bring, but also how to get more involved in the bike packing community. It's just a great site. Anyway, he's written some stuff for AJ before about bike packing, but he only uses full suspension bikes when he goes bike packing and part of it is he's sponsored by Pivot and I don't think Pivot makes, I mean Pivot might make a hard tail, but he also just for the most part, a lot of the trails I ride are, they're like single track hiking trails and so you want that. He rode the entire Continental Divide Trail. That
Colin (05:51):
Sounds horrible,
Justin (05:52):
Dude. Truthfully, that sounds gnarly. We ended the podcast and me and are like, we're the softest people in the world. 80 days, 3,300 miles. I can't even, I'm sure if you add it up, actually wonder. That's another thing we've talked before about how I'd love to see all the food I've ever eaten in one place. I would love to see, I would love to see my lifetime odometer on a bike. As much as I talk about not wanting,
Colin (06:19):
Disappointed,
Justin (06:20):
Not wanting to track that stuff. My cargo e-bike has an odometer on it and it's at like 4,400 miles, but I only put 2000 miles on it myself. I bought it with 2000 miles on it.
Colin (06:32):
Alright, well what does Justin doing? This weekend is presented by Long Weekend Coffee. Want to start off your days, your adventures and all of your weekends the right way. Head over to long weekend, do coffee load up on batches of beans. I recommend the secret handshake. That's the one to get and at checkout, enter promo code Rock 10 to get 10% off of your first order long weekend coffee. More weekend. More weekend and coffee please. I like both of those things
Justin (06:57):
Before we continue, Colin, I'd like to have a word with the listeners. Oh please. Just me and them. Okay. Okay. I know it sounds like I don't do anything interesting on the weekends, folks, you have to understand I have a four and a half year old and a 2-year-old and just getting to go for a bike ride in the afternoon feels like I'm Kurt Reff Snyder riding the Continental Divide Trail. So please don't think that we're not adventurous people just because
Colin (07:25):
This is where Backyard Trails matter.
Justin (07:26):
It is. Yeah, it is. And also it's you get the same sort of enjoyment with putting your kid on a bike and riding him around like your lakeside trails as you do going on some crazy multi-day adventure. So please don't hold it against us. That's all. That's all. Go back to your thanks listeners back.
Colin (07:42):
Go
Justin (07:43):
Back to your regular show.
Colin (07:43):
I will say I'm the little mountain behind my house that I can ride on and I often sometimes discount that as a ride because it's not that extensive, but I can eke out a six plus mile ride with over a thousand feet of vert. So it's a good hour long ride. Someone's building, I believe to be a non sanctioned illegal jump line and it's kind of great.
Justin (08:06):
Yeah, I think you know what? Good I think, I don't know. I
Colin (08:10):
Don't know how I feel about that. I kind of like, should I tell SD NBA about this because it's really well done. You could convince me that it is sanctioning as of how well made it is a little flow line with three gap chunks, jumps with chicken runs around the jumps because I'm not going to do that. I'm not an idiot, but it has added so much to the multiple loops that I can do on the mountain, on the mountain and it takes me down low enough that then I have to climb back up. It's pretty great.
Justin (08:37):
I don't know. I do not know how I feel about unsanctioned. I know how I feel about building trails. I don't like that. I do think that there is a lot of knowledge that needs to go into that. There's a lot of work, especially around here, a lot of work that trail advocates do to open existing trails and the argument will be, you guys don't let us ride trails, so we're going to build them. If you let us ride the trails, we won't build them. But that's kind of like a blackmail thing. I don't like it. And it's also if I wanted to go build a little trail that connects a little connector trail or something like that, it might feel harmless. I don't understand the erosion patterns of these places. I don't know what I'm doing. And so that kind of annoys me. I don't mind poaching because of where I live. I know for a fact that there's a million trails that aren't really hiked on and I'm not doing any damage, but I dunno, I feel weird about building trails. This is weird.
