[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today. In this episode of the podcast, we interview Mason Gravley, Mason has his own podcast called the Adventure Sports Podcast, which is phenomenal. By the way, you should definitely check out and we'll talk about that in the episode, but Mason also is an avid Adventure. He prioritizes getting out on adventures, whether they're one night or whether they're his 66 day. Journey, biking from Alaska down to Florida, there's a wealth of knowledge. There's a lot of fun stories in here. There's a lot of really good takeaways in here. So make sure to listen to this entire episode and enjoy the heck out of
[00:00:37] Tayson: it. Now this episode was a little bit shorter than I would have hoped we could have made it. So we are going to have to bring him back on for part two. And if you've got any thoughts on questions, we should ask him. Make sure to reach out to us at Live Ultralight Podcast at gmail.com or drop a comment on our YouTube channel where you can also listen, or watch this episode. Now, if you are new to the Live Ultralight Podcast, This podcast is all about getting you outdoors, more comfortably, more confidently and I would say more frequently. So if that sounds like you, make sure to subscribe to this podcast with that. We'll let
[00:01:10] Tayson: you guys dive into this interview with Mason Gravley.
[Editor’s note: Contact details and channel instructions are preserved as historical 2023 remarks; use current official Outdoor Vitals channels for present-day contact information.]
[00:01:13] Tayson: All right Mason, I'm super excited to have you on the show. How are you doing today?
[00:01:18] Mason: Doing great, Tayson. Ever rhymes with my name. So, I'll remember that.
[00:01:22] Tayson: I was actually gonna say, you know, we don't know each other yet, but I feel like we're, we were bonded a little bit, because half of my life, I've been called Mason Mason, Jason Tyson, you know, really wasn't until Taysom Hill. Got famous that people started to call me Tay sum. And then it was like, okay, that's way closer than Tyson. So, I'll take Tay some but, but anyways, I feel a little connected to you like almost like we share the same.
[00:01:53] Mason: You know, I've never been called tasting, so I don't like, but yeah, I can imagine right Mason's, probably slightly more common than taste. I don't think I've ever seen that name actually. It's pretty cool. Yeah,
[00:02:05] Tayson: it's it's it's a bit of a made-up, Utah name but names for your kids you gotta just start thinking of
[00:02:17] Mason: That's right. And then when your friends all have a million kids too, it's like oh we can't name him any of these. Yeah. You start getting real. Real creative here? Yeah
[00:02:25] Tayson: gotta get Yeah. Well, I'm excited. Run a phenomenal podcast, you have amazing interviewees but you yourself also are a big-time Adventure. So your podcast is Adventure Sports Podcast and just listening through some of that and some of the work you've put out there you've you've been on some pretty crazy trips like one of which I was your bike. I don't know if it's bike packing or just biking down from Alaska. But I'd love to hear maybe a little bit just to get to know you and what kind of an adventure you are. I'd love to you. Maybe to just pick one of those stories. One of your highlights Adventure, highlights of your life and and
[00:03:07] Tayson: maybe walk us through what it was and what it turned out how it turned out.
[00:03:11] Mason: Oh man. Oh yeah, I know we've already introduced herself but yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This is a lot of fun. Let me know. This is a huge honor too. I love being on a podcast. I don't know about you but I don't get the chance to often share my show. It's a lot of I interviewed the person. It's very much about Their story, I do interject personal stuff, but I try to keep that out of it so I don't get the chance to kind of, really share my thoughts all that. So this is like a fun turn to the table. I didn't have to do the research. I didn't have
[00:03:42] Mason: to do all that stuff. I just like, I show up here. And let's talk. So this is a great break. Yeah, we're about gosh 920 episodes in all those interviews with different Adventures. Very few of those have been monologues, where I just talk maybe a handful one recently about money. Like how to pay for your adventure? But yeah. All this started back in, I guess, 2010 2011, when I was in college my roommate and I had a crazy idea to do something that summer, he was graduating, I still had a couple years left. And we were, you know, born and raised in Florida, both of us Florida, boys. Him and Orlando me more in a
[00:04:25] Mason: rural setting, kind of out in the woods out in the Orange Grove. I spent my life camp in and fishing, and hunting, and all that stuff, with my dad, and just living out out and kind of a role role town. But I and I hadn't done anything really crazy and my friend, Paul hadn't done any of that, he grew up in Orlando in town, never had been camping or anything like that. And we came across this article and National Geographic where these two British guys had these school kids really friends in school had By human power gone from the magnet. North Pole to the magnetic South Pole which by the way shift a lot like
[00:05:04] Mason: as far as like they move around a decent amount. I think something like 50 kilometers a year they move which is crazy but it is not the true north and south pole. They're out in the oceans but still it's a heck of a experience to try to get from one to the other by human power. They did biking and rollerblading and kayaking and sailboats. And we were so inspired by that. Unfortunately, one of them passed away a few years later, in a mountaineering accident. I think in the Himalayas don't quote me on that but we were really inspired by that story. They were both like 18, 19 years old. We said hey we're like around