Colin (09:30):
Alright, let's get into some headlines. We had a first one. We had another Everest story. There's been a lot of Everest stories surrounding the Basecamp rule changes. They're piling up. I saw three or four of 'em this past week. We've touched on it already twice, but there was another one that came out this week on Explorer's Web about a new sign that is welcoming those arriving to Everest base camp. Historically, there's the location that welcomes people to Basecamp as a big boulder that's kind of covered in graffiti, I guess years of a graffiti on this Boulder graffiti. Yeah. Literally someone wrote, welcome to Everest base camp, like 5,400 meters. And then I think it didn't say this in the article, but it looked like a thing that if you're there, maybe you sign the rock to.
Justin (10:06):
It's not like you're
Colin (10:06):
Tagging. No, no, no, no. But it's ink all over this
Justin (10:12):
Boulder. Yeah. Alright,
Colin (10:13):
So in front of that landmark, which does look badass, that landmark, there's now a sign featuring Sir, sir Edmond Hillary and Tenzing. And of course everyone's up in arms over this. Oh, it's another example of commercialization of Everest. I know. I dunno if you're looking at it right now, but I think it's too late, man. Pull it up. We've talked about all of these rule changes. It's commercialized. The whole thing is it's a giant multimillion dollar enterprise. Frankly, the sign looks kind of
Justin (10:40):
Nice. There it is. Oh okay. Here we go. I'm looking at it. People are mad about that.
Colin (10:45):
Yeah, if you look at the article, I mean it's getting coverage. Maybe the old boulder was cool, the old boulder was cool. I
Justin (10:54):
Guess it is the kind of thing where it's like how wild can it be if there's a sign like that at the beginning of it, maybe. I know.
Colin (11:01):
How wild is it when there's massive tents filled with movie screens and shit? Mean?
Justin (11:04):
What? Did you rather have that than spray paint on the rocks?
Colin (11:07):
That's kind of how I feel. I get, there's pictures of the boulder in that article too. I think that's cool. But I also feel like if you're trekking to base camp and that's just the high point, that'd be kind of a cooler thing to take a picture in
Justin (11:19):
Front of. I was just going to say, I think this is cool mean you could stand next to Norge and Hillary and pretend like you're with them. I can't imagine getting mad at this.
Colin (11:30):
You just can't win.
Justin (11:31):
And it's not like you should look at the sign, but it looks at something you would see in Nepal. It's not like a super fancy neon lit sign. I mean, it looks like it's fitting with the vibe of the place. I think it's fine. What a weird thing to get mad about. Get mad at the poop that you're all
Colin (11:51):
That's it. Everyone in all these other
Justin (11:54):
Articles, I can't believe people spray painted on that rock. This is insane. Oddly enough, I've never So you're mad about the rock? I'm mad about that. I've never actually seen these. I'm surprised I've never seen these pictures. I mean obviously I've seen the prayer flags and the Basecamp. I've never seen that. People were stenciling and writing. I can't stand that shit. When you're backpacking and you come into a grove of aspens and there's John and Cindy, 1975
Colin (12:17):
Carved, that's the
Justin (12:19):
Same thing to me as this spray painting on this rock. But it's worse. This is freaking Everest. I can't believe people did that. See, I
Colin (12:25):
Don't know. Is it worse the tree could actually die from that? The rock's just a rock. It's not the point and it, it's at a place where a lot of people are
Justin (12:31):
Going to see your, I don't need to see it. I don't care that you went there. I know I'm at Everest. I hate that. That pisses me off. That's you imposing your own. I just
Colin (12:43):
That once again,
Justin (12:45):
You imposing your own. Justin was here. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah,
Colin (12:51):
But you do. Now you know that your mark was
Justin (12:53):
Left on that wrist and that sucks that that's an instinct for anybody to have. I mean, the sign is, it's the sign from the community. Great. It's not like I'm going to take it upon myself. Everyone's going to love this. I'll just spray paint on this rock forever. I hate that. I
Colin (13:08):
Wonder if there's a history of that rock. I, everyone's written the history of that. Who was the first person to do it?
Justin (13:14):
If
Colin (13:14):
You look at it, there's a lot on
Justin (13:15):
There. There's a lot. You can sort of see it, I'm sure. I dunno, I'm not a climber. Maybe it makes all the sense to the world if you're a mountaineer. I can't imagine that it would. But I mean if I were to go to Everest Bath camp and see that, that would piss me off.
Colin (13:29):
That would really, I think this just goes with all the other stories, right? Because it's like you said, I agree that it shouldn't exist, that people shouldn't be defacing anything in the back country. However,
Justin (13:38):
Why that different? Why is that different than if you go to a place that you like to go backpacking and there's a boulder that you've always seen and all of a sudden it's covered in all this crap?
Colin (13:46):
I agree with you. I think, I guess if you in context though, with what's happening at Everspace camp and all of these articles about all of these changes, which are all, they're people are trying to do the right thing, which finally right, but it kind of lines up, right? We've taken this place and kind of desecrated it in the name of climbing this mountain. It kind of just sort of fits in, I feel like with the motif, I guess in a way,
Justin (14:08):
Which is sad. You're not wrong. It's sad. That annoys me. I don't care about the sign sign's. Fine. You could take it out if you get mad. It's just hammered into the ground. Take it out. No big deal. Right people.
Colin (14:20):
Well, let's keep this train rolling. We got the next story, which is per yahoo.com, which yahoo.com apparently still a thing
Justin (14:27):
Still exists.
Colin (14:28):
Yeah. Three disgruntled visitors are suing the National Park Service over its policy to only accept card payments for entrance to some of its sites. You've heard of this? Did you hear this
Justin (14:37):
One? No, no.
Colin (14:38):
The three plaintiff claim, the
Justin (14:40):
Sue them. They're suing. They're suing. Well, they want to change the policy. It's not because they want money. Okay, go ahead.
Colin (14:46):
There are three plaintiffs claim. The NP S'S cashless policy is unreasonable and goes against federal laws stating that legal tender is suitable for all public charges. They filed the lawsuit earlier this month with the District Court of Columbia after being told on separate occasions that bank notes wouldn't be accepted for entry one was denied entrance to the FDR home at Roosevelt, Vanderbilt National historic site. When she tried to pay with a $10 bill, another emailed Sagaro National Park to ask if she could pay with cash and was told, we do not have the capability to accept cash on your way to Arizona. You might be able to stop at a park that does accept cash and purchase an interagency annual pass. Meanwhile, the third was told by Fort Pulaski to go to the local grocery stores or big chains like Walmart to purchase a gift card. We can accept them in lieu of cash. I agree in principle here, but I never have cash, especially when I'm taking trips and stuff like that. I don't know. It seems a little odd though that a government funded enterprise would not take cash. That does seem a little weird. I guess
Justin (15:50):
Why do you think it's a covid thing? Remember when places didn't want to touch money? Or do you think it's just because they don't want, I mean it theoretically it costs labor hours to collect the cash to count it, to take it to the bank. Sure.
Colin (16:02):
It's
Justin (16:03):
More
Colin (16:03):
Intensive. It's more risky. I mean, you think about the lines of cars getting into some of these places and the amount of cash they would have to handle. These are park rangers typically, I imagine sitting in booze are not the Brinks truck to come in and get all the money. The coffee shop I go to now will not accept cash. There's just, there's more of that going or on. Now
Justin (16:21):
The thing that's a bummer, the only downside I guess is it's like anything else with a cashless thing. It puts the onus on people who least can deal with it. Right. If you don't have a credit card for some reason or a debit card.
Colin (16:39):
Okay. Let's ask this question. How could you travel to any of these places without a debit or credit card?
Justin (16:45):
I don't know. I mean, that sounds
Colin (16:46):
Like unbelievably difficult to be a cash only traveler.