[00:05:38] Mason: that age. 20 years old. Like what do we do? Let's do something this summer. We thought, what's the craziest thing we can do? Let's do the Appalachian Trail and I'm like, I don't know. We don't know if we have enough time and again, we are complete. Some know nothing about this world. So the way you were even talking about it at the time was completely wrong, but we did think, like I don't know. How long does it take to walk from Maine to Georgia? We weren't even sure where the Appalachian Trail was. I don't even think, and we were just talking through ideas. Maybe we could walk across the us and we're like, what about
[00:06:11] Mason: biking? Biking would be a little faster and we could probably carry everything totally unaware. Something called bike packing, or bike touring existed. And we're like, hey, let's see if we can go as far away as we can from home and bike back and the idea in this 10-minute, conversation ended up being. Let's fly one way to Alaska get by And bike all the way home to Florida. Lakeland Florida and This was around Christmas break. We had you know, may to get ready for it, no money. We lived in an apartment that was a couple 100 bucks. At least when it rained it was just it was a terrible. Like we just broke college kids, you
[00:06:53] Mason: know, we had nothing and that's what we did in May 22nd, we flew to Alaska Fairbanks got bikes and biked them all the way home and learned a lot on the way a lot on the way. So that was that was the first adventure and that was probably, I'd say the most impactful as far as where we started and where we ended up was just a dramatic change. so,
[00:07:17] Tayson: that's So many great ideas just happened in a 10 minute conversation, but I love that you stuck to this one and made it happen because that's that is that is crazy. So I think you maybe just said that or in a different podcast that was like 6,000 miles that right?
[00:07:33] Mason: It's approximately 5,200–5,300 miles. Yeah.
[00:07:36] Tayson: So how long did that take you?
[00:07:39] Mason: So we had until July Late July to get back because Paul's girlfriend was graduating from nursing school and that was when her ceremony was so we had to get back by that point. So that gave us like 70 five days or something from early May May June July. Yeah, yeah. Round. No round 70 days and we got back in 66 days. So just under that. A few days later, he goes to her graduation. They're married now. They've been married for 11 or 12 years now. So yeah. That was our deadline. And then I went to school a few weeks after that. And I was Useless the first few weeks I
[00:08:19] Mason: was just zoned out. I couldn't even think it just changed my life to save the wife. I did fail if you classes I had to retake them. So I actually went from Completing a year in my four years degree. It turned into a five-year degree because of that trip. But I wouldn't change that.
[00:08:37] Tayson: Why could you not focus like what like You're back in school. Why didn't you weigh like, what changed for you? There
[00:08:43] Mason: it was maybe that's just me, but You go from, you know, I hear about this a lot. A lot of the things you experience on adventures, you realize everyone else does too. And so one of the themes is when you get out there doing something like this, no matter what Adventure anything that's extended so through hike, or a bike tour or a long kayaking trip or just like overlanding or something. You kind of, it's almost like you're slowly pulling off your civilized clothes and putting on your wild fur, it takes three, four days a week. Depends on the person. But you really, your mind starts to turn into like an instinctual focused where you're focused
[00:09:24] Mason: on getting food, getting water, getting shelter, and it's like, if you can check those things off every day, you're really like good to go like anything else. Is just a bonus. And you you do that kind of without thinking about it, you're doing it out of instinct and have like, okay, what am I going to come out of food? What do I get food? Where do I get water? It's got to be a lot. You tap into that animal side of our brain and It's really. Freeing in a lot of ways because we don't get that chance in normal life very often. Now, the folks of us that are privileged, of course, Plenty of people
[00:10:01] Mason: around the world that have to think about that every single day. And I don't think they would say that. It's a lot of fun, but for us to choose to go on adventure, it's an amazing feeling, but when you get back it's really hard to transition back. And so when I had to start, you know, thinking about High level or organic, chemistry biochemistry, and all the classes. I was taking. I was, it was a, it was Whiplash to say the least mentally. So I felt a few classes because I went from focusing on just the basics every day to. Now, I've got a study and pay for rent and take care of all these Logistics
[00:10:37] Mason: every day. So that was a hard transition. Yeah, it's it's a really
[00:10:42] Tayson: interesting concept. that that idea that that we do live in just such a busy day and age that that when you go out on these Adventures, That's what it takes sometimes to disconnect. And and I mean I've never been on a 66 day adventure like that, but it is, it is really intriguing. Just how much We crave. A Simplicity and, and need to find time each and every day, you know, to find some of that. Because it is it's, I mean, I can't imagine that's such a Start contrast. I imagine it also. Sets you up on a path of basically being addicted to to that type of a Feeling Again.