Justin (16:50):
I don't know. I mean, debit cards are free, so I don't know. And it's a tiny part of the population, I'm sure, but I don't know. I mean, if you're homeless or you just don't have a bank account for one reason or another, should you not be able to go to the National Parks? No. And should you have to go to a store to buy a gift card? I mean, that sucks too. I tend to get it in that situation. I don't mean suing. I would imagine that that's what you, I doubt that there's someone who's like, I can make money from this and they're suing for a million dollars. I imagine the whole point is like, this isn't okay. Yeah, I don't know. That's a tough one. I mean, I don't think that the Rangers should be in the position to have to deal with that, I guess. But they've done it for decades and it seemed fine. Have you've ever heard of a story of the Yosemite told Booth getting
Colin (17:41):
Ocean's 15, we're going to take down the national
Justin (17:43):
Parks. I mean, because even if you said, okay, we'll get cash, the cool one person's going to use it, so you're going to have at most 10 in your tilt at the end of the day. I dunno. That's true. I guess I have to agree with them, frankly. I mean money is, that's what it's, you kind of have to take it, right? It's legal tender. You're at a national park. I mean, it's one thing you can get into an argument with your coffee shop about it, but you're at a national park, you're at a federally owned place. They should have to
Colin (18:10):
Take federal dollars. That's a federal funded thing. That to me is the best argument here because otherwise just put it on the website. We don't take cash anymore. Make public
Justin (18:18):
Rather be behind somebody with a say, what does it cost to get into Yosemite? 20 bucks? I don't remember I'd, I'd way rather have someone just hand 'em a 20 and drive through than have to deal with the scanning of
Colin (18:29):
The car. Oh, 100%.
Justin (18:30):
It takes longer.
Colin (18:31):
How you feeling on cash these days though? Are you a cash
Justin (18:34):
Guy? I never have cash. I mean ever. The only time I use cash at all is there's a little ice cream shop in town and it's phenomenally great, but they only take cash. But even then to get it, it's like, well shit, now I got to go to a bank and pay four bucks to get cash. Especially now that you can tap everywhere or I use my phone.
Colin (18:51):
That's so
Justin (18:51):
Great. So I don't bring my wallet most of the time. I don't know why. Can you write a check?
Colin (18:59):
That's a good question. I
Justin (19:00):
Bet. I'll bet you could write a check. Okay. There needs to be a bigger discussion about this with going camping. So when I go camping every summer, I usually go disperse camping, but not always. And so one of my favorite campgrounds is Tioga Lake Campground, just outside the park, the parks eastern border in Yosemite. Kind of before you start going down to Levi, that's the only campground I'll pay for typically in the summer. Usually just first camping. But that's a classic old school campground where there is a host. But mostly you just put, there's an iron ranger and you don't have to use cash. You can use a check. But it's like, I've been places before where Europeans will come up to me and they'll be like, how do I pay? And they're expecting to be able to use a credit card somehow. And we're out in the middle of nowhere. There's no cell service, but there's a campground with an iron ranger and you're like, well, you have to put cash or a check in there. And they're like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm 200 miles from a town. So we need to figure that out. Generally speaking, I dunno how, but
Colin (20:04):
I think I said, we need to decide if we're going to use cash anymore. Right? Because that's what I mean in principle, these people aren't wrong, especially with the National park. You should be able to take, whip out a few bucks and be able to get in. I don't
Justin (20:17):
Want use cash everywhere, but I'm not, if you're just a stickler, I only use cash. God damnit, I get that.
Colin (20:24):
You should be able to, it's legal tender, legal's in the words, right? What's
Justin (20:28):
Tracking you? I mean, there's lots of reasons. I don't really care about data and tracking. Whatever. Fine. It's too late now, but there's perfectly good reasons to be like, I don't want the government knowing where I'm going all the time. I get that. I'm actually talking myself into only using cash. I might go to the bank after this and just get a grand of cash and just kind of,
Colin (20:50):
I love not having it. But then when I do have it, I'm stoked that I have it too. Well because it
Justin (20:54):
Doesn't feel like real money because it's out of my bank account. I look at my bank account account five times a day or whatever, right? Sure. I'm weird. But if I had a couple hundred bucks in cash in my wallet, that's Monopoly money. Are you kidding me? It's not in my bank account, so it doesn't exist. Anyway, I got to go get some cash.