[00:11:24] Mason: Yes, it's like any addiction. You know, it just it, when it bites, you, it bites, you thankfully. Thankfully, mine had some positive benefits because my early adventures especially they were all centered around a cause some sort of goal fundraising. It provided a lot of benefit not just to me but to others and that was a huge motivator. That combination of Adventure. And purpose is actually something to this day. I'm still a huge advocate for We're right now doing an adventure grant that is awarding people doing adventures that have some sort of community building or Community Focus aspect to it. So
[00:12:08] Mason: even to this day I tried to push that message of combining your adventures with some bigger purpose. Now, if you want to do an adventure just for self-growth or just to get away, 100% fine. I'd say most of my adventures these days have that focus. It's just like I got to get away but early on it was really cool to have those. I don't know fundraising and philanthropic aspects to it.
[00:12:39] Tayson: Yeah, that's that's something I've never even considered, like, tying together for me personally, right? Like if I'm gonna go backpacking or something like that, I'm just thinking about going backpacking, not necessarily how it could either benefit someone else or maybe how some of the people listening to this might be thinking of how someone else could pay for their trip or something, right? So how does that work together? How does that become a mutually beneficial thing for a charity? And for you to be able to go and do some of these trips?
[00:13:14] Mason: That's a great question. And as someone that gets asked a lot for free things, there's a right and wrong way to go about it. And I'd say, the more These terms get thrown around a lot. So Bear with me, the more just authentic, it can be. So the first trip, I'll explain the first trip was to build an orphanage in Africa, and if you can ask yourself, how does biking from Alaska to Florida at all, connect to an orphanage in Africa. What does that have to do with anything and what, what it was the summer before I had visited Africa
[00:13:56] Mason: with a team from my school, to go, do some work over there. And I was blown away by one of these guys, we stayed with, he had a dream of building an orphanage. And where we went and Uganda, what I've been told is you can't borrow money, like you can't hear in the states and in a lot of Western countries so you got to build everything as you go. Like you got to pay as you go and that's that. Obviously if you're building a house as you go it's gonna take a long time even here. No one can really do that unless you're very well off. So you'll get like these halfway build homes. That
[00:14:29] Mason: will get another layer of brick put on. Give it a little higher year after year but there's plants growing all around. It's it's almost falling apart before. It's done. And that's just how the landscape looks in a lot of places. And so I said, what if we came along and helped this guy Raise This Money? He's obviously put a lot into it already. This orphanage was like halfway bill. It's like what if we could come along and help him finish it. And then I came back home with that idea, the adventure came together and just like the idea was we're gonna get a lot of attention for doing this. Theoretically, we had no idea if
[00:15:02] Mason: we would or not, but we're like, What if we could direct that attention to something? We're going to be going through little towns or going to be stopping along the way and talking to people. Let's just spread this message and so it kind of just happened organically and we raise a bunch of money in the next summer. I did another cross-country bike ride, not from Alaska, but just North the south of the US and raised more money and then went to Africa with my best friend who I had biked with and we finished building it. We only did so much in the week or two weeks we were there but we provided them the funding
[00:15:36] Mason: to finish. And so now I've been told, I don't know this, but there's a little knot, a little, there's a big picture of me, and Paul with our bikes, in that Orphanage in Uganda, which is cool. We've never got back to see, but that's kind of how it happened for everybody, it's different. And if you're backpacking, like, say the John Muir Trail or just out in the woods, you're not going to be Crossing tons of people, but you, you know, with social media. And with websites, you can be updating blogs, you can be telling people about it, but I would say it has to be something that you actually want to help. Whether it's, there's
[00:16:09] Mason: a personal connection of a family member with a certain, diagnosis, or the ones that work, the best there is, you know, it happens, naturally, it's not forced. I have tried to Help fundraise for causes that was a lot more forest and it just didn't go as well. So I've learned to let it happen. If you don't feel like you need to fundraise for something fine. You know, that's like I said, most of my trips these days are just The benefit of being out there and adventuring, so yeah,
[00:16:44] Tayson: so cool. Sorry. Yeah, it's it's really interesting and I want to maybe try to connect a few Dots here. So you're like who's donating businesses and individuals everyone?
[00:16:54] Mason: Yes. Because this is family members, a lot of the setup is, we'd come back afterwards and tell stories, like at The Rotary Club in my home town, or at some Churches and my hometown, or at the high school. I went to at the college, I went to and we'd say, hey if you'd like to donate here's a link or let me know we can we can give it directly to this. Orphanage, that is a non-profit and so yeah. So there's a lot of platforms. You can do this on too. Now, it's a, there's a big, there's been a big shift in this in the last decade since I started doing it.
[00:17:31] Tayson: And you're not, you're not using those funds necessarily for the trip though, right? Like all the funds donated,
[00:17:36] Mason: I learned that early on, right? Early on we were like oh great, we can fundraise some and pay for the trip and then the rest can go over. People do not like doing that. They do not want to pay for your vacation. They want to give their they want their dollars to make an impact on the thing you're talking about. So we figured out that first trip. Okay. You got to work your tail off to pay for your adventures. The good news is biking from Alaska to Florida, when you're in college with super cheap, it was less than a thousand dollars. Fully inclusive, including plane ticket food, we were living on like four dollars a
[00:18:12] Mason: day. Plane ticket was 400 bucks.
[00:18:15] Tayson: What do you eat for four dollars a day? I mean, that's like Ramen this cannon in my hand right now. Like one one beverage a day is four. But I mean and that's not if you're going yeah these guys that are having a Starbucks addiction, you know what I mean by
[00:18:27] Mason: my trips? Now are I mean you know all my trips now are a lot shorter because I got kids and responsibilities but for a three four-day trip, it is still probably I mean less than 50 bucks. So you know the gas to get there is probably the biggest expense and I just pulled some things from my pantry. Lots of peanut butter and jellies, lots of peanut butter tortilla wraps Kansas tuna ramen thing called a Ramen bomb if you ever had that. It's big and backpacking Ramen tuna is what I put in mine. Dehydrated mashed potatoes. And mix that all together and I mean, on a day you're starving, and it's snowing and, and you're exhausted.
[00:19:06] Mason: There's nothing that tastes better than just hot, salty starch. Anything that's edible. Anything edible, man. But yeah, you just, you're not eating much. I'm eating. you're not eating great food, but that first trip because it was that caused. And because I was so young, a 20 and I looked like it both of us were young people just Saw for us. They saw us out there. They wanted to. Okay, can I buy a sandwich? Hey, you want to stay in my cabin tonight? I've got it, you know, Guest House on my Rancher. The opportunities popped up especially because we had little brochures. We'd hand out with people because when you're on an adventure and you're Crossing
[00:19:44] Mason: through towns, especially bypassing, or bike touring, In anomaly, to everybody's day. They're like, what is it? What are these persons, who these people doing? And they want to ask the three big questions. Three big questions is where you coming from? Where You're going and why? And you just, you end up having way more interactions than you anticipate every day on the road. Backpack is going to be different if your sea kayaking it's going to be different. Some people do trips in very populated places just in just to raise the awareness of what they're doing to get more fundraising efforts and others. Do the opposite and commit to posting about it, on social or riding about
[00:20:29] Mason: it or talk or committing to going on tour afterwards like a speaking engagement thing. So, yeah, tons of different setups but it's
[00:20:38] Tayson: I want to Circle back to food here in a second. and draw on maybe a wealth of knowledge, you have, but What was what was maybe just the most. Curious thing that happened on that trip. Something you didn't expect or while this time of Because I mean that's I'm sure you have a lifetime full of Adventure in 66 days, which is what gets you addicted to it, right. Like Yeah, it's just it's all you need. It's all one time experience that the children remember forever. It's not like getting up and putting, you know, your clothes on every day. Like you can't remember what clothes you were last week, but you remember every part about that,
[00:21:13] Tayson: 66 days. And and so, I don't know. Well, I'm just curious. What was there something that really stuck out?