Colin (21:13):
Well, the next story we got to talk about, because I'm very excited as we're recording this, the Barkley marathons is still happening. We did talk about
Justin (21:19):
That.
Colin (21:20):
The Barkley is the notoriously difficult ultramarathon in Tennessee's frozen head state park that was inspired by a prison escaped attempt by James Earl Ray, who only made it 12 miles. I didn't know that. You didn't know that?
Justin (21:30):
I didn't know that. I've written
Colin (21:31):
About this before. Guy. So the guy who founded the race read the story about James Earl Ray. He only made it 12 miles away from the prison. Martin Luther King. That's right. So Keith Dunn is, I'm not sure exactly who Keith is, but he famously covers the race on Twitter. And for those of us who aren't down with Elon Ultrarunner, Amelia Boone has been reposting Keith's tweets on threads. And as we're recording this, there are still seven runners on the course. And we're three days in, I believe. And that's incredibly impressive. The numbers are getting higher as the years go on. But there's only been seven to date. There's only been 17 runners to ever finish the events since the race was extended to a hundred miles in 1989. And I love the Barkley for exactly just what it is. Most endurance events are kind of physically attainable, more so than people think, but it's kind of in your own head whether or not you can finish. I mean even like a 5K for some people would be like, that's a huge distance. But the Barkley is designed to destroy you. I just love that it exists and you should go for it world. I like that there's something that basically says, yeah, maybe you shouldn't do
Justin (22:34):
This. So talk about what it, I mean black people aren't going to know what it is. Tell the folks. So
Colin (22:40):
The thing about the Barkleys, so it started this guy, Lazarus Lake who, I forget exactly how he came up with it. He was inspired by the story of James Earl Ray, and he came up with the idea of putting on this race and how far can you get and how the forties format goes, number one to get into it. There's a secret process to get into the race that I have had friends who have applied who know the secret process and they still haven't told me
Justin (23:02):
How it is. I do think that I could be wrong, but I think if you're kind of a really well-known runner, you can kind get in, right? It's
Colin (23:09):
Definitely easier. And you're also connected. You can kind of get in touch with to know, but you have to submit a haiku on a certain date of the year to this email address kind of stuff. And then you get into a smaller pool and then ultimately they select a field.
Justin (23:23):
That's also how you successfully pitch Adventure Journal Print magazine
Colin (23:26):
To get in to send a hiku to you.
Justin (23:28):
Yeah. Well, it's different every time.
Colin (23:32):
And then the race format is, it's five loops and there's orienteering involved because a lot of it goes off trail. Everybody gets assigned a book that you have to collect a page out of a book. They have 'em stashed around this forest. And the other thing that's cool about it, it's in Tennessee and the people who go there are UTMB finishers and hard rock finishers and people who've done these incredibly hard ultra-marathons. Jared Campbell, I think has finished the most. And he is a very accomplished athlete, ultra-marathoner. Jamel Curry, who's a Solomon guy, runs a Vipa, I forget his name of his race company, but he's a very famous kind of ultra runner and sponsored Solomon guy. He has never finished. It's a great movie that the ginger runner did about Gary Robbins attempting three years in a row and not finishing. And it is brutal. And it's all off trail and it's like thousands of feet of climbing and
Justin (24:24):
You have to find books or something to tell you where
Colin (24:27):
The next, yeah, yeah. They hide these books and either orienter to a book and rip a page off. And then when you get back to Camp Laz goes through and make sure that you have all five pages from your book, and then you get to go out for another round and you have to complete five of these rounds. And in order to finish, if you finish three legs of it, it's called a fun run. That's
Justin (24:48):
Right.