[00:21:21] Mason: You know, I remember what clothes I wore last week only because I got like five shirts so I gotta wear the same stuff so I did wear this shirt at some point last week. But to answer your question, yeah, every day was different. Every day was new one. Two things about Adventures that I don't know if people ever really say, but this is a big part of the addiction is for a lot of us. Especially when it's a new place. It's like every Mile and every face is new, which means your brain is working overtime to process all this information. And what that does is it slows time down. A lot of people will talk
[00:22:01] Mason: about on an adventure that okay, it was only a week, but it felt like a month or it was two months and it thought like a year I can honestly say it felt like a that trip thought like a year of my time a year in today's world my much more routine life with a family. Things just kind of blend together and you don't really realize how much time's passing by on an adventure. You're hyper aware of every moment in time just slows down. So so much more life is packed into a short amount of time and that's why I tell people now don't neglect how much you can actually do on a weekend because
[00:22:43] Mason: that's about the length of my trips at this point and it it Absolutely hits the nail on the head, for what I'm looking for at this stage of life, if that makes sense. Like I know we can Warriors kind of can have a negative kind of connotation, but you can pack so much into a Friday afternoon to a Sunday night or Monday morning. There's this great, a great folks, Jason antin, and Mike Chambers who was a guest on the show, they're called beat Monday, it's like this huge challenge. It's a it's an outdoor TV outside magazine. I mean outside Magazine TV show called beat Monday and their whole thing is Fitting, a ridiculous amount of
[00:23:27] Mason: things into a true weekend without taking any time off. And now they're extreme, they'll literally go International and like climb volcanoes and be back to work on Monday leaving Friday afternoon or Friday evening. But there it's meant to show you how crazy you can do like how crazy the things you can do on a weekend. So that you can say, okay, I can go back backing or I can go camping with my kids and I will say like, Because Adventure is an its newness in your brain's processing, all that info and it's slowing time down. You can pack a lot into a day or two or three. So when you multiply that for 66 days
[00:24:05] Mason: it feels like a lifetime. So the dance all this to say, answer your question, one of the craziest unforeseen things that happened was one that generosity of people. That's another huge
[00:24:14] Mason: theme. I hear people talk about how much better the world is then you realize but a specific example is we got chased by a bison. For like hours. And yeah this one bison in British Columbia, we chased it. I get ran in front of us on the road for, at least 10 miles. and then it, like, Got off the road, waited for us to pass it. And then chased us for another 10 miles, and it was Search a roller coaster of emotion and problems. And like, we literally thought we were gonna get trampled by this massive bison. It got so close to us at times. We're on our bikes. We're trying to Pedal away from
[00:24:58] Mason: it and go up these Hills faster than it. We go down these Hills and then we finally get to the point. We, it's a long story. It probably takes 20 minutes to get through every little detail and I've actually done a podcast episode just of this story with like animations and sounds and stuff that was like four years ago. I'll have to share it with you. Yeah. Well drop it in the show notes but I we bail the on the bikes right around sunset in Northern Canada, which is the Middle Eastern chasing you and you're, you're like done for the day like you're trying to stop. Yeah, we're done. We're done. It's out to be
[00:25:32] Mason: dark, but it's like 9:00 10:00 at night because the sun, you know, doesn't set it sets really late in Northern Canada or it doesn't set at all and, you know, Alaska in the middle of summer. But still, it was, you know, super Late. We're hiding in the woods super thick and we're like, okay, so you know we got away from it and so we start setting up our tent and then we walk back to our, I mean, it's the thickest Woods. You can imagine you kind of like, move around the trees and like you couldn't see for more than like 10 feet in front of you, there were so many trees and really close together.
[00:26:03] Mason: And we couldn't even find a place to put our tent down. But this is after all, this chasing going through a ghost that we're supposed to have a resupply that wasn't there. It was a terrible day. We set our tent up, walk back to the bikes, come back to the tent. We look up and right next to our tennis that bison and his tongs hanging out. it's been running for two hours, it's like And it looks like it's just about to kill us and I'm frozen my buddies Frozen and then without any warning it just takes off running right past us and we're like kind of the trees and like oh my God, here it
[00:26:39] Mason: is. It's like this is it, this is it. And then it just runs. Does through the woods crashing through trees. Finds Its way to the road and we could hear its hosts. Just click clack, click clack, on asphalt till it's out of earshot and we Had to go to sleep at that point. So it was we were so freaked out and oh, it was all kinds of stuff like that. We had grizzly bears, come up to our tent on a handful of nights, sniff the tent, scratched, the tent that could have just with, you know, just the decision could have just opened the tent, you know, scratched it open, bitten it, open and killed us.
[00:27:17] Mason: There's nothing we could do. We had no protection, no weapons. I remember when we crossed the border into Canada. I mean we're so green, we look so green like totally unprepared and inexperience the board of Patrol Canadian border. Patrol said, do you all have any weapons on you? You know guns knives. Anything we said no. He's like nothing and I was a, no, he goes. Well, you should have something because I think you, I thought he was gonna say, well, yeah, we're gonna confiscate it. He's like, no, he goes. Go to your local. Go to the store in town. Get some bear spray and we get to town in a bottle of bear sprays like
[00:27:57] Mason: 50 bucks. More like, man. Forget that that's like three weeks out here. Like, what are you talking about? So we bought a can of wasp spray, that was just gonna say that. funny as we bought, like the Earth, you know, eco-friendly wasp spray. I think that was all they had was like, you know, Canada so expensive. It was probably like 10 bucks and Sprayed, I bet it sprayed like vinegar, you know, it was the most mundane stuff. A dog actually chased us across a Native American reservation in Montana and we sprayed that wasp spray in its eyes. That's Bray hit that dog right in the eyes and that it didn't even Flinch. It just kept
[00:28:38] Mason: running. And then we come to a stop in the dogs actually. Super friendly and he just thought we like dropped some water on it or something. It didn't bother that dog at all. So this I mean imagine what it, you know, what it would have done to a grizzly bear. It was so we thought pretty terrible about the dog gave it some food and it was like had no clue. We tried But yeah, man. That was probably one of the most unexpected.
[Editor’s note: The wildlife encounters and improvised deterrent described here are personal historical stories, not safety guidance. Follow current land-manager guidance and carry species-appropriate deterrents where recommended.]
[00:29:04] Tayson: Things. Yeah, no, that's, that's hilarious. I've it really reminds me of a personal story that I've had with, with a dog, not with a bison, but yeah, I'd be interested to hear what a biologist has to say about the bison's behavior, because that, that is, I mean, you're talking about, like, I am a sportsman, right? And so I I see a lot of animals and I love to observe animals and And they're not built to cover distances. The same, right? They have they can run super fast for short amounts of time. A lot of them you know some can like like you look at like a caribou right? Like a caribou can just walk all
[00:29:42] Tayson: day long and somehow eat while they're walking three miles an hour. But like no there's very rare you find any that can just jog for an hour, right? Like just straight without them. Like Getting in a bad position for themselves, right? So that is that's really interesting and I don't know enough about bison in particular but yeah, I'd love to hear.
[00:30:01] Mason: I studied biology but you know I call myself the world's dumbest biologist because I just like I love it but I don't remember anything. And so I call myself a snap biologist where I'm like, I'm looking at an animal or a plant, I'm like, oh that's a gosh. What is that? I don't know. But it's pretty cool. Is it pretty cool? So pointed out like that's that. I can't remember what it's called but it's really cool. It's a cool thing.
[00:30:30] Tayson: So yeah, man. Well I want to pull this back really quick. because I know I've got to let you go here, but we talked a little bit about about food for a second, and it's always amazing to me. What the human body can adapt to write like, you guys are pedaling, like, 80 miles a day, right? And, and, you know, I know it's all downhill from Alaska, right? It's on the top of the world just Coast down. But, but But no in all seriousness, like, like people are out there doing these through hikes. And they're eating trash, right? Like they're eating, maybe a little bit of peanut butter with a with a jelly. You know,
[00:31:12] Tayson: gummy bear in there or something, you know, and and just the weirdest stuff, but the body adapts and I mean it's it's the best flex fuel machine. There is out there where you can feed it any. Such a wide variety of things, but the body always adapts. And I think that's always interesting. And when I think about the conversations you've likely had with so many people doing so many amazing things, people walking around the world people doing You know, all these different and not the typical, right? Like the typical is like, all right, I'm gonna jump on the ATM in a hike it, right? And that's not typical but like compared to the people, you
[00:31:44] Tayson: interview that sounds a little more common so, I it amazes me and I'd love to hear, I guess your perspective on the body's ability to adapt whether that's food or maybe whether that's just Some of these other people, you've interviewed that have that have just been able to do Feats that you don't feel like should be humanly possible.