Colin (24:49):
The best part too, how it starts so that the start changes every year and they don't know when it's going to be. What happens is at some point during lead up to the day it's going to run, ly will come out and blow a cot shell, and that signals that the race is going to start in an hour. Okay.
Justin (25:06):
That's right.
Colin (25:07):
And then everybody lines up and it doesn't start until he then lights a cigarette.
Justin (25:11):
Yeah, it's so rad.
Colin (25:12):
And if you tap out, they have someone with a bugle who plays taps for you. Yeah, that's
Justin (25:16):
Cool. That's very cool. There should be more things like this, not necessarily this hard,
Colin (25:20):
But if you listen there, go through right now and look at the reporting that Keith Studer, that Amelia has reposted, and people don't make it like six hours. Sometimes they'll get out there, they'll be halfway through the first lap and be like, fuck this, and just tap out. You're like, it is brutal. So I love what It is fun. I have never been tempted at all, everyone. I was running a lot. This sounds miserable. Not for me. This
Justin (25:43):
Is the kind of thing where people would be like, what would you do? For some reason? Have this conversation the other day about if you were super rich and didn't need to work. You're like, I'd run out of things to do or I could be bored. But it's like, no, you organize. How fun would it be to organize something like this? I mean, I live in a perfect spot for this where it's mostly open space and there's trails everywhere. So it's like you could go crazy with kind of weird scavenger hunt ish slash orienteering race. It'd be so much fun
Colin (26:09):
If you're in interested at
Justin (26:10):
All running.
Colin (26:11):
Yeah, I'd go out for a few miles just to follow someone who knows it and just to get a sense of the terrain and be like, oh, okay, I see this. I'm good. I'm going to go home now. But if you're listening to this and you're not familiar with it and it's at all interesting to you. There's a Netflix documentary called The Barclay Marathons, the Race that Eats Its young and it has a whole kind of background. It's a great doc. Or go online on YouTube and watch Ethan Newberry's, Gary Robbins doc. But anyway, yeah. Do you know much about the Barkley
Justin (26:42):
Or, I've written a few online articles about it when I first Oh, you have discovered it and just talked about the weirdness of it.
Colin (26:49):
The funny thing, when I was tech ing 2006 or seven, there was an account in Knoxville that I worked with a lot. And so he knew about this, but then it was wasn't as well known. And so I remember him describing LA coming out and lighting the cigarette and everything and I'm like, are you making this up now? It's gotten a lot more notoriety. Also.
Justin (27:08):
He looks like a hobbit, right? Like a giant white beard. At least the pictures I've seen.
Colin (27:15):
No, and he smokes and Oh, you also have to send him a license plate from where you're from and they hang all the license plates at the start. And it's cool because there's international runners and they've got all, it's such a badass event. So we'll see seven runners on the course as of this morning on Friday. So I guess we'll see who finishes or if they finish.
Justin (27:33):
It's funny, so close to being a Hunger Games type thing. When you think about it, you're kind of picturing a big board, little digital little dots. Blink, blink, blink. Okay. They're still on the course. I mean, that's not how it works, but it's easy to imagine that
Colin (27:47):
Even when I was flirting with doing a hundred mile ultramarathon, which I never ended up doing, it's still, it's straightforward and you're looking at the course and you understand the elevation profile. Here's where the aid stations are and all these things and this, I mean, I never liked multiple lap races. I knew if I got back to where my car was, I'd be like, all I'm done.
Justin (28:09):
I'm not going back. That's like how mules are. It's like you can't let 'em see the barn or whatever. I'll just go right back to it.
Colin (28:14):
I'll take that. I'm a mule. I just like, oh, I could just be done. I mean, I could just sit down and not have to go back out. Yeah, that sounds great. That's what I'm doing. Alright, well lastly today we want to pour a little out for mountaineer and filmmaker David Brahe, who died this past week at 68, reportedly of natural causes, Brashears at Seven and Everest five times, but was most famous for producing the Everest IMAX film that came out in 1998. Pretty much a legend, especially coming out of the late nineties alpine climbing boom that we all went through.