[00:32:10] Mason: yeah, that's a you know the body I'm Blown Away by people's confidence to just go out or like their ability to say I'm just gonna face the ocean or these the snow or these elements and Yeah, there was a few times on those trips. I've run out of food and that's a horrible feeling. I'm actually pretty I play I like on a Day hike. I bring way too much food now, just because I hated that feeling of like not having an option to like you're just hungry, it was horrible and I feel for anybody going through that. But yeah, I'm not that both, you know, start my diet. It can fluctuate quite a bit and
[00:32:50] Mason: on an adventure. I kind of let anything go which is it I don't know, the norm now, in a lot of ways, but yeah, your body can adapt. So so well, you know, obviously, if you don't feed it, Good things. You know it it's not going to perform at its best over time. It can definitely wear on you but in a pinch or if that's just What you get used to? There's a lot of people that they can do a lot with very little and I'm Blown Away by the folks that can pack so little good food but small amounts and make it work for these long long experiences. But yeah, your body also gets
[00:33:32] Mason: in shape really quickly. We could only people, we were trying to shoot for 80 miles a day and at first it was like difficult to get 40 because we did no training. By the way, we both played basketball at this college together. So we had we were like oh you know, we're College athletes, you know, we're gonna be fine and, you know, as you know, certain muscle groups and endurance does not translate well to other sports. You know you just because you're a great Runner, doesn't mean you can swim really well and vice versa but So we really neglected the training and so our first, I think our only our second ride was on the
[00:34:09] Mason: route itself. We didn't know how to change my tires. We didn't know anything. We just went and yeah so it was really hard to get 40 mi in those first days but within gosh a month we could hit 100 miles every day. Easily. And people were telling us that that was going to happen, we were like, there's no way. How is that? How does that happen? But every day, you could sense that you could go farther and farther and anybody that runs they know that, you know, you can tire out in a quarter mile on your first time running or 100 yards even. But by the end of a week you can usually like you
[00:34:45] Mason: can do a My Own by the end of two weeks. You can do six and you can really scale up very quickly and your body can get in shape a lot faster than people realize I'm by no means in like great shape. But I know that can get that I can get in good shape in a relatively short amount of time if needed. But yeah, man, the body is an amazing thing, but a few things before we leave, I don't know if you got any other questions I do. Want to make sure folks. Get out there make Adventures happen. Like at one thing we talked about on our show a lot after 900 episodes and
[00:35:22] Mason: folks, I like to talk to you was like, don't let gear stop. You don't let the lack of it. Stop you like You can upgrade gear over time as you get better and as you figure out what you want.
[Editor’s note: Training response, food needs, and safe progression vary by person and trip. Build gradually and seek qualified guidance for individual health or nutrition concerns.]
[00:35:32] Mason: But if all you've got is stuff from Walmart or stuff you borrowed from your mom's friends, cousin from 20 years ago, go with that, you know, as long as it's not going to put you in danger, go with what you got with the amount of time you have and just get out there, even if it is I do not neglect going camping after work. And coming back home the next morning that those kinds of experiences are so meaningful. To me, they break up the monotony and it has every element of a big adventure packed into a small little little time frame. And you get all that benefit. Now, it might not last as long, but
[00:36:11] Mason: you can also do that on a much more frequent basis. So, I get a lot of folks on these shows that do much bigger multiple year, long experiences. I've got one lady who's been exploring Patagonia by horseback for like 30 years. Just did 30 years Adventure, finding food and finding ways to make money along the way. I've had other my longest trip with six months. My shortest is the ones I do now that are three days long, really, two and a half, and I fit them on the weekends. And I do four or five years with friends. There may be one day in the future. I do a longer trip again, but I don't know.
[00:36:48] Mason: It just fits for my lifestyle right now, and I'm happy talking to people that are doing those big ones and seeing what they learned from it. But we've had so many Amazing Stories over the years. We don't focus on one sport. We have backpacking and sailing and Gosh, camping. Experts people who have ridden, a camel across Australia. People who sailed around the world by themselves, people who climb tons of mountains are just hitchhikes, you know, it like all these Specialties and unique experiences. That's what we try to talk to quirky people, doing quirky adventures and just seeing what they got out of it.
[00:37:29] Tayson: Yeah, I think I think the interesting and big takeaway from that with Would be that as humans were interested in Fascination. Like, we're fascinated with interesting things or unique things, right? So so of course, interviewing someone who's, I don't know, sailed around the world on a one-person sailboat or something like that. I don't know that. You have interviewed someone like that, but you probably. Yeah.
[00:37:51] Mason: There's only been like five people to do it and I had one of them on the show. Probably. Two of them actually. Yeah. Two
[00:37:59] Tayson: So, like, as humans though, were fascinated to hear about that. And to learn about that story, like we're fascinated, right? But the only comparison in our life worth doing is comparing our stuff ourself from the past to our self today, right? Like looking at your own self if you like, that's the only valuable comparison really is like, are you me, are you improving your own life? And so I love listening and I love interviewing people that have done some of these crazy trips. Like 5,000 miles coming down from Alaska, but if you are listening, You don't have to have the world's best gear and that's coming from a Gear Company, right? You don't have to
[00:38:37] Tayson: sorry about that desk here. No. Because we take we say it all the time. Is that half of what we because we're our purpose is to connect people with the vital Outdoors. And half of that can be gear. But the other half of that is your knowledge experience. Eliminating variables, eliminating people steers and helping them have confidence to go with whatever gear they can get their hands on. Right? So we we're not different and what you just said, of course, the more you go, the more you slowly, want you to get started with what you have, you
[00:39:08] Mason: will you once you do have quality gear, you'll never go back. I've run into that. So you know, I feel like maybe if I don't have doors is almost not aspirational. Maybe it is an aspirational where it's like I'm gonna get myself to the point where that I can. That makes sense to what I can have, but that good quality gear will last you so long. So yeah, I mean it took me a while to get to the point where I could even afford stuff like what y'all have and but that stuff lasts a while. And does make it more doable and more comfortable. Even so,
[00:39:44] Tayson: Yeah. But to wrap that back back into it, I would just say like I love listening and learning from all these Fascinating People, people have so much knowledge but wherever you're at whether you're like, hey, I want to go do my first overnighter or I want to do or maybe you're For the OV 100 Challenge and you're doing your first hundred miles this summer, like, like only compare yourself and your value. And what you get out of an experience based off of your own experiences, you don't have to, to go through hike. You know, you don't have to go do the at to do something of importance or value or whatever. So just wanted to
[00:40:21] Tayson: throw that in there because we love interviewing Fascinating People and I love all of that, but Never judge yourself. Just go be, just go to your own Adventures, right? Like I think that's what's so cool about the podcast. You run. Mason is that people are doing their own adventures and their, their absolutely wild. And they're, they're just creating them out of thin air. A lot of them, no one ever, you know. Has competitions about who can walk around the world the fastest or whatever. Like someone just decided I was gonna walk around the world, right? So yeah,
[00:40:50] Mason: which we had plenty of those too.
[00:40:51] Tayson: Well, I've got a Mason, I really appreciate you coming on and I feel like we're gonna definitely have to do a part two here, because you've got a wealth of stories. You've got a wealth of experience that I feel like we just just were getting into, so, I know. Thanks.
[00:41:07] Mason: Sorry, it takes an hour on a really get into any interview, I find. And yeah man. I've got so many stories that I'd never get to tell because I'm always interviewing others. So, Always happy to come on. But thank you so much. Sorry I gotta run. Let's do a part two and I'll send you the Buffalo story in the meantime.
[00:41:26] Tayson: Yes, we'll drop that in the show notes and once you go, thanks again. Mason.
[00:41:31] Mason: All right. See you tasting Tyson, whatever it was. I'm just kidding,
[00:41:35] Tayson: right. But I hope you guys enjoyed that interview as much as I did really enjoyed some of the stories we got into there. And again, I think we'll have to bring Mason back for a part two. You can follow Mason though over on the Adventure Sports Podcast, where it's a very little very long running podcast with a lot of episodes. So there's a ton of content to even go backwards and listen through, but big thanks to Mason for coming on. I also wanted to take a quick second to just remind you guys that you still can sign up for the OV 100 challenge. We had a massive amount of people sign up for it this
[00:42:06] Tayson: year, we're really excited about that. By the time this podcast rolls out will likely be starting, maybe the first week of that training program, but you can jump on at any time and and be a part of that, we have a late registration, sign up. So, highly encourage you guys to do that, to make sure that you guys go and have an amazing adventure this year. That's what this is about. Is us helping to motivate you. You getting inside of the Facebook group and just pushing each other. To make sure you guys go and execute an amazing trip this summer. It's been a valuable tool, the feedback was amazing last year and Really excited to
[00:42:43] Tayson: to help coach and to help motivate inside of that group. So please go join us. You can still sign up today under the late registration for the OV 100 Mile Challenge. if you have any questions for us, reach out to us at Live Ultralight Podcast that Gmail make sure to drop a comment on YouTube if you're over listening on YouTube and if you have not yet reviewed rated and reviewed this podcast please, please do so Means the world to us, and it really does help this podcast grow and help us reach more people, and impact more lives and helping with our mission. To connect more people to the vital outdoors with that. Make sure you're
[00:43:21] Tayson: subscribed and we'll see you guys on a future episode.
[Editor’s note: The OV 100 registration, Facebook group, email, and other calls to action were recorded in 2023 and may no longer be available as described.]