Justin (28:46):
It's funny looking at pictures of him, it's like, gosh, was he talking head in his stuff because he's really familiar looking.
Colin (28:54):
Yeah, he definitely was a presence coming out of the Conrad Anchor Ed Sters kind of world. He was a filmmaker, but he was still legit. They hauled an IMAX camera to the summit
Justin (29:04):
Of Epic. Pretty amazing.
Colin (29:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Justin (29:06):
Must It's an IMAX movie. I must've seen it. An imax. I just don't mean that came out a long time ago. Wouldn't that come out? That was
Colin (29:12):
98 Fullon phenomenon when that came out. I was one of the highest gross movies ever.
Justin (29:17):
It might've been one of the, when did IMAX start?
Colin (29:20):
Oh, 1970 imax. No, when that was when the Inception
Justin (29:25):
Wild. So the famous into Thin Air disaster.
Colin (29:30):
They
Justin (29:31):
Were there. They were there for that, right.
Colin (29:32):
Yeah. That gets covered in the IMAX movie.
Justin (29:34):
Oh, oh god, maybe I haven't seen it then. I don't think the people that died and that were involved, I don't think they had nothing to do with it. But I think the film crew was there too, right?
Colin (29:44):
Yeah, they were filming. It was the same season. They were part of it. Ed Visa actually helped a bit during bringing people down and stuff like that. And they had a moment when kind of after that all went where they got another weather window and they're all sort of taking inventory of where they were and then decided should we go for it? And then they made it to the summit after that.
Justin (30:03):
Well, yeah. Poor one out
Colin (30:04):
Bud. Alright man, we'll wrap it up there. So for anybody listening, we do have a new episode of Gear and Beer that came out this past Friday. We talked about No we didn't. I just teased.
Justin (30:14):
Shoot. No, we talked about,
Colin (30:16):
I'll bleep that. I'll bleep that. We talked
Justin (30:18):
About
Colin (30:18):
Boots, we talked about boots. Boots and beers. I'm a week ahead. I'm teasing. A week ahead.
Justin (30:22):
Boots and beers, which would also be a good, I would go to that store, wouldn't you?
Colin (30:28):
Hell yeah. Get a cobbler to come out and make dope boots for you while you get to drink beer.
Justin (30:33):
Or even just if they're not making 'em, you're just trying to man drink and beer. One of the, well, you'll hear about this next week on next week's gear and beer, but we did a little dissecting of what hipsters have gotten right during that recording. Turns out a lot. Well it turns out whiskey and beer where you were getting your hair cut pretty damn sweet.
Colin (30:53):
That was smart. That was a
Justin (30:54):
Good call by then. That's nice. And I think maybe that's the kind of thing that Super Rich people have always enjoyed when they go to a tailor. Here's a glass of wine or champagne while you have your $5,000 suit made or while you're fitted for it or whatever. But yeah, I'm going to go and pay $70 to the barber. It's nice to have, nice to have a beer or a whiskey while you wait just in the chair.
Colin (31:14):
Alright man. Oh, anything Teza in the aj. Where did you say you got the podcast? Coming on Monday podcast Today. On Monday Today. Because this is out on Monday. It's
Justin (31:20):
Out today. Check that out. If you're a subscriber you should be looking open your check your mail.
Colin (31:25):
I got mine. Did
Justin (31:26):
You? There you go. Yeah,
Colin (31:27):
There you go. Beautiful.
Justin (31:28):
It looks
Colin (31:28):
Great. Beautiful. Looks wonderful. Yeah. Alright, well the Rock Fights of Production at Rock Fight LLC for Justin Hausman. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening here to take us out. He's taking a break from a wild game of pickleball to sing us this song. It's Krista Makes with the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock
Chris Demakes (31:45):
Fight, rock fight, rock fight, fight. Go into the bike where we speak our truth. Stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and pick bikes about topics that we find interesting. Black culture, music, the latest movie reviews. And for the head, this is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Welcome.
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